bestir your selves like Christians I shall never envy your learning the Pharisees were great scholars well seen in the Prophets and 't is much to be suspected could not choose but find Christ there and acknowledge him by his Miracles they saw him plain enough and yet not a man would believe on him My second part The greatest scholars are not always the best Christians 'T is observable in the temper of men that the cowardly are most inquisitive their fears and jealousies make them very careful to foresee any danger and yet for the most part they have not spirit enough to encounter and they are so stupid and sluggish that they will not get out of its way when they have foreseen it the same baseness and timerousness makes them a sort of men most diligent to at a distance avoid and near hand most negligent to prevent Thus in iiii Dan. 5. Nebuchadnezzar dreams and is affrighted and a proclamation is made for all the Wisdom of the World to come in and consult and sit upon it and give their verdict for the interpretation of the dream and when he had at last got the knowledge of it by Daniel that his fears were not in vain that the greatest judgement that ever was heard of was within a twelve moneth to fall on him then as though he had been a beast before his time without all understanding he goes and crowns himself for his slaughter Just when according to the Prophecy he was to suffer then was he walking in his pride whilest he was ignorant he was sensible of his danger and now he sees it before his eyes he is most prodigiously blind At the end of twelve moneths when his ruine was at hand ver 29. he walked in the Palace of the Kingdom of Babylon and the King spake and said Is not this great Babylon that I have built c. In brief he that was most earnest to understand the dream is most negligent of the event of it and makes no other use of his knowledge of God's Will but only more knowingly and wilfully to contemn it And this generally is the state of corrupt nature to keep a distance and a bay betwixt our knowlege and our wills and when a truth hath fully conquer'd and got possession of our understanding then to begin to fortifie most strongly that the other castle of the soul the affections may yet remain impregnable Thus will the Devil be content to have the outworks and the watch-tower taken so he may be sure to keep his treasure within from danger and will give us leave to be as great scholars as himself so we will continue as prophane And so we are like enough to do for all our knowledge for wisdom saith Aristotle is terminated in it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it neither looks after nor produces any practical good saith Andronicus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nay there is no dependence betwixt knowing and doing as he that hath read and studied the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may perhaps be never the better wrastler nor the skilfullest Physician the more healthy experience and tryal must perfect the one and a good temperature constitute the other A young man may be a good Naturalist a good Geometer nay a wise man because he may understand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wonders depths nay Divine matters but hee 'l never be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prudent or actually vertuous i. e. a good Moralist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 moral precepts they cannot be said to believe they have not entred so far they float only in their memories they have them by heart they say them over by rote as children do their Catechism or Plato's scholars saith Plutarch his depths of Philosophy they now recite them only and shall then understand them when they come of age when they are stayed enough to look into the meaning of them and make use of them in their practice The Mathematicks saith Aristotle have nothing to do with the end or chief good that men look after never any man brought good or bad better or worse into a demonstration there 's no consultation or election there only plain downright diagrams necessary convictions of the understanding And therefore for these meer speculations which hover only in the brain the youngest wit is nimblest for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sharpness of apprehension is a sprightfulness of the mind and is there liveliest where there be most spirits but prudence and active vertue requires an habituate temper of passions a stayedness of the mind and long tryal and experience of its own strength a constancy to continue in vertue in spight of all forreign allurements or inward distempers And the ground of all this is that those things that most incumber the Will and keep us from practice do nothing clog or stop the understanding sensuality or pleasure hinders us not from knowing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that a Triangle hath three angles equal to two right ones and the like Nay the most insolent tyrannizing passions which domineer over us which keep us in awe and never suffer us to stir or move or walk or do any thing that is good will yet give us leave to understand as much as we would wish they have only fettered our hands and feet have not blinded our eyes as one shut up in the Tower from the conversation of men may be yet the greatest proficient in speculation The affections being more gross and corporeous from thence called the heels of the soul and so easily chained and fettered but the understanding most pure and spiritual and therefore uncapable of shackles nay is many times most free and active when the will is most dead and sluggish And this may be the natural reason that even Aristotle may teach us why the greatest scholars are not alwayes the best Christians the Pharisees well read in the Prophets yet backwardest to believe because faith which constitutes a Christian is a spiritual prudence as 't is best defined and therefore is not appropriate to the understanding but if they be several faculties is rather seated in the Will the objects of Faith being not meerly speculative but always apprehended and assented to sub ratione boni as being the most unvaluable blessings which ever we desired of the Lord or can require The speculative part of divine wisdom may make us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intelligent spirits nay possibly do it in the worst notion render us devils Real practical knowledge only prudence will make Angels ministring spirits unto God teach us to live and be better then we did So then in the first place learning doth neither make nor suppose men Christians Nay 2 ly it doth per accidens many times hinder put a rub in our way and keep us from being Christians Philoponus and Synesius Miracles of learning were therefore hardest to be converted they were so possest and engaged in Peripatetical Philosophy that however
dead in trespasses and sins the making of a carcass walk the natural old man to spring again and move spiritually is as great a miracle as that Now the soul in that it produces life and motion the exercise of life in the body is called a principle that is a spring or fountain of life because all comes from it in like manner that which moves this soul and enables it to do that which naturally it could not that which gives it a new life which before it lived not furnisheth it with spiritual powers to quell and subdue all carnal affections which were before too hard for it this I say is called properly an inward principle and an inward because it is inwardly and secretly infused doth not only outwardly assist us as an auxiliary at a dead lift but is sown and planted in our hearts as a soul to the soul to elevate and enable it above it self hath its seat and palace in the regenerate heart and there exercises dominion executes judgment and that is commonly either by prison or banishment it either fetters or else expels all insolent rebellious lusts Now the new principle by which not the man but the new man the Christian lives is in a word the spirit of God which unites it self to the regenerate heart so that now he is said to be a godly man a spiritual man from the God from the spirit as before a living reasonable man from the soul from the reason that inform'd and ruled in him which is noted by that distinction in Scripture betwixt the regenerate and unregenerate exprest by a natural or animal and a spiritual man Those creatures that have no soul in them are called naturals having nothing but nature within to move them others which have a soul animals or living creatures by both which the unregenerate is signified indifferently because the soul which he hath stands him in little stead his flesh rules all and then he is also called a carnal man for all his soul he is but a lump of flesh and therefore whether you say he hath a soul and so call him an animal or hath not a soul and so call him a meer natural there is no great difference in it But now the regenerate man which hath more then a soul Gods spirit to enliven him he is of another rank 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual man nay only he properly a Christian because he lives by Christ He lives yet not he but Christ liveth in him Gal. ii 20. This being premised that now you know what this new creature is he that lives and moves by a new principle all that is behind will be clearliest presented to you by resolving these four questions 1. whence it comes 2. where it lodges 3. when it enters 4. what works it performs there To the first whence it comes the answer is clear and punctual John iii. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from above from whence comes every good and especially every perfect gift James i. 17. but this most peculiarly by a several and more excellent way then any thing else Since Christs ascension the Holy Ghost of all the persons in the Trinity is most frequently employed in the work of descending from Heaven and that by way of mission from the Father and the Son according to the promise of Christ John xv 26. The comforter whom I will send from the Father Now this spirit being present every where in its essence is said to come to us by communication of his gifts and so to be peculiarly resident in us as God is in the Church from which Analogy our bodies are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in us 1 Cor. vi 19. God sends then his Spirit into our hearts and this I said by a peculiar manner not by way of emission as an arrow sent out of a bow which loses its union which it had with the bow and is now fastned in the But or white nor properly by way of infusion as the soul is in the body infus'd from God yet so also that it is in a manner put into our hands and is so in the man's possession that hath it that it is neither in any mans else nor yet by any extraordinary tye annext to God from whom it came but by way of irradiation as a beam sent from the Sun that is in the air indeed and that substantially yet so as it is not separated from the Sun nay consists only in this that it is united to the Sun so that if it were possible for it to be cut off from the Sun it would desist to be it would illuminate no longer So that you must conceive these beams of Gods Spirit at the same time in the Christians heart and in the spirit and so uniting that Spirit to the heart as you may conceive by this proportion I have a javelin or spear in my hand if I would mischief any thing or drive it from me I dart it out of my hand at it from which Gods judgments are compared to shooting and lightning He hath bent his bow he hath sent forth his arrows he cast forth lightnings Psal xviii 14. But if I like any thing that I meet with if I would have it to me I reach out my spear and fasten in it but still hold the spear in my hand and having pierct it draw it to me Thus doth God reach forth his graces to us and as I may so say by keeping one end in his hand and fastning the other in us plucks and unites us to himself from which regeneration is ordinarily called an union with Christ and this union by a strong able band 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Euseb his phrase which no man can cut asunder 'T is impossible to divide or cut a spirit and this bond is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual one and that made St. Paul so confident That no creature should ever separate him Rom. viii 39. And this God does by way of emanation as a loadstone sending out its effluvia or magnetick atomes draws the iron to it self which never stays till it be united Thus do you see from whence this principle comes to me and in what manner from Gods Spirit by this means uniting me to himself To the second question where it lodges my answer is in the heart of man in the whole soul not in the understanding not in the will a distinction of faculties invented by Philosophers to puzzle and perplex Divines and put them to needless shifts but I say in the whole soul ruling and guiding it in all its actions enabling it to understand and will spiritually conceived I say and born in the soul but nursed and fed and encreased into a perfect stature by the outward Organs and actions of the body for by them it begins to express and shew it self in the world by them the habit is exerted and made perfect the seed shot
