of his Neighbour-creatures the skins of Beasts 〈◊〉 hair and a Leathern girdle and herein he literally made good the character of Elias who is described as an hairy man girt with a Leathern girdle about his Loins His Diet suitable to his Garb his Meat was Locusts and wild Honey Locusts accounted by all Nations amongst the meanest and vilest sorts of food wild honey such as the natural artifice and labour of the Bees had stored up in caverns and hollow Trees without any elaborate curiosity to prepare and dress it up Indeed his abstinence was so great and his food so unlike other Mens that the Evangelist says of him that he came neither eating nor drinking as if he had eaten nothing or at least what was worth nothing But Meat commends us not to God it is the devout mind and the honest life that makes us valuable in the eye of Heaven The place of his abode was not in Kings houses in stately and delicate Palaces but where he was born and bred the Wilderness of Judaea he was in the Desarts until the time of his shewing unto Israel Divine grace is not consined to particular places it is not the holy City or the Temple at Mount Sion makes us nearer unto Heaven God can when he please consecrate a Desart into a Church make us gather Grapes among Thorns and Religion become fruitful in a barren Wilderness 4. PREPARED by so singular an Education and furnished with an immediate Commission from God he entred upon the actual administration of his Office In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness of Judaea and saying Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justin Martyr calls him the Herald to Proclaim the first approach of the Holy Jesus his whole Ministry tending to prepare the way to his entertainment accomplishing herein what was of old foretold concerning him For this is he that was spoken of by the Prophet Esaias saying The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight He told the 〈◊〉 that the Messiah whom they had so long expected was now at hand and his Kingdom ready to appear that the Son of God was come down from Heaven a Person as far beyond him in dignity as in time and existence to whom he was not worthy to minister in the meanest Offices that he came to introduce a new and better state of things to enlighten the World with the clearest Revelations of the Divine will and to acquaint them with counsels brought from the bosom of the Father to put a period to all the types and umbrages of the Mosaic Dispensation and bring in the truth and substance of all those shadows and to open a Fountain of grace and fulness to Mankind to remove that state of guilt into which humane nature was so deeply sunk and as the Lamb of God by the expiatory Sacrifice of 〈◊〉 to take away the sin of the World not like the continual Burnt-offering the Lamb offered Morning and Evening only for the sins of the House of Israel but for Jew and Gentile Barbarian and Scythian bond and free he told them that God had a long time born with the sins of Men and would now bring things to a quicker issue and that therefore they should do well to break off their sins by repentance and by a serious amendment and reformation of life dispose themselves for the glad tidings of the Gospel that they should no longer bear up themselves upon their external priviledges the Fatherhood of Abraham and their being God's select and peculiar People that God would raise up to himself another Generation a Posterity of Abraham from among the Gentiles who should walk in his steps in the way of his unshaken faith and sincere obedience and that if all this did not move them to bring forth fruits meet for repentance the Axe was laid to the root of the Tree to extirpate their Church and to hew them down as fuel for the unquenchable Fire His free and resolute preaching together with the great severity of his life procured him a vast Auditory and numerous Proselytes for there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and the Region round about Jordan Persons of all ranks and orders of all Sects and Opinions 〈◊〉 and Sadducees Souldiers and Publicans whose Vices he impartially censured and condemned and pressed upon them the duties of their particular places and relations Those whom he gained over to be Proselytes to his Doctrine he entred into this new Institution of life by Baptism and hence he derived his Title of the Baptist a solemn and usual way of initiating Proselytes no less than Circumcision and of great antiquity in the Jewish Church In all times says Maimonides if any Gentile would enter into Covenant remain under the wings of the Schechina or Divine Majesty and take upon him the yoke of the Law he is bound to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering and if a Woman Baptism and an Oblation because it is said As ye are so shall the stranger be as ye your selves 〈◊〉 into Covenant by Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering so ought the Proselyte also in all Ages to enter in Though this last he confesses is to be omitted during their present state of desolation and to be made when their Temple shall be rebuilt This Rite they generally make contemporary with the giving of the Law So Maimonides By three things says he the Israelites entred into Covenant he means the National Covenant at Mount Sinai by Circumcision Baptism and an Oblation Baptism being used some little time before the Law which he proves from that place 〈◊〉 the People to day and to morrow and let them wash their Clothes This the Rabbines unanimously expound concerning Baptism and expresly affirm that where-ever we read of the Washing of Clothes there an obligation to Baptism is intended Thus they entred into the first Covenant upon the frequent violations whereof God having promised to make a new and solemn Covenant with them in the times of the Messiah they expected a second Baptism as that which should be the Rite of their Initiation into it And this probably is the reason why the Apostle writing to the Hebrews speaks of the Doctrin of Baptisms in the plural number as one of the primary and elementary Principles of the faith wherein the Catechumens were to be instructed meaning that besides the Baptism whereby they had been initiated into the Mosaic Covenant there was another by which they were to enter into this new 〈◊〉 that was come upon the World Hence the Sanhedrim to whom the cognizance of such cases did peculiarly appertain when told of John's Baptism never expressed any wonder at it as a new upstart Ceremony it being a thing daily practised in their Church nor found fault
it is nice to judge the condition of the effect and therefore it is prudent to ascertain our condition by improving our care and our Religion and in all accidents to make no judgment concerning God's Favour by what we feel but by what we do 6. When the Holy Virgin with much Religion and sadness had sought her joy at last she found him disputing among the Doctors hearing them and asking them questions and besides that he now first opened a fontinel and there sprang out an excellent rivulet from his abyss of Wisdom he consigned this Truth to his Disciples That they who mean to be Doctors and teach others must in their first accesses and degrees of discipline learn of those whom God and publick Order hath set over us in the Mysteries of Religion The PRAYER BLessed and most Holy Jesus Fountain of Grace and comfort Treasure of Wisdom and spiritual emanations be pleased to abide with me for ever by the inhabitation of thy interiour assistances and refreshments and give me a corresponding love acceptable and unstained purity care and watchfulness over my ways that I may never by provoking thee to anger cause thee to remove thy dwelling or draw a cloud before thy holy face but if thou art pleased upon a design of charity or trial to cover my eyes that I may not behold the bright rays of thy Favour nor be refreshed with spiritual comforts let thy Love support my spirit by ways insensible and in all my needs give me such a portion as may be instrumental and incentive to performance of my duty and in all accidents let me continue to seek thee by Prayers and Humiliation and frequent desires and the strictness of a Holy life that I may follow thy example pursue thy foot-steps be supported by thy strength guided by thy hand enlightned by thy favour and may at last after a persevering holiness and an unwearied industry dwell with thee in the Regions of Light and eternal glory where there shall be no fears of parting from the habitations of Felicity and the union and fruition of thy Presence O Blessed and most Holy Jesus Amen SECT VIII Of the Preaching of John the Baptist preparative to the Manifestation of JESVS ELIAS Luke 1 17. And he shall goe before him in the spirit and power of Elias S t IOHN the Baptist Luk 1 15 And as the people were in expectation ve 16 Iohn answered saying unto them all I indeed baptize you with water but one mightier then I cometh y e latchet of whose shooes I am not worthy to unloose he shall baptize you with y e Holy Ghost and with fire WHen Herod had drunk so great a draught of bloud at Bethlehem and sought for more from the Hill-country Elizabeth carried her Son into the Wilderness there in the desert places and recesses to hide him from the fury of that Beast where she attended him with as much care and tenderness as the affections and fears of a Mother could express in the permission of those fruitless Solitudes The Child was about eighteen months old when he first sled to Sanctuary but after forty days his Mother died and his Father Zachary at the time of his ministration which happened about this time was killed in the Court of the Temple so that the Child was exposed to all the dangers and infelicities of an Orphan in a place of solitariness and discomfort in a time when a bloudy King endeavoured his destruction But when his Father and Mother were taken from him the Lord took him up For according to the tradition of the Greeks God deputed an Angel to be his nourisher and Guardian as he had formerly done to Ishmael who dwelt in the Wilderness and to Elias when he fled from the rage of Ahab so to this Child who came in the spirit of Elias to make demonstration that there can be no want where God undertakes the care and provision 2. The entertainment that S. John's Proveditóre the Angel gave him was such as the Wilderness did afford and such as might dispose him to a life of Austerity for there he continued spending his time in Meditations Contemplation Prayer Affections and Colloquies with God eating Flies and wild Honey not clothed in soft but a hairy garment and a leathern girdle till he was thirty years of age And then being the fifteenth year of Tiberius Pontius Pilate being Governour of Judaea the Word of God came unto John in the Wilderness And he came into all the countrey about Jordan preaching and baptizing 3. This John according to the Prophecies of him and designation of his person by the Holy Ghost was the fore-runner of Christ sent to dispose the people for his entertainment and prepare his ways and therefore it was necessary his person should be so extraordinary and full of Sanctity and so clarified by great concurrences and wonder in the circumstances of his life as might gain credit and reputation to the testimony he was to give concerning his LORD the Saviour of the World And so it happened 4. For as the Baptist while he was in the Wilderness became the pattern of solitary and contemplative life a School of Vertue and Example of Sanctity and singular Austerity so at his emigration from the places of his Retirement he seemed what indeed he was a rare and excellent Personage and the Wonders which were great at his Birth the prediction of his Conception by an Angel which never had before happened but in the persons of Isaac and Sampson the contempt of the world which he bore about him his mortified countenance and deportment his austere and eremitical life his vehement spirit and excellent zeal in Preaching created so great opinions of him among the people that all held him for a Prophet in his Office for a heavenly person in his own particular and a rare example of Sanctity and holy life to all others and all this being made solemn and ceremonious by his Baptism he prevailed so that he made excellent and apt preparations for the LORD 's appearing for there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and all the regions round about Jordan and were baptized of him confessing their sins 5. The Baptist having by so heavenly means won upon the affections of all men his Sermons and his testimony concerning Christ were the more likely to be prevalent and accepted and the summ of them was Repentance and dereliction of sins and bringing forth the fruits of good life in the promoting of which Doctrine he was a severe reprehender of the Pharisees and Sadducees he exhorted the people to works of mercy the Publicans to do justice and to decline oppression the Souldiers to abstain from plundering and doing violence or rapine and publishing that he was not the CHRIST that he only baptized with water but the Messias should baptize with the holy Ghost and with fire he finally denounced judgment and great severities to all the World
ages that is washed off quickly in the Holy Font and an eternal debt paid in an instant For so sure as the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea so sure are our Sins washed in this Holy floud for this is a Red Sea too these waters signifie the bloud of Christ These are they that have washed their Robes and made them white in the bloud of the Lamb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Bloud of Christ cleanseth us the Water cleanseth us the Spirit purifies us the Bloud by the Spirit the Spirit by the Water all in Baptism and in pursuance of that Baptismal state These three are they that bear record in Earth the Spirit the Water and the Bloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these three agree in one or are to one purpose they agree in Baptism and in the whole pursuance of the assistances which a Christian needs all the days of his life And therefore S. Cyrill calls Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Antitype of the Passions of Christ it does preconsign the death of Christ and does the infancy of the work of Grace but not weakly it brings from death to life and though it brings us but to the birth in the New life yet that is a greater change than is in all the periods of our growth to manhood to a perfect man in Christ Jesus 18. Fifthly Baptism does not only pardon our sins but puts us into a state of Pardon for the time to come For Baptism is the beginning of the New life and an admission of us into the Evangelical Covenant which on our parts consists in a sincere and timely endeavour to glorifie God by Faith and Obedience and on God's part he will pardon what is past assist us for the future and not measure us by grains and scruples or exact our duties by the measure of an Angel but by the span of a man's hand So that by Baptism we are consigned to the mercies of God and the Graces of the Gospel that is that our Pardon be continued and our Piety be a state of Repentance And therefore that Baptism which in the Nicene Creed we 〈◊〉 to be for the remission of sins is called in the Jerusalem 〈◊〉 The Baptism of Repentance that is it is the entrance of a new life the gate to a perpetual change and reformation all the way continuing our title to and hopes of forgiveness of sins And this excellency is clearly recorded by S. Paul The kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man hath appeared Not by works of righteousness which we have done that 's the formality of the Gospel-Covenant not to be exacted by the strict measures of the Law but according to his mercy he saved us that is by gentleness and remissions by pitying and pardoning us by relieving and supporting us because he remembers that we are but dust and all this mercy we are admitted to and is conveyed to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the laver of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost And this plain evident Doctrine was observed explicated and urged against the Messalians who said that Baptism was like a razor that cuts away all the sins that were past or presently adhering but not the sins of our future life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Sacrament promises more and greater things It is the earnest of future good things the type of the Resurrection the communication of the Lord's Passion the partaking of his Resurrection the robe of Righteousness the garment of Gladness the vestment of Light or rather Light it self And for this reason it is that Baptism is not to be repeated because it does at once all that it can do at an hundred times for it admits us to the condition of Repentance and Evangelical mercy to a state of Pardon for our infirmities and sins which we timely and effectually leave and this is a thing that can be done but once as a man can begin but once he that hath once entred in at this gate of Life is always in possibility of Pardon if he be in a possibility of working and doing after the manner of a man that which he hath promised to the Son of God And this was expresly delivered and observed by S. Austin That which the Apostle says Cleansing him with the washing of water in the word is to be understood that in the same Laver of Regeneration and word of Sanctification all the evils of the regenerate are cleansed and healed not only the sins that are past which are all now remitted in Baptism but also those that are contracted afterwards by humane ignorance and infirmity not that Baptism be repeated as often as we sin but because by this which is once administred is brought to pass that pardon of all sins not only of those that are past but also those which will be committed afterwards is obtained The Messalians denied this and it was part of their Heresie in the undervaluing of Baptism and for it they are most excellently confuted by Isidore Pelusiot in his third Book 195 Epistle to the Count Hermin whither I refer the Reader 19. In proportion to this Doctrine it is that the Holy Scripture calls upon us to live a holy life in pursuance of this grace of Baptism And S. Paul recalls the lapsed Galatians to their Covenant and the grace of God stipulated in Baptism Ye are all children of God by faith in Jesus Christ that is heirs of the promise and Abraham's seed that promise which cannot be disannulled encreased or diminished but is the same to us as it was to Abraham the same before the Law and after Therefore do not you hope to be 〈◊〉 by the Law for you are entred into the Covenant of Faith and are to be justified thereby This is all your hope by this you must stand for ever or you cannot stand at all but by this you may for you are God's children by Faith that is not by the Law or the Covenant of Works And that you may remember whence you are going and return again he proves that they are the Children of God by 〈◊〉 in Jesus Christ because they have been baptized into Christ and so put on Christ. This makes you Children and such as are to be saved by Faith that is a Covenant not of Works but of Pardon in Jesus Christ the Author and Establisher of this Covenant For this is the Covenant made in Baptism that being justified by his grace we shall be heirs of life eternal for by grace that is by favour remission and forgiveness in Jesus Christ ye are saved This is the only way that we have of being justified and this must remain as long as we are in hopes of Heaven for besides this we have no hopes and all this is stipulated and consigned in Baptism and is of force after our 〈◊〉 into sin and risings again In
hand is heavy and his sword is sharp and pierces to the dividing the marrow and the bones and he that considers the infinite distance between God and us must tremble when he remembers that he is to feel the issues of that anger which he is not certain whether or no it will destroy him infinitely and eternally 4. But if the whip be given into our hands that we become executioners of the Divine wrath it is sometimes worse for we seldom strike our selves for emendation but add sin to sin till we perish miserably and inevitably God scourges us often into Repentance but when a Sin is the whip of another sin the rod is put into our hands who like blind men strike with a rude and undiscerning hand and because we love the punishment do it without intermission or choice and have no end but ruine 5. When the Holy Jesus had whipt the Merchants in the Temple they took away all the instruments of their sin For a Judgment is usually the commencement of Repentance Love is the last of Graces and 〈◊〉 at the beginning of a new life but is reserved to the perfections and ripeness of a Christian. We begin in Pear The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom 〈◊〉 hen he smote them then they turned and enquired early after God And afterwards the impresses of Fear continue like a hedge of thorns about us to restrain our dissolutions within the awfulness of the Divine Majesty that it may preserve what was from the same principle begun This principle of their emendation was from God and therefore innocent and holy and the very purpose of Divine Threatnings is that upon them as upon one of the great hindges the Piety of the greatest part of men should turn and the effect was answerable but so are not the actions of all those who follow this precedent in the tract of the letter For indeed there have been some reformations which have been so like this that the greatest alteration which hath been made was that they carried all things out of the Temple the Money and the Tables and the Sacrifice and the Temple it self went at last But these mens scourge is to follow after and Christ the Prince of the Catholick Church will provide one of his own contexture moresevere than the stripes which 〈◊〉 felt from the infliction of the exterminating Angel But the Holy Spirit of God by making provision against such a Reformation hath prophetically declared the aptnesses which are in pretences of religious alterations to degenerate into sacrilegious desires Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit sacriledge In this case there is no amendment only one sin resigns to another and the person still remains under its power and the same dominion The PRAYER OEternal Jesu thou bright Image of thy Father's glories whose light did shine to all the world when thy heart was inflamed with zeal and love of God and of Religion let a coal from thine Altar fanned with the wings of the Holy Dove kindle in my Soul such holy flames that I may be zealous of thy honour and glory forward in Religious duties earnest in their pursuit prudent in their managing ingenuous in my purposes making my Religion to serve no end but of thy glories and the obtaining of thy promises and so sanctific my Soul and my Body that I may be a holy Temple fit and prepared for the inhabitation of thy ever-blessed Spirit whom grant that I may never grieve by admitting any impure thing to desecrate the place and unhallow the Courts of his abode but give me a pure Soul in a chaste and healthful 〈◊〉 a spirit full of holy simplicity and designs of great ingenuity and perfect Religion that I may intend what thou commandest and may with proper instruments 〈◊〉 what I so intend and by thy aids may obtain the end of my labours the rewards of obedience and holy living even the society and inheritance of Jesus in the participation of the joys of thy Temple where thou dwellest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost O Eternal Jesus Amen DISCOURSE VIII Of the Religion of Holy Places 1. THE Holy Jesus brought a Divine warrant for his Zeal The selling Sacrifices and the exchange of Money and every Lay-employment did violence and dishonour to the Temple which was hallowed to Ecclesiastical ministeries and set apart for Offices of Religion for the use of holy things for it was God's House and so is every house by publick designation separate for Prayer or other uses of Religion it is God's House My house God had a propriety in it and had set his mark on it even his own Name And therefore it was in the Jews Idiome of speech called the Mountain of the Lord's House and the House of the Lord by David frequently God had put his Name into all places appointed for solemn Worship In all places where I record my Name I will come unto thee and bless thee For God who was never visible to mortal eye was pleased to make himself presential by substitution of his Name that is in certain places he hath appointed that his Name shall be called upon and by promising and imparting such Blessings which he hath made consequent to the invocation of his Name hath made such places to be a certain determination of some special manner of his Presence For God's Name is not a distinct thing from himself not an Idea and it cannot be put into a place in literal signification the expression is to be resolved into some other sence God's Name is that whereby he is known by which he is invocated that which is the most immediate publication of his Essence nearer than which we cannot go unto him and because God is essentially present in all places when he makes himself present in one place more than another it cannot be understood to any other purpose but that in such places he gives special Blessings and Graces or that in those places he appoints his Name that is himself specially to be invocated 2. So that when God puts his Name in any place by a special manner it signifies that there himself is in that manner But in separate and hallowed places God hath expressed that he puts his Name with a purpose it should be called upon therefore in plain signification it is thus In Consecrate places God himself is present to be invok'd that is there he is most delighted to hear the Prayers we make unto him For all the expressions of Scripture of God's 〈◊〉 the Tabernacle of God God's Dwellings putting his Name there his Sanctuary are resolved into that saying of God to Solomon who prayed that he would hear the Prayers of necessitous people in that place God granting the request expressed it thus I have sanctified the House which thou hast built that is the House which thou hast designed for my Worship I have designed for your Blessing what you have
