condemn but whether his rule can extend to this case is now to be enquired 1. It is certain that children may be cozned into goodnesse and sick men to health and passengers in a storm into fafety and the reason of these is because not onely the end is fair and charitable and just but the means are such which do no injury to the persons which are to receive benefit Because these are persons who are either naturally or accidentally ignorant and incompetent judges of affaires and if they be also wilful as such persons most commonly are there is in art and nature left no wayes to deal with them but with innocent charitable and artificial deceptions they are not capable of reason and solid discourses and therefore either must be exposed to all harms like Lions whelps when their nurse and sire are taken in a toile or else be provided for in wages proportionable to their capacitie 2. Sinners may not be treated with the liberty we take to children and sick persons because they must serve God with choice and election and therefore although a sick man may be cozened into his health yet a man must not be cozened into his duty which is no duty at all or pleasing to God unlesse it be voluntary and chosen and therefore they are to be treated with arguments proper to move their wills by the instrument of understanding specially being persons of perfect faculties and apt to be moved by the wayes of health and of a man It is an argument of infirmity that in some cases it is necessary to make pretences but those pretences are not made legitimate unlesse it be the infirmity of the interested man with whom we do comply My infirmity can not make it lawful to make colours and images of things But the infirmity of him with whom I deal may be such that he can be defended or instructed no other way But sinners that offend God by choice must have their choice corrected and their understandings instructed or else their evill is not cured nor their state amended 2. For it is here very observable that in entercourses of this nature we are to regard a double duty the matter of justice and the rights of charity that is that good be done by lawful instruments for it is certain it is not lawful to abuse a mans understanding with a purpose to gain him 6. d. it is not fit to do evil for a good end or to abuse one man to preserve or do advantage to another and therefore it is not sufficient that I intend to do good to my neighbour for I may not therefore tell a lie and abuse his credulity because his understanding hath a right as certain as his will hath or as his money and his right to truth is no more to be cozened and defrauded then his right unto his money and therefore such artificial entercourses are no wayes to be permitted but to such persons over whose understandings we have power and authority Plato said it was lawful for Kings and Governours to dissemble because there is great necessity for them so to do but it was but crudely said so nakedly to deliver the doctrine for in such things which the people cannot understand and yet ought to obey there is a liberty to use them as we use children who are of no other condition or capacities then children but in all things where they can and ought to choose because their understanding is onely a servant to God no man hath power to abuse their credulity and reason to preserve their estates and peace But because Children and mad people and diseased are such whose underdandings are in minority and under Tuition they are to be governed by their proper instruments and proportions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Proclus a good turn is to be preferred before a true saying it is onely true to such persons who cannot value truth and prefer an intellectual before a material interest It is better for children to have warm clothes then a true proposition and therefore in all senses they and their like may be so treated But other persons who have distinct capacities have an injury done them by being abused into advantages and although those advantages make them recompence yet he that is tied to make a man recompence hath done him injury and committed a sin by which he was obliged to restitution therefore the man ought not to be cozened for his own good 4. And now upon the grounds of this discourse we may more easily determine concerning saving the life of a man by telling a lie in judgement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Pericles of Athens when his friend desired him to swear on his side I will assist my friend so far as I may not dishonour God and to lie in judgment is directly against the being of government the honour of Tribunals and the commandement of God and therefore by no accident can be hallowed it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle said of a lie it is a thing evil in it self that is it is evil in the whole kinde ever since it came to be forbidden by God and therefore all those instances of crafty and delusive answers which are recorded in scripture were extra judicial and had not this load upon them to be a deceiving of authority in those things where they had right to command or inquire either were before or besides the commandment not at all against it and since the law of Moses forbad lying in judgement onely by that law we are to judge of those actions in the old testament which were committed after its publication and because in the sermons of the prophets and especially in the new testament Christ hath superadded or enlarged the law of ingenuity hearty simplicity we are to leave the old scripture precedents upon the ground of their own permissions and finish our duty by the rules of our religion which hath so restrained our words that they must alwayes be just and alwayes charitable and there is no leave given to prevaricate but to such persons where there can be no obligation persons that have no right such with whom no contract can be made such as children and fools and infirm persons whose faculties are hindred or depraved I remember that Secundus extremely commends Arria for deluding her husbands fears concerning the death of his beloved boy and wiped her eyes and came in confidently and sate by her husbands bed-side and when she could no longer forbear to weep her husbands sicknesse was excuse enough to legitimate that sorrow or else she could retire but so long she forbore to confess the boy's death til Caecinna Paetus had so far recovered that he could go forth to see the boy and need not fear with sorrow to returne to his disease It was indeed a great kindnesse and a rare prudence as their affaires and laws were ordered but we have better means to cure our sick
