THE most general Question which hath troubled the world, almost ever since it began, is that great Dispute, concerning the just and equal distribution of temporal blessings; how to reconcile the prosperity of the wicked, and the miseries of the righteous, with those common Attributes which we assign unto God: how it can consist with the Divine Wisdom and Justice to pro­mote the designs of the ungodly, whom he abhors at the very Soul; and to crush and bear down those whom he calls by his own Name, stiles his peculiar people, and whom he esteems as the Apple of his Eye: For this objection hath gone through all degrees and qualities of men, high and low, rich and poor, miserable and happy, good and bad: the glorious flourishing and lofty sinner, whom God smiles upon, as Job speaks, he proves there is no Providence from his own success, because he goes smoothly on in his wickedness, without the least check or interruption; Therefore pride compasses him, therefore he sets his mouth against heaven, and Psal. 73. 9. his tongue walks through the earth, scorning both God and Man. And not only they, but the very people of God too, seeing this unequal dispensa­tion, even they say, How does God know, and is there knowledge in the most v. 11. high, v. 11. Nay, David himself professes, the thought of this came so cross him, as it had almost beat him down: My feet were almost gone, my v. 2. steps had well-nigh slipt, v. 2. of the same Psalm, and he very hardly recove­red himself, but breaks out into this amazement, Behold these are the un­godly Psal. 73. 12. who prosper, they encrease in riches; as if he had said, I lookt to see the righteous upon thrones, and the vertuous gay and flourishing; but con­trary to all expectation, Behold these are the ungodly who prosper, they increase in riches, which makes him cry out in the next verse, Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain; in vain have I washed my hands in innocency; a most desperate speech! and means thus; Let who will stand upon forms and niceties hereafter; let who will betray his being and livelyhood to a timorous conscience: I will be scrupulous no longer, no longer shall the formality of Laws and Religion tye me to be undone; if wickedness only thrives, I can be wicked too: Thus David, thus Habakkuk, and thus the Prophet Jeremy in this Chapter complains, who seeing the falsness and [Page 2] treachery both of his friends and enemies, still prevail against him; and seeing the conspiracies of those Priests of Anathoth (where he was born too) never fail; though God had told him in the first Chapter, He had made him a defenced City, an iron Pillar, a brazen Wall, and that he would enable him, by his Divine assistance, to oppose the whole Nation; whilest he, alas, found himself but a Reed shaken with the wind, blown into a pri­son with every breath of a base Informer: Seeing and considering this cross-dealing, and debating within himself, what this should mean, falls out into this Exclamation; Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee, &c.

Where you have a Proposition or Doctrine laid down, as certain; and then an Objection rais'd against this Doctrine. The Proposition, Righte­ous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee. The Objection, which seems to oppose it, in these words, Yet let me talk with thee of thy Judgments: Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?

I begin with the Proposition it self; Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I Proposition. plead with thee.

Where you may observe the most singular piety and resolution of the Prophet, though Gods design look't never so strange unto him, and seem'd, as it were a meer contradiction, yet still he held fast to his Principle, That God was just, whatsoever became of him or his Cause; That whensoever he did plead and argue with God concerning his Dispensations, He assured himself thus much before hand, that God would overcome when he was judg'd; and that his Righteousness, like a glorious Sun, would break through all the clouds of opposition cast about it: Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee.

The Prophet did not preposterously conclude God just from the justice of his action; but, arguing backwards, inferred his proceeding to be just, because he himself is righteous: He does not first examine Gods wayes, and then pronounce him just, because he finds him so, but first takes this as granted, that God is true, be the action what it will: and then afterwards inquires into the Reason of it. And whosoever, in reasoning about Gods actions, shall argue otherwise, or use any other method, will run himself upon many rocks and perplexities, and at last find blasphemy in the con­clusion.

For we read of many actions commended in Scripture, so horrid in themselves, as no Orator can invent a colour to excuse them, but because God enjoyn'd them.

Look upon Abrahams offering of his Son Isaac simply by it self, and that will seem a Sacrifice fitter for Moloch then a merciful God, who requireth not so much as a Lamb from our fould; but the Lord commanded it, and then the Patriarchs obedience stil'd him, for ever after, Gods friend.

Consider the action alone, without other Circumstances, and what a barbarous thing it was for the Israelites to dispossess the Canaanites of their lives and fortunes, who had done them no wrong; when the very Heathen call'd Alexander, but a more glorious Thief, for doing less? But God, when their sins were full, had devoted them to slaughter, and then they were call'd the Lords battels.

Davids most bitter curses and execrations would damn a Christian, if he should vomit them out of spleen; but when the Holy Ghost did dictate them, then they became the raptures of a zealous Prophet.

Think of Rahabs preserving the Spyes by a down-right lye; Sampson's killing of himself, with divers actions of this nature; and then let me see him who can name any one thing, which God cannot make lawful, either by doing it himself, or commanding it in others.

And yet it's a common saying amongst the Civilians and Schoolmen, That some things are in themselves immutable, which God himself cannot alter; plac'd, as it were, out of Gods reach: as that some things are not evil, be­cause God hath forbidden them, but are bad in their own nature, before God hath laid any command concerning them at all; robbing God, as it were, of part of his Legislative power, which is to stamp every action, good, or bad, as it seems best to his Divine will and pleasure: Whereas, if you examine it rightly what they say, God, by his Almighty power cannot make such and such actions lawful, proceeds not from any Null-obliquity in the actions themselves, but because we have wrapt them up in irreconcilable terms.

As for instance, God cannot make it lawful for me to commit murder: for it is a plain contradiction, that ever it should be lawful to kill a man unlawfully; but then God can make it lawful for me to kill any one living, though I have never so neer a relation to him: So again, God cannot make it lawful for me to steal, because to steal is to take away another mans right or property, whilst it is his right; but God can make it lawful for me to possess my self of any thing which another has, by changing the property, and by giving me a right unto it; so that we may as infallibly conclude the action just, whatsoever it be, as we can assure our selves that God does it, or authorizes it to be done, though it seems to us never so irregular, and even to contradict the Law of Nature.

Well then does the Prophet Jeremy here lay down this as a Maxim, which he cannot deny, that God is just, though at first sight, the prosperity of the wicked seems to overthrow it; being if God does it, it must needs be just, because without any more ado God makes every action just by doing it, though we at present cannot find the reason of it.

Why? what would we have? would we be Gods our selves, and call the Lord to give us an accompt of all his Actions? would we appoint him a day to bring in all his Reasons before us, why he deals thus, and thus, with us? Is this that we desire, with the Prophet here, to dispute the Question with the Almighty, to circumscribe and bound him in, within our limits, to make a circle round about him, which he should not pass, but upon such causes, as our wisdoms shall think fit? But what a ridiculous thing is it in us, to cry up Gods Councels, as unsearchable; and fling him off, because we cannot comprehend him? First to confess his paths past finding out, and then renounce God, because we cannot track him? How childish does it shew in us, to acknowledge a Lord God, whose wayes are not our wayes, nor his thoughts as our thoughts, and yet bring him to our barr; set him before our Courts of Justice; and measure his actions by our line and plummet▪ which are things of another kind, quite of another nature from Gods, which bear no proportion to them at all: For he who pronounces of Gods actions, according to those rules of Justice we have, is guilty of the same vanity, as if he should measure length by breadth, and judge of colours by sound, which are toto genere diversa, and carry not the least Analogie to one another.

Seneca, in one of his heats, says, He would rather believe Drunkenness a vertue, then Cato vicious for being intemperate; A speech vain enough, in regard of him to whom he directed it; but most excellently true, if apply­ed unto God: For we should rather believe Injustice to be Justice; that to kill, is to make alive; to fail our hopes, is to satisfie our longings; (as we think of Physicians Medicines, that to poyson, is to restore) rather then by conceiving otherwise, lay the least imputation upon Gods Truth, be­cause we cannot reconcile his proceedings with our Reason. We do in­deed heap up all the glorious titles upon God imaginable, call him the Al­mighty [Page 4] wise God, the Everlasting Councellor: but in our dealings with him, we do by retail, take them all back again to our selves, and when he comes to exact any duty or obedience from us, which is troublesome; then we cavil and murmur, as if He had no power at all, but were indeed a meer Idol. How could it happen else, that We, who will trust a Lawyer with our whole Estate, and, without any scruple, give him up all our Deeds and Writings, to manage, as he thinks fit; yet will not trust our God one moment? but as soon as ever we apprehend, that things do cross our In­terests, presently we fall upon God, accuse his Judgments for the miscar­riage, and as much as in us lies, would take the business quite out of his Hand, in seeking, by unlawful means, to preserve our selves? How (I say) can it be else, that we who dare commit our Lives into a Physitians hands, and never question his Method, though he put us to a new pain every hour, as if he studied only how to torment us most; will yet leave nothing to the Wisdom and disposing of God, without Articles, Conditions, at every turn, exacting an account of his Proceedings?

When the Jews admir'd how God could possibly lay aside his ancient people, and turn to the Gentiles, whom he never knew, St. Paul, Rom. 9. answers this Question, with another, saying, Who art thou O man, that re­plyest against God? As if he had said, suppose I could not assign any Reason for this Action of Gods, would it therefore follow, He were unjust? 'tis God whom thou replyest against; and thou, who do'st reply, art but a man; God whose way is in the Whirlwind, and the Clouds are the dust of his feet, Nahum 1. 3. God unsearchable in his Councils, and Man so igno­rant, that he knows not whether the ground he treads upon, stands still or moves; God, whose Thoughts do as far exceed our Thoughts, as the Heavens do the Earth; nay more, for the distance between us and the highest Star is known, and calculated; but the distance between us and God passes all Arithmetick; It is infinite.

Why then should we sawcily pry into the hidden Councels of God? If he hath let down a Veil before his Holy of Holies, how should we dare to tear it asunder, and prophanely break into his Mysteries? What? must we know before we will believe? have a Demonstration for all God does, to give us satisfaction? Why, perhaps we shall never answer Zeno's argument against Motion: and shall we therefore sit still all the days of our life, and say, we cannot stir? perhaps it is impossible to solve Pyrrho's objections against Reality, shall we therefore fondly conceit, that every thing we see, is but an appearance only? that it is but your fancy, that I seem now to speak, and nothing but your imagination, that you think you hear me; a [...] [...]f our whole life were but one continued Dream? And is it not as much madness to mistrust the truth and faithfulness of God, confirmed by so ma­ny Clouds of Witnesses, evinced by so many Ages of Instances, because we cannot answer this one objection against It; because we cannot see through this one single particular of Providence?

Why then should we think it any indiscretion, with Abraham, to believe against Hope? or to be sure (though we have least reason to expect it) That the only way for a man to become a great Nation, is to kill his only Child; and the means to overcome Canaan, was to go alone, and a stran­ger into it? Pray, why should we not believe our Saviour, that to save, is to loose; and to preserve, is to destroy? Why should we imagine our selves any wiser then St. Paul, who committed his body to God, until the last day, and perswaded himself that God was able to keep it until that day? 2 Tim. 1. 12. though it past through so many transmutations and changes, into beasts, fowl, and fish; nay, though it became part of ano­ther Man, which is to rise together with him in the same Body? Yet this [Page 5] seeming contradiction did not startle the Apostle; He was sure of the thing, though he knew not how it could come to pass; I know whom I have be­lieved, says the Apostle in the same place. Yet though Almighty God might challenge our Obedience, without giving us account of his mat­ters; though we ought to conclude the Lord righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works, when to our eye of flesh he appears neither holy, nor righteous, but rather the contrary; though our understandings be shal­low, and Gods Judgments profound; though the Well be deep, and we have nothing to draw; yet God like a most gracious Prince, when he might absolutely command, vouchsafes a reason why we should obey: submitting himself to our slender capacities, he appears at our Barrs, and to settle our wandring thoughts, to leave us quite without excuse; ex­poses himself to be impleaded by us, to be judg'd by us, to be examined by us. Which leads me to the Objection, which seems to overthrow the Righteousness of God; Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?

The occasion of this Question, I told you, was, because the Prophets adversaries did continually prosper, and had power to do him hurt; not simply because the wicked prosper'd; but that by this their prosperity, they had means and opportunity to mischief him; to smite him with their tongue, by secret whisperings; and smite him with their fists, to hurry him from one prison to another; and at last clap him up in the Dungeon, sealing him up there unto unevitable destructi­on.

Now the Prophet demands of God, in this Question; why he did not disappoint the plots and contrivances of all those, who had designed his ruine; being God had sent him as an especial Ambassador to his people? So as we may resolve the Question into this; Why does God suffer the wicked to have any Power to oppress the righte­ous?

A Question, if we consider the time, in which the Prophet lived, not altogether idle or impertinent; for he lived under the Law, a Covenant of Works; unto which God had annexed Blessings and Cursings, in outward appearance, altogether temporal, Deut. 28. But, on the contrary, this Prophet found by sad experience, that he fled from his Enemies, and not they from him; that not they, but he groped at noon days, being cast into a Dungeon, which was only a larger Sepulchre; and that the Iron yoke was put upon his, not their necks: all which was contrary to the express words of the promise, as you may read at large in that Chapter: Which made him think God had forgotten to be gracious; and to ask, wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?

Nevertheless, had the Prophet consider'd with himself rightly, he would not have thought this so strange a thing, even under the Law, where God seems to set bounds and terms, even to his Almighty power, and to confine his absolute Dominion and Royalty over the Creature, by making Promi­ses, Oaths and Contracts with his People: Yet he never pass'd away the Land of Canaan, or any thing in it, so absolutely, but that still he reserv'd the title and propriety of it to himself: All souls are mine, saith the Lord, And the Land shall not be sold for ever, for the Land is mine, and ye are so­journers and strangers with me, Levit. 25. 23. God granted the use of it to them, yet kept still the Right and full disposal of it to himself: for the Lord calls them (for all this Grant) but sojourners and strangers, who held what they possest, under God, and continued in it no longer then he gave them leave, from whom he might take it away, and bestow it on whom [Page 6] he pleased: And truly, if we allow God the power but of a temporal Prince, and grant him to be King of Israel only; we must allow him the li­berty of changing, altering, and dispensing with his own Laws: For we read how Nebuchadnezzar might slay whom he would, and whom he would he might keep alive within his own Realms, set up whom he would, and whom he would he might put down, Dan. 5. 3. And least you might imagine such an unlimited power, over the Subject, unlawful, God is said to give him this power, in the same verse: and can we think, for all his promises, the Lord of the whole Earth may not challenge as much Soveraignty, as a Prince but of a single Shire enjoyes? As then he, in whom the Supream pow­er of a State resides, when he grants out property of life, liberty, and estate to his Subjects, does not by this Charter debar himself the liberty of ta­king them away again, if the use of the Publick so require; in like manner God in that [...], as Philo calls the Common-wealth of the Jews, Gods own peculiar Kingdom, where he reigned temporally, as the very Civil Magistrate of that Nation, never ty'd himself up so strictly, by his promises, as that he might not lawfully, for his own glory, and the good of his people, upon some extraordinary cases (as to purge, to correct, to punish, or for tryal of them) recal those good things he promised to the Righteous, and confer them upon the wicked: A most clear instance of this absolute Dominion in God, we see, in that under the Law, he punishes frequently one man for another; nay, a whole Common-wealth for the sin of one man; and, stranger yet, whole Ages of posterity, for the offence only of one single person: Which proves most evidently, God might, even under the Law (where the Holy One seem'd most to be limited) afflict, without any consideration of guilt or demerit, or else the punishment could not have justly past the offenders person. And this consideration, meerly, might have still'd the Prophet from asking this question.

But then that there should be some (perhaps in this very Congregation) who when they suffer (as they think) unworthily; some, who call them­selves Christians, who demand of God, why he gives them up into the hands of a Tyrant, to suffer what they deserve not? That such ask it, is a wonder to me far greater then the Question it self: Have you so learn'd Christ? Pienty, Peace, and Victory over Enemies, these, indeed, were the blessings under the Law, when God did not think fit (as yet) to discover fully the Joyes of a better life, he tempted Israel with the bliss of this; and instead of Heaven, shewed them Canaan: But when it pleased him, by Christ, to reveal unto us a new Heaven, and a New Earth; a Resurrection and an eternal weight of glory, ready to crown all such as do believe and practise; then he proposes loss of estate, and loss of friends, poverty, scorn, shame, nakedness, imprisonment, and death it self, to his Disciples: for these, I, these are the blessings of the Gospel; and by his example he proved them to be so: For what Crown had he, but of Thorns? what Scepter but of Reeds? or where was he ever lifted up, but upon the Cross? Prosperity? Why, were I to study for an Argument to render a Church suspected for a false One, I would object the outward splendor of it: not that God does not bestow sometimes temporal blessings upon his chosen people, even under the Gospel, to refresh and recover their wearied Spi­rits after a difficult tryal: But this, I say, is quite besides the promise of the Gospel; a thing extraordinary in respect of it: Prosperity? If this proves the goodness of a Cause, how many Arguments can the Turk alledge to assert his Mahomet? Every battel he wins is a new Objection a­gainst us, and every Town he takes in Christendome, he gets ground of us in our Religion also: What would become of the glorious Martyrs, if it should be a blemish to suffer? Why did St. Paul call his scars, the marks of [Page 7] the Lord Jesus? which, were this true, they were the stigmata, and brands of guilt: and when the Apostle gloried in his infirmities and troubles, then he did but cry up his own sins: Nay, upon this account, we cannot possi­bly quit the eternal Son of God, whose whole life was but one continued Passion; We, we Christians should wonder that wicked men do not alwayes prosper; We should admire how it comes to pass that they do ever miss of their designs; that a Traytor does not ever escape Justice, and the Oppressor does not alwayes hold his prey? Which made some pious Chri­stians to reverence and esteem Affliction so much, to think it so proper and peculiar to a Christian, as many times they have doubted of their Calling and Election, upon no other ground but this, because they did not find themselves miserable enough: therefore for want of others to do it for them, they persecuted their own selves, and gave away their Estates, when no body else would take them from them: Like noble Souldiers, they grew weary of peace and ease; and like the Fencer in Rome, who was sick when he could venture his life but once a day.

And this is so certain and evident, that, if you examine this Question strictly, it will appear an Objection rais'd, not out of any desire to clear Gods Justice, or that true Holiness might be promoted upon the Earth, or out of any consideration that concerns the glory of God, but meer­ly out of Calamity, and a By-respect of our own, which I shall shew you plainly, and then the Objection will fall to the ground of it self.

As first, Men ask this Question, Why do the wicked prosper, because we 1 do not see the usefulness of Affliction, nor sufficiently apprehend what rare and admirable effects it doth produce: which, amongst the rest, is Patience: 'tis something indeed, when a sinner suffers the punishment he hath deserved meekly and humbly; yet he that dares sin, durst likewise, if he could, resist the punishment due to that sin; and when he doth suffer, who doth the sinner oblige in suffering? Not God; for it troubles him to punish; He swears, as he lives, he would not do it? What praise is it, what glory is it, if, when you be buffeted for your faults, you endure it pa­tiently, says the Apostle, 1 Pet. 2. 20. No: this only is true Patience, Patience indeed, when we suffer for doing well: And, pray tell me, How can men bear injuries, if there be no wicked men to do them? or how could a man loose his own, were there no violence to wrest it out of his hands? If you suppose a robbery, you must suppose a Thief too; where there is a Re­bellion, there must be a Rebel, and a Traytour, where there is a Treason, for he that is born of God cannot sin, 1 John 3. 9. He, such an one, cannot be the Instrument of any wrong; for when he does unrighteously, he ceases to be righteous: Abel would never have killed Cain, nor would the Isra­elites have oppressed Pharaoh: Paul would never have imprisoned the Romans, nor the Martyrs have kill'd their Persecutors; and so we should have lost all these glorious examples of Constancy and Zeal, if God had not given leave to such wicked acts: lost the very priviledge of a Christi­an, which he injoyes above the Saints in Heaven, which is to suffer: Nay, had there been no Priests and Elders to take away his life, Christ had not dyed; and then, as St. Paul argues, You had been yet in your Sins: When we suffer for sin, we do (as the Latin's, best of all tongues express it) da­re poenas, give in exchange for some unlawful gain, or pleasure, either our body to the Executioner, or our estates to the Exchequer: this is a due debt, which we stand obliged to see satisfied: But when we suffer for doing well, and yet take it patiently, God will in a manner take this as a courtesie from us, as St. Peter implyes, 1 Pet. 2. 20. You need not won­der then, why our Saviour bids his Disciples be exceeding glad at their [Page 8] afflictions; why Peter and John went away rejoycing when they suffered for the Name of Jesus? Why St. Paul was so far from fearing it, that he long'd for his dissolution? Why the Primitive Christians did so much court and admire danger, ruin, and destruction, for thus we glorifie God, and thus he glorifies us again, in accounting us worthy, and admitting us to suffer for his sake, that as the Apostle says, At last we may receive the peaceable fruits of Righteousness.

Besides, if good men were not opprest, we could not have so fair an opportunity to exercise our Charity: I confess we should pity those, whom their own folly hath brought into Calamity, whom Lust and Ryot have cast upon the Bed of Sickness, or whom Pride and Vanity have impo­verished and thrown into Prison: But whom the Zeal of Gods house hath eaten up, and consumed, whom strictness of Conscience hath brought low and diminished, who is poor only, because he durst not be rich for fear of doing ill, this is such an Object of Charity, as a man would travel the world to find out, were there not too many nearer home. Our formerly religious Ancestors have run to Jerusalem to view the pretended Reliques of our Saviour, whether true or no: and thought it worth a pilgrimage to fetch a piece of the wood he suffered on, though perhaps it were a chip of the next Block: whereas in sheltring the afflicted, we bring Christ himself into our Houses, for he acknowledges whatsoever is done to his poor suf­fering Members, is done to himself. It was one of the promises Christ made to his Disciples, that they should alwayes have the poor amongst them, Matth. 26. to assure us, we should never want an opportunity to exercise that most powerful vertue of Charity which can lay so many obligations upon God to hear us, to pardon us, and to reward us both with the bles­sings of this, and a better life; so that if you will but consider how much your own Interest does engage you to help and assist the oppressed, you will scarce find in your hearts to call that Liberality, which benefits the Giver more than the Receiver, but rather confess, by dispersing thus, you shew greater Charity to your selves, then to others. For where can you place your money more securely, then when you make God your Debter? or how can you lay out what you have to greater advantage, then by pur­chasing Heaven with it? one would think to build Churches to the honour of God, is a most high piece of Devotion: Melius est hoc facere, says St. Jerome, quàm repositis opibus incubare; 'tis better indeed to bestow our wealth thus, then keep it by only to look upon. The Holy Father speaks slightly of this kind of Charity, in respect of that which relieves the poor, and values one single Alms well placed, as a greater Munificence farr, then the erecting of the most stately Cathedral: For as St. Chrysostome argues upon the same subject, to build Christ a magnificent Palace, and at the same time suffer him himself in his poor Members to wander up and down for want of a lodging; to offer to his Church a Golden Chalice, and de­ny him a Cup of cold water; to cover his Altars with the richest furniture, whilst he himself goes about naked, is just as if you should see a man almost starv'd with cold and hunger, and then instead of feeding, and cloathing him, you should set up a Golden Statue to his honor, and let him pine with hunger: though the other be commendable, yet certainly this expresses our Piety most, when we supply the wants of the Necessitous, and give the poor and needy a good occasion to bless God, and trust to his Providence hereafter; because thus we build up a Living Temple, which in the Apo­stles phrase is Every true, and sincere Christian. How much more then should you feed your Minister, who so often has fed you? who for your sakes, has, with St. Paul, dyed daily, by venturing himself every hour, and by standing continually with his brest quite open to receive every clap [Page 9] of Thunder, that came against him: So that though he be not a Martyr, yet he is a Confessor (who is next to a Martyr) because he was ready to dye in this good Cause, though he be yet alive, and God preserve him so: therefore in common Gratitude you ought to assist him now in his distress, seeing his Zeal to keep you stead fast in the true Faith, has brought him in­to it. Methinks, I say, you should a little consider him now at parting: for the Question is not now, whether Tythes be due Jure Divino, or, whe­ther the Law of the Gospel, as well as the Law of Moses, require you to give such a measure and proportion to your Minister; but I ask you now whether you will give a man a cup of cold water in the name of a Pro­phet? Whether you think your selves bound in conscience, not to let him starve at your doors as useless, whom you have praised and admired so much? this will be Charity indeed: then you will give, whereas before you did but pay. But on the other side, to say, there goes a good Preacher, 'tis pity he hath nothing to live on, to give him the wall, or your hat in the street, and then be glad in your hearts, you are past by him, to drink his health at your full Tables, whil'st he is ready to perish for hunger, to bring him to your very door in a complement, and then turn him out, is the same piece of Charity, as the Apostle mentions, as if one should say to the hungry, get a good meal, or to the naked, put on your cloaths, when he hath none left to cover him: and be sure what you give, give to God, ra­ther then to the man: And be not like the Ravens who fed Elijah, that knew not what glorious thing it was to feed a Prophet.

Secondly, No man asks this Question, Why does the way of the wicked 2 prosper? but upon a false presumption of his own Righteousness, because, as he conceives, he does not deserve what persecution is laid upon him: and whosoever he be complains thus, if God should lay his sins in order before him proceeding from his evil thoughts, to his evil actions, from his sins of ignorance, to his sins of malice and despight against God, would ra­ther think it reasonable to charge Gods Mercy as too remiss, then his Ju­stice, as too severe. Why does God suffer the wicked to distress the Righ­teous? The Supposition is notoriously false; there hath not happened such a Case since the world began; If, for any ends of his own, God would af­flict a righteous man, he could not possibly find one to exercise this pow­er upon: Perhaps you did never commit Adultery, but did you never cast a lascivious glance? Perhaps you did never stab a man with your dagger, but did you never run one through with your tongue? and though you did not kill your Brother, yet have you not been so much as angry with him, without a cause? Now he that commits the least sin, deserves the Curse, as well as he that commits the greatest, for as St. James excellently gives the reason, for the same God did forbid one, as the other; and he who stands at the door here, is as well out of the Church, as he who is 1000 miles off, though not so far. He that saith he hath no sin lyes, saith the Apostle; at the very heart, he lyes; St. Paul knew nothing by himself, yet for all that he would not quit himself, but refers that wholly to God, He that judges me is the Lord, 1 Cor. 4. 4. who knew his heart better then he himself did: And David cryes out, Cleanse me from my secret sins, O Lord; Sins which fly our sight, that steal from us in crouds, or borrowed shapes, so slighly, as man (who is the most absurd flatterer of himself) cannot discern them: As pride in decency, malice in zeal, hypocrisie in devotion, boasting in charity, covetousness and extortion under the name of providing for our families: wherefore when we meet with those terms of Holy, Just, and Righ­teous given unto men in Scripture, we must not conceive them so, as if they were absolutely Just, Holy, and Righteous, no more than we can say, there is pure earth, or pure water, without the commixture of any other Ele­ment: [Page 10] But when we are said to be innocent, 'tis either meant, in foro hu­mano, because the Law of man can take no hold of us, though God, the searcher of all hearts, may; as St. Paul saith, He was blameless, but not perfect, Phil. 3. Or as righteous Lot in wicked Sodom was, because he loathed to do such horrid things as they did; though he committed Incest, so soon as ever he came forth; or else because God seeing our Hearts and Intentions towards him, is pleased to cover our slips and failings with his mercy, as David is said to have done all things well, excepting the mat­ter of Uriah; not that he could, indeed, clear himself from all guilt (for whosoever marks his story, will find many foul actions besides this of Uriah) but because he did not lye dead in any sin but this; for he had a Child before ever he thought he had committed Adultery.

The Prophet Habakkuk puts the Question into more reasonable terms; who inquires not Why the wicked should devour the Righteous? but, Why the wicked should devour the man, who is more righteous then he? A man may be more righteous, yet not righteous neither: Perhaps he did not deserve it from this, or that man, but from God he did: As David deserved not the disloyalty from Saul, Absolom, and his familiar Friend, yet he deser­ved so much from God, as it was counted an escape when his Child only lost his Life: The Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not dye, saith Nathan to him.

But with what face can we complain against God? We of this sottish and sinful Nation, whose sins are risen so high, as we may very well con­clude, we were markt out to fulfill all the wickedness which is to fore­run the day of Judgment. Do we murmur because our fears have compas­sed us, when our Sins have beset us round about? A Nation wholly divi­ded between Debauchery and Hypocrisie; between open profaneness, the Sin of Sodom, and Lying unto God, the Sin of those Priests and Elders which crucified our Saviour: What if our Churches be thrown down, when we have profaned them by our empty formality? by bringing our Bodies thither, but leaving our minds and hearts fast with some lust at home. This, this was the Idolatry they so often twitted us withal, these were the Images and Pictures we set up in Churches, our empty Bodies that stood here without Souls and Hearts, to attends Gods Service: What? would we call God to protect Stones and Morter? when nothing besides zeal, holiness, and fervency of Devotion, these are the Encania, which do san­ctifie, consecrate, and make a Temple.

The last thing which moves us to ask this Question, Why the wicked pro­sper? 3 is, because we think them in a better condition then they are: Envy not the ungodly, sayes the Psalmist, as if the main ground of our Impatience were our Envy, because we so earnestly dote on these earthly vanities, as we grow mad with such as injoyes them from us, and charge the most righteous God for bestowing them on others, as this very Prophet does in the seventh Chapter, whereas we quite mistake their Condition: The Ob­jection supposes a false thing: For wicked men did never prosper in the world, unless you will call it Happiness for a man to assure Gods wrath upon himself, and to have a liberty to improve his sins, and increase his damnation: and this he does, if you will believe Scripture to be the word of God; for this, which you call prosperity, engages us most certainly to punishment: The threats of Jonah saved Niniveh, though God had set down the very day, in which he would destroy it: But when we go finely on, in a wicked course of life, when we raise an Estate, by false-dealing, this flatters us to go still further, to put off the evil day far from us, and cause the Seat of violence to draw near us, Amos 6. 3. to pull our Lusts still closer and closer to us, but remove the thought of Gods Judgments farther [Page 11] and farther off, till at last we will not believe that he does see, that he does understand, and, which is worse, till we imagine God approves and blesses our sins, because we thrive by it: like Ephraim, who concluded, God should find no iniquity in all his labours, because he was rich: when, at that very time, he held the ballance of deceit in his hands, Hos. 12. 8. It is the last of Gods Judgments when he throws away the Rod, when he will smite us no more; when he lays down his pruning knife, and will dress his Vineyard no more; when he will not pour us out, and wrack us any long­er, bus lets us settle upon the Lees, to putrifie and corrupt; when God gives us over to our vile affections, and delivers us over to Satan already; when he hath bound up our sins in a bundle, as the Prophet saith, Hos. 13. 12. and laid them by himself, till the day of his Feast, his Sacrifice, his Banquet; for these are the terms by the which the Scripture expresses Gods laughter, mirth, and jollity, when he means to glut himself with the bloud of his Adversaries.

