hereafter in the Jerusalem that is above To the state of which glorious Light He bring us all who is the brightness of his Fathers Glory To whom be Glory and Dominion for ever and ever Amen SERMON III. VVHITE-HALL Second Wednesday in Lent LEVIT 16. 31. Ye shall Afflict your Souls by a Statute for ever THe words are one Single Precept concerning one part of the Celebration of a Day I shall not take the Precept asunder into parts for it hath none but shall frame my Discourse to Answer three Enquiries that naturally offer themselves to be consider'd from these words And they are 1. What the Importance of the thing commanded is what is required in this Injunction Te shall Afflict your Souls 2. What Usefulnesse and Efficacy this Duty had upon that time in which it was prescribed what the Afflicting of the Soul contributed to the work of that Day that it should be made so indispensable an ingredient of its performances tyed to it by a Statute for ever 3. Whether that for ever do reach us which is the Application and brings all home to us First What the Import of the thing commanded the Afflicting of the Soul is The Arab. and Targum of Jerusalem Translate it Fasting yea and a Learned Rabbine sayes that wheresoever these two words are put together that is meant And indeed they are often joyned in Scripture to express it Psal. 35. 13. I afflicted my Soul with Fasting And the Prophet Isaiah speaking of this Day in my Text sayes Is it such a Fast that I have chosen A day for a man to Afflict his Soul Isa. 58. 5. Somewhat a strange expression it is for Fasting does afflict the Body properly and yet we find the like too in the other Extream We read of pampering the Soul Psa◠78. 18. They required 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meat for their Souls not to supply the Hunger of their Body that they had before but to indulge the Lusts of their mind they did not want food but variety Festival diet and a Table furnisht they would have and this luxuriancy and wantonness of Meat the Scripture calls meat for the Soul Such as God sayes in other places the Soul lusteth after Indeed forc't meats and things that please meerly by being rare and dear or by being extravagant these do not feed the Appetite but opinion and the mind it is the Soul onely that hungers after these Thus when I look after Wine in the glasse and make my Eye a Critique of its accidents and by the mode and fashion of it teach it to please or displease my judgment I do not here thirst after the cool moysture of it but the sparkling flame and do not drink the wine but the flavour and colour and this is all but notion Now certainly these are not proper objects for our appetites meat for the Body sayes the Scripture and it is the Stomack and not the Imagination that is hungry nor is it Fancy or the Soul that thirsts but 't is the Palate so that these are unnatural and monstrous satisfactions and appetites And yet to bring mens selves to this is one of the great masteries of Wit and Art to force themselves to find a relish in these things and then contrive them is a piece of skill which the advantages of parts and fortune are desireable mostly as they are useful to And a well studied Epicure one expert in the mysteries of Eating is a singularly qualified and most grateful person It were in vain to ask what else such men can be good for that being their Profession they are out at most other things Indeed the Soul that dwells in Dishes and is stew'd in its own Luxuries grows loose and does dissolve its sinews melt all its firmness of mind forsakes it the man is strong for nothing but for Lusts his faculties are choak'd and stifled they stagnate and are mir'd within him and there corrupt and putrefie And then what Cranes will force out thence and wind up such a Soul into the practises and expectations of Plety will make it mind and entertain the hopes and Duties of Religion what macerations what Chymistry will defecate a Spirit so incarnated and rectifie it into such a fineness as befits that state where all their blessednesse have no sensual relish but are sublimed into Divine and purely Spirituall Lord God! that thou shouldst shed a Rational Angelick Soul into us a thing next to the Being of thy Selfe and We make it employ it selfe to animate onely the organs of Intemperance and Gluttony and their appendant lusts Only inspire us how to be but more Sagacious indeed but more luxurious Bruits when thou hast set us here to train and discipline our selves for a condition of such glorious Joyes as are fit to entertain Souls of Reason with and to make them blessed which to enter upon our Bodies must drop from us our Souls must be clarified from Flesh and Flesh it self re fined into a Spirit that we should make our selves Antipodes to this walk contrary to all and so debase our spirits as that they are qualified for no other satisfaction but those of dull sense and carnality Adam fell his great Fall by Eating but ever since men fall further by riotous intemperate Eating He fell from Paradise and they from Reason the Man sinks into Beast and the Soul falls into very Flesh and hath no other faculties or appetites but fleshly ones Such people of all others are not to be raised up by Religion their fulness gives no place to that but does exclude it God did complain of this of old 32. Deut. 15. Je surun waxed fat and kicked that we may see they want no bruitish quality who do allow themselves the appetite of Bruits they that pamper themselves like to fed Horses will also neigh like them and kick even him that fed them thou art waxen fat thou art covered with fatness then he forsook God that made him and lightly esteemed the Rock of his Salvation When they came once where they did suck hony out of the Rock and Oyl out of the flinty Rock they could not mind the Rock of their Salvation Indeed this sensuality as it consumes Estates eats Time and all the faculties of the Mind so it devours all Religion too it hath not onely a particular opposition to some one duty as the other Vices have but by a direct influence it destroyes the whole foundation of Virtue and obedience to God I mean subordination of the lower appetite to Reason and Religion which it renverses quite and breeds an universal cachexy of the Soul as well as Body For ever since Adam did eat of the forbidden Fruit the carnal mind we know is neither subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be as S. Paul sayes Rom. 8. 7. because Gods Commands are restraints upon those things which Flesh desires eagerly Now therefore while that Mind is unsubdued it must needs lust
to reform their lives and do resolve against their Courses yet repent of their Repentance their resolutions untwist and become frail as threads of Cobweb the first assault of a temptation does break through them is they do not use mortifications to work their aversations high and strong against their sins and fix their resolutions The universal sense of the whole Primitive Church does give me confidence in this perswasion who for that very reason in their penitential Excommunications did inflict such severities as 't is almost incredible that Christians would submit to yet they beg'd to be censur'd into and those had S. Paul for their precedent But now Repentances are but dislikes little short unkindnesses at our sins and wouldings to do better On some moving occasion if Gods hand or his Spirit lash it may be Tears will gush out of the Wound and we in angry sadness do intend against our vices but when that fit is over and the Flesh by indulgences prepared to make or answer a temptation we fall again and then it may be shake the head and curse the sin but yet again commit it if the invitation be fair And then are very sorry account our selves unhappy who lye under such a violent infirmity but act it still Now if we consider how it comes to passe that we go round like men inchanted in a Circle of Repenting and of Sinning we shall find it is for want of Discipline upon our selves for had we strove to make our humiliations more low and full of pungent sorrow the Soul would start and fly at the first glance of that which cost it so much anguish but who would fear to act that sin which puts him to so little trouble to repent of as a sad thought a sigh a wish and a loose purpose thin intention and that 's all Do not complain of the Infirmity of the Flesh for this and say thou wouldst live Spiritually but the frailty of thy sensual part betrayes thee its stings and incitations make thee start from duty and goad and force thee into actions which otherwise thou neither shouldst or wouldst commit 'T is thou thy self that arm'st thy Flesh with all its stings thou givest it strengths whereby it does subdue the Spirit thou waterest thy desires with Wines thou feedest them with strong meat and teachest them to crave thou cocker'st them with thy indulgence and thou dost treat Temptations to sin dost invite wickednesse and nourish the occasions of Ruin and then it is no wonder if thy resolutions be not strong enough there is no way but by Austerities to mortifie all inclinations that stir against the Spirit and by denying satisfactions to thy Appetite to calm and moderate thy affections to every thing below and then Temptations will have neither Aid nor Avenue But Secondly You shall Afflict your Souls cannot be meant onely that ye shall Afflict your Bodies the Spirit also must be troubled and we must rent the Heart as well as Garments that is indeed a Sacrifice fit for a Propitiation day for it is such a one as God will not despise Psal. 51. 17. and without which all others are but vain Oblations God may call safting the Afflicting of the Soul because it is the most appropriate and natural means to work it but when he calls it so he does intend it should produce it Austerities are humilificandi hominis disciplina as Tertull sayes Humiliation discipline but yet they have not alwayes that effect The Pharisee that fasted twice a week did not mortifie at all but his Humiliation made him lofty his emptinesse filled him with wind and puft him up and the Publican was more justified than he And late experiences have taught us that Fasting does not alwayes humble when it did gape for Soveraignty and did afflict them into Power onely when there attended it a sacra fames an hunger after Holy things and such as all the relicts of old Sacriledge could not allay but it devoured Church and State and yet crav'd still And the throat of these fasting men was an open Sepulchre indeed open to bury and that could no more be satisfied than the Grave But 't is not onely these demure impieties and those that are devont in wickednesse and act it in Religion and the Fear of God I have to speak against But in the generall If Fasting do not humble and those severities that wear the Flesh break not the heart too and make it contrite then they are lost upon us and do not profit us All these strictnesses of bodily and outward exercise as S. Paul calls it are acts of discipline prescribed to make the Sorrowes of Repentance more severe and operative and so to be the Correctives of the distempers of the Soul to quell the risings of the Appetite and Passions and bring the sensual part of us under obedience to Reason and Religion to make all calm and even in us and put us in the frame of Men and Christians of Rational and Pious Creatures And if they do not work this in us if the Soul do not meet in the performances they are not acceptable in themselves at all These are onely the mint anise and cummin of our Pieties and as Origen sayes the condimenta actuum the sauces of Religion not the main standing parts of it which he therefore that offers solitary gives God a Sacrifice of Sallads and thinks that will be a Sin-Offering They do mistake themselves who cherish any hope from having spent a day or Lent of abstinence if the Excesses of their vices be not made over and evacuated by it if they continue still full gorg'd with their iniquity or who think all is well they have atton'd by having bowed down the head like a bulrush if the Soul were not also humbled in them for as S. Paul does say I may give all my goods to feed the poor yet have no Charity and I may give my body to be burnt yet in those Martyr-fires there may be no heats of Love to God and then all these profit me nothing 1 Cor. 13. 3. So I may chasten my self too and yet not receive correction or be disciplin'd and then Gods punishments are still due to me That Church indeed which hath found out the easie expiation of Indulgences that hath the treasure of Christ's merits and all the supererogations of the Saints at her dispose and by Commission can issue them at pleasure out and apply those merits to mens uses not by Sacraments but by a Bull or Brief and not require Gospel conditions of Faith and Repentance in the persons that receive them but visiting a Church in Rome ascending the steps in such a Chappel in the Lateran on such a day shall give a plenary remission from sin and punishment the saying of such a Prayer over daily shall do it for fourscore thousand years could they but make a lease for men to live and sin out the indulgence too that would get them good
store of chapmen that Church I say may give encouragement to hope that God may be compounded with at easie rates that for a Surfet I may give a Meal and God will pardon it and let me have Wine too into the bargain for they allow afflicting of our Souls in Wine that some weeks change of Dyet may go for a change of Life for indeed these come up somewhat nearer the just value than some of their prices But though there be all the reason in the world they should let men out of Purgatory on what condition they please when themselves onely put them in and make the breath of a few Pater noster's quite blow out those flames which burn no where but in their Doctrines Yet when without any commission from Christ they make Attrition able to secure men from Hell and an Induâ—gence able to release them out of Purgatory when they make new conditions of Pardon that is new Gospel new wayes of application of Christs Merits and though our Saviour God when he found in his heart to dye for us yet in the Agonies of his Compassion could not find in his heart to give us easier terms of life than such as do require Contrition Humiliation and Amendment which they commute so cheaply with his Vicar We justly stand astonisht at such usurpation on Christ's Blood and Merits that does assign them at these rates I make no question but these easie expiations get them many Converts Rome from its first foundation grew from being an Asylum to the dissolute but they that go away upon such hopes 't is to be feared that easinesle betrayes them into sins from which those Expiations cannot rescue them and at once makes them Proselytes to Rome and Hell Nor are our trusts much more secure if we relye upon our opâ—s operatum too our little outward strictnesses unless the soul be engag'd except there be inward life of religion all those will not avail If I deny my self my meals give my self my sins that is so far from expiation that it aggravates I am an argument against my self that my crimes are incorrigible when I will have them though I cut off the instruments foments of them and though I meddle not with the temptations yet I seize the sins What S. Austin does say of Alms In meliùs vita mutanda per eleemosynas de peccatis praeteritis propitiandus est Deus non ad hoc emendus quodammodò ut semper liceat impune peccare This is applicable to these performances also our lives must be Reformed and so on that Repentance and these strictnesses God will be reconciled and our offences done away but he will not be brib'd by these to let us alone in them he is not gratified by such performances so as to wink at vices for their sakes and suffer us in our rebellions upon such compositions as these take a Reward to spare the Guilt Nor is he such a soft and easie God as to take them for payment of that infinite Debt we owe that which he bought off with the Blood of God shall not be ours at such unworthy prices The Prophet Micah seeking for a present to appease him with rejects all the Jewish rites though God prescrib'd them as insufficient in them all things of the like external kind Mic. 6. 6 7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the most high God shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or with ten thousand Rivers of Oyle shall I give my first-born for my Transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul If I do offer up whole Hecatombs to God will that atone for having offered up too plentifully to my Genius Or if I do remove my Riots from my table to the Altar and change my few extravagant Dishes into whole Herds of thousand Sacrifices shall I by doing so remove the guilt too of my Luxuries If I give God ten thousand Rivers for my overflowing Cups will the Intemperance be washt away in those Or shall I think to expiate an adultery with a Child and for that momentary and unclean delight give up the lovely and first issue of my lawful Bed And who will be content to be his own Priest in such manner to pay such Sacrifices for his sins but yet that will not do as it cost more to Redeem Souls which not Rivers of Oyl can cleanse but streams must flow out of the Heart of Christ to do it nor the fruit of Mans body make a satisfaction for but the eternally begotten Son of the Divinity and none but the first born of God alone for thus expiation of sins was wrought Even so to make that expiation mine besides relyance on it I must transcribe the Copy of the Sufferings of that Son transplant the Garden of Gethsemane into my breast If his Soul be sorrowfull even unto Death my Soul must be Afflicted too Humiliations must prostrate me upon my face to deprecate that Fire and Brimstone burning Tempest that is the portion of the Sinners cup saith David O my Father let this Cup pass from me The lustful feavers of my blood must excern themselves in cold sweat of fear and grief in agonies of Penitence and my excessive draughts not onely make me to cry out I thirst but give me Vinegar and Gall to drink sorrow as bitter as my riotous egestions have been my Oaths that have struck through the Name of God must pierce my Soul with grief as pungent as his Thorns and Nayles In a word I must so Afflict my Soul as to crucifie the body of sin and nail it to his Crosse. And this is that which in its own proportion was required of the Jewes this Day here in the Text to the work of which Day how the Afflicting of the Soul in both the given senses does contribute was my Second and the next Enquiry Secondly What this Day was the Verse before the Text informs us it was their Day of Expiation or Atonement Now that the Jewes esteem Fasting and Humiliation expiatory Sacrifices appears from a Form of Prayer which even yet they use on such a day where he that fasted sayes O Lord the Governour of all the World I have now finished my Fast before thee thou knowest that when we had a Temple standing the man that sinned was bound to expiate it by a Sacrifice the Blood of which was poured out and the Altar consumed the Fat to make amends for his Offence but now by reason of our many wickednesses we have neither a Temple Altar or Priest to make Atonement for us I beseech thee therefore O Lord my God the God of my Fathers to accept of that little portion of my own Flesh and Blood which this dayes Fasting hath torn from me in lieu of a Sin-offering and be thou reconciled unto me for thy mercies sake Thus
