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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the 1 John 4. 19. Father of love and he is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Love it self And he delights in these titles and attributes saith Nazianzene ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
God as he did we should rather as he did offer up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him for our Brethren then smite them with our tongues then tell of the misery of these wounded ones that is speak vauntingly and Psal 69. 26. preach thereof as the word signifies then thus rain down upon them their own snares halestones and coals of fire I confess prudent and discreet reprehension is as a gracious and seasonable rain as precious balm but rash and inconsiderate censure is as a Tempest or Hurrican to waste a soul to carry all before it and to digg up a good name by the roots And as it is truly said that most men speak against Riches not out of hatred but love unto them so do many declaim against Sin not out of hatred to sin but out of love to themselves which may be as great a crime as that they speak against Signum putant bonae conscientiae aliis malè dicere They think it a sign of a good conscience in themselves to speak evil of others and conceit themselves good if they can say others are evil For as true Righteousness speaks alwaies in compassion but that which is false and counterfeit breaths forth nothing but wrath and reviling and indignation Remember those that are in bonds as if you were bound with them and as being your selves in the Hebr. 13. 3. body as being in the body obnoxious to the same evils in a mortal body Rom. 8. 11. an earthly body and a corruptible body And remember those who are 1 Cor. 15. 40. 53. in their sins which are the bonds I am sure and fetters of the soul as being also in that body of death as being under that burden that presseth Rom. 7. 24. down and under sin that hangeth so fast on that we shall never fling it Hebr. 12. 1. off till we cast off our bodies being in the same polluted garments which will stick close to us till we be uncloathed and cloathed upon 2 Cor. 5. 4. and mortality be swallowed up of life Look not upon thy Brethren as Grashoppers and upon thy felf as a strong and perfect man in Christ as if thou wert spiritual heavenly impeccable and as far removed from Sin as God himself But rather as St. Paul was made a Jew to the Jew so be thou as a sick man ministring to the sick handling another 1 Cor. 9. 20. with the same compassion thou wouldst have extended to thy self if thou thy self should be in his case If thou despise and reproach him I am sure thou art in a far worse For be he what the frailty of the Flesh the subtilty of Satan and the flattery of a vain World can make him yet he is thy Brother be he sick well-near unto death yet he is thy Brother be he the lost sheep yet he is thy Brother and Christ may fetch him back again even upon thy shoulders that is by thy compassion and thy care be he amongst the swine with the Prodigal yet he is thy Brother for within a while he may come back again to his Father and thy Fathers house If he be to thee as an heathen or publican yet he must also be Brother And further we press not this Use So then neither Error nor Sin can unty this knot can dissolve and break this relation of Brethren I named a third but I am well-near ashamed to name it again or bring it in competition with Error or Sin because an offense against God should more provoke us then any injury done to our selves Which our Apostle here sets so light by that although the Galatians had even questioned his Apostleship and preferred Peter and James and John before him yet he passeth it by as not worth the taking notice of Like Socrates who being overcome in judgment profest he had no reason to be angry with his enemies unless it were for this that they conceived and believed they had hurt him And here St. Paul saith Ye have not hurt me at all And indeed no injury can be done by a brother to a brother For the injury is properly done to God who made them Brethren and fellow-servants and who reserves all power of revenge unto himself who is their common Master and the God of revenge If a brother strike us we should saith Chrysostom kiss his hand if he would destroy us our revenge should be to save him Ignoscat tibi Christus saith Nazianzene to a young man that was suborn'd to kill him Christ forgive thee who hath also forgiven me and dyed to save me Ille idoneus patientiae sequester He is the best Advocate for our patience the best Decider of all our controversies and debates If you gage and lay down your injury with him he is the Revenger if your loss he is the Restorer if your grief he is the Physician if your death he will raise you up again But we shall no further prosecute this because it will fall in with our last part We will rather having as ye have read secured and fortified the Brethren walk about yet a while longer and tell the towers and bulwarks which the God of Love hath raised and set up to uphold them And they are 1. Pleasure excessive Pleasure 2. Profit great Profit 3. Necessity extream Necessity All these serve to maintain and uphold this Brotherhood For Brotherly Love is 1. pleasant and delightful 2. profitable and advantageous 3. so necessary that it had been better for us never to have been then not to love the Brethren For the first hear what the Psalmist saith Behold how good and joyful Psalm 133. 1. a thing it is for Brethren to dwell together in unity Not only it is so but it is worth our observing and we are called to behold and consider it Which if we did with a serious eye we should not so slight and undervalue it as we do For Pleasure is winning and attractive It is a motive above all eloquence more persuasive then the words of the wise Oh that we could be once brought to be well perswaded of this Pleasure and did not so dote on that which hath no true pleasure at all in it The Hills saith the Prophet David are girded with gladness Psalm 65. 12. Things are figuratively said to be glad when they attain unto and abide in their natural perfection So the Light is said to rejoyce when it shineth clear and continually because then it is in its highest and fullest splendor Now there can be no higher perfection for a Christian then to love the Brethren He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God 1 John 4. 16. in him and By this men shall know you are my Disciples if ye have John 13. 35. love one to another saith Christ by the same John in his Gospel What perfection greater then for a man to dwell in God and to have God dwell in
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 â 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-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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
and slow of Understanding When we have spent our selves in study and searching of natural things yet with all this sweat with all this oyl we purchase not so much knowledge as to tell why the Grass which grows under our feet is rather green than purple and can we then hope to dive into supernaturals and find out those causes which God hath lockt-up in his secret treasures It ought to be betwixt God and us as it was between St. Augustine and his Scholar Who having opened many points unto him tells him that if he had given him no reason at all of such things as he had written yet the authority and credit which he ought to have with him should so far prevail with him as to make him take them upon his word without any further question It was a wise saying of Terentius in Tacitus to the Emperor and it saved him both his life and goods Non est nostrum aestimare quem supra caetera aut quibus de causis locaveris tibi summum rerum judicium nobis obsequii gloria relicta est It is not for subjects to examine whom thou hast raised or for what causes the judgment of things belongs unto Majesty but duty and obedience commend a Liege-man The same consideration must poise and ballance a Christian that he totter not in the doubtful and uncertain circumvolution of things It is sufficient for us that we know God hath made Wisd 11. 20. all things in number weight and measure and whatsoever he saith or doth must be taken for true and just although we can assign no reason nor probability why he doth it The whole Book of Job doth drive at this very Doctrine For when Job was on the dunghil full of sores and botches his friends instead of bringing comfort put-up a question and instead of helping him ask the question Why he should be thus handled as to stand in need of their help His friends through ignorance of the Providence of God lay folly and iniquity to his charge Job stoutly defends his innocencie and is as far to seek as his friends why Gods hand should be so heavy on him At last ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã God himself comes down from heaven and puts an end to the question He condemns both Job and his friends of ignorance and imbecility and tells him that it was not for them to seek a cause or call his judgments in question For this were to darken counsel by words without judgment Canst thou saith God bind the sweet influences of the Pleides or loose the bands of Orion Canst thou send lightnings Job 38. 2. that they may go and say Here we are If the Emperor will be higher than God saith Tertullian coelum debellet captivum ducat vectigalia imponat let him conquer heaven lead it captive and put a tribute upon it If any man will trace out those wayes which are past finding out let him also command God himself and teach him to govern the world if not let him lay his hand on his mouth and proceed no further It concerns not us to know how Gods Providence worketh It is enough that we know he is our Father although he discover not his love by any outward token of distinction When he heals his children he is a Father when he wounds them he is a Father and when he kills them he is a Father Manet dissimilitudo passorum etiam in similitudine passionum saith St. Augustine Where the penalties are alike the patients are not God sees a difference though the world do not distinguish them The Gold and the Dross lye both in one fire yet the Artist puts the one into his treasury and flings the other on the dunghil The Wheat and the Chafs are both under one Flayl yet the one is for the granary the other for the fire It is the wisdome and providence of our heavenly Father not to manifest his love by these outward tokens of distinction nor as Jacob to give that son which he loves best a gayer coat then the rest It is his property ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to find means when all mens inventions do fail and to bring great things to effect by those wayes which flesh and bloud may think would hinder them to bring light out of darkness and good out of evil to take his children out of that mass of evil where they seemed to be wrapt up eternally A day will come quae malè judicata rejudicabit wherein aâ crooked judgments shall have justice against them when secret things shall be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as naked and open as an Ox which is cut down the back when we shall plainly see what we are bound to believe That in this confusion God can distinguish That in misery and affliction and in death it self he is our Father In most things the consideration of a fatal Necessity brought the very Heathen to this moderation that they either did lay-down the opinion of evil or else put-on a patience which was equal to it but Christians have a better help to remove Opinion not Necessity but the Will of their Father What cup can be bitter which he drinks to us What can be Evil which his Goodness consecrates What matter is it what labyrinths and windings we find in the course of our life when God doth lead us Do we ask whether he leads his children He leads them unto himself Do we ask by what wayes Why should we ask the question The traveller is not bound to one path nor the mariner to one point Salebrosa est via sed vector Deus The way perhaps is rough and uneven but God is our guide and wheresoever we are we are still in the hand of our Father I have dwelt too long upon this one word But I could not but somewhat enlarge my discourse upon the Providence of God because I see a secret kind of Atheism lurks in the world that many men call God their Father but prefer their low and sordid cares before his Providence as if âe were a Father indeed but such a one as doth not provide for his children The rich man thinks none miserable but the poor and the poor meets with his humor and thinks none happy but the rich Riches is become the God of this world and hath so blinded mens eyes that they cannot look up unto their Father which is in heaven I will give you a plain demonstration That for which any thing is esteemed must needs be of an higher estimation it self Now experience will teach us Caelum venale Deúmque that men daily venture their souls and God himself for riches and plenty that Virtue is not lookt upon in raggs and that Vice is even adored in purple that the one is placed in a good place at the upper end of the table when the other must stoop and sit down under the foot-stool I will not conclude with St. James Are you not partial in your selves but
