of satisfaction from his fulness that filleth all in all filleth all in every Good man filleth the Mind with light the Will with holy affections and the Body with an obsequious inclinableness and obedience to the Will and makes the whole man a Temple to himself full of light of peace of glory so filleth it that it is satisfied as with marrow and fatness with all satiety of joy The Chaldee Paraphrase brings it home to my Text satisfied with marrow and fatness that is with thy Law that is with that which is Good And thus we may draw an argument from the nature of Goodness which the nearer it carryeth us to the fountain of Goodness the more satisfaction it brings with it and the fuller is our Cup. Inebriabuntur ab ubertate domûs tuae saith the Psalmist They shall be overcome and even intoxicated with this cup. Without God we cannot be happy in heaven it self nay without him there could be no heaven and with him we shall enjoy what we can desire even in the lowest pit Nihil illi satis est cui non sufficit Deus We can never be satisfied till we rest in the greatest Good and Goodness lays us in his very bosome nay in his heart We never find our selves and all things but in him And as we draw an argument from Piety so may we draw another from the Love of it and therefore amamus amorem nostrum saith Augustine we do not only love Goodness but even the Love with which we embrace it and delight in both And this satisfaction proceeds not only from that which is good but from our hearty affection to it Goodness shines upon us and kindles our Love and as there is a glory in goodness so there is in our Love For Joy and Satisfaction is a resultancy from Love for our delight is to have and do what we love That which we love is also the joy of our heart If Love be as the Sun Joy and Satisfaction are as the beams that stream from it If Love fill the heart it will heave and work it self out and break forth in joy Gaudium de amore say the Schools our Satisfaction is the off-spring of Love and issueth from it and bears its shape and likeness For as our Love is such is our Joy If our Love be kindled from heaven our Joy will be also from the heaven heavenly and resemble that of the Angels But if it be placed on things below on that which is transitory on that which will not satisfie it will be also transitory and unsatisfying What is the satisfaction of a Worldling a thief may break through and steal it away What is the satisfaction of the Ambitious a frown will chase it away What is the satisfaction of the Wanton burnt and consumed in his lust The adulterer waiteth for the twilight the twilight cometh and to night sin is as a purchase but to morrow it is rottenness to his bones and dulness to his understanding to night it is the horn of beauty and to morrow a fury Goe compass about the world and what satisfaction can you find Draw all its beauty and honor and riches together and all is but ingens fabula magnum mendacium a long tale and a huge lye and Satisfaction and Joy may seem to be exhaled out of these as noysome vapours are out of the earth to be seen a while and then to be nothing or which is worse to gather into a cloud and dissolve in tears of sorrow and bitterness Ever as our Love and Desire is such is our Satisfaction One argument we take more à minori ad majus to perswade us to this Truth If the bare opinion of Piety in those who are not yet made perfect satisfie though it be but for a while then Piety it self will satisfie much more If the shadow if a weak representation of Virtue and Piety will refresh us what will it do when it shines upon us in perfection of beauty If one good act which is but the shell and outside of Goodness in them who rather approve than love it if one good thought one good word one good action lift us up how will a habit of goodness exalt us If I say the shadow hath this operation what hath the substance the thing it self If the giving a Cup of cold water will raise and settle content in us how will that Heart be filled with joy which is sacrificed to its Maker We may if we please discover this in our selves What feel we in our Heart when our Hand hath reached out a peny Doth it not make a kind of melody there doth it not so fill us that it is ready to break out at the lips What hear you when you give good counsil doth it not echo back again upon you When you have heard two Sermons on the Lords-day do you not tell your selves you have sanctified the Sabbath When you have received a Prophet though in your own name do you not look for a Prophets reward See what a paradise one leafe of the Tree of life may make for all these may be but leaves what a glorious structure may be raised upon a Thought And if Error if Opinion may work some satisfaction then Truth may much more If a Dream may enlighten us what will a Revelation from God himself do And if the embracing of a cloud do so much please us How shall we be transported when we shall find our Juno even Goodness it self in our arms If a form of Godliness then much more Godliness in its full power will fill and satisfie us Run to and fro through Jerusalem go about the streets thereof muster up together all that name the Lord Jesus and you shall find that every man is full every man almost is satisfied few drooping and hanging down the Head In our Health we comfort our selves and on our bed of Sickness we send for comforters and as miserable comforters as they are we are willing to hear them and a little opiate Divinity a few good words the name of JESUS doth settle and satisfie us There be very few Rachels that will not be comforted We run from that which is good and sit down in the shadow of it we wound our Conscience and then stain it over again we break the whole Law and one sigh is satisfaction nay we break the Law and perswade our selves we have kept it any perswasion is satisfaction We break one Law and satisfie our selves in the misinterpretation of another and so break it when we think we have kept it Industry is commanded and that must countenance our love of the world Zeal is commended and that must raise a faction Truth must be defended and that must beat up a drum It is not women only but men that are never to seek for an excuse and that is satisfaction Every man posts to destruction yet every man would seem to be on the wing to heaven Every man
him This is to be like unto God and to be partaker of his spirit And to be Christs Disciple is to be one with him and to be ingrafted into him Here is the Christians highest pitch his Ascension his Zenith his Third heaven And therefore it is said to be a speech of Christ which the Nazarene Gospel hath recorded though our Bibles have not Nunquam loeti sitis nisi cum fratres in charitate videritis No spectacle of delight nothing that a Christian can take pleasure in nothing of virtue and power hath enough to raise a Disciples joy but to see his fellow-disciples his Brethren embracing one another in love For if the ground of all Pleasure be agreement and proportionableness to the temper and constitution of any thing then certainly nothing so agreeing so harmonical so consonant to our reasonable nature and to the ingenuity of our kind and consequently so universally delightful to all who have not put off the bowels and the nature of Man and are by the love of the world swayed and bended to a brutish condition as that which may as well go for a Reward as for a Duty the Loving of the Brethren that language of Love which we must practice here that we may chant it in heaven with the congregation of the first-born and the spirits of men made perfect by love eternally And indeed Charity is the prime ingredient of the glorified Saints Of whose state we understand no more but that they are in bliss and love one another and that they are for ever blessed because they for ever love one another Their Charity never faileth saith St. Paul and then their bliss is everlasting What is Paradise saith the Father but to love God and serve him And the best love we can shew him the best service we can do him is to love and serve the Brethren The end of the Gospel is love 1 Tim. 1. 5. that is other doctrine tendeth to strife and contention but the whole doctrine of the Gospel tendeth to love and unity So that no doctrine that naturally and of it self worketh wrath and uncharitableness can be Evangelical For the wisdome that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without judging James 3. 17. and without Hypocrisie Beloved Envy malice debate contention strife are the delight and joy of them who have tasted of the powers of no other world then of this which shall be consumed or rather they are the delight of the infernal spirits as it is a torment to them to be restrained from doing mischief Art thou come to destroy us to torment us before our time saith the unclean Spirit Art thou come to curb and hinder us from vexing and destroying those we hate for this is torturing this is sending them again into the deep confining them to their Luke 8. 31. Hell As the lower pit is said to be opened in the Revelation when they have liberty to vex and torment mankind so it is as much Hell to them not to punish others as it is to be punished And none but evil spirits and Men of their constitution and temper can make a Heaven in Hell it self by doing mischief And indeed Delight it is not properly but it is called so because it is proportionable and satisfactory to their malice and pernicious nature and disposition No if we hear LAETENTUR COELI Let the Heavens rejoyce it is because Peace is here on earth If we hear LAETENTUR ANGELI Let the Angels rejoyce it is for the tears and repentance of some sinner here below If we hear LAETENTUR SANCTI Let the Saints rejoyce it is in their union and communion in those mutual offices of bearing and supporting one another and as so many Angels by prayers and exhortations and by the reciprocal activity of their love lifting and conveighing one another into Abrahams bosome Thus we see that that love which makes and keeps us Brethren is the pleasantest thing in the world and that all other joy is no better joy then the Damned have in hell A Joy I must not call it A Complacency we may call it But that is too good a name It is the feeding the filling the satisfying the Malice of an ugly and malicious Fiend But in the next place we shall the sooner fall in love with this Love if Profit also be brought-in to commend and enhance the price and value of this Pleasure And here if we ask with the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What profit is there we may answer Much every manner of way For from this we have all those helps those huge advantages which are as so many heaves and promotions and thrustings forward into Happiness By my brother I may see that which before I could not discover He may clear up my Affections from storm and tempest and my Understanding from darkness and confusion of thoughts He may cast out infinitatem rei as the Civilians speak that variety that kind of infinity of appearances in which every thing useth to shew and present it self He may be as Moses said to Hobab to me instead of eyes to guide and direct Numb 10. 31. me by his counsel and providence By him I may hear as Samuel did for Ely what the Lord God will say By him I may feel and taste how gracious the Lord God is He may do those offices for me which the Angels of God those ministring Spirits cannot do because they have no body He may be my Servant and I may wait upon him He may be my Supporter and I may uphold him He may be my Priest and I may teach him He may be my Guard and I may protect him He may be my Angel and I may go with him and be his conduct He may be made all things to me and I may be made all things to him Thus we may grow up together in Grace for in this Nursery in this Eden in this Fraternity the nearer and closer we grow together the more we spread and flourish COMPLANTATI grafted together in the similitude of Christs Death and Rom. 6. 5. CONSEPULTI Buried together with him in Baptism and CONRESUSCITATI v. 4. risen together with Christ No Grafting no Burying Col. 3. 1. no Rising but together No profit no advantage no encrease but in love Speaking the truth in love we grow up into him in all things Eph. 4. 15 16. which is the Head even Christ By which the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted as a House by that which every joynt supplyes by that spirit and juyce which every part conveighs according to the effectual working in the measure of every part according as it wants sustentation and increase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the body which is the Brotherhood may be edified that is more and more instructed and improved by mutual love and the duty and offices of Charity which
God And this Beloved is the Benefit or Priviledge I told you of A great priviledge for remittuntur ei peccata cui filii nomen ascribitur His pardon is sealed who hath this title and name given him to be the Child of God But as it is beneficium so it is officium it is obligatory and hath a duty annexed unto it If we be Children we must be Obedient We have now alter'd our language Our dialect was a strange dialect we spake words clothed with death but now our language and voice is Abba Father And this first cry these first words of our nativity as Cyprian speaks Our Father which art in Heaven are as witnesses to remember us that we have renounced all carnality and as Children in Christ know only our Father which is in heaven Be yee therefore followers of God as children or because yee are children For this very appellation is an admonition this title is a remembrancer this honor and dignity must either instruct us or it will condemn us It was a speech worthy the mouth of an Emperor which Alexander Severus used Conabor me dignum praestare nomine Alexandri I will endeavour to be worthy the name of Alexander And it was a speech worthy the mouth of a Christian which Basilides a converted Executioner used to return upon his companions who perswaded him to swear by the name of Caesar Non licet jurare quia sum Christianus It is not lawful for me to swear by him because I am a Christian Great honours are contumelies and upbraid us if our comportment and behaviour be not answerable What a ridiculous thing was it to see Nero an Emperour with his Harp or Fidle or in his buskins acting on a Stage to see Domitian catching of flies or Hercules at his Distaff So what an incongruous thing is a Christian and a Blasphemer a Disciple and a Traytor to be in area Ecclesiae in the court or floor of the Church and yet chaff to be within the pale and yet a Devil to be a child of God with the teeth of a Lion ravening for the prey and ready to devour his brother If I am a Father where is my honor saith God Where is your Understanding captivated your stubborn Wills conquered your Passions subdued And if you were Abrahams seed you would do Abrahams works and noth the Devils saith our John 8. Saviour to the Jews Good God! a wonder it is to see a world of Sins a world of Sinners and yet all Christians a deluge of Iniquity and yet none drowned all within the Ark so many fighting against God and yet all his Souldiers so many abusing his Name for trifles for nothing indeed out of meer custom and yet this with a Childs mouth so many Rebels and Traytors and yet all Children But Beloved let us not deceive our selves and our own souls It is not the name of Children that will entitle us to the Kingdom of Heaven but the reality the being so Without this our Religion which we profess will accuse and the relation which we boast we have to God will condemn us For reatus impii pium nomen saith Salvian A glorious title doth but more lay open our errors and it adds to the guilt of a wicked man that he hath his Christendome and that his name is amongst the Children of God But let us walk worthy of the Gospel of Hebr. 3. Christ and as partakers of the heavenly vocation consider the High-priest of our profession Christ Jesus Let every one that names Christ depart from 2 Tim. 2. iniquity Let us walk as children of the light and be followers of God as v. 8. his children But here the weak Christian will reply like the Sluggard in the Proverbs that there is a Lion in the way an impossibility of following God that the dignity of the Gospel is so great that neither Man nor Angel are equal to it or able to do any thing worthy of it Indeed a weak Christian and one that would be a child still but as the Apostle speaks in understanding For see God desires but a competencie He likes thee when thou followest him though it be with a childs pace with an Infants strength So that thou follow him he interprets thy endeavours performance And though like a Gyant thou rowse not thy self up to run the race yet if with all thy courage thou follow he calls thee strong that made thee so though thou hast but the strength of an Infant But thou sayest it is impossible Why but that which is impossible may be necessary For thou thy self hast made it so The time was in paradise when it was not impossible The best use thou canst make of it is to do what thou canst saith St. Augustine and then petere à Deo quod non possis to entreat Gods help in that thou canst not performe And thou needst not fear a denial for behold he is thy Father and thou art his Child nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his dear child Which is the gracious Adjunct and comes next to be handled Incongruous it is you see that a Child so freely adopted from so base an estate should prove refractory and disobedient And pity it were nay impossible filium tot lacrymarum as Augustines mother spake of him that a child bought and begot with so much grief with so many tears should perish at the last in rebellion This prerogative was not granted in vain But see here the waters of comfort rise higher and the priviledge is enlarged and the tye made stronger This Child of God which was Benoni a Son of sorrow is now become Benjamin a Son of Gods right hand beloved and dear in his sight And he will make him even as Joseph a Son of encreasing a fruitful bough even a fruitful bough by the Well side And here Beloved what wings might I wish for to fly a pitch proportionable to the height of Gods Love Or what line might I use to sound the depth of Gods Mercy Or with what words shall I express how he endears himself to his Children Shall I mention the love of Women The love of Jonathan 2 Sam. 1. to David was greater Shall I speak of Jonathans love to David It was great indeed but to a friend But God embraces first and loveth first We love him because he loved us first He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 1 John 4. 19. Father of love and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Love it self And he delights in these titles and attributes saith Nazianzene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he may as it were by proclamation promulge and publish his love And no carnal friend though as Chrysostome saith he be mad in love can so burn in affection to his friend as God doth in love to our souls Now this love of God is first a Preventing Love It prevents our slowness and backwardness to entertain it We sacrificed to the Queen of
Peter Satan into an Angel of light and Hell it self into Paradise But I mistake the Father For the Cardinal will tell us he meant not Hell but Purgatory where there is perfect Charity as intentively hot as the fire there What Charity there and perfect We inferr then No Hope there For perfect Love as it casteth out Fear so it casteth out Hope too Which ebbs and flows increaseth and decreaseth waxeth and waneth with Charity and when it either fails or hath its perfection it endeth We sow in hope but when the harvest the time of gathering and separation comes Hope vanisheth For my Charity raises my Hope by the same degrees she receives But in culmine virtutis she swalloweth it up in victory On the hills there is salvation but in the bottome in the valley of death there is omnimoda desolatio a strange kind of desolation not only of the Soul but of all her comforts even that last comfort Hope She is dead say they in the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why troublest thou the master any further We find you see this Hope neither in heaven nor in hell Neither in Abrahams bosom there Lazarus is so sure that he may not carry a drop of water to cool a flaming tongue nor in the place of torments Dives's care we read is not for himself but his brethren In Hell there is no fire but that sulfureous tormenting fire and in Heaven the fire of Charity is in intensis gradibus clear and bright and resined like the elementary fire pure and invisible wheeling and rowling about in an eternal gyre and circle We must then descend unto earth where Charity is visible where this fire like to the fire there is of a grosser and more sensible temper and with that too flameth upward till it be refined and exalted to a caelestial heat till its motion be heightned into perfection and with it our Hope turned into possession By this fire we must sit down nay we must carry these coals in our bosome if we will spem accendere kindle Hope If this fire be extinguisht if this heat perish my Hope will either freeze and congeal and petrifie into a stubborn Despair or else by a kind of Antiperistasis being encompassed by excess of cold beaten upon by the violence of a contrary quality it will break forth into an unruly flame and raise it self to a sawcy Presumption But here it is and here we find it even spem in charitate Hope in Charity For in amore haec insunt omnia In Love are all these things which with the eye of Hope we look upon or with the hand of Hope we lay hold on First the Object is the same For Love is an affection joyning and uniting us to God Love could not walk in that circle of blessings both spiritual and temporal if God were not in the midst Draw what lines you please propose either Competencie of means or Quiet of Conscience or the Joys of Heaven Hope will faint and languish if God be not the center wherein these lines meet Secondly the character and mark whereby we may know them both is the same Love is bold We commonly say We will build upon a friend Put what objections and what scruples you please of Inopportunity Inconveniency Improbability that he cannot now that he wants leasure and a convenient time to do me good Love answers all And so doth Hope Place Tribulation Persecution Death it self in the way yet she presseth forward Though he kill me yet will I trust in him saith Job Thirdly Love is jealous it carrieth and conveyeth the soul to the object not enjoyed Ubi amor ibi animus Where my love is there is my mind Where my treasure is there is my soul Ubi sum ibi non sum saith the old Lover in Plautus where I am not there I am and where I am there I am not I am sure ubi spes ibi est animus Where my Hope is there my Soul is my Understanding to apprehend it my Care to procure it Spe jam sumus in caelo We aim at heaven and Hope puts us there already And this earnest inclination to the object begets a Jealousie To Love a glance is a frown and a frown anger and anger death and yet it is Love still And Hope hath these abatements and fits and shiverings and yet it is Hope still Lastly Love is querulous and full of complaints Why doth he pursue me saith Job Why dost thou set me as a mark And Why art thou angry with thine inheritance saith David How long Lord how long Hope 's own dialect For there is a kind of thirst in Hope more then that of a chased Hart. Festina Charitas and festina spes Love is on the wing and in haste and so is Hope Spes quae differtur affligit Hope knows no affliction but delay While she is she is in trouble in pangs like a man fastened to a cross who desires nothing more then to expire The life of Hope is exspectation answer that and Hope is not And in this Relation stand Hope and Charity Like Hippocrates's Twins they are born and grow up together Their operations their postures their gestures are not unlike Sic oculos sic ille manus As a well made and well placed picture looks upon him that looks upon it so doth my Charity eye my Hope and my Hope looks back upon my Charity Nay my Hope is the picture of my Charity and my Charity is the lively representation of my Hope Would you see the pourtraiture and lively view of my Hope then behold my Charity Would you take the lineaments and proportion of my Charity look upon my Hope Charity is a commentary upon my Hope and my Hope is an interpretation of my Charity To love God and to hope in God are terms reciprocal He that loves him hopes in him and he that hopes in him loves him So that take charitatem in via Charity upon earth and charitas sperat is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a universal proposition and the terms are aequalis ambitûs of equal latitude Where Hope is there is Charity and where Charity is there is Hope Thus the terms naturally stand and yet a strange paradox is maintained in the world That Hope may thrive well enough without the warmth and fomentation of Charity We deny Hope to men already damned in hell but candidatis diaboli to men who are confederate with Hell who call it unto them both with works and words to men who are judged already and Wisd 1. 16. whose damnation sleepeth not but is awake and in agitation we deny it not They who treasure up wrath against the day of wrath who know nothing of Faith Hope and Charity but their naked names a faithless generation without Love in this world and quite destitute of Hope desperate sinners yet notwithstanding hope After their rebellion for a reward after their