the wicked in a proportionable manner to the contrary purpose he shortens their days and takes a way their possibilities and opportunities when the time of Repentance is past because he will not do violence to their Wills and this lest they should return and be converted and I should heal them so that it is evident some persons are by some acts of God after a vicious life and the frequent rejection of the Divine grace at last prevented from mercy who without such courses and in contrary circumstances might possibly do acts of Repentance and return and then God would healthem 4. Let their purposes and vows be never so sincere in the principle yet since a man who is in the state of Grace may again fail of it and forget he was purged from his old sins and every dying sinner did so if ever he was washed in the laver of Regeneration and sanctified in his spirit then much more may such a sincere purpose fail and then it would be known to what distance of time or state from his purpose will God give his final sentence Whether will he quit him because in the first stage he will correspond with his intention and act his purposes or condemn him because in his second stage he would prevaricate And when a man does fail it is not because his first principle was not good for the Holy Spirit which is certainly the best principle of spiritual actions may be extinguished in a man and a sincere or hearty purpose may be lost or it may again be recovered and be lost again so that it is as unreasonable as it is unrevealed that a sincere purpose on a death-bed shall obtain pardon or pass for a new state of life Few men are at those instants and in such pressures hypocritical and vain and yet to perform such purposes is a new work and a new labour it comes in upon a new stock differing from that principle and will meet with temptations difficulties and impediments and an honest heart is not sure to remain so but may split upon a rock of a violent invitation A promise is made to be faithful or unfaithful ex post 〈◊〉 by the event but it was sincere or insincere in the principle only if the person promising did or did not respectively at that time mean what he said A sincere promise many times is not truly performed 42. Concerning all the other acts which it is to be supposed a dying person can do I have only this consideration If they can make up a new Creature become a new state be in any sence a holy life a keeping the Commandments of God a following of peace and holiness a becoming holy in all conversation if they can arrive to the lowest sence of that excellent condition Christ intended to all his Disciples when he made keeping the Commandments to be the condition of entring into life and not crying Lord Lord but doing the will of God if he that hath served the Lusts of the flesh and taken pay under all God's enemies during a long and malicious life can for any thing a dying person can do be said in any sence to have lived holily then his hopes are fairly built if not they rely upon a sand and the 〈◊〉 of Death and the Divine displeasure will beat 〈◊〉 violently upon them There are no suppletories of the Evangelical Covenant If we walk according to the Rule then shall peace and righteousness kiss each other if we have sinned and prevaricated the Rule Repentance must bring us into the ways of Righteousness and then we must go on upon the old stock but the deeds of the 〈◊〉 must be mortified and Christ must dwell in us and the Spirit must reign in us and Vertue must be habitual and the habits must be confirmed and this as we do by the Spirit of Christ so it is hallowed and accepted by the grace of God and we put into a condition of favour and redeemed from sin and reconciled to God But this will not be put off with single acts nor divided parts nor newly-commenced purposes nor fruitless sorrow it is a great folly to venture Eternity upon dreams so that now let me represent the condition of a dying person after a vicious life 43. First He that considers the srailty of humane bodies their incidences and aptness to sickness casualties death sudden or expected the condition of several diseases that some are of too quick a sense and are intolerable some are dull stupid and Lethargical then adds the prodigious Judgments which fall upon many sinners in the act of sin and are marks of our dangers and God's essential justice and severity and that security which possesses such persons whose lives are vicious and that habitual carelesness and groundless confidence or an absolute inconsideration which is generally the condition and constitution of such minds every one whereof is likely enough to confound a persevering sinner in miseries eternal will soon apprehend the danger of a delayed Repentance to be infinite and unmeasurable 44. Secondly But suppose such a person having escaped the antecedent circumstances of the danger is set fairly upon his Death-bed with the just apprehension of his sins about him and his addresses to Repentance consider then the strength of his Lusts that the sins he is to mortifie are inveterate habitual and confirmed having had the growth and stability of a whole life that the liberty of his Will is impaired the Scripture saying of such persons whose eyes are full of lust and that cannot cease from sin and that his servants they are whom they obey that they are slaves to sin and so not sui juris not at their own dispose that his Understanding is blinded his Appetite is mutinous and of a long time used to rebell and prevail that all the inferiour Faculties are in disorder that he wants the helps of Grace proportionable to his necessities for the longer he hath continued in sin the weaker the Grace of God is in him so that in effect at that time the more need he hath the less he shall receive it being God's rule to give to him that hath and from him that hath not to take even what he hath then add the innumerable parts and great burthens of Repentance that it is not a Sorrow nor a Purpose because both these suppose that to be undone which is the only necessary support of all our hopes in Christ when it is done the innumerable difficult cases of Conscience that may then occur particularly in the point of Restitution which among many other necessary parts of Repentance is indispensably required of all persons that are able and in every degree in which they are able the many Temptations of the Devil the strength of Passions the impotency of the Flesh the illusions of the spirits of darkness the tremblings of the heart the incogitancy of the mind the implication and
Antiquitates Christianae OR THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS AS ALSO THE LIVES ACTS and MARTYRDOMS OF HIS APOSTLES IN TWO PARTS The First Part containing the Life of CHRIST Written by JER TAYLOR late Lord Bishop of Down and Connor The Second containing the Lives of the APOSTLES with an Enumeration and some Brief Remarks upon their first Successors in the Five Great APOSTOLICAL CHURCHES By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY By whom also is added an APPARATUS or Discourse Introductory to the whole Work concerning the Three Great Dispensations of the Church Patriarchal Mosaical and Evangelical Orig. câ—ntr Cels. lib. 1. dâ— Prâ—â—â—â— p. 1 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner M DC LXXV THE ANNUNTIATION Ave gratiâ plena Dominus tecum Benedicta tu inter mulieres Hail thou full of grace y e Lord is with thee Blessed art thou among women Luke 1. 28. Will Fathorne sculp ANTIQUITATES CHRISTIANAE OR The Life and Death of the Holy JESUS AS ALSO The Lives Acts and Martyrdoms of his Apostles London Printed for R Royston at the Angell in Amen Corner 1675. TO THE Right Honourable and Right Reverend Father in God NATHANAEL Lord BISHOP of DURHAM And Clerk of the Closet to His MAJESTY MY LORD NOTHING but a great experience of Your Lordships Candor could warrant the laying what concernment I have in these Papers at Your Lordships feet Not but that the subject is in it self Great and Venemble and a considerable part of it built upon that Authority that needs no Patronage to defend it But to prefix Your Lordships Name to a subject so thinly and meanly manag'd may perhaps deserve a bigger Apologie than I can make I have only brought some few scattered handfuls of Primitive Story contenting my self to Glean where I could not Reap And I am well assur'd that Your Lordships wisdom and love to Truth would neither allow me to make my Materials nor to trade in Legends and Fabulous reports And yet alas how little solid Foundation is left to Build upon in these matters So fatally mischievous was the carelessness of those who ought to have been the Guardians of Books and Learning in their several Ages in suffering the Records of the Ancient Church to perish Vnfaithful Trustees to look no better after such Divine and inestimable Treasures committed to them Not to mention those infinite Devastations that in all Ages have been made by Wars and Flames which certainly have prov'd the most severe and merciless Plagues and Enemies to Books By such unhappy accidents as these we have been robb'd of the Treasures of the wiser and better Ages of the World and especially the Records of the first times of Christianity whereof scarce any footsteps do remain So that in this Enquiry I have been forc'd to traverse remote and desert paths ways that afford little fruit to the weary Passenger but the consideration that it was Primitive and Apostolical sweetned my journey and rendred it pleasant and delightful Our inbred thirst after knowledge naturally obliges us to pursue the notices of former times which are recommended to us with this peculiar advantage that the Stream must needs be purer and clearer the nearer it comes to the Fountain for the Ancients as Plato speaks were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 better than we and dwelt nearer to the Gods And though'tis true the 〈◊〉 of those times is very obscure and dark and truth oft covered over with heaps of idle and improbable Traditions yet may it be worth our labour to seek for a few Jewels though under a whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heap of Rubbish Is not the Gleaning of the Ancients say the Jews better than the Vintage of later times The very fragments of Antiquity are Venerable and at once instruct our minds and gratifie our curiosity Besides I was somewhat the more inclinable to retire again into these studies that I might get as far as I could from the crowd and the noise of a quarrelsome and contentious Age. MY LORD We live in times wherein Religion is almost wholly disputed into talk and clamour men wrangle eternally about useless and insignificant Notions and which have no tendency to make a man either wiser or better And in these quarrels the Laws of Charity are violated and men persecute one another with hard names and characters of reproach and after all consecrate their fierceness with the honourable title of Zeal for Truth And what is yet a much sorer evil the Peace and Order of an excellent Church incomparably the best that ever was since the first Ages of the Gospel is broken down her holy Offices derided her solemn Assemblies deserted her Laws and Constitutions slighted the Guides and Ministers of Religion despised and reduc'd to their Primitive Character The Scum and Off-scouring of the World How much these evils have contributed to the 〈◊〉 and Impiety of the present Age I shall not take upon me to determine Sure I am the thing it self is too sadly visible men are not content to be modest and retired Atheists and with the Fool to say only in their hearts there is no God but 〈◊〉 appears with an open forehead and disputes its place in every company and without any regard to the Voice of Nature the Dictates of Conscience and the common sence of Mankind men peremptorily determine against a Supreme Being account it a pleasant divertisement to Droll upon Religion and a piece of Wit to plead for Atheism To avoid the 〈◊〉 and troublesome importunity of such uncomfortable Reflections I find no better way than to retire into those Primitive and better times those first and purest Ages of the Gospel when men really were what they pretended to be when a solid Piety and Devotion a strict Temperance and Sobriety a Catholick and unbounded Charity an exemplary Honesty and Integrity a great reverence for every thing that was Divine and Sacred rendred Christianity Venerable to the World and led not only the Rude and the Barbarous but the Learned and Politer part of Mankind in triumph after it But My Lord I must remember that the Minutes of great Men are Sacred and not to be invaded by every tedious impertinent address I have done when I have begg'd leave to acquaint Your Lordship that had it not been more through other mens fault than my own these Papers had many Months since waited upon You in the number of those Publick Congratulations which gave You joy of that great Place which You worthily sustain in the Church Which that You may long and prosperously enjoy happily adorn and successfully discharge to the honour of God the benefit of the Church and the endearing Your Lordships Memory to Posterity is the hearty Prayer of My Lord Your Lordships faithfully devoted Servant WILLIAM CAVE TO THE READER THE design of the
the first-fruits of the Ground but an honest heart and a pious life and a grateful acknowledgment of our dependance upon God in the publick Solemnities of his praise and worship For the Law and the Gospel did not differ in this that the one commanded publick worship the other not but that under the one publick worship was fixed to one only place under the other it is free to any where the providence of God has placed us it being part of the duty bound upon us by natural and unalterable obligations that we should publickly meet together for the solemn Celebration of the Divine honour and service 13. NOR is the Oeconomy of the Gospel less extensive in time than place the Old Testament was only a temporary dispensation that of the Gospel is to last to the end of the World the Law was to continue only for a little time the Gospel is an Everlasting Covenant the one to be quickly antiquated and abolished the other never to be done away by any other to succeed it The Jews indeed stickle hard for the perpetual and immutable obligation of the Law of Moses and frequently urge us with those places where the Covenant of Circumcision is called an Everlasting Covenant and God said to chuse the Temple at Jerusalem to place his name there for ever to give the Land of Canaan to Abraham and his seed for an everlasting possession thus the Law of the Passeover is called an Ordinance for ever the command of the First-fruits a statute for ever and the like in other places which seem to intimate a perpetual and unalterable Dispensation But the answer is short and plain that this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ever though when 't is applied to God it always denotes Eternity yet when 't is attributed to other things it implies no more than a periodical duration limited according to the will of the Law-giver or the nature of the thing thus the Hebrew Servant was to serve his Master for ever that is but for seven years till the next year of Jubilee He shall walk before mine anointed for ever says God concerning Samuel that is be a Priest all his days Thus when the Ritual services of the Mosaick Law are called Statutes for ever the meaning is that they should continue a long time obligatory until the time of the 〈◊〉 in whose days the Sacrifice and Oblation was to cease and those carnal Ceremonies to give way to the more spiritual services of the Gospel Indeed the very typical nature of that Dispensation evidently argued it to be but for a time the shadow being to cease that the substance might take place and though many of them continued some considerable time after Christ's death yet they lost their positive and obligatory power and were used only as things indifferent in compliance with the inveterate prejudices of new Converts lately brought over from Judaism and who could not quickly lay aside that great veneration which they had for the Rites of the Mosaick Institution Though even in this respect it was not long before all Jewish Ceremonies were thrown off and Moses quite turn'd out of doors Whereas the Evangelical state is to run parallel with the age and duration of the World 't is the Everlasting Covenant the Everlasting Gospel the last Dispensation that God will make to the World God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his 〈◊〉 in which respect the Gospel in opposition to the Law is stiled a Kingdom that cannot 〈◊〉 moved The 〈◊〉 in the foregoing Verses speaking concerning the Mosaical state Whose voice says he then shook the Earth but now he hath promised saying Yet once more I shake not the Earth only but also the Heaven a phrase peculiar to the Scripture to note the introducing a new scene and state of things and this word Yet once more signisieth the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made that those things which cannot be shaken may remain that is that the state of the Gospel may endure for ever Hence Christ is said to have an unchangeable Priesthood to be a Priest for ever to be consecrated for evermore From all which it appears how incomparably happy we Christians are under the Gospel above what the Jews were in the time of the Law God having placed us under the best of Dispensations freed us from those many nice and troublesome observances to which they were tied put us under the clearest discoveries and revelations and given us the most noble rational and masculine Religion a Religion the most perfective of our natures and the most conducive to our happiness while their Covenant at best was faulty and after all could not make him that did the service perfect in things pertaining to the Conscience Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see for I 〈◊〉 you that many Prophets and Kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them The End of the APPARATUS THE GREAT EXEMPLAR OF Sanctity and Holy Life according to the Christian Institution DESCRIBED In the HISTORY of the LIFE and DEATH of the ever-Blessed JESUS CHRIST THE SAVIOUR of the WORLD WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES IN THREE PARTS The Fifth Edition By JER TAYLOR Chaplain in Ordinary to King CHARLES the First and late Lord Bishop of Down and Conner LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner 1675. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE and most truly Noble Lord CHRISTOPHER LORD HATTON Baron HATTON of Kirby c. MY LORD WHEN Interest divides the Church and the Calentures of men breathe out in Problems and unactive Discourses each part in pursuance of its own portion follows that Proposition which complies with and bends in all the flexures of its temporal ends and while all strive for Truth they hug their own Opinions dressed up in her imagery and they dispute for ever and either the Question is indeterminable or which is worse men will never be convinced For such is the nature of Disputings that they begin commonly in Mistakes they proceed with Zeal and fancy and end not at all but in Schisms and uncharitable names and too often dip their feet in bloud In the mean time he that gets the better of his adversary oftentimes gets no good to himself because although he hath fast hold upon the right side of the Problem he may be an ill man in the midst of his triumphant Disputations And therefore it was not here that God would have Man's Felicity to grow For our condition had been extremely miserable if our final state had been placed upon
the eternal Compassion and was the instance of Mercy and therefore in the operation of his Father's design every action of his was univocal and he shewed the power of his Divinity in nothing but in miracles of Mercy and illustrations of Faith by creating arguments of Credibility In the same proportion we follow Jesus as himself followed his Father For what he abated by the order to his intendment and design we abate by the proportions of our Nature for some excellent acts of his were demonstrations of Divinity and an excellent Grace poured forth upon him without measure was their instrument to which proportions if we should extend our infirmities we should crack our sinews and dissolve the silver cords before we could entertain the instances and support the burthen Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights but the manner of our Fastings hath been in all Ages limited to the term of an artificial day and in the Primitive Observations and the Jewish Rites men did eat their meal as soon as the Stars shone in the firmament We never read that Jesus laughed and but once that he rejoyced in spirit but the declensions of our Natures cannot bear the weight of a perpetual grave deportment without the intervals of refreshment and free alacrity Our ever-blessed Saviour suffered the Devotion of Mary Magdalene to transport her to an expensive expression of her Religion and twice to anoint his feet with costly Nard and yet if persons whose conditions were of no greater lustre or resplendency of Fortune than was conspicuous in his family and retinue should suffer the same profusion upon the dressing and perfuming their bodies possibly it might be truly said It might better be sold and distributed to the poor This Jesus received as he was the CHRIST and Anointed of the Lord and by this he suffered himself to be designed to Burial and he received the oblation as Eucharistical for the ejection of seven Devils for therefore she loved much 12. The instances are not many For how-ever Jesus had some extraordinary transvolations and acts of emigration beyond the lines of his even and ordinary conversation yet it was but seldom for his being exemplary was of so great consideration that he chose to have fewer instances of Wonder that he might transmit the more of an imitable Vertue And therefore we may establish this for a rule and limit of our imitations Because Christ our Law-giver hath described all his Father's will in Sanctions and signature of Laws whatsoever he commanded and whatsoever he did of precise Morality or in pursuance of the Laws of Nature in that we are to trace his footsteps and in these his Laws and his practice differ but as a Map and a Guide a Law and a Judge a Rule and a Precedent But in the special instances of action we are to abate the circumstances and to separate the obedience from the effect whatsoever was moral in a ceremonial performance that is highly imitable and the obedience of Sacrificing and the subordination to Laws actually in being even now they are abrogated teach us our duty in a differing subject upon the like reason Jesus's going up to Jerusalem to the Feasts and his observation of the Sabbaths teach us our duty in celebration of Festivals constitute by a competent and just Authority For that which gave excellency to the observation of Mosaical Rites was an Evangelical duty and the piety of Obedience did not only consecrate the observations of Levi but taught us our duty in the constitutions of Christianity 13. Fifthly As the Holy Jesus did some things which we are not to imitate so we also are to do some things which we cannot learn from his Example For there are some of our Duties which presuppose a state of Sin and some suppose a violent temptation and promptness to it and the duties of prevention and the instruments of restitution are proper to us but conveyed only by Precept and not by Precedent Such are all the parts and actions of Repentance the duties of Mortification and Self-denial For whatsoever the Holy Jesus did in the matter of Austerity looked directly upon the work of our Redemption and looked back only on us by a reflex act as Christ did on Peter when he looked him into Repentance Some states of life also there are which Jesus never led such are those of temporal Governors Kings and Judges Merchants Lawyers and the state of Marriage in the course of which lives many cases do occur which need a Precedent and the vivacity of an excellent Example especially since all the rules which they have have not prevented the subtilty of the many inventions which men have found out nor made provision for all contingencies Such persons in all their special needs are to govern their actions by the rules of proportion by analogy to the Holiness of the person of Jesus and the Sanctity of his Institution considering what might become a person professing the Discipline of so Holy a Master and what he would have done in the like case taking our heights by the excellency of his Innocency and Charity Only remember this that in such cases we must always judge on the strictest side of Piety and Charity if it be a matter concerning the interest of a second person and that in all things we do those actions which are farthest removed from scandal and such as towards our selves are severe towards others full of gentleness and sweetness For so would the righteous and merciful Jesus have done these are the best analogies and proportions And in such 〈◊〉 when the Wells are dry let us take water from a Cistern and propound to our selves some exemplar Saint the necessities of whose life have determined his Piety to the like occurrences 14. But now from these particulars we shall best account to what the duty of the Imitation of Jesus does amount for it signifies that we should walk as he walked tread in his steps with our hand upon the Guide and our eye upon his Rule that we should do glory to him as he did to his Father and that whatsoever we do we should be careful that it do him honour and no reproach to his Institution and then account these to be the integral parts of our Duty which are imitation of his Actions or his Spirit of his Rule or of his Life there being no better Imitation of him than in such actions as do him pleasure however he hath expressed or imitated the precedent 15. He that gives Alms to the poor takes Jesus by the hand he that patiently endures Injuries and affronts helps him to bear his Cross he that comforts his brother in Affliction gives an amiable kiss of peace to Jesus he that bathes his own and his neighbour's sins in tears of penance and compassion washes his Master's feet We lead Jesus into the recesses of our heart by holy Meditations and we enter into his heart when we express him in our actions for so
