gives demonstration of his huge easinesse to redeem us from that intolerable evil that is equally consequent to the indulging to one or to twenty sinful habits 2. Gods readinesse to pardon appears in this that he pardons before we ask for he that bids us alk for pardon hath in designe and purpose done the thing already for what is wanting on his part in whose onely power it is to give pardon and in whose desire it is that we should be pardoned and who commands us to lay hold upon the offer he hath done all that belongs to God that is all that concerns the pardon there it lies ready it is recorded in the book of life it wants nothing but being exemplified and taken forth and the Holy spirit stands ready to consigne and passe the privy signet that we may exhibit it to devils and evil men when they tempt us to despair or sin 3. Nay God is so ready in his mercy that he did pardon us even before he redeemed us for what is the secret of the mysterie that the eternal Son of God should take upon him our nature and die our death and suffer for our sins and do our work and enable us to do our own he that did this is God he who thought it no robbery to be equal with God he came to satisfie himself to pay to himself the price for his own creature and when he did this for us that he might pardon us was he at that instant angry with us was this an effect of his anger or of his love that God sent his Son to work our pardon and salvation Indeed we were angry with God at enmity with the the Prince of life but he was reconciled to us so far as that he then did the greatest thing in the world for us for nothing could be greater then that God the Son of God should die for us here was reconciliation before pardon and God that came to die for us did love us first before he came this was hasty love But it went further yet 4. God pardoned us before we sinned and when he foresaw our sin even mine and yours he sent his son to die for us ouâ— pardon was wrought and effected by Christs death above 1600 years ago and for the sins of to morrow and the infirmities of the next day Christ is already dead already risen from the dead and does now make intercession and atonement And this is not onely a favour to us who were born in the due time of the Gospel but to all mankinde since Adam For God who is infinitely patient in his justice was not at all patient in his mercy he forbears to strike and punish us but he would not forbear to provide cure for us and remedy for as if God could not stay from redeeming us he â—romised the Redeemer to Adam in the beginning of the worlds sin Christ was the lamb slain from the begining of the world and the covenant of the Gospel though it was not made with man yet it was from the beginning performed by God as to his part as to the ministration of pardon The seed of the woman was set up against the dragon as soon as ever the Tempter had won his first battle and though God laid his hand and drew a vail of types and secresy before the manifestation of his mercies yet he did the work of redemption and saved us by the covenant of faith and the righteousnesse of believing and the mercies of repentance the graces of pardon and the blood of the slain lamb even from the fall of Adam to this very day and will do till Christs second coming Adam fell by his folly and did not perform the covenant of one little work a work of a single abstinence but he was restored by faith in the seed of the woman and of this righteousnesse Noah was a preacher and by faith Enoch was traslated and by faith a remnant was saved at the flood and to Abraham this was imputed for righteousnesse and to all the Patriarks and to all the righteous judges and holy Prophets and Saints of the old Testament even while they were obliged so far as the words of their covenant were expressed to the law of works their pardon was sealed kept with in the vail within the curtains of the sanctuary and they saw it not then but they feel it ever since and this was a great excellency of the Divine mercy unto them God had mercy on all mankinde before Christs manifestation even beyond the mercies of their covenant they were saved as we are by the seed of the woman by God incarnate by the lamb slain from the beginning of the world not by works for we all failed of them that is not by an exact obedience but by faith working by love by sincere hearty endeavours believing God and relying upon his infinite mercy revealed in part and now fully manifest by the great instrument and means of that mercy Jesus Christ. So that here is pardon before we asked it pardon before Christs coming pardon before redemption and pardon before we sinned what greater readinesse to forgive us can be imagined yes there is one degree more yet and that will prevent a mistake in this 5. For God so pardoned us once that we should need no more pardon he pardons us by turning every one of us away from our iniquities that 's the purpose of Christ that he might safely pardon us before we sinned and we might not sin upon the confidence of pardon he pardoned us not onely upon condition we would sin no more but he took away our sin cured our cursed inclinations instructed our understanding rectified our will fortified us against temptations and now every man whom he pardons he also sanctifies and he is born of God and he must not will not cannot sin so long as the seed of God remains within him so long as his pardon continues This is the consummation of pardon For if God had so pardoned us as onely to take away our evils which are past we should have needed a second Saviour and a redeemer for every month and new pardons perpetually But our blessed Redeemer hath taken away our sin not onely the guilt of our old but our inclinations to new sins he makes us like himself and commands us to live so that we shall not need a second pardon that is a second state of pardon for we are but once baptized into Christs death and that death was one and our redemption but one and our covenant the same and as long as we continue within the covenant we are still within the power and comprehensions of the first pardon 6. And yet there is a necessity of having one degree of pardon more beyond all this For although we do not abjure our covenant and renounce Christ and extinguish the spirit yet we resist him and we grieve him and we go off from the holinesse of the
of an easie and honest sermon it is the sincere milk of the word and nourishes a mans soul though represented in its own naturall simplicity and there is hardly any Orator but you may finde occasion to praise something of him When Plato misliked the order and disposition of the Oration of Lysias yet he praised the good words and the elocution of the man Euripides was commended for his fulness Parmenides for his composition Phocilides for his easinesse Archilochus for his argument Sophocles for the unequalnesse of his stile So may men praise their Preacher he speaks pertinently or he contrives wittily or he speaks comely or the man is pious or charitable or he hath a good text or he speaks plainly or he is not tedious or if he be he is at least industrious or he is the messenger of God and that will not fail us and let us love him for that and we know those that love can easily commend any thing because they like every thing and they say fair men are like angels and the black are manly and the pale look like honey and the stars and the croâ—â— nosed are like the sons of Kings and if they be flat they are gentle and easie and if they be deformed they are humble and not to be despised because they have upon them the impresses of divinity and they are the sons of God He that despises his Preacher is a hearer of arts and learning not of the word of God and though when the word of God is set off with advantages and entertainments of the better faculties of our humanity it is more usefull and of more effect yet when the word of God is spoken truly though but read in plain language it will become the disciple of Jesus to love that man whom God sends and the publik order and the laws have imployed rather then to despise the weaknesse of him who delivers a mighty word Thus it is fit that men should be affected and imployed when they hear and read sermons comming hither not as into a theatre where men observe the gestures and noises of the people the brow and eyes of the most busie censurers and make parties and go aside with them that dislike every thing or else admire not the things but the persons But as to a sacrifice and as unto a school where vertue is taught and exercised and none come but such as put themselves under discipline and intend to grow wiser and more vertuous to appease their passion from violent to become smooth and even to have their faith established and their hope confirmed their charity enlarged They that are otherwise affected do not do their duty but if they be so minded as they ought I and all men of my imployment shall be secured against the tongues and faces of men who are ingeniosi in alieno libro wittie to abuse and undervalue another mans book And yet besides these spirituall arts already reckoned I have one security more for unlesse I deceive my self I intend the glory of God sincerely and the service of Jesus in this publication and therefore being I do not seek my self or my own reputation I shall not be troubled if they be lost in the voyces of busie people so that I be accepted of God and found of him in the day of the Lords visitation My Lord It was your charity and noblenesse that gave me opportunity to do this service little or great unto religion and whoever shall find any advantage to their soul by reading the following discourse if they know how to blesse God and to blesse all them that are Gods instruments in doing them benefit will I hope help to procure blessings to your Person and Family and say a holy prayer and name your Lordship in their Letanies and remember that at your own charges you have digged a well and placed cisterns in the high wayes that they may drink and be refreshed and their souls may blesse you My Lord I hope this even because I very much desire it and because you exceedingly deserve it and above all because God is good and gracious and loves to reward such a charity and such a religion as is yours by which you have imployed me in the service of God and in ministeries to your Family My Lord I am most heartily and for very many Dear obligations Your Lordships most obliged most humble and most affectionate servant TAYLOR Titles of the Sermons their Order Number and Texts SErmon 1. 2. Of the Spirit of Grace Folio 1. 12. Rom. 8. ver 9 10. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his * And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse Sermon 3. 4. The descending and entailed curse cut off fol. 27. 40. Exodus 20. part of the 5. verse I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me 6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandements Sermon 5. 6. The invalidity of a late or death-bed repentance fol 52. 66. Jerem. 13. 16. Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darknesse and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light or lest while ye look for light he shall turn it into the shadow of death and make it grosse darknesse Sermon 7. 8. The deceitfulnesse of the heart fol. 80. 92. Jerem. 17. 9. The heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Sermon 9. 10. 11. The faith and patience of the Saints Or the righteous cause oppressed fol. 104. 119. 133. 1 Pet. 4. 17. For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God 18. And if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear Sermon 12. 13. The mercy of the Divine judgements or Gods method in curing sinners fol. 146. 159. Romans 2. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance Sermon 14. 15. Of groweth in grace with its proper instruments and signes fol. 172. 183 2 Pet. 3. 18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory both now and for ever Amen Sermon 16. 17. Of groweth in sin or the severall states and degrees of sinners with the manner how they are to be treated fol. 197. 210. Jude Epist. ver 22 23. And of some have compassion making a difference * And others save with fear pulling them out of the fire Sermon 18. 19.
