through which we are to pass It shall be a Rock firm and solid against every wave and temptation that shall beat against it It shall be a Shop of pretious receipts proper remedies against every evil It shall be spoliarium Mortis a place where Death shall be stript and spoiled of its sting and its terrour It shall be the Temâ—le of God an House of feasting and joy where Sorrow may look in at the window at the sensitive part but be soon chased away It shall be even ashamed of its tabernacle of flesh 2 Cor. 5.4 and pant and beat to get out that it may be clothed upon and mortality be swallowed up of life In brief this will make us strangers and keep us strangers even such strangers as shall be made like unto the Angels and whom when they come to their journeys end the Angels shall meet and welcome and receive into their Fathers house where they shall rest and rejoyce for evermore I have done with my Text and now must turn your eyes and thoughts upon this Pilgrime here this Honoured and worthy Knight who hath now passed through the buisie noise and tumults of this world to his long home and rest In which passage of his as I have received it from men of place and worth and unquestioned integrity he hath so exactly performed the part and office of a stranger and Pilgrime that he is followed with the applause of them that knew him And as in his death he is become an argument to prove the doctrine which I have taught so in his life he made himself a great ensample for them to look upon who are now travelling and labouring in the same way Look upon him then in every capacity and relation either as a part of the Common-wealth or a member of the City or a Father of a Family and you shall discover the image and fair representation of a Stranger in every one of these relations For no man can take this honour to himself to be a good Common-wealths-man or a good Master of a family but he who is as David was a Stranger All the ataxie and disorder all the noise we hear and mischiefs we see in the world are from men who love it too well and would live and dwell and delight themselves in it for ever For the first I may truly say as Lampridius did of Alexander Severus He was vir bonus Reipublicae necessarius a good man and of necessary use in the Common-wealth He laid all the strength he had to uphold it and preferred the peace and welfare of it to his own as well knowing that a private house might sink and fall to the ground and yet the Common-wealth stand and flourish but that the ruine of the whole must necessarily draw with it the other parts and at last bury them in the same grave And here he found as rough a passage as Aufidienus Rufus in Tacitus did in that commotion and Rebellion of Percennius l. 1. Annal. who was pulled out of his chariot loaden first with scoffs and reproches and then with a fardel of stuff and made to march foremost of all the company and then asked in scorn whether he bore his burden willingly or whether so long a journey was not tedious and irksome to him So was this worthy Knight taken from his wife whom he entirely loved and from his children those pledges of his love and conveyed to ship and by ship to prison in a remote City where he found some friends and then was brought back from thence to a prison nearer home where if the Providence of God had not gone along with him and shadowed him he had met the plague So that in some measure that befell him which S. Paul speaketh of himself 2 Cor. 11.26 He was in journeying often in perils of waters in perils of his own country-men in perils in the city in perils on the sea in perils amongst false brethren But it may be said What praise is it to suffer all this 1 Pet. 4.15 2 19 20. if he suffer as an evil-doer and not for conscience towards God I come not hither to dispute that but am willing to refer it to the great Trial which shall open every eye to behold that truth which now being dâ—zled with fears and hopes and even blinded with the love of the world it cannot see But if it were an errour and not knowledge but mistake that drove him upon these pricks yet sure it was an errour of a fair descent begot in him by looking stedfastly on the truth and by having a steady eye on the oath of God Eccl. 8.2 And if here he fell he fell like a Christian who did exercise himself to keep a good conscience Acts 24.16 For he that followeth not his Conscience when it erreth will be as far from hearkning to it when it speaketh the truth For even Errour it self sheweth the face of Truth to him that erreth or else he could not erre at all And yet I need not fear to say it it is an errour of such a nature that it may rather deserve applause then censure even from those who call it by that name For we do not use to fall willingly into so dangerous vexatious and costly errours errours which will strip us and put a yoke upon us errours which will put us in prison No to fly from these we too oft fly from the Truth it self when it is as open as the day and commandeth our faith though not our tongue and forceth our assent when we renounce it Private Interest Love of our selves Fear of restraint Hope of advancement these are the mothers commonly of this monster which we call Errour when we do not erre and in these it is ingendred and bred as serpents are in carrion or dung He that erreth and loseth by it erreth most excusably and sheweth plainly that he would not erre For who would do that which will undo him Again take him in the City In this he bore the highest honour and filled the greatest place yet was rather an ornament to it then that unto him For he sate in it as a stranger and a pilgrime as a man going out of the world nor did so much consider his power as his duty which lookt forward and had respect to that which cannot be found in this but is the riches and glory of another world Therefore this world was never in his thoughts never came in to sowr Justice to turn Judgment into wormwood by corrupting it or into vinegar by delaying it There were no cries of orphans no tears of the widow no loud complaints of the oppressed to disquiet him in his passage which use to follow the oppressour even to the gates of hell and there deliver him up to those howlings which are everlasting How oft hath he been presented to me and that by prudent and judicious men as the honour and glory of
Christ in his shame in his sorrow in his agony take him hanging on the cross take him and take a pattern by him that as he was so we may be troubled for our sins that we may mingle our tears with his blood drag Sin to the bar accuse and condemn it revile and spit in its face at the fairest presentment it can make and then nail it to the cross that it may languish and faint by degrees till it give up the ghost and die in us Then lye we down in peace in the grave and expect a glorious resurrection when we shall receive Christ not in humility but in Majesty and with him all his riches and abundance all his promises even Glory and Immortality and Eternal life A SERMON Preached on Easter-Day REV. I. 18. I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen and have the keyes of Hell and of Death WE do not ask Of whom speaketh S. John this or Who is he that speaketh it For we have his character drawn out in lively colours in the verses going before my Text. The Divine calls him a voyce ver 12. when he meaneth the man who spake it I turned to see the voyce that spoke with me and in the next verse telleth us he was like to the Son of man in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks governing his Church Lev. 26.11 12. setting his Tabernacle amongst men not abhorring to walk amongst them and to be their God that they might be his people Will you see his robes and attire Clothed he was with a garment down to the foot v. 13. which was the garment of the High Priest Hebr. 7.24 And his was an unchangeable Priesthood He had also a golden girdle or belt as a King For he is a King for ever and of his kingdome there shall be no end Luk. 1.33 Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loyns and faithfulness the girdle of his reins Isa 11.5 His head and his hairs were white as woll and as white as snow v. 14. his Judgment pure and uncorrupt not byassed by outward respects not tainted or corrupted by any turbulent affection but smooth and even as waters are when no wind troubleth them His eyes as a flame of fire piercing the inward man searching the secrets of the heart nor is there any action word or thought which is not manifest in his sight His feet like unto fine brass v. 15. sincere and constant like unto himself in all his proceedings in every part of his Oeconomy His voyce as the sound of many waters declaring his Fathers will with power and authority sounding out the Gospel of peace to all the world And last of all out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword v. 16. not onely dividing asunder the soul and the spirit Hebr. 4.12 but discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart and taking vengeance on those who persecute his Church His Majesty dazled every mortal eye his countenance was as the Sun shineth in his strength And now of him who walketh in the midst of his Church whose Mercy is a large robe reaching down to the feet who is girt with Power and clothed with Justice whose Wisdome pierceth even into darkness it self whose Word is heard from one end of the world to the other whose Majesty displayeth its beams through every corner of it we cannot but confess with Peter This is Christ Matth. 16.16 John 6.69 Hagg. 2.7 the Son of the living God And can the Saviour of the world the Desire of all nations the Glory of his Father Beauty it self appear in such a shape of terrour Shall we draw out a merciful Redeemer with a warriours belt with eyes of fire with feet of brass with a voyce of terrour with a sharp two-edged sword in his mouth Yes Such a High Priest became us Hebr. 7.26 who is not onely merciful but just not onely meek but powerful not only fair but terrible not onely clothed with the darkness of Humility but with the shining robes of Majesty who can dye and can live again and live for evermore who suffered himself to be judged and condemned and shall judge and condemn the world it self S. John indeed was troubled at this sight and fell down as dead but Christ rouzeth him up and biddeth him shake of that fear For he is terrible to none but those who make him so to Hereticks and Hypocrites and Persecutors of his Church to those who would have him neither wise nor just nor powerful Non accepimus iratum sed fecimus He is not angry till we force him It is rather our sins that run back again upon us as Furies than his wrath These make him clothe himself with vengeance and draw his sword To S. John to those that bow before him he is all sweetness all grace all salvation and upon these as upon S. John he layeth his right hand quickneth and rouzeth them up Fear not v. 17. neither my girdle of Justice nor my eyes of fire nor my feet of brass nor my mighty voyce nor my two-edged sword for my Wisdom shall guide you my Power shall defend you my Majesty shall uphold you and my Mercy shall crown you Fear not I am the first and the last more humble than any more powerful than any scorned whipped crucified and now highly exalted and Lord of all the world I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore c. These words I may call as Tertullian doth the Lord's Prayer breviarium Evangelii the Breviary or Sum of the whole Gospel or with Augustine Symbolum abbreviatum the Epitome or Abridgement of our Creed And such a short Creed we find in Tertullian which he calls Regulam veram immobilem irreformabilem the sole immutable and unalterable rule of Faith And then the Articles or parts will be 1. The Death of Christ I was dead 2. The Resurrection of Christ with the effect and power of it I am he that liveth 3. The Duration and continuance of his life It is to all eternity I am alive for evermore 4. The Power of Christ which he purchased by his death the Power of the keyes I have the keyes of Hell and of Death And all these are 1. ushered in with an ECCE Behold that we may consider it and 2. sealed and ratified with an AMEN that we may believe it that there be not in any of us as the Apostle speaketh an unbelieving heart to depart from the living God Hebr. 3.11 I am he that liveth and was dead Of the Death of Christ we spake the last day Par. 1. We shall onely now look upon it in reference to the Resurrection and consider it as past For it is FVI MORTVVS I was dead And in this we may see the method and proceeding of our Saviour which he drew out in his blood which must sprinkle those who are to be
the Son of God yet before he emptyed himself and took upon him the form of a servant sicut miseriam expertus non erat ita nec misericordiam experimento novit saith Hilary as he had no experience of sorrow so had he no experimental knowledge of mercy and compassion His own Hunger moved him to work that miracle of the Loaves for it is said in the Text Matth. 15.32 He had compassion on the multitude His Poverty made him an Orator for the poor and he beggeth with them to the end of the world He had not a hole to hide his head and his Compassion melted into tears at the sight of Jerusalem When he became a man of sorrows he became also a man of compassion And yet his experience of sorrow in truth added nothing to his knowledge but rayseth up a confidence in us to approach neer unto him who by his miserable experience is brought so neer unto us Col. 1.21 22. and hath reconciled us in the body of his flesh For he that suffered for us hath compassion on us and suffereth and is tempted with us even to the end of the world on the cross with S. Peter on the block with S. Paul in the fire with the Martyrs Hebr. 11.37 destitute afflicted tormented Would you take a view of Christ looking towards us with a melting eye You may see him in your own souls take him in a groan mark him in your sorrow behold him walking in the clefts of a broken heart bleeding in the gashes of a wounded spirit Or to make him an object more sensible you may see him every day begging in your streets When he telleth you He was dead he telleth you as much In as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood Hebr. 2.14 he also himself likewise took part of the same and in our flesh was hungry was spet upon was whipt was nayld to the cross which were as so many parts of that discipline which taught him to be merciful to be merciful to them who were tempted by hunger because he was hungry to be merciful to them who were tempted by poverty because he was poor to be merciful to those who tremble at disgrace because he was whipt to be merciful to them who will not yet will suffer for him who refuse and yet chuse tremble and yet venture are afraid and yet dye for him because as man he found it a bitter cup and would have had it pass from him who in the dayes of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears for mortal men Hebr. 5.7 for weak men for sinners Pertinacissimè durant quae discimus experientiâ This experimental knowledge is so rooted and fixed in him that it cannot be removed now no more then his natural knowledge He can as soon be ignorant of our actions as of our sufferings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot. Anal. post l. 2. c. 19. Hebr. 5.8 Isa 53.3 Experience saith the Philosopher is a collection of many particulars registred in our memory And this experience Christ had and our Apostle telleth us he learnt it and the Prophet telleth us he was vir sciens infirmitatum a man well read in sorrows acquainted with grief one who carryed it about with him from his cradle to his cross And by his Fasting and Tentation by his Agony and bloody sweat by his precious Death and Burial he remembreth us in famine in tentation in our agony he remembreth us in the hour of death and in our grave for he pitieth even our dust and will remember us in the day of judgment We have passed through the hardest part of this Method and yet it is as necessary as the End For there is no coming to the end without it no peace without trouble no life without death Not that Life is the proper effect of Death for this clear stream floweth from a higher and purer fountain even from the Will of God who is the fountain of life which meeting with our Obedience which is the conformity of our will to God's maketh its way with power through fire and water as the Psalmist speaketh through poverty and contumelies through every cloud and tempest through darkness and death it self and so carryeth it on to end and triumph in life I was dead that was his state of Humility but I am alive that is his state of Glory and is in the next place to be considered I am he that liveth Christ hath spoken it who is Truth it self and we may take his word for it And if we will not believe him when he sayth it neither should we believe if we should see him rising from the dead And this his life and resurrection is most conveniently placed in that Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy one to see corruption Psal 16.10 For what stronger reason can there be found out in matters of faith then the Will and Pleasure of that God who bringeth mighty things to pass To this end S. Paul citeth the second Psalm and S. Peter the sixteenth And in this the humble soul may rest and behold the object in its glory and so gather strength to rayse it self above the fading vanities of this world and reach and rise to immortality What fairer evidence then that of Scripture What surer word then the word of Christ He that cannot settle himself on this is but as S. Jude's cloud Jude 14. carryed about with every wind wheeled and circled about from imagination to imagination now raysed to a belief and anon cast down into the midst of darkness now assenting anon doubting and at last pressed down by his own unstableness into the pit of Infidelity He that will not walk by that light which shineth upon him whilst he seeketh for more must needs stumble and fall at those stones of offence which himself hath laid in his own way Acts 26.8 Why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead to life If such a thought arise in a Christian 9. Reason never set it up I verily thought with my self saith S. Paul but it was when he was under the Law And he whose thoughts are staggered here is under a worse law the law of his members his lusts by which his thoughts and actions are held up as by a law he is such a one as studieth to be an Atheist is ambitious to be like the beasts that perish and having nothing in himself but that which is worse than nothing is well content to be annihilated For why should such a temptation take any Christian Why should he desire clearer evidence Why should he seek for demonstration or that the Resurrection of Christ should be made manifest to the eye This is not to seek to confirm and establish but to destroy our faith For if these truths were as evident as it is that the Sun doth shine when it is day the apprehension of
it self and fill the world with Atheists which will learn by no Masters but such as instruct fools nor acknowledge any Keyes but those which may break their head But indeed we have had these Keyes too long in our hands For though they concern us yet are they not the keyes in the Text nor had we lookt upon them but that those of the Romish party wheresoever they find keys mentioned take them up and hang them on their Church But we must observe a difference betwixt the keyes of the kingdome of heaven Matth. 16.19 which were given to Peter and the keyes of Hell and of Death although with them when the Keyes are seen Heaven and Hell are all one For the key of David Rev. 3.7 which openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth was not given to the Apostles but is a regality and prerogative of Christ who only hath power of Life and Death over Hell and the Grave who therefore calleth himself the first and the last because although when he first publisht his Gospel he died and was buried yet he rose again to live for ever so to perfect the great work of our salvation and by his power to bind those in everlasting chains who stood out against him and to bring those that bow to his sceptre out of prison into liberty and everlasting life The power is his alone and he made it his by his sufferings Phil. 2.8 9. He was obedient to death therefore God did highly exalt him Phil. 2.7 11. He became a Lord by putting on the form of a servant But he hath delegated his power to his Apostles and those that succeed them to make us capable and fit subjects for his power to work upon which nevertheless will have its operation and effect either let us out or shut us up for ever under the power of Hell and of Death Were not he alive and to live for evermore we had been shut up in darkness and oblivion for ever But Christ living infuseth life into us that the bands of Hell and of Death can no more hold us than they can him There is such a place as Hell but to the living members of Christ there is no such place For it is impossible it should hold them You may as well place Lucifer at the right hand of God as a true Christian in Hell For how can Light dwell in Darkness How can Purity mix with stench How can Beauty stay with Horrour If Nature could forget her course and suffer contradictories to be drawn together and be both true yet this is such a contradiction as unless Christ could die again which is impossible can never be reconciled Matth. 5.18 Heaven and earth may pass away but Christ liveth for evermore and the power and virtue of his Life is as everlasting as Everlastingness it self Rev. 6.8 And again There was a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death and he had power to kill with the sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth But now he doth not kill us he doth but stagger us and fling us down that we may rise again and tread him under our feet and by the power of an everliving Saviour be the death of Death it self Job 18.14 Death was the King of terrors and the fear of Death made us slaves Heb. 2.15 and kept us in servility and bondage all our life long made our pleasures less delightful and our virtues more tedious made us tremble and shrink from those Heroick undertakings for the truth of God But now they in whom Christ liveth and moveth and hath his being as in his own dare look upon Death in all his horror expeditum morti genus saith Tertullian and are ready to meet him in his most dreadful march with all his army of Diseases Racks and Tortures Man before he sinned knew not what Death meant then Eve familiarly conversed with the Serpent so do Christians with Death Having that Divine Image restored in them they are secure and fear it not For what can that Tyrant take from them Col. 3.3 Their life That is hid with Christ in God Psal 37.4 It cannot cut them off from pleasure for their delight is in the Lord. Matth. 6.20 It cannot rob them of their treasure for that is laid up in heaven It can take nothing from them but what themselves have already crucified Gal. 5.24 their Flesh It cannot cut off one hope one thought one purpose for all their thoughts purposes and hopes were leveld not on this but on another life And now Christ hath his keyes in his hand Death is but a name it is nothing or if it be something it is such a thing as troubled S Augustine to define what it is We call it a punishment but indeed it is a benefit a favour even such a favour that Christ who is as omnipotent as he is everlasting who can work all in all though he abolished the Law of Moses and of Ceremonies yet would not abrogate the law by which we are bound over unto death because it is so profitable and advantageous to us It was indeed threatned but it is now a promise or the way unto it for Death it is that letteth us into that which was promised It was an end of all it is now the beginning of all It was that which cut off life it is now that through which as through a gate we enter into it We may say it is the first point and moment of our after-eternity for it is so neer unto it that we can hardly sever them We live or rather labour and fight and strive with the World and with Life it self which is it self a temptation and whilst by the power of our everliving Christ we hold up and make good this glorious contention and fight and conquer and press forward towards the mark either nature faileth or is prest down with violence and we dye that is our language but the Spirit speaketh after another manner we sleep we are dissolved we fall in pieces our bodies from our souls and we from our miseries and temptations and this living everliving Christ gathereth us together again breatheth life and eternity into us that we may live and reign with him for evermore And so I have viewed all the parts of the Text being the main articles of our Faith 1 Christs Death 2. his Life 3. his eternal Life and last of all his Power of the Keyes his Dominion over Hell and Death We will but in a word fit the ECCE the Behold in the Text to every part of it and set the Seal Amen to it and so conclude And first we place the ECCE the Behold on his Death He suffered and dyed that he might learn to have compassion on thy miseries and on thy dust and raise thee from both and wilt thou learn nothing from his compassion
on those actions which in themselves are lawful Nay multa mandata vitiat it may make that unlawful which is commanded Hebr. 10.31 Oh it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! but how fearful is it to have his hand fall upon us when we stand at his Altar to see him frown and hear him thunder when we worship in anger to question us when we are doing our duty What a dart would it be to pierce our souls through and through if God should now send a Prophet to us to tell us that our frequenting the Church and coming to his Table are distastful to him that our fasts are not such as he hath chosen and that he hateth them as much as he doth our Oppression and Cruelty to which they may be the prologue that he will have none of the one because he will have none of the other And yet if we terminate Religion in these outward formalities make them wait upon our lusts to bring them with more smoothness and with more state and pomp and applause to their end to that which they look so earnestly upon if we thus appear before God he that shall tell us as much of our Hearing and Fasting and Frequenting the Church shall be as true a Prophet as Micah the Morasthite was And now to conclude if you ask me wherewith ye shall come before the Lord and bow your selves before the most High look further into the Text and there you have a full and complete Directory Do justly love mercy and walk humbly with your God With these you may approch his courts and appear at his altar In aram Dei justitia imponitur saith Lactantius De vero cultu l. 6. c. 24. Justice and Mercy and Sincerity are the best and fittest sacrifices for the Altar of God which is the Heart of man an Altar that must not be polluted with blood Hoc qui exhibet toties sacrificat quoties bonum aliquid aut pium facit The man that is just and merciful doth sacrifice as oft as he doth any just and merciful act Come then and appear before God and offer up these Nor need you fear that ridiculous and ungodly imputation which presenteth you to the world under the name of mere moral men Bear it as your crown of rejoycing It is stigma Jesu Christi a mark of Christ Jesus And none will lay it upon you as a defect but they who are not patient of any loss but of their honesty who have learnt an art to joyn together in one the Saint and the Deceiver who can draw down heaven to them with a thought and yet supplant and overreach their brother as cunningly as the Devil doth them Bonus vir Caius Seius Caius Seius is a good man Tertull. Apolog. his only fault is that he is a Christian would the Heathen say He is a good moral man but he is not of the Elect that is one of our faction saith one Christian of another I much wonder how long a good moral man hath been such a monster What is the Decalogue but an abbridgment of Morality What is Christs Sermon on the mount but an improvement of that and shall Civil and honest conversation then be the mark of a Reprobate Shall Nature bring forth a Regulus a Cato a Fabricius Just and Honest men and shall Grace and the Gospel of Christ bring forth nothing but Zanies but Players and Actours of Religion but Pharisees and Hypocrites Or was the New creature the Christian raised up to thrust the Moral man out of the world Must all be Election and Regeneration Must all Religion be carried along in phrases and words and noise and must Justice and Mercy be exposed as monsters and flung out into the land of oblivion Or how can they be elect and regenerate who are not just and merciful No The Moral man that keepeth the commandments is not far from the kingdome of God Mark 12.34 and he that is a Christian and buildeth up his Morality and Justice and Mercy upon his Faith in Christ and keepeth a good conscience and doth to others what he would that others should do unto him Matth. 7.12 shall enter in and have a mansion there when speculative and Seraphick Hypocrites who decree for God and preordain there a place for themselves shall be shut out of doors Come then and appear before God with these with Innocence and Integrity and Mercifulness Wash your hands in innocency Psal 26.6 Rev. 1.6 and compass his altar For Christ hath made us Priests unto his Father there is our Ordination To offer up spiritual sacrifice 1 Pet. 2.5 there is our duty and performance By Jesus Christ there is our seal to make good and sure our acceptance Chrysostom besides that great Sacrifice of the Cross In Psal 59. hath found out many more Martyrdome Prayer Justice Almes Praise Compunction and Humility and he bringeth in too the Preaching of the Word Epist. 87. Which all make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil a most magnificent and pretious sacrifice We need not cull out any more then these in the Text for in offering up these we shall find the true nature and reason of a Sacrifice observed For to make any thing a true Sacrifice there must be a plain and express change of the thing that is offered It was a Bull or a Ram but it is set apart and consecrate to God And it is a Sacrifice and must be slain And this is remarkable in all these in which though no Death befall us as in the Beast offered in Sacrifice but that Death which is our Life our Death to sin yet a change there is which being made to the honour of Gods Majesty is very pleasing and acceptable in his sight When we do justly we have slain the Beast the worst part of us our Love of the world our filthy Lusts our Covetousness and Ambition which are the life and soul of Fraud and Violence and Oppression by which they live and move and have their being When we offer up our Goods there is a change For how strong is our affection to them how do we adore them as Gods are they not in common esteem as our life and blood and do we not as willingly part with our breath as with our wealth Hebr. 13.16 Now who so doth good and distributeth and scattereth his wealth he poureth forth his very blood bindeth the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar letteth out all worldly desires with his wealth and hath slain that sacrifice saith S. Paul with which God is well pleased And last of all Humility wasteth and consumeth us to nothing maketh us an Holocaust a whole-burnt-offering nothing in our selves nothing in respect of God and by this our exinanition it exalteth all the Graces of God in us filleth us with life and glory with high apprehensions with lively anticipations of that which
