that they are not at leisure to make use of them their pride helping them to ease and if you look nearly to poverty too Revel iii. 17. the other so fastned to this Sanctuary this religious piece of prophaneness that leaving the whole business to God as the undertaker and proxy of their obedience their idleness shall be deemed devotion and their best piety sitting still These two differences of Men either sacrilegious or supine imperious or lethargical have so dichotomized this lower sphear of the Word almost into two equal parts that the practice of humble obedience and obeying humility the bemoaning our wants to God with Petition to repair them and the observing and making use of those succors which God in Christ hath dispensed to us those two foundations of all Christian duty providing between them that our Religion be neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither the vertue of the Atheist nor the prayer of the Sluggard are almost quite vanished out of the World As when the Body is torn asunder the Soul is without any farther act of violence forced out of its place that it takes its flight home to Heaven being thus let out at the Scissure as at the Window and only the two fragments of carcass remain behind For the deposing of these two Tyrants that have thus usurped the Soul between them dividing the Live child with that false Mother into two dead parts For the abating this pride and enlivening this deadness of practical faculties for the scourging this stout Beggar and restoring this Cripple to his Legs the two Provisions in my Text if the order of them only be transposed and in Gods method the last set first will I may hope and pray prove sufficient I can do c. 1. Through Christ that strengthneth me You have there first The Assertion of the necessity of grace and secondly that enforced from the form of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which imports the minutely continual supply of aids and then thirdly we have not only positively but exclusively declared the person thus assisting in Christo confortante it is by him not otherwise we can do thus or thus Three particulars all against the natural confidence of the proud Atheist 2. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I can do all things First The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and secondly the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. The power and 2. the extent of that power 1. The potency and 2. the omnipotency and then 3. this not only originally of Christ that strengthneth but inherently of me being strengthned by Christ Three particulars again and all against the conceived or pretended impotence either of the false spie that brought news of the Giants Anakims Cannibals in the way to Canaan Numb xiii 32. Or of the Sluggard that is alway affrighting and keeping himself at home with the Lion in the streets some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or other difficulty or impossibility whensoever any work or travel of obedience is required of us Prov. xxvi 13. It will not befit the majesty of the subject to have so many particulars by being severally handled joyntly neglected Our best contrivance will be to shorten the retail for the encreasing of the gross to make the fewer parcels that we may carry them away the better in these three Propositions I. The strength of Christ is the Original and Fountain of all ours Through Christ that c. II. The strength of a Christian from Christ derived in a kind of Omnipotency sufficient for the whole duty of a Christian Can do all things c. III. The strength and power being thus bestowed the work is the Work of a Christian of the suppositum the Man strengthned by Christ I can do c. Of these in this order for the removing only of those prejudices out of the Brain which may trash and encumber the practice of piety in the heart And first of the first The strength of Christ is the Original and Fountain of all ours The strength of Christ and that peculiarly of Christ the second Person of the Trinity who was appointed by consent to negotiate for us in the business concerning our Souls All our tenure or plea to grace or glory to depend not on any absolute respectless though free donation but conveyed to us in the hand of a Mediator That Privy Seal of his annexed to the Patent or else of no value at that Court of Pleas or that Grand Assizes of Souls Our Natural strength is the gift of God as God is considered in the first Article of our Creed and by that title of Creation we have that priviledge of all created substances to be able to perform the work of nature or else we should be inferior to the meanest creature in this for the least stone in the street is able to move downwards by its own principle of nature And therefore all that we have need of in the performing of these is only Gods concurrence whether previous or simultaneous and in acts of choice the government and direction of our will by his general providence and power However even in this Work of Creation Christ must not be excluded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods in the Plural all the Persons of the Deity in the whole work peculiarly in the Faciamus hominem are adumbrated if not mentioned by Moses And therefore God is said to have made all by his Word that inward eternal Word in his bosome an articulation and as it were incarnation of which was that Fiat factum est which the Heathen Rhetorician so admired in Moses for a magnificent sublime expression Yet in this Creation and consequently this donation of natural strength peculiarly imputed to the first Person of the Trinity because no personal act of Christ either of his satisfaction or merit of his humiliation or exaltation did conduce to that though the Son were consulted about it yet was it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delivered to us in the hand of a Mediator Our natural strength we have of God without respect to Christ incarnate without the help of his Mediation but that utterly unsufficient to bring us to Heaven 2 Cor. iii. 5. Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing i. e. saith Parisiensis Any thing of moment or valor according to the Dialect of Scripture that calls the whole man by the name of his soul so many souls i. e. so many men and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Pythagoreans word thy soul is thou counts of nothing but what tends to the salvation of that But then our supernatural strength that which is called Grace and Christian strength that is of another date of another tenure of another allay founded in the promise actually exhibited in the death and exaltation of the Messias and continually paid out to us by the continued daily exercise of his Offices 1. The Covenant sealed in his Blood after
is so rich in heads each to be cut off by the work of a several repentance Now in the last place as this sin of all mankind in Adam is considered in its effects so it becomes to us a body of sin and death a natural disorder of the whole man an hostility and enmity of the flesh against the spirit and the parent of all sin in us as may appear Rom. vii and Jam. i. 14. Which that you may have a more compleat understanding of consider it as it is ordinarily set down consisting of three parts 1. A natural defect 2. A moral affection 3. A legal guilt 1. A guiltiness of the breach of the law for these three whatsoever you may think of them are all parts of that sin of our nature which is in and is to be imputed to us called ordinarily original sin in us to distinguish it from that first act committed by Adam of which this is an effect And first that natural defect is a total loss and privation of that primitive justice holiness and obedience which God had furnisht the creature withal a disorder of all the powers of the soul a darkness of the understanding a perversness of the will a debility weakness and decay of all the senses and in sum a poverty and destruction and almost a nothingness of all the powers of soul and body And how ought we to lament this loss with all the veins of our heart to labour for some new strain of expressing our sorrow and in fine to petition that rich grace which may build up all these ruines to pray to God that his Christ may purchase and bestow on us new abilities that the second Adam may furnish us with more durable powers and lasting graces then we had but forfeited in the first The following part of this sin of our nature viz. A moral evil affection is word for word mentioned Rom. vii 5. For there the Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordinarily translated motions of sins and in the margin the passions of sins are more significantly to be rendred affections of sins i. e. by an usual figure sinful affections That you may the better observe the encumbrances of this branch of this sin which doth so overshadow the whole man and so sence him from the beams and light of the spiritual invisible Sun I am to tell you that the very Heathen that lived without the knowledge of God had no conversation with and so no instruction from the Bible in this matter that these very Heathens I say had a sense of this part of original sin to wit of these evil moral lusts and affections which they felt in themselves though they knew not whence they sprang Hence is it that a Greek Philosopher out of the ancients makes a large discourse of the unsatiable desire and lust which is in every man and renders his life grievous unto him where he useth the very same word though with a significant Epithet added to it that St. James doth c. i. ver 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infinite lust with which as St. James saith a man is drawn away and enticed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so saith he that part of the mind in which these lusts dwell is perswaded and drawn or rather falls backward and forward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which lust or evil concupiscence he at last defines to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unsattable intemperance of the appetite never filled with a desire never ceasing in the prosecution of evil and again he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our birth and nativity derived to us by our parents i. e. an evil affection hereditary to us and delivered to us as a legacy at our birth or nativity all which seems a clear expression of that original lust whose motions they felt and guest at its nature Hence is it that it was a custom among all of them I mean the common Heathen to use many ways of purgations especially on their children who at the imposition of their names were to be lustrated and purified with a great deal of superstition and ceremony such like as they used to drive away a plague or a cure for an house or City As if nature by instinct had taught them so much Religion as to acknowledge and desire to cure in every one this hereditary disease of the soul this plague of mans heart as 't is called 1 Kings viii 38. And in sum the whole learning of the Wisest of them such were the Moralists was directed to the governing and keeping in order of these evil affections which they called the unruly Citizens and common people of the soul whose intemperance and disorders they plainly observed within themselves and laboured hard to purge out or subdue to the government of reason and vertue which two we more fully enjoy and more Christianly call the power of grace redeeming our souls from this body of sin Thus have I briefly shewed you the sense that the very Heathen had of this second branch of original sin which needs therefore no farther aggravation to you but this that they who had neither Spirit nor Scripture to instruct them did naturally so feelingly observe and curse it that by reason of it they esteemed their whole life but a living death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their body but the Sepulchre of the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both which together are but a Periphrasis of that which St. Paul calls in brief the body of death And shall we who have obtained plenty of light and instruction besides that which nature bestowed on us with them shall we I say let our eyes be confounded with abundance of day shall we see it more clearly to take less notice of it Shall we feel the stings of sin within us which though they do but prick the regenerate prove mortal to the rest of us and shall we not observe them Shall we not rather weep those fountains dry and crop this luxury of our affections with a severe sharp sorrow and humiliation Shall we not starve this rank fruitful mother of Vipers by denying it all nourishment from without all advantages of temptations and the like which it is wont to make use of to beget in us all manner of sin let us aggravate every circumstance and inconvenience of it to ourselves and then endeavour to banish it out of us and when we find we are not able importune that strong assistant the Holy Spirit to curb and subdue it that in the necessity of residing it yet may not reign in our mortal bodies to tame and abate the power of this necessary Amorite and free us from the activity and mischief and temptations of it here and from the punishment and imputation of it hereafter And so I come to the third part or branch of this original sin to wit its legal guilt and this we do contract by such an early
amongst us to witness his compassion to satisfie for us by his own death and attach himself for our liberty to undergo such hard conditions rather than be forced to a cheap severity and that he might appear to love his Enemies to hate his Son In brief to fulfil the Work without any aid required from us and make Salvation ready to our hands as Manna is called in the sixth of Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bread baked and sent down ready from Heaven Wisd xvi 20. to drop it in our mouths and exact nothing of us but to accept of it this is an act of love and singleness that all the malice we carry about us knows not how to suspect so far from possibility of a treacherous intent or double dealing that if I were an Heathen nay a Devil I would bestow no other appellation on the Christians God than what the Author of the Book of Wisdom doth so often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the friend or the lover of Souls But this is a vulgar though precious subject and therefore I shall no longer insist on it Only before I leave it would I could see the effect of it exprest in our Souls as well as acknowledged in our looks your hearts ravished as thorowly as your brains convinc'd your breasts as open to value and receive this superlative mercy as your tongues to confess it then could I triumph over Hell and death and scoff them out of countenance then should the Devil be reduced to his old pittance confined to an empty corner of the World and suffer as much by the solitariness as darkness of his abode all his engines and arts of torment should be busied upon himself and his whole exercise to curse Christ for ever that hath thus deprived him of Associates But alas we are too sollicitous in the Devil's behalf careful to furnish him with Companions to keep him warm in the midst of fire 't is to be feared we shall at last thrust him out of his Inheritance 'T is a probable argument that God desires our Salvation because that Hell wheresoever it is whether at the Center of the Earth or Concave of the Moon must needs be far less than Heaven and that makes us so besiege the gate as if we feared weshould find no room there We begin our journey betimes left we should be forestall'd and had rather venture a throng or crowd in Hell than to expect that glorious liberty of the Sons of God 'T is to be feared that at the day of Judgment when each Body comes to accompany its Soul in torment Hell must be let out and enlarge its territories to receive its Guests Beloved there is not a Creature here that hath reason to doubt but Christ was sent to die for him and by that death hath purchased his right to life Only do but come in do but suffer your selves to live and Christ to have died do not uncrucifie Christ by crucifying him again by your unbelief do not disclaim the Salvation that even claims right and title to you and then the Angels shall be as full of joy to see you in Heaven as God is willing nay desirous to bring you thither and Christ as ready to bestow that Inheritance upon you at his second coming as at his first to purchase it Nothing but Infidelity restrains Christs sufferings and confines them to a few Were but this one Devil cast out of the World I should be straight of Origens Religion and preach unto you Universal Catholick Salvation A second Argument of God's good meaning towards us of his willingness that we should live is the calling of the Gentiles the dispatching of Posts Heralds over the whole ignorant Heathen World and giving them notice of this treasure of Christs blood Do but observe what a degree of prophaneness unnatural abominations the Gentile World was then arrived to as you may read in all their stories and in the first to the Romans how well grown and ripe for the Devil Christ found them all of them damnably Superstitious and Idolatrous in their Worship damnably unclean in their lives nay engaged for ever in this rode of damnation by a Law they had made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never to entertain any new Laws or Religion not to innovate though it were to get Salvation as besides their own Histories may be gathered out of Act. xvii 18. And lastly consider how they were hook'd in by the Devil to joyn in crucifying of Christ that they might be guilty of that blood which might otherwise have saved them and then you will find no argument to perswade you 't was possible that God should have any design of mercy on them Peter was so resolv'd of the point that the whole succession of the Gentiles should be damned that God could scarce perswade him to go and Preach to one of them Act. x. He was fain to be cast into a Trance and see a Vision about it and for all that he is much troubled about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their prophaneness and uncleanness that they were not fit for an Apostle to defile himself about their Conversion And this was the general opinion of all the Jews they of the Circumcision were astonished at the news Act. x. 45. Nay this is it that the Angels wondred at so when they saw it wrought at the Church by Pauls Ministery never dreaming it possible till it was effected as may appear Eph. iii. 10. This was the Mystery which from the beginning of the World had been hid in God V. 9. One of God's Cabinet Counsels a Mercy decreed in secret that no Creature ever wist of till it was performed And in this behalf are we all being lineally descended from the Gentiles bound over to an infinite measure both of humiliation and gratitude for our deliverance from the guilt and reign of that second original sin that Heathenism of our Ancestors and Catholick damnation that Sixteen hundred years ago we were allinvolv'd in Beloved we were long ago set right again and the obligation lies heavy upon us to shew this change to have been wrought in us to some purpose to prove our selves Christians in grain so fixed and established that all the Devils in Hell shall not be able to reduce us again to that abhorred condition If we that are thus called out shall fall back after so much Gospel to Heathen practices and set up Shrines and Altars in our hearts to every poor delight that our sottishness can call a God if we are not called out of their sins as well as out of their ignorance then have we advanced but the further toward Hell we are still but Heathen Gospellers our Christian Infidelity and practical Atheism will but help to charge their guilt upon us and damn us the deeper for being Christians Do but examine your selves on this one Interrogatory whether this calling the Gentiles hath found any effect in your
can be required of a Christian they look no farther then the outward work observe not what heart is under this outside but resolve their estate is safe they have as much interest in Heaven as any one Such men as these the Apostle begins to character and censure in the 12. verse of the Chapter As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh c. They that stand only on a fair specious out-side and think all the sap and life of Religion lies in the bark they do this and this these will have you circumcised and constrain you to a many burthensome ceremonies measuring out Religion to you by the weight thus much is required of you to do as Popish Confessors set their deluded votaries their task of Ave Maries and Pater nosters by tale and thus you may be sure to be saved In brief the Apostle here shews the unprofitableness of all these and sets up the inward sanctity and renewedness of heart against them all as the only thing that will stand us in stead and appear to be of any weight in the balance of the sanctuary If you observe all the commands and submit your selves to all the burden of both Law and Gospel and bear it upon your shoulders never so valiantly if you be content to be circumcised as Christ was or because he hath now abrogated that make use of Christian liberty and remain uncircumcised notwithstanding all inducements to the contrary In brief be you outwardly never so severe a Jew or Christian all that is nothing worth there is but one thing most peremptorily required of you and that you have omitted For neither circumcision availeth any thing neither uncircumcision but a new creature The particle but in the front of my Text is exclusive and restrictive it excludes every thing in the world from pretending to avail any thing from being believed to do us any good For by circumcision the Church of the Jews and by uncircumcision the whole profession of Christian Religion being understood when he saith neither of these availeth any thing he forcibly implies that all other means all professions all observances that men think or hope to get Heaven by are to no purpose and that by consequence it exactly restrains to the new creature there it is to be had and no where else thus doth he slight and undervalue and even reprobate all other wayes to Heaven that he may set the richer price and raise a greater estimation in us of this The substance of all the Apostles discourse and the ground-work of mine shall be this one Aphorism Nothing is efficaciously available to salvation but a renewed regenerated heart For the opening of which we will examine by way of doctrine wherein this new creature consists and then by way of use the necessity of that and unprofitableness of all other plausible pretending means and first of the first wherein this new creature consists 'T is observable that our state of nature and sin is in Scripture exprest ordinarily by old age the natural sinful man that is all our natural affections that are born and grow up with us are called the old man as if since Adams fall we were decrepit and feeble and aged as soon as born as a child begotten by a man in a consumption never comes to the strength of a man is alwayes weak and crazy and puling hath all the imperfections and corporal infirmities of age before he is out of his Infancy And according to this ground the whole Analogy of Scripture runs all that is opposite to the old decrepit state to the dotage of nature is phrased new The new Covenant Mark i. 27. The language of believers new tongues Mark xvi 17. A new commandment John xiii 34. A new man Ephes ii 15. In sum the state of grace is exprest by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all is become new 2 Cor. v. 17. So that old and new as it divides the Bible the whole state of things the world so it doth that to which all these serve man every natural man which hath nothing but nature in him is an old man be he never so young is full of years even before he is able to tell them Adam was a perfect man when he was but a minute old and all his children are old even in the cradle nay even dead with old age Eph. ii 5. And then consequently every spiritual man which hath somewhat elsé in him then he received from Adam he that is born from above John iii. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it may be so rendred from the original as well as born again as our English read it he that is by Gods spirit quickned from the old death Ephes ii 5. he is contrary to the former a new man a new creature the old Eagle hath cast his beak and is grown young the man when old has entred the second time into his mothers womb and is born again all the gray hairs and wrinkles fall off from him as the scales from blind Tobits eyes and he comes forth a refin'd glorious beauteous new creature you would wonder to see the change So that you find in general that the Scripture presumes it that there is a renovation a casting away of the old coat a youth and spring again in many men from the old age and weak bed-rid estate of nature Now that you may conceive wherein it consists how this new man is brought forth in us by whom it is conceived and in what womb 't is carried I will require no more of you then to observe and understand with me what is meant by the ordinary phrase in our Divines a new principle or inward principle of life and that you shall do briefly thus A mans body is naturally a sluggish unactive motionless heavy thing not able to stir or move the least animal motion without a soul to enliven it without that 't is but a carcass as you see at death when the soul is separated from it it returns to be but a stock or lump of flesh the soul bestows all life and motion on it and enables it to perform any work of nature Again the body and soul together considered in relation to somewhat above their power and activity are as impotent and motionless as before the body without the soul Set a man to remove a mountain and he will heave perhaps to obey your command but in event will do no more towards the displacing of it then a stone in the street could do but now let an omnipotent power be annext to this man let a supernatural spirit be joyned to this soul and then will it be able to overcome the proudest stoutest difficulty in nature You have heard in the primitive Church of a grain of faith removing mountains and believe me all miracles are not yet out-dated The work of regeneration the bestowing of a spiritual life on one
