is sick yet every man is well Every man is empty yet every man is full We tread the paths that lead to destruction and yet we are in the way to happiness Where is the shaking and the trembling spirit where is the broken heart where are those prickings at the heart or who puts up the question What shall I do to be Acts. 2. 37. saved Every man is satisfied and if it were true we might conclude every man is good For whatsoever the promises be most men are bold to make this the conclusion and though they have raised a tempest conclude in peace And it is a great deal more common to infer what pleaseth us and what may serve for satisfaction though it be upon a gross mistake and oftener then upon a truth And thus we assure our selves of happiness upon no better evidence then that which flesh and bloud and the love of our selves are ready to bring in and satisfie our selves with false hope of life when we are full of malice envy and uncleanness of which we are told that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdome of heaven Gal. 5 21. And what satisfaction is this a Satisfaction without a warrant a Satisfaction which we our selves only have subscribed to with hands full of bloud a Satisfaction which is but a cheat but a delusion presenting us nothing but a reward when we are condemned already filling us with hopes of bliss when we are in the mouth of destruction That which is Satisfaction indeed hath no other basis to stand on then Piety and conformity of our works words and thoughts to the will of God And then it is as mount Sion which cannot be removed it stands firm for it is built upon God himself If thou raise it upon Phansie thou buildest in the ayr If thou lay it upon Gods eternal Decree in thy election that will slide from thee and let the fall into hell for that concerns thee not unless thou be good but another decree contrary to that which thy neglect of piety hath drawn thee under belongs unto thee because thou wouldst not know what belongs to thy peace and what might bring Satisfaction Wilt thou lay it on the infinite Mercy of God that will cover a multitude of sins but not those sins which are thy only satisfaction that will distill as dew but not on the hairy scalp of him that goeth on in his sins And though she triumph over Justice yet here she yields and calls it in to double vengeance upon thee because thou wert an enemy to Mercy which first shewed thee the way to be satisfied and now turns from thee and will not hear when thou callest to her to satisfie thee being out of the way If thou wilt have Mercy crown thee thou must be merciful to thy self If thou wilt make thy election sure thou must do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is supplyed in some copies by piety that is by faith and good works For Goodness is that and that alone which satisfies us which fills us with joy and peace in the holy Ghost and for which God will satisfie us with his likeness and fill us with glory in the life to come And so we pass to that which we proposed in the second place and it was this 2. It is the prerogative of Goodness and Piety to be alone in this work Nothing can satisfie us but Piety and our transforming our selves by the Rom. 12. 2. renewing of our mind and shaping our thoughts words and actions to the will of God For first Satisfaction is but a name on earth as St. Paul speaks of Idols we know it is nothing in the world The earth and all that therein is cannot yield it the round world and they that dwell therein could never find it And as God spake to Moses Thou heardst a voice but sawest no shape so Satisfaction which flows from God alone in this resembles him The voice of it hath sounded in our ears but as for the shape and substance of the thing it self we have seen none But as the world having heard of God but not knowing him aright sought him in stocks and stones in birds and creeping things so men having heard of Satisfaction which can be found no where but in God by a kind of Idolatry against God have sought it in the creature in Beauty which fades whilst we look upon it in Riches which have wings and fly away in Honour which is but a blast and not in me but in him that gives it In these it can no more be found then the very nature of God himself These conceits and notions of Satisfaction do universally pass amongst men Now as that general consent and voice of all nations That there was a God though they erre not knowing where to seek him yet is a fair proof that there is a God and as the same general consent of men that God is to be worshipt though they mistook the manner of it yet proves certainly that there is some form of worship acceptable to Him so this oecumenical conceit of satisfaction to be had which hath thus overspread and possest the heads of all men cannot be in vain but is an evidence that there is some good that will satisfie that hath a contenting quality and in which we may set up our rest Only vain men who have their mind in their eyes and not in their hearts as Augustine speaketh have been willing to mistake to tread the waters and to walk upon the wind to trust to that and to make that their mount Sion which slides away from them and gives no rest to their souls Rest to our souls we never find till with the Dove we return to the Ark to the Church of Christ where our tongues are made God's glory and our hands the instruments of righteousness wherein that Piety and Goodness dwelleth which alone can satisfie For secondly such is the nature and quality of the soul that it is not fashioned nor proportioned to the things of this world What is a wedge of gold what is beauty what is a Crown to a soul This being an immortal and spiritual substance can be satisfied with nothing but what is wrought in it by the Spirit of God with Holiness and Piety which being as immortal and spiritual as the soul is most apt to assimilate and fill and satisfie it Will I eat saith God of himself the flesh of bulls or drink the bloud of goats Can God take any delight therein It is not the sacrifice but the heart which being offered up brings a sweet savor unto him without this sacrifice is an abomination And so what is a feast a banquet of wine the sound of a viol the whole world to a soul which must needs check it self when in condescention to the flesh it takes part in that delight they bring Will ye spend these upon it as the Babylonians did their sheep
and there discourse with none but God and Angels Thus we may shame a Tyrant and puff at his Terrors For what I beseech you can the most subtle in curses invent against such who call Banishment a going to travel Imprisonment a getting out of a throng who say to dye is to lye down to sleep It is as impossible to torment these as to confine a Spirit or to lay shackles upon that thing which has no Body to bear them For you must not esteem these kind of expressions the heat only of a luxuriant wit because whatever happens in this life is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one most excellently calls it whose whole being consists meerly in Relation seems good to such as like it and evil to such as think the contrary just like meat which though it nourish one may kill another His Brethren thought they had sold Joseph into a strange Country to destroy him but he says God sent him before to provide for their whole Family So this Apostle collects with himself that if he dy'd he should go to his Saviour and if he liv'd he should serve his Brethren If he were at liberty his tongue should preach but being in prison his sufferings did further the Gospel much more If he met with all friends they would receive the Truth chearfully and if he found enemies they would preach Christ for him though out of strife and envy With him to dye was gain and to live was gain He took every thing by the right ear and found some benefit in every condition whatsoever whether by good report or by disgrace whether by the left hand or by the right whether by hatred 2 Cor. 6. or out of good will whether by life or death if Christ were preached he lookt no farther he had his end that unum necessarium the advancement of the Gospel and whatsoever happened besides this he esteemed as an additional complement which he might very well spare and yet remain an Apostle still But now on the other side what a continued torment is a mans life without this spiritual carelesness this holy neglect of our earthly Being Then are we born to misery indeed if a moth rust or canker can make us wretched If the trouble which as our Saviour says belongs to every single day can sully our mirth and cast us down If every wind and breath of an insulting Tyrant can twirl us about to all points of the Compass If we make our selves the shadow of the times and take both form and figure only as men do Rise and Set like some flowers if we shut and open just as they shine or not upon us 't were better a Mill-stone were tyed about our neck and we were cast into the midst of the Sea for that would keep us steddy Thus to halt to be divided as the word imports between Heaven and Earth Light and Darkness God and Mammon It breeds the same deformity in the Soul as would appear in the Body If you fancied a man lookt with one ey directly up to the skie and at the same time pitched the other ey streight down upon the ground how ugly would such a one seem unto you This this is the carefulness or rather this denying of Gods Providence which makes so many desire a gift desire it Nay most impudently make it their whole design and business of their lives to get it mounting the Pulpit as they would do a Bank and there sell of their Drugs for Medicines when in truth they poyson the very Soul Whence is it else that they preach their dreams calling that the word of God which hits in their heads when they cannot sleep Who bite with their teeth as Micha says eat on and talk as the company will have it and as it follows in the same verse who puts not into their mouths and gives not what they expect they even prepare a war against him Micha 3. 5. nay blot him out of their book of life Doggs 't is St. Pauls word to them or else I durst not use it Phil. 3. 2. that divine for money who will be rich whose greatest triumph is to lead captive silly women Men that will help up a sin into your bosome which otherwise perhaps a tender Conscience would keep down and set a whole City a fire and then like Nero stand by and play to it Men without whom no mischief ever had a beginning nor by whom shall ever any have an end Give me leave I beseech you to bend this crooked bough as much the other way and call such to St. Pauls example who when he was to preach a new Law preach'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gospel without charge 1 Cor. 9. who put his hands to work night and day that they might not receive any thing but from himself And I heartily wish what the Apostle did here of choice the Civil Magistrate would whip them to for they are a scandal to their beautiful Profession to preach Providence and at the same time scrape together as if God who provides for all things would have more care of a crow or the grass of the field then of man whom he created after his own Image as if he who sent forth his Disciples without scrip or penny did it only to destroy them and how shall the people credit those who preach the contempt of the world to their Congregations when they see these Foxes would only have their Auditors leave the world that they may enjoy it wholly to themselves calling that the Kingdom of Christ when they themselves raign or rather when Lust raigns in them Whereas St. Paul often urg'd this as an Argument to confirm his Doctrine that he took nothing for it Thirdly St. Paul did not desire a Gift because their Benevolence kept him still alive heartned his body up and prolong'd his days which considering St. Pauls condition was cruel mercy the greatest injury they could possibly do him to hold him thus from his Saviour with whom he long'd to be For the Apostle had fully weigh'd the poizes both of life and death concluded the most beneficial thing to him if he lookt only after his own advantage was Death having a desire to depart and be with Christ which is the better Phil. 1. 23. For pray resolve me what kindness is it to fetch a wretch devoted and given up to affliction necessity and distresses to stripes imprisonment tumults to fasting watching and all kind of labours 2 Cor. 6. to make much of a man only that he may last out to torment to set his joynts that he may go on upon the rack again to strengthen and enable him that he may suffer yet more to bind up his wounds as they did the Slaves in Rome meerly that he might fight with more beasts This is the same pity simply so considered as if you should give strong Cordials to one irrecoverably sick to lengthen and draw out his pain least he
when he was in misery but in the midst of his distress lookt upon him as an Angel of God nay received him even as Jesus Christ as it is in the same verse at this he triumphs at this he rejoyces in the Lord exceedingly in this Chapter v. 12. This makes him cry out here I am full I abound not so much for his receiving as for Gods accepting nor because what was sent came to him but because it went up into Heaven like a sweet smell and of an Alms because a Sacrifice in the sixth verse For indeed the intention only of the Giver commends the gift because a man may give his body to be burned yet never be a Martyr distribute all whatsoever he hath to the poor yet not be charitable for he-may send his presents upon a hook to catch some greater thing like those in the Gospel who made one feast that others might invite them to many and therein he gives to his Covetousness Or he may give as he in the Gospel only to rid himself of an importunate beggar and then he gives to his ease and quiet Or again he may give like the Pharisees with trumpets and then he gives to his ambition Or lastly he may give as some preached the Gospel in St. Pauls time out of strife and contention not to keep up the Man but the Faction as Kings send relief to those whom they hate only to poize the scales not that they may overcome but that they may be in a condition to fight on But as St. Peter says their money perish with them who give to a Disciple and not in the name of a Disciple and receive a Prophet yet not in the name of a Prophet Plato being asked what God does in Heaven how he busies and imployes himself there how he passes away eternity made this answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He works Geometrically and in judging of our works of Charity God most apparently does so For the proportion of Faith as St. Paul calls it in this particular is meerly Geometrical where we must not compare sum with sum as they do in a market or value the gift more or less by telling it but argue thus as what he bestows is in proportion to his Estate so is what I bestow unto mine And in this sense you know the widows two mites were recorded as a more bountiful and a larger present then if Solomon had thrown the wealth of his Kingdoms into the Treasury 'T was the Faith therefore from which their Liberality proceeded which cheared the Apostle in all his distresses not the gift it self Now says he we live if you stand fast in the Lord This 1 Thes 3. 8. he call'd a life not to eat and drink for what good would all their presents have done him if they for whose sake he professes he would fast all his life time should have fallen off from him If it is not eating and drinking which feeds the Minister as our Saviour says He hath meat which the 1 Cor. 9. world knows not of to hold fast those that stand lest they fall down to see the Gospel spread wider and wider this is to enrich a true Minister to gain whole Territories unto Christ and to leave them the Land and to win whole Kingdoms over not unto himself but God Wherefore in the fourth Chapter v. 1. St. Paul calls these Philippians whom he had instructed with such success His Joy and his Crown for if there be degrees of Bliss hereafter as our Saviour as well as the Prophets seem to imploy if there be certain Lofts and Stories in Heaven higher and higher Mansions in that Kingdom we may not doubt but he who converts a Soul to God as he is said to encrease the joyes of Heaven by doing it so certainly he shall partake more of them and shine as a Star for ever and ever Dan. 12. 3. But yet the Apostle seems to decline even this consideration likewise of himself to disclaim any interest of his own in promoting their good nor to intend in it so much as his own Salvation Therefore I endure all things for the Elects sake that they also may obtain Salvation which is in Christ Jesus saith the 2 Tim. 2. 10. same Apostle Therefore it might reasonably be presumed that he ran those many hazards to avoid that terrible woe which he denounces against himself if he preached not the Gospel But behold here the last and utmost 1 Cor. 9. expression of Integrity he waves this and as if he could not enjoy that Heaven without them proposes this as the sole end and design of all his Labors not to save himself but them That they also may obtain the salvation of God as if he meant literally when he said for his Brethren he Rom. 9. 3. could wish himself accursed even from Christ and in the manner here in my Text He desires their Bounty not so much as a fruit of their affection towards Him or as an Act of Christian Charity any otherwise then as it did benefit them to give But I desire fruit which may abound to your Account Which their Charity to St. Paul produced many ways As first by striking off a Debt from their Account to which they stood engaged for Charity as I have shewed you is a due Debt though we cannot sue for it in a Court of Justice because God alone not man hath a Right rigorously to force this Duty from us But if you look upon St. Paul as an Apostle and above an ordinary Christian what did they owe him then For how did St. Paul grow into want was it not for their sakes did he not dye even every day that they might live once for all Had he kept his Religion close to himself and warily shifted faces with every company he met as Peter does in the second of the Galatians had he sate quietly at home and not run from one Country to another from City to City from Town to Town from Village to Village as if he had been to draw a Map or which is the sly Providence of this our Age had he in his preaching not only let alone the sore but smoothed it over as praising thrift to a covetous man and liberality to a prodigal and commended courage and magnanimity before a stout and sturdy Rebel like a politick physician applying a remedy to the Legg when the distemper lies in the Head nay had St. Paul but used himself that common circumspection and caution which he allows to others perhaps he might have been able to relieve some of them But when he was brought from Judge to Judge from Prison to Prison from Court to Court suffering that long Catalogue of Torments which he gives us in the Epistle to the Corinthians till he wearied his persecutors and till they entreat him to go out of prison Act. 20. and all because he taught them the truth sincerely If we could invent an obligation more
Chrysostom would not consent to give his suffrage for the condemnation of Origen's works Epiphanius subscribes to it and makes St. Chrysostom a Patron of those errors which did no doubt deserve a censure Both forgot that Meekness which they both commended in their Writings Epiphanius curseth Chrysostom and Chrysostom Epiphanius and both took effect for the one lost his Bishoprick and the other his Country to which he never after returned An infirmity this is which we cannot be too wary of since we see the strongest Pillars of the Church thus shaken with it An evil which hath alwaies been forbidden and retained in all Ages of the Church Zeal being made an apology for Fury and the Love of Truth a pretense to colour over that behaviour which hath nothing in it to shew of Truth or Christianity And therefore the Church of Christ which felt the smart of it hath alwaies condemn'd it When Eulalia the Martyr spit in the face of the Tyrant and broke and scatter'd the Idols before Prudentius and others were fain to excuse it that she did it impulsu Divini spiritûs by special revelation from the Spirit Which was indeed but an excuse and a weak one too For that Spirit which once descended in the shape of a Dove and is indeed the Spirit of Meekness cannot be thought to be the Teacher of such a Lesson But when other Christians in the time of Dioclesian attempted the like and were slain in the very enterprise to deter others from such an inconsiderate Zeal it was decreed in the Councel of Eliberis and the 60 Canon Siquis idola fregerit If any hereafter break down the heathen idols he shall have no room in the Diptychs nor be registred with the number of the Martyrs although he be slain in the very fact quatenus in Evangelio non est scriptum because we find nothing in the Gospel that casts a favourable countenance upon such a fact I have brought this instance the rather to curb those forward spirits now adaies which did not Fear more restrain them then Discretion would be as good Martyrs as these and with the same Engine with which they heave at the outwork in time would blow up Church Religion and all who are streight angry with any thing that doth but thwart their private humor or with any man that by long study and experience and evidence of reason hath gained so much knowledge as not to be of their opinion What mean else the Unchristian nick-names of Arminians and Pelagians and Socinians and Puritanes which are the glorious Scutchions the Meekness of these times doth fix in every place and the very pomp and glory of their triumph when factious men cry down that truth which they are not willing to understand Doth this rancor think you proceed from the spirit of Meekness or rather from the foul Spirit of Destraction Little do these men think that the Truth it self suffers by such a Defense that rash Zeal cannot be excused with intentions and the goodness of the end which is proposed that the crown of Martyrdom will sit more gloriously on his head who rather suffers that the Church may have her peace then on his who dies that he may not offer sacrifice to idols For in this every man hath been merciful and good to himself but in the former he merits for the whole and is a sacrifice for the publick peace of the Church whereof he is a part Talk of Martyrdom what we please never was there any Martyr never can there be any Martyr made without Meekness Though I give all my goods to feed the poor though I give my body to be burnt in the justest cause for the truth of the Gospel and have not Meekness which is a branch of Christian Charity it profitteth me nothing For my impatience will rob me of that crown to which my sufferings might otherwise have entitled me The Canonists speak truly Non praesumitur bono exitu perfici quae malo sunt inchoata principio The event of that action can never be good whose very beginning was unwarrantable Philosophers have told us that when the Sea rageth if you throw in oyl upon it you shall presently calm it The truth of this I will not now discuss but give me leave to commend this precious oyl of Meekness to powre upon your souls when Zeal or Ignorance shall raise a tempest in your thoughts Have men of wisdom tender'd to you something which falls cross with your opinion If you obey not yet be not angry If your obedience appear not in your practise yet let it be most visible in your Meekness Remember that private men who converse in a narrow Sphere must needs be ignorant of many things which fall not within their horizon and the compass of their experience that they may have knowledge enough perhaps to do their own duty which will come short in the performance of anothers especially of a Superiors If an erroneous Conscience bind thee from the outward performance of what is enjoyned yet let Truth and Scripture and Meekness seal up thy lips from reviling those qui in hoc somnum in hoc vigilias reponunt who do watch for thy good and spend their dayes and nights too that thou mayest live in all good conscience before God all the dayes of thy life To conclude this point Dost thou know or suppose thy brother to be in an error Take not mine but St. Paul's counsel and restore such a one in the spirit of Meekness considering that thou also maist be deceived And peradventure this may be one error that thou art perswaded that thy brother errs when Truth and Reason both speak for him Pride and Self-conceit are of a poysonous quality and if not purged out exhalat opaca mephitia it sends forth pestiferous vapors which will choak and stifle all goodness in us But Meekness qualifies and prepares the mind and makes it wax for all impressions of spiritual graces it doth no evil it thinketh no evil it cannot be provokt with errors in opinion nor with those grosser mistakes and deviations in mens lives and conversation We have brought Meekness to its tryal indeed For sure where Sin once shews its deformity all meekness in a Christian whose Religion bindeth him to hate sin must needs be lost It is true all created natures we must love because they have their first foundation in the love and goodness of God and he that made them saw that they were good But Sin is no created entity but without the compass of Nature and against her against that order and harmony which Reason dispenseth This only hurts us this is that smoke which comes from the very pit of Hell and blasts the soul even then when the body is untoucht This is the fornace in which men are transformed into Devils We cannot then hate Sin enough Yet here our Christian skill must shew it self and we must be careful that our Anger which frowns upon Sin
