by pure persons yet not onely no acceptance and blessing but an uncomfortable breach Even that soul shall bee cut off from his people vers 20 21. Sacramenta sunt fodinae gratiae dispositio est vasculum gratiae promajore dispositione affectu tuo majorem gratiam reportabis Euseb FIll the mens sacks with food as much as they can carry sayes Joseph to his Steward Gen. 44. 1. Look how they came prepared with Sacks and Beasts so they were sent back with Corn The greater and the more Sacks they had prepared the more Corn they carry away If they had prepared but small Sacks and a few they had carried away the less A prepared heart is a vessel that shall bee filled at the Sacrament Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it Psal 81. 10. Now the more or less the heart is prepared the greater or lesser is the vessel According to the size and capacity of the vessel shall it bee filled Fill such mens hearts with spiritual blessings with vertue from Christ with the comforts of the Holy Ghost sayes the Lord at the Sacrament fill them with spiritual food as full as they can hold as much as they can carry What a sweet comfort is that Who desires not to carry away from the Sacrament as much as may bee Then bee careful to prepare our hearts and prepare them to the purpose the larger is our preparation the larger is our vessel the larger our vessel the larger is our largess and dole at the Sacrament If wee carry not away as much as wee would it is our own fault that by preparation wee did not furnish our selves with a more capacious vessel The poor pittances that many go from the Sacrament withall make them droop when they are gone They may thank themselves for if Josaphs brethren had brought small Sacks they could not have carried away much corn out of Egypt Let men come with hearts so prepared as they should and they shall bee laden and filled with as much as they can carry Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis Aristotle SAcraments work according to that disposition wherein they finde such as receive them Such as are the receivers so prove the Sacraments unto them It is in this case as it was with the woman under jealousie and suspicion of uncleanness drinking the cursed waters Numb 5. 27 28. And when hee hath made her to drink the water then it shall come to pass that if shee bee defiled c. Look then as the woman was such was the work of the water If shee were clean the water did her no hurt nay it did her good shee conceived seed shee became fruitfull but if shee were defiled and unclean it wrought with a mischief Her belly did swell her tâ—igh did rot and shee became a curse It is so in receiving the Sacrament As men are that receive it so is the work and efficacy of it either for good or hurt either for bain or blessing if a man bee prepared with repentance and so bee clean then the Sacrament brings a blessing it makes a man fruitful But if a man bee defiled and unclean as every impenitent sinner is then it banes and mischiefes him hee proves a more rotten and wretched sinner than before An unwholesome and diseased stomach that every food it receives it alters and rather nourishes the disease than the body and turns wholesome nourishment to matter of grief and vexation So an impenitent soul coming to Gods Ordinance in its fins and defilement doth but turn the wholesome nutriment of the Sacrament to the feeding of its disease and the increasing of its own sorrow and mischief as the water that made the clean woman fruitful made the unclean woman swell and rot God curses the Sacrament to an impenitent defiled person and so makes a sad breach upon him instead of a blessing Pertunte sole pereunt omnia Seneca FOr a man to bee stupid and senseless under corporal afflictions argues a very ill temper of spirit but for a man to be stupid and senseless under spiritual afflictions under such a spiritual affliction as this the loss of the Son the loss of Christ as a Comforter argues a very ill temper of spirit indeed Strive therefore O deserted stupid soul to affect thine heart throughly with thy loss thou hast lost more than Job when hee had lost children substance health honours and friends nay thou hast lost more than if thou hadst lost this world nay thou hast lost more than if thou hadst lost thy life which is of more worth than the world thou hast lost Christ which is richer than the world and sweeter than thy life What an infinite loss were it to this world to lose the Sun It were at once to lose all Pereunte sole pereunt omnia for all things serviceable for the use of man depend upon the motion and influence of that glorious body What a loss then is it to the lesser world to lose Christ the Son of Righteousness It is to lose all good at once for soul and body All graces close and wither when Christ departs as all fragrant flowers when the Sun withdraws his influence And when these flowers wither in the soul a man is a moving dunghil that stinks in the nostrils of God and man where ever hee comes A man that hath lost Christ may truly say as shee when the Ark was lost That his glory is departed As the Sun in the glory of the greater World So Christ the Son of Righteousness is the glory of the lesser world to wit man Thou hast lost that in the world that is more worth than the world and which all the world can never help thee to Thou hast lost that which would make the worst condition in this life a Heaven whereas the best without it is but a Hell thou hast lost that which would have been to thy soul a continual feast whereas now thy soul is in a continuall famine and leanenesse Thou hast lost thy spirits and thy soul as in a dead-palsie so that thou art a living dead-man fit for no spiritual service Thou hast lost thy head thou hast lost thy eyes thou hast lost thy hands thou hast lost thy cloathing nay thou hast lost thy best Father thy best Husband thy best Friend all all this and much more comfort is Christ to man Thou hast great reason then O deserted soul to lay to heart thy loss Ignis focalis immateriale non urit Aristoteles THe sorrows of Hell are such as principally torture the spirit The fire which wee make can onely burn and torture the bodies of men because this onely of man is material immaterials as the souls of men are our fire cannot fasten upon but that strange fire which God hath kindled in Hell for all that disobey him burns the souls of men though immaterial substances Nay so strange is that fire that it burns these immaterial substances most fiercely as being
the most sinfull part of man for it is onely sin that pitches and defiles the soul and makes it combustible which otherwise would never burn if all the fiery Artists of Hell did blow the bellows Now just such is that fire which conscience kindles upon the breach of integrity to wit a fire that burns inwardly and consumes the marrow of the bones and drinks up the spirits The Arrows which conscience shuts in upon a man upon the breach of sincerity are such as pierce principally the spirit As long as Job was patient under Gods hand hee felt the Arrows of the Almighty onely without him as I may say to wit in his body in his children and substance but when hee brake out and cursed his day hee presently complains that hee felt the Arrows of God within him and that the poyson of them drank up his spirits Job 6. 4. All that which before hee felt without was nothing to that which hee now felt within upon his spirit As the torments which damned wretches shall suffer in their bodies are nothing to those which shall continually flye up and down in their souls So David after hee had made breaches in his integrity God filled his loynes with loathsome diseases but this was nothing to speak of God made things strike into his heart and then hee roared I am feeble and sore broken I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart David felt pains gather about his heart and then hee cryes out The heart is the mark that God principally aims at when a Christian hath turned aside from his upright course other outward parts hee may hit and deeply wound but this is but to make holes into the heart where the seat of unsoundness that principally offends him is The Fire which Conscience kindles it may flash forth into the eyes and tongue and hands and make a man look fearfully speak desperately and do bloodily against the body but the heat of the fire is principally within in the furnace in the spirit it is but some sparkles and flashes onely that you see come forth at the lower holes of the furnace which you behold in the eyes words and deeds of such men Invidia est vitium permanens Aristoteles ENvy is a long lived thing it will live as long as there is any marrow in the bones It will hunt a David long through Ziph En-gedi many Wildernesses though never so long it will finde a Dart to throw at a David till it hath killed him or stabbed it selfe Envy fights desperately and unweariedly it will never give over as long as there is breath it will eat no bread till it hath done its work killed a Paul or sterved it self Envy is all spirit all evill spirits move it is a spirit of the right breed for the Devil it will fight and fight till death it will work to the utmost vires as long as nerves and sinewes binde bones together it is everlasting burning which nothing will quench but its own blood Ab extremis miseriae quies Seneca I Would speak to such from this sentence which are quite undone which have lost all mony and joy too which have many sufferings upon them for Christ but can make no joy out of them Surely I can guess your pain you are blinde you know not who hath stript you not when hee will return it again It is impossible for a man to joy under long suffering unless a man can look to the end of it This makes heavy afflictions light long afflictions short to look where they end Our light afflictions which indure but for a moment work about a far more exceeding and an eternal weight of glory Long-suffering is but a moment when compared with eternity of glory The great Heaven at a distance makes a little heaven at present a heaven in hell to that soul which hath it in its eye As those lower heavens give a great lustre and vigor at a distance to beholders and raise much so doth the Heaven of heavens It is a heaven to behold heaven afar off where ever the body bee It was Canaan to Moses to see Canaan afar off The fight of the end shortens the way suffering is deadly long when a man can see no end when a man is in darkness and can see no light it is hard to bring the soul to joy in such darkness A man must look upon affliction from one end to the other that would fetch in joy to his soul from suffering At one end of long suffering for truth is a father at the other end a reward which if seen well will make the longest suffering very short and very sweet Media gratiae ordinem creationis subeunt Aquinas THe means of Grace have the order of Creation stamped upon them Christ the great Wheel that turns all other wheels of our salvation is made unto us what hee is and made of God Who of God is made unto us Wisdome Righteousness c. 1 Cor. 1. 