thy life but I cannot utterly despair of thee though thou wilfully do so of thy selfe as yet for I should be then guilty of thy own folly and peevishnesse by my distrust Which is a sin I will not commit For though I see thee strangely fallen I will still trust in Gods mercy and grace to thee and doubt not but to see thee in a happy condition clear'd and purg'd of all that fatall malignancy thy carelesse soule has now contracted and behold thee perfectly reconcil'd to vertue godlinesse and the favour of God CHAP. XII The story of the Ninivites repentance the proeme to Saint Chrysostomes farther urging Theodorus to his conversion collecting thence that greatest sinners may return to God he prosecutes his perswasions alledging that many so converted have become the best and most zealous people THE Ninivites hearing that threatning and sharp crying out of the Prophet Jonah Jonah 3. 4. Yet forty daies and Nineveh shall be destroyed were not so discourag'd and dismai'd at so terrible warnings of their approaching destruction from the fierce anger of an incens'd omnipotent God but they would yet trust to his mercy Though the decreee of his vengeance was not conditionall but positive Niniveh shall be destroy'd without admittance of any clause to foment a hope in them for the words of the Prophet were not disjoynted but a plain and direct sentence of judgement yet they submit with humble penitence ver. 9. For say they who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that wee perish not ver. 10. And God saw their workes that they turned from their evill ways and God repented of the evill that he said that he would do unto them and he did it not See how those barbarous rude and mad people apprehended their imminent destruction togther understood the possibility of their deliverance having their hearts set upon his infinite mercy in his greatest wrath and rage against them Let us then that are Christians and nursed up in the knowledge of our Lords benignity who are instructed and disciplin'd in his word and know many the like examples stir up our soules to sincere repentance and not be less then them in our confidence of his goodness and mercy For he it is whose sacred spirit has told us Isa 55. 8 9. That his thoughts are not our thoughts neither are our waies his waies For as the Heavens are higher then then the Earth so are his waies higher then our waies and his thoughts then our thoughts Servants of men erre from the duty they owe their masters and commit foul faults against them yet if they grow sorrowfull and recant that disobedience they are againe received into their masters good opinion and sometimes with advantage of preferment God our gratious Lord and master whose thoughts and waies exceed those of men will deale as favourably Nay far more mercifully with us If the intent of his creating us had been to damn us then thy despaire were reasonable and just nor couldst thou do otherwise then doubt of salvation when none were prepar'd for thee But God having made thee out of his goodnesse and created thee to good ends no less then that thou mightst enjoy everlasting happinesse and to that intent his great workes continue in thee if thou willfully denie not to perceive it what should make thee thus diffident or in the least to mistrust his mercy When we have the most incens'd him then ought we most carefully to look to our selves most diligently and couragiously to resist all issuing temptations present and most bitterly lament our easie yielding to those past which so miserably overcame us so shall wee be able to give a manifest testimony of our perfect change For nothing more provokes our Lord then our obstinacie and denyall to returne into the right way For to do ill is but humane weaknesse to persevere Diabolicall malice Consider how horrid a thing it was which wee read in the Prophet that Iudah call'd back in the race of her vild whoredomes would not return to the Lord Jer. 3. 7. And I said after shee had done all these things turn thou unto me but she returned not The Lord strives with us to show how mercifully he is inclin'd to our salvation many are his promises to those who return into the right way forsaking the Meanders and by-paths of iniquity When hee saw Israels promises of repentance that they began to prepare their hearts to fear him and to keep his Commandements his promise was that it should bee well with them and their Children for ever Wherefore Moses joyns the reward with the command when hee bids them to keep the Commands of the Lord and his statutes which he commands saies he for their good Deut. 10. 13. And immediately before he commands us to fear him to walk in his waies and to love him Which is most remarkable that the God of Heaven should earnestly seek their loves who so wretchedly offend him Wherefore ought wee to love him who desires to belov'd of us who woes us and does us all things to win our affections Nay who spar'd not his onely begotten Son for us but gave him up and delivered him to the ignominious death of the Crosse that we might be reconcil'd to him And what think you so loving a Father will do for them he has purchas'd at so dear a rate Nay and what lies on our duty which is humiliation and repentance even that he presses on us if wee were not insensible of our own miseries the evill of our own miseries the evill of our own condition would invite us to As he speakes by the Prophet Isaiah 43. 26 Tell thy sinns first declare thou that thou maist be justified Which the Lord speakes desiring to make our affections vehement that so with freenesse and openness of heart we may deliver our selves up to his mercifull kindnesse Infinite is this love of our Lord while we anger and provoke him while we abuse his goodnesse and his patience all this ingratitude cannot extinguish his love and when hee laies open to us the injuries wee offer his divine Majesty he does it but to dilate on his love and so to tye our affections nearer to him and demands of us nothing but penitent acknowledgment If then to confesse our sinnes unto him bring with it so much comfort as the promise of justification how great will our joy be when our workes are rendred acceptable in the sight of God and all the filth and uncleannesse of them washt quite away And if this way to him were not accessible after we err'd and leudly strai'd from the paths of righteousnesse how few of many soules now glorified in Heaven had ever seen their salvation It is worthy all mens observation seriously to consider the returne of many desperate sinners who after the reconcilement of their enormous soules to grace have strangely excell'd in piety and outshin'd those who were in