does excommunicate them only in desire And again 2 Cor. 10. 6. and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfil'd It becomes therefore every one that hath good VVill for Sion to labour to fulfill his own obedience that so the Church may be empower'd to use Christ's Method for reforming of the rest And they that vvill not do so must know they shall not only answer for their sins but for refusing to be sav'd from them that they resist all medicine as men resolv'd that nothing shall be done towards their Cure as men that rather choose to perish and prefer destruction And for the seasons and degrees of putting this work into Execution Wisdom must be implor'd from that Spirit of VVisdom that calls unto this work The last Part VVhereunto I have called them The Nature of the calling of the Holy Ghost is a Subject that would bear a full discourse But waving those pretensions which Necessity and inward incitation do make to be the Calls of the Holy Ghost I shall positively set down that the call of God and of the Holy Ghost to any VVork or Office for I enquire not of his calling to a priviledge or state of favour is his giving abilities and gifts qualifying for that VVork or Office he call immediate when the gifts were so but mediate and ordinary when the abilities are given in his blessing on our ordinary labours 'T is so in every sort of things Exod. 31. 2. See I have call'd Bezaleel and I have fill'd him vvith the Spirit of God in VVisdome and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of VVorkmanship to devise cunning vvorks and to vvork in all manner of VVorkmanship and behold I have given him Aholiab and in the hearts of all that are vvise hearted I have put Vvisdom that they may make all that I have commanded thee And he repeats the same again Chap. 35. 30. adding that he hath put in his heart that he may teach both He and Aholiab so that giving this skill to vvork and teach is nam'd Gods calling So in another case the Lord does say of Cyrus I have call'd him Esay 48. 15. vvhich he explains in the 49. I have holden him by my right hand to subdue Nations before him to loose the loyns of Kings I have girded him So vvhen Isaiah saith the Lord hath call'd me from the VVomb or rather sayes that of our Saviour Isa. 49. 1. he tells you how ver 5. he form'd me and prepared me from the VVomb to be his servant to bring Jacob to him And throughout the New Testament as his Call to a priviledge is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his grace in allowing such a state of favour so his calls to a Work are his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his gifts enabling for it The Gifts of these Apostles by vvhich they vvere enabled for their Office and vvhich made up their call are set down those of Barnabas in the fore-cited 11 Act. He was a good man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost and Paul's call vvas a little Extraordinary If vve look into times vve shall find reason to believe those revelations in 2 Cor. 12. vvere given to Paul a little before this consecration of him in the Text. That Epistle vvas vvrit saith Baronius in the second year of Nero and this separation vvas in the second of Claudius as may be gathered also in some measure from the famine mention'd in the 28. verse of the 11. chap. betwixt these two vvere fourteen years now saith Saint Paul vvhen he vvrote that he had his revelation somewhat above 14. years before a little therefore before this solemnity Here vvas a call indeed call'd up to the third heaven to receive instructions for his Office and for ought he did know call'd out of his own body too that he might be the fitter for it whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knows verse 2. and that again verse 3. They vvhom Gods Spirit qualifies for Consecration to separate to these diviner Offices may be stil'd Angels well vvhen they are call'd from all regards or notices of any body that belongs to them their gifts and graces set them above the consideration of flesh In the entertainment of these qualifications the Soul is swallowed up so that it cannot take cognizance whether it have a body of its own and is not sensible of that deer partner of it self it is so onely sensible of this Employment 'T is not for an Apostle or for his Successor to think of things below vvith much complacency When these have all their uses all their glories on they but make pomp to dress the body vvhich an Apostle does not designe for nor knowes vvhether he be concern'd at all in He becomes something without a body and above the Earth vvho for a preparative must be taken up to Paradise and call'd from all commerce and all intelligence with his own body Saint Paul vvas call'd from Heaven to preach the Gospel but he vvas call'd to Heaven to qualifie him for this higher separation to an Apostle and Church Governour And now you see your calling Holy Fathers and to pass by such obvious unconcerning observations as at first sight follow that those vvho are not qualified are not call'd I shall onely take notice hence of the counter-part of this call the charge God takes upon him when he calls to this charge and that is he owns and will protect whom himself calls 'T was that he promised to the Pounder and â—od of your Order I the Lord have call'd thee and I will hold thine hand and I will keep thee Isaâ— 42. 6. And vvhen he said of Cyrus I have call'd him he said also he shall make his way prosperous Isai. 48. 15. And so he shall be the vvay vvhat it vvill for thus he said to Jacob I have called thee when thou goest through the VVater I am with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee Isai. 43. 1 2. There was Experience of all this in one of the chief Princes of your Order vvhen the Apostles vvere scarce safe within their ship they vvere so toss'd with vvaves and fears yet if our Lord vvill call him Peter is confident he shall be safe even in the sea Lord if it be thou bid me come unto thee on the Water saith he and the Lord did but call him and he vvent down and walked on the vvater safely as if the swelling billows did only lift themselves to meet his steps and raise him up from sinking And vvhen his own doubts vvhich alone could vvere neer drowning him and he but call'd the Lord immediately he stretched out his hand and caught him He answers his call if vve answer ours if we obey vvhen he sayes come then vvill he come and save vvhen vve call to him And so Peter receiv'd no hurt but a rebuke O thou of little
fire kindles his sacrifice with the flames of Hell for so S. James does call those heats He that gives God any of his performances and hath a naughty Heart like Nadab and Abihu he presents his offering in an unhallowed Censer and all his holy worship will get nothing else from Heaven for him but a consuming fire as theirs did He that will offer any thing to God must take a care it be not tainted with such mixtures which spoil all the Religion making it not sincere and also spoil the Heart by making it not clean and undefiled The last remaining sense A Clean and undefiled Heart Of those things which our Saviour sayes defile the man some are meerly sins of the Heart such as may be consummated within the Soul and for the perpetration of which a spirit is sufficient to it self such are Pride especially spiritual pride the sin of those that think none holy as themselves and cast the black doom of Reprobation upon all that do not comply with their opinions and interests such also are uncontentednesse with our estates inward repinings at the dispositions of Providence concerning us black malice bitter envyings Now in these as the mind does need no outward members to consummate them requires no accessary organs to work them out so neither does it require any outward accessary guilt to make them liable to condemnation we know 't was one sin of the spirit onely that made Angels Devils If a foul body be abominable to the Lord shall a foul spirit be less odious he that defiles his Soul offends God in a much neerer concern of his because that speaks neerer relation to him then the body this was only his workmanship made out of Earth the Spirit was created out of himself a foul body is but filthy Clay but he that does pollute his Soul does putrefie the Breath of God and stains a beam of the Divinity The other sort of things that are said to come from the Heart and to Defile are those which S. Paul calls works of the Flesh such as if they be committed must be committed outwardly Murders Drunkennesse Revellings Revenge Wrath and Contentions Seditions Factions Schismes all Uncleannesses c. In these indeed the Heart can be but partiall Actor the utmost it can do is to desire and to intend them and to contrive and manage the designs of compassing them which yet Providence or the Innocence of others may put out of the reach of mans power or his own temporal fears may make him not dare to set upon them though he do cherish the desires Now if they beobstructed from committing most men use to conclude gently of their guilts while they do keep within the Heart the Execution of them is the onely thing that does look mortal and till the sin be perfected there is no death in it And truly I confesse that as it happens many times on a sudden surprize of soul when a bright gilded temptation strikes the heart and dazles the mind we see that the Will rushes on it instantly consents and wishes heartily yet within a while the Spirit does recover out of the surprize puts by the thrusts of fancy and the stabs of the temptation and that Will languishes and dies like a velleity as if it had been nothing but a woulding and now the man would not by any means consent to the commission In this case though there be a guilt to be repented of and cleansed with many tears yet this is Innocence in the comparison but if the Will purpose contrive and do its utmost it is the same to the man as if he had committed T were easie to demonstrate this that whatsoever evill thing a man intends and does fixedly resolve he is guilty of though he do nothing or though the thing he chance to do be never so much lawful Those sayings of S. Paul I know and am perswaded by the Lord Jesus that there is no meat unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean to him it is unclean Rom. 14. 14. and he that doubteth is damned if he eat v. 23. These could have no truth in them unlesse the heart by choosing and pursuing to the utmost any thing that it does judge unlawful incurr'd the guilt of that unlawfulness even to Damnation and all that meerly by it self without the Action which in that case had nothing sinful in it A weight that is upheld by a mans hand and otherwise would rush down to the earth does surely gravitate as much it is as heavy though it do not fall quite down as if it did and were it let alone it would A settled tendency a resolv'd inclination to sin that presseth with its utmost agitation is that weight which though it may perchance be stopt in its career yet it tends to the Abysse its center and will not rest but in that Pit that hath nor rest nor bottome the Heart in this case is as liable as it can be because here it hath done its worst and such a will shall be imputed to it self And now I need not tell those who are still designing sin or mischief in the heart although it never dares come out of those recesses how far they are removed from the goodnesse of God to Israel A Father finds a way to prove such souls have larger doses of Gods Vengeance who when he had asserted that the soul does not dye with the body and then was askt what it did in that long interval for sure it is not reasonable that it should be affected with any anticipations of the future Judgment because the business of the day of Judgment should be reserved to its own day without all prelibation of the sentence and the restitution of the Flesh is to be waited for that so both soul and body may go hand in hand in their Recompences as they did in their demerits joynt partners in the Wages as they were in the Works To this he answers The Soul does not divide all its operations with the Body some things it acts alone and if there were no other cause it were most just the Soul should there receive without the Body the dues of that which here it did commit without the Body That 's for the former sort of sins those meerly of the Heart And for the latter sort the Soul is first engaged in the commission that does conceive the sin layes the design of compassing and does contrive and carry on the machination and then why should not that be first in Punishment which is the first in the Offence Go now and reckon that thy outward grosse transgressions are the only dangerous and guilty ones and slight thy sins of Heart but know that while thy flesh is sleeping in the quiet Grave at rest and ease thy Spirit then 's in Torments for thy Fleshes sins and feels a far severer Worm than that which gnaws thy Body Poor Soul Eternity of Hell from Resurrection to For-ever
is not enough to punish it all that while it must suffer with the Body but it must have an age of Vengeance besides particularly for it self to plague it for those things it could not execute and punish it for what it did not really enjoy onely because it did allow it self to desire and contrive them and it must be tormented for those unsatisfied desires And though indeed desires where they are violent if they be not allayed by satisfaction are but so much agony yet do they merit and pull on them more these torments shall be plagued and the soul suffer for its very passion even from Death to the last Judgment and 't is but just that being it usurp't upon the pleasures and the sins of Flesh it should also seize on and take possession of the Vengeance appointed for those sins it should invade and should usurp their condemnation But why do I stand pressing aggravations against uncleanness of Heart in an Age when God knows Vice hath not so much modesty or fear to keep within those close and dark restraints Instead of that same Cleannesse which the Text requires we may find Purity indeed of several sorts but 't is either pure Fraud or pure Impiety the one of these does make a strange expression very proper pure Corruption for so it is sincere and without mixture nothing but it self no spots of Clean to chequer it but all stain The other is pure white indeed but it is that of whited Sepulchres a Life as clean as Light a bright pure Conversation but it shines with that light onely which Satan does put on when he transformes himself into an Angell of light and it is but a glory about a fiend But yet this shines however whereas others do stand Candidates of Vice and would be glorious in wickednesse and that is such a splendor as if Satan should dresse himself with the shine of his own flaming Brimstone and make himself a glory with the streamings of his Lake of Fire And yet thus is the world we do not onely see men serve some one peculiar vicious inclination and cherish their own wickednesse but they make every vice their own as if the Root of bitterness branch't out in each sort of Impiety in them such fertile soyls of sin they are here insincerity were to be wisht and where there is not cleanness that there were a Mask that there were the Religion of Hypocrisie We may remember God was good to Israel of old by obligation and performance the one a◠great as he could enter the other great to miracle and astonishment when after seventy years Captivity and Desolation he did rebuild a Temple where there was no monument of its Ruines and raised a Nation and Government of which there was no Reliques And yet at last when the Religion of some turned into Faction of others into Prophanenesse when the strictest Sect of them the Pharises became most holy out wardly to have the better means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mischief those that were not of their party and got a great opinion of Sanctity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as to be believed in whatsoever they did speak against the King or chief Priests and that so far as to be able openly to practice against both and raise commotions They are Josephus words of them and when another Sect the Zelots the most pernicious of all saith Bertram did commit Murders Sacriledge Prophanations and all kind of Villanies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with good Intentions saith the same Josephus and when those who did not separate into Sects but were the Church of Israel became lukewarme supine and negligent in their Profession yea and licentious and Prophane fit onely to be joyned with Publicans in Christs expressions when sin grewgenerally Impudent when they did live as if they would be Scandalous as well as vicious as if they lov'd the guilt as much as the delights of sin and cared not to be wicked to themselves but must debauch as if they did enjoy the ruine of other persons sinning just as the Devil does who does not taste the sin but feasts upon the Sinners Condemnation Then did God execute a Vengeance whose prediction was fit to be mistaken for that of the Day of Judgment and whose event almost fulfil'd the terrors of that day I need not draw resemblances shew how Gods goodness to our Israel does equall that to them applying to our selves their Raptures how when the Lord turned the Captivity of our Sion we also were like them that dream surprized with Mercy Indeed as in a Dream Ideas are not alwayes well connected there is no chain or thread of fancies and the thoughts are not joynted regular and even but there are breaches and disorder in them still the Images of sleep being like Nebuchadnezzar's made of such things as do not well unite So there is something I confess like this in our condition for with our gold and silver our precious things that are restored there is Iron and Clay not onely meaner mixtures but such things as will not close or be soder'd but do incline to part asunder and would moulder and tend towards dissolution and just as in a Dream the composure of things is not so undisturb'd but that there is some confusedness neither our affections nor practises do perfectly cement but yet I hope it is no dream of mercy 't is not a Phantasme or an Apparition of Gods kindness but the Lord will be truly good to us Yet if we do proceed as Israel and equal it in provocations But I will make no parallels publique clamors do that too loud these do display the factions of iniquity among us and muster up the several parties of our vices too and each man is as perfect in the guilts of all sides that he is not of as if their memories were the books that shall be opened at the Day of Judgment some men can point you out our Pharisees and Zelots others can shew you our prophane licentious Professors Lay and Clergy both and indeed we need not go far to seek any or all of these nor do we want our Sadduces Now if all this be true then as those were the signs of the Son of Man's coming to them in Judgment so we may fear they are his Harbingers to us If they be I am sure the onely way to make his coming good to us is to prepare for it by cleansing from all filthiness and insincerity then though he come clothed with a Glory of flaming Vengeance yet will those streams of Fire find nothing to consume or wash away in us but through that flame the pure in heart shall see God so as that that sight shall be the Beatick Vision Yea they shall see the Goodnesse of the Lord in the Land of the Living they shall see Jerusalem in prosperity all their life long and Peace here upon Israel and in his light they shall see light
when he cannot give a Lamb for his Transgression he gives some of himself he offers Hunger for Shewbread and Thirst for a Drink offering he consecrates a Meal instead of a Beast and sheds a sower fasting sigh for Incense and this he hopes God will accept as Sacrifice And truely the Text sayes no day of Expiation could be kept without it Noâ— does the Scripture want great instances of its effect towards Atonements of Gods wrath How when Judgment was given on a Nation or Person and Execution going out against them yet this rever'st the Sentence Ahab is a great proof of this 1 King 21. 