Again, we do not only assure our Damnation, but encrease it, by our seeming Prosperity, by having power to commit more and more sins, to treasure up wrath, to proceed from evil to evil, to add iniquity to ini­quity, and so raise mischief to the height, till God cannot in Honour and Justice spare us, nor Mercy it self save us. How long, O Lord! O Lord holy and true, dost thou not judge and revenge our bloud upon them that dwell on the earth, 'tis the loud cry of the martyred Saints, Rev 6. 11. who receive this answer in the next verse, That they should rest yet for a little season, un­til their fellow servants also, and their brethren, that should be killed, as they were, should be fulfilled: as long as there remained one Saint to destroy, they should live and govern. That (as our Saviour tells the Pharisees) upon them might come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, even since the beginning of the world: Did men consider this, would they believe wicked men happy, because they laugh and sing? because they have as many Cly­ents pressing upon them here, as they shall have worms crowding to them in the Graue? Alas! we should rather pity and pray for them, as much, as if we saw them, like the Lunaticks in the Gospel, cutting and tearing their own flesh: For the Lord is not slack, he is but fitting up, and preparing all this while, whetting his Sword, bending his Bow, making ready his Arrows, putting on his Armour, and then the Lord will go out with a shout, as the Psalmist says, and all the world shall say, Verily there is a reward for the Righteous, verily there is a God that judges the earth.

Why then art thou troubled, O my soul, or why art thou disquieted within me? trust in the Lord, who will yet deliver thee: For the Devil himself cannot so much as stir without Gods leave, as appears by many Examples in Job and the Gospel too, and wicked men are but Gods Instruments, his Hammer, and his Hatchet, as the Prophet Isaiah calls them, with which he cuts, carves, polishes, and works our hearts; which otherwise would remain rude stone for ever.

Think of this, and it will still the murmuring Spirit when it is within thee, and when ever this Tempter doth assault thee to ask this Question, Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper? do as the Prophet does in this Text, Enquire of God, talk and discourse with God; for it is not the wit of Seneca, the gravity of Plutarch, nor the distinctions of Epictetus, which can solve this Objection, but the Gospel only; which tells us of a Judgment to come, and a Resurrection, without which, we of all men would be most miserable, as the Apostle himself acknowledges, to let others run away with the profit and pleasure of this world, whilst we brutishly look on, and pine for hunger: Nor, which is worse, let us in our desperate humors go into the house of mirth, to drown the cry of our wants, with the noise of a rio­tous [Page 12] jollity: What would you forget your miseries? I thought you had with St. Paul, gloried in your Tribulations, if ye know ye are innocent: then are you miserable indeed, when by your murmuring and repining, you go from one Hell to another; from poverty here, to eternal torments hereafter.

Oh, rather let me entreat you all to wait, wait, I say, upon God; do not through your impatience, loose your affliction, and the benefit of that hour, wherein every one of you shall say, It is good for me that I was afflicted; tarry the Lords leisure; stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord: For all this will have a good issue, at least, in the other world, if not in this: Where God shall wipe every tear from our eyes, turn our howling into sing­ing, Phil. 1. 12. 13. when he shall bring forth the eternal weight of Glory, which is laid up for all that shall endure unto the end: and so Lord Jesus come quickly.

AS that great Philosopher wrote over his School-door, That, none should presume to enter there, unless he had learn'd some Mathematicks: So our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, requires one Principle of his Disciples likewise, as a necessary qualification, be­fore their admittance into his Church, namely, To resolve before hand thus much, never to regard a­ny thing hereafter besides him, to strip our selves of all earthly considerations whatsoever; to go continually with our lives and fortunes in our hands, ready in an instant to lay them down, as soon as ever the Lord hath need of them: So as none must dare to follow Christ, with­out his Cross. Few amongst us but grant all this; we are ready enough to acknowledge all this, till God comes to prove us. For how pleasant does it seem to discourse of a storm at Sea, under a warmer roof? of banishment, at home in our own houses? of imprisonment, as we ride abroad? to mag­nifie, extoll, and, as it were, paint the Cross of Christ, with our fine speeches, in our success: but when tribulation begins to appear, we with­draw our shoulders quite from under it: then we stand upon our guard with our poor, slender distinctions, putting by danger, and most dishonou­rably, shift our selves out of the way, till, at last, we grow to the height of impudence, as to make it a Case of Conscience to renounce the command of God, that we may preserve our selves, though it be by forswearing Christ: a piece of the same valour, as if a man should describe a battel well with his finger in wine upon a Table; or read some valiant Story with life and vigour, but in the field start at the report of a Gun. Wherefore St. Paul in this Epistle did very providentially, being now a prisoner of Jesus Christ in Rome, exposed to the fury of merciless Nero, who did ryot it in nothing more, then in the bloud and ruin of innocent people; I say, St. Paul did very wisely encourage the Philippians here, to stand fast, to fear no opposition, but to go on boldly forwards in every work of a Christian, notwithstanding the terrible persecution was now begun. For do you not conceive this advice seasonable to his absent friends, when all his present acquaintance had forsaken him? as he complains to the Corin­thians: For affliction did make the Prophets themselves question Provi­dence, and almost turn'd them Atheists; affliction hath had power enough to remove rocks, as we find by St. Peter, and to stir that very foundation upon which Christ built his Church: it's so great a temptation, as Almigh­ty [Page 14] God try'd Abraham, with it ten times, before he would say, he was Faith­ful. Now that his sufferings might not more prevail upon them, then they did upon himself, by putting them into a fright, least they might suffer the like; to fix their constancy, he uses these Arguments.

First, As for himself, they should not bemoan him, because, though he was laid in Irons, yet the Word of God was not bound; the Gospel, that had freer passage by this his confinement: for though his person could never have been admitted into Nero's Palace, yet his afflictions had converted some, even of Caesars houshold, in the first and last Chapters. So that considering the things which happened to him, fell out thus to the furthe­rance Phil. 1. 12. 13. of the Gospel, they ought to joy with him, because he was in prison, it being only a more convenient place to preach in, where he might be heard the better; for the voice of his sufferings reached further then his tongue could possibly do.

Then again, in respect of themselves; why should they complain, if Christ would vouchsafe them the honour to put his own Crown of Thorns upon their Head? If he would please to exalt them, and lift them up to his own Cross? they should rather boast and be exceeding glad, for thus they tread his steps whom they profess to follow, in the other Chapters: and afterwards concludes the whole Epistle with a most pathetical acknowledg­ment of their great Liberality in supplying his present wants.

So that however Origen pleases to taxe St. Pauls writings, as broken, rug­ged, and unequal; yet here both his matter and stile glides so smooth and eaven, that we easily see to the very bottom of it. But least these Philip­pians might mistake the joy he conceiv'd at this their charitable expression towards him, either as proceeding from a covetous desire to fill his pock­ets, or out of too much carefulness to secure himself against want for the future, he tells them plainly, that indeed, they solely, had contributed to his necessities, of all the Churches besides; that they had not relieved him, once onely, but once and again, v. 13. that is, very often, according to the Greek Phrase: And, in this, the Apostle applauds them, You have well done, v. 14. of this Chapter. But why? wherein does the blessedness of this action consist? in relieving him? in feeding him? meerly in feeding his belly? No: No such matter: But because in parting thus freely with their goods to supply him, they rais'd a bank in Heaven for themselves; and in giving to him, became far more liberal to themselves, as it follows in my Text: Not because I desire a gift, but I desire fruit that may abound un­to your account.

Where you see the Philippians liberality, at the same instant, refused, and accepted by St. Paul: Refus'd under the Notion of a Gift, and as it meer­ly serv'd his turn; Not because I desire a Gift: but most gratefully Accep­ted, as it did respect and benefit those who did give, expressed in these words, but I desire fruit, that may abound to your account.

I begin first to consider the Philippians liberality towards the Apostle, under the Notion as he refuses it, namely, as a Gift; Not that I desire a Gift.

A Gift? A Gift does he say? Why? suppose he had indeed received their liberality, as a maintenance for himself to feed and cloath him only? Suppose he had sent to them particularly for a subsistence from them? with­out any regard to the benefit which they should reap by giving: Imagine, I say, the Apostle had expected a most speedy return from them, meerly that he himself might live: Yet could they look upon their Bounty, as a meer Gratuity, or a thing given away? Or, indeed, could they boast of any more done, then they stood bound to do? Will you perswade me St. Paul even in this had desired a Gift? You acknowledge your selves obliged to dis­charge [Page 15] the Bills of Fare; though they cost you as much again in Physick to cure the surfeits you got by them? 'tis a just and a due debt, which your wantonness in apparel hath contracted, and this you must quit, though you sell half your land for't: and you think you wrong and neglect your selves extreamly, if you don't prove your Hearts with the madness of Mirth, and the folly of Pleasure, whatsoever it costs you: 'tis just and noble to pay to your Lusts; nothing but right to feed them: But to feed the hungry; to cloath the naked; to House him who knows not where to lay his head; to perform all those Acts of Charity which stile us Christians, more then Faith it self, as St. Paul acknowledges; This, of all things, we 1 Cor. 13. 13. esteem indifferent, accompting what we lay down here, as given, or ra­ther, thrown away. 'Tis true, St. Paul could not have su'd them, had they sent him nothing: for in those times of persecution, what Court of Justice stood open for poor Christians, but to condemn them? Or how can you imagine this Apostle should be suffer'd to accuse another, who was not permitted to defend Himself? especially recover maintenance by the Judgment of those men who did not think him worthy to live? yet still not­withstanding all this, in those very days, where it was death to relieve a Christian, where, whosoever put forth his hand to succour them, did in a manner, stab himself; yet then in relieving, they did but pay St. Paul what they ow'd Him; nor so much gave an Alms, as they stroke out a Debt, to which they stood ingaged. For take the Apostle in his private capacity, on­ly as a common Christian; thus they were bound to relieve him, bound by the Law of Charity; Mark you the Law of Charity: they are Lawyers, and Philosophers only, who tell you, the Acts of bounty and liberality fall not under the strict rules of Debt, and Obligation: for the Scripture mentions a Law of Charity, and calls Charity the fulfilling of the Law; as if truly, there were no Law but it: and as all Laws have some punish­ment, either tacitly implied, or openly annexed, to make them obligatory and binding: so hath also this Law of Charity. For if it be a punishment to be thrown into a lower Hell then Gomorrah, and to suffer more then So­dom; if it be a punishment at the last day, to be cast by upon Christs left Hand; to live eternally in utter darkness, without any Light; besides that of a sinful Conscience; if it be a punishment for Christ not to own us, when he comes to Judge the world; if any part of this, singly; or all put toge­ther, deserve the name of punishment; then, I'me sure, who receives not a Disciple, feeds not the hungry, cloaths not the naked, will certainly be pu­nished. If I should ask a Lawyer, why I may not commit Murder, or why I must needs satisfie my Creditors; He'l presently answer, because I should loose my life for one, and my liberty for my offending in the other: yet I may possibly corrupt the witnesses, bribe the Judge, or by a quirk, fool and out-wit the Statute; or, it is possible, by using violence successfully, turn the point of the sword upon him who should punish with it: and, pray, where will our Lawyer then fix the obligation? If I am bound only, be­cause I shall receive a punishment here, when 'tis ods, but by my Secrecy, Art or Power, I may escape the penalty of Humane Laws: Why then do we put such stress upon these Laws, which none of us would keep, beyond his con­veniency and interest, were there not a power above them, who commands our obedience? Or why should we say an Alms is not due to a poor man, because he cannot recover it in the Court? and heedlesly pass by one di­stressed, and drop no Comfort, because he cannot take out a Writ against us, or because the Jury will not find it? when God will punish us for our hard heartedness; God from whose power no wings can carry us; nor, as the Prophet speaks, Hell it self hide us. They then who admire the Law of the Land so much, and direct their Actions meerly according unto it; I [Page 16] think, had they lived in Sparta, would have killed both father and mother, because there the Law did not punish parricide.

But may some object: If I am bound to express my Charity to him who Object. needs it; why should a poor man thank me for my Alms? for how do I shew any extraordinary kindness unto him in doing my own Duty, in be­stowing that on him, which I was obliged to give him? This seems quite to abolish two of the most noble Vertues among men; Love and Gratitude: Love, in taking away the sweetness which alone gives it the Relish, by ma­king every charitable Action involuntary; and not leaving it to our choice, whether we will do good, or no: and then it cuts off all civil acknowledg­ments between us whatsoever. If I am ty'd to seed the Hungry, why may not they sit down at my Table without Invitation? and if I must cloath the Naked, why may not he come and demand a Garment of me? this appears to gain him a Right: for in all civil Commerce between man and man where one is bound to give, another may certainly challenge it as his own.

I answer, This doctrine does neither the one nor the other, neither de­stroys Answ. Gratitude, nor takes away Love, which must be free and uncon­streined. For though God enjoyns me to relieve the oppressed, yet he gives them no power to constrein me: so as a beneficial Act, is an act of meer Indulgence, as to him who cannot enforce it from me; but a due debt, as towards God, who gave me what I have, for no other end, then to deal it about as he hath commanded; 'tis an Act of Charity and Choice, in regard of him whom we relieve: an Act of Justice and Necessity, in respect of God, who hath enjoyn'd It: and you may easily apprehend somewhat due to a man, when he himself can lay no claim to it. This is no Paradox: I'le give you an instance; Suppose you send a present by some Messenger (as here the Philippians did by Epaphroditus) and he turns it to another use, and mispends it, so as the present never comes to him for whom you meant it: you see plainly, the money was due to him unto whom you sent it; yet he shall never recover it by Law, because he never possessed it: but the Own­er, he who sent it, shall have a good Action against the Messenger for breach of Trust. In like manner (for we all are but Stewards to lay out what God gives us, as He shall dispose it) if I take no notice of the Cry of the poor, when God hath put money in my hand to give him; though the beggar here can have no relief from any Court of Justice, yet God (whose Talent I have either hid through Covetousness, or consumed in Prodigality) will, at the last, exact a most severe accompt of me: For I owe it to God, though I do not to the man: and God challenges the Acts of Charity as such a peculiar debt to himself, as he will not have man so much as know when we pay it, least they may seem to share in it; but commands us to bestow our benevolence in all secrecy imaginable; He will scarce allow us our selves to be privy to our own gifts, nor our right hand know, what our left hand gives away.

You see then, without taking in the particular obligation of the Philip­pians to St. Paul, as their Apostle (which we shall consider by and by) that put the case, he had requested some benevolence from them; yet had he not then beg'd downright, or desir'd a bare Gift: nor could they justly have imputed it to him as a Gratuity only, because in some sense, they were bound to do it, as much as if he had had their bond for it: for God com­mands us to be charitable; who is said many times, to leave Heaven, and come down from thence only to judg the poor and needy. No (my Bre­thren) then you give when you grant out a Revenew to one for his close drawing the curtain to an unclean bed; then you give when you maintain your flatterer high and kicking; then you give, when, like Judah, you come to pay for your unlawful Lusts, with the pure God, who cannot be­hold [Page 17] iniquity has forbidden you to contract for: This, this is to give; but for your Minister, who leads you by the hand to the very gates of Hea­ven; who begets you again, not unto a life, which beasts and trees injoy as well as you, but to a spiritual and eternal Being; would you indeed lay down all that you have at his feet, were you then out of his debt, to whom you owe even your own selves, as St. Paul tells Philemon?

But then, secondly, St. Paul did not desire a Gift, only to benefit himself, because he wanted nothing: they quite mistook his condition, if they look't upon him as a necessitous person: He might perchance seem dying, when, behold, he liv'd: appear outwardly sorrowful, yet rejoyced alwayes: seem then poor himself, when he had made many rich: and look as if he had no­thing, when he possessed all things, 2 Cor. 6. Not that I want, saith the Apo­stle, a little before my Text; he would not have them think so meanly of him, as if he needed their Benevolence, though he had nothing, not so much as a roof to shelter him from the weather, were it not for a Prison: And he gives this reason in the same verse, for I have learnt (saith he) in whate state soever I am, therewith to be content: I, this is the knowledge which makes us wise, rich, free, happy, every thing, supplies all our wants, and sets us above dan­ger; to have learnt quietly to submit our selves to God, in all the variety of his dispensations, to be content, [...], 'tis a word which our English will not well express, to be self-sufficient, to have provision within our selves a­gainst all accidents; when a Christian arrives to such a pass, as, like God, he stands in need of nothing in this world, though he can use it, if he hath it, yet doth he not want it, if he hath it not; neither meat in Famine, nor cloaths in his Nakedness, nor liberty in Prison, but is [...], wholly able to pre­serve himself without those outward helps: This is not to live in the world, Col. 2. 20. to have our Conversation in heaven already, and there discourse with none but God and Angels: Thus we may shame a Tyrant, and puff at his Terrors. For what, I beseech you, can the most subtle in curses invent against such, who call Banishment, a going to travel, Imprisonment, a get­ting out of a throng; who say, to dye, is to lye down to sleep? It is as im­possible to torment these, as to confine a Spirit; or to lay shackles upon that thing which has no Body to bear them: For you must not esteem these kind of expressions, the heat only of a luxuriant wit, because whatever hap­pens in this life is [...] (as one most excellently calls it) whose whole be­ing consists meerly in Relation, seems good to such as like it, and evil to such as think the contrary; just like meat, which though it nourish one, may kill another. His Brethren thought they had sold Joseph into a strange Coun­try to destroy him; but, he says, God sent him before to provide for their whole Family. So this Apostle collects with himself, that, if he dy'd, he should go to his Saviour, and, if he liv'd, he should serve his Brethren. If he were at liberty, his tongue should preach, but, being in prison, his suffer­ings did further the Gospel much more: If he met with all friends, they would receive the Truth chearfully, and if he found enemies, they would preach Christ for him, though out of strife and envy: With him to dye was gain, and to live was gain: He took every thing by the right ear, and found some benefit in every condition whatsoever: whether by good report, or by disgrace, whether by the left hand, or by the right, whether by hatred 2 Cor. 6. or out of good will, whether by life or death, if Christ were preached, he lookt no farther, he had his end, that unum necessarium, the advancement of the Gospel, and whatsoever happened besides this, he esteemed as an addi­tional complement which he might very well spare, and yet remain an Apo­stle still: But now on the other side, what a continued torment is a mans life, without this spiritual carelesness, this holy neglect of our earthly Being? Then are we born to misery indeed, if a moth, rust, or canker can make us [Page 18] wretched; If the trouble, which (as our Saviour says) belongs to every sin­gle day, can sully our mirth, and cast us down; If every wind and breath of an insulting Tyrant can twirl us about to all points of the Compass; If we make our selves the shadow of the times, and take both form and figure only as men do Rise, and Set; like some flowers, if we shut and open just as they shine, or not upon us; 'twere better a Mill-stone were tyed about our neck, and we were cast into the midst of the Sea (for that would keep us steddy.) Thus to halt, to be divided, as the word imports, be­tween Heaven and Earth, Light and Darkness, God and Mammon; It breeds the same deformity in the Soul, as would appear in the Body. If you fancied a man lookt with one ey directly up to the skie, and at the same time pitched the other ey streight down upon the ground; how ugly would such a one seem unto you? This, this is the carefulness; or rather, this denying of Gods Providence, which makes so many desire a gift; desire it? Nay, most impudently, make it their whole design and business of their lives, to get it: mounting the Pulpit as they would do a Bank, and there sell of their Drugs for Medicines, when, in truth, they poyson the very Soul: Whence is it else, that they preach their dreams, calling that the word of God, which hits in their heads, when they cannot sleep? Who bite with their teeth (as Micha says) eat on, and talk as the company will have it; and (as it follows in the same verse) who puts not into their mouths, and gives not what they expect, they even prepare a war against him, Micha 3. 5. nay blot him out of their book of life: Doggs ('tis St. Pauls word to them, or else I durst not use it) Phil. 3. 2. that divine for money, who will be rich, whose greatest triumph is to lead captive silly women: Men that will help up a sin into your bosome, which otherwise, perhaps, a tender Conscience, would keep down, and set a whole City a fire, and then, like Nero, stand by and play to it: Men, without whom no mischief ever had a beginning, nor by whom shall ever any have an end. Give me leave, I beseech you, to bend this crooked bough as much the o­ther way, and call such to St. Pauls example, who when he was to preach a new Law, preach'd [...], the Gospel without charge, 1 Cor. 9. who put his hands to work night and day, that they might not receive any thing but from himself; And I heartily wish, what the Apostle did here of choice, the Civil Magistrate would whip them to: for they are a scandal to their beautiful Profession, to preach Providence, and at the same time scrape together; as if God, who provides for all things, would have more care of a crow, or the grass of the field, then of man whom he created after his own Image; as if he who sent forth his Disciples without scrip or pen­ny, did it only to destroy them; and how shall the people credit those who preach the contempt of the world to their Congregations, when they see these Foxes would only have their Auditors leave the world that they may enjoy it wholly to themselves; calling that the Kingdom of Christ, when they themselves raign, or rather, when Lust raigns in them; Whereas St. Paul often urg'd this, as an Argument to confirm his Doctrine, that he took nothing for it.

Thirdly, St. Paul did not desire a Gift, because their Benevolence kept him still alive, heartned his body up and prolong'd his days: which, con­sidering St. Pauls condition was cruel mercy, the greatest injury they could possibly do him, to hold him thus from his Saviour, with whom he long'd to be: For the Apostle had fully weigh'd the poizes both of life and death, & concluded, the most beneficial thing to him, if he lookt only after his own advantage, was Death, having a desire to depart, and be with Christ, which is the better, Phil. 1. 23. For, pray resolve me, what kindness is it to fetch a wretch devoted and given up to affliction, necessity, and distresses, to stripes, imprisonment, tumults, to fasting, watching, and all kind of labours, 2 Cor. [Page 19] 6. to make much of a man only, that he may last out to torment? to set his joynts, that he may go on upon the rack again? to strengthen and enable him, that he may suffer yet more? to bind up his wounds, as they did the Slaves in Rome, meerly that he might fight with more beasts? This is the same pity, simply so considered; as if you should give strong Cordials to one irre­coverably sick, to lengthen and draw out his pain, least he should not feel what he endured? to wake a condemned man, and tell him he must dye? Evasit, says the Tyrant, of one who had prevented his fury by a timely death; Evasit, in dying quickly, he has made an escape, he got away, and has out-run me now: for there, in the Grave, the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest, Job 3. 13. The prisoner and the oppressor there lye quiet both together, and there, every one is free, in the next verse; and therefore, if we consider Death, only as a Rest from labour, the Apostle had no reason to be solicitous with what to preserve his life any longer: For we mistake exceedingly, if we think life, as life, is desirable; for there are some that dig to find a Grave, as much as they would do to discover a Mine, as Job speaks: and God, when he would reward some memorable act of pie­ty Job 3. 21. in a man, takes him out of the way before his Judgments come; which made the Prophet, when he could not turn away Gods wrath utterly, pray'd the women might have miscarrying wombs; and the Apostles seeing the per­secution begin to rage, advises the Christians not to marry, lest they should 1 Cor. 3. only bring forth to the Sword and Faggot: Now not to be born and death, are, in effect, all one; they are both equally alike, not to be here.

Again, Imagine the world had treated and dealt kindly with the Apostle, yet then he needed not much care for means, to keep up his life any longer, for he calls himself now, Paul the aged: a time when we might choose death Philem. 9. meerly out of satietie; because it is tedious to do the same things over and over again so often; to eat and be a hungry, and then eat again, to sleep and then wake, and then sleep again, to see things still go about in the same circle; to behold peace breeding luxury, luxury war, and war smooth into peace again; for is there any thing whereof it might be said, this is new? Solo­mon Eccl. 1. 10. asks the Question, who had proved all things, and at last concludes by a particular Induction (the surest Demonstration of any whatsoever) That, as the Sun goes round, as the rivers hasten to the Sea from whence they came; as the wind goes round the points of heaven, and whirls about con­tinually; so the actions of men have their circuits too: and whatever you wonder at in this or that Age, you may find the same in another, for there is no new thing under the Sun. The Apostles years therefore, he being now grown old, might induce him, not to be much concern'd how he should live, being now full of days, as the Scripture most elegantly expresses it; ha­ving taken a perfect view now of whatever this world can afford (which requires no long time to look over, for Christ saw it all in a moment, Luke 4. 14.) and then I know not what a man has to do, but to despise it, and leave it with no more regret, then he would walk out of garden, where he found nothing that liked him: But there is a far higher Contemplation, not only to render living inconsiderable to a Christian, but likewise to ravish our thoughts up from hence, and that is the the promises of the Gospel, where we behold Heaven open, and those eternal Joyes revealed there, which have lain hid ever since the foundations of the Earth. If there were one that killed himself at reading Plato's immortality of the Soul; If it be true, that there are yet some Heathens, who usually make away themselves upon no o­ther account, but because they would be in heaven; If natural Reason can cast meer Gentiles into such admiration of that Bliss; What will you say to St. Paul, who was wrapt up alive into the Third Heavens, and saw what [Page 20] the Saints enjoyed above, though he could not express it when he came back? with what scorn, do you think, he trod upon the ground afterwards, when the Angel set him down again here? Who was fain to have a thorn run into 2 Cor. 3. his flesh, before he could find himself to be a Man: can you imagine he would petition for liberty, whose very body seemed a prison to him, till he re­turned to Christ again? Or would he sue for a supply, to detain him from that which became his wish, his dissolution? how would you fret at him who should lengthen the race, when you had almost won it? or stake the prize yet farther off, when you had almost caught it? Just such a courtesie is it to relieve him who would dye any way, that he might quickly enjoy his Saviour: 'tis but deferring and putting off his happiness the longer, as if an unexpected supply should renew the fight then, when we thought we had now gotten the day; Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink (says Christ) surely this precept is needless to the Matth. 6. 25. Disciples of Christ: Me-thinks he should rather allay our desire, then fear of death, who do expect such great things after it: Me-thinks he should rather advise us that we should not out of hasty longing to be in Heaven, neglect the means of continuing our being in this life: But, O you of little faith! to talk of the blessedness the Saints of God enjoy above, and yet use the most base, abject, and sordid means to live here, and to keep your selves from it: If then we cannot apprehend the Apostles here as a necessi­tous person, nor any way concern'd to prolong his days by shifting about for maintenance, but rather obliged to leave this world as soon as he could, that he might enjoy a better: We must think of some other Reason why St. Paul entertain'd their Benevolence with such joy: Which leads me to the Consideration under which he accepted their Liberality; viz. for their sakes, not his own; But I desire fruit that may abound to your account, &c.

Fruit! as fruit of their Patience, that they durst own one whom the world had not only laid by, as useless, but tyed up as dangerous; and fruit of their Love, that they would acknowledge him; and fruit of their Constancie, that they persevered still to admire the glory of the Gospel, though clouded with so much opposition, as the whole world had now set it up as a mark to shoot at: and as the fruit of their Zeal; for in sending part of their substance to supply him, they gave testimony that they would part with the whole, and lives, and all, to advance the Kingdom of Christ: and lastly, as fruit of his Ministery, wherein he saw he had not run in vain, suf­fered in vain, or scattered his seed amongst stones or thorns: for in this he perceived that neither the fears nor love of the world had choaked it; be­cause, as he tells the Galatians, they neither despised, nor spued him up again Gal. 4. 14. (as the word imports) when he was in misery, but in the midst of his di­stress lookt upon him as an Angel of God; nay, received him even as Jesus Christ (as it is in the same verse) at this he triumphs, at this he rejoyces in the Lord exceedingly, in this Chapter, v. 12. This makes him cry out here, I am full, I abound, not so much for his receiving, as for Gods ac­cepting; nor because what was sent, came to him, but because it went up into Heaven, like a sweet smell, and of an Alms, because a Sacrifice, in the sixth verse: For indeed, the intention only of the Giver commends the gift; because a man may give his body to be burned, yet never be a Martyr; di­stribute all whatsoever he hath to the poor, yet not be charitable: for he-may send his presents upon a hook to catch some greater thing, like those in the Gospel, who made one feast, that others might invite them to many, and therein he gives to his Covetousness: Or he may give, as he in the Gospel, only to rid himself of an importunate beggar, and then he gives to his ease and quiet: Or again, he may give like the Pharisees, with trumpets, and then [Page 21] he gives to his ambition: Or lastly, he may give, as some preached the Go­spel in St. Pauls time, out of strife and contention, not to keep up the Man, but the Faction: as Kings send relief to those whom they hate, only to poize the scales, not that they may overcome, but that they may be in a condition to fight on: But as St. Peter says, their money perish with them, who give to a Disciple, and not in the name of a Disciple, and receive a Pro­phet, yet not in the name of a Prophet. Plato being asked what God does in Heaven, how he busies and imployes himself there, how he passes away eternity, made this answer, [...], He works Geometrically: and in judg­ing of our works of Charity, God most apparently does so: For the pro­portion of Faith, as St. Paul calls it, in this particular, is meerly Geome­trical; where we must not compare sum with sum, as they do in a market, or value the gift more or less by telling it; but argue thus, as what he be­stows is in proportion to his Estate, so is what I bestow unto mine: And in this sense, you know, the widows two mites were recorded as a more bountiful and a larger present, then if Solomon had thrown the wealth of his Kingdoms into the Treasury. 'Twas the Faith therefore from which their Liberality proceeded, which cheared the Apostle in all his distresses; not the gift it self: Now, says he, we live, if you stand fast in the Lord: This 1 Thes. 3. 8. he call'd a life, not to eat and drink; for what good would all their pre­sents have done him, if they, for whose sake he professes he would fast all his life time, should have fallen off from him? If it is not eating and drink­ing which feeds the Minister, as our Saviour says, He hath meat which the 1 Cor. 9. world knows not of, to hold fast those that stand, lest they fall down, to see the Gospel spread wider and wider; this is to enrich a true Minister; to gain whole Territories unto Christ, and to leave them the Land, and to win whole Kingdoms over, not unto himself, but God: Wherefore in the fourth Chap­ter, v. 1. St. Paul calls these Philippians, whom he had instructed with such success, His Joy, and his Crown: for if there be degrees of Bliss hereafter, as our Saviour, as well as the Prophets, seem to imploy; if there be certain Lofts and Stories in Heaven; higher and higher Mansions in that Kingdom, we may not doubt but he who converts a Soul to God, as he is said to en­crease the joyes of Heaven by doing it, so certainly he shall partake more of them, and shine as a Star for ever and ever, Dan. 12. 3. But yet the A­postle seems to decline even this consideration likewise of himself, to dis­claim any interest of his own in promoting their good, nor to intend in it so much as his own Salvation, Therefore I endure all things for the Elects sake, that they also may obtain Salvation which is in Christ Jesus (saith the 2 Tim. 2. 10. same Apostle:) Therefore it might reasonably be presumed, that he ran those many hazards to avoid that terrible woe which he denounces against himself if he preached not the Gospel: But, behold here the last and utmost 1 Cor. 9. expression of Integrity; he waves this, and as if he could not enjoy that Heaven without them, proposes this as the sole end and design of all his Labors, not to save himself, but them, That they also may obtain the salva­tion of God; as if he meant literally, when he said for his Brethren he Rom. 9. 3. could wish himself accursed even from Christ; and in the manner, here in my Text, He desires their Bounty, not so much as a fruit of their affecti­on towards Him, or as an Act of Christian Charity any otherwise then as it did benefit them to give; But I desire fruit which may abound to your Ac­count.

