hereafter in the Jerusalem that is above To the state of which glorious Light He bring us all who is the brightness of his Fathers Glory To whom be Glory and Dominion for ever and ever Amen SERMON III. VVHITE-HALL Second Wednesday in Lent LEVIT 16. 31. Ye shall Afflict your Souls by a Statute for ever THe words are one Single Precept concerning one part of the Celebration of a Day I shall not take the Precept asunder into parts for it hath none but shall frame my Discourse to Answer three Enquiries that naturally offer themselves to be consider'd from these words And they are 1. What the Importance of the thing commanded is what is required in this Injunction Te shall Afflict your Souls 2. What Usefulnesse and Efficacy this Duty had upon that time in which it was prescribed what the Afflicting of the Soul contributed to the work of that Day that it should be made so indispensable an ingredient of its performances tyed to it by a Statute for ever 3. Whether that for ever do reach us which is the Application and brings all home to us First What the Import of the thing commanded the Afflicting of the Soul is The Arab. and Targum of Jerusalem Translate it Fasting yea and a Learned Rabbine sayes that wheresoever these two words are put together that is meant And indeed they are often joyned in Scripture to express it Psal. 35. 13. I afflicted my Soul with Fasting And the Prophet Isaiah speaking of this Day in my Text sayes Is it such a Fast that I have chosen A day for a man to Afflict his Soul Isa. 58. 5. Somewhat a strange expression it is for Fasting does afflict the Body properly and yet we find the like too in the other Extream We read of pampering the Soul Psa◠78. 18. They required 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meat for their Souls not to supply the Hunger of their Body that they had before but to indulge the Lusts of their mind they did not want food but variety Festival diet and a Table furnisht they would have and this luxuriancy and wantonness of Meat the Scripture calls meat for the Soul Such as God sayes in other places the Soul lusteth after Indeed forc't meats and things that please meerly by being rare and dear or by being extravagant these do not feed the Appetite but opinion and the mind it is the Soul onely that hungers after these Thus when I look after Wine in the glasse and make my Eye a Critique of its accidents and by the mode and fashion of it teach it to please or displease my judgment I do not here thirst after the cool moysture of it but the sparkling flame and do not drink the wine but the flavour and colour and this is all but notion Now certainly these are not proper objects for our appetites meat for the Body sayes the Scripture and it is the Stomack and not the Imagination that is hungry nor is it Fancy or the Soul that thirsts but 't is the Palate so that these are unnatural and monstrous satisfactions and appetites And yet to bring mens selves to this is one of the great masteries of Wit and Art to force themselves to find a relish in these things and then contrive them is a piece of skill which the advantages of parts and fortune are desireable mostly as they are useful to And a well studied Epicure one expert in the mysteries of Eating is a singularly qualified and most grateful person It were in vain to ask what else such men can be good for that being their Profession they are out at most other things Indeed the Soul that dwells in Dishes and is stew'd in its own Luxuries grows loose and does dissolve its sinews melt all its firmness of mind forsakes it the man is strong for nothing but for Lusts his faculties are choak'd and stifled they stagnate and are mir'd within him and there corrupt and putrefie And then what Cranes will force out thence and wind up such a Soul into the practises and expectations of Plety will make it mind and entertain the hopes and Duties of Religion what macerations what Chymistry will defecate a Spirit so incarnated and rectifie it into such a fineness as befits that state where all their blessednesse have no sensual relish but are sublimed into Divine and purely Spirituall Lord God! that thou shouldst shed a Rational Angelick Soul into us a thing next to the Being of thy Selfe and We make it employ it selfe to animate onely the organs of Intemperance and Gluttony and their appendant lusts Only inspire us how to be but more Sagacious indeed but more luxurious Bruits when thou hast set us here to train and discipline our selves for a condition of such glorious Joyes as are fit to entertain Souls of Reason with and to make them blessed which to enter upon our Bodies must drop from us our Souls must be clarified from Flesh and Flesh it self re fined into a Spirit that we should make our selves Antipodes to this walk contrary to all and so debase our spirits as that they are qualified for no other satisfaction but those of dull sense and carnality Adam fell his great Fall by Eating but ever since men fall further by riotous intemperate Eating He fell from Paradise and they from Reason the Man sinks into Beast and the Soul falls into very Flesh and hath no other faculties or appetites but fleshly ones Such people of all others are not to be raised up by Religion their fulness gives no place to that but does exclude it God did complain of this of old 32. Deut. 15. Je surun waxed fat and kicked that we may see they want no bruitish quality who do allow themselves the appetite of Bruits they that pamper themselves like to fed Horses will also neigh like them and kick even him that fed them thou art waxen fat thou art covered with fatness then he forsook God that made him and lightly esteemed the Rock of his Salvation When they came once where they did suck hony out of the Rock and Oyl out of the flinty Rock they could not mind the Rock of their Salvation Indeed this sensuality as it consumes Estates eats Time and all the faculties of the Mind so it devours all Religion too it hath not onely a particular opposition to some one duty as the other Vices have but by a direct influence it destroyes the whole foundation of Virtue and obedience to God I mean subordination of the lower appetite to Reason and Religion which it renverses quite and breeds an universal cachexy of the Soul as well as Body For ever since Adam did eat of the forbidden Fruit the carnal mind we know is neither subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be as S. Paul sayes Rom. 8. 7. because Gods Commands are restraints upon those things which Flesh desires eagerly Now therefore while that Mind is unsubdued it must needs lust
to reform their lives and do resolve against their Courses yet repent of their Repentance their resolutions untwist and become frail as threads of Cobweb the first assault of a temptation does break through them is they do not use mortifications to work their aversations high and strong against their sins and fix their resolutions The universal sense of the whole Primitive Church does give me confidence in this perswasion who for that very reason in their penitential Excommunications did inflict such severities as 't is almost incredible that Christians would submit to yet they beg'd to be censur'd into and those had S. Paul for their precedent But now Repentances are but dislikes little short unkindnesses at our sins and wouldings to do better On some moving occasion if Gods hand or his Spirit lash it may be Tears will gush out of the Wound and we in angry sadness do intend against our vices but when that fit is over and the Flesh by indulgences prepared to make or answer a temptation we fall again and then it may be shake the head and curse the sin but yet again commit it if the invitation be fair And then are very sorry account our selves unhappy who lye under such a violent infirmity but act it still Now if we consider how it comes to passe that we go round like men inchanted in a Circle of Repenting and of Sinning we shall find it is for want of Discipline upon our selves for had we strove to make our humiliations more low and full of pungent sorrow the Soul would start and fly at the first glance of that which cost it so much anguish but who would fear to act that sin which puts him to so little trouble to repent of as a sad thought a sigh a wish and a loose purpose thin intention and that 's all Do not complain of the Infirmity of the Flesh for this and say thou wouldst live Spiritually but the frailty of thy sensual part betrayes thee its stings and incitations make thee start from duty and goad and force thee into actions which otherwise thou neither shouldst or wouldst commit 'T is thou thy self that arm'st thy Flesh with all its stings thou givest it strengths whereby it does subdue the Spirit thou waterest thy desires with Wines thou feedest them with strong meat and teachest them to crave thou cocker'st them with thy indulgence and thou dost treat Temptations to sin dost invite wickednesse and nourish the occasions of Ruin and then it is no wonder if thy resolutions be not strong enough there is no way but by Austerities to mortifie all inclinations that stir against the Spirit and by denying satisfactions to thy Appetite to calm and moderate thy affections to every thing below and then Temptations will have neither Aid nor Avenue But Secondly You shall Afflict your Souls cannot be meant onely that ye shall Afflict your Bodies the Spirit also must be troubled and we must rent the Heart as well as Garments that is indeed a Sacrifice fit for a Propitiation day for it is such a one as God will not despise Psal. 51. 17. and without which all others are but vain Oblations God may call safting the Afflicting of the Soul because it is the most appropriate and natural means to work it but when he calls it so he does intend it should produce it Austerities are humilificandi hominis disciplina as Tertull sayes Humiliation discipline but yet they have not alwayes that effect The Pharisee that fasted twice a week did not mortifie at all but his Humiliation made him lofty his emptinesse filled him with wind and puft him up and the Publican was more justified than he And late experiences have taught us that Fasting does not alwayes humble when it did gape for Soveraignty and did afflict them into Power onely when there attended it a sacra fames an hunger after Holy things and such as all the relicts of old Sacriledge could not allay but it devoured Church and State and yet crav'd still And the throat of these fasting men was an open Sepulchre indeed open to bury and that could no more be satisfied than the Grave But 't is not onely these demure impieties and those that are devont in wickednesse and act it in Religion and the Fear of God I have to speak against But in the generall If Fasting do not humble and those severities that wear the Flesh break not the heart too and make it contrite then they are lost upon us and do not profit us All these strictnesses of bodily and outward exercise as S. Paul calls it are acts of discipline prescribed to make the Sorrowes of Repentance more severe and operative and so to be the Correctives of the distempers of the Soul to quell the risings of the Appetite and Passions and bring the sensual part of us under obedience to Reason and Religion to make all calm and even in us and put us in the frame of Men and Christians of Rational and Pious Creatures And if they do not work this in us if the Soul do not meet in the performances they are not acceptable in themselves at all These are onely the mint anise and cummin of our Pieties and as Origen sayes the condimenta actuum the sauces of Religion not the main standing parts of it which he therefore that offers solitary gives God a Sacrifice of Sallads and thinks that will be a Sin-Offering They do mistake themselves who cherish any hope from having spent a day or Lent of abstinence if the Excesses of their vices be not made over and evacuated by it if they continue still full gorg'd with their iniquity or who think all is well they have atton'd by having bowed down the head like a bulrush if the Soul were not also humbled in them for as S. Paul does say I may give all my goods to feed the poor yet have no Charity and I may give my body to be burnt yet in those Martyr-fires there may be no heats of Love to God and then all these profit me nothing 1 Cor. 13. 3. So I may chasten my self too and yet not receive correction or be disciplin'd and then Gods punishments are still due to me That Church indeed which hath found out the easie expiation of Indulgences that hath the treasure of Christ's merits and all the supererogations of the Saints at her dispose and by Commission can issue them at pleasure out and apply those merits to mens uses not by Sacraments but by a Bull or Brief and not require Gospel conditions of Faith and Repentance in the persons that receive them but visiting a Church in Rome ascending the steps in such a Chappel in the Lateran on such a day shall give a plenary remission from sin and punishment the saying of such a Prayer over daily shall do it for fourscore thousand years could they but make a lease for men to live and sin out the indulgence too that would get them good
store of chapmen that Church I say may give encouragement to hope that God may be compounded with at easie rates that for a Surfet I may give a Meal and God will pardon it and let me have Wine too into the bargain for they allow afflicting of our Souls in Wine that some weeks change of Dyet may go for a change of Life for indeed these come up somewhat nearer the just value than some of their prices But though there be all the reason in the world they should let men out of Purgatory on what condition they please when themselves onely put them in and make the breath of a few Pater noster's quite blow out those flames which burn no where but in their Doctrines Yet when without any commission from Christ they make Attrition able to secure men from Hell and an Induâ—gence able to release them out of Purgatory when they make new conditions of Pardon that is new Gospel new wayes of application of Christs Merits and though our Saviour God when he found in his heart to dye for us yet in the Agonies of his Compassion could not find in his heart to give us easier terms of life than such as do require Contrition Humiliation and Amendment which they commute so cheaply with his Vicar We justly stand astonisht at such usurpation on Christ's Blood and Merits that does assign them at these rates I make no question but these easie expiations get them many Converts Rome from its first foundation grew from being an Asylum to the dissolute but they that go away upon such hopes 't is to be feared that easinesle betrayes them into sins from which those Expiations cannot rescue them and at once makes them Proselytes to Rome and Hell Nor are our trusts much more secure if we relye upon our opâ—s operatum too our little outward strictnesses unless the soul be engag'd except there be inward life of religion all those will not avail If I deny my self my meals give my self my sins that is so far from expiation that it aggravates I am an argument against my self that my crimes are incorrigible when I will have them though I cut off the instruments foments of them and though I meddle not with the temptations yet I seize the sins What S. Austin does say of Alms In meliùs vita mutanda per eleemosynas de peccatis praeteritis propitiandus est Deus non ad hoc emendus quodammodò ut semper liceat impune peccare This is applicable to these performances also our lives must be Reformed and so on that Repentance and these strictnesses God will be reconciled and our offences done away but he will not be brib'd by these to let us alone in them he is not gratified by such performances so as to wink at vices for their sakes and suffer us in our rebellions upon such compositions as these take a Reward to spare the Guilt Nor is he such a soft and easie God as to take them for payment of that infinite Debt we owe that which he bought off with the Blood of God shall not be ours at such unworthy prices The Prophet Micah seeking for a present to appease him with rejects all the Jewish rites though God prescrib'd them as insufficient in them all things of the like external kind Mic. 6. 