faire words concerning his Sonne Job 10.1.2 but all to no purpose And surely had it not bin Abraham he would have offered like Job in the bitterness of his soule to have pleaded with God he would have stood up in the behalf of his Sonne and replyed again And is this that Isaac that should be my comfort is this he whom thou hast so often promised and whom I have so long expected as a pledge of thy love and favour towards me and must I now kill him Quid meus hic Isaac in te committere c. Alas what hath Isaac committed against thee how hath he offended thee who will ever believe that thou wouldest have spared Sodom had there been ten that were good in it if thou now takest delight in the blood of the innocent doest thou thus reward thy Children and Servants and is this the fruit of their love and obedience O let it not be known in Gath nor published in Ascalon lest the uncircumcised Philistins insult over thy people say among themselves such honour may have all his Saints But Abraham never opened his mouth for his Sonne but grace having got the upper hand of nature and faith of affection he was glad when God had given him a Sonne but more glad that he had a Sonne to give unto God for so saith Chrysostom Latus erat Abraham cum silium acciperet laetior cum sibi imolandum dominus postularet Abraham rejoyced when he received his Sonne but he rejoyced more when God commanded him to offer him unto him Doct. 1 The Doctrine that may be gathered from hence is this That God makes tryall of our love and obedience in those things which of all other are dearest unto us For so we see he deales here with Abraham when he sees how dearly he loves his Sonne for the better tryall of his love and obedience he commands him to offer him for a burnt-offring Thus dealt our Saviour with the Ruler in the Gospell Luke 18.22 for knowing that he was rich and withall that his heart was set upon his treasure he willed him to sell all that ever he had and to give it to the poor and so tryed him in that which was dearest unto him He Math. 10.37 saith our Saviour that loveth Father Mother Sonne or Daughter more then me he is not worthy of me It is no ordinary love which God requires of us but such a love as is able to subdue all naturall affection So that if our Children were dearer unto us then our own soules yet the love of God is to be preferred before them And this was prefigured by those milch kine 1 Sam. 6. which being to carry the Arke of the Lord it is said that their Calves were taken from them and yet they went on and onely sometimes did low after their Calves but never turned back to look after them To note unto us that Religion must alwayes oversway affection and though we do naturally love our Children yet if they be any hinderance unto us in Gods service we are not to regard them It is the commendation of Levi Deut. 33. that he said to his Father and Mother he had not seen them and that he knew not his Brethren nor his own Children For when the Levites were commanded Exod. 32. to consecrate their hands unto the Lord every man upon his own Sonne and his own Daughter they were so zealous in Gods Cause that they fought against nature and had no more compassion on their Parents or Children then if they had been meer changers whom they had never seene Hieron lib. 2. Epist Select It is an excellent saying of St. Jerom Licet pervulus ex collo pendeat nepos c. Though thy little Nephew should hang about thy neck though thy Mother should intreat thee by those her own duggs that gave thee suck though thy Father should lie upon the Threshold and cling about thy feete as thou art going out to stay thee from spending thy life in Gods service per calcatum perge patrem c. Tread thy Father under thy feete and trample upon him Solum in hac re crudelem esse pietatis est genus Onely in this case it is a kind of piety to use cruelty This howsoever it may seeme a very harsh Doctrine unto flesh and blood yet if our hearts were once throughly inflamed with the love of God if we were wholly devoted unto Gods service and if we did even hunger and thirst after righteousness then whatsoever it were that God required at our hands we would be ready with Abraham to perform obedience Mat. 4.21.22 And as the Disciples when our Saviour called them they left both their goods and their Parents to follow him So whatsoever it were that God required of us though it were to the losse of all that ever we have yet we would be willing to resigne it when God commands us And thus much concerning the first difficulty in this Commandement in regard of the sacrifice which is to be offered Abrahams onely beloved sonne Isaac I come now to the second diffi ∣ culty Second The second difficulty is in regard of the Person that must offer this sacrifice that is Abraham Abraham a Father must sacrifice his Son he must do it himself and no other for him Take thine onely beloved Sonne Isaac and do thou offer him If a Father having but one onely Son should but hear that he were causeless to be put to death this ye know would be a great grief unto him but if he were commanded to be present himself and to be an eye-witnesse and spectator of his death this must needes be a further vexation O but being come thither if he himself were inforced to be his Sonnes executioner and with his own hands to kill his Sonne this were a torment beyond all comparison But this is Abrahams case here If God had commanded him to deliver his Son to some of his Servants and that they should