another mightily and doth sweetly order all things For which way can frail Man come to see his God but by being like him What can draw him near to his pure Essence but Simplicity and Purity of spirit What can carry us to the God of Love but Charity What can lead us into the courts of Righteousness but Justice What can move a God of tender mercies but Compassion Certainly God will never look down from his Mercy-seat on them that have no bowels In a word what can make us wise but that which is good those virtues Temperance Justice and Liberality which are called the labours of Wisdome Wisd 8.7 Hebr. 6.5 What can bring us into Heaven but this full tast of the powers of the world to come So that there is some truth in that of Gerson Gloria est gratia consummata Glory is nothing else but Grace made perfect and consummate For though we cannot thus draw Grace and Glory together as to make them one and the same thing but must put a difference between the Means and the End yet Wisdome it self hath written it down in an indeleble character and in the leaves of Eternity That there is no other key but this Good in the Text to open the gates of the kingdom of Heaven and he that bringeth this along with him shall certainly enter Heaven and Glory is a thing of another world but yet it beginneth here in this and Grace is made perfect in Glory And therefore in the last place God's absolute Will is not only attended with Power and Wisdome but also with Love And these are the glories of his Will He can do what he will and he will do it by the most proper and fittest means and whatsoever he requireth is the dictate of his Love When he sent his Son the best Master and Wisest Lawgiver that ever was on whose shoulders the government was laid Isa 9.6 he was ushered in with a SIC DILEXIT So God loved the world John 3.16 God's Love seemeth to have the preeminence and to do more then his Power This can but annihilate us but his Love if we embrace it will change our souls and angelifie them change our bodies and spiritualize them endow us with the will and so with the power of God make us differ as much from our selves as if we were not annihilated which his Power can do but which is more made something else something better something nearer to God This is that mighty thing which his Love bringeth to pass We may imagin that a Law is a mere indication of Power that it proceedeth from Rigour and Severity that there is nothing commanded nothing required but there is smoke and thunder and lightning but indeed every Law of God is the natural and proper effect and issue of his Love from his Power it is true but his Power managed and shewn in Wisdome and Love For he made us to this end and to this end he requireth something of us not out of any indigency as if he wanted our company and service for he was as happy before the creation as after but to have some object for his Love and Goodness to work upon to have an exceptory and vessel for the dew of Heaven to fall into As the Jews were wont to say propter Messiam mundum fuisse conditum that the world and all mankind were made for the Messias Psal 2.7 whose business was to preach the Law which his Father said unto him and to declare his will And in this consisteth the perfection and beauty of Man For the perfection of every thing is its drawing near to its first principle and original The nearer and liker a thing is to the first cause that produced it the more perfect it is as that Heat is most perfect which is most intense and hath most of the Fire in it So Man the more he partaketh of that which is truly Good of the Divine nature of which his Soul is as it were a sparkle the more perfect he is because this was the only end for which God made him This was the end of all Gods Laws That he might find just cause to do Man good That Man might draw near to him here by obedience and conformity to his Will and in the world to come reign with him for ever in glory And as this is the perfection so is it the beauty of Man For as there is the beauty of the Lord Psal 27.4 so is there the beauty of the Subject The beauty of the Lord is to have Will and Power and Jurisdiction to have Power and Wisdome to command and to command in Love So is it the beauty of Man to bow and submit and conform to the will of the Lord for what a deformed spectacle is a Man without God in this world Eph. 2.12 which hath Power and Wisdome and Love to beautifie Beauty is nothing else but a result from Perfection The beauty of the Body proceedeth from the symmetrie and due proportion of parts and the beauty of the Soul from the consonancy of the will and affections to the will and law of God Oh how beautiful are those feet which walk in the wayes of life How beautiful and glorious shall he be who walketh in love as God loved him Eph. 5.2 who resteth on his Power walketh by his Wisdome and placeth himself under the shadow of his Love And thus much the substance of these words affords us What doth the Lord require Let us now cast an eye upon them in the form and habit in which they are presented and consider the manner of proposing them Now the Prophet proposeth them by way of interrogation And as he asked the question Wherewith shall I come before the Lord so doth he here ask what doth the Lord require He doth not speak in positive terms as the Prophet Jeremiah doth Ask for the old paths Jer 6.16 where is the good way and walk therein Isa 30.21 or as the Prophet Isaiah This is the way walk in it but shapeth and formeth his speach to the temper and disposition of the people who sought out many wayes but missed of the right And so we find Interrogations to be fitted and sharpned like darts and then sent towards them who could not be awaked with less noyse nor less smart And we find them of diverse shapes and fashions Sometimes they come as Complaints Psal 2.1 Why do the heathen rage sometimes as Upbraidings How camest thou in hither Matth. 22.12 2 Sam. 2 22. Matth. 22.18 sometimes as Admonitions Why should I now kill thee sometimes as Reproofs Why tempt ye me you Hypocrites And whithersoever they fly they are feathered and pointed with Reason For there is no reason why that should be done of which Christ asketh a reason why it is done The question here hath divers aspects It looketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forward and backward It looketh back upon the
weigh the danger of them and from what they proceed First if we would find out the fountain from whence they flow we shall find it is nothing else but a strange Distrust in God and a violent Love of the World a Distrust in that God who is so far from leaving Man destitute of that which is convenient for him Psal 147.9 that hee feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him For if the windows of heaven do not open at our call if riches increase not to fill our vast desires we murmur and repine and even chide the Providence of God and by foul and indirect means pursue that which would not fall into our mouthes As Saul in the book of Kings 1 Sam. 28.6 7. Acheronta movemus when God will not answer we ask counsel of the Devil Secondly we may think perhaps that they are the effects of Power and Wisdome the works of men who bear a brain with the best the glorious victories of our Wit and trophies of our Power but indeed they are the infallible arguments of Weakness and Impotency and as the Devils marks upon us Non est vera magnitudo posse nocere It is not true Power or true Greatness to be able to injure our brethren It is not true Wisdome to be cunning artists in evil and to do that in the dark which may be done with more certainty and honour in the light and to raise up that with a lye which will rise higher and stand longer with the truth That Power more emulateth the Power of God by which we can do good that cometh nearer by which we will Nor can we attribute Wisdome to the fraudulent but that which we may give to a Jugler or a Pick-purse or indeed to the Devil himself And commonly these scarabees are bred in the dung of Laziness and Luxury and their crafty insinuating and subtle sliding into other mens estate had its rise and beginning from an indisposition and inability to manage their own He that can bring no Demonstration must play the Sophister And if the body will not do then he that will be rich saith Nevisanus the Lawyer must venture his soul Lastly weigh the danger Though the bread of deceit have a pleasant tast and goeth down glibly yet passing to thee through so foul a chanel as Fraud or Oppression it will fill thee with the gall of Asps The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them Prov. 21.7 saith Solomon shall fall upon them like a talent of lead Zech. 5.7 8. fall upon the mouth of their Ephah and lye heavy upon it Serrabit eos so it is rendred by others shall tear their Conscience as with a saw exossabit so others shall consume them to the very bones and break them as upon a wheel or as others rapina eorum diversabitur that which is got unjustly shall not stay long with them It may give them a salutation a complement peregrinabitur like a traveller on the way it may lodge with them for a night but dwell longer as with a friend it will not but take the wing and fly away from these unjust usurpers Psal 26.6 never at rest but in those hands which are washt in innocency and in that mouth which knoweth no guile 1 Pet. 2.12 will dwell with none but those that do justly To conclude Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who doth that which is evil and unjust to the oppressour and deceiver Rom. 2.7 9 10. to the man that boasteth himself in his Power and to the man that blesseth himself in his Craft to the proud Hypocrite and the demure Politician but to those that do justly that are as God is just in all their waies Psal 145.17 and righteous in all their dealings that walk holily before God and justly with men shall be glory and honour and peace and immortality and eternal life Thus much of Justice and Honesty The next is the Love of Mercy The Fifth SERMON PART V. MICAH VI. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly c. WE have laid hold of one Branch of this Tree of life and beheld what fruit it bare We must now see what we can gather from the second Mercy or Liberality which groweth upon the same stock is watered with the same dew from heaven and bringeth forth fruit meet for repentance and answerable to our heavenly calling Whether you take it in actu elicito or in actu imperato whether you take it in the habit or in the act which is misericordia eliquata that which runneth from it in the melting as it were the Love of Mercy includeth both both a sweet and heavenly disposition a rich treasurie of goodness full and ready to empty it self and those several acts which are drawn out of it or rather which it commandeth And here though miracles be ceased yet this by the blessing of the God of mercy retaineth a miraculous power healeth the sick bindeth up the wounded raiseth the poor out of the dust and in a manner the dead to life again upholdeth the drooping and fainting spirit which is ready to fail intercedeth and fighteth against the cruelty of persecutours filleth up the breaches which they make raiseth up that which they ruine clotheth the naked whom they have stripped buildeth up what they have pulled down and is as a quickning power and a resurrection to those whom the hand of Wickedness and Injustice hath laid low and even buried in the dust A Branch it is which shadoweth and refresheth all those who are diminished and brought low by oppression Psal 107.39 evil and sorrow And these two Justice and Mercy are neighbouring Branches so enwrapped and entwined one within the other that you cannot sever them For where there is no Justice there can be no Mercy and where there is no Mercy there Justice is but gall and wormwood Therefore in the Scripture they go hand in hand Vnto the upright man there ariseth light in darkness Psal 112. he is gracious and full of compassion and righteous There is an eye of Justice a single and upright eye as well as an eye of Mercy There is an eye that looketh right on Prov. 4.25 Prov. 22.9 and there is a bountiful eye and if you shut but one of them you are in darkness He that hath an evil eye to strip his brother can never see to clothe them He whose feet are swift to shed blood will be but a cripple when he is called to the house of mourning and if his bowels be shut up his hand will be scon stretcht out to beat his fellow servants It becometh the Just to be thankful Psal 33.1 In their mouth praise is comely it is a song it is musick And it becometh the Just to be merciful and liberal out of their heart mercy floweth kindly streameth forth like the river out
round about you in arms as we have seen in Germany and other places Men and Brethren I may speak to you of the Patriarch David Acts 2.29 who is dead and buried and though we have not his Sepulchre yet we have the memory of his Mercifulness remaining with us to this day And I ask Had not he Zeal Yes and so hot and intensive that it did consume him Psal 119.139 and yet but three verses before Rivers of waters ran down his eyes And this heat and this moisture had one and the same cause because they kept not thy law in the one because they forgat thy word in the other which is the very same We much mistake if we do not think there may be a weeping as well as a burning Zeal Indeed Zeal is never more amiable never moveth with more decorum nay with more advantage both to our selves and others then when Mercy sendeth it running down the cheeks We cannot better conclude then with that usual advice of Bernard Zelus absque misericordia minùs utilis 46. S. in Cant. plerumque etiam perniciosus c. Zeal without Mercy is alwaies unprofitable and most commonly dangerous and therefore we must pour in this oyl of Mercy quae zelum supprimat spiritum temperet which may moderate our Zeal and becalm and temper our spirit which may otherwise hurry us away to the trouble of others and ruine of our selves but it cannot do so if Mercy be our Assessour To conclude Let us therefore cast off every weight Hebr. 12.1 let us empty our selves fling out all worldly lusts out of our hearts and make room for Mercy Let us receive it naturalize it consubstantiate it as the Greek Fathers speak with our selves that we may think nothing breathe nothing do nothing but Mercy that Mercy may be as an Intelligence to keep us in a constant and perpetual motion of doing good that it may be true and sincere and sweeter to us then the honey or honey comb and so be our heaven upon earth whilst we are here that peace may be upon us Gal. 6.16 and mercy even upon all those who love Mercy who are indeed the true Israel of God The last Branch is our humble Walking with God And that we shall lay hold on in our next The Sixth SERMON PART VI. MICAH VI. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God WE have already gathered fruit from two of the Branches of this Tree of Life this Good which God by his Prophet hath shewed us in the Text. We have seen Justice run down as waters Amos 5.24 and Righteousness as a mighty stream as the Prophet speaketh And we have seen Mercy dropping as the dew on the tender herbs Deut. 32.2 and as rain upon the grass We have beheld Justice filling the hand and Mercy opening it Justice fitting and preparing the hand to give and Mercy stretching it forth to clothe the naked and fill the hungry with good things Justice gathering and Mercy scattering Justice bringing in the seed and Mercy sowing it in a word Justice making it ours and Mercy alienating it and making it his whosoever he be that wanteth it We must now lay hold on the third Branch which shadoweth both the rest from those blasts which may wither them those storms and temptations which may shake and bruise them from Covetousness Ambition Amos 5.7 Pride Self-love Self-deceit Hypocrisie which turn Justice into gall and wormwood and eat out the very bowels of Mercy For our Reverent and humble deportment with God is the mother of all good counsel the guard and defense of all holy duties and the mistress of Innocency By this the Just and Merciful man liveth and moveth and hath his being His whole life is an humble deportment with God every motion of his is Humility I may say his very essence is Humility for he gathereth not he scattereth not but as in Gods eye and sight When he filleth his garners and when he emptieth them he doth it as under that all-seeing Eye which seeth not onely what he doth but what he thinketh The Christian still moveth and walketh with Psal 116.18 or before his God not opening his eyes but to see the wonders of his Laws not opening his mouth but in Hallelujahs not opening his ears but to Gods voice not opening his hand but in his name not giving his Almes but as in the presence of his Father which seeth in secret Matth. 6.4 and so doing what he requireth with fear and trembling Humility spreadeth and diffuseth it self through every vein and branch through every part and duty of his life When he sitteth in judgment Humility giveth the sentence when he trafficketh Humility maketh the bargain when he casteth his bread upon the waters Eccl. 11.1 his hand is guided by Humility when he boweth and falleth down before his God Humility conceiveth the prayer when he fasteth Humility is in capite jejunii and beginneth the fast when he exhorteth Humility breatheth it forth when he instructeth Humility dictateth when he correcteth Humility maketh the rod whatsoever he doth he doth as before or under or with the Lord. Humility is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all in all In a word Singularum virtutum proprii actus say the Schools Virtues both Moral and Theological like the celestial Orbs have their peculiar motion proceeding from their distinct Habits and Forms but Humility is the Intelligence which keepeth and perpetuateth that motion as those Orbs are said to have their motion held up and regulated by some assistent Form without And now being here required to walk humbly with our God it will not be impertinent to give you the picture of Humility in little to shew you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 summarily and in brief what it is and so we may better see in what this our walking humbly consisteth And indeed we look upon Humility as we do upon a picture Mirantur omnes divinam formam sed ut simulacrum fabrè politum mirantur omnes as Apuleius speaketh of his Psyche Every man doth much admire it as a beautiful piece but it is as men admire a well-wrought statue or picture every man liketh it but which was the lot of Psyche no man loveth it no man wooeth it no man desireth to take her to his wife Yet it will not be a miss to give you a short view of her And the Oratour will tell us Virtutis laus omnis in actione consistit Every virtue is commended by its proper act and operation and is then actually when it worketh Temperance doth bind the appetite Liberality open the hand Modesty compose the countenance Valour guard the heart and work out its contrary out of the mind And Humility worketh out every thing that riseth up 2 Cor. 10.5 12.20 every swelling and tumour
13.16 Therefore to do good and to distribute forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased This then may well go for one part or limb of Religion In the next place as in the visitation of the fatherless and widows all charity to our brother is implyed so all charity to our selves is shut up in the other in keeping our selves unspotted of the world And this phrase of keeping our selves is very significant and hath its weight For those spots which defile us and make us such leopards are not so much from the world as from our selves as a cheat is not onely from the cunning of the impâ—stour but from the want of wisdome and experience in him that is deceived It is ignorance that promoteth the cheat that draweth the power and faculty into act that maketh him that hath a subtle wit injurious and it is an evil heart that makes the world contagious Wisdome preventeth a cheat and watchfulness a spot This world in it self hath nothing in it that can defile us Gen. 1 31. For God saw all that he made was good Tertull. de â—pectaculis c. 2. yea very good Yet Nihil non est Dei quod Deum offendit there is nothing by which we offend God but is from God That Beauty which kindleth lust is his gift that Gold which hath made that desolation upon the earth was the work of his hands He giveth us the bread we surfet on Psal 24.1 he filleth the cup that intoxicateth us The world is the Lord's and all that therein is but yet this world bespotteth us not because it is his who cannot behold much less could make any unclean thing We must therefore search out another world And you need not travel far for you may stay at home 1 ep 2. 16. and find it in your selves S. John hath made the discovery for you in this first Epistle where he draweth the map of it and divideth it to our hands into three provinces or parts 1. the lust of the flesh where unlawful Pleasures sport themselves 2. the lust of the eyes where Covetousness buildeth her an house 3. the pride of life which whetteth a sword for the Revenger erecteth a throne for the Ambitious raiseth up a triumphant arch for the Vain-glorious This is the world saith S. John even a world of wickedness This inverteth the whole course of Nature and maketh the wheel of the Creation move disorderly This world within us maketh that world without us an enemy Prov. 31.30 Prov. 20.1 1 Tim. 6.9 maketh Beauty deceitful Wine a mocker Riches a snare worketh that into sin out of which we might have made a key to open the gates of heaven droppeth its poyson under every leaf upon every object and by its mixture with the World ingendreth that serpent which spitteth the poyson back again upon us and not onely bespotteth and defileth James 1.15 but stingeth us to death For when Lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and when sin is finished it defileth a man and leaveth those spots behind it which deface him and give him a thousand several shapes The Schools call it maculam peccati the blot and stain of sin which is of no positive reality but a deprivation and defect of beauty in the soul and varieth as a shadow doth according to the diversity of those bodies that cast it We see then that there is a world within us as well as without us And when these two are in conjunction when our Lust joyneth it self to the things of this world Luke 15.13 15 as the Prodigal is said to do to a master in a far countrey then followeth pollution and deformity and as many spots as there be sins which are as many as the hairs of our head Beauty bringeth in deformity riches poverty plenty leanness into the soul Prov. 4.23 Therefore to conclude this to keep our hearts with all diligence and to keep our selves unspotted of the world is a main and principal part of our Religion and will keep us members of Christ and parts of the Church Col. 3.5 when Profaneness and Covetousness which is idolatry shall have laid her discipline her honour in the dust A man of tender bowels and a pure heart is as the Church Matth. 16.18 The gates of hell cannot prevail against him By this we intimate that we worship God and draw near unto him as near as flesh and mortality will permit Our escaping the spots and pollutions of this world maketh us followers of that God who marketh every spot we have 2 Pet. 2 20. and is not touched who seeth us in our blood and pollution Ezek. 16.6 and is not defiled who beholdeth all the wickedness in the world and yet remaineth the same for ever even Goodness and Purity it self 2 Pet. 1.4 This maketh us partakers as S. Peter speaketh of the Divine nature In a word to be in the world and tread it under our feet to be in Sodom and yet be Lots to be on the hills of the robbers and do no wrong to be in the midst of snares and not be taken to be in Paradise to see the apple pleasant to the sight to be compast about with glorious objects of delight and pleasures and not to taste or touch or handle is the nearest assimilation that dust and ashes Col. 2.21 that mortal Man can have to his Creatour I may well then call these two the Essential parts of Religion Of which as you have taken a short several view Antigoni imaginem Protogenes obliquam fecit ut quod corpore decrat picturae potiùs deesse videretur tantúmque eam partem ostendit quam totam poterat ostendere Plin. Nat. Hist l. 35 c. 10. so be pleased to observe also their mutual dependence and necessary connexion If either be wanting you spoil the whole piece Neither will my Charity to my brother entitle me to Religion if I be an enemy to my self nor will my abstaining from evil canonize me a Saint if my goodness be not diffusive on others If we draw-out in our selves the picture of Religion but with one of these we do but like the painter who to flatter Antigonus because he had but one eye drew but the half-face First to visit the fatherless and widows i. e. to be plenteous in good works ista sunt quasi incunabula pietatis saith Gregory These are the very beginnings and nurcery of the love of God And there is no surer and readier step to the love of God whom we have not seen 1 John 4.20 then by the love of our Brethren whom we see Tunc ad alta charitas mirabiliter surgit cùm ad ima proximorum se misericorditer attrahit saith the same Father Then our Charity beginneth to improve it self and rise as high as heaven when it boweth and descendeth and falleth low to sit with a Brother in the dust And if you search the
my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him THese words are our Saviours And it was usual with this our good Master by things visible to the eye to lift up his hearers minds and thoughts to spiritual and heavenly things and to draw his discourse from some present occasion or business in hand He curseth the fig-tree which had nothing but leaves Matth. 21.19 Sterelitas nostra in ficâ—â— Luke 11.39 to correct our sterility and unfruitfulness At the table of a Pharisee upon the sight of the clean outside of his cup he discovereth his inward parts full of ravening and wickedness At Jocob's well he powreth forth to the woman of Samaria the water of life John 4. After he had supped with his disciples he taketh the cup John 15. and calleth the wine his Blood and himself the true Vine Thus did Wisdom publish it self in every place upon every occasion The Well the Table the High-way-side every place was a pulpit every occasion a text and every good lesson a Sermon To draw this down to our present purpose In the beginning of this chapter Christ worketh a miracle multiplyeth the loaves and fishes that the remainder was more then the whole A miracle of it self able to have made the power of God visible in him and something indeed it wrought with them For behold they seek him they follow him over the Sea v. 24. the ask him Rabbi when camest thou hither v. 25. But our Saviour knowing their hypocrisie answereth them not to what they ask but instructeth them in that they never thought on Verily verily you seek me v. 26. not for the miracle but the loaves But behold I shew you yet a more excellent way I shew you bread better then those loaves better then Moses his manna I am that bread of life My flesh is meat indeed v. 48. v. 55. and my blood is drink indeed And he commendeth it unto them by three virtues or effects 1. That it filleth and satisfieth which neither the Loaves nor Moses his manna could do He that cometh to me v. 35. that devoteth himself to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst 2. That it is living bread bread that giveth life v. 51. which Moses manna could not do but was destroyed with them that ate it in the wilderness 3. v. 49. That it was bread which had power to incorporate them to embody them to make them one and give them union and communion with the Lord of life in the words of my Text He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood that is as Christ himself who best knew his own meaning interpreteth it that believeth in me v. 35. that so feedeth on the mystery of my Incarnation that can look upon my cross to which my flesh was fastned and there with the eye of faith behold and wonder at those rich treasuries of Wisdome of Patience of Humility of Obedience of Love which are the truest title and superscription that could be written on my cross that can look upon the several passages of my blessed oeconomy and receive and digest them and turn them into nourishment that can look upon my Birth and be regenerate and born again upon my Precepts and make them his daily bread upon my Cross and be crucified to the world upon my Resurrection and be raised to newness of life He that thus eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him You have the occasion and sum of these words For more then an allusion to our eating and drinking in the Sacrament I cannot see and that too though the Church of Rome would have more is more then we can prove I may call it the true Character of a Christian And who could draw it better then Christ It consisteth as you see of two parts 1. The Christian's or the Believer's part He dwelleth in Christ 2. Christs part He dwelleth in every man that is regenerate So that in this our Union with Christ there passeth a double action one from us to Christ another from Christ to us And as in arched buildings all the stones do mutually uphold each other and if you remove and take one away the rest will fall so do these two interchangeably hold up and prove one another For if we dwell not in Christ Christ will not dwell in us and if he dwell not in us it is impossible we should dwell in him Or we may resemble these two our relation to Christ and Christ's to us to the two Cherubins covering the Mercy-seat with their wings Exod. 25. and having their faces one to the other with the Covenant in the midst between them The Cherubins though they were both Cherubins and very like yet were two distinct Cherubins So though our dwelling in Christ and Christ's dwelling in us tend to the same end yet they are two and the Covenant is in the midst between them If we will be his people he will be our God If we dwell in him he will dwell in us Take it then in these two propositions or doctrines 1. That something some act is required on our parts which is here exprest by dwelling in him 2. Something is done by Christ some virtue some efficacy proceedeth from him which is here called dwelling in us In both which is seen that mutual and interchangeable reciprocation between Christ and a regenerate Soul As he dwelleth in Christ so Christ dwelleth in him and as Christ dwelleth in him Cant. 6.3 so he dwelleth in Christ I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine We begin with the first That some act of ours is required which is here exprest by dwelling in him Now to dwell in Christ is a phrase peculiar to this our Evangelist and he often useth it both here and in his first Epistle It is full and expressive and operative implying a real and durable interest in Christ a reliance and dependance on him alone not onely on his Person that they are bold to do who crucifie him again but also on his Offices as he is a King to govern us a Priest to mediate and intercede for us and a Prophet to teach us such a dependance as maketh us truly his Subjects his Purchase his Disciples We usually say the lover dwelleth not in himself but in him he loveth He dwelleth there and delighteth in such an habitation nor is ever satisfied with the pleasures of it Gen. 44.30 as we read that Jacob's soul was bound up with the soul of Benjamin his life was knit with the young mans life his life hanged and depended on his And by this we may discover what is meant by this phrase When our souls are bound up with Christ's when our understandings wills and affections are bound up vvith his vvill for vvhat Cassian speaketh of his Monk is true of the Christian Nescit judicare Nescit judicare quisquis