6 7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the most high God shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or with ten thousand Rivers of Oyle shall I give my first-born for my Transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul If I do offer up whole Hecatombs to God will that atone for having offered up too plentifully to my Genius Or if I do remove my Riots from my table to the Altar and change my few extravagant Dishes into whole Herds of thousand Sacrifices shall I by doing so remove the guilt too of my Luxuries If I give God ten thousand Rivers for my overflowing Cups will the Intemperance be washt away in those Or shall I think to expiate an adultery with a Child and for that momentary and unclean delight give up the lovely and first issue of my lawful Bed And who will be content to be his own Priest in such manner to pay such Sacrifices for his sins but yet that will not do as it cost more to Redeem Souls which not Rivers of Oyl can cleanse but streams must flow out of the Heart of Christ to do it nor the fruit of Mans body make a satisfaction for but the eternally begotten Son of the Divinity and none but the first born of God alone for thus expiation of sins was wrought Even so to make that expiation mine besides relyance on it I must transcribe the Copy of the Sufferings of that Son transplant the Garden of Gethsemane into my breast If his Soul be sorrowfull even unto Death my Soul must be Afflicted too Humiliations must prostrate me upon my face to deprecate that Fire and Brimstone burning Tempest that is the portion of the Sinners cup saith David O my Father let this Cup pass from me The lustful feavers of my blood must excern themselves in cold sweat of fear and grief in agonies of Penitence and my excessive draughts not onely make me to cry out I thirst but give me Vinegar and Gall to drink sorrow as bitter as my riotous egestions have been my Oaths that have struck through the Name of God must pierce my Soul with grief as pungent as his Thorns and Nayles In a word I must so Afflict my Soul as to crucifie the body of sin and nail it to his Crosse. And this is that which in its own proportion was required of the Jewes this Day here in the Text to the work of which Day how the Afflicting of the Soul in both the given senses does contribute was my Second and the next Enquiry Secondly What this Day was the Verse before the Text informs us it was their Day of Expiation or Atonement Now that the Jewes esteem Fasting and Humiliation expiatory Sacrifices appears from a Form of Prayer which even yet they use on such a day where he that fasted sayes O Lord the Governour of all the World I have now finished my Fast before thee thou knowest that when we had a Temple standing the man that sinned was bound to expiate it by a Sacrifice the Blood of which was poured out and the Altar consumed the Fat to make amends for his Offence but now by reason of our many wickednesses we have neither a Temple Altar or Priest to make Atonement for us I beseech thee therefore O Lord my God the God of my Fathers to accept of that little portion of my own Flesh and Blood which this dayes Fasting hath torn from me in lieu of a Sin-offering and be thou reconciled unto me for thy mercies sake Thus
does excommunicate them only in desire And again 2 Cor. 10. 6. and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfil'd It becomes therefore every one that hath good VVill for Sion to labour to fulfill his own obedience that so the Church may be empower'd to use Christ's Method for reforming of the rest And they that vvill not do so must know they shall not only answer for their sins but for refusing to be sav'd from them that they resist all medicine as men resolv'd that nothing shall be done towards their Cure as men that rather choose to perish and prefer destruction And for the seasons and degrees of putting this work into Execution Wisdom must be implor'd from that Spirit of VVisdom that calls unto this work The last Part VVhereunto I have called them The Nature of the calling of the Holy Ghost is a Subject that would bear a full discourse But waving those pretensions which Necessity and inward incitation do make to be the Calls of the Holy Ghost I shall positively set down that the call of God and of the Holy Ghost to any VVork or Office for I enquire not of his calling to a priviledge or state of favour is his giving abilities and gifts qualifying for that VVork or Office he call immediate when the gifts were so but mediate and ordinary when the abilities are given in his blessing on our ordinary labours 'T is so in every sort of things Exod. 31. 2. See I have call'd Bezaleel and I have fill'd him vvith the Spirit of God in VVisdome and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of VVorkmanship to devise cunning vvorks and to vvork in all manner of VVorkmanship and behold I have given him Aholiab and in the hearts of all that are vvise hearted I have put Vvisdom that they may make all that I have commanded thee And he repeats the same again Chap. 35. 30. adding that he hath put in his heart that he may teach both He and Aholiab so that giving this skill to vvork and teach is nam'd Gods calling So in another case the Lord does say of Cyrus I have call'd him Esay 48. 15. vvhich he explains in the 49. I have holden him by my right hand to subdue Nations before him to loose the loyns of Kings I have girded him So vvhen Isaiah saith the Lord hath call'd me from the VVomb or rather sayes that of our Saviour Isa. 49. 1. he tells you how ver 5. he form'd me and prepared me from the VVomb to be his servant to bring Jacob to him And throughout the New Testament as his Call to a priviledge is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his grace in allowing such a state of favour so his calls to a Work are his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his gifts enabling for it The Gifts of these Apostles by vvhich they vvere enabled for their Office and vvhich made up their call are set down those of Barnabas in the fore-cited 11 Act. He was a good man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost and Paul's call vvas a little Extraordinary If vve look into times vve shall find reason to believe those revelations in 2 Cor. 12. vvere given to Paul a little before this consecration of him in the Text. That Epistle vvas vvrit saith Baronius in the second year of Nero and this separation vvas in the second of Claudius as may be gathered also in some measure from the famine mention'd in the 28. verse of the 11. chap. betwixt these two vvere fourteen years now saith Saint Paul vvhen he vvrote that he had his revelation somewhat above 14. years before a little therefore before this solemnity Here vvas a call indeed call'd up to the third heaven to receive instructions for his Office and for ought he did know call'd out of his own body too that he might be the fitter for it whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knows verse 2. and that again verse 3. They vvhom Gods Spirit qualifies for Consecration to separate to these diviner Offices may be stil'd Angels well vvhen they are call'd from all regards or notices of any body that belongs to them their gifts and graces set them above the consideration of flesh In the entertainment of these qualifications the Soul is swallowed up so that it cannot take cognizance whether it have a body of its own and is not sensible of that deer partner of it self it is so onely sensible of this Employment 'T is not for an Apostle or for his Successor to think of things below vvith much complacency When these have all their uses all their glories on they but make pomp to dress the body vvhich an Apostle does not designe for nor knowes vvhether he be concern'd at all in He becomes something without a body and above the Earth vvho for a preparative must be taken up to Paradise and call'd from all commerce and all intelligence with his own body Saint Paul vvas call'd from Heaven to preach the Gospel but he vvas call'd to Heaven to qualifie him for this higher separation to an Apostle and Church Governour And now you see your calling Holy Fathers and to pass by such obvious unconcerning observations as at first sight follow that those vvho are not qualified are not call'd I shall onely take notice hence of the counter-part of this call the charge God takes upon him when he calls to this charge and that is he owns and will protect whom himself calls 'T was that he promised to the Pounder and â—od of your Order I the Lord have call'd thee and I will hold thine hand and I will keep thee Isaâ— 42. 6. And vvhen he said of Cyrus I have call'd him he said also he shall make his way prosperous Isai. 48. 15. And so he shall be the vvay vvhat it vvill for thus he said to Jacob I have called thee when thou goest through the VVater I am with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee Isai. 43. 1 2. There was Experience of all this in one of the chief Princes of your Order vvhen the Apostles vvere scarce safe within their ship they vvere so toss'd with vvaves and fears yet if our Lord vvill call him Peter is confident he shall be safe even in the sea Lord if it be thou bid me come unto thee on the Water saith he and the Lord did but call him and he vvent down and walked on the vvater safely as if the swelling billows did only lift themselves to meet his steps and raise him up from sinking And vvhen his own doubts vvhich alone could vvere neer drowning him and he but call'd the Lord immediately he stretched out his hand and caught him He answers his call if vve answer ours if we obey vvhen he sayes come then vvill he come and save vvhen vve call to him And so Peter receiv'd no hurt but a rebuke O thou of little
without it they were to cleanse themselves from the impurities of meer Contingency yea they were bound to wash their Dreams and purifie their very sleeps and all this is expounded by the Prophet Isaiah 1. 16. 17. Wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doings cease to do evil learn to do well And in our Israel by our Covenant there is as much of this required for we were all initiated into our profession by Washing regenerated in a Lavet and born again of Water becoming so Tertullians Sanctitatis designati set aside for Holiness consecrated to cleanness and made the votaries of purity How clean a thing then must a Christian be who must be washt into the Name nor is he thus washt only in the Font there was a more inestimable fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness Apoc. 11. 5. Jesus Christ hath washt us in his own blood And Heb. 9. 14. The Blood of Christ did purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the living God How great is our necessity of being clean when to provide a means to make us so God opens his Sons side and our Laver is drawn out of the Heart of Christ Yet we have more effusions to contribute to it 1 Cor. 6. 11. But ye are washt but ye are sanctified by the Spirit of our God and we must be Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire A Laver of flame also to wash away our Scurfe as well as sullages and beyond all these some of us have been purg'd too with the fiery trial and molten in the furnace of Affliction to separate our drosse and purifie us from alloy that we may be clean and refined too may become Christians of the highest Carrect Such among others are the obligations such the instruments of cleanness in a Christian Let us inquire next into the importance of the quality and the degree that is exacted And here I need not say that it stands in direct opposition to the licentiÌ„ous practices of vice this Scripture calls corruption and pollution 2 Pet. 2. 19 20. and the sinner is there stiled the servant of corruption sure a worthy relation this a Servant is we know meaner than whom he serves at least he is in that consideration as he serves and then I pray you in what rank of things is Re or she who is below and baser then Corruption David does also call such open Sepulchres things all whose horrour does not lie in this that they enclose rottenness and putrefaction but open Sepulchres are gaping frightfull noysomness and they do also shed a killing stench a man that is ingaged in conversations with impure sinners is in a like condition with him who hath no air to draw into him but that of Funeral Vaults and does suck in onely the breath of Pestilence But it is a small thing to say the cleanness of a Christian does abhor such licentious impurities for it is such that though it may consist with those little stains that come by slips and failings of infirmity these are the spots of Children and also with some single fouler acts into which the man may be surprized provided they be suddenly washt off in tears Yet can it not consist with continuance in a known sin though it be but a breach of a single Commandment And though the man be strict in other things yet if he do allow himself one vice he is of the number of the unclean for partial obedience does imply also partial disobedience and to the worst and foulest mixture therefore no purity Herod feared John the Baptist knowing that he was a just man and an holy and observed him and when he heard him he did many things and heard him gladly Mar. 6. 20. Could you but pardon him one crime he were a most Religious person but that indulg'd makes him the wicked Herod The matter of Vriah threw dirt perpetual sticking dirt into the Character of David that man after Gods heart There are few persons but some sin or other finds a particular engagement on and does insinuate especially above all others into them the vice of Constitution the Crime of my Bosome 't is my own flesh and blood I cannot tear that from me Or else another sin does get into my Coffers the profits of it bribe me to make much onâ—t and it brings such a reward with it I cannot be unkind to it Or else the custome of a vice hath made it my acquaintance and my friend and then it is so joynted into me that there is no divulsion of it now when a vice hath got any of these relations to me rather then use a violence upon my self I must find out some salve how to quiet Conscience and yet keep the vice And truly if it be but one thing that a man transgresses in he is apt to be gentle to himself and finds plump grounds to be so The best man hath his fault and this is his onely in this the Good Lord pardon him in other things he will be strict but this is his particular infirmity to which his very making did dispose him having been poysoned by its Principles without his fault or conspiration 'T is true indeed men have some one or other sinful inclination which is a weight and violence upon them and which they did derive from Adam whose sin like an infection taken in by divers men breaks out in several Diseases according to variety of Constitutions But truely Adam gave them no ill Customes and they have no originall habits themselves did educate their inclinations into vices and for those inclinations that are derived into them the water of their Baptisme was therefore poured upon them to coole those inbred heats and quench those flashings out of Nature wash away those soul innate tendencies in that Laver of Regeneration which therefore they who spare and are tender to because they are original and naturall they spare them for that very reason for which they there engaged to ruine them and do â—enounce their Baptisme as to the aims and uses of it There thou didst List thy self a Souldier to fight against the Devil World and Flesh now whichsoere of these gets most into thee wilt thou think fit to spare thy Enemy because he is thy bosome one the Risque is greatest when thy Foe is Rebel and Traitor too is got in thy own Quarters shuffled with thy own Forces entred thy Holds and thy Defences and mixes in thy Counsells does counterfeit thy Guard so that thou but command'st and leadst on thy own ruine Sure here is need of strictest cares to rid thy self of so much treacherous danger so far is it from a defence to say this is the single force and bent of Nature in me that if I do not therefore most resist it I am perjuriously confederate with my Destruction and howsoever pure I keep my self from other vices I am not clean David will tell me when I am Psal. 18. 23.