the object be ad manum parabile at hand and cheap my Hope is lazy and asleep it moves not it stirs not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hope above hope Hope against hope that is Hope indeed For as Tertullian asking the question Why Christ after his resurrection did not manifest and publish himself to the whole world and so put it out of all question that he was risen indeed answers well That this he did not ut fides cui magna merces debetur non nisi difficultate constaret That our Faith which hath the promise of a great reward might be commended by that difficulty which stood in its way So may we say of Hope 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The way of Hope is hard and rugged She passeth by the pomp of the world and she treadeth dangerous paths If a Serpent be in the way she feareth not if a Flower some pleasing object she gazeth not but presseth on forward over Riches and Poverty over Honor and Disgrace super culcatum patrem over all relations and dependencies and in this habit and attire ruspata sanguine as Tertullian speaks torn and weather-beaten and in her own gore she striveth forward to her object Though I see it not yet I hope Though it be in heaven yet I hope Though I am in chains even fetter'd retinaculis spei with those stays and hinderances of Hope which the World or the Devil cast about me yet I hope still 4. Lastly Possibilia Good things though hard to obtain yet possible For Charity nihil perperam agit is not foolish and indiscreet It plows not the air nor sows upon the rocks What is easie and at hand cannot raise a Hope and what is impossible overwhelms and swallows it What is ready to fall into my bosome I need not hope for and what I cannot have nec spes nec votum est doth scarce produce a wish much less beget a hope These are the bounds and these make up the object of my Hope and as Lines drawn to the Circumference fill up this OMNIA this all-things in the Text. Now St. Basil's rule is most safe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not to remove these bounds nor alter these everlasting limits We must not take the Compass and draw new lines and put out God and place Our selves in centro in the midst We must not build our Hope upon dust and rubbish upon our own weak and rotten foundation But we must keep our Hope close to Charity which looks upon the right object For Hope as Fear is measured by its object Fear is a base and graveling a cowardly passion if either an Enemy or Disgrace or Danger beget it But pone Deum place God there make him the object of thy Fear and then that of Synesius is most true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To faint and be daunted here doth strengthen us and our greatest security is to fear And my Hope is as its object is If it be placed on Princes or in any Son of man it is as frail and mortal as they are and departs with their breath It is chased away with a frown it is blown out of their nostrils and perisheth as soon as a thought If I lay it on my own Strength or Wit or Policy alass I have set up a Paper-wall nay I have built my Fort in the air And you need not plant a Canon against it to make a battery it will down of it self and overthrow and ruin the builder and leave a mark an ECCE upon him Behold the man that made the arm of flesh his strength and put his confidence in himself But make God its object and Hope is a rock a castle an impregnable cittadel canon-proof as we say no assault no battery shall force it For the Lord saith the Prophet Nahum is good a strong hold in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him And indeed Charity keeps Hope where God would have it placed at its right object She is a perfect methodist She guides hope and leads her on orderly draws every line to its true proper center they turn it from the creature and levels it on God The order of Charity is the order of Unity The Devil is a great disturber the author of confusion Whereas God hath placed Contempt upon the World Love upon Goodness and Shame upon Sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Devil hath inverted this order saith Chrysostome and hath placed Shame upon Repentance and Security upon Sin Distrust upon Gods Providence and Hope upon the World He hath placed Hope upon Fear and Fear upon Hope 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most fearful and terrible things in the world if we rightly understood them those we hope for and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most desirable the most conducible to our eternal happiness those we fear Now the office and work of Charity is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even an act of Justice to make every wheel move in its own place to give every action every affection its proper end and work to place my Hatred on the World my Love on God my Anger on Sin my Delight on Goodness my Fear on God and my Hope on God Put CHARITAS to SPERAT joyn Charity and Hope and OMNIA all things will follow we cannot hope amiss Thus doth Charity edifie even build us up as high as heaven and Hope being the supporter and bringing in with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things doth establish and strengthen the building But in the last place as we build up our selves so must we edifie others also in our most holy faith and as we hope for all things for our selves so must we reserve a Hope for those also who are tied in the same link and bond of Love When we see a house tottering we must not make our censure a wind to blow it down but hope that even a broken beam a loose rafter nay the very rubbage it self may in time be made a sound part of the building When I see my brother fall I must lend him my Hand to help him up If my Hand will not help him I must lend him my Pity and Compassion and Prayer And when all the rest fail I must give him my Hope Charity hath an eye abroad as well as at home nor doth she nurse up Hope for her self alone but makes it as catholick as the Church nay as the World Aegrotis dum anima est spes esse dicitur saith Tully Hope lasteth as long as life lasteth nor can it expire but with the soul And how desperately soever we see our brother plunged in sin yet we must hope well that his sickness is not unto death How did the Church of Christ frown upon the Novatians who denyed hope of pardon to those who fell away in time of persecution St. Cyprian calls them pietatis paternae adversarios enemies to the grace of God Isidore tells them they were proud and foolish boasters and
sings of peace to the Common-wealth and the Common-wealth echoeth it back again to the Church This is Musick which both Men and Angels are delighted with Angels I say who being now made one with us make it part of their joy to see us at unity amongst our selves Happy thrice Happy times when the Poets could sing of the Spiders making their webs in the Souldiers Helmets and coats of armour These then are not excluded but wrapt up in this Salutation For all peace is carried along in this in the Peace of the Gospel When the world is out of frame this establisheth the pillars of it brings every part to its own place the Sensual parts under the Rational the Flesh under the Spirit the Will under the command of the Understanding which is the Peace of the Soul It brings the obedience of Faith under the eternal Law of Christ which is our Peace with God It draws with it the Servant under the Master the Child under the Parent the subject under the Magistrate which is the Peace of a House of a Common-wealth of the World It makes every part dwell together in unity it observes a parity in disparity an equality in an inequality it keeps every wheel in its own motion every man in his right place the Master on Horseback and the Servant on the ground and where Impudence incroacheth it checketh it with a Friend sit down lower It keepeth the hands of the ungodly from the gray hairs of the aged and the teeth of the oppressor from the face of the widow Like an Intelligence it moves the lesser Sphere of a Family and the greater Orbe of the Common-wealth composedly and orderly Peace is the right order and the harmony of things A Father calls it an Harp and it is never well set or tuned but by the hand of Charity For all the Peace that is in the world is derived from this Salutation from the Peace of the Gospel which slacketh and lets down the String of our self-Self-love even to a Hatred of our selves and windeth the string of our Love to our brother to an equal proportion with the Love of our selves We must hate our life in this world and we must John 12. 25. Math. 22. 39. love our brother as our selves Nay it lets it down lower yet to our very enemies the sound must reach even unto them Talk what we will of peace If it be not touched and tuned by Charity it will be but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal or rather if it take not its rise and spring from this Peace here from the Peace of the Gospel it will be but a dreadful sound as Job 15. 21. Eliphaz speaketh either in the Soul or in the Family or in the Church or in the Common-wealth I am the bolder thus to interpret the Disciples Salutation because I find it part of their Commission to say The Kingdome of God is at hand which was indeed to give notice of the Gospel of Peace This as it commends unto us all Peace but that which is in evil which indeed is not Peace but a conspiracy so especially it inculcates this by which Christ hath made both Eph. 2. 14. one and broken down the partition-wall which was between the Jew and the Gentile and that partition-wall also which Covetousness and Ambition Envy and Malice sets up between man and man that we may be one in him as He and the Father are one It was the prime care of the primitive Joh. 1◠Christians to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace And to this Eph 4. 3. end they bound themselves by oath sayth Pliny a heathen witer nè furta committerent nè fidem fallerent not to steal or lye or deceive or break their word This course had the world upheld to this day we should perhaps have no reason to complain that Peace hath left the earth or that the Prince of Peace hath not a hole to hide his head in If men were truly Christians and had not made a sad divorce between Honesty and Religion the Disciples Salutation would not turn to them again but rest on every House and on every Common-wealth For Christian Religion is the greatest preserver of Peace that ever was and hath layd a greater horror and a fowler blemish upon Discord and Dissention then Philosophy ever did when she was most rigid and severe She commands us to pray for peace She enjoyns us to study to be quiet and to follow Peace with all men She enjoyns us to loose 1 Tim. 2. 2. 1 Thes 4. 11. our right for Peace and to part with coat and cloak and all rather then with Peace quale regnum talis pax Look upon the Kingdom the Disciples Heb. 12. 14. M◠4729. speak of and you shall soon discern what Peace they wish Peace with God Peace of Conscience there is no doubt of that But Peace a so with men For this is truly Evangelical motus aliena naturae pace nostra cohibere as Hilary speaketh to place a peacable disposition as a bank or bulwark against the violence of anothers rage by doing nothing to conquer him who is up in arms and spends himself and laboureth in the mine to ruine me This is the work of the Gospel to beat down noyse with silence and injury with patience To overcome evil with good To keep peace between the rich and the poor by prescribing mercy to that one and meekness to the other between the high and the low by prescribing justice to the one and submission to the other between the evil and the good by threatning the one and upholding the other Thus it levelleth the hills and raiseth the valleys and casteth an aspect and influence upon all conditions all qualities all affections of men that as it was prophesyed of the Times of the Gospel The VVolf may dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard ly down with the Kid a little Child lead Isa 11. 6. the Lion that there may be abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth O beloved did this Salutation take place did the Peace of the Gospel rest upon us our conversation would be more smooth and even and Salutations not so rugged and churlish as they commonly are They would not be so supercilious the dictates of our Pride Stand thou there or sit thou Jam. 2. 3. here under my footstool They would not be so surly the expressions of our Scorn VVho made thee a Judg over us They would not be so treacherous This is he hold him fast They would not be so cruel the messengers of Death Smite him till he dyeth They would not be so querulous the breathings of our Envy VVhy is he made rich VVhy is he in honour VVhy hath he who came in but now as much as I that have born the heat and burden of the day But every Family and every Common-wealth would be fitly joyned and compacted
God as it were He puts on Righteousness as a breast-plate and a helmet of Salvation on his head he puts on the garments of Vengeance as a garment and was clad with Zeal as a cloak Isa 59. 17. Nuditas notat Diabolum saith the Father Nakedness is a mark of the Devil We never read of his cloathing Stript he was of his Angels wings of his eminent Perfection And our first parents he stripped in Paradise of that rich robe of original Justice and left them so naked that they were even ashamed of themselves and sewed fig-leaves together to make them aprons And us he strippeth every day and leaves us nothing but fair pretences and false excuses to shelter u◠scarce so good a covert as their fig-leaves We read of Belshazzar that he was weighed in the balance and Dan. 5. 27. was found minus habens too light wanting something And in the next verse PERES his kingdom is divided from him At the entrance of the King here the guest that was found to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not having somthing that he should have was thrust out of doors and cast into utter darkness Christ gives not to wilfull bankrupts No HABENTI DADITUR To him Matth. 25 29. that hath it shall be given and he shall have abundance and vestitus supervestietur he that is clothed already shall be clothed-upon with a robe or immortality 2 Cor. 5. 4. But every garment fits not a Christian Every garment is not worth the keeping There is strange apparel and the Prophet tells us Zeph. 1. 8. who they were that wore it v. 5. even they that worshipt the host of heaven on the house-tops and swore by Malcham that leaped on the threshold and filled their masters houses with violence and deceit A garment fitter for Micah in his house of gods fitter for Judas or Barabbas at a plot of treason or an insurrection than for a true Disciple of Christ This is not the wedding-garment We must then take a true pattern to make it by or else fitted we shall not be And where can we take it better than from Christ himself Summa religionis est imitari quem colis saith the Father It is the sum of Religion all the piety we have to imitate him whom we worship to be Christiformes to keep our selves in a uniformity and conformity to Christ Sic oculos sic ille manus sic ora ferebat Thus He lookt thus He did thus was He apparrelled Now what was Christs apparrel The Prophet will tell us that it was glorious that he was Isa 63. 1. formosus in stola very richly arrayed and St. Mark that he had a white garment Chap 9. 3. whiter than any Fuller could make it And St. John tells us of his retinue that they were clothed in white linnen white and clean Look into Rev. 19. 8. Christs wardrobe and you find no torn or ragged apparel No old things are done away The robe of Righteousness the garment of Innocency 2 Cor. 5. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spotless coat of Temperance and Chastity these Christ had and with these he went about doing good Out of this wardrobe must we make up our wedding-garment We must saith the Apostle put on the Lord Jesus Christ put him on all his Righteousness his Obedience Rom. 13. 14. his Love his Patience We must be conformable to Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to proportion In the Rule of our Obedience we must not wear a garment of our own phansying an irregular unprescribed devotion In the Ends of it to glorifie God on the earth and in the Parts of it not John 17. 4. a parcel garment It must fit every part it must be universal The Schoolman must be speculum Christi a Looking-glass reflecting Christ's graces upon himself presenting to him his own image in all righteousness and holiness We will not say with Fastus Socinus that Christ was married to his Church only to this end that Christ came into the world non ad satisfactionem sed exemplum not to be the way to life but to cut one out not to pay down our accounts but to teach us an art of thrift to be able to pay them our selves not to be a sacrifice for sin but an ensample of godly life A most horrid blasphemy But this we may say That Christs fulfilling the Law was not to that end that we should break it That he satisfied not by death but for those who would be conformable to his death Phil. 3. 10. That he dyed not for Traytours and Rebels That he marryed not to the Church sealing it with his bloud to let in Ruffians and Fools and men of Belial to the wedding to let in those that will rip up his wounds and cast his bloud in the dust and trample it under their feet No he that cometh to him must know that he is and that he is a lover of righteousness He that cometh to him must come not with spotted garments his Soul defiled with luxury not with torn garments his Soul divided and pulled in pieces by Envy and Malice his Reason distracted and his Affections scattered and blown abroad his Love on the World his Hatred on Goodness his Anger on good Counsel and his Desires on Vanity but with a garment of the Bridegrooms spinning even Righteousness Obedience and Sanctity of conversation And thus the Fathers make it up Charitas est vestis nuptialis saith Gregory and so saith Augustine Hierome composeth it of Christ's Precepts Others bring in gratiam Spiritûs Sancti the gracious effects of the Spirit Basil on Psal 9. tells us it is Faith Vestiri in Christo est fidem habere In this variety there is no difference He that taketh in Charity leaves not out Faith as a ragg fit to be flung to the dung-hill and he that entertains Faith shuts not Charity out of doors Methinks the disputation held up this day in the world with that eagerness and heat is uncharitable Whether should have the precedency Faith or Good works Whether is the better piece to put into a Garment and as uncharitable so unnecessary Why should I question which is the best piece when the want of either spoils the garment When both reflect upon each other by a mutual dependance what talk we then of priority Heat furthers Motion and Motion encreaseth Heat Faith begins Good Works Good works elevate and quicken and exalt our Faith give it growth as it were promote and further it not in the act of Justification but in the Knowledge of God in the Contemplation of his Majesty and Goodness in the dilating and enlargement of our Love and Devotion Faith is the mother of Good works and Good works the nurse of Faith Can you separate Light from a burning Taper or Brightness from the Flame Then may you divide Faith and Charity A good Work without Faith is but a worthless action
Divinitatis as Tertullian calls it the very work and invention of the Deity though it breathe nothing but peace and joy though it have not only authority but reason to plead for it yet the sound of it was no sooner heard but the world was in a tumult The heathen did rage and the people imagine a vain thing The Kings of the earth did set themselves against the Lord and against his Anointed Do the Angels proclaim it Men oppose it Doth Psalm 2. Christ preach it and confirm it by wonders Let him be crucified say the Jews Ecquis Christus cum sua fabula say the Gentiles after Away with Christ and his Legend Whilst it was yet in its swathing-bands it was brought to the barr the professors of it are punished and tortured non ut dicant quae faciunt sed ut negent quod sunt not to reveal what they do but to deny what they are For this the most chast wife is devorced from her husband the most obedient son disinherited by his father the most trusty and faithful servant shut out of doors by his master even for the Religion of the Gospel which made the Wife chast the Son obedient and Servant faithful Ex aemulatione Judaei ex natura domestici nostri The Jew is spurred on by his envy nay she finds enemies in her own house the Church of God and even Christians oppose her because of the truth it self whose nature it is to offend It is a just complaint that our Saviour came into the world and the world received him not would not receive him as a King but groaned under him as a cruel Tyrant His edicts his commands his proclamations his precepts were hard and harsh sayings none could bear them So it stands with Christian Religion Cum odio sui caepit It was hated as soon as it was Nor indeed can it be otherwise For it offends the whole world It stands between the Wanton and his lust the Ambitious and his pomp the Covetous and his mammon Christ is truth and his Kingdome is a Kingdome of righteousness and truth noâ— is there any thing in the world more scandalous and offensive than the Truth Old Simeon tells Mary of Christ This child is set for the falling and rising again Luke 2. 34. of many in Israel Not that Christ saith St. 〈◊〉 is contrary â—â— himself a Saviour and a Destroyer a Friend and an Enemy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for the divers opinions and affections of men which abusing his love make him an enemy and the Saviour of the world a Destroyer I might name here many hinderances of the growth of â—he Gospel as Heresie which is a most poysonous viper biting not the heel but the very heart of it Infidelity which robs Christ of his subjects contracts his Kingdome into a narrow room and into a small number Disorder which rents it which works confusion there All these are impedimenta lets and hinderances to the propagation of the Gospel not like those impedimenta militiae the luggage and carriage of an army without which it cannot subsist but obicem ponentia fences and bulwarks and barricadoes against the King of Heaven if it were possible to stay him in his victorious march and to damm up that light which must shine from one end of the earth unto the other But this perhaps might fill up our discourse and make it swell beyond its bounds The greatest hinderance which we must pray against is an evil thought which flyes about the world That there is no Hinderance but these no opposition to the truth but Heresie no sin but Infidelity no breaking of order but in a Schism This it is to be feared not only hinders the propagation of the Gospel in credendis in respect of outward profession but blasts and shrinks it up in agendis in respect of outward practice and of that obedience without which we are meer aliens and strangers from this Kingdome This doth veritatem defendendo concutere this shakes that truth which should make us fruitful to every good work by being so loud in the defense of it It is a truth I think confest by all That the errors of our Understanding for the most part are not of so great alloy as those of the Will That it is not so dangerous to be ignorant of some truth as it is to be guilty of any evil yet all the heat of contention is spent here all our quarrels and digladiations are about these nay all our Religion is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earnestly to contend not who shall be the truest subjects in Christs Kingdome but who shall be most loud to cry down Heresie and Schism And this phansie I take to be as great a viper as Heresie as poysonous as Infidelity and the first ground and original of all Schisms in the world Whose zeal is so hot against an Oath as against an Error Who says Anathema to the Wanton What curse upon the Oppressor but of the Orphan and the Widow And from whence come wars from whence come fightings amongst us but from this corrupt imagination That we do better service in the Church of Christ which is the Kingdome of God by the loud defence than by the serious practice of the truth And all this while we mistake this Kingdome and the Religion which we profess which is absoluta simplex a Religion of great perfection and simplicity non quaerens strophas verborum and needs not the help of wit and sophistry God leads us not unto his Kingdome by knotty and intricate Disputes In absoluto nobis facili aeternitas saith Hilary Our journey to it is most easie It will come unto us sine pompa apparatu without pomp or observation It was Erasmus his complaint in the dayes of our Fore-fathers Ecclesiam sustineri syllogismis That this Kingdome was upheld not by piety and obedience but by syllogistical disputes as the surest props I could be infinite in this argument but I am unwilling to loose my way whilst I pursue a thief The sum of all is That this ADVENIAT is not only an invitation to draw this Kingdome nearer but an antidote against Heresie Infidelity and Schism and also against this corrupt conceit That Religion doth in labris natare is most powerful when it floats upon the tongue And we must raise it up as an engine to bruise the head of these vipers to cast down imaginations and every thing that exalteth it self against the Kingdome of Christ Again as this ADVENIAT fits all ages of the Church and was the language which Christ taught his Disciples when the Church was yet an Embrio in semine principiis not yet brought forth in perfect shape so is it a most proper and significant word verbum rei accommodatum a word fitted to the matter in hand the Kingdome here mentioned which must come to us before we can come to it Nothing more free and voluntary more