very Wildernesse wild and desolate stript and naked rob'd and spoil'd of all thy riches and sumptuous Ornaments which were once so miraculously and divinely eminent in thy pious life that they were above humane faith these I say are ravish'd from thee and more to augment our sorrow wee see thee ruinated like a desert full of dangers which no body undertakes to keep Thou hast no Vertue left to bar the doors against assaulting temptations but lyest open to every corruption and wicked determination of thy fancy Whether it be pride or lust or drunkennesse or avarice what sin soever the Devill commands to storme thee there is nothing that defends the breach nothing that guards thy unman'd soule Yet once how much of heaven hadst thou in thee whilst like it the purity of thy thoughts was inaccessible to all manner of ill Mee thinks I speak wonders not to be believ'd by those who see thee in this thy forlorne and desperate condition which makes me pray lament and mourn continually that I may see thee return again to thy former integrity and piety which may perhaps seem to humane apprehension impossible but all things are easie in the hands of God For he it is that lifteth the beggar from the dust and exalteth the needy from the Dunghill that he may sit with Princes even with the Princes of his people Hee it is that maketh the barren woman to keep house and to be a joyful Mother of Children Ps. 113. On this infinite and unsearchable love of our God to us build thou thy hopes and thou wilt find an impossibility a strange incapacity within thy self to despair at any time grace still working in thee to change thy heart into better and better desires For if the Devill had the power to pluck thee from so eminent a top and glory of Vertue into this Abysse of wickednesse Much more easily can our Omnipotent God raise thee up again restore thee to thy former liberty and honor and and not onely set thee free from this base captivity but make thy happinesse greater then ever yet it was Onely I beseech thee resolutely to break all snares that shall be lay'd in the way of thy return Let not thy hopes which are so full of certainty be cut off by any destructive fear or timorous perswasion lest those punishments light on thee which are due onely to the desperately wicked For neither the number nor the greatnesse of our sins does absolutely condemn us to a condition irrecoverable But resolv'd settlednesse and an intollerable composednesse in impious waies are the sure manifest signes of a soul so fall'n that it shall never rise again Wherefore Solomon does not speak generally of every man who transgresseth Pro. 18. but names that wicked man who when he comes into the depth of evill contemns his mercy It is onely a wicked purpose never to leave sin that plunges men into this dangerous Gulfe of despair and iniquity from whence they can never so much as look back and much more difficultly return For the deceiving weights of wickednesse lie like a heavy Collar on the necke of the soul and forcing our eyes upon the Earth forbids them to look up to our Lord that made them Know then it is the part of a generous and truly daring Christian spirit not to endure the Tyrants yoake valiantly to combate and destroy those officious guards his watchfull malice sits over us And with the Prophet to acknowledge our obedience there onely where it is onely due saying with him As the eyes of a Mayden unto the hand of her Mistresse so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God untill he have mercy upon us have mercy on us Lord have mercy on us for we are exceedingly fill'd with contempt Ps. 123. These are divine exhortations these are the doctrines of the most heavenly Philosophy we are fill'd with contempt we are shaken with infinite violent stormes of sad events Yet shall not this debar us from looking up to our God and imploring his assistance Nay till our Lord has granted our Petitions we must put on the confidence of importunate beggars and not let our prayers cease til our requests are granted This is the true Character of a pious daring soul not to be baffled from his hopes by the violence of ill successe not to start out of the way or goe back because as yet he has not found the expected issue of his prayers but to endure to the last till the Lord have mercy on him according to the precept and example of the Prophet David CHAP. II. The Devills endeavours and practices to undermine our hopes and raze the Foundation of our eternall happinesse The comparison betwixt a dying body and a perishing soul with an exhortation to be couragious in our conflicts with the Devill THE wily subtilty of Satan aimes at nothing more then to inveigle us in a Labyrinth of despair still feeding our naturall tottering inclinations with change and variety of doubts and once unsetled we are his certain prey for irresolution excludes us from our expectations in Heaven and relyance upon the benignity of our most mercifull God and Father it violently and too insensibly drives us from our hopes our surest Anchors By it wee lose the very essence of our lives the guide which leads us to God the Pilot which steers our forlorne and shipwrack'd soules into the Haven of Salvation For resolution and a constant hope never fail of assurance in the end by hope saies the word wee shall be sav'd that will to the last preserve us Hope is a stronge and Golden Chain let down to us from Heaven taking fast hold on it wee learn to subdue our soules most desperate rebellions Which our benign Lord finding us sure link'd to it has promis'd to raise and lift us by it above all the dangerous billowes of this present miserable life Whilst he who through idlenesse neglects to make his hold sure to this golden Anchor sinks and is certain to drown and perish in the deeps of his own wickednesse Which Satan that subtle Fox so well know's that he then makes his Hel-Harvest when he sees us laden with sin and overprest with the weight of our guiltiness this is the time hee so diligently watches for then falls he on us and presses our declinings with arguments of the immensity of our offences and deceives us with his cunning aggravations Then suggests he to our soules horror and despair in their extreames as there were no salvation left to us and the doors of mercy were lock'd against our cryes for ever And once in this dejected and base low condition how prone and precipitate is our descent into Hel forc'd still violently downwards by unresisted desperation having weakly lost our hold on hope that Golden Chain wee sink perpetually in the deepes both of sin and misery Thus is it with thee Theodorus who hast cast off thy obedience and subjection to a meek and mercifull Lord quite
rejecting his commands and art become a slave under the outragious Empire of that Tyrannous enemy to mankind who never rests day nor night from ensnaring us our selves to fight against our own hopes and expectations of Heaven Thus hast thou flung off a light and easie burthen freed thy self from a mercifull yoke to fasten thy neck in linkes of Iron And what is both base and ridiculous hast laid a Mill-stone the Asses burthen on thy owne shoulders What wilt thou think to do in the future that at present suffers thy most miserable soul to be swallow'd in this impetuous Gulfe of lusts Nay that wilfully has brough a kind of necessity on thy self which continually compels thee to fall into deeper extreams The woman in the Gospels when she had found her lost groat call'd all her neighbours together to partake of her joy with her saying Rejoyce with me because I have found the lost groat Lu. 15. 8. Thus will I call your friends and mine together but to a different end and purpose I will not bid them rejoyce with me but grieve and weep lament be truly sorrowfull and mourn with me For our losse is grievous and insupportable greater then if we had lost never so great a treasure or Magazine of Gold or Diamonds For we have lost a friend not to be valewed who sailing with us through this vast Ocean I know not by what means is fallen overboard and sunk into the bottomlesse Gulfe of perdition If any man should offer to disswade mee from my lamentations I would answer him with this passionate expression of the Prophet Isaiah Let me alone I will weep bitterly you cannot comfort me Is 22. Such is the sorrow which draws this flood of tears from my eyes Such a sorrow as doubtlessely would not shame Saint Peter or Saint Paul to own it though in such excesse as they denyed themselves all consolation or perswasion to the contrary They who deplore the naturall decreed death of the body may perhaps find coÌ„forters who by the strength of reason and argument may without much labour restore their dâ—ooping spirits to settledness tranqulity by religious precepts gently quiet and palliate their griefes But who can plead gainst