27. And it came to passe when Ahab heard those words that he rent his Clothes and put Sackcloth upon his flesh and Fasted and lay in Sackcloth and went softly And the Word of the Lord came unto Elijah the Tishbite saying Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his dayes One Fasting-day secured a Life the weaknesses it brought upon the body upheld it against all Gods threats Vengeance pronounc't and coming out against him falls to ground if Ahab humble and Afflict his Soul Gods stretcht out Arm will not strike Sackcloth nor wound through Fasting Garments One fit of it removes his Judgments a whole Age and had it been sincere and persevering how had it wip't them out to everlastingnesse Nineve is another instance of the practice and successe of this even among the Heathens Nor should it seem to have lesse Efficacy among Christians The Primitive Fathers call these severities Satisfaction for sin and Compensations the Price with which they are bought off the things that cover them and blot them out and which Propitiate and appease God for them not in their sense who force up these Expressions to a strange height of meaning and yet have quite beat down the Practise as to the publique wholesome use of them out of the Church But though these sayings assign not the Power and just Efficacy of that discipline in it self yet they do the acceptance and effect of it by virtue of Christs Satisfaction A Fainting Body cannot bear indeed the weight of our iniquities nor will lowest prostrations in the dust bury them in the dust or Tears alone blot out our Guilt but Christ having done that which is effectual to all this and requiring no more of thee to make that thine as he does every where most solemnly avow but faithfull humbling of thy self in an afflictive sorrow for what 's past and so to mortifie as to work out Repentance the doing this is doing what he does require and consequently will accept These satisfie the Command and therefore God though not by a condignity of performance yet as Conditions which his Covenant of Grace hath set us which when they are fulfilled then God is satisfied thy sins are expiated and thou art pardoned And so in this lower sense these are thy Satisfactions with which God is well pleased And thus these self Afflictions of the Sinner supply Gods Indignation and divert it They leave no place nor businesse for it and by these short severities upon himself he does make void he does expunge the Sentence of eternal Torments saith Tertullian As thou becomest severe against thy self so will the Lord abate of his severities and he will spare and he will pitty thee in that he sees thou wilt not spare thy self How can he choose but be appeased towards thee when he shall see thee executing his Sentence even upon thy own self and punishing his Enemies although they be thy Members so that by this means thou dost censure thy self into Gods Absolutions afflict thy self into his Pardons and dost condemn thy self into eternal Life Our Church sayes the same thing That in the Primitive Church there was a Godly Discipline that at the beginning of Lent such persons as were notorious sinners were put to open Pennance and punished in this world that their Souls might be saved in the Day of the Lord and she does wish if her wishes be of any force and value when her Orders and Constitutions are not that Discipline could be restored But this I shall not presse if all those whom the Primitive Church Condemned or S. Paul sentenced were so used if every Schismatick that lyes tearing himself and others off from the Lords Body were rejected and if the Fornicator that joyns himself to his unclean Accomplice were disjoyned from Christ and not suffered to make his members be the members of an Harlot if every scandalous debauching offender that lyes corrupting Christs Body spreading contagion thrusting the gangreen forward were cut off and these and all the rest delivered up to Satan alas what part would Christ have left of his own Body Sed illos defendit numerus junctaeque umbone phalanges and that I fear too in more senses than the Poet means Therefore I shall not urge the Churches Wish but only see whether the Statute in the Text sayes any thing to this and whether the for ever do reach us Which is my third and last Enquiry Thirdly Divers of the Jews Rites are said to be and be prescribed for ever although those very Rites and the whole oeconomy of their Covenant were to be chang'd and cease among other reasons as the Fathers say because they foresignifie and point at things in the new Covenant which were to last till Covenants and Rites shall be no more and so their meaning and signification was to be for ever Now truely that their Expiation Performances those which I am upon did so the whole Epistle to the Hebrews is employ'd to prove the Margent of your Bibles in this Chapter so refer you to the places that I shall not need to make it out Christ did fulfill the Temple and the Altar part yea and the refuse outcast part of the Atonement satisfied the Religion and the contempt of that dayes offices He was the whole true Expiation Now does this Expiation as theirs did require afflicting of the Soul in its attendance or was that but a Ceremony of their Rite and though a Jew must mourn and Fast to see his sin killing a Beast and when he does behold his wickednesse eating up a Goat for a Sin offering he must deny himself his daily bread and suffer thirst if his Iniquities drink but the blood of Bullocks yet when we behold ours embrew themselves in the Blood of the Son of God not onely lay hands and confessions on his head but drive Thorns into it make him cry out almost despair and Dye we need not be concern'd so much as to do ought of that either in order to the better Celebration of that Expiation or on the very day of it Indeed if we consider most mens practises it would appear most probable that if we were to expiate our sins as the Jews did by sacrificing of our Flocks not of our Jesus
those satisfactions would more afflict our Souls and more restrain our vices than that which was made for us by the Death of Christ and how can this be rectified unlesse by some severities upon our selves we give our selves a piercing sense of what our sin deserves and grateful apprehensions of what our Surety suffer'd for us When in sad private earnest I have thought fit to Afflict my Soul with some austere mortifications and when my fainting Spirits are scarce able to sustain my Body that sinks under the load of it self then I may have some tender apprehensions of that weight that sunk the Son of God and 't was my weight that he fell under But he that cannot think fit to revenge a year of follies and of vices with a few weeks severer life sure thinks his Saviour suffered much in vain quorsum perditio haec why must the Blood of God be paid for sin when I cannot afford a little self-denyal for it Why such great Agonies of the Holy Jesus when I cannot find in my heart to bear a little strictnesse for it But I could easily deduce were I not to suppose it done before that sure as if the Church had thought a Statute had annext these two for ever they have been joyn'd from the beginings of our Christianity it was the Fast that did attend our Saviours sufferings that in part caused the Contest about Easter which Polycarpe S. John's Disciple manag'd and then there was a Fast so soon and he that tells us this Irenaeus Schollar to that Polycarpe sayes some observ'd it many dayes some forty dayes also if we can take the Antient Ruffinus's authority but for a Comma And if the Antient Fathers do expound aright Christ himself thought that men were interested so much in his Death that they would Fast by reason of it When the Bridegroom is taken from them then shall they Fast in those dayes Upon which words they say the Season was determin'd to this Duty by the Gospel But they may say so who knew how to perswade men to take up restraints of strictest discipline and of severest Piety But we cannot engage them into order or from Scandal they made them fast we cannot make them temperate Blessed Saviour what kind of Christians didst thou hope for thy Disciples of whom thou wer't so confident they would so concern themselves in thy Passion as to Fast because of it when in our times Christians will not be kept from their Excesses by it not in those dayes of Fasting which thy Primitive followers did Celebrate with abstinences that did almost mortifie indeed and slay the Body of Flesh as well as Sin and we in imitation of them in answer of thy confidences will not abate a Meal nor an intemperance will eat and Riot too and make a Lent of Bacchanals Thus we prepare load for thy Day of Passion sin on to add weight to thy Crosse and yet we our selves will not be humbled under them It is in vain to tell men thou expectest they should mortifie that it will spirit their Repentance for they will have no kind of Penitence for sin but such as will let them return to sin again suffer no discipline with which their vices too cannot consist for they can scarce live if they make not themselves chearful with them even in this time of Sadnesse and in sight of the Memorial of thy sufferings for them Indeed when I consider how this Season is hedg'd in from Vice by all Gods Indignation threatned at first suffered at last pronounc't in Commination executed in Passion Ash-wednesday gave us all Gods Curses against Sinners all which Good Friday shews inflicted on our Saviour Thus we began Cursed are the Unmerciful the Fornicators and Adulterers the Covetous persons Worshippers of Images Slanderers Drunkards and Extortioners and we shall see the Son of God made this Curse for them yea we our selves said Amen to all as testifying that that Curse is due to all When I consider this I say I cannot choose but be astonish't to behold how men can break through all Gods Curses and their own to get at Vice first seale Gods Maledictions then provoke and incur them instantly as if they lov'd and would commit a Rape upon Perdition as if because men have so long in Oaths beg'd God to damn them and he hath not done it yet they would now do it in their Prayers too make their Devotions as well as Imprecations consign them to the wrath of God He that does love cursing thus in the Passive sense surely as David sayes it shall come unto him it shall be unto him as the Garment that covereth him it shall enter into his bowels like Water and like Oyl into his Bones Psal. 109. 17 18 19. And truly amongst those things which we did Curse there are that will fulfill all that most literally the Ryots of thy gaudy bravery that make thee gripe extort spend thy own wealth and other mens undo thy self and Creditors be sordid and in Debt meerly to furnish trappings to dresse thy self for others eyes and may be sins these bring a Curse to cover thee as does thy Garment yea and they gird it to thee The draughts of thy Intemperance carry the malediction down into the Bowells like Water yea like Wine into the very Spirits There is another of them too that will conveigh the Curse like Oyl into the Bones till it eat out the marrow and leave nothing but it self to dwell within them yea till it putrefie the bones till it prevent the Grave and Judgment too while the living sinner invades the rottennesse of the one and torments of the other and then the Lents and abstinencies that the sin prescribes shall be observed exactly onely to qualifie them for more sin and condemnation may be at the best but to recover them from what it hath inflicted when yet alas they are too soft and tender the Lord knows to endure any severities to work out their Repentance and Atonement And yet sure these the sinner does go through have nothing to commend them which these other do not much more abound with If those are not grievous to thee because they are so wholesome and though it be a miserable thing to go through all their painful squalid methods yet how disgustful so-ere by the benefit of their cure they excuse their offensivenesse and ingratiate the present injury they do the Flesh by the succeeding health they help thee to and by the Death they do secure thee from Why sure to omit that the other have all these advantages none have so calm and so establisht health as the abstemious and continent and their mind is still serene their temper never clouded but besides this the Christians bitter poâ—ions do purge away that sickness that would end in death eternal his fastings starve that worm that otherwise would gnaw the Soul immortally his weepings quench the everlasting burnings yea there is cheerful Pleasure in the
another now and then she must not count her self her Husbands Friend though she give him the greatest share in her affections no she is but a bosome Enemy And so any one vice allowed is a paramour sin is whoredom against Christ and our pretended friendship to him in all other obediences is but the kindness and the caresses of an Adulteress the meer hypocrisie and treachery of love If it be necessary to the gaining of Christ's friendship that thou do his commands 't is necessary that thou do them all that thou divorce thy self from thy beloved sin as well as any other Because his Friendship does no more require other obedience than it does that but is as inconsistent with thy own peculiar vice as with the rest Indeed it is impossible that it should bear with any they being all his murderers If thou canst find one sin that had no hand in putting Christ to Death one vice that did not come into the garden nor upon Mount Calvary that did not help to assassin thy Saviour even take thy fill of that But if each had a stab at him if no one of thy vices could have been forgiven had not thy Jesus dyed for it canst thou expect he should have kindness for his Agony or friendship for the man that entertains his Crucifiers in his heart If worldly cares which he calls Thorns fill thy head with Contrivances of Wealth and Greatness of filling Coffers and of platting Coronets for thee as the thorns did make him a Crown too wouldst thou have him receive thee and these in his bosome to gore his Heart as they did pierce his Head If thou delight in that intemperance which filled his deadly Cup which Vomited Gall into it can he delight in thee That Cup which made him fall upon his face to deprecate will he partake in as the pledge of mutuall love He that sunk under could not bear this load of thine when it was in his Cross upon his shoulders will he bear it and thee in his armes when thou fallest under it When thou wilt cast a shameful spewing on his glory too if he own such a Friend Thou that art so familiar with his Name as thou wer't more his Friend than any in the world whose Oaths and imprecations Moses sayes strike through that Name which they so often call upon thou mayst as well think his heart did attract the Spear that pierced it and the Wound close upon its head with unions of Love as that he hath kindness for thee If Christ may make Friendship with him that does allow himself a sin he may have fellowship with Belial For him to dwell in any heart that cherisheth a vice were to descend to Hell again But as far as those Regions of Darkness are from his Habitation of Glory and the Black Spirits of that place from being any of his Guard of holy Myriads so far is he from dwelling with or being friend to him that is a friend to any wickedness to him that will not do whatever he commands And now if these conditions seem hard if any do not care to be his Friend upon these terms they may betake themselves to others Let such make themselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousnesse A Friend indeed that hath not so much of the insincerities as many great ones have For this will furnish them with all that heart or lust can wish for all that necessity or wantonnesse proposeth to it self to dress out pomp or vice But yet when with enjoyment the affections grow and become so unquiet work them so as not to let their thoughts or actions rest make them quicken themselves and like the motions of all things that go downwards tending to the Earth increase by the continuance grow stronger and more violent towards the end then when they are most passionate it fails them And having filled their life with most unsatisfied tormenting cares it leaves them nothing but the guilt of all When their great Wealth shall shrink into a single sheet no more of it be left but a thin shroud and all their vast Inheritances but six foot of earth be gone yet the iniquity of all will stick close to them and this false Friend that does it Self forsake them will neither go along nor will let its pomp follow them raises a cry on them as high as Gods Tribunal the cry of all the Blood all the oppressed rights that bribery till then had stifled the groans of all those Poor that greatness covetousness or extortion had groun'd and crush't the yellings of those Souls that were starv'd for want of the Bread of life which yet they payed for and the price of it made those heaps which will that day appear against their Friends and Masters and prove their Adversaries to eternal Death Let others joy in Friends that Wine does get them such as have no qualification to endear them but this that they will not refuse to sin and to be sick with their Companions Men that do onely drink in their affections as full of friendship as of liquor and probably they do unload themselves of both at once part with their dearness and their drink together and alike I know not whether it be heats of mutual kindness that inflame these draughts and the desires of them so as if they did drink thirst but sure I am that these hot draughts begin the Lake of fire Let others please themselves in an affection that Carnality cements These are warm friendships I confess but Solomon will tell us whence they have their heat Her house saith he doth open into Hell and Brimstone kindles those libidinous flames There are strait bands fetters in those affections indeed for the same Wiseman sayes The Closets of that sinner are the Chambers of Death That none that go unto her return again or take hold of the paths of life it seems she is a friend that takes most irreversible dead hold she is not onely as insatiate but as inexorable as the Grave and the Eternal Chains of Fate are in those her embraces But God keep us from making such strict Covenants with Death from being at friendship with Hell or in a word that I say all at once with any that are good Companions onely in sinning Such men having no virtue in themselves must needs hate it in others as being a reproach to them and therefore they are still besieging it using all arts and stratagems to undermine it and having nothing else to recommend them into mens affections but their managery of vice no way to Merit but by serving iniquity they not onely comply with our own evil Inclinations that so they may be grateful and insinuate into us but they provoke too and inflame those tendencies that they may be more useful to us having no other means to work their ends And then such friends by the same reason must be false and treacherous and all that we declaime
and favour and the happy consequences of it as to counterpoise all the danger of such enmity you may joyn hands with them But if His be the safer and more advantageous then hearken to his Propositions and beseechings for He does beg it of you As he treated this reconciliation in his Blood so he does in Petitions too For saith S. Paul We are Ambassadours for Christ as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead Be you reconciled and then be Generous towards your GOD and Saviour and having brought him as it were upon his knees reduc'd him to entreaties be friends and condescend to him and your own Happiness If He be for you take no care then who can be against you His Friendship will secure you not onely from your Enemies but from Hostility it self for when a man's wayes please the Lord he will make even his Enemies to be at peace with him Prov. 16. 7. He will reconcile all but Vices And afterwards see what a blessed throng of Friends we shall be all initiated into Heb. 12. 23. To an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First-born that are written in Heaven to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of Just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant c. And of this blest Corona we our selves shall be a noble and a glorious part inflamed all with that mutual love that kindles Seraphims and that streams out into an heavenly glory filling that Region of immortal love and blessednesse and being Friends that is made one with Father Son and Holy Ghost that Trinity of Love we shall enjoy what we do now desire to ascribe to them All Honour Glory Power Majesty and Dominion for evermore Amen SERMON V. VVHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LEN. EZECH XXXIII 11. Why will ye Dye THe Words are part of a Debate which God had with the sinful House of Israel in which there are three things offer themselves to be considered First The Sinners Fate and choyce He will Dye That 's his End yea 't is his Resolution he will dye Secondly Gods inquiry for the Ground of this he seems astonished at the Resolution and therefore reasons with them about this their so mad choyce and questions Why will ye dye Which words are also Thirdly The debate of his Affections the reasoning of his Bowels and a most passionate Expostulation with them on account of that their Resolution Why will ye dye Which as it is adrest by God directly to the House of Israel so it would fit a Nation perverse as that which Mutinies against Miracles and Mercies is false to God Religion and their own Interests led by a Spirit of giddyness and srenzy unsteddy in all things but resolutions of Ruine that would teare open their old Wounds to let out Life and they will dye And though the Lord be pleased to work new prodigies of mercy for us and to say unto us in despite of all our Enemies both Forreign and Domestick Live The use we make of all is onely to debauch the Miracles and make Gods Mercies help to fill the measure of our Judgment live as if we would try all the wayes to Ruine and since God will thus deliver us from dangers we would call for them some other way But to prescribe to these is above the attempt of my endeavours May the blessed Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Holynesse and Peace and Order breath on their Counsels whom this is committed to I shall bend my Discourse to the Conviction of Sinners in particular and treat upon the words as if they had been spoke to us under the Gospel The first thing which my Text and God supposeth is the Sinners Fate and Choyce He will dye Even the second Death for it is appointed for all men once to dye and then cometh the Judgment which shall sentence him to another death that is immortal in which he and his misery must live for ever that is he must dye Everlastingly Such is first his fate That Sin and Death are of so near so complicated a relation as that though they were Twins the birth and Issue of one Womb and moment yet they are also one anothers Ofspring and beget each other while Sin bringeth forth Death as S. James saith and is the Parent of Perdition and yet the Man of Sin is the Son of Perdition as S. Paul saith and Iniquity is but destruction's birth onely it self derived And that this Death and Perdition is Eternal in the most sad sense of the word there are a thousand Texts that say This is the Message of God in the mouth and Blood of his Son who useth all the artifice of Words affirmative and negative to tell us so as if on purpose to preclude all doubt and subtersuge calls it Eternal fire and Eternal punishment where their worm dieth not their fire is not quenched Torment for ever and ever and the like Your Faith and certainty of which is as strong as your Christianity and therefore by attempting any farther proof of this to imply there is reason and necessity for doing so were to suppose my Hearers infidels But then this being granted that such is the sinners fate to lay down positively that it is his Choyce and that he doth resolve for Death is to suppose them worse than Infidels more than irrational and brutish Beasts cannot so desire against the possibilities of appetite break all the forces and instincts of Nature as to will destruction and choose misery Yet that the sinner does so is the ground of Gods Expostulation here Why will you dye David inquires as if it were a prodigy to find What man is he that lusteth to Live And sure the vicious man does not for Wisdome that is Virtue sayes He that sinneth against me woundeth his own Soul and all they that hate me love death Prov. 8. 36. And 't is most evident that they who eagerly and out of vehement affection pursue and seize those things to which they know destruction is annext inseparably they love and choose destruction though not for it self yet for the sake of that to which it clings He that is certain such a Potion howsoever sweetned and made palatable is compounded with the juice of deadly Nightshade if notwithstanding he will have the Poysonous draught it is apparent he resolves to dye And that I may evince this is a setled obstinate incorrigible resolution in him and by what wayes and steps it comes to be so I will lay before you the violent courses he does take to break through difficulties and obstructions that would trash and hinder him And when the avenues to Death are strongly guarded how he storms and forces them overcomes all resistance possible that he may seize on Sin and Death And First When such persons have entred the Profession of Christianity in Baptisme and
