is hatred of sin the Hatred of sin the consequent of heart breaking for sin A double hatred of sin heart which is rightly broken is not only broken for sin but also from sin by an hatred 1. Of abomination loathing it as the greatest evill Get thee hence say they in Esa 30. 22. And 2. Of enmiâ—y and irreconciliation what have I to doe any more with Idols saith Ephraim in Hosea 14. 8. Thus have you heard what the breaking up of the fallow ground or sinfull heart is now I proceed in few words to demonstrate That it is the meanes to prevent the breaking downe of a sinfull Nation this Quest 2. may evidently appeare 1. By the fingers of God in Scripture pointing a Sol. 4. Demonstrations of the proposition in its truth people to this worke that so they might not sinke into ruine but be preserved Read Ezekiel 18. 30 31. Ioel 2. 13 14. 2. By the pledges which God maketh in severall promises that if a sinfull Nation will take this course he will then spare them and continue them Read Ier. 18. 7 8. 2 Chron. 7. 14. 3. By the Records or Instances of Gods sparing a people and a revoking of his wrath and judgements when they have set upon this Heart-breaking course Read Ionah 3. 6 7 8 9 10. 2 Chronicles 34. 27. 4. By the executions of destruction because they would not hearken to this course See 2 Chro. 36. 15 16 17. But why should the breaking up of sinfull hearts bee a meanes to prevent the breaking downe of a sinfull Quest 3. Nation The Reasons are these because First where hearts are rightly broken for sinnes there sinnes are pardoned and where sinnes are pardoned Sol. 4. Confirmations of the proposition 2 Chro. 7. 14. Esay 1. 16. all breaking down is unquestionably prevented In Esaiah you reade of washing and cleansing they are the same with this heart-breaking and mourning and presently you reade of pardon Though your sinnes be as scarlet they shall bee as white as snow 18. c. and presently after that you reade of eating the 19. good of the Land a comfortable fruition of themselves and of their Country and of all meanes and blessings Beloved when sinnes are pardoned then 2. Effects of sins pardoned 1. All their guilty clamour is silenced pardoned sins are disabled sins they can bring no action against us debts forgiven shall never prejudice nor hurt us Sins unpardoned can raise posse comitatus all the Armies Remissa culpa remittitur paena of God in Heaven and Earth against sinners but once pardoned they are of no force or strength at all And secondly when sins are pardoned all good hath a free passage God is reconciled and mercies have their Commission to attend us Now saith the Lord I will heare the Heavens and they shall heare the earth and the earth shall heare the Corne and the Wine Hos 2. 21 22 and the Oyle and they shall heare Iezreel 2. Againe If sinfull hearts be broken God hath his end and then all quarrels cease twixt him and a 2. Nation the Lord doth not threaten destruction to a people for destructions sake but for Humiliations sake Not that they may be destroyed but that they should repent and not be destroyed 3. Thirdly Broken hearts are a wonderfull delight unto the Lord There are somethings in which 3. God hath no delight He hath no delight in sinnings Psalm 5. 4. Ezek. 18. 32. nor in punishments and there are two hearts in which God takes much delight namely in an upright heart and in a Contrite heart The broken heart hee will not despise nay hee will looke upon that heart to revive it If broken hearts be Gods delight and the objects of Psal 51. 17. Esa 57. 15. his reviving then without question they are a means to prevent destruction 4. Lastly when hearts are broken for sins then Gods heart if I may so phrase it is broken with compassions unto sinners Though sinners remaine obstinate yet divine compassions work strongly towards them How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee O Israel c. Hosea 11. 8. what bowels then thinke you are working in God when sinners are broken and humbled and turning If God can so hardly finde the way to punish impenitent Ephraim will he not find the way to spare an humbling Ephraim See Ier. 31. 18. I have surely heard Ephraim lamenting himselfe c. 20. My bowels are troubled for him I will surely have mercy upon him saith the Lord. I have done with the explication of the point I now addresse my selfe to the Application of it 1. To all of us 2. To you of publike employment Is the breaking up of sinfull hearts the means to prevent the breaking downe of a sinning Nation Vse Then let every one of us here ô that the whole Land also would search and try the temper and frame of our hearts whither they be broken or unbroken Beloved I beseech you sadly to consider of a few things 1. That brokennesse of heart is the worke of this 6. Things considerable about brokennesse of heart day This is a day of Humiliation but what is an humbling day without an humbled heart to present your selves before the great God at such a time with all your sinnes and yet without hearts broken for those sins is not only an irreligious incongruity but also an high provocation of our God like Zimries act when all the Congregation were weeping before the doore of the Tabernacle Numb 25. 