Catone peccatum That for all so great an ensample of severity as Cato was yet Vice was still impudent And Pliny speaks it as a commendation of Trajane That he was good among the worst For saith he when Camillus and Scipio lived when Virtue had as it were made her self visible in those Worthies it was a matter of no difficulty to be good Tunc enim imitationis ardor semper melior aliquis accenderet For then the heat of Imitation inflamed men and still the life of some better man was a silent call to the weaker to follow after Beloved in our Lord and Saviour the time was when this our Land was overcast with as thick a darkness as that of Aegypt and there was no Goshen for a true Israelite no light but that of the faggot no place to profess safely in yet they then were followers of Christ and in the Scriptures diligently searcht out the steps of the Apostles and in spite of fire and persecution walked in them And although the Gospel was unto them but as a light in a dark cloud yet by this light they traced the paths of the primitive Fathers sub Principe dura Temporibúsque malis and in bad times they durst be good when the Queen was even as a Lioness amongst the Lions and Cruelty lurkt no where more then under a Mitre and Rochet The case God be thanked is otherwise with us now The bands of our cativitie are snapt asunder The cup of God's wrath is taken out of our hands and God hath made us as it were a strong brasen wall and his enemies and ours have fought against us and have not prevailed Antichrist is revealed the mystery of iniquity laid open errors of all kind detected the Bible unclasped teachers of truth like stars in the firmament eminent Wisdom cryeth out in the streets and Religion hath as it were placed her tabernacle in the Sun and shall we still have a frost at our heart shall we have withered hands shall we be cold and benumned and not able to set one foot forward in the steps of our Forefathers Beloved let us look over into the tents of our enemies into the tabernacles of Wickedness What doth that Church of Rome more crack of than of Antiquity how like she is to the Church in former times how she hath still the same gate and traceth the same paths and that we are but of yesterday that Luther breathed into us our first breath that it troubleth us much saith Gregory of Valence that we are not able to shew any company of people in times past known to the world whom we follow in our Doctrine and Religion If we would pull down the Images out of their Church they cry us down with a Populus eruditur They are the Books of Laymen by which they are instructed in the Articles of Faith and have as it were before their eyes laid open the wholesome examples of the faithful which may move them to compose their lives to the imitation of them If we would pull off those wings which they have given to Nature to soar up above her power if we deny their Freewil if we pull down their Babel of Merits they then tell us of the ancient Worthies of their Church and add some Saints that were wicked men yea some that never were men They will shew you what they have layed up for others in the treasury of the Church to discharge their Debts before they owed them They say that we walk blindfold in our own waies and will not open our eyes to see the times of old that we have run away from the bosome of our Mother and now suck strange breasts It is true indeed that we can both silence them in their boast and wipe out their accusation we can tell them that Rome is unlike her self Non Roma praestat Romam as Scaliger speaketh That the Church began not with Luther but began then to be les corrupt That we left not her but her Superstition That we walk in the old way and are followers of the Professors of the primitive Truth which was then embraced when the Popes kitchin was not yet heated by the fire of Purgatory when his Exchequer was not fill'd by Indulgences when there was no corner-Mass when Transubstantiation was yet unbaked when all Sins were accounted mortal when Pardons were sold only for Prayers and Repentance when there were no Merits heard of but our Saviours when the people were not cousened of the Cup when the Pope was not Jupiter fulminans when he had no thunderbolt no power of deposing Kings and Emperours But Beloved our Christian care and industry should be that we rank not our selves amongst those of whom St. Paul affirms that they Rom. 1. 18. held the truth of God in unrighteousness that we walk as children of the truth ne dicta factis deficientibus erubescant as Tertullian speaketh that our life give not our profession the lye that we may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men as St. Peter saith that when they speak evil of us they 1 Pet. 3. 16. may be ashamed which blame our good conversation in Christ For if we follow Christ and his Apostles only in word and shew if we wear Christs colours and fight under the Devils banner the title of CHRISTIAN will no more befit us then that of BONIFACE a hard-visage or that of URBANUS a cruel Pope Therefore a Christian is well defined by an ancient Father to be qui Christum verbis operibus quantum homini possibile est imitari nititur that striveth as much as lies in the power of Man to imitate Christ by making his Hand as active as his Tongue to imitate him both in his deeds and in his words You see Beloved that our Weaknes's stands in need of that which God hath graciously reached out unto us this help of Example As he hath made the Ear so the Eye also to obtein Learning And lest we should complain of impossibility to perform what he commands he hath proposed unto us men of the same mould we are of This Doctrine then concerns us two ways 1. in respect of our selves 2. in respect of others In respect of our selves 1. to remove the letts and hindrances of Imitation 2. to observe the rules of Imitation Now there are divers hindrances I will mention but three The first is spiritual Pride and Self-conceit We willingly perswade our selves that we are out of danger and that we can go upon our own strength that we may rather be examples to others than follow them At a sight only of our Saviour at the least feeling of the operation of the Spirit with Peter we cast our selves into the Sea we venture upon any temptation and think we can walk in the most dangerous places without a leader And this Self-conceit proceedeth from want of grace Grace teacheth us to remove this hinderance Non extollit sed humilitat saith one
Grace doth not puff up but humble a man It shews him unto himself The more a man tasts of these spiritual vanities the greater is his hunger and he will leap for joy to eat them at any table Therefore it was a good rule of St. Hirome Omnium simus minimi ut omnium fiamus maximi Let us in our own opinion be the least of all and then we shall strive forward and forward and by a willingness to follow others example grow up to be the greatest of all This Self-conceit works in us a Prejudicate opinion and makes us undervalue and detract from the worth of our brother Which is the second hinderance We may see it in the Scribes and Pharisees They were forsooth Moses disciples and were swelled up with the thought of that chair As for Jesus he was not known unto them from whence he was And how crafty were they being cheated themselves to deceive others They buzze into the peoples ears that he was but the Carpenters Son that none of the rulers believed on him And so daily in themselves they encreased a willing and obstinate ignorance and at last not knowing him they crucified the Lord of life Therefore the Apostle speaking of the diversity of gifts and offices of the members of Christ gives this counsel In Rom. 12. 10. giving honor go one before another Our honor our preferment our precedencie is to honor our brother If we honor him for those good gifts which God hath bestowed upon him we shall strive to benefit our selves by them lumen de lumine accendere to light our candle at his to borrow of his lustre to sit at that heavenly fire which warms his breast When Naaman was to be healed of his Leprosie Elisha bad him wash himself seven times in the River of Jordan but at this the Syrian was wroth and his 2 Kings 5. thoughts were at home Abanah and Pharpar Rivers of Damascus were better with him then all the waters of Israel And if he after had not been better advised he had still remained and died a Leper Beloved if thy brother hath tasted of Gods graces If the river of God hath made his heart glad and God hath appointed that thou shouldst wash at this river that thou shouldst amend by his fruitful example and thou then esteeming him to be dry and barren thinkst of a fountain at home of thine own ability take heed that thou still retain not thy leprosie of sin take heed thou perish not in thy sin and that it may not truly be said of thee He that is a scholar to himself hath a fool to his master To this end let Charity possess thy heart that excellent gift of Charity quae se consiliis suis non credit which trusts not her self to her own counsels as Ambrose speaks which envieth not which thinketh not evil Whose contemplation blesseth it self with the 1 Cor. 13. Patience of Job the Sincerity of David the Courage of Nehemiah the Industry of Paul Which writes in our memories these good examples and teacheth us to turn them over every day Which will not suffer us to undervalue our brother but makes us nourish the least spark of goodness in him and if we can blow it and enliven it into a flame both in his breast and ours The third and last hinderance of Christian Imitation is spiritual Drowsiness The Schoolmen call it Acedia the Devils dormitory and sleepy potion by which each faculty of the soul is laid in a deep sleep so that though God call never so loud by his cryers the Preachers of his word by the open and visible examples of good men yet we hear not we stir not we walk not or if we do it is but like those that walk in their sleep our phansie is troubled and we know not whether we do or no. If we stir and move it is but like the Sluggard in the Proverbs to fold the hands to lye down and sleep again in sin like Eulychus in the Acts whilst Paul is a preaching whilst the example of good men is vocal we are fast asleep in danger to fall down and break our necks By this we suffer our souls to gather rust which should shine and glister with the continual exercise of good works which should be rub'd and furbished as it were with the frequent meditation of the good life of others By this we are utterly deprived of that great help in our warfare the Imitation of others Rowse then up your selves Beloved and remove this hindrance awake from this sleep and stand up Let the quire of Angels and the joyes of Heaven wake you Let the howling and gnashing of teeth the noise of the damned stir you As ye have heretofore drunk nothing but the top of the cup the sweet of sin so now take and drink the dregs of it that it may be bitter to your soul and that your spirit may be wounded and then yee will not be able to bear it then yee will stir and move and be active then yee will make use of the examples of good men and do any thing to be rid of this cup. Thus we have opened the door and removed the barr and are now as it were in the plain field in our walk In the second place we must take heed how we walk and observe the Rules of Imitation And first we must not take our patern upon trust no not St. Paul himself He brings it in indeed as a Duty Be yee followers of me but he adds 1 Cor. 11. 1. this direction as I am of Christ For in imitation besides the persons there is also to be considered saith Quintilian quid sit ad quod efficiendum nos comparemus what it is we must imitate in the persons We must no further follow them than they follow the rules of Art And he tells us of many in his age who thought themselves perfect Ciceronians if they could shut up a period with esse videatur Some there were quibus vitium pro exemplo erat saith Seneca who imitated nothing but that which was bad in the best It is so in our Christian profession We must view and try and understand what we are to imitate We must not make use of all eyes but of those only which look upon the Lord. We must not walk as it were upon other mens feet unless we know what paths they tread We must not follow all guides for some may be blind and lead us into the ditch To this end God hath bounded and limited us in our walks and drawn out as it were certain lines In the Scripture he tells thee Thus far shalt thou go Thus far shalt thou follow and no further If any do transilire line as as Tertullian speaks leap over the lines pass the limits thou must leave him there and keep within thy bounds All other waies are dangerous all others paths slippery all other imitation damnable This the Church of
Rome is well acquainted with and therefore she breaks down the bounds pulls down the limits hides the lines dammeth up the Kings high-way She pulls out thy eyes and there she leads thee in a way indeed but not of Truth in a by-path in a way leading out of the way The way of Truth it cannot be For veritas nihil erubescit nisi solummodò abscondi Truth blusheth at nothing but to be hid But I must walk their way and not know whether it be a way or no. Though I doubt yet I must not dare to question it but must still walk on and put it to the adventure If Idolatry and Superstition and blind Obedience will saint a man then I am sure to be a Saint in heaven That Church reacheth forth unto thee a cup and sayes it is of the water of life when indeed it is but poison She hath an open breast and a motherly affection she shews thee a milky way but which neither Christ nor his Apostles ever trod in No tracking of them but by bloud She shews thee an easie way a sensual way made passable by Indulgences and Pardons and private Masses and Supererogation only thou must walk in it without offense to the Church of Rome Thus like those Physicians Sidonius speaks of officiosè occidit she will kill thee with good words like some kind of Serpents she will sting thee and thou shalt dance when thou art stung she will flatter thee to thy destruction and thou shalt perish as it were in a dream Beloved what shall we do then We will pray to God with Paul to guide our journey with David to make our way upright We will say as Israel said to Sihon King of the Amorites We will neither turn aside into the fields nor into the vinyards Numb 21. 22. neither drink of the waters of the wells We will neither walk in those specious pleasing wayes nor taste of the Wine which that Harlot hath mingled nor draw water out of those Wells which they have digged unto themselves but we will go in the Kings high-way even in that way wherein the Apostles the Prophets the blessed Martyrs the holy Saints all our Forefathers by the light of Scripture have gone before us The second Rule of our Christian Imitation is That we strive to imitate the best Stultissimum est non optimum quemque proponere saith Pliny It is great folly not to propose alwaies the best patern And Elige Catonem saith Seneca Chuse a Cato a prime eminent man by whose autority thy secret thoughts may be more holy the very memory of whom may compose thy manners whom not only to see but to think of will be a help to the reformation of thy life Dost thou live with any in whom the good gifts and graces of God are shining and resplendent who are strict and exact and so retein the precepts of God in memory that they forget them not in their works Then as St. James saith Take the Prophets for example so I say Take these for an ensample lodge them in the closet of thy heart confer with their virtuous actions and study them And if at any time the Devil and the World put thee upon those actions which might make thee to forget thy copy then take it into thy hands and look it over again and as St. Cyprian would often call for Tertullians works with a Da magistrum Give me my master so do thou Da praeceptores Give me the instructing examples of these good men let them alwaies be before my eyes let them be a second rule by which I may correct my life and manners Let me not loose this help which God hath granted me of Imitation But Beloved here beware we must that we mistake not the Goats for the Sheep the left hand for the right that we weigh not Goodness by the number of Professors For it is the Devils policie to make us think that the most are the best and so he shuts us out of the little flock and thrusts us into the folds of Goats and thus we deceive our selves Plerique ducimur non ad rationem sed ad similitudinem We are not guided by Reason but let her slip and so are carried away as it were in a throng non quà eundum sed quà itur not indeed whither we should go but whither the many-headed multitude lead us Therefore thou must take this as a Rule Multitudo argumentum mali No surer argument that men are evil then that they are many The City of the Lord is not so peopled as the City of the World which the Devil hath erected neither is Heaven so full as Hell nor are there so many Saints as there are Devils not so many chosen as there are past-by not somany good examples as there be bad ones We undervalue true professors we make their Paucitie a blemish whereas our Saviour tells us his flock is little a lily amongst the thorns and when God commands us Exod. 23. as in this so in all actions not to follow a multitude in evil And this in our Christian Imitation we must observe in respect of our selves We must be careful too in respect of others And since God hath made Imitation such a help to our Salvation we must strive to be guides and lights unto our weaker brethren not an ignis fatuus or lambens a fat and foggy meteor to lead them out of the way but stellae micantes bright and glistering stars to lead them to Christ And this in the first place concerneth the Ministers and Messengers of God It is St. Paul's charge to Timothy even before the holy Angels that he should keep himself unblamable before all men Valentinian's to his Bishops that they should vitâ verbo gubernare govern the Church both with their life and with their doctrine and as Nazianzene spake of Basil they should have thunder in their words and lightning in their deeds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking and doing Not like Lucian's Apothecary who sold Medicines for the Cough when he and all his houshold were infected with it nor like those Physicians Nazianzene speaketh of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 laying their hands to cure the wounds of others whilst themselves were full of sores But striving to come forth glorious and wholsome examples that they humble not those with their life whom they have raised up with their doctrine Considering that sin doth not only shew but teach it self And what a heavy doom will reach them if they beat down those with a bad whom they should raise up and set a walking with a good example But Beloved I here mistake my Auditory and speak to this Congregation as if I were amongst an assembly of Levites And yet I know too and I need not fear to speak it that it is an argument of a wicked and profane heart of a sensual love of the world that no doctrine now-adayes is more acceptable then that by
Gods Messengers do lift up their voice like a trumpet against Sin and whip the vice of Security out of the Temple although our Pulpits ring and sound again with the Doctrine of Good works and not one of our Writers that ever I could see except some few hare-brained Lutherans did ever let fall from their quills one word that might prejudice the necessity thereof yet they cry out as men at great fires as yet were the only incendiaries and Religion were now a laying on the pile and the whole Christian world by us to be set on combustion It is true Beloved we could pay them with their own coyn we could cast before their eyes their Hay and their Stubble stuff fit for the fire their Indulgences and private Masses their Pardons for sins not yet committed pillows indeed and true dormitories to lay men asleep on But Recrimination is no remedy and Silence is the best answer to Impudence Our best way to confute them is by our practice as Diogenes confuted Zeno that believed there was no such thing as Motion by walking over the room So if Christ say unto us Your sins are forgiven you let us then take up our beds and walk Let him that lies on the bed of Security arise from that bed on the bed of Idleness awake from that sleep from that slumber and unfold his hands and stand up and walk before God in the land of the living For Beloved what are we believers are we faithful Why then we must nay we cannot chuse but be obedient For Faith and Assurance of forgiveness is the ground and foundation not only of Christian Charity but also of all other virtues of all true Obedience having its residence not only in the Understanding but also in the Will not floating in the brain but enflaming the heart and thereby gaining dominion and a kingdom over the affections Hence Faith is called obedience 2 Thess 1. 8. where Paul saith that there is a flaming fire provided for those who obey not the Gospel of Christ For as he obeys his Physician not who believes he is skilful but who observes his prescripts who takes the Recipe and is careful of his own health and his Physicians honor so he is truly faithful that obeys the Gospel of Christ who doth not only believe that Christ is a most able Physician of his soul and that the Gospel is the best Physick the best Purgation but he who takes this Physick although there be Wormwood or Gall or Aloes in it who embraceth and receiveth Christ being offered unto him although he bring grief and afflictions along with him who observes his rules although he prescribes Diligence and Industry and Carefulness who doth therefore the more hate Sin because it is forgiven him lastly who doth the more love God because through Christ he is made a son worthy to be beloved For as Seneca saith well Non est res delicata Vivere It is nothing of delicacy and delight to Live but even in this afflictions and sorrow will make us wish for death So it is not all pleasure all content to be a Christian There are thorns as well as roses there are the waters of Marah as well as those flowing with milk and honey there are sorrows within and fightings without there are the marks of Christ Jesus to be born there is a book of Lamentations like that of Ezekiels to be devoured Gal. 6. and digested too In thy way to Heaven there lies a sword saith Chrysostome and fire and contumelies and disgrace and thou canst not go about but this Sword must prick thee this Fire scorch thee these Disgraces light on thee And before thou go thy journey thy very bosome friends thy old acquaintance thy Sins are to renounced I have cast away all worldly desires saith Nazianzene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since I came to be of the order of Christ and to rank my self amongst Christians And Pity it is saith Cyprian that frons cum Dei signo pura that forhead which was signed with the sign of the Cross should ever be compassed about with the Devils Garland And The Apostles of Christ saith he were tryed by afflictions and torments and the Cross it self nè de Christo esset delicata confessio that the tryal might be solid and the confession then made not when there was a calm when the brim of the water was smooth and even not in the sun-shine but in the storm and tempest when Persecution raged and the Sword glittered and the Enemy was terrible This was the true tryal of a Christian And indeed Beloved the Gospel of which when we hear we think of mercy not of grace is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bitter-sweet a potion indeed and more cordial then we can imagine but not without its bitterness Nay further yet the Gospel holdeth us with a stronger bond then the Law For although it add nothing to the Law in respect of innovation as if that were defective yet it doth in respect of illustration and interpretation Our Saviour proposed non nova sed novè not new commands but after a new manner It was said of old Thou shalt not steal but thou mayest do this by denying an almes for that is furtum interpretativum theft by way of interpretation because thou keepest that from the poor man which is due unto him In the Law it is written Thou shalt not commit adultery under the Gospel an Eunuch may commit it for he may fabulari cum oculis as St. Augustine speaks And he who hath looked upon a woman to lust after her is guilty of this sin saith our Saviour The language of the Law was An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but now it is Good for evil Bless for a curse And plus lex quà m amisit invenit the Law was a gainer not a loser by this precept of Christ I say unto you Love your enemies Therefore the Schoolmen well call the Gospel onus allevians a lightning burden much like the Wing of a bird which maketh the bird heavier but yet it is that it flies with Beloved to shut up all in a word As he spake of Victory It is not gotten sedendo votis by sitting still and wishing for it so our spiritual Conquest flies not down into our bosome whilst we sit folding of our arms Nor will Balam's wish be the chariot to carry us to heaven Let me dye the death of the righteous Neither will the walls of Sin fall down with good desires with religious wishes as the walls of Jericho did with rams horns No the World is deceitful still and the Devil is a Devil still and we are yet in the flesh and a wonder it were that we alone amongst other Christians should tread the paths of life and never sweat in them that this way should be a way of bloud when the Apostles walkt in it and strowed with roses now for us Or can we expect