of scorn and men made names as they listed or as the fate of the market went And if a Doctor preaches a doctrine which another man likes not but preaches the contradictory he that consents and he that refuses have each of them a teacher by whose name if they please to wrangle they may be signified It was so in the Corinthian Church with this onely difference that they divided themselves by names which signified the same religion I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I am of Peter and I of Christ these Apostles were ministers of Christ and so does every teacher new or old among the Christians pretend himself to be Let that therefore be examined if he ministers to the truth of Christ and the religion of his master let him be entertained as a servant of his Lord but if an appellative be taken from his name there is a faction commenced in it and there is a fault in the men if there be none in the doctrine but that the doctrine be true or false to be received or to be rejected because of the name is accidental and extrinsecall and therefore not to be determined by this signe 3. Amongst some men a sect is sufficiently thought to be reproved if it subdivides and breaks into little fractions or changes its own opinions indeed if it declines its own doctrine no man hath reason to beleeve them upon their word or to take them upon the stock of reputation which themselves being judges they have forfeited and renounced in the changing that which at first they obtruded passionately And therefore in this case there is nothing to be done but to beleeve the men so farre as they have reason to beleeve themselves that is to consider when they prove what they say and they that are able to do so are not persons in danger to be seduced by a bare authority unlesse they list themselves for others that sink under an unavoidable prejudice God will take care for them if they be good people and their case shall be considered by and by But for the other part of the signe when men fall out among themselves for other interests or opinions it is no argument that they are in an errour concerning that doctrine which they all unitedly teach or condemn respectively but it hath in it some probability that their union is a testimony of truth as certainly as that their fractions are a testimony of their zeal or honesty or weaknesse as it happens and if we Christians be too decretory in this instance it will be hard for any of us to keep a Jew from making use of it against the whole religion which from the dayes of the Apostles hath been rent into innumerable sects and under-sects springing from mistake or interest from the arts of the Devil or the weaknesse of man But from hence we may make an advantage in the way of prudence and become sure that all that doctrine is certainly true in which the generality of Christians who are divided in many things yet do constantly agree and that that doctrine is also sufficient since it is certain that because in all Communions and Churches there are some very good men that do all their duty to the getting of truth God will not fail in any thing that is necessary to them that honestly and heartily desire to obtain it and therefore if they rest in the heartinesse of that and live accordingly and superinduce nothing to the destruction of that they have nothing to do but to rely upon Gods goodnesse and if they perish it is certain they cannot help it and that is demonstration enough that they cannot perish considering the justice and goodnesse of our Lord and Judge 4. Whoever break the bands of a Society or Communion and go out from that Congregation is whose Confession they are baptized do an intolerable scandal to their doctrine and persons and give suspicious men reason to decline their Assemblies and not to choose them at all for any thing of their authority or outward circumstances and Saint Paul bids the Romans to mark them that cause divisions and offences But the following words make their caution prudent and practicable contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them they that recede from the doctrine which they have learned they cause the offence and if they also obtrude this upon their congregations they also make the division For it is certain if we receive any doctrine contrary to what Christ gave and the Apostles taught for the authority of any man then we call men Masters and leave our Master which is in heaven and in that case we must separate from the Congregation and adhere to Christ but this is not to be done unlesse the case be evident and notorious But as it is hard that the publike doctrine of a Chruch should be rifled and misunderstood and reproved and rejected by any of her wilful or ignorant sons and daughters so it is also as hard that they should be bound not to see when the case is plain and evident There may be mischiefs on both sides but the former sort of evils men may avoid if they will for they may be humble and modest and entertain better opinions of their Superiours then of themselves and in doubtful things give them the honour of a just opinion and if they do not do so that evil will be their own private for that it become not publike the King and the Bishop are to take care but for the latter sort of evil it will certainly become universal If I say an authoritative false doctrine be imposed and is to be accepted accordingly for then all men shall be bound to professe against their conscience that is with their mouthes not to confesse unto salvation what with their hearts they believe unto righteousnesse The best way of remedying both the evils is that Governours lay no burden of doctrines or lawes but what are necessary or very profitable and that Inferiours do not contend for things unnecessary nor call any thing necessary that is not till then there will be evils on both sides and although the Governours are to carry the Question in the point of law reputation and publike government yet as to Gods Judicature they will bear the bigger load who in his right do him an injury and by the impresses of his authority destroy his truth But in this case also although separating be a suspicious thing and intolerable unlesse it be when a sin is imposed yet to separate is also accidentall to truth for some men separate with reason some men against reason therefore here all the certainty that is in the thing is when the truth is secured and all the security to the men will be in the humility of their persons and the heartinesse and simplicity of their intention and diligence of inquiry The Church of England had reason to separate from the Confession and practises of Rome in
of a miraculous and prodigious greatnesse that they might report good things of Canaan and invite the whole nation to attempt its conquest so Gods grace represents to the new converts and the weak ones in faith the pleasures and first deliciousnesses of religion and when they come to spie the good things of that way that leads to heaven they presently perceive themselves eased of the load of an evil conscience of their fears of death of the confusion of their shame and Gods spirit gives them a cup of sensible comfort and makes them to rejoyce in their prayers and weep with pleasures mingled with innocent passions and religious changes and although God does not deal with all men in the same method or in manners that can regularly be described and all men do not feele or do not observe or cannot for want of skill discern such accidental sweetnesses and pleasant grapes at his first entrance into religion yet God to every man does minister excellent arguments of invitation and such that if a man will attend to them they will certainly move either his affections or his will his fancy or his reason and most commonly both But while the spirit of God is doing this work of man man must also be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fellow worker with God he must entertain the spirit attend his inspirations receive his whispers obey all his motions invite him further and utterly renounce all confederacy with his enemy sin at no hand suffering any root of bitternesse to spring up not allowing to himself any reserve of carnal pleasure no