30. Christ is a full sea indeed but not a drop to us but as made of God So wee are made able Ministers of the New Testament not of the letter but of the spirit Could such a poor man as I by speaking a while to the ear turn the heart from sin to Christ did not a creating blessing sit on my lips Divine institutions have the formality of a creation in them because they have what they have and doe what they doe from supreme power onely above all cause and reason Therefore are Institutions and means of Grace not so much as mentioned Col. 1. 11. Giving thanks to the Father who hath mâ—â—e us meet to bee partakers of that inheritance of the Saints in light Onely the Father is here mentioned Means are so beside likelihood and reason to so noble an end as to make and fit souls for heaven Giving thanks to the Father who hath made c. None else worthy to bee so much as mentioned in this noble work Alterius perditio sit tua cautio Isidor FOr the wickedness of them that dwell therein it is that a fruitful land is turned into a wilderness saith David Psal 107. And the Heathen Historian saith little less when hee tells us that the ruine and rubbish of Troy are set by God before the eyes of men for an example of that rule that great sins have great punishments But now say the Learned not to bee warned by others is a sure presage of ruine Scipio beheld and bewayled the down-fall of Rome 〈◊〉 the destruction of Carthage And when Hannibal was beleagureing Saguntum in Spain the Romans were as sensible of it as if he had then been beating upon the walls of their Capitol A storm oftentimes begins in one place and ends in another When the Sword rides Circuit as a Judge it is in Commission Ezek. 14. 17. And when I begin saith God I will make an end 1 Sam. 3. Wee cannot but fore-see a storm unless
possible to raise a dead body to life God out of my confession of the impurity of my best actions shall vouchlafe to take off his eyes from that impurity as though there were none but no spiritual thing in us nor faith nor hope nor charity have any purity any perfection in themselves Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux nox est perpetuo una dormienda Catullus THe Gentiles and their Poets describe the sad state of death so nox una dormienda that it is one everlasting night to them a night but to a Christian it is dies Mortis and dies Resurrectionis the day of Death and the day of Resurrection wee dye in the light in the sight of Gods presence and wee rise in the light in the sight of his very essence Nay Gods corrections and judgements upon us in this life are still expressed so dies Visitationis still it is a day though a day of Visitation and still wee may discern God to bee in the action The Lord of life was the first that named Death Morte morieris sayes God Thou shalt dye the death I do the less fear or abhor death because I finde it in his mouth even a Malediction hath a sweetness in his mouth for there is a blessing wrapped up in it a mercy in every correction a resurrection upon every death When Jezabels beauty exalted to that height which it had by art or higher than that to that height which it had in her own opinion shall bee infinitely multiplied upon every body and as God shall know no man from his own son so as not to see the very righteousness of his own Son upon that man so the Angels shall know no man from Christ so as not to desire to look upon that mans face because the most deformed wretch that is there shall have the very beauty of Christ himself So shall Goliahs Armour and Dives fulness bee doubled and redoubled upon us and every thing that wee can call good shall first bee infinitely exalted in the goodness and then infinitely multiplied in the proportion and again infinitely extended in the duration Solus Deus verè festumagat Philo Judae IT hath been disputed by many both of the Gentiles with whom the Fathers disputed and of the Schoolmen who dispute with one another ansit gaudium in Deo de semet whether God rejoyce in himself in contemplation of himself whether God bee glad that hee is God But it is disputed by them only to establish it and to illustrate it for I do not remember that any one of them denies it It is true that Plato dislikes and justly that saluration of Dionysius the Tyrant to God Gaude servato vitam Tyranni jucundam that hee should say to God Live merrily as merrily as a King as merrily as I do and then you are good enough to imagine such a joy in God as is only a transitory delight in deceivable things is an impious conceit But when as another Platonique sayes Deus est quod ipse semper voluit God is that which hee would bee if there bee something that God would bee and hee bee that if Plato should deny that God joyed in himself wee must say of Plato as Lactantius doth Deus potius seminaverat quam cognoverat Plato had rather dreamed that there was a God than understood what that God was Bonum simplex saith St. Augustine to bee sincere goodness goodness it self Ipsa est delectatio Dei this is the joy that God hath in himself of himself and there sayes Philo Judaeus hoc necessarium Philosophiae sadalibus this is the tenent of all Philosophers and by that title of Philosophers Philo alwayes means them that know and study God solum Deum verè festum agere that only God can bee truly said to keep holy day and to rejoyce This joy we shall see when we see him who is so in it as that hee is this joy it self But here in this world so far as I can enter into my Masters sight I can enter into my Masters joy I can see God in his creatures in his Church in his Word and Sacraments and Ordinances since I am not without this sight I am not without this joy Here a man may transilire mortalitatom sayes the divine moral man I cannot put off mortality but I can look upon immortality I cannot depart from this earth but I can look into Heaven So I cannot possess that final and accomplished joy here but as my body can lay down a burden or a heavy garment and joy in that case so my soul can put off my body so far as that the concupiscences thereof and the manifold and miserable incumbrances of this World cannot extinguish this holy Joy De fiderium generat satietatem satiet as parit desiderium Bern. THere is a spiritual fulness in this life of which St. Jerom speaks Ebrietas foelix satietas salutaris a happy excess and a wholesome surfeit Quae quanto copiosius sumitur majorem donat sobrietatem in which the more wee eat the more temperate wee are and the more wee drink the more sober In which as St. Bernard also expresses it in his Mellifluence Mutuâ interminab ili inexplicab ili generatione by a mutual and reciprocal by an undeterminable unexpressible generation of one another the desire of spiritual graces begets a satiety If I would bee I am full of them and then this satiety begets a further desire still we have a new appetite to those spiritual graces this is a holy ambition a sacred covetousness and a wholesome dropsie Napth alies blessing O Napthali satisfied with favour and full with the blessing of the Lord. St. Stephens blessing Full of faith and of the Holy Ghost the blessed Virgins blessing Full of grace Dorcas blessing Full of good works and of Alms-deeds the blessing of him who is blessed above all and who blesseth all Christ Jesus Full of Wisdome full of the Holy Ghost full of Grace and Truth But so far are all temporal things from giving this fulness or satisfaction as that even in spiritual things there may bee there is often an error or mistaking even in spiritual things there may bee a fulness and no satisfaction and there may bee a satisfaction and no fulness I may have as much knowledge as is presently necessary for my salvation and yet have a restless and unsatisfied desire to search into unprofitable curiosities unrevealed mysteries and inextricable perplexities And on the other side a man may bee satisfied and think hee knows all when God knows hee knows nothing at all For I know nothing if I know not Christ crucified and I know not that if I know not how to apply him to my self nor do I know that if I imbrace him not in those means which hee hath afforded mee in his Church in his Word and Sacraments if I neglect this means this place these exercises howsoever I may satisfie my self
sleep but in sins upon deliberation upon counsel upon pretence of reason wee do see the wisdome of God but wee set our wisdome above his wee do see the Law of God but we insert and interline non obstantes of our own into Gods Law If therefore thou wilt corruptly and vitiously and sinfully love another out of pitty because they love thee so if thou wilt assist a poor man in a cause out of pretence of pitty with thy countenance and the power of thy place that that poor man may have something and thou the rest that is recovered in his right if thou wilt imbrace any particular sin out of pitty lest thy wife and children should bee left unprovided if thou have not taken these little Foxes that is resisted these tentations at the beginning yet nunc in judicio now that they appear in judgement in examination of thy conscience non misereberis thou shalt not pitty them as Moses speaks of false Prophets and by a fair accommodation of all bewitching sins with pleasure or profit If a Dreamer of dreams have given thee a sign and that sign bee come to pass If a sin have told thee it would make thee rich and it have made thee rich yet if this Dreamer draw thee to another god if this profit draw thee to an Idolatrous that is to an habitual love of that sin Tot habemus recentes Deos quot vitia sayes St. Hierom Every man hath so many Idols in him as hee hath habitual sins yet though this Dreamer as God proceeds there bee thy brother or thy son or thy friend which is as thine own soul how near how dear how necessary soever this sin bee unto thee non misereberis sayes Moses Thine eye shall not pity that Dreamer thou shalt not keep him secret but thine own hand shall bee upon him to kill him And so of this