and Jubilees within him In a word to love Mercy is to be in heaven Every man according as he purposeth in his heart let him give not grudgingly 2 Cor. 9.7 or of necessity for God loveth a chearful giver Such a Mercy is Gods Almoner here on earth and he loveth and blesseth it followeth it with his Providence and his infinite Mercy shall crown it That gift which the Love of Mercy offereth up is onely fit to be laid up in the Treasury of the Almighty And now I have set before you Mercy in her full beauty in all her glory You have seen her spreading her raies I might shew you her building of Hospitals visiting the sick giving eyes to the blind raising of Temples pitying the stones breathing forth oracles making the ignorant wise the sorrowful merry leading the wandring man into his way I might have shewed you her sealing of Pardons But we could not shew you all These are the miracles of Mercy and they are wrought by the power of Christ in us and by us but by his power The fairest spectacle in the world Let us then look upon it and love it What is Mercy when you need it Is it not as the opening of the heavens unto you And shall it then be a punishment and hell unto you when your afflicted brethren call for it Is it so glorious abroad and shall it be so foul an aspect as not to be thought worthy of enterteinment at home Shall it be a jewel in every cabinet but your own hearts Behold and lift up your eyes and you shall see objects enough for your Mercy to shine on Psal 42.7 If ever one depth called upon another Cant. 5.4 Isa 63.15 the depth of Calamity for the depth of our Compassion if ever our bowels should move and sound now now is the time I remember that Chrysologus observeth that God did on purpose lay Lazarus at the rich mans gate quasi pietatis conflatorium as a forge to melt his stony heart Lazarus had as many mouthes to speak and move him to compassion as he had ulcers and wounds And how many such forges hath God set before us how many mouthes to beseech us how many wounds wide open which speak loud for our pity how many fires to melt us Shall I shew you an ulcerous Lazar They are obvious to our eye Matth. 26.11 We shall have them alwaies with us saith our Saviour and we have them almost in every place Luke 10.30 Shall I shew you men stript and wounded and left half-dead That may be seen in our Cities as well as in the high waies between Jericho and Jerusalem Shall I shew you the tears drilling down the cheeks of the orphans and widows Shall I call you to hear the cry of the hire kept back by fraud or violence James 5.4 For that cryeth to you for compassion as Oppression doth to God for vengeance and it is a kind of oppression to deny it them Lam. 1.12 Have you not compassion all ye that pass by and every day behold such sad spectacles as these Shall I shew you Christ put again to open shame whipt and scorned and crucified and that which cannot be done to him in his person laid upon his Church Shall I shew you him now upon the cross and have you no regard all ye that pass by Shall I shew you the Church miserably torn in pieces Shall I shew you Religion I would I could shew you such a sight For scarce so much as her form is left What can I shew or what can move us when neither our own Misery nor the common Misery nor Sin nor Death nor Hell it self will move us If we were either good Men or good Citizens or good Christians our hearts would melt and gush forth at our eyes in rivers of water If we were truly affected with peace we should be troubled at war If we did love the City we should mourn over it If we did delight in the prosperity of Israel her affliction would wound us If Religion were our care her decay would be our sorrow For that which we love and delight in must needs leave a mournful heart behind it when it withdraweth it self But private interest maketh us regardless of the common and we do not pity Religion because we do not pity our own souls but drink deep of the pleasures of this world enlarge our territories fill our barns make hast to be rich when our soul is ready to be taken from us and nothing but a rotten mouldring wall a body of flesh which will soon fall to the ground between us and Hell I may well take off your eye from these sad and woful spectacles It had been enough but to have shewn you Mercy for she is a cloud of witnesses a cloud of arguments for her self and if we would but look upon her as we should there need no other oratour I beseech you look into your Lease look into your Covenant that Conveyance by which bliss and immortality are made over to you and you shall find that you hold all by this You hold it from the King of Kings and your quit-rent your acknowledgment for his great Mercy is your Mercy to others Pay it down or you have made a forfeiture of all If you be merciless all that labour as it is called of Charity is lost 1 Thes 1.3 Hebr. 6.10 1 Cor. 15.14 17. your loud Profession your forced Gravity your burning Zeal your Faith also is vain and you are yet in your sins For what are all these without Mercy but words and names And there is no name by which we can be saved but the name of Jesus Christ And all these Devotion Confession Abstinence Zeal Acts 4.12 Severity of life are as it were the letters of his Name and I am sure Mercy is one and of a fair character and if we expunge and blot it out it is not his Name Why boast we of our Zeal Without Mercy it is a consumeing fire It is true he that is not zealous doth not love but if my Love be counterfeit what a false fire is my Zeal And one mark of true Zeal is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if it be kept within its bounds Naz. or 14. and Mercy is the best watch we can set over it to confine and keep it in The Church of Christ is not placed under the Torrid Zone that these cooler and more temporate Virtues may not dwell there Ignis zeli ardere debet oleo misericordiae Aquin. de Eruditione princip l. 2. c. 15 16. If you will have your Zeal burn kindly it must not be set on fire by any earthly matter but from Heaven where is the Mercy-seat and which is the seat of Mercy If you will be burning lamps you must pour in oleum misericordiae the oyl of Mercy as Bernard speaketh If this oyl fail you will rather be Beacons then Lamps to put all
that where the article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is added to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there we are to understand the Person of the Holy Ghost yet we rather lay hold on the pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When He the Spirit of truth shall come He shall lead you which pointeth out to a distinct Person If as Sabellius saith our Saviour had onely meant some new motion in the Disciples hearts or some effect of the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been enough but ILLE He designeth a certain Person and I LLE He in Christ's mouth a distinct Person from himself Besides we are taught in the Schools Actiones sunt suppositorum Actions and operations are of Persons Now in this verse Christ sayth that he shall lead them into all truth and before he shall reprove the world v. 8. and in the precedent chapter he shall testifie of me v. 26. which are proper and peculiar operations of the blessed Spirit and bring him in a distinct Person from the Father and the Son And therefore S. Augustine resteth upon this dark and general expression Lib. 6. De Trinit Spiritus S. est commune aliquid Patris Filii quicquid illud est The Holy Ghost communicateth both of the Father and the Son is something of them both whatsoever we may call it whether we call him the Consubstantial and Coeternal communion and friendship of the Father and the Son or nexum amorosum with Gerson and others of the Schools the essential Love and Love-knot of the undivided Trinity But we will wave these more abstruse and deeper speculations in which if we speak not in the Spirit 's language we may sooner lose than profit our selves and speak more than we should whilest we are busie to raise our thoughts and words up to that which is but enough It will be safer to walk below amongst those observations which as they are more familiar and easy so are they more useful and to take what oar we can find with ease than to dig deeper in this dark mine where if we walk not warily we may meet with poysonous fogs and damps in stead of treasure We will therefore in the next place enquire why he is called the Spirit of Truth Divers attributes the Holy Ghost hath He is called the Spirit of Adoption Rom. 8.15 the Spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4.13 the Spirit of Grace Hebr. 10.29 c. For where he worketh Grace is operative our Love is without dissimulation Rom. 12.9 our Joy is like the joy of heaven as true though not so great Gal. 5.6 Isa 6.6 Rom. 10 2. our Faith a working faith and our Zeal a coal from the altar kindled from his fire not mad and raging but according to knowledge He maketh no shadows but substances no pictures but realities no appearances Luke 1.28 but truths a Grace that maketh us highly favoured a precious and holy Faith 1 Pet. 1.7 8. full and unspeakable Joy Love ready to spend it self and Zeal to consume us Psâ—l 69.9 of a true existence being from the Spirit of that God who alone truly is But here he is stiled the Spirit of Truth yet is he the same Spirit that planteth grace and faith in our hearts that begetteth our Faith dilateth our Love worketh our Joy kindleth our Zeal and adopteth us in Regiam familiam into the Royal family of the first-born in heaven But now the Spirit of Truth was more proper For to tell men perplext with doubts that were ever and anon and somtimes when they should not asking questions of such a Teacher was a seal to the promise a good assurance that they should be well taught that no difficulty should be too hard no knowledge too high no mystery too dark and obscure for them but All truth should be brought forth and unfolded to them and having the veyl taken from it be laid open and naked to their understanding Let us then look up upon and worship this Spirit of Truth as he thus presenteth and tendereth himself unto us 1. He standeth in opposition to two great enemies to Truth Dissimulation and Flattery By the former I hide my self from others by the later I blindfold another and hide him from himself The Spirit is an enemy to both he cannot away with them 2. He is true in the Lessons which he teacheth that we may pray for his Advent long for his coming and so receive him when he cometh First dissemble he doth not he cannot For Dissimulation is a kind of cheat or jugling by which we cast a mist before mens eyes that they cannot see us It bringeth in the Devil in Samuel's mantle and an enemy in the smiles and smoothness of a friend It speaketh the language of the Priest at Delphos As to King Philip whom Pausanias slew playeth in ambiguities promiseth life when death is neerest and biddeth us beware of a chariot when it meaneth a sword No this Spirit is an enemy to this because a Spirit of truth and hateth these involucra dissimulationis this folding and involvedness these clokes and coverts these crafty conveyances of our own desires to their end under the specious shew of intending good to others And they by whom this Spirit speaketh are like him and speak the truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 1.12 in the simplicity and godly sincerity of the spirit not in craftiness 2 Cor. 4.2 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 handling the Word of God deceitfully not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 4.14 not in the slight of men throwing a die and what cast you would have them not fitting their doctrine to men and the times that is not to men and the times but to their own ends telling them of heaven when their thoughts are in their purse Wisd 1.5 6. This holy Spirit of Truth flieth all such deceit and removeth himself far from the thoughts which are without understanding and will not acquit a dissembler of his words There is nothing of the Devil's method nothing of the Die or Hand no windings or turnings in what he teacheth He speaketh the truth and nothing but the truth and for our behoof and advantage that we may believe it and build upon it and by his discipline raise our selves up to that end for which he is pleased to come and be our Teacher And as he cannot dissemble so in the next place flatter us he cannot This is the inseparable mark and character of the evil Spirit qui arridet ut saeviat who smileth upon us that he may rage against us lifteth us up that he may cast us down whose exaltations are foils whose favours are deceits whose smiles and kisses are wounds Flattery is as a glass for a Fool to look upon and behold that shape which himself hath already drawn and please himself in it because it is returned upon him by reflection and so he becometh more fool than before It is the Fools
to our lives end to our last breath else we shall not take our Exit with applause Lastly to draw the Parallel to the full This duty is not onely Becoming but Necessary For if a kind of Necessity lay upon Christ by his contract with his Father to be made like unto us a great Necessity will lie upon us by our covenant with him to be like unto him and wo unto us if we be not It is unum necessarium that one thing necessary there is nothing necessary for us but it For run to and fro through the world and in that great Emporium and Mart of toyes and vanities find out one thing that is necessary if you can But it will not be though you search it as the Prophet speaketh with Candles Is it necessary to be rich Zeph. 1.12 Behold Dives in hell and Lazarus in Abrahams bosome Luke 16. Is it necessary to be noble Not many noble are chosen Is it necessary to be learned 1 Cor. 1.26 20. Where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Every thing hath its Necessity from us not from it self for of it self it cannot shew any thing that should make it so It is we that file these chains and fashion these nayls of Necessity and make her hand of brass Riches are necessary because we are covetous Honour is necessary because we are proud and love to have the pre-eminence Pleasure is necessary because we love it more than God Revenge is necessary because we delight in blood Lord how many Necessaries do we make when there is but one one sine quo non debemus without which we ought not and sine quo non possemus without which we cannot be happy and that is our being made like unto Christ in whom alone all the treasuries of Wisdome and Riches and Honour all that is necessary for us are to be found And now to conclude We have two Nativities Christ's and ours he made like unto us by a miraculous conception and we again made like unto him by the Spirit of regeneration Ad illum pertinuit propter nos nasci ad nos propter illum renasci saith S. Augustine His love it was to be born for us and our duty it is to give him birth for birth and to be born again in him And then as thou art merry at his Feast he will rejoyce at thine and even celebrate thy birth-day Come let us rejoyce saith he and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was meet we should make merry for these my brethren were dead Luke 15. Psal 49.20 but are alive they were lost but are found They were like unto the Beasts that perish but they are now made like unto me And as Christ had an antheme at his birth a full quire of the heavenly Host praysing God so shall we have at ours There is joy and triumph among the Angels at the birth of a Christian at his assimilation to Christ For every real resemblance of Christ is an Angels feast Angels and Archangels and Dominations and Powers triumph at our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the feast of our regeneration They are glad spectatours of our growth in Christ and rejoyce to see us every day become liker and liker to him They would have us grow to ripeness and maturity and be perfect men in Christ Jesus that being made like unto him here we may at last be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 20.36 equal to the Angels and with Angels and Archangels and all the Company of Heaven cry aloud saying Salvation Honour Power Thanksgiving be unto him that was made like unto us and now sitteth upon the throne even to the Lamb for evermore Amen A SERMON Preached on Good-Friday ROM VIII 32. He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things GOd's benefits come not alone but one gift is the pledge of another The grant of a mite is the assignment of a talent A drop of dew from heaven is a prognostick of gracious showre of a floud which nothing can draw dry but ingratitude S. Dionys de Divin Nom. p. 200. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Father might well say that the love of God is as a constant and endless circle from good to good in good without error or inconstancy rowling and carrying it self about in an everlasting gyre He spared not his own Son saith the Text but delivered him up for us all But how many gifts did usher in this He gave him to us often in the Creation of the world For by him were all things made Joh. 1.3 and without him was made nothing that was made When God giveth he giveth his Son For as we ask in his name so he giveth in his name whatsoever we ask Every action of God is a gift and every gift a tender of his Son an art to make us capable of more Thus the argument of Gods Love is drawn à minori ad majus from that which seemeth little to that which is greater from a grain to an harvest from one blessing to a myriad from Heaven to the Soul from our Creation to our Redemption from Christs Actions to his Passion Which is the true authentick instrument of his Love With us the argument holdeth not but with God it doth By giving little he giveth hopes of more He that is our Steward to provide for us and supply us out of his treasury who ripeneth the fruits on the trees and the corn in the fields who draweth us wine out of the vine and spinneth us garments out of the bowels of the worm and fleece of the flock will give us greater things then these He that giveth us balm for our bodies will give us physick for our souls He that gave us our being by his Son will deliver up his Son for the world Here his Love is in its Zenith and vertical point and in a direct line casteth its rayes of comfort on his lost Creature Here the Argument is at the highest and S. Paul draweth it down à majori ad minus and the Conclusion is full full of comfort to all He that giveth a talent will certainly give a mite He that giveth his Son will also give salvation and he that giveth salvation will give all things which may work it out QVI TRADIDIT He that delivered his Son is followed with a QVOMODO NON how shall he not with him also freely give us all things QVOMODO NON It is impossible it should be otherwise Christ cometh not naked but clothed with blessings He cometh not empty but with the riches of heaven the treasures of wisedom and happiness Christ cometh not alone but with troops of Angels with glorious promises and blessings Nay to make good the Quomodo non to make it unanswerable unquestionable It is his Nakedness that cloatheth us his Poverty that enricheth us his No-Reputation that
not with us in favour and mercy He seeketh after us and layeth hold on us being gone from him as far as Sin and Disobedience could carry us out of his reach It was his love it was his will to do so and in this we might rest But Divines will tell us that Man was a fitter object of mercy than the Angels quia levius est alienâ mente peccare De Angelis quibusdam suâ sponte corruptis corruptior gens Daemonum evaâ—it Tert. Apol c. 22. quà m propriâ because the Angels sin was more spontaneous wrought in them by themselves Man had importunam arborem that flattering and importuning Tree and that subtile and seducing Serpent to urge and sway him from his obedience Man had a Tempter the Angels were both the temptation and tempters to themselves Man took in death by looking abroad but the Angels reflecting upon themselves gazed so long upon their own beauty till they saw it changed into horrour and deformity And the offence is more pardonable where the motive is ab extrinseco than where it groweth up of it self Besides the Angels did not all fal but the whole lump of Mankind was leavened with the same leaven and pity it may seem that so noble a Creature made up after Gods own Image should be utterly lost These reasons with others we may admit though they may seem rather to be conjectures than reasons and we have not much light in Scripture to give them a fairer appearance Hebr. 2.16 but the Scripture is plain that he took not the Angels he did not lay his hands upon them to redeem them to liberty and strike off their bonds And we must go out of the world to find the reason and seek the true cause in the bosome of the Father nay in the bowels of his Son and there see the cause why he was delivered for us written in his heart It was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the love of God to mankind Tit. 3.4 And what was in mankind but enmity and hostility sin and deformity which are no proper motives to draw on love And yet God loved us and hated sin and made hast to deliver us from it Dilexisti me Domine plusquà m te quando mori voluisti pro me saith Augustine Lord when thou dyedst for me thou madest it manifest that my soul was dearer to thee then thy self Such a high esteem did he set upon a Soul which we scarce honour with a thought but so live as if we had none For us Men then and for us Sinners was Christ delivered The Prophet Isaiah speaketh it and he could not speak it properly of any but him Isa 53.5 He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities So that he was delivered up not only to the Cross and Shame but to our Sins which nayled him to the cross which not only crucified him in his humility but crucified him still in his glory now he sitteth at the right hand of God and put him to shame to the end of the world Falsò de Judaeis querimur Why complain we of the Jews malice or Judas's treason or Pilates injustice We we alone are they who crucified the Lord of life Our Treachery was the Judas which betrayed him our Malice the Jew which accused him our Perjury the false witness against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him Our Pride scorned him our Envy grinned at him our Luxury spate upon him our Covetousness sold him Our corrupt Blood was drawn out of his wounds our Swellings prickt with his thorns our Sores launced with his spear and the whole body of Sin stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life He delivered him up for us Sinners No sin there is which his blood will not wash away but final Impenitency which is not so much a sin as the sealing up of the body of sin when the measure is full For us sinners for us the progeny of an arch-traytor and as great traytors as he Take us at our worst if we repent he was delivered for us And if we do not repent yet he may be said to be delivered for us for he was delivered for us to that end that we might repent For us sinners he was delivered for us when we were without strength for us when we were ungodly Rom. 5.6.8 So we were considered in this great work of Redemption And thus high are we gone on this scale and ladder of Love There is one step more He was delivered for us all ALL not considered as Elect or Reprobate but as Men as Sinners Rom. 5.12 for that name will take in all for all have sinned And here we are taught to make a stand and not to touch too hastily and yet the way is plain and easie For all This some will not touch and yet they do touch and press it with that violence that they press it almost into nothing make the world not the world and whosoever not whosoever but some certain men and turn all into a few deduct whom they please out of all people nations and languages and out of Christendome it self leave some few with Christ upon the Cross whose persons he beareth whom they call the Elect and mean themselves So God loved the world that is the Elect say they They are the world John 3.16 where it is hard to find them for they are called out of it and the best light we have which is the Scripture discovereth them not unto us in that place If the Elect be the world which God so loved then they are such Elect as may not believe such Elect as may perish and whom God will have perish if they do not believe It is true none have benefit of Christ's death but the Elect but from hence it doth not follow that no other might have had Theirs is the kingdome but are not they shut out now who might have made it theirs God saith S. Peter 2 Pet. 3 9. would not that any should perish and God is the Saviour of all men saith S. Paul 1 Tim. 4.10 but especially of those that believe all if they believe and repent and those who are obedient to the Gospel because they do The blood of Christ is poured forth on the Believer and with it he sprinkleth his heart and is saved the wicked trample it under their foot and perish The blood of Christ is sufficient to wash away the sins of the world nay of a thousand worlds Christ paid down a ransome of so infinite a value that it might redeem all that are ' or possibly might be under captivity But none are actually redeemed but they who make him their Captain and do as he commandeth that is believe and repent or to speak in their own language none are saved but the elect In this all agree in this they are Brethren and why should they fall out when both hold up the priviledge of the Believer
another mightily and doth sweetly order all things For which way can frail Man come to see his God but by being like him What can draw him near to his pure Essence but Simplicity and Purity of spirit What can carry us to the God of Love but Charity What can lead us into the courts of Righteousness but Justice What can move a God of tender mercies but Compassion Certainly God will never look down from his Mercy-seat on them that have no bowels In a word what can make us wise but that which is good those virtues Temperance Justice and Liberality which are called the labours of Wisdome Wisd 8.7 Hebr. 6.5 What can bring us into Heaven but this full tast of the powers of the world to come So that there is some truth in that of Gerson Gloria est gratia consummata Glory is nothing else but Grace made perfect and consummate For though we cannot thus draw Grace and Glory together as to make them one and the same thing but must put a difference between the Means and the End yet Wisdome it self hath written it down in an indeleble character and in the leaves of Eternity That there is no other key but this Good in the Text to open the gates of the kingdom of Heaven and he that bringeth this along with him shall certainly enter Heaven and Glory is a thing of another world but yet it beginneth here in this and Grace is made perfect in Glory And therefore in the last place God's absolute Will is not only attended with Power and Wisdome but also with Love And these are the glories of his Will He can do what he will and he will do it by the most proper and fittest means and whatsoever he requireth is the dictate of his Love When he sent his Son the best Master and Wisest Lawgiver that ever was on whose shoulders the government was laid Isa 9.6 he was ushered in with a SIC DILEXIT So God loved the world John 3.16 God's Love seemeth to have the preeminence and to do more then his Power This can but annihilate us but his Love if we embrace it will change our souls and angelifie them change our bodies and spiritualize them endow us with the will and so with the power of God make us differ as much from our selves as if we were not annihilated which his Power can do but which is more made something else something better something nearer to God This is that mighty thing which his Love bringeth to pass We may imagin that a Law is a mere indication of Power that it proceedeth from Rigour and Severity that there is nothing commanded nothing required but there is smoke and thunder and lightning but indeed every Law of God is the natural and proper effect and issue of his Love from his Power it is true but his Power managed and shewn in Wisdome and Love For he made us to this end and to this end he requireth something of us not out of any indigency as if he wanted our company and service for he was as happy before the creation as after but to have some object for his Love and Goodness to work upon to have an exceptory and vessel for the dew of Heaven to fall into As the Jews were wont to say propter Messiam mundum fuisse conditum that the world and all mankind were made for the Messias Psal 2.7 whose business was to preach the Law which his Father said unto him and to declare his will And in this consisteth the perfection and beauty of Man For the perfection of every thing is its drawing near to its first principle and original The nearer and liker a thing is to the first cause that produced it the more perfect it is as that Heat is most perfect which is most intense and hath most of the Fire in it So Man the more he partaketh of that which is truly Good of the Divine nature of which his Soul is as it were a sparkle the more perfect he is because this was the only end for which God made him This was the end of all Gods Laws That he might find just cause to do Man good That Man might draw near to him here by obedience and conformity to his Will and in the world to come reign with him for ever in glory And as this is the perfection so is it the beauty of Man For as there is the beauty of the Lord Psal 27.4 so is there the beauty of the Subject The beauty of the Lord is to have Will and Power and Jurisdiction to have Power and Wisdome to command and to command in Love So is it the beauty of Man to bow and submit and conform to the will of the Lord for what a deformed spectacle is a Man without God in this world Eph. 2.12 which hath Power and Wisdome and Love to beautifie Beauty is nothing else but a result from Perfection The beauty of the Body proceedeth from the symmetrie and due proportion of parts and the beauty of the Soul from the consonancy of the will and affections to the will and law of God Oh how beautiful are those feet which walk in the wayes of life How beautiful and glorious shall he be who walketh in love as God loved him Eph. 5.2 who resteth on his Power walketh by his Wisdome and placeth himself under the shadow of his Love And thus much the substance of these words affords us What doth the Lord require Let us now cast an eye upon them in the form and habit in which they are presented and consider the manner of proposing them Now the Prophet proposeth them by way of interrogation And as he asked the question Wherewith shall I come before the Lord so doth he here ask what doth the Lord require He doth not speak in positive terms as the Prophet Jeremiah doth Ask for the old paths Jer 6.16 where is the good way and walk therein Isa 30.21 or as the Prophet Isaiah This is the way walk in it but shapeth and formeth his speach to the temper and disposition of the people who sought out many wayes but missed of the right And so we find Interrogations to be fitted and sharpned like darts and then sent towards them who could not be awaked with less noyse nor less smart And we find them of diverse shapes and fashions Sometimes they come as Complaints Psal 2.1 Why do the heathen rage sometimes as Upbraidings How camest thou in hither Matth. 22.12 2 Sam. 2 22. Matth. 22.18 sometimes as Admonitions Why should I now kill thee sometimes as Reproofs Why tempt ye me you Hypocrites And whithersoever they fly they are feathered and pointed with Reason For there is no reason why that should be done of which Christ asketh a reason why it is done The question here hath divers aspects It looketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forward and backward It looketh back upon the