clancular lust no private oppressions no secret covetousnesse no love to this world that may discompose his duty for if a man prayes all day and at night is intemperate if he spends his time in reading and his recreation be sinful if he studies religion and practises self interest if he leaves his swearing and yet retaines his pride if he becomes chast and yet remains peevish and imperious this man is not changed from the state of sin into the first stage of the state of grace he does at no hand belong to God he hath suffered himself to be scared from one sin and tempted from another by interest and hath left a third by reason of his inclination and a fourth for shame or want of opportunity But the spirit of God hath not yet planted one perfect plant there God may make use of the accidentally prepared advantages But as yet the spirit of God hath not begun the proper and direct work of grace in his heart But when we leave every sin when we resolve never to return to the chaines when we have no love for the world but such as may be a servant of God then I account that we are entred into a state of grace from whence I am now to begin to reckon the commencement of this precept grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. And now the first part of this duty is to make religion to be the businesse of our lives for this is the great instrument which will naturally produce our growth in grace and the perfection of a Christian. For a man cannot after a state of sin be instantly a Saint the work of heaven is not done by a flash of lightning or a dash of affectionate raine or a few tears of a relenting pity God and his Church have appointed holy intervals and have taken portions of our time for religion that we may be called off from the world and remember the end of our creation and do honour to God and think of heaven with hearty purposes and peremptory designes to get thither But as we must not neglect those times which God hath reserved for his service or the Church hath prudently decreed nor yet act religion upon such dayes with forms and outsides or to comply with customs or to seem religious so we must take care that all the other portions of our time be hallowed with little retirements of all thoughts and short conversations with God and all along be guided with a holy intention that even our works of nature may passe into the relations of grace and the actions of our calling may help towards the obtaining the price of our high calling while our eatings are actions of temperance our labours are profitable our humiliations are acts of obedience and our almes are charity our marriages are chaâ—â— and whether we eat or drink sleep or wake we may do all to the glory of God by a direct intuition or by a reflex act by designe or by supplment by fore sight or by an after election and to this purpose we must not look upon religion as our trouble and our hindâ—rance nor think almes chargeable or expensive nor our fastings vexatious and burdensom nor our prayers a wearinesse of spirit But we must make these and all other the dutis of religion our imployments our care the work and end for which we came into the world and remember that we never do the work of men nor serve the ends of God nor are in the proper imployment and businesse of our life but when we worship God or live like wise or sober persons or do benefit to our brother I will not turne this discourse into a reproofe but leave it represented as a duty Remember that God seâ—â— you into the world for religion we are but to passe through our pleasant fields or our hard labours but to lodge a little while in our faire palaces or our meaner cottages but to bait in the way at our full tables or with our spare diet but then onely man does his proper imployment when he prayes and does charity and mortifies his unruly appetites and restrains his violent passions and becomes like to God and imitates his holy Son and writes after the coppies of Apostles and Saints Then he is dressing himself for eternity where he must dwell or abide either in an excellent beatifical country or in a prison of amazment and eternal horrour And after all this you may if you please call to minde how much time you allovv to God and to your souls every day or every moneth or in a year if you please for I fear the account of the time is soon made but the account for the neglect vvill be harder And it vvill not easily be ansvvered that all our dayes and years are little enough to attend perishing things and to be svvallowed up in avaritious and vain attendances and we shall not attend to religion with a zeal so great as is our revenge or as is the hunger of one meale Without much time and a wary life and a diligent circumspection we cannot mortify our sins or do the first works of grace I pray God we be not found to have grown like the sinnews of old age from strength to remisnesse from thence to dissolution and infirmity and death Menedemus was wont to say that the young
boyes that went to Athens the first year were wise men the second year Philosophers the third Orators and the fourth were but Plebeians and understood nothing but their own ignorance And just so it happens to some in the progresses of religion at first they are violent and active and then they satiate all the appetites of religion and that which is left is that they were soon weary and sat down in displeasure and return to the world and dwell in the businesse of pride or mony and by this time they understand that their religion is declined and passed from the heats and follies of youth to the coldnesse and infirmities of old age The remedies of which is onely a diligent spirit and a busie religion a great industry a full portion of time in holy offices that as the Oracle said to the Cirrheans noctes diesque belligerandum they could not be happy unlesse they waged war night and day that is unlesse we perpetually fight against our own vices and repell our Ghostly enemies and stand upon our guard we must stand for ever in the state of babes in Christ or else return to the first imperfections of an unchristened soul and an unsanctified spirit That 's the first particular 2. The second step of our growth in grace is when vertues grow habitual apt and easie in our manners and dispositions For although many new converts have a great zeal and a busie spirit apt enough as they think to contest against all the difficulties of a spiritual life yet they meet with such powerful oppositions from without and a false heart within that their first heats are soon broken and either they are for ever discouraged or are forced to march more slowly and proceed more temperately for ever after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is an easie thing to commit a wickednesse for temptation and infirmity are alwayes too neer us But God hath made care and sweat prudence and diligence experience and watchfulnesse wisdom and labour at home and good guides abroad to be instruments and means to purchase vertue The way is long and difficult at first but in the progresse and pursuit we finde all the knots made plain and the rough wayes made smooth jam monte potius Now the spirit of grace is like a new soul within him and he hath new appetites and new pleasures when the things of the world grow unsavory and the things of religion are delicious when his temptations to his old crimes return but seldom and they prevail not at all or in very