proper cure is to be wrought by those generall means of inviting and cherishing of getting and entertaining Gods Spirit which when we have observed we may account our selves sufficiently instructed toward the repair of our breaches and the reformation of our evill nature 1. The first great instrument of changing our whole nature into the state of grace flesh into the spirit is a firm belief and a perfect assent to and hearty entertainment of the promises of the Gospell for holy Scripture speaks great words concerning faith It quenches the fiery darts of the Devill saith St. Paul it overcomes the world saith St. John it is the fruit of the Spirit and the parent of love it is obedience and it is humility and it is a shield and it is a brestplate and a work and a mysterie it is a fight and it is a victory it is a pleasing God and it is that whereby the just do live by faith we are purified and by faith we are sanctified and by faith we are justified and by faith we are saved by this we have accesse to the throne of grace and by it our prayers shall prevail for the sick by it we stand and by it we walk and by this Christ dwels in our hearts and by it all the miracles of the Church have been done it gives great patience to suffer and great confidence to hope and great strength to do and infallible certainty to enjoy the end of all our faith and satisfaction of all our hopes and the reward of all our labours even the most mighty price of our high calling and if faith be such a magazine of spirituall excellencies of such universall efficacy nothing can be a greater antidote against the venome of a corrupted nature But then this is not a grace seated finally in the understanding but the principle that is designed to and actually productive of a holy life It is not only a beleeving the propositions of Scripture as we beleeve a proposition in the Metaphysicks concerning which a man is never the honester whether it be true of false but it is a beleef of things that concern us infinitely things so great that if they be so true as great no man that hath his reason and can discourse that can think and choose that can desire and work towards an end can possibly neglect The great object of our faith to which all other articles do minister is resurrection of our bodies and souls to eternall life and glories infinite Now is it possible that a man that beleeves this and that he may obtain it for himself and that it was prepared for him and that God desires to give it him that he can neglect and despise it and not work for it and perform such easie conditions upon which it may be obtained Are not most men of the world made miserable at a lesse price then a thousand pound a year Do not all the usurers and merchants all tradesmen and labourers under the Sun toil and care labour and contrive venture and plot for a little money and no man gets and scarce any man desires so much of it as he can lay upon three acres of ground not so much as will fill a great house and is this sum that is such a trifle such a poor limited heap of dirt the reward of all the labour and the end of all the care and the design of all the malice and the recompence of all the wars of the world and can it be imaginable that life it self and a long life an eternall and a happy life a kingdome a perfect kingdome and glorious that shall never have ending nor ever shall be abated with rebellion or fears or sorrow or care that such a kingdome should not be worth the praying for and quitting of an idle company and a foolish humour or a little drink or a vicious silly woman for it surely men beleeve no such thing They do not relye upon those fine stories that are read in books and published by Preachers and allow'd by the lawes of all the world If they did why do they choose intemperance and a feaver lust and shame rebellion and danger pride and a fall sacriledge and a curse gain and passion before humility and safety religion and a constant joy devotion and peace of conscience justice and a quiet dwelling charity and a blessing and at the end of all this a Kingdome more glorious then all the beauties the Sun did ever see Fides est velut quoddam aeternitatis exemplar praeterita simul praesentia futura sinu quodam vastissimo comprehendit ut nihil ei praetereat nil pereat praeeat nihil Now Faith is a certain image of eternity all things are present to it things past and things to come are all so before the eyes of faith that he in whose eye that candle is enkindled beholds heaven as present and sees how blessed thing it is to dye in Gods favour and to be chim'd to our grave with the Musick of a good conscience Faith converses with the Angels and antedates the hymnes of glory every man that hath this grace is as certain that there are glories for him if he perseveres in duty as if he had heard and sung the thanksgiving Song for the blessed sentence of Dooms-day And therefore it is no matter if these things are separate and distant objects none but children and fools are taken with the present trifle and neglect a distant blessing of which they have credible and beleeved notices Did the merchant see the pearls and the wealth he designs to get in the trade of 20 years And is it possible that a childe should when he learns the first rudiments of Grammar know what excellent things there are in learning whither he designs his labour and his hopes We labour for that which is uncertain and distant and beleeved and hoped for with many allaies and seen with diminution and a troubled ray and what excuse can there be that we do not labour for that which is told us by God and preach'd by his holy Son and confirmed by miracles and which Christ himself dyed to purchase and millions of Martyrs dyed to witnesse and which we see good men and wise beleeve with an assent stronger then their evidence and which they do beleeve because they do love and love because they do beleeve There is nothing to be said but that faith which did enlighten the blind and cleanse the Lepers and wash'd the soul of the Aethiopian that faith that cures the sick and strengthens the Paralytick and baptizes the Catechumens and justifies the faithfull and repairs the penitent and confirms the just and crowns the Martyrs that faith if it be true and proper Christian and alive active and effective in us is sufficient to appease the storm of our passions and to instruct all our ignorances and to make us wise unto salvation it will if we let it do its first intention
creatures for it and is it not just in God to stop his own fountaines and seal the cisterns and little emanations of the creatures from thee who shuttest thy hand and shuttest thy eye and twistest thy bowells against thy brother who would as fain be comforted as thou It is a strange Iliacall passion that so hardens a mans bowells that nothing proceeds from him but the name of his own disease a Miserere mei Deus a prayer to God for pity upon him that will not shew pity to others We are troubled when God through severity breaks our bones and hardens his face against us but we think our poor brother is made of iron and not of flesh and bloud as we are God hath bound mercy upon us by the iron bands of necessity and though Gods mercy is the measure of his justice yet justice is the measure of our mercy and as we doe to others it shall be done to us even in the matter of pardon and of bounty of gentlenesse and remission of bearing each others burdens and faire interpretation Forgive us our trespasses as wee forgive them that trespasse against us so we pray The finall sentence in this affair is recorded by St. James Hee that shews no mercy shall have justice with out mercy as thy poor brother hath groan'd under thy cruelty and ungentle nature without remedy so shalt thou before the throne of God thou shalt pray and plead and call and cry and beg again and in the midst of thy despairing noyses be carryed in the regions of sorrow which never did and never shall feel a mercy God never can heare the prayers of an unmercifull man 2. Lust and uncleannesse is a direct enemy to the Praying man and an obstruction to his prayers for this is not onely a prophanation but a direct sacriledge it defiles a Temple to the ground it takes from a man all affection to spirituall things and mingles his very soul with the things of the world it makes his understanding low and his reasonings cheap and foolish and it destroys his confidence and all his manly hopes it makes his spirit light effeminate and fantastick and dissolves his attention and makes his mind so to disaffect all the objects of his desires that when he prays he is as uneasy as an impaled person or a condemned criminall upon the hook or wheel and it hath in it this evill quality that a lustfull person cannot pray heartily against his sin he cannot desire his cure for his will is contradictory to his Collect and he would not that God should hear the words of his prayer which he poor man never intended For no crime so seises upon the will as that some sins steale an affection or obey a temptation or secure an interest or work by the way of understanding but lust seises directly upon the will for the Devil knows well that the lusts of the body are soon cured the uneasynesse that dwels there is a disease very tolerable and every degree of patience can passe under it But therefore the Devill seises upon the will and that 's it that makes adulteries and all the species of uncleannesse and lust growes so hard a cure because the formality of it is that it will not be cured the will loves it and so long as it does God cannot love the Man for God is the Prince of purities and the Son of God is the King of Virgins and the holy Spirit is all love and that is all purity and all spirituality And therefore the prayer of an Adulterer or an uncleane person is like the sacrifices to Moloch or the rites of Flora ubi Cato spectator esse non potuit a good man will not endure them much lesse will God entertaine such reekings of the Dead sea and clouds of Sodome For so an impure vapor begotten of the slime of the earth by the feavers and adulterous heats of an intemperate Summer sun striving by the ladder of a mountaine to climbe up to heaven and rolling into various figures by an uneasy unfixed revolution and stop'd at the middle region of the aire being thrown from his pride and attempt of passing towards the seat of the stars turnes into an unwholsome flame and like the breath of hell is confin'd into a prison of darknesse and a cloud till it breaks into diseases plagues and mildews stink and blastings so is the prayer of an unchast person it strives to climbe the battlements of heaven but because it is a flame of sulphur salt and bitumen and was kindled in the dishonorable regions below deriv'd from hell and contrary to God it cannot passe forth to the element of love but ends in barrennesse and murmur fantastick expectations and trifling imaginative confidences and they at last end in sorrows and despaire * Every state of sin is against the possibility of a mans being accepted but these have a proper venome against the graciousnesse of the person and the power of the prayer God can never accept an unholy prayer and a wicked man can never send forth any other the waters passe thorough impure aquaeducts and channels of brimstone and therefore may end in brimstone and fire but never in forgivenesse and the blessings of an eternall charity Henceforth therefore never any more wonder that men pray so seldome there are few that feel the relish and are enticed with the deliciousnesse and refreshed with the comforts and instructed with the sanctity and acquainted with the secrets of a holy prayer But cease also to wonder that of those few that say many prayers so few find any return of any at all To make up a good and a lawfull prayer there must be charity with all its daughters almes forgivenesse not judging uncharitably there must be purity of spirit that is purity of intention and there must be purity of the body and soule that is the cleannesse of chastity and there must be no vice remaining no affection to sin for he that brings his body to God and hath left his will in the power of any sin offers to God the calves of his lips but not a whole burnt-offering a lame oblation but not a reasonable sacrifice and therefore their portion shall be amongst them whose prayers were never recorded in the book of life whose tears God never put into his bottle whose desires shall remaine ineffectuall to eternall ages Take heed you doe not lose your prayers for by them you hope to have eternall life and let any of you whose conscience is most religious and tender consider what condition that man is in that hath not said his prayers in thirty or forty years together and that is the true state of him who hath lived so long in the course of an unsanctified life in all that while he never said one prayer that did him any good but they ought to be reckoned to him upon the account of his sins Hee that is in the affection or in the habit or
last caution concerning this question No man is to be esteemed of a willing spirit but he that endevours to doe the outward work or to make all the supplies that he can not only by the forwardnesse of his spirit but by the compensation of some other charities or devotion or religion Silver and gold have I none and therefore I can give you none But I wish you well How will that appear why thus Such as I have I will give you Rise up and walk I cannot give you gold but I can give you counsell I cannot relieve your need but I can relieve your sadnesse I cannot cure you but I can comfort you I cannot take away your poverty but I can ease your spirit and God accepts us saith the Apostle according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath not Only as our desires are great and our spirits are willing so we shall finde wayes to make supply of our want of ability and expressed liberality Et labor ingenium misero dedit sua quemque Advigilare sibi jussit fortuna premendo What the poor mans need will make him do that also the good mans charity will it will finde out wayes and artifices of relief in kinde or in value in comfort or in prayers in doing it himself or procuring others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The necessity of our fortune and the willingnesse of our spirits will do all this all that it can and something that it cannot You have relieved the Saints saith St. Paul according to your power yea and beyond your power Only let us be carefull in all instances that we yeeld not to the weaknesse of the flesh nor listen to its fair pretences for the flesh can do more then it sayes we can do more then we think we can and if we doe some violence to the flesh to our affairs and to the circumstances of our fortune for the interest of our spirit we shall make our flesh usefull and the spirit strong the flesh and its weaknesse shall no more be an objection but shall comply and co-operate and serve all the necessities of the spirit Sermon XII Of Lukewarmnesse and Zeal OR SPIRITVALL TERROVR Part I. Jer. 48. 10. vers first part part Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully CHrists Kingdome being in order to the Kingdome of his Father which shall be manifest at the day of Judgement must therefore be spirituall because then it is that all things must become spirituall not only by way of eminency but by intire constitution and perfect change of natures Men shall be like Angels and Angels shall be comprehended in the lap of spirituall and eternall felicities the soul shall not understand by materiall phantasmes neither be served by the provisions of the body but the body it self shall become spirituall and the eye shall see intellectuall objects and the mouth shall feed upon hymns and glorifications of God the belly shall be then satisfied by the fulnesse of righteousnesse and the tongue shall speak nothing but praises and the propositions of a celestiall wisdome the motion shall be the swiftnesse of an Angell and it shall be cloathed with white as with a garment Holinesse is the Sun and righteousnesse is the Moon in that region our society shall be Quires of singers and our conversation wonder contemplation shall be our food and love shall be the wine of elect souls and as to every naturall appetite there is now proportion'd an object crasse materiall unsatisfying and allayed with sorrow and uneasinesse so there be new capacities and equall objects the desires shall be fruition and the appetite shall not suppose want but a faculty of delight and an unmeasureable complacency the will and the understanding love and wonder joyes every day and the same forever this shall be their state who shall be accounted worthy of the resurrection to this life where the body shall be a partner but no servant where it shall have no work of its own but it shall rejoyce with the soul where the soul shall rule without resistance or an enemy and we shall be fitted to enjoy God who is the Lord and Father of spirits In this world we see it is quite contrary we long for perishing meat and fill our stomachs with corruption we look after white and red and the weaker beauties of the night we are passionate after rings and seals and inraged at the breaking of a Crystall we delight in the society of fools and weak persons we laugh at sin and contrive mischiefs and the body rebels against the soul and carries the cause against all its just pretences and our soul it self is above half of it earth and stone in its affections and distempers our hearts are hard and inflexible to the softer whispers of mercy and compassion having no loves for any thing but strange flesh and heaps of money and popular noises for misery and folly and therefore we are a huge way off from the Kingdome of God whose excellencies whose designs whose ends whose constitution is spirituall and holy and separate and sublime and perfect Now between these two states of naturall flesh and heavenly spirit that is the powers of darknesse and the regions of light the miseries of man and the perfections of God the imperfection of nature where we stand by our creation and supervening follies and that state of felicities whither we are designed by the mercies of God there is a middle state the Kingdome of grace wrought for us by our Mediator the man Christ Jesus who came to perfect the vertue of Religion and the designs of God and to reforme our Nature and to make it possible for us to come to that spirituall state where all felicity does dwell The Religion that Christ taught is a spirituall Religion it designs so far as this state can permit to make us spirituall that is so as the spirit be the prevailing ingredient God must now be worshipped in spirit and not only so but with a fervent spirit and though God in all religions did seise upon the spirit and even under Moses Law did by the shadow of the ceremony require the substantiall worship by cutting off the flesh intended the circumcision of the heart yet because they were to minde the outward action it took off much from the intention and activity of the spirit Man could not doe both busily And then they fail'd also in the other part of a spirituall Religion for the nature of a spirituall Religion is that in it we serve God with our hearts and affections and because while the spirit prevails we do not to evill purposes of abatement converse with flesh and bloud this service is also fervent intense active wise and busie according to the nature of things spirituall Now because God alwayes perfectly intended it yet because he lesse perfectly required it in the Law of Moses I say they fell short in both For 1. They so
of good things And this was intimated by S. James Doe not rich men oppresse you and draw you before the Judgment seat For all men are passionate to live according to that state in which they were born or to which they are devolved or which they have framed to themselves Those therefore that love to live high and deliciously Et quibus in solo vivendi causa palato who live not to God but to their belly not to sober counsels but to an intemperate table have framed to themselves a manner of living which oftentimes cannot be maintain'd but by injustice and violence which coming from a man whose passions are made big with sensuality and an habituall folly by pride and forgetfulnesse of the condition and miseries of mankind are alwayes unreasonable and sometimes intolerable regustatum digito terebrare salinum Contentus perages si vivere cum Jove tendis Formidable is the state of an intemperate man whose sin begins with sensuality and grows up in folly and weak discourses and is fed by violence and applauded by fooles and parasites full bellies and empty heads servants and flatterers whose hands are full of flesh and blood and their hearts empty of pity and naturall compassion where religion cannot inhabit and the love of God must needs be a stranger whose talk is loud and trifling injurious and impertinent and whose imployment is the same with the work of the sheep or the calfe alwayes to eat their loves are the lusts of the lower belly and their portion is in the lower regions to eternall ages where their thirst and their hunger and their torment shall be infinite 4. Intemperance is a perfect destruction of Wisdome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a full gorg'd belly never produc'd a sprightly mind and therefore these kind of men are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 slow bellies so S. Paul concerning the intemperate Cretans out of their owne Poet they are like the Tigres of Brasil which when they are empty are bold and swift and full of sagacity but being full sneak away from the barking of a village dog So are these men wise in the morning quick and fit for businesse but when the sun gives the signe to spread the tables and intemperance brings in the messes and drunkennesse fills the bouls then the man fals away and leaves a beast in his room nay worse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are dead all but their throat and belly so Aristophanes hath fitted them with a character carkasses above halfe way Plotinus descends one step lower yet affirming such persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are made trees whose whole imployment and life is nothing but to feed and suck juices from the bowels of their Nurse and Mother and indeed commonly they talke as trees in a wind and tempest the noise is great and querulous but it signifies nothing but trouble and disturbance A full meal is like Sisera's banquet at the end of which there is a nail struck into a mans head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Porphyrie it knocks a man down and nayls his soul to the sensuall mixtures of the body For what wisdome can be expected from them whose soul dwels in clouds of meat and floats up and down in wine like the spilled cups which fell from their hands when they could lift them to their heads no longer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a perfect shipwrack of a Man the Pilot is drunk and the helm dash'd in pieces and the ship first reels and by swallowing too much is it self swallowed up at last And therefore the Navis Agrigentina the madnesse of the young fellows of Agrigentum who being drunk fancyed themselves in a storm and the house the ship was more then the wilde fancy of their cups it was really so they were all cast away they were broken in pieces by the foul disorder of the storm Hinc vini atque somni degener discordia Libido sordens inverecundus lepos Variaeque pestes languidorum sensuum Hinc frequenti marcida oblectamine Scintilla mentis intorpescit nobilis Animscsque pigris stertit in praecordiis The senses languish the spark of Divinity that dwels within is quenched and the mind snorts dead with sleep and fulnesse in the fouler regions of the belly So have I seen the eye of the world looking upon a fenny bottome and drinking up too free draughts of moysture gather'd them into a cloud and that cloud crept about his face and made him first look red and then cover'd him with darknesse and an artificiall night so is our reason at a feast Putrem resudans crapulam Obstrangulatae mentis ingenium premit The clouds gather about the head and according to the method and period of the children and productions of darkness it first grows red and that rednesse turns into an obscurity and a thick mist and reason is lost to all use and profitablenesse of wise and sober discourses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cloud of folly and distraction darkens the soul and makes it crasse and materiall polluted and heavy clogg'd and loaden like the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there cannot be any thing said worse reason turnes into folly wine and flesh into a knot of clouds the soul it self into a body and the spirit into corrupted meat there is nothing left but the rewards and portions of a fool to be reaped and enjoyed there where flesh and corruption shall dwell to eternall ages and therefore in Scripture such men are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravant Their heads are grosse their soules are immerged in matter and drowned in the moystures of an unwholsome cloud they are dull of hearing slow in apprehension and to action they are as unable as the hands of a childe who too hastily hath broken the inclosures of his first dwelling But temperance is reasons girdle and passions bridle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Homer in Stobaeus that 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prudence is safe while the man is temperate and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is opposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a temperate man is no fool for temperance is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as Plato appointed to night-walkers a prison to restraine their inordinations it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Pythagoras calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Iämblicus It is the strength of the soule the foundation of vertue the ornament of all good things and the corroborative of all excellent habits 5. After all this I shall the lesse need to add that intemperance is a dishonor and disreputation to the nature and the person and the manners of a Man But naturally men are ashamed of it and the needs of nature shal be the vail for their gluttony and the night shall cover their drunkennesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Apostle rightly
