earnestly desires and oft seeks to perswade it selfe is not it begins at length to think it not indeed and by an affectated and resolved Atheisme willingly neglects to know to feare to love to serve to enjoy him whom to know is life eternall to feare is security to love is the divinest comfort to serve is the truest liberty to enjoy is the only happinesse and content of the mind At last they grow devilish and reprobate minds such as sin with greedinesse mock God and contemne what ever is sacred loving darknesse more than light despising the blood of the Covenant and wilfully forsaking their own mercies and happinesse Thus you see how the Mind of man becomes degraded from the highest pitch and object God and miserably decayed in respect of its noblest capacity and operations That as a weak braine it cannot now look to so great an heighth as a bleare eye is offended with so glorious a Light either Atheising i. e. hath not or desires no God at all or Idolizing and erects false gods or its luxuriancy and wantonnesse runs out to superstitious and vaine worshipping of the true God hardly containing it selfe in those bounds which right reason the word of God the majesty purity and sobriety of true Religion doth permit or prescribe And not thus only are our minds decayed in their chiefest excellency and immediate respects to God which wee call Religion But farther in the whole tenour of mens lives and actions you may discover minds full of basenesse disorder and unreasonablenesse {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sayes Chrysost. Wicked men are unreasonable men Psal. 14.14 Are they not without understanding that work wickednesse Adeo omnis inordinatus animus sibi poena In this is every inordinate mind its owne first and severest punisher lessening and loosing that honour of right reason whereby we are men and excell the beasts Doe but trace mens actions and in them you shall see the print and Idea of their minds Insani esse animi non sanus juret Orestes No man so mad but will protest they are the effects of unreasonable minds 1 Is any thing more unreasonable than so farre to feare the face of man and to bee awed by his sight as not to doe any thing shamefull and undecent before him except there be attrita frons brazen or no fore-heads and yet neither to reverence our selves and the witnesse of our owne consciences nor the presence and all-seeing eye of God who wee think sees not our secret and shamefull actions and so upon the point we deny him to bee God because not omniscient or if wee doe then adde wee to our sin a most notorious impudence 2 Is any thing more unreasonable than of a short pretious and uncertaine life to expend the prime and morne of our time the flower of our wit and strength to serve sin and the Devill reserving only the dregs and bran of our age for repentance and devotion whereas indeed nothing should bee done with more vigour and vivacity than virtuous and pious actions Besides all this we run a desperate hazard of our soules and their eternall salvation venturing so great a treasure in so fraile a bark whereas indeed as David said to Ionathan As the Lord lives and as thy soule lives even the strongest youngest and most confident of us all there is but a step betweene us and death 3 Is any thing more unreasonable than in old age when our Sun is almost set when wee have little time to live and need least yet then to minde and covet the world most so much studying the body as to neglect the soules provision to value a moment and slight eternity 4 Is any thing more unreasonable than to receive many great and daily blessings from the almost prodigall hand of God and yet to be so farre from being thankfull for them that wee are more offensive to the Giver by them dishonouring him by his very blessings of peace health plenty beauty strength parts wit and learning c. abusing all to pride vanity excesse c. Because God is constantly Good wee are confidently evill 5 Is any thing more unreasonable than for a man to sweare gratis i. e. tempted neither by profit nor pleasure and either out of a proud affectation of Gallantry or out of passion against anothers folly to blaspheme the name of that God and Saviour by which man pretends to hope for salvation If there bee a God above us how can they bee guiltlesse that take his name in vaine making that cheap and prophanely obvious which all wise and good men have esteemeed and used as most sacred and reverend If there bee no God how vaine then are their violent expressions their frequent and passionate swearings 6 Is any thing more unreasonable than to disobey his commands who needs not our Service but we need his commands who therefore honours us with his commands ut habeat causas remunerandi that hee may have occasion to reward our obedience by violating whose precepts and lawes wee at once in effect deny all his Attributes As if hee were neither wise nor good in enacting such lawes nor powerfull nor just in vindicating