in the very nature and constitution of the Church and it is as impossible to be a part of the Church without it as it is to be a man without the use of reason nay we so far come short of being men as we are defective in humanity All Christians are the parts of the Church and all must sustaine one another and this is the just and full Interpretation of that of our Saviour Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self and then thou wilt pity him as thy self Tolle invidiam tuum est quod habet Take away envy and all that he hath is thine and take away hardnesse of heart and all that thou hast is his Take away malice and all his virtues are thine and take away pride and thy Glories are his Art thou a part of the Church thou hast a part in every port and every part hath a portion in thee We are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 compacted together by that which every joynt supplies Eph. 4.16 a similitude and resemblance taken from the curtaines in the Temple saith learned Grotius Exod. 26. whereof every one hath its measure but yet they are all coupled together one to another v. 3. and by their loops which lay hold one of another v. 5. and like those curtains not to be drawn but together not to rejoyce not to weep not to suffer but together The word Church is but as a second notion and it is made a terme of art and every man almost saith Luther abuseth it draws it forth after his own image takes it commonly in that sense which may favour him so far as to leave in him a perswasion that he is a true part of it and thus many enter the Church and are shut out of heaven We are told of a visible Church and the Church in some sense is visible but that the greatest part of this Church hath wanted bowells that some parts of it have been without sense or feeling besmered and defiled with the blood of their brethren is as visible as the Church We have heard of an infallible Church we have heard it and believe it not for how can she be infallible who is so ready to design all those to death and hell who deny it If it be a Church it is a Church with hornes to push at the nations or an army with banners and swords we have long talked of a Reformed Church and we make it our crown and rejoycing but it would concern us to look about us and take heed That we do not reforme so as to purge out all compassion also for cercainly to put off all bowells is not as some zelots have easily perswaded themselves to put on the new man Talk not of a visible Infallible or a Reformed Church God send us a Compassionate Church a title which will more fit and become her then those names which do not beautifie and adorne but accuse and condemn her when she hath no heart What visible Church is that which is seen in blood what infallible Church is that whose very bowels are cruell what reformed Church is that which hath purged out all compassion visible and yet not seen infallible and deceived reformed and yet in its filth Monstrum Horrendum Informe This is a mishapen monster not a Church The True Church is made up of bowells every part of it is tender and relenting not onely when it self is touch'd but when the others are moved as you see in a well-set instrument if you touch but one string the others will tremble and shake And this sence this fellow-feeling is the fountain from whence this silver streame of Mercy flows the spring and first mover of those outward acts which are seen in that bread of ours which floats upon the waters in the face and on the backs of the poore for not then when we see our brethren in affliction when we look upon them and passe by them but when we see them and have compassion on them we shall bind up their wounds and poure in wine and oyle and take care for them For till the heart be melted there will nothing flow We see almes given every day and we call them acts of piety but whether the hand of Mercy reach them forth or no we know not our motions all of them are not from a right spring vain glory may be liberall Intemperance may be liberall Pride may be a benefactor Ambition must not be a Niggard Covetousnesse it self sometimes yeelds and drops a penny and importunity is a wind which will set that wheel a going which had otherwise stood still We may read large catalogues of munificent men but many names which we read there may be but the names of men and not of the Mercifull compassion is the inward and true principle begetting in us the love of Mercy which compleats and perfects and crownes every act gives it its true forme and denomination gives a sweet smell and fragrant savour to Maryes oyntment for she that poured it forth loved much Luk. 7.47 I may say compassion is the love of the Mercy plus est diligere quà m facere saith Hilary It is a great deal more to love a good work then to do it to love virtue then to bring it into act to love mercy then to shew it it doth supply many times the place of the outward act but without it the act is nothing or something worse It hath a priviledge to bring that upon account which was never done to be entitled to that which we do not which we cannot do to make the weak man strong and the poore man liberall and the ignorant man a counsellor For he that loves mercy would and therefore doth more then he can do as David may be said to build the Temple though he laid not a stone of it for God tells him he did well That he had it in his heart and thus our love may build a Temple though we fall and dye before a stone be laid Now this love of mercy is not so soon wrought in the heart as we may imagine as every glimmering of light doth not make it day It is a work of labour and travell and of curious observance and watchfulnesse over our selves It will cost us many a combate and luctation with the world and the flesh many a falling out with our selves many a love must be digged up by the roots before we can plant this in our hearts for it will not grow up with luxury and wantonnesse with pride or self-self-love you never see these together in the same soyle The Apostle tells us we must put it on and ◠the garments which adorn the soul are not so soon put on as those which clothe the body we do not put on mercy as we do our mantle for when we do every puffe of wind every distaste blows it away but mercy must be so put on that it may even cleave to the soul and be a part of it
the true cause in the bosome of the Father nay in the bowels of his Son and there see the cause why he was delivered for us written in his Heart it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 3.4 the love of God to mankind and what was in mankind but enmity and hostility sinne and deformity which are no proper motives to draw on his love and yet he loved us and hated sinne and made haste to deliver us from it Dilexisti me domine plusquam te quando mori voluisti pro me saith Aust Lord when thou dyedst for me thou madest it manifest that my soule was dearer to thee then thy self such a high esteeme did he set upon a Soule which we scarce honour with a thought but so live as if we had none For us men then and For us Sinners was he delivered the Prophet Esay speaks it and he could not speake it so properly of any but him He was wounded for our transgressions and broken for our Iniquities So that he was delivered up not onely to the crosse E◠53. and shame but to our sinnes which nayled him to the crosse which crucified him not onely in his Humility but in his glory now he sits at the right hand of God and puts him to shame to the end of the world Falsò de Judaeis querimur why complain we of the Jewes malice or Judas's treason of Pilates injustice we we alone are they who crucifyed the Lord of life Our Treachery was the Judas which betrayed him Our malice the Jew which accused him our perjury the false witnesse against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him our pride scorned him our envy grinned at him our luxury spet upon him our covetousnesse sold him our corrupt bloud was drawn out of his wounds our swellings prickt with his Thornes our sores launced with his speare and the whole Body of sinne stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life Tradidit pro nobis he delivered him up for us sinners no sinne there is which his bloud will not wash away but finall impenitency which is not so much a sinne as the sealing up of the body of sinne when the measure is full pro nobis for us sinners for us for us the progeny of an arch-traytor and as great traytors as he take us at our worst if we repent he was delivered for us and if we do not repent yet he may be said to be delivered for us for he was delivered for us to that end that we might repent Pro nobis Pro nobis omnibus so us all for us men and for us sinners he was deliver'd pro infirmis for us when we were without strength pro impiis for us when we were ungodly pro peccatoribus for sinners Rom. 5.6,7 for so we were consider'd in this great work of our Redemption and thus high are we gone on this scale and ladder of love There is one step more pro nobis omnibus he was deliver'd for us all all not consider'd as elect or reprobate but as men as smners for that name will take in all for all have sinned And here we are taught to make a stand and not to touch too hastily and yet the way is plaine and easie pro omnibus for all this some will not touch and yet they doe touch and presse it with that violence that they presse it almost into nothing make the world not the world and whosoever not whosoever but some certaine men and turne all into a few deduct whom they please out of all people Nations and Languages and out of Christendome it self and leave some few with Christ upon the Crosse whose persons he beares whom they call the elect and meane themselves sic Deus dilexit mundum so God loved the world that is the Elect say they John 3.16 they are the world where t is hard to find them for they are called out of it and the best light we have which is of Scripture discovers them not unto us in that place and if the Elect be this world which God so loved then they are such Elect which may not believe and such elect as may perish and whom God will have perish if they doe not believe T is true none have benefit of Christs death but the Elect but from hence it doth not follow that no other might have had theirs is the kingdome of heaven but are not they shut out now who might have made it theirs God saith Saint Peter would not that any should perish 2 Pet. 3.8 and God is the Saviour of all men saith Saint Paul but especially of those that believe 1 Tim. 4.10 all if they believe and repent and those who are obedient to the Gospel because they doe the bloud of Christ is powred forth on the Believer and with it he sprinkles his heart and is saved the wicked trample it under their foot and perish That the bloud of Christ is sufficient to wash away the sinnes of the world nay of a thousand worlds that Christ paid down a ransome of so infinite a value that it might redeeme all that are or possibly might be under that Captivity that none are actually redeemed but they who make him their Captaine and doe as he commands that is believe and repent or to speak in their own language none are saved but the elect In this all agree in this they are Brethren and why should they fall out when both hold up the priviledge of the believer and leave the rod of the stubborne Impenitent to fall upon him The death of Christ is not applyed to all say some It is not for all say others the virtue of Christs meritorious passion is not made use of by all say some it was never intended that it should say others and the event is the same for if it be not made use of and applyed it is as if it were not as if it had never been obtain'd onely the unbeliever is left under the greater condemnation who turned away from Christ who spake unto him not onely from heaven but from his crosse and refused that grace which was offer'd him which could not befall him if there had never been any such overture made for how can he refuse that which never concern'd him how can he forfeit that pardon which was never seal'd how can he despise that spirit of grace which never breathed towards him They who are so tender and jealous of Christs bloud that no drop must fall but where they direct it doe but veritatem veritate concutere undermine and shake one truth with another set up the particular love of God to believers to overthrow his generall love to Mankind confound the virtue of Christs passion with the effect and draw them together within the same narrow compasse bring it under a Decree that it can save no more then it doth because it hath its bounds set hitherto it shall go and no further and was ordained to quicken
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I would saith he Naz. Or. 20. there were no precedency no priority no dignities in the Church but that mens estimation did onely rise from vertue but now the right hand and the left the higher and the lower place these terms of difference have led men not into the truth but into that ditch where Errour mudds it self Caeca avaritia saith Maximus covetousness and ambition are blind and cannot look upon the truth though she be as manifest as the sun at noon and it fares with men in the lust of their eyes in the love of the world as it did with the man in Artemidorus who dreamt he had eyes of gold and the next day lost them had them both put out for now no smell is sweet but that of lucre no sight delightfull but of the wedge of gold and so by a strange kind of Chymistry they turn Religion into Gold and even by Scripture it self heap up Riches and so they lose their sight and judgement and savour not the things of God but are stark blind to that truth which should save them But now grant that they were indeed perswaded of the truth of that which they defend with so much noyse and tumult yet this may be but opinion and fancy which the love of the world will soon build up because it helps to nourish it and how can we think that the spirit did lead them in those wayes in which self love and desire of gaine did drive on so furiously for sure the spirit of truth cannot work in that building where such Sanballats laugh him to scorne Now all these are the very cords of vanity by which we are drawn from the truth and must be broken asunder before the spirit will lead us to it for he leads us not over the Mountaines nor through the bowells of the Earth nor through the numerous Atomes of our vaine and uncertaine and perplext imaginations but as the wisdome which he teacheth so is the method of his Discipline pure peaceable Jam. 3.17 and gentle without partiality without hypocrisie and hath no savour or relish of the Earth for he leads the pure he leads the peaceable he leads the humble In a word he leads those who are lovers of peace and truth Conclus And now to draw towards aconclusion will you know the wayes in which the Spirit walks and by which he leads us will you know the rules we must observe if we will be the Spirits Schollars I will be bold to give them you from one who was a great lover of truth even Galen the Physician I can but name them for the time will not suffer me to insist they are but four the first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a love of Truth the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a love of Industry a frequent meditation of the truth the third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an orderly and methodicall proceeding in the pursuit of Truth the last is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercitation and our conformity to the truth in our conversation And this gold though it be brought from Ophir yet may it be usefull to adorn and beautifie those who are the living temples of the holy Ghost And first Love is a passion imprinted in us to this end to urge and carry us forward to the truth and it is the first of all the passions the first of all the operations of the soul the first mover as it were being a strong propension to that we love and which is fitted and proportioned to the mind seeking out the meanes and working forward with all the heat of intention unto the end eminent among the affections calling up my fear my hope my anger my sorrow my fear of not finding out yet in the midst of fear raising a hope to attain to it my sorrow that I find not so soon as I would and my anger at any thing that is averse or contrary at any cloud or difficulty that is placed between me and the truth The love of Christ saith S. Paul constraineth me 2 Cor. 5.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resemblance taken from women in travell constraineth urgeth me worketh in me such a desire as the pain in travell doth in a woman to be dlivered for do we not labour and travell with a conclusion which we would find out and what joy is there when we have like that of a woman in travell when a man-child is brought into the world If you love me keep my commandement John 14.15 saith Christ if you love me not you cannot but if you love me you will certainly keep them Will you know the reason why the wayes of truth are so desolate why so little truth is known when all offers it self and is even importunate with us to receive it there can be no other reason given but this that our hearts are congealed our spirits frozen and we are coldly affected to the truth nay are averse and turn from it this truth crosseth our profit that our pleasure other truths stand in our light obstruct our passage to that we most desire S. Paul speaks plainly If the truth be hid it is hid to them that perish 2 Cor. 4.3,4 in whom the God of this world hath fo blinded their mind that the light of this truth should not shane upon them for if we have eyes to see her she is a fair object as visible as the Sun if we do but love the truth the spirit of truth is ready to take us by the hand and lead us to it but those that withdraw themselves doth his soul hate Now in the next place this love of truth brings in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a love of Industry for if we love it it will be alwayes in our thoughts and we shall meditate of it day and night for to love seven yeares are but a few dayes and great burdens are but small and labour is but pleasure and we walk in the region of truth viewing it and delighting in it gathering what may be for our use we walk in it as in a Paradise Truth is best bought when it costs us most and must be wooed oft and seriously and with great devotion as Pythagoras said of the gods Non est salutanda in transitu is not to be spoken with in the By and passage is not content with a glance and slutation and no more but we must behold it with care and anxiety we must make a kind of peregrination out of our selves and must run and sweat to meet it and then this spirit leads us to it And this great encouragement we have that in this our labour we never faile of the end we labour for which we cannot find in our other endeavours and attempts in which we have nothing to uphold us under those burdens which we lay upon our own shoulders but a deceitful hope which carries us along to see it self defeated the frustration whereof