inconsiderable instances and stay not at all but are reproached with a penitentiall sorrow and speedy amendment when we do actions of vertue quickly frequently and with delight then we have grown in grace in the same degree in which they can perceive these excellent dispositions Some persons there are who dare not sin they dare not omit their hours of prayer and they are restlesse in their spirits till they have done but they go to it as to execution they stay from it as long as they can and they drive like Pharoahs charets with the wheels off sadly and heavily and besides that such persons have reserved to themselves the best part of their sacrifice and do not give their will to God they do not love him with all their heart they are also soonest tempted to retire and fall off Sextius Romanus resigned the honours and offices of the city and betook himself to the severity of a Philosophical life But when his unusual diet and hard labour began to pinch his flesh and he felt his propositions smart and that which was fine in discourse at a Symposiack or an Academical dinner began to sit uneasily upon him in the practise he so despaired that he had like to have cast himself into the sea to appease the labours of his religion Because he never had gone further then to think it a fine thing to be a wise man he would commend it but he was loth to pay for it at the price that God and the Philosopher set upon it But he that his grown 〈◊〉 grace and hath made religion habitual to his spirit is not at ease but when he is doing the works of the new man he rests in religion and comforts his sorrows with thinking of his prayers and in all crosses of the world he is patient because his joy is at hand to refresh him when he list for he cares not so he may serve God and if you make him poor here he is rich there and he counts that to be his proper service his worke his recreation and reward 3. But â—â—cause in the course of holy living although the duty be regular and constant yet the sensible relishes and the flowrings of affections the zeal and the visible expressions do not alwayes make the same emission but sometimes by designe and sometimes by order somtimes by affection we are more busie more intire and more intent upon the actions of religion in such cases we are to judge of our growth in grace if after every interval of extraordinary piety the next return be more devout and more affectionate the labour be more cheerfull and more active and if religion returnes oftner and stayes longer in the same expressions and leaves more satisfaction upon the spirit Are your communions more frequent and when they are do ye approach neerer to God have you made firmer resolutions and entertained more hearty purposes of amendment Do you love God more dutifully and your neighbour with a greater charity do you not so easily return to the world as formerly are not you glad when the thing is done do you go to your secular accounts with a more weaned affection then before if you communicate well it is certain that you will still do it better if you do not communicate well every opportunity of doing it is but a new trouble easily excused readily omitted done because it is necessary but not because we love it and we shall finde that such persons in their old age do it worst of all And it was observed by a Spanish Confessor who was also a famous preacher that in persons not very religious the confessions which they made upon their deathbed were the coldest the most imperfect and with lesse contrition then all that he had observed them to make in many years before For so the Canes of Egypt when they newly arise from their bed of mud and slime of Nilus start up into an equal and continual length and are interrupted but with few knots and are strong and beauteous with great distances and intervals but when they are grown to their full length they lessen into the point of a pyramis and multiply their knots and joynts interrupting the finenesse and smoothnesse of its body so are the steps declensions of him that does not grow in grace at first when he springs up from his impurity by the waters of baptisme and
had need pray that we be not led into temptation that is not onely into the possession but not into the allurements and neighbour-hood of it least by little and little our strongest resolutions be untwist and crack in sunder like an easie cord severed into single threds but if we by the necessity of our lives and manner of living dwell where a temptation will assault us then to resist is the signe of a great grace but such a signe that without it the grace turns into wantonnesse and the man into a beast and an angel into a Devil R. Moses will not allow a man to be a true penitent untill he hath left all his sin and in all the like circumstances refuses those temptations under which formerly he sinned and died and indeed it may happen that such a trial onely can secure our judgement concerning our selves and although to be tried in all the same accidents be not safe nor alwayes contingent and in such cases it is sufficient to resist all the temptations we have and avoid the rest and decree against all yet if it please God we are tempted as David was by his eyes or the Martyrs by tortures or Joseph by his wanton Mistris then to stand sure and to ride upon the temptation like a ship upon a wave or to stand like a rock in an impetuous storm that 's the signe of a great grace and of a well-grown Christian 10. No man is grown in grace but he that is ready for every work that chooses not his employment that refuses no imposition from God or his superiour a ready hand an obedient heart and a willing cheerful soul in all the work of God and in every office of religion is a great index of a good proficient in the wayes of Godlinesse The heart of a man is like a wounded hand or arme which if it be so cured that it can onely move one way and cannot turn to all postures and natural uses it is but imperfect and still half in health and half wounded so is our spirit if it be apt for prayer and close fisted in almes if it be sound in faith and dead in charity if it be religious to God and unjust to our neighbour there wants some integral part or there is a lamenesse and the deficiency in any one duty implyes the guilt of all said Saint James and bonum ex integrâ causâ malum exquâlibet particulari every fault spoils a grace But one grace alone cannot make a good man But as to be universal in our obedience is necessary to the being in the state of grace so readily to change imployment from the better to the worse from the honourable to the poor from usefull to seemingly unprofitable is a good Character of a well grown Christian if he takes the worst part with indifferency and a spirit equally choosing all the events of the divine providence Can you be content to descend from ruling of a province to the keeping of a herd from the work of an Apostle to be confined into a prison from disputing before Princes to a conversation with Shepherds can you be willing to all that God is willing and suffer all that he chooses as willingly as if you had chosen your own fortune In the same degree in which you can conform to God in the same you have approached towards that perfection whether we must by degrees arrive in our journey towards heaven This is not to be expected of beginners for they must be enticed with apt imployments and it may be their office and work so fits their