must both smart together I went-out by thy Ears and Eyes and Hands and wandred abroad after forbidden objects and now being returned home I find my self naked It is evident then that the Senses of the Body are the Windows of the Soul and that through them Tentations make their entrance into the inward man Why do men disbelieve and impugn the word of God but because they measure Divine things by humane Sense and Experience Thus did Mahometism get a side presently and overflow the greater part of the world because it brought with it a carnal Paradise an eternity of Lusts and such promises as flattered the Sense to blindfold the Reason that it might not see its absurdities For the Turk destitute of truth and so not able to judge aright of Gods favours in this life casting an eye on the worldly miseries of Christians and puffed-up with his own victories condemneth the faith of Christ as displeasing to God because by reason of afflictions it is so unto the Flesh and preferreth and magnifieth his own for no other reason but that it is more attempered to the Sense and answerable to the desires of the Flesh The Atheist who hath no Religion at all no God but his own right hand and his arm no Deity but Policy is carried with the same respects to deny and despise the Providence of God For being earthly minded and even buried alive in the contemplation of the things of this world and seeing the wicked flourish as a green bay-tree and Innocence clothed with shame brought to the stake and the rack concludeth there is no God and derides his Patience and Justice because his Providence waiteth not upon his desires governs not the world as he would have it and is wanting sometime to his expectation Nay beloved how many are there of us who draw-out our Religion by this model and if Religion will not condescend and meet with our sensual Desires draw them up and mix and temper them with our Religion and if we do not find Religion fit to our humor we make one Christianity of it self is a severe and simple Religion and doth so little favour our fleshly part that it commands us to mortifie and kill it and yet how by degrees hath it been brought to joyn and conform it self to our Sense which lets-in those tentations which are the very seed out of which many monstrous errors are ingendred Of a severe Religion we have made it a sportful Religion an easie Religion a gaudy and pompous Religion of a doing active Religion a heavy Religion of a bountiful Religion we have made it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cheap and thriving Religion For from our Senses and fleshly desires have those corruptions and mixtures crept into Religion which carry with them a near likeness and resemblance to them Ambition hath brought-in her addition or defalcation and Covetousness hers and Wantonness hers and the Love of pleasures hath cast-in her poyson and all these have left their very mark and character in the doctrines of men Nor can I attribute it to any thing more than to this that we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 take our Senses from the world and sanctifie and consecrate them to God One would think indeed that Ambition and Covetousness and Sensuality were of a quite contrary strain and not competible with those more speculative errors For what can the Love of money or honor do to the stating of a question in Divinity But by the art and craft of the Devil these have been made tentations to error have been as the Popes claim runs infallible far more potent with us than an oecumenical Councel For these tentations of the World and the Flesh first strike the Sense with delight which by the help of the Phansie doth soon enflame the Affections and the Affections will soon build-up an opinion The Love of honor makes the Judgment follow it to that height and pitch which it hath markt-out My Love of money will gloss that Blessing which our Saviour hath annext to Poverty of spirit My Factions humor will strike at the very life and heart of Religion in the name of Religion and God himself and destroy Christianity for excessive love of Christ Every humor will venture upon any falshood which is like it There is nothing within the compass of our Sensual appetites which we are not ready to embrace and believe it to be true because we wish it so being advantageous and conducible to the end which we have proposed and set-up to our selves When Christians did revocare mentem à sensibus take and withdraw their Hand from those objects which were busie with the Sense when they were within themselves and framed their lives to the simplicity and plainness of the Gospel there was scarce the name of Heretick heard amongst them no contentions no exsecrations no thundring-out excommunications against one another But within a while this simplicity abated and the doctrine of Faith was made to give attendance on sensual humours that did pollute it Therefore the Heathen to make the Christians let go their hold and fall off from the acknowledgment of the truth did use the Devils method and laid before them temporal contentments and the sweetness of life Their common forms were CONSULE TIBI MISERERE TUI Have a care of your self Pity your self NOLI ANIMAM TUAM PERDERE Destroy not your own life They made large promises of honours riches and preferment And these Tertullian calls devillish suggestions But when they could not thus prevail when these shining and glorious tentations could not shake or move them then Tormenta carcer ungulae Stridénsque flammis larina Atque ipsa poenarum ultima Mors then torments were threatned the Hook and the Whip and the last of punishments Death it self And as Tentations inter ento the soul by the Senses so they look-out by the Eye Facies intentionum omnium speculum saith Tertullian The face is the glass wherein you may see the very intentions of the mind Anger Sorrow Joy Fear and Shame which are the affections of the heart appear in the countenance Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance Gen. 4. 6. fallen saith God to Cain When Esau was well pleased with Jacob Jacob tells him I have seen thy face as the face of God Habitus mentis in corporis Gen. 33. 10. statu cernitur saith St. Ambrose You may view the state of the soul in the outward man and see how she changes and alters by those outward motions and impressions which she makes in the body When the Soul of man liketh the object and apprehendeth it under the shew of good she kindleth and moveth her self to attain her desire and withal incenseth the spirits which warm the bloud enlarge the heart and diffuse themselves to embrace that good which is either in the approach or present And when she seeth evil which she cannot decline she staggereth and sinketh for fear which
should not feel what he endured to wake a condemned man and tell him he must dye Evasit says the Tyrant of one who had prevented his fury by a timely death Evasit in dying quickly he has made an escape he got away and has out-run me now for there in the Grave the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary are at rest Job 3. 13. The prisoner and the oppressor there lye quiet both together and there every one is free in the next verse and therefore if we consider Death only as a Rest from labour the Apostle had no reason to be solicitous with what to preserve his life any longer For we mistake exceedingly if we think life as life is desirable for there are some that dig to find a Grave as much as they would do to discover a Mine as Job speaks and God when he would reward some memorable act of piety Job 3. 21. in a man takes him out of the way before his Judgments come which made the Prophet when he could not turn away Gods wrath utterly pray'd the women might have miscarrying wombs and the Apostles seeing the persecution begin to rage advises the Christians not to marry lest they should 1 Cor. 3. only bring forth to the Sword and Faggot Now not to be born and death are in effect all one they are both equally alike not to be here Again Imagine the world had treated and dealt kindly with the Apostle yet then he needed not much care for means to keep up his life any longer for he calls himself now Paul the aged a time when we might choose death Philem. 9. meerly out of satietie because it is tedious to do the same things over and over again so often to eat and be a hungry and then eat again to sleep and then wake and then sleep again to see things still go about in the same circle to behold peace breeding luxury luxury war and war smooth into peace again for is there any thing whereof it might be said this is new Solomon Eccl. 1. 10. asks the Question who had proved all things and at last concludes by a particular Induction the surest Demonstration of any whatsoever That as the Sun goes round as the rivers hasten to the Sea from whence they came as the wind goes round the points of heaven and whirls about continually so the actions of men have their circuits too and whatever you wonder at in this or that Age you may find the same in another for there is no new thing under the Sun The Apostles years therefore he being now grown old might induce him not to be much concern'd how he should live being now full of days as the Scripture most elegantly expresses it having taken a perfect view now of whatever this world can afford which requires no long time to look over for Christ saw it all in a moment Luke 4. 14. and then I know not what a man has to do but to despise it and leave it with no more regret then he would walk out of garden where he found nothing that liked him But there is a far higher Contemplation not only to render living inconsiderable to a Christian but likewise to ravish our thoughts up from hence and that is the the promises of the Gospel where we behold Heaven open and those eternal Joyes revealed there which have lain hid ever since the foundations of the Earth If there were one that killed himself at reading Plato's immortality of the Soul If it be true that there are yet some Heathens who usually make away themselves upon no other account but because they would be in heaven If natural Reason can cast meer Gentiles into such admiration of that Bliss What will you say to St. Paul who was wrapt up alive into the Third Heavens and saw what the Saints enjoyed above though he could not express it when he came back with what scorn do you think he trod upon the ground afterwards when the Angel set him down again here Who was fain to have a thorn run into 2 Cor. 3. his flesh before he could find himself to be a Man can you imagine he would petition for liberty whose very body seemed a prison to him till he returned to Christ again Or would he sue for a supply to detain him from that which became his wish his dissolution how would you fret at him who should lengthen the race when you had almost won it or stake the prize yet farther off when you had almost caught it Just such a courtesie is it to relieve him who would dye any way that he might quickly enjoy his Saviour 't is but deferring and putting off his happiness the longer as if an unexpected supply should renew the fight then when we thought we had now gotten the day Take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink says Christ surely this precept is needless to the Matth. 6. 25. Disciples of Christ Me-thinks he should rather allay our desire then fear of death who do expect such great things after it Me-thinks he should rather advise us that we should not out of hasty longing to be in Heaven neglect the means of continuing our being in this life But O you of little faith to talk of the blessedness the Saints of God enjoy above and yet use the most base abject and sordid means to live here and to keep your selves from it If then we cannot apprehend the Apostles here as a necessitous person nor any way concern'd to prolong his days by shifting about for maintenance but rather obliged to leave this world as soon as he could that he might enjoy a better We must think of some other Reason why St. Paul entertain'd their Benevolence with such joy Which leads me to the Consideration under which he accepted their Liberality viz. for their sakes not his own But I desire fruit that may abound to your account c. Fruit as fruit of their Patience that they durst own one whom the world had not only laid by as useless but tyed up as dangerous and fruit of their Love that they would acknowledge him and fruit of their Constancie that they persevered still to admire the glory of the Gospel though clouded with so much opposition as the whole world had now set it up as a mark to shoot at and as the fruit of their Zeal for in sending part of their substance to supply him they gave testimony that they would part with the whole and lives and all to advance the Kingdom of Christ and lastly as fruit of his Ministery wherein he saw he had not run in vain suffered in vain or scattered his seed amongst stones or thorns for in this he perceived that neither the fears nor love of the world had choaked it because as he tells the Galatians they neither despised nor spued him up again Gal. 4. 14. as the word imports
Filiation Riches and the things of this world are not to be found in that Charter but an incorruptible Crown and eternal Life These later indeed are demised unto us by our new birth but the things of this world we hold by another tenure jure Creationis by the right of Creation as we are Men from him who hath made the earth and given it in possession to the children of men Therefore in the second place by this light of Nature we may condemn our selves when any bitterness towards our brother riseth in our hearts and allay or rather root it out with this consideration That it is inhumane and most unnatural That we cannot nourish it in our breasts and not fall from our creation and leave off to be Men. How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer saith the Prophet and cut down to the Isa 14. 12. ground How art thou fallen from being a minister of light to be a Prince of darkness from being so filled with the Grace of the Divinity to be a foul receptacle of malice from waiting on God in all his Majesty to be thrust down into the foulest pit there to be his executioner And how art thou faln O Man whosoever thou be that hatest thy brother from heaven for in earth there is no other heaven then what Love makes to hell it self to be a place for those foul spirits Malice and Envy to reign and riot in How art thou fall'n from thy conversing with Angels to wallow in bloud from the glory of thy creation to burning fire and to blackness and darkness and tempest from being a Man to be worse then the beasts that perish Oh what a shame is it to our royal and high discent Oh what a shame is it that Man who was formed and fashioned by the hand of Love by the God of Love by Love it self for it is Divine Love that laid the foundation of the World that breathed a soul into Man and stamped that image of God upon him that Man I say so elemented so composed so compassed about with Love should delight in war in variance and contentions that this creature of Love should be as a hot fiery furnace sending forth nothing but sulphur and stench but malice and the gall of bitterness that he who is candidatus Angelorum made to be a competitor with the Angels and in time to be equal to them made to be conformed with Christ and to be transformed into his image as the Apostle speaks should make himself a companion with Devils and for a malicious man though he be not possessed yet may be sure he carries a Devil about with him whithersoever he goes that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this honorable creature as Synesius calls Man should turn Savage should be a Beast nay a Devil to accuse deceive and destroy We use indeed to stand much upon our honor and repute But none can dishonour us more then our selves do even then when we are in our altitudes when we glory in our shame when one man hath trodden down another as the clay in the streets when we think our selves great men by making our brethren little when we contemn and despise hate and persecute them then in this height in this glory in this triumph we are the most despicable creatures on the earth in his sight who being the God of Love and having made us Men and linkt us together as Brethren cannot but look upon us as the basest and vilest creatures in the world when being grown savage we hate one another And further we carry not this consideration but pass now to view the Galatians as Brethren in that other capacity as they were Christians professing the same Faith Which our Apostle in this place might more particularly and especially mean For as they were Brethren by Nature so were they also by Grace and their coelestial Calling having one spirit one hope one faith one baptisme one calling being all brought out of the same womb of common Ignorance heirs of the same common salvation partakers of a like precious faith sealed with the same Sacraments fed with the same Manna ransomed with the same price comforted with the same glorious promises Et major fraternitas Christi quà m sanguinis saith the Father The Brotherhood we have by Christ is a greater and nearer tie then that we have by bloud or nature Hereupon Justine Martyr and Optatus have been so far charitable as to call Judaizing Christians and Donatists by the name of Brethren And we may observe that our Apostle who in all other his Epistles calleth them he writes to Saints To the Saints at Corinth To the Saints at Ephesus To the Saints at Coloss To the Saints at Philippi Grace be with you c. yet in this whole Epistle he never calls the Galatians Saints because from being Christs Disciples they had well-neer degenerated to be Moses 's Scholars and had joyned the Law with the Gospel Yet nevertheless though he will not honour them with the name of Saints yet he is very willing to call them Brethren as professing the same Christ though with an unsavory mixture and dangerous addition This may soon be gathered by any who will but take so much pains as to read this short Epistle And upon so plain an Observation as upon a foundation we shall build this Doctrine That there is such a relation such a Brotherhood betwixt all those who profess the same Faith that neither Error nor Sence nor Injury can break and dissolve it For if any or all of these had been of force enough to do it then certainly our Apostle would never have been so free as to have called the Galatians Brethren And first to Error though it have a foul aspect and bear a distastful and loathed name yet it carrieth no such monstrosity no such terror with it as to fright Brethren so far asunder as not to behold one another in that relation not to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace For if there were any such power about it the name of Brethren must needs be quite wiped out from amongst the children of men there being almost as many several opinions in the world as men and most of them erroneous For Man being subject to passion cannot improve his wisdom so far as to preserve it safe and untoucht of all errour So that no reason can be given but such as Uncharitableness or Ambition or Pride or Self-conceit use to frame and throw as fire-balls about the world to consume and devour all Brotherhood and these are no reasons but carnal pretenses why men may not be divided in opinion and yet united in charity why they may not draw opposite conclusions and yet conclude in peace why they may not have different conceptions and yet be of the same mind one towards another why they may not erre and yet be brethren For first Error may be the object of my Dislike but not of my
is that increase of the body unto the edifying of it self in love Oh what a shole of Christians did this Love send forth when the Heathen could make the observation and proclaim it See how these Christians love one another Then did they fill their villages their temples their armies And if we look upon their number they might as Tertullian observes have easily swallowed up their enemies in victory When St. Peter that Fisher of men caught so many together even three thousand souls it was Love that gathered them in and Acts 2. 41. it was Love that kept them in For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they continued daily with v. 46. one accord in the temple They were of one heart and of one soul And what Acts 4. 32. is it that hath made such a dearth and scarcity of sincere and truly pious Christians but our Debate and bitter Malice the greatest enemy Christianity hath For by biting and devouring one another we have well-near consumed one another nay well-near consumed Religion it self And if a Heathen should stand by he could not but wonder and make no other observation then this See how the Christians hale one another The Heathen of old could find out nothing in the Christians but their name to accuse them but we of this aged and corrupted world have scarce any thing but the name of Christians to commend us Hoc Ithacus velit This is that which our enemies have long expected and to effect which they have spent their nights their dayes have laid out their leasure their business their watchings their very sleep and now have seen that fire which they did help to kindle by the light of which they may stretch forth their curtains and enlarge their territories and dominions every day in Christendome For as the Devil is tormented as Optatus speaks with the peace of the Brethren when they are joyned together vinculo fidei glutine charitatis by the bond and cement of Faith and Love so is he enlivened and put into hopes of success in his attempts by the mutual ruptures and jealousies which the Brethren the members of the Church foment and cherish amongst themselves When by the defection of Jeroboam Judah and Israel were rent asunder then came Shishak and troubled Jerusalem And 2 Chron. 12. 2. therefore let us love the Brotherhood as the Apostle exhorts For an enemy is never more dangerous to an army then when it is disordered by mutiny and division If it be at peace with it self it hath half conquered the enemy When the Church begins to be torn by Schisms and Contentions then every blast is ready to shake and shatter it but when it is in unity within it self then it is built up strong and fair as the tower of David No Heresie no Enemy no Jesuite no Devil no not the Gates of Hell can prevail against us whilst we are fast joyned together rooted and built-up and establisht in love No principalities nor powers no height nor depth no creature can come near to touch us whilst we keep within the circle and compass which Love maketh whilst we continue Brethren Thus then we find both Pleasure and Profit in being Brethren But now in the third and last place there is a kind of Necessity to force us And the Love that keeps us so is necessary not only as a virtue or quality without which we ought not to be but as a virtue without which we cannot be what we profess For loose but this bond once unjoynt this goodly frame shake but the Brotherhood and we are fallen from heaven spoiled of all the riches of the Gospel deprived of all the priviledges and prerogatives of Christians defeated of all those glorious promises shook from the hope of immortality and eternal life without love and then without God in this world left naked and destitute stript of our inheritance having title to no place but that where the revolting Angels and malicious Spirits are shut up For as that is true which we find in the Gloss on the Canon Law Habe Charitatem fac quod vis Do it in love and do what thou wilt Thy Zeal shall be as the fire in the bush burning but not consuming thy Reproofs shall be balm thy Justice physick thy Wounds kisses thy Tears as the dew of heaven thy Joy the joy of Angels all thy Works fit to be put in the register of God But if once thou forsake the Brotherhood if once thou shake hands with Love then whatsoever thou doest must needs be ill done because thou doest it If thou speak with the tongue of Men and Angels it is but noise if thou give all thy goods to the poor it is but loss and that which with Love is martyrdom without it may be murder Thy Zeal will be rage thy Reproofs swords thy Justice gall and wormwood thy Wounds fatal thy Tears the dropping of a crocodile thy Joy madness and thy Works sit for nothing but the fire The Gospel to thee will be as killing as the Law and the Bloud of Christ cry as loud for vengeance as that of Abel or of any Brother whom thou hast persecuted and wounded with injuries and reproach Let us not deceive our selves with vain pretences and ridiculous excuses with empty and airy phansies which can conceive and shape out Love when it is dead in the heart which can revile and love strike and love kill and love For a truth it is and a sad truth a truth which may bore the ears of many of us Christians and strike us to the ground as Peters voice did Ananias And St. John hath set his seal to it He that loveth not his Brother and not to 1 John 3. 14. love him with St. John is to hate him abideth in death And again He He that hateth his brother is a murderer alluding to our Saviours reformation of the Law which even made Anger murder What degree of Murder soever he means such a Murderer he is that hath not eternal life abiding in him The want of this Love being a sure mark of a child of wrath and of one carrying his hell about with him whithersoever he goes being himself a Tophet burning with fire and brimstone with Hatred and Malice and Fury having nothing between him and that everlasting Hell but a ruinous wall his body of flesh which will moulder away and fall down within a span of time Oh how should this still sound in our ears as that Rise and come unto judgment did in St. Hieroms who could not sleep for it Oh that the sound of this would make us not to leave our sleep but to leave our gall our venome our Malice which may peradventure bite our Brothers heel wound him in his person in his estate or good name but will most certainly sting us unto death Let then this sad nay this behoofful this glorious this Necessity prevail with us and let us not so trifle with