kill him yet Abraham might have conceived some comfort for it may be his Servants would have had compassion on him as it hath often been seene or if they had not but had put him to death yet Abraham should not have been a spectator thereof but that Abraham may be sure of the death of his Son God will have him not onely an eye-witness thereof but to be the actor himself he will have him with his own hands to kill him Valer. Max. lib. 5. tit 7. When Caesar commanded Cesetus a Roman to subscribe but his hand to the bannishment of his Son he made him this answer Celerius tu mihi Caesar omnes meos liberos eripies quam ex his ego unum mea notá pellam Thou shalt sooner saith he berave me of all my Children then I will ever set my hand to bnnish any one of them What would he have answered if he had been commanded with his own hands to have
the Sonne of God that thou so little regardest him He loved us so dearly that he thought not his life too dear for us but suffered a most shamefull and accursed death to free us from the curse which was due unto us yet we for requitall of this his love though love be requited with nothing but love as fire is kindled with nothing but fire do so little regard him that we preferre our friends our pleasures our wealth and riches and for the most part whatsoever we love before him How farre are such from being able to say truly as the Church here doth I sought him whom my soule loves Her love unto Christ was not verbal and outward from the rine of the lipps but real and inward from the root of the heart from her soule and spirit her soule loved him she loved him as the Church Esay 26. desired and sought him with my soule have I desired thee in the night Esay 26.9 yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early She loved him as the blessed virgin magnified him My soule doth magnifie the Lord Luke 1.46.47 and my spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour She loved him as the Prophet David praysed him Prayse the Lord O my soule and all that is within me prayse his holy name Psal 103.1 Outward love from the lips may be false and counterfeâ— but inward love from the soule is alwayes unfained And such a love it is which Christ doth require and no other that we love him with the heart and with the soule with all the heart and with all the soule So precious doth he account our love that he will not have so much as the least grain of it lost but will have it all He hath millions of Angels that are inflamed with his love who love him far better then we do or can and our love unto Christ is no benefit to him he reapes no prophet nor advantage by it only because he loves us he desires again to be beloved of us and that unfainedly from our very soules He will not have the soule and love divided he likes not that soule that is without love nor that love which comes not from the soule If love come unto him and not from the soule before he admit it he will first aske whence it came as Micha asked the Levite before he received him And if the soule come unto him without love he will forbid it to come as Joseph forbad his Brethren Judges 17.9 Gen. 43. to come unto him without their Brother Benjamin And therefore if we will come unto Christ Gen. 43.3 we must come with love with love from our soules as the Church here doth I sought him whom my soule loves To draw then to a conclusion that we may be the more carefull to seek Christ let us meditate on those things which may kindle and inflame our love towards him by considering how he desires our love and deserves the same If a man have shewed us any extraordinary kindness and hath deserved our love we could not but condemn our selves of unthankfulness if we did not love him Nay though he have not deserved our love by any kindness he hath shewed us yet if we do but heare that he is desirous of our love because this is an argument that he loves us we will love him again But Christ doth both desire our love and deserve the same He desires our love not for his own but for our good that he might have occasion to requite our love And therefore he useth most forcible Reasons to procure our love Sometimes intreating us and making it his earnest suit that we would love him 2 Cor. 5.20 We saith the Apostle are Embassadors for Christ as God beseeching you by us we pray you in Christs stead but for what to be reconciled unto God Here is the strongest sute that ever was made God and man were fallen out man is the party that hath offended and God is the party that sues to be reconciled man that should intreat God that he would forgive him is intreated by God that he would be content to be forgiven Thus he sues for our love that should sue for his Nay he useth not onely intreaty to procure our love but likewise the promise of infinit rewards The eye saith the Apostle hath not seen the eare hath not heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man what God hath prepared but for whom for them that love him Was it ever heard of since the World began that any man ever came to a poor begger and offring him meat that was ready to starve and to perish for hunger should intreat him to eat it and not onely so but witâ—al should promise to reward him for it But God though it be for our good that we love him for otherwise we cannot but everlastingly perish yet he intreats us that we would love him and not onely so but promiseth withall to reward our love with the Kingdom of Heaven So earnestly doth he desire our love And as he