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
God and our own souls so flatter and smile our selves to death as to think there is no such Necessity at all but that we may love God and yet hate and persecute our Brother nay love God the more the more we hate our Brother For I ask Is it necessary to love God is it necessary to love our selves is it necessary to be the children of God is it necessary to love Gods image in others and to repair it in our selves is it necessary to be ingrafted into Christ is it necessary to believe in a word is it necessary to be saved Then is it also necessary to love the Brethren sincerely cordially with a single heart To love our selves or as we are commanded to love our common Father which is in Heaven and who is the God of Love Profit and Pleasure may draw and allure us But Necessity forces and chains and links us to the Brethren Now the God of Love work true Brotherly Love in us all A SERMON Preached on Christmass-Day PSALM LXXII 6 7. He shall come down like rain upon the mowen Grass or into a fleece of wooll as showers that water the Earth In his dayes shall the righteous flourish and abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth THis Psalm conteins a Prayer and a Prophesie A Prayer for King Solomon who laid down his Scepter with his Life and slept with his Fathers and a Prophesie of Christ whose Throne is for ever and ever and of whose Kingdom there is no end Take it as a Prayer and it was heard For God gave Solomon Wisdom and Understanding 1 Kings 4. 29. and largeness of heart to judge his people with Righteousness and the poor with judgment Take it as a Prophesie and it was fulfilled For God sent his Son who is Wisdom it self to be the Shepherd and great Bishop of our Souls and to be our King to lead us in the waies of Righteousness Apply it to the Type and the expressions are hyperbolical Righteousness in the Text is not compleat nor abundance full Peace not as lasting as the Moon but as the Moon waxing and waning and at last eclipsed and turned into bloud That Dominion from the River unto the ends of the Earth takes in no larger compass 1 Kings 4. 24. than Judaea or at most the Region from Tiphsah unto Azzah so narrow a compass of ground that St. Hierom was ashamed to bewray its dimensions In a word interpret it by the inscription as a Psalm for King Solomon and all generations make but forty years all Kings are but Pharaoh and Hiram some few other that were on this side the River Euphrates All Nations are not many Nations and Solomons For ever we know well had an end And as we find it in hyperbolical Speeches ad verum mendacio pervenitur That we come not too short of the truth the phrase is made to look beyond it That we may conceive aright of the glory of Solomons Kingdom David extends it from the River unto the ends of the Earth That we may conceive some Peace he tells us of abundance He multiplies and dilates the bounds of his Empire makes Judaea as large as the whole world an Age eternity and that Scepter which did depart everlasting Literally this cannot be true of King Solomon Hic Psalmus Solomoni canere dicitur quae tamen soli competant Christo saith Cyril This Psalm is sung to King Solomon but the ditty is of Christ and of him alone Behold a greater then Solomon is here He shall have Dominion from sea to sea This Vers 8. belongs to Christ alone All Kings shall worship him Before whom do all Vers 11. Kings fall down but Christ And all Nations shall serve him Whom shall all Nations serve but Christ His name shall endure for ever Whose name but Christs All Nations shall be blessed in Christ in Solomon none at all And here in my Text He shall descend like the rain cannot be true of Solomon For he descended indeed but not like rain because he came not down from Heaven Many things are spoken of the Type which more properly belong to the Antitype Many things in this Psalm are spoken of Solomon which stretch beyond the line of truth and for no other reason but this because they belong to Christ whose Type he bore and in whom they were truly to be made good and without any Hyperbole at all Solomon did judge the people with righteousness but Christ shall judge the whole world and Solomon himself Solomon was a King but Christ is the King of Kings Solomon passed all the Kings of the Earth in Wisdom but Christ is Wisdom it self Solomon did break in pieces the Oppressor but Christ broke the jawes of the Destroyer of mankind and took the prey out of his mouth To him give all the Prophets witness To him do all the Fathers apply the words of my Text The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge him in her Hymns and Service for this great Feast of Christs Nativity singing praises to the Lord our Strength who came down like the rain into a fleece of wooll or the mowen grass as showers that water the earth And we have seen it with our eyes and fell it in our hearts and it is the joy and glory of this high Feast that in his dayes the righteous flourish and abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth And now I may say of this Prophesie as our Saviour himself did of another This day was this Scripture fulfilled in Christ who is signaculum omnium Luke 4. 21. Prophetarum who was the great Prophet who was to come and the seal of all the rest in whom all Prophesies were at an end And therefore we will but change the Tense and not read it DESCENDET he shall come down for the Jew himself will yield us thus much but DESCENDIT The fulness of time is come and he is come down already In quo quicquid retro fuit demutatum est saith Yertullian In whom whatsoever was in times past is either changed as Circumcision or supplied as the Law or fulfilled as the Prophesies or made perfect as Faith it self The Subject of the Song is the same Eaedem voces sonant eaedem literae notant idem Spiritus pulsat The words that sound the same the letters that character him out the same the same Spirit which inspires the Prophets and now speaks to us Only for the Feasts sake we will but change the time the Future for the Present and so express our thanks and joy Which should as far exceed the joy of the Prophets as Fruition doth Hope and the present enjoying of the benefit a sad and earnest expectation of it And then there will naturally arise the handling of these points 1. We shall consider the Incarnation of the Son of God as a Descent or Comming down 2. The Manner of this Descent It was placidus
do not rage against the Sinner and that whilst we strike at one we do not wound both Our Anger must be not ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not an hatred of the person but a detestation of the sin A hard subtlety indeed it is to distinguish things thus confounded and blended together Facile est atque proclive saith St. Augustine malos odisse quia mali sunt rarum autem pium eosdem ipsos diligere quia homines sunt It is an easie thing to hate evil men because they are evil but to love them as they are men this is a rare and pious thing And therefore we must be wary that our Anger be not too hot and extreme against the actions of others for fear least at last we transpose it upon the men themselves Timon that great hater of mankind made this his apology That he hated evil men because they were evil and all others because they did not hate them He thought it a sin not to be angry with those who did commit sin But Christianity begets no Timons but Children like unto the Son of God who though he knew no sin yet was content to lay down his life for sinners There is no man so evil but hath some good thing to commend him though it break not out as being clouded and darkned with much corruption Therefore Christian Meekness is very wary and doth not think there is nothing else but evil where she often sees it And though she cannot nourish a good opinion of the man to think him good yet she will a charitable hope that he may be so And as those who seek for treasure give not over by reason of clay and mire so long as there is any hope to speed so doth not Meekness slack her hand and cast off her industry though it be spent on the most polluted soul ad quaedam sana in quorum delectatione acquiescat per tolerantiam perducatur Many for want of this Meekness destroy the work of God Dum ita objurgant quasi oderint whilst they reprove their brother as if they hated him and upbraid rather then reprehend him They make it their virtue rixari cùm soeculo to chide the times and manners They suppose they are bound to hate sinners and will be just rather in shewing mercy to their beast then to their brother Away with him away with him from the earth is quickly said but is commonly breathed from a soul as much stained and polluted as his is whom we suppose to be sick to death What Tertullian spake is most true In Majestatis reos publicos hostes omnis homo miles est Against traytors and publick enemies every man is a Souldier And it is as true that every one that is of strength to pull a soul out of the fire is when his brother sins a Priest also and may nay is bound to rebuke him but he must be careful that his counsel and advise be the dictates of his Love not of his gall and bitterness that he take God himself for a patern qui non homines odit sed vitia who never hated men whom he made but Sin which being God he could not make The Prophet David puts it up in the manner of a question unto God himself Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee and am not I grieved with Psal 139. 21 22. those which rise up against thee and presently gives himself the answer I hate them with a perfect hatred I count them mine enemies Quid est illud PERFECTO ODIO saith St. Augustine What is that the Prophet means by perfect hatred No more then this He hated the vices in them not the men How then will this perfect Hatred and the Love of our enemies subsist together To wit by this That we hate this in them that they are wicked and love this in them that they are men The 109 Psalm is a Psalm of cursing There we find such fearful imprecations that a true Christian must needs tremble but to hear them read St. Chrysostom in his very first words upon that Psalm saith ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He that will take this Psalm into his hands had need be discreet Whether it be a Prophesie or a collection of bitter imprecations is not much material In the Gospel there is no such gift of Prophesie nor liberty of cursing granted He that foretells his brothers ruine is a Prophet also of his own and he that curseth his brother secretly in his heart though it be for sin hath committed that sin which will bring a heavy curse upon himself I know it hath been used in the Church and it hath been thought a heavy curse to say DEUS LAUDUM upon any man which is the very first words and title of that Psalm A common thing it was in France saith Calvin if any man had an enemy that molested him to hire with a sum of money a Monk or a Franciscane every day to repeat this Psalm A Gentlewoman of great note procured one of that Fraternity to use that very form of imprecation against her only Son So dangerous are the examples even of the Saints of God which we are too ready to follow when they are ill and when they are good and warrantable as ready to mistake them Si David cur non ego If David that Saint of God that man after Gods own heart did fill his Psalm with Imprecations why may not we also set our Prayers to the same tune and curse our enemies with a DEUS LAUDUM I will grant we may when as we find such a roll of curses under the Law we find also such another under the Gospel If the Proverb will suffer the Jew but to creep into Mount Ebal sure Christianity should be a sense to keep a Christian from coming near it I cannot conceive but that God doth exact this duty in far greater measure from a Christian then from a Jew For though this precept in equity bound the Jews as well as us yet God who dispensed with them hath not done that favor unto us who have received far greater from him but requires this duty of Meekness from us in the highest degree If he demanded of the Jew an Omer he will exact from us Christians an Ephah For conclusion then and to make some use of that which hath been spoken Let us not go in the waies of the Gentiles nor in theirs who are so fully bent against those who are not of the same opinion that in the prosecution they forget they are men and that there is any such virtue as Meekness that like Hannibal cannot live without an enemy or like those ancient Spaniards in Justine are so out of love with concord that they swell at the very name that have no other reason or inducement to quarrel but to quarrel and think Religion consists in words of gall and acts of vengeance that Clamor is Zeal and Fury