by early engagements tyed themselves to the observation of its duties if principles of probity in Nature fomented by others instil'd with Education have made impressions of duty on the mind and wrought a reverence and awe of God and of Religion which is a fence about them and does keep off Vice by making it seem strange uncouth and difficult while these fears and aversations are rooted in them why then the first thing that they do as soon as Youth and the Temptations do stir within them is to poyson these their own Principles by evil Conversation and from that and Example take infusions which shall impregnate them with humours of being in the fashion of the World Thus they labour to strangle the then troublesome modesties of Nature and of Virtuous breeding thus they look out ill Company to infect themselves And surely they that seek the Plague and run into infection we have cause to fear they have a Resolution to dye But Secondly If notwithstanding this in the first practises of Vice their former Principles stir and ferment within and fret the Conscience set that on working why then if the sin sting gently do but prick the heart and make an out-let for a little gush of Sorrow then in spight of Scripture they do teach themselves to think that grief Repentance and by the help of that conceit this sorrow cools and doth allay the swelling of the mind washes away the guilt and thought of the commission they have been sad and they believe repented as if those stings opened the fountain for transgression and those little wounds did flow with Balsom for themselves And by this means that sting of the old Serpent fin while it pretends to cure by hurting thus proves indeed the Tempter to go on For if this be all why should a man renounce all the Contents and satisfactions of his Inclinations and mortifie and break his nature to avoid a thing which is so easily repented for No if it be no worse they can receive this Serpent in their bosome dare meet his sting and run upon these wounds and they do so till the frequent pungencies and cicatrices have made the Conscience callous and insensible the heart hardned But if their first essays of sin were made unfortunate by Notoreitie or some unhappy circumstance and so the wound were deep and the Conscience troublesome and restlesse because this is very uneasie these inward groans make discord in their cheerful aires make their life harsh they therefore find it necessary to confront the shame with Courage of iniquity go boldly on that so they may outlook it sear their own Conscience that its wounds may not bleed And as those Fiends of Men who Sacrific'd their Children in the fire to Moloch that they might not hear their Infants shreek nor their own Bowels croke had noyses made with Timbrels to out-voice them So these to drown the cryes and howlings of their wounded mind put themselves in perpetual hurry of divertisement and vice make Tophet about themselves and with the noyse of Ryots overcome all other because they will not hearken to those groans that call for the Physician of Souls and then sure these resolve to dye Nay if this will not keep them quiet you may see them sometimes ruffle with their own Consciences defie present Convictions in the very instant of Commission men so set on Death that they Condemn themselves in that which they allow And though a man would think there should be little satisfaction in those pleasures which Condemnation thrusts it self into and which have an alloy of so sad apprehensions yet such are it seems the satisfactions of sin For while it stabs and gashes He brave Hero of Iniquity can charge the wounds and take the Vice Yea Thirdly though the Lord himself appear and take part in the Quarrel joyn with our Principles and Conscience against the fin and with importunate calls alarm us give us no rest ordain a Function of men by whom he does beseech us dresses their Messages with Promises of that which God is blessed in and arms them too with Terrors such as Devils tremble at and joyns his Holy Spirit too that Power of the Highest sends him in Tongues of Fire that he also may Preach this to our very Hearts and fright us with more flame And yet the sinner breaks these strengths and vanquishes the Arts and strivings of Divine Compassion If these Embassadors speak Charms it is but what God tells our Prophet in this Chapter v. 32. And lo thou art unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant voyce and can play well on an Instrument And it does dye like that as it there follows They hear thy words but they do them not And if they flash in Hell against their vices in torrents of threatning Scripture they concern themselves no more than they would in the story of a new Eruption of Mount AEtna or Vesuvius Yea they do quench the Spirit and his fires do not like the deaf Adder stop their ears against his whisperings and the charms of Heaven that were a weaker and less valiant guilt but are Religious in hearing them curious that they may be spoke with all advantages to make it harder not to yield and live that so they may expresse more resolution to perish and with more courage and solemnity may sin and dye Nay more when God hath found an Art to draw themselves into a League and Combination against their vices bound them in Sacraments to Virtue made them enter a Covenant of Piety and seal it in the Blood of God and by that foederall Rite with hands lift up and seizing on Christ's Body and with holy Vows oblige themselves to the performances or to the Threats of Gospel which they see executed in that Sacrament before their eyes see there death is the wages of iniquity they shew themselves its damned consequences while they behold it tear Christ's Body spill his Blood and Crucifie the Son of God yet neither will this frightful spectacle nor their own ties hold them from sin and ruine they break these bonds asunder to get at them The Wiseman sayes that wicked men seek death and make a Covenant with it and so it seems But sure they are strange wilful men that seek it at Gods Table in the Bread of Life that will wade through an Ocean of mercy to get at Perdition and find it in the Blood of Christ will drink Damnation in the Cup of Blessing men that poyson Salvation to themselves They that contract thus for Destruction and tye it to them at the Altar with such sacred Rites and Articles are sure resolv'd and love to dye Fourthly God had provided other Guards to secure men from sin and Death the Censures of the Church of which this Time was the great Season and the discipline of abstinence we now use is a piteous relique all that the world will bear it seems But as the
Lord appointed them they were so close a sence that our Saviour calls them Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven as if they lockt us in the Path of Piety and Life and we must pick or break all that the Key of Heavin can make fast burst Locks as well as Vows before we can get out have liberty to sin God having bounded in the Christians race as that among the Grecians was which had a River on one side and Swords points all along the other so that Destruction dwelt about it on the borders And God hath mounded ours with the River of Hell the Lake of Fire and with these spiritual Swords as S. Cyprian and S. Hierome call the Censures But yet a Mound too weak alas to stand the Resolution and assaults of Vices now adayes which do not onely make great breaches in the Fence but have quite thrown it down and slighted it and the Church dares not set it up again should she attempt it they would scoff it down Men will endure no bar in the way to Perdition they will have liberty of Ruine will not be guarded from it so far from brooking Censures they will suffer no Reproof nor Admonition not suffer one word betwixt them and death eternal But Fiftly Though we will not let Almighty God restrain us with his Censures yet he will do it with his Rod and set the sharp stakes of Affliction in our walk to keep us in thus he makes sins sometimes inflict themselves and then we straight resolve to break off from them and while we suffer shame and feel destruction in the vice we shrink and uncling And now the sinner would not dye especially if his Precipitance have thrown him to the consines of the grave and while he took his full careers of Vice the fury of his course did drive him to the ports of Ruine and Death seemed to make close and most astonishing approaches when standing on the brink of the Abysse he takes a prospect of the dismal state that must receive him and his Vices then he trembles and flyes his apprehensions swoon his Soul hath dying qualins caused as much by the Nausea of sin as by the fear of Hell he is in agonies of passion and of prayer both against his former courses he never will come near them more and now sure God hath catch't him and his will is wholly bent another way now he will live the new life if God will grant him any But alas have we never seen when God hath done this for him stretch't out his Arm of Power hal'd him from the brow of the Pit and set him further off how he does turn and drive on furiously in the very same path that leads to the same Ruine and he recovers into death eternal And now this Will is grown too strong for the Almighty's powerful methods and frustrates the whole Counsell of God for his Salvation neglects his Calls and Importunacies whereby he warns him to consult his safety to make use of Grace in time not to harden his heart against his own mercies and perish in despight of mercy And when he can reject Gods Graces and his Judgments thus defie his Conscience and his own Experience too there is but one thing left wherein this Resolution can shew its courage and that is Sixthly His own present Interests All which the sinner can break through and despise to get at Death It is so usual to see any of the gross wasting Vices when it is once espoused murder the Reputation and all those great concerns that do depend upon a mans Esteem eat out his Wealth and Understanding make him pursue pernicious wayes and Counsells besot him and enslave him fill his life with disquiet shame and needinesse and the sad consequents of that Contempt and all that 's Miserable and unpittied in this Life and yet the sin with all these disadvantages is lovely not to be divorc't nor torn off from him that I were vain should I attempt to prove a thing so obvious I shall give but one instance of the power of the Will the violence and fury of its inclimations to ruine The man who for anothers inadvertency possibly such as their own rules of Honour will not judge affront yea sometimes without any shadow of a provocation meerly because he will be rude does that upon which they must call one another to account and to their last account indeed at Gods dread Judgment feat whither when he hath sacrific'd two Families it may be all their hopes and comforts in this Life two Souls which cost the Blood of God having assaulted Death when it was aâ—m'd and at his heart and charged Damnation to take Hell by Violence he comes with his own and his Brother's blood upon his Soul to seize his Sentence Go ye Cursed into everlasting Fire 'T is plain against all Interests of this World and the World to come this man will dye And yet this is one of the laudable and generous Customes of the Age. Neither doth this man stand alone the desperate Rebel would come into the Induction that without any hopes sets all on fire to consume all here and to begin his Flames hereafter But I have said enough to prove the Resoluteness of a Sinners Will which is so great indeed that it is this especially which does enhance the guilt of sin into the merit of an endlesse punishment this persevering obstinacy does deserve Hell and make it just For whatsoever inequality there is betwixt the short liv'd pleasures of a sin which dye while they are tasted and put out themselves and those eternal never dying retributions of Vengeance As sure there is also betwixt the life of Man and several of those petty felonies that forfeit it yet the Law does not murder when it Executes I might have instanc't in the gathering sticks upon the Sabbath day in Israel For since the preservation of publique safety and propriety is valuable with the lives of many men and to secure that and affright the Violation it was necessary to affix such punishments to such offences they that know the penalty and wilfully meerly to feed their other vices run upon it justly suffer it So that Man might not rob himself of that immortal Glory which God had ordain'd him when he did see it absolutely necessary thus to hedge Vice with Eternal Death And as he set Angels and Flaming Swords to keep him out of Paradise so to set Fiends and Flames to guard Hell from him and to entail those Torments on Man's sin which he had prepared for the Devil and sealed the Deed in the Blood of his Son If notwithstanding men renounce the blessedness and against all their Interests and Obligations in spight of all the arts and Powers of Heaven they will have the Torments and what they never would attempt for Paradise invade those flames to get to Hell 't is very just that God should let them have it should not break his
may dye before the Crown fall to him but it is impossible that we should misse of ours except we put our selves by by such choyces except we change it thus And on the other side we know men will adventure the Sentence of the Law by Robberies and murders to provide for lusts while they hope to be undiscovered But sure a Prison made delightful by all arts of pleasure and all plenties of it will not hire a man to own those actions which shall forfeit him to certain shameful Execution the next Sessions and yet this is the sinners state exactly he is ti'd and bound in the chain of his sins they are it may be chains of Gold and softned with delices but they reserve him to the Judgment of the great Assise And yet he chooses these and puts them on as ensigns of delight and honour Once more Do not men choose a present Agonie to keep off an after evill they teare their bowels with a Vomit to prevent a Surfeit they cup and scarifie and with all artifice of pain upon themselves kill a Disease yea they are well content to prolong torment so they may but prolong life and though the preservation of it prove onely continued pangs and all they can effect is onely this that they are longer dying yet they are glad to be so in all cases except where the prescription is virtue and the death prescribed against Eternall Now why do you choose thus onely in Sin and Hell 'T is clear the very pleasure you change Heaven for cannot invite you from this Life and then you that will suffer any thing rather than you will dye Why against all resistance will you dye for ever Is it Secondly because you know not what it is to dye the second Death at least your notions of it are so slight and easie that they cannot fright you from a pleasure or cope with a temptation to it and so though present satisfactions are not able to engage you upon present ruin they can upon the after-death Indeed the Sinner would have reason if it meant no more than hath been taught of late by one that hath gained many Proselytes among the Virtuosi of Religion After the Resurrection the Reprobates shall be saith he in the state that Adam and his Posterity were in after his Sin i. e. the state we are now in Live as we do Marry and give in Marriage and cease to be when they have got some heirs to succeed them in Tophet Poor unhappy Souls these that never had any sin to merit being there nor any Sentence to condemn them thither but this mans Who must put them there succssively one after other to find employment for Everlasting-fire A Doctrine such as had an Angel Preacht from Heaven by S. Paul's award he must have been Anathema when the Devil made Religions and Theology came from the bottomless Pit he never found out such an Engine to conveigh men into it as this pleasant notion of the punishment of sin therein as if Leviathan were made to take his pastime in that Lake also by such interpretations which surely were contrived to make out the Assertion of that Romish Priest who sayes that those in Hell love to be there nay more that 't was impossible for God to do a kinder thing for them than to put them there Doctrines to be abhorr'd as Hell it self and yet upon these grounds he builds their Church by demonstration so strong as that the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against it and in truth they have no reason to assault it on these terms But to passe by such dolages and frenzies you will be able sure to check all those presumptions which grow from sleight impressions of the second Death if you but take that prospect of it which the close of this time gives look forward through this season which is designed for you to prepare the way of the Lord to his passion in and you shall see the Death that does await iniquity If you behold him coming to Jerusalem with Hosannas and Palmes about him as if Death were his Triumph his Passion so desirable that he rode to meet it which he never did at any other time and then complaining he was straitned untill it were accomplisht as he had throws of Longing after it and singing when he went out to it you would believe the sinner never chose his death sweetned by his most pleasant sin with a more cheerful eagernesse But then open the Garden and you see his apprehensions of it throw him on his Face to pray against it See how he sweats and begs his very Prayer is a Passion the zeal of it is agony and canst thou choose that he so dreads and deprecates and when he durst not meet the apprehensions wilt thou stand the storm see what a sting death hath when it makes outlets for such clots and globes of blood and stings the Soul so too that it pours out it self in Sweat And then he sinks again under the deprecation of it and prayes that that Cup may passe from him Blessed Saviour when thou hadst just now made thy Death thy Legacy thy Sacrament dost thou intreat to scape this death if this Cup passe from thee what will the Cup of Blessing profit us thou hadst but now bequeathed a Cup to us which was the New Testament in thy Blood and now wilt thou not shed that Blood But dost thou refuse thy Cup Oh 't was a Cup of deadly Wine red with Gods Indignation poyson'd with Sin And can the sinner thirst for the Abysse of this the Lake that hath no bottom and when he goes again and prayes the same words the third time be yet not only so supine as not ask to scape it seldom and very sleight in any prayer or wish against it but also so resolv'd to have it as to gape that he may swill it down to everlastingness Follow him from that Garden and you see him even dying under his Cross he cannot bear that when it is laden with sin who yet upholdeth all things by the word of his power 'T is said the time will come when the sinner will cry out to the Hills to fall on him any weight but that of iniquity the burden of that is intollerable 't is easier for him to bear a mountain than a vice and yet Christ saith he hath a beam in his Eye and can he shrink at any weight whose part that is most sensible tender to an expression can bear that which shoulders must fall under onely Pillars can sustain Oh yes that which did sink the shoulders of Omnipotence Then the Mountains rather and the Rocks to cover but in vain they will not cover for thy very Groans will rent them Christs were so sad that his did they tore the Rocks and that which is much more inflexible the Monuments Death started at them and the bonds of the Grave loosened and the Dust was
