Mouths to confess him our Heads to believe him our Hands and Feet to serve him our Wills to be ruled and our Wits to be captivated by him our Hearts to love him and our Lives to dye for him All which though it is All is still too little if we impartially consider the Disproportion of our Reward that blessed Parallel drawn out for us by God's own Compass Life and Aeternity A man you know would do any thing whereby to find Life though in our Saviour's Oxymôron it is by losing it Matth. 10. 39. And as a man will part with any thing to save his life so with life too to eternize it If therefore our Saviour does bid us follow him let us not venture to choose our way And if we can but arrive at Heaven it matters not much though we go by Hell For comparing his Goodness with his Mastership his Promises with his Precepts and the Scantling of our Obedience with the Immenfity of our Reward we shall find that our work hath no proportion with our wages but that we may inquire when all is done Good Master what shall we do And this does prompt me to proceed to my last Doctrinal Proposition That when all is done that can be we are unprofitable Servants Our Obedience is not the Cause but the meer Condition of our Reward And we arrive at Eternal Life not by way of Purchase as we are Servants but of Inheritance as we are Sons It is not here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to deserve but to inherit Eternal Life As Christianity like Manhood hath its several steps and degrees of growth so the Soul as well as the Body doth stand in need of Food and Raiment And agreable to the Complexion of immaterial Beings she is not only bedeck't but sustain'd with Righteousness Now as none can inherit Eternal Life but He that is born of the Spirit And as he that is born of the Spirit must also be nourished with the Spirit before he can possibly live an holy and spiritual Life so it is only God the Spirit that gives us Birth God the Son that gives us Breeding and God the Father that gives us the privilege of Adoption The Spirit feedeth us as his Babes the Son instructs us as his Disciples the Father indows us as his Heirs It is the Spirit that fits us for our Inheritance the Son that gives us a Title to it And 't is especially the Father who doth invest us with the Possession But now of all God's External and Temporal Blessings which have any Resemblance unto his Spiritual methinks the Manna that fell from Heaven is the liveliest Embleme of his Grace Of which though some did gather more and some less yet they that gather'd most had nothing over and they that gather'd least had no lack Thus as Manna like Grace is the Bread of Heaven so Grace like Manna is also measur'd out by Omers For even they that have least of the Grace of God have enough if well us'd to inherit Heaven and even they that have most have not enough to deserve it But still the Parallel goes on For the reason why the Manna which God sent down to the People Israel would not indure above a Day was saith Philo upon the Place lest considering the Care by which their Manna was preserv'd more than the Bounty by which 't was given they might be tempted to applaud not God's Providence but their own Thus if God had bestow'd so full a measure of his Grace as to have left us altogether without our Frailties perhaps our very Innocence might have been our Temptation We might have found it an Inconvenience to have been dangerously Good Like those once happy but ever-since unhappy Angels whose very excellency of Nature did prove a kind of Snare to them even the purity of their Essence did give occasion to their defilement Their very Height and Eminence was that that helpt to pull them down and one reason of their falling was that they stood so firmly For though they were free from that Lust which is the Pollution of the Flesh yet they were lyable to Ambition which is the Filthiness of the Spirit As if their Plethory of Goodness had made them Wantons or the Unweildiness of their Glory had made them Proud 't was from a likeness to their Creator that they aspir'd to an Equality and so they were the first of all the Creatures as well in their Fall as their Perfections Now adding to this the consideration that Ingratitude does gather Increase of Guilt from a greater abundance of Obligations so as the Angels falling from Heaven could not fall less than as low as Hell we may perhaps find a reason for which to congratulate to our selves that Dimensum or Pittance of God's free Grace which hath left us our Infirmities as fit Remembrancers to Humility That being placed in a condition rather of Trembling than of Security every Instance of our defect may send us to God for a Supply God hath given us our Proportion that we may not grumble or despair but not such a Perfection as once to Adam and the Angels before their Fall that we may not like Them be either careless or presume So that making a due comparison of that faint measure of Goodness which now we possibly may have by the Grace of God with that full measure of Glory which now at least we hope for we must be fain to acknowledge when all is done that the greatest measure of our obedience is far from deserving the least of Bliss For as the Sun appears to us a most glorious Body and yet is look't upon by God as a spot of Ink so though the Righteousness of men doth seem to men to be truly such yet compar'd with our Reward it is no more than as filthy Rags That other promise of our Lord Never to see or to taste of Death had been sufficiently above our merits But to inherit Eternal Life too though I cannot affirm it above our wishes yet sure it is often above our Faith Had we no more than we deserv'd we should not have so great Blessings as Rain and Sunshine and God had still been Iust to us had he made our best wages to be as negative as our work For as the best of us all can boast no more than of being less guilty than other men so we can claim no other Reward than to be somewat less punish't that is to be beaten with fewer stripes As the Ox amongst the Iews being unmuzzl'd upon the Mowe by the special appointment of God himself at once did eat and tread the Corn whereby he received his Reward at the very same Instant in which he earn'd it so the Protection of such a Soveraign is Reward enough for our Allegiance and the present Maintenance of a Servant is the usual Recompence of his labour Whatsoever God
growing Unrighteous after Regeneration 2 Pet. 2. ult For having been wash'd from the Mire of Sin Original by the Laver of Baptism and from the Mire of Sins Actual by the blood of Iesus Christ in the other Sacrament of Eucharist they have committed the very Sins of which they had solemnly repented and so their latter end hath been worse than their beginning Now putting the Case unto our selves we know not what may arrive betwixt the Cup and the Lip much less betwixt This and the Day of Iudgment especially if we meet with a Time of Trial. We cannot be confident of our strength upon any better Ground than St. Peter stood on And having not Grace at our own Disposal we must not boast as he did what we will do above others when Christ is under a Condemnation If we have follow'd him to Golgotha we must religiously fear to forsake him there For let our Enduring be what it will it will be found to no purpose unless we endure unto the end And thence it follows that 'till we have Happiness in Possession we are to live by such a Faith as doth admit an holy mixture of fear and trembling This Mode or Manner of our obedience being as rigidly requir'd by God Almighty as the Matter and Measure and Method of it Not only Faith and Repentance and Amendment of Life but also Perseverance in each of These is the Condition of the Promises which God in Christ hath made to us Whose House we are saith the Epistle to the Hebrews if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoycing of the hope firm unto the end Heb. 3. 6. Take heed therefore Brethren as it follows a little after lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God v. 12. But exhort one another daily whilst it is call'd To Day lest any of you be harden'd through the deceitfulness of Sin v. 13. For we are made partakers of Christ not absolutely but with an If If we hold the beginning of our Confidence steadfast unto the end v. 14. Now what needed the holy Penman to have crowded and throng'd so many Caveats so thick together in that one Chapter and in other Chapters of that Epistle if the People of God are so sure of Heaven that there is not place left for a fear of Hell If some at least who were enlightned and by true Grace sanctified do turn Mammelucks and Apostates as Lycerus hath observ'd and as the Apostle doth take for granted Heb. 6. 6. we ought to fear and take heed that We be none of their Number For God's promises to us of a Spiritual Canaan are no more absolute than those of a Temporal Canaan which he made heretofore to his People Israel And since he swore to the Provokers which came with Moses out of Aegypt that notwithstanding his promise which appears by that to have been conditional they should not enter into his Rest Heb. 3. 18. the Apostle tells us we ought to fear lest if we do as they did we come short as they did of the conditional promise proposed to us Heb 4. 1. And conformably to this St. Iohn doth earnestly exhort us to look to our selves that we lose not the things which we have wrought but that we may receive a full Reward 2 Joh. 8. And he that saith here for our Consolation It is God that worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure doth also say for our greater Caution that we our selves are to work out our own Salvation Plainly intimating unto us for he is not guilty of Contradictions That God's working in us to will and to do is not after an irresistible but congruous manner not as with natural but as with voluntary Agents not by physically inforcing but by morally persuading our peevish Wills He doth so work with us as to require that we also do work with Him It is evinced even from hence that as God hath his part so we have ours in the great Business of our Salvation Because we are many times threatned with falling short of the promise in Case we depart from the living God For God cannot threaten to be reveng'd upon his Creatures for what Himself doth either do or not do but for what is either performed or not performed by his Creatures It being not possibly imputable to the Creature that God hath made it Thus or Thus any more than God himself can be accomptable to his Creature why he made it Thus or Thus. God indeed doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most divinely work in us both to will and to do the work required to our Salvation But 't is that we may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 work out that work which he is pleas'd to work in us And by consequence we must do it with fear and trembling lest when God hath done his part we finally miss of Salvation for having been wanting in doing ours And this doth lead us to consider the third Importance of the expression the very great Awefulness or Dread with which we are to work out our own Salvation The two first were rational this third is Literal And indeed the third may be deduced out of the second For if we may fall as well as others we may be lyable to vengeance as well as others That which calls for our solicitude deserves our Fear And that which was St. Paul's reason may well be ours even because our God is a Consuming Fire I may say in some sense that God made Hell for the use of all as well of the best as the worst of men For a Torment only to These who have hated knowledge and will not choose the fear of the Lord But for a Terror also to Them whom he would therefore have to fear that they may not feel it That working out their Salvation with fear and trembling they never may come to the place of Torment The same Spirit that saith Fear not them that can kill the Body only which is a fear proceeding from the spirit of Bondage doth also say at the same Time But rather fear Him who can cast both Body and Soul into Hell Implying This to be such a Fear as doth very well consist with the spirit of Adoption It 's true indeed we may be brutishly valiant and over-daringly encounter the wrath of Heaven without the least fear of the pains of Hell But this I say is a beastly courage an arrant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say A fool-hardiness rather than valour True Valour being That that is built on Reason Nor can we Reasonably be free from the fear of Hell until we come to be sure of Heaven And sure of Heaven we cannot be until we have fought the good fight to a final victory and perfectly finish'd our Christian Course We must not suffer the novel Fancy of unconditional Election to flatter us out of all fear of the wrath of God and
on Earth too It is enough for poor Lazarus to have his Good things hereafter And enough for Rich Dives to have his proportion of Good things here But the good men I speak of will needs be happier than Lazarus and yet much richer than Dives too They will have their good things as well in this as another World All the subject of their Inquiry is not how to be better than other men in Acts of Iustice and Works of Mercy But how to be greater and more regarded which is call'd a being better in point of Quality and Degree And after these very things do the Gentiles seek They of Iava and the Molucco's They of Tartary and China whether as greedily as Christians I cannot tell But our Saviour spake only of Food and Rayment as of things which the Gentiles are wont to seek And well it were for Real Christians if Nominal Christians would seek no more If Food and Rayment would serve the turn Christians then like other Creatures might quietly live by one another But it seems they have no more than the Name of Christians who chiefly seek with the Gentiles the low concernments of the Flesh. For as many as are Christians in very good earnest will bestow themselves in seeking the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof supposing such things as These will be added to the rest as a good Appendix Man not living by Bread alone as our Saviour said to Satan but by bread as it is blessed by the good Word of God Nor indeed is he worthy to live by Bread who is not able to live without it who is not able to subsist upon better things When we reckon Food and Rayment among the Necessaries of Life which we do with good reason we only speak of such a painful and dying life as is not worthy our caring for unless in order to life Aeternal And for the nourishing of That the very famishing of the Body may pass for food unto the Soul From all which together it seems to follow That they who arrogate to themselves not only the greatest both Faith and Hope but the perfectest Assurance of life Aeternal do prove themselves unaware the greatest Infidels in the World whilst neglecting the grand Inquiry they ought to make after Heaven they let the Tide of their Affections run out wholly upon the Earth For did they really look for a Day of Iudgment as much as they do for an Hour of Death they would as certainly provide against the one as commonly they do against the other They would take as much Care to be just and honest as universally they do to be rich or healthful And make as much of their Souls by Mortification and Self-denial as now they do of their Bodies by a plentiful Injoyment of Creature-Comforts 'T is true indeed Life Aeternal is a thing which is quickly talk't of nor are there any so uncivil as not to afford it a friendly mention It is no hard thing to be another mans flatterer much less is it difficult to be ones own To be secure and praesumptuous is cheap and easy Yea 't is pleasant to flesh and blood to be carnally set free from that fear and trembling wherewith a man is to work out his own Salvation Thence it is that we abound with such an Herd of Fiduciaries and Solifidians who having persuaded themselves to fancy that Life Eternal is a thing which cannot possibly escape them and that all the next world is irresistibly their own They think they have nothing to do in This but to make a Trial whether it hath not been decreed that all shall be theirs that they can get and whether it hath not been decreed that they shall get all they try for and whether it hath not been decreed that they shall try to get All. When men are season'd with such a Principle they cannot think it concerns them to give all Diligence for the making of their Calling and Election sure by ceasing to do evil and by learning to do well or by adding to Faith Vertue and one Vertue unto another But supposing their Election so sure already as to be pass't the possibility of being miss't It is natural for them to give all diligence to make themselves sure of somewhat else For let them say what they will and let them think what they please and let them do what they can they cannot possibly give diligence to seek a thing in their possession or to secure what they believe it is impossible for them to lose No man living will light a Candle to look about for those Eyes which he believes are in his Head nor will he search after his head which is he doubts not upon his shoulders Our Saviour's two Parables of the lost Sheep and the lost Groat cannot but seem an arrant Iargon unto a man of such Principles as now I speak of For will He send about the Country to find a Sheep which is in his Fold or sweep the House for a Groat which he praesumes is in his Pocket No being poyson'd with an opinion that he was justified from Eternity and hath Grace irresistible and therefore cannot fall totally much less finally from Grace he will esteem it a thing impertinent for a man of his Talents to be so anxious as to Inquire what Good things he ought to do that he may inherit Eternal Life § 6. The great unhappiness of it is what I am sorry I have reason to believe I say truly That there are few Congregations wherein there are not such Professors as now I speak of who as long as fermented with such a Leven cannot possibly be profited by all our Preaching And therefore They above others must be inform'd That by the Nature of our Inquiries we ought to try as by a Touchstone of what sort we are whether Silver or Alchymy whether true and solid Gold or but polished Iron with double Gilt. By this we may explore from whence we came and whither 't is that we are going of whom we are and whom we are for For that Saying of our Saviour Matth. 24. 28. which historically refers to the Roman Army Wheresoever the Carkass is there the Eagles will be gathered together must needs be applicable and true in This sense also which is our Saviour's own Sense Luke 12. 34. Where your Treasure is there your Heart will be also From whence it follows unavoidably That if we are men of another world and have our Treasure laid up in Heaven we shall behave our selves as Pilgrims and perfect Sojourners here on Earth We shall be commonly looking Upwards with our Backs upon Egypt and our Faces towards Canaan Our Souls will be athirst for God Psal. 42. 1 2 3. our Hearts will pant after Eternity as the Hart panteth after the Water-Brooks crying out with holy David in an Exiliency of Spirit O when shall we appear before the Presence of God How low soever both our Bodies and
does there speak touching proportionable Temptations such as are not above our strength and are not for the staggering but for the trial of our Faith Now the Trial of our Faith worketh Patience and Patience breeds Hope and Hope maketh not ashamed Again The Trial of our Faith shall be found unto praise and honour and glory at the blessed Appearance of Iesus Christ. If Christ himself had not been tempted with all the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them yea and afterwards too with Disgrace and Torment and Death it self How then could he have led Captivity Captive but for Injuries and Pains where were our Fortitude and Patience were it not for all sorts of forbidden Fruit where were Continence and Sobriety and all other Abstinencies from Evil were it not for Wealth and Plenty where were Munificence and Works of Mercy where the Victories of Meekness and Moderation if there were no such thing as Glory and worldly Greatness Yea but for Danger Destruction and Death it self how should we come by our Immortality Our Saviour therefore when he compar'd a rich man's Entrance into Heaven with the Entrance of a Camel through the Eye of a Needle did not speak of a natural but of a moral Impossibility For wealthy Abraham went to Heaven as well as poor forsaken Lazarus And therefore St. Mark does very fitly not only translate but explain St. Matthew saying How hard not how Impossible Nor for them that have Riches but for them that trust in them to enter into the Kingdom of God And this may competently serve to keep the Richest out of Despair § 6. Yet even This Alleviation may serve to keep them from Praesumption and make them humble because 't is hard to have Riches and not to trust in them Nor is there any one Thing that I am able at least to think of throughout the Gospel against which we are admonish'd praepar'd and arm'd with greater store either of explicit or implicit warnings When an ingenuous young Ruler whom Jesus lov'd came to inquire after Eternity and after the Means of its Attainment there was not any thing but his Possessions which seem'd to stand betwixt Him and Heaven For when his Oracle had told him He must sell all he had and distribute unto the Poor he was sad at that saying and went away grieved So great and real is the misery of too much Happiness upon Earth Had he been worth but two Mites he would no doubt have parted with them as the poor Widow did for a Treasure in Heaven And That was promis'd by our Saviour in the very same Breath in which he was exhorted to sell all he had But however such a Praecept could not be possibly so heavy as not to be made exceeding light by such a Promise as was annext Yet such a dangerous thing it is to have the Friendship of this World by injoying all the Pleasures which Power and Plenty can purchase for us that the Treasure in Heaven was but of cold signification and he was sad at That Saying that he must sell all he had Eternal Happiness in Reversion was but a Melancholick thing when only promised on condition of being merciful to the Poor The Expression of St. Luke is short and pithy on that Occasion He was very sorrowful for he was very Rich. And from That Single Instance our Lord took occasion to say in General and of All How hardly shall they that have Riches enter into the Kingdom of God Let the Persons be who they will Great and Rich or Rich only Rich and Prodigal or Covetous yet in case they Have Riches their Case is difficult They may be sav'd but very hardly Possibly they may but with much ado With very much strugling and striving to enter in at the strait Gate A man of great Bulk may possibly though hardly be able to pass at a little Door by a great deal of squeezing and compression and coarctation of himself perhaps by rubbing off his Flesh and by bruising some of his Bones And so a Camel may enter through the Eye of a Needle But then the Beast must be burnt to Ashes or cut at least into shreds and fitters that one shred may enter before another and all may pass in the Conclusion A very cold degree of Comfort not to be in any likelyhood but in a bare Possibility of being sav'd § 8. It is enough to deterr us from being grieved at the loss or overglad in the Injoyment of worldly Goods That the good things of this World are apt to be Enemies to all that 's Good They are often Enemies to Preaching for the Deceitfulness of Riches choaks the Word and makes the Hearer become unfruitful Matth. 13. 22. They are usual Enemies to Praying for you ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your Lusts James 4. 2. They are common Enemies to Loyalty and upright dealing for Iudas being Christ's Cash-keeper did quickly find his very Office became his Tempter He did not stab but sell his Master Nor that out of malice but love of mony And when the Husbandmen of the Vineyard conspir'd to murder their Landlord's Heir It was to this end alone That the Inheritance might be Theirs Mark 12. 7. Again the things of this World are general Enemies to Religion to Religion in its practical and chiefest part whose Truth and Purity does stand in This That we keep our selves unspotted from the World that is to say from the Wealth and Friendship from the Luxuries and the Lusts and the Glories of it Iames 1. 27. Briefly they are Enemies to the Eternal Salvation of Soul and Body For they that will be rich fall into Temptation and a Snare into very many foolish and hurtful Lusts which drown the Soul in Destruction and Perdition 1 Tim. 6. 9. Nor was it sure without Cause that our Saviour made Dives the Repraesentative of the Damn'd A man of Quality and Fortune highly befriended by the World cloath'd in Purple and fine Linnen and faring sumptuously every day Which was so far from being a Narrative of any Particular man's Case that I could never read of any whose name was Dives much less that there was such in the time of Lazarus Nor was Lazarus there meant of any Begger in particular who lay full of Sores at the Rich man's Gate But all was spoken in a Parable And that as 't were on purpose to let us know what kind of Voiagers more especially are bound for Heaven and for Hell and with what sorts of People they Both are aptest to be stock't to wit with poor Lazars and wealthy Gluttons Those Inhabitants of Heaven as These of Hell Again it teaches us how frequent and usual 't is for every man to have his Portion of Pain and Pleasure either in This or another Life His good things here and his evil things hereafter or his evil things now and his