his just deploring who laments the death of a soul fallen into perdition dead in sin and pierc'd with ten thousand arrows venom'd with Hells malitious poyson the beauty form and grace of most eminent Vertues and devotions lost and extinct in him These administer matter justly to provoke lawfull and lasting tears What flinty heart What rockie soul could in an agony so moving forbear lamentings or entertain an apparition of any delusion should forbid him his just sorrow At the fall of the body it is humane though not altogether rebellious to weep At the falling of a soul the extreamest lamentation is the greatest evidence of the truest piety He who had on Earth possession of Heaven in so much as hee contemn'd abhor'd and laught at the vanity of the World hee who beheld the greatest beauty but as a statue of stone or a fair picture That he who despis'd Gold as dirt pleasures and vanity as mire He it is who most unexpectedly falling into a raging feaver of burning lusts has lost his comliness and his courage is now turn'd a slave to his own bestiall appetites Shall not we then grieve for him shall we cease our lamentations till he return to himselfe again it is no more then our duty and tye of Christian charity if we have any sense of pitty or humanity in us What alas is the destruction of the body but an accomplish'd course in the order of nature yet such a losse finds dayly mourners and lamenters What ought we then to doe for his perishing soul which manifestly appears resolv'd on eternall damnation if our prayers bring him not to repentance but that he finish his course in obstinate sinning and obduratenesse of heart For in death there is no remembrance of thee in the grave who shall give thee thanks Psal. 6. How great a sin then is it against the rules and Laws of charity not to resent with the greatest pitty a soul thus everlastingly perishing Violent cries and abundance of tears cannot possibly recall the dead But frequent experience teaches us that a soule dying here in sin is not wept for in vaine For the humble requests of brotherly charity plead so effectually before the Throne of mercy that many hardned in obstinate impenitency have melted into floods of tears and have ow'd thee thanks for their contrition to the importunity of other mens prayers And by such meanes many both in our daies and the daies of our forefathers who have deserted the paths of righteousnesse and run headlong astray out of the waies of piety which is a spirituall dying at length have risen again with such heavenly alacrity their fall so hid and obscur'd by the glory of their rise that they have purchas'd the palme of recompence and crowned with the wreath of victory have triumph'd Conquerors on earth till they were summon'd to be numbred with the blessed for all eternity Yet infinite such examples prevail not with a man who wilfully continues in the flames and fires of his lusts Such a wretched perversenesse withstands his recovery and pleads an impossibility of mercy against him But if he chance to get a little way out of the fire and by degrees leave it still farther behind him the dimnesse which the flames caused will be taken from his eyes then how plainly wil he discern the way of salvation to be accessible and very plain smooth and easie having obtain'd grace for his guide And conquer'd those Troops the Devill laid in ambush for him But hee who wants the courage to undertake the combat in vain desires the conquest He may that 's willfull stay and burn in the fire nay shut the doors against himself that are open for him And whatman who is thus sotishly his own enemy can design any thing nobly and virtuously Wherfore this our common enemy makes it his onely businesse leaves nothing unattempted which may render us diffident of grace and mercy Nor needs he much labour to compasse that his end if we lie prostrate at his feet and take no counsell or resolution or order the battail against him it is an easie conquest to overcome us But he who violently breaks his fetters and betakes himself to the use of his strength with courage He I say who in so desperate a condition allows himselfe no cessation but with a continuall violence maintains the battell against him though hee have before lost the day a thousand times shall then recover his losses and gloriously triumph in his enemies overthrow When he who is dejected with despair and permits his spirits to fail and languish can never hope for conquest how can he overcome who makes no resistance at all but fearing the encounter lays down his armes and submits to his enemy CHAP.
lay hold on mercy while we may Let us now acknowledge our Lord humbly faithfully and sincerely as we ought For while there is life there is hope by repentance and the benefits that never faile to accompany it are ready for us it is a physick for the sickest languishing soul nay a most sure remedy but it calls not the dead back again it is a salve cannot be applyed to their wounds who suffer in Hell where there is no cure from whence there is no redemption though in this World the last and weakest of our daies render us not so desperately ill but this Soveraign balme may cure us Wherefore the Devill uses all his power and subtlety to plant desperate apprehensions in our soules seeing the mercies of our Lord are free and open to the least repentance that is hearty and never let 's it passe unrewarded As he expresses his propensity to charity in the Gospell Even hee that gives a cup of cold water to one of these in my name shall not lose his reward saith Christ Mat. 10. 42. the same Christ's promise is that he who repents him of the sins he has committed though his repentance be infinitely beneath the merit of retribution the mercies of our Lord will find him out for the least good in us though never so small the benignity and compassion of so mercifull a Father will not neglect He who searches our sins with that severe curiosity that our very words and thoughts shall be arraign'd at the day of judgement much more carefully search and look upon the least good we do So infinitely his mercy and love to mankind exceeds his revenge He is a God of so great mercy as he will remember his bounty to the least good in us as well as his severity to the least ill Wherefore if thou findest thy strength so to flagge and faile thee when thou attempts an enterprize so difficile to our naturall corruption as is a reall repentance which is the totall change of our inclinations and deprav'd appetites yet do not faint in thy undertakings and weakly fall from trusting in the promises of a God that will never forsake thee but begin by degrees to stoppe the superfluous humors of this disease which so debilitates and infeebles thee then art thou ready for this spirituall combate the victory will soon follow when thou hast once valiantly resisted the fury of the assault But if like a coward thou dreadst the first appearance of the Enemy it is no wonder if every thing seem difficult and hopelesse to thee Before attempts and tryalls the most feasable and facile things that oppose may possibly look full of danger and horror which once resolutely attempted our confidence and our courage of our banisht fear and stupid weaknesse will assure us of those victorious wreaths which are prepar'd to incircle the Temples of all true Christian souldiers The Devill himselfe was fearfull to lose his Conquest even over Judas himself he keeps him down with despair knowing that repentance and contrition might have turn'd the day for that lost wretch For it is truth and it must be confest though it almost exceed belief that sin of Judas went not beyond the possibility of pardon could he but have repented Wherefore I pray and beseech thee to drive away and expell all these