the discourse of my own splendors which is all the use I can make of it the Eastern Rocks must send me Diamonds meerly to dart a line of light into anothers eyes which may return to me in a report that I have such fine Jewels and I have nothing else of all my sumptuous glories but the meer Eccho of their shine which is reflected and beat back to me in commendations With so much expence anxiety and sin I do provide onely for other mens discourses or it may be envyes Now these are none of my enjoyments and therefore I have nothing of them but the Lust and the desire As for those of the flesh the third remaining kind they seem indeed to be exempted from this reasoning the sensual person gorges his desires and in Solomons phrase makes his Soul enjoy good Yet the same Solomon salves that appearance too in saying when provisions encrease they are encreased that eat them and what good is there to the owners thereof saving the beholding of them with their eyes My broad and my cramb'd tables do not more enlarge or serve my appetite give me no satisfaction but only that of seeing many Dishes full and many men consuming them as if Luxury also were a lust of the Eye It hath been said indeed that the Eye is the Gluttons most unsatisfied and greedy part and it must needs be so if its lust lye to all that other men devour and if it crave not onely for the mans own stomack but for throngs of clients parasites and attendants And 't is too plain the other Twin Intemperance lusts by the same rules and laws It does not onely claim its seat in the Eye which makes it self a Judge of Liquors for the palate and does not choose them by the uses of their moisture but by their body by their air and by the mode and other Rules of the authentick standard Drinkers as if men thirsted in the fashion onely But this Eye also as the Ryotous mans did gapes for company and thirsts to see the Vice go round it drinks in nothing with so much delight as the Wine when a weaker Companion returns it back again in Vomit at that foul horrid spectacle it sparkles and triumphs Now 't were in vain to ask Solomons question What good is there in this or what enjoyment to urge that meats and drinks cannot give satisfaction to the Eye that hath no palate and then cry out Oh Prodigy that it should Lust thus As for the other kind of Ryots where with arts of Epicurism men contrive to feast and entertain their private Appetites and put a Patrimony into sauce for their own palates men sordidly Luxurious 'T is evident that these are studied to provoke men choose such VVines as they may â—â—gest drink and with elaborate condiments make forc't hunger as well as dishes so that the Ryotous design onely to Lust and the whole mystery of Luxury is to create desires Lastly for that one that hath ingrost the name of Lust it gives in a full Evidence against it self For the Adulterer much more irrational than the most greedy Miser is insatiate in desiring what he hath and his Lust will not use his remedy least so it should allay and quench the Lust And whil'st with so much feaver of desire he courts nothing else but the change and values that alone equall with all the discontents of this life all the miseries of that to come and will go to the Devil meerly for variety as it is plain Adultery hath nothing proper to it self but the desire is a meer loosnesse of the Fancy which ranges in wild lusts and which hath no enjoyment that 's peculiar to it but the lusting only so 't is also plain that this Lust must be endless for that principle of Change which gives it all its incitation must never let it rest for then 't is not variety S. John said therefore most expressively All that is in the World is Lust men only can desire here pursuing their desires just as they do their shadows no eagerness or hast can bring them nearer still they onely pursue yea like him that would hugg and force a Cloud his empty arms return upon his breast with strokes and while they seek to catch the object wound his bosom And thus it must be till we fix our passion there where only there is satisfaction even on God the object of the pious mans desire and my next part Nothing besides thee or with thee so it signifies also There is nothing upon Earth that I desire with thee Had he said Nothing without thee the emptiness of every thing below which the Lord and his Blessing is not in had made this his determination just and necessary But sure when God hath put other needs in my making and hath provided supplies for them those also are as just and necessary objects of desire while they are with and under him But yet he that had brought all his affections into Davids frame might well say he desired nothing upon Earth besides nothing with God for he had weaned his very Flesh and all the craving appetites of sense from their own objects and had fixt them upon God in all their strength and vigour My Soul saith he thirsteth for thee elsewhere my Soul gaspeth unto thee even as a thirsty Land and my flesh also longeth after thee Psal. 63. 1. How My Soul thirsteth for thee with thee indeed is the Well of Life But Thirst is an Appetite gasping a consequent defailance and impatience of the Body to both which the Soul is a meer stranger as it is also to the wayes by which the Body does desire for the Soul is drawn by moral engagements by perswasions and motives there is place for deliberation and Choyce in her Desires she can demur in her pursuits divert her Inclinations and quench a Desire with a Consideration but the Flesh pursues in a more impulsive manner is drawn and spurr'd on by such impetuous propensions as are founded in matter You can no more perswade a thirsty Palate not to thirst than you can woo a falling Stone to stay its hast or invite it to turn aside from its direction to the Center Yea but the Soul also exerts it self in all these appetites of flesh and matter and with all their violence when it looks on God when we have once had a taste or when indeed we but discern our needs of him whether our Temporal or Spiritual those of the Soul or Flesh all the desires of both then fly at him and with a tendency most close and uncontrollable then nothing besides him For all the appetites of Body croud into the Soul that they may catch at God that Thirsts and Gaspes And the Soul does put on the violent impetuous agitations of the Bodys Appetites My Soul thirsteth for thee and my Flesh also longeth after thee What Longing is whether an Appetite or Passion of the Flesh or Mind
whose signatures are more expresse indeed upon the Flesh than those of any other yet whose impulses are so quick and so surprizing as they were Spirit I shall not now enquire but sure if the Flesh long it should be for some carnal object for that is proportion'd to it Flesh and the Creature use to close indeed and they imbibe each other as if they knew to fill and satisfie each other yea some there are that have brought down their Souls to the propensions of Flesh have given to their very Spirits an infusion of carnality for they mind onely fleshly things But by the rates of David's practise it should seem the pious man does the just contrary sublimes his Flesh into a Soul drains all the carnal Appetites out of it weans it from all its own desires and teacheth it those of the Spirit onely makes it long for God Now he whose flesh is defaecated thus and as it were inur'd to the condition which it shall put on when it awakes from its corruption as if it were already in that place whose happinesse and desires have no use of Body and were in that state where their Bodies neither hunger or thirst for these he hath translated from his flesh 't is his Soul onely thirsts and that for God As if he were indeed like Angells now how can this man desire any thing on Earth besides thee Lord who is and does already what they are and do in Heaven where we have nothing but thee But notwithstanding this exalted temper though we should arrive at this Seraphick constitution of desires and though God hath now made himself to us the proper object of these appetites for since God struck the Rock for us which Rock was Christ since the true Bread came down from Heaven if our Flesh long for God there is a satisfaction ready he hath made his Flesh be meat indeed if our Soul thirsts for God he can furnish drink for a Soul the Blood of God But yet while this Soul so journs in this earthly tabernacle the man will still want other supplyes and may be not desire them or can he choose indeed For they that tell us stories of some men whose hungers and thirsts after God as they devour'd all other desires in them so also gave themselves no other satisfaction but panem Dominum that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Supersubstantial daily Bread the Lord these men I say would find it hard to make out how bare Species could nourish and sustain a bodily life Yea Christ himself when he was upon the Earth did hunger and although it was his meat to do his Father's Will yet when he was an hungered Angels came and ministred unto him and then may not our earthly needs desire something besides him That while we are upon the Earth all those necessities are in our constitution is certain but that we need not desire for them or any thing besides Him is as certain Because to them that desire him all these things shall be added they are annext by Promise Matt. 6. 33. it is for such to be solicitous who would have something they must have alone something that cannot come along with God But if I be assur'd that all my needs shall be supply'd in him I need desire nothing besides him now this Promise he must perform for he that when he put Man in a state of Immortality in Paradise provided him a Tree of Life that might for ever furnish and sustain him For that Age also that he does design a man a being for his Service here upon the Earth he must allow him necessaries for his being and his Service otherwise he can nor serve nor be And then if they be certain what need he desire them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Chrysostome These are not objects for our careful wishes but our trusts and confidences we may assure our selves of these if we have him these are his Appendages and then why should I put them with him into my Devotions when my Soul lyes gasping towards God in Prayer my desires seizing on his Blessednesses to take them off from him and to make my desires turn aside to little earthly things and fix them there is to affront not my God onely but my Prayer too and when these things are sure seems to betray a mind too Earthly and too apprehensive of these needs Surely I were most strangely necessitous or strangely greedy if both God and that which shall be added to him were not enough for me More wretched or else more unsatisfied than Hell if the Almighty were not sufficient for me if he be my provision than I need desire nothing besides him But yet Necessities will crave Hunger does croak aloud Thirst makes the insensate Earth to gasp as if with open mouth it gap'd not onely to receive but begg Gods showers and God expects to be intreated for these things He feeds but those young Ravens that do call upon him and the young Lions roar to him and seek their meat at God The Eyes of all things wait on him for that yea this our Psalmist in this very Psalm desires other things and Christ himself hath put into his little Summary these needs and these desires Give us this day our daily bread and my Text does but regulate not exclude these desires if we shall read it in the old Translation there is none upon Earth that I desire in comparison of thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There 's none or nothing that I desire or delight in equally with thee like thee so we translate the same word v. 5. I shall not doubt to begg what my needs crave But if God and any the most signal earthly advantage stand in competion and I cannot have one with the other his Providence or his Commands have made them inconsistent that I will not desire with him then he shall be my Choyce alone Rather Obedience and my God than any satisfaction how desirable soever This is the Touchstone of a Pious mans desires 't is not unusual for inclinations to things below more to possesse our thoughts employ our faculties than any other and we are far more sensible of their impressions more busie in the pursuit and more tender in our cares of them But if upon contest betwixt God and our Inclinations upon debate betwixt a Pleasure and Command we can decree for God and for Obedience pass Sentence with the Precept we are safe here the desire is not inordinate 'T is a known instance and you may have seen a tender Mother spending almost her whole time in caressing her little Infant you would think she had Eyes for no uses but to view it and that she had her Arms and Breasts but to embrace and suckle it to whom these are so wholly given up as if they had no part for any other as the Husband had no share in her entertains and caresses of whom are far more
fire without Metaphor So that desire alone without its satisfaction is so much of Hell and yet this is the worldly sensual mans estate exactly here on Earth for he hath nothing but desires and lusts and his condition is not easier at all for how is Tantalus more wretched than a Midas or than any covetous wretch who in the midst of affluence and heaps hungers as much as Midas did for meat and for Gold too and can touch neither for his uses so that the Worlds delights are very like the miserys of Hell and men with so much eager and impatient pursuit do but anticipate their torments and invade Damnation here And if the case be so sure there is no great self-denyal in our Psalmist here when he resolves to desire nothing upon Earth in comparison of his God 'T is no such glorious conquest of my Appetite to make it not pursue a present Hell and an eternal one annext to it before a Saviour Yet the world does so Some there are that desire Money rather and although when Judas did so this desire could not bear it self but cast all back again and though it did disgorge it burst him too the Sin it self supply'd the Law and his guilt was his Execution Yet this will not terrifie men will do the like betray a Master and a Saviour and a God onely not for so little money peradventure Others when the Lord paid his own Blood for their Redemption yet if their wrath thirsts for his Blood that does offend them their revenge makes their Enemies the sweeter blood though their own Soul bleed to death in his stream To others the deservings of the partner of an unclean moment are much greater than all that the Lord Jesus knew to merit at their hands or purchase for them And it is no wonder they are so ungrateful to their Saviour when they are so barbarous to themselves as to choose not to have present Divine Possessions rather than not suffer the vengeance of their own Appetites choose meerly to desire here though that be to do what they do in Hell rather than have in Heaven O thou my Soul if thou wilt needs desire propose at least some satisfaction to thy Appetite do not covet onely needs thirst for a feaver and desire meerly to inflame desire and Torments But seek there where all thy wants will find an infinite happy supply even in thy Saviour covet the riches of his Grace and Goodnesse thirst for the fountain opened for transgression for the waters of the well of Life desire him that is the desire of all Nations yet why should we desire even him when we have him in Heaven and we have nothing upon Earth left to desire but that God who hath exalted him unto his Kingdom in Heaven would in his due time exalt us also to the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before To whom c. SERMON VII VVHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LENT 1663 4. MARK I. 3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. I Shall not break this single short Command asunder into Parts but shall instead of doing that observe three Advents of our Saviour in this Life before that last to Judgment For each of which as it must concern us there must be preparation made by us In pressing which I do not mean to urge you to do that which none but God can do It is not in man to direct his own wayes much lesse the Lords The very preparations of the Heart are from Him Therefore supposing the preventings of his Graces I shall subjoyn that the Comporting with those graces the using of his strengths to the rooting out of our selves all aversation to Virtue and all love of Vice and planting other inclinations even Resolutions of good life is the onely thing that can make way for Christ and for his benefits Now of those Advents the First was when he came Commission'd by God to reveal his Will to propose the Gospel to our belief the coming of Christ as a Prophet which particularly is intended in the Text. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is written prepare ye the way of the Lord. The Second was that coming which the Prophet Isay did foresee and in the astonishment of Vision askt Who is this that comes from Edom with dy'd garments from Bozrah travelling in the greatness of his Strength Why is he red in his Apparrel and his garments like him that treadeth in the Wine-fat And it was the prospect of him when he came to tread the Wine press of the Wrath of God to Sacrifice himself for us upon the Crosse his coming as a Priest The Third is when he comes to visit for Iniquity coming coercively as a King with his Iron Rod to execute his threats on the rebellious those that will not have him reign over them This coming also was considered in my Text for in the parallel place of S. Matth. it is said Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand for this is he of whom it was spoken by the Prophet Esaias saying the Voyce of one crying in the Wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord. For each of these in order I shall shew you what prepares his way beginning with the first His coming as a Prophet appearing in the World to reveal his Father's Will the Gospel Now the Preparative for this Appearance is discovered easily we find both in this Chapter and the parallel places that John came to make way for it by the Baptism and Preaching of Repentance and it was Prophecied of him that he should go before him in the Spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the Fathers with the Children and the Disobedient to the Wisdom of the Just to the minding of just things so to make ready a people prepared for the Lord Luke 1. 17. And this is a preparative so necessary that the Nation of the Jewes affirm it is meerly for the want of this that he does yet deferr his coming And though the appointed time for it be past yet because of their sinfulnesse and impenitence he does not appear adding If Israel Repent but one day presently the Messias cometh And it is thus far true that though it hindred not his coming yet it hindred his receiving although it did not make him stay it made him be refus'd I may lay all down in this Proposition Where there is not the preparation of Repentance where there are not inclinations and desires for Virtue if Christ come with the glad tidings of the Gospel He is sure to be rejected his Religion disbeliev'd If the Word of the Son of God might be taken in his own case this would be soon evinc't for when He came unto his own they were so far from preparing his way that they received him not but did reject and would not entertain him as one sent from God of all this he onely