defective in humanity Christians are the parts of the Church and all must sustein one another And this is the just and full interpretation of that of our Saviour Matth. 19.19 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self then thou wilt pity him as thy self Tolle invidiam tuum est quod habet Take away Envy and all that he hath is thine And take away Hardness of heart and all that thou hast is his Take away Malice and all his virtues are thine and take away Pride and thy glories are his Art thou a part of the Church Thou hast a part in every part and every part hath a portion in thee Eph. 4.16 We are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 compacted together by that which every joynt supplies A similitude and resemblance taken from the Curtains of the Tabernacle saith learned Grotius whereof every one hath its measure Exod. 26.2 3 5. but yet they are all coupled together one to another by their loops which lay hold one of another And like those curtains we are not to be drawn but together not to rejoyce not to weep not to suffer but together The word Church is but a second notion and it is made a term of art and every man almost saith Luther abuseth it draweth it forth after his own image taketh it commonly in that sense which may favour him so far as to leave in him a perswasion that he is a true part of it and thus many enter the Church and are shut out of heaven We are told of a Visible Church and the Church in some sense is visible But that the greatest part of this Church hath wanted bowels that some parts of it have been without sense or feeling besmeared and defiled with the bloud of their brethren is as visible as the Church We have heard of an Infallible Church we have heard it and believe it not for how can she be infallible who is so ready to design all those to death and hell who deny it If it be a Church it is a Church with horns to push at the nations or an army with banners and swords We have long talked of a Reformed Church and we make it our crown and rejoycing But it would concern us to look about us and take heed that we do not reform so as to purge out all Compassion also For certainly to put off all bowells is not as some zealots have easily perswaded themselves to put on the new man Talk not of a Visible Infallible or a Reformed Church God send us a Compassionate Church a title which will more fit and become her then those names which do not beautifie and adorn but accuse and condemn her when she hath no Heart What Visible Church is that which is seen in blood What Infallible Church is that whose very bowels are cruel What Reformed Church is that which hath purged out all Compassion Visible and yet not seen Infallible and deceived Reformed and yet in its filth Monstrum horrendum informe This is a mis-shapen monster not a Church The true Church is made up of bowels Every part of it is tender and relenting not onely when it self is touched but when others are moved as you see in a well-set instrument if you touch but one string the others will tremble and shake And this Sense and this Fellow-feeling is the fountain from whence this silver stream of Mercy floweth the spring and first mover of those outward acts which are seen in that bread of ours which floats upon the waters in the face and on the backs of the poor Luk. 10.31 c. For not then when we see our brethren in affliction when we look upon them and pass by them but when we see them and have compassion on them we shall bind up their wounds and pour in oil and wine and take care for them For till the heart be melted there will nothing flow We see almes given every day and we call them acts of piety but whether the hand of Mercy reach them forth or no we know not Our motions all of them are not from a right spring Vain-glory may be liberal Intemperance may be liberal Pride may be a benefactour Ambition must not be a niggard Covetousness it self sometimes yieldeth droppeth a peny and Importunity is a wind which will set that wheel a going which had otherwise stood still We may read large catalogues of munificent men but many names which we read there may be but the names of Men not of the Merciful Compassion is the inward true principle begetting in us the Love of Mercy which completeth and perfecteth crowneth every act giveth it its true form denomination giveth a sweet smel and fragrant savour to Maries oyntment Luk. 7.47 for she that poured it forth loved much I may say Compassion is the love of Mercy Et plus est diligere quà m facere saith Hilary It is a great deal more to love a good work then to do it to love Virtue then to bring it into act to love Mercy then to shew it It doth supply many times the place of the outward act but without it the act is nothing or something worse It hath a privilege to bring that upon account which was never done to be entitled to that which we do not which we cannot do to make the weak man strong the poor man liberal and the ignorant man a counsellor For he that loveth Mercy would do and therefore doth more then he can do As David may be said to build the Temple though he laid not a stone of it for God telleth him he did well that he had it in his heart 1 Kings 8.18 Thus our Love may build a Temple though we fall and dye before a stone be laid Now this Love of Mercy is not so soon wrought in the heart as we may imagin as every glimering of light doth not make it day It is a work of labour and travel of curious observance and watchfulness over our selves It will cost us many a combat and luctation with the World and the Flesh and many a falling out with our selves Many a Love must be digged up by the roots before we can plant this Love in our hearts It will not grow up with Luxury and Wantonness with Pride or Self-love you never see these together in the same soyl The Apostle telleth us we must put it on Col. 3.12 And the garments which adorn the soul are not so soon put on as those which clothe the body We do not put on Mercy as we do our mantle for when we do every puff of wind every distast bloweth it away But Mercy must be so put on that it may even cleave to the soul and be a part of it that every thought may be a melting thought every word as oyl and every work a blessing Then we love Mercy when we fling off all other respects whatsoever may either shrink up or
some say sleep out the other Even in the worst of men there be some seeds of goodness which they receive as they are Men and from hence arise those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those sudden but short and transitory inclinations which are choaked up yet not so dead in them but that sometimes they shew themselves and shoot out but as grass doth upon the house-tops Psal 129.6 which withereth before it groweth up There is no Tyrant but may do one act of mercy no Oppressour but may give a cup of cold water In pessimis est aliquid optimi There may be something of that which is good even in the worst Then Mercy is in its full glory when it acteth upon a certain and well grounded determination when we decree as the Stoicks speak and resolve so to do when we have fixed this decree and made it unalterable when we are rooted and grounded in Mercy Eph. 3.17 as S. Paul speaketh rooted as a tree deeply in it and built as a house upon it where the corner and chief stone is the Love of Mercy Then we are as Trees to shadow others and as an House to shelter them Otherwise our Mercy will be be but as a gourd Jon. 4.10 as Jonahs gourd and will grow and come up and perish in a night Thirdly if we love Mercy it will be Sincere and real For Sincerity is the proper issue and child of Love Prov. 27.6 It maketh the wounds of a friend better then the kisses of an enemy Prov. 15.17 a dish of herbs a more sumptuous feast then a stalled ox it maketh a mite a good wish a good word an Almes What is the Mercy of the Parasite He feedeth by it What is the Mercy of the Ambitious A stirrop to get up by What is the Mercy of the Covetous A piece of art a warrantable cheat What was the seeming Mercy of Peter Matth 16.22 23. It was an offense for which Christ called him an Enemy What is the Mercy of those who through covetousness with feigned words make a prey of mens souls 2 Pet. 2.3 I will not tell you because I cannot give it a name bad enough There may be Mercy in a supply but that supply may be a snare There may be Mercy in counsel but that counsel may betray me Job 16.2 1 Tim. 1.5 There is Mercy in comfort but we know there be miserable comforters True Mercy must be like our Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfeigned Then it runneth most pure and clear without taint or trouble when Love openeth the fountain or rather is the fountain from whence it floweth when the Love of Christ hath begot in us the Love of our Brethren and we shew Mercy to them not for those arguments which we make our selves or those perswasions which may be the oratory of the Flesh and the World but for Christ's sake and for the love of Mercy whose rational and demonstrative eloquence we should most obey Otherwise it will begin fairly and end in blood it will drop tears and then hailstones it will be but a preface of clemency a mild prologue to lead in a tragedy an echo out of a sepulchre of rotten bones and as musick at the gates of hell It will be Mercy 1 Pet. 2.22 but not like unto Christ in whom there was found no guile but like unto Marcion's Christ all in appearance Mercy with a trumpet in one hand and a sword in the other Mercy which shall lessen your burden to lay on more shall speak of ease and then add to the misery of the oppressed For that which is not sincere is not lasting It may begin to shine but it will end in a storm A true face is ever the same but a visour will soon fall off In a word if it be not sincere it is not Mercy and sincere it will not it cannot be if we love it not Last of all if we love Mercy we shall take delight in it For Joy is but a resultancie from Love That which we love is also the joy of our heart Behold my servant whom I have chosen saith God of Christ Isa 42.1 and then it followeth in whom my soul delighteth I have loved thee Isa 43.4 saith God to Israel and his Love thus bespeaketh them Isa 62.5 As a bridegroom rejoyceth over his bride so shall thy God rejoyce over thee The bridegrooms heart is ravished and then the floodgates are laid open Cant. 4.9 10. and the stream is Joy How fair is my love how much better is thy love then wine and the smell of thy oyntments then all spices Davids heart was knit unto Jonathan 1 Sam. 18.1 and then Very pleasant hast thou been unto me 2 Sam. 1.26 Abraham loved hospitality and therefore he is said to sit in his tent door in the heat of the day Gen. 18.1 to invite men in as if every stranger had been an Angel If Love be as the Sun Joy and Delight are the Beams which stream forth from it If Love be as the Voice Joy is the Echo for Joy is but Love in the reflexion If Love fill the heart it will heave and work it self out and break forth in Joy By our Joy we may see the figure and shape and constitution of our souls For Love is operative working and raising up something in the soul and with it that Delight which is born with it and alwaies waiteth upon it If it be dark and scarce observable our Joy interpreteth it Joy is open and talkative In the Wanton it is Frolick in the Revenger it is a Boast in the Drunkard it is a Ballad in the Rich it is Pride in the Ambitious it is a Triumph but in the Merciful it is Heaven What a well drawn picture is to an Appelles what a fair character is to a Scribe what a heap of gold is to the Miser that and much more are the works of Mercy to them that love it onely here the Joy is of a purer flame and burning brighter that is gross and earthy this is Seraphical When you reach forth your hand to give a peny tell me What do you feel in your heart When you give good counsel do you not hear a pleasing echo return back upon you When you have lifted up the poor out of the dust do you not feel an elevation and ascension in your mind When you clothe the naked are not you even then supervestiti clothed upon with Joy Believe it you cannot give that relief to the miserable which Mercy worketh in the soul nor can he that receiveth be so much affected as he that giveth For when he giveth he giveth indeed his money but hath bestowed the greatest Almes upon himself The poor man rejoyceth as a hungry man that is fed as a naked man that is clothed as one that sitteth in darkness doth at the breaking in of light but the Merciful man hath triumphs
round about you in arms as we have seen in Germany and other places Men and Brethren I may speak to you of the Patriarch David Acts 2.29 who is dead and buried and though we have not his Sepulchre yet we have the memory of his Mercifulness remaining with us to this day And I ask Had not he Zeal Yes and so hot and intensive that it did consume him Psal 119.139 and yet but three verses before Rivers of waters ran down his eyes And this heat and this moisture had one and the same cause because they kept not thy law in the one because they forgat thy word in the other which is the very same We much mistake if we do not think there may be a weeping as well as a burning Zeal Indeed Zeal is never more amiable never moveth with more decorum nay with more advantage both to our selves and others then when Mercy sendeth it running down the cheeks We cannot better conclude then with that usual advice of Bernard Zelus absque misericordia minùs utilis 46. S. in Cant. plerumque etiam perniciosus c. Zeal without Mercy is alwaies unprofitable and most commonly dangerous and therefore we must pour in this oyl of Mercy quae zelum supprimat spiritum temperet which may moderate our Zeal and becalm and temper our spirit which may otherwise hurry us away to the trouble of others and ruine of our selves but it cannot do so if Mercy be our Assessour To conclude Let us therefore cast off every weight Hebr. 12.1 let us empty our selves fling out all worldly lusts out of our hearts and make room for Mercy Let us receive it naturalize it consubstantiate it as the Greek Fathers speak with our selves that we may think nothing breathe nothing do nothing but Mercy that Mercy may be as an Intelligence to keep us in a constant and perpetual motion of doing good that it may be true and sincere and sweeter to us then the honey or honey comb and so be our heaven upon earth whilst we are here that peace may be upon us Gal. 6.16 and mercy even upon all those who love Mercy who are indeed the true Israel of God The last Branch is our humble Walking with God And that we shall lay hold on in our next The Sixth SERMON PART VI. MICAH VI. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God WE have already gathered fruit from two of the Branches of this Tree of Life this Good which God by his Prophet hath shewed us in the Text. We have seen Justice run down as waters Amos 5.24 and Righteousness as a mighty stream as the Prophet speaketh And we have seen Mercy dropping as the dew on the tender herbs Deut. 32.2 and as rain upon the grass We have beheld Justice filling the hand and Mercy opening it Justice fitting and preparing the hand to give and Mercy stretching it forth to clothe the naked and fill the hungry with good things Justice gathering and Mercy scattering Justice bringing in the seed and Mercy sowing it in a word Justice making it ours and Mercy alienating it and making it his whosoever he be that wanteth it We must now lay hold on the third Branch which shadoweth both the rest from those blasts which may wither them those storms and temptations which may shake and bruise them from Covetousness Ambition Amos 5.7 Pride Self-love Self-deceit Hypocrisie which turn Justice into gall and wormwood and eat out the very bowels of Mercy For our Reverent and humble deportment with God is the mother of all good counsel the guard and defense of all holy duties and the mistress of Innocency By this the Just and Merciful man liveth and moveth and hath his being His whole life is an humble deportment with God every motion of his is Humility I may say his very essence is Humility for he gathereth not he scattereth not but as in Gods eye and sight When he filleth his garners and when he emptieth them he doth it as under that all-seeing Eye which seeth not onely what he doth but what he thinketh The Christian still moveth and walketh with Psal 116.18 or before his God not opening his eyes but to see the wonders of his Laws not opening his mouth but in Hallelujahs not opening his ears but to Gods voice not opening his hand but in his name not giving his Almes but as in the presence of his Father which seeth in secret Matth. 6.4 and so doing what he requireth with fear and trembling Humility spreadeth and diffuseth it self through every vein and branch through every part and duty of his life When he sitteth in judgment Humility giveth the sentence when he trafficketh Humility maketh the bargain when he casteth his bread upon the waters Eccl. 11.1 his hand is guided by Humility when he boweth and falleth down before his God Humility conceiveth the prayer when he fasteth Humility is in capite jejunii and beginneth the fast when he exhorteth Humility breatheth it forth when he instructeth Humility dictateth when he correcteth Humility maketh the rod whatsoever he doth he doth as before or under or with the Lord. Humility is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all in all In a word Singularum virtutum proprii actus say the Schools Virtues both Moral and Theological like the celestial Orbs have their peculiar motion proceeding from their distinct Habits and Forms but Humility is the Intelligence which keepeth and perpetuateth that motion as those Orbs are said to have their motion held up and regulated by some assistent Form without And now being here required to walk humbly with our God it will not be impertinent to give you the picture of Humility in little to shew you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 summarily and in brief what it is and so we may better see in what this our walking humbly consisteth And indeed we look upon Humility as we do upon a picture Mirantur omnes divinam formam sed ut simulacrum fabrè politum mirantur omnes as Apuleius speaketh of his Psyche Every man doth much admire it as a beautiful piece but it is as men admire a well-wrought statue or picture every man liketh it but which was the lot of Psyche no man loveth it no man wooeth it no man desireth to take her to his wife Yet it will not be a miss to give you a short view of her And the Oratour will tell us Virtutis laus omnis in actione consistit Every virtue is commended by its proper act and operation and is then actually when it worketh Temperance doth bind the appetite Liberality open the hand Modesty compose the countenance Valour guard the heart and work out its contrary out of the mind And Humility worketh out every thing that riseth up 2 Cor. 10.5 12.20 every swelling and tumour
it self and vvill meet and cope vvith him though he cometh towards us on his pale horse vvith all his pomp and terrour Love saith a devout Writer is a Philosopher and can discover the nature and qualities the malignity and weakness of those evils which are set up to shake our constancy and strike us from that rock on which we are founded Who is a God like unto our God saith David What can be like to that we love what can be equal to it If our hearts be set on the Truth to it the whole World is not worth a thought Nullum spectac lum â—incâ—â—cussione spiritus Tert. de Spect. c. 15. nor can that shop of vanities shew forth any thing that can shake a soul or make the passions turbulent and unruly that can draw a tear or force a smile that can deject the soul with sorrow or make it mad with joy that can raise an Anger or strike a Fear or set a Desire on the wing Every object is dull and dead and hath nothing of temptation in it For to love the Truth is all in all and it bespeaketh the World as S. Paul did the Grave Where is thy victory 1 Cor. 15.55 Rom. 8 35-39 Nor height nor depth can separate us from that we love Love is a Sophister able to answer every argument wave every subtilty and defeat the Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his wiles and crafty enterprizes Nay Love is a Magician and can conjure down all the terrours and noyse of Persecution which are those evil Spirits that amaze and cow us Love can rowse and quicken our drooping and fainting spirits Heb. 12.12 and strengthen the most feeble knees and the hands that hang down If we love the Truth if Truth be the antecedent the consequent is most natural and necessary and it cannot but follow That therefore we will when there is reason lay down our lives for it For again what is said of Faith is true of Love It purifieth the conscience and when that is clean and pure the soul is in perfect health chearful and active full of courage either to do or suffer ready for that disgrace which bringeth honour for that smart which begetteth joy for that wound which shall heal for that death which is a gate opened to eternity ready to go out and joyn with that peace which a good conscience which is her Angelus custos her Angel to keep her in all her wayes hath sealed and assured unto her A good conscience is the foundation of that bliss which the noble army of Martyrs now enjoy But if in our whole course we have not hearkened to her voice when she bid us do this but have done the contrary if in our ruff and jollity we have thus slghted and baffled her it is not probable that we shall suffer for her sake but we shall willingly nay hastily throw her off and renounce her when to part with her is to escape the evil that we most fear and avoid the blow that is coming towards us We shall soon let go that which we hold but for fashions sake which we fight against while we defend it and which we tread under foot even then when we exalt it which hath no more credit with us then what our parents our education the voice of the people and the multitude of professours have even forced upon us If the Truth have no more power over us if we have no more love for the Truth but this which hath nothing but the name of Love and is indeed the contrary if we bless it with our tongue and fight against it with our lusts if at once we embrace and stifle it then we are Ishmaels and not Isaacs And can an Ishmael in the twinkling of an eye be made an Isaac I will not say it is impossible but it carrieth but little shew of probability and if it be ever done it is not to be brought in censum ordinariorum it falleth not out in the ordinary course that is set but is to be looked upon as a miracle which is not wrought every day but at certain times and upon some important occasion and to some especial end For it is very rare and unusual that Conscience should be quiet and silent so long and then on the sudden be as the mighty voice of God that it should lie hid so long and then come forth and work a miracle Keep faith saith S. Paul and a good conscience 1 Tim. 1.19 which some having put away concerning faith have made ship-wrack Faith will be lost in the wayes and floods of this present world if a good Conscience be not kept If then thou wilt stand up against Ishmael be sure to be an Isaac a child of promise and an heir to the faith of Abraham If thou wilt be secure from the flesh be renewed in the spirit If thou wilt be fit to take up the cross first crucifie thy self thy lusts and affections This is all the preparation that is required which every one that is born after the spirit doth make And there needeeh no more For he that is thus fitted to follow Christ in the regeneration against the Ishmaelites of this world is well qualified and will not be afraid to meet him in the clouds and in the air when he shall come in terrour to judge both the quick and the dead And now to conclude What saith the Scripture Cast out the bond woman and her son Gen 21.14 for the son of the bond woman shall not inherit with the son of the free-woman It is true Ishmael was cast out into the wilderness of Beersheba Advers Judaeos c. 13. Apolog 21. And the Jew is cast out ejectus saith Tertullian coeli soli extorris cast out of Jerusalem scattered and dispersed over the face of the earth and made a proverb of obstinate Impietiy so that when we call a man a Jew putamus sufficere convitium we think we have railed loud enough But now how shall the Church cast out those of her own bowels of her house and family And such enemies she may have which hang upon her breasts called by the same Word sealed with the same Sacraments and challenging a part in the same common salvation To cast out is an act of violence and the true Church evermore hath the suffering part But yet she may cast them out and that with violence but then it is with the same violence we take the kingdome of heaven Matth. 11.12 a violence upon our selves 1. By laying our selves prostrate by the vehemency of our devotion by our frequent prayers that God would either melt their hearts or shorten their hands either bring them into the right way Matth. 17 21. or strike off their chariot wheels For this kind of spirit these malignant spirits cannot be cast out but by prayer and fasting which is energetical and prevalent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Eusebius a most
will be but a dreadful sound as Job speaketh Job 15.21 either in the Soul or in the Family or in the Church or in the Common-wealth This is the nature the power the virtue of the Christian Law This it doth even when it is not done For if the Gospel might take place it would most certainly be done That there is so much heat so much distraction so much bitterness amongst Christians that one Kingdome riseth against another and almost every Kingdome is divided in it self that the Church is mouldered into Schismes and parcelled out into Conventicles and every man almost is become a Church unto himself by a wilful separation from the whole that Christians whose mark and badge it was by which they were known and distinguisht from all the world That they did love one another That they would dye for one another should hate one another revile one another proscribe one another anathematize one another and kill one another and do that bloody office sooner then a Turk or a Jew that Christendome should thus be made a stage of war and a field of blood is not from the Gospel or Christian religion No these winds blow not out of this treasury but rather out of the pit of Hell from the swellings of Pride which Christianity beateth down from Love of the world which Christianity conquereth from Desire of supremacy which Christianity stifleth from Envy whose evil eye Religion putteth out from an hollow and deceitful Heart which Christianity breaketh from those evils which are the onely enemies the Prince of Peace the Authour and Finisher of the Gospel came to fight against and destroy Look back upon the first Christians who had rather suffer the greatest wrong then do the least who when for their multitude they might have trod their enemies under their feet yet yielded themselves to their fury and rage who did so outnumber them that only to have withdrawn themselves had been to have left their persecutours in banishment to wonder and lament their own paucity and solitude yet bowed down their necks to their yoke and delivered up their lives to their cruelty and were more willing to rest in their graves then to be unquiet In them that Prophesy of Micah was fulfilled Their swords were indeed turned into mattocks and their spears into pruning-hooks for all the weapons they had were their Innocency and Patience And thus it was for welnear four hundred years together But lock forward and then see blackness and darkness Hebr. 12.18 noise and tempests even in the habitations of Peace Christians reviling and libelling one another as in the Councel of Nice Christians kicking and treading one another under foot as in the Councel of Ephesus Christians killing one another as in the quarrel or schisme of Damasus and Ursicinus And then let your eye pass on through all the ages of the Church and if it can for dropping look upon this last and you will see that which will be as a thorn in your eye and hear that which will make your ears tingle see blood and war tragedies and massacres tumult and confusion Christians defrauding cursing tormenting robbing one another You will see But the time would fail me to tell you what you would see But you would think that Christendome were a wilderness Isa 11.6 not a place where the Leopard did lye down with the Kid or the Wolf feed with the Lamb but where the Kid was turned into a Leopard and the Lamb into a Wolf You would think that either the Prophesie was false or that Christ the Prince of Peace was not yet come in the flesh But as our Saviour said to his Disciples when they were affrighted and supposed him to be a Spirit Luk. 24 37 38 Why are you troubled so if you be troubled you mistake Christ and think him to be what he is not For for all these dismal and horrid events so contrary and so unproportioned to the promise of God Christ is come in the flesh and the Prophesie is fulfilled For all Christians are peaceable men and whosoever is obedient to the Gospel doth feel and can demonstrate this power in himself What though we see violence and strife in the Church Psal 55.9 yet the Church is the house of Peace What though Appius be unchast we cannot libel the Decemvirate What though Judas be a Son of perdition It was the Traytour not the Apostle which betrayed Christ If there be controversies Religion doth not raise them If there be schismes Religion doth not make them If there be war Religion doth not beat up the drum If there be busie-bodies Religion doth not imploy them If there be incendiaries Religion did not enrage them If there be a fire in the Church the Christian did not kindle it but the Ambitious man the Mammonist the Beast that calleth himself by that name For Religion cannot do that which she forbiddeth cannot do that on earth which damneth to hell cannot forward that design which is against her cannot set up that which will pull her down in brief Religion Christian Religion cannot but settle us and make us quiet and peaceable cannot but be it self For that which unsettleth us and maketh us grievous to our selves and others is not Christian Religion Religion is the greatest preserver of Peace that ever was or that Wisdome it self could find out and hath laid a fouler blemish on Discord and Dissention then Philosophy ever did when she was most rigid and severe Psal 122.6 1 Tim. 2.2 Hebr. 12 14. Matth. 5.38 c She commandeth us to pray for peace she enjoyneth us to follow peace with all men she enjoyneth us to lose our right for our peace motus alienae naturae pace nostrâ cohibere as Hilary speaketh to place a peaceable disposition as a bank or bulwork against the violence of anothers rage by doing nothing to conquer him who is in arms to charm the hissing Adder with silence she levelleth the hills and raiseth the valleys and casteth an aspect upon all conditions of men all qualities all affections whatsoever that they may be settled and compact and at unity with themselves and others This was Christ's first gift when he was born and it was conveyed unto us in an Hallelujah Luke 2.14 Peace on earth And it was also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil calleth it his last gift when he was to dye Peace I leave with you And John 14.27 to conclude this is it which S. Paul here commendeth to us as a Lesson to be learnt of us The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We must labour and study to be quiet There is nothing in the world which deserveth true commendation but it must be wrought out with study and difficulty Nor is the love of Peace and Quietness obvia illaborata virtus an obvious and easie virtue which will grow up of it self Indeed good inclinations and dispositions may seem to grow up in some men