The unbelieving man that dwelleth not in Christ hath either no place to fly to or else that he flyeth to is as full of molestation and torment as that he did fly from He flieth to himself from himself He flieth to his wit and that befooleth him he flieth to his strength and that overthroweth him he flieth to his friend and he faileth him He asketh himself counsel and mistrusteth it He asketh his friend counsel and is afraid of it He flieth to a Reed for a staff to Impotency and Folly and hath not what he looked for when he hath what he looked for He is ever seeking ease and never at rest And vvhen these evils vvithout him stir up a worse evil within him a conscience which calleth his sins to remembrance vvhat a perplexed and distracting thing is he what shifts and evasions doth he catch at He runneth from room to room from excuse to excuse from comfort to comfort He fluttreth and flieth to and fro as the Raven and would rest though it vvere on the outside of the Ark. This is the condition of those vvho are not in Christ But he that dwelleth in him that abideth in him knoweth not vvhat Fear is Col. 2.3 because he is in him in whom all the treasures of wisdome and power are hid and so hath ever his protection about him He knoweth not vvhat danger is for Wisdome it self conducteth him He knoweth not what an enemy is for power guardeth him He knoweth not vvhat misery is for he liveth in the region of happiness He that dwelleth in him cannot fear what Man vvhat Devil vvhat Sin can do unto him because he is in his armory abideth safely as in a Sanctuary 2 Tim. 1.12 under his wing I know whom I have trusted saith S. Paul not the World not my friends not my Riches not my Self Not onely the World and Riches and Friends are a thin shelter to keep off a storm but I know nothing in my self to uphold my self but I know whom I have trusted my Christ my King my Governour and Counsellor who hath taken me under his roof who cannot deny himself but in these evil dayes in that great day will be my patrone my defence my protection Thus doth the true Christian dwell abide in Christ 1. admiring his majesty 2. loving his command 3. depending vvholly upon his protection These three fill up our first part our first proposition That some act is required on our parts here expressed by dwelling in him We pass now to our second That something is also done by Christ in us some virtue proceedeth from him vvhich is here called dwelling in us There goeth forth virtue and power from him from his promises from his precepts from his life from his passion and death from vvhat he did from vvhat he suffered as there did to the vvoman who touching the hem of his garment was healed of her bloody issue Mark 5. Luke 8. a power by which he sweetly and secretly and powerfully characterizeth our hearts and writeth his mind in our minds and so taketh possession of them and draweth them into himself The Apostle telleth us he dwelleth in us by his spirit Rom. 8 11 14 and that we are led by the spirit in the whole course of our life Eph. 2.22 and that we are the habitation of God through the spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his tabernacle his temple which he consecrateth and setteth apart to his own use and service There is no doubt but a power cometh from him but I am almost afraid to say it there having been such ill use made of it For though it be come already Rom. 1.16 for the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation yet is it still expected expected indeed rather then hoped for For when it doth come we shut the door and set up our will against it and then look faintly after it and perswade our selves it will come at last once for all There is power in his Precepts for our Reason subscribeth and signeth them for true There is power in his Promises they shine in glory These are the power of Christ to every one that believeth And how can we be Christians if we believe not But this is his ordinary power which like the Sun in commune profertur is shewn on all at once There yet goeth a more immediate power and virtue from him we deny it not which like the wind worketh wonderful effects but we see not whence it cometh John 3.8 nor whither it goeth neither the beginning nor the end of it which is in another world The operations of the Spirit by reason they are of another condition then any other thought or working in us whatsoever are very difficult and obscure as Scotus observeth upon the Prologue to the Sentences for the manner not to be perceived no not by that soul wherein they are wrought Profuisse deprehendas quomodo profuerunt non deprehendes as Seneca in another case That they have wrought you shall find but the secret and retired passages by which they wrought are impossible to be brought to demonstration But though we cannot discern the manner of his working yet we may observe that in his actions and operations on the soul of man he holdeth the course even of natural agents in this respect that they strive to bring in their similitude and likeness into those things on which they work by a kind of force driving out one contrary with another to make way for their own form So Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac Jacob and every creature begetteth according to its own kind Plato said of Socrates's wise sayings that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the children of his mind so resembling him that you might see all Socrates in them So it is with Christ Where he dwelleth he worketh by his spirit something like unto himself He altereth the whole frame of the heart driveth out all that is contrary to him 2 Cor. 10.5 all imaginations which exalt themselves against him and never leaveth purging and fashioning us till a new creature like himself be wrought till Christ be fully formed in us Gal. 4.19 So it is with every one in vvhom Christ dwelleth And this he doth by the power of his Spirit 1. by quickning our Knowledge by shewing us the riches of his Gospel his beauty and majesty the glory and order of his house and that vvith that convincing evidence that vve are forced to fall dovvn and vvorship by filling our soul vvith the glory of it as God filled the tabernacle vvith his Exod. 40. that all the powers and faculties of the soul are ravisht vvith the sight and come vvillingly as the Psalmist speaketh fall down vvillingly before him by moving our soul as our Soul doth our Body that when he saith Go vve go and vvhen he saith Do this vve do it So it is in every one in vvhom Christ dwelleth 2. He dwelleth in us
spoliarium vitiorum a place where Sin is every day reviled and disgraced where it is anatomized and the bowels and entrayls yea every sinew and vein of it shewn I should say our Church were Reformed indeed if we did commit no sins but those we do not know Many things we do saith the Philosopher Ethic. 1.3 c. 22 we may say Most sins we commit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not which Reason perswadeth but which the Flesh betrayeth us to Pers Sat. 5. not to which our Knowledge leadeth us but our Sensuality Stat contra ratio Reason when we sin is not so foyled or beaten down but it standeth up against us and opposeth us to our face It telleth the Miser that Covetousness is idolatrie Cor. 3.5 the Wanton that Lust is that fire which will consume him the Revenger that diggeth his own grave with his sword It is indeed commonly said that reason is corrupt but the truth is that which we call corrupt Reason is our passion or sensuality for that cannot be Reason which directeth us to that which is unreasonable The sense doth too oft get the better but can never silence or corrupt Reason so as to make it call evil good or good evil That is the language of the Beast of the Sensual part And for ought I see we may as well assign and entitle our good actions to our Sensitive part when we keep as our bad to our Reason when we break the Law Reason never yieldeth and our Knowledge is still the same In Lust it commendeth Chastity in Anger meekness in Pride Humility When we surfet on those delights which Sin bringeth with it our Reason plainly telleth us that they are deadly poyson We need not then be over solicitous to secure this Ingredient the Knowledge of our sins to bring it into the Recipe of our Repentance For there be but few which vve knovv not fevver vvhich vve may not knovv if vve vvill if vve will but take the pains to put it to the question either before the act What vve are about to do or after What it is vve have done For it is a Lavv a plain Lavv vve are to try it by not a dark riddle And if vve do mistake it is easie to determin vvhat it vvas that did vvork and frame and polish the cheat Not a sin cometh vvith open mouth to devour us and svvallovv up our peace but it is but of that bulk and corpulency that vve cannot but see it and though vve may peradventure here turn away our eye yet we cannot put it out Our Knowledge will not forsake us and our Conscience followeth our Knowledge This may sleep but cannot die in us This is an evil spirit that all the musick in the world will not ease us of Though we set up bulworks against it compass our selves about with variety of Delights and fense our selves in with Honour and Power which we make the weapons of unrighteousness yet it will at one time or other make its sallies and eruptions and disturb our peace God hath placed it in us Exod. 28.30 as he fixed the Vrim and Thummim on the breast-plate of judgement by which he might give answer unto us what we are to do what not to do what we have done well and what amiss as he did to the Priest who by the viewing the Breast-plate saw whether the people might go up or not go up But when we have once defiled our Conscience we care not much for looking towards it and we lose the use of it in our slavery under Sin Esr 2.63 Neh. 7.65 Psal 19.12 Levit. 4.2 Heb. 9.7 as they lost the use of their Vrim and Thummim at the Captivity of Babylon But then who knoweth how oft he offendeth who knoweth his unadvised errours his inconsiderate sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his ignorances those which he entertaineth as the Septuagint render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unwillingly which steal in upon him at unawares even whilst he is busie in subduing others as we see one part of an army may be surprized and fly whilst the other conquereth The best of men through the frailty and mutability of their nature may receive many such blows and not feel them It fareth with us in the course of our life as it doth with travellers in their way Many objects many sins we pass by and not so much as cast an eye that way which yet in themselves are visible enough and may be seen as well as those we look upon with some care and sometimes with astonishment Yet even these secret and retired sins are known and condemned both by our Fear and Hatred We know such there be though we know not what they are nor can call them by their name and our begging pardon for them is our defiance of them and declareth not onely our sorrow for them but our anger against them it breatheth revenge though we know them not and sheweth how roughly and disdainfully we should handle them if we did The Knowledge then of our sins is a thing presupposed in our Turn And so in the next place is the Grief and Sorrow which ordinarily doth arise from such a convincement Some displacency it will work though not of strength enough to move us or drive us from that which we make a paradise but is our Tophet and turn us to imbrace that condition and estate which at first presenteth the horrour of a prison but is a sanctuary Now Grief is not sub praecepto under any command Quint. Decl. 185. nor indeed can it be Medicamenta mandata non accipiunt You may prescribe Physick but you give it not with a command nor can you say Thus it shall work You may exhort me to look about me and consider my estate but you cannot bid me grieve When we wish men to fear or hope to be sad or merry we speak improperly and ineffectually unless our meaning be they should enter into those considerations which may strike a fear or raise a hope work a sorrow or beget a joy The Apostle preacheth to the Jews Acts 2. putteth his goad to their sides and the Text saith They were pricked in their heart Acts 2.37 38. and it followeth Then Peter said unto them Repent His words were sharp and did prick them at the heart but they were no commands The command is Repent and be baptized What a sea of words may flow and yet not a drop fall from our eye What fearful prognosticks may we see what mournful threnodies may we hear and yet not be cast down or change the countenance Nay what penance may we undergo and yet not grieve For Grief followeth the Apprehension and Knowledge of the object and riseth and falleth with it varieth as that varieth If our Apprehension be clear our Sorrow will be great if that be pure this will be sincere if it be inward this will be deep But if it be superficial this will be but
It must be matura conversio Hieron Paulino a speedy and present Turn Festina haerentis in salo naviculae funem magìs praecide quà m solve The Nineteenth SERMON PART IIII. EZEKIEL XXXIII 11. Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes c. TO stand out with God and contend with him all our life long to try the utmost of his patience and then in our evening in the shutting up of our dayes to bow before him is not to turn Nor have we any reason to conceive any hope that a faint confession or sigh should deliver him up to eternity of bliss whom the swinge of his lusts and a multiplyed continued disobedience have carried along without check or controll to his chamber and bed and to the very mouth of the grave who delighted himself in evil till he can do no good Delay if it be not fatall to all for we dare not give laws to Gods Mercy yet we have just reason to fear it is so to those that trust so to God's Mercy as to run on in their evil wayes till the hand of Justice is ready to cut their thread of life and to set a period to that and their sins together Turn ye turn ye that is now that it be not too late Proceed we now to the second property of Repentance the Sincerity of our Turn This Ingemination in the Text hath more heat in it for it serveth not onely to hasten our motion and Turn but to make it true and real and sincere When God biddeth us turn he considereth us not as upon a stage but in his Church where every thing must be done not acted where all is real nothing in shadow and representation where we must be holy as he is holy perfect as he is perfect true as he is true where we must behave our selves as in the house of God 1 Tim. 3.15 which is not peâ—gula pictoris a Painters shop where all is in shew nothing in truth Joel 2.13 Not our garments but our hearts must be rent that as Christ our head was crucified indeed not in shew or phantasm as Marcion would have it so we may present him a wounded soul a bleeding repentance a flesh crucified and so joyn as it were with Christ in a real and sincere putting away and abolishing of sin God is Truth it self true and faithful in his promises ☜ Psal 33.9 If he speak he doth it if he command it shall stand fast and therefore he hateth a feigned forced wavering imaginary Repentance To come in a visour or disguise before him is an abomination Nor will he give true joy for feigned sorrow heaven for a shadow everlasting happiness for a counterfeit and momentany Turn and eternity for that which is not for that which is nothing And Repentance if it be not sincere is nothing Nazianz. Orat 19. The holy Father will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is feigned is not lasting That which is forced faileth and endeth with that artificial spring that turneth it about as we see the wheels of a clock move not when the plummet is on the ground because the beginning of that motion is ab extrà not from an internal form but from some violence or art without Seneca Simplex recti cura multiplex parvi There is but one true principle of a real Turn the fear of God there may be very many of a false one Septem mendaciis eget mendacium unum ut verum videatur De Indulg Martine Luther said that one lie had need of seven more to draw but an apparency of truth over it that it may pass under that name So that which is not sincere is brought in with a troop of attendants like it self and must be set off with great diligence and art when that which is true commendeth it self and needeth no other hand to paint or polish it What art and labour is required to smooth a wrinkled brow Matth. 6.16 What ceremony what noise what trumpets what extermination of the countenance what sad looks what tragical deportment must usher in an Hypocrite What a penance doth he undergo that will be a Pharisee How many counterfeit sighs and forced grones how many fasts how many sermons must be the prologue◠〈◊〉 false Turn to a nominal Turn For we may call it turning from our evil wayes when we do but turn and look about us to secure our selves in them or to make way to worse Ahab and Jezabel did so Absalom did the Jews did so Fast to smite with the fist of wickedness Isa 58.4 and to make their voice to be heard on high A false Turn Wickedness it self may work it Craft and Cruelty may blow the trumpet in Sion Joel 2.15 and sanctifie a fast A feigned Repentance Oppression Policy Love of the world Sin it self may beget it and so advance and promote it self and be yet more sinful And commonly a false Turn maketh the fairest shew and appeareth in greater glory to a carnal eye then a true one Plin. Panegyr Ingeniosior ad excogitandum simulatio veritate Hypocrisie is far more witty seeketh out more inventions and many times is more diligent and laborious then the Truth because Truth hath but one work to be what it is and taketh no care for outward pomp and ostentation nor cometh forth at any time to be seen unless it be to propagate it self in others Now by this we may judge of our Turn whether it be right and natural or no. As we may make many a false Turn so there may be many false springs and principles to set us a turning Sometimes fear may do it sometimes Hope sometimes Policy and in all the Love of our selves more then of God And then commonly our Tragedy concludeth in the first scene nay in the very prologue our Repentance is at an end in the very first Turn Nemo potest personam diu ferre Ficta cito in naturam suam recidunt Sen. 1. de Clem. c. 1. in the very first shew Ahab's Repentance was but a flash at the Prophets thunder Pharaoh's Repentance was driven on with an East-wind and compast about with locusts an inconstant false and desultory Repentance I cannot better compare it then to motions by water-works Whilest the water runneth the devise turneth round and we have some Story of the Bible presented to our eyes but when the water is run out all is at an end and we see that no more which took our eyes with such variety of action So it is many times in our Turn which is no better then a pageant Whilest the waters of affliction beat upon us we are in motion and may present divers actions and signs of true Repentance Our eyes may gush out with tears we may hang down our head and beat our breast our tongue our glory may awake our hands may be stretched out to the poor we may cry Peccavi with David put
sentence can be severe enough against it in a Christian because the abuse of goodness is far the greater by how much the goodness which is abused is more excellent and levelled to a better end And therefore a formal Penitent is the grossest hypocrite in the world Besides this in the second place God who is Truth it self standeth in extreme opposition to all that is feigned and counterfeit An Almes with a trumpet a Fast with a sowr face Devotion that devoureth widows houses do more provoke him to wrath then those vices which these outward formalities seem to cry down Nothing is more distastful to him then a mixt and compounded Christian made up of a bended knee and a stiff neck of an attentive ear and a hollow heart of a pale countenance and a rebellious spirit of fasting and oppression of hearing and deceit of Hosanna's and Crucifiges of cringes bowings flatteries and real disobedience Absalom's vow Jehu's sacrifices Simon Magus his Repentance Non amat falsum autor veritatis Adulteriumest apud illum omne quod fingitur Tert. de Ep. c. 23. Ahab's fast his soul doth hate or any Devil that putteth on Samuel's mantle And he so far detesteth the mere outward performance of a religious duty that when he thundreth from heaven when he breatheth out his menaces and threatnings on the greatest sinners the burden is They shall have their portion with hypocrites Exod 20.25 we read Thou shalt not build an altar of hewen stone nor shalt thou lift up a tool upon it Why not lift a tool upon it They used the hatchet saith Nazianzene to build the Ark to frame the staves of Shittim-wood they wrought in gold and silver and brass with iron instruments they put a knife to the throat of the sacrifice yet here to lift up a tool upon any stone of the Altar is to pollute it And why not pollute the Ark as well as the Altar The Father giveth the reason The stones of the Altar were by the providence of God and a kind of miracle found fitted already for that work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because saith he Orat. 19. whatsoever is consecrate to God must not borrow from the help of art must not be artificial but natural If we build an altar unto God to sacrifice our selves on the stones must be naturally fitted not hewen out by art not a forced grone a forced acknowledgment artificial tears but such as nature sendeth forth when our grief is true To avoid this danger then let us ask our selves the question whether we have gone further in our Turn then an Ahab or an Herode or a Simon Magus and even by their feigned Turn learn to make up ours in truth For did Ahab mourn and put on sackcloth 1 Kings 1.27 Mark 6.20 Acts 8.23 2◠did Herode hear John Baptist and hear him gladly did Simon Magus desire Peter to pray for him even then when he was in the gall of bitterness what anxiety what contrition must perfect my conversion Si tanti vitrum quanti margarita If glass cast such a brightness what must the lustre of a diamond be And thus may we make use even of Hypocrisie it self to establish our selves in the truth make Ahab and Herode arguments and motives to make our Repentance sure For Aristot Metaph 2. as the Philosopher well telleth us that we are not onely beholding to those who accurately handled the points and conclusions in Philosophy but even to Poets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who did light upon them by chance and but glance upon them by allusion so may we receive instruction even from these Hypocrites who did repent tanquam aliud agentes so slightly as if they had some other matter in hand We must fast and put on sackcloth with Ahab we must hear the word with Herode we must beg the prayers of the Church with Simon Magus but finding we are yet short of a true Turn we must press forward and exactly make up this divine science that our Turn may be real and in good earnest that it may be finished after his form who calleth so loud after us that it may be brought about and approved to him in all sincerity and truth Thus much of the second property of Repentance The third is It must be poenitentia plena a total and universal conversion a Turn from all our evil wayes If it be not total and universal it is not true A great errour there is in our lives and the greatest part of mankind are taken and pleased and lost in it To argue and conclude à parte ad totum to take the part for the whole and from the slight forbearance of some one unlawful act or the superficial performance of some particular duty to infer and vainly arrogate to themselves a hatred of all sin and an universal obedience as if what Tiberius the Emperour was wont to say of his half eaten meats were true of our divided our parcel and curtailed Repentance Omnia eadem habere quae totum Suet. Tiber. Caes cap. 34. Every part of it every motion and inclination to newness of life had as much in it as the whole body and compass of our Obedience and there were that mutual agreement and sympathy of duties in a Christian that Physicians say there is of the parts of a living creature the same sapour and taste in a disposition to goodness that there is in a habit of goodness as much heat and heartiness in a thought as in a constant and earnest perseverance in a Velleity as much activity as in a Will as much in a Pharisees pale countenance as in S. Paul's severe discipline and mortification De locis i◠Homine and as Hypocrites speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the least performance all the parts of our obedience in a meer approbation a desire in a desire a will in a leaving one evil way a turning from all and in cutting off but one limb or part the utter destruction of the whole body of sin And therefore as if God looked down from heaven and from thence beheld the children of men and saw how we turn one from luxury to covetousness another from superstition to profaneness a third from idols to sacriledge from one sin to another or from some one great sin and not from another from our scandalous but not from our more domestick Psal 68.33 retired and speculative sins he sendeth forth his voice and that a mighty voice TVRN YE TVRN YE not from one by-path to another not from one sin alone and not from another also but turn ye turn ye so that ye need turn no more turn ye from all your evil wayes In corporibus aegris nihil nociturum medici relinquunt Curt. l. 6. c. 3. Physicians purge all noxious humours out of sick and crazy bodies And so doth the great Physician of souls sanctifie and cleanse them that he may present them to himself Eph. 5.26.27
protestationes fidei protestations of our faith So is our Prayer for pardon a protestation and promise of Repentance which is nothing else but a continued obedience We pray to God to cast our sins behind his back Isa 38.17 with this resolution to exstirpate them And upon this condition God sealeth our Pardon Which we must make a motive not to sin and fall back but to lead a new life and to perform constant obedience If we turn and turn back again God may turn his face from us for ever Again in the third place we have reason to arm our selves against temptation after pardon because by our relapse we not onely add sin to sin but are made more inclinable to it and anon more familiar with it and so more adverse and backward to acts of piety For as Tertullian observeth Lib. 1. ad uxorem c 8. Viduitas operiosior virginitate it is a matter of more difficulty to remain a widow then to keep our virgin not to tast of pleasure then when we have tasted to forbear So it is easier to abstain from sin at first then when we are once engaged and have tasted of that pleasure which commendeth it And when we have loathed it for some bitterness it had for some misery or some disease it brought along with it and afterwards when that is forgot look towards it again and see nothing but those smiles and allurements which first deceived us we then like and love it more then we did before it gave us any such distast and at last can walk along with it though Wrath be over our heads and Death ready to devour us And what we did before with some reluctancy we do now with greediness we did but lap before with some fear and suspicion but now we take it down as the ox doth water And what an uneven and distracted course of life is this to sin and upon some distast to repent and when that is off to sin again and upon some pang that we feel to repent again and after some ease to meet and joyn with that which hath so pleased which hath so troubled us The Stoick hath well observed Homines vitam suam amant simul oderunt Some men at once both hate and love themselves Now they send a divorce to Sin anon they kiss and embrace it now they banish it anon recall it now they are on the wing for heaven anon cleaving to the dust now in their Zenith by and by in their Nadir S. Ephrem the Syrian expresseth it by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calleth it a falling rise or a rising fall a course of life consisting of turning and returning rising and relapsing sinning and repenting Men find it more for their ease deprecari crimen quà m vacare crimine to â—â—g pardon for sin committed then to forbear committing it after and so they sin and repent and sin again and as solemnly by their sin renounce their repentance as they do by their repentance recant their sin We deal with our beloved sin as Maecenas did with his wife quam Epist. 114. cùm unam habuit millies duxit saith Seneca who had but one yet married her and divorced her from him and then married her again a thousand times First we look upon the painted face and countenance of Sin and are taken as it were with her eye and beauty and then draw near and embrace it But anon the worm gnaweth us our conscience is loud and troublesome and then we would put it from us When it flattereth we are even sick with love but when it turneth its worst face towards us we are weary of it and have an inclination a velleity a weak and feeble desire to shake it off Our soul loveth it and lotheth it we would not and we will sin and all upon presumption of that mercy which first gave us ease upon hope of forgiveness Quis enim timebit prodigere quod habebit poste à recuperare saith Tertullian De pudicitia c. 9. For who will be tender and sparing of that which he hopeth to recover though lost never so oft or be careful of preserving that which he thinketh cannot be irrecoverably lost So Repentance which should be the death of Sin is made the Security of the Sinner and that which should reconcile us to God is made a reproch to his Mercy and contumelious to his Goodness In brief that which should make us his friends maketh us his enemies We turn and return we fall and rise and rise and fall till at last we fall never to rise again And this is an ill sign a sign our Repentance was not true and serious but as in an intermitting fever the disease was still the same Gravedinosos quosdam quosdam torminosos dicimus non quia semper sint sed quia saepe sint Tull. Tusc q. l. 4. De sanitate tuenda onely the fit was over or as in the epilepsie or falling sickness it is still the same still in the body though it do not cast it on the ground And such a Repentance is not a Repentance but to be repented of by turning once for all never to turn again Or if it be true we may say of it what Galen said of his art to those that abuse it who carry and continue it not to the end Perinde est ac si omnino non esset It is as if it were not all nay it is fatal and deleterial It was Repentance it is now an accusation a witness against us that we would be contra experimenta pertinaces even against our own experience tast that cup again we found bitter to us run into that snare out of which we had escaped turn back into those evil wayes where we saw Death ready to seize upon us so run the hazard of being lost for ever These four are the necessary requisites and properties of Repentance It must be early and sudden upon the first call For why should any thing in this world stop and stay us one moment in our journey to a better Is not a span of time little enough to pay down for Eternity It must be true and sincere For can we hope to bind the God of Truth unto us with a lie or can a false Turn bring us to that happiness which is real It must be perfect and exact in every part For why should we give him less then we should who will give us more then we can desire or how can that which is but in part make us shine in perfection of glory Last of all Rev. 2.10 it must be constant and permanent For the crown of life is promised unto him alone who is faithfull unto death Turn ye turn ye now suddenly in reality and not in appearance Turn ye from all your evil wayes Turn never to look back again This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Septuagint render it to turn for ever and so to press