Experience of our selves and others we should find that just according to the rate of virtuous inclinations and dispositions of heart to part with sin so are men prepar'd for the belief of Christ so are their oares and regards of his Religion He that is honestly inclin'd opens his Soul to Christianity for it speakes to his heart 't is right to the grain of his Soul he looks upon the Promises as made to him and layes them up as Gods encouragements of his inclinations every thing in the Gospel fits the temper of his mind And he that is but pretty well disposed that loves Virtue for the most part but does allow himself some one corruption he alwayes hearkens to Religion where it sets it self against those Vices which he hates but as to his own particular evil inclination there he is a little Infidel cannot perswade himself that God will be so stern against a single pleasure that one petty indulgence should be so considerable that it should provoke to those extremities the Bible threatens and can by no means believe S. James that he that offends in one poynt thus is guilty of all And they upon whose constitutions there are weights and Plummets that incline them to some vicious courses and by loose Education have those pronenesses of temper pamper'd and by having their inclinations follow'd and indulg'd taught them to crave then to get head and to command and then by conversation with others that mind nothing but satisfaction of those bents of the Bruit part that allow themselves all the desires of constitution are come to swill the pleasures profits and the Honours that do wait on those practises Or whosoever by whatever steps arrive at an habit of doing thus and a great liking of them and so to improbity of Heart to utter aversations of the strictnesses of Piety all which they have lived so out of 'T is known that not enduring to be bound up in those narrow paths of Piety and Virtue they burst all the obligations to them seek little things to cavil at or to deride hopeing with those their poyson'd Arrows through the skirts and the Extreamer parts to send a Wound into the very Vitals of Religion for they aim at the Heart when they pretend to strike onely the out Lap of its Garments and to say all at once grow down right Atheists And though as once at Corinth now again the World by Wisdom knows no God there being Skill and Manage in this Mystery of Infidelity and it requires Study Wit and Parts yet they proceed just by the Method of King David's Fool first he sayes in his heart there is no God before he say it in his thoughts and opinions He wishes it and so comes to believe it the Atheisme is rooted in the Seat of the Affections and it branches thence into the Mind at least into the Mouth and finding Hell the greatest check to their Delights which they cannot determine with themselves to leave and to repent of therefore because they will not quench it with their tears they study how to put it out with Arguments And meerly for this reason that they will not live like Men they resolve therefore to believe that they shall dye like Beasts But alas they must live for ever with the Devil and his Angels if that Christ whom they reject does not lay hold on them and rescue them from thence as he is in his passage to his Crosse the next Way we must prepare for him and my next part The Solemn dayes approaching will discover to you this Way namely the Passage from the Garden in Gethsemane to Golgotha There you will see he does begin his Journey with the Amazements of an Agony and ended it in something like the horrors and the outcryes of Despair he travailed under such a load as made his life gush out through all the parts of his whole Body the weight of it did make his Soul faint by the way and when he was upon the Tree crusht it out made it expire sooner than the stress of Nature would have done and forc't it to burst out away in Prayers and strong Cryes that so he might sooner escape from under that sad pressure And then do but consider and look on him under that representation which S. Paul does shew of him how all that time that he was creeping under that dire burden in that dolorous way he was meerly pressing on with all the hast he could to overtake us in our course and rescue us from Ruine For that Journey was a Race and we the prize 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have been laid hold on saith he Phil. 3. 12. laid hold on in the Agonistick sense as in a Race he so expresses it And that he was laid hold on by these sufferings the Epistle to the Hebrews does evince 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome in that Way he pursued me till he catcht me his Agony was but his strife to overtake me his Sweat the issue of his Race When he came down from Godhead in his Incarnation he pursued us then into our nature he laid hold of our Flesh and followed us from Heaven to the lowest parts of the Earth But when he went thus to his Crosse here he pursued us then into our guilts he laid hold of our sins and took them up and bore them on the Tree then he descended into Hell to follow us This as it was formally done once for all so in its virtue influence and blest effects 't is still in doing as to thee and me and all of us and the approaching Season is to represent it so Now sure we need no motives to prepare the way for him who runs that he may obtain our Salvation who though he laboured under such a dismal burden yet still presses on to catch us so to rescue us from sin and Hell If he think fit and can endure to strive thus I will make all ready and stand fair to have my guilt seized from me and to be laid hold on for my Blessednesse to be the Prize the Crown of all Christ's Agonies that which he thinks worthy with so much strugling to contend for Now the same Preparation is required here that made way for his other coming that is Repentance in one word a disposition and sincere desire of heart to part with every evil and corrupt affection to quit every sin Sin lying in the way made it so dreadfull God laid upon him the iniquity of us all and that weight threw him prostrate on the Earth and sunk him into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And yet if any were more galling 't was the weight of those that were clog'd with Impenitence this was more heavy more afflictive to him than his Crosse. To bewail this and the issues of it he left off to consider his own Sufferings and required others also to do so Weep not for me weep for your selves And sure it was for want
of all Gods Promises and Threats as much as if they were in fight and though we see them through a glasse but darkly yet we see them by it 1 Cor. 13. 12. it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It represents the things of which we have no demonstration from sense or humane reasoning as convincingly to the mind as if they were before our eyes And it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the substance the subsistence and the very being of things that are not yet in being but in hope So that the Eye of Faith like that of God does see those things that are invisible and futurity is present to it Now by this alone it is of force to break the powers of the World which as we saw while the things of the other World were lookt upon as at a great distance afar off taking advantage of their absence storm'd the mind with present forces and had supplies at hand for fresh assaults so overcame it Whereas had the powers of the World to come been present now by Faith they are made so we see the other which are so inferiour that there is no more comparison than of immensity to a point a moment to Eternity could not stand before them 'T is too notorious that this is the case For should a man cry fire in the House how it had seiz'd the strengths of it were blotting out the glories of it in thick Smoak devouring all their shine in flame we would leave our Devotions our most eager pleasures to prevent this and no speed were swift enough to serve our cares and fears But though a Prophet of the Lord cry Tophet is prepared the pile thereof is Fire and much Wood and the Breath of the Lord like a stream of Brimstone kindling it and do this till his Lungs crack not one heart is mov'd nor brings a drop of tear to quench the flame because these fires are not present as the other neither have men any sense of them were they alike convincing alike present to the apprehension 't were impossible according to what we have demonstrated that the Will in her choyces and her aversations where the objects are of alike kind and have one common measure of their good and evil is determin'd to avoyd or take that which appears the greatest alwayes 't were I say impossible not to fly these which the Devils do believe and tremble at with greater dread wherever they appear Now a strong lively Faith must paint them out and shew them in each fin the World ensnares into Neither would any of those rotten planks which while the Will does fluctuate betwixt her worldly inclinations and these fears and is tost about offer themselves as I declared to you for her to escape upon though she does dash her self upon God's Threats choosing the present sin such as the application of Decrees or Promises made absolutely to himself without any condition confidence in Gods Mercies hopes of Pardon none of these would be security to one that were convinc't in earnest He that did believe and as it were discern that height which his ambition goads him to aspire to were upon the brink of the bottomless Pit whither when he arriv'd that very sin that tempts him with the glories of the prospect would then tumble him down headlong into that Abysse he would no more dare to ascend it by such false and guilty steps upon such hopes of mercy trusts on Promises or Decrees than he would dare to throw himself off from a Pinacle in confidence God was Almighty and Almerciful able enough and kind enough to stretch out his right hand and catch him in the fall or trusting to that Promise He will give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up least at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone Or leaning upon any such Decree as makes the term of life immovable and fatal neither to be hastned or retarded none of these will make him mad enough to break his neck neither would the same presumptions encourage him to cast away his Soul had he but equal apprehensions of the danger And it is plain all the temptations of the World and all these false encouragements cannot work upon a man when Death once looks him in the Face and the great Champions of Prophanenesse are tame then not that God's Threatnings are more true or made more evident to sense or reason than they were before but their Faith is active and they apprehend more strongly then To see my self trampled upon by pride and malice or worse yet begging of him whom my blood it may be helpt to streams of plenty begging like Lazarus the portion of his Dogs Dogs that are taught to snarle and bite and make more sores not lick them this is a state more killing than my want able almost to tempt a man to any courses But then if with the Eye of Faith I do but look beyond the gulph and there behold the Rich man in his flames begging for water and although it be the Region of eternall weeping yet not able to procure one drop of his own tears to cool his Tongue O then I see 't is better to be Lazarus although there were no Abraham's bosome But if my Faith look through that bosom also into that of God and there behold the Son of God leaving all the essential felicities of that Bosom to come live a life of Vertue here on Earth and to teach us to do so choosing to do this also in a state of the extreamest poverty consecrating want and nakednesse contempt and scorn making them thus the ensigns of a divine Royalty And to encourage us not to sink under any of the Worlds assaults he hath proposed Rewards of Vertue such as God is blessed in did my Faith give me but a constant view of all this sure the paint and varnish of these little things below the twinkling exhalations of the glories of this World could not dazle my mind and captivate my Soul I should burst these entanglements to catch at those 'T is evident and 't is acknowledg'd that when our belief shall be all vision and our expectation possession when our understanding shall become all sense in Heaven and we see and tast and have those glories then we cannot sin cannot be tempted from them And therefore by the measures of the nearness of these objects of our sight and of our interest so are our strengths to stand and overcome temptations Now Faith is sight gives presence we have seen and it gives interest too He that believes is born of God saith the Apostle and therefore hath a right Now to be born of one is to receive from him a principle of life He then that hath receiv'd from God a Principle of life such as he can derive life like his own such as is led in Heaven when he does consider his original and looks upon himself as born of
inclines it draws the whole Man after it If any thing in us be crucified in a Conformity to Christ it must be this for in that death wherein Christ offered up himself upon the Crosse where although the Divine Nature gave the value 't was onely the Humane Nature made the Offering there it was the crucifying his own Will that above all other the ingredients made his Death a Sacrifice and the price of our Redemption God that had given him his Blood and Life might call for it again when and how he saw good and being due it was not properly a price that could be given him for sin but his free voluntary choice his being willing to endure the Agonies and Contempts of the Crosse his stabbing his own natural desires with a resolute determination Not my will but thine be done This his own Will was his own offering and such is ours if we be Crucified with Christ made conformable to his death if we present our selves a Sacrifice acceptable to the Lord for our will is not given up to him till it do perfectly comport with his but that it cannot do till we renounce our own desires till we have brought our selves to an indifference in outward things to such a resignation as she is storied to have had who being in her Sicknesse bid to choose whether she rather would have Health or Death made answer Vehementissimè desidero ut non facias voluntatem meam Domine this above all I desire that thou wilt not do my will I would have thee not do what I desire and would have So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole of us the Spirit Soul and Flesh go to make up this person and the body of Sin is the Old man entire I whole I am nothing but a mass of guilts my Senses are the bands of wickednesse that procure for my evil inclinations my members are the weapons of unrighteousness my Body is a body of Sin and Death and the affections of my Soul are Lusts its faculties are the powers of Sin yea and the Spirit of my mind that Breath of God is putrefied that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Angel-part of me is fall'n and turn'd Apostate and however I be partly Son of Man and partly Son of God yet I am wholly Child of Wrath and so fit to be Crucified Which calls me to the next Enquiry to the nature of the duty here intended I am Crucified What is design'd by it S. Paul does perfectly declare Rom. 6. 6. Our old man is crucified with Christ that the body of Sin might be destroyed that we should no longer serve sin So that it means a through Repentance and abandoning of former evil Courses A Duty which there are few men but in some instants of their life think absolutely necessary and perswade themselves they do perform it At some time or other they are forc't to recollect and grow displeas'd and angry at their sins and have some sad reflections on them beg for mercy and forgiveness and do think of leaving them and when they have return'd to them again they shake the head and chafe and curse at their own weaknesse and renew their purposes it may be and do this as oft as such a Season as this is or other like occasions suggest it to or move them And with this they satisfie themselves and hope if God do please to take them hence in some such muddy gloomy fit of their Repentance all 's well Now shall we call this being Crucified are there Racks and Tortures in this discipline hath a Spear prickt them to the heart and no blood nor no water no tears gush out thence hath it made no issue for some hearty Sorrow to purle out Indeed I must confesse the Scripture does sometimes word the performance of this duty in expressions that are not so sower but of an easier importance as first put off the Old Man as if all were but Garment put it off I say not as they stript our Saviour in order to his Scourgings and his Crosse but intimating to us what an easie thing it is to cast off Sin for them who do begin with it betimes before it get too close to the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Theophyl even as easie as putting off thy Cloaths and thy Repentance is but as thy Shift thy change of life like changing thy Apparel But alas for all the easienesse which this expression hints where the sins also lye in the Attire as besides emulation pride vainglory great uncharitablenesse and inhumanity cruel injustice and oppression often do when many are undone through want of those dues which do furnish other men with the excesses of this kind when the sins therefore lye in the attire and they may put them off without a Metaphor yet it is so hard that it cannot be done sometimes the worth of a whole Province hangs upon a slender thread about a neck a Patrimony thrust upon one joynt of one least finger and these warts of a Rock or a Shell-fish with the appendages eat out Estates and starve poor Creditors for whom indeed they should command these stones to be made bread but that 's Miracle too stubborn for their Vertue And then how will they proceed to the next expression of this duty Circumcise your selves to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your hearts Jer. 4. 4. These are harder and more bloody words they differ in the pain and anguish that they put us to as much as to uncloath and flea would do It appears indeed this punishment of fleaing often went before the Crosse. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Ctesiâ—s of one having his Skin pull'd off he was Crucified And the scourges in some measure did inflict this on our Saviour when they put off his Cloaths they stript his Skin also left him no covering but some rags of that which whipping had torn from his flesh Yet this expression sounds harsher when it bids us circumcise the foreskin of our hearts and tear it from thence flea that When long conversation with the pleasures of a sin hath not onely given them Regallias but hath made them necessary to us so as that we cannot be without them when Custome craves with greater feaver than our thirst when if we want it we have qualms faintings of Soul as if the life were in that blood of the grape when men can part as easily with their own bowells as the Luxuries that feed them if you take away their dishes then you take their souls which dwell in them when the sins of the Bed are as needful and refreshing as the sleeps of it when to bid a man not look not satisfie his lustful eye is every jot as cruel as that other If thine eye offend thee pluck it out For if he must no more find pleasure in his sight he hath no use of it yea if this be indeed a kindnesse not to leave him Eyes
to be to him the same as Appetite to Tantalus that which he must not satsifie and is his hell 'T is easie if the lust be got no further than the Eye to pull them out together but if through that it shoot into the Blood and Spirits mix heats with those if it enwrap the heart twist with its strings and warm the Soul with its desires so that it Spirit all the motions all the thoughts and wishes of the heart when it is thus to make the heart to stifle its own motions stab its thoughts and strangle all its wishes to untwist and disentangle and to tear it thence if this be to be Circumcised with the Circumcision of Christ and he that hath not the sign of this the Seal of the New Covenant as he that in the Old had not the other was must be cut off our long habituated hardned Sinners must not think that there is any thing of true Repentance in their easie perfunctory sleight performances there is something like Death in the Duty which yet is required of us farther under variety of more severe expressions for we are bid thirdly to slay the Body of Sin Rom. 6. 6. to mortifie our members Col. 3. 5. and to crucyfie Gal. 6. 14. which how it may be done the next consideration of S. Pauls condition in the Text and my next part declare I am Crucified with Christ that is first as he was by being made conformable to his Death And truly should we trace him through all the stages of his Passion we should hardly find one passage but is made to be transcribed by us in dealing with our sins First he began it with Agony when his Soul was exceeding heavy for it labour'd with such weight of indignation as did make the Son of God to sink under the meer apprehension And he was sorrowful unto Death so as that his whole body did weep blood The Sinners passion his Repentance is exactly like it it begins alwayes with grief and sense of weight whoever is regenerate was conceiv'd in sorrow and brought forth with pangs and the Child of God too is born weeping And for loads the Church when she does call us to shew forth this Death of Christ as if she did prescribe that very Agony requires that we should find that Garden at the Altar makes us say we are heartily sorry for our misdoings the remembrance of them is grievous unto us the burden of them is intollerable So that the Sinner's Soul must be exceeding heavy too Secondly There he is betrayed by his own domestick sold for the poorest price imaginable as a Slave for thirty pieces of silver I shall not mind you what unworthy things the love of Money does engage men to to sell a Christ a Saviour and a God! and rather than stand out at such a base rate as we scorn to buy a sin at every single act 's engagement to Damnation costs more than the Ransom of the world is sold for and the Blood of God is purchas'd cheaper than any one opportunity of vice does stand us in But I onely mind you here that he shall have a better hire that will but be a Judas to his own iniquities do but betray thy Regent sins deliver them up and thou shalt have everlasting Heaven Thirdly we find him next carryed before the High Priest And the strictest times of Christianity would serve their sins so to receive his doom upon them to be excommunicated into reformation But I shall not urge how we can discover to a Physician our shames all our most putrid guilts as well as Ulcers and make him our Confessor in our most secret sins neither will I be inquisitive why the Physicians of our souls are balk'd but will passe this part of the Conformity and follow Christ to Pontins Pilate And for this part we our selves are Fitted the whole furniture of a Judicial Court all that makes up both Bench and Barr is born within us God hath given us a Conscience whereby we are a Law to our selves Rom. 2. We have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Jews did want such evidence as is sufficient to condemn us the same Conscience that is privy to our doings and stands by our thoughts and sees through our intentions is a thousand witnesses And that there may be a Prosecutor our own thoughts accuse us saith S. Paul and if we will give them way will aggravate each Circumstance of guilt and danger bark and howl and cry as loud against us as the Jews did against Christ for Sin is of so murthering a guilt it will be sure to slay it self and that he may not want his deserved Ruin the Sinner makes his own Indictement yea and his own Sentence too for our own heart condemns us saith S. John And when ever it does so Oh that we would follow it through all the gradations that brought Christ to Death and use our wickednesse as he was us'd strip it from its Cloaths bare it from its fair pretexts it useth to be drest in Lay our anger naked from all those excuses which our provocations that either wrath or humour will be sure to think intollerable do make for it strip our pride and vanity from those paints and dresses which the Custome of the Age that does require and warrant strange things dawbs the sin with use our Luxuries and Intemperances so and the other greater and more thirsty dropsie that of Wealth and of unjust unworthy gains which there are richer Luxuries in too And there are none of these but have their pleas their colours which they set themselves out in to please the Appetite and to deceive the Mind all which we must strip off and then when we have laid them naked spit upon them vomit all our spleen and contumelious despite at that which hath made us so ugly in Gods sight scourge it with Austerities and buffet it as they did Christ and S. Paul did himself 1 Cor. 19. 27. And when the Body of Sin is thus tamed and weakened it will be easie then to lead it out and crucifie it A Crucifiction this that does make our Good-Friday be a day of Expiation and Atonement to us A sight which next to that of his own Son upon the Crosse is the most acceptable to the Lord when he does see us execute his Enemies although they be our selves and Crucifie the dear Affections of our bosome as God did This is indeed to be conform'd unto the death of Christ. If I might have leave to go before you and to let you into the Example draw the Curtain from before the Passion I would call my Sins out drag them to behold that prospect hale them into the Garden shew them how he was us'd there You my Extravagancies of my youth my mad follies and wild jollities come see my Saviour yonder how he swoons when guilt began to make approaches towards him and can I make my self merry with nothing