6. Come we not this day with all sorts of guilt upon our soules and with ropes about our neckes expecting if the Lord should render unto us our deserts the sentence of death and confesse as much and yet dare we to play the Hypocrites having hearts under all this utterly unbroken Secondly brokennesse of heart is the hope of this day I professe seriously unto you that were you as much in fasting as Iohns Disciples and in praying as Christs Disciples could you by Fasting make your knees to faint and your flesh to faile and resolve your bodies into a very Sceleton if yet your hearts were not broken for your sins Neither your selves nor your endaevours nor our owne Nation nor the distressed Church of Ireland nor any other would bee the better for it As one of the Fathers said of Learning All learning is suspected nay disrespected by me wherein is not the mention of Christ that I affirme of all solemne fastings whatsoever the Lord regards them not if the broken heart bee not found in them What Ioseph said to his brethren unlesse you bring your brother Benjamin with you you shall not see my face or as Isaac said to his Father Behold the Fire and the Wood but where is the Lambe for a burnt offering That the Lord saith unto us Fast as often as you please and pray too unlesse your hearts
bee broken for your sinnes nothing that you doe shall finde favour with me all the rest is but as wood and fire the Lambe the Sacrifice of a Contrite heart which is that I look at and for is wanting Get thee behinde me said Jehu to the severall messengers what have you to doe with peace Confessions and prayers are the messengers of our soules to God but unlesse the sinful heart be broken they will never be messengers of peace If any of you would angle in a River would you throw in a naked line only would this be to any purpose Sirs I know well that if a Fast bee rightly performed it hath as many promises of blessings and mercies See Esay 58. As any religious duty whatsoever Nay and I thinke that you never read in all the Bible nor yet in experience of its right performance without some sudden and remarkeable Testimony of Gods gracious acceptance and answer But then breaking of hearts ever accompanied those prevailing and victorious Fasts as you may Reade in Iudges and Samuel and the Kings and Ezra and Nehemiah c. And for my part I should not scruple the assecution of any convenient mercy nor the diversion of any impendent evill if once with all our Fastings there were also a breaking up of our Fallow grounds If GOD could in this command our hearts we might then in some sense command our God 3. Thirdly Have wee not all of us sufficient cause to breake our sinfull hearts Should sinnes should calamities abroad should dangers at home breake hearts all these may then worke upon us our sins have broken the heart of CHRIST and are such as have broken off God from a people and have broken many Churches downe Can you bee ignorant of the professed Idolatry in this Land of the horrid blasphemies of the over-flowing drunkennesse of the Sabbaths profanation c. And if wee looke at calamities abroad why as Iacob said Ioseph is not and Simeon is not so may we say Bohemia is broken up and the Palatinate is broken up and IRELAND is breaking up and yet the hearts of sinfull England will not bee broken up Nay if wee looke at the dangers hovering like a Cloud over this Land and dropping already in manifold and sundry divisions in manifold plots in manifold and severall contradictions and even readie to breake forth O LORD let it not breake forth in a bitter intestine Warre amongst our selves where every mans sword shall bee against his brother and the Child may kill the Parent or the Parent kill his Child bowels sheathed in bowels No man scarce secure in his owne Family our sins are bringing this upon us and yet our hearts will not breake for these sinnes The God of all Wisdome and mercies breake our hearts that so this judgement may not doe that which all our forreigne enemies hitherto could not doe Breake downe our Church and Nation 4. And if judgements should breake in upon sinners before hearts are broken for sins good Lord what where are they Dudilius relates a sad story of Bochna a woman who had but two sonnes and