a Good name but will wallow still in their own mire And therefore you may observe it Matth. 4. that the Devil sets not upon our Saviour with Lust or Luxury or Covetousness or any such vulgar and inferior vice but carries him to an exceeding high mountain and from thence shews him the kingdome of the world to see whether he will stoop at the prey Secondly It is a vice to which the world is much beholding and therefore finds more countenance then any Look upon the works of mens wits their Books and Writings look upon the works of mens hands their Charity and Alms-deeds and Hospitality and we shall quickly discover that Honor and Desire to transmit their names to posterity have been in many for to say in all were the greatest uncharitableness in the world but in many they have been the chiefest fires to set these alembicks a work We will not now dispute the truth of that which the Schools teach That Evil could not subsist if it were not founded in Good but we may be bold to say that this evil of Ambition could hardly subsist if it were not maintained and rooted in Virtue Other weeds will grow of themselves finding matter within us to feed and nourish them Murder is but the ebullition of our Choler Luxury a very exhalation of our Flesh Lust boyles in our very bloud But this vice like unto Ivy or Woodbind will hardly grow unless it fix it self upon the Oke upon some strong and profitable matter If you see Absalom in Hebron paying his vow it is to gain a kingdome If 2 Sam 15. 7. the Pharisee fast and pray it is to be called Rabbi if he gives alms it is with a trumpet If Simon Magus desire to turn Apostle it is to be some great one If Diotrephes be of the Church it is to have the praeeminence Last of all it is a vice which amongst many men hath gained the reputation of Virtue And if it be not a virtue saith the Orator yet it is many times the cause of it Ambition and Aemulation have ever been accounted the nurses of wit the kindlers of industry the life of studies and the mothers of all famous actions And this is it which hath raised their price and estimation But it here falls out as it doth with bodies which are nourisht with unwholsome meats They are in a short time corrupted with diseases and dye by those meats they lived on Wit and Industry which are mainteined by these vices do at last run to ruin by those vices which maintein them How many an alms is blown away with the breath of the Trumpet How many a Prayer is the shorter for its length is not heard for its noyse and is lost in the open streets How many a Fast is buried in a disfigured face How many a Good deed had been registred in heaven if it had not been first written on the walls But as we read in the Historian that Thievery and Piracy were so commonly practised amongst the Grecians that men made publick profession of them neither were they taken to be vices so we find it by daily experience that Ambition is so like to Virtue that the world hath even taken her to be one and made much of her and extolled her because she is so common Disciples themselves will be talking of Kingdomes and Greatness will be asking the question Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven And yet it is as impertinent a question as could have been put to Christ And of this we are to speak in the next place But first we will draw such inferences out of that which hath been spoken as may be useful for our instruction And first if we look back upon the Disciples we cannot but look into our selves and seeing what it was that kept them so long from the true knowledge of the Messias who had been so long with them with whom they ate and drank and conversed and whose miracles they were eye-witnesses of we cannot but search and ransack our inward man empty it of all extravagant and heterogeneous matter dispossess it of every evil spirit of every carnal conceit which may shut out Christ sweep and garnish it that the Truth may enter and dwell there Prejudice puts â—ut the eye of our Judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Opinion is a great retarder of proficiency it being common to men to be jealous of every word that breaths in opposition to what they have already received as of an enemy and though it be truth to suspect it because it breaths from a contrary coast Moab is setled on his lees hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel therefore his Jer. 48. 11. taste remained in him and his sent is not changed He hath ever the same taste and the same sent and this makes every thing promises and threatnings judgments and blessings doctrines and miracles relish and taste and sent as he doth He is the same under the rod and the same under blessings the same in a calm and the same when it thunders He is setled on his lees and no change can change him It is a world to see what power Prejudice hath to change the face and countenance of objects and shape them like unto it self It makes a shadow a man and a man a hobgoblin it mistakes a friend for an enemy It puts horror upon Virtue and makes Vice it self of a ruddy countenance It makes God the Author of sin and the Devil a worker of miracles It makes the Prince of peace a man of war beholds a poor Christ and makes him a King receives him in the form of a servant and builds him a Throne dreams of Kingdomes in the house of mourning and of triumph in persecution makes Christs Humility an occasion of pride makes a new Religion a new Christ a new Gospel and thus gropes at noon-day is deaf to thunder is surly against good counsel and thrusts him away that gives it is an enemy to a friend is a fiery furnace to devour those that minister unto it When God opens the gates of heaven this shuts them when he displayes his rayes of mercy this puts them by when he would enter this shuts the door when he is ready to let fall his dew this will not suffer him to be good unto us will not suffer him to bless will not suffer him to teach will not suffer him to save us This killed the Prophets and stoned them that were sent This whipped and spet upon and crucified the Lord of Life himself For all mistakes is from the Eye all error from the Mind not from the Object If the Eye be goggle or mis-set if the Mind be dimm'd with Malice or Ambition and Prejudice it puts upon things what shape it pleaseth receiveth not the true and natural species they present but views them at home in it self as in a false glass which renders them back again as it were by reflexion which
must dry them And can we do all this If we be truly Christians we can yea in all these things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be more then conquerers not only be undaunted but even joy in them as if now and never till now the world went as we would have it What manner of men think you must they be who do thus Do not put on wonder let not your hearts be troubled For Truth it self will tell you that if you be the men whose name you bear if your eyes your ends your hopes be fixed upon Christ alone then are you all such persons as I have now described Tantum distat a Christiano Look how much every man is defective and wants in this kind of constancy and resolution and so much he comes short and wants of his Christianity What are all the pleasures what are all the terrors of the world to him that is made one with Christ who conquered also That therefore this doctrine may pass the better which at first sight is but harsh and rugged we will shew you 1. That it is possible to arm our selves with such courage and resolution in common calamities 2. That it is great folly not to do so 3. What impediments and hindrances they be which overthrow our courage and take our hearts from us when such things as these come to pass And first of the Possibility of this doctrine And if we look a little upon the manners of men we shall find them very apt and ready to plead impossibilities and difficulties where their own practice confutes them One saith he hath bought five yoke of Oxen and Luke 14. must go to try them another saith he hath married a wife and therefore he cannot that is he will not come Haec omnia dura invitis saith Hierome All things seem hard and difficult to them who have no heart which easily perswade themselves that cannot be done which they will not do Go to a Rich man and require him to lay down his wealth at the feet of the poor or otherwise to sacrifice it to the service of Christ how hard a lesson is it how ill sounding how ridiculous and absurd a proposal What a fool will he soon conclude you be and how prodigal of your good counsel when you advise him to be wise But yet let some flattering Pleasure come in the way or some spleen against his neighbour or some suit of Law or the like or something that may forfeit his soul and how easily shall all go to the final hazard and undoing of him and his posterity I see he can do that for his spleen his humor his strumpet which when he is to do for his God he startles at as a thing impossible In the one is his desire in the other death To gain the earth with him is to enter Paradise but to knock and strive to enter into heaven is as terrible as hell it self Go to one of our painted Gallants and require him to do but what an ethnick man can do by no better help then the light of Nature even rather to lay down his life then to do any thing that common Reason checketh at and which a good man thinks a shame to speak of rather to leave off to be a man then in that shape and likeness to become a beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how great a request do you move Yet how prodigal will he be of his life when his lust or some drunken quarrel shall call for it To fetch home a phansie a fashion a toy we will go as far as France or to the Indies for a clod of earth or a piece of glass but to visit the fatherless and widows a Sabbath-days journey is too far Every thing that may make us happy is hard but we never boggle at that which leadeth to destruction Heaven with all its allurements with all its beauty and glory with all its everlastingness cannot win us to that which the glistering of a diamond which the shadow of a trifle which the dream of a shadow will do God with all his beseeching and entreaties and rich promises shall not move us when the cringe of a flatterer the only tongue of a parasite the smile of a courtesan shall carry us about the world Nor is Glory so eloquent to prevail with us for it self as Shame and Dishonour is to our confusion Nemo non in causa sua potest quod in causam Dei dubitat Every man can do that in his own cause which he cannot in Christs can do that for the Devil which he cannot for himself So that the reason why many suppose this behaviour here required by our Saviour to be a matter so hard and difficult is from the same error Now to manifest the possibility of this I think I cannot do it better then by an ensample and I will give you one and that too of an Ethnick man that knew not Christ nor his rich promises nor ever heard of the Glory of the Gospel There is a Hill in Italy Vesuvius they call it which is wont sometimes to break out in flames of fire to the terror and amazement of all that dwell nigh unto it The first time that in the memory of man it fired was in the dayes of Vespasian the Emperor at which time it break forth with that horrible noise and cry with that concussion and shaking of the earth near about it with that darkness and stench that all within the compass thought of nothing now but aeternam illam novissimam mundo noctem that Time was ended and the World drawing to its dissolution Pliny the great Philosopher and the Author of the famous History of Nature lay then at Misenum not far off and out of a desire he had to inform himself he drew near to the place where he thought the fire begun And in the midst of that horror and confusion so undaunted and fearless was he that he studied and wrote and eat and slept and omitted nothing of his usual Course His Nephew a great man afterwards with Trajane the Emperor out of whom I take this history reports of himself that being there at that time notwithstanding all the terrors and affrightments yet he called for his books he read he noted as if he had not been near the Mountain Vesuvius but in his study and closet and yet was at that time but eighteen years of age I have been somewhat the more large besides my custome in opening the particulars of this story because it is the very embleme the very picture of the Worlds dissolution and of the behaviour which is here enjoyned Christians when that time shall come All these fearful signs which here our Saviour reckons up if we but follow the ensamples which I have now proposed ought not so much prevail with us as once to make us break our sleep much less to torment and amaze us much less to take off our chariot-wheels to retard and cripple
Spirit the sword of the Word both are Swords both powerful The Sword was insigne magistratûs an ensign and badge of autority put into the hand of Kings and Emperours when they put on their robes their purple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those Princely and peculiar vestiments to work obedience in the people and to win reverence from the subject nè orederentur esse privati saith Aquinas lest the people should mistake them and esteem them as private men as fit to feel a sword as to bear one Not to be too anxious in cutting out our way and making our passage the Civilians will enform us that the word Sword is not taken meerly pro telo for a material sword but that it includes merum imperium the Right of drawing the sword that vindicative and coactive Power pressing on and breaking through the strongest opposition battering down tumults sedition disorders and making way to the peace of the weal-publick Well then we see a coercive and restraining power a Sword there is For the Almighty teacheth not Man only by his immediate Wisdome nor guideth him alone by his invisible finger but with a finger hath drawn out many visible copies of his words and works that Man may even see and feel and handle those instructions which may make him wise so neither doth he govern the world alone by his immediate unapprehensible Power by that fulness and infiniteness which he is but he also derives a power conveys an instrument le ts fall a Sword to be employed in the very eyes of men But in the next place a Sword is but a dead instrument able of it self to produce no effect all you find in it is an aptness and disposition to obey the force and virtue of the agent Goliah's sword if Abimeleck wrap it up in a linnen cloth behind the Ephod what is it what doth it But let David take it to pursue the Philistines there is none to that Therefore St. Paul not only shews the Sword but also points out to the hand that bears it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince the Judge the Magistrate he is the Swords-man But now the Sword is in the Hand what must our expectation wait for Doth it come forth against an adversary or will it strike at randome Omne instrumentum disponitur ad virtutem agentis say the Schoolmen The instrument obeys the agent A Sword it is and there is much in the Hand that bears it He may latch it in the side of Innocency and wound Justice her self Naboth may lose his vineyard and life too John Baptists head go off and St. Paul be smitten against the law I say the Sword neither hurts nor helps It is the Hand that doth it We must then in the next place fix up the Motto engrave St. Pauls NON FRUSTRA upon the Sword and then strike he must or else he doth but bear and in the right place too and our fear is vanisht We may now behold the Magistrate placed as he should be in his proper place in the midst between the Offender and the Innocent looking upon both To the good the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a Sword but fear not thy innocency hath made him that beareth it both thy friend and champion But if thou hast done evil the dialect is altered and he speaks in thunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fear it is a sword and terrible So then we have here wrapt up the Power and the Subject the Instrument the Agent and the End Autority granted confined and directed a Sword committed born and used The parts then are these and by these lines we are to pass First we must place the Sword and fasten it too in its proper place the hand of the Magistrate Secondly we must joyn the NON FRUSTRA to the Sword and that will bring us in the Third place to the most proper and peculiar work of the Magistrate to his prime care That he beareth it not in vain Of these in their order He beareth the sword That is his Autority his Commission For of God it cannot in strict terms and properly be said that He beareth a sword God is Omnipotency and Aeternity and Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sea of essence saith Nazianzene and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sea of power but the Magistrate is the channel and conveyance of the rivulet God giveth the Power the Magistrate hath it God lendeth the Sword the Magistrate bears it Autoritas dicitur de diplomate principis manu obsignato Autority presumes a Commission And though Ambition as one observeth hath presented this Power under divers forms and complexions of Popularity Aristocrasy and Monarchy which is the fairest and compleatest piece yet the Commission and seal is still the same For behold him who beareth this Sword and is invested with this power and you shall see him sealed and that Divinâ manu with the very finger of God The Kings broad Seal what is it The matter is wax a small piece of money will buy a greater quantity But having the image and superscription of my Prince it is either my Pardon or my Liberty or my Charter or my Possessions So the Magistrate what is he Behold the Man my fellow dust and ashes of as near alliance to the Worm and Corruption as my self Nay behold a sinful man of as near kin to Adam as my self And yet he awes me and he bounds me and he keeps me in on every side One monosyllable of his turneth me about and is my motion If he say Go I got If he say Come I come If he say Do this I do it For he is sealed and hath the image and superscription of the Deity And as we say that Laws are numismata reipublicae the Coin the Money in which we may behold the face and the livelyhood of a Common-wealth so is the Magistrate numisma Dei a piece of Coin taken out of Gods Mint We need not ask whose image or superscription he hath for he hath Gods And though he bear the Sword yet he had it from Him who is said to bear all things And Heb. 1. 3. being thus armed like to God himself he keeps every wheel in its due motion every man in his right place the master on horsback and the servant on the ground and where Impudence encreaseth he checks it with a Friend sit down lower He keeps the hands of the ungodly from the white hairs of the aged and the teeth of the oppressor from the face of the widows He lays his hand upon the orb of that Common-wealth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it move not incomposedly and unsteddily And in this he doth give unto God those things which are Gods his own coin his own image not clipt not dasht not defaced a powerful Just man the fairest picture and representation of his Master But though God hath conveyed his Power and given his Sword yet he