Truth and sollidity of the things themselves which is in Christ These three are all Et haec tria unum sunt and these Three are One I may say these Three Cautions and directions are but one at least drawn up and collected in this one which I have read unto you Three severall lines but meeting in this Center sicut accepist is walk in Christ as you have received him which is as a light from Heaven to direct us in our way that we be not taken by the deceit of Philosophy That we stoop not to the glory of Angels That we catch not at the shadow when we should lay hold on the substance In a word This keeps us close to Christ and his Doctrine which must not be mixed or blended either with the Law or Philosophy or that voluntary Humility and worshipping of Angels which is Idolatry As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walke in him At the very hearing of which Exhortation I know every man will say That it is good and wholsome counsell well fitted and apply'd by Saint Paul to the errors and distempers of that Church to which he writ but not so proper nor applyable to ours For so farr are we from being ensnared with Philosophy that we see too many ready to renounce both their sense and reason to be lesse then men nay to be inferior to the beasts neither to discourse nor see not to see what they see nor to know what they cannot be ignorant of that they may be Christians as if Christ came to put out our eyes and abolish our Reason And for voluntary worship there is no feare of that in them who will scarce acknowledge any Obligation and can with ease turne a Law into a Promise will that profane person ever stoop to an Angel who is thus familiar with God himself And the Law it goes for a Letter a Title and no more for Ceremonies they were but shadows but are now monsters Christ in appearance left us two and but two and some have dealt with them as they used to do with monsters exposed them to scorne and flung them out so that this Counsell now in respect of us will not appeare as an Apple of Gold with Pictures of silver Prov. 25.31 but may seem to be quite out of its place and Season But yet let us view it once again and we shall find that it is a generall Prescript looking forward and applyable to every Age of the Church an Antidote against all Errors and deviations and if we take it as we should will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 look round upon all and either prevent or purge out all error whatsoever For though our errors be not the same with theirs yet they may proceed from the same ground and be as dangerous or worse peradventure we may bee in no danger of Philosophy but we may be of our selves and our self-love may more ensnare us then their subtilties can doe wee may be too stiff to bow to an Angel but our eyes may dazle at the Power and excellency of men and wee may be carried about from Doctrine to Doctrine from error to error with every breath of theirs as with a mighty wind and though we stand out against the Glory of an Angel yet we may fall down and miscarry by the example of a mortall man in a word we may defy all Ceremonies and yet worship our own imaginations which may be lesse significant then they Let us then as the Apostle elsewhere speaks suffer this word of Exhortation let us view and handle this Word of Life and it will present us with these two things 1. A Christian mans Duty in these words Ambulate in Christo walk in Christ Secondly The Rule by which we must regulate our motion and be directed in our walk sicu◠accepistis we must so walk in Him as we have received him which two stand in flat opposition to two maine Errors of our life For either we receive Christ and not walke in him or walke in him but not with a Sicut not as we have received him Of these in their order As you have received c. In the handling of the first we shall point and levell our discourse at these two particulars 1. Shew you That Christianity is not a lazy idle Profession a sitting still or standing a speculation but a walke 2ly Wherein this walke or motion principally consists And first we find no word so expressive no word more commonly used in holy Writ then this To walke with God Gen. 16. To walk before God Gen. 24.40 to walke by Faith 2 Cor. 5.7 To walke in good Works Ephes 2. and in divers other places For indeed in this one word in this one syllable in contained the whole matter the end and summe of all All that can be brought in to make up the perfect man in Christ Jesus For first This brings forth a Christian like a Pilgrim a Traveller forgetting what is behind and weary of the place he stands in counting those few approaches he hath made as nothing ever panting and striving gaining ground and pressing forward to a higher degree to a better place As there is motus ad perfectionem a motion to persection so there is motus in perfectione a motion and progresse even in perfection it self the good Christian being ever perfect and never perfect till he come to his journeys end Secondly It takes within its compasse all those essentiall requisites to action 1. It supposeth faculty to discover the way 2ly A power to act and move in it 3ly Will which is nothing else but principium actionis as Tert. calls the beginning of all motion the Imperiall power which as Queen commands and gives act to the understanding senses Affections and those faculties which are subject to it And besides this to walke implies those outward and adventitious helps Knowledge in the understanding and love in the Will which are as this Pilgrims staffe to guide and uphold him in his way his knowledge is as the day to him to walke as in the Day and his Love makes his journey shorter though it be through the wildernesse of this world to a City not made with hands nor seen For faculty without knowledge Hebr. 11. is like Polyphemus a body with power to move but without eye-sight to direct and therefore cannot chuse but offend and move amisse and faculty and knowledge without love and desire are but like a Body which wanting nourishment hath no sense of hunger to make it call for it and therefore cannot but bring leanness into the soul For be our naturall faculty and ability what it will yet if we know not our way we shall no more walk in it then the Traveller sound of body and limbe can goe the way aright of which he is utterly ignorant Againe be our Abilities perfect and let our knowledge be absolute yet if we want a mind and have no love if
will confess with Achan build an altar with David throw this Jonah over-board cast this sin out of my soul that God may turn from his fierce wrath and shine once again both upon my Tabernacle and upon the Nation But in the last place if his anger be not hot enough in his temporal punishments it will hereafter boyl and reake in a Cauldron of unquenchable fire he will punish thee eternally for any one sin habituated in thee which thou hast not turned from by Repentance Saint Basil makes the punishment not onely infinite in duration but in degrees and increase and was of opinion that the paines of the damned are every moment intended and augmented according as even one sin may spread it self from man to man from one generation to another even to the worlds end by its venemous contagion and ensample Think we as meanly and slightly as we will swallow it without fear live in it without sense yet thus it may for ought we can say to the contrary multiply and increase both it self and our punishment and this of Saint Basil may be true My love of the world may kindle my anger my anger may end in murder my murder may beget a Cain and Cain a Lamech and from Cain by a kinde of propagation of sin may proceed a blody race throughout all generations and I shall be punisht for Cain and punisht for Lameoh and as many as the contagion of my sin shall reach and I shall be punished for my own sins and I shall be pinished for my other mens sins as Father Latimer speaks and my punishment shall be every moment infinitely and infinitely multiplied and increased a heavie and sad consideration it is and very answerable and proportionable to this loud and vehement ingemination Convertimini Convertimini Turn ye Turn ye able to turn us and so to turn us that we may turn from every evil way The fourth property of our Turn it must be final carried on to the end Our turn then must be true and sincere and it must be universal we must turn with all our Heart and turn from all our sins there is yet one property more one thing more required that it be final that we hold it on unto the end for without this the other three are lost the speedinesse the sincerity the universality of our Repentance are of no force which though it were true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in respect of its essential parts and in respect of its latitude and extent yet is it not true in respect of its duration unlesse we Turn once for all and never fall back upon those paths out of which horrour grief and disdain did drive us it may work our peace and reconcile us for a time but if we fail and fall back even our turn our former Repentance forsakes us and mercy it self withdraws and leaves us under that wrath which we were fled from And therefore in our turn this must go along with us and continue the motion the consideration of the great hazard we run when we turn from our evil wayes and then turn back again For first as a pardon doth nullifie former sinnes so it maketh our sins which we commit afterwards more grievous and fatal and as it is observed that it is the part of a wise friend etiam leves suspiciones fugere to shun the least suspicion of offence Hier. ad pau mach marcel ne quod fortuito fecit consultò facere videretur lest what might formerly be imputed to chance or infirmity may now seem to proceed from wilfulnesse so when we turn and God is pleased so far to condescend as to take us to his favour and of enemies not onely make us his servants but call us his friends it will then especially concern us to abstain from all appearance of evil to suspect every object as the devils lurking place in which he lies in wait to betray us lest we may seem to have begged pardon of our sins not out of hatred but out of love unto them and to have left our sins for a time to commit them afresh We are bound now not only in a bond of common duty but of gratitude for his free favour is Numella as a clog or yoke to chain and fetter and restrain us from sin that we commit not that every day for which we must beg pardon every day A reason of this we may draw from the very love of God for the anger of God in a manner is the effect and product of his love He is Angry if we sin because he loved us he is displeased when we yeeld to Temptations because he loved us and his Anger is the hotter because his love was excessive As the Husband which most affectionately loves the Wife of his youth and would have her be as the loving Hinde and pleasant Roe Prov. 5.19 but to himself alone will not allow so much love from her as may be conveighed in a look or the glance of an eye is jealous of her very looks of her deportment of her garments and will have her to behave her self with that Modesty and strangeness ut quisquis videat metuat accedere that no man may be so bold as to come so neer as to ask the question or make mention of love and all because he most affectionately loves her So much nay farr greater is the love of God to our soules which he hath married unto himself in whom he desires to dwell and take delight and so dearly he loves them that he will not divide with the World and the Flesh but is straight in Passion if we cast but a favourable ook or look friendly upon that sin by which we first offended him if we come but neer to that which hath the shew of a Rival or Adversary but if we let our Desires loose and fall from him and Embrace the next Temptation which wooes us then he counts us guilty of spirituall whoredome and Adultery His jealousie is cruel as the Grave and this Jealousie which is an effect of his love shall smoake against us First it was Love and Jealousie lest we might tender cur service to strange gods cast our Affections upon false Riches and deceitfull pleasures and now we have left Life for Death preferred that which first wounded us before him that cured us it is Anger and Indignation that he should lose us whom he so loved that wee should fling him off who so loved us That he should create and then lose us and afterwards purchase and redeeme us and make us his againe and we should have no understanding but run back againe from him into Captivity For in the Second place as our sinnes are greater after reconcilement so if they doe not cancell the former Pardon as some are unwilling to grant yet they call those sinnes to remembrance which God cast behind his back For as good Works are destroyed by sinne and revive againe by Repentance so
with love and when it turns its worst face towards us we are weary of it and have an inclination a velleity a weak and feeble desire to shake it off our soul loveth it and loatheth it we would not and we will sin and all upon presumption of that mercy which first gave us ease upon hope of forgiveness quis enim timebit prodigere quod habebit posteà recuperare Tertul. de pudicitia c. 9. for who will be tender and sparing of that which he hopes to recover though lost never so oft or be careful of preserving that which he thinks cannot be irrecoverably lost so that Repentance which should be the death of sin is made the security of the Sinner and that which should reconcile us to God is made a reproach to his mercy and contumelious to his goodness in brief that which should make us his friends makes us his enemies we turn and return we fall and rise and rise and fall till at last we fall never to rise again And this is an ill signe a signe our Repentance was not true and serious but as in an intermitting fever the disease was still the same onely the fit was over Gravedinosos quosdam quosdam tor ninosor 〈◊〉 mus non quia semper sed quia saepesunt Tul. Tusc q. l. 4 Galen de fanitat Tuendâ or as in an Epilepsie or the falling sickness it is still the same is stil in the body though it do not cast it on the ground and such a Repentance is not a Repentance but to be repented of by turning once for all never to turn again or if it be true we may say of it what Galen said of his art to those that abuse it who carry it not and continue it to the end perindè est ac si omnino non esset it is as if it were not at all nay it is fatal and deleterial It was Repentance it is now an accusation a witness against us that we would be contrà experimenta pertinaces even against our own experience taste that cup again which we found bitter to us and run into that snare out of which we had escaped and turn back into those evil wayes where we saw death ready to seise upon us and so run the hazard of being lost for ever And these four are the necessary requisities Concl. and properties of Repentance it must be early and sudden upon the first all For why should any thing in this world stop and stay us one moment in our journey to a better is not a span of time little enough to pay down for Eternity it must be true and sincere for can we hope to binde the God of Truth unto us with a lie or can a false Turn bring us to that happinesse which is real it must be perfect and exact in every part for why should we give him lesse then we should who will give us more then we can desire or how can that which is but in part make us shine in perfection of Glory Last of all it must be constant and permanent for the crown of life is promised unto him alone who is faithful unto death Turn ye Turn ye now suddenly in reality and not in appearance Turn ye from all your evil wayes Turn never to look back again and this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Septuagint render it to turn for ever and so to presse forward in the wayes of righteousnesse till we are brought to that place of rest where there is no evil to Turn from but all shall turn to our Salvation Thu much of the exhortation Turn ye Turn ye the next is the Reason or Expostulation For why will you die O House of Israel THE NINTH SERMON PART V. EZEKIEL 33.11 Turne ye Turne ye from your evill wayes For why will you die Oh House of Israel WHY will you die is an Obtestation or Expostulation I called it a reason and good reason I should do so for the moriemini is a good reason that we may not die a good reason to make us turn but tendered to us by way of expostulation is another reason and puts life and efficacy into it makes it a reason invincible unanswerable The Israelite though now in his evil wayes dares not say He will die and therefore must lay his hand upon his mouth and Turn For God who is truely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free from all passion being to deal with man subject to passion seems to put it on exprimit in we have here a large field to walk over but we must bound our discourse within the compass of those observations which first offer themselves and without any force or violence may naturally be deduced from these words and we shall first take notice of the course and method God takes to turn us he draws a sword against us he threatens death and so awakes our fear that our fear might carry us out of evil our wayes Secondly that God is not willing we should die Thirdly that he is not any way defective in the administration of the means of life Last of all that if we die the fault is onely in our selves and our own will ruines us Why will ye die O house of Israel We begin with the first the course that God takes to turn us he asks us why will ye die in which we shall passe by these steps or degrees First shew you what fear is Secondly how usefull it may be in our conversion Thirdly shew it not onely useful but good and lawful and enjoyned both to those who are yet to turn and those who are converted already The fear of death the fear of Gods wrath may be a motive to turn me from sin and it may be a motive to strengthen and uphold me in the wayes of righteousnesse God commends it to us timor iste timendus non est and we need not be afraid of this Fear Quare moriemini Why will ye Die And death is the King of terrours to command our fear that seeing death in our evil wayes ready to destroy us Job 18.16 we might look about and consider in what wayes we were and for feare of death turn from sin which leads unto it for thus God doth Amorem timore pellere subdue one passion with another drive out love with fear the love of the world with the fear of death present himself unto us in divers manners according to the different operations of our affections sometimes with his rich promises to make us Hope and sometimes with fearful menaces to strike us with fear sometimes in glory to encourage us and sometimes in a tempest Clem. Alexand. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whirle-winde to affright us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 various and manifold in the dispensation of his goodnesse that if hope drive us not to the promises yet fear might carry us from death and death from sin and so at last beget a Hope
notes or rather noise we heare one part of the year and then they leave us vanish out of sight and hearing and as some say sleep out the other For even in the worst of men there be some seeds of goodnesse which they receive as they are men from whence arise those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those sudden but short and transitory inclinations which are choked up but not so dead in them but that sometimes they shew themselves and shoot out but as grasse doth upon the house-tops Ps 129.6 which withereth before it groweth up There is no Tyrant but may do one act of mercy no oppressor but may give a cup of cold water In pessimis est aliquid optimi there may be something of that which is good even in the worst Then mercy is in its full glory when it acts upon a certain and well grounded determination when we decree as the Stoicks speak and resolve so to do when we have fixed this decree and made it unalterable when we are rooted and grounded in mercy as Saint Paul speaks Eph. 3.17 Rooted as a tree deeply in it and built as a house upon it where the corner and chief stone is the love of mercy Then we are as trees to shadow others and as an house to shelter them otherwise our mercy will be but as a gourd as Jonahs gourd and will grow and come up and perish in a night Thirdly If we love mercy it will be sincere and reall for sincerity is the proper issue and child of love and makes the wounds of a friend better then the kisses of an enemy makes a dish of herbs a more sumptuous Feast then a stalled oxe makes a mite a good wish a good word an Almes What 's the mercy of the parasite he feeds by it What 's the mercy of the Ambitious a stirrop to get up by What 's the mercy of the Covetous a piece of art a warrantable cheat What was that seeming mercy of Peter It was an offence for which Christ called him an enemy What 's the mercy of those who through Covetousnesse with feigned words make a prey of mens soules 2 Pet. 2.3 I will not tell you because I cannot give it a name bad enough There may be mercy in a supply but that supply may be a snare There may be mercy in counsel but that counsel may betray me There is mercy in comfort but we know there be miserable comforters True mercy must be like our faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 1.5 unfeigned and then it runs must pure and cleare without taint or trouble when love opens the fountain or rather is the fountain from whence it flows when the love of Christ hath begot in us the love of our brethren and we shew mercy to them not for those arguments which we make our selves or those perswasions which may be the oratory of the flesh and the world but for Christs sake and for the love of mercy whose rationall and demonstrative eloquence we should most obey otherwise it will begin fairely and end in blood It will drop teares and then hailstones it will be a but preface of clemency a mild prologue to lead in a tragedy an echo out of a sepulchre of rotten bones and as musick at the gates of hell It will be mercy but not like unto Christ in whom there was found no guile but like unto Marcions Christ all in appearance mercy with a trumpet in one hand and a sword in the other mercy which shall lessen your burthen to lay on more shall speak of ease and then add to the misery of the oppressed For that which is not sincere is not lasting It may begin to shine but it will end in a storme A true face is ever the same but a vizor will soon fall off In a word if it be not sincere it is not mercy and sincere it will not it cannot be if we love it not Last of all If we love mercy we shall take delight in it for joy is but a resultancie from love that which we love is also the joy of our heart Behold my servant whom I have chosen saith God of Christ Es 42.1 and then it follows In whom my soule delights I have loved thee saith God of Israel and his love thus bespeaks them as a bridegroome rejoyceth over his bride so shall thy God rejoyce over thee Is 62.5 The bridegroome is sick of love in the book of Canticles his heart is ravish'd and then the floodgates are laid open and the streame is joy How faire is my love how much better is thy love then wine and the smell of thy oyntments then all spices Davids heart was knit unto Jonathan and then very pleasant hast thou been unto me 2 Sam. 1.26 Abraham loved hospitality and therefore he is said to sit in his tent doore in the heat of the day to invite men in as if every stranger had been an Angel If love be as the sunne Joy and delight are the Beames which streame forth from it If Love be as the Voice Joy is the Echo for Joy is but Love in the reflection If Love fill the heart it will heave and work it self out and break forth in joy By our joy we may see the figure and shape and constitution of our souls for Love is operative working and raising up something in the soul and with it that delight which is born with it and alwaies waits upon it If it be darke and scarce observable our Joy interprets it Joy is open and talkative In the wanton 't is a frolick in the Revenger it is a Boast in the Drunkard it is a Ballad in the Rich it is Pride in the Ambitious it is a Triumph but in the Mercifull it is Heaven What a well-drawn picture is to an Apelles what a faire character is to a Scribe what a heap of gold is to the Miser that and much more are the works of Mercy to them that love it onely here the joy is of a purer flame and burns brighter that is grosse and earthy this is Seraphicall When you reach forth your hand to give a peny tell me what doe you feele in your heart when you give good counsel doe you not heare a pleasing echo return back upon you when you have lifted up the poore out of the dust doe you not feele an elevation and ascension in your mind when you clothe the naked are not you even then super vestiti clothed upon with joy Beleeve it you cannot give that relief to the miserable which Mercy works in the soul nor can he that receives be so much affected as he that gives For when he gives he gives indeed his money but hath bestowed the greatest Almes upon himself the poore man rejoyceth as a hungry man that 's fed as a naked man that 's clothed as one that sits in darknesse doth at the breaking in of light but the mercifull man hath triumphs and Jubilees