desires so he deserves our love If we should give a man but his diet or houseroome we would think we deserved he should loâ—e us for it How then doth he deserve our love that gives us every thing The very bread which we eat nay the breath which we breath we have it from him in whom we live and move and have our being and cannot live a minute without his blessing The least blessing he gives us deserves our love and we have nothing but our love to give him for all that he gives us So abundantly doth he deserve our love Great reason have we then to require his love in some measure by loving him unseignedly as the Church here doth I sought him whom my soule loves FINIS The Twelveth SERMON PROVERBS 30.8 Give me neither poverty nor riches THese words are part of Agurs Prayer and his Prayer in the whole verse consists of two parts a deprecation of evil and a Petition of good The evil which he deprecates or prayes against is of two sorts either such as is simply evil in it own nature as vanity and lying against which he prayes in the beginning of this verse Remove farre from me vanity and lies Or such as are not simplie evill in their own nature but yet may be occasions of evil as riches and poverty against which he prayes in the next words Give me neither poverty nor riches The good which he prayes for is a competent Estate in the end of this verse a mediocrity between the two extreams of want and superfluity Feed me with food convenient for me And these are the parts of the whole verse Here then he prayes that God would give him neither poverty nor riches neither over little nor over much that he may neither live in want nor yet in abundance not because these in themselves are evil but because they may be and
the Lord Deut. 32. kill and make alive I wound I heal Therefore he wils us to call upon him in the time of trouble and he will deliver us Deut. 32.32 For howsoever by our sins we provoke him to afflict us yet if we call upon him for mercy and grace he hath an ear to hear us an eye to behold us a heart to pity us and an hand to help us And thus much concerning the first point the Agēt or party afflicting That it is God that chastens I come now to the second namely The Patient or party afflicted the beloved of God he chastens whom he loves Doct. God though he love whatsoever he hath made yet among all his creatures he loves man best and among men especially those who are of the houshold of faith which is his Church These he loves with an everlasting love he hath given his only Son for their redemption and hath adopted them in Christ Jesus to be his children And yet howsoever he loves them so dearly yet many times he doth afflict and chasten them for so we see here whom he loves he chastens The Doctrine that we may gather from hence is this That they who are in the love and favour of God are neverthelesse afflicted In the 11th of Saint John Behold Lord John 11.3 he whom thou lovest is sick Christ loved Lazarus and yet did not free and exempt him from sicknesse Dan. 9.23 Daniel was greatly beloved of God as the Angell Gabriel told him yet Daniel was cast into the Lions den The Virgine Mary was freely beloved of God as the same Gabriel told her Luke 1. yet a sword was to pierce through her heart Luke 1.28 Luke 2.35 1 Sam. 13.14 Job 1.1 as old Simeon prophesied David was a man according to Gods own heart yet David was often and many wayes afflicted Job was a just and an upright man yet Job was extraordinarily afflicted Saint Paul was a chosen vessel of God yet after he was converted his whole life was nothing but a continued affliction In a word Acts 9.15 all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles and all the beloved children of God even from the beginning of the world to this present time have suffered affliction Therefore Christ saith Revel 3. As many as I love Revel 3.19 I rebuke and chasten Read over the Scriptures and ye see examples hereof almost in every leafe Gen. 39.20 In one place ye shall see Joseph cast into the dungeon Dan. 3.20 in another the three children into a fiery furnace 1 King 22.27 here ye shall see Michea fed with the bread of affliction there David washing his couch with tears in one place ye shall see Steven stoned to death Psal 6.6 in another ye shall finde John the Baptist beheaded Acts 7.59 To be short as it was said of Rome heretofore Mark 6.27 that a man could not step into any part thereof but he should tread upon a Martyre so a man can hardly read any part of the Scripture but he shall light upon the affliction of the children of God either one or other affliction being common to every one of them and more common then any thing The floud that overspred the whole face of the earth in the days of Noah was common generall yet eight persons ye know were freed frō the flood Gen. 6.18 preserved in the Ark Death is more cómon general then the flood Gen. 5.24 seizing upon the whole of-spring of Adam and yet two persons Enoch and Elias have been freed from death a King 2.,11 and were taken up into heaven while they were living upon the earth Sin is more common and generall then death and yet one person even Christ and he alone was free from sin but affliction is more generall then any of them all which hath lighted upon all men without any exception for even Christ himself though he were free from sin Esay 53.3 yet he was vir dolorum as the Prophet Esay calls him a man of sorrows as being subject through the whole course of his life to much sorrow