fire kindles his sacrifice with the flames of Hell for so S. James does call those heats He that gives God any of his performances and hath a naughty Heart like Nadab and Abihu he presents his offering in an unhallowed Censer and all his holy worship will get nothing else from Heaven for him but a consuming fire as theirs did He that will offer any thing to God must take a care it be not tainted with such mixtures which spoil all the Religion making it not sincere and also spoil the Heart by making it not clean and undefiled The last remaining sense A Clean and undefiled Heart Of those things which our Saviour sayes defile the man some are meerly sins of the Heart such as may be consummated within the Soul and for the perpetration of which a spirit is sufficient to it self such are Pride especially spiritual pride the sin of those that think none holy as themselves and cast the black doom of Reprobation upon all that do not comply with their opinions and interests such also are uncontentednesse with our estates inward repinings at the dispositions of Providence concerning us black malice bitter envyings Now in these as the mind does need no outward members to consummate them requires no accessary organs to work them out so neither does it require any outward accessary guilt to make them liable to condemnation we know 't was one sin of the spirit onely that made Angels Devils If a foul body be abominable to the Lord shall a foul spirit be less odious he that defiles his Soul offends God in a much neerer concern of his because that speaks neerer relation to him then the body this was only his workmanship made out of Earth the Spirit was created out of himself a foul body is but filthy Clay but he that does pollute his Soul does putrefie the Breath of God and stains a beam of the Divinity The other sort of things that are said to come from the Heart and to Defile are those which S. Paul calls works of the Flesh such as if they be committed must be committed outwardly Murders Drunkennesse Revellings Revenge Wrath and Contentions Seditions Factions Schismes all Uncleannesses c. In these indeed the Heart can be but partiall Actor the utmost it can do is to desire and to intend them and to contrive and manage the designs of compassing them which yet Providence or the Innocence of others may put out of the reach of mans power or his own temporal fears may make him not dare to set upon them though he do cherish the desires Now if they beobstructed from committing most men use to conclude gently of their guilts while they do keep within the Heart the Execution of them is the onely thing that does look mortal and till the sin be perfected there is no death in it And truly I confesse that as it happens many times on a sudden surprize of soul when a bright gilded temptation strikes the heart and dazles the mind we see that the Will rushes on it instantly consents and wishes heartily yet within a while the Spirit does recover out of the surprize puts by the thrusts of fancy and the stabs of the temptation and that Will languishes and dies like a velleity as if it had been nothing but a woulding and now the man would not by any means consent to the commission In this case though there be a guilt to be repented of and cleansed with many tears yet this is Innocence in the comparison but if the Will purpose contrive and do its utmost it is the same to the man as if he had committed T were easie to demonstrate this that whatsoever evill thing a man intends and does fixedly resolve he is guilty of though he do nothing or though the thing he chance to do be never so much lawful Those sayings of S. Paul I know and am perswaded by the Lord Jesus that there is no meat unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean to him it is unclean Rom. 14. 14. and he that doubteth is damned if he eat v. 23. These could have no truth in them unlesse the heart by choosing and pursuing to the utmost any thing that it does judge unlawful incurr'd the guilt of that unlawfulness even to Damnation and all that meerly by it self without the Action which in that case had nothing sinful in it A weight that is upheld by a mans hand and otherwise would rush down to the earth does surely gravitate as much it is as heavy though it do not fall quite down as if it did and were it let alone it would A settled tendency a resolv'd inclination to sin that presseth with its utmost agitation is that weight which though it may perchance be stopt in its career yet it tends to the Abysse its center and will not rest but in that Pit that hath nor rest nor bottome the Heart in this case is as liable as it can be because here it hath done its worst and such a will shall be imputed to it self And now I need not tell those who are still designing sin or mischief in the heart although it never dares come out of those recesses how far they are removed from the goodnesse of God to Israel A Father finds a way to prove such souls have larger doses of Gods Vengeance who when he had asserted that the soul does not dye with the body and then was askt what it did in that long interval for sure it is not reasonable that it should be affected with any anticipations of the future Judgment because the business of the day of Judgment should be reserved to its own day without all prelibation of the sentence and the restitution of the Flesh is to be waited for that so both soul and body may go hand in hand in their Recompences as they did in their demerits joynt partners in the Wages as they were in the Works To this he answers The Soul does not divide all its operations with the Body some things it acts alone and if there were no other cause it were most just the Soul should there receive without the Body the dues of that which here it did commit without the Body That 's for the former sort of sins those meerly of the Heart And for the latter sort the Soul is first engaged in the commission that does conceive the sin layes the design of compassing and does contrive and carry on the machination and then why should not that be first in Punishment which is the first in the Offence Go now and reckon that thy outward grosse transgressions are the only dangerous and guilty ones and slight thy sins of Heart but know that while thy flesh is sleeping in the quiet Grave at rest and ease thy Spirit then 's in Torments for thy Fleshes sins and feels a far severer Worm than that which gnaws thy Body Poor Soul Eternity of Hell from Resurrection to For-ever
when he cannot give a Lamb for his Transgression he gives some of himself he offers Hunger for Shewbread and Thirst for a Drink offering he consecrates a Meal instead of a Beast and sheds a sower fasting sigh for Incense and this he hopes God will accept as Sacrifice And truely the Text sayes no day of Expiation could be kept without it Noâ— does the Scripture want great instances of its effect towards Atonements of Gods wrath How when Judgment was given on a Nation or Person and Execution going out against them yet this rever'st the Sentence Ahab is a great proof of this 1 King 21. 27. And it came to passe when Ahab heard those words that he rent his Clothes and put Sackcloth upon his flesh and Fasted and lay in Sackcloth and went softly And the Word of the Lord came unto Elijah the Tishbite saying Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his dayes One Fasting-day secured a Life the weaknesses it brought upon the body upheld it against all Gods threats Vengeance pronounc't and coming out against him falls to ground if Ahab humble and Afflict his Soul Gods stretcht out Arm will not strike Sackcloth nor wound through Fasting Garments One fit of it removes his Judgments a whole Age and had it been sincere and persevering how had it wip't them out to everlastingnesse Nineve is another instance of the practice and successe of this even among the Heathens Nor should it seem to have lesse Efficacy among Christians The Primitive Fathers call these severities Satisfaction for sin and Compensations the Price with which they are bought off the things that cover them and blot them out and which Propitiate and appease God for them not in their sense who force up these Expressions to a strange height of meaning and yet have quite beat down the Practise as to the publique wholesome use of them out of the Church But though these sayings assign not the Power and just Efficacy of that discipline in it self yet they do the acceptance and effect of it by virtue of Christs Satisfaction A Fainting Body cannot bear indeed the weight of our iniquities nor will lowest prostrations in the dust bury them in the dust or Tears alone blot out our Guilt but Christ having done that which is effectual to all this and requiring no more of thee to make that thine as he does every where most solemnly avow but faithfull humbling of thy self in an afflictive sorrow for what 's past and so to mortifie as to work out Repentance the doing this is doing what he does require and consequently will accept These satisfie the Command and therefore God though not by a condignity of performance yet as Conditions which his Covenant of Grace hath set us which when they are fulfilled then God is satisfied thy sins are expiated and thou art pardoned And so in this lower sense these are thy Satisfactions with which God is well pleased And thus these self Afflictions of the Sinner supply Gods Indignation and divert it They leave no place nor businesse for it and by these short severities upon himself he does make void he does expunge the Sentence of eternal Torments saith Tertullian As thou becomest severe against thy self so will the Lord abate of his severities and he will spare and he will pitty thee in that he sees thou wilt not spare thy self How can he choose but be appeased towards thee when he shall see thee executing his Sentence even upon thy own self and punishing his Enemies although they be thy Members so that by this means thou dost censure thy self into Gods Absolutions afflict thy self into his Pardons and dost condemn thy self into eternal Life Our Church sayes the same thing That in the Primitive Church there was a Godly Discipline that at the beginning of Lent such persons as were notorious sinners were put to open Pennance and punished in this world that their Souls might be saved in the Day of the Lord and she does wish if her wishes be of any force and value when her Orders and Constitutions are not that Discipline could be restored But this I shall not presse if all those whom the Primitive Church Condemned or S. Paul sentenced were so used if every Schismatick that lyes tearing himself and others off from the Lords Body were rejected and if the Fornicator that joyns himself to his unclean Accomplice were disjoyned from Christ and not suffered to make his members be the members of an Harlot if every scandalous debauching offender that lyes corrupting Christs Body spreading contagion thrusting the gangreen forward were cut off and these and all the rest delivered up to Satan alas what part would Christ have left of his own Body Sed illos defendit numerus junctaeque umbone phalanges and that I fear too in more senses than the Poet means Therefore I shall not urge the Churches Wish but only see whether the Statute in the Text sayes any thing to this and whether the for ever do reach us Which is my third and last Enquiry Thirdly Divers of the Jews Rites are said to be and be prescribed for ever although those very Rites and the whole oeconomy of their Covenant were to be chang'd and cease among other reasons as the Fathers say because they foresignifie and point at things in the new Covenant which were to last till Covenants and Rites shall be no more and so their meaning and signification was to be for ever Now truely that their Expiation Performances those which I am upon did so the whole Epistle to the Hebrews is employ'd to prove the Margent of your Bibles in this Chapter so refer you to the places that I shall not need to make it out Christ did fulfill the Temple and the Altar part yea and the refuse outcast part of the Atonement satisfied the Religion and the contempt of that dayes offices He was the whole true Expiation Now does this Expiation as theirs did require afflicting of the Soul in its attendance or was that but a Ceremony of their Rite and though a Jew must mourn and Fast to see his sin killing a Beast and when he does behold his wickednesse eating up a Goat for a Sin offering he must deny himself his daily bread and suffer thirst if his Iniquities drink but the blood of Bullocks yet when we behold ours embrew themselves in the Blood of the Son of God not onely lay hands and confessions on his head but drive Thorns into it make him cry out almost despair and Dye we need not be concern'd so much as to do ought of that either in order to the better Celebration of that Expiation or on the very day of it Indeed if we consider most mens practises it would appear most probable that if we were to expiate our sins as the Jews did by sacrificing of our Flocks not of our Jesus
midst of these severities when God breaks in in Comforts into them The Glory of the Lord appears in that Cloud too that is upon the penitent sad heart when he is drencht in tears the Holy Ghost the Comforter does move upon those waters and breaths Life and Salvation into them and he who is the Unction pours Oyle into those wounds of the Spirit and we are never neerer Heaven than when we are thus prostrate in the lowest dust and when our Belly cleaveth unto the ground in humble penitence then we are at the very Throne of Grace And this our light Afflicting of the Soul which is but for a moment does work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory To which c. SERMON IV. VVHITE-HALL October 12. 1662. JOHN XV. 14. Ye are my Friends if ye do whatsoever I Command you THe words are a conditional Assertion of Christ's concerning his Apostles and in them all Christians And they do easily divide themselves into two parts The First is a positive part wherein there is a state of great and Blessed advantage which they are declared to be in present possession of In these words Ye are my friends In which there are two things that make up that advantage 1. a Relation 2. the Person related to Friends and My friends The Second is a Conditional part wherein there are the terms upon which that possession is made over and which preserve the Right and Title to them in these words If ye do whatsoever I command you in which there are two things required as Conditions I. Obedience If ye do what I command you II. That Obedience Universal If ye do whatsoever I command you The first thing that offers it self to our consideration is the Relation Friends It is a known common-place truth that a Friend is the most useful thing that is in whatsoever state we are It is the Soul of life and of content If I be in prosperity We know abundance not injoy'd is but like Jewells in the Cabinet uselesse while they are there It is indeed nothing but the opinion of Prosperity But 't is not possible to enjoy abundance otherwise than by communicating it a man possesseth plenty onely in his Friends and hath fruition of it meerly by bestowing it If I be in adversity to have a person whom I may intrust a trouble to whose bosome is as open and as faithful to me as 't is to his own thoughts to which I may commit a swelling secret this is in a good measure to unlade and to pour out my sorrow from me thus I divide my grievances which would be insupportable if I did not disburthen my self of some part of them Now there is no bosome so safe as that where friendship lodges take God's opinion in the case Deut. 13. 6. If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother or thy Son or thy Daughter or the Wife of thy bosome or thy Friend that is as thine own Soul This is the highest step in the Gradation And there is all the reason in the world for though Parent and Child are as neer one to other as any thing can be to part of it self Husband and Wife are but two different names of the same one yet these may become bitter and unkind A Parent may grow cross or a Child refractory a Mother may be like the Ostrich in the Wildernesse throw off her bowels with her burthen and an ungracious Son is constant pangs and travail to his Mother his whole life gives her after-throws which are most deadly Dislikes also may rest within the Marriage-Bed and lay their heads upon two wedded Pillows but none of these unkindnesses can untie the Relation that ends not where the bitternesse begins he is a Parent still though froward and a Child though stubborn but a true Friend can be nothing but kind it does include a deerness in its essence which is so inseparable from it that they begin and end together A man may be an Husband without loving but cannot be a lover that is a Friend without loving And sure to have no one friend in this Life no one that is concerned in any of my interests or me my self none that hath any cares or so much as good wishes for me is a state of a most uncomfortable prospect The Plague that keeps Friends at a distance from me while I live out of the sphere of my infection and after gives me Death hath yet lesse of Malignity than this that leaves me the Compassions the Prayers all the solitary comforts all indeed but the outward entertainments of my Friends that though it shut the Door against all company yet puts a Lord have Mercy on the Door But this I now described hath none of that hath no good wishes nothing else but hate is worse than a perpetual Pestilence Yet neither is this state so comfortlesse in respect of this life as not to have a Friend in the concernments of the Life to come none that hath so much kindnesse for my Soul as every man hath for his Enemies Beast which if he see fallen in a Ditch he will at least give notice that it may be helpt out thence No one that when a sin like to that Falling sickness in the Gospel and it is such indeed without a Parable is casting me into the Water quenching my parts my Reason and the Immortal spark within me or throwing me into the Fire raising Lascivious heats within which after will break out into Hell fires none yet that will stretch out his hand to catch me or to pull me out None that does care to see me perish-to Eternity or that values my Soul which yet did cost the Blood of God at a word speaking This is to be like Dives in the Flames to whom they would not lend the help of the tip of a finger or give the kindness of a drop of Water I am as it were on the other side the Gulfe already Here is the use of Friendship the only noble one that 's worthy of that blessed quality When I have one that will be an assistant Conscience to me who when that within me sleeps or is benummed will watch over my actions will testifie them to my Face will be as faithful to me as the Conscience should be hold a Glasse to my Soul shew me the stains and the proud tumours the foul Ulcers that are there and then will fret and rub or prick lance and corrode to cure those tumours and do off those spots such an one is a familiar Angel Guardian is truely of that blessed Heavenly rank and onely lesse than the Friend in the Text the Person related to and my next part My Friends There are three things from which men use to take the measures of a Friend First From the good things he bestows on them He that thinks to keep friendship alive onely with air that gives good words but parts with nothing that entertains onely