118. a fable is more welcome then the oracles of God blandior auri species quà m hominis aut coeli aut lucis a piece of gold is a more glorious sight then Man the image of his Maker or the Heaven wherein he dwelleth or the Light it self So true is that of the Oratour Quintil. l. 10. c. 3. Aliud agere mentem cogunt oculi By this means the Eye diverteth the Mind of man from its proper work that it cannot attend and busie it self to discern betwixt good and evil and so watch and stand upon its guard I called tentations not onely Occasions but also Arguments but such Arguments which as I told you conclude not which beget not knowledge but opinion and prevail not with wise men but with fools who commonly for want of circumspection entertein and swallow down uncertain things for those which are certain and that which is doubtful for that which is true They who have wisdome for their guide judge of things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Sophist Elench c. 12. according as they are in themselves according to the truth attempt nothing do nothing upon opinion or a bare appearance but before they make choice do weigh and examin the object But uncautelous and unadvised men do but see and presently imbrace that which is most deformed in it self and hath nothing to commend it self to them but the fucus and paint which themselves have laid on Good God how friendly and familiar are we with that which pleaseth the Eye and Phansy Magna ista quia parvi sumus credimus Sen. Praef. ad N. Q. before the Reason hath lookt upon it Take all the sins which we commit what better ground or foundation have they on which they rise to that visible height then false opinion Our Ambition soareth and mounteth aloft with this thought as with a wing That Honour will make us as Gods Our Covetousness diggeth and sweateth with this assurance That Riches are the best friend Our Revenge is furious and bloody because we think that to suffer is cowardise We run after evil and study for a curse for some glimpse or shew it hath of some great blessing We doat on the earth which is fading and whose fashion passeth away for some resemblance we think it hath to Heaven and Eternity Et inanibus phantasmatibus tanquam dictis epulis reficimur Aug. de ver◠Relig. c. 51. These vain imaginations these dreams of happiness are but as a painted banquet For as junkets in a picture may delight the eye but not fill the stomach so do these sudden and weak conceptions tickle and please the phansie perhaps but bring leanness into the Soul and leave it empty and poor And no marvail For when the Sense is thus pleased when the Phansie hath sported and plaid with that which delighted the Sense the Affections grow unruly and Reason is swallowed up in victory so that God seemeth to be the enemy and the Devil a friend bringing good news unto us and speaking pleasing things to us such as are Musick to our ears whereas God seemeth to come in thunder with terrour and command to drive us to our watch providing a knife for our throat shutting up the eye cutting off the right hand muzling up the mouth that it speak no guile writing sad characters upon that which our Sense and Phansie had painted and drest up as Touch not Tast not Col. 2.21 Handle not Now that temptations work thus by the Sense and enter and make their passage into the inward man is evident not onely in those grosser sins which turn the very soul it self into flesh nam victa anima libidine fit Caro saith the Father When the soul is polluted with lust it loseth its spirituality and is transubstantiated as it were into flesh but is seen also in those which are more retired and inward to the Soul not onely in the practice of our life but also in the errours of our doctrine And on this ground S. Paul putteth Heresies into his black catalogue and numbreth them amongst the works of the Flesh Gal. 5.19 20. And if we look upon those who are the authours and somenters of Errour we shall find that they wilfully shut their eyes and ears against the truth which offereth it self and bespeaketh them with arguments and reasons undenyable and decline to Falshood by leaning rather to that which is convenient then to that which is true hearkening more to earthly and sensual motives then to the voice of God which calleth them This is the way Honour and Riches and Love of this world make up that body of Divinity which must be a Directory for them to walk by The eye readeth the Text and the eye letteth in the interpretation For the love of that I delight in is urgent with me and perswadeth me to understand it so as it may savour and countenance that love Thus do tentations both to sin and Errour creep in at these doors and inlets of the Senses and like thieves steal in by night coloured over with the pleasures and clouded with the pomp of the world and so find easie admittance and steal away the Truth and Love of God out of our hearts whilest we sleep And if a fair temptation do not make entrance with a smile a bitter and grievous Temptation may force a passage with its horrour For thus according to their divers and several aspects they work both upon the Irascible and Concupiscible power If an enemy be loud against us we have a tempest within us If Jacob hath the blessing Esau hateth him At the sight of Beauty if I take not heed my Love beginneth to kindle at the next look it flameth The approch of danger striketh me with fear nay a shadow and representation will do it I may take a promontory for a navy and a field of thistles for a body of pikes Not onely that which is true but even that which is feigned that which is but colour which is but found which is but a superficies but an apparition but a shadow being carelesly let in and enterteined may rayse this tumult and sedition in the Soul A fair promising temptation cometh upon parley and treaty and conditions insinuateth and winneth upon us with its smiles and flatteries but a fearful and boysterous temptation playeth upon us with all its artillery with smart and shame and poverty and imprisonment and death maketh forward with a kind of force and violence Tull. Offic. 1. tumultuantes de gradu dejicit overthroweth us with some noise And as the Senses convey the tentations so do the Affections if we do not watch and suppress them make sensible alterations in the heart and make themselves visible to the very Eye Profectò saith Pliny Ardent intenduntur humectant connivent hinc illae misericordiae lacrymae Plin. Nat. H. l. 11. c. 37. Eccl. 13.21 in oculis animus inhabitat The mind dwelleth in the Eye
Scriptures if you look over Christs Sermon on the mount you will easily be induced to believe that to serve one another in love is the greatest service we can do to God who made us all and to this end Alterutra diligentia charitatis as Tertullian calleth it This mutual and reciprocal work of charity in upholding each other is that which maketh us indeed the servants Christ Secondly as Compassion to our brethren is a fair preparation to purity of life so doth Purity of conversation commend our liberality and make it to be had in remembrance in the sight of the Lord. Compassion in a profane and impure person is but a sudden forced motion is but by fits and starts for sure it cannot stay and dwell in such a sty He that walloweth in the pleasures of this world and devoteth himself to riot and luxury cannot gain the title of religious by some cup of cold water or some piece of money which he giveth He that gathereth by oppression and then le ts fall an almes doth but steal an ox to make a sacrifice Perdere scit donare nescit as Piso said of Otho Tac. 1 Hist. He knoweth how to blast and spoil but not how to give an almes And commonly those winds blow not out of the Treasury of the Lord this bounty floweth not from the clear fountain of Divine Love but hath some other spring Thus to visit the fatherless and widows to reach out that hand unto them which is stained with the blood of others is not pure and undefiled Religion It may be bread it is not an almes that is brought by the hand of an oppressour or a Pharisee Therefore in the next place as they bear this fair correspondence and mutually uphold each other so we must not think it possible to separate them Some there be who come on slowly to the works of charity because they are not guilty of those sins which have shame written in their very foreheads pigri ad exercenda bona praecipua Hom. 36. in Evang. quia securi quòd non commiserint mala graviora as Gregory They are very backward to do good because they have not been overforward to do evil dull and heavy to the performance of the best deeds because they have not been active in the worst men for the many of them of more forecast then conscience that owe their morality not to the love of God but to the world knowing well enough that those vices which the world crieth down are commonly enemies to thrift delightful but costly there being scarce any one of them which is not a stake in his way who maketh haste to be rich and therefore they do abstain that they may not abstain they abstain from these disgraced expensive vices that their abstinence from these may be as a warrant or commission for them to make their brethren their daily sustenance Psal 14.4 53.4 to eat them up as they eat bread and devour these Temples of the Holy Ghost with as little regret as they do those which are made with hands And this is a common fault amongst Christians to think the performance of one part of our duty to be an apologie for the neglect of the other and that the observance of some few precepts will absolve us from the breach of all the rest that a sigh is louder then an oath and can sooner call down a pardon then the flying Book can bring a curse Zech. 5.1 2 3. that the diligence of the ear will answer for the boldness of the hand that a Fast will make Sacriledge a virtue and the keeping of the seventh day acquit us of those sins which we have resolved already to commit in the other six Indeed saith Basil the first rise and motion in Religion is to depart from all evil but yet it is a great deal easier to do nothing at all then to finish and perfect a good work THOV SHALT NOT KILL THOV SHALT NOT COMMIT ADVLTERY THOV SHALT NOT STEAL these are negative precepts and require but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forbearance and sitting still a not drawing to the harlots lips a not touching the wedge of gold a not taking up the instruments of cruelty but To love our neighbour as our selves To sell all and give to the poor To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction In Psal 1. are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 works fit for a souldier and strong man in Christ. We must beat down many enemies many wilde passions in our way before we can raise our selves to this height Nor can any man take this honour to himself but he that is called and fitted of God as were Abraham and Isaac and those Patriarchs and Apostles who were full of good works Both then are required at our hands and if God hath joyned them both together let no man take upon him to divorce or put them asunder For in the next place these two thus linked and united together will keep Religion pure and undefiled which I told you are as the colours and beauty of it the beauty of Holiness which hath its colour and grace from whence it hath its being and strength and if it be true will shine in the perfection of beauty Religion if it be true and not a name onely is as a virgin pure and undefiled and maketh us so and espouseth us to Christ Basil De Virginitate And as the Father telleth us Omnia virginis virgo sunt all that a virgin hath is so a virgin Her eyes are not touched with vanity her ears not defloured with evil communication her thoughts not ravished with the insiliencie of wanton desires her taste not violated with studied dainties and devised meats but all is like her self a Virgin So is true Religion simple and solid full of it self having no heterogeneous matter but ever the same and about the same There is nothing in our Love which sowreth our Justice nothing in our Justice to kill our Compassion nothing in our Liberality to defile our Chastity nothing in our Fear to beat down our Confidence nothing in our Zeal to consume our Charity Tertull. De corona militis Christianus nusquam est aliud A true Religious man is alwaies himself And as Religion is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pure without mixture so it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 undefiled and cannot subsist with pollution and profaneness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now are our Olympicks now is the great trial to be made before God and the Father 2 Tim. 2 5. And our Religion consisteth in this to fight it out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 legally a condition they were bound to who were admitted to those games and exercises Before they did contend a proclamation was made to this purpose whether they were not servants or thieves or otherwise of an infamous life and if any of these were proved against them they were put back The same proclamation is made
of no use at all Nay we make that a snare unto us which was made for a help Every creature within the bounds of its nature is useful and profitable so also these external helps the Ark of God the Word and Sacraments of the Church are great blessings and highly to be honoured whilst we use them to that end for which they were first instituted whilst we walk within that compass and circle which God hath drawn according to that form which he hath shewed us That Jew deserveth not the name of an Israelite that either by word or gesture dishonoureth the Ark when we see he was not permitted to touch it But he that of a sign of the presence of God in the day of battle shall make it his God is so much a Jew that he deserveth to be flung out of the Synagogue And that Christian that boweth not to the majesty of the Word and receiveth it not as a letter and epistle from God as S Augustine calleth it that esteemeth not of the Sacraments as those visible words the signs and pledges and conveiances of God's great love and favour to us in Christ hath too little of the Christian to make him so much as one of the visible Church But he that is high in his panegyrick and ever calling Speak Lord for thy servant heareth and then lieth down to sleep or if he be awake is onely active in denying the power of that Word he so much magnified and called for and thinketh he hath done all duties and offices to God if he do but give him the ear which is to trust in the Ark more then in God he that shall make the Sacrament first an idole and then a seal to shut up treason in silence as the Jesuite or use it as an opiate once or twice in the year to quiet his conscience his viaticum and provision rather to strengthen him in sin then against it he that shall thus magnifie and thus debase it thus exalt and thus tread it under foot is guilty of Heresie saith Erasmus which is not properly an Heresie but yet such a kinde of Heresie may make him Anathema though he be of the Church and at last sever him as a Goat from the Sheep And now let us judge not according to the appearance let us judge righteous judgement Or rather if you please do but judge according to the appearance Cast an eye upon these unhappy times which if they be not the last yet so much resemble those which as we are told shall usher in the great day that we have great reason to look about us as if they were the last Weigh I say the controversies the business of these times and concerning those duties and transactions which constitute and consummate a Christian you shall finde as great silence in our disputes as in our lives and practice The great heat and contention is concerning Baptisme the Lord's Supper and the Government and Discipline of the Church It is not Whether we should deny our selves and abstain from all fleshly lusts but Whether we may wash or not Whether eat or not Whether Christ may be conveighed into us in Water or in Bread Whether he hath set up a chair of infallibility at Rome or a consistory at Geneva Whether he hath ordained one Pope or a million What digladiations what tragedies are there about these points And if every particular phansie be not pleased the cry is as if Religion were breathing out its last when as the true Religion consisteth not principally in these but these may seem to have been passed over to us rather as favours and honours and pledges of God's love then as strict and severe commands That we must wash and eat are commands but which bring no burden or hardship with them the performance of them being most easie as no whit repugnant to flesh and blood It is no more but Wash and be clean Eat in remembrance of the greatest benefit that ever mankind received All the difficulty is in the performance of the vow we make in the one and the due preparation of the soul for the other which is the subduing of our lusts and affections the beautifying of our inward man This is truly and most properly the service of Christ the Ark of our Ark the Glory of our Glory and the crown of all those outward advantages which our Lord and Master hath been Pleased to afford us We may ask with the Prophet Mich. 6.6 7. Wherewith shall we come before the Lord or bow our selves before the high God Will he be pleased with the diligence of our Ear with our Washing v. 8. and Eating and answer with him He hath shewed thee O man what he doth require to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Go to Shiloh and there learn we to disdeceive our selves by the example of the Israelites if all our Religion be shut up with theirs in the Ark all in outward ceremony and formality God strike both us and the Ark we trust to recover and call back those helps and gracious advantages from such prodigal usurpers For when all is for the Ark nothing for the God it representeth when we make the Pulpit our Ark and chain all Religion to it when the lips of the Preacher which should preserve knowledge Mal 2.7 Orat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and be as a Ship as Basil speaketh to conveigh that Truth which is more precious then the Gold of Ophir bringeth nothing but Apes and Peacocks loathsome and ridiculous phansies when the hearers must have a song for a Sermon and that too many times much out of tune when both Hearer and Speaker act a part as it were upon a stage even till they have their Exit and go out of the world when we will have no other laver but that of Baptisme no bread but that in the Eucharist when we are such Jewish Christians as to rely on the shell and outside on external formalities and performances more empty and less significant and effectual then their ceremonies we have just cause to fear that God will do unto us as he did unto Shiloh or as he threatned the same people Amos 8. send a famin into the land not a famin of bread but of hearing the word and such a famin we may have though our loaves do multiply though Sermons be our daily bread that he may deprive us of our Sacraments or deliver them up to Dagon to be polluted by Superstition or to be troden under foot by Profaneness which of the two is the worst that we may even loath and abhor that in which we have taken so vain so unprofitable so pernicious delight and condemn our selves and our own foul ingratitude and with sorrow and confusion of face subscribe to this Inscription DOMINVS EST It is the Lord. And now we have setled the Inscription upon every particular And it may seem at first not well placed
by quickning and enlivening our Faith Eph. 3.17 He dwelleth in our hearts by faith so that we are rooted and grounded in love We read of a dead faith Jam. 2.20 a faith vvhich moveth no more in the vvayes of righteousness then a dead man sealed up in his grave And if the Son of man should come he would find enough of this faith in the World From hence from this that our Faith is not enlivened that the Gospel is not throughly believed but faintly received cum formidine contrarii vvith a fear or rather a hope that the contrary is true from hence proceed all the errours of our lives From hence ariseth that irregularity those contradictions and inconsequences in the lives of men even from hence that we have Faith but so as we should have the World We have it as if vve had it not 1 Cor. 7. and so use it as if we used it not or vvhich is vvorse abuse it Not believe and be saved but believe and be damned And we are vain men James 2.20 saith S. James if we think otherwise if we think that a dead faith can work any thing or any thing but death But when it is quickned and made a working faith vvhen Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith then it worketh wonders We read of its valour that it subdueth kingdoms Hebr. 11.23 and stoppeth the mouthes of lions We read of its policy 2 Cor. 2.11 that it discovereth the Devils enterprises or devises We read of its medicinal virtue Acts 15.9 that it purifieth the heart We read too furta fidei the thefts and pious depredations of Faith It stealeth virtue from Christ Matth. 9.20 21. and taketh heaven by violence Yea such a wonderful power it hath in that soul in which Christ dwelleth 11.12 that it vvorketh out our corruption and stampeth his image upon us It vvorketh in us the obedience of faith Rom. 1.5 that is that obedience which is due to Faith and to which Faith naturally tendeth and to which it would bring us if we did not dull and dead and hinder it Christ first worketh in us a universal and equal obedience For if he dwell in us every room is his There are saith Parisiensis particulares voluntates particular wills or rather particular inclinations and dispositions to this virtue and not to another as to be liberal but not temperate to be sober but not chast to fast and hear and pray but not to do acts of mercy These are virtues but in appearance they proceed from rotten and unsound principles from a false spring but not from Christ And so they make up a spiritual Hermaphrodite a good speaker Duos in uno homine Syllas fuisse crediderit Valerius Max. l. 6. c. 9. and a bad liver a Jew and a Christian an Herode and a John Baptist a Zelote a Phinehas and an Adulterer and as the Historian said two Sylla's in one man like a Play-book and a Sermon bound up together But these I told you are not true virtues but proceed many times from the same principles which vices do for I may be a Hypocrite and a man of Belial for the same end But where Christ dwelleth he purgeth the whole house not one but every faculty of the soul that is the whole man as he raised not a part but all Lazarus For if any part yet favour of rottenness and corruption we cannot say that Lazarus is risen He worketh I say an universal and equal obedience in every respect answering to the command and working of Christ as a Circle doth in every part look upon the point or Centre Secondly Christ worketh in us an even and constant obedience The Apostle calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 2.5 the firmity and stedfastness of our faith in Christ. The Philosopher well observeth that the Affections do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 2. Ethic. c. 1. 5. lightly move us raise some motion in the minde trouble us and vanish so that one affection many times driveth out another as Amnon did Tamar our Love ending in Hatred our sorrow in Anger and our Fear in Joy But from Virtue we are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be strongly disposed to be confirmed and established in our actions So the reason of that unevenness instability and inconstancy in the conversation of men that they are now loud in their Hosanna and anon as loud in their Crucifige now in Abrahams bosom and anon into Dalilah's lap now fighting anon cursing now very Seraphical and anon wallowing in the mire is from this That they have no other motive no other principle then peradventure some private respect or a weak impression of some good lesson they have lately heard and some faint radiations from the truth and therefore they can rise no higher then the Fountain and will soon run out with it Now it is not so with the true Christian in whom Christ dwelleth He moveth with the Sun which never starteth out of his sphere he hath Christ living in him and the power of the Gospel assisting him in every motion and so cannot have these qualms of devotion these waverings this unevenness these Cadi-surgia Ephr. Sytus as the Father calleth them these risings and fallings these marches and halts these proffers and relapses because Christ is living in him 1 John 3.9 1 Pet. 1.5 because the seed of God abideth in him and he is kept by this power of Christ unto salvation Thirdly Christ worketh a sincere and real obedience in that heart in which he dwelleth And this is proper to the true Christian For the actions of an hypocrite are not natural but artificial not like unto the actions of a living soul but like unto the motions of that artificial body which Albertus made not proceeding from any life but forced as it were by certain wheels and engines by Love of a good name by Fear of smart or Hope to bring their purposes about Thus many times the Hypocrite walketh to his end in the habit of a Saint when no other appearance will serve But where Christ dwelleth there is his Spirit and where his Spirit is there is truth and he fashioneth and shapeth out our affections to the things themselves and maketh them such as so fair an object requireth As his promises so our affections are Yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1 20. As his reward is real so is our love to it real As the Gospel and Heaven and Christ is true so are our affections towards them hearty and sincere true as he is true and faithful as he is faithful So then to conclude this Christ dwelleth in every true Christian not as a contracted or divided Christ as the antient Hereticks made him but as the Apostle speaketh fully and plentifully Secondly he dwelleth in him as Christ yesterday and to day and the same for ever not as Baal Hebr. 13.8 1 Kings 18.27
all And Sin may propagate it self 1. as an Efficient cause Removens prohibens weakening the power of Grace dimming the light of the Gospel setting us at a greater distance from the brightness of it making us more venturous taking off the blush of modestie which should restrain us One evil act may dispose us to commit the like and that may bring on a thousand 2. As a Material cause One sin may prepare matter for another thy Covetousness beget Debate Debate enrage thee more and that not end but in Murder 3. Last of all as the Final cause Thou mayest commit Theft for Fornication and Fornication for Theft that thou mayest continue a Tyrant be more a Tyrant that thou mayest uphold thy oppression oppress more that thou mayest walk on in safety walk on in the blood of the innocent that thou mayest be what thou art be worse then thou art be worse and worse till thou art no more Ambition led Absalom to Conspiracy Conspiracy to open Rebellion Rebellion to his Fathers Concubines at last to the oak where he hung with three darts in his side Sin saith Basil like unto a stone cast into the water multiplieth by infinite gyres and circles The sins of our youth hasten us to the sins of our age and the sins of our age look back upon the follies of our youth Pride feathereth my Ambition and Ambition swelleth my Pride Gluttony is a pander to my Lust and my Lust a steward to my Gluttony Sins seldom end where they begin but run on till they be infinite and innumerable And now this unhappy fruitfulness of Sin may be a strong motive to make me run away from every sin and fear any one evil spirit as that which may bring in a Legion Could I think that when I tell a lie I am in a disposition to betray a kingdom could I imagin that when I slander my neighbour I am in an aptitude to blaspheme God could I see Luxury in Gluttony and Incest in Luxury Strife in Covetousness and in Strife Murder in Idleness Theft and in Theft Sacriledge I should then turn from every evil way and at the sight of any one sin with fear and trembling cry out Behold a troop cometh 3. But if neither the Monstrosity of Sin nor the Fruitfulness of Sin moveth us yet the guilt it bringeth along with it and the obligation to punishment may deter us Sin must needs then be terrible when she cometh with a whip in her hand Indeed she is never without one if we could see it All those heavy judgments which have fallen upon us and prest us well-neer to nothing we may impute to what we please to the madness of the people to the craft and covetousness of some and the improvidence of others but it was Sin that called them down for ought we know but one For one sin as of Achan all Israel may be punished For one Sin as of David Josh 7. 2 Sam. 24. threescore ten thousand may fall by the plague For Jonah's disobedience a tempest may be raised upon all the Mariners in the ship And what stronger wind can there blow then this to drive us every one out of every evil way How should this consideration leave a sting behind it and affect an startle us It may be my Sacriledge may the Church-robber say It may be my Luxury may the Wanton say It may be my bold Irreverence in the house of God may the profane man say whatsoever sin it is it may be mine which hath wrought this desolation on the earth And then what an Achan what a Jonah what a murderer am I I will confess with Achan build an altar with David throw Jonah over-board cast Sin out of my soul that God may turn from his fierce wrath and shine once again both upon my Tabernacle and upon the Nation 4. But in the last place if God's anger be not hot enough in his temporal punishments it will hereafter boyl and reak in a caldron of unquenchable fire He will punish thee eternally for any one sin habituated in thee which thou hast not turned from by Repentance S. Basil maketh the punishment in hell not onely infinite in duration but in degrees and increase and is of opinion that the pains of the damned are every moment intended and augmented according as even one sin may spread it self from man to man from one generation to another even to the worlds end by its venemous contagion and ensample Think we as meanly and slightly of sin as we will swallow it without fear live in it without sense yet thus it may for ought we can say to the contrary multiply and increase both it self and our punishment and this of S. Basil may be true My Love of the world may kindle my Anger my Anger may end in Murder my Murder may beget a Cain and Cain a Lamech and from Cain by a kind of propagation of Sin may proceed a bloudy race throughout all generations and I shall be punished for Cain and punished for Lamech and for as many as the contagion of my sin shall reach and I shall be punished for my own sins and I shall be punished for my other mens sins as Father Latimer speaketh and my punishment shall be every moment infinitely and infinitely multiplyed and increased A heavy and sad consideration it is and very answerable and proportionable to this loud and vehement Ingemination CONVERTIMINI CONVERTIMINI Turn ye turn ye able to turn us and so to turn us that we may turn from every evil way Our Turn as ye have heard must be true and sincere and it must be universal We must turn with all our heart and we must turn from all our sins There is yet one property more required that it be final that we hold on unto the end And without this the other three are lost the Speediness the Sincerity the Universality of our Repentance are of no force Though it were true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in respect of its essential parts and in respect of its latitude and extent yet it is not true in respect of its latitude and extent yet it is not true in respect of its duration unless we turn once for all and never fall back unto those paths out of which horrour and grief and disdain did drive us It may work our peace and reconcile us for a time but if we fail and fall back even our Turn our former Repentance forsaketh us and Mercy it self withdraweth and leaveth us under that wrath which we were fled from Therefore in our Turn this must go along with us and continue the motion the consideration of the great hazard we run when we turn from our evil wayes and after turn back again For first as a pardon doth nullifie former sins so it maketh the sins we commit afterwards more grievous and fatall It is observed that it is the part of a wise friend etiam leves suspiciones fugere
