to bear any slavish yoak had a tyrannical meaning in his words But in this Text as in one of those Tables in which by changing the station and the line you use to see two pictures you have a good picture of a good King and of a good subject for in one line you see such a subject as Loves pureness of heart and hath grace in his lips In the other line you see the King gracious yea friendly to such a subject He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend The sum of the words is that God will make an honest man acceptable to the King for some ability which he shall employ to the publike Him that proceeds sincerely in a lawful calling God will bless and prosper and he will seal this blessing to him even with that which is his own seal his own image the favor of the King He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend We will not be curious in placing these two pictures nor considering which to consider first As he that would vow a fast till he had found in nature whether the Egge or the Hen were first in the world might perchance starve himself so that King or that subject which would forbear to do their several duties Serm. 24. till they had found which of them were most necessary to one another might starve one another for King and subjects are Relatives and cannot be considered in execution of their duties but together The greatest Mystery in Earth or Heaven which is the Trinity is conveyed to our understanding no other way then so as they have reference to one another by Relation as we say in the Schools for God could not be a father without a Son nor the Holy Ghost Spiratus sine spirante As in Divinity so in Humanity too Relations constitute one another King and subject come at once and together into consideration Neither is it so pertinent a consideration which of them was made for others sake as that they were both made for Gods sake and equally bound to advance his glory Here in our Text we finde the subjects picture first Divisio And his Marks are two first Pureness of Heart That he be an honest Man And then Grace of lips that he be good for something for by this phrase Grace of lips is expressed every ability to do any office of society for the Publike good The first of these Pureness of heart he must love The other that is Grace of lips that is other Abilities he must have but he must not be in love with them nor over-value them In the Kings picture the principal marke is That he shall be friendly and gracious but gracious to him that hath this Grace of lips to him that hath endeavored in some way to be of use to the Publike And not to him neither for all the grace of his lips for all his good parts except he also love pureness of heart but He that loveth pureness of heart There 's the foundation for the grace of his lips There 's the upper-building the King shall be his friend In the first then which is this Pureness of heart we are to consider Rem sedem Modum what this Pureness is Part. 1. Puritas Then where it is to be lodged and fixed In the heart and after that the way and means by which this Pureness of heart is acquired and preserved which is implyed and notified in that Affection wherewith this pureness of heart is to be embraced and entertained which is love For Love is so noble so soveraign an Affection as that it is due to very few things and very few things worthy of it Love is a Possessory Affection it delivers over him that loves into the possession of that that he loves it is a transmutatory Affection it changes him that loves into the very nature of that that he loves and he is nothing else For the first Pureness it self It is carried to a great heighth Res. for our imitation God knows too great for our imitation when Christ bids us be perfect Mat. 5.48 even as our father which is in heaven is perfect As though it had not been perfectness enough to be perfect as the Son upon earth was perfect he carries us higher Be perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect The Son upon Earth Christ Jesus had all our infirmities and imperfections upon him hunger and weariness and hearty sorrow to death and that which alone is All Mortality Death it self And though he were Innocence it self and knew no sin yet there was no sin that he knew not for all our sins were his He was not onely made Man and by taking by Admitting though not by Committing our sins as well as our nature sinful Man but he was made sin for our sakes And therefore though he say of himself sicut ego John 15.10 Keep my Commandements even as I have kept my fathers Commandements yet still he refers all originally to the Father and because he was under our infirmities and our iniquities he never says though he might well have said so sicut ego Be pure be perfect as I am perfect and pure but sicut Pater be pure as your Father in heaven is pure Hand to hand with the Father Christ disclaims himself Mat. 26.39 disavows himself Non sicut ego Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt O Father We are not referr'd for the pattern of our purity though we might be safely to him that came from heaven The Son but to him which is in heaven The Father Nor to the Sun which is in heaven the Sun that is the pure fountain of all natural light nor to the Angels which are in heaven though they be pure in their Nature and refined by a continual emanation of the beams of glory upon them from the face of God but the Father which is in heaven is made the pattern of our purity That so when we see the exact purity which we should aim at and labor for we might the more seriously lament and the more studiously endeavor the amendment of that extreme and enormous fouleness and impurity in which we who should be pure as our Father which is in heaven is pure exceed the dog that turns to his own vomit again 2 Pet. 2.22 and the Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire Yet there is no foulness so foul so inexcusable in the eys of God nor that shall so much aggravate our condemnation as a false affectation and an hypocritical counterfeiting of this Purity There is a Pureness a cleanness imagin'd rather dream't of in the Romane Church by which as their words are the soul is abstracted not onely à Passionibus but â Phantasmatibus not onely from passions and perturbations but from the ordinary way of coming to
the soul it is the only means to recover thee But yet wert thou not better to make this grace thy diet then thy physick Wert thou not better to nourish thy soul with this grace all the way then to hope to purge thy soul with it at last This as a Diet the Apostle prescribes thee Whether you eat or drink do all to the glory of God He intends it farther there Whatsoever you do and farther then that in another place Whatsoever ye do in deed 1 Cor. 10.31 Col. 3.17 or in word do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Since there is no action so little but God may be glorified in it there is no action so little but the Devil may have his end in it too and may overthrow thee by a tentation which thou thinkest thy self strong enough to leap over And therefore if you have not given over all love of true weights and true measures weigh and measure your particular and indifferent actions before you do them and you shall see at least grains of iniquity in them and then this advantage will you have by this preconsideration and weighing your actions before hand that when you know there is sin in that action and know that nothing can counterpoise nor weigh down sin but onely the Blood of Christ Jesus you may know too that the Blood of Christ Jesus cannot be had before hand God gives no such non-obstantes no such priviledges no leave to sin no pardon for sin before it be committed And therefore if this premeditation of this action bring thee to see that there is sin in it it must necessarily put a tenderness a horror an aversion in thee from doing that to which being thus done with this preconsideration and presumption the Blood of thy Saviour doth not appertain To all your other Wares the baser and courser they are the greater weight and measure you are content to give to the basest of all to sin you give the lightest weight and scantest measure and you supply all with the excuses of the custom of the time that the necessity of your trade forces you to it else you should be poor and poorly thought of Beloved God never puts his children to a perplexity to a necessity of doing any sin how little soever though for the avoiding of a sin as manifold as Adams It is not a little request to you to beware of little sins It is not a little request and therefore I make it in the words of the greatest to the greatest for they are all one Head and Body of Christ to his Church Cant. 2.15 Capite vulpeculas Take us the little Foxes for they devour the Vines It is not a cropping not a pilling nor a retarding of the growth of the Vines but Demoliuntur as little as those Foxes are they devour the Vines they root them out Thy Soul is not so easily devoured by that Lion 1 Pet. 5.8 Apoc. 5.5 that seeks whom he may devour for still he is put to seek and does not always finde And thou shalt hear his roaring that is thou shalt discern a great sin and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah will come in to thy succor as soon as thou callest But take heed that thy Soul be not eaten up with vermin by those little sins which thou thinkst thou canst forbear and give over when thou wilt God punished the Egyptians most by little things Hailstones and Frogs and Grashoppers and Pharaohs Sorcerers Exod. 8.16 which did greater failed in the least in