deceits of the Devill from thy soul that thou maist enter this Port of salvation I expect not at an instant that perswasions can give thee leave to think thy self so soon lifted up out of the pit of destruction to the possession of a Crown of glory it were too much presently to believe as thy condition hath made thee though to God nothing be impossible Therefore all that I desire of thee is to stop here and adde no more to thy former transgressions that thou wouldst turn thy eyes another way and not let them rest fixt on the dotage of thy beastlinesse to let us see that thou hast gone in those crooked meanders have quite tyred thee and thou beginst to be refresht and recover thy strength in better paths and art thou thy own hindrance Doest thou not know that many have dyed in their drunkennesse their lusts and other sinfull deluâ—sions of this age Where are some now who lately trac'd the streets in pride who fed their parasites with dainties and cloath'd themselves with the finest silkes they that presum'd the walkes they went in what is become of all this pomp and pride is it not vanish'd is it not past over like a dreame Their costly feasts their jollities their compleasing mirths and laughings had their period and are now no more their vanities their uncheckt thoughts and uncontrould liberties their delicious and insatiable luxuries are all fled What are become of those pamper'd bodies so studiously observ'd and fed so lusciously Pray look into the grave Contemplate on their dust and ashes on the wormes devour'd them the deformity of their charnell houses then sigh and bewaile that folly which took so great a care to preserve so litle a nothing And would to God this destruction there terminated where their ashes are consum'd But turn thy eyes from the grave and wormes there devouring them and reflect on that everlasting fire that can never be extinguish'd on that gnashing of teeth that utter darknesse on those streghts and irremediable afflictions declar'd to us in the Parable of Lazarus and the rich man who once was cloathed in purple and the Lord of unvalew'd treasures of riches that had no end and at last became so destitute of all necessaries that he could not purchase one drop of water to cool his tongue when he suffer'd in flames of fire and was condemn'd to the bitterest cruelties of all torments And how miserable a soul then is that which thinkes pleasures and the vain lights of this World to exceed the gain or Prophet of a dream suppose a man were condemn'd to work in Mines of Metalls or doom'd to undergo some harder punishment then fancie this miserable creature sunk under his labour and fallen asleep next in that sleepe imagine him to have a dream possessing him with the delusion of all pleasures and content which when hee awakes are with his sleep fled how little ows this poor soul to this mockery of felicity And truly that rich mans happinesse on Earth was no more then such a kind of dream If we consider how little it lasted and how it concluded in bitternesse and dreadfull punishments in everlasting fires There is no meditation so necessary to one besotted to his appetites as it is to compare one fire with the other the burning of the lusts with the eternall flames which are their decreed punishment and hee is worse then mad that will not quench the one to eschew the other For there is such nicety and dependance one on the other insomuch that hee who puts out the present fires of his concupiscence is certain to avoid the eternity
for them a better City or a more glorious Temple then the old Haggai 2. 9. The glory of this latter house shall be greater then the former saith the Lord of hosts in this wil I give peace saith the Lord of Hosts See thus often defil'd with her abhominations the Lord will not exclude this City from repentance nor shut the doors of his â—lemency against her No he will not nor will he forsake thee for ever though thy desperate condition by the suggestions of the Divell would perswade thee to it but with infinite desire and affection receive thee into mercy if thou returnest to him and he will lovingly embrace thy soule again though thus sunk in the deeps of wickednesse For no man no man I say though passionate even to madness can so truly affect the greatest beauty of the world as our Lord does the soul of man And if we look narrowly into the daily expressions of his love to every particular soul this truth will shew it self as clear to us as the light of the day And the Scriptures abound in testimonialls of this his infinite love to us Observe in Jeremiah and throughout the Prophets how the Lord has been wearied nay contemn'd and despised by his yet has restor'd the desertors and plac'd them again in his high favours this witnesse he bears of himself in the Gospell when he saies Mat. 23. 37. O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy children even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and you would not And Saint Paul 2 Cor. 5. 19. God saith he was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation Now when we are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us wee pray you in Christs stead be reconciled to God O let us lay these invitations to our hearts and the minute wee read them believe the holy Ghost calling us Nor let us think it enough that wee believe aright for alas infidelity is not the onely bane of the soul to believe well availes us nothing if we live ill if wee purifie not our soules from uncleannesse and bid a farwell to that lewdnesse of life which so incenses the mighty anger of the Lord against us Because that the fleshly mind is enmity against God for it is not obedient to the Law of God neither can be Rom. 8. 7. The concupiscence of the flesh stands like a separating wall betwixt our soules and mercy which wee must utterly raze and destroy or never hope to have a free passage to that happy reconciliation which will crown our soules with triumph and honor and make them lovely and acceptable to God himself Thou art now bewitcht with thy Hermion's face and thinkst nothing in the world comparable to such an excesse of beauty believ'st the Earth bears nothing like it thy selfe if thou pleasest maist be far more lovely then she nay excell her more then starres of Gold and inestimable workmanship doe images of clay and dirt If men are naturally amaz'd and ravisht with the sight of some extraordinary beauties how will they be extrasied with the splendour of a soule in glory For indeed the substance of the greatest beauties though in a greater excellence of composure is the same with the meanest and most contemptible things of nature And are nourisht by the same meanes and subject to the same decay if not preserv'd by most common contemptible and inferiour supplies What is the inside of her killing glittering eyes What lies under that sweet and lovely outside of thy Hermion's surpassing graces or her purpled cheeks If thou art once redeemed from thy dotage thou wilt confesse the greatest beauty but a Sepulcher fairly whited and painted over every thing within it being decreed to the certainty of ruine and dissolution for there is nothing soe lovely that turnes not into loathsome putrifaction But what was that former grace and beauty whilst thou wert in thy integrity in which thou didst so infinitely excell that was of another composition above al the glorious things of this world as much as the Heavens exceed the Earth in splendour nay far more glorious then the Heavens themselves for though the soul be undiscernable and wee are altogether strangers to her excellencies wee may behold her in the elevated expressions of those whose pious zeales have left their attempted descriptions to inflame us with the favour they had to possesse