phansy it may be nothing But qui potest is equivalent to quia potest and is the reason why we must fear him even because he can punish And this I hope may free us from the imputation of sin if our Love be blended with some Fear and if in our obedience we have an eye to the hand that may strike us as well as to that which may fill us with good things If Christ who is the Wisdome of the Father think it fit to make the Terrour of Death an argument to move us we cannot have folly laid to our charge if we be moved with the argument Fac fac saith S. Augustine vel timore poenae si non potes adhuc amore justitiae Do it man do it if thou canst not yet for love of justice yet for fear of punishment I know that of S. Augustine is true Brevis differentia legis evangelii Amor Timor Love is proper to the Gospel and Fear to the Law But it is Fear of temporal punishment not of eternal for that may sound in both but is loudest in the Gospel The Law had a whip to fright us and the Gospel hath a Worm to gnaw us I know that the beauty of Christ is that great work of Love the work of our Redemption should transport us beyond our selves and make us Cant. 2.5 5.8 as the Spouse in the Canticles is said to be even sick with love but we must consider not what is due to Christ but what we are able to pay him and what he is willing to accept not what so great a benefit might challenge at our hands but what our frailty can lay down For we are not in heaven already but passing towards it with Fear and trembling And he that bringeth forth a Christian in these colours of Love without any mixture of Fear doth but as it was said of the Historian votum accommodare non historiam present us rather with a wish then an history and character out the Christian as Xenophon did Cyrus non qualis est sed qualâ—â— esse deberet not what he is but what he should be I confess thus to fear Christ thus to be urged and chased to happiness is an argument of imperfection But we are Men not Angels We are not in heaven already we are not yet perfect and therefore have need of this kind of remedy as much need certainly as our first Parents had in Paradise who before they took the forbidden fruit might have seen Death written and engraven on the tree and had they observed it as they ought to have done had not forfeited the garden for one apple Gen. 3.8 Had this Fear walked along with them before the cool of the day before the rushing wind they had not heard it nor hid themselves from God In a word had they feared they had not fallen for they fell with this thought that they should not fall that they should not die at all Imperfection though it be to fear yet it is such an imperfection asleadeth to perfection Imperfection though it be to fear yet I am sure it is a greater imperfection to sin and not to fear It might be wished perhaps that we were tyed and knit unto our God quibusdam internis commerciis as the devout School man speaketh with those inward ligaments of Love and Joy and Admiration that we had a kind of familiar acquaintance and intercourse with him that as our almes and prayers and fasting come up before him to shew him what we do on earth so there were no imperfection in us but that God might approch so nigh unto us with the fulness of joy to tell us what he is preparing for us that neither the Fear of hell nor the Hope of heaven and our salvation but the Love of God and Goodness were the onely cause of our cleaving to him that we might love God because he is God and hate Sin because it is sin and for no other reason that we might with S. Paul with the increase of Gods glory Rom. 9.3 though with that heavy condition of our own reprobration But this is such an heroick spirit as every man cannot rise unto though he may at last rise as high as heaven This is such a condition as we can hardly hope for whilst we are in the flesh We are in the body not out of the body We struggle with doubts and difficulties Ignorance and Infirmity are our companions in our way And in this our state of imperfection contenti simus hoc Catone Dictum Augusti cum hortaretur ferenda esse praesentia qualiacunque sint Suet. Octav August c. 87. We must be content to use such means and helps as the Law-giver himself will allow of and not cast off Fear upon a phansie that our Love is perfect for this savoureth more of an imaginary metaphysical subtilty of a kind of ecstaticall affectation of piety then the plain and solid knowledge of Christian Religion but continue our Obedience and carry on our Perseverance with the remembrance of our last end with this consideration Deut. 27 26. That as under the Law there was a curse pronounced to them that fulfill it not 2 Thess 1.8 so under the Gospel there is a flaming fire to take vengeance of them that obey it not It was a good censure of Tully which he gave of Cato in one of his Epistles Thou canst not saith he to his friend love and honour Cato more then I do but yet this I observe in him Optimo animo utens summâ fide nocet interdum Reip. L. 2. ad Attic. ep 1. He doth endamage the Common-wealth but with an honest mind and great fidelity for he giveth sentence as if he lived in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Platonis non in faece Romuli in Plato's Common-wealth and not in the dregs and rascaltry of Romulus And we may pass the same censure on these Seraphical Perfectionists who will have all done out of pure Love nothing out of Fear They remember not that they are in faece Adami the off-spring of an arch-rebell that their father was an Amorite and their mother an Hittite Ezek. 16.3 4 5 and that the want of this Fear threw them from that state of integrity in which they were created and by that out of Paradise and so with great ostentation of Love they hinder the progress of Piety and setting up to themselves an Idea of Perfection they take off our Fear which should be as the hand to wind up the plummet that should continue the motion of our Obedience The best we can say of them is Summâ fide pio animo nocent Ecclesiae If there mind be pious and answer the great shew they make then with a pious mind they wrong and trouble the Church of Christ Nunquam rectè fecit ut facere videretur sed quià aliter facere non poterat Vell. Paterc l. 2. Hist For suppose
telleth us that we have not received the spirit of bondage to fear again but the spirit of adoption by which we cry Abba Father And it is most true that we have not received that Spirit for we are not under the Law but under Grace we are not Jews Rom. 6.14 but Christians Nor do we fear again as the Jews feared whose eye was upon the Basket and the Sword who were curbed and restrained by the fear of present punishment and whose greatest motives to obedience were drawn from temporal respects and interests who did fear the Plague Captivity the Philistin the Caterpiller and Palmerworm and so did many times forbear that which their lusts and irregular appetites were ready to joyn with We have not received such a spirit For the Gospel directeth our look not to those things which are seen 2 Cor. 4.18 1 Cor. 12.31 but to those things which are not seen and sheweth us yet a more excellent way But we have received the Spirit of adoption we are received into that Family where little care is taken for the meat that perisheth where the World is made an enemy John 6.27 Matth. 6.34 Phil. 2.12 where we must leave the morrow to care for it self and work out oâ—â— salvation with fear and trembling Psal 56.11 where we must not fear what man but what God can do unto us observe his hand as that hand which can raise us up as high as heaven and throw us down to the lowest pit love him as a Father and fear to offend him Psal 2.12 Luke 1.74 love and kiss the Son lest he be angry serve him without fear of any evil that can befall us here in our way of any enemy that can hurt us and yet fear him as our Lord and King For in this his grant of liberty he did not let us loose against himself nor put off his Majesty that we should be so bold with him as not to serve but to disobey him without fear Nor doth this cut off our Filiation our relation to him for a good son may fear the wrath of God and yet cry Abba Father 1 John 4.18 But then again we are told by S. John that there is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear All fear he excepteth none no not the fear of punishment L. de fugâ in persecutione I know Tertullian interpreting this Text maketh this fear to be nothing else but that lazy Fear which is begot by a vain and unnecessary contemplation of difficulties the fear of a man that will not set forward in his journey for fear of some Lion some perillous beast some horrible hardship in the way And this is true but not ad textum nor doth it reach S. John's meaning which may be gathered out of Chapt. 3. v. 16. where he maketh it the duty of Christians to lay down their lives for the brethren as Christ laid down his life for them And this we shall be ready to do if our Love be perfect cast off all fear and lay down our lives for them For true Love will suffer all things and is stronger then Death Cant. 8.6 But Love doth not cast out the Fear of Gods wrath for this doth no whit impair our love to him but is rather the means to improve it When we do our duty we have no reason to fear his anger but yet we must alwayes fear him that we may go on and persevere unto the end He will not punish us for our obedience and so we need not fear him but if we break it off he will punish us and this thought may strengthen and establish us in it Hebr. 4.1 Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entring into his rest any of us should come short of it But we may draw an answer out of the words themselves as they lie in the Text. For it is true indeed Charity casteth out all fear but not simul semel not at once but by degrees As that waxeth our Fear waineth as that gathereth strength our Fear is in feebled Et perfecta forà s mittit When our Love is perfect it casteth Fear out quite If our Sanctification were as total as it is universal were our Obedience like that of Angels and could never fail we should not then need the sight of heaven to allure us or Gods thunder to affright us But Sanctification being onely in part though in every part the best of Christians in this state of imperfection may look up upon the Moriemini make use of a Deaths-head and use Gods Promises and Threatnings as subordinate means to concurre with the principal as buttresses to support the building that it do not swerve whilst the foundation of Love and Faith keep it that it do not sink A strange thing it may seem that when with great zeal we cry down that Perfection of Degrees and admit of none but that of Parts we should be so refined sublimate as not to admit of the least tincture admission of Fear Now in the next place as Fear may consist with Love so it may with Faith and with Hope it self which seemeth to stand in opposition with it First Faith apprehendeth all the attributes of God and eyeth his threatnings as well as his Promises God hath establisht and fenced in his Precepts with them both If he had not proposed them both as objects for our Faith why doth he yet complain why doth he yet threaten And if we will observe it we shall find some impressions of Fear not onely in the Decalogue but in our Creed To judge both the quick and the dead are words which sound with terrour and yet an article of our belief And we must not think it concerneth us to believe it and no more Agenda and credenda are not at such a distance but that we may learn our Practicks in our Creed God's Omnipotence both comforteth and affrighteth me His Mercy keepeth me from despair and his Justice from presumption But Christs coming to judge both the quick and the dead is my solicitude my anxiety my fear Nor must we imagine that because the Faith which giveth assent to these truths may be meerly historical this Article concerneth the justified person no more then a bare relation or history For the Fear of Judgment is so far from destroying Faith in the justified person that it may prove a soveraign means to preserve it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil speaketh to order and compose our Faith In Psal 32. which is ready enough to take an unkind heat if Fear did not cool and temper it In Prosperity David is at his NON MOVEBOR I shall never be moved Psal 30.6 Before the storm came Peter was so bold as to dare and challenge all the temptations that could assault him ETSI OMNES NON EGO Matth. 26. Although all men deny thee yet not I yet was he puzled and
This is my body And be not faithless but believing Here shake off that chilness that restiveness that acedie that weariness that faintness of your Faith here warm and actuate and quicken it that it may be a working fighting conquering Faith For thus to do it is to do this in remembrance of Christ Secondly It taketh in Repentance By this we do most truly remember Christ remember his Birth and are born again for Repentance is our new birth remember his Circumcision and circumcise our hearts for Repentance is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great circumcision saith Epiphanius go about with him doing good for Repentance is our obedience remember him on his Cross for Repentance setteth up a Cross in imitation of his and lifteth us up upon it stretcheth and dilateth all the powers of our soul pierceth our hearts and so crucifieth the flesh and the affections and lucts thereof Our Repentance if it be true is an imitation of Christs suffering a revenge upon our selves for what the Jews did to him the proper issue and effect of his Love For what Christ worketh in us he first worketh upon us maketh us see and feel and handle his Love that we may be active in those duties of love which by his command and ensample we owe to him and in him to our brethren He dyed to be a propitiation for our sins that is 1 John 2.2 4.10 that he might make sin to cease for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implyeth He giveth us strength by Repentance quite to extinguish and abolish sin Thus if we repent thus if we do we do it in remembrance of him And this we are alwaies to do but then especially when we prepare our selves to make our addresses to Christs Table For though Repentance be the fruit of a due Examination of our selves yet we may and must examin our Repentance it self And the time to do it is now Now thou art to renew thy Covenant thou must also renew thy Repentance In the feast of the Atonement the Lord telleth his people Lev. 23.29 Whatsoever soul should not be afflicted that day should be cut off This is a day for it in this day thou must do it This is the season to ransack thy soul to see how many grains of Hypocrisie were left behind in thy former Repentance what hollowness was in thy Grones what coldness in thy Devotion to see what advantage Satan hath since taken what ground he hath won in thy soul And then in remembrance of Christs Love set afresh to the work of Mortification wound thy heart deeper lay on surer blows empty thy self of thy self of all that rust and rubbish which thy Self-love left behind And then stir up those graces in thee which through inadvertency and carelessness lye raked up as in the ashes In a word refine every Virtue quicken every Grace intend thy Will exalt thy Faith draw nearer to Christ and so renew thy Covenant and sit down at his Table And thus if thou do it thou dost it in remembrance of him I might here take in the whole train the whole circle and crown of Christian graces and virtues and draw them together and shut them within the compass of this one word Remembrance for it will comprehend them all Knowledge Obedience Love Sincerity Thankfulness from whence the Sacrament hath its name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Meditation and Prayer For he that truly believeth and repenteth as he is sick of sin so is he sick of Love of that Love which in the Sacrament is sealed and confirmed to us he is full of saving knowledge is ever bowing to Christs sceptre is sincere and like himself in all his wayes will meditate on Christs Love day and night will drive it ab animo in habitum as Tertullian speaketh from the mind to the motions and actions of the body from the conscience into the outward man till it appear in liberal hands in righteous lips and in attentive ears will breathe forth nothing but Devotion Prayers Hallelujahs Glory Honour and Praise for this his Love And so he will become as the picture and image and face of Christ reflecting all his favours and graces back upon him as a pillar engraven with Gods loving kindnesses a memorial of Gods goodness thankfully set up for ever And thus to do it is to do it in remembrance of Christ To conclude Thus if we do it if we thus remember him he will also remember us Cant. 8.6 remember us and set us as seals upon his heart and signets on his arm remember us as his peculiar treasure And as our Remembrance of him taketh up all the duty of a Christian so doth his Remembrance of us comprehend all the benefits of a Saviour Our Love of him and his Love to us are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazian orat 17. will be as matter and fuel to nourish and uphold this remembrance between us for ever We shall remember him in humility and obedience and he shall remember us in love and power We shall remember him on earth and he shall remember us in heaven and prepare a place for us He shall remember our affliction and uphold us he shall remember our prayers and make them effectual our almes and make them a pleasing sacrifice He shall remember our failings and settle and establish us our tears and turn them into joy He shall remember all that we do or suffer all but our sins those he hath buried in his grave for ever And now we are drawing near to his Table with fear and reverence he will remember us and draw nearer to us in these outward Elements then Superstition can feign him beyond the fiction of Transsubstantiation Psal 36.8 He will abundantly satisfie us with the fatness of his house feed us though not with his flesh yet with himself and move in us that we may grow up in him In a word he will remember us in heaven more truly then we can remember him on earth and distill his grace and blessings on us be ever with us and fill our hearts with rejoycing Which will be a fair pledge of that solid pure and everlasting joy in the highest heavens And Lord remember us thus now thou art in thy Kingdome The Five and Twentieth SERMON 1 COR. XI 26. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew or shew ye the Lord's death till he come THere is nothing so good in it self but it may prove the the worst of evils if it be not carried on to its right end and fitly applied to that use for which it was ordained Frustrà est quod rationem finis non ducit saith the Philosopher Every thing hath its use from its end If it decline from that it is not onely unprofitable but hurtful I do not warm my self with a plainer nor smooth a table with fire for this were not onely vain but would destroy my work The
Body and his Bloud and S. Paul calleth it the Bread and the Cup Nor is S. Paul contrary to Christ but determineth and reconcileth all in the end both of Christ's suffering and our receiving in the words of my Text As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew or shew ye the Lord's death till he come In which words the Death of the Lord of life is presented to us and we called to look up upon him whom our sins have pierced through to behold him wounded for our transgressions ex cujus latere aqua sanguis Isa 53.5 utriusque lavacri paratura manavit as Tertullian out of whose side came water and bloud to wash and purge us which make the two Sacraments Baptism and the Lord's Supper And the effect of both is our Obedience in life and conversation that we should serve him with the whole heart who hath bought us at so dear a price that we should wash off all our spots and stains and foul pollutions in the laver of this Water and the laver of this Bloud And therefore as he offered himself for us on the Cross so he offereth himself to us in the Sacrament his Body in the Bread and his Bloud in the Cup that we may eat and drink and feed upon him and taste how gracious he is Which is the sum and complement and blessed effect of the duty here in the Text to shew the Lord's death till he come For he that sheweth it not manducans non manducat eating doth not as Ambrose doth eat the Bread but not feed on Christ But he that fully acquitteth himself in this shall be fed to eternal life Let us then take the words asunder And there we find What we are to do and How long we are to do it the Duty and the Continuation of it the Duty We must shew forth Christ's death the Continuation of it We must do it till he come again to judgment In the Duty we consider first an Object what it is we must shew the death of the Lord Secondly an Act what it is to shew and declare it The death of the Lord a sad but comfortable a bloudy but saving spectacle And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew a word of as large a compass as Christianity it self And the duration and continuation of it till he come that is to the end of the world Of these in their order The object is in nature first and first to be handled the death of the Lord. And this is most proper for us to consider For by his stripes we are healed and by his death we live And in this he hath not onely expressed his Love but made himself an example that we may take it out and so shew forth his death First it is his Love which joyned these two words together Death and the Lord which are farther removed then Heaven is from the Earth For can the Lord of life die Yes Amor de coelo demisit Dominum That Love which brought him down from his throne to his footstool that united the Godhead and Manhood in one Person hath also made these two terms Death and the Lord compatible and fastned the Son of God to the Cross hath exprest it self not onely in Beneficence but also in Patience not onely in Power but also in Humility and is most lively and visible in his Death the true authentick instrument of his Love He that is our Steward to provide for us who supplieth us out of his rich treasur◠who ripeneth the fruit on the trees and the corn in the fields who draweth us wine out of the vine and spinneth us garments out of the bowels of the worm and the fleece of the flock will also empty himself and pour forth his bloud He who giveth us balm for our bodies will give us physick for our souls will give up his ghost to give us breath and life And here his love is in its Zenith and vertical point and in a direct line casteth the rayes of comfort on his lost creature This Lord cometh not naked but clothed with blessings cometh not empty but with the rich treasuries of heaven cometh not alone but with troops of Angels with troops of promises and blessings Bonitas foecunda sui Goodness is fruitful and generative of it self gaineth by spending it self swelleth by overflowing and is increased by profusion When she poureth forth her self and breatheth forth that sweet exhalation she conveyeth it not poor and naked and solitary but with a troop and authority with ornament and pomp For Love bringeth with it whatsoever Goodness can imagine munera officia gifts and offices doth not onely give us the Lord but giveth us his sufferings his passion his death not onely his death but the virtue and power of it to raise us from the lethargy and death of Sin that we may be quick and active to shew and express it in our selves Olim morbo nunc remedio laboramus The remedy is so wonderful it confoundeth the patient and maketh health it self appear but fabulous Shall the Lord of Life die why may not Man whose breath is in his nostrils be immortal Yes he shall and for this reason Because it pleased the Lord of Life to die We need not adopt one in his place or substitute a creature a phantasm as did Arius and Marcion in his office For he took our sins and he will take the office himself Isa 63.3 he will tread the wine press alone and will admit none with him Nor doth this Humility impair his Majesty but rather exalt it Though he die yet he is the Lord still The Father will tell us that they who denied this for fear were worse then those who denied it out of stomach and the pretense of his honour is more dangerous then perversness For this is to confine and limit this Lord to shorten his hand palos terminales figere to set up bounds and limits against his infinite Love and absolute Will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shape and frame him out to their own phansie and indeed to blaspheme him with reverence to take from him his heavenly power and put into his hand a sceptre of reed His Love and his Will quiet all jealousies and answer all arguments whatsoeever It was his will to die and he that resteth in God's Will doth best acknowledge his Majesty For all even Majesty it self doth vail to his Will and is commanded by it What the Lord of life equal to the Father by whom all things were made shall he die Yes quia voluit because he would For as at the Creation he might have made Man as he made other creatures by his Word alone yet would not but wrought him out of the clay and fashioned him with his own hands so in the great work of our Redemption he did not send an Angel one of the Seraphim or Cherubim or any finite creature which he might have done
but at the word 's speaking He crieth Lo I come to do it my self Look upon this object of Majesty and Humility yet once again and see the power and omnipotencie of his Love In this laying down his life for us he was pleased to give a price infinitely above the merchandize and as in the world some buyers are wont to do to buy his own affection to us to pay down not a talent for a talent but a talent for a mite Himself for a worm and his Love for the world nay by his infinite Love to bound as it were his infinite Power his infinite Wisdom and his illimited Will For here his Power Wisdom and Will find a NON ULTRA and are at the furthest He cannot do He cannot find out He cannot wish for us more then he hath done then being equal with God to take upon him the form of a servant and in that form to humble himself to the death of the cross How should this spectacle of Love and Power of Majesty and Humility affect and ravish our souls How should this fire of Love these everlasting burnings kindled in our flesh enflame us That benefit is great which preventeth our prayers That is greater which is above our hope That is greatest which pre-occupateth and forestalleth our desires But what is that which over-runneth our opinion and even swalloweth it up in victory Had not he revealed his will and told us he would die we could not have desired it but our prayers had been turned into sin our hope had been madness and our opinion impiety All that we can say is that it was his infinite Love And his Love defendeth his Majesty and exalteth the Humility of his Cross and maketh it as glorious as his Throne For when he was fastned to it when he died it was his Throne and from it he threw down Principalities and Powers and Sin and Death it self Love hath this priviledge that it cannot be defamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Plato By a kind of law it hath the prerogative of Honour and maketh Bondage free Disgrace honourable Infirmity omnipotent Death life it worketh a harmony out of these two inconsistent terms Death and the Lord which is the joy of the whole earth Thus is Christ's Death made a spectacle unto us and his Love bespeaketh us to behold it and there needeâ—h no other Oratour to perswade us For where Love is denied the tongues of Men and of Angels are but as a tinckling cymbal But this is not all For In the second place Christ hangeth not on the cross onely as a sacrifice That every eye is willing to behold even the eye of flesh the eye that is full of adulteries But he standeth there as an Ensample to us of Humility Patience Obedience Love This Altar hath an inscription TOLLITE CRUCEM Take up your cross and follow me Not an Ensample alone that cometh too short Nor a Sacrifice alone for shall he be offered up for those who deny him Not an Ensample alone For flesh and bloud may follow him but never overtake him no not in those wayes which he marked out with his bloud of Obedience and Love Nor Satisfaction alone For how can he satisfie for those who will be in evil what he is in good yesterday and to day and the same for ever 1 Pet. 2.21 Christ suffered for us saith S. Peter leaving us an ensample that we should follow his steps Can an humble Saviour be a sacrifice for the proud Can a meek Saviour dye for a revenger Can a poor Christ give himself for him who will neither clothe nor feed him Can he in whom there was found no guile plead for him who is full of deceit Can a Lamb be a sacrifice for a Fox a Wolf or a Lion He is sacrificed and all is done on his part There is a CONSUMMATUM EST It is finished But our Obedience is not shut up in that but beginneth where Christ's did end and by the power and force of his Love must be carried on in an even and constant course unto our Consummatum est till we end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have redemption Ephes 1.7 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pattern Jussit fieri qui fecit He sacrificed himself for us 1 Tim. 1.16 that we might offer our selves a lively sacrifice to the Lord. Jesus Christ is a pattern to them who shall believe on him to life everlasting We dare not say with some that Christ came into the world non ad satisfactionem sed exemplum not to satisfie at all but to direct us by his example in the wayes of life not to pay down our debts but to teach us an art of thrift to be able to pay them our selves But most true it is if we make him not an ensample he will not be a sacrifice nor will there remain any sacrifice for sin God forbid that our Malice should shelter it self in his Love that his Meekness should be a buckler for our Revenge that his Righteousness should shadow our Unrighteousness that all our Obedience should be lost in his Sacrifice that because he suffered so much to lead us the way we should take the less care to follow after him that by the Gospel as by the Law Sin should revive that the Law should convince the conscience and the Gospel flatter it that the Law should affright sinners and Christ encourage them that the Cross of Christ which is a School of virtue should be made a Sanctuary for wilful offenders that Christ should nail the handwriting against us to his cross and then let fall a Dispensation from all righteousness and make it less necessary for us to observe so strictly the moral Law that this ease and benefit should accrue to Christians by the death of Christ that we may be more indulgent to our selves do what we list Pardon lying so near at hand that we should destroy our selves because he is a Jesus pollute our selves because he is Christ to anoint us be more rebellious because he is our Lord and live in sin because he died for it A conceit so unreasonable that even common reason abhorreth it Had our Saviour given up his ghost and left no precept behind him had his Apostle been silent and said no more but that he died for our sins the weakest understanding might easily draw out this conclusion that we are to forsake them For why should he dye for that which he was willing should survive Or who would lay his axe to the root of the tree and not cuâ— it down to the ground And yet as gross a conceit as it is we open our hearts to receive it And it is summus seculi reatus the great guilt of the age the pit out of which locusts swarm which are as scorpions to bring evil on the earth Were it not for this Physick men would not be so sick were it not for hope of reconciliation men would