Lice It is true there is Physick for this Christ Jesus that receives thy greatest sins into his Blood can receive these Vermin too into his Bowels even at last but yet still make his Grace rather thy Diet by a daily consideration before hand then thy Physick at last It is ill to take two Physicks at once bodily and ghostly Physick too upon thy Death-bed The Apothecary and the Physician do well together the Apothecary and the Priest not so well Consult with him before at least consult with thine own Conscience in those little actions which either their own nature or the custom of the time or thy course of life thy calling and the example of others in thy calling made thee think indifferent For though it may seem a degree of flattery to preach against little sins in such a City as this where greater sins do abound yet because these be the materials and elements of greater sins and it is impossible to say where a Bowl will lie that is let fall down a Hill though it be let never so gently out of the hand and there is no pureness of heart till even these Cobwebs and Crums be swept away He that affects that pureness will consider well that of St. Augustine Psal 24.4 Interest inter rectum corde mundum corde a right heart and a clean heart is not all one He may have a right heart that keeps in the right way in the profession of the right Religion but he onely keeps his heart pure that watches all his steps even in that right way St. Augustine considers that question of David Psal 24.3 Quis ascendet and quis stabit Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord and who shall stand in his holy place And he applies the answer Innocens manibus mundo corde He that hath clean hands and a pure heart Thus That he that hath clean hands clean from blood clean from bribery and oppression clean from fornication and such notorious sins Ascendet in montem He shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord he shall be admitted to all the benefits that the Christian Church can give him but onely he that hath a pure heart a care to glorifie God in a holy watchfulness upon all his particular actions to the exclusion of lesser sins stabit shall stand safe confident unshaken in his holy place even in the judgment of God clean hands justifie him to men a pure heart to God And therefore this pureness of heart is here wrapped up in the richest mantle in the noblest affection that the nature of man hath that is love For this is not onely a contentment an acquiescence a satisfaction a delight in this pureness of heart but love is a holy impatience in being without it or being in a jealousie that we are without it and it is a holy fervor and vehemency in the pursuit of it and a preferring it before any other thing that can be compared to it That 's love and therefore it deserves to be insisted upon now when in our order proposed at first from the thing it self that is required pureness and the seat and center of that pureness the heart and the way of this fixation of this pureness in the heart detestation of former habits of sins and prevention of future sins in a watchful consideration of all our actions before we do them We are come to that affection
but die and we must die And Edamus bibamus cras moriemur Let us eat and drink and take our pleasure and make our profits for to morrow we shall die and so were cut off by the hand of God some even in their robberies in half-empty houses and in their drunkenness in voluptuous and riotous houses and in their lusts and wantonness in licentious houses and so took in infection and death like Judas's sop death dipt and soaked in sin Men whose lust carried them into the jaws of infection in lewd houses and seeking one sore perished with another men whose rapine and covetousness broke into houses and seeking the Wardrobes of others found their own winding-sheet in the infection of that house where they stole their own death men who sought no other way to divert sadness but strong drink in riotous houses and there drank up Davids cup of Malediction the cup of Condemned men of death in the infection of that place For these men that died in their sins that sinned in their dying that sought and hunted after death so sinfully we have little comfort of such men in the phrase of this Text They were dead for they are dead still As Moses said of the Egyptians I am afraid we may say of these men We shall see them no more for ever But God will give us the comfort of this phrase in the next House Domus nostra This next House is Domus nostra our Dwelling-House our Habitation our Family and there They were dead they were but by Gods goodness they are not If this savor of death have been the savor of life unto us if this heavy weight of Gods hand upon us have awakened us to a narrower survey and a better discharge of our duties towards all the parts of our Families we may say to our comforts and his glory There was a son dead in disobedience and murmuring there was a daughter dead in a dangerous easiness of conversation there was a servant dead in the practice of deceit and falsifying there was but the Lord hath breath'd a new life into us the Lord hath made even his tempest a refreshing and putrefaction a perfume unto us The same measure of wind that blows out a candle kindles a fire this correction that hath hardned some hath entendred and mollified us and howsoever there were dead sons and dead daughters and dead servants this holy sense of Gods Judgements shall not only preserve for the future that we shall admit no more such dead limbs into our Family but even give to them who were in these kindes formerly dead a new life a blessed resurrection from all their sinful habits by the power of his grace though reached to them with a bloody hand and in a bitter cup in this heavy calamity and as Christ said of himself they shall say in him I was dead but am alive and by that grace of God I am that I am The same comfort also shall we have in this phrase of the Text in our third House the third House is not Domus nostra Domus nos but Domus nos not the House we inhabit but the House we carry not that House which is our House but that House which is our selves There also They were dead they were but are not For beloved we told you before in our former survey of these several Houses That our first-born for still ye remember they were the first-born of Egypt that induce all this application Our first-born in this House in our selves is our Zeal not meerly and generally our Religion but our zeal to our Religion For Religion in general is natural to us the natural man hath naturally some sense of God and some inclination to worship that Power whom he conceives to be God and this Worship is Religion But then the first thing that this general pious affection produces in us is Zeal which is an exaltation of Religion Primus actus voluntatis est Amor Philosophers and Divines agree in that That the will of man cannot be idle and the first act that the will of man produces is Love for till it love something prefer and chuse something till it would have something it is not a Will neither can it turn upon any object before God So that this first and general and natural love of God is not begotten in my soul nor produced by my soul but created and infus'd with my soul and as my soul there is no soul that knows she is a soul without such a general sense of the love of God But to love God above all to love him with all my faculties this exaltation of this religious love of God is the first-born of Religion and this is Zeal Religion which is the Worship of that Power which I call God does but make me a man the natural man hath that Religion but that which makes me a Father and gives me an off-spring a first-born that 's Zeal By Religion I am an Adam but by Zeal I am an Abel produced out of that Adam Now if we consider times not long since past there was scarce one house scarce one of us in whom this first-born this Zeal was not dead Discretion is the ballast of our Ship that carries us steady but Zeal is the very Fraight the Cargason the Merchandise it self which enriches us in the land of the living and this was our case we were all come to esteem our Ballast more then our Fraight our Discretion more then our Zeal we had more care to please great men then God more consideration of an imaginary change of times then of unchangeable eternity it self And as in storms it falls out often that men cast their Wares and their Fraights over-board but never their Ballast so as soon as we thought we saw a storm in point of Religion we cast off our Zeal our Fraight and stuck to our Ballast our Discretion and thought it sufficient to sail on smoothly and steadily and calmly and discreetly in the world and with the time though not so directly to the right Haven So our first-born in this House in our selves our Zeal was dead It was there 's the comfortable word of our Text. But now now that God hath taken his fan into his hand and sifted his Church now that God hath put us into a straight and crooked Limbeck passed us through narrow and difficult trials and set us upon a hot fire and drawn us to a more precious substance and nature then before now that God hath given our Zeal a new concoction a new refining a new inanimation by this fire of tribulation let us embrace and nurse up this new resurrection of this Zeal which his own Spirit hath begot and produced in us and return to God with a whole and entire soul without dividing or scattering our affections upon other objects and in the sincerity of the true Religion without inclinations in our selves to induce and without inclinableness