lookt it over in the gross 't is time to survey it more particularly in its parts and those are two 1. The sin of Atheism and the subjects in which it shews it self There shall come in the last dayes scoffers 2. The motive and impellent to this sin a liberty which men give themselves to walk after their own lusts And first of Atheism and the subjects in whom it shews its self In the c. Where you may note that the words being in a form of a prophecy do note a sort of people which were to come in respect of St. Peter who writes it And though in its first aspect it refer to the period of the Jewish Nation and destruction of Jerusalem takes in the parallel state of things under the last age and dotage and declination of the world Accordingly we see at the 24. of St. Matthew the prophecy of both as it were interwoven and twisted into each other so that what St. Peter saith shall be we may justly suspect is fulfilled amongst us his future being now turned into a present his prophecy into a story In the Apostles times when Christianity was in the cradle and wanted years and strength to move and shew it self in the world there were but very few that would acknowledge it many sects of Philosophers who peremptorily resolved themselves against this profession joyn'd issue with the Apostles in assiduous disputation as we may find in the 17. of the Acts. Amongst those the Epicureans did plainly deny that there was any God that governed the world and laught at any proof that Moses and the Prophets could afford for their conviction And here a man might think that his prophecy was fulfilled in his own dayes and that he needed not to look beyond that present age for store of scoffers Yet so it is that the infidelity which he foresaw should in those last ages reign confidently in the world was represented to him in a larger size and uglier shape then that of the present Philosophers The Epicurean unbelief seem'd nothing to him being compared to this Christian Atheism where men under the vizard of religion and profession of piety are in heart arrant Heathens and in their fairest carriages do indeed but scoff and delude and abuse the very God they worship Whence the note is that the profession of Christianity is mixed with an infinite deal of Atheism and that in some degree above the Heathenism of the perversest Philosophers There were in St. Peters time Epicureans and all sects of scoffers at Christianity and yet the scoffers indeed the highest degree of Atheism was but yet a heaving it would not rise and shew it self till the last daie 'T is worth observing what variety of stratagems the Devil hath alwaies had to keep us in defiance with God and to nourish in us that hostility and enmity against Heaven which is so deep and predominant in himself He first set them a work to rebel and fortifie themselves against God and make themselves by building of a Tower so impregnable that God himself could not be able to disperse them Gen. xi 4. Afterwards when by the punishment and defeating of that design the world was sufficiently instructed that no arm of flesh no bodily strength could make resistance against Heaven when the body could hold out in rebellion no longer he then instructs the inward man the soul to make its approaches and challenge Heaven Now the soul of man consisting of two faculties the Understanding and the Will he first deals with the Understanding and sets that up against God in many monstrous fashions first in deluding it to all manner of Idolatrous worship in making it adore the Sun the Moon and the whole Host of Heaven which was a more generous kind of Idolatry Afterwards in making them worship Dogs and Cats Onions and Garlick for so did the Egyptians and this was a more sottish stupid affection a man would wonder how the Devil could make them such fools Afterward he wrought still upon their understanding in making them under pretence of two laudable qualities admiration and gratitude admiration of any kind of vertue and gratitude for any good turn to deifie and worship as gods any men which had ever done either their Nation or private persons any important good or favour So that every Heros or noble famous man as soon as he was dead was worshipt 'T were long to shew you the variety of shifts in this kind which the Devil used to bring in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gentiles i. e. their worshipping of many Gods In brief this plot lasted thus till Christianity came into the world and turn'd it out of doors and at Christs Resurrection all the gods of the Heathen expired However the Devil still stuck close to that faculty of the soul which he had been so long acquainted with I mean the understanding and seeing through the whole world almost the Doctrine of Christ had so possest men that he could not hope to bring in his Heathen gods again he therefore hath one design more on the understanding seeing 't is resolved to believe Christ in spight of heathenism he then puzzles it with many doubts about this very Christ it is so possest with He raises up in the first ages of the Church variety of Heresies concerning the union of his natures equality of his person with the Father and the like and rung as many changes in mens opinions as the matter of faith was capable of There was no truth almost in Christianity but had its Heretick to contradict and damn it Now since at last reason and truth and the power of Scripture having out-lived in a good degree fundamental error in opinion hath almost expuls'd the Devil out of the head or upper part of the soul the Understanding his last plot is on the heel i. e. the Will and Affections and that he hath bruised terribly according to that prophecy Gen. iii. 15. He deals mainly on our manners and strives to make them if it be possible sinful beyond capability of mercy And this design hath thrived with him wonderfully he hath wrought more opposition against God more heresie against Christ in our lives then ever he was able to do in our doctrine In a Kingdom where the custom of the Country and education hath planted purity of faith in the understanding he there labours to supplant and eradicate charity and devotion in the will and crucifies Christ more confidently in our corrupt heathenish practises then ever the Jews did in their incredulity And on this plot he hath stuck close and insisted a long while it being the last and most dangerous stratagem that the policy of Hell can furnish him with to corrupt and curse and make abominable a sincere belief by an Atheistical conversation And this doth prove in general that 't is the Devils aim and from thence probably the Christians curse to have more hostility against God in
is so rich in heads each to be cut off by the work of a several repentance Now in the last place as this sin of all mankind in Adam is considered in its effects so it becomes to us a body of sin and death a natural disorder of the whole man an hostility and enmity of the flesh against the spirit and the parent of all sin in us as may appear Rom. vii and Jam. i. 14. Which that you may have a more compleat understanding of consider it as it is ordinarily set down consisting of three parts 1. A natural defect 2. A moral affection 3. A legal guilt 1. A guiltiness of the breach of the law for these three whatsoever you may think of them are all parts of that sin of our nature which is in and is to be imputed to us called ordinarily original sin in us to distinguish it from that first act committed by Adam of which this is an effect And first that natural defect is a total loss and privation of that primitive justice holiness and obedience which God had furnisht the creature withal a disorder of all the powers of the soul a darkness of the understanding a perversness of the will a debility weakness and decay of all the senses and in sum a poverty and destruction and almost a nothingness of all the powers of soul and body And how ought we to lament this loss with all the veins of our heart to labour for some new strain of expressing our sorrow and in fine to petition that rich grace which may build up all these ruines to pray to God that his Christ may purchase and bestow on us new abilities that the second Adam may furnish us with more durable powers and lasting graces then we had but forfeited in the first The following part of this sin of our nature viz. A moral evil affection is word for word mentioned Rom. vii 5. For there the Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordinarily translated motions of sins and in the margin the passions of sins are more significantly to be rendred affections of sins i. e. by an usual figure sinful affections That you may the better observe the encumbrances of this branch of this sin which doth so overshadow the whole man and so sence him from the beams and light of the spiritual invisible Sun I am to tell you that the very Heathen that lived without the knowledge of God had no conversation with and so no instruction from the Bible in this matter that these very Heathens I say had a sense of this part of original sin to wit of these evil moral lusts and affections which they felt in themselves though they knew not whence they sprang Hence is it that a Greek Philosopher out of the ancients makes a large discourse of the unsatiable desire and lust which is in every man and renders his life grievous unto him where he useth the very same word though with a significant Epithet added to it that St. James doth c. i. ver 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infinite lust with which as St. James saith a man is drawn away and enticed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so saith he that part of the mind in which these lusts dwell is perswaded and drawn or rather falls backward and forward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which lust or evil concupiscence he at last defines to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unsattable intemperance of the appetite never filled with a desire never ceasing in the prosecution of evil and again he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our birth and nativity derived to us by our parents i. e. an evil affection hereditary to us and delivered to us as a legacy at our birth or nativity all which seems a clear expression of that original lust whose motions they felt and guest at its nature Hence is it that it was a custom among all of them I mean the common Heathen to use many ways of purgations especially on their children who at the imposition of their names were to be lustrated and purified with a great deal of superstition and ceremony such like as they used to drive away a plague or a cure for an house or City As if nature by instinct had taught them so much Religion as to acknowledge and desire to cure in every one this hereditary disease of the soul this plague of mans heart as 't is called 1 Kings viii 38. And in sum the whole learning of the Wisest of them such were the Moralists was directed to the governing and keeping in order of these evil affections which they called the unruly Citizens and common people of the soul whose intemperance and disorders they plainly observed within themselves and laboured hard to purge out or subdue to the government of reason and vertue which two we more fully enjoy and more Christianly call the power of grace redeeming our souls from this body of sin Thus have I briefly shewed you the sense that the very Heathen had of this second branch of original sin which needs therefore no farther aggravation to you but this that they who had neither Spirit nor Scripture to instruct them did naturally so feelingly observe and curse it that by reason of it they esteemed their whole life but a living death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their body but the Sepulchre of the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both which together are but a Periphrasis of that which St. Paul calls in brief the body of death And shall we who have obtained plenty of light and instruction besides that which nature bestowed on us with them shall we I say let our eyes be confounded with abundance of day shall we see it more clearly to take less notice of it Shall we feel the stings of sin within us which though they do but prick the regenerate prove mortal to the rest of us and shall we not observe them Shall we not rather weep those fountains dry and crop this luxury of our affections with a severe sharp sorrow and humiliation Shall we not starve this rank fruitful mother of Vipers by denying it all nourishment from without all advantages of temptations and the like which it is wont to make use of to beget in us all manner of sin let us aggravate every circumstance and inconvenience of it to ourselves and then endeavour to banish it out of us and when we find we are not able importune that strong assistant the Holy Spirit to curb and subdue it that in the necessity of residing it yet may not reign in our mortal bodies to tame and abate the power of this necessary Amorite and free us from the activity and mischief and temptations of it here and from the punishment and imputation of it hereafter And so I come to the third part or branch of this original sin to wit its legal guilt and this we do contract by such an early