dead in trespasses and sins the making of a carcass walk the natural old man to spring again and move spiritually is as great a miracle as that Now the soul in that it produces life and motion the exercise of life in the body is called a principle that is a spring or fountain of life because all comes from it in like manner that which moves this soul and enables it to do that which naturally it could not that which gives it a new life which before it lived not furnisheth it with spiritual powers to quell and subdue all carnal affections which were before too hard for it this I say is called properly an inward principle and an inward because it is inwardly and secretly infused doth not only outwardly assist us as an auxiliary at a dead lift but is sown and planted in our hearts as a soul to the soul to elevate and enable it above it self hath its seat and palace in the regenerate heart and there exercises dominion executes judgment and that is commonly either by prison or banishment it either fetters or else expels all insolent rebellious lusts Now the new principle by which not the man but the new man the Christian lives is in a word the spirit of God which unites it self to the regenerate heart so that now he is said to be a godly man a spiritual man from the God from the spirit as before a living reasonable man from the soul from the reason that inform'd and ruled in him which is noted by that distinction in Scripture betwixt the regenerate and unregenerate exprest by a natural or animal and a spiritual man Those creatures that have no soul in them are called naturals having nothing but nature within to move them others which have a soul animals or living creatures by both which the unregenerate is signified indifferently because the soul which he hath stands him in little stead his flesh rules all and then he is also called a carnal man for all his soul he is but a lump of flesh and therefore whether you say he hath a soul and so call him an animal or hath not a soul and so call him a meer natural there is no great difference in it But now the regenerate man which hath more then a soul Gods spirit to enliven him he is of another rank 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual man nay only he properly a Christian because he lives by Christ He lives yet not he but Christ liveth in him Gal. ii 20. This being premised that now you know what this new creature is he that lives and moves by a new principle all that is behind will be clearliest presented to you by resolving these four questions 1. whence it comes 2. where it lodges 3. when it enters 4. what works it performs there To the first whence it comes the answer is clear and punctual John iii. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from above from whence comes every good and especially every perfect gift James i. 17. but this most peculiarly by a several and more excellent way then any thing else Since Christs ascension the Holy Ghost of all the persons in the Trinity is most frequently employed in the work of descending from Heaven and that by way of mission from the Father and the Son according to the promise of Christ John xv 26. The comforter whom I will send from the Father Now this spirit being present every where in its essence is said to come to us by communication of his gifts and so to be peculiarly resident in us as God is in the Church from which Analogy our bodies are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in us 1 Cor. vi 19. God sends then his Spirit into our hearts and this I said by a peculiar manner not by way of emission as an arrow sent out of a bow which loses its union which it had with the bow and is now fastned in the But or white nor properly by way of infusion as the soul is in the body infus'd from God yet so also that it is in a manner put into our hands and is so in the man's possession that hath it that it is neither in any mans else nor yet by any extraordinary tye annext to God from whom it came but by way of irradiation as a beam sent from the Sun that is in the air indeed and that substantially yet so as it is not separated from the Sun nay consists only in this that it is united to the Sun so that if it were possible for it to be cut off from the Sun it would desist to be it would illuminate no longer So that you must conceive these beams of Gods Spirit at the same time in the Christians heart and in the spirit and so uniting that Spirit to the heart as you may conceive by this proportion I have a javelin or spear in my hand if I would mischief any thing or drive it from me I dart it out of my hand at it from which Gods judgments are compared to shooting and lightning He hath bent his bow he hath sent forth his arrows he cast forth lightnings Psal xviii 14. But if I like any thing that I meet with if I would have it to me I reach out my spear and fasten in it but still hold the spear in my hand and having pierct it draw it to me Thus doth God reach forth his graces to us and as I may so say by keeping one end in his hand and fastning the other in us plucks and unites us to himself from which regeneration is ordinarily called an union with Christ and this union by a strong able band 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Euseb his phrase which no man can cut asunder 'T is impossible to divide or cut a spirit and this bond is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual one and that made St. Paul so confident That no creature should ever separate him Rom. viii 39. And this God does by way of emanation as a loadstone sending out its effluvia or magnetick atomes draws the iron to it self which never stays till it be united Thus do you see from whence this principle comes to me and in what manner from Gods Spirit by this means uniting me to himself To the second question where it lodges my answer is in the heart of man in the whole soul not in the understanding not in the will a distinction of faculties invented by Philosophers to puzzle and perplex Divines and put them to needless shifts but I say in the whole soul ruling and guiding it in all its actions enabling it to understand and will spiritually conceived I say and born in the soul but nursed and fed and encreased into a perfect stature by the outward Organs and actions of the body for by them it begins to express and shew it self in the world by them the habit is exerted and made perfect the seed shot
up into an ear the Spring improved to Autumn when the tongue discourses the hands act the feet run the way of Gods Commandments So I say the soul is the mother and the operations of soul and body the nurse of this Spirit in us and then who can hold in his Spirit without stifling from breaking out into that joyful acclamation Blessed is the womb that bears this incarnate Spirit and the paps that give him suck Now this inward principle this grace of regeneration though it be seated in the whole soul as it is an habit yet as it is an operative habit producing or rather enabling the man to produce several gracious works so it is peculiarly in every part and accordingly receives divers names according to several exercises of its power in those several parts As the soul of man sees in the eye hears in the ear understands in the brain chooses and desires in the heart and being but one soul yet works in every room every shop of the body in a several trade as it were and is accordingly called a seeing a hearing a willing or understanding soul thus doth the habit of grace seated in the whole express and evidence it self peculiarly in every act of it and is called by as several names as the reasonable soul hath distinct acts or objects In the understanding 't is first spiritual wisdom and discretion in holy things opposite to which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. i. 28. an unapproving as well as unapproved or reprobate mind and frequently in Scripture spiritual blindness Then as a branch of this it is belief or assent to the truth of the promises and the like in the practical judgment 't is spiritual prudence in ordering all our holy knowledge to holy practice in the will 't is a regular choice of whatsoever may prove available to salvation a holy love of the end and embracing of the means with courage and zeal Lastly in the outward man 't is an ordering of all our actions to a blessed conformity with a sanctified soul In brief 't is one principle within us doth every thing that is holy believes repents hopes loves obeys and what not And consequently is effectually in every part of body and soul sanctifying it to work spiritually as an holy instrument of a divine invisible cause that is the Holy Ghost that is in us and throughout us For the third question when this new principle enters first you are to know that comes into the heart in a three-fold condition 1. as an harbinger 2. as a private secret guest 3. as an inhabitant or house-keeper As 't is an harbinger so it comes to fit and prepare us for it self trims up and sweeps and sweetens the soul that it may be readier to entertain him when he comes to reside and that he doth as the ancient gladiators had their arma praelusoria by skirmishing with our corruptions before he comes to give them a pitch-battel he brandishes a flaming sword about our ears and as by a flash of lightning gives us a sense of a dismal hideous state and so somewhat restrains us from excess and fury first by a momentary remorse then by a more lasting yet not purifying flame the Spirit of bondage In sum every check of conscience every sigh for sin every fear of judgment every desire of grace every motion or inclination toward spiritual good he it never so short-winded is praeludium spiritus a kind of John Baptist to Christ something that God sent before to prepare the wayes of the Lord. And thus the Spirit comes very often in every affliction every disease which is part of Gods discipline to keep us in some order in brief at every Sermon that works upon us at the hearing then I say the lightning flashes in our eyes we have a glimpse of his Spirit but cannot come to a full sight of it and thus he appears to many whom he will never dwell with Unhappy men that they cannot lay hold on him when he comes so near them and yet somewhat more happy then they that never came within ken of him stopt their ears when he spake to them even at this distance Every man in the Christian Church hath frequently in his life a power to partake of Gods ordinary preparing graces and 't is some degree of obedience though no work of regeneration to make good use of them and if he without the Inhabitance of the Spirit cannot make such use as he should yet to make the best he can and thus I say the Spirit appears to the unregenerate almost every day of our lives 2. When this Spirit comes a guest to lodge with us then is he said to enter but till by actions and frequent obliging works he makes himself known to his neighbours as long as he keeps his chamber till he declare himself to be there so long he remains a private secret guest and that 's called the introduction of the form that makes a man to be truly regenerate when the seed is sown in his heart when the habit is infused and that is done sometimes discernibly sometimes not discernibly but seldom as when Saul was called in the midst of his madness Acts ix he was certainly able to tell a man the very minute of his change of his being made a new creature Thus they which have long lived in an enormous Antichristian course do many times find themselves strucken on a sudden and are able to date their regeneration and tell you punctually how old they are in the Spirit Yet because there be many preparations to this Spirit which are not this Spirit many presumptions in our hearts false-grounded many tremblings and jealousies in those that have it great affinity between faith natural and spiritual seeing 't is a Spirit that thus enters and not as it did light on the Disciples in a bodily shape 't is not an easie matter for any one to define the time of his conversion Some may guess somewhat nearer then others as remembring a sensible change in themselves but in a word the surest discerning of it is in its working not at its entring I may know that now I have the Spirit better then at what time I came to it Undiscernibly Gods supernatural agency interposes sometimes in the mothers womb as in John Baptist springing in Elizabeth at Maryes salutation Luke i. 41. and perhaps in Jeremy Jer. i. 5. Before thou camest out of the womb I Sanctified thee and in Isaiah Isa xlix 5. The Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant But this divine address attends most ordinarily till the time of our Baptism when the Spirit accompanying the outward sign infuses it self into their hearts and there seats and plants it self and grows up with the reasonable soul keeping even their most luxuriant years within bounds and as they come to an use of their reason to a more and more multiplying this habit of
are so raw and womanish that it would grieve one to behold a fair comely man-like Christian in shew betraying so much impotency in his behaviour even like the Emperour a spinning one who had undertaken to be a Champion for Christ led away and abused and baffled by every pelting paultry lust 'T is lamentable to observe what a poor cowardly degenerous spirit is in most Christians with how slender assaults and petty stratagems they are either taken captive or put to flight how easily in their most resolute undertakings of piety or vertue they are either vanquisht or caught The ordinariest coursest had-favouredst temptation that they can see affects and smites them suddenly they are entangled before they are wooed and the least appearance of any difficulty the vizard or picture of the easiest danger is enough to fright them for ever from any thought of Religion or hope of Heaven For a meer natural man that hath nothing but original sin or worse in him that hath received nothing from God and his parents but a talent in a broken Vessel a soul infected by a crazy body diseas'd as soon as born for an Heathen that hath nothing to subsist on but a poor pittance of natural reason but one eye to see by and that a dim one for a meer Barbarian or Gentile to be thus triumphed over by every Devil as an Owl by the smallest Bird in the air might be matter of pity rather than wonder And yet few of them were such cowards those very weapons that Nature had furnished them with being rightly put on and fitted to them stood many of them in very good stead There were few passions few sins of an ordinary size but a Philosopher and meer Stoick would be able to meet and vanquish And therefore 't is not so much natural as affected weakness not so much want of strength as sluggishness and want of care not so much impotency as numbness and stupidity of our parts which hath so extremely dis-abled those that take themselves to be the weakest of us The truth is we are willing to conceive that our natural abilities are quite perisht and annihilate and that God hath no ways repaired them by Christ because we will not be put to the trouble of making use of them We would spare our pains and therefore would fain count our selves impotent as sluggards that personate and act diseases because they would not work or the old Tragedians which could call a god down upon the Stage at any time to consummate the impossiblest Plot and therefore would not put their brains to the toil of concluding it fairly Certainly the decrepitest man under Heaven if he be but a degree above a Carcass is able to defend himself from an ordinary Flie 'T is one of the Devils titles to be Beelzebub the Prince of Flies and such are many of his temptations He that hath but life in him may keep himself from any harm of one of them but the matter is they come in flocks being driven once away they return again Muscaest animal insolens and the Devil is frequent in these temptations though you could repel them as fast as they come yet 't would be a troublesome piece of work it will be more for your ease to lye still under them to let them work their will So in time Fly-blows beget noysomness and vermine in the soul and then the life and death of that man becomes like that of the Egyptians or Herod and no plague more finally desperate than those two of Flies and Lice I am resolv'd there be many temptations which foil many jolly Christians which yet a meer natural man that never dream't of Scripture or Gods Spirit might if he did but bethink himself resist and many times overcome Many acts of uncleanness of intemperance of contempt of superiours of murther of false-dealing of swearing and prophaning that cheap unprofitable that untempting and therefore unreasonable sin Many acts I say of these open abhominable sins which either custome or humane Laws make men ashamed of and the like the very Law of Reason within us is able to affront and check and conquer That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Methodius calls it that Law born with us Naturale judicatorium saith Austin against Pelagius Lux nostri intellectus say the Schoolmen out of Damascen Nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Stoick the promise that every one makes to nature the Obligation that he is bound in when he hath first leave to be a man or as Hierocles on the Pythagorean Verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Oath that is coaetaneous and co-essential to all reasonable natures and engages them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not to transgress the Laws that are set them This is I say enough to keep us in some terms or compass to swathe and bind us in to make us look somewhat like men defeat the Devil in many a skirmish But how much more for a Christian who if it were by nothing but his Baptism hath certainly some advantages of other men For one that if he acknowledge any worships the true God never went a fooling after Idols which was the Original of the Heathens being given up to vile affections Rom. 1. for one that lives in a civil Countrey among people that have the faces and hearts of men and Christians made as it were to upbraid his wayes and reprove his thoughts for one that is within the sound of Gods Law and Light of his Gospel by which he may edifie more than ever Heathen did by thunder and lightning for one that cannot chuse but fear and believe and love and hope in God in some measure or kind be he never so unregenerate for him I say that hath all these outward restraints and perhaps some inward twinges of Conscience to curb and moderate him to be yet so stupid under all these helps as never to be able to raise up one thought toward heaven to have yet not the least atome of Soul to move in the ways of godliness but to fall prostrate like a Carkass or a Statue or that Idol Dagon with his feet stricken off not able to stand before the slightest motion of sin or if a lust or a phansie or a devil be he the ugliest in Hell any thing but God appear to him presently to fall down and worship This is such a sottish condition such an either Lethargy or Consumption of the Soul such an extream degree of weakness that neither original sin that Serpent that despoiled Adam nor any one single Devil can be believed to have wrought in us but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Platonicks call it A popular Government of sin under a multitude of Tyrants which have for so long a while wasted and harassed the Soul so that now it is quite crest-faln as that legion of Devils Mar. V. 3. which dwelt among the Tombs in a liveless cadaverous
would fain Christianity hath out-dated to build Temples and offer sacrifice to sins under the name of Venus Priapus and the like that men that were naturally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superstitious adorers of Devils or anything that was called God might account Incontinence Religion and all impieties in the World a kind of adoration Thus to profess whoredoms and set up trophies in our eyes to build their eminent place in the head of every way in the verse next to my Text was then the imputation of the Jews and pray God it prove not the guilt of Christians from whence the whole Church of them is here styled An imperious c. Thus hath the Apostate Jew been represented to you in his picture and resemblance the Libertine Christian and Ezekiel become an Historian as well as Prophet Thus hath indulgence in vice among Professors of Christianity been aggravated against you 1. By the weak Womanish condition of it nature it self and ordinary man-like reason is ashamed of it 2. By the Adulterous Unfaithfulness 1. Want of Faith 2. Of Fidelity bewray'd in it 3. By the imperiousness of the behaviour 1. In shamelesness 2. In confidence and spiritual security 3. In tyrannizing over himself and faculties by force compelling and then insulting over his goods and graces prodigally mispending them in the prosecution of his lusts and Lording over all that come near him men or sins first pressing then leading the one and both ravishing and tormenting the other to perform him the better service Now that this discourse may not have been sent into the air unprofitably that all these prophetical censures of sin may not be like Xerxes his stripes on the Sea on inanimate senseless bodies 't is now time that every tender open guilty heart begin to retire into it self every one consider whether he be not the man that the parable aims at that you be not content to have your ears affected or the suburbs of the Soul filled with the sound unless also the heart of the City be taken with its efficacy Think and consider whether 1. This effeminacy and womanishness of heart and not weakness but torpor and stupidity 2. This unfaithfulness and falseness unto Christ exprest by the spiritual incontinence and whoredoms of our souls and actions 3. That Confidence and magnanimous stately garb in sin arising in some from Spiritual Pride in others from Carnal Security whether any or all of these may not be inscrib'd on our Pillars and remain as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against us to upbraid and aggravate the nature and measure of our sins also I cannot put on so solemn a person as to act a Cato or Aristarchus amongst an Assembly that are all Judices critici to reprehend the learned and the aged and to chide my teachers You shall promise to spare that thankless task and to do it to your selves It will be more civility perhaps and sink down deeper into ingenuous natures fairly to bespeak and exhort you and from the first part of my Text only because 't would be too long to bring down all from the weakness and womanish condition of indulgent sinners to put you in mind of your strength and the use you are to make of it in a word and close of Application We have already taken notice of the double inheritance and patrimony of strength and graces which we all enjoy first as Men secondly as Christians And ought not we Beloved that have spent the liveliest and sprightfullest of our age and parts in the pursuit of Learning to set some value on that estate we have purchased so dear and account ourselves somewhat the more men for being Scholars Shall not this deserve to be esteemed some advantage to us and a rise that being luckily taken may further us something in our stage towards Heaven That famous division of Rational Animals in Jamblicus out of Aristotle into three different species That some were Men others Gods others such as Pythagoras will argue some greater priviledges of Scholars above other men That indeed the deep Learneder sort and especially those that had attained some insight 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in divine affairs were in a kind of a more venerable species than ordinary ignaro's And for the benefits and helps that these excellencies afford us in our way to Heaven do but consider what a great part of the world overshaded in Barbarism brought up in blind Idolatry do thereby but live in a perpetual Hell and at last pass not into another kind but degree of darkness Death being but an officer to remove them from one Tophet to another or at most but as from a Dungeon to a Grave Think on this and then think and count what a blessing divine knowledge is to be esteemed even such a one as seems not only the way but the entrance not only a preparation but even a part of that vision which shall be for ever beatifical And therefore it will nearly concern us to observe what a talent is committed to our husbanding and what increase that hard Master will exact at his coming For as Dicaearchus in his Description of Greece saith of the Chalcidians That they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 born as it were with one Foot in Learning and both by the genius of the place and Language which they spake being Greek even suckt the arts from their Mothers Breasts at least were prepared for and initiated in them by nature and therefore it would be a great shame for them not to be Scholars So most truly of those of us that are learned full illuminate Christians the very language that we speak and air we breath in doth naturally infuse some sacred instincts into us doth somewhat enter us in this Spiritual Heavenly Wisdom will be some munition for us and not suffer us to be so pitifully baffled befooled and triumphed over by that old Sophister And if for all these advantages we prove dunces at last it will be an increase not only of our torments but our shame of our indignation at our selves at the day of doom and the reproach and infamy superadded to our sufferings will scarce afford us leisure to weep and wail for gnashing of our teeth And therefore as Josephus of the Jews That they prayed to God daily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not that he would bestow good things on them for he did that already on his own accord pouring out plenty of all in the midst of them But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might be able to receive and keep what he bestowed So will it concern us to pray and labor mainly for the preserving that we be the better for this great bounty of Gods That neither our inobservance of his gifts suffer them to pass by us unprofitably and neglected being either not laid hold on or not imployed nor the unthrifty mis-husbanding of them cause the Lord to call in the talent entrusted to us already because