their thoughts with so amiable desires as the contemplation of future glory which they have severall waies aim'd to know especially by soaring high as they were able into the natures of Angelical and heavenly substances CHAP. XI Saint Chrysostome continues 〈◊〉 the glorious nature of the soul and from that excellence prosecutes his perswasives to Theodorus still striving to overcome the rebellions of his lusts with exhortation and pressing arguments HEar him whose desires would have showne the excellent substance of an happy soul but finding it unequall to all comparison he betakes himselfe first to illustrate it by an assimulation to the nature of metals whose gross being was too heavy in the purest of their extractions to give him a sufficient hint and light of it thence he rayses his contemplations and attempts his comparison with the brightness of lightning and next of Angelicall bodies whose glorified essence he finds of a nature so abstracted from our knowledge that he cannot expresse the curiosity and subtilety of their essences so transplendent are they And such shall the blessed be in their glory Mat. 22. They shall be as the Angells in Heaven saies our Saviour to the Sadduces In fine all examples deriv'd from materiall things can never expresse the beauty of a soule Heaven excells all the glories of the Earth fire surpasses water the starres in lustre excell the most pretious stones wee may admire the rainbow in Heaven the violets and lillies withall the pride and variety of the fields which are all nothing in a manner if compar'd with the glories of the soule and those ineffable honors she shall be clothed withall in the day of her blisse Let us not forfeit so much happinesse which a lively faith and constant hope can secure us Nay for this wee must wade through all the inconveniencies of this miserable world 2 Cor. 4. 17. For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternall weight of glory And as blessed Saint Paul teacheth us It is really easie to beare the greatest afflictions looking to the reward of our sufferings So is it equally easie to overcome the petulant passions of our lusts and the same reward is appointed for both the conquests For when I would draw thee from thy dissolute courses I invite thee not to dangers nor the horrors of eminent death nor to perpetuall plagues
III. Gods mercy to the greatest sinners an argument against despair THE mercies of our Lord so infinitely exceed our transgressions that meditating on them they cannot but greatly consolate our drooping spirits and arme us with courage against those temptations we ought strongly to resist lest they overcome our trust and confidence in God I mean those stupid apprehensions of the unpardonable immensity of our own guilt as if God were not able to forgive us our sins being so great and so many that to our imaginations they exceed the saving promises of his mercy Oh let us take heed of such desperate perswasions as these oh let us be careful that such thoughts as these do not quash and annihilate our hopes let not the Devill delude us with an opinion that our Lord is mercifull indeed but extends that goodnesse onely to small offenders to those onely who have provok'd him but with a few and those small faults For suppose a man justly branded with all the markes of those infamies and shames which are due to the greatest reprobates One who had committed all those wicked acts which most certainly unrepented fail not to shut the gates of Heaven against them who transgresse so highly in them And withall we must grant this person to be no stranger to the truth but to have been one of Christs Church Whatsoever was the cause of his fall Whatsoever the inveterate malice of the Tempter had chang'd him to be either whoremaster or adulterer nay perhaps Sodomite Were he theef drunkard or common calumniator one who had hug'd all these sinns with appetite and delight nay had made it his serious study to contrive his ends and hellish satisfaction in them For my part I would not be Author of despair to such a wretch as this no though he had continued in them many years For it is impious blasphemy to reflect upon the anger of God as if he were therefore displeas'd that we might be hardned for then wee justly should relinquish our hopes if we were assur'd the flames of his wrath set on â—â—â—e by so many sinns were not to be extinguish'd with the tears of true repentance But wee must look with more believing eyes on his mercy and admire the excellency of his justice and his clemency who in his punishments is quite free from passions and perturbations And any one but willfully blind offenders may plainly see that our Lord has no delight or contentment in his revenge but takes exceeding pleasure in his love and tenderness which is infinitely intent on our good Be thou therefore of good courage confidently and undauntedly rely upon the hopes of thy restauration to grace and happinesse in spite of all the machinations of the Devill Let him not deceive thee and possesse thee with so horrid an opinion as that God should at all delight in the punishment of sinners For he is a most indulgent Father carefully fond of us and directing all his actions towards us for our good even in the depth of our malice against him unwiling is he and loath to see the encrease of our perversenesse But of his owne Fatherly compassion keeps us off from contemning and despising his mercy If any one voluntarily of his own free motion forsakes the light who can accuse the light for that mans darknesse does not he want the benefit of that light through his own folly and willfullnesse So he that disdains submissively to adhere to the omnipotent power of God and to live in the light of grace which illuminates all true believers suffers not by the goodnesse of that power which is the originall Fountain of all blessings but the unrulinesse of of his own rashnesse and stupidity which so willfully brought him into his own ruin and destruction Our mercifull God sometimes lets us see the rod to frighten us but draws it back and puts it up again that his children may be sensible of his aversnesse to revenge and of his infinite propensity to allure and attract them to himself So a discreet Physitian afflicts not or troubles himself at the raging distempers of a man frantick but is himself the patient when he workes the cure He treats him gently he courts him into his own health and though the mad man fly in his very face hee uses meeknesse with art and skill and unmov'd endeavours to palliate the violence of his disease though perhaps he be justly enough incens'd to leave off the cure And as the distemper'd man recovers his senses the Physitian encreases his joy and prosecutes his intended cure having never return'd peevishnesse for fury but laying aside all self-respect applyed himself wholly to the good of the lunatick So our Lord when we arrive at the extreamest madnesse and rage in sinning takes no revenge of us even in the height of that fury but like our carefull Physitian most charitably applyes his mercies which are his medicines to cure our madnesse not any thing reflecting on those wild passions we provoke him with This is a truth to be justified by the testimonies of all right minded Christians who daily find the effects of his clemency and the records of holy writ are full of examples teaching us the verity of it CHAP. IV. The example of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon a coherence to the preceding Chapter WAs there ever any one so great a Monster as Nebuchadnezzar that King of the Babylonians And yet I beleeve the records of all ages cannot produce the man to whom God reveal'd himselfe more apparently both in his power and his mercies Observe his story how