pleasurable and profitable sin non misereberis thou shalt not hide it but powre it out in confession non misereberis thou shalt not pardon no nor reprieve it but destroy it for the practise presently non misereberis thou shalt not turn out the mother and retain the daughter not leave the sin and retain that which was sinfully got but devest all root and body and fruits by confession to God by contrition in thy self by restitution to men damnified else that will fall upon thee and thy soule which fell upon the Church that because they did not take their little Foxes they endangered the whole Vine Sicut invisibilibus est Sol in intelligibilibus est Deus Nazian VVHen wee consider the liberality of our King the bounty of our God to man in Christ it is species ingratitudinis it is a degree of ingratitude nay it is a degree of forgetfulness to pretend to remember his benefits so as to reckon them for they are innumerable Bonitas Dei ad extra liberalit as est it is the expressing of the School and of much use that God is essential goodness within doors in himself but ad extra when hee comes abroad when this interior goodness is produced into action then all Gods goodness is liberality Deus est voluntas omnipotens is excellently said by St. Bernard God is all Almightiness all Power but hee might bee so and wee never the better Therefore hee is voluntas omnipotens a power digested into a will as willing as able to do us all all good What good Receive some drops of it in St. Bernards own Manna his own Honey Creans mentes ad se participandum so good as that hee hath first given us souls capable of him and made us so partakers of the Divine Nature Vivificans ad sentiendum so good as that hee hath quickned those souls and made them sensible of having received him for grace is not grace to mee till it make mee know that I have it aliciens ad appetendum so good as that hee hath given thâ—t soul an appetite and an holy hunger and thirst to take in more of him for I have no grace till I would have more and then Dilatans ad capiendum so good as that hee hath dilated and inlarged that soule to take in as much of God as hee will And lest the soul should lose any of this by unthankfulness God is kinde even to the unthankful sayes God himself which is a degree of goodness in which God seldome is nay in which God scarce looks to bee imitated to bee kinde to the unthankfull But if the whole space to the Firmament were filled with sand and wee had before us Clavius his number how many thousands would bee if all that space were filled with water and so joyned the waters above with the waters below the Firmament and wee had the number of all those drops of water and then had every single sand and every single drop multiplied by the whole number of both wee were still short of numbring the benefits of God as God but then of God in Christ infinitely super-infinitely short To have been once nothing and to bee now co-heire with the Son of God is such a circle such a compass as that no revolutions in this world to rise from the lowest to the highest or to fall from the highest to the lowest can bee called or thought any segment any arch any point in respect of this circle To have once been nothing and now to bee co-heires with the Son of God that Son of God who if there had been but one soule to have been saved would have dyed for that nay if all souls had been to bee saved but one and that that only had sinned he would not have been contented with all the rest but would have dyed for that And there is the goodness the liberality of our King our God our Christ our Jesus Ad patriam itur per ipsum mare sed in ligno August VVHich way think you to go home to the Heavenly Jerusalem you must pass through seas of difficulties and therefore by ship and in a ship you are not safe except other Passengers in the same ship bee safe too Therefore said Christ to James and John Non est meum dare vobis it is not mine to give to ser you on my right and on my left hand Non vobis quia singuli separatiâ— ab â—liis rogatis not to you because you consider but your selves and petition for your selves to the prejudice and exclusion of others Therefore Christ bad the Samaritan woman call her husband too when shee desired the water of life Ne sola gratiam acciperet saith St. Chrysostome that hee might so do good to her as that others might have good by it too The Spouse saith Trahe me post te draw mee after thee When it is but a mee in the singular but one part considered there is a violence a difficulty a drawing but presently after when there is an uniting in a plural there is an alacrity a concurrence a willingness
Curremus post te wee will run after thee if wee would joyn in publick considerations wee should run together Quantumlibet sis avarus sufficit tibi Deus St. Augustine ACcustome thy self to finde the presence of God inall thy gettings in all thy preferments in all thy studies and hee will bee abundantly sufficient to thee for all Bee as covetous as thou wilt bee as ambitious as thou canst the more the better God is treasure God is honour enough for thee Avaritia terram quaerit saith the same Father adde Coelum wouldest thou have all this world wouldest thou have all the next world too Plus est qui fecit coelum terram hee that made heaven and earth is more than all that and thou mayest have all him Upon this St. Cyprians wonder is just Deum nobis solis contentum esse nobis non sufficere Deum that God should think man enough for him and man should not bee satisfied with God that God should bee content with Fili da mihicor my Son give mee thy heart and man should not bee content with Pater da mihi spiritum my God my Father Grant mee thy Spirit but must have temporal additions too Non est castum cor saith St. Augustine Si Deum ad mercedem colit as hee saith in another place Non est casta uxor quae amat quiae dives shee is never the honester woman nor the lovinger wife that loves her husband in contemplation of her future joynture or in fruition of her present abundancies so hee sayes here Non est castum cor that man hath not a chaste a sincere heart towards God that loves him by the measure end proportion of his temporal blessings And indeed what profits it a man if hee get all the world and lose his own soul and therefore that opinion that there was no profit at all no degree towards blessedness in those temporal things prevailed so far as that it is easie to observe in their Expositions upon the Lords Prayer that the greatest part of the Fathers do ever interpret that Petition Da nobis hodie Give us this day our daily bread to bee intended only of spiritual blessings and not of temporal so St. Hierom saith When wee ask that bread Illum petimus qui panis vivus est descendit de â—olo wee make our Petition for him who is the bread of life and descended from the bosome of the Father and so hee refers it to Christ and in him to the whole mystery of our Redemption And Athanasius and St. Augustine too and not they two alone refer it to the Sacramental bread that in that Petition wee desire such an application of the bread of life as wee have in the participation of the body and blood of Christ Josus in that Communion St. Cyprian insists upon the word Nostrum our bread for saith hee Temporal blessings cannot properly bee called ours because they are common to the Saints and to the Reprobates but in a prayer ordained by Christ for the faithful the Petition is for such things as are proper and peculiar to the faithful and that is for spiritual blessings only If any man shall say Ideo quaerenda quia necessaria wee must pray and wee must labour for temporal things because they are necessary for us wee cannot bee without them Ideo non quaerenda quia necessaria sayes St. Chrysostome so much of them as is necessary for our best state God will give us without this laborious anxiety and without eating the bread of sorrow in this life Non sperandum de superfluis non desperandum de necessariis sayes the same Father It is a suspicious thing to doubt or distrust God in necessary things it is an unmannerly thing to press him in superfluous things They are not necessary before and they are not ours after for those things onely are ours which no body can take from us and for temporal things Anferre potest inimicus homo invito let the inimicus homo bee the Devil and remember Jobs case let the inimicus homo bee any envious and powerfull man who hath a mind to that that thou hast and remember Naboths case and this envious man can take any temporal thing from thee against thy will But spiritual blessings cannot bee taken so â—idem nemo perdidit nisi qui spreverit sayes St. Augustine No man ever lost his faith but hee that thought it not worth the keeping Perfect a obedientia est sua imperfecta relinquere August THis Peter and Andrew declared abundantly when they left their Nets and followed Christ yet however in this leaving of their Nets there is no example of devesting ones self of all means of defending us from those manifold necessities which this life layes upon upon pretence of following Christ it is not an absolute leaving of all worldly cares but a leaving them out of the first consideration primum quaerite regnum Dei so as our first business bee to seek the Kingdome of God For after this leaving of his Nets for this time Peter continued owner of his house and Christ came to that house of his and found his mother in Law sick in that house and recovered her there Upon a like Commandement upon such a sequere follow mee Matthow followed Christ too but after that following Christ went with Matthew to his house and sate at meat with him at home And for this very exercise of Fishing though at that time when Christ said Follow wee they left their nets yet they returned to that trade sometimes upon occasions in all likelihood in Christs life and after Christs death clearly they did return to it for Christ after his Resurrection found them fishing They did not therefore abandon and leave all care and all government of their own estate and dispose themselves to live after upon the sweat of others but transported with a holy alacrity in this present and chearful following of Christ in respect of that then they neglected their nets and all things else Not to be too diligent towards the world is the diligence that God requires St. Augustine doth not say Suae relinquere but Sua imperfecta relinquere that God requires wee should leave the world but that wee should leave it to second considerations that thou do not forbear nor defer thy conversion to God and thy restitution to man till thou have purchased such an estate bought such an office married and provided such and such children but imperfecta relinquere to leave these worldly things unperfected till thy repentance have restored thee to God and established thy reconciliation in him and then the world lyes open to thy honest endeavours Others take up all with their net and they sacrifice to their Nets because by them their portion is fat and their meat plenteous They are confident in their own learning their own wisdome their own practise and which is a strange Idolatry they sacrifice to themselves they attribute