destroys not the love of God for although it may lessen the habit yet it takes not away its natural being nor interrupts its acceptation lest all the world should in all instants of time be in a damnable condition yet when these smaller obliquities are repeated and no repentance intervenes this repetition combines and unites the lesser till they be concentred and by their accumulation make a crime and therefore a careless reiterating and an incurious walking in mis-becoming actions is deadly and damnable in the return though it was not so much at the setting forth Every idle word is to be accounted for but we hope in much mercy and yet he that gives himself over to immoderate talking will swell his account to a vast and mountainous proportion and call all the lesser escapes into a stricter judgment He that extends his Recreation an hour beyond the limits of Christian prudence and the analogie of its severity and imployment is accountable to God for that improvidence and waste of Time but he that shall mis-spend a day and because that sin is not scandalous like Adultery or clamorous like Oppression or unusual like Bestiality or crying for revenge like detaining the portion of Orphans shall therefore mis-spend another day without revocation of the first by an act of repentance and redemption of it and then shall throw away a week still adding to the former account upon the first stock will at last be answerable for a habit of Idleness and will have contracted a vain and impertinent spirit For since things which in their own kind are lawful become sinful by the degree if the degree be heightned by intention or become great like a heap of sand by a coacervation of the innumerable atoms of dust the actions are as damnable as any of the natural daughters and productions of Hell when they are entertained without scruple and renewed without repentance and continued without dereliction 14. Thirdly Although some inadvertencies of our life and lesser disobediences accidentally become less hurtful and because they are entailed upon the infirmities of a good man and the less wary customes and circumstances of society are also consistent with the state of Grace yet all affection to the smallest sins becomes deadly and damnable He that loves his danger shall perish in it saith the Wise man and every friendly entertainment of an undecency invites in a greater Crime for no man can love a small sin but there are in the greater crimes of its kind more desirable flatteries and more satisfactions of sensuality than in those suckers and sprigs of sin At first a little Disobedience is proportionable to a man's temper and his Conscience is not fitted to the bulk of a rude Crime but when a man hath accepted the first insinuation of delight and swallowed it that little sin is past and needs no more to dispute for entrance then the next design puts in and stands in the same probability to succeed the first and greater than the first had to make the entry However to love any thing that God hates is direct enmity with him and whatsoever the Instance be it is absolutely inconsistent with Charity and therefore incompetent with the state of Grace So that if the sin be small it is not a small thing that thou hast given thy love to it every such person perishes like a Fool cheaply and ingloriously 15. Fourthly But it also concerns the niceness and prudence of Obedience to God to stand at farther distance from a Vice than we usually attend to For many times Vertue and Vice differ but one degree and the neighbourhood is so dangerous that he who desires to secure his Obedience and Duty to God will remove farther from the danger For there is a rule of Justice to which if one degree more of severity be added it degenerates into Cruelty and a little more Mercy is Remissness and want of discipline introduces licentiousness and becomes unmercifulness as to the publick and unjust as to the particular Now this Consideration is heightned if we observe that Vertue and Vice consist not in an indivisible point but there is a latitude for either which is not to be judged by any certain rules drawn from the nature of the thing but to be estimated in proportion to the persons and other accidental Circumstances He that is burthened with a great charge for whom he is bound under a Curse and the crime of Infidelity to provide may go farther in the acquisition and be more provident in the use of his mony than those persons for whom God hath made more ample provisions and hath charged them with fewer burthens and engagements oeconomical And yet no man can say that just beyond such a degree of Care stands Covetousness and thus far on this side is Carelesness and a man may be in the confines of death before he be aware Now the only way to secure our Obedience and duty in such cases is to remove farther off and not to dwell upon the confines of the enemies Countrey My meaning is that it is not prudent nor safe for a man to do whatsoever he lawfully may do 16. For besides that we are often mistaken in our judgments concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of actions he that will do all that he thinks he may lawfully do if ever he does change his station and increase in giving himself liberty will quickly arrive at doing things unlawful It is good to keep a reserve of our liberty and to restrain our selves within bounds narrower than the largest sense of the Commandment that when our affections wander and enlarge themselves as sometime or other they will do then they may enlarge beyond the ordinary and yet be within the bounds of lawfulness That of which men make a scruple and a question at first after an habitual resolution of it stirs no more but then their question is of something beyond it When a man hath accustomed himself to pray seven times a day it will a little trouble his peace if he omits one or two of those times but if it be resolved then that he may please God with praying devoutly though but thrice every day after he hath digested the scruples of this first question possibly some accidents may happen that will put his Conscience and Reason to dispute whether three times be indispensably necessary and still if he be far within the bounds of lawfulness 't is well but if he be at the margent of it his next remove may be into dissolution and unlawfulness He that resolves to gain all that he may lawfully this year it is odds but next year he will be tempted to gain something unlawfully He that because a man may be innocently angry will never restrain his passion in a little time will be intemperate in his anger and mistake both his object and the degree Thus facetiousness and urbanity entertained with an open hand will turn into jestings
of Discipline and Society opportunities of Perfection Privacy is the best for Devotion and the Publick for Charity In both God hath many Saints and Servants and from both the Devil hath had some 8. His Sermon was an Exhortation to Repentance and an Holy life He gave particular schedules of Duty to several states of persons sharply reproved the 〈◊〉 for their Hypocrisie and Impiety it being worse in them because contrary to their rule their profession and institution gently guided others into the ways of Righteousness calling them the streight ways of the Lord that is the direct and shortest way to the Kingdom for of all Lines the streight is the shortest and as every Angle is a turning out of the way so every Sin is an obliquity and interrupts the journey By such 〈◊〉 and a Baptism he disposed the spirits of men for the entertaining the 〈◊〉 and the Homilies of the Gospel For John's Doctrine was to the Sermons of Jesus as a Preface to a Discourse and his Baptism was to the new Institution and Discipline of the Kingdom as the Vigils to a Holy-day of the same kind in a less degree But the whole Oeconomy of it represents to us that Repentance is the first intromission into the Sanctities of Christian Religion The Lord treads upon no paths that are not hallowed and made smooth by the sorrows and cares of Contrition and the impediments of sin cleared by dereliction and the succeeding fruits of emendation But as it related to the Jews his Baptism did signifie by a cognation to their usual Rites and Ceremonies of Ablution and washing Gentile Proselytes that the Jews had so far receded from their duty and that Holiness which God required of them by the Law that they were in the state of strangers no better than Heathens and therefore were to be treated as themselves received Gentile Proselytes by a Baptism and a new state of life before they could be fit for the reception of the 〈◊〉 or be admitted to his Kingdom 9. It was an excellent sweetness of Religion that had entirely 〈◊〉 the Soul of the Baptist that in so great reputation of Sanctity so mighty concourse of people such great multitudes of Disciples and confidents and such throngs of admirers he was humble without mixtures of vanity and confirmed in his temper and Piety against the strength of the most impetuous temptation And he was tried to some purpose for when he was tempted to confess himself to be the CHRIST he refused it or to be Elias or to be accounted that Prophet he refused all such great appellatives and confessed himself only to be a Voice the lowest of Entities whose being depends upon the Speaker just as himself did upon the pleasure of God receiving form and publication and imployment wholly by the will of his Lord in order to the manifestation of the Word eternal It were 〈◊〉 that the spirits of men would not arrogate more than their own though they did not lessen their own just dues It may concern some end of Piety or Prudence that our reputation be preserved by all just means but never that we assume the dues of others or grow vain by the spoils of an undeserved dignity Honours are the rewards of Vertue or engagement upon Offices of trouble and publick use but then they must suppose a preceding worth or a fair imployment But he that is a Plagiary of others titles or offices and dresses himself with their beauties hath no more solid worth or reputation than he should have nutriment if he ate only with their mouth and slept their slumbers himself being open and unbound in all the Regions of his Senses The PRAYER O Holy and most glorious God who before the publication of thy eternal Son the Prince of Peace didst send thy Servant John Baptist by the examples of Mortification and the rude Austerities of a penitential life and by the Sermons of Penance to remove all the impediments of sin that the ways of his Lord and ours might be made clear ready and expedite be pleased to let thy Holy Spirit lead me in the streight paths of Sanctity without deslections to either hand and without the interruption of deadly sin that I may with facility Zeal 〈◊〉 and a persevering diligence walk in the ways of the Lord. Be pleased that the Axe may be laid to the root of Sin that the whole body of it may be cut down in me that no fruit of Sodom may grow up to thy displeasure Throughly purge the floor and 〈◊〉 of my heart with thy Fan with the breath of thy Diviner Spirit that it may be a holy repository of Graces and full of benediction and Sanctity that when our Lord shall come I may at all times be prepared for the entertainment of so Divine a Guest apt to lodge him and to feast him that he may for ever delight to dwell with me And make me also to dwell with him sometimes retiring into his recesses and private rooms by Contemplation and admiring of his Beauties and beholding the Secrets of his Kingdom and at all other times walking in the Courts of the Lord's House by the diligences and labours of Repentance and an Holy life till thou shalt please to call me to a nearer communication of thy Excellencies which then grant when by thy gracious assistances I shall have done thy works and glorified thy holy Name by the strict and never-failing purposes and proportionable endeavours of Religion and Holiness through the merits and mercies of Jesus Christ. Amen DISCOURSE IV. Of Mortification and corporal Austerities 1. FRom the days of John the Baptist the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force said our Blessed Saviour For now that the new Covenant was to be made with Man Repentance which is so great a part of it being in very many actions a punitive duty afflictive and vindicative from the days of the Baptist who first by office and solemnity of design published this Doctrine violence was done to the inclinations and dispositions of Man and by such violences we were to be possessed of the Kingdom And his Example was the best 〈◊〉 upon his Text he did violence to himself he lived a life in which the rudenesses of Camel's hair and the lowest nutriment of Flies and Honey of the Desart his life of singularity his retirement from the sweetnesses of Society his resisting the greatest of Tentations and despising to assume false honours were instances of that violence and explications of the Doctrine of Self-denial and Mortification which are the Pedestal of the Cross and the Supporters of Christianity as it distinguishes from all Laws Religions and Institutions of the World 2. Mortification is the one half of Christianity it is a dying to the World it is a denying of the Will and all its natural desires An abstinence from pleasure and sensual complacencies that the 〈◊〉 being subdued to the spirit both may joyn in the
prepare the way to the coming of our Blessed Lord he preached Repentance and baptized all that professed they did repent He taught the Jews to live good lives and baptized with the Baptism of a Prophet such as was not unusually done by extraordinary and holy persons in the change or renewing of Discipline or Religion Whether 〈◊〉 's Baptism was from heaven or os men Christ asked the Pharisees That it was from heaven the people therefore believed because he was a Prophet and a holy person but it implies also that such Baptisms are sometimes from men that is used by 〈◊〉 of an eminent Religion or extraordinary fame for the gathering of Disciples and admitting Proselytes and the Disciples of Christ did so too even before Christ had instituted the Sacrament for the Christian Church the Disciples that came to Christ were baptized by his Apostles 10. And now we are come to the gates of Baptism All these till John were but Types and preparatory Baptisms and John's Baptism was but the prologue to the Baptism of Christ. The Jewish Baptisms admitted Proselytes to Moses and to the Law of Ceremonies John's Baptism called them to 〈◊〉 in the Messias now appearing and to repent of their sins to enter into the Kingdom which was now at 〈◊〉 and preached that Repentance which should be for the 〈◊〉 os 〈◊〉 His Baptism remitted no sins but preached and consigned Repentance which in the belief of the 〈◊〉 whom he pointed to should pardon sins But because he was taken from his Office before the work was completed the Disciples of Christ 〈◊〉 it They went forth preaching the same Sermon of Repentance and the approach of the Kingdom and baptized or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Disciples as John did only they as it is probable baptized in the Name of Jesus which it is not so likely John did And this very thing might be the cause of the different forms of Baptism recorded in the Acts of baptizing in the Name of 〈◊〉 and at other times In the 〈◊〉 of the Father Son and 〈◊〉 Ghost the sormer being the manner of doing it in pursuance of the design of John's Baptism and the latter the form of Institution by Christ for the whole Christian Church appointed after his Resurrection the Disciples at first using promiscuously what was used by the same Authority though with some difference of Mystery 11. The Holy Jesus having found his way ready prepared by the Preaching of 〈◊〉 and by his Baptism and the 〈◊〉 manner of adopting Proselytes and Disciples into the Religion a way chalked out for him to initiate Disciples into his Religion took what was so prepared and changed it into a perpetual Sacrament He kept the Ceremony that they who were led only by outward things might be the better called in and easier enticed into the Religion when they entred by a Ceremony which their Nation always used in the like cases and therefore without change of the outward act he put into it a new spirit and gave it a new grace and a proper efficacy he sublimed it to higher ends and adorned it with Stars of Heaven he made it to signific greater Mysteries to convey greater Blessings to consign the bigger Promises to cleanse deeper than the skin and to carry Proselytes farther than the gates of the Institution For so he was pleased to do in the other Sacrament he took the Ceremony which he found ready in the Custom of the Jews where the Major-domo after the Paschal Supper gave Bread and Wine to every person of his family he changed nothing of it without but transferred the Rite to greater Mysteries and put his own Spirit to their Sign and it became a Sacrament Evangelical It was so also in the matter of Excommunication where the Jewish practice was made to pass into Christian discipline without violence and noise old things became new while he fulfilled the Law making it up in full measures of the Spirit 12. By these steps Baptism passed on to a Divine Evangelical institution which we find to be consigned by three Evangelists Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost It was one of the last Commandments the Holy Jesus gave upon the earth when he taught his Apostles the things which concerned his Kingdom For he that believes and is baptized shall be saved but 〈◊〉 a man be born of Water and the Holy Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven agreeable to the decretory words of God by Abraham in the Circumcision to which Baptism does succeed in the consignation of the same Covenant and the same Spiritual Promises The uncircumcised child whose flesh is not circumcised that soul shall be cut off from his people he hath broken my Covenant The Manichees Selencas Hermias and their followers people of a day's abode and small interest but of malicious doctrine taught Baptism not to be necessary not to be used upon this ground because they supposed that it was proper to John to baptize with water and reserved for Christ as his peculiar to baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire Indeed Christ baptized none otherwise he sent his Spirit upon the Church in Pentecost and baptized them with fire the Spirit appearing like a flame but he appointed his Apostles to baptize with water and they did so and their successors after them every-where and for ever not expounding but obeying the preceptive words of their Lord which were almost the last that he spake upon earth And I cannot think it needful to prove this to be necessary by any more Arguments for the words are so plain that they need no exposition and yet if they had been obscure the universal practice of the Apostles and the Church for ever is a sufficient declaration of the Commandment No Tradition is more universal no not of Scripture it self no words are plainer no not the Ten Commandments and if any suspicion can be superinduced by any jealous or less discerning person it will need no other refutation but to turn his eyes to those lights by which himself fees Scripture to be the Word of God and the Commandments to be the declaration of his Will 13. But that which will be of greatest concernment in this affair is to consider the great benefits are conveyed to us in this Sacrament for this will highly conclude that the Precept was 〈◊〉 ever which God so seconds with his grace and mighty blessings and the susception of it necessary because we cannot be without those excellent things which are the Graces of the Sacrament 14. First The first fruit is That in Baptism we are admitted to the Kingdom of Christ presented unto him consigned with his Sacrament enter into his Militia give up our Understandings and our choice to the obedience of Christ and in all senses that we can become his Disciples witnessing a good
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be not pure in the laver but in the mind adds I suppose that an exact and a firm Repentance is a sufficient purification to a man if judging and considering our selves for the facts we have done before we proceed to that which is before us considering that which follows and cleansing or washing our mind from sensual affections and from former sins Just as we use to deny the effect to the instrumental cause and attribute it to the principal in the manner of speaking when our purpose is to affirm this to be the principal and of chief 〈◊〉 So we say It is not the good Lute but the skilful hand that makes the musick It is not the Body but the Soul that is the Man and yet he is not the man without both For Baptism is but the material part in the Sacrament it is the Spirit that giveth life whose work is Faith and Repentance begun by himself without the Sacrament and consigned in the Sacrament and actuated and increased in the cooperation of our whole life And therefore Baptism is called in the Jerusalem Creed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Baptism of Repentance for the remission of sins and by Justin Martyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Baptism of Repentance and the knowledge of God which was made for the sins of the people of God He explains himself a little after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Baptism that can only cleanse them that are penitent In Sacrament is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fides credentium professio quae apud Act a conficitur Angelorum 〈◊〉 miscentur 〈◊〉 spiritualia semina ut sancto germine nova possit renascentium indoles procreari ut dum Trinitas cum Fide concordat qui natus fuerit seculo renascatur spiritualiter Deo Sic fit hominum Pater Deus sancta fit Mater Ecclesia said Optatus The Faith and Profession of the Believers meets with the ever-blessed Trinity and is recorded in the Register of Angels where heavenly and spiritual seeds are mingled that from so holy a Spring may be produced a new nature of the Regeneration that while the Trinity viz. that is invocated upon the baptized meets with the Faith of the Catechumen he that was born to the world may be born spiritually to God So God is made a Father to the man and the holy Church a Mother Faith and Repentance stript the Old man naked and make him fit for Baptism and then the Holy Spirit moving upon the waters cleanses the Soul and makes it to put on the New man who grows up to perfection and a spiritual life to a life of glory by our verification of our undertaking in Baptism on our part and the Graces of the Spirit on the other For the waters pierce no farther than the skin till the person puts off his affection to the sin that he hath contracted and then he may say Aquae intraverunt 〈◊〉 ad animam meam The waters are entred even unto my Soul to purifie and cleanse it by the washing of water and the renewing by the Holy Spirit The summ is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Being baptized we are illuminated being illuminated we are adopted to the inheritance of sons being adopted we are promoted towards perfection and being perfected we are made immortal Quisquis in hos fontes vir venerit exeat indè Semideus tactis citò nobilitetur in undis 28. This is the whole Doctrine of Baptism as it is in it self considered without relation to rare Circumstances or accidental cases and it will also serve to the right understanding of the reasons why the Church of God hath in all Ages baptized all persons that were within her power for whom the Church could stipulate that they were or might be relatives of Christ sons of God heirs of the Promises and partners of the Covenant and such as did not hinder the work of Baptism upon their Souls And such were not only persons of age and choice but the Infants of Christian Parents For the understanding and verifying of which truth I shall only need to apply the parts of the former Discourse to their particular case premising first these Propositions Of Baptizing Infants Part II. 1. BAPTISM is the Key in Christ's hand and therefore opens as he opens and shuts by his rule and as Christ himself did not do all his Blessings and effects unto every one but gave to every one as they had need so does Baptism Christ did not cure all mens eyes but them only that were blind Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to 〈◊〉 that is They that lived in the fear of God according to the Covenant in which they were debtors were indeed improved and promoted higher by Christ but not called to that Repentance to which he called the vicious Gentiles and the Adulterous persons among the Jews and the hypocritical Pharisees There are some so innocent that they need no repentance saith the Scripture meaning that though they do need Contrition for their single acts of sin yet they are within the state of Grace and need not Repentance as it is a Conversion of the whole man And so it is in Baptism which does all its effects upon them that need them all and some upon them that need but some and therefore as it pardons sins to them that have committed them and do repent and believe so to the others who have not committed them it does all the work which is done to the others above or besides that Pardon 2. Secondly When the ordinary effect of a Sacrament is done already by some other efficiency or instrument yet the Sacrament is still as obligatory as before not for so many reasons or necessities but for the same Commandment Baptism is the first ordinary Current in which the Spirit moves and descends upon us and where God's Spirit is they are the Sons of God for Christ's Spirit descends upon none but them that are his and yet Cornelius who had received the holy Spirit and was heard by God and visited by an Angel and accepted in his Alms and Fastings and Prayers was tied to the susception of Baptism To which may be added That the receiving the effects of Baptism before-hand was used as an argument the rather to administer Baptism The effect of which consideration is this That Baptism and its effect may be separated and do not always go in conjunction the effect may be before and therefore much rather may it be after its susception the Sacrament operating in the virtue of Christ even as the Spirit shall move according to that saying of S. Austin Sacrosancto lavacro inchoata innovatio novi hominis perficiendo perficitur in aliis citiùs in aliis tarà iùs and S. Bernard Lavari quidem citò possumus sed ad sanandum multâ curatione opus est The work of Regeneration that is begun in the ministery of Baptism is perfected in some sooner in some later We