Ministerial Sermon I. ADVENT SUNDAY DOOMS-DAY BOOK OR CHRIST'S Advent to Judgement 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgment seat of CHRIST that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad VErtue and Vice are so essentially distinguished and the distinction is so necessary to be observed in order to the well being of men in private and in societies that to divide them in themselves and to separate them by sufficient notices and to distinguish them by rewards hath been designed by all Laws by the sayings of wise men by the order of things by their proportions to good or evill and the expectations of men have been fram'd accordingly that Vertue may have a proper seat in the will and in the affections and may become amiable by its own excellency and its appendant blessing and that Vice may be as naturall an enemy to a man as a Wolf to the Lamb and as darknesse to light destructive of its being and a contradiction of its nature But it is not enough that all the world hath armed it self against Vice and by all that is wise and sober amongst men hath taken the part of Vertue adorning it with glorious appellatives encouraging it by rewards entertaining it with sweetnesses and commanding it by edicts fortifying it with defensatives and twining with it in all artificiall compliances all this is short of mans necessity for this will in all modest men secure their actions in Theatres and High-wayes in Markets and Churches before the eye of Judges and in the society of Witnesses But the actions of closets and chambers the designs and thoughts of men their discourses in dark places and the actions of retirements and of the night are left indifferent to Vertue or to Vice and of these as man can take no cognisance so he can make no coercitive and therefore above one half of humane actions is by the Laws of man left unregarded and unprovided for and besides this there are some men who are bigger then Lawes and some are bigger then Judges and some Judges have lessened themselves by fear and cowardize by bridery and flattery by iniquity and complyance and where they have not yet they have notices but of few causes and there are some sins so popular and universall that to punish them is either impossible or intolerable and to question such would betray the weaknesse of the publick rods and axes and represent the sinner to be stronger then the power that is appointed to be his bridle and after all this we finde sinners so prosperous that they escape so potent that they fear not and sin is made safe when it growes great Facere omnia saevè Non impunè licet nisi dum facis and innocence is oppressed and the poor cry and he hath no helper and he is oppressed and he wants a Patron and for these and many other concurrent causes if you reckon all the causes that come before all the Judicatories of the world though the litigious are too many and the matters of instance are intricate and numerous yet the personall and criminall are so few that of 20000 sins that cry aloud to God for vengeance scarce two are noted by the publick eye and chastis'd by the hand of Justice it must follow from hence that it is but reasonable for the interest of vertue and the necessities of the world that the private should be judg'd and vertue should be tyed upon the spirit and the poor should be relieved and the oppressed should appeal and the noise of Widows should be heard and the Saints should stand upright and the Cause that was ill judged should be judged over again and Tyrants should be call'd to account and our thoughts should be examined and our secret actions view'd on all sides and the infinite number of sins which escape here should not escape finally and therefore God hath so ordained it that there shall be a day of doom wherein all that are let alone by men shall be question'd by God and every word and every action shall receive its just recompence of reward For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in the best copies not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The things done in the body so we commonly read it the things proper or due to the body so the expression is more apt and proper for not only what is done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the body but even the acts of abstracted understanding and volition the acts of reflexion and choice acts of self-love and admiration and what ever else can be supposed the proper and peculiar act of the soul or of the spirit is to be accounted for at the day of Judgement and even these may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because these are the acts of the man in the state of conjunction with the body The words have in them no other difficulty or variety but contain a great truth of the biggest interest and one of the most materiall constitutive Articles of the whole Religion and the greatest endearment of our duty in the whole world Things are so ordered by the great Lord of all the creatures that whatsoever we do or suffer shall be call'd to account and this account shall be exact and the sentence shall be just and the reward shall be great all the evils of the world shall be amended and the injustices shall be repaid and the divine Providence shall be vindicated and Vertue and Vice shall for ever be remark'd by their separate dwellings and rewards This is that which the Apostle in the next verse cals the terror of the Lord it is his terror because himself shall appear in his dresse of Majesty and robes of Justice and it is his terror because it is of all the things in the World the most formidable in it self and it is most fearfull to us where shall be acted the interest and finall sentence of eternity and because it is so intended I shall all the way represent it as the Lords terror that we may be afraid of sin for the destruction of which this terror is intended 1. Therefore we will consider the persons that are to be judged with the circumstances of our advantages or our sorrowes We must all appear 2. The Judge and his Judgement seat before the Judgment seat of Christ. 3. The sentence that they are to receive the things due to the body good or bad according as we now please but then cannot alter Every one of these are dressed with circumstances of affliction and afrightment to those to whom such terrors shall appertain as a portion of their inheritance 1. The persons who are to be judged even you and I and all the world Kings and
Priests Nobles and Learned the Crafty and the Easie the Wise and the Foolish the Rich and the Poor the prevailing Tyrant and the oppressed Party shall all appear to receive ther Symbol and this is so farre from abating any thing of its terror and our dear concernment that it much increases it for although concerning Precepts and Discourses we are apt to neglect in particular what is recommended in generall and in incidencies of Mortality and sad events the singularity of the chance heightens the apprehension of the evill yet it is so by accident and only in regard of our imperfection it being an effect of self-love or some little creeping envie which adheres too often to the infortunate and miserable or else because the sorrow is apt to increase by being apprehended to be a rare case and a singular unworthinesse in him who is afflicted otherwise then is common to the sons of men companions of his sin and brethren of his nature and partners of his usuall accidents yet in finall and extreme events the multitude of sufferers does not lessen but increase the sufferings and when the first day of Judgement happen'd that I mean of the universall deluge of waters upon the old World the calamity swell'd like the floud and every man saw his friend perish and the neighbours of his dwelling and the relatives of his house and the sharers of his joyes and yesterdaies bride and the new born heir the Priest of the Family and the honour of the Kindred all dying or dead drench'd in water and the divine vengeance and then they had no place to flee unto no man cared for their souls they had none to goe unto for counsell no sanctuary high enough to keep them from the vengeance that raip'd down from heaven and so it shall be at the day of Judgement when that world and this and all that shall be born hereafter shall passe through the same Red sea and be all baptized with the same fire and be involv'd in the same cloud in which shall be thundrings and terrors infinite every Mans fear shall be increased by his neighbours shriekes and the amazement that all the world shall be in shall unite as the sparks of a raging furnace into a globe of fire and roul upon its own principle and increase by direct appearances and intolerable reflexions He that stands in a Church-yard in the time of a great plague and hears the Passing-bell perpetually telling the sad stories of death and sees crowds of infected bodies pressing to their Graves and others sick and tremulous and Death dress'd up in all the images of sorrow round about him is not supported in his spirit by the variety of his sorrow and at Dooms-day when the terrors are universall besides that it is in it self so much greater because it can affright the whole world it is also made greater by communication and a sorrowfull influence Grief being then strongly infections when there is no variety of state but an intire Kingdome of fear and amazement is the King of all our passions and all the world its subjects and that shrieke must needs be terrible when millions of Men and Women at the same instant shall fearfully cry out and the noise shall mingle with the Trumpet of the Archangell with the thunders of the dying and groaning heavens and the crack of the dissolving world when the whole fabrick of nature shall shake into dissolution and eternall ashes But this generall consideration may be hightned with four or five circumstances 1. Consider what an infinite multitude of Angels and Men and Women shall then appear it is a huge assembly when the Men of one Kingdome the Men of one Age in a single Province are gathered togother into heaps and confusion of disorder But then all Kingdomes of all ages all the Armies that ever mustered all that World that Augustus Caesar taxed all those hundreds of Millions that were slain in all the Roman Wars from Numa's time till Italy was broken into Principalities and small Exarchats all these and all that can come into numbers and that did descend from the loins of Adam shall at once be represented to which account if we adde the Armies of Heaven the nine orders of blessed Spirits and the infinite numbers in every order we may suppose the numbers fit to expresse the Majesty of that God and the terror of that Judge who is the Lord and Father of all that unimaginable multitude Erit terror ingens tot simul tantorúmque populorum 2. In this great multitude we shall meet all those who by their example and their holy precepts have like tapers enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousnesse enlightned us and taught us to walk in the paths of justice There we shall see all those good men whom God sent to preach to us and recall us from humane follies and inhumane practises and when we espie the good man that chid us for our last drunkennesse or adulteries it shall then also be remembred how we mocked at counsell and were civilly modest at the reproof but laugh'd when the man was gone and accepted it for a religious complement and took our leaves and went and did the same again But then things shall put on another face and what we smil'd at here and slighted fondly shall then be the greatest terror in the world Men shall feel that they once laugh'd at their own destruction and rejected health when it was offered by a man of God upon no other condition but that they would be wise and not be in love with death Then they shall perceive that if they had obeyed an easie and a sober counsell they had been partners of the same felicity which they see so illustrious upon the heads of those Preachers whose work is with the Lord and who by their life and Doctrine endeavoured to snatch the Soul of their friend or relatives from an intolerable misery But he that sees a crown put upon their heads that give good counsell and preach holy and severe Sermons with designs of charity and piety will also then perceive that God did not send Preachers for nothing on trifling errands and without regard but that work which he crowns in them he purposed should be effective to us perswasive to the understanding and active upon our consciences Good Preachers by their Doctrine and all good men by their lives are the accusers of the disobedient and they shall rise up from their seats and judge and condemn the follies of those who thought their piety to be want of courage and their discourses pedanticall and their reproofs the Priests trade but of no signification because they prefer'd moments before eternity 3. There in that great assembly shall be seen all those Converts who upon easier terms and fewer miracles and a lesse experience and a younger grace and a seldomer Preaching and more unlikely circumstances have suffered the work of God to prosper upon their
for he hath done all his share towards it every wicked man takes his head from the blessing and rather chuses that the Devill should rejoyce in his destruction then that his Lord should triumph in his felicity And now upon the supposition of these premises we may imagine that it will be an infinite amazement to meet that Lord to be our Judge whose person we have murdered whose honour we have disparaged whose purposes we have destroyed whose joyes we have lessened whose passion we have made ineffectuall and whose love we have trampled under our profane and impious feet 3. But there is yet a third part of this consideration As it will be inquir'd at the day of Judgement concerning the dishonours to the person of Christ so also concerning the profession and institution of Christ and concerning his poor Members for by these also we make sad reflexions upon our Lord. Every man that lives wickedly disgraces the religion and institution of Jesus he discourages strangers from entring into it he weakens the hands of them that are in already and makes that the adversaries speak reproachfully of the Name of Christ but although it is certain our Lord and Judge will deeply resent all these things yet there is one thing which he takes more tenderly and that is the uncharitablenesse of men towards his poor It shall then be upbraided to them by the Judge that himself was hungry and they refused to give meat to him that gave them his body and heart-bloud to feed them and quench their thirst that they denyed a robe to cover his nakednesse and yet he would have cloathed their souls with the robe of his righteousnesse lest their souls should be found naked in the day of the Lords visitation and all this unkindnesse is nothing but that evill men were uncharitable to their Brethren they would not feed the hungry nor give drink to the thirsty nor cloath the naked nor relieve their Brothers needs nor forgive his follies nor cover their shame nor turn their eyes from delighting in their affronts and evill accidents this is it which our Lord will take so tenderly that his Brethren for whom he died who suck'd the paps of his Mother that fed on his Body and are nourished with his Bloud whom he hath lodg'd in his heart and entertains in his bosome the partners of his Spirit and co-heirs of his inheritance that these should be deny'd relief and suffered to go away ashamed and unpitied this our blessed Lord will take so ill that all those who are guilty of this unkindnesse have no reason to expect the favour of the Court. 4. To this if we adde the almightinesse of the Judge his infinite wisdome and knowledge of all causes and all persons and all circumstances that he is infinitely just inflexibly angry and impartiall in his sentence there can be nothing added either to thè greatness or the requisites of a terrible and an Almighty Judge For who can resist him who is Almighty Who can evade his scrutiny that knows all things Who can hope for pity of him that is inflexible Who can think to be exempted when the Judge is righteous and impartial But in all these annexes of the great Judge that which I shall now remark is that indeed which hath terror in it and that is the severity of our Lord. For then is the day of vengeance and recompenses and no mercy at all shall be shewed but to them that are the sons of mercy for the other their portion is such as can be expected from these premises 1. If we remember the instances of Gods severity in this life in the daies of mercy and repentance in those dayes when Judgement waits upon Mercy and receives lawes by the rules and measures of pardon and that for all the rare streams of loving kindnesse issuing out of Paradise and refreshing all our fields with a moisture more fruitfull then the flouds of Nilus still there are mingled some stormes and violences some fearfull instances of the Divine Justice we may more readily expect it will be worse infinitely worse at that day when Judgement shall ride in triumph and Mercy shall be the accuser of the wicked But so we read and are commanded to remember because they are written for our example that God destroyed at once five cities of the plain and all the country and Sodome and her sisters are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternall fire Fearfull it was when God destroyed at once 23000 for fornication and an exterminating Angell in one night killed 185000 of the Assyrians and the first born of all the families of Egypt and for the sin of David in numbring the people threescore and ten thousand of the people dyed and God sent ten tribes into captivity and eternall oblivion and indistinction from a common people for their idolatry Did not God strike Corah and his company with fire from Heaven and the earth open'd and swallowed up the congregation of Abiram And is not evill come upon all the world for one sin of Adam Did not the anger of God break the nation of the Jewes all in pieces with judgements so great that no nation ever suffered the like because none ever sin'd so And at once it was done that God in anger destroyed all the world and eight persons only escaped the angry Baptisme of water and yet this world is the time of mercy God hath open'd here his Magazines and sent his holy Son as the great channell and fountain of it too here he delights in mercy and in judgement loves to remember it and it triumphs over all his works and God contrives instruments and accidents chances and designs occasions and opportunities for mercy if therefore now the anger of God makes such terrible eruptions upon the wicked people that delight in sin how great may we suppose that anger to be how severe that Judgement how terrible that vengeance how intolerable those inflictions which God reserves for the full effusion of indignation on the great day of vengeance 2. We may also guesse at it by this if God upon all single instances and in the midst of our sins before they are come to the full and sometimes in the beginning of an evill habit be so fierce in his anger what can we imagine it to be in that day when the wicked are to drink the dregs of that horrid potion and count over all the particulars of their whole treasure of wrath This is the day of wrath and God shall reveal or bring forth his righteous Judgements The expression is taken from Deut. 32. 34. Is not this laid up in store with me and sealed up among my treasures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will restore it in the day of vengeance for the Lord shall judge his people and repent himself for his servants For so did the Lybian Lion that was brought up under discipline and taught to endure blowes and eat the