otherwise Virtues then as they are exemplary because these Divine virtues which are essential to him must be exemplary to us We must make him the rule of Goodness in all our actions we must be just to observe the Law valiant to keep down our passions temperate to conform our wills to the rule of Reason and wise to our salvation But there is no virtue that makes us more resemble God then this the Apostle here exhorts the Ephesians to and that is Mercy For although all virtues are in the highest degree nay above all degrees most perfect in him yet in respect of his creatures none is so resplendent as Mercy If thou callst him Health I understand thee saith St. Augustine because he gives it thee If thou call'st him thy Refuge it is true because thou fliest unto him If thou saist he is thy Strength it is because he makes thee strong But if thou namest his Mercy thou hast named all for whatsoever thou art thou art by his mercy His Goodness is infinite and looks over all even his Justice hath a relish of it It is extended unto the very damned for their torments are not so great as God could inflict or as they deserve And in respect of us it exceeds his Justice For his Justice hath a proportional object to work upon we being children of wrath and worthy of punishment but his Mercy hath none at all we deserve not to fly to its sanctuary to be covered under its wings When we lay weltring in our bloud there could no reason be given why God should take any of us out He did it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith S. James because he would There were none then that could have interceded and pleaded for us as the Elders did for the Centurion They are worthy that thou Luke 7. shouldst do this for them Mercy is the Queen and Empress of Gods Virtues It is the bond and knot which unites Heaven and Earth that by which we hold all our titles our title to be Men our title to the name of Christian our title to the profession of Christianity our title to Earth our title to Heaven I could loose my self in this Paradise I could build a Tabernacle upon this Mount Tabor I could still look upon this Mercy-seat Even to speak of it is great light But from the contemplation of God's Mercy I must descend lower and lead you to the imitation of it and with the Apostle here exhort you to be followers of God to forgive one another to walk in love even as Christ loved us and when God reacheth out his hand of mercy to you not to draw in yours to your brother And here I see three paths as it were to follow God in three things required to this Imitation 1. the Act of Imitation it self 2. That this Act be performed ex studio imitandi out of a love of God's Mercy and a desire to imitate him 3. A Conformity of the act of imitation to the patern followed In the first place then as God forgiveth us so we must forgive our enemies It will not be enough to have Gods Mercies on our tongues or to speak of them with admiration with joy to go over the bridge and then pull it up to our brother We account him not a good Painter who can only commend a Picture and not use the Pencil himself to draw a line Neither is he fit to be governour of a ship that having past a tempest doth only praise the Pilate but scarce knows the Rudder himself Good God! what a soloecisme in Christianity is it to have a cruel heart and a tongue speaking nothing but Mercies to be in the gall of bitterness and most devilishly malicious and yet to cry out Taste and see how gracious the Lord is Hierome censureth Virgil for his Foelix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas for calling him happy that knew the cause of things Apparet ipsum ignorâsse quod laudat He was ignorant and knew not that happiness which he commended So these merciless Patrons of Mercy ignorant quod laudant they praise they know not what They talk of Forgiveness and cloth themselves with malice Their tongue is smooth and their heart is rugged They speak in a still voice but in their breast is thunder Their words are more soft then butter but they think of swords In the second place as we must forgive so Gods Mercy must be the motive we must do it ex studio imitandi out of a desire to imitate God Not out of propension of nature out of meekness of disposition For we cannot say the child doth imitate his father in eating because eating is natural Not out of a Stoical affectation contumeliam contumeliae facere to think it revenge enough to beat off an injury with a witty jest Not out of love of peace and fear of trouble Nor lastly out of necessity therefore to forgive because thou canst not revenge Quod necessitas facit depretiat ipsa For as he told the Emperour that wearied Cruelty is not Clemency so an inability or an impossibility of revenge is not Mercy A Lion though within the grates is a Lion still as fierce as wild as ravinous as before and a Bear is a Bear still still greedy of blood though without a tooth without a paw Thou sayst thou doest forgive thy enemy with all thy heart But O quà m cuperes tibi ungues esse thou wantest but fangs thou wantest but ability to revenge If the lines were loosed and thy teeth sharp thou wouldst grinde thine enemy to powder thou wouldst triumph in thy revenge thou wouldst shew what thy Forgiveness was Though a wall be placed between thee and thy enemy that thy Artillery cannot reach him and thou canst not be revenged yet voto jugulasti as St. Hierome speaketh thou hast performed it in thy wish And thus to forgive Beloved is so far from following God that we run away from him God forgives not because he is not able to destroy thee No as Caesar once spake and nobly too Facilius est facere quà m dicere It was easier for him to be revenged than to talk of it So did not Gods Mercy restrain him he could with a word destroy the whole World He hath a Sword and Fire and a Quiver a glittering Sword a Sword that shall eat flesh and a Fire kindled in his wrath that shall burn unto the bottom of hell and a Quiver full of arrowes of arrowes that shall drink bloud yet he will in mercy sheath Deut. 31. his Sword he will quench his fire he will hide his arrowes in his Quiver that when we feel the operation of the sweet influence of his Mercy within our selves we may also with an upright and sincere heart derive it to our brother Lastly we must conform our Imitation to the Patern He with one act of mercy wipes out all scores so must we When he forgives our sins he is said to
cast them behind him never to think of them so to forget them as if they never had been so must we He doth it too without respect of persons and so we ought to do We must forgive all for ever and so far must we be from respect of persons that we must acknowledge no title but that of Christian To conclude this point How slight soever we make of it there is no surer mark that we are not in the true Faith than Hatred of our brethren no stronger Argument that we are not Members of that Body whereof Christ is the Head then the I will not say Hatred but Not-loving of the weakest Member of it For he that loveth not his brother the love of God cannot dwell in him He may slatter himself with a vain opinion that he loveth God but the love of God is not really in him it abides not it dwells not it hath not residence in him And he that hateth his brother is in 1 John 2. 11. darkness He may think he enjoyes the light of the Gospel and that he is under the Covenant of Grace but there is no such matter He is Diaboli ludibrium the Devils laughing-stock nay the very forge of Satan wherein he hammereth and worketh all iniquity And he walketh in darkness saith S. John His Hatred hath blinded his eyes so that he walks on and thinks he is in the right way He labours in his vocation he goes to Church he receives the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ he can do any Christian office and so he thinks he is sound and healthful even when the poyson is at his very heart And therefore S. John addeth He knoweth not whither he goeth He falls into many sins whilst he thinks he doth well An opinion he hath he is in the right way to Heaven but no Christian knowledge thereof because that darkness hath blinded his eyes so blinded his eyes that he discerneth not any as he should If he be a Prophet he obeys him not if a just man he respects him not if otherwise a friend he knows him not For Malice hath as it were informed his soul and as she makes the Body her instrument so the Soul the place of her dominion and she reigns there as the Devils Tributary Custos peccatorum the keeper of the door of the soul that Sin fly not out And watchful she is too for she never sleeps If but a thought of repentance arise she will chain it up So that whilst Hatred possesseth thy heart thy heart is a stone Broken it may be but softned it cannot be And though thou flatterest thy self that thou hast repented of thy sins yet it hath no more reality then thy Eating or Running in a Dream Oh then Beloved let us put on brotherly love the certain sign and note that God in Christ hath begotten us his children Let us forgive our enemies that so we may resemble our Father Let us root out the bitter weed of Malice the strongest Argument of a true and serious Repentance Let us cloath our selves with Charity which will make our wayes otherwise rugged and uneven to be smooth and passable being the very barr and petard to break up each door and hinderance in our way Lastly in our Apostles words Let us be followers of God as dear children The Sixth SERMON PART II. EPHES. V. 1. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children WHEN my meditations first fastned themselves upon this parcel of Scripture I then thought that the space of an hour would have both quitted them and me But this holy Oyl like that of the Widows in the Book of Kings encreased under my hands and I could not then pour it out all unto you I therefore then became your debtor And it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a holy and sacred debt and I am come now to quit my promise to pour out the remainder of the Oyl and to pay my debt even there where I obliged my self in the holy Sanctuary I then observed that these words contained in them a Duty Be yee followers of God and the Persons enjoyned this Duty the Ephesians who are stiled dear children Which title includes motives to win and enforce them to the Duty 1. because they were children a great prerogative 2. because dear children a gracious adjunct The Duty hath been handled The Motives remain Which I say include a high priviledge or prerogative For if as we are men we esteem it honourable to be of such a race and stock to be descended from this Potentate or that Prince surely then as we are Christians when we have put on our better and more heavenly thoughts we shall account it the greatest honour to derive our pedigree from Heaven to be called the Sons of God as St. John speaketh to be filii Divini beneficii as St. Augustine children of the Divine kindness to be children of God and heirs of a Kingdom and that a heavenly Kingdom to have title to a Crown and that a Crown of life But so it is Beloved that when we hear of charters and grants of priviledges and prerogatives our thoughts go no farther but stay themselves in the meer grant and priviledge The Gospel is indeed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã good news and we delight to hear of a Saviour of a Prince of peace of one that shall make our peace and take away the sins of the world But we think not of any allegiance or duty which we owe to this Prince Glad we are he is victorious and that he hath the Keyes of Hell and of Death And wear his colours too we would but we would not come under his banner we would not fight his battels Children we all would be but where is our Duty We desire to be endeared but where is our gratitude Nay further yet we would be accounted lovely and yet remain enemies to the Grace of God Our sins we would have cover'd but not blotted out We would have God forget them and yet still walk in them And here we mistake the nature of a Priviledge For the tye thereof is as strong as that of the Law and the greatest sins are those against the Gospel Our own Chronicles will tell us that riots and disorders in Cities in one Kings reign have weakned and disannulled Charters and Priviledges granted by a former King Beloved God is the King of Kings the same to day and yesterday and for ever and he grants not his priviledges or charters that we should let loose the rains to Impiety and make our strength the law of unrighteousness The trumpet of the Gospel sounds not that we should take up the weapons of Sin to prepare our selves to the Devils battel Neither did that Tree of life grow up that we should sin securely under the bough and shadow of it And therefore the Apostle here exhorting the Ephesians to Imitation of God uses this method He taketh not his argument ab inutili
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã never falleth away He implyes a falling away of Faith and Hope in the last verse of the former Chapter ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
who hath made himself to every good work reprobate It is not a feeble thought it is an active Charity that is the foundation of Hope Run to and fro through Jerusalem go about the streets thereof muster up together all that name the Lord Jesus and you shall find every man is full of Hope and then you may conclude that every man is charitable Whatsoever the premisses be whatsoever the actions of our life be most men make this the conclusion and dye in hope assure themselves of happiness by no better experience then that which Flesh and Bloud and the Love of our selves are ready to bring in They fill themselves with Hope when they are full of nothing but Malice and Envy and Uncleanness of which we are told that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdome of heaven And what Hope what assurance is this An assurance without a warrant an Hope which only we our selves have subscribed to with hands full of bloud a Hope which is no hope but a cheat a delusion presenting us nothing but heaven when we are condemned already It is true that Hope is a fair tye and pledge of what we shall enjoy hereafter but it is not then the work of the Phansie but of the Heart to be wrought out with fear and trembling and not to be taken up as a thing granted as the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we cannot set up a pillar of Hope where there is no basis no foundation for it but a weak and feeble thought I know it is put up by some as a question Whether we ought to be assured of our salvation but it is but an impertinent question and not well put up For will any man ask Whether we ought to be in health and not rather Whether we ought to feed on wholsome meats and keep a temperate diet Beloved let us have Charity and Hope will as certainly follow and as naturally as Growth and Health do a moderate diet Otherwise to hope is a sin it is not Hope but Presumption For what Hope is that which looks towards Liberty and leaves us in chains that which promiseth life when we are children appointed to dye Let us then possess our hearts with Charity and Hope will soon enter in for they love to dwell and breathe together But it will not enter a froward and perverse heart for that will not receive it nor the heart of a Nabal for that is stone and will beat it back nor a heart that is fat as grease for it slips through it nor a Pharisee's heart for that is hollow and doth nothing but sound every thought is a knell and proclaimeth the fall of some in Israel None have less hope of others then they who presume for themselves None condemn more to hell then they whose feet are swift to shed bloud and who delight in those wayes which lead unto death Their very mercies are cruelty To put on the New man with them is to put off all bowels Every word they speak is clothed with Death And if Malice and Deceit and Uncharitableness lead not thither I may be bold to say There is no Hell at all They who make God as cruel as themselves do destiny men to destruction only because he will and to build up men on purpose to ruin them for ever that make the Wickedness of men depend on the antecedent will of God absolutely and irresistibly efficacious They are their own words that say that God doth work all things in all men even in the reprobate that the Induration and Incredulity of men is from the Praedestination of God as the effect from the cause that God calls men to salvation who are condemn'd already that though the elect which are themselves fall into adultery murder treason and other crying sins yet they fall not from grace but still remain men after Gods own heart when they do the works of their father the Devil These are they whose words are as sharp swords to cut off their brethren from the land of the living These men breathe forth nothing but hailstones and coals of fire but death and destruction These make a bridge for themselves to Happiness but pluck it up to their brethren These are in heaven already and shut it up that none else may enter Certainly a new way to heaven never yet discovered by the King of Heaven who hath put the keys into the hand of Charity who may boldly enter her self and who also is very willing to let in others who brings forth a Hope a Hope for our selves and a Hope for others Whoso makes haste to perfection is very willing to forward others in the way he calls upon them he waits on them he expects when they will move forwards and though they move not yet he hopes still Charity which brought down Christ from heaven lifts us up unto that holy place and we are never carried with more delight then when we go with most company there to joyn with the quire of Angels and to sing praises to the God of Love for evermore We love God because he loved us first and for his loves sake we love every man And now what is our Hope but that together with others we may have our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his eternal and everlasting glory The Ninth SERMON PSALM LI. 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation IN these words we have 1. an Act Restore 2. an Agent God Restore thou 3. the Person suing David unto me 4. the blessing sued for the joy of God's salvation Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation David as the Title sheweth us being awakened by Nathan out of the slumber wherein he had long layn after his foul fact with Bathsheba penned this Psalm and published it a truly Penitential Psalm full of humble and hearty acknowledgments of sin and of earnest petitions for mercy and for assurance of God's favour His great fall had so bruised him that he felt no ease or comfort all was discomposed and out of tune his soul cast down and disquieted within him his heart broken his spirit wounded And a wounded spirit who can bear Hence it is that he prayeth with such vehemence Prov. 18. 14. and fervencie that God would be pleased in great merey to blot out all his transgressions and to wash and cleanse him from his sins and iniquities that he would not cast him away from his presence nor take his holy spirit from him and here in my Text that he would restore unto him the joy of his salvation But however these last expressions may seem to be the breathings of a disconsolate spirit and of one even out of hope yet we must not think that this man after God's own heart this great Saint though grievously fallen was quite fallen from grace and that his faith had now utterly failed and was extinguished No Faith can never be lost Or rather if it
This is Nunc opportunitatis the very time and appointed time for God to arise In which Phrase is implyed a kind of pause and deliberation as if God were not alwayes up and ready to execute judgement And hereby he manifesteth 1. his Patience to the wicked He is not alwayes up as it were to destroy his enemies 2. his Justice which cometh at length though it come not so soon as men in misery expect 3. his Mercy to his children Though for a while he seem to sleep and not to hearken to the voice of their complaints yet at last he rises up and helps them Lastly we shall take notice of the Effect or End of this Rising and that is the Destruction of his enemies here drawn out to our view in four several expressions as in so many colours 1. DISSIPABUNTUR they shall be scatter'd 2. FUGIENT they shall fly 3. DEFICIENT they shall vanish like smoke 4. LIQUEFIENT they shall be melted as wax Which all meet and are concentred in PERIBUNT they shall perish at the presence of God And of these in their order We are to find out first the Parties here to be scatter'd and they are termed the enemies of God And we may conceive it a very hard matter to find out any at jar and opposition with God whose very Essence is Goodness whose Power is irresistible whose Justice is impartial whose eye is ten thousand times brighter then the Sun whose Word runneth very swiftly and whose Word did make and whose Word can dissolve the world I know saith Job That thou canst do every thing and that no thought can be Job 42. 2. with-holden from thee And from this knowledge of his he draws this conclusion and resolution to abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes Behold v. 6. the Angels they are ravisht with his infinite beauty and fall down at his feet the Creature keeps it self in a natural and constant league and friendship with him He commands the Sea and it obeys the Moon knoweth her seasons and the Sun his going down All the Creatures observe that course which he hath establisht not guilty of sacriledge as Tertullian calls it or rebellion against the Lord their Maker which is their concord and sympathie with his eternal Goodness Look on the whole Universe and you find no enemies to God but the Devil and those quos perditus cupit perdere whom being destroyed himself he desires to bring into the same destruction Here then we may find God's enemies even amongst those whom he created after his own image whom he made capable of eternal happiness whom he was willing to call his friends The Oxe knoweth his owner and the Ass his master's crib Every creature is at his beck and bows down in an humble submission unto his will Onely Man doth not consider the wonderfull beauty and love and goodness of his Maker but embraceth Vanity and makes leagues with Death it self and for the love of every trifle that flatters his phansie is presently at odds and opposition with his Creator Amongst Men then are Gods enemies nay ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as St. Paul calls them and as they are here termed in the Text Haters of God not onely odio inimicitiae by being at odds and variance with him and by the neglect of his commands but odio abominationis fugae by running back from him in all their wayes being angry with his Providence ready to teach his Wisdom controlling his Precepts loathing his Ordinances which is in effect to wish there were no God at all Consider God in himself as he is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as the Philosophers