may soon be washed but to be healed is a work of a long cure 3. Thirdly The Dispositions which are required to the ordinary susception of Baptism are not necessary to the efficacy or required to the nature of the Sacrament but accidentally and because of the superinduced necessities of some men and therefore the Conditions are not regularly to be required But in those accidents it was necessary for a Gentile Proselyte to repent of his sins and to believe in Moses's Law before he could be circumcised but Abraham was not tied to the same Conditions but only to Faith in God but Isaac was not tied to so much and Circumcision was not of Moses but of the Fathers and yet after the sanction of Moses's Law men were tied to conditions which were then made necessary to them that entred into the Covenant but not necessary to the nature of the Covenant it self And so it is in the susception of Baptism If a sinner enters into the Font it is necessary he be stripped of those appendages which himself sewed upon his Nature and then Repentance is a necessary disposition if his Understanding hath been a stranger to Religion polluted with evil Principles and a false Religion it is necessary he have an actual Faith that he be given in his Understanding up to the obedience of Christ. And the reason of this is plain Because in these persons there is a disposition contrary to the state and effects of Baptism and therefore they must be taken off by their contraries Faith and Repentance that they may be reduced to the state of pure Receptives And this is the sence of those words of our Blessed Saviour Unless ye become like one of these little ones ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that is Ye cannot be admitted into the Gospel-Covenant unless all your contrarieties and impediments be taken from you and you be as apt as children to receive the new immissions from Heaven And this Proposition relies upon a great Example and a certain Reason The Example is our Blessed Saviour who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 debitor he had committed no sin and needed no Repentance he needed not to be saved by Faith for of Faith he was the Author and Finisher and the great object and its perfection and reward and yet he was baptized by the Baptism of John the Baptism of Repentance And therefore it is certain that Repentance and Faith are not necessary to the susception of Baptism but necessary to some persons that are baptized For it is necessary we should much consider the difference If the Sacrament by any person may be justly received in whom such Dispositions are not to be sound then the Dispositions are not necessary or intrinsecal to the susception of the Sacrament and yet some persons coming to this Sacrament may have such necessities of their own as will make the Sacrament ineffectual without such Dispositions These I call necessary to the person but not to the Sacrament that is necessary to all such but not necessary to all absolutely And Faith is necessary sometimes where Repentance is not sometimes Repentance and Faith together and sometimes otherwise When Philip baptized the Eunuch he only required of him to believe not to repent But S. Peter when he preached to the Jews and converted them only required Repentance which although it in their case implied Faith yet there was explicit stipulation for it they had crucified the Lord of life and if they would come to God by Baptism they must renounce their sin that was all was then stood upon It is as the case is or as the persons have superinduced necessities upon themselves In Children the case is evident as to the one part which is equally required I mean Repentance the not doing of which cannot prejudice them as to the susception of Baptism because they having done no evil are not bound to repent and to repent is as necessary to the susception of Baptism as Faith is But this shews that they are accidentally necessary that is not absolutely not to all not to Insants and if they may be excused from one duty which is indispensably necessary to Baptism why they may not from the other is a secret which will not be found out by these whom it concerns to believe it 4. And therefore when our Blessed Lord made a stipulation and express Commandment for Faith with the greatest annexed penalty to them that had it not He that believeth not shall be damned the proposition is not to be verified or understood as relative to every period of time for then no man could be converted from Insidelity to the Christian Faith and from the power of the Devil to the Kingdom of Christ but his present Infidelity shall be his final ruine It is not therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a Sentence but a 〈◊〉 a Prediction and Intermination It is not like that saying God is true and every man a lier and Every good and every perfect gift is from above for these are true in every instant without reference to circumstances but He that believeth not shall be damned is a Prediction or that which in Rhetorick is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Use because this is the affirmation of that which usually or frequently comes to pass such as this He that strikes with the sword shall perish by the sword He that robs a Church shall be like a wheel of a vertiginous and unstable estate He that loves wine and oyl shall not be rich and therefore it is a declaration of that which is universally or commonly true but not so that in what instant soever a man is not a believer in that instant it is true to say he is damned for some are called the third some the sixth some the ninth hour and they that come in being first called at the eleventh hour shall have their reward so that this sentence stands true at the day and the judgment of the Lord not at the judgment or day of man And in the same necessity as Faith stands to Salvation in the same it stands to Baptism that is to be measured by the whole latitude of its extent Our Baptism shall no more do all its intention unless Faith supervene than a man is in possibility of being saved without Faith it must come in its due time but is not indispensably necessary in all instances and periods Baptism is the seal of our Election and adoption and as Election is brought to effect by Faith and its consequents so is Baptism but to neither is Faith necessary as to its beginning and first entrance To which also I add this Consideration That actual Faith is necessary not to the susception but to the consequent effects of Baptism appears because the Church and particularly the Apostles did baptize some persons who had not Faith but were Hypocrites such as were Simon Magus Alexander the
Copper-smith Demas and Diotrephes and such was Judas when he was baptized and such were the Gnostick Teachers For the effect depends upon God who knows the heart but the outward susception depends upon them who do not know it which is a certain argument That the same Faith which is necessary to the effect of the Sacrament is not necessary to its susception and if it can be administred to Hypocrites much more to Infants if to those who really hinder the effect much rather to them that hinder not And if it be objected that the Church does not know but the Pretenders have Faith but she knows Infants have not I reply that the Church does not know but the Pretenders hinder the effect and are contrary to the grace of the Sacrament but she knows that Infants do not The first possibly may receive the Grace the other cannot hinder it 5. But besides these things it is considerable that when it is required persons have Faith It is true they that require Baptism should give a reason why they do so it was in the case of the Eunuch baptized by Philip but this is not to be required of others that do not ask it and yet they may be of the Church and of the Faith for by Faith is also understood the Christian Religion and the Christian Faith is the Christian Religion and of this a man may be though he make no confession of his Faith as a man may be of the Church and yet not be of the number of God's secret ones and to this more is required than to that to the first it is sufficient that he be admitted by a Sacrament or a Ceremony which is infallibly certain because Hypocrites and wicked people are in the visible Communion of the Church and are reckoned as members of it and yet to them there was nothing done but the Ceremony administred and therefore when that is done to Insants they also are to be reckoned in the Church-Communion And indeed in the examples of Scripture we find more inserted into the number of God's family by outward Ceremony than by the inward Grace Of this number were all those who were circumcised the eighth day who were admitted thither as the woman's daughter was cured in the Gospel by the Faith of their mother their natural parents or their spiritual to whose Faith it is as certain God will take heed as to their Faith who brought one to Christ who could not come himself the poor Paralytick for when Christ saw their faith he cured their friend and yet it is to be observed that Christ did use to exact faith actual faith of them that came to him to be cured According to your faith be it unto you The case is equal in its whole kind And it is considerable what Christ saith to the poor man that came in behalf of his son All things are possible to him that believeth it is possible for a son to receive the blessing and benefit of his father's faith and it was so in his case and is possible to any for to Faith all things are possible And as to the event of things it is evident in the story of the Gospel that the faith of their relatives was equally effective to children and friends or servants absent or sick as the faith of the interested person was to himself as appears beyond all exception in the case of the friends of the Paralytick let down with cords through the tiles of the Centurion in behalf of his servant of the nobleman for his son sick at Capernaum of the 〈◊〉 for her daughter and Christ required saith of no sick man but of him that presented himself to him and desired for himself that he might be cured as it was in the case of the blind man Though they could not believe yet Christ required belief of them that came to him on their behalf And why then it may not be so or is not so in the case of Infants Baptism I confess it is past my skill to conjecture The Reason on which this farther relies is contained in the next Proposition 6. Fourthly No disposition or act of man can deserve the first Grace or the grace of Pardon for so long as a man is unpardoned he is an enemy to God and as a dead person and unless he be prevented by the grace of God cannot do a single act in order to his pardon and restitution so that the first work which God does upon a man is so wholly his own that the man hath nothing in it but to entertain it that is not to hinder the work of God upon him And this is done in them that have in them nothing that can hinder the work of Grace or in them who remove the hinderances Of the latter sort are all Sinners who have lived in a state contrary to God of the first are they who are prevented by the grace of God before they can chuse that is little Children and those that become like unto little Children So that Faith and Repentance are not necessary at first to the reception of the first grace but by accident If Sin have drawn curtains and put bars and coverings to the windows these must be taken away and that is done by Faith and Repentance but if the windows be not shut so that the light can pass through them the eye of Heaven will pass in and dwell there No man can come unto me unless my Father draw him that is The first access to Christ is nothing of our own but wholly of God and it is as in our creation in which we have an obediential capacity but cooperate not only if we be contrary to the work of Grace that contrariety must be taken off else there is no necessity And if all men according to Christ's saying must receive the Kingdom of God as little children it is certain little children do receive it they receive it as all men ought that is without any impediment or obstruction without anything within that is contrary to that state 7. Fifthly Baptism is not to be estimated as one act transient and effective to single purposes but it is an entrance to a conjugation and a state of Blessings All our life is to be transacted by the measures of the Gospel-Covenant and that Covenant is consign'd by Baptism there we have our title and adoption to it and the grace that is then given to us is like a piece of Leven put into a lump of dough and Faith and Repentance do in all the periods of our life put it into fermentation and activity Then the seed of God is put into the ground of our hearts and Repentance waters it and Faith makes it subactum solum the ground and surrows apt to produce fruits and therefore Faith and Repentance are necessary to the effect of Baptism not to its susception that is necessary to all those parts of life in which Baptism does
operate not to the first sanction or entring into the Covenant The seed may lie long in the ground and produce fruits in its due season if it be refreshed with the former and the later rain that is the Repentance that first changes the state and converts the man and afterwards returns him to his title and recalls him from his wandrings and keeps him in the state of Grace and within the limits of the Covenant and all the way Faith gives efficacy and acceptation to this Repentance that is continues our title to the Promise of not having Righteousness exacted by the measures of the Law but by the Covenant and promise of Grace into which we entred in Baptism and walk in the same all the days of our life 8. Sixthly The Holy Spirit which descends upon the waters of Baptism does not instantly produce its effects in the Soul of the baptized and when he does it is irregularly and as he pleases The Spirit bloweth where it listeth and no man knoweth whence it cometh nor whither it goeth and the Catechumen is admitted into the Kingdom yet the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation and this saying of our Blessed Saviour was spoken of the Kingdom of God that is within us that is the Spirit of Grace the power of the Gospel put into our hearts concerning which he affirmed that it operates so secretly that it comes not with outward shew neither shall they say Lo here or lo there Which thing I desire the rather to be observed because in the same discourse which our Blessed Saviour continued to that assembly he affirms this Kingdom of God to belong unto little children this Kingdom that cometh not with outward significations or present expresses this Kingdom that is within us For the present the use I make of it is this That no man can conclude that this Kingdom of Power that is the Spirit of Sanctification is not come upon Infants because there is no sign or expression of it It is within us therefore it hath no signification It is the seed of God and it is no good Argument to say Here is no seed in the bowels of the earth because there is nothing green upon the face of it For the Church gives the Sacrament God gives the Grace of the Sacrament But because he does not always give it at the instant in which the Church gives the Sacrament as if there be a secret impediment in the suscipient and yet afterwards does give it when the impediment is removed as to them that repent of that impediment it follows that the Church may administer rightly even before God gives the real Grace of the Sacrament and if God gives this Grace afterwards by parts and yet all of it is the effect of that Covenant which was consigned in Baptism he that desers some may defer all and verifie every part as well as any part For it is certain that in the instance now made all the Grace is deferred in Infants it is not certain but that some is collated or infused however be it so or no yet upon this account the administration of the Sacrament is not hindred 9. Seventhly When the Scripture speaks of the effects of or dispositions to Baptism it speaks in general expressions as being most apt to signifie a common duty or a general effect or a more universal event or the proper order of things but those general expressions do not supponere universaliter that is are not to be understood exclusively to all that are not so qualified or universally of all suscipients or of all the subjects of the Proposition When the Prophets complain of the Jews that they are fallen from God and turned to Idols and walk not in the way of their Fathers and at other times the Scripture speaks the same thing of their Fathers that they walked perversly toward God starting aside like a broken bow in these and the like expressions the Holy Scripture uses a Synecdoche or signifies many only under the notion of a more large and indesinite expression for neither were all the Fathers good neither did all the sons prevaricate but among the Fathers there were enough to recommend to posterity by way of example and among the Children there were enough to stain the reputation of the Age but neither the one part nor the other was true of every single person S. John the Baptist spake to the whole audience saying O generation of 〈◊〉 and yet he did not mean that all Jerusalem and Judaea that went out to be baptized of him were such but he under an undeterminate reproof intended those that were such that is especially the Priests and the Pharisees And it is more considerable yet in the story of the event of Christ's Sermon in the Synagogue upon his Text taken out of Isaiah All wondred at his gracious words and bare him witness and a little after All they in the Synagogue were filled with wrath that is it was generally so but hardly to be supposed true of every single 〈◊〉 in both the contrary humors and usages Thus Christ said to the Apostles To have abidden with me in my temptations and yet Judas was all the way a follower of interest and the bag rather than Christ and afterwards none of them all did abide with Christ in his greatest Temptations Thus also to come nearer the present Question the secret effects of Election and of the Spirit are in Scripture attributed to all that are of the outward Communion So S. Peter calls all the Christian strangers of the Eastern dispersion Elect according to the sore-knowledge of God the Father and S. Paul saith of all the Roman Christians and the same of the 〈◊〉 that their Faith was spoken of in all the world and yet amongst them it is not to be supposed that all the 〈◊〉 had an unreproveable Faith or that every one of the Church of 〈◊〉 was an excellent and a charitable person and yet the 〈◊〉 useth this expression 〈◊〉 faith groweth exceedingly and the charity of every one of you all towards each other aboundeth These are usually significant of a general custom or order of things or duty of men or design and natural or proper expectation of events Such are these also in this very Question As many of you as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ that is so it is regularly and so it will be in its due time and that is the order of things and the designed event but from hence we cannot conclude of every person and in every period of time This man hath been baptized therefore now he is 〈◊〉 with Christ he hath put on Christ nor thus This person cannot in a spiritual sence as yet put on Christ therefore he hath not been baptized that is he hath not put him on in a 〈◊〉 sence Such is the saying of S. Paul Whom he hath predestinated them he also called and whom he
powers to reject any proposition and to believe well is an effect of a singular predestination and is a Gift in order to a Grace as that Grace is in order to Salvation But the insufficiency of an argument or disability to prove our Religion is so far from disabling the goodness of an ignorant man's Faith that as it may be as strong as the Faith of the greatest Scholar so it hath full as much excellency not of nature but in order to Divine acceptance For as he who believes upon the only stock of Education made no election of his Faith so he who believes what is demonstrably proved is forced by the demonstration to his choice Neither of them did 〈◊〉 and both of them may equally love the Article 3. So that since a 〈◊〉 Argument in a weak understanding does the same work that a strong Argument in a more 〈◊〉 and learned that is it convinces and makes Faith and yet neither of them is matter of choice if the thing believed be good and matter of 〈◊〉 or necessity the Faith is not rejected by God upon the weakness of the first nor accepted upon the strength of the latter principles when we are once in it will not be enquired by what entrance we passed thither whether God leads us or drives us in whether we come by Discourse or by Inspiration by the guide of an Angel or the conduct of Moses whether we be born or made Christians it is indifferent so we be there where we should be for this is but the gate of Duty and the entrance to Felicity For thus far Faith is but an act of the Understanding which is a natural Faculty serving indeed as an instrument to Godliness but of it self no part of it and it is just like fire producing its act inevitably and burning as long as it can without power to interrupt or suspend its action and therefore we cannot be more pleasing to God for understanding rightly than the fire is for burning clearly which puts us evidently upon this consideration that Christian Faith that glorious Duty which gives to Christians a great degree of approximation to God by Jesus Christ must have a great proportion of that ingredient which makes actions good or bad that is of choice and effect 4. For the Faith of a Christian hath more in it of the Will than of the Understanding Faith is that great mark of distinction which separates and gives formality to the Covenant of the Gospel which is a Law of Faith The Faith of a Christian is his Religion that is it is that whole conformity to the Institution or Discipline of Jesus Christ which distinguishes him from the believers of false Religions And to be one of the faithful signifies the same with being a Disciple and that contains Obedience as well as believing For to the same sense are all those appellatives in Scripture the Faithful Brethren Believers the Saints Disciples all representing the duty of a Christian A Believer and a Saint or a holy person is the same thing Brethren signifies Charity and Believers Faith in the intellectual sence the Faithful and Disciples signifie both for besides the consent to the Proposition the first of them is also used for Perseverance and Sanctity and the greatest of Charity mixt with a confident Faith up to the height of Martyrdom Be faithful unto the death said the Holy Spirit and I will give thee the Crown of life And when the Apostles by way of abbreviation express all the body of Christian Religion they call it Faith working by Love which also S. Paul in a parallel place calls a New Creature it is a keeping of the Commandments of God that is the Faith of a Christian into whose desinition Charity is ingredient whose sence is the same with keeping of God's Commandments so that if we desine Faith we must first distinguish it The faith of a natural person or the saith of Devils is a 〈◊〉 believing a certain number of Propositions upon conviction of the Understanding But the Faith of a Christian the Faith that justifies and saves him is Faith working by Charity or Faith keeping the Commandments of God They are distinct Faiths in order to different ends and therefore of different constitution and the instrument of distinction is Charity or Obedience 5. And this great Truth is clear in the perpetual testimony of Holy Scripture For Abraham is called the Father of the Faithful and yet our Blessed Saviour told the Jews that if they had been the sons of Abraham they would have done the works of Abraham and therefore Good works are by the Apostle called the sootsteps of the Faith of our Father Abraham For Faith in every of its stages at its first beginning at its increment at its greatest perfection is a Duty made up of the concurrence of the Will and the Understanding when it pretends to the Divine acceptance Faith and Repentance begin the Christian course Repent and believe the Gospel was the summ of the Apostles Sermons and all the way after it is Faith working by Love Repentance puts the first spirit and life into Faith and Charity preserves it and gives it nourishment and increase it self also growing by a mutual supply of spirits and nutriment from Faith Whoever does heartily believe a Resurrection and Life eternal upon certain Conditions will certainly endeavour to acquire the Promises by the Purchase of Obedience and observation of the Conditions For it is not in the nature or power of man directly to despise and reject so 〈◊〉 a good So that Faith supplies Charity with argument and maintenance and Charity supplies Faith with life and motion Faith makes Charity reasonable and Charity makes Faith living and effectual And therefore the old Greeks called Faith and Charity a miraculous Chariot or Yoke they bear the burthen of the Lord with an equal consederation these are like 〈◊〉 twins they live and die together Indeed Faith is the first-born of the twins but they must come both at a birth or else they die being strangled at the gates of the womb But if Charity like Jacob lays hold upon his elder brother's heel it makes a timely and a prosperous birth and gives certain title to the eternal Promises For let us give the right of primogeniture to Faith yet the Blessing yea and the Inheritance too will at last fall to Charity Not that Faith is disinherited but that Charity only enters into the possession The nature of Faith passes into the excellency of Charity before they can be rewarded and that both may have their estimate that which justifies and saves us keeps the name of Faith but doth not do the deed till it hath the nature of Charity For to think well or to have a good opinion or an excellent or a fortunate understanding entitles us not to the love of God and the consequent inheritance but to chuse the ways of the Spirit and