and grind him with our oppression not build him a tabernacle in his glory and deny him at his cross No Love speaketh to Christ as the Israelites did to Joshua Josh 1. Whatsoever he commandeth it will do and whithersoever he leadeth it will go against powers and principalities against tribulation and persecution against the power of darkness and the Devil himself This is the dialect of Love And if Love wax cold that it doth not plainly speak this holy tongue here is the Altar and from it thou mayst take a live cole to touch it that it may revive and burn within thee And that heart is not cold but dead which the Love of Christ presented and tendered in the Sacrament cannot quicken and stir up into a flame If this work not a miracle in us and dispossess us of the dumb spirit it is because of our unbelief Again we shew the Lord's death by our Repentance which speaketh in grones and sighs unutterable When we dye to sin we then best shew the death of the Lord. Then his sorrow is seen in ours and his agony in our strugling and contention with our selves His complaints are heard in ours and are the very same My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We are lifted up as it were on a cross the powers of our soul are stretched and dilated our hearts are pierced our Flesh is crucified and Sin fainteth and when all is finished will give up the ghost And then when we rise to newness of life it will be manifest that Christ is in us of a truth A penitent sinner is the best shew of the best Sermon on a crucified Saviour And here in this so visible presentment of his Body and Bloud our wounds must needs bleed afresh our Anger be more hot our Indignation higher our Revenge more bitter and our Complaints louder Here we shall repent of our Repentance it self that it is not so serious so true so universal as it should be Here our wounds as David speaketh will corrupt and putrefie But the bloud of Christ is a precious balm to cure them Christ shall wash away our tears still our complaints take away our sorrow and by the power of his Spirit seal us to the day of Redemption Last of all we must shew the Lord's death with Reverence With Reverence why the Angels desire to look into it Thrones and Dominations bow and adore it and shall not Dust and ashes sinning dying men fall down and worship that Lord who hath taken away the sting of Death which is Sin and swallowed up Death it self in victory Let us then shew the Lord's death with fear and rejoyce with trembling By Reverence I do not mean that vain unnecessary apologizing Reverence which withdraweth us from this Table and detaineth us amongst the swine at the husks because we have made our selves unworthy to go to our Father's house a Reverence which is the daughter and nurse of Sin begot of Sin and multiplying Sin the Reverence of Adam behind the bush who was afraid and hid himself unwilling to come out of the thicket when God called him a Reverence struck out of these two Conscience of sin and Unwillingness to forsake it And what Reverence is that which keepeth the sick from the Physician maketh the wounded afraid of balm and a sinner run from his Saviour This Reverence we must tread under foot with the mother that bare it and dash it against the Rock the Rock Christ Jesus First be reverent and sin no more and then make our approches to Christ with reverence Shew our death to sin that we may shew the death of the Lord for it First leave our sin behind us and then draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith When as Job speaketh we are afraid of all our works of our Faith that it is but weak and call to him to strengthen it of our Love that it is not hot enough and then stir it up of our Hope that it is but feeble and then feed it with the bloud of Christ of our Sorrow that it is not great enough and then drop a tear of our Repentance that it is not sincere enough and then smite our hearts look upon the wounds of Christ and then rip up our own that they may open and take in his bloud when we are afraid of our Reverence that it is not low enough and then lay the cross of Christ upon it all the benefits of a Saviour and our own sins to press it down lower and make him more glorious and us more vile in our own eyes When we have thus washed our hands in innocencie and our souls in the bloud of the immaculate Lamb then Faith will quicken us and Hope embolden us and Love encourage us and Repentance lead us on with fear and reverence to compass his Altar For these are operative and will evaporate will break thy heart humble thy look cast down thy countenance bow thy knee and lay thee prostrate before the Mercy-seat the Table of the Lord. Thus if we shew his Death he will shew himself to us a Lord and a Saviour he will shew us his hands and his side he will shew his wounds and his bloud the virtue of his sufferings shall stream out upon our souls and water and refresh them and we shall return from his Table as the Disciples did from his sepulchre with great joy even with that joy which is a pledge and type of that eternal jubilating joy at his Table in the Kingdom of Heaven The Six and Twentieth SERMON 1 COR. XI 28. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. AMongst all the duties of a Christian whether Moral or Ceremonial there is not one but requireth something to be done before it be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Those velitations and trials which are before the sight are a part of that exercise and they are called Mysteries which do but make way and lead us to the mysteries themselves Preparation to the duties of Christianity we must count as a part of those duties or else we shall come short in the performance of them so do them as that it had been better we had left them undone Eccl. 5.1 It is good to go up to the house of the Lord but we must first keep our feet subdue our foul and irregular affections It is good to offer sacrifice but we must first clense our hands or else we shall but give the sacrifice of fools It is good to give alms with our right hand but so that our left hand know it not It is good to pray but not standing in the synagogues or the corners of the streets It is good to fast but vvithout a disfigured face In all our approches to God vve must keep our feet vvalk forvvard vvith reverence and preparation for the place is not onely holy but dangerous to stand in
of the world cannot receive a poor Christ The Pride of life cannot receive an humble Christ The Lust of the flesh cannot receive a chaste Christ The sinner who confesseth and crucifieth him cannot receive him Those Antichrists cannot receive Christ no though they knock and knock again though they cry and cry aloud though they fast and pray and sequester themselves at some set times Then onely we are fit to receive him when we are Christi-formes made conformable to him The humble and obedient heart is his house his Temple and he will dwell in it for he taketh a delight therein Sequester then your selves draw your thoughts and apply them to this great benefit fast and pray and commune with your selves but do not then say We have done all that thou commandest us but let all these begin and end in obedience and holiness Let that be on the top the chief mark you aim at Tie it to you as an ornament of grace upon your head as a chain about your neck all the dayes of your life This will make you fit for Christ fit to receive his Body and Bloud and all the benefits of his Cross and his love will stream forth in the bloud which he shed and feed and nourish your souls to eternal life This I conceive to be the full compass of this duty of Examining of our selves And as it is necessary at all times so ought we especielly at this time to use it when we are to approch the Table of the Lord to make it our preparation before the receiving of the Sacrament He that neglected the Passeover was to be cut off from among his people And he that eateth and drinketh unworthily without examination of himself eateth and drinketh his own damnation because he discerneth not that is neglecteth the Lord's body Here at this Table thou dost as it were renew thy Covenant and here thou must renew thy Examination and see what failings and defects thou hast had and what diligence thou hast used in keeping of thy Covenant and bewail the one and increase and advance the other Consider whose Body and Bloud it is thou art to receive and in what habitude and relation thou art unto him and try thy Repentance thy Faith thy Charity For these unite thee to Christ bring thee so near as to dwell in him transform thee after his image and so give thee right and title to him and to all the riches and wisdom which are hidden in him Examine first your Repentance therefore Whether it be true and unfeigned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that circumcision made without hands Col. 2.11 Whether it be moved and carried on by a true spring hatred of sin and love of Christ Whether it be constant and uniform and universal consisting not in a head hanging down and a heart lifted up in to-day's sorrow and to-morrow's relapse in the detestation of idolatry and the love of sacrilege For this is as Luther saith poenitere simul non poenitere satis to repent and not repent to rise and fall and fall and rise This is not to repent but prevaricate to forsake our own cause and promote the Devil's No that Repentance which must place us at this Table must devote and consecrate us wholly to him whose Table it is And as our sins crucified him so must our repentance crucifie us and offer us up unto him as a holocaust or whole-burnt-offering who offered up himself a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world In the next place the Apostle exhorteth us to examine our selves whether we be in the Faith or no 2 Cor. 13.5 to prove our selves whether Christ be in us Without Faith there is no true Repentance There may be some distaste some regret some sorrow but not according to God Some distaste even those have had who never heard of Christ But it will not raise and improve it self not draw on a constant and serious resolution to shake off that which distasteth us to lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us till Faith possesseth our hearts and a firm persuasion that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself 2 Cor. 5.19 I believed and therefore I spake saith David We believe and therefore we examine our selves and take a strict survey of our souls we grone under our burthen and desire ease we find our selves sick and run to the Physician we find our selves dead in sin and flie to the Fountain of life Faith is the salt which seasoneth all our actions Nor will Christ admit us to his Table without it nor give himself to those who do not believe in him Faith is the mouth of the soul and with it we receive Christ To come unto him and receive him and believe in him are one and the same thing As the Word preached did not profit them that heard it Hebr. 4.2 not being mixed with faith not having this salt so the Sacraments are but bare signs and signifie nothing to them that believe not Accedens Verbum ad elementum facit Sacramentum non quia dicitur sed quia creditur saith Augustine The Word added to the Element maketh a Sacrament not because it is spoken but because it is believed That is without faith it profiteth nothing in respect of us although by Divine institution it hath force and power and ought to quicken and enliven us By the eye of Faith alone we follow Christ through every passage and period of his blessed oeconomy we behold him in the manger in his swadling-cloths and worship him we follow him in the streets going about and doing good and imitate him we behold him in his agonie and are nailed with him to his cross we see him rising and ascending and behold the heavens open and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God and lastly we behold him here in the Sacrament and lift up our hearts above these visible Elements to those things which are spiritual and invisible we see in them Christ's body lifted up upon the cross as the Serpent was in the wilderness and by this sight by this Faith we are cured Here in the Sacrament our Saviour again presenteth himself unto us openeth his wounds sheweth us his hands and his side speaketh to us as he did to Thomas Reach hither your fingers and behold my hands and reach hither your hands and thrust them into my side Take eat This is my body and be not faithless but believing Here shake off that chilness that restiveness that weariness and faintness of your faith here warm and actuate and quicken it Here God doth not shew us his face his extraordinary glory and majesty which no mortal can behold and live but we see him as it were in his back-parts and in these outward Elements Here he exhibiteth and giveth us his Son who is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his Person in whom he hath
the world to put in immoderate and yet keep no moderation in our Love when he forbiddeth us to be angry to lay hold of that without a cause and yet suffer every breath to raise a tempest in us when he saith Swear not at all to perswade men to swear and swear again though it be against a former oath when he biddeth us pray for our enemies to be so bold as to curse our friends and our brethren It is a great and dangerous folly thus to trifle with our Master and delude his Precepts And what do we with these distinctions and limitations and mitigations but shake Christs livery off from our backs and thrust our selves out of his service And then tell me whose servants are we Quot nascuntur domini For this one Master whose service we have cast off how many Masters and Tyrants do we serve servants to the Flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof servants to Covetousness which setteth us with the Gibeonites to be hewers of wood and drawers of water Josh 9.21 condemneth us to the mines and brick-kiln servants to Ambition which will carry thee from ste◠to step from degree to degree till thou break thy neck servants to Pleasure which like the Egyptian thieves will embrace and strangle thee and servants to other Men would that were all nay but to other mens Wills and Lusts which change as the wind now embracing anon lothing now ready to joyn with that which in the twinkling of an eye they fly from Et quot nascuntur domini How many Masters must thou serve in one man servants to their Lusts which are as unsatiable as the Grave servants unto Errour which is blind and to Sin which is darkness it self even mancipia Satanae the bondslaves of Satan with Canaans curse upon us A servant of servants shall he be Gen. 9.25 NON SVM SERVVS CHRISTI I am not the servant of Christ is Anathema Maran-atha the bitterest curse that is For conclusion then Let them who are set apart to lead others in the wayes of Truth and Righteousness take heed they lead them not in the wayes of Cain and take from them their spiritual as he did from his brother his temporal life Let them who subscribe themselves Your servants in Christ In every Epistle thus they write be careful to make it good that their Epistle prove not a complement and their subscription a lye Athen. Deipn l. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Scire uti soro Let them who do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fit their conversation and doctrine to the times and so make them worse who force the word of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak in favour of Philip or any great Potentate as he was who make it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a buskin to be pulled on and fit any design any enterprise let them remember what they are called and what they call themselves the Servants of Christ of that Christ who will one day call them to an account require the bloud of those vvho are under their charge at their hands call upon them as Augustus Caesar did upon Quinctilius Varus Quinctili Vare redde legiones Give an account of your Stewardship Where are the Legions those souls vvhich I committed to your hands the souls of them you betrayed to the World and left them Mammonists the souls of them you betrayed to Pride and made them factious the souls of them you betrayed to Discontent and made them seditious the souls of them you betrayed to Cruelty and made them murderers Luke 11.51 Their bloud vvill be upon you and verily it shall be required of this generation 1 Cor 6.20 And let them vvho are taught remembring that they are bought with a price and are the servants of Christ cleave fast to him and not be driven from him vvith every vvind of doctrine not judge of the doctrine by the person but of the person by his doctrine In Christianity saith S. Hierom Non multum differunt decipere decipi There is no great difference betvveen these tvvo To take a cheat and to offer one for both are deceived and both perish The one cometh vvith a veil the other is vvilling to draw it over his face The one putteth out the others eyes and the other is willing to be blind and both rejoyce at the vvork both cry So so thus we would have it When vve see so many so diffident in all things but that which should fit them for happiness taking nothing upon trust but the doctrines of men Jude 16. when we shall see them have mens persons in admiration and their eyes dazle at every mushrome in Divinity that groweth up in a night when we shall see them debauch their Reason and deliver up their Understandings and Wills to a Face to a Voice to the Gesture and Behaviour and Sleight of men when every empty cloud that cometh towards them shall be taken for heaven and he that speaketh not so much reason as Balaams Ass shall be received for a Prophet when men are so enclined so ready so ambitious to be deceived we need not wonder to see so many blind Bartimeus's in our streets who grope at noon day and stumble at every straw that blindness is happened to Israel that Truth is become a monster and Errour a Saint that the Pharisees have more Disciples then Christ Men and brethren what should I say Why should you desire to be pleased If we thus please you we damn you Why should we study to please you If we study to please you we damn our selves It is not your favour your applause which we affect We know well enough out of what treasury those winds come and how uncertainly they blow One applause of Conscience is vvorth all the triumphs in the vvorld Bring then the balance of the Sanctuary the touch-stone of the Scripture If our Doctrine be not minus habens be not light but full vveight if it be not refuse silver but current coin and bear no other image but of the King of Kings even for the Truths sake for our common Masters sake whose servants we are 1 Pet. 2.1 2. Jam. 1.21 lay aside all malice and guile and hypocrisie and with the meekness of a new-born babe receive it that you may grow thereby But if nothing yet be Truth which doth not please you then what shall we say but even tell you another truth Vero verius most true it is You will not hear the Truth And therefore in the last place let us all both Teachers and Hearers purge out this evil humour of pleasing and being pleased and let us as the Apostle exhorteth Hebr. 10.14 Ephes 4.25 consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works Let us speak truth every one to his neighbour For we are members one of another It is an errour to think that the duty of Admonition is impropriate and perteineth onely to the Minister
bring him forward to that end for which the miracle was wrought Therefore the same providence and mercy which raised him up at the pool's side found him out in the Temple to make yet deeper impressions in him to open his understanding that he might know what he was yet ignorant of who it was that had made him whole and so believe in him and be saved For indeed we are too ready to gaze so long on the miracle till we forget the hand that wrought it to delight our selves so much in health as not to think of the Physician and to lose a benefit by our enjoying of it Christ must therefore appear a second time again and again and find us out or we shall lose him and our selves for ever Christ will find them will be found of them that seek him not that they may learn to seek him His love is never weary and yet never resteth but in its end He worketh miracles and can he do more Yes give light to the miracle and make it a lesson to instruct us even sow his miracles that we may reap the fruit of them cure our eyes that our understandings may be opened to know him give us ears that we may hearken to his word restore our limbs that we may take up our cross and follow him that the diseases of our bodies being cured may be to us as the serpent in the wilderness was to the Israelites to be looked upon that we may be healed that our former deafness may make us more ready to hear what God will say our former blindness may make us more delight to behold the wonders of his Law our former palsie may teach us not to be wavering or double-minded but to move regularly in the wayes of God and to persevere therein unto the end The miracle is even cast away if it have no further operation then on our bodies Christ's love is cast away if we take his loaves and feed not on him if we behold his miracles and not believe if he give us sight and we see him not if he give us life and we be dead to him if he give us health and we make our strength the law of unrighteousness if we draw not down his miracles to that end for which he wrought them Rise saith he take up thy bed and walk The lame impotent man doth so and goeth his way but Christ followeth him as if the miracle were yet nothing followeth him to the Temple and then beginneth his cure when the man was whole Mark 8. When he first put his hands upon the blind man he saw men walking as trees This was miraculous but not a miracle But Christ again put his hands upon his eyes and then he looked up and saw every man clearly Christ ever worketh to perfeâ—â—â—on He came into the world that they that see not may see and that they that are lame may go but he doth not leave them when they but see men walk like trees in a weak and uncertain knowledge of him he doth not begin and desist but followeth his cure presseth upon us giveth us daily visits leaveth no means unassayed no way untroden nothing unattempted which his wisdom thinketh fit His end is to drive up every thing to the end to make his miracles his benefits his miraculous birth his glorious oeconomy his victorious death and passion powerful to attain their end to wit the glory of his Father and the salvation of our souls If I do not love the Creatouâ—â—â—â—t is all the beauty of the Universe If I do not repent what are a◠〈◊〉 glories of the Gospel If I do but walk and go and rejoyce in my health what is the miracle of curing How should this love of Christ affect and ravish our souls how should this fire kindled in our flesh inflame and incite us to cooperate with him and to help him to his end Nor will he take it as a disparagement if when he hath wrought what he pleased we put to our hand and work what we ought if when he hath wrought a miracle we do our duty if when he hath made us whole we flye that sin as a serpent which first bit us and struck us lame if when he hath provided us materials to our hand and taught us to be workmen we build up our selves in our most holy Faith Oh it is a foul and sad ingratitude to defeat Christ of his end and when he would finish his work to hinder him when he maketh his benefits a reason why we should sin no more to be so unreasonable as to sin more and more to look no further then the miracle which is done then the benefit we receive to feel our blood dancing in our veins to see our garners full to have our bodies cured and our estates cured and then think all is done Behold Christ still followeth after us to find us out nor will he leave us so For most true it is he would not work miracles but for this end Where he saw unbelief ready to step in between the miracles and the end he would not do them Matth. 13.58 He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief No whatsoever he did whatsoever he spake was for us men and for our salvation As he said of the voice of the Angel which was heard as thunder from heaven Joh. 12.29 30. This voice came not for me but for your sakes so all his miracles all his benefits even the Creation it self are for our sakes He made not the world for himself For his happiness is in himself Patuit coelum antè quà m via saith the Father He made heaven for Man and then shevved him the way to enter into it and take possession of it Whatsoever he doth in heaven and in earth tendeth to dravv us nearer to him He vvould not thunder but to make us melt he would not come towards us in a tempest but to teach us to bow to his power and so make it a buckler to defend us he would not shine upon us but to draw us to the true light he would not have sent his Prophets he would not have sent his Son to vvork vvonders amongst us but to dravv us vvith these cords of love to himself and that we might believe God to be the onely true God and him whom he hath sent Jesus Christ For this end Christ found this man and for this end he seeketh out us that all his miracles and benefits and promises may have their end And why then should he still suffer such contradiction of sinners Why do we then rejoyce at our health and be afraid of his precepts be willing to be raised and yet stiâ—â— carry that enemy about with us which first cast us down rise and walk and then sin again This is to defeat the miracle to abuse the mercy and to resist the power of Christ that though it work what we wonder at yet it shall