praesens huic erant dieculae but this will be but an ill account when the rods shall for the delay be turned into Scorpions and from easie shall become intolerable Better it is to suffer here and to stay till the day of restitution for the good and the holy portion for it will recompense both for the suffering and the stay But how if the portion be bad It shall be bad to the greatest part of mankinde that 's a fearfull consideration the greatest part of men and women shall dwell in the portion of Devils to eternall ages So that these portions are like the Prophets figs in the vision the good are the best that ever were and the worst are so bad that worse cannot be imagined For though in hell the accursed souls shall have no worse then they have deserved and there are not there overrunning measures as there are in heaven and therefore that the joyes of heaven are infinitely greater joyes then the pains of hell are great pains yet even these are a full measure to a full iniquity pain above patience sorrowes without ease amazement without consideration despair without the intervals of a little hope indignation without the possession of any good there dwels envie and confusion disorder and sad remembrances perpetuall woes and continuall shriekings uneasinesse and all the evils of the soul. But if we will represent it in some orderly circumstances we may consider 1. That here all the troubles of our spirits are little participations of a disorderly passion A man desires earnestly but he hath not or he envies because another hath something besides him and he is troubled at the want of one when at the same time he hath a hundred good things and yet ambition and envie impatience and confusion covetousnesse and lust are all of them very great torments but there these shall be in essence and abstracted beings the spirit of envie and the spirit of sorrow Devils that shall inflict all the whole nature of the evill and pour it into the minds of accursed men where it shall sit without abatement for he that envies there envies not for the eminence of another that sits a little above him and excels him in some one good but he shall envie for all because the Saints have all and they have none therefore all their passions are integral abstracted perfect passions and all the sorrow in the world at this time is but a portion of sorrow every man hath his share and yet besides that which all sad men have there is a great deal of sorrow which they have not and all the Devils portion besides that but in hell they shall have the whole passion of sorrow in every one just as the whole body of the Sun is seen by every one in the same Horizon and he that is in darknesse enjoyes it not by parts but the whole darknesse is the portion of one as well as of another If this consideration be not too Metaphysicall I am sure it is very sad and it relies upon this that as in heaven there are some holy Spirits whose crown is all love and some in which the brightest jewell is understanding some are purity and some are holinesse to the Lord so in the regions of sorrow evill and sorrow have an essence and proper being and are set there to be suffer'd intirely by every undone man that dies there for ever 2. The evils of this world are materiall and bodily the pressing of a shoulder or the straining of a joynt the dislocation of a bone or the extending of an artery a bruise in the flesh or the pinching of the skin a hot liver or a sickly stomach and then the minde is troubled because its instrument is ill at ease but all the proper troubles of this life are nothing but the effects of an uneasie body or an abused fancy and therefore can be no bigger then a blow or a cousenage then a wound or a dream only the trouble increases as the soul works it and if it makes reflex acts and begins the evill upon its own account then it multiplies and doubles because the proper scene of grief is open'd and sorrow peeps through the corners of the soul. But in those regions and daies of sorrow when the soul shall be no more depending upon the body but the perfect principle of all its actions the actions are quick and the perceptions brisk the passions are extreme and the motions are spirituall the pains are like the horrors of a Devill and the groans of an evill spirit not slow like the motions of a heavie foot or a loaden arme but quick as an Angels wing active as lightning and a grief then is nothing like a grief now and the words of mans tongue which are fitted to the uses of this world are as unfit to signifie the evils of the next as person and nature and hand and motion and passion are to represent the effects of the Divine attributes actions and subsistence 3. The evill portions of the next world is so great that God did not create or design it in the first intention of things and production of essences he made the Kingdome of Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the foundation of the world for so it is observable that Christ shall say to the Sheep at his right hand Receive the Kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world but to the Goats and accursed spirits he speaks of no such primitive and originall design it was accidentall and a consequent to horrid crimes that God was forced to invent and to after create that place of torments 4. And when God did create and prepare that place he did not at all intend it for man it was prepared for the Divill and his Angels so saith the Judge himself Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which my Father prepared for the Devill so some copies read it God intended it not for man but man would imitate the Devils pride and listen to the whispers of an evill spirit and follow his temptations and rebell against his Maker and then God also against his first design resolved to throw such persons into that place that was prepared for the Devill for so great was the love of God to mankind that he prepared joyes infinite and never ceasing for man before he had created him but he did not predetermine him to any evill but when he was forced to it by mans malice he doing what God forbad him God cast him thither where he never intended him but it was not mans portion he designed it not at first and at last also he invited him to repentance and when nothing could do it he threw man into anothers portion because he would not accept of what was designed to be his own 5. The evill portion shall be continuall without intermission of evill no dayes of rest no nights of
who dyed for them who pardons easily and pities readily and excuses much and delights in our being saved and would not have us dye and takes little things in exchange for great it is certain that Gods mercies are infinite and it is also certain that the matter of eternall torments cannot truly be understood and when the School-men go about to reconcile the Divine justice to that severity and consider why God punishes eternally a temporall sin or a state of evill they speak variously and uncertainly and unsatisfyingly But that in this question we may separate the certain from the uncertain 1. It is certain that the torments of hell shall certainly last as long as the soul lasts for eternall and everlasting can signifie no lesse but to the end of that duration to the perfect end of the period in which it signifies So Sodom and Gomorrah when God rained down hell from heaven upon the earth as Salvian's expression is they are said to suffer the vengeance of eternall fire that is of a fire that consumed them finally and they never were restored and so the accursed souls shall suffer torments till they be consumed who because they are immortall either naturally or by gift shall be tormented for ever or till God shall take from them the life that he restored to them on purpose to give them a capacity of being miserable and the best that they can expect is to despair of all good to suffer the wrath of God never to come to any minute of felicity or of a tolerable state and to be held in pain till God be weary of striking This is the gentlest sentence of some of the old Doctors But 2. the generality of Christians have been taught to beleeve worse things yet concerning them and the words of our blessed Lord are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eternall affliction or smiting Nec mortis poenas mors altora finiet hujus Horaque erit tantis ultima nulla malis And S. John who well knew the minde of his Lord saith The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever and they have no rest day nor night that is their torment is continuall and it is eternall Their second death shall be but a dying to all felicity for so death is taken in Scripture Adam dyed when he eat the forbidden fruit that is he was lyable to sicknesse and sorrowes and pain and dissolution of soul and body and to be miserable is the worse death of the two they shall see the eternall felicity of the Saints but they shall never taste of the holy Chalice Those joyes shall indeed be for ever and ever for immortality is part of their reward and on them the second death shall have no power but the wicked shall be tormented horridly and insufferably till death and hell be thrown into the lake of fire and shall be no more which is the second death But that they may not imagine that this second death shall be the end of their pains S. Iohn speaks expresly what that is Rev. 21. 8. The fearfull and unbeleeving the abominable and the murderers the whoremongers and sorcerers the idolaters and all lyars shall have their part in the lake wich burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death no dying there but a being tormented burning in a lake of fire that is the second death For if life be reckoned a blessing then to be destitute of all blessing is to have no life and therefore to be intolerably miserable is this second death that is death eternall 3. And yet if God should deal with man hereafter more mercifully and proportionably to his weak nature then he does to Angels and as he admits him to repentance here so in hell also to a period of his smart even when he keeps the Angels in pain for ever yet he will never admit him to favour he shall be tormented beyond all the measure of humane ages and be destroyed for ever and ever It concerns us all who hear and beleeve these things to do as our blessed Lord will do before the day of his coming he will call and convert the Jews and strangers Conversion to God is the best preparatory to Dooms-day and it concerns all them who are in the neighbourhood and fringes of the flames of hell that is in the state of sin quickly to arise from the danger and shake the burning coals off our flesh lest it consume the marrow and the bones Exuenda est velociter de incendio sarcina priusquam flammis supervenientibus concremetur Nemo diu tutus est periculo proximus saith S. Cyprian No man is safe long that is so neer to danger for suddenly the change will come in which the Judge shall be called to Judgement and no man to plead for him unlesse a good conscience be his Advocate and the rich shall be naked as a condemned criminall to execution and there shall be no regard of Princes or of Nobles and the differences of mens account shall be forgotten and no distinction remaining but of good or bad sheep and goats blessed and accursed souls Among the wonders of the day of Judgement our blessed Saviour reckons it that men shall be marrying and giving in marriage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 marrying and crosse marrying that is raising families and lasting greatnesse and huge estates when the world is to end so quickly and the gains of a rich purchase so very a trifle but no trifling danger a thing that can give no security to our souls but much hazards and a great charge More reasonable it is that we despise the world and lay up for heaven that we heap up treasures by giving almes and make friends of unrighteous Mammon but at no hand to enter into a state of life that is all the way a hazard to the main interest and at the best an increase of the particular charge Every degree of riches every degree of greatnesse every ambitious imployment every great fortune every eminency above our brother is a charge to the accounts of the last day He that lives temperately and charitably whose imployment is religion whose affections are fear and love whose desires are after heaven and do not dwell below that man can long and pray for the hastning of the coming of the day of the Lord. He that does not really desire and long for that day either is in a very ill condition or does not understand that he is in a good * I will not be so severe in this meditation as to forbid any man to laugh that beleeves himself shall be called to so severe a Judgement yet S. Hierom said it Coram coelo terrâ rationem reddemus totius nostrae vitae tu rides Heaven and earth shall see all the follies and basenesse of thy life and doest thou laugh That we may but we have not reason to laugh loudly and frequently if we consider things wisely and as
keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace we cannot have the blessing of the Spirit in the returns of a holy prayer and all those assemblies which meet together against God or Gods Ordinances may pray and call and cry loudly and frequently and still they provoke God to anger and many times he will not have so much mercy for them as to deny them but le ts them prosper in their sin till it swels to intolerable and impardonable * But when good men pray with one heart and in a holy assembly that is holy in their desires lawfull in their authority though the persons be of different complexion then the prayer flies up to God like the hymns of a Quire of Angels for God that made body and soul to be one man and God and man to be one Christ and three persons are one God and his praises are sung to him by Quires and the persons are joyned in orders and the orders into hierarchies and all that God may be served by unions and communities loves that his Church should imitate the Concords of heaven and the unions of God and that every good man should promote the interests of his prayers by joyning in the communion of Saints in the unions of obedience and charity with the powers that God and the Lawes have ordained The sum is this If the man that makes the prayer be an unholy person his prayer is not the instrument of a blessing but a curse but when the sinner begins to repent truly then his desires begin to be holy But if they be holy and just and good yet they are without profit and effect if the prayer be made in schisme or an evill communion or if it be made without attention or if the man soon gives over or if the prayer be not zealous or if the man be angry There are very many waies for a good man to become unblessed and unthriving in his prayers and he cannot be secure unlesse he be in the state of grace and his spirit be quiet and his minde be attentive and his society be lawfull and his desires carnest and passionate and his devotions persevering lasting till his needs be served or exchanged for another blessing so that what Laelius apud Cicer. de senectute said concerning old age neque in summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus potest ne sapienti quidem nec insipienti etiam in summâ coptâ non gravis that a wise man could not bear old age if it were extremely poor and yet if it were very rich it were intolerable to a fool we may say concerning our prayers they are sins and unholy if a wicked man makes them and yet if they be made by a good man they are ineffective unlesse they be improved by their proper dispositions A good man cannot prevail in his prayers if his desires be cold and his affections trifling and his industry soon weary and his society criminall and if all these appendages of prayer be observed yet they will do no good to an evill man for his prayer that begins in sin shall end in sorrow SERMON VI. Part III. 3. NExt I am to inquire and consider what degrees and circumstances of piety are requir'd to make us fit to be intercessors for others and to pray for them with probable effect I say with probable effect for when the event principally depends upon that which is not within our own election such as are the lives and actions of others all that we can consider in this affair is whether wee be persons fit to pray in the behalf of others that hinder not but are persons within the limit and possibilities of the presentmercy When the Emperour Maximinus was smitten with the wrath of God and a sore disease for his cruell persecuting the Christian cause and putting so many thousand innocent and holy persons to death and he understood the voice of God and the accents of thunder and discerned that cruelty was the cause he revoked their decrees made against the Christians recall'd them from their caves and deserts their sanctuaries and retirements and enjoyned them to pray for the life and health of their Prince They did so and they who could command mountaines to remove and were obeyed they who could doe miracles they who with the key of prayer could open Gods four closets of the wombe and the grave of providence and rain could not obtain for their bloudy Emperour one drop of mercy but he must die miserable for over God would not be intreated for him and though he loved the prayer because he loved the Advocates yet Maximinus was not worthy to receive the blessing And it was threatned to the rebellious people of Israel and by them to all people that should sin grievously against the Lord God would break their staffe of bread and even the righteous should not be prevailing intercessors Though Noah Job or Daniel were there they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousnesse saith the Lord God and when Abraham prevailed very far with God in the behalf of Sodome and the five Cities of the Plain it had its period If there had been ten righteous in Sodom it should have been spared for their sakes but four onely were found and they onely delivered their own souls too but neither their righteousnesse nor Abrahams prayer prevailed any further and we have this case also mentioned in the New Testament If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall aske and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death At his prayer the sinner shall receive pardon God shall give him life for them to him that prays in their behalf that sin provided it be not a sin unto death For there is a sin unto death but I doe not say that he shall pray for it There his Commission expires and his power is confin'd For there are some sins of that state and greatnesse that God will not pardon S. Austin in his books de sermone Domini in monte affirms it concerning some one single sin of a perfect malice It was also the opinion of Origen and Athanasius and is followed by venerable Bede and whether the Apostle means a peculiar state of sin or some one single great crime which also supposes a precedent and a present state of criminall condition it is such a thing as will hinder our prayers from prevailing in their behalf we are therefore not encouraged to pray because they cannot receive the benefit of Christs intercession and therefore much lesse of our Advocation which onely can prevail by vertue and participation of his mediation For whomsoever Christ prays for them wee pray that is for all them that are within the covenant of repentance for all whose actions have not destroyed the very being of Religion who have not renounc'd their faith nor voluntarily quit their hopes nor openly opposed the Spirit of grace nor
Sacrament the effects and admirable issues of which we know not and perceive not we loâ—e because we desire not and choose to lose many great blessings rather then purchase them with the frequent commemoration of that sacrifice which was offered up for all the needs of Mankind and for obtaining all favours and graces to the Catholick Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God never refuses to hear a holy prayer and our prayers can never be so holy as when they are offered up in the union of Christs sacrifice For Christ by that sacrifice reconcil'd God and the world And because our needs continue therefore we are commanded to continue the memory and to represent to God that which was done to satisfie all our needs Then we receive Christ we are after a secret and mysterious but most reall and admirable manner made all one with Christ and if God giving us his Son could not but with him give us all things else how shall he refuse our persons when we are united to his person when our souls are joined to his soul our body nourished by his body and our souls sanctified by his bloud and cloth'd with his robes and marked with his character and sealed with his Spirit and renewed with holy vows and consign'd to all his glories and adopted to his inheritance when we represent his death and pray in vertue of his passion and imitate his intercession and doe that which God commands and offer him in our manner that which he essentially loves can it be that either any thing should be more prevalent or that God can possibly deny such addresses and such importunities Try it often and let all things else be answerable and you cannot have greater reason for your confidence Doe not all the Christians in the world that understand Religion desire to have the holy Sacrament when they die when they are to make their great appearance before God and to receive their great consignation to their eternall sentence good or bad And if then be their greatest needs that is their greatest advantage and instrument of acceptation Therefore if you have a great need to be serv'd or a great charity to serve and a great pity to minister and a dear friend in a sorrow take Christ along in thy prayers in all thy ways thou canst take him take him in affection and take him in a solemnity take him by obedience and receive him in the Sacrament and if thou then offerest up thy prayers and makest thy needs known if thou nor thy friend be not relieved if thy party be not prevalent and the war be not appeased or the plague be not cured or the enemy taken off there is something else in it but thy prayer is good and pleasing to God and dressed with circumstances of advantage and thy person is apt to be an intercessor and thou hast done all that thou canst the event must be left to God and the secret reasons of the deniall either thou shalt find in time or thou maist trust with God who certainly does it with the greatest wisdome and the greatest charity I have in this thing onely one caution to insert viz. That in our importunity and extraordinary offices for others we must nor make our accounts by multitude of words and long prayers but by the measures of the Spirit by the holynesse of the soul and the just nesse of the desire and the usefulnesse of the request and its order to Gods glory and its place in the order of providence and the sincerity of our heart and the charity of our wishes and the perseverance of our advocation There are some as Tertullian observes qui loquacitatem facundiam existimant at impudentiam constantiam deputant They are praters and they are impudent and they call that constancy and importunity concerning which the advice is easy Many words or few are extrinsecall to the nature and not at all considered in the effects of prayer but much desire and much holinesse are essentiall to its constitution but we must be very curious that our importunity do not degenerate into impudence and a rude boldnesse Capitolinus said of Antonius the Emperour and Philosopher sanè quamvis esset constans erat etiam verecundus he was modest even when he was most pertinacious in his desires So must wee though wee must not be ashamed to aske for whatsoever we need Rebus semper pudor absit in arctis and in this sense it is true that Stasimus in the Comedy said concerning Mear Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet Nam ibi de divinis humanis cernitur Men must not be bashfull so as to lose their meat for that is a necessity that cannot bee dispensed withall so it is in our prayers whatsoever our necessity calls to us for we must call to God for and he is not pleased with that rusticity or fond modesty of being ashamed to ask of God any thing that is honest and necessary yet our importunity hath also bounds of modesty but such as are to be expressed with other significations and he is rightly modest towards God who without confidence in himself but not without confidence in Gods mercy nor without great humility of person and reverence of addresse presents his prayers to God as earnestly as he can Provided alwayes that in the greatest of our desires and holy violence we submit to Gods will and desire him to choose for us Our modesty to God in prayers hath no other measures but these 1. Distrust of our selves 2. Confidence in God 3. Humility of person 4. Reverence of addresse and 5. Submission to Gods will These are all unlesse also you will adde that of Solomon Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter a thing before God for God is in heaven and thou upon earth therefore let thy words be few These things being observed let your importunity be as great as it can it is still the more likely to prevaile by how much it is the more earnest and signified and represented by the most offices extraordinary 3ly The last great advantage towards a prevailing intercession for others is that the person that prayes for his relatives be a person of an extraordinary dignity imployment or designation For God hath appointed some persons and callings of men to pray for others such are Fathers for their Children Bishops for their Dioceses Kings for their Subjects and the whole Order Ecclesiasticall for all the men and women in the Christian Church And it is well it is so for as things are now and have been too long how few are there that understand it to be their duty or part of their necessary imployment that some of their time and much of their prayers and an equall portion of their desires be spent upon the necessities of others All men doe not think it necessary and fewer practise it frequently and they but coldly without interest and deep resentment it