the sonnes and daughters of Adam doe possesse For look upon Kings and Conquerors I will not tell that many of them fall into the condition of servants and their subjects rule over them and stand upon the ruines of their Families But let us suppose them still Conquerours and the greatest that ever were yet whatsoever tempts the pride and vanity of ambitious persons is not so big as the smallest star which wee see scattered in disorder and unregarded upon the pavement and floor of Heaven And if wee would suppose the Pilmires had but our understandings they also would have the method of a mans greatness and divide their little Molehills into Provinces and Exarchats And if they also grew as vitious and as miserable one of their Princes would lead an Army out and kill his neighbour Ants that hee might reign over the next handfull of a Turf but then if wee consider at what price and with what felicity all this is purchased the sting of the painted Snake will quickly appear and the fairest of their fortunes will properly enter into this account of humane infelicities Proper a vivere singulos diâ—s sâ—ngulas vitas pâ—â—a nihil interest iâ—â—â—diem sâ—culum Sence HEe that would dye well must alwayes look for death every day knocking at the gates of the grave and then the gates of the grave shall never prevaile upon him to do him mischief This was the advice of all the wise and good men of the world who especially in the dayes and periods of their joy and festival egressions chose to throw some ashes into their chalices some sober remembrances of their fatal period Such was the black shirt of Saladine the Tombstone presented to the Emperour of Constantinople on his Coronation day the Bishop of Romes two reeds with flax and a wax taper the Egyptian Skeleton served up at feasts These in their semblances declare a severe counsel and useful meditation and it is not easie for a man to be drunk with joy or wine pride or revenge who considers sadly that hee must ere long dwell in a house of darkness and his body must bee the inheritance of worms and his soul must be what he pleases even as a man makes it here by his living good or bad I have read of a young Hermit who being passionately in love with a young Lady could not by all the Arts of Religion and mortification suppress the trouble of that fancy till at last being told that she was dead and had been buried about fourteen dayes hee went secretly to her vault and with the skirt of his mantle wiped the moisture from the carkass and still at the return of the temptation laid it before him saying Behold this is the beauty of the Woman thou didst so much desire and so the man thereby overcame his inordinate passion and if we make death as present to us our own death dwelling and dressed in all its pomp of fancy and proper circumstances if any thing will quench the heats of lust or the desires of money or the greedy passionate affections of this world this must do it Non expectavit Christâ—â—â—â— Saul 〈…〉 in media insaâ—iâ— superavit Chryfost VVHen Saul see Act. 9. 4. was yet breathing forth slaughter then came a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou meo Then when hee was in the height of his fury Christ laid hold upon him And this for the most part was Christs method of curing Then when the Sea was in a tempestuous rage when the waters covered the ship and the storm shaked even that which could remove Mountains the faith of the Disciples then Christ rebukes the wind and commands a calm then when the Sun was gone out to run his race as a Gyant then God by the mouth of Joshuah bids the Sun stand still Then when that unclean spirit foamed and fumed and tore and rent the possessed person then Christ commanded them to go out Let the Feaver alone say our Physitians till some fits bee passed and then wee shall see farther and discern better but Christ in the Text above itayes not till Saul being made drunk with blood was cast into a slumber but in the midst of his raging fit hee gives him physick in the midst of his madness hee reclaims him Then when his glory was to bring them bound to Jerusalem that he might magnifie his triumph and greatnes in the eye of the world then then sayes Christ to this tempest bee calm to this unclean spirit come out to this Sun in his own estimation go no further Non in fine sed in principio conversus latro Cyril IF thou deferrest thy repentance till the last because of the Theefs example thou deludest thine own soul the Theef was not converted at last but at first as soon as God afforded him any call hee came but at how many calls hast thou stopped thine ears that deferrest thy repentance Christ said to him This day thou shalt bee with mee in Paradise When thou canst finde such another day look for such another mercy a day that cleft the Grave-stones of dead men a day that cleft the Temple its self a day that the Sun durst not see a day that saw the Son of God may wee not say so since that man was God too depart from man There shall bee no more such dayes and therefore presume not of that voice bodie this day thou shalt bee with mee if thou make thy last minute that day though Christ to magnifie his mercy and his glory and to take away all occasion of absolute desperation did here call the Theef unto him when hee was at the last gasp Novit Deus vulnerare ad amarâ—m August THe Lord and only the Lord knows how to wound us out of love more than that how to wound us into love more than all that to wound us into love not onely with him that wounds us but into love with the wound its selfe with the very affliction that hee inflicts upon us The Lord knows how to strike us so as that wee shall lay hold upon that hand that strikes us and kiss that hand that wounds us Ad vitam interficit ad exaltationem prosternit saith the same Father No man kills his enemy because his enemy might have a better life in Heaven that is not his end in killing him It is Gods end who therefore brings us to death that by that gate hee might lead us into life everlasting Ask of mee saith God to Christ Psal 2. 8. and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance Now how was Christ to use these Heathen when hee had them Why thus Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron and break them in peeces like a Potters vessel Now God meant well to the Nations in thus breaking and bruising them God intended not an annihilation of the Nations but a reformation for Christ asks the Nations for an Inheritance not for a Triumph therefore it is
was The Law is a School-master saith the Apostle but the Law is such a School-master as brings not a rod but a sword Gods anger should instruct us but if wee use it not aright it hardens us Though Gods anger bee one of his wayes yet it is such a way as you may easily stumble in and as you would certainly perish without that way so you may easily perish in that way For when a sinner considers himself to bee under the anger of God naturally hee conceives such a horror as puts him farther off As soon as Adam heard the voyce of God and in an accent of anger or as hee tuned it in his guilty conscience to an accent of anger when Adam heard God but walking in the Garden but the noise of his going and approaching towards him Adam fled from his presence and hid himself among the trees Much more then if the Lord come in anger if hee speak in anger if hee do but look in anger a sinner perishes Hee did but look and hee dissolved hee melted the Nations Hab. 3. 6. David was an obsequious patient to take any physick at Gods hand if there were no anger in the cup. He provokes God with all his emphatical words Judge mee prove mee try mee examine mee Psal 26. 1. bring not onely a candle to search but even fire to melt mee But upon what confidence is all this For thy loving kindness is ever before mine eyes If Gods anger and not his loving kindness had been before his eyes it had been a fearfull apparition and a dangerous issue to have gone upon So also Psal 139. 23. Try mee O God and know my heart But how concludes hee And lead mee in the right way for ever As long as I have God by the hand and feel his loving care of mee I can admit any weight of his hand any furnace of his heating Let God mould mee and then melt mee again let God make mee and then break mee again as long as hee establishes and maintains a rectifed assurance in my soul that at last hee means to make mee a vessel of honour to his glory howsoever hee rebuke or chastise mee yet hee will not rebuke mee in anger In scalâ prima ascensio est ab humo Basil HE that makes but one step up a stair though he be not got much nearer to the top of the house yet he is got from the ground and delivered from the foulness and dampness of that So in Davids first step of prayer Psal 6. 2 3. O Lord bee merciful unto mee Though a man bee not established in heaven yet hee is stepped from the world and the miserable comforters thereof There are certain steps and ascensions of the soul in prayer and though a sinner may grow up to this strength of devotion to supplications to prayers to intercessions to thanksgivings yet at first when hee comes first to deprehend himself in a particular sin or in a course of fin hee comes bashfully shamefully tremblingly hee knows not what to ask hee dares ask no particular thing at Gods hand but though hee bee not come yet to particular requests for pardon of past sins nor for strength against future not to a particular consideration of the weight of his sins nor to a comparison betwixt his sin and the mercy of God yet hee comes to a Miserere mei Domine to a sudden ejaculation O Lord bee merciful unto mee how dare I do this in the sight of my God And thus likewise in the regeneration of a sinner though hee come not presently to look God fully in the face nor conceive nor prefently an assurance of an established reconciliation a fulness of pardon a cancelling of all former debts in an instant though hee dare not come to touch God and lay hold of himself by his body and blood in the Sacrament yet the Evangelist calls thee to a contemplation of much comfort to thy soul in certain preparatory accesses and approaches Behold saith hee that is look up and consider thy pattern behold a woman difeased c. Matth. 