being made perfect through suffrings he thereupon became the Author of Eternal Salvation not to them that believe him only but to them that obey him also v. 9. not to any Believing Rebels not to Treacherous Believers of which the world is too full but to them who have Faithfulness as well as Faith who so believe as to serve him and do his Will He is not the Author of Salvation to them that know it but do it not or to them who do promise but not perform it For almost All do know his Will and all do promise to perform it not only in their Baptism but over and above on their Bed of Sickness No to Them and Them only is he the Author of Salvation who live according to what they know and justifie their Promise by their Performance Our Saviour intimates by a parable Matth. 21. 28 29 30 31. that the obedient Churl is much better than the mealymouth'd Rebel It is a vain thing to say we are Sons of God and Servants of Christ unless we practically Shew as well as Say it A Son honoureth his Father and a Servant his Master said God heretofore by the Prophet Malachi If I then be a Father where is mine honour if I be a Master where is my Fear Now what was thus said to others by God the Father under the Law is as effectually said to us by God the Son under the Gospel Why call ye me Lord Lord and do not the things that I say To say Sir your Servant is either a Complement or a Ieer when we say it with our Lips but without our Actions And this doth seem to be intended by the words of my Text if we compare it with the Inference deduced from it Ye call me Lord and Master and ye say well But to say very well is not sufficient For the Devils said well in saying that Christ was the Son of God And the Worldling said well in that he said unto our Saviour of the Commandments of the Law All these things have I kept from my Youth But not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven for the Life of Christianity consists in Practice And therefore the Inferences are These which are drawn from the Text by Him that spake it If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet ye also ought to wash oneanother's feet v. 14. If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them v. 16. And by the same Logick he argues in the very next Chapter which is another part of his Farewell-Sermon If any man love me he will keep my words v. 23. and He that loveth me not keepeth not my words v. 24. which is as if he should have said He that loves me will obey me and do the Things that I appoint him which if any man does not let him say what he will he does not Love me For no good Tree can bear ill Fruit that 's an Aphorism of Christ Matth. 7. 18. there is not any thing more impossible than that sincere Love and a solid Faith should ever bring forth Rebellion and Disobedience Or so much as consist with that which does No no more than a Vine can bring forth Thorns or no more than a Fig Tree can bring forth Thistles From whence the Sequel is Unavoidable That if we do not justly Obey our Master we neither heartily Love him nor do we cordially believe him For let our Faith and our Love be what they can be they are no more than a Couple of Trees which must be known by their Fruit. That 's the great Diagnostick commended to us by our Saviour whereby to judge of ourselves and others Matth. 7. 20. If the Fruit is Disobedience to the Commandments of our Lord then the Love that is pretended is but a Thorn and the Faith so much talk't of an arrant Thistle Let the Lover or the Believer be commonly call'd what he will either a Vine or a Fig Tree A Godly man or a Saint And let the Leaves or the Branches be never so specious to the Eye I mean Professions and Shews and Forms of Godliness Yet our Master's Affirmation is still as true as it is Terrible Every Tree without exception which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the Fire Matth. 7. 19. Lord what a change of men's manners would this one word produce were it but throughly Understood or but sufficiently consider'd had it the happiness to be taken as well into the Hearts as the Ears of men behold the only sure way whereby to judge without Sin of our selves or others If we are fraudulent persons or Drunckards if we are Schismaticks or Rebels if we are Slanderers or Railers or fals Accusers or any otherways abounding in the fruits of the Flesh Gal. 5. 19. 't is plain that God when he cuts us down will also cast us into the Fire I say he will and must do it because of his Iustice and Veracity unless Repentance step in timely 'twixt Us and Death And still by Repentance I mean Amendment Not an empty confession that we have sin'd nor yet a cheap wishing we had not sin'd no nor expressions of Attrition for having sin'd but a bringing forth fruits meet for Repentance A Renovation of the outward and inward man such a thorow Reformation as does make a New Creature A Change of mind and of manners even the fruits of the spirit Gal. 5. 22. In a word If we are not our own but are bought with a Price and bought out right by our Lord and Master and that as to the whole of us both Soul and Body Then as St. Paul does well infer let us glorify him that bought us both in our Bodies and in our Souls because they are not truly ours but his that bought them 1 Cor. 6. 20. § 14. But there is yet another Lesson to be derived from this Doctrin and such as our Master in the Text has taught us how to draw from it by his Example For it being to be praemised that the Disciple is not above his Master nor the Servant above his Lord we must not only do as our Master did But when God shall call us to it it is our Duty also to suffer as he hath suffer'd First we must do as our Master did For 't is his own way of arguing in the next verse after my Text If I your Lord and Master have washed your feet ye ought also to wash oneanother's feet for I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done Here he argues from his being our Lord and Master the obligation lying upon us to give an active obedience to his example and by way of consecution to his Command And this being so what manner of men ought we to be in the course of our Lives and conversations we ought to Love oneanother as
it follows as unavoidably as that God cannot lye That we must All without exception be first well Doers we must first of all be good and Faithful Servants before the Iudge can say to us well done good and faithful Servants And yet again he must be able to say That to us before he can possibly bid us Enter into the Ioy of our Lord. He cannot say well done to an Evil Doer He cannot call him a Faithful who is an unfaithful Servant He cannot say Come ye blessed and Enter ye into the Ioy of your Lord to whom the Sentence of Go ye Cursed into everlasting Fire does of right belong § 17. And if these things are so then as we tender the greatest Interest both of our Bodies and of our Souls Let no man cozen us to Hell by making us believe we are sure of Heaven Beware of Comfortable Preachers as they that love to be flatter'd do fasly call them who either write or speak much in the Praise of Faith But in Disparagement of obedience to the Commandments of our Lord. And often quarrel at the necessity of being rich in good works as if Salvation were to be had at a cheaper Rate Let me put the case home as well to others as to myself in the fewest words Have we an earnestness of Desire to live for ever in Bliss and Glory or are we careless and indifferent what shall become of us hereafter Do we seriously believe an Immortality of our Souls a Life after Death and a Day of Iudgment Or do we but talk of these things in civility to the men amongst whom we live if we are in good earnest in the Rehearsal of the Creed of the two last Articles in particular the Resurrection of the Body and the Life everlasting Then let the Condition of the New Covenant abide forever in our Remembrance And seeing this is the Condition on which the promise of Salvation is given unto us that we receive and own Christ as our Lord and Master as our Saviour and our Prince as our Advocate and our Iudge too And that we so own him in our Lives as well as in our Beliefes as well in our practice as speculation Let us not flatter ourselves for shame as so many Traytors to our own Souls that Salvation will be found upon easier Termes For to such as cannot pretend to be Babes or Ideots or never to have liv'd within the sound of Christ's Gospel the words of the Apostle are very positive and Express That without Holiness and Peace that is to say without our Duties both to God and to our Neighbour No man living shall see the Lord Hebr. 12. 14. And this I think may suffice us to have learn't at this time from the Text in hand For thô I say not that these are All yet these Especially are the Lessons we are concern'd to draw from it and such as willingly flow to us from its most rational Importance Now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we are able to ask or think according to the power that worketh in us unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all Ages world without end THE Yoke of Christ Easier than That of MOSES AND HIS Burden a Refreshment to such as Labour MATTH XI 30. For my Yoke is Easy and my Burden is light A Text not unsuitable to all the Severities of the Lent which is if St. Ierome may be believ'd and other Fathers more antient of Apostolical Institution A Time sequester'd by That Autority for the Exercise and Practice of Christian Strictness expressed pithily in my Text by our bearing both the Burden and Yoke of Christ. § 1. The Affinity and Connexion is as obvious as it is close betwixt my present and former Text. For it was the last Service which I perform'd in this Place to shew how Christ is our Lord and Master Such as he was pleas'd to assert himself in the thirteenth of St. Iohn at the thirteenth verse It now remains that we Contemplate the Moderation of the Laws whereby our Lord is exceeding Gratious and our Master extreamly Good For it seems not sufficient that he is known to be a Lord in Exacting obedience to his Commandments unless he be as well known to be good and gratious in that his Commandments are not grievous Nothing neer so insupportable as they were thought by those Gnosticks St. Iohn alludes to 1 Iohn 5. 3. who fell away from Christianity and disown'd Christ himself for fear their Loyalty and obedience should cost them dear living then as they did in Times of Trial and Persecution He is our Lord and our Master in respect of the Yoke with which he binds and in regard of the Burden wherewith he loads us But this our Master is Good and our Lord Gratious in respect of the Easiness which he gives unto the one and in regard of the Lightness wherewith he qualify's the other But § 2. Our Translation however True is so far short of the Original that as before so now also the Greek must come in to assist the English or else we shall miss of its whole Importance For 't is not only my Yoke is Easy But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Yoke is Good My Yoke is profitable and useful My Yoke is an indearing and delectable Yoke For all this and more is imported by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Lexicographers and Glossaries do make apparent That is to express it without a Metaphor The Service of Christ is a most gratious and Desirable Service What he commands us to perform is not only very possible but facil and easy to be perform'd Nor only so but sweet and pleasant in the performance It is not only our Bounden Duty but 't is our Interest our Delight our Reward to serve him § 3. And such as the Yoke is with which he binds such is also the burden wherewith he loads us Whatsoever his Burden may here import If the Burden of his Precepts then 't is absolutely light For then the Burden and the Yoke are Terms aequivalent The lightness of the one explains the Easiness of the other and the later clause of the Text is but an Exegesis of the former Or admit that by his Burden is meant the Burden of his Cross yet even then we must confess it is comparatively light And so indeed it is in two considerable respects First in respect of the endless punishment which will fall upon Them that refuse the Burden and again in respect of that unspeakable Reward which will be given unto them that shall take it up The Cross of Christ at its heaviest is but a Burden of Afflictions which St. Paul accompts light for these two reasons First because it is but for a moment next because it works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory For as the same Apostle saith to the same Corinthians what seems at first
hearing a contradiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that That which was glorious was not glorious at all in respect of the glory which excelleth So 't is as true That our Afflictions are no Afflictions in comparison with the Beatitudes which they work for us as our Reward § 4. This is the meaning of the Text consider'd simply in it self Wherein are two Things especially which offer themselves to our Consideration First the Greatness of Christ in the Extent of his Authority and Secondly his Goodness in the merciful use or employment of it First his Greatness is very evident in that he has the power to impose a Yoke and a Burden A Yoke of Injunctions upon our Necks and a Burden of Suffrings upon our Backs Next his Goodness is as apparent from the easiness of the one and from the lightness of the other For besides That Eternal and exceeding weight of Glory which gives an easiness to the Yoke however hard and a lightness to the Burden however heavy The one is so easy in it self and the other in it self is so truly light considering that dolor si gravis brevis is just as much as si longus levis that even the Yoke of his Injunctions does give us Freedom and the Burden of his Suffrings affords us strength If we put them both together they make a Text without length extremely copious for it exhibits to us at once the Law and Equity of the Gospel The Yoke and the Burden do prove the first as the easiness and the lightness infer the second It serves to keep us in the Fear and the Faith of Christ. For first the nature of a Yoke implies a Bridle to our Presumption and then the easiness of this Yoke does also forbid us to despair Christ is here both in his Kingly and Priestly Office at once to rule and to bless us too He is an Absolute Soveraign because to Him it does belong to put a Yoke upon our Necks But yet withal he is a good and a Gratious Soveraign because It is not only easy but gives us ease too And though it may sometimes vex the Body yet it brings Rest unto the Soul The Reason of which is wrapt up in the causal For being consider'd in its Retrospect on the Verse going before Where no sooner had he said Take my Yoke and ye shall find rest but immediatly it follows For or Because my Yoke is easy And this again affords us a double Reason for which we should come at his Invitation v. 28. First because my Yoke is easy Therefore come unto me Next because it is so gratious as to give Rest unto your Souls Therefore come unto me all ye that labour And this is the meaning of the Text in its relation to the Context § 5. To Contract my meditations within the compass of the time and withal to go forwards with the design I have in hand which is not only to shew the Law but also the Equity of the Gospel I must not now consider Christ in the extent of his Authority as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say an Absolute unaccomptable Master to whom of right it does belong to impose a Yoke and a Burden for That was properly the Subject of the last Service which I perform'd But only in the exercise and usage of it as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a Mild and a Gratious Master whose Commands are so far from being burdensom and grievous that even his Yoke makes us able to bear his Burden and his Burden does enable us to wear his Yoke At which Paradox to Nature if any Natural man stumble he may illustrate it to himself by the Wings of an Eagle which are indeed a Real Burden and of Considerable Weight to the Eagle's Body but such a Burden as by which she soars up loftily towards Heaven which for want of That Burden would be a Groveler on the Earth Or he may clear it by the weights of a Vulgar Clock which the heavier they are do make it go so much the faster § 6. A Subject upon which I do the rather indulge my Thoughts thô better handled I doubt not by other men and somewhat often by my self upon other Texts because we have Libertines in our days as there were Gnosticks in St. Iohn's who make the Law by which we live I mean the Law of Christ's Gospel to need our Apologies and Defensatives by bringing up an ill Report of the Christian Yoke as if it were as hard as the Yoke of Moses which neither we nor our Fathers neither the Prophets nor the Apostles were ever able well to bear Acts 15. 10. Just as They who went to spy out the Land of Canaan giving it out to be a Land which did eat up its Inhabitants a Land full of Gyants the Sons of Anak in comparison with whom Themselves were Grashoppers Yet they confessed it was a Land which even flow'd with milk and hony excellent Figs and Pomegranates and such Gygantaean Grapes too in full proportion to the Inhabitants that one single Cluster was fain to be carried on two men's shoulders And Caleb thought it not impossible to take Possession of the Land in order whereunto he pressed earnestly for an Essay implying that All the Explorators excepting Iosua and Himself deceiv'd the People with their own Fears thereby tempting them to murmur against the means of their Redemption and to think hardly of their Redeemer as if he had put them upon the doing of things impossible to be done So there are Multitudes even in Christendom and at this very day Antinomians and Solifidians who having not courage enough as Christians to make a Trial of their Ability how far forth they are impowred to wear the Yoke of Christ's Commands or bear the Burden of his Cross And being unwilling that other Christians should be less cowardly than Themselves have given it out among the People that Christ commands Impossibilities Which is as much as to say that His Yoke is too hard and his Burden too heavy and that by consequence their Rebellions are but the Infirmities of their Nature which might have been possibly in their Wishes but not at all in their Abilities to be avoided Whereas the Truth is they are resolv'd to sit still to be at peace with their Temptations and not to make the best use of the Powers within them So that the Devil becomes strong in that they make themselves weak and 't is in stead of Wisdom to him that he finds men foolish If at any time He conquers it is because they do not fight yea if he does not fly from them it is because they do not resist him for so saith St. Iames expresly Resist the Devil and he will fly from you But Cowards call their mean Submissions their Inabilities to resist that so they may Sin without Scruple or at least stop the Mouth of a clamorous