fixt the Almighty and immoveable God if it can be content to inquire after it self and take knowledge where it is and in what way it will finde the means of cleansing And so this second consideration The placing of this pureness in the heart enlarges it self also into the third branch of this part which is De Modo by what means this pureness is fix'd in the heart in which is involved the Affection with which it must be embrac'd Love He that loveth pureness of heart Both these then are setled Our heart is naturally foul Modus And our heart may be cleansed But how is our present disquisition Who can bring a clean thing out of filthiness There is not one Job 14.4 Adam foul'd my heart and all yours nor can we make it clean our selves Who can say I have made clean my heart There is but one way Prov. 20.9 a poor beggarly way but easie and sure to ask it of God And even to God himself it seems a hard work to cleanse this heart and therefore our prayer must be with David Cor mundum crea Create Psal 51.12 O Lord a pure heart in me And then comes Gods part not that Gods part begun but then for it was his doing that thou madest this prayer but because it is a work that God does especially delight in to build upon his own foundations when he hath disposed thee to pray and upon that prayer created a new heart in thee then God works upon that new heart and By faith purifyes it Act. 15.9 enables it to preserve the pureness as Saint Peter speaks He had kindled some sparks of this faith in thee before thou askedst that new heart else the prayer had not been of faith but now finding thee obsequious to his beginnings he fuels this fire and purifies thee as Gold and Silver in all his furnaces through Believing and Doing and suffering through faith and works and tribulation we come to this pureness of heart And truely he that lacks but the last but Tribulation as fain as we would be without it lacks one concoction one refining of this heart But in this great work the first act is a Renovation a new heart Coâ— Novâ—m and the other That we keep clean that heart by a continual diligence and vigilancy over all our particular actions In these two consists the whole work of purifying the heart first an Annihilating of the former heart which was all sin And then a holy superintendency over that new heart which God vouchsafes to create in us to keep it as he gives it clean pure It is in a word a Detestation of former sins and a prevention of future And for the first Chromakus Anno 390. Mundi corde sunt qui deposuere cor peccati That 's the new heart that hath disseised expelled the heart of sin There is in us a heart of sin which must be cast up for whilst the heart is under the habits of sin we are not onely sinful but we are all sin as it is truly said that land overflow'd with sea is all sea And when sin hath got a heart in us it will quickly come to be that whole Body of Death Rom. 7.24 which Saint Paul complains of who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death when it is a heart it will get a Braine a Brain that shall minister all Sense and Delight in sin That 's the office of the Brain A Brain which shall send for the sinews and ligaments to tye sins together and pith and marrow to give a succulencie and nourishment even to the bones to the strength and obduration of sin and so it shall do all those services and offices for sin that the brain does to the natural body So also if sin get to be a heart it will get a liver to carry blood and life through all the body of our sinful actions That 's the office of the liver And whilst we dispute whether the throne and seat of the soul be in the Heart or Brain or Liver this tyrant sin will praeoccupate all and become all so as that we shall finde nothing in us without sin nothing in us but sin if our heart be possest inhabited by it And if it be true in our natural bodies that the heart is that part that lives first and dyes last it is much truer of this Cor peccati this heart of sin for this hearty sinner that hath given his heart to his sin doth no more foresee a Death of that sin in himself then he remembers the Birth of it and because he remembers not or understands not how his soul contracted sin by coming into his body he leaves her to the same ignorance how she shall discharge her self of sin when she goes out of that body But as his sin is elder then himself for Adams sin is his sin so is it longer liv'd then his body for it shall cleave everlastingly to his soul too God asks no more of thee but fili da mihi cor Prov. 23.26 My son give me thy heart Because when God gave it thee it was but one heart But since thou hast made it Cor cor as the Prophet speaks a Heart and a Heart a double Heart give both thy Hearts to God thy natural weakness and disposition to sin The inclinations of thy heart And thy habitual practise of sin The obduration of thy heart cor peccans and Cor peccati and he shall create a new heart in thee which is the first way of attaining this pureness of heart to become once in a good state to have as it were paid all thy former debts and so to be the better able to look about thee for the future for prevention of subsequent sins which is the other way that we proposed for attaining this pureness detestation of former habits watchfulness upon particular actions Till this be done till this Cor peccati Peccata Minutiora this hearty habitualness in sin be devested there is no room no footing to stand and sweep it a heart so filled with foulness will admit no counsel no reproof The great Engineir would have undertaken to have removed the World with his Engine if there had been any place to fix his Engine upon out of the World I would undertake by Gods blessing upon his Ordinance to cleanse the foulest heart that is if that Engine which God hath put into my hands might enter into his heart if there were room for the renouncing Gods Judgements and for the application of Gods mercies in the merits of Christ Jesus in his heart they would infallibly work upon him But he hath petrified his heart in sin and then he hath immur'd it wall'd it with a delight in sin and fortified it with a justifying of his sin and adds daily more and more out-works by more and more daily sins so that the denouncing of Judgement the application of Mercies
wherewith this inestimable pureness is to be embraced love He that loveth pureness of heart Love in Divinity is such an attribute or such a notion as designs to us one person in the Trinity and that person who communicates and applies to us Amor. the other two persons that is The Holy Ghost So that as there is no power but with relation to the Father nor wisdom but with relation to the Son so there should be no love but in the Holy Ghost from whom comes this pureness of heart and consequently the love of it necessarily For the love of this pureness is part of this pureness it self and no man hath it except he love it All love which is placed upon lower things admits satiety but this love of this pureness always grows always proceeds It does not onely file off the rust of our hearts in purging us of old habits but proceeds to a daily polishing of the heart in an exact watchfulness and brings us to that brightness Augustine Ut ipse videas faciem in corde alii videant cor in facie That thou maist see thy face in thy heart and the world may see thy heart in thy face indeed that to both both heart and face may be all one Thou shalt be a Looking-glass to thy self and to others too Mulieres The highest degree of other love is the love of woman Which love when it is rightly placed upon one woman it is dignified by the Apostle with the highest comparison Ephes 5.25 Husbands love your wives as Christ loved his Church And God himself forbad not that this love should be great enough to change natural affection Gen. 2.24 Relinquet patrem for this a man shall leave his Father yea to change nature it self caro una two shall be one Accordingly David expresses himself so in commemoration of Jonathan 2 Sam. 1.26 Thy love to me was wonderful passing the love of women A love above that love is wonderful Now this love between man and woman doth so much confess a satiety as that if a woman think to hold a man long she provides her self some other capacity some other title then meerly as she is a woman Her wit and her conversation must continue this love and she must be a wife a helper else meerly as a woman this love must necessarily have intermissions And therefore St. Jerome notes a custom of his time Jerome perchance prophetically enough of our times too that to uphold an unlawful love and make it continue they used to call one another Friend and Sister and Cousen Ut etiam peccatis induant nomina caritatis that they might apparel ill affections in good names and those names of natural and civil love might carry on and continue a work which otherwise would sooner have withered In Parables and in Mythology and in the application of Fables this affection of love for the often change of subjects is described to have wings whereas the true nature of a good love such as the love of this Text is a constant union But our love of earthly things is not so good as to be volatilis apt to fly for it is always groveling upon the earth and earthly objects As in spiritual fornications the Idols are said to have ears and hear not and eyes and see not so in this idolatrous love of the Creature love hath wings and flies not it flies not upward it never ascends to the contemplation of the Creator in the Creature The Poets afford us but one Man that in his love