the quality of their spirit And what may that signifie to us Why fire you know is the embleme of a Civil War which is called a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a combustion or being farther broken out into flames a conflagration and I conceive should be so rendred in that place of S. Peter where we read the Fiery Tryal Now fire you know belongs most naturally to Hell and therefore when the fire and brimstone came down upon Sodom the phansie of the Fathers calls it Gehennam de Coelo And so generally the Civil Fire the Combustion in a State its original is from thence too part of that wisdom that is not from above These Tares so apt for burning are sowed by Satan the Enemy-man From whence come Wars and strivings among you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wars of all sizes are they not from your lusts that war in your flesh saith S. James The lusts from the Flesh but the War from Hell the Devil the Spiritus sufflans that sets them a warring Believe it they would not be able to do it in this manner prove such fiery boutefeus if they were not inflamed from beneath if they were not set on fire by Hell And therefore to call fire from Heaven to entitle God or Heaven to that fire is to do both of them great injury nay though it be on Samaritans that are not so friendly to Christ as might be expected And so to call fire from Heaven upon Samaritans is by accommodation at least to pretend God or Heaven or Religion for the cause of War which of all things hath least to do it if the Gospel-spirit may have leave to be considered Indeed very few kinds of War there are that will be justified by Gospel-principles It was truly said though by a rough Soldier That if the Lord of Hosts were permitted to sit in the Council of War there would soon be a cessation of Arms and disbanding of Armies Though that all War is not unlawful will appear by John Baptists address to the Soldiers who gave rules to regulate their Militia but did not disband them and the example of the Convert Centurion a Centurion still after his Conversion Where yet this still remains as an infallible resolution that Wars are to be used like the Regia Medicamenta never but when the Physician sees there is no other means available never upon the wantonness of the Patient but command of the Physician and never but when peace appears to be impossible for if it be possible the precept is of force Follow peace with all men And then to shed the blood of Christians when blood may be spared what an hideous thing it is you may guess by that Emperor that having beheaded a Christian was by the sight of a fishes head that came to his Table so astonished phancying that it was the head of that slaughtered Christian gaping on him that he scarce recovered to his wits or of that poor penitent David in his pathetick expression Deliver me from blood-guiltiness O Lord A wonderful deliverance it seems to get clear from that And what an Ocean of fishes heads may appear one day gaping on some Men I have no joy to tell Deliver us from blood-guiltiness O God I have done with my third particular also and have now no more to importune you with but my requests to you and to Heaven for you that the time past of all our lives be sufficient to have spent in the will of the Gentiles after the dictates of that Heathen spirit the natural or Jewish principles That you be content at length to go up to the Mount with Christ and be auditors of his Sermon to that other Mount with the same Christ and be transfigured after him to that spirit of humility spirit of meekness spirit of all kind of mercifulness that peaceable patient spirit which will give you a comfortable passage through this valley of Achor here yea though it prove a Red Sea of Blood and will fit you for a Crown that true Olympick Olive Crown the peaceable fruits of righteousness an eternal weight of glory hereafter Which God of his infinite mercy grant through the merit and promise of his Son To whom with the Father c. The VI. Sermon EZEK xviii 31. For why will ye die SInce the Devil was turned out of Heaven all his care and counsels have been employed to keep us from coming thither and finding Gods love very forward and encreasing towards us he hath set us upon all ways of enmity and opposition against him The first warlike exploit he put us upon was the building of Babel when man having fortified himself and the arm of flesh grown stout began to reproach and challenge and even assault the God of Heaven But the success of that boldness cost so dear that we have ever since been discouraged from such open proud attempts Our malice and despight hath kept in somewhat more close and secretly hath retired and setled in the Soul the inward man hath ever since erected its Babel proud and high imaginations out-bidding Heaven and God These were a long while forged in the Brain when instead of the acknowledgment of one true God all Monsters of Atheism filled the understanding sometimes with a multitude and shole of gods sometimes deprived it quite and left it utterly void of any But now at last the Devil and all the Atheism in the World being at last exorcised and banished out of the Brain by the evidence and power of truth hath like the Legion Luk. viii which being cast out of the man had leave to enter the Swine fixt violently and taken possession and intrenched it self in the brutish bestial part the Affections All the swellings and tumors and ulcers that ever shewed themselves in any portion of the circumference are now retired into the center All the Atheism or Heresie that ever soared or floated in the Brain or surface of the Soul is now sunk into the heart and there the Devil is seated at ease there to set up and fortifie and contemn God for ever So that in brief the issue of all is this There is an infinite opposition and thwarting a profest combate and bandying of forces betwixt the will of Man and the Will of God God doing in a kind his best on one side Man on the other God wonderfully willing and desirous that we should live man most perversly wilful to his own destruction This is a truth of a most dismal importance that concerns you to be instructed in and will not be more powerfully enforced on you from any place of Scripture than the Text which I have read to you Why will ye die It is God speaks it and with an infinite emphasis and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to note his passion and affectionateness in desiring our good and willing that we should live And then secondly Why will ye die Mans resoluteness and stubborn wretchlesness towards his own ruine rushing or
bestowed on Gods part Faith required on ours Christ the matter Faith the condition of the Covenant Now to bring or present this Faith before you as an object for your understandings to gaze at or to go farther to dissect and with the diligence of Anatomy instruct in every limb or joynt or excellency of it were but to recal you to your Catechism and to take pains to inform you in that which you are presum'd to know The greater danger of us is that we are behind in our practice that we know what faith is but do not labour for it and therefore the seasonablest work will be on our affections to produce if it were possible this precious vertue in our souls and to sink and press down that floating knowledge which is in most of our brains into a solid weighty effectual Faith that it may begin to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a work of faith which was formerly but a phansie dream and apparition To this purpose to work on your wills no Rhetorick so likely as that which is most sharp and terrible no such Physick for dead affections as Corrosives the consideration of the dismal hideous desperate estate of infidels here in my Text and that both in respect of the guilt of the sin and degree of the punishment proportioned to it and that above all other sinners in the World It shall be more c. Where you may briefly observe 1. the sin of infidelity set down by its subject that City which would not receive Christ being preach't unto it v. 14. 2 the greatness of this sin exprest by the punishment attending it and that either positively it shall go very sore with it and therefore it is to be esteemed a very great sin implyed in the whole Text or else comparatively being weighed with Sodom and Gomorrah in judgment it shall be more tolerable for them then it and therefore 't is not only a great sin but the greatest the most damning sin in the world And of these in order plainly and to your hearts rather then your brains presuming that you are now come with solemn serious thoughts to be edified not instructed much less pleased or humor'd And first of the first The sin of infidelity noted in the last words that City To pass by those which we cannot choose but meet with 1. a multitude of ignorant Infidels Pagans and Heathens 2. of knowing but not acknowledging Infidels as Turks and Jews We shall meet with another order of as great a latitude which will more nearly concern us a world of believing Infidels which know and acknowledge Christ the Gospel and the promises are as fairly mounted in the understanding part as you would wish but yet refuse and deny him in their hearts apply not a Command to themselves submit not to him nor desire to make themselves capable of those mercies which they see offered by Christ in the World and these are distinctly set down in the verse next before my Text Whosoever shall not receive you i. e. entertain the acceptable truth of Christ and the Gospel preached by you as 't is interpreted by the 40. verse He that receiveth you receiveth me i. e. believes on me as the word is most plainly used Mat. xi 14. If you will receive it i. e. if you will believe it this is Elias which was for to come And Joh. i. 12. To as many as received him even to them that believe in his name For you are to know that Faith truly justifying is nothing in the World but the receiving of Christ Christ and his sufferings and full satisfaction was once on the Cross render'd and is ever since by the Gospel and its Ministers offered to the world and nothing required of us but an hand and an heart to apprehend and receive and to as many as received him he gives power to become the sons of God Joh. i. 12. So that Faith and infidelity are not acts properly determined to the understanding but indeed to the whole soul and most distinctly to the Will whose part it is to receive or repel to entertain or resist Christ and his promises the Author and finisher of our salvation Now this receiving of Christ is the taking or accepting of the righteousness of Christ and so making it our own as Rom. i. 17. being rightly weighed will enforce Read and mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in it or by it the Gospel mention'd in the former verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the righteousness of God by Faith as Rom. iii. 22. i. e. the not legal but Evangelical righteousness which only God accepts directly set down Phil. iii. 9. That righteousness which is through Faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is revealed to Faith is declared that we might believe that finding no life or righteousness in our selves we may go out of our selves and lay hold on that which is offered us by Christ and this you will find to be the clearest meaning of these words though somewhat obscured in our English reading of them Now the accepting of this righteousness is an act of ours following a proposal or offer of Christ's and consummating the match or bargain between Christ and us Christ is offered to us as an Husband in the Gospel we enquire of him observe our own needs and his Excellencies and riches to supply them our sins and his righteousness and if upon advice we will take him the match is struck we are our beloved's and our beloved is ours we are man and wife we have taken him for our husband and with him are entituled to all his riches we have right to all his righteousness and enjoy by his Patent all the priviledges all the promises all the mercies of the Gospel But if the offer being thus made by God to give us his Son freely we stand upon terms we are too rich too learned too worldly minded too much in love with the praise of men Joh. xii 43. i. e. fixt upon any worldly vanity and resolve never to forego all these to disclaim our worldly liberty our own righteousness and to accept of so poor an offer as a Christ then are we the Infidels here spoken of We will not come to him that we might have life Joh. v. 40. When he is held out to us we will not lay hold on him we have some conceit of our selves and therefore will not step a foot abroad to fetch his righteousness home to us And indeed if any worldly thing please you if you can set a value upon any thing else if you can entertain a paramour a rival a Competitour in your hearts if you can receive the praise of men how can you believe Joh. v. 44. So that in brief Infidelity consists in the not receiving of Christ with a reciprocal giving up of our selves to him in the not answering affirmatively to Christs
disposition motions of Gods Spirit or gripes of Conscience can make against it goading and spurring on any of his faculties as being too dull unactive and slothful in the ways of death even forcing them if they be any time foreslowed and trashed by either outward or inward restraints to sin even in sight of them and hastening them to a kind of unvoluntary disobedience Thus will a stone when 't is kept violently from the ground being held in a mans hand or the like press and weigh towards the Earth incessantly as if it were naturally resolved to be revenged on any one to tire him out that thus detained it from its place nay when it is let down you may see it yet press lower make its print in the Earth as if it would never be satisfied till it could rest in Hell The sinner is never at quiet with himself Instat imperat He is urgent and importunate upon himself to satisfie every craving lust Not the beggarliest affection or laziest unworthiest desire of the flesh but shall have its alms and dole rather than starve though it be an atome of his very soul to the utter undoing and bankrupting of him that gives it And for his tyranny over his estate whether Temporal or Spiritual his goods of Fortune or gifts of Grace they must all do homage to this carnal Idol All his treasures on Earth are richly sold if they can but yield him the fruition of one beloved sin And for Spiritual Illuminations or any Seeds of Grace he will lose them all and even shut himself for ever into the darkness of Hell rather than ever be directed by their light out of those pleasing paths of death A restraining grace was but a burthensome needless encumbrance and a gleam of the Spirit but a means to set Conscience a working to actuate her malice and execution on sin and it were an happy exchange to get but one loving delight or companion for them both Let but a sin be coy and stanch not to be gain'd at the first woing and all these together like Jacob's present out of all his goods shall be all little enough for a sacrifice or bribe to sollicite or hire it And this the Prophet notes here distinctly Vers 33. and 34. Thou art contrary to all the Whores in the World In other places Men give gifts to all Whores but thou givest gifts to all thy lovers None follow or bribe thee to commit whoredoms Thou givest a reward and no reward is given to thee therefore thou art contrary The sinner in my Text scorns to set so low a value on sin as that profit or advantage should ingratiate it to him it is so amiable in his eyes of it self he will prize it so high that any other treasure shall not be considerable in respect of it It is part of his loyalty and expression of his special service to the Devil to become a bankrupt in his cause to sell all that he hath both God and fortunes to follow him It is the art and cunning of common Whores to raise mens