Which their Charity to St. Paul produced many ways: As first by stri­king off a Debt from their Account, to which they stood engaged: for Charity (as I have shewed you) is a due Debt, though we cannot sue for it in a Court of Justice, because God alone, not man, hath a Right rigorou­sly to force this Duty from us: But if you look upon St. Paul, as an Apostle, [Page 22] and above an ordinary Christian, what did they owe him then? For, how did St. Paul grow into want? was it not for their sakes? did he not dye, even every day that they might live once for all? Had he kept his Religion close to himself, and warily shifted faces with every company he met, as Peter does in the second of the Galatians: had he sate quietly at home, and not run from one Country to another, from City to City, from Town to Town, from Village to Village, as if he had been to draw a Map; or (which is the sly Providence of this our Age) had he in his preaching, not only let alone the sore, but smoothed it over; as praising thrift to a covetous man, and liberality to a prodigal, and commended courage and magnanimity be­fore a stout and sturdy Rebel; like a politick physician, applying a reme­dy to the Legg, when the distemper lies in the Head: nay, had St. Paul but used himself that common circumspection and caution, which he allows to others, perhaps he might have been able to relieve some of them: But when he was brought from Judge to Judge, from Prison to Prison, from Court to Court; suffering that long Catalogue of Torments which he gives us in the Epistle to the Corinthians, till he wearied his persecutors, and till they entreat him to go out of prison, Act. 20. and all, because he taught them the truth sincerely. If we could invent an obligation more binding then a debt, surely you would think that due from them to him; who had begotten them, nay, who was sacrificed for them, and saved them; (for these glorious terms the Apostle gives himself) saved them (I say) not their Bodies from the Grave, but their Souls from Death. O my Brethren, there was a time when men sold all they had, and laid it down at the Apostles feet; there was a time, even in our memory, when Sacriledg was thought a sin, and men conceived the maintenance of a lawful Clergy, as sacred as their own Revenues: in the time when axes and hammers were lifted up to build, not to break down the carved works of the Sanctuary; yet something is due still, at least to give a cup of cold water in the name of a Prophet, to hold up their weak hands, and to support their feeble knees with your staff of Bread. For though St. Paul would have worked with his hands now, had they not been lock't up with manicles, rather then prove burdensome to them (for then was not a time to receive Gifts in the infancy of the Church) yet he always says, he might claim it as a recom­pence, that he had power to challenge it; and proves it by all kind of Arguments: 1 Cor. 9. from Custom, Reason, and Scripture: and least you should pretend the abrogation of this Law by Christ; the Apostle adds, v. 14. That the Lord hath ordained, that they who preach the Gospel, should live of the Gospel: he hath ordained it, enacted it, and made it a Law for ever; he hath tied and bound you up to it for ever; it is not left to your choice and discretion. And our Saviour, when he sends out his A­postles, calls their maintenance their Hire, Mat. 10. 10. as if there did pass a tacite contract and bargain between the Preacher and the Audience, that if he feeds their souls, they should feed his body; if he gives them the wa­ter of life, he may claim a draught from out of their well, as due: and that he who deals the bread of life about, should have, in return, the bread that perishes; a fair exchange, you'l say, on your parts; Carnal for Spiri­tual things, and a Birth-right that gives you title to become the heirs of God, for a small mess of porridge.

The second advantage we have by Charity is, the Exercise of our Patience before the day of Tryal come upon us. Who (pray) among you would leave, at this very instant, his whole Estate to preserve his Conscience, if violence should offer to take it from him? or who would go immediately from this very place to the stake, if God should call him thither? but Charity leads us to this perfection; for whosoever gives away of his own willingly, may come in time, to endure [Page 23] quietly, if it be forced from him: and who can chearfully part with some to relieve his Brethren, will at last arrive so far, as contentedly to loose all, so he may preserve his Conscience. My Brethren, 'tis all the business of our Time, Diligence, and Experience to be a Christian: for though God did sometimes extraordinarily pour forth as much of his Spirit into some Ves­sels of Mercy as enabled them, at once, to become Christians and Martyrs both together, ready to lay down their lives for the Faith as soon as ever they did believe: Yet 'tis said of Christ, that notwithstanding he was a Son, yet learnt he obedience by the things which he suffered, Heb. 5. 8. He learnt it: Let others learn to measure the Earth, do you learn to de­spise it: and let Philosophers dispute the causes of lightnings, storms and thunder, but do you Christians learn the way to Mount Sion, where you may stand above them all.

The last and highest benefit we receive by our Charity, is, that as God will most severely punish the neglect of this duty, so if we do perform it, he will account himself in debt to us: for [...], God will 1 Pet. 3. thank you for this: for this God will, in a manner, acknowledge himself beholding to you. You lend to the Lord, lend to him who possesses all al­ready; as if God would willingly part with his whole right and title to this world, so we, in compassion to our poor Brethren, would give him the least return of it again: God owes you a blessing which you shall be sure to have, not only hereafter but here also, if we can believe God, for whom it is impossible to lye. For as God did certainly punish some with temporal punishments for offending against the Gospel, as he did the Corinthians with diseases and sudden death, for their prophaning the Lords Supper: So 1 Cor: 11. 30. likewise may not we doubt, but God, under the Gospel also, rewards those who obey, even with temporal blessings; and, if you observe it, nothing prospers here better, then this vertue of Charity. For the very Politian himself advises us to help our very enemies, if we mistrust they can get out of themselves, because thus we shall make them our friends. Beasts have so much reason and civility to return a courtesie: Nature is still calling upon us for this duty, so earnestly, as some have wished their very friends (to whom they stand most obliged) in misery, for no other reason, but that they might relieve them, and be quit of this debt: On the contrary, 'tis remarkable what great advantages some have missed, meerly because they knew not how to give in season: For there is he (saith Solomon) that with­holds what is meet, but it tends to poverty, Prov. 11. 24. But suppose men do turn inhumane and ungrateful, yet still he that gives to the poor shall not lack, Prov. 28. 27. For God in your extremities will either afford you an [...], a place to slip out of, or else give you strength to suffer; which in effect, is all one. No great matter whether the three Children be in the Furnace or out of it, so the flame does not so much as singe them: and then you will, without all question, receive an ample reward in the world to come: For if Heaven do stand open to such as have their sins forgiven, then you, for your Charity shall be sure to enter in, for Charity shall cover the multitude of sins. If your luxury did make your Saviour faste, the feed­ing of his afflicted members, that will feed him again: and if your wanton­ness in apparel stript him, in covering their nakedness, you shall cloath him again: in short, if your sins crucified him, in relieving them you revive him, and make him alive again upon the earth. This Sacrifice will expiate all, Give to the poor what thou hast, and all shall be clean unto you, says our Sa­viour, Luke 11. 41. Again, do you think such as do all the whole will of God shall inherit eternal life? then your Charity must of necessity let you in: for Charity is the fulfilling both of the Law and the Prophets, and Gospel too: What do you talk of Sermons, and of hanging Religion at the [Page 24] Ear? when we are bound to break the Sabbath to save but an Ox or Ass? what Ordinance may not we then trample under foot to relieve a Man? or do you think lying down and believing will serve the turn? When the Harlot Rahab, for her Charity unto the Spies, you find recorded Hebr. 11. among Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham the father of the faithful? When Cornelius his alms came up to Heaven, and lay continually before God as a memorial, before ever he heard of a Saviour? No, my Brethren, Christ will not ask you at the last day, whom you have followed, what Church you frequented, but whom you have fed, whom you have clothed, whom you have relieved: this will be your Question, upon which you will be exami­ned at the last Day of Judgment, as you may read in St. Matthew: not how of­ten you have heard your Minister, but how often you have fed him. Do you think a Prophet will go to Heaven? Why he that relieves a Prophet, be­comes thus a Prophet himself, and shall receive a Prophets reward, Mat. 10. 41. Or an Apostle? why St. Paul calls Epaphroditus here an Apostle, because he had administred to his wants; nay, only because he did collect the con­tribution for the poor, Phil. 2. 25. Or don't you doubt but Martyrs wear their Crowns? then be ye secure of yours: Charitie cannot fail: For by relieving the Apostle, the Philippians became his fellow-sufferers, Martyrs too, though at a cheaper rate. You do but lay up, secure, and traffick with that you bestow on your Brethrens wants. A Thief may break into your house, or a Robber spoil you of your money; but what you give away is safe, and your own for ever, as being lockt up in the Treasury of Heaven, where no wicked person ever shall appear.

And now having done with my Text, sure I need not make any Applica­tion, or tell you how by St. Paul I meant your Minister all this while; and you your selves by these liberal Philippians. I know to whom I preach, and besides spoke it plainly, that so necessary a subject might sink into the mean­est capacitie: And because it hath pleased God to make me the happy In­strument first to strike this Rock at which your Charitie gush't out in streams, I am obliged to tell you, what I have heard him say that is concerned in it: How that now he glories more then ever in his sufferings and afflictions, because they have yielded you so fair an opportunity to express your faith: how he re­joyces not so much in your Gift, as in your Christianity; and more in your love to God, then in your affection to himself: For now (says he) I see I have not spent my self in vain: I dare trust them now amidst a perverse and crooked Ge­neration: and if in this dispersion I shall hear they stand fast and steddy in the Doctrine of Christ, I shall live; for what else befalls me is impertinent, and drops quite besides me: But for this (says he) I will pray night and day, make Supplications without ceasing to him who is the author and finisher of every good work, that he will strengthen them against all Temptations, that they may run on till they have won the prize, fight on till they have gotten the day, and then receive the reward of those who shall endure unto the end: Thus much are his own words. But it is fit that I should conclude with something of mine own.

Seeing then this golden Candlestick is to be removed from you; seeing that Light which hath made such a blaze about this City, is now to return again into its corner; methinks I could acquaint you whom you loose, that you may be more satisfied, if possible, how well you have placed your Cha­ritie; but I spare him: for I could ask, when he desired a Gift, who recei­ved this, not without some violence? I could ask you, whose houses hath he crept into, like those that come with a tale coloured over with Scripture mis-applyed, and grow, at last, to be Masters of your Family? I could say that if I would have a School Question unridled, I would name him, or a Text soberly interpreted, I would choose him: and if I desired to see a sin rivited, as it were with thunder, into Hell, you your selves would then [Page 25] direct me unto him: I could speak more, and thus, and thus, and thus, and so begin another Sermon. And if St. Paul did boast himself, sure I might com­mend another: or if he lay here before you in a Coffin, then you would ne­ver think I had said enough: at parting give me leave to praise you at least, to commend the Congregation, if I may not the Preacher: Then I tell you I have seen such persons, when they were in Town, frequent this place, as were able to create a Temple wheresoever they went; men, each of whom, single Dr. H. H. Dr. R. S. and alone made up a full Congregation, nay, a Synod: So as some have not unfitly named this Church the Scholars Church. But I shall wave this, and pass to what shall more profit you: Which is to desire you in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to consider and lay it to heart, that the last Judgment which God spent on the obstinate Jews was the destruction of the Temple, and the turning out of his Priests. I say, be think your selves what it should be, which makes Gods vengeance so implacable against you, that he threatens you not with cleanness of teeth, but the famine of the Word: examine your Con­sciences, and if you find your crying sins have put these Ministers to silence, you ought in conscience to maintain them; to give them, as the Philippians here did, once and again; to seek them out, and relieve them, as Onesimus did St. Paul: Owe no man any thing, says the Apostle, but to love one another: Rom. 13. 8. A most excellent speech, and means thus; as if he said, you may pay your Bills at a Shop, and be out of the Trades-mans debt, you may lay down your money, and take up your Bonds; you may really satisfie all other en­gagements, but this debt of Charity, never: This you must alwayes be paying, yet never think it satisfied. Break then off your sins by Prayer and Alms-deeds; for who knows whether God will yet have mercy upon you, and set these Candlesticks again in their right places again: But you espe­cially are bound to do thus, who resolve to partake of this blessed Commu­nion: For here we celebrate the death of Christ, who left Heaven, to suffer for us, and shall not we part with one crum of earth to enjoy him? For in feeding the poor we feed him; in receiving a Disciple, we take Christ home to our houses, set Christ down at our Tables, and make him Incarnate again, make every day a Christmass-day, and every meal a Sacrament: and at last he will receive us into his eternal Mansions, where we shall never want more, where we shall spend all our Charity no longer in relieving one another, but in enjoying one anothers bliss and happiness, alwayes singing Praises unto the Lamb that sits upon the Throne.

AFTER so long a pause, after such an interruption as the unhappiness of the times have made (for I will not put it upon any other score) I am returned to the execution of my Ministerial Function, by the Providence of God, by the favour of some of the highest, and, as I hope, beloved Brethren, by your loving consent, and (for I will presume it so, because I wish it so) your unanimous approbation. Other­wise (give me leave, I beseech you, to enlarge my self and open my heart to you) far better were it for me to return to my dust and to my former condition, there to sit down and pray for my ene­mies, [Page 2] to possess my soul in patience and silence, to struggle with all those temptations which Poverty, Scorn, and contempt commonly bring along with them, then to embroyle my self in an odious and loathsome contenti­on with those whom I am bound to count my brethren, though they think themselves bound to be my enemies; whom if I do not love, I shall hate my own soul; and whose salvation if I do not seriously tender; I shall forfeit my own. Brethren, my hearts desire and prayer to God is, that all misconceit, prejudice, jealousie, suspition, which are the winds that blow the coals of contention, may be bound up for ever; that they may be buried in the sea, and in everlasting oblivion; that they may be drown­ed in the Ocean of Gods mercies, never to rise up again in any breast, there to create and set up that world of iniquity, that bitterness, that debate and hatred, which, as St. James speaketh, defile the whole man, and sets on fire the whole course of our nature, our youth, our age, and are themselves kind­led at no other fire then that of hell. And therefore, that I may walk cir­cumspectly, and not cast the least shadow of offense in the course I am to run, I so far drive it out of my thoughts to accuse any, that I would not give them leave to frame any apology or defense for my self; which perad­venture may be thought expedient, and some may expect. But in this I must take leave to deceive their expectation, and to follow the rules of Descretion and spiritual Prudence, which will teach us that thriving les­son, To loose something, that we may gain the more; To yield, that we may overcome; Not to be over-just to our selves, that others may be won at last to do us the more right; Not to stand upon credit and reputation when we plead for peace. And of this most Christian art I may say what Gorgias once spake of a Tragedy, That it was a kind of fraud by which he that did deceive was juster than he that did not deceive, and he that was be­guild was much wiser than he that was not. Oh that by this art, by this, by any continuance, by all the endeavours of my whole life, I might thus deceive you into such charitable conceits as might make you of the same mind one towards another, as St. Paul exhorts, and, not to have, as St. James Rom. 12. 16. James 2. 1. interprets St. Paul, the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ in respect of persons, [...], the faith, for [...], the believers, as appears by v. 2. not to look upon or consider one another as rich or poor, as learned or ignorant, as honorable or dishonorable, as pleasing or displeasing, but as Christians, as members of the same body, as called to the same hope of an everlasting inheritance. And to this end I have cull'd out these words of the blessed Apostle St. Paul, Brethren, I beseech you, &c.

Which words are as the droppings of the honycomb; as that new wine and Cant. 4. 11. milk which were to drop and flow from the hills and mountains. And so many Joel 3. 18. of the Fathers interpret that place of the Apostles, who, as Hills, were eminent for Love and Piety. These words are the very breathings of Love, as those sweet spices of which the Apostle maketh a perfume and increase of Love, a composition artificially tempered together, pure and holy. What doth Exod. 30. 34. he not do, what doth he not say, to recover the Galatians from their dan­gerous deviations. What doth not this master-builder attempt to perfect his work? How sincere is his heart? He is still the same man, and yet how various are his expressions? Sometimes he is in a maze, and wondreth, as ch. 1. 6 I marvail that you are so soon removed from me unto another Gospel. Sometime he is in trouble, and chides, as ch. 3. 1, 3. Are you so foolish? Have you begun in the Spirit, and are ye now made perfect by the Flesh? Will you fall back from the Spirit, which teacheth true and solid piety, to a carnal and out­ward worship of God, to the ceremonies of the Law? Throughout the whole Epistle he disputes, and convinceth them, That Christ and Moses, the Gospel and the Law, could not consist together; That to seek for justifica­tion [Page 3] by the Law was quite to shut out Christ, whose peculiar office it was to justifie and save them. At last, after wondring, chiding and disputing, he turns his vehemency another way, and is as earnest and zealous in intreating, like a good Captain, who will attempt that fort by treaty which he cannot win by seige; or like a wise Physician, who will condescend to flatter a froward Patient into health. From the height of Amazement, from Re­bukes, which carry with them a mark of Superiority, from Arguing and Disputing, from Fighting, and Levelling all opposition in his way, he sinks by degrees, and falls low, even to Beseeching: Which whosoever doth, by the very doing of it he maketh himself an inferiour. See how his doctrine drops as the rain, and his speech distills as the dew! The Spirit of Love blows upon him; see how the spices flow abroad! Brethren, I beseech you, &c.

You have the occasion of these words. Will you have these sweet Spices beaten yet smaller? Then conceive our blessed Apostle speaking thus; my lit­tle children, of whom I travel in birth again, until Christ be formed in you, till the true figure and image of Christ be stamped on you, which is now much defaced and almost wasted out by the artifice and deceitfulness of false A­postles; if you felt my pain and sorrows, you would not thus look upon me as an enemy, but lend as open an ear to the truth as now you do unto fables; You would recollect your selves at my wandring, and think sure there was something of moment that amazed me; You would kiss my lips for my re­bukes; You would weigh the force of my reasons, and submit. You are not streightned in me, but you are streightned in your own bowels. For if I won­dred, it was to make you consider: If I imputed folly to you, it was to make you wise: If I pressed you with reason, it was to make way for the truth: If I said you were bewitched, it was to uncharm and dis-deceive you. Habet & virga charitatem: Even my Rod was shook over you by a loving hand; and the roughest wind, the harshest expression, came from the same treasury of a well affected heart, out of which the gentlest gate of perswasion useth to be breathed forth: and that Love which was as loud as thunder, can speak yet in a lower voice. For though you are in a dangerous error, which un­dermines the very foundation of the Gospel, yet I can call and do count you Brethren; A name able to slumber any storm, to becalm any tempests, to make the roughest Esau as smooth as Jacob. And if there be not Rheto­rick enough in that name of Brother to move you, then see, I bow lower yet, and beseech you. And though a request may be of that nature that no humili­ty, no submission, no oratory can commend and prefer it, yet mine is not so; My request is most equitable, grounded upon a principle of nature. I request but love for love; Be ye as I am; for I am as ye are: Which in all e­quity you are bound to believe as true, till some act of enmity prove it to be false. Lastly, do not make your displeasure an argument of mine, and find­ing nothing in me, lay hold on something in your selves, to prove me an ene­my. Do not shape me out in your thoughts what no injury can make me. Do not draw a Lyon when the copy is a Lamb. Why should you be consci­ous of doing that wrong which I never suffered? If you struck me, I felt it not: if you wronged me, I was not moved, because I was not sensible. What­soever you have done, or whatsoever you can do, I can shadow it with Love: And be the character never so visible, the impression never so deep, I can blot it out by Forgiveness. Why should you fear? why should you suspect? Be­hold, you have not injured me at all. What motives, what insinuations, what reasons, what wise prae-occupations and preventions, what art, what humi­lity, what love is here? I may be bold to say, The tongue of Men and An­gels cannot be more expressive, more pathetical: No eloquence can out­speak this Love; Brethren, I beseech you, &c.

This I conceive to be the sum of these words. Now they consist of these four parts: Here is 1. a loving Compellation, Brethren; 2. a submissive Address by way of comprecation, I beseech you; 3. a Request most reasona­ble, Be you as I am; for I am as ye are; 4. a wise and prudent Prae-occupati­on or Prevention, which removes all obstructions, and forestalls those jea­lousies, those surmises and groundless suspitions which are the bane of Charity, and the greatest enemies to peace, Ye have not injured me at all; Of these the Request is the main. We shall at this time speak only of the first part, that adducing, perswading, powerful name of Bre­thren.

This word in Scripture is of a large and capacious signification and ex­tent. Sometimes it is confined to a Bloud, to those who come from the same loyns. We be twelve brethren, sons of our Father. Somtimes it taketh-in a whole Gen. 42. 32. Kindred. So Abram, who was Lots uncle, calleth him Brother. And Christ is Gen. 13. 8. said to have Brethren, though Mary had no other son. Sometimes it is en­larged 1 Cor. 9. 5. to comprehend a whole Nation. Thus Paul calleth the Jews his Bre­thren Rom. 9. 3. according to the flesh: and Moses thus bespeaks the two Hebrews that were at strife, Sirs, you are Brethren; why do ye wrong one to another? Some­times Acts 7. 26. it is of as large a compass as the whole World, and he that is a Man, by right of his humanity, is Brother to all the men that are. So Lot lo­vingly intreateth those wicked Sodomites, I pray you, Brethren, do not so Gen. 19. 7. wickedly, respecting only the common Brotherhood of Nature. And again, it is contracted into that narrow circuit of a little flock, the Church, those who are gathered together in one, the Children of God, that were scattered abroad. John 11. 52. We will not look upon the word Brethren in all these representations, but confine our selves to the two last, which are most apposite to our present purpose, and in all probability most sutable to the mind and meaning of our Apostle. And we will consider the Galatians and all Christians as Brethren by Nature, and as Brethren by Grace; as partakers of the same flesh and bloud, and as partakers of the same heavenly cal­ling; Brethren as Men, and Brethren as Christians, professing the same Faith.

In the first place, Nature her self hath made all men Brethren. Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us? There is great difference Mal. 2. 10. indeed in other respects. Some are high, others low; some fair, others foul; some learned, others unlearned; some rich, others poor. But in respect of Original and Extraction there is no difference at all: we are all branches of the same Root, all hewn out of one rock, all digged out of one pit. We are all homines ab humo. And as we all have our rise from the ground, so to the ground again we must all fall. Out of it we were all taken, and unto Gen. 3. 19. it we must all return. The highest as well as the meanest may claim kindred with the Worm and Corruption. This point I have often touched: This do­ctrine Job 17. 14. is most evident both by Scripture and Experience, That all nations Acts 17. 26. of men are made of one bloud; and that by nature we are all Brethren. We need rather to have it pressed then proved, and to be taught to practice what we cannot but know.

And therefore to make some use of that which we have learnt concerning our Brotherhood by Nature; this may serve in the first place to condemn all those who look upon Men under other consideration then as Men, or view them in any other shape then that of Brethren. And the very name of Man and of Brother should be an amulet for all Mankind against the ve­nome of Iniquity and Injustice. For all the title any one hath to these subluminary things, he hath it not jure adoptionis, by any right of Adop­tion or Filiation: Riches and the things of this world are not to be found in that Charter; but an incorruptible Crown and eternal Life. These [Page 5] later indeed are demised unto us by our new birth: but the things of this world we hold by another tenure, jure Creationis, by the right of Creati­on, as we are Men, from him who hath made the earth, and given it in pos­session to the children of men.

Therefore, in the second place, by this light of Nature we may con­demn our selves when any bitterness towards our brother riseth in our hearts, and allay, or rather root it out, with this consideration, That it is inhumane and most unnatural; That we cannot nourish it in our breasts, and not fall from our creation, and leave off to be Men. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, saith the Prophet, and cut down to the Isa. 14. 12. ground? How art thou fallen from being a minister of light to be a Prince of darkness? from being so filled with the Grace of the Divinity, to be a foul receptacle of malice? from waiting on God in all his Majesty, to be thrust down into the foulest pit, there to be his executioner? And how art thou faln, O Man, whosoever thou be that hatest thy brother, from hea­ven (for in earth there is no other heaven then what Love makes) to hell it self, to be a place for those foul spirits, Malice and Envy, to reign and riot in? How art thou fall'n from thy conversing with Angels, to wallow in bloud? from the glory of thy creation, to burning fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest? from being a Man, to be worse then the beasts that perish? Oh what a shame is it to our royal and high discent! Oh what a shame is it that Man, who was formed and fashioned by the hand of Love, by the God of Love, by Love it self (for it is Divine Love that laid the foundation of the World, that breathed a soul into Man, and stamped that image of God upon him) that Man, I say; so elemented, so composed, so compassed about with Love, should delight in war, in variance, and contentions! that this creature of Love should be as a hot fiery furnace, sending forth nothing but sulphur and stench, but malice and the gall of bitterness! that he who is candidatus Angelorum, made to be a competitor with the Angels, and in time to be equal to them, made to be conformed with Christ, and to be transformed into his image, as the Apostle speaks, should make himself a companion with Devils! and for a malicious man, though he be not possessed, yet may be sure he carries a Devil about with him whithersoever he goes, that this [...], this honorable creature, as Synesius calls Man, should turn Savage, should be a Beast, nay a Devil, to accuse, deceive, and destroy! We use indeed to stand much upon our honor and repute: But none can dishonour us more then our selves do, even then when we are in our altitudes; when we glory in our shame; when one man hath trodden down another as the clay in the streets; when we think our selves great men by making our brethren little; when we contemn and despise, hate and persecute them; then in this height, in this glory, in this triumph, we are the most despi­cable creatures on the earth in his sight who being the God of Love, and having made us Men, and linkt us together as Brethren, cannot but look upon us as the basest and vilest creatures in the world, when being grown savage we hate one another. And further we carry not this considerati­on, but pass now to view the Galatians as Brethren in that other capacity, as they were Christians, professing the same Faith: Which our Apostle in this place might more particularly and especially mean.

For as they were Brethren by Nature, so were they also by Grace and their coelestial Calling, having one spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptisme; one calling; being all brought out of the same womb of common Ignorance, heirs of the same common salvation, partakers of a like precious faith, sealed with the same Sacraments, fed with the same Manna, ransomed with the same price, comforted with the same glorious promises. Et major fraternitas Christi quàm [Page 6] sanguinis, saith the Father; The Brotherhood we have by Christ is a grea­ter and nearer tie then that we have by bloud or nature. Hereupon Ju­stine Martyr and Optatus have been so far charitable as to call Judaizing Christians and Donatists by the name of Brethren. And we may observe that our Apostle, who in all other his Epistles calleth them he writes to Saints; To the Saints at Corinth; To the Saints at Ephesus; To the Saints at Coloss; To the Saints at Philippi, Grace be with you, &c. yet in this whole Epistle he never calls the Galatians Saints; because from being Christs Disciples they had well-neer degenerated to be Moses 's Scholars, and had joyned the Law with the Gospel. Yet nevertheless, though he will not honour them with the name of Saints, yet he is very willing to call them Brethren, as professing the same Christ, though with an unsa­vory mixture and dangerous addition. This may soon be gathered by a­ny who will but take so much pains as to read this short Epistle. And upon so plain an Observation, as upon a foundation, we shall build this Doctrine, That there is such a relation, such a Brotherhood, be­twixt all those who profess the same Faith, that neither Error, nor Sence, nor Injury can break and dissolve it. For if any, or all of these had been of force enough to do it, then certainly our Apostle would never have been so free as to have called the Galatians Brethren.

And first to Error, though it have a foul aspect, and bear a distast­ful and loathed name, yet it carrieth no such monstrosity, no such terror with it, as to fright Brethren so far asunder as not to behold one another in that relation, not to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. For if there were any such power about it, the name of Brethren must needs be quite wiped out from amongst the children of men; there be­ing almost as many several opinions in the world as men; and most of them erroneous. For Man, being subject to passion, cannot improve his wisdom so far as to preserve it safe and untoucht of all errour. So that no reason can be given, but such as Uncharitableness, or Ambiti­on, or Pride, or Self-conceit use to frame, and throw as fire-balls about the world to consume and devour all Brotherhood (and these are no rea­sons, but carnal pretenses) why men may not be divided in opinion, and yet united in charity; why they may not draw opposite conclusions, and yet conclude in peace; why they may not have different conceptions, and yet be of the same mind one towards another; why they may not erre, and yet be brethren.

For first, Error may be the object of my Dislike, but not of my An­ger. For as it is error, and no more, it hath no moral, culpable de­formity in it; as being no way free nor voluntary. And the Civil Law hath laid it down as a rule, Voluntas errantis nulla est; He that errs hath no will at all. For he doth not erre who knows he is ignorant, but he who thinks he knows what indeed he doth not know. And Error is no sooner discovered but by its very being discovered is avoided. There­fore the greatest punishment an erring person can receive, is, as Plato speaks, to be brought to School, and be taught. Now to keep our Cha­rity alive even toward erring persons; First, we must consider the great difficulty of finding out truth in all things, and of avoiding error. This consideration made St. Augustine so compassionate and mild even towards the worst of Hereticks, the Manichees, and to think that none could be enraged against them but those who thought it an easie matter to serene the mind against carnal pleasures, and who knew not how hard a thing it is for the eye of the inward man through so many mists of objections to look upon the Sun. He who considereth that himself also may be tempted will use the spirit of meekness towards an erring brother. Gal. 6. 1.

Secondly, we should conceive it more probable that our brother doth erre rather for want of light than out of malice, and wilfully, to his own damnation and others.