the barking of a dog may be to a bird though on the wing and out of reach I should not certainly have thus put my self upon my Country nor ventured my triall there where the judges may be of severall minds and diversely biassed and yet meet at the same mark and joyne in the same sentence of condemnation which I will not say envy for what matter can my low fortunes or these sorry papers yield for that humour to gnaw on but the disesteem of my person the low conceit of my abilities in some the dislike of the matter in others and of the method and manner of handling it in many and ignorance in not a few will soon make up and pronounce against me But I have past over my Rubicon and left it behind me and must now stand censure the shock of all that opposition which can be but breath and words but darts made up of aire pointed peradventure with wit and envenomed with some droppings of malice against which there need no other buckler then this thought that whatsoever I shall appeare yet I am still the same not higher not lower in all the demonstrations and fulnesse either of Praise or Detraction Or this That Censure for the most part is but Pride in its vvantonnesse self-pleasing and not much displeasing any that are wise who may be strong enough to hear without disgust what others are ready to vent with so much delight what Wit suggests to their Passion and what Passion utters by the Tongue And such Readers I may have and too many such some of the same faith and opinion who yet will mislike something others not alike principled who will condemn all To the first I have nothing to say and to these but this That I cannot be of their opinion nor move as they do till more weight of reason be hung on Yet I nothing doubt but to find many more candid and charitable and who will give fairer welcome and entertainment to these Sermons then peradventure they do deserve and peruse them with an eye no more severe and averse then their eare was when they first heard them from my mouth And for satisfaction to these I shall give up this account for my self that they are now publisht to the eye with the same mind and intention which first breathed them forth unto the eare and that was first to work men off from those errors which are so common in the world and have gained honour and kindnesse and reception because they are so secondly to draw up their love and industry to necessary truths that they may not spend and waste them there where they may perhaps satisfie their humour but not fill their soules but fix and tye them to that which is most essentiall which hath the favour of God and happinesse evermore annex unto it and ready to Crown it thirdly to draw up the meanes to the end the duty to the reward by that necessary relation which is betwixt them this being the way and there being no other unto it and this with that plainnesse and evidence laying it open as neer unto the eye as the matter being spirituall would permit and my weake abilities and diligence could bring it In which if I have failed or come short as I must needs do of those who have a more quick and searching eye and a greater art felicity in clothing and uttering their conceptions I must make use of that Apologie of an Apocryphall writer Concedendum est mihi Mach. 2. 15. If I have done slenderly and meanly it is that which I could attain to and I have no other argument but my good will and endeavour to speak for me And first how weakly soever I have carried it on yet I made it my aime and principall intendment to lay all levell before me to remove those practicall errours which are most common and regnant which men walk in as in the waies of righteousnesse and glory in as in the truth it self which grow up in the world like those weeds which run and spread themselves over the surface of the water but have no root even those errours which are the proper issues of lust and idlenesse with which men infect and in which they applaud one another and so move together with content and danger which are improved by custome and at last raised up to the power and dignity of a Law It was well observed by Seneca Cùm error singulorum fecerit publicum errorem singulorum facit publicus the beginning of errours is from private persons but the continuance and life of them is from the multitude who are first dazled with the authority and practice of some few and then take it from one another and hold it up as a ball from hand to hand and the publicknesse of it gaines authority and interchangeably prevailes with private men to receive and embrace it it first steals or begs an entrance and when it is common and publick it reigns From hence are those noxious yet beloved errours of which men are so tender and jealous that if you do but breath against them or but look towards them with an eye which betrayes but the least dislike they presently swell and rage as against an enemy and are never at ease but in his snare who is so Proficit semper contradictio stultorum ad stultitiae demonstrationem saith Hilary the perversnesse and contradiction of weak and wilfull men is violent and impetuous to gain ground and out-run that truth which should stay and moderate it but the greatest progresse it makes in these its easie and pleasant journeys is to make it self more open and manifest like Giges wife who was seen naked of all but herself From hence have those errours crept into the Church which have lessened her number and filled her up not with members but with names from hence it is that God is made more cruell then man and yet more mercifull then he is that men are Saints and yet the Law impossible that the beginnings of obedience are set down for perfection that men are made perfect and yet sin oftner then they obey that our endeavours are performances and our weakest and most feeble thoughts are endeavours that hearing is faith and faith fancy that imputed righteousnesse is all when we have none of our own that we may be reputed good when we are notoriously evil that our election may be sure though we do not make it so and that we must assure our selves when we have more reason to despaire that assurance is a duty and to work it out is none from hence it is that Christian liberty is let loose against Christ himself and the spirit brought in to contradict it self and God to do himself what he doth command that grace is miraculous and irresistible and the will is but a word which signifies nothing or if it do it is that which cannot will All these we find in the books and
Vanities find out one thing that is necessary if you can though you search it as the Prophet speaks with Candles Is it necessary to be rich Behold Dives in Hell and Lazarus in Abrahams Bosom Is it necessary to be Noble Not many noble are chosen Is it necessary to be Learned where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Every thing hath its Necessity from us not from it self for of it self it cannot shew any thing that should make it so It is we that file these chaines and fashion these nayles of Necessity and make her hand of Brasse Riches are necessary because we are covetous Honour is necessary because we are proud and love to have the preheminence Pleasure is necessary because we love it more than God Revenge is necessary because we delight in blood Lord how many Necessaries do we make when there is but one one sine quo non debemus without which we ought not and sine quo non possumus without which we cannot be happy and that is our assimilation and being made like unto Christ in whom alone all the Treasuries of Wisdome and Riches and Honour all that is necessary for us are to be found And now to conclude we have two Nativities Christs Nativity and ours he made like unto us by a miraculous Conception and we again made like unto him by the same spirit of Regeneration ad illum pertinuit propter nos nasci ad nos propter illum renasci saith S. Austin his love it was to be born for us and our Duty it is to give him Birth for Birth and to be born again in him And then as thou art merry at his Feast he will rejoyce at thine even celebrate thy birth-day Come let us rejoyce saith he and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was meet we should make merry for these my brethren were dead but are alive they were lost but they are found they were like unto the Beasts that perish but they are now made like unto me And 's as Christ had an Antheme at his Birth a full quire of the Heavenly Host praysing God so shall we at ours Joy and Triumph at the birth of a Christian at his assimilation to Christ for every reall resemblance of Christ is an Angels feast and Angels and Archangels and Dominations and Powers shall triumph at these our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an this Feast of our Regeneration and be glad spectators of our growth in Christ rejoyce to see us of the same mind every day liker and liker to him till we grow to ripenesse and maturity to be perfect men in Christ Jesus and being made like unto him at last be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equall to the Angels and with Angels and Archangels and all the Company of Heaven cry aloud saying Salvation Honour Power Thanksgiving be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and to him that was made like unto us even to the Lamb for evermore Amen HONI â—…T QVI MAL Y PENSE A SERMON Preached on Good-Friday ROM 8.32 He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him give us all things The Introduction GOds benefits come not alone but one gift is the pledge of another the grant of a mite the assignment of a Talent a drop of dew from Heaven is a Prognostique of a gracious showre which nothing can draw dry but Ingratitude the Father might well say S. Dionys. de divin Nom. p. 200. that the love of God was as a constant and endlesse Circle from Good to Good in Good without error or inconstancy rowling and carrying it self about in an everlasting gyre He spared not but delivered up his sonne for us all saith the Text but how many gifts did usher in this for he gave him often in the Creation of the world for by him were all things made and without him was made nothing that was made when God gives Joh. 1.3 he gives his Sonne for as we ask so he gives in his name whatsoever we ask every action of God is a gift and every gift a tender of his Sonne an art to make us capable of more Thus the Argument of Gods love is drawn à minori ad majus from that which seems little to that which is greater from a Grain to a Harvest from one Blessing to a Myriad from Heaven to thy Soul and from thy Creation to thy Redemption from his Actions to his Passion which is the true authentique instrument of his love Here his love was in its Zenith in its Verticall point and in a direct line casts its rayes of comfort on his lost Creature Here the Argument is at the highest and S. Paul drawes it down à majori ad minus and the Conclusion is full full of all comfort to all He that gives a Talent will certainly give a Mite he that gives his Son wil also give Salvation and he that gives Salvation will give all things which may work it out qui tradidit he that delivered his Son is followed with a quomodo non how shall he not with him give us all things quomodo non It is impossible it should be otherwise so that Christ comes not naked but clothed with Blessings he comes not empty but with the Riches of Heaven with the Treasuries of Wisdom and Happinesse Christ comes not alone but with troops of Angels with glorious Promises and Blessings nay to make good the quomodo non to make it unanswerable unquestionable It is his Nakednesse that clotheth us his Poverty that enricheth us his no Reputation that ennobles us his minoration that makes us great and his Exinanition his emptying himself that fills us and the tradidit is an instrument of conveyance his being delivered for us delivers to us the possession of all things Qui non pepercit who spared not his owne Son but delivered him c. In which words there is a cloud and a cloud of Blood the cloud of Christs Passion for so most interpreters in plain termes expound the tradere by in mortem exponere making his delivery to be nothing else but an exposing him to shame and misery and death we need not stand upon it a tradidit were enough for he is no sooner out of his hands but he becomes a man of sorrowes a tradidit were enough but here is a non pepercit he spared him not so spared him not that he delivered him up and so delivered him up that he spared him not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same thing expressed by two severall words to make it sure A cloud then there is and a cloud of Blood but it distills in a sweet showre of Blessings and we see a light in this cloud by which we may draw that saving conclusion quomodo non How shall he not with him give us all things Here then is an assignment made to Man-kind 1. Christ given 2. Given for us all and last
with his Grace if we will receive it which will make his commands which are now grievous easie his Promises which are rich profitable which may carry us on in a regular and peaceable course of piety and obedience which is our Angel which is our God and we call it Grace All these things we have with Christ and the Apostle doth not onely tell us that God doth give us them but to put it out of doubt puts up a quomodo non challenges as it were the whole world to shew how it should be otherwise How will he not with him give us all things And this question addes energy and weight and emphasis and makes the position more positive the affirmation more strong and the truth of it more perswasive and convincing shall he not give us all things It is impossible but he should more possible for a City upon a hill to be hid than for him to hide his favour from us more possible for Heaven to sink into Hell or Hell to raise it self up to his Mercy-seat than for him to with-hold any thing from them to whom he hath given his Son Impossible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as most inconvenient as that which is against his Wisdome Naz. Or. 36. his Justice his Goodnesse and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as abhorrent to his will to deny us any thing In brief if the Earth be not as Iron the Heavens cannot be as Brasse God cannot but give when we are fit to receive and in Christ we are made capable and when he is given all things are given with him nay more than all things more than we can desire more than we can conceive when he descends Mercy descends with him in a ful shower of Blessings to make our Souls as the Paradise of God to quicken our Faith to rouze up our Hope and in this Light in this Assurance in this Heaven we are bold with S. Paul to put up the question against all Doubts all Feares all Temptations that may assault us He that sparede not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him give us all things The Conclusion And now we have passed up every step and degree of this scale and ladder of love and seen Christ delivered and nailed to the Crosse and from thence he looks down and speaks to us to the end of the world Crux patientis fuit Cathedra docentis the Crosse on which he suffered was the Chaire of his profession and from this Chair we are taught Humility constant Patience and perfect Obedience an exact art and method of living well drawn out in severall lines so that what was ambitiously said of Homer that if all Sciences were lost they may be found in him may most truly be said of his Crosse and Passion that if all the characters of Innocency Humility Obedience Love had been lost they might here be found in libro vitae agni in the Book of the Life nay of the Death of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World yet now nailed to the Crosse Let us then with Love and Reverence look upon him whothus looks upon us put on our Crucified Jesus that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrys every Vertue his Humility his Patience his Obedience and so bear about with us the dying of our Lord and draw the picture of a Crucified Saviour in our selves To this end was he delivered up for us to this end we must receive him that we may glorifie God as he hath glorified him on earth for Gods Glory and our Salvation are twisted together and wrought as it were in the same thred are linked together in the same bond of Peace I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Thus it runs and it runs on evenly in a stream of love Oh how must it needs delight him to see his Gift prosper in our hands to see us delivering up our selves to him who was thus delivered for us to see his purchase those who were bought with this price made his peculiar people Lift then up the gates of your souls that this King of Glory may come in If you seek Salvation you must seek the glory of God and if you seek the glory of God you shall find it in your Salvation Thou may'st cry loe here it is or loe there it is but here it is found The Jew may seek salvation in the Law the Superstitious in Ceremony and bodily exercise the Zelot in the Fire and in the Whirlwind the phantastick lazy Christian in a Thought in a Dream and the profane Libertine in Hell it self Then then alone we find it when we meet it in conjunction with the glory of God which shines most gloriously in a Crucified Christ and an Obedient Christian made conformable to him and so bearing about in him the markes of the LORD JESUS To conclude then Since God hath delivered up his Son for us all and with him given us all things let us open our hearts and receive him that is Believe in his name that is be faithfull to him that is love him and keep his Commandements which is our conformity to his Death and then he will give us what will he give us he will heap gift upon gift give us power to become the Sons of God Let us receive him take in Christ take him in his Shame in his Sorrow in his Agony take him hanging on the Crosse take him and take a pattern by him that as he was so we may be troubled for our sins that we may mingle our Teares with his Blood drag our Sin to the Bar accuse and condemn it revile and spit in its Face at the fairest presentment it can make and then naile it to the Crosse that it may languish and faint by degrees and give up the Ghost and die in us and then lye down in peace in his Grave and expect a glorious Resurrection to eternall life where we shall receive Christ not in Humility but in Glory and with him all his Riches and Abundance all his glorious Promises even Glory and Immortality and Eternall life HONI â—…T QVI MAL Y PENSE A SERMON Preached on Easter-Day REV. 1.18 I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I live for evermore Amen and have the keyes of Hell and of Death WE do not ask of whom speaketh S. John this or who is he that speaks it for we have his character drawn out in lively colours in the verses going before my Text. The Divine calls him a voyce ver 12. when he meanes the man who spake it I turned to see the voyce that spoke with me and in the next verse tells us he was like to the Son of man in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks governing his Church setting his Tabernacle amongst men not abhorring to walk amongst them and to be their God Leâ— 26.11,12 that they might be his people Will ye see his Robes
