Cure as a full stomack hath no room for Physick The Mathematician could have removed the whole world with his Engine if there had been any place to have set his Engine in Any man might be cur'd of any sin if his heart were not full of it and fully set upon it which setting is indeed in a great part an unsetledness when the heart is in a perpetual motion and in a miserable indifferencie to all sins it may be fully set upon sin though it be not vehemently affected to any one sin The reason which is assign'd why the heart of man if it receive a wound is incurable is the palpitation and the continual motion of the heart for if the heart could lie still so that fit things might be applyed to it and work upon it all wounds in all parts of the heart were not necessarily mortal So if our hearts were not distracted in so many forms and so divers ways of sin it might the better be cur'd of any one St. Augustine had this apprehension when he said Audeo dicere utile esse cadere in aliquod manifestum peccatum ut sibi displiceant It is well for him that is indifferent to all sins if he fall into some such misery by some one sin as brings him to a sense of that and of the rest St. Augustine when he says this says he speaks boldly in saying so Audeo dicere but we may be so much more bold as to say further That that man had been damn'd if he had not sinn'd that sin For the heart of the indifferent sinner bayts at all that ever rises at all forms and images of sin when he sees a thief he runs with him Psal 50. and with the adulterer he hath his portion and as soon as it contracts any spiritual disease any sin it is presently not onely in morbo acuto but in morbo complicato in a sharp disease and in a manifold disease a disease multiplied in it self Therefore it is as St. Gregory notes that the Prophet proposes it as the hardest thing of all for a sinner to return to his own heart and to finde out that after it is strayed and scattered upon so several sins Redite prevaricatores ad cor says the Prophet Esa 46. and says that Father Longe eis mittit cum ad cor redire compellit God knows whither he sends them when he sends them to their own heart for since it is true which the same Father said Vix sancti inveniunt cor suum The holyest man cannot at all times finde his own heart his heart may be bent upon Religion and yet he cannot tell in which Religion and upon Preaching and yet he cannot tell which Preacher and upon Prayer and yet he shall finde strayings and deviations in his Prayer much more hardly is the various and vagabond heart of such an indifferent sinner to be found by any search If he enquire for his heart at that Chamber where he remembers it was yesterday in lascivious and lustful purposes he shall hear that it went from thence to some riotous Feasting from thence to some Blasphemous Gaming after to some Malicious Consultation of entangling one and supplanting another and he shall never trace it so close as to drive it home that is to the consideration of it self and that God that made it nay scarce to make it consist in any one particular sin That which St. Bernard fear'd in Eugenius when he came to be Pope and so to a distraction of many worldly businesses may much more be fear'd in a distraction of many sins Cave ne te trahant quo non vis Take heed lest these sins carry thee farther then thou intendest thou intendest but Pleasure or Profit but the sin will carry thee farther Quaeris quo says that Father Dost thou ask whither Ad cor durum To a senslesness a remorslesness a hardness of heart nec pergas quaerere says he quid illud sit Never ask what that hardness of heart is for if thou know it not thou hast it This then is the fulness and so the Incurableness of the heart by that reason of perpetual motion because it is in perpetual progress from sin to sin he never considers his state But there is another fulness intended here That he is come to a full point to a consideration of his sin and to a station and setledness in it out of a foundation of Reason as though it were not onely an excusable but a wise proceeding Because Gods judgements are not executed But when man becomes to be thus fully set God shall set him faster Job 14.17 Iniquitas tua in sacculo signata His transgression shall be sealed up in a bag and God shall sow up his iniquity And Quid cor hominis nisi sacculus Dei Gregor What is this bag of God but the heart of that sinner There as a bag of a wretched Misers money which shall never be opened never told till his death lies this bag of sin this frozen heart of an impenitent sinner and his sins shall never be opened never told to his own Conscience till it be done to his final condemnation God shall suffer him to settle where he hath chosen to settle himself in an unsensibleness an Inintelligibleness to use Tertullian's word of his own condition And Aug. Quid miserior misero non miserante seipsum Who can be more miserable then that man who does not commiserate his own misery How far gone is he into a pitiful estate that neither desires to be pitied by others nor pities himself nor discerns that his state needs pity Invaluerat ira tua super me nesciebam says blessed St. Augustine Thy hand lay heavie upon me and I found it not to be thy hand because the Maledictions of God are honeyed and candied over with a little crust or sweetness of worldly ease or reprieve we do not apprehend them in their true taste and right nature Obsurdueram stridore catenarum mearum says the same Father The jingling and ratling of our Chains and Fetters makes us deaf The weight of the judgement takes away the sense of the judgement This is the full setting of the heart to do evil when a man fills himself with the liberty of passing into any sin in an indifferencie and then findes no reason why he should leave that way either by the love or by the fear of God If he prosper by his sin then he findes no reason if he do not prosper by it yet he findes a wrong reason If unseasonable flouds drown his Harvest and frustrate all his labours and his hopes he never findes that his oppressing and grinding of the Poor was any cause of those waters but he looks onely how the Winde sate and how the ground lay and he concludes that if Noah and Job Ezek. 14.14 and Daniel had been there their labour must have perished and been drown'd as well as his If
he hath reserved by his parsimony and frugallity There is somtimes a greater reverence in us towards our ancient inheritance towards those goods which are devolved upon us by succession There is another affection expressed towards those things which dying friends have left us for they preserve their memories another towards Jewells or other Testimonies of an acceptation of our services from the Prince but still we love those things most which we have got with our own labour and industrey When a man comes to say with Jacob Gen. 32.10 with my staffe came I over Iordan now have I gotten two bands with this staffe came I to London with this staffe came I to Court and now am thus and thus increased a man loves those addisions which his owne Industry hath made to his fortune There are some ungratefull Natures that love other men the worse for having bound them by benefits and good turns to them but that were a new ingratitude not to be thankful to our selves not to love those things which we our selves have compassed We have our reason to do so in our great example Christ Jesus who loves us most as we are his purchase as he hath bought us with his bloud And therefore though he hath expressed a love too to the Angels in their confirmation yet he cannot be said to love the Angels as he doth us because his death hath wrought nothing upon them which were fallen before and for us so he came principally to save sinners the whole body and band of Angels are not his purchase as all mankind is This affection is in worldly men too they love their own gettings and those shall perish They have given their pleasant things for meat Chron. 1.11 to refresh their souls whatsoever they placed their heart upon whatsoever they delighted in most whatsoever they were loath to part withal it shall perish and the measure of their love to it and the desire of it shall be the measure of Gods judgement upon it that which they love most shall perish first In occupatione Those riches then those best beloved riches shall perish and that saith the text by evil travail which is a word that in the original signifies both Occupationem Negotiationem labour and Travail and afflictionem vexationem affliction and vexation They shall perish in occupatione then when thou art labouring and travailing in thy calling then when thou art harkening after a purchase and a bargain then when thy neighbors can impute no negligence thou wast not negligent in gathering nay no vice to thee thou wast not dissolute in scattering then when thou risest early lyest down late and eatest the bread of sorrow then shalt thou find not onely that that prospers not which thou goest about and pretendest to but that that which thou haddest before decaies and molders away If we consider well in what abundance God satisfied the children of Israel with Quails and how that ended we shall see example enough of this You shall eat saith God Num. 11.19 not one nor two daies nor five nor ten nor twenty but a whole moneth until it come out at your nostrils and be loathsome unto you here was the promise and it was performed for the plenty ver 31. that quailes fell a daies journey round about the Camp and they were two cubits thick upon the earth The people fell to their labour and they arose and gathered all that day and all that night and all the next day saith the Text 32. and he that gathered least gathered ten Gomers full But as the promise was performed in the plenty so it was in the course too whilest the flesh was yet between theïr teeth before it was chewed even the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people and he smote them with an exceeding great plague ver 33. Even whilest your money is under your fingers whilest it is in your purposes determined and digested for such and such a purpose whilest you have put it in a ship in Merchandice to win more to it whilest you have sow'd it in the land of borrowers to multiply and grow upon Mortgages and usury even when you are in the mid'st of your travail stormes at Sea theeves at land enviers at court informations at Westminster whilest the meat is in your mouthes shall cast the wrath of God upon your riches and they shall perish In occupatione then when you travail to increase them The Children of Israel are said in that place onely to have wept to Moses out of a lust and a grief for want of flesh God punished not that weeping it is a tenderness a disposition that God loves but a weeping for worldly things and things not necessary to them for Manna might have served them a weeping for not having or for loosing such things of this world is alwaies accompanied with a murmuring God shall cause thy riches to perish in thy travail not because he denies thee riches nor because he would not have thee travail but because an inordinate love an overstudious and an intemperate and overlaborious pursuite of riches is alwaies accompanied with a diffidence in Gods providence and a confidence in our own riches To give the wicked a better sense of this God proceeds often the same way with the righteous too but with the wicked because they do with the righteous least they should trust in their own riches We see in Iobs case It was not onely his Sons and daughters who were banquetting nor onely his asses and sheep and camels that were feeding that were destroyed but upon his Oxen that were ploughing upon his servants which were doing rheir particular duties the Sabaeans came and destruction in their sword His Oxen and his servants perished in occupatione in their labour in their travail when they were doing that which they should do And if God do thus to his children to humble them before-hand that they do not sacrifice to their own nets not trust in their own industry nor in their own riches how much more vehemently shall his judgments burn upon them whose purpose in gathering Riches was pricipally that they might stand of themselves and not need God There are beasts that labour not but yet furnish us with their wool alive and with their flesh when they are dead as sheep there are men that desire riches and though they do no other good they are content to keep good houses and that their Heire should do so when they are dead There are beasts that labour and are meat at their death but yield no other help in their life and these are Oxen there are men that labour to be rich and do no good with it till their death There are beasts that onely labour and yield nothing else in life nor death as horses and there are some that do neither but onely prey upon others as Lyons and others such we need not apply particularly there are all bestial