thy 〈◊〉 and Glories O Blessed and Eternal Jesu Amen DISCOURSE IX Of Repentance 1. THE whole Doctrine of the Gospel is comprehended by the Holy Ghost in these two Summaries Faith and Repentance that those two potent and imperious Faculties which command our lower powers which are the fountain of actions the occasion and capacity of Laws and the title to reward or punishment the Will and the Understanding that is the whole man considered in his superiour Faculties may become subjects of the Kingdom servants of Jesus and heirs of glory Faith supplies our imperfect conceptions and corrects our Ignorance making us to distinguish good from evil not onely by the proportions of Reason and Custome and old Laws but by the new standard of the Gospel it teaches us all those Duties which were enjoyned us in order to a participation of mighty glories it brings our Understanding into subjection making us apt to receive the Spirit for our Guide Christ for our Master the Gospel for our Rule the Laws of Christianity for our measure of good and evil and it supposes us naturally ignorant and comes to supply those defects which in our Understandings were left after the spoils of Innocence and Wisdome made in Paradise upon Adam's prevarication and continued and encreased by our neglect evil customes voluntary deceptions and infinite prejudices And as Faith presupposes our Ignorance so Repentance presupposes our Malice and Iniquity The whole design of Christ's coming and the Doctrines of the Gospel being to recover us from a miserable condition from Ignorance to spiritual Wisdome by the conduct of Faith and from a vicious habitually-depraved life and ungodly manners to the purity of the Sons of God by the instrument of Repentance 2. And this is a loud publication of the excellency and glories of the Gospel and the felicities of man over all the other instances of Creation The Angels who were more excellent Spirits than humane Souls were not comprehended and made safe within a Covenant and Provisions of Repentance Their first act of volition was their whole capacity of a blissful or a miserable Eternity they made their own sentence when they made their first election and having such excellent Knowledge and no weaknesses to prejudge and trouble their choice what they first did was not capable of Repentance because they had at first in their intuition and sight all which could afterward bring them to Repentance But weak Man who knows first by elements and after long study learns a syllable and in good time gets a word could not at first know all those things which were sufficient or apt to determine his choice but as he grew to understand more saw more reasons to rescind his first elections The Angels had a full peremptory Will and a satisfied Understanding at first and therefore were not to mend their first act by a second contradictory But poor Man hath a Will alwayes strongest when his Understanding is weakest and chuseth most when he is least able to determine and therefore is most passionate in his desires and follows his object with greatest earnestness when he is blindest and hath the least reason so to do And therefore God pitying Man begins to reckon his choices to be criminal just in the same degree as he gives him Understanding The violences and unreasonable actions of Childhood are no more remembred by God than they are understood by the Child The levities and passions of Youth are not aggravated by the imputation of Malice but are sins of a lighter dye because Reason is not yet impressed and marked upon them with characters and tincture in grain But he who when he may chuse because he understands shall chuse the evil and reject the good stands marked with a deep guilt and hath no excuse left to him but as his degrees of Ignorance left his choice the more imperfect And because every sinner in the style of Scripture is a fool and hath an election as imperfect as is the action that is as great a declension from Prudence as it is from Piety and the man understands as imperfectly as he practises therefore God sent his Son to take upon him not the nature of Angels but the 〈◊〉 of Abraham and to propound Salvation upon such terms as were possible that is upon such a Piety which relies upon experience and trial of good and evil and hath given us leave if we chuse amiss at first to chuse again and chuse better Christ having undertaken to pay for the issues of their first follies to make up the breach made by our first weaknesses and abused understandings 3. But as God gave us this mercy by Christ so he also revealed it by him He first used the Authority of a Lord and a Creator and a Law-giver he required Obedience indeed upon reasonable terms upon the instance of but a few Commandments at first which when he afterwards multiplied he also appointed ways to expiate the smaller irregularities but left them eternally bound without remedy who should do any great violence or a crime But then he bound them but to a Temporal death Only this as an eternal death was also tacitely implied so also a remedy was secretly ministred and Repentance particularly preached by Homilies distinct from the Covenant of Moses's Law The Law allowed no Repentance for greater crimes he that was convicted of Adultery was to die without mercy but God pitied the miseries of man and the inconveniences of the Law and sent Christ to suffer for the one and remedy the other for so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and that Repentance and Remission of sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations And now this is the last and only hope of Man who in his natural condition is imperfect in his customs vicious in his habits impotent and criminal Because Man did not remain innocent it became necessary he should be penitent and that this Penitence should by some means be made acceptable that is become the instrument of his Pardon and restitution of his hope Which because it is an act of favour and depends wholly upon the Divine dignation and was revealed to us by Jesus Christ who was made not onely the Prophet and Preacher but the Mediatour of this New Covenant and mercy it was necessary we should become Disciples of the Holy Jesus and servants of his Institution that is run to him to be made partakers of the mercies of this new Covenant and accept of him such conditions as he should require of us 4. This Covenant is then consigned to us when we first come to Christ that is when we first profess our selves his Disciples and his servants Disciples of his Doctrine and servants of his Institution that is in Baptism in which Christ who died for our sins makes us partakers of his death For we are buried by Baptism into his death saith S. Paul Which was also
our Redemption he adds Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Who gave himself for us to this very purpose that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Purifying a people peculiar to himself is cleansing it in the Laver of Regeneration and appropriating it to himself in the rites of Admission and Profession Which plainly designs the first consignation of our Redemption to be in Baptism and that Christ there cleansing his Church from every spot or wrinkle made a Covenant with us that we should renounce all our sins and he should cleanse them all and then that we should abide in that state Which is also very explicitely set down by the same Apostle in that divine and mysterious Epistle to the Romans How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death Well what then Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism into his death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life That 's the end and mysteriousness of Baptism it is a consignation into the Death of Christ and we die with him that once that is die to sin that we may for ever after live the life of righteousness Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin that is from the day of our Baptism to the day of our death And therefore God who knows the weaknesses on our part and yet the strictness and necessity of conserving Baptismal grace by the Covenant Evangelical hath appointed the auxiliaries of the Holy Spirit to be ministred to all baptized people in the holy Rite of Confirmation that it might be made possible to be done by Divine aids which is necessary to be done by the Divine Commandments 10. And this might not be improperly said to be the meaning of those words of our Blessed Saviour He that speaks a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him but he that speaks a word against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him That is those sins which were committed in Infidelity before we became Disciples of the Holy Jesus are to be remitted in Baptism and our first profession of the Religion but the sins committed after Baptism and Confirmation in which we receive the Holy Ghost and by which the Holy Spirit is grieved are to be accounted for with more severity And therefore the Primitive Church understanding our obligations according to this discourse admitted not any to holy Orders who had lapsed and fallen into any sin of which she could take cognisance that is such who had not kept the integrity of their Baptism but sins committed before Baptism were no impediments to the susception of Orders because they were absolutely extinguished in Baptism This is the nature of the Covenant we made in Baptism that 's the grace of the Gospel and the effect of Faith and Repentance and it is expected we should so remain For it is nowhere expressed to be the mercy and intention of the Covenant Evangelical that this Redemption should be any more than once or that Repentance which is in order to it can be renewed to the same or so great purposes and present effects 11. But after we are once reconciled in Baptism and put intirely into God's favour when we have once been redeemed if we then fall away into sin we must expect God's dealing with us in another manner and to other purposes Never must we expect to be so again justified and upon such terms as formerly the best days of our Repentance are interrupted not that God will never forgive them that sin after Baptism and recover by Repentance but that Restitution by repentance after Baptism is another thing than the first Redemption No such intire clear and integral determinate and presential effects of Repentance but an imperfect little growing uncertain and hazardous Reconciliation a Repentance that is always in production a Renovation by parts a Pardon that is revocable a Salvation to be wrought by fear and trembling all our remanent life must be in bitterness our hopes allayed with fears our meat attempered with Coloquintida and death is in the pot as our best actions are imperfect so our greatest Graces are but possibilities and aptnesses to a Reconcilement and all our life we are working our selves into that condition we had in Baptism and lost by our relapse As the habit lessens so does the guilt as our Vertues are imperfect so is the Pardon and because our Piety may be interrupted our state is uncertain till our possibilities of sin are ceased till our fight is finished and the victory therefore made sure because there is no more fight And it is remarkable that S. Peter gives counsel to live holily in pursuance of our redemption of our calling and of our escaping from that corruption that is in the world through Lust lest we lose the benefit of our purgation to which by way of antithesis he opposes this Wherefore the rather give diligence to make your calling and election sure And if ye do these things ye shall never fall Meaning by the perpetuating our state of Baptism and first Repentance we shall never fall but be in a sure estate our calling and election shall be sure But not if we fall if we forget we were purged from our old sins if we forfeit our calling we have also made our election unsure movable and disputable 12. So that now the hopes of lapsed sinners relie upon another bottom And as in Moses's Law there was no revelation of Repentance but yet the Jews had hopes in God and were taught the succours of Repentance by the Homilies of the Prophets and other accessory notices So in the Gospel the Covenant was established upon Faith and Repentance but it was consigned in Baptism and was verifiable onely in the integrity of a following holy life according to the measures of a man not perfect but sincere not faultless but heartily endeavoured but yet the mercies of God in pardoning sinners lapsed after Baptism was declared to us by collateral and indirect occasions by the Sermons of the Apostles and the Commentaries of Apostolical persons who understood the meaning of the Spirit and the purposes of the Divine mercy and those other significations of his will which the blessed Jesus left upon record in other parts of his Testament as in Codicills annexed besides the precise Testament it self And it is certain if in the Covenant of Grace there be the same involution of an after-after-Repentance as there is of present Pardon upon past Repentance and future Sanctity it is impossible to
justifie that a holy life and a persevering Sanctity is enjoyned by the Covenant of the Gospel if I say in its first intention it be declared that we may as well and upon the same terms hope for Pardon upon a Recovery hereafter as upon the perseverance in the present condition 13. From these premisses we may soon understand what is the Duty of a Christian in all his life even to pursue his own undertaking made in Baptism or his first access to Christ and redemption of his person from the guilt and punishment of sins The state of a Christian is called in Scripture Regeneration Spiritual life Walking after the Spirit Walking in newness of life that is a bringing forth fruits meet for Repentance That Repentance which tied up in the same ligament with Faith was the disposition of a Christian to his Regeneration and Atonement must have holy life in perpetual succession for that is the apt and proper fruit of the first Repentance which John the Baptist preached as an introduction to Christianity and as an entertaining the Redemption by the bloud of the Covenant And all that is spoken in the New Testament is nothing but a calling upon us to do what we promised in our Regeneration to perform that which was the design of Christ who therefore redeemed us and bare our sins in his own body that we might die unto sin and live unto righteousness 14. This is that saying of S. Paul Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you Plainly saying that unless we pursue the state of Holiness and Christian communion into which we were baptized when we received the grace of God we shall fail of the state of Grace and never come to see the glories of the Lord. And a little before Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of Faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water That 's the first state of our Redemption that 's the Covenant God made with us to remember our sins no more and to put his laws in our hearts and minds And this was done when our bodies were washed with water and our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience that is in Baptism It remains then that we persist in the condition that we may continue our title to the Covenant for so it follows Let us hold fast the profession of our Faith without wavering For if we sin wilfully after the profession there remains no more sacrifice that is If we hold not fast the profession of our Faith and continue not the condition of the Covenant but fall into a contrary state we have forfeited the mercies of the Covenant So that all our hopes of Blessedness relying upon the Covenant made with God in Jesus Christ are ascertained upon us by holding fast that profession by retaining our hearts still sprinkled from an evil conscience by following peace with all men and holiness For by not failing of the grace of God we shall not fail of our hopes the mighty price of our high calling but without all this we shall never see the face of God 15. To the same purpose are all those places of Scripture which intitle us to Christ and the Spirit upon no other condition but a holy life and a prevailing habitual victorious Grace Know you not your own selves Brethren how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates There are but two states of being in order to Eternity either a state of the Inhabitation of Christ or the state of Reprobation Either Christ is in us or we are reprobates But what does that signifie to have Christ dwelling in us That also we learn at the feet of the same Doctor If Christ be in you the body is dead by reason of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness The body of Sin is mortified and the life of Grace is active busie and spiritual in all them who are not in the state of Reprobation The Parallel with that other expression of his They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts If sin be vigorous if it be habitual if it be beloved if it be not dead or dying in us we are not of Christ's portion we belong not to him nor he to us For whoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God that is every Regenerate person is in a condition whose very being is a contradiction and an opposite design to Sin When he was regenerate and born anew of water and the spirit the seed of God the original of Piety was put into him and bidden to encrease and multiply The seed of God in S. John is the same with the word of God in S. James by which he begat us and as long as this remains a Regenerate person cannot be given up to sin for when he is he quits his Baptism he renounces the Covenant he alters his relation to God in the same degree as he enters into a state of sin 16. And yet this discourse is no otherwise to be understood than according to the design of the thing it self and the purpose of God that is that it be a deep ingagement and an effectual consideration for the necessity of a holy life but at no hand let it be made an instrument of Despair nor an argument to lessen the influences of the Divine Mercy For although the nicety and limits of the Covenant being consigned in Baptism are fixed upon the condition of a holy and persevering uninterrupted Sanctity and our Redemption is wrought but once compleated but once we are but once absolutely intirely and presentially forgiven and reconciled to God this Reconciliation being in virtue of the Sacrifice and this Sacrifice applied in Baptism is one as Baptism is one and as the Sacrifice is one yet the Mercy of God besides this great Feast hath fragments which the Apostles and Ministers spiritual are to gather up in baskets and minister to the afterneeds of indigent and necessitous Disciples 17. And this we gather as fragments are gathered by respersed sayings instances and examples of the Divine mercy recorded in Holy Scripture The Holy Jesus commands us to forgive our brother seventy times seven times when he asks our pardon and implores our mercy and since the Divine mercy is the pattern of ours and is also procured by ours the one being made the measure of the other by way of precedent and by way of reward God will certainly forgive us as we forgive our brother and it cannot be imagined God should oblige us to give pardon oftner than he will give it himself especially since he hath expressed ours to be a title of a
proportionable reception of his and hath also commanded us to ask pardon all days of our life even in our daily offices and to beg it in the measure and rule of our own Charity and Forgiveness to our Brother And therefore God in his infinite wisdom foreseeing our frequent relapses and considering our infinite infirmities appointed in his Church an ordinary ministery of Pardon designing the Minister to pray for sinners and promising to accept him in that his advocation or that he would open or shut Heaven respectively to his act on earth that is he would hear his prayers and verifie his ministery to whom he hath committed the word of Reconciliation This became a duty to Christian Ministers Spiritual persons that they should restore a person overtaken in a fault that is reduce him to the condition he begins to lose that they should pray over sick persons who are also commanded to confess their sins and God hath promised that the sins they have committed shall be forgiven them Thus S. Paul absolved the incestuous excommunicate Corinthian in the person of Christ he forgave him And this also is the confidence S. John taught the Christian Church upon the stock of the excellent mercy of God and propitiation of Jesus If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all 〈◊〉 Which discourse he directs to them who were Christians already initiated into the Institution of Jesus And the Epistles which the Spirit sent to the Seven Asian Churches and were particularly addressed to the Bishops the Angels of those Churches are exhortations some to Perseverance some to Repentance that they may return from whence they are fallen And the case is so with us that it is impossible we should be actually and perpetually free from sin in the long succession of a busie and impotent and a tempted conversation And without these reserves of the Divine grace and after-emanations from the Mercy-seat no man could be saved and the death of Christ would become inconsiderable to most of his greatest purposes for none should have received advantages but newly-baptized persons whose Albs of Baptism served them also for a winding-sheet And therefore our Baptism although it does consign the work of God presently to the baptized person in great certain and intire effect in order to the remission of what is past in case the Catechumen be rightly disposed or hinders not yet it hath also influence upon the following periods of our life and hath admitted us into a lasting state of Pardon to be renewed and actually applied by the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and all other Ministeries Evangelical and so long as our Repentance is timely active and affective 18. But now although it is infinitely certain that the gates of Mercy stand open to sinners after Baptism yet it is with some variety and greater difficulty He that renounces Christianity and becomes Apostate from his Religion not by a seeming abjuration under a storm but by a voluntary and hearty dereliction he seems to have quitted all that Grace which he had received when he was illuminated and to have lost the benefits of his Redemption and former expiation And I conceive this is the full meaning of those words of S. Paul which are of highest difficulty and latent sense For it is impossible for those who were once enlightned c. if they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance The reason is there subjoyned and more clearly explicated a little after For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remains no more sacrifice for sins For he hath counted the bloud of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite to the Spirit of Grace The meaning is divers according to the degrees of apostasie or relapse They who fall away after they were once enlightned in Baptism and felt all those blessed effects of the sanctification and the emanations of the Spirit if it be into a contradictory state of sin and mancipation and obstinate purposes to serve Christ's enemies then there remains nothing but a fearful expectation of Judgment but if the backsliding be but the interruption of the first Sanctity by a single act or an unconformed unresolved unmalicious habit then also it is impossible to renew them unto Repentance viz. as formerly that is they can never be reconciled as before integrally fully and at once during this life For that Redemption and expiation was by Baptism into Christ's death and there are no more deaths of Christ nor any more such sacramental consignations of the benefit of it there is no more sacrifice for sins but the Redemption is one as the Sacrifice is one in whose virtue the Redemption does operate And therefore the Novatians who were zealous men denied to the first sort of persons the peace of the Church and remitted them to the Divine Judgment The Church her self was sometimes almost as zealous against the second sort of persons lapsed into capital crimes granting to them Repentance but once by such disciplines consigning this truth That every recession from the state of Grace in which by Baptism we were established and consigned is a farther step from the possibilities of Heaven and so near a ruine that the Church thought them persons fit to be transmitted to a Judicature immediately Divine as supposing either her power to be too little or the others malice too great or else the danger too violent or the scandal insupportable For concerning such persons who once were pious holy and forgiven for so is every man and woman worthily and aptly baptized and afterwards fell into dissolution of manners extinguishing the Holy Ghost doing despite to the Spirit of Grace crucisying again the Lord of Life that is returning to such a condition from which they were once recovered and could not otherwise be so but by the death of our dearest Lord I say concerning such persons the Scripture speaks very suspiciously and to the sense and signification of an infinite danger For if the speaking a word against the Holy Ghost be not to be pardoned here nor hereafter what can we imagine to be the end of such an impiety which crucifies the Lord of Life and puts him to an open shame which quenches the Spirit doing despite to the Spirit of Grace Certainly that is worse than speaking against him And such is every person who falls into wilful Apostasie from the Faith or does that violence to Holiness which the other does to Faith that is extinguishes the sparks of Illumination quenches the Spirit and is habitually and obstinately criminal in any kind For the same thing that 〈◊〉 was in the first period of the world and Idolatry in the second the same is Apostasie in the last it is a state wholly contradictory to all our religious relation to God according to the
For there is an unpardonable estate by reason of its malice and opposition to the Covenant of Grace and there is a state unpardonable because the time of Repentance is past There are days and periods of Grace If thou hadst known at least in this thy day said the weeping Saviour of the world to foreknown and determined Jerusalem When God's decrees are gone out they are not always revocable and therefore it was a great caution of the Apostle that we should follow peace and holiness and look diligently that we fall not from the grace of God lest any of us become like 〈◊〉 to whose Repentance there was no place left though he sought it carefully with tears meaning that we also may put our selves into a condition when it shall be impossible we should be renewed unto Repentance and those are they who sin a sin unto death for whom we have from the Apostle no encouragement to pray And these are in so general and conclusive terms described in Scripture that every persevering sinner hath great reason to suspect himself to be in the number If he endeavours as soon as he thinks of it to recover it is the best sign he was not arrived so far but he that liveth long in a violent and habitual course of sin is at the margin and brim of that state of final reprobation and some men are in it before they be aware and to some God reckons their days swifter and their periods shorter The use I make of this consideration is that if any man hath reason to suspect or to be certain that his time of Repentance is past it is most likely to be a death-bed Penitent after a vicious life a life contrary to the mercies and grace of the Evangelical Covenant for he hath provoked God as long as he could and rejected the offers of Grace as long as he lived and refused Vertue till he could not entertain her and hath done all those things which a person rejected from hopes of Repentance can easily be imagined to have done And if there be any time of rejection although it may be earlier yet it is also certainly the last 31. Concerning the second I shall add this to the former discourse of it that perfect Pardon of sins is not in this world at all after the first emission and great efflux of it in our first Regeneration During this life we are in imperfection minority and under conditions which we have prevaricated and our recovery is in perpetual flux in heightnings and declensions and we are highly uncertain of our acceptation because we are not certain of our restitution and innocence we know not whether we have done all that is sufficient to repair the breach made in the first state of favour and Baptismal grace But he that is dead saith S. Paul is justified from sin not till then And therefore in the doctrine of the most learned Jews it is affirmed He that is guilty of the profanation of the Name of God he shall not interrupt the apparent malignity of it by his present Repentance nor make attonement in the day of Expiation nor wath the stains away by chastising of himself but during his life it remains wholly in suspence and before death is not extinguished according to the saying of the Prophet Esay This iniquity shall not be blotted out till ye die saith the LORD of Hosts And some wise persons have affirmed that Jacob related to this in his expression and appellatives of God whom he called the God of Abraham and the fear of his father Isaac because as the Doctors of the Jews tell us Abraham being dead was ascribed into the final condition of God's family but Isaac being living had apprehensions of God not only of a pious but also of a tremulous fear he was not sure of his own condition much less of the degrees of his reconciliation how far God had forgiven his sins and how far he had retained them And it is certain that if every degree of the Divine favour be not assured by a holy life those sins of whose pardon we were most hopeful return in as full vigour and clamorous importunity as ever and are made more vocal by the appendent ingratitude and other accidental degrees And this Christ taught us by a Parable For as the lord made his uncharitable servant pay all that debt which he had formerly forgiven him even so will God do to us if we from our hearts forgive not one another their trespasses Behold the goodness and severity of God saith S. Paul on them which fell severity but on thee goodness if thou continue in that goodness otherwise thou shalt be cut off For this is my Covenant which I shall make with them when I shall take away their sins And if this be true in those sins which God certainly hath forgotten such as were all those which were committed before our illumination much rather is it true in those which we committed after concerning whose actual and full pardon we cannot be certain without a revelation So that our pardon of sins when it is granted after the breach of our Covenant is just so secure as our perseverance is concerning which because we must ascertain it as well as we can but ever with fear and trembling so also is the estate of our Pardon hazardous conditional revocable and uncertain and therefore the best of men do all their lives ask pardon even of those sins for which they have wept bitterly and done the sharpest and severest penance And if it be necessary we pray that we may not enter into temptation because temptation is full of danger and the danger may bring a sin and the sin may ruine us it is also necessary that we understand the condition of our pardon to be as is the condition of our person variable as will sudden as affections alterable as our purposes revocable as our own good intentions and then made as ineffective as our inclinations to good actions And there is no way to secure our confidence and our hope but by being perfect and holy and pure as our heavenly Father is that is in the sence of humane capacity free from the habits of all sin and active and industrious and continuing in the ways of godliness For upon this only the Promise is built and by our proportion to this state we must proportion our confidence we have no other revelation Christ reconciled us to his Father upon no other conditions and made the Covenant upon no other articles but of a holy life in obedience universal and perpetual and the abatements of the rigorous sence of the words as they are such as may infinitely testifie and prove his mercy so they are such as must secure our duty and habitual graces an industry manly constant and Christian and because these have so great latitude and to what degrees God will accept our returns he hath