were by the voice of the cryer and if thou wilt have it thou must buy it Ye see that Truth is a rich merchandise and that it must be bought Now in the next place we must know what it is to buy it As in all purchases so here something must be laid down And though we cannot set a price upon the Truth worthy of it it being in it self unvaluable and all the world not able to weigh down the least grain of it yet something there is which must be given for it The very heathen thought nothing to dear to purchase it amongst whom we read of some who flung away their goods and riches and bid defiance to pleasures ut nudam veritatem nudi expeditÃque sequerentur saith Lactantius that being stript of all they might meet with the naked Truth and embrace her So highly did they value the Truth that therein they placed their summum bonum their chief happiness If ye ask what the price is ye must give the answer is short Ye must give your selves Ye must lay down your selves at the altar of Truth and be offered up as a sacrifice for it Ye must offer up your Understandings fit and apply them to the Truth Ye must offer up your Wills and bow them to it Ye must strip and empty your selves of all your Affections at least be free from the power of them For the Affections raise a tempest in the soul and make it swell as stormy winds do the sea so that the Mind can no more receive the Truth then the troubled waves can receive and reflect the image of our face Not onely the seeds of moral conversation those practick notions with which we were born but also those seeds of saving Truth which we gather from the Scripture and improve by instruction and practice are then most obscured and darkned when pleasures and delights take possession of our affections As we often see in persons sore distempered with sickness the light of their reason dimmed and the mind disturbed by reason of vitious vapours arising from their corrupted humours so it is in the soul and understanding which could not but apprehend the Truth being so fitted and proportioned to it as ye have heard if it were not dazled and amazed with impertinent objects and phantasmes that intervene if the affections did not draw it to things heterogeneous and contrary to it Being blinded hereby it beholdeth all objects through the affections which as coloured glasses present all things much like unto themselves Thus Falshood getteth the face and beauty of Truth and that appeareth true which pleaseth though it hurt For the Affections do not onely hinder our judgment but prevent and preoccupate it Truth is plain and open to the eye but Love or Hatred Hope or Fear coming in between teach us first to turn from it and after to dispute against it The Love of our countrey maketh Truth and Religion national and confineth it within a province The Love of those whom our worldly affairs draw us to converse with shutteth it up yet closer and tieth it to a city to an house And to put off this Love we think is to wage war with Nature The Love of riches formeth a cheap and thriving Religion The Love of honour buildeth her a chair The Love of pleasure maketh her wanton and superstitious That which we Love still presenteth it self before our eyes and thence we take materials to build up that congregation which alone we think deserveth the name of a Church So that if we never beheld the face of the men yet by the form and draught of their Religion we may easily judge which way their affections sway them and to what coast they steer And as Love so Hatred transformeth not men alone but also the Truth it self and maketh it an heresy though in an Apostle yea though in our Saviour Luke 16.13 No man can serve two masters is as undeniable a principle as any in the Mathematicks yet because Christ spake it the Pharisees who were covetous derided him Luke 16.14 Micaiah was a true Prophet but Ahab believed him not because he hated him 1 Kings 22.8 How many Truths are condemned by the Reformed party onely because the Papists teach them And how many doth that Church anathematize because the Protestant holdeth them Maldonate in his Commentary on the Gospel is not ashamed to profess of an interpretation of one passage there that he would willingly subscribe and receive it as the truest had it not been Calvin's And have not we some who have condemned even that which is Truth and which is delivered in the language of Scripture and in the very same words upon no other reason but because it is still retained in the Mass-book As Tacitus speaketh of an hated Prince Inviso semel Principe seu bene seu malè facta premunt when a person is once grown odious in our eyes whatsoever he doth or saith whether good or evil whether true or false is as odious as he If an enemy do it the most warrantable act is a mortal sin and when he speaketh it the Truth it self is a lie All the argument we have against it is the person that speaketh it for we will not use his language As it is said of Marius that he so hated the Grecians that he would not walk the same way that a Greek had gone though it were the best Further we must lay down at the feet of Truth our Fears For Fear is the worst counsellor we can have Nunquam fidele consilium dat metus saith Seneca It never giveth us true and faithful counsel but flying from that which we fear it carrieth us away in its flight from the Truth it self Perjury is a monstrous sin of that bulk and corpulency that we cannot but see it yet Fear will lift up our hands and bind us to that which we know to be false and within a while teach us to plead for it Fear saith the Wise-man Wisd 17.12 is nothing else but the betrayer of those succours which Reason offereth When we are struck with Fear we are struck deaf and will neither hearken to our selves nor to seven wise men that can render a reason Prov. 26.16 This made (a) Gen. 3.8 10. Adam hide himself This sealed up the lips of (b) John 12.42 many chief rulers among the Jewes so that though they believed on Christ yet because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest they should be put out of the synagogue And this opened the mouth of Peter to deny him He that is afraid of what evil may befall him is not a fit merchant to buy the Truth For though he have the price in his hand Prov. 17 16. he hath no heart to it A blast a puff of wind will drive him from this market And as Fear so Hope will soon betray and deceive us The Hope of honour of profit of favour of
give him so much power as to think there is nothing in our selves and because he can bear all the burthen not to touch it with one of our fingers For this is to defeat his Will of its end and his Power of its operation and as much as in us lieth to bury the Resurrection it self To conclude this Behold the Lord shall descend with a shout and with the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God and the dead bodies shall arise And this is the Resurrection of the body And behold he descendeth with a shout with his own voice with the trump of God which is his Gospel he descendeth and knocketh and is willing to enter the heart of Man though it be but a sepulchre of rotten bones And they that hear his voice do come forth and walk in newness of life And this is the first Resurrection But it is too plain every man doth not hear Christ's voice and the power of his Resurrection is still the same For here something is required at our hands something we are to do our selves And though all supply be from him and we have nothing which we have not received yet he is pleased to take it as our contribution In this he doth not love to be alone For what is an Object without an Act What is the beauty of the firmament if there were no eye to discover it Therefore if we will have Christ anoint us or his Resurrection powerfully to raise us we must with S. Paul learn to forget all other things and stretch our selves towards him and earnestly study to know him and the power of his Resurrection Which is next to be considered That I may know him and the power of his resurrection We cannot take in all and therefore will conclude with this That I may know him Why who knoweth him not They that blaspheme him know him they that betray him know him they know him that persecute and crucifie him in his members every day they that make use of his name not to cast out Devils but to be so the accusers and destroyers of their brethren who make use of the name of a Saviour to pluck up and root out even those that know him and his resurrection And if to know him be all then with Hymenaeus and Philetus we may say the resurrection is past already all graves are open and not onely many Saints but even Devils themselves are risen But we must remember that in Scripture works of knowledge imply the Affections and Knowledge is commonly linked and joyned with its end If a man say he knoweth him 1 John 2.4 and keepeth not his commandments he is a liar He that shall say he knoweth Christ that he receiveth and embraceth his doctrine that he loveth him and is his disciple and yet keepeth not his commandments which is the onely argument of Love the best approbation of his Doctrine and the true badge and mark of a Disciple is a liar and he that saith he knoweth the power of his resurrection and is not risen from the dead is a liar and the truth is not in him For how can he at once embrace his doctrine and reject it love Christ and yet despise him be a disciple and betray him And what a soloecism is the power of the Resurrection in his mouth who loveth his grave and will not be raised up It is not speculative but practick knowledge that the Apostle here studieth For that knowledge which endeth in it self is worse then Ignorance because Ignorance may somewhat mitigate and lessen our neglect but Knowledge profest Knowledge doth enlarge the bill and hand writing which is against us and draweth it out in more bloudy and killing characters then before This Knowledge is not here meant For 1. This speculative Knowledge is a naked assent and no more and hath nothing in it of the Will For the Understanding is not an arbitrary but a necessary faculty and cannot but apprehend things in that shape and form they represent themselves in And therefore towards our Resurrection there is required something of the Seraphim and something of the Cherubim Heat as well as Light and Love as well as Knowledge For Love is active and will remove every stone and difficulty when speculative Knowledge and idle Faith may leave us in our graves onely looking upwards but bound hand and foot Love will make a battery and forcible entrance into heaven whilest Speculation standeth without and looketh upon it as in a map For Speculation is but a look a cast of the eye of the Understanding and no more and doth but place us as God did Moses on mount Nebo to see that spiritual Canaan which we shall never enjoy And then what comfort is it to know what Justification is and want the hand of a lively Faith to lay â—old on Christ what Sanctification is and yet to stand it out and resist the blessed Spirit to read and believe it too that a good conscience is a continual feast and not to taste of one of her dainties to dispute of Paradise and have no title to it to know Christ and not savour of his oyntment and the power of his resurrection and be more unremoveable then a rock more unrecoverable then they who have been dead long ago and are in a manner to be restored out of Nothing And what a fruitless Knowledge is that which can speak largely of God's Grace and resist it of Perseverance and fall more then seven times a day This is not true Knowledge but a bare assent and so far from being injoyned in Scripture that in respect of it Ignorance may seem the safer choice and rather then thus onely to know we may say with the Apostle Let them that be ignorant be ignorant still For 2. This bare naked Knowledge doth work in us at the most but a weak purpose of mind a faint velleity a forced and unvoluntary approbation For who can see such a sight and not in some degree be taken Who can see the glory of his Resurrection and not be moved Who can look upon the Temple and not ask What buildings are these Who can see the way to life and not approve it Christ is the way and Christ is risen that we might rise from sin We know it and confess it But if this would raise us up what a multitude of Sectaries what a herd of Epicures what an assembly of Pharisees what a congregation of fools I had almost said what a Legion of Devils were already risen with him We know Christ we talk of nothing more In our misery we implore his help In his name we lie down and in his name we rise up In his name we cast out Devils When affliction beateh upon us he charmeth the storm when our conscience chideth us he maketh our peace In adversity in distress in the tempest of a torn and distracted soul he is all in all We talk of him we feed on
from the earth but also communi dividundo to divide every man his own right his own possessions and he looketh upon the offender vultu legis with no other countenance then that of the Law In my own cause it is lawful for me to do what I will with my own I may give it I may suffer it to be torn from me and thus to do may be my virtue which may crown me but when I sit on the tribunal as a Judge the cause is not my own and to pardon injuries which are done to other men may be injustice or corruption at least groundless and inconsiderate pity but a virtue it cannot be And as we pull not down tribunals so neither do we disannul Laws Sunt jura sunt formulae saith the Oratour There be laws and forms prescribed almost for every thing that no man may erre or mistake himself either in genere injuriae or ratione actionis either in the nature of the injury or of his action expressae sunt ex uniuscujusque damno dolore incommodo and they are drawn out and fitted to the grievance the incommodation the injury of any man And by these we may contestari litem declare and make protestation of our suit before the Judge and as the town clerk of Ephesus telleth Demetrius the crafts-men Acts 19.58 if we have a matter against any man the Law is open we may implead one another Both are true we must forgive our brother and we may implead him It is true the rules of Charity are of a larger extent then those of the Law If thou owe an hundred measures of oyl Charity taketh the bill and sitteth down quickly and writeth fifty but the Law observeth a just Arithmetical proportion a talent for a talent measure for measure And it is as true that Charity beginneth at home and that he that provideth not for his family is worse then an infidel A truth it is but much mistaken and misapplied and pulled on like a buskin by the Love of the world on every angry design and purpose and so maketh men far worse then infidels But in another kind Non est plena humanitas te excluso saith the Father Charity is not full and complete if it reach all men but thy self and we subscribe and shut up our bowels to all but our selves Cùm omnes te habeant esto tu de habentibus unus When all partake of thy goodness be thou one of that All and we like it so well that that one is all We will not lay a clog upon the consciences of private men nor deterre them from imploring the aid of the Magistrate for this were to cut off the fairest piece of wisdom which sheweth it self in justice and executing judgment which checketh the course of the violent and stoppeth him in his full career The sword of Justice is both a sword and a buckler too if it be not in the hand of a man of Belial for then none fall down by it but the innocent And to deny or stop the course of Justice were mutare regna in magna latrocinia to let in oppression and violence and make Commonwealths the receptacles and congregation of thieves and every City like to the hills of the robbers But yet let me tell you that good and holy men have been alwayes jealous of it Augustine in his Enchiridion telleth us that the justice of our cause which we pretend and bring in to safeguard our charity is commonly but an excuse For so to go to Law with a brother omnino delictum est is utterly a fault Yet saith he since the Apostle permiteth the judgments of things pertaining to this life in the Church of Christ but forbiddeth it with great vehemency before the unbelievers manifestum est quòd secundùm veniam concedatur infirmis it is plain enough that he doth but indulge thus much to the weaker sort Bonus non rectè vindictam injuriae petit quam tamen judex rectè infligit A good man may not alwayes seek that revenge and punishment which yet the Law and Judge may most justly inflict And we know the Poetry of the Schools Expedit infirmis licet absque dolo sine lite Praelatis licet hoc non expedit Anachoretae It is lawful for weaker Christians lawful if there be neither fraud nor deceit which maketh the Law a rock to true men an haven for pirats a castle for thieves and a prison for the innocent And to establish this law and course of proceeding we have all the four Causes brought in 1. the Efficient or Impulsive cause Lawful it is if neither envy nor hatred nor covetousness nor desire of revenge draw it on 2. the Material cause if we do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contend for smoke for matters of nought and which can be nothing worth but to the Lawyer qui alienum jurgium praedam suam putat who rejoyceth at a needless quarrel and contention as at a great spoil 3. the Formal cause that we go to Law legally that we lay no snares suborn no false witness study not to entangle the cause or to obscure the truth 4. and lastly the End or Final cause It must not be to the loss or infamy of our brother but the recovering of that which is ours and to the glory of God who as he is the giver so is he the preserver of all things All this is true but we must consider that many truths are very dangerous as even good meats are to sick and queasie stomachs Because there are Laws we count it little less then a virtue to implead our brother according to those Laws And for those precepts of giving up our coat of turning the other cheek of being ready rather to receive a wrong then return it we can wind and shift our selves out of them as we please We can be angry and sin we can weary the Magistrate with our suits and call upon him for revenge and though we ruine one another yet all is but play as Abner calleth it when all fall down together 2 Sam. 2.14 Thus upon that which is lawful we build many times that which is unjust upon a good foundation lay hay and stubble Et unde possumus esse boni qui in bonis sic sumus mali Why should we flatter our selves that we are good who can thus turn good into evil and are very wise and cunning to deceive and cheat our selves Again it is not safe to let the reins too loose and to measure out to men that Charity which should diffuse and pour it self abroad and say Thus much is Enough For what Aristotle speaketh of the common people is most true of the common sort of Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though they be never filled with Pleasures and never satisfied with increase of Wealth yet they are content with a small portion of Virtue willing to take that as it were on the point of a knife
he hath put a pardon into our hands We must therefore seek out another Righteousness And we may well say we must seek it for it is well near lost in this Imputed Righteousness is that we hold by and Inherent righteousness is Popery or Pâ—lagianism We will not be what we ought because Christ will make us what we would be We will not be just that he may justifie us and we will rebell because he hath made our peace As men commonly never more forfeit their obedience then under a mild Prince But if the love of the world would suffer us to open our eyes we might then see a Law even in the Gospel and the Gospel more binding then ever the Law was Nor did Christ bring in that Righteousness by faith to thrust out this that we may do nothing that we may do any thing because Faith can work such a miracle No saith S. Paul he establisheth the Law He added to it he reformed it he enlarged it made it reach from the act to the look from the look to the thought Nor is it enough for the Christian to walk a turn with the Philosopher or to go a Sabbath-day's journey with the Jew or make such a progress in Righteousness as the Law of Moses measured out No Christ taught us a new kind of Righteousness and our burthen is not onely reserved but increased that this Righteousness may abound a Righteousness which striketh us dumb when the slanderer's mouth is open and loud against us which boundeth our desires when vanity wooeth us setteth a knife to our throat when the fruit is pleasant to the eye giveth laws to our understanding chaineth up our will when Kingdoms are laid at our feet shutteth up our eyes that we may not look upon a second woman which a Jew might have embraced calleth us out of the world whilest we are in the world and maketh us spiritual whilest we are in the flesh Justitia sincera a sincere Righteousness without mixture or sophistication and justitia integra an entire and perfect Righteousness Righteousness like to the love of our Saviour integros tradens integrum se danti a Righteousness delivering up the whole man both body and soul unto him who offered up himself a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world For conclusion of this point and to make some use of it Beloved this is the Object we must look on And we must use diligence and be very wary that we mistake it not that we take not that to be our Juno which is but a cloud that to be Righteousness which flesh and bloud our present occasions our present necessities our unruly lusts and desires may set up and call by that name This is the great and dangerous errour in which many Christians are swallowed up and perish not to take Righteousness in its full extent and compass in that form and shape in which it is tendered and so fulfil all righteousness but to contract and shrink it up to leave it in its fairest parts and offices and to vvork all unrighteousness and then make boast of its name And thus the number of the Righteous may be great the Goats more then the Sheep the gate vvide and open that leadeth unto the Kingdom of God Thus the Hypocrite vvho doth but act a part is righteous the Zelote vvho setteth all on fire is righteous the Schismatick vvho teareth the seamless coat of Christ is righteous he whose hands yet reek vvith the bloud of his brethren is righteous righteous Pharisees righteous Incendiaries righteous Schismaticks righteous Traitours and Murtherers not Abel but Cain the righteous All are righteous For this hath been the custom of vvicked men to bid defiance to Righteousness and then comfort themselves with her name We vvill not mention the Righteousness of the heathen For they being utterly devoid of the true knowledge of Christ it might perhaps diminish the number of their stripes but could not adde one hair to their stature or raise them nearer to the Kingdom of God Nor will we speak of the Righteousness of the Jew For they vvere in bondage under the Elements of the world nor could the Lavv make any of them perfect We Christians on vvhom the Sun of Righteousness hath clearly shined depend too much upon an Imputed Righteousness An imputed Righteousness why that is all It is so and will lift us up unto happiness if we adde our own not as a supplement but as a necessary requisite not to seal our pardon for that it cannot do but to further our admittance For we never read that the Spirit did seal an unrighteous person that continued in his sin to the day of his redemption No Imputed Righteousness must be the motive to work in us inherent Righteousness and God will pardon us in Christ is a strong argument to infer this conclusion Therefore we must do his will in Christ. For Pardon bringeth greater obligation then a law Christ dyed for us is enough to win Judas himself those that betray him and those that crucifie him to repentance The death of Christ is verbum visibile saith Clement a visible word For in the death of Christ are hid all the treasures of Wisdom and Righteousness If you look upon his Cross and see the inscription JESUS OF NAZERETH KING OF THE JEWS you cannot miss of another HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS TO THE LORD There hung his sacred body and there hung all those bracelets and ornaments as Solomon calleth them those glorious examples of all vertues There hung the most true and most exact pictures of Patience and Obedience and unparallel'd Love And if we take them not out and draw them in our selves imputed Righteousness will not help us or rather it will not be imputed What Righteousness imputed to a man of Belial Christ's Love imputed to him that hateth him his Patience to a revenger his Truth to the fraudulent his Obedience to the traitour his Mercy to the cruel his Innocency to the murtherer his Purity to the unclean his Doing all things well to those who do all things ill God forbid No let us not deceive our selves Let us not sleep in sin and then please our selves with a pleasant dream of Righteousness which is but a suggestion of the enemy whose art it is to settle that in the phansie which should be rooted in the heart and to lead us to the pit of destruction full of those thoughts which lift us up as high as heaven Assumed names false pretences forced thoughts these are the pillars which uphold his kingdom and subvert all Righteousness Vera justitia hoc habet omnia in se vertit True Righteousness complieth with nothing that is contrary or diverse from it It will not comply with the Pharisee and make his seeming a reality it will not comply with the Schismatick and make his pride humility it will not comply with the prosperous Traitour and make him a Father of his
onely which emptieth it self to receive it Nor can we purchase the pearl a clear sight of Christ Matth. 13.46 but we must sell all that we have our wisdome our riches our nobility our self-love and our corrupt affections It is not Riches nor Wisdome that invites Christ It is not Simplicity nor Poverty that excludes him Humility and Self-denial usher him in and enter he will if we make him room He will manifest himself you see to a poor silly woman and the quick-sighted Pharisee shall not see him And the reason was because she was meek and humble did not so dote on what she had already learnt as to be unwilling to learn any more but brought a mind well prepared to receive instruction The Pharisees on the contrary were so possessed and blinded with prejudice that they saw not the virtue in Christ which was manifest to this woman It was Prejudice that shut the door against the Truth and that would by no means admit of those works which came in to bear witness to it Certainly a most dangerous disease this It maketh a man angry with his physician and to count his physick poyson it maketh him loth to acknowledge yea even to hear that evidence which may convince him This maladie is very common in the world Yea the Church is not purged from it to this day For though we have no Pharisees yet we have such qui quicquid dicunt legem Dei putant who call their very errours the law of God and dictates of the Spirit who cannot endure the least shew of opposition but like wanton lovers stick closest to their beloved errour when it is exploded Some lessons they so abhor that they cannot endure so much as the name and mention of them and is it probable they will ever come so near as to woo and buy the Truth who are afraid of her very shadow We complain many times of the weakness of our capacities of the abstruseness of the teacher and of the obscurity of the Scripture and this we think a sufficient apologie for our ignorance but none of these nor all of these will make up a just excuse The truth is we will not hear the Truth and the reason why we are no better scholars is because we will not learn If it were not so why should any truth displease us why in any dress why should we take it upon the point of a knife so tenderly as if we were afraid it would hurt us Quid dimidiamus veritatem why do we take it down by halves It is an easie matter to observe how mens countenances and behaviour yea and their affections alter in hearing of that doctrine which suteth with their humour and that which seemeth to be levelled against some fond opinion of theirs long resolved upon Their stomack riseth straight against this but the other is sweet in their mouths and they devour the whole roll though in it self it be as bitter as gall Do we preach Christian Liberty ye kiss our lips But do we bound it with Charity to our neighbour and Obedience to Goverment that note ye think is harsh and tuned too near the ruggedness of the times Do we build up to the Saints of God an Assurance of salvation ye are in heaven already But do we tell you that this Assurance cannot be had at pleasure but must be wrought out with fear and trembling Phil 2.12 Do we tell you that that which ye call assurance may be not security but stupefaction Do we beseech you not to deceive your selves Behold we are not the same men but setters out of new doctrine and verso pollice vulgi with the turning of your finger we are in the dust and stabbed with a censure He who clothed not Truth to others phantasie he who presenteth more of Truth then can be easily digested shall be shut out of doors cum veritate sua naked and destitute and shall have none but Truth to keep him company Though he speak these things even the same truth that Christ did the Pharisees will cry him down and well it is if one woman some one witness of the multitude bless his lips that speaketh it Prejudice will make a man perswade himself that is false which he cannot but know is most true That which to a clear eye is a gross sin and appeareth horrour to a corrupted mind may be as the beauty of holiness For where Covetousness and self-Self-love have taken up the heart and conceived and brought forth Prejudice it is an easie matter for a man to dispute himself into sin and infidelity For the phansie hath a creating power to make what shee pleaseth or what she list to put new forms and shapes upon objects to make Gods of clay to make that delightful which in it self is grievous that desirable which is lothsome that fair and beautiful which is full of horrour to set up a golden calf and say it is a God And many times habeantur phantasmata pro cognitione these shadows and apparitions are taken for substances these airy phantasms for well-grounded conclusions and the mind of man doth so apply it self unto them that what is but in the phansie is supposed to be seen by the eye of the Understanding And thus many times we place our hatred on that which we should love and our love upon that which we cannot hate enough We fear that which we should hope for and hope for that which we should fear we are angry with a friend and kiss an enemy Thus one man trembleth at that which another embraceth one man calleth that sacriledge which another calleth zeal one man looks upon it as striking at God himself another as pleading his cause one man calls it murder another the work of the Lord. What beauty can there be in Christ if a Pharisee look upon him We read of the leaven of the Pharisees and sure this is it For it leaveneth the whole lump all our opinions all our actions All have a kind of tast of it Whatsoever come in to strengthen an anticipated opinion whatsoever walks within the compass of our desires or complies with our Covetousness or Ambition or Lustful affections we readily embrace and believe it to be true because we wish it so and because it is conducible and behoofull for those ends which we have set up Every fallacy is a demonstration every prosperous event is a voice from heaven to confirm us But if it thwart our inclination if it run counter to our intendments then Truth it self though manifested with signs and wonders will enrage us and we shall first disgrace him that brings it and then naile him to the cross We see here Christ cast out a devil which was dumb and the dumb spoke and the people wondred The Pharisees saw it and the Woman saw it the one saw nothing but that which could not be seen one devil casting out another the other saw the finger and mighty power of God