them 7 Wee cannot endure a man that hath a heart and a heart that is none at all whose mind and expressions are alwayes two and at variance Wee rather entertaine such with jealousie and suspition than confidence and affection because wee know all is but outside a shew and simulation only for their owne ends And is not that Hypocrisie of those S. Iames calls {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} double-minded men most impudent and unreasonable which they feare not to offer to God while they desire only {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to appeare not to bee seriously and solidly religious whose Affections are but Affectations whose profession branches beyond the root of their knowledge whose religion is but the part they act to please some spectators the paint of their actions and the cloak they assume to palliate and compasse their poore and small designes of favour or profit c. Forgetting that nothing becomes the simplicity of Gods being and his serious intentions of good to man more than that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sincerity and soundnesse of minde to Him and his service Nor is a man ever more unfaithfull to his owne soule than when hee doubles and falsifies with God What is the hope of the Hypocrite when God shall take away his soule Nothing leaves a man more hardned and desperate than Hypocrisie 8 We are impatient that our words and promises should be disbeleeved and returned upon us with the reproach of a lie And is it not most unreasonable that wee should doubt or not beleeve at all or utterly deny the word the Gospel the promises and truth of God making him a lyar who is the first most necessary and eternall truth who never
duty in all the course and turnings of life to steere his speech by the Compasse of Truth which by a heavenly sympathy tends it selfe and must alwayes carry us to that Cynosure the first and immoveable Pole of Truth which is in God Lying and falsity is the rich and Noble mans shame and dishonour Truth and veracity is the meanest mans riches and glory The greatnesse of the one will not beare him out in lying nor the necessity of the other excuse him Veritas animae sponsa Every reasonable creature should bee affianced and wedded to truth by so firme and indissoluble a band as will suffer no estrangement much lesse divorce It is the adultery of the soule to embrace an error and of the lips to speak a lie Every man must speak truth So much as wee lie wee are not men that is the sons of God and Truth but devils the children of him who is the father of lies and liars 3 To whom To his Neighbour But who is my Neighbour Whomsoever the affaires of life and civill conversation doe joyne us unto Indeed wee are all Proximi naturâ neere Neighbours by the proximity of common nature of the same stock and extraction More neerly wee are Neighbours by the consent and fruition of the same Lawes Countrey Government Common-wealth and publike good Many are neighbours by a vicinity of place and cohabitation many by community of businesse and employment As wee are Christians wee are all Proximi Religione Fide Numine Redemptore and should bee affectu charitate wee have a neerenesse nay samenesse of Religion God Saviour Faith Hope And affection one to another These are obligations enough of neernesse and vicinity to tye us each to other under the relation of Neighbours when the least of them may not bee violated with a lie without a great sin and unworthinesse Wee may not lie to a stranger an enimy a heathen a Turk an Infidel a Lyar nor to the Devill himselfe wee may not pay him in his owne coyne no more than the Archangel Michael durst give him railing accusation though hee bee {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a rayler and false accuser Certainly nothing is lesse neighbourly than lying for what trust affiance or security can one have in another if one cannot believe what another promises affirmes or denyes Commune vinculum indigentia The common tye of society is the mutuall want of each other and The common enterchange of good offices is in the way of truth-speaking Else every neighbour is Insidiator hostis an enimy and the more dangerous because neere and treacherous Better dwell in a Wildernesse than such a vicinity The knot and summe that folds up all the second Table is this To love thy neighbour as thy selfe Now nemo libenter dicipitur Falli nolunt qui fallere amant adeo rationalis natura errorem refugit Every man hates a lye in another so much as he loves himselfe No man loves you should lye to him though himselfe lies never so frequently no more than a thiefe will like you should steale from himselfe Doe then as wee would bee done to that is well and justly And speak as you would bee spoken to that is Every man the truth to his neighbour {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Standard of equity and vertue God hath set in every mans owne reason and conscience to measure by it to