the discourse of my own splendors which is all the use I can make of it the Eastern Rocks must send me Diamonds meerly to dart a line of light into anothers eyes which may return to me in a report that I have such fine Jewels and I have nothing else of all my sumptuous glories but the meer Eccho of their shine which is reflected and beat back to me in commendations With so much expence anxiety and sin I do provide onely for other mens discourses or it may be envyes Now these are none of my enjoyments and therefore I have nothing of them but the Lust and the desire As for those of the flesh the third remaining kind they seem indeed to be exempted from this reasoning the sensual person gorges his desires and in Solomons phrase makes his Soul enjoy good Yet the same Solomon salves that appearance too in saying when provisions encrease they are encreased that eat them and what good is there to the owners thereof saving the beholding of them with their eyes My broad and my cramb'd tables do not more enlarge or serve my appetite give me no satisfaction but only that of seeing many Dishes full and many men consuming them as if Luxury also were a lust of the Eye It hath been said indeed that the Eye is the Gluttons most unsatisfied and greedy part and it must needs be so if its lust lye to all that other men devour and if it crave not onely for the mans own stomack but for throngs of clients parasites and attendants And 't is too plain the other Twin Intemperance lusts by the same rules and laws It does not onely claim its seat in the Eye which makes it self a Judge of Liquors for the palate and does not choose them by the uses of their moisture but by their body by their air and by the mode and other Rules of the authentick standard Drinkers as if men thirsted in the fashion onely But this Eye also as the Ryotous mans did gapes for company and thirsts to see the Vice go round it drinks in nothing with so much delight as the Wine when a weaker Companion returns it back again in Vomit at that foul horrid spectacle it sparkles and triumphs Now 't were in vain to ask Solomons question What good is there in this or what enjoyment to urge that meats and drinks cannot give satisfaction to the Eye that hath no palate and then cry out Oh Prodigy that it should Lust thus As for the other kind of Ryots where with arts of Epicurism men contrive to feast and entertain their private Appetites and put a Patrimony into sauce for their own palates men sordidly Luxurious 'T is evident that these are studied to provoke men choose such VVines as they may â—â—gest drink and with elaborate condiments make forc't hunger as well as dishes so that the Ryotous design onely to Lust and the whole mystery of Luxury is to create desires Lastly for that one that hath ingrost the name of Lust it gives in a full Evidence against it self For the Adulterer much more irrational than the most greedy Miser is insatiate in desiring what he hath and his Lust will not use his remedy least so it should allay and quench the Lust And whil'st with so much feaver of desire he courts nothing else but the change and values that alone equall with all the discontents of this life all the miseries of that to come and will go to the Devil meerly for variety as it is plain Adultery hath nothing proper to it self but the desire is a meer loosnesse of the Fancy which ranges in wild lusts and which hath no enjoyment that 's peculiar to it but the lusting only so 't is also plain that this Lust must be endless for that principle of Change which gives it all its incitation must never let it rest for then 't is not variety S. John said therefore most expressively All that is in the World is Lust men only can desire here pursuing their desires just as they do their shadows no eagerness or hast can bring them nearer still they onely pursue yea like him that would hugg and force a Cloud his empty arms return upon his breast with strokes and while they seek to catch the object wound his bosom And thus it must be till we fix our passion there where only there is satisfaction even on God the object of the pious mans desire and my next part Nothing besides thee or with thee so it signifies also There is nothing upon Earth that I desire with thee Had he said Nothing without thee the emptiness of every thing below which the Lord and his Blessing is not in had made this his determination just and necessary But sure when God hath put other needs in my making and hath provided supplies for them those also are as just and necessary objects of desire while they are with and under him But yet he that had brought all his affections into Davids frame might well say he desired nothing upon Earth besides nothing with God for he had weaned his very Flesh and all the craving appetites of sense from their own objects and had fixt them upon God in all their strength and vigour My Soul saith he thirsteth for thee elsewhere my Soul gaspeth unto thee even as a thirsty Land and my flesh also longeth after thee Psal. 63. 1. How My Soul thirsteth for thee with thee indeed is the Well of Life But Thirst is an Appetite gasping a consequent defailance and impatience of the Body to both which the Soul is a meer stranger as it is also to the wayes by which the Body does desire for the Soul is drawn by moral engagements by perswasions and motives there is place for deliberation and Choyce in her Desires she can demur in her pursuits divert her Inclinations and quench a Desire with a Consideration but the Flesh pursues in a more impulsive manner is drawn and spurr'd on by such impetuous propensions as are founded in matter You can no more perswade a thirsty Palate not to thirst than you can woo a falling Stone to stay its hast or invite it to turn aside from its direction to the Center Yea but the Soul also exerts it self in all these appetites of flesh and matter and with all their violence when it looks on God when we have once had a taste or when indeed we but discern our needs of him whether our Temporal or Spiritual those of the Soul or Flesh all the desires of both then fly at him and with a tendency most close and uncontrollable then nothing besides him For all the appetites of Body croud into the Soul that they may catch at God that Thirsts and Gaspes And the Soul does put on the violent impetuous agitations of the Bodys Appetites My Soul thirsteth for thee and my Flesh also longeth after thee What Longing is whether an Appetite or Passion of the Flesh or Mind
whose signatures are more expresse indeed upon the Flesh than those of any other yet whose impulses are so quick and so surprizing as they were Spirit I shall not now enquire but sure if the Flesh long it should be for some carnal object for that is proportion'd to it Flesh and the Creature use to close indeed and they imbibe each other as if they knew to fill and satisfie each other yea some there are that have brought down their Souls to the propensions of Flesh have given to their very Spirits an infusion of carnality for they mind onely fleshly things But by the rates of David's practise it should seem the pious man does the just contrary sublimes his Flesh into a Soul drains all the carnal Appetites out of it weans it from all its own desires and teacheth it those of the Spirit onely makes it long for God Now he whose flesh is defaecated thus and as it were inur'd to the condition which it shall put on when it awakes from its corruption as if it were already in that place whose happinesse and desires have no use of Body and were in that state where their Bodies neither hunger or thirst for these he hath translated from his flesh 't is his Soul onely thirsts and that for God As if he were indeed like Angells now how can this man desire any thing on Earth besides thee Lord who is and does already what they are and do in Heaven where we have nothing but thee But notwithstanding this exalted temper though we should arrive at this Seraphick constitution of desires and though God hath now made himself to us the proper object of these appetites for since God struck the Rock for us which Rock was Christ since the true Bread came down from Heaven if our Flesh long for God there is a satisfaction ready he hath made his Flesh be meat indeed if our Soul thirsts for God he can furnish drink for a Soul the Blood of God But yet while this Soul so journs in this earthly tabernacle the man will still want other supplyes and may be not desire them or can he choose indeed For they that tell us stories of some men whose hungers and thirsts after God as they devour'd all other desires in them so also gave themselves no other satisfaction but panem Dominum that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Supersubstantial daily Bread the Lord these men I say would find it hard to make out how bare Species could nourish and sustain a bodily life Yea Christ himself when he was upon the Earth did hunger and although it was his meat to do his Father's Will yet when he was an hungered Angels came and ministred unto him and then may not our earthly needs desire something besides him That while we are upon the Earth all those necessities are in our constitution is certain but that we need not desire for them or any thing besides Him is as certain Because to them that desire him all these things shall be added they are annext by Promise Matt. 6. 33. it is for such to be solicitous who would have something they must have alone something that cannot come along with God But if I be assur'd that all my needs shall be supply'd in him I need desire nothing besides him now this Promise he must perform for he that when he put Man in a state of Immortality in Paradise provided him a Tree of Life that might for ever furnish and sustain him For that Age also that he does design a man a being for his Service here upon the Earth he must allow him necessaries for his being and his Service otherwise he can nor serve nor be And then if they be certain what need he desire them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Chrysostome These are not objects for our careful wishes but our trusts and confidences we may assure our selves of these if we have him these are his Appendages and then why should I put them with him into my Devotions when my Soul lyes gasping towards God in Prayer my desires seizing on his Blessednesses to take them off from him and to make my desires turn aside to little earthly things and fix them there is to affront not my God onely but my Prayer too and when these things are sure seems to betray a mind too Earthly and too apprehensive of these needs Surely I were most strangely necessitous or strangely greedy if both God and that which shall be added to him were not enough for me More wretched or else more unsatisfied than Hell if the Almighty were not sufficient for me if he be my provision than I need desire nothing besides him But yet Necessities will crave Hunger does croak aloud Thirst makes the insensate Earth to gasp as if with open mouth it gap'd not onely to receive but begg Gods showers and God expects to be intreated for these things He feeds but those young Ravens that do call upon him and the young Lions roar to him and seek their meat at God The Eyes of all things wait on him for that yea this our Psalmist in this very Psalm desires other things and Christ himself hath put into his little Summary these needs and these desires Give us this day our daily bread and my Text does but regulate not exclude these desires if we shall read it in the old Translation there is none upon Earth that I desire in comparison of thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There 's none or nothing that I desire or delight in equally with thee like thee so we translate the same word v. 5. I shall not doubt to begg what my needs crave But if God and any the most signal earthly advantage stand in competion and I cannot have one with the other his Providence or his Commands have made them inconsistent that I will not desire with him then he shall be my Choyce alone Rather Obedience and my God than any satisfaction how desirable soever This is the Touchstone of a Pious mans desires 't is not unusual for inclinations to things below more to possesse our thoughts employ our faculties than any other and we are far more sensible of their impressions more busie in the pursuit and more tender in our cares of them But if upon contest betwixt God and our Inclinations upon debate betwixt a Pleasure and Command we can decree for God and for Obedience pass Sentence with the Precept we are safe here the desire is not inordinate 'T is a known instance and you may have seen a tender Mother spending almost her whole time in caressing her little Infant you would think she had Eyes for no uses but to view it and that she had her Arms and Breasts but to embrace and suckle it to whom these are so wholly given up as if they had no part for any other as the Husband had no share in her entertains and caresses of whom are far more