affliction For this is the condition of all Gods children that first they must wear a crown of thorns before they receive a crown of glory first they must suffer with Christ in this life before they reign with him in the life to come Therefore Christ wills us if we will be his disciples to take up his crosse every day Acts 14. and follow him And the Apostle tels us That through many afflictions we must enter into the Kingdom of heaven Vse 1 The use to be made hereof is two-fold First Seeing Goddeth visit his own children with the rod of affliction then much lesse shall the wicked escape Gods judgements if God chasten the godly whom he loves and is loved of them much lesse will he spare his enemies those that hate him Prov. 11.31 Therefore Solomon Proverbs 1◠Behold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth much more the wicked and the sinner And therefore Peter 1 Epist 4. Chapter If judgement saith he 1 Peter 4.17.18 first begin at us what shall the end of them be that obey not the Gospel and if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear For if God chasten the one much lesse out of doubt will he spare the other You will say but it is ordinarily seen in the World that the wicked are not subject to the like afflictions that the godly are Their houses as Job in his 21. Chapt. Job 21.9 saith of the wicked are peaceable without fear and the rod of God is not upon them and as the Prophet David saith of the ungodly they prosper in all their wayes and flourish like a green bay-tree It is true indeed and cannot be denied that the godly many times do suffer in this World more crosses and afflictions then the wicked but therefore we must remember that the punishment of the wicked is kept and reserved till the World to come Lazarus was farre more afflicted in this life that lay full of sores at the rich mans gates and would have been glad of a morsell of bread then the rich man was that fared so sumptuously and lived in pleasure but therefore what saith Abraham to the rich man Sonne saith he Luke 15.25 remember that then in thy life-time receivedst thy good things and Lazarus evill but now is he comforted and thou art tormented Whensoever therefore we see the godly to live in affliction and misery and the wicked in prosperity and hearts-ease yet it need not trouble us because there will come a time when the wicked shall be punisht and the godly comforted When the godly shall have all their teares wiped from their eyes Revel 7.17 and the wicked shall suffer Gods wrath and vengeance for if God afflict and chasten such as he loves much lesse
make him secure that he shall enjoy them an hour and as he brought nothing with him when he came into the world so he must leave all behind him when he leaves the world Fulgos lib. 7. cap 2‑ And therefore Saladine a great and victorious Prince in his dayes he gave command when he lay upon his death-bed that at his Funerall his winding-sheet should be carried on a spear before him with this proclamation That of all the victories which Saladine had gotten this winding-sheet was even all that he carried him For when a man dies he must leave all and though he have never so much yet he may die before the day ends So that this is one great inconvenience of the world that whatsoever the world can afford us yet it is but momentary and of short continuance Secondly The pleasures profits and preferments of the world are not only short but even for the time that a man enjoyes them they can never afford him any true contentment Therefore we see that they who have much do still desire more and though they have never so much more then they need yet they are not satisfied with it Plutarch in vita Pyrrhi Plutarch writes of Pyrrhus the King of Epyrus that when he prepared to make warre upon the Romans Cyneas asked him this question what he meant to do if he overcame them The King made answer that then he would leavy a greater Army and subdue Sicily He asked him again what he would do if that he vanquisht them the King answered that then he would go into Africa and bring all Africa under his dominion But saith Cyneas if you subdue all Africa what then will you do why then saith the King we will live merrily together and spend the rest of our dayes in delight and pleasure Alas saith Cyneas if that be all what need all this labour you have a Kingdom already you may live as contentedly with that which you have as if you had more Cui quod satis est non sufficit nihil sufficit He that is not content with that which is sufficient will never be content though he have more then sufficient So that this is another inconvenience of the world that the pleasures profits and preferments thereof can never afford any true contentment A third and last inconvenience is this which indeed is the greatest of all the rest that the more a man loves and affects the world the lesse he is affected with the love of God Therefore our Saviour to shew that the love of God and the love of the world cannot stand together but that he that doth cleave to the one must of necessity leave the other he makes a flat opposition between them Ye cannot saith he serve both God and Mammon We read of Thomas Aquinas the School-man that when he came upon a time to Pope Innocentius the third of that name the Pope had then great store of silver and gold lying before him you see saith the Pope to Thomas Aquinas I cannot say as sometime my Predecessour Saint Peter said Argentum aurum non habeo Acts 3.6 Silver and