spirits that it makes them first in love with it and then with God for giving it and many a man goes to heaven in the dayes of peace whose faith and hopes and patience would have been dashed in pieces if he had fallen into a storm or persecution Oppression will make a wise man mad saith Solomon there are some usages that will put a sober person out of all patience such which are besides the customes of this life and contrary to all his hopes and unworthy of a person of his quality and when Nero durst not die yet when his servants told him that the Senators had condemned him to be put to death more Majorum that is by scourging like a slave he was forced into a preternatural confidence and fel upon his own sword but when God so changes thy estate that thou art fallen into accidents to which thou art no otherwise disposed but by grace and a holy spirit and yet thou canst passe through them with quietnesse and do the work of suffering as well as the works of a prosperous imployment this is an argument of a great grace and an extraordinary spirit For many persons in a change of fortune perish who if they had still been prosperous had gone to heaven being tempted in a persecution to perjuries and Apostacy and unhandsome complicances and hypocricy and irreligion and many men are brought to vertue and to God and to felicity by being persecuted and made unprosperous and these are effects of a more absolute and irrespective predestination but when the grace of God is great and prudent and masculine and well grown it is unalter'd in all changes save onely that every accident that is new and violent brings him neerer to God and makes him with greater caution and severity to dwell in vertue 11. Lastly some there are who are firme in all great and foreseen changes and have laid up in the store-houses of the spirit reason and religion arguments and discourses enough to defend them against all violencies and stand at watch so much that they are safe where they can consider and deliberate but there may be something wanting yet and in the direct line in the strait progresse to heaven I call that an infallible signe of a great grace and indeed the greatest degree of a great grace when a man is prepared against sudden invasions of the spirit surreptions and extemporary assaults Many a valiant person dares sight a battle who yet will be timorous and surprised in a mid-night alarme or if he falls into a river And how many discreet persons are there who if you offer them a sin and give them time to consider and tell them of it before hand will rather die then be perjured or tell a deliberate lie or break a promise who it may be tell many sudden lies and excuse themselves and break their promises and yet think themselves safe enough and sleep without either affrightments or any apprehension of dishonour done to their persons or their religion Every man is not armed for all sudden arrests of passions few men have cast such fetters upon their lusts and have their passions in so strict confinement that they may not be over run with a midnight flood or an unlooked for inundation He that does not start when he is smitten suddenly is a constant person and that is it which I intend
of vertues But as Diagoras to them that shewed to him the votive garments of those that had escaped shipwrack upon their prayers and vows to Neptune answered that they kept no account of those that prayed and vowed and yet were drowned So do these men keep catalogues of those few persons who broke the third of a fair life in sunder with the violence of a great crime and by the grace of God recovered and repented and lived But they consider not concerning those infinite numbers of men who died in their first fit of sicknesse who after a fair voyage have thrown themselves over boord and perished in a sudden wildnesse One said well Si quid Socrates aut Aristippus contra morem et consuetudinem fecerunt idem sibi ne arbitretur licere Magnis enim illi divinis bonis hanc licentiam assequebantur If Socrates did any unusual thing it is not for thee who art of an ordinary vertue to assume the same licence For he by a divine and excellent life hath obtained leave or pardon respectively for what thou must never hope for till thou hast arrived to the same glories First be as devout as David as good a Christian as Saint Peter and then thou wilt not dare with designe to act that which they fell into by surprize and if thou doest fall as they did by that time thou hast also repented like them it may be said concerning thee that thou dist fall and break thy bones but God did heal thee and pardon thee Remember that all the damned soules shall bear an eternity of torments for the pleasures of a short sinfulnesse but for a single trasient action to die for ever is an intolerable exchange and the effect of so great a folly that whosoever falls into and then considers it it will make him mad and distracted for ever 3. Remember that since no man can please God or bE partakers of any promises or reap the reward of any actions in the returnes of eternity unlesse he performs to God an intir duty according to the capacities of a man so taught and so tempted and so assisted such a person must be curious that he be not cozened with the duties and performances of any one relation 1. Some there are that think all our religion consists in prayers and publick or private offices of devotion and not in moral actions or entercourses of justice and temperance of kindnesse and friendships of sincerity and liberality of chastity and humility of repentance and obedience indeed no humour is so easie to be counterfeited as devotion and yet no hypocrisy is more common among men nor any so uselesse as to God for it being an addresse to him alone who knows the heart and all the secret purposes it can do no service in order to heaven so long as it is without the power of Godlinesse and the energy and vivacity of a holy life God will not suffer us to commute a duty because all is his due and religion shall not pay for the want of temperance if the devoutest Hermit be proud or he that fasts thrice in the week be uncharitable once or he that gives much to the poor gives also too much liberty to himself he hath planted a fair garden and invited a wilde boar to refresh himself under the shade of the fruit trees and his guest being something rude hath disordered his paradise and made it become a wildernesse 2. Others there are that judge themselves by the censures that Kings and Princes give concerning them or as they are spoken of by their betters and so make false judgements concerning their condition For our betters to whom we show our best parts to whom we speak with caution and consider what we represent they see our arts and our dressings but nothing of our nature and deformities Trust not their censures concerning thee but to thy own opinion of thy self whom thou knowest in thy retirements and natural peevishnesse and unhandsome inclinations and secret basenesse 3. Some men have been admired abroad in whom the wife and the servant never saw any thing excellent a rare judge and a good common-wealths man in the streets and publick meetings and a just man to his neighbour and charitable to the poor for in all these places the man is observed and kept in awe by the Sun by light and by voices But this man is a Tyrant at home an unkinde husband ill Father an imperious Master and such men are like prophets