impossible It is dishonourable to think God enjoyns us to do more then he enables us to do and it is a contradiction to say we cannot do all that we can and through Christ which strengthens me I can do all things saith S. Paul however we can do to the utmost of our strength and beyond that we cannot take thought impossibilities enter not into deliberation but according to our abilities and naturall powers assisted by Gods grace so God hath covenanted with us to live a holy life For in Christ Jesus nothing avayleth but a new creature nothing but faith working by charity nothing but keeping the Commandements of God They are all the words of S. Paul before quoted to which he addes and as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy This is the Covenant they are the Israel of God upon those peace and mercy shall abide if they become a new creature wholly transformed in the image of their minde if they have faith and this faith be an operative working faith a faith that produces a holy life a faith that works by charity if they keep the Commandements of God then they are within the Covenant of mercy but not else for in Christ Jesus nothing else avayleth * To the same purpose are those words Hebr. 12. 14. Follow peace with all men and holinesse without which no man shall see the Lord. Peace with all men implies both justice and charity without which it is impossible to preserve peace Holinesse implies all our duty towards God universall diligence and this must be followed that is pursued with diligence in a lasting course of life and exercise and without this we shall never see the face of God I need urge no more authorities to this purpose these two are as certain and convincing as two thousand and since thus much is actually required and is the condition of the Covenant it is certain that sorrow for not having done what is commanded to be done and a purpose to do what is necessary to be actually performed will not acquit us before the righteous judgement of God * For the grace of God hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodlinesse and worldly lusts we should live godly justly and soberly in this present world for upon these termes alone we must look for the blessed hope the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ * I shall no longer insist upon this particular but onely propound it to your consideration To what purpose are all those Commandements in Scripture of every page almost in it of living holily and according to the Commandements of God of adorning the Gospel of God of walking as in the day of walking in light of pure and undefiled religion of being holy as God is holy of being humble and meek as Christ is humble of putting on the Lord Jesus of living a spirituall life but that it is the purpose of God and the intention and designe of Christ dying for us and the Covenant made with man that we should expect heaven upon no other termes in the world but of a holy life in the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus Now if a vitious person when he comes to the latter end of his dayes one that hath lived a wicked ungodly life can for any thing he can do upon his death-bed be said to live a holy life then his hopes are not desperate but he that hopes upon this onely for which God hath made him no promise I must say of him as Galen said of consumptive persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the more they hope the worse they are and the relying upon such hopes is an approach to the grave and a sad eternity Peleos Priami transit vel Nestoris aet as fuerat serum jam tibi desinere Eja age rumpe moras quo te spectabimus usque Dum quid sis dubitas jam potes esse nihil And now it will be a vain question to ask whether or no God cannot save a dying man that repents after a vitious life For it is true God can do it if he please and he can raise children to Abraham out of the stones and he can make ten thousand worlds if he sees good and he can do what he list and he can save an ill living man though he never repent at all so much as upon his death-bed All this he can do but Gods power is no ingredient into this question we are never the better that God can do it unlesse he also will and whether he will or no we are to learn from himself and what he hath declared to be his will in holy Scripture Nay since God hath said that without actuall holinesse no man shall see God God by his own will hath restrained his power and though absolutely he can do all things yet he cannot do against his own word * And indeed the rewards of heaven are so great and glorious and Christ burden is so light his yoke is so easie that it is a shamelesse impudence to expect so great glories at a lesse rate then so little a service at a lower rate then a holy life It cost the Eternall Son of God his life blood to obtain heaven for us upon that condition and who then shall die again for us to get heaven for us upon easier conditions What would you do if God should command you to kill your eldest son or to work in the mines for a thousand yeers together or to fast all thy life time with bread and water were not heaven a great bargain even after all this and when God requires nothing of us but to live soberly justly and godly which very things of themselves to man are a very great felicity and necessary to his present well-being shall we think this to be a load and an unsufferable burden and that heaven is so little a purchase at that price that God in meer justice will take a death-bed sigh or groan and a few unprofitable tears and promises in exchange for all our duty Strange it should be so but stranger that any man should rely upon such a vanity when from Gods word he hath nothing to warrant such a confidence But these men do like the Tyrant Dionysius who stole from Apollo his golden cloak and gave him a cloak of Arcadian home-spun saying that this was lighter in summer and warmer in winter These men sacrilegiously rob God of the service of all their golden dayes and serve him in their hoary head in their furs and grave clothes and pretend that this late service is more agreeable to the Divine mercy on one side and humane infirmity on the other and so dispute themselves into an irrecoverable condition having no other ground to rely upon a death-bed or late-begun-late-begun-repentance but because they resolve to enjoy the pleasures of sin and for heaven they will put that to the venture of an after-game
riches to despise such a goodnesse However that we may see the greatnesse of this treasure of goodnesse God seldom leaves us thus for he sees be it spoken to the shame of our natures and the dishonour of our manners he sees that his mercies do not allure us do not make us thankful but as the Roman said felicitate corrumpimur we become worse for Gods mercy and think it will be alwayes holiday and are like the Christal of Arabia hardned not by cold but made crusty and stubborn by the warmth of the divine fire by its refreshments and mercies therefore to demonstrate that God is good indeed he continues his mercise still to us but in another instance he is merciful to us in punishing us that by such instruments we may be led to repentance which will scare us from sin he delivers us up to the paedagogy of the divine judgements and there begins the second part of Gods method intimated in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forbearance God begins his cure by causticks by incisions and instruments of vexation to try if the disease that will not yeild to the allectives of cordials and perfumes friction and baths may be forced out by deleteries scarifications and more salutary but least pleasing Physicke 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forbearance it is called in the text which signifies laxamentum or inducias that is when the decrees of the divine judgements temporal are gone out either wholly to suspend the executio◠of them which is induciae or a reprieve or else when God hath struck once or twice he takes off his hand that is laxamentum an ease of remission of his judgment in both these although in judgement God remembers mercy yet we are under discipline we are brought into the paenitential chamber at least we are shewed the rod of God and if like Moses rod it turnes us into serpents and that we repent not but grow more Devils yet then it turnes into a rod again and finishes up the smiting or the first designed affliction But I consider it first in general the riches of the divine goodnesse is manifest in beginning this new method of curing us by severity and by a rod. And that you may not wonder that I expound this forbearance to be an act of mercy punishing I observe that besides that the word supposes the method changed and it is a mercy about judgements and their manner of execution it is also in the nature of the thing in the conjunction of circumstances and the designes of God a mercy when he threatens us or strike us into repentance We think that the way of blessings and prosperous accidents is the finer way of securing our duty and that when our heads are anointed our cups crowned and our tables full the very caresses of our spirits will best of all dance before the Ark and sing perpetual Anthemes to the honour of our Benefactor and Patron God and we are apt to dream that God will make his Saints raigne here as kings in a millenary kingdom and give them the riches and fortunes of this world that they may rule over men and sing psalms to God for ever But I remember what Xenophanes saies of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is like to men neither in shape nor in counsel he knowes that his mercies confirm some and encourage more but they convert but few alone they lead men to dissolution of manners and forgetfulnesse of God rather then repentance not but that mercies are competent and apt instruments of grace if we would but because we are more dispersed in our spirits and by a prosperous accident are melted into joy and garishness and drawn off from the sobriety of