at first he honors the Prophet of the Lord even to the adoring him commanding sacrifice to be offer'd to him as God Then see how at last he returnes to his owne old pride which puffs him up to believe that he his self is the God to be only worshipp'd and who exalts not him above God is cast into the fiery Furnace Behold the infinite mercie and love of our Lord who forsakes not this strange beast for such was he rather to be esteemed then a man But still followes and pursues him with his favours in his most irrationall rebellions calls him back with profers of grace and loving invitations to repentance First shewing him his omnipotency by the miracle in the fiery Furnace then by the strange vision which the King saw and Daniel interpreted Wonders able to move a Rock could not mollifie his harder soul To these the Prophet joynes his pathetick counsell Wherefore O King let my counsell be acceptable unto thee and redeem thy sins by righteousnesse and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor if it may be a lengthning of thy tranquillity Dan. 27. What saist thou thou opinator of thy owne wisdome and happinesse Canst thou return yet canst thou repent after this thy strange fall Is thy diseast so desperate thou darest not hope for a recovery Can no wisdome regulate the passions of a mind so troubled The dumb-struck King
sincere repentance though we sin most malitiously against him if we most humbly return to him his sweet embraces are ready to receive us Nay though we should be unwilling he often contends with our perversenesse and forces our recovery Nay helpes the defects of our falling inclinations with his preserving grace which raises us above our selves to pious desires which he both gives and prepares their reward What greater argument can there be of the benignity of an incens'd God then when we have provok'd him to anger to accept of our sorrow and though our repentance be not so long and so full as it ought though it want something of the circumstances of form and time or other properties our Lord helps us in our humiliations and sends his blessings on very weaknesse and frowardnesse As in the Prophet Isaiah you may find it He went on frowardly in the way of his heart I have seen his waies and will heal him I will lead him also and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners Isaiah 57. 17 18. Let us remember the story of that most wicked King who by a womans perswasion had given himselfe over to all abhomination when he once repented and putting on sackcloth acknowledg'd his sins he so mov'd the compassion of God that he escap'd all those evills which then threatned him For God spake to Elias upon his submission saying Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me I will not bring this evill in his daies 2 Kings 21. 29. And after him Manasses exceeds all the former Kings in madnesse and Tyranny he overthrows the Law shuts the Temple sets up the worship of Idoll's to confront the Majesty of God outstripping all that went before him in wickednesse 2 Chron. 33. He after his repentance was receiv'd into the number of Gods elect friends Had Manasses when he saw the deformity of his impiety despair'd of his restauration to grace and believ'd an impossibility of his change to a new man he had certainly never partaken of those blessings afterward befell him but when he weigh'd how little the excesse of his sins was put in the ballance with Gods immense and infinite mercies hee cast the the fetters off wherewith the Devill had made him fast became Conqueror and finish'd his good course Nor has the Scripture furnish'd us with these examples alone to preserve us from splitting on the dange-Rockes of our own harden'd hearts But by his commands God calls us continually and forewarns us of our destruction To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the day of temptation in the Wildernesse Psa. 95. 8. 9. This day to us may be any day of our life from the tendernesse of our youth to the extremity of our age Wee must imagine the Lord alwaies speaking to us and calling us to him who proportions not his mercies to the circumstances of time but the affections of our hearts The Ninivites had not many daies for repentance and to pray to God to forgive them their crying sins yet could a little portion of one day blot out all their iniquities and in how short a time was Paradise assur'd the theefe upon the Crosse In how small a time did his contrition purchase him Heaven even before Christs followers and Apostles Many have obtain'd the honor of Martyrdome and purchas'd Crownes of glory in lesse then few years in a few daies nay some in lesse then one day Let us be alwaies and in all conditions undejected and cheerfull confident and assur'd in our soules of Gods infinite mercies which will intice and allure us to prepare our confidences for such a tendernesse as will dread and abhorre sinne as will make us shake off our infirmities and violently suppresse the malice of temptation Our own election will lead us into better paths with Gods assisting grace waies quite contrary and opposite to our lusts such as God commands us to walke in such as he rejoyces to see us tread in whose end is rewarded with eternity to which course the shortnesse of time can be no obstacle for many that were last have got to be first in this spirituall race by the eager feavour of their desires Our fallings are not our miseries but this is our calamity when we are sunk under the weight of sin that we lie under the heavy burthen and never strive to rise again that wee sleep under it and those litle intervalls we awake dispute our soules into despair against such as are thus sottishly bewitch'd to their own destruction the Prophet cries out in the heat and height of passion Shall they fall and not arise shall he turn away and not return Why then is the People of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetuall back-sliding They hold fast deceipt they refuse to return Jer. 8. 4. Whoever it is that wilfully refuses humbly and with his whole heart to accept the grace of the spirit offer'd him after his wandring from out of the waies of God is concern'd in this of the Prophet For it cannot be said he fell who never stood or that he went out of it who never was in the way Many things to confirme this truth are evident in parables and other manifestations of holy writ That sheep which was lost from the nintynine and after found and brought back to the rest Mat. 18. 12. what did it signifie but the going astray and the return of the faithfull For the sheep belong'd not to another Shepheard it was of the same flock and under the same Shepheard it wandred through the Mountaines and the deserts it stray'd far from the fold And what did the Shepherd neglect the wanderer No he brought him back nor did he angerly drive and beate it before him but laid it on his owne shoulders and so brought it home Observe the best Physicians how in some fierce and dangerous diseases they please and humour their patients dispensing with the set rules of their art to comply with these distempers so God uses not the fiercenesse of his wrath against the greatest sinners but his meeknesse heales them hee applyes the gentle cure of his compassion like the good Shepheard hee layes them on his own shoulders like the Physitian he heales them with forbearance lest they wander for ever lest their woundes prove incurable Next followes the parable of the prodigall to justifie this truth Luke 15. 12. Who when hee had run into extraordinary exorbitancies wilfully and on purpose by his own folly wandred to purchasing shame and misery whilst his brother stay'd at home ever pleasing his Father he that was rich free and nobly borne became more despis'd then the worst of his Fathers hirelings Yet at last was restor'd to his former honour and repossest of his Fathers favour Had he in that miserable condition despair'd of life and those enjoyments he afterwards found he had nere known blessing but had perish'd perhaps in the Wildernesse with famine of all deaths the most miserable