9. 20. shee knew there was vertue to come out of his body and shee came as neer that as shee durst shee had a desire to speak but shee went no further but to speak to her self shee said to her self saith that Gospel If I may but touch but Christ Jesus supplied all performed all on his part abundantly Presently he turned about sayes the Text and this was not a transitory glance but a full sight and exhibiting of himself to the fruition of her eye that shee might see him Hee saw her said St. Matthew here hee did direct himself upon others and leave out her and then hee spake to her to overcome her bashfulness hee called her daughter to overcome her diffidence hee bids her bee of good comfort for shee had met a more powerful Physitian than those upon whom shee had spent her time and her estate one that could cure her one that would one that had already for so hee said presently Thy faith hath made thee whole From how little a spark how great a fire from how little a beginning how great a proceeding Shee desired but the hem of his garment and had all him De infirmitate blandimur ut liberius peccemus libenter infirmamur Bernard VVE flatter our selves with an opinion of weakness and wee are glad of this natural and corrupt weakness that wee may impute all our licentiousness to our weakness and natural infirmity But did that excuse Adam said that Father that hee took his occasion of sinning from his weaker part from his wife that thou art weak of thy self is a just motive to induce God to bring thee to himself who hath surely born all thine infirmities But to leave him again when hee hath brought thee to refuse so light and easie a yoak as his is not to make use of that strength which he by his grace offers thee This is not the affection of the Spouse when the person languishes for the love of Christ but it is when the love of Christ languishes in that person The former weakness is a good motive for mercy if in a desire of further strength wee come to that of Lazarus his sisters to Christ Behold Lord that soul whom thou lovest and hast dyed for is weak and languishes Christ answered then This weakness is not unto death but that the Son of God might bee glorified Joh. 11. 3. hee will say so to thee too if thou present thy weakness with a desire of strength from him hee will say Why will yee dye of this disease Gratia mea sufficit you may recover for all this you may repent you may abstain from this sin you may take this spiritual physick the word the Sacraments if you will onely as God said to Joshua bee valiant and fight against it and thou shalt finde strength grow in the use thereof Acceptus in gratiam hilariter veni
ad postulationes Bernard VVHen thou art established in favour thou mayest make any suit When thou art possest of God by one prayer thou mayest offer more This is a Religious insinuation and a circumvention that God loves when a sinner husbands his graces so well as to grow rich under them and to make his thanks for one blessing a reason and an occasion of another so to gather upon God by a rolling trench and by a winding stair as Abraham gained upon God in the behalf of Sodome for this is an act of the wisdome of the Serpent which our Saviour recommends unto us in such a Serpentine line as the Artists call it to get up to God and get into God by such degrees as David doth Psal 6. 2. from a miserere to a saâ—a from a gracious look to a perfect recovery from the act of the Levite that looked upon the wounded man to the act of the Samaritan that undertook his cure from desiring God to visit him as a friend to study him as a Physitian Medicinae ars a Deo data ut inde rationem animae curandae disceremus Basil GOds purpose in giving us the science of bodily health was not determined in the body but his large and gracious purpose was by that restitution of the body to raise us to the consideration of spiritual health When Christ had said to him who was sick of the Palsie Mark 2. Thy sins are forgiven thee And that the Scribes and Pharisees were scandalized with that as though hee being but man had usurped upon the power of God Christ proves to them by an actual restoring of his bodily health that hee could restore his soul too in the forgiveness of sins Hee asks them there Whether it is easiâ—r to say thy sins are forgiven thee or to say Arise take up thy bed and walk Christ did not determine his doctrine in the declaration of a miraculous power exercised upon his body but by that established their beleef of his spiritual power in doing that which in their opinion was the greater work pursue therefore his method of curing and if God have restored thee in any sickness by such means as hee of his goodness by natural means hath imprinted in natural Herbs and Simples think not that that was done onely or simply for thy bodies sake but that it is as easie for God to say Thy sins are forgiven thee as to say Take up thy bed and walk So it is as easie for thee to have spiritual Physick as bodily because that as God hath planted all those medicinal Simples in the open fields for although some do tread them under their feet so hath God deposited and prepared spiritual helps for all though all do not make benefit of those helps which are offered Now this is Gods method as in restoring bodily health hee said Surge tolle ambula Arise take up thy bed and walk So to every sick soul whose cure hee undertakes he saith so too our beds are our natural affections these he doth not bid us cast away nor burn nor destroy Since Christ invested the nature of man and became man wee must not pretend to devest it and become Angels or flatter our selves in the merit of mortifications not enjoyed or of a retiredness and departing out of the world in the world by a withdrawing of our selves from the offices of mutual society or an extinguishing of natural affections but Surge saith our Saviour Arise from this bed sleep not lazily in an over-indulgency to these affections but Ambula walk sincerely in thy Calling and thou shalt hear thy Saviour say Non est infirmitas haec ad mortem these affections nay these concupiscencies shall not destroy thee Membra etiam animae sunt Basil THe soul hath her limbs as well as the body Surdi audite coeci aspicite saith God in Isa 42. If their souls had not ears and eyes the blinde could not see the deaf could not hear and yet God calls upon the deaf and blinde to hear and see as St. Paul saith to the Ephesians The eyes of our understanding being inlightned So David saith Thou hast broken the teeth Psal 3. i. e. the pride and the power the venome and malignity of the wicked And thus the soul hath her bones too in that expression of Davids Psal 6. 2. for Davids bones here were the strongest powers and faculties of his soul and the best actions and operations of those faculties and yet they were shaken for this hereditary sickness original sin prevails so far upon us that upon our good dayes wee have some grudgings of that fever eveâ— in our best actions wee have some of the leven of that sin so that if wee go about to comfort our selves with some dispositions to Gods glory which wee finde in our selves with some sparks of love to his Precepts and his Commandements with some good strength of faith with some measure of good works yea with having something for the name and glory of Christ Jesus yet if wee consider what humane and corrupt affections have been mingled in all these our bones will bee troubled even those that appeared to bee strong works and likely to hold out will need a reparation an exclamation O Lord healthese too or else these are as weak as the worst Qui fine ullà intermissione orat honest à quadam impudentia agit impndentem Nazian INceffant prayer hath the nature of impudency wee threaten God in prayer as Nazianzen adventures to express it hee said his Sister in the vehemency of her prayer would threaten God shee came to a Religious impudency with God and to threaten him that shee would never depart from his Altar till shee had her petition granted and God suffers this impudency and more Prayer hath the nature of violence In the publick prayers of the Congregation wee besiege God and wee take God prisoner and bring God to our conditions and God is glad to bee straitned by us in that siege And therefore the Prophet David executed before what the Apostle counsels after pray incessantly Even in his singing he prayed And as St. Basil saith Etiam somnia justorum preces sunt a good mans dreams are prayers hee prayes and not sleepily in his sleep but with a holy fervent extasie and rapture Nescit diabolus quanta bona de illo fiuâ—t etiqm cum soevit August LIttle knows the Devil how much good hee doth us when hee tempts us For by that wee are excited to have our present recourse to that God whom in our former security wee neglected who gives us the issue with the temptation I know what infirmities I have submitted thee to and what I have laid and applied to thee I know thy sickness and I know thy physick whatsoever the disease bee my grace shall bee sufficient to cure it For whether wee understand that de gratra miraculorum that it is sufficient for any mans assurance in any temptation or tribulation