desires of them by being coy Difficultate augere libidinis pretium to hold off that they may be followed Vers 34. But this sin is not at so artificial her affections are boysterous and impatient of delay she is not at so much leisure as to windlace or use craft to satisfie them she goes downright a woing and if there be any difficulty in compassing all that she hath is ready for a dowry and prostitute before her idol Lust Lastly Imperious over all that come near him either men or sins Everyman must serve him either as his pander or companion to further or associate him I told you he sinned in Cathedrâ Psal I. 1. that is also doctorally and magisterially every spectator must learn of him it is his profession he sets up school for it his practises are so commandingly exemplary that they do even force and ravish the most maidenly tender conscience And then for all inferiors they are required to provide him means and opportunities of sinning to find him out some game and no such injury can be done as to rouze or spring a sin that would otherwise have lodged in his walk It was part of the Heathenish Romans quarrel against the Primitive Christians saith Tertullian that they drove away their Devils These Exorcist-Christians had banished all their old familiars out of the Kingdom which they were impatient to be deprived of And thus careful and chary are men of their helps of opportunities to sin it is all the joy they have in the world sometimes to have a temptation and to be able to make use of it to have the Devil continue strong with them in an old Courtier 's phrase It is their very life and he that deprives them of it is a murtherer And for the sins themselves Lord how they tyrannize over them how they will rack and torture and stretch every limb of a sin that they may multiply it into infinites and sin as often at once as is possible Adam in the bare eating of an Apple committed a multitude of sins Leo in his 86 Epist August de Civit. Dei and other of the Fathers will number them out to you And thus far this tyrant over Impiety and Lust will be a Pelagian as to order all his deviation by imitation of Adam's Every breach of one single Law shall contain a brood or nest into which it may be subdivided and every circumstance in the Action shall furnish him with fresh matter for variety of sin Again How imperious is he in triumphing over a sin which he hath once atchieved If he have once got the better of good nature and Religion broke in upon a stubborn sullen vice that was formerly too hard for him how often doth he reiterate and repeat that he may perfect his conquest that it may lie prostrate and tame before him never daring to resist him And if there be any Virgin modest sins which are ashamed of the light either of the Sun or Nature not coming abroad but under a veil as some sins being too horrid and abominable are fain to appear in other shapes and so keep us company under the name of amiable or innocent qualities then will this violent imperious sinner call them out into the Court or Market place tear away the veil that he may commit them openly and as if the Devil were too modest for him bring him upon the stage against his will and even take Hell by violence and force Thus are men come at last to a glorying in the highest impieties and expect some renown credit as a reward for the pains they take about it and then certainly honour is grown very cheap when it is bestowed upon sins and the man very tyrannical over his spectators thoughts that requires to be worshipped for them This was a piece of the Devils old tyranny in the times of Heathenism which I
unworthy of any more It was a shrewd though Atheistical speech of Hippocrates That sure if the Gods had any good things to bestow they would dispense them among the rich who would be able and ready to requite them by Sacrifices But all evil presents all Pandora's Box should be divided among the poor because they are still murmuring and repining and never think of making any return for favours The Eye of Nature it seems could discern thus much of God and his gifts that they are the most plentifully bestowed where the greatest return may be expected And for others from whom all the liberality in the world can extort no retribution but grumbling and complaints it is not charity or alms but prodigality and riot to bestow on them These are to be fed not with bread but stripes they are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather beggars than poor like Pharaohs lean Kine after the devouring of the fat ones still lank and very ill-favoured And the judgment of these you shall find in the Gospel From them shall be taken away even that which they have And therefore all which from God at this time and for ever I shall require and beg of you is the exercise and the improvement of your talent that your learning may not be for ostentation but for traffick not to possess but negotiate withal not to complain any longer of the poverty of your stock but presently to set to work to husband it That knowledge of God which he hath allowed you as your portion to set up with is ample enough to be the Foundation of the greatest estate in the World and you need not despair through an active labouring thriving course at last to set Heaven as a Roof on that Foundation Only it will cost you some pains to get the materials together for the building of the Walls it is as yet but a Foundation and the Roof will not become it till the walls be raised And therefore every faculty of your Souls and Bodies must turn Bezaleels and Aholiabs Spiritual Artificers for the forwarding and perfecting of this work It is not enough to have gotten an abstracted Mathematical Scheme or Diagram of this Spiritual Building in our Brain it is the Mechanical labouring part of Religion that must make up the edifice the work and toil and sweat of the Soul the business not of the Designer but the Carpenter that which takes the rough unpolished though excellent materials and trims and fits them for use which cuts and polishes the rich but as yet deformed jewels of the Soul and makes them shine indeed and sparkle like stars in the Firmament That ground or sum of Pythagorean Philosophy as it is set down by Hierocles in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if it were admitted into our schools or hearts would make us Scholars and Divines indeed that Virtue is the way to Truth Purity of affections a necessary precursory to depth of knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only means to prepare for the uppermost form of Wisdom the speculation of God which doth ennoble the Soul unto the condition of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of an heroical nay sacred person is first to have been the person of a man aright and by the practice of vertue to have cleared the eye for that glorious Vision But the divinity and learning of these times floats and hovers too much in the brain hath not either weight or sobriety enough in it to sink down or settle it in the heart We are all for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens calls it the art of sorting out and laying in order all intellectual store in our brains tracing the Councils of God and observing his methods in his secrecies but never for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the refunding and pouring out any of that store in the alms as it were and liberality of our actions If Gerson's definition of Theology that it is scientia effectiva non speculativa were taken into our consideration at the choice of our professions we should certainly have fewer pretenders to Divinity but 't is withal hoped more Divines The Lacedaemonians and Cretians saith Josephus brought up men to the practice but not knowledg of good by their example only not by precept or law The Athenians and generally the rest of the Grecians used instructions of laws only but never brought them up by practice and discipline But of all Lawgivers saith he only Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dispensed and measured both these proportionably together And this beloved is that for which that policy of the Primitive Jews deserved to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a special name the Government of God Himself This is it the combination of your knowledg with your practice your learning with your lives which I shall in fine commend unto you to take out both for your selves and others 1. For your selves that in your study of Divinity you will not behold Gods Attributes as a sight or spectacle but as a Copy not only to be admired but to be transcribed into your hearts and lives not to gaze upon the Sun to the dazling nay destroying of your eyes but as it were in a burning-glass contract those blessed sanctifying rayes that flow from it to the enlivening and inflaming of your hearts And 2. In the behalf of others so to digest and inwardly dispense every part of sacred knowledg into each several member and vein of Body and Soul that it may transpire through hands and feet and heart and tongue and so secretly insinuate it self into all about you that both by Precept and Example they may see and follow your good works and so glorifie here your Father which is in heaven that we may all partake of that blessed Resurrection not of the learned and the great but the just and so hope and attain to be all glorified together with him hereafter Now to him c. The II. Sermon PHIL. IV. 13. I can do all things through Christ that strengthneth me THose two contrary Heresies that cost S. Austin and the Fathers of his time so much pains the one all for natural strength the other for irrecoverable weakness have had such unkindly influence on succeeding ages that almost all the actions of the ordinary Christian have some tincture of one of these Scarce any sin is sent abroad into the World without either this or that inscription And therefore parallel to these we may observe the like division in the hearts and practical faculties between pride and sloth opinion of absolute power and prejudice of absolute impotence The one undertaking all upon its own credit the other suing as it were for the preferment or rather excuse of being bankrupts upon record that so they may come to an easie composition with God for their debt of obedience The one so busie in contemplation of their present fortunes
for the Kingdom of God is at hand As if this Harbinger had no other furniture and provision to bespeak in the heart that was to receive Christ but only repentance for sins I will not examine here the precedence of Repentance before Faith in Christ though I might seasonably here state the question and direct you to begin with John proceed to Christ first repent then fasten on Christ Only this for all The promises of Salvation in Christ are promised on condition of repentance and amendment they must be weary and heavy laden who ever come to Christ and expect rest Matth. xi 28. And therefore whosoever applies these benefits to himself and thereby conceives Christ in his heart must first resolve to undertake the condition required to wit Newness of life which yet he will not be able to perform till Christ be fully born and dwell in him by his enabling graces For you may mark that Christ and John being both about the same age as appears by the story Christ must needs be born before Johns Preaching So in the Soul there is supposed some kind of incarnation of Christ before repentance or newness of life yet before Christ he is born or at least come to his full stature and perfect growth in us this Baptist's Sermon that is this repentance and resolution to amendment must be presumed in our Souls And so repentance is both a preparation to Christs birth and an effect of it For so John preached Repent for c. Matth. iii. 2. And so also in the same words Christ preaches Repent c. Matth. iv 17. And so these two together John and Christ Repentance and Faith though one began before the other was perfected yet I say these two together in the fully regenerate man Fulfil all righteousness Matth. iii. 15. In the seventh place you may observe That when Christ was born in Bethlehem the whole Land was in an uproar Herod the King was troubled and all Jerusalem with him Matth. ii 3. Which whether we apply to the lesser city the Soul of Man in which or the adjoyning people amongst whom Christ is spiritually born in any man you shall for the most acknowledge the agreement For the man himself if he have been any inordinate sinner then at the birth of Christ in him all his natural sinful faculties are much displeased his reigning Herod sins and all the Jerusalem of habituate Lusts and Passions are in great disorder as knowing that this new birth abodes their instant destruction and then they cry oft in the voice of the Devil Mark i. 24. What have we to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God Art thou come to torment and dispossess us before our time If it be applied to the Neighbor Worldlings which hear of this new convert then are they also in an uproar and consult how they shall deal with this turbulent spirit Which is made to upbraid our ways and reprove our thoughts Wisd ii Which is like to bring down all their trading and cousenage to a low ebb like Diana's Silver-smith in the Acts Chap. xix 24. which made a solemn speech and the Text says there was a great stir against Paul because the attempt of his upstart doctrine was like to undo the Shrine-makers Sirs ye know that by this craft we have our wealth And no marvel that in both these respects there is a great uproar seeing the spiritual birth of Christ is most infinitely opposite to both the common people of the World and common affections of the Soul two the most turbulent tumultuous wayward violent Nations upon Earth In the eighth and last place because I will not tyre you above the time which is allotted for the tryal of your parience you may observe the encrease and growth of Christ and that either in himself in Wisdom and Stature c. Luke ii 52. or else in his troop and attendants and that either of Angels to minister unto him Matth. iv 11. or of Disciples to follow obey him and then the harmony will still