fall down before his footstool and are ministers of his anger and messengers of his mercy and night and day worship him with the profoundest adoration This is the same that is spoken of in the Text Let us serve God with reverence and godly fear all holy fear partakes of the nature of this which Divines call Angelicall and it is expressed in acts of adoration of vowes and holy prayers in hymnes and psalmes in the eucharist and reverentiall addresses and while it proceeds in the usuall measures of common duty it is but humane but as it arises to great degrees and to perfection it is Angelicall and Divine and then it appertains to mystick Theologie and therefore is to be considered in another place but for the present that which will regularly concern all our duty is this that when the fear of God is the instrument of our duty or Gods worship the greater it is it is so much the better It was an old proverbiall saying among the Romans Religentem esse oportet religiosum nefas Every excesse in the actions of religion is criminall they supposing that in the services of their gods there might be too much True it is there may be too much of their undecent expressions and in things indifferent the very multitude is too much and becomes an undecency and if it be in its own nature undecent or disproportionable to the end or the rules or the analogy of the Religion it will not stay for numbers to make it intolerable but in the direct actions of glorifying God in doing any thing of his Commandements or any thing which he commands or counsels or promises to reward there can never be excesse or superfluity and therefore in these cases do as much as you can take care that your expressions be prudent and safe consisting with thy other duties and for the passions or vertues themselves let them passe from beginning to great progresses from man to Angel from the imperfection of man to the perfections of the sons of God and when ever we go beyond the bounds of Nature and grow up with all the extention and in the very commensuration of a full grace we shall never go beyond the excellencies of God For ornament may be too much and turn to curiosity cleanlinesse may be changed into nicenesse and civill compliance may become flattery and mobility of tongue may rise into garrulity and fame and honour may be great unto envie and health it self if it be athletick may by its very excesse become dangerous but wisdome and duty and comelinesse and discipline a good minde and eloquence and the fear of God and doing honour to his holy Name can never exceed but if they swell to great proportions they passe through the measures of grace and are united to felicity in the comprehensions of God in the joyes of an eternall glory Sermon X. The Flesh and the Spirit Part I. Matt. 26. 41. latter part The Spirit indeed is willing but the Flesh is weake FRom the beginning of days Man hath been so crosse to the Divine commandements that in many cases there can be no reason given why a man should choose some ways or doe some actions but onely because they are forbidden When God bade the Isaaelites rise and goe up against the Canaanites and possesse the Land they would not stirre the men were Anakims and the Cities were impregnable and there was a Lyon in the way but presently after when God forbad them to goe they would and did goe though they died for it I shall not need to instance in particulars when the whole life of man is a perpetuall contradiction and the state of Disobedience is called the contradiction of Sinners even the man in the Gospell that had two sons they both crossed him even he that obeyed him and he that obeyed him not for the one said he would and did not the other said he would not and did and so doe we we promise faire and doe nothing and they that doe best are such as come out of darknesse into light such as said they would not and at last have better bethought themselves And who can guesse at any other reason why men should refuse to be temperate for he that refuses the commandement first does violence to the commandement and puts on a proeternaturall appetite he spoils his health and he spoils his understanding he brings to himself a world of diseases and a healthlesse constitution smart and sickly nights a loathing stomach and a staring eye a giddy brain and a swell'd belly gouts and dropsies catarrhes and oppilations If God should enjoyne man to suffer all this heaven and earth should have heard our complaints against unjust laws and impossible commandements for we complain already even when God commands us to drink so long as it is good for us this is one of his impossible laws it is impossible for us to know when we are dry or when we need drink for if we doe know I am sure it is possible enough not to lift up the wine to our heads And when our blessed Saviour hath commanded us to love our enemies we think we have so much reason against it that God will easily excuse our disobedience in this case and yet there are some enemies whom God hath commanded us not to love and those we dote on we cherish and feast them and as S. Paul in another case upon our uncomely parts we bestow more abundant comelinesse For whereas our body it self is a servant to our soule we make it the heir of all things and treat it here already as if it were in Majority and make that which at the best was but a weak friend to become a strong enemy and hence proceed the vices of the worst and the follies and imperfections of the best the spirit is either in slavery or in weaknesse and when the flesh is not strong to mischief it is weak to goodnesse and even to the Apostles our blessed Lord said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak The spirit that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inward man or the reasonable part of man especially as helped by the Spirit of Grace that is willing for it is the principle of all good actions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of working is from the spirit but the flesh is but a dull instrument and a broken arme in which there is a principle of life but it moves uneasily and the flesh is so weak that in Scripture to be in the flesh signifies a state of weaknesse and infirmity so the humiliation of Christ is expressed by being in the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God manifested in the flesh and what S. Peter calls put to death in the flesh St. Paul calls crucified through weaknesse and yee know that through the infirmity of the flesh I preached unto you said S. Paul but here flesh is not opposed to the spirit as a direct enemy but as a
that would confine them to reason and sober counsels that would make them labour that they may become pale and lean that they may become wise but because Riches is attended by pride and lust tyranny and oppression and hath in its hand all that it hath in its heart and Sin waits upon Wealth ready dress'd and fit for action therefore in some temptations they confesse how little their souls are they cannot stand that assault but because this passion is the daughter of Voluptuousnesse and very often is but a servant sin ministring to sensuall pleasures the great weaknesse of the flesh is more seen in the matter of carnall crimes Lust and Drunkennesse Nemo enim se adsuefacit ad vitandum ex animo evellendum ea quae molesta ei non sunt Men are so in love with pleasure that they cannot think of mortifying or crucifying their lust we doe violence to what we hate not to what we love But the weaknesse of the flesh and the empire of lust is visible in nothing so much as in the captivity and folly of wise men For you shall see some men fit to governe a Province sober in their counsells wise in the conduct of their affaires men of discourse and reason fit to sit with Princes or to treat concerning peace and warre the fate of Empires and the changes of the world yet these men shall fall at the beauty of a woman as a man dies at the blow of an Angell or gives up his breath at the sentence and decree of God Was not Solomon glorious in all things but when he bowed to Pharaoh's daughter and then to Devils and is it not published by the sentence and observation of all the world that the bravest men have been softned into effeminacy by the lisping charms and childish noyses of Women and imperfect persons A faire slave bowed the neck of stout Polydamas which was stiffe and inflexible to the contentions of an enemy and suppose a man set like the brave boy of the King of Nicomedia in the midst of temptation by a witty beauty tyed upon a bed with silk and pretty violences courted with musick and perfumes with promises and easie postures invited by opportunity and importunity by rewards and impunity by privacy and a guard what would his nature doe in this throng of evils and vile circumstances The grace of God secur'd the young Gentleman and the Spirit rode in triumph but what can flesh do in such a day of danger Is it not necessary that we take in auxiliaries from Reason and Religion from heaven and earth from observation and experience from hope and fear and cease to be what we are lest we become what we ought not It is certain that in the cases of temptations to voluptuousnesse a man is naturally as the Prophet said of Ephraim like a Pigeon that hath no heart no courage no conduct no resolution no discourse but falls as the water of Nilus when it comes to its cataracts it falls infinitely and without restraint And if we consider how many drunken meetings the Sunne sees every day how many Markets and Faires and Clubs that is so many solemnities of drunkennesse are at this instant under the eye of heaven that many Nations are marked for intemperance and that it is lesse noted because it is so popular and universall and that even in the midst of the glories of Christianity there are so many persons drunk or too full with meat or greedy of lust even now that the Spirit of God is given to us to make us sober and temperate and chaste we may well imagine since all men have flesh and all men have not the spirit the flesh is the parent of sin and death and it can be nothing else And it is no otherwise when we are tempted with pain We are so impatient of pain that nothing can reconcile us to it not the laws of God not the necessities of nature not the society of all our kindred and of all the world not the interest of vertue not the hopes of heaven we will submit to pain upon no terms but the basest and most dishonorable for if sin bring us to pain or affront or sicknesse we choose that so it be in the retinue of a lust and a base desire but we accuse Nature and blaspheme God we murmur and are impatient when pain is sent to us from him that ought to send it and intends it as a mercy when it comes But in the matter of afflictions and bodily sicknesse we are so weak and broken so uneasie and unapt to sufferance that this alone is beyond the cure of the old Philosophy Many can endure poverty and many can retire from shame and laugh at home and very many can endure to be slaves but when pain and sharpnesse are to be endured for the interests of vertue we finde but few Martyrs and they that are suffer more within themselves by their fears and their temptations by their uncertain purposes and violences to Nature then by the Hang-mans sword the Martyrdome is within and then he hath won his Crown not when he hath suffered the blow but when he hath overcome his fears and made his spirit conqueror It was a sad instance of our infirmity when of the 40 Martyrs of Cappadocia set in a freezing lake almost consummate and an Angell was reaching the Crowne and placing it upon their brows the flesh fail'd one of them and drew the spirit after it and the man was called off from his Scene of noble contention and dyed in warm water Odi artus fragilémque hunc corporis usum Desertorem animi We carry about us the body of death and we bring evils upon our selves by our follies and then know not how to bear them and the flesh forsakes the spirit And indeed in sicknesse the infirmity is so very great that God in a manner at that time hath reduced all Religion into one vertue Patience with its appendages is the summe totall of almost all our duty that is proper to the days of sorrow and we shall find it enough to entertain all our powers and to imploy all our aids the counsels of wise men and the comforts of our friends the advices of Scripture and the results of experience the graces of God and the strength of our own resolutions are all then full of imployments and find it work enough to secure that one grace For then it is that a cloud is wrapped about our heads and our reason stoops under sorrow the soul is sad and its instrument is out of tune the auxiliaries are disorder'd and every thought sits heavily then a comfort cannot make the body feel it and the soule is not so abstracted to rejoyce much without its partner so that the proper joyes of the soul such as are hope and wise discourses and satisfactions of reason and the offices of Religion are felt just as we now perceive the joyes of heaven
is full of wine cannot be full of the spirit of God St. Paul noteth the hostility Be not drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit a man that is a drunkard does perire cito he perishes quickly his temptations that come to him make but short work with him a drunkard is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our English well expresses it it is a sottishnesse and the man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an uselesse senselesse person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all the evils of the world nothing is worse to a mans self nothing is more harmfull then this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Crobylus it deprives a wise man of his counsell and his understanding now because it is the greatest good that nature hath that which takes it away must needs be our greatest enemy Nature is weak enough of it self but drunkennesse takes from it all the little strengths that are left to it and destroyes the spirit and the man can neither have the strengths of nature nor the strengths of grace and how then can the man do wisely or vertuously Spiritus sanctus amat sicca corda the Spirit of Godloves dry hearts said the Christian Proverb and Josephus said of Samson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it appears he was a Prophet or a man full of the Spirit by the temperance of his diet and now that all the people are holy unto the Lord they must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plutarch said of their consecrated persons they must have dry and sober purities for by this means their reason is usefull and their passions not violent and their discourse united and the precious things of their memory at hand and they can pray and read and they can meditate and practise and then they can learn where their naturall weaknesses are most urgent and how they can be tempted and can secure their aides accordingly but how is it possible that such a man should cure all the evils of his Nature and repair the breaches of Adams sin and stop all the effect which is upon him from all the evils of the world if he delights in seas of drink and is pleased with the follies of distemper'd persons and laughs loud at the childish humours and weak discourses of the man that can do nothing but that for which Dionysius slew Antiphon and Timagenes did fall from Caesars friendship that is play the fool and abuse his friend He cannot give good counsell or spend an hour in wise sayings but half a day they can talk ut foret unde corona cachinnum tollere possit to make the crowd laugh and consider not And the same is the case of lust because it is exactly contrary to Christ the King of Virgins and his holy Spirit who is the Prince of purities and holy thoughts it is a captivity of the reason and an inraging of the passions it wakens every night and rages every day it desires passionately and prosecutes violently it hinders businesse and distracts counsell it brings jealousies and enkindles wars it sins against the body and weakens the soul it defiles a Temple and drives the holy Spirit forth and it is so intire a prosecution of the follies and weaknesses of nature such a snare and a bait to weak and easie fools that it prevails infinitely and rages horribly and rules tyrannically it is a very feaver in the reason and a calenture in the passions and therefore either it must be quenched or it will be impossible to cure our evill natures The curing of this is not the remedy of a single evill but it is a doing violence to our whole nature and therefore hath in it the greatest courage and an equall conduct and supposes spirituall strengths great enough to contest against every enemy 4. Hither is to be reduced that we avoid all flatterers and evill company for it was impossible that Alexander should be wise and cure his pride and his drunkennesse so long as he entertain'd Agesius and Agnon Bagoas and Demetrius and slew Parmenio and Philotas and murder'd wise Calisthenes for he that loves to be flattered loves not to change his pleasure but had rather to hear himself cal'd wise then to be so Flattery does bribe an evill nature and corrupt a good one and make it love to give wrong judgement and evill sentences he that loves to be flatter'd can never want some to abuse him but he shall alwaies want one to counsell him and then he can never be wise 5. But I must put these advices into a heap he therefore that will cure his evill nature must set himself against his chiefest lust which when he hath overcome the lesser enemies will come in of themselves He must endevour to reduce his affections to an indifferency for all violence is an enemy to reason and counsell and is that state of disease for which he is to enquire remedies 8. It is necessary that in all actions of choice he deliberate and consider that he may never do that for which he must aske a pardon and he must suffer shame and smart and therefore Cato did well reprove Aulus Albinus for writing the Roman story in the Greek tongue of which he had but imperfect knowledge and himself was put to make his Apologie for so doing Cato told him that he was mightily in love with a fault that he had rather beg a pardon then be innocent Who forc'd him to need the pardon And when beforehand we know we must change from what we are or do worse it is a better compendium not to enter in from whence we must uneasily retire 9. In all the contingencies of chance and variety of action remember that thou art the maker of thy own fortune and of thy own sin charge not God with it either before or after The violence of thy own passion is no superinduced necessity from him and the events of providence in all its strange variety can give no authority or patronage to a foul forbidden action though the next chance of war or fortune be prosperous and rich An Egyptian robber sleeping under a rotten wall was awaken'd by Serapis and sent away from the ruine but being quit from the danger and seeing the wall to slide thought that the Daemon lov'd his crime because he had so strangely preserved him from a sudden and a violent death But Serapis told him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I saved you from the wall to reserve you for the wheel from a short and a private death to a painfull and disgracefull and so it is very frequently in the event of humane affairs men are saved from one death and reserved for another or are preserved here to be destroyed hereafter and they that would judge of actions by events must stay till all events are passed that is till all their posterity be dead and the sentence is given at Dooms-day in the mean time the evils of our nature are to be look'd upon without all accidentall appendages as
they are in themselves as they have an irregularity and disorder an unreasonablenesse and a sting and be sure to relye upon nothing but the truth of lawes and promises and take severe accounts by those lines which God gave us on purpose to reprove our evill habits and filthy inclinations Men that are not willing to be cured are glad of any thing to cousen them but the body of death cannot be taken off from us unlesse we be honest in our purposes and severe in our counsels and take just measures and glorifie God and set our selves against our selves that we may be changed into the likenesse of the sons of God 9. Avoid all delay in the counsels of Religion Because the aversation and perversnesse of a childes nature may be corrected easily but every day of indulgence and excuse increases the evill and makes it still more naturall and still more necessary 10. Learn to despise the world or which is a better compendium in the duty learn but truly to understand it for it is a cousenage all the way the head of it is a rainbow and the face of it is flattery its words are charmes and all its stories are false its body is a shadow and its hands to knit spiders webs it is an image and a noise with a Hyaena's lip and a Serpents tail it was given to serve the needs of our nature and in stead of doing it it creates strange appetites and nourishes thirsts and feavers it brings care and debauches our nature and brings shame and death as the reward of all our cares Our nature is a disease and the world does nourish it but if you leave to feed upon such unwholesome diet your nature reverts to its first purities and to the entertainments of the grace of God 4. I am now to consider how farre the infirmities of the flesh can be innocent and consist with the spirit of grace For all these counsels are to be entertain'd into a willing spirit and not only so but into an active and so long as the spirit is only willing the weaknesse of the flesh will in many instances become stronger then the strengths of the spirit For he that hath a good will and does not do good actions which are required of him is hindred but not by God that requires them and therefore by himself or his worst enemy But the measures of this question are these 1. If the flesh hinders us of our duty it is our enemy and then our misery is not that the flesh is weak but that it is too strong But 2. when it abates the degrees of duty and stops its growth or its passing on to action and effect then it is weak but not directly nor alwaies criminall But to speak particularly If our flesh hinders us of any thing that is a direct duty and prevails upon the spirit to make it do an evill action or contract an evill habit the man is in a state of bondage and sin his flesh is the mother of corruption and an enemy to God It is not enough to say I desire to serve God and cannot as I would I would fain love God above all the things in the world but the flesh hath appetites of its own that must be served I pray to be forgiven as I forgive others but flesh and bloud cannot put up such an injury for know that no infirmity no unavoidable accident no necessity no poverty no businesse can hinder us from the love of God or forgiving injuries or being of a religious and a devout spirit Poverty and the intrigues of the world are things that can no more hinder the spirit in these duties then a strong enemy can hinder the sun to shine or the clouds to drop rain These things which God requires of us and exacts from us with mighty penalties these he hath made us able to perform for he knows that we have no strength but what he gives us and therefore as he binds burdens upon our shoulders so he gives us strength to bear them and therefore he that sayes he cannot forgive sayes only that his lust is stronger then his religion his flesh prevails upon his spirit For what necessity can a man have to curse him whom he cals enemy or to sue him or kill him or do him any spite A man may serve all his needs of nature though he does nothing of all this and if he be willing what hinders him to love to pardon to wish well to desire The willing is the doing in this case and he that sayes he is willing to do his duty but he cannot does not understand what he sayes For all the duty of the inner man consists in the actions of the will and there they are seated and to it all the inferiour faculties obey in those things which are direct emanations and effects of will He that desires to love God does love him indeed men are often cousened with pretences and in some good mood are warm'd with a holy passion but it signifies nothing because they will not quit the love of Gods enemies and therefore they do not desire what they say they doe but if the will and heart be right and not false and dissembling this duty is or will be done infallibly 2. If the spirit and the heart be willing it will passe on to outward actions in all things where it ought or can He that hath a charitable soul will have a charitable hand and will give his money to the poor as he hath given his heart to God For these things which are in our hand are under the power of our will and therefore are to be commanded by it He that sayes to the naked be warm and cloathed and gives him not the garment that lies by him or money to buy one mocks God and the poor and himself Nequam illud verbâ—m est bene vult nisi qui bene facit said the Comedy It is an evill saying he wishes well unlesse he do well 3. Those things which are not in our power that is such things in which the flesh is inculpably weak or naturally or politically disabled the will does the work of the outward and of the inward man we cannot cloath Christs body he needs it not and we cannot approach so sacred and separate a presence but if we desire to do it it is accounted as if we had The ignorant man cannot discourse wisely and promote the interest of souls but he can love souls and desire their felicity though I cannot build Hospitals and Colledges or pour great summes of money into the lap of the poor yet if I incourage others and exhort them if I commend and promote the work I have done the work of a holy Religion For in these and the like cases the outward work is not alwaies set in our power and therefore without our fault is omitted and can be supplyed by that which is in our power 4. For that is the