fill it up with as good a Zographesis as I am able § 10. First then to strengthen our Resolutions of accustoming our selves to Law and Discipline And not to wear the Yoke of Christ just as the Ox wears his Master's meerly for fear of being goaded but from a principle of Love to the Yoke it self let us consider how those Commandments which do make up the Law or the Yoke of Christ do but exact the things of us which are agreeable to our Reason and therefore suitable to our Nature and therefore consonant to our Desires I mean our Rational Desires which we Injoy as we are Men though not our brutish ones which we suffer as we are Animals and which without any difference are common unto us with the Beasts that perish It should be natural for us as Men indued with Reason to Love the Beauty of our Lord and to fear his Power Because we naturally incline to the Means of Safety at least as far as we do know them or believe them to be such Now all that tends unto our Safety may be reduc't to two Heads Seeking God and Eschewing Evil. And Rational Nature does incline as well to the first as to the Second Nay as Things which are good and have a Tendency to our Safety are more or less excellent and useful to us so Nature whilst it is Rational must needs incline to That of the Higher more strongly than to That of the Lower Value And that which saves a man for ever being of much an higher value than that which saves him but for a Time 'T is plain that Nature being Rational does most incline towards the former And all the Commandments of our Lord having a Tendency unto That are by consequence agreeable to human Nature Especially when our Nature is also rectified by Grace which does not fail to work with any who do not fail to work with It And however insufficient to make us Sinless is yet abundantly sufficient to make us single and sincere Less than which in our Service our Master's Iustice cannot exact And the Equity of his Gospel exacts no more § 11. The Truth of which may be evinced from the Absurdity which would follow its being supposed to be False For the Moral Commands of Christ like the Moral commands of Moses must be acknowledged to be Holy Iust and Good Which yet I know not how they could be were they not adequate to the Faculties of Grace and Reason For what Goodness can there be in an Impossibility of doing the Good that is required or what holiness can there be in unavoidable transgressions for want of strength Or what Iustice can it be that any Rational Agent should be accomptable for the Things he could never help To command Impossibilities is not agreeable to Reason in Him who threatens an Endless Punishment for not performing what is commanded And therefore no such hard Yoke can be imposed by our Lord on the Neck of Any No such heavy and grievous Burden can be laid by a Saviour on any Shoulder For though 't is true that the Reprobates both men and Devils being left and forsaken and finally given over by the Iudge of all the world are under a sad Impossibility of doing Good yet it is as true too that they drew upon themselves such a deplorable Necessity of doing evil They were not created in That Condition For God created them upright and made them capable of Duty But they found out and follow'd their own Inventions whereby to lose the Capability which God had given them Eccles. 7. 29. If men are so wilful in using the Liberty of their Wills as to make an absolute Covenant with Death and with Hell to be at Agreement if they will Sin with both hands as one Prophet words it and draw Iniquity as with a Cart-rope as it is in Another No wonder if in the words of the Book of Wisdom they pull Destruction upon Themselves with the work of their hands And in These considerations All who are Lovers of Christ indeed and think ingenuously of him and are not grosly injurious to him nor have an evident pique at him must either say that he commands us in proportion to our Talents of Grace and Reason or will not punish us for the Not doing what is impossible to be done Thus as the Antinomian Error may be sufficiently confuted by Arguments leading ad Absurdum so the Truth of Christ's Doctrin is as sufficiently confirmed by the Absurdity which would follow its being supposed to be false § 12. Again if we are not out of our Wits nor have cast off the Gentleness and Humanity of our Nature we are not able to give an Instance in any one of Christ's Commands which is truly grievous we cannot pitch on That precept which is not agreeable to our Nature For what other is the Sum of all his Commandments put together than that we do to all others as we would that all others should do to us And what is That but the Law of Nature not only written by Severus a meerly Heathen Emperour in all his Plates and publick works But by the invisible finger of God in the natural Heart and Conscience of man as man till Tract of Time and Evil Custom in some depraved persons have raz'd it out Let us keep but This precept and break the rest if we are able For what does our Lord require of us in any one or more parts of his Royal Law which is not easily reducible to this one Head Deal we as righteously with men as by men we would be dealt with And let us do the Will of God with as much singleness and Zeal as we desire that God himself will be pleas'd to do ours And then we have at once fulfill'd the Law of Nature and of Christ too § 13. Now if the Yoke of Christ's Precepts is thus easy in it self how smooth and easy is it to Them who have inur'd themselves to it by their Obedience an Argument taken from Experience will be as cogent as any can be David found after a great and a long Experience that the Commandments of God were sweeter to him than the Hony and Hony-comb Psal. 19. 10. where the word Hony being us'd by a kind of a Proverb among the Hebrews for all imaginable objects of Sensual Pleasure 't is plain the meaning of the Prophet must needs be This that the Pleasure arising to him from the Rectitude of his Actions and an uniform obedience to Gods Commands was as much greater than any pleasure which he had ever yet injoy'd in the Breaches of them as the Pleasure which smites the Soul is greater than That which affects the Body Betwixt which two there is so signal and wide a Difference that by an obvious Antimetabole the Pleasure of the Soul is the Soul of Pleasure to which the pleasure of the Body is in comparison nothing more than a
Ioy at the Return of Good Friday upon which they were to celebrate their Master's Suffrings on the Cross as that the sense of Their suffrings seem'd to be wholly swallow'd up by the far greater sense which they had of His. Though they were scatter'd and dispers't as far asunder as the Ingenie of Malice could well contrive some imprison'd upon the Land some under Hatches upon the Sea some in Caves of the Wilderness and some condemn'd upon the Scaffold Yet as the Angles of a Pyramid however distant at the Basis do still come nearer as they Ascend and at last Concenter in the Conus so how distant soever the one from the other those Christians were in respect of their Bodies here below They met together in their Affections at the same Throne of Grace And though Our Church like Theirs in the late ill Times was truly Militant when with the Burden she labour'd under she sadly hung down her Head yet Sursum Corda she lifted up her Heart to the Lord of Glory And by an union of Affections kept all her Holy Days and Feasts with the Church Triumphant It would be certainly a voluminous if not an Endless Undertaking thô otherwise easy enough to prove by way of Induction or by a Catalogue of the Particulars how many Myriads have been enabled to run with Patience the Race that was set before them by meerly looking unto Iesus the Author and Finisher of their Faith so far forth as for the Ioy that was set before him he endured the Cross and despised the shame and so sate him down at the right hand of God Nor indeed can it be otherwise with such as Love and believe in the Lord Jesus in sincerity And give an Evidence of Both by their new obedience For so long as we are such the Spirit it self saith St. Paul beareth witness with our Spirits that we are children of God And if Children then Heirs Heirs of God and joynt Heirs with Christ if so be we suffer with him that we may also be glorified together with him And suffer with him we shall with the greater ease if not Ambition because we shall reckon with St. Paul That the Suffrings of this present Time are not worthy to be compared with the Glory which shall be revealed in us and because the whole Trinity is clearly ingaged in our behalf For so St. Paul tells us in the following Parts of the same Chapter God the Father gave us his Son and all good things together with him God the Son gave us Himself not only that he might dye but also rise from the Dead and be an Advocate for us incessantly at the right hand of God Thirdly God the Holy Ghost ingageth for us as much as either both by helping our Infirmities through which we know not what we should pray for as we ought And by making Intercession for us with Groans not to be utter'd And whilst so great a Care is taken both of us and our Interest by God Himself It cannot but follow that all the Crosses which shall be laid upon us by others will work together for our Comfort in this life present as well as for our Glory in that to come § 19. Lastly the Burden of Christ is light when freely taken upon our selves as in particular when he Commands us somewhat like what the Ammonites commanded the men of Iabesh Gilead to pluck out an Eye a right Eye too and to cast it from us For First it is not an Absolute but a Conditional Command We are to pluck out an Eye upon a supposal that it offends us that is to say If it is scandalous and makes us stumble into Sin and into such wasting Sin as makes us fall headlong into Hell for so our Saviour does infer in his very next words In such a formidable Case and for the preventing of such a Mischief It is not only not grievous but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith our Saviour It is profitable for thee that one of thy Members perish and not that thy whole Body be cast into Hell So that Secondly 't is not a Positive but a Comparative Command And 't is the Dictate of Common Sense That of two evils of Punishment we are in Prudence to choose the least As rather to lose one Eye than Both and rather Both than the whole Body and rather the Body than the Soul To suffer any thing rather than Death and Death it self rather than Hell A man having a Gangraene in any Limb of his Body will not only permit but hire the Artist to cut it off And by consequence will confess it very much better and more desirable to Pluck out his Eye and to cast it from him than by keeping it in his Head to be Cast into Hell Better suffer under Them who can destroy the Body only than under Him who can destroy both Body and Soul Yea Thirdly 't is the Dictate of Sanctified Reason That of any two evils whereof the one is of Sin the other of Affliction we must choose to Suffer the greatest rather than wilfully Do the least Our first Care must be to make a Covenant with our Eyes not to look upon a Maid Next in order to That Design we should not look round about us in the Streets of the City for fear our Eyes become our Enemies Or if our Eyes chance to wander beyond the Bounds of That Counsel our third degree of Care must be not to gaze upon a Woman lest we fall by those things that are pretious in her v. 5. 8. Or if This cannot be done 't is better to out them whilst they are innocent as Virginius did his Daughter than continue them as Inlets to Sin and Hell Nor should we be griev'd at our Advantage though it be bought with great Pain whilst it is for the Prevention of a very much greater Last of all this Commandment which is so grievous to us in Sound is very far from being such in its intrinsick signification For in our Saviour's gratious sense 'T is but the Vanity of the Eye which we are bound to pluck out 'T is but the Violence of the Hand which we are bound to cut off And the obliquity of the Foot which we are bid to cast from us as is shewn more at large in an other Place Several vices of the Soul being fitly enough expressed by so many Members of the Body And That severest of our Lord's Precepts If thy Right Eye offend thee pluck it out if thy Right hand offend thee cut it off if thy Right Foot offend thee cast it from thee may very well admit of this Serene Signification That we must pluck out a Lust thô as dear to us as a right Eye And we must cut off an Avarice thô as dear to us as a right Hand And we must cast away an Ambition of greater things than are good for us thô perhaps as dear to us as
both our Feet § 20. Thus we see this very Precept which seems a very rough Part of our Saviour's Yoke and a very heavy part of his Burden too does upon serious Consideration appear as Easy and as Light as any Servant can expect from so kind a Lord. For this Maxim being praemis'd as most unquestionable and cogent That without the pursuing of Peace and Holiness no man living shall see the Lord And that no unclean Thing can ever enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but does inevitably belong to the Commonwealth of Hell how could our Master have obliged us with better expressions of his love than by Commanding us to flee from the wrath to come and to forbear the least evil which may possibly lead unto the greatest rather to crucifie the Flesh than permit it to defile and destroy the Spirit even to pluck out our right Eye rather than suffer it to pollute us to lose any thing rather than Heaven to indure any thing rather than Hell And rather to smart for some Time than to all Eternity § 21. Say then again thou Habitual Sinner or who ever else thou art who hast a Share in the Objection Since 't is thy Duty and thy Interest to bear the Yoke of Christ's Precepts and the Burden of his Cross with Faith and Patience by whomsoever 't is laid upon thee whether spitefully by others or piously by thy self what pretense canst thou invent for thy unkindness to those Commandments which are not only not grievous but very agreeable to thy Nature if at least thou retainest and hast not rooted out that Nature which the God of Good nature implanted in thee or what Apologie canst thou make for thy starting aside from the Cross of Christ which alone can exalt thee to wear a Crown nor that a meer Earthly and Perishing Crown but one which fadeth not away eternal in the Heavens So that admitting the Cross of Christ were heavy or grievous in it self yet in respect of thy Reward it should cease to be so Shall any Thing be call'd grievous which does evidently tend to thy greatest Good All the Apologie Thou canst make and all the Reason thou canst give is that thou art not yet arrived at a True Christian Faith nor by consequence at a Love of the Lord Jesus in Sincerity For do but imagin honest Friend thou wert just falling from a Praecipice or from the Pinacle of a Temple And a Neighbour standing by should thrust his hand to thy Rescue and catching hold of thine Arm should snatch thee back with such a vehement and sudden Twinge as either to dislocate or break a Bone would'st thou be angry with thy Neighbour for so much rudeness And in stead of being thankful for springing in to thy Deliverance would'st thou accuse him of being hasty and quarrel the roughness of his motion asking why he did not use thee with greater softness and would not deliberate before he acted would'st thou not rather kneel down before him and make an offer of obedience as well as thanks and look upon him thenceforwards as dearer to thee than thy life And in case thou art a rich man as He a poor one would'st thou not give him an yearly Pension for such an obliging act of Friendship as that ransoming of Thy life with the utmost hazard of his own Apply this now to the Case in hand Imagin as strongly as thou art able that thou art even now falling into the Bottomless Pit of Hell a Lake eternally burning with Fire and Brimstone And suppose in this Case that God the Son shall spring forth from the Bosom of God the Father ascend the Cross with set purpose to fetch thee down and descend into the Grave for no other end than to raise thee up And go purposely into Hell to fetch thee back from thence to Heaven Wilt thou repine at That Deliverance in case the violence of the Twitch shall happen to cost thee a little pain or be displeas'd with thy Deliverer in case he should not set thee Free at a cheaper rate than that of taking off the Weights that kept thee down that is by mortifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts by Commanding thee to be clean and pure and holy And that for this obliging reason because thy happiness does depend on thy being Such Wilt thou grumble at thy Physician for being severely Faithful to thee in using the means of thy Recovery Or wilt thou not rather bethink thy self with the Royal Psal mist Quid Retribuam What shall I render unto the Lord for all his Benefits and Blessings bestow'd upon me If this Redeemer of thine is poor as in his Members indeed he is wilt thou not give him an yearly Pension devote a Part of thy Revenue to Pious uses as a small Token that thou resentest his Goodness to thee or admit that He is Great as in Himself he is immensly and unspeakably such wilt thou not Sacrifice unto him the constant Tribute of thy obedience though he should rigidly command thee to fight with Anakims and Lyons to fetch him Water from Bethleem or Grapes from Canaan Suppose he orders thee as he does to pluck out an Eye of Lust or Vanity To cut off an Hand of Fraud or Violence To cast away a Foot which is swift to shed blood rather than keep them to thy undoing wilt thou not execute those orders for the Love of thy Saviour and of thy self too rather than thine Eye shall find the right Rode to Hell Thine Hand work out thine own damnation Thy Foot carry thee in the Broad way which leadeth to Destruction Imagin strongly that thy Saviour does long as much for thy obedience as King David did to drink of the Well of Bethlem Christ as Perfectly out of kindness as David out of Curiosity Wilt thou not do as much for Christ as David's Soldiers did for Him what They did to please David was at the Peril of their Lives But what thou dost to please Christ is for the Safety of thine own And 't is so natural for a man to pursue his own Interest that there is no better way to make a Rebel become Obedient than by convincing him of This That 't is his interest to be so as well as Duty Although a man be such a passionate Idolizer of his Wealth that he will part with his Blood a great deal sooner than with his Mony yet a desperate fit of Sickness will make him send for the Physician And He conceiving it for his Interest will give him very large Fees too The tenderest Person and the most delicate who values his Body above his Soul if he esteems it for his Interest to have a Member saw'd off being infested with a Gangraene will as I said a little before even hire the Chirurgion to use his Tool And after the very same manner as well as on the same ground He who is now the greatest Enemy both to the Counsels and Commandments
and Cross of Christ If he be but once brought to an inviolable Belief without all Scruples or Peradventures That every man shall live eternally either in Heaven or in Hell And that 't is clearly for his Interest to do or suffer as Christ commands him because in order to his Escape from all the miseries of the one and in order to his Attainment of all the Beatitudes in the other He will presently break off his Sins by Righteousness as Daniel charged Nebuchadnezzar He will be ready for Restitution to every one whom he hath injur'd as Zachee the Publican when He repented He will bring forth Fruits meet for Repentance as the Jews were admonished by Iohn the Baptist. He will be glad to be thought worthy to suffer shame for Christ's sake as the Apostles at Ierusalem Acts 5. 41. The Consideration of his Interest will give an high Relish to all his suffrings making his Torments and his Tormentors to become his great Instruments and means of pleasure § 22. Thus we see in all cases both Temporal and Spiritual every man is for himself and intends his own Interest in whatsoever it is which he undertakes either the Interest of his Profit or of his Pleasure and Reputation The Interest of his Flesh or of his Spirit his present Interest or his future still 't is one Interest or other which leads him on unto the best or the worst Performances in the World Is any man Covetous and extremely close sisted He thinks it is for his Interest as being the way to be Rich in mony which is the only Grand Project that he is driving Or is he Free and open-handed He thinks it for his Interest because it is the ready way to make him Rich in good Works which is the highest and noblest end at which he ayms in this World Is there any man running headlong into a Customary Contempt of his Saviour's Yoke He thinks it is for his Interest as being the way to live merrily and in Prosperity here on Earth which is the Soveraign Allective of his Desires Or does any man take pleasure in supporting both the Burden and Yoke of Christ He thinks it is for his Interest as being the way to dye safely and to live after Death a life of Bliss and Immortality which is the utmost Atchievement his heart is set on Lastly would ye know the Reason why I have meditated so much upon this kind of Subject why I have struck so many Blows upon this great Anvil made so many long Discourses though on occasion of divers Texts touching the Equity and the Law of our Saviour's Gospel and indispensable Necessity of our obedience unto the end The Reason of it is truly This Because I have thought it most mine own and other men's Interest so to do And till we are able to be so happy as to convince our selves and others that 't is most for our Interest to bear the Yoke of Christ's Law and the Burden of his Cross when 't is laid upon us 'T is very sure that neither of us shall bear the one or the other as is requir'd Whereas 't is as sure on the other side That as we never neglect our Interest in what is Secular or Carnal as touching our Credits or our Estates or our Temporal Preservation so as little shall we indure to start aside from the Burden or Yoke of Christ if indeed we do believe it our greatest Interest to bear them as He requires For can the very same man who is sollicitously careful to get a Trifle be as perfectly careless to gain a Talent or stand in very great Dread of a lesser Punishment But of an infinitely greater in none at all If we are strict in our conforming to the Commandments of men with whom the Penalties are but Temporal and the Recompenses but finite we cannot sure be Non-Conformists to the Commandments of Christ on a Supposal that we believe it as great a Truth as any is That his Punishments and Rewards are both Immortal and Immense Nor can I think of a more rational or a more satisfactory Accompt why the Commandments of men should be so commonly heeded by us with more circumspection than those of Christ but that we fear Them more and believe Him less or value the Interest of our Bodies above the Interest of our Souls or prefer the seeming certainty of what is Present before the Hope and Expectance of what is future And had rather become the owners of Earthly Contentments in Possession than to be dealing for Reversions in Heaven it self § 23. And therefore to the end we may be able even to feel and by consequence to arrive at the Conviction of Experience That the Yoke of Christ's Law is really Easy in it self and the Burden of his Cross is in comparison very light And that they have Both a secret vertue of giving Rest unto the Souls of Them that labour and of Refreshing the heavy laden for so our Saviour tells us expresly in the two next Verses before the Text let us be Conversant incessantly in all the means of attaining to a True Christian Faith That so by cordially believing we may passionately love the Lord Jesus Christ. And that loving him as we ought we may by consequence delight in doing that which he requires and by consequence may attain to that Reward which he hath Promis'd For as our Faith and our Love do what we can will beget obedience if the first is unfeigned and the second without Dissimulation So 't is sure that our obedience will end in bliss Not in bliss whilst we are Passengers but when we shall arrive at our Iourneys end For here we are Dead saith our Apostle and our life is yet hid with Christ in God But when the Lord Iesus Christ who is our life shall appear Then shall We also appear with Him in Glory Which God the Father of his mercy prepare us for through the working of his Spirit and for the worthiness of his Son To whom be Glory for ever and ever THE INDISPENSABLE NECESSITY OF Strict Obedience Under the GOSPEL THE INDISPENSABLE NECESSITY OF Strict Obedience Under The GOSPEL HEB. XII 28 29. Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us have Grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with Reverence and godly Fear For our God is a Consuming Fire THere is something Difficult in the Text which will I think be best explain'd by way of Answer to an Objection For why is it said here Let us have Grace It may seem at first hearing a strange expression whether we have it or have it not For if we have it it seems superfluous and if we have it not it seems as vain We need not say Let us have what 't is plain we have already before we say it And we say to no purpose Let us have this or that which whilst we have not it is not in our power to have For Is