Supper They had Moses preacht in their Synagogues every Sabbath day so have we I speak like a fool we have more the Gospel interpreted or abused every Sabbath-day nay every day of the week I had almost said every hour of the day We are baptized with a Sermon and we are married with a Sermon and we are buried with a Sermon When we take our journey a Sermon is our farewell and when we return it is our welcome home If we feast a Sermon is the Grace before it If we sayl a Sermon must weigh ancor And if we fight a Sermon is the alarum to battel If we rejoyce we call to the Preacher to pipe to us that we may dance for many times we chuse our Preachers as we do our Musicians by the ear and phansie not by judgment And it must needs be a rare choice which a Woman and Ignorance makes and such an one is to us as a lovely song of one that hath a very pleasant voice And if we be in grief he must turn the key Ezek. 33.32 and change his note and mourn to as that we may lament A Sermon is the grand Sallet to usher in every dish like Sosia or Davus in the Comedy scarce any scene or part of our life without it It is Prologus galeatus a Prologue that will fit either Comedy or Tragedy every purpose every action every business of our life In a word What had the House of Israel which we have not in measure pressed down They had the favour and countenance of God they had the blessings of the Basket So had we if we could have pinned it and kept them in and not plaid the wantons in this light and so let them fly away from us that we can but look after them and sadly say We had them They had Temporal blessings we have Graces and Spiritual endowments more Light richer Promises mo and more gracious Privileges then they Their administration was with glory but ours is more glorious 2 Cor. 3.7 c Glorious things are spoken of this City glorious things are seen amongst us able to deceive a Prophet nay if it were possible the very Elect. For he that shall see our outward formality the earnestness the demureness the talkativeness of our looks and behaviour when we flock and press to Sermons he that shall hear our noyse and zeal for Religion our anger and detestation against Idolatry even where it is not he that shall scarcely hear a word from us which soundeth not as the word of God he that shall see us such Saints abroad will little mistrust we come so short of the honesty of the Pagans in our shops and dealings He that shall see such a promising form of godliness cannot presently discover the malice the fraud the uncleanness the cruelty that lieth wrapt up in it like a Devil in light He that shall see this in the City cannot but say of it as the Prophet Samuel did of Eliab Surely the Lords anointed is here This is the faithful City 1 Sam. 16.7 This is the City of the Lord. But God who seeth not as man seeth nor looketh on the outward appearance but on the heart may account us dead for all these glories this pageantry this noise which to him is but noise as the found of their trumpet who will not fight his battels but fall off and run to the enemy as a song of Sion in a strange land psal 137.3 4. even in the midst of Babylon We read in our books that it was a custome amongst the Romanes when the Emperour was dead in honour of him to frame his image of wax and to perform to it all ceremonies of state as if the image were the living Emperour The Senate and Ladies attended the Physicians resorted to him to feel his pulse and Doctorally resolved that he grew worse and worse and could not escape a Guard watcht him Nobles saluted him his dinner and supper at accustomed hours was served in with water with sewing and carving and taking away his Nobles and Gentlemen waited as if he had been alive there was no ceremony forgot which State might require Thus hath been done to a dead carcase and if we take not heed our case may be the same All our outward shews of Churches of Sermons of Sacraments our noyse and ostentation which should be arguments of life and antidotes against death may be no more then as funeral rites performed to a carcase to a Christian to a City whose iniquities are loathsome of an ill-smelling savour to God The great company of Preachers whereof every one choseth one according to his lusts may stand about it and do their duty but as to an image of wax or a dead carcase the Bread of life may be served in and divided to it by art and skill as every man phansieth it may be fitted and prepared for every palate when they have no tast nor relish of it and receive no more nourishment then they that have been dead long ago Be not deceived Psal 68.19 Benefits are burdens God loadeth us daily with benefits saith David burdens which if we bear not well and as we should do will grind us to pieces All prerogatives are with conditions and if the condition be not kept they turn to scorpions They either heal or kill us they either lift us up to bliss or throw us down to destruction There is heaven in a privilege and there is hell in a privilege and we make it either to us We may starve whilst we hang on the breasts of the Church we may be poisoned with antidotes Those mouthes that taught us may be opened to accuse us the many Sermons we have heard may be so many bills against us the Sacraments may condemn us the blood of Christ cry loud against us and our profession our holy profession put us to shame John 14.9 Have I been so long with you and knowest thou not me Philip saith our Saviour Hast thou had so good a Master and art thou yâ—t to learn Hast thou been so long with me and deniest thou me Peter Hast thou been so long with me and yet betrayest me Judas Hath Christ wrought so many works among us and do we go about to kill and crucify him Hath he planted Religion true Religion amongst us and do we go about to dig it up by the roots Hath the Gospel sounded so long in our ears and begot nothing but words words that are deceitful upon the balance words which are lies So many Sermons and so many Atheists So much Preaching and so much defrauding So many breathings and demonstrations of love and so much malice in the house of Israel So many Courts of justice and so much oppression So many Churches and so few Temples of the Holy Ghost What profess Religion and shame it cry it up and smother it in the noise and for a member of Christ make thy self the head of a
though he call Death unto him both with words and works though he be found guilty and sentence of death past upon him yet he cannot be wrought into such a perswasion That he was ever willing to die Tert. Apol c. 1. Nolumus nostrum quia malum agnoscimus We will not call sin ours because we know it evil and so are bold to exonerate and unload our selves upon God himself It is true there is light but we are blind and cannot see it There is comfort soundeth every where but we are deaf and cannot hear it There is supply at hand but we are bound and fettered Jer. 8.22 and can make no use of it There is balm in Gilead but we are lame and have no hand to apply it We complain of our natural weakness of our want of grace and assistance When we might know the danger we are in we plead ignorance When we willingly yield our members servants unto sin Rom. 6.13 19. we have learnt to say We did not do it plenâ voluntate with full consent and will and what God hath clothed with Death we cloath with the fair gloss of a good intention and meaning We complain of our bodies and of our souls as if the Wisdome of God had failed in our creation We would be made after another fashion that we might be good and yet when we may be good we will be evil And these webs a sick and unsanctified phansie will soon spin out These are receipts and antidotes of our own tempering devised and made use of against the gnawings of conscience These we study and are ready and expert in and when Conscience beginneth to open and chide these are at hand to quiet it and put it to silence We carry them about for ease and comfort but to as little purpose as the women in Chrysostom's time bound the coins of Alexander the Great or some part of S. John's Gospel to ease them of the head-ach For by these receipts and spells we more envenom our souls and draw nearer to Death by thinking to fly from it and are tenfold more the servants of Satan because we are willing to do him service but not willing to wear his livery And thus excusando exprobramus our apologies defame us our false comforts destroy us and we condemn our selves with an excuse To draw then the lines by which we are to pass we will first take off the Moriemini the cause of our Death from our Natural weakness and from the Deficiency of Grace For neither can our natural weakness betray nor can there be such a want of grace as to enfeeble nor hath Satan so much power as to force the Will and so there will be no necessity of dying either in respect of our natural weakness or in regard of Gods strengthning hand and withholding his grace And then in the next place we will shew that neither Ignorance of our duty nor Regret or Reluctancy of Conscience nor any Pretense or good Intention can make Sin less sinfull or our death less voluntary And so we will bring Death to their doors who have sought it out who have called it to them vvho are confederate vvith it and are vvorthy to be partakers thereof And First Why will ye die O house of Israel Why will ye die vve may perhaps ansvver vve are dead already Haeret lateri lethalis arundo The poysoned and deadly dart is in our sides Adam sinned and vve die Omnes eramus in illo uno cum ille unus nos omnes perdidit We vvere all the loins of that one man Adam vvhen that one man slevv us all And this we are too ready to confess that we are born in sin Nay we fall so low as to damn our selves before we were born This some may do in humility but most are well content it should be so well pleased in their pedegree well pleased to be brought into the world in that filth and uncleanness which God doth hate and make the unhappiness of their birth an advocate to plead for those pollutions for those wilfull and beloved sins which they fall into in the remaining part of their life as being the proper and natural issues of that Weakness and Impotency with which we were sent into the world But this is not true in every part That vveakness vvhatsoever it is can dravv no such necessity upon us nor can be vvrought into an apology for sin or an excuse for dying For to include and vvrap up all our actual sin in the folds of original vveakness is nothing else but to cancel our own debts and obligations Licentiam usurpare praetexto necessitatis Tert. De cult Faemin and to put all upon our first parents score and so make Adam guilty of the sins of the whole world Our natural and original weakness I will not now call into question since it hath had such Grandees in our Church men of great learning and piety for its nursing Fathers and that for many centuries of years but yet I cannot see why it should be made a cloak to cover our other transgressions or why we should miscarry so often with an eye cast back upon our first fall which is made ours but in another man nor any reason though it be a plant watered by the best hands why men should be so delighted in it why they should lie down and repose themselves under its shadow why they should be so willing to be weak and so unwilling to hear the contrary why men should take so much pains to make the way to happiness narrower and the way to death broader then it is in a word why we should thus magnifie a temptation and desparage our selves why we should make each importunate object as powerful and irresistible as God himself and our selves as idoles even nothing in this world Petrarch 1.3 R. S. c. 1. Magna pars humanarum que relarum non injusta modò materiâ sed stulta est The world is full of complaints and excuses but the complaints which the world putteth forth are for the most part most unjust and void of that reason which should present and commend them For when our souls are pressed down and overcharged with sin when we feel the gripes and gnawings of our conscience we commonly lay hold on those remedies which are worse then the disease and suborn an unseasonable and ill-applied conceit of our own natural weakness which is more dangerous then the temptation as an excuse and comfort of our overthrow We fall and plead we were weak and fall more then seven times a day and hold up the same plea still till we fall into that place where we shall be muzled and speachless not able to say a word where our complaints will end in curses in weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth Hieron Amando Omnes nostris vitiis favemus quod propriâ facimus voluntate ad naturae referimus necessitatem We are
see the pit opening her mouth and even speaking to them to fly and save themselves from destruction I may appeal to your eye and tender you that which your observation must needs have taken up before both at home in your selves and abroad in others for he that doth but open his eyes and look into the world will soon conceive it as a common stage where every man treadeth his measures for approbation and applause where every man acteth his part walketh as a Parasite to himself and all men one to another that is do the same which the Israelites did after the molten calf slay every man his brother Exod. 32 27. and every man his companion and every man his neighbour every man being a ready executioner in this kind and every man ready and willing to die We will therefore in the next place search this evil humour this desire of being pleased And we shall be the willinger to be purged of it if either we consider the causes from which it proceedeth or the bitter effects which it produceth And first it hath no better original then Defect then a wilfull and negligent Fayling in those duties to which Nature and Religion have obliged us a Leanness and Emptiness of the soul which not willing to fill it self with Righteousness filleth it self with air with false counsels and false attestations with miserable comforts In time of necessity when we have nothing to eat Luke 15.16 Prov. 28.1 we fall to with the Prodigal and fill our belly with husks The wicked flie when none pursueth fly from themselves to others and from others to themselves chide themselves and flatter themselves are troubled and soon at rest fly to the Rule which condemneth them to absolve them and suborn one Text to infringe and overthrow another as he that hath no good Title is bold on a false one Citò nobis placemus It is a thing soon done and requireth no labour nor study to be pleased We desire it as sick men do health as prisoners do liberty as men on the rack do ease For a troubled spirit is an ill disease not to have our will is the worst imprisonment and to condemn a mans self in that which he alloweth and maketh his choice Rom. 14.22 is to put himself upon the rack We may see it in our civil affairs and matters of lesser allay When any thing lyeth upon us as a burden how willing are we to cast it off how do we strive to pluck the sting out of every serpent that may bite us how do we study to work out the venom out of the worst of evils When we are poor we dream of riches and make up that which is not with that which may be Prov. 23.5 When we have no house to hide our hâ—â—ds we build a palace in the air When we are sick this thought turneth our bed That we may recover and if the Physician cannot heal us yet his very name is to us as a promise of health We are unwilling to suffer but we are willing nay desirous to be eased Basil telleth us of young men that when they are alone or in some solitary place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 feign unto themselves strange Chimeras suppose themselves Lords of countreys and favourites of Kings and which is yet more though they know all this to be but phansie and a lye yet please themselves in it as if it were true indeed We all are like Aristotle's young man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full of hope Rhetor. l. 2. c. 14. and when there is no door of hope left we make one And so it falleth out in the managing of our spiritual estate we do as the Apostle exhorteth though not to this end cast away every thing that presseth down but so cast it away as to leave it heavier then before prefer a momentary ease which we beg or borrow or force from things without us before that peace which nothing can bring in but that grief and serious repentance which we put off with hands and words as a thing irksome and unpleasing For could we be sick we might be well did not we love our disease we might shake it off But we are sick and will be so There is something wanting and a supply is our shame being an argument of that defect which we are unwilling to acknowledge A Physician doth but upbraid us and Truth doth but rob us of our content and therefore we please our selves in our disease as in health it self and had rather languish and dye then be told we are sick And this in the second place proceedeth even from the force and power of Conscience within us which if we will not hearken to as a friend will turn Fury and pursue and lash us and if we will not obey her dictates will make us feel her whip This is our Judge and our Executioner She whippeth the Sluggard stoneth the Adulterer hangeth and quartereth the Traytour bloweth upon the Misers store and maketh the lips of the Harlot bite like a cockatrice Psal 139.7 Whither shall they go from her spirit and power whither shall they flie from her presence The Philosopher will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they flie from themselves Aristot. l. 9. Eth. c. 4. yet carry themselves about with them whithersoever they go Now every thing that is oppressed doth naturally desire ease and so do we but finding it a laborious thing to quiet the Conscience and that it cannot be done but by yielding and bowing our backs to her whip by running from our selves and from those sins which pleased our Sense but enraged our Conscience we seek out many inventions and advance our sins against her till they prevail and even put her to silence For in evil men the worst part doth the office of the better corrupteth the records mitigateth the sentence pronounceth life in death The Sensual part is their Conscience their God It biddeth them do this and they do it and when it is done it is a ready Advocate to plead for it and defend it It conceiveth and bringeth forth the Monster and then giveth it what name it please It was a crying sin it hath now lost its voice It was Uncleanness it is now Frailty It was Treason it is now the love of our Countrey It was Perjury It is now Prudence Riches commend Covetousness Honour Treason Pleasure Wantonness That which begetteth Sin nurseth it up till it grow up to strength to oppose it self to Conscience and degrade and put her from her office and bring in a thousand sory excuses to take her place in the midst of which she cannot be heard not heard against Riches whose Sophistry is preferred before her Demonstrations not heard against Beauty which bewitcheth us and makes us fools not heard against Honour which lifteth us up so high that we cannot hear her not heard against Power which is the greatest Parasite in the world and
life more then our soul are unnatural and strangers to us and we unto them and we must turn our selves about and look towards something else which may meet and fill our desires which here find nothing to stay but every thing to enlarge them Here are Delights that vanish and then shew their foulest side here are Riches that make us poor and Honour that maketh us slaves here are nothing but phantasms and apparitions which will never fill us but feed the very hunger of our souls and increase it There in our country at our journeyes end there is fulness of joy which alone can satisfie this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and infinite appetite Psal 16.11 Therefore the Earth is but our stage to walk through Heaven is our proper place and country and to this we are bound Here we are but strangers Si velimus accolae si nolimus accolae If we will we may be strangers and if we will not but love to dwell and stay here yet we shall be strangers whether we will or no. And as we are so our abode here is that of strangers in another country as of those who are ever in their way and moving forwards never standing still but striving to go out of it whose whole motion and progress is a leaving it behind them When Adam was Lord of all the world he was but a stranger in it For God made him naked in Paradise and withall gave him no sense of his nakedness And the reason is given by S. Basil That Man might not be distracted and called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from meditation upon God that the care of his flesh might not steal away his mind from him that made him So that Adam was made a stranger when he was made the sole Emperour of the world But when he was fallen God clotheth him with skins ut illum veluti morte quadam indueret saith Proclus in Epiphanius that he might clothe him as it were with Death it self which was represented unto him in the skins of dead beasts that he might alwaies carry about with him the remembrance of it the most suitable garment that a stranger or pilgrime can wear A stranger cometh not to stay long in a place he is here as we say to day and gone to morrow so is Man Psal 9.25 4.2 Psal 90.9 He flyeth as a Post or rather as a shadow and continueth not at an end as soon as a tale that is told and not so long remembred There may be many errours in his way but there is none in his end Which way soever he travelleth wheresoever he pitcheth his tent his journeyes end is the Grave De Anim◠c. 50. Hoc stipulata est Dei vox hoc spopondit omne quod nascitur saith Tertullian This is the stipulation and bargain which God hath made with every soul By being born we made a promise and obliged our selves to dye We are bound in a sure obligation and received our souls upon condition to resign them pure and unspotted of the world James 1.27 Would you know when we pay this debt We begin with our first breath and are paying it till we breathe out our last Hoc quod loquor indè est Whilest I speak and you hear we are paying part of the sum and whether this be our last payment we cannot tell I am dying whilest I am speaking Every breath I fetch to preserve life is a part taken from my life I am in a manner entombed already and every place I breathe in is a grave for in every place I moulder and consume away in every place I draw nearer and nearer to putrefaction Suet. vit Claud Cas We may say as those mariners who were to fight and dye did as they said by Claudius the Emporour Morituri te salutant O Emperour dying men salute thee So we pass by and salute one another not so much as living but as dying men Whilest I say Good morrow I am nearer to my end and he to whom I wisht it is nearer to his One dying man blesseth and one dying man persecuteth another that is one Pilgrime robbeth another In what relation soever we stand either as Kings or Subjects Masters or Servants Fathers or Children we are all Morituri but dying men all but strangers and pilgrimes Comfort thou thy self then thou oppressed innocent It was a dying man that put the yoke about thy neck And why dost thou boast in mischief Psal 52.1 thou man of power In the midst of all thy triumphs and glories thou art but a dying man He that kisseth thy lips is but a dying man and he that striketh thee on the face is but a dying man The whole world is but a Colony every age new planted with dying men with pilgrimes and strangers This you will say is a common theme and argument and indeed so it is for what more common then Death And yet as common as it is I know no lessen so much forgotten as this For who almost considereth how he came into the world or how he shall go out of it Ask the wanton the Mammonist the Ambitious of their minute and they will call it Eternity Sol iste dies nos decipit c. The present the present time that deceiveth us and we draw that out to a lasting perpetuity which is past whilst we think on it Such a bewitching power hath the Love of the world to make our minute eternity and eternity nothing and the day of our death as hard and difficult to our faith as our resurrection For though day unto day uttereth knowledge though the Preacher open his mouth Psal 19.2 and the Grave open hers and we every day see so many pilgrimes falling in though they who have been dead long ago and they who now dye speak unto us yet we can hardly be induced to believe that we are strangers but embrace the world and rivet our selves into it as if we should never part we deny that which we cannot deny resolve on that which we cannot think will not be perswaded of that which we do believe or believe not that which we confess but place Immortality upon our mortal and so live as if we should never dye And can we who thus every day enlarge our thoughts and hopes Psal 90.10 and let them out at length beyond our threescore years and ten measuring out Lordships building of palaces anticipating pleasures and honours creating that which will never have a being and yet delighting in it as if we now had it in possession can vve vvho love the world as that friend from which we would never part but lose all others for it can we who would have this to be the world without end and have scarce one thought left to reach at that which is so and to come can we who love and admire and pride our selves in nothing more in nothing else say or think we are pilgrimes and
more I shine and the more I shine the more I am on fire Thus was John Baptist and thus is every true Christian not onely a burning but a shining light And we may well compare the Profession of the Truth and Holiness of life to the Light that shineth The path of the just is as the shining light Prov. 4.18 saith Solomon For as Light serveth not onely to illustrate the medium and make it diaphanous but casteth also a delightful lustre on the object and is pleasant to the eye in a manner quickning and reviving us for they who are in darkness are as in a grave and they who are blind are as they who have been dead long ago so the Piety of the Saints and the beauty of holiness doth not onely shew and manifest it self as Light but like Light it hath a kind of influence and powerful operation upon others It worketh upon the phansie and imagination which is much taken with these real resemblances and representations and it worketh on the passions which must be as wings to carry us to those blessed Worthies to that pitch of holiness where they sit a spectacle to the world to men and to Angels For in our definitions and precepts and decrees and exhortations Piety many times to divers men appeareth in different shapes or ele slideth away and passeth by in silence but being charactered in the practice and actions of the Saints and written as it were with Light it gaineth more force and efficacy it presseth upon our phansie and busieth our understanding part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is more visible in actions then in words Would you see Humility drawn out to the life Behold our Saviour on the cross Had we seen S. Paul in the flesh we had had the best commentary on his Epistles What fairer picture of Charity then the Widow flinging in her two mites into the treasury of Severity and strictness of life then John Baptist in his leathern girdle and camels hair feeding on locusts and wild honey There is virtue gone from them that we may come near and touch and be familiar with it There is light that we may look upon it and walk by it Imaginatio provocat desiderium A strong imagination must needs provoke in us a desire of that which pleased it and raise up in us an holy emulation I say an holy Emulation which is a mixt passion made up of Sorrow and Anger and Love and Hope Sorrow for our defects Anger at our selves that we stay behind Love of that goodness which we see in others and find not in our selves and Hope to equal them And these poise and qualifie each other My Sorrow is not envious for Hope comforteth it my Anger is not malignant for Love tempereth it And they are all as so many winds to fill our sails to swell our thoughts and to drive on our desires to the mark We read of Donatus the Grammarian that as oft as he found any remarkable passage in the Ancients which might deserve applause he was wont to say Malè pereant antiqui qui nobis nostra praeripuerunt I beshrew the Ancients who have prevented us by their inventions and so robbed us of that renown which might have been ours A vain speech of a proud Grammarian Malè pereant Nay rather Blessed be the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and of John Baptist and of all the glorious Saints and Martyrs who hath set up these lights to direct us in our way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sublime Towers with continual light and fire to guide us in this our dangerous passage to the haven where we would be who hath fixt these Stars in the firmament of the Church to lighten them that are in darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blessed be God for this light For by this light in a manner we live and move and have our being By this light we are encouraged and provoked to walk on to perfection And such a power and force this light hath that if it do not bow the will yet it will command the understanding if it do not prevail with us to love it yet it will win our approbation if it do not beget a love yet it will force a delight and the worst men shall be willing to rejoyce in it though it be but for a season And so I pass from the Character and Commendation of John Baptist to the Censure passed upon the Jews Ye were willing for a season to rejoyce in his light God had not now for some hundreds of years spoken to the Jews by the mouth of a Prophet and therefore a Prophet after so long a vacancy could not but be welcome unto them Quod rarum est plùs appetitur Let Prophets run about our streets and we are ready to stone them but after a long silence let a John Baptist lift up his voice and we all leap for joy No sooner did John preach Luke 3.15 but the people were in suspence and expectation and all men mused in their hearts whether he were the Christ or no. And peradventure they thought that though his beginning was obscure as that of Moses yet the time might come when he would shew himself to be the Messias restore the Kingdom to Israel and be as Moses their Captain and fight their battels and make them lords of all the world This I say they might conceive of John But this was not the light with which he did shine And to root out this conceit he confessed John 1.10 and denied not but confessed I am not the Christ That which so gloriously shined in him was his Strictness of life and Holiness of conversation And such is the activity of this light such is the lustre and power of Holiness that it will work a complacency and delight even in them who oppose it And this is the glory and triumph of Truth and Goodness that it striketh a reverence into those that neglect it findeth a place in his breast whose hand is ready to suppress it and worketh delight where it cannot win assent We may embrace a truth and condemn it commend Chastity and be wantons and with the Jew not hearken to the voice of the Crier and yet rejoyce in his light And the reason is manifest For as there is a sensitive joy which is nothing else but the pleasing and titillation of the sense by the application of that which is convenient and agreeable to it as of a better white and red to the Eye a more pleasant voice to the Ear more savoury meat to the Tast so there is a rational and intellectual joy which is nothing else but the approbation of Reason in the apprehending of that which is proportioned to it an assent to a conclusion drawn out of the common principles of discourse or at most but a resultancy from it For Truth is fitted to the Understanding as Colours are to the Eye or Musick to the Ear. The remembrance