in their own countreys not honoured at home and can never be honoured by God who will not endure that many vertues should excuse a few vices Or that any of his servants shall take pensions of the Devil and in the profession of his service do his enemy single advantages 4. He that hath past many stages of a good life to prevent his being tempted to a single sin must be very careful that he never entertain his spirit with the remembrances of his past sin nor amuse it with the phantastick apprehensions of the present When the Israelites fancied the sapidnesse and relish of the flesh pots they longed to tast and to return So when a Libian Tiger drawn from his wilder forragings is shut up and taught to eat civil meat and suffer the authority of a man he sits down tamely in his prison and payes to his keeper fear and reverence for his meat But if he chance to come again and taste a draught of warm blood he presently leaps into his naturall cruelty Admonitae tument gustato sanguine fauces Feruet à trepido vix abstinet ira Magistro He scarce abstains from eating those hands that brought him discipline and food so is the nature of a man made tame and gentle by the grace of God and reduced to reason and kept in awe by religion and lawes and by an awfull vertue is taught to forget those alluring and sottish relishes of sin but if he diverts from his path and snatches handfuls from the wanton vineyards and remembers the lasciviousnesse of his unwholesome food that pleased his childish palate then he grows sick again and hungry after unwholesome diet and longs for the apples of Sodom A man must walk thorow the world without eyes or ears fancy or appetite but such as are created and sanctified by the grace of God and being once made a new man he must serve all the needs of nature by the appetites and faculties of grace nature must be wholly a servant and we must so look towards the deliciousnesse of our religion and the rayishments of heaven that our memory must be for ever uselesse to the affairs and perceptions of sin we cannot stand wee cannot live unlesse we be curious and watchfull in this particular By these and all other arts of the Spirit if we stand upon our guard never indulging to our selves one sin because it is but oâ—e as knowing that one sin brought
in a cock-boat or use a childe for his interpreter and that Generall is a Cyclops without an eye who chooses the sickest men to man his Towns and the weakest to fight his battels It cannot be a vigorous prosecution unlesse the means have an efficacy or worth commensurate to all the difficulty and something of the excellency of that end which is designed And indeed men use not to be so weak in acquiring the possessions of their temporals But in matters of religion they think any thing effective enough to secure the greatest interest as if all the fields of heaven and the regions of the Kingdom were waste ground and wanted a Colony of planters and that God invited men to heaven upon any terms that he might rejoyce in the multitude of subjects For certain it is men do more to get a little money then for all the glories of heaven Men rise up early and sit up late and eat the bread of carefulnesse to become richer then their neighbours and are amazed at every losse and impatient of an evil accident and feel a direct strom of passion if they suffer in their interest But in order to heaven they are cold in their religion indevout in their prayers incurious in their walking unwatchfull in their circumstances indifferent in the use of their opportunities infrequent in their discoursings of it not inquisitive of the way and yet think they shall surely go to heaven But a prudent man knows that by the greatnesse of the purchase he is to make an estimate of the value and the price When we ask of God any great thing As wisdom delivery from sicknesse his holy Spirit the forgivenesse of sins the grace of chastity restitution to his favour or the like do we hope to obtain them without a high opinion of the things we ask and if we value them highly must we not desire them earnestly and if we desire them earnestly must we not pray for them fervently and whatsoever we ask for fervently must not we beg for frequently and then because prayer is but one hand toward the reaching a blessing and God requires our cooperation and endeavour and we must work with both hands are we not convinced that our prayers are either faint or a designe of lazinesse when we either ask coldly or else pray loudly hoping to receive the graces we need without labour A prudent person that knows to value the best object of his desires will also know that he must observe the degrees of labour according to the excellency of the reward Prayer must be effectuall fervent frequent continuall holy passionate that must get a grace or secure a blessing The love that we must have to God must be such as to keep his commandements and to make us willing to part with all our estate and all our honour and our life for the testimony of a holy conscience Our charity to our neighbours must be expressive in a language of a reall friendship aptnesse to forgive readinesse to forbear in pitying infirmities in relieving necessities in giving our goods and our lives and quitting our privileges to save his soul to secure and support his vertue Our repentance must be full of sorrows and care of diligence and hatred against sin it must drive out all and leave no affections towards it it must be constant and persevering fearfull of relapse and watchfull of all accidents Our temperance must sometimes turn into abstinence and most commonly be severe and ever without reproof He that striveth for masteries is temperate saith Saint Paul in all things he that does all this may with some pretence and reason say he intends to go to heaven But they that will not deny a lust nor refrain an appetite they that will be drunk when their friends do merrily constrain them or love a cheap religion and a gentle and lame prayer short and soft quickly said and soon passed over seldome returning and but little observed How is it possible that they should think themselves persons disposed to receive such glorious crowns and scepters such excellent conditions which they have not faith enough to believe nor attention enough to consider and no man can have wit enough to understand But so might an Arâ—adian shepherd look from the rocks or thorow the clefts of the valley where his sheep graze and wonder that the messenger stayes so long from comming to him to be crowned King of all the Greek Ilands or to be adopted heir to the Macedonian Monarchy It is an infinite love of God that we have heaven upon conditions which we can perform with greatest diligence But truely the lives of men are generally such that they do things in order to heaven things I say so few so trifling so unworthy that they are not proportionable to the reward of a crown of oak or a yellow riband the slender reward with which the Romans payed their souldiers for their extraordinary valour True it is that heaven is not in a just sense of a commutation a reward but a gift and an infinite favour but yet it is not reached forth but to persons disposed by the conditions of God which conditions when we pursue in kinde let us be very carefull we do not fail of the mighty price of our high calling for want of degrees and just measures the measures of zeal and a mighty love 3. It is an office of prudence