fear of God They spake it and they did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us stand wisely and soberly and with great care and vigilant observation they spake it and they did it And S. Chrysostome giveth the reason Because God is present with us invisibly and marks every motion of the body as well as every inclination of the mind But I know not how the face of Christendome is much altered and what was Religion and Devotion then hath now changed its name and in this latter age must needs go under that much loathed name of Superstition and Idolatry For tell me are we not ashamed almost to say our prayers are we not afraid to say Amen Is it not become a disgrace to bear a part in the publick service of God A Te Deum or an Hallelujah would be indeed as a clap of thunder to fright us from the Church for we lift up our hearts so high that we have no voice at all Superstition I confess is a dangerous sin but yet not so dangerous as profaneness which will talk with God in private and dare him to his face in his Temple which with the Gnostick will give him the Heart but not vouchsafe the Tongue which will leave the Priest alone to make a noise and sometimes God knoweth it is but a noise in the pulpit And this is but to run out of the smoke into the fire for fear of coming too near to Superstition to shipwrack on Profaneness for fear of will-worship not to worship at all to imprison Devotion in the soul and lend her neither voice nor gesture though Christ be miraculous in all his wayes and doth wonders in the midst of us to seal up our lips and onely commune with our own corrupt hearts and be still No lifting up of the voice or hands no bowing of the knee in our coasts But I do but beat the ayr and labour in vain For now it is religion not to express it and he is most devout who doth least shew it O when will this dumb devil be cast out A strange thing it is that every thing else even our Vices should be loud and vocal and Religion should be the onely thing that should want a tongue that Devotion should lye hid and lurk and withdraw it self into the inward man For this is not to honour God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with might and main with soul and body with heart and knee and tongue this is not to render to God that which is Gods Which how to do without these outward expressions is as hard for the eye of Reason to see as it is for the eye of Sense to discern that Devotion which is so abstract and spiritual Certainly this poor Woman in the Text will rise up in judgment against this generation who no sooner saw the excellency of Christs person but she lifted up her voice and blessed the womb that bare him and the paps which he had sucked Last of all this Womans voice is yet lifted up and calls upon us to lift up ours even before the Pharisees And such we shall find in every street and in every Synagogue who devoure more then widows houses with long prayers draw bloud with the sword of the Spirit and serve the prince of this world in the name of the Lord. If our fear were not greater then our love amongst these we should lift up our voice like a trumpet and put these monsters to shame strike off their visour with noyse and bring in Truth to tear off the veil of their Hypocrisie For what shall we not lift up our voice for Truth but when she hath most voices on her side Must Truth be never publisht but in the times of peace or must a song of praise be never chaunted out but in a quÃre of Angels Shall we onely walk towards our Saviour as Peter did whilest the face of the sea is smooth then be undaunted and fear nothing but when a wave comes towards us presently sink Whilest all Things go with us smoothly without any rub or wave of difficulty how shall our Faith and Love be discovered who shall distinguish between a true and superficial professour For the Love of man to Christ is no otherwise discovered then the Love of man to man The love of a Christian cannot be known but by a great and strong tentation A Pharisee before us is a tentation Difficulty and danger are nothing else but a tentation which is therefore laid in our way to try if any thing can sever us from the love of Christ and his Truth If we start back in silence we have betraied the Truth to our fears and left it to be trod under foot by a Pharisee We may call it Discretion and Wisdome to start aside at such a sight and to lay our hands upon our mouths but discretio ista tollit omnem discretionem as Bernard speaketh this discretion takes away all discretion this wisdome is but folly For from this cowardise in our profession we first fall into an indifferency and at last into open hostility to the Truth We follow Truth as Peter did Christ afar of and then deny it and at last forswear it and joyn with the Pharisees and help them to persecute those that profess it So the Libellatici of old first bought a dispensation from the judge to profess the name of Christ and at last gave it under their hands that they never were Christians He that can dispense with a sin will soon look friendly upon it and at last count it a duty He that will take an oath in his own sense which indeed is non-sense wlll easily be induced to take it in any sense you shall give it him He that can trifle with his God will at last blaspheme him to his face Beloved you may judge of the Heart by the Voice which falls and rises according to those heats and colds the Heart receives When this is coldly affected we know not how to speak we venture but speak not out we profess and recant we say and unsay and know not what to say quasi super aristas ambulamus we tread as tenderly as if we were walking upon ears of corn and as men that go upon the ice magis tremimus quà m imus we rather tremble then go But when our Heart is hot within us the next occasion sets our Tongue at liberty We read in our Poets that Achilles for a time lurkt in womans apparel but was discovered by Ulysses bringing him a sword which he no sooner saw but he brandisht it So the souldier of Christ is not known till some difficulty like the sword of Ulysses be brought before him then he will bestir and move himself to cope with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we be Christians dangers and difficulties will sharpen and draw us on and our voice will be loudest when a Pharisee is near To conclude When vve hear men speak between their teeth or
this they did contradict themselves who brought in their Wiseman sensless of pain even on the rack and wheel When the Body is an unprofitable burden unserviceable to the Soul oportet educere animam laborantem we ought to do drive the Soul out of such an useless habitation Cum non sis quod esse velis non est quod ultrà sies When thou art what thou shouldst be there is no reason thou shouldst be any longer Quare mori voluerim quaeris En quia vivam Would you know the reason why I would dye The onely reason is because I do live These were the speeches of men strangers from the common-wealth of Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those who were without without Christ and so without God in this world But the Christian keeps his station and moves not from it injussu Imperatoris but when the Lord of all the world commands who hath given us a Soul to beautifie and perfect with his graces but hath not given us that power over it when it is disquieted and vexed as he hath given to the Magistrate over us if we offend and break the peace of the common-wealth Qui seipsum occidit est homicida si est homo He that kills himself is a murderer and homicide if he be a man And he that thus desires death desires it not to that end for which it is desireable to be with Christ but to be out of the world which frowns upon him and handles him too roughly which he hath not learnt to withstand nor hath will to conquer This desire is like that of the damned that hills might cover them and mountains fall on them that they migâ—â— be no more No this desire of S. Paul is from the heaven heavenly drawn from that place where his conversation was wrought in him by the will of God and bowing in submission to his will a longing and panting after that rest and sabbath which remains after that crown which was laid up for him And this Desire filled the hearts of all those who with S. Paul loved God in sincerity and truth in whom the Soul being of a divine extraction and like unto God and cleaving and united to him had a kind of striving and inclination to the things above and was restless and unquiet till it came to rest in him who is the centre of all good Here they acted their parts in the world as on a stage contemned hated reviled it trod it under foot and longed for their exit to go out Vae mihi quia incolatus meus prolongatus est saith David Wo is me that I sojourn in it any longer So Elias who could call down fire from heaven give laws to the clouds and shut and open heaven when he would cryes out unto God It is enough Take away my life for I am not better then my fathers And this affection the Gospel it self instills into us in that solemn Prayer Thy kingdome come wherein we desire saith Tertullian maturius regnare non diutiùs servire to reign in heaven sooner and not to stay longer and serve and drudge upon the earth Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death this whole state and generality of sins of Calamities and those evils which the world swarms with life brings along with it So Pharaoh speaking of the Locusts which were sent Intreat saith he the Lord your God to take away this death from me This desire that vvas in S. Paul in some degree possesseth the heart of every regenerate person and is nourished and fomented in them by the operarion of the blessed Spirit as a right spirit a spirit of Love vvorking in us the Love of God and as a spirit of Peace filling our hearts vvith Peace making our conscience a house of Peace as the Ark of God as the Temple of Solomon where no noise was heard We love Christ and would be there where his honour dwelleth our conscience is at rest and we have confidence in God Now first to love God is not a duty of so quick despatch as some imagin It is not enough to speak good of his name to call upon him in the time of trouble to make laws against those which take his name in vain to give him thanks for that he never did and will certainly punish to make our boast of him all the day long For do not even hypocrites and Pharisees the same But to love him is to do his will and keep his commandments John 17. By this we glorifie him I have glorified thee on earth saith Christ and the interpretation follows I have finished the work thou gavest me to do that is I have preached thy law declared thy will publisht both thy promises and precepts by the observation of which men may love thee and long after thee and be delivered from the fear of death Idem velle idem nolle ea demùm est firma amicitia then are we truly servants and friends to God when we have the same will when we have no will of own The sting of Death is sin and there is no way to take it out to spoil this King of terrour of his power but by subduing our Affections to our Reason the Flesh to the Spirit and surrendring up our wills unto God Then we dare look Death in the face and ask him Where is thy terrour Where is thy sting God loves them that love him nay he cannot but love them bearing his Image and being his workmanship in Christ And he that is thus loved and thus loves cannot but hasten and press forward and fly like the Doves as the Prophet speaketh to the windows of heaven It is a famous speech of Martin Luther Homo perfectè credens se esse haeredem Dei non diu superstes merueret A man that perfectly and upon sure grounds doth believe himself to be the child and heir of God would not long survive that assurance but would be swallowed up and dye of immoderate joy This is that transformation and change by which our very nature is altered Now Heaven is all and the World is Nothing All the rivers of pleasures vvhich this world can yield cannot quench this love What is Beauty to him that delights in the face of God what is Riches to him vvhose treasure is in heaven vvhat is Honour to him vvho is candidatus Angelorum vvhose ambition is to be like unto the Angels This true unfeigned Love ravisheth the soul and setteth it as it were in heavenly places This makes us living dying men nay dead before we depart not sensible of Pleasures which flatter us of Injuries vvhich are thrown upon us of Miseries vvhich pinch us having no eye no ear no sense no heart for the world vvilling to loose that being which vve have in this shop of vanities and to be loosed that vve may be with Christ Secondly this Love of God and this Obedience to his will
omnem which undergoeth the shock of the whole war observeth the enemy in all his stratagems wiles and enterprises meeteth and encountereth him in all his assaults meeteth him as a Serpent and is not taken with with his flattery meeteth him as Lion and is not dismayed at his roarring but keepeth and guideth us in an even and constant course in the midst of all his noise and allurements and so bringeth us though shaken and weather-beaten unto our end to the haven of rest where we would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have need of patience Quid enim malum nisi impatientia boni saith Tertullian For what is Evil but an impatience of that which is good What is Vice but an impatience of vertue Pride will not suffer us to be brought low Covetousness will not suffer us to open our hand Intemperance will not suffer us to put our knife to our throat The Love of the world is impatient of God himself His Word is a sword and his commands thunderbolts At the sound of them we are afraid and go away sorrowful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have need of patience For we must run our race in a constant and uninterrupted course in an awful reverence to our Law-giver living and dying under the shadow of his wings that whether we live or die we may be the Lord's Non habitat nisi qui verè habitat say the Civilians He is not said to dwell in a place who continueth not in it And he doth not remain in the Gospel who is ready upon every change of weather upon every blast and breathing of discontent to change his seat He doth not remain in it who if the rain descend and the flouds come and the winds blow will leave and forsake it though it be a rock which will easily defend him against all these For what evil can there be against which it hath not provided an antidote what tempest will it not shroud us against Bring Principalites and Powers the Devil and all his artillery unus sufficit Christus the Gospel alone is sufficient for us And in this we see the difference between the World and the Church The world passeth away 1 Cor. 7.31 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The fashion of the world the scene is every day changed and presenteth things in another shape But the Church is built upon a Rock Matth. 16. upon CHRIST that is upon that Faith in Christ which worketh by charity And he who is built upon this Rock who is fully persuaded that Christ is the best Master and that those duties which he teacheth are from heaven heavenly and will bring us thither is sufficiently armed against the flattery of Pleasure the lowring countenance of Disgrace the terrours of Poverty and Death it self against all wind and weather whatsoever that might move him from his place Look into the world There all things are as mutable as it self Omnia in impia fluctuant All things ebbe and flow in wicked men flie as a shadow and continue not Their Righteousness is like the morning dew Hos 13.3 dried up with the first Sun their Charity like a rock which must be strook by some Moses some Prophet and then upon a fit or pang no gushings forth but some droppings peradventure and then a dry rock again their Vows and Promises like their shadows at noon behind them their Friendship like Job's winter-brooks overflowing with words and then in summer when it is hottest in time of need quite dried up consumed out of its place their Temperance scarce holding out to the next feast nor their Chastity to the next twilight The world and the fashion of it passeth away but on the contrary the Gospel is the eternal word of God And as the gifts and calling of God are without repentance Rom. 11.29 Prov. 8.18 so his graces are durable riches opes densae firm and well compacted such as may be held against all assaults like him from whom they descend yesterday and to day and the same for ever Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfeigned Love abiding Hope an anchor He that is a true Gospeller doth remain and continue and not wander from that which is good to that which is evil is not this day a Confessor and to morrow an Apostate doth not believe to day and to morrow renounce his Creed doth not love to day and loath to morrow doth not hope to day and droop to morrow but unum hominem agit he is the same man and doth the same things assiduè aequaliter constantly and equally He remaineth not in the Gospel in a calm onely and leaveth it when the winds rise but here he will remain fixed to those principles and acting by them vvhen the Sun shineth and vvhen the storm is loudest By the Gospel he fixeth and strengthneth all his decrees and resolutions and determinations that they are ever the same and about the same now beating down one sin anon another now raising and exalting this vertue anon that If you ask him a question saith Aristides the Sophister of Numbers or Measures he vvill give you the same answer to day vvhich he vvill give you to morrow and the next day and at the last breath that he draweth In the next place if we do not remain in the Law of liberty vve do not obey it as we should For to remain in the Gospel and to be in Christ are words of stability and durance and perpetuity For vvhat being is that vvhich anon is not What stability hath that vvhich changeth every moment What durance and perpetuity hath that vvhich is but a vapour or exhalation drawn up on high to fall and stink To remain in the Gospel and to remain for ever may seem two different things but in respect of the race vve are to run in respect of our salvation they are the very same We vvill not here dispute Whether Perseverance be a vertue distinct from other graces Whether as the Angels according as some Divines teach vvhich stood after the fall of the rest had a confirming grace given them from God which now maketh them utterly uncapable of any rebellious conceit so also the saving graces of God's Spirit bring vvith them into the soul a necessary and certain preservation from final relapse For there be vvho violently maintain it and there be vvho vvith as great zele and more reason deny it To ask Whether we may totally and finally fall from the grace and favour of God is not so pertinent as it is necessary to hearken to the counsel of the Apostle and to take heed lest we fall to take heed lest we be cut off and to beware of those sins vvhich if vve commit vve cannot inherit the kingdom of God For vvhat vvill it avail if vve be to every good work reprobate to comfort our selves that vve are of the number of the elect What vvill it help us if by adultery and murther and pride
of Liberty and remain in it Heb. 6.10 For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love O then neither let our obedience swell and puff us up as if God were our debtour nor let us be so afraid of Merit as not to do the work Let not our anger against Papists transform us into Libertines and let us not so far abominate an errour in judgment as to fall into a worse in practice cry down Merit and carry a Pope nay Hell it self along with us whithersoever we go Let us not be Papists God forbid And God forbid too that we should not be Christians Let us rather move like the Seraphims Isa 6. ◠who having six wings covered their face with the uppermost as not daring to look on the Majesty of God and covered their feet with the lowest as acknowledging their imperfection in respect of him but flew with those in the midst ready to do his will Let us tremble before him and abhor our selves and between these two let the middle wings move which are next to the heart and let our constant obedience work out its way to the end which is Blessedness For whoso looketh into the perfect Law of liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed And here I must set a period to my discourse as the present Power that is over us hath to the exercise of my Ministerial function And I could not better conclude then in Blessedness That is the end and conclusion of the whole matter the end of this Royal Law for thither it tendeth the end of Perfection for to that it groweth up and the end of our Liberty for thither it moveth In Blessedness they end or rather they do not end but are carried on with joy and triumph and exsultation to all eternity I might here wish you and what good thing would I not wish you the blessings of the basket the blessings of the right hand and the blessings of the left all the blessings promised in the Law and those blessings which are the glory of the Gospel I might here wish you those fourteen parts of Blessedness reckoned up by the Father whatsoever is Blessedness or whatsoever tendeth to it But here they all meet and are concentred This is your strength your liberty your security your joy your wisdom Your wisdom is Obedience to this Law and Obedience striveth and hasteneth to overtake and joyn it self with this Blessedness which includeth all that we can desire nay more then we can conceive Quid à Deo praestari possit homini habenti felicitatem saith Augustine What can God do more for us then make us blessed And therefore when men say Lo here is Christ or There is Christ Lo here is Blessedness or There is Blessedness go not after them For here here alone it is to be found Seek it not in your Phansie in a forced and false persuasion that you have attained it when you run from it that you are in a Paradise when you are seeking death in the errour of your life and are even at the mouth of hell For Blessedness will not lie wrapped up in a thought That hath made many thousands of Saints which shall never see the face of God What is an imaginary Saint What is a painted Heaven What is Blessedness in conceit Next seek it not in Formalities in the ceremonious diligence of Hearing and Fasting and loud Profession All the formalities and ceremonies in the world will not make a ladder to reach it all this noise will not call it down But then seek it not in a Faction in a Discipline in this or that Politie or Government For it will not be found in the rents and divisions which we make It is tied to no place it may be found in any This Law of Liberty never made Papist or Calvenist or Lutheran or Presbyterian It is the Christian Law and maketh Christians and maketh Christians to make them blessed Cùm omnes felicitatem expetant vix centesimus quisque eam à Deo exspectat All desire Blessedness and not one of an hundred will take it from God or that which he offereth but they make one of their own such a Blessedness as leaveth them miserable they do that which is evil and comfort themselves with a thought they neglect the Law and bless themselves in formalities in Hearing when they are deaf to every good work in Fasting when they fast to bloud and oppression in Praying when they deny themselves what they pray for in loud Profession which is as a loud lie When they swim in their own gall in the gall of bitterness they think themselves in the rivers of Canaan which flow with milk and honey They applaud themselves in their malice and deceit in every evil work They are what they should not be and yet are blessed because they are of such a Faction of this Consistory of this Classis of this Conventicle that is they are blessed because they are not so Oh that men were wise oh that they would be blessed Then would they look for it where it is in this Law of liberty and Obedience to it in this Law which doth purge the Ear and sanctifie a Fast and give wings to our Prayers which plucketh the visour from the face of the Hypocrite and strippeth him of his formalities which scattereth the people that delight in war and is a killing letter to them that first displease God by their impiety and then please and bless themselves in a faction Which is rem quietissimam inquietudine quaerere to seek for a sad serious quiet thing in distraction to seek for constancy in a whirlwind reality in a shadow life in a picture peace in tumult and joy and Blessedness in hell it self For conclusion then That we may find Blessedness let us look into this Royal Law that was made for Blessedness and Blessedness for it And we may look into this Law in the blackest day in the darkest time When Superstition flattereth we may look into it and when Profaness is bold we may look into it When we are poor this will make us rich when we are despised this will honour us when we are silenced this will speak for us when we are driven about the world this will make it a journey to Paradise and though we be imprisoned this cannot be bound and though we die this is eternal as eternal as that God whose Law it is his everlasting Gospel It will not leave us at our death but lie down with us in our graves and rise again with us to judgement and set the crown of glory on our heads And to the true love of this Law to this Blessedness I commend you It is my gift my last wish that the grace of God may dwell in you plenteously and strengthen you to every good work It is the blessing of him
said nothing else but Love one another 491. A reason given why some are so slow to actions of Ch. 281 282. Rules to try our Ch. by 492. v. Faith and Mercy Charles the V. quitted his Palace for a Cell 284. Children if virtuous are blessings if wicked curses 987. Chiliasts errour confuted 243. Choice We are here put to our choice 767 CHRIST The miserable estate of Man without him 2 3. If he had not been God he could not have saved us 3 4. How he is the Son of God 4 5. His Generation a mystery to be believed not curiously inquired into 5. ¶ His Incarnation the greatest expression of God's Love and bond of ours 6 22. His wonderful humility in taking our nature 6. He representeth himself to us three wayes 7. Christ's Incarnation by many thought absurd and unworthy of God 8. but we must not out of good manners either abuse God's love or make shipwrack of our own faith 8. 20 21. He took not onely our Flesh but our Soul also with the Affections 9. but without that disorder that our Passions are guilty of 10. 25. Of the manner how the two Natures are united 11. This is a mystery not impossible yet inexplicable 11. It behoved Christ for our redemtion to become Man 13 14. The other persons wrought in the Incarnation but were not incarnate 14. Christ's Incarnation was most free yet in some sense also necessary 14 15. ¶ As Christ was made like unto us so must we be like unto him 16. No easie matter to be like him 16. How we may be made like him 16. Nothing so absurd and mis-becoming as for a Christian to be unlike Christ 17. Conformity to him is that one thing necessary 17. It is a joy to God and his holy Angels 18. ¶ Christ is the chief of God's gifts and the fountain of all the rest 19 20. 33 34. God's Love to us in giving his Son is highly to be admired but upon no pretense to be denied 20 c. 470. This act flowed from God's mere pleasure 22. 28. God herein appeared more kind to us then to his own dear Son 20. and Christ to have loved us more then himself 29. God's Love herein exceeded his Power Wisdome Will yea far exceeded our Hopes Desires Opinion 22. 471. His Mercy alone was it that moved his Will to send C. 23 24. ¶ The manifold wayes that C. was delivered for us 24 c. ¶ Of his Fear and Grief at his Passion 25. Of his desire that the Cup might pass from him 266. How the Martyrs seemed more couragious at their deaths then He 26. In his greatest extremity he despaired not 25. yet were his sufferings without the least allay of comfort 27. Why He died for us Men and for our salvation and not for the Angels some conjectures are produced 28. The true cause is shewn 29. We had more hand in our Saviour's death then his Judge or Executioners 29. It was Love that made him die for us 470. 492. How since he died for all all are not saved by him 29 c. There is no difficiencie in him the fault is wholely in us 30 31. ¶ Every worldly thing is good with Christ but nothing without him 32. All things are loss and dung without him 714 715. How all things are ours by our being Christ's 33. We have all things by him which tend to our salvation 33. His Death the strongest motive to holiness and righteousness of life 872 c. From his Cross as from a Professor's chair we may learn Innocencie Obedience Humility Patience Love 34. He died not for us that we might live as we list 38. He died not onely to be a Sacrifice for us but also an Example to us 471 472. His Death should not make any but it doth make many presume 472. What it is to shew forth Christ's Death 473 c. Our part is to condemn our selves rather then to declaim against the Actors in that Tragedy 473. His Humility doth not empair his Majesty but exalt it 470. His experience of sufferings taught him to compassionate ours 39 40. His Compassion not to be denied but followed 147 148. What hand God had in Christ's death 301. What we should behold and admire in Christ's Cross 310. His Death and our Repentance must go together 327. ¶ Why Christ after his Resurrection would not shew himself openly 41. Arguments to prove his Resurrection 42 718. The efficacie of his Resurrection on our Bodies and on our Souls 43. 719 c. Christ and all that floweth from him everlasting 44 45. 48. ¶ Of Christ's Ascension 726 c. Why the Disciples were present at their Master's Ascension 727. They are checked at their wondring at it 728. Now Christ is ascended what it is that we must look upon and look to 731 732. Why He abode not still upon earth 733 734. ¶ How and why Christ is said to sit at God's right hand 229. ¶ Of his Intercession 45. ¶ Of his Dominion over Hell and Death 49 49. He hath bought us 739 c. It cost him more to redeem us then it did to create us 763. v. Redemtion That Jesus is the Lord his Resurrection declared 759. v. JESVS If we make him our Lord he will be our Jesus else not 760 c. 1069. What contradiction of sinners Christ suffereth in all ages 761. Few love to hear of his Lordship 761 c. The Arians less e-enemies to Christ then many Christians now 762. Many confess Christ but few do it heartily 763 c. What a shame it is to own any other for our Lord but Christ 768. The Devil brought in bragging he hath more Disciples then Christ 768. His humility offendeth many 560. The Majesty of Christ is to be discovered and admired by us even amidst the scorn and disgrace the world casteth upon him 311. 493. Of his Dominion 762. its nature 228 c. its power 232. 240. its extent 233. How he is Lord of all though most refuse him 234. 240. The acknowledgment of God's power in Christ is the foundation of Christianity 313. He is our Lawgiver 1066. v. Law They grosly erre who think Christ came to be our Redeemer but not our Lawgiver 1068. How his Laws excel all humane Laws 240 c. How men are wont to deal with his precepts 823. We must be ruled by his command 312. and depend on his protection 313. He is terrible to his enemies and gratious to his servants 37. ¶ How we must receive Christ 35. What it is to dwell in him 310 c. The benefits we have by his dwelling in us 314 c. Power and virtue still go out of him 314 315. He quickneth our Knowledge 315. and our Faith 316. and worketh in us an universal constant and sincere Obedience 316 317. There is a reciprocation between Christ and the Soul 317 318. Christ may bear with our infirmities but not with wilfulness and hypocrisie 319. No Church can