kindled Num. 11.15 there and only their doth Moses attribute even to God himself the feminine sex and speaks to God in the original language as if he should have call'd him Deam Iratam an angry she God all that is good then either in the love of man or woman is in this love for he is expressed in both sexes man and woman and all that can be ill in the love of either sex is purged away for the man is no other man then Christ Jesus and the woman no other woman then wisdom her self even the uncreated wisdom of God himself Now all this is but one person the person that professes love who is the other who is the beloved of Christ is not so easily discern'd in the love between persons in this world and of this world we are often deceived with outward signs we often mis-call and mis-judg civil respects and mutual courtesies and a delight in one anothers conversation and such other indifferent things as only malignity and curiosity and self-guiltiness makes to be misinterpretable we often call these love but neither amongst our selves much less between Christ and our selves are these outward appearances alwaies signs of love This person then this beloved soul is not every one to whom Christ sends a loving message or writs too for his letters his Scriptures are directed to all not every one he wishes well to and swears that he does so for so he doth to all As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a Sinner not every one that he sends jewels and presents to for they are often snares to corrupt as well as arguments of love not though he admit them to his table and supper for even there the Devil entred into Judas with a sop not though he receive them to a kiss for even with that familarity Judas betrayed him not though he betroth himself as he did to the Jews Osc 2.14 sponsabo te mihi in aeternum not though he make jointures in pacto salis in a covenant of salt an everlasting covenant not though he have communicated his name to them which is an act of marriage for to how many hath he said ego dixit Dii estis I have said you are Gods and yet they have been reprobates not all these outward things amount so far as to make us discern who is this beloved person for himself saies of the Israelites to whom he had made all these demonstrations of love yet after for their abominations devorc'd himself from them I have forsaken mine house Jer. 12.7 I have left mine own heritage I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies To conclude this person beloved of Christ is only that soul that loves Christ but that belongs to the third branch of this first part which is the mutual love The Affection but first having found the person we are to consider the affection it self the love of this text it is an observation of Origens that though these three words Amor Dilectio and Charitas love and affection and good will be all of one signification in the sctiptures yet saies he wheresoever there is danger of representing to the fancy a lascivious and carnal love the scripture forbears the word love and uses either affection or good will and where there is no such danger the scripture comes directly to this word love of which Origens examples are that when Isaac bent his affections upon Rebecca and Jacob upon Rachel in both places it is dilexit and not amavit Cant 5.8 and when it is said in the Cant. I charge you Daughters of Jerusalem to tell my well-beloved it is not to tel him that she was in love but to tell him quod vulneratae charitatis sum that I am wounded with an affection good will towards him but in this book of Pro. in all the passages between Christ and the beloved soul there is evermore a free use of this word Amor love because it is even in the first apprehension a pure a chast and an undefiled love Eloquia Dominis casta sayes David All the words of the Lord and all their words that love the Lord all discourses all that is spoken to or from the soul is all full of chast love and of the love of chastity Now though this love of Christ to our souls be too large to shut up or comprehend in any definition yet if we content our selves with the definition of the Schools Amare est velle alicui quod bonum est love is nothing but a desire that they whom we love should be happy we may easily discern the advantage and profit which we have by this love in the Text when he that wishes us this good by loving us is author of all good himself and may give us as much as pleases him without impairing his own infinite treasure He loves us as his ancient inheritance as the first amongst his creatures in the creation of the world which he created for us He loves us more as his purchase whom he hath bought with his blood for even man takes most pleasure in things of his own getting But he loves us most for our improvement when by his ploughing up of our hearts and the dew of his grace and the seed of his word we come to give greaâ—â—r cent in the fruit of sanctification than before And since he loves â—s thus and that in him this love is velle bonum a desire that his beloved should be happy what soul amongst us shall doubt that when God hath such an abundant and infinite treasure as the merit and passion of Christ Jesus sufficient to save millions of worlds and yet many millions in this world all the heathen excluded from any interest therein when God hath a kingdome so large as that nothing limits it and yet he hath banished many natural subjects thereof even those legions of Angels which were created in it and are fallen from it what soul amongst us shall doubt but that he that hath thus much and loves thus much will not deny her a portion in the blood of Christ or a room in the kingdome of heaven No soul can doubt it except it have been a witness to it self and be so still that it love not Christ Jesus for that 's a condition necessary And that is the third branch to which we are come now in our order that this love be mutuall I love them c. If any man loves not our Lord Jesus let him be accursed Mutual saies the Apostle Now the first part of this curse is upon the indisposition to love he that loves not at all is first accursed That stupid inconsideration which passes on drowsilie and negligently upon Gods creatures that sullen indifferency in ones disposition to love one thing no more than another not to value not to chuse not to prefer that stoniness that in humanity not to be
to bear any slavish yoak had a tyrannical meaning in his words But in this Text as in one of those Tables in which by changing the station and the line you use to see two pictures you have a good picture of a good King and of a good subject for in one line you see such a subject as Loves pureness of heart and hath grace in his lips In the other line you see the King gracious yea friendly to such a subject He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend The sum of the words is that God will make an honest man acceptable to the King for some ability which he shall employ to the publike Him that proceeds sincerely in a lawful calling God will bless and prosper and he will seal this blessing to him even with that which is his own seal his own image the favor of the King He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend We will not be curious in placing these two pictures nor considering which to consider first As he that would vow a fast till he had found in nature whether the Egge or the Hen were first in the world might perchance starve himself so that King or that subject which would forbear to do their several duties Serm. 24. till they had found which of them were most necessary to one another might starve one another for King and subjects are Relatives and cannot be considered in execution of their duties but together The greatest Mystery in Earth or Heaven which is the Trinity is conveyed to our understanding no other way then so as they have reference to one another by Relation as we say in the Schools for God could not be a father without a Son nor the Holy Ghost Spiratus sine spirante As in Divinity so in Humanity too Relations constitute one another King and subject come at once and together into consideration Neither is it so pertinent a consideration which of them was made for others sake as that they were both made for Gods sake and equally bound to advance his glory Here in our Text we finde the subjects picture first Divisio And his Marks are two first Pureness of Heart That he be an honest Man And then Grace of lips that he be good for something for by this phrase Grace of lips is expressed every ability to do any office of society for the Publike good The first of these Pureness of heart he must love The other that is Grace of lips that is other Abilities he must have but he must not be in love with them nor over-value them In the Kings picture the principal marke is That he shall be friendly and gracious but gracious to him that hath this Grace of lips to him that hath endeavored in some way to be of use to the Publike And not to him neither for all the grace of his lips for all his good parts except he also love pureness of heart but He that loveth pureness of heart There 's the foundation for the grace of his lips There 's the upper-building the King shall be his friend In the first then which is this Pureness of heart we are to consider Rem sedem Modum what this Pureness is Part. 1. Puritas Then where it is to be lodged and fixed In the heart and after that the way and means by which this Pureness of heart is acquired and preserved which is implyed and notified in that Affection wherewith this pureness of heart is to be embraced and entertained which is love For Love is so noble so soveraign an Affection as that it is due to very few things and very few things worthy of it Love is a Possessory Affection it delivers over him that loves into the possession of that that he loves it is a transmutatory Affection it changes him that loves into the very nature of that that he loves and he is nothing else For the first Pureness it self It is carried to a great heighth Res. for our imitation God knows too great for our imitation when Christ bids us be perfect Mat. 5.48 even as our father which is in heaven is perfect As though it had not been perfectness enough to be perfect as the Son upon earth was perfect he carries us higher Be perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect The Son upon Earth Christ Jesus had all our infirmities and imperfections upon him hunger and weariness and hearty sorrow to death and that which alone is All Mortality Death it self And though he were Innocence it self and knew no sin yet there was no sin that he knew not for all our sins were his He was not onely made Man and by taking by Admitting though not by Committing our sins as well as our nature sinful Man but he was made sin for our sakes And therefore though he say of himself sicut ego John 15.10 Keep my Commandements even as I have kept my fathers Commandements yet still he refers all originally to the Father and because he was under our infirmities and our iniquities he never says though he might well have said so sicut ego Be pure be perfect as I am perfect and pure but sicut Pater be pure as your Father in heaven is pure Hand to hand with the Father Christ disclaims himself Mat. 26.39 disavows himself Non sicut ego Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt O Father We are not referr'd for the pattern of our purity though we might be safely to him that came from heaven The Son but to him which is in heaven The Father Nor to the Sun which is in heaven the Sun that is the pure fountain of all natural light nor to the Angels which are in heaven though they be pure in their Nature and refined by a continual emanation of the beams of glory upon them from the face of God but the Father which is in heaven is made the pattern of our purity That so when we see the exact purity which we should aim at and labor for we might the more seriously lament and the more studiously endeavor the amendment of that extreme and enormous fouleness and impurity in which we who should be pure as our Father which is in heaven is pure exceed the dog that turns to his own vomit again 2 Pet. 2.22 and the Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire Yet there is no foulness so foul so inexcusable in the eys of God nor that shall so much aggravate our condemnation as a false affectation and an hypocritical counterfeiting of this Purity There is a Pureness a cleanness imagin'd rather dream't of in the Romane Church by which as their words are the soul is abstracted not onely à Passionibus but â Phantasmatibus not onely from passions and perturbations but from the ordinary way of coming to