prevaile No he must back and strengthen it with the Judicial Sin must be brought forth and seen in its own shape Murder wallowing in the bloud she spilt Fornication in a whitesheet with shame upon her forehead Blasphemy with its brains dasht out Idleness starved Theft sub hasta brought to publick sale and condemned to slavery But under the Gospel Hell it self is unlockt her mouth open'd and all her terrors displaied Who would now think that this were not enough to stay our fliting humour to quell our raging temper to bind our unlimited desires Who would not think that this two-edged sword of the Word would frustrate and annihilate all other swords If I had set my face to Destruction this should turn me if I were rushing forward this should stay me But alass we break through these repagula we run over these sufflamina God speaks in us by the Law of Nature but we hear him not He writes to us by way of Letter and Epistle in his Divine Law but we answer him not Besides this we too often reject and reverberate his gracious instructions and incitements by the wise counsel and examples of good men In both God beckneth to us It is now high time he speak to us through a vaile of Bloud that he put the bridle into our mouths If Hell will not fright us then we must hear those more formidable words as S. Augustine saith more formidable to humane ears Occido Proscribo Mitto in exilium Death Proscription Banishment Tribuno opus carcere Lay the whip upon the fools back For to be thus question'd many times prevails more then a Catechisme Therefore Theodorete calls this Sword this Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most catholick and soveraign remedy and Luther necessarium corruptae naturae remedium a necessary remedy for weak decayed nature When the Fear of God boundeth us not imponit timorem humanum saith Irenaeus he aws us with the Sword and humane Authority When the destillation of his dew and small rain will not soften us down came his hailstones and coals of fire to break us A remedy it is our disposition and temper looks for and requires For we are led for the most part by the Sense We love and fear at a distance And as the object is either nigh or remote so it either affects or frights us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The greatest evils and so the greatest goods too are least sensible Villam malumus quam caelum saith Augustine We had rather have a Farme a Cottage than Paradise and three lives in that than eternity in Heaven We had rather be rich than good mighty then just Saint Ambrose gives the reason For saith he quis unquam justitiam contrectavit Who ever saw Virtue or felt and handled Justice And as our Love so stands our Fear Caesarem magis timemus quam Jovem We fear Man more than God and the shaking of his whip than the scorpions of a Deity A Dag at hand frights more than great Ordinance from the Mount and a Squib than a crack of Thunder He that could jest at a Deity trembled at a Thunder-bolt The Adulterer saith Job watcheth for his twilight as if God had his night And The ungodly lyeth in wait to spoil the poor saith David He seeketh a day and an opportunity as if God had not one every moment and he doth it secretly as if that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that revenging Eye were put out And though he stand as a butt for Gods Vengeance and a mark for his arrow and fuel for his fire the very centre wherein all Gods curses may meet yet he cleaves to his sin he hugs and embraces it Would you have a separation and divorce made It is more probable a Whip should do it then a Sermon an Officer then a Preacher a Warrant then an Anathema You must sue for it in the Court of Justice not in the Church So sensual so senseless many are Therefore the Holy Ghost in Scripture presents and fashions himself to the natural affections of men And that we may not turn bankrupts and sport or sell away our livelihood and estate in Heaven and so come to a spiritual nothing to bring us to the other world he tells us of something which we most fear in this To those who love liberty he speaks of a prison a jaylor an arrest Those who dare not step into the house of mourning he tells of weeping and gnashing of teeth and to those tender constitutions who can endure no smart he threatens many stripes NON SINE CAUSA GLADIUM is the servants and hirelings argument and many times it convinces and confutes him it dulls and deads the edge of his affection It destroys Murder in anger quenches Adultery in the desire sinks Pride in the rising binds Theft in the very purpose and ut seta filum as the bristle draweth the thread it fits and prepares a way for Charity and Religion it self We may now then engrave this NON FRUSTRA upon the Sword and settle it as an undoubted conclusion That Autority was not granted in vain Unless you will say that the Law was in vain and Reason in vain and Man in vain unless you will Put the FRUSTRA upon the Church the World Hell Heaven it self And if the Sword be not in vain then in the next place by an easie illation the Duty of the Magistrate will follow which is Operam fortem diligentem dare as the form runs Strenuously to contend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nè frustrà that he bear not the Sword in vain My third and last part There is no danger of a frustrà but here For potestas habet se indifferenter ad bonum malum saith Aquinas Autority though directed and ordained to good alone yet stands in an even aspect and indifferency to both good and evil In it is the life of the innocent and in it is the destruction of the wicked and it may be the flourishing of the wicked and the death of the innocent The Magistrate may as the Devil is said to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invert the order of things put shame upon Integrity and security upon Sin The Sword is an instrument and he may use it as he will and so of a fiery and sharp sword he may make it gladium ficulneum a wooden and unprofitable sword and then the drunkard may reel in the streets and injury may rage at noon-day for all that or pictum gladium no better then a Sword in a painted cloth only to be lookt upon He may use it not like a Sword but like David's rasour to cut deceitfully or he may let it rust in his hands that as that Lawyer complained of the Sword in his time it may be fit for nothing but to cut a purse let out a bribe Thus it may be But our task is to keep off this Frustrà from the Magistrate And see in my Text they are severd
you up to the Councels Mat. 24. 9. and scourge you in their Synagogue And they shall put you out of their Mark 13. 23. Synagogue Behold I have soretold you all things In the former Chapter where he sends his twelve Apostles and in this where he appoints other seventy also as he indued them with power to do miracles and autority over all Devils so doth he also arm them with the foreknowledg and praemeditation of those evils which would affront them in the way and might slacken and retard them in the performance of their Duty ut eò minùs perturbent venientia quo magis fuerint praescita saith Gregorie In that being Darts foreseen they might lightly pass by and being shown before they came they might come wit less pomp and terror that by foreknowledg of them they might have power also over them to cast them out as they did the Devils And good reason there was that our Saviour who knew their he 〈…〉 and what was in man should prepossess them with the thought of what was likely to ensue For the Disciples having received Legative autority from Christ and being armed with the power of working miracles and casting out devils might well have fed themselves with Hope of fair weather and of welcome whithersoever they enterd and with a high conceit that all men must needs vail and submit to them who had power to subdue even the devils themselves For can Flesh and Bloud stand out against that name through which Hell it self is made subject A conceit than which nothing could have been more pernitious it being incident to most men to bury all Thought of their Duty in the remembrance of their power and dignity to dream of kingdoms when they should be up and awake to do their office and so at last they strip themselves of all succour and ly naked and open to those injuries and calamities which must needs take off their courage and slug their obedience because they come unlookt for and so surprize them in a pleasant dream What Christs embassadours to be sent without purse or script to speak and wish Peace to that House which will not give them welcome to tell men of a Kingdom and be shut out of doors to cast out Devils and find men as malitious as those Devils they cast out to cure diseases and for a reward to receive a wound this is Durus sermo a hard saying to men in autority to men who go about doing good who carry health and blessings along with them whithersoever they go I say a hard saying who can bear it a saying not well digested but wondred at to this day We pray but thou hearest not We fast but thou regardest it not We give our Bread and receive a Stone We pipe and no man danceth We mourn and no man lamenteth Our Patience is derided our meekness is trod under foot our humility is scorn'd Do we not many times say in our hearts with those Mal. 3. 14. It is in vain to serve the Lord There is no profit in keeping his ordinances But this is to forget the Things which our eyes have seen This is to forget God and what he hath told us For he hath told Deut. 4. 9. us before that Prayer and Fasting and Alms have their End when they have not their end Prayer may be heard and accepted and not Granted for to obtain is not the only end of Prayer Fasting may appease God and yet not remove the plague Thy Alms may be abused and trod under foot and yet come up before God God hath presented his Gifts and Graces as glorious as the Sun and Lights but he hath prognosticated and foretold us of cloudy dayes and tempestuous weather which shall darken and obscure them He hath promised to hear our prayers but that he grants them not alwaies is for our sakes He hath promised to crown every good deed but not in this life Therefore let us comfort our selves when our expectation is frustrate seeing nothing befalls us which was not foretold Let us consider upon what condition and terms we gave up our names unto Christ to do what he commands though we see no fruit at all to paint though there be no increase There hath no Temptation taken you but such as is common to man saith St. Paul There hath nothing befallen us which was not 1 Cor. 10. 13. foretold Why do we slug and fail in our Duties Why do we bow under the very shadow of terrors and are crest-faln at the sight of that evil which comes towards us when we are working of wonders curing diseases and preaching of Peace Beloved Distrust and Impatience will never tread upon Serpents and Scorpions nor pass through the power of the enemy to the end of the Duty Hearken not to the found of many waters but to the voice of the Prophet Look not on the grim visage of that evil that haunts you in the performance of your Duty but remember the word that Christ hath said unto you He told you of Contempt but which should make you Honourable of Persecution which should make you blessed of Serpents â—ut such as should not hurt you of Wolves but such as you should overcome with the meekness of a Lamb. Remember what he hath told you and then into whatsoever House you enter whether it be the Habitation of Peace or House of the wicked whether it be a House at unity within it self or a House divided whatsoever it be deliver you your message Into whatsoever house you come say Peace unto it Which is the Form prescribed or the Salutation Peace be to this House And Paece be to this House is a fit Salutation for them to use who were Disciples and Embassadours to the Prince of Peace For as Tully spake of a certain Embassadour That he did senatûs faciem secum afferre autoritatem reipublicae that he brought with him the countenance and presence of the whole Senate and the autority of the Commonwealth from whence he was sent so the Disciples of Christ were to speak in the stead and person 2 Cor. 5. 12 of Christ and carried about with them his autority and therefore they were to use his language that form of words which they had heard from him and that Salutation which he had put into their mouths For 1 This was most proper for him that sent them Decet largitorem pacis haec Salutatio sayth Cyril from him who gives peace who is our Peace who is the Joh. 14. 27. Ephes 2. 4. Isa 9. 6. Prince of Peace no fitter Salutation than Peace 2 It is most proper for the Gospel which they were to preach which is a Gospel of Peace This was Christs first gift when he was born Peace on Earth and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his last gift when he was to dy Peace I leave with you My peace I give Joh. 1â— 2â— unto you For this he was layd in
of peace who is docile and not averse from it who is willing to hear of it For as Pothinus the Bishop of Lions being ask'd by the President of the place Who was the God of the Christians made no other reply but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You shall know if you be worthy so may we say of this Peace They who are worthy who are fitted and prepared shall receive it And if you ask on whom it will rest I answer It will rest on them that love it Where is the place of my rest saith God The Isa 66. 1. Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool All these things hath my hand made But to this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word He that created all things and made the Heaven and the earth will not chuse out of these his seat but leaves them all and will rest no where but in a contrite and broken heart which divides and opens it self and makes a way to receive him And certainly as we see in Nature we cannot put any thing into that which is full already no more will peace enter that heart which is filled with Satan with malice and with the very gall of bitterness The Gospel will find no place in that Soul which is already filled and praepossessed with prejudice against the Gospel Into a malicious Soul Wisdom shall not enter saith Wisd 1. 4. the Wiseman Or if it do enter it shall not dwell there not dwell there as a Lord to command the Will and Affections no not as a friend to find a welcome for a time but be thrust out as a stranger as an enemy What is the place for peace to rest in Not in a Nabals heart which is as stone Not in the Wantons heart which is as a troubled Sea not on the Fool who hath no heart whose conscience is defiled and judgment corrupted by many evil and vitious habits ubi turpia non solum delectant sed placent who doth not only delight in that which is opposite to this Peace but approves it as that without which he cannot be at Peace No the spirit of Peace and the unclean spirit may seem in this to agree They will not enter the House before it be swept and garnished Ill weeds must be rooted out before you can sow good corn Every valley must be filled and every mountain and hill must be brought low all that inequality and repugnancy of our life must be taken away and all made smooth and even For as the Prince of peace so Peace hath a way to be prepared before it will enter What is the reason that all the seed which the Sower sowed brought not forth fruit Because some fell in stony places where there was not much Mat. 13. earth where the Soul did not sympathize and bear a friendly correspondence with the Word as good ground doth with the seed and some fell by the way-side which was never plowed nor manured and the fouls of the air those sly imaginations which formerly prepossessed the Soul devoured it up Nothing can be well done when the mind is already taken up with something else What room for the Gospel in the Jew who maketh his boast of the Law What room for Religion where it is accounted the greatest piety to be prophane What room for Righteousness when we rejoyce in impiety When the Prince of this world hath blinded our eyes with covetousness ambition and lust what room is there for Peace Non magìs quà m frugibus terrâ sentibus rubis occupatâ as the Orator speaks and they are the very words of our Saviour No more than there is for good corn in the ground which is full of bryars and thornes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whither dost thou cast thy seed thy good precepts saith the Philosopher to one that read a lecture of Philosophy to a scornful person Thou flingest it into a foul and stinking vessel which corrupts every thing it receives and takes no savour from it but makes it relish of it self Lord what a rock is a prepossessed mind What an adamant is a Stubborn and perverse heart How harsh and unpleasant is this Salutation of Peace to those who are hardned against it How Stoical and rigid and peremptory are they against their own Salvation Obstrepunt intercedunt nè audiant They are so far from receiving the Salutation that they are troubled and unquiet at the very name of Peace and desire they may not hear that word any more The complaint in Scripture is They will not understand and The waies of Peace they will not know Experience will teach us that it is too common in the world to stand stiff upon opinion against all evidence whatsoever though it be as clear as the Day And it is the reason which Arnobius gives of the Heathens obstinacy to whom this Salutation of Peace was but as a fable Quid facere possumus considerare nolentibus secumque loqui What can we do or say or how can we convince them who will not be induced once to deliberate and consider nor can descend to speak and confer with themselves and their own reason A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump and so doth a prejudicate opinion the whole mind of man All our actions and resolutions have a kind of taste and relish of it Whatsoever comes in to strengthen an anticipated conceit whatsoever walks within the compass of our desires or lustful affections we readily embrace and believe it to be true because we wish it so But if it thwart our inclination if it run counter to our intendments though it be Reason though it be Peace though it be a manifest truth though it be written with the Sun-beams we will not once look upon it It is an easy matter saith Augustine to answer a fool but it is not so easy to satisfie him It is easy to confute but not to reform him For his Folly barreth him from seeking the meanes of understanding and when light is offered it shuts up his eyes that he cannot receive it We have many domestick examples of this obstinacy and I wish they were not so near us of men who may be overcome but cannot be perswaded who will not yield to any strength of reason nec cùm sciant id quod faciunt non licere no not though they cannot be ignorant that the course of their life runs with more violence and noyse than is answerable to the Peace of the Gospel who know what they are and yet will be what they are And these we meet with quocunque sub axe in every place in every corner of the earth These multiply and increase every day For it cannot be but the greatest part of men will be the weakest We have troops and armies of these and the regiment consists of boys and girls and women led away captive by their ignorance and
by care and serious endeavours Man may bring himself nearer and nearer to Immutability and be so good that he can hardly be otherwise ther good This our Arch-enemy well knows and therefore doth ipsis repugnare seminibus fight against our beginnings He is that fowl of the ayr which picks up our seed He is that enemy which sets upon us in primis finibus when we first set footing in the holy land He will divert our look stop our profer nè sit inceptio vehemens that there may be no strength no activity in our first endeavors no heat no solidity but that they may melt before his tentations as Snow doth before the fire that we may think that Christianity is a beginning a profession and no more that if we name Christ it is enough though we do not love him if we call upon God it is sufficient though we do not worship him if a voice hath come down from heaven if God hath shewn us any grace and favor we shall do well enough though we blaspheme him every day To conclude therefore As our care must be obstare principiis to stay the Devils beginnings so it will concern us firmare principia to confirm our own Fides ut nativitas non accepta sed custodita vivificat Faith as our Nativity doth quicken and enliven us not by being received but by being kept We believe as we are born We grow up from age to age from virtue to virtue unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ Therefore as our profession must be sincere so it must be resolute against this Enemy to comfort and fence and strengthen our beginnings Vera virginitas nihil magìs timet quà m semeteipsam saith Tertullian Pure and undefiled Virginity is afraid of nothing more then of it self So say I of our Christian Profession If it be true and sincere it will fear nothing so much as it self and is therefore watchful to observe the wiles and enterprises of that cunning enemy whose pride it is to take us in our altitudes to meet us coming out of the Font to be near us when we publickly defie him to take of our chariot wheels to slug and weaken our resolutions that we who talk so big against him when the time of encounter comes may not be willing to strike a stroke For he never fears when our best weapons against him are words O what a sad and uncouth sight it is to see the name of Christian lead in the Front and a legion of sins follow after to see a Christian come out of the Font and then take the weapons of Righteousness and fill the world with violence and iniquity to see a man begin in the Spirit and end in the Flesh prest out to fight against the Devil and the World and yet a slave to the Devil and the World all his life to see Christianity made a pillow to sleep on in the midst of a tempest in the midst of those sins which crucifie Christ to see Christs name never made use of but against himself so many not casting out Devils in that name but in that name silling the world with subtilty and deceit A good profession and a profane Conversation is the greatest contradiction in the world Let us be sure then to strengthen our beginnings that they may beget a continued uninterrupted course of piety like unto themselves that all the parts of our life may resemble each other that beginning well nothing may hinder us but that we may continue so unto the end that a good beginning may not accuse our bad ending nor a bad end disgrace a good beginning that Christ may be Alpha and Omega the first and the last in all our actions that he may lead us forth and that in his name we may tread down all our Enemies under our feet that Christ may be both in the beginning and end of our life advantage that the Spirit which first taught us to cry Abba Father may seal us up to the day of our Redemption The Six and Twentieth SERMON PART IV. MATTH IV. 1. to be tempted of the Devil IN all combates the first thing we inquire after is Who are the Parties that fight One of the Combatants here we find to be JESUS a Saviour our Advocate our Captain cujus auspiciis bellum geretur by whose conduct and advise we must enter the lists The Person who assaulted him is in the Text termed the Devil An Accuser stands up against an Advocate a Destroyer against a Saviour and he that is called the God of this world because he corrupted it against him who is truly the God of this world because he made it Nor can we doubt whether there be such a person or no as the Devil unless we will also doubt whether there be such a person or no as Jesus and so derogate from the truth of the story and make it less then a phantasine less then it had been done it a vision Nobis curiositate non opus est post lesum Christum When the words of Scripture are plain and positive Curiosity and Infidelity though they differ in name yet are but one and the same thing And when Phansie drawes Doctrines out of Scripture instead of visions it presents us with dreams Nor hath the Devil a more poysonous tentation then that which pours into our hearts a perswasion that there is no Devil at all Yet there have been found and now are those who profess Christian religion and yet are of opinion that what is delivered of the Devil in Scripture and of his tentations is not to be understood as if there were any such spiritual substance to which we truly attribute these but that it is a figurative kind of speech fitted to that which the vulgar or common people believe that there is nothing which solicitates us to sin but our own Lusts and Concupiscence which by them by a wonderful kind of Prosopopoeia or feigning of the person is called the Devil as St. James teacheth us where laying down the manner how we are tempted he makes no mention of a person but attributes all to our Concupiscence which is called in other places the Devil the adversary which accuseth us before God that Sin alone is the Serpent which deceives us the Lyon that roars against us and the Dragon which devours us that only Sin is an Accuser And this St. Bernard seems to lay to the charge of Petrus Adailardus Epist 190. where he calls him Quintum Evangelistam the fifth Evangelist that saw more then any of the four But this is but commentum humani ingenii a fiction of fancyful men the work of the brain and may be well entitled to the Devil himself who is the Father of lyes By the same art and skill they may if they please make the whole Scripture an allegory since we find nothing more historically and plainly delivered then this That there is a