so to serve God that we may at the same time preserve our lives and our estates our interest and reputation for our selves and our relatives so farre as they can consist together Saint Paul in the beginning of Christianity was careful to instruct the forwardnesse and zeal of the new Christians into good husbandry and to catechize the men into good trades and the women into useful imployments that they might not be unprofitable For Christian religion carrying us to heaven does it by the way of a man and by the body it serves the soul as by the soul it serves God and therefore it endeavours to secure the body and its interest that it may continue the opportunities of a crown and prolong the stage in which we are to run for the mighty price of our salvation and this is that part of prudence which is the defensative and guards of a Christian in the time of persecution and it hath in it much of duty He that through an indiscreet zeal casts himself into a needlesse danger hath betrayed his life to tyranny and tempts the sin of an enemy he loses to God the service of many yeers and cuts off himself from a fair opportunity of working his salvation in the main parts of which we shall finde a long life and very many yeers of reason to be little enough he betrayes the interest of his relatives which he is bound to preserve he disables himself of making provision for them of his own house and he that fails in this duty by his own fault is worse then
nothing is easier then to follow and to be obedient Sermon XXII Of Christian Prudence Part III. 7. AS it is a part of Christian prudence to take into the conduct of our soules a spiritual man for a guide so it is also of great concernment that we be prudent in the choice of him whom we are to trust in so great an interest Concerning which it will be impossible to give characters and significations particular enough to enable a choice without the interval assistances of prayer experience and the Grace of God He that describes a man can tell you the colour of his hair his stature and proportions and describe some general lines enough to distingush him from a Cyclops or a Saracen but when you chance to see the man you will discover figures or little features of which the description had produced in you no Phantasme or expectation And in the exteriour significations of a sect there are more semblances then in mens faces and greater uncertainty in the signes what is faulty strives so craftily to act the true and proper images of things and the more they are defective in circumstances the more curious they are in forms and they also use such arts of gaining Proselytes which are of most advantage towards an effect and therefore such which the true Christian ought to pursue and the Apostles actually did and they strive to follow their patterns in arts of perswasion not onely because they would seem like them but because they can have none so good so effective to their purposes that it follows that it is not more a duty to take care that we be not corrupted with false teachers then that we be not abused with false signes for we as well finde a good man teaching a false proposition as a good cause managed by ill men and a holy cause is not alwayes dressed with healthful symptomes nor is there a crosse alwayes set upon the doores of those congregations who are infected with the plague of heresy When Saint John was to separate false teachers from true he took no other course but to remark the doctrine which was of God and that should be the mark of cognisance to distinguish right shepheards from robbers and invaders every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God He that denieth it is not of God By this he bids his schollers to avoid the present sects of Ebion Cerinthus Simon Magus and such other persons that denied that Christ was at all before he came or that he came really in the flesh and a proper humanity This is a clear note and they that conversed with Saint John or believed his doctrine were sufficiently instructed in the present Questions But this note will signify nothing to us for all sects of Christians confesse Jesus Christ come in the flesh and the following sects did avoid that rock over which a great Apostle had hung out so plain a lantern In the following ages of the Church men have been so curious to signifie misbelievers that they have invented and observed some signes which indeed in some cases were true real appendages of false believers but yet such which were also or might be common to them with good men and members of the Catholick Church some few I shall remark and give a short account of them that by removing the uncertain we may fix our inquiries and direct them by certain significations lest this art of prudence turn into folly and faction errour and secular designe 1. Some men distinguish errour from truth by calling their adversaries doctrine new and of yesterday and certainly this is a good signe if it be rightly applyed for since all Christian doctrine is that which Christ taught his Church and the spirit enlarged or expounded and the Apostles delivered we are to begin the Christian aera for our faith and parts of religion by the period of their preaching our account begins then and whatsoever is contrary to what they taught is new and false and whatsoever is besides what they taught is no part of our religion and then no man can be prejudiced for believing it or not and if it be adopted into the confessions of the Church the proposition is alwayes so uncertain that it s not to be admitted into the faith and therefore if it be old in respect of our dayes it is not therefore necessary to be believed if it be new it may be received into opinion according to its probabilitie and no sects or interest are to be divided upon such accounts This onely I desire to be observed that when a truth returns from banishment by a postliminium if it was from the first though the Holy fire hath been buried or the river ran under ground yet that we do not call that new since newnesse is not to be accounted of by a proportion to our short lived memories or to the broken records and fragments of story left after the inundation of barbarisme and war and change of Kingdoms and corruption of Authors but by its relation to the fountain of our truths and the birth of our religion under our Fathers in Christ the holy Apostles and Disciples a Camel was a new thing to them that saw it in the fable But yet it was created as soon as a cow or the domestick creatures and some people are apt to call every thing new which they never heard of before as if all religion were to be measured by the standards of their observation or country customs Whatsoever was not taught by Christ or his Apostles though it came in by Papias or Dionysius by Arius or Liberius is certainly new as to our account and whatsoever is taught to us by the Doctors of the present age if it can shew its test from the beginning of our period for revelation is not to be called new though it be pressed with a new zeal and discoursed of by unheard of arguments that is though men be ignorant and need to learn it yet it is not therefore new or unnecessary 2. Some would have false teachers sufficiently signified by a name or the owning of a private Appellative as of Papist Lutheran Calvenists Zuinglian Socinian think it is enough to denominat them not of Christ if they are called by the name of a man And indeed the thing is in it self ill but then if by this mark we shall esteem false teachers sufficiently signified we must follow no man no Church nor no communion for all are by their adversaries marked with an appellative of separation and singularity and yet themselves are tenacious of a good name such as they choose or such as is permitted to them by fame and the people and a natural necessity of making a distinction Thus the Donatist called themselves the flock of God and the Novatians called the Catholicks traditors and the Eustathians called themselves Catholikes and the worshippers of images made Iconoclast to be a name