the soul it is the only means to recover thee But yet wert thou not better to make this grace thy diet then thy physick Wert thou not better to nourish thy soul with this grace all the way then to hope to purge thy soul with it at last This as a Diet the Apostle prescribes thee Whether you eat or drink do all to the glory of God He intends it farther there Whatsoever you do and farther then that in another place Whatsoever ye do in deed 1 Cor. 10.31 Col. 3.17 or in word do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Since there is no action so little but God may be glorified in it there is no action so little but the Devil may have his end in it too and may overthrow thee by a tentation which thou thinkest thy self strong enough to leap over And therefore if you have not given over all love of true weights and true measures weigh and measure your particular and indifferent actions before you do them and you shall see at least grains of iniquity in them and then this advantage will you have by this preconsideration and weighing your actions before hand that when you know there is sin in that action and know that nothing can counterpoise nor weigh down sin but onely the Blood of Christ Jesus you may know too that the Blood of Christ Jesus cannot be had before hand God gives no such non-obstantes no such priviledges no leave to sin no pardon for sin before it be committed And therefore if this premeditation of this action bring thee to see that there is sin in it it must necessarily put a tenderness a horror an aversion in thee from doing that to which being thus done with this preconsideration and presumption the Blood of thy Saviour doth not appertain To all your other Wares the baser and courser they are the greater weight and measure you are content to give to the basest of all to sin you give the lightest weight and scantest measure and you supply all with the excuses of the custom of the time that the necessity of your trade forces you to it else you should be poor and poorly thought of Beloved God never puts his children to a perplexity to a necessity of doing any sin how little soever though for the avoiding of a sin as manifold as Adams It is not a little request to you to beware of little sins It is not a little request and therefore I make it in the words of the greatest to the greatest for they are all one Head and Body of Christ to his Church Cant. 2.15 Capite vulpeculas Take us the little Foxes for they devour the Vines It is not a cropping not a pilling nor a retarding of the growth of the Vines but Demoliuntur as little as those Foxes are they devour the Vines they root them out Thy Soul is not so easily devoured by that Lion 1 Pet. 5.8 Apoc. 5.5 that seeks whom he may devour for still he is put to seek and does not always finde And thou shalt hear his roaring that is thou shalt discern a great sin and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah will come in to thy succor as soon as thou callest But take heed that thy Soul be not eaten up with vermin by those little sins which thou thinkst thou canst forbear and give over when thou wilt God punished the Egyptians most by little things Hailstones and Frogs and Grashoppers and Pharaohs Sorcerers Exod. 8.16 which did greater failed in the least in Lice It is true there is Physick for this Christ Jesus that receives thy greatest sins into his Blood can receive these Vermin too into his Bowels even at last but yet still make his Grace rather thy Diet by a daily consideration before hand then thy Physick at last It is ill to take two Physicks at once bodily and ghostly Physick too upon thy Death-bed The Apothecary and the Physician do well together the Apothecary and the Priest not so well Consult with him before at least consult with thine own Conscience in those little actions which either their own nature or the custom of the time or thy course of life thy calling and the example of others in thy calling made thee think indifferent For though it may seem a degree of flattery to preach against little sins in such a City as this where greater sins do abound yet because these be the materials and elements of greater sins and it is impossible to say where a Bowl will lie that is let fall down a Hill though it be let never so gently out of the hand and there is no pureness of heart till even these Cobwebs and Crums be swept away He that affects that pureness will consider well that of St. Augustine Psal 24.4 Interest inter rectum corde mundum corde a right heart and a clean heart is not all one He may have a right heart that keeps in the right way in the profession of the right Religion but he onely keeps his heart pure that watches all his steps even in that right way St. Augustine considers that question of David Psal 24.3 Quis ascendet and quis stabit Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord and who shall stand in his holy place And he applies the answer Innocens manibus mundo corde He that hath clean hands and a pure heart Thus That he that hath clean hands clean from blood clean from bribery and oppression clean from fornication and such notorious sins Ascendet in montem He shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord he shall be admitted to all the benefits that the Christian Church can give him but onely he that hath a pure heart a care to glorifie God in a holy watchfulness upon all his particular actions to the exclusion of lesser sins stabit shall stand safe confident unshaken in his holy place even in the judgment of God clean hands justifie him to men a pure heart to God And therefore this pureness of heart is here wrapped up in the richest mantle in the noblest affection that the nature of man hath that is love For this is not onely a contentment an acquiescence a satisfaction a delight in this pureness of heart but love is a holy impatience in being without it or being in a jealousie that we are without it and it is a holy fervor and vehemency in the pursuit of it and a preferring it before any other thing that can be compared to it That 's love and therefore it deserves to be insisted upon now when in our order proposed at first from the thing it self that is required pureness and the seat and center of that pureness the heart and the way of this fixation of this pureness in the heart detestation of former habits of sins and prevention of future sins in a watchful consideration of all our actions before we do them We are come to that affection
wherewith this inestimable pureness is to be embraced love He that loveth pureness of heart Love in Divinity is such an attribute or such a notion as designs to us one person in the Trinity and that person who communicates and applies to us Amor. the other two persons that is The Holy Ghost So that as there is no power but with relation to the Father nor wisdom but with relation to the Son so there should be no love but in the Holy Ghost from whom comes this pureness of heart and consequently the love of it necessarily For the love of this pureness is part of this pureness it self and no man hath it except he love it All love which is placed upon lower things admits satiety but this love of this pureness always grows always proceeds It does not onely file off the rust of our hearts in purging us of old habits but proceeds to a daily polishing of the heart in an exact watchfulness and brings us to that brightness Augustine Ut ipse videas faciem in corde alii videant cor in facie That thou maist see thy face in thy heart and the world may see thy heart in thy face indeed that to both both heart and face may be all one Thou shalt be a Looking-glass to thy self and to others too Mulieres The highest degree of other love is the love of woman Which love when it is rightly placed upon one woman it is dignified by the Apostle with the highest comparison Ephes 5.25 Husbands love your wives as Christ loved his Church And God himself forbad not that this love should be great enough to change natural affection Gen. 2.24 Relinquet patrem for this a man shall leave his Father yea to change nature it self caro una two shall be one Accordingly David expresses himself so in commemoration of Jonathan 2 Sam. 1.26 Thy love to me was wonderful passing the love of women A love above that love is wonderful Now this love between man and woman doth so much confess a satiety as that if a woman think to hold a man long she provides her self some other capacity some other title then meerly as she is a woman Her wit and her conversation must continue this love and she must be a wife a helper else meerly as a woman this love must necessarily have intermissions And therefore St. Jerome notes a custom of his time Jerome perchance prophetically enough of our times too that to uphold an unlawful love and make it continue they used to call one another Friend and Sister and Cousen Ut etiam peccatis induant nomina caritatis that they might apparel ill affections in good names and those names of natural and civil love might carry on and continue a work which otherwise would sooner have withered In Parables and in Mythology and in the application of Fables this affection of love for the often change of subjects is described to have wings whereas the true nature of a good love such as the love of this Text is a constant union But our love of earthly things is not so good as to be volatilis apt to fly for it is always groveling upon the earth and earthly objects As in spiritual fornications the Idols are said to have ears and hear not and eyes and see not so in this idolatrous love of the Creature love hath wings and flies not it flies not upward it never ascends to the contemplation of the Creator in the Creature The Poets afford us but one Man that in his love flew so high as the Moon Endymion loved the Moon The sphear of our loves is sublunary upon things naturally inferior to our selves Let none of this be so mistaken as though women were thought improper for divine or for civil conversation For they have the same soul and of their good using the faculties of that soul the Ecclesiastick story and the Martyrologies give us abundant examples of great things done and suffered by women for the advancement of Gods glory But yet as when the woman was taken out of man God caused a heavy sleep to fall upon man Gen. 2.22 and he slept so doth the Devil cast a heavy sleep upon him too When the woman is so received into man again as that she possesses him fills him transports him I know the Fathers are frequent in comparing and paralleling Eve the Mother of Man and Mary the Mother of God But God forbid any should say That the Virgin Mary concurred to our good so as Eve did to our ruine It is said truly That as by one man sin entred and death Rom. 5.12 so by one man entred life It may be said That by one woman sin entred and death and that rather then by the man for 1 Tim. 2.14 Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression But it cannot be said in that sense or that manner that by one woman innocence entred and life The Virgin Mary had not the same interest in our salvation as Eve had in our destruction nothing that she did entred into that treasure that ransom that redeemed us She more then any other woman and many other blessed women since have done many things for the advancing of the glory of God and imitation of others so that they are not unfit for spiritual conversation nor for the civil offices of friendship neither where both tentation at home and scandal abroad may truly be avoided I know St. Jerome in that case despised all scandal and all malicious mis-interpretations of his purpose therein rather then give over perswading the Lady Paula to come from Rome to him and live at Jerusalem But I know not so well that he did well in so doing A familiar and assiduous conversation with women will hardly be without tentation and scandal St. Jerome himself apprehended that scandal tenderly and expresses it passionately Sceleratum me putant omnibus peccatis obrutum The world takes me for a vicious man more sceleratum for a wicked a facinorous man for this and obrutum surrounded overflowed with all sins Versipellem lubricum mendacem satanae arte decipientem They take me to be a slippery fellow a turn-coat from my professed austerity a Lyar an Impostor a Deceiver yet though he discerned this scandal and this inconvenience in it he makes shift to ease himself in this Nihil aliud mihi objicitur nisi sexus meus They charge me with nothing but my sex that I am a man Et hoc nunquam objicitur nisi cum Hierosolymam Paula proficiscitur nor that neither but because this Lady follows me to Jerusalem He proceeds farther That till he came acquainted in Paulas house at Rome Omnium penè judicio summo sacerdotio dignus decernebar every man thought me fit to be Pope every man thought reverently of him till he used her house St. Jerome would fain have corrected their mis-interpretations and slackned the
scandal as we see in that vehement expostulation and unlikelihood of an ill love between him and Paula Nulla alia me Romae edomare potuit Was Rome so barren so weak so ill furnished with instruments of tentation that nothing in Rome it self could shake my constancy or retard my austerity Nisi lugens jejuna squallida fletibus caecata but a sad fasting ill drest woman blinde with weeping Et quam manducantem nunquam vidi A woman whom as familiar and domestick as I was in her house I could never see eat bit of meat But all this would not quench the fire the scandal grew he found it even amongst his brethren Homines Christiani dicunt he could not say that onely the enemies of the faith or his enemies but they that loved Religion well and him well talked dangerously and suspiciously of it and yet St. Jerome could not dispose himself to forbear that conversation He overcame the sense of it with a par pari refertur I says he am even with them Invicem insanire videmur they think me mad and I think them mad But this is not always a safe nor a charitable way when he might so easily have cured both madnesses But he perseveres in it with that resolution Saluta Paulam velit nolit mundus in Christo meam Remember me to my Paula let the world say what it will in Christ my Paula Thus he proceeds if excusably in his own behalf that is the best certainly not exemplarily not to be followed by others in cases of so great scandal For there goes not onely a great deal of innocency which we acknowledge doubtlesly to have been between that blessed couple but there must go a great deal of necessity too that is That Paula could not have been reduced by any other means to the service of God or continued in it but by following St. Jerome to Jerusalem to justifie such a conversation as became so scandalous And howsoever in some cases excuses might be found what good Mariner would anchor under a Rock and lie in danger of beating upon that What Fish would chuse his food upon a Hook What Mouse at a Trap What man would mingle Sugar and Rats-bane together and then trust his cunning to sever them again Why should any man chuse such company such conversation as may minister tentation