Experience of our selves and others we should find that just according to the rate of virtuous inclinations and dispositions of heart to part with sin so are men prepar'd for the belief of Christ so are their oares and regards of his Religion He that is honestly inclin'd opens his Soul to Christianity for it speakes to his heart 't is right to the grain of his Soul he looks upon the Promises as made to him and layes them up as Gods encouragements of his inclinations every thing in the Gospel fits the temper of his mind And he that is but pretty well disposed that loves Virtue for the most part but does allow himself some one corruption he alwayes hearkens to Religion where it sets it self against those Vices which he hates but as to his own particular evil inclination there he is a little Infidel cannot perswade himself that God will be so stern against a single pleasure that one petty indulgence should be so considerable that it should provoke to those extremities the Bible threatens and can by no means believe S. James that he that offends in one poynt thus is guilty of all And they upon whose constitutions there are weights and Plummets that incline them to some vicious courses and by loose Education have those pronenesses of temper pamper'd and by having their inclinations follow'd and indulg'd taught them to crave then to get head and to command and then by conversation with others that mind nothing but satisfaction of those bents of the Bruit part that allow themselves all the desires of constitution are come to swill the pleasures profits and the Honours that do wait on those practises Or whosoever by whatever steps arrive at an habit of doing thus and a great liking of them and so to improbity of Heart to utter aversations of the strictnesses of Piety all which they have lived so out of 'T is known that not enduring to be bound up in those narrow paths of Piety and Virtue they burst all the obligations to them seek little things to cavil at or to deride hopeing with those their poyson'd Arrows through the skirts and the Extreamer parts to send a Wound into the very Vitals of Religion for they aim at the Heart when they pretend to strike onely the out Lap of its Garments and to say all at once grow down right Atheists And though as once at Corinth now again the World by Wisdom knows no God there being Skill and Manage in this Mystery of Infidelity and it requires Study Wit and Parts yet they proceed just by the Method of King David's Fool first he sayes in his heart there is no God before he say it in his thoughts and opinions He wishes it and so comes to believe it the Atheisme is rooted in the Seat of the Affections and it branches thence into the Mind at least into the Mouth and finding Hell the greatest check to their Delights which they cannot determine with themselves to leave and to repent of therefore because they will not quench it with their tears they study how to put it out with Arguments And meerly for this reason that they will not live like Men they resolve therefore to believe that they shall dye like Beasts But alas they must live for ever with the Devil and his Angels if that Christ whom they reject does not lay hold on them and rescue them from thence as he is in his passage to his Crosse the next Way we must prepare for him and my next part The Solemn dayes approaching will discover to you this Way namely the Passage from the Garden in Gethsemane to Golgotha There you will see he does begin his Journey with the Amazements of an Agony and ended it in something like the horrors and the outcryes of Despair he travailed under such a load as made his life gush out through all the parts of his whole Body the weight of it did make his Soul faint by the way and when he was upon the Tree crusht it out made it expire sooner than the stress of Nature would have done and forc't it to burst out away in Prayers and strong Cryes that so he might sooner escape from under that sad pressure And then do but consider and look on him under that representation which S. Paul does shew of him how all that time that he was creeping under that dire burden in that dolorous way he was meerly pressing on with all the hast he could to overtake us in our course and rescue us from Ruine For that Journey was a Race and we the prize 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have been laid hold on saith he Phil. 3. 12. laid hold on in the Agonistick sense as in a Race he so expresses it And that he was laid hold on by these sufferings the Epistle to the Hebrews does evince 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome in that Way he pursued me till he catcht me his Agony was but his strife to overtake me his Sweat the issue of his Race When he came down from Godhead in his Incarnation he pursued us then into our nature he laid hold of our Flesh and followed us from Heaven to the lowest parts of the Earth But when he went thus to his Crosse here he pursued us then into our guilts he laid hold of our sins and took them up and bore them on the Tree then he descended into Hell to follow us This as it was formally done once for all so in its virtue influence and blest effects 't is still in doing as to thee and me and all of us and the approaching Season is to represent it so Now sure we need no motives to prepare the way for him who runs that he may obtain our Salvation who though he laboured under such a dismal burden yet still presses on to catch us so to rescue us from sin and Hell If he think fit and can endure to strive thus I will make all ready and stand fair to have my guilt seized from me and to be laid hold on for my Blessednesse to be the Prize the Crown of all Christ's Agonies that which he thinks worthy with so much strugling to contend for Now the same Preparation is required here that made way for his other coming that is Repentance in one word a disposition and sincere desire of heart to part with every evil and corrupt affection to quit every sin Sin lying in the way made it so dreadfull God laid upon him the iniquity of us all and that weight threw him prostrate on the Earth and sunk him into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And yet if any were more galling 't was the weight of those that were clog'd with Impenitence this was more heavy more afflictive to him than his Crosse. To bewail this and the issues of it he left off to consider his own Sufferings and required others also to do so Weep not for me weep for your selves And sure it was for want
God and consequently heir of Gods possessions which his Faith gives him a prospect of how will he look down on the tempting glories of this World on all that makes it gratefull and desirable as upon abject things and sleight and undervalue whatsoever worldly men poor Souls do fear or hope or long for and pursue The Mathematicks say that the whole Globe of Earth to one that looks upon it from the Firmament is but as a point and sure it is demonstrable it must be so And then how low and how contemptible must it needs seem to him that looks on it as from the Region of the Blessed from Gods Mansion and when his Soul having defecated and freed it self from all earthy muddy gross affections and become expedite and light expatiates through those unbounded unfathom'd extensions of Heaven and glory and looks upon all as his own that he is very shortly to come take the full enjoyment of and hath already seisin of it by his Faith how will he despise those narrow those ridiculous bounds which the great ones of this World with Fire and Sword contend for when he sees this little poynt half cover'd with the Sea almost as much too hid from us and not to be discovered by our arts or industry of that which is much Desart some parts Frozen some burnt up and not inhabited and then the little remnant of this poynt to be the strife and the vexation of Mankind while multitudes of Nations tear one anothers bowells spill the Blood and Souls of Myriads for some little patch or other of it and those that are not doing so yet in their sphere too they oppresse deceive do any thing to get and all the rest are in perpetual hurry of vexatious employments or of toylsome pleasures or of ruining vices Will he not look on this more unconcern'd than we do on the busie labours of a little World of Ants about a Mole-hill which Philosophers compare us to The spectacle is much more to be pitied indeed the crowds and Squadrons of those Ants though they should have as many traverses and walks as men have they have not Soul enough to have their guilt Probably had they Humane understandings they would then divide their Mole-hill into Empires would be false and treacherous to one another Cheat Defraud Oppresse and Murder one another for the greater share and had they Reason they would be more Bruits than now they are but Pismires For Beasts have lesse folly too because they are not Men. But he whose Faith mounts him to Heaven his Birth-place where he nestles in the secret Bosom of his Father he needs not be concern'd in any of the carriages of this World he is above them all without the sphere of their attraction or magnetisme without the dangers of temptations from them The World is but as his slave and it hath no command upon him he treads it all under his feet and therefore certainly hath overcome it the Condition and degree of which Victory is the next and last thing we are to enquire into If you ask the Stoick who is this great Conquerour that overcomes the World he will answer somewhat to this purpose It is not any of those great successful Robbers that with Armies forrage Nations it is not he that peoples the whole Sea filling it with his Navyes nor he that sets his Confines on the remotest parts of the Inhabited World that can call all his own that the Sun views so that it shines not out of his Dominions But the Man that hath conquer'd his own Inclinations to the things below he that hath rais'd his mind above the Crosses or Contents of this World that can march among them both dreadlesse and unconfus'd the man whose Soul is nothing dazled by the brightnesse of VVealth it shall not blind his Eyes but through the varnish or the glory that the shine of it does shed he can discover and will hate an evil action he that can severely look on all those blandishments that Prosperity furnishes and decks out pleasure in and can sit continent and abstemious in the midst of its delights that when it is all Halcyon day with him nothing but Sunshine and he swims in the calm streams of flowing Plenty is not melted by one or other does not become loose and dissolute at all the man also that is not shaken by the tumults of adversity when like an Earthquake she renverses all his mind then stands unmov'd that does not so much suffer as receive and welcome all that happens as if he would not have it happen otherwise In a word it is the man that hath rais'd his mind above all casualties the man that does but remember that he is a Man that is considers if he do abound and the world prostitute it self to his Delights that this cannot continue long or if the World conspire to make him miserable remembers that he is not so except he think he is so a man greater than his perils stronger than his desires And thus far the Stoick's Wiseman is victorious Christs Believer goes a little farther That man hath the World Subject to him but the Christian does not stay at that he must not treat it as a Subject but a Traytor one whose Service is Conspiracy that does attend on us onely to watch and to betray us to know our weak part and to storm us there Therefore as the Lord commanded Israel concerning Amalek that did by them as the World doth with us in our journey to Canaan comes upon advantages and smites the feeble Deut. 25. 17 18 19. Therefore said the Lord remember what Amalek did to thee by the way how he met thee by the way and smote the hindmost of thee even all that were feeble behind thee when thou wast faint and weary therefore thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under Heaven c. So must we also with the VVorld put all to death not spare the best and goodliest as Saul did yea more put all to the pomps and cruelties of Death as Gideon us'd the men of Succoth tear their flesh with thorns and bryars or as David us'd the Ammonites put them under Sawes and Iron Harrows so the Christian must serve the VVorld VVhat ever instruments of tyranny that us'd upon his Saviour on the Crosse those he most exercise on it again those Thorns those Nayles that Spear he must employ like Gideon's Bryars and like David's iron Harrows it must be Crucified and then he is a glorious Conquerour Gal. 6. 14. God forbid that I should glory save in the Crosse of our Lord Jesus Christ whereby the World is Crucified to me and I unto the World He that does march under the Banner of the Crosse that Conquering Ensign as he thereby declares himself upon such terms of enmity with the VVorld that he does look upon himself as one despis'd by it counted as an accursed thing for so was that that was
inclines it draws the whole Man after it If any thing in us be crucified in a Conformity to Christ it must be this for in that death wherein Christ offered up himself upon the Crosse where although the Divine Nature gave the value 't was onely the Humane Nature made the Offering there it was the crucifying his own Will that above all other the ingredients made his Death a Sacrifice and the price of our Redemption God that had given him his Blood and Life might call for it again when and how he saw good and being due it was not properly a price that could be given him for sin but his free voluntary choice his being willing to endure the Agonies and Contempts of the Crosse his stabbing his own natural desires with a resolute determination Not my will but thine be done This his own Will was his own offering and such is ours if we be Crucified with Christ made conformable to his death if we present our selves a Sacrifice acceptable to the Lord for our will is not given up to him till it do perfectly comport with his but that it cannot do till we renounce our own desires till we have brought our selves to an indifference in outward things to such a resignation as she is storied to have had who being in her Sicknesse bid to choose whether she rather would have Health or Death made answer Vehementissimè desidero ut non facias voluntatem meam Domine this above all I desire that thou wilt not do my will I would have thee not do what I desire and would have So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole of us the Spirit Soul and Flesh go to make up this person and the body of Sin is the Old man entire I whole I am nothing but a mass of guilts my Senses are the bands of wickednesse that procure for my evil inclinations my members are the weapons of unrighteousness my Body is a body of Sin and Death and the affections of my Soul are Lusts its faculties are the powers of Sin yea and the Spirit of my mind that Breath of God is putrefied that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Angel-part of me is fall'n and turn'd Apostate and however I be partly Son of Man and partly Son of God yet I am wholly Child of Wrath and so fit to be Crucified Which calls me to the next Enquiry to the nature of the duty here intended I am Crucified What is design'd by it S. Paul does perfectly declare Rom. 6. 6. Our old man is crucified with Christ that the body of Sin might be destroyed that we should no longer serve sin So that it means a through Repentance and abandoning of former evil Courses A Duty which there are few men but in some instants of their life think absolutely necessary and perswade themselves they do perform it At some time or other they are forc't to recollect and grow displeas'd and angry at their sins and have some sad reflections on them beg for mercy and forgiveness and do think of leaving them and when they have return'd to them again they shake the head and chafe and curse at their own weaknesse and renew their purposes it may be and do this as oft as such a Season as this is or other like occasions suggest it to or move them And with this they satisfie themselves and hope if God do please to take them hence in some such muddy gloomy fit of their Repentance all 's well Now shall we call this being Crucified are there Racks and Tortures in this discipline hath a Spear prickt them to the heart and no blood nor no water no tears gush out thence hath it made no issue for some hearty Sorrow to purle out Indeed I must confesse the Scripture does sometimes word the performance of this duty in expressions that are not so sower but of an easier importance as first put off the Old Man as if all were but Garment put it off I say not as they stript our Saviour in order to his Scourgings and his Crosse but intimating to us what an easie thing it is to cast off Sin for them who do begin with it betimes before it get too close to the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Theophyl even as easie as putting off thy Cloaths and thy Repentance is but as thy Shift thy change of life like changing thy Apparel But alas for all the easienesse which this expression hints where the sins also lye in the Attire as besides emulation pride vainglory great uncharitablenesse and inhumanity cruel injustice and oppression often do when many are undone through want of those dues which do furnish other men with the excesses of this kind when the sins therefore lye in the attire and they may put them off without a Metaphor yet it is so hard that it cannot be done sometimes the worth of a whole Province hangs upon a slender thread about a neck a Patrimony thrust upon one joynt of one least finger and these warts of a Rock or a Shell-fish with the appendages eat out Estates and starve poor Creditors for whom indeed they should command these stones to be made bread but that 's Miracle too stubborn for their Vertue And then how will they proceed to the next expression of this duty Circumcise your selves to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your hearts Jer. 4. 4. These are harder and more bloody words they differ in the pain and anguish that they put us to as much as to uncloath and flea would do It appears indeed this punishment of fleaing often went before the Crosse. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Ctesiâ—s of one having his Skin pull'd off he was Crucified And the scourges in some measure did inflict this on our Saviour when they put off his Cloaths they stript his Skin also left him no covering but some rags of that which whipping had torn from his flesh Yet this expression sounds harsher when it bids us circumcise the foreskin of our hearts and tear it from thence flea that When long conversation with the pleasures of a sin hath not onely given them Regallias but hath made them necessary to us so as that we cannot be without them when Custome craves with greater feaver than our thirst when if we want it we have qualms faintings of Soul as if the life were in that blood of the grape when men can part as easily with their own bowells as the Luxuries that feed them if you take away their dishes then you take their souls which dwell in them when the sins of the Bed are as needful and refreshing as the sleeps of it when to bid a man not look not satisfie his lustful eye is every jot as cruel as that other If thine eye offend thee pluck it out For if he must no more find pleasure in his sight he hath no use of it yea if this be indeed a kindnesse not to leave him Eyes