I will sing to my Beloved Isa 5. 1. a song of my Beloved And indeed almost his whole Prophesie is but a descant on that Song In Jeremie we find the Bridegrooms name THE Jer. 23. 6. LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS In Ezekiel He is a Ezek. 34. 24. Prince in Daniel a great Prince Hosea tells of his Espousals Dan. 12. 1. Hosea 2. 19. Mic. 5. 2. Micah of his Birth At last in the fulness of time the Wedding is chaunted forth by a full quire of Angels Behold now all things are ready come unto the marriage Of all these things we are witnesses say the Apostles Take the Morning of the world and take the Evening of the world take them of the first age and take them of the ast Fides utrósque conjungit saith St. Augustine Faith draweth and linketh both together and presents them all at this great Feast I have told you before I was aware what this Marriage-feast is and who the guests Saint Paul delivers himself plainly where speaking Ephes 5. 32. of that indossoluble tye of Marriage he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great mystery but then adds but I speak concerning Christ and the Church Now Nazianzene happily joyneth together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the name CHRIST and the substance and reality of that name For as Christs name is not a bare and naked name but there â—ie wrapt up in it Grace and Peace and Salvation so Christs Marriage is noâ— a bare marriage No he hath left dotem Ecclesiae he hath plenteously endowed his Spouse with graces from above he hath articled and covenanted with her Nor is his feast a common feast No he hath prepared his table and set on it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bread of Angels bread to nourish and strengthen us till we grow up to an angelical estate and castas delicias those chast delicates his Word and Sacraments a Cup running over calicem inebriantem an intoxicating Cup that overcomes us and transports us beyond our selves Ebrietas ista magìs sobrium facit saith Cyprian Let us therefore drink of this Cup noâ— guttatim by drops but as we do our Sin or as an Ox doth water for Intemperance here is the best sobriety And the Kings Son Christ himself Legis gratia molâ aptatum in farinam ground between the Law and his Grace and tender Mercies into fine flowre and kneaded into good Bread In a word he sets before us not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strong meat but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cakes and dainties meats to nourish us and meats to delight us cordials and antidotes and pleasant wine the bread of life and the rivers of his pleasures So this is the Feast and we are invited to it Now all the King desires of us is as the Apostle speaks that we would keep the feast keep it as such a feast should be kept no◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the letter that is Jewish no◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to our sensual affections that is heathenish but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritually 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Spirit would have it kept Now the Spirit and the Bride say Come Come unto the marriage But come not naked but come prepared but come with a wedding-garment not with our clouted shooes and old garments as if we were on a journey or going into the field or vineyard to labour for the meat that perisheth But observe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a decorum Yeild an awful reverence to the Person the Master of the Feast a King to the Place the Princes Bride-chamber to the Feast a royal lasting feast At least for his loves sake that invites us come like guests not spies like friends not traytours come as to a wedding not a market come vestiti apparell'd that we be not naked and that we be not unmannerly veste nuptiali with a vesture sutable with a wedding-garment Indeed a great pity it is nay a great sin it is that so high a Feast should be slighted that we should come ragged into the Kings Court or like Ruffians into the Presence-chamber But in the parable we read it and in the moral and practick exposition of the parable we find it that slighted it was that some were angry that they were invited angry there was any such feast at all that they intreated the servants spitefully and slew them And we know what became of them Armies were sent forth to destroy those murderers v. 7. But in my Text we find one that dealt not so roughly drew not his sword at the invitation gave good words yet and came but so unprepared so ill qualified that being ask'd why he came so his tongue would not serve him to give an answer but he was struck silent and dead with a question And he said unto him Friend c. This is the sum of these words But we can hardly divide them For here is a Question without an Answer Quaestio ducens ad absurdum a Question that draws binds either to silence or to an absurdity Answer what he will it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 absurdly done so to come And Quaestio ducens ad impossibile a Question that shuts up his mouth in silence or drives him to a flat contradiction He is come and he is not come invited and not a guest in the Church and not of the Church We see the King asks the question How he came thither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 capistratus est he was muzzled It was a question that muzzled that throttâ—ed him in a word a question unanswerable But for our more orderly proceeding we will first take the words in that form and habitude they lye as they are a Question Then we will resolve the Question for so a question may be resolved into a Syllogism And there we shall fill our mouth with arguments against him that came so unprepared But before we can ask the Question or reason against him we must lay down certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 positions eminent in the Text and send them before to make way to the right understanding of the Question And then the points will be these 1. That clothed we must be if we come to this marriage-feast 2. What this wedding-garment is 3. That one of the guests had it not 4. That he was questioned for it together with the Compellation Friend And then 5. in the last place we will look upon the party questioned not able to reply amazed muzzled silent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but he was speechless Of these in their order The Marriage is of Christ and his Church And he that will be partaker of the Feast must be clothed In Christ all fülness dwelleth and he Col. 1. 19. and 2. 9. loves not emptiness and vacuity He is clothed with righteousness and he would not have us come naked to him The holy Ghost seems to delight himself with this Metaphor He apparels
Faith not only like Fire purifying the heart but like Clothes warming Acts 15. 9. the affections to a temperate and active heat An unbeliever Lord what a frost there is at his heart how cold and chill and denumn'd he stands not able to pull his hand out of his bosom as Solomon speaketh Lay the whip upon the fools back yet he moves not in better case to suffer than to be up and doing But Faith strikes a heat through us It is active in the Hand vocal in the Tongue compassionate in the Heart It sets the brain a working seeking and pursuing opportunities of doing good It makes our Feet like hinds feet and enlargeth the soul that we may run the way of Gods commandments Again Garments as they are indumenta for covert and warmth so are ornamenta too for decencie and ornament And sure Faith and Holiness of life are a comely wear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene Goodness is equally venerable to all men It is not so much that good men hold her in esteem Her very enemies praise her in the gate Qui tot argumentis scripserunt They who by their black deeds have prescribed her and sent her a bill of divorce will be ready enough to tell you that she is the horn of beauty fairer than the children of men Judge of her by her contrary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin is shy of the light and keeps least in sight She hath a foul face and her best friends fling durt at her Hoc habet sibi displicet saith Seneca They that put her on are ashamed to walk abroad with her but fling her off in the streets as ready to disgrace Sin as to commit it The Profane gallant thunders out an oath and the next breath is a prayer that God would forgive the villanie The Superstitious wanton watche◠her sins as she doth her beads but drops them faster Her first care is an opportunity to commit sin and then to deliver up the full tale to her ghostly Father The Adulterer and the Priest like the Sun and the Moon have their seasons in the night Uncleanness and when the Sun is up Confession Ashamed she is of this loose garment but unwilling to put it off nay put it off she does but not to fling it away An argument of some dislike she so often changes Tertullian saith well Omne malum aut timore aut pudore natura perfudit Nature hath either struck Vice pale or dyed it in a blush When we sin we either fear or are ashamed But Righteousness and Charity are of a good complexion and like a healthful body inde colorem sumunt unde vires from thence have their beauty from whence their strength Righteousness is amiable in her going The young men see her and hide themselves and the aged arise and stand up Job 29. 8. 11. The ear that hears her blesseth her and the eye that sees her gives witness to her If the whole world were a Sun and all the men in it one eye yet she dares come forth at noon-day before the sun and the people Ad medium properat lucémque nitescere poscit We see then this is not only a Garment to cover us but also an Ornament to deck us not for necessity alone but for decency also St. Paul goes further and tells us it is an Armour to defend us a complete armour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 6. 11. Take the whole armour of God And he furnisheth the spiritual Souldier with Shooes Girdle Breast-plate Helmets and all necessary accoutrements from top to toe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Take it non ad pompam sed ad pugnam not to make a glittering shew like Darius but to fight like Alexander to demolish strong holds to cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against us in our way non ad resistendum sed ad proficiendum saith Augustine not only to beat back the enemies darts but to gain ground of him to take-in those places those corners of our souls which he hath beleaguerd to enlarge in us the kingdom of grace that so our passage may be free to the kingdom of Glory To these we may add a fourth Garments are not only for Necessity Decency and Security but also for Distinction So saith St. Augustine Charitas dividit inter filios regni filios perditionis Charity puts a distinction between true heirs and sons of perdition The character and mark of a Christian saith Nazianzene is the letter Tau in his forehead by which God doth know his and is known of his Bellarmine hath no less than fifteen marks of the true Church but this one here is worth them all We talk much of the book of life but we never read it and whose names are written therein we cannot tell All the light we have is from this fire of Charity He that hath her hath if not written his name in that book yet subscribed to it he that casts her off hath drawn out to himself those black lines of reprobation All the mark we know good Christians by here all the marks we shall know Saints by hereafter is Charity Rank and order Gods Decrees how we will and tell them at our fingers ends all the light our Saviour gives us is this They that have done well that have this mark shall enter into everlasting life and they that have done evil that have it not John 5. 29. into everlasting fire So then this is a Garment and doth cover us and not only cover but adorn not only adorn but defend not only defend but distinguish Take them together they are an antidote against Fear which doth so often stagger the best of us They wipe-out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the phansie and conceit of some evil drawing near whether it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a destructive evil or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a troublesome evil Fear what should we fear A storm Here is a Covert Shame and contempt which David so feared and would Psal 119. 22. have removed Here is a rich Robe to adorn us The chill cold of Temptations This is the endromis the Winter-garment The violence of the Enemy Here is Armor of proof to defend us To be numbred with the transgressours Here is a Mantle with a badge upon it to distinguish us No Fear not saith the Angel when he delivered the Gospel And Faith makes it Gospel unto us We need not fear in the evil day in our worst dayes not let go our hold-fast not cast away our confidence Here is that Hebr. 10. 35. that confirms and radicates and establishes us and sets us not only upon but as the Wiseman speaketh makes us an everlasting foundation Or Prov. 10. 25. to keep us to the Metaphor a Garment it is for all uses If we have this on neither storm nor cold nor disgrace nor the enemy nor ill company shall hurt us But in the next place
it may be for all these uses yet not a wedding-garment Every garment is not for a feast There are sack-cloth and sables and blacks but for mourners not for guests These are not for our turn We are going to a wedding not to a funeral Now we go to a wedding with joy And this is a garment of joy It maketh the face to shine and the heart to leap and the tongue to glory He that invites us joyes that we come and we come with joy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rejoyce with Luke 15. 6 9. me say they Let us eat and be merry saith he and he taketh in the Luke 15. 23. Angels to bear a part in that mirth And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle Rejoyce in the Lord alwayes And lest we should forget it he addeth And again I say Rejoyce O aureas vices O happy interchange Phil. 4. 4. when the Bride-grooms voice is Joy and the guests Joy the eccho of that voice when he delights to call and we are forward to come when the feast is a feast of joy and we are merry at the feast To enter a triumph in blacks to come to a feast as if we were going to a charnel-house to sit down at table as if we were in gives to loath the bread of life to be afraid of the Sacraments to have our stomach turn at Christs Dinner as if we were to take down gall and aloes is but an ill sign a sign of one ill affected Vestis affectum indicat The Garment as it covereth the body so discovers the mind and affections He that hath a wedding-garment on goes with joy and triumph to the wedding Again as by our attire we express our Joy so do we our Gratitude The best thanks we can give the King the best amends we can make him is to come in our best clothes Gratè ad nos pervenisse indicamus effusis affectibus saith Seneca Then a benefit meets with a grateful heart when it is ready to pour forth it self in joy and respect when the affections cannot contain themselves but are dilated and break forth when they are visible in our eyes our hands our tongues our gesture our garments Will you think him grateful that takes a fish with the same countenance he would take a serpent that is no more affected with the gift of a pearl than of a peblestone What is his estimate of the feast think you that comes thither as if he cared not whither he came thither or no as if it were not worth the coming to that hears the Preacher as he would hear a song reads the Gospel and is no more affected than with Aesops Fables we receive the bread in the Sacrament as if it were no more but as the Papists scoff is Calvins loaf in a word counts the bloud of the Covenant a common an unholy thing Hebr. 10. 29. Away with such bold neglect A garment we must come in and in a wedding-garment Sanctity of life is our best retribution The best payment is when we pay God out of his own mint with his own coyn when we shew him his own image and superscription the price he values himself at is a QUOTQUOT RECEPERUNT only to receive him The price he puts upon Aeternity is but to prefer it before a span of time His blessings do but think them so you have purchased them All the thanks he expects for his great dinner is but a short grace a few dayes drawn out and spent in a thankful acknowledgment an open hand for a gift a minute for eternity a desire for a blessing a heart for himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Fear not upbraiding He thinks his great cost well spent if thou come but mannerly if thou bring with thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wedding-garment For by our having this garment on we are not only grateful but we also publish our gratitude We do it not in a corner remotis arbitris as if we were afraid or ashamed to be seen and to have some witness nigh Upon the sight of our garment all the country can tell we are going to a feast And this is it the King expects Gaudet beneficium suum latiùs patere His Benefits he would have as large as all the world his Graces increased in thee and diffused and spread abroad upon others thy Grain of mustard-seed grow up into a tree as high as heaven thy Talent become ten that thy growth thy thrift may be seen and taken notice of God hath not made us only vessels to contain water but conduits to convey it no brokers of his blessings to improve them for our selves but stewards to distribute them to others like beacons not only burning our selves but giving notice to the whole country one example of goodness being kindled by another and a third by that and so multiplying everlastingly Thy habit and attire may draw others to the feast and then thy welcome is doubled because thou bringest in company Good examples bear with them a command Therefore Philo the Jew in his Book which he writ De Abrahamo calls the lives and acts of the Patriarchs Leges jura Patriarcharum non scripta The unwritten Ordinances and Laws of the Patriarchs as if they had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a compulsive power and were as forcible in their command as statute-law God loves these ocular Sermons and would have the Eye catechized as well as the Ear. Look upon the high Priest under the Law his gesture his motion his garments all were vocal Quicquid agebat quicquid loquebatur doctrina erat populi saith Hierom His Actions were didactical as well as his Doctrine his very Garments were instructions and the Priest himself was a Sermon Goodness is neither Anchorite nor Hermite neither for the closet nor the wilderness but she expoundeth and publisheth her self she cryeth in the streets so that he that hath ears to hear may hear her and he that hath eyes to see may see her the hungry taste her the naked feel her and the smell of her is like the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed If thou art not a very Idol thou must needs be the better for her To conclude She is a garment for use to our selves and a wedding-garment to be looked on by others The fashion and beauty of the work may chance to take a stander-by and win him to a liking She is a garment to defend us from fear and she is a wedding-garment to cloth us with joy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wrought garment a Covert a Wear a Defence these are in the cloth to Become to Separate and Distinguish these are in the making and the fashion Joy and Gratitude and Respect and the Reflexion of its glory and brightness upon others these are the colours and embroidery We have now made-up this wedding-garments and should proceed to the Party questioned for his not having it on
rather That he who thus loveth riches may cry as loud as he will but cannot call God his Father Ye have heard of the Goodness and Love of God a Love infinite as Himself It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a perpetual circle beginning proceeding from and ending in himself All which is wrapt up and comprehended in this one word Father This is Gods peculiar title and all other fathers in comparison are not fathers Hence Christ saith Call no man your father upon the earth for one is your Father which is in heaven Yet some there have been found who have made God not a Father but a Tyrant a mighty Nimrod to destroy men for delight and pleasure perinde atque injuriam facere id demum esset imperio uti as if to set-up his children for a mark and to kill them with the same liberty a hunter doth a Deer were to be a Father What is become of Gods Goodness now Or shall we call him Father whose hands do reek in the bloud of his own children Or is it possible that his Goodness should make them to destroy them We should call it cruelty in Man whose Goodness is nothing and can we imagine it in God whose Goodness is infinite Doth a fountain send-forth at the same place sweet water and bitter saith St. James What can this James 3. 11. argue but a dissolution of that internal harmony which should be in Nature All men are made after Gods own image Now to hate some and love others of his best creatures would infer as great a distraction in the Indivisible Divine Essence as to have a Fig-tree bear olive berries or a Vine figs and imputes a main contradiction to his infinite Goodness All things were made out of meer love and to love the work of his hands is more essential to God then for Fire to burn And Gods Love being infinite extends to all for even All are less then Infinite God cannot hate any man till he hate him nor indeed can any man hate God till he hate himself God is a Fountain of Love he cannot hate us and he is a Sea of Goodness we cannot hate him Tam Pater nemo tam pius nemo No such Father none so loving none so good He that calls him Father hath answered all arguments that can call his Goodness into question But yet there is a devise found out and we are taught to believe that God is a Father though he damn us that the reprobate must think he hath done them a kind of favor in condemning them that they are greatly indebted to him and bound very much to thank him for appointing them to death and for casting them into hell-fire for ever with the Devil and his Angels Imò neque reprobi saith one habent cur de Deo conquerantur sed potiùs cur ei gratias agant The Reprobate have no cause to complain but rather heartily to give God thanks A bloudy position and which these men would not run away with such ease but that they have made a shift to perswade themselves that they are none of the number of those on whom God hath past such a sentence For should God reveal it to them that he had past such a decree upon them to damn them to hell and withal that he did it to manifest his power and glory I much doubt whether they would for their own particular in judgment and resolution be well-pleased or be so grateful as to thank him or so submissive as to call him Father Melius est matulam esse quà m simplex lutum It is better to be a vessel of dishonor than bare clay It is better to be miserable eternally than not to be are thoughts which they only can entertain who are too secure of their honorable estate here and of their eternal happiness hereafter Our Saviour who knew better than these men spake it of such a one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 simply and without such qualification by distinction that it had been good for that man that he had never been born I will not build a controversie upon such a word of Love as FATHER but rather admire and adore Gods Love which he hath pledged and pawned bonis suis malis suis not only doing us good but suffering evil for us buying us with his bloud his labor his death not that we were of any worth but that we might be so even worthy of the Gospel of Christ worthy of immortality and eternal life We proceed now from the contemptation of Gods Goodness and Providence to that which we proposed in the next place the Liberal diffusion of it on all his children by which we are enjoyned to call him ours God is Christs Father peculiariter saith St. Ambrose and there is no Pater noster for him but Ours communiter by a full communion of himself unto all and therefore we are taught to pray Our Father For by the same Goodness by which he hath united us unto himself by the same hath he linkt us together amongst our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene with spiritual ligaments From the same fountain issue our Union with Christ and our Communion with one another Therefore if we diligently observe Christs institution as we are bound then as often as we pray so often must we exercise this act of Charity towards our brethren and that in gradu supremo in the highest and greatest extent as far as concerns their good And we must do it often because every good man every disciple of Christ must make it his delight and practise to speak to the Father in the language of his Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene How long do we hear of Mine and Thine in the Church It is not Paul is mine and Gospel is mine and Christ is mine but Paul is ours and The Gospel is ours and Christ is ours and Christ Gods Where there is Charity there MEUM and TUUM are verba frigida but icy words which melt at the very heat of that celestial fire If the Church be a Body then must every Rom. 12. 5. member supply The Foot must walk for the Eye and for the Ear and the Eye must see and the Ear hear for the Foot saith Chrysostom If a House then must every part every beam and rafter help to uphold the building If she be the Spouse of Christ then is she the mother of us all The Philosopher building up his Commonwealth tells us Civis non est suus sed civitatis Sure I am Christianus non est suus sed ecclesiae As a Citizen is not a Citizen for himself but for the whole Commonwealth so each action of a Christian in respect of its diffusive operation should be as catholick as the Church Without this friendly communication the Christian world would be as Caligula spake of Seneca commissiones merae arena sine calce stones heapt together without morter or as pieces of boards without