Always yet our obedience unto the Gospel or Law of Christ by which alone we are to work out our own Salvation is to be qualified and season'd with Fear and Trembling The first of these I have consider'd in a former Subject of Meditation when I enlarged upon the Matter of which our working is to consist I now am come to that Part of my General Method and Design which obligeth me strictly to the consideration of the Second as touching the Manner or Qualification wherewith our working is to be cloath'd whereby to make it become effectual for the receiving of our Reward To wit with Meekness and Humility with Diligence and Solicitude with Awefulness and Horror or holy Dread the threefold Importance of Fear and Trembling which must first be considered in the Gross and after that in the Retail First consider'd in the Gross it shews us a ready and easy way of reconciling and understanding those parts of Scripture which being taken but in the letter do seem to differ and contradict For there is not any One Passion or Affection of the Mind either more rigidly forbidden or more earnestly commanded than that of Fear It is so rigidly forbidden that the fearful and unbelieving have their part in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone Rev. 21. 8. where St. Iohn making a Muster of such as are listed under the Devil and bound for Hell sets the Fearful and Unbelieving as it were in the Front of the whole Battalia with which the desperate Prince of Darkness is wont to wage War against the Father of Lights As for The Murderers and Whoremongers The Sorcerers and Idolaters They all march after in Rank and File Implying the Fearful and Unbelieving to be the Ringleaders in Hell and as it were in the Van of the Devil's Army Unbelief is so commonly the Cause of Fear and Fear is commonly such a Tempter to Unbelief that we find them often yok't together if not so as to signifie one the other Woe be to fearful Hearts and faint Hands and the Sinner that goeth two ways woe be to him that is faint-hearted for he believeth not therefore shall he not be defended Ecclus. 2. 12 13. It seems that Fear is a Thing of which we ought to be sore afraid Because it is apt to make us sinners going two ways at once One in our Principles and quite another in our Practice Very fit to be compar'd unto wandering Stars which are carried towards the West by the Primum Mobile whilst They are stealing towards the East by their proper motion When Peter was frighted upon the Sea and cryed Lord save me as he was just ready to sink although it was a good Prayer yet because it proceeded from Carnal Fear rather than Faith our Saviour presently took him up with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Thou of little Faith wherefore didst thou doubt And so it was fitly said by Zachary in his Divine Benedictus That God did Therefore deliver us out of the hands of our Enemies that we might serve him without Fear Luke 1. 74. With which agrees That of St. Paul to Timothy He hath not given us the spirit of Fear but of Love 2 Tim. 1. 7. To which it is added by St. Iohn That there is no Fear in Love for perfect Love casteth out Fear 1 John 4. 18. Thus we see how this Passion is very rigidly forbidden throughout the Scriptures And yet for all that it is so earnestly commanded that we cannot serve God acceptably unless we serve him with Fear as well as Reverence Heb. 12. penult Nor can there be any such thing as the working out of our Salvation unless we do it with Fear and Trembling For the fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom Prov. 1. 7. Nay as Solomon goes on in the fourteenth Chapter v. 27. The fear of the Lord is a Fountain of Life the attainment of which is the end of Wisdom And thence 't is set by our Apostle as the highest accomplishment of a Christian To perfect holiness in the Fear of God 2 Cor. 7. 1. What then may be the meaning of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these so seeming Contradictions that we must serve God with Fear and that we must serve him without Fear that there is no fear in love yet no true love without some fear The Reconcilement of These is extremely obvious It is no more but to distinguish betwixt that which is Carnal and that which is Spiritual betwixt the spirit of Bondage and the spirit of Adoption betwixt a servile and filial Fear As 't is true in one sense that perfect Love doth cast out Fear so 't is true in another that perfect Love doth carry fear along with it When I say with St. Iohn It casteth out Fear I mean that childish unmanlike Fear which betrayeth those Succours that Reason offereth especially that heathenish and carnal fear the fear of Poverty and Pain and other effects of Persecution the fear that made so many Sinners going two ways at once And so it casteth out one fear with another the fear of them that can kill the Body but are not able to hurt the Soul with the fear of Him who is able to cast them both into Hell In this sense 't is said we must serve God without Fear But when I say the same Love doth carry fear along with it I mean the fear of offending God the fear of quenching or grieving his holy Spirit the fear of never doing enough whereby to please him the fear of falling into Temptation the fear of a treacherous deceitful heart that is the fear of Unsincerity in the performance of our Service the fear of falling from our own steadfastness and so of receiving the Grace of God in vain In this sense 't is said by the Royal Prophet Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce unto him with Reverence And thus 't is said by the Royal Preacher Happy is the man that feareth always As a meer carnal fear is a fear of that which is carnal so a godly fear is the fear of God First a fear of his Majesty in respect of which he is a Soveraign next a fear of his Mercy in respect of which he is a Father for so 't is said by the Prophet David There is Mercy with thee ô Lord therefore shalt thou be Feared Lastly a fear of his Wrath and Iustice in respect of which he is a Iudge and also an Executor of Vengeance This Fear of God is so necessary for the Qualification of our obedience that all without it is nothing worth and even this of it self is wont to supply the place of all For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is men fearing God is an expression made use of by God himself whereby to signifie conscientious and pious men men who live in obedience to all his Precepts Iob was said to be an upright and perfect man because he was one that feared God And the words of
make us sure to miss of Heaven by making us dream it is unavoidable For as God in his Iudgment is no Respecter of Persons so neither was he in his Decrees As his Rule is in Time to judge us according to our works so he decreed from all Aeternity to proceed in Time by that Rule He did determin the end of men with a special respect to their Qualifications from whence his Decree is call'd respective But he did absolutely determin that men who are thus or thus qualified should come to this or that end And I could wish that this Distinction since 't is sufficient of it self might find so much favour in all mens Eyes as to appease and reconcile dissenting Brethren That as the Decrees of the Almighty are said to be Absolute in one sense so they may candidly be granted to be Respective in Another This methinks should be the Judgment of all Mankind being so visible in it self and of so necessary Importance to the well-ordering of our Lives That God did absolutely decree a most indissoluble Connexion betwixt Repentance and Salvation as betwixt Impenitence and Condemnation Which proves the end to have been decreed with a special respect unto the means Let this one thing be granted as well for the Comfort of the good as for a Terror to evil Doers And I for my part shall ask no more For the Decree which is respective in sensu diviso may so be proved to be Absolute in sensu composito as to afford a Demonstration That God's Decree of the several Ends was in respect to the several Means For if in sensu composito He did absolutely decree that all who are faithful and repent should belong to Heaven and that all who are faithless and impenitent should in like manner belong to Hell Then his Decree was respective in sensu diviso of that Repentance or Impenitence by which Professors do belong to Heaven or Hell From whence it follows unavoidably that if we are faithless and impenitent be it in a greater or lesser measure we ought to be affected with fear and trembling in the literal sense of this expression and never to give our selves Rest until we be faithful and do repent But faithful and penitent we cannot be till by the power of God's Grace after our Prayers and Tears shall have given him no Rest he shall be pleas'd to work in us and with us too not only to will but to do his work That by the power of his Grace we may all endeavour and by the power of his Grace on our Endeavours we our selves may have a Power too whereby to work out our own Salvation And work for it we must with a sacred horror because of the Dreadfulness of our Doom if we work remissly For as on one side God himself cannot condemn us although our sins past have been very great if we immediately repent and amend our lives because he is faithful who hath promised and he hath promised forgiveness to all that repent and turn unto him so withal on the other side Let our Righteousness past have been what it will yet if we return from Righteousness to Sin God himself cannot save us without our Repentance and Reformation because he hath sworn that the Impenitent shall not enter into his Rest. Not that God can be overpower'd by any Quality in the Creature whether Repentance in the first Case or Impenitence in the second But because his Power in the first is suspended by his Mercy as it stands in conjunction with his Truth For in his Mercy he made a Promise to give us pardon if we repent and in his Truth he must perform it Just so his Power in the second is suspended by his Iustice as it stands in conjunction with his Truth too For in his Iustice he made an Oath to be revenged on the Impenitent and in his Truth he must make it good Now since each of these Cases concerns us All be we never so good or be we never so evil I need not shew by another Medium how the love of God's Mercy doth consist with a fear of his Indignation and how whilst we love him as a Father we ought to fear him as a Judge But to conclude with such a Caveat as may best of all become an Ingenuous People Take we heed that our Fear do not swallow up our Love for fear it swallow up us too in the Bottomless Pit of Desperation We must serve God with Fear but so as to fear him also for Love Ever saying with the Psalmist There is mercy with thee ô Lord therefore shalt thou be feared The Psalmist did not thus argue There is Mercy with Thee ô Lord Therefore shalt thou be rely'd upon Therefore we shall make the bolder with thee we shall break thy Commandments without the fear of being damn'd because we know thou art slow to anger and being angry art quickly pleas'd But because of thy mercy thou shalt be feared And there is good reason for it For by how much the kinder a Father is a well-natur'd Son will fear to offend him so much the more And the more our Father which is in Heaven does even delight to please us by heaping his Mercies and Favours on us by so much the more shall we be afraid if we are well-natur'd Children to exasperate our Father which is in Heaven What then remains but that we ponder these things and lay them up in our hearts and draw them forth into our Actions and daily repeat them in our Lives And reap the comfort of so doing in the hour of Death and the Day of Iudgment Which God of his Mercy prepare us for even for the glory of his Name and for the worthiness of his Son To whom with the Father in the Unity of the Spirit be ascribed by us and by all the World Blessing and Glory and Honour and Power and Wisdom and Thanksgiving from this time forward for evermore THE GRAND INQUIRY To be made In these Inquisitive Times Taken from the Mouth of The Frighted Iailour OF PHILIPPI THE GRAND INQUIRY To be made in These Inquisitive Times ACTS XVI 30. What must I do that I may be saved THus the Iailour at Philippi sought to his Pris'ners for a Deliverance Not his ordinary Pris'ners who at once were in Bondage to Him and Satan And were bound up in Misery as well as Iron who had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirits so gross and so incrassat and so manacl'd to the Flesh that together with their Bodies their Souls were put into the Stocks as knowing no better Liberty than what consisted in the Freedom of Hands and Feet But the Pris'ners in the Text were Pris'ners only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men whose Liberty did consist in the ubiquity of their Thoughts and in being made free of the New Ierusalem Men who by living the Life of Faith maintain'd an Intercourse with God and his glorious Angels And though their Carkasses
assent unto the Creed do still confute their own Belief of the two last Articles The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting For is it possible that a man should very seriously believe he shall last for ever and not be vehemently solicitous whether in Heaven or in Hell or that he really should believe there is a Heaven and a Hell without a minutely concernment to which of the two he must needs belong If a man's Neck be but obnoxious to the Gallows or the Block or his Goods but in danger of Confiscation sleep it self will not be strong enough to give him rest until he has us'd his whole strength to purchase a Pardon or a Reprieve And did he as really believe that he shall rise after Death to a Day of Iudgment when evil Doers shall be cast into a Bottomless Asphaltites a Lake which evermore is burning with Fire and Brimstone ô with what Horror and Indignation would he look back upon his Sins with what Remorse and Self-Revenge would he afflict himself for them in Soul and Body with what a vehement desire would he demonstrate his Repentance by Change of Life ô with what Carefulness and Concernment would he endeavour to make his Peace with abused Iustice with what strong crying and Tears would he sue for Mercy Not in the language of St. Peter when transported out of his wits by his great Amazement Depart from me ô Lord for I am a sinful man But rather with Christ upon the Cross where he recited in Syriac those words of David My God my God why hast thou forsaken me How much rather would he choose to do it now to some purpose and that but once than at last to no purpose and that for ever Say then good Reader and say without Partiality Can a man in good earnest believe his own Immortality whilst he so seldom or never mindes the future condition of his Soul and is not solicitous what to do that he may be sav'd There can be nothing more incredible than that a man of such a Faith should be so destitute of Fear For what accompt can be given why a man should shrink at Death a great deal more than at Damnation and more provide against the pains of a dying Life than the Torments of a Death which will live for ever that is more against the first than the second Death but that he steadily believes the first may easily come to pass whilst he hopes that the second is but a Fable They who hitherto have thought they were True Believers whilst yet their Infidel Lives have strongly prov'd that they were none will confess what I say if they ever shall have Patience enough to meditate and shall meditate long enough to comprehend the whole force of my present reason Now in order to my purpose which is to rouze up some or other out of the Lethargie they are in and to set them on work in this Grand Inquiry I shall reason a little farther with the Paganish Professors of Christianity And first of all let it be granted what ought not yet to be suppos'd That what they have not in Themselves an active Power to demonstrate cannot have a passive Power of being demonstrated by others that so they may not be offended at the uncivil possibility of other mens being deeper or quicker sighted than Themselves For some are so strongly of opinion that their particular Comprehension is the Adaequate measure of all Existence that they are apter to deny and to disbelieve that there is any thing in the World beyond the Horizon of their Conceipt than to suspect or confess that their Souls are short-sighted Not vouchsafing to consider how great a number of Things there are about the Body of a Flea which are invisible to their Eyes whilst unassisted and yet are evident unto any who shall behold them through a Microscope And if to the natural Eye of Reason we add the Telescope of Faith which is the Evidence of Things not seen we shall have an easy Prospect of that Salvation which the Iailour of Philippi enquired after And discern the true reason why the Sciolists of the Age who are call'd the Wits do first contend there are no Spirits and thence infer there is no Hell and so conclude they need not ask what it is they must do that they may be saved even because they have too much and too little wit For if they had less they would not raise their Objections and if they had more they would be able to refute them But be it so that they themselves are not able to demonstrate there is a Hell to be saved from Dare they say they are better able to demonstrate that there is none Can they say that they have dyed to make a Decision of the Question And been restored again to life to declare the Negative by Experience Do they suspect the Galilaean whom we commonly call Iesus in what he saith of an outer Darkness and therein of a Worm which never dyes and of a Fire which is not quenched And do they so far suspect him that they resolve to make an Essay of his Veracity and therefore trust not his Doctrin till they have try'd it will they admit of no Philosophy but what they call Experimental and therefore stay till they are dead for a Determination of their Doubt because forsooth until the time that they have tasted the first Death they know not if they can feel a second I say admit they do not know that there are Torments after Death to indure for ever Should not this suffice to Awe them that such there are for ought they know Or are their Souls so wholly drown'd and swallow'd up in Sensualities as that they have not any leisure wherein to consider their latter End Have they not Melancholy enough in their Constitutions to fix their volatil spirits no not so much as for an hour upon that which concerns them the most that may be even the Subject of a joyful or sad Eternity Or have they the leisure to consider their latter end but only want sufficient Courage and Resolution to indure it as being a pungent and a dismal and not only a sad but an insupportable Consideration This methinks is as absurd as whatsoever it is that hath been alledg'd For if they have not the patience to think or meditate upon Hell for a little season How much less will they be able to undergo it with Patience to all Eternity If the wages of Sin is such whilst it is yet but in the earning Lord how terrible will it be at the Time of Payment And what a strange Contradiction does this imply in some mens humours That they should dare incur the danger of induring those Torments of Hell it self whereof they dare not indure so much as a deep consideration no not long enough to inquire what they must do to be saved from them But all this is no more than an
do they are afraid it would be answer'd That they must cease to do evil and learn to do good That they must seek Iudgment relieve the Oppressed help the Fatherless and plead for the Widow That they must mortifie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts. That they must crucifie the world unto themselves and themselves unto the world That if an Eye or a Hand or a Foot offend them they must pluck out the one and cut off the other That they must not take any thought for the morrow but sell all they have and give it to the Poor deny themselves take up Christ's Cross and follow him They will be sav'd with all their hearts provided it may be gratis either upon none or on easy Terms But dare not ask what they must do with a serious purpose to be doing whatsoever shall be answer'd to be a Requisite to Salvation for fear the answer should be harder than they are able to indure As That they must hate their own Lives and Love their Enemies That they must fast as well as pray but feed their Enemies when they hunger That they must turn the right Cheek to him that strikes them on the left That when they are persecuted and rail'd at they must not only rejoyce but leap for Ioy. That they must pray without ceasing rejoyce evermore and in every thing give Thanks Make a Covenant with their Eyes not to look upon a Maid and abstain from all appearance of Evil. But now the Iailour in my Text although he had hardly yet the knowledge had the true Courage of a Christian. Upon Condition he might be sav'd he did not care on what Terms 'T is true Salvation was the End but the Means of its Attainment did make the Object of his Inquiry For he did not simply beg that he might be sav'd as if he thought he might be sav'd without the least cooperation or any endeavour of his own But as if he had concluded within himself as St. Augustin did some Ages after That God who made us without our selves will never save us without our selves He ask't how much he was to contribute towards the Means of his Salvation And This he ask'd in such a manner as to imply his being ready to contribute whatsoever could be exacted For he did not thus ask What must I say or what must I believe what Opinions must I hold or what Sect must I be of what must I give or whither must I go but in a manner which implyed all This and more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what must I Do that I may be sav'd But though this is praise-worthy 't is very far from being enough For 't is one thing to ask what things are to be done that we may be sav'd and effectually to do them is quite another The wealthy Quaerist in the Gospel could easily ask what he should do that he might inherit eternal Life and as easily learn the Things ask't after But when he was answer'd that he must sell all he had and give it to the poor he could not so easily fall to practise what he had learnt by putting the Precept in execution So the Multitude of Jews could easily ask our Blessed Saviour what they must do that they might work the work of God Joh. 6. 28. But being told they must believe that He was the Bread that came down from Heaven Then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they murmur'd v. 41. nay they despised him for his Parentage v. 42. It was an hard saying v. 60. Nay so far they were from doing the work of God who had so lately and so readily ask't him what they must do that they might work it that from thence they drew back and would no longer walk with him v. 66. Such a peevishness there is in the minds of men that though they love to be asking the Will of God they cannot indure to be told it much less to be employ'd in the Doing of it no not though they are also told that This alone is the Price at which Salvation is to be had Men may come to be baptiz'd as the Multitude did to Iohn the Baptist And yet may be at That Instant a generation of Vipers Luke 3. 7. A Generation of Vipers and yet have Abraham for their Father v. 8. that is their Father after the Flesh In which respect God is able out of arrant Stocks and Stones to raise up Children unto Abraham But when 't is ask't what we must do to be his Children after the Spirit The Answer is we must inherit at once the Faith and the Works of Abraham And accordingly the Baptist did proportion his Directions to such as ask't them He did not tell them what they must Teach whereby to be Orthodox Professors or what they must hold whereby to be Orthodox Believers But as they ask'd what they must do so he told them those Things that were of necessity to be done Begin not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father for so have They who are Sons of Belial But bring forth fruits worthy of Repentance v. 8. If ye are Publicans exact no more than is appointed you v. 13. If ye are Soldiers do violence to no man neither accuse any one falsly and be content with your wages v. 14. If ye are Christians of any Calling Let him that hath two Coats impart to Him that hath none And He that hath Meat let Him do likewise v. 11. Still 't is our Doing the things ask'd after not our Asking what we must do which is effectually the way to our being sav'd And accordingly when 't is said by the Apostle St. Iames That Faith without Works is dead and nothing worth It is intimated to us by that expression That a Rectitude of Iudgment is nothing worth but as it stands in conjunction with a like Rectitude of Life As if our Faith and our Knowledge and good Professions could amount unto no more than the meer Body of Religion whilst the Soul that enlivens it is still the sanctity of our Actions Thence a Good man is called not an Hearer or a Believer But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Doer of the Word Jam. 1. 22 23. And when it pleas'd our blessed Saviour to give a general Description in the fifth Chapter of St. Iohn as well of the Few that belong to Heaven as of the Many that go to Hell He did not give them their Characters from their being of this or that Country of this or that Calling of this or that Church or Congregation of this or that Faith not to say Faction in Religion But only from their being qualified with such and such Practice with such and such Works with such and such Habits of Conversation Our Saviours words are very plain but in my apprehension of great Remarque And such as being well consider'd would teach us how to pass a Iudgment without any prejudice