similitude of a man cast out of his habitation who while he wanders through none but desert places seeking for a dwelling he is sure to meet with none but if he find an House that 's empty swept and garnished he hath found out not a receptacle onely but an invitation an house drest on purpose to call in and to detain Inhabitants He signifies that when a Temptation of the Devil is repell'd and himself upon some working occasion by a resolute act of holy courage thrown out of the heart as he finds no rest in this condition every place is desert to him but the heart of man is indeed Hell to him for he calls it torment to be cast out thence yea he accounts himself bound up in his eternal Chains of darknesse when he is restrained from working and engaging man to sin so while he goeth to and fro seeking an opportunity to put in somewhere if he find that heart from which he was cast out or any other heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the word is idling not imploy'd or busied so it signifies such an heart is empty swept and garnish'd for him 't is a dwelling that 's drest properly to tempt the Devil fitted to receive him and his forces too prepared for him to Garrison and make a strong hold of whence he cannot be removed for he takes unto him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there No doubt they are the Patron Guardian spirits of the seven deadly Sins their Tutelary Devils Some of those good qualities that are the attendants of Idleness you may find decypher'd in the Scripture S. Paul sayes when people learn to be idle they grow tattlers busie bodies speaking things which they ought not 'T is strange that Idlenesse should make men and women busy bodies yet it does most certainly in other folks affairs Faction than which nothing in the world can be more restlesse is nurst by it Where are States so censured so new modell'd as at certain of our Refectories places that are made meerly for men to spend their time in which they know not what to do with At those Tables our Superiours are dissected Calumny and Treason are the common are indeed the more peculiar entertainments of the places In fine where persons have no other imployment for their time but talking and either have not so much Vertue as to find delight in talking good things or not so much skill as to speak innocent recreation there they talk of others censure and back bite and scoff This is indeed the onely picquant conversation Gall is sawce to all their Entertainments And that you may know these things proceed from that old Serpent they do nothing else but hiss and bite T is the poison of Asps that is under their lips which gives rellish to their Discourses 't is the sting that makes them grateful venime that they are condited with More of the brood of this want of Imployment you may find at Sodome namely Pride and Luxury For saith Ezekiel This was the Iniquity of Sodom Pride fulness of bread and abundance of Idlenesse was in her and in her daughters And indeed the Idle person could not possibly know how to pass his hours if he had not Delicacies to sweeten some Wine to lay some asleep and the solicitous deckings of Pride to take up others But the studious gorgings of the inside and the elaborate trimmings of the outside help him well away with them Good God! that for so many hours my morning eyes should be lift up to nothing but a Looking-glasse that that thin shadow of my self should be my Idol be my God indeed to which I pay all the devotions I perform And when with so much care and time I have arrayed and marshall'd my self that I should spend as much more too in the complacencies of viewing this with eager eyes and appetite surveying every part as if I had set out expos'd them to my self alone and onely drest a prospect for my own sight and since Nature to my grief hath given me no eyes behind that I should fetch reliefs from Art and get vicarious sight and set my back parts too before my face that so I may enjoy the whole Scene of my self And why all this for nothing but to serve vain Ostentation or negotiate for Lust to dresse a Temptation and start Concupiscence And that the half of each day should be spent thus the best part of a reasonable Creatures and a Christians life be laid out upon purposes so far from Christian or reasonable And truly Luxury will easily eat the remainder up that sure Companion of Idlenesse For when the Israelites were in the Wildernesse where they could not eat but by Miracle and the Rock must give them drink yet having no Imployment they made Feasts They sate down to eat and drink and rose up to play Nor would eating to the uses of their nature serve them but they must have entertainments for their wantonnesse Had they been imployed to get their Bread their labour would have made their morsels sweet But since God as the Wise-man saies sent them from Heaven bread prepared without their labour they must have varieties to sweeten it they require him to prepare a Table also in the Wildernesse and furnish them with choice And although they had the food of Angels able to content every mans delight and agreeing to every tast and serving to the appetite of the eater it temper'd it self to every mans liking and what could they fancy more The latitude of Creatures the whole Universe of Luxury could do nothing else in every single morsel they had sorts Variety all choyce as if that Desert had been Paradise that Wildernesse the Garden of the Lord Yet so coy is Idlenesse so apt to nauseate that they abhor the constancy of being pleas'd And though they were not sated neither he that gather'd much had nothing over onely to his eating God as well providing for their Health and Vertue as Necessity and dieting their Temperance as he did their Hunger Yet their very liking does grow loathsome to them When their Bodies were thus excellently well provided for having no imployment nothing to take up their Minds and Entertain their Souls they require 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meat for their Souls meat not to serve the uses of their bodies but to feed their fancies their extravagant minds Thus Idlenesse requires to be dieted And all this but to pamper and feed high mens inclinations so to make Temptations irresistible and by consequence Vice necessary It were easie to recount more of those wayes by which the Devil does make use of mens want of Imployment to debauch their lives and ruine all the hopes of Vertue in them S. Jâ—de findes more of its effects at Sodome They gave themselves over to Fornication and went after other flesh and are set forth for an
contrive its pleasures and with industry have learnt and practise arts of Luxury and in those have set up their delights that these should be accounted Enemies of the Crosse of Christ there is but too much reason For their course of life is perfect opposition to that Crosse and to the whole design of Christianity and to the very being of all vertue For since Vertue is but moderation and restraint of Appetites and Passions and since sensuality indulges and does raise and heat them since the whole design of Christianity is to mortifie the deeds of the Body those our members upon earth that Body of Sin and Death and since Voluptuousnesse quickens pampers and does make them vigorous lastly since the Doctrines and the Influences of the Crosse of Christ do aim at Crucifying the flesh with its Affections and Lusts and Luxuries do gorge and make them ramping sure the enmity is too apparent to be prov'd It is the businesse of Religion to instruct and frame men into reasonable Creatures God himself chose to dye upon the Crosse that we might live like Men here and then afterwards dye into Sons of God and become equal to the Angels He suffered on the Tree that we might be renewed into that constitution which the Tree of Knowledge did disorder and debauch Before Man ate of that his lower Soul was in perfect subordination to his mind and every motion of his appetite did attend the dictates of his reason and obey them with that resignation and ready willingness which our outward faculties do execute the Wills commands with then any thing however grateful to the senses was no otherwise desired than as it serv'd the regular and proper ends and uses of his making there was a rational harmony in all the tendencies of all his parts and that directed modulated by the rules and hand of God that made them In fine then Grace was Nature Vertue Constitution Now to reduce us to this state as near as possible is the businesse of Religion as it had been in some kind the attempt also of Philosophy But this it can in no degree effect but as it does again establish the subordination of the sensual to the reasonable part within us That is till by denying satisfactions to the Appetite which is now irregular and disorderly in its desires we have taught it how to want them and to be content without them and by that means have subdu'd its inclinations or by taking down the Body have abated of its powers and its provocations and where it is stubborn heady and rebellious there by cutting off provisions from the flesh and by sharp methods vanquisht and reduc't it into a condition of obedience and whenever that is also necessary weakens so that insolent untam'd part of our selves that we make it lye fainting groveling at our feet these are the Doctrines of the Cross and this the method of its Discipline And withal by those rational and divine heavenly encouragements which above all Doctrines in the world our Christianity suggests and furnisheth with infinite advantage have so fortified the mind that it resumes its principality governs and carries on the lower Soul in its obedience to Duty easily without resistance as they say the higher Heaven moves the inferiour Orbs along with it although their proper tendencies are contrary At leastwise if impressions from without or inbred inclinations stir raise passions and mutinies yet the mind keeps so much power that they shall not beat it off and force it from its prosecutions of good nor shall unlesse by a surprize engage its consent in the pursuit of evil This is that which Religion aims at thus to make us men teach us to live according to our nature to put Reason in the Throne and vindicate the spirit from the tyranny of its own vassal flesh But sensuality is most perfect opposition to this whole design for it renverses that subordination without which there is no possibility of vertue as I shew'd you and it puts that whether Lust or Passion in the Throne which either constitution conversation or whatever accident did give possession of our inclinations to And makes the strangest prodigy of Centaure where the Beast is uppermost and rides the man where the beast is God indeed for the sensual man acknowledges no other God but his own belly so S. Paul does character him here And truly if we look on the attendances and careful services he gives it and how studiously and wholly he does consecrate himself to please it one would think it most impossible he should have any other God but if we number the drink offerings and meat-offerings the whole Hecatombs he gives it and whereas other Deities had onely some peculiar appropriate Creatures for their Sacrifices how this votary rifles the Universe goes through the whole latitude of beings for oblations one would think he did out-number all the Heathen Legions in his Gods and yet all this is onely for his Belly Now he that deifies his Appetite and that is so attent and so sollicitous in its service he that sets up such an Antigod as this to Christ appears a scornful insolent Enemy to Him his Crosse and his Religion neer the state of those men whom the Wise-man couples with the sensual persons of an impudent mind the very disposition of those Enemies of the Crosse of Christ whom S. Paul brings up in the second place Those that glory in their shame Amongst the uses of the Crosse of Christ one chiefly meant was by the ignominy of that most accursed infamous punishment to represent the vilenesse of Iniquity to which shame and confusion were so due that there were to be Contumelies as well as Agonies in the Death that was to expiate it And it seems not sufficient that the Blood of God be shed for it but that Blood must be stain'd too with the imputation of a Malefactor Christ was to suffer the insulting scorns and vilifyings of his Crucifiers his Honour must be sacrific'd as well as his Life Barabbas must be preferr'd even before that Person of the Trinity to whom sin was to be imputed and who was to bear the just shame of it such infinite debasement and contempt being a most essential ingredient in the wages of Iniquity of which this Crosse of Christ was the expresse And then how is it possible for men to wage a more profest hostility against the Crosse of Christ than by endeavouring to put Reputation on the thing on which that Cross was set to throw Disgrace by raising Trophies to themselves for that which raised a Gibbet to their Saviour giving themselves a value for the thing which hath such infinite diminution in it that it made the Son of God esteemed worse than Barabbas These men are two successful Enemies of the Crosse that thus triumph over it and when it was erected as an Ensigne to display the vilenesse of iniquity and to shame sin out of the lives of mankind vindicate and
with which the World assaults us in our course of Duty Thus the Crosse of Christ first shews us the necessity we have to renounce and Crucifie the World But to encourage and enable us to do so it does also shew us Secondly the certainty of a good issue in the doing it assures us that those who deny themselves forbidden satisfactions here that will be vertuous maugre all the baits and threats of Earth will embrace duty when it is laden with a Cross although so heavy as to crush out life and kill the body assures us that those lose not but exchange their lives shall save their Souls and that there is another World wherein their losses shall be made up to them and repaired with all advantage To the truth of this the Crosse of Christ is a most pregnant and infallible testimony For as by multitudes of Miracles Christ sought to satisfie the world that he was sent from God to promise all this and justified his Power to perform it by experiment raising some up from the dead so when they said he did his Miracles by Beelzebub he justified it further with his Life affirming that he was the Son of God now 't is impossible but he must know whether he were or no and consequently sent and able to do all he promised and resolv'd to do it also for our more assurance in himself that he would raise himself up from the dead within three dayes and saying this when he was sure he should be Crucified for saying so and sure that if he did not do according to his words he must within three dayes appear a meer Impostor to the world and his Religion never be receiv'd Now 't is impossible for him that must needs know whether all this were true or no to give a greater testimony to it than his Life For this that Blood and Water that flowed from his wounded side upon the Crosse which did assure his Death is justly said to bear witnesse to his being the Son of God and consequently to the truth of all this equal to the testimony of the Spirit whether that which the Spirit gave when he came from Heaven down upon him in his Baptisme or the testimony which he gave by Miracle for there are three that bear witnesse upon Earth the Spirit the Water and the Blood Thus by his Death Christ did bring Life and Immortality to light his choosing to lay down his own life for asserting of the truth of all this was as great an argument to prove it as his raising others from the dead and Lazarusâ—â— empty Monument and walking grave-cloathes were not better evidence than this Crosse of Christ. 3. Once more this Crosse not onely proves the certainty of a future state but does demonstrate the advantage of it and assures us that it is infinitely much more eligible to have our portion in the life to come than in this life That to part with every thing that is desirable in this World rather than to fail of those joyes that are laid up in the other that to be poor here or to be a spoyl to renounce or to disperse my wealth that so I may lay up treasures for my self in Heaven and may be rich to God never to taste any one of these puddle transient delights rather than to be put from that right hand where there are pleasures for ever more to be thrown down from every height on Earth if so I may ascend those everlasting Hills and mount Sion that is above that this is beyond all proportion the wisest course it does demonstrate since it shews us him who is the Son of God who did create all these advantages of Earth and prepare those in Heaven and does therefore know them both Who also is the Wisdom of the Father and does therefore know to value them yet for the joyes that were set before him choosing to endure the Crosse and despising the shame On that Beam he weigh'd them and by that his choice declar'd the Pomps of this World far too light that exceeding and eternal weight of Glory that the whole Earth was but as the dust upon the Ballance and despis'd it and to make us do so is both the Design and direct influence of the Cross of Christ. But as at first the Wise men of this World did count the Preaching of the Crosse meer folly to give up themselves to the belief and the obedience of a man that was most infamously Crucifyed and for the sake of such an one to renounce all the satisfactions suffer all the dire things of this Life and in lieu of all this onely expect some after Blessednesses and Salvations from a man that they thought could not save himself seemed to them most ridiculous So truly it does still appear so to the carnal reasonings of that sort of men who have the same objections to the Crosse of Christ as it would crucify the World to them and them to it as it would strip them of all present rich contents and give them certain evils with some promises of after good things which they have no tast for nor assurance of Now this being in their account folly then the contrary to this they must think wisdom as it is indeed the Wisdom of this World which Wisdom since it does design no further than this World and hath no higher ends than Earth and its Felicities it must needs put men upon minding the acquist and the enjoyment of these Earthly things for that is onely to pursue and to atchieve their ends to catch at and lay hold on their felicity and accordingly we see it does immerse them wholly in those cares So that it is no wonder if their God and Religion can get no attendance from them it being most impossible they should when Mammon hath engaged them in the superstitious services of Idolatry and when they sacrifice their whole selves to pleasure and make their bodies the burnt offerings of their Lusts and when Ambition even while it makes them stretch and climb and mount causes them also to fall low prostrate make their temper nature stoop lye down to every humour and to every vice they think themselves concern'd to court and please And though a man would think these so great boundlesse cares are very vain and foolish upon several accounts for common sense as well as Scripture does assure 〈◊〉 that this life and the Contents of it do not consist in the abundance of the things that we possess that it is all one whether my draught come out of a small Bottle or an Hogshead 〈◊〉 the one of these indeed may serve excesse and sicknesse better but the other serves my appetite as well the one may drown my Vertue but the other quenches thirst alike And every dayes experience also does convince us that the least crosse accident pain or affliction on our persons or some other that is seated neer our hearts or the least