and Hell is Hell Virtue is Virtue and vice is vice to the Understanding nor can it appeare otherwise for in these we cannot be deceived what Reason can that be which teacheth us to Act against Reason Esau knew well enough that it was a sinne to kill his Brother but his Reason taught him to expect his Fathers Funerall Ahab knew it was a crying sinne to take Naboths Vineyard from him by violence and therefore hee would have paid down money for it and his painted Queene knew as much but that the best way to take possession of his Vineyard was to dispossess him of his life and the surest way to that was to make him a Blasphemer that was the effect and product of Reason and Discourse which is the best servant when the Will is Right and the worst when shee is irregular Reason may seek out many Inventions for Evill and shee may discover many helps and Advantages to promote that which is good she may draw out the method which leads to both find out opportunities bring in Encouragements and Provocations to both but Reason never yet call'd Evill good or Good evill 2 Thess 3.2 for then it is not Reason the Apostle hath joyn'd both together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if they be wicked they are unreasonable and absur'd for they doe that which Reason abhorres and condemnes at the first presentment So that the will you see is origo boni mali is the prinipall cause of Good and Evill That I will not understand when I cannot but understand is from the will that the Judge is blind when he sees well enough what is just and what is unjust is not from the Bribe but the Will That my feare shakes me my Anger enflames me my Love Transports me my sorrow casts me downe and my joy makes me mad That my Reason is Instrumentall and Active against it self That my Passions rage and are unruly is from my will which being fastened to its Object drawes all the Powers of the Soul after it And therefore if the will Turne all these will Turne with it Turne to their proper offices and Functions The Understanding will be all Light and the Affections will be all Peace for the proper Act of every Faculty is its Peace when the Understanding contemplates that Truth which perfects it it rests upon it and dwells there as upon a holy Hill But when it busies it self in those which hold no proportion with it as the gathering of Wealth the raysing of a Name the finding out pleasures when it is a Steward and Purveyor for the Sense it is restlesse and unquiet now finds out this way anon another and by by disapproves them both and contradicts it self in every motion When our Affections are levell'd on that Affectiones ordinatae sunt virtutes Gers for which they were given us they lose their name and wee call them Virtues but when they fly out after every impertinent Object they fly out in infinitum and are never at their end and rest place Love on the things of this VVorld and what a troublesome Tumultuous Passion is it tiring it self with its own Hast and wasting and consuming it selfe with its owne Heat but place it on Piety and there it is as in its Heaven and the more it spends of it self the more it is increased Let your Anger kindle against an Enemy and it is a Fury that Torments two at once but derive it and lay it on your sin and there it sits as a Magistrate on a Tribunall to worke your Peace That sorrow which wee cast away upon Temporall losses is a Disease which must be cured by Time but our sorrow for sinne is a Cure it self is a second Baptisme washes away the Causes of that Evill and dyes with it and rises up againe in Comfort That joy which is rays'd out of Riches and Pleasure is rais'd as a Meteor out of dung and is whiffed up and downe by every winde and Breath but if it follow the Health and Harmony the good Constitution of the Soule it is as cleare and pure and constant as the Heavens themselves and may be carried about in a lasting and continued Gyre but is still the same And this Turne the Affections will have if the will Turne then they Turne their face another way from Bethaven to Bethel from Ebal to Garazin from the Mount of Curses to the Holy Hill We cannot Think that in this our Turne the Powers of the Soul are pull'd to pieces that our Affections are plucked up by the roots That our Love is Annihilated our Anger destroyed our Zeal quencht By my Turne I am not dissolved but better built I have new Affections and yet the same now dead and impotent to evill but vigorous and active in Good my steps are altered not my Feet my Affections cut off the Character is chang'd but not the Book That sorrow which covered my face for the losse of my Friend is now a Thicker and Darker cloud about it because of my sinne That hope which stoop'd so low as the Earth as the mortall and fading vanities of the world is now on the wing raising it selfe as high as Heaven That Zeale which drove Saint Paul upon the very pricks to persecute the Church did after lead him to the block to be crown'd with Martyrdome If the Will be Turned that is captivated and subdued to that Will of God which is the Rule of all our Actions it becomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Shop and Work-house of Virtuous and Religious Actions and the Understanding and Affections are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fellow-workers with it ready to forward and Compleat the Turne Saint Bernard tells us that nothing doth Burne in Hell but our will and 't is as true Nothing doth reigne in Heaven but the will In it are the wells of Salvation and in it are the waters of Bitterness in it is Tophet and in it is Paradise Aug. Hom. 8. Totum habet qui bonam habet voluntatem saith Austin he hath runne through all the Hardship and Exercises of Repentance who hath not changed his opinion or improv'd his knowledge but alter'd his will for the Turne of the will supposeth the rest but the rest doe not necessitate this when this is wrought all is done that is The Soul is enlightened purged renewed hath its Regeneration and new Creation in a word when the Will is turn'd the soul is saved The Old man is a New Creature and this New Creature changes no more but holds up the Turne till he be Turn'd to Dust and raysed againe and then made like unto the Angels THE SIXTH SERMON PART II. EZEKIEL 33.11 Turne ye Turne ye from your evill wayes c. This Turn is a Turn of the whole man of his understanding his affections nay of his senses of the eye and the ear from vanity of the tast from forbidden fruit of the touch from that which it must not handle a
fall into a cold sweat and faint at another mans labour Now therefore Now let us close with it whilst it appear's in Beauty whilst it is amiable in our eyes whilst our will begins to bend and our heart inclines to it for if we let this so faire an opportunity to passe within a while Vanity it self will appeare in Glory and that Holinesse which should make us like unto God will be taken for a monster There will be Honey on the Harlots lips and gall on Chastity a Lordship shall be more desireable then Paradise and three lives in that then eternity in Heaven now God is God and if we doe not Now fall down and worship him the next Now Baal will be God The world will be our God and the True God which but now we acknowledged will not be in all our wayes The first now the first opportunity is the best the next is most uncertaine the next may be Never But now Turne now Sole puro in Times of Peace if we will stand to distinguish times by the events as by their severall faces the divers complexions they receive either from Peace or Trouble either from Prosperity or Adversity Then certainly the best Time to Turne to him is when he turns his face to us Cum candidi fulgent soles when he shines brightly upon our Tabernacles when God speaks to us not out of the Whir winde but in a still voice when Plenty crownes the Commonwealth and Peace shadows it when God appeares to us not as Jupiter to Semele in Thunder but as to Danae in a showre of Gold whilst he stands as it were at the Doore and intreats entrance and not stay till he knock with the hammer till he breake in upon us with his sword because to Turne to him now in this Brightnesse will rather be an Act of our love then our feare and so make our Repentance a Free-will Offering a Sacrifice of a Sweet smelling Savour unto God and make it evident that we understand the Voice of his calling the language of his Benefits the miracle which he works which is to cure our inward blindness with this Clay with these outward Things that we may see to Turne from our evill wayes unto the Lord. This is truely to prayse the Lord for all his Benefits this is truely to Honor him to beare our selves with that Fear and Reverence that wee leave off to offend this God of Blessings Negat beneficium qui non Honorat he denies he despiseth a Blessing that doth not thus Honor it Ingratitude is contumelious to God is the bane of merit the defacer of goodness The Sepulchre the Hell of all Blessings for by it they are turned into a Curse Ingratitude loaths the light loaths the Land of Canaan and looks for Milke and honey in Egypt And this is it which the Prophets every where complaine of that the People did enjoy the light of Gods Countenance but by it walkt on in their evill wayes and made no other use of it then this That they did per tantorum honorum detrimenta Deum contemnere as Hierome speaks lose the Favour of God in their contempt and were made worse by that which should have Turn'd them from being Evill that being his pleasant plant they brought forth nothing but wilde Grapes And to apply this to our selves Dare we now look back to the former times what face can turne that way and not gather blackness God gave us light and we shut our eyes against it God made us the envie and we were ambitious to make our selves the scorne of all Nations he gave us milk and honey and we turn'd it into Gall and Bitternesse God gave us Plenty and Peace and the one we loath'd as the Jews did their Manna the other we abused our Peace brought forth a Warre as Nicippus sheep in Aelian did yean a Lion God spake to us by Peace and we were in Trouble till we were in Trouble till we were in a Posture of Warre God spake to us by Plenty and we answered him by luxury God spake to us by love and we answered him by Oppression He made our faces to shine and we grinded the poore He spake to us in a still voice and we defyed the Holy One of Israel Every benefit of his cryed Give me my price and lo in stead of Turning from our evill wayes delighting in them in stead of leaving them defending them In stead of calling upon his Name calling it down to countenance all the Imaginations of our Heart which have been evill continually This was the Goodly price that he and all his Blessings were prized at and then when this light was thus abused our Sun did set our day was shut in That Now That Then had its end The next call was in Thunder and he gave us Haile for raine and flaâ—… fire in our Land But such a then such an opportunity we had and we may say with shame and sorrow enough that we have lost it but since we have let slip this time of peace this acceptable time yet at least let us turn now in the storm that he may make a calm turn to him in our trouble that he may bring us out of our distress turn now when our Sun is darkned and our Moon turned into blood when the knowledge of his Law of true Piety begins to wax dim and the true face and beauty of Religion to wither When the stars are fallen from Heaven the teachers of truth from the Profession of truth and set that up for truth which sets them up in high-places when the powers of Heaven are shaken when the pillars of the Church sink and break asunder into so many Sects and divisions which is as musick to Rome but makes all walk as mourners about the streets of Jerusalem when Religion which should be the bond of love is made the title and pretense of war the somentor of that malice and bitternesse which desiles it and puts it to shame and treads it under foot Now when the Sea and the waves thereof roar when we hear the noise and tumult of the people which is as the raging of the Sea but ebbing and flowing with more uncertainty and from a cause lesse known Now in this draught and resemblance of the end of the World when he thus speaks to us in the whirl-winde when he thus knocks with his hammer when he calls thus loud unto us turn ye turn ye now let us bow down our heads and in all humility answer him Ecce accedimus Behold we come unto thee For thou art our Lord and God For as our Saviour speaks of offences so may we of these Judgements and Terrours which he sends to fright us to him Necesse est ut veniant It must needs be that they come not only necessitate consequentiae by a necessity of consequence supposing the condition of our nature and the changes and chances of a sinful world or rather supposing
a Tyrant which is but in his Nostrills you will not forsake it in time of Temptation Love if it be true oh it is mighty in operation stronger then Death it self and will meet and cope with him though he comes towards us on his pale Horse Mieremb de arte volunt with all his pomp and Terrour Love saith a devout Writer is a Philosopher and can discover the Nature and qualities the malignity and weakness of those Evills which are set up to shake our Constancy and strike us from that rock on which we are founded who is a God like unto our God saith David what can be like to that we love what can be equall to it if our Hearts be set on the Truth to it the whole world is not worth a thought Nullum spectaculum sine concussione spiritus Tert. de Spect. c. 15. nor can that shop of vanities shew forth any thing that can shake a soul or make the passions Turbulent and unruly that can draw a Teare or force a smile that can deject it with sorrow or make it mad with joy that can raise an Anger or strike a feare or set a desire on the wing every object is dull and dead and hath nothing of Temptation in it for to love the truth is all in all and it bespeaks the world as Saint Paul did the Grave where is thy victory nor heigh Rom. 8.35,36,37,38,39 nor depth can seperate us from that we love And love is a Sophister able to answere every Argument wave every subtilty and defeat the Deviills 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his wiles and crafty enterprizes nay Love is a Magician and can conjure downe all the terrours and noyse of Persecution which are those evill Spirits which amaze and cow us Love can rowse and quicken our drooping and fainting spirits and strengthen the most feeble knees and the hands that hang downe If we love the Truth if Truth be the Antecedent the consequent is most Naturall and Necessary and it cannot but follow that therefore we will when there is reason lay downe our lives for it For againe what is said of Faith is true of Love it purifies the Conscience and when that is clean and pure the soul is in perfect Health cheerfull and active full of courage either to doe or suffer ready for that disgrace which brings honour for that smart which begets joy for that wound which shall heale for that Death which is a Gate open'd to Eternity ready to goe out and joyne with that Peace which a good Conscience which is her Angelus custos her Angel to keep her in all her wayes hath seal'd assured unto her A good conscience is an everlasting never-failing foundation the foundation of that bliss which the noble army of martyrs now enjoy But then the clamors checks of a polluted one will not give us leisure enough to build up an holy resolution for when we have deteined the Truth of God in unrighteousnesse 1 Rom. 81. as the Apostle speaks kept it downe as a Prisoner and not suffered it to worke in us any Thing like unto it self when in the whole course of our life we have kept her Captive under our sensuall Lusts and affections have not hearkened to her voice when she bids us do this but done the contrary when in our ruff and jollity we have thus slighted and baffled her it is not probable that in Time of Danger and Astonishment she should have so much power over us as to winne us and to prevail with us to suffer for her sake but we shall willingly nay hastily throw her off and renounce her when to part with her is to escape the evill that we most feare and avoid the blow that is coming towards us for wee shall soon let goe that which wee hold but for fashion sake which we fight against when wee defend it and tread under foot even then when wee exalt it which hath no more credit with us then what our Parents our Education the voice of the People and the multitude of professors have even forc'd upon us If the Truth have no more Power over us if we have no more love for the Truth but this which hath nothing but the name of Love but is indeed the contrary if we blesse it with our Tongue and fight against it with our Lusts at once embrace and stifle it then those sensuall Lusts which in time of Peace did deteine and keep it under will be the same and shew themselves againe in Time of Persecution and be as forcible to deterre us from those Evills which are so but in shew and appearance as they were before to plunge us in those of sin which were true and reall If we love not the truth we are Ismaels and not Isaacs Every uncleane Beast is not fitt to make a Sacrifice nor the hairy scalp of him that goes on in his sinnes fitt for the Crowne of Martyrdome for how shall hee who drawes out his life in Open Hostility to Christ and trifles with him and contemnes him all his Dayes suffer or die for him before Repentance and Reconciliation which is indeed in the very Act of Hostility shall wee seek for Heaven in Hell or shall wee seek for witnesses to the Truth amongst a Generation of Vipers Can he who all his life long hath cast Christs words behind him seale to them with his blood that they are true Can the Conscience so beaten so wasted so overwhelm'd with the Habits of sinne upon the sudden take in and entertaine a Feare of so little a sinne as the denyall of one Truth is in respect of all Can Ismael in the twinkling of an Eye bee made an Isaac I will not say It is Impossible but it carries but little shew of probabilitie and if it be ever done it is not to be brought in censum ordinariorum nor falls out in the Ordinary course that is set and is to bee lookt upon as a Miracle which is not wrought every day but at certain times and upon some important occasion and to some especial end for it is very rare and unusual that conscience should be quiet and silent so long and then on the sudden be as the mighty voice of God That it should lie hid so long and then come forth and work a miracle drive us to the confession of some one truth which had no power to hold us from polluting our selves with so many sins Keep faith 1 Tim. 1.19 saith Saint Paul and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made ship-wrack for so neer an alliance there is between faith and a good conscience that we must either keep them both or lose them both faith being as Saint Paul intimates as the ship and an undefiled conscience as the rudder if you strike off the rudder or let it go the Ship will soon dash upon the rocks and faith will be lost in the waves