others so as hee would they should mete to him If but this one branch of it in truth speaking were conscientiously observed wee should not have so many contentions which call for publike examination and execution of truth for lying breeds injuries Hee that feares not to offend God by lying will not feare to offend man by defrauding whence spring so many suits and quarrels Every man though hee cannot judge what is aequum just in mine and thine yet hee may of what is verum in regard of his owne thoughts which needs no other Court Witnesse or Judge than his owne conscience for the speaking of it Neither private nor publike good can flourish if this commerce of Truth-speaking to our neighbour faile and decay Which if in daily and domestick converse it must bee maintained how much more in publike attestations when by word or oath wee are called forth as Witnesses or Iurors to speak the truth not only to our neighbour but to the face of our Countrey to our Prince to the law to justice it selfe and in a high degree to the glory of God as Ioshua perswades Achan to give glory to God by telling the truth by which the execution of the judgement of Truth and Peace may be promoted and the common good advanced by a just punishment of the wicked and absolving of the innocent Publike lies are impudent and enormous lies when death and life justice and injustice are in the power of the tongue But a lie upon oath is beyond expression abominable to God and man In this if in any sin men exceed the devils whom wee read of notorious for lying but not for perjury as never having the honour to bee called to witnesse a truth with the invocation of the Name and Majesty of God Perjurium est mendacium sacrilegum That 's the definition of perjury it is a sacrilegious lie Which besides the falsity seeks to rob his neighbour of his right and innocency the law and justice of a due debt of punishment which every malefactor owes robs the King Countrey and Common-weale of safety and God of his glory who is justified in his providence when sin is detected condemned and punished A sin out of measure sinfull while a man openly deliberately solemnely upon the word of God pretends to call God to witnesse of his truth speaking when hee meanes nothing lesse St. Augustine tels us It is a lesse sin to sweare by a false God truly than by the true God falsly Hee is neerer piety who ownes and feares a false God than hee that denyes the only true and so all Gods yet hee that denyes the true God is lesse wicked than hee that despiseth and blasphemeth him as a perjured person doth while hee endeavours so much as lies in him to make the true God his omniscience and power an abettor and maintainer of his lye and falsity Quantò magis sanctum est per quod juratur tantò magis poenale perjurium So that as Truth speaking is required of every man to his neighbour in private so much more in publike speaking and most of all in solemne and publike swearing before the Magistrate Where one false witnesse and false swearer may so plunder a truth and snarle a cause that it will bee hard for the Judge to finde the true method to unwinde it The truth and religion of an Oath is then fulfilled when he that is lawfully called to sweare doth so swear as is not only agreeable to his owne knowledge without equivocation or
and his pretious name had in honour who first of Princes next after Christ gave that for his word Beati Pacifici And may they be blessed who being heires to his Crowne are also heires to his Princely vertues and peacefull disposition And have we not all causes to blesse God who hath inclined their hearts and to blesse them who have followed those inclinations to re-establish our late dubious and endangered peace and lengthen out our tranquility May the great God of peace crowne their Persons Posterity and Kingdomes with aboundance of mercy and peace so long as the Sun and Moone endure 3 Follow peace with all men for thy own internall and eternall peace with God God is surely an enemy to those that are enemies to peace since they are contrary 1 To his nature which is happy in an unmoved and eternall tranquility 2 To his word which seeks by the message of peace to bring us neerer and make us liker to himselfe 3 A peacelesse and unquiet disposition like troubled waters is lesse apt for the sweet and cleere reflections of Gods love to it or the operations of his Spirit in it which creates that internall and unexpressible peace which no man knowes the price of but he that hath it 4 Lastly they only shall rest with God in Peace who have followed after Peace and in so doing after God They shall dye in Peace and lye in Peace and rise in Peace and reigne in Peace with God for ever The fruit of righteousnesse is sown in Peace of them that make Peace But I have done with the first Object and the Duty Follow Peace with all men we come now to the second 2. And Holinesse Peaceablenesse and Holinesse must goe together and indeed it is pity they should bee