rested in the outward action that they thought themselves chast if they were no adulterers though their eyes were wanton as Kids and their thoughts polluted as the springs of the wildernesse when a Panther and a Lionesse descend to drink and lust and if they did not rob the Temple they accounted it no sin if they murmur'd at the riches of Religion and Josephus reproves Polybius for saying that Antiochus was punished for having a design of sacriledge and therefore Tertullian sayes of them they were nec plenae nec adeò timendae disciplinae ad innocentiae veritatem this was their righteousnesse which Christ said unlesse we will exceed we shall not enter into the Kingdome of heaven where all spirituall perfections are in state and excellency 2. The other part of a spirituall worship is a fervour and a holy zeal of Gods glory greatnesse of desire and quicknesse of action of all this the Jewes were not carefull at all excepting the zealots amongst them and they were not only fervent but inflamed and they had the earnestnesse of passion for the holy warmth of Religion and in stead of an earnest charity they had a cruell discipline and for fraternall correction they did destroy a sinning Israelite and by both these evill states of Religion they did the work of the Lord deceitfully they either gave him the action without the heart or zeal without charity or religion without zeal or ceremony without religion or indifferency without desires and then God is served by the outward man and not the inward or by part of the inward and not all by the understanding and not by the will or by the will when the affections are cold and the body unapt and the lower faculties in rebellion and the superior in disorder and the work of God is left imperfect and our persons ungracious and our ends unacquired and the state of a spirituall kingdome not at all set forward towards any hope or possibility of being obtained All this Christ came to mend and by his Lawes did make provision that God should be served intirely according as God alwaies designed and accordingly required by his Prophets and particularly in my Text that his work be done sincerely and our duty with great affection and by these two provisions both the intension and the extension are secured our duty shall be intire and it shall be perfect we shall be neither lame nor cold without a limb nor without naturall heat and then the work of the Lord will prosper in our hands but if we fail in either we do the Lords work deceitfully and then we are accursed For so saith the Spirit of God Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully 1. Here then is the duty of us all 1. God requires of us to serve him with an integrall intire or a whole worship and religion 2. God requires of us to serve him with earnest and intense affections The intire purpose of both which I shall represent in its severall parts by so many propositions 3. I shall consider concerning the measures of zeal and its inordinations 1. He that serves God with the body without the soul serves God deceitfully My son give me thy heart and though I cannot think that Nature was so sacramentall as to point out the holy and mysterious Trinity by the triangle of the heart yet it is certain that the heart of man is Gods speciall portion and every angle ought to point out towards him directly that is the soul of man ought to be presented to God and given to him as an oblation to the interest of his service 1. For to worship God with our souls confesses one of his glorious attributes it declares him to be the searcher of hearts and that he reads the secret purposes and beholds the smallest arrests of fancy and bends in all the flexures and intriques of crafty people and searches out every plot and trifling conspiracy against him and against our selves and against our brethren 2. It advances the powers and concernments of his providence and confesses all the affairs of men all their cabinets and their nightly counsels their snares and two-edged mischiefs to be over-rul'd by him for what he sees he judges and what he judges he rules and what he rules must turn to his glory and of this glory he reflects rayes and influences upon his servants and it shall also turn to their good 3. This service distinguishes our duty towards God from all our conversation with man and separates the divine commandements from the imperfect decrees of Princes and Republiques for these are satisfied by the outward work and cannot take any other cognisance of the heart and the will of man but as himself is pleased to signifie He that wishes the fiscus empty and that all the revenues of the Crown were in his counting-house cannot be punished by the Lawes unlesse himself become his own traytor and accuser and therefore what man cannot discern he must not judge and must not require but God sees it and judges it and requires it and therefore reserves this as his own portion and the chiefest feudall right of his Crown 4. He that secures the heart secures all the rest because this is the principle of all the moral actions of the whole man the hand obeys this and the feet walk by its prescriptions we eat and drink by measures which the soul desires and limits and though the naturall actions of man are not subject to choice rule yet the animal actions are under discipline and although it cannot be helped but we shall desire yet our desires can receive measures and the lawes of circumstances and be reduced to order and nature be changed into grace and the actions animall such as are eating drinking laughing weeping c. shall become actions of Religion and those that are simply naturall such as being hungry and thirsty shall be adopted into the retinue of religion and become religious by being order'd or chastis'd or suffered or directed and therefore God requires the heart because he requires all and all cannot be secured without the principle be inclosed But he that seals up a fountain may drink up all the waters alone and may best appoint the channels where it shall run and what grounds it shall refresh 5. That I may summe up many reasons in one God by requiring the heart secures the perpetuity and perseverance of our duty and its sincerity and its integrity and its perfection for so also God takes account of little things it being all one in the heart of man whether maliciously it omits a duty in a small instance or in a great for although the expression hath variety and degrees in it in relation to those purposes of usefulnesse and charity whither God designs it yet the obedience and disobedience is all one and shall be equally accounted for and therefore the Jew Tryphon disputed against Justin that
the precepts of the Gospell were impossible to be kept because it also requiring the heart of man did stop every egression of disorders for making the root holy and healthfull as the Balsame of Judaea or the drops of Manna in the evening of the sabbath it also causes that nothing spring thence but gummes fit for incense and oblations for the Altar of proposition and a cloud of perfume fit to make atonement for our sins and being united to the great sacrifice of the world to reconcile God and man together Upon these reasons you see it is highly fit that God should require it and that we should pay the sacrifice of our hearts and not at all think that God is satisfied with the work of the hands when the affections of the heart are absent He that prayes because he would be quiet and would fain be quit of it and communicates for fear of the lawes and comes to Church to avoid shame and gives almes to be eased of an importunate begger or relieves his old parents because they will not dye in their time and provides for his children lest he be compled by Lawes and shame but yet complains of the charge of Gods blessings this man is a servant of the eyes of men and offers parchment or a white skin in sacrifice but the flesh and the inwards he leaves to be consumed by a stranger fire And therefore this is a deceit that robs God of the best and leaves that for religion which men pare off It is sacriledge and brings a double curse 2. He that serves God with the soule without the body when both can be conjoyned doth the work of the Lord deceitfully Paphnutius whose knees were cut for the testimony of Jesus was not obliged to worship with the humble flexures of the bending penitents and blinde Bartimeus could not read the holy lines of the Law and therefore that part of the work was not his duty and God shall not call Lazarus to account for not giving almes nor St. Peter and St. John for not giving silver and gold to the lame man nor Epaphroditus for not keeping his fasting dayes when he had his sicknesse But when God hath made the body an apt minister to the soul and hath given money for almes and power to protect the oppressed and knees to serve in prayer and hands to serve our needs then the soul alone is not to work but as Rachel gave her maid to Jacob and she bore children to her Lord upon her Ministresse knees and the children were reckoned to them both because the one had fruitfull desires and the other a fruitfull wombe so must the body serve the needs of the spirit that what the one desires the other may effect and the conceptions of the soul may be the productions of the body and the body must bow when the soul worships and the hand must help when the soul pities and both together do the work of a holy Religion the body alone can never serve God without the conjunction and preceding act of the soul and sometimes the soul without the body is imperfect and vain for in some actions there is a body and a spirit a materiall and a spirituall part and when the action hath the same constitution that a man hath without the act of both it is as imperfect as a dead man the soul cannot produce the body of some actions any more then the body can put life into it and therefore an ineffective pity and a lazie counsell an empty blessing and gay words are but deceitfull charity Quod peto da Caï non peto consilium He that gave his friend counsell to study the Law when he desired to borrow 20 l. was not so friendly in this counsell as he was uselesse in his charity spirituall acts can cure a spirituall malady but if my body needs relief because you cannot feed me with Diagrams or cloath me with Euclids elements you must minister a reall supply by a corporall charity to my corporall necessity This proposition is not only usefull in the doctrine of charity and the vertue of religion but in the professions of faith and requires that it be publick open and ingenuous In matters of necessary duty it is not sufficient to have it to our selves but we must also have it to God and all the world and as in the heart we beleeve so by the mouth we confesse unto salvation he is an ill man that is only a Christian in his heart and is not so in his professions and publications and as your heart must not be wanting in any good profession and pretences so neither must publick profession be wanting in every good and necessary perswasion The faith and the cause of God must be owned publiquely for if it be the cause of God it will never bring us to shame I do not say what ever we think we must tell it to all the world much lesse at all times and in all circumstances but we must never deny that which we beleeve to be the cause of God in such circumstances in which we can and ought to glorifie him But this extends also to other instances He that swears a false oath with his lips and unswears it with his heart hath deceived one more then he thinks for himself is the most abused person and when my action is contrary to men they will reprove me but when it is against my own perswasion I cannot but reprove my self and am witnesse and accuser and party and guilty and then God is the Judge and his anger will be a fierce executioner because we do the Lords work deceitfully 3. They are deceitfull in the Lords work that reserve one faculty for sin or one sin for themselves or one action to please their appetite and many for Religion Rabbi Kimchi taught his Scholars Cogitationem pravam Deus non habet vice facti nisi concepta fuerit in Dei fidem Religionem that God is never angry with an evill thought unlesse it be a thought of Apostasie from the Jewes religion and therefore provided that men be severe and close in their sect and party they might roll in lustfull thoughts and the torches they light up in the Temple might smoke with anger at one end and lust at the other so they did not flame out in egressions of violence and injustice in adulteries and fouler complications nay they would give leave to some degrees of evill actions for R. Moses and Selomoh taught that if the most part of a mans actions were holy and just though in one he sinned often yet the greater ingredient should prevail and the number of good works should outweigh the lesser account of evill things and this Pharisaicall righteousnesse is too frequent even amongst Christians For who almost is there that does not count fairly concerning himself if he reckons many vertues upon the stock of his Religion and but one vice upon the stock of his infirmity
reputation against piety the love of the world in civill instances to countenance enmity against God these are the deceitfull workers of Gods work they make a schisme in the duties of Religion and a warre in heaven worse then that between Michael and the Dragon for they divide the Spirit of God and distinguish his commandements into parties and factions by seeking an excuse sometimes they destroy the integrity and perfect constitution of duty or they do something whereby the effect and usefulnesse of the duty is hindred concerning all which this only can be said they who serve God with a lame sacrifice and an imperfect duty a duty defective in its constituent parts can never enjoy God because he can never be divided and though it be better to enter into heaven with one foot and one eye then that both should be cast into hell because heaven can make recompence for this losse yet nothing can repair his losse who for being lame in his duty shall enter into hell where nothing is perfect but the measures and duration of torment and they both are next to infinite SERMON XIII Part II. 2. THe next enquiry is into the intention of our duty and here it will not be amisse to change the word fraudulentèr or dolosè into that which some of the Latin Copies doe use Maledictus qui facit opus Dei negligentèr Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently or remissely and it implyes that as our duty must be whole so it must be fervent for a languishing body may have all its parts and yet be uselesse to many purposes of nature and you may reckon all the joynts of a dead man but the heart is cold and the joynts are stiffe and fit for nothing but for the little people that creep in graves and so are very many men if you summe up the accounts of their religion they can reckon dayes and months of Religion various offices charity and prayers reading and meditation faith and knowledge catechisme and sacraments duty to God and duty to Princes paying debts and provision for children confessions and tears discipline in families and love of good people and it may be you shall not reprove their numbers or find any lines unfill'd in their tables of accounts but when you have handled all this and consider'd you will find at last you have taken a dead man by the hand there is not a finger wanting but they are stiffe as Isicles and without flexure as the legs of Elephants such are they whom S. Bernard describes whose spirituall joy is allayed with tediousnesse whose compunction for sins is short and seldome whose thoughts are animall and their designes secular whose Religion is lukewarm their obedience is without devotion their discourse without profit their prayer without intention of heart their reading without instruction their meditation is without spirituall advantages and is not the commencement and strengthning of holy purposes and they are such whom modesty will not restrain nor reason bridle nor discipline correct nor the fear of death and hell can keep from yeelding to the imperiousnesse of a foolish lust that dishonors a mans understanding and makes his reason in which he most glories to be weaker then the discourse of a girle and the dreams of the night In every action of Religion God expects such a warmth and a holy fire to goe along that it may be able to enkindle the wood upon the altar and consume the sacrifice but God hates an indifferent spirit Earnestnesse and vivacity quicknesse and delight perfect choyce of the service and a delight in the prosecution is all that the spirit of a man can yeeld towards his Religion the outward work is the effect of the body but if a man does it heartily and with all his mind then religion hath wings and moves upon wheels of fire and therefore when our blessed Saviour made those capitulars and canons of Religion to love God and to love our neighbors besides that the materiall part of the duty love is founded in the spirit as its naturall seat he also gives three words to involve the spirit in the action and but one for the body Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soule and with all thy mind and lastly with all thy strength this brings in the body too because it hath some strengths and some significations of its own but heart and soule and mind mean all the same thing in a stronger and more earnest expression that is that we doe it hugely as much as we can with a cleer choice with a resolute understanding with strong affections with great diligence Enerves animos odisse virtus solet Vertue haâ—es weak and ineffective minds and tame easie prosecutions Loripedes people whose arme is all flesh whose foot is all leather and an unsupporting skin they creep like snakes and pursue the noblest mysteries of Religion as Naaman did the mysteries of Rimmon onely in a complement or for secular regards but without the mind and therefore without Zeal I would thou wert either hot or cold said the Spirit of God to the Angell or Bishop of Laodicea In feasts or sacrifices the Ancients did use apponere frigidam or calidam sometimes they drank hot drink sometimes they poured cold upon their graves or in their wines but no services of Tables or Altars were ever with lukewarm God hates it worse then stark cold which expression is the more considerable because in naturall and superinduc'd progressions from extreme to extreme we must necessarily passe through the midst and therefore it is certain a lukewarm Religion is better then none at all as being the doing some parts of the work designed and neerer to perfection then the utmost distance could be and yet that God hates it more must mean that there is some appendant evill in this state which is not in the other and that accidentally it is much worse and so it is if we rightly understand it that is if we consider it not as a being in or passing through the middle way but as a state and a period of Religion If it be in motion a lukewarm Religion is pleasing to God for God hates it not for its imperfection and its naturall measures of proceeding but if it stands still and rests there it is a state against the designes and against the perfection of God and it hath in it these evills 1. It is a state of the greatest imprudence in the world for it makes a man to spend his labour for that which profits not and to deny his appetite for an unsatisfying interest he puts his moneys in a napkin and he that does so puts them into a broken bag he loses the principall for not encreasing the interest He that dwells in a state of life that is unacceptable loses the money of his almes and the rewards of his charity his hours of prayer and his parts of justice