as a command on us to sin no more if such a necessity lay upon us that we must needs sin again For he that is born of God that is is a Christian indeed sinneth not that is falleth not into any sin which is inconsistent with the Covenant of Grace For would we have Christ perform his part of the Covenant and we break ours Can we love him and not keep his commandments or can we keep his commandments and break them Can we lift up our hearts with this talent of lead upon them Can we hope to go to heaven and yet remain in that sin which in the sight of God is as loathsome as hell it self No saith S. John He that is born of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keepeth himself that the wicked one toucheth him not toucheth him not so as to bring him into his snare toucheth him not so as to strike him down For 1. God requireth no other obedience but that which is given up with all our mind with all our heart with all our understanding and with all our strength He is no such hard Master as to require brick and give no straw to bid us do that which he knoweth we cannot do 2. God hath promised to circumcise the heart of his people Deut. 30.6 to love him with all their hearts to teach them to write a new Law in their hearts that they shall do his will and if they do it not the sin must lie at their door and God be true and they lyars 3. God himself beareth witness of many that they did it of the people that they sought the Lord with their whole desire 2 Chr. 15.15 of Asa that his heart was perfect all his dayes 2 Chr. 15.17 2 Kings 22.2 of Josiah that he did that was right in the sight of the Lord and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left Quid disperamus quid deficimus quicquid fieri potuit potest Why then should we despair why should we thus faint and fall under the command as under a burthen which neither we nor our fathers could bear If the dry tree they under the Law could bring forth such fruit shall the green tree watered with more abundant grace be barren and bear none at all Shall temporal blessings and but a shadowed light draw them to that height of Perfection which the rich promises of the Gospel and a full sight of heaven it self and the gracious assistance of a good God cannot lift us up unto Shall Publicans and Sinners shall Jewish worshippers enter before us into the kingdom of God and shall we whom the Sun rising from on high hath visited onely look upon the light and gaze at heaven till we are shut out Shall they be able to do their duty and we shut up all in an humble confession as we call it of our weakness and inability Shall we be strong to nothing but sin Beloved God requireth Obedience as he doth our Almes according to that which we have and not according to that which we have not an obedience answerable and proportioned to our strength Not to sin against the dictate of conscience Not to omit that which we know we ought to do Not to commit that which we condemn before and when we do it To press forward with S. Paul to the mark He requireth that Perfection of parts that it be universal though not total in every part though but in part And this part of the distinction we run away with and delight in and think we are seasoned well enough with sanctifying qualities when we are in the gall of bitterness think our hearts clean when they are receptacles and a very stew of polluted thoughts our Phansies sanctified when they are but the shops of vanity our Wills rectified when they do but look on that which is good and fasten and joyn on that which is evil Therefore besides this Perfection of parts God requireth also that Perfection of degrees not such a perfection to which nothing can be added but to which something is added every day For Perfection in the highest degree which cannot be increased and improved is impossible in this life But such a Perfection as by the assistance of Grace we may attain unto such as is alwaies accompanied with an earnest and serious endeavour of growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the work and business of this life not to be reserved for the future not to be begun in earth and finished in heaven as some of late have loved to speak For that Perfection in the other world is not a duty but a reward When our breath is gone from us we are extra statum merendi aut demerendi Precepts were given for this world not for the next Here we are to work out our salvation there to enjoy it Our labour is in the vineyard there is the peny Our wedding garment must be worn here there we shall put on immortality All that is to be done is to be done in this life the next is either misery or bliss And shall we be content with any degree of perfection in hope that the same hand of Mercy will crown and perfect us at once Shall we yield to God any measure of obedience in this world upon this most dangerous presumption that he will fill it up in the world to come Shall we come short of our duty here because some have taught us what we are willing to learn that God will make it up for us in the highest heavens I am no Pelagian nor Perfectionist nor would I make the way to heaven narrower then it is yet I am unwilling to betray either the Truth or my Text and say Christ doth not require what he doth require that we may do what we list and have what we list They who make the way wider for flesh and bloud to walk in are but false guides and to avoid the needle's eye run into the very mouth of destruction It is good advice that of S. Augustine Nemo sibi promittat quod non promittit Evangelium Let no man make the promise larger then the Gospel hath made it Let no man take upon him to be wiser then Christ Let no man say that is impossible which he is unwilling to do and which he never attempted Let no man say This cannot be done when he is resolved to do the contrary It is a good observation of the Fathers That many things seem very absurd to weak and unskilful men which wise men embrace as truths eò elatiùs laudant quò abjectiùs stulti aspernantur and do therefore more extoll and magnifie because they who will not understand have set them at a low price And the Philosopher will tell us That those opinions which bear no shew of truth with them are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more powerful to perswade ignorant men then the truth it self though never so
hanc indulgentiam saith Tertullian It is good to suspect this indulgency For as in God's favour is life so in this kind of indulgence if we be too much in love with it may be death Therefore as Bernard saith Misericordiam hanc nolo Domine I will none of this kind of mercy of mercy which may draw judgement after it Oh what a reward is laid up if we would stay for it and not trust in uncertain riches We may rest upon it and assure our selves that he that doth most good and receiveth the least in this life is the most happy person For to him God speaketh even as he did unto Abraham Gen. 15.1 I am thy exceeding great reward And how empty is the Creature to him that enjoyeth the Creatour What poor glass is a Diamond to him that is familiar with Virtue What trash is Riches to him who is filled with Grace What nicknames are the empty titles of secular Honours to him that knoweth the glory of a Saint What a nothing is the world to him that hath studied Heaven Further yet Riches are accounted as Necessaries and as Ornaments of virtue and under that name we receive and entertain them But necessaries they are not when we either not use them or abuse them to riot when we either lock them up or send them abroad as purveyours and proctors for our lusts making them either the hire of an harlot or the price of bloud And ornaments of virtue they are not which must needs be a stranger to us whilest we are so familiar with the world But indeed receive them under what name we please we shall find they are not necessary nor at all material to perfection For what can these adde to a Man What can they adde to a Philosopher What can they adde to a Saint They can neither make us more reasonable nor more wise nor more pious which yet we may be more and more when we are stript of these trappings Virtus censum non requirit nudo homine contenta est Virtue requireth nothing but a man Neither riches nor poverty neither greatness nor lowness prevail with God but a new creature I say a new creature which may thrive and grow up to perfection although he never wore purple although he lye on a dunghil What S. Paul said of Idols we may say of Riches and Poverty They are nothing in the world there is no such matter in truth and reality This difference betwixt rich and poor is a creature of our own making For let us look about us and consider well and we shall find Virtue to be the main end of our life To this we were created saith S. Paul for this we are men And this is performed in any estate in poverty sickness disgrace imprisonment For these which carry such horrour with them are materia virtutis as well as riches health honour liberty I may shine as well in my Patience and Humility as in my Bounty and Liberality Nay I may be poor and yet charitable have nothing to give yet have a hand as ready to be stretched forth as his that scattereth his bread upon the waters Virtue may be kept up in any state and a man may express his spiritual wisdom as well in rags as in purple Nay we may walk on with less trouble and encumbrance having flung off this luggage Congeratur in te quicquid multi locupletes possident When thou hast all that heart can wish when thou art lord of all the wealth that lyeth in the bosom of the earth thou must empty thy self if not of it yet of the love of it or thou canst have no familiarity with Virtue Till we have bid the World adieu till we neglect Riches till we contemn them till we can say Non opus est nobis fortuna till we can say to Riches We have no need of you though we walk at large as in a kind of terrestrial paradise yet a Wo attendeth us and followeth us at the very heels Again Riches are not onely not necessary to religion and virtue but rather a hindrance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They take us down from our third heaven and take us off from the contemplation of future happiness and bind our thoughts to the vanities of the earth which so press them down and weary them that they cannot aspire They are retinacula spei fetters of our Hope For now where is our Hope Even in the bowels of the earth They are degraders of our Faith For whilest we walk in this vain shadow how many degrees doth our Faith fall back The more we trust in uncertain riches the less we trust in God They are coolers and abaters of our Charity For they make us ungrateful to God severe to our selves and cruel to our brethren Therefore Basil giveth this reason why God left Adam naked in Paradise That he might not be taken from the contemplation of the Creatour by conversing too much with the creature and by care for the things of this world By looking on the forbidden fruit our first parents forfeited at once their obedience and Paradise and how many of their children have lost their part in Christ and in heaven by fixing their thoughts too stedfastly on the things of this life A woful condition certainly thus to be bound in chains thus to stck fast in deep mire that we cannot look up Further yet as Riches are an hindrance and obstacle to good so are they instrumental to evil They facilitate and help it forward and are as the midwife to bring it to its birth which otherwise peradventure had dyed in the womb in the thought and never seen the Sun If sin make our members the weapons of unrighteousness Riches are the handle without which they cannot well be managed Every man cannot grind the face of the poor every man cannot take his brother by the throat every man cannot go into the foolish womans house every man cannot bribe a Judge every man cannot be as wicked as he would And it may seem to be a part of God's Restraining grace to take Riches from some men as he took off the wheels of Pharaoh's chariots that they may not pursue their brethren But when the purse is full the heart will more easily vent all the poison it hath in a reproch in contempt in a blow in an injury in oppression Whilest Poverty as a bank or bulwork boundeth our malice Riches let it overflow and drive all before it When Riches increase our tongues are our own and our hands are our own who is Lord over us Power to do what we list may make us do what otherwise we never thought on When Locusta at the command of Nero had tempered poison and it had not wrought so suddenly as he expected upon Britannicus the Tyrant beat her with his own hand and when she told him it was art to conceal it and take off the envy from the fact he scornfully replied Sanè
yoke under his afflictions under his cross and under him in all obedience that so we may be conformable to his death and die to sin as he died for it Humility without Obedience without a SUB without Subjection is a cross Humility nay it is the very height of pride In Humility there is a SUB Heb. 10.20 a coming under and by it the Christian liveth and moveth and hath his being His whole life is Humility every motion of his is in Humility and his very essence and being is Humility This is the new and living way hard and rough but leading to life And in this the Christian moveth and walketh humbly before his God not opening his eyes but to see the wonders of his Law not opening his mouth but in Hallelujahs not opening his ears but to his voice not ordering his steps but with fear and trembling being as he defined a Monk assidua naturae violentia nothing else in himself but a continued and assiduous violence and beating down of the corruptions and swellings of the flesh This spreadeth and diffuseth it self through every vein and branch through every part and action of his life When he casteth his bread upon the waters his hand is guided by Humility When he speaketh to God in prayer Humility conceiveth the Petition When he fasteth Humility is in capite jejunii beginneth the fast When he exhorteth Humility breatheth the exhortation forth When he instructeth Humility dictateth When he correcteth Humility maketh the rod. Whatsoever he doeth he doeth as under God Nay in his Faith is Humility for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Theodoret a voluntary submission of his soul In his Hope is Humility for it waiteth in expectation Rom 4.18 waiteth even against Hope it self In his Charity is Humility a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it endureth all things Proprii actus singularum virtutum say the Schools Virtues both Moral and Theological like the celestial Orbs have their peculiar motion proceeding from their internal forms but Humility is the Intelligence which keepeth and perpetuateth that motion as those Orbs by some are said to have the conservation of their motion by some assistent Form without Behold I shew you a Paradox A Christian is the freest and the most subject creature in the world set at Liberty and yet kept under Even our Christian Liberty hath its SUB admitteth of a restraint is brought under and bindeth us ab illicitis semper quandoque à licitis from unlawful things alwayes and sometimes from that which is lawful S. Paul I am sure was as free as we and yet he nameth some case wherein he humbleth and abridgeth himself so far as not to eat flesh whilest the world standeth I say 1 Cor. 8.13 our Christian Liberty hath its SUB Nay it hath many And it is the greatest part of our Humility to confine it First it cometh SUB SOBRIETATE Sobriety and Temperance must bound and limit the outward practice of it Gen. 9.3 God hath given every moving thing that liveth to be meat for us He hath opened the Heavens and and let all creatures down to us as he did to Peter in his trance and biddeth us rise kill and eat All meats all drinks are lawful But there is a SUB Humility must be our Carver and our Cup-bearer And we must so eat and so drink that our hearts be not over-charged with surfeiting and drunkenness that our table become not a snare and that we make not those things which God hath ordained for our health an occasion of falling So for apparel we have freedom to use any cloth any colour but Humility must come in and check and limit this Liberty that we abuse not the creature to pride and vanity Next our Christian Liberty cometh SUB CHARITATE under Charity both to my self and to my brethren For our selves we must remove every thing out of the way which may offend us though as useful as our right Hand or as dear as our right Eye And so for others we must not use the creature with offence or scandal to our weaker brethren LICET is a word of enlargement and giveth us elbow-room but NON EXPEDIT It is not expedient cometh in case of scandal to pinion us that we reach not out our hand to things otherwise lawful A NON EXPEDIT maketh a NON LICET The questions and cases are infinite in particular and multiplied more then needs by the pride not weakness of men who will startle and cry out at a thing indifferent in it self and laudable in its use and yet greedily swallow down the most mortal sin But yet the position in general is plain That in some things our Humility must pity others Pride and that for their sakes we may and ought to condescend and for Charitie 's sake abridge our selves of some part of our Christian Liberty which cometh SUB CHARITATE under Charity the mother of Humility There is another SUB SUB AUTORITATE under Autority And this if you please to consult the verse immediately before my Text you will think the Apostle especially meant For he exhorteth the younger to submit themselves to the elder and all of them to be subject one unto another and to be clothed with Humility And this may seem to be the most proper SUB of all For our Sobriety we too often get above it and tread it under our feet and the bond of Charity we break as it were a thread at pleasure But Autority carrieth with it a command and when our Christian Liberty like a floud casteth down all before it this steppeth in and speaketh in the voice of God himself Hitherto thou shalt go and no further It is true where the Spirit is there is freedom and it is as true where the Spirit is there is obedience and he is a Spirit of Obedience as well as of Truth And if we make no better use of our Liberty then to fling it over our shoulders and wear it is a cloke of maliciousness he is ready to pull it off and tell us our duty That for all our Liberty we are to serve one another That Christianity destroyeth not relations of Son to Father of Servant to Man of Wife to Husband of Inferiour to Superiour but establisheth them rather 1 Pet. 2.13 That we must submit to every ordinance of man and that it is his will it should be so Vers 15. The rule is certain and everlasting Omne verum omni vero consonat Not onely in Arts and Sciences but in matters of practice and Christian discipline there is a kind of harmony and dependency of Truths one devoureth not another Nor is my Duty to my Superiour lost in my Christian Liberty Beloved the want of this SUB of so much Humility as to keep our own place hath cost Christiendom dear and so shaken the Church of Christ that she hath fallen asunder by Schisms mouldred into Sects and crumbled into Conventicles and
the faith yet we may examin our selves 1 Pet. 3.15 and be ready alwaies to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us If the Spirit be of God yet it may be tried whether it be of him or no. 1 John 4.1 Every thing of this nature may be brought to the trial 1 Thes 5.21 that we may hold fast that which is good But then if it be true yet it is not alwayes so certain as those speculative conclusions and known principles which none ever yet denied who had but so much reason as to prove him a man To be deaf therefore to all other information under pretense of infallibility to shut out a clearer light upon presumption that he is fully enlightned already ejus est qui mavult didicisse quà m discere is the property of him alone who loveth his credit more then the Truth and counteth it a disgrace or punishment to learn any thing In conclusions then of this nature the mind must ever be free and disengaged not so wedded to its own decrees as to be averse and strange when a fair overture is made of better For I may erre as well as judge aright For how hath Errour so multiplied and whence proceed the greatest part of the errours of our life but from this presumption That we cannot erre If men were either impartial to themselves or so humble as to hearken to the judgment of others the Prince of this world would not have so much in us nor should vve be in danger of so frovvard a generation If men vvere not so soon good they would not be so often evil Nor doth this vvillingness to hear reason blast or endanger that Truth vvhich Reason and Revelation hath implanted in us nay it rather vvatreth it and maketh it flourish For vvhen hath gold a brighter lustre then vvhen it is tried And this attentiveness and submission to what may be said either for or against it is a fair evidence that we fell not upon it by chance but have fastned it to our soul by frequent meditation and are rooted and established in it Neither doth it argue any fluctuation or wavering in the mind or unfixedness of judgement For he doth not waver who followeth a clearer light and better reason and cleaveth unto it Mutatio sententiae non est inconstantia saith the Oratour To disanul a former judgment upon better evidence is not inconstancie it is the stability rather and persevering act of Reason its certain and natural course to judge for that which is most reasonable And the mind doth no more waver in this then the Planets do erre or wander which are said to do so because they appear now in this now in that part of the heavens but yet they keep their constant and natural motion For this entertaineth Truth for it self and suffereth not Errour to enter but under that name and when Truth appeareth in glory in its rayes and beams in that light which doth best discover it chaseth Errour away as a monstre and boweth to the sceptre of Truth It is never so wedded to Errour though never so specious as not to be ready to give it a bill of divorce when Truth shall offer it self to its embraces But it may be said That the mind must needs waver and be lost in uncertainties because it strugleth as yet with doubts and knoweth not whether there may not be better reasons brought then those which she hath already signed and subscribed to I say this is not true Nay rather the mind doth therefore not waver or fluctuate because it doth not know it For till it do know that better reasons can be brought it is bound to that conclusion which for ought yet appeareth hath the best to confirm it Any evidence is the best till a better be brought And until a better be brought it is not Prejudice to lay claim to the best We are yet in via in our way we yet dwell in houses of clay and tabernacles of flesh we struggle with doubts and difficulties Errour and Misprision are our companions here In many things we erre all and in many things we erre in which one would think it were impossible to mistake and are never more deceived then where we think our selves infallible God alone hath this prerogative Not to erre To see all things exactly with a cast of his eye and ad nudum as the Schools speak naked as they are Our knowledge in comparison of his is but ignorance We have need of instruction upon instruction Isa 28.10 13. Psal 19.2 precept upon precept line upon line and that day unto day every day should teach us knowledge That knowledge and certainty we have is such as we are capable of and such as is available to that end for which we were made sufficient to entitle us to happiness but is not like that in God but rather an uncertain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or kind of doubting in comparison of his infallibility Our certainty is such as the wisdome and goodness of God hath fitted to our condition in this life and it is then in its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perfection when we give diligence to use those means that are afforded us that we may judge rightly of all things when we judge according to that light and evidence which sheweth it self and judge not otherwise till a clearer light appeareth Thus S. Paul was a Champion of the Law and after a Martyr of the Gospel Thus he persecuted Christians and thus he died a Christian Thus St. Peter would not converse with the Heathen Acts 10. as polluted and unclean and thus he after looked upon them as purified by God preached to them and baptized them This hath brought into the world all those Recognitions Retractations Recantations which are not onely as confessions but triumphs over a conquerred errour rejoycings and jubilees of men who had sat in darkness but have found the light He who is not fitted and prepared for better information and will not yield upon surer evidence but so magnifieth the impressions that were first made in his mind as to rest upon them as infallible maketh himself aut Deum aut bestiam as the Philosopher speaketh either a God or a beast and the more a beast by making himself as God undeceiveable and that cannot erre for so as a beast he lieth under every burden every errour though it be so gross and mountainous as to press him to death In a word he that doth not empty his mind of Prejudice that doth not expectorate and drive this evil far from him is not fit to be a purchaser of the Truth Dedocendi officium gravius prius quà m docendi Our first task and hardest is to unlearn something that we have been taught and after with more ease we shall learn better We must first pluck up the weeds that Truth may fall as in good ground