despair were the onely fit things to make men jolly And do thus as they did it in despite to this great method of Salvation as if they did enjoy the indignation and the wrath of God as if those Agonies like the other difficulties of their sins did more provoke to them or like the Paschal bitter herbs that typified them were as sawce to the Ryots of their vices These certainly are men of a most desperate appetite and courage But 't is much more to be lamented that the Law of God does not seem better guarded by this dire example than it was of old among the Jews when it shew'd the Sinner his deservings onely by the dying of his Beast and had no other fence nor satisfaction than the blood of Bulls and Goats It is not very visible that it hath wrought upon consideration so as to make us more fear and beware nay we may question whether the example of my Bullock dying for my sin would not restrain and terrifie me more than that of Jesus Crucified for it If I were to expiate the Blood with which I word my anger and my oaths with the blood of my own Flocks if that Luxury which plunders every Element and brings a little Universe at once upon my Table to treat it self withal were but to kill one Heifer for the Temple and I to expiate each surfeit by one such Religious Ryâ—t Were I to quench the feavers of an Intemperance with a drink-offering 't is possible I should not be so prone to sacrifice to my Genius if I must sacrifice to God for doing so and I should be more tender of my Beasts than I am of my Saviour Now how comes this to passe It is impossible that we should be so apprehensive of our own demerits should we see them represented in the sufferings of a Beast as when they are shewed to us in those of the Son of God What is it then should we account our selves to suffer in our Beast His Death were our own losse and punishment And had we no communion in this Death of Christ was not that our own or account we our concern and share in that lesse valuable than in that of our Beast Far be this from us we are no further Christians than we can affirm with S. Paul who challengeth a fellowship in all Christ's sufferings and boasts it saying I am Crucified with Christ. Which brings me to the last sense of the words I have a share and am a partner in that Cross and all the satisfactions that were wrought upon it This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3. 10. a partaking in Christs Passion having his Sufferings communicated to us made our own as if we had been crucified with him as much as he that offered a peace offering was said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 10. 18. to communicate with the Altar and partake the Sacrifice which he really did We read indeed there in the sixteenth veâ—se that in the Sacrament there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sheding of Christs Blood is there communicated reckoned to us but it is communicated in a Cup of Blessing And is this to be a partner in his Crucifixion to partake onely the Sacrament of Crucifixion not to receive the wounds and torments but the benefits the pledge of the satisfactions of the Crosse the seal of the Remissions that he purchas'd on it Blessed Jesu we should have born thy pangs and all the dire things thou didst suffer ought to have been ours eternally that Agony which an Angels comfort could not calm that dreadful Terrour which exprest it self in the cold Sweat of clotted Blood that greater Terrour which came so near Despair as to make thee cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me all should have been our portion to everlastingnesse and spent their fury on our Souls And wilt thou have us bear no more of this than the remembrance all our Mount Olivet and Golgotha be onely the Lords Table and his Entertainment dost thou communicate thy Agonies in Eucharistick wine and is this to be Crucified with Christ so he does account it seems He that by vertue of the Crosse of Christ hath crucified his body of Sin Christs satisfactions are accounted to him he is esteemed to have a fellowship in all the sufferings to have had an hand in all that was done for man on the Crosse they are all reckoned his And as Christ bore the guilt of all our doings on the Tree so he will have us bear the name and merit and reward of his for as S. Paul does expresse Rom. 6. 5. We are planted together in the likeness of his death by being made conformable to that in crucifying of our sins we are inoculated as it were and both together ingraffed in into the Crosse and so there is deriv'd to us the vertue of that Stem that Root of Expiation and Atonement and by this insertion being as the same S. Paul sayes Phil. 3. 9. found in him we have his righteousness That poor Soul that does throw himself down in the strict humiliations of Repentance at the footstool of the Crosse and there beholds his Saviour dying for him and that is himself by Penitence incorporated into him graffed into his Death and planted in his very Passion as Origen and Thomas interpret He may take confidence to say Behold Lord if the satisfactions of thy eternal Justice be acceptable to thee if the blood of God that is offer'd up without spot be a well pleasing Sacrifice look down at once on thy Messiah and on my poor Soul turn not thy face from me for whatever my guilts are I have an equal Sacrifice those are my satisfactions and that blood my offering the Passion and propitiation of the Crosse are mine I am crucified with Christ. We have gone through all the Parts all the Considerations of this expression and have no more now to take notice of but this that all of them must go together that they never are fulfill'd asunder but he onely whom the efficacy of the Crosse of Christ hath wrought on to the Crucifying of sin he onely hath the satisfactions of the Crosse imputed to him he is planted with ingraffed into Christ For if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are done away 2 Cor. 5. 17. Whosoever is not such he hath no interest in the Jesus of that day He may perchance in some one of those easie Saviours which these times afford wherein Opinions call'd holy or a sanctifi'd Faction give such interests and to be in a party is to be in Christ or else he may depend upon that Christ that may be had with meer Dependance that is ours if we perswade our selves he is so Now sure he that is perswaded he is Christ's is either truly so perswaded or else falsly if but falsly that will not advantage him for God will never save a man for believing a lye
in the acknowledgments of one of their own tribe who in the anguish of his Torments does confesse this of them from his own experience But worse things will appear when we have seen that God hath done all this to us with more advantage than this man in Hell did think sufficient or indeed desire which was my next undertaking and I shall manage it in the same order First If one went unto them from the dead sayes he they will Repent And now to answer that Christ is come from the dead an Article this is that made its way through all the Swords and all the Racks and torturing Engines that the powerful witty malice of a whole World could find out and execute And shall it find its death among the softs and glories of its own victorious profession when it was instant Ruine to acknowledge the belief of it then myriads ran into the flames at once to own and to partake Christs Resurrection but now they that professe it are so well here in this Life that in defiance of their own profession they will not think there is another Life It is not out of Principle they doubt as it were easie to demonstrate but out of improbity They have an aversion to severe Piety and are uneasie under any thing that does engage to it and must therefore work themselves out and here they storm Unkind men to themselves not onely in imprudence who adventure all upon such hazards but in disparaging themselves who being men of reason and that set it up to such an height as to make it contend with God and dispute out his Power of raising them again yet can think such a reasoning Soul was given them for no other end but to procure for and to animate the organs of their sensuality But this is dasht if Christ be risen because His Resurrection did make Faith that he would Judge the World in Righteousnesse on purpose to make them Repent Acts 17. 30 31. So that this his first expectation is most fully answered to us But Secondly if Lazarus would go one out of Abraham's Bosom then they would Repent And hath there not a greater than Lazarus been with us one not out of Abraham's but Gods Bosom even the Son of his Bosom one that himself prepar'd those Joyes for them that would believe him and obey him one that from all Eternity enjoy'd them in the Bosom of the Divinity And who could better reveal them to us than the Authour and the God of them who knew them more than he that did create them and possess them Yea when this Son of God would be Incarnate and take Flesh and was to carry it through all the Miseries that Sin deserv'd and God's Wrath could inflict he thought these Joyes encouragement enough to do it willingly these Pleasures were worth agonies which none but a God could suffer Heb. 12. 2. Now sure he that prepar'd these Joyes did understand them and he that is the Word of God knew best how to reveal them too And now how poor a wish was that of our Rich man Let Lazarus go tell them why a Person of the Trinity hath told us indeed how could God do more than come himself to reveal the truth of them and himself dy for them to reveal the greatness of them Good God! that no body could serve thy turn to tell us of the pleasures of thy Bosom but the Son of thy Bosom that thou shouldst think it worth an Incarnation to reveal them and we not think it worth a little Reformation to have them that he should part with Blood and give his Life for those Joyes and we not be content to forsake a Custom to give away the pleasures of a Lust the neither pleasures nor profits of an Oath the sick delights of an Excesse nor the vexations of a Passion in exchange for them what will Hell say to us when one there said if Lazarus will go they will repent If Lazarus Thirdly one that saw me in Hell and so can testifie the Torments of this place yet God hath out-done this too Our Creede will tell us who descended into Hell and the Psalmist saying concerning him God should not leave his Soul in Hell S. Austin asks Quis ergo nisi infidelis negaverit fuisse Christum apud inferos 'T were easie for me to produce enough besides that say so Clem. Alex. Origen Hier. Greg. Naz. Fulgent Euseb. Emissenus Caesarius Anastas Jobius Damascenus Oecumenius c. But because we are not agreed what he did there I 'll take a surer medium That no Lazarus can decipher the condition of a Sinner after the pleasures of his iniquity have left him to the recompences of it so well as Christ who not onely did prepare the Plagues and therefore can describe them but also himself bore the pains and found a few hours bearing them to be too heavy for him is most evident His Agonies will give you a relation beyond the skill of Lazarus that saw the Torments or of all that suffer them Look but into the Garden and see if you do not behold there a more dismal Landshape than that which Lazarus had beyond the Gulf and was desir'd to give account of there you shall find Christ at the first approaches saying my soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death Mat. 26. 38. As if the only apprehension of his sufferings had inflicted them and he could not live under the thoughts of them and then he went a little farther and fell upon his face and prays saying O my Father if it be possible let this Cup passe from me And what was there in this Cup which so empoyson'd it as to make it dreadful to the Son of God Oh 't is the Sinners potion that he must swill to everlastingness and when he was in this condition there oppeared an Angel from Heaven strengthning him Luc. 22. 43. yet v. the 44. we find him still in an Agony Angels cannot comfort one that is sensible of the guilt of sin upon him and he prays more earnestly in that same place Abba Father all things are possible with thee take away this Cup from me He does not leave an Attribute unattempted he does adore the Majesty for he falls upon his Face and Prayes A Person of the Trinity prostrated in the dust to deprecate those pains he wooes him to it Abba Father canst thou deny thy well-beloved onely begotten Son thy Son that is thy self when he comes to thee with such tender compellations of kindness with words of so much bowells Abba Father he takes hold too of his Omnipotence all things are possible with thee and he does it with all the earnestnesse possible to such a person for saith S. Luke there he does it more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops of Blood falling to the ground and what Agony is there in the torment when there is agony in the deprecation of them such a passion could not be prayed
similitude of a man cast out of his habitation who while he wanders through none but desert places seeking for a dwelling he is sure to meet with none but if he find an House that 's empty swept and garnished he hath found out not a receptacle onely but an invitation an house drest on purpose to call in and to detain Inhabitants He signifies that when a Temptation of the Devil is repell'd and himself upon some working occasion by a resolute act of holy courage thrown out of the heart as he finds no rest in this condition every place is desert to him but the heart of man is indeed Hell to him for he calls it torment to be cast out thence yea he accounts himself bound up in his eternal Chains of darknesse when he is restrained from working and engaging man to sin so while he goeth to and fro seeking an opportunity to put in somewhere if he find that heart from which he was cast out or any other heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the word is idling not imploy'd or busied so it signifies such an heart is empty swept and garnish'd for him 't is a dwelling that 's drest properly to tempt the Devil fitted to receive him and his forces too prepared for him to Garrison and make a strong hold of whence he cannot be removed for he takes unto him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there No doubt they are the Patron Guardian spirits of the seven deadly Sins their Tutelary Devils Some of those good qualities that are the attendants of Idleness you may find decypher'd in the Scripture S. Paul sayes when people learn to be idle they grow tattlers busie bodies speaking things which they ought not 'T is strange that Idlenesse should make men and women busy bodies yet it does most certainly in other folks affairs Faction than which nothing in the world can be more restlesse is nurst by it Where are States so censured so new modell'd as at certain of our Refectories places that are made meerly for men to spend their time in which they know not what to do with At those Tables our Superiours are dissected Calumny and Treason are the common are indeed the more peculiar entertainments of the places In fine where persons have no other imployment for their time but talking and either have not so much Vertue as to find delight in talking good things or not so much skill as to speak innocent recreation there they talk of others censure and back bite and scoff This is indeed the onely picquant conversation Gall is sawce to all their Entertainments And that you may know these things proceed from that old Serpent they do nothing else but hiss and bite T is the poison of Asps that is under their lips which gives rellish to their Discourses 't is the sting that makes them grateful venime that they are condited with More of the brood of this want of Imployment you may find at Sodome namely Pride and Luxury For saith Ezekiel This was the Iniquity of Sodom Pride fulness of bread and abundance of Idlenesse was in her and in her daughters And indeed the Idle person could not possibly know how to pass his hours if he had not Delicacies to sweeten some Wine to lay some asleep and the solicitous deckings of Pride to take up others But the studious gorgings of the inside and the elaborate trimmings of the outside help him well away with them Good God! that for so many hours my morning eyes should be lift up to nothing but a Looking-glasse that that thin shadow of my self should be my Idol be my God indeed to which I pay all the devotions I perform And when with so much care and time I have arrayed and marshall'd my self that I should spend as much more too in the complacencies of viewing this with eager eyes and appetite surveying every part as if I had set out expos'd them to my self alone and onely drest a prospect for my own sight and since Nature to my grief hath given me no eyes behind that I should fetch reliefs from Art and get vicarious sight and set my back parts too before my face that so I may enjoy the whole Scene of my self And why all this for nothing but to serve vain Ostentation or negotiate for Lust to dresse a Temptation and start Concupiscence And that the half of each day should be spent thus the best part of a reasonable Creatures and a Christians life be laid out upon purposes so far from Christian or reasonable And truly Luxury will easily eat the remainder up that sure Companion of Idlenesse For when the Israelites were in the Wildernesse where they could not eat but by Miracle and the Rock must give them drink yet having no Imployment they made Feasts They sate down to eat and drink and rose up to play Nor would eating to the uses of their nature serve them but they must have entertainments for their wantonnesse Had they been imployed to get their Bread their labour would have made their morsels sweet But since God as the Wise-man saies sent them from Heaven bread prepared without their labour they must have varieties to sweeten it they require him to prepare a Table also in the Wildernesse and furnish them with choice And although they had the food of Angels able to content every mans delight and agreeing to every tast and serving to the appetite of the eater it temper'd it self to every mans liking and what could they fancy more The latitude of Creatures the whole Universe of Luxury could do nothing else in every single morsel they had sorts Variety all choyce as if that Desert had been Paradise that Wildernesse the Garden of the Lord Yet so coy is Idlenesse so apt to nauseate that they abhor the constancy of being pleas'd And though they were not sated neither he that gather'd much had nothing over onely to his eating God as well providing for their Health and Vertue as Necessity and dieting their Temperance as he did their Hunger Yet their very liking does grow loathsome to them When their Bodies were thus excellently well provided for having no imployment nothing to take up their Minds and Entertain their Souls they require 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meat for their Souls meat not to serve the uses of their bodies but to feed their fancies their extravagant minds Thus Idlenesse requires to be dieted And all this but to pamper and feed high mens inclinations so to make Temptations irresistible and by consequence Vice necessary It were easie to recount more of those wayes by which the Devil does make use of mens want of Imployment to debauch their lives and ruine all the hopes of Vertue in them S. Jâ—de findes more of its effects at Sodome They gave themselves over to Fornication and went after other flesh and are set forth for an