flew so high as the Moon Endymion loved the Moon The sphear of our loves is sublunary upon things naturally inferior to our selves Let none of this be so mistaken as though women were thought improper for divine or for civil conversation For they have the same soul and of their good using the faculties of that soul the Ecclesiastick story and the Martyrologies give us abundant examples of great things done and suffered by women for the advancement of Gods glory But yet as when the woman was taken out of man God caused a heavy sleep to fall upon man Gen. 2.22 and he slept so doth the Devil cast a heavy sleep upon him too When the woman is so received into man again as that she possesses him fills him transports him I know the Fathers are frequent in comparing and paralleling Eve the Mother of Man and Mary the Mother of God But God forbid any should say That the Virgin Mary concurred to our good so as Eve did to our ruine It is said truly That as by one man sin entred and death Rom. 5.12 so by one man entred life It may be said That by one woman sin entred and death and that rather then by the man for 1 Tim. 2.14 Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression But it cannot be said in that sense or that manner that by one woman innocence entred and life The Virgin Mary had not the same interest in our salvation as Eve had in our destruction nothing that she did entred into that treasure that ransom that redeemed us She more then any other woman and many other blessed women since have done many things for the advancing of the glory of God and imitation of others so that they are not unfit for spiritual conversation nor for the civil offices of friendship neither where both tentation at home and scandal abroad may truly be avoided I know St. Jerome in that case despised all scandal and all malicious mis-interpretations of his purpose therein rather then give over perswading the Lady Paula to come from Rome to him and live at Jerusalem But I know not so well that he did well in so doing A familiar and assiduous conversation with women will hardly be without tentation and scandal St. Jerome himself apprehended that scandal tenderly and expresses it passionately Sceleratum me putant omnibus peccatis obrutum The world takes me for a vicious man more sceleratum for a wicked a facinorous man for this and obrutum surrounded overflowed with all sins Versipellem lubricum mendacem satanae arte decipientem They take me to be a slippery fellow a turn-coat from my professed austerity a Lyar an Impostor a Deceiver yet though he discerned this scandal and this inconvenience in it he makes shift to ease himself in this Nihil aliud mihi objicitur nisi sexus meus They charge me with nothing but my sex that I am a man Et hoc nunquam objicitur nisi cum Hierosolymam Paula proficiscitur nor that neither but because this Lady follows me to Jerusalem He proceeds farther That till he came acquainted in Paulas house at Rome Omnium penè judicio summo sacerdotio dignus decernebar every man thought me fit to be Pope every man thought reverently of him till he used her house St. Jerome would fain have corrected their mis-interpretations and slackned the
scandal as we see in that vehement expostulation and unlikelihood of an ill love between him and Paula Nulla alia me Romae edomare potuit Was Rome so barren so weak so ill furnished with instruments of tentation that nothing in Rome it self could shake my constancy or retard my austerity Nisi lugens jejuna squallida fletibus caecata but a sad fasting ill drest woman blinde with weeping Et quam manducantem nunquam vidi A woman whom as familiar and domestick as I was in her house I could never see eat bit of meat But all this would not quench the fire the scandal grew he found it even amongst his brethren Homines Christiani dicunt he could not say that onely the enemies of the faith or his enemies but they that loved Religion well and him well talked dangerously and suspiciously of it and yet St. Jerome could not dispose himself to forbear that conversation He overcame the sense of it with a par pari refertur I says he am even with them Invicem insanire videmur they think me mad and I think them mad But this is not always a safe nor a charitable way when he might so easily have cured both madnesses But he perseveres in it with that resolution Saluta Paulam velit nolit mundus in Christo meam Remember me to my Paula let the world say what it will in Christ my Paula Thus he proceeds if excusably in his own behalf that is the best certainly not exemplarily not to be followed by others in cases of so great scandal For there goes not onely a great deal of innocency which we acknowledge doubtlesly to have been between that blessed couple but there must go a great deal of necessity too that is That Paula could not have been reduced by any other means to the service of God or continued in it but by following St. Jerome to Jerusalem to justifie such a conversation as became so scandalous And howsoever in some cases excuses might be found what good Mariner would anchor under a Rock and lie in danger of beating upon that What Fish would chuse his food upon a Hook What Mouse at a Trap What man would mingle Sugar and Rats-bane together and then trust his cunning to sever them again Why should any man chuse such company such conversation as may minister tentation to him or scandal to others Augustine St. Augustine apprehended this danger tenderly when he gave his reason why he would not have his Mother in the house with him Because says he though there be no danger of scandal in the person of my Mother all those women that serve my Mother and that accompany my Mother and that visit my Mother all they are not Mothers to me and a lawful conversation may come to an unlawful love quickly We see how this love wrought when it was scattered upon many women and therefore could not be so dangerously vehement upon any one in Solomon whose wife turned away his heart 1 King 11.4 Augustine so that his heart was not perfect with God Nec errore putavit Idolis serviendum Solomon never came to think deliberately that Idolatry was lawful sed blanditiis foemineis ad illa sacrificia compulsus his appliableness to women brought him to that sacriledge Thus it wrought even when it was scattered upon many in Solomon and we see how it wrought when it was collected and contracted upon one object in Samson Judg. 16.6 Because she was importunate upon him says the Text and vexed him with her words continually his soul was pained unto the death Yea if we go as high as is possible to Adam himself we see both St. Augustine and St. Jerome express his case thus Adam non tanquam verum loquenti credidit Adam did not believe Eve nor was not overcome by her reasons when she provoked him to eat the Apple Sed sociali necessitudini paruit he was affected with that near interest which was between them And ne contristaretur delicias suas lest by refusing he should put her whom he delighted in to a desperate sadness and sense of her sin he eat for company And as the first and the middle times did so without doubt our own times too if we search but our selves at home do minister examples of this in a proportion which neither St. Jerome nor Solomon nor Samson nor Adam avoided that an over-tender indulgence towards such women that for other respects they were bound to love inclined them to do such things as otherwise they would not have done Natural and civil obligations induced conversation and conversation tentation or if not that really yet scandal That that we drive to in all this is this that if we may not exceed in this love which is natural and commanded much less in any other So that there is nothing in this world left for this noble and operative affection Love to work upon but this pureness of heart Love it therefore that thou mayst seek it love it that thou mayest have it love it that thou mayest love it for as we said before it is a part of this pureness to love it Some of the ancient Fathers out of their love to it have put so high a price and estimation upon it that they hardly afforded any grace any pardon to those that sinned after they had once received this pureness in Baptism So that with them the heart could never be clean again after it was once foul'd a second time Our new Romane Chymists Maldâ—n on the other side they that can transubstantiate bread into God they can change any foulness into cleaness easily They require no more after sin but quendam tenuem dolorem internum A little slight inward sorrow and that 's enough For they have provided an easier way then Contrition for that which they have induc'd and call Attrition is not an affection qui habet pro sine Deum That hath proposed God for the mark that it is directed too Nec qui indiget divina gratia but it is such an affection as may be had without any concurrence or assistance of grace and is onely Dolor naturalis Zambran ex timore servili a natural sorrow proceeding onely out of a servile fear of torment And yet a Confession made with this Attrition and no more is enough for salvation say they and he that hath made a confession with such a disposition as this This that hath no reference to God This that hath no strength from his grace This that hath no motive from the fear of God shall never need to repent any farther for his sins Displiceri de peccato Cajâ—tan sed non super omni displicibili This is Attrition to be displeased with our sins but not more with our sins then with any thing else Intendere vitare peccatum sed non super omne vitabile To have a purpose to leave a sin but not the sin rather then any thing