to him or scandal to others Augustine St. Augustine apprehended this danger tenderly when he gave his reason why he would not have his Mother in the house with him Because says he though there be no danger of scandal in the person of my Mother all those women that serve my Mother and that accompany my Mother and that visit my Mother all they are not Mothers to me and a lawful conversation may come to an unlawful love quickly We see how this love wrought when it was scattered upon many women and therefore could not be so dangerously vehement upon any one in Solomon whose wife turned away his heart 1 King 11.4 Augustine so that his heart was not perfect with God Nec errore putavit Idolis serviendum Solomon never came to think deliberately that Idolatry was lawful sed blanditiis foemineis ad illa sacrificia compulsus his appliableness to women brought him to that sacriledge Thus it wrought even when it was scattered upon many in Solomon and we see how it wrought when it was collected and contracted upon one object in Samson Judg. 16.6 Because she was importunate upon him says the Text and vexed him with her words continually his soul was pained unto the death Yea if we go as high as is possible to Adam himself we see both St. Augustine and St. Jerome express his case thus Adam non tanquam verum loquenti credidit Adam did not believe Eve nor was not overcome by her reasons when she provoked him to eat the Apple Sed sociali necessitudini paruit he was affected with that near interest which was between them And ne contristaretur delicias suas lest by refusing he should put her whom he delighted in to a desperate sadness and sense of her sin he eat for company And as the first and the middle times did so without doubt our own times too if we search but our selves at home do minister examples of this in a proportion which neither St. Jerome nor Solomon nor Samson nor Adam avoided that an over-tender indulgence towards such women that for other respects they were bound to love inclined them to do such things as otherwise they would not have done Natural and civil obligations induced conversation and conversation tentation or if not that really yet scandal That that we drive to in all this is this that if we may not exceed in this love which is natural and commanded much less in any other So that there is nothing in this world left for this noble and operative affection Love to work upon but this pureness of heart Love it therefore that thou mayst seek it love it that thou mayest have it love it that thou mayest love it for as we said before it is a part of this pureness to love it Some of the ancient Fathers out of their love to it have put so high a price and estimation upon it that they hardly afforded any grace any pardon to those that sinned after they had once received this pureness in Baptism So that with them the heart could never be clean again after it was once foul'd a second time Our new Romane Chymists Maldâ—n on the other side they that can transubstantiate bread into God they can change any foulness into cleaness easily They require no more after sin but quendam tenuem dolorem internum A little slight inward sorrow and that 's enough For they have provided an easier way then Contrition for that which they have induc'd and call Attrition is not an affection qui habet pro sine Deum That hath proposed God for the mark that it is directed too Nec qui indiget divina gratia but it is such an affection as may be had without any concurrence or assistance of grace and is onely Dolor naturalis Zambran ex timore servili a natural sorrow proceeding onely out of a servile fear of torment And yet a Confession made with this Attrition and no more is enough for salvation say they and he that hath made a confession with such a disposition as this This that hath no reference to God This that hath no strength from his grace This that hath no motive from the fear of God shall never need to repent any farther for his sins Displiceri de peccato Cajâ—tan sed non super omni displicibili This is Attrition to be displeased with our sins but not more with our sins then with any thing else Intendere vitare peccatum sed non super omne vitabile To have a purpose to leave a sin but not the sin rather then any thing
else this is their Attrition and this is their enough for salvation A sigh of the penitent a word of the Priest makes all clean and induces an absolute pureness Thus some of the Ancients went too far They would pardon no sin after Baptism These new Men go not far enough They pardon all too easily Old Physicians thought all hurts in the heart presently mortal These new Physitians can pare off some of the heart and give it to Idolatry for so they say that the worship due to God may be given to a creature so it be not Tanquam Deo as that the Creature is thereby professed to be God and yet they confess that that worship which they give to the creature is idolatry but not that Idolatry say they which is forbidden in the commandment which is that that Creature so worshipped with the worship due to God be also believed to be God and so truely I believe it will be hard to finde any Idolatry in the world That they that worship any thing in representation of God do believe advisedly that representation to be very God But the true reason why no hurt received in the heart can be healed is quia palpitat because it is in perpetual motion If the heart lay still as other parts do so that medicinal helps might be applied to it and admitted by it there were more hope Therefore when we lay such a weight upon the heart as may settle it fix it give it a reposedness and acquiescence though it do receive some wounds though it be touched with some tentations it may be cured But is there any such weight as should so settle the heart the soul of Man This love of Pureness is that weight August Amor est pondus animae sicut gravitas Corporis As the weight of my body makes that steady so this love of Pureness is the weight and the ballast of my soul and this weight stays the palpitation the variation the deviation of the heart upon other objects which variation frustrates all endeavors to cure it The love of this pureness is both the ballast and the frait to carry thee steadily and richly too through all storms and tempests spiritual and temporal in this life to the everlasting Jerusalem If you be come to this love this love of pureness of heart never to lock up your door till you have carried out your dust never to shut your eyes at night till you have swept your conscience and cast your foulness into that infinite sea of the blood of Christ Jesus which can contract no foulness by it never to open your eyes in the morning but that you look out to glorifie God in the rising of the Sun and in his other creatures and in the peace and safety of your house and family and the health of your children and servants But especially to look inward and consider whether you have not that night mingled poyson with Gods Physick whether you have not mingled sloth and laziness in that which God gave you for rest and refreshing whether you have not mingled licentiousness in that which God gave you for a remedy against fornication And then when you shall have found that sin hath been awake in you even when your bodies were asleep be sure you cast not the Spirit of God into a sleep in you when your bodies are awake but that you proceed vigilantly in your several wayes with a fore-knowledge that there is every where coluber in via A Snake in the way in every way that you can take in every course of life in every calling there is some of the seed of the old Serpent presents it self And then if by Gods infallible word explicated in his Church Psal 119.104 which is Lucerna pedibus vestris The word is the light but the Church is the Lanthorne 2 Sam. 22.29 it presents and preserves that light unto you and though it be said Lucerna Dominus Apoc. 21.23 Thou O Lord art my light God himself And Lucerna Agnus The Lamb Christ himself is your light And lucerna mandatum Prov. 6.23 John 5.35 The commandments of God are your light yet it is also said of Iohn Baptist Lucerna ardens he was a burning and a shining light The Ministry of the Gospel in the Church is your light If by the benefit of this light you consider every step you make weigh every action you undertake this is that love of Pureness that Pondus animae the setling of the heart that keeps it from evaporating upon transitory things and settles it so as that it becomes capable of that cure which God in his Church in the Absolution of sins and seals of Reconciliation exhibits to it To recollect and contract that which hath been said This pureness is not a purifying pureness to correct and reform those things that appertain not to us nor it is not such a purified pureness as makes us Canonize our selves and think others Reprobates for all this is no pureness at all neither is it the true pureness if it be not in the heart for outward good works not done to good ends are impure nor is this pureness of heart acquired by any other means then by discharging the heart in a detestation of former habits and a sedulous watchfulness in preventing future attempts nor can this pureness of heart though by these means attain'd to be preserved but by this noble and incorruptible affection of Love that puts a true value upon it and therefore prefers it above all other things And this was the first of the two marks which we found to be upon that person that should be capable of the Kings friendship He that loveth pureness of heart And the other is that he have by honest industry fitted himself in some way to be of use to the publike delivered in that phrase Grace of lips He that loveth pureness of heart There 's his honesty for the Grace of his lips There 's his sufficiency The King shall be his friend There 's his reward his preferment Gratia labiorum Ordinarily in Scriptures where this word lips is not taken naturally literally narrowly for that part of the body but transferred to a figurative and larger sense either it signifies speaking onely as in Solomon As righteous lips are the delight of Kings and the King loveth him that speaketh right things That is Him in whose Counsels Prov. 16.13 and in whose relations he may confide and rely or else it is enlarged to all manner of expressing a mans ability to do service to that State in which God hath made his station and by lips and fruits of lips is well understood the fruit of all his good labors and endeavors And so may those words be well interpreted With the fruit of a mans mouth shall his belly be satisfied and with the encrease of his lips shall he be filled 18.20 That is his honest labors in a lawful calling shall
enrich him As therefore those words Vers 16. A mans gift maketh room for him and bringeth him before great men are not always understood of Gifts given in nature of Bribes or gratifications for access to great persons but also of Gifts given by God to men that those Gifts and good parts make them acceptable to great persons so is not Grace of lips to be restrained either to a plausible and harmonious speaking appliable to the humor of the hearer for that 's excluded in the first part the root and fountain of all Pureness of heart for flattery cannot consist with that nor to be restrained to the good Offices and Abilities of the tongue onely though they be many but this Grace of lips is to be enlarged to all declarations and expressings and utterings of an ability to serve the Publick All that is Grace of lips And in those words of Osea We render the Calves of our lips is neither meant as the Jews say 14.13 Those Calves which we have promised with our lips and will pay in sacrifice then when we are restor'd to our Land of promise again Nor are those Calves of our lips only restrained to the Lip-service of Praise Heb. 14.15 and Prayer though of them also St. Paul understand them but they include all the sacrifices of the New Testament and all ways by which man can do service to God so here the Grace of lips reaches to all the ways by which a man in civil functions may serve the Publick And this Grace of lips in some proportion in some measure every man is bound in conscience to procure to himself he is bound to enable himself to be useful and profitable to the Publick in some course in some vocation Since even the Angels which are all Spirit be yet administring Spirits and execute the Commissions and Ambassages of God and communicate with men should man who is not made all soul but a composed creature of body and soul exempt himself from doing the offices of mutual society and upholding that frame in which God is pleased to be glorified Since God himself who so many millions of ages contented himself with himself in Heaven yet at last made this world for his glory shall any man live so in it as to contribute nothing towards it Hath God made this World his Theatre ut exhibeatur ludus deorum Plato that man may represent God in his conversation and wilt thou play no part But think that thou only wast made to pass thy time merrily and to be the only spectator upon this Theatre Is the world a great and harmonious Organ where all parts are play'd and all play parts and must thou only sit idle and hear it Is every body else made to be a Member and to do some real office for the sustentation of this great Body this World and wilt thou only be no member of this Body Thinkest thou that thou wast made to be Cos Amoris a Mole in the Face for Ornament a Man of delight in the World Because thy wit thy fashion and some such