to receive the fruit there of Who ever propounded to himself if hee were wise to labour in vain and get no reward for his paines Can he likewise who sows hypocriticall tears prayers and confession of his transgressions without a lively hope and confidence in Gods mercies ever think to refrain from his sinns no! he must needs still remain under the curse of desperation For as a husbandman who once despaires of his croppe neglects to prevent the destruction of his Corn So hee who sows a seeming repentance though with tears in his deluding eyes yet expecting no profit by it will not at all take care to banish those malignant inclinations from his soul which utterly destroy his reconciliation to God Alas what is it to repent if we persevere in our wickedness Eccl. 34. For when one buildeth saith the Scripture and another pulleth down what profit have they but labour Hee that washeth himself after touching a dead body if he touch it again what availeth it him So is it with a man that praies and fasts for his sinns and goeth againe and doth the same who will hear his prayer or what doth his humbling profit him No! who ever diverts from righteousness to sin the Lord will prepare for him a sword Proverbs 26. 11. And as a dogge returning to his vomit becomes odious so does a fool who by his own wilfulnesse renewes his sinns CHAP. XIV The summe and conclusion of this treatise IT is not sufficient for a perishing soule barely to accuse it self of sin but the substance as well as the forme must concurre for the efficacie of repentance to justification Our contrition must beare a manifest accompt of our shame and detestation of sin with a solid resolution against all relapses Hypocrisy is a maske so easily put on that it is ordinary and common throughout the whole world seemingly to condemn our selves of our evill waies infidells do it with much appearing detestation of their iniquities Many men and women in the very scene while they are acting their wickednesse will acknowledge their basenesse when they consider the following shame though they determine not to seeke after gathering the fruit of true repentance or diving home to the perfections and ends of confession which are amendment and resolution Vain and of no effect are those acknowledgements which proceed neither from compunction of soul nor are accompanied with tears truely bitter and heart-breaking contrition which are the onely evidences of a resolv'd change And yet there is something like this in the world which is not it there are some demure Devills which speak like Saints making their hearers believe by their grace and elegant setting forth themselves they are what they never intend to be While they seek onely the reputation and honor to be accounted good Which is the most easie delusion possible for who can judge of that which is presented to him in contrary colours for the crime would not be the same if another man knew the truth of it and how to tell it as when the offender delivers it for such as he would have it believ'd There are another sort of dull sinners who are so sencelesse grown with their despair and closed with the deadnesse of their condition that they respect neither good opinion nor bad and will tell stories of their own shame with as much venome as their detractors would believing their glory the greater the more wicked they make themselves God forbid I should live to see thee like any of these either a demure Hypocrite dissembling the righteous man whilst thou art rotten within or so vile a wretch as would not be content to sin unlesse he had the pleasure to boast of it What thou art chiefly exhorted to by my counsell my belov'd Theodorus is to pluck up by the rootes from the very bottome of thy heart all diffidence in Gods mercy and all despair Now let us inquire what is the root and mother of despair It is a stupid faintnesse of mans heart a deprivation of courage in our spirits which may most properly be call'd not onely the root or mother of desperation but the nurse of it As putrifaction in a dead carkasse breeds wormes and those wormes encrease in that putrifaction so mutually does his faintnesse of heart combine with that despair it self bred and is the nursing cause of its encrease So doe they alternately administer nutriment to all the incurable plagues of our soule It must then be thy part to overcome this dull stupidity atd faintnesse in thee and thou wilt find that having resum'd a Christian courage and resolv'd confidence in God Thy despair will quickly vanish For he that faints not cannot despair and he that abjures not his hopes of salvation cannot faint or cowardly submit to his own eternall destruction Thy resolution must part with these associates benumm'd faintnesse and dangerous despair For where these keep possession the soul loses her uniformity and gracefull essence becomes every thing turnes into every monstrous shape that varietie of sins can put upon her And who is hee we may truly judge to be in this sad condition ' It is thus answered it sometimes happens that a man may repent and seem to correct some of his known and grossest enormities and in the meane time sinns again goes on still insensibly encreasing the weight and burthen of his former transgressions whose guilt is never perfectly taken away till absolutely amended and this in time proves the greatest cause of desperation This is truly to builde with the one and pluck down with the other hand and on this he must alwaies think seriously who by entire reformation intends his souls good For if we look not to the scales all our good deeds our prayers and our tearâ—s will prove too light if such a continuall weight of sinne through our negligence be crept into the contrary ballance and from hence will follow our eternall damnation But let us still be exercis'd in good deeds and the conscience of discharging our duties according to our power will be a coat of male upon us and bear off all the darts and arrowes of Hell's malice that they shall not be able to harme us For such is the favour of God to good deeds that they who have done some good on earth and yet escape not the severity of condemnation shall have their pains mitigated and find some consolation even in the cruelty of torments But he who never did any good deed and can give no other accompt but of a wild reckoning of a life still continued and ended in sin what tongue can expresse the extremity of torments that forlorne soule is condemn'd to There will be at last a tryall of good and bad deeds if the former weigh down the scales but a little they will very much secure the owner nor will he suffer punishments equall to the ills hee has committed But the weight of sin without any counterpoise of vertue sinkes us into