recollection Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked Many are not able to suffer and endure prosperity it is like the light of the sun to a weak eye glorious indeed in it self but not proportioned to such an instrument Adam himself as the Rabbins say did not dwell one night in Paradise but was poisoned with prosperity with the beauty of his fair wife and a beauteous tree and Noah and Lot were both righteous and examplary the one to Sodom the other to the old world so long as they lived in a place in which they were obnoxious to the common suffering but as soon as the one of them had scaped from drowing and the other from burning and were put into security they fell into crimes which have dishonoured their memories for above thirty generations together the crimes of drunkennesse and incest wealth and a full fortune make men licenciously vitious tempting a man with power to act all that he can desire or designe vitiously Inde irae faciles Namque ut opes nimias mundo fortuna subacto Intulit et rebus mores cessere secundis Cultus gest are decoros vix nuribus rapuere mares totoque accersitur orbe Quo gens quaeque perit Lucan And let me observe to you that though there are in the new Testament many promises and provisions made for the poor in that very capacity they haveing a title to some certain circumstances and additionals of grace and blessing yet to rich men our blessed Saviour was pleased to make none at all but to leave them involved in general comprehensions and to have a title to the special promises onely by becomming poor in spirit and in preparation of minde though not in fortune and possession How ever it is hard for God to perswade us to this till we are taught it by a sad experience that those prosperities which we think will make us serve God cheerfully make us to serve the world and secular ends diligently and God not at all Repentance is a duty that best complies with affliction 〈◊〉 is a symbolical estate of the same complexion and constitution half the work of repentance is done by a sad accident our spirits are made sad our gayeties mortified our wildnesse corrected the water springs are ready to run over but if God should grant our desires and give to most men prosperity with a designe to lead them to repentance all his pompe and all his employment and all his affections and passions and all his circumstances are so many degrees of distance from the conditions and natures of repentance It was reported by Dio concerning Neros mother that she often wished that her Son might be Emperour and wished it with so great passion that upon that condition she cared not though her Son might kill her Her first wish and her second fear were both granted but when she began to fear that her Son did really designe to murder her she used all the art and instruments of diversion that a witty and a powerfull a timerous person and a woman could invent or apply Just so it is with us so we might have our wishes of prosperity we promise to undergo all the severities of repentance but when we are landed upon our desire then every degree of
resolution alone put him into the state of grace is he admitted to pardon and the favour of God before he hath in some measure performed actually what he so reasonably hath resolved By no means For resolution and purpose is in its own nature and constitution an imperfect act and therefore can signifie nothing without its performance and consummation It is as a faculty is to the act as spring is to the harvest as feed time is to the Autumne as Egges are to birds or as a relative to its correspondent nothing without it And can it be imagined that a resolution in our health and life shall be ineffectual without performance and shall a resolution barely such do any Good upon our deathbed Can such purposes prevail against a long impiety rather then against a young and a newly begun state of sin Will God at an easier rate pardon the sins of fifty or sixty yeers then the sins of our youth onely or the iniquity of five yeers or ten If a holy life be not necessary to be liv'd why shall it be necessary to resolve to live it But if a holy life be necessary then it cannot be sufficient meerly to resolve it unlesse this resolution go forth in an actuall and reall service Vain therefore is the hope of those persons who either go on in their sins before their last sicknesse never thinking to return into the wayes of God from whence they have wandred all their life never renewing their resolutions and vows of holy living or if they have yet their purposes are for ever blasted with the next violent temptation More prudent was the prayer of David Oh spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen And something like it was the saying of the Emperour Charles the fifth Inter vitae negotia mortis diem oportet spacium intercedere When ever our holy purposes are renewed unlesse God gives us time to act them to mortifie and subdue our lusts to conquer and subdue the whole kingdom of sin to rise from our grave and be clothed with nerves and flesh and a new skin to overcome our deadly sicknesses and by little and little to return to health and strength unlesse we have grace and time to do all this our sins will lie down with us in our graves * For when a man hath contracted a long habit of sin and it hath been growing upon him ten or twenty fourty or fifty yeers whose acts he hath daily or hourly repeated and they are grown to a second nature to him and have so prevailed upon the ruines of his spirit that the man is taken captive by the Devil at his will he is fast bound as a slave tugging at the oar that he is grown in love with his fetters and longs to be doing the work of sin is it likely that all this progresse and groweth in sin in the wayes of which he runs fast without any impediment is it I say likely that a few dayes or weeks of sicknesse can recover him the especiall hindrances of that state I shall afterwards consider but Can a man be supposed so prompt to piety and holy living a man I mean that hath lived wickedly a long time together can he be of so ready and active a vertue upon the sudden as to recover in a moneth or a week what he hath been undoing in 20 or 30 yeers Is it so easie to build that a weak and infirm person bound hand and foot shall be able to build more in three dayes then was a building above fourty yeers Christ did it in a figurative sence but in this it is not in the power of any man so suddenly to be recovered from so long a sicknesse Necessary therefore it is that all these instruments of our conversion Confession of sins praying for their pardon and resolutions to lead a new life should begin before our feet stumble upon the dark mountains lest we leave the work onely resolved upon to be begun which it is necessary we should in many degrees finish if ever we mean to escape the eternall darknesse For that we should actually abolish the whole body of sin and death that we should crucifie the old man with his lusts that we should lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us that we should cast away the works of darknesse that we should awake from sleep and arise from death that we should redeem the time that we should cleanse our hands and purifie our hearts that we should have escaped the corruption all the corruption that is in the whole world through lust that nothing of the old leaven should remain in us but that we be wholly a new lump throughly transformed and changed in the image of our minde these are the perpetuall precepts of the Spirit and the certain duty of man and that to have all these in purpose onely is meerly to no purpose without the actuall eradication of every vitious habit and the certain abolition of every criminall adherence is clearly and dogmatically decreed every where in the Scripture For they are the words of Saint Paul they that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts the work is actually done and sin is dead or wounded mortally before they can in any sence belong to Christ to be a portion of his inheritance And He that is in Christ is a new creature For in Christ Jesus nothing can avail but a new creature nothing but a Keeping the Commandements of God Not all our tears though we should weep like David and his men at Ziklag till they could weep no more or the women of Ramah or like the weeping in the valley of Hinnom could suffice if we retain the affection to any one sin or have any unrepented of or unmortified It is true that a contrite and broken heart God will not despise No he will not For if it be a hearty and permanent sorrow it is an excellent beginning of repentance and God will to a timely sorrow give the grace of repentance He will not give pardon to sorrow alone but that which ought to be the proper effect of sorrow that God shall give He shall then open the gates of mercy and admit you to a possibility of restitution so that you may be within the covenant of repentance which if you actually perform you may expect Gods promise And in this sense Confession will obtain our pardon and humiliation will be accepted and our holy purposes and pious resolutions shall be accounted for that is these being the first steps and addresses to that part of repentance which consists in the abolition of sins shall be accepted so far as to procure so much of the pardon to do so much of the work of restitution that God will admit the returning man to a further degree of emendation to a neerer possibility of working out