Thirdly, we ought to look upon the erring person as one who may possibly be of the number of the elect, whom God in his wisdom may permit to erre and fall, that he may raise him up again to the knowledge and profession of the truth with greater glory to himself. And against those who are destined to a crown of glory, against our Brethren and the members of Christ, how dare we pass a severe sentence?

Lastly, let us but a while put upon our selves the persons of our ad­versaries, and put ours upon them; and let us conceive it possible that our selves may erre as fouly as they. And then let us think within our selves that this deceived brother, whose errour we count so pernitious, may be sent to us from God to be an occasion of finding out some truth the face whereof we have never yet seen, as having been never represented to us. And then to these charitable thoughts, let us joyn also a prudent consideration of those truths wherein we both agree, which peradventure may be more and more weighty then those in which we varie; that so by the lustre and brightness of these the offense taken by the other may vanish as the mist before the Sun. In all our disputes and debates with our Bre­thren whom we suppose to erre, let us walk by that rule which the learn­ed have drawn out before us for our direction, That no Text of Scrip­ture in its exposition can retain the sense and meaning of the blessed Spirit which doth not edifie in charity. For that Doctrine cannot be of any use in the Church, saith Bernard, which exasperates one man against another. And this Moderation, this Discretion, is that Salt which Mark 9. 50. Christ requires to be in us, that wise seasoning of our words, that purg­ing of our affections, amongst which Ambition and Envy are the most violent: Have this salt in your selves; and then, as it follows, you shall have Peace one with another.

Now for application of this; I might here strike through the loins of those who are enemies to peace, and are so intent against them who are not of the same opinion, that in the prosecution they forget they are Brethren; who like Hannibal, cannot live without an enemy; or, like those ancient Spaniards in Trogus, are so out of love with Concord that they dispute and quarrel upon no other reason than this, because they hate it; who call every Opinion that is not theirs Heresie, and Here­sie a crime, accounting nothing sin but Heresie; not so hot against a foul pollution in the heart as against an error in the understanding; not so an­gry with a crying sin as with a petty mistake. But I had rather exhort you to bear the burdens of these contentious men, as St. Paul exhorts in this Epistle; Not to assault one another with lyes in defense of the Truth; Not to nourish hatred in honour to Charity; Not to fly asunder in de­fense of the Corner-stone; Not to be shaken a pieces to secure the Rock. If others separate themselves, do not you withdraw your affection from them. Si velint, fratres; &, si nolint, fratres: If they will, let them be your Brethren; and if they will not, yet let them be your Brethren. And in these times of hurry and noise, in these so many divisions and sects, look upon every sect with an eye of Charity, or as Erasmus cal­leth it, with an Evangelical eye: and leaving all bitterness and rancor behind you, walk on in a constant course of piety, and a holy conten­tion with your selves; not answering reviling with reviling, but beat­ing down every imagination which is contrary to Love; doing that upon Sin in your selves which you cannot do upon Error in your Brethren; not shaking off Brotherhood, though the error be as great as this of the [Page 8] Galatians, then which there scarce could be a greater; that so you may be like the people of Nazianzium, who by their peaceable behaviour in times of great dissention gained a name and title, and were called the Ark of Noah, because by this part of spiritual wisdom they escaped that inundation, that deluge, which had well-neer over-flowed and swal­lowed up all the Christian world.

But, in the next place, if Error cannot break and dissolve this rela­tion of Brotherhood which is amongst Christians, being of it self venial and easie to be pardoned, especially of those who are subject to error themselves; yet Sin hath a foul aspect, and is of the most ugly and de­formed appearance of any thing in the world; being compared by one to dung, by another to that which I will not now name; being a mon­strous deviation from that infinite Justice and Purity, that eternal Law of God: so that if we could watch one eye with another, our carnal eye with our spiritual; if we could see Sin in its impure and horrid shape; if God would present it to us now in that likeness in which it shall ap­pear in the day of judgment, we should streight be shaken in our minds, our joynts would be loosed, and our very soul, saith St. Chrysostom, would fly out of our bodies. And do we not well then to be angry with this monster, though we meet it in a Brother, or in the person perhaps of our dearest friend? Should we not hate the garment, much more the person, of him who is bespotted with sins? This question may be askt: And yet we should never ask this question, if we would distinguish (which is easie to be done) between the Nature of our Brother and his Fault; between that which he received from God, and that evil affection he hath from himself; between that which is from heaven, heavenly, and that which is from the earth, nay from the lowest pit of hell. If we would consider him in his rational nature, the image of God; and in that other capacity, as he is one for whom Christ dyed, and so capable of eternal life; and that though he seem dead, yet his life may neverthe­less Col. 3. 3. be hidden with Christ in God. For why judgest thou thy brother? Judgment is the Lords, who seeth things that are not as if they were. What though he be fallen upon the stone, and be bruised? Yet he may be built upon that foundation which is sure, and which hath this Seal, THE LORD KNOWETH WHO ARE HIS. This o­pen profaner may become a true professor, this false witness may be a true martyr, this persecutor of the Church may at length prove the most glorious member and bold defender of it, and he that led the Saints bound to Jerusalem may himself afterwards rejoyce in his bonds for the same cause: Paul of the tribe of Benjamin may, as it is said of Benjamin, in the morning raven as a wolf, and at night divide the spoil, and after bow his head to such a Sheep as Ananias. And therefore the Apostle, where he erects a kind of discipline amongst the Thessalonians, thus draws it forth; If any man obey not our word, that is, be refractory to the Go­spel 2 Thess. 3. 14. of Christ, have no company with that man, that he may be ashamed; that seeing others avoid him, he may be forced to have recourse unto himself, to hold colloquy with his own soul, to find out that plague of his heart which makes him thus like a Pelican in the wilderness, or an Owl in the desert; like the leper under the Law, which no man must come near. Have no company with him, that is, By thy company give him no encouragement in his sin: And yet, for all this, have company with him; for count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother; which we cannot do if we avoid his company. And in this sense also we must take that of the Apostle, where he forbids us to eat with publick and 1 Cor. 5. 10. notorious offenders: For the Apostles mind was not that such men were to [Page 9] be given over for gone; or, that we should acquaint our selves only with the good, and not with the bad, as Physicians do in time of Pesti­lence, look only to the found, and shun the diseased. For our Saviour Christ familiarly conversed, ate and drank with publicans and sinners, and gives the reason of it, Because he came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And we cannot think that St. Paul is contrary to Christ.

Beloved, the rule of Charity commands us to think every man an heir with Christ; or at least, if he be not, that he may be so. What though believers be very few, and there be many so like them that we cannot distinguish them? This is, I confess, an errour of our Charity, but it is a very necessary error. And he that errs not thus, he that thinks not and hopes not the best he can of all he sees, wants something of being a good Christian. And this error of our Charity is not with­out reason. For we see not where nor how the Grace of God may work. How sinful soever a man be, yet if he be baptized, if he make professi­on of the name of Christ, if he do but come behind and touch the hemm of Christs Garment, the Grace of God may cure him. Nay, were he dead in sin, who knows what the Grace of God may do? Peradventure God may call unto him lying and stinking in his sins as in a Grave, Lazarus, come forth. Charity therefore, because she may erre, nay, because she must erre, looks upon every Christian as a Brother. If he erre, she is a guide to him; if he sin, she is Physician; if he wander, she recalls him; if he fall, she strives to lift him up, being a light to the blind, and a staff to the weak; if he fall into sin, she is ready to restore him in the spirit of meekness; [...], that is the phrase, to be Gal. 6. 1. his Chirurgeon, to handle him with a gentle (or, as we use to say with a Ladies) hand, not roughly, but with all tenderness and compassion; to set every broken joynt, but so as if she toucht it not; to settle all that is dislocated, that all his parts and joynts may be entire, and aptly knit together, that nothing may be wanting to him of those things which are required to the compleating and constituting of a brother and a Christian. Look upon these Galatians unto whom Paul writes, and then cast your eye upon chap. 5. 19, 20, 21. where he draweth out that black catalogue of the works of the flesh, Adultery, Fornication, Un­cleanness, and the like, and you will think it more then probable, that these sins even reigned amongst them; that they had abused their Chri­stian liberty as an occasion to the flesh, v. 13. that besides the contagion of a foul Error, they were also polluted with Sins; yet St. Paul doth rather intimate then impute them. He shews them in their full horror, and deformity, that the Galatians may run from them, and leaves them to accuse and condemn themselves; and though he strike at their Error and Sin both, yet he makes a fair close with themselves, and calls them Brethren.

And now briefly to make some use of this, it may seem to correct an angry and malignant humor which lurks in the hearts of many men undis­cerned, undiscovered, and often breatheth and exhaleth it self forth, not to the saving of the souls, but to the blasting of the good name of their brethren; not as physick, but as poyson, fatal and deleterial. It is one mark of Antichrist, That he sits as God in the temple of God, 2 Thess. 2. 4. shewing himself that he is God: thundring out his excommunications, canonizing, damning, absolving, condemning whom he pleaseth. Be­loved, thus [...], to over-look, our brother thus to look down upon our Brethren, and dart a heavy censure on them for that for which [Page 10] we should shed a tear, is so far to follow Antichrist, as to take the seat and place of God; nay, to put him out of his seat, and do his office; nay, to do that which he will not do, to sentence him to death when he, for ought we know, hath chosen unto life: Nay, though it doth not make any man Antichrist, yet it makes him so much Antichrist, as to place him in a flat opposition to Christ himself: For we have not such a high Priest as cannot be touched with the feeling of our sins, but being tempted himself is able and willing to compassionate those who are tempted. Did we feel the burden of our Brothers sins, as he did, did we apprehend the wrath of God, as he did, we should rather, as he did, offer up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, un­to him, for our Brethren, then smite them with our tongues, then tell of the misery of these wounded ones, (that is, speak vauntingly, and Psal. 69. 26. preach thereof, as the word signifies) then thus rain down upon them their own snares, halestones and coals of fire. I confess, prudent and discreet reprehension is as a gracious and seasonable rain, as precious balm; but rash and inconsiderate censure is as a Tempest or Hurrican, to waste a soul, to carry all before it, and to digg up a good name by the roots. And as it is truly said that most men speak against Riches not out of hatred but love unto them; so do many declaim against Sin, not out of hatred to sin, but out of love to themselves; which may be as great a crime as that they speak against. Signum putant bonae consci­entiae aliis malè dicere; They think it a sign of a good conscience in themselves to speak evil of others, and conceit themselves good if they can say others are evil; For as true Righteousness speaks alwaies in com­passion, but that which is false and counterfeit breaths forth nothing but wrath and reviling and indignation. Remember those that are in bonds, as if you were bound with them, and as being your selves in the Hebr. 13. 3. body: as being in the body, obnoxious to the same evils, in a mortal bo­dy, Rom. 8. 11. an earthly body, and a corruptible body. And remember those who are 1 Cor. 15. 40. 53. in their sins, which are the bonds, I am sure, and fetters of the soul, as being also in that body of death, as being under that burden that presseth Rom. 7. 24. down, and under sin that hangeth so fast on that we shall never fling it Hebr. 12. 1. off till we cast off our bodies, being in the same polluted garments which will stick close to us till we be uncloathed, and cloathed upon, 2 Cor. 5. 4. and mortality be swallowed up of life. Look not upon thy Brethren as Grashoppers, and upon thy felf as a strong and perfect man in Christ; as if thou wert spiritual, heavenly, impeccable, and as far removed from Sin as God himself. But rather as St. Paul was made a Jew to the Jew, so be thou as a sick man ministring to the sick, handling ano­ther 1 Cor. 9. 20. with the same compassion thou wouldst have extended to thy self, if thou thy self should be in his case. If thou despise and reproach him, I am sure thou art in a far worse. For be he what the frailty of the Flesh, the subtilty of Satan, and the flattery of a vain World can make him, yet he is thy Brother: be he sick well-near unto death, yet he is thy Brother; be he the lost sheep, yet he is thy Brother; and Christ may fetch him back again, even upon thy shoulders, that is, by thy compassion and thy care: be he amongst the swine with the Prodigal, yet he is thy Brother; for within a while he may come back again to his Father and thy Fathers house: If he be to thee as an heathen or publican, yet he must also be Brother. And further we press not this Use.

So then neither Error nor Sin can unty this knot, can dissolve and break this relation of Brethren; I named a third, but I am well-near ashamed to name it again, or bring it in competition with Error or [Page 11] Sin; because an offense against God should more provoke us then any injury done to our selves; Which our Apostle here sets so light by, that although the Galatians had even questioned his Apostleship, and preferred Peter and James and John before him, yet he passeth it by as not worth the taking notice of; Like Socrates, who being overcome in judgment profest he had no reason to be angry with his enemies, unless it were for this, that they conceived and believed they had hurt him. And here St. Paul saith, Ye have not hurt me at all. And indeed no in­jury can be done by a brother to a brother. For the injury is proper­ly done to God, who made them Brethren and fellow-servants, and who reserves all power of revenge unto himself, who is their common Ma­ster and the God of revenge. If a brother strike us, we should, saith Chrysostom, kiss his hand; if he would destroy us, our revenge should be to save him. Ignoscat tibi Christus, saith Nazianzene, to a young man that was suborn'd to kill him; Christ forgive thee, who hath also forgiven me, and dyed to save me. Ille idoneus patientiae sequester; He is the best Advocate for our patience, the best Decider of all our con­troversies and debates. If you gage and lay down your injury with him, he is the Revenger; if your loss, he is the Restorer; if your grief, he is the Physician; if your death, he will raise you up again. But we shall no further prosecute this, because it will fall in with our last part. We will rather, having as ye have read, secured and fortified the Bre­thren, walk about yet a while longer, and tell the towers and bulwarks which the God of Love hath raised and set up to uphold them. And they are 1. Pleasure, excessive Pleasure; 2. Profit, great Profit; 3. Necessity, extream Necessity. All these serve to maintain and uphold this Brother­hood. For Brotherly Love is 1. pleasant and delightful; 2. profitable and advantageous; 3. so necessary that it had been better for us never to have been then not to love the Brethren.

For the first, hear what the Psalmist saith, Behold how good and joy­ful Psalm 133. 1. a thing it is, for Brethren to dwell together in unity! Not only it is so, but it is worth our observing, and we are called to behold and consider it: Which if we did with a serious eye, we should not so slight and undervalue it as we do. For Pleasure is winning and attractive: It is a motive above all eloquence, more persuasive then the words of the wise. Oh that we could be once brought to be well perswaded of this Pleasure, and did not so dote on that which hath no true pleasure at all in it! The Hills, saith the Prophet David, are girded with gladness. Psalm 65. 12. Things are figuratively said to be glad when they attain unto and abide in their natural perfection. So the Light is said to rejoyce when it shi­neth clear and continually, because then it is in its highest and fullest splendor. Now there can be no higher perfection for a Christian then to love the Brethren: He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God 1 John 4. 16. in him: and, By this men shall know you are my Disciples, if ye have John 13. 35. love one to another; saith Christ by the same John in his Gospel. What perfection greater then for a man to dwell in God, and to have God dwell in him? This is to be like unto God, and to be partaker of his spirit. And to be Christs Disciple is to be one with him, and to be in­grafted into him. Here is the Christians highest pitch, his Ascension, his Zenith, his Third heaven. And therefore it is said to be a speech of Christ which the Nazarene Gospel hath recorded, though our Bibles have not, Nunquam loeti sitis nisi cum fratres in charitate videritis. No spectacle of delight, nothing that a Christian can take pleasure in, nothing of virtue and power hath enough to raise a Disciples joy, but to see [Page 12] his fellow-disciples, his Brethren, embracing one another in love. For if the ground of all Pleasure be agreement and proportionableness to the temper and constitution of any thing, then certainly nothing so agreeing, so harmonical, so consonant to our reasonable nature and to the ingenuity of our kind, and consequently so universally delightful to all who have not put off the bowels and the nature of Man, and are by the love of the world swayed and bended to a brutish condition, as that which may as well go for a Reward as for a Duty, the Loving of the Brethren; that language of Love, which we must practice here, that we may chant it in heaven with the congregation of the first-born, and the spirits of men made perfect by love, eternally. And indeed Charity is the prime ingredient of the glorified Saints. Of whose state we understand no more but that they are in bliss, and love one another, and that they are for ever blessed because they for ever love one another. Their Charity never faileth, saith St. Paul, and then their bliss is ever­lasting. What is Paradise, saith the Father, but to love God, and serve him? And the best love we can shew him, the best service we can do him, is to love and serve the Brethren: The end of the Gospel is love; 1 Tim. 1. 5. that is, other doctrine tendeth to strife and contention; but the whole doctrine of the Gospel tendeth to love and unity: So that no doctrine that naturally and of it self worketh wrath and uncharitableness can be Evan­gelical. For the wisdome that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easie to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without judg­ing, James 3. 17. and without Hypocrisie. Beloved, Envy, malice, debate, conten­tion, strife, are the delight and joy of them who have tasted of the pow­ers of no other world then of this which shall be consumed; or rather they are the delight of the infernal spirits, as it is a torment to them to be restrained from doing mischief. Art thou come to destroy us, to tor­ment us before our time? saith the unclean Spirit. Art thou come to curb and hinder us from vexing and destroying those we hate? for this is torturing, this is sending them again into the deep, confining them to their Luke 8. 31. Hell. As the lower pit is said to be opened in the Revelation, when they have liberty to vex and torment mankind; so it is as much Hell to them not to punish others, as it is to be punished. And none but evil spi­rits, and Men of their constitution and temper, can make a Heaven in Hell it self, by doing mischief. And indeed Delight it is not properly; but it is called so because it is proportionable and satisfactory to their malice and pernicious nature and disposition. No; if we hear, LAE­TENTUR COELI; Let the Heavens rejoyce, it is because Peace is here on earth. If we hear, LAETENTUR ANGELI, Let the Angels rejoyce; it is for the tears and repentance of some sinner here below. If we hear, LAETENTUR SANCTI, Let the Saints rejoyce, it is in their union and communion, in those mutual offices of bearing and supporting one another; and, as so many Angels, by pray­ers and exhortations, and by the reciprocal activity of their love, lift­ing and conveighing one another into Abrahams bosome. Thus we see that that love which makes and keeps us Brethren is the pleasantest thing in the world, and that all other joy is no better joy then the Damned have in hell: A Joy I must not call it: A Complacency we may call it: But that is too good a name. It is the feeding, the filling, the satisfying the Malice of an ugly and malicious Fiend.

But, in the next place, we shall the sooner fall in love with this Love, if Profit also be brought-in to commend and enhance the price and value of this Pleasure. And here if we ask with the Apostle, [...], What [Page 13] profit is there? we may answer, Much every manner of way. For from this we have all those helps, those huge advantages, which are as so ma­ny heaves and promotions and thrustings forward into Happiness. By my brother I may see that which before I could not discover. He may clear up my Affections from storm and tempest, and my Understanding from darkness and confusion of thoughts. He may cast out infinitatem rei, as the Civilians speak, that variety, that kind of infinity, of ap­pearances in which every thing useth to shew and present it self. He may be, as Moses said to Hobab, to me instead of eyes, to guide and direct Numb. 10. 31. me by his counsel and providence. By him I may hear, as Samuel did for Ely, what the Lord God will say. By him I may feel and taste how gra­cious the Lord God is. He may do those offices for me which the Angels of God, those ministring Spirits, cannot do, because they have no body. He may be my Servant, and I may wait upon him: He may be my Suppor­ter, and I may uphold him: He may be my Priest, and I may teach him: He may be my Guard, and I may protect him: He may be my Angel, and I may go with him and be his conduct: He may be made all things to me, and I may be made all things to him. Thus we may grow up together in Grace (for in this Nursery, in this Eden, in this Fraternity, the nearer and closer we grow together, the more we spread and flourish) COM­PLANTATI, grafted together in the similitude of Christs Death; and Rom. 6. 5. CONSEPULTI, Buried together with him in Baptism; and CON­RESUSCITATI, v. 4. risen together with Christ. No Grafting, no Bu­rying, Col. 3. 1. no Rising, but together; No profit, no advantage, no encrease, but in love. Speaking the truth in love we grow up into him in all things, Eph. 4. 15, 16. which is the Head, even Christ: By which the whole body fitly joyned to­gether and compacted, as a House, by that which every joynt supplyes, by that spirit and juyce which every part conveighs, according to the effectu­al working in the measure of every part, according as it wants sustentation and increase, [...], that the body, which is the Brotherhood, may be edified, that is, more and more instructed and improved by mutual love and the duty and offices of Charity, which is that increase of the body unto the edifying of it self in love. Oh what a shole of Christians did this Love send forth, when the Heathen could make the observation, and proclaim it, See how these Christians love one another! Then did they fill their vil­lages, their temples, their armies: And, if we look upon their number, they might, as Tertullian observes, have easily swallowed up their ene­mies in victory. When St. Peter, that Fisher of men, caught so many to­gether, even three thousand souls, it was Love that gathered them in, and Acts 2. 41. it was Love that kept them in. For [...], they continued daily with v. 46. one accord in the temple: They were of one heart and of one soul: And what Acts 4. 32. is it that hath made such a dearth and scarcity of sincere and truly pious Christians, but our Debate and bitter Malice, the greatest enemy Chri­stianity hath. For by biting and devouring one another we have well-near consumed one another, nay, well-near consumed Religion it self. And if a Heathen should stand by, he could not but wonder, and make no other observation then this, See how the Christians hale one another! The Hea­then of old could find out nothing in the Christians but their name to ac­cuse them; but we of this aged and corrupted world have scarce any thing but the name of Christians to commend us. Hoc Ithacus velit; This is that which our enemies have long expected, and to effect which they have spent their nights, their dayes; have laid out their leasure, their business, their watchings, their very sleep; and now have seen that fire which they did help to kindle, by the light of which they may stretch forth their [Page 14] curtains and enlarge their territories and dominions every day in Christen­dome. For as the Devil is tormented, as Optatus speaks, with the peace of the Brethren, when they are joyned together vinculo fidei & glutine cha­ritatis, by the bond and cement of Faith and Love, so is he enlivened, and put into hopes of success in his attempts, by the mutual ruptures and jea­lousies which the Brethren, the members of the Church foment and cherish amongst themselves. When by the defection of Jeroboam, Judah and Isra­el were rent asunder, then came Shishak and troubled Jerusalem. And 2 Chron. 12. 2. therefore let us love the Brotherhood, as the Apostle exhorts. For an ene­my is never more dangerous to an army then when it is disordered by mu­tiny and division. If it be at peace with it self, it hath half conquered the enemy. When the Church begins to be torn by Schisms, and Contenti­ons, then every blast is ready to shake and shatter it; but when it is in u­nity within it self, then it is built up strong and fair, as the tower of Da­vid. No Heresie, no Enemy, no Jesuite, no Devil, no, not the Gates of Hell, can prevail against us, whilst we are fast joyned together, rooted and built-up and establisht in love. No principalities nor powers, no height nor depth, no creature, can come near to touch us, whilst we keep within the circle and compass which Love maketh, whilst we continue Brethren.

Thus then we find both Pleasure and Profit in being Brethren. But now, in the third and last place, there is a kind of Necessity to force us: And the Love that keeps us so is necessary not only as a virtue or quality with­out which we ought not to be, but as a virtue without which we cannot be what we profess. For loose but this bond once, unjoynt this goodly frame, shake but the Brotherhood, and we are fallen from heaven, spoiled of all the riches of the Gospel, deprived of all the priviledges and prerogatives of Christians, defeated of all those glorious promises, shook from the hope of immortality and eternal life, without love, and then without God in this world; left naked and destitute, stript of our inheritance, having title to no place but that where the re­volting Angels and malicious Spirits are shut up. For as that is true which we find in the Gloss on the Canon Law, Habe Charitatem, & fac quod vis; Do it in love, and do what thou wilt: Thy Zeal shall be as the fire in the bush, burning, but not consuming: thy Reproofs shall be balm; thy Justice, physick; thy Wounds, kisses; thy Tears, as the dew of hea­ven; thy Joy, the joy of Angels; all thy Works, fit to be put in the regi­ster of God. But if once thou forsake the Brotherhood, if once thou shake hands with Love, then whatsoever thou doest must needs be ill done because thou doest it. If thou speak with the tongue of Men and Angels, it is but noise: if thou give all thy goods to the poor, it is but loss: and that which with Love is martyrdom, without it may be murder: Thy Zeal will be rage; thy Reproofs, swords; thy Justice, gall and worm­wood; thy Wounds, fatal; thy Tears, the dropping of a crocodile; thy Joy, madness; and thy Works, sit for nothing but the fire. The Gospel to thee will be as killing as the Law, and the Bloud of Christ cry as loud for vengeance as that of Abel, or of any Brother whom thou hast persecu­ted and wounded with injuries and reproach. Let us not deceive our selves with vain pretences and ridiculous excuses, with empty and airy phansies, which can conceive and shape out Love, when it is dead in the heart; which can revile, and love; strike, and love; kill, and love. For a truth it is, and a sad truth, a truth which may bore the ears of many of us Christians, and strike us to the ground, as Peters voice did Ananias. And St. John hath set his seal to it, He that loveth not his Brother, (and not to 1 John 3. 14. love him with St. John, is to hate him) abideth in death. And again, He [Page 15] He that hateth his brother is a murderer; alluding to our Saviours reforma­tion of the Law, which even made Anger murder. What degree of Murder soever he means, such a Murderer he is that hath not eternal life abiding in him; The want of this Love being a sure mark of a child of wrath, and of one carrying his hell about with him whithersoever he goes, being him­self a Tophet burning with fire and brimstone, with Hatred and Malice and Fury; having nothing between him and that everlasting Hell but a ruinous wall, his body of flesh, which will moulder away and fall down within a span of time. Oh how should this still sound in our ears, as that, Rise, and come unto judgment, did in St. Hieroms, who could not sleep for it! Oh that the sound of this would make us, not to leave our sleep, but to leave our gall, our venome, our Malice, which may peradventure bite our Brothers heel, wound him in his person, in his estate, or good name, but will most certainly sting us unto death. Let then this sad, nay this be­hoofful, this glorious, this Necessity prevail with us: and let us not so trifle with God and our own souls, so flatter and smile our selves to death, as to think there is no such Necessity at all, but that we may love God and yet hate and persecute our Brother, nay, love God the more, the more we hate our Brother. For I ask, Is it necessary to love God? is it necessary to love our selves? is it necessary to be the children of God? is it necessa­ry to love Gods image in others, and to repair it in our selves? is it neces­sary to be ingrafted into Christ? is it necessary to believe? in a word, is it necessary to be saved? Then is it also necessary to love the Brethren sin­cerely, cordially, with a single heart. To love our selves, or, as we are commanded, to love our common Father which is in Heaven, and who is the God of Love. Profit and Pleasure may draw and allure us; But Necessity forces, and chains and links us to the Brethren. Now the God of Love work true Brotherly Love in us all.

THis Psalm conteins a Prayer and a Prophesie: A Prayer for King Solomon, who laid down his Scepter with his Life, and slept with his Fathers; and a Prophesie of Christ, whose Throne is for ever and ever; and of whose Kingdom there is no end. Take it as a Prayer, and it was heard. For God gave Solomon Wisdom and Un­derstanding 1 Kings 4. 29. and largeness of heart, to judge his people with Righteousness, and the poor with judgment. Take it as a Prophesie, and it was fulfilled: For God sent his Son, who is Wis­dom it self, to be the Shepherd and great Bishop of our Souls, and to be our King to lead us in the waies of Righteousness. Apply it to the Type, and the expressions are hyperbolical. Righteousness in the Text is not com­pleat, nor abundance full; Peace not as lasting as the Moon, but as the Moon waxing and waning, and at last eclipsed and turned into bloud. That Do­minion from the River unto the ends of the Earth takes in no larger compass 1 Kings 4. 24. than Judaea, or at most the Region from Tiphsah unto Azzah, so narrow a [Page 2] compass of ground that St. Hierom was ashamed to bewray its dimensions. In a word; interpret it by the inscription, as a Psalm for King Solomon, and all generations make but forty years; all Kings are but Pharaoh, and Hiram, & some few other that were on this side the River Euphrates. All Na­tions are not many Nations: and Solomons For ever, we know well, had an end. And as we find it in hyperbolical Speeches, ad verum mendacio per­venitur; That we come not too short of the truth, the phrase is made to look beyond it. That we may conceive aright of the glory of Solomons Kingdom, David extends it from the River unto the ends of the Earth. That we may conceive some Peace, he tells us of abundance. He multiplies and dilates the bounds of his Empire, makes Judaea as large as the whole world; an Age, eternity; and that Scepter which did depart, everlasting. Literally this cannot be true of King Solomon. Hic Psalmus Solomoni ca­nere dicitur quae tamen soli competant Christo; saith Cyril: This Psalm is sung to King Solomon, but the ditty is of Christ, and of him alone. Behold, a greater then Solomon is here; He shall have Dominion from sea to sea. This Vers. 8. belongs to Christ alone; All Kings shall worship him Before whom do all Vers. 11. Kings fall down, but Christ? And all Nations shall serve him. Whom shall all Nations serve but Christ? His name shall endure for ever: Whose name but Christs? All Nations shall be blessed in Christ; in Solomon, none at all. And here in my Text, He shall descend like the rain, cannot be true of So­lomon: For he descended indeed, but not like rain, because he came not down from Heaven. Many things are spoken of the Type which more pro­perly belong to the Antitype. Many things in this Psalm are spoken of So­lomon which stretch beyond the line of truth, and for no other reason but this, because they belong to Christ, whose Type he bore, and in whom they were truly to be made good, and without any Hyperbole at all. So­lomon did judge the people with righteousness; but Christ shall judge the whole world, and Solomon himself. Solomon was a King; but Christ is the King of Kings. Solomon passed all the Kings of the Earth in Wisdom; but Christ is Wisdom it self. Solomon did break in pieces the Oppressor; but Christ broke the jawes of the Destroyer of mankind, and took the prey out of his mouth. To him give all the Prophets witness; To him do all the Fa­thers apply the words of my Text: The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge him in her Hymns and Service for this great Feast of Christs Nativity, singing praises to the Lord our Strength, who came down like the rain into a fleece of wooll, (or, the mowen grass) as showers that water the earth. And we have seen it with our eyes, and fell it in our hearts, and it is the joy and glory of this high Feast, that in his dayes the righteous flou­rish, and abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth.