go currant Christ in the regenerate man is first conceived then born then by degrees of childhood and youth grows at last to the measure of the stature of this fulness and the Soul consequently from strength to strength from vertue to vertue is encreased to a perfect manhood in Christ Jesus Then also where Christ is thus born he chuses and calls a Jury at least of Disciple-graces to judge and sit upon thee to give in evidence unto thy Spirit That thou art the Son of God Then is he also ministred unto and furnished by the Angels with a perpetual supply either to encrease the lively or to recover decayed graces So that now Christ doth bestow a new life upon the man and the regenerate soul becomes the daughter as well as the Mother of Christ she conceives Christ and Christ her she lives and grows and moves in Christ and Christ in her So that at last she comes to that pitch and height and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that S. Paul speaks of Gal. ii 20. I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I live in the flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me And do thou O Holy Jesus which hast loved us and given thy self for us love us still and give thy self to us Thou which hast been born in the World to save sinners vouchsafe again to be again incarnate in our Souls to regenerate and sanctifie sinners Thou which art the Theme of our present rejoycing become our Author of perpetual spiritual rejoycing that our Souls may conceive and bring forth and thou mayst conceive and regenerate our Souls that we may dwell in Christ and Christ in us And from the Meditation of thy Mortal flesh here we may be partakers with thee of thine Immortal glory hereafter Thus have we briefly passed through these words and in them first shewed you the real agreement betwixt Matthew and Isaiah in the point of Christ's Name and from thence noted that Jesus and Emmanuel is in effect all one and that Christs Incarnation brought Salvation into the World Which being proved through Christs several Incarnations were applied to our direction 1. To humble our selves 2. To express our thankfulness 3. To observe our priviledges 4. To make our selves capable and worthy receivers of this mercy Then we came to the Incarnation it self where we shewed you the excellency of this Mystery by the effects which the expectation and foresight of it wrought in the Fathers the Prophets the Heathens the Devils and then by way of Use what an horrible sin it was not to apply and imploy this mercy to our Souls Lastly We came to another birth of Christ besides that in the flesh his Spiritual Incarnation in Man's Soul which we compared with the former exactly in eight chief Circumstances and so left all to God's Spirit
or puts over Pride in our education is a kind of tenderness and chilness in the soul that some people by perpetual softness are brought up to that makes them uncapable and impatient of any corporal or spiritual hardness a squeasiness and rising up of the heart against any mean vulgar or mechanical condition of men abhorring the foul cloaths and rags of a beggar as of some venemous beast and consequently as supercilious and contemptuous of any piece of Gods service which may not stand with their ease and state as a starcht gallant is of any thing that may disorder his dress Thus are many brought up in this City to a loathing and detestation of many Christian duties of alms-deeds and instructing their families in points of religion of visiting and comforting the sick nay even of the service of God if they may not keep their state there but especially of the publick prayers of the Church nothing so vulgar and contemptible in their eyes as that But I spare you and the Lord in mercy do so also The third kind of pride is a supercilious affected haughtiness that men perhaps meekly enough disposed by nature are fain to take upon them for some ends a ' solemn censorious majestick garb that may entitle them to be patriots of such or such a faction to gain a good opinion with some whose good opinion may be their gain Thus was Mahomet fain to take upon him to be a Prophet and pretend that 't was discoursing with the Angel Gabriel made him in that case that his new wife might not know that he was Epileptical and so repent of her match with a beggar and a diseased person And upon these terms Turcism first came into the world and Mahomet was cried up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greatest Prophet to omit other witness as the Saracen fragments tells us that we have out of Euthymius Thus are imperfections and wants sometimes even diseases both of body and mind assumed and affected by some men to get authority to their persons and an opinion of extraordinary religion but rather perhaps more oyl to their cruise or custom to their trading But not to flutter thus at large any longer or pursue the common-place in its latitude the Pharisees pride here expresseth it self in three things 1 his posture standing apart 2. his manner of praying altogether by way of thanksgiving 3. his malicious contemptuous eye upon the Publican The first of these may be aggravated against the schismatick that separates from the Church or customs but especially Service and Prayers of the Church 'T is pride certainly that makes this man set himself thus apart whereas the very first sight of that holy place strikes the humble Publican upon the knees of his heart a far off as soon as he was crept within the gates of the Temple he is more devout in the porch than the Pharisee before the Altar The 2d against those that come to God in the pomp of their souls commending themselves to God as we ordinarily use the phrase commending indeed not to his mercy but acceptance not as objects of his pity but as rich spiritual presents not tears to be received into his bottle but jewels for his treasure Always upon terms of spiritual exultancy what great things God hath done for their souls how he hath fitted them for himself never with humbled bended knees in acknowledgment of unworthiness with St. Paul who cannot name that word sinners but most straight subsume in a parenthesis of whom I am the chief 1 Tim. 1. 15. and for the expression of the opinion he had of his own sanctity is fain to coyn a word for the purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word not to be met with in all Greek Authors again before he used it less than the least of the Saints Ephes 3. 8. And Jacob in a like phrase I am less than all thy mercies Gen. 32. 10. The Litany that begins and ends with so many repetitions importuning for mercy even conjuring God by all powerful names of rich mercy that can be taken out of his Exchequer to have mercy upon us miserable sinners this is set aside for the Publican the sinners Liturgy nay as some say for the profane people only not to pray but to swear by But this only as in transitu not to insist on The 3d. expression of his pride is his malicious sullen eye upon the Publican and that brings me to the next thing proposed at first the Pharisees censoriousness and insinuated accusations of all others I am not as other men extortioners c. or even as this Publican 'T were an ingenuous speculation and that which would stand us in some stead in our spiritual warfare to observe what hints and opportunities the Devil takes from mens natural inclinations to insinuate and ingratiate his temptations to them how he applies still the fuel to the fire the nourishment to the craving stomach and accommodates all his proposals most seasonably and suitably to our affections not to enlarge this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the gross nor yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to each particular you may have a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or taste of it in the Pharisee To an easy natur'd man whose soul is relax't and has its pores open to receive any infection or taint the devil presents a multitude of adulterers drunkards c. thereby to distill the poyson softly into him to sweeten the sin and secure him in the commission of it by store of companions but to a Pharisee rugged singular supercilious person he proposeth the same object under another colour The many adulterers c. that are in the world not to entice but to incense him the more against the sin not to his imitation but to his spleen and hatred that seeing he can hope to gain nothing upon him by bringing him in love with their sin he may yet inveigle him by bringing him in hatred with their persons and plunge him deeper through uncharitableness than he could hope to do by lust He knows well the Pharisees constitution is too austere to be caught with an ordinary bait and therefore puts off his title of Beelzebub prince of flies as seeing that they are not now for his game but trouls and baits him with a nobler prey and comes in the person of a Cato or Aristarchus a severe disciplinarian a grave Censor or as his most Satanical name imports 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an accuser and then the Pharisee bites presently He could not expect to allure him forward and therefore drives him as far back as he can that so he may be the more sure of him at the rebound as a skilful woods-man that by wind-lassing presently gets a shoot which without taking a compass and thereby a commodious stand he could never have obtain'd The bare open visage of sin is not lovely enough to catch the Pharisee it must be varnish'd over with
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consecrated into a Deity for certainly never Devil bore so much charity to mankind and treachery to his own kingdom as to instruct him in the cleansing of his soul whereby those strong holds of Satan are undermined which cannot subsist but on a stiff and deep Clay foundation From these beginnings of Socrates the moralists ever since have toil'd hard at this task to get the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Iambl phrases it out of that corruption of its birth that impurity born with it which the soul contracts by its conversation with the body and from which they say only Philosophy can purge it For it is Philoponus his observation that that Canon of the Physicians That the inclinations of the soul necessarily follow the temper of the body is by all men set down with that exception implied unless the Man have studied Philosophy for that study can reform the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make the soul contemn the commands and arm it against the influences and poysons and infections of the body In sum the main of Philosophy was to this purpose to take off the soul from those corporeal dependences and so in a manner restore it to its primitive self that is to some of that divine perfection with which it was infused for then is the soul to be beheld in its native shape when 't is stript of all its passions At other times you do not see the soul but some froth and weeds of it as the gray part of the Sea is not to be called Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some scurf and foam and weeds that lye on the top of it So then to this spiritualizing of the soul and recovering it to the simplicity of its essence their main precepts were to quell and suppress 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Maximus Tyrius speaks that turbulent prachant common people of the soul all the irrational affections and reduce it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into a Monarchy or regal government where reason might rule Lord and King For whensoever any lower affection is suffered to do any thing there saith Philoponus we do not work like men but some other creatures Whosoever suffer their lower nutritive faculties to act freely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these men are in danger to become trees that is by these operations they differ nothing from meer plants So those that suffer their sensitive appetites lust and rage to exercise at freedom are not to be reckoned men but beasts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. then only will our actions argue us men when our reason is at the forge This was the aim and business of Philosophy to keep us from unmanning our selves to restore reason to its scepter to rescue it from the tyranny of that most atheistical usurper as Iambl calls the affections and from hence he which lived according to those precepts of Philosophy was said both by them and Clement and the Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Austin Secundum intellectum vivere to live according to the guidance of the reasonable soul Which whosoever did saith Plotinus though by it in respect of divinity he was not perfect yet at last should be sure to find a gracious providence first to perfect then to crown his natural moderate well tempered endeavour as Austin cites it out of him L. 10. de civit Dei This whose course and proceedings and assent of the soul through these Philosophical preparations to spiritual perfection is summarily and clearly set down for us in Photius out of Isidorus Philosophically observed to consist in three steps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The first business of the soul is to call in those parts of it which were engaged in any forraign fleshly imployment and retire and collect it self unto its self and then secondly it learns to quit it self to put off the whole natural man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it s own fashions and conceits all the notions all the pride of humane reason and set it self on those things which are nearest kin to the soul that is spiritual affairs and then thirdly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it falls into holy enthusiasms and spiritual elevations which it continues till it be changed and led into the calm and serenity above the state of man agreeable to the tranquillity and peace which the Gods enjoy And could the Philosophers be their own Scholars could they exhibit that felicity which they describe and fansie they might glory in their morality and indeed be said to have prepared and purged the soul for the receit of the most pure and spiritual