whiles she was walking with the one towards the River she heard the other crying out and hastning back shee found a knife sticking in him which kild him quickly then she returnes to her other child thinking to solace her selfe in an onely child but he in her absence was fallen into the river and drowned both lost at once Ah Sirs we have but two children a Soule and a body what an heavie losse will it bee to lose both these at once To bee cut off by an angry enemie and to be cast off by a mighty God! To lose a life and at the same time to lofe an eternall life To lose safety and salvation at once T is true that if a sinners heart be broken by grace there is no question of mercy but when an impenitent sinners life is broken by judgment his hopes are gone and his breaking of it for ever 5. Fifthly Wee shall assuredly be broken off if we be not broken up Beloved There are two vile malignities in an unbroken heart First It is one of the greatest of spirituall judgements ô said a Reverend man once if I must be put to my option I had rather be in Hell with a sensible heart then live on earth with a reprobate minde so I say an hardned and unbroken heart is in some respect a judgement worse than Hell for as much as one of the greatest sins is farre greater in evill then any of the greatest punishments Secondly It is the immediate and unavoydable forerunner of the greatest of temporall judgements He that hardens his heart shall be destroyed suddenly and that without remedy Prov. 29. 1. Observe that place There is no lesse then destruction which is not a particular and imperfect dammage but it is a compleate ruine and this destruction is certaine shall not may perhaps bee destroyed but when Suddenly I but the sinner wil shift it off withstand it No but hee shall bee destroyed without remedy His destruction shall not be prevented you may reade all this in the old World and in Pharaoh and in the Iewes before the Babylonian Captivitie and afterwards in the Roman divastation which hath lasted these 1600 yeares 6. But now where are our broken hearts I know not what to say my heartakes within mee ô that it could bee broken because hearts are generally unbroken Sinners are secure Consciences are seared wickednesse is bold sinnes are a delight and pastime God is not seene nor feared in his judgements in His warnings in His dealings Reformation is abhorred Humiliation most know not what it meanes and if they doe it is distasted Serious thoughts of our sinfull wayes who takes them up sufficient time for selfe-examination who makes it for himselfe every man runnes on in his course loves as hee did lives as he did And never knew a trouble in his soule nor a teare in his eye either for his owne or for the sins of others all his dayes And what will the end of all this be O that God would pittie us this day and breake our hearts for us though it bee so irksome and contrary to our flesh and bloud It is better said a Father to dye one death then to live and feare all deaths better it is to suffer the heart to bee broken then to expose our selves to all sorts of Judiciall eternall breakings ô Lord said dying Fulgen. Dapaenitentiam postea indulgentiam make mee a penitent sinner and then let me find thee an indulgent Father Never looke for great mercies for long mercies for any mercies with unbroken hearts we are not good we can doe no good we can expect no good till our sinfull hearts be broken O Christians be perswaded this day to get broken hearts God can do it for you and will doe it for you if you will but use the means and seeke unto him spare time and
England's PRESERVATION OR A SERMON discovering the onely way to prevent destroying JUDGEMENTS Preached to the Honourable HOUSE of COMMONS at their last solemne Fast being on May 25. 1642. BY OBADIAH SEDGWICKE Batchelour in Divinity and Minister of COGGESHALL in Essex Published by Order of that House JEREMIAH 13. 27. O Hierusalem wilt thou not be made cleane When shall it once be LONDON Printed by R. B. for Samuel Gellibrand at the Brazen Serpent in Pauls CHURCH-Yard 1642. To the Honourable House of Commons assembled in PARLIAMENT THis Sermon which I preached by your command and you harkned unto with much acceptance and is now printed by our Order I most humbly present unto your Gracious Patronage and Religious practice It hath this only in it that it is seasonable what one once writ to Aegidius the Abbot of Norinberg concerning Davids words in Psalme 118. They are verba vivenda non legenda That may be affirm'd of the Text I preached on the pith and matter of it should be lived and not heard only Repentance is a living word Alexander as Plutarch Orat. 1. de Alex. 