Israel and of England compared 422 423. J. JAmes St. James and St. Paul seem to contradict each other but do not 276. Jealousie vvhat in Man vvhat in God 381. 613. 643. Jer. xxv 18-29 299. JESUS how excellent a name 732 733. That JESUS is the Lord though Law and Custome and Education teach us yet vve cannot say it but by the holy Ghost 759 c. Many say so yet but few say it 763 764. He vvho saith it aright saith it vvith his Tongue 764. 770. with his Heart 765. 770. and vvith his Hand 766. 270 c. Oh vvhat pity and shame it is that Man should suffer the Flesh the World and the Devil to Lord it over him and not Jesus 768. Jews vvhy commanded to offer sacrifice 72. Why blamed sometimes for so doing 80. 82. They pleased themselves exceedingly in this and in other outward servics 108. v. Formality Their great privileges 418. Privileges of Christians greater then theirs 419. Many things vvere permitted to be done by the Jews vvhich are unlawful for a Christian 869. Their course of sinning 611. Jew a term of reproch 194. Job's case 292. 903. Joh. vi 63. 468. ¶ viii 36. 742. 1 Joh. ii 4. 723. ¶ 16. 280. ¶ iv 18. 398. ¶ v. 3. 112. St. John v. Charity St. John Baptist a burning and shining light 549 c. How the Jews at first admired him 553. but vvithin a vvhile disliked him 554. Joy good and bad 338. Sensitive and Rational 553. It is configured to the soul that receiveth it 860. God's Joy over us and our Joy in Him and in one another 861. Against them that rejoyce in the sins or calamities of others 862 863. Joy that ariseth from Contemplation of good is nothing to that which ariseth from Action 1125. True Joy floweth from Love 153. and from Obedience 113. 992. 1125 1126. Sorrow is vvont to go before Joy 560. Judas's repentance 336. his despair 343. Judge neither others sinners because afflicted nor thy self a Saint because prosperous 295 c. 616. We may disannul our former Judgment upon better evidence vvithout inconstancie 676 c. The Judgment of God and of the World how different 964. God's J. and Man's differ much 616. That of Men for the most part corrupt and partial 246 247. Judgment Few believe there shall be a day of Judgment 926. Though scoffers say Nay it will assuredly come 237 238. Why it is so long in coming 238. It cannot be the object of a wicked man's hope 242. 737. v. CHRIST Curious enquiry after the time of the last Judgment condemned 248 c. We ought to exspect and wait for it 250. Signes of the day of Judgment 1043 c. Judgments Of God's temporal Judgements 611. Judgments justly fall even on God's own people vvhen they sin 290. In general J. many times the good are involved vvith the evil vvithout any prejudice to God's Justice 291. Reasons to prove that point 292. A fearful thing to be under J. and not to be sensible of them 643. Judgments should fright us from sin and drive us to God 364. 800. If they vvork not that effect they are forerunners of hell-torments 365. 801. We should especially be afraid of those sins vvhich are vvont to bring general J. on a Nation 297. It is the greatest judgement not to fear J. till they come 502. 615. We must studie God's J. 615. v. Punishment Judge The Judge's calling necessary 821. His office 120. How his autority may be lawfully made use of 822. Julian the Apostate 957. His liberality 143. His malitious slander of the Christians 148. He wounded Religion more with his wit then with his sword 959. His death 959. Justice of how large extent 119. What it is 120. Private J. is far larger then publick 121. Our common Nature obligeth to live justly 123. and so doth the Law of Nature 124. 126. c. 134. and Fear of God's Vengeance 125. and the written Law of God 128. especially Christ's Gospel 129. How strict observers of Justice some Heathens have been 128. How small esteem Justice hath in the world 131. Motives to live justly 134 c. That which is not Just can neither be pleasant nor profitable 126. v. Mercy Justification what 811. The Church of Rome's doctrine confuted 812 813. Faith justifieth but none but penitents 872. The several opinions about Justification may all be true 1074 c. But many nice and needless disputes there be about it 1075. Wherein Justification consisteth 1075. K. KEyes Power of the Keyes neither to be neglected nor contemned 47. Kingdomes v. Fate Kings though mighty Lords on the earth are but strangers in the earth 532. 535. K. love not to be too much beholding to their subjects 232. It is not expedient for the world to have onely one King 233. Kneeling in the service of God proved by Calvine to be of Divine autority 756. Knowledge Want of Knowledge many alledge to excuse themselves but without cause 437. Pretended K. how mischievous 556 557. Three impediments of K. 96 c. Four wayes to get K. 66. Of which Practice is the chief 68 69. K. is the daughter of Time and Industrie 956. What kind of K. it is that we have in this life 678. God's wayes are not to be known by us his will and our duty easily may 93. We should not studie to know things not revealed 248. Though the K. of what is necessary be easy and obvious 93. 95. yet it is to be sought for with all diligence 96. K. even in the Apostles grew by degrees 61. K. of all future things if we had it would do us no good 789. K. of Sin v. Sin K. of Nature Medicine Laws Husbandry is very excellent 656 657. Saving K. is onely necessary 59 60. 248. K. of Christ surpasseth all other K. 715 c. but it must be not a bare speculative K. but practical 723 c. Many know the Truth but love it not 549. 690. Knowledge Will Affections all to be employed in the walk of a Christian 516 c. Speculative K. availeth nothing without Love 517. It is but a phantasm a dream 518 519. 724 725. It is worse then Ignorance 518. 520. 523. 690. 723. Adde therefore to K. Practice 519 725. As K. directeth Practice so Practice encreaseth K. 520. 693. Words of Knowledge in Scripture imply the Affections 463. Love excelleth Knowledge 977. How God is said not to know the wicked 173. L. LAbour is the price of God's gifts 219. It is not onely necessary but honourable 220. No grace gotten by us no good wrought in us without Labour and pains 667 c. v industrie Sin is a laborious thing 927. more laborious then Virtue 928. It is sad to consider that many will not labour so much to be saved as thousands do to be damned 928. Law Whether going to Law be lawfull 821. Good men have alwayes scrupled the point 822. Cautions and rules to be observed 822. 824. Lawfull
us 271. Preachers All may not preach and teach in publick 293. Who they are that commonly gain most respect 534 535. Precepts The antient Christians used to collect morall Precepts out of Ethnick Philosophers 129. God's Precepts though shut up sometimes in a word are of a large extent 452. 474. They are fitted to our Reason and so are no sooner seen but approved 991. And when embraced and kept by us they fill our hearts with heavenly joy 992. Precepts are a slower way of teaching then Examples 1016 c. Precepts oft are conteined in Examples 496 497. What to do when Examples cross Precepts 526. No Precept without a Promiss 1069. Some lift up themselves at the Promises but tread the Precepts under foot 1069. Prejudice what 675 c. The tyranny of Pr. is worse then the rage of the Affections 676. The great mischief it doth 679 c. 975. How heavy it lieth upon the Church of Rome 680. The Reformed Church is not quite clear 681. 974. It shutteth the door against the Truth 974. c. Preparation necessarie before Christian duties 478. Presumtion and Hope how different 354. Pr. is a main hinderance of Conversion 342. It is more dangerous then Despair 349 c. It maketh a man abuse the Mercy of God the Merits of Christ and the Means of salvation 350 c. 765 766. 793. How apt men are to presume 396. 400. 434. By what steps Presumtuous sinners rise to that height 170. Arguments against Presumtion 351. Pretenders to the Spirit dangerous persons 683 684. Pride is the Daughter of Self-love and Ignorance 483. It is even natural to Man 157. 630. Any thing nothing that which is worse then Nothing will make him proud 630. The mischief that Pride doth 483. 856. It maketh a man incorrigible 158. 631. No vice so dangerous as spiritual P. nor any that we are more prone to 160. 633. A large character of P. 1053. It s cure 483. Pride of Man to be expiated onely by Christ's Humilty 6. Priests are not as some profanely think the onely persons that are tied to live strictly 555. Priest and People have one and the same way to heaven 89. Primitive Christians Devotion we now are more apt to censure then follow 455. 566. 758. 981 c. What austerity and abstinence they exercised 565 566. How devout they were in building and adorning Churches 850. Privileges if abused undo us 424. Procrastination of Repentance v. Repentance Profaneness a more dangerous sin then Superstition 981. v. Superstition Profession of the Gospel is necessarie but not enough 764. Inward Perswasion must go along with it 765. and constant Practice 766. Many profess Christ for fashion for companie 's sake 759. 763 764. Profit is a lure that calleth the most after it 899. Young mens minds run less upon Profit then old mens 899. Nothing Profitable but what is also Honest 126. Promises and Threatnings motives to obedience 398. Pr. are conditionall 543. 1069. Some confound Promiss and Precept 1069. Let none promiss himself what the Gospell promiseth not 607. Why God promiseth earthly blessings 899. Such promises must not make the godly presume that they shall be exempted from common casualties 901. God oft performeth these promises to his children though they perceive it not 902. Prophesies a clear proof of Divine Prescience 166. Prophets speak as they were moved by the H. Ghost 324. Many evil men have had the spirit of Prophesie 549 Prosperity no sign either of a good man or of a bad 295. 620 c. 684. 712. It commonly doth us more hurt then Affliction 295. 671 672. 712. Prosperous villains what they get 215 217. Prosperity of sinners should not offend us 115. Prosperity of the wicked no good argument against God's Providence 298. 351 684. Prosperity a better time to turn to God in then Adversity 363. 799 800. Prov. xv 24. 646. ¶ xxi 25. 355. Providence of God past finding out 93. 189. 684. 703. Why man cannot judge of it 298. It shall be manifested at the last day 239. Psal v. 12 591. ¶ li. 5. 1040. ¶ lxxvii 9. opened 22. ¶ cxix 513. ¶ cxxxix 14. 104. Punishment Reward and Punishment are the two pillars of both Common-wealth and Church 1122 c. P. followeth Sin as Harvest the Seed-time as Wages the Work 929. And herein are manifested the Justice of the Providence of God 930. God hath appointed particular punishments for particular sins 931. He sometimes punisheth per legem talionis 931. Not to be punished at all is the greatest punishment of all 365. 612. v. Laws Fear of Punishment necessarie 387 c. v. Fear If less Punishments prevail not God will inflict greater 610 c. Q. QUestion 's The various use of Questions in Scripture 108. 385. 727. They add oftentimes great emphasis and force 70 71. 385. Needless Questions to be let alone 94. Many Questions in Divinity we may be ignorant of without danger 866. Quiet To be quiet what 198. 200. Many seem Quiet persons and are nothing less 198 199. 211. Some are Quiet perforce but assoon as the curb is out of their jaws most turbulent 199 200. Quietness is an Evangelical virtue 201. How much of this in the primitive times how little afterwards 203 204. But let whoso will be unquiet true Christians are not cannot be so 204. Quietness is to be laboured for 205. and made our meditation 206. and practiced 207. self-Self-love a great enemy to Qu. is to be cast out 207. and so must Covetousness and Ambition Evil-surmising 208. Three things cannot be disquieted 209. This virtue is truly religious Christian honourable 209. The best way to be Quiet is to abide every man in his own calling 212 Every thing is Quiet in its own place 214. The unquiet condition of Tyrants 215. 217. Quintinus 415. R. REad Ingenious wayes of teaching children to read 1016. Reason alone is not a sufficient guide to happiness 716 717. Yet it must not be thought useless in matters of Religion 686 687. It s office is to rule the Affections 206. v. Self-deceit It is a light but obnoxious to fogs and mists 959. 973. The Affections daily change but right Reason is still the same 687. Reason it is not but sensuality that leadeth us to sin 330. 337. 428. 973. v. Nature Affection swayeth most men more then Reason 534 535. Rebuke v. Reprehension Recreation 618. Redemtion Before we were redeemed we were slaves to Satan both by way of Sale and of Conquest 740. and slaves to Sin 741. How Christ redeemed us 741 742 It cost more to redeem us then to make us 763. Though Christ have fully redeemed us yet something must be done by us 739. 741 742. 763. 872 873. Universal Redemption how far allowable 29 c. Reformation Reformers of the Church though men of B. memory haply had done their work much better if they had been more moderate 133. Where our Church was before 286. Wherewith the Papists charge the
be removed out of one it may be removed out of any place Nor is that Church which calleth her self the Mother and Queen of the rest secure from violence but may be driven from her seat and pomp though she be bold to tell the world that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her Religion it is true is as mount Sion which cannot be moved Psal 125.1 but standeth fast for ever No sword no power can divide me from it nor force it out of my embraces It hath its protection its salvam gardiam from Omnipotency But the outward profession of it the form and manner in which we profess it in a word that face of the Church which is visible is as subject to change as all those things are which are under the Moon All I shall say is Wonder not at it for the Church of Christ is still the same the same in her nakedness and poverty that she was in her cloth of wrought gold and all her embroyderie Marvel not then for such Admiration is the child of Ignorance an exhalation from the Flesh and hath more in it of Ishmael then of Isaac And that we may not marvel let us in the next place have a right judgement in all things and not set up the Church in our phansy and shape her out by the state and pomp of this world Rom. 12.2 but be transformed by the renewing of our minds We must not make the world the Idea and platform of a Church Monarchy is the best form of government saith the Philosopher and therefore say they at Rome the fittest for the Church Judges are set up to determin controversies in the Common-wealth and by this pattern they erect a Tribunal for a Judge in matters of faith Temporall Felicity and Peace is the desire of the whole earth hence they have made it a note and mark of the Church of Christ like the wanton Painter in Pliny who drew the Picture of a Goddess in the shape and likeness of his Paramour and thought that was best and fittest which he best liked From hence it is from our too much familiarity with the World from our daily parleys with Vanity from our wanton Hospitality and free reception of it into our thoughts and the delight we take in such a guest that we are deceived and lose all the strength of our judgment and are not able to distinguish between Heaven and Earth and discern that one differeth from the other in glory And being thus blinded having this veil drawn before our face we are very apt to take the Church and the World to be alike miscere Deum seculum to mingle God and the World together and place our selves betwixt them and so make Vanity it self our companion in our way to happiness Therefore let us cast down these bubbles of air blown up by the Flesh and in time of peace prepare for war behold the glittering of the Sword and all its terrour and then by the wisdom which the Spirit teacheth arm our selves against it every man saying within himself This can but kill the body which is every day in killing it self living and dying building up it self which is next to ruine but if I faint I lose my soul which God breathed into me and then made as immortal as himself and whilest I fly from the edge of the sword my backsliding carrieth me into the pit of destruction In pace labore incommodis bellum pati discunt in armis deambulando campum decurrendo fossam metiendo c. Tert. ad Mart. c. 3. In militaris disciplinae sinu tuâ—â—la serenus beatae pacis status acquiescit Val. Max. l. 7. c. 3. Thus by familiar conversing with the blow before it fall by setting Life against Death and Eternity against a Moment we may blunt its edge and so conquer before we fight This is our military Discipline this is our Spiritual exercise our Martyrdome before Martyrdome This bindeth the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar and maketh it ready to be offered up This prepareth us for war that we may have peace peace before we fight whilest we rest on the authority and command of our Emperour and on his strength for we may do all things in Christ that strengthneth us and then peace everlasting peace the reward and crown of victory Every day to a Christian Souldier is dies praeliaris a day of battell in vvhich he maketh some assault or other and gaineth advantage on the adversary For however the day may be fair and no cloud appear yet the sentence is gone out 2 Tim. 3.12 All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution What shall all be torn on the rack or bruised on the wheel Shall all be sacrificed shall all be Martyrs Yes all shall be Martyrs though many of them lose not a drop of bloud Habet pax suos Martyres There is a kind of Martyrdome in peace For he that thus prepareth and fitteth himself he that by an assiduous mortifying of himself vvhich indeed is in some degree to deify himself buildeth up in himself this firm resolution to leave all to suffer all for the name of Christ and the Gospel he suffereth before he suffereth he suffereth though he never suffereth there wanting nothing to complete it but an Ishmael but the Tyrant and the Executioner He cannot but be willing to leave the world who is gone out of it already Mat. 24.44 Be ye therefore ready for in an hour when you think not the Son of man the Captain of your salvation may come Bellum statâ—s est nomen qui potest etiam esse câ—m operationes ejus non exserit Grot. De Jure be li pacis and put you into the lists Though the trumpet sound not to battell yet is it not peace And if you ask me how you shall make ready and address your selves what preparation is required I may say It is no more then this To love the truth which you profess to make it your guide your counsellour your oracle whilest the light shineth upon your head when that saith Go to go and when it saith Do this to do it 1 Tim. 4 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to exercise your souls unto godliness and so incorporate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil de Humil Rev 6 8. Mâ—eremb De Arte volunt as it were and make it consubstantiall vvith them and leave imprinted therein an indeleble character thereof For if you thus display and manifest it in every action of your life if you thus fasten it to your soul and make it a part of it in time of peace you vvill not then part with it at a blast at the mock of an Ishmael or the breath of a Tyrant vvhich is but in his nostrills you vvill not forsake it in time of temptation Love if it be true is mighty in operation stronger then Death
None of these will fit us but SICVT ACCEPIMVS as we have received from Christ and his Apostles which is the onely sufficient Rule to guide us in our Walk 1. Not SICVT VIDIMVS as we have seen others walk No though their praise be in the Gospel and they are numbred amongst the Saints of God For as S. Bernard calleth the examples of the Saints condimentum vitae the sawce of our life to season and make pleasant what else may prove bitter to us as Job's Dunghill may be a good sight for me to look upon in my low estate and his Patience may uphold me David's Groans and Complaints may tune my sorrow Saint Pauls Labours and Stripes and Imprisonment may give me an issue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a way 1 Cor. 10.13 a power to escape the like temptation by conquering it I may wash off all my grief with their tears wipe out all disgrace with their contumelies and bury the fear of Death in their Graves so they may prove if we be not wary venenum vitae as poyson to our life and walk For I know not how we are readier to stumble with the Saints then to walk with them readier to lie down with David in his bed of lust then in his couch of tears readier to deny Christ with Peter upon a pretense of frailty then to weep bitterly out of a deep sense of our sin In the errours and deviations of my life I am Noah and Abraham and David and Peter I am all the Patriarchs and all the Apostles but in that which made them Saints I have little skill and less mind to follow them It will concern us then to have one eye upon the Saint and another upon the Rule that the actions of good men may be as a prosperous gale to drive us forward in our course and the Rule the Compass to steer by For it will neither help nor comfort me to say I shipwrackt with a Saint James 2.1 My brethren saith S. James have not the faith of Christ in respect of persons It is too common a thing to take our eye from the Rule and settle it upon the Person whom we gaze upon till we have lost our sight and can see nothing of Man or Infirmity in him His Virtue and our Esteem shine and cast a colour and brightness upon the evil which he doth upon whatsoever he saith though false or doth though irregular that it is either less visible or if it be seen commendeth it self by the person that did it and so stealeth and winneth upon us unawares and hath power with us as a Law Could S. Augustine erre There have been too many in the Church who thought he could not and to free him from errour have made his errours greater then they were by large additions of their own and fathered upon him those mishapen births which were he now alive he would startle at and run from or stand up and use all his strength to destroy Could Calvine or Luther do or speak any thing that was not right They that follow them and are proud of their names willing to be distinguished from all others by them would be very angry and hate you perfectly if you should say they could And we cannot but be sensible what strange effects this admiration of their persons hath wrought upon the earth what a fire it hath kindled hotter then that of the Tyrant's fornace Dan. 3. For the flames have raged even to our very doors Thus the Examples of good men like two-edged swords cut both wayes both for good and for bad and Sin and Errour may be conveyed to us not onely in the cup of the Whore but in the vessels of the Sanctuary They are as the Plague and infect wheresoever they are but spread more contagion from a Saint then from a man of Belial In the one they are scarce seen in the other they are seen with horror In the one we hate not the sin so much as the person and in the other we are favourable to the sin for the person's sake and at last grow familiar with it as with our friend De Abrog priv Miss Nihil perniciosius gestis sanctorum said Luther himself There is nothing more dangerous then the actions of the Saints not strengthened by the testimony of Scripture and it is far safer to count that a sin in them which hath not its warrant from Scripture then to fix it up for an ensample for it is not good to follow a Saint into the ditch Let us take them not whom men for men may canonize themselves and others as they please but whom God himself as it were with his own hand hath registred for Saints Hebr. 11.32 Numb 25.7 8 Psal 106.30 Samson was a good man and hath his name in the catalogue of Believers Phinehas a zealous man who staid the plague by executing of judgement but I can neither make Samson an argument to kill my self nor Phinehas to shed the bloud of an adulterer Lib. 2. de Baptismo q. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hebr. 10.24 S. Basil observeth that amongst those many seeming contradictions in Scripture one is of a Fact or Work done to the Precept The Command is Thou shalt not kill Samson killed himself Phinehas with his spear nailed the adulterous couple to the earth but every man hath not Samson's spirit nor Phinehas's commission The Father's rule is the rule of Wisdome it self When we read in Scripture a Fact commended which falleth cross with the Precept we must leave the Fact and cleave to the Precept For Examples are not rules of life but provocations to good works SICVT VIDIMVS As we have seen then is not a right SICVT We must be like unto Elias but not consume men with fire like unto Peter but not cut off a mans ear like unto S. Paul 1 Cor. 11.1 but himself correcteth it with a SICVT EGO CHRISTI as I am unto Christ 2. In the next place if not SICVT VIDIMVS as we have seen others then not SICVT VISVM FVERIT as it shall seem good in our own eyes For Phansie is a wanton unruly froward faculty and in us as in Beasts for the most part supplieth the place of Reason Vulgus ex veritate pauca Pro Roscio Comaedo ex opinione multa aestimat saith Tully The Common people which is the greatest part of mankind for vulgus is of a larger signification then we usually take it in are led rather by Opinion then by the Truth because they are more subject and enslaved to those two turbulent Tribunes of the Soul the Irascible and the Concupiscible appetite and so more opinionative then those who are not so much under their command It is truly said Affectiones facilè faciunt opiniones Our affections will easily raise up opinions For who will not soon phansie that to be true which he would have so which may either fill his
hopes or satisfie his lusts or justifie his anger or answer his love or look friendly on that which his wild passions drive him to Opinion is as a wheel on which the greatest part of the world are turned and wheeled about till they fall of several waies into several evils and do scarce touch at Truth in the way Opinion buildeth our Church chuseth our Preacher formeth our Discipline frameth our Gesture measureth our Prayers methodizeth our Sermons Opinion doth exhort instruct correct teach and command If it say Go we go and if it say Do this we do it We call it our Conscience and it is our God and hath more worshippers then Truth For though Opinion have a weaker ground-work then Truth yet she buildeth higher but it is but hay and stubble fit for the fire Good God! what a Babel may be erected upon a thought I verily thought Acts 26.9 12 14. saith S. Paul and what a whirlwind was that thought It drove him to Damascus with letters and made him kick against the pricks Psal 74.6 Shall I tell you that it was but Phansie that in Davids time beat down the carved works with axes and hammers that it was but a thought that destroyed the Temple it self that killed the Prophets and persecuted the Apostles and crucified the Lord of life himself And therefore it will concern us to watch our Phansie and to deal with it as mothers do with their children who when they desire that which may hurt them deny them that but to still and quiet them give them some other thing they may delight in take away a knife and give them an apple So when our Phansie sporteth and pleaseth it self with vain and aery speculations let us suspect and quarrel them and by degrees present unto it the very face of Truth as the Stoick speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epictet sift and winnow our imaginations bring them to the light and as the devout Schoolman speaketh Gerson resolve all our affectual notions by the Accepistis by the Rule and so demolish all those idoles which our Passions by the help of Phansie have set up For why should such a deceit pass unquestioned why should such an imposture scape without a mark 3. But now if we may not walk SICVT VISVM EST as it seemeth good unto us yet we may SICVT VISVM EST SPIRITVI SANCTO as it seemeth good to the holy Ghost Yes for that is to walk according to the Rule for he speaketh in the Word And to walk after the Spirit and to walk by this Rule are one and the same thing But yet the World hath learned a cursed art to set them at distance and when the Word turneth from us and will not be drawn up to our Phansie to carry on our pleasing but vain imaginations we then appeal to the Spirit we bring him in either to deny his own word or which in effect is the same to interpret it against his own meaning and so with reverence be it spoken make him no better then a Knight of the post to witness a lie This we would do but cannot For make what noise we will and boast of his name we are still at Visum est nobis it is but Phansie still it is our own Spirit not the holy Ghost Matth. 24.24 1 John 4.1 For as there be many false Christs so there are many false spirits and we are commanded not to believe but to try them and what can we try them by but by the Rule And as they will say Lo here is Christ or there is Christ so they will say Lo here is the Spirit and there is the Spirit The Pope layeth claim to it and the Enthusiast layeth claim to it and whoso will may lay claim to it on the same grounds when neither hath any better argument to prove it by then their bare words no evidence but what is forged in that shop of vanities their Phansie Idem Accio Titióque Both are alike in this And if the Pope could perswade me that he never opened his mouth but the Spirit spake by him I would then pronounce him Infallible and place him in the Chair and if the Enthusiast could build me up in the same faith and belief of him I would be bold to proclaim the same of him and set him by his side and seek the Law at his mouth Would you know the two grand Impostours of the world which have been in every age and made that desolation which we see on the earth They are these two a pretended Zeal and a pretense of the Spirit If I be a Zelote what dare I not do And when I presume I have the Spirit what dare I not say What action so foul which these may not authorize what wickedness imaginable which these may not countenance What evil may not these seal for good and what good may they not call evil Oh take heed of a false light and too much fire These two have walkt these many ages about the earth not with the blessed Spirit which is a light to illuminate and as fire to purge us but with their Father the Devil transformed into Angels of light and burning Seraphim and have led men upon those Precipies into those works of darkness which no night is dark enough to cover I might here much enlarge my self for it is a subject fitter for a whole Sermon then a part of one and for a Volume then a Sermon but I must conclude And for conclusion let us whilst the light shineth in the world walk on guided by the Rule which will bring us at last to the holy mount For objects will not come to us but have onely force to move us to come to them Eternal happiness is a fair sight and spreadeth its beams and unvaileth its beauty to win our love to allure and draw us And if it draw us we must up and be stirring and walk on to meet it What that devout writer saith of his Monk Climacus is true of the Christian He is assidua naturae violentia His whole life is a constant continued violence against himself against his corrupt nature which as a weight hangeth upon him and cloggeth and fettereth him which having once shaken off he not onely walketh but runneth the wayes of Gods commandments Psal 119.32 Rom. 13.13 Again let us walk honestly as in the day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as becometh Christians in our several stations and conditions of life and not think Christ dishonoured if we mingle him with the common actions of our life We never dishonour him more then when we take him not in and use him not as our guide and rule even in those actions which for the grossness of the subject and matter they work on may seem to have no savour or relish of that which we call Religion Be not deceived He that thus taketh him in is a Priest and a King the most honourable person