insensibilis saith the Father sweet and peaceable without trouble without noise scarcely to be perceiv'd not in the strong wind to rend us to pieces not in the Earth-quake to shake us not in the fire to consume us but in a still and small voice not as Thunder to make a noise not as Hayl to rattle on the house-tops not as the Blast and Mildew to wither us but as the Rain falling sweetly on the grass or on a fleece of wooll and as the showers which water the earth and make it fruitful 3. We shall observe the Effect which this Descent produceth or the Fruit which springs up upon the fall of this gracious Rain First Righteousness springs up and spreads her self Justus florebit So some render it The righteous shall flourish Secondly After Righteousness Peace shews it self even abundance of peace And Thirdly both these are not herbae solstitiales herbs which spring up and wither in one day but which will be green and flourish so long as the Moon endureth which is everlastingly And therefore we must Fourthly in the last place observe 1. the Relation which is between these two Righteousness and Peace They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where there is Righteousness there is Peace and where there is Peace there is Righteousness 2. The Order Righteousness first and then abundance of Peace Take them all three and you shall find a kind of subordination betwixt them for no Peace without Righteousness no Righteousness without this Rain But if the Son of God come down like rain streight Righteousness appears on the earth and upon the same watering and from the same root shoots forth abundance of Peace and both so long as the Moon endureth Of these then in their Order briefly and plainly and first of the Descent He that ascended is he also that descended first saith the Apostle And he Eph. 4. came down very low He brought himself sub lege under the Law sub cultro under the Knife at his Circumeision sub maledicto under the curse sub potestate tenebrarum under the power of darkness down into the cratch down into the world and down when he was lifted up upon the Cross for that ascension was a great descent and from thence down into the grave and lower yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the lowermost parts of the earth Thus low did he come down But if we terminate his Descension in his Incarnation if we interpret his Descent by NATUS EST that he was born and say no more we have brought him very low even so low that the Angels themselves must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stoop to look after him that not the clearest Understanding not the quickest Apprehension nothing but Faith can follow after to behold him which yet must stand aloof off and tremble and wonder at this great sight Hîc me solus complectitur stupor saith the Father In other things my Reason may guide me Meditation and Study may help me and if not give me full resolution yet some satisfaction at least But here O prodigia O miracula O prodigy O miracle of mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O the paradox of this strange Descent This is a depth which I connot foard a gulph wherein I am swallowed up and have no light left me but my Faith and Admiration Certe mirabilis descensus saith Leo a wonderful descent à coelo ad uterum from his Throne to the Womb from his Palace to a Dungeon from his dwelling place on high to dwell in our flesh from riding on the Cherubin to hanging on the Teat A wonderful Descent Where is the wise Where is the Scribe Where is the Disputer of this World That God should thus come down that he that conteineth all things should be compassed by a Woman that he should cry as a child at whose voice the Angels and Archangels tremble that he whose hands meted out the Heavens and measur'd the waters should lye in the cratch Deus visibilis Deus contrectabilis as Hilary speaks that God should be seen and touched and handled no Orator no Eloquence the tongues of Men and Angels cannot reach it O anima opus est tibi imperitiâ meâ O my soul learn to be ignorant and not to know what is unsearchable Abundat sibi locuples fides It is enough for me to believe that the Son of God came down And this coming down we may call his Humiliation his Exinanition his Low estate Not that his Divine nature could descend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consider'd in it self but God came down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in respect of that gracious dispensation by which he vouchsafed to dwell amongst us For he assumed into the unity of his Person that which before he was not and yet remained that which he was Ille quod est semper est sicut est ita est For what he is he alwaies is and as he is so he is without any shew or shadow of change But yet in the great work of our redemption he may seem to have laid his Majesty aside and not to have exercised that Power which was coeternal with him as infinite as Himself And now it is no blasphemy but salvation to say That he who created man was made a Man That he who was the God of Mary was the Son of Mary That he that made the world had not a hole to hide his head That he who was the Law-giver was made under the Law And therefore in every action almost as he did manifest his Power so he exprest his Humility A Star stands over him when he lay in the Manger He rebukes the Winds who was asleep in the Ship He commands the Sea and Fishes bring tribute in their mouths but at Caesars commands he submits and pays it He strikes a band of men backward to the Ground but yields as a man and is bound and led away as a sheep to the slaughter And thus that Love which reconcil'd the World unto God reconcileth these strange contradictions a God and a Man a God that sleeps that thirsts vectigalis Deus a tributary God Deus in vinculis a God in bonds a God crucified dead and buried All which Descents he had not in natura not in his Divine Nature Neque enim defecit in sese qui se evacuavit in sese saith Hilary For He who emptied himself in himself did not so descend as to leave or loose himself But the Descent was in persona in his Person in respect of his voluntary Dispensation by which he willingly yielded to assume and unite the Humane nature to Himself And thus he was made of that Woman who was made by himself and was conteined in her womb whom the Heavens cannot contein and was cut out of the land of the living who was in truth what Melchisedec was only in the conceit of men in his time without father and without mother having no beginning of days nor end of life He was
her part on An easie thing it is to be meek where there is nothing to raise our Anger and Revenge hath no place where there is no provocation The Philosopher in his Rhetorics giving us the character of Meekness tells us that most men are gentle and meek to those who never wronged them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or who did it unwillingly to men who confess an injury and repent of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to those who humble themselves at their feet and beseech them and who do not contradict them to those whom they reverence and fear For Fear and Anger seldom lodge in the same breast But Christianity raiseth Meekness to a higher pitch where no injury can reach it A studied and plotted injury an injury made greater by defense an injury from the meanest from him that sits with the dogs of our flocks any injury at any time from any man maketh a fit object for Christian Meekness which in the midst of all contumelies and reproaches in the midst of all contradictions is still the same Should we insist upon every particular our Discourse would be too large We will therefore fasten our meditations upon those which may seem most pertinent and so take off all those pretenses which we Christians commonly bring in as Advocates to plead for us when we forget that we are Christians There be two errors in our life the one of Opinion the other in Manners and Behaviour which is far the worse and though these of themselves carry no fire with them yet by our weakness commonly it comes to pass that they are made the only incendiaries of the world and set both Church and Commonwealth in combustion If our brothers opinion stand in opposition to ours if his life and conversation be not drawn out by the same rule we presently are on fire and we number it amongst our virtues to be angry with those who in their Doctrine are erroneous or in their lives irregular Now in this I know not how blessed we think our selves but I am sure we are not meek For if we were truly possessed of that Meekness which Christ commends as we should receive the weak in Faith with all tenderness so should we be compassionate to the wicked also and learn that Christian art which would enable us to make good use both of Sin and Error And first for Error though many times it be of a monstrous aspect yet I see nothing in it which of it self hath force to fright a Christian from that temper which should so compose him that he may rather lend an hand to direct him that errs then cry him down with noise and violence seeing it is a thing so general to be deceived so easie to erre and so hard to be reduced from our error seeing with more facility many times we change an evil custom then a false opinion For Sin carries with it an argument against it self Hoc habet quod sibi displicet saith Seneca As it fills the heart with delight so it doth with terror Like the Viper mater est funeris sui it works its own destruction and helps to dispossess it self But Errour pleaseth us with the shape of Truth nor can any man be deceived in opinion but as Ixion was by embracing a cloud for Juno and Falshood for the Truth He that errs if he were perswaded he did so could err no longer And what guilt he incurs by his error the most exact and severe inquisition cannot find out because this depends on that measure of light which is afforded and the inward disposition and temper of his soul which are as hard for a stander-by to dive into as to be the searcher of his heart The Heresie of the Arians was as dangerous as any that ever did molest the peace of the Church as being that which strook at the very foundation and denyed the Divinity of the Son yet Salvian passeth this gentle censure on them Errant sed bono animo errant non odio sed affectu Dei They erred but out of a good mind not out of hatred but affection to God And though they were injurious to Christs Divine generation yet they loved him as a Saviour and honoured him as a Lord. The Manichees fell upon those gross absurdities that Reason when her eye is weakest may easily see through yet St. Augustine who had been one himself bespeaks them in this courteous language Illi saeviant in vos qui nesciunt quocum labore verum inveniatur Let them be angry with you who know not with what difficulty the truth is found and how hard a matter it is to gain that serenity of mind which may dispel the mists of carnal phantasmes Let them be angry with you who were never deceived and who do not know with what sighs and groans we purchase the smallest measure of knowledge in Divine mysteries I cannot be angry but will so bear with your error now as I did with my own when I was a Manichee A good pattern to take out and learn how to demean our selves towards the mistakes of our brethren and to bear with the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves with the pretense of Zeal and Religion which loose their name and nature and bring in a world of iniquity when we use them to fan the fire of contention I do not see that relation or likeness between Difference of Opinion and contrariety in affections that one would beget the other or that it should be impossible or unlawful to be united unto him in love who is divided from me in opinion No Charity is from heaven heavenly and may have its influence on minds of divers dispositions as the Sun hath on bodies of a different temper and it may knit the hearts of those together in the bond of love whose opinions may be as various as their complexions But Faction and Schism and Dissention are from the earth earthly and have their beginnings and continuance not ab extra from the things themselves which are in controversie but from within us from our Self-love and Pride of mind which condemn the errors of our brethren as heresies and obtrude our own errors for Oracles I confess to contend for the Truth is a most Christian resolution and in Tertullians esteem a kind of Martyrdom It is the duty of the meekest man to take courage against Error and as Nazianzene speaketh in a cause that so nearly concerns us as the truth of Christ a Lamb should become a Lion I cannot but commend that of Calvine Maledicta pax cujus pignus desertio Dei That peace deserves a curse which lay's down the Truth and God himself for a gage and pawn and benedicta praelia quibus regnum Christi necessitate defenditur those battels are blessed which we are forced to wage in the name of the Lord of Hosts And thrice happy he who lays down his life a sacrifice for the Truth But Religion and Reason will
vent it not in language to imagine I may vent so I do not strike and when I strike to comfort my self because anothers little finger is greater than my Loyns to commend the Rod because it is not a Scorpion to say of those sins which surprise me because I do not fear them as Lot did of Zoar Are they not little ones may I not commit them and yet my soul live to make my Not doing of evil an apology for my Not doing of good my Not thrusting my Neighbour out of his own doors a sufficient warrant for my Not receiving him into mind to think that any degree of Meekness is enough is to forfeit all and loose my title to the inheritance of the earth It is I confess a sad observation but too manifestly true that if Meekness be a virtue so proper so essential to the Church then the Church is not so visible as we pretend but we must seek for the Church in the Church it self For if Meekness have yet a place it must be which is very strange in the hearts of men in the inward man For to the eye every hand is lifted up every mouth open and they who call themselves the Members of the Church are very active to bite and devour one another And it is not probable that their hearts should melt within them and their bowels yearn whose mouths are as open Sepulchres and whose feet are swift to shed bloud Is Meekness a note of the Church Certainly we may distinguish Christians from the World by nothing surer then by Malice in which they surpass both the Turk and the Jew And where most is required least is found ODIUM THE OLOGORUM The Malice of Divines was in Luther's time a Proverb but now the Proverb is enlarged and will take in the greatest part of Christendome The Papist breatheth nothing but curses and Anathema's and maketh his way with sire and sword where Reason and Religion shut him out Others who are no Papists yet are as malicious and bloudy as they and persecute their Brethren under that name call them Papists and spoil them as the Heathen did of old who put Christians into the skins of Beasts and with Dogs baited them to death If you think not if you act not if you look not if you move not as they do you are a child of perdition devoted to ruine and death If you preach any other Doctrine then that which they receive then you are accursed though you were an Angel from Heaven Forgive you that were a sin not to be forgiven Heaven and Earth shall pass away rather then one tittle and jot of what they have set up shall fail I have much wondred with my self how men could so assure themselves of Heaven and yet kindle such a Hell in their breasts how they could appropriate a meek Saviour to themselves and even claim him as their peculiar as the Heathen did their Deities and yet breathe nothing but hailstones and coles of fire how they should call themselves Evangelicos the only Gospellers and yet be such strangers such enemies to that virtue which is most commended in the Gospel how they should forgive none on earth and yet so boldly conclude that their pardon is sealed in Heaven that they should expect so much mercy from that God whom they proclaim so cruel as to damn men as they destroy their Brethren for no other reason but because he will I cannot here but wonder and lament and pray that this malice of their heart may be forgiven them for we cannot but perceive that they in the very gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity And I bespeak you as our Saviour did his Disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees For if a little leaven will leaven the whole lump what will such a lump of malice do Even infect the whole body of your Religion Your Hearing your Prayers your Fasts will taste of bloud Let us then mark and avoid them Let us devest our selves not of all power but of all will to hurt Let that alway sound in our ear which is as good Gospel as That Christ died for the World That if we forgive not we are in the number of Unbelievers and are condemned already Let us reserve nothing to our selves but that which is ours Meekness and Patience and leave to God that which is his Judgment and Retribution Commit all Jovi Vindici to the God of Revenge For he is the best Umpire for our patience If we put our injury into his hands he is our revenger if our loss he can restore it if our grief he is our Physician if our death he can raise us up again Quantum mansuetudini licet ut Deum habeat debitorem Lord what a power hath Meekness which maketh God our debtour for our losses for our contumelies for our reproaches for our death for all who hath bound himself to repay us with honour with riches with advantage with usury with the inheritance of the earth and with everlasting life The Fourth SERMON PART IV. MATTH V. 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth I Have bestowed many words upon this Virtue of Meekness But I have not yet said enough neither indeed can I licèt toto modio dimensum darem as he speaketh though I should give it you out by the bushel full measure pressed down and running over Nunquam nimis dicitur quod nunquam satìs discitur We cannot repeat that Lesson too often which we can never be so perfect in as we should And he certainly is no friend to Meekness who is impatient at her name though it sound never so often in his ear For can he love Meekness that is afraid of her picture and description Or can he stand out the shock of those evils which wait upon and follow every motion of his life who cannot bring a few hours patience to hear of that virtue which is the only buckler to quench those darts I would I could give you her in a full and compleat piece the whole Signature every line all her Dimensions I would I could present her naked before your eyes in all her rayes with all her beauty and glory her power in conquering her wisdom in defeating those injuries which press hard upon yea overthrow and triumph over all the power and policy of the world that so you might fall in love with her and fasten her to your souls and make her a part of them For then indeed we should see concurrere bellum atque virum every man strong against a battaglia every man chasing his ten thousand we should see a meek soul in contention with the world and by doing nothing treading it under foot And this we have attempted formerly to do but we have not done it in so full and fair a draugh as we desired Yet though you have not had the one half told you you have heard enough to move you with the Queen
Rome is well acquainted with and therefore she breaks down the bounds pulls down the limits hides the lines dammeth up the Kings high-way She pulls out thy eyes and there she leads thee in a way indeed but not of Truth in a by-path in a way leading out of the way The way of Truth it cannot be For veritas nihil erubescit nisi solummodò abscondi Truth blusheth at nothing but to be hid But I must walk their way and not know whether it be a way or no. Though I doubt yet I must not dare to question it but must still walk on and put it to the adventure If Idolatry and Superstition and blind Obedience will saint a man then I am sure to be a Saint in heaven That Church reacheth forth unto thee a cup and sayes it is of the water of life when indeed it is but poison She hath an open breast and a motherly affection she shews thee a milky way but which neither Christ nor his Apostles ever trod in No tracking of them but by bloud She shews thee an easie way a sensual way made passable by Indulgences and Pardons and private Masses and Supererogation only thou must walk in it without offense to the Church of Rome Thus like those Physicians Sidonius speaks of officiosè occidit she will kill thee with good words like some kind of Serpents she will sting thee and thou shalt dance when thou art stung she will flatter thee to thy destruction and thou shalt perish as it were in a dream Beloved what shall we do then We will pray to God with Paul to guide our journey with David to make our way upright We will say as Israel said to Sihon King of the Amorites We will neither turn aside into the fields nor into the vinyards Numb 21. 22. neither drink of the waters of the wells We will neither walk in those specious pleasing wayes nor taste of the Wine which that Harlot hath mingled nor draw water out of those Wells which they have digged unto themselves but we will go in the Kings high-way even in that way wherein the Apostles the Prophets the blessed Martyrs the holy Saints all our Forefathers by the light of Scripture have gone before us The second Rule of our Christian Imitation is That we strive to imitate the best Stultissimum est non optimum quemque proponere saith Pliny It is great folly not to propose alwaies the best patern And Elige Catonem saith Seneca Chuse a Cato a prime eminent man by whose autority thy secret thoughts may be more holy the very memory of whom may compose thy manners whom not only to see but to think of will be a help to the reformation of thy life Dost thou live with any in whom the good gifts and graces of God are shining and resplendent who are strict and exact and so retein the precepts of God in memory that they forget them not in their works Then as St. James saith Take the Prophets for example so I say Take these for an ensample lodge them in the closet of thy heart confer with their virtuous actions and study them And if at any time the Devil and the World put thee upon those actions which might make thee to forget thy copy then take it into thy hands and look it over again and as St. Cyprian would often call for Tertullians works with a Da magistrum Give me my master so do thou Da praeceptores Give me the instructing examples of these good men let them alwaies be before my eyes let them be a second rule by which I may correct my life and manners Let me not loose this help which God hath granted me of Imitation But Beloved here beware we must that we mistake not the Goats for the Sheep the left hand for the right that we weigh not Goodness by the number of Professors For it is the Devils policie to make us think that the most are the best and so he shuts us out of the little flock and thrusts us into the folds of Goats and thus we deceive our selves Plerique ducimur non ad rationem sed ad similitudinem We are not guided by Reason but let her slip and so are carried away as it were in a throng non quà eundum sed quà itur not indeed whither we should go but whither the many-headed multitude lead us Therefore thou must take this as a Rule Multitudo argumentum mali No surer argument that men are evil then that they are many The City of the Lord is not so peopled as the City of the World which the Devil hath erected neither is Heaven so full as Hell nor are there so many Saints as there are Devils not so many chosen as there are past-by not somany good examples as there be bad ones We undervalue true professors we make their Paucitie a blemish whereas our Saviour tells us his flock is little a lily amongst the thorns and when God commands us Exod. 23. as in this so in all actions not to follow a multitude in evil And this in our Christian Imitation we must observe in respect of our selves We must be careful too in respect of others And since God hath made Imitation such a help to our Salvation we must strive to be guides and lights unto our weaker brethren not an ignis fatuus or lambens a fat and foggy meteor to lead them out of the way but stellae micantes bright and glistering stars to lead them to Christ And this in the first place concerneth the Ministers and Messengers of God It is St. Paul's charge to Timothy even before the holy Angels that he should keep himself unblamable before all men Valentinian's to his Bishops that they should vitâ verbo gubernare govern the Church both with their life and with their doctrine and as Nazianzene spake of Basil they should have thunder in their words and lightning in their deeds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking and doing Not like Lucian's Apothecary who sold Medicines for the Cough when he and all his houshold were infected with it nor like those Physicians Nazianzene speaketh of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 laying their hands to cure the wounds of others whilst themselves were full of sores But striving to come forth glorious and wholsome examples that they humble not those with their life whom they have raised up with their doctrine Considering that sin doth not only shew but teach it self And what a heavy doom will reach them if they beat down those with a bad whom they should raise up and set a walking with a good example But Beloved I here mistake my Auditory and speak to this Congregation as if I were amongst an assembly of Levites And yet I know too and I need not fear to speak it that it is an argument of a wicked and profane heart of a sensual love of the world that no doctrine now-adayes is more acceptable then that by