nothing as that hath made thee a delightful and acceptable companion wilt thou therefore pass in jeast and be nothing If thou wilt be no link of Gods Chain thou must have no part in the influence and providence derived by that successively to us Since it is for thy fault that God hath cursed the Earth and that therefore it must bring forth Thorns and Thistles wilt not thou stoop down nor endanger the pricking of thy hand to weed them up Thinkest thou to eat bread and not sweat Hast thou a prerogative above the common Law of Nature Or must God insert a particular clause of exemption for thy sake Oh get thee then this grace of lips be fit to be inserted and be inserted into some society and some way of doing good to the Publick I speak not this to your selves you Senators of London but as God hath blessed you in your ways and in your Callings so put your children into ways and courses too in which God may bless them The dew of Heaven falls upon them that are abroad Gods blessings fall upon them that travel in the world The Fathers former labors shall not excuse their Sons future idleness as the Father hath so the Son must glorifie God and contribute to the world in some setled course And then as God hath blessed thee in the grace of thy lips in thy endeavors in thy self so thy sons shall grow up as the Son of God himself did in grace and favour of God and man As God hath blessed thee in the fruit of thy Cattel so he shall bless thee in the fruit of thy Body and as he hath blessed thee in the City so he shall bless thee in the Field in that Inheritance which thou shalt leave to thy Son Whereas when children are brought up in such a tenderness and wantonness at home as is too frequent amongst you in this City they never come to be of use to the State nor their own Estates of any longer use to them That Son that comes to say My Father hath laboured and therefore I may take mine ease will come to say at last My Savior hath suffered and therefore I may take my pleasure My Savior hath fasted and therefore I may riot My Savior hath wept enough and therefore I may be merry But as our Savior requires Cooperarios that we be fellow-workers with him to make sure our salvation so if your Sons be not Cooperarii Labourers in some course of life to make sure their Inheritance though you have been called wise in your generation that is rich in your own times yet you will be called fools in your generation too that is ignominious and wretched in your posterity In a word he that will be nothing in this world shall be nothing in the next nor shall he have the Communion of Saints there that will not have the Communion of good men here As much as he can he frustrates Gods Creation God produced things of nothing and he endeavours to bring all to nothing again and he despises his own immortality and glorification for since he lives the life of a beast he shews that he could be content to die so too accepit animam in vano he hath received a soul to no purpose This grace of lips then this ability to do good to the Publick we are bound to have but we are not commanded to love it as we are the pureness of heart we must love to have it but we must not be in love with it when we have it But since the holy Ghost hath chosen to express these abilities in this word Grace of lips that intimates a duty of utterance and declaration of those abilities which he hath Habere te agnoscere ex te nihil habere To let it appear in the use of them that thou hast good parts and to confess that thou
Rule Whensoever thou enter prisest any action says he consider what Socrates what Plato that is what a wise and religious man would have done in that case and do thou so This way our Saviour directs us Ja. 13.15 I have given you an example It is not only Mandatum novum but exemplum Novum That ye should do even as I have done unto you And this is the way that the Apostle directs us to Phil. 3.13 Brethren be followers of me and because he could not be always with them he adds Look on them which walk so as you have us for an example Love the Legends the Lives the Actions and love the sayings the Apopththegms of good men In all tentations like Josephs tentations Gen. 39.9 love Josephs words How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God In all tentations like Jobs tentations love the words of Job Job 2.10 Shall we receive good at the hands of God and shall we not receive evil In all tentations like to Shidrachs and his fellow-Confessors Dan 3.17 love their words Our God is able to deliver us and he will deliver us but if not we will not serve thy god nor worship thine image Certainly without the practise it is scarce to be discern'd what ease and what profit there is in proposing certain and good Examples to our selves And when you have made up your profit that way rectified your self by that course then as your Sons write by Copies and your Daughters work by Samplars be every Father a Copy to his Son every Mother a Samplar to her Daughter and every house will be an University O in how blessed a nearness to their Direction is that Child and that Servant and that Parishioner who when they shall say to Almighty God by way of Prayer What shall I do to get eternal life shall hear God answer to them by his Spirit Do but as thou seest thy Father do do as thou seest thy Master do do as thou seest thy Pastor do To become a precedent govern thy self by precedent first which is all the Doctrine that I intended to deduce out of this second Proposition Sicut Deus As God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts God did as he had done before and so we pass from the Idem Deus and the Sicut Deus to the Quid Deus What that is which God hath done here He commanded light out of darkness Quid Deus The drowning of the first world and the repairing that again the burning of this world and establishing another in heaven do not so much strain a mans Reason as the Creation a Creation of all out of nothing For for the repairing of the world after the Flood compared to the Creation it was eight to nothing eight persons to begin a world upon then but in the Creation none And for the glory which we receive in the next world it is in some sort as the stamping of a print upon a Coyn the metal is there already a body and a soul to receive glory but at the Creation there was no soul to receive glory no body to receive a soul no stuff no matter to make a body of The less any thing is the less we know it how invisible how intelligible a thing then is this Nothing We say in the School Deus cognoscibilior Angelis We have better means to know the nature of God then of Angels because God hath appeared and manifested himself more in actions then Angels have done we know what they are by knowing what they have done and it is very little that is related to us what Angels have done what then is there that can bring this Nothing to our understanding what hath that done A Leviathan a Whale from a grain of Spawn an Oke from a buried Akehorn is a great but a great world from nothing is a strange improvement We wonder to see a man rise from nothing to a great Estate but that Nothing is but nothing in comparison but absolutely nothing meerly nothing is more incomprehensible then any thing then all things together It is a state if a man may call it a state that the Devil himself in the midst of his torments cannot wish No man can the Devil himself cannot advisedly deliberately wish himself to be nothing It is truely and safely said in the School That whatsoever can be the subject of a wish if I can desire it wish it it must necessarily be better at least in my opinion then that which I have and whatsoever is better is not nothing whithout doubt it must necessarily produce more thankfulness in me towards God that I am a Christian but certainly more wonder that I am a Creature it is vehemently spoken but yet needs no excuse which Justin Marter says Ne ipsi quidem Domino fidem haberem c. I should scarce believe God himself if he should tell me that any but himself created this world of nothing so infallible and so inseparable a work and so distinctive a Character is it of the Godhead to produce any thing from nothing and that God did when he commanded light out of darkness Moses stands not long upon the Creation in the description thereof no more will we When there went but a word to the making it self why should we make many words in the description thereof We will therefore onely declare the three terms in this Proposition and so proceed first God commanded then he commanded light and light out of darkness For the first that which we translate here commanded is in St. Pauls mouth the same that is Moses Dixit and no more God said it But then if he said it Cui dixit to whom did he say it Procopius asks the Question and he answers himself Dixit Angelis He said it to the Angels For Procopius being of that opinion which very many were of besides himself that God had made the Angels some time before he came to the Creation of particular Creatures he thinks that when he came to that he call'd the Angels that they by seeing of what all other Creatures were made might know also of what stuff themselves were made of the common and general nothing Some others had said that God said this to the Creature it self which was now in fieri as we say in the School in the production ready to be brought forth Athanasius But then says Athanasius God would have said Sis Lux and not Sit Lux He would have said Be thou O Light or appear and come forth O Light and not Let there be Light But what needs all this vexation in Procopius or Athanasius When as Dicere Dei est intelligere ejus practicum Dionysius Carthus when God would produce his Idaea his pre-conception into action that action that production was his Dixit his saying It is as we say in School Actus indicativus practici intellectus Gods outward
that it comes to the Sickness but not to the physick In small diseases saith St. Basil we go to the Physitians house in greater diseases we send for the Physitian to our house but in violent diseases in the stupefaction of an Apoplexy in the damp of a leturgy in the furnace of a Pleurisie we have no sence no desire of a Physitian at all When this inordinate love of Riches begins in us we have some tenderness of Conscience and we consult with Gods Ministers After we admit the reprehensions of Gods Ministers when they speak to our Consciences but at last the habit of our sin hath seared us up and we never find that it is we that the Preacher means we find that he touches others but not us Our wit and our malice is awake but our conscience is asleep we can make a Sermon a libel against others and cannot find a Sermon in a Sermon to our selves It is a sickness and an evil sickness Visibilis Now this is not such a sickness as we have onely read of and no more It concernes us not onely so as the memory of the sweat of which we do rather wounder at the report then consider the manner or the remedies against it Those divers plagues which God inflicted upon Pharoah for withholding his people That devouring Pestilence which God stroke Davids kingdom with for numbring his people That destruction which God kindled in Sennacheribs army for oppressing his people These because God hath represented them in so clear and so true a glass as his word we do in a manner see them Things in other stories we do but hear things in the Scriptures we see The Scriptures are as a room wainscotted with looking-glass we see all at once But this evil sickness of reserving riches to our own evil is plainer to be seen because it is daily round about us dayly within us in our consciences experiences There are sins that are not evident not easily discerned therefore David annexes a Scedule to his prayer after all Ab occultis meis mundame saith David There are sins which the difference of religion makes a sin or no sin we know it to be a sin to abstain from coming to Church our adversaries are made beleeve it is a time to come There are middle-men that when our Church appoints coming and receiving and anoother Church forbids both they will do half of both they will come and not receive and so be friends with both There are sins recorded in the Scriptures in which it is hard for any to find the name the nature what the sin was how doth the School vex it self to find out what was the nature of the sin of the Angels or what was the name of the sin of Adam There are actions recorded in the Scriptures in which by Gods subsequent punishment there appears sin to have been committed and yet to have considered the action alone without the testimony of Gods displeasure upon it a natural man would not easily find out a sin Numb 22. Balaam was solicited to come and curse Gods people he refused he consulted with God God bids him go but follow such instructions as he should give him after And yet the wrath of God was kindled because he went Numb 20. Moses seems to have pursued Gods commandement exactly in drawing water out of the Rock and yet God sayes Because you believed me not you shall not bring this congregation into that land of promise There are sins hard to be seen out of the nature of Man because Man naturally is not watchful upon his particular actions for if he were so he would escape great sins when we see sand we are not much afraid of a stone when a Man sees his small sins there is not so much danger of great But some sins we see not out of a natural blindness in our selves some we see not out of a natural dimness in the sin it self But this sickly sin this sinful sickness of gathering Riches is so obvious so manifest to every mans apprehension as that the books of Moral men and Philosophers are as full of it as the Bible But yet the Holy Ghost as he doth alwaies even in moral Counsels exceeds the Philosophers for whereas they place this sickness in gathering unnecessary riches injuriously the Holy Ghost in this place extends iâ— further to a reserving of those riches that when we have sinn'd in the getting of them we sin still in the not restoring of them But to thee who shouldest repent the ill getting Veniet tempus quo non dispensasse poenetebit there will come a time when thou shalt repent the having kept them Hoc certum est Ego sum sponsor Basil of this I dare be the surety saith St. Basil But we can leave St Basil out of the bond we have a better surety and undertaker the Holy Ghost in Solomon So that this evil sickness may be easily seen it is made manifest enough to us all by precedent from God by example of others by experience in our selves Solomon To see this then is an easie a natural thing but to see it so as to condemn it and avoid it this is a wisemans slight this was Solomons slight The wiseman seeth the plague Psal 50.18 and shunneth it therein consists the wisedome But for the fool when he sees a theif he runneth with him when he sees others thrive by ill getting and ill keeping he runs with them he takes the same course as they do Beloved It is not intended that true and heavenly wisedome may not consist with riches Iob and the Patriarchs abounded with both And our pattern in this place Solomon himself saith of himself That he was great Eccles 2.9 and increased above all that were before him in Ierusalem and yet his wisdome remained with him The poor man and the rich are in heaven together and to show us how the rich should use the poor Lazarus is in Abrahams bosome The rich should succour and releive and defend the poor in their bosomes But when our Saviour declares a wisedome belonging to Riches as in the parable of the unjust Steward he places not this wisedome Luk. 16. in the getting nor in the holding of Riches but onely in the using of them make you friends of your Riches that they may receive you into everlasting habitations There 's no Simony in heaven that a man can buy so much as a door-keepers place in the Triumphant Church There 's no bribery there to see Ushers for accesse Gen. 28. But God holds that ladder there whose foot stands upon the earth here and all those good works which are put upon the lowest step of that Ladder here that is that are done in contemplation of him they ascend to him and descend again to us Heaven and earth are as a musical Instrument if you touch a string below the motion goes to the top any
not Jesus till he began to submit himself to the Law for us which was first in his circumcision when he took the name of Jesus and began to shed some drops of blood for us The name of Jesus was no new name when he took it we find some of that name in the Scriptures and in Josephus we find one officer that was his enemy and another a great robber who lighted upon Josephus more then once of that name and yet the Prophet Esai saies of Christ St. Cyril 62.2 interprets those words of this particular man Jesus thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shal name And how was this a new name by which so many had been called before The newness was not in that that none other had had that name but that the Son of God had not that name till he began to execute the office of a Saviour Esa 4.2 â— He was called Germen Jehovae the bud of Jehova before and he was called the Counselor and the wonderful and the Prince of peace by the same Prophet But it is the observation of Origen and of Lactantius after and it appears in the text it self That Moses never cals Oshea the son of Nun Joshuah which is the very name of Jesus till he was made General Num. 13.17 to deliver and save his people so what names soever were attribu to the Son of God before the name of Jesus was a new name to him then when he began the work of salvation in his circumcision Take hold therefore of his name Emanuel as God is with us as there is a person fit to reconcile God and man and take hold of him as he is Christus a person sealed and anointed for that reconciliation But above all be sure of thy hold upon the name Jesus thy Saviour This was his name when he was carried to the Altar to circumcision and this was his name when he carried his Altar the Cross this was his stile there Jesus Nazarenus Jesus of Nazareth and in the virtue of that name he shall give thee a circumcised heart and circumcised lips in the course of thy life and in the virtue of that name he shall give thee a joyful consummatum est when thou comest to finish all upon thy last Altar thy death-bed Servare Now from this consideration of the person so far as arose out of his several names we pass to his action He was able to redeem man He was sent to redeem man He did redeem man How Servavit He came to save And here also is that word which as we said before is above expressing for the word which we content our selves with To save implies but a preserving from falling into ruine but we were absolutely fal'n before The word signifies salutem dare medici and it signifies salutem esse and Christ is truly both both the Physitian and the Physick 9. 13. But how is it ministred we see his method is in St. Matth. veni vocare I came to call his way is a voice now vocat non cogit God doth but call us he does not constrain us He does not drive us into a pound He cals us as Birds do their young and he would gather us as a Hen doth her Chickins It is true there is a Trahit but there is no cogit no man comes to me saies Christ except the Father draw him But Joh 6 44. non inviti trahimur non inviti credimus saies St. Augustine God draws no man against his will no man believes in God against his will non adhibitus violentia sed voluntas exitatur saies the same Father God only excites and exalts our will but he does not force it He makes use of that of the Poet Trahit sua quemque voluptas our carnal desires draw us but this drawing is not a constraining for then we should not be commanded to resist them nor to fight against them for no man will bid me do so against a Cannon bullet that comes with an inevitable and irresistible violence now August habet sensus suas voluptates animus deseritur a suis shall our carnal affections draw us though they do not force us and shall not Grace do the same office too shall we still trust to such a power or such a measure of that Grace at last as that we shall not be able to resist but shall convert us whether we will or no and never concur willingly with Gods present grace Draw me and I will run after thee saies the Spouse Cant. 1.4 she was called before now she awakens and she does not say draw me and so I shall be screwd up unto thee and lay all upon the force of grace but draw me and I will run she promises an application and concurrence on her part So then venit salvare is venit vocare He came to save by calling us as an eloquent and a perswasive man draws his Auditory but yet imprints no necessity upon the faculty of the will so works Gods calling of us in his word God expresses it fully in the Prophet Hose 11.3 I sought Ephraim to go we are not able to go to rise to move without him But how did he teach him I took them by their arms God made use of their faculties which faculties are the limbs of the Soul so he enlightned their understanding and he rectified their will but still their underding and their will I draw them saies God their But how and with what With cords of man saies he and with bands of love with the cords of man the voice of the Minister and the power which Gods Ordinance hath infused into that and with the band of love that is of the Gospel so proposed unto us and as it is added there I took off the yoke from their jaws and I laid meat before them God takes off our yoke the weight of our sins and the indisposition of our natural infirmities and he laies meat before us the Word and the Sacraments in his Church So that his venit salvare is venit solvere solvere that is to pay our debt in his death and solvere that is to unty our bands and by his grace to make our natural faculties formerly bound up in a corrupt inhability to do so now able to concurre with him and cooperate to good actions He prepared and he prescribed this physick for man August when he was upon earth etiam cum occideretur medicus erat then when he died he became our physitian medici sanguinem fundunt ille de ipso sanguine medicamenta facit other Physitians draw our blood He makes physick of blood and of his own blood So he came to save in preparing and prescribing and he came to save in applying when by the preaching of his word Joseph who is in the well and Jeremy who is in the Dungeon do as much as they can for
fixt the Almighty and immoveable God if it can be content to inquire after it self and take knowledge where it is and in what way it will finde the means of cleansing And so this second consideration The placing of this pureness in the heart enlarges it self also into the third branch of this part which is De Modo by what means this pureness is fix'd in the heart in which is involved the Affection with which it must be embrac'd Love He that loveth pureness of heart Both these then are setled Our heart is naturally foul Modus And our heart may be cleansed But how is our present disquisition Who can bring a clean thing out of filthiness There is not one Job 14.4 Adam foul'd my heart and all yours nor can we make it clean our selves Who can say I have made clean my heart There is but one way Prov. 20.9 a poor beggarly way but easie and sure to ask it of God And even to God himself it seems a hard work to cleanse this heart and therefore our prayer must be with David Cor mundum crea Create Psal 51.12 O Lord a pure heart in me And then comes Gods part not that Gods part begun but then for it was his doing that thou madest this prayer but because it is a work that God does especially delight in to build upon his own foundations when he hath disposed thee to pray and upon that prayer created a new heart in thee then God works upon that new heart and By faith purifyes it Act. 15.9 enables it to preserve the pureness as Saint Peter speaks He had kindled some sparks of this faith in thee before thou askedst that new heart else the prayer had not been of faith but now finding thee obsequious to his beginnings he fuels this fire and purifies thee as Gold and Silver in all his furnaces through Believing and Doing and suffering through faith and works and tribulation we come to this pureness of heart And truely he that lacks but the last but Tribulation as fain as we would be without it lacks one concoction one refining of this heart But in this great work the first act is a Renovation a new heart Coâ— Novâ—m and the other That we keep clean that heart by a continual diligence and vigilancy over all our particular actions In these two consists the whole work of purifying the heart first an Annihilating of the former heart which was all sin And then a holy superintendency over that new heart which God vouchsafes to create in us to keep it as he gives it clean pure It is in a word a Detestation of former sins and a prevention of future And for the first Chromakus Anno 390. Mundi corde sunt qui deposuere cor peccati That 's the new heart that hath disseised expelled the heart of sin There is in us a heart of sin which must be cast up for whilst the heart is under the habits of sin we are not onely sinful but we are all sin as it is truly said that land overflow'd with sea is all sea And when sin hath got a heart in us it will quickly come to be that whole Body of Death Rom. 7.24 which Saint Paul complains of who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death when it is a heart it will get a Braine a Brain that shall minister all Sense and Delight in sin That 's the office of the Brain A Brain which shall send for the sinews and ligaments to tye sins together and pith and marrow to give a succulencie and nourishment even to the bones to the strength and obduration of sin and so it shall do all those services and offices for sin that the brain does to the natural body So also if sin get to be a heart it will get a liver to carry blood and life through all the body of our sinful actions That 's the office of the liver And whilst we dispute whether the throne and seat of the soul be in the Heart or Brain or Liver this tyrant sin will praeoccupate all and become all so as that we shall finde nothing in us without sin nothing in us but sin if our heart be possest inhabited by it And if it be true in our natural bodies that the heart is that part that lives first and dyes last it is much truer of this Cor peccati this heart of sin for this hearty sinner that hath given his heart to his sin doth no more foresee a Death of that sin in himself then he remembers the Birth of it and because he remembers not or understands not how his soul contracted sin by coming into his body he leaves her to the same ignorance how she shall discharge her self of sin when she goes out of that body But as his sin is elder then himself for Adams sin is his sin so is it longer liv'd then his body for it shall cleave everlastingly to his soul too God asks no more of thee but fili da mihi cor Prov. 23.26 My son give me thy heart Because when God gave it thee it was but one heart But since thou hast made it Cor cor as the Prophet speaks a Heart and a Heart a double Heart give both thy Hearts to God thy natural weakness and disposition to sin The inclinations of thy heart And thy habitual practise of sin The obduration of thy heart cor peccans and Cor peccati and he shall create a new heart in thee which is the first way of attaining this pureness of heart to become once in a good state to have as it were paid all thy former debts and so to be the better able to look about thee for the future for prevention of subsequent sins which is the other way that we proposed for attaining this pureness detestation of former habits watchfulness upon particular actions Till this be done till this Cor peccati Peccata Minutiora this hearty habitualness in sin be devested there is no room no footing to stand and sweep it a heart so filled with foulness will admit no counsel no reproof The great Engineir would have undertaken to have removed the World with his Engine if there had been any place to fix his Engine upon out of the World I would undertake by Gods blessing upon his Ordinance to cleanse the foulest heart that is if that Engine which God hath put into my hands might enter into his heart if there were room for the renouncing Gods Judgements and for the application of Gods mercies in the merits of Christ Jesus in his heart they would infallibly work upon him But he hath petrified his heart in sin and then he hath immur'd it wall'd it with a delight in sin and fortified it with a justifying of his sin and adds daily more and more out-works by more and more daily sins so that the denouncing of Judgement the application of Mercies