to consider Gods miraculous deliverances of other men in other cases or whether wee understand it according to the general voyce of Interpreters i. e. bee content that there remain in thy flesh matter and subject for mee to produce glory from thy weakness and matter and subject for thee to exercise thy faith and allegiance to mee still these words will carry an argument against the expedience of absolute praying against all temptations For still this gratia mea sufficit will import this amount to this I have as many Antidotes as the Devil hath poysons I have as much mercy as the Devil hath malice There must bee Scorpions in the world but the Scorpion shall cure the Scorpion there must bee temptations but temptations shall adde to mine and to thy glory And therefore is it conduceable to Gods purposes in us which is the rule of all our prayers to pray utterly against all tentations as vehemeutly as against sins God should lose by it and wee should lose by it if wee had no tentations For God is glorified in those victories which wee by his grace gain over the Devil Salvus factus â—s 〈◊〉 nihilo non de nihilo tamen Bernard THou bringest nothing for thy salvation yet something to thy salvation nothing worth it but yet something with it Thy self hath a part in those means which God useth to that purpose thy self art the instrument though not the cause of thine own salvation Thy new creation by which thou art a new creature i. e. thy regeneration is wrought as the first creation was wrought God made heaven and earth of nothing but hee produced the other creatures out of that matter which hee had made Thou hadst nothing to do in the first work of thy Regeneration thou couldst not so much as wish it but in all the rest thou art a fellow-worker with God because before that there are seeds of former grace shed in thee Nullâ â—o Deus perinde atque corporis aerumna conciliatur Nazian A Moâ—â—ning spirit and an afflicted body are great instruments of reconciling God to a sinner and they alwayes dwell at the gates of Atonement restitution and Bonaventure in the life of Christ reports that the holy Virgin mother said to Elizabeth that grace doth not descend into the soul of a man but by prayer and affliction Besides a delicate and prosperous life is hugely contrary to the hopes of a blessed eternity And certainly hee that sadly considers the portion of Dives and remembers that the account which Abraham gave him for the unavoidableness of his torment was because hee had his good things in this life must in all reason with trembling run from a course of banquets and faring deliciously every day as being a dangerous estate and a consignation to an evil greater than all danger the pains and torment of unhappy souls So then hee that desires to dye well and happily above all things must bee carefull that hee do not live a soft delicate and voluptuous life but a life severe holy and under the Discipline of the Gross No man wants cause of tears and daily sorrow Let every man consider what hee feels and acknowledge his misery let him confess his sin and chastise it let him long and sigh for the joyes of heaven let him tremble and fear because hee hath deserved the pains of hell let him commute his eternal fear with a temporal suffering preventing Gods judgement by passing one of his own let him groan for the labours of his pilgrimage and the dangers of his warfare and by that time hee hath summed up all these labours and duties and contingencies all the proper causes instruments and acts of sorrow hee will finde that for a secular joy and wantonness of spirit there are not left many void spaces of his life Nemo mala morte unquam moriebatur qui libenter opera charitatis exercuit St. Hieron THis the Father with all his reading and experience verifies I do not remember to have read that any charitable person ever dyed an evill death and although a long experience hath observed Gods mercies to descend upon charitable people like the dew upon Gideons fleece when all the world was dry yet for this also wee have a promise which is not onely an argument of a certain number of years but a security for eternal ages Luke 16. 9. Make yee friends of c. When faith fails and chastity is useless and temperance shall bee no more then charity shall bear you upon wings of Cherubims to the eternal Mountain of the Lord. I have been a lover of mankinde and a friend and merciful and now I expect to communicate in that great kindness which hee shews that is the great God and Father of men and mercies said Cyrus the Persian on his death-bed Now I do not mean this should onely bee a death-bed charity any more than a death-bed repentance but it ought to bee the charity of our life and healthfull years a parting of a portion of our goods then when wee can keep them when wee cannot then kindle our lights when wee are to descend into our houses of darkness or bring a glaring torch suddenly to a dark room that will amaze the eye and not delight it or instruct the body but if our rapers have in their constant course descended into their grave crowned all the way with light then lâ—t the death-bed charity be doubled and the light burn brightest when it is to deck our Herse Prima quae vitam dedit hâ—ra carpsit Seneca VVHen Adam fell then hee began to dye the same day so said God and that must needs hee true and so it must mean that upon that very day hee fell into an evill and dangerous condition a state of change and affliction then death began i. e. the man began to dye by a natural diminution and apâ—ness to disease and misery his first state was and should have been so long as it lasted a happy duration his second was a daily and miserable change and this was the dying properly This appears in the great instance of damnation which in the stile of Scripture is called eternal death not because it kills of ends the duration it hath not so much good in it but because it is a perpetual infelicity change or separation of soul and body is but accidental to death Death may bee with or without either but the formality the curse and sting of death i. e. misery sorrow anguish dishonour and whatsoever is miserable and afflictive in nature that is death Death is not an action but a whole state and condition and this was first brought in upon us by the offence of one man But now though this death entred first upon us by Adams fault yet it came nearer unto us and increased upon us by the sins of more of our forefathers For Adams sin left us in strength enough to contend with humane calamities for almost a thousand years
SInce wee are sure that there is a spiritual death of the soul let us make sure a spiritual resurrection too Audâ—cter dicam saith St. Jerome I say confidently however God can do all things hee cannot restore a Virgin that is â—aâ—n from it to Virginity again hee cannot do this in the body but God is a Spirit and hath reserved more power upon the spirit and soul than upon the body And therefore I may say with the same assurance that St. Jerome doth no soul hath so prostituted her self so multiplied her fornications but that God can make her a Virgin again and give her even the chastity of Christ himself Fulfill therefore what Christ saith Joh. 5. 25. The hour is coming and now is c. bee this that hour bee-thy first resurrection bless Gods present goodness for this now and attend Gods leisure for the other resurrection hereafter and then doubt not but what glory soever thou hast had in this world glory inherited from noble Ancestors glory acquired by merit and service glory purchased by money and observation what glory of beauty and proportion what glory of health and strength soever thou bast had in this house of clay the glory of the latteâ— house as it is Hag. â— 9. shall bee greater than of the former Qui peacat quatenus peccat sit seip so detetion Clem. Alex. IN every sin a man falls from that degree which himself had before In every sâ— hee is dishonoured hee is not so good a man as hee was impoverished hee hath not so great a portion of grace as hee had infatuated hee hath not so much of the true wisdome of the fear of God as hee had disâ—armed hee hath not that interest and confidence in the love of God that hee had and deformed hee hath not so lively a representation of the image of God as before In every sin wee become prodigals but in the habit of sin wee become bankrupts afraid to come to an account A fall is a fearful thing that needs a raising a help but sin is a death and that needs a resurrection and a reâ—â—rection is as great a work as the very Creation its self It is death in semine in the root it produces it brings forth death it is death in arbore in the body in its self death is a divorce and so is sin and it is death in fructu in the fruit thereof sin plants spiritual death and this death produces more sin obduration impenitence and the like Transeant injuriae plerasque non accipit qui nescit Seneca HEe that knows not of an injury or takes no knowledge of it for the most part hath no injury But alas how many break their sleep in the night about things that disquiet them in the day too and trouble themselves in the day about things that disquiet them all night too Wee disquiet our selves too much in being over tender over sensible of imaginary injuries They that are too inquisitive what other men say of them they disquiet themselves for that which others would but whisper they publish and therefore that which hee adds there for moral and civil matters holds in a good proportion in things of a more divine nature in such parts of the Religious worship and service of God as are not fundamental non expâ—dit omâ—â—â— videâ—e non omnia audire wee must not too jealoussy suspect nor too bitterly condemn nor too peremptorily conclude that whatsoever is not done as wee would have it done or as wee have seen it done in former times is not well done Antequam unlneramur monemur Origen BEfore our enemies hit us God gives us warning that they mean to do so When God himself is so â—ar incensed against us that hee is turned to bee our enemy and to fight against us it was come to that Isa 63. 10. when hee hath bent his bow against us as an enemy it was come to that in the Prophet Jeremy Law 2. 4. yet still hee gives us warning before-hand and still there comes a lightning before his thunder God comes seldome to that dispatch a word and a blow but to a blow without a word to an execution without a warning never Cain took offence at his brother Abel the quarrel was Gods because hee had accepted Abels sacrifice therefore God joyns himself to Abels party and so the party being too strong for Cain to subsist God would not surprize Cain but hee tells him his danger Why is thy countenance cast down Gen. 4. 10. You may proceed if you will but if you will needs you will lose by it at last Saul persecutes Christ in the Christians Christ meets him upon the way speaks to him strikes him to the ground tells him vocally and tells him actually that hee hath undertaken too hard a work in opposing him This which God did to Saul reduces him that which God did to Cain wrought not upon him but still God went his own way in both to speak before he strikes to lighten before hee thunders to warn before hee wounds In Dathan and Abiâ—ams case God may seem to proceed apace towards execution but yet it had all these pauses in arrest of judgement and their reprieves before execution yet when Moses had information and evidence of their factious proceeding hee falls not upon them but hee falls upon his face before God and laments and deprecates in their behalf hee calls them to a fair trial and examination the next day Tomorrow the Lord will shew Numb 16. 5 and they said Wee will not come vers 14. Then God upon their contumacy when they would stand mute and not plead takes a resolution to consume them in a moment and then Moses and Aaron return to petition for them vers 25. And Moses went up to them again and the Elders of Israel followed and all prevailed not and then Moses comes to pronounce judgement These men shall not dye a common death and after and yet not presently after that hee gave judgement execution followed vers 31. God opened his mouth and Moses his and Aaron his and the Elders theirs before the earth opened hers In all which wee see that God alwayes leaves a latitude between his sentence and execution which interim is sphaera activitatis the sphere in which our repentance and his mercy move and direct themselves in a benign aspect towards one another Vili vendimus coelum glauci more Christiani sumus Tertul. HOw poor a clod of earth is a Mannor How poor an inch a Shire How poor a span a Kingdome How poor a pace the whole world and yet how prodigally wee sell Paradise Heaven Souls Consciences Immortality Eternity for a few grains of this dust What had Eve for heaven so little as that the Holy Ghost will not let us know what shee had nor what kinde of fruit yet something Eve had What had Adam for heaven but a satisfaction that hee had pleased an ill wife as St. Jerome states