else this is their Attrition and this is their enough for salvation A sigh of the penitent a word of the Priest makes all clean and induces an absolute pureness Thus some of the Ancients went too far They would pardon no sin after Baptism These new Men go not far enough They pardon all too easily Old Physicians thought all hurts in the heart presently mortal These new Physitians can pare off some of the heart and give it to Idolatry for so they say that the worship due to God may be given to a creature so it be not Tanquam Deo as that the Creature is thereby professed to be God and yet they confess that that worship which they give to the creature is idolatry but not that Idolatry say they which is forbidden in the commandment which is that that Creature so worshipped with the worship due to God be also believed to be God and so truely I believe it will be hard to finde any Idolatry in the world That they that worship any thing in representation of God do believe advisedly that representation to be very God But the true reason why no hurt received in the heart can be healed is quia palpitat because it is in perpetual motion If the heart lay still as other parts do so that medicinal helps might be applied to it and admitted by it there were more hope Therefore when we lay such a weight upon the heart as may settle it fix it give it a reposedness and acquiescence though it do receive some wounds though it be touched with some tentations it may be cured But is there any such weight as should so settle the heart the soul of Man This love of Pureness is that weight August Amor est pondus animae sicut gravitas Corporis As the weight of my body makes that steady so this love of Pureness is the weight and the ballast of my soul and this weight stays the palpitation the variation the deviation of the heart upon other objects which variation frustrates all endeavors to cure it The love of this pureness is both the ballast and the frait to carry thee steadily and richly too through all storms and tempests spiritual and temporal in this life to the everlasting Jerusalem If you be come to this love this love of pureness of heart never to lock up your door till you have carried out your dust never to shut your eyes at night till you have swept your conscience and cast your foulness into that infinite sea of the blood of Christ Jesus which can contract no foulness by it never to open your eyes in the morning but that you look out to glorifie God in the rising of the Sun and in his other creatures and in the peace and safety of your house and family and the health of your children and servants But especially to look inward and consider whether you have not that night mingled poyson with Gods Physick whether you have not mingled sloth and laziness in that which God gave you for rest and refreshing whether you have not mingled licentiousness in that which God gave you for a remedy against fornication And then when you shall have found that sin hath been awake in you even when your bodies were asleep be sure you cast not the Spirit of God into a sleep in you when your bodies are awake but that you proceed vigilantly in your several wayes with a fore-knowledge that there is every where coluber in via A Snake in the way in every way that you can take in every course of life in every calling there is some of the seed of the old Serpent presents it self And then if by Gods infallible word explicated in his Church Psal 119.104 which is Lucerna pedibus vestris The word is the light but the Church is the Lanthorne 2 Sam. 22.29 it presents and preserves that light unto you and though it be said Lucerna Dominus Apoc. 21.23 Thou O Lord art my light God himself And Lucerna Agnus The Lamb Christ himself is your light And lucerna mandatum Prov. 6.23 John 5.35 The commandments of God are your light yet it is also said of Iohn Baptist Lucerna ardens he was a burning and a shining light The Ministry of the Gospel in the Church is your light If by the benefit of this light you consider every step you make weigh every action you undertake this is that love of Pureness that Pondus animae the setling of the heart that keeps it from evaporating upon transitory things and settles it so as that it becomes capable of that cure which God in his Church in the Absolution of sins and seals of Reconciliation exhibits to it To recollect and contract that which hath been said This pureness is not a purifying pureness to correct and reform those things that appertain not to us nor it is not such a purified pureness as makes us Canonize our selves and think others Reprobates for all this is no pureness at all neither is it the true pureness if it be not in the heart for outward good works not done to good ends are impure nor is this pureness of heart acquired by any other means then by discharging the heart in a detestation of former habits and a sedulous watchfulness in preventing future attempts nor can this pureness of heart though by these means attain'd to be preserved but by this noble and incorruptible affection of Love that puts a true value upon it and therefore prefers it above all other things And this was the first of the two marks which we found to be upon that person that should be capable of the Kings friendship He that loveth pureness of heart And the other is that he have by honest industry fitted himself in some way to be of use to the publike delivered in that phrase Grace of lips He that loveth pureness of heart There 's his honesty for the Grace of his lips There 's his sufficiency The King shall be his friend There 's his reward his preferment Gratia labiorum Ordinarily in Scriptures where this word lips is not taken naturally literally narrowly for that part of the body but transferred to a figurative and larger sense either it signifies speaking onely as in Solomon As righteous lips are the delight of Kings and the King loveth him that speaketh right things That is Him in whose Counsels Prov. 16.13 and in whose relations he may confide and rely or else it is enlarged to all manner of expressing a mans ability to do service to that State in which God hath made his station and by lips and fruits of lips is well understood the fruit of all his good labors and endeavors And so may those words be well interpreted With the fruit of a mans mouth shall his belly be satisfied and with the encrease of his lips shall he be filled 18.20 That is his honest labors in a lawful calling shall
Serpent was wiser then any beast It is so still Satan is wiser then any man in natural and in Civil knowledge 'T is true he is a Lyon too but he was a Serpent first and did us more harm as a Serpent then as a Lyon But now as Christ Jesus hath nail'd his hand-writing which he had against us to the Cross and thereby cancelled his evidence so in his descent to hell and subsequent acts of his glorification he hath burnt his Library annihilated his wisdom in giving us a wisdome above his craft he hath shin'd in our hearts by the knowledge of his Gospel Measure not thou therefore the growth and forwardness of thy Child by how soon he could speak or go how soon he could contract with a man or discourse with a woman but how soon he became sensible of that great contract which he had made with Almighty God in his Baptism how soon he was able to discharge those sureties which undertook for him then by receiving his confirmation in the Church how soon he became to discern the Lords Spirit in the preaching of his Word and to discern the Lords body in the Administration of the Sacrament A Christian Child must grow as Christ when be was a Child in wisdom and in stature Luc. 2. first in wisdom then in stature Many have been taller at sixteen then ever Christ was but not any so learned at sixty as he when he disputed at twelve He grew in favour says that Text with God and man first with God then with man Bring up your children in the knowledge and love of God and good and great men will know and love them too It is a good definition of ill love that St. Chrysost gives that it is Animae vacantis passio a passion of an empty soul of an idle mind For fill a man with business and he hath no room for such love It will fit the love of God too so far as that that love must be in anima vocante at first when the soul is empty disencumbred from other studies disengaged in other affections then to take in the knowledge and the love of God for Amari nisi nota possunt says St. August truely however we may slumber our selves with an opinion of loving God certainly we do not we cannot love him till we know him and therefore hear and read and meditate and confer and use all means whereby thou mayst increase in knowledge If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them says Christ you are not happy till you do them that 's true but ye can never do them till ye know them Zeal furthers our salvation but it must be Secundum scientiam Zeal according to knowledge Works further our salvation but not works done in our sleep stupidly casually nor erroniously but upon such grounds as fall within our knowledge to be good Faith most of all furthers and advances our salvation but a man cannot believe that which he does not know Conscience includes science it is knowledge and more but it is that first It is as we express it in the School Syllogismus practicus I have a good Conscience in having done well but I did that upon a former knowledge that that ought to be done God hath shined in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge that was the first and then of the knowledge of