Earth to Fortune that she would love us to the World that it would favour us and never thought of Gods Love 2. It is a Purging Love It washes away our corruption and filth and sets us upon our leggs that we may walk in love 3. It is an Overflowing Love nimia charitas as the Apostle speaks exceeding great too much Love larger then our Thoughts or our Desires passing our Understanding Sermo non valet exprimere experimento opus est Speech cannot reach it Experience must express it Feel it we may discourse of it we cannot 4. Lastly it is a Bountiful Love and it is Perpetual With an everlasting love have I loved thee saith God and He hath loved us and Jer. 31. 3. given us everlasting consolation and He hath prepared for his children a crown ◠Thess 2. 16 and they are heads destinated to a diadem saith Tertullian His common gifts his earthly goods quae nec sola sunt nec summa sunt which are neither the greatest goods nor yet alone but have alwaies a mixture and taste of evil he gives unto his bastard children as Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his Gen. 25. Concubines but the heritage to Isaac the Kingdom and the Crown to the children of promise Nay further yet His Love is there greatest where it appears least In our misery and affliction in the anguish of our soul when we think he frowns upon us and is angry his love attends and waits upon us his wings are over us we alwaies carry his protection about us Suppose it be an Asp or a Basilisk we shall walk upon it a Lion or a Dragon we shall tread it under foot a Red-sea it shall divide it self a hot fiery furnace we shall be bathed in it a Lions den thou shalt be as safe in it as in thy private Chamber Suppose it poyson it shall not hurt thee a Viper thou shalt fling it off the wittiest and most exquisite torment thou shalt not feel it For martyres non eripuit sed nunquam deseruit he took not the Martyrs from the stake but did he forsake them No his love was with them at the stake and in the fire And this heat of Love did so enflame them that the fire burnt not the rack tormented not because the pain was swallowed up in Love Nay all shall work for the best to the children of God Be they Afflictions We miscall them they are but tryals but lessons and sermons Be they tears he puts them in his bottel Be they enemies and that a mighty host Behold they that 2 Kings 6. be with us are mo then they that be with them The mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha Or if not our Patience is revenge and our Sufferance heaps coals of fire upon the head of our adversaries Be it the World We so use it that we may enjoy God saith St. Augustine Be it the Flesh by Gods power we beat it down Be it the Devil himself In striving to take away he encreases our glory Be it Death It is but a passage What though we be here in disgrace the very off-scouring of the world the by-word and song of the people accounted the cause of all evils as the Christians were in the primitive times no hail no great thunder no inundation but the Christians were accused for it what though we be never so vile never so contemptible in this world we are here strangers the world knows us not because it knows not God No marvel if a 1 John 31. King unknown in another Country be coursly or injuriously used because he is unknown and in another Country Let then the world esteem of Gods children as it please They are here in an unknown place peregrini deorsum cives sursum like mountains or high hills as Seneca speaks of his Philosopher Their growth and tallness appears not to men afar off but to those who come nigh At the Day of Judgment there will another account be made When God appears we shall be like unto him Then the note will be changed and the cry alter'd We fools thought their life madness and their end without honour but now they are counted amongst the children of Wisd 5. God and their portion amongst his dear Saints And are God's children dear unto him Sure this benefit hath a tye and this encrease of God's love calls for an increase of gratitude He expects that he should be dear to us For though God's love be not as Man's love negotiatio as Seneca speaketh a kind of a market-love with which we traffick and from it expect gain yet he expects that we should love him again Not that our Love can profit him but for our own sakes He will not love at randome he will not cast away his Love nor his Mite but he will have it repayed But if his ten Talents be laid up in a Napkin laid aside as not worth the using then his anger riseth and his indignation is high and he will not only take away his Talents but will bind thee hand and foot and cast thee into Prison and punish thee as an unprofitable servant It is so even with us Men. No wound greater to us then that which Ingratitude giveth If it bad been my enemy I could have borne it saith David but it was my familiar friend with whom I took sweet counsel that did me this wrong When Cassius and the rest set upon Caesar with their Poniards in the Senate-house he defended himself with silence but when Brutus struck he covered his face with his robe with his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What thou my son Brutus That Brutus stab'd him this was the Steletto at his heart It is so with God We cannot offend him more then by unthankfulness Ingratum si dixeris omnia dixeris For in it are all sins Infidelity begets it and we cannot name a greater sinner then an Infidel A sin this is so hateful and detestable to God that we find him complaining to the Heavens and to the Earth of the Jews ingratitude Hear O Heavens and hearken O Earth Isa 1. for I have nourished rebellious children And he might well complain The Jews were his peculiar people culled out of the whole world graced with the Title of Populus meus They were his people his dear people like Gideons fleece full of the dew of heavenly benediction when all the earth was dry besides a Signet on God's right hand a Seal on his heart and as the Apple of his eye his Vineyard which he hedged about planted with the best plants built a Tower in the midst of it and spared no diligence to better it a Nation which he raised and increased and defended with wonders How can he then now bear with their ingratitude How can he be pleased with these wild grapes of Disobedience and Stubborness and Rebellion Surely as he hath threatned he will pluck off
at Christs Matth. 20. 21 right hand the other at his left in his kingdome And can Christ do this and thus submit himself Can he be a King that thus pays tribute Some fit and pang of this distemper did no doubt trouble the Disciples minds at this time They had been often troubled with it and had sundry times discust amongst themselves as we have observed who should be the greatest And now upon this occasion seeing Christ bowing to Autority and submitting to them whom they thought he came to destroy the fire burned and they spake with their tongue Seeing the Lord of heaven and earth thus challeng'd for tribute and thus gently yielding to pay it they lost the sight of his Power in his Humility they forgot the miracle of the Money in the fishes mouth because it was tribute And being struck with Admiration they began to enquire what Honors and what degrees of Greatness were in his Kingdome which is his Church and observing the King of Heaven himself thus subject to command instead of learning Humility they foment their Pride they awake their Ambition and rowse it up to seek the glory of this world they are bold to ask him who was the Master and patern of Humility Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven This I take to be the Occasion of this Question And so I pass from it to the Persons who moved it The Disciples came unto Jesus And the Disciples we doubt not had been well and often instructed that the Kingdome of Christ was not of this world but spiritual yet the prejudicate conceit they had of the Messias did shut up their understanding against this truth the shape they had drawn in their minds of Christ made Christ less visible in his own shape So hard it is homini hominem exuere for a man to put off himself for a man that looks for a Pearl to interpret it Grace for a man that is ambitious of Honor on earth to look for it in heaven Such a damp and darkness doth Prejudice cast upon the minds and understandings even of the best men even of Disciples of Christ For the Devil fits himself to the nature and disposition of every man What he said of the Jesuite JESUITA EST OMNIS HOMO a Jesuite is every man to every man can apply himself to all humors all dispositions is most true of our common enemy Satan He is in a manner made all things to all men If he cannot cast us down into the mire of carnal and bruitish sin he is very active and cunning to lift us up on the wings of the wind and to whiff us about with the desire of honor and priority Etiam in sin◠discipulorum ambitio dormit saith Cyprian Ambition finds a pillow to sleep on even in the bosome of Disciples themselves There she lyes as in a shade lurks as in a bed-chamber and at last she comes forth and you may behold her raising of palaces and measuring out kingdomes and you may hear her asking of questions Who shall be the greatest Multimoda Satanae ingenia saith Hierome the craft of Satan is various and his wiles and devises manifold He knows in what breast to kindle Lust into which to breathe Ambition He knows whom to cast down with Sorrow whom to deceive with Joy whom to shake with Fear and whom to mislead with Admiration He searcheth our affections he fans and winnows our hearts and makes that a bait to catch us withal which we most love and most look upon He fights as the Father speaks with our selves against our selves he makes snares of our own desires and binds and fetters us up with our own love If he overcome us with his more gross tentations he insults but if he fail there he then comes towards us with those tentations which are better clothed and better spoken He maketh curious nets entangles our phansie and we strait dream of Kingdomes If our weakness overthrow us not tropheis triumphisque succumbemus saith the Father our own tropheys and triumphs shall destroy us Like a wise Captain he plants all his force and artillery at that place which is weakest and most attemptable We see the Disciples hearts were here weakest and here lay most open hither therefore the Devil directs his darts here he placeth his engines to make a breach So dangerous a vice is Ambition and so hard a thing it is even for good men for mortified persons for the Disciples of Christ to avoid it Who shall be the greatest they are not alwaies the worst men that put up that question Tully observes of the Philosophers that though they wrote books of the Contempt of Glory yet they would set their names to those books and so seek for Glory by oppugning it and even woo it in the way of a bold defiance And Plutarch speaking of the Philosopher whose Dictor it was LATENTER VIVENDUM That a concealed life was best yet adds withal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he would not have it concealed that this Dictor or speech was his What speak we of the Heathen Philosophers The Philosophers of God the Prophets of God have been much infested herewith Look upon Baruch When he thrived not in the King of Judah's Court he fell into discontent and repining so that the Prophet Jeremy is sent unto him with express message Seekest thou great things for thy self seek them not For I will bring evil upon the whole earth saith the Lord. Behold Jonah under his gourd What Jer. 45. 5. a pett and chafe is he in How irreverent to his God How doth he tell God even to his face that he did well to be angry even unto death And all this Anger from what fire was it kindled Certainly from no other then an overweaning conceit of his own reputation lest the sparing of Niniveh against which he had denounced ruin and destruction should disparage him with the people and lose him the name of a true Prophet And this we need not much marvail at if we consider the nature of this vice For first of all it is a choice vice preserved on purpose by the Divel to abuse the best nor will it grow in every soil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great and Noble natures the best capacities the most able wits these are the fat soil in which this weed grows Base and sordid natures seldom bear it What cares the Covetous person for Honor who will bow to durt What cares he for rising in repute who hath buried himself alive in the earth What cares he for a name that had rather see other mens names in his parchments then his own in the Book of Life What cares the Wanton for renown who had rather be crowned with roses then with a Diademe or will he desire to rise higher whose highest step is up to the bed of Lust and the embraces of a Strumpet These Swine love not such water as this nor such an oyntment as
makes suffering Patience it makes giving Liberality it puts value upon a Mite or a cup of cold water Charity baptizeth all the other virtues and makes them Christian She stands as a Queen among the Virtues encircled and compassed about as with a crown Patience waits on her Bounty is as the breath of her nostrils Long-suffering is her very spirit In a word Faith is the foundation Charity the building which reacheth as high as heaven and Hope the pillar or buttress to uphold it We shall now find our way easier and the task not hard to bring Charity and Hope together For if Charity comprehend all virtues I am sure Hope is one I know that the essences of these virtues are distinct and their offices divers Distinct habits have their distinct acts The act of Faith is to believe of Charity to love and embrace of Hope to expect But yet though their acts and offices be divers and distinct they may all meet in the same subject They are distinct but not separate Nay to speak truth they are inseparable Faith may be said to love and Hope to believe and Charity to hope For he that doth truly believe doth love and he that doth truly hope doth believe and he that loveth doth hope and yet neither is Faith Hope nor Hope Charity The abstract doth here stand for the concrete Charity for the Christian man indued with charity And the sense is Charity is the sourse the original the immediate cause of Hope that which alone produceth it In subjecto in supposito in the same subject in the same person two virtues may meet which notwithstanding in themselves are most distinct Besides in this union of Virtues there is observable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of communication of idiomes As it is true to say of Christ that he who is God is Man and he who is Man is God but blasphemy to say that his Deity is Humanity or his Humanity Deity so he errs not who affirms aut sperantem credere aut amantem sperare that he who hopes believes or that he who loves hopes but he were strangely deceived who should say that either Hope is Faith or Faith is Charity Certainly when our Apostle says that Charity hopeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he commits no soloecisme he speaks no absurdity nothing which becomes not an Apostle The most fearful and horrid Soloecisme is in our life and conversation when we hope in God whom we do not love and when we expect a reward from him who deserve a stripe Sperare in Deum propter meipsum non amare Deum propter seipsum To hope in God for my own good and for my self and not to love him for himself is a dangerous mistake To divide and separate Hope from Love is as bad as to separate Love from Faith The Apostle in the next verse tells us that Charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never falleth away He implyes a falling away of Faith and Hope in the last verse of the former Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now saith he here in this world abide Faith Hope and Charity so knit and united and coupled that no divorce shall make a separation If the hand of Charity wither my Hope is dead If I reach not forth drink to the thirsty and meat to the hungry and garments to the naked if I be so palsie-strucken that I cannot give a cup of cold water my Hope is sick and feeble and languishing spes informis a Hope without shape or form as withered and hanging down as my Charity as palsie-strucken as she not able to reach to a reward or lay hold on a blessing Now we cannot in strictness attribute Hope to the Saints departed whose Charity notwithstanding is now perfected For what should they hope for Heaven They already reign there The robe of glory They have put it on The penny They have received it He who was their hope is now their joy and crown They are extra statum merendi aut demerendi They can neither merit nor offend They are in termino quiescentiae in that rest which remains to the Saints of God That which is perfect is come and that which was in part is taken away Those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the ancient Church their Prayers and Panegyricks and Oblations for the dead did rather testifie their own hope then perswade theirs Expect they did the full complement of their bliss and beatitude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dancing and triumphing before him who taught them to conquer And being crown'd with victory what should they hope for Spes quasi pes animae saith Isidore Hope is the foot of the soul And to move the foot this progressive motion this striving forward belongs to him who is going on his way Spes absentis est we hope for that we see not the Saints rest in God Spes itinerantis est Hope is my companion in my journey at my journeys end Hope leaves me Where there is Hope there is motion and with that motion she ends In the Saints departed there is Charity but Hope there is not And indeed the Charity the Apostle here speaks of is not charit as patriae but viae This Charity that hath Hope to wait on her this expecting Charity is Charity that hath a hand to give and a body to suffer and a tongue to speak is the Charity of him who can bestow his goods on the poor and give his body to be burned v. 3. is proper to him who walks and rejoyceth and labours in hope as the Apostle speaketh Well then we may settle it as an undenyable conclusion that Charity may be without Hope but in the next place it is as true that Hope cannot be without Charity In heaven there is no room for Hope where notwithstanding Charity is nor shall there be in hell where Charity is not Infinite joy there infinite horror here No addition to that which is infinite no succession to Aeternity Here our Arithmetick faileth us we cannot add one cubit or inch to infinitude we cannot multiply Aeternity nor add one day to Immortality and can we hope The blessed Saints departed rest in God who is the end of their Hope do not hope The Devils and damned reprobates hate God and cannot hope non ostiolum spei not the least wicket not a crany of Hope is left to them Behold the bridegroom is come and is entred and the door is shut Origen whom Matth. 25. some have placed with a picklock in his hand to open these everlasting doors and after the revolution of some thousands of years to empty hell and break the chains of everlasting darkness hath this censure in Photius to have delivered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many absurd positions and full of impiety If Charity could be found in hell I would perhaps look for hope there But to place Hope there without Charity is to turn darkness into light Judas into
probable conjecture And therefore I will give you a second reason Besides this natural Inclination God himself hath a further purpose in it He that observes the wayes of God as far as he hath exprest himself shall find that he hath a delight to shew unto the world those that are his to lift them up on high and mark and character them out by some notable tryal and temptation Thus he made tryal of Abrahams Faith by such a command as struck at the very foundation of his faith In Isaac shall thy seed be blessed and yet Take thy son thy only son thy son Isaac in whom alone all the Promises made to Abraham were to be made good Ill signs for Abraham to look upon signs that with him the world would soon be at an end yet God set them up before him to look upon but by looking upon them he became the Father of the faithful Thus God made tryal of Job by putting all that he had into the power of Satan who presently sent Sabaeans to fall upon his servants and oxen Fire upon his sheep Chaldeans upon his camels and a great wind to beat down the house upon his sonns â—ll signs for Job to look upon but by looking upon them he became operarius victoriae Dei as Tertullian speaketh Gods workman hired as it were and prest by God to gain a conquest for him and in him to triumph and erect a trophee over Satan To draw this down to our present purpose To try the Strength the Faith the Love the Perseverance of those who are his God is pleased to give way to this tumult and danger in the last dayes And as the Eagle brings out her young and then counts them hers if she can make them look up against the Sun so Christ here in my Text brings forth those who are his and proposeth before them the dreadful spectacles here mentioned to try whether they can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Text speaks whether they can out-look them and lift up their heads when all the world doth hang down theirs Or he deals with his as the Jesuites are said to deal with their Novices They are wont to try of what courage and heart they are by frighting them with feigned apparitions of Hobs and Bug-bears in the night And if they find them stout and fearless they entertain them as fit for their use if otherwise they dismiss them as not for their turn and purpose Even thus may God seem to deal with them whom he means to make his of the order and general assembly and church of the first-born who are written in heaven whom he means to place amongst the great and few examples of eternal happiness he scareth them with dreams and terrifieth them with visions He sets before us these terrors and affrightments to see whether we fear any thing more then him or whether any thing can shake the alliance and trust which we repose in him whether our Faith will be strong when the World is weak whether our Light will shine when the Sun is darkned whether we can establish our selves in the power of Gods Spirit when the powers of heaven are shaken And indeed what are all these signs here mentioned but Mormos meer toyes to fright children with if we could truly consider that if the world should sink and fall upon our heads it cannot hurt a soul nor yet so grind the body into dust that God cannot raise it up again Can the Heavens with all their blackness and darkness have any operation upon a Soul which is of a more noble essence than they Can the Waters drown or the Plague devour or Famine starve or Fire consume and waste a Soul Can an immortal Soul be lost in the noise and tumults of the people For all these signs and apparitions if we know whom we have believed or believe what we have read in St. Paul neither life nor death nor angels nor Rom. 8. 38 39 principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now in the third place I will adde one reason more and so make an end of this point If Fear will give us leave to consult with our Reason and with Scripture we shall find that all this army of dismal events are nothing else but the effects of that Love which God bears to the World especially to Man the creature which he made after his own image and therefore cannot hate him because he so made him As men are wont to say of sick persons that so long as there is breath be they never so sick there is hope of their recovery for our hope expires not but with our soul so though we be far gone though we be dead in sin though we be sick of a Consumption of grace yet God lays not down the expectation of our recovery so long as there is breath in us Many examples we have of Gods long-sufferance in Scripture Betwixt Niniveh and final Desolation there stood but forty dayes or as the Septuagint render it but three for whereas we read it fourty dayes they render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet three dayes and Niniveh shall be destroyed Yet God sent his Prophet unto them and upon their repentance turned away those evils which he had denounced against them and which were now in their approach even at their very doors Many messages had God sent unto King Ahab to reclaim him yet amongst them all none was more signal then that which was sent him immediately before his fall It should seem that God had already determined with himself the destruction of Ahab and that he should fight and fall at Ramoth-Gilead yet notwithstanding Micaiah the Son of Imlah a Prophet of God even against the Kings will is brought before him and telleth him to his head that he should go and fall at Ramoth-Gilead Nor can we now think that this was done by chance For notwithstanding four hundred Prophets of his own had smooth'd and flatter'd him with hopes of good success yet Micaiah one whom the King hated against the Kings will is constrained to come and when he seemed at first either to mock or fail in the delivery of his message he is deeply adjured to deliver the truth How many times saith the 1 Kings 22. 16. King shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord Now from whence did all this come but even from this that God had not laid down the care of Ahabs conversion but truly desired that he would return and live To apply now all this to our present purpose From hence even from Gods love it is that the last and worst age of the World is attended upon with dreadful signs and wonders For God who delights to be called a Preserver of men will
ever with the Lord in his everlasting Habitations I have done with the first Point the Possibility of the Doctrine That we must arm our selves with courage and resolution against common calamities I proceed now to the second That it is an argument of great folly not to do so What is Folly but a mistake of things a mistake of their nature and of their end Not only a privative ignorance which may be in children and simple men but as the Hebrew Doctors call it a possessive ignorance possessing us with false opinions of things making us run counter to that light which Wisdome holdeth forth placing pleasure upon that which bringeth no delight and horror upon that which rightly considered hath no terror at all transforming a Devil into an Angel of light and turning Light it self into Darkness making the signs of Gods favor arguments of his wrath calling Afflictions and Calamities which are the instructions of a Father the blows of an Enemy and if Calamities be whips making them Scorpions An unwise man saith the Psalmist knoweth it not and a fool doth not consider it He doth not consider either the nature of these signs or the end for which they are sent but is led by likeness and opinion The natural man perceiveth not the things of Gods spirit but they 1 Cor. 2. 14. are foolishness unto him as the words of fools which signifie nothing And therefore he puts what sense and meaning he please upon them an interpreter the worst of a thousand And so he finds not evils but makes them makes them the mothers of his sorrow which might be the helpers of his joy When Reason and Religion are thrust out of the chair the Passions full soon take their room and dictate heavy things Then either Fear shakes us or Hope makes us mad either Grief pulls us down or Joy transports us One is afraid where no fear is as the Psalmist speaks another is struck dead at the sight of a statue and to some even Joy it self hath been as fatal as a thunderbolt All is from Opinion the mistress of fools which makes the shaking of a leaf as terrible as an earth-quake makes Poverty more sad the Plague more infectious Famine and the Sword more killing then they are It is not the tooth of Envy it is my Phansie bows me It is not the reproach of an Enemy hurts me It was but a word and Opinion hath turned it into a stone It is not an army of Sorrows it is my own Phansie overthrows me What St. Ambrose speaks of Poverty is true of all those evils which are so terrible to flesh and bloud Non naturae paupertas sed opinionis vis est Poverty as men call it is but a phansie there is no such thing indeed It is but a figment an Idole Men first framed it and set it up and trembled before it As some Naturalists tell us that the Rainbow is oculi opus a thing framed only by the eye because there are no such colours on the cloud as we see so this difference of Rich and Poor of Honorable and Dishonorable of Wars and Peace of Sorrow and Joy is but a creature of the Eye Did we not think the Souldier tremble we had disarmed him Did we not think Calamities grievous we might rejoyce in them Did not our Folly make these Signs terrible we might then look up and lift up our heads We read of Smyndenides the Sybanite that he was so extreamly dainty that he would grow weary at the sight of another mans labour and therefore when he sometimes saw a man labouring and painfully digging he began to faint and pant and desired to be removed Quà m inclementer fodicat saith he What a cruel and merciless digger is this So it is with us Our delicate and tender education our familiarity with the vanities of this world have betrayed our Reason to our Sensual parts so that we startle at every unusual object tremble at every apparition make War and Famine and Persecution more terrible then they are sink under those signs and warnings from heaven at which we should look up and lift up our heads This our way uttereth our foolishness as the Psalmist speaks For is it not a great folly to create evils to multiply evils to discolour that which was sent for our good and make it evil to make that which speaketh peace and comfort unto us a messenger of Death Let us now consider the Lets and Impedimens or the Reasons why our hearts fail us at such sights as these I shall at this time only remove a pretended one having formerly at large upon another Text Matth. 24. 25. spoken of self-Self-love and Want of Faith which are real and true hindrances of Christian Courage The main pretense we make for our pusillanimity and cowardise is our natural Weakness which we derived from our first parents and brought with us into the world For thus we lay every burden upon our fore-fathers shoulders and Adam is arraigned every day as guilty of every defect of every sin which is committed in the world HOMOSUM I am a man the child of Adam born under wrath is the common apology of the men of this world when they fall into those sins which by watching over themselves they might and which in duty they are bound to avoid As we fell in Adam so Adam falls in us falls under fears and sorrows and calamities unto the end of the world And if we observe it this is so common a plea and so stoutly and resolvedly stood to as if men did rather boast of it then bemoan it and did rather make use of it as a comfort after sin then fear it as a burden pressing and inclining to it For the best excuse they have the best plea they make is that they are the children of Adam I deny not that we drew this Weakness from our first parents I leave it not after Baptisme as subsistent by it self but bound to the center of the earth with the Manichee nor washt to nothing in the Font with Pelagius But yet and it will be worth your observation I take it to be a matter of difficulty to judge of what strength it is I fear we make it stronger then it is and I am sure a Christian is bound by that religion which he professes to encounter and tame and crucifie it For take us in our infancy not altered à puris naturalibus from that which we were made and then we do not understand our selves much less the Weakness of our nature And then take us in our years of discretion before we can come to discover it Custome and Education if good hath much abated if evil hath much improved the force of it and our Sloth or Cowardise hath made it strong A strange thing it is to see little children in their tender years prompt and witty to villany as if they had gone to School to it in their mothers womb and this