And now I may say of this Prophesie as our Saviour himself did of ano­ther, This day was this Scripture fulfilled in Christ who is signaculum omnium Luke 4. 21. Prophetarum, who was the great Prophet who was to come, and the seal of all the rest; in whom all Prophesies were at an end. And therefore we will but change the Tense, and not read it DESCENDET, he shall come down, (for the Jew himself will yield us thus much) but DESCENDIT: The fulness of time is come, and he is come down already. In quo quicquid retro fuit, demutatum est, saith Yertullian; In whom whatsoever was in times past is either changed, as Circumcision; or supplied, as the Law; or fulfilled, as the Prophesies; or made perfect, as Faith it self. The Subject of the Song is the same. Eaedem voces sonant, eaedem literae notant, idem Spiritus pul­sat; The words that sound, the same; the letters that character him out, the same; the same Spirit, which inspires the Prophets, and now speaks to us. Only for the Feasts sake we will but change the time, the Future for the Present, and so express our thanks and joy: Which should as far [Page 3] exceed the joy of the Prophets as Fruition doth Hope, and the present en­joying of the benefit a sad and earnest expectation of it. And then there will naturally arise the handling of these points. 1. We shall consider the Incarnation of the Son of God as a Descent or Comming down; 2. The Man­ner of this Descent. It was placidus & insensibilis, saith the Father, sweet and peaceable, without trouble, without noise, scarcely to be perceiv'd; not in the strong wind, to rend us to pieces; not in the Earth-quake, to shake us; not in the fire, to consume us; but in a still and small voice: not as Thun­der, to make a noise; not as Hayl, to rattle on the house-tops; not as the Blast and Mildew, to wither us; but as the Rain falling sweetly on the grass, or on a fleece of wooll, and as the showers which water the earth, and make it fruitful. 3. We shall observe the Effect which this Descent produceth, or the Fruit which springs up upon the fall of this gracious Rain; First, Righ­teousness springs up, and spreads her self, Justus florebit; So some render it; The righteous shall flourish. Secondly, After Righteousness Peace shews it self, even abundance of peace. And Thirdly, both these are not herbae solstitiales, herbs which spring up and wither in one day, but which will be green and flourish so long as the Moon endureth, which is everlastingly. And therefore we must Fourthly, in the last place observe 1. the Relation which is between these two, Righteousness and Peace; They are [...]. Where there is Righteousness, there is Peace; and where there is Peace, there is Righteousness. 2. The Order; Righteousness first, and then abundance of Peace. Take them all three, and you shall find a kind of subordination betwixt them, for no Peace without Righteousness, no Righteousness with­out this Rain: But if the Son of God come down like rain, streight Righ­teousness appears on the earth; and upon the same watering, and from the same root, shoots forth abundance of Peace, and both so long as the Moon endureth. Of these then in their Order briefly and plainly; and first of the Descent.

He that ascended is he also that descended first, saith the Apostle. And he Eph. 4. came down very low: He brought himself sub lege, under the Law; sub cultro, under the Knife, at his Circumeision; sub maledicto, under the curse; sub potestate tenebrarum, under the power of darkness; down into the cratch, down into the world, and down when he was lifted up upon the Cross, (for that ascension was a great descent,) and from thence down into the grave, and lower yet, [...], into the lowermost parts of the earth: Thus low did he come down. But if we terminate his Descension in his In­carnation, if we interpret his Descent by NATUS EST, that he was born, and say no more, we have brought him very low, even so low that the An­gels themselves must [...], stoop to look after him; that not the clearest Understanding, not the quickest Apprehension, nothing but Faith, can follow after to behold him; which yet must stand aloof off, and tremble, and wonder at this great sight. Hîc me solus complectitur stupor, saith the Father: In other things my Reason may guide me, Meditation and Study may help me; and if not give me full resolution, yet some satisfaction at least. But here, O prodigia! O miracula! O prodigy, O miracle of mer­cy! [...], O the paradox of this strange Descent! This is a depth which I connot foard, a gulph wherein I am swallowed up, and have no light left me but my Faith and Admiration. Certe mirabilis des­census, saith Leo, a wonderful descent, à coelo ad uterum, from his Throne to the Womb; from his Palace, to a Dungeon; from his dwelling place on high, to dwell in our flesh; from riding on the Cherubin, to hanging on the Teat. A wonderful Descent! Where is the wise? Where is the Scribe? Where is the Disputer of this World? That God should thus come down; that he that conteineth all things should be compassed by a Woman; [Page 4] that he should cry as a child, at whose voice the Angels and Archangels tremble; that he whose hands meted out the Heavens, and measur'd the wa­ters, should lye in the cratch; Deus visibilis, & Deus contrectabilis, as Hi­lary speaks, that God should be seen and touched and handled, no Orator, no Eloquence, the tongues of Men and Angels cannot reach it. O anima, opus est tibi imperitiâ meâ; O my soul, learn to be ignorant, and not to know what is unsearchable. Abundat sibi locuples fides; It is enough for me to believe that the Son of God came down. And this coming down we may call his Humiliation, his Exinanition, his Low estate. Not that his Divine nature could descend [...], consider'd in it self; but God came down [...], in respect of that gracious dispensation by which he vouchsafed to dwell amongst us. For he assumed into the unity of his Per­son that which before he was not, and yet remained that which he was. Ille quod est, semper est; & sicut est, ita est; For what he is, he alwaies is; and as he is, so he is, without any shew or shadow of change. But yet in the great work of our redemption he may seem to have laid his Majesty aside, and not to have exercised that Power which was coeternal with him, as in­finite as Himself. And now it is no blasphemy, but salvation, to say, That he who created man was made a Man; That he who was the God of Mary, was the Son of Mary; That he that made the world had not a hole to hide his head; That he who was the Law-giver was made under the Law. And therefore in every action almost, as he did manifest his Power, so he exprest his Humility. A Star stands over him, when he lay in the Manger; He re­bukes the Winds, who was asleep in the Ship: He commands the Sea, and Fishes bring tribute in their mouths; but at Caesars commands he submits and pays it: He strikes a band of men backward to the Ground, but yields as a man, and is bound, and led away as a sheep to the slaughter. And thus that Love which reconcil'd the World unto God, reconcileth these strange contradictions; a God, and a Man; a God that sleeps, that thirsts; vecti­galis Deus, a tributary God; Deus in vinculis, a God in bonds; a God crucified, dead and buried. All which Descents he had not in natura, not in his Divine Nature. Neque enim defecit in sese, qui se evacuavit in sese, saith Hilary; For He who emptied himself in himself did not so descend as to leave or loose himself. But the Descent was in persona, in his Person, in re­spect of his voluntary Dispensation, by which he willingly yielded to as­sume and unite the Humane nature to Himself. And thus he was made of that Woman who was made by himself; and was conteined in her womb, whom the Heavens cannot contein; and was cut out of the land of the living, who was in truth, what Melchisedec was only in the conceit of men in his time, without father, and without mother, having no beginning of days, nor end of life: He was less then his Father, and yet his Fathers Equal; the Son of David, and yet Davids Lord; A case which plunged the great Rabbies among the Pharisees, who had not yet learned this wisdom; nor known this knowledge of the Holy. But most true it is, Non fallit in vocabulis Deus. God speaks of things as they are; nor is there any ambiguity in his words. He tells us he is God, and he tells us he is man: He tells us that his dwelling-place is in Heaven, and he tells us that he came down into the world: He tells us he is from everlasting, and he tells us he was born in the fulness of time. Et quod à Deo discitur, totum est; And what he tells us, is all that can be said. Nor must our Curiosity strive to enter in at the Needles eye, where he hath open'd an effectual Door. Indeed it was the Devils policie, when his Al­tars were overthrown, when his Oracles were silenced, when he was dri­ven from his Temples, when his God-head was laid in the dust, and when Pagans and Idolaters his subjects and slaves came in willingly in the days of Christs power, to strive dimidiare Christum, to divide Christ into halves; [Page 5] and when Christ became the language of the whole world, to confound their language, that men might not understand one anothers speech. And like a subtle enemy, when he was beat out of the field, he made it his master-piece to raise a civil dissension in the City of God. Proh! quanta etiamnum pa­titur Verbum! saith the Father; Good God! how much doth Christ yet suffer in his Church! He came into the world, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not: He comes down, but as a Phantasin, as a mear Creature; so Anius: as an adopted Son, so Phoci­us: which is in effect to say he came not down at all. For if he be a meer creature, the Descent is not so low. And if he be adopted to this work, it is rather a rise then a Descension. And if he be but the Son of Mary made the Son of God, and not the Son of God made the Son of Mary, it is no De­scent at all. I do not love to rake these mis-shapen Monsters out of their dust; but that I see at this day they walk too boldly upon the face of the earth, and knock, and that with some violence, to have admittance into the Church. And therefore it will behove us to take the whole armour of Faith, and to stand upon our defence; conservare vocabula in luce proprietatum, to preserve the propriety of words entire, to walk by that light which they cast, and not with those Hereticks [...], to make use of those Phrases which speak Christ Man, and [...], to pass by those which magnifie him as God; but to joyn together [...] and [...], his good plea­sure and his power; to say that he came into the world, and to say that he created the world; to say he was the scorn of men, and to say he was the Image of his Father; in a word, ipsi Deo de se credere, to believe God in that he speaks of himself. And then we may turn aside, and behold this great sight, and make it our glory and crown to say, Descendit Rex, not Solomon, but the King of Kings, the King of Glory, is come down. And so I pass from the Descent, or Coming down, to the Manner of it, Descendit sicut pluvia, &c.

The Manner of his Descent is as wonderfull, as the Descent it self. It is as full of wonder that he thus came down, as that he would come down; especially if we consider the place to which he came, the World; a Babylon of confusion, a Sodom, a Land of Philistines, of Giants, who made it as a Law to fight against the God of Heaven. We might have expected rather that he should have come cown as a Fire, to consume us; as a Tempest, to devour us; as Thunder, to amaze us; then as Rain, to fall softly upon us, or as a Shower, to water and refresh us: that he should have come down to blast and dig us up by the roots, rather then to yield us juice and life to grow green and flourish. Indeed we could expect no less: But his mercy is above all his works, and then far above our expectation, far above all that we could conceive, far above our sins, which were gone over our heads, and hung there ready to fall in vengeance upon us. And rather then they should fall as hailstones and coals of fire, he himself comes down like rain, and as showers that water the earth. Justice would have stay'd him, and for him sent down a Thunderbolt; but Mercy prevail'd, and had the better of Justice, and in this manner brings him down himself.

And here to shew you the manner of his coming down, we shall observe a threefold Descent; in uterum matris, into the Virgins womb; in mundum, into the World; and in homines, into the Souls of men. For as the Vir­gins womb was thalamus Christi, the Bride-chamber of Christ, wherein the Holy Ghost did knit the indissoluble knot between his Humane nature, and his Deity, so the World was the place where he pitcht his Tent, and the John 1. 14. Soul of man is the Temple of the Lord, where the same quickning Spirit by the operation of Faith makes up that eternal union and conjunction be­tween the Members and the Head: And into all these he came down [...], saith St. Chrysostom: (and we find the very same words in the sixth [Page 6] Councel of Constantinople) quietly and without any noise at all; like Rain, which we may know is fallen by the moistures of the Fleece or Grass, but not hear when it falls.

And first, thus he came down into the Virgins womb as upon the Grass, and made her fruitful to bring forth the Son of God; and as into a fleece of wooll, out of which he made up tegmen carnis, the vail and garment of his flesh; and so without noise, so unconceivably, that as it is an Article of our Faith, and the very language of a Christian, to say, He is come down, so it is a que­stion which poseth the whole world, and none but himself can resolve the Quomodo, How he came down. For as he came down, and was made Man, not [...], or [...], not by any alteration or mutation of his Divine Essence; sine periculo statûs sui, saith Tertullian, without any danger of the least change of his state; not by converting the Godhead into Flesh, as Ce­rinthus; nor the Flesh into the Godhead, as Valentius; no, nor by com­pounding and mingling the Natures, so that after the union there should remain one entire Nature of them both; but by an invisible, inconceivable, ineffable union: So also did the blessed Virgin conceive and bring him forth without any pain of travel, without any breach of nature, without any alteration, and retained gaudium matris cum honore virginitatis, the joy of a Mother, and yet the integrity and honour of a Virgin. We may say, Peperit, non parturivit, She brought Christ forth, but did not travel. And Tertullian, where he conjures down that spectrum and Phantasm of Marci­on, borrows his very words, and urgeth this for a truth, Peperit, & non peperit; virgo, & non virgo; She brought forth, and did not bring forth; a Virgin, and not a Virgin. She brought forth, saith he, because Christ did take of her flesh; and she did not bring forth, because she took nothing from man: A Virgin in respect of her Husband; and not a Virgin, in re­spect of her Child. And so being busie in the confutation of one error, he seems to run unadvisedly upon another. But his meaning is more then this; That she was both a Mother, and yet a Virgin; and that Christ was born communi lege, as other men are, and not utero clauso, the Womb being shut. Which, whether it be true or false, I leave to those learned Chi­rurgions and masculine Midwifes, the Schoolmen, to determine. I will say no more, but with the Father, Enormi & otiosae curiositati tantum deerit discere quantum libuerit inquirere, Vain and irregular Curiosity gains no ground in the search of those things which are too hard for it, and of which we have no evidence of Scripture: and all the profit she reaps is but this, to run forward apace, and to be struck blind in the way; to make great speed, and be further off. It is enough for us to believe and acknow­ledge that she was a pure and immaculate Virgin, that the Holy Ghost over­shadowed her, that she was that Fleece into which this gracious Rain fell sine soni verbere, without any noise or sound: that, as a Fleece, she was made both solid and soft; softned and made fine by the power of the Most High, to receive this heavenly Shower, to conceive that; and solid, to con­ceive him without the division of parts, to receive him into her womb as sheep do the Rain into their Fleece, sine inquietudine, saith Ambrose, with­out any motion or stirring; parerc, nec compunè, to bring him forth with­out any compunction or conquassation of parts: to be soft, and prepared, and become a Mother; [...]nd yet solid and entire still, and remain a Virgin. And further we need not carry the resemblance. And therefore in the next place we will bring Christ from the Womb into the World.

And here though I cannot say the World was all mowen grass, or as a fleece, or as earth, but rather as brass, or as the barren rocks, yet Christ came down into the World. And he came, not jaciens fulmina, saith Chrysostom, in Thunder and Lightning, with a Fire to devoure before him, or a Tempest [Page 7] round about him; but in great humility, in silence: and, as his Kingdom, so his coming was not with observation. In a word, though he were the Lion of the tribe of Judah, yet he enters the world as a Lamb. For first, nasci se patitur, he condescends and suffers himself to be born, and is content to lye hid in the womb nine months, who might have taken the shape of a man in a moment. He grows up by degrees; and being grown up, he is not ambitious to be known. He is baptized by his servant; and being tempt­ed by the Devil, nihil ultra verba conatur, he useth no other weapon then his Words. Was the Reed bruised? he broke it not. Did the Flax smoke? he quencht it not. Were Men ingrateful? he cured them. His hand that betray'd him was in the dish with him. So that as his Flesh was [...], the vail of his Divinity, so what he did and what he suffer'd were as so many curtains, or rather as a thick cloud, to obscure and dar­ken his Majesty. You will tell me of the new Star; But whether did it lead the Wise men? To see a poor Infant in a Manger: And though the sign of the Star were glorious, yet the sign of the Cratch did obscure it. Of the Angels Anthem: But they were but a few Shepherds that heard it. Of the men of the East who came to worship him: But at the same time Herode the King did seek the Child to destroy him. Of his retinue: But they were Fishermen. Of the Angel that comforted him: But it was in his ago­ny. Of the Earth shaking, and the Vail of the Temple rent: But it was at his Death. Certò latuit in infirmitate Majestas; his Majesty lay hid and was obscured in his Infirmity. And thus he temper'd and qualified his oe­conomy amongst us; cast forth these radiations of Majesty, and yet ap­peared as but under a cloud; had these tinctures and rayes of Greatness, and yet dulled and almost lost in Poverty and Ignominy and Scorn, and, in respect of the Many, quencht in the bloud which he shed. But now we need not wonder that he thus came in silence and great humility. For the whole world was an Hospital of diseased men, or rather a Prison of Slaves and Captives fetter'd in the chains and bonds of Iniquity: And should Christ have bow'd the Heavens and come down in glory? should he have shone in his Majesty? Should he have come in thunder and blackness of darkness? Certainly the sight would have been so terrible that Moses him­self, even the best men living, would have trembled and shaken. Had all been glory, all with us had been misery. Had Christ come as God alone, we had been worse then the Beasts that perish, even companions of Devils. Nisi iram misericordia finivisset, saith the Father, If his Mercy had not stept in between his Majesty and us, and quencht that fire which was ready to burn, the Prisoners, nay the Prison it self, had long since been consumed and brought to nothing. Therefore Christ came not as a Judge, but as a Physician. For sick men are not cured with noise and ostentation. The Fleece was dry; and the gentle drops of Rain will wash and cleanse it: but a cataract, a deluge will drown the Sheep it self. The Earth was dry, and the Grass mowen, desecta & detonsa, cut down; nay, carrosa à locustis, so the Chaldee, bitten and gnawn of Locusts. And no Locusts compara­ble to Sins, which devour not leaves only, but the very root. Now when Locusts swarm, commonly it is a drought. Therefore Rain and Showers are most seasonable, to make the Grass grow afresh. But Fire would con­sume all. It is impossible, saith the Father, that our shackles should be knocked off, and we set at liberty, nisi in nostris fieret humilis qui omnipo­tens permanebat in suis, unless he were made humble in our nature who was Omnipotent in his own; Impossible, that the mowen grass should grow up without Rain, or those who are dead in sins be received with a consuming fire.

I may add one Reason more, and that taken from the nature of Faith: [Page 8] Which, if the object be plain and manifest and open to the sight, is no more Faith: And therefore that which she looks upon, is seen, but hidden; hath light, but clouded; is most probably, but not demonstratively true. For I do not believe that a Man is a living creature, or that the Sun shines; be­cause the one is evident to my Understanding, the other open to my Sense. Fides non nisi difficultate constat; Faith cannot subsist unless it finds some difficulty to struggle with. And this is the merit, the dignity of our Faith: Though a cloud come between it and the object, to look through it; as A­braham, though the body be dead, and the womb dead, yet against hope to be­lieve in hope that he shall become the Father of many Nations; To believe the Promise of God when he useth those means for the tryal of our Faith, which are most like to extinguish it; To behold a Saviour through the thick cloud of Ignominy and Scorn; To see a God in a Cratch, on the Cross, and in the Grave; To be perswaded that he may be the Son of the Most High, though he come down as Dew, and not as a cataract; and descend like Rain, and not in Thunder. It was the unhappiness of the Jew to expect [...], a most glorious Messias, and to think he should come into the World as Agrippa and Bernice his wife, [...], with great Acts 25. 23. pomp; that he should be a great Captain and Warrior, and should take the power of Damascus, and carry away the spoils of Samaria. And this antici­pated conceit is that which hath made them siccatum vellus, as Hierom speaks, like Gideons fleece; dry, when there is dew in all the ground about Judg. 6. 40. them. It is true, saith Tertullian, he shall take the spoils of Samaria; but it is then, saith the Text, when he is a Child, before he know to refuse the evil, and chuse the good. And if the Jew would have consider'd his age, he might soon have discerned of what nature the War was he was to wage, and what Spoils they were he should bear away. For if he must take them by violence and dint of Sword, how should he bid defiance? Should he do it with the cry and tears of an Infant? Signum belli non tubâ sed crepi­tacillo dabit? Shall he give signal to Battle, not with a Trumpet but with a Rattle? Shall he leap from the Teat to his Horse, and point out his E­nemy not from the Wall but from his Mothers Breasts? Observate modum aetatis, & quaerite sensum perdicationis, saith the Father; Let the Jew re­member his age, and then he will not be to seek what manner of War it was. We confess the child Christ was and is [...], a great Captain, and hath a Trumpet, and a Sword, and Arrows; and he soundeth his Trumpet, and girds his Sword upon his thigh, and makes his Arrows sharp; and he strikes with his Sword, and sends forth his Arrows; but yet he never sheddeth bloud. He rides in Majesty, but it is because of his meekness and gentleness; which are no Virtues, I think, at the Camp. His Trumpet is the Gospel; his Sword, the Word, which divideth asunder the soul and the spirit, and the joynts and the marrow; his Arrows, his Precepts, which fly very swiftly, pearcing every heart, and wounding every conscience. With these he pul­leth down strong holds, casteth down imaginations, and fights against principa­lities and powers. And the people fall under him: What? to be trod un­der feet? No; but to worship him. He carries away the spoils of Samaria; and not only of Samaria, but of all the Nations of the Earth: Certè alius est ensis, cujus alius est actus; Certainly this is another manner of Sword then that which Joshua and David fought with. This is the Sword of the Lord, not of Gideon, and drawn to another end. For our Captain draws his Sword to make his Enemies Kings; woundeth, that he may heal; beats us to dust, that we may be exalted for ever; fights with us, that we may pre­vail; and then rides in triumph, when we overcome and are crowned. And to this end he came down, not in majesty, but weakness; not in thunder, but in rain. He did in a manner divest himself of his honour which he had e­verlastingly [Page 9] with God; and he who was a King before all time, became a Preacher, an Instructer, a School-master to lead us to himself, and vouch­safed to interpret his own Imperial command. No Servant so careful to execute the will of his Master as he was to perform the will of his Father. Hoc habet solicitudo ut omnia putet necessaria; His Care thought nothing too much. And therefore, though for so great a Prince it had been a sufficient discharge to direct or command, yet he will supererogate, and go many degrees above sufficiencie. For what he commands us, he himself is the first man that doth execute it. And though it be ad sanguinem, to suffer unto bloud, primus in agmine Caesar, still he is first. He is not only our Pilot to direct the stern, but also he doth manage the sail, and set his hand to the oar; yea, he himself is unto us both Sea, and Sun, and Pole, and Wind, and all; and he wins us more by his Example, then by his Precept. Thus Christ came; And thus to come down is certainly to come down like rain upon mowen grass. Exasperat homines imperata correctio: blandissimè jubetur ex­emplis; There is something of Thunder and Hayl in a command; and it may make some noise, because it falls not upon a fleece of wooll, but on a stone; upon Man, who by nature is a stubborn creature: But we may be bold to say, Examples are showers, Guttae stillantes, stillicidia coelestia, drops and dew; and they fall gently and sweetly and effectually. And in this man­ner Christ came down into the World like rain upon the mowen grass, (or, on a fleece of wooll) as showers that water the earth.

And now we come to the third degree of Christs Descent or Coming down; He cometh into the Souls of the Sons of men, to be shaped and formed in us, Gal. 4. 19. that we may be Christiformes, made like unto Christ, and bear an unifor­mity and conformity unto him. And he observes the same SICUT still, and comes down in animam sicut in uterum, into our hearts as he did into the Virgins Womb, gently and insensibly, as the Rain doth into a fleece of wooll; using indeed his power, but not violence; working effectually up­on our souls per suaviductionem, say the Schools, leading us powerfully, but sweetly, to that end his praedeterminate will hath set down. St. Cy­prian well calls it illapsum gratiae maturantis, the fall of Gods ripening Grace, which falls like Dew or Rain upon the grass. Nescio quomodo tan­gimur, & tangi nos sentimus; We are water'd with this rain, and we know not how; We feel the drops are fallen, but how they fell we could not discern. And we are too ready to ask with the Virgin Mary, How cometh this to pass? But the Angel, nay, God himself, telleth us, The Ho­ly Ghost doth come upon us, and the power of the Most High overshadows us; and that Holy thing which is born in us shall be called the Son of God. Non deprehendes quemadmodum aut quando tibi prosit; profuisse deprehendes; That the power of Gods Grace hath wrought we shall find; but the retired pas­sages by which it hath wrought are impossible to be reduced to demonstra­tion. Res illic geritur, nec videtur. The Rain is fall'n, and we know not how. We saw not Christ when he came down; but it is plain that he is come down. And he comes down not into the Phansie alone: That common­ly is too washy and fluid of it self, and brings forth no better a Christ then Marcions, a Shadow or Phantasme. Nor into the Understanding alone: For thither he descends rather like Light then Water; and he may be there, and the grass not grow. He may be there only as an absent Friend, in his picture. But he commeth down in totum vellus, into the whole fleece, into the Heart of man, into the whole man, that so he may at once conceive Christ, and yet be presented a pure and undefiled Virgin unto Christ, and be the purer by this new conception. And he cometh down in totam terram, upon all the ground, upon the whole Little World of Man, that so he may be like a well-water'd Garden, even a Paradise of God. A strange Jer. 31. 12. complaint the world hath taken up, yea rather not a complaint, [Page 10] but a pretense, a very cloak of maliciousness to hide our sins from our eyes; That Christ doth thus come down but at pleasure, only sometimes, and but upon some men; some, who, like Mary, are highly favour'd by God, and call'd out of all the world, nay, chosen before the world was made. And if the earth be barren, it is because this Rain doth not fall. As if the Grace of God were not like Rain, but very Rainie indeed, and came down by seasons and fits; and as if the Souls of men were not like the Grass, but were Grass indeed, not voluntary but natural and necessary Agents. Thus we deceive our selves, but we cannot mock God. His Grace comes not down as a Tempest of Hayl, or as a destroying Storm, or as a Floud of many Waters overflowing, but as Rain or Drops. He poureth it forth every day, and renews it every morning. And he would never question our barrenness and sterility if he did not come down, nor punish our unfruitfulness if he did not send Rains. If before he came into the world this Rain might fall as it were by coasts, in Judaea alone; yet now by the virtue of his comming down it drops in all places of his Dominion. Om­nibus aequalis, omnibus Rex, omnibus Judex, omnibus Deus & Dominus; As he came to all, so he is equal and indifferent to all, a King to all, a Judge to all, and a God and a Lord to all. And his Grace manat jugi­ter, exuberat affluenter, flows continually, and falls down abundantly. Nostrum tantùm sitiat pectus & pateat; Let our hearts lye alwaies open, and the windows of Heaven are alwaies open: let us continually thirst after righteousness, and this Dew will fall continually. Let us prepare our hearts, let us make them soft as the Fleece; let us be as Grass, not Stubble; as Earth, not Brass; and the Son of God will come down into our hearts like rain into the fleece of wooll, (or, mowen grass) and like showers that water the earth.

And now we have shewed you this threefold Descent; We should in the next place contemplate the effect which this great Humility wrought, the Fruit which sprung upon the fall of this gracious Rain upon Gods In­heritance: the Spring of Righteousness, and the Plenty of Peace, and the Aeternity of them both. But I see the time will not permit. For con­clusion therefore, and as the present occasion bespeaks me, I will acquaint you with another Descent of Christ; into the blessed Sacrament; I mean, into the outward Elements of Bread and Wine. Into these also he comes down insensibly, spiritually, ineffably, yet really, like Rain into a fleece of wooll. Ask me not how he is there; but there he is. Eia fratres, ubi voluit Dominus agnosci? In fractione panis, saith St. Augustine: O my brethren, where would our Saviour discover himself, but in the breaking of bread? In his Word he seems to keep a distance, and to speak to us, saith the Father, by way of Letter or Epistle, but in the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud he communicates himself, that we, who could not see him in his flesh, may yet eat that flesh we cannot see, and be in some kind fa­miliar with him. I need not busie my self in making the resemblance. Theodoret in one of his Dialogues hath made up the parallel between the Incarnation of Christ and the Holy Sacrament. In Christ there are two Natures, the Divine, and the Humane, and in the Sacrament there are two Substances, the heavenly, and the earthly. 2. After the union the two Natures are but one Person; and after the consecration the two Sub­stances make but one Sacrament. 3. Lastly, as the two Natures are u­nited without confusion or coalition of either in Christ, so in the Sa­crament are the Substances, heavenly and earthly, knit so together that each continueth what it was. The Bread is bread still, and the Body of Christ is the body of Christ; and yet Christ is the Bread of Life, and the Bread is the body, and the Wine the bloud of Christ. It is panis [Page 11] Domini, the Bread of the Lord, and panis Dominus, the Lord himself, who is, that living Bread which came down from Heaven. And to a believing John 6. 51. Virgin soul Christ comes nearer in these outward Elements then Supersti­tion can bring him, beyond the fiction of Transubstantiation: For as he by assuming our Nature was made one with us, made flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bones, so we by worthily receiving his flesh and his bloud in the Sacrament are made one with him, even partakers of the Divine Na­ture. 2 Pet. 1. 4. Per hunc panem ad Dei consortium preparamur, saith Hilary; By this Bread we are united to him here, and made fit to be with him for ever. And to drink this Cup, the Bloud of Christ, is [...], saith Clemens, to be made partakers of the incorruptibility of God.

And now to conclude; This quiet and peaceable committing of Christ to us, should teach us the like behaviour one to another. For shall he come down like rain, and shall we fall like Thunder upon our Brethren? Shall he consider us as a Fleece of woll, or as Grass, and shall we make one another a mark and an anvil for injuries to beat on? Shall Butter and Honey be his meat, and shall we feed on Gall and Wormwood? Shall he not break a bruised reed, and shall we make it our glory to break in pieces the Cedars of Liba­nus? Shall he come to save, and shall we destroy one another? Shall he come without noise, and shall we make it our study to fill the world with tumult and confusion? Shall he give eyes to the blind, and we put them out? Cloths to the naked, and we strip them? Leggs to the lame, and we cripple them? Shall he raise men from the dead, and we kill them? And if we do it, can we be so bold as to say we are Christians, or that Christ dwelleth in us of a truth? Will he abide in this region of blackness and darkness? in this place of noise and thunder and distraction? No: the humble and contrite, the meek and merciful is the place of his rest. He that came down in humi­lity will not stay with the proud heart; he that came down in silence will not dwell in a Chaos, in confusion. Therefore put you on the Lord Jesus Christ; put on his Meekness, his Humility. As children of Christ, put on tender bowels and compassion: And let your bowels yearn over the poor, to re­lieve him; over the weak, to strengthen him; over the injurious, to for­give him. And let us be as Rain, to soften and quicken; not as Fire, to consume one another. And then He who thus came down into the Womb, thus into the World, thus into our Souls, thus into the Sacrament, in silence, with­out noise or tumult, like Rain or Dew, having thus watered us, and distilled his graces upon us by virtue of this his first Advent, at his second Advent, when he shall descend with a shout and with the voice of the Archangel, though he come with more terrour, yet shall he let fall his dew as the dew of herbs, and drop upon our rottenness and corruption: And they that dwell in the dust shall awake and sing. And in those his dayes shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of Peace, not only so long as the Moon endureth, but in new Heavens and new Earth shall dwell Righteousness and Peace for evermore.