unworthy of any more It was a shrewd though Atheistical speech of Hippocrates That sure if the Gods had any good things to bestow they would dispense them among the rich who would be able and ready to requite them by Sacrifices But all evil presents all Pandora's Box should be divided among the poor because they are still murmuring and repining and never think of making any return for favours The Eye of Nature it seems could discern thus much of God and his gifts that they are the most plentifully bestowed where the greatest return may be expected And for others from whom all the liberality in the world can extort no retribution but grumbling and complaints it is not charity or alms but prodigality and riot to bestow on them These are to be fed not with bread but stripes they are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather beggars than poor like Pharaohs lean Kine after the devouring of the fat ones still lank and very ill-favoured And the judgment of these you shall find in the Gospel From them shall be taken away even that which they have And therefore all which from God at this time and for ever I shall require and beg of you is the exercise and the improvement of your talent that your learning may not be for ostentation but for traffick not to possess but negotiate withal not to complain any longer of the poverty of your stock but presently to set to work to husband it That knowledge of God which he hath allowed you as your portion to set up with is ample enough to be the Foundation of the greatest estate in the World and you need not despair through an active labouring thriving course at last to set Heaven as a Roof on that Foundation Only it will cost you some pains to get the materials together for the building of the Walls it is as yet but a Foundation and the Roof will not become it till the walls be raised And therefore every faculty of your Souls and Bodies must turn Bezaleels and Aholiabs Spiritual Artificers for the forwarding and perfecting of this work It is not enough to have gotten an abstracted Mathematical Scheme or Diagram of this Spiritual Building in our Brain it is the Mechanical labouring part of Religion that must make up the edifice the work and toil and sweat of the Soul the business not of the Designer but the Carpenter that which takes the rough unpolished though excellent materials and trims and fits them for use which cuts and polishes the rich but as yet deformed jewels of the Soul and makes them shine indeed and sparkle like stars in the Firmament That ground or sum of Pythagorean Philosophy as it is set down by Hierocles in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if it were admitted into our schools or hearts would make us Scholars and Divines indeed that Virtue is the way to Truth Purity of affections a necessary precursory to depth of knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only means to prepare for the uppermost form of Wisdom the speculation of God which doth ennoble the Soul unto the condition of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of an heroical nay sacred person is first to have been the person of a man aright and by the practice of vertue to have cleared the eye for that glorious Vision But the divinity and learning of these times floats and hovers too much in the brain hath not either weight or sobriety enough in it to sink down or settle it in the heart We are all for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens calls it the art of sorting out and laying in order all intellectual store in our brains tracing the Councils of God and observing his methods in his secrecies but never for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the refunding and pouring out any of that store in the alms as it were and liberality of our actions If Gerson's definition of Theology that it is scientia effectiva non speculativa were taken into our consideration at the choice of our professions we should certainly have fewer pretenders to Divinity but 't is withal hoped more Divines The Lacedaemonians and Cretians saith Josephus brought up men to the practice but not knowledg of good by their example only not by precept or law The Athenians and generally the rest of the Grecians used instructions of laws only but never brought them up by practice and discipline But of all Lawgivers saith he only Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dispensed and measured both these proportionably together And this beloved is that for which that policy of the Primitive Jews deserved to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a special name the Government of God Himself This is it the combination of your knowledg with your practice your learning with your lives which I shall in fine commend unto you to take out both for your selves and others 1. For your selves that in your study of Divinity you will not behold Gods Attributes as a sight or spectacle but as a Copy not only to be admired but to be transcribed into your hearts and lives not to gaze upon the Sun to the dazling nay destroying of your eyes but as it were in a burning-glass contract those blessed sanctifying rayes that flow from it to the enlivening and inflaming of your hearts And 2. In the behalf of others so to digest and inwardly dispense every part of sacred knowledg into each several member and vein of Body and Soul that it may transpire through hands and feet and heart and tongue and so secretly insinuate it self into all about you that both by Precept and Example they may see and follow your good works and so glorifie here your Father which is in heaven that we may all partake of that blessed Resurrection not of the learned and the great but the just and so hope and attain to be all glorified together with him hereafter Now to him c. The II. Sermon PHIL. IV. 13. I can do all things through Christ that strengthneth me THose two contrary Heresies that cost S. Austin and the Fathers of his time so much pains the one all for natural strength the other for irrecoverable weakness have had such unkindly influence on succeeding ages that almost all the actions of the ordinary Christian have some tincture of one of these Scarce any sin is sent abroad into the World without either this or that inscription And therefore parallel to these we may observe the like division in the hearts and practical faculties between pride and sloth opinion of absolute power and prejudice of absolute impotence The one undertaking all upon its own credit the other suing as it were for the preferment or rather excuse of being bankrupts upon record that so they may come to an easie composition with God for their debt of obedience The one so busie in contemplation of their present fortunes
we are men yet not Christians Live saith Clemens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of embryon imperfect heathen of a child in the womb of the gentle dark uncomfortable being a kind of first draught or ground colours only and monogram of life Though we have Souls yet in relation to spiritual acts or objects but weak consumptive cadaverous souls as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Old Testament word for the Soul and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 72 signifies a carkass or dead body Numb v. 2. and otherwhere and then by this accession of this strength of Christ this dead Soul revives into a kind of omnipotency the Pygmie is sprung up into a Gyant this languishing puling state improv'd into an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that even now was insufficient to think any thing is now able to do all things which brings me to my second Proposition The strength of a Christian from Christ deriv'd is a kind of Omnipotence sufficient for the whole duty of a Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can do all things The clearing of this Truth from all difficulties or prejudices will depend mainly on the right understanding of the predicate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my Text or the whole duty of a Christian in the proposition which two being of the same importance the same hand will unravel them both Now what is the whole duty of a Christian but the adequate condition of the second Covenant upon performance of which salvation shall certainly be had and without which salvare nequeat ipsa si cupias salus the very sufferings and saving mercies of Christ will avail us nothing As for any Exercise of Gods absolute Will or Power in this business of Souls under Christs Kingdom I think we may fairly omit to take it into consideration for sure the New Testament will acknowledg no such phrase nor I think any of the Ancients that wrote in that language Whereupon perhaps it will be worth observing in the confession of the Religion of the Greek Church subscribed by Cyril the present Patriarch of Constantinople where having somewhat to do with this phrase Of Gods absolute Dominion so much talked on here in the West he is much put to it to express it in Greek and at last fain to do it by a word coyned on purpose a meer Latinism for the turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an expression I think capable of no excuse but this that a piece of new Divinity was to be content with a barbarous phrase Concerning this condition of the second Covenant Three things will require to be premised to our present enquiry 1. That there is a Condition and that an adequate one of the same extent as the promises of the Covenant something exacted at our hands to be performed if we mean to be the better for the demise of that Indenture As many as received him to them he gave power c. Joh. i. 12. to these and to none else positively and exclusively To him that overcometh will I give Rev. ii 7. I have fought a good fight c. 2 Tim. iv 7. henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown Then begins the title to the Crown and not before when the fight is fought the course finished the faith kept then coelum rapiunt God challenged on his righteousness as a Judg not on ground of his absolute pleasure as a Lord which will but upon supposition of a Pact or Covenant which limits and directs the award process for according unto it God the righteous Judge shall give And Mark xvi 16. in Christs farewel speech to his Disciples where he seals their Commission of Embassage and Preaching to every creature He that believeth not shall be damned this believing whatever it signifies is that condition here we speak of and what it imports you will best see by comparing it with the same passage set down by another Amanuensis in the last verse of S. Matth. To observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you A belief not of brain or phansie but that of heart and practice i. e. Distinctly Evangelical or Christian obedience the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my Text and the whole duty of a Christian in the proposition which if a Christian by the help of Christ be not able to perform then consequently he is still uncapable of Salvation by the second Covenant no creature being now rescuable from Hell stante pacto but those that perform the condition of it that irreversible Oath of God which is always fulfilled in kind without relaxation or commutation or compensation of punishment being already gone out against them I have sworn in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest And therefore when the end of Christs mission is described Joh. iii. 17. That the world through him might be saved there is a shrewd But in the next Verse But he that believeth not is condemned already This was upon agreement between God and Christ that the impenitent Infidel should be never the better for it should die unrescued in his old Condemnation So that there is not only a logical possibility but a moral necessity of the performing of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or else no possibility of Salvation And then that reason of disannulling the old and establishing the new Covenant because there was no justification to be had by the old rendred Gal. iii. 21. would easily be retorted upon the Apostle thus Why neither is any life or justification to be had by this second the absurdity of which sequel being considered may serve for one proof of the Proposition The Second thing to be premised of this Condition is That it is an immutable unalterable indispensable Condition The 2d Covenant standing this must also stand that hath been proved already because a condition adequate and of the same latitude with the Covenant But now secondly this second both Covenant and Condition must needs stand an Everlasting Covenant Ezek. xvi 60. No possibility of a change unless upon an impossible supposition there should remain some other fourth Person of the Deity to come into the World The Tragick Poets saith Tully when they had overshot themselves in a desperate Plot that would never come about ad Deum confugiunt they were fain to flie to a God to lay that unruly spirit that their phansie had raised Upon Adam's sin and breach of the Condition of the First Covenant there was no possibility in the wit of man in the sphere of the most Poetical phansie Fabulae exitum explicare to come off with a fair conclusion had not the Second Person of the Trinity that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 come down in his tire and personation of flesh not in the stage Cloaths or Livery but substantial form of a servant upon the stage And he again having brought things into some possibility of an happy conclusion though it cost him his life in the
to us i. e. Christs Incarnation brought Salvation into the World For if there be a substantial agreement betwixt the Prophet and the Angel if Emmanuel signifie directly Jesus if God with us and a Saviour be really the same title of Christ then was there no Saviour and consequently no Salvation before this presence of God with us Which position we will briefly explain and then omitting unnecessary proofs apply it In explaining of it we must calculate the time of Christs Incarnation and set down how with it and not before came Salvation We may collect in Scripture a three-fold incarnation of Christ 1. In the Counsel of God 2. In the Promises of God 3. In a Personal open exhibiting of him unto the World the effect and complement of both Counsel and Promises 1. In the Counsel of God so He was as slain so incarnate before the foundation of the World Rev. xiii 8. For the word slain being not competible to the Eternal God but only to the assumption of the humane nature presupposes him incarnate because slain God then in his Prescience surveyingbefore he created and viewing the lapsed miserable sick estate of the future Creation in his Eternal Decree foresaw and preordained Jesus the Saviour the Author and Finisher of the Worlds Salvation So that in the Counsel of God to whom all things to come are made present Emmanuel and Jesus went together and no Salvation bestowed on us but in respect to this God with us 2. In the Promises of God and then Christ was incarnate when he was promised first in Paradise The seed of the Woman c. and so he is as old in the flesh as the World in sin and was then in Gods Promise first born when Adam and man-kind began to die Afterwards he was not again but still incarnate in Gods promise more evidently in Abraham's time In thy seed c. and in Moses his time when at the addition of the Passeover a most significant representation of the incarnate and crucified Christ he was more than promised almost exhibited Under which times it is by some asserted that Christ in the form of Man and habit of Angel appeared sundry times to the Fathers to give them not an hope but a possession of the Incarnate God and to be praeludium incarnationis a pawn unto them that they trusted not in vain And here it is plain thorowout that this Incarnation of Christ in the Promise of God did perpetually accompany or go before Salvation not one blessing on the nations without mention of thy seed not one encouragement against fear or unto confidence but confirm'd and back'd with an I am thy shield c. i. e. according to the Targum my Word is thy shield i. e. my Christ who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word in the first of Joh. i. Not any mention of Righteousness and Salvation but on ground and condition of belief of that Jesus which was then in promise Emmanuel God with us 3. In the Personal exhibiting of Christ in form of flesh unto the World dated at the fulness of time and call'd in our ordinary phrase his Incarnation then no doubt was Emmanuel Jesus then was he openly shewed to all people in the form of God a Saviour which Simeon Luk. ii 30. most divinely styles God's Salvation thereby no doubt meaning the Incarnate Christ which by being God with us was Salvation Thus do you see a three-fold Incarnation a three-fold Emmanuel and proportionably a three-fold Jesus 1. A Saviour first decreed for the World answerable to God incarnate in Gods Counsel and so no man was ever capable of Salvation but through God with us 2. A Saviour promised to the World answerable to the second God with us to wit incarnate in the Promise and so there is no Covenant of Salvation but in this God with us 3. A Saviour truly exhibited and born of a Woman answerable to the third Immanuel and so also is there no manifestation no proclaiming no preaching of Salvation but by the birth and merits of God with us To these three if we add a fourth Incarnation of Christ the assuming of our Immortal Flesh which was at his Resurrection then surely the Doctrine will be complete and this Emmanuel incarnate in the Womb of the grave brought forth cloath'd upon with an incorruptible seed is now more fully than ever prov'd an Eternal Jesus For when he had overcome the sharpness of Death he opened the kingdom of Heaven to all believers as it is in our Te Deum as if all that till then ever entred into Heaven had been admitted by some privy key but now the very gates were wide opened to all believers This last Incarnation of Christ being accompanied with a Catholick Salvation that Jesus might be as Eternal as Immanuel that he might be as Immortal a Saviour as a God with us 'T were but a superfluous work further to demonstrate that through all ages of the World there was no salvation ever tendred but in respect to this Incarnation of Christ that the hopes the belief the expectation of Salvation which the Father 's lived and breathed by under the types of the Law was only grounded upon and referred unto these promises of the future Incarnation that they which were not in some measure enlightned in this mystery were not also partakers of this Covenant of Salvation that all the means besides that Heaven and Earth and which goes beyond them both the brain of Man or Angel could afford or invent could not excuse much less save any child of Adam That every Soul which was to spring from these loins had been without those transcendent mercies which were exhibited by this Incarnation of Christs plung'd in necessary desperate damnation Your patience shall be more profitably imployed in a brief Application of the point First That you perswade and drive your selves to a sense and feeling of your Sins those sins which thus pluckt God out of Heaven and for a while depriv'd him of his Majesty which laid an engagement upon God either to leave his infinite Justice unsatisfied or else to subject his infinite Deity to the servile mortality of Flesh or else to leave an infinite World in a common damnation Secondly To strain all the expressions of our hearts tongues and lives to the highest note of gratitude which is possible in answer to this Mystery and Treasure of this God with us to reckon all the Miracles of either common or private preservations as foils to this incomparable Mercy infinitely below the least circumstance of it without which thine Estate thy Understanding thy Body thy Soul thy Being thy very Creation were each of them as exquisite Curses as Hell or Malice could invent for thee Thirdly To observe with an ecstasie of joy and thanks the precious priviledges of us Christians beyond all that ever God profest love to in that we have obtained a full revelation of this God
with us which all the Fathers did but see in a cloud the Angels peep'd at the Heathen world gap'd after but we beheld as in a plain at mid-day For since the veil of the Temple was rent every man that hath eyes may see Sanctum Sanctorum the Holy of Holies God with us Fourthly To make a real use of this Doctrine to the profit of our Souls that if God have designed to be Emmanuel and Jesus an Incarnate God and Saviour to us that then we will fit and prepare and make our selves capable of this Mercy and by the help of our religious devout humble endeavours not frustrate but further and promote in our selves this end of Christs Incarnation the saving of our Souls and this use is effectually made to our hands in the twelfth to the Hebrews at the last Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom that cannot be moved i. e. being partakers of the Presence the Reign the Salvation of the Incarnate God Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear And do thou O powerful God improve the truth of this Doctrine to the best advantage of our Souls that thy Son may not be born to us unprofitably but that he may be God not only with us but in us in us to sanctifie and adorn us here with his effectual grace and with us to sustain us here as our Emmanuel and as our Jesus to crown and perfect us hereafter with glory And so much for this point That Jesus and Emmanuel import the same thing and there was no Salvation till this presence of God with us We now come to the substance it self i. e. Christs Incarnation noted by Emmanuel which is by interpretation c. Where first we must explain the word then drive forward to the matter The Word in Isaiah in the Hebrew is not so much a name as a sentence describing unto us the mystery of the Conception of the Virgin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with us God where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is taken in Scripture either absolutely for the nature of God as for the most part in the Old Testament or personally and so either for the Person of the Father in many places or else distinctly for the Person of the Son so Hos i. 7. And will save them by the Lord their God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their God i. e. Christ and so also most evidently in this place out of Isaiah where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Son Incarnate God man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and many the like especially those where the Targum paraphrases Jehovah or Jehovah Elohim by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word of the Lord i. e. Christ Jesus Joh. i. 1. As for instance Gen. iii. 22. that Word of the Lord said and Gen. ii 6. the Word created Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies in its extent near at with or amongst Thirdly the Particle signifying us though it expresses not yet it must note our humane nature our abode our being in this our great World wherein we travel and this our little World wherein we dwell not as a mansion place to remain in but either as an Inn to lodge or a Tabernacle to be covered or a Prison to suffer in So that the words in their latitude run thus Emmanuel i. e. The second Person in Trinity is come down into this lower world amongst us for a while to travel to lodg to sojourn to be fetter'd in this Inn this Tabernacle this Prison of mans flesh or briefly at this time is conceived and born God-man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same both God and Man the Man Christ Jesus And this is the cause and business the ground and theme of our present rejoycing in this were limited and fulfilled the expectation of the Fathers and in this begins and is accomplished the hope and joy of us Christians That which was old Simeons warning to death the sight and embraces of the Lords Christ Luk. ii 28. as the greatest happiness which an especial favour could bestow on him and therefore made him in a contempt of any further life sing his own funeral Nunc dimittis Lord now lettest thou c. This is to us the Prologue and first part of a Christians life either the life of the World that that may be worthy to be call'd life or that of Grace that we be not dead whilst we live For were it not for this assumption of flesh you may justly curse that ever you carried flesh about you that ever your Soul was committed to such a Prison as your Body is nay such a Dungeon such a Grave But through this Incarnation of Christ our flesh is or shall be cleansed into a Temple for the Soul to worship in and in Heaven for a robe for it to triumph in For our body shall be purified by his Body If ye will be sufficiently instructed into a just valuation of the weight of this Mystery you must resolve your selves to a pretty large task and it were a notable Christmas employment I should bless God for any one that would be so piously valiant as to undertake it you must read over the whole Book of Scripture and Nature to this purpose For when you find in the Psalmist the news of Christs coming Then said I loe I come you find your directions how to tract him In the volume of thy book it is written of me c. i. e. either in the whole book or in every folding every leaf of this Book Thou shalt not find a Story a Riddle a Prophecy a Ceremony a downright legal Constitution but hath some manner of aspect on this glass some way drives at this mystery God manifest in flesh For example perhaps you have not noted wherever you read Seth's Genealogies more insisted on than Cain's Sem's than his elder brother Ham's Abraham's than the whole World besides Jacob's than Esau's Judah's than the whole twelve Patriarchs and the like passages which directly drive down the line of Christ make that the whole business of the Scripture Whensoever I say you read any of these then are you to note that Shiloh was to come that he which was sent was on his journey that from the Creation till the fulness of time the Scripture was in travel with him and by his leaping ever now and then and as it were springing in the Womb gave manifest tokens that it had conceived and would at last bring forth the Messias So that the whole Old Testament is a Mystical Virgin Mary a kind of Mother of Christ which by the Holy Ghost conceived him in Genesis Chap. iii. 15. And throughout Moses and the Prophets carried him in the Womb and was very big of him And at last in Malachi Chap. iii. 4. was in a manner delivered of him For there you shall find mention of John Baptist who was