passion in Religion destroys as much of our evennesse of spirit as it sets forward any outward work and therefore although it be a good circumstance and degree of a spirituall duty so long as it is within and relative to God and our selves so long it is a holy flame but if it be in an outward duty or relative to our neighbours or in an instance not necessary it sometimes spoils the action and alwaies endangers it But I must remember we live in an age in which men have more need of new fires to be kindled within them and round about them then of any thing to allay their forwardnesse there is little or no zeal now but the zeal of envie and killing as many as they can and damning more then they can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smoke and lurking fires do corrode and secretly consume therefore this discourse is lesse necessary A Physitian would have but small imployment near the Riphaean Mountains if he could cure nothing but Calentures Catarrhes and dead palfies Colds and Consumptions are their evils and so is lukewarmnesse and deadnesse of spirit the proper maladies of our age for though some are hot when they are mistaken yet men are cold in a righteous cause and the nature of this evill is to be insensible and the men are farther from a cure because they neither feel their evill nor perceive their danger But of this I have already given account and to it I shall only adde what an old spirituall person told a novice in religion asking him the cause why he so frequently suffered tediousnesse in his religious offices Nondum vidisti requiem quam speramus nec tormenta quae timemus young man thou hast not seen the glories which are laid up for the zealous and devout nor yet beheld the flames which are prepared for the lukewarm and the haters of strict devotion But the Jewes tell that Adam having seen the beauties and tasted the delicacies of Paradise repented and mourned upon the Indian Mountains for three hundred years together and we who have a great share in the cause of his sorrowes can by nothing be invited to a persevering a great a passionate religion more then by remembring what he lost and what is laid up for them whose hearts are burning lamps and are all on fire with Divine love whose flames are fann'd with the wings of the holy Dove and whose spirits shine and burn with that fire which the holy Jesus came to enkindle upon the earth Sermon XV. The House of Feasting OR THE EPICVRES MEASVRES Part I. 1 Cor. 15. 32. last part Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye THis is the Epicures Proverb begun upon a weak mistake started by chance from the discourses of drink and thought witty by the undiscerning company and prevail'd infinitely because it struck their fancy luckily and maintained the merry meeting but as it happens commonly to such discourses so this also when it comes to be examined by the consultations of the morning and the sober hours of the day it seems the most witlesse and the most unreasonable in the world When Seneca describes the spare diet of Epicurus and Metrodorus he uses this expression Liberaliora sunt alimenta carceris sepositos ad capitale supplicium non tam angustè qui occisurus est pascit The prison keeps a better table and he that is to kill the criminall to morrow morning gives him a better supper over night By this he intended to represent his meal to be very short for as dying persons have but little stomach to feast high so they that mean to cut the throat will think it a vain expence to please it with delicacies which after the first alteration must be poured upon the ground and looked upon as the worst part of the accursed thing And there is also the same proportion of unreasonablenesse that because men shall die to morrow and by the sentence and unalterable decree of God they are now descending to their graves that therefore they should first destroy their reason and then force dull time to run faster that they may dye sottish as beasts and speedily as a flie But they thought there was no life after this or if there were it was without pleasure and every soul thrust into a hole and a dorter of a spans length allowed for his rest and for his walk and in the shades below no numbring of healths by the numerall letters of Philenium's name no fat Mullets no Oysters of Luerinus no Lesbian or Chian Wines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore now enjoy the delicacies of Nature and feel the descending wines distilled through the limbecks of thy tongue and larynx and suck the delicious juice of fishes the marrow of the laborious Oxe and the tender lard of Apultan Swine and the condited bellies of the scarus but lose no time for the Sun drives hard and the shadow is long and the dayes of mourning are at hand but the number of the dayes of darknesse and the grave cannot be told Thus they thought they discoursed wisely and their wisdome was turned into folly for all their arts of providence and witty securities of pleasure were nothing but unmanly prologues to death fear and folly sensuality and beastly pleasures But they are to be excused rather then we They placed themselves in the order of beasts and birds and esteemed their bodies nothing but receptacles of flesh and wine larders and pantries and their soul the fine instrument of pleasure and brisk perception of relishes and gusts reflexions and duplications of delight and therefore they treated themselves accordingly But then why we should do the same things who are led by other principles and a more severe institution and better notices of immortality who understand what shall happen to a soul hereafter and know that this time is but a passage to eternity this body but a servant to the soul this soul a minister to the Spirit and the whole man in order to God and to felicity this I say is more unreasonable then to eat aconite to preserve our health and to enter into the floud that we may die a dry death this is a perfect contradiction to the state of good things whither we are designed and to all the principles of a wise Philophy whereby we are instructed that we may become wise unto salvation That I may therefore do some assistances towards the curing the miseries of mankinde and reprove the follies and improper motions towards felicity I shall endevour to represent to you 1. That plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of felicity 2. That intemperance is a certain enemy to it making life unpleasant and death troublesome and intolerable 3. I shall adde the rules and measures of temperance in eating and drinking that nature and grace may joyne to the constitution of mans felicity 1. Plenty and the pleasures of the world are
renders They that are drunk are drunk in the night but the Priests of Heliopolis never did sacrifice to the Sun with wine meaning that this is so great a dishonor that the Sun ought not to see it and they that think there is no other eye but the Sun that sees them may cover their shame by choosing their time just as children doe their danger by winking hard and not looking on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To drink sweet drinks and hot to quaffe great draughts and to eat greedily Theophrastus makes them characters of a Clown And now that I have told you the foulnesse of the Epicures feasts and principles it will be fit that I describe the measures of our eating and drinking that the needs of nature may neither become the cover to an intemperate dish nor the freer refreshment of our persons be changed into scruples that neither our vertue nor our conscience fall into an evill snare 1. The first measure of our eating and drinking is our natural needs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these are the measures of nature that the body be free from pain and the soul from violence Hunger and thirst and cold are the naturall diseases of the body and food and rayment are their remedies and therefore are the measures In quantum sitis atque fames frigora poscunt Quantum Epicure tibi parvis suffecit in hortis But in this there are two cautions 1. Hunger and thirst are onely to be extinguished while they are violent and troublesome and are not to be provided for to the utmost extent and possibilities of nature a man is not hungry so long till he can eat no more but till its sharpnesse and trouble is over and he that does not leave some reserves for temperance gives all that he can to nature and nothing at all to grace For God hath given a latitude in desires and degrees of appetite and when he hath done he laid restraint upon it in some whole instances and of some parts in every instance that man might have something to serve God of his own and something to distinguish him from a beast in the use of their common faculties Beasts cannot refrain but fill all the capacity when they can and if a man does so he does what becomes a beast and not a man And therefore there are some little symptomes of this inordination by which a man may perceive himself to have transgressed his measures Ructation uneasie loads singing looser pratings importune drowsinesse provocation of others to equall and full chalices and though in every accident of this signification it is hard for another to pronounce that the man hath sinned yet by these he may suspect himself and learn the next time to hold the bridle harder 2. This hunger must be naturall not artificiall and provoked For many men make necessities to themselves and then think they are bound to provide for them It is necessary to some men to have garments made of the Calabrian fleece stain'd with the blood of the murex and to get money to buy pearls round and orient scelerata hoc fecit pulpa but it is the mans luxury that made it so and by the same principle it is that in-meats what is abundant to nature is defective and beggerly to art and when nature willingly rises from Table when the first course of flesh plain and naturall is done then art and sophistry and adulterate dishes invite him to taste and die 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 well may a sober man wonder that men should be so much in love with earth and corrution the parent of rottennesse and a disease that even then when by all laws witches and inchanters murderers and manstealers are chastised and restrain'd with the iron hands of death yet that men should at great charges give pensions to an order of men whose trade it is to rob them of their temperance and wittily to destroy their health 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greek Fathers call such persons curvae in terris animae coelestium inanes people bowed downe to the earth lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God Aretinas mentes so Antidamus calls them men framed in the furnaces of Etruria Aretine spirits beginning and ending in flesh and filthynesse dirt and clay all over But goe to the Crib thou glutton and there it will be found that when the charger is clean yet natures rules were not prevaricated the beast eats up all his provisions because they are naturall and simple or if he leaves any it is because he desires no more then till his needs be served and neither can a man unlesse he be diseased in body or inspirit in affection or in habit eat more of naturall and simple food then to the satisfactions of his naturall necessities He that drinks a draught or two of water and cooles his thirst drinks no more till his thirst returnes but he that drinks wine drinks it again longer then it is needfull even so long as it is pleasant Nature best provides for her self when she spreads her own Table but when men have gotten superinduced habits and new necessities art that brought them in must maintain them but wantonnesse and folly wait at the table and sickness and death take away 2. Reason is the second measure or rather the rule whereby we judge of intemperance For whatsoever loads of meat or drink make the reason uselesse or troubled are effects of this deformity not that reason is the adequate measure for a man may be intemperate upon other causes though he doe not force his understanding and trouble his head Some are strong to drink and can eat like a wolfe and love to doe so as fire to destroy the stubble such were those Harlots in the Comedy Quae cum amatore suo cum coenant liguriunt These persons are to take their accounts from the measures of Religion and the Spirit though they can talk still or transact the affaires of the world yet if they be not fitted for the things of the Spirit they are too full of flesh or wine and cannot or care not to attend to the things of God But reason is the limit beyond which temperance never wanders and in every degree in which our discourse is troubled and our soul is lifted from its wheels in the same degree the sin prevails Dum sumus in quâdam delinquendi libidine nebulis quibusdam insipientiae mens obducitur saith St. Ambrose when the flesh-pots reek and the uncovered dishes send forth a nidor and hungry smels that cloud hides the face and puts out the eye of reason and then tell them mors in ollâ that death is in the pot and folly in the chalice that those smels are fumes of brimstone and vapours of Egypt that they will make their heart easie and their head sottish and their colour pale and their hands trembling and their feet tormented Mullorum leporúmque suminis exitus
hic est Sulphureúsque color carnificésque pedes For that is the end of delicacies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dio Chrysostom palenesse and effeminacy and lazinesse and folly yet under the dominion of the pleasures of sensuality men are so stript of the use of reason that they are not onely uselesse in wise counsels and assistances but they have not reason enough to avoid the evils of their own throat and belly when once their reason fails we must know that their temperance and their religion went before 3. Though reason be so strictly to be preserved at our tables as well as at our prayers and we can never have leave to doe any violence to it yet the measures of Nature may be enlarged beyond the bounds of prime and common necessity For besides hunger and thirst there are some labours of the body and others of the mind and there are sorrows and loads upon the spirit by its communications with the indispositions of the body and as the labouring man may be supplyed with bigger quantities so the student and contemplative man with more delicious and spritefull nutriment for as the tender and more delicate easily-digested meats will not help to carry burthens upon the neck and hold the plough in society and yokes of the laborious oxen so neither will the pulse and the leeks Lavinian sausages and the Cisalpine tucets or gobbets of condited buls flesh minister such delicate spirits to the thinking man but his notion will be flat as the noyse of the Arcadian porter and thick as the first juice of his countrey lard unlesse he makes his body a fit servant to the soul and both fitted for the imployment But in these cases necessity and prudence and experience are to make the measures and the rule and so long as the just end is fairly designed and aptly ministred to there ought to be no scruple concerning the quantity or quality of the provision and he that would stint a Swain by the commons of a Student and give Philotas the Candian the leavings of Plato does but ill serve the ends of temperance but worse of prudence and necessity 4. Sorrow and a wounded spirit may as well be provided for in the quantity and quality of meat and drink as any other disease and this disease by this remedy as well as by any other For great sorrow and importune melancholy may be as great a sin as a great anger and if it be a sin in its nature it is more malignant and dangerous in its quality as naturally tending to murmur and despair wearinesse of Religion and hatred of God timorousnesse and jealousies fantastick images of things and superstition and therefore as it is necessary to restrain the feavers of anger so also to warm the freezings and dulnesse of melancholy by prudent and temperate but proper and apportion'd diets and if some meats and drinks make men lustfull or sleepy or dull or lazy or spritely or merry so far as meats and drinks can minister to the passion and the passion minister to vertue so far by this means they may be provided for Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish and wine to those that be of heavy hearts let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more said King Lemuel's Mother But this is not intended to be an habituall cure but single and occasionall for he that hath a pertinacious sorrow is beyond the cure of meat and drink and if this become every days physick it will quickly become every days sin 2. It must alwayes keep within the bounds of reason and never seise upon any portions of affection The Germans use to mingle musick with their bowls and drink by the measures of the six Notes of Musick Ut relevet miserum fatum solitósque labores but they sing so long that they forget not their sorrow onely but their vertue also and their Religion and there are some men that fall into drunkennesse because they would forget a lighter calamity running into the fire to cure a calenture and beating their brains out to be quit of the aking of their heads A mans heavynesse is refreshed long before he comes to drunkennesse for when he arrives thither he hath but chang'd his heavynesse and taken a crime to boot 5. Even when a man hath no necessity upon him no pungent sorrow or naturall or artificiall necessity it is lawfull in some cases of eating and drinking to receive pleasure and intend it For whatsoever is naturall and necessary is therefore not criminall because it is of Gods procuring and since we eate for need and the satisfaction of our need is a removing of a pain and that in nature is the greatest pleasure it is impossible that in its own nature it should be a sin But in this case of Conscience these cautions are to be observed 1. So long as nature ministers the pleasure and not art it is materially innocent Si tuo veniat jure luxuria est But it is safe while it enters upon natures stock for it is impossible that the proper effect of health and temperance and prudent abstinence should be vicious and yet these are the parents of the greatest pleasure in eating and drinking Malum panem expecta bonus fiet etiam illum tenerum tibi siligineum fames reddet If you abstaine and be hungry you shall turne the meanest provision into delicate and desireable 2. Let all the pleasure of meat and drink be such as can minister to health and be within the former bounds For since pleasure in eating and drinking is its naturall appendage and like a shadow follows the substance as the meat is to be accounted so is the pleasure and if these be observed there is no difference whether nature or art be the Cook For some constitutions and some mens customes and some mens educations and necessities and weaknesses are such that their appetite is to be invited and their digestion helped but all this while we are within the bounds of nature and need 3. It is lawfull when a man needs meat to choose the pleasanter even meerly for their pleasures that is because they are pleasant besides that they are usefull this is as lawfull as to smell of a rose or to lye in feathers or change the posture of our body in bed for ease or to hear musick or to walk in gardens rather then the high-wayes and God hath given us leave to be delighted in those things which he made to that purpose that we may also be delighted in him that gives them For so as the more pleasant may better serve for health and directly to refreshment so collaterally to Religion Alwayes provided that it be in its degree moderate and we temperate in our desires without transportation and violence without unhandsome usages of our selves or taking from God and from Religion any minutes and portions of our affections When Eicadastes the Epicure
saw a goodly dish of hot meat serv'd up he sung the verse of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and swallowed some of it greedily till by its hands of fire it curled his stomach like parchment in the flame and he was carryed from his banquet to his grave Non poterat letho nobiliore mori It was fit he should dye such a death but that death bids us beware of that folly 4. Let the pleasure as it came with the meat so also passe away with it Philoxenus was a beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he wisht his throat as long as a Cranes that he might be long in swallowing his pleasant morsels Moeret quòd magna pars felicitatis exclusa esset corporis angustiis he mourned because the pleasure of eating was not spread over all his body that he might have been an Epicure in his hands and indeed if we consider it rightly great eating and drinking is not the greatest pleasure of the taste but of the touch and Philoxenus might feel the unctious juyce slide softly down his throat but he could not taste it in the middle of the long neck and we see that they who mean to feast exactly or delight the palate do libare or pitissare take up little proportions and spread them upon the tongue or palate but full morsells and great draughts are easie and soft to the touch but so is the feeling of silke or handling of a melon or a moles skin and as delicious too as eating when it goes beyond the appetites of nature and the proper pleasures of taste which cannot be perceived but by a temperate man And therefore let not the pleasure be intended beyond the taste that is beyond those little naturall measures in which God intended that pleasure should accompany your tables Doe not run to it beforehand nor chew the chud when the meal is done delight not in the fancies and expectations and remembrances of a pleasant meal but let it descend in latrinam together with the meals whose attendant pleasure is 5. Let pleasure be the lesse principall and used as a servant it may be modest and prudent to strew the dish with Sugar or to dip thy bread in vinegar but to make thy meal of sauces and to make the accessory become the principall and pleasure to rule the table and all the regions of thy soule is to make a man lesse and lower then an Oglio of a cheaper value then a Turbat a servant and a worshipper of sauces and cookes and pleasure and folly 6. Let pleasure as it is used in the regions and limits of nature and prudence so also be changed into religion and thankfulnesse Turtures cum bibunt non resupinant colla say Naturalists Turtles when they drink lift not up their bills and if we swallow our pleasures without returning the honour and the acknowledegment to God that gave them we may largè bibere jumentorum modo drink draughts as large as an Oxe but we shall die like an Oxe and change our meats and drinks into eternall rottennesse In all Religions it hath been permitted to enlarge our Tables in the days of sacrifices and religious festivity Qui Veientarum festis potare diebus Campanâ solitus trullâ vappámque profestis For then the body may rejoyce in fellowship with the soule and then a pleasant meal is religious if it be not inordinate But if our festivall dayes like the Gentile sacrifices end in drunkennesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and our joyes in Religion passe into sensuality and beastly crimes we change the Holy-day into a day of Death and our selves become a Sacrifice as in the day of Slaughter To summe up this particular there are as you perceive many cautions to make our pleasure safe but any thing can make it inordinate and then scarce any thing can keep it from becoming dangerous Habet omnis hoc voluptas Stimulis agit furentes Apiúmque par volantum Ubi grata mella fudit Fugit nimis tenaci Ferit icta corda morsu And the pleasure of the honey will not pay for the smart of the sting Amores enim deliciae maturè celeritèr deflorescunt in omnibus rebus voluptatibus maximis fastidium finitimum est Nothing is so soon ripe and rotten as pleasure and upon all possessions and states of things loathing looks as being not far off but it sits upon the skirts of pleasure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that greedily puts his hand to a delicious table shall weep bitterly when he suffers the convulsions and violence by the divided interests of such contrary juices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this is the law of our nature and fatall necessity life is alwayes poured forth from two goblets And now after all this I pray consider what a strange madness and prodigious folly possesses many men that they love to swallow death and diseases and dishonor with an appetite which no reason can restrain We expect our servants should not dare to touch what we have forbidden to them we are watchfull that our children should not swallow poysons and filthinesse and unwholesome nourishment we take care that they should be well manner'd and civil and of fair demeanour and we our selves desire to be or at least to be accounted wise and would infinitely scorne to be call'd fooles and we are so great lovers of health that we will buy it at any rate of money or observance and then for honour it is that which the children of men pursue with passion it is one of the noblest rewards of vertue and the proper ornament of the wise and valiant and yet all these things are not valued or considered when a merry meeting or a looser feast calls upon the man to act a scene of folly and madnesse and healthlesnesse and dishonour We doe to God what we severely punish in our servants we correct our children for their medling with dangers which themselves preferre before immortality and though no man think himselfe fit to be despised yet he is willing to make himselfe a beast a sot and a ridiculous monkey with the follies and vapors of wine and when he is high in drinke or fancy proud as a Grecian Orator in the midst of his popular noyses at the same time he shall talk such dirty language such mean low things as may well become a changeling and a foole for whom the stocks are prepared by the laws and the just scorne of men Every drunkard clothes his head with a mighty scorne and makes himselfe lower at that time then the meanest of his servants the boyes can laugh at him when he is led like a cripple directed like a blinde man and speakes like an infant imperfect noyses lisping with a full and spungy tongue and an empty head and a vaine and foolish heart so cheaply does he part with his honour for drink or loads of meat for which honour he is ready to die rather then hear it to be