that be all their hopes then we may with a sad spirit and a soul of pity inquire into the Question of the Text Where shall the ungodly and sinner appear Even there where Gods face shall never shine where there shall be fire and no light where there shall be no Angels but what are many thousands yeers ago turned into Devils whereno good man shall ever dwell and from whence the evil and the accursed shall never be dismissed O my God let my soul never come into their counsels nor lie down in their sorrows Sermon XII THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE IVDGMENTS OR Gods Method in curing Sinners 2. Romanes 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance FRom the beginning of Time till now all effluxes which have come from God have been nothing but emanations of his goodnesse clothed in variety of circumstances He made man with no other designe then that man should be happy and by receiving derivations from his fountain of mercy might reflect glory to him And therefore God making man for his own glory made also a paradise for mans use and did him good to invite him to do himself a greater for God gave forth demonstrations of his power by instances of mercy and he who might have made ten thousand worlds of wonder and prodigy and created man with faculties able onely to stare upon and admire those miracles of mightinesse did choose to instance his power in the effusions of mercy that at the same instant he might represent himself desireable and adorable in all the capacities of amability that is as excellent in himself and profitable to us For as the Sun sends forth a benigne and gentle influence on the seed of Plants that it may invite forth the active and plastick power from its recesse and secresie that by rising into the tallnesse and dimensions of a tree it may still receive a greater and more refreshing influence from its foster-father the prince of all the bodies of light and in all these emanations the Sun its self receives no advantage but the honour of doing benefits so doth the Almighty Father of all the creatures He at first sends forth his blessings upon us that we by using them aright should make our selves capable of greater while the giving glory to God and doing homage to him are nothing for his advantage but onely for ours our duties towards him being like vapours ascending from the earth not at all to refresh the region of the clouds but to return back in a fruitfull and refreshing shower And God created us not that we can increase his felicity but that he might have a subject receptive of felicity from him thus he causes us to be born that we may be capable of his blessings he causes us to be baptized that we may have a title to the glorious promises Evangelicall he gives us his Son that we may be rescued from hell and when we constraine him to use harsh courses towards us it is also in mercy he smites us to cure a disease he sends us sicknesse to procure our health and as if God were all mercy he his mercifull in his first designe in all his instruments in the way and in the end of the journey and does not onely shew the riches of his goodnesse to them that do well but to all men that they may do well he is good to make us good he does us benefits to make us happy and if we by despising such gracious rayes of light and heat stop their progresse and interrupt their designe the losse is not Gods but ours we shall be the miserable and accursed people This is the sense and paraphrase of my Text. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse c. Thou dost not know that is thou considerest not that it is for further benefit that God does thee this the goodnesse of God is not a designe to serve his own ends upon thee but thine upon him The goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance Here then is Gods method of curing man-kind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First goodnesse or inviting us to him by sugred words by the placid arguments of temporall favour and the propositions of excellent promises Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the same time although God is provoked every day yet he does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he tolerates our stubbornnesse he forbears to punish and when he does begin to strike takes his hand off and gives us truce and respite For so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies laxamentum and inducias too Thirdly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 still a long putting off and deferring his finall destroying anger by using all meanes to force us to repentance and this especially by the way of judgements these being the last reserves of the Divine mercy and how ever we esteem it is the greatest instance of the divine long sufferance that is in the world After these instruments we may consider the end the strand upon which these land us the purpose of this variety of these laborious and admirable arts with which God so studies and contrives the happinesse and salvation of man it is onely that man may be brought by these meanes unto repentance and by repentance may be brought to eternall life This is the treasure of the Divine goodnesse the great and admirable efflux of the eternal beneficence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the riches of his goodnesse which whosoever despises despises himself and the great interest of his own felicity he shall die in his impenitence and perish in his folly 1. The first great instrument that God chooses to bring us to him is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 profit or benefit and this must needs be first for those instruments whereby we have a being are so great mercies that besides that they are such which give us the capacities of all other mercies they are the advances of us in the greatest instances of promotion in the world For from nothing to something is an infinite space and a man must have a measure of infinite passed upon him Before he can perceive himself to be either happy or miserable he is not able to give God thanks for one blessing untill he hath received many But then God intends we should enter upon his service at the beginning of our dayes because even then he is before-hand with us and hath already given us great instances of his goodnesse What a prodigy of favour is it to us that he hath passed by so many formes of his creatures and hath not set us down in the rank of any of them till we came to be paulò minores angelis a little lower then the angels and yet from the meanest of them God can perfect his own praise The deeps and the snows the hail and the rain the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea they can and do glorifie
God and give him praise in their capacity and yet he gave them no speech no reason no immortall spirit or capacity of eternall blessednesse but he hath distinguished us from them by the absolute issues of his predestination and hath given us a lasting and eternall spirit excellent organs of perception and wonderfull instruments of expression that we may joyn in consort with the morning star and bear a part in the Chorus with the Angels of light to sing Alleluiah to the great Father of men and Angels But was it not a huge chain of mercies that we were not strangled in the regions of our own naturall impurities but were sustained by the breath of God from perishing in the womb where God formed us in secreto terrae told our bones and kept the order of nature and the miracles of creation and we lived upon that which in the next minute after we were born would strangle us if it were not removed but then God took care of us and his hands of providence clothed us and fed us But why do I reckon the mercies of production which in every minute of our being are alike and continued and are miracles in all senses but that they are common and usuall I onely desire you to remember that God made all the works of his hands to serve him and indeed this mercy of creating us such as we are was not to lead us to repentance but was a designe of innocence he intended we should serve him as the Sun and the Moon do as fire and water do never to prevaricate the laws he fixed to us that we might have needed no repentance But since we did degenerate and being by God made better and more noble creatures then all the inhabitants of the air the water and the earth besides we made our selves baser and more ignoble then any For no dog crocodile or swine was ever Gods enemy as we made our selves yet then from thence forward God began his work of leading us to repentance by the riches of his goodnesse He causeth us to be born of Christian parents under whom we were taught the mysteriousnesse of its goodnesse and designes for the redemption of man And by the designe of which religion repentance was taught to mankind and an excellent law given for distinction of good and evil and this is a blessing which though possibly we do not often put into our eucharisticall Letanies to give God thanks for yet if we sadly consider what had become of us if we had been born under the dominion of a Turkish Lord or in America where no Christians do inhabite where they worship the Devil where witches are their priests their prophets their phisitians and their Oracles can we choose but apprehend a visible notorious necessity of perishing in those sins which we then should not have understood by the glasse of a divine law to have declined nor by a revelation have been taught to repent of But since the best of men does in the midst of all the great advantages of lawes and examples and promises and threatnings do many things he ought to be ashamed of and needs to repent of we can understand the riches of the Divine goodnesse best by considering that the very designe of our birth and education in the Christian religion is that we may recover of and cure our follies by the antidote of repentance which is preached to us as a doctrine and propounded as a favour which was put into a law and purchased for us by a great expence which God does not more command to us as a duty then he gives us a blessing For now that we shall not perish for our first follies but be admitted to new conditions to be repaired by second thoughts to have our infirmities excused and our sins forgiven our habits lessened and our malice cured after we were wounded and sick and dead and buried and in the possession of the Devil this was such a blessing so great riches of the Divine goodnesse that as it was taught to no religion but the Christian revealed by no law-giver but Christ so it was a favour greater then ever God gave to the Angels and Devils for although God was rich in the effusion of his goodnesse towards them yet they were not admitted to the condition of second thoughts Christ never shed one drop of blood for them his goodnesse did not lead them to repentance but to us it was that he made this largesse of his goodnesse to us to whom he made himself a brother and sucked the paps of our mother he paid the scores of our sin and shame and death onely that we might be admitted to repent and that this repentance might be effectuall to the great purposes of felicity and salvation And if we would consider this sadly it might make us better to understand our madnesse and folly in refusing to repent That is to be sorrowfull and to leave all our sins and to make amends by a holy life For that we might be admitted and suffered to do so God was fain to pour forth all the riches of his goodnesse It cost our deerest Lord the price of his deerest blood many a thousand groans millions of prayers and sighes and at this instant he is praying for our repentance nay he hath prayed for our repentance these 1600. yeers incessantly night and day and shall do so till doomes-day He sits at the right hand of God making intercession for us And that we may know what he prayes for he hath sent us Embassadours to declare the purpose of all his designe for Saint Paul saith We are Embassadours for Christ as though he did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God The purpose of our Embassy and Ministery is a prosecution of the mercies of God and the work of Redemption and the intercession and mediation of Christ It is the work of atonement and reconciliation that God designed and Christ died for and still prayes for and we preach for and you all must labour for And therefore here consider if it be not infinite impiety to despise the riches of such a goodnesse which at so great a charge with such infinite labour and deep mysterious arts invites us to repentance that is to such a thing which could not be granted to us unlesse Christ should die to purchase it such a glorious favour that is the issue of Christs prayers in heaven and of all his labours his sorrows and his sufferings on earth if we refuse to repent now we do not so much refuse to do our own duty as to accept of a reward it is the greatest and the dearest blessing that ever God gave to Men that they may repent and therefore to deny it or to delay it is to refuse health brought us by the skill and industry of the Physitian it is to refuse liberty indulged to us by our gracious Lord and certainly we had reason
your danger with a sober spirit the fear of it would have half killed you If he had but told you how often God had sent out his Warrants to the exterminating Angel and our Blessed Saviour by his intercession hath obtained a reprieve that he might have the content of rejoycing at thy conversion and repentance If you had known from him the secrets of that providence which governs us in secret and how many thousand times the Devil would have done thee hurt and how often himself as a ministring spirit of Gods goodnesse and forbearance did interpose and abate or divert a mischief which was falling on thy head it must needs cover thy head with a cloud of shame and blushing at that ingratitude and that folly that neither will give God thanks nor secure thy own well being Hadst thou never any dangerous fall in thy intemperance then God shewed thee thy danger and that he was angry at thy sin but yet did so pity thy person that he would forbear thee a little longer else that fall had been into thy grave When thy gluttony gave thee a surfet and God gave thee a remedy his meaning then was that thy gluttony rather should be cured then thy surfet that repentance should have been thy remedy and abstinence and fasting should be thy cure Did ever thy proud or revengefull spirit engage the upon a Duell or a vexatious Law-suit and God brought thee off with life or peace his purpose then was that his mercy should teach thee charity and he that cannot read the purposes of God written with the finger of judgement for as yet his whole hand is not laid on either is consigned to eternall ruine because God will no more endeavour his cure or if his mercy still continues and goes on in long-suffering it shall be by such vexatious instruments such causticks and corrosives such tormenting and desperate medicaments such which in the very cure will soundly punish thy folly and ingratitude For deceive not your selves Gods mercy cannot be made a patron for any mans impiety the purpose of it is to bring us to repentance and God will do it by the mercies of his mercies or by the mercies of his judgements he will either break our hearts into a thousand fragments of contrition or break our bones in the ruines of the grave and hell And since God rejoyces in his mercy above all his works he will be most impatient that we shall despise that in which he most delights and in which we have the greatest reason to delight the riches of that goodnesse which is essentiall and part of his glory and is communicated to us to bring us to repentance that we may partake of that goodnesse and behold that glory Sermon XIII The mercies of the Divine Judgements Part II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 long-suffering in this one word are contained all the treasures of the Divine goodnesse here is the length and extension of his mercy pertrahit spiritum super nos Dominus so the Syrian Interpreter reads Luk. 18. 7. God holds his breath He retains his anger within him lest it should come forth and blast us and here is also much of the Divine justice For although God suffers long yet he does not let us alone he forbears to destroy us but not to punish us and in both he by many accidents gives probation of his power according to the prayer of the Wise man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou art mercifull towards us all because thou canst do all things and thou passedst by the sins of men that they may repent And that God shall support our spirit and preserve our patience and nourish our hope and correct our stubbornnesse and mortifie our pride and bring us to him whether we will or no by such gracious violences and mercifull judgements which he uses towards us as his last remedies is not onely the demonstration of a mighty mercy but of an almighty power So hard a thing it is to make us leave our follies and become wise that were not the mercies of God an effective pity and clothed in all the way of its progresse with mightinesse and power every sinner should perish irrevocably But this is the fiery triall the last purgatory fire which God uses to burn the thistles and purifie the drosse When the gentle influence of a Sun-beam will not wither them nor the weeding hook of a short affliction cut them out then God comes with fire to burn us with the ax laid to the root of the tree but then observe that when we are under this state of cure we are so neer destruction that the same instrument that God uses for remedy to us is also prepared to destroy us the fire is as apt to burn us to ashes as to cleansing when we are so overgrown and the ax as instrumentall to cut us down for fewell as to square us for building in Gods temple and therefore when it comes thus far it will be hard discerning what the purpose of the ax is and whether the fire means to burn we shall know it by the change wrought upon our selves For what Plato said concerning his dream of Purgatory is true here Quicunque non purgatus migrat ad inferos jacebit in luto quicunque verò mitratus illuc accesserit habitabit cum Deis He that dies in his impurities shall lie in it for ever but he that descends to his grave purged and mitred that is having quitted his vices superinduens justitiam being clothed with righteousnesse shall dwell in light and immortality It is sad that we put God to such extremities and as it happens in long diseases those which Physitians use for the last remedies seldom prevail and when consumptive persons come to have their heads shaven they do not often escape So it is when we put God to his last remedies God indeed hath the glory of his patience and his long-suffering but we seldom have the benefit and the use of it For if when our sin was young and our strength more active and our habits lesse and vertue not so much a stranger to us we suffered sin to prevail upon us to grow stronger then the ruins of our spirit and to lesson us into the state of sicknesse and disability in the midst of all those remedies which God used to our beginning diseases much more desperate is our recovery when our disease is stronger and our faculties weaker when our sins raigne in us and our thoughts of vertue are not alive However although I say this and it is highly considerable to the purpose that we never suffered things to come to this extremity yet if it be upon us we must do as well as we can But then we are to look upon it as a designe of Gods last mercy beyond which if we protract our repentance our condition is desperately miserable The whole state of which mercy we understand by the parable of the King reckoning