gold have I none True holy Father answer'd Aquinas but therefore you cannot adde as he did Surge ambula Arise and walk To note unto him that the more he was carefull for the goods of the world the lesse able he was to perforn such good works as the Apostles did For the love of the world and the love of God as I said before cannot stand together We see then what it is to gain the world and withall the discommodities and inconveniences of it Now again though it be great yet it may too dearly be bought as when Gehazi gained two talents of silver but a leprosie withall 2 King 5. If a man should angle with a golden hook all the fish which he took would not make him amends for the losse of it and it is not wisdome to venture any thing where a man may lose more then he can gain by the bargain For gain is not so welcome and acceptable to any man as losse is grievous especially where the gain will not countervail the losse But here indeed is a very great gain the gaining of the world but withall a losse that is far greater the losse of all losses the losse of the soul Let us see therefore now what this losse is The soule as the more excellent part of man is put here by a figure for the whole man the soule for both body and soule together And therefore that which is here called by Saint Matthew the losing of the soul is called by Saint Luke in his 9th Chapter the losing of a mans selfe Luke 9.25 What saith he is a man advantaged if he gain the Whole world and lose himselfe So that the losing of the soul is the losing of a mans selfe both body and soule The greatnesse of which losse will the better appear if we take a view of a double misery which the soul which is lost is to undergo the one in regard of the felicity it loses the joyes of heaven the other in regard of the torments if susters the pains of hell both implied in those words of our Saviour Depart from me ye câ—rsed into everlasting sire For the first The soul which is lost is for ever banisht from the sight of God and therefore being banisht from his sight and presence is withall excluded from all joy and happinesse For the sight of God as the Scripture tels us is that which hereafter shall make us blessed Mat. 5.8 Blessed saith our Saviour Mat. 5. are the pure in heart and he gives this reason for they shall see God So that the sight of God shall make us blessed When Saint Peter saw our Saviour transfigured on the Mount with Moses and Elias he was so affected with the sight that he cried out to our Saviour Master it is good for us to be here if thou wilt saith he let us make three tabernacles one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias If he were so affected with the glorious presence of Moses and Elias how shall they be affected that shall for ever enjoy the glorious company of all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles of all the blessed Saints and Angels nay of God himself where they shal see him even as he is and face to face as the Apostle speaks Psal 16.11 In thy presence saith David is fulnesse of joyes such fulnesse of joyes that if all the hearts in the world were one yet it could not contain them they cannot possibly enter into man but he that is to be made partaker thereof must enter into them Enter saith our Saviour into thy Masters joy Mat. 25.23 Chrysest de Repar 1 laps such fulnesse of joy that as Chrysostom saith If a man were to endure all the miseries of this life and to suffer the torments of hell for a time
unto these John 5.5 yet indeed our whole lifetime is but short but a span long as David saith and therefore our sufferings cannot be long which are all comprized in so short a time For afflictions are as it were Gods speedy Messengers which he sends to do his Message or arrand unto us Somtimes to tell us that we forget God and therefore need be put in mind of him by being afflicted Sometime to tell us that we are too proud and therefore need affliction to be humbled by it Sometimes to tell us that we are too much afflicted with the love of the World and therefore need affliction to be weaned from it Of these and the like arrands they are sent unto us and when they have done them they are presently gone like the Angels which were sent over-night to Lot and when they had done their arrands went away the next morning But though we suffered afflictions for a long time yet we might well count our sufferings short in regard of that endless and infinite happiness which followes our sufferings If our future happiness were of no longer continuance then the afflictions we suffered yet this might comfort us that our sufferings come first and our happiness after and that our happiness is to come when our sufferings are over which may afford us more comfort in our greatest sufferings then the wicked can find in their greatest pleasures The wicked have their pleasures first they first injoy the pleasures of sin for a season wherein they can take the losse delight when they consider that after their pleasures are past their sufferings are to come which will eat up the pleasures which they have formerly taken as the seaven years of famine which followed in Egypt did eat up and consume the seaven years plenty which went before them Gen. 41.30 The godly on the contrary have their sufferings first and their happiness after which being not short as their sufferings are but endlesse and eternall if our hearts were affected with an unfained love and desire of it we could not but think all our sufferings