with which the World assaults us in our course of Duty Thus the Crosse of Christ first shews us the necessity we have to renounce and Crucifie the World But to encourage and enable us to do so it does also shew us Secondly the certainty of a good issue in the doing it assures us that those who deny themselves forbidden satisfactions here that will be vertuous maugre all the baits and threats of Earth will embrace duty when it is laden with a Cross although so heavy as to crush out life and kill the body assures us that those lose not but exchange their lives shall save their Souls and that there is another World wherein their losses shall be made up to them and repaired with all advantage To the truth of this the Crosse of Christ is a most pregnant and infallible testimony For as by multitudes of Miracles Christ sought to satisfie the world that he was sent from God to promise all this and justified his Power to perform it by experiment raising some up from the dead so when they said he did his Miracles by Beelzebub he justified it further with his Life affirming that he was the Son of God now 't is impossible but he must know whether he were or no and consequently sent and able to do all he promised and resolv'd to do it also for our more assurance in himself that he would raise himself up from the dead within three dayes and saying this when he was sure he should be Crucified for saying so and sure that if he did not do according to his words he must within three dayes appear a meer Impostor to the world and his Religion never be receiv'd Now 't is impossible for him that must needs know whether all this were true or no to give a greater testimony to it than his Life For this that Blood and Water that flowed from his wounded side upon the Crosse which did assure his Death is justly said to bear witnesse to his being the Son of God and consequently to the truth of all this equal to the testimony of the Spirit whether that which the Spirit gave when he came from Heaven down upon him in his Baptisme or the testimony which he gave by Miracle for there are three that bear witnesse upon Earth the Spirit the Water and the Blood Thus by his Death Christ did bring Life and Immortality to light his choosing to lay down his own life for asserting of the truth of all this was as great an argument to prove it as his raising others from the dead and Lazarusâ—â— empty Monument and walking grave-cloathes were not better evidence than this Crosse of Christ. 3. Once more this Crosse not onely proves the certainty of a future state but does demonstrate the advantage of it and assures us that it is infinitely much more eligible to have our portion in the life to come than in this life That to part with every thing that is desirable in this World rather than to fail of those joyes that are laid up in the other that to be poor here or to be a spoyl to renounce or to disperse my wealth that so I may lay up treasures for my self in Heaven and may be rich to God never to taste any one of these puddle transient delights rather than to be put from that right hand where there are pleasures for ever more to be thrown down from every height on Earth if so I may ascend those everlasting Hills and mount Sion that is above that this is beyond all proportion the wisest course it does demonstrate since it shews us him who is the Son of God who did create all these advantages of Earth and prepare those in Heaven and does therefore know them both Who also is the Wisdom of the Father and does therefore know to value them yet for the joyes that were set before him choosing to endure the Crosse and despising the shame On that Beam he weigh'd them and by that his choice declar'd the Pomps of this World far too light that exceeding and eternal weight of Glory that the whole Earth was but as the dust upon the Ballance and despis'd it and to make us do so is both the Design and direct influence of the Cross of Christ. But as at first the Wise men of this World did count the Preaching of the Crosse meer folly to give up themselves to the belief and the obedience of a man that was most infamously Crucifyed and for the sake of such an one to renounce all the satisfactions suffer all the dire things of this Life and in lieu of all this onely expect some after Blessednesses and Salvations from a man that they thought could not save himself seemed to them most ridiculous So truly it does still appear so to the carnal reasonings of that sort of men who have the same objections to the Crosse of Christ as it would crucify the World to them and them to it as it would strip them of all present rich contents and give them certain evils with some promises of after good things which they have no tast for nor assurance of Now this being in their account folly then the contrary to this they must think wisdom as it is indeed the Wisdom of this World which Wisdom since it does design no further than this World and hath no higher ends than Earth and its Felicities it must needs put men upon minding the acquist and the enjoyment of these Earthly things for that is onely to pursue and to atchieve their ends to catch at and lay hold on their felicity and accordingly we see it does immerse them wholly in those cares So that it is no wonder if their God and Religion can get no attendance from them it being most impossible they should when Mammon hath engaged them in the superstitious services of Idolatry and when they sacrifice their whole selves to pleasure and make their bodies the burnt offerings of their Lusts and when Ambition even while it makes them stretch and climb and mount causes them also to fall low prostrate make their temper nature stoop lye down to every humour and to every vice they think themselves concern'd to court and please And though a man would think these so great boundlesse cares are very vain and foolish upon several accounts for common sense as well as Scripture does assure 〈◊〉 that this life and the Contents of it do not consist in the abundance of the things that we possess that it is all one whether my draught come out of a small Bottle or an Hogshead 〈◊〉 the one of these indeed may serve excesse and sicknesse better but the other serves my appetite as well the one may drown my Vertue but the other quenches thirst alike And every dayes experience also does convince us that the least crosse accident pain or affliction on our persons or some other that is seated neer our hearts or the least
vexation or crosse passion will so sowre all those advantages that we cannot possibly enjoy them while we have them sickness makes the richest plenty onely a more nauseous trouble a more costly loathing then the poorest Soul that is in health is that great rich mans envy And ther 's no man also but does see so far into futurity as to satisfie himself that he shall dye and then the shadow of death will cloud and put out all these glories And universal reason also does tell every man that to deny himself or want his present satisfactions of this helplesse dying kind and suffer present evils is in prudence to be chosen for avoiding of a future evil or atchieving of a good to come which do transcend those other infinitely and to all Eternity continue Sure as no man pities the poor Infant in the Womb because he lyes imbrued in Blood hath no inheritance there at all is fetter'd coffin'd as it were in that dark cell if he be to be born to an Estate to live a full age here in gaiety of mind and health of body in Reputation and all plenty of delights we never are concern'd or troubled at his other nine months dungeon So if this life be to the next as the Womb is to this and if our hopes be no more on the Earth than in the Belly and we have no inheritance or abiding place here as we had not there although the waters of affliction and to be in our blood should be as naturall to us as to the Child yet if we thus presse forward to the other birth to be delivered into immortality of joyes this state were not to be lamented but endeavoured for with all our powers Lastly the same reason does assure us that if those futurities which are most certain were but onely possible yet to part with every thing and suffer any thing here to prevent miscarriage in relation to those two Eternities is certainly the safest course and then by consequence the wisest And this does appear a truth to all men when they go to dye And if it be the truth then 't is alwayes so Yet notwithstanding all this he that minds these earthly things whose heart is set upon them whose desires the World serves provides to satisfie every imagination of delight His heart is so intangled in affections to them and in prejudices for them and hath so imbib'd the impressions of them that he hath no taste for any other and by consequence no satisfying notions of them And if he hath not then it is not possible that he should really and from his heart out of conviction and inward sense value these beyond the earthly ones and it is plain we see he does not and if he do not to deprive himself of all the sweet contentments of his life and tear out his own bowells that yearn after them and cling to them and instead of those embrace a Crosse and do this for things which he cannot value more and counts uncertain he must needs think a mad folly Consequently to contrive and seize the present to the best most plentiful advantage is the wisest course and therefore they that by whatever arts do thrive advance themselves live high and in delights they are Wise men because they do attain their ends by meanes appropriate to those ends And now the enmity betwixt the Crosse of Christ and the wisdom of the World appears first their designs are most directly opposite the crosse designs to take us up from earth and from its satisfactions which have also thorns and bryars in them that Eartbs Curse things that pierce and wound as fatally as the Nayles and Thorns and other cruelties of Christ's Crosse and to lift us towards Heaven to direct our hearts and our affections thither as our harbingers to take possession for us of those joyes the Crosse did purchase for us but no crosse can ever trouble But the Wisdom of this World designs to lay out all its cares and its contrivances within this World minds nothing else but earthly things and does not lift an eye or thought to any other Secondly their Principles wage war For earthly good things being the design the main end of this worldly wisdom consequently that does justifie all courses without which men cannot gain those ends by which they do though they be never so unlawful by the Rules of that which we call Vertue and Religion it does justifie I say all such as prudent But the Principles of the Doctrines of the Crosse of Christ are positive that we must renounce all earthly satisfactions when they cannot be injoyed without transgressing Christs Commands and imbrace duty even when it executes it self upon us But Thirdly there 's no enmity so fatal to the Crosse of Christ as is the practice of those men who minding Earthly things and all their wisdom lying as to them they therefore think themselves concern'd to represent the Doctrines of the Crosse which does so contradict their wisdom as meer madnesse and the Crosse it self as the ensign of folly And accordingly they do treat it en ridicul and make the proper Doctrines of it the strict duties of Religion matter for their jests and bitter scofâ—s They character religion as a worship that befits a God whose shape the Primitive persecutors painted Christ in Deus Onochaetes as if Christianity were proper Homage onely to an Asses person as Tertullian words it And the votaries transform'd by this their service and made like the God they worship were what they were call'd then Asinarii creatures only fit for burden to bear what they magnify a Crosse and scorns No persecutions are so mortall as those that Murder the reputation of a thing or person not so much because when that is fallen once then they cannot hope to stand as because those murder after death and poyson memory killing to immortality They were much more kind to Religion and more innocent that cloath'd the Christians in the skins of Bears and Tygers that so they might be worried into Martyrdom Then they that cloath their Christianity in a fools Coat that so it may be laught to death go out in ignomâ—ny and into contempt If to sport with things of sacred and Eternal consequence were to be forgiven yet to do it with the crosse of Christ Thus to set that out as foolishness which is the greatest mystery the Divine wisdom hath contriv'd to make mercy and truth meet together righteousness and peace kiss each other to make sin be punisht yet the sinner pardoned Thus to play and sin upon those dire expresses of Gods indignation against sin are things of such 〈◊〉 and dangerous concern that S. Paul could not give a caution against them but with tears For many walke saith he of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping c. Which calls me to my last consideration Indeed the crosse of Christ does represent Almighty God in so
contain a Duty prescrib'd and the Authority prescribing it the Prescription and the Authority in these words I say unto you the Duty in the rest where it is set down 1. in general Love your enemies and that to be consider'd under a double prospect 1. As it is plao't in opposition to something that was before indulg'd the Jews or presum'd so to be by them signified here by the particle But and then as it stands by itself in its own positive importance love your enemies And secondly this Duty is particulariz'd in several exercises of the Act commanded love in relation to several sorts of the Objects of that Act enemies as 1. Those that curse you you must bless 2. Those that hate you you must doe good to 3. Those that use you despitefully and persecute you you must pray for These I shall treat of in their given order beginning with the general Duty and viewing that at once in both the lights that it doth stand in that one may clear and fortifie the other But I say unto you Love your enemies Of all the Points of Christian Religion those which did most stagger the faith of some and check their acceptation of it or adherence to it saith Marcellinus writing to St. Austin were these 3 The incarnation of our Lord The meanness of his Miracles which they thought the works of Apolloniâ—s equall'd and thirdly the prescriptions in the Text It seems they lookt upon these Duties as the mysteries of Practice that spoke as loud a contradiction to their active principles and inclinations as the other appear'd to doe so those of Speculation and Discourse a God made flesh and flesh and bloud made so lame and passive sweetned so being alike impossible to their belief as if no flesh could certainly be so except that of which God was made and the Word incarnate onely could fulfill these words here in my Text they lookt upon this as a much-more mighty work than any of his Miracles as if 't were easier to snatch one out of the arms of Fate from the embraces of the Grave than to receive an enemy into ones own As if Christ had done more when he pray'd for his Crucifiers then when he prayed Lazarus out of his grave for their Magicians they say vied Miracles with him but none of their Religions or Gods did ever aim at this Prescription ut quae sit propria bonitâ—s nostra saith Tertullian this being a sort of Piety peculiar to the Christians Nor did they onely think it unpracticable but unreasonable as carrying opposition to all Government to the prosperity and peace of every Polity for he that does require that I shall have no return of injuries but for a wrong makes me in debt a kindnesse not onely supersedes judiciary proceedings but does secure Rapine by Law and encourage it by Reward and truly if it were impossible for him that does affect a person to dislike his evil actions and to desire he may have condigne punishment such as by Gospel-measures may be satisfaction equal to his fault and warning to himself and others these men had reason but if a Father can at once love and correct his Child if when I am with indignation displeas'd at my offences against God and by severities revenge them on my self I do then love my self most passionately and if I can pray with all the vigour of my soul for that false Traytor-bosom-enemy my flesh while it lies goading me to sin with temptation perfecuting me to everlasting death then no reason of State or of my own Requires I should not doe all these acts of kindness to my Adversary In that thou hast an exact pattern for thy enmity to them that wrong thee and thou shalt hate thine enemy as thy self is a most perfect Gospel-Rule that being most consistent with and directive of this Duty love your enemies But yet there is so great a difference indeed betwixt this Act here and its object Enemy being constituted such by enmity that is aversion and hate that love and that seem strangely coupled things that can be put together onely for a contest just as heat and cold to weaken one another that both the love and enmity may be refracted into a lukewarmnesse Therefore I shall divide them handling Love first by its self viewing the import of that as it is sincere lest the enemy appearing with it make it shrink into a very slender Duty and having done that secondly see whether an others enmity and thirdly whether enmity with that appropriation here your enemies can take off from the Obligation of that Duty Love Now Love shews fairest to our purposes in those dresses which S. Paul present her in 1 Cor. 1. 13. and 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 4. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 5. it suffers long if not the dammage yet the malice of repeated injuries as knowing it is bound to forgive till 70 times 7 times and 't is not easily provok't not apt for sudden violent heats instantly all on fire quick as lightning Such heats are from another passion which though sometimes they do but flash and die yet oft they have their Thunder-bolt and most-what do forerun a storm whereas the heats of Charity are calm as sun-shine such as do not consume but cherish for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same verse Love is kind and gracious full of humanity This Vertue is a kind of universal friendship hath nothing of reserv'd morose or sour an humour that makes solitude in the midst of Society and makes men onely their own company their Rule and soope and such a person Aristotle sayes must be either a God who can enjoy nothing beside himself is his own blessed and immortal entertainment or a wild beast whose nature is unsociable because 't is savage whereas Love is a pious complaisance to all 't is condescention too for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 5. v. does not think any thing unseemly how contemptible soever nor unworthy of him so he may do his Neighbour good he will debase himself to meanest Offices to work a real kindnesse Thus Christ because he lov'd his own knowing the Father had given all things into his hand he took a Towel and girâ—ed himself and put water in a Baâ—â—n and washt his Disciples feet making the lowest act of servitude be his Expression and our Example that is but slender Charity that will keep State Heaven could not unite Majesty and Love but to exercise this God did descend from Glory into the extremity of Meannesse 'T is Bowels that expresse compassion and tender kindnesse Now those we know of all parts of the Body are employed in the most low ignoble Offices and to such Love condescends where 't is true Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it covers all the naked with a garment and the deformed the leproâ—s Sinner with a covering too for Charity covers a multitude of sins hides his own