vexation or crosse passion will so sowre all those advantages that we cannot possibly enjoy them while we have them sickness makes the richest plenty onely a more nauseous trouble a more costly loathing then the poorest Soul that is in health is that great rich mans envy And ther 's no man also but does see so far into futurity as to satisfie himself that he shall dye and then the shadow of death will cloud and put out all these glories And universal reason also does tell every man that to deny himself or want his present satisfactions of this helplesse dying kind and suffer present evils is in prudence to be chosen for avoiding of a future evil or atchieving of a good to come which do transcend those other infinitely and to all Eternity continue Sure as no man pities the poor Infant in the Womb because he lyes imbrued in Blood hath no inheritance there at all is fetter'd coffin'd as it were in that dark cell if he be to be born to an Estate to live a full age here in gaiety of mind and health of body in Reputation and all plenty of delights we never are concern'd or troubled at his other nine months dungeon So if this life be to the next as the Womb is to this and if our hopes be no more on the Earth than in the Belly and we have no inheritance or abiding place here as we had not there although the waters of affliction and to be in our blood should be as naturall to us as to the Child yet if we thus presse forward to the other birth to be delivered into immortality of joyes this state were not to be lamented but endeavoured for with all our powers Lastly the same reason does assure us that if those futurities which are most certain were but onely possible yet to part with every thing and suffer any thing here to prevent miscarriage in relation to those two Eternities is certainly the safest course and then by consequence the wisest And this does appear a truth to all men when they go to dye And if it be the truth then 't is alwayes so Yet notwithstanding all this he that minds these earthly things whose heart is set upon them whose desires the World serves provides to satisfie every imagination of delight His heart is so intangled in affections to them and in prejudices for them and hath so imbib'd the impressions of them that he hath no taste for any other and by consequence no satisfying notions of them And if he hath not then it is not possible that he should really and from his heart out of conviction and inward sense value these beyond the earthly ones and it is plain we see he does not and if he do not to deprive himself of all the sweet contentments of his life and tear out his own bowells that yearn after them and cling to them and instead of those embrace a Crosse and do this for things which he cannot value more and counts uncertain he must needs think a mad folly Consequently to contrive and seize the present to the best most plentiful advantage is the wisest course and therefore they that by whatever arts do thrive advance themselves live high and in delights they are Wise men because they do attain their ends by meanes appropriate to those ends And now the enmity betwixt the Crosse of Christ and the wisdom of the World appears first their designs are most directly opposite the crosse designs to take us up from earth and from its satisfactions which have also thorns and bryars in them that Eartbs Curse things that pierce and wound as fatally as the Nayles and Thorns and other cruelties of Christ's Crosse and to lift us towards Heaven to direct our hearts and our affections thither as our harbingers to take possession for us of those joyes the Crosse did purchase for us but no crosse can ever trouble But the Wisdom of this World designs to lay out all its cares and its contrivances within this World minds nothing else but earthly things and does not lift an eye or thought to any other Secondly their Principles wage war For earthly good things being the design the main end of this worldly wisdom consequently that does justifie all courses without which men cannot gain those ends by which they do though they be never so unlawful by the Rules of that which we call Vertue and Religion it does justifie I say all such as prudent But the Principles of the Doctrines of the Crosse of Christ are positive that we must renounce all earthly satisfactions when they cannot be injoyed without transgressing Christs Commands and imbrace duty even when it executes it self upon us But Thirdly there 's no enmity so fatal to the Crosse of Christ as is the practice of those men who minding Earthly things and all their wisdom lying as to them they therefore think themselves concern'd to represent the Doctrines of the Crosse which does so contradict their wisdom as meer madnesse and the Crosse it self as the ensign of folly And accordingly they do treat it en ridicul and make the proper Doctrines of it the strict duties of Religion matter for their jests and bitter scofâ—s They character religion as a worship that befits a God whose shape the Primitive persecutors painted Christ in Deus Onochaetes as if Christianity were proper Homage onely to an Asses person as Tertullian words it And the votaries transform'd by this their service and made like the God they worship were what they were call'd then Asinarii creatures only fit for burden to bear what they magnify a Crosse and scorns No persecutions are so mortall as those that Murder the reputation of a thing or person not so much because when that is fallen once then they cannot hope to stand as because those murder after death and poyson memory killing to immortality They were much more kind to Religion and more innocent that cloath'd the Christians in the skins of Bears and Tygers that so they might be worried into Martyrdom Then they that cloath their Christianity in a fools Coat that so it may be laught to death go out in ignomâ—ny and into contempt If to sport with things of sacred and Eternal consequence were to be forgiven yet to do it with the crosse of Christ Thus to set that out as foolishness which is the greatest mystery the Divine wisdom hath contriv'd to make mercy and truth meet together righteousness and peace kiss each other to make sin be punisht yet the sinner pardoned Thus to play and sin upon those dire expresses of Gods indignation against sin are things of such 〈◊〉 and dangerous concern that S. Paul could not give a caution against them but with tears For many walke saith he of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping c. Which calls me to my last consideration Indeed the crosse of Christ does represent Almighty God in so
only asserted boldly but prov'd nothing As if argument and reason never had place in the Jewish or the Christian Religion only those who were the institutors of each Religion did deliver it others had no more to do but to believe it that is to receive it as a little Child Whether these reproaches and the oath of these known enemies may go for proofs that it was so I shall not now enquire But it is certain on the other side S. Paul requires of his new Christian Corinthians that they be not children in understanding that they be in malice Children but in understanding Men. Now a man and a child differ not in this that the one hath an understanding reasonable soul and the other hath not but in that the one cannot use his understanding or his reason and the other where he acts as man does So that our Religion in requiring that we be in understanding men does require of us that we use our reason in it And since assenting to a thing as truth is an act of the highest faculty of the soul of man as it is properly and truly reasonable namely as it understands and judges it is not possible a man should really believe a thing unlesse he fatisfie himself that he hath reason for so doing Yea whether that be true or not which many men so eagerly contend for that the will though free is bound and cannot choose but will that which appears best at that time it wills yet it is sure that he who with his understanding which is not free in her apprehensions and judgments but must necessarily embrace that which hath most evidence of truth He I say who really assents to any proposition does satisfie himself that he hath better and more cogent reasons for that then the contrary And therefore it is impossible that any man can verily believe a thing which he is throughly convinc't is contrary to clear and evident right reason for he cannot have a better reason for the thing that is so And were it possible for any man to believe so there could be neither grounds nor rules for such a ones belief for there is nothing in the world so false and so absur'd although he were assur'd it were so but he might assent to it for whatever demonstrations could be offer'd why he should not yet it seems he might believe against acknowledg'd evident truth and reason but this were onely wish or fancy and imagination not belief And to prevent such childish weak credulity was the great work and care of Christ so far is he from requiring we should be as Children in this kind For when he was ascended up to heaven he gave some Apostles some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers he shed down the Holy Spirit and his gifts that we might not be as Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every winde of Doctrine Eph. 4. 14. First For want of rationall grounds instable in our Faith as Children are in body and in judgement also taking all appearances for truths If men were only to believe there must needs be as great variety of Religions as of teachers And though God hath appointed that some Church should be as perfectly infallible as that of Rome pretends to be yet since there are so many Churches and the true one therefore could be known no otherwise then by some marks there must be disquisition before Faith and men must reason and examine ere they can believe upon good grounds for were they to receive Religion as a little Child be nurst up with the Doctrine as with milk a Child we know may suck infection from the poyson'd breast of an unwholesome mother or some other person for it knows not to distinguish And so may be nurst to death A soul like theirs that is but rasa tabula white paper is as fitted to receive the mark of the beast as the inscription of the living God just as the first hand shall impresse Therefore we are bid not to believe every Spirit not every Teacher though he come with gifts pretend and seem to be inspir'd but try them and our Saviour forewarn'd the Jews of false Christs that should come with signes and wonders Something therefore must be known first and secur'd before the understanding can be thus oblig'd to give up its assent And Captivate every thought into obedience as S. Paul directs Now what that was here to the hearers in the Text is easily collected namely that he was the Christ that does require it And S. Paul expresses it in the forecited place where he says we must bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ to wit of that Christ who as he does himself professe that if he had not done among them the works which no other had done they had not had sin John 15. 24. If his demonstrations had not convinc't them it had been no fault not to believe So when he had made appear he was that person whom their prophesies had poynted out the Messiah the Son of the living God and this not only his Disciples had acknowledg'd but the multitudes yea when his miracles had made one of the Pharisees confesse Rabbi we know thou art a Teacher come from God for no man can do these miracles except God be with him Then if the Pharisees dispute against his Doctrine of Divorce urge the authority of Moses and Gods Law and the Disciples presse the inconveniences that will happen If the case of a man be such with his wife he may answer them He that will not receive my Doctrines without dispute that is to say He that will not receive the Kingdom of God as a little Child shall not enter therein This King that cometh in the name of the Lord may well determine how we shall receive the Kingdom of God If he propose strange precepts to our practise It appears that he is sent from God and Gods commands are not to be disputed but obey'd if his revelations present dark unintelligible Mysteries to our faith his promises offer seeming impossibilities to our hope why yet he hath made proof he comes from God and surely we are not so insolent as to doubt that God can discover things above our understanding and do things above the comprehension of our reason Therefore since we are as Children to all these it is but just we should receive them even as little Children With a perfect resignation of our understandings and of our whole souls Here 't is most true what S. Austin says Those are not Christians who deny that Christ is to be believ'd unlesse there be some other certain reason of the thing besides his saying Si Christo etiam credendum negant nisi indubitata ratio reddita fuerit Christiani non sunt For to them that are convinc't of that 't is such a reason that he is the Christ. There is indeed no other name now under heaven to whom we are oblig'd to give