call him the perfection of Goodness as he is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that infinit and exemplary Beauty as he is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Lover of mankind for so he delights to be called and in this perfection and beauty and love we cannot more hate him than we can be ignorant of him who filleth all things But then consider and behold him in those beams radiations which flow from him in the effects of his providence and justice which though they alwayes fall even in a right line where they should yet many times they thwart and fall cross to our inordinate wills and affections and so the world is full of enemies and haters of God men who are angry with the commands of Goodness because they will be evil men who repine at his instructions because they will not obey men who murmure at his threatnings because they deserve his judgments men who would if it were in their power pull him out of Heaven because he sitteth there to fling them down to Hell We have a common saying but it is not so true as common That all men are naturally enemies to God This cannot hold of that nature in which we were created For no man doth or can hate God till he have first given God a just occasion to hate him no man can be his enemy till he offend him For to keep God's commandments is to love him But then when Lust hath conceived and hath brought forth Sin as St. James speaks and when Sin is finished and hath brought forth Death then when men fear the heat of God's displeasure and look upon his hailstones and coals of fire now ready to fall upon them there ariseth that dissonancie and disaffection which is the cause of Hatred between God and Man Odium timor spirat saith Tertullian Hatred is a kind of exhalation and breatheth from Fear And as it is amongst Men so is it here Proprium est humanae infirmitatis odisse quem laeseris It is proper and peculiar unto us to hate those whom we have wrong'd So here when we have drawn God's Sword against us and tremble at the blow which is ready to be given then we turn countenance against God and are not onely inimici enemies but osores Haters of God then the very common notions with which we were born begin to be slurr'd and blemisht in us our Envy drops on them our Malice discolors them and our Lust polluteth and defaceth them As for God the thought of him is not in all our ways And now when God saith Thou shalt not commit adultery no bed is pleasant but that of the Harlot and when he says Thou shalt not steal no bread is sweet but the stollen and though he say Thou shalt not lye yet we make lying as common as our Language and we break the two tables of the Law not in zeal with Moses but in opposition with a heart full of rancor and malice against God himself And this is it I conceive which Aquinas meaneth when he tells us Prius est odium proximi quà m Dei We first wrong our neighbour and then God First we oppose those decrees which God hath past to bound and limit us in our conversation and so by consequence bid defiance to the eternal Law-giver For he that slanders his neighbour
who hate him when the wicked are gathered together then is the time for God to arise And so I pass from their part which is to gather themselves to God's which is to arise and scatter them EXSURGAT DEUS Let God arise By this Rising of God we may perhaps be induced to conceive that God doth sometimes sit down and sleep and not regard us that he is willing his people should suffer and that his enemies should wash their feet in their bloud that he lets loose the raines to the wicked too long and maketh not that haste which he promiseth to help the oppressed But this were to make him like the heathen Gods who did meridiari sleep at noon Which was the reason the Gentiles never enter'd their Temples at that hour of the day for fear of waking them No He that keepeth Israel doth neither slumber nor sleep but is awake at all times and hours and moments unto all the world And the reason is manifest Non habet in se diversitatem sui quicquid est simplex saith Novatian well God is a most pure and uncompounded Essence and therefore not capable of any diversity in himself not awake to day and asleep to morrow not fitting now and rising anon but everlastingly present to all the world From him no cloud or darkness can shadow us no secret grot or cave hide us He hath ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as the Greek Father speaks an eye which cannot sleep He seeth all things ad nudum lucidum naked and plain even when they are vailed over with the darkest night Why then is God said to arise St. Hilary gives the reason Per corporalem significationem spiritualis instruitur We must upon this corporal and sensible expression build up a Spiritual sense and not so much consider God as our selves He doth neither sleep nor arise nor forget nor remember nor depart nor draw near but secundum nostrorum meritorum differentiam but fits himself to the different quality of our works When our enemies consult together against us and are ready to prevail then to us he is asleep When he breaks them to pieces like a potters vessel then he is risen When we offend him he is absent and when we repent and fulfill his will he is present with us Whilst we are his servants and obey him his friends and love him nemo officiosior Deo none more officious and more active to help us than God but when we dissemble with him and call him Father but honour him not non est praevaricator suae perspicaciae Though his forbearance makes us believe he sees us not yet he is no doubter and prevaricator nor will he betray his omniscience His sleep is his patience which he shews both toward the righteous and the wicked For God is not slack in rising as some count slackness not slack to the wicked for vengeance hangs over their head not slack to the righteous for salvation is at hand To the one he is as asleep to heap coals of fire upon his head to leave him without excuse to the other he seems not to be risen that being exercised under the cross they may awake him and long and cry for deliverance Hoc est paululum unde pendet aeternitas On this little space of his seeming rest depend eternity of punishment to the one and eternity of peace to the other God hath these pauses and intervals in all his proceedings in his punishments and in his deliverances and he useth a kind of deliberation and works as it were by the rule When God would build up Jerusalem he promiseth that a line should be stretched forth upon her Zech. 1. 16. And when he would destroy the Idumaeans he threatens Extendetur super eam mensura that he would stretch out upon it the line of confusion When he Isa 34. 11. will destroy and when he will build he stretcheth out a line Which is a metaphor taken from Building And it shews that he doth not suddenly lift up his hand to strike nor stretch it forth to help but applys the lines prepareth his instruments works by line and measure and takes as much leasure time in destroying as artificers do in building he waits and expects that his Patience may make way for his Justice on the one and magnifie his Mercy and Goodness on the other How long did the Lord endure the old world even an hundred and twenty years while the Ark was a preparing The Amorites till their wickedness was full How long did ne bear with his own people first the ten Tribes then the other two even till there was no hope of amendment till the Prophets cried out NOAH It is desperate Now the reason of this his delay of this his not rising at that instant we expect is to make it manifest to the world that his wayes are not as our wayes Therefore many times he presents himself in a shape contrary to our expectation and doth those things which bear a resemblance of some repudiancie to his known and declared will as it were on purpose to put our Faith and Constancy to a tryal whether we will take him to be our God or no and worship him as well in his thunder as in his still voice or else to besiege and compass-in the wicked and obstinate offendors to shut them up in their own net to bury them in the pit which they have made to strike them through with their own sword and as they have trifled with his judgments so to deal with them as that they shall not easily know how or when they are led to destruction or not know it till it be too late For many times the wrath of God comes upon them as the Psalmist speaks when the meat is yet in their mouthes when they feed sweetly upon their hopes and dream of victory and triumph Thus he who promises to love and defend his children as with a shield sometimes he handles them as if he never loved them or had left off to love them or would not hear and help them and he stands as it were at a distance from them though even at this distance he is nigh to them that fear him Again though he have threatned to raine fire and brimstone upon the wicked yet many times he delays and makes as if he would not punish them nay he seems to cast a look of favour upon them delayes not the blow onely that it may fall the heavier but many times gives them those rewards which are promised to godliness fills their garners makes them mighty in power crowneth them with happiness and gives them their hearts desire but then in this great security upon the sudden when their prosperity hath befooled them when they are ready to conclude they are therefore good because they are temporally happy he falls upon them and makes that which was their triumph their ruine and now he strikes them at once for all strikes the
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. 1â 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. Mâ 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
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
expect he should lead us further Aliud est esse vatem aliud esse interpretem saith St. Hierome It is one thing to be a prophet another to be an interpreter of Scripture There the Spirit foretels things to come here by our industry and skill in language we give that sense which the words will best bear Those interpretations now-adayes which are entitled to the Spirit are so dark and obscure ut interpretes interprete indigeant that we must take the pains to interpret the interpreters and find greater difficulty in their explanations then in the Text it self It will be good therefore first to prepare our selves in private before we lift up our voice like a trumpet and if we will be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã workers together with the Spirit to work as he directs us It is a rule in Quintillian Ut praeceptorum est docere ità discipulorum est praebere se dociles As it is the office of the Master to teach so is it of the Scholar to be attentive and apt to learn And it holds true in Divinity also As the Spirit is our teacher so are we bound to observe those rules which he hath drawn out for all those who will be his followers Res enim aliter coalescere nequit sine discentis docentÃsque concordia For this business will not close and be brought together without an agreement on both sides If the Spirit will first lead me into the wilderness and I will presently to the streets of Jerusalem it is not likely my message should be from the Spirit whom I have left behind me in the desart And therefore to prepare our selves to this work we must observe those rules which a learned Physician gives for the finding out of the truth There must be 1. Amor operis a Love of the work 2. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a love of industry and earnest study in our preparation 3. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a methodical proceeding and progress 4. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã practice and exercitation and a conformity of our operations to the work And this gold though it be brought from Ophir yet may be useful for those who are the living temples of the holy Ghost My Love kindles a fire in me and makes me active my Industry is ruled by method that it be not fruitless and all is confirmed by Practice and then the Spirit ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã sets his seal and impression and character and makes it a good work And first if we ask the question What moved Christ to make this preparation we cannot better answer then by saying it was his Love unto the work That he having loved us first might provoke us to love him again and prepare our selves to our work And to this end Love is a passion imprinted in us saith Gregory Nyssene ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to this good end to be leveled and fixed on the work of our Salvation Where when it is once fastned it is restless and unquiet It will into the wilderness though it meet with the Devil himself It passeth all difficulties whatsoever nihil erubescit nisi nomen difficultatis and is not ashamed of any thing but that any thing should be too hard and heavy for it Heat and Light are the two ornaments of the Sun joyned and united together quò calidior radius est lucidior the hotter the beams are the more light there is So the Love of a good work and the good Work which we love are as neerly united together as Heat and Light and the more Heat in my Love the more Light in my Work and the more my Light shines forth the more my Love encreaseth They both are one to another both mother and daughter both begotten and begetting For again the love of knowledge which fits and prepares us to the work of the Gospel brings in ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a love of labor and industry Which will not do things by halves nor bring us to the chair till we have sate at the feet of Gameliel Thus it is in all the passages of our life We propose nothing to our selves of any great moment which we can presently conquer ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith Basil Even the things of the Devil are not attained without labor and sweat How laborious is thy Revenge how busie thy Cruelty how watchful and studious thy Lust What penance doth thy Covetousness put thee to Vitia magno coluntur saith Seneca Even our vices cost us dear and stand us at a high rate And can we expect such an easie and quick dispatch of those things which bring along with them an eternal weight of glory Can a negligent and careless glance upon the Bible can our aery and empty speculations can our confidence and ignorance streight make us Evangelists Or is it probable that Truth should come up è profundo putei from the bottom of the well and offer it self to them who stand idle at the mouth and top of it and will let down no bucket to draw it up This indeed is now-adayes conceived to be the Spirits manner of Leading not about by the Wilderness by a sequestred life but streight to Jerusalem to the holy City where there is little enquiry mà de whether they have been at Jacobs well and let down their bucket where by many God is served in spirit but not in truth And so they be born again of the Spirit no matter for this water Who glory in their ignorance amant ignorare cùm alii gaudeant cognovisse as Tertullian speaks Whereas others can receive no satisfaction or content but in knowledge their great joy it is to be ignorant Some truth there is in what they say that the Spirit is an omnipotent agent but ill applyed by them That since he can do all things he will also teach those who will be ignorant and who do him this great honor to call him Master when there are no greater non-proficients in the world ever learning of this good Master and yet never coming to the knowledge of the truth It is true the Spirit is a powerful agent but it is as true that he is a free agent and will not teach them who will not learn will not bring us to Jerusalem unless we will first follow him into the desart qui pulcherrimo cuique operi proposuit difficultatem who on purpose hath placed some rubs and difficulties between us and Knowledge that we may with labor and anxiety work out a way unto it He hath cast some darkness upon Scripture that our Industry may strive to dispel it and in some places as Heraclitus speaks of the Oracle of Delphos ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he doth neither plainly manifest nor yet hide the truth but leaves some glimpse and intimation that we may search and find it out It was the saying of Scaevoâa the Lawyer Jus vigilantibus scriptum That the Civil Law was written to men awake who could look about them
rather That he who thus loveth riches may cry as loud as he will but cannot call God his Father Ye have heard of the Goodness and Love of God a Love infinite as Himself It is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a perpetual circle beginning proceeding from and ending in himself All which is wrapt up and comprehended in this one word Father This is Gods peculiar title and all other fathers in comparison are not fathers Hence Christ saith Call no man your father upon the earth for one is your Father which is in heaven Yet some there have been found who have made God not a Father but a Tyrant a mighty Nimrod to destroy men for delight and pleasure perinde atque injuriam facere id demum esset imperio uti as if to set-up his children for a mark and to kill them with the same liberty a hunter doth a Deer were to be a Father What is become of Gods Goodness now Or shall we call him Father whose hands do reek in the bloud of his own children Or is it possible that his Goodness should make them to destroy them We should call it cruelty in Man whose Goodness is nothing and can we imagine it in God whose Goodness is infinite Doth a fountain send-forth at the same place sweet water and bitter saith St. James What can this James 3. 11. argue but a dissolution of that internal harmony which should be in Nature All men are made after Gods own image Now to hate some and love others of his best creatures would infer as great a distraction in the Indivisible Divine Essence as to have a Fig-tree bear olive berries or a Vine figs and imputes a main contradiction to his infinite Goodness All things were made out of meer love and to love the work of his hands is more essential to God then for Fire to burn And Gods Love being infinite extends to all for even All are less then Infinite God cannot hate any man till he hate him nor indeed can any man hate God till he hate himself God is a Fountain of Love he cannot hate us and he is a Sea of Goodness we cannot hate him Tam Pater nemo tam pius nemo No such Father none so loving none so good He that calls him Father hath answered all arguments that can call his Goodness into question But yet there is a devise found out and we are taught to believe that God is a Father though he damn us that the reprobate must think he hath done them a kind of favor in condemning them that they are greatly indebted to him and bound very much to thank him for appointing them to death and for casting them into hell-fire for ever with the Devil and his Angels Imò neque reprobi saith one habent cur de Deo conquerantur sed potiùs cur ei gratias agant The Reprobate have no cause to complain but rather heartily to give God thanks A bloudy position and which these men would not run away with such ease but that they have made a shift to perswade themselves that they are none of the number of those on whom God hath past such a sentence For should God reveal it to them that he had past such a decree upon them to damn them to hell and withal that he did it to manifest his power and glory I much doubt whether they would for their own particular in judgment and resolution be well-pleased or be so grateful as to thank him or so submissive as to call him Father Melius est matulam esse quà m simplex lutum It is better to be a vessel of dishonor than bare clay It is better to be miserable eternally than not to be are thoughts which they only can entertain who are too secure of their honorable estate here and of their eternal happiness hereafter Our Saviour who knew better than these men spake it of such a one ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã simply and without such qualification by distinction that it had been good for that man that he had never been born I will not build a controversie upon such a word of Love as FATHER but rather admire and adore Gods Love which he hath pledged and pawned bonis suis malis suis not only doing us good but suffering evil for us buying us with his bloud his labor his death not that we were of any worth but that we might be so even worthy of the Gospel of Christ worthy of immortality and eternal life We proceed now from the contemptation of Gods Goodness and Providence to that which we proposed in the next place the Liberal diffusion of it on all his children by which we are enjoyned to call him ours God is Christs Father peculiariter saith St. Ambrose and there is no Pater noster for him but Ours communiter by a full communion of himself unto all and therefore we are taught to pray Our Father For by the same Goodness by which he hath united us unto himself by the same hath he linkt us together amongst our selves ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith Nazianzene with spiritual ligaments From the same fountain issue our Union with Christ and our Communion with one another Therefore if we diligently observe Christs institution as we are bound then as often as we pray so often must we exercise this act of Charity towards our brethren and that in gradu supremo in the highest and greatest extent as far as concerns their good And we must do it often because every good man every disciple of Christ must make it his delight and practise to speak to the Father in the language of his Son ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith Nazianzene How long do we hear of Mine and Thine in the Church It is not Paul is mine and Gospel is mine and Christ is mine but Paul is ours and The Gospel is ours and Christ is ours and Christ Gods Where there is Charity there MEUM and TUUM are verba frigida but icy words which melt at the very heat of that celestial fire If the Church be a Body then must every Rom. 12. 5. member supply The Foot must walk for the Eye and for the Ear and the Eye must see and the Ear hear for the Foot saith Chrysostom If a House then must every part every beam and rafter help to uphold the building If she be the Spouse of Christ then is she the mother of us all The Philosopher building up his Commonwealth tells us Civis non est suus sed civitatis Sure I am Christianus non est suus sed ecclesiae As a Citizen is not a Citizen for himself but for the whole Commonwealth so each action of a Christian in respect of its diffusive operation should be as catholick as the Church Without this friendly communication the Christian world would be as Caligula spake of Seneca commissiones merae arena sine calce stones heapt together without morter or as pieces of boards without