guest But certainly their speculation out-ran their practice and their very morality was but Theorical to be read in their books and wishes far more legible than in their lives and their enjoyments Yet some degrees also of purity or at least a less measure of impurity they attained to only upon the expectation and desire of happiness proposed to them upon condition of performance of moral precepts for all things being indifferently moved to the obtaining of their summum bonum all I say not only rational agents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Andronicus saith on the Ethicks which have nothing but nature to incite them to it the natural man may upon a sight and liking of an happiness proposed on severe conditions call himself into some degrees of moral temper as best suiting to the performance of the means and obtaining of the end he looks for and by this temper be said to be morally better than another who hath not taken this course to subdue his passions And this was evident enough among the Philosophers who were as far beyond the ordinary sort in severity of conversation as depth of learning and read them as profitable precepts in the example of their lives as ever the Schools breathed forth in their Lectures Their profession was incompatible with many vices and would not suffer them to be so rich in variety of sins as the vulgar and then whatsoever they thus did an unregenerate Christian may surely perform in a far higher measure as having more choice of ordinary restrainment from sin than ever had any heathen for it will be much to our purpose to take notice of those ordinary restraints by which unregenerate men may be and are curbed and kept back from sinning and these saith Austin God affords to the very reprobates Non continens in ira suas misericordias Much to this same purpose hath holy Maximus in those admirable Sections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where most of the restraints he speaks of are competible to the unregenerate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 1. Fear of men 2. Denunciation of judgments from Heaven 3. Temperance and moral vertues nay sometimes other moral vices as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain glory or ostentation of integrity 4. Natural impressions to do to others as we would be done to 5. Clearness of judgment in
they might be perswaded to the Trinity they will not believe the resurrection 'T was too plain a contradiction to philosophical reason ever to enter theirs Thus in the 1 Cor. i. 21. the World by wisdom knew not God they so relyed on their reason and trusted in it for all truths that they concluded every thing impossible that would not concur with their old Principles But this resistance which reason makes is not so strong but that it may easily be supprest and therefore Synesius was made a Bishop before he explicitly believed the resurrection because they were confident that he which had forsaken all other errors would not long continue perverse in this and so good a Christian in other things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not choose but be illuminated in time in so necessary a point of faith and indeed so it happened in them both But there are other more dangerous engins more insidious courses which learning uses to supplant or undermine belief other stratagems to keep us out of the way to anticipate all our desires or inclinations or thoughts that way-ward and these are spiritual pride and self-content Men are so elevated in height of contemplation so well pleased so fully satisfied in the pleasures and delights of it that the first sort scorn to submit or humble themselves to the poverty and disparagement of believing in Christ the second are never at leasure to think of it For the first spiritual pride 't is set down as a reason that the natural man receives not the things of the spirit 1 Cor. ii 14. receives them not i. e. will not take them will not accept of them though they are freely given him for they are foolishness unto him i. e. so his proud brain reputes them The pride of Worldly wisdom extremely scorns the foolishness of Christ and consequently is infinitely opposite to faith which is wrought by special humility Secondly for self-content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Heraclitus in Hesych Wise men need no friends they are able to subsist by themselves without any help they will have an happiness of their own making and scorn to be beholding to Christ for a new inheritance they are already so fully possest of all manner of contents Let any man whisper them of the joys of the new Jerusalem of the Intercessor that hath saved of the way thither and made it passable of all the priviledges and promises of our adoption they will hear them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as old wives fables they have the fortunate Islands too their exactest tranquillity and serenity of mind in a perpetual contemplation and all the golden Apples in Paradise shall not tempt or allarm them out of it 'T is strange to see when such a man is called what a doe there is to get him out of his dream to hale him out of his study to the Church how sleepy and drowsy and lethargical he is in matters of Religion how soon a little devotion hath tired him out that could have pored over a book incessantly all his life long and never thought thus to have been interdicted the delights of humane learning thus to have been pluckt and torn from the embraces of his Athenian Idol His conversion is much unlike another mans that which calls others into compass seems to let him loose thrusts him abroad into the world teaches him to look more like a man then ever he meant makes him a member of the Commonwealth that was formerly but an Anchoret and forces him to walk and run the way of Gods Commandments that had once decreed him himself to a chair for ever In brief there is as little hopes of one that indulges himself and gives himself up to the pride and contents of any kind of learning of him that terminates knowledge either in it self or else in the ostentation of it as of any other that is captiv'd to any one single worldly or fleshly kind of voluptuousness This of the brain in spight of the Philosopher is an intemperance as well as that of the throat and palate and more dangerous because less suspected and seldomer declaimed against and from this Epicurism especially of the soul good Lord deliver us Not to heap up reasons of this too manifest a truth would God it were not so undeniable take but this one more of the unsufficiency of learning never so well used to make a man a Christian Let all the knowledge in the world prophane and sacred all the force and reason that all ages ever bragg'd of let it concur in one brain and swell the head as big as his was in the Poem that travell'd of Minerva let all Scriptures and Fathers joyn their power and efficacy and they shall never by their simple activity produce a saving faith in any one all the miracles they can work are only on the understanding the will distinctly taken is above their sphear or compass or if their faculties are not distinguisht and to will is present with me Rom. vii 18. as well as to understand yet they can produce only an absolute simple general will that is an assent and approbation of the absolute goodness of the thing proposed not a resolute will to abandon all other worldly purposes to perform that which I will Knowledge and right apprehension of things may convince me first of the history that all that is spoken of or by Christ is true and then of the expedience to apply all his merits to my soul but when I see all this cannot be done without paying a price without undoing my self without pawning all that I have my learning my wealth my delights my whole worldly being without self-denial then the general assent that absolute will is grown chill and dead we are still whatever we believe but infidels all the Articles of the Creed thus assented to are not enough to make us Christians So that the issue of all is all knowledge in the world cannot make us deny our selves and therefore all knowledge in the world is not able to produce belief only the spirit must breath this power into us of breathing out our selves he must press our breasts and stifle and strangle us we must give up the natural ghost he must force out our earthly breath out of our earthly bodies or else we shall not be enlivened by his spiritual Thus have you reasons of the common divorce betwixt knowledge and faith i. e. the no manner of dependence betwixt them in nature Secondly the open resistence in some points betwixt reason and Scripture Thirdly the more secret reluctancies betwixt the pride and contents of learning and the spirit And lastly the insufficiency of all natural knowledge and transcendency of spiritual so that he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned I should now in very charity release you but that there is one word behind of most important necessity to a Sermon and that is of Application That laying to our hearts the
once calcare terram colere tread on the earth with his feet and adore it with his heart So Socrates who by bringing in morality was a great refiner and pruner of barren Philosophy absolutely denying the Grecian Gods and thence called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is yet brought in by Aristophanes worshipping the clouds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and by a more friendly Historian described addressing a sacrifice to Aesculapius being at the point of death So that in brief the Philosophers disliking the vulgar superstition went to School faith Clem. to the Persian Magi and of them learnt a more Scholastick Atheism The worship of those venerable Elements which because they were the beginnings out of which natural bodies were composed were by these naturalists admired and worshipped instead of the God of nature From which a man may plainly judg of the beginning and ground of the general Atheism of Philosophers that it was a superficial knowledge of Philosophy the sight of second causes and dwelling on them and being unable to go any higher For men by nature being inclined to acknowledge a Deity take that to be their God which is the highest in their sphere of knowledge or the supremum cognitum which they have attained to whereas if they had been studious or able by the dependence of causes to have proceeded beyond these Elements they might possibly nay certainly would have been reduced to piety and religion which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knowledge and worship of God but there were many hindrances which kept them groveling on the earth not able to ascend this ladder 1. They wanted that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Aphrod on the Topicks speaks of that kindly familiar good temper or disposition of the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which the mind is able to find out and judge of truth they wanted that either natural harmony or spiritual concord of the powers of the soul by which it is able to reach those things which now in corrupt nature are only spiritually discerned For it is Clem. his Christian judgment of them that the Gentiles being but bastards not true born sons of God but Aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel were therefore not able to look up toward the Light as 't is observed of the bastard-brood of Eagles or consequently to discern that inaccessible light till they were received into the Covenant and made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 true proper Children of light A 2d hindrance was the grossness and earthyness of their fancy which was not able to conceive God to be any thing but a corporeous substance as Philoponus observes in Schol. on the books de animâ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. When we have a mind to betake our selves to divine speculation our fancy comes in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 raises such a tempest in us so many earthly meteors to clog and over-cloud the soul that it cannot but conceive the Deity under some bodily shape and this disorder of the fancy doth perpetually attend the soul even in the fairest weather in its greatest calm and serenity of affections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Plato even when the soul is free from its ordinary distractions and hath provided it self most accurately for contemplation Philoponus in this place finding this inconvenience fetches a remedy out of Plotinus for this rarifying and purifying of the fancy and it is the study of the Mathematicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let young men be brought up in the study of the Mathematicks to some acquaintance with an incorporeous nature but how unprofitable a remedy this study of the Mathematicks was to the purpose of preparing the soul to a right conceit of God I doubt not but he himself afterwards found when he turned Christian and saw how far their Mathematical and Metaphysical abstractions fell below those purest Theological conceits of which only grace could make him capable So that in brief their understanding being fed by their fancies and both together fatned with corporeous phantasms as they encreased in natural knowledge grew more hardned in spiritual ignorance and as Clem saith of them were like birds cram'd in a Coop fed in darkness and nourished for death their gross conceits groping on in obscurity and furnishing them only with such opinions of God as should encrease both their ignorance and damnation That I be not too large and confused in this discourse let us pitch upon Aristotle one of the latest of the ancient Philosophers not above 340 years before Christ who therefore seeing the vanities and making use of the helps of all the Grecian learning may probably be judged to have as much knowledge of God as any Heathen and indeed the Colen Divines had such an opinion of his skill and expressions that way that in their Tract of Aristotle's Salvation they define him to be Christs Praecursor in Naturalibus as John Baptist was in gratuitis But in brief if we examine him we shall find him much otherwise as stupid in the affairs of 1. God 2. The soul 3. Happiness as any of his fellow Gentiles If the book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were his own legitimate work a man might guess that he saw something though he denied the particular providence of the Deity and that he acknowledged his omnipotence though he would not be so bold with him as to let him be busied in the producing of every particular sublunary effect The man might seem somewhat tender of God as if being but newly come acquainted with him he were afraid to put him to too much pains as judging it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. neither comely nor befitting the Majesty of a God to interest himself in every action upon earth It might seem a reverence and awe which made him provide the same course for God which he saw used in the Courts of Susa and Ecbatana where the King saith he lived invisible in his Palace and yet by his Officers as through prospectives and Otacousticks saw and heard all that was done in his Dominions But this book being not of the same complexion with the rest of his Philosophy is shrewdly guest to be a spurious issue of latter times entitled to Aristotle and translated by Apuleius but not owned by its brethren the rest of his books of Philosophy for even in the Metaphysicks where he is at his wisest he censures Zenophanes for a Clown for looking up to Heaven and affirming that there was one God there the cause of all things and rather then he will credit him he commends Parmenides for a subtle fellow who said nothing at all or I am sure to no purpose Concerning his knowledge of the soul 't is Philoponus his observation of him that he perswades only the more understanding laborious judicious sort to be his Auditors in that subject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But dehorts men of meaner vulgar parts less