the deepest abysse of Hell Nor does this discourse alone aver this For the records of holy writ most amply testifie the same The Evangelist Saint Matthew shewes it Matth. 16. 27. He shall render saith he every man according to his workes Nor in Hell onely but in Heaven also shall there be difference of reward John 14. 2. In my Fathers house are many mansions saies our blessed Saviour And again 1 Cor. 15. 41. There is one glory of the Sun another of the the Moon another of the Starrs for one Star differeth from another Star in glory so likewise in the Resurrection of the dead Let him who considers this value the expence of his labour and be continually employ'd in good deeds If we attain not the glory of the Sun or the Moon wee get to be little starrs if we discharge the duty of good Christians so far as to get there at all If we shine not in glory like Diamonds or like Gold wee may like Silver But we must be carefull we are not found of materialls fitter for the fire then a place in his Heavenly mansions And if wee are not able to discharge the highest actions of perfection let us not neglect the due observance of lesser things which we may perform For it is most desperate madnesse to do no good at all because we are not in the state of the most excelling perfection For as worldlings grow rich by saving every little trifle encreasing their store so are spirituall riches attain'd by a circumspect laying hold on every occasion wherein we may serve our Lord It is wonderfull and something strange to humane sence that God has appointed so great a reward as the Kingdome of Heaven to him that shall but give a cup of cold water in his name yet are men so foolish that unlesse they can atchieve the greatest they neglect lesser matters which are likewise very profitable He that neglects not his duty in things but small in their appearance will learn to be able to performe greater But he that is negligent in a little will be a weak discharger of greater duties And to prevent this humane inclination Christ has left us great proposalls of certain reward for things to be compast with very little trouble What is more easie then to pay the labourer his hire which is but a part of thy own gain and yet large are the promises of our Lord for that See then the way to lay hold on Everlasting salvation enter into it delight in our Lord pray incessantly unto him again submit thy self to his easie yoak take on thy shoulders the light burthen thou bearst in a more happy condition and let the end of it prove worthy the beginning of thy life Do not O do not despise such infinite riches which freely flow unto thee And they are all for ever lost to thee if thou perseverest to exasperate our Lord with those ill courses thou art in For if thou yet stopst the channells and hinder'st this deluge in time before it has made too great a breach thou maist repaire thy losses to thy great advantage When thou hast considered and meditated seriously on this as thou oughtest fling away the filth and mud which hangs upon thy soule rise from out of the mire wherein thou hast wallowed And see how formidable thou wilt be to thy adversarie who believ'd he had cast thee down never to rise again it will amaze him to see thee again provoke him to the battaile surpriz'd with thy recovery and astonisht at such an undaunted resolution how fearfull will the coward the Devill be to attempt again the ensnaring thee If other mens calamities be proper lessons for us shall not all our owne instruct us I believe that I shall see this shortly in thee and that thou wilt appear in the sight of Heaven a person restor'd to grace a more excellent and clearer soul then ever thou were one that shall give testimonies of such perfection and integrity that thou maist be ranckt amongst the best men if not preferr'd before them Onely despair not fall not againe This is my counsell do thou as my custome is When ever I hear any thing from others may profit me I make no delay to embrace and follow it and if thou receivest with a good purpose these my admonitions thy sick and languishing soule will need no other Physick FINIS Erata Page 1. l. 5. for this r. the l 7. of dissolute r. of a dissolute p. 3. l. 4. of sin r. of any sin l. 13. for for prepared r. so prepared l. 20. for committing every thing that was dedicated r. committing every thing to the flames that was dedicated p. 6. l. 7. for intollerable r. in alterable p. 9. l. 5. r. linkd to p. 12. l. 16. for rebellious r. religious p. 14. l. 15. for wretched r. wretches p. 23. l. 1. leave out and promised p. 24. l. 6. r. like a loving father p. 26. l. last for peruses r. persues p. 31. l 11. for confidences r. consciences p. 44. l. 28. r. delights for lights p. 46. l. 17. for again r. gone again p. 60. l. 7. r. there appeared not p. 62. l. 22. for receive r. conceive p. 67. l. 11. for screen scaene p. 70. l. 4. for undertake labour r. undertake the labour p. 72. l. 5. for choosed r. crost p. 79. l. 12. for Hermions r. Hermiones p. 79. l. 17. for starrs r. statues p. 80. l. 7. for Hermion's r. Hermione's p. 84. l. 6. for hope r. home ibid. l. 23. for greater r. great p. 87. l. 3. for were r. wore p. 103. l. 13. Chap. is intitled the 5. ibid l. 3. I knew a young Phoenix r. I knew a young man Phoenix p. 104. l. 3. for religions r. religious Reader this multitude of faults in so small a treatise I can attribute to nothing but my own ill hand which deceived the printer which I entreat thee to correct The Contents of every Chapter CHAP. I. SAint Chrysostome passionately describes the great esteem and value we ought to have of our own soules and on that basis he raises the fabrick of this treatise to perswade Theodorus plung'd into extream sinns and bewitch't with the vanity of a dissolute life to return to vertue and piety in which he had once been an eminant example CHAP. II. The Devil endeavours and practices to undermine our hopes and raze the foundation of our eternall happiness The comparison betwixt a dying body and a perishing soul with an exhortation to be couragious in our conflicts with the Devill CHAP. III. Gods mercie to the greatest sinners an argument against despair CHAP. IV. The example of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon a cohaerence to the preceding Chapter CHAP. V. That sincere repentance is alwaies acceptable to God declar'd out of Holy writ by example precept and parable CHAP. VI That we ought carefully to cleanse our soules from the filth of sin which must by no meanes be slighted or neglected since in this word we cannot presume on to morrow every thing is so subject to mutability And then the pleasures of the Earth being so short and so quickly vanishing we ought to fix our thoughts upon that eternity in which we shall be crown'd with glory or plagued in torments CHAP. VII Hell fire expos'd to the terror of the impenitent with the torments and the certainty thereof CHAP. VIII Of the beatitude of the Saints glorified in Heaven pressing Theodorus farther to amendment by arguing that Heaven is rather to be sought after then Hell to be fear'd the glory of the one being a more moving object then the terriblenesse of the other CHAP. IX Of the day of judgement CHAP. X. The joyes of Heaven prosecuted give occasion to discourse of the felicities and blessings God has promis'd our soules the excellencies wherewith they are enricht and vile contempt we have of them preferring our bodies their slaves before them CHAP. XI Saint Chrysostome continues here the glorious nature of the Soule and from that excellence prosecutes his perswasions to Theodorus still striving to overcome the rebellions of his lusts with exhortations and pressing arguments CHAP. XII The story of the Ninivites repenpentance the proeme to St. Chrysostomes farther urging Theodorus to his conversion collecting thence that the greatest sinners may return to God he prosecutes his perswasives alledging that many so converted have become the best and most zealous people CHAP. XIII Sant Chrysostome relates a story of Phoenix a young Gentleman of his time another of an Hermit another of a Disciple of Johns the Son Zebedeus and of Onesimus out of Saint Paul with which he continues his perswasives to fallen Theodorus CHAP. XIV The sum and conclusion of this treatise FINIS No comparison betwixt the death of the body and the soul St. Chrysostom's application to Theodorus The Hermet The schooler of John In Eusebius Eccles. Hist. lib. 5. c. 2.