let us not so glew our thoughts and affections to the world and the comforts thereof but that they may easily bee severed for there is no comparison between the state of the godly in this life and in the life â—o come for here they labour for rest there they rest from their labour here they expected here they hunger and thirst for righteousness there they are satisfied here they are continually afflicted either for their sins or with their sins and they have continual cause to shed tears either for the calamities of Gods people or the stroaks they themselves receive from God or the wounds they give themselves there all tears are wiped from their eyes Here they are alwayes troubled either with the evils they fear or the fear of evil but when they go hence death sets a period to all fear cares sorrows and dangers And therefore Solon speaketh divinely when hee taught Croesus that hee ought to suspend his verdict of any mans happiness till hee saw his end Lastly If all that dye in Christ are blessed as a voyce from heaven assureth us wee do wrong to heaven if wee account them miserable wee do wrong to Christ if wee count them as lost whom hee hath found if wee shed immoderate tears for them from whose eyes hee hath wiped away all tears to wear perpetual blacks for them upon whom hee hath put long white Robes Whatsoever our losse may bee by them it cometh far short of their gain our cross is light in comparison of their super-excellent weight of glory therefore let us not sorrow for them as those that have no hope Let us not shew our selves infidels by too much lamenting the death of beleevers Weep wee may for them or rather for our loss by them but moderately as knowing that our loss is their gain and if wee truly love them wee cannot but exceedingly congratulate their feasts of joy their rivers of pleasures their Psalms of Victory their Robes of Majesty their Crowns of glory Water therefore your plants at the departure of your dearest friends but drown them not For whatsoever wee complain of here they are freed from there and whatsoever wee desire here they enjoy there they hunger not but feast with the Lamb they sigh not but sing with Moses having safely passed over the glassie Sea they lye not in darkness but possess the inheritance of Saints in light They have immunity from sin freedome from all temptations and security from danger they have rest for their labours here comfort for their troubles glory for their disgrace joyes for their sorrows life for their death in Christ and Christ for all Ut Romae mori non potest qui Romae non vixit ita qui in domino non vixit in eâ— non moritur Cor. Alapide AS a man cannot dye at Rome who never lived at Rome so none can dye in Christ who never lived in him and none can live in him who is not in him First then wee must labour to bee in him and how may wee compass this Christ himself teacheth us I am the Vine and my Father is the Husbandman every branch that beareth not fruit in me he taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit be purgeth that it may bring forth more fruit as the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can yee except yee abide in mee Hence wee learn that wee cannot bear fruit in Christ unless as branches wee bee ingrafted into him Now that a graft may bee inoculated 1 There must bee made an incision in the tree 2 The graft or Syence must be imped in 3 After it is put in it must be joyned fast to the tree The incision is already made by the wounds given Christ at his death many incisions were made in the true Vine that which putteth us in or inoculateth us is a special faith and that which bindes us fast to the tree is love and the grace of perseverance If then wee bee ingrafted by faith into Christ and bound fast unto him by love wee shall partake of the juice of the stock and grow in grace and bear fruit also more and more and so living in the true Vine wee shall dye in him and so dying in him wee shall re-flourish with him in everlasting glory Nihil melius aterna lex fecit quam quod unum introitum ad vitam nobis dedit exitus multos Sen. Ep. 10. VVE come but one way into the world but wee go a thousand out of it As wee see in a Garden pot the water is poured in but at one place to wit the narrow mouth but it runneth out at a hundred holes Some dye by fire as the Sodomites by water as the old world By the infection of the aire as threescore and ten thousand in Davids time By the opening of the earth as Corah Dathan and Abiram Amphiraus and two Cities Buris and Helice Some meet with death in their Coach as Antiochus their chamber as Domitian their bed as John the twelfth the Theater as Caligula the Senate as Caesar The Temple as Zenacherib Their table as Claudius At the Lords Table as Pope Victor and Henry of Luxenburg Death woundeth and striketh some with a Pen-knife as Soneca a Stilletto as Henry the fourth A sword as Paul A Fullers â—e am as James the Lords brother A Saw as Isaiah A stone as Pyrrhus A Thunder-bolt as Amistatius What should I speak of Felones de se such as have thrown away their souls Sardanapalus made a great fire and leaped into it Luoretia stabbed her self Cleopatra put an Aspe to her breast stung therewith dyed presently Saul fell upon his own sword Judas hanged himself Deronius cut his own veins Heremius bear out his own brains Licinius choaked himself with a napkin Dortia dyed by swallowing hot burning coals Hannibal sucked poyson out of his ring Demosthenes out of his Pen c. What seemeth so loose as the soul in the body which is plucked out with an hair driven out with a smell frayed out with a phansie Verily that seemeth to bee but a breath in the nostrils which is taken away with a scent a shadow which is driven away with a Scare-crow a dream which is frayed away with a phansie a vapour which is driven away with a pusse a conceit which goes away with a passion a toy that leaves us with a laughter yet grief killed Homer laughter Philemon a hait in his milk Fabius a flye in his throat Adrian a smell of lime in his nostrils Joviâ—â— the snufte of a candle a childe in Pliny a kernel of a raison Anacreon and an Icesickle one in Martial which caused the Poet to melt into tears saying Onbimors non est si jugulatis aque What cannot make an end of us if a small drop of water congealed can do it In these regards wee may turn the affirmative in the 1 Cor. 15. 55. into a negative and say truly though not in
years and judgement hee mouldring for non-imployment and dashed for slowness of promotion when others of cheap and thin abilities men without growth or bud of knowledge have met with the honours of advancement and trample on those dejected book-worms which dissolve themselves into industry for the service of their Church yet meet neither with her pomp noâ— her revenue nay some that have wasted their lamp and burnt their Taper to an inch of years have spent those fortunes in the travels of Divinity which would largely have accommodated them for more secular courses and enforced to retire themselves to the solitariness of some ten pounds cure and so spin out the remainder of their age in a discontented contemplation of their misfortunes and I pray God not in a murmuring against his Church Where the fault lyes hee that hath but slenderly transâ—iqued with the occurrences of the time may judge Spiritual promotions are slow of fooâ— and come for the most part halting or in a by-way Times more than calamitous when the inheritance and patrimony of the Church shall bee thus leased to avarice and folly when these her honours which shee intails upon desert shall bee heaped upon a golden ignorant who rudely treads on those sacred Prerogatives Strange monument of weakness he that reels under his own burthen stoops to be opprest with the weight of others and loe how hee tumbles to a mortal sin the School-men do stile it so directly opposite to a pair of vertues Justice Chastity unjust that the revenues due to worth should be packed upon bulkless and unable persons and uncharitable for him to undertake the guidance and pasturing of a flock who was never trained up in the conditions of a shepherd Neither is hee an enemy only of a double vertue but a companion of two such sins which seem to brave and dare the Almighty to revenge on the prophanâ—r Incâ—usion Perjury first in rushing on the profession not legitimately called then in purchasing her honours Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa Seneca VVHy should this sad toil of mortality dishearten us Groans and Sighs and Convulsions are the bodies passing-bells no less customary than natural and more horrid in the circumstance than the thing the retinue and complement of death speaks more terrour than the act The Adversary the Judge the Sentence the Jaylor the Executioner more daunt the Malefactor than the very stroke and cleft of dissolution Are wee so foolish as to fear that sayes the heathen which will dash or split us in the whole no it is the port which we ought one day to desire never to refuse into which if any