I had pity on thee This is the natural and most necessary inference that can be drawn from these premisses What a sick soul then is that which when Mercy overshadoweth her bringeth forth a monster breathing forth hail stones and coals of fire even that cruelty which devoureth those she should foster This is the most false illation can be made For God freely profereth remission of sins to work in us the like mind and affection and pardoneth all by proclamation that we may forgive one another To conclude this It is with this great example of God's Goodness to us as it is with his Word and Spirit and other benefits They are powerful to work miracles to heal the sick to give eyes to the blind to give life to the dead to remove mountains any difficulty whatsoever but they do not necessarily produce these effects because there still remaineth an indifferency in the will of man and a possibility to resist It is the office of the Spirit to seal us to the day of our redemption and he is powerful to do it but he doth not seal a stone which will take no impression or water which will hold no figure His Word is his hammer but it doth not batter nor soften every heart How often is his Word in their mouth how often do they publish his mercies his wonderful mercies to the world whose very mercy notwithstanding is cruelty His Benefits are lively in themselves but dead and buried in an ungrateful breast Therefore to make his Mercy efficacious to let it work what it is very apt to work let us not onely hear God when he speaketh to us by it and go out to meet him when he cometh towards us by his exemplary goodness put off our shooes from our feet at the appearance of this great light to wit all our turbulent motions beat down all the contradictions of our mind and take the veil from before our eyes that we may discern his Mercy as it is working remission of sins but withall planting that love in our hearts which must grow up to shadow all the trespasses of our brethren And this power and influence the Mercy of God hath to work in us the like softness and tenderness of heart to others if we hinder it not if Covetousness and the Love of the world and that False love of our selves and other vile affections stand not up and oppose it We must now in the next place weigh the Force and Power which our forgiveness of our brethren hath to move God to shew mercy unto us And indeed it may seem to have some causality in it For as I told you the SICUT in S. Matthew is ETENIM in S. Luke as we forgive saith the one for we forgive saith the other But indeed they are both one and ETENIM is no more then SICUT And it is observed that this conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though it carry with it the appearance of a Causal yet both in the New Testament and in humane Authours serves sometimes for nothing else but to make up the connexion For take Compassion and all the vertues which are commended to our practice take that Charity which is the fulfilling of the Law yet all will not make up a Cause either efficient or formal Rom. 3.24 of Remission of sins which is the free gift of God But because our Saviour hath told us that if we forgive men their trespasses our heavenly Father will forgive us we may say it is a Cause a cause so far as without it there is no remission of sins For though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains though I give my bread to the poor and my body to be burnt yet if I have not charity if I do not forgive my enemies there is no hope of remission Or it is as I told you causa removens prohibens a cause in this respect that it removeth that hindrance that obstacle that mountain which standeth between us and the Mercy-seat For God's Goodness is larger then his Beneficence He doth not do what good he can he doth not do what good he would because we are uncapable He doth not shine in full beauty upon us because we are nothing but deformity We will not suffer him to be good we will not suffer him to be merciful we will not suffer him to wipe out our sins by forgiveness we set up our rampiers and bulworks against him and our Malice is strong against his Mercy But so far it is a cause and may be said to produce it as the effect is commonly attributed to such causes which though they have not any positive causality yet without them the effect cannot be accomplished Thus Blessedness is placed as a title and inscription upon every vertue Blessed are the poor in spirit Blessed are the merciful Every vertue maketh us blessed but not every vertue without all So naked and destitute is every vertue if it be not accompanied with all nor is any vertue truly a vertue if it do not savour and relish of the rest For it is universal obedience that God requireth at our hands And though forgiveness of sins go as it were hand in hand with every vertue yet it is so in every vertue that we cannot find it but in all We are baptized for remission of sins We believe to remission of sins We forgive that our sins may be forgiven Yet none of these are available alone not Baptism without Faith nor Faith without Love The profession of Christianity taketh in all that is praise-worthy all vertues whatsoever As the Oratour telleth us that to his art of Oratory not onely Wit and Pronunciation and Command of language but also the Knowledge of all the arts are necessary quae etiam aliud agentes ornat ubi minimè credas excellit which adorneth our speech when we do not intend it and is a grace which sheweth it self in every limme and part of it and is very eminent where we do not see it So though the habits of Vertues be as distinct as their names yet they all meet in that general Obedience and Sanctity of life which denominateth a Christian And there is not any vertue but hath some appearance and is in part visible in every one My Christian Fortitude sheweth it self in my Temperance my Temperance in my Bounty my Faith in my Charity and my Charity in my Hope And as in an army of men though the Captain and Leader be commonly entitled to the victory yet was it vvrought out by the several and particular hands of every common souldier and by the united force of the vvhole battalion so that vve truly say All did overcome and Every one did overcome So vve may attribute Remission of sins to every vertue vvhich vve can never obtain but by the embracement and practice of them all Our Saviour's words then If ye forgive ye
things upon Righteousness as counting them but dung in respect of it in which alone we rest and look through Righteousness upon these things as that which seasoneth and sanctifieth every part of our life every action every thought of ours without which all our endeavours are but as so many approches to death and with which they are so many advantages and promotions to life And this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to keep a method an order a right course in our proceedings These outward things are but impedimenta the baggage of Righteousness which cannot as one speaketh well be spared or left behind but many times hinder the march and therefore great care must be taken that they lose not nor disturb the Victory We must then first make good the victory as Alexander once told Parmenio when his carriage was in danger we must by Righteousness overcome the world and then our baggage vvill be safe and these things vvill follovv us as captives do victors in their triumphs Let us first seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto us vvhich is the Promise annexed my last part and cometh novv in a vvord to be handled In this Promise God may seem to deal with us as indulgent fathers do with their children If we do what we should he will give us that which we desire By an argument drawn from gain and profit he laboureth to win our love to himself and as Rebecca dealt with old Isaac he provideth us such meat as our soul loveth Profit and commodity is a lure that calleth the greatest part of the world after it Most that we take in hand to do is copied out according to that pattern of Judas What will you give me What profit what commodity will accrue unto me is the preface and way to all our actions This is the price of good and evil Men are hardly induced to do either but by the way of bargain and sale It vvas the Devil's question unto God concerning Job Doth Job serve God for nought hast thou not hedged him in on every side Indeed in this the Devil mistook Job's mind for Job served not God for this but for another cause Yet there might be some reason to ask the question For vvho is there amongst the sons of men that can content himself to serve God for nothing Aristotle discoursing concerning the qualities and conditions of mans age telleth us that young men for the most part consider not so much profit as equity and duty as being led by their natural temper and simplicity vvhich teacheth them rather to do vvhat is good then vvhat is profitable And vve may observe natural conscience more strong and prevailing in youth then in age But old men have ends of their actions their minds run more upon profit and gain as being led by advice and consultation vvhose property it is to have an eye to conveniency and not so much to goodness vvhen it cometh tovvards them naked and bare I vvill not deny but there may be some found that are but young in the vvorld men that are children in evil to whom it may be said as one sometime told Amphiaraus that they have not tasted hovv svveet gold is nor knovv hovv pleasant a savour gain hath Yet no doubt most men even in their youngest dayes are old and expert enough in the vvorld For vve bring vvith us into the vvorld the Old man vvhose vvisdom and policy it is to have an ear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to enterprise any thing but for some further end then it self either pleasure or profit or honour These are thy Gods O Israel These are the Gods of the world These like God sit at the top of Jacob's ladder and all our actions are but steps and rounds to go up unto them God and Righteousness is not reward enough to draw men on Now God who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens speaketh even studieth wayes to save us and is witty in inventing means to bring us unto him amongst other wayes of his hath made this weakness of ours a means to draw us home Matth. 13.29 And as the Husband man in the Gospel would not have the tares pulled up for fear the wheat should come up with them so God doth in a manner tolerate these tares in us lest the rooting out of our affections to the things of this life might draw a little too near the quick and quite choke up the love of God Or as a skilful artificer that vvorketh upon ill materials if he cannot make what he would yet he maketh that vvhich the stuff and matter vvill afford The New Testament indeed is not so frequent in mentioning earthly blessings and the reason that they are not there so fully taught may be because they are supposed to be learned and known as being sufficiently stood upon in the Old In the Old there is scarce any page which doth not entitle righteous men to the possession of some temporary good Yet even under the Gospel Righteousness hath its part of the blessings of this world whether of soul or body or goods And what the son of Sirach spake of those excellent men who lived before his time we have seen true in Christian Commonwealths The noble famous men reigned in their kingdoms they bare excellent rule in their wisdom wise sentences were found in their instructions They were rich also and could comfort They lived quietly at home Be it therefore Power or Wisdom or Riches or Peace or any other of those apples of Paradise which seem to the world so fair and lovely and so much to be desired God hath not rained them down upon the Cities of men so as that he hath left his own dry and barren and utterly unfâ—â—nished with them I will not dâ—spute unto whom of right these blessings belong whether to reprobate or the righteous They who have moved this question have stiled themselves Righteous and to gain these things have committed those sins which none but a reprobate could do For did ever any righteous person oppress or rob his brother But in this they do the same which the old Romans did who when two cities contending for a piece of ground did make them their Judge and Umpire wisely gave sentence on their own behalf took it from them both and adjudged it to themselves First they are righteous and a Saint is soon made up in their phansie and then every man is a wicked person whom they intend to spoil The thief is righteous and the oppressed innocent a reprobate But let the title to these things rest where it will Of this we may safely presume that God who is Lord of all the earth and in whom originally all the right to these things is doth so put forth his hand and dispose them as that they who first seek Righteousness cannot doubt of that portion of them which shall be sufficient for them Onely let
God grant there be no legio sulminatrix in this sense no thundring Regiment to call down the tempest of Gods wrath not upon their enemies but themselves Look into the Temple There God is present we may be sure as present as in heaven it self and no doubt many come to it as to the place of his habitation But we may with the cast of an eye discover not a few who come disguised indeed as if they meant to hide themselves from God but of so irreverent deportment as if the place were not dreadful and God were not here Look into the City That is Jerusalem the faithful city But how is the faithful city become an harlot what is her Religion but a mockery What mock fasts when she fasts to turn away Gods judgment and is her self the greatest judgment God hath sent upon the land What mock-prayer whilest she prayes for that she will not have prays for peace and beats up the drum I should not indeed have given her her portion with the Hypocrite but that her shew of holiness is too thin a scarf and her wickedness is too transparent Look into the Country I know there is sancta rusticitas that God may be served with the hammer in the hand and will hearken to an Halelujah sung at the Plow tayl But what coldness do we find amongst many what indifferency what halting between God and Baal I hope there are not many but a few are too many of those who can salute Anthony or Caesar as occasion serves and will be very good subjects when the King prevails And now last of all look into the Church that indeed is made a spectacle unto the world unto Angels unto men and hath been lookt upon with such an evil eye that now we can scarce see it unless we will seek it in a Conventicle which they call a Synod a great part whereof scarce understands the word Yet look upon this Heaven in its beauty before the powers of it were shaken and we fear we might have seen some Angels fallen from their estate some wandring stars some reaping plentifully that did sow nothing that indeed had nothing to sow many striving to enter in but not at the strait gate Go run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem Look into that part of the world which we call Christendom and there you shall see Religion follow and lacquey it to the World to the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life varying in its shape and complexion as that alters and changes running along in the same stream and channel looking towards one haven but carryed as it were with the tide into another carryed captives according to the will of the enemy and yet triumphing in the name of the Lord. There you may see men that call themselves the Temples of the Holy Ghost like those Egyptian Temples of a fair and glorious fabrick without but having nothing but Cats and Crocodiles within instead of Gods There you may observe the same men professing Christ sighing and groning out Christ and yet putting him to open shame making this poor Christ a way to Riches this humble Christ a way to Honour making this meek Lamb a Butcher bringing him as the Jesuite doth as a patron and promoter and abettor of all the cruelty they practice upon their brethren of all their unjust designs not an accessory but principal for they are begun and ended in his name The same Christians ravisht at the glory of his Promises and crest-fall'n at the voice of his Command confessing themselves sinners yet not sensible of their sin proclaiming Heaven the onely blessed estate and yet never moving towards it bound to the Haven of rest and yet steering their course into the gulf of destruction calling Christ with one Prophet the desire of all nations and yet looking upon him with so small regard as if as another Prophet speaketh there were nothing to be seen in him that we should desire him begging Life most importunately and yet most passionately making love to Death made up of so many contradictions that it might pose a considering man and make him at one view resolve as the Cynick did when he beheld the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man is the most generous plant in nature and at another view with the same Cynick when he saw the Sooth-sayers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pronounce Man the most ridiculous creature in the mass Run I say to and fro through the world by the wonderful frame whereof we might learn to know God but we turn away our eye from Christ and learn to mock him by its vanities These are the last dayes and S. Peters prophesie is fulfilled It is become the language of the world an oeconomical language Tush God doth not see Atheisme and Profaneness will certainly bring this gray-headed World with sorrow to its grave For as Demodocus said of the Melesians that they were not fools but did the same things which fools use to do so may we of these profane mockers Atheists we will not call them but most plain it is they do the very same things for which we call men so And thus much of the first point That the Conversation of men for the most is but a mockery of God We see then that this disease doth eructare se ab animo in superficiem as Tertullian speaks exhale and breathe it self forth and is visible in the outward man And the behaviour of many profess what they will is but a mocking of God But further yet in the second place it may be in votis We may not onely live as if God did not see but we may wish from our hearts that he had no eye at all For we never make worse wishes then when we are the servants of Sin our Wishes commonly being proportioned to our Actions Lust brings forth the one and Fear the other If we sin we fear and if Fear be the mother and midwife of our Wish the Wish that it brings forth will prove a monster Take us in any state in any condition but this non satis patemus Deo we are never open enough to God Fling us into prison and we desire our sighs may come before him Lead us into captivity we cry out with the Prophet Behold Lord for we are in distress Lay us on our bed of sickness and we call upon him to look upon us and to come so near as to turn our bed Lay us in our grave and our hope is he will breathe upon our dust but when we sin and our conscience presents unto us the countenance of an angry God then we put him far from us we are willing he should depart from us who have departed from him we wish for some rock to hide us or some mountain to cover us from his sight then we could be content and it is even our wish that he had no eye at all We have an author who
up one another and if you remove and take one away the rest will fall So it is here These two especial stones of our spiritual building our first Resurrection and our Seeking of things above do mutually hold up and mutually prove one another For take away but the stone of our first Resurrection and that of Seeking the things above will immediately fall and take away the Seeking of the things above and there is no first Resurrection Let us but grant that we are risen with Christ and certainly we shall seek the things above and if we find our minds fixed on the things above we may infallibly conclude unto our selves that we are risen with Christ But I must come to my Division These words as all other conditional speeches and propositions do naturally divide themselves into these two parts 1. the Antecedent or foregoing part If thou be risen with Christ 2. the Consequent or following part then seek those things which are above We shall limit and bound our discourse within these three considerations 1. That our conversion and newness of life is a Rising which we ground upon these words If you be risen 2. That this our conversion and rising must be early without delay for which we have warrant in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Apostle speaks in the time past For he saith not If you do rise or If you will rise but If you are risen as supposing it to be already done 3. Lastly That the manifestation of our conversion of this our rising with Christ consists in our seeking of those things which are above as Christs was by appearing to his Disciples and shewing to them his hands and his feet If you be then risen with Christ seek those things which are above Of these in their order Though there be many words in Scripture by which our Newness of life is exprest yet our Apostle in divers places of his writings makes especial choice of this of rising as Ephes 2.1 You hath he quickned who were dead in trespasses and sins and v. 5. even when we were dead in sins he hath quickned us together in Christ and hath raised us up together with Christ And again chap. 5. he maketh use of that of the Prophet Isaiah Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Omnis causa eousque in Adam censetur donec in Christo râ—â—â—â—atur saith Tertullian Every soul is dead with the first Adam 〈◊〉 it be raised up to life with the second We may truly say of it that it is departed because God who is the life of the Soul is departed from it And it being destitute of the favour of God which should actuate and quicken it the stench of Sin seizeth upon it the worm of Conscience gnaws it the horrour of Infidility makes it like unto the fiends of Hell fit in sepulcro corporis vivo funus animae jam sepultum and a living body is made the sepulchre to a dead soul a soul that is dead and yet dies every moment multiplies as many deaths as sins and if that of the Schools be true Peccator peccat in suo infinito would be dead and dying to all eternity Son of man can these bones live as the Spirit of God says unto the Prophet Ezek. 37. Can these broken sinews of the Soul come together and be one again Can such a disordered Clock where every whele is broken be set again Can this dead Soul be made a Saint and walk before God in the land of the living We may answer with the Prophet Lord God thou knowest Thou knowest that this dissolved putrified carcass may see the light again that Mary Magdelene may rise from sin as well as her brother Lazarus from the grave that as we are fallen with Adam so we may rise again with Christ that these Stones being formed into the faith of Abraham may be made the children of Abraham and this generation of vipers having spit out their venome may bring forth fruits worthy amendment of life And this our conversion may well be stiled a Rising for many reasons for many waies it resembles it First the World may well go not onely for a Prison but a Grave All the pomp and glory of it are but as dust and ashes wherein we are raked up and buried All the desires all the pleasures of it are but as the grave-cloths wherewith we are bound And in the midst of these allurements in the midst of these glories and sensual objects the Soul rots and corrupts and even stinketh in the nostrils of God In the midst of all the greatness the world can cast upon us the Soul becomes worse then nothing The Love of the world is as unsatiable as the Grave and devours souls as that doth bodies But when through the operation of the Spirit we are taken out of the world we have our resurrection Then it may be said of us as Christ said of his disciples They are not of the world for I have chosen them out of the world John 17. I have set them apart and made them my peculiar people that they may escape the pollutions of the world 2 Pet. 2.20 They are born in the world and in the world they are born again unto me In the world they are but not of the world In the world they are and in the world they traffick for another world passing by this as not worth the cheapning looking upon Beauty as upon a snare loathing Riches as dung and afraid of Pleasures as of Hell it self They have a being but not living in the world for their life is hid with Christ in God But as Christ when he was risen staid yet a while upon earth before he ascended so do Christians make a short abode and sojourn for a time in it as in a strange country looking for a city whose builder and maker is God In the world they have nothing for they have forsaken all surrendred all the things of the world to the world Matth. 16. Luke 14. earth to earth dust to dust ashes to ashes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are our Saviours own words by which not onely the act of forsaking is signified but such an affection of the mind as placeth all things under Christ is ready to fling them away if they cannot keep them with Christ having as if they had not possessing as if they possest not having stept into the world as mariners do sometimes out of their ship to the shore there gathering these cockles but ready upon the sign given to cast them away and return with hast into the ship So that in respect of the world it may be said of them as the Angel said of Christ Why seek you the living amongst the dead they are risen they are not here Secondly at our Resurrection there will be a great change For though we shall not all sleep we shall all be changed This corruptible
prince of this world above every high thing that exalteth it self against Christ and the knowledge of God He is not partiarius divinae sententiae a divider with God and the World in one part from the heaven heavenly and in the other part from the earth earthy but he is awake and alive and active in the performance of every good duty His obedience is universal and equal like unto a Circle and consists in an equality of life in every respect answering to the rule the command of God as a Circle doth in every part equally look upon the Point or Center And being thus qualified we may say of him as the Disciples did of Christ SVRREXIT VERE Luke 24.34 He is risen indeed Thus then you see our Regeneration is here expressed by our rising with Christ We might afford you many other resemblances but we must hasten But here some man may say How are the dead raised and by what power do their souls come to this state of life I will not say with the Apostle Thou fool But certainly there is no man so weak in faith but must confess that he that raiseth our vile bodies must also raise our vile and unclean souls he that calleth us from the dust of the grave must also call us from the death of sin he that changes our bodies must renew our minds In our corporal resurrection and in our spiritual resurrection God is all in all But yet the Soul doth not rise again as the Body which is dust and near to nothing but as a soul which hath an Understanding though darkned and a Will though perverted and Affections though disordered And as we pray Turn us so vve promise that vve vvill turn unto the Lord. He purgeth us and vve clense our selves He breaks our hearts and vve plow them up We are told that he createth a new heart in us and vve are exhorted to be renewed in our minds But solus Deus for all this God doth all For this New creature springeth up indeed out of the earth and groweth up and flourisheth illapsa maturantis gratia by the influence of Gods maturing and ripening grace vvhich drops upon our hearts as the rain and distills as the dew upon the tender herb Take if you please S. Bernards determination and it is this This our rising saith he is from God and from Man from Gods grace and from Mans will but not so as if these two were coordinate but subordinate Grace and our Will do not share the work between them sed totum singula peragunt but each of them perform the whole work Grace doth it wholly and our Will wholly God doth save us and vve vvork out our salvation sed ut totum in illo sic totum ex ipso but so that it is vvrought by the Will of man so is mans Will vvholly enabled thereunto by the Grace of God vvhich determineth the vvill if not physically at least morally And this may satisfie any but those qui vinci possunt persuaderi non possunt vvho may be overcome vvith the force of truth but not persuaded We may ask the question How we are raised Divines may dispute and determine at pleasure But it vvould be a more profitable question to ask our selves Whether we are willing to be raised Whether when God calls us and the Angel is ready to roll away the stone when his countenance shines upon us and when all lets and impediments are removed we had not rather still rot in our graves then be up and walking We may ask with the woman that went to the sepulchre Who shall roll away the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre but we must ask and examine our selves also Whether we are well content it should be removed and not rather defer our rising in hope that a time will come when we shall be pluckt out of our graves whether we will or no and vainly think that we had not lain so long in the dust had God been willing to raise us This is not to magnifie the Grace of God but to turn it as S. Jude speaks into wantonness v. 4. and in a manner to charge God with our death as if he were well pleased to see us in the grave who calleth on us and commands us to come out and threatens a worse place if we make not haste to come out To attribute good by our Rising to God is our duty and we deserve not his grace if we will not acknowledge it but to attribute our not Rising to him is a sin and a sin which we must rise from or we shall never rise Hos 13.14 Wherefore as he says I will ransome thee from the power of the grave I will redeem thee from death so he says also by the Prophet Esay and the Apostle repeats it Ephes 5. Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give the light That this our Conversion or our Rising with Christ must be like Christ's Resurrection early and without delay The Apostle's word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye are risen with Christ This manner of speech which the Apostle uses is a most effectual persuasion In civil business we have a rule Fides habita saepe obligat fidem It is a good means to make one an honest man to pretend that we take him to be a very honest man and deal with him as if indeed he were so For shame to fail of that expectation which goes of a man many times makes him do better then he would With this art doth S. Paul deal with his Colossians and by pretending that he supposeth them to be already risen he doth most effectually persuade them to rise For they cannot rise too soon they cannot rise soon enough For it is not here as it is in other affairs It is a property of things belonging to the world not to be seasonable but at certain times and there is nothing which doth so much commend our actions as the choice of fit times and seasons in which they are done Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intempestivenes and to be ignorant of times and occasions fitting every business is counted amongst men a great vice and imperfection For the World is like a Theatre in which all things cannot come at once upon the stage and every thing hath but its part its proper scene and time of action It is with the things of this world as with harps and other curious instruments of musick which are put out of order with every change of weather So the alteration of every circumstance brings them out of tune But the things of God are of another nature As himself is such are they alwayes the same Pietas omnium horarum res est omnium aetatum The practice of Godliness is at all times seasonable That precept of S. Paul Be instant in season and out of season concerns not onely the Preacher of the word but also every person that