〈◊〉 reports demanded of Porus whom he had surprised what his thoughts were of him he answered I thinke of Alexander Regaliter and that 's enough said hee for in that word all other things are contained the same I may say if any man demands what our sinfull and distracted Kingdome should doe I answer Repent and in that word if lived and done all our safeties and hopes are contained There were 3. things most Honourable Sirs which Luther did feare would prove Melchior Adam in vita Luther p. 157. 158. to bee the Ruine of Religion 1. Oblivion 2 Security 3. Carnall policy The good God overthrow these in our Land least our land be overthrowne by these Though Ministers discover all sorts of sins and though a Parliament discovers all sorts of plots and dangers yet people are setled on their Lee's they will not see nor feare nor humble themselves nor turne to the Lord at all O pray said a dying man in the beginning of the German reformation that God would preserve the Gospell pontifex enim Romanus Concilium Trident. mira moliuntur For the Pope and Councell of Trent are hatching of strange things Ministers say as much and more to people pray be humbled reform For you see what the bloudie Papists have done in Ireland and you heare what they are plotting against England we do thus speak and weepe but man will not hearken and obey They who will not easily see their sins will as hardly beleeve their dangers Fuge fuge Brenti cito citius citissime so friendly did a Senatour of Hala advise Brentius hast hasten make all the hast you can your life is lost else He embraced the advise preserved his life by it O that Gods advises so frequent so earnest so and more safe to humbling and reforming might once bee regarded and followed we shall never be safe if wee ever remaine impenitent As for your selves Honourable Sirs wee have all cause to blesse God for the worthy Acts already done by you and for your further intentions of most excellent good to our Church and Kingdom Ripen these intentions wee pray you into Actions That our Church may be glorious and our State safe and both flourishing and stable good actions are excellent though evill men oppose them nor shal they be therfore the lesse successeful remember that Christ hath conquerd all the world and a world conquerd by Christ shall never be able to conquer truth I have one request which I earnestly present to your selves and the House of Lords It is onely this Hasten what you can Englands Reformation and Irelands preservation In these the good and Almighty God unite strengthen protect and prosper you All To whose everlasting armes you and all your pious endeavours are commended by your daily Oratour Obadiah Sedwicke Die Mercurij 25. May 1642. IT is this day Ordered by the Commons now Assembled in Parliament that Master Harris and Mr. Obadiah Sedgwicke who this day being the day of the publike Fast at the intreaty of the said Commons preached at Saint Margaret Westminster shall have thankes returned them for the great and worthy paines they have taken and that they bee desired to print their Sermons and that no man presume to print them but such as they shall appoint till the House shall take further Order H. Elsyng Cler. Parl. D. Com. I appoint Samuell Gellibrand to print my Sermon Obadiah Sedgwick A Sermon Preached at the late Fast to the Commons House OF PARLIAMENT JEREM. 4. 3. Thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem breake up your fallow ground and sow not among Thornes THere is a learned writer who speakes of foure dayes for a sinner Bernard The first is Dies Faetoris A day of loathsomenesse 4. Dayes incident to man and this is the time when the sinner lies rotting in the grave of sin 2. The second Dies Timoris a day of anguish and this is the time when Conscience begins to bee awakened with the sight and sense of sinne 3. The third is Dies Doloris a day of mourning and this is the time when the heart begins to melt into Teares for sinning The fourth is Dies Laboris a day of Combat and this is the time when the penitent and converted soule sets it selfe against the temptations of sin The first of these is the worst of our dayes and yet too common the dead in this sense are more than the living The second of these is a bitter and turbulent day and yet it may prove happie and cheerefull there being more hope of a sore Conscience then of a seared Conscience The two last are like precious Jewels very good but very Rare It is an easie thing to finde sinners but it is not an easie thing to finde mourning sinners and penitent sinners So blinde is the minde of man so perverse is the will of a sinner so prevalent is the love of sinne so desperate is the resolution of an hardned heart that neither the Golden Scepter nor the Iron Rod neither the