with his servants that were in arrears to him One was brought to him which owed him ten thousand talents but forasmuch as he had not to pay his Lord commanded him to be sold and his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made The man you see was under the arrest the sentence was passed upon him he was a condemned man but before the execution of it he fell down and worshipped and said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord suffer me longer a while have patience with me and I will pay thee all This tells its meaning this is a long-sufferance by being a forbearance onely of execution of the last sentence a putting off damnation upon a longer triall of our emendation but in the mean time it implies no other ease but that together with his long-sufferance God may use all other severities and scourges to break our untamed spirits and to soften them with hammers so death be put off no matter else what hardship and loads of sufferance we have Hic ure hic seca ut in aeternum parcas so Saint Austin prayed Here O Lord cut me here burn me spare me not now that thou mayest spare me for ever And it is just like the mercy used to a mad man when he is kept in a dark room and tamed with whips it is a cruel mercy but such as his condition requires he can receive no other mercy all things else were cruelly unmercifull I remember what Bion observed wittily of the punishment inflicted upon the daughters of Danaeus whom the old Poets fained to be condemned in hell to fill a bottomlesse tub with water and to increase the pain as they fancied this water they were to carry in sieves and never to leave work till the tub were full It is well sayes he since their labour must be eternall that it is so gentle for it were more pains to carry their water in whole vessels and a sad burden to go loaden to a leaking tub with unfruitfull labours Just so is the condition of these persons upon whom a wrath is gone out it is a sad sentence but acted with a gentle instrument and since they are condemned to pay the scores of their sins with the sufferance of a load of judgements it is well they are such as will run quite thorough them and not stick upon them to eternity Omnes enim poenae non exterminantes sunt mediciâ—ales All punishments whatsoever which do not destroy us are intended to save us they are lancets which make a wound but to let forth the venome of our ulcers when God slue twenty three thousand of the Assyrians for their fornication that was a finall justice upon their persons and consigned them to a sad eternity for beyond such an infliction there was no remedy But when God sent lions to the Assyrian inhabitants of Samaria and the judgements drave them to inquire after the manner of the God of the land and they sent for Priests from Jerusalem to teach them how to worship the God of Israel that was a mercy and a judgement too the long forbearance of God who destroyed not at all the inhabitants lead the rest into repentance 1. And I must make this observation to you That when things come to this passe that God is forced to the last remedies of judgements this long-sufferance will little or nothing concern particular persons but nations and communities of men for those who are smitten with judgement if God takes his hands off again and so opens a way for their repentance by prolonging their time that comes under the second part of Gods method the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forbearance but if he smites single persons with a small judgement that is a long-suffering not of him but towards others and God hath destroyed my neighbour to make me repent my neighbours time being expired and the date of his possibility determined For a mans death-bed is but an ill station for a penitent and a finall judgement is no good monitor to him to whom it is a severe executioner They that perished in the gain-saying of Corah were out of the conditions of repentance but the people that were affrighted with the neighbourhood of the judgement and the expresses of Gods anger manifested in such visible remonstrances they were the men called unto repentance But concerning whole nations or communities of men this long-sufferance is a Sermon of repentance loud clamorous and highly argumentative When God suffered the mutinies the affronts the basenesse and ingratitude the follies and relapses of the children of Israel who murmured against God ten times in the wildernesse God sent evil angels among them and fiery serpents and pestilence and fire from heaven and prodigies from the earth and a prevailing sword of the enemies and in all these accidents although some innocent persons felt the contingencies and variety of mortality yet those wicked persons who fell by the designe of Gods anger were made examples unto others and instances of Gods forbearance to the Nation and yet this forbearance was such that although God preserved the Nation in being and in title to the first promises yet all the particular persons that came from Egypt died in the wildernesse two onely excepted 2. And I desire you to observe this that you may truly estimate the arts of the Divine justice and mercy For all the world being one continuall and intire argument of the Divine mercy we are apt to abuse that mercy to vain confidences and presumption First mistaking the end as if Gods mercy would be indulgent to our sin to which it is the greatest enemy in the world for it is a certain truth that the mercy of God is as great an enemy to sin as his justice is and as Gods justice is made the hand-maid of his mercy to cure sin so it is the servant also and the instrument to avenge our despight and contempt of mercy and in all the way where a difference can be there justice is the lesse principall And it were a great signe of folly and a huge mistake to think our Lord and friends do us offices of kindnesse to make themselves more capable of affronts and that our fathers care over us and provisions for us can tempt us to disobey them The very purpose of all those emanations is that their love may return in duty and their providence be the parent of our prudence and their care be crowned with our piety and then we shall all be crowned and shall return like the yeer the ends into its own circle and the fathers and the children the benefactours and the beneficiary shall knit the wreath and binde each other in the eternall inclosures and circlings of immortality * but besides the men who presume to sin because of Gods mercy do mistake the very end and designe of Gods mercy they also mistake the Oeconomy of it and the manner of its ministration 3 For if God suffers
men to go on in sins and punishes them not it is not a mercy it is not a forbearance it is a hardning them a consigning them to ruine and reprobation and themselves give the best argument to prove it for they continue in their sin they multiply their iniquity and every day grow more enemy to God and that is no mercy that increases their hostility and enmity with God A prosperous iniquity is the most unprosperous condition in the whole world when he slew them that sought him and turned them early and enquired after God but as long as they prevailed upon their enemies then they forgat that God was their strength and the high God was their redeemer It was well observed by the Persian Embassadour of old when he was telling the King a sad story of the overthrow of all his army by the Athenians he addes this of his own that the day before the sight the young Persian gallants being confident they should destroy their enemies were drinking drunk and railing at the timerousnesse and fears of religion and against all their Gods saying there were no such things and that all things came by chance industry nothing by the providence of the supreme power But the next day when they had fought unprosperously and flying from their enemies who were eager in their pursuit they came to the river strymon which was so frozen that their boats could not lanch and yet it began to thaw so that they feared the ice would not bear them Then you should see the bold gallants that the day before said there was no God most timorously and superstitiously fall upon their faces and begged of God that the river strymon might bear them over from their enemies What wisdom and Philosophy and perpetual experience and revelation and promises and blessings cannot do a mighty fear can it can allay the confidences of a bold lust and an imperious sin and soften our spirit into the lownesse of a Childe our revenge into the charity of prayers our impudence into the blushings of a chidden girle and therefore God hath taken a course proportionable for he is not so unmercifully merciful as to give milk to an infirm lust and hatch the egge to the bignesse of a cocatrice and therefore observe how it is that Gods mercy prevailes over all his works it is even then when nothing can be discerned but his judgements For as when a famin had been in Israel in the dayes of Ahab for three years and a half when the angry prophet Elijah met the King and presently a great winde arose and the dust blew into the eyes of them that walked abroad and the face of the heavens was black and all tempest yet then the prophet was the most gentle and God began to forgive and the heavens were more beautiful then when the Sun puts on the brightest ornaments of a bridegrome going from his chambers of the east so it is in the Oeconomy of the divine mercy when God makes our faces black and the windes blow so loud till the cordage cracks and our gay fortunes split and our houses are dressed with Cypresse and yew and the mourners go about the streets this is nothing but the pompa misericordiae this is the funeral of oursins dressed indeed with emblems of mourning and proclaimed with sad accents of death but the sight is refreshing as the beauties of the field which God hath blessed and the sounds are healthful as the noise of a physitian This is that riddle spoken of in the psalme Calix in manu Dom vini meri plenus misto the pure impure the mingled unmingled cup for it is a cup in which God hath poured much of his severity and anger and yet it is pure and unmingled for it is all mercy and so the riddle is resolved and our cup is full and made more wholsome lymphatum crescit dulcescit laedere nescit it is some justice and yet it is all mercy the very justice of God being an act of mercy a forbearance of the man or the nation and the punishing the sin Thus it was in the case of the children of Israel when they ran after the bleating of the idolatrous calves Moses prayed passionately and God heard his prayer and forgave their sin upon them And this was Davids observation of the manner of Gods mercy to them Thou wast a God and forgavest them though thou tookest veangeance of their inventions for Gods mercy is given to us by parts and to