God is just holy as God is holy and merciful as God is merciful Look not for the face of God in the hollow of the ear or the wrinkles of the face Look not for him in a forced sigh or grone Look not to see him alwaies in thy outward mortification For there thou seest at most but his hinder parts what he commandeth last The fullest view a mortal eye can have of him is in piety and innocency of life which are the works of his hand and weak and imperfect representations of him And this is his glory that we are like unto him and in this he rejoyceth as an artificer is delighted in his work when he seeth it finished according to that Idea which he had set up in his mind and looketh upon it with the same favour and complacency as he doth upon his child which resembleth him so looketh God upon his creature when he seeth him built up according to that pattern which he hath made and which was in himself when he seeth him in that shape and form of obedience which he prescribed when he is what God would have him be a follower of God This is his glory above all the Hallelujahs and Hosannas of men and Angels In a word this is the end for which he gave us those hard and unpleasant laws of Fasting and Abstinence and that chargeable one as we think of Hearing For this we pray for this we hear for this we fast And if these duties lift us up to this they are accepted If not they but carry us the wrong way from Bethel to Bethaven from true godliness to lying and vanity and they are an abomination And when God thundereth from heaven and breatheth forth his menaces against the greatest sinners the sentence is They shall have their portion with hypocrites For 1. Nothing is more opposite to God who is Truth then a Pharisaical hypocrite whose whole life is a lye opposite to his Justice which as it punisheth all and every part of wickedness so it exacteth all and every part of sanctity which will not dispense with a moral positive and eternal precept upon the performance of a temporay and occasional one which exacteth his will to be performed not by halves but commandeth us implere legem to fulfiâ—l his Law to fill it up with our obedience which will not take a dayes fast for an age of intemperance a bow of the head for a blow on the face nor the hearing of an hour for the deceit and cosenage of a vveek vvhich vvill not take the shadow for the substance nor a picture for a Christian in a vvord vvhich vvill not admit of our courage and resolution in sin for our active yet unactive endeavours in bodily exercise vvhich vvill not take the helps the abused helps for the end nor favour the Devil for the Saint he is like The voice of Justice is These things thou oughtest to have done and not to have left the other undone 2. Hypocrisie is opposite to God's Wisdom and is a mockery of him hiding us from his all-seeing eye as if he could not behold Oppression and Sacrilege through a Fast as if he could not discover us fighting against heaven because our march is grave and solemn and we sin against him in his name as if he could not see Jeroboam's wife in her disguise nor the Devil in Samuel's mantle as if he that made the Eye were blind and he that made the Conscience were not greater then it and saw all things even those vve will not see and those vve cannot see for vvho ever yet foorded his own heart Why should vve then provoke the Lord to jealousie Are we wiser then he Quid prodest inclusam habere conscientiam Patemus Deo Why should vve first beat and wound our conscience with sin and then heal and skin it over vvith a ceremony for howsoever it be shut to thee thy heart is open to God more open then Drusus's house in the story that had neither vvindows nor doors Though thy mask be on and thou art acting thy part upon the stage of the world yet thou art in the eye and presence of a just and wise God To him thy complement is a lye thy dissimulation open thy thoughts as vocal as thy words thy darkness as clear as the light and thy whisper as loud as thunder He can sever thy dross from thy gold thy oppression from thy fasting thy sacrilege from thy zeal And he vvho telleth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their names will tell the number of thy sins as numberless as they and call them all by their names thy Oppression oppression thy Fraud fraud thy Profaneness profaneness though they lye hid and covered over in a fast in thy ceremonious specious and hollow devotion And now vvhere is thy hope In a shadow in a ceremony in a broken reed vvhich vvill pierce through thy hand and aggravate thy sin Job 8. The hope of the hypocrite shall be cut off said Bildad Nay his joy is but a moment saith Zophar Job 20. And a Moment vve know is indivisible of less continuance then a thought Philosophers will not allow it to be a part of Time How can that hope last which hath no better a pillar to lean on then a phantasm which appeareth and is not I fast twice in the week I pay tithes of all that I possess is a fair Item in a Pharisee's catalogue but it is foisted in and when God looketh upon it it is a bill of accusation And now you have seen the Pharisee's phylacteries pulled off the hypocrite unmasked let us take a short survey of our selves by vvay of application and so conclude And here as S. Ambrose speaketh of the story of Naboth Vetus tempore usu quotidiana It is very ancient but renewed every day in the practice of men so may vve say of the Pharisees The Sect is vanished but there is a generation of such vipers still lifting up their heads and their voices as high as they as very hypocrites as they as holy as they and as seditious as they as holy as they and as deceitful as they as holy as they and as covetous as they as holy as they and as imperious as they as holy as they and as bold Dictators as they Mali thripes mali ipes Neither is better for both are bad and it is not easie to determine which is worse but when they shew us their teeth and their horns You may see them in the Temple and in every street hear them giving thanks and blessing themselves making that a Law which is none and slighting the rest straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel stumbling at a straw and leaping over a mountain startling at a child at that which is harmless and embracing a monster silent and crafty when they are over-powered and loud and cruel when they prevail Lambs when they list and Lions when they can
purged from all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness Vers 21. And in the third place to drive it home he urgeth them to the Practice and full Obedience of what they hear and believe His first reason is Because to hear and not to do is to put a cheat upon our selves to defraud our selves of the true end of Hearing which when we do we must necessarily fall upon a worse end If we hear and not do we shall do that which will destroy us His second reason is taken ab utili from the huge advantage we shall reap by it For Blessedness is entailed not upon the Hearers but the Doers of the Word as you find it in my Text But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein c. In which words you have I. the Character of a true Gospeller of a Christian indeed He looketh into the Gospel and he continueth in it by frequent meditation and by constant obedience by not forgetting and by doing the work which the Gospel enjoyneth This is his Character II. his Crown He shall be blessed in his deed So that here the Apostle taketh the Christian by the hand and pointeth out to him his end namely Blessedness And that he may press forward to it he chalketh out his way before him the Gospel or the doctrine of the Gospel of Christ Here if he walk and make progress here if he remain and persevere the end is Blessedness and it is laid up for him and even expecteth and waiteth to meet him Thus we see it and thus we set forward towards it Doing is the Duty and Blessedness is the Reward These are the Parts In the first the Character of a true Christian you have the Character of the Gospel it self and that one would think a strange one For who would look for Law in the Gospel or who would look for liberty in a Law The Gospel is good news but a Law is terrible we cannot endure to hear that which is commanded And one would think that the Law were vanished with the smoke at mount Sinai And Liberty is a Jubilee bringeth rest and intermission but a Law tieth and fettereth us to hard tasks to be up and doing to labour and pain And yet there is Law in the Gospel and there is Liberty in the Gospel and these two will friendly joyn and comply together and the truest way to liberty is by this Law The Gospel then or the Doctrine of the Gospel is 1. a Law and so requireth our obedience 2. a perfect Law and exacteth a perfect and complete obedience 3. a Law of liberty that our obedience may be free and voluntary And these if we continue to the end will draw on the reward which is the end of all the end of this Law the end of our obedience We shall be blessed in our work We begin with the Character of the Gospel or the doctrine of the Gospel And first we see the Apostle calleth it a Law And though it may seem an improper speech to say the Gospel is Law yet it will bear a good and profitable sense For there is a new Law as well as an old Et lex antiqua suppletur per novam saith Tertullian The old Law receiveth addition and perfection by the new Take it in what sense you please in the best and most pleasing signification it implieth a Law If you take it for a Testament as it is called that is the Will of the Testator Hebr. 7.22 and his will is a Law It is called so mandatum a command an injunction contestatio mentis saith Gellius a declaration of our mind John 17.14 I have given them thy word saith Christ I have delivered all thy mind and will which we are bound to observe as a Law Take it for a Covenant It is called so the new covenant And what is a Covenant but a Law It was a Law upon Christ to do what belonged to his office and it is a Law upon us to do our duties unless we can think that Christ onely was under the Law that we might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lawless and do what we please Take it as the name importeth for Good news Even that pleasing sound the Angels Anthem the Musick of Heaven may conveigh a Law For what was the good news That we should be delivered from our enemies That is but an imperfect narration but a part of the news The Law is tied as fast to it as we are to the Law That we should serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our life Take it in the Angels words To you is born a Saviour And though TO YOU may take all mankind within its compass and be as large as the whole world yet it is a Law that appropriateth and applieth these words and draweth them down to particulars For though they take in all yet they do not take in a Libertine or lawless person To you a Saviour is no good news to the impenitent sinner to him that will not be obedient to this Law to the Gospel of Christ Facit infidelitas multorum ut non omnibus nascatur qui omnibus natus est saith Ambrose To you a Saviour is born is universally true but Infidelity and Disobedience interpret it against themselves He is not your Saviour unless you receive him with his own conditions and his conditions make a Law and are obligatory For in the last place look upon his promises of Expiation and Pardon and Remission of Life and Eternity look upon them in all their brightness and radiancie and even from thence you may hear a Law as the Israelites did from the thick cloud and thunders For Love may have a Law bound up in it as vvell as Terrour Love hath its commands Indeed it is it self a Law especially the Love of the God of Love who is equal to himself in all his wayes vvhose promises are made as all things else vvhich are made by him in order number and weight vvhose Love and Promises are guided and directed by his Justice and Wisdom He doth not promise to purge those vvho vvill vvallow in the mire or to pardon those vvho vvill ever rebel or to give them life vvho love death or eternal pure spiritual joy to those vvho seek eternity onely in their lusts No his promises are alwayes attended with conditions fitted to that Wisdom that made them and to our condition that receive them He doth not ex conditionibus facere promissiones as some have been bold to say condition vvith us to do his vvill and then turn the condition into a promise but rather ex promissionibus facere conditiones make conditions out of promises For every promise in the Gospel is loaded vvith its condition Thou shalt be saved but it is if thou believe There is lex Fidei the Law of Faith I will give thee a crown of life but it is if thou be faithful
Powers and Principalities Laws and Precepts and all that is named of God Ambition maketh Laws Jura perjura Swear and forswear Arise kill and eat Covetousness maketh Laws condemneth us to the mines to dig and sweat Quocunque modo rem Gather and lay up Come not within the reach of Omri's statutes of humane Laws and you need not fear any Law of Christ. Private Interest maketh Laws and indeed is the Emperour of the world and maketh men slaves to crouch and bow under every burthen to submit to every Law of man though it enjoyn to day what it did forbid yesterday to raise up our heads and then duck at every shadow that cometh over us but we can see no such formidable power in the Royal Law of Christ because it breatheth not upon it to promote and uphold it but looketh as an enemy that would cast it down biddeth us deny our selves which we do every day for our lusts for our honour for our profit but cannot do it for Christ or for that crown which is laid up for those that do it Thus every thing hath power over us which may destroy us but Christ is not hearkned to nor those his Laws which may make us wise unto salvation For we are too ready to believe what some have been bold to teach that there are no such Laws at all in the Gospel Therefore in the last place let us cast this root of bitterness out of our hearts let us look upon it as a most dangerous and baneful errour an errour which hath brought that abomination of desolation into the world and into the lives and manners of Christians which have made them stink amongst the inhabitants of the earth amongst Jews and Pagans and Infidels which tremble to behold those works of darkness which they see every day not onely done but defended by those who call themselves the children of light Because in that name we bite and devour one another for this they despise the Gospel of Christ because we boast of it all the day long and make use of it as a Licence or Letters patent to be worse then they riot it in the light beat our fellow-servants defraud and oppress them which they do not in darkness and in the shadow of death The first Christians called the Gospel legem Christianam the Christian Law and so lived as under a Law so lived that nothing but the name was accused But the latter times have brought forth subtle Divines that have disputed away the Law and now there is scarce any thing left commendable but the name A Gospeller and worse then a Turk or Pagan a Gospeller and a Revenger a Gospeller and a Libertine a Gospeller and a Schismatick a Gospeller and a Deceiver a Gospeller and a Traitor a Gospeller that will be under no Law a Gospeller that is all for Love and Mercy and nothing for Fear I may say the Devil is a better Gospeller for he believeth and trembleth And indeed this is one of the Devils subtilest engines veritatem veritate concutere to shake and beat down one Truth with another to bury our Duty in the Good news to hide the Lord in the Saviour and the Law in the covering of Mercy to make the Gospel supplant it self that it may be of no effect to have no sound heard but that of Imputative righteousness From hence that irregularity and disobedience amongst Christians that liberty and peace in sin For when Mercy waiteth so close upon us and Judgment is far out of our sight we walk on pleasantly in forbidden paths and sin with the less regret sin and fear not pardon lying so near at hand To conclude then Let us not deceive our selves and think that there is nothing but Mercy and Pardon in the Gospel and so rely upon it till we commit those sins which shall be pardoned neither in this world nor in the world to come Nemo promittat sibi quod non promittit Evangelium saith Augustine Let no man make the promise larger then the Gospel hath made it nor so presume on the Grace of God as to turn it into wantonness so extol it as to depress it so trust to Mercy as to forfeit it but look into the Gospel and behold it in its own shape and face as pardoning sin and forbidding sin as a royal Release and a royal Law And look upon Christ the authour and finisher of our faith as a Jesus to save us Psal 2. and a Lord to command us as preaching peace and preaching a Law Rom. 8.3 condemning sin in his flesh dying that sin might dye and teaching us to destroy it in our selves In a word let us so look into the Gospel that it may be unto us the savour of life unto life and not the savour of death unto death so look upon Christ here that he may be our Lord to govern us and our Jesus to save us that we may be subject to his Laws and so be made capable of his mercy that we may acknowledge him to be our Lord and he acknowledge us before his Father that Death may lose its sting and Sin its strength and we may be saved in the last day through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Two and Fortieth SERMON PART II. JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed THat the Precepts of the Gospel do bind us as Laws ye have heard already and how the Doctrine of the Gospel is a Law We must in the next place see how it is a perfect Law And first That is perfect saith the Philosopher cui nihil adimi nec adjici potest from which nothing can be taken and to which nothing can be added Such is the Gospel You cannot adde to it you cannot take from it one lota or tittle If any shall adde unto these things Rev. 22.18 God shall adde to him the plagues that are written in this book And if any shall take away from them God shall take away his part out of the book of life There needeth no second hand to supply it and that hand deserveth to be cut off that shall corrupt or alter it For look upon the End which is Blessedness There you have it drawn out in the fairest lines that flesh and bloud can read in as large a representation as our humane nature is capable of Then view the Means to bring us to that end They are plainly exprest and set out there in such a character that we may run and read them open to our understanding exciting our faith raising our hope and even provoking us to action There is nothing which we ought to know nothing which we must believe nothing which we may hope for nothing which concerneth us to do nothing which may lift us up to happiness and carry us to the end but it is written
our strength And this is all 2. God hath promised to circumcise the heart of his people Deut. 30. that they should thus love him And his promises are Yea and Amen even in temporal blessings much more in spiritual And if we fail yet his promise is true and we have lied against our own souls He gave us strength enough and we have betrayed it to our lusts and the vanities of the world have fallen with our staff in our hand failed in the midst of all advantages and suffered our selves to be beaten down in our full strength when there were more with us then against us 3. Last of all he hath born witness from heaven and hath registred the names of those in his book who have walked before him with a perfect heart as a 2 Chron. 15.17 1 Kings 15.14 Asa b 1 Kings 3.6 David c 2 Kings 23.25 Josiah And this under the Old Covenant Much more then may we attain to it under the New which was brought in to this end to make every thing perfect For there can be no reason given why Christ who is the Son should not make more perfect men then Moses who was but a Servant why the Gospel should not make as good Saints as the Law Divines usually distinguish between Perfection of parts and Perfection of degrees The first they say must be brought into act by cleaving not to one alone but to every commandment of God and casting down every imagination beating down every tentation that may stand between them and it The second is but in wish But in truth there is no reason why they should thus quite shut out that Perfection of degrees For though in the highest degree it cannot be it being the nature of Love Not to consist within any terms To have no Non ultrà in this world To think not of what is done already but what is further to be done or in the Apostle's phrase To forget that which is behind and to reach forth to those things which are before and never to be at rest but on the holy hill Yet there is no reason why we may not admit of a Perfection of degrees even in this life that is that Perfection may be intended to as high a degree as the assistance of God's grace and the breath of the Spirit if we hinder not will raise it For every stream will rise as high as its spring And this is alwayes joyned with a firm purpose of pressing further of proficiency and being better every day of growing in grace of passing from virtue to virtue from perfection to perfection according as we have more grace more strength more light which will increase with our work and raise it self with our endeavours For to him that hath it shall be given and he that walketh in the light shall have more irradiations and illuminations To this Perfection we may ascend higher and higher adde degree unto degree be more and more perfect more strong against tentations more chearful in our obedience more delighting our selves in the Law of the Lord. But he that denieth the Perfection to be possible even in this life instead of easing his soul endangereth it instead of magnifying the Gospel of Christ denieth the power of it and layeth a pillow of security for flesh and bloud to rest on to sleep out the time in the vineyard even to the last hour and so to pass to torment in a dream Indeed Perfection is so often mentioned in Scripture that men are not unwilling to acknowledge there is such a thing but then consulting with flesh and bloud they have found out an art to make it what they please As it is too common a thing when we cannot raise our endeavours and fit and proportion them to the rule to bend and draw down the Law it self and make it condescend and apply it self to our infirmities and even flatter our most loathsom lusts and affections Thus we find Perfection confined to Orders and Offices to Monks and Votaries nay wrapped up in a Monk's coul Men have counted it a kind of Perfection to be sick and die and be buried in one Some have placed Perfection in a sequestered life When though they leave the world and the company of men they may still carry themselves along with them and in the greatest silence and retiredness have a tumult a a very market in their souls And he that converseth in publick may possess all things and yet use them as if he used them not may have a companion and be alone may be a great commander and yet more humble then his servant may secretum in plateis facere make a cell in the streets and be alone in the midst of an army Perfection we may call it but as one faith there is no greater argument of Imperfection then this non posse pati solem multitudinem not to be able to walk without offence in the publick wayes to entertain the common occasions to meet our enemy and encounter him in all places to act our parts in common life upon the common stage and yet hold fast our uprightness shine in the midst of a froward generation and keep our selves unspotted of the world to be Lambs with Lions and Kids with Leopards to live in the coast where Malice breatheth and yet be meek where Rebellion is loud and not forfeit our obedience where Profaness vaunteth it self and yet be religious to be honest in the tents of Kedar to be Lots in Sodom and so to save our selves from a froward generation Not to be able to do this is a great imperfection For Religion can shew it self in any place in any soil in any air in the closet and in the field in the house and in the Temple This man may have a proud heart in a cottage another a low and humble soul in a palace For every man's thoughts are not as low built as his house nor do every great man's imaginations towre in the air In terra omni non generantur omnia saith the Oratour We cannot find all creatures in every soil But a Perfect man is a creature a plant which may grow up in any place Carry a pure heart with thee and thou art safe in a throng But if thy heart be polluted thou art not safe no not in a grott or cave or in the most retired solitariness Again some have placed Perfection in Poverty and a voluntary abdication of the things of this world And yet we see that as Riches may be a snare so Poverty may be a gulf to swallow us up and that Riches may be an instrument to work out Perfection as well as Want And our skill though it be as great in one as in the other yet it is more glorious in the one then in the other as we look more upon a Diamond that is well cut then upon a pebble-stone He is the poorest man that is poor vvhen he is rich It is
said GO SELL ALL THAT THOU HAST I may do this saith Gregory and keep it That we must leave our lands and possessions and father and mother I may do this and yet be Lord of my land and love my father and mother We may use our vvealth in this vvorld tanquam tabulâ in fluctibus saith Augustine as a plank or board in a shipvvreck neither fling Riches from us nor dravv them too near us neither cast them avvay as burthensom nor yet embrace them as firm and sure bene utendo carere vvant them by well using them Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom and the rich man in hell yet may a poor man follow the rich man into hell and many a rich man have a room in the same bosom with Lazarus In nostro arbitrio est vel Lazarum sequi vel Divitem It is in our power in what estate soever we are to chuse which we will follow Lazarus or Dives All that can be said is this that they who are not able to manage their wealth and so have reason to fear it may do well to cast it away But they who can be poor in wealth are the strongest Christians Both Riches and Poverty are equal in this that as they may be made occasions to sin so they may be made also helps to Perfection Thirdly some have placed Perfection in Virginity which they call making themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven and have laid an imputation upon the state of Matrimony as most imperfect as too much savouring of the world and carnality and no better then what the Manichees called it honestam concubitûs defensionem a fair plea and an honest apology for lust Nusquam said Martin Luther Satanas per Papam sic insanit ac in castitate libidine tractanda The Devil never seemed to rage more then in those discourses the Papists make of Chastity and Lust That they may fright men from that which is lawful and honourable to that which is foul and unwarrantable thus they number up the inconveniences of the married life The noise of the family the deceitfulness of servants the luxury of the wife the frowardness of children as if these inconveniences were more dangerous then Sin Virginity they say is an Angelical estate And we are willing it should be so esteemed but cannot see but Perfection may find a place in Matrimony as well as in Single life and that the one may people heaven as well as the other And those inconveniencies and troubles as they may prove occasions of sin so may be made materia virtutis matter out of which we may raise those virtues which shall be pleasing in his eye who did first institute this state in Paradise Nor do I conceive to what purpose it should be to bring Matrimony and Virginity into the Scales to weigh them together For what can accrue from hence but this to defame the one because it may seem some graines lighter then the other For when they have stretched their wits and taken pains in comparing them they must at last meet and agree in this that Perfection may sit them both and bring as many Husbands and Wives into heaven as Virgins Virginity they grant is not terminus sed instrumentum perfectionis not the end in which Perfection is terminated but the way to bring us to it an instrument to work it out And for ought can be said to the contrary so may Marriage also be Bring both to the balance if you please By Virginity and an unmarried life I avoid occasions I hide my self from many dangers which might otherwise come towards me I withdraw my self from the many cares and troubles of this life Et virginitas nihil magìs timet quà m seipsam Virginity is afraid of nothing but it self and hath but this one trouble to defend it self Operosius est Matrimonium But Matrimony wrestleth with more difficulties and having happily strove through them and made way to the end may seem to have made a greater and more glorious conquest Certainly to marry a wife and by my good ensample to keep her an undefiled spouse of Christ to have children and by careful education to make them Saints look upon Christ and behave my self in my house as he doth in his Church to make his Marriage of the Church a patern of mine as mine is a sign and representation of his will make my way as passable to perfection and eternal life and set the gates of heaven as open to me as an unmarried life shall to him who hath bound himself by vow to keep his virgin Perfection then is not tied and married to a single but may joyn and go hand in hand with a married life I might adde to this their vow of Blind obedience which they call the sepulcre in which their Will is buried and that of Mission by which they bind themselves to go whithersoever their Superiour commandeth to do whatsoever he enjoyneth to run upon the point of the sword to leap into the Sea to adventure on those actions which are most absurd to teach a language which they do not know All these appear as free-will offerings but if we look nearer upon them they are no better then the sacrifice of fools Of these indeed we find large elogiums in the writings of the Ancients which Posterity hath much enlarged making that a part of their policy which was their forefathers devotion For we may imagine those high expressions of theirs were occasional forced by the times or rather manners of men who were worldly and sensual such as could endure no yoke And from men of this temper iniquum petebant ut aequum ferrent they required more then was necessary to be done that they might do something that they might know some bounds and not run into all excess of riot and commit what disorder they pleased They extolled Virginity that men might not wallow in lusts They declamed against Riches that men might not love the world They commended Solitariness that men might be shie of the company of evil men and pressed a ready obedience to men that they might beget in them a greater reverence to the commandments of God For if I must yield to the will of my brother what then must I do to my Maker This is the fairest plea can be made for them But to tie Perfection to this or that state of life which is enjoyned to all is to call that common which God hath cleansed and to appropriate holiness to that kind of life which is many times stained with uncleanness Most certain it is Perfection is enjoyned to every Christian but every man attaineth not to it by the same means As there are divers mansions in God's house so there are divers wayes and courses of life by which we pass unto them Indeed there is but one way to heaven but one Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is but one but it divideth it self to all estates and