the uses of Religion and prudent charity but the disposing them into portions of inheritance the assignation of charges and governments stipends and rewards annuities and greater donatives are the reserves of the superior right and not to be invaded by the under-possessors But in those things where they ought to be common if the spleen or the belly swels and drawes into its capacity much of that which should be spent upon those parts which have an equall right to be maintain'd it is a dropsie or a consumption of the whole something that is evill because it is unnaturall and monstrous Macarius in is 32 Homily speaks fully in this particular a woman betrothed to a man bears all her portion and with a mighty love pours it into the hands of her husband and sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have nothing of my own my goods my portion my body and my minde is yours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all that a woman hath is reckoned to the right of her husband not her wealth and her person only but her reputation and her praise So Lucian But as the earth the mother of all creatures here below sends up all its vapours and proper emissions at the command of the Sun and yet requires them again to refresh her own needs and they are deposited between them both in the bosome of a cloud as a common receptacle that they may cool his flames and yet descend to make her fruitfull so are the proprieties of a wife to be dispos'd of by her Lord and yet all are for her provisions it being a part of his need to refresh and supply hers and it serves the interest of both while it serves the necessities of either These are the duties of them both which have common regards and equall necessities and obligations and indeed there is scarce any matter of duty but it concerns them both alike and is only distinguished by names and hath its variety by circumstances and little accidents and what in one is call'd love in the other is called reverence and what in the wife is obedience the same in the man is duty He provides and she dispenses he gives commandements and she rules by them he rules her by authority and she rules him by love she ought by all means to please him and he must by no means displease her For as the heart is set in the midst of the body and though it strikes to one side by the prerogative of Nature yet those throbs and constant motions are felt on the other side also and the influence is equall to both so it is in conjugall duties some motions are to the one side more then to the other but the interest is on both and the duty is equall in the severall instances If it be otherwise the man injoyes a wife as Periander did his dead Melissa by an unnaturall union neither pleasing nor holy uselesse to all the purposes of society and dead to content SERMON XVIII Part II. THe next inquiry is more particular and considers the power and duty of the man Let every one of you so love his wife even as himself she is as himself the man hath power over her as over himself and must love her equally A husbands power over his wife is paternall and friendly not magisteriall and despotick The wife is in perpetuâ tutelâ under conduct and counsell for the power a man hath is founded in the understanding not in the will or force it is not a power of coercion but a power of advice and that government that wise men have over those who are fit to be conducted by them Et vos in manu in tutelâ non in servitio debetis habere eas malle patres vos viros quà m dominos dici said Valerius in Livie Husbands should rather be Fathers then Lords Homer addes more soft appellatives to the character of a husbands duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou art to be a father and a mother to her and a brother and great reason unlesse the state of marriage should be no better then the condition of an Orphan For she that is bound to leave father and mother and brother for thee either is miserable like a poor fatherlesse childe or else ought to finde all these and more in thee Medea in Euripides had cause to complain when she found it otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which St. Ambrose well translates It is sad when virgins are with their own money sold to slavery and that services are in better state then marriages for they receive wages but these buy their fetters and pay dear for their losse of liberty and therefore the Romans expressed the mans power over his wife but by a gentle word Nec verò mulieribus praefectus reponatur qui apud Graecos creari solet sed sit censor qui viros doceat moderari uxoribus said Cicero let there be no governour of the women appointed but a censor of manners one to teach the men to moderate their wives that is fairly to induce them to the measures of their own proportions It was rarely observed of Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when Adam made that fond excuse for his folly in eating the forbidden fruit he said The woman thou gavest to be with me she gave me He saies not the woman which thou gavest to me no such thing she is none of his goods none of his possessions not to be reckoned among his servants God did not give her to him so but the woman thou gavest to be with me that is to be my partner the companion of my joyes and sorrowes thou gavest her for use not for dominion The dominion of a man over his wife is no other then as the soul rules the body for which it takes a mighty care and uses it with a delicate tendernesse and cares for it in all contingencies and watches to keep it from all evils and studies to make for it fair provisions and very often is led by its inclinations and desires and does never contradict its appetites but when they are evill and then also not without some trouble and sorrow and its government comes only to this it furnishes the body with light and understanding and the body furnishes the soul with hands and feet the soul governs because the body cannot else be happy but the government is no other then provision as a nurse governs a childe when she causes him to eat and to be warm and dry and quiet and yet even the very government it self is divided for man and wife in the family are as the Sun and Moon in the firmament of heaven He rules by day and she by night that is in the lesser and more proper circles of her affairs in the conduct of domestick provisions and necessary offices and shines only by his light and rules by his authority and as the
can The shepherd Cratis falling in love with a she goat had his brains beaten out with a buck as he lay asleep and by the lawes of the Romans a man might kill his daughter or his wife if he surprised her in the breach of her holy vowes which are as sacred as the threads of life secret as the privacies of the sanctuary and holy as the society of Angels Nullae sunt inimicitiae nisi amoris acerbae and God that commanded us to forgive our enemies left it in our choice and hath not commanded us to forgive an adulterous husband or a wife but the offended parties displeasure may passe into an eternall separation of society and friendship Now in this grace it is fit that the wisdome and severity of the man should hold forth a pure taper that his wife may by seeing the beauties and transparency of that Crystall dresse her minde and her body by the light of so pure reflexions It is certain he will expect it from the modesty and retirement from the passive nature and colder temper from the humility and fear from the honour and love of his wife that she be pure as the eye of heaven and therefore it is but reason that the wisdome and noblenesse the love and confidence the strength and severity of the man should be as holy and certain in this grace as he is a severe exactor of it at her hands who can more easily be tempted by another and lesse by her self These are the little lines of a mans duty which like threds of light from the body of the Sun do clearly describe all the regions of his proper obligations Now concerning the womans duty although it consists in doing whatsoever her husband commands and so receives measures from the rules of his government yet there are also some lines of life depicted upon her hands by which she may read and know how to proportion out her duty to her husband 1. The first is obedience which because it is no where enjoyned that the man should exact of her but often commanded to her to pay gives demonstration that it is a voluntary cession that is required such a cession as must be without coercion and violence on his part but upon fair inducements and reasonablenesse in the thing and out of love and honour on her part When God commands us to love him he means we should obey him This is love that ye keep my Commandements and if ye love me said our Lord keep my Commandements Now as Christ is to the Church so is man to the wife and therefore obedience is the best instance of her love for it proclaims her submission her humility her opinion of his wisdome his preeminence in the family the right of his priviledge and the injunction imposed by God upon her sexe that although in sorrow she brings forth children yet with love and choice she should obey The mans authority is love and the womans love is obedience and it was not rightly observed of him that said when woman fell God made her timorous that she might be rul'd apt and easie to obey for this obedience is no way founded in fear but in love and reverence Receptae reverentiae est si mulier viro subsit said the Law unlesse also that we will adde that it is an effect of that modesty which like rubies adorn the necks and cheeks of women Pudicitia est pater eos magnificare qui nos socias sumpserunt sibi said the maiden in the comedy It is modesty to advance and highly to honour them who have honoured us by making us to be the companions of their dearest excellencies for the woman that went before the man in the way of death is commanded to follow him in the way of love and that makes the society to be perfect and the union profitable and the harmony compleat Inferior Matrona suo sit Sexte marito Non aliter siunt foemina virque pares For then the soul and body make a perfect man when the soul commands wisely or rules lovingly and cares profitably and provides plentifully and conducts charitably that body which is its partner and yet the inferiour But if the body shall give lawes and by the violenco of the appetite first abuse the understanding and then possesse the superior portion of the will and choice the body and the soul are not apt company and the man is a fool and miserable If the soul rules not it cannot be a companion either it must govern or be a slave Never was King deposed and suffered to live in the state of peerage and equall honour but made a prisoner or put to death and those women that had rather lead the blinde then follow prudent guides rule fools and easie men then obey the powerfull and the wise never made a good society in a house a wife never can become equall but by obeying but so her power while it is in minority makes up the authority of the man integrall and becomes one government as themselves are one man Male and Female created he them and called their name Adam saith the holy Scripture they are but one and therefore the severall parts of this one man must stand in the place where God appointed that the lower parts may do their offices in their own station and promote the common interest of the whole A ruling woman is intolerable Faciunt graviora coactae Imperio sexus But that 's not all for she is miserable too for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a sad calamity for a woman to be joyned to a fool or a weak person it is like a guard of geese to keep the Capitoll or as if a flock of sheep should read grave lectures to their shepherd and give him orders where he shall conduct them to pasture O verè Phyrgiae neque enim Phryges It is a curse that God thereatned sinning persons Devoratum est robur eorum facti sunt quasi mulieres Effeminati dominabuntur eis To be ruled by weaker people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have a fool to ones master is the fate of miserable and unblessed people and the wife can be no waies happy unlesse she be governed by a prudent Lord whose commands are sober counsels whose authority is paternall whose orders are provisions and whose sentences are charity But now concerning the measures and limits of this obedience we can best take accounts from Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle in all things ut Domino as unto the Lord and that 's large enough as unto a Lord ut Ancilla Domino so St. Hierom understands it who neither was a friend to the sexe nor to marriage But his mistake is soon confuted by the text It is not ut Dominis be subject to your husbands as unto Lords but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in all religion in reverence and in love in duty and
you will have the mother you must have the daughters the tree and the fruits go together and there is none of you all that ever enter'd into this house of pleasure but he left the skirts of his garment in the hands of shame and had his name roll'd in the chambers of death What fruit had ye then That 's the Question In answer to which question we are to consider 1. What is the summe totall of the pleasure of sin 2. What fruits and relishes it leaves behinde by its naturall efficiency 3. What are its consequents by its demerit and the infliction of the superadded wrath of God which it hath deserved Of the first St. Paul gives no account but by way of upbraiding asks what they had that is nothing that they dare own nothing that remains and where is it shew it what 's become of it Of the second he gives the summe totall all its naturall effects are shame and its appendages The third or the superinduc'd evils by the just wrath of God he cals death the worst name in it self and the greatest of evils that can happen 1. Let us consider what pleasures there are in sin most of them are very punishments I will not reckon nor consider concerning envie which one in Stobaeus cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the basest spirit and yet very just because it punishes the delinquent in the very act of sin doing as Aelian saies of the Polypus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he wants his prey he devours his own armes and the leannesse and the secret pangs and the perpetuall restlesnesse of an envious man feed upon his own heart and drink down his spirits unlesse he can ruine or observe the fall of the fairest fortunes of his neighbour The fruit of this tree are mingled and sowre and not to be indured in the very eating Neither will I reck on the horrid afrightments and amazements of murder nor the uneasinesse of impatience which doubles every evill that it feels and makes it a sin and makes it intolerable nor the secret grievings and continuall troubles of peevishnesse which makes a man uncapable of receiving good or delighting in beauties and fair intreaties in the mercies of God and charities of men It were easie to make a catalogue of sins every one of which is a disease a trouble in it's very constitution and its nature such are loathing of spirituall things bitternesse of spirit rage greedinesse confusion of minde and irresolution cruelty and despite slothfulnesse and distrust unquietnesse and anger effeminacy and nicenesse prating and sloth ignorance and inconstancy incogitancy and cursing malignity and fear forgetfulnesse and rashnesse pusillanimity and despair rancour and superstition if a man were to curse his enemy he could not wish him a greater evill then these and yet these are severall kinds of sin which men choose and give all their hopes of heaven in exchange for one of these diseases Is it not a fearfull consideration that a man should rather choose eternally to perish then to say his prayers heartily and affectionately But so it is with very many men they are driven to their devotions by custome and shame and reputation and civill compliances they sigh and look sowre when they are called to it and abide there as a man under the Chirurgeons hands smarting aud fretting all the while or else he passes the time with incogitancy and hates the imployment and suffers the torments of prayers which he loves not and all this although for so doing it is certain he may perish what fruit what deliciousnesse can he fancy in being weary of his prayers There is no pretence or colour for these things Can any man imagine a greater evill to the body and soul of a man then madnesse and furious eyes and a distracted look palenesse with passion and trembling hands and knees and furiousnesse and folly in the heart and head and yet this is the pleasure of anger and for this pleasure men choose damnation But it is a great truth that there are but very few sins that pretend to pleasure although a man be weak and soon deceived and the Devill is crafty and sin is false and impudent and pretences are too many yet most kinds of sins are reall and prime troubles to the very body without all manner of deliciousnesse even to the sensuall naturall and carnall part and a man must put on something of a Devill before he can choose such sins and he must love mischief because it is a sin for in most instances there is no other reason in the world Nothing pretends to pleasure but the lusts of the lower belly ambition and revenge and although the catalogue of sins is numerous as the production of fishes yet these three only can be apt to consen us with a fair outside and yet upon the survey of what fruits they bring and what taste they have in the manducation besides the filthy relish they leave behind we shall see how miserably they are abused and fool'd that expend any thing upon such purchases 2. For a man cannot take pleasure in lusts of the flesh in gluttony or drunkennesse unlesse he be helped forward with inconsideration and folly For we see it evidently that grave and wise persons men of experience and consideration are extremely lesse affected with lust and loves the hare-brain'd boy the young gentleman that thinks nothing in the world greater then to be free from a Tutor he indeed courts his folly and enters into the possession of lust without abatement consideration dwels not there but when a sober man meets with a temptation and is helped by his naturall temper or invited by his course of life if he can consider he hath so many objections and fears so many difficulties and impediments such sharp reasonings and sharper jealousies concerning its event that if he does at all enter into folly it pleases him so little that he is forced to do it in despite of himself and the pleasure is so allayed that he knowes not whether it be wine or vinegar his very apprehension and instruments of relish are fill'd with fear and contradicting principles and the deliciousnesse does but affricare cutem it went but to the skin but the allay went further it kept a guard within and suffered the pleasure to passe no further A man must resolve to be a fool a rash inconsiderate person or he will feel but little satisfaction in the enjoyment of his sin indeed he that stops his nose may drink down such corrupted waters and he understood it well who chose rather to be a fool Dum mala delectent mea me vel denique fallant Quà m sapere ringi so that his sins might delight him or deceive him then to be wise and without pleasure in the enjoyment So that in effect a man must lose his discerning faculties before he discerns the little phantastick joyes of his concupiscence which demonstrates how vain how empty of pleasure