shall shew him the law and light of nature in himself which before he never dreamt of Of those of you that ever spared one minute from your worldly affairs to think of your spiritual there is one thought that suddenly comes upon you and makes short work of all that spiritual care of your selves You conceive that you are of your selves utterly unable to understand or think or do any thing that is good and therefore you resolve it a great pain to no purpose ever to go about so impossible a project God must work the whole business in you you are not able of your selves so much as either see or move and that is the business which by chance you fell upon as soon as shook off again and being resolved you never had any eyes you are content to be for ever blind unless as it was wont to be in the old Tragedies some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some new supernatural power come down and bore your foreheads and thrust and force eyes into your heads 'T is a blessed desire and gracious humility in any one to invoke God to every thought they venture on and not to dare to pretend to the least sufficiency in themselves but to acknowledge and desire to receive all from God but shall we therefore be so ungratefully religious as for ever to be a craving new helps and succours and never observe or make use of what we have already obtained as 't is observed of covetous men who are always busied about their Incomes are little troubled with disbursements 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any proportion betwixt their receipts and expences Shall we be so senseless as to hope that the contempt of one blessing will be a means to procure us as many I told you that God had written a law in the hearts of every one of you which once was able and is not now quite deprived of its power to furnish with knowledge of good and evil and although by original and actual and habitual sin this inheritance be much impaired this stock of precepts drawn low yet if you would but observe those directions which it would yet afford you if you would but practice whatever that divine light in your souls should present and commend to you you might with some face petition God for richer abilities and with better confidence approach and beg and expect the grace that should perfect you to all righteousness In the mean time bethink your selves how unreasonable a thing it is that God should be perpetually casting away of alms on those who are resolved to be perpetually bankrupts how it would be reckoned prodigality of mercies to purchase new lands for him that scorns to make use of his inheritance As ever you expect any boon from God look I conjure you what you have already received call in your eyes into your brains and see whether your natural reason there will not furnish you with some kind of profitable though not sufficient directions to order your whole lives by bring your selves up to that stay'dness of temper as never to venture on any thing till you have askt your own souls advice whether it be to be done or no and if you can but observe its dictates and keep your hands to obey your head if you can be content to abstain when the soul within you bids you hold you shall have no cause to complain that God hath sent you impotent into the world but rather acknowledge it an unvaluable mercy of his that hath provided such an eye within you to direct you if you will but have patience to see such a curb to restrain and prevent you if thou wilt only take notice of its checks 'T is a thing that would infinitely please the Reader to observe what a price the Heathens themselves set upon this light within them which yet certainly was much more dimmed and obscured in them by their idolatry and superstition then I hope it can be in any Christian soul by the unruliest passion Could ever any one speak more plainly and distinctly of it then the Pythagoreans and Stoicks have done who represent conscience not only as a guide and moderator of our actions but as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a tutelary spirit or Angel or genius which never sleeps or dotes but is still present and employed in our behalf And this Arrian specifies to be the reasonable soul which he therefore accounts of as a part of God sent out of his own essence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a piece or shread or as others more according to modest truth call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ray or beam of that invisible Sun by which our dull unactive frozen bodies after the fall were warmed and re-inlivened Now if any one shall make a diligent inquisition in himself shall as the Philosopher in his Cynical humour light a candle to no purpose or as the Prophet Jeremy seek and make hue and cry after a man through all Jerusalem and yet not meet with him if I say any body shall search for this light in himself and find all darkness within then will you say I have all this while possest you with some phansies and Ideas without any real profit to be received from them you will make that complaint as the women for our Saviour We went to seek for him and when we went down all was dark and emptiness They have taken him away and I know not where they have laid him Nay but the error is in the seeker not in my directions he that would behold the Sun must stay till the cloud be over he that would receive from the fire either light or warmth must take the pains to remove the ashes There be some encumbrances which may hinder the most active qualities in the world from working and abate the edge of the keenest metal In sum there is a cloud and gloom and vail within thee like that darkness on the face of the deep when the earth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without form and void Gen. i. 2. or like that at Lots door among the Sodomites or that of Aegypt thick and palpable and this have we created to our selves a sky full of tempestuous untamed affections this cloud of vapors have we exhaled out of the lower part of our soul our sensitive faculty and therewith have we so fill'd the air within us with sad black meteors that the Sun in its Zenith the height or pride of its splendor would scarce be able to pierce through it So that for to make a search for this light within thee before thou hast removed this throng and croud of passions which encompass it and still to complain thou canst not meet with it were to bring news that the Sun is gone out when a tempest hath only masked it or to require a candle to give thee light through a mud-wall Thou must provide a course to clear the sky and then thou shalt not need to
distorted and defaced it once was light in the Lord almost an Angel of light it shone as the Sun in the Firmament in majesty and full brightness but is now only as the Moon pale and dim scarce able to do us any service unless it borrows some rays from the Sun of Righteousness The fall hath done somewhat with it I know not what to call it either much impaired it and diminisht its light in its essence or else much incumbred or opprest it in its operations as a candle under a vail or lanthorn which though it burn and shine as truly as on a candlestick yet doth not so much service in enlightning the room the soul within us is much changed either is not in its essence so perfect and active and bright as once it was or else being infused in a sufficient perfection is yet terribly overcast with a gloom and cloud of corruptions that it can scarce find any passage to get through and shew it self in our actions for the corruptible body presseth down the soul c. Wisd ix 15. And from this caution grow many lower branches whence we may gather some fruit as in the second place infinitely to humble our selves before God for the first sin of Adam which brought this darkness on our souls and account it not the meanest or slightest of our miseries that our whole nature is defiled and bruised and weakned to aggravate every circumstance and effect of that sin against thy self which has so liberaâ—ly afforded fâ—el to the flames of lust of rage and wild desire and thereby without Gods gracious mercy to the flames of Hell This is a most profitable point yet little thought on and therefore would deserve a whole Sermon to discuss to you 3. To observe and acknowledge the necessity of some brighter light then this of nature can afford us and with all the care and vigilancy of our hearts all the means that Scripture will lend us and at last with all the importunities and groans and violence of our souls to petition and sollicit and urge Gods illuminating spirit to break out and shine on us To undertake to interpret any antient Author requires say the Grammarians a man of deep and various knowledge because there may be some passage or other in that book which will refer to every sort of learning in the world whence 't is observed that the old Scholiasts and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were most exquisit Scholars Thus certainly will not any ordinary skill serve turn to interpret and explain many dark sayings which were at first written in the book of our hearts but are now almost past reading only that omniscient Spirit that hath no shadow of ignorance the finger that first writ must be beseeched to read and point out the riddle We must make use of that rotten staffe of nature as far as its strength will bear and that very gingerly too never daring to lean or lay our whole weight upon it lest it either wound with its splinter or else break under us our help and stay and subsistence and trust must be in the Lord our eyes must wait on his inlightning Spirit and never lose a ray that falls from it Fourthly to clear up as much as we can and reinliven this light within us And that first By stirring up and blowing and so nourishing every spark we find within us The least particle of fire left in a coal may by pains be improved into a flame 't is held possible to restore or at least preserve for a time any thing that is not quite departed If thou findest but a spark of Religion in thee which saith A God is to be worship't care and â—edulity and the breath of prayers may in time by this inflame the whole man into a bright fire of Zeal towards God In brief whatever thou dost let not any the least atome of that fire which thou once feelest within thee ever go out quench not the weakest motion or inclination even of reason towards God or goodness how unpolish't soever this Diamond be yet if it do but glissen 't is too pretious to be cast away And then 2. By removing all hindrances or incumbrances that may any way weaken or oppress it and these you have learnt to be corrupt affections That democracy and croud and press and common people of the soul raises a tumult in every street within us that no voice of law or reason can be heard If you will but disgorge and purge the stomach which hath been thus long opprest if you will but remove this cloud of crudities then will the brain be able to send some rayes down to the heart which till then are sure to be caught up by the way anticipated and devoured For the naked simplicity of the soul the absence of all disordered passions is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aphrodiseus that kindly familiar good temper of the soul by which it is able to find out and judge of truth In brief if thou canst crop thy luxuriant passions if thou canst either expel or tame all the wild beasts within thee which are born to devour any thing which is weak or innocent then will that mild voice within thee in the cave take heart and shew it self In the mean time this hurry of thy senses drowns that reason and thou canst not hope to see as long as like old Tobit the dung and white film doth remain upon thine eyes If thou canst use any means to dissolve this dung of affections which an habit of sin hath baked within thee the scales will fall off from thine eyes and the blind Tobit shall be restored to his sight In brief do but fortifie thy reasonable soul against all the undermining and faction and violence of these sensual passions do but either depose or put to the sword that Atheistical Tyrant and Usurper as Iamblichus calls the affections do but set reason in the chair and hear and observe his dictates and thou hast disburthened thy self of a great company of weights and pressures thou wilt be able to look more like a man to hold thy head more couragiously and bend thy thoughts more resolutely toward Heaven and I shall expect and hope and pray and almost be confident that if thou dost perform sincerely what thy own soul prompts thee to Gods spirit is nigh at hand to perfect and crown and seal thee up to the day of redemption In the next place thou maist see thine own guilts the clearer call thy self to an account even of those things which thou thinkest thou art freest from that which the Apostle in this chapter and part of my discourse hath charged the Heathens with and if thou lookest narrowly I am afraid thou wilt spy thine own picture in that glass and find thy self in many things as arrant a Gentile as any of them For any sincere care of God or Religion how few of us are there that ever entertained so unpleasant