sweetest mercies nor the sharpest miseries will easily prevaile with sinning man to become a penitent man But though God be leaving though mercies be setting though wrath be approaching though life be short though hell be fearefull yet it is a thousand to one but the sinner remaines under all these constantly wicked or onely deceitfully good A cleare instance whereof you have in the Iewes in this Chapter who notwithstanding they had almost sinned away their God their Country their lives their helpes their hopes And notwithstanding all their warnings by variety of Prophets and all their sufferings by variety of punishments and all their threatnings in variety of Judgments though there was but a step twixt them and death only one mercy twixt them utter destruction by the enemy yet either they totally
Christ Now their hâ—â—ts were pricked and when Nathan drawes his parable out of the cloud and unclothes his Message to David saying Thou art the man Now 2 Sam. 12. 7. Psalme 51. Davids's heart begins to breake and take on O see the subtile heart of man will endure and beare all the Historical Notions of sin as we can the names and natures of diseases and medicines without any aking and sicknesse But when the Lord brings downe sin from being a notion to be an obligation and enters an action against the soule within the soule now and not before the heart-workings and heart-breakings doe begin 3. A Conscience affliction which in respect of 3. Affliction degrees and quantity is in some more and in others lesse for Gods Spirit is an Arbitrary agent in the Graduall effects of bondage as well as in those gracious effects of Adoption Neverthelesse though the degrees of working be different yet the worke it selfe is certaine The heart will never bee rightly broken for sin till Conscience which Saint Bernard calls Accuser Witnesse Judge and Tormentor begins to be awakened and quickned And believe it if The terrible workings of conscience Conscience which hath been so much stirred begins to stirre if Conscience which hath beene so often wounded begins to wound the spirit of man will eftsoone faile and breake within him O saith Conscience What hast thou done thus and thus to provoke the Holy and Righteous and Great God I know the severall acts of thy sinnings and times and places and persons and circumstances and I have sad newes to tell thee that great God against whom thou hast so much and so often sinned hath commanded and deputed me not only to speake no peace but also to speake His wrath and displeasure unto thee and in His Name I charge upon thee all thy sins and all his just wrath revealed against them And now the proud and stout heart of a sinner begins to throb and feare and tremble He thinkes that every threatning which he reades is a Cloud of Tempests against him hee thinkes that every judgment hee heares of another is a Sword drawne to cut him off also He thinkes that all the hell and torments thereof mentioned in the Scriptures will ere long bee his portion whereupon his distracted soule cries out ô that I had never beene ô that I had never sinned ô that I might never bee If I should now dye good Lord what will become of mee If I should yet live will the Lord ever bee mercifull to me The sins which I see are many the wrath which I feele is great and that which I feare is infinite If I live I see I am an accursed creature and if I dye ô let me not yet dye I feare I shall bee for ever ô my soule breakes at that endlesse word of misery for ever a damned sinner But yet cries out this sinner Lord Lord Is there no mercy nor hope of any mercy for mee a most vile sinner With these minde racking-breaking thoughts away hastens this burdened broken sinner unto his Closet and shuts the doore and downe hee fals on his knees and with much confusion of thoughts and feares hee spreads all his sinnings before God confessing one and then another and then with fervent agonies begges of the Lord more than for his life Mercy Lord mercy mercy for a lost for an heinous for an undone sinner Canst thou pardon me Wilt thou pardon me O Lord pardon mee O Lord bee reconciled unto mee O that I might have any hopes the least hopes that thou wouldest be mercifull unto me And now up riseth this sinner with these or the like thoughts well I will reade the Bible I will heare such a Minister I will open my condition unto him and conferre and inquire whither there bee no balme in Gilead whither there be a mercy Seate a Citie of refuge to entertaine such a sinner as I am and after a while upon carefull search he findes that yet there is hope that there is an immeasurable sufficiencie in the bloud of Christ an Ocean of ful and free grace in God and that God notwithstanding all his former