they come from God I might have urged completion of Prophecies to prove the same First those in the Old Testament of the Messiah which so eminently came to passe in Christ that they sufficiently clear those Books to be Divine Next Christ's predictions in the New particularly those about Jerusalem which saith Eusebius He that will compare with what Josephus an eye-witnesse and no Christian writes of it or what our selves know of that Nation and that place indeed he must acknowledge the Divinity of his words But enough hath been said to prove they come from God and therefore we must so receive them as the Word of God with perfect resignation of our Souls and submission of our judgments denying every apprehension that would start aside from and not captivate it self to that prime truth which cannot be deceived nor lye and renounce all discourses Reason offers that resist such abnegation of it self and all our other faculties that is receive this Word of the Kingdom as a little Child I do not here affirm by saying this that our Religion does disdain or keep at distance from the services of any of Mans faculties for it sometimes admits them not as Ministers only but as Judges 'T is plain the senses were the first I do not say conveyance onely but Foundation of Faith which was built on the first Believers eyes and ears they heard the Doctrine saw the Miracles were sure they saw and heard them and so supposing the signs sufficient to confirm the Doctrine to have come from God were certain of their truth without any Authority of a Church to influence that faith into divine And S. John therefore does not onely call in and admit and urge their testimony That which we have heard which we have seen with our Eyes which we have looks upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life that declare we unto you But our Saviour in the highest point of Faith appeals directly to their Judgment Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithlesse but believing And S. Austin also gives them the decision of a point of Doctrine which of all others now troubles the Church most for speaking of the Eucharist he sayes that which you see is Bread and 't is a Cup it is that very thing which your eyes tell you ' t is Tertullian also long before that had appealed to them in that very cause And in an instance where their sentence passes 't is not strange if Reason also take the Chair and do pretend to Judge And truly when the Scripture that does call those Elements Christs Body and his Blood does also call them after Consecration Bread and Wine and since they must be called one of them by a figure for they cannot be in Substance both and since that Scripture hath not told us where the Figure lyes hath not expresly said 't is this but in resemblance that in Substance Here if Reason that hath Principles by which to judge of Bodies which are expos'd to all the notices and trials of our several faculties and to which a Trope is not a stranger it can judge of figurative speeches when it therefore finds if it admit the figure in that form This is my Body 'T is but just the same which was in the Jews Sacrament the Paschal Lamb which they call'd the Body of the Passever though it were but the memorial a figure which was alwayes usual in Sacraments and is indeed essential to Sacraments And which is used in all things that are given by exhibitive signs But if it should resolve it to be Bread Wine onely in a figure besides a most impossible acknowledged Consequence that a man can be nourisht by them which the Romamsts dare not deny nor yet dare grant that men can feed upon a trope be nourish't with a figure besides this if Reason shall resolve that it must judge against all Rules it hath of judging by and judge in contradiction to known Principles and trample on all Laws of sense and understanding which especially when the Scripture hath no where defined expresly must be most unreasonable yea most impossible to judge that true that is to say believe that thing which it sees is most irreconcileable with known truths Here therefore Reason is not insolent if it give verdict by its proper evidences men are not bound to swallow contradictions as they do the Wafer or receive as a little Child that discerns the Lords Body no more then it does the repugnancies that are consequent to their Hypothesis concerning it Or to make another instance when the Scripture says God is a Spirit yet does also give him hands and eyes and ears and wings and these of strange prodigious dimensions neither tells us which of these is proper and which figure Here if Reason that can prove God cannot be a Body and cannot endure his God should be a monster shall be called in to passe sentence they that make Philosophy interpret Holy Writ in this case and give the last resort to Reason do no more usurp or trespasse on Religion then they that make use of Authours or a Dictionary judge of the sense of any Greek or Hebrew word in Scripture But notwithstanding this we may not think the mysteries of Faith are to be measured by the Rules of natural Reason so to stand or fall as they approve themselves to its discourse or Principles For though it be impossible that any Revelation can contradict right Reason truth cannot be inconsistent with truth yet it is very possible God can reveal those truths which we have neither faculties analogal nor principles or notions proportioned to nor any natural wayes of judging or examining And if those faculties which are not capable of cognisance will judge and judge of things removed from all our notices such as Spiritual Infinite Eternal being is and do it by principles gathered from the information of our Senses and by analogy with things of another kind corporeal finite things that are about us reason need not be informed how liable such judgments must be to mistakes and how that which we call repugnancy in one may have no place in the other Here therefore to submit our understandings and believe is but modest justice and to receive as Children what our Heavenly Father sayes And therefore they that will presume to comprehend whatere they are commanded to believe and those that will believe nothing but what they are able to comprehend are alike insolent if not pernicious T is true God by the Gospel hath revealed and brought to light many things which before appeared onely as he himself did in the Temple in a Cloud namely concerning the Divine nature Persons Properties and the Eternal being and the Incarnation of his Son but still as God himself is said to do these also dwell in Light that no man can approach unto Which he that will
contain a Duty prescrib'd and the Authority prescribing it the Prescription and the Authority in these words I say unto you the Duty in the rest where it is set down 1. in general Love your enemies and that to be consider'd under a double prospect 1. As it is plao't in opposition to something that was before indulg'd the Jews or presum'd so to be by them signified here by the particle But and then as it stands by itself in its own positive importance love your enemies And secondly this Duty is particulariz'd in several exercises of the Act commanded love in relation to several sorts of the Objects of that Act enemies as 1. Those that curse you you must bless 2. Those that hate you you must doe good to 3. Those that use you despitefully and persecute you you must pray for These I shall treat of in their given order beginning with the general Duty and viewing that at once in both the lights that it doth stand in that one may clear and fortifie the other But I say unto you Love your enemies Of all the Points of Christian Religion those which did most stagger the faith of some and check their acceptation of it or adherence to it saith Marcellinus writing to St. Austin were these 3 The incarnation of our Lord The meanness of his Miracles which they thought the works of Apolloniâ—s equall'd and thirdly the prescriptions in the Text It seems they lookt upon these Duties as the mysteries of Practice that spoke as loud a contradiction to their active principles and inclinations as the other appear'd to doe so those of Speculation and Discourse a God made flesh and flesh and bloud made so lame and passive sweetned so being alike impossible to their belief as if no flesh could certainly be so except that of which God was made and the Word incarnate onely could fulfill these words here in my Text they lookt upon this as a much-more mighty work than any of his Miracles as if 't were easier to snatch one out of the arms of Fate from the embraces of the Grave than to receive an enemy into ones own As if Christ had done more when he pray'd for his Crucifiers then when he prayed Lazarus out of his grave for their Magicians they say vied Miracles with him but none of their Religions or Gods did ever aim at this Prescription ut quae sit propria bonitâ—s nostra saith Tertullian this being a sort of Piety peculiar to the Christians Nor did they onely think it unpracticable but unreasonable as carrying opposition to all Government to the prosperity and peace of every Polity for he that does require that I shall have no return of injuries but for a wrong makes me in debt a kindnesse not onely supersedes judiciary proceedings but does secure Rapine by Law and encourage it by Reward and truly if it were impossible for him that does affect a person to dislike his evil actions and to desire he may have condigne punishment such as by Gospel-measures may be satisfaction equal to his fault and warning to himself and others these men had reason but if a Father can at once love and correct his Child if when I am with indignation displeas'd at my offences against God and by severities revenge them on my self I do then love my self most passionately and if I can pray with all the vigour of my soul for that false Traytor-bosom-enemy my flesh while it lies goading me to sin with temptation perfecuting me to everlasting death then no reason of State or of my own Requires I should not doe all these acts of kindness to my Adversary In that thou hast an exact pattern for thy enmity to them that wrong thee and thou shalt hate thine enemy as thy self is a most perfect Gospel-Rule that being most consistent with and directive of this Duty love your enemies But yet there is so great a difference indeed betwixt this Act here and its object Enemy being constituted such by enmity that is aversion and hate that love and that seem strangely coupled things that can be put together onely for a contest just as heat and cold to weaken one another that both the love and enmity may be refracted into a lukewarmnesse Therefore I shall divide them handling Love first by its self viewing the import of that as it is sincere lest the enemy appearing with it make it shrink into a very slender Duty and having done that secondly see whether an others enmity and thirdly whether enmity with that appropriation here your enemies can take off from the Obligation of that Duty Love Now Love shews fairest to our purposes in those dresses which S. Paul present her in 1 Cor. 1. 13. and 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 4. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 5. it suffers long if not the dammage yet the malice of repeated injuries as knowing it is bound to forgive till 70 times 7 times and 't is not easily provok't not apt for sudden violent heats instantly all on fire quick as lightning Such heats are from another passion which though sometimes they do but flash and die yet oft they have their Thunder-bolt and most-what do forerun a storm whereas the heats of Charity are calm as sun-shine such as do not consume but cherish for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same verse Love is kind and gracious full of humanity This Vertue is a kind of universal friendship hath nothing of reserv'd morose or sour an humour that makes solitude in the midst of Society and makes men onely their own company their Rule and soope and such a person Aristotle sayes must be either a God who can enjoy nothing beside himself is his own blessed and immortal entertainment or a wild beast whose nature is unsociable because 't is savage whereas Love is a pious complaisance to all 't is condescention too for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 5. v. does not think any thing unseemly how contemptible soever nor unworthy of him so he may do his Neighbour good he will debase himself to meanest Offices to work a real kindnesse Thus Christ because he lov'd his own knowing the Father had given all things into his hand he took a Towel and girâ—ed himself and put water in a Baâ—â—n and washt his Disciples feet making the lowest act of servitude be his Expression and our Example that is but slender Charity that will keep State Heaven could not unite Majesty and Love but to exercise this God did descend from Glory into the extremity of Meannesse 'T is Bowels that expresse compassion and tender kindnesse Now those we know of all parts of the Body are employed in the most low ignoble Offices and to such Love condescends where 't is true Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it covers all the naked with a garment and the deformed the leproâ—s Sinner with a covering too for Charity covers a multitude of sins hides his own
for the pleasures of that Earth despise his Heaven Yea the whole order of things does teach us this the Creatures do service to the whole kind they acknowledge the man and not the Countrey-man and Friend but alike the rich and poor the good and gratefull the wicked and ungratefull too The Sun does not collect his Rays and shed more day to guild the gaudy and gay person whose Cloaths and Jewels will reflect his light return him as much almost as he sends and vie brightnesse with him then he does to the poor dark sordid raggs that even damp his beams he sheds the same unpall'd Day even on those men that draw such streams of bloud as with their mists endeavour to put out or stain his shine the Ayr gives breath to them that putrifie it as well as those that send it out a Perfume Yea the Creatures of sense and perception do not yet discriminate their Lords but with that same indifference serve all the Oxe knows his Owner and the Asse his Master not his Religion nor his Vertues and then as there is something in man as man which God is kind to something in man as man for which the Creatures serve so there is something in man as he is man which we must love and consequently we must love every man And till thou hast found one so much a Monster that no Creature will fear or obey and such a one as God will shew no kindnesse to at all will not let his Sun shine or his Rain rain upon but while as others are in Goshen sets him in the storm and dark of Egypt till then I say thou hast not found a person whom thou mayst not love no though he be thine enemy in mind and thought in deed for if he Curse thee thou must bless and must do good to him which hates thee which are the particular expresses of the love in the Text the first of which is Bless them that Curse you BLess being here oppos'd to Curse must signifie wish well to them that wish you evil though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also do import speak well of as that is oppos'd to railing 1 Pet. 3. 9. not rendring railing for railing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but contrariwise Blessing And both are the duty of this place which does intend that all sorts of loving words should be the Christians returns to the offences of the tongue whether by Curse or contumely And truly when I do consider how the other way the rendring like for like and giving him that does with or speak evil as good language as he brings is so far from all shadow of compensation that there is really a loss of honour in those dismal imprecating words the anger that does belch them out does swell and stretch and rack the passion blushes at it self the malice drinks those spirits up which it lurks in and the envy that Snake sucks all the blood away leaves nothing but its own pale venim in the stead In a word the very Essence of impatience is vexation and fret and then that men should call that recompence for suffering which is it self a present agony and hath no prospect of any after-good that they should satisfie themselves in that does make that bold assertion of the Râ—manist who says that those in Hell do will and love their being there not strange at all for indeed there is one and the same reason of both that in the paroxysme of a passion whensoever a man is seiz'd by an affection with violence as they in Hell are alwayes and those that speak evil are for the present He does for that time love cherish and pursue the affection and in good earnest if so be that men can please themselves in the extreme impatience of a fruitless choler it looks like demonstration that the damn'd may please themselves in their damnation as to that part of it that which tears the Soul the rage of its own passions when they are loose and unmuzzel'd and the more because we have good reason to believe theirs are the very passions we are now upon Envy and Hate and Shame and they do vent themselves in the same manner too in Blasphemy and Curses and differ nothing but that their's are endless and then let such men please themselves in the returnes of calumny and imprecations we will allow them the delights of Hell in doing so and they do tast those very onely satisfactions that the fiends do in their torments and much good may they do them 'T is true then what the Psalmist says that he who thus delights in Carsing it shall enter into his bowels like water and like oyl into his bones like pleasure and refreshment like water to allay his passionate heats and oyl to make him chearful after his vexation for so indeed the venting of his Curses seems to do but alas if to powre them out do make them enter into him into his bowels and his bones his most substantial parts and his most necessary inwards if it leave nothing there but Curse poysâ—n instead of marrow in the bones and in the bowels fiery indignation for water if this be the effect then if you do resolve not to obey the Text and will not love your Enemy yet for your own sakes out of self-love do not execute your Enemies ill wishes on your selves and in meer spite to him make all his maledictions come to pass upon you but that blessing may not be far from you Bless them that Curse you do good to them that hate you the next part Do good If to do good mean onely those acts of charity that are under general prâ—cept relâ—eve necessities help in needs and the like then it is plain anothers hate to me takes not away my obligation unless it take away his wants and the wrongs he hath done me do not render me not bound to succour him unless it put him in a state that needs no succour For if thâ—ne Enemy hunger thou must feed him if he thirst give him drink Rom. 12. 20 Yea though his hatred be to thy Religion Do good to all the Scripture says and the Father porrig at manum Jupiter accipiet If the heathen Idols that have mouths indeed but as they cannot speak so neither can they eat if they I say could hunger and did ask I would feed them and I would give their God that is the Devil if he wanted But if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie do kindness and favours be good as that means bountiful and full of courtesies and grace be more then merciful by rule and general command which the Gospel calls righteous and truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 1 Tim. 3. 1. does mean a work of excellency in a state of virtue without precept and if it be so here too enmity seems to have advantage above friendship in the Gospel and brings kindness under an obligation graces and favours that in their