BLessedness is that which all men desire, the Sun which every eye looks upon. And in this Sermon of our Saviour it streams down upon us in several beams and strictures, in Poverty of Spirit, in Mourning, in Meekness; which seem to us as dark and thick clouds, but are beams by which we have light to see the way to the Kingdom of Heaven, to comfort, and the inhe­ritance of the Earth. Now the two first Virtues, or Beatitudes, (call them what you please: and if they be Virtues, they are Beatitudes, though not formally, yet by communica­tion: and if Blessedness be the garland to crown them, they must be Vir­tues. The two first, I say) Poverty of Spirit, and Mourning, are set in opposition to our Concupiscible appetite: Which, if not checkt and held back by these, stoops at every prey, is ensnar'd with wealth, and crown'd in pleasure, and, like those [...], those artificial Engines or Clocks the Philosopher speaketh of, are turned about disorderly, parvâ motione fa­ctâ, at the least touch and representation of unlawful and forbidden ob­jects, whether it be a wedge of Gold, or the lips of the Harlot, whither wealth or pleasure. And therefore our best Master hath placed these two, as assistant Angels, to order the motion of that power in the desire of earthly blessings, and continue her motion in the search of those things which are above, even Poverty of Spirit, and a voluntary Abdication of those pleasures which smile upon us as friends at their entrance, but at their Exit, when they turn their backs upon us, are as terrible as Hell it self. He that hath his mind so spiritually steer'd, that it declines not to the wealth and pomp of the world, nor to the delights which it affords, how­soever his way be rugged and uneven, and his passage cloudy and tempe­stuous, shall notwithstanding at the end thereof find a Kingdom and Conso­lation. And now to these two in its due place (and by a kind of nearer method) is added [...], Meekness and Sweetness of Disposition, to re­strain the Irascible faculty or appetite, as those did the Concupiscible. Thus they stand in the original and Greek Copy, and the Latine Fathers read them so. Nor could the Jesuite find any reason why they should not be so placed in the vulgar Translation, and he thinks they were misplaced by the error of the Scribe, and put between Poverty and Mourning. Sure I am, there is good reason why Meekness should stand in the place it doth. [Page 13] For from whence come wars and fightings amongst us? saith St. James; come they not from hence, even from our lusts, that war in our members. And the Schools teach us that Anger proceeds from the concourse of many passions. We lust, and have not: We hope for wealth, and are poor and destitute; we would sport away our time in pleasure, but some intervening cross ac­cident casts us down: and for this we are angry. Jacob hath Esau's birth­right; and Esau will kill him: Naboth denies his Vineyard; and Ahab is on his bed: Jonathan loves David; and Saul is ready to nail him to the wall with his Javelin: The Samaritanes deny entertainment; the Disciples would presently call down fire from Heaven to consume them. Irascibilis, propugnatrix concupiscibilis, saith Gerson: These two seditious Tribunes of the Soul, the Irascible and the Concupiscible faculty, mutually uphold each other. My Desire, my Hope, my Grief are the fewel of my Anger. He that stands in my way to wealth or pleasure is my enemy, and setteth me on fire, which nothing can quench but Poverty of Spirit and Contempt of pleasure. When we are weaned from the world and the va­nities thereof; when we are crucified to the world, and the world unto us, we are then aptinati, fitted for this third Beatitude, and gain strength against Anger, and against all Thirst and Desire of revenge. If I know how to a­bound, and how to want; if I can sit down in the House of Mourning, and judge those miserable whom the world calls happy, and pity them whom most men bow to, I am then idoneus auditor, a fit man to hear our Saviour preaching from the Mount, and proclaiming to all the world, Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. And thus much of the depen­dence this third Beatitude hath on the former two.

Meekness then, you see, stands in its right place, after Poverty of Spi­rit and Mourning, which make its way plain, and usher it in. I will not here compare them: For they are all three Beatitudes; Circumincidunt mutuò, they are involved one within another, and such a connexion and kind of consanguinity there is betwixt them, that one partakes of the de­nomination of the other; Poverty is meek, and Meekness is poor; he that mourns is meek, and he that is meek is ready to mourn: As the Philosopher said of the Will, that it was either appetitus intellectivus, or intellectus ap­petitivus, either Appetite with Understanding, or Understanding with Ap­petite. But yet without the least detraction from the former, we may com­mend Meekness as the virtue which, when our Saviour teacheth, he maketh himself the example. He indeed is Schola virtutum, a Scool and Academy of virtue; and every action of his was a Sermon. That he was poor, it is plain: For he had not so much as the Foxes had, a hole to hide his head. His Grief we may see run down his cheeks when he weepeth over Ierusa­lem. But when he commends Meekness, he doth it by the best example, Himself. He stands up, and placeth himself before our eyes, and bids us look on him. All the virtues which make a Christian we must learn from Christ; but there is never an express Discite à me, for I am meek; and you shall find rest to your souls. And indeed Meekness, as it is a most necessary virtue for a Christian, so is most hard to learn. It is a hard mat­ter to quench Anger, and to restrain all Desire of Revenge. Plato tells us that Anger is [...], not easily subdued, almost invincible; and Aristotle, that it is [...], a vehement and violent passion; and that it is a far easier thing to be strong against the allurements of pleasure then to prevail against the heat and force of Wrath. I may make a covenant with my eyes, and shut out Lust; I may put a knife to my Throat, and so keep off Intemperance; I may sell all that I have, and give to the poor; I may mourn like a Dove, and chatter like a Crane: but to repress Anger, to [Page 14] take off all Desire of revenge, not to hurt an enemy, to love an enemy, to do good to an enemy, is that which our Saviour here commends, and the hard­est Task of a Christian; Therefore St. Chrysostom is plain, that God doth not look so graciously upon Fasting and Mourning, no not upon Virginity and contempt of the World, as upon this vertue of Meekness, which so sweetly composeth the Mind, and makes one man a God unto another, by covering his sins, bearing his burden, and condemning and burying his ma­lice in patience and forgiveness. We see here in my Text it stands in meer conjunction with Blessedness, and hath the promise both of this life, and also of that which is to come. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Our method now shall be, First, to shew you [...], very brief­ly, what this virtue is which bears so goodly an inscription; and that in respect 1. Of the Nature of it; 2. Of the Subject of it, in whom it is, and of whom it is required; 3. Of the Object, on whom it is to be shew'd and exercised. And when we have briefly laid before you this virtue, in its full extent, we shall, in the next place, more easily perswade you, that it is a Virtue, most proper, most necessary for a Christian, without which he cannot live nor move nor have a being. And this will make way for that which sweetneth and gives a relish to all these, the Reason which our Savi­our here gives why the Meek are blessed; For they shall inherit the earth.

To shew you what Meekness is, we must distinguish it from that behavi­our which hath nothing of it but a bare and naked representation, and doth then most deceive us when it is most like it. The Father will tell us that Virtues and Vices are [...], meer borderers one upon another; and the Stoick, that Philosophie is so sacred and venerable a thing, ut siquid illi si­mile est, ipso mendacio placeat, that its very counterfeit doth please us. He that retireth from the world, and betaketh himself to vacancy and idle­ness, is soon taken for a great Philosopher. Craft goes for Wisdom, Si­lence and Reservedness for Policy: and as St. Bernard tells us, Diabolus suos habet martyres, that the Devil hath his martyrs, so saith St. Augustine, Diabolus habet suos mansuetos, the Devil also hath his meek ones as well as Christ. Look upon the common deportment of men, and you would think that Meekness were no stranger upon earth, but a virtue common to the children of men. You may see it floating on the tongue, bowing the bo­dy, dressing the countenance with a smile, falling down at your very feet, excusing faults, undervaluing injuries, making crimes errors, and errors virtues, by interpretation. Every man almost is mansuetus, quasi ad ma­num suetus, as Festus gives the Etymon, as mild and gentle as if he were brought up to hand. Nothing more common in the world; nothing more deceives us. Experience hath taught us that Anger, when it is loud and sudden, breaths it self out like the wind, whilst it strives to overthrow; and therefore we have learnt, with the Tyrant in Tacitus, Velare odium fal­lacibus blanditiis, to hide our anger in a complement, to speak quietly to our enemy, that we may smite to the heart; to kiss him, that we may betray him. We rake up our revengeful thoughts, as we do fire under the ashes, ut non compareat nisi cùm adurat, that it may be felt sooner then seen, and burn and consume our enemy on the sudden. The greatest mischief we do is cum praefatione clementiae, with a preface of mildness, and with a friend­ly address. I love you, is the word, which being inerpreted is, I will de­stroy you. Meekness shall we call this? We may as well call the Devil meek, qui arridet ut saeviat, blanditur ut fallat, who smiles that he may rage, and flatters that he may deceive, and never biteth more deadly then when he fawns. But yet this is Meekness in the worlds account, which goes for no [Page 15] more, with us then a fair spoken man; meek Joab, and meek Absalom, and meek Judas, courteous Divels, which gain the applause of men, even then when they deceive them; nor doth Meekness shew it self in the full perfe­ction of beauty otherwise then in a smile, a cringe, a kiss, a complement, when that smile may be a snare, that cringe a stab, that complement a lye, and that kiss treason. For experience hath proved that to be true which St. Augustine hath taught us, Potest odium blandiri, charitas saevire; Charity may come with a rod, and Malice turn Parasite, the one to better us, the other to deceive us. There is oyl in the reproof of a friend; but there is worm­wood and bitterness and poison in the oyl of an enemy. Now we cannot deny but these may be the outward expressions of Christian Meekness, which is not lockt up and imprisoned in the heart, but manifests its self in the outward gesture; (for certainly he is no meek man whose tongue is either a rasour or a sword) but yet Revenge and Rancor of heart may borrow these expressions, may make its approaches in a pleasing posture, and may break an enemies head with oyl. And indeed Revenge is never more bloudy then when it speaks in a still voice and the dialect of Love. Nemo hostilius vul­nerat quàm qui amabili manu; no wound more deadly then that which is given with a friendly hand. For he strikes home, and without fear, who is not feared when he strikes. That we may therefore take this old Devil off the stage, which makes such desolation in the shape of an Angel of light, we will set before you the common provocations of Anger, in repressing of which our Meekness especially consists. The Philosopher in his Rhe­toricks, l. 2. c. 2. hath furnisht us with three. The first is [...], con­tempt of our persons; which is a sharp provocation. And he is undoubt­edly a great Proficient in the School of Meekness who hath learnt to be con­temned. Therefore David makes it his Prayer, Remove from me reproach and contempt. Such a temptation he lookt upon with fear and trembling. The second is [...], an incommodation, or despiteful usage. Which fre­quently affronts us; men being many times of that vile disposition as to de­light in mischief, and to look upon it as a purchase, though they reap no other fruit then the bare doing of it. The last is [...], which is injury with grief and loss and disgrace. Our Saviour here points out to it in this Chap­ter, when he tells us of a Blow on the cheek, of Taking our coat, of Vio­lence. And the second he mentions in express terms, v. 44. [...], pray for them who despitefully use you. Now he that hath learnt to be contemned; he that can drink down injuries, and digest them; he that is so spiritually poysed and ballasted, that no tempest, no wind of the unrighteous can shake him; he that is as ready to forgive as wicked persons are to wrong him; he that so absteins from offense as if he pardon'd no man, and yet so pardon'd others as if himself were an offen­der, may challenge a title to this Beatitude, and to the inheritance of the earth.

And now further to display the beauty of this Virtue, we will proceed to shew you the extent of it. The Philosophers may seem to have too nar­rowly confined it: If therefore we will behold Meekness in its full pro­portion, we must look for it not at Athens, but Jerusalem; not in the Philosophers Schools, but in porticu Solomonis, in the house of Wisdome, in the Gospel of Christ. Reckon up all the Precepts which Philosophy hath given us, all the examples which have been shewn, and though we shall find enough to shame us Christians, yet we shall not find that degree of Meekness which is required of Christians. We read in Tully, that Justice requires that we endammage none, nisi lacessiti injuriâ, till we are pro­vok't by some injury. And Lactantius well censureth it, Simplicem ve­ràmque sententiam duorum verborum adjectione corripit, he spoiled a good [Page 16] sentence by the addition of two words; lacessiti injuriâ, provokt by in­jury. For a Christian hurts no man, though he be provokt. Seneca speaks more like a Christian, Magni animi est, omnium veniam dare, nullius pete­re; It proceeds from a great and well-subacted mind to pardon all injuries, but to walk in that simplicity that it needs ask pardon of none. But yet this doth not fully express a Christian; Who doth not only pardon injuries, but in a manner reward them. It is a great commendation which Tully gives Caesar, that he forgot nothing but injuries, nor ever hurt an enemy, nisi in agris stantem, but fighting in the field. He was one of the stoutest and great­est Champions of the world. He stood the shock of fifty set battles, be­sides all sieges and outrodes. He took a thousand Cities and walled Towns. He over-run three hundred several Countries. And in his Wars were slain well-near twelve hundred thousand men, besides all those which dyed in the Civil Warrs: And yet he protested of himself, and that most truly, that he never drew bloud but in the field. Here is indeed a pattern of Meekness, and such a pattern, that most Christians are unwilling to take out: yet this doth not reach home. Novam certè mansuetudinem docet Christus; Certainly Christ hath drawn out Meekness in other colours; and except our Meekness exceed the Heathens, we shall not enter into the King­dom of Heaven. Will you see the full extent of Meekness? It is hard to shew it. For, as I find it in the Fathers, who walkt by the light of Scrip­ture, it is made almost boundless. Not to be angry, To forgive, Not to revenge; these yet do not reach it. To suffer with patience and a quiet mind the greatest injuries; this is not home. To forgive seventy times se­ven times; this number is yet short to teach our Meekness to keep time with the Malice and Injustice of men. It must yet press further, and ma­nifest it self not only in suffering, but in doing. Dost thou know, saith St. Chrysostom, that thy brother intends particular mischief against thee, that he would embrue his hand in thy bloud? [...], yet kiss that hand: For the Lord did not refuse to kiss that mouth which made the bargain for his bloud. Hath he robbed thee of all thy goods? Be not angry: but if by chance any thing be left, give it willingly to him who hath taken away all. Nay, saith Basil, if thine enemy hunger, though thou hast but one loaf to su­stein thy self, yet give it him, and rely upon Gods Providence to feed thee. You will say now perhaps that I have stretched it too far, even beyond its line and compass; and as Pythagoras instructed his Scholars to do, where there was burthen enough already, laid on more. If I have, yet I have done it magnis autoribus, and have no less then St. Chrysostom and St. Basil for my defence. Indeed Meekness cannot be too far extended, where with evil handling it hath been shrunk up almost to nothing. What? kiss his hand? Nay, off with his head. Feed our enemy with bread? Nay, strike a dag­ger into his throat. This goes for current Doctrine; not in the Camp a­lone, amongst barbarous Souldiers, but in the habitations of peace, amongst Christians. As for true Meekness, we find it in paginis, non in operibus, in our looks perhaps, but not the least syllable or character of it in our manners and deportment. I have often wondred that Christians should make so little esteem of this Virtue, which is theirs alone, and especially directed unto them. The very Pagans by the light of Nature saw the hor­ror of revenge, and abhorr'd it

could Claudian say. And the Jew, though many things were by way of indulgence permitted him for the hardness of his heart, yet renounced it utterly. You may hear the Jews of Alexandria speak it plainly in Philo, [...], Lord, we delight not to take revenge up­on [Page 17] an enemy. Only the Christian, who hath received this Precept in that latitude in which neither Nature nor the Law did ever tender it, hath more estranged himself from it then either Jew or Pagan; no heathen story ever finding out a parallel to the malice of a Christian. I speak this to our shame: But the Philosopher will tell us, Corruptio optimi est pessima, The most pure complexions are most noisome when they putrifie: and of all men a wicked Christian is the worst. And indeed something there is in our very Religion which the Devil makes use of to deceive us: The Gospel is news of Peace, and speaks nothing but forgiveness and salvation: Our Saviour is a meek Saviour, we are sure; and because he is willing to par­don us when we fall down before him, we nourish a false hope that he will pardon us our malice also, and forgive us our debts, though we take our brother by the throat. Besides, Revenge may be numbred amongst those sins which go down glibly and with delight, because no humane Law doth punish it; nay, in some case doth seem to countenance it. Adultery, and Drunkenness, and suck like sins carry shame in their very foreheads, and, when they are committed, strike the Soul with some regret and sorrow, which many times begets a repentance not to be repented of; but Ambi­tion, and Revenge, which is commonly a handmaid to Ambition, these lurk secretly in our heart, and are commonly in men of great wisdom and spirit, who will not have their credit poured out upon the ground as wa­ter, but preserve it choicely as a precious ointment. They carry com­monly content and honors and riches with them for their reward. And therefore we conceive that these Precepts of Meekness and Forgiveness are spoken rather cohortatoriè quàm verè, rather by way of exhortation, then strictly exacting that we should perform them. And now though the meek be blessed, yet we count it a kind of happiness that we are not meek; and for the inheritance of the earth, we can never purchase it, we think, with so sheepish a disposition. And therefore what morosity do we put on? How punctual are we in our behaviour that we be not wanting to our selves where the Law can help us? We love the Proverb well that tells us that he that makes himself a Sheep, the Wolf will eat him. For Meekness and Forgiveness, you shall hear of it perhaps in our last Will and Testament. We refer that to our Death-bed, when indeed we should have nothing else to do but to dye. And if we give up our last gasp meekly, we are meek enough. And now tell me, Beloved, when Meekness is thus contracted, nay lost, in our manners, can we blame these holy men who have enlarg'd the curtains of her habitation, and required more at the hands of a Chri­stian then perhaps ever any Christian attained to: There is no danger here of excess; no, there is no fear but that in this we will come short. Meliùs ultrà quàm citra stant mores; I cannot do too much, I may too little. And as Quintilian speaks, where he gives the rules of a perfect Oratour, omnia sunt praecipienda ut plura fiant; We command all to be done, that we may do the most. For suppose we observed our Saviours Precepts literally; Suppose I gave him my cloak that took away my coat, and went two miles with him that compell'd me to go one; Suppose I kist the hand that strook me, and made my enemy the sole inheritor of all my estate; what inconve­nience would follow hence? or what danger could it bring unto my soul? Nay, how like would this make me to the Protomartyr St. Stephen, who pray'd for his enemies? and to the great Martyr (as the Fathers call him) Christ himself, who died for his enemies? The world perhaps might put up­on me a fools coat: but what need I fear this imputation, when Angels clap their hands, and applaud my Meekness, and God himself hath promised a robe of Glory? That folly is my glory which makes me wise unto salvati­on. Beloved, the Doctrines which teach Perfection are not dangerous; [Page 18] nor can they be too often urged in this dull and heavy age, which hath so long talkt of Imperfection, that Imperfection is almost become a duty. We must be no better then we are; we are Pelagians and proud if we con­ceive any hope of it. As if our Saviour, when he commands us to be per­fect, did speak more than he meant, intending only this, that we should be imperfect. Be not deceived. God requires at our hands Perfection, and the fulfilling of his Law: But indeed it is one thing what God requires, and another what he will accept. He will accept of our endeavours if they be serious, and if we strive forward to perfection: But if our endeavours grow feeble and faint, and fail upon conceit of I know not what weakness, he will not accept them. If we think that any degree of Meekness is e­nough, we have forfeited our Blessedness, and the Promise is made of none effect. The Oratour in his Institutions speaking of men that were famous for their strength of memory; of Themistocles, who learnt the Persian tongue in one year; of Mithrydates, who spake as many several Languages as he govern'd Nations, which were no fewer then two and twenty; of Cyrus, who could call his Souldiers by name; tells us the truth of this was uncer­tain; habenda tamen fides est, vel in hoc, ut qui crediderit & speret; Yet, saith he, every man that desires to improve his memory by industry, ought to believe it, that believing it to be so, he may hope also by practice to gain as good a memory as they. Quicquid enim fieri potuit, potest; For what­soever hath been once done by any man, may be done again by every man. The same may we apply to our present purpose. Do we read of any that kissed that hand that struck them? That gave their enemies bread when themselves were like to starve for hunger? That gave him a Talent who had rob'd them of a Mite? let us not entertain these stories as fabulous, but be­lieve that it was and should be so, ut qui crediderit & speret; that Belief may raise our Hope; and the Hope that so much may be done, may make it easier for us to do the most; to cool our Anger, to curb our Desire of Re­venge, to empty our hearts of all gall and bitterness, to be like unto Mo­ses, who under the Law was the meekest man upon the earth, and to Christ himself, who was brought as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a Sheep before her shearers is dumb, so open'd be not his mouth.

And now having shewed you the nature of Meekness, in the next place we will seat her in her proper subject, and that is Every man as he is a Pri­vate man, not as he bears the Sword of Justice. For our Saviour, when he commends Meekness, doth not strike the Sword out of the hand of the Magistrate. Nullum verbum hîc de magistratu, & ejus officio, saith Luther; Here is no mention made of the Magistrate and his Office. It is far better, that I loose my coat then revenge my self: for by the Law of equity no man can be Judge in his own cause: But let the Magistrate strike, and the blow is not of Revenge but Justice. Justice, saith Plutarch, accompanies God himself, and breaths revenge against those which break his law; which Men al­so by the very light of nature use against all men [...], as they are citi­zens and members of a body politick. Meekness is that virtue which sweet­ly ordereth, and composes our mind in pardoning those injuries which are done to our private persons; but it hath no room in the breast of a Judge, who looks upon the Offender vultu legis, with no other countenance then that of the Law. In my own case licet mihi facere quod volo de meo, it is lawful for me to do what I will with my own. I may give it, or I may suffer it to be torn from me: and by this loss I may purchase the inheritance of the earth. But when I sit on the Tribunal as a Judge, the case is not my own. It is Meekness to pardon wrongs done unto our selves; but to de­ny the course of Justice to him that calls for it, to sheath the Sword when it should cut off the wicked from the earth, may peradventure commend [Page 19] it self by the name of inconsiderate pity, but meekness it cannot be. For the Magistrate, as he is the Keeper of the Law, so in his proceeding he must be like it. Now the Law is surda res, as the young men in Livy complain'd, deaf and inexorable: Though thou speak it fair, it hears thee not; and though thou speak in tears, it regards thee not. It is immoveable as a Rock, and it stares the Offender in the face. No complement can shake it, no bribe move it, no riches batter it. If it seem to change countenance and turn face, it is not its own face, but the paint and visard of the Magi­strate. When the Magistrate is grown meek on the sudden by the operati­on of a bribe, when Injustice beats upon this rock of the Law to mollifie and allay its rigor, that falls out which Tertullian observes of Infidelity meeting with a convincing argument, Injustice prevails, and the Law is vanquisht; and, what is monstrous, the Ship is safe, and the Rock ship­wrackt. Therefore the Magistrate, when he is to condemn an Offender, may put on the passion of Anger, and raise it up against his Compassion; and then strike him, saith Seneca, with the same countenance he would strike a Serpent. Histrionibus, etsi non iratis, tamen iram simulantibus conducit; The very counterfeiting of this passion helpeth the Tragedian in his action. And the judge may set it against those assaults which may move him to un­necessary compassion, and which may turn him to the right hand or the left. We need not here enlarge our selves in a case so plain. That which the Pri­vate man may demand may be now more useful, Whether it be lawful to implead our brother in any Court of Justice. Questionless it is. For to deny it were not only to pluck the Magistrate from the Bench, but to can­cel and disanul all the Laws of Christian Common-wealths. Morality teach­eth us To do no wrong: That which Religion adds is no more but this, To keep our mind in an habitual preparation of suffering. And so the Ca­suists and St. Augustine interpret these Precepts of our Saviour, That we must then retain the heart of a friend when we have taken upon us the name of an adversary, and so compose our selves that we should choose rather to loose our right then our charity. But Charity seeketh not her own. A good Argument, not only to keep me from the Tribunal, but to drive me also from the Church. For he that bids me cast my bread upon the waters, hath also prescrib'd that form of Prayer, Give us this day our daily bread. It is true, Regulae charitatis latiùs patent quàm juris, the Rules of Charity are of a larger extent then those of the Law. If thou owe a hundred measures of oyl, Charity takes the Bill, and sits down quickly, and writeth fifty; and if thy vessels be empty, she cancels the bill, and teareth the Indenture. But it is as true too, that Charity begins at home, and that He that provides not for his family is worse then an Infidel. To conclude this point; It will concern every man to take heed quo animo, quibus consiliis, with what mind and upon what advise he brings his brother to the Barr. Necessitas huma­nae fragilitatis patrocinium; Necessity is a good plea; but where Necessity inforceth not, I may say of it as St. Paul doth of Marriage, He that impleadeth his brother may do well; but he that impleadeth him not doth better. And I cannot but commend that resolution of St. Hierom, Mihi etiam vera accu­satio adversus fratrem displicet. Nec reprehendo alios, sed dico quid ipse non facerem. And happy is he who can take up this holy Father's Language, It is troublesome to me to bring an accusation, though never so true, against a brother. I censure not those who do it, but only declare what I would not do my self. Indeed our Saviour bids us agree with our adversary, and forgive him; but we do not read that any where he hath commanded us to implead him. And this should make us suspect our selves in such a case: For here are two parts, Not to implead him, and To implead him. The one is most evident­ly lawful; It is in our power. The other doubtful. When our judgment [Page 20] then is at a loss, and cannot resolve on the one side, the best wisdom it will be to cleave unto the side which is evident and plain, unless we please to put it to the venture and harase our souls, and try conclusions with God. But most commonly so it is, Praevalent dubia, Things doubtful in themselves have more power over us then those things which are plain and certain; and men are easie of belief in those things which they would have done. What is wanting in the evidence, we supply in our will: and although our opinion point to the plainest side as safest, yet we secretly wish that the more doubt­ful part were true; and at last, though we have small evidence, yet we ad­here and stick close unto it. From hence those stabbings and digladiations amongst Christians. From hence it is that because we may lawfully implead our brother; we think we may as lawfully undo him; and because I may redeem my cloak by law, by law I may purchase my brothers cloak also. I conclude this point with that of the Apostle, Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good. Abstein from all appearance of evil. 1 Thess. 5. 21, 22.

I should now proceed to lay open the Object of our Meekness: but I see the time hath prevented me. Only give me leave to tell you, It is not e­nough to lay down our malice for a day, and then to raise it up, and breath it out against our brother upon the next occasion: For this is a strong evi­dence that our malice was never laid down. For though it must set before the Sun, yet it must not set as the Sun, to appear again and shew it self in our Hemisphere the next morning. The Civilians will tell us, Qui comitiali morbo laborant, nè iis quidem diebus quibus morbo carent sanos rectè dici; They that are troubled with the Falling-sickness are not to be reckon'd as free from it when the fit is off. If the disease return again, be the term and date of time what it will, it is but the intermitting of the fit, no freedom from the disease. And so Malice and Anger, which is a kind of Falling-sickness, though for some time we are rid of it, yet if it return again, we are still guilty of the sin, though we made some pause, and suffer'd it not for a while to break out. Will you know where you may make use of your Anger? Make use of it upon your selves. In propriis erratis securissimus hic affectus, This affe­ction doth never good, but when it looks inward, and frowns upon our own misdeeds. For by this turning our Anger upon our selves and our sins, foe­mininum irae, masculinum facimus, that which is womanish in Anger is made masculine and heroick; nay, ferinum irae divinum facimus, that which is brutish in Anger is made Divine, and fights the Lords battles, beats down imaginations, destroys principalities and powers, treads down strength, all our pride and animosity, and works a conquest on our sins, the greatest ene­mies to God and our selves. And thus, if we invert the operation of An­ger, and turn its edge upon our selves, if our Meekness and Moderation be shewn unto all men, and our indignation rest upon our sins, it shall prevent that Anger which is as just as terrible, and shall entitle us to this Blessedness here, even all those blessings which are the purchase of the Prince of Peace, and the bloud of that meek Lamb shall cleanse us from all our sins.

IN the morning we laid before your eyes the Virtue of Meekness; A virtue by which, as St. Chrysostom saith, a man may know a Christian better then by his name. Tertullian telleth us that anciently, among the Heathen, Professors of Christianity were called, not Christiani, but Chrestiani, from [...], a word signifying Sweet­ness and Benignity of disposition. I know not how you were taken with the beauty of this divine and useful Virtue, and with what affections you beheld her in those colors in which the Gospel hath shewed her: Some perhaps heard the report of her as they do news from a far Country, not able to contradict, nor yet willing to be­lieve it. To others her description was but picta nebula, quae non longiùs delectat quàm videtur, as a painted cloud, which is forgot with the remo­ving of our eye, and delights no longer then it is seen. But yet as the Queen of Sheba spake of the wisdom of Solomon, so will I of this excellent vir­tue; The one half is not yet told you. We will therefore proceed on, and pass by those lines which we first drew, and having shewed her in her ge­neral Description, and confined her to her proper Subject; we will, accor­ding to our method proposed, in the next place present you with the Ob­ject of Meekness, by which I mean those persons in respect of whom this Virtue is to be exercised.