short though it were for a long time that we were to suffer as the seaven years service which Jacob served for Rachell Gen. 29.20 seemed short unto him because he loved her FINIS The Eighth SERMON ISAIAH 57.21 There is no peace to the wicked saith my God WE have here in these words a Proclamation as it were of open Warre against all such as are impenitent sinners wherein two things are to be considered The thing that is proclaimed and the Person that proclaimes it The thing that is proclaimed There is no peace to the wicked The Person that Proclaimes it is the Prophet Esay as Gods Herald and therefore proclaimes it not in his own but the Lords name not as from himself but from the mouth of the Lord There is no peace to the wicked saith my God And first Gen. 16.12 concerning the thing proclaimed as it was said of Ishmael that his hand should be against every man and every mans hand against him so here it is said that there is no peace to the wicked as if they were enemies unto all and all unto them and so had peace with none They are enemies to God enemies to men enemies to themselves and therefore can have no peace at all either inward or outward either at home or abroad either with themselves or with others The Reason is because indeed there can be no peace where there is no righteousness Therefore the Prophet Esay 32. makes peace to be a fruit and effect of righteousness The work saith he of righteousness shall be peace And therefore the Prophet David Esay 32.17 Psal 85. joynes them both together Righteousness saith he Psal 85.10 and peace have kissed each other where righteousness and peace as St. Austin saith are propounded by the Prophet as two loving Friends who so agree together as that he who opposeth himself against the one must needes oppose himself against the other and so can never injoy peace who regards not righteousness But as Jehu said to Jehuram 2 Kings 9. when he askt Jehu 2 Kings 9.22 Is it peace what peace saith Jehu so long as the whoredoms of thy Mother Iesabell and her witch-crafts are so many so while the wicked do multiply their sinnes what peace can they have what peace either with God who hates all those that work wickedness or what peace with the Creatures who are alwayes ready to revenge Gods quarrel against his adversaries or what peace with men whether they be the godly or the wicked like themselves while they hate the godly and the godly them as being Gods enemies and the wicked again hate them as knowing them to be such as onely like them while they serve their turns and will be as ready to do them wrong if it be for their advantage And what peace again can they have with themselves while they have one within them that beares witness against them even their own Conscience First They can have no peace with God no more then a Subject can have peace with his Prince against whom he rebels For the wicked are Rebels against God Esay 1.30 their disobedience in the Scripture is called Rebellion to shew that while they disobey Gods Lawes he accounts them no better then Rebels and Traytors as if they were at defiance with him and up in Armes against him As indeed they are because they both serve his Enemy the Devill and make no account of disobeying God so they may satisfie their own will and pleasure For look what sinnes they delight in they wholly devote themselves thereunto giving them the chief place in their affection and setting them up in Gods roome So the Epicure makes his belly his God the ambitious man makes honour his God the voluptuous liver makes pleasure his God and the covetous miser makes mony his God because they perform that service unto them which they owe unto God they love their pleasures preferments and profits more then they love God they obey them more then they obey God they fear more to lose them then to lose the savour of God and they put more trust and confidence in them then they put in God Therefore as they regard not God so he regards not them but when they seem to offer him their service he rejects the same So that even their very prayers which they keep for their last refuge and whereby they think to curry favour with God in their distresse and affliction are abominable unto him For so we see Proverbs 28. Prov. 38.9 He that turnes away his care from hearing the law even his prayer shall be abomination Which is to be understood not only of such as refuse to hear it but likewise of such as refuse to obey it that though they tread in his courts and come to Church though they hear his word and offer him their prayers
tyrant that coming into a Temple where there were Idols that were richly adorn'd he took away from one of them a cloak of gold and being askt why he did it He answered that he did it to pleasure the Idoll because the cloak was too heavie for Summer and too cold for Winter And afterwards taking Sea and finding the winds to be favourable to him in his navigation See saith he how the gods do approve of sacriledge but these were but pretences to cloak his covetousnesse And hitherto may they be referr'd who to justifie their faults do alledge examples out of the Scripture of holy men that have fallen into the same sins as Noahs example for their drunkennesse Davids example for their adulterie Peters for their perjurie for these do hide and cover their sins by justifying the same by the examples of others And this is the worst kinde of covering of sin For is it not a fearfull thing to be imboldned to sin by their examples whose