certain purposes sometimes God onely so forgives us that he does not cut us off in the sin but yet layes on a heavy load of judgements so he did to his people when he sent them to schoole under the discipline of 70 years captivity somtimes he makes a judgement lesse and forgives in respect of the degree of the infliction he strikes more gently and whereas God had designed it may be the death of thy self or thy neerest relative he is content to take the life of a childe and so he did to David when he forbore him the Lord hath taken away thy sin thou shalt not die neverthelesse the childe that is born unto thee that shall die sometimes he puts the evil off to a further day as he did in the case of Ahab and Hezekiah to the first he brought the evil upon his house and to the second he brought the evil upon his kingdom in his sons dayes God forgiving onely so as to respite the evil that they should have peace in their own dayes And thus when we have committed a sin against God which hath highly provoked him to anger even upon our repentance we are not sure to be forgiven so as we understand forgivenes that is to hear no more of it never to be called to an account but we are happy if God so forgives us as not to throw us into the insufferable flames of hell though he smite us still we groan for our misery till we chatter like a swallow as Davids expression is and though David was an excellent penitent yet after he had lost the childe begotten of Bathsheba and God had told him he had forgiven him yet he raised up his darling son against him and forced him to an inglorious flight and his son lay with his Fathers concubins in the face of all Israel so that when we are forgiven yet it is ten to one but GOD will make us to smart and roar for our sinnes for the very disquietnesse of our souls For if we sin and ask God forgivenesse and then are quiet we feele so little inconvenience in the trade that we may more easily be tempted to make a trade of it indeed I wish to God that for every sin we have committed we should heartily cry God mercy and leave it and judge our selves for it to prevent Gods anger but when we have done all that we commonly call repentance and when possibly God hath forgiven us to some
purposes yet it may be he punishes our sin when we least think of it that sin which we have long since forgotten It may be for the lust of thy youth thou hast a healthlesse old age an old religious person long agoe complained it was his case Quos nimis effraenes habui nunc vapulo renes Sic luitur juvenis culpa dolore senis It may be thy sore eyes are the punishment of thy intemperance seven years ago or God cuts thy dayes shorter and thou shalt die in a florid age or he raises up afflictions to thee in thine own house in thine own bowels or hath sent a gangren into thy estate or with any arrow out of his quiver he can wound thee and the arrow shall stick fast in thy flesh although God hath forgiven thy sin to many purposes Our blessed Saviour was heard in all that he prayed for said the Apostle and he prayed for the Jews that crucified him Father forgive them for they know not what they do and God did forgive that great sin but how far whereas it was just in God to deprive them of all possibility of receiving benefit from the death of Christ yet God admitted them to iâ— he gave them time and possibilities and helps and great advantages to bring them to repentance he did not presently shut them up in his final and eternal anger and yet he had finally resolved to destroy their city and nation and did so but forbore them forty years gave them al the helps of miracles and sermons apostolical to shame them and force them into sorrow for their fault And before any man can repent God hath forgiven the man in one degree of forgivenesse for he hath given him grace of repentance and taken from him that final anger of the spirit of reprobation and when a man hath repented no man can say that God hath forgiven him to all purposes but he hath reserves of anger to punish the sin to make the man affraid to sin any more and to represent that when any man hath sinned what ever he does afterwards he shall be miserable as long as he lives vexed with its adherencies and its neighbour-hood and evil consequence For as no man that hath sinned can during his life ever returne to an integral and perfect innocence so neither shall he be restored to a perfect peace but must alwayes watch and strive against his sinne and alwayes mourn and pray for its pardon and alwayes finde cause to hate it by knowing himself to be for ever in danger of enduring some grievous calamity even for those sinnes for which he hath truely repented him for which God hath in many gracious degrees passed his pardon this is the manner of the dispensation of the divine mercy in respect of particular persons and nations too But sometimes we finde a severer judgement happening upon a people and yet in that sad story Gods mercy sings the triumph which although it be much to Gods glory yet it is a sad story to sinning people 600000. sighting men besides women and children and decrepit persons came out of Egypt and God destroyed them all in the wildernesse except Caleb and Joshuah and there it was that Gods mercy prevailed over his justice that he did not destroy the nation but still preserved a succession to Jacob to possesse the promise God drowned all the world except eight persons his mercy there also prevailed over his justice that he preserved a remnant to mankinde his justice devoured all the world and his mercy which preserved but eight had the honour of the prevailing attribute God destroyed Sodom and the five cities of the plain and rescued but four from the flames of that sad burning and of the four lost one in the flight and yet his mercy prevailed over his justice because he did not destroy all And in these senses we are to understand the excellency of the divine mercy even when he smites when he rebukes us for sin when he makes our beauty to fail and our flesh to consume away like a moth fretting a garment yet then his mercy is the prevailing ingredient If his judgements be but sines set upon our heads accord-to the mercy of our old lawes Salvo contenemento so as to preserve our estates to continue our hopes and possibilities of heaven and all the other judgements can be nothing but mercies excellent instruments of grace arts to make us sober and wise to take off from our vanity to restrain our wildnesses which if they were left unbridled would set all the world on fire Gods judgements are like to censures of the Church in which a sinner is delivered over to Satan to be buffetted that the spirit may be saved the result of all this is that Gods mercies are not ought not cannot be instruments of confidence to sin because the very purpose of his mercy is to the contrary and the very manner of his Oeconomy and dispensation is such that Gods mercy goes along in complection and conjunction with his judgements the riches of his forbearance is this that he forbears to throw us into hell and sends the mercies of his rod to chide us unto repentance and the mercies of his rod to punish us for having sinned and that when we have sinned we may never think our selves secured nor ever be reconciled to such dangers and deadly poisons This this is the manner of the divine mercy Go now fond man and because God is merciful presume to sin as heaving grounds to hope that thou mayest sin and be safe all the way If this hope shall I call it or sordid flattery could be reasonable then the mercies of God would not leade us to repentance so unworthy are we in the sense and largenesse of a wide fortune and pleasant accident For impuâ—ity was never a good argument to make men to obey laws quotusqâ—isque reperitur qui impunitate proposita abstinere possit injurijs Impunitas est maxima peccandi illecebra said Cicero and therefore the wisdom of God hath so ordered the actions of the world that the most fruitful showres shall be wrapped up in a cover of black clouds that health shall be conveyed by bitter and ill tasted drugs that the temples of our bodies shall be purged by whips and that the cords of the whip shall be the cords of love to draw us from the intanglings of vanity and folly This is the long suffering of God the last remedy to our diseased souls and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Phalaris unlesse we be senselesse we shall be brought to sober courses by all those sad accidents and wholsome but ill tasting mercies which we feele in all the course and the â—â—ccession of the divine long sufferance The use of all the premises is that which Saint Paul expresses in the text that we do not despise all this and he onely despises not who serves the ends of God in all these designes of mercy