We have not so confined Meekness, and shut her up in the breasts of pri­vate men, but we shall as far enlarge her in respect of her Object; which is in compass as large as all the world. [...], saith the Apostle, Let your softness, (your moderation, your meekness, your Phil. 4. 5. equity) be known unto all men. For though Meekness and Equity be not one and the same Virtue, yet every meek man so far participates of Equity that he is not [...], too exactly just, but makes himself less then he is; that he is willing to depart from his own right, and will not do all that strict and rigid Justice warrants as lawful. Nor is this Vir­tue cloyster'd up to shine in a corner, but, like the Sun it self, non uni aut alteri, sed statim omnibus in commune profertur; she display's her beams not in good men alone, or Christians alone, but to wicked men, to erring men, to all men, even to the whole world. For this end God doth permit some evil persons in the world. Omnis malus aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur, aut ideo vivit ut per illum bonus exerceatur, Every wicked person doth either [Page 22] prolong his life for his own good and amendment of himself; or for the good of others, to their tryal. If there were none to injure us, Meekness were but a phansie, or like a Rose in Winter, would have a being, an essence perhaps, but no existence. If there were no evil men, there would not be any good, at least not known to be so. Utrâque turbâ, saith Seneca, opus est, ut Cato possit intelligi, There must be both good and evil men, to make Cato's Vir­tues known. And Nazianzene, in his Epistles, speaking of the factious behaviour of men, and the troubles of the times, saith, that all those things were to come to pass ut Basilius cognosceretur, that Basil might be known; that he might manifest that wisdom which long experience had taught him, and so shine forth as a light in the midst of a froward generation. Whilst the heavens are clear and the weather fair, and no wind nor tempest stirs, in glomis subit portum, the Pilot arriveth indeed at the wisht-for haven, but without praise or glory. And were our life becalmed, and if no tempests of injuries beat upon us, what room then had Meekness to shew her self? Sed cùm stridunt funes, & gemunt gubernacula, when Malice rageth, when wicked men provoke us; when there are Ismaels to scoff at us, Shimei's to revile us, Zedekiah's to smite us on the cheek; when injuries, like the bil­lows of the Sea, follow close one on the neck of another; then is the world a stage for Meekness to act her part on. An easie thing it is to be meek where there is nothing to raise our Anger; and Revenge hath no place where there is no provocation. The Philosopher in his Rhetorics, giving us the character of Meekness, tells us that most men are gentle and meek to those who never wronged them, [...], or who did it unwillingly; to men who confess an injury, and repent of it; [...], to those who humble themselves at their feet, and beseech them, and who do not contra­dict them; to those whom they reverence and fear. For Fear and Anger seldom lodge in the same breast. But Christianity raiseth Meekness to a higher pitch, where no injury can reach it. A studied and plotted injury, an injury made greater by defense, an injury from the meanest, from him that sits with the dogs of our flocks, any injury at any time, from any man, maketh a fit object for Christian Meekness, which in the midst of all contu­melies and reproaches, in the midst of all contradictions is still the same. Should we insist upon every particular, our Discourse would be too large. We will therefore fasten our meditations upon those which may seem most pertinent, and so take off all those pretenses which we Christians common­ly bring in as Advocates to plead for us when we forget that we are Christi­ans. There be two errors in our life, the one of Opinion, the other in Man­ners and Behaviour, which is far the worse: and though these of themselves carry no fire with them, yet by our weakness commonly it comes to pass that they are made the only incendiaries of the world, and set both Church and Commonwealth in combustion. If our brothers opinion stand in op­position to ours, if his life and conversation be not drawn out by the same rule, we presently are on fire; and we number it amongst our virtues, to be angry with those who in their Doctrine are erroneous, or in their lives ir­regular. Now in this I know not how blessed we think our selves, but I am sure we are not meek. For if we were truly possessed of that Meekness which Christ commends, as we should receive the weak in Faith with all ten­derness, so should we be compassionate to the wicked also, and learn that Christian art which would enable us to make good use both of Sin and Er­ror. And first for Error, though many times it be of a monstrous aspect, yet I see nothing in it which of it self hath force to fright a Christian from that temper which should so compose him that he may rather lend an hand to direct him that errs, then cry him down with noise and violence; seeing it is a thing so general to be deceived, so easie to erre, and so hard to be re­duced [Page 23] from our error; seeing with more facility many times we change an evil custom then a false opinion. For Sin carries with it an argument against it self. Hoc habet quod sibi displicet, saith Seneca: As it fills the heart with delight, so it doth with terror. Like the Viper, mater est funeris sui, it works its own destruction, and helps to dispossess it self. But Errour pleaseth us with the shape of Truth; nor can any man be deceived in opinion, but as Ixion was by embracing a cloud for Juno, and Falshood for the Truth. He that errs, if he were perswaded he did so, could err no longer. And what guilt he incurs by his error, the most exact and severe inquisition cannot find out; because this depends on that measure of light which is afforded, and the inward disposition and temper of his soul, which are as hard for a stander-by to dive into as to be the searcher of his heart. The Heresie of the Arians was as dangerous as any that ever did molest the peace of the Church, as being that which strook at the very foundation, and denyed the Divinity of the Son; yet Salvian pas­seth this gentle censure on them, Errant, sed bono animo errant; non odio, sed affectu Dei; They erred, but out of a good mind; not out of hatred, but affection to God. And though they were injurious to Christs Divine generation, yet they loved him as a Saviour, and honoured him as a Lord. The Manichees fell upon those gross absurdities that Reason, when her eye is weakest, may easily see through; yet St. Augustine, who had been one him­self, bespeaks them in this courteous language, Illi saeviant in vos qui nes­ciunt quocum labore verum inveniatur; Let them be angry with you who know not with what difficulty the truth is found, and how hard a matter it is to gain that serenity of mind which may dispel the mists of carnal phantasmes: Let them be angry with you who were never deceived, and who do not know with what sighs and groans we purchase the smallest measure of knowledge in Divine mysteries. I cannot be angry; but will so bear with your error now as I did with my own when I was a Manichee. A good pattern to take out, and learn how to demean our selves towards the mistakes of our brethren, and to bear with the infirmities of the weak, and not to please our selves with the pretense of Zeal and Religion, which loose their name and nature, and bring in a world of iniquity, when we use them to fan the fire of contention. I do not see that relation or likeness between Difference of Opinion and con­trariety in affections, that one would beget the other, or that it should be impossible or unlawful to be united unto him in love who is divided from me in opinion. No; Charity is from heaven, heavenly, and may have its influence on minds of divers dispositions, as the Sun hath on bodies of a different temper, and it may knit the hearts of those together in the bond of love whose opinions may be as various as their complexions. But Faction and Schism and Dissention are from the earth, earthly; and have their be­ginnings and continuance, not ab extra, from the things themselves which are in controversie, but from within us, from our Self-love and Pride of mind, which condemn the errors of our brethren as heresies, and obtrude our own errors for Oracles. I confess, to contend for the Truth is a most Christian resolution, and in Tertullians esteem a kind of Martyrdom. It is the duty of the meekest man to take courage against Error; and as Nazian­zene speaketh, in a cause that so nearly concerns us as the truth of Christ a Lamb should become a Lion. I cannot but commend that of Calvine, Maledicta pax cujus pignus desertio Dei, That peace deserves a curse which lay's down the Truth and God himself for a gage and pawn; and benedicta praelia quibus regnum Christi necessitate defenditur, those battels are blessed which we are forced to wage in the name of the Lord of Hosts. And thrice happy he who lays down his life a sacrifice for the Truth. But Religion and Reason will teach us that all this may be done without malice or rancor to [Page 24] their persons, whose error we strive against, and that the Lords battles may be fought without shedding of bloud. Surely Meekness is the best Director in these wars, where he gains the greatest conquest who is overcome. The Physician is not angry with him whom he intends to cure, but he searcheth his books, and useth his art and all diligence, morbum tollere, non hominem, to remove the disease, and not to kill the man: How much more should we be careful how we handle our weak and erring brother, lest we make him weaker by our rough and unskilful usage, and cure him indeed, but in the Tyrant's sense in Suetonius, who boasted he had done a cure, when he cut off a mans head, or otherwise put him to death, who had offended him. We read that Paul and Barnabas were at some difference about the choice of their Acts 15. companion; the one determined to take Mark with them, the other thought it not good: From whence sprung that paroxysme, as the Evangelist terms it, which divided them the one from the other. Yet St. Hierom will tell us, Quos navigatio separavit, hoc Christi Evangelium copulavit; Though they sailed to several Coasts, yet they were both bound for the same negotiation, e­ven the preaching of the Gospel. Paul withstood Peter to his face; yet in Gal. 2. 11. the same Chapter he calls him a Pillar of the Truth. A Father may differ from his Son, and the Wife from the Husband in opinion; yet this difference breaks not the bond of that relation which is betwixt them; but the Fa­ther may, nay must perform the office of love, and the Son of duty. And why may not Christians be diversly perswaded in some points of Religion in earth, and yet the same Heaven hold them both? That which deceives us are those glorious things which are spoken of Zeal. We read of Phine­has, who was blest for thrusting his Javelin through the adulterous couple; of the austerity of Elijah, the zeal of Simon the Canaanite, the severity of Peter, which struck Ananias and Sapphira dead; the constancy of Paul, who struck Elymas the Sorcerer blind. And we are told, Non est crude­litas pro Deo pietas, That in God's cause the greatest piety is to be cruel. But we willingly mistake our selves: for neither here is the cause alike, nor the person the same. We know not of what Spirit we are. Every man is not a Phinehas, an Elijah, a Paul, a Peter. Nor did Elymas loose his sight, and Ananias his life, for their errors, but for their witchcraft, and grand hypocrisie. Nor are times the same. We cannot but commend Zeal as an excellent quality in man: but as Agarick or Stibium being prepared and castigated are soveraign Physick, but crude and unprepared are dangerous: so Zeal, which so many boast of, seasoned with discretion, is of singular use and profit; but taken crude and in the Mineral, it oft-times proves de­leterial and unfortunate. Zeal is a light, but by occasion it troubles the eye of the understanding; and being by degrees enraged by our private ends and phansies, at last it puts it quite out, and leaves us fighting in the dark. [...], and [...], an unlearned Zeal and su­pine Negligence are both so bad that it is not easie to determine which is worst: only Negligence lets inconveniencies slily steal into the Church, but unguided Zeal much plies those errours which Negligence letteth in: and, as if error were indeed a Hydra, it never strikes off the head of one error, but two arise in the place. And therefore St. Bernard, in his forty ninth Sermon on the Canticles, will tell us, Semper zelus absque scientia minùs uti­lis invenitur, plerumque etiam perniciosus sentitur; Zeal without knowledge is alwaies unprofitable, many times most dangerous. And therefore the more hot and fervent it is, and the more profuse our Charity, with the more care and diligence should we set our Knowledge and Reason as a Sentinel, quae Zelum supprimat, spiritum temperet, ordinet charitatem, which may abate and cool our Zeal, temper our spirit, and compose and order our Charity. [Page 25] For if we do not keep our souls with diligence, and carry a strict and ob­servant eye upon our Zeal, our Meekness will be consumed in this fire, and with it the whole crop and harvest of spiritual Wisdom lost. We shall be heady and high-minded, lovers of our selves, unwilling to pardon one error to our brethren, and to acknowledge any of our own. This is it which hath been the mother and nurse too of all those outrages in the Church of Christ that Story hath transmitted to Posterity, and those too which later and our present times have been too guilty of, that men will neither sub­scribe to the opinion of others, lest they may be thought not to have found the Truth, but have borrowed it; nor will yet retain so much meekness as to give their brother leave to erre, but, when they cannot convince him by Argument, fall heavy upon him with Reproach: A fault sometimes in him that errs, and sometimes in him who holds the truth, the one obstinate, the other indiscreet, both ready to maintain with violence what they cannot perswade by reason. The Arians betook themselves to this guard, and called in the temporal Sword to defend their Cause against the Orthodox; and when they could not prevail by Argument, they made use of outward force: And so this faction, saith the Father, plainly shewed quàm non sit pia, nec Dei cultrix, how destitute it was of piety and the fear of God. The Donatists stiled themselves filios Martyrum, the off-spring of Martyrs; and all other Christians, progeniem traditorum, the progeny of those who basely delivered up the sacred things. They broke the Chalices, demolisht the Al­tars, ravisht Virgins and Matrons, flung the holy Eucharist to the Dogs, slew those who were not of their faction, beat down the Bishop Maximinian with batts and clubs even as he stood at the Altar, and did those outrages on Christians which Christian Meekness would have forbidden them to commit on a Jew or Infidel: the Monks of Aegypt were indeed devout and religi­ous men, but for the most part Anthropomerphites holding that God had hands and feet and all the parts that a Man hath, and was in outward shape and proportion like unto one of us. That having got Theophilus, a learned Bishop of Alexandria, into their hands, so roughly used him that he could not get out of their fingers till he made use of his wits and sophistry, and told them in a kind of complement that he had seen their face as the face of God. Nor did this evil rest here, amongst the vulgar and discontented persons, quibus opus erat bello civili, as Caesar spake, who could not subsist but in times of noise and hurry, but it blasted the fairest plants in all the Church; Chrysostom would not consent to give his suffrage for the condem­nation of Origen's works; Epiphanius subscribes to it, and makes St. Chry­sostom a Patron of those errors which did no doubt deserve a censure: Both forgot that Meekness which they both commended in their Writings. Epi­phanius curseth Chrysostom, and Chrysostom Epiphanius; and both took ef­fect: for the one lost his Bishoprick, and the other his Country, to which he never after returned. An infirmity this is which we cannot be too wary of, since we see the strongest Pillars of the Church thus shaken with it; An evil which hath alwaies been forbidden and retained in all Ages of the Church; Zeal being made an apology for Fury, and the Love of Truth a pretense to colour over that behaviour which hath nothing in it to shew of Truth or Christianity. And therefore the Church of Christ, which felt the smart of it, hath alwaies condemn'd it. When Eulalia the Martyr spit in the face of the Tyrant, and broke and scatter'd the Idols before, Pru­dentius and others were fain to excuse it, that she did it impulsu Divini spiritûs, by special revelation from the Spirit. Which was indeed but an excuse, and a weak one too. For that Spirit which once descended in the shape of a Dove, and is indeed the Spirit of Meekness, cannot be thought to be the Teacher of such a Lesson. But when other Christians in the time [Page 26] of Dioclesian attempted the like, and were slain in the very enterprise, to de­ter others from such an inconsiderate Zeal; it was decreed in the Councel of Eliberis, and the 60 Canon, Siquis idola fregerit; If any hereafter break down the heathen idols, he shall have no room in the Diptychs, nor be re­gistred with the number of the Martyrs, although he be slain in the very fact, quatenus in Evangelio non est scriptum, because we find nothing in the Gospel that casts a favourable countenance upon such a fact. I have brought this instance the rather, to curb those forward spirits now adaies which, did not Fear more restrain them then Discretion, would be as good Martyrs as these, and with the same Engine with which they heave at the outwork, in time would blow up Church, Religion, and all; who are streight angry with any thing that doth but thwart their private humor, or with any man that by long study and experience and evidence of reason hath gained so much knowledge as not to be of their opinion. What mean else the Unchristian nick-names of Arminians, and Pelagians, and Socini­ans, and Puritanes, which are the glorious Scutchions the Meekness of these times doth fix in every place, and the very pomp and glory of their tri­umph, when factious men cry down that truth which they are not willing to understand? Doth this rancor, think you, proceed from the spirit of Meek­ness? or rather from the foul Spirit of Destraction. Little do these men think that the Truth it self suffers by such a Defense, that rash Zeal cannot be excused with intentions and the goodness of the end which is proposed; that the crown of Martyrdom will sit more gloriously on his head who ra­ther suffers that the Church may have her peace, then on his who dies that he may not offer sacrifice to idols. For in this every man hath been merci­ful and good to himself; but in the former he merits for the whole, and is a sacrifice for the publick peace of the Church whereof he is a part. Talk of Martyrdom what we please; never was there any Martyr, never can there be any Martyr made without Meekness. Though I give all my goods to feed the poor, though I give my body to be burnt in the justest cause for the truth of the Gospel, and have not Meekness, which is a branch of Christian Charity, it profitteth me nothing: For my impatience will rob me of that crown to which my sufferings might otherwise have entitled me. The Ca­nonists speak truly; Non praesumitur bono exitu perfici quae malo sunt inchoata principio, The event of that action can never be good whose very beginning was unwarrantable. Philosophers have told us that when the Sea rageth, if you throw in oyl upon it, you shall presently calm it. The truth of this I will not now discuss; but give me leave to commend this precious oyl of Meekness to powre upon your souls, when Zeal or Ignorance shall raise a tempest in your thoughts. Have men of wisdom tender'd to you something which falls cross with your opinion? If you obey not, yet be not angry? If your obedience appear not in your practise, yet let it be most visible in your Meekness. Remember that private men, who converse in a narrow Sphere, must needs be ignorant of many things which fall not within their horizon and the compass of their experience; that they may have knowledge enough perhaps to do their own duty, which will come short in the per­formance of anothers, especially of a Superiors. If an erroneous Consci­ence bind thee from the outward performance of what is enjoyned, yet let Truth and Scripture and Meekness seal up thy lips from reviling those qui in hoc somnum, in hoc vigilias reponunt, who do watch for thy good, and spend their dayes and nights too that thou mayest live in all good consci­ence before God all the dayes of thy life. To conclude this point; Dost thou know or suppose thy brother to be in an error? Take not mine, but St. Paul's counsel, and restore such a one in the spirit of Meekness, consider­ing that thou also maist be deceived. And peradventure this may be one error, [Page 27] that thou art perswaded that thy brother errs when Truth and Reason both speak for him: Pride and Self-conceit are of a poysonous quality, and, if not purged out, exhalat opaca mephitia, it sends forth pestiferous vapors, which will choak and stifle all goodness in us. But Meekness qualifies and prepares the mind, and makes it wax for all impressions of spiritual graces; it doth no evil, it thinketh no evil, it cannot be provokt with errors in opi­nion, nor with those grosser mistakes and deviations in mens lives and con­versation.

We have brought Meekness to its tryal indeed. For sure where Sin once shews its deformity, all meekness in a Christian, whose Religion bindeth him to hate sin must needs be lost. It is true, all created natures we must love, because they have their first foundation in the love and good­ness of God; and he that made them saw that they were good. But Sin is no created entity, but without the compass of Nature, and against her, against that order and harmony which Reason dispenseth. This only hurts us; this is that smoke which comes from the very pit of Hell, and blasts the soul; even then when the body is untoucht: This is the fornace in which men are transformed into Devils. We cannot then hate Sin enough. Yet here our Christian skill must shew it self; and we must be careful that our Anger, which frowns upon Sin, do not rage against the Sinner, and that whilst we strike at one we do not wound both. Our Anger must be, not [...], but [...], not an hatred of the person, but a detestation of the sin. A hard subtlety indeed it is, to distinguish things thus confound­ed and blended together. Facile est atque proclive, saith St. Augustine, malos odisse, quia mali sunt; rarum autem & pium, eosdem ipsos diligere, quia ho­mines sunt; It is an easie thing to hate evil men because they are evil; but to love them as they are men, this is a rare and pious thing. And therefore we must be wary that our Anger be not too hot and extreme against the acti­ons of others, for fear least at last we transpose it upon the men themselves. Timon, that great hater of mankind, made this his apology, That he hated evil men because they were evil; and all others, because they did not hate them. He thought it a sin not to be angry with those who did commit sin. But Christianity begets no Timons, but Children like unto the Son of God, who though he knew no sin, yet was content to lay down his life for sinners. There is no man so evil but hath some good thing to commend him, though it break not out, as being clouded and darkned with much corruption. There­fore Christian Meekness is very wary, and doth not think there is nothing else but evil where she often sees it. And though she cannot nourish a good opinion of the man, to think him good; yet she will a charitable hope, that he may be so. And as those who seek for treasure, give not over by reason of clay and mire, so long as there is any hope to speed; so doth not Meekness slack her hand and cast off her industry, though it be spent on the most polluted soul, & ad quaedam sana, in quorum delectatione acquies­cat, per tolerantiam perducatur. Many for want of this Meekness destroy the work of God, Dum ita objurgant quasi oderint, whilst they reprove their brother as if they hated him, and upbraid rather then reprehend him. They make it their virtue rixari cùm soeculo, to chide the times and manners. They suppose they are bound to hate sinners; and will be just rather in shewing mercy to their beast then to their brother. Away with him, away with him from the earth, is quickly said; but is commonly breathed from a soul as much stained and polluted as his is whom we suppose to be sick to death. What Tertullian spake is most true, In Majestatis reos & publicos hostes omnis homo miles est, Against traytors and publick enemies, every man is a Souldier. And it is as true, that every one that is of strength to pull a soul out of the fire, is, when his brother sins, a Priest also, and may, [Page 28] nay is bound to rebuke him: but he must be careful that his counsel and ad­vise be the dictates of his Love, not of his gall and bitterness; that he take God himself for a patern, qui non homines odit, sed vitia; who never hated men, whom he made, but Sin, which, being God, he could not make. The Prophet David puts it up in the manner of a question unto God himself, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with Psal. 139. 21, 22. those which rise up against thee? and presently gives himself the answer, I hate them with a perfect hatred, I count them mine enemies. Quid est illud, PERFECTO ODIO? saith St. Augustine; What is that the Pro­phet means by perfect hatred? No more then this, He hated the vices in them, not the men; How then will this perfect Hatred and the Love of our enemies subsist together? To wit, by this, That we hate this in them, that they are wicked; and love this in them, that they are men. The 109 Psalm is a Psalm of cursing. There we find such fearful imprecations that a true Christian must needs tremble but to hear them read. St. Chrysostom in his very first words upon that Psalm, saith [...], He that will take this Psalm into his hands had need be discreet. Whether it be a Prophesie or a collection of bitter imprecations, is not much ma­terial: In the Gospel there is no such gift of Prophesie, nor liberty of cur­sing granted. He that foretells his brothers ruine, is a Prophet also of his own: and he that curseth his brother secretly in his heart, though it be for sin, hath committed that sin which will bring a heavy curse upon himself. I know it hath been used in the Church; and it hath been thought a heavy curse to say DEUS LAUDUM upon any man, which is the very first words and title of that Psalm. A common thing it was in France, saith Calvin, if any man had an enemy that molested him, to hire with a sum of money a Monk or a Franciscane every day to repeat this Psalm. A Gen­tlewoman of great note procured one of that Fraternity to use that very form of imprecation against her only Son. So dangerous are the examples even of the Saints of God; which we are too ready to follow when they are ill; and when they are good and warrantable, as ready to mistake them. Si David, cur non ego? If David that Saint of God, that man after Gods own heart, did fill his Psalm with Imprecations, why may not we also set our Prayers to the same tune, and curse our enemies with a DEUS LAU­DUM? I will grant we may, when as we find such a roll of curses under the Law; we find also such another under the Gospel. If the Proverb will suffer the Jew but to creep into Mount Ebal, sure Christianity should be a sense to keep a Christian from coming near it. I cannot conceive but that God doth exact this duty in far greater measure from a Christian then from a Jew. For though this precept in equity bound the Jews as well as us, yet God, who dispensed with them, hath not done that favor unto us, who have received far greater from him, but requires this duty of Meekness from us in the highest degree. If he demanded of the Jew an Omer, he will ex­act from us Christians an Ephah.

For conclusion then, and to make some use of that which hath been spo­ken; Let us not go in the waies of the Gentiles, nor in theirs who are so fully bent against those who are not of the same opinion, that in the pro­secution they forget they are men, and that there is any such virtue as Meek­ness; that, like Hannibal, cannot live without an enemy; or, like those ancient Spaniards in Justine, are so out of love with concord that they swell at the very name; that have no other reason or inducement to quar­rel but to quarrel, and think Religion consists in words of gall and acts of vengeance, that Clamor is Zeal, and Fury Piety, and that then they reign as Saints when they wash their feet in the bloud of their brethren; that call every opinion that is not theirs Blasphemy; and that are not so hot against a [Page 29] foul pollution in the heart as against an error in the understanding, nor so angry with a crying sin as with a supposed mistake. If these be Saints, then certainly our Saviour is not so meek as he hath told us, or we must believe, what is past understanding, that our meek Saviour, as he once had Judas, so may now have these men of Belial for his Disciples. If these men be Saints, why may not Lucifer recover his place? What? a Saint with fire and sword? with axes and hammers? with fire devouring before him, and a tempest round about him? like the bottomless Pit, sending forth smoke as out of a fornace, smoke out of which come Locusts to devoure the earth? a covetous, ma­licious, deceitful, treacherous, adulterous, murderous Saint? Such Saints peradventure may walk on earth, or under that name; but sure they will never follow the Lamb, nor appear in those new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness. Let us, I say, not be like these. For they say, and do not; they say, and do the contrary. What profit, what ho­nour will it be to be such an Angel as appears here in light, and is reserv'd to be kept in chains of darkness for ever? such a Saint as shall be turned into a Feind? Let us rather take upon us the yoke of Christ, who was meek; and bear the burdens of these contentious men, as St. Paul exhorts. Let us not assault one another with lyes in the defense of Truth, nor break the bonds of Charity in the behalf of Faith, nor fly asunder in defense of the Corner­stone, nor be shaken in pieces to secure the Rock. If they separate them­selves, let not us withdraw our affection from them. Si velint, fratres; & si nolint, fratres; If they will, let them be our brethren; and if they will not, yet let them be our brethren. And in these times of hurry and noise, in the midst of so many divisions and sects, let us look upon every man with an eye of Charity and Meekness, or, as Erasmus speaks, with an Evangelical eye; and leaving all bitterness and rancor behind us, let us walk on in a constant course of piety and holy contention with our selves, not answering reviling with reviling, but beating down every imagination which is contrary to Meekness; doing that upon Sin in our selves which we cannot do upon Errour in others. When they spurn at our Meekness, and defie our silence, and rebuke our innocence, let us be meek and silent and innocent still. When they will kill us, be as silent as they who have been dead long ago: that so we may possess our souls when they are ready to take them from us; and be like the people of Nazianzum, who by their peaceable behaviour in times of great dissention gained a name and title, and were called The Ark of Noah, because by this part of spiritual Wis­dom they escaped that deluge and inundation of fury which had wel-near overflowed and swallowed up all the Christian world.

In the last place; let us level our Wrath and Indignation against Sin, but spare the Sinner, since our selves so often do call upon God to spare us: And if he did not spare us, where should the righteous, where should the best Saints appear. It is one mark of Antichrist, that he sits as God in the 2 Thess. 3. 4. Temple of God, shewing himself that he is God, thundring out his excom­munications, canonizing, damning, absolving, condemning whom he please. Thus [...], to overlook our brother, thus to look down upon our brethren, and dart a heavy censure at them for that which we should shed a tear, is so far to follow Antichrist as to take the seat and place of God; nay, to put him out of his seat, and to do his office; nay, to do that which he will not do, to sentence him to death whom God for ought we know, hath chosen to eternal life. Nay, though it doth not make a man the Antichrist, yet it makes him so much Antichrist as to place him in a flat opposition to Christ himself. For he is not such an angry Bishop, such a proud High Priest, as cannot be touched with the feeling of our sins, but one who being meek and tempted him­self, is able and willing to compassionate those that are tempted. Did we feel [Page 30] the burden of our brethrens sins, as he did; Did we apprehend the wrath of God, as he did; we should rather offer up prayers and supplications, with Psal. 69. 26. strong cryings and tears for them, then tell of the misery of these wounded ones, (that is, speak vauntingly and preach thereof, as the word signifieth) then let our Anger loose against them, and beat upon them with all our storms. I confess, prudent and discreet Reprehension is as a gracious and seasonable rain, but rash and inconsiderate Anger as a tempest, a hurricane, to waste a soul, and carry all before it, and dig up Piety by the root. As it is truly said that most men speak against Riches, not out of hatred but love unto them, so do many against Sin, not out of hatred to sin, but love of themselves, which may be as great a sin as that which they are so loud against. Signum putant bonae conscientiae, aliis maledicere; They count it a sign of a good con­science in themselves, to be angry with and speak evil of others: They think themselves good if they can say others are evil: Whereas true Righteousness speaks alwaies in meekness and compassion; but that which is false and coun­terfeit breaths forth nothing but wrath, reviling and indignation. O beloved! what soloecismes, what contradictions may we observe in the School and Church of Christ! men raging against Sin, and yet raising a Kingdom from it in themselves! loathing it as poyson, and yet drinking it down as water! angry with it, and loving it! whipping it with scorpions, and yet binding it about them as a garment! Jacob's sons declaiming against Uncleanness with the instruments of cruelty in their hands! Absalom bewailing the Injustice of the times, when himself was a Traytor! Judas angry with Mary's oint­ment, when he would have it sold and put into his bag! What a pageant is it to see Sacriledge beating down Idolatry? Covetousness whipping of I­dleness? Prophaneness pleading for the Sabbath? Gluttony belching out its fumes against Drunkenness? Perjury loud against Swearing? and Hy­pocrisie riding in triumph, and casting out its fire and brimstone on all. And what is a groan or a sigh from a Murderer? What is a Satyre from a Sodomite? or a Libel from a man of Belial? If Hell hath any musick, this is it, and the Devil danceth after it, after the groans and sighs and prayers and zeal of a Pharisee. And do they then well to be angry? Yes, they say, they do well to be angry, even to death; but not at their sin, of themselves, but their bre­thren. For Meekness and cruelty cannot harbor in the same breast. Nor will it come near the habitations of Covetousness, Ambition and Hypocri­sie: for where these make their entrance, Meekness takes the wing, and flyes away. Therefore, to conclude, let us mark these men, and avoid them, as the Apostle counsels. And though they bring us into bondage, though they smite us on the face, though they take from us all that we have, let us pity them and send after them more then they desire, our prayers, that God will open their eyes, that they may see the snare of the Devil which holds them fast while they defie him and all his works; and what a poor and narrow space there is betwixt them and Hell, while they think they are in the presence and favour of God. In a word, though they curse, let us bless; though they rage, let us pray: and, as the Apostle counsels, Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from us, with all Eph. 4. 31, 32. malice. And let us be kind and meek one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven us.