and all these things shall be added unto you We may divide this Prayer as Moses divided the Law into two Tables In the first were written officia pietatis duty of Piety towards God In the second officia charitatis duties which Love requires we perform to our selves and others We see the three first Petitions breathe forth the glory of God the last three draw their breath as it were inwards and reflect upon our selves In the three first we strive to enlarge the glory and honor and majesty of God In the first we sanctifie his Name in the second we call him in the third we make him a King But in the last three we begg our Bread our Salvation our Security We desire him to give us a Staff to uphold us to remove a Thorn that pricks us and to spread his Providence like a rich canopy over our tabernacle to protect us But yet so as that God is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã all in all not only Holy in his Name and mighty in his Kingdom and Powerful in his Will but also glorious in giving us Bread glorious in forgiving our sins and glorious in our victory over Satan And as God hath a share in the three last so are we not excluded the three first For when we pray that his Name may be hallowed we do not put up a bare wish and desire that it may be so sed ut sanctum habeatur à nobis saith Augustine that we may sanctifie it For whether we pray or no Gods Name is holy his Kingdom is everlasting and he doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth Nor do we pray that he will do all this without us but that he will supply us with those means and helps by which we may do it our selves So that when we pray that his Name may be hallowed our desire is that we may hallow it I will therefore draw and confine my Discourse within the bounds of these three propositions I. That in all our petitions we must propose the Glory of God as our chiefest end II. That we must prefer Spiritual things before Temporal III. That it is not enough to pray for blessings and against evils unless we be careful and industrious to procure the one and to avoid the other For if we pray that Gods Name may be hallowed and do not seriously strive to sanctifie it our selves we put up rather a faint wish than a devout prayer and rather mock God than worship him Of these plainly and briefly What the Philospher requires of his Moral man is most necessary in the works of Piety and Religion ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã We must propose a right End Non agitur officium nisi intendatur finis I stir not in my Duty if this move me noâ and I faint and sink under my Duty if this confirm not the motion Gemina virtus in Christiano intentio actio saith St. Ambrose There is a double virtue in a very Christian to intend a right end and to do what he intends The Eye cannot say to the Hand I have no need of thee nor the Hand to the Eye I have no need of thee but the Eye directs the Hand and the Hand followeth the Eye Intention regulates the whole work of my Devotion Most certain it is Every man when he prays proposes some end for his end is that he may obtain We desire that Gods Name may be sanctified that we may be holy We desire Holiness that we may see God We desire to see God that we may be happy Sanctity it self is an end and the Reward is an end Nor do we exclude these ends as unfit to be lookt upon It is lawful for us to make the Reward as a Napkin to wipe off the sweat of our brows and to comfort our Devotion with Hope But the finis architectonicus the principal end must be the glory of God All other ends are wrapt within this as a wheel within a wheel and a sphere within a sphere but the Glory of God is the first compassing wheel prima sphera still on the top and setteth all on moving And here our Devotion is in its regular motion when it moves about not by the sight of some good on our selves or the expectation of reward but propter Deum ex charitate propter se amatum as the Schools speak by the contemplation of God whom we love for himself and when it proceeds from a Love like to the Love of God Whose actions are right in themselves although he propose no other end but the Actions Whose very Glory is the good of his creature We read in our books of a woman who went about the City Prolamais with a vessel of water in one hand and fire in the other sometimes looking up to heaven and anon casting her eyes upon the ground And being askt by a Dominican what she did with those two so contrary elements in her hands she replyed streight Cuperem hoc foco Paradisum incendere hac undâ restinguere flammas gehennae I would saith she if I could with this fire burn down the celestial Paradise and with this water quench the fire of Hell that neither might be I cannot but rank this action of hers if it be true amongst those which phrensie produces But the reason which she gave is a measured and positive truth in Divinity That we must cheerfully endeavor to hallow Gods Name and advance his Kingdom and fulfill his Will if there were neither heaven nor hell neither reward to allure us to holiness nor punishment to fright us from impiety All we do should be the issue of our Love to God who loved us so that for no hope of reward or addition of glory he was even turned into love and gave us himself He that loves God perfectly cannot but neglect himself and perish and be Lost to himself but he riseth again and is found first in God whilst he thinks nothing but of him and then whilst he thinks that he is loved of him and lives in him whilst he is thus lost Could we raise our Devotion to this pitch it were indeed in its proper Zenith But our Prayers for the most part are blemisht with some partialities and by-respects and our selves are more respected in them than God If they be petitory we request some good for our selves if eucharistical we give thanks for some good we have received if deprecatory we request to be preserved from some evil Still our selves have the chiefest part and our Prayers are like the Parthean horsemen which ride one way but look another They seem to go towards God but indeed reflect upon our selves And how many of us would fall down before God if we did not stand in need of him And this may be the reason why many times our Prayers are sent forth like the Raven out of Noahs Ark and never return But when we make the Glory of God the chief end of our Devotion
they go forth like the Dove and return to us again with an Olive-branch It is a nice observation of Quadrigarius in Gellius that darts and arrows which are shot upward do fly more level and more surely hit the mark then those which are shot downwards But it is most true in our Prayers which are called Ejaculations because they are darted from us as shafts out of a bow Those that fly upward to God and aim at his glory do more fix upon and take him than those other which fly downward upon our selves For God and Man are in respect of one another as the species of Quantity Continua and Discreta as a Body and Number Number admits of infinite additions Nullus est post quem non sit alter You can give no number to which you may not add another And a Corporeal substance may be diminished in unitate You cannot so divide a piece of wood but you may divide it again The more you diminish and cut from the wood the more you increase the number of parts So is it between God and our selves The more we take from our selves the more we add to God the more vile we think our selves the more glorious he appears The knowledge of Gods infinite Majesty may receive infinite additions and so may the knowledge of our own unworthiness When we are busie in the contemplation of our own vileness then do we most cleerly see the Glory of God for which we were made The tree that sends his root downwards sends his boughs upwards and the deeper his root the higher his boughs so the more we are deprest and cast-down in our selves the nearer are we raised to the throne of God The Glory of God was that for which we were created Now the Philosophers will tell us Unumquodque est propter suam operationem Every thing is and hath its being for the work it hath to do I do not warm my self with a Plainer nor smooth a table with Fire This were not only vain but would destroy any work All things even Arts and Sciences beyond or besides their end are unuseful Seneca tells his friend that the Arts were then liberal cùm homines liberos facerent when they made men free and ingenuous And censuring the vices of the time he saith that Arithmetick and Geometry were of no use if they taught only metiri latifundia digitos accommodare avaritiae to measure Lordships and tell money And certainly Man is the most unprofitable creature in the world if he dedicate not himself and his devotions to the glory of that God who made him for that end For the Love of God is an undefiled love and if it be perfect will admit of no mixture For to love God for any other respect than God himself whether it be for Health or Wealth or Honors be it for fear of hell or be it for hope of heaven it self is at the least an imperfection in us Now the reason of this is plain That for which any thing is loved is of it self more beloved When David dealt kindly with Mephibosheth for Jonathan his fathers sake it is a certain argument that he loved Jonathan better than Mephibosheth He that loves a man for mony or meat loves mony and meat more than the man because these are the causes and ends why he loves the man It will follow then that he that loves God for himself or for any other end than God loves that more then God But God is principally and solely to be loved all other things even our own salvation are to be loved for him but he for himself Should we now take the dimensions of our Devotion by this rule I fear it will not reach home Would we down on our knees but for a blessing Would we be so earnest to hallow Gods Name but that in his name we shall cast out devils some evil that may hurt us Would we advance his Kingdom but to crown ourselves Would we be desirous his Will should be done if his will were to damn us Is there an Anselme now alive that if Hell and Sin were proposed to his choice would be damned to torments for ever rather than once by sin dishonor God No Our PATER NOSTER for the most part begins at PANEM NOSTRUM Give us this day our daily bread And our Prayers are much like Jacobs Vow If God will give us bread to eat and raiment to put on then the Lord shall be our God Indeed it should Gen. 28. 20. not be thus If our Love were perfect our Devotion would be so also and kindle at no other fire than the Love of Gods Glory For perfect Love doth not only cast-out all fear but all other respects whatsoever And God would be loved by us as David loved Jonathan but the Creature as Mephibosheth but in a second place for Jonathans sake but we are Men not Angels and God who is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as Clemens speaks who studies wayes to save us and is even witty in inventing of means to bring us unto him doth so far condescend as to be content we have an eye to our own Good so we prefer his Glory to propose other ends so we make that the first and to pray for our selves so we begin with him Although we cannot begin with him but we pray for our selves Tolle luctatori praemium lentus jacebit in stadio Take away the garland and the Souldier will not strike a stroke Our Devotion would be frost-bound nor would we fill heaven with our prayers but that we hope they will bring down some blessing from thence Therefore God deals with us as a skilfull Artist doth that works upon an evil matter If he cannot make what he would yet makes that which the matter gives him leave And like the Husbandman in the Gospel he doth not pluck up the Tares these imperfections of ours for fear that the Wheat even the whole harvest of our Devotion should come up with them Hence it is that he proposes ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã reward and punishment and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his manifold benefits to incite us to call upon him And he that is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the worker both of our Fight and Reward hath made it as a Law and promulged it to all his followers HE THAT ASKETH SHALL RECEIVE And this is the reason why in the primitive times they anointed Christians at their initiation and reception into the Church to remember them that they were brought into the banners and to encourage them with hope of reward if they overcame If we pray that Gods Name be hallowed we may pray also that he write our names in the book of life If we advance his Kingdom he will crown us Only his Glory in all things must have the praeeminence But you will say that it is a hard thing to keep this intention alive when we pray and that these two the Glory of God and
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã after that manner which Christ here taught but a strange ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
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. ãâã is contrary ââ himself a Saviour and a Destroyer a Friend and an Enemy ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 âhe 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