should be What vvill become us 17. Comfort is for the godly not for sinners 1114 1115. Some little comfort from Philosophy none true and solid 949 950. 954 v. Scripture If vve perform the conditions the comforts of the Gospel shall be made good to us 953. Comforting of others what 941 c. Our Comforting of others must not proceed from Pride Hypocrisie Vain-glory or Fear 942. Motives to the duty 943 944. We seek Comfort and miss it because vve seek amiss 945. 948. 953. Where true Comfort is to be had 946 c. Commandments of God our light our provision our defense in our way to heaven 540 c. Common people v. Deceit Common-wealth to be preferred before private 544. Common-wealth and Kingdomes whether they have a fatal period 213. The respect Church and Common-wealth have each to other 224 225. Communion v. Lords Supper Communion of Saints 420. 840 c. 861. 939 c. Compassion though by the Stoicks cried down is a very divine virtue 147 148. Without it a man cannot be a part of the Church 148. V. Mercy Complaint and murmuring vvhence 937. Confession of sin vvhen hearty vvhen not 333. Be not ashamed to confess thy sins now lest thou be confounded hereafter 1039 1040. The vvay to have our sins hid is to confess them 1040 1041. ¶ We must confess the truth not onely in times of peace but even to the face of its enemies 982 983. Confidence must be in God alone 807. Conformity to Christ how necessary 15 16. v. Christ Congregation Every particular C. commonly damneth all for hereticks that cast not in their lots vvith them 319 320. 455. 682. 1060. v. Faction Conscience how little regarded 169. To sin against C. aggravateth sin fearfully 441. C. cannot erre in that vvhich is plain and evident 892. but Love of the vvorld vvill make a man run into that his C. starteth at 892 893. C. may sleep but not die in us 330. 502. Reluctancie of C. is no certain sign of a child of God 439 c. The force of C. 499. 1037. No torment like to a bad C. 740 741. The courses vvicked men take to silence it 449. 503. 688. 922. 948. 1037. If vve vvound our C. in one particular though but a little vve are in the vvay to vvound her deeper 1120. Every vvilfull violation of C. is a step to Apostasie 1121. How C. is to be honoured 1121 1122. When she is dishonoured 1122. Them that honour her she vvill honour 1122. The best vvay to calm a raging C. 946 947. A good Conscience is the product of Faith and Obedience 1013. It armeth us against the fear of Death 1013. v. Cases Consider We behold the Heavens our selves our Sins but consider them not aright 595 596. 1106. What it is to consider a thing devoutly 596 597. 1107. It is of singular use 597 598. 1108. Consolation for disconsolate souls 347. Conspiracy v. Vnion Contentions Of the C. among Christians 557. Contentment not to be found on earth 537. Contemplation v. Joy Controversies of these times of what sort 304. 1071. 1084. Their best Judge 287. Their original 665. Convenience v. Necessity Conversion of a sinner as great a miracle as Raising of the dead or Creating of the world 56. Vide pag. 587. 375. v. Resurrection What is God's part and what ours in it 587 588. 628 629. 722. A Christian's life beginneth at his Conversion 1003. Corban what 132. 1 Cor. i. 26. 974. 1071. 1084. ¶ 30. 871. ¶ iii. 22 23. explained ¶ iv 4. 347. ¶ v. 5. 565. 592. ¶ vii 20. 521. ¶ ix 22. 505. ¶ x. 13. 604. ¶ xi 10. 857. ¶ xiii 4. 1077. 2 Cor. v. 14. 67. Corrections God's C. are the blows of a Father and great arguments of his love 365. Covetousness and Ambition encrease by enjoyment 537. 887. How C. beginneth and groweth in the heart 625. v. Hope This sin emasculateth and weakeneth both mind and body 751. It is an enemy to Peace 208. the main cause of Persecution 700. and of Divisions in the Church 842. 845. 856. What will not C. make a man do 507 508. It is idolatry 623. v. Riches Some Covetous men doubt not to be saved because Abraham a Rich man is in heaven 618. The Covetous man's Texts cleared 222. Councels too much cried up by them of Rome 681. Counsel is like good Physick 842. Countrey v. View Court v. View Creation and Conservation but one continued act 104. v. God World Creatures Since all are clean in themselve why divers Cr. were forbidden as unclean 1098. Sin now disordereth and defileth all but the last day will reduce all to order and beauty 246. The Creature therefore longeth for the day of judgment 302. Creatures good in themselves we abuse to evil 897. Creed Truth was purest when there was but one short Creed 665. Cross the way to the Crown 174. 571. v. Affliction Crucifying our flesh what 725. Cujacius 2. 8. Cure of souls though in some sense impropriate to the Priest alone yet in some sense it is committed to every man 293 294. Curiosity a busie idleness punishing it self 1074. It is a busie and toilsome thing 730. Curious gazing where God hath drawn a veil unlawful fruitless dangerous 94 95. 164. 248 249 729. 1076. Custome in sinning how got and how hard to break 357. It maketh sin natural 793. v. Sin Cyprian 1003. 1023. D. DAngers and difficulties try and discover a Christian 982 983. Daniel Porphyrie's judgment of his Prophesie 166. David how devout and pious 860. Of his professing himself a stranger on the earth 531-536 His sin and Saul's compared together 1030. He seemeth to have gone further then he needed in confessing his sin 1040. Nathan's plain dealing with him 1115. Death once terrible now profitable and desirable to a Christian 48 49. To the godly it is a passage to heaven to the wicked the contrary 295. v. Obedience Why the Stoicks did desire D. 1011. and how Christians may do it lawfully 1011 1012. How to get rid of the fear of D. 543. 1012 c. Nothing more common more certain then Death yet nothing less thought on 538 539. 596. Arguments to moderate our grief for the D. of friends 543. Sin carrieth D. in its womb 445. We are dying continually 538. ¶ Death of the Soul v. Resurrection Whether God desire or decree the Death of Man 403 c. Man's D. proceeded not from God's primary but secondary will 405. If we die it is for no other reason but because we will die 424-446 Debt one easily runneth into but hardly creepeth out 809 810. How troublesome a thing it is to be in Debt 809. Debtours sometimes pay their Creditours with ill language 810. What Debtours Matth. vi 12. signifieth 816. We are all Debtours to God 806. v. Sin Obligation Deceit v. Oppression Common people how easily deceived 557. Men are cautelous that they be not deceived in worldly matters yet apt to deceive themselves in
like Proteus putteth on any shape for the advantage of others 505. St. Paul's example though not to be reached by any is to be followed by all 1020. Peace True Religion hath less outward Peace then that which is false 709. v. Quiet Pentecost the feast of the Law and the feast of the holy Ghost 760. The wonders of that feast 955. v. Tongues Whether the miracle at Pentecost were in the ears of the hearers or in the tongues of the speakers 956. The end of that miracle 957. Arguments to clear the Apostles from the scoffers charge 960. How the Apostles then though not drunk might seem to be so 961. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 560. People v. Priest The people are much taken vvith shews 1055. Perfect what 1073. Perfection many love to hear of but few strive to be perfect 691. What Perfection God requireth and we must strive after 606. The Perfection required of us is not like that of God nor that of the Angels 1085 1086. The difference between Legall P. and Evangelical 1086. Arguments to prove that vve may be perfect 1088. Perfection twofold of Parts of Degrees both atteinable in this life 1088 1089. Some confine P. to Monks and Votaries 1089. Some place it in Poverty 1089. some in Virginity 1090. some in blind Obedience 1091. P. may be atteined by any person in any condition 1089 1092. Rules of Perfection 1092 1093. We must never think we are perfect enough in this life 1095 1096. Perfectionists though haply they mean vvell trouble the Church 395 396. Permission of sin whether it signifie that which some say it doth 407 c. v. Sin That which is permitted is not good 869. Permission no sign of approbation 684 685. 712. Persecution of the godly ordained by God 697. It serveth for the trial of their graces 698 c. 982 983. Many vvho now pass for Saints vvould perhaps prove apostates if Persecution should arise 698 699. The Church is then most her self vvhen Militant and under Persecution 701. P. is a great privilege and advantage to the Church 701 702. The Providence and Wisdome of our heavenly Father is vvonderfully shewn in it 703. It is requisite we should this way be fitted for heaven 703 704. We ought not to vvonder at it as a strange thing 709 710. Nothing maketh Persecution appear dreadful but love of the World 710. How to arm our selves against P. 711. The Persecutour maketh the Martyr happy but himself miserable 712. Motives to patience under Persecution 713. v. Martyrdome Sufferings Perseverance necessary 1111. Whether it be a distinct virtue from other graces 1112. P. is not certain 1114. The denial of the certainty of Perseverance neither depriveth the true Christian of his comfort nor derogateth from God's power 1115 1116. If vve persevere not to the end all our beginnings are nothing worth 1114. Onely Perseverance crowneth us 1113. Arguments to Perseverance 380 c. 1113. Perswasion how powerful 912. 1107. 1109. Phansie an unruly faculty 526. how to be dealt with 527. to be checked 393. Pharaoh how said to be hardened by God 412 413. Pharisees not so antient as Josephus saith 1079. Some account given of them 1051. Phil. ii 13. 588. Philosophie Why Nero's Mother would not let him study Ph. 823. What arguments Philosophers used to comfort themselves in their miserie 449 450. Philosophie cannot shew us the vvay to heaven 716 717. To be a Philosopher in word and not in deed is most hateful 372. Phinehas Of his zele 526. Photinus's opinion about Christ 9. 21. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 645. Physician v. Ignorance Pictures We are oft more moved vvith the Picture then the thing 1017. Piety is older then the world and will outlast it 73. It is never out of season nor out of place 73. nor ever to be dispensed with 73. v. Religion It is most pretious and must be greatly laboured for 77. It is so venerable that the very shew and shadow of it pleaseth 77 78. It is most proportionable to the soul of Man 87. yea of every man 88. It is lovely in the eyes of all even of its enemies 89. 553. 662. 876. 991. 1125. It alone can satisfie 90. It sweetneth misery and maketh it advantageous 91. and maketh wealth useful to the highest ends 92. It is best learnt by practice 68 69. It is to be practiced by all people as vvell as Priests 555. It is confirmed by practice 1117. 1119. v. Practice Pilgrimage We are all Pilgrimes 531 c. v. Stranger A P. exhorted to 532. Place v. Worship Plato 508. Please To please men and to serve Christ are incompatible 496 c. 509 c. Most men desire to be pleased 497. 975. The causes of this humour 498 c. The danger of it 501 c. Every man is pleased with his own course 500 501. What Pleasing of men is lawfull 504 505. 513. vvhat unlawfull 505 506. Every Pleasing of the Sense is not sin 505. We should desire what will profit rather then what will please 506. 512. Men-pleasers their original 507 c. Pleasure v. Riches All are naturally addicted to Pleasure 561. Nothing more hurtful 562. It is very short but leaveth long grief behind it 563. Pleasures blind our Reason infatuate our minds 566. sway the Will to forbidden objects 567. and make us forget God and our selves 567. The Heathens censure of the Christians abstinence from Pleasures 565. Pope Every man is born vvith a P. in his belly 158. 631. The Pope's Infallibility Supremacy uphold each other 158. 631. The Pope and the Enthusiast both alike infallible 527 528. Popery A caution against P. as a Religion framed to please the Flesh and vvorldly Desires 650. Marks of the Popish Church examined 681. 971 972. v. Papists Porphyrie's profane speach of Daniel 166. Poverty Perfection not to be placed in Poverty 1089. Poverty no sure token either of God's love or hatred 295. 620 621. Povertie's sting Impatience 903. To bear Poverty well a great piece of piety 903. v. Riches Why God maketh one poor another rich 141 142. The Poor though they cannot challenge it yet have a right to our goods 140-143 Power serviceable to noble ends is oft most horribly abused 594. There is neither Power nor Wisdome in Oppression and Fraud 136. Practice v. Knowledge Profession Practice of Piety enableth us to go still forward 1117. It is much hindred by fruitless disputes 1018. v. Disputes Praedestinatiani Their opinions 392 393. Praise how greedily sought after 318. Prayer It s nature 1052. It is a service very acceptable to God and very prevalent with him 692. Prayers and Praises are good though private but best when publick 580. The single Prayers of one not so powerful as the joynt prayers of a multitude 838. Many pray and pray and do nothing yet are very secure 435 Prayer for the dead the Papists Corban 132. Prayers will be sure to speed if we ask what God would have
c. He who hath no part in the first R. shall have none in the second 996. Newness of life often called Rising 997. The woful state of a Soul not yet risen from the death of Sin 997. Our Conversion may be stiled Rising because this World may go for a grave 998. and because as in that of the Body so in this of the Soul there will be a change 999. and that universal of every part 1000. In both our corporal and spiritual R. God is all in all 1001. yet in that of the Soul we are bid to do something 1001. It behoveth us rather to enquire Whether we are willing to be raised then How we are raised 1001. Our spiritual R. should be early and without delay 1002. c. We must manifest our spiritual R. by our good Works 1004. and by our Affection to the things above 654. Revelation Of the Book of the Revelation and its Interpreters 244. Rev. i. 12-18 paraphrased 36. ¶ xiv 13. 709. ¶ xx 6. 244. Revenge though perhaps allowed by the Old T. is forbidden by the New 1079. It is allowed by Philosophers c. is forbidden by the Gospel 202. It is an act and argument of impotency 820. Reverence What 460. Some allege Reverence to excuse their neglect of Communicating 459 460. Reverence and Obedience must go together 462. Reverent gestures in God's service not to be blamed as Idolatrous Popish superstitious 963. R. though by some held superstitious is comely and necessary 162 163. 745. 755 c. and to be used in our service of God 634 635. v. Form Humility Worship Where there is Devotion there is also a Reverent deportment 755. 757 758. 981. It is due in God's house in respect of the Angels 857. and of Men both good and bad 858. Covetousness and Sacriledge drive Reverence out of the Church 755. Some questions for them to answer who scruple outward R. in the Church 757. Irreverent persons arguments answered 859. v. Irreverence The Papists say of us That having no Reverence we have no Church 757. The Reverence of the primitive times and that of this Age how different 757 758. 981. Rewards the most powerful Rhetorick 636. v. Laws Riches and Honours and Pleasures the creatures of our Phansie 32. v. World These even Reason teacheth us to contemn 126. 134. Why God giveth Riches 139 c. Neither do Riches invite Christ nor Poverty exclude him 974. Our Riches are then most ours when we part with them to the poor 142. For we are Stewards rather then Proprietaries 140. 142. The best use of Riches 143. R. how abused 594. 620. c. As Riches may be a snare so Poverty may be a gulf 1089. R. may be an instrument of Perfection as well as Poverty 1090. R. are not as the World accounteth them certain signs of God's love 619. They are held Necessaries and Ornaments of Virtue yet are not so 620. but rather an hindrance to it 620. and helps to evil 621. Yet they are not so in themselves but men make them so 621. 897 898. Rich men are admired and even adored in the world 616 617. but a Wo is denounced against them by God 616 c. Pelagius's opinion That no Rich man can be saved is a wholsome errour 618. What it is that draweth the Wo upon the Rich 622. That Rich men may escape the Wo they must cast away their Riches but how 622. 1090. Riches must be brought into subjection to Christianity 622. We must not set our hearts on them 623. 1090. We must contemn them 623. or else they will make us contemn our brethren 623. and draw contempt on us 624. We must be jealous of our selves that we love them too well 624. How R. should be looked upon and handled and used by us 625. 896 c. Right hand v. Christ Righteous The R. sometimes suffer with the wicked and why 291 c. They are often preserved in publick calamities 294. Though they tast of the same cup with others yet it hath not the same tast to both 294. v. God's people Righteousness Many call that Righteousness which is quite another thing 867. 883. 891 892. The R. of the Heathen though it could not save them yet shameth many among us 868. The R. of the Jews very weak and imperfect 869. The R. of the Scribes and Pharisees what 869. Legal and Evangelical R. how different 870. Christ's imputed R. vindicated from mis-interpretations 870 c. The R. of Faith what 872. What R. the Gospel requireth of us 873. Many challenge the name of R. who bid defiance to the thing 873. Imputed R. should be a motive to Inherent R. 872 c. 993. Many conceit they are Seekers of Righteousness vvhen they are not 875. To name R. yea to commend it is not enough 876. Neither is Hearing of R. as many think enough 877. No nor bare Praying for it 877 878. Seeking of R. is To have a Will ready to entertein it 878. and that a chearful quiet Angelical Will 879 880. and a Will that is constant and regular that will make us seek R. sincerely as God seeketh our happiness 880 881. If vve seek R. aright we shall still be sensible of our want of it 881 882. we shall love and affect it exceedingly 882 and shall be kept from it neither by flattery nor affrightments 883 884. R. is to be sought in the first place before the things of this life 884 c. If we seek it not first vve seek it not at all 890. What a world of wickedness proceedeth from seeking these things before Righteousness 891 c. But they who first seek R. cannot doubt of a sufficient portion of these things 900. Rom. i. 28. 3. 9. ¶ vii 19. 879. ¶ viii 15. 397. ¶ 28 29 30. 697. ¶ ix 3. 1007 1008. ¶ xi 20 21. 392. Romanes They having been at first all for handsome servants were afterwards as much for dwarfs applied 651. Romish The R. Church counteth all goats that are not within her fold 319. S. SAbellius 5. Sabinus Calvisius Sabinus a man strangely conceited 870. 993. Sacraments A Sacrament must be immediately instituted by Christ himself 451. Out of Christ's side came both the Sacraments 469. How quarrelled by many 582 583. They are highly to be honoured 303. v. Word They are too highly esteemed by some too little by others 81. Sacrifices no essential part of God's service 70 71. not really good in themselves but onely as commanded 72. Why the Jews vvere commanded to offer S. to God 72. v. Ceremonies Outward worship The Sacrifices of Christians 83 84. A broken heart the best S. 325. Chastity Temperance Patience present our bodies as a S. unto God 749 754. Sacrilege once was a sin now some count it a virtue 581 582. Against S. 848 849. 854. Saints as St. Hierome saith never called in Scripture inhabitants of the earth 536. How to be honoured by us 1021. Some forsooth will not allow the title
his glory in his transfiguration on mount Tabor oh by all means build us hear a Tabernacle But to be like him in the cratch like him in the wilderness like him in his daily converse with men like him in the High priests hall like him in the garden like him on the Cross this we like not here we start back and are afraid of his countenance In humility in hunger and sweat in colours of blood few there be that would be drawn But if we will be his Brethren this is the copy we must take out these be our postures these our Colours bathed in his blood 't is true but withal bathed in the waters of affliction bathed in our tears bathed in our own blood We walk honestly as in the day in that day which he hath made We have our agony in our contrition and in our regeneration we hang upon the cross There our lusts and affections are fastned as it were with nayls and their strength taken from them that they cannot move in any opposition to Christ but our Anger turneth from our brothâ—r who is like him and is levell'd on sin which is most unlike him Our Love shutteth it self to the world and openeth it self to receive him The hardship we undergo bringeth in our fellowship with him Our suffering with him doth assimilate us and in a manner deify us Our following him in all his ways draweth us as near to him as Flesh and Blood can approach And our joy our greatest triumph is in this our Assimilation Thus we come forth like unto him In the next place as he was made like unto us so are we made like unto him We are not born so nor so by chance We cannot think our selves nor talk our selves into his likeness nor will he imprint it in us whilst we sleep or do worse This picture this resemblance is not drawn out with a thought or a word How many be there who bear Christ's name yet are not like unto him because they will not be made so Christians they are sine sanguine sudore without blood or sweat drawn out not by an obedient will but a flattering phansie They struggle not with temptation for they love it They fight not against their flesh but nourish and cherish it and make it their labour and ambition to please it They have no fear no trembling no agony no cross Nay they beat their fellow-servants and persecute them because they are like Christ They crucifie him in his members every day and yet present themselves to the world as his children as the very pictures of our Saviour These are so soon like him that they will never be made so When we see men fast and pray not that they have done evil but that they may do more the Pharisees did so when we see men bowing before Christ even when they are ready to lift up their heel against him when we hear them cry Hosanna to day and Crucifie him to morrow the Jews did so when we see men follow Christ as his Disciples and call him their Master and then sell him for some pieces of silver deliver him to their Lusts their Ambition their Covetousness Judas did so the Son of perdition and so nothing like unto a Saviour when we see men wash their hands as if they were clear of all guilt and yet in a tumult leave Religion to be torn in pieces and trod under feet and so that they can make their peace care not what becometh of Christ Pilate did so when we see men tempting Christ to turn stones into bread to do that by miracle for which he hath fitted ordinary proper means the Devil did so when we see these men and the world is full of such shall we say that they are like Christ We may say as well that the Pharisees were like him that the Jews were like him that Judas was like him that Pilate was like him that the Devil himself was like him as they No a Christian is not so soon made up doth not grow up a perfect man in Christ in a moment For though our first conversion be in an instant yet it is not so in an instant but that it is wrought in us by means and a new making there is whensoever we are made Christians To be like unto Christ is a work of time and we grow up to this similitude by degrees Our Faith meeteth with many rubs and difficulties to pass over For how often do we ask our selves the question How should this be And then when by prayer and meditation and continued exercise of piety we have got the victory we build and establish our selves in our most holy Faith Our Hope what is it but a conclusion gathered by much pains and experience by curious and watchful observation by a painful peregrination through all the powers of our souls and actions of our life And when with great contention we have settled these and see an evenness and regularity in them all then we rest in hope And for our Charity it is called the labour and work of Charity We must force out the love of the World before we bring in the love of our Brethren We must deny our covetousness before we can give a peny deny our appetite deny our selves before we can taste of the powers of the world to come We must maintain a tedious war against the flesh and be unlike our selves before we can be like unto Christ As he was made like unto us so must we be made like unto him And this is our union with him So we are made one even as he and his Father are one To draw the Parallel yet nearer As there was a debuit upon Christ so there is upon us As it behoved him to be made like unto us so it behoveth us to be made like unto him In the volume of the book it is written of him and in the same volume we shall find it written of us that we should do God's will and have his law in our hearts And in this as in other things Nihil priùs intuendum quà m quod decet our first thought should be What will become us To see Nero an Emperour with his fiddle or harp or in his buskins acting upon a stage to see Domitian catching of flyes or Hercules at the distaff what an incongruous thing is it An humble Christ and a proud Christian a meek Christ and a bloody Christian an obedient Christ and a traiterous Christian Christ in an agony and a Christian in pleasure Christ fasting and a Christian rioting Christ on the cross and a Christian in a Mahometical paradise non bene conveniunt there is no decorum in it nothing but soloecisme and absurdity which even offendeth their eyes who commit the same so boldly as if it carried with it some elegancy No we must act our parts with art and a decorum do that which behoveth us It is a Debt a Debt we must be paying
to our lives end to our last breath else we shall not take our Exit with applause Lastly to draw the Parallel to the full This duty is not onely Becoming but Necessary For if a kind of Necessity lay upon Christ by his contract with his Father to be made like unto us a great Necessity will lie upon us by our covenant with him to be like unto him and wo unto us if we be not It is unum necessarium that one thing necessary there is nothing necessary for us but it For run to and fro through the world and in that great Emporium and Mart of toyes and vanities find out one thing that is necessary if you can But it will not be though you search it as the Prophet speaketh with Candles Is it necessary to be rich Zeph. 1.12 Behold Dives in hell and Lazarus in Abrahams bosome Luke 16. Is it necessary to be noble Not many noble are chosen Is it necessary to be learned 1 Cor. 1.26 20. Where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Every thing hath its Necessity from us not from it self for of it self it cannot shew any thing that should make it so It is we that file these chains and fashion these nayls of Necessity and make her hand of brass Riches are necessary because we are covetous Honour is necessary because we are proud and love to have the pre-eminence Pleasure is necessary because we love it more than God Revenge is necessary because we delight in blood Lord how many Necessaries do we make when there is but one one sine quo non debemus without which we ought not and sine quo non possemus without which we cannot be happy and that is our being made like unto Christ in whom alone all the treasuries of Wisdome and Riches and Honour all that is necessary for us are to be found And now to conclude We have two Nativities Christ's and ours he made like unto us by a miraculous conception and we again made like unto him by the Spirit of regeneration Ad illum pertinuit propter nos nasci ad nos propter illum renasci saith S. Augustine His love it was to be born for us and our duty it is to give him birth for birth and to be born again in him And then as thou art merry at his Feast he will rejoyce at thine and even celebrate thy birth-day Come let us rejoyce saith he and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was meet we should make merry for these my brethren were dead Luke 15. Psal 49.20 but are alive they were lost but are found They were like unto the Beasts that perish but they are now made like unto me And as Christ had an antheme at his birth a full quire of the heavenly Host praysing God so shall we have at ours There is joy and triumph among the Angels at the birth of a Christian at his assimilation to Christ For every real resemblance of Christ is an Angels feast Angels and Archangels and Dominations and Powers triumph at our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the feast of our regeneration They are glad spectatours of our growth in Christ and rejoyce to see us every day become liker and liker to him They would have us grow to ripeness and maturity and be perfect men in Christ Jesus that being made like unto him here we may at last be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 20.36 equal to the Angels and with Angels and Archangels and all the Company of Heaven cry aloud saying Salvation Honour Power Thanksgiving be unto him that was made like unto us and now sitteth upon the throne even to the Lamb for evermore Amen A SERMON Preached on Good-Friday ROM VIII 32. He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things GOd's benefits come not alone but one gift is the pledge of another The grant of a mite is the assignment of a talent A drop of dew from heaven is a prognostick of gracious showre of a floud which nothing can draw dry but ingratitude S. Dionys de Divin Nom. p. 200. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Father might well say that the love of God is as a constant and endless circle from good to good in good without error or inconstancy rowling and carrying it self about in an everlasting gyre He spared not his own Son saith the Text but delivered him up for us all But how many gifts did usher in this He gave him to us often in the Creation of the world For by him were all things made Joh. 1.3 and without him was made nothing that was made When God giveth he giveth his Son For as we ask in his name so he giveth in his name whatsoever we ask Every action of God is a gift and every gift a tender of his Son an art to make us capable of more Thus the argument of Gods Love is drawn à minori ad majus from that which seemeth little to that which is greater from a grain to an harvest from one blessing to a myriad from Heaven to the Soul from our Creation to our Redemption from Christs Actions to his Passion Which is the true authentick instrument of his Love With us the argument holdeth not but with God it doth By giving little he giveth hopes of more He that is our Steward to provide for us and supply us out of his treasury who ripeneth the fruits on the trees and the corn in the fields who draweth us wine out of the vine and spinneth us garments out of the bowels of the worm and fleece of the flock will give us greater things then these He that giveth us balm for our bodies will give us physick for our souls He that gave us our being by his Son will deliver up his Son for the world Here his Love is in its Zenith and vertical point and in a direct line casteth its rayes of comfort on his lost Creature Here the Argument is at the highest and S. Paul draweth it down à majori ad minus and the Conclusion is full full of comfort to all He that giveth a talent will certainly give a mite He that giveth his Son will also give salvation and he that giveth salvation will give all things which may work it out QVI TRADIDIT He that delivered his Son is followed with a QVOMODO NON how shall he not with him also freely give us all things QVOMODO NON It is impossible it should be otherwise Christ cometh not naked but clothed with blessings He cometh not empty but with the riches of heaven the treasures of wisedom and happiness Christ cometh not alone but with troops of Angels with glorious promises and blessings Nay to make good the Quomodo non to make it unanswerable unquestionable It is his Nakedness that cloatheth us his Poverty that enricheth us his No-Reputation that