WE cannot insist too long upon this subject, yet we must insist longer then at first we did intend. For this holy oyl, like that of the Widows, increaseth under our hands, and flows more plentifully by being powred out. That which our last reached unto you was the Object of Meekness, which we found to be as large as the whole world. [...], saith St. Paul, Let your moderation be known unto all men. For Meekness is not cloyster'd up within the walls of one Society, nor doth it hide it self be­hind the curtains of Solomon but looks further, upon the tents of Kedar, upon Bethel and Bethaven. We could not, nor was it necessary to gather and fetch in all particulars; but we then confined our meditations to those which we thought most pertinent, and within their compass took in the rest; which were Error in opinion, and (which is the greater error, nay the greater heresie, saith Erasmus) Error in life and conversation: Where we took off those common pretenses and excuses which Christians usually bring in as Advocates to plead for them, when they forget that Meekness without which they cannot be Christians. For what is in Error or in Sin which may raise my anger against my brother? Errantis poena est doceri, saith Plato; If he erre, his punishment is to be taught: and if he sin, we must molest and pursue him, and beat upon him with line upon line, with reprehension upon reprehension, till we convert him. If he erre, why should I be angry? and if he sin, why should I hate him? The way to uphold a falling House is not to demolish it; nor is it the way to remove Sacriledge to beat the Temple down. When we fight against Sin and Error, we must make Christ our patern, qui vulnus, non hominem secat, qui secat ut sanet; who levels his hand and knife against the disease, not against the man, and never strikes but where he means to heal. And now to add something which the time would not before permit; Let us but a while put upon our selves the person of our adversaries, and ours upon them, and conceive it as possible for our selves to erre as for them; and if we do not thus think, we fall up­on an error which will soon multiply, and draw with it many more. For we cannot erre more dangerously then by thinking we cannot erre. And then to this let us joyn a prudent consideration of those truths wherein we both agree, which peradventure may be more and more weighty then those in which we differ, that so by the lustre and brightness of these the offence [Page 32] taken by the other may vanish as the mist before the Sun. For why should they who agree in those truths that may lift them both up together to Hea­ven, fall asunder and stand at distance as enemies for those which have no such force and activity? This is to hazard the benefit of the one for the defense of the other, and for the love of a truth not necessary to abate our love of that which should save us; to forfeit our Charity in a violent con­tention for Faith; and so be shut out of Heaven for our wild and imperti­nent knocking at the gates. Therefore in all our disputes and debates with those whom we are so ready to condemn of error, let us walk by this rule which Reason and Revelation have drawn out to be our guide and directi­on, That no Text in Scripture can retain the sense and meaning of the bles­sed Spirit which doth not edifie in Charity. Knowledge puffeth up, swel­leth us beyond our sphere and compass, but it is Charity alone that doth edi­fie, which in all things dictates what is expedient for all, and so builds us up together in a holy Faith. We cannot think that Doctrine can be of any use in the Church which exasperates and envenoms one man against another. It is St. Bernards observation. And therefore Moderation and Meekness is that Salt which Christ requires to be in us; that wise and prudent season­ing Mark 5. 90. of our words, that purging of our affections, amongst which Ambiti­ons and Envyings are the most violent. Have this salt in your selves, and then, as it follows, you shall have peace one with another; And this Peace will beget in you a holy emulation to work out your eternal peace together with fear and trembling. Secondly, for Sin why judgest thou thy brother? or so much forgettest that name as to be enraged against him? The judgment is the Lord's, who seeth things that are not as if they were. What though he be fallen upon a stone, and sore bruised? he may be raised again, and be built upon that foundation which is sure, and hath this zeal, The Lord know­eth who are his. This open Profaner may become a zealous Professor; this false witness may be a true Martyr; this Persecutor of the Church may at last be a glorious member of it, and a stout Champion for the Truth. He that led the Saints bound to Jerusalem did himself afterwards rejoyce in his bonds, and suffer and dye for that truth which he prosecuted. The Apo­stle, where he erects a kind of discipline amongst the Thessalonians, thus 2 Thess. 3. 14. draws it forth, If any man obey not our word, that is, be refractory to the Gospel of Christ, have no company with that man, that he may be ashamed; that seing others avoid him, he may be forced to dwell at home, to have re­course unto himself, to hold colloquy with his own soul, and to find out the plague in his heart which makes him thus like a Pelican in the Wilderness, or an Owl in the Desert, like the Leper under the Law, whom no man must come near. Have no company with him, that is, by thy company and fami­liarity give him no encouragement in his sin. For good words and courte­ous behaviour may be taken for applause: a smile is a hug, and too much friendship is a kind of absolution. And yet for all this, have company with him: for it tells us, Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother; Deal gently and meekly with him; but this we cannot do if we wholly sepa­rate our selves from him, and avoid his company. The rule of Charity di­rects us to think every man an heir with Christ; or, if he be not, at least that he may be so. And this is a kind of priviledge that Charity hath in respect of Faith. Faith sees but a little flock, but few that shall be saved; makes up a Church as Gedeon did his Army, who took not all that were prest out for the war, but out of many thousands selected a band of three hun­dred and no more: but Charity taketh in all, and sees not any of that com­pany which she will dismiss, but thinks all, though now their hands be weak and their hearts faint, in time may be sweetly encouraged to fight and conquer. You will say this is an error of our Charity. But it is a [Page 33] very necessary error: for it is my charity thus to erre, and it is not a lye, but vertue in me, in my weak brothers case to nourish a hope of that strength which peradventure he shall never recover. The holy mistakes of Chari­ty shall never be imputed as [...]s; no, nor be numbred amongst those of Ig­norance. For he that errs not thus, he that hopes not the best of all he sees, though weltring in their bloud, wants something to compleat and perfect him, and make him truly worthy of the name of a good Christian. And this error in Charity is not without good reason. For we see not how nor when the Grace of God may work, how sinful soever a man be. Per­adventure, saith St. Hierom, God may call unto him lying and stinking in his sins as in a Grave, Lazarus, come forth. Charity therefore, because she may erre, nay because she must erre, looks upon every man with an eye of Meekness. If he erre, she is Light; if he sin, she is a Physician, and is ready to restore him with the spirit of Meekness. And thus much for the Ob­ject of Meekness: We proceed now to that which was in order next; and as we have drawn forth Meekness in a compleat piece, in her full extent and latitude, so will we now in the last place propose her to you as a Virtue, 1. most proper, 2. most necessary to a Christian: By which degrees and approaches we shall press forward towards the mark, even the reward of Meekness, the inheritance of the earth. Of these in their order.

Meekness, we told you, is that virtue by which we may better know a Christian than by his name. And this the very enemies of Christianity have acknowledged. Vide ut se invicem diligunt Christiani, was a common speech among the Heathen, See how the Christians love one another! when they broke the laws of Meekness, and did persecute them. Male velle, malè facere, malè dicere, malè cogitare de quoque ex aequo vetamur; To wish evil, to do evil, to speak evil, to think evil, are alike forbidden to a Christian; whose profession restraineth his will, bindeth his hand, tacketh up his tongue to the roof of his mouth, and curbeth and fettereth his very thoughts. For as we are not [...], without a Head, so if we will be members, we must be suppled with that oyl of Meekness which distilleth down from our Head Christ Jesus. He came not, saith Tertullian, into the world with Drum and Colours, but with a Rattle rather; not with a noise, but like the rain into a fleece of wooll; not destroying his enemies, but ma­king them his friends; not as a Captain, but as an Angel and Ambassador of peace; not denouncing war, but proclaiming a Jubilee; and with no sword, but that of the Spirit. Look upon all the acts of our Saviour, whilst he conversed on earth amongst men and we shall find they were pure­ly the issues of Tenderness and Meekness. He went about doing good: As he cured mens bodies of diseases, so he purg'd their souls of sin. When he met with men possessed, though with a Legion of Devils, he did not re­vile, but dispossess them; he rebuked the Devil, but not the man. His mouth was so filled with the words of meekness. Thy sins are forgiven thee, that he seldom spake but the issue was comfort. He pronounced indeed a woe to the Pharisees; (and so he doth to all sinners: For Woe will follow the Hypocrite whethersoever he goeth, though it be not denounced a Wce to drive them from sin to repentance; not a curse, but a precept to fright them from that woe which he denounced. It is but pulling off the visour, casting away their hypocrisie, and the Woe will vanish and end in a bles­sing. He called Herode a Fox: for, as God, he knew what was in him: and to him every wicked person is worse then a beast. No Fox to Herode; no Goat to the Wanton, no Tiger to the Murderer, no Wolf to the Oppressour. Obstinate sinners carry their Woe and curse along with them, nor can they fling it off but with their sin. And Christ's profession was to call sinners to repentance. When the Reed was bruised, he broke it not; and when the [Page 34] flax did smoke, he quench'd it not. As he hath a Rod for the impenitent (and it is the last thing he useth) so he cometh in the spirit of Meekness, and o­peneth his arms to receive and imbrace them that will meekly yield and bow before him, and repent, and be meek a [...] is meek. Now our Savi­viour is disciplina morum, the way and the truth. And that gracious way which it hath pleased him to tread himself before us, the very same he hath left behind to be gone by us, and hath ordered a course of religious and Chri­stian worship, which consisteth in Meekness and sweetness of Disposition. An incongruous thing therefore it is that he having presented to us the Meekness of a Lamb, we should return the rage of a Lyon; that he should speak in a still voice, and we should thunder.

And this is most proper to Christianity and the Church. For first, what is the Church of Christ but a Congregation of meek ones? We cannot bring Bears and Lyons and Tigers within that pale. Quomodo colligemus? as Tertullian speaketh, How shall we gather them together? ‘ —jungantur tigribus ursi.’ We cannot bring them together into one body and collection; or, if we do, but, as Sampson did his Foxes, to look several waies. We are told indeed that the Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb, and the Leopard lie down with Isa. 11. 6. the Kid, and the Calf with the young Lyon; but it is when they are so ci­curated and tame that a little Child shall lead them. It is true, the visible Church is made up of both. For not only without, as St. John speaketh, but within, are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murtherers, and idolaters; Rev. 22. 15. as there were in the Ark of Noah both clean and unclean beasts. In this Church is Cain as well as Abel, Esau as well as Jacob, Judas as well as Pe­ter; but they are no parts of that general Assembly, no parts of the Church of the first-born which are written in heaven, nor to be numbred amongst the spirits of just men made perfect: That part of the Church which is thus mi­litant in Earth, shall never be triumphant in heaven. Cruel Dives shall never be seen in Abraham's bosom, nor the bloud-thirstie man in his armes who shed no bloud but his own, and that for the sins of the world: The Church which shall be saved was not planted in bloud; or, if it were, it was in the bloud of a Lamb. It was built upon the Faith of Peter, not upon his Sword: When he used his sword, he was commanded to put it up; but his Faith was to be published to the whole World. And if he had any grant or title to be the Head of the Church, it was not for cutting off Mal­chas's ear, but for laying down his own life for the Faith. Many Notes have been given of the true Church by those who acknowledge none but their own, notes which shew her not: Multitude of true believers: Why? the number is but small. Infallibility: It is an error to think so. Antiquity: The Church, that is now ancient, was once new; and by this note, when it was so, it was no Church. Continuance to the end of the world: We be­lieve it; but it is no note; for we cannot see it. Temporal felicity: This is oftner seen in the Tents of Kedar than at Jerusalem, in a band of Souldi­ers than in the Church, which winneth more conquests in adversity than in prosperity, and worketh out her way to glory in her own bloud. These are Notes quae nihil indicant, which shew nothing; Trumpets that give an uncertain sound. But if I should name Meekness as a note of the true Church, I should have a fairer probability to speak for me than they. For meek men, if they be not of the Church, yet are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven. But a meek Christian is entitled not only to the earth, but to heaven also. The Church is a Church, though her Professours be but of yesterday, and though they fall into error. And though it be in tribulation, [Page 35] yet still it is a Church; yea it is never more glorious then in persecution. But without meekness it cannot be a Christian Church, no more then a man can be a man without a soul. For Meekness, if it be not the essence of the Church, yet is a property which floweth from its very essence. For that Faith is vain which leaveth malice or rancour in the heart. A Christian and a Revenger, if they meet together in the same person, the one is a Box of poyson, the other but a title.

Again, in the second place, our Reason will tell us that Meekness is most proper to Christianity and the Church, because humane Reason was too weak to discover the benefit, the pleasure, the glory of it: Nor was it seen in its full beauty till that Light came into the world which did im­prove and sublime and perfect our Reason. To humane Reason nothing can seem more unreasonable, more unjust, then To love an enemy, To surrender our coat to him that hath stript us of our cloak, To return a blessing for a reproach, and anoint his head with oyl who hath stricken us to the ground. This is a new Philosophy, not heard of on earth, till she was sent down from heaven. On earth it was A blow for a blow, and a curse for a curse. ‘ Dixerit insanum qui me, totidem audiet.’ If injuries be meted out unto us, we mete them back again in full measure; pressed down, and running over. Revenge is counted an act of Justice; the Pythagoreans [...], a reciprocation of injuries. And what need any other law then our Grief or our Anger? or where should Justice dwell but on the point of our Sword? ‘ [...].’ It was the law of Rhadamanthus, It is equity that he that doth, should suffer what he doth; and he that suffereth, should return it in the same kind. When those brethren in evil, having slain Hamor and Shechem, and spoiled their City, were rebuked by their Father Jacob, they were ready with this plea, Should he deal with our Sister as with a Harlot? No sooner is the blow gi­ven, Gen. 34. 31. but the first thought is to second and return it; and Nature looks up­on it as upon an act of Justice. In the world it goeth thus: All Power and Dominion and Justice is tyed to the hilts of our Sword; which if we can wield and manage dextrously, with skill and success, that which otherwise had been an injury, is made a law. The Turk, to settle and establish his Religion, as he first built it in bloud, so giveth way to every thing that best sorteth with humane corruption, to make it easie, that men may not start back for fear of difficulties: and as he wrought it out with his Sword, so his best argument for it (as it is most times in a bad cause) is his Sword. The Philosophers cryed down Revenge, yet gave way to it; chid their An­ger, yet gave it line thus far: And both Tully and Aristotle approve it. But Munit nos Christus adversus Diaboli latitudines, saith Tertullian; Christian discipline is a fense to keep us from these latitudes and exspatiations, and pointeth out to the danger of those sins which the Heathen commended for virtues. Many indeed have dealt with these precepts of our Saviour as skilful cooks do by some kind of meats which of themselves are but harsh and unpleasant, cooked and sawced them, to make them savoury dishes. For when we see our journey long and full of rubs and difficulties, we phansie something that may both shorten and level it, and make it more plain and easie then indeed it is. Christ our Master is so great an enemy to Murder, and would have us so far detest it, that he hath not suffered us to be angry. Now the interpretation is, We must not be angry [...], without a cause. And [Page 36] this emboldneth us to plead for our Wrath, as Jacob's sons did, when it is cruel, and upon this very colour, that there is good reason we should be angry. For be the storm never so high, be our anger never so raging, yet we can pretend a cause, and that cause we pretend as just; otherwise we would not pretend it: For who would pretend that for a cause which is unjust? To love our enemies, this is a harsh and an iron speech; and he must have the stomach of an Ostrich who can digest it: therefore we have dressed and sauced it, to make it palatable and of easie digestion: and some have thought, and been bold to say it, that this is no peremptory Precept, but only a counsel and advice, and left to our choice whether we will keep it or no. If we neglect and pass it by, we hazard only aureolam, not aure­am; we hold fast eternal life, but lose some little Coronet and addition which the full performance would have purchased. When Julian the A­postate urged the Christians, and laid it to their charge that their Religion was destructive of all rule and government, because the Precepts which Christ gave forbad them to resist evil, or go to law with their brother; Na­zianzene confesseth that our Saviour did indeed leave behind him these In­junctions, but that he added withal, [...], that they did not be­long to every man, but to those only who could [...], by their holy endeavours lift themselves up to the highest pitch of vertue. For those that keep them there was a reward laid up, but no fear of punishment to those whose endeavours fell short. Which answer of his doth not satis­fie: For if it be better not to implead my brother then to implead him, the Apostat's argument is still of force, because Christianity commendeth that as best. From this source and fountain sprang that River of Evange­lical Counsels that overfloweth in works of Supererogation, which are drawn up by the power of the Keys into the treasury of the Church, and then showred down in Pardons and Indulgences, to water the dry places of the earth, to quench the insatiable thirst of the Court of Rome. Had the Father but distinguished betwixt publick and private revenge, he had per­adventure stopped the mouth of the Adversary, and not unhappily occasi­oned others to open theirs against the truth. Whatsoever his mistake was, it is not so dangerous as theirs who think these Precepts concern Christians not at all, and who conceive that our Saviour was so far from adding any thing unto the Law, that he brought in his hand a dispensation from it, that for us so strictly to observe the Moral Law is not so necessary, that this ease and benefit accrews to Christians by the coming of Christ, that they may be more indulgent to themselves, since they have him for their Advo­cate who is their Lawgiver, and hath proclaimed a Jubilee rather in sin, yea from it. We will not deal with these men as those hard Task-masters did with the Israelites, because they rest from their burden, withdraw their straw, and yet require the whole tale of Bricks; but we may make their burden greater because they have more straw. I might here inlarge my self. All that I intend is only this, To shew you how proper this vertue of Meek­ness is to a Christian; that God requireth a higher degree of it in Christi­ans then he did formerly in the Jews; that our Saviour doth now bind our hands and tongues and thoughts in those cases where the Law of Moses did give more line and liberty; that the name of Brother, which was heard of only in Jewry, is not now shut up in the narrow confines of a House or Fa­mily, but must be the Language of the whole world. He that is within the Pale of the Church, and he that is not of the Church; he that is a Christian, and he that never heard of Christ; he that is so near me as to be my friend, and he that standeth at the distance of an enemy; a Christi­an, a Turk, a Jew, a Friend, a Foe, every man, now is my Neighbour. We who are Disciples of a better Testament, sanctiores incolae, inhabitants [Page 37] of that Jerusalem which is from above, must look up upon that light which our great Master hath held out to us in his Gospel, and not content our selves and sit down as if we were at our journeys end, when we have only walked on along with the Jew a Sabbath-dayes journey, and made no fur­ther progress in Meekness then the Dictum ab antiquis, the Law of Moses, pointeth to. For how little of a Christian hath he who dareth foment so much anger as might glow in the heart of a Jew and not consume him? I love not to rake in the ashes of the blessed Saints of God, whose memory is as sweet as honey in every mans mouth, and as Musick at a Banquet of Wine. Eccl. 49. 1. But an evil custom men have got, to make good mens errours more authen­tick then their virtues, and for sins against the Gospel suborn apologies out of the Law, and not strive to pass the narrow Gate because the Jew had the favour to find admittance at a wider. David had the praise of ten thou­sands; Eccl. 47. 6. God honoured him amongst his Saints, and gave him a Crown of Glory: Yet every action of David is not a rule for a Christian, though never laid to his charge: and David by especial dispensation might do that, and yet not forfeit his soul, which would now sink a Christian's to the lowest Pit. In 2 Sam. 19. 23. he forgiveth Shimei, who had cursed him, and telleth him he shall not dye, and sweareth unto him; and yet 1 Kings 2. 8, 9. even with his last breath, he leaveth it in charge with his son Solomon, to bring his hoary head down to the grave with bloud. David no doubt is a glorious Saint in Heaven: but should any Christian follow his example, and make Revenge a part of his last Will and Testament, if our Saviours rule be true, which is most plain, That if we forgive not our enemies, God will not forgive us, that Gate of mercy, which was open to David, will certainly be shut to him. Yet how have men beat their brains to make good this fact of Da­vid's, which can find no excuse, for ought we know, but from the times and particular indulgence and dispensation? Some say he pardoned him only for the time, and retained a power of revenge to be put in execution when he pleased, or when convenience should favour him. But what is this but to make David guilty of a lye, and Jesuitical equivocation? Some say he sinned not, because he did it not himself, but left it to his Son. And what difference is there whether I kill a man my self, or cause him to be put to death? Some; that the Oath was to be taken not as Shimei, but as Da­vid himself understood it, because when all is in the power of him that sweareth, the meaning of the words is in his power also. This hath been the absurd impiety of these dayes, and makes an Oath, which is the strong­est confirmation, of no use, but as a thred of Tow, which every man may break asunder at his pleasure. Others; that it was an Oath not upon com­pact but liberality. As if an Oath which is freely made bindeth not as much as that doth which is upon agreement. Lastly, some; that he forgave him as he was David, but not as he was King of Israel: which is in effect, As a private man, he swore that he should not dye; but as a publick person, he commanded his Son to cut off his head. [...]. These excuses and apologies do not acquit but condemn this blessed Saint of God; and with the least breath, you see, they are scatter'd as leaves before the Wind. It is not our intent to agravate that fact as a sin in David, which yet in a Christian would be crimen devoratorium salutis, a sin that standeth in adverse aspect to the Spirit of the Gospel, and would deprive of all right to that promise which is here made to the meek, and leave no hope of sal­vation. For after our Saviour had given that Precept of loving our ememies, he presently backeth it with the strongest reason that can be brought, That yee may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven, who maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the Matth. 5. 45. unjust. We conclude this point with that of Tertullian, Novam certè man­suetudinem [Page 38] docet Christus, etiam vicem injuriae prohibens permissam à Creatore; Christ hath brought in a new kind of meekness into the world, forbidding that liberty of revenge which the Maker of all things had for some reason permitted for a time. But this may seem to be durus sermo, a hard saying; and the world is not very fruitful of such men as are able to bear it. For if this be true, the language of the Gospel is more harsh then that of the Law, and speaketh in more terror then the Thunder from Mount Sinai: we are come again to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and to the voice of words, which we intreat may be spoken to us no more. Not to hate an enemy; To love an enemy; To do good to an enemy; Not to be angry; if this be Go­spel, our case is far worse then that of the Jew. Indeed, saith St. Basil, this was the very reason why the Jews would not receive Christ and his Go­spel: they said, [...], That it was a hard saying. Laboriosa omnia ignavis; All things are toylsome to the sluggard: A pain it is to him to pull his hand out of his bosome. Continence is a hard lesson to the wanton, Prov. 26. 15. Temperance to the Glutton, and Meekness to a Nabal, [...] a Son of Belial, who will swell and quarrel at a very Look, and though the winds be still about him, and not the least injury so much as breath on him, yet hath wind enough shut up in his heart to raise a tempest. Semper offendunt bona malos, pia impios, sancta profanos; Good things are alwaies scandalous and offen­sive to evil men. If you enjoyn Meekness, you put a Thorn in their sides to prick and trouble them. And you may to as much purpose bid a dead man rise and walk, as win him that loveth his passion to lay it down. But yet how hard soever our talk is, we find that the Jews had an expensive and laborious Religion, that they were sub elementis mundi, as children, or ra­ther as slaves, under the Elements of the world, that they had many Ceremo­nies, many Statutes and Laws, in quibus non vivebant, sed puniebantur, in which they did not so much live as were punished. And now what doth God Mic. 6. 7, 8. require of thee, O Christian? Not to circumcise thy foreskin, but thy heart; not thousands of Rams, but to forgive seventy times seven times; not ten thousands of rivers of oyl, but only this pretious oyntment, which may fall upon the head of thy brethren, and run down to the skirts of their Garments, to their lowest infirmities; Not the fruit of thy body for the sin of thy soul, but to forgive, that thou mayst be forgiven. And what is easier then this? saith Chrysostome. Non opus est peregrinationibus; Thou needest not go on Pilgrimage, or take any long journey, to atchieve it: It is but going out of thy self, and leaving thy pride and animosities behind thee. Thou needest not sayl for it, thou needest not plow for it: It is but plowing up the fallow ground of thy heart, and then sowing the seed of Meekness. Suf­ficit ut velis tantùm, & jam virtus illa suum opus implevit: If thou canst fight against thy Flesh, degrade thy Ambition, and shut out the World, if thou canst work in thy self a willingness to forgive, this vertue hath its work and consummation. Habe charitatem, & fac quod vis, as it is in the Gloss of the Canon Law: Have Charity, put on the bowels of Com­passion and Meekness, and do what thou wilt. For if thou caust but once love its countenance, thou wilt soon embrace it. Amor, magus; Love is a kind of Magician, and hath spells and inchantments to charm our passions, and conjure down this Devil. You may now think your selves in a very slippery place, when not a violent tempest, but a gust, a puff of wind will overthrow you; when not Murder, but Anger; not a Word, but a Thought; not Revenge, but Not doing good; not Rage, but Impatience; not Noyse, but a Whisper, may endanger your title to this crown of Bles­sedness. Fear not, only be strong and of good courage. The Stoick looked pale in a Tempest, but he imputed it Subitis motibus officium rationis prae­vertentibus, to those phantasies and sudden motions which do unawares [Page 39] suppress the Reason, and give her no time to deliberate: So a Christian may be shaken with those assaults which by subreption may steal upon him: he may speak what afterwards he will revile more than his enemy, and do what he will detest more than an injury: cast a look of dislike, and soon distaste that look; cloud his countenance, and chase it away with a pray­er; be moved, and within a while be more moved for being so, and so re­main the same meek man and a Christian still. For God forbid that an in­jected thought, a sudden motion, a forced frown, a word struck out by some outward and unexpected violence, should shut any man out of the Cove­nant of Grace, and hope of happiness. If God should thus mark extream­ly what is done amiss, no flesh would be saved, but the whole world would be as Sodome and Gomorrah. That which the Gospel requireth at our hands, is, that every man should severely watch over himself, watch and depre­hend himself, and then double his watch, suspect a temptation, and fight against it before it come, fight against it though it never come, and not ea­sily entertain any act which standeth in opposition to this virtue, nor any occasion which may draw on that act. For to be bold to think evil, so I vent it not in language; to imagine I may vent, so I do not strike; and when I strike, to comfort my self because anothers little finger is greater than my Loyns; to commend the Rod because it is not a Scor­pion; to say of those sins which surprise me because I do not fear them, as Lot did of Zoar, Are they not little ones? may I not commit them, and yet my soul live? to make my Not doing of evil an apology for my Not doing of good, my Not thrusting my Neighbour out of his own doors a sufficient warrant for my Not receiving him into mind; to think that any degree of Meekness is enough, is to forfeit all, and loose my title to the inheritance of the earth.

It is, I confess, a sad observation, but too manifestly true, that if Meek­ness be a virtue so proper, so essential to the Church, then the Church is not so visible as we pretend, but we must seek for the Church in the Church it self. For if Meekness have yet a place, it must be (which is very strange) in the hearts of men, in the inward man. For to the eye, every hand is lif­ted up, every mouth open; and they who call themselves the Members of the Church, are very active to bite and devour one another: And it is not pro­bable that their hearts should melt within them, and their bowels yearn, whose mouths are as open Sepulchres; and whose feet are swift to shed bloud. Is Meekness a note of the Church? Certainly we may distinguish Chri­stians from the World by nothing surer then by Malice, in which they surpass both the Turk and the Jew. And where most is required, least is found ODIUM THE OLOGORUM, The Malice of Di­vines, was in Luther's time a Proverb: but now the Proverb is enlarged, and will take in the greatest part of Christendome. The Papist breath­eth nothing but curses and Anathema's, and maketh his way with sire and sword where Reason and Religion shut him out. Others, who are no Papists, yet are as malicious and bloudy as they, and persecute their Bre­thren under that name, call them Papists, and spoil them as the Heathen did of old, who put Christians into the skins of Beasts, and with Dogs baited them to death. If you think not, if you act not, if you look not, if you move not as they do, you are a child of perdition, devoted to ru­ine and death. If you preach any other Doctrine then that which they re­ceive then you are accursed, though you were an Angel from Heaven. For­give you? that were a sin not to be forgiven. Heaven and Earth shall pass away, rather then one tittle and jot of what they have set up shall fail. I have much wondred with my self how men could so assure themselves of Heaven, and yet kindle such a Hell in their breasts; how they could appro­priate [Page 40] a meek Saviour to themselves, and even claim him as their peculi­ar, as the Heathen did their Deities, and yet breathe nothing but hail­stones and coles of fire; how they should call themselves Evangelicos, the only Gospellers, and yet be such strangers, such enemies to that virtue which is most commended in the Gospel; how they should forgive none on earth, and yet so boldly conclude that their pardon is sealed in Hea­ven; that they should expect so much mercy from that God whom they proclaim so cruel as to damn men as they destroy their Brethren, for no other reason but because he will. I cannot here but wonder and lament, and pray that this malice of their heart may be forgiven them: for we can­not but perceive that they in the very gall of bitterness and the bond of ini­quity. And I bespeak you as our Saviour did his Disciples, to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. For if a little leaven will leaven the whole lump, what will such a lump of malice do? Even infect the whole body of your Religion. Your Hearing, your Prayers, your Fasts will taste of bloud. Let us then mark and avoid them. Let us devest our selves not of all pow­er, but of all will to hurt. Let that alway sound in our ear, which is as good Gospel as, That Christ died for the World, That, if we forgive not, we are in the number of Unbelievers, and are condemned already. Let us reserve nothing to our selves but that which is ours, Meekness and Patience; and leave to God that which is his, Judgment and Retribution. Commit all Jovi Vindici, to the God of Revenge. For he is the best Umpire for our patience. If we put our injury into his hands, he is our revenger; if our loss, he can restore it; if our grief, he is our Physician; if our death, he can raise us up again. Quantum mansuetudini licet, ut Deum habeat debi­torem. Lord! what a power hath Meekness, which maketh God our debtour for our losses, for our contumelies, for our reproaches, for our death, for all! who hath bound himself to repay us with honour, with riches, with advantage, with usury, with the inheritance of the earth, and with ever­lasting life!

I Have bestowed many words upon this Virtue of Meek­ness: But I have not yet said enough; neither indeed can I, licèt toto modio dimensum darem, as he speaketh, though I should give it you out by the bushel, full measure, pressed down, and running over. Nunquam nimis dicitur, quod nunquam satìs discitur; We cannot repeat that Lesson too often which we can never be so perfect in as we should. And he certainly is no friend to Meek­ness who is impatient at her name, though it sound never so often in his ear. For can he love Meekness that is afraid of her picture and description? Or can he stand out the shock of those evils which wait upon and follow every motion of his life, who cannot bring a few hours patience to hear of that virtue which is the only buckler to quench those darts? I would I could give you her in a full and compleat piece, the whole Signature, every line, all her Dimensions. I would I could present her naked before your eyes, in all her rayes, with all her beauty and glory; her power in conquering, her wisdom in defeating those injuries which press hard upon, yea over­throw and triumph over all the power and policy of the world, that so you might fall in love with her, and fasten her to your souls, and make her a part of them. For then indeed we should see concurrere bellum atque virum, every man strong against a battaglia, every man chasing his ten thousand: we should see a meek soul in contention with the world, and by doing nothing treading it under foot. And this we have attempted formerly to do, but we have not done it in so full and fair a draugh, as we desired. Yet though you have not had the one half told you, you have heard enough to move you, with the Queen of Sheba, to draw near unto it, and prove it in your selves. And when you shall have practiced it in your selves, you will say it was true indeed that you heard, but you will feel more then you have heard or could hear by report. We will therefore yet awhile longer detain you. You have beheld the face of Meekness in her proper Subject, which is every private man, and in her proper Object, which is as large as the whole world, and takes in not only the Israel of God, but the Amorite, the Hittite, the Amalekite; not only the Christian, but the Turk, the Jew, and the Pagan; any man that is subject to the same passions, any man that can suffer, any man that can do an injury: For Meekness runs round the whole circle and compass of mankind, and binds every evil spirit, conjures [Page 42] down every Devil she meets with. Lastly, we presented unto your view the Fitness and the Applicableness of this virtue to the Gospel and Church of Christ, and told you that it is as it were the very breath of the Gospel, the echo of that good news, the best gloss and comment on a silent, weeping, crucified Saviour, the