our Good non sunt unius animi cannot harbor in the same heart at once Nor doth God require of them an actual and perpetual intention of his Glory but as the Schools speak an habitual Thou mayest pray to his glory when thy thoughts are busie and reflect upon thy own want We see an arrow flyes to the mark by the force of that hand out of which it was sent and he that travels on the way may go forward in his journey though he divert his thoughts sometimes upon some occurences in the way and do not alwayes fix them on the place to which he is going So when thy Will and Affections are quickned and enlivened with the love of Gods Glory every action and prayer will carry with it a savor and relish of that fountain from whence they spring An Artificer doth not alwayes think of the end why he builds a house but his intention on his work sometimes comes in between and makes him forget his end And though he make a thousand pieces yet he still retains his Art saith Basil So though thou canst not make this main Intention of Gods Glory keep time with thy Devotion nor send up every thought thus incenst and perfumed yet the smell of thy sacrifice shall come before God because it is breathed forth of that heart which is Gloriae ara an Altar dedicated wholly to the glory of God Thy ear must be to keep it as thy Heart with all diligence to nourish and strengthen it that if it seem to sleep yet it may not dy in thee to barricado thy heart against all contrary and heterogeneous imaginations all wandring cogitations which as Jacob may take his first-born by the heel and afterwards supplant and robb it of its birth-right For these thoughts will borrow no life from thy first intention of Gods Glory but the intention of Gods Glory will be lost and dye in these thoughts We pass forward to that which we proposed in the second place That spiritual blessings must have the first place in our prayers Holiness and Obedience must go before our daily bread the spiritual Manna which nourisheth us up unto eternal life before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things of this present life or that bread which upholds us but for a span of time A doctrine as most plain so most necessary for these times in which mens hearts are so set on gain and temporal respects that heaven finds but little room in their thoughts and so care for the Body as if they knew not whether they had any Soul or no Of his mind in Plautus who professed if he were to sacrifice to Jupiter yet si quid lucri esset if gain and filthy lucre presented it self before him he would rem divinam deserere instantly run from the Altar and leave his sacrifice Epictetus the Stoick observed that there were daily sacrifices brought to the Temples of the Gods for wealth for honors for victory but none ever offered up for a good mind And Seneca tells us Turpissima vota diis insusurrant that men were wont to whisper dishonest desires into the ears of the Gods si quis autem admoverit aurem conticescunt but if any stood near them to hearken they were presently silent Were the hearts of many men anatomized and opened we should find Riches and Content deeply rooted in the very center but Holiness and Obedience and Honesty of conversation written in faint and fading characters in superficie in the very surface and outside of the heart Villam malumus quà m coelum We had rather have a Farm a Cottage than Paradise and three lives in that than eternity in heaven We had rather be rich than good mighty than just And talk what you will of sanctifying Gods Name we had rather make our selves one of advancing his Kingdom we had rather reign as Kings of fulfilling Gods Will we will do our own of the Bread of life Give us this day our daily Bread But thus to pray is not to pray 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after that manner which Christ here taught but a strange 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 want of method in our Devotion Our Love is seen in our language For those things which most affect us we love to talk of we use to dream of and our thoughts are restless in the pursuit of them It was observed in Alexander as a kind of prophesie and presage of his many conquests quòd nihil humile aut puerile sciscitaretur that he speaking with the Persian Ambassadors askt no childish or vain question sed aut viarum longitudinem aut itinerum modos but of the length of the wayes and the distance of places of the Persian King and of his Court A man saith the Wise-man is known by his speech and a Christian by his prayers I could be copious in this argument but purposely forbear because it is so common a place Only to set your Devotion on fire and raise it to things above may you please to consider Temporal goods 1. not satisfactory 2. as an hindrance to the improvement of Spiritual Do but consult your own Reason and that will tell you that the Mind of man is unsatiable in this life Who ever yet brought all his ends and purposes about and rested there Possideas quantum rapuit Hero Let a man possess what Craft and unlawful Policy can entitle him to Let him be Lord of all that lyes in the bosome of the earth and in the bosome of the Sea Let him as Solomon did even study how to give himself all delight imaginable yet with all this cost with all this pains and travel he is as far from what he lookt for as when he first set out Now as God having made the Understanding an eye hath made the whole Universe for its object so having placed a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an infinite desire in the soul hath proportioned something to allay it Which since these temporal things cannot do it is evident that heaven and spiritual blessings are those things which alone can satisfie this infinite appetite Put them both in the Scales and there is no comparison You may as well measure Time by Aeternity and weigh a little sand on the shore with the whole Ocean Again as they do not satisfie so are they an hinderance to our improvement in spiritual wealth Alter de lucro cogitat alter de honore putat quòd eum Deus possit audire One thinks of Gain when he prays for Godliness another of Honor when he talks of Heaven We may call this Prayer if we will but most certain it is that God never hears it nor any prayer which is not made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Isidore speaks with diligence Which leads us to that which we proposed in the third place That when we pray Hallowed be thy Name we do not simply pray that God will do it without us but that he will supply us with those means and helps
their faith quos in magnis aeternae beatitudinis constituet exemplis whom he means to place amongst the few but great examples of eternal happiness Semper diem observant cum semper ignorant quotidie timeant quod quotidie sperant saith Tertullian in that excellent Book of his De Anima For whilst men are alwayes ignorant they are also alwayes observant and fear that may come this minute which they hope and are assured will come at last Lastly this ADVENIAT as it is the language of our Hope and Faith so is it the dialect olso of our Charity and Love both to God and our Brethren Thy Kingdome come Why certainly it will come Certus esto veniet Nec solum veniet sed etsi nolis veniet saith St. Augustine You may be sure it will come nay it will come whether we will or no Our prayers perchance may hasten it but no power in heaven or in earth or in hell can keep it back But this ADVENIAT this prayer of ours that it may come is a kind of subscription to the eternal decree of God that it should come By this we testifie our consent shew our agreement and make it appear that we are truly his subjects since we would have that which our King would have and are of the same mind with him We usually say that they who are true friends have idem Velle idem Nolle will and nill the self-same things It is said of Abraham that he was the friend of God And not only Abraham 2 Chron. 20. 7. Isa 41. 8. James 2. 23. but every true son of Abraham that feareth the Lord doth also inherit Abrahams title and is the friend of God If therefore we will be counted Abrahams Children and the Friends of God we must will and nill the same things with God or else we shall not continue long friends Non pareo Deo sed assentior ex animo illum non quia necesse est sequor saith the heathen Seneca We do not so much obey God because he hath authority to command as because we acknowledge that what he will have is just and good and we assent to him not of necessity but of a willing mind We intreat him to do his will and begg it at his hand as a great favour We cry unto him ADVENIAT Thy Kingdome come though we know that he is already resolved that it shall come And so in this one word ADVENIAT we may see the motion of our Faith the activity of our Hope and the humble plyability of our Love And thus we may totâ fidei substantiâ incidere as Tertullian speaketh we may with these three go forth to meet the King as with the whâ—le armour and substance of our faith Now our Desire must needs be carried on â—n a swift and eager course where these three do fill the sails where Faith awakes it Hope spurs it on and Love upholds and countenances it It must needs be more than an ordinary heat of affection which is kindled by all these These three will set ADVENIAT to the highest pinn to the highest elevation of our thoughts Let thy Kingdome come yet not till the appointed time yet let it come Though many thousands of years are to pass over before it come yet let it come not now but when thou wilt and when thou wilt yet now It cannot come soon enough if thou wilt and if thou wilt not now it cannot come too late It was a famous saying of Martyn Luther Homo perfectè credens se esse haeredem filium Dei non diu superstes maneret Did a man perfectly believe that he were a child of God heir of this Kingdome of Glory he would be transported beyond himself and dye of immoderate joy We read EXSPECTATIO MEA APUD Psal 39. 7. TE My hope is even in thee but the Vulgar renders it SUBSTANTIA MEA APUD TE My substance my being is in thee as if David were composed and made up and elemented of his Hope as if all that he had all that he was were only in expectation And indeed they who affect a future life and look forward towards eternity are truly said nè tunc quidem tùm vivunt vivere not to be where they are not to live when they are alive To conclude No wonder to hear an ADVENIAT for a Christians mouth who lives so as if he thought of nothing else but the Comming of this Kingdome For this ADVENIAT is as a spark from that fire as a beam of that Glory which shall be hereafter Nor can he ever with a perfect desire sound an ADVENIAT who hath not some imperfect knowledge of the melody of the Angels and the musick of the Cherubims He cannot say Thy Kingdome come who hath not a glimpse of that glory which is to come The Philosophers tell us that there is nothing which can be nourishing to our bodies but we have a kind of fore-taste and assay of it in our very tempers and constitutions The Child when he is hungry desires milk because he hath a kind of praegustation of milk in his very nature Nihil penitus incongruum appetitur Nothing is desired by us which disagrees with our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and disposition The wickedst Christian living may say his PATER NOSTER but he cannot pronounce the ADVENIAT with that accent and emphasis and heartiness that he should Thy Kingdome come Nay rather let mountains fall on me and hills cover me And all this because the Glory of Gods Kingdome is against his very nature What taste can he have of the Water of life who is in the gall of bitterness What relish can he have of the Bread of life who surfets on the world Or can he have any praegustation of Heaven whose very soul by covetousness is become as earthy as his body Can he desire eternal Glory whose glory is in his shame No Vita Christiani sanctum desiderium The life of a true Christian is nothing else but a holy desire and an expectation of the comming of this Kingdome of Christ Which he hath a taste and relish of even in his very temper and constitution which he received at his regeneration For so St. Paul calleth our regeneration and amendment of life a taste of the heavenly gift of the good word of God and of the Hebr. 6. 4 5. powers of the world to come For as God commanded Moses before he dyed to ascend up into the mountain that he might see afar off and discover that good land which he had promised So it is his pleasure that through holy conversation and newness of life we should raise our selves above the rest of the world and even in this life time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene speaks as from an exceeding high mountain discover and have some sight of that good Land of that Crown of glory which is laid up for all those who watch and wait for
have us to wait upon him at distance When he teacheth us to call him FATHER he seems to call us too near to him that we go not too far but when he commands us to say Thy will be done he teacheth us like Servants to know our place that we come not too near nor be too familiar with him I will yet add one reason more and that from Christ himself who was now come into the world not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him This will be now declares to all the world Which was but darkly seen before wrapt up in types hid in visions vailed in the ceremonies of the Law but now it is made manifest to all the world So that we may find a kind of triumph in this Form the acclamations of Love and Joy FIAT Thy will be done For as Job said Shall we receive good things at the hands of God and not evil so on the contrary shall we set a FIAT set our seal to the evils which God sends and not to the good news to the voice of his thunder when he scatters his enemies and not to the voice of his Angel which proclaims peace The Redemption of mankind by the comming of Christ was praecipua pars providentiae the fairest piece in which the Providence of God shewed it self decreed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the foundations of the world were laid This FIAT then Thy will be done is he voice of Faith and Obedience and Gratitude The Grammarians tell us there be some words which will not fit a Tragedy and Donatus had a conceit Si ferrum nominetur in comaedia transit in tragoediam That but to name a Sword in a Comedy were enough to fright it into a Tragedy But these words will serve and fit both fit us on our good dayes and fit us on our bad fit us in our sorrow and in our joy in the house of mourning and at a triumph as fit for us the first comming of Christ as for the second But this is not all For this flows but from a decree of God what he would do on the earth and what he would do for us And this might awake the most sullen Ingratitude We are all willing to set a FIAT to those decrees which are made for our good Will God send his Son His will be done Here a FIAT hath not enough of the wing and therefore the gloss which our Heart gives is Oh Lord make no long tarrying But besides this as Christ came to do his Fathers will so he came to teach us his will also Certainly to think otherwise is a most dangerous error For what is it but to make the Gospel of Christ to be the Gospel of sinful man nay the Gospel of the Devil What is it but to poyson the many wholsome precepts we find there This shuts up the FIAT within the compass of the absolute Decree and our Petition is no more then this That God would be as good as his word and fulfill those promises on us which he made before the foundations of the world were laid Gods Promises are like his Threats conditional If thou believe I will give unto thee eternal life If thou overcome thou shalt be crowned Is it not good news to the heavy-laden that by comming to Christ he may be eased to the rich that he may make such friends of Mammon as may at last receive him into everlasting habitations to the captive that he may shake his shackles off and to every Christian that if he will but fight he shall purchase a Kingdome The Gospel is not the less Gospel because it conteins precepts and laws Evangelical Laws is no contradiction at all Will you hear our Saviour speak like a Law-giver This is my commandment And You shall be my Disciples if you do what I command you Will you see him in his robes as a Judge Behold him in flaming fire taking vengeance on them 2 Thess 1. 8. that know not God And who are they Even those that obey not the Gospel of Christ And how shall they be judged According to my Gospel Rom. 2. 16. saith St. Paul We need not stand longer on this point But if they will not grant us this we will yet increase further upon them and shew this Petition to be most proper to the Gospel For it is not only This is my commandment but A new commandment give I unto you For though at sundry John 13. 34. times and in divers manners God had revealed his Will to our Fathers by the Prophets yet in these last dayes he hath spoken by his Son more plainly and more fully expressing his will then ever heretofore and after which he will never speak again For the Grace of God is made manifest by the 2 Tim. 1. 10. appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath abolisht death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel And as it is his last Will so it removes those indulgences and dispensations which were granted under the Law and which stood as a thick cloud before the eyes of the Jews that they could not fully and clearly discern the full purport of his Will Hac ratione munit nos Christus adversus Diaboli latitudines saith Tertullian The opening of Gods Will by Christ is as a fense to keep us from those latitudes and exspatiations and extravagancies and shews us yet a more excellent way discovering unto us the danger of those sins which heretofore under the Law went under that name The Jews were Gods peculiar people and to them he gave his statutes and his testimonies but yet he did not expect that perfection from a Jew which he doth from a Christian Our Saviour doth not only clear the Law from those corrupt glosses with which the Jewish Doctors had infected it but also ampliavit expanxit legem totam retro vetustatem as Tertullian speaketh Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord Isa 53. 1. revealed saith the Prophet Some report the Prophets made but not all nor were they fully heard It is the Will of God that we deny our selves that we take up our cross that we use this world as if we used it not living in the world but out of the world non exercentes quod nati sumus not being what indeed we are Where find we these lessons this his Will but in the Gospel A vain attempt it is to draw them into the Decalogue by force by I know not what Analogie by long and far-fetcht deductions For by the same art I may contract all the ten Commandments into one No man commits a sin but ipso facto in some proportioned sense he hath set up another God which is only forbid in the first Commandment We use not to commit those secrets to every messenger which we do to our son Nor did the Prophets the Messengers of Christ know
noxious and malignant humor It is but a word but a syllable but as the cloud in the Book of Kings as big as a mans hand but as that anon covered all the heavens over and yielded great store of rain so may this word this syllable yield us plenty of instruction But we will confine and limit our discourse and draw those lines which we will pass by and which we will not exceed We shall shew 1. how Sin is ours 2. That all sins are ours 3. That they are only ours and lastly That they are wholly and totally ours that so we may agere poenitentìam plenam as the Ancients used to speak that our exomologesis may be open and sincere and our repentance full and compleat And of these in their order There is nothing more properly ours than Sin Not our Bodies For God formed Man of the dust of the ground de limo terrae quasi ex utero matris Gen. 2 7. saith Tertullian shaped him out of the earth as out of his mothers womb Not our Souls For he breathed into us the breath of life Not our Understandings For he kindled this great light in our souls Not our Affections For he imprinted them in our nature Not the Law For it is but a beam and a radiation from that eternal Law which was alwayes with him Quòd lex bona est nostrum non est quòd malè vivimus nostrum That the Law is just and holy and true is not from us but that we break this law this we can attribute to none but our selves Nec nobis quicquam infoelicius in peccato habemus quà m nos auctores And this may seem our greatest infelicity that when Sin lyes at our doors we can find no father for it but our selves and that we are the authors of that evil which destroys us Now this propriety which we have to Sin ariseth from the very nature of Man who was not made only Lord of the world but had free possession given him of himself and that freedom and power of Will which was libripens emancipati à Deo boni which doth hold the balance and weigh and poise both Good and Evil and may touch and strike either skale as he pleaseth For Man is not good or evil by necessity or chance but by the freedom of his Will quod à Deo rationaliter attributum ab homine verò quà voluit agitatum which was wisely given him of God but is managed by man at pleasure and levelled and directed to either object either good or evil either life or death So that it is not my Knowledge of evil it is not my Remembrance of evil it is not my Contemplation of sin nay it is not my Acting of sin I mean the producing of the outward act which makes Sin mine but my Will Voluntas mali malos efficit sed scientia mali non facit scientes malos saith Parisiensis Sin may be in the understanding and in the Memory and yet not mine I may know it and loath it I may remember and abhor it I may do some act which the Law forbids and yet not break that Law But when my Will which doth reign as an Empress over every faculty of the soul and over every part of the body which saith unto this part Go and it goes and to another Do this and it doth it when this commanding faculty doth once yield and give her assent against that Law which is just fit jam proprietas mali in homine quodammodo natura saith Tertullian then Sin is our choice our purchase our possession and there ariseth a kind of propriety and it is made in a manner natural unto us because we receive and admit it into our very nature at that gate which we might have shut against it The Adulterer may think that he is not guilty of sin till he have taken his fill of lust but that sin was his when his will first yielded An putas tunc primùm te intrare meritorium cùm fornicem meretricis ingrederis saith St. Ambrose Dost thou think thou then first entredst the stews when thou didst first set foot in the harlots house Intrasti jam cùm cogitationes tuas meretrix intravit Thou wert in already when the strange woman entred thy thoughts And when thy will had determined its act thou wert an adulterer though thou knewest no woman And St. Augustine gives the reason Nihil enim aliud quà m ipsum velle est habere quod volumus For to have that which I will it is enough to will it Villicus si velit nihil peccat saith Columella The Steward or Farmer doth nothing amiss unless he will Homo potest peccare sed si nolit non facit saith the Father Man may sin but if he sin there can be no other reason given but his Will For the Will is of that power as to entitle me to sin though I break not forth into action and when I am forced to the outward act to quit me from the guilt of sin to denominate me either evil or good when I do neither evil nor good and when my hands are shackled and bound Lucrece was ravisht by Tarquin and yet was as chast as before and the Oratour said well Duo fuerunt adulterium unus admisit There were two in the fact and but one committed adultery For natural Reason did suggest this Mentem peccare non corpus That it is the Mind and Will and not the Body which sins and where there is a strong resolution not to offend there can be no offense at all For it is not in my power what to do or not to do but it is in my power to will or not to will to make choice or refuse And therefore there is no such danger in the doctrine of Freewill as some have phansied to themselves and brought it in as an argument against it that it is dangerous For though my Will be free my Power is restrained and hath bounds set it Thus far shall I go and no farther 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hierocles Those things which are before me I may choose but those I cannot which are out of my reach I may will the ruin of a Kingdom when I am not able to destroy a cottage I may will the death of my brother and yet not be able to lift up my finger against him My Will is illimited but my Power hath bounds And indeed it was not an argument against Freewill but a Rhetorical flourish and empty boast which we find in Martin Luther Veniant magnifici illi liberi arbitrii ostentatores saith he Let those loud and glorious upholders of Freewill come and shew this freedom but in the killing of a flea For he mistook and made our Power and Will to an act all one when it is plain and manifest that he who cannot challenge a power to kill a flea yet may put on a will and resolution to murder a