no-where punctually described he that is most severe in his determination does best secure himself and by exacting the strictest account of himself shall obtain the easier scrutiny at the hands of God The use I make of this consideration is to the same purpose with the former For if every day of sin and every criminal act is a degree of recess from the possibilities of Heaven it would be considered at how great distance a death-bed Penitent after a vicious life may apprehend himself to stand for mercy and pardon and since the terms of restitution must in labour and in extension of time or intension of degrees be of value great enough to restore him to some proportion or equivalence with that state of Grace from whence he is fallen and upon which the Covenant was made with him how impossible or how near to impossible it will appear to him to go so far and do so much in that state and in those circumstances of disability 32. Concerning the third particular I consider that Repentance as it is described in Scripture is a system of holy Duties not of one kind not properly consisting of parts as if it were a single Grace but it is the reparation of that estate into which Christ first put us a renewing us in the spirit of our mind so the Apostle calls it and the Holy Ghost hath taught this truth to us by the implication of many appellatives and also by express discourses For there is in Scripture a Repentance to be repented of and a Repentance never to be repented of The first is mere Sorrow for what is past an ineffective trouble producing nothing good such as was the Repentance of Judas he repented and hanged himself and such was that of Esau when it was too late and so was the Repentance of the five foolish Virgins which examples tell us also when ours is an impertinent and ineffectual Repentance To this Repentance Pardon is nowhere promised in Scripture But there is a Repentance which is called Conversion or Amendment of life a Repentance productive of holy fruits such as the Baptist and our Blessed Saviour preached such as himself also propounded in the example of the Ninivites they repented at the preaching of Jonah that is they fasted they covered them in sackcloth they cried mightily unto God yea they turned every one from his evil way and from the violence that was in their hands And this was it that appeased God in that instance God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil and did it not 33. The same Character of Repentance we find in the Prophet Ezekiel When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed and doth that which is lawful and right If the wicked restore the pledge give again that he had robbed walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity he hath done that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not die And in the Gospel Repentance is described with as full and intire comprehensions as in the old Prophets For Faith and Repentance are the whole duty of the Gospel Faith when it is in conjunction with a practical grace signifies an intellectual Faith signifies the submission of the understanding to the Institution and Repentance includes all that whole practice which is the intire duty of a Christian after he hath been overtaken in a fault And therefore Repentance first includes a renunciation and abolition of all evil and then also enjoyns a pursuit of every vertue and that till they arrive at an habitual confirmation 34. Of the first sence are all those expressions of Scripture which imply Repentance to be the deletery of sins Repentance from dead works S. Paul affirms to be the prime Fundamental of the Religion that is conversion or returning from dead works for unless Repentance be so construed it is not good sence And this is therefore highly verified because Repentance is intended to set us into the condition of our first undertaking and articles covenanted with God And therefore it is a redemption of the time that is a recovering what we lost and making it up by our doubled industry Remember whence thou art fallen repent that is return and do thy first works said the Spirit to the Angel of the Church of Ephesus or else I will remove the Candlestick except thou repent It is a restitution If a man be overtaken in a fault restore such a one that is put him where he was And then that Repentance also implies a doing all good is certain by the Sermon of the Baptist Bring forth fruits meet for Repentance Do thy first works was the Sermon of the Spirit Laying aside every weight and the sin that easily encircles us let us run with patience the race that is set before us So S. Paul taught And S. Peter gives charge that when we have escaped the corruptions of the world and of lusts besides this we give all diligence to acquire the rosary and conjugation of Christian vertues And they are proper effects or rather constituent parts of a holy Repentance For godly sorrow worketh Repentance saith S. Paul not to be repented of and that ye may know what is signified by Repentance behold the product was carefulness clearing of themselves indignation fear vehement desires zeal and revenge to which if we add the Epithet of holy for these were the results of a godly sorrow and the members of a Repentance not to be repented of we are taught that Repentance besides the purging out the malice of iniquity is also a sanctification of the whole man a turning Nature into Grace Passions into Reason and the flesh into spirit 35. To this purpose I reckon those Phrases of Scripture calling it a renewing of our minds a renewing of the Holy Ghost a cleansing of our hands and purifying our hearts that is a becoming holy in our affections and righteous in our actions a a transformation or utter change a crucifying the flesh with the affections and lusts a mortified state a purging out the old leven and becoming a new conspersion a waking out of sleep and walking honestly as in the day a being born again and being born from above a new life And I consider that these preparative actions of Repentance such as are Sorrow and Confession of sins and Fasting and exteriour Mortifications and severities are but fore-runners of Repentance some of the retinue and they are of the family but they no more complete the duty of Repentance than the harbingers are the whole Court or than the Fingers are all the body There is more joy in Heaven said our Blessed Saviour over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety nine just persons who need no repentance There is no man but needs a tear and a sorrow even for
his daily weaknesses and possibly they are the instrumental expiations of our sudden and frequent and lesser surprises of imperfection but the just persons need no repentance that is need no inversion of state no transformation from condition to condition but from the less to the more perfect the best man hath And therefore those are vain persons who when they owe God a hundred will write fourscore or a thousand will write fifty It was the saying of an excellent person that Repentance is the beginning of Philosophy a flight and renunciation of evil works and words and the first preparation and entrance into a life which is never to be repented of And therefore a penitent is not taken with umbrages and appearances nor quits a real good for an imaginary or chuses evil for fear of enemies and adverse accidents but peremptorily conforms his sentence to the Divine Laws and submits his whole life in a conformity with them He that said those excellent words had not been taught the Christian Institution but it was admirable reason and deep Philosophy and most consonant to the reasonableness of Vertue and the proportions and designs of Repentance and no other than the doctrine of Christian Philosophy 36. And it is considerable since in Scripture there is a Repentance mentioned which is impertinent and ineffectual as to the obtaining Pardon a Repentance implied which is to be repented of and another expressed which is never to be repented of and this is described to be a new state of life a whole conversion and transformation of the man it follows that whatsoever in any sence can be called Repentance and yet is less than this new life must be that ineffective Repentance A Sorrow is a Repentance and all the acts of dolorous expression are but the same sorrow in other characters and they are good when they are parts or instruments of the true Repentance but when they are the whole Repentance that Repentance is no better than that of Judas nor more prosperous than that of Esau. Every sorrow is not a godly sorrow and that which is is but instrumental and in order to Repentance Godly sorrow worketh repentance saith S. Paul that is it does its share towards it as every Grace does toward the Pardon as every degree of Pardon does toward Heaven By godly sorrow it is probable S. Paul means the same thing which the School hath since called Contrition a grief proceeding from a holy principle from our love of God and anger that we have offended him and yet this is a great way off from that Repentance without the performance of which we shall certainly perish But no Contrition alone is remissive of sins but as it cooperates towards the integrity of our duty 〈◊〉 conversus ingemuerit is the Prophet's expression When a man mourns and turns from all his evil way that 's a godly sorrow and that 's Repentance too but the tears of a dolorous person though running over with great effusions and shed in great bitterness and expressed in actions of punitive justice all being but the same sence in louder language being nothing but the expressions of sorrow are good only as they tend farther and if they do they may by degrees bring us to Repentance and that Repentance will bring us to Heaven but of themselves they may as well make the Sea swell beyond its margin or water and refresh the Sun-burnt earth as move God to merey and pierce the heavens But then to the consideration we may add that a sorrow upon a death-bed after a vicious life is such as cannot easily be understood to be ordinarily so much as the beginning of Vertue or the first instance towards a holy life For he that till then retained his sins and now when he is certain and believes he shall die or is fearful lest he should is sorrowful that he hath sinned is only sorrowful because he is like to perish and such a sorrow may perfectly consist with as great an affection to sin as ever the man had in the highest caresses and invitation of his Lust. For even then in certain circumstances he would have refused to have acted his greatest temptation The boldest and most pungent Lust would refuse to be satisfied in the Market-place or with a dagger at his heart and the greatest intemperance would refuse a pleasant meal if he believed the meat to be mixt with poison and yet this restraint of appetite is no abatement of the affection any more than the violent fears which by being incumbent upon the death-bed Penitent make him grieve for the evil consequents more than to hate the malice and irregularity He that does not grieve till his greatest fear presses him hard and damnation treads upon his heels feels indeed the effects of fear but can have no present benefit of his sorrow because it had no natural principle but a violent unnatural and intolerable cause inconsistent with a free placid and moral election But this I speak only by way of caution for God's merey is infinite and can if he please make it otherwise But it is not good to venture unless you have a promise 37. The same also I consider concerning the Purpose of a new life which that any man should judge to be Repentance that Duty which restores us is more unreasonable than to think sorrow will do it For as a man may sorrow and yet never be restored and he may sorrow so much the more because he shall never be restored as Esan did as the five 〈◊〉 Virgins did and as many more do so he that purposes to lead a new life hath convinced himself that the Duty is undone and therefore his pardon not granted nor his condition restored As a letter is not a word nor a word an action as an Embryo is not a man nor the seed the fruit so is a purpose of Obedience but the element of Repentance the first imaginations of it differing from the Grace it self as a disposition from a habit or because it self will best express it self as the purpose does from the act For either a holy life is necessary or it is not necessary If it be not why does any man hope to escape the wrath to come by resolving to do an unnecessary thing or if he does not purpose it when he pretends he does that is a mocking of God and that is a great way from being an instrument of his restitution But if a holy life be necessary as it is certain by infinite testimonies of Scriptures it is the unum necessarium the one great necessary it cannot reasonably be thought that any thing less than doing it shall serve our turns That which is only in purpose is not yet done and yet it is necessary it should be done because it is necessary we should purpose it And in this we are sufficiently concluded by that ingeminate expression used by S. Paul In Jesus Christ nothing can
avail but a new Creature nothing but Faith working by Charity nothing but a keeping the Commandments of God And as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy they are the Israel of God 38. This consideration I intended to oppose against the carnal security of Death-bed penitents who have it is to be feared spent a vicious life who have therefore mocked themselves because they meant to mock God they would reap what they sowed not But be not deceived saith the Apostle he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he 〈◊〉 soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting Only this let us not be weary of well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not meaning that by a persevering industry and a long work and a succession of religious times we must sow to the Spirit a work of such length that the greatest danger is of fainting and intercision but he that sows to the Spirit not being weary of well-doing not fainting in the long process he and he only shall reap life everlasting But a purpose is none of all this If it comes to act and be productive of a holy life then it is useful and it was like the Eve of a Holiday festival in the midst of its abstinence and vigils it was the beginnings of a Repentance But if it never come to act it was to no purpose a mocking of God an act of direct hypocrisie a provocation of God and a deceiving our own selves you are unhappy you began not early or that your earlier days return not together with your good purposes 39. And neither can this have any other sentence though the purpose be made upon our death-bed For God hath made no Covenant with us on our death-bed distinct from that he made with us in our life and health And since in our life and present abilities good purposes and resolutions and vows for they are but the same thing in differing degrees did signifie nothing till they came to act and no man was reconciled to God by good intentions but by doing the will of God can we imagine that such purposes can more prevail at the end of a wicked life than at the beginning that less piety will serve our turns after 50 or 60 years impiety than after but 5 or 10 that a wicked and sinful life should by less pains be expiated than an unhappy year For it is not in the state of Grace as in other exteriour actions of Religion or Charity where God will accept the will for the deed when the external act is inculpably out of our powers and may also be supplied by the internal as bendings of the body by the prostration of the Soul Alms by Charity Preaching by praying for conversion These things are necessary because they are precepts and obligatory only in certain circumstances which may fail and we be innocent and disobliged But it is otherwise in the essential parts of our duty which God hath made the immediate and next condition of our Salvation such which are never out of our power but by our own fault Such are Charity Forgiveness Repentance and Faith such to which we are assisted by God such which are always put by God's grace into our power therefore because God indispensably demands them In these cases as there is no revelation God will accept the will for the deed the purpose for the act so it is unreasonable to expect it because God did once put it into our powers and if we put it out we must not complain of want of fire which our selves have quench'd nor complain we cannot see when we have put our own lights out and hope God will accept the will for the deed since we had no will to it when God put it into our powers These are but fig leaves to cover our nakedness which our sin hath introduced 40. For either the reducing such vows and purposes to act is the duty without which the purpose is ineffectual or else that practice is but the sign and testimony of a sincere intention and that very sincere intention was of it self accepted by God in the first spring If it was nothing but a sign then the Covenant which God made with Man in Jesus Christ was Faith and Good meaning not Faith and Repentance and a man is justified as soon as ever he purposes well before any endeavours are commenced or any act produced or habit ratified and the duties of a holy life are but shadows and significations of a Grace no part of the Covenant not so much as smoak is of fire but a mere sign of a person justified as soon as he made his vow but then also a man may be justified five hundred times in a year as often as he makes a new vow and confident resolution which is then done most heartily when the Lust is newly satisfied and the pleasure disappears for the instant though the purpose disbands upon the next temptation Yea but unless it be a sincere purpose it will do no good and although we cannot discern it nor the man himself yet God knows the heart and if he sees it would have been reduced to act then he accepts it and this is the hopes of a dying man But faint they are and dying as the man himself 41. For it is impossible for us to know but that what a man intends as himself thinks heartily is sincerely meant and if that may be insincere and is to be judged only by a never-following event in case the man dies it cannot become to any man the ground of hope nay even to those persons who do mean sincerely it is still an instrument of distrust and fears infinite since his own sincere meaning hath nothing in the nature of the thing no distinct formality no principle no sign to distinguish it from the unsincere vows of sorrowful but not truly penitent persons 2. A purpose acted and not acted differ not in the principle but in the effect which is extrinsecal and accidental to the purpose and each might be without the other a man might live holily though he had not made that vow and when he hath made the vow he may fail of living holily And as we should think it hard measure to have a damnation encreased upon us for those sins which we would have committed if we had lived so it cannot be reasonable to build our hopes of Heaven upon an imaginary Piety which we never did and if we had lived God knows whether we would or not 3. God takes away the godly lest malice should corrupt their Understandings and for the Elects sake those days are shortned which if they should continue no flesh should escape but now shall all that be laid upon their score which if God had not so prevented by their death God knows they would have done And God deals with
intanglings of ten thousand thoughts and the impertinences of a disturbed fancy and the great hindrances of a sick body and a sad and weary spirit All these represent a Death-bed to be but an ill station for a Penitent If the person be suddenly snatched away he is not left so much as to dispute if he be permitted to languish in his sickness he is either stupid and apprehends nothing or else miserable and hath reason to apprehend too much However all these difficulties are to be passed and overcome before the man be put into a saveable condition From this consideration though perhaps it may infer more yet we cannot but conclude this difficulty to be as great as the former danger that is vast and ponderous and insupportable 45. Thirdly Suppose the Clinick or death-bed Penitent to be as forward in these employments and as successfull in the mastering many of the Objections as reasonably can be thought yet it is considerable that there is a Repentance which is to be repented of and that is a Repentance which is not productive of fruits of amendment of life that there is a period set down by God in his Judgment and that many who have been profane as Esau was are reduced into the condition of Esau and there is no place left for their Repentance though they seek it carefully with tears that they who have long refused to hear God calling them to Repentance God will refuse to hear them calling for grace and mercy that he will laugh at some men when their calamity comes that the five foolish Virgins addressed themselves at the noise of the Bridegroom 's coming and begg'd oil and went out to buy oil and yet for want of some more time and an early diligence came too late and were shut out for ever that it is no-where revealed that such late endeavours and imperfect practices shall be accepted that God hath made but one Covenant with us in Jesus Christ which is Faith and Repentance consigned in 〈◊〉 and the signification of them and the purpose of Christ is that we should henceforth no more serve sin but mortifie and kill him perpetually and destroy his kingdom and extinguish as much as in us lies his very title that we should live holily justly and soberly in this present world in all holy conversation and godliness and that either we must be continued or reduced to this state of holy living and habitual sanctity or we have no title to the Promises that every degree of recession from the state Christ first put us in is a recession from our hopes and an insecuring our condition and we add to our 〈◊〉 only as our Obedience is restored All this is but a sad story to a dying person who sold himself to work wickedness in an habitual iniquity and aversation from the conditions of the holy Covenant in which he was sanctified 46. And certainly it is unreasonable to plant all our hopes of Heaven upon a Doctrine that is destructive of all Piety which supposes us in such a condition that God hath been offended at us all our life long and yet that we can never return our duties to him unless he will unravel the purposes of his Predestination or call back time again and begin a new computation of years for us and if he did it would be still as uncertain For what hope is there to that man who hath fulfilled all iniquity and hath not fulfilled righteousness Can a man live to the Devil and die to God sow to the flesh and reap to the Spirit hope God will in mercy reward him who hath served his enemy Sure it is the Doctrine of the avail of a death-bed Repentance cannot easily be reconciled with God's purposes and intentions to have us live a good life for it would reconcile us to the hopes of Heaven for a few thoughts or words or single actions when our life is done it takes away the benefit of many Graces and the use of more and the necessity of all 47. For let it be seriously weighed To what purpose is the variety of God's Grace what use is there of preventing restraining concomitant subsequent and persevering Grace unless it be in order to a religious conversation And by deferring Repentance to the last we despoil our Souls and rob the Holy Ghost of the glory of many rays and holy influences with which the Church is watered and refreshed that it may grow from grace to grace till it be consummate in glory It takes away the very being of Chastity and Temperance no such Vertues according to this Doctrine need to be named among Christians For the dying person is not in capacity to exercise these and then either they are troublesome without which we may do well enough or else the condition of the unchaste and intemperate Clinick is sad and deplorable For how can he eject those Devils of Lust and Drunkenness and Gluttony from whom the disease hath taken all powers of election and variety of choice unless it be possible to root out long-contracted habits in a moment or acquire the habits of Chastity Sobriety and Temperance those self-denying and laborious Graces without doing a single act of the respective vertues in order to obtaining of habits unless it be so that God will infuse habits into us more immediately than he creates our reasonable Souls in an instant and without the cooperation of the suscipient without the working out our Salvation with fear and without giving all diligence and running with patience and resisting unto bloud and striving to the last and enduring unto the end in a long fight and a long race If God infuses such habits why have we laws given us and are commanded to work and to do our duty with such a succession and lasting diligence as if the habits were to be acquired to which indeed God promises and ministers his aids still leaving us the persons obliged to the law and the labour as we are capable of the reward I need not instance any more But this doctrine of a death-bed Repentance is inconsistent with the duties of Mortification with all the vindictive and punitive parts of Repentance in exteriour instances with the precepts of waiting and watchfulness and preparation and standing in a readiness against the coming of the Bridegroom with the patience of well-doing with exemplary living with the imitation of the Life of Christ and conformities to his Passion with the kingdom and dominion and growth of Grace And lastly it goes about to defeat one of God's great purposes for Cod therefore concealed the time of our death that we might always stand upon our guard the Holy Jesus told us so Watch for ye know not what hour the Lord will come but this makes men seem more crafty in their late-begun Piety than God was provident and mysterious in concealing the time of our dissolution 48. And now if