prevaile No he must back and strengthen it with the Judicial Sin must be brought forth and seen in its own shape Murder wallowing in the bloud she spilt Fornication in a whitesheet with shame upon her forehead Blasphemy with its brains dasht out Idleness starved Theft sub hasta brought to publick sale and condemned to slavery But under the Gospel Hell it self is unlockt her mouth open'd and all her terrors displaied Who would now think that this were not enough to stay our fliting humour to quell our raging temper to bind our unlimited desires Who would not think that this two-edged sword of the Word would frustrate and annihilate all other swords If I had set my face to Destruction this should turn me if I were rushing forward this should stay me But alass we break through these repagula we run over these sufflamina God speaks in us by the Law of Nature but we hear him not He writes to us by way of Letter and Epistle in his Divine Law but we answer him not Besides this we too often reject and reverberate his gracious instructions and incitements by the wise counsel and examples of good men In both God beckneth to us It is now high time he speak to us through a vaile of Bloud that he put the bridle into our mouths If Hell will not fright us then we must hear those more formidable words as S. Augustine saith more formidable to humane ears Occido Proscribo Mitto in exilium Death Proscription Banishment Tribuno opus carcere Lay the whip upon the fools back For to be thus question'd many times prevails more then a Catechisme Therefore Theodorete calls this Sword this Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most catholick and soveraign remedy and Luther necessarium corruptae naturae remedium a necessary remedy for weak decayed nature When the Fear of God boundeth us not imponit timorem humanum saith Irenaeus he aws us with the Sword and humane Authority When the destillation of his dew and small rain will not soften us down came his hailstones and coals of fire to break us A remedy it is our disposition and temper looks for and requires For we are led for the most part by the Sense We love and fear at a distance And as the object is either nigh or remote so it either affects or frights us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The greatest evils and so the greatest goods too are least sensible Villam malumus quam caelum saith Augustine We had rather have a Farme a Cottage than Paradise and three lives in that than eternity in Heaven We had rather be rich than good mighty then just Saint Ambrose gives the reason For saith he quis unquam justitiam contrectavit Who ever saw Virtue or felt and handled Justice And as our Love so stands our Fear Caesarem magis timemus quam Jovem We fear Man more than God and the shaking of his whip than the scorpions of a Deity A Dag at hand frights more than great Ordinance from the Mount and a Squib than a crack of Thunder He that could jest at a Deity trembled at a Thunder-bolt The Adulterer saith Job watcheth for his twilight as if God had his night And The ungodly lyeth in wait to spoil the poor saith David He seeketh a day and an opportunity as if God had not one every moment and he doth it secretly as if that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that revenging Eye were put out And though he stand as a butt for Gods Vengeance and a mark for his arrow and fuel for his fire the very centre wherein all Gods curses may meet yet he cleaves to his sin he hugs and embraces it Would you have a separation and divorce made It is more probable a Whip should do it then a Sermon an Officer then a Preacher a Warrant then an Anathema You must sue for it in the Court of Justice not in the Church So sensual so senseless many are Therefore the Holy Ghost in Scripture presents and fashions himself to the natural affections of men And that we may not turn bankrupts and sport or sell away our livelihood and estate in Heaven and so come to a spiritual nothing to bring us to the other world he tells us of something which we most fear in this To those who love liberty he speaks of a prison a jaylor an arrest Those who dare not step into the house of mourning he tells of weeping and gnashing of teeth and to those tender constitutions who can endure no smart he threatens many stripes NON SINE CAUSA GLADIUM is the servants and hirelings argument and many times it convinces and confutes him it dulls and deads the edge of his affection It destroys Murder in anger quenches Adultery in the desire sinks Pride in the rising binds Theft in the very purpose and ut seta filum as the bristle draweth the thread it fits and prepares a way for Charity and Religion it self We may now then engrave this NON FRUSTRA upon the Sword and settle it as an undoubted conclusion That Autority was not granted in vain Unless you will say that the Law was in vain and Reason in vain and Man in vain unless you will Put the FRUSTRA upon the Church the World Hell Heaven it self And if the Sword be not in vain then in the next place by an easie illation the Duty of the Magistrate will follow which is Operam fortem diligentem dare as the form runs Strenuously to contend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nè frustrà that he bear not the Sword in vain My third and last part There is no danger of a frustrà but here For potestas habet se indifferenter ad bonum malum saith Aquinas Autority though directed and ordained to good alone yet stands in an even aspect and indifferency to both good and evil In it is the life of the innocent and in it is the destruction of the wicked and it may be the flourishing of the wicked and the death of the innocent The Magistrate may as the Devil is said to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invert the order of things put shame upon Integrity and security upon Sin The Sword is an instrument and he may use it as he will and so of a fiery and sharp sword he may make it gladium ficulneum a wooden and unprofitable sword and then the drunkard may reel in the streets and injury may rage at noon-day for all that or pictum gladium no better then a Sword in a painted cloth only to be lookt upon He may use it not like a Sword but like David's rasour to cut deceitfully or he may let it rust in his hands that as that Lawyer complained of the Sword in his time it may be fit for nothing but to cut a purse let out a bribe Thus it may be But our task is to keep off this Frustrà from the Magistrate And see in my Text they are severd
was that represented to our Saviour though a dark yet a picture of his own Hinc vel maximè Pharisaei Dominum agnoscere debuistis Patientiam hujusmodi nemo hominum perpetraret saith Tertullian to the Pharisees If there had been no other argument to prove Christ God yet his wonderful Patience had been sufficient So we may truly say Were there no other argument to prove that this womans Faith was great yet this great measure of Patience were enough to make it good For so great a Patience could scarce have subsisted if Christ had not been in her of a truth Next follows her Humility a companion of Patience Quis humilis nisi patiens saith Tertullian There cannot be Humility without Patience nor Patience without Humility But here we have even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Father speaks an extreme humility Humility on the ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she worshipt him Not a humility which stayes at home but which comes out of her coasts after Christ She cryes after him he answers not She falls on the ground he calls her dogg A humility that is not silent but helps Christ to accuse her A Humility not at the lower end but under the table content with the crums which fall to the doggs Thus doth the Soul by true Humility go out from God to meet him and beholding his immense Goodness looks back unto her self and dwells in the contemplation of her own poverty and being conscious of her own emptiness and nihiliety she stands at gaze and trembles at that unmeasurable Goodness which filleth all things Ecce saith St. Augustine factus sum mihi regio egestatis This consideration hath laid me waste I am become to my self a wilderness where I can discover nothing but unruly passions and noysome lusts ready to take my soul and devoure it Foelix anima quae taliter exit à Deo Happy soul that so departs from God! It is a good flight from him which Humility makes For thus to go away from God into the valley of our own imperfections is to meet him We are then most near him when we place our selves at such a distance As the best way to enjoy the Sun is not to live in his sphere We must therefore learn by this Woman here to take heed how we grace our selves When Perseus the Macedonian King had rebelled against the Romans and was now overthrown by Aemilius he wrote unto them letters of submission but dated them with the name of Perseus the King and therefore the Consul would not answer them Sensit Perseus cujus nominis esse obliviscendum saith Livy Perseus quickly perceived what name he was to forget and therefore leaving out the title of King he writes the letters again and so received an answer What Perseus there did by constraint this woman here performs in true humility forgets the name of child nay of woman and to gain but a crum stiles herself a dogg A pattern for us to learn to think our selves but Doggs that we may be Children For nothing can make the heavens as brass unto us to deny their influence but a high conceit of our own worth If no beam of the Sun touch the in the midst of a field at noon day thou canst not but think some thick cloud is cast between thee and the light and if amongst that myriad of blessings which flow from the Fountain of light none reach home to thee it is because thou art too full already and hast shut out God by the conceit of thy own bulk and greatness Certainly nothing can conquer Majesty but Humility which layeth her foundation low but raiseth her building to heaven This Canaanitess is a Dogg Christ calls her woman She deserves not a crum he grants her the whole loaf and seals his Grant with a FIAT TIBI It shall be to Humility even as she will And now in the third place her Humility Ushers in her Heat and Perseverance in prayer Pride is as glass Vitream reddit mentem saith Damianus It makes the mind brittle and frail Glitter she doth and make a fair shew but upon a touch or fall is broken asunder Not only a Reproach which is ictus a blow but Silence which can be but tactus a touch dasheth her to pieces Reproach Pride and she swells into anger infermento est she is ready to return the Dogg upon Christ But Humility is murus aheneus a wall of brass and endureth all the batteries of opposition Is Christ silent she cryes still she follows after she falls on her knees Calls her Dogg she confesseth it She will endure any thing hear any thing bear any thing do any thing and all this to gain but a crum From Humility springs this her Fervor and Perseverance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the depth of an humble and low conceit of her self A common error it is reigning amongst us and our Pride begets it when we frame unto our selves a facil and easie God a God who will be commanded of us and led as it were in a string a God that will welcome us whensoever we come and be content with whatsoever little we bring This is nothing else but to set up a God of our own making an idole For what else is Idolatry but the mistake of that God whom we chuse to serve But if we knew our selves if we knew the distance between heaven and earth the difference between God and a Worm we should find God to be a God of state and magnificence qui solet difficilem habere januam whose gates open not so easily as we suppose a God who expects that our addresses unto him should be accurate and joyn'd with long attendance and expectancy Did we rightly dread his Majesty and weigh our own baseness we should think then with Pythagoras Deum non esse salutandum in transitu that God will not be spoken to in the By and passage we should fear that by our slight and trivial prayers we were too bold with him and that in wrath and indignation he should reply as Augustus did to his friend who entertained him coena percâ quotidianâ with course and ordinary fare Non putâramme tibi tam familiarem fuisse I did not think I had made my self so familiar with my creature Christ here no doubt knew the Womans faith before he heard it in her cry but he is silent but he denyes but he calls her Dogg and all this to make her importunate ut exploret affectum recurrentem to see whether her desire would recoyl upon the repulse He withdraws himself that she may follow closer after He puts her back that she may press forward in pursuit and invade him with violence ut excitet affectum languentem to fet an edge upon her affection to inflame her love and to raise her importunity with delay For the prayer of Faith res est seria gravis improba a serious a daring an imperious thing which will
in every part and then write underneath THIS IS A CHRISTIAN Hitherto the Devil will suffer us to name Christ if we will but name him For by this he hath advantage and our guilt is encreased Reatus impii pium nomen saith Salvian Nothing condemns an evil man more then a good name A common thing it is in the world to prefix a fair and promising title to books of no worth And this art the Devil is busie to teach us to put a trick upon God and deceive him with a fair title page He cares not how glorious the frontespiece be so the work be course Look into the book of a formal Christians life and you shall find many leaves but blanks a great part of his life lost in sleep some blurred and blotted with the Love of this world some leaves polluted with Uncleanness others stained with Bloud You shall see it full of Soloecisius of gain-sayings and contradictions of Christ Only there is a fair title page and the name of this Book is THE CHRISTIAN SOULDIER And therefore one rule of our Enemy is to begin with us to entangle us at our first setting out He deals with us as we are commanded to deal with him As we are to break his head to suppress the beginnings of Sin so doth he break ours and suppress the beginnings of Goodness For in the second place the one will encrease as well as the other Festucam si nutrias trabs erit si evellas projicias nihil erit If you nourish a mote it may become a beam but if you pluck it out presently and cast it from you it will be nothing This evil thought may grow up to Murder but if you check it it is nothing So this good thought may be Religion but if the Devil stifle it it will be nothing These beginnings may bring-on perfection but if you stop them they are nothing This grain of mustard-seed this little grain this least of seeds if you suffer it to grow may become a tree but if you choak it at first it is nothing Nihil est fertilius sanctitate Nothing is more fruitful and generative then Goodness For God doth not set us upon vain and fruitless designs he sets us not to plow the winds or cast our seed upon the barren rocks he doth not tie us by a blind obedience to water a dry stick but as the Prophet David speaks our line is fallen unto us in a pleasant place and we have a goodly heritage a fruitful soyl where every seed may increase into many ears of corn and every eare multiply into a harvest where increase makes us more fruitful where the liberal soul is made fat and Prov. 11. 25. he that waters is watered again Every good thought may beget a good Intention every good Intention may raise it self up to the strength of a Resolution every Resolution may bring on Perseverance every good Action looks forward to another and that to a third Patience begets experience Experience Hope Hope Confidence As it was said of Alexander Quaelibet victoria instrumentum sequentis that every conquest he made made way to a second So every step we make makes the way more easie every conquest we gain over Satan enables us to chase him again If we overcome him in our Creed and believe against all temptations to Infidelity we may overcome him also in our Decalogue and bring forth fruits worthy amendment of life against all temptations to Profaneness He that names Christ may believe in him and he that believes in him may dye for him He that gives a peny to the poor may in time sell all that he hath and at last lay down his life for the Gospel And therefore in the last place timet nè virtus convalescat the Devil is unwilling to suffer Goodness to gather any strength lest when it is grown up and settled and establisht in the heart it may prove too hard a matter for him to remove it lest what he might at first have stoln away as a Serpent he shall not be able to take from us though he come like a Lyon For as it is in Sin so is it also in Goodness It grows up by degrees Our first onset is with some difficulty we are almost perswaded to be Christians After some bruises and some recoveries some slips and some risings some struglings and some victories the way is more pleasant and at last we run the way of Gods commandments and make haste to Happiness as to our center That Fasting which was my melancholy is now my joy that Reproof which was a whip is now as oyl that Prophet whom I persecuted is now an Angel What doth God exact at our hand saith Salvian but Faith and Chastity and Humility and Mercy and Holiness quae utique omnia non onerant nos sed ornant all which are not as burdens to oppress us but as rich jewels to adorn us What doth Christ require but those things which are convenient and agreeable with our nature the love of God and the Love of men And certainly the custom of doing good if it be equal to the custom in evil is far more pleasant Far more content is to be found in virtue then in vice more pleasure in temperance then in surfetting more complacencie in justice then in Partiality more delight in piety then in lust When I have raised my self so high as to delight in the dictates of Nature and in the precepts of the God of Nature then I may look into my heart reflect upon my self with joy and say I am a man and I perswade my self that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor heighth nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now I can labor in his hard work and my labor is my joy Those virtues which seem to run from me are my familiars my friends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil my possessions which none can take from me Non videtur perfectè cujusquam id esse quod casu auferri potest say the Civilians We cannot be said to have sure possession of that which may be taken away by some chance What we are surely possessed of we can hardly lose And such a possession such an inheritance is true Piety when we are once rooted and built up and establisht in it It is a treasure which no chance can rob us of no thief take from us A habit well confirmed is an object the Devil is afraid of O the power of an uninterrupted obedience of a continued course in the duties of holiness it is able to puzzle the great Sophister the great God of this world Deorum virtus naturâ excellit saith Tully hominum industriâ Nature confirms virtue to the Gods but Industry to Men. The Gods cannot possibly be otherwise then good and
Bernard The Spear that opened his side is made a Key to open his bowels and compassion the materials of this Garment a Key to open his Wardrobe as well as his Bed-chamber Wilt thou make a Feast of Christ Thou must make a Garment of him too Wilt thou feed on him Thou must put him on also as the Apostle speaks For we cannot imagine that our Salvation is finis adaequatus the Rom. 13. 14. sole end of Christs sufferings That we should be partakers of his glory 1 Pet. 5. 1. that is one end indeed the very Feast but there is another that we should 2 Pet. 1. 4. be partakers of his divine nature that is the Garment Called to glory and 2 Pet. 1. 3. vertue Not to vertue without glory that were against the Goodness of the King Nor to Glory without virtue that were against his Justice Take our Election We are chosen to obedience through sanctification of the Spirit 1 Pet. 1. 2. Take our Redemption We are delivered that we might serve him without Luke 1. 74. fear Take our Calling We are called unto holiness In all our passages 1 Thes 4. 7. in all our approaches to happiness an eye is to be had to the Garment as well as to the Feast For though every step to heaven be a type of our eternal station there and our Garment of Grace a fair representation of our robe of Glory yet is not every step Heaven nor Grace Glory Christ as he is the Foundation to build upon so is the Way to walk in As he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the price of our redemption so he became so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might be a patern of sanctity for us to take-out and follow that we may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy and unblamable The Garment is the condition and certainly no hard one For it is facilis parabilis easie to be procured Difficultatis patrocinium praeteximus segnitiei If thou think it hard to work or wear it it is because the fashion likes thee not We may boldly say Nothing makes Christianity more difficult than the conceit that it is difficult We should more freely run the ways of Gods commandments if we did not laborem singere in praecepto too oft imagine a Lyon in the way What need we any further witness The guests that came with this man shall rise-up in judgment against him It was as hard for them to procure or wear the Garment and yet they did not complain of the condition Thus have we pleaded against this unprovident Guest drawn articles out of this Interrogation and set a QUOMODO upon each several circumstance QUOMODO How to a King How a Subject a Beggar to a King How being so graciously invited How to such a Feast How to such Place Lastly QUOMODO INVESTIS How without a garment so fit a garment so glorious a garment How camest thou in hither not having on this wedding-garment All these Motives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greatest and most winning able to rowse up Stupidity it self able to awake our most dull and dead affections the Majesty of a King to awe him his Invitation to win him the Feast to delight him the Place to entice him the Garment to affect him a King to awake his Fear the Invitation to kindle his Love the Feast to raise his Desire the Place his Admiration and the Garment his Diligence And yet see not any of these not all these could move him but to the King he is irreverent to the Invitation stubborn to the Feast contumelious at the Place prophane and the Garment he esteemed not All these Irreverence Ingratitude Stubbornness Profaneness Neglect Contempt Rebellion meeting and concentring themselves in a disobedient and unbelieving heart are represented unto us under Nakedness and the Want of a Garment And indeed this is all Peccatum infidelitatis quae tenentur omnia peccata saith Aquinas Infidelity is the abridgment and summary of all For if the Gospel be hid to me I am in darkness and cannot discern the King from a common person nor his Invitation from a complement nor his Feast from husks nor his Table from the table of Devils nor Bethel from Bethaven And therefore our Saviour sayes If I had not come and spoken to them they should have had no sin John 15. 22. St. Augustines gloss is Magnum aliquod peccatum sub generali nomine vult intelligi That this general name of Sin did include some great sin some sin paramount And that sin is Infidelity This makes the Gospel as killing as the Law and the bloud of Christ as vocal and loud for vengeance as that of Abel The Infidelity of the guest was far worse than that of a stranger We see here it brought the King to his QUOMODO to question the Guest and to silence him with a question so to question him that he was to seek for an answer Of whose Silence we shall say no more at this time but what St. Ambrose spake of AMA It was negotiosum silentium a busie vocal silence Conscientia loquebatur ubi vox non audiebatur His Conscience cryed aloud against him when Shame and Sorrow had shut up his lips But he is placed here in this parable for an ensample to us on whom the ends of the world are come that if we will not be muzzled and tongue-tyed if we will have no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no linguarium no muzzle to shut up our lips and stop our mouths at the coming of this great King at that great day of Judicature we be careful now to keep our garments to reverence the King to run when he calls to make haste when he invites to delight in the Feast to fall down in his Courts and to worship in the beauty of holiness To this end let us consider that God who made us after his own image cannot endure to see our souls naked or clad with rags and to be clothed with rags is Nakedness Disobedience is Nakedness by this our first parents were bereaved of the image of God deprived of their glory and made subject to shame Idolatry is Nakedness Moses saw that the people were Gen. 3. 7. Exod. 32. 25. Ezek. 16. 8. Hos 2. 3. Rev. 3. 17. naked after they had worshipped the molten calf So Hypocrisie which is a mask and disguise is Nakedness Thou sayest thou art rich but art poor and naked There is no shame in the world but this to be found naked Let us therefore cast off the cloke of Hypocrisie and Dissimulation and put-on the robe of Sincerity God desireth truth in the inward parts in the hidden parts Psal 51. 6. at the heart-root in the secret and closed parts And then if it do eructare se in superficiem as Tertullian speaketh evaporate and breath it self forth in the outward man and make every part and member of us a weapon and instrument of righteousness