that it may rationally be doubted whether when the Son of Man shall come a second time from Heaven he will come with such success as to find Faith upon the Earth Examin therefore whether Thy self may'st well be reckon'd to be one of that little Number Examin whether thy Belief is really such as Thou believ'st it and try whether thy Confidence is not the Thing to be distrusted the most of any For § 15. Of this I can convince thee by a mental Demonstration which is more cogent than an ocular That if thou hast not such respect unto the Recompence of Reward as to choose rather with Moses to spend thy short and dying life in Mortisications and Self-denials and to suffer Tribulation with the People of God than with the brutish Sons of Belial to injoy the Pleasures of Sin for a season If thou dost not esteem the Reproach of Christ to be much greater Riches than all the Treasures of Egypt Or if thou canst basely fear Them that can kill the Body only but are not able to hurt the Soul more than Him that can cast both Soul and Body into Hell And hast often done more to escape the former than ever thou wilt do to eschew the latter Thou hast not yet the first Degree of a Saving Faith Thou dost not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not so much as believe the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou dost not assent to his veracity or look upon him as a True Speaker Thou dost not so far confide in the Truth of his Promises and his Threats as to adventure any great matter upon the meer Reputation and Credit of them For most undoubtedly if thou didst Thou wouldst prefer that which leads to all the Pleasures that he hath promis'd before the Things that will betray thee to all the pains that he hath Threaten'd Thou wouldst pursue with more vehemence what will end in an eternal and exceeding weight of Glory than what will terminate in a worm which never dyes and in a Fire which is not quenched That thou dost now affect to walk rather in the broad than the narrow way is not so much that thou espousest a way which leads thee to Destruction or hast Averseness unto That by which thou mayst enter into Life as that thou dost not quite believe the Lord Jesus Christ when he would fright thee from the one and allure thee to the other That thou dost now take the Course to dwell with everlasting Burnings rather than That which hath a tending to Ioys unspeakable cannot possibly be from hence that thou preferr'st a very short to an endless Pleasure but rather from hence that thou preferr'st thy present experience of the first to the uncertainty and the doubtfulness which thou retainest of the second Not at all that thou preferrest the Miseries of Hell to the Ioys of Heaven But that thou dost not believe what is said of either § 16. Again admit thou dost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 believe the Truth and the Veracity of the Lord Jesus Christ Yet if thou are destitute of the Faith which is consummated by Love and by such a Love too as doth cast out Fear nor only the fear of all that may be inflicted but so far also the Feeling of all that is as to be able to rejoyce and to leap for joy when thou art persecuted and rail'd at for righteousness sake If thou canst not say heartily in the language of St. Paul I take pleasure in Insirmities in Reproaches in Necessities in Persecutions and in Distresses for Christ his sake If in a word Thou art not able to conquer all thine own weakness by Ghostly strength so as to hold fast thy Union and good Intelligence with Christ in spight of Nakedness or Famin or Peril or Sword or Life or Death or Angels or Devils or Principalities or Powers or things present or things to come And all by vertue of that Faith which overcometh the World which is not only the means of Conquest but the Victory it self Thou dost not heartily believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is In or Upon the Lord Jesus Christ. 'T is very evident that thou doubtest either his Power or his Propensity Thou dost not so depend and rely upon him as that I can assure thee thou shalt be sav'd § 17. Again if thou hast not such a Faith as does denominate thee a good and a faithful servant such a justifying Faith as in the literal sense of it does make thee Iust Iust I mean in that notion in which 't was said of holy Iob that he was a just and an upright Man If thou hast not such a Faith as by which thou art qualified in part both with Holiness and Righteousness with Godliness and Honesty with the Duties of the first and the second Table whereby the Righteousness of Christ may be so wholly imputed to thee as to instate thee in the Pardon of all thy Sins it being impossible that thy Saviour should ever justifie thy Person and not sanctifie thy Nature in some proportionable degree If besides thy Assent to the veracity of his Doctrin and besides thy Dependance on the Almightiness of his Power Thou dost not pay so great a Reverence unto the Iustice of his Will too as to serve and obey him with godly fear Thou dost not practically believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou dost not own him in his Authority dost not receive him in his Commands dost not embrace and entertain him as he comes to thee a Legislator as one who hath a Name written both on his Vesture and on his Thigh King of Kings and Lord of Lords And by consequence though thy Head may be as full as it can hold of the Christian Science or however thou mayst have Faith whereby thou canst remove Mountains Yet thou dost not so Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as that I can assure thee thou shalt be sav'd § 18. Again if thou hast not such a Telescope as by which thou art inabled to look on the other side the Veil such a Faith as is the Evidence of things not seen and the substance of things that are hoped for hast not any praepossession of things invisible and future nor any glimmerings and foretasts of the Glory to be reveal'd hast no ground for an Assurance whether of Faith Hope or Understanding that thy Pardon is seal'd and thy Peace ratified Art not inwardly sustained in all thy Agonies and Conflicts with spiritual Ioy in the Holy Ghost hast not any the least Intelligence through the secret whispers of the Spirit of a Ravishing Mansion praepared for thee in the Land of the Living And art not placed by that Intelligence above the Level of Temptations exempted from the Fear of what Men or Devils can do unto thee If thou canst not reflect with comfort upon the Day of Discrimination when the Lord Iesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming Fire taking
the strength of Sin is the Law 1 Cor. 15. 56. The Law does thunder out a Curse as well as a Rigid Obligation the one from Mount Ebal as well as the other from Mount Sinai upon every Soul of man who shall but fail in the least Iota For it is written saith St. Paul who only saith it out of the Law Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them Or to consider it yet more distinctly admit Aeternal Life had been expected from the Law by this Inquirer yet sure it may sooner be ask't than answer'd To which of the Laws he should have had recourse for it Certainly not to the Ceremonial for That was but a shadow of things to come whereof the Body is Christ Coloss. 2. 17. The very Sacrifice of the Law was not able to expiate but only to commemorate the Peoples Sins Heb. 10. 3. Therefore in vain would he have sought to the Ceremonial Law And as vainly to the Iudicial For that was a Politick Constitution peculiar only to the Iews and reaching no farther than to a Civil Iurisdiction Much less yet could he seek to the Moral Law of Moses for Life Eternal For the Moral Law exacted so Universal an obedience and also denounced so great a Curse as I said before on the least omission that he could look for nothing thence but the justest matter of Despair For first our Nature is so corrupt and our Persons so much corrupter since our having found out many Inventions that if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the Truth is not in us 1 John 1. 8. And secondly if Righteousness come by the Law then is Christ dead in vain Gal. 2. 21. What then remain'd to this inquisitive Iew but that the Law should be his Schoolmaster to bring him unto Christ Gal. 3. 24. The Law being adapted by the infinite Wisdom of God's oeconomy either to lead or to drive him thither For requiring more from him than he was able to perform and yet denouncing a Curse on his Non-Performance it could not but make him stand affrighted at the ugly Condition he was in I mean his desperate Impossibility of ever attaining to Life Eternal by the meer perfection of his obedience Hence he saw it concern'd him to seek somewhere else He found it clear by Demonstration and by the woful Demonstration of sad Experience he stood in need of a Saviour and of such a Saviour too as might deliver him from the Curse and from the Rigour of the Law by being made both a Curse and a Ransom for him Again he saw both by the Doctrins and by the Miracles of Christ that He was most likely to be That Saviour to wit a Saviour from whom he was to look for such a Clue as might be able to conduct him out of the Labyrinth he was in And therefore just as this Saviour was gone forth into the way This kind of Neophyte in my Text came running to him and asked him meekly kneeling upon his Knees Good Master what shall I do that I may inherit Eternal Life Now if Christ was His Oracle who only liv'd under the Law How much more must he be ours who were born and bred under the Gospel Shall men of our Dignity and Profession of our Proficiency and Growth in the School of Christ an holy Generation a Royal Priesthood a Peculiar People shall such as We go in Inquest of Life Eternal to such deceivable Oracles as either Zuinglius or Calvin Piscator or Erastus or Iohn of Leyden to the Sepulchres of Martyrs to the Discipline of Monasteries to daily Ave Maries and Masses to Papal Indulgences or Bulls or to the outward Scarrifications and Buffettings of the Flesh shall we lean upon such Reeds as will but run through our Elbows or shall we inlighten our selves by Candles when behold the Sun of Righteousness is long since Risen in our Horizon or to fly for Refuge to the Saints when behold a Saviour Christ is called very fitly the Sun of Righteousness Mal. 4. 2. to whom the Apostles are but as Stars in the Firmament of the Gospel which only shine forth with a borrowed light and have no other brightness than what He lends them Now all the Stars in the Firmament cannot make up one Sun or afford us one Day without his Presence Just so All the learned and the good men on Earth All the Angels Saints in Heaven cannot make up one Saviour or but light us the way to Eternal Life without the Influence and Lustre of Jesus Christ. Iairus a Ruler of the Synagogue a man that wanted no worldly means whereby to Cure his only Daughter did yet despair of her Recovery until he fell down at the Feet of Christ Luke 8. 41. And so the Woman who had been sick of a bloody Flux no less than twelve years together and had spent all she had in Physicians Fees was not the better but the worse until she crowded towards Christ and touch't the Hemm of his Garment Luke 8. 43. That we are every one sick of a bloody Flux too appears by our scarlet and crimson Sins Which Flux and Fountain of our Sins can never possibly be cur'd unless by Him who is the Fountain for Sin and for Uncleanness Zach. 13. 1. For as Red wine is good for a bloody Flux in the Body so is That which gushed out of our Saviour's Body who called himself The True Vine the only Good thing for this Disease in the Soul And of this Wine we drink in the Cup of Blessing which we Bless in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. To him alone must we fly as to the Physician of our Souls who saith to us under the Gospel as once to Israel under the Law I am the Lord God that healeth thee Exod 15. 26. He alone saith St. Peter is the Head-stone of the Corner nor is there Salvation in any other Acts 4. 11 12. It pleased the Father that in him should all Fulness dwell Coloss. 1. 19 And of his Fulness have all we received Grace for Grace John 1. 16. All things necessary to life and to life Eternal are delivered to him of the Father Matth. 11. 27. And this 't will be easy out of Scripture for I am speaking to Believers I should not else produce a Text to make apparent by an Induction For first if we are hungry He alone is the Bread of Life which whoso eateth shall live for ever John 6. 58. Next if we are thirsty He alone is the living Water which whoso drinketh shall never thirst John 4. 13. Thirdly if we are foul He alone has that Blood by which we may be cleansed from all our Sins 1 John 1. 7. Fourthly if we are foolish He is the Wisdom of the Father who hath laid up in Him all the Treasures of Knowledge Coloss. 2. 3. He is Doctor Catholicus and only He.
such an Analogy with the former as that the one may seem to have given occasion unto the other Africa for its Heat to the lust of the Flesh Europe for its Avarice to the lust of the Eye Asia for its Bravery to the pride of Life Now to conquer a world of Temporal Enemies is more than any one man could yet Attain to How much less can any conquer a world of Sin Such an Amorous man as Scipio might sooner conquer all Africa than the lust of the Flesh. Such a Ravenous man as Caesar might sooner conquer all Europe than the lust of the eye Such an Ambitious man as Alexander might sooner conquer all Asia than the pride of life All these Admirable Victors were Slaves to Sin which had subdued them from their Cradles and led them Captive into their Graves Admit that Alexander had conquered the World without him which yet we know he did not and Livy tells us he could not do sure we are he was enslaved to the world within him to the lust of the flesh by the Queen of the Amazons to the lust of the eye which nothing could fill but another's Empire and to the pride of life too because by That He affected an Apotheosis upon Earth But now the Soldiers and Servants of Iesus Christ are commanded to conquer this world of Sin And that our Master should command us to overcome that Triumvirate to which the universe of men hath so long been tributary may seem as unreasonable to flesh and blood as to flesh and blood it is impossible So that it cannot be deny'd but that if Christ were nothing more than a Master to us we should not only be in a dangerous but in a desperate condition And the setting his Servants so hard a Task would loudly speak him as hard a Master § 4. But again we must confess on the other side That if we look upon Christ as more and better than a Master to wit a Sacrifice and a Priest an Elder Brother and an Advocate not only a Lawgiver but a Propitiation not only a Prince but a Saviour too who gives Repentance as well as Praecepts and forgiveness of Sins who requires no more of us than he enables us to perform and expects not to reap but after the measure that he hath sown Our case is infinitely better than under the Paedagogie of Moses and we must needs be concluded to serve a very good Master For though he bids us have an Eye to the Perfection of his Commands yet is he pleas'd to have an Eye to the Imperfection of our Nature and looks not on the Imperfection but on the meer sincerity of our Obedience Though we must fasten an Eye of Fear on the exactness of his Injunctions yet he does cast an Eye of favour upon our weakness to undergo them This is a Rule which will never fail us And be it spoken to the comfort of whosoever has a wounded and broken Spirit Our Master Christ is so good as to put a great value upon the willingness of our minds Accepts the Tribute of our Obedience even according to the Power and Ability which we have not according to what we have not 2 Cor. 8. 12. He either enjoyneth no harder things than he gives us Ability to accomplish or else he satisfieth his Iustice with a great deal less than he injoyneth In each of which Cases he is a very good Master For what we cannot perform for want of strength He himself hath performed in our behalf and still doth take in good part our hearty Indeavours of Performance Be it so that he leads us upon very hot Service commands us to fight against all the world and fight it out until we conquer or at least until we are beaten into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say into more-than-Conquerours by being manfully overcome and valiantly trodden under foot yet if we equally consider as well the proof of our Armour as the prowess of our Enemies comparing the Armory of Grace with the Artillery of Temptations and the strength of Him that fights for us with the strenth of Him that fights against us we cannot choose but confess if we have any Ingenuity abiding in us That as there are lusts of the flesh which war against the Soul so there are weapons of the Spirit which are abundantly sufficient to give them Battle And though our Enemies are so urgent that we cannot expect to injoy a Peace yet when Christ is our Captain we may rationally hope to obtain a Victory And sure a Victory over Sin must needs be very much better than to be at Peace with it If indeed we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us as the Apostle tells us we can How can we dare to be afraid whilst our Commander is our strength too who whilst he leads us by his Example does also follow us by his Grace 'T is true indeed Had he commanded us to fight where he knew we must be conquer'd and only promised an Eternity upon the performance of things Impossible It had not been to incourage but jear our weakness to reproach our Endeavours and not reward them But to speak in the phrase of the Royal Psalmist The Lord is Righteous in all his ways and perfectly holy in all his works The Fortifications of every Soul are so proportion'd to the Besiegers that excepting such as Pharaoh who was finally given over God permits not a Temptation to make a Battery where he provides not a Grace to prevent a Breach Nec enim bone Ductor Magnarum virtutum inopes nervisque carentes Christicolas vitiis populantibus exposuisti As by the Tenor of his Praecepts we must do any thing that we ought so by the Power of his Grace we can do any thing that we must For 't was very truly said by the Pythagoreans That Ability does dwell the next Door to Necessity We can if we will shut out Adultery from the Eye and keep out Murder from the Heart But then the utmost of their Assaults requires the utmost of our Resistance We cannot do it by sleeping or sitting still It is required that we stir up the Gift of God that is in us and exert our very utmost of skill and strength There is a Time when we must strive to such a Degree against Sin as to resist it even to Blood As God on his part is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted beyond our strength so must we be faithful too and persevere in our Resistance although our Resistance may cost us dear § 5. I cannot make this plainer than by Example nor by a plainer Example than what our own Good Master was pleas'd to give us Matth. 5. 28 29 30. where first having forbidden us even to look upon a Woman with such an Eye as is the inlet of vanity or the outlet of Lust He immediately commands us if our Eye offend us to pluck