have been cast in their younger years they need repine no more than one which with a short cut hath ended his Navigation For there are some whom slacker winds mock and detain and weary with the gentle tediousness of a peaceable calm others swifter wafted by sudden gusts whom life hath rather ravished thither than sent which had they a time delayed by some flattering intermissions yet at length must of necessity strike sail to it Some faint-hearted Adrian will to his power linger it and fearfully expostulate with a parting soul Quae nunc abib is in loca pallidula rigida nudula As if the divorce from the body were everlasting and there should not bee one day a more glorious contract When a confident Hilarian shall dare all those grisly assaults Soul get thee out thou hast seventy years served Christ and art thou now loath to dye Again some spruce Agag or hem'd Amalakite would bee palsie-struck with an amara mors death is bitter death mors death is bitter death is bitter 1 Sam. 15. When a Lubentius and a Maximinus have their breast-plate on with a Domine parati sumus Wee are ready to lay off our garments the flesh And indeed saith St. Austin Boughs fall from trees and stones out of buildings and why should it seem strange that mortals dye Some have welcomed death some met it in the way some baffeld it in sickness persecution torments I instance not in that of Basil to the Arrianated Valâ—ns it is too light that of Vincentius was more remarkable who with an unabated constancy thus shuns the rage of his merciless Executioner thou shalt see the Spirit of God strengthâ—n the tormented more than the Devil can the hands of the tormenter And that you may know a true Martyrdome is not dashed either at the expectation or the sense of torture as Barlaam will hold his hand over the very flame of the Altar and sport out the horridness of such a death with that of the Psalmist Thou hast â—aught my hands to war and my fingers to fight Seeing then wee are compalsed with such a cloud of witnesses what should scare a true Apostle from his Cupio dissolvi Let us take his resolution and his counsel too lay aside every weight and run with patience the race set before us Heb. 1â— Iniquitatem damnare novit Deus non facere August GOd knows how to judge not commit a crime and to dispose not mould it and is often the Father of the punishment not the fact Hence it is that the dimness of humane apprehension conceives that oftentimes a delinquency in God which is a monster of our own frailty making God not onely to foreknow but predestinate an evil when the evil is both by growth and conception ours and if ought savour of goodness in us it is Gods not ours yet ours too as derivative from God who is no less the Patron of all goodness than the Creator and it is as truly impossible for him to commit evill as it was truly miraculous to make all that hee had made good And therefore Terâ—ulliâ—â— in his first book de Triâ—â—â—â—â—â— makes it a non potest fieri a matter beyond the list and reach of possibility that hee should bee artifex mali operis the promoter and ingineer of a depraved act who chalengeth to himself the title no less of an unblemished Father than of a Judge If any then fall off from goodness hee is hurried no less with the violence of his own perswasion than concupiscence and in those desperate affairs Gods will is neither an intermedler nor co-partner Cujus ope scimus multos ne laberentur retentos nullos ut laberentur impulsos saith Aug. by whose hand of providence wee know many to bee supported that they might not fall none impelled that they should And in his answer to that fourteenth Article falsely supposed to bee his fieri non potest ut per quem a peecatis surgitur per eum ad peecata decidatur for one and the self-same goodness to bee the life and death of the self-same sin is so much beyond improbability that it is impossible let this then satisfie our desire of knowledge Et ab illo esse quod flatur non ab illo esse quod ruitur That his providence is the staffe and crutch
spiritual improvement but by way of restriction first humbly with submission to the will of God then conditionally so they prove advantagious either to our civil or moral good For otherwise if riches are pursued either with an unlawful or an unbridled desire they lead our reason captive blind-fold our intellectuals and so damp and dead all the faculties of the inward man that in way of conscience and Religion wee are benummed meerly Nabal himself not so stony and churlish not half so supine and stupid as wee And therefore your earthly sensualists have this woful brand set upon them by the spirit of They are men of the world they have their portion in this life onely Psal 17. Quid quaeris brevi immittere vasculo totum mare Hieronymus TO endeavour to express fully the joyes of heaven were as vain a work as to endeavour to put the element of waters or whole sea into a bason And this may appear from that story of St. August concerning St. Jer. of whom St. Augustine saith Quae Hieronymus nescivit nullus hominum unquam scivit what St. Hierom knew not no man in the world ever knew yet of the joyes of glory of heaven in the fruition of God St Hierom would adventure to say nothing no not then when hee was divested of his mortal body dead For as soon as hee died at Bethleem hee came instantly to Hippo St. Augustines Bishoprick and though hee told him Hieronymi anima sum I am the soul of that Jerome to whom thou art now writing about the joyes and glory of heaven yet hee said no more of that but this Quid quaeris brevi immittere vasculo totum mare Canst thou hope to pour the whole sea into a thimble or take the whole world into thy hand and yet that is easier than to comprehend the joy and glory of heaven in this life Nor is there any thing that makes this more incomprehensible than that semper in 1 Thess 4. 17. That wee shall bee with God for ever For this Eternity this Everlastingness is not onely incomprehensible to us in this life but even in heaven wee can never know it experimentally no not in heaven and all knowledge in heaven is experimental as all knowledge in the world is causal wee know a thing if wee know the cause of it so the knowledge in heaven is effectual experimental wee know it because wee have found it to bee so The endowments of the blessed those which the School calls Dotes â—â—aâ—orâ—m are ordinarily delivered to bee these three Visio Dilectio Fruitio the sight of God the love of God and the fruition the injoying the possessing of God Now as no man can know what it is to see God in heaven but by experimental and actual seeing of him there nor what it is to love God there but by such an actual and experimental love of him nor what it is to injoy and possess God but by an actual injoying and experimental possessing of him so can no man tell what the Eternity and Everlastingness of all these is till hee hath passed through that Eternity and that Everlastingness and that hee can never do for if it could bee passed through then were it not Eternity How barren a thing is Arithetick and yet Arithmetick will tell you how many grains of sand will fill this hollow vault to the Firmament How empty a thing is Rhetorick and yet Rhetorick will make absent and remote things present to their understanding How weak a thing is Poetry and yet Poetry is a counterfeit Creation and makes things which are not as though they were how infirm how impotent are all assistances if they be put to express this Eternity The best help in my poor judgement that can bee assigned is to use well Aeternum vestrum our own Eternity as St. Gregory calls our whole course of this life Aequum est ut qui in aterno suâ— peccaverit in aeterno Dei puniatur it is but justice that hee that hath sinned out his own eternity should suffer out Gods Eternity so if you suffer out your own eternity in submitting your selves to God in the whole course of your life and glorifying him in a constant patience under all tribulations It is a righteous thing with God to recompence tribulation unto them which trouble yâ—â— and to you which are troubled everlasting rest 2 Thess 1. 6. Magna parvis minime exprimuntur Seneca SAcred Communication is to make suitable demonstration of infinite love Great love is not suitablely expressed by small things Springs make Channels Streams Rivers suitable to their strength they make their rent without suitable to their bubling within under ground Heaven is but a suitable expression of the love of a God It is but strange suitable to such a fountain but legible writing out of infinite love Were not heaven made communicable infinite love would bee but half expressed it would bee far more in it self than known to us It is with Christ here in this world as it is with a Christian a Christians fortune here doth not suit his titles called a King and hath nothing Now are wee the Sons of God but it doth not appear what wee shall bee Why wee shall bee but the Sons of God his meaning is that now Title and Revenew do not agree nothing in possession that speaks out the Sons of God the Son of a King State and Title do not fitly and fully express one another So it is with Christ now his love and his expression of it are short one of another Many expressions of love are made here but they all express it but brokenly Heaven will speak out an infinite love it will demonstrate it to the life to all senses at once which is such a demonstration of a thing as here man cannot make of any thing There a man shall have the advantage of all senses together to fathom infinite love Hee shall hear it see it taste it c. hee shall see the fountain where and how it riseth the Ocean how vast it spreads and how broad it bears Christ demonstrates infinite love fully fitly therefore is heaven made communicable to poor earthen creatures Partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. â— 12. Qui Gehennas met â—it non peccare meâ—uit sed ardere Ille autem peccare metuit qui peccatum ipsum sic ut Gehennas odit Augustinus THe Object of repenting sorrow is sin It is sin that specially afflicts and disquiets a repenting soul that is the thing that wrings and pinches it Where was it that the Prodigals shooe did specially wring him Luke 15. 21. Father I have sinned against heaven that is against God in heaven Hee doth not say Father I am in a depth of misery ready to perish with hunger in that pinching distress that I would bee glad to eat husks with Hogs But Father I have sinned This is the grief of a repenting soul that Gods Majesty hath