as it were the Midwife of the Old Testament to open its Womb and bring the Messias into the World Howsoever at the least it is plain that the Old Testament brought him to his birth though it had not strength to bring forth and the Prophets as Moses from Mount Nebo came to a view of this Land of Canaan For the very first words of the New Testament being as it it were to fill up what only was wanting in the Old are the Book and History of his generations and birth Matth. i. You would yet be better able to prize the excellency of this Work and reach the pitch of this days rejoycing if you would learn how the very Heathen flutter'd about this light what shift they made to get some inkling of this Incarnation before-hand how the Sibyls Heathen Women and Virgil and other Heathen Poets in their writings before Christ's time let fall many passages which plainly referred and belonged to this Incarnation of God It is fine sport to see in our Authors how the Devil with his famous Oracles and Prophets foreseeing by his skill in the Scripture that Christ was near his birth did droop upon it and hang the wing did sensibly decay in his courage began to breath thick and speak imperfectly and sometimes as men in the extremity of a Feaver distractedly wildly without any coherence and scarce sense and how at last about the birth of Christ he plainly gave up the ghost and left his Oracular Prophets as speechless as the Caves they dwelt in their last voice being that their gread god Pan i. e. The Devil was dead and so both his Kingdom and their Prophecies at an end as if Christ's coming had chased Lucifer out of the World and the powers of Hell were buried that minute when a Saviour was born And now by way of Use Can ye see the Devil put out of heart and ye not put forward to get the Field can you delay to make use of such an advantage as this can ye be so cruel to your selves as to shew any mercy on that now disarmed enemy will ye see God send his Son down into the Field to enter the Lists and lead up a Forlorn Troop against the Prince of this World and ye not follow at his Alarm will ye not accept of a conquest which Christ so lovingly offers you It is a most terrible exprobration in Hosea Chap. xi 3. look on it where God objects to Ephraim her not taking notice of his mercies her not seconding and making use of his loving deliverances which plainly adumbrates this deliverance by Christ's death as may appear by the first verse of the Chapter compared with the second of Mat. 14. Well saith God I taught Ephraim to go taking them by their arms but they knew not that I healed them I drew them with the cords of a man an admirable phrase with all those means that use to oblige one man to another with bands of love c. i. e. I used all means for the sustaining and strengthening of my people I put them in a course to be able to go and fight and overcome all the powers of darkness and put off the Devils yoke I sent my son amongst them for this purpose Vers 1. And all this I did by way of love as one friend is wont to do for another and yet they would not take notice of either the benefit or the donor nor think themselves beholding to me for this mercy And this is our case beloved If we do not second these and the like mercies of God bestowed on us if we do not improve them to our Souls health if we do not fasten on this Christ incarnate if we do not follow him with an expression of gratitude and reverence and stick close to him as both our Friend and Captain Finally if we do not endeavor and pray that this his incarnation may be seconded with an other that as once he was born in our flesh to justifie us so he may be also born spiritually in our Souls to sanctifie us For there is a spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mystical incarnation of Christ in every regenerate man where the Soul of Man is the Womb wherein Christ is conceived by the Holy Ghost The proof of which Doctrine shall entertain the remainder of this hour For this is the Emmanuel that most nearly concerns us God with us i. e. With our spirits or Christ begotten and brought forth in our hearts Of which briefly And that Christ is thus born in a regenerate mans soul if it were denied might directly appear by these two places of Scripture Gal. ii 20. I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Again Ephes iii. 17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith c. Now that you may understand this Spiritual Incarnation of Christ the better we will compare it with his Real Incarnation in the Womb of the Virgin that so we may keep close to the business of the day and at once observe both his birth to the World and ours to Grace and so even possess Christ whilst we speak of him And first if we look on his Mother Mary we shall find her an entire pure Virgin only espoused to Joseph but before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost Matth. i. 18. And then the Soul of Man must be this Virgin Now there is a threefold Purity or Virginity of the Soul First An absolute one such as was found in Adam before his fall Secondly A respective of a Soul which like Mary hath not yet joyned or committed with the World to whom it is espoused which though it have its part of natural corruptions yet either for want of ability of age or occasion hath not yet broke forth into the common outrages of sin Thirdly A restored purity of a Soul formerly polluted but now cleansed by repentance The former kind of natural and absolute purity as it were to be wished for so is it not to be hoped and therefore is not to be imagined in the Virgin Mother or expected in the Virgin Soul The second purity we find in all regenerate infants who are at the same time outwardly initiated to the Church and inwardly to Christ or in those whom God hath called before they have engaged themselves in the courses of Actual heinous sins such are well disposed well brought up and to use our Saviours words Have so lived as not to be far from the Kingdom of God Such happily as Cornelius Acts x. 1. and such a Soul as this is the fittest Womb in which our Saviour delights to be incarnate where he may enter and dwell without either resistance or annoyance where he shall be received at the first knock and never be disordered or repulsed by any stench of the carcass or violence of the Body of sin The restared purity is a right Spirit renewed in the Soul
been so long frozen in sin and petrified even into Adamant Beloved as a man may come to such an estate of grace here that he may be most sure he shall not fall as St. Paul in likelihood was when he resolved that nothing could separate him So may a man be engaged so far in sin that there is no rescuing from the Devil There is an irreversible estate in evil as well as good and perhaps I may have arrived to that before my hour of death for I believe Pharaoh was come to it Exod. ix 34. after the seventh Plague hardning his heart and then I say it is possible that thou that hitherto hast gone on in habituate stupid customary rebellions mayest be now at this minute arrived to this pitch That if thou run on one pace farther thou art engaged for ever past recovery And therefore at this minute in the strength of your age and lusts this speech may be as seasonable as if death were seizing on you Why will you die At what time soever thou repentest God will have mercy but this may be the last instant wherein thou canst repent the next sin may benumb or fear thy heart that even the pangs of death shall come on thee insensibly that the rest of thy life shall be a sleep or lethargy and thou lie stupid in it till thou findest thy self awake in flames Oh if thou shouldst pass away in such a sleep Again I cannot tell you whether a death-bed repentance shall save you or no. The Spouse sought Christ on her bed but found him not Cant. iii. 1. The last of Ecclesiastes would make a man suspect that remembring God when our feeble impotent age comes on us would stand us in little stead Read it for it is a most learned powerful Chapter This I am sure of God hath chosen to himself a people Zealous of good works Tit. ii 14. And they that find not some of this holy fire alive within them till their Souls are going out have little cause to think themselves of God's election So that perhaps there is something in it that Matth. iii. 8. the Exhortation bring forth fruits worthy of repentance is exprest by a tense that ordinarily signifies time past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have brought forth fruits It will not be enough upon an exigence when there is no way but one with me to be inclinable to any good works to resolve to live well when I expect to die I must have done this and more too in my life if I expect any true comfort at my death There is not any point we err more familiarly in and easily than our spiritual condition what is likely to become of us after death Any slight phansie that Christ died for us in particular we take for a Faith that will be sure to save us Now there is no way to preserve our selves from this Error but to measure our Faith and Hopes by our Obedience that if we sincerely obey God then are we true believers And this cannot well be done by any that begins not till he is on his death-bed be his inclinations to good then never so strong his faith in Christ never so lusty yet how knows he whether it is only fear of death and a conviction that in spight of his teeth he must now sin no longer that hath wrought these inclinations produced this faith in him Many a sick man resolves strongly to take the Physicians dose in hope that it will cure him yet when he comes to taste its bitterness will rather die than take it If he that on his death-bed hath made his solemnest severest Vows should but recover to a possibility of enjoying those delights which now have given him over I much fear his fiercest resolutions would be soon out-dated Such inclinations that either hover in the Brain only or float on the Surface of the Heart are but like those wavering temporary thoughts Jam. i. 6. Like a wave of the Sea driven by the wind and tost they have no firmness or stable consistence in the Soul it will be hard to build Heaven on so slight a foundation All this I have said not to discourage any tender languishing Soul but by representing the horrors of death to you now in health to instruct you in the doctrine of Mortality betimes so to speed and hasten your Repentance Now as if to morrow would be too late as if there were but a small Isthmus or inch of ground between your present mirth and jollity and your everlasting earnest To gather up all on the Clue Christ is now offered to you as a Jesus The times and sins of your Heathenism and unbelief God winketh at Acts xvii 30. The Spirit proclaims all this by the Word to your hearts and now God knows if ever again commands all men every where to repent Oh that there were such a Spirit in our hearts such a zeal to our eternal bliss and indignation at Hell that we would give one heave and spring before we die that we would but answer those invitations of mercy those desires of God that we should live with an inclination with a breath with a sigh toward Heaven Briefly if there be any strong violent boisterous Devil within us that keeps possession of our hearts against God if the lower sensual part of our Soul if an habit of sin i. e. a combination or legion of Devils will not be over-topped by reason or grace in our hearts if a major part of our carnal faculties be still canvasing for Hell if for all our endeavors and pains it may appear to us that this kind of evil spirit will not be cast out save only by Fasting and Prayer Then have we yet that remedy left First To fast and pine and keep him weak within by denying him all foreign fresh Provision all new occasions of sin and the like and so to block and in time starve him up And then secondly To pray that God will second and fortifie our endeavours that he will force and rend and ravish this carnal Devil out of us that he will subdue our wills to his will that he will prepare and make ready life for us and us for life that he will prevent us by his grace here and accomplish us with his glory hereafter Now to him c. The VII Sermon JER v. 2. Though they say the Lord liveth surely they swear falsly NOt to waste any time or breath or which men in this delicate and effeminate Age are wont to be most sparing and thrifty of any part of your precious patience unprofitably but briefly to give you a guess whither our discourse is like to lead you We will severally lay down and sort to your view every word of the Text single and so we may gather them up again and apply them to their natural proper purposes First then the particle Though in the front and surely in the body of the Text are but bands
palpable in every syllable of the World If they are so well brought up as to have learned their Creed and Catechism they have no other use for it but to break jests and swear by and would soon forget God's very Name or Attributes did they not daily repeat them over as School-boyes their parts and often comment on them by Oaths Prophanations and these are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apostles phrase Ephes ii 12. without God in the world Others there are of a prouder lostier strain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that pitch Camp and arm and fortifie themselves against God that would fain be a forging some other Religion they are so weary and cloy'd with this Thus have I heard of some that have sought earnestly for an Alcoran and profess an opinion that all true Divinity lies there and expect to be esteemed great Wits of a deep reach for this supposal Others that have not skill enough to understand Turcism yet have lusts enough to admire it and the brave carnal Paradise it promises and if they cannot perswade themselves to believe in it yet they phancy it notably and because they cannot expect to have it in another life they will be sure of it in this Hence do they advance to such a pitch of sensuality as Heathenism was never guilty of their whole life is a perpetual study of the arts of death and their whole Souls an Holocaust or burnt Sacrifice to their fleshly lusts It were an horrid representation but to give you in a diagram the several Arts that the god of this World hath now taught men to vilifie and reproach the God of Heaven Profest Atheism begins to set up it comes in fashion and then some Courtiers must needs be in it Prophaning of Scripture making too cheap of it was never so ordinary that holy Volume was never so violently and coursly handled even ravished and defloured by unhallowed lips 'T is grown the only stuff in request and ordinariest garment to clothe a piece of scurrilous Wit in and the best of us can scarce chuse but give it some applause Beloved there is not a sin in the World that sticks closer to him that once entertained it the least indulgence in it is a desperate sign 'T is called the chair of scorners Psal 1. a sin of ease and pleasure a man that uses it that is once a merry Atheist seldom if ever proves a sad sober Christian Julian and many others have gone scoffing to Hell like men whose custom of mocking hath made wry mouthed scarcely composing themselves to a solemn Countenance till horrour either of Hell or Conscience hath put smiling out of date And if any of these sins are but crept in amongst you it will be worthy our enquiry and examination and God grant your own impartial Consciences may return you not guilty However this will but prove you no worse than Jews for they here acknowledg God in their brain and tongues they said The Lord liveth Your second Interrogatory must be Whether whilst you thus profess you do not also swear falsly And then 't is to be feared that every action of your lives will bring in an Evidence against you 'T were an accusation perhaps that you seldom hear of to be challenged for Hypocrites to be turned Puritans pretenders to Holiness yet this is it my Text must charge you with professing of Religion and never practising it assenting to the truth of Scripture in your brain but not adhering to it in your hearts believing in Christ and yet valuing him beneath the meanest sin you meet with Look over your Creed and observe whether your lives do not contradict every word in it and is it not Hypocrisie Perjury or if you will have it high Complementing with God to be thus profuse and prodigal in our professions which we never mean to perform Then is it to be called belief when it is sunk down into our hearts when it hath taken root in a well-tempered soil and begins to spring above ground and hasten into an ear That which grows like Moss on the tiles of an house which is set no deeper than the phancy will never prove either permanent or solid nourishment to the soul 'T were a new hours work to shew every defect in our Faith by our defections and desertions of Goa i our manners yet if you will be in earnest with your selves and apply the grounds premised to your serious Examination your meditations may throughly make up what here is likely to be omitted One thing take home with you for a Rule to eternity That every indulgence in any sin is a sure argument of an Infidel be you never so proud and confident of your Faith and Justification by it be you never so resolute that the Lord liveth yet if your obedience be not uniform if you imbrace not what you assent to surely you swear falsly Your particular failings I am not knowing enough to represent to you your own Consciences if they be but called to cannot chuse but reflect them to your sight Your outward profession and frequency in it for the general is acknowledged your Custom of the place requires it of you and the example of Piety that rules in your Eyes cannot but extort it Only let your lives witness the sincerity of your professions let not a dead Carcass walk under a living head and a nimble active Christian brain be supported with bed-rid mentionless Heathen limbs Let me see you move and walk as well as breathe that I may hope to see you Saints as well as Christians And this shall be the sum not only of my advice to you but for you of my Prayers That the Spirit would sanctifie all our hearts as well as brains that he will subdue not only the pride and natural Atheism of our understandings but the rebellions and infidelity and heathenism of our lusts that being purged from any reliques or tincture or suspicion of irreligion in either power of our Souls we may live by Faith and move by Love and die in Hope and both in Life and Death glorifie God here and be glorified with him hereafter The VIII Sermon LUKE xviii 11. God I thank thee that I am not as other men extortioners c. or even as this Publican THat we may set out at our best advantage and yet not go too far back to take our rise 't is but retiring to the end of the 8. verse of this Chapter and there we shall meet with an abrupt speech hanging like one of Solomons proverbs without any seeming dependence on any thing before or after it which yet upon enquiry will appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faln down from Heaven in the posture it stands in In the beginning of the Eight verse he concludes the former parable I tell you that he will avenge them speedily and then abruptly Nevertheless when the Son of man comes shall he
find faith upon the earth And then immediately verse 9. he spake another parable to certain that trusted in themselves where this speech in the midst when the Son of man comes c. stands there by it self like the Pharisee in my Text seorsim apart as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or intercalary day between two moneths which neither of them will own or more truly like one of Democritus his atomes the casual concurrence of which he accounted the principle and cause of all things That we may not think so vulgarly of Scripture as to dream that any tittle of it came by resultance or casually into the world that any speech dropt from his mouth unobserved that spake as man never spake both in respect of the matter of his speeches and the weight and secret energie of all accidents attending them it will appear on consideration that this speech of his which seems an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a supernumerary superfluous one is indeed the head of the corner and ground of the whole parable or at least a fair hint or occasion of delivering it at that time Not to trouble you with its influence on the parable going before concerning perseverance in prayer to which it is as an Isthmus or fibula to joyn it to what follows but to bring our eyes home to my present subject After the consideration of the prodigious defect of faith in this decrepit last age of the world in persons who made the greatest pretences to it and had arriv'd unto assurance and security in themselves he presently arraigns the Pharisee the highest instance of this confidence and brings his righteousness to the bar sub hac formâ There is like to be toward the second coming of Christ his particular visitation of the Jews and then its parallel his final coming to judgment such a specious pompous shew and yet such a small pittance of true faith in the world that as it is grown much less than a grain of mustard-seed it shall not be found when it is sought there will be such gyantly shadows and pigmy substances so much and yet so little faith that no Hieroglyphick can sufficiently express it but an Egyptian temple gorgeously over-laid inhabited within by Crocodiles and Cats and carcasses instead of gods or an apple of Sodom that shews well till it be handled a painted Sepulchre or a specious nothing or which is the contraction and Tachygraphy of all these a Pharisee at his prayers And thereupon Christ spake the parable verse 9. there were two men went up into the temple to pray the one a Pharisee c. verse 10. Concerning the true nature of faith mistaken extremely now adays by those which pretend most to it expuls'd almost out of mens brains as well as hearts so that now it is scarce to be found upon earth either in our lives or almost in our books there might be framed a seasonable complaint in this place were I not already otherwise imbarked By some prepossessions and prejudices infus'd into us as soon as we can conn a Catechism of that making it comes to pass that many men live and die resolved that faith is nothing but the assurance of the merits of Christ applied to every man particularly and consequently of his salvation that I must first be sure of Heaven or else I am not capable of it confident of my salvation or else necessarily damned Cornelius Agrippa being initiated in natural magick Paracelsus in mineral extractions Plato full of his Idea's will let nothing be done without the Pythagoreans brought up with numbers perpetually in their ears and the Physicians poring daily upon the temperaments of the body the one will define the soul an harmony the other a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Philoponus And so are many amongst us that take up fancies upon trust for truths never laying any contrary proposals to heart come at last to account this assurance as a principle without which they can do nothing the very soul that must animate all their obedience which is otherwise but a carcass or heathen vertue in a word the only thing by which we are justified or saved The confutation of this popular error I leave to some grave learned tongue that may enforce it on you with some authority for I conceive not any greater hindrance of Christian obedience and godly practice among us than this for as long as we are content with this assurance as sufficient stock to set up for Heaven there is like to be but little faith upon the earth Faith if it be truly so is like Christ himself when he was Emmanuel God upon the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an incarnate faith cut out and squared into limbs and lineaments not only a spiritual invisible faith but even flesh and blood to be seen and felt organiz'd for action 't is to speak and breath and walk and run the ways of Gods Commandments An assent not only to the promises of the Gospel but uniformly to the whole word of God commands and threats as well as promises And this not in the brain or surface of the soul as the Romanist seats it but in the heart as regent of the hand and tongue in the concurrence of all the affections Where it is not only a working faith an obeying faith but even a work even obedience it self not only a victorious faith but even victory it self 1 Jo. 5. 4. This is our victory even our faith to part with this as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is our only business is sure an unreasonable Thesis Any faith but this is a faith in the clouds or in the air the upper region of the soul the brain or at most but a piece of the heart a magical faith a piece of sorcery and conjuring that will teach men to remove mountains only by thinking they are able but will never be taken by Christ for this faith upon the earth if it do walk here it is but as a Ghost 't is even pity but it were laid Let me beseech you meekly but if this would not prevail I would conjure you all in this behalf the silly weak Christian to fly from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and call for some light of their lawful pastors to find out the deceit and the more knowing illuminate Christian to examine sincerely and impartially by feeling and handling it throughly whether there be any true substance in it or no. The Pharisee looking upon himself superficially thought he had gone on on very good grounds very unquestionable terms that he was possest of a very fair estate he brought in an inventory of a many precious works I fast I tithe c. verse 12. hath no other Liturgies but thanksgivings no other sacrifice to bring into the temple but Eucharistical and yet how foully the man was mistaken God I thank c. The first thing I shall