doing of what he commands as for the suffering of what he inflicts Thy will be done not only upon us but by us too Let it be done here on Earth with the same Alacrity as in Heaven Let it be done by thy Children with as much Impartiality as by thy Servants Let it be done by us Men as unconstrainedly as by Angels If thou wilt have us to buy Salvation let us not choose our own Price If thou wilt have us to work it out let us not choose our own Task If thou wilt have us to do it presently let us not choose our own Time Give us Resignedness of Spirits and with That what thou pleasest Be thy Injunctions never so hard or thy Cross never so heavy be it the giving up our Livelyhoods or be it the parting with our Lives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thy will be done 'T is true we may pray with our Blessed Saviour Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from us But then we must pray with our Saviour too Nevertheless not our will but thy will be done I remember Herodian reports of Alexander the Cousin German to Pseud Antonine He was so perfectly at the Devotion of his Mother Mammaea as to obey her in those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which he was most of all displeased Not disobeying her even in those in which Disobedience had been a Duty And 't was Pythagoras his Theology not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Iamblicus but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Hierocles not only not to repine at God's oeconomy but with all gentleness to embrace it Nor only to observe and to do his will even then when it thwarted theirs but to accommodate and conform their will to His. I am sorry I must say what yet I must that were Pythagoras his Metempsychosis now to be verified in Himself and He again to teach Philosophy in these our days I know not which were the more probable either for us to be the better for his Christian-like Principles or for Him to be the worse for our Heathen-Practice And because Reason by many Auditors is more attended to than Scripture let me bespeak you in the Person not so much of a Christian as of a Philsopher Is there any thing in the World I do not say more impious but more unpolitick than for a Lump of Infirmities to enter the Lists with the Almighty or for a thing of a Span long to resist Immensity Our Disobedience to such a Master will be found aequally ridiculous whether we hope to thrive in it by Opposition or Avoidance For dare we stand against Him who is Omnipotent Or can we fly from Him that 's every where Do we live in fear of Them that can hurt the Body and are we undaunted only at Him who can kill the Soul Iacob could not wrestle with him though he did it for a Blessing without the Disjoynting of his Thigh and shall we struggle for a Curse even at the price of a Damnation If Ausonius could say of the Roman Emperour That 't was not safe scribling against a Man who had the Power to proscribe And Phavorinus of Hadrian That 't was not good to dispute with such a Person as had the command of thirty Legions Then with a greater force of reason Is it not Wisdom as well as Duty to yield obedience unto a Master who is infinitely Great as well as Good and has the power to compel as well as the sweetness to invite and that not only our Obedience but our Assent too We count it prudence in other things to make a vertue of Necessity And being convinc'd we are unable to prevail against our Master why do we not strive to be unwilling and at least make a vertue of so much weakness If we duly contemplate Inferiour Nature we shall find but too much reason even to aemulate and strive with the things below us Which yet in this respect at least are so much higher than our selves by how much the more they are conformable to the Blessed Will and Pleasure of him that made them Not only the Beasts which have no Understanding but the Elements which have no Sense do silently preach to the Christian World at once Obedience and Self-denial For what more contrary to Nature than for the Earth to give Rain or what are the Clouds more unwilling to than they are to rain Earth And yet Obedience to their Maker is a thing so natural as that they obey him against their Nature What is the Sun more averse to than either going back or standing still And yet in obedience to God's Command He did not only stand still in Gibeon but withal went back upon the Dial of Ahaz Hereupon it will be useful thus to reason within our selves Are God's Drudges so inclinable to his Commands and shall we his Darlings be so averse They are only obliged to their Creator for being made Our Obligation is far greater by our being made men and greater yet by our being remade We are not only the Work but the Breath of God saith Tertullian Nay farther yet whereas he spake only for Them for Us he died And if they are so thankful for being the work of his Hands shall not we be much more for being the price of his Blood yes sure As 't is our privilege above them to have a Saviour and a will so our obedience must be more and it must be more willing It must not only be Universal for so is Theirs but also free and unconstrain'd As other Creatures are obedient because they cannot resist so ought we because we will not We must not obey him only in fear because he is a great Iudge but because he is a Saviour we must take Pleasure in our Obedience We ought to look upon his Praecepts with as kind eyes as on his Promises and the employment of such a Master should as much incourage us as our pay We ought to think the Day lost which is not spent in his Service and execute his Precepts with so much readiness as wishing at least we could prevent them We should not only be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only ready with the Praescriptions but Freewill-Offerings of our Obedience It being a Gallantry of Devotion and most worthy of a Christian to be most of all afraid of offending Him not whom we find a meer Master very inclinable to punish But whom we find a good Master most apt to pardon Let us hasten to him therefore preaching to us from the Mount and let us give him our Attention in the spirit of the two Emblemes of the Law and the Prophets which had the honour to attend him upon Mount Tabor Undergoing his meanest Offices in the humility of a Moses and with the greatest earnestness performing them in the zeal of an Elias Let us render him every Faculty both of our Souls and of our Bodies our
the faith of what concerns the praesent world but they stagger in the faith of a world to come They have an ordinary relish of sensual Pleasure But ghostly Pleasure is a Iargon they know not how to make sense of They think it meerly a piece of gibbrish of Ecclesiastical Investigation They make no doubt but they shall dye and that their Bodies being buried shall all be moulder'd into Dust. But they secretly suspect they shall never Rise they are Infidels in the point of a Resurrection They either doubt and make a Quaestion or else they utterly disbelieve both a Life after Death and a Day of Judgment This is the only reason assignable why men are more afraid of Them who can kill the Body only but are not able to hurt the Soul than of Him who can cast both Soul and Body into Hell No other reason can I imagin why men do commonly run counter to that known Maxim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why when 't is every man's wisdom to choose the least of two Evils men in avoidance of the least do choose the greatest even to dwell with Eternal Burnings And therefore well may it be said as here it is in my Text that when the Son of Man cometh he shall not find Faith upon the Earth He shall not find Evangelical and Saving Faith He shall not find it at least in many nay he shall find it in few or none in comparatively None or None to speak of Let men pretend what they will and let them will what they please ye shall know them by their Fruits saith our Blessed Saviour And the Fruits of True Faith whereof the Professors are True Believers are no where better to be seen than in the Eleventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews wherein we have Faith commended to us in four principal Respects and all within the narrow compass of the Six first Verses First in respect of its Definition which is to be the Substance of Things hoped for and the Evidence of Things not seen Secondly in respect of its great and wonderful Effects whereof we have there Two choice Examples the one in Abel the other in Enoch Thirdly in respect of its greatest Benefit as being That Qualification by which we please God Lastly in respect of its indispensable Necessity as being That without which it is impossible to please him How could so many in the old Testament of whom we have an accompt in the later parts of That Chapter have chosen Poverty rather than Wealth and Disgrace rather than Glory and Pain it self rather than Pleasure if they had not had Respect and that a strange respect too unto the Recompence of Reward if by the Telescope of Faith as 't is the Evidence of Things not seen they had not seen Him who is Invisible if they had not been enabl'd to spy Reward afar off and to look clearly through the Veil which interposed as a Skreen 'twixt It and Them if they had not had a Prospect of the several blessed Mansions prepared for them in the City of God whereof they had been made Denisons and in the House of That Father of whom they were the adopted Sons if they had not had an Eye upon their particular Resurrections and such an Eye too so full so clear so more than Lyncean or Eagle-sighted that even Then when they were tortur'd they would not accept of a Deliverance to the end they might injoy by so much a better Resurrection § 9. This is a truly Salvisick Faith and such as necessarily signifies amongst other Vertues a firmer Adhaerence and Assent unto the Truth of Christ's Gospel in all its Doctrines than any man can ever have by any human means possible either to Seneca's or Cicero's or Caesar's Works This is That for want of which men will do and suffer more to save their Bodies or Estates and that for a little space of Time than they will either do or suffer to save their more pretious Souls and that for ever It was for want of This Faith that the Iews were broken off and by This only we Gentiles stand This is That Faith the Iust shall live by This is That on which depends our Bliss or Misery for ever according to the words of our Blessed Saviour whereof it is an Explication Mark 16. 16. He that believeth shall be saved but He that believeth not shall be damned Here is short work indeed and such as might have sav'd the labour of many Controversial Volumes which have been written and made publick between the Molinists and the Iansenians the Franciscans and the Dominicans or the Scotists and the Thomists between the Lutherans and the Calvinists the Arminians and the Gomarists the Remonstrants and Antiremonstrants concerning the Nature of God's Decrees and Quaestions depending thereupon Our Saviour tells us very succinctly in words most plain and most univocal who are Vessels of Election and who of Wrath Who were decreed from All Aeternity to Heaven and Hell even Believers and Unbelievers No more but so He that believeth shall be saved and He that believeth not shall be damn'd Which cannot possibly be meant concerning every human Faith whereof the World is too full It cannot be meant of such a Faith as makes a man abhor Idols but not abstain from committing Sacrilege Nor can it be meant of such a Faith as is strong enough to remove Mountains to wit The Laws and the Land-Marks of Church and State to pull down Kings and unsettle Kingdoms But not strong enough to bring forth Obedience to Christ's Commands and by a consequence unavoidable to God's Vicegerents upon Earth It cannot be meant of the Antinomian or the Fiduciarie's Faith which sets it self into a kind of opposition unto Good works and so by consequence is the Parent of nothing but practical Infidelity But 't is meant of That sanctifying and saving Faith which whosoever hath overcometh the world 1 John 5. 5. 'T is meant of Iustifying Faith not only in the mystical but literal notion of the word a Faith which so justifies that in a competent degree It does evermore make its Possessor Iust. It makes him an upright and honest man Saving Faith being a Grace which as it is the most commonly talk't of so it is I am afraid the least commonly understood of any one thing in the Christian Code We could not else so much abound with Knaves and Hypocrites as we do in the Christian World That which we call Divine Faith which is a justifying and sanctifying and saving Faith and upon which The Word of God does every where lay so great a stress must be an Habit of the Will as well as of the Understanding not only flourishing in the Head but deeply rooted in the Heart It must be such as does contain a full and generous Belief he dares to dye for a full and Practical Belief that Iesus Christ is the Messias a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a full
good things then For so said Abraham out of Heaven to the Rich man in Hell Son remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things But now he is comforted and Thou art tormented And when agreably to this our Blessed Lord denounc'd a Woe unto Them that were Rich He gave this Reason Because they had received their Consolation They had already been possess'd of their Lot and Portion of Felicity The Scales hereafter would be turn'd and the Scene quite chang'd when They should have their full Share of Afflictions too And in this respect at least 't was fitly said by those Voluptuaries the Hectors of their Times in the Book of Wisdom Let none of us go without his Part of Voluptuousness Let us leave Tokens of our Ioyfulness in every Place For this is our Portion our Lot is This. § 9. Now the Reasons of this unhappiness That the good things of this World are the goodliest Snares and Temptations and such as our Adversary the Devil does put his chiefest Trust in are these that follow First 't is hard in the use of Riches to steer a safe and equal Course betwixt the Rock and the Whirl-pool Avarice on the one side and Prodigality on the other Very hard not to offend either in laying up Riches or at least in laying them out § 10. As for the former He whose Treasure is not his Slave is clearly made a Slave by it and is extremely more stupid than the Beast on which he rides because he is ridden by a Beast that is to say by The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Fourfooted Beast which reigns within him He does not more possess his Riches than he is possess'd by them and may be called not improperly his Mammon's Mule Our Lord ingeminated his Caveat against the Daughters of the Horse-Leech as if 't were That against which a Man could never be too much warn'd Take heed saith He and beware of Covetousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See and be kept safe Take heed and take heed A thing which looks like a Battology But is indeed nothing less a Caution purposely redoubled for the securing us from an Affection which is the Root of all Evil. So very far is a man's life from consisting in the Abundance of the things which he possesseth so very far from being able to add a Cubit to his Stature a Minute to his Duration or a Grain to his Contentment that they give him a Poverty to be pitied in that they make him not rich towards God or Himself Rich towards God he cannot be who layeth up Treasure for himself No nor Rich towards Himself who layeth it up for he-knows-net-whom whether his Son or his Son's Guardian or for One who will be able to squeeze them Both. There being commonly one or other to whom the rest are but Spunges nor can they tell either how soon or by what kind of Hand they may all be squeez'd Now 't is a very great Punishment as well as Sin for a man to bereave himself of Good that no-body-knowswho may fare the better and as likely his Enemies as his Friends It was the Character of a Fool which David gave of the Niggard He heapeth up Riches and cannot tell who shall gather them And the Niggard as I think is the only man on whom our Lord fastens the name of Fool. Dost thou talk of pulling down and of building up and of making provision for time to come Thou fool this Night thy Soul shall be required of thee Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided Not thy Childrens perhaps but thy Children's Tyrants Thy Riches are not in Their power who are Themselves in the Power of somewhat else either without them or within them They have lost their Propriety in all their Legacies and Estates if a Vespasian or a Copronymus shall chance to Rule them much more if they shall live under the Tyranny of their Lusts. For if they pay Tribute to their Ambition and Contributions to their Gluttony and large Excise to their other Vices such as is their childish dotage upon the Vanities and the Pomps and chargeable Customs of the World alas the main of their Revenue goes out in Taxes For a man 's own Lusts are the greatest Oppressors to be imagin'd Besides A man's * Enemies commonly are they of his own House Even the Fruit of his Body is the fullest of bitterness to his Soul The more he heapeth up Treasure in Intuition of his Children the more he tempts them to be his Enemies if They at least may be thought Enemies who do not only wish his Death but many times contrive it too A poor man's Child will love the life of his Parents because he lives by their labour whilst the wealthier sort of Parents are apt to be troublesom to their Children because they stand betwixt them and Plenty 'twixt them and their Liberty to live as deliciously as they list But because a Man is ignorant who or what shall be after him his heaping up is nothing else but being prodigal to his Purse all his carking and caring is that his Purse may never be in want He is content for his own part to fare very hardly and to eat the Bread of Scarceness so that his dearly beloved Purse may be but plentifully fed So great a friendship there is betwixt Him and It. And thus it was with the wealthy Niggard in the Gospel who wanting Room enough wherein to lay up his Crop in a plenteous Harvest did not rationally say I will sell away my Overplus and bestow it upon my Friends in Hospitality upon my Beadsmen in Alms upon my Self or my Family in Food and Rayment but I will pull down my Barns and build greater and There will I bestow all my fruits and my goods The English word in the Translation proves very emphatical and seems to import the Niggard's Largess It is not translated I will gather my Goods together or lay them up as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might well have been but I will bestow them or lay them out Although he was sordid to himself and as close-fisted to his Family and to all other Persons an arrant Churl yet to his Storehouses and Barns he was very free-hearted he gladly bestowed upon Them even as much as they could hold To those his Favorites and Darlings he could not be liberal enough and therefore widen'd their Vacuities that he might fill them The Reason of which is very obvious For as where a man's Treasure is there is his Heart so wherever his Heart is there he loves to lay his Treasure Had the Rich man's heart been either in Heaven or upon Christ he had bestowed all his Goods upon Heavenly things had fed Christ in his hungry Members or cloathed him in his naked ones or redeemed him in his Captive imprison'd Members He had erected
we are glued in our Affections to the things here below we think the World to be a Great and a Glorious thing so the higher we fly above it the more contemptibly Little 't is natural for it to appear And therefore § 17. Secondly let us consider That as the way whereby to escape the glorious Dangers of which I speak is to sequester our Affections from the Things of this World and to take wing towards a Better so that our Flight may be the higher we are to take some ready Course whereby to make our selves light For however it is natural for Birds to fly yet the most they can do is but to flutter if they are laden with thick Clay a Phrase by which the Prophet Habakkuk describeth Mony and denounceth a Woe to them that load themselves with it The reason of which is very obvious For notwithstanding it is natural for the spirit of man to fly upwards yet what in one Case is natural may be impossible in an other A man may fly just as soon with a weight of Lead at his Feet as with a Burden of Silver upon his Back The lightest Birds commonly do fly the highest And considering 't is a Duty for a man so to buy as if he were never to possess To deny his dear self and to take up Christ's Cross and to follow Him it seems to follow thereupon that He who hath least of this World and the least to do in it is probably the fittest for That great Duty Though 't was not meerly for being poor that Lazarus was carried to Abraham's Bosom yet 't was That that his Poverty dispos'd him for And St. Peter said fitly touching Himself and his Condisciples Lo we have left All and followed Thee Because they could not follow Christ and carry all they had with them For every Follower of Christ has a very narrow way wherein to walk and a very strait Gate whereat to enter So that the Body of a Christian is Load enough unto the Soul and therefore many more Impediments may well be spar'd Our Bodies saith St. Paul are but Earthen Vessels but Dust and Ashes saith Abraham Gen. 20. 27. And sure the way to keep our selves unspotted from the World is not to bury our selves alive even by adding Earth to Earth Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust. That being the way of our being buried not in sure and certain Hope but in sure and certain Fear of a Resurrection For when the Minions of this World who are dead whilst they live shall by the just Judgment of God live again when they are dead too and shall be summon'd out of their Graves as Malefactors out of a Dungeon they will say to the Mountains fall on us and to the Hills cover us that is they will desire to be once more buried Now to prevent so sad a Rising we are to Rise whilst we are here from the Death I mean of Sin and from the Grave of Carnality And that we may rise the more nimbly we must be Levis Armaturae must not lay upon our selves too great a load of thick Clay which commonly brings with it another load whether it be of worldly Cares or of Carnal Pleasures Whatsoever most Christians may think of This 't was sadly consider'd by many Heathens of which I shall but instance in four or five Diogenes was a poor but yet a very great Man because his Poverty was his choice and he was one who did not want but contemn the Gayeties of the World How did he fly above the Vices and Follies of it by stripping himself of its Impediments and by imping the wings of his brave Ambition 'T was his Ambition to be at Liberty not to give Hostages to Fortune to live a life disingaged from things below him He found that one Tub was enough to lye in and one wooden Dish enough to drink in and was resolved that his Housholdstuff should hold proportion with his House Yea even That he thought too much for its being somewhat more than was strictly needful And therefore he brake his wooden Dish upon his first consideration That the Hollow of his Hand had made it needless Now I the rather choose to instance in this remarkable Philosopher because I know him very much censur'd and think him as little understood For that which is taken by a Proverb to be the Cynicalness and sowrness was thought by diverse ancient Authors the lovely Nobleness of his Temper His choice of Poverty was the result of his very deep Knowledge and Contemplation Nature and Industry had both conspir'd to his Perfections of which it was not the least that he knew the whole World and always had it under his Feet too as having weigh'd it in a Ballance and found its lightness He had been sued to and courted by the Great Potentates of the Earth whose Prosperities stoop't down to receive the Honour of his Acceptance But what Solomon out of his Wisdom both infused and acquired acquir'd both by joious and sad experience the same Diogenes concluded I shall not dare to say how That All is vanity under the Sun Now we all know that Vanity is of extremely little weight if put in the Ballance of Diseretion and in the Ballance of the Sanctuary of none at all Nay the Psalmist concludes that Man himself is but Vanity who yet is very much the noblest of any Creature under the Sun And sure if every man is Vanity and the greater he is the greater Vanity and not only Vanity but Vexation of Spirit how could Godfrey Duke of Bulloin have done more prudently for himself than in refusing to accept a Crown of Gold where Christ Himself wore one of Thorns or why should any of Christ's Followers buy the Friendship of a Prince when Xenocrates an Heathen would not deign to sell His no not to Alexander Himself who would fain have bought it Why should a Christian affect Dominion when Atilius an Heathen made choice to leave it why should one of Christ's Disciples court and covet That Plenty which was despis'd by Fabricius an arrant Heathen Why should a Christian set his Heart upon the getting and leaving a vast Revenue to his Posterity when the Heathen man Socrates thought it a Charity to his Children to leave them none Not that he thought it a Breach of Charity to make Provision for his Family but that he durst not betray them to great Temptations As He himself had refused half the Kingdom of Samos when offer'd to him so was he willing that his Children should inherit his Temper and Frame of Mind He knew the Providence of God was the surest Patrimony And had been taught by his experience that Friends well got were the next great Treasure 'T was his Duty as a Father to leave his Children very well and by consequence in a condition not the richest but the most suitable and safest for them and therefore