world pleaseth us we are as willing to please the world and we make it our stage and Act our parts wee call our selves Friends and are but Parasites wee call our selves Prophets and are but Wizards and Juglers wee call our selves Apostles and are Seducers wee call our selves Brethren though it be in Evill and like Democritus his Twinns wee live and dye together wee flatter and are flattered wee are blind and leaders of the Blind and fall together with them into the Ditch and bring our Burden after us we please men to please our selves lull them into a pleasant Dreame and our Damnation sleepeth not You see now what it is to please men and from whence it proceeds from whence it springs even from that bitter root the root of all evill the Love of the World Let us now Behold that huge Distance and Inconsistency which is between these two The pleasing of men and the service of Christ Jf I yet please men I am not the servant of Christ I am thy Servant Hil. in Loc. saith David Psal 119. Grant me understanding to know what it is to be thy Servant Latet sub familiaribus verbis maxima Fidei conscientiae professio saith Hilary By this familiar word of Servant we bind our Faith and Conscience to the will and command to the beck of him we serve The servant of Christ It is a title too great too high an Honor for mortall man too high for an Emperour for an Apostle for an Angel for a Seraphim but since he is pleased to give it we are bound to make it Good That every Action and motion every thought of ours may be to him That whether we live we may live unto him whether we die wee may die unto him That whatsoever wee doe we may be the Lords And first wee cannot do both not serve men and Christ no more then you can draw the same streight line to two points to touch them both you cannot saith Christ serve God and Mammon One Master may have many servants but one servant cannot have many Masters Imperium dividi potest Amor non potest Power and command may stretch and spread and divide it self to many but Love and Observance cannot be carryed and levell'd but on one nor can the mind saith Quintilian seriously Intend many things at once Quocunque respexerit desinit intueri quod propositum fuerat to whatsoever it turnes it self it turnes from that which it first lookt upon and loseth one Engagement in another because it cannot fitt and apply it self to both How then can one and the same man bestow himself upon Christ and upon the world For it is not with the will and Affections as it is with the Intellectuall facultie The understanding may easily sever one Thing from another and understand them both nay it hath power to abstract and separate Things really the same and consider them in this Difference but it is the property of the will and Affections in unum ferri se in unitatem colligere to collect and unite and make it self one with the Object nor can our Desires be carryed to two contrary Objects at one and the same Time wee may apprehend Christ as righteous and Holy and the World and Riches of it as vanity it self but we cannot at once serve Christ as Just and Holy and love the World and the vanities thereof Our Saviour tells us we shall love the one and hate the other leane to the one and despise the other If it be a love to the one it will be at best but a liking of the other If it a will to the one it will be but a velleity to the other If it be a look on the one it will be but a glance on the other And this liking this velleity This glance are no better then disservice then hatred and Contempt For these proceed from the understanding but my love from my will which is fixed not where I approve but where I choose 'T is easy to say and we say it too often for the Divell is ready to suggest it 'T is true wee set our Affections upon things below but yet so That we doe not omit the Duties of Divine worship we are willing to please men but we doubt not but we may please Christ also we are indeed Time-servers but we are frequent Hearers of his Word we pour Oyle into our Brothers eares but we drop sometimes a Peny into the Treasury Thus we please others and we please our selves we betray others and are our own Parasites but Christ is ready to seale up our lips with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 6.24 No man can serve two Masters So that you see what a weak Foundation that Hope hath which is thus built up upon a Divided love and service it is built in the Aire nay it hath not so sure a Basis it is built upon nothing It is rais'd upon Impossibility Secondly The Servant must have his eye upon his Master and as he sees him doe must doe likewise Now Christ is called Gods Servant Isai 62.10 and he broke through Poverty Disgrace and the Terrors of Death it self that he might doe his Fathers will Omitted no tittle or lota of it but he that would not break a bruised reed shook the Cedars of Libanus pronounced as many woes to the Pharisees as they had sinnes calls Herod Fox plucks off every visor plowes up every Conscience and thus shook the Powers of Hell and Destroy'd the Kingdome of Satan for he came not to do his owne but his Fathers will Look upon his Acts of mercy even them he did not to please men non habent divina adulationem Hil. de Trin. l. 2. saith Hilary His divine works his works of Love and Compassion had Nothing of Flattery in them He did them not as seeking his owne Glory for he had a Quire of Angels to chant his praise he did them not to flatter men for he needed not that which is ours for the world was his and all that therein is Power cannot flatter and Mercy is so intent on its work that it thinks of nothing else to work wonders to please men were the greatest wonder of all And thus should we look upon him and Teach our brethren as he wrought miracles not for prayse which may make us worse not for Riches which may make us poorer then we were but beseech them in Christs stead and in the Person of Christ and speake like him in whose mouth there was neither flattery nor guile speak the Truth though it displease speak the Truth though the Heathen Rage and the People imagine a vaine Thing speake the Truth though for ought we know it may be the last word wee speak speak the Truth though it nayle us to the Crosse where we shall most resemble him with this Title The servant of Christ as his was The King of the Jewes He that takes Nothing but his Name serves
God to remember him in his last Chap. v. 22. he interprets himself and pardon me according to the multitude of thy mercies when the Thief on the Crosse bespeaks Christ to remember him when he came into his kingdome he then beg'd a kingdome Indeed such a benefit deserves to be had in everlasting remembrance for what is a jewell of a rich price in the hands of a foole who hath no heart to receive and keep it what were all the glory of the Starres of the Sun and the Moon which he hath ordained if there were no eye to behold them How can seed be quickned if the womb of the earth receive it not or what a pearl is the Gospel if the heart be not the Cabinet what is Christ if he be not remembred We must then and upon this occasion especially open the register of our soul and enroll Christ there in deep and living characters For the memory is a preserver of that which she receives but then it is not enough for us to behold these glorious Phantasmes and carry them about with us as pretious Antidotes unlesse we bring them ab intestino memoriae ad os cogitationis as Saint Aust speaks from the inward part of the memory to the mouth and stomack of the cogitative faculty which is our spirituall rumination August cont Faust Manich. l. 6. c. 7. our chewing of the cud unlesse we do Colloqui cum fide hold a Colloquie within us and Catechize our faith and enquire whether we remember Christ as we should whether our faith be as strong our hop eas stedfast our charity as fervent as so great love requireth whether it be such a faith and such as hope and so intensive a charity as Christ and his love thus diffused abroad might beget whether Christ be hung up in this gallery of our soule onely as a picture or whether he be a Living Christ and dwelleth in us of a truth For the memory as it is the womb to forme and fashion Christ so it may yield good blood to nourish him and in this sence Plato solus in tanta gentium sylvâ in tanto sapientum prato dearum oblitus recordatus est Tertull de anim c. 24. that of Plato may be true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we learn and are instructed by those notions which were formerly imprinted in our Memory we do conceive and are in travell as Saint Paul speakes with Christ till he be fully formed in us we work him out in Cogitatoria in the Elaboratory of our hearts When we have him in our thoughts and his precepts alwaies before our eyes as in a book which checkes us at every turn and by a frequent Contemplation of them draw our soules out of those encumbrances which many times involve and fetter them when we recollect our mind into it self and fasten it to this rock where it may rest as upon a holy hill from whence it may look down and behold every object in its proper shape look upon an injury as a benefit persecution as a blessing and see life in the face and countenance of death then and not till then we may be said to remember him For can he remember a meek Christ who will be angry without a cause can he remember a poore Christ that makes Mammon his God can he remember the Prince of Peace who is wholly bent to war can he remember Christ who is as ready to betray him as Judas and naile him to the Crosse as Pilat Better he were quite raced out of our memory then that we should thus set him there as a mark to be shot at then to be thus set up to be scorned and reviled and spit upon and Crucified again better never to have known him then to know and put him to shame And therefore if we will remember him we must contemplate him in his own sphere in that site and aspect which he looks upon us deliberare causas expendere well weigh and consider upon what termes and conditions we did first receive him and entertain him in our thoughts and memories and this will drive Christianity home make it enter into the soule and spirit fasten and rivet Christ into us and make him a part of us that his promises and precepts and the virtue of his death and passion may be in our memory as vessels are in a well-ordered family whence upon every occasion we may readily take them out for our use find a defence against every temptation a buckler for evey dart that so the love of Christ may swallow up all reluctancy in us in victory This gives us a true taste and relish of the sweetnesse of those blessings and benefits which we receive in the Sacrament For the sweetnesse of honey saith Basil is not known so well by the Philosophers discourse as by the taste which is a better and surer judge then the most subtile Naturalists no more are the benefits of Christ and his Gospel though uttered by the Tongue of men and Angels in the words which conveigh them as in a heart melted and transformed into the Love of Christ then in the mind of man when it is the same mind which is in Christ Jesus there he is remembred indeed there he is placed not as in the High Priests Hall to be mockt and derided and blasphemed but as in his throne in his heaven where he dispenseth his light his joy his glory such glory as no Eloquence is equall to no language can expresse not Saint Paul himself who was caught up into Paradise and tasted the sweetnesse of it and then tells us no more then this that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the words were unspeakable words words which it was not possible for a man to utter which was in effect 2 Cor. 12.4 to tell us he did feele it but could not tell us what it was and thus to taste him is to remember him And first It takes in our faith I do not meane a dead and unactive faith for that leaves us dead and buried in a land of Oblivion never looking upon Christ or his benefits nor gathering any strength or virtue from him and no more considering this our High Priest then if he had never offered himself never satisfied never been but a faith that worketh by love a faith that followes Christ through every Period and stage and passage of his blessed oeconomy a faith that is a disciple and followes him whithersoever he goes looks upon him in time of prosperity and cloths him in the dayes of affliction forgets them remembring him in injuries and forgives them in death it self and makes him our Resurrection makes us one with him that we cannot think or speak or move that we cannot live nor dye without him Now the time of receiving the Sacrament of the receiving these pledges of his love and these pignora fidei these pledges of our faith is the time of actuating of quickning
with feare and reverence he will remember us and draw neerer to us in these outward elements then superstition can feigne him beyond the fiction of transubstantiation and abundantly satisfy us with the fatnesse of his house feed us though not with his flesh yet with himself and move in us that we may grow up in him In a word He will remember us in heaven more truly then we can remember him on earth and distill his grace and blessings on us be ever with us and fill our hearts with rejoycing which will be a faire pledg of that solid pure and everlasting joy in the Highest Heavens And Lord remember us thus now thou art in thy kingdome HONI â—…T QVI MAL Y PENSE THE NINETEENTH SERMON 1 THES 4.11 And that you study to be quiet and to doe your own businesse and to work with your own hands as we have commanded you THe summe of religion Christianity is to do the will of God and this is the will of God even our Sanctification at the 3. v. of this chapter This is the whole duty of man and we may say of it as the Father doth of the Lords prayer quantum substringitur verbis Tertull. de orat tantum diffunditur sensibus though it be contracted and comprized in a word yet it poures forth it self in a Sea of matter and sense For this holinesse unto which God hath called us is but one virtue but of a large extent and compasse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but one virtue but is divided into many and stands as Queen in the midst of the circle and crown of all the graces and claimes an interest in them all hath patience to wait on her compassion to reach out her hand longanimity to sustain and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this placability of mind and contentation in our own portion and lot to uphold her and keep her in an equall poyse and temper ever like unto her self that we may be holy in our faith and holy in our conversation with men without which though our faith could remove mountains yet we were not holy Tot ramos porrigit tot venas diffundit so rich is the substance of holinesse so many branches doth she reach forth so many veines doth she spread into and indeed all those virtues which commend us to God are as the branches and veins and Holinesse the bloud and juice to make them live I doe not intend to compare them one with the other because all are necessary and the neglect of any one doth frustrate all the rest and the Wise-man hath forbid us to ask Why this is better then that for every one of them in his due time and place is necessary It hath been the great mistake and fault of those who professe Christianity to shrink up its veines and lop off its branches contenting themselves with a partiall holinesse some have placed it in a sigh or sad look and calld it repentance others in the tongue and hand and calld it zeale others in the heart in a good intention and called it piety others have made it verbum adbreviatum a short word indeed and called it faith few have been solicitous and carefull to preserve it in integritate totâ solidâ solid and entire but vaunt and boast themselves as great proficients in Holinesse and yet never study to be quiet have little peace with others yet are at peace with themselves are very religious and very profane are very religious and very turbulent have the tongues of Angels but no hand at all to do their own businesse and to work in their calling And therefore we may observe that the Apostle in every Epistle almost takes paines to give a full and exact enumeration of every duty of our lives that the man of God may be perfect to every good work teacheth us not onely those domesticke and immanent vertues if I may so call them which are advantageous to our selves alone as faith and hope and the like which justifie that person onely in whom they dwell but emanant publick and omiliticall vertues of common conversation which are for the edification and good of others as patience meeknesse liberality and love of quietnesse and peace my faith saves none but my self my hope cannot raise my brother from despaire yet my faith is holy Jude 20. saith Saint Jude and my hope is a branch and vein of holinesse and issues from it But my patience my meeknesse my bounty my love and study of quietnesse and peace sibi parciores foris totae sunt Ambros exercise their act and empty themselves on others these link and unite men together in the bond of love in which they are one and move together as one build up one anothers faith cherish one anothers hope pardon one anothers injuries beare one anothers burden and so in this bond in this mutuall reciprocall discharge of all the duties and offices of holinesse are carried together to the same place of rest So that to holinesse of life more is required then to believe or hope or poure forth our soules or rather our words before God t is true this is the will of God but we must go farther even to perfection and love the brethren and study to be quiet for this also is the will of God and our Sanctification What is a sigh if my murmuring drown it what is my devotion if my impatience disturb it what is my faith if my malice make me worse then an infidell what are my prayers if the spirit of unquietnesse scatter them will we indeed please God and walk as we ought we must then as S. Peter exhorts adde to our faith virtue to our virtue knowledge to knowledge patience to patience brotherly kindnesse and to brotherly kindnesse love 2 Pet. 1.5.6 v. or as Saint Paul here commands not onely abstain from fornication from those vices which the worst of men are ready to fling a stone at but those gallant and heroick vices which shew themselves openly before the Sun and the people who look favourably and friendly on them and cry them up for zeale and religion even from all animosity and turbulent behaviour we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must study to be quiet and be ambitious of it Thus our Apostle bespeaks the Thessalonians we beseech you brethren that you increase more and more and in the words of my text that you study to be quiet and do your own businesse and work with your own hands as we have commanded you In which words first a duty is proposed study to be quiet 2 ly the meanes promoting this duty are prescribed or causae producentes and conservantes the causes which bring it forward and hold it up laid down the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to do our own businesse the 2. to work with our own hands the first shuts out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all pragmaticall curiosity and stretching beyond our line
Caligula did upon the moone Suet. Caligula when she was full and bright and wonder she doth not fall down out of her orb and hasten to our embraces and so we may be deceived as he was and it may never come No 't is most true grace is sufficient for us and 't is as true grace is not sufficient for us unlesse we cherish it quietnesse is the gift of God but it is a conditionall gift which exacts something from him who must receive it if we will be quiet we must study to be so that is earnestly and unfeignedly desire it and the earnest desire of any practicall virtue is the study of it when the heart is prepared the will made conformable then are we perfect Scholars in this art of conversation And to this end we must first make it our meditation day and night and fill our minds with it and this is like the conning of a part which we are to act and will make us ready to performe it with a grace and decorum and so receive a plaudite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Rhet. 3. x. an Euge from him who is our peace For Meditation is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a kind of augmentation and enlargement of the object we look upon and by our continuall survey of the beauty of it by fixing our thoughts upon it and by renewing that heat and fervour in us by thinking of it and an assiduous reviving and strengthning those thoughts we make it more visible more cleare more applyable then before make that which written is but a dead letter or spoken but a sound as the voyce of God himself of force and energie to quicken and enliven us It is like to those Prospectives which this later Age hath found out by which we discover Stars which were never seen and in the brightest of them find spots which were never discerned We see the glory of tranquillity and the good it brings to our selves and others what a heaven there is in love and peace and what a hell and confusion in Anger and debate We find out the plague of our hearts the Leprosie of our soules which before appeared as a spot as nothing and this helpe we have by Meditation For though it be most seene as the Pilots skill is cùm stridunt funes gemunt gubernacula in a rough and well-wrought Sea in times of trouble and distraction yet our study and desire of it wants no opportunity of time or place inter medios rerum actus invenit aliquid vacui in the midst of our businesse and imployments finds leasure and makes its closet in the very streets Every day every houre of our life we may contemplate it and prepare our selves to be at peace with all men That when the tempest doth arise which may disquiet us and throw us from our station we may be ready and able if not to be calme and slumber it yet to becalme our selves and stand as quiet and upright as if no wind did blow As the young man in Xenophon did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercise his limbs and fingers at home and framed them to that gesture and elegancy of motion which might win the favour and commendations of those who beheld him abroad so may we enter into our closet and be still tell our selves what a blessing it is to be our selves what a divine thing it is not to be moved how like