VVord of Life hath pour'd in this water into that great and Royal Vessel the Understanding and the love of his truth into the large and religious heart of our Soveraign and he pours it out in 100 in 1000 spouts in a more plentiful preaching thereof then ever your Fathers had it in both the ways of plenty plentiful in the frequency plentiful in the learned manner of preaching Illuxit he hath shin'd upon you before you were born in the Covenant in making you the Children of the seed of Abraham of Christian Parents Illuxit he hath shin'd upon you ever since you could hear and see had any exercise of natural and supernatural faculties and Illuxit by his grace who sends treasure in earthen vessels he hath shin'd upon some of you since you came hither now Consider onely now after all this shining that a Candle is as soon blown out at an open door or an open window as in the open street If you open a door to a Supplanter an Underminer a Whisperer against your Religion if there be a broken window a woman loaden with sin as the Apostle speaks and thereby dejected into an inordinate melancholy for such a melancholy as make Witches makes Papists too if she be thereby as apt to change Religions now as Loves before and as weary of this God as of that man if there be such a door such a window a wife a child a friend a sojourner bending that way this light that hath shin'd upon thee may as absolutely go out in thy house and in thy heart as if it were put out in the whole Kingdom Leave the publick to him whose care the publick is and who no doubt prepares a good account to him to whom onely he is accountable Look then to thine own heart and thine own house for that 's thy charge And so we have done with the action shining evidence and with the time Illuxit there is enough done already and we come to the place in Corde if God shine he shines in the heart Fecit Deus Coelum terram Non lego quod requieverit In Cordibus St. Ambros says that Father God made heaven and earth but I do not read that he tested when he had done that Fecit Solem Lunam as he pursues that Meditation He made the Sun and Moon and all the host of heaven but yet he rested not Fecit hominem Requievit When God had made man then he rested for when God had made man he had made his bed the heart of man to rest in God asks nothing of man but his heart and nothing but man can give the heart to God Gen. 8.21 And therefore in that sacrifice of Noah after the flood and often in the Scriptures elsewhere sacrifice is called Odor quietis God smelt a savour of rest in that which proceeds from a religious heart God rests himself and is well pleased Loqui ad Cor Jerusalem to speak to the heart of Jerusalem is ever the Scripture phrase from God to man to speak comfortably and loquiâ—e Corde to speak from the heart is an Emphatical phrase from man to God too He that speaks from his own heart speaks to Gods heart Did not our hearts burn within us while he opened the Scriptures say those two Disciples that went with Christ to Emaus And if your hearts do not so all this while you hear but me Luc. 24.32 and alas who or what am I you hear not God But let this light the love of the ordinary means of your salvation enter into your hearts and shine there and then as the fire in your Chymney grows pale and faints and out of countenance when the Sun shines upon it so whatsoever fires of lust of anger of ambition possessed that heart before it will yeild to this and evaporate But why do I speak all this to others Is it so clear a case that the hearts in this Text are the hearts of others of them that hear and not of our selves that speak That we are to see now for that 's the next and last Branch in this part who be the persons in Cordibus nostris in our hearts Nostris Certainly this word Nostris primarily most literally most directly concerns us Us the Ministers of Gods Word and Sacraments If we take Gods Word into our mouths and pretend a Commission a Calling for the calling of others we must be sure that God hath shin'd in our hearts There is vocatio intentionalis an intentional Calling when Parents in their intention and purpose dedicates their children to this service of God the Ministry even in their Cradle And this is a good and holy intention because though it bind not in the nature of a Vow yet it makes them all the way more careful to give them such an Education as may fit them for that profession And then there is Vocatio Virtualis when having assented to that purpose of my Parents I receive that publick Seal the Imposition of hands in the Church of God but it is Vocatio radicalis the calling that is the root and foundation of all that we have this light shining in our hearts the testimony of Gods Spirit to our spirit that we have this calling from above First then it must be a light not a calling taken out of the darkness of melancholy or darkness of discontent or darkness of want and poverty or darkness of a retir'd life to avoid the mutual duties and offices of society it must be a light and a light that shines it is not enough to have knowledge and learning it must shine out and appear in preaching and it must shine in our hearts in the private testimony of the Spirit there but when it hath so shin'd there it must not go out there but shine still as a Candle in a Candlestick or the Sun in his sphere shine so as it give light to others so that this light doth not shine in our hearts except it appear in the tongue and in the hand too First in the tounge to preach opportune and importune in season and out of season 2 Tim. 4.2 August that is opportune Volentibus importune Nolentibus preaching is in season to them who are willing to hear but though they be not though they had rather the Laws would permit them to be absent or that preaching were given over yet I must preach And in that sense I may use the words of the Apostle As much as in me is I am ready to preach the Gospel to them also that are at Rome at Rome in their hearts at Rome that is of Rome Rom. 1.15 reconciled to Rome I would preach to them if they would have me if they would hear me and that were opportune in season But though we preach importune out of season to their ends and their purposes yet we must preach though they would not have it done for we are debters to all because all are
of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts First He made light There was none before so first He shines in our hearts by his preventing Grace there was no light before not of Nature by which any man could see any means of salvation not of foreseen Merits that God should light his light at our Candle give us Grace therefore because he saw that we would use that Grace well He made light he infus'd Grace And then He made light first of all Creatures Ut innotescerent says St. Ambr. that by that light all his other Creatures might be seen which is also the use of this other light that shines in our hearts that by that light the love of the Truth and the glory of Christ Jesus all our actions may be manifested to the world and abide that tryal that we look for no other approbation of them then as they are justifiable by that light as they conduce to the maintenance of his Religion and the advancement of his glory not to consider actions as they are wisely done valiantly done learnedly done but onely as they are religiously done and ut abdicemus occulta dedecoris v. 2. as the Apostle speaks That we may renounce the hidden things of dishonesty and not walk in craftiness that is not sin therefore because we see our sins may be hid from the world For says St. Ambrose speaking of Gyges Ring a Ring by which he that wore it became invisible Da sapienti says that Father Give a wise man a man religiously wise that Ring and though he might sin invisibly before men he would not because God sees Nay Seneca even the moral man goes further then that in that point Though I knew says he hominem ignoraturum Deum ignosciturum that man should never know it and that God would forgive it I would not sin for the very soulness that is naturally in sin As God commanded light for the Manifestation of his creatures so he hath shin'd in our hearts that our actions might appear by that light How then made he that light Dixit he said it by his Word In which we note first the means Verbo he did it by his Word and by his Word the preaching of his Word doth he shine in our hearts And we consider also the dispatch how soon he made light Chrysost with a word Dixit id est summa cum celeritate fecit his work cost him but a word Tertul. and then Cogitasse jussisse est his word cost him but a thought So if we consider the dispatch of Christ Jesus in all his Miracles there went but a Tolle Take up thy bed and walk to the lame man but an Ephptata Be opened to the deaf man but a Quid vides What seest thou to the blind man If we consider his dispatch upon the thief on the cross how soon he brought him from reviling to glorifying and if any in this Auditory feel that dispatch of the Holy Ghost in his heart that whereas he came hither but to see he hath heard or if he came to hear the man he hath heard God in the man and is better at this Glass then he was at the first better now then when he came and will go away better then he is yet he that feels this must confess that as God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in his heart So that is by the same means by his Word and so that is with the same speed and dispatch Again Deus vidit lucem God saw the light he looked upon it he considered it This second light even Religion it self must be looked upon considered not taken implicitely nor occasionally not advantageously but seriously and deliberately and then assuredly and constantly And then vidit quod bona God saw that this light was good God did not see nor say that darkness was good that ignorance how near of kin soever they make it to Devotion was good nor that the waters were good that a flui'd a moving a variable an uncertain irresolution in matter of Religion is good nor that that Abyssus that depth which was before light was good that it is good to surround and enwrap our selves in deep and perplexing School-points but he saw that light evident and fundamental Articles of Religion were good good to clear thee in all scruples good to sustain thee in all tentations God knew that this light would be good before he made it but he did not say so till he saw it God knew every good work that thou shouldest doe every good thought that thou shouldest think to thy end before thy beginning for he of his own goodness imprinted this degree of goodness in thee but yet assure thy self that he loves thee in another manner and another measure then when thou comest really to doe those good works then before or when thou didst only conceive a purpose of doing them he calls them good when he sees them And when he saw this light this good light he separated all darkness from it When thou hast found this light to have shin'd in thy heart God manifested in his way his true Religion separate all darkness the dark inventions and traditions of men and the works of darkness sin and since thou hast light be night not thy self again with relapsing to either The comparison of these two lights created and infus'd light would run in infinitum I shut it up with this that as at the first production of light till light was made there was a general an universal darkness darkness over all but after light was once made there was never any universal darkness because there is no body bigg enough to shadow the whole Sun from the Earth so till this light shine in our hearts we are wholly darkness but when it hath truly and effectually shin'd in us and manifested to us the evidence of our Election in Gods eternal Decree howsoever there may be some Clouds some Eclipses yet there is no total darkness no total no final falling away of Gods Saints And in all these respects the comparison holds As God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts and so we have done with all the branches of our second part which implies our Vocation here and we pass to the last Our Glorification hereafter As in our first part we consider'd by occasion of the first Creature light the whole Creation and so the Creation of man Part III. and in our second part by occasion of this shining in our hearts the whole work of our Vocation and proceeding in this world so in this third part by occasion of this glorious manifestation of God in the face of Christ Jesus which is intended principally by this Apostle of the manifestation of God in the Christian Church we shall also as far as that dazling glory will give us leave consider the perfect state of glory in the Kingdom of Heaven So