it takes from him the spirit of government and render him diffident pusillanimous private and ashamed if it happen in the person of a subject it makes him hate the man that shall shame him and punish him it hates the light and the Sun because that opens him and therefore is much more against government because that publishes and punishes too One thing I desire to be observed that though the primitive heresies now named and all those others their successors practised and taught horrid impurities yet they did not invade government at all and therefore those sects that these Apostles did signifie by prophecy and in whom both these are concentred were to appear in some latter times and the dayes of the prophecy were not then to be fulfill'd what they are since every age must judge by its own experience for its own interest But Christian religion is so pure and holy that chastity is sometimes used for the whole religion and to do an action chastly signifies purity of intention abstraction from the world and separation from low and secular ends the virginity of the soul and its union with God and all deviations and estrangements from God and adhesion to forbidden objects is called fornication and adultery Those sects therefore that teach incourage or practise impious or unhallowed mixtures and shameful lusts are issues of the impure spirit and most contrary to God who can behold no unclean thing 10. Those prophets and Pastors that pretend severity and live loosely or are severe in small things and give liberty in greater or forbid some sins with extreme rigour and yet practise or teach those that serve their interest or constitute their sect are to be suspected and avoided accordingly Nihil est hominum ineptâ persuasione falsius nec fictâ severitate ineptius All ages of the Church were extremely curious to observe when any new teachers did arise what kinde of lives they lived and if they pretended severely and to a strict life then they knew their danger doubled for it is certain all that teach doctrines contrary to the established religion delivered by the Apostles all they are evil men God will not suffer a good man to be seduced damnably much lesse can he be a seducer of others and therefore you shall still observe the false Apostles to be furious and vehement in their reproofs and severe in their animadversions of others but then if you watch their private or stay till their numbers are full or observe their spiritual habits you shall finde them indulgent to themselves or to return from their disguises or so spiritually wicked that their pride or their revenge their envie or their detraction their scorn or their complacency in themselves their desire of preheminence and their impatience of arrival shall place them far enough in distance from a poor carnal sinner whom they shall load with censures and an upbraiding scorn but themselves are like Devils the spirits of darknesse the spiritual wickednesses in high places Some sects of men are very angry against servants for recreating and easing their labours with a lesse prudent and an unsevere refreshment but the patron of their sect shall oppresse a wicked man and an unbelieving person they shall chastise a drunkard and entertain murmurrers they shall not abide an oath and yet shal force men to break three or four This sect is to be avoided because although it is good to be severe against carnal or bodily sins yet it is not good to mingle with them who chastise a bodily sin to make way for a spiritual or reprove a servant that his Lord may sin alone or punish a stranger and a begger that will not approve their sins but will have sins of his own Concering such persons Saint Paul hath told us that they shall not proceed far but their folly shall be manifest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Lysias Cito ad naturam ficta reciderunt sua They that dissemble their sin and their manners or make severity to serve loosnesse and an imaginary vertue to minister to a real vice they that abhor Idols and would commit sacrilege chastise a drunkard and promote sedition declaime against the vanity of great persons and then spoil them of their goods reform manners and engrosse estates talk godly and do impiously these are teachers which the Holy spirit of God hath by three Apostles bid us to beware of and decline as we would run from the hollownesse of a grave or the despaires and sorrows of the damned 11. The substance of al is this that we must not chose our doctrine by our guide but our guide by the doctrine if we doubt concerning the doctrine we may judge of that by the lives and designes of the Teachers By their fruits you shall know them and by the plain words of the scripture by the Apostles Creed and by the commandments and by the certain known and established forms of government These are the great indices and so plain apt and easy that he that is deceived is so because he will be so he is betrayed into it by his own lust and a voluntary chosen folly 12 Besides these premises there are other little candles that can help to make the judgement clearer but they are such as do not signifie alone but in conjunction with some of the precedent characters which are drawn by the great lines of scripture Such as are 1. when the teachers of sects stir up unprofitable and uselesse Questions 2. when they causelesly retire from the universal customs of Christendom 3. And cancel all the memorials of the greatest mysteries of our redemption 4. When their confessions and Catechismes and their whole religion consist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in speculations and ineffective notions in discourses of Angels and spirits in abstractions and raptures in things they understand not and of which they have no revelation 5. Or else if their religion spends it self in ceremonies outward guises and material solemnities and imperfect formes drawing the heart of the vine forth into leaves and irregular fruitless suckers turning the substance into circumstances and the love of God into gestures and the effect of the spirit into the impertinent offices of a burdensom ceremonial For by these two particulars the Apostles reproved the Jews and the Gnostics or those that from the school of Pythagoras pretended conversation with Angels and great knowledge of the secrets of the spirit chosing tutelar Angels and assigning them offices and charges as in the Church of Rome to this day they do to Saints to these adde 6. that we observe whether the guides of souls avoid to suffer for their religion for then the matter is foul or the man not fit to lead that dares not die in cold blood for his religion will the man lay his life and his soul upon the proposition If so then you may consider him upon his proper grounds but if he refuses that refuse his conduct