against all persons or doctrines or lives that are not ordered or revised by them For what Photius out of Josephus observes among others to have been one main cause or Prognostick of the destruction of Jerusalem the civil wars betwixt the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Zelots and the cut-throats pray God we find not the same success amongst us Whilst the Zelots saith he fell on the Sicarii the whole body of the city 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was bitterly and unmercifully butchered betwixt them and under one of those two names all the people were brought to suffer their part in the massacre I desire not to chill or damp you with unnecessary fears or to suspect that our sins shall be so unlimited as utterly to outvie and overreach Gods mercies But beloved this ill blood that is generally nourish't amongst us if it be not a Prognostick of our fate is yet an ill Symptome of our disease These convulsions and distortions of one member of the body from another as far as it can possibly be distended this burning heat and from thence raving and disquietness of the soul are certainly no very comfortable Symptomes When the Church and Kingdom must be dichotomiz'd precisely divided into two extreme parts and all moderate persons by each extreme tossed to the other with furious prejudice must brand all for Hereticks or carnal persons that will not undergo their razor And then the contrary extreme censure and scoff at their preciseness that will not bear them company to every kind of riot These beloved are shrewd feverish distempers pray God they break not forth into a flame When the boat that goes calmly with the stream in the midst of two impetuous rowers shall be assaulted by each of them for opposing or affronting each when the moderate Christian shall be branded on the one hand for preciseness on the other for intemperance on the one side for a Puritan on the other for a Papist or a Remonstrant when he that keeps himself from either extreme shall yet be entituled to both what shall we say is become of that ancient Primitive charity and moderation The use beloved that I desire to make of all this shall not be to declaim at either but only by this compass to find out the true point that we must sail by By this saith Aristotle you shall know the golden mediocrity that it is complained on both sides as if it were both extremes that may you define to be exact liberality which the covetous man censures for prodigality and the prodigal for covetousness And this shall be the sum not only of my advice to you but prayers for you that in the Apostles phrase your moderation may be known unto all men by this livery and cognizance that you are indited by both extremes And if there be any such Satanical art crept in amongst us of authorizing errors or sins on one side by pretending zeal and earnestness against their contraries as Photius observes that it was a trick of propagating heresies by writing books intitled to the confutation of some other heresie the Lord grant that this evil spirit may be either laid or cast out either fairly led or violently hurried out of our coasts I have done with the Pharisees censoriousness I come now in the last place to the ground or rather occasion of it his seeing the Publican comparing himself with notorious sinners I thank thee that c. That verse 1 Cor. xv 33. which St. Paul cites out of Menanders Thais that wicked communication corrupts good manners is grounded on this moral essay that nothing raiseth up so much to good and great designs as emulation that he that casts himself upon such low company that he hath nothing to imitate or aspire to in them is easily perswaded to give over any farther pursuit of vertue as believing that he hath enough already because none of his acquaintance hath any more thus have many good wits been cast away by falling unluckily into bad times which could yield them no hints for invention no examples of poetry nor encouragement for any thing that was extraordinary And this is the Pharisees fate in my text that looking upon himself either in the deceivable glass of the sinful world or in comparison with notorious sinners extortioners adulterers Publicans sets himself off by these foils finds nothing wanting in himself so is solaced with a good comfortable opinion of his present estate and a slothful negligence of improving it And this beloved is the ordinary lenitive which the Devil administers to the sharp unquiet diseases of the conscience if at any time they begin to rage the only conserve that he folds his bitterest receits in that they may go down undiscern'd that we are not worse than other men that we shall be sure to have companions to hell nay that we need not neither at all fear that danger for if Heaven gates be so strait as not to receive such sinners as we the rooms within are like to be but poorly furnisht with guests the marriage feast will never be eaten unless the lame and cripples in the street or hospital be fetch 't in to fill the table But beloved the comforts with which the Devil furnisheth these men are if they were not merely feigned and fantastical yet very beggarly and lamentable such as Achilles in Homer would have scorned only to be chief among the dead or Princes and eminent persons in Hell We must set our emulation higher than so somewhat above the ordinary pitch or mark Let our designs flie at the same white that the skilfullest marks-men in the army of Saints and Martyrs have aimed at before us that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Church the religious exercisers and champions and trophy-bearers of this holy martial field have dealt in 'T is a poor boast to have out-gon Heathens and Turks in vertue and good works to be taller than the dwarfs as it were and Pygmies of the world we must not be thus content but outvy even the sons of Anak those tall gyantly supererogatory undertakings of the proudest nay humblest Romanists O what a disgrace will it be for us Protestants at the dreadful day of doom O what an accession not only to our torments but our shame and indignation at our selves to see the expectation of meriting in a Papist nay the desire of being counted vertuous in a Heathen attended with a more pompous train of charitable magnificent deeds of constant magnanimous sayings than all our faith can shew or vouch for us Shall not the Romanist triumph and upbraid us in St. James his language Chap. ii 18. Thou hast faith and I have works and all that we can fetch out of St. Paul not able to stop his mouth from going on Shew me thy faith without thy works as our english reads it out of the
sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was and that we construe superstition but indeed it signifies an awe and reverence to the Deity they worship and a fear and a care lest the unpreparedness of the Priest should pollute their sacrifice as 't is much to be feared that our holyest duties for want of this care are turn'd into sin the vanities and faults of our very prayers adding to the number of those guilts we pray against and every sacrifice even of atonement it self needing some expiation To look a while on the highest part and as it were the Sacraments of their Religion their Eleusinia sacra resembling in one respect Christian Baptism in another holy Orders What a multitude of rites and performances were required of every one before his admission to them For their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being divided into two classes the less or lower sort were praeludia to the greater or as the Scholiast on Aristophanes hath it more clearly to our purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a premundation or presanctification of them that sued to be admitted higher as Baptism Confirmation and a Christian education in the Church fits us for the participations of those mysteries which the other sacraments present to us so that it punctually notes that preparation we here talk of for before they were admitted to those grand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were saith Suidas to spend a year or two in a lower form undergo a shop of purgations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and many more so that Tertullian could not without wonder and praise of their solemnities observe tot suspiria epoptarum multam in adytis divinitatem 'T was no mean toil nor ordinary merit that was required to make them capable of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristophanes calls them The ground of all the ceremony we may observe to be the natural impurity which the Heathens themselves acknowledge to be in every man as may appear most distinctly by Iamblicus though they knew not clearly at what door it came in at sure they were they found it there and therefore their own reason suggested them that things of an excellent purity of an inherent or at least an adherent sanctity were not to be adventured on by an impure nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clement till it had by some laborious prescribed means somewhat rid it self of its pollutions and this the Barbarian did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he thinking the bare washing of the outward parts sufficient but the Graecians whom learning had made more substantial in their Worship required moreover an habituate temper of passions longam castimoniam sedatam mentem that the inward calmness and serenity of the affections might perform the promises of the outward purity In sum when they were thus qualified and had fulfil'd the period or circle of their purgation required to their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were at length admitted intra adyta ad epoptica sacra where all the mysteries of their Theology were revealed to them All which seems to me as much as can be expected from their dim imperfect knowledge to express the state of grace and saving knowledge in the world and also the office of ministring in sacred things into which no man was thought fit to be received or initiated but he which had undergone a prentiship of purgations for although those Eleusynia of theirs at a Christians examination would prove nothing but religious delusions containing some prodigies of their mythical divinity in sum but grave specious puppets and solemn serious nothing yet hence it may appear that the eye of nature though cheated in the main taking that for a sacred mystery which was but a prodigious vanity yet kept it self constant in its ceremonies would not dare or hope to approach abruptly to any thing which it could believe to be holy Now shall we be more sawcy in our devotions and insolent in our approaches to either the throne of Majesty or grace of our true God than they were to the unprofitable empty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their false Shall we call the mannerliness of the Heathen up in judgment against the Christian rudeness 'T will be an horrid exprobration at the day of Doom when a neat wash't respectful Gentile shall put a swinish miry negligent Christian to shame such a one who never took so much care to trim himself to entertain the bridegroom as the Heathen did to adore an empty gaud a vain ridiculous bauble Yet is not their example prescribed you as an accomplish't pattern as the pitch to aim at and drive no higher but rather as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sarcasm or contumely engrav'd in Marble to upbraid you mightily if you have not gone so far All that they practised was but superficial and referring to the body and therein the washing of the outsides yours must be inward and of the soul which is the next word in the doctrine the specification of it by the subject noted in the Text by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the way and expressed in the latter part of the subject of my proposition the Preparation of the soul This Preparation consists in removing those burthens and wiping off those blots of the soul which any way deface or oppress it in scouring off that rust and filth which it contracted in the Womb and driving it back again as near integrity as may be And this was the aim and business of the wisest among the Ancients who conceived it possible fully to repair what was lost because the privation was not total and finding some sparks of the primitive flame still warm within them endeavour'd and hoped hard to enliven them To this purpose a great company of them saith S. Austin puzled themselves in a design of purging the soul per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consecrationes theurgicas but all in vain as Porphyry himself confesses No man saith he by this theurgick Magick could ever purge himself the nearer to God or wipe his eyes clear enough for such a vision They indeed went more probably to work which used no other magick or exorcism to cast out these Devils to clear and purge the soul but only their reason which the Moralist set up and maintain'd against 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the two ringleaders of sensuality To this purpose did Socrates the first and wisest Moralist furnish and arm the reasonable faculty with all helps and defensations that Philosophy could afford it that it might be able to shake off and disburthen it self of those encumbrances which naturally weighed and pressed it downward ut exoneratus animus naturali vigore in aeterna se attolleret where if that be true which some observe of Socrates that his professing to know nothing was because all was taught him by his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I wonder not that by others his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consecrated into a Deity for certainly never Devil bore so much charity to mankind and treachery to his own kingdom as to instruct him in the cleansing of his soul whereby those strong holds of Satan are undermined which cannot subsist but on a stiff and deep Clay foundation From these beginnings of Socrates the moralists ever since have toil'd hard at this task to get the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Iambl phrases it out of that corruption of its birth that impurity born with it which the soul contracts by its conversation with the body and from which they say only Philosophy can purge it For it is Philoponus his observation that that Canon of the Physicians That the inclinations of the soul necessarily follow the temper of the body is by all men set down with that exception implied unless the Man have studied Philosophy for that study can reform the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make the soul contemn the commands and arm it against the influences and poysons and infections of the body In sum the main of Philosophy was to this purpose to take off the soul from those corporeal dependences and so in a manner restore it to its primitive self that is to some of that divine perfection with which it was infused for then is the soul to be beheld in its native shape when 't is stript of all its passions At other times you do not see the soul but some froth and weeds of it as the gray part of the Sea is not to be called Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some scurf and foam and weeds that lye on the top of it So then to this spiritualizing of the soul and recovering it to the simplicity of its essence their main precepts were to quell and suppress 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Maximus Tyrius speaks that turbulent prachant common people of the soul all the irrational affections and reduce it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into a Monarchy or regal government where reason might rule Lord and King For whensoever any lower affection is suffered to do any thing there saith Philoponus we do not work like men but some other creatures Whosoever suffer their lower nutritive faculties to act freely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these men are in danger to become trees that is by these operations they differ nothing from meer plants So those that suffer their sensitive appetites lust and rage to exercise at freedom are not to be reckoned men but beasts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. then only will our actions argue us men when our reason is at the forge This was the aim and business of Philosophy to keep us from unmanning our selves to restore reason to its scepter to rescue it from the tyranny of that most atheistical usurper as Iambl calls the affections and from hence he which lived according to those precepts of Philosophy was said both by them and Clement and the Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Austin Secundum intellectum vivere to live according to the guidance of the reasonable soul Which whosoever did saith Plotinus though by it in respect of divinity he was not perfect yet at last should be sure to find a gracious providence first to perfect then to crown his natural moderate well tempered endeavour as Austin cites it out of him L. 10. de civit Dei This whose course and proceedings and assent of the soul through these Philosophical preparations to spiritual perfection is summarily and clearly set down for us in Photius out of Isidorus Philosophically observed to consist in three steps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The first business of the soul is to call in those parts of it which were engaged in any forraign fleshly imployment and retire and collect it self unto its self and then secondly it learns to quit it self to put off the whole natural man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it s own fashions and conceits all the notions all the pride of humane reason and set it self on those things which are nearest kin to the soul that is spiritual affairs and then thirdly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it falls into holy enthusiasms and spiritual elevations which it continues till it be changed and led into the calm and serenity above the state of man agreeable to the tranquillity and peace which the Gods enjoy And could the Philosophers be their own Scholars could they exhibit that felicity which they describe and fansie they might glory in their morality and indeed be said to have prepared and purged the soul for the receit of the most pure and spiritual guest But certainly their speculation out-ran their practice and their very morality was but Theorical to be read in their books and wishes far more legible than in their lives and their enjoyments Yet some degrees also of purity or at least a less measure of impurity they attained to only upon the expectation and desire of happiness proposed to them upon condition of performance of moral precepts for all things being indifferently moved to the obtaining of their summum bonum all I say not only rational agents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Andronicus saith on the Ethicks which have nothing but nature to incite them to it the natural man may upon a sight and liking of an happiness proposed on severe conditions call himself into some degrees of moral temper as best suiting to the performance of the means and obtaining of the end he looks for and by this temper be said to be morally better than another who hath not taken this course to subdue his passions And this was evident enough among the Philosophers who were as far beyond the ordinary sort in severity of conversation as depth of learning and read them as profitable precepts in the example of their lives as ever the Schools breathed forth in their Lectures Their profession was incompatible with many vices and would not suffer them to be so rich in variety of sins as the vulgar and then whatsoever they thus did an unregenerate Christian may surely perform in a far higher measure as having more choice of ordinary restrainment from sin than ever had any heathen for it will be much to our purpose to take notice of those ordinary restraints by which unregenerate men may be and are curbed and kept back from sinning and these saith Austin God affords to the very reprobates Non continens in ira suas misericordias Much to this same purpose hath holy Maximus in those admirable Sections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where most of the restraints he speaks of are competible to the unregenerate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 1. Fear of men 2. Denunciation of judgments from Heaven 3. Temperance and moral vertues nay sometimes other moral vices as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain glory or ostentation of integrity 4. Natural impressions to do to others as we would be done to 5. Clearness of judgment in