to God we are when we see distastfull objects and are not changed how meritorious and heroick a thing it is to save our selves in the midst of a froward generation thus prepare and fix our hearts think that God may lay us as he did Job in the dunghill and resolve to be patient that I may live amongst perverse and froward men and be ready to addulce and sweeten them amongst those whose teeth are arrowes and hold up our buckler that the heathen may rage and tumultuously assemble and comfort our selves that God shall have them in derision that we may live in the midst of the enemies of peace and provide to keep it suppose that such a Lion as Nero or some worse beast should rore amongst us commune with our selves and be still and fly to no other Sanctuary then our teares and our prayers And therefore in the next place we must not onely meditate and contemplate it but upon all occasions put it in practice for meditation may be but the motion and circulation of the fancy the businesse or rather the idlenesse of such men who send their thoughts abroad as boyes throw smooth stones upon the surface of the water which are lost in the making which look and gaze on virtue and then fly aloft in the contemplation of it but like those birds of prey which first towre in the Aire and then stoop at carrion We must therefore second our meditation and ratifie and make it good by practise faciendo discere con it more perfectly by being not moved at the incursion of any evil learne to passe by a petty injury that we be not cast down with a greater not to be envious against evil doers that we may be lesse troubled at what they do not to repine at the prosperity of evil men that we may not be too far exalted with our own by accustoming our selves to the suffering of this or that evil proceed and grow up to that composednesse that we may endure all to learn with a foile that we may fight with a sword as Demosthenes used to repeat his Orations on the beach that having stood the roaring of the Sea he might be the lesse troubled at the noise and insolencie of the people in the Pleading-place And this study is no easie study for dedocendi priùs quà m docendi we must unlearne many things before we can be taught this we must abandon our former principles out of which we drew so many dangerous conclusions before we can make any progresse in this divine science we must pull down our former desires before we can raise up new In a word we must empty our selves before we can be quiet And first we must cast out self-love I meane we must not love our selves so irregularly so ridiculously so perniciously so mortally as we do for there is no adamant no milstone more unyielding to the stroke of the hammer then the heart of man when once it is possest with the love of it self then every thing that flyes crosses us troubles us every apparition is a monster every man is our enemy every look is a threat every word is a sword every whisper is thunder he that thus loves himself cannot long be quiet with any man Our blessed Apostle where he tells us that in those perillous times which were to come 2 Tim. 3. there should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lovers of themselves that is blind to themselves ignorant of themselves he brings in a train after them an Iliad of many evills
duty and performance By Jesus Christ there is our seale to make good and sure our acceptance Chrysostome besides that great Sacrifice of the Crosse hath found out many more Chrysost in Ps 5â— Martyrdome Prayer Justice Almes Praise Compunction and Humility and he brings into the preaching of the World which all make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil ep 87. saith Basil a most magnificent and precious sacrifice We need not cull out any more then these in the Text for in offering up these we shall find the true nature and reason of a Sacrifice observed For to make any thing a true Sacrifice there must be a plain and expressed change of the thing that is offered It was a Bull or a Ram but it is set apart and consecrate to God and it is a Sacrifice and must be slain And this is remarkable in all these in which though no Death befall us as in the Beast offered in Sacrifice but that Death which is our Life our death to sin yet a change there is which being made to the honour of Gods Majesty is very pleasing and acceptable in his sight When we doe justly we have slain the Beast the worst part of us our love of the world our filthy lusts our covetousnesse and ambition which are the life and soul of fraud and violence and oppression by which they live and move and have their being When we offer up our Goods there is a change For how strong is our affection to them how do we adore them as Gods are they not in common esteeme as our life and blood and do we not as willingly part with our breath as with our wealth Now he that doth good and distribute he that scatters his wealth poures forth his very blood binds the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the Altar le ts out all worldly desires with his wealth and hath slain that sacrifice saith Saint Paul with which God is well pleased And last of all Humility wasts and consumes us to nothing makes us an Holocaust a whole burnt-offering Nothing in our selves nothing in respect of God and in htis our Exinanition exalts all the graces of God in us fills us with life and glory with high apprehensions with lively anticipations of that which is not seen but laid up for us in the Treasuries of heaven These are the Good mans sacrifice and they naturally flow from this Good which is here shewed in the Text and are the parts of it These were from the beginning and shall never be abolisht and if we offer up these we shall never be questioned nor askt will God be pleased with these for he is pleased onely with these and for these with whatsoever we offer and he will love us for them and accept us in him who to sanctifie and present these offered himself an offering a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour even Jesus Christ the righteous who is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedeck Thus have we taken a view of this Good which is shewen in the Text as it stands in opposition with the Sacrifices of the Law and outward formality and now the vail is drawn we shall present it in its full beauty and perfection in our next HONI â—…T QVI MAL Y PENSE The Two and Twentieth SERMON PART II. MICAH 6.8 He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to doe justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God WE have shewed you That Piety is termed Good in it self in opposition to Sacrifice and the ceremonies of the law which were but ex instituto for some reasons instituted and ordained but in themselves were neither Good nor Evil. We might now take a view of this Good as it stands in opposition to the things of this world which either our Luxury or Pride or Covetousnesse have raised in their esteeme and above their worth and called Good as the heathens consecrated their affections their diseases their very vices and placed them in the number of their Gods For Good is that which all desire which all bowe and stoop to but yet it hath as severall shapes as there be opinions and constitutions of men and all the mistake is in our choice that we set up something to look upon which is not worth a glance of our eye That we call Evil Good and that Good which is neither evil nor good but may make us so Good if we use it well and Evil if we abuse it Non est bonum quo uti malè possis and that cannot be truely and in it self good Sence ep 20. which we may use to an evil end saith Seneca that we propose to our selves objects which are attended with danger and very often with horror and give to them this glorious title paint out of our selves some deformed strumpet and call her a goddessE and kisse the lips of that which wil bite like a Cockatrice Good we desire and when our desires have run to that which we set up for good we meet with nothing but evil which shewes not it self till it be felt we hoyse up our sailes and make towards it and are swallowed up in that Sea as Austin calls it of the good things of this world which we thought mighty carry us to the end of our hope we take it for bread and in our mouth 't is gravell we took it for pleasure and when we tasted it it was gall we hunt after riches as Good and they begger us climb to honour and that breaks our neck and though we swallow down these good things as the Oxe doth water yet we are never full Saint Hilary in his comments on the first Psalme having observed that some there were who drew down all their interpretations of that book respectively to spirituall things and God himself because they thought it some disparagement to that book that terrene and secular matter should so often interline it self yet passeth on them no heavier censure then this haec corum opinio argui non potest c. We need not be so severe as to condemn this opinion of theirs because it proceeds from a mind piously and Religiously affected and it is a thing which deserves rather commendation then blame by a favourable endeavour to strive to apply all things to him by whom all things were made For these things are not Good but onely go under this deputative and borrowed title The world hath cryed them up but the scripture hath no such name for them it is Good to praise the Lord nay 't is Good to be afflicted this we read but where do we read It is good to be rich It is good to be honorable It is good to go in purple and fare deliciously every day we find many curses and woes sent after them but we never find them graced with the title of good Thou hast received thy good things faith Abraham to
shewed thee O man what is good and wilt thou not believe him fath is the substance of things not seen and though they be not seen yet they are evident the Meanes evident and the End as evident as the Meanes In our sad and sober thoughts when we talk like speculative men as evident as what is open to the eye But such an evidence we have which a covetous man would soon lay hold on for a title to a faire inheritance and the ambitious for an assignment of some great place for if such a record had been transmitted to posterity if the Scripture which conveighs this Good had entailed some rich Mannor or Lordship upon them it should have then found an easie belief and been Gospel a sure word of prophecy unquestionable undoubtable like the decrees of the Medes and Persians which must stand fast for ever and cannot be altered for too many there be who had rather have their names in a good leaf then in the book of life and this is the reason why we are so ignorant of that which is good indeed and so great clerks in that which is calted good but by the worst why we are so dull and indocile in apprehending that wisdome which is from above and so wise and witty to our own damnation why we do but darkly see this Good which is so plainly shewed unto us What shall we say then nay what saith the Scripture Awake thou that sleepest in sloth and idlenesse thou that sleepest in a tempest in the midst of thy unruly and turbulent passions arise from the grave and sepulchre wherein thy sloth hath intomb'd thee arise from the dead from that nasty charnel-house of rotten bones where so many vitious habits have shut thee up break up thy monument cast aside every weight and every sinne that presseth down and rise up and be but a man improve thy reason to thy best advantage and this Good shall shine upon thee with all its beames and brightnesse and Christ shall give thee light if not to see things to come to satisfy thy curiosity yet to see things to come which shall fill thy soul as with marrow and fatnesse if not to know the uncertain yet certain wayes of Gods providence yet to know the certain and infallible way to blisse if not to know things too high for thee yet to know that which shall exalt thee to heavenly places in Christ Jesus He hath shewn thee O man what is Good doest thou see it doest thou believe it thou shalt see greater things then these thou shalt see what thou doest believe enjoy what thou doest but hope for thou shalt see God who hath shewed thee this Good that thou mightest see him thou shalt then have a more exact knowledg of his wayes and providence a fuller taste of his love and goodnesse a clearer sight of his beauty and majesty and with all his Angels and all his Saints behold his glory for evermore Thus much of this Good as it is an object to be lookt on we shall in the next place consider it as a Law Quid requirit what doth the Lord require HONI â—…T QVI MAL Y PENSE The Three and Twentieth SERMON PART III. MICAH 6.8 He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to doe justly c. HE hath shewed thee O man what is good what it is thou wert made for even that which is fitted and proportioned to thy soul that which is lovely and amiable and so a fit object to look on that which will fill and satisfy the soul and turn the greatest evil the world can lay as a stone of offence in our way into good and raise it self upon it to its highest pitch of glory and this he hath made plain and manifest drawn out in so visible a character that thou mayest run and read it And thus far we have already brought you We must yet lead you further even to the foot of mount Sinai what doth the Lord require of thee which is as the publication of it and making it a law For with the thunder and the lightning and the sound of the Trumpet and the voice of words this voice was heard I am the Lord. Thus saith the Lord It is the Prophets Warrant or Commission I the Lord have spoken it is a seal to the Law By this every word shall stand by this every Law is of force It is a word of power and command and authority for he that can doe what he will may also require what he will in heaven or in earth So then If he be the Lord he may require it and in this one word in this Monosyllable all power in heaven and in earth is contained For in calling him Lord he assignes unto him an absolute will which must be the rule of our will and of all the actions which are the effects and works of our will and issue from it as from their first principle and mover And this his will is attended 1. with Power 2. with Wisdome 3. with Love 1. By his power he made us 2. he protects and preserves us and from this issues his legislative power 3. as by his Wisdome he made us so by the same wisdome he gives us such a Law which shall sweetly and certainly lead us to that End for which he made us And last of all his Love it is to the work of his own hands thus to lead us And all these are shut up in this one word Lord. And let us view and consider these and so look upon them as to draw down their influence and vertue into our souls which may work that obedience in us which this Lord requires and will reward And 1. Quid requirit Dominus what doth the Lord require It is the Lord requires it and I need not trouble you with a recitall of those places of Scripture where God is called the Lord. For if the Scripture be as the Heaven this is a Star of the greatest magnitude and spreads its beams of Majesty and power in the eyes of all men and to require is the very form of a Law I will I require if power speak It is a law It will be more apposite and agreeable to our purpose that we may the more willingly embrace and entertain this Good which is publisht as a law to look upon this word Lord as it expresses the Majesty and greatnesse of God for he is therefore said to be the Lord because he is omnipotent and can do all things that he will He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzen a vast and boundlesse Ocean of essence and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a boundlesse and infinite sea of power Take the highest pitch of Dominion and Lordship that our imagination can reach yet it falls short of his who is Lord of Lords to whom all earthly Majesty must vaile and at whose feet all Princes lay down their Crowns
fitted to times of peace and fitted to times of tumult establisht and mighty against all occurrences all alterations all mutations whatsoever There is no time wherein a man may not be just and honest wherein he may not be merciful and compassionate wherein he may not be humble and sincere A Tyrant may strip me of my possessions but he cannot take from me my honesty he may leave me nothing to give but he cannot sequester my compassion he may lay me in my Grave but my Humility will raise me up as high as Heaven The great Prince of the Aire and all his Legions of Devils or men cannot pull us back or stop us in the course of our obedience to the Will and Law of God but we may continue it and carry it along through honour and dishonour through good report and evil report through all the terrors and affrightments which Men or Devils can place in our way What he requires he required and it may be done yesterday and to day and to the endof the world And as his Wisdome is seen in giving Lawes so it is in fitting the Means to the End in giving them that virtue and force to draw us to a neerer vision and sight of God whose wisdome reacheth from one end to another mightily and doth sweetly order all things Wisd 8.1 For which way can frail Man come to see his God but by being like him what can draw him neere to his pure Essence but simplicity and purity of spirit what can carry us to the God of love but Charity what can lead him into the Courts of Righteousnesse but Justice what can move a God of tender mercies but Compassion For certainly God will never look down from his Mercy-seat on them that have no Bowells In a word What can make us wise but that which is good Those virtues Temperance Justice and Liberality which are called the Labours of wisdome Wisd 8.8 what can bring us into Heaven but this full Taste of the powers of the world to come so that there is some Truth in that of Gerson Gloria est gratia consummata Glory is nothing else but Grace made perfect and consummate For though we cannot thus draw Grace and Glory together as to make them one and the same thing but must put a difference between the Meanes and the End yet Wisdome it self hath written it down in an indelible character and in the leaves of eternity That there is no other key but this Good in the Text to open the Gates of the Kingdome of Heaven and he that brings this along with him shall certainly enter Heaven and Glory is a thing of another world but yet it begins here in this and Grace is made perfect in Glory And therefore in the last place his Absolute will is not onely attended with Power and Wisdome but with Love and these are the Glories of his Will He can do what he will and he will do it by the most proper and fittest meanes and whatsoever he requires is the Dictate of his Love When he sent his Son the best Master and wisest Lawgiver that ever was on whose shoulders the Government was laid he was usher'd in with a Sic dilexit so God loved the world Iohn â— and his love seems to have the preeminence and to do more then his power which can but annihilate us but his love if we embrace it will change our soules and Angelifie them and change our bodies and spiritualize them and endow us with the will and so with the power of God make us differ as much from our selves as if we were not Annihilated which his power can do but which is more made something else something better something neerer to God which is that mighty Thing which his Love brings to passe We may imagine that a Law is a meer indication of power that it proceeds from Rigor and Severity that there is nothing commanded nothing required but there is Smoke and Thunder and Lightning but indeed every Law of God is the Naturall and proper effect and Issue of his Love from his power 't is true but his power mannaged and shewn in Wisdome and Love For he made us to this End and to this End he requires something of us not out of any Indigency as if he wanted our Company and Service for he was as Happy before the Creation as after but to have some object for his Love and Goodnesse to work upon to have an Exceptory and vessel for the dew of Heaven to fall into as the Jews were wont to say Propter Messiam mundum fuisse conditum That the world and all mankind were made for the Messias whose businesse was to preach the Law which his Father said unto him Psal 2.7 and to declare his will And in this Consists the perfection and Beauty of Man for the perfection of Every Thing is its drawing neere to its first principle and Originall and the neerer and liker a thing is to the first cause that produced it the more perfect it is as the Heat is most perfect which is most intense and hath most of the Fire in it And Man the more he partakes of that which is Truly Good of the Divine Nature of which his soul is as it were a sparkle the more perfect he is because this was the onely End for which God made him This was the End of all his Lawes that he might find just Cause to do him Good That man might draw neere to him here by Obedience and Conformity to his will and in the world to come reign with him for ever in Glory And as it is the perfection so is it the Beauty of a man for as there is the Beauty of the Lord Psal 27.4 so is there the beauty of the subject The Beauty of the Lord is to have will and power and Jurisdiction to have power and wisdome to command and to command in love So is it the beauty of a man to bowe and submit and conforme to the will of the Lord for what a deformed spectacle is a Man without God in this world which hath power and wisdome and love to beautifie it Beauty is nothing else but a result from perfection the beauty of the Body proceeding from the symmetrie and due proportion of parts and the beauty of the Soule from the consonancy of the will and affections to the will and law of God Oh how beautifull are those feet which walk in the wayes of life how beautifull and glorious shall he be who walks in love as God loved him who rests on his power and walks by his wisdome and placeth himself under the shadow of his love And thus much the substance of these words afford us What doth the Lord require Let us now cast an eye upon them in the Forme and Habit in which they are presented and consider the manner of proposing them and the Prophet proposeth it by way of Interrogation And as he ask'd