sinnings against him is most willing and ready to accept of him into mercy if so bee hee bee willing to forsake his sinnes and imbrace a Mediator 2. The formall Ingredients HEreupon followes the second principall working Ingredients of heart breaking two Ier. 31 19. which formally makes up Evangelicall Contrition and it is 1. Pudor 2. Dolor shame and griefe Such kindnesse from the mercy-seate makes him now as Ephraim confounded and ashamed and his heart to breake into most melting flouds of teares that ever he should bee so monstrously vile to offend such tender and gracious bowels of mercy which hee now apprehends yerning towards him in and through Christ As before the apprehensions of divine wrath did distract and shiver him so now the apprehensions of divine love doe totally dissolve and melt him though there were not Heaven hereafter to Crowne him yet he must grieve and though there were not Hell hereafter to burne him yet he must exceedingly mourn for sinning against such a God This is that right Evangelicall Contrition which I presse for at this time called in Scripture a softnesse of heart and a contrite Heart and a mourning and a bitter mourning and a great mourning like that of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon which Zac. 12. 10 11. Saint Ambrose calls Cor liquescens an heart melting and dissolving and Saint Hierome magnum planctum an exceeding lamenting and St. Austin grave lamentum a very heavie griefe The Casuists and Schoolmen affirme it to bee the Sorrow for sin the greatest sorrow in 4. respects Adrianus Scotus Soto greatest of all sorrows 1. In conatu the whole soule seemes to send springs into it out of every faculty 2. In extensione It is a spring which in this life more or lesse is continually dropping 3. In appreciatione the changed soule doth ever judge that a good God offended should be the prime cause of greatest sorrow and Lastly In intensione For Intension of displicence in the will there being no oâ—her things with which or for which the will is more displeased with it selfe then for sinning against God And therefore some of the Schoolemen propounding this question Sot in 4. Sent. d. 17. q. 2. art 4. whether there should be more griefe for sin then for the pâ—ssion of Christ Resolve it Affirmatively that there is more cause of griefe for sinning then for the death of Christ and their reason is this because in the death of Christ there was Aliquid placens Something that did please God so farre as it was a Redemption but sin is simpliciter displicens there is nothing in it which is not altogether displeasing unto God consider it formally as sin 3. The consequent working WHich rather shewes and declares then makes a broken heart and it
Interpreters abound in their opinions concerning For the sense of the words these thorns By them Chrysostome understands Idols as entangling and piercing as the sharpest of Briars and thornes Origen and Hierom by the thornes understand covetousnesse and the cares of the world which likewise are scratching and wounding others understand all our sinfull corruptions ' there are spinae in corde saith Bernard thornes in our hearts as well as in our Fields and some understand by the thorns mixtures of worship crept into the worship of God amongst the Iewes as Sanctius and others But with the favour of all these and yet with submission I conjecture that these words Sow not among Thornes are a proverbiall speech and suggest onely this unto us That as the Iewes were to breake downe what was evill in themselves and the Church and State so they were to set upon the doing of all good in private and publike In such a manner and order as that their pains and endeavours might not come to nothing but might prove effectuall and successefull be to some good purpose indeed c. As an Husbandman who sowes will so sow that hee may reape and not loose his seed and labour and therefore will not sow among Thornes For this were an improper worke and would prove in the event utterly unprofitable It is a thousand to one if ever his seed comes up for Thorns have a stealing withdrawing and frustrating quality or if it doth come up yet it will be lost it cannot be gathered there is no comming at it with sithe or sickle Thornes have an hindering malignity as well as a stifling power From this exposition I observe onely this proposition Namely Doct. 2 That all penitentiall and reforming worke must bee so managed and acted that it may not prove a vaine and fruitlesse worke but may come to be a successefull and profitable work It must not be a sowing among Thorns but such a sowing which may in the issue produce an harvest for as good never a whit as never the better You read in Scripture of many