the glory of God that is our second term in this first acceptation of the Word The light of the knowledge of the glory of this world Gloria Dei is a good and a great peece of learning To know that all the glory of man is as the flower of grass that even the glory 1 Pet. 1.24 and all the glory of man of all mankind is but a flower and but as a flower somewhat less then the Proto-type then the Original then the flower it self and all this but as the flower of grass neither no very beautiful flower to the eye no very fragrant flower to the smell To know that for the glory of Moab Auferetur Esai 16.24 it shall be contemned consumed and for the glory of Jacob it self Attenuabitur It shall be extenuated 17. â—4 that the glory of Gods enemies shall be brought to nothing and the glory of his servants shall be brought low in this word To know how near nothing how meer nothing all the glory of this world is is a good a great degree of learning It is a Book of an old Edition to put you upon the consideration what great and glorious men have lost their glory in this world Give me leave to present to you a new Book a new consideration not how others have lost but consider onely how you have got that glory which you have in this world consider advisedly and confess ingeniously whether you have not known many men more industrious then ever you were and yet never attained to the glory of your Wealth Many wiser then ever you were and yet never attained to your place in the Government of State and valianter then ever you were that never came to have your command in the Wars Consider then how poor a thing the glory of this world is not onely as it may be so lost as many have lost it but as it may be so got as you have got it Seneca Nullum indifferens gloriosum says that Moral man In that which is so obvious as that any man may compass it truly this can be no glory But this is not fully the knowledge of the glory of this Text though this Moral knowledge of the glory of this world conduce to the knowledge of this place which is the glory of God yet not of the Majestical and inaccessible glory of the Essence or Attributes of God of inscrutable points of Divinity for scrutator Majestatis opprimetur a gloria Prov. 25.27 as St. Hiero and all those three Rabbins whose Commentaries we have upon that Book read that place He that searches too far into the secrets of God shall be dazled confounded by that glory But here Gloria Dei is indeed Gloria Deo the glory of God is the glorifying of God it is as St. Ambro. expresses it Notitia cum laude the glory of God is the taking knowledge that all that comes comes from God and then the glorifying of God for whatsoever comes And this is a heavenly art a divine knowledge that if God send a pestilence amongst us we Come not to say it was a great fruit year and therefore there must follow a plague in reason That if God swallow up an invincible Navy we come to say There was a storm and there must follow a scattering in reason That if God discover a Mine we come not to say there was a false Brother that writ a Letter and there must follow a discovery in reason but remember still that though in Davids Psalms there be Psalms of Prayer and Psalms of Praise
just occasion to exercise the same affection piously and religiously which had before so sinfully transported and possest it A covetous person who is now truly converted to God he will exercise a spiritual covetousness still he will desire to have him all he will have good security the seal and assurance of the holy Ghost and he will have his security often renewed by new testimonies and increases of those graces in him he will have witnesses enough he will have the testimonie of all the world by his good life and conversation he will gain every way at Gods hand he will have wages of God for he will be his servant he will have a portion from God for he will be his Son he will have a reversion he will be sure that his name is in the book of life he will have pawns the seals of the Sacraments nay he will have a present possession all that God hath promised all that Christ hath purchased all that the holy Ghost hath the stewardship and dispensation of he will have all in present by the appropriation and investiture of an actual and applying faith a covetous person converted will be spiritually covetous still So will a voluptuous man who is turned to God find plenty and deliciousnes enough in him to feed his soul as with marrow and with fatness as David expresses it and so an angry and passionate man will find zeal enough in the house of God to eat him up All affections which are common to all men and those to which in particular particular men have been adicted to shall not only be justly employed upon God but also securely employed because we cannot exceed nor go too far in imploying them upon him According to this Rule Col. 1. St. Paul who had been so vehement a persecutor had ever his thoughts exercised upon that and thereupon after his conversion he fulfils the rest of the sufferings of Christ in his flesh he suffers most he makes most mention of his suffering of any of the Apostles And according to this Rule too Salomon whose disposition was amorous and excessive in the love of women when he turn'd to God he departed not utterly from his old phrase and language but having put a new and a spiritual tincture and form and habit in all his thoughts and words he conveyes all his loving approaches and applications to God and all Gods gracious answers to his amorous soul into songs and Epithalamians and meditations upon contracts and marriages between God and his Church and between God and his soul as we see so evidently in all his other writings and particularly in this text I love them c. August In which words is expressed all that belongs to love all which is to desire and to enjoy for to desire without fruition is a rage and to enjoy without desire is a stupidity In the first alone we think of nothing but that which we then would have and in the second alone we are not for that when we have it in the first we are without it in the second we were as good we were for we have no pleasure in it nothing then can give us satisfaction but where those two concurr amare and frui to love and to enjoy In sensual love it is so Quid erat quod me delectabat nisi amare et amari I take no joy in this world but in loving and in being beloved in sensual love it is so but in sensual love when we are come so far there is no satisfaction in that the same Father confesseth more of himself then any Commission any oath would have put him to Amatus sum et perveni occulte ad fruendum I had all I desir'd and I had it with that advantage of having it secretly but what got I by all that Ut caederer virgis ardentibus ferreis zeli suspicionis et rixarum nothing but to be scourg'd with burning iron rods rods of jealousie of suspition and of quarrels but in the love and enjoying of this text there is no room for Jealousie nor suspition nor quarrelsome complaining Devisio In this text then you may be pleased to consider these two things Quid amare quid frui what the affection of this love is what is the blessedness of this enjoying but in the first of these we must first consider the persons who are the lovers in this text for there are persons that are incredible though they say they love because they are accustomed to falshood and there are persons which are unrequitable though they be believed to love because they love not where as they should When we have found the persons in a second consideration we shall look upon the affection it self what is the love in this text and then after that upon the bond and union and condition of this love that it is mutual I love them that love me and having passed those three branches of the first part we shall in the second which is enjoying consider first that this enjoying is expressed in the word finding and then that this finding requires two conditions a seeking and an early seeking And they that seek me early shall find me The Person that professes love in this place is wisdom her self First part The Person as appears at the beginning of the Chapter so that sapere et amare to be wise to love which perchance never met before nor since are met in this text but whether this wisdom so frequently mentioned in this book of Proverbs be sapientia creata or increat whether it be the wisdom or the root of wisdom Christ Jesus hath been diversly debated the occasion grew in that great Councel of Nice where the Catholick Fathers understood this wisdom to be intended of Christ himself and then the Arrian hereticks pressed some places of this book where such things seemed to them to be spoken of wisdom as could not be applyable to any but to a Creature and that therefore if Christ were this wisdom Christ must necessarily be a Creature and not God We will not dispute those things over again now they are clearly enough largely enough set down in that Councel but since there is nothing said of wisdom in all this book which hath not been by good expositors applied to Christ much more may we presume the lover in this text though presented in the name of wisdom to be Christ himself and so we do To shew the constancy and durableness of this love the lover is a he that is Christ to shew the vehemency and earnestness of it the lover is a shee that is wisdom as it is often expressed in this Chapter she crieth she uttereth her voice yea in one place of the Bible and only in that one place I think where Moses would express an extraordinary and vehement and passionate indignation in God against his people when as it is in that text his wrath was kindled and grievously