deliver'd them to Satan to be tormented Which power though they had from Christ yet Christ would never exercise it himself but was as patient as a Lamb though he had the strength and power of a Lion And as his comming was in great humility so hath he left it as a charge to those who will be his disciples to follow him in that way which himself was pleased to tread before us He hath set-up Remission of sins but with a SICUT upon condition that we will be as patient and humble and as ready to forgive as he that Humility which brought him down to earth to suffer for us may lift us up to heaven to reign with him for ever Therefore this doctrine of Forgiveness è coelo descendit came down from heaven with Christ and is most proper to the Gospel For reckon-up all the precepts which the Heathen Sages have given all the examples which they have shewn and we may find enough perhaps to shame us but not that measure of goodness which is required of a Christian As Aristides was led to punishment one spat in his face but this disgrace could move him no further than contumeliam contumeliae facere to revenge this contumely with a jest Socrates rails not at Anytus in prison but being to die discourseth of the Immortality of the Soul Magna certè exempla grande testimonium These are great examples and bear witness to the doctrine of Christ But Tertullian at the beginning of his book De Anima hath past a judicious censure on them That the Heathen did and suffer'd many things non de siduciâ compertae veritatis not from any confidence that this virtue would make them everlastingly happy sed ex industria consultae aequanimitatis but from a setled and strong resolution that nothing should drive them to discontent And this proceeded rather from affectation than from a disposition raised by the celestial discipline and that doctrine which came down from heaven Munit nos Christus adversùs diaboli latitudines The Gospel of Christ is a fense to keep us from these latitudes and expatiations and extravagancies and discovers the danger of those actions which the Heathen approved for virtuous But what talk we of the Heathen quorum religio pro certo non est cùm Dei eorum non sint pro certo who being not well assured of their Gods must needs also be as uncertain and unstable in their religion This doctrine of Forgiveness of sins was not understood of those who were domestica Dei gens the peculiar and familiar people of God to whom he gave his statutes and testimonies and who were entrusted with his Oracles The Jews indeed do challenge the commandments of God tanquam propria haereditaria saith Hilary as proper to them and their peculiar inheritance but yet they never understood this command of Christ To forgive an enemy Whatsoever Moses required of the Jew that doth Christ exact of the Christian and more more Patience more Compassion more Tenderness to our enemy because the heavenly promises are more clearly proposed in the Gospel than they were under the Law Multa sunt facienda non jubente lege sed liberâ charitate saith St. Augustine Many things are to be done not because the Law commands but because Charity perswades them quae cùm liceret non impendere tamen dilectionis causâ impendimus Many offices are done which we do out of love not upon command when as Love it self is a command Behold saith our Saviour I give unto you a new command that you love one another When Volusian urgeth the objection of Julian That Christianity stands in opposition to polity and government the Father replyeth by parallelling of a sentence of Salust with those precepts of our Saviour Romanos Remp. ex parva magnam fecisse quòd acceptâ injuriâ ignoscere quà m prosequi maluerint That the Romans had raised themselves to that greatness not by revenge but by forgiving injuries We know there is a righteousness most proper to the Gospel which the Jew for the most part saw but darkly and in a cloud even that righteousness of Faith which justifies an unrighteous person And indeed in this very respect as the Christian hath more day and light more helps than the Jew so his task should be greater Our Saviour hath told us Of him that hath much much shall be required To forgive our enemies is a Condition and a Law and lies heavier upon us than it did upon the Jew Lex ligat a Law is an obligation and therefore where it binds not it is not a Law but where it is proposed as a Law it binds When God saw the Jews would not be kept within those bounds in which his wisdom first had set them he was pleased so far to condescend as to give them line least too strict a curb and charge might have enraged them Yet in all those tolerations his will did shew it self and did shine forth Even the very Permission was a commentary upon it self In that he did forbid them to practice Usury upon their brethren he gave them a fair intimation that it was far better not to practice it on strangers When he gave them leave upon slight occasions to put-away their wives he made a kind of exposition upon that Law saith St. Augustine in that he commanded them also first to give them a bill of divorce For he doth not say Let whosoever will put away his wife but in a manner tells them he would not have them do it though it were permitted cùm hanc interposuerit moram when by making this delay he gave them time of deliberation that so their wrath might be appeased before the bill was writ Besides they were first to go unto the Scribes to whom alone it was lawful to write the Hebrew letters as St. Augustine tells us who were men of great wisdom and interpreters of the Law men famous for their piety and justice that they might dissuade them Lastly for that law of Retaliation it was permitted not as if it were good but for avoiding of greater evil ut furoris non fomes sed limes saith St. Augustine not to excite and provoke but to bound their malice Nor did they saith Josephus receive an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth but for it took a pecuniary mulct Which was also practiced amongst the Romans as Favorinus observes in Gellius For God did not approve of these as commendable to be done but permitted them as lawful for them who would not endure a sharper bit to be put into their mouths For even this law of Forgiving every man his trespasses in equity concerned them as well as us but the permission and dispensation doth not concern us as it did them Between the Precepts of Christ and these Permissions there is no repugnancy but a diversity only For he that shall not put away his wife he that shall remit a private injury is
in intimis essentiae naked as they are in themselves not drest-up and coloured-over and refined by the Senses we would loath these smiling enemies and the more because they smile Ipsum vocabulum nos admonere potest The very word TENTATION may admonish us to be shy and wary of them For what is a Tentation but a heave a tryal an experiment to overthrow us But so it is that we are commonly the greatest strangers at home that we are willing to believe that we are of the earth earthly and like the Horse and Mule which have no understanding lower and viler than those Tentations which do but knock nay but shew themselves and are welcomed as friends Rarum est ut satìs se quisque vereatur It is a very rare thing for men to fear and reverence themselves ãâã give that honour to themselves which they do to the whip nay to the frown of a Superiour These many times curb and restrain us when we are making forward to unlawful pleasures they seal-up our lips they bind our hands they put-in their Veto and we dare not touch or tast or handle But ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã our Reason which should be as an Emperour and commander over us is slighted and neglected and esteemed not worth the harkning-to To which if we gave that due reverence which we owe dimittamus licet paedagogum there were no need at all of any outward restraint And as we take no great pains in the study of Our selves so do we as little trouble our selves to sift and examine those Tentations which make towards us but judge of them by their outside look upon them and are taken with a look And as the Romans observed of the barbarous Nations that being utterly ignorant of the art of Engining when they were besieged and shut-up they would stand still and look upon the enemy working in the mine not understanding quò illa pertinerent quae ex longinquo instruebantur what it meant or wherefore those things were prepared which they saw afar off at distance till the enemy came so near as to blow them up and destroy them So do we behold Tentations with a careless and regardless eye as if we knew not what they meant and so suffer them to work-on to steal nearer and nearer upon us till they enter our souls and dwell there and take full possession of us That we may therefore be the more ready and skilful to apply these two Remedies we will add a third which we at first also proposed the Knowledge and serious Consideration of God himself For quantò magìs appropinquat Deo cogitatio nostra tantò praecellentior ejus nobis videtur majestas the nearer we draw unto God and the greater our knowledge is of him the more are we taken and amazed with his beauty and the glorious raies of his Majesty in comparison of which all the Beauty in the world is but deformity all the Pleasure of the world loathsomness all the Glory of the world but as vanity as nothing Now by the knowledge of God I do not understand that imperfect and weak apprehension of him which even they may have who understand his precepts and give assent unto them that they are just and holy but yet through their corrupt and wicked conversation cannot be induced to believe his promises and by virtue and force obey his commands as the Apostle speaks of the Heathen that they knew God but did not glorifie him as God For as Ignorance of God brought-forth Rom. 1. 21. those Lusts of concupiscence in the Heathen so the like Lusts as greedily affected by Christians breed not Ignorance onely but also a Denial of God and of Holiness without which no man can ever see God But a sad and serious Consideration of Gods Majesty and Goodness may transform the Soul into the similitude and likeness of God For true Knowledge is a kind of assimilation of the mind to that which it apprehends And as there is imprinted in the organ of every Sense a likeness of that object which it doth receive so is there also in the Understanding an impression made which if it be not wiped out and defaced by impertinent deviations and wandrings by the frequent admittance of contrary objects will work in us a conformity to the nature and purity of that God which we behold with wonder that we may converse here on earth as so many mortal Gods that as God is present every where and yet receiveth no contagion from any place present with the wicked yet is Justice it self present with the adulterer yet is Purity it self tunc maximè magnus cùm homini pusillus tunc maximè optimus cùm homini non bonus tunc maximè unus cùm homini duo aut plures then most eminently great when he seems least unto man then especially best when we least feel him so then most one when we conceive of him as of two or more in his anger and in his mercy ââ his blessings and in his curses ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã unchangeably one and the same So we may learn to be in the world and yet be no more spotted of the world than if we were out of the world to hear its musick yet not hearken to see its allurements and not be allured to walk in the midst of its tentations yet remain untoucht whether it fawn or frown smile or threaten amidst all its changes and varieties to abide still the same This is indeed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to be made like unto God Every article of our faith leads us to some operative virtue and by the Knowledge of God we grow-up to be like him If I believe he is GOD I must fall down and worship him What he commands must be my law and I must fulfil it His Omnipotency both comforts and affrights me His Justice drives me from Presumption and his Mercy from Despair If I do not make use of him as far as he is pleased to open and reveal himself though I fall down before him and worship him yet I deny him or at best mistake him Alium enim Deum facit quem aliter cognoscit saith Tertullian He makes him another God who conceives of him otherwise than he is who calls him Just yet so live âs if he were not so who acknowledgeth him to be the Holy one of Israel and yet leaves him for Uncleanness to be the Fountain of all blessings and yet heweth to himself broken cisterns and trusteth in the Creature *** Certainly the greater Gods Love the hotter his Anger Etiam Amor laesus irasci solet For even Love it self if you chafe and provoke it too much will wax angry And he that is jealous over us for oââ good if we offend him and charge him will be jealous against us to our destruction To conclude then The consideration of these three the All-sufficiency and Providence of God his Omniscience and his Jealousie if it be serious as