one and the same and therefore to rise upon another mans ruines to enrich our selves by fraud and deceit is as much against nature saith Tully as poverty which pincheth it or grief which afflicts it or death which dissolves it for poverty may strip the body Ibid. grief may trouble it and death may strike it to the ground but yet they have a soul but injustice is its destruction and leaves a dead soul in a living body For as we have already shewn man is naturally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sociable creature but violence and deceit quite destroy all Society and Lully gives the same reason in his Offices which Saint Paul doth against Schisme in his Epistles 1 Cor. 12. If one member suffer all the members suffer with it and therefore the intent and purpose of all must be saith the Orator ut eadem sit utilitas uniuscujusque singulorum that the benefit of one and every man may be the same so that what deceit hath purloyned of stollen away or violence snatcht from others is not Profit because it is not honest Res surtiva quousque redierit in Comini potestatem perpetuò vitiosa est and the Civilians will tell us that that which is unjustly detained is not valuable is of no worth till it return to the hands of the lawfull proprietary Again in the second place Justice and Honesty are more agreeable to the nature of men then Profit or4 Pleasure For these reason it self hath taught us to contemne and he most enjoys himself who desires not pleasure and he is the richest man who can be poore and we are never more men then when we lest regard them but if we forfeit our integrity and pervert the course of Justice we have left our selves nothing but the name of men Si quod absit spes foelicitatis nulla saith Saint Austin If we had no eye to eternity nor hope of future happinesse Tull. Off. 3. Si omnes Deos hominesque celare possimus saith Tully if we could make darknesse a pavilion round about us and lye skreend and hid from the eyes of God and man yet a necessity would lye upon us to be what we are made to observe the lessons and dictates of nature saith one Nihil injustè faciendum saith the other nothingmust be done unjustly though God had no eye to see it nor hand to punish it and this doctrine is current both at Athens and Jerusalem both in the Philosophers School and in the Church of God To give you yet another reason but yet of neere alliance to the first whatsoever we do or resolve upon must habere suas causas as Arnobius speaks must be commended by that cause which produceth it now what cause can move us to desire that which is not ours what cause can the oppressor shew that he grinds the face of the poore the theef that he divides the spoile The deceitfull tradesman that he hath false weights Pondus pondus a weight and a weight a weight to buy with and a weight sell with If you ask them what cause they will eitherlye and deny it or put their hand upon their mouth and be ashamed to answer here their wit will faile them which was so quick and active to bring that about for which they had no reason it may be the cause was an unnecessary feare of poverty as if it were a greater sin then cosenage It may be the love of their children saepe ad avaritiam cor parentis illicit Foecunditas prolis Gregan 1 Iob c. 4. saith Gregory many children are as many temptations and we are soon overcome and yield willing to be evil that they may be rich and calling it the duty of a Parent when we feed and cloth them with our sinne or indeed it is the love of the world and a desire to hold up our heads with the best which are no causes but defects and sinnes the blemishes and deformities of a soul transformed after the image of this world These are but sophismes and delusions and of no causality For ti 's better I were poore then fraudulent better that my children should be naked then my soul better want then be unjust better be in the lowest place then to swim in blood to the highest better be drove out of the world then shut out of heaven It is no sinne to be poor no sinne to be in dishonor no sinne to be on a dunghill or in a prison it is no sinne to be a slave but it is a sinne and a great sinne to rise out of my place or either flatter or shoulder my neighbour out of his and to take his roome It is no sin to be miserable in the highest degree but it is a sinne to be unjust or dishonest in the least Iniquity and injustice have nothing of reason to countenance them and therefore must run and shelter themselves in that thicket of excuses must pretend want and poverty and necessity and so the object of my concupiscence must Authorize my concupiscence and the wedg of gold warrant my theft and to gain something is my strongest argument to gain it unjustly Ibid. And therefore Tully saith well If any man will bring in and urge these for causes argue not against him nor vouchsafe him so much as a reply omnino enim hominem ex homine tollit for he hath most unnaturally divided man from himself and left nothing but the beast Nature it self our first School-mistris loaths and detests it nor will it suffer us by any means to add to our own by any defalkation from that which is anothers and such is the equity of this position that the Civil Law alwaies appeales unto it videtur dolum malum facere qui ex aliena jactura lucrum querit He is guilty of cosenage and fraud who seeks advantage by another mans losse where by Dolus malus is understood whatsoever is repugnant to the Law of nature or equity For with the beames of this Law as with the beames of the Sun were all Humane Laws written which whip idlenesse which pin the Papers of Ignominy the best hatchments of a knave in the hat of the common barretter which break the teeth of the oppressor and turn the bread of the deceitfull into Gall upon this Basis this principle of nature whatsoever you would that men should do unto you even so do unto them hang all the Law and the Prophets For the rule of behaviour which our Saviour set up is taken out of the Treasury of nature and for this is the Law and the Prophets Matth. 7.2 that is upon this Law of nature depend the Law and the Prophets or by the due and strict observing of this the Law is fulfilled as Saint Paul speaks Rom. 13.8 or this is the summe of all which the Law and the Prophets have taught to wit concerning Justice and Honesty and those mutuall offices All. Lamprid. and duties of
not in it and do but talk on 't Math. 6.23 The light that is in them is darker then darknesse it self their judgment is corrupt their will is averse and looks another way from the Region of light Without faith 't is impossible to please God It is true but without Justice and Honesty faith is but a name for can we imagin that Religion should turn Theef and Devotion a Cutpurse To conclude then That you may do justly and walk honestly as in the day consider injustice oppression and deceit in their true shape and proportion and not dawbed over with untempered morter not disguised with the pleasures and riches of the world not vailed and drest up with pretences and Names which make them lovely and make them worse consider well and weigh the danger of them and from what they proceed For first If we would find out the fountain from whence they flow we shall find it is nothing else but a strange distrust in God and a violent love of the world a distrust in that God who is so far from leaving man destitute of that which is convenient for him that he feeds the young Ravens that call upon him For if the windows of heaven do not open at our call if riches increase not to fill our vast desires we murmure and repine and even chide the Providence of God and by foul and indirect meanes pursue that which would not fall into our mouths As aul in the book of Kings Acheronta movemus when God will not answer we ask counsel of the devil Secondly we may think perhaps that they are the effects of Power and Wisdome the works of men who beare a brain with the best that they are the glorious victories of our wit and Trophies of our Power but indeed they are the infallible Arguments of weaknesse and impotency and as the devils marks upon us Non est vera magnitudo pesse nocere It is not true power nor true greatnesse to be able to injure our brethren It is not true wisdome to be cunning artists in evil and to do that in the dark which may be done with more certainty and Honour in the light and to raise up that with a lye which will rise higher and stand longer with the truth That power more emulates the power of God by which we can do good That comes neerer by which we will nor can we attribute wisdome to the fraudulent but that which we may give to a Jugler or a Pick-purse or indeed to the Devil himself And commonly these scarabees are bred in the dung of Lazinesse and Luxury and their crafty insinuating their subtle sliding into other mens estate had its rise and beginning from an indisposition and inability to manage their own He that can bring no demonstration must play the Sophister and if the body will not do then he that will be rich saith Nevisanus the Lawyer must venture his soul Lastly weigh the danger of it for though the bread of deceit have a pleasant taste and goes down glibly yet passing to thee through so foul a chanel as fraud or oppression it will fill thee with the gall of Asps The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them saith Solomon Prov. 21.7 shall fall upon them like that talent of lead and fall upon the mouth of their Ephah and lye heavy upon it Serrabit eos as it is rendred by others shall teare their conscience as with a saw exossabit as others shall consume them to the very bones and break them as upon a wheele or as others Rapina eorum diversabitur That which is got unjustly shall not stay long with them It may give them a salutation a complement peregrinabitur like a traveller on the way it may lodge with them for a night but dwell longer as with a friend it will not but take the wing and fly away from these unjust usurpers never at rest but in those hands which are washt in innocency and in that mouth which knows no guile will dwell with none but those that do justly To conclude Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who doth that which is evil and unjust to the oppressor and deceiver to the man that boasteth himself in his power and to the man that blesseth himself in his craft to the proud Hypocrite and the demure Politician but to those that do justly that are as God is just in all their waies and righteous in all their dealings that walk holily before God and Justly with men shall be Glory and Honour and peace and immortality and eternall life Thus much of Justice and Honesty the next is the Love of Mercy but c. HONI â—…T QVI MAL Y PENSE The Five and Twentieth SERMON PART V. MICAH 6.8 He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to doe justly to love mercy c. WE have laid hold of one branch of this tree of life and beheld what fruit it bare we must now see what we can gather from the second Mercy or Liberality which grows upon the same stock and is watered with the same dew from heaven and brings forth fruit meet for repentance and answerable to our Heavenly calling whether you take it in actu elicito or in actu imperato whether you take it in the habit or in the Act which is misericordia eliquata that which runs from it in the melting as it were the love of mercy includes both both a sweet and heavenly disposition a rich treasurie of goodnesse full and ready to empty it self and those severall acts which are drawn out of it or rather which it commands And here though miracles be ceased yet by the blessing of a God of mercy it retains a miraculous power it heales the sick binds up the wounded raises the poor out of the dust and in a manner raises the dead to life again upholds the drooping and the fainting spirit which is ready to faile intercedes and fights against the cruelty of persecutors fills up the breaches which they make raises up that which they ruine clothes the naked whom they have stripped builds up what they have pulled down and is as a quickning power a resurrection to those whom the hand of wickednesse and injustice hath laid low and even buried in the dust A branch it is which shadows and refresheth all those who are diminished and brought low by oppression evil and sorrow And these too Justice and Mercy are neighbouring branches so enwrapped and entwined one within the other that you cannot sever them For where there is no Justice there can be no mercy and where there is no Mercy there Justice is but Gall and wormwood and therefore in the Scripture they go hand in hand unto the upright man there ariseth light in darknesse he is gracious and full of compassion and righteous Psal 112.4 There is an eye of Justice a single and upright eye as well as
an eye of mercy There is an eye that looks right on Proverb 4.25 and there is a bountifull eye Prov. 22.9 and if you shut but one of them you are in darknesse he that hath an evil eye to strip his brother can never see to clothe him he whose feet are swift to shed blood will be but a cripple when he is called to the house of mourning and if his bowels be shut up his hand will be soon stretcht out to beat his fellow-servants Ps 147.1 It becometh the just to be thankfull In their mouth praise is comely it is a song 't is musick and it becometh the Just to be mercifull and liberall out of their heart mercy flows kindly streames forth like the River out of Eden to water the dry places of the earth there you shall find gold and good gold Bdellium and the Oynx stone all that is precious in the sight of God and man But the heart of an unjust man is as a rock on which you may strike and strike again but no water will flow out but instead thereof gall and worm-wood blood and fire and the vapour of smoke Ioel 2.30 Prov. 12.10 The tender mercies the bowels of the wicked are cruel their kisses are wounds their favours reproches their Indulgences Anathema's their bread is full of gravell and their water tainted with blood If their craft or power take all and their seeming mercy their hypocrisie put back a part that part is nothing or but trouble and vexation of spirit Thus do these two branches grow and flourish and bring forth fruit and thus do they wither and dye together And here we have a faire and a full vintage for indeed mercy is as the vine which yeeldeth wine to cheere the hearts of men hath nothing of the Bramble nothing of the fire nothing that can devour it yeeldeth much fruit but we cannot stand to gather all I might spread before you the rich mantle of mercy and display each particular beauty and glory of it but it will suffice to set it up as the object of our Love for as Misery is the object of our Mercy so is Mercy the object of our Love And we may observe it is not here to doe mercifully as before to doe justly and yet if we love not Justice we cannot doe it but in expresse termes the Lord requires that we love mercy that is that we put it on weare it as a robe of Glory delight in it make it as God doth make it his our chiefest attribute to exalt and superexaltate to make it triumph over Justice it self For Justice and Honesty gives every man his owne but Mercy opens those Treasuries which Justice might lock up and takes from us that which is legally ours makes others gatherers with us partakers of our basket and brings them under our own vine and fig-tree Et haec est victoria this is the victory and triumph of Mercy Let us then draw the lines by which we are to passe and we shall first shew you Mercy in the fruit it yeelds secondly in its root First in its proper act or motion casting bread upon the waters and raising the poore out of the dust Secondly in the forme which produceth this act or the principle of this motion which is the habit the affection the love of mercy for so we are commanded not onely to shew forth our mercy but to love it for what doth the Lord require but to love mercy c. We begin with the first and the proper act of mercy is to flow to spend it self and yet not be spent to relieve our brethren in misery and in all the degrees that lead to it necessities impotencies distresses dangers defects This is it which the Lord requires And howsoever flesh and blood may be ready to perswade us that we are left at large to our own wills and may do what we will with our own yet if we consult with the Oracle of God we shall find that these reciprocall offices of mercy which passe between man and man are a debt That we are bound as much to do good to others as not to injure them to supply their wants as not to rob them to reach forth a hand to help them as not to smite them with the fist of wickednesse and though my hundred measures of wheat be my own and I may demand them yet there is a voice from heaven and from the mercy-seat which bids me take the bill and sit down quickly and write fifty Do we shut up our bowels and our hands together Behold Habemus legem we have a Law and the first and greatest Law the Law of Charity to open them 'T is true what we gain by the sweat of our brows what Honesty and Industry or the Law hath sealed unto us is ours ex asse wholly and entirely ours nor can any Hand but that of Violence divide it from us but yet Habemus legem we have a Law another Law which doth not take from us the propriety of our Goods but yet binds us to dispense and distribute them In the same Court-roll of Heaven we are made both Proprietaries Stewards The Law of God as well as of Man is Evidence for us that our possessions are ours but it is Evidence against us if we use them not to that end for which God made them ours They are ours to have and to hold nor can any Law of man divorce them from us or question us For what Action can be drawn against want of mercy who was ever yet impleaded for not giving an Almes at his doore what bar can you bring the Miser to who ever was arraigned for doing no good but yet in the Law of God and in the Gospel of Christ which is a Law of Grace we find an action drawn de non vestiendis nudis for not clothing the Naked not feeding the Hungry not visiting the Sick I saith Nazianzen could peradventure be willing That Mercy and Bounty were not Necessary but arbitrary not under a Law but presented by way of Counsel and advice for the flesh is weak and would go to Heaven with as little cost and trouble as may be but then the mention of the Left hand and the right of the Goates of the torments they shall be thrown into not who have invaded other mens goods but who have not given theirs not who have beat down but who have not supported these Temples of the Holy Ghost this is that which strikes a terrour through me and makes me think and resolve That I am as much bound to do acts of mercy as I am not to do an injury as much bound to feed the poore man as I am not to oppresse and murder him To shew mercy to others is not an Evangelicall Counsel it is a Law And therefore as Homer tells us when he speaks of rivers or birds That men did not call them by their proper names for the Gods had