examples are set down to make us afraid to sin to follow their examples in something which they did which they repented that they ever did and to mark how they sinned and not to mark how they were punisht for it For their punishment is registred as well as their sin to keep us from falling into the like sin for fear of undergoing the like punishment And yet these are not afraid to commit the like sins and will justifie the same by their examples Instead hereof of covering our sins by our justifying of them we must arraign and condemne our sins and our selves for them otherwise if we justifie any of our sins those sins which we justifie and do not condemne will condemne us And thus having shewed you how men may be said to cover their sins I will now proceed to the causes of it Causes why men cover their sins The causes which make men thus to cover their sins either by denying them or by laying the blame thereof upon others or by lessening their faults or by justifying and standing in defence of them the causes hereof are especially three Sometimes fear Fear sometimes self love and sometimes hypocrisie Sometimes fear of suffering either disgrace or punishment or incurring displeasure if their sins should be known and not be kept hidden Act. 5.2 Thus Ananias when he had sold his possessions out of a covetous minde he kept back part of the price yet he conceal'd what he had done for fear of disgrace Iosh 7.21 Thus Achan hid his theft for fear of punishment And thus Rachel hid the Idols which she had stolne from her father Gen. 31.34 for fear of incurring her fathers displeasure if they had been found with her But is not this a preposterous kinde of fear not to fear to sin but to fear what may follow when we have sinned To fear displeasure disgrace or punishment and not to fear that which will bring us unto it For this is all one as if a man should be afraid to be poysoned and yet not be afraid to drink poyson O but you will say when I sin I am in hope to keep my sin unknown and therefore am the lesse fearfull to sin as hoping to escape disgrace or punishment while my sin is kept hidden But though thou mayest hide thy sin from man canst thou hide it from God canst thou sin so secretly that God shall not see thee or canst thou hide thy sins from thine own conscience that is as good as a thousand witnesses against thee Quid prodest non habere conscium babenti conscientiam What profits it thee that no man is privie to that which thou doest having a conscience that is privie to it and will condemne thee for it And therefore thou shouldst be afraid to commit sin because God and thy conscience knows what thou doest though it be unknown to men A second cause of our covering of sin is self-love For as when we bear any hatred to another Self-love our hatred will make us aggravate his faults and to lay them open so self-love will make us to lessen our own and to hide and cover them Thus because the Pharisees hated our Saviour they never lin maliciously speaking against him backbiting his person depraving his miracles and carping at his doctrine But for their own sins their eyes were so blinded with self-self-love that they could not see them He that looks upon any thing through a perspective if he look one way through it it makes every thing seem to be greater then it is but turning the perspective and looking the other way through it it makes it seem lesse So it is with us while we look through malice and ill-will upon others and self-love upon our selves it makes other mens sins seem greater then they are and our own lesse but let us turn the perspective that their faults and not ours may be lessened by us A third cause which makes a man cover and hide his sins is hipocrisie whereby a man desires to seem better then he is Hipocrisie and so for the saving of his good name and credit will conceal his faults For sin hath this property that it leaves a bad report and an ill name behinde it and therefore there is not any man though he delight in sin but in regard of the shame of it he had rather conceal it then have it known Therefore sins are called the works of darknesse Ephes 5.11 because he that commits them will avoid the light that his sins may be the better conceal'd and hidden And therefore the devil 2 Cor. 11.14 who is called the father of sin and sinners he transforms himself into an angel of light that so he may seem to be better then he is For there is none so bad but he hath a desire to seem good and hence it is that hipocrites desire to seem religious and though they serve the devil yet they will mask in Gods liverie that they may be counted his servants not desiring so much to be so indeed as to seem to be so in outward appearance For the health of the bodie every man had rather to be well then to seem to be so and therefore if a man have received a wound he will lay it open before the Chirurgion that it may be cured not caring for a plaister that will hide his sore but for one that will heal it But for the health of the soul many had rather to be thought to be well then to be so indeed taking no thought for their sins but this that they may keep them secret and so fearing more to be hardly thought of by men if their sins were known then to be condemned by God for their covering of them And thus much for the propertie of an impenitent sinner that he covers his sins I come now to his condition that he shall not prosper Where first we may observe that impenitent sinners who cover their sins