kindled Num. 11.15 there and only their doth Moses attribute even to God himself the feminine sex and speaks to God in the original language as if he should have call'd him Deam Iratam an angry she God all that is good then either in the love of man or woman is in this love for he is expressed in both sexes man and woman and all that can be ill in the love of either sex is purged away for the man is no other man then Christ Jesus and the woman no other woman then wisdom her self even the uncreated wisdom of God himself Now all this is but one person the person that professes love who is the other who is the beloved of Christ is not so easily discern'd in the love between persons in this world and of this world we are often deceived with outward signs we often mis-call and mis-judg civil respects and mutual courtesies and a delight in one anothers conversation and such other indifferent things as only malignity and curiosity and self-guiltiness makes to be misinterpretable we often call these love but neither amongst our selves much less between Christ and our selves are these outward appearances alwaies signs of love This person then this beloved soul is not every one to whom Christ sends a loving message or writs too for his letters his Scriptures are directed to all not every one he wishes well to and swears that he does so for so he doth to all As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a Sinner not every one that he sends jewels and presents to for they are often snares to corrupt as well as arguments of love not though he admit them to his table and supper for even there the Devil entred into Judas with a sop not though he receive them to a kiss for even with that familarity Judas betrayed him not though he betroth himself as he did to the Jews Osc 2.14 sponsabo te mihi in aeternum not though he make jointures in pacto salis in a covenant of salt an everlasting covenant not though he have communicated his name to them which is an act of marriage for to how many hath he said ego dixit Dii estis I have said you are Gods and yet they have been reprobates not all these outward things amount so far as to make us discern who is this beloved person for himself saies of the Israelites to whom he had made all these demonstrations of love yet after for their abominations devorc'd himself from them I have forsaken mine house Jer. 12.7 I have left mine own heritage I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies To conclude this person beloved of Christ is only that soul that loves Christ but that belongs to the third branch of this first part which is the mutual love The Affection but first having found the person we are to consider the affection it self the love of this text it is an observation of Origens that though these three words Amor Dilectio and Charitas love and affection and good will be all of one signification in the sctiptures yet saies he wheresoever there is danger of representing to the fancy a lascivious and carnal love the scripture forbears the word love and uses either affection or good will and where there is no such danger the scripture comes directly to this word love of which Origens examples are that when Isaac bent his affections upon Rebecca and Jacob upon Rachel in both places it is dilexit and not amavit Cant 5.8 and when it is said in the Cant. I charge you Daughters of Jerusalem to tell my well-beloved it is not to tel him that she was in love but to tell him quod vulneratae charitatis sum that I am wounded with an affection good will towards him but in this book of Pro. in all the passages between Christ and the beloved soul there is evermore a free use of this word Amor love because it is even in the first apprehension a pure a chast and an undefiled love Eloquia Dominis casta sayes David All the words of the Lord and all their words that love the Lord all discourses all that is spoken to or from the soul is all full of chast love and of the love of chastity Now though this love of Christ to our souls be too large to shut up or comprehend in any definition yet if we content our selves with the definition of the Schools Amare est velle alicui quod bonum est love is nothing but a desire that they whom we love should be happy we may easily discern the advantage and profit which we have by this love in the Text when he that wishes us this good by loving us is author of all good himself and may give us as much as pleases him without impairing his own infinite treasure He loves us as his ancient inheritance as the first amongst his creatures in the creation of the world which he created for us He loves us more as his purchase whom he hath bought with his blood for even man takes most pleasure in things of his own getting But he loves us most for our improvement when by his ploughing up of our hearts and the dew of his grace and the seed of his word we come to give greaâ—â—r cent in the fruit of sanctification than before And since he loves â—s thus and that in him this love is velle bonum a desire that his beloved should be happy what soul amongst us shall doubt that when God hath such an abundant and infinite treasure as the merit and passion of Christ Jesus sufficient to save millions of worlds and yet many millions in this world all the heathen excluded from any interest therein when God hath a kingdome so large as that nothing limits it and yet he hath banished many natural subjects thereof even those legions of Angels which were created in it and are fallen from it what soul amongst us shall doubt but that he that hath thus much and loves thus much will not deny her a portion in the blood of Christ or a room in the kingdome of heaven No soul can doubt it except it have been a witness to it self and be so still that it love not Christ Jesus for that 's a condition necessary And that is the third branch to which we are come now in our order that this love be mutuall I love them c. If any man loves not our Lord Jesus let him be accursed Mutual saies the Apostle Now the first part of this curse is upon the indisposition to love he that loves not at all is first accursed That stupid inconsideration which passes on drowsilie and negligently upon Gods creatures that sullen indifferency in ones disposition to love one thing no more than another not to value not to chuse not to prefer that stoniness that in humanity not to be
affected not to be entendred to wear those things which God hath made objects and subjects of affections that which St. Paul places in the bottome and lees Rom. 1.30 and dregs of all the sins of the Jews to be without natural affections this distemper this ill complexion this ill nature of the soul is under the first part of this curse if any man love not for he that loves not knows not God for God is love But this curse determins not upon that neither is it principally directed upon that not loving for as we say in the schools Amor est primus actus voluntatis the first thing that the will of man does is to affect to choose to love something and it is scarce possible to find any mans will so idle so barren as that it hath produced no act at all and therefore the first act being love scarce any man can be found that doth not love something But the curses extends yea is principally intended upon him that loves not Christ Jesus though he love the creature and orderly enough yea though he love God as a great and incomprehensible power yet if he love not Christ Jesus if he acknowledg not that all that passes between God and him is in and for Christ Jesus let him be accursed for all his love Now there are but two that can be loved God and the Creature and of the creatures that must necessarily be best loved which is neerest us which we understand best and reflect most upon and that 's our selves for for the love of other creatures it is but a secondary love if we lâ—â—e God we love them for his sake if we love our selves we love them for our sakes Now to love our selves is only allowable only proper to God himself for this love is a desire that all honor and praise and glory should be attributed to ones self and it can be only proper to God to desire that To love our selves then is the greatest treason we can commit against God and all love of the creatures determines in the love of our selves for though sometimes we may say that we love them better than our selves and though we give so good that is indeed so ill testimony that we do so that we neglect our selves both our religion and our discretion for their sakes whom we pretend to love yet all this is but a secondary love and with relation still to our selves and our own contentments for is this love which we bear to other creatures within that definition of love Velle bonum amato to wish that which we love happy doth any ambitious man love honor or office therefore because he thinks that title or that place should receive a dignity by his having it or an excellency by his executing it doth any covetous man love a house or horse therefore because he thinks that house or horse should be happy in such a Master or such Rider doth any licentious man covet or solicite a woman therefore because he thinks it a happiness to her to have such a servant No it is only himself that is within the difinition vult bonum sibi he wishes well as he mistakes it to himself and he is content that the slavery and dishonor and ruin of others should contribute to make up his imaginary happiness August O dementiam nescientem amare homines humaniter what a perverse