a guest in their hearts we go to Church and so did they to their Temples we pray and they sacrificed they washed and bathed themselves before they durst approach their deities and we come in our best cloths and cleanest linen but for any farther real service we mean towards God there for any inward purity of the heart for any sincere worship of our soul we are as guiltless as free from it we do as much contemn and scorn it as ever did any Heathen Again what man of us is not in some kind guilty even of their highest crime Idolatry Some of them took the brain to be sacred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Athenaeus and therefore hearing some cry God help when one sneezed the ignorant sort worshipt that noise as an expression of a Deity in the brain and so as senslesly many of us deify our own brains and adore every thing that ever comes out of them Every conceit of ours must be like the birth of Jupiters brain a Minerva at least be we never so ignorant or mechanical every device every fancie of our own especially in matters of Religion is straight of Divine Authority and having resolved our selves the children of God every crochet we fall upon must be necessarily Theopneust and inspired and others accused for irreligious or singular that will not as soon give homage to it In sum every imagination becomes an Image and the Artificer deifies his own handy-work forgetting that he made it as 't is described in the 13. of Wisd toward the end and this is one kind of Idolatry Again who is there that hath not some pleasure in his heart which takes place of God there They had their Sun and Moon most glorious creatures their Heroes whose vertues had even deified their memory and silly men they admired and could not choose but worship The Devil and a humor of superstition customary in them fee'd and bribed the law in their hearts to hold its peace and not recall them But how basely have we out-gone their vilest worships How have we outstript them Let but one appearance of gain like that golden calf of the Israelites a beautiful woman like that Venus of the Heathens nay in brief what ever Image or representation of delight thy own lust can propose thee let it but glance or glide by thee and Quis non incurvavit Shew me a man that hath not at some time or other faln down and worshipt In sum all the lower part of the soul or carnal affections are but a picture of the City of Athens Acts xvii 16. Wholly given to Idolatry The basest unworthiest pleasure or content in the world that which is good for nothing else the very refuse of the refuse Wisd xiii 13. is become an Idol and hath its shrines in some heart or other and we crouch and bow and sacrifice to it and all this against the voice of our soul and nature within us if we would suffer it to speak aloud or but hearken to its whisperings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Philoponus Nature only bids us feed our selves with sufficient lust brought in superfluity and pleasure But this only by the way lest you might think that part of my Sermon concerning the Heathens contempt of this law did belong little to you and so might have been spared Lastly not to lade every part of my former discourse with its several use or application take but this one more If this Light shines but dimly within us then let us so much the more not dare contemn it That Master that speaks but seldom then surely deserves to be obeyed he that is flow in his reproofs certainly hath good reason when he falls foul with any body If Craesus his dumb son in Herodotus seeing one come to kill his father shall by violence break the string of his tongue that formerly hindred his speech and he that never spake before roar out an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir kill not Craesus I wonder not that the Persian held his hand a very Barbarian would be amazed and stopt by such a prodigy it must needs be an odious thing when the child which can scarce speak expresses indignation Wherefore if ever our bestial soul that of our sense shall seduce us to any thing that our manly soul that of our reason which is now somewhat decrepit and dim-sighted shall yet espy and find fault with if in any enterprize this natural law within us shall give the check let us suddenly remove our project and not dare to reject such fatherly sage admonishments if all the means in the world can help to avoid it let us never fall into the snare And if at thy audit with thy own soul and examination of thy self amongst the root of thy customary ignorant sins and O Lord deliver me from my secret faults if in that heap and chaos thy own heart can pick out many of this nature and present them to thee which it before forewarned thee of then let the saltest most briny tear in thy heart be called out to wash off this guilt let the saddest mortified thought thou canst strain for be accounted but a poor unproportionable expiation Think of this seriously and if all this will nothing move you I cannot hope that any farther Rhetorick if I had it to spare would do any good upon you Only I will try one suasory more which being somewhat rough may chance to frighten you and that is the punishment that here expects this contempt and that a dismal hideous one all the wild savage devourers in the wilderness Vile affections which punishment together with the inflicter and manner of inflicting it are the last parts of my discourse of which together in a word God gave them up to vile affections A punishment indeed and all the Fiends of Hell could not invent or wish a man a greater there is not a more certain presage of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or total subversion of body and soul nor a more desperate prognostick in the world 'T is observed in Photius as a sure token that Jerusalem should be destroyed because punishment came upon it in a chain every link drew on another no intermission or discontinuance of judgments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. A single judgment that brings no train after it is cheaply entertained and is therefore called not a calamity but a visitation but when one plague shall invade shall supplant another when the pestilence shall fright out the famine and the sword pursue the pestilence that neither may slay all but each joyn in the glory of the spoyl then must the beholder acknowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God is resolved to make them the scene of his rage not only of his wrath Thus also in the spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the estate of the soul some sins may be suffered to invade us and stick as did the Amorites to goad our sides
In brief the fairest part of a natural man that which is least counterfeit his desire and good affections to spiritual things which we call favourably natural desires of spiritual obedience these I say are but false desires false affections 1. They have no solidity or permanency in the will only fluid and transitory some flight sudden wishes tempests and storms of a troubled mind soon blown over the least temptation will be sure to do it They are like those wavering prayers without any stay of faith Jam. 1. 6. like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tost 2. That being which they have is counterfeit they are not that which they are taken for We are wont to say that acts are distinguished by their objects he sees truly which judges the thing to be that that it is 't is true indeed that another man sees he that takes blew for green but he does not see truly so also he only willeth a good thing that wills that in it which is truly good Now the natural man when he is said to chuse spiritual things as Heaven Happiness and the like he desires not a spiritual but a carnal thing in desiring Heaven he desires somewhat that would free him from misery in happiness a natural or moral good that would be acceptable to any creature under Heaven and so a Turk will desire paradise and that very impatiently in hope that he shall have his fill of lust there Generally you may mark that in such desires of spiritual things 't is some carnality that moves unregenerate men somewhat it is that may please the flesh and then 't is not the spiritual but the carnal part of it that is their object which they woo and make love too which you may judge of by this that they are frequent and importunate in their wishes for glory seldom or never for grace though that also may be wished for carnally to make us more renowned and better esteemed in the world For the most part I say they desire glory for that will make them happy and out of danger of worldly misfortunes remission of sins for these lie heavy on their consciences and give them many a twinge that they would fain be eased of but seldom petition for grace as if holiness without other conveniencies or gains were not worth the having And this arises from hence that our love of Christ grows by sending out and fastning our affections on him as an object fittest for our turns that will advantage us most but not by receiving in his Image and shape into our souls this indeed would make us not only love but imitate him and having once tasted long after him this would sanctifie our souls whereas the other doth but only satisfie our greedy affections By what hath been said 't is plain enough though it might be much more amplified that grace is of absolute necessity to performance of any holy work acceptable to God that without it whatsoever is done in spiritual matters is carnal not indeed spiritual but equivocally and absurdly so called The natural mans desires of Heaven are not desires of Heaven his faith no faith his believing of the Scripture infidelity because he doth not apply them particularly to himself to obey them In sum when he prayes hopes or give alms he does somewhat indeed and 't is well done of him but he doth not truly either pray or hope or give alms there is some carnality in them that hath poysoned them and quite altered the complexion the constitution and inward qualities of the work And then indeed how impatient should every Christian be of this Coloquintida within him There 's mors in ollâ as the Prophet once spake that 's death in the pot that so infects and kills every thing that comes out of it How should we abhor and loath and detest this old leaven that so besowres all our actions this Heathenism of ungenerate carnal nature which makes our best works so unchristian To insist longer upon this were but to encrease your thirst not to satisfie it to make you sensible of that marasmus and desperate drought that hath gone over your souls but not to help you to any waters for the cure that shall come next as the last work of this exercise to be performed in a word Having learnt what this new creature is and how absolutely necessary to a Christian O let us not defer one minute longer to examine our estates whether we are yet renewed or no and by the acts which we daily perform observe whether the sanctifying habit be as yet infused into our souls If the grounds of our best duties that which moves us in our holiest actions be found upon search to be but carnal if a careful religious education custom of the place which we live in fear of humane laws nay perhaps a good soft tender disposition and the like be the things that make thee love God and perform holy duties and not any inward principle of sanctity within thee I counsel thee to think better of thine estate and consider whether the like motives had it so hapned that thou hadst been born and brought up in Turky might not have made thee worship Mahumet I would be sorry to be rigid I fear thou wilt find they might well then a new course must be taken all thy former heathen carnal or at best good moral life all thy formal performances the best of thy natural desires must be content to be rank't here with circumcision and uncircumcision availing nothing there is no trust or confidence to be placed on these Aegyptian staves of reed Es xxxvi 6. And then if thou wilt not live heartless for ever if ever thou meanst to move or walk or do any thing you must to that Creator of Spirits and Lover of Souls and never leave solliciting till he hath breathed another breath into your nostrils another Soul into your Soul you must lay your self at his feet and with all the violence and Rhetorick and humility that these wants will prompt thee to and woo and importune the Holy Spirit to overshadow thee to conceive all holy graces spiritually in thee and if thou canst not suddenly receive a gracious answer that the Holy Ghost will come in unto thee and lodge with thee this night yet learn so much patience from thy beggarly estate as not to challenge him at thy own times but comfortably to wait his leisure There is employment enough for thee in the while to prepare the room against his coming to make use of all his common graces to cleanse and reform thy foul corruptions that when the Spirit comes it may find thee swept and garnish't All the outward means which God hath afforded thee he commands thee to make use of and will require it at thy hands in the best measure even before thou art regenerate though thou sin in all thy unregenerate performances for want of inward sanctitie yet 't is