forth our hands as if we were to meet the blessing and lay hold on it But when we remember the Majesty of Heaven we are struck with reverence we begin to fall back 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justine Martyr speaks casting our selves upon our faces on the ground The Philosopher will tell us in his Ethicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that those men many times are esteemed valiant whom the ignorance of danger makes audacious It fareth so with Christians They would not be so bold with God did they rightly conceive of his Majesty did they consider that as he is a Father ready to open his hand in bounty to his children so he is in heaven as ready to lift it up against those that are too familiar with him Volo illum qui sit dicturus solliciter surgere periculum intelligere saith Quintilian In our exordiums and beginnings we must put-on some sollicitude and understand the danger we are in not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tremble and look pale as Tully himself once did that we cannot speak but so to behave our selves as that Fear may not shut-up our speech but commend it With the same care and reverence must we begin our Prayers We must with Demosthenes be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 modest and fearful but not discouraged to tender our petitions The Love of a Father may fill us with confidence but the Majesty of God must strike us with fear I dare speak to God because he is my Father but I speak in trembling because he is in heaven If we do not thus begin we lose our petitions before we utter them as the Mariner which unskilfully thrusts forth his ship from shore shipwracks in the very haven Biel upon the Canon of the Mass divides this Exordium into four parts which are as so many wayes by which we do captare benevolentiam Dei insinuate our selves into the favour of God First we do it à dilectionis magnitudine by the greatness of his Love by which he vouchsafes to be our Father Secondly à liberali Bonitatis diffusione from the free communication of his Goodness in that he is Our Father Thirdly ab immutabili perpetuitate from the immutability of his Essence which he gathers out of these words QUI ES which art Lastly à sublimitate Potentiae from the sublimitie and eminencie of his Power which is exprest in those words IN COELIS in heaven We have here our method drawn to our hand But in our discourse we shall omit the third and rather take the words in sensu quo fiunt in that sense in which they were made to be understood then in sensu quem faciunt in that sense which they will bear without any prejudice to the truth God said unto Moses I AM THAT I AM Exod. 3. 14. and there cannot be a better expression of the Immutability of his Essence than to say HE IS But to say He is in heaven doth not more naturally enforce than to say He is Good and he is Merciful and he is Just The lines then by which we will bound our discourse are these and by these we will pass We will enquire I. How God is our Father II. Wherefore we call him ours III. How he is in heaven Of these in their order And first the word FATHER is not taken here as it is in our Creed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 personally for so God is the Father of Christ alone but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 essentially for the whole Trinity and so he is the Father of all Christians For the Persons of the Trinity are inseparable nor doth every Person take a several possession of us But the Father as Goodness the Son as Wisdom the holy Ghost as Power do all concur ad extra in every particular which doth issue outwardly from that one glorious Deity which they all are And he that is not partaker of all can have fellowship with none The whole Trinity is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene speaks a Sea an Ocean of Essence and a Sea an Ocean of Goodness which hath overflowed all Mankind Whatsoever God did whatsoever God determined he determined as a Father out of his Goodness The very name of FATHER breaths Love and Power Appellatio ista pietatis potestatis est saith Tertullian But Gods Power is not more wonderful than his Goodness is eminent Therefore Synesius in his Oration De Regno tells us that when we call God our FATHER non tam potentiam glorificamus quam adoramus providentiam we do not so much magnifie his Power as adore his Goodness and Providence And here what wings might I wish for to fly a pitch proportionable to the height of Gods Goodness or what line might I use to sound the depth of his Care The World all that is in the woâ—â—d all that we are all that we desire all that we hope for all that we believe are the arguments of his Goodness Verba amoris opera sunt His Works are the language of his Love and his Hand the tongue of his Goodness Whom doth not the eloquence of the Universe amaze What Rhetorick is so furnisht with figures as we see natures What Goodness is that which so overflows that we can neither receive nor understand it FATHER is the best expression we have but it doth not express that Love which makes him more then a Father First he exprest himself a Father in our creation For what other motive had he than his Goodness to create the World and Men and Angels in so wonderful a manner Who counselled him who moved him to do it He was of himself all-sufficient and needed nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There can be no accession to God could the Philosopher say Why then did he thus break out into action We can give no reason but his Goodness which is a restless thing alwaies in doing and like a Fountain cannot stay it self within it self but must find vent to disperse it self By his Goodness I say we were at first created his children and by his Goodness we were redeemed when we had forfeited our filiation When we had forgot to be Children He did not forget to be a Father but provided that his own Son should die that his adopted sons might live for ever And so he hath made us his by a double right 1. of Creation 2. of Redemption And lastly he doth not suffer us to fall to the ground but in all miseries and afflictions yea in death it self he lifteth and raiseth us up with the hope of immortality and eternal life O what room have we here to expatiate Further we might shew you how God is our Father by Adoption taking us in familiam injúsque familiae into the family and church of the first-born and giving us right and title to be of that family We might lay open his Goodness in our Regeneration For of his own will he begat us with the word of truth I might set
our Good non sunt unius animi cannot harbor in the same heart at once Nor doth God require of them an actual and perpetual intention of his Glory but as the Schools speak an habitual Thou mayest pray to his glory when thy thoughts are busie and reflect upon thy own want We see an arrow flyes to the mark by the force of that hand out of which it was sent and he that travels on the way may go forward in his journey though he divert his thoughts sometimes upon some occurences in the way and do not alwayes fix them on the place to which he is going So when thy Will and Affections are quickned and enlivened with the love of Gods Glory every action and prayer will carry with it a savor and relish of that fountain from whence they spring An Artificer doth not alwayes think of the end why he builds a house but his intention on his work sometimes comes in between and makes him forget his end And though he make a thousand pieces yet he still retains his Art saith Basil So though thou canst not make this main Intention of Gods Glory keep time with thy Devotion nor send up every thought thus incenst and perfumed yet the smell of thy sacrifice shall come before God because it is breathed forth of that heart which is Gloriae ara an Altar dedicated wholly to the glory of God Thy ear must be to keep it as thy Heart with all diligence to nourish and strengthen it that if it seem to sleep yet it may not dy in thee to barricado thy heart against all contrary and heterogeneous imaginations all wandring cogitations which as Jacob may take his first-born by the heel and afterwards supplant and robb it of its birth-right For these thoughts will borrow no life from thy first intention of Gods Glory but the intention of Gods Glory will be lost and dye in these thoughts We pass forward to that which we proposed in the second place That spiritual blessings must have the first place in our prayers Holiness and Obedience must go before our daily bread the spiritual Manna which nourisheth us up unto eternal life before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things of this present life or that bread which upholds us but for a span of time A doctrine as most plain so most necessary for these times in which mens hearts are so set on gain and temporal respects that heaven finds but little room in their thoughts and so care for the Body as if they knew not whether they had any Soul or no Of his mind in Plautus who professed if he were to sacrifice to Jupiter yet si quid lucri esset if gain and filthy lucre presented it self before him he would rem divinam deserere instantly run from the Altar and leave his sacrifice Epictetus the Stoick observed that there were daily sacrifices brought to the Temples of the Gods for wealth for honors for victory but none ever offered up for a good mind And Seneca tells us Turpissima vota diis insusurrant that men were wont to whisper dishonest desires into the ears of the Gods si quis autem admoverit aurem conticescunt but if any stood near them to hearken they were presently silent Were the hearts of many men anatomized and opened we should find Riches and Content deeply rooted in the very center but Holiness and Obedience and Honesty of conversation written in faint and fading characters in superficie in the very surface and outside of the heart Villam malumus quà m coelum We had rather have a Farm a Cottage than Paradise and three lives in that than eternity in heaven We had rather be rich than good mighty than just And talk what you will of sanctifying Gods Name we had rather make our selves one of advancing his Kingdom we had rather reign as Kings of fulfilling Gods Will we will do our own of the Bread of life Give us this day our daily Bread But thus to pray is not to pray 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after that manner which Christ here taught but a strange 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 want of method in our Devotion Our Love is seen in our language For those things which most affect us we love to talk of we use to dream of and our thoughts are restless in the pursuit of them It was observed in Alexander as a kind of prophesie and presage of his many conquests quòd nihil humile aut puerile sciscitaretur that he speaking with the Persian Ambassadors askt no childish or vain question sed aut viarum longitudinem aut itinerum modos but of the length of the wayes and the distance of places of the Persian King and of his Court A man saith the Wise-man is known by his speech and a Christian by his prayers I could be copious in this argument but purposely forbear because it is so common a place Only to set your Devotion on fire and raise it to things above may you please to consider Temporal goods 1. not satisfactory 2. as an hindrance to the improvement of Spiritual Do but consult your own Reason and that will tell you that the Mind of man is unsatiable in this life Who ever yet brought all his ends and purposes about and rested there Possideas quantum rapuit Hero Let a man possess what Craft and unlawful Policy can entitle him to Let him be Lord of all that lyes in the bosome of the earth and in the bosome of the Sea Let him as Solomon did even study how to give himself all delight imaginable yet with all this cost with all this pains and travel he is as far from what he lookt for as when he first set out Now as God having made the Understanding an eye hath made the whole Universe for its object so having placed a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an infinite desire in the soul hath proportioned something to allay it Which since these temporal things cannot do it is evident that heaven and spiritual blessings are those things which alone can satisfie this infinite appetite Put them both in the Scales and there is no comparison You may as well measure Time by Aeternity and weigh a little sand on the shore with the whole Ocean Again as they do not satisfie so are they an hinderance to our improvement in spiritual wealth Alter de lucro cogitat alter de honore putat quòd eum Deus possit audire One thinks of Gain when he prays for Godliness another of Honor when he talks of Heaven We may call this Prayer if we will but most certain it is that God never hears it nor any prayer which is not made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Isidore speaks with diligence Which leads us to that which we proposed in the third place That when we pray Hallowed be thy Name we do not simply pray that God will do it without us but that he will supply us with those means and helps
bound the Understanding also to regulate our Affections to set limits to our very Thoughts which flow from the heart to keep us from Error as well as from Sin For as the Will must turn it self from all evil ut non consentiat that it no way incline to consent unto it so is there a tye upon the Understanding to avoid error ut non assentiat that it yield not assent to it As the Will is bound to perform its act so is the Understanding also The Will is bound to will that which is good the Understanding to know and believe those things which are the objects of our Faith and Knowledge so that it is as well a sin to believe a lye in matters of Faith as to break a commandment If there were no law to the Understanding then were it lawful for every man to believe and think as he please and that opinion would pass for current That every man may be saved in that Religion and Sect which he believes to be good and true And then how hath the Church of Christ been mistaken in passing such heavy censures upon Hereticks and Infidels We have a saying indeed in St. Bernard Nihil ardet in inferno praeter propriam voluntatem That nothing of us makes fuel for the fire of hell but our Will and that men are punisht only for the stubbornness and disobedience of their Will and if we examine it we shall find it true enough though at the first appearance it beareth some shew of opposition to the truth For the Will receives the first wound and maim And it is most certain we could never erre dangerously if we were not willing to be deceived The complaint is put-up in Scripture They will not understand Not that the acts of the Understanding depend on the Will which are rather natural than arbitrary for it is not in our power not to apprehend things in those shapes in which they present themselves but because we wilfully refuse the means to clear doubts we will not see that which is most naked and visible we seek no guide we follow no direction nay perhaps against our own consciences we dissent from that which inwardly will we nill we we do acknowledge And as the errors of the Understanding so all the extravagancies of the Affections are originally from the Will It was the Stoicks error to disgrace the Affections as evil Christianity hath made the weapons of righteousness to fight the battels of this great King My Anger may be a sword my Love a banner my Hope a staff my Fear a buckler All the weaknesses of our Soul the errors of our Understanding and the rebellions of our Affections are from the Will From hence are wars and fightings Is the Understanding dark The cloud is from the Will That my Anger rageth my Love burneth my Fear despaireth my Grief is impatient my Joy mad is from the Will From this treasury blows the wind which makes the wicked like the Isa 57. 20. troubled sea which cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt And now you see that the Kingdom of Christ consists principally in subduing of the will When that yields the Understanding is straight as wax to receive the impressions of Truth and the Affections as so many gentle gales to carry us to the haven where we would be This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom calls it principale animae as St. Ambrose the commanding leading and principal part of the Heart If Christ hath taken possession of this he hath taken the whole heart and is Lord of all Fight saith the 1 King 22. 31 King of Syria neither with small nor great save only with the King of Israel If he faâ—l in battel the whole army is overthrown Will you have it plainly thus There be these three parts as it were in the Heart or Soul of man Reason Will and Appetite Reason necessarily inclines to things reasonable and the Sensitive appetite follows the conduct of Sense For it is an axiome in the Schools Unaquaeque virtus expeditior est ad proprium actum Every power of the soul tends naturally to its proper act and operation Our Reason is quick to discourse and our Sense carries us to sensual objects And these two are at a kind of war and variance in man and strive which shall have the supremacy They are as two extreams and the Will in the midst as it were to decide the controversie When Sense hath over whelmed Reason then Sin begins to reign and the Devil to triumph But when through Christ that strenghtheneth us our Will takes Reason's part and treads the Appetite under her feet then the adverse faction is swallowed up in victory Christ is all in all and VENIT REGNUM DEI the Kingdome of God is within us I now proceed further to unfold the nature of the Kingdome of God It is REGNUM TUUM thy Kingdome Which puts a difference betwixt this and other Kingdoms Christ rules and reigneth as a King in his Church But as his Kingdome is not of this world so is it of a divers form and complexion from the Kingdoms of the world We pray Let thy Kingdome come Which points out a peculiar Kingdome a Kingdome by it self And if we put it in the Scales with the Kingdoms of the earth and weigh them together they will be all found too light whether we respect the Laws by which this Kingdome is governed or the Virtue and Power it hath or its large Compass or the Riches it abounds with or its Duration the Laws unquestionable indispensable the Power universal the Circuit as large as the world the Riches everlasting and its Continuance for ever To speak something of these in their order First in the Kingdome of Christ and his Laws neither People nor Senate nor Wise-men nor Judges has any hand They were made in Senatu Soliloquio as Rupertus speaks in that Senate and Solitariness where there are divers yet but one Three Persons and but one God Secondly there is a difference in the Laws themselves These are pure and undefiled exact and perfect and such as tend to perfection and so were none that ever the heathen Legislatours enacted What speak we of the Laws of heathen men and strangers from the Commonwealth of Israel The Law of Moses though it had nothing unlawful or dishonest yet conteined many precepts concerning things which in themselves were neither good nor evil as Sacrificing of beasts Circumcision exact Rest on their Sabboath forbidding of divers meats But the Laws of the Gospel and of the Kingdome of Christ command those duties which had they not been tendred in that high commanding form yet in their own nature were most just and fit to be done Not to circumcise the flesh but the heart Not to cease from labor but from that which is unlawful Not to sacrifice the bloud and fat of beasts but our selves Not to abstein from certain meats but to
all which are as sowre and unpleasant meats And our glosses and interpretations of them what are they for the most part but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delightful sawces to make them more easie and pleasant to the palate Sell all that thou hast and give to the Matth. 19. 21. poor the Church of Rome calleth a Counsel of perfection And we might well enough admit of it if she made it medium not finem a means a way and not the term and end of perfection We make it praeceptum singulare a particular precept to the youngman in the Gospel Who like the sheep though his fleece was fair and white deceived not Christ the great Shepheard of the flock but he quickly espied the rottenness of his heart and with this command made a window in his breast that all might see it He that had kept all the Commandments from his youth could not hear with patience this one Commandment Go sell all that thou hast and give to the poor This was a dagger at his heart For when he heard that saying his colour changed he went away saith the Text very sorrowful It was indeed an error in Pelagius grounded upon a mistaken part of Scripture That no rich man could be saved But it falls out many times that there is less danger in maintaining some errors then in pressing some truths And what inconvenience can attend this error What if every rich man should suddenly become liberal and disburse his money What if Dives had sold all and laid it down at Lazarus his feet What if every Gallant did turn his Peacocks feathers into Sackcloth What inconvenience could follow Or can this Devil be cast out without fasting and prayer Utinam sic semper errarent avari We may make it our wish that covetous persons did alwayes so err For this no-great-error in their faith would defend them from a greater sin in their actions would pluck that beam out of their eyes with which the God of this world hath blinded them Better it is a great deal that they should thus erre than that on the other hand they should effeminare disciplinam Christi weaken and effeminate the strictness of Christian discipline with these sprinklings and limitations That it is true indeed I must give to the poor but it is as true I must care for my family That a cup of cold water is enough for the poor whilst I drink up a river and like Behemoth in Job draw up the world into my mouth take possession of all the riches I can grasp For these truths which sort and seem to comply with this malady captivam animam dum delectant exulcerant do delight indeed and please the captive soul but withal do pierce her through and exasperate the humor which was too malignant before For when our love is fixt upon the world the God of the world the Devil will soon teach us his art veritatem veritate concutere to demolish one truth with another to drown our Bounty to the poor in our care for our family To send the covetous person to the Pismire to School to commend Frugality to a Miser is nequitiam praeceptis adjuvare nothing else but to whet and quicken that appetite which is too sharp already to put wings to that desire which is too fleet and eager He that will not labor let him not eat is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a principle a fundamental axiome with the Miser a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation and which he hugs and adores as he doth his gold And therefore this gentle course of Physick will never cure him Si prodesse vis doce quod doleat If you will do him good and work a cure indeed you must disturb and trouble him Go sell all thou hast and give to the poor is a bitter pill and it will so work with him that it will make him very pensive and sorrowful Again Go sell and give to the poor is by some made praeceptum generale a general command like the Parthian horsmen looking one way and shooting another directed upon occasion to this young man but striking at all the world But then they level it by that plain position of our Saviours Whosoever he be that forsaketh not Luke 14. 33. all that he hath cannot be my Disciple which cannot be understood of forsaking in act and execution but in will and affection at some time and upon some occasions Habet pax suos martyres There is even a martyrdome in time of peace Habent divitiae suos pauperes Men may be poor in spirit though their corn and their wine and riches increase We may say of this precept as Tertullian speaks of some other places of Scripture Expetit sensus interpretationis gubernaculum To find the sense we must steer along by a wary interpretation For literally this precept cannot be general it being impossible that all should be sellers If all were sellers where would be the buyers and if all were givers where would be the receivers But in respect of that due preparation which every Christian ought to have for the Truth and the Gospels sake for their Brethrens sake to offer up all their possessions as a Holocaust in this respect it finds no restraint or limitation but is of as large compass as Christendom Non audomus dicere ut omnia relinquatis tamen si vultis omnia etiam retinendo relinquitis saith Gregorie I dare not be so bold as to press upon you to forsake all that you have but yet if you please to learn this Christian art you may forsake and retain you may sell and give and yet keep You may so use the world that you may enjoy God still be proprietaries of them as of yours but so esteem of them as if they were not yours but your brethrens still place our thoughts not upon PANIS Bread but upon NOSTER Ours still consider that it is not Mine or Thine but Ours This NOSTER is a kind of circle of compass large enough to take in thy self and all thy poor brethren to comprehend all the Christians in the world How scrupulous our Fore-fathers were in expounding this and the like Texts of Scripture themselves have left us notable monuments St. Basil maketh a strange supposition and in my opinion he gives as strange an answer to it Wert thou brought saith he into those streights that thou hadst but one loaf left and that thou knewest no means to provide other when that is spent yet if there should come some poor and needy man and ask thee for food what thinkst thou would be thy duty to do Even to take that one loaf and put it into his hand that begs his food and looking up into heaven to say Lord thou seest this one loaf thou knowest the streights in which I am yet have I performed the keeping of thy commandments before supplying my own necessities This indeed is a point of piety cujus non audeo