our souls as an harbinger to prepare a place within us for the worm in Hell where it may lye and bite and gnaw at ease eternally 'T is an Examination that will deserve the most precious minute of our lives the solemnest work of our souls the carefullest muster of our faculties to shrift and winnow and even set our hearts upon the rack to see whether any fruit or seed of infidelity lurk in it and in a matter of this danger to prevent Gods inquest by our own to display every thing to our selves just as it shall be laid open before God in judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. iv 13. naked and discernible as the entrals of a Creature cut down the back where the very method of nature in its secrecies is betrayed to the eye I say to cut our selves up and to search into every crany of our souls every winding of either our understanding or affections and observe whether any infidel thought any infidel lust be lodged there and when we have found this execrable thing which hath brought all our plagues on us then must we purge and cleanse and lustrate the whole City for its sake and with more Ceremony then ever the heathen used even with a superstition of daily hourly prayers and sacrificing our selves to God strive and struggle and offer violence to remove this unclean thing out of our Coasts use these unbelieving hearts of ours as Josiah did the Altars of Ahaz 2 King xxiii 12. break them down beat them to powder and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron that Cedron which Christ passed over when he went to suffer Joh. xviii 1. even that brook which Christ drank of by the way Psal cx 7. And there indeed is there a remedy for infidelity if the Infidel will throw it in If he will put it off be it never so dyed in the contempt of Christs blood that very blood shall cleanse it and therefore In the next place let us labour for Faith let not his hands be stretched out any longer upon the cross to a faithless and stubborn generation 'T were a piece of ignorance that a Scholar would abhor to be guilty of not to be able to understand that inscription written by Pilate in either of three languages Jesus of Nazareth King Joh. xix 19. Nay for all the Gospels and Comments written on it both by his Disciples and his works still to be non-proficients this would prove an accusation written in Marble nay an Exprobration above a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In a word Christ is still offered and the proclamation not yet outdated his sufferings in the Scripture proposed to every one of you to lay hold on and his Ministers sent as Embassadors beseeching you to be reconciled 2 Cor. v. 20. and more then that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist his body and blood set before our eyes to be felt and gazed on and then even a Didymus would believe nay to be divided amongst us and put in our mouths and then who would be so sluggish as to refuse to feed on him in his heart For your Election from the beginning to this gift of Faith let that never raise any doubt or scruple in you and forslow that coming to him this is a jealousie that hath undone many in a resolvedness that if they are not elected all their faith shall prove unprofitable Christ that bids thee repent believe and come unto him is not so frivolous to command impossibilities nor so cruel to mock our impotence Thou mayest believe because he bids Believe and then thou mayest be sure thou wert predestinated to believe and then all the decrees in the World cannot deny thee Christ if thou art thus resolved to have him If thou wilt not believe thou hast reprobated thy self and who is to be accused that thou art not saved But if thou wilt come in there is sure entertainment for thee He that begins in Gods Councels and never thinks fit to go about any Evangelical duty till he can see his name writ in the book of life must not begin to believe till he be in Heaven for there only is that to be read radio recto The surer course is to follow the Scripture to hope comfortably every one of our selves to use the means apprehend the mercies and then to be confident of the benefits of Christs suffering and this is the way to make our Election sure to read it in our selves radio reflexo by knowing that we believe to resolve that we are elected thereby we know that we are past from death to life if we love the brethren 1 Joh. iii. 14. And so is it also of faith for these are inseparable graces So Psal xxv 14. Prov. iii. 32. Gods secret and his Covenant being taken for his decree is said to be with them that fear him and to be shewed to them i. e. their very fearing of God is an evidence to them that they are his elect with whom he hath entred Covenant Our faith is the best argument or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which to make a judgment of Gods decree concerning us I say if we will believe God hath elected us 't is impossible any true faith should be refused upon pretence the person was predestined to destruction and if it were possible yet would I hope that Gods decrees were they as absolute as some would have them should sooner be softned into mercy then that mercy purchased by his Son should ever fail to any that believes The bargain was made the Covenant struck and the immutability of the Persian laws are nothing to it that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. iii. 15. Wherefore in brief let us attend the means and let what will or can come of the End Christ is offered to every soul here present to be a Jesus only do thou accept of him and thou art past from death to life there is no more required of thee but only to take him if thou art truly possessor of him he will justifie he will humble he will sanctifie thee he will work all reformation in thee and in time seal thee up to the day of redemption Only be careful that thou mistakest not his Person thou must receive him as well as his promises thou must take him as a Lord and King as well as a Saviour and be content to be a subject as well as a Saint He is now proclaimed in your ears and you must not foreslow the audience or procrastinate To day if you will hear his Voice harden not your hearts He holds himself out on purpose to you and by the Minister wooes you to embrace him and then it nearly concerns you not to provoke so true so hearty nay even so passionate a friend if he be not kissed he will be very angry Lastly if in this business of believing so vulgarly exposed there yet
intent to their study from medling at all with this science about the soul for he plainly tells them in his first de anima 't is too hard for any ordinary capacity and yet in the first of the Metaph. he defines the wise man to be one who besides his own accurate knowledg of hard things as the Causes of the soul c. is also able to teach any body else who hath such an habit of knowledg and such a command over it that he can make any Auditor understand the abstrusest mystery in it So then out of his own words he is convinced to have had no skill no wisdom in the business of the soul because he could not explain nor communicate this knowledg to any but choice Auditors The truth is these were but shifts of pride and ambitious pretences to cloak a palpable ignorance under the habit of mysterious deep speculation when alas poor man all that which he knew or wrote of the soul was scarce worth learning only enough to confute his fellow ignorant Philosophers to puzzle others to puff up himself but to profit instruct or edifie none In the third place concerning happiness he plainly bewrays himself to be a coward not daring to meddle with Divinity For 1 Eth. c. 9. being probably given to understand or rather indeed plainly convinced that if any thing in the world were then happiness must likely be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gift of God bestowed on men yet he there staggers at it speaks sceptically and not so magisterially as he is wont dares not be so bold as to define it and at last does not profess his ignorance but takes a more honourable course and puts it off to some other place to be discust Where Andronicus Rhodius his Greek Paraphrase tells us he meant his Tract 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about Providence but in all Laertius his Catalogue of the multitude of his writings we find no such title and I much suspect by his other carriages that the man was not so valiant as to deal with any so unwieldy a subject as the Providence would have proved Sure I am he might if he had had a mind to it have quitted himself of his engagements and seasonably enough have defined the fountain of happiness there in Ethicks but in the 10. c. it appears that it was no pretermission but ignorance not a care of deferring it to a fitter place but a necessary silence where he was not able to speak For there mentioning happiness and miserableness after death where he might have shewed his skill if he had had any he plainly betrays himself an arrant naturalist in defining all the felicity and misery to be the good or ill proof of their friends and children left behind them which are to them being dead happiness or miseries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which they are not any way sensible But of what hath been spoken it is plain that the heathen never looked after God of their own accord but as they were driven upon him by the necessity of their study which from the second causes necessarily lead them in a chain to some view of the first mover and then some of them either frighted with the light or despairing of their own abilities were terrified or discouraged from any farther search some few others sought after him but as Aristotle saith the Geometer doth after a right line only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a contemplator of truth but not as the knowledg of it is any way useful or conducible to the ordering or bettering of their lives they had an itching desire to know the Deity but neither to apply it as a rule to their actions nor to order their actions to his glory For generally whensoever any action drove them on any subject which intrenched on Divinity you shall find them more flat then ordinary not handling it according to any manner of accuracy or sharpness but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only as much use or as little as their study in the search of things constrained them to and then for most part they fly off abruptly as if they were glad to be quit of so cumbersom a subject Whence Aristotle observes that the whole Tract de causis was obscurely and inartificially handled by the ancients and if sometimes they spake to the purpose 't was as unskilful unexercised fencers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they lay on and sometimes strike a lucky blow or two but more by chance then skill sometimes letting fall from their pens those truths which never entred their understandings as Theophilus ad Aulo observes of Homer and Hesiod that being inspired by their Muses i. e. the devil spake according to that spirit lyes and fables and exact Atheism and yet sometimes would stumble upon a truth of Divinity as men possest with Devils did sometimes confess Christ and the evil spirits being adjured by his name came out and confest themselves to be devils Thus it is plain out of the Philosophers and Heathen discourses 1. Of God 2. The soul 3. Happiness that they were also ignorant as ignorance is opposed to piety or spiritual wisdom which was to be proved by way of premise in the 2. place Now in the third place for the guilt of their ignorance that it was a perverse gross malicious and unexcusable ignorance you shall briefly judge Aristotle 1 Met. 2. being elevated above ordinary in his discourse about wisdom confesses the Knowledg of God to be the best Knowledg and most honourable of all but of no manner of use or necessity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. No knowledg is better then this yet none more unnecessary as if the Evidence of truth made him confess the nobility of this wisdom but his own supine stupid perverse resolutions made him contemn it as unnecessary But that I may not charge the accusation too hard upon Aristotle above others and take as much pains to damn him as the Colen Divines did to save him we will deal more at large as Aristotle prescribes his wise men 1 Met. and rip up to you the unexcusableness of the heathen ignorance in general 1. by the authority of Clemens who is guest to be one of their kindest patrons in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where having cited many testimonies out of them concerning the unity he concludes thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Seeing that the Heathen had some sparks of the divine truth some gleanings out of the written word and yet make so little use of it as they do they do saith he shew the power of Gods word to have been revealed to them and accuse their own weakness that they did not improve it to the end for which it was sent that they encreased it not into a saving knowledg where by the way the word weakness is used by Clement by way of softning or mercy as here the Apostle useth ignorance when he
might have said impiety For sure if the accusation run thus that the word of God was revealed to them and yet they made no use of it as it doth here in Clem. the sentence then upon this must needs conclude them not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 weak but perverse contemners of the light of Scripture Again the Philosophers themselves confess that ignorance is the nurse nay mother of all impiety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. whatsoever an ignorant man or fool doth is unholy and wicked necessarily ignorance being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a species of madness and no mad-man being capable of any sober action so that if their ignorance were in the midst of means of knowledg then must it be perverse if it had an impure influence upon all their actions then was it malicious and full of guilt 2. Their chief ground that sustained and continued their ignorance proves it to be not blind but affected which ground you shall find by the Heathen objection in Clem. to be a resolution not to change the religion of their fathers 'T is an unreasonable thing say the Heathens which they will never be brought to to change the customs bequeathed to them by their ancestors From whence the Father solidly concludes that there was not any means in nature which could make the Christian Religion contemned and hated but only this pestilent custom of never altering any customs or laws though never so unreasonable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 't is not possible that ever any nation should hate and fly from this greatest blessing that ever was bestowed upon mankind to wit the knowledg and worship of God unless being carried on by custom they resolved to go the old way to Hell rather then to venter on a new path to Heaven Hence it is that Athenagor as in his Treaty with Commodus for the Christians â—oâ—ders much that among so many Laws made yearly in Rome there was not one enacted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that men should forsake the customs of their fathers which were any way absurd From whence he falls straight to their absurd Deities as if it being made lawful to relinquish ridiculous customs there would be no plea left for their ridiculous gods So Eusebius Praep. l. 2. makes the cause of the continuance of superstition to be that no man dared to move those things which ancient custom of the Country had authorized and so also in his fourth book where to bring in Christianity was accounted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to change things that were fixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and to be pragmatical friends of innovation and so 't is plain they esteemed St. Paul and hated him in that name as an Innovator because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection Acts 17. 18. So Acts the 16. 21. St. Paul is said to teach customs which were not lawful for them to receive nor observe being Romans because saith Casaubon out of Dio 't was not lawful for the Romans to innovate any thing in religion for saith Dio this bringing in of new Gods will bring in new Laws with it So that if as hath been proved their not acknowledging of the true God was grounded upon a perverse resolution not to change any custom of their fathers either in opinion or practice though never so absurd then was the ignorance or as St. Paul might have called it the idolatry of those times impious affected not a natural blindness but a pertinacious winking not a simple deafness but a resolved stubbornness not to hear the voice of the charmer which we might further prove by shewing you thirdly how their learning or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which might be proved an excellent preparative to religion their Philosophy which was to them as the Law to the Jews by their using of it to a perverse end grew ordinarily very pernicious to them 4. How that those which knew most and were at the top of prophane knowledge did then fall most desperately headlong into Atheism as Hippocrates observes that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and St. Basil that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most perfect constitution of body so of the soul is most dangerous if not sustained with good care and wisdom 5. How they always forged lies to scandal the people of God as Manetho the famous Egyptian Historian saith that Moses and the Jews were banished out of Aegypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of an infectious leprosie that overspread the Jews as Theophilus cites it and Justine out of Trogus and also Tacitus and the Primitive Christians were branded and abomined by them for three special faults which they were little likely to be guilty of 1. Atheism 2. Eating their Children 3. Incestuous common using of women as we find them set down and confuted by Athen. in his Treaty or Apology and Theophilus ad Autol c. 6. By their own confession as of Plato to his friend when he wrote in earnest and secretly acknowledging the unity which he openly denied against his conscience and the light of reason in him and Orpheus the inventer of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 professing and worshipping 365 Gods all his life time at his death left in his will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that however he had perswaded them all the while there was indeed but one God And lastly how these two affections in them admiration and gratitude admiration of men of extraordinary worth and gratitude for more then ordinary benefactions done either to particular men or Nations were the chief promoters of idolatry making the Heathens worship them as Gods whom they were acquainted with and knew to be but men as might be proved variously and at large If I could insist upon any or each of these it would be most evident what I hope now at last is proved enough that the ignorance of those times was not simple blind ignorance but malign perverse sacrilegious affected stubborn wilful I had almost said knowing ignorance in them which being the thing we first promised to demonstrate we must next make up the Proposition which is yet imperfect to wit that ignorance in these Heathen in Gods justice might have provoked him to have pretermitted the whole world of succeeding Gentiles which I must dispatch only in a word because I would fain descend to Application which I intended to be the main but the improvident expence of my time hath now lest only to be the close of my discourse The ignorance of those times being of this composition both in respect of the superstition of their worship which was perverse as hath been proved and the prophaneness of their lives being abominable even to nature as might farther be shewed is now no longer to be called ignorance but prophaneness and a prophaneness so Epidemical over all the Gentiles so inbred and naturalized among them that it was
alive to the end saith he that thereby he might make the dissensions of Carthage and Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not possibly to be composed but to be prosecuted with a perpetual hostility This was the effect of Achitophel's counsel to Absalom that he should lye with his fathers concubines and this also was the Devils plot upon the Gentiles who as if they were not enough enemies unto God for the space of 2000 years Idolatry at last resolved to fill up the measure of their rebellions to make themselves if it were possible sinful beyond capability of mercy and to provoke God to an eternal revenge they must needs joyn in crucifying Christ and partake of the shedding of that blood which hath ever since so dyed the souls and cursed the successions of the Jews For it is plain 1. by the kind of his death which was Roman 2. by his Judge who was Caesaris rationalis by whom Judaea was then governed or as Tacitus saith in the 15. of his Annals Caesar's Procurator all capital judgments being taken from the Jews Sanhedrim as they confess Joh. xviii 21. it is not lawful for us to put any one to death 3. by the Prophecy Mat. xx 19. They shall deliver him to the Gentiles by these I say and many other arguments 't is plain that the Gentiles had their part and guilt in the crucifying of Christ and so by slaying of the Son as it is in the parable provoked and deserved the implacable revenge of the Father And yet for all this God enters league and truce and peace with them thinks them worthy to hear and obey his laws nay above the estate of servants takes them into the liberty and free estate of the Gospel and by binding them to ordinances as Citizens expresseth them to be civitate donates caelesti within the pale of the Church and covenant of salvation They which are overcome and taken captives in war may by law be possest by the victor for all manner of servitude and slavery and therefore ought to esteem any the hardest conditions of peace and liberty as favours and mercies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Marcus in Polybius they which are conquered must acknowledg themselves beholding to the victor if he will upon any terms allow them quarter or truce Thus was it above all other sinners with the Gentiles of that time after 2000 years war with the one God they were now fallen into his hands ready to receive the forest strokes to bear the shrewdest burdens he could lay on them had it not been then a favour above hope to be received even as hired servants which was the highest of the Prodigals ambition Luke xv 19. Had it not been a very hospitable carriage towards the dogs as they are called Mat. xv 26. to suffer them to lick up those crums which fell from the childrens table Yet so much are Gods mercies above the pitch of our expectation or deserts above what we are able or confident enough to ask or hope that he hath assumed and adopted these captives into sons And as once by the councel of God Jacob supplanted Esau and thrust him out of his birth-right so now by the mercy of God Esau hath supplanted Jacob and taken his room in Gods Church and Favour and instead of that one language of the Jews of which the Church so long consisted now is come in the confusion of the Gentiles Parthians Medes Elamites and the Babel of tongues Act. ii 9. And as once at the dispersion of the Gentiles by the miracle of a punishment they which were all of one tongue could not understand one another Gen. xi 9. so now at the gathering of the Gentiles by a miracle of mercy they which were of several tongues understood one another and every Nation heard the Apostles speak in their own language Acts xi 6. noting thereby saith Austin that the Catholick Church should be dispersed over all Nations and speak in as many languages as the world hath tongues Concerning the business of receiving the Gentiles into covenant St. Austin is plentiful in his 18. Book de Civit. Dei where he interprets the symbolical writings and reads the riddles of the Prophets to this purpose how they are called the children of Israel Hos I. 11. Hos i. 11. as if Esau had robbed Jacob of his name as well as inheritance that they are declared by the title of barren and desolate Esa LIV. 1. Esa liv 1. whose fruitfulness should break forth surpass the number of the children of the married wife To this purpose doth he enlarge himself to expound many other places of the Prophets and among them the Prophecy of Obadiah from which Edom by a pars pro toto signifying the Gentiles he expresly concludes their calling and salvation but how that can hold in that place seeing the whole Prophecy is a denunciation of judgments against Edom and ver 10. 't is expresly read For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee and thou shalt be cut out for ever How I say from that place amongst others this truth may be deduced I leave to the revealers of Revelations and that undertaking sort of people the peremptory expounders of depths and Prophecies In the mean time we have places enough of plain prediction beyond the uncertainty of a guess which distinctly foretold this blessed Catholick Truth and though Peter had not mark't or remembred them so exactly as to understand that by them the Gentiles were to be preach't to and no longer to be accounted prophane and unclean Acts x. yet 't is more then probable that the devil a great contemplator and well seen in Prophecies observ'd so much and therefore knowing Christs coming to be the season for fulfilling it about that time drooped and sensibly decayed lost much of his courage and was not so active amongst the Genti'es as he had been his oracles began to grow speechless and to slink away before hand lest tarrying still they should have been turned out with shame Which one thing the ceasing of Oracles though it be by Plutarch and some other of the devils champions refer'd plausibly to the change of the soyl and failing of Enthusiastical vapours and exhalations yet was it an evident argument that at Christs coming Satan saw the Gentiles were no longer fit for his turn they were to be received into a more honourable service under the living God necessarily to be impatient of the weight and slavery of his superstitions and therefore it concern'd him to prevent violence with a voluntary flight lest otherwise he should with all his train of oracles have been forced out of their coasts for Lucifer was to vanish like lightning when the light to lighten the Gentiles did but begin to appear and his laws were outdated when God would once be pleased to command Now that in a word we may more clearly see what calling what entring into covenant with the