the same Saint When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord but if we would judge our selves we should not be judged where he expounds judged by chastened if we were severer to our selves God would be gentle and 〈◊〉 And there are only these two cautions to be annexed and then the direction is sufficient 1. That when promise of Pardon is annexed to any of these or another Grace or any good action it is not to be understood as if alone it were effectual either to the abolition or pardon of sins but the promise is made to it as to a member of the whole body of Piety In the coadunation and conjunction of parts the title is firm but not at all in distinction and separation For it is certain if we fail in one we are guilty of all and therefore cannot be repaired by any one Grace or one action or one habit And therefore Charity hides a multitude of sins with men and God too Alms deliver from death 〈◊〉 pierceth the clouds and will not depart before its answer be gracious and Hope purifieth and makes not ashamed and Patience and Faith and Piety to parents and Prayer and the eight Beatitudes have promises of this life and of that which is to come respectively and yet nothing will obtain these promises but the harmony and uniting of these Graces in a holy and habitual confederation And when we consider the Promise as singularly relating to that one Grace it is to be understood comparatively that is such persons are happy if compared with those who have contrary dispositions For such a capacity does its portion of the work towards complete Felicity from which the contrary quality does estrange and disintitle us 2. The special and minute actions and instances of these three preparatives of Repentance are not under any command in the particulars but are to be disposed of by Christian prudence in order to those ends to which they are most aptly instrumental and designed such as are Fasting and corporal severities in Satisfaction or the punitive parts of Repentance they are either vindictive of what is past and so are proper acts or effects of Contrition and godly sorrow or else they relate to the present and future estate and are intended for correction or emendation and so are of good use as they are medicinal and in that proportion not to be omitted And so is Confession to a Spiritual person an excellent instrument of Discipline a bridle of intemperate Passions an opportunity of Restitution Ye which are spiritual 〈◊〉 such a person overtaken in a fault saith the Apostle it is the application of a remedy the consulting with a guide and the best security to a weak or lapsed or an ignorant person in all which cases he is 〈◊〉 to judge his own questions and in these he is also committed to the care and conduct of another But these special instances of Repentance are capable of suppletories and are like the corporal works of Mercy necessary only in time and place and in accidental obligations He that relieves the poor or visits the sick chusing it for the instance of his Charity though he do not redeem captives is charitable and hath done his Alms. And he that cures his sin by any instruments by external or interiour and spiritual remedies is penitent though his diet be not 〈◊〉 and afflictive or his lodging hard or his sorrow bursting out into tears or his expressions passionate and dolorous I only add this that acts of publick Repentance must be by using the instruments of the Church such as she hath appointed of private such as by experience or by reason or by the counsel we can get we shall learn to be most effective of our penitential purposes And yet it is a great argument that the exteriour expressions of corporal severities are of good benefit because in all Ages wise men and severe Penitents have chosen them for their instruments The PRAYER O Eternal God who wert pleased in mercy to look upon us when we were in our 〈◊〉 to reconcile us when we were enemies to forgive us in the midst of our provocations of thy infinite and eternal Majesty finding out a remedy for us which man-kind could never ask even making an atonement for us by the death of thy Son sanctifying us by the bloud of the everlasting Covenant and thy all-hallowing and Divinest Spirit let thy 〈◊〉 so perpetually assist and encourage my endeavours conduct my will and fortifie my intentions that 〈◊〉 may persevere in that holy condition which thou hast put me in by the grace of the Covenant and the mercies of the Holy Jesus O let me never fall into those sins and retire to that vain conversation from which the eternal and merciful Saviour of the World hath redeemed me but let me grow in Grace adding Vertue to vertue reducing my purposes to act and increasing my acts till they grow into habits and my habits till they be confirmed and still confirming them till they be consummate in a blessed and holy perseverance Let thy Preventing grace dash all Temptations in their approach let thy Concomitant grace enable me to resist them in the assault and overcome them in the fight that my hopes be never discomposed nor my Faith weakned nor my confidence made remiss or my title and portion in the Covenant be lessened Or if thou permittest me at any time to 〈◊〉 which Holy Jesu avert for thy mercy and compession sake yet let me not sleep in sin but recall me instantly by the clamours of a nice and tender Conscience and the quickning Sermons of the Spirit that I may never pass from sin to sin from one degree to another lest sin should get the dominion over me lest thou be angry with me and reject me from the Covenant and I perish Purifie me from all 〈◊〉 sanctifie my spirit that I may be holy as thou art and let me never provoke thy jealousie nor presume upon thy goodness nor distrust thy mercies nor 〈◊〉 my Repentance nor rely upon vain confidences but that I may by a constant sedulous and timely endeavour make my calling and election sure living to thee and dying to thee that having sowed to the Spirit I may from thy mercies reap in the Spirit bliss and eternal sanctity and everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Saviour our hope and our mighty and ever-glorious Redeemer Amen Vpon Christ ' s Sermon on the Mount and of the Eight Beatitudes Moses delivers the Law Joh. 1. 17. The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Iesus Christ. These words the Lord spake unto all the Assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire with a great voice he wrote them in two Tables of stone delivered them unto me Deut. 5. 22. Christ preaches in the Mount He went up into a mountain opened his mouth taught them saying Blessed are the poor in
of the West now use being indicative and declaratory of a present Pardon is for the very form sake not to be used to Death bed Penitents after a vicious life because if any thing more be intended in the form than a Prayer the truth of the affirmation may be questioned and an Ecclesiastical person hath no authority to say to such a man I absolve thee but if no more be intended but a Prayer it is better to use a mere Prayer and common form of address than such words which may countenance unsecure confidences evil purposes and worse lives 14. Thirdly If the Devil tempts a sick person who hath lived well to Presumption and that he seems full of Confidence and without trouble the care that is then to be taken is to consider the Disease and to state the Question right For at some instants and periods God visits the spirit of a man and sends the immission of a bright ray into him and some good men have been so used to apprehensions of the Divine mercy that they have an habitual chearfulness of spirit and hopes of Salvation Saint Hierome reports that Hilarion in a Death-bed agony felt some tremblings of heart till reflecting upon his course of life he found comforts springing from thence by a proper emanation and departed chearfully and Hezekiah represented to God in Prayer the integrity of his life and made it the instrument of his hope And nothing of this is to be calied Presumption provided it be in persons of eminent Sanctity and great experience old Disciples and the more perfect Christians But because such persons are but seldome and rare if the same Confidence be observed in persons of common imperfection and an ordinary life it is to be corrected and allayed with consideration of the Divine Severity and Justice and with the strict requisites of a holy life with the deceit of a man 's own heart with consideration and general remembrances of secret sins and that the most perfect state of life hath very great needs of mercy and if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear And the spirit of the man is to be promoted and helped in the encrease of Contrition as being the proper deletery to cure the extravagancies of a forward and intemperate spirit 15. But there is a Presumption commenced upon opinion relying either upon a perswasion of single Predestination or else which is worse upon imaginary securities that Heaven is to be purchased upon conditions easier than a Day 's labour and that an evil life may be reconciled to Heaven by the intervening of little or single acts of Piety or Repentance If either of them both have actually produced ill life to which they are apt or apt to be abused the persons are miserable in their condition and cannot be absolutely remedied by going about to cure the Presumption that was the cause of all but now it is the least thing to be considered his whole state is corrupted and men will not by any discourses or spiritual arts used on their Death-beds be put into a state of Grace because then is no time to change the state and there is no mutation then but by single actions from good to better a dying man may proceed but not from the state of Reprobation to the life of Grace And yet it is good charity to unloose the bonds of Satan whereby the man is bound and led captive at his will to take off the Presumption by destroying the cause and then let the work of Grace be set as forward as it can and leave the event to God for nothing else is left possible to be done But if the sick man be of a good life and yet have a degree of Confidence beyond his Vertue upon the phancie of Predestination it is not then a time to rescind his opinion by a direct opposition but let him be drawn off from the consideration of it by such discourses as are apt to make him humble and penitent for they are the most apt instruments to secure the condition of the man and attemper his spirit These are the great Temptations incident to the last scene of our lives and are therefore more particularly suggested by the Tempter because they have in them something contrary to the universal effect of a holy life and are designs to interpose between the end of the journey and the reception of the crown and therefore it concerns every man who is in a capacity of receiving the end of his Faith the Salvation of his Soul to lay up in the course of his life something against this great day of expence that he may be better fortified with the armour of the Spirit against these last assaults of the Devil that he may not shipwreck in the haven 16. Eschewing evil is but the one half of our work we must also do good And now in the few remanent days or hours of our life there are certain exercises of Religion which have a special relation to this state and are therefore of great concernment to be done that we may make our condition as certain as we can and our portion of Glory greater and our Pardon surer and our Love to increase and that our former omissions and breaches be repaired with a condition in some measure proportionable to those great hopes which we then are going to possess And first Let the sick person in the beginning of his sickness and in every change and great accident of it make acts of Resignation to God and intirely submit himself to the Divine will remembring that Sickness may to men properly disposed do the work of God and produce the effect of the Spirit and promote the interest of his Soul as well as Health and oftentimes better as being in it self and by the grace of God apt to make us confess our own impotency and dependencies and to understand our needs of mercy and the continual influences and supports of Heaven to withdraw our appetites from things below to correct the vanities and insolencies of an impertinent spirit to abate the extravagancies of the flesh to put our carnal lusts into fetters and disability to remember us of our state of pilgrimage that this is our way and our stage of trouble and banishment and that Heaven is our Countrey for so Sickness is the trial of our Patience a fire to purge us an instructer to teach us a bridle to restrain us and a state inferring great necessities of union and adhesions unto God And as upon these grounds we have the same reason to accept sickness at the hands of God as to receive Physick from a Physician so it is argument of excellent Grace to give God hearty thanks in our Disease and to accept it chearfully and with spiritual joy 17. Some persons create to themselves excuses of discontent and quarrel not with the pain but the ill consequents of Sickness It makes them troublesome to
Prophets of the Lord. And S. Austin upon the Incursion of the Vandals into Africa called his Clergy together and at their Chapter told them he had prayed to God either to deliver his People from the present calamity or grant them patience to bear it or that he would take him out of the world that he might not see the miseries of his Diocese adding that God had granted him the last and he presently fell sick and died in the siege of his own Hippo. And if Death in many cases be desirable and for many reasons it is always to be submitted to when God calls And as it is always a misery to fear death so it is very often a sin or the effect of sin If our love to the world hath fastened our affections here it is a direct sin and this is by the son of Sirach noted to be the case of rich and great personages How bitter O death is thy remembrance to a man that is at rest in his possessions But if it be a fear to perish in the ruines of Eternity they are not to blame for fearing but that their own ill lives have procured the fear And yet there are persons in the state of Grace but because they are in great imperfection have such lawful fears of Death and of entring upon an uncertain Sentence which must stand eternally irreversible be it good or bad that they may with piety and care enough pray David's prayer O spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen But in this and in all other cases Death must be accepted without murmur though without fear it cannot A man may pray to be delivered from it and yet if God will not grant it he must not go as one hal'd to execution but if with all his imperfect fears he shall throw himself upon God and accept his sentence as righteous whether it speak life or death it is an act of so great excellency that it may equal the good actions of many succeeding and surviving days and peradventure a longer life will be yet more imperfect and that God therefore puts a period to it that thou mayest be taken into a condition more certain though less eminent However let not the fears of Nature or the fear of Reason or the fears of Humility become accidentally criminal by a murmur or a pertinacious contesting against the event which we cannot hinder but ought to accept by an election secondary rational and pious and upon supposition that God will not alter the sentence passed upon thy temporal life always remembring that in Christian Philosophy Death hath in it an excellency of which the Angels are not capable For by the necessity of our Nature we are made capable of dying for the Holy Jesus and next to the privilege of that act is our willingness to die at his command which turns necessity into vertue and nature into grace and grace to glory 20. When the sick person is thus disposed let him begin to trim his wedding-garment and dress his Lamp with the repetition of acts of Repentance perpetually praying to God for pardon of his sins representing to himself the horror of them the multitude the obliquity being helped by arguments apt to excite Contrition by repetition of penitential Psalms and holy Prayers and he may by accepting and humbly receiving his sickness at God's hand transmit it into the condition of an act or effect of 〈◊〉 acknowledging himself by sin to have deserved and procured it and praying that the punishment of his crimes may be here and not reserved for the state of Separation and for ever 21. But above all single acts of this exercise we are concerned to see that nothing of other mens Goods stick to us but let us shake it off as we would a burning coal 〈◊〉 our flesh for it will destroy us it will carry a curse with us and leave a curse behind us Those who by thy means or importunity have become vicious exhort to Repentance and holy life those whom thou hast cozened into crimes restore to a right understanding those who are by violence and interest led captive by thee to any undecency restore to their liberty and encourage to the prosecution of holiness discover and confess thy fraud and unlawful arts cease thy violence and give as many advantages to Vertue as thou hast done to Viciousness Make recompence for bodily wrongs such as are wounds dismembrings and other disabilities restore every man as much as thou canst to that good condition from which thou hast removed him restore his Fame give back his Goods return the Pawn release 〈◊〉 and take off all unjust invasions or surprises of his Estate pay Debts satisfie for thy fraud and injustice as far as thou canst and as thou canst and as soon or this alone is weight enough no less than a Mil-stone about thy Neck But if the dying man be of God and in the state of Grace that is if he have lived a holy life repented seasonably and have led a just sober and religious conversation in any acceptable degree it is to be supposed he hath no great account to make for unpretended injuries and unjust detentions for if he had detained the goods of his neighbour fraudulently or violently without amends when it is in his power and opportunity to restore he is not the man we suppose him in this present Question and although in all cases he is bound to restore according to his ability yet the act is less excellent when it is compelled and so it seems to be if he have continued the injustice till he is forced to quit the purchace However if it be not done till then let it be provided for then And that I press this duty to pious persons at this time is only to oblige them to a diligent scrutiny concerning the lesser omissions of this duty in the matter of fame or lesser debts or spiritual restitution or that those unevennesses of account which were but of late transaction may now be regulated and that whatsoever is undone in this matter from what principle soever it proceeds whether of sin or only of forgetfulness or of imperfection may now be made as exact as we can and are obliged and that those excuses which made it reasonable and lawful to defer Restitution as want of opportunity clearness of ability and accidental inconvenience be now laid aside and the action be done or provided for in the midst of all objections and inconvenient circumstances rather than to omit it and hazard to perform it 22. Hither also I reckon resolutions and forward purposes of emendation and greater severity in case God return to us hopes of life which therefore must be re-inforced that we may serve the ends of God and understand all his purposes and make use of every opportunity every sickness laid upon us being with a design of drawing us nearer
in Sickness or suffered how far 404. 18. Predestination to be searched for in the Books of Scripture and Conscience 313. It is God's great Secret not to be inquired into curiously ibid. It was revealed to the Apostles concerning their own particulars and how ibid. It was conditional ibid. The ground of true Joy 223. 17. To be estimated above Priviledges ibid. Phavorinus his Discourse concerning enquiring into Fortunes 313. 2. Preparation to the Lord's Supper 374. 11. Of two sorts viz. of Necessity and of Ornament 365. A Duty of unlimited time ibid. Preparation to Death no other but a holy Life 397. 1. Parables 292. 10. 326. 25. 323. 345. Pilate's usage and deportment towards Jesus 395. 352. 26. He broke the Jewish and Tiberian Law in the Execution of Jesus 352. 28. Sent to Rome by Vitellius 395. 12. Banished to Vienna ibid. Killed himself ibid. Prayer of Jesus in the Garden made excellent by all the requisites of Prayer 384. 4. Prelates are Shepherds and Fishers 330. Their Duty and Qualifications ibid. 153. Pride incident to spiritual Persons 100. 88. Gifts extraordinary ought not to make us proud 156. Promise to God and Swearing by him in the matter of Vows is all one 269. 20. Promises made to single Graces not effectual but in conjunction with all parts of our Duty 218. Promises Temporal do also belong to the Gospel 302. Pierre Calceon condemned the Pucelle of France 337. 4. Peter rebuked for fighting 322. 21. Rebuked the saying of his Lord concerning the Passion 321. 10. He was sharply reproved for it ibid. 358. 2. He received the power of the Keys for himself and his Successors in the Apostolate 322. 324. Denied his Master 351. 23. Repented ibid. 391. Prophets must avoid suspicion of Incontinence 189. 4. Prophecy of Jesus 349. Prudence of a Christian described 156. Piety an excellent disposition to justifying Faith 190. Publican an Office of Honour among the Romans 185. 18. Hated by the Jews and Greeks ibid. Prejudice an enemy to Religion 189. It brings a Curse ibid. Publick fame a Rule of Honour 172. Purity Evangelical described 228. It s Act and Reward ibid. Q. QUarrel between Jews and Samaritans 182. The ground of it ibid. Question of Original Sin stated in order to Practice 38. 4. 296. 3. Questions Whether we are bound to suffer Death or Imprisonment rather than break a Humane Law 47. 21. Whether Christ did truly or in appearance onely increase in Wisdome 74. 5. Whether is more advantage to Piety a retired and contemplative or a publick and active Life 80. 5 6. Whether way of serving God is better the way of 〈◊〉 or the way of Affections 42. 8. 424. 11. Whether Faith of Ignorant persons produced by insufficient Arguments be acceptable 157. 7. 159. Whether purposes of good Life upon our Death-bed can be 〈◊〉 212. 39. How long time must Repentance of an evil Life begin before our Death 217. 48. Whether we be always bound to do absolutely the best thing 234. 11. Whether it be lawful for Christians to swear 238. 18. Whether it be lawful to swear by a Creature in such cases wherein it is permitted to swear by God 241. 23. Whether a Virgin may not kill a Ravisher 255. 7. Whether it be lawful to pray for Revenge 257. 10. Whether it be lawful for Christians to go to Law and in what cases 255. 8. Whether actual Intention in our Prayers be simply necessary 267. 16. Whether is better Publick or Private Prayer 270. 22. 75. Whether is better Vocal or Mental Prayer 270. 23. Whether a Christian ought to be or can be in this Life ordinarily certain of Salvation 313. Whether a thing in its own nature indifferent is to be thrown off if it have been abused to Superstition 330. 6. Whether it be lawful to fight a Dùell 253. 5 6 c. Whether men be to be kept from receiving the Sacrament for private Sins 376. 13. Whether is better to communicate often or seldom 378. 18. Whether a Death-bed Penitent after a wicked Life is to be absolved if he desires it 403. 13. Whether the same Person is to be communicated 407. 23. Whether Christ was in the state of Comprehension during his Passion 413. 414. Whether Christ suffered the pains of Hell upon the Cross ibid. How the Divine Justice could consist with Punishing the innocent Jesus 415. 7 8. Whether Saints enjoy the 〈◊〉 Vision before the Day of Judgment 423. 429. 15. R. RAshness an enemy to good Counsels and happy Events 11. Religion as excellent in its silent Affections as in its exteriour Actions 4. 30. Religion its Comforts and Refreshments 58. When necessary ibid. Not greedily to be sought after 100. 11 12. Vide Spiritual Sadness Religion pretended to evil purposes 66. 1. It is a publick Vertue 75. It observes the smallest things 272. It s Pretence does not hallow every Action 170. Religion of Holy Places 171. In differing Religions how the parties are to deme an themselves 187. Ministers of Religion to be content if their Labours be not successful 195. They are to have a Calling from the Church 196. Ought to live well ibid. Religion of a Christian purifies and reigns in the Soul 232. 3. It best serves our Temporal ends 303. Not to be neglected upon pretence of Charity 346. Affections of Religion are estimated by their own Excellency not by the Donative so it be our best 360. 8. Religious Actions to be submitted to the Conduct of spiritual Guides 48. A religious person left a Vision to obey his Orders 49. 25. Religious Actions to be repeated often by Sick and Dying persons 406. Rebellion against Prince and Priest more severely punished than Murmurers against GOD 50. 26. Repentance necessary to humane nature 198. The ends of its Institution 198. Revealed first by Christ as a Law 199. Not allowed in the Law of Moses for greater Crimes ibid. Repentance and Faith the two hands to apprehend Christ ibid. After Baptism not so clearly expressed to be accepted nor upon the same terms as before 199. 201. It is a collection of holy Duties 210. The extirpation of all vicious Habits 210. Described ibid. It is not meerly a Sorrow 211. 36. Nor meerly a Purpose 212. Too late upon our Death-bed 214. Publick Repentance must use the instruments of the Church 218. Must begin immediately after Sin 391. 398. Promoted by the Devil when it is too late 392. 7. Repentance of Esau ibid. Repentance accidentally may have advantages beyond Innocence 391. Repenting often and sinning often and 〈◊〉 changing is a sign of an ill condition 106. Revenues not to be greedily sought for by Ecclesiasticks 71. 9. They are dangerous to all men ib. That the Roman Empire was permitted to the power and management of the Devil the opinion of some 100. 14. How the Righteousness of Christians must exceed the Righteousness of Pharisees 233. Revenge forbidden 245. 253.