of the Catholike Church and every person within its bosom who are the body of him that rules over all the world and commands them as he chooses 2. But that which is next to this and not much unlike the designe of this wonderfull mercy is that all the actions of religion though mingled with circumstances of differing and sometimes of contradictory relations are so concentred in God their proper centre and conducted in such certain and pure channels of reason and rule that no one duty does contradict another and it can never be necessary for any man in any case to sin They that bound themselves by an oath to kill Paul were not environed with the sad necessities of murder on one side and vow-breach on the other so that if they did murder him they were man-slayers if they did not they were perjured for God had made provision for this case that no unlawful oath should passe an obligation He that hath given his faith in unlawfull confederation against his Prince is not girded with a fatall necessity of breach of trust on one side or breach of allegeance on the other for in this also God hath secured the case of conscience by forbidding any man to make an unlawfull promise and upon a stronger degree of the same reason by forbidding him to keep it in case he hath made it He that doubts whether it be lawfull to keep the Sunday holy must not do it during that doubt because whatsoever is not of faith is sin But yet Gods mercy hath taken care to break this snare in sunder so that he may neither sin against the commandement nor against his conscience for he is bound to lay aside his errour and be better instructed till when the scene of his sin lies in something that hath influence upon his understanding not in the omission of the fact No man can serve two Masters but therefore he must hate the one and cleave to the other But then if we consider what infinite contradiction there is in sin and that the great long suffering of God is expressed in this that God suffered the contradiction of sinners we shall feel the mercy of God in the peace of our consciences and the unity of religion so long as we do the work of God It is a huge affront to a covetous man that he is the further off from fulnesse by having great heaps vast revenues and that his thirst increases by having that which should quench it and that the more he shall need to be satisfied the lesse he shall dare to do it and that he shall refuse to drink because he is dry that he dyes if he tasts and languishes if he does not and at the same time he is full and empty bursting with a plethory and consumed with hunger drowned with rivers of oyle and wine and yet dry as the Arabian sands but then the contradiction is multiplyed and the labyrinths more amazed when prodigality waits upon another curse and covetousnesse heaps up that prodigality may scatter abroad then distractions are infinite and a man hath two Devils to serve of contradictory designes and both of them exactâ—â—g obedience more unreasonably then the Egyptian task-masters then there is no rest no end of labours no satisfaction of purposes no method of things but they begin where they should end and begin again and never passe forth to content or reason or quietnesse or possession But the duty of a Christian is easie in a persecution it is clear under a Tyranny it is evident in despite of heresy it is one in the midst of schisme it is determined amongst infinite disputes being like a rock in the sea which is beaten with the tide and washed with retiring waters and encompassed with mists and appears in several figures but it alwayes dips its foot in the same bottom and remaines the same in calms and storms and survives the revolution of ten thousand tides and there shall dwell till time and tides shall be no more so is our duty uniform and constant open and notorious variously represented but in the same manner exacted and in the interest of our souls God hath not exposed us to uncertainty or the variety of any thing that can change and it is by the grace and mercy of God put into the power of every Christian to do that which God through Jesus Christ will accept to salvation and neither men nor Devils shall hinder it unlesse we list our selves 3. After all this we may sit down and reckon by great sums and conjugations of his gracious gifts and tell the minuts of eternity by the number of the Divine mercies God hath given his laws to rule us his word to instruct us his spirit to guide us his Angels to protect us his ministers to exhort us he revealed all our duty and he hath concealed whatsoever can hinder us he hath affrighted our follies with feare of death and engaged our watchfulnesse by its secret coming he hath exercised our faith by keeping private the state of souls departed and yet hath confirmed our faith by a promise of a resurrection and entertained our hope by some general significations of the state of interval His mercies make contemptible means instrumental to great purposes and a small herb the remedy of the greatest diseases he impedes the Devils rage and infatuates his counsels he diverts his malice and defeats his purposes he bindes him in the chaine of darknesse and gives him no power over the children of light he suffers him to walk in solitary places and yet fetters him that he cannot disturb the sleep of a childe he hath given him mighty power yet a young maiden that resists him shall make him flee away he hath given him a vast knowledge and yet an ignorant man can confute him with the twelve articles of his creed he gave him power over the winds and made him Prince of the air and yet the breath of a holy prayer can drive him as far as the utmost sea and he hath so restrained him that except it be by faith we know not whether there be any Devils yea or no for we never heard his noises nor have seen his affrighting shapes This is that great Principle of all the felicity we hope for and of all the means thither and of all the skill and all the strengths we haue to use those means he hath made great variety of conditions and yet hath made all necessary and all mutual helpers and by some instruments and in some respects they are all equal in order to felicity to content and final and intermedial satisfactions He gave us part of our reward in hand that he might enable us to work for more he taught the world arts for use arts for entertainment of all our faculties and all our dispositions he gives eternal gifts for temporal services and gives us whatsoever we want for asking and commands us to ask and theatens us if we will
God I may feel those mercies on my death-bed that she felt and that I may feel the same effect of my repentance which she feels of the many degrees of her innocence Such was her death that she did not die too soon and her life was so useful and so excellent that she could not have lived too long Nemo parum diu vixit qui virtutis perfectae perfecto functus est munere and as now in the grave it shall not be enquired concerning her how long she lived but how well so to us who live after her to suffer a longer calamity it may be some ease to our sorrows and some guide to our lives and some securitie to our conditions to consider that God hath brought the piety of a yong Lady to the early rewards of a never ceasing and never dying eternity of glory And we also if we live as she did shall partake of the same glories not onely having the honour of a good name and a dear and honoured memory but the glories of these glories the end of all excellent labours and all prudent counsels and all holy religion even the salvation of our souls in that day when all the Saints and amongst them this excellent Woman shall be shown to all the world to have done more and more excellent things then we know of or can describe Mors illos consecrat quorum exitum qui timent laudant Death consecrates and makes sacred that person whose excellency was such that they that are not displeased at the death cannot dispraise the life but they that mourn sadly think they can never commend sufficiently The end SERM. I. * Rom. 8. 2. 1 Cor. 12. 7. 1 Cor. 2. 14. Prudent 2 Cor. 3. 6. 1 Ep. 2. chap. ver 5. 1 Ep. 3. 9. Hebr. 6. 4. Rom. 15. 13. 1 Thess. 1. 6. 1 Thess. 5. 16. SERM. II. Rom. 12. 12. Rom. 1. 9. Levit. 26. 1. 1 Thess. 5. 23. Hebr. â— 12. 2 Epist. 1. 4. Apoc. 2. 17. Philip. 1. 19. Psal. 91. * Tot rebus iniquis Parüimus victi veniaest haec sola pudoris Degenerisque metus nil jam potuisse negari Lucan SERM. III. 2 Sam. 21. 14. 1 King 21. 29. Hor. l. 3. od 2. SERM. IV. 2 King 32. 13. Luke 11. 47. Mat. 23. 31. Rom. 11. 28. Numb 25. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arisâ—ot SERM. V. Joshuah 7. 19. Psal. 51. 4. Rom. 3. 4. Revel 16. 9. Ezek. 27. 31. Joel 2. 13. see Rule of II. living D. of repentance p. 335. 2 Cor 7. Gal. 5. 24. Gal. 6. 15. Gal. 5. c. 1 Cor. 7. 9. Heb. 12. 1. Revel 2. SERM. VI. Acts. 20. 21. * Hebr. 6. 1. 1 Cor. 11. 31. Hierocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See life of H. Jesus part 2. disc of Repentance * Cogimur à suetis animum suspendere Atque Atque ut vivamus vivere desinimus Coâ—â—â—l Gal. * Nec ad rem â—â—â—tinet ubi in â—â—â—pevet quod 〈…〉 ut sâ—cret Hor. l. 4. od 10. Rom. 12. 1. Tit. 2. 12. Mart. l. 2. ep 64. Luke 1. 74. Hebr. 12. 1. Ver. 3. Heb. 12. 16. Epist. 30. Titus 2. 14. 1 Pet. 2 24. See life of Jesus Disc. of Repentance part 2. Arrian Epictet l. 1. c. 15. SERM. VII Arrian * Virtutem unam si amiseris etsiâ—anâ—ui non potest virtus sed si unam consessus fueris te non habere nullam te esse haâ—iâ—urum â—an nesâ—is Cicer. SER. VIII Epict. Arrian De Divinat l. 2 Aristoph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 5. Scen. 4. SERM. IX Joel 3. Isaiah 23. 3. James 4. 10. Matth. 5. Phil. 1. 28. James 5. 10. 1 Pet. 4. 13. 2 Thess. 1. Heb. 2. 10. 1 Pet. 4. 12. Tertul. S. Hieron Acts 9. 15. SER. X. Jerem. 12. 1 2. Mala. 3. 14. Ecclus. 40. 1. Matth. 5. 1â— c. Phil. 3. 15. Job 21. Phil. 〈…〉 SER. XI 2 Tim. 3. 1. 2 Tim. 3. 9. 11. chaâ—â— 31. Hesiod Hesiod Esay 54. 8. SER. XII SER. XIII Wisd. 11. 24. Psal. 74. 9. Psal. 98. 8. Ossic. 3. Isai. 1. 4 5. Isai. 5. 5. Acts 13. 14. SER. XIV Juven Sat. 13. SER. XV. SER. XVI Seneca Ecclus. 4. 22. SER. XVII 2 Chap. 11. Ezek. 18. 24. Hom. Ili â— Hic ubi dissuetae sylvis in carcere clausae Mansue vere serae vultus posuêre minaces Atque hominem didicere pati si torrida parvus Venit in ora cruor redeunt rabiesque furorque Acts 7. 22. Chap. 4. 1 3. Cha. 4. ver ult SER. XVIII Her l 1. sat 3. Rare volte hâ— fame chista sempre à tavola SER. XIX Matth. 10. 27. SER. XX. Eph. 5. 16. Col. 4. 5. SER. XXI Sophocl SER. XXII 2 Tim. 3. 4. 5. 2 Pet. 2. 10. vers 8. ep Jude Eloquia Domini casta eloquia Colos. 2 Plat. Phaedon SERMON XXIII Orat. 21. Dissett â— de regno Can. Eth. So Cicero lib. 3. offic SERMON XXIV Lib. 8. instit Cicero Quae. 10. super Joshuam lib. 1. de sacerdotio Hist l. 16. cap. 6 Ephes. 4. 25. SERMON XXV Vide Serm. II. Judges 13. John Revel 22. 9. de bono patientiae Homil. 8. in Evange 1 Cor. 6. 3. SERMON XXVI Eccles. 12. Life of H. Jesus part 3 Disc. 14. SERMON XXVII Jonah 4. 2. Exod. 34. 6. SERMON XXVIII a 2 Tim. 1. 18. Il. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide 1 Cor. 15. 18. 1 Thess. 4. 16. Revel 14. 13. John 5. 24. 2 Cor. 5. 8. 6. 1 Thes. 5. 10. Prov. 2. â—7