dicere nomen and had I not the warrant of so grave and judicious a Divine I should scarcely have dar'd to have taught it in this age of the world where we are taught that we must begin from our selves that we must not tempt God by making our selves destitute of means or other such thriving Doctrines which strongly savour of Love to the World and Distrust in Gods Providence I deny not but that there may be many reasons of mollifying and restraining some Texts but amongst these that must be the least which is drawn from our Commodity For thus to tamper with those Texts which seem to stand in our light and cross us in our way to Riches and Honors gives just cause of suspicion that our hearts are set upon them and that if no hard and fearful command came between we would be nailed to them In respect of our Persons or our Purses to restrain any part of Scripture from that latitude of sense whereof it is naturally capable makes it manifest that we are willing magìs emendare Deos quà m nosipsos rather to correct the Gods nay to conform the word of the true and everliving God to our own humor than to subdue our humor to the word of God and that we are well content to deal with our souls as the Athenians sometimes dealt with their ground When they will not bear good corn to sow leeks and onions there When the Gospel and Christs precepts thwart our corrupt dispositions we learn to make them void with our traditions with our Pharisaical limitations and restrictions And thus much be spoken concerning this word NOSTER and the reasons why this Bread is called Our Bread The Eight and Thirtieth SERMON PART III. MATTH VI. 11. Give us this day our daily Bread WHat is meant by Bread and why it is called Our Bread we have already shewn at large And in this word NOSTER we found a Goad to put in the sides of the Sluggard to awaken him out of his slumber and lethargie and a Chain to fetter the hands of the Deceitful to keep them from picking and stealing from fraud and cousenage and a Spur to our Charity to make us cast our bread upon the waters NOSTER is verbum operativum a word full of efficacie to open the fountain of our Liberality and to set up banks to regulate our desires in the pursuit of wealth We proceed now to enquire in the next place why we are taught to pray for our daily Bread or what is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And here as the streams in which Interpreters run are divers so the fountain is hard to find out Some take the word properly some metaphorically Some render it Supersubstantialem as the Vulgar and so with Tertullian and Cyprian take in Christ who is the Bread of life So that to pray for Bread is perpetuitatem postulare in Christo individuitatem à corpore ejus to desire a perpetuity in Christ and to be united to him for ever Others make it Sacramental Bread Castellio expounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then it is supercaelestial or heavenly Bread by which the Soul is sustein'd to wit the Grace of God by which we overcome and remove all difficulties which stand in our way between us and that happiness which is the mark and the price of the high calling in Jesus Christ Others by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eximium and call it that bread which is singular and peculiar to us Others interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is profitable and fit to nourish us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostom that bread which is turned into the very substance of our bodies Others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Vulgar which in St. Matthew renders it super substantial in St. Luke calls it QUOTIDI ANUM our daily Bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostom used to speak We may embrace all senses For why should not Righteousness be as our daily Bread to feed us Why should we not with joy put it on to clothe us and make it as a robe or a diadem Why should we not thirst for that water which is drawn out of the wells of salvation Why should we not long for our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Fathers call the Eucharist For that holy Bread which is our provision and supply in our way For every one of these we may solicit the Majesty of heaven and earth and press upon God with an holy opportunity Lord evermore give us of this bread of the Bread of Righteousness of the Bread which thou breakest and of the Bread which thou art of the Bread of thy Word and of the Bread of thy Sacrament Which are primitiae futuri panis the first-fruits of the Bread of eternal Life We may embrace all senses For superflua non nocent or as the Civilians speak non solent quae abundant vitiare scripturas these superfluities and superabundancies are not dangerous where every exposition is true though non ad textum not truly fitted to the Text. But that Christ meant not Sacramental Bread is more than evident 1. Because the Sacrament was not yet instituted And it is not probable that our Saviour when he taught his Disciples to pray would speak in parables 2. We do not every day receive the Sacrament but we are taught thus every day to pray Quia quotidiana est oratio quotidiè quoque videtur dici oportere It was so determined in the Fourth Councel of Toledo It is our daily prayer and to be said every day against some Priests in Spain who would say the Lords Prayer only upon the Lords day as we find it in the Ninth Canon of that Councel And as it may be said every day so every hour of the day Which we cannot apply to the Eucharist 3. If we will lay upon the word all senses it will bear without injurie to the truth we need no other form than that one Petition Thy will be done For in that as in a Breviary all that we can pray for is comprised Indeed as Seneca in his Natural Questions speaks of the river Nilus Nilus per septena ostia in mare emittitur quodcunque ex his elegeris mare est Nilus is emptied into the Sea by seven chanels and every one of these is a Sea So here we see this word conveyed unto us by divers interpretations as by so many chanels and every one of these is a sea yielding us abundance of matter And as it is said of that river Ortus mirari non nosse licuit that men with wonder and admiration might search but not find out the fountain-head from whence it sprang So this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not found in any Ethnick writer whatsoever And the formation and etymon is as hard and full of difficulty to find out From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence it is commonly derived it cannot come For if
will not be so eager but a dish of herbs will be as a stalled Oxe and we shall be content with our daily Bread which the hand of Providence puts into our mouths Again in the second place as we are taught in this Petition to rely upon the Providence of God so are we also put in mind to take heed that whilst we make haste to be rich we slack not in our duty to God that that which is ordein'd but as a pillar to uphold our bodies be not made a stumbling-block and an occasion of that disaffection to piety and holiness which will destroy both body and soul Grave and wise Philosophers have very highly extolled Poverty which is so loathed of the world Enimvero paupertas philosophiae vernacula frugi sobriae parvo potens For Poverty was born and bred with Philosophy as it were in the same house frugal and sober powerful to do much with a little It was she that raised Common-wealths and built Cities and was the mother and nurse of all the Arts and Sciences we may add the mother of that Religion which will bring us into everlasting habitations That we may learn to bear Poverty with patience and escape that great snare of the Devil the love of riches our Saviour hath here appointed us our Dimensum commanded us to pray for our daily Bread and in taking away all care for the morrow hath taught us obstare principiis to be so far from caring for the riches of this world as not to think of them to beware of Covetousness and the very beginnings of it not to be familiar with them not to look upon them Nemo diu tutus periculo proximus That which was but a suggestion at first may become a fierce and violent desire That which was but a pleasing sight may be a raging thought The sight of the wedge of Gold may ingender that evil which will trouble all Israel and make us fly before our enemies At first we desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faith Aristotle but two half-pence and when we have handled them they multiply in our imagination and in our desire are as bigg as talents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our sinful desires if we cut them not off are infinite like Numbers nullum est post quod non sit aliud there is none which is last but still one follows another and when one is full another opens to be filled And are as the Oratour speaks pleni spei vacui commodorum when our garners are stored and our purse full yet are we empty still and possess nothing but new hopes Irritat se saevitia As Cruelty doth chafe and enrage it self and as Beasts grow more fierce after they have tasted bloud so Covetousness doth whet it self and grows more keen and eager at the sight of those heaps which she hath raised Where St. John tells us 1 Epist 2. 16. that all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life A judicious and learned Writer interprets the lust of the eyes to be Covetousness because covetous persons love to handle and see their wealth nummos contemplari to behold their money and feed their eye with that of which they will not take one part to feed or cloth the body And therefore when riches increase we must not joyn our selves to them as to friends but fear and suspect them as enemies in fidem cum armis venire trust our selves with them but with weapons in our hand When they glitter we must turn away our eye when they flatter not be attentive when they gain us the cringe and applause of the common rout not listen or hearken to it We must account them enemies and thus make them friends and as Nazianzene speaks of his brother Caesarius we must sub larva servire mundo act our part as upon a stage seem to be what we are not and as the Apostle speaks buy as if we possessed not and use the world as if we used it not we must run and press forward to the mark and as for the world we must in transitu nosse know it only as we pass and in the by For conclusion then It will be good for us timere actus nostros to be afraid of our own actions to be jealous of our wishes ever to suspect the worst not to make the fear of Poverty an excuse for Covetousness not to cry out We must live when we eat and build and purchase as if we were to live for ever Quid tibi cum Deo est si tuis legibus It is not for us who are to be ruled by the Law of God to determine what is our daily Bread and what not or to call those things necessaries which are superfluous but rather to fit our selves for those lessons which we tremble to hear of as Felâ—â— did at the mention of judgment to learn to gain riches without care and leave them without sorrow that they may not cost us our sweat when they come nor put us to the charge of a tear when they depart nay further to hate and contemn them to sell and give them to the poor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to bring our bodies in subjection to our souls and our temporalities to our spiritual estate sic uti mundo ut fruamur Deo so to use the world as that we may enjoy Christ And all these To hate and contemn riches To sell and fling them away To cast them on the waters are not paradoxes but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inventions of Faith the endeavours of true Zeal and Devotion nay they are the commands of Jesus Christ Who did willingly part with his life for us who count it death to part but with a mite for him We who are to present our selves as pure virgins unto Christ must keep 2 Cor. 11. 2. our selves undefiled and unspotted from the world we must not delight to look James 1. 27. upon the beauty nor tast the pleasures nor handle the riches of this world for fear we forsake our first love and make his jealousie burn like fire Omnia Psal 79. 5. virginis virgo Every part and faculty of a Virgin is so a virgin her Eye shut up by covenant her Ear deaf to profane babling her Hand not defiled with pitch and her Soul an elaboratory of pure and holy thoughts And so are a Christian mans affections pure and untouched He hopes not for wealth but for the reward of justice He fears not poverty but the flames of Hell He desires no honor but to be like unto the Angels When he dwells in the midst of Canaan in a land flowing with milk and honey his conversation is in heaven his Love his Hope his Joy his Delight his Contentation all are levelled on Eternity and concentred in Christ alone And being thus qualified not only Sufficiency but Abundance not onely that which is necessary but great riches
not that alone which is enough for a day but that which may suffice for many generations may be PANIS QUOTIDIANUS our daily Bread And so at last we have presented you with all that is material in this Petition The Nine and Thirtieth SERMON PART I. MATTH VI. 12. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Or as LUKE XI 4 And forgive us our sins for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us HAving lifted up our eyes to him that filleth all things living of his good pleasure we here fall down on our knees for mercy and forgiveness before the Father of mercies who is as ready to forgive as to open his hand and as willing to receive us into his bosome and favour as to give us our meat in due season on the earth which is but his foot-stool Having adored his Liberality we beseech his Clemencie And as Tertullian well observes it was most necessary that we should observe this methode For first unless we be heard in this Petition we have no reason to be confident in commencing the other nor to expect that God should feed us as a Father till we be reconciled unto him and called his Sons What man is there which if his son ask him bread will give him a stone saith our Saviour Which implies we must be sons before we put up our petitions For God never denies us without a cause and the cause many times is no other but this that we deny him Was the Lord angry against the Rivers saith the Prophet Habakkuk when he sent a tempest or is he angry with the earth when he sends barrenness Is he angry with our Basket when he fills it not No Peccatum homicida est Sin is the murderer and the thief to spoil and rob us Sin makes the beasts of the field and the stones of the street at enmity with us terram eunucham the heavens as brass and the earth as iron not able to bring forth in due season Sin dislocates and perverts the course of Nature and changeth it saith Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into contrary tempers This puts supernatural aspects upon events which have natural causes If it be a comet it makes it ominous if a cloud that is the cataclysm if a vapor that damps it into a plague This sets up all the creatures in arms against us and makes us like Cain no better then Vagabonds and Runnagates upon the earth REMITTE NOBIS must be put up else DA NOBIS will return empty We must sue out our pardon or else the windows of heaven will not open to rain down Manna upon us Again though our corn and our wine abound for we cannot entail these temporal blessings on the righteous alone yet our Bread will be turn'd into a stone and our Wine will be as bitter as gall nor can they feed our hungry souls sed ipsam esuriem animarum pascere as St. Bernard speaks bring that Leanness into them which is the forerunner of death Blessings we may call them and so they are but till we be reconciled to God they are such blessings as will stop up our way to true happiness and stand as a barricado between us and those everlasting habitations Laqueus in auro viscum in argento saith St. Ambrose There will be a snare in our Gold to entrap us and aviscosity in our Silver to retard us The rust of them shall be as a witness against James 5. 3. us and eat our flesh as it were fire Et quid alimenta proderunt si illis reputamur quasi taurus ad victimam What is Gold to Piety What is Wealth to Grace What is a Palace to Heaven What is our Food and Nourishment if we be fed and fatted only as the Oxe is to be sacrificed What are all the Riches of the world but as the Tyrants ropes of silk and daggers of gold or what use do they serve to but this ut cariùs pereamus that we may tread those paths which lead unto death with more state and pomp than other men do I would have spared this observation although it be a Fathers and one as learned as the best but that the general love to Riches and the things of this Life which now reigns and rageth in the world may raise a jealousie and just suspition that some there are who as they have excluded others and made themselves proprietaries of all and that by no other title than this That they are the children of God so again when they have with Ahab killed and taken possession when they have by unjust means filled their coffers they begin to clap their hands and applaud themselves and to make their being rich an argument that they are good and the beloved of God And though with great zeal they dare call the Pope Antichrist yet they joyn hands with the Papists in this in making Temporal happiness a true note of the Church and counting Poverty a curse and the just punishment of a wicked conversation Indeed ask them their opinion and they will deny it as heretical we may be sure because it hath no shew of reason to commend it But surely even their 's it is For their speech and behaviour bewrayeth them For do they not lye down and sleep on their heaps Do they not batten in their wealth Do they not flatter themselves when such a golden showre falls into their laps and think that it cannot be but God himself is in it And do they not flourish like green olive-trees in the house of the Lord when they have nothing but this dung about them Do they not count them as smitten of God who stay below in the valley and are there content to dwell with Poverty rather than to climb up that ladder and with these seeming Angels to aspire to that height from whence they are in danger to break their necks And this is a dangerous error But there is nothing more easie than thus to erre than to say nay than to think that we are in the favour of God when his Sun doth shine upon our tabernacle to say AVE Hayl to our selves as highly favoured when the world smiles upon us and flatters us and to draw this conclusion from no other premisses than a full Purse and large Possessions So that the Apostles axiome is inverted quite For to these men Godliness is not great Gain but Great Gain is Godliness And therefore that we dash not against this rock let us put up this Petition also in Gods Court of Requests Let us be diligent to make our election sure and not only with Esau lift up our voyce and howl after our Bread after plenty of wheat and wine but with the Publican lift up our hearts and smite them that the sound of a broken heart may go up into the ears of the Almighty and return with this delightful echo REMITTUNTUR PECCATA That our sins are forgiven us For being thus reconciled we
which are uncertain are with great curiosity searcht into and those which are dark and obscure for any light we have past finding out are the subject of every discourse and have set mens pens and tongues a working Although even this Curiosity is from the Evil one which is alwayes as far from Knowledge as it is eager to enquire and seeks for that which cannot be sound and so passeth by those certa in paucis as Tertullian saith that which lyes naked and open in our way seeks for many things and so neglects those few which are necessary For the Devil in this is like the Lapwing which flutters and is most busie and hovers over that place which is most remote from its nest He cryes Here is Christ and there is Christ Here the truth is to be found and There it is to be found where no sign of footstep not the least shadow of it appears I will not mention these That which hath made Error a God to reign and rule amongst men by the Devils chymistry hath been attracted and wrought out of the Truth it self That worship is due unto God is not only a fundamental truth in Divinity but a principle in Nature and here it should rest But by the policie of Satan it hath been drawn to his Saints to Pictures to Statues to the Cross of Christ nay to the very Representation of it And men have learnt sub nomine religionis famulari errori as the Fathers in the third Councel of Toledo speak of the people of Spain to submit and wait upon Error under the habit of Religion and the name of Catholick and Orthodox Again if we look into the world we shall find that nothing deceives men more nothing doth more mischief amongst men then the thought that those things must needs please God which we do with a good mind and with an ardent affection and zeal and love to Religion This guilds over Murder and Covertousness and Idolatry and Sedition and all those evils which rent and wound the Church of Christ and many times pull Common-wealths in pieces Murder hath no voice Covetousness is no sin Faction is zeal for the Lord of Hosts If we can comfort our selues that we mean well and have set up the glory of God in our phansie only as a mark and when we cast an eye upon that with Jehu we drive on furiously We steal an ox to make a sacrifice we grind the face of the poor that we may afterwards build an Hospital and are very wicked all the dayes of our life that we may leave some sign of our good meaning when we are dead And this is but a sophisme a cheat put upon us by the Deceiver For though an evil intention will make an action evil yet a good one will not make an evil action good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bonum ex causâ integra There must be a concurrence of all requisites to render an action or a person good but the absence of any one serveth to denominate them evil A bad action then and a good intention cannot well be joyned together And as ill will the Profession of Christ and a profane life the Christian and the Knave sort together the one commanding as a Law and prohibition against the other and the Christian being as a judge to condemn the Knave And yet the Devils art it is to make them friends and bring them together Though we do those things which strike at the very life and soul of Christianity yet we perswade our selves we are good Christians Though we thirst after bloud and suck-in the world though we cheat our neighbour as cunningly as the Devil doth us though we breath nothing but revenge and speak nothing but swords though we know no language but that of the Horsleach Give Give though as Tertullian spake of the heathen Gods there be many honester men in hell than our selves yet we are Saints and we alone We have made Grace not the helper but the abolisher of Nature and placed it not above Reason but against it we are so full of Grace that we have lost our Honesty our tongues are set on fire by hell and yet Anathema to that Angel who shall speak against us And this is our composition and medley as if you should bind a Sermon and a Play-book together There is another fallacie of Satan yet fallacia Divisionis by which we divide and separate those things which should be joyned together as Faith and Good works Hearing and Doing Knowledge and Practice And these two though they seem to stand at distance and be opposite one to the other yet they alwayes meet For he that is ready to joyn those things which he should separate and keep asunder will be as active to separate those things which God hath put together We are hearers of the word but hearers only the only that makes a division We have faith that we have by which we are able to remove mountains even all our sins out of our way but where is that Meekness that Humility that Piety which should demonstrate our Faith and conclude that we are Christians Certainty of salvation we all challenge but we give little diligence to make our election sure Faith may seem to be as easie a duty as Hearing which begets it and to apply the merits of our Saviour and the promises of the Gospel as easie as a Thought the work of the brain and phansie for who may not conceive and say to himself that Christ is his God and his Lord Even this is one of Satans tentations to bring in the Application of Christs merits before Repentance from dead works By this craft and subtilty it is that we thus hover aloft on the wing of contemplation that we so lose our selves in one duty that we do not appear in the other not descend to work-out our salvation and busie our selves in those actions upon the performance of which the Promises will apply themselves and Christ present himself unto us in his full beauty that we may taste how gracious he is and with comfort feel him to be our Lord and our God And therefore to resolve this fallacy we must be solicitous to preserve these duties in integritaâ—e totâ solida solid and entire For he that hath one without the other hath in effect neither Valde singula virtus destituitur si non una alii virtus virtuti suffragetur Every virtue is naked and desolate if it have not the company and aid of all What is my Hearing if I be dead to Good works What is my Faith if Malice make me worse then an Infidel What is my Assurance if Unrepentance cancel it Therefore those things which God hath joyned together let no man put asunder I will but mention one Stratagem more and so conclude It is the Devils policy when he cannot throw us into Hell at once to bring us on by degrees and by lesser sins to make way and