then no sooner had he given them a naked and impartial account of the whole transaction from first to last but they presently turned their 〈◊〉 against him into thanks to God that he had granted to the Gentiles also Repentance unto life 5. IT was now about the end of Caligula's Reign when Peter having finished his visitation of the new planted Churches was returned unto Jerusalem Not long after Herod Agrippa Grand child to Herod the great having attained the Kingdom the better to ingratiate himself with the people had lately put S. James to death And finding that this gratified the Vulgar resolved to send Peter the same way after him In order whereunto he apprehended him cast him into prison and set strong guards to watch him the Church in the mean time being very instant and importunate with Heaven for his life and safety The night before his intended execution God purposely sent an Angel from Heaven who coming to the Prison found him fast asleep between two of his Keepers So soft and secure a pillow is a good Conscience even in the confines of death and the greatest danger The Angel raised him up knock'd off his Chains bad him gird on his Garments and follow him He did so and having passed the first and second Watch and entred through the Iron-Gate into the City which opened to them of its own accord after having passed through one Street more the Angel departed from him By this time Peter came to himself and perceived that it was no Vision but a reality that had hapned to him Whereupon he came to Marie's house where the Church were met together at Prayer for him Knocking at the door the Maid who came to let him in perceiving 't was his voice ran back to tell them that Peter was at the door Which they at first looked upon as nothing but the effect of fright or fancy but she still affirming it they concluded that it was his Angel or some peculiar messenger sent from him The door being open they were strangely amazed at the sight of him but he briefly told them the manner of his deliverance and charging them to acquaint the Brethren with it presently withdrew into another place 'T is easie to imagine what a bustle and a stir there was the next morning among the Keepers of the Prison with whom Herod was so much displeased that he commanded them to be put to death 6. SOME time after this it hapned that a controversie arising between the Jewish and the Gentile Converts about the observation of the Mosaick Law the minds of men were exceedingly disquieted and disturbed with it the Jews zealously contending for Circumcision and the observance of the Ceremonial Law to be joyn'd with the belief and profession of the Gospel as equally necessary to Salvation To compose this difference the best expedient that could be thought on was to call a General Council of the Apostles and Brethren to meet together at Jerusalem which was done accordingly and the case throughly scanned and canvassed At last Peter stood up and acquainted the Synod that God having made choice of him among all the Apostles to be the first that preached the Gospel to the Gentiles God who was best able to judge of the hearts of men had born witness to them that they were accepted of him by giving them his Holy Spirit as well as he had done to the Jews having put no difference between the one and the other That therefore it was a tempting and a provoking God to put a 〈◊〉 upon the necks of the Disciples which neither they themselves nor their Fathers were able to bear there being ground enough to believe that the Gentiles as well as the Jews should be saved by the grace of the Gospel After some other of the Apostles had declared their judgments in the case it was unanimously decreed that except the temporary observance of some few particular things equally convenient both for Jew and Gentile no other burden should be imposed upon them And so the decrees of the Council being drawn up into a Synodical Epistle were sent abroad to the several Churches for allaying the heats and controversies that had been raised about this matter 7. PETER a while after the celebration of this Council left Jerusalem and came down to Antioch where using the liberty which the Gospel had given him he familiarly ate and conversed with the Gentile Converts accounting them now that the partition-wall was broken down no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God This he had been taught by the Vision of the sheet let down from Heaven this had been lately decreed and he himself had promoted and subscribed it in the Synod at Jerusalem this he had before practised towards Cornelius and his Family and justified the action to the satisfaction of his accusers and this he had here freely and innocently done at Antioch till some of the Jewish Brethren coming thither for fear of offending and displeasing them he withdrew his converse with the Gentiles as if it had been unlawful for him to hold Communion with uncircumcised persons when yet he knew and was fully satisfied that our Lord had wholly removed all difference and broken down the Wall of separation between Jew and Gentile In which affair as he himself acted against the light of own mind and judgment condemning what he had approved and destroying what he had before built up so hereby he confirmed the Jewish zealots in their inveterate error cast infinite scruples into the minds of the Gentiles filling their Consciences with fears and dissatisfactions reviving the old feuds and prejudices between Jew Gentile by which means many others were ensnared yea the whole number of Jewish Converts followed his example separating themselves from the company of the Gentile Christians Yea so far did it spread that Barnabas himself was carried away with the stream and torrent of this unwarrantable practice S. Paul who was at this time come to Antioch unto whom Peter gave the right hand of fellowship acknowledging his Apostleship of the Circumcision observing these evil and unevangelical actings resolutely withstood Peter to the face and publickly reproved him as a person worthy to be blamed for his gross prevarication in this matter severely expostulating and reasoning with him that he who was himself a Jew and thereby under a more immediate obligation to the Mosaick Law should cast off that Yoke himself and yet endeavour to impose it upon the Gentiles who were not in the least under any obligation to it A smart but an impartial charge and indeed so remarkable was this carriage of S. Paul towards our Apostle that though it set things right for the present yet it made some noise abroad in the World Yea Porphyry himself that acute and subtil enemy of Christianity makes use of it as an argument against them both charging the one with error and
before the Sanhedrim The difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees about him The Jews conspiracy against his life discovered His being sent unto Caesarea 1. IT was not long after the tumult at Ephesus when S. Paul having called the Church together and constituted Timothy Bishop of that place took his leave and departed by 〈◊〉 for Macedonia And at this time it was that as he himself tells us he preached the Gospel round about unto Illyricum since called Sclavonia some parts of Macedonia bordering on that Province From Macedonia he returned back unto Greece where he abode three months and met with Titus lately come with great contributions 〈◊〉 the Church at Corinth By whose example he stirr'd up the liberality of the Macedonians who very freely and somewhat beyond their ability contributed to the poor Christians at Jerusalem From Titus he had an account of the present state of the Church at Corinth and by him at his return together with S. Luke he sent his second Epistle to them Wherein he endeavours to set right what his former Epistle had not yet effected to vindicate his Apostleship from that contempt and scorn and himself from those slanders and aspersions which the seducers who had found themselves lasht by his first Epistle had cast upon him together with some other particular cases relating to them Much about the same time he writ his first Epistle to Timothy whom he had left at Ephesus wherein at large he counsels him how to carry himself in the discharge of that great place and authority in the Church which he had committed to him instructs him in the particular qualifications of those whom he should make choice of to be Bishops and Ministers in the Church How to order the Deaconesses and to instruct Servants warning him withall of that pestilent generation of hereticks and seducers that would arise in the Church During his three months stay in Greece he went to Corinth whence he wrote his famous Epistle to the Romans which he sent by Phoebe a Deaconess of the Church of Cenchrea nigh Corinth wherein his main design is fully to state and determine the great controversie between the Jews and Gentiles about the obligation of the Rites and Ceremonies of the Jewish Law and those main and material Doctrines of Christianity which did depend upon it such as of Christian liberty the use of indifferent things c. And which is the main end of all Religion instructs them in and presses them to the duties of an holy and good life such as the Christian Doctrine does naturally tend to oblige men to 2. S. PAUL being now resolved for Syria to convey the contributions to the Brethren at Jerusalem was a while diverted from that resolution by a design he was told of which the Jews had to kill and rob him by the way Whereupon he went back into Macedonia and so came to Philippi and thence went to Troas where having staid a week on the Lords-day the Church met together to receive the holy Sacrament Here S. Paul preached to them and continued his discourse till midnight the longer probably being the next day to depart from them The length of his discourse and the time of the night had caused some of his Auditors to be overtaken with sleep and drowsiness among whom a young man called 〈◊〉 being fast asleep fell down from the third story and was taken up dead but whom S. Paul presently restored to life and health How indefatigable was the industry of our Apostle how close did he tread in his Masters steps who went about doing good He compassed Sea and Land preached and wrought miracles whereever he came In every place like a wise Master-builder he either laid a foundation or raised the superstructure He was instant in season and out of season and spared not his pains either night or day that he might do good to the Souls of men The night being thus spent in holy exercises S. Paul in the morning took his leave and went on foot to 〈◊〉 a Sea-port Town whither he had sent his company by Sea Thence they set sail to 〈◊〉 from thence to Samos and having staid some little time at Trogyllium the next day came to Myletus not so much as putting in at Ephesus because the Apostle was resolved if possible to be at Jerusalem at the Feast of Pentecost 3. AT Myletus he sent to Ephesus to summon the Bishops and Governours of the Church who being come he put them in mind with what uprightness and integrity with what affection and humility with how great trouble and danger with how much faithfulness to their Souls he had been conversant among them and had preached the Gospel to them ever since his first coming into those parts That he had not failed to acquaint them both publickly and privately with whatever might be useful and profitable to them urging both upon Jews and Gentiles repentance and reformation of life and an hearty entertainment of the Faith of Christ That now he was resolved to go to Jerusalem where he did not know what particular sufferings would befall him more than this That it had been foretold him in every place by those who were indued with the Prophetical gifts of the Holy Ghost that afflictions and imprisonment would attend him there But that he was not troubled at this no nor unwilling to lay down his life so he might but successfully preach the Gospel and faithfully serve his Lord in that place and station wherein he had set him That he knew that henceforth they should see his face no more but that this was his encouragement and satisfaction that they themselves could bear him witness that he had not by concealing from them any parts of the Christian Doctrine betray'd their Souls That as for themselves whom God had made Bishops and Pastors of his Church they should be careful to feed guide and direct those Christians under their inspection and be infinitely tender of the good of Souls for whose redemption Christ laid down his own life That all the care they could use was no more than necessary it being certain that after his departure Heretical Teachers would break in among them and endanger the ruine of mens Souls nay that even among themselves there would some arise who by subtil and crasty methods by corrupt and pernicious Doctrines would gain Proselytes to their party and thereby make Rents and Schisms in the Church That therefore they should watch remembring with what tears and sorrow he had 〈◊〉 three years together warned them of these things That now he recommended them to the Divine care and goodness and to the rules and instructions of the Gospel which if adhered to would certainly dispose and perfect them for that state of happiness which God had prepared for good men in Heaven In short that he had all a long dealt faithfully and uprightly with them they might know from hence that in all his preaching he had
of her incomparable beauty by the help of Simon the Magician a Jew of Cyprus ravished her from her Husbands bed and in defiance of all law and right kept her for his own Wife To these qualities he had added bribery and covetousness and therefore frequently sent for S. Paul to discourse with him expecting that he should have given him a considerable summ for his release and the rather probably because he had heard that S. Paul had lately brought up great summs of money to Jerusalem But finding no offers made either by the Apostle or his friends he kept him prisoner for two years together so long as himself continued Procurator of that Nation when being displaced by Nero he left S. Paul still in prison on purpose to 〈◊〉 the Jews and engage them to speak better of him after his departure from them 4. TO him succeeded Portius Festus in the Procuratorship of the Province at whose first coming to Jerusalem the High-Priest and Sanhedrim presently began to prefer to him an Indictment against S. Paul desiring that in order to his Trial he might be sent for up from Caesarea designing under this pretence that some Assassinates should lie in the way to murder him Festus told them that he himself was going shortly for Caesarea and that if they had any thing against S. Paul they should come down thither and accuse him Accordingly being come to Caesarea and sitting in open Judicature the Jews began to renew the Charge which they had heretofore brought against S. Paul Of all which he cleared himself they not being able to make any proof against him However Festus being willing to oblige the Jews in the entrance upon his Government asked him whether he would go up and be tried before him at Jerusalem The Apostle well understanding the consequences of that proposal told him that he was a Roman and therefore ought to be judged by their Laws that he stood now at Caesar's own Judgment-seat as indeed what was done by the Emperor's Procurator in any Province the Law reckoned as done by the Emperor himself and though he should submit to the Jewish Tribunal yet he himself saw that they had nothing which they could prove against him that if he had done any thing which really deserved capital punishment he was willing to undergo it but if not he ought not to be delivered over to his enemies who were before-hand resolved to take away his life However as the safest course he solemnly made his appeal to the Roman Emperor who should judge between them Whereupon Festus advising with the Jewish Sanhedrim received his appeal and told him he should go to Caesar. This way of appealing was frequent amongst the Romans introduced to defend and secure the lives and fortunes of the populacy from the unjust incroachments and over-rigorous severities of the Magistrates whereby it was lawful in cases of oppression to appeal to the people for redress and rescue a thing more than once and again setled by the Sanction of the Valerian Laws These appeals were wont to be made in writing by Appellatory Libels given in wherein was contained an account of the Appellant the person against whom and from whose Sentence he did appeal But where the case was done in open Court it was enough for the Criminal verbally to declare that he did appeal In great and weighty cases appeals were made to the Prince himself and that not only at Rome but in the Provinces of the Empire all Proconsuls and Governours of Provinces being strictly forbidden to execute scourge bind or put any badge of servility upon a Citizen or any that had the priviledge of a Citizen of Rome who had made his appeal or any ways to hinder him from going thither to obtain justice at the hands of the Emperor who had as much regard to the liberty of his Subjects says the Law it self as they could have of their good will and obedience to him And this was exactly S. Paul's case who knowing that he should have no fair and equitable dealing at the hands of the Governour when once he came to be swayed by the Jews his sworn and inveterate enemies appealed from him to the Emperor the reason why Festus durst not deny his demand it being a priviledge so often so plainly setled and confirmed by the Roman Laws 5. SOME time after King Agrippa who succeeded Herod in the Tetrarchate of 〈◊〉 and his Sister Bernice came to Caesarea to make a visit to the new-come Governour To him Festus gave an account of S. Paul and the great stir and trouble that had been made about him and how for his safety and vindication he had immediately appealed to Caesar. Agrippa was very desirous to see and hear him and accordingly the next day the King and his Sister accompanied with Festus the Governour and other persons of quality came into the Court with a pompous and magnificent retinue where the prisoner was brought forth before him Festus having acquainted the King and the Assembly how much he had been solicited by the Jews both at Caesarea and Jorusalem concerning the prisoner at the Bar that as a notorious Malefactor he might be put to death but that having found him guilty of no capital crime and the prisoner himself having appealed to Caesar he was resolved to send him to Rome but yet was willing to have his case again discussed before Agrippa that so he might be furnished with some material instructions to send along with him since it was very absurd to send a prisoner without signifying what crimes were charged upon him 6. HEREUPON Agrippa told the Apostle he had liberty to make his own defence To whom after silence made he particularly addressed his speech he tells him in the first place what a happiness he had that he was to plead before one so exactly versed in all the rites and customs the questions and the controversies of the Jewish Law that the Jews themselves knew what had been the course and manner of his life how he had been educated under the Institutions of the Pharisces the strictest Sect of the whole Jewish Religion and had been particularly disquieted and arraigned for what had been the constant belief of all their Fathers what was sufficiently credible in it self and plainly enough revealed in the Scripture the Resurrection of the dead He next gave him an account with what a bitter and implacable zeal he had formerly persecuted Christianity told him the whole story and method of his conversion and that in compliance with a particular Vision from Heaven he had preached repentance and reformation of life first to the Jews and then after to the Gentiles That it was for no other things than these that the Jews apprehended him in the Temple and designed to murder him but being rescued and upheld by a Divine power he continued in this testimony to this day asserting nothing but what was perfectly agreeable to Moses
34. Behold I send unto you prophets and wisemen and scribes some of them ye shall kill and crucifie some of them shall ye scurge in your synagogues and persecute them from Cyty to City The Sacred History sparing in the Acts of the succeeding Apostles and why S. Andrew's Birth-place Kindred and way of Life John the Baptist's Ministry and Discipline S. Andrew educated under his Institution His coming to Christ and 〈◊〉 to be a Disciple His Election to the Apostolate The Province assigned for his Ministry In what places he chiesly preached His barbarous usage at Sinope His planting Christianity at Byzantium and ordaining Stachys Bishop there His travails in Greece and preaching at Patrae in Achaia His arraignment before the Proconsul and resolute defence of the Christian Religion The Proconsul's displeasure against him whence An account of his Martyrdom His preparatory sufferings and crucifixion On what kind of Cross he suffered The Miracles reported to be done by his Body It s translation to Constantinople The great Encomium given of him by one of the Ancients 1. THE Sacred Story which has hitherto been very large and copious in describing the Acts of the two first Apostles is henceforward very sparing in its accounts giving us only now and then a few oblique and accidental remarques concerning the rest and some of them no further mentioned than the meer recording of their Names For what reasons it pleased the Divine wisdom and providence that no more of their Acts should be consigned to Writing by the Pen-men of the Holy story is to us unknown Probably it might be thought convenient that no more account should be given of the first plantations of Christianity in the World than what concerned Judaea and the Neighbour-countries at least the most eminent places of the Roman Empire that so the truth of the Prophetical Predictions might appear which had foretold that the Law of the Messiah should come forth from Sion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem Besides that a particular relation of the Acts of so many 〈◊〉 done in so many several Countries might have swell'd the Holy Volumes into too great a bulk and rendred them less serviceable and accommodate to the ordinary use of Christians Among the Apostles that succeed we first take notice of S. Andrew He was born at Bethsaida a City of Galilee standing upon the banks of the Lake of Gennesareth Son to John or Jonas a Fisherman of that Town Brother he was to Simon Peter but whether Elder or Younger the Ancients do not clearly decide though the major part intimate him to have been the younger Brother there being only the single authorlty of Epiphanius on the other side as we have formerly noted He was brought up to his Father's Trade whereat he laboured till our Lord called him from catching Fish to be a Fisher of men for which he was fitted by some preparatory Institutions even before his coming unto Christ. 2. JOHN the Baptist was lately risen in the Jewish Church a Person whom for the efficacy and impartiality of his Doctrine and the extraordinary strictness and austerities of his Life the Jews generally had in great veneration He trained up his Proselytes under the Discipline of Repentance and by urging upon them a severe change and reformation of life prepared them to entertain the Doctrine of the Messiah whose approach he told them was now near at hand representing to them the greatness of his Person and the importance of the design that he was come upon Besides the multitudes that promiscuously flock'd to the Baptists discourses he had according to the manner of the Jewish Masters some peculiar and select Disciples who more constantly attended upon his Lectures and for the most part waited upon his Person In the number of these was our Apostle who was then with him about Jordan when our Saviour who some time since had been baptized came that way upon whose approach the Baptist told them that this was the 〈◊〉 the great Person whom he had so 〈◊〉 spoken of to usher in whose appearing his whole Ministry was but subservient that this was the Lamb of God the true Sacrifice that was to expiate the sins of Mankind Upon this testimony Andrew and another Disciple probably S. John follow our Saviour to the place of his abode Upon which account he is generally by the Fathers and ancient Writers stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the first called Disciple though in a strict sence he was not so for though he was the first of the Disciples that came to Christ yet was he not called till afterwards After some converse with him Andrew goes to acquaint his Brother Simon and both together came to Christ. Long they stayed not with him but returned to their own home and to the exercise of their calling wherein they were imployed when somewhat more than a Year after our Lord passing through Galilee found them 〈◊〉 upon the Sea of Tiberias where he fully satisfied them of the Greatness and Divinity of his Person by the convictive evidence of that miraculous draught of Fishes which they took at his command And now he told them he had other work for them to do that they should no longer deal in Fish but with Men whom they should catch with the efficacy and influence of that Doctrine that he was come to deliver to the World commanding them to follow him as his immediate Disciples and Attendants who accordingly left all and followed him Shortly after S. Andrew together with the rest was called to the Office and Honour of the Apostolate made choice of to be one of those that were to be Christ's immediate Vice-gerents for planting and propagating the Christian Church Little else is particularly recorded of him in the Sacred story being comprehended in the general account of the rest of the Apostles 3. AFTER our Lord's Ascension into Heaven and that the Holy 〈◊〉 had in its miraculous powers been plentifully shed upon the Apostles to fit them for the great errand they were to go upon to root out prophaneness and idolatry and to subdue the World to the Doctrine of the Gospel it is generally affirmed by the Ancients that the Apostles agreed among themselves by lot say some probably not without the special guidance and direction of the Holy Ghost what parts of the World they should severally take In this division S. Andrew had Scythia and the Neighbouring Countries primarily allotted him for his Province First then he travelled through Cappadocia Galatia and Bithynia and instructed them in the Faith of Christ pasling all along the Euxin Sea formerly called Axenus from the barbarous and inhospitable temper of the People thereabouts who were wont to sacrifice strangers and of their skulls to make Cups to drink in in their Feasts and Banquets and so into the solitudes of Scythia An ancient Author though whence deriving his intelligence I know not gives us a more particular
to have consisted in gathering the Customs of Commodities that came by the Sea of Galilee and the Tribute which Passengers were to pay that went by Water a thing frequently mentioned in the Jewish writings where we are also told of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ticket consisting of two greater Letters written in Paper or some such matter called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ticket or signature of the Publicans which the Passenger had with him to certifie them on the other side the Water that he had already paid the Toll or Custom upon which account the Hebrew Gospel of S. Matthew published by Munster renders Publican by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord of the Passage For this purpose they kept their Office or Custom-house by the Sea-side that they might be always near at hand and here it was as S. Mark intimates that Matthew had his Toll-booth where He sate at the Receipt of Custome 3. OUR Lord having lately cured a famous Paralytick retired out of Capernaum to walk by the Sea-side where he taught the People that flocked after him Here he espied Matthew sitting in his Custom-office whom he called to come and follow Him The Man was rich had a wealthy and a gainful Trade a wise and prudent Person no fools being put into that Office and understood no doubt what it would cost him to comply with this new imployment that he must exchange Wealth for Poverty a Custom-house for a Prison gainful Masters for a naked and despised Saviour But he overlooked all these considerations left all his Interests and Relations to become our Lord's Disciple and to embrace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom observes a more spiritual way of commerce and traffique We cannot suppose that he was before wholly unacquainted with our Saviour's Person or Doctrine especially living at Capernaum the place of Christ's usual residence where his Sermons and Miracles were so frequent by which he could not but in some measure be prepared to receive the impressions which our Saviour's call now made upon him And to shew that he was not discontented at his change nor apprehended himself a loser by this bargain he entertained our Lord and his Disciples at a great Dinner in his House whither he invited his Friends especially those of his own Profession piously hoping that they also might be caught by our Saviour's converse and company The Pharisees whose Eye was constantly evil where another Man 's was good and who would 〈◊〉 find or make occasions to snarle at him began to suggest to his Disciples that it was unbecoming so pure and holy a Person as their Master pretended himself to be thus familiarly to converse with the worst of men Publicans and sinners Persons infamous to a Proverb But he presently replied upon them that they were the sick that needed the Physician not the sound and healthy that his company was most suitable where the necessities of Souls did most require it that God himself preferred acts of Mercy and Charity especially in reclaiming sinners and doing good to Souls infinitely before all ritual observances and the nice rules of Persons conversing with one another and that the main design of his coming into the World was not to bring the righteous or those who like themselves proudly conceited themselves to be so and in a vain Opinion of their own strictness loftily scorned all Mankind besides but sinners modest humble self-convinced offenders to repentance and to reduce them to a better state and course of life 4. AFTER his election to the Apostolate he continued with the rest till our Lord's Ascension and then for the first eight Years at least Preached up and down 〈◊〉 After which being to betake himself to the Conversion of the Gentile-world he was intreated by the Convert Jewes to commit to Writing the History of our Saviour's Life and Actions and to leave it among them as the standing Record of what he had Preached to them which he did accordingly and so composed his Gospel whereof more in due place Little certainty can be had what Travails he underwent for the advancement of the Christian Faith so irrecoverably is truth lost in a crowd of Legendary stories AEthiopia is generally assigned as the Province of his Apostolical Ministry Metaphrastes tells us that he 〈◊〉 first into Parthia and having successfully planted Christianity in those Parts thence travailed into AEthiopia that is the Asiatick AEthiopia lying near to India here by Preaching and Miracles he mightily triumphed over error and Idolatry convinced and converted Multitudes ordained spiritual Guides and Pastors to confirm and build them up and bring over others to the Faith and then finished his own course As for what is related by Nicephorus of his going into the Country of the Cannibals constituting Plato one of his followers Bishop of Myrmena of Christ's appearing to him in the form of a beautiful Youth and giving him a Wand which he pitching into the ground immediately it grew up into a Tree of his strange converting the Prince of that Country of his numerous Miracles peaceable Death and sumptuous Funerals with abundance more of the same stamp and coin they are justly to be reckoned amongst those fabulous reports that have no Pillar nor ground either of truth or probability to support them Most probable it is what an Ancient Writer affirms that he suffered Martyrdom at Naddaber a City in AEthiopia but by what kind of Death is altogether uncertain Whether this Naddaber be the same with Beschberi where the Arabick Writer of his Life affirms him to have suffered Martyrdom let others enquire he also adds that he was buried Arthaganetu 〈◊〉 but where that is is to me unknown Dorotheus makes him honourably buried at Hierapolis in Parthia one of the first places to which he Preached the Gospel 5. HE was a great instance of the power of Religion how much a Man may be brought off to a better temper If we reflect upon his circumstances while yet a stranger to Christ we shall find that the World had very great advantages upon him He was become Master of a plentiful Estate engaged in a rich and a gainful Trade supported by the power and favour of the Romans prompted by covetous inclinations and these confirmed by long habits and customs And yet notwithstanding all this no sooner did Christ call but without the least scruple or dissatisfaction he flung up all at once and not only renounced as S. Basil observes his gainful incomes but ran an immediate hazard of the displeasure of his Masters that imployed him for quitting their service and leaving his accounts intangled and confused behind him Had our Saviour been a mighty Prince it had been no wonder that he should run over to his service but when he appeared under all the circumstances of meanness and disgrace when he seemed to promise his followers nothing but misery and suffering in this life