so gag'd 't will mutter and will be sure to be taken notice of when it speaks softliest To define in brief what this law of nature is and what offices it performs in us you are to know that at that grand forfeiture of all our inheritance goods truly real and personal all those primitive endowments of soul and body upon Adams rebellion God afterwards though he shined not on us in his full Image and beauty yet cast some rays and beams of that eternal light upon us and by an immutable law of his own councel hath imprinted on every soul that comes down to a body a secret unwritten yet indeleble Law by which the creature may be warn'd what is good or bad what agreeable what hurtful to the obtaining of the end of its creation Now these commands or prescriptions of nature are either in order to speculation or practice to encrease our knowledg or direct our lives The former sort I omit as being fitter for the Schools then Pulpit to discourse on I shall meddle only with those that refer to practice and those are either common which they call first principles and such are in every man in the world equally secundum rectitudinem notitiam saith Aquinas every one doth both conceive them in his understanding what they mean and assent to them in his will that they are right and just and necessary to be performed and of this nature are the Worship of God and justice amongst men for that lumen super nos signatum in Bonaventures phrase that light which nature hath seal'd and imprinted on our souls is able to direct us in the knowledge of those moral principles without any other help required to perswade us or else they are particular and proper to this or that business which they call conclusions drawn out of these common principles as when the common principle commands just dealing the conclusion from thence commands to restore what I have borrowed and the like And these also if they be naturally and directly deduced would every man in the world both understand and assent to did not some hindrance come in and forbid or suspend either his understanding or assent Hindrances which keep him from the knowledge or conceiving of them are that confusion and Chaos and black darkness I had almost said that Tophet and hell of sensual affections which suffers not the light to shew it self and indeed so stifles and oppresses it that it becomes only as hell fire not to shine but burn not to enlighten us what we should do but yet by gripes and twinges of the conscience to torment us for not doing of it And this hindrance the Apostle calls ver 21. the vanity of imaginations by which a foolish heart is darkned Hindrances which keep us from assenting to a conclusion in particular which we do understand are sometimes good as first a sight of some greater breach certain to follow the performance of this So though I understand that I must restore every man his own yet I will never return a knife to one that I see resolved to do some mischief with it And 2. Divine laws as the command of robbing the Aegyptians and the like for although that in our hearts forbid robbing yet God is greater then our hearts and must be obeyed when he prescribes it Hindrances in this kind are also sometimes bad such are either habitude of nature custom of Country which made the Lacedemonians esteem theft a vertue or again the tyranny of passions for every one of these hath its several project upon the reasonable soul its several design of malice either by treachery or force to keep it hood-winkt or cast it into a lethargy when any particular vertuous action requires to be assented to by our practice If I should go so far as some do to define this law of nature to be the full will of God written by his hand immediately in every mans heart after the fall by which we feel our selves bound to do every thing that is good and avoid every thing that is evil some might through ignorance or prejudice guess it to be an elevation of corrupt nature above its pitch too near to Adams integrity and yet Zanchy who was never guest near a Pelagian in his 4. Tome 1. l. 10. c. 8. Thesis would authorize every part of it and yet not seem to make an Idol of nature but only extol Gods mercy who hath bestowed a soul on every one of us with this character and impression Holiness to the Lord which though it be written unequally in some more then others yet saith he in all in some measure so radicated that it can never be quite changed or utterly abolished However I think we may safely resolve with Bonaventure out of Austin against Pelagius Non est parum accepisse naturale indicatorium 't is no small mercy that we have received a natural glass in which we may see and judge of objects before we venture on them a power of distinguishing good from evil which even the malice of sin and passions in the highest degree cannot wholly extinguish in us as may appear by Cain the voice of whose conscience spake as loud within him as that of his brothers blood as also in the very damn'd whose worm of sense not penitence for what they have done in their flesh shall for ever bite and gripe them hideously This Light indeed may either by first blindness or 2. delight in sinning or 3. peremptory resolvedness not to see be for the present hindred secundum actum from doing any good upon us He that hath but a vail before his eyes so long cannot judge of colours he that runs impetuously cannot hear any one that calls to stop him in his career and yet all the while the light shines and the voice shouts and therefore when we find in Scripture some men stupified by sin others void of reason we must not reckon them absolutely so but only for the present besotted And again though they have lost their reason as it moves per modum deliberationis yet not as per modum naturae their reason which moves them by deliberation and choice to that which is good is perhaps quite put out or suspended but their reason which is an instinct of nature a natural motion of the soul to the end of its creation remains in them though it move not like a Ship at hull and becalmed is very still and quiet and though it stir not evidently yet it hath its secret heavs and plunges within us Now that the most ignorant clouded unnurtured brain amongst you may reap some profit from this Discourse let him but one minute of his life be at so much leisure as to look into his own heart and he shall certainly find within him that which we have hitherto talkt of his own soul shall yield him a Comment to my Sermon and if he dare but once to open his eyes
of it to be for ever a solliciting and worshipping of darkness as Socrates was said to adore the clouds this is such a sottishness that the stupidst element under Heaven would naturally scorn to be guilty of for never was the Earth so peevish as to forbid the Sun when it should shine on it or to slink away or subduce it self from its rayes And yet this is our case beloved who do more amorously and flatteringly court and woo and sollicite darkness then ever the Heathens adored the Sun Not to wander out of the sphere my Text hath placed me in to shew how the light of the Gospel and Christianity is neglected by us our guilt will lie heavy enough on us if we keep us to the light only of natural reason within us How many sins do we daily commit which both nature and reason abhor and loath How many times do we not only unman but even uncreature our selves Aristotle observes that that by which any thing is known first that which doth distinguish one thing from another à priore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be called the beginning or cause of that thing and that the light of reason distinguishing one action from another being the first thing that teaches me that this is good that otherwise may from thence be termed the beginning of every reasonable action in us and then where ever this cause or beginning is left out and wanting there the thing produced is not so called a positive act or proper effect but a defect an abortion or still-born frustrate issue and of this condition indeed is every sin in us Every action where this law within us is neglected is not truly an action but a passion a suffering or a torment of the creature Thus do we not so much live and walk which note some action as lie entranced asleep nay dead in sin by this perversness 't is perpetual night with us nay we even die daily our whole life is but a multiplyed swoon or lethargie in which we remain stupid breathless sensless till the day of death or judgment with a hideous voice affrights and rouses us and we find our selves awake in Hell and so our dark souls having a long while groped wilfully in the Sun are at last lead to an everlasting inevitable darkness whither the mercy or rayes of the Sun can never pierce where it will be no small accession to our torment to remember and tremble at that light which before we scorn'd Thus I say do we in a manner uncreate our selves and by the contempt of this law of our creation even frustrate and bring to nothing our creation it self and this is chiefly by sins of sloth and stupid sluggish unactive vices which as I said make our whole life a continued passion never daring or venturing or attempting to act or do any thing in Church or Commonwealth either toward God or our Neighbour and of such a condition'd man no body will be so charitable as to guess he hath any soul or light of reason in him because he is so far from making use of it unless it be such a soul as Tully saith a Swine hath which serves it only instead of salt to keep it from stinking For 't is Aristotles observation that every one of the elements besides the earth was by some Philosopher or other defin'd to be the soul Some said the soul was fire some that 't was air some water but never any man was so mad as to maintain the earth to be it because 't was so heavy and unweildy So then this heavy motionless unactive Christian this clod of earth hath as I said uncreatured himself and by contemning this active reason within him even deprived himself of his soul Again how ordinary a thing is it to unman our selves by this contempt of the directions of reason by doing things that no man in his right mind would ever have patience to think of Beloved to pass by those which we call unnatural sins 1. so in the highest degree as too horrid for our nature set down in the latter end of this Chapter for all Christian ears to glow and tingle at and I had hoped for all English spirits to abhor and loath To pass these I say our whole life almost affords minutely sins which would not argue us men but some other creatures There be few things we do in our Age which are proper peculiar acts of men one man gives himself to eating and drinking and bestows his whole care on that one faculty which they call the vegetative growing faculty and then what difference is there betwixt him and a tree whose whole nature it is to feed and grow Certainly unless he hath some better imployment he is at best but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a plant-animal whose shape would perhaps persuade you that it hath some sense or soul in it but its actions betray it to be a meer plant little better then an Artichoak or Cabbage another goes a little higher yet not far doth all that his sense presents to him suffers all that his sensitive faculties lust and rage to exercise at freedom is as fierce as the Tyger as lustful as the Goat as ravenous as the Wolf and the like and all the beasts of the field and fowls of the air be but several Emblemes and Hieroglyphicks concurring to make up his character carries a wilderness about him as many sins as the nature of a sensitive creature is capable of and then who will stick to compare this man to the beasts that perish For 't is Theophilus his note that the cattle and beasts of the field were created the same day with man Gen. i. 25. to note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brutish condition of some men and that therefore the blessing was not bestowed on them but reserved for the man which should have the dominion over them verse 26 28. In sum every action which Reason or Scripture or Gods spirit guides not in us is to be called the work of some other creature of one of these three sorts either earthly the work of a plant or sensual the work of a brute or thirdly above the condition of both these devillish Thus do you see the sin of the contempt of the light of nature which although it be dimm'd in us by our corruption yet shined so bright in the Heathen that they were left without excuse in the Jews that even their own hearts accused them for their rebellions and in us Christians that unless we move according to its directions we are fallen below the condition of men almost of creatures 'T were now superfluous farther to demonstrate it our time will be better spent if we close with some use of it and that will prove manifold 1. by way of caution not to deifie or exalt too high or trust in this light of nature It was once a perfect glorius rule but is now
distorted and defaced it once was light in the Lord almost an Angel of light it shone as the Sun in the Firmament in majesty and full brightness but is now only as the Moon pale and dim scarce able to do us any service unless it borrows some rays from the Sun of Righteousness The fall hath done somewhat with it I know not what to call it either much impaired it and diminisht its light in its essence or else much incumbred or opprest it in its operations as a candle under a vail or lanthorn which though it burn and shine as truly as on a candlestick yet doth not so much service in enlightning the room the soul within us is much changed either is not in its essence so perfect and active and bright as once it was or else being infused in a sufficient perfection is yet terribly overcast with a gloom and cloud of corruptions that it can scarce find any passage to get through and shew it self in our actions for the corruptible body presseth down the soul c. Wisd ix 15. And from this caution grow many lower branches whence we may gather some fruit as in the second place infinitely to humble our selves before God for the first sin of Adam which brought this darkness on our souls and account it not the meanest or slightest of our miseries that our whole nature is defiled and bruised and weakned to aggravate every circumstance and effect of that sin against thy self which has so liberaâ—ly afforded fâ—el to the flames of lust of rage and wild desire and thereby without Gods gracious mercy to the flames of Hell This is a most profitable point yet little thought on and therefore would deserve a whole Sermon to discuss to you 3. To observe and acknowledge the necessity of some brighter light then this of nature can afford us and with all the care and vigilancy of our hearts all the means that Scripture will lend us and at last with all the importunities and groans and violence of our souls to petition and sollicit and urge Gods illuminating spirit to break out and shine on us To undertake to interpret any antient Author requires say the Grammarians a man of deep and various knowledge because there may be some passage or other in that book which will refer to every sort of learning in the world whence 't is observed that the old Scholiasts and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were most exquisit Scholars Thus certainly will not any ordinary skill serve turn to interpret and explain many dark sayings which were at first written in the book of our hearts but are now almost past reading only that omniscient Spirit that hath no shadow of ignorance the finger that first writ must be beseeched to read and point out the riddle We must make use of that rotten staffe of nature as far as its strength will bear and that very gingerly too never daring to lean or lay our whole weight upon it lest it either wound with its splinter or else break under us our help and stay and subsistence and trust must be in the Lord our eyes must wait on his inlightning Spirit and never lose a ray that falls from it Fourthly to clear up as much as we can and reinliven this light within us And that first By stirring up and blowing and so nourishing every spark we find within us The least particle of fire left in a coal may by pains be improved into a flame 't is held possible to restore or at least preserve for a time any thing that is not quite departed If thou findest but a spark of Religion in thee which saith A God is to be worship't care and â—edulity and the breath of prayers may in time by this inflame the whole man into a bright fire of Zeal towards God In brief whatever thou dost let not any the least atome of that fire which thou once feelest within thee ever go out quench not the weakest motion or inclination even of reason towards God or goodness how unpolish't soever this Diamond be yet if it do but glissen 't is too pretious to be cast away And then 2. By removing all hindrances or incumbrances that may any way weaken or oppress it and these you have learnt to be corrupt affections That democracy and croud and press and common people of the soul raises a tumult in every street within us that no voice of law or reason can be heard If you will but disgorge and purge the stomach which hath been thus long opprest if you will but remove this cloud of crudities then will the brain be able to send some rayes down to the heart which till then are sure to be caught up by the way anticipated and devoured For the naked simplicity of the soul the absence of all disordered passions is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aphrodiseus that kindly familiar good temper of the soul by which it is able to find out and judge of truth In brief if thou canst crop thy luxuriant passions if thou canst either expel or tame all the wild beasts within thee which are born to devour any thing which is weak or innocent then will that mild voice within thee in the cave take heart and shew it self In the mean time this hurry of thy senses drowns that reason and thou canst not hope to see as long as like old Tobit the dung and white film doth remain upon thine eyes If thou canst use any means to dissolve this dung of affections which an habit of sin hath baked within thee the scales will fall off from thine eyes and the blind Tobit shall be restored to his sight In brief do but fortifie thy reasonable soul against all the undermining and faction and violence of these sensual passions do but either depose or put to the sword that Atheistical Tyrant and Usurper as Iamblichus calls the affections do but set reason in the chair and hear and observe his dictates and thou hast disburthened thy self of a great company of weights and pressures thou wilt be able to look more like a man to hold thy head more couragiously and bend thy thoughts more resolutely toward Heaven and I shall expect and hope and pray and almost be confident that if thou dost perform sincerely what thy own soul prompts thee to Gods spirit is nigh at hand to perfect and crown and seal thee up to the day of redemption In the next place thou maist see thine own guilts the clearer call thy self to an account even of those things which thou thinkest thou art freest from that which the Apostle in this chapter and part of my discourse hath charged the Heathens with and if thou lookest narrowly I am afraid thou wilt spy thine own picture in that glass and find thy self in many things as arrant a Gentile as any of them For any sincere care of God or Religion how few of us are there that ever entertained so unpleasant
a guest in their hearts we go to Church and so did they to their Temples we pray and they sacrificed they washed and bathed themselves before they durst approach their deities and we come in our best cloths and cleanest linen but for any farther real service we mean towards God there for any inward purity of the heart for any sincere worship of our soul we are as guiltless as free from it we do as much contemn and scorn it as ever did any Heathen Again what man of us is not in some kind guilty even of their highest crime Idolatry Some of them took the brain to be sacred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Athenaeus and therefore hearing some cry God help when one sneezed the ignorant sort worshipt that noise as an expression of a Deity in the brain and so as senslesly many of us deify our own brains and adore every thing that ever comes out of them Every conceit of ours must be like the birth of Jupiters brain a Minerva at least be we never so ignorant or mechanical every device every fancie of our own especially in matters of Religion is straight of Divine Authority and having resolved our selves the children of God every crochet we fall upon must be necessarily Theopneust and inspired and others accused for irreligious or singular that will not as soon give homage to it In sum every imagination becomes an Image and the Artificer deifies his own handy-work forgetting that he made it as 't is described in the 13. of Wisd toward the end and this is one kind of Idolatry Again who is there that hath not some pleasure in his heart which takes place of God there They had their Sun and Moon most glorious creatures their Heroes whose vertues had even deified their memory and silly men they admired and could not choose but worship The Devil and a humor of superstition customary in them fee'd and bribed the law in their hearts to hold its peace and not recall them But how basely have we out-gone their vilest worships How have we outstript them Let but one appearance of gain like that golden calf of the Israelites a beautiful woman like that Venus of the Heathens nay in brief what ever Image or representation of delight thy own lust can propose thee let it but glance or glide by thee and Quis non incurvavit Shew me a man that hath not at some time or other faln down and worshipt In sum all the lower part of the soul or carnal affections are but a picture of the City of Athens Acts xvii 16. Wholly given to Idolatry The basest unworthiest pleasure or content in the world that which is good for nothing else the very refuse of the refuse Wisd xiii 13. is become an Idol and hath its shrines in some heart or other and we crouch and bow and sacrifice to it and all this against the voice of our soul and nature within us if we would suffer it to speak aloud or but hearken to its whisperings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Philoponus Nature only bids us feed our selves with sufficient lust brought in superfluity and pleasure But this only by the way lest you might think that part of my Sermon concerning the Heathens contempt of this law did belong little to you and so might have been spared Lastly not to lade every part of my former discourse with its several use or application take but this one more If this Light shines but dimly within us then let us so much the more not dare contemn it That Master that speaks but seldom then surely deserves to be obeyed he that is flow in his reproofs certainly hath good reason when he falls foul with any body If Craesus his dumb son in Herodotus seeing one come to kill his father shall by violence break the string of his tongue that formerly hindred his speech and he that never spake before roar out an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir kill not Craesus I wonder not that the Persian held his hand a very Barbarian would be amazed and stopt by such a prodigy it must needs be an odious thing when the child which can scarce speak expresses indignation Wherefore if ever our bestial soul that of our sense shall seduce us to any thing that our manly soul that of our reason which is now somewhat decrepit and dim-sighted shall yet espy and find fault with if in any enterprize this natural law within us shall give the check let us suddenly remove our project and not dare to reject such fatherly sage admonishments if all the means in the world can help to avoid it let us never fall into the snare And if at thy audit with thy own soul and examination of thy self amongst the root of thy customary ignorant sins and O Lord deliver me from my secret faults if in that heap and chaos thy own heart can pick out many of this nature and present them to thee which it before forewarned thee of then let the saltest most briny tear in thy heart be called out to wash off this guilt let the saddest mortified thought thou canst strain for be accounted but a poor unproportionable expiation Think of this seriously and if all this will nothing move you I cannot hope that any farther Rhetorick if I had it to spare would do any good upon you Only I will try one suasory more which being somewhat rough may chance to frighten you and that is the punishment that here expects this contempt and that a dismal hideous one all the wild savage devourers in the wilderness Vile affections which punishment together with the inflicter and manner of inflicting it are the last parts of my discourse of which together in a word God gave them up to vile affections A punishment indeed and all the Fiends of Hell could not invent or wish a man a greater there is not a more certain presage of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or total subversion of body and soul nor a more desperate prognostick in the world 'T is observed in Photius as a sure token that Jerusalem should be destroyed because punishment came upon it in a chain every link drew on another no intermission or discontinuance of judgments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. A single judgment that brings no train after it is cheaply entertained and is therefore called not a calamity but a visitation but when one plague shall invade shall supplant another when the pestilence shall fright out the famine and the sword pursue the pestilence that neither may slay all but each joyn in the glory of the spoyl then must the beholder acknowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God is resolved to make them the scene of his rage not only of his wrath Thus also in the spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the estate of the soul some sins may be suffered to invade us and stick as did the Amorites to goad our sides