stand upright at the great day of tryal Neither did these monsters only blemish this doctrine but it received some stain also from their hands who were its stoutest champions Not to mention Clemens Alexandrinus Theophilus Cyprian Hilary and others St. Augustine that great pillar of the truth and whose memory will be ever pretious in the Church though he often interpret the word Justification for Remission of sins yet being deceived by the likeness of sound in these two words JUSTIFICARE and SANCTIFICARE doth in many places confound them both and make Justification to be nothing else but the making of a man just So in his Book De Spiritu Litera c. 26. interpreting that of the Apostle Being justified freely by his grace he makes this discant Non ait PER LEGEM sed PER GRATIAM He doth not say by the Law but by Grace And he gives his reason Ut sanet gratia voluntatem ut sanata voluntas impleat legem That Grace might cure the Will and the Will being freed might fulfill the Law And in his Book De Spiritu Gratia he saith Spiritus Sanctus diffundit charitatem quâ unâ justi sunt quicunque justi sunt The holy Spirit powers out his love into our hearts by which Love alone they are just whosoever are just And whosoever is but little conversant in that Father shall soon observe that where he deals with the Pelagian he makes the grace of Justification and of Sanctification all one Now that which the Father says is true but ill placed For in every Christian there is required Newness of life and Sanctity of conversation but what is this to Justification and Remission of sins which is no quality inherent in us but the act of God alone As therefore Tully speaks of Romulus who kill'd his brother Peccavit pace vel Quirini vel Romuli dixerim By Romulus his good leave though he were the founder of our Common-wealth he did amiss So with reverence to so worthy and so pious a Saint we may be bold to say of great St. Augustine that if he did not erre yet he hath left those ill weighed speeches behind him which give countenance to those foul mishapen errours which blur and deface that mercy which wipes away our sins For Aquinas in his 1 a 2 ae q. 113. though he grant what he cannot deny because it is a plain Text That Remission of sins is the Not-imputation of sins yet he adds That Gods wrath will not be appeased till Sin be purged out and a new habit of Grace infused into the soul which God doth look upon and respect when he forgives our sins Hence those unsavory tenets of the Romish Church That Justification is not a pronouncing but a making one righteous That inherent holiness is the formal cause of Justification That we may redeem our sins and puchase forgiveness by Fasting Almes-deeds and other good works All which if she do not expose to the world in this very garb and shape yet she so presents them that they seem to speak no less so that her followers are very apt and prompt to come towards them and embrace them even in this shape And although Bellarmine by confounding the term of Justification and distinguishing of a Faith informed with Charity and a Faith which is not and by putting a difference between the works of the Law and those which are done by the power and virtue of the holy Spirit and by allotting no reward but that which is freely promised and promised to those who are in the state of grace and adoption though by granting that the Reward doth far exceed the dignity of our Works he striveth to bring the Church of Rome as near to St. Paul as he can and lays all the colours he hath to make her opinion resemble his yet when he tells us that the Good works of the Saints may truly satisfie the Law of God and merit eternal life when he makes our Satisfaction go hand in hand with Christs and that Fasting and Prayer and Alms are satisfactory not only for punishment but for all punishment and which is more for the guilt it self he hath in effect unsaid what formerly he had laid down concerning the free Remission of our sins and made so wide a breach between St. Paul and their Church as neither St. Peter nor all the Saints they invocate are able to close In a word he speaks as good sense as Theodorus Antiochenus doth in Photius his Bibliotheca who makes a twofold Forgiveness of sins the one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those things which we have done the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Impeccancie or Leaving off to Sin So that we may say with Photius What this Forgiveness is or from whence it is is impossible to find out No doubt God taketh notice of the graces he hath bestowed on his children and registreth every good work they do and will give an eternal reward not only to the Faith of Abraham the Chastity of Joseph the Patience of Job the Meekness of Moses the Zeal of Phinehas the Devotion of David but even to the Widows two mites cast into the treasury to a cup of cold water given to a thirsty Disciple Yet most true it is that all the righteousness of all the Saints cannot merit forgiveness And we will take no other reason or proof for this position but that of Bellarmins Non acceptat Deus in veram satisfactionem pro peccato nisi justitiam infinitam God must have an infinite satisfaction because the sin is infinite Shall I give my first-born for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul Shall I bring the merits of one Saint and the supererogations of another and add to these the treasury of the Church All these are but as an atome to the infinite mass of our Sin Shall I yet add my Fasting my Alms my Tears my Devotion All these will vanish at the guilt of Sin and melt before it as wax before the Sun We must therefore disclaim all hope of help from our selves or any or all creatures in earth or in heaven It is only the Lamb of God who taketh John 1. 29. away the sins of the world the Man Christ Jesus is the only Mediatour between 1 Tim. 2. 5. God and Man He alone is our Advocate with the Father and the 1 John 2. 1 2. propitiation for our sins His bloud cleanseth us from all sin In him we have 1 John 1. 7. Eph. 1. 7. Eph. 3. 12. redemption through his bloud the forgiveness of sins In him we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him In his name therefore who taught us thus to pray let us put up this Petition Forgive us our debts and our prayer will be graciously heard and we shall be accepted in the Beloved Eph. 1. 6. all our Debt will be remitted through the merits of our Surety who hath
with us we have as much reason to be afraid of Mercy as of a Tentation and to beg it at the hands of God that it do not prove so even a temptation and occasion of sin For at the very name of Mercy we lye down and rest in peace This is the pillow on which we can sleep in the midst of a tempest and dream of heaven when we are entring the very gates of hell We make the Pardon of sin commeatum delinquendi but a kind of faculty or safe-conduct that we may sin the more boldly A heavy speculation it is but Experience hath made it good We have learnt a cursed art how to change and transelement the Mercy of God We make our selves worse for the Goodness of God and continue in sin because he is long-suffering Forgiveness blots-out sin and Forgiveness revives it We will not be rich in Good works because God is bountiful of his merits and we are many times most sinful upon no other inducement then a faith unhappy and ill applyed That God is most merciful Deus inquiunt bonus optimus salutificator omnium saith Tertullian This is the plea of most men GOD IS GOOD AND MERCIFUL AND THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD Haec sunt sparfilia eorum These are those sprinklings of comfort with which they abate the rage of that hell which Sin hath already kindled in their breast And as it fares with us in respect of temporal life so doth it also in respect of spiritual life We lay-up for many years when we cannot promise to our selves a night and we talk of to morrow when the next word may be our last and though the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men bow themselves and the grinders cease yet we nourish a hope of life even then when our voice fails us and we have not strength enough to publish our hope So when we lye bedrid in sin almost at the last gasp when our members are withered when our understandings are darkned and our memories fail us when we are nothing else but the carkass and shadow of a Christian we talk of the glories and riches of the Gospel hope to be saved by that Grace which we have slighted and by that Mercy which we have trampled under our feet We force Mercy to these low offices in our health and jollity to sit with us in the seat of the scornful to walk with us in our inordinate courses and to make the way smooth and pleasant which leadeth unto death and at last when we lye on our death-beds we get it to perswade us that we who have believed and no more who all our life long had no other virtue than Faith may now dye in hope that we may dye the death of the righteous who have made our members the weapons of unrighteousness Thus we pray That Gods will may be done That we may overcome Tentations but we live as if there were no other Petition but this Forgive us our Trespasses Tertullian saith Solenne est perversis idiotis It is a common thing with ignorant and foolish men with men of perverse hearts to lay hold upon some one fair promising Text and to set it up adversus exercitum sententiarum instrumenti totius against a whole army of those sad and ill-boding sayings which qualifie it HABEMUS ADVOCATUM If we sin we have an Advocate with the Father This is a fundamental truth and to this we stand and never heed those passionate Texts in Scripture those expostulating Texts Why will you dye Oh fools Ezek. 33. 11. Psal 94. 8. Psal 81. 13. when will you be wise those wishing Texts Oh that my people would understand that Israel would hear my voice those forewarning Texts Tribulation and anguish on every soul that doth evil and They that do these things Rom. 2. 9. Gal. 5. 21. cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven and those begging and beseeching Texts I beseech you brethren be reconciled I beseech you abstain from carnal lusts 2 Cor. 5. 20. 2 Pet. 2. 11. I have often wondred within my self how it should come to pass that so many Heathen have surpassed most Christians in the commendable duties of this life that even Turks and Pagans do loath those sins which Christians swallow-down with ease and digest with all their horror and turpitude why the light of Reason should discover to them the foul aspect of Sin which the Christian many times doth not discern with that light and with another to boot the light of Scripture why the secret whisper of Nature should more prevail with them then doth with many of us the voice of God himself and the open declaration of his will in Scripture But it is too true They are not alwayes best who have most motives to be so For as it falls-out sometimes in men of great learning and subtilty though they are able to resolve every doubt untie every knot and answer the strongest objections yet many times they are puzzled with a meer fallacy and piece of sophistry So the formal Christian can stand strong against all motives all beseechings all the batteries of God against the terrour of hell and allurements of promises but he is puzzled with a piece of sophistry and cannot extricate and unwind himself with the Devils fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter That Mercy doth save sinners which are penitent and therefore it saves all And upon this ground the Pleasures which are but for a season shall win upon us when Heaven with its eternity cannot move us and the supposed Tediousness and Trouble which is in Goodness shall affright us from Good works more than the Torments which are eternal can from Sin So that that Mercy which the unbelieving Heathen wanted to make them happy the Christian hath but ad poenam to make him miserable being made by him the savour of death unto death And that which is his priviledge here shall be to his greater condemnation and urged as a reason why the Christian shall have more stripes than the Infidel To restrain this evil which is the cause of all evil and the abuse of Mercy which envenomes it and makes it malignant and leaves us so incurable that infinite Mercy cannot restore us that ipsa Salus Salvation it self cannot help us the primitive Christians admitted publick penance in the Church but once after Baptism They had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens speaks primam unam poenitentiam as Tertullian but one repentance but one which was first and last fearing lest if they did laxare fraenos disciplinae slacken the reins of discipline and admit of notorious sinners toties quoties though they laid-down and took-up their sins at pleasure they might make that a fomenter of Sin which was ordeined to kill it The Novatian was yet stricter and would not admit it once and therefore underwent the Churches heaviest censure as an enemy to God and to his
bids us tread him under foot He bids us who is Xystarchus the master of the race and Epistates the overseer of the combate His Grace is Bellonia that divine Power which shall drive-back our enemies And if the Devil inspire evil thoughts God is both able and willing to inspire good and in all our tryals in all time of our tribulation in all time of our wealth in the hour of death and in the day of judgment his Grace is sufficient for us that our rejoycing and boasting may be in the Lord that the glorious company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble army of Martyrs that all the victorious Saints of God may cast-down their crowns at his feet and confess that Salvation is from the Lord. And thus much be spoken of the Reasons why God doth exercise his servants with divers tentations The Four and Fourtieth SERMON PART IV. MATTH VI. 13. And lead us not into tentation but deliver us from evil THE Reasons why God permits Tentations and hath placed mankind as it were in open field to fight it out against spiritual enemies we laid before you the last day We proceed now to discover the Manner of their operation and working and to find-out when they become sins and how we may know they have prevailed and overcome us The Will of Man as his Desire is led with respect of somewhat that is good or at least seemeth so This provoketh and draweth both Sense and Will to perform her actions And though the Desire which is first and the Delight which follows be inward and inherent yet those things which we affect and would attain are then external when we pursue them and when we enjoy them they are but in a manner conjoyned with us in opinion or possession which contenteth both body and soul St. Augustine upon the 79 Psalm makes two roots of Sin Desire and Fear Omnia peccata duae res faciunt Desiderium Timor St. James tells us that every man is tempted by his own lust which is the nurse and mother of Sin Nor doth St. Augustine jarr with St. James who setteth down Lust for the first spring of every tentation to Sin For either that Tentation which St. James speaks of is a delightful provocation to sin resting within us or that Terror which St. Augustine addeth is nothing else but a violent and external inducement working from without Or else we may joyn the one as a consequent to the other since the natural Desire we have of our own ease breadeth in us the Dislike and Fear of evil which so strongly urgeth and forceth us From whence we may conclude that if Desire and Fear as St. Augustine speaks be the motives and inducements to all sins and the Desire and Fear on which depend the rest of the affections be passions of the Sensitive part of the Soul permixed in this life with corporal Spirits then all have their provocation and incitement from the bodily senses spirits or motions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Alexandrinus All Desires and Fears and Sorrows have their original rising and motion from the Body For the Father will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Passion is nothing else but a sensible motion of the Desiring and Appetitive faculty upon the imagination of good or evil The passions of the soul as Desire Fear Joy Sorrow do not move in this life without the Body First in that they are sensible motions they must be perceived in the Body Secondly in that they rise from the Sensitive appetite they are conjoyned with the Body Thirdly in that they come from the Phansie or Imagination of good or evil whether truly so or but in appearance they are kindled from the Senses of the Body What the Eye sees beautiful awaketh my Desires what terrible provokes Hatred and Disdain What is good and atchievable lightens my Joy What is evil and unavoidable begets Sorrow According as things objected to Sense or remembred after seem good or evil to the powers of the soul so is Desire or Anger kindled by Pleasure on the one side or Dislike and Grief on the other which presently and with a kind of violence prevaileth with the Soul if we do not stand up strong to resist them Thus the Body hath its operation upon the Soul as the Soul hath upon the Body Adeò autem non sola anima transigit vitam ut nec cogitatus licèt solos licèt non ad effectum per carnem deductos auferamus à collegio carnis saith Tertullian So far is it that the Soul should be alone in the actions of our life that we cannot take those thoughts which are alone and not yet by the flesh brought into act from the society and fellowship of the body For in the flesh and with the flesh and by the flesh that is done by the soul which is done in the heart and inward man In all sins not only the Doers and Actors but the Leaders Directors and Advisers Consenters and Allowers are guilty with the Principal All the Instruments are justly detested where the Sin is worthily condemned The Creatures of God which in themselves are very good being made snares and pricks and thorns unto man are subjected Rom. 8. 20. to vanity and have no better ruler than Satan the God of this world because that by infecting Man with sin he hath altered and inverted the use and end of the whole world The Eye that wanderd after vanity shall be filled with horror the Ear that delighted in blasphemy shall be punished with weeping and gnashing of teeth the Touch which luxury and wantonness corrupted shall be tormented with fire and brimstone Men as well as Angels sin in their whole natures in their bodies and in their souls Otherwise one part must be placed in hell as peccant the other in heaven as innocent And this the Fathers made an argument and strong proof of the Resurrection of the dead Sic ad patiendum societatem carnis expostulat anima ut tam plenè per eam pati possit quà m sine ea plenè agere non potuit The Soul must have the society and company of the Body in the punishment as she made it a fellow and companion in sin that now she may as fully suffer by it and with it as before without it she could do nothing And they bring her in thus bespeaking the Flesh Thou didst let open the gates at which the enemy enterd that destroy'd us both Thou hadst Beauty for which I was more deformed Riches for which I was the poorer Thou wert clothed sumptuously for which I was the more naked Thou hadst Strength for which I was the weaker Thou hadst Eyes which let-in those colours which are now blackness and darkness Thou hadst Ears which suckt-in that musick which is turned into mourning In thee was the sin shaped and formed which begat death I have sinned in thee and with thee and now we