That every thought may be a melting thought every word as oyle and every work a blessing Then we love mercy when we fling off all other respects and whatsoever may either shrink up or straiten our bowells or seale up our lips or wither our hands when we look upon the world but as our stage where we must act our parts and display the glories of mercy where we must waste our selves drop our teares run in to succour those who are roughly handled in it and thus tread it under our feet and then take our Exit and go out When we can forget our honour and remember the poore forsake all rather then our brethren and desire not to be rich but in good works when we have so incorporated out brethren into our selves that we stand and fall are happy and miserable together when we consider them as ingrafted into the same Christ and in him to be preferred before the whole world and to be lookt upon as those for whom we must dye Then we love mercy then we are mercifull as our heavenly Father is mercifull Thus if we be qualified we shall become the Temples and habitations of Mercy and as our bodies shall after their resurrection so our soules shall here have novas dotes shall be endowed with activity cheerfulnesse and purity And first our mercy will be in a manner Naturall unto us secondly it will be Constant thirdly it will be Sincere fourthly it will be Delightfull to us It will be Naturall not forced it will be Constant not flitting It will be Sincere not feigned and it will be Delightfull that we shall long to bring it into act And first we then love it when it is in a manner made naturall to us for we never fully see the beauty of it till we are made New Creatures and have new eyes then as the new creature cannot sin as Saint John speaks that is can doe nothing that is contrary and destructive to that forme which constitutes a new creature no more can a mercifull man doe any thing which will not savour of mercy and doth as naturally exercise himselfe in it as the Sunne doth send forth its beames or the Heavens their influence For the Spirit of God hath made his Heart a Fountain of Mercy as he made the Sun a Fountain of Light and if he break not forth into action it is from defect of means or occasion or some crosse accident which comes over him which doe but cloud and eclipse his mercy as the interposition of a grosse body doth the Sun but not put out its light at the very sight of Misery Mercy is awake up and either doing of suffering Who is weak 2 Cor. 11.29 and I am not weak saith Saint Paul who is offended and I burne not If I but see him weak I faint and if I see him vexed I am on fire Nature is active and will work to its end heavy bodies will descend and light bodies will mount upwards and Mercy will give and lend and forgive it cannot be idle Inquies opere suo pascitur Livi. pres it is restlesse and is made more restlesse by its work which is indeed its pleasure It is then most truly Mercy when it shews it self If occasion presents it selfe it soon layes hold of it If the object appeare it is carryed to it with the speed of a Thought and reacheth it as soone If there be no object it creates one if there be no occasion it studyes one Is there yet any left of the house of Saul that I may shew kindnesse to for Jonathans sake And Is there no Lazar to feed no Widow to visit no Wounds to bind up no weak brother to be restored none that be in darknesse and error to be brought into the light These are the Quaeres the true dialect this is the Ambition of Mercy It longs more for an occasion to vent it self then the Adulterer doth for the twilight layes hold of the least as of a great one thinks nothing too high nothing too low which it can reach is still in motion because it moves not like those Artificiall bodies by art or outward force but by a principle of life the spirit of love and so moves not as a clock which will stand still when the plummet is on the ground but its motion is Naturall as that of the spheres which are wheel'd about without cessation and return by those points by which they past and indeed may be said rather to rest then to move because they move continually and in the same place Misery is the point the object of mercy and at that it toucheth everlastingly mercy and misery still go together and eye each other the eye of misery looks up upon mercy and the eye of mercy looks down upon misery they are the two cherubins that have ever their faces one towards another and they are both full and ready to drop and run down the eye of misery is ever open and mercy hideth not her eye Prov. 28.27 By this you may judge of your acts of liberality and look upon them as those sacrifices with which God is pleased when you find something within you that enlargeth you that opens your mouth and hand that you cannot but speak and do when you find a heat within you that thaws and melts you that you poure out your selves on your brethren then your works of mercy are of a sweet smelling savour when love sets them on fire For secondly being made Naturall unto us it will be also constant it will be fixt in the firmament of the soul and shine and derive its influence uncessantly and equally doing good unto all men while it hath time that is at all times When the heart dissents from it self for love onely unites and makes it one when it is divisum cor a divided heart divided between God and the world when it hath inconstant motions and changeable counsells when it joynes with the object and leaps from the object willing to day and lothing to morrow this day cleaving to it and even sick for love as Ammon was with Tamar and the next thrusting it out of doores chusing without judgement and then altering upon experience In such a heart mercy cannot dwell and from hence it is that we see men every day so unlike themselves now giving anon oppressing now reaching out an Almes and by and by threatning with the sword now giving their brother the right hand of fellowship and within a while with that hand plucking him by the throat now pittying him that lyes in the dust and anon crying out So So Thus we would have it For indeed their pity and their rage their mercy and their cruelty have the same originall are raised upon the same ground the love of themselves and not of mercy and thus they do some acts of mercy magno impetu sed semel with much earnestnesse and zeale but not often like some birds whose
nothing more in nothing else say or thinke we are pilgrimes and sojourners and strangers in the earth 'T is true strangers we are for all are so and passing forward apace to our journeyes end but not to that end for which we were made and therefore that we may reach and attain to it we must make our selves so put off the old man which loves to dwell here take off our hopes and desires from it look upon all its glories as dung look upon the world as a strange place and upon our selves as strangers in it and look upon the place to which we are going and fling off every weight and shake off every vanity every thing that is of the earth earthy make haste and delay not but leave it behind us even while we are in it for a Christian mans life is nothing else but a going out of it And to this end in the last place you must take along with you your viaticum Hide not thy commandments from me your provision The Commandments of God Hide not thy commandments from me saith David and he spoke as a stranger and as in a strange place as in a place of danger as in a dark place where he could not walk with safety if this light did not shine upon him For here we meet with variety of objects here are serpents to flatter us and serpents to bite us here are pleasures and terrors all to deceive and detaine us Here we meet with that arch-enemy to all strangers and pilgrims in severall shapes now as a roaring Lion and sometimes as an Angel of light and though we try it not out at Fists with him as those foolish Monks boasted they had often tried this kind of hardiment though we meet him not as a Hyppocentaure Hieron de vita Pauli Eremitae Malchi Hilarionis as the story tells us Paul the Hermite did as a Satyre or shee-wolf as Hilarion did to whom were presented many fearefull things the roaring of lions the noise of an Army and chariots of fire coming upon him wolves and foxes and sword-plaiers and I cannot tell what Though we do not feel him as a Satyre yet we feel him as voluptuous though we do not see him as a wolf yet we apprehend him thirsting after blood though we meet him not in the shape of a fox yet non ignoramus versutias we are not ignorant of his wiles and enterprises though we do not see him in the tempest we may in our feare and though his hand be invisible yet we may feel him in our impatience and falling from the truth we cannot say in our affliction this is his blow but we may heare him roare in our murmuring or we may see him in that mungrell Christian made up of ignorance and fury of a man and a beast which is more monstrous then any centaure we may see him in that hypocrite that deceitfull man who is a fox and the worst of the cub we may meet him in that oppressor who is a wolf in that Tyrant and persecutor who is a roaring lion And in some of these shapes we meet him every day in this our Pilgrimage and here in the world we can find nothing to secure us against the world adversity may swallow up pleasure in victory but not the love of it impotency and inhability may bridle and stay my Anger but not quench it Providence may defend me from evil but not from feare of it nor can the world yield us any weapon against it self and therefore God hath opened his Armory of heaven and given us his commandments to be our light our provision our defence in our way to be as our Pilgrimes staff our Scrip our letters commendatory to be our Angels to keep us in all our waies and there is no safe walking for a stranger without them And as when the children of Israel were in the wildernesse he rained down Manna upon them and led them as it were by the hand till he brought them to the land of promise so he deales with them with all that call upon his name whilest they are in via in this their peregrination ever and anon beset with temptations which may detain and hinder them he raines down abundance of his grace which like that Manna will serve the appetite of him that takes it and is like to that which every man wants applies it self to every taste to all the callings and conditions to all the necessities of a stranger Thus we walk by faith 2 Cor. 7. Festina fides and faith is on the wing and leaves the world behind us is the substance and evidence of things not seen and looks not on those things which are seen and please a carnall eye or if it do looks upon them as Joshua did upon Ai and first turnes the back and then all its strength against them makes us fly from them that we may overcome them For this is the victory which overcometh the world even our faith And Festina spes hope too is in her flight and follows our fore-runner Jesus to enter with him that which is within the vaile Heb. 6.19 even the holy of holies heaven it self spe jam sumus in coelo we are already there by hope and to him that hath seen the beauty of holinesse the world is but a loathsome spectacle to him that truly trusteth in God it is lighter then vanity and he passeth from it And then our love of God is our going forth our peregrination it is a perishing a death of the soul to the world and if it be truely fixt no pleasure no terror nothing in the world can concern us but they are to us as those things which the travellour in his way sees and leaves every day and we think no more of the glory of them then they who have been dead long ago For we are dead saith the Apostle Coloss 3.3 and our life is hid hid from the world with Christ in God our temperance tasteth not our chastity toucheth not our poverty in spirit handleth not those things which lye in our way but passeth by them as impertinencies as dangers as those things which may pollute a soul more then a dead body could under the Law The stranger the pilgrime passeth by all his meeknesse makes injuries and his patience afflictions light and his Christian fortitude casteth down every strong hold every imagination which may hinder him in his course Every act of piety is a kind of sequestration and drives us if not from the right yet from the use of the world Every virtue is to us as the Angel was to Lot and bids arise and go out of it takes us by the hands and bids us haste and escape for our life and not to look behind us And with this provision as it were with the two Tables in our hand we come neerer and neerer to the end of our faith the end of our hope and the end of our
in his hand For the state and face of things may be such as may warrant Demosthenes wish and choice and make it more commendable in exilium ire quà m tribunal to go into banishment then to ascend the tribunal for he best deserves honour who can in wisdome withdraw himself he can best manage power who knows when to lay it down Bring him now from the publick stage of honour to his private house and there you might have seen him walking as David speaks in the midst of his house in innocency and with a perfect heart as an Angel or intelligence moving in his own sphere and carrying on every thing in it with that order and Decorum which is the glory of a stranger whose moving in it is but a going out of it to render an account of every act and motion you might have beheld him looking with a settled and immoveable eye of love on his wife walking hand in hand with her for forty foure yeares and walking with her as his fellow-traveller with that love which might bring both at last to the same place of rest You might behold him looking on his children with an eye of care as well as of affection initiating them into the same fellowship of pilgrims and on his servants not as on slaves Quid Servus Amicus humilis but as his humble and inferiour friends as Seneca calls them and as his fellow-pilgrims too and thus he was Domesticus Magistratus a Domestick Magistrate a lover and example of that truth which Socrates taught that they who are good Fathers of their family will make the best and wisest Magistrates they who can manage their own cock-boat may be fit at last to sit at the stern of the common-wealth for a private family is a type and representation of it nay saith Eusebius in the life of Constantine of the Church it self I confesse I knew but in his evening when he was neer his journeys end and then too but at some distance but even then I could discover in him that sweetnesse of disposition that courteous affabibility which Saint Paul commends as virtues but have lost that name with Hypocrites with proud and supercilious men who make it a great part of their Religion to pardon none but themselves and then think that they have put off the old man when they have put off all humanity In these Omilitick vertues I could discern a fair proficiency in this reverend Knight and what my knowledg could not reach was abundantly supplied and brought unto me by the joynt testimony of those who knew him and by a testimony which commends him to heaven and God himself the mouthes of the poor which he so often filled Thus did he walk on as a stranger comforting and supporting his fellow-Pilgrims and reaching forth his charity to them as a staffe Thus he exprest himself living and thus he hath exprest himself in his last Will which is voluntas ultra mortem the Will the Mandate the Language of a Dead man Speculum morum saith Pliny the Glasse wherein you may see the Charity that is the Face the Image of a Pilgrim by which he hath bequeathed a Legacy of Comfort and Supply a plain acknowledgement that he was but a stranger on the earth to every Prison and to many Parishes within this City and remembers them who are in bonds as one who himself was in the body and sometimes a prisoner as they I know in this world it is a hard thing Justum esse sine infamia to be good and not to heare ill expedit enim malis neminem esse bonum for evil men make it their work to deface every faire image of virtue and then think well of themselves when they have made all as evil as themselves but it was this our honoured brothers happinesse to find no accuser but himself I may truly say I never yet heard any but report hath given him an honourable passe the voice of the poor was He was full of good works the voice of the City he was a good Magistrate the voice of his equalls he was a true friend the voice of all that I have heard he was a just man and then our charity will soon conclude he was a good Christian for he lived and died a son of the Church of the reformed and according to the way which some call Heresy some Superstition so worshipped he the God of his Fathers And now he is gone to his long home and the mourners go about the streets He is gone to the grave in a full age when that was well neer expired which is but Labour and sorrow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Cyril speaks grown in wisdom and grace which is a fairer testimony of age then the gray haires or fourscore yeares his body must return to the dust and his soul is return'd to God that gave it and being dead he yet speaketh speaketh by his Charity to the Poore speaketh by his faire example to his Brethren of the City to honour and reverence their Conscience more then their Purse vitamque impendere vero and to be ready to resign all even life it self for the truth he speaks to his friends and he speaks to his relict his virtuous and reverend Lady once partner of his cares and joyes his fellow-travellour and to his children who are now on their way and following a pace after him weep not for me why should you weep I have laid by my Staff my Scrip my provision and am at my journeys end at rest I have left you in a valley in a busie tumultuous world but the same hand the same provision the same obedience to Gods commands will guide you also and promote you to the same place where we shall rest and rejoyce together for evermore There let us leave him in his eternall rest with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob with all the Patriarchs and prophets and Apostles all his fellow-Pilgrims and strangers in the Kingdom of Heaven FINIS By the forced absence of the Author from the Presse besides many points mistaken these Errata have escaped which the Reader is desired to amend as he finds them PAg. 4. l. 12. r. Transacted p. 12. l. 23. r. riddle p. 25. l. 7.5 These will bring in p. 26. l. 39. r. not because he cannot but because he will not p. 27. l. 13. r. bought mortall pag. 33. marg Eulalia p. 39. l. 10. not p. 65. l. 14. cast himself into hell p. 83. ult this noise when PAg. 10. l. 5. for that hath p. 13. l. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. l. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 14. l. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. marg Tit. for Tim. ibid. l. 7. in them p. 16. c. 6. entered p. 17. l. 21. Sublunary p. 23. l. 39. be the cause p. 24. l. 25. founded on p. 35. l. 40. beautifying p. 45. l. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 54. l. 30. for and are p. 58. l. 27. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 63. l. 19. affectuall p. 75. l. 9. about p. 78. marg for Deus Duos p. 89. l. 30. breath of fooles p. 89. l. 32. abfuerunt p. 99. l. 8. of the object p. 100. l. 27. for innocence justice p. 104. l. 27. start back ibid. l. 30. intention ibid. l. 33. shunk p. 108. l. 40. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 118. l. 27. victo viâ for victoriâ p. 121. l. 4. worn out with p. 122. l. 7. steame p. 125. l. 32. maintaining some errours p. 126. l. 35. that which was p. 136. l. 31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. l. 42. measured out p. 137. l. 25. Adde that which is done often with that which is done alwaies p. 161. l. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 192. l. 18. aegris p. 168. l. 33. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 178. l. 13. adde many times makes us speak what otherwise we would not p. 207. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 208. l. 25. r. shines p. 228. l. 29. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 230. l. 16. r. the memory p. 241. l. 5. r. lifts us p. 242. l. 37. r. over that p. 244. l. 5. r. non exercere p. 240. l. 25. r. not his mercies p. 250. l. 13. r. to file and hammer them p. 251. l. 39. r. of their faith ibid. l. 43. r. and now this heartlesse p. 252. l. 25. r. but then p. 253. l. 6. r. God will do p. 260. l. 9. r. reviled p. 264. l. 1. r. usurp p. 266. l. 18. r. disarme death p. 283. l. 23. r. Salviguardium ibid. l. 34. Dele The third inference p. 300. l. 33. r. Petrus Damiani p. 304. l. 44. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 306. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 307. l. 41. r. faceremus p. 325. l. 30. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 331. l. 24. r. wasting ourselves p. 337. l. 46. r. For want of this p. 338. marg for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 343. l. 9. r. the love of that p. 344. l. 3. r. sound p. 345. l. 3. r. as the occasion of sinne p. 350. l. 10. r. define them p. 351. l. 30. r. see in them p. 353. l. 37. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 354. l. 14. r. if he be p. 359. l. 20. r. and last of all p. 362. l. r. r. make us feel p. 363. l. 3. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 364. l. 14. adde which when we cannot fill up c. ibid. l. 41. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 368. l. 34. r. tune p. 370. l. 41. r. sticks it in them p. 373. marg r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 374. l. ult r. Cynick p. 403. l. 3. r. is this faith p. 427. l. 37. r. kicking p. 447. l. 13. r. ◠p. 478. l. 3. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 521. l. 11. r. now bowing p. 537. l. 3. r. they leave a soul p. 574. l. 33. r. seen in our cities p. 619. l. 22. r. to be removed