are to perish in the using The World it self is but a Thing whose Fashion passeth away But 't is the saddest consideration that the World 's Good things are much more dangerous than they are frail It being a Duty extremely difficult to use this World as not abusing it And yet if we omit to perform this Duty The richest Possessions upon Earth will but serve to purchase for us the largest Interest in Hell So that the Devil's Liberality amounts to This only That if we will but Idolize him he will give us whatsoever may do us Harm He will supply us with the means of being damn'd so much the deeper Was it think we for nothing or a thing by meer chance that as our Saviour chose Poverty rather than Plenty for himself so he chose such as were poor as well in Fortune as in Spirit to be inrich'd by his Grace and made Inheritors of his Kingdom Was there not think we something in it that the Primitive Excellency consisted in selling all that they had and laying it down at the Apostles Feet The least we can gather from it is This And be it spoken as impartially to the due comfort of the Poor as to the needful Humiliation of such amongst us as are Rich That Poverty though it is not exempt from All is yet obnoxious unto fewer and lesser Dangers For Riches commonly do inable us to do things to be repented whereas Poverty helps to fit us to repent of things done Indeed 't is best of the two to have Food convenient as Agur words it to be in such a mediocrity 'twixt Poverty and Plenty as not to be pinched with the former nor too much loaded with the later Agur prayed against Both but for different reasons He prayed against Poverty as apt to make him turn Thief But he prayed against Riches as apt to make him turn Atheist Now by how much it is worse to be an Atheist than a Thief by so much Riches should make a sadder and a more formidable Condition And 't was perhaps for this reason amongst some others that the most Learned of all our Kings thought Him the happiest man in England who by his Quality and Estate had a middle Station betwixt an High Constable and a Iustice of Peace For such a man is neither held to be Poor nor Rich. He has not the Indigence of the one nor the Vexation of the other Is freer from Contempt and from Envy too Has weaker Temptations and fewer Troubles This is to be fed with Food convenient And This is the Condition which Agur pray'd for But that Scarceness in it self is safer for us of the two than Superfluity we may infer from That Method which the Devil here used against our Saviour who according as his Prosperities did fall or rise did ever find his Temptations to ebb or flow And we know the lowest ebb can but leave us dry whereas the Tyde of Prosperity is apt to drown us So frail and so worthless yea and so dangerous are the Things by which the Rival of our Maker most strongly tempts us Weigh we next the Good Things not only of This but a better World wherewith the God who may despise vouchsafes to court us He does not only court us with the Promise of a Deliverance from a Bottomless Lake of Fire and Brimstone where the Worm dyeth not and where the Fire is not quenched Nor seek to win us only by Promises of a Crown immarcescible of Ioys unspeakable and endless such as our Hearts cannot hold nor our Tongues utter nor our Reasons comprehend nor our Fansies reach But farther obliges and indears us with a world of Bounties whilst we are Here. For Every man in the World has all the World in Epitome and that not only as to the sight but injoyment also until he forfeits his Birthright by the High Treason of his Debauches Till then I say he has a world both to possess and to injoy not only within but without him also The world within him is so evident and so very much resembling the world without him far beyond what the Romans had made its Hieroglyphick or Embleme that there is hardly any thing namable either in Heaven or in Earth to which there is not something analogous either in the Body or Soul of Man The Truth of which saying will soon appear to whosoever will take the pains as Augustine Mascardus has somewhere done to draw a Parallel of Particulars And then for the world without his Person 't is plain that That is within his Power For all the Earth is his walk if he please to use it He has Regions of Air wherein to Breathe Many Rivers of Water to quench his Thirst And an Element of Fire to keep him warm So that if he has an House which will but hold him and Meat as much as he can hold and as much Rayment as he can carry he has certainly as much as a man undebauch't knows what to do with and what a madness is it for him to covet more For how much worse than a Brutality must we needs have exchanged our human Nature when nothing can please us but what 's forbidden and when nothing is forbidden but what 't will mischief us to injoy How many Pleasures and Recreations has God been bountifully pleas'd to make lawful for us freely giving us the Liberty to choose as much as will do us good Musick is allow'd us to please our Ears Perfumes to gratifie our Smelling the beautiful Structure of the Universe to feed our Eyes with Admiration Rich Variety of Meats to treat our Palates with when we are hungry the most desirable Felicity of quenching our Thirst when we are dry the great and innocent Sensuality of warming our Selves when we are cold And seeing the old Rule in Logick is indisputably True That the whole Nature of every Species is in each single Individual God has made it both a needless and sensless Thing for any man to covet his Neighbour's Wife by having graciously allow'd him the happy Society of his own Now since Every man in particular does as really injoy the whole Influence of the Heavens as if It were shed upon Him alone in so much that his injoyment of Heat and Light would be no greater in case he were Monarch of all the world Can it be other than an irrational and an absurd kind of wickedness if whilst we lawfully injoy the whole benefit of the Sun we shall esteem it a want of Happiness that another man injoys it as well as we if whilst our own Cisterns are running over we shall not be able to be satisfied unless with stoln Waters Is there nothing will stay our Stomachs but the Bread of Dishonesty Will nothing content us throughout our Iourney for which God has given us so plain an High-way wherein to walk but the removing of signal Land-Marks and the breaking up of Hedges and leaping over God's Mounds and this at a time
kept them And then for his Children both Sons and Daughters the Devil gave them all up unto the Wind out of the Wilderness which blew down the House wherein they were met upon their Heads After This the bassl'd Tempter was thus insulted over by God Hast thou consider'd my Servant Job who holdeth fast his Integrity although thou movedst me against him to swallow him up without a Cause Satan therefore ask't Sufferance to tempt him farther to smite the Body of Iob with Byles and to smite him Cap a Pe too from Head to Foot His chain Before was very long It reach't as far as Iob's All besides his Person In so much that of the Richest he became the very Poorest of all the People For 't is a Proverb and an Hyperbole to say a man is as poor as Iob. But now the Chain is made longer by one considerable Link For having nothing left to him except a Body and a Soul and what was much worse than nothing a vexing Wife a Wife whom the Devil had leave enough to take from him but would not use it now at last his Body too is in the power of the Destroyer who disposed of his Flesh to the very Bone Nor is there any thing exempted besides his Soul § 3. Thus we see by Example how great a stroak the Devil carrys by God's long Sufferance and Permission in the outward management of the World That is to say in the Disposal of all Those Things which do pass amongst men for great and glorious How was Satan permitted to harden Pharaoh to inrage Sennacherib to excite Nebuchadnezzar against the Israel of God and to dispose of all they had according to his own Lust Should I produce as many Examples as are producible out of Scripture and dwell on each as I have done in the Case of Iob I should be in some danger of being Endless It shall therefore suffice me to say in brief That whensoever one man invades another man's Right or whensoever one Nation usurps Dominion over another against that Precept of God and Nature writ in every man's Heart What thou wouldest that no man should do to thee do Thou to no man or against those other Precepts Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not covet Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbour's House much less his House with all his Land too nay Thou shalt not covet any thing much less All that is thy Neighbours 't is not God but the Devil who is the Author of That Injustice God does patiently permit and invisibly over-rule and wisely order such Perpetrations to many most worthy and righteous Ends which in part we well know and in part we know not touching which I shall speak in their proper place But still the Robberies and Invasions are the Contrivances of the Devil Now in every such Invasion there are two Parties tempted one with loss and another with Acquisition They that suffer the Injustice are strongly tempted with Affliction And They that do it are tempted worse because with the Bait of a Prosperity which in such case is irresistible The Devil trys with one Action to murder two Souls at once Two at once in case the Robbery does only lye betwixt Man and Man But many Thousands of them at once when betwixt the two Parts of an Armed Nation For then the Devil at the same time provokes the stronger Party to Pride as well as the weaker to Impatience The Injurious side to Insolence and the oppressed to Despair This I take to be the Reason why when the Devil will do a Mischief of most considerable Importance he does not content himself with Brutish or Inanimate Instruments but rather prefers the use of such as ought to be rational and religious and so are to render a sad Accompt of what is done in the Body That by dashing many Thousands as when whole Armies meet against each other and getting Victory for the Oppressors he may in one kind or other destroy them All. To wit the Bodies of some and the Souls of others Had the Devil for Example infested Iob with nothing worse than the Fire and Whirlwind or only tormented his Flesh with Byles he had in vain spread his Net to catch no more than one Bird for though Iob was a Phoenix he was but one Had fought to plunder Iob alone of his Faith and Patience Whereas by stirring up the Sabaeans and the Chaldaeans to do him Mischief he cunningly caught at one Draught as great a Multitude of Souls as he had prosperously employ'd in so foul a Riot § 4. Now 't is plain by this Instance of Satan's Power to take away He has a power to bestow too by God's permission and that in order to an end not as bad only but worse propos'd by Satan unto Himself For when he takes from the Innocent how liberal is he to the Guilty It may be said of his Instruments They do not always serve him for naught He often caresses them whilst they are here that so hereafter he may have liberty to glut his Malice on them the more What he snatches as 't were with one hand from the Innocent Party he commonly gives as with the other to the Kennel of Robbers whom He employs Look what Camels and other Cattle he deprived Iob of he did confer at the same Instant on Such as drove them out of his Fields And thus I hope my Proposition is clear from Scripture § 5. Secondly from Reason 't will be as easy to evince it For if the Goods of this world were not suffer'd by God to be disposed of by the Devil our Leviathan would have had reason for his Denial of any Difference 'twixt Right and Wrong If God alone does still dispose of all Possessions under the Sun as prosperous Rebels and Usurpers are wont to urge and the Devil of none at all by God's permission All things then must needs be right except the Laws and the Statutes which forbid men to steal upon pain of Death They would not only be irrational but cruel things For why should any man be censur'd much less certainly should he be punish't for taking That which God gives him Shall not God without offence dispose of things as He pleaseth why then are we so wicked so void of all Ingenuity as to prosecute a Man who is call'd a Thief in case he breaks up our Houses takes our Cash out of our Coffers drives our Cattle out of our Grounds or carries our Corn out of our Barns if God has made him His Messenger and by his absolute Decree or by his All-working Providence disposed of our Substance to That man's use Or why did God himself say Thou shalt not steal if a man can have nothing but what God gives him For whatsoever God gives him becomes his own No propriety of man can exclude that of God or be equal to it And in Conveyances of Title amongst our selves still we know a Deed
the Righteous and thou wilt find Them the wisest who worship Me. This does seem to be the Scope of the Devil 's reasoning to our Saviour And my Discourse added to His may serve to evince the Proposition which lyes before us That all the Goods of this World at least successively though not at once are by the Sufferance of the Almighty in the Devil's Proffer and Disposal § 10. I have but one Topick left from whence to make it yet clearer or past Dispute And that must needs be by way of Answer to an Objection For if These Things are so some may say within Themselves Men will be in great danger of becoming Epicuraeans looking on God as without regard of what is done upon the Earth and as consining his Providence to things transacted within the Heavens And if they once come to That they will Sin securely and tumble down with great merriment into the Bottomless Asphaltites which gapes to have them So far from Scruple or Regret in their words or actions that they will rather use the language of those Contemners in the Psalmist Tush how shall God see Is there knowledge in the most high Or say with Eliphaz unjustly accusing Iob How doth God know can he judge through the dark Cloud Or else with the Braves in the Book of Wisdom Let us lye in wait for the righteous man If he is the Son of God He will help him and deliver him from the hand of his Enemies Besides the Doctrine we have in hand does seem to clash with those Scriptures wherein God is said to Rule in the Kingdoms of men He giveth it saith Daniel to whomsoever he pleaseth and setteth up over it the basest of men And Christ is said to be the Prince of the Kings of the Earth Rev. 1. 5. How then comes the Devil to have the very same Titles bestowed upon him § 11. To this Objection I answer and to the later part first as being That that admitteth of most Dispatch What God and Christ are call'd properly in regard of their Natural and Soveraign Right The Devil is tropically Intitl'd and by an usual Catachresis in regard of That Possession which God permitteth him to usurp The Vineyard which was Ahab's was Naboth's too de facto That and de jure This. That is the one was possess 't of what the other had a right to So when we speak of Laban's Teraphims we mean the Teraphims belonging of right to Laban But when we call them Rebecca's Teraphims we mean the Teraphims which she hid and had stoln from Laban The Kings of Spain are call'd by Thousands Kings of Portugal The Kings of France of Navarr◠the Kings of England of France All pretending to have a Right where others have gotten the whole Possession But now with a greater force of reason may the Devil be call'd the Ruler and the God of this world not only because the world does for the greatest part adore him and do him service but because they do it too by His forbearance and permission whose Creatures they are and whose right It is and who in respect of his Omnipotence cannot possibly be resisted For that I may pass from the later to the former part of the Objection § 12. So far is God from forsaking or slighting the Government of the World that as I said once before but did not so prove it as now I must Satan himself is but his Pris'ner however his Prison is somewhat wide Not at all his Vicegerent to rule the World in his stead or with any degree of his Approbation In the Twentieth Chapter of the Apocalypse we find the Devil laid hold on and bound in a Chain and cast into a Pit shut up and seal'd for a thousand years and again let loose for a little season And what is all This but the Hypotyposis of a Pris'ner And though his Chain for a time is left by God very long as I said before yet all the while 't is but a Chain yea and such a Chain too as is not loose any more than endless We know the Sea is God's Pris'ner though not a very close Pris'ner as others are The Wind it self is not at Liberty however we cannot discern its Bounds It seems indeed to be the freest of all God's Pris'ners And therefore God is said to ride upon the wings of the Wind by the high flown Wit of the Royal Poet. Yet as He said unto the Sea Thus far and no farther shall thy proud Waves go so he checks the very Wind too as with a Bridle and saith unto it Peace be still Now we find that when our Saviour was but pleas'd to say the word not the Wind and Sea only but the Devils also obey'd him When he bid them come out of the poor Daemoniack They durst not stay or they could not one minute longer Yea they were forced to petition him and ask his leave before they could enter an Herd of Swine It was indeed a great power which Satan had over Iob as I shew'd before but I shew'd too how it was limited First to his Goods with an exemption of his Body and then at last to his Body with an exemption of his Soul It was indeed a great power which Satan had over the Christians in the purest Ages of Christianity for no less than Three hundred and thirty years inflicting Ten Persecutions from Christ to Constantine the Great And another great power during the Arian Persecution under the Tyranny of Constantius Another great power although a short one in Iulian's Time Another in the Time of the Emperour Valens Another more universal in the fifth Century after Christ when at the very same Instant Anastasius the Emperour was an Eutychian the Kings of Italy Spain and Africa Arians The Kings of England France and Germany Heathens A greater power than all these the Devil seemeth to have had in the Tenth Century after Christ when Hell is said to have broken loose and the Prosperity of the Church did much more threaten her utter Ruin than all her Persecutions when put together Yet all this while it was a limited and stinted power Christianity thriv'd under its Sufferings and had a Being though a poor one in the Excesses of its Injoyments The Gates of Hell did not Then so fully prevail against the Church as not to confess it to be a Truth That she was founded upon a Rock What our Lord said to Pilate Thou couldst have no power against me were it not given thee from above we with a little alteration may say as properly to the Devil and religiously defy him to do his worst Or we may say in some sense upon this occasion as St. Paul to the Romans upon another There is no power but of God God ordaining it if it is right or God permitting it if it is wrong Here then lyes our Comfort as Men and Christians that the Devil