separated yet they are oftentimes for many are of sweet soft and calm natures not farre from the kingdome of heaven yet they rise not to the heigth of holinesse which must exceed and amend the best of natures Vae optimae naturae nisi superveniat gratia Good natures like small and shallow brooks may empty themselves and carry us to that narrow lake of humane love honour and approbation but holinesse only is that great and noble streame which conveyes the soule to heaven and looseth it in the Ocean of Gods infinite happinesse O let us not content our selves with the study of Peace and neglect Holinesse Peace will soon corrupt and sowre to troubles inward and outward which is not preserved and eterniz'd with Holinesse There is no Peace to the wicked saith God no true inward and durable Peace we must follow Peace as men and Holinesse as Christians What is it to have Peace with men and warre with God Let us therefore see 1 What Holinesse is 2 Who must follow it 3 How we must follow it 4 Wherefore 1 What Holinesse is Holinesse is a word of various acceptation 1 There is a Holinesse transcendent essentiall and absolute which is in God or rather which is God himselfe who is the eternall first and onely rule to himselfe by his immutable goodnesse unerring wisedome and irresistable power who is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} thrice holy as the Seraphins cry Holy holy holy Lord God of Hoasts c. Holy in his will in his word and in his works in his justice mercy and power and therefore {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} infinitely great and powerfull because infinitely good and holy The Father is holy and the Son holy and the Spirit holy in their essence in their relations and in their operations This Holinesse wee must follow Mat. 5.48 Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect 1 Pet. 1.15 Be ye holy as he that hath called you is holy Here is the rule patterne Idea and Prototype of Holinesse the fountain Sun and Sea of Holinesse from whence it derives it selfe in the second place to reasonable creatures Angels and men who onely are capable of Holinesse in a strict and proper sense 2 All creatures have a goodnesse of nature and being by creation onely the reasonable are vessels of Holinesse which properly is or at least ought to be in us A full and exact conformity of the Soul in all its motions and operations to the will and mind of God In the blessed Angels it is and was in man at first a gift of creation whereby they and wee were made in the Image of God in righteousnesse and true Holinesse Since our fall Holinesse is a gift of free grace a supernaturall quality or habit infused into the Soule by the Holy Spirit which by degrees reneweth us to a conformity or an unfained study at least of conformity to the will of God doing all out of conscience to his command regulating all by to his word and directing all to his glory This Holinesse we must also follow as the true and onely beauty honour riches pleasure and perfection of the soule For as much as men by reason exceed beasts so much doe Christians by Holinesse exceed meere men in their unholy and unregenerate state By Holinesse wee recover our station and neerenesse to Angels our claime to heaven our kindred and relation to God not only as his creatures but as his Sons regenerate by his holy Spirit 3 There is yet a Holinesse in a low and inferiour sense not of vertue or grace but of use and relation which is in Scripture and common speech applied to things unreasonable and inanimate too This is a Holinesse of dedication when things are devote and consecrated to the worship and service of the most holy God set apart from common and civill uses to sacred This likewise we must follow not as conceiving any inherent quality of Holinesse to be in those things whereby they are able to work on thy Spirit or recommend thee and thy service to a greater degree of acceptation by conferring a greater degree of Holinesse except in respect to Gods speciall appointment and promise as of old but only so farre we must follow this relative Holinesse as to a decent use and reverentiall comportment such as becomes the gravity majesty and solemnity of Christian Religion and those outward services God requireth of us Sancta sanctè Holinesse becomes the house and worship of God for ever But take heed that thy superstitious mind doe not impute to nor expect to find any active or virtuall Holinesse in or from times places pictures reliques garments or postures when that must be as it onely can be in thy heart There is that Sanctum Sanctorum the immediate residence and operation of Gods holy Spirit It is preposterous and vaine to imagine or seek it in other things if thou hast it not there thou maist profane them they cannot sanctifie thee nor thy services Yet here it is that superstition is prone to dote and flatter it selfe in its outward formalities of Holinesse as Lewis the eleventh did in his leaden gods pardon and