conscience it self dares not expect it SERMON XX. Part II. WE have already opened this dunghill cover'd with snow which was indeed on the outside white as the spots of leprosie but it was no better and if the very colours and instruments of deception if the fucus and ceruse be so spotted and sullyed what can we suppose to be under the wrinkled skin what in the corrupted liver and in the sinks of the body of sin That we are next to consider But if we open the body and see what a confusion of all its parts what a rebellion and tumult of the humors what a disorder of the members what a monstrosity or deformity is all over we shall be infinitely convinced that no man can choose a sin but upon the same ground on which he may choose a feaver or long for madnesse or the gout Sin in its naturall efficiency hath in it so many evils as must needs afright a man and scare the confidence of every one that can consider * When our blessed Saviour shall conduct his Church to the mountains of glory he shall present it to God without spot or wrinkle that is pure and vigorous intirely freed from the power and the infection of sin Upon occasion of which expression it hath been spoken that sin leaves in the soul a stain or spot permanent upon the spirit discomposing the order of its beauty and making it appear to God in sordibus in such filthinesse that he who is of pure eyes cannot behold But roncerning the nature or proper effects of this spot or stain they have not been agreed Some call it an obligation or a guilt of punishment so Scotus Some fancy it to be an elongation from God by a dissimilitude of conditions so Peter Lombard Alexander of Ales sayes it is a privation of the proper beauty and splendor of the soul with which God adorn'd it in the creation and superaddition of grace and upon this expression they most agree but seem not to understand what they mean by it and it signifies no more but as you describing sicknesse call it a want of health and folly a want of wisdome which is indeed to say what a thing is not but not to tell what it is But that I may not be hindred by this consideration we may observe that the spots and stains of sin are metaphoricall significations of the disorder and evill consequents of sin which it leaves partly upon the soul partly upon the state and condition of a man as meeknesse is called an ornament and faith a shield and salvation a helmet and sin it self a wrinkle corruption rottennesse a burden a wound death filthinesse so it is a 3 defiling of a man that is as the body contracts nastinesse and dishonour by impure contacts and adherencies so does the soul receive such a change as must be taken away before it can enter into the eternall regions and house of purity But it is not a distinct thing not an inherent quality which can be separated from other evill effects of sin which I shall now reckon by their more proper names and St. Paul comprises under the scornfull appellative of shame 1. The first naturall fruit of sin is ignorance Man was first tempted by the promise of knowledge he fell into darknesse by beleeving the Devill holding forth to him a new light It was not likely good should come of so foul a beginning that the woman should beleeve the Devill putting on no brighter shape then a snakes skin she neither being afraid of sin nor afrighted to hear a beast speak and he pretending so weakly in the temptation that he promised only that they should know evill for they knew good before and all that was offered to them was the experience of evill and it was no wonder that the Devill promised no more for sin never could perform any thing but an experience of evill no other knowledge can come upon that account but the wonder was why the woman should sin for no other reward but for that which she ought to have fear'd infinitely for nothing could have continued her happinesse but not to have known evill Now this knowledge was the introduction of ignorance For when the understanding suffered it self to be so baffled as to study evill the will was as foolish to fall in love with it and they conspir'd to undoe each other For when the will began to love it then the understanding was set on work to commend to advance to conduct and to approve to beleeve it and to be factious in behalf of the new purchase I do not beleeve the understanding part of man received any naturall decrement or diminution For if to the Devils their naturals remain intire it is not likely that the lesser sin of man should suffer a more violent and effective mischief Neither can it be understood how the reasonable soul being immortall both in it self and its essentiall faculties can lose or be lessened in them any more then it can die But it received impediment by new propositions It lost and willingly forgot what God had taught and went away from the fountain of truth and gave trust to the father of lies and it must without remedy grow foolish and so a man came to know evill just as a man is said to taste of death for in proper speaking as death is not to be felt because it takes away all sense so nether can evill be known because whatsoever is truly cognoscible is good and true and therefore all the knowledge a man gets by sin is to feel evill he knowes it not by discourse but by sense not by proposition but by smart The Devill doing to man as Esculapius did to Neoclides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gave him a formidable collyrium to torment him more the effect of which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Devill himself grew more quick-sighted to abuse us but we became more blinde by that opening of our eyes I shall not need to discourse of the Philosophy of this mischief and by the connexion of what causes ignorance doth follow sin but it is certain whether a man would fain be pleased with sin or be quiet or fearlesse when he hath sinned or continue in it or perswade others to it he must do it by false propositions by lyings and such weak discourses as none can beleeve but such as are born fools or such as have made themselves so or are made so by others Who in the world is a verier fool a more ignorant wretched person then he that is an Atheist A man may better beleeve there is no such man as himself and that he is not in being then that there is no God for himself can cease to be and once was not and shall be changed from what he is and in very many periods of his life knowes not that he is and so it is every night with him when he sleeps but none of these can
company by folly and inconsideration and all these are a faction and a confederacy against the honour and service of God And in this Philosophy is at a stand nothing can give an account of it but experience and sorrowfull instances for it is infinitely unreasonable that when you have discoursed wisely against unchastity and told that we are separated from it by a circumvallation of Lawes of God and man that it dishonours the body and makes the spirit caitive that it is fought against by arguments sent from all the corners of reason and religion and the man knows all this and beleeves it and prayes against his sin and hates himself for it and curses the actions of it yet oppose against all this but a fable or a merry story a proverb or a silly saying the sight of his mistresse or any thing but to lessen any one of the arguments brought against it and that man shall as certainly and clearly be determined to that sin as if he had on his side all the reason of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Custome does as much as Nature can doe it does sometimes more and superinduces a disposition contrary to our naturall temper Eudemus had so used his stomach to so unnaturall drinks that as himself tels the story he took in one day two and twenty potions in which Hellebore was infused and rose at noon and supp'd at night and felt no change So are those that are corrupted with evill customes nothing will purge them if you discourse wittily they hear you not or if they do they have twenty wayes to answer and twice twenty to neglect it if you perswade them to promise to leave their sin they do but shew their folly at the next temptation and tell that they did not mean it and if you take them at an advantage when their hearts are softned with a judgement or a fear with a shame or an indignation and then put the bars and locks of vowes upon them it is all one one vow shall hinder but one action and the appetite shall be doubled by the restraint and the next opportunity shall make an amends for the first omission or else the sin shall enter by parts the vow shall only put the understanding to make a distinction or to change the circumstance and under that colour the crime shall be admitted because the man is resolved to suppose the matter so dressed was not vowed against But then when that is done the understanding shall open that eye that did but wink before and see that it was the same thing and secretly rejoyce that it was so cousened for now the lock is open'd and the vow was broken against his will and the man is at liberty again because he did the thing at unawares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 still he is willing to beleeve the sin was not formall vow-breach but now he sees he broke it materially and because the band is broken the yoke is in pieces therefore the next action shall go on upon the same stock of a single iniquity without being afrighted in his conscience at the noise of perjury I wish we were all so innocent as not to understand the discourse but it uses to be otherwise Nam si discedas laqueo tenet ambitiosi Consuetudo mali in aegro corde senescit Custome hath waxen old in his deceived heart and made snares for him that he cannot disintangle himself so true is that saying of God by the Prophet Can an Aethiop change his skin then may ye learn to do well when ye are accustomed to do evill But I instance in two things which to my sense seem great aggravations of the slavery and weaknesse of a customary sinner The first is that men sin against their interest They know they shall be ruin'd by it it will undoe their estates lose their friends ruine their fortunes destroy their body impoverish the spirit load the conscience discompose his rest confound his reason amaze him in all his faculties destroy his hopes and mischief enough besides and when he considers this he declares against it but Cum bona verba erumpant affectus tamen ad consuetudinem relabuntur the man gives good words but the evill custome prevails and it happens as in the case of the Tyrinthians who to free their nation from a great plague were bidden only to abstain from laughter while they offered their sacrifice but they had been so us'd to a ridiculous effeminacy and vain course of conversation that they could not though the honour and splendor of the Nation did depend upon it God of his mercy keep all Christian people from a custome in sinning for if they be once fallen thither nothing can recover them but a miraculous grace 2. The second aggravation of it is that custome prevails against experience Though the man hath already smarted though he hath been disgraced and undone though he lost his relation and his friends he is turn'd out of service and disimployed he begs with a load of his old sins upon his shoulders yet this will not cure an evill custome Do not we daily see how miserable some men make themselves with drunkennesse and folly Have not we seen them that have been sick with intemperance deadly sick enduring for one drunken meeting more pain then are in all the fasting dayes of the whole year and yet do they not the very next day go to it again Indeed some few are smitten into the beginning of repentance and they stay a fortnight or a moneth and it may be resist two or three invitations but yet the custome is not gone Nec tu cum obstiteris semel instantique negaris Parêre imperio Rupi jam vincula dicas Think not the chain is off when thou hast once or twice resisted or if the chain be broke part remains on thee like a cord upon a dogs neck Nam luctata canis nodum arripit attamen illi Cum fugit à collo trahitur pars magna catenae He is not free that drawes his chain after him and he that breaks off from his sins with greatest passion stands in need of prosperous circumstances and a strange freedome from temptation and accidentall hardnesse and superinduced confidence and a preternaturall severity Opus est aliquâ fortunae indulgentiâ adhuc inter humana luctanti dum noaumillum exolvit omne vinculum mortale for the knot can hardly be untied which a course of evill manners hath bound upon the soul and every contingency in the world can intangle him that wears upon his neck the links of a broken chain Nam qui ab eo quod amat quà m extemplò suavi is sagittatis percussus est illico res foras labitur liquitur if he sees his temptation again he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his kindnesse to it and conversation with his lust undoes him and breaks his purposes and then he dies again or fals upon that stone that with
himselfe was forc'd to break his faith by the tyranny of her prevailing charmes This is that which the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a crafty and deceitfull way of hurting and renders a mans tongue venemous as the tongue of a serpent that bites even though he be charm'd 3. But the next is more violent and that is railing or reviling which Aristotle in his Rhetoricks says is very often the vice of boys and of rich men who out of folly or pride want of manners or want of the measures of a man wisdome and the just proportions of his brethren doe use those that erre before them most scornfully and unworthily and Tacitus noted it of the Claudian family in Rome an old and inbred pride and scornfulnesse made them apt to abuse all that fell under their power and displeasure quorum superbiam frustrà per obsequium modestiam essugeres No observance no prudence no modesty can escape the reproaches of such insolent and high talkers A. Gellius tels of a boy that would give every one that he met a box on the ear and some men will give foul words having a tongue rough as a Cat and biting like an Adder and all their reproofes are direct scoldings their common entercourse is open contumely There have been in these last ages examples of Judges who would reproach the condemned and miserable criminall deriding his calamity and reviling his person Nero did so to Thraseas and the old Heathens to the primitive Martyrs pereuntibus addita Iudibria said Tacitus of them they crucified them again by putting them to suffer the shame of their fouler language they rail'd at them when they bowed their heads upon the crosse and groan'd forth the saddest accents of approaching death This is that evill that possessed those of whom the Psalmist speaks Our tongues are our owne we are they that ought to speak who is Lord over us that is our tongues cannot be restrained and St. James said something of this The tongue is an unruly member which no man can tame that is no private person but a publick may for he that can rule the tongue is fit also to govern the whole body that is the Church or Congregation Magistrates and the Governours of souls they are by severity to restraine this inordination which indeed is a foul one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no evill is worse or of more open violence to the rest and reputation of men then a reproachfull tongue And it were well if we considered this evill to avoyd it in those instances by which our conversation is daily stain'd Are we not often too imperious against our servants Do we not entertain and seed our own anger with vile and basest language Doe not we chastise a servants folly or mistake his error or his chance with language fit to be used by none but vile persons and towards none but dogs Our blessed Saviour restraining the hostility and murther of the tongue threatens hell fire to them that call their brother foole meaning that all language which does really and by intention disgrace him in the greater instances is as directly against the charity of the Gospel as killing a man was against the severity and justice of the law And although the word it self may be us'd to reprove the indiscretions and carelesse follies of an idle person yet it must be used onely in order to his amendment * by an authorized person * in the limits of a just reproofe * upon just occasion * and so as may not doe him mischief in the event of things For so we finde that our blessed Saviour cal'd his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolish and S. James used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain man signifying the same with the forbidden raca 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain uselesse or empty and St. Paul calls the Galatians mad and foolish and bewitched and Christ called Herod Fox and St. John called the Pharisees the generation of vipers and all this matter is wholly determined by the manner and with what minde it is done If it be for correction and reproofe towards persons that deserve it and by persons whose authority can warrant a just and severe reproofe and this also be done prudently safely and usefully it is not contumely But when men upon all occasions revile an offending person lessening his value sowring his spirit and his life despising his infirmities tragically expressing his lightest misdemeanour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being tyrannically declamatory and intolerably angry for a trifle these are such who as Apollonius the Philosopher said will not suffer the offending person to know when his fault is great and when 't is little For they who alwayes put on a supreme anger or expresse the lesse anger with the highest reproaches can doe no more to him that steals then to him that breaks a Crystall Non plus aequo non diutius aequo was a good rule for reprehension of offending servants But no more anger no more severe language then the thing deserves if you chide too long your reproofe is changed into reproach if too bitterly it becomes railing if too loud it is immodest if too publick it is like a dog 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the man told his wife in the Greek Comedy to follow me in the streets with thy clamorous tongue is to doe as dogs doe not as persons civill or religious 4. The fourth instance of the calumniating filthy communication is that which we properly call slander or the inventing evill things falsely imputing crimes to our neighbor Falsum crimen quasi venenatum telum said Cicero A false tongue or a foul lye against a mans reputation is like a poysoned arrow it makes the wound deadly and every scratch to be incurable Promptissima vindicta contumelia said one To reproach and rail is a revenge that every girl can take But falsely to accuse is spiteful as Hel and deadly as the blood of Dragons Stoicus occidit Baream delator amicum This is the direct murther of the Tongue for life and death are in the hand of the tongue said the Hebrew proverbe and it was esteemed so vile a thing that when Jesabel commanded the Elders of Israel to suborn false witnesses against Naboth she gave them instructions to take two men the sons of Belial none else were fit for the imployment Quid non audebis perfida lingua loqui This was it that broke Ephraim in judgement and executed the fierce anger of the Lord upon him God gave him over to be oppressed by a false witnesse quoniam coepit abire post sordes therefore he suffered calumny and was overthrown in judgement This was it that humbled Joseph in fetters and the iron entred into his soule but it crushed him not so much as the false tongue of his revengefull Mistresse untill his cause was known and the Word of the Lord tryed him This was
endevour by all meanes and in all their owne measures and capacities to lay up treasures of notices and instructions in their brothers soul that by some argument or other they may be met withall and taken in every corner of their conversation Adde to this that the duty of a man hath great variety and the souls of men are infinitely abused and the persuasions of men are strangely divided and the interests of men are a violent and preternaturall declination from the strictnesses of vertue and the resolutions of men are quickly altered and very hardly to be secured and the cases of conscience are numerous and intricate and every state of life that hath its proper prejudice and our notices are abused by our affections and we shall perceive that men generally need knowledge enough to over-power all their passions to root out their vitious inclinations to master their prejudice to answer objections to resist temptations to refresh their wearynesse to fixe their resolutions and to determine their doubts and therefore to see your brother in a state of ignorance is to see him unfurnished and unprepared to all good works a person safe no longer then till a temptation comes and one that cannot be saved but by an absolute unlimited predestination a favour of which he hath no promise no security no revelation and although to doe this God hath appointed a speciall Order of men the whole Ecclesiasticall Order whom he feeds at his owne charges and whom men rob at their owne perill yet this doth not disoblige others for every Master of a family is to instruct or cause his family to be instructed and catechised every Governour is to instruct his charge every Man his Brother not alwayes in person but ever by all possible and just provisions For if the people dye for want of knowledge they who are set over them shall also die for want of charity Here therefore we must remember that it is the duty of us all in our severall measures and proportions to instruct those that need it and whose necessity is made ready for our ministration and let us tremble to think what will be the sad account which we shall make when even our families are not taught in the fundamentals of Religion for how can it be possible for those who could not account concerning the stories of Christs life and death the ministeries of their redemption the foundation of all their hopes the great argument of all their obediences how can it be expected that they should ride in triumph over all the evills which the Devill and the World and their owne follies daily present to them in the course of every dayes conversation And it will be an ill return to say that God will require no more of them then he hath given them for suppose that be true in your own sense yet he will require it of thee because thou gavest them no more and however it is a formidable danger and a trifling hope for any man to put all the hopes of his being saved upon the onely stock of ignorance for if his ignorance should never be accounted for yet it may leave him in that state in which his evills shall grow great and his sins may be irremediable 2. Our Conversation must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apt to comfort the disconsolate and then this men in present can feel no greater charity For since halfe the duty of a Christian in this life consists in the exercise of passive graces and the infinite variety of providence and the perpetuall adversity of chances and the dissatisfaction and emptynesse that is in things themselves and the wearynesse and anguish of our spirit does call us to the trial and exercise of patience even in the dayes of sunshine and much more in the violent storms that shake our dwellings and make our hearts tremble God hath sent some Angels into the world whose office it is to refresh the sorrowes of the poore and to lighten the eyes of the disconsolate he hath made some creatures whose powers are chiefly ordain'd to comfort wine and oyle and society cordials and variety and time it selfe is checker'd with black and white stay but till to morrow and your present sorrow will be weary and will lie downe to rest But this is not all The third person of the holy Trinity is known to us by the name and dignity of the Holy Ghost the Comforter and God glories in the appellative that he is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort and therefore to minister in the office is to become like God and to imitate the charities of heaven and God hath fitted mankinde for it he most needs it and he feels his brothers wants by his owne experience and God hath given us speech and the endearments of society and pleasantness of conversation and powers of seasonable discourse arguments to allay the sorrow by abating our apprehensions and taking out the sting or telling the periods of comfort or exciting hope or urging a precept and reconciling our affections and reciting promises or telling stories of the Divine mercy or changing it into duty or making the burden lesse by comparing it with greater or by proving it to be lesse then we deserve and that it is so intended and may become the instrument of vertue And certain it is that as nothing can better doe it so there is nothing greater for which God made our tongues next to reciting his prayses then to minister comfort to a weary soul. And what greater measure can we have then that we should bring joy to our brother who with his dreary eyes looks to heaven and round about and cannot finde so much rest as to lay his eye-lids close together then that thy tongue should be tun'd with heavenly accents and make the weary soul to listen for light and ease and when he perceives that there is such a thing in the world and in the order of things as comfort and joy to begin to break out from the prison of his sorrows at the dore of sighs and tears and by little and little melt into showres and refreshment This is glory to thy voyce and imployment fit for the brightest Angel But so have I seen the sun kisse the frozen earth which was bound up with the images of death and the colder breath of the North and then the waters break from their inclosures and melt with joy and run in usefull channels and the flies doe rise againe from their little graves in walls and dance a while in the aire to tell that there is joy within and that the great mother of creatures will open the stock of her new refreshment become usefull to mankinde and sing prayses to her Redeemer So is the heart of a sorrowfull man under the discourses of a wise Comforter he breaks from the despairs of the grave and the fetters and chains of sorrow he blesses God and he blesses thee and he feels