lookt it over in the gross 't is time to survey it more particularly in its parts and those are two 1. The sin of Atheism and the subjects in which it shews it self There shall come in the last dayes scoffers 2. The motive and impellent to this sin a liberty which men give themselves to walk after their own lusts And first of Atheism and the subjects in whom it shews its self In the c. Where you may note that the words being in a form of a prophecy do note a sort of people which were to come in respect of St. Peter who writes it And though in its first aspect it refer to the period of the Jewish Nation and destruction of Jerusalem takes in the parallel state of things under the last age and dotage and declination of the world Accordingly we see at the 24. of St. Matthew the prophecy of both as it were interwoven and twisted into each other so that what St. Peter saith shall be we may justly suspect is fulfilled amongst us his future being now turned into a present his prophecy into a story In the Apostles times when Christianity was in the cradle and wanted years and strength to move and shew it self in the world there were but very few that would acknowledge it many sects of Philosophers who peremptorily resolved themselves against this profession joyn'd issue with the Apostles in assiduous disputation as we may find in the 17. of the Acts. Amongst those the Epicureans did plainly deny that there was any God that governed the world and laught at any proof that Moses and the Prophets could afford for their conviction And here a man might think that his prophecy was fulfilled in his own dayes and that he needed not to look beyond that present age for store of scoffers Yet so it is that the infidelity which he foresaw should in those last ages reign confidently in the world was represented to him in a larger size and uglier shape then that of the present Philosophers The Epicurean unbelief seem'd nothing to him being compared to this Christian Atheism where men under the vizard of religion and profession of piety are in heart arrant Heathens and in their fairest carriages do indeed but scoff and delude and abuse the very God they worship Whence the note is that the profession of Christianity is mixed with an infinite deal of Atheism and that in some degree above the Heathenism of the perversest Philosophers There were in St. Peters time Epicureans and all sects of scoffers at Christianity and yet the scoffers indeed the highest degree of Atheism was but yet a heaving it would not rise and shew it self till the last daie 'T is worth observing what variety of stratagems the Devil hath alwaies had to keep us in defiance with God and to nourish in us that hostility and enmity against Heaven which is so deep and predominant in himself He first set them a work to rebel and fortifie themselves against God and make themselves by building of a Tower so impregnable that God himself could not be able to disperse them Gen. xi 4. Afterwards when by the punishment and defeating of that design the world was sufficiently instructed that no arm of flesh no bodily strength could make resistance against Heaven when the body could hold out in rebellion no longer he then instructs the inward man the soul to make its approaches and challenge Heaven Now the soul of man consisting of two faculties the Understanding and the Will he first deals with the Understanding and sets that up against God in many monstrous fashions first in deluding it to all manner of Idolatrous worship in making it adore the Sun the Moon and the whole Host of Heaven which was a more generous kind of Idolatry Afterwards in making them worship Dogs and Cats Onions and Garlick for so did the Egyptians and this was a more sottish stupid affection a man would wonder how the Devil could make them such fools Afterward he wrought still upon their understanding in making them under pretence of two laudable qualities admiration and gratitude admiration of any kind of vertue and gratitude for any good turn to deifie and worship as gods any men which had ever done either their Nation or private persons any important good or favour So that every Heros or noble famous man as soon as he was dead was worshipt 'T were long to shew you the variety of shifts in this kind which the Devil used to bring in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gentiles i. e. their worshipping of many Gods In brief this plot lasted thus till Christianity came into the world and turn'd it out of doors and at Christs Resurrection all the gods of the Heathen expired However the Devil still stuck close to that faculty of the soul which he had been so long acquainted with I mean the understanding and seeing through the whole world almost the Doctrine of Christ had so possest men that he could not hope to bring in his Heathen gods again he therefore hath one design more on the understanding seeing 't is resolved to believe Christ in spight of heathenism he then puzzles it with many doubts about this very Christ it is so possest with He raises up in the first ages of the Church variety of Heresies concerning the union of his natures equality of his person with the Father and the like and rung as many changes in mens opinions as the matter of faith was capable of There was no truth almost in Christianity but had its Heretick to contradict and damn it Now since at last reason and truth and the power of Scripture having out-lived in a good degree fundamental error in opinion hath almost expuls'd the Devil out of the head or upper part of the soul the Understanding his last plot is on the heel i. e. the Will and Affections and that he hath bruised terribly according to that prophecy Gen. iii. 15. He deals mainly on our manners and strives to make them if it be possible sinful beyond capability of mercy And this design hath thrived with him wonderfully he hath wrought more opposition against God more heresie against Christ in our lives then ever he was able to do in our doctrine In a Kingdom where the custom of the Country and education hath planted purity of faith in the understanding he there labours to supplant and eradicate charity and devotion in the will and crucifies Christ more confidently in our corrupt heathenish practises then ever the Jews did in their incredulity And on this plot he hath stuck close and insisted a long while it being the last and most dangerous stratagem that the policy of Hell can furnish him with to corrupt and curse and make abominable a sincere belief by an Atheistical conversation And this doth prove in general that 't is the Devils aim and from thence probably the Christians curse to have more hostility against God in
yea sum of our belief we deny and bandy against all our lives long If the story of Christ coming to judgment set down in the xxv of Matthew after the 30. verse had ever entred through the doors of our ears to the inward closets of our hearts 't is impossible but we should observe and practise that one single duty there required of us Christ there as a Judge exacts and calls us to account for nothing in the world but only works of mercy and according to the satisfaction which we are able to give him in that one point he either entertains or repels us and therefore our care and negligence in this one business will prove us either Christians or Infidels But alas 't is too plain that in our actions we never dream either of the judgment or the arraignment our stupid neglect of this one duty argues us not only unchristian but unnatural Besides our Alms-deeds which concern only the outside of our neighbour and are but a kind of worldly mercy there are many more important but cheaper works of mercy as good counsel spiritual instructions holy education of them that are come out of our loyns or are committed to our care seasonable reproof according to that excellent place Lev xix 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart but in any wise reprove him a care of carrying our selves that we may not scandal or injure or offer violence to the soul and tender conscience of him that is flexible to follow us into any riot These and many other works of mercy in the highest degree as concerning the welfare of other mens souls and the chief thing required of us at the day of judgment are yet so out-dated in our thoughts so utterly defaced and blotted out in the whole course of our lives that it seems we never expect that Christ in his Majesty as a Judge whom we apprehend and embrace and hug in his humility as a Saviour Beloved till by some severe hand held over our lives and particularly by the daily study and exercise of some work of mercy or other we demonstrate the sincerity of our belief the Saints on Earth and Angels in Heaven will shrewdly suspect that we do only say over that part of our Creed that we believe only that which is for our turn the sufferings and satisfactions of Christ which cost us nothing but do not proceed to his office of a Judge do not either fear his judgments or desire to make our selves capable of his mercies Briefly whosoever neglects or takes no notice of this duty of exercising works of mercy whatsoever he brags of in his theory or speculation in his heart either denies or contemns Christ as Judge and so destroys the sum of his Faith and this is another kind of secret Atheism Fourthly Our Creed leads us on to a belief and acknowledgement of the Holy Ghost and 't is well we have all conn'd his name there for otherwise I should much fear that it would be said of many nominal Christians what is reported of the Ephesian Disciples Acts xix 2. They have not so much as heard whether there be an Holy Ghost or no. But not to suspect so much ignorance in any Christian we will suppose indeed men to know whatsoever they profess and enquire only whether our lives second our professions or whether indeed they are meer Infidels and Atheistical in this business concerning the Holy Ghost How many of the ignorant sort which have learnt this name in their Catechism or Creed have not yet any further use to put it to but only to make up the number of the Trinity have no special office to appoint for him no special mercy or gift or ability to beg of him in the business of their salvation but mention him only for fashion sake not that they ever think of preparing their bodies or souls to be Temples worthy to entertain him not that they ever look after the earnest of the Spirit in their hearts 2 Cor. i. 22. Further yet how many better learned amongst us do not yet in our lives acknowledge him in that Epithet annext to his title the Holy Ghost i. e. not only eminently in himself holy but causally producing the same quality in us from thence called the sanctifying and renewing Spirit How do we for the most part fly from and abandon and resist and so violently deny him when he once appears to us in this Attribute When he comes to sanctifie us we are not patient of so much sowreness so much humility so much non-conformity with the world as he begins to exact of us we shake off many blessed motions of the Spirit and keep our selves within garrison as far as we can out of his reach lest at any turn he should meet with and we should be converted Lastly the most ordinary morally qualified tame Christians amongst us who are not so violent as to profess open arms against this Spirit how do they yet reject him out of all their thoughts How seldom do many peaceable orderly men amongst us ever observe their wants or importune the assistance of this Spirit In sum 't was a shrewd speech of the Fathers which will cast many fair out-sides at the bar for Atheists That the life of an unregenerate man is but the life of an Heathen and that 't is our regeneration only that raises us up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from being still meer Gentiles He that believes in his Creed the person nay understands in the Schools the Attributes and gifts of the Holy Ghost and yet sees them only in the fountain neither finds nor seeks for any effects of them in his own soul he that is still unregenerate and continues still gaping and yawning stupid and senseless in this his condition is still for all his Creed and learning in effect an Atheist And the Lord of Heaven give him to see and endeavours to work and an heart to pray and his Spirit to draw and force him out of this condition Fifthly Not to cramp in every Article of our Creed into this Discourse we will only insist on two more We say therefore that we believe the forgiveness of sins and 't is a blessed confidence that all the treasures in the world cannot equal But do our selves keep equipage and hand in hand accompany this profession Let me catechize you a while You believe the forgiveness of sins but I hope not absolutely that the sufferings of Christ shall effectually clear every mans score at the day of judgment well then it must be meant only of those that by repentance and faith are grafted into Christ and shall appear at that great marriage in a wedding garment which shall be acknowledged the livery and colours of the Lamb. But do our lives ever stand to this explication and restriction of the Article Do they ever expect this beloved remission by performing the condition of repentance Do we ever
place But if this soul of man be left to its own nature to its own fluid wild incontinent condition it presently runs out into an Ocean never stayes or considers or consults but rushes head-long into all inordinacy having neither the reins of reason nor God to keep it in it never thinks of either of them and unless by chance or by Gods mercy it fall into their hands 't is likely to run riot for ever Being once let loose it ranges as if there were neither power on earth to quell nor in Heaven to punish it Thus do you see how fluid how inconstant the soul is of its own accord how prone it is how naturally inclined to run over like a stream over the banks and if it be not swathed and kept in if it be left to the licentious condition of it self how ready is it to contemn both Reason and God and run head-long into Atheism Nay we need not speak so mercifully of it this very licentiousness is the actual renouncing of Religion this very walking after their own lusts is not only a motive to this sin of scoffing but the very sin it self A false Conception in the womb is only a rude confused ugly Chaos a meer lump of flesh of no kind of figure or resemblance gives only disappointment danger and torment to the Mother 'T is the soul at its entrance which defines and trims and polishes into a body that gives it eyes and ears and legs and hands which before it had not distinctly and severally but only rudely altogether with that mass or lump Thus is it with the Man till Religion hath entred into him as a soul to inform and fashion him as long as he lives thus at large having no terms or bounds or limits to his actions having no form or figure or certain motion defined him he is a Mola a meer lump of man an arrant Atheist you cannot discern any features or lineaments of a Christian in him he hath neither eyes to see nor ears to hear nor hands to practise any duty that belongs to his peace Only 't is Religion must take him up must smooth and dress him over and according to its Etymon must religare swathe and bind up this loose piece of flesh must animate and inform him must reduce him to some set form of Christianity or else he is likely after a long and fruitless travel to appear a deformed monstrous Atheist But not to deal any longer upon Simile's lest we seem to confound and perplex a truth by explaining it I told you the licentious voluptuous life was it self perfect Heathenism For can you imagine a man to be any but a Gentile who hath abandoned all love all awe all fear all care of God any one of which would much contract and draw him into compass who hath utterly put off every garb of a Christian who hath enjoy'd the reins so long that now he is not sensible or at least contemns the curb or snaffâ—le if he be but check't with it gets it in his teeth and runs away with it more fiercely The Heathen are noted not so much that they worshipt no God at all but that they worshipped so many and none of them the true Every great friend they had every delight and pleasure every thing that was worth praying for straight proved their God and had its special Temple erected for its Worship So that do but imagine one of them every day worshipping every God whom he acknowledged in its several Oratory spending his whole life and that too little too in running from one Temple to another and you have described our licentious man posting on perpetually to his sensual devotions worshipping adoring and sacrificing every minute of his life to some Idol-vanity and bestowing as much pains and charges in his prophane heathenish pleasures as ever the Gentiles did on their false gods or the most supererogating Papist on their true We are wont to say in Divinity and that without an Hyperbole that every commission of sin is a kind of Idolatry an incurvation and bending down of the soul to some creature which should alwayes be erect looking up to Heaven from whence it was infused like water naturally inclined to climb and ascend as high as the fountain or head from whence it sprang And then certainly a licentious life is a perpetual Idolatry a supineness and proneness and incurvation of the soul to somewhat that deserves to be called an Idol i. e. either in St. Pauls acceptation of it nothing an Idol is nothing 1 Cor. viii 4. or else in the most honourable signification only an Image or some rude likeness or representation of God We are the Image of God our selves and whatsoever is below us is but an imperfect draught of him containing some lineaments some confused resemblances of his power which created them have no being of their own but only as shadows which the light doth cast And therefore every love every bowe every cringe which we make to any creature is the wooing and worshipping of an Image at best in plain terms of an Idol nothing What degree then of Idolatry have they attained to who every minute of their lives bow down and worship make it their trade and calling for ever to be a solliciting some pleasure or other Some exquisite piece of sensuality to bless and make them happy which have no other shrines to set up but only to their own lust to which they do so crouch and creep and crawl that they are never able to stand up right again like those trees which the Papists talk of which by bowing to our Ladies house when in walks by the wood toward Loretto have ever since stood stooping Thus do you see how the latter part of my Text hath overtook the former the walking after his own lusts becomes a scoffer the licentious man proceeded Atheist and that with ease his very voluptuous life is a kind of Atheism and the reasons of this are obvious you need not seek or search far for them For first this walking in their own lusts notes an habit gathered out of many acts he hath walked there a long while and therefore now hath the skill of it walks on confidently and carelesly without any rub or thought of stopping And contrary to this the worship of God of which Atheism is a privation is an holy religious habit of Piety and Obedience Now we know two contrary habits cannot consist or be together in the same subject An habit and its opposite privation are incompetible light and darkness at the same time though they may seem to meet sometimes as in twilight but for two opposite positive habits never any mans conceit was so bold or phantastical as to joyn them you cannot imagine one but you must remove the other You may suppose a man distempered or weak which is a privation of health and yet suppose him pretty healthy as long as his natural strength is able
It makes him apply himself c. we mean not that the encrease of sin produces faith formally but only inciteth to believe by way of instruction by shewing us what distress we are in and consequently in what a necessity of a deliverer The meditation of our sinful courses may disclose our misery not redress it may explore not mend a sinner like a touchstone to try not any way to alter him It is the controuling Spirit which must effectually renew our spirits and lead us to the Christ which our sins told us we had need of The sense of sin may rouze the soul but it is the Spirit of God that layes the toils the feeling of our guilt may beat the waters but it is the great fisher of our souls which spreads the nets which entraps us as we are in our way to Hell and leads us captive to salvation The mere gripings of our Conscience being not produced by any Pharmacon of the spirit but by some distemper arising from sin what anxiety doth it cause within us What pangs and twinges to the soul O Lord do thou regenerate us and then thy Holy Spirit shall sanctifie even our sins unto our good and if thy grace may lead us our sins shall pursue and drive us unto Christ Secondly by way of character how to distinguish a true convert from a false A man which from an inveterate desperate malady shall meet with a miraculous unexpected cure will naturally have some art of expression above an ordinary joy you shall see him in an extasie of thanksgiving and exultancy whilst another which was never in that distress quietly enjoys the same health and gives thanks softly by himself to his preserver So is it in the distresses of the soul which if they have been excessive and almost beyond hope of recovery as the miracle must so will the expression of this deliverance be somewhat extraordinary The soul which from a good moral or less sinful natural estate is magis immutata quam genita rather chang'd then regenerate into a spiritual goes through this business without any great noise the Spirit entring into it in a still small voice or at a breathing but when a robustous obdurate sinner shall be rather apprehended then called when the Sea shall be commanded to give up his ship-wrack't and the Sepulchre to restore her dead the soul surely which thus escapeth shall not be content with a mean expression but will practice all the Hallelujahs and Magnificats which the triumphant Liturgies of the Saints can afford it Wherefore I say if any one out of a full violent course of sinning conceive himself converted and regenerated let him examine what a degree of spiritual exultancy he hath attained to and if he find it but mean and slight and perfunctory let him somewhat suspect that he may the more confirm the evidence of his calling Now this spiritual exultancy of the regenerate consists both in a solemn humiliation of himself and a spiritual rejoycing in God his Saviour both exprest in Maries Magnificat where she specifies in the midst of her joy the lowliness of his handmaid and in St. Pauls victory-song over death So that if the conversion of an inordinate sinner be not accompanied with unwonted joy and sorrow with a godly sense of his past distress and a godly triumph for his delivery if it be not followed with a violent eagerness to fasten on Christ finally if there be not somewhat above ordinary in the expression then I counsel not to distrust but fear that is with a sollicitous not suspicious trembling to labour to make thy calling and election sure to pray to that Holy Spirit to strike our hearts with a measure of holy joy and holy sorrow some way proportionable to the size of those sins which in our unregeneracy reigned in us and for those of us whom our sins have separated far from him but his grace hath called home to him that he will not suffer us to be content with a distance but draw us close unto himself make us press toward the mark and fasten our selves on that Saviour which hath redeemed us from the body and guilt of this so great death The third Use is of comfort and confirmation to some tender souls who are incorporated into Christ yet finding not in themselves that excessive measure of humiliation which they observe in others suspect their own state and infinitely grieve that they can grieve no more Whereas this doctrine being observed will be an allay to their sorrow and wipe some unnecessary tears from their eyes For if the greatness of sin past or the plentiful relicks of sin remaining do require so great a measure of sorrow to expiate the one and subdue the other if it be a deliverance from an habituate servitude to all manner of sin which provokes this extraordinary pains of expression then certainly they who have been brought up with the spirit which were from their baptism never wholly deprived of it need not to be bound over to this trade of sorrow need not to be set apart to that perpetual humiliation which a more stubborn sin or Devil is wont to be cast out by I doubt not but a soul educated in familiarity with the spirit may at once enjoy her self and it and so that if it have an humble conceit of it self and a filial of God may in earth possess God with some clearness of look some serenity of affections some alacrity of heart and tranquility of spirit God delights not in the torment of his children though some are so to be humbled yea he delights not in such burnt offerings as they bestow upon him who destroy and consume and sacrifice themselves but the Lords delight is in them that fear him filially and put their trust i. e. assurance confidence in his mercy in them that rejoyce that make their service a pleasure not an affliction and thereby possess Heaven before they come to it 'T is observed in husbandry that soil laid on hard barren starved ground doth improve it and at once deface and enrich it which yet in ground naturally fruitful and kept in heart and good case is esteemed unnecessary and burthensome You need not the application Again the husbandman can mend a dry stubborn wayward fruitless earth by overflowing of it and on such indeed is his ordinary requisite discipline to punish it for its amendment But there is a ground otherwise well tempered which they call a weeping ground whence continually water soaks out and this proves seldom fruitful if our learned husbandmen observe aright whereof there is sometime need of draining as well as watering The application is that your soul which either hath been naturally dry and barren or else over-wrought in the business of the world needs a flood of tears to soften and purge it But the well temper'd soul which hath never been out of heart but hath alwayes had some inward life some fatness of