may not only subdue and overcome it but turn it to our benefit and behoof that though with Samsons Lion it comes with open mouth to devour us yet we may kill it by degrees and find honey and sweetness in the belly of it This Flesh of ours is much blamed as being a prison of the Soul and a weight to press it down The Manichee observing that war which is betwixt it and the soul allowed it no better maker than the Devil but is solidly confuted by St. Augustine Gregory Nyssen calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fuliginous ill-savoured shop But all this will not make Tentations unavoidable or bring-in an Impossibility of prevailing against them Non enim caro suo nomine infamis saith Tertullian The Flesh is not ill-spoken of for it self Neque enim de proprio sapit aliquid aut sentit for it doth neither understand nor will but is of another substance another nature added and joyned to the Soul as an instrument in the shop of life Therefore the Flesh is blamed in Scripture because the Soul doth nothing without it Nor was it made to press us down to Hell but by the power of the soul to be lifted up into heaven Animus Imperator corporis The Mind hath supream power over the Body and is inthroned there the Body is made to be obedient and tractable to be reined and checked and guided by the Mind Whence Athanasius compares the Soul to a Musician and the Body to a Harp or Lute which she may tune and touch with that art and skill as that it may yield a pleasant and delightful harmony nunc pietatis carmen nunc temperantiae modulos as St. Ambrose speaks now a song of Sion a Psalm of Piety a coelestial Hymn and again the composed measures of temperance and chastity It was made for the Soul as Eve was for Adam in adjutorium not to tempt and seduce it but to be a helper What part almost is there of Christianity which is not performed by the ministry of the Body Hast thou a hand to take thy brother by the throat thou hast a Hand also to lift him out of the dust Hast thou an Eye to take in the adulteress thou hast an Eye also to pity the poor Hast thou a Tongue which is a sword to wound thy brothers reputation thou mayest if thou wilt make it thy glory and minister a word of comfort in due season Domus animae caro est inquilinus carnis anima The Body is the House of the Soul and the Soul the tenant and inmate of the Body Desiderabit ergò inquilinus ex causa hujus nominis profutura domui therefore the Soul is obliged by this very name as she is an inmate to watch over the Body and carefully to provide those things which may uphold and sustein it and not to put it to slavish and servile offices to let and hire it out to Sin and Uncleanness which will bring a fearful ruin both upon the house and the tenant cast both Body and Soul into hell Nè nobis ergò blandiamur quia Dominus consensit carnem esse infirmam nam praedixit spiritum esse promptum ut ostenderet quid cui esse debeat subjectum Let us not therefore saith Tertullian flatter our selves in sin because Christ hath told us that the Flesh is weak for he hath told us also that the Spirit is strong and thereby made it plain unto us which part should be subject to the other that we may not excuse our selves by the infirmity of our Flesh but uphold and establish our selves by the strength of the Spirit For tell me Why were we baptized why were we made Christians Was it not to mortifie our earthly members and lusts non exercere quod nati sumus to be in the body and out of the body to tame the wantonness of the flesh to make it our greatest care that the Flesh which is weak prevail not against the Spirit which is strong to fight against temptations and especially against the most dangerous tentation which perswade us that we are weaker than we are For I cannot see of what use this unseasonable consideration of our own weakness should be when the Lord of hosts is with us when he hath girded us with strength and power when he hath fitted us with all habiliments of war the Helmet of Salvation the Sword of the Spirit and the Shield of Faith when they that are with us are more and stronger than they which are against us You will say perhaps To humble us Indeed we cannot be too humble under the mighty hand of God but that is not Humility but baseness which humbles us under tentation This is the best use we commonly make of it We remember our weakness and that thought leads us captive makes us so humble as to crouch and fall at the foot of the enemy which will devour us This low conceit of our selves is the cause of all the errors of our life Desperatione debilitati experiri id nolunt quod assequi posse diffidunt saith Tullie As it is in Arts and Sciences so is it in our Christian warfare Nothing more weakens and disinables us than our Distrust and Diffidence in our selves and we never make a proffer or motion to do that which we presume we cannot do when as they who affect any great matter must try every way break through all opposition do what they can nay do more than they imagine they can do And as David went up against Goliath and ask'd Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defie the armies of the living God so should we buckle on our armor and draw near to the strongest tentation and defie it For what is this Tentation that it should stand up against the whole armour of God against those armies of the living God his many Precepts his many Promises the Examples of good men the Prayers of the Saints What are these Tentations that they should gain the victory over our Faith Are they principalities or powers or things present or things to come are they life or death they shall not be able to separate us from the love of God Thus may we overthrow them in the name of the Lord. We read in the Historian of Caligula the Emperour Nihil tam efficere concupiscebat quà m quod posse effici negaretur that he was most eager in attempting that which he knew before-hand could not be done And this no doubt was a great argument not only of pride but of folly in him But certainly it is a far more dangerous folly in a matter that so nearly concerns us as our everlasting welfare to frame to our selves an impossibility of doing that which we are bound to do which not to do is to undo and destroy our selves to think we are too weak to fight who have vowed to overcome To attempt that which I cannot do is but to lose my labor but not to do
which are uncertain are with great curiosity searcht into and those which are dark and obscure for any light we have past finding out are the subject of every discourse and have set mens pens and tongues a working Although even this Curiosity is from the Evil one which is alwayes as far from Knowledge as it is eager to enquire and seeks for that which cannot be sound and so passeth by those certa in paucis as Tertullian saith that which lyes naked and open in our way seeks for many things and so neglects those few which are necessary For the Devil in this is like the Lapwing which flutters and is most busie and hovers over that place which is most remote from its nest He cryes Here is Christ and there is Christ Here the truth is to be found and There it is to be found where no sign of footstep not the least shadow of it appears I will not mention these That which hath made Error a God to reign and rule amongst men by the Devils chymistry hath been attracted and wrought out of the Truth it self That worship is due unto God is not only a fundamental truth in Divinity but a principle in Nature and here it should rest But by the policie of Satan it hath been drawn to his Saints to Pictures to Statues to the Cross of Christ nay to the very Representation of it And men have learnt sub nomine religionis famulari errori as the Fathers in the third Councel of Toledo speak of the people of Spain to submit and wait upon Error under the habit of Religion and the name of Catholick and Orthodox Again if we look into the world we shall find that nothing deceives men more nothing doth more mischief amongst men then the thought that those things must needs please God which we do with a good mind and with an ardent affection and zeal and love to Religion This guilds over Murder and Covertousness and Idolatry and Sedition and all those evils which rent and wound the Church of Christ and many times pull Common-wealths in pieces Murder hath no voice Covetousness is no sin Faction is zeal for the Lord of Hosts If we can comfort our selues that we mean well and have set up the glory of God in our phansie only as a mark and when we cast an eye upon that with Jehu we drive on furiously We steal an ox to make a sacrifice we grind the face of the poor that we may afterwards build an Hospital and are very wicked all the dayes of our life that we may leave some sign of our good meaning when we are dead And this is but a sophisme a cheat put upon us by the Deceiver For though an evil intention will make an action evil yet a good one will not make an evil action good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bonum ex causâ integra There must be a concurrence of all requisites to render an action or a person good but the absence of any one serveth to denominate them evil A bad action then and a good intention cannot well be joyned together And as ill will the Profession of Christ and a profane life the Christian and the Knave sort together the one commanding as a Law and prohibition against the other and the Christian being as a judge to condemn the Knave And yet the Devils art it is to make them friends and bring them together Though we do those things which strike at the very life and soul of Christianity yet we perswade our selves we are good Christians Though we thirst after bloud and suck-in the world though we cheat our neighbour as cunningly as the Devil doth us though we breath nothing but revenge and speak nothing but swords though we know no language but that of the Horsleach Give Give though as Tertullian spake of the heathen Gods there be many honester men in hell than our selves yet we are Saints and we alone We have made Grace not the helper but the abolisher of Nature and placed it not above Reason but against it we are so full of Grace that we have lost our Honesty our tongues are set on fire by hell and yet Anathema to that Angel who shall speak against us And this is our composition and medley as if you should bind a Sermon and a Play-book together There is another fallacie of Satan yet fallacia Divisionis by which we divide and separate those things which should be joyned together as Faith and Good works Hearing and Doing Knowledge and Practice And these two though they seem to stand at distance and be opposite one to the other yet they alwayes meet For he that is ready to joyn those things which he should separate and keep asunder will be as active to separate those things which God hath put together We are hearers of the word but hearers only the only that makes a division We have faith that we have by which we are able to remove mountains even all our sins out of our way but where is that Meekness that Humility that Piety which should demonstrate our Faith and conclude that we are Christians Certainty of salvation we all challenge but we give little diligence to make our election sure Faith may seem to be as easie a duty as Hearing which begets it and to apply the merits of our Saviour and the promises of the Gospel as easie as a Thought the work of the brain and phansie for who may not conceive and say to himself that Christ is his God and his Lord Even this is one of Satans tentations to bring in the Application of Christs merits before Repentance from dead works By this craft and subtilty it is that we thus hover aloft on the wing of contemplation that we so lose our selves in one duty that we do not appear in the other not descend to work-out our salvation and busie our selves in those actions upon the performance of which the Promises will apply themselves and Christ present himself unto us in his full beauty that we may taste how gracious he is and with comfort feel him to be our Lord and our God And therefore to resolve this fallacy we must be solicitous to preserve these duties in integritaâ—e totâ solida solid and entire For he that hath one without the other hath in effect neither Valde singula virtus destituitur si non una alii virtus virtuti suffragetur Every virtue is naked and desolate if it have not the company and aid of all What is my Hearing if I be dead to Good works What is my Faith if Malice make me worse then an Infidel What is my Assurance if Unrepentance cancel it Therefore those things which God hath joyned together let no man put asunder I will but mention one Stratagem more and so conclude It is the Devils policy when he cannot throw us into Hell at once to bring us on by degrees and by lesser sins to make way and
take no denyal but looks upon the very face of God and stares upon him if he refuse to hear Which the ancients used to express by a strange kind of phrase They said this was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an holy importunity to make God ashamed For certainly even in this sense it is true Est quaedam prevaricatrix modestia est quaedam sancta impudentia there is a kind of Modesty that betrays us and there is a holy and sanctified Impudence when with the Woman here we will not be answered neither with silence nor with a denyal nor with a reproch Though he kill me saith Job and Though he call me Dogg saith the Woman here yet will I pray and double my cry I will not leave till a FIAT be spoken till the devil doth leave my daughter Haec est illa grata vis Deo This is that welcome violence with which the kingdome of heaven is taken by force This is the way by which God delights to be wooed and won Servat tibi Deus quod non vult citò dare God lays up that for thee which he will not give thee at the first ut magna magnè desideres that what thou accountest great in the possession thou mayest make also great in the purchase Thou must hunger for a crum nè fastidium veniat ad panes that thou loath not the whole loaf Our Saviour himself when he negotiated our reconciliation continued in sighs and supplications praying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with strong crying and now beholding as it were himself in this Woman and seeing though not the same yet the like fervor and perseverance in her he approves it as a piece of his own coin and sets his impress upon it O MULIER MAGNA EST FIDES TUA O woman great is thy faith And these three Patience Humility Perseverance and an undaunted Constancy in prayer measure out her Faith For Faith is not great but by opposition Non nisi difficultate constat It cannot subsist much less increase if it find no difficulty to struggle with If there were nothing to make me doubt where were my Faith What I see I believe not but when some mountain some difficulty comes between my eye and the object the virtue and crown of Faith is to look through it The woman cryes Christ is silent she doubles her cryes he denyes she cryes still he answers with a term of reproach she is the more importunate Quicquid est id porrò est What she was before she is still I might add a fourth his Prudence but that I scarce know how to distinguish it from Faith For Faith indeed is our Christian Prudence which doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Philo inoculate the soul give her a clear and pearcing eye by which she discerns great blessings in little ones a talent in a mite and a loaf in a crum which sets up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a golden light by which we spy out all spiritual advantages and learn to thrive in the merchandize of Truth We may see a beam of this light in every passage of this Woman but it is most resplendent in her art of thrift by which she can multiply a crum It is but a crum she demands For so indeed are not only temporal blessings Honor and Riches and Health but Miracles also themselves if compared to that Bread of life to our spiritual estate Yet she will make use of this Crum and dispossess at once both her daughter and her self her daughter of a devil and herself of her former impiety A Crum shall turn this Dogg into a child of Abraham To our eye a Star appears not much bigger then a candle but Reason corrects our Sense and makes it greater then the globe of the Earth so Opportunities and Occasions of good and those many Helps to increase grace in us are apprehended as atomes by a sensual eye but our Christian Prudence beholds them in their just magnitude and makes more use of a Crum that falls from the table then Folly doth of a sumptuous feast A little saith the Psalmist which the righteous hath is more then great revenues of the Psal 37. 16. wicked A little wealth a little knowledge nay a little grace may be so husbanded and improved that the increase and harvest may be greatest where there is least seed It is strange but yet we may observe it many men walk safer by star-light then others by day There is saith St. Hierome sancta rusticitas Many times it falls out that Ignorance is more holy then Knowledge Do any of the Scribes and Pharisees believe in Christ What saw they in Christ A carpenters son a friend of publicanes a conjurer What gain'd they by his miracles but their own obduration and to be worse than they were But this simple Woman saw a Lord a Divine power in his miracles and knew how to satisfie her desires and fill herself even with a crum that fell from his table Where then is the fault Not in the light but in him that bears it For commonly we are more bold in the day when it is clearest we attribute all to the light and think not of our feet so that peradventure we should see more had we less light Great wits are commonly ambitious and loath to yield What once their error hath set down they think they are bound for ever to maintain For a Pharisee to believe in Christ were to pull off his phylacteries and banish him the sect But this Woman here though she sate not in Moyses chair was more skilful then they who did saw that in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon which they could not in Jewry and became there a child a Daughter of Abraham whilst they remain'd Doggs at Jerusalem a child indeed of Abraham heir to his Humility who called himself Dust and ashes heir to his Patience qui tam grave praeceptum quod nec Deo perfici placebat patienter audivit O si Deus voluisset implesset saith Tertullian who heard patiently that heavy command to sacrifice his son which God liked not himself and had fulfilled it had God given him leave heir to his zealous Fervor in prayer which followed and urged God from Fifty to Ten. Lastly heir 1 Gen. 18. to his Faith and for this we need no more proof than our Saviours Elogium then my Text O woman great is thy faith Shall we now take the pains to measure our Faith by this Canaanitish womans We may as well measure an Inch by a Pole or an atome by a mountain Here was a patience that could digest stones ours will not digest bread no not Christs blessings His Gospel we take down as a pill and his Precepts as poyson Do this and live We had rather dye then do it Well said Tertullian Malùm impatientia boni Evil is nothing else but impatience of that which is good We are not only impatient of Afflictions of Poverty of Reproaches but also
impatient of Godliness of Sobriety of common Honesty of the Gospel of Christ of Heaven it self upon those terms it is profer'd us And all that bread which should nourish us up to everlasting life we turn into stones Blow what wind will we are still in finibus Tyri Sidonis at home in our own coasts But next for Humility who vouchsafeth once to put on her mantle Humility it is well we can hear her name with patience But humi serpere to creep on the ground is not our posture You will say Christ doth not call us Doggs Yes he doth For though he be in heaven yet he speaketh still and in his Scripture calleth every sinner a Dogg a Swine yea a Devil He upbraids us to our faces as oft as we offend But we will not own these titles but call our selves Priests when we sacrifice to Baal and Kings too when we are the greatest slaves in the world If Humility still live in the world sure it is not the same Humility which breathed here in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon Lastly For our Perseverance and Fervor in devotion we must not dare once to compare them with this Womans For Lord how loath are we to begin our prayers and how willing to make an end When God is silent we think he will not speak when he answers we think he is silent But when we are told that our sins do hinder our prayers and that Christ cannot help us because we are Doggs then we desist and will pray no more because we will sin more and rather suffer the Devil to vex our souls then dipossess him with noyse Yea which is ridiculous and monstrous Quod affectu volumus actu nolumus we pray for that we would not have and desire help which we would not enjoy Every day we pray for Grace and every day we quench and stifle it Every day we desire Christs help and every day we refuse it So that we may well with a little alteration use our Saviours words The woman of Canaan shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it for she came from Tyre and Sidon and would not be denyed we live in the Church and are afraid that Christ should grant our requests Her devotion was on fire ours is congealed and bound up with a frost We talk much of Faith but where are its fruits Where is our Patience our Humility our Perseverance in devotion which gave the just proportion to this Womans faith and commend the greatness of it to all posterity For these are glorious virtues and shew the full growth of her Faith These answer St. James his OSTENDE MIHI Shew me thy faith by thy works But yet to come up close to our Text our Saviour mentions not these but passeth them by in silence and commends her Faith Not but that her patience was great her Humility great and her Devotion great But because all these were seasoned with Faith and sprung from Faith and because Faith was it which caused the miracle he mentions Faith alone that Faith may have indeed the pre-eminence in all things First Faith was the virtue which Christ came to plant in his Church Non omnium est credere quod Christianum est saith Tertullian This vertue belongs not to all but is peculiar to Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the first inclination to health and the ground-work of our salvation Let the Heathen accuse the very title and name of Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theodoret calls it let them object that our Religion brings in meram credulitatem a meer and foolish credulity and that we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but play the fools in taking up things upon trust yet this Perswasion this Belief this Faith is it which draws us from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon takes us from the number of Doggs and makes us citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem When we could not do what we should not fulfil the Law God taught us to believe and it was the riches and glory of his Mercy to find out this way and save us by so weak an instrument as Faith Besides Faith was the fountain from whence these rivulets were cut from whence those virtues did flow For had she not believed she had not come she had not cryed she had not been patient she had not humbled herself to obtain her desire she had not persevered But having a firm perswasion that Christ was able to work the miracle no silence no denyal no reproach no wind could drive her away A sign that our Faith now-adayes is not so strong it falls off so soon at the least opposition and fails and falls to the ground with a very breath a sign that we have paralyticas cogitationes as one speaks paralytical thoughts which cannot reach a hand to our Will nor guide and govern our desires to the end Lastly Faith is that virtue which seasons all the rest maketh them useful and profitable which commends our Patience and Humility and Perseverance and without which our Patience were but like the Heathens imaginary and paper-Patience begotten by some premeditation by habit of suffering by opinion of fatal necessity or by a Stoical abandoning of all affections Without Faith our Humility were pride and our Prayers babling For whereas in natural men there be many excellent things yet without Faith they are all nothing worth and are to them as the Rainbow was before the Flood the same perhaps in shew but of no use It is strange to see what gifts of wisdome and temperance of moral and natural conscience of justice and uprightness did remain not only in the books but in the lives of many Heathen men but this could not further them one foot for the purchase of eternal good because they wanted the Faith which they derived which gives the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a loveliness and beauty and is alone of force to attract and draw the love and favour of God unto us These graces otherwise are but as the matter and body of a Christian man a thing of it self dead without life but the soul which seems to quicken this body is Faith They are indeed of the same brotherhood and kindred and God is the common Father unto them all but without Faith they find no entertainment at his hands As Joseph said unto his brethren You shall not see my face except your brother be with you So nor shall Patience and Humility and Prayer bring us to the blessed vision of God unless they take Faith in their company You see our Saviour passeth by them all but at the sight of Faith he cryes out in a kind of astonishment O woman great is thy faith And for this faith he grants her her request Be it unto thee even as thou wilt Which is my next part and which I will touch but in a word FIAT TIBI is a grant and it follows close at the heels of the