know any thing The soul say they of men so purified understands no longer per phantasmata rerum corporalium not by having any thing presented by the fantasie to the senses and so to the understanding but altogether by a familiar conversation with God and an immediate revelation from God whereas Christ himself contented himself with the ordinary way He was hungry Mat. 21.20 and a fig-tree presented it self to him upon the way and he went to it to eat This is that Pureness in the Romane Church by which the founder of the last Order amongst them Philip Nerius had not onely utterly emptied his heart of the world but had fill'd it too full of God for Congrega Orator so say they he was fain to cry sometimes Recede ame Domine O Lord go farther from me and let me have a less portion of thee But who would be loath to sink by being over-fraited with God or loath to over-set by having so much of that winde the breath of the Spirit of God Privation of the presence of God is Hell a diminution of it is a step toward it Fruition of his presence is Heaven and shall any Man be afraid of having too much Heaven too much God There are many among them that are over laden oppressed with Bishropricks and Abbeys and yet they can bear it and never cry Retrahe domine domine Resume O Lord withdraw from me Resume to thy self some of these superabundancies and shall we think any of them to be so over-fraited and surcharg'd with the presence and with the grace of God as to be put to his Recede domine O Lord withdraw thy self and lessen thy grace towards me This Pureness is not in their heart but in their fantasie We read in the Ecclesiastick story of such a kinde of affectation of singularity very early in the primitive Church Catharsitae We finde two sorts of false Puritans then The Catharists and The Cathari The Catharists thought no creatures of God pure and therefore they brought in strange ceremonial purifications of those Creatures In which error they of the Romane Church succeed them in a great part in their Exorcismes and Consecrations Particularly in the greatest matter of all in the Sacraments For the Catharists in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour thought not the bread pure except it were purified by the aspersion of something issuing from the body of man not fit to be nam'd here And so in the Romane Church they induc'd a use of another Excrement in the other Sacrament They must have spittle in the Sacrament of Baptisme For in those words of Tertullian Tertul. In Baptismo Daemones respuimus In Baptism we Renounce the Devil they will admit no other interpretation of the Respuimus but that Respuere is sputo detestari Durantius de citib l. 1.19 n. 30. That we can drive the Devil away no way but by spitting at him Their predecessors in this the Catharists thought no Creatures pure and therefore purified them by abhominable and detestable ways The second sort of primitive Puritans the Cathari Cathari They thought no men pure but themselves and themselves they thought so pure as to have no sin and that therefore they might and so did leave out as an impertinent clause in the Lords prayer that petition Dimitte nobis debita nostra for they thought they ought God nothing In natural things Monsters have no propagation A Monster does not beget a Monster In spiritual excesses it is otherwise for for this second kinde of Puritans that attribute all purity to themselves and spend all their thoughts upon considering others that weed hath grown so far that whereas those Puritans of the Primitive Church did but refuse to say Dimitte nobis Forgive us our trespasses because they had no sin the Puritan Papist is come to say Recede a nobis O Lord stand farther off for I have too much of thee And whereas the Puritan of the primitive Church did but refuse one Petition of the Lords prayer the later puritan amongst our selves hath refused the whole Prayer Towards both these sorts of false puritans Catharists and Cathari derived down to our time we acknowledge those words of the Apostle to belong 2 Tim. 4.2 Reprove Rebuke Exhort that is leave no such means untryed as may work upon their Understandings and remove their just scruples Preach write confer But when that labor hath been bestow'd and they fear up their Understanding against it so that the fault lies not then in the darkness of their Understanding but meerly in the perversness of the will over which faculty other men have no power towards both these sorts we acknowledge those other words of the Apostle to belong too Gal. 5.12 Utinam abscindantur Would to God they were even cut off that disquiet you Cut off that is removed from means by which and from places in which they might disquiet you These two kinds of false Puritans we finde in the Primitive Church And Satan who lasts still makes them last still too But if we shall imagine a third sort of Puritans and make men afraid of the zeal of the glory of God make men hard and insensible of those wounds that are inflicted upon Christ Jesus in blasphemous oaths and execrations make men ashamed to put a difference between the Sabbath and an ordinary day and so at last make sin an indifferent matter If any man list to be contentious we have no such custome 1 Cor. 11.16 neither the Chuch of God The Church of God encourages them and assists them in that sanctity that purity with all those means wherewith Christ Jesus hath trusted her for the advancement of that purity and professes that she prefers in her recommendations to God in her prayers one Christian truly fervent and zealous before millions of Lukewarme Onely she says in the voice of Christ Jesus her head Wo be unto you Mat. 23 25. if you make clean the outside of cups and platters but leave them full of extortion and excess within Christ calls them to whom he says that blinde Pharisees if they have done so If they think to blinde others Christ calls them blinde But if their purity consist in studying practising the most available means to sanctification and in obedience to lawful authority established according to Gods Ordinance and in acquiescence in fundamental doctrines believed in the ancient Church to be necessary to salvation If they love the peace of conscience and the peace of Sion as Balaam said Let me dye the death of the righteous and let my last end he like his So I say let me live the life of a Puritan Num. 23.10 let the zeal of the house of God consume me let a holy life and an humble obedience to the Law testifie my reverence to God in his Church and in his Magistrate For this is Saint Pauls Puritan To have a pure heart
The end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart And then to have pure hands That we may lift up pure hands 1 Tim. 1.5 2 8. 3 8. without wrath or doubting And to have pure consciences Having the mystery of faith in pure consciences The heart is the fountain from which my good and holy purposes flow My hand is the execution and Declaration of those good purposes produc'd into the eyes of men and my conscience is the testification of the Spirit of God with my spirit that I have actually made those declarations that I have liv'd according to that profession This is Saint Pauls Puritan Pure in Heart pure in Hand pure in Conscience That I do believe I ought to do this That really I do it Thar my conscience tell me after it was rightly done for a man may do good ill and go by ill ways to good ends And then if our purity be but comparative and not positive that we onely look how ill other men be not how good we should be we shall become either Catharists purifying Puritans quarrelling with men with States with Churches and attempting a purifying of Sacraments and Ceremonies Doctrine and Discipline according to our own fancy Or Cathari purified puritans that think they may leave out the Dimitte debita they need ask no forgiveness And then Cains major iniquitas my sin is too great for God to forgive is not worse then this minor iniquitas Gen. 4.13 My sin is too little for God to consider I cannot have a pardon and I do not need a pardon It is impossible for me to get it and it is unnecessary for me to ask it are equal contempts against the Majesty and Mercy of God But this first consideration The nature of his pureness enlarges it self by flowing into the second branch of this first part that is The place where this pureness is established The Heart He that loves pureness of Heart the King shall be his friend Absolute pureness cannot be attained to In via Locus Cor. It is reserved for us In Patria At home in heaven not in our journey here is that pureness to be expected But yet here in the way there is a degree of it acceptable to God of which himself speaks and there it may be had Blessed are the pure in heart so the pureness be placed there all 's well for they shall see God Mat. 5.9 Whether that fight of God be spoken De cognitione Dei of that sight of God 1 Cor. 13.12 which we have here In speculo in a glass in that true glass of his own making his word explicated in the Church or de visione Beatifica of that beatifical vision of God which is salvation howsoever the reward the sight of God in the perfect fruition thereof may be reserved for the future They shall see God yet they are pure and they are blessed already Blessed are the pure in heart This pureness then must be rightly plac'd for in many things the place qualifies and denominates the things it is not Balsamum if it grew not in Palestine It is not pureness if it grew not in the Heart The Hypocrite is the miserablest of all other he does God service and yet is damned The shedding of our blood for God is not a greater service then the winning of souls to God and the Hypocrite many times does that his outward purity works upon them who cannot know it to be counterfeit and draws them truely and sincerely to serve God He does God service and yet perishes 1 Reg. 14.10 because he does it not from the heart God shall take him away as a man taketh away dung till it be all gone God does not say there that he will take away the dunge but the man not that he will take away the Dissimulation of the Hypocrite but he will take away the Hypocrite himself as dunge is taken away till it be all gone till this Hypocrite be swept not clean but clean away If he have a complacency a joy that he can deceive Job 20.5 and can seem that which he is not The joy of the Hypocrite is but for a moment He hath no true joy at all his joy is but dunge and in a moment comes a Cart and fetches away that dunge sweeps away even that false joy Can he hope for more 8.13 The Hope of the Hypocrite shall perish If he can conceive such a hope it shall perish in abortion and never have life Their Hope shall be as the giving up of the Ghost As soon as it is a Hope 11.20 it shall be as the giving up of the Ghost and a Cart shall carry away that dunge that Hope What Cart first God shall disappoint his Hope of deluding the world God shall discover him and lay him open That the Hypocrites reign not 34.30 lest the people be ensnar'd And then when God hath discovered him The innocent shall stir up himself against the Hypocrite that is 17.8 consider him observe him and arm himself against his imaginations And God shall not onely discover him to men but God shall discover himself to him and make him see his future condemnation Fearfulness shall surprize the Hypocrite Esa 33.14 Job 27.8 And then What is the hope of the Hypocrite when God taketh away his soul when the Cart comes for the last load of dunge his corrupt his putrified soul what hope hath the Hypocrite for the next life It is not pureness then except it be in the right place the heart But where is the heart The heart is vafrum inscrutabile Deceitful above all things Jer. 17.9 and desperately wieked who can know it It is uncertain and unsearchable And it is so because it pursues those things which are in fluxu ever in motion Cast but a paper into the river and fix thine eye upon that paper and binde thine eye to follow that paper whithersoever the river or the winde shall carry it and thou canst not imagine where thine eye will be to morrow For this paper is not addressed as a ship to a certain port or upon any certain purpose but expos'd to the disposition of the tyde to the rage of the winde to the wantonness of the Eddy and to innumerable contingencies till it wear out to nothing So if a man set his heart we cannot call it a setting if a man suffer his heart to issue upon any of these fluid and transitory things of this world he shall have cor vafrum inscrutabile He shall not know where to finde his own heart If Riches be this floating paper that his eye is fixed upon he shall not know upon what course If Beauty be this paper he shall not know upon what face If Honor and preferment be it he shall not know upon what faction his heart will be transported a month hence But if the heart can fix it self upon that which is