Sowers 1. The evill man did sow Tares wee have had of Foure sorts of sowers late many such Sowers not onely professed Priests and Jesuites but some also amongst ourselves who have sowen Popish Arminian Socinian and superstitious Tares 2. The cunning man and he sowes divisions and dissentions There have been and still are too many who sow division twixt the King and the Parliament twixt Ministers and Ministers twixt Ministers and people twixt people and people 3. The foolish man and hee sowes hee cares not what in respect of the seed nor where in respect of the soyle nor when in respect of the time and so all is lost and comes to nothing 4. The wise man who in his sowing lookes to the seed that it bee good and cleane and to the soyle that it bee prepared and right and to the season that it bee fit upon which through Gods blessing the seed sowen takes roote prospers and proves an harvest Of this I now speake in the proposition which whither you limit it to a Repentance that is personall or extend it to a Reformation that is Nationall holds true in both and the Text will beare both The one and the other must bee so dispersed that it may not prove vaine and lost but effectuall and successefull Sirs Though penitentiall workes rightly done are never without successe and blessing yet pretendingly penitentiall agents may so carry on these works materially good that they may never prove formally and eventually good or beneficiall and therefore you read in Scripture that many prayings and fastings and solemne meetings and teares and other doings have found no acceptation with God nor wrought any subjective alterations in persons nor change from misery to mercy in a Nation read the Prophets concerning the Jewes and that will be testimony sufficient In sixe cases they prove in the event to bee nothing but onely a sowing amongst thornes 1. When they are but externall not acted by any inward principles the effects rather of art and parts then of the heart and grace Shels not kernells teares of the eyes but not teares of the heart prayers of the lips but not of the soule Shadowes and pageants of Repentance seeming to bee so to the eye of man but not heart-workings which onely are interpreted to be true and solid to the eye of God The Swanne in the Law was white in fethers yet reputed uncleane and unmeet for sacrifice because the skinne under them was black Religious workings you know stand in Gods account according to the quality of the worke-man the heart of whom is all in all for acceptance or rejection God reputes nothing done which the heart doth not Art may take man more than nature but with God the more art the lesse acceptance A painted Repentance which is onely externall will doe our selves and the Nation as much good as a painted sword as a painted staffe and as painted Fire That will not cut this will not helpe the other will not heate no more will a meerely externall Repentance prevent any judgements or obtaine any mercies 2. When they are but partiall A putting down of some sinnes and a keeping up of other sinnes will bee as vaine as to cure the Palsey and yet to neglect the plague or as to mend the pumpe and yet to neglect the leake Iehu's Golden Calves made an end of him though hee made an end of Baals Images and Priests And so in the doing of good it will come to nothing though some good bee done and yet the best good is neglected The Pharisees did many acts of Righteousnesse but lost them and themselves because they opposed and rejected Christ who was the chiefest and only Righteousnesse There is beloved such a naturall concatenation twixt all vices and so there is amongst vertues That they in a formall working ever include an universall hatred or an universall love No man can be interpreted good who is at defiance with any knowne particular good nor doth hee cease to bee wicked who doth not hate and oppose every knowne evill particular and exclusive actings in the one and in the other serve onely to the disacceptance of the workes and to the greater condemnation of the persons Though Imbecility shall never bee any prejudice to our works yet subtiltie and partialitie shall 3. When they are but circumstantiall though a multitude of lesser evills bee crushed if yet the greater are spared to survive This Reformation will prove like Sauls discretion with the Amalekites Read Ier. 48. 10. who spared the fattest and destroyed the poorest but he lost the kingdome by it Circumstantiall reformations I grant are more easie and quicke but those which are most deepe are ever most safe a Cloath will stoppe up the wound as soone and perhaps sooner then the plaister but the plaister which searcheth to the quicke heales much better If the Tree bee starke