madness is it to love a creature and not as a creature that is with all the adjuncts and circumstances and qualities of a creature of which the principal is that that love raise us to the contemplation of the Creator for if it be so we may love our selves as we are the Images of God and so we may love other men as they are the Images of us and our nature yea as they are members of the same body for omnes homines una humanitas all men make up but one mankind and so we love other creatures as we all meet in our Creator in whom Princes and Subjects Angels and men and wormes are fellow servants Si malè amaveris tunc odisti If thou hast lov'd thy self August or any body else principally or so that when thou dost any act of love thou canst not say to thine own conscience I do this for Gods sake and for his glory if thou hast loved so thou hast hated thy self and him whom thou hast loved and God whom thou shouldest love Si bonè oderis saies the same Father If thou hast hated as thou shouldst hate if thou hast hated thine own internal tentations and the outward solicitations of others Amasti then thou hast expressed a manifold act of love of love to thy God and love to his Image thy self and love to thine Image that man whom thy virtue and thy example hath declined and kept from offending his and thy God And as this affection love doth belong to God principally that is rather then to any thing else so doth it also principally another way that is rather then any affection else for the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom but the love of God is the consummation that is the marriage and union of thy soul and thy Saviour But can we love God when we will do we not find that in the love of some other things or some courses of life of some waies in our actions and of some particular persons that we would fain love them cannot when we can object nothing against it when we can multiply arguments why we should love them yet we cannot but it is not so towards God every man may love him that will but can every man have this will this desire certainly we cannot begin this love except God love us first we cannot love him but God doth love us all so well from the beginning as that every man may see the fault was in the perversness of his own will that he did not love God better If we look for the root of this love it is in the Father for though the death of Christ be towards us as a root as a cause of our love and of the acceptableness of it yet Augst Meritum Christi est affectum amoris Dei erga nos the death of Christ was but an effect of the love of God towards us So God loved the world that he gave his Son if he had not lov'd us first we had never had his Son here is the root then the love of the Father and the tree the merit of the Son except there be fruit too love in us to them again both root and tree will wither in us howsoever they grew in God I have loved thee with an everlasting love Jer. 31.3 saies God therfore with mercy I have drawn thee if therefore we do not perceive that we are drawn to lov again by this lov 't is not an everlasting lov that shines upon us All the sunshine all the glory of this life
hast nothing of thine own Hoc est nec ingratum esse nec superbum therein thou art neither unthankful to God nor proud of thy self As he that hath no other good parts but money and locks up that or employs it so as that his money feeds upon the Commonwealth and does not feed it that it lies gnawing and sucking blood by Usury and does not make blood by stirring and walking in Merchandize is an unprofitable member in State so he that hath good parts and smothers them in a retired and useless life is inexcusable in the same measure When therefore men retire themselves into Cloysters and Monasteries when they will not be content with St. Pauls diminution to be changed from Saul to Paulus which is little but will go lower then that little by being called minorites less then little and lower then that minims least of all and yet finde an order less then that as they have done nullani nothing at all Exore suo out of their own mouths they shall be judged and that which they have made themselves here God shal make them in the world to come nullanos nothing at all Paulum sepultae distatinertiae celata virtus It is all one as if he had no grace of lips if he never have the grace to open his lips to bury himself alive is as much wrong to the State as if he kill himself Every man hath a Politick life as well as a natural life and he may no more take himself away from the world then he may make himself away out of the world For he that dies so by withdrawing himself from his calling from the labours of mutual society in this life that man kills himself and God calls him not Morte morietur He shall die a double death an Allegorical death here in his retiring from his own hand and a real death from the hand of God hereafter In this case that Vae soli Wo be unto him that is alone hath the heaviest weight with it when a man lives so alone as that he respects no body but himself his own ease and his own ends For to sum up all concerning this part the Subject as our principal duty is Pureness of heart towards God and to love that intirely earnestly so the next is the Grace of lips Ability to serve the Publick which though we be bound not to love it with a pride we are bound not to smother with a retiring And then for these endowments for being Religious and serviceable to the State The King shall be our friend Which is our second general part to which in our order proposed we are now come As it is frequent and ordinary in the Scriptures when the Holy Ghost would express a superlative Rev nota superlativi the highest degree of any thing to express it by adding the name of God to it as when Saul and his company were in such a dead sleep as that David could take his Spear and pot of water from under his head It is called Tardemath Jehovah sopor Domini The sleep of the Lord The greatest sleep that could possess a man and so in many other places fortitudo Domini and timor Domini signifie the greatest strength and the greatest fear that could fall upon a man so also doth the Holy Ghost often descend from God to Gods Lieutenant and as to express superlatives he does sometimes use the name of God so doth he also sometimes use the name of King For Reges sunt summi Regis defluxus says that Author who is so antient that no man can tell when he was Trismegistus God is the Sun and Kings are Beams and emanations and influences that flow from him Such is the manner of the Holy Ghost expressing himself in Esai Tyrus shall be forgotten seventy years Esay 23.15 according to the years of one King that is during the time of any one mans life how happy and fortunate soever And so also the miserable and wretched estate of the wicked is likewise expressed Job 18.14 His hope shall be rooted out of his dwelling and shall drive him to the King of fears that is to the greatest despair ad Regem interituum says the Vulgar to the greatest destruction that can be conceived So that in this first sence Amicitia Regis the Kings friendship that is promised here The King shall be his friend is a superlative friendship a spreading a delating an universal friendship He that is thus qualified all the world shall love him Rex qui fortunatus So also by the name of King both in the Scriptures and in Josephus and in many more prophane and secular Authors are often designed such persons as were not truly of the rank and quality of Kings but persons that lived in plentiful and abundant fortunes and had all the temporal happinesses of this life were called Kings And in this sence the Kings friendship that is promised here The King shall be his friend is utilis amicitia all such frinds as may do him good God promises that to men thus endow'd and qualified belongs the love and assistance that men of plentiful fortunes can give great Persons great in Estate great in Power and Authority shall confer their favours upon such men and not upon such as only serve to swell a train always for ostentation sometimes for sedition much less shall they confer their favours upon sycophants and buffoons least of all upon the servants of their vices and voluptuousness but they whom God hath made Kings in that sence Masters of abundant fortunes shall do good to them only who have this pureness of heart and grace of lips Rex Ipse But if these words be not only intended of the King literally That he shall do good to men thus endowed and qualified but extended to all men in their proportion that all that are able should do good to such persons yet this Text is principally intended of the King himself and therefore is so expressed singularly and emphatically The King shall be his friend As God hath appointed it for a particular dignity to his Spouse the Church That Kings shall be their foster-fathers Esa 49.23 and Queens their nurses so God hath designed it for a particular happiness of religious and capable men that they may stand before the King and hear his wisdom as the Queen of Sheba observed of the servants of Solomon 1 Reg 10. 9. and pronounced them happy for that This then is a happiness belonging to this pureness and this grace that the King shall not only nor absolutely rely upon the information of others and take such a measure and such a character of men as the good or bad affections of others will present unto him but he shall take an immediate knowledge of them himself he shall observe their love to this pureness of heart and their grace of lips and so become their friend Unto which of the Angels said