And then we shall not be in danger to fret our selves at the ungodly or to be envious against the Evil doers § 20. But now besides these several Reasons of the seeming Disorder and Confusion in the promiscuous Distribution of all Possessions under the Sun There may be other Reasons given by considering men and there are doubtless many others which are known to God only and which cannot be better collected than from the Example of our Saviour on whom the Devil and his Instruments were permitted to have so great a Power We know they put him to a painful and shameful Death And why were they suffer'd by God to do it Even for quite other reasons than They were able to conceive and for contrary ends to what They were led by To wit the Satisfying his Iustice the Exhibition of his Mercy the Declaration of his Wisdom the Manifestation of his Holiness the Illustration of his Power the Exaltation of his Glory And as worthily subordinate to each of These the Reformation and the Safety of all our Souls All which if we compare with the five Reasons going before we shall not wonder at the Truth of This Proposition That all the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them at least successively though not at once are by God's Patience and wise Permission in the Devil's Power and Disposal § 21. After the Truth and the Reason let us observe the special Uses which may be made of his Doctrin First it teacheth us how to value the beggarly Greatness of this World Over-value it we may and very commonly we do too but undervalue it we cannot do what we can For what more despicable than That which the Devil can both procure and deprive us of What more worthy of our Contempt than what is so undervalued by Him that made it as by Him to be often left in the Devil's Power and Disposal The Devil can give us great Possessions just as he gave them to the Chaldaeans And can take them away as he did from Iob. For both which reasons we ought to scorn them and to behave our selves towards them as things below us fit for nothing but to be matter whereby to exercise a Bounty to such as want them First I say 't is a disparagement to the Wealth and Glory of the World that they are left so much by God in the Devil's Power that Satan is suffer'd to bestow them on such as serve him For the Gifts of the Devil are never Good nor consistent with Goodness in such as have them They are dishonourable and dangerous and Hostages given to Destruction The Devil can give Riches in the sense before mention'd but not Contentment and a right use which are the ends for which we crave them And for want of which ends they increase our Poverty For as when the Body of man is Aguish no Addition of Clothes can make him warm So when the Soul of man is vitious no Addition of Treasure can make him rich The reason of which Paradox may thus be illustrated and clear'd We know that though the Clothes defend the Body from outward Cold yet 't is the Body's inward Heat which does warm the Clothes For else a Coffin and a Coverlid would warm a man when he is dead Which being evidently impossible 'T is plain that the Body must warm the Clothes before the Clothes can warm the Body And thence a Child is much warmer in a very thin Suit than his old decrepit Father when wrapt about with a Wardrope In like manner 't is the Soul which makes the Possession become sufficient not at all the Possession which gives contentment unto the Soul And as the way whereby to cure the cold Access of an Ague is to cleanse the Body from peccant humours not to bring it to a great Fire so the way to be happy as well as full is to purge an over passionate and sickly Soul not to rake up a great Estate There are indeed who have Abundance in conjunction with Satisfaction But 't is clear their Satisfaction does not arise from That Abundance For if Contentment could grow from Plenty The Man of Macedon had been satisfied in his Acquist of all Asia and had not wept for another World Nor would They who at first do take up Arms for meer Liberty continue the keeping of them up for meer Dominion when they have got their own Liberty they would not take it from other men From whence it follows That no man living is contented meerly because he has enough But that many men have enough meerly because they are contented And as a man in a Boat when he would pull the Bank to him finds it impossible for him to do it but by pulling Himself upon the Bank so the only way possible to fit our Condition to our minds is by bringing our minds to our Condition For if a man shall inlarge his Desires as Hell and is as greedy as the Grave All the Possessions in the World will not fill one of his Eyes 'T was very shrewdly said by Socrates to Archelaus That the Cities of Greece were found to prosper which asked Counsel of the Devil in his Oracle at Delphi whilst Those that did not were still afflicted But though mad men and fools inferr'd the Devil from That Success to be the only true God yet wise men knew him to be no better than the most bountiful kind of Cheat and that he made men to prosper to their undoing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socrates challenged all Historians from the beginning of the World to the day he writ in to name a man who had been the better for any Possessions of Satan's giving Meaning that none had profited by them in the Day of their Prosperity And so little can they profit in the Great Day of Wrath as the Wise man calls it that then they disprofit in extremity because they purchase for their Owners a place in Hell So little reason have we to boast that we abound in those things which the Devil by God's Sufferance can help us to who neither can nor will help us to use them wisely to our Advantage Much less reason have we to boast in what the Devil can take away too in being Tenants at Will to so vile a Landlord There is nothing more usual with the Prince of this World than to set Pilate against Herod as well as Both against Christ. He employs one Robber in offering violence to another And who would care for those Riches which only make him the Devil's Sumpter Can we think it a noble thing to be laden with thick Clay at the Devil's Pleasure and again unladen at his Command To have Wealth bestow'd on us by our Complyance with the Tempter and taken from us by other men's 'T was wisely done of Aristippus the learned Stoick when he commanded his Daughter Areta to give her Son Wisdom for his Patrimony in stead of Wealth because the
in Prosperity Polycrates of Samos was sure the man Who yet was so far from being the happier for his felicities that his felicities did afflict him more than any thing else could It did not trouble him a little That he had nothing to vex him and that the Goods he would part with he could not lose Nor was it strange or without reason that his Felicities were so irksom and grievous to him For his Friend Amasis King of Aegypt had told him the danger of his Successes and that he took them for the Prognosticks of he-knew-not-what Miseries in time to come He told Polycrates in Effect the same that Solon told Croesus and what is now a By-word in our Ethick Systemes Ante obitum nemo supremáque funera felix None can be certain of his Happiness before his Death He said he never knew any so over-fortunate in his life who did not come to some dismal End And as he chose for himself an wholsom Mixture of Adversity with good Success so he durst not continue Friendship with one condemn'd to have his Portion of Good things Here with one who was doom'd to a praeproperous untimely Bliss He having a dread and an abhorrence of too much Happiness upon Earth as that which he thought provok'd the Anger and the Iealousy of Heaven if not the Envy Now 't is observable in Herodotus who gives us the History of it at large That what was prophesy'd by Amasis was by Oraetes made good For all the Felicities of Polycrates did justly end in his Crucifixion So true is That of the Philosopher however most persons may think it strange Res inquieta felicitas est ipsa se exagitat movet Cerebrum non uno genere alios in Cultum irritat alios in potentiam alios inflat alios mollit If English can express it perhaps it may be thus rendred Worldly Greatness is a restless unquiet thing a Plague and Affliction unto it self and to all that own it It exagitates the Heads and Hearts of men several ways some it intoxicates with Cruelty and some with Pride some it stirs up to Luxury and some to Lust some it swells up and some it softens As the Sun at the same time does harden Clay and melt Wax some it makes so obdurate as to turn them into a Rock and some it dissolves into arrant loosness § 7. Which by the way suggests to us a Third Reason for the Dissuasive from any man's seeking Great Things for himself and for God's Prohibition Seek them not They being treacherous and deceiptful not only to the outward but inward man not only in a Secular but moral Sense not only to the Bodies but Souls of men They are corruptive even of Principles as making their owners to imagin that Honour Intitles them to Ambition that Pride belongs to men of Power that Greatness gives them a Right to Arrogance From which Corruption of Judgment it comes to pass that many others as well as Baldwin That most famously devout Cistercian Monk have been observ'd by Historians to lose their Sanctity with their Obscureness and after the measure of growing Greater to grow in all kinds the worse In so much that Pope Urban directed his Letters very fitly to Baldwin Thus Monacho ferventissimo Abbati calido Episcopo tepido Archiepiscopo remisso Salutem plurimam impertimus It is so common for men to change from good to bad or from bad to worse with the change of their Conditions from bad to good or from good to better and when they are lifted up in Honour to be elevated in Mind too that Titus Vespasian is the one Emperour at least within my present memory who was moulded by his Empire from bad to better from having been both a proud and a cruel Subject to his being both a mild and an humble Soveraign Of most other Emperours it may be said as 't was by Tacitus but of one Imperio digni nisi imperâssent They might have been worthy of their Empires if they never had been Emperours Temporal Happiness having This of malignant in it in the Judgment of Agur the Son of Iakeh that it makes men forgetful of Him that made them Deut. 32. 15 18. It breeds ingratitude disaffection and at last a disbelief of their Soveraign Good Prov. 30. 8 9. 'T was the Opinion of St. Chrysostom upon St. Paul to the Ephesians that as nothing can so highly provoke the Wrath of the Almighty as the Sin of breeding Factions in Church and State So there is nothing that can so easily beget such Factions in either of them as the Seeking of Preferments and Greatness in it For where the most of men are seeking Great Things for Themselves there are Few to take care of the Common Good either in relation to Church or State And the way to Advancement through such an excess of Self-seeking becomes too Narrow which 't is the Interest of the Publick to make as Broad as it is possible that so the Candidates going towards it may not tread on one another for want of Room to go by or at least for want of Room to go by quietly and without jostling Lord what Armies have been defeated if not destroy'd too by the chief Officers great Envy and malignant Aemulations of one another We need not go far abroad for Examples of it if we are not utter Strangers to things which have happen'd here at Home And Christians one would think should All take warning by Christ's Disciples who were impertinently disputing which of Them should be the greatest when nothing but Pains and Persecutions and Death it self did await them All. There was a Time when great Numbers did take fair warning by That Example But not to spend time in the Enumeration of Particulars for the enumerating of which my time would fail me it shall suffice me to say in general and by the Authority of St. Austin that most of the better sort of men who had the Happiness to live in those better Times did suffer violence and force in their vast Promotions For being exceedingly afraid of the great Dignities they were offer'd and much more ready to quit their Country than to run the great risque of Advancement in it they were fain to be press'd and kept in Prison 'till they could bring their Wills down to admit of Greatness Thus the most Modern of our Great Doctors of the most Primitive Simplicity a man as wise as he was learned and as good as good Nature by Grace could make him was truly afraid to live so long as to see the happy Day he had daily pray'd for partly for his own sake lest the bettering of the Times should possibly make him grow worse than he was before and lest Advancement should corrupt him whom the contrary Condition had kept Intire partly for the sake of the Publick also lest a Deluge of Prosperity overflowing all the Borders of Church and State might
we need Bridles to hold them fast § 15. It may perhaps be one Motive to moderation of Mind and to a Christian's not seeking Great Things for himself that Iesus Christ our great Exemplar did for Himself seek the least was pleas'd to empty himself of Glory became of no Reputation made it his choice to be so poor as not to have where to lay his head and thô he was born of the Blood Royal the House of David did choose to take upon him the Form of a very mean Subject and to live on Their Charity who administred to him of their Substance Luke 8. 3. Nor was This only the option of God Incarnate the blessed Redeemer of the World our Lord Jesus Christ whose coming was to destroy the Works of the Devil the Pomps and Vanities of the World with the sinful Lusts of the Flesh as well by his Practice and Example as by his Praecepts But All the Wisest and the Best even of meer moral men thô they had no Light to go by but that of Nature and Education had yet such a Mastery over themselves such a right Apprehension of human Conditions and Affairs had such an Insight into the Things which the World calls Great and did so seriously depretiate the Pomps and Vanities of the World coveting Poverty rather than Wealth and courting obscurity rather than Honour that most Professors of Christianity may be provoked by them to jealousy if not prevailed upon effectually unto a generous aemulation Such as the famous Abdolonymus who however he was by Birth of Royal Family and Extraction was yet by Breeding but a poor Gardiner in the Suburbs of Sidon where he work't out all his Bread at his fingers ends and so accordingly did eat it in the Sweat of his Brows A Condition so duly fitted to the Humility of his Desires that when created King of Sidon by Alexander the Great he was ask't with what Patience he could indure his late Poverty I would to God answer'd He I could as well indure a Kingdom Hae manus suffecêre desiderio meo nihil habui nihil defuit He said his Hands had been sufficient to administer to his Necessities and that the Things which he had not he did not want The choice he made of his Employment brings Democritus into my memory who made the same For having travell'd through the World whereby to gain a full Experience and Knowledge of it he chose at last a deep Poverty and a confinement to his Garden wherein he satisfied his Body with the Productions of the Earth and feasted his Soul with Contemplation The Pomps and Vanities of the World at the Miseries of which Heraclitus wept He daily laugh't at And thô the Vulgar thought him a Madman for his Recess from all Company yet Hippocrates who was sent to cure him of it as a Physician was compell'd by his Discourse to admire his Wisdom and pronounced Them mad who had so esteem'd him And truly Crates of Thebes may with Somebody's profit be here remember'd who being both Rich and a Philosopher turn'd his Land into Mony and put his Mony to the Banker on this Condition That if his Sons did prove Fools he should supply their Wants with it but if Philosophers he should deal out all his Treasure to the most indigent of the City It having been really his opinion that Fools want Mony however Rich whilst Wise-men thô Poor are in need of nothing Now whether This is the true History or That which is told us by Philostratus That Crates threw his whole Estate into the Sea as having found it a great Impediment to the Prosperity of his Studies and the Tranquillity of his Life it matters not much because his Judgment does appear by Both Accompts of his Practice to have been This that in very much of the World there 's very much Trouble and Solicitude and that the more any man has the more he has of disturbance and interruption the more he has to be carking and caring for whether as to its Use or its Conservation The Emperour Sigismund I am sure did find it so to some purpose when having brought him out of Hungary a Chest of Gold ready coyn'd he could never sleep well till he parted with it For he could not saith Cuspinian but still be thinking either where he might keep it with greatest safety or how lay it out to the most Advantage Therefore calling to him his Counsellors with the chief Officers of his Army and all his Lifeguard more especially he caus'd his Chest to be laid open and his Forty thousand Pieces a great Treasure Then thrown out amongst them Those he call'd his Tormentors his Murderers his cruell'st Enemies and his Lictors which would not suffer him to rest by reason of the lashes they laid upon him all Night without remorse or intermission This 't is plain is not impertinent to the Discourse I am upon thô impertinent in comparison with all those Emperours and Kings and other Persons more signal whom I might reckon if I had Time upon This occasion But desirous to comply with the Time allow'd I shall not Instance in as many but in as few as I am able of most Remarque Such as are the Three Scipio's in whom the Roman Historians and the best of the Greek ones do justly triumph The chief of These was Africanus the glorious Downfall of Carthage and Staff of Rome as his Paternal Name Scipio does well import One who grew to such an Highth of Worldly Happiness and Renown that there was nothing now left to make him Higher but his Humility He did not only refuse the Offer of having his Statue signaliz'd in the highest Places but that of Consulship during Life and that of perpetual Dictator also Yea if Polybius may be credited who had most reason to know both in Asia and Europe as well as Africa he did many times refuse to be made a King And This Polybius calls often not the Poverty or the Lowness as the men of this Age would be apt to call it but as it was in good earnest the Highth and Greatness of Scipio's Spirit I am perswaded says Lucius Seneca that Scipio ' s Soul went up to Heaven not because as a Commander he led so many and great Armies but because of That Piety by which he triumph't over Himself Not so much because he saved as because having saved he LEFT his Country Nor because he left the Service but the Honours and the Wealth and Injoyments of it It was the Littleness and Obscurity of his House at Linternum which made that Philosopher admire his Greatness It was his lying close hid in a little Corner turning his Spear into a Plough-share and his Sword into a Pruning-hook and labouring with his own hands in dressing and cultivating the Earth which made this Great man who transcended All others at the last to exceed and transcend Himself 'T was in his Cloud he shin'd brightest
putrid Carcass And as the Pleasures of the Soul are by much the greatest so 't is the Soul's greatest Pleasure to arrive at an Ability to despise That of the Body Such was the Savour and the Gust which David had of God's Precepts and such was his Accompt of the Delight he took in them And surely All People of Vertue in all the Ages of the World have ever said the same thing from the same Experience So that if any body is not of David's Mind 't is meerly for want of his Experience For the Proof of sweet things lyes in the Trial and the Taste As the Psalmist cry'd out in one place Lord how sweet are thy words unto my Taste yea sweeter than Hony unto my Mouth So he prayed in another Lord open thou my lips For he knew he could not Taste that Food from Heaven whilst carnal prejudice and perversness had shut his Mouth First therefore having pray'd that God will open our lips as the Psalmist did we must indeavour as He did too to taste and see how gratious the Lord is and not only in his Promises but Precepts also Which the oftner we taste with the more Appetite shall we desire them But we know not how they taste before we taste them As he who covets knows not the sweetness of Contentment Nor he the Delights of living chastly who has Eyes full of Adultery Nor he the deliciousness of Temperance who hath made himself a Slave to Debauch and Surfet Fraudulent Persons could not be Fraudulent if they experimented the Pleasure of upright Dealing But they must actually be upright in all their Dealing before they can find out the Pleasure of it The Royal Prophet therefore said well That WHEN he had KEPT the Commandments he loved them exceedingly Not that he loved them exceedingly before he kept them What else was it which induced him to speak so kindly of his Afflictions to say that God of very Faithfulness had caused him to be troubled but that he was thereby much assisted in the keeping of the Commandments which he knew by much experience are naturally apt to rejoyce the Heart Psal. 19. 8. and that in the very keeping of them is great Reward Psal. 19. 11. But where a Cloud of Vitious Habits doth incessantly interpose bewixt the Eye and the Object how can the Beauty of the Commandments be rightly seen or apprehended The Prophet David was sain to pray not only that God would open his lips that he might taste But also his Eyes that he might SEE the wondrous things of his law Psal. 119. 18. And by the help of his Grace which we must pray for as well as David we are to cast out the mote perhaps the Beam out of our Eyes before our Eyes can be ravish't with the Charming Beauty of Christ's Commands And the way to do That is ipso facto to obey them For they are Pure saith the Psalmist and inlightning the Eyes Psal. 19. 8. they give wisdom unto the Simple are altogether undefiled and converting the Soul moreover by Them is thy Servant Taught v. 7 11. From which expressions of the Psalmist it plainly follows that the Commands of the Law Moral which are common to Moses with Christ and Nature do make an excellent Collyrium a Soveraign Oyntment or Eyesalve to clear our Sight of those Mists which the Devil and the World have cast before them § 14. Say then Thou Demas Thou Crude and unexperienced Christian or whoever thou art who hast a share in the Objection Dost thou find within thy self nothing of Appetite or Love to the Yoke of Christ It is because thou dost not know how pleasant a thing it is to wear it And wilt thou know the true Reason why thou dost not know That It is because thou art not us'd to the wearing of it For how can any man find the Pleasure of keeping close to Christ's Precepts before he keeps them Do but live a strict life and begin now in Lent till thou hast got into an Habit of living strictly and my life for thine thou wilt find it Pleasant But He who will not live exactly till he arrives at those Pleasures which nothing less than Experience can bless him with is neither more nor less foolish than the meer Scholar in Hierocles his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who would not adventure into the Water until he was certain that he could swim or one who utterly refuseth the putting of meat into his Mouth until he shall have tasted the Goodness of it For as thou canst not taste meat till thou hast put it into thy Mouth nor find its goodness till thou hast chew'd it and by digesting it into Blood hast made it a parcel of thy self too so thou canst never discern the sweetness of the Commandments of Christ until for some time they have been thy Diet. Do but feed upon them enough and digest them into thy Soul by obedience to them and Then how soon wilt thou resemble the men in Homer who having eaten a while of Lotos were as much captivated in Love with the Place it grew in as our Ecstatical St. Peter with the Delights of Mount Tabor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wer 't thou but wonted and inur'd as much to the keeping of Christ's Commands as now thou art to the breaking of them Thou wouldst find as great a change as from Hell to Heaven And if from this Instant wherein I speak Thou wilt but serve The Lord Christ with as much Zeal and Assiduity and as long as thou hast served thy Master Satan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I dare lay a Wager of Gold to Brass Thou wilt not change Masters for all the World § 15. But here perhaps it may be said that the main Aking Tooth is not drawn out of the Obection For thô the Yoke of Christs Precepts is thus evinced to be easy yet the burden of his Cross is not hence proved to be light Nor does it follow his Yoke is easy in That ruggidest part of it wherein both his Yoke and his Burden meet For so we know they Both do in his Precept of Self-denial and of bearing his Cross after him whether laid upon us by others or freely taken upon our selves § 16. To which I answer by these following Degrees beginning with the least and lowest First when laid upon us by others there is matter of Comfort in it from the Consideration of its bare Nature For we know 't was the Prerogative of Goodly men heretofore above other Mortals that they were able out of choice to be bravely Miserable if such a Latinism as That may be us'd in English Fortiter Ille facit qui miser esse potest Many Examples of which we have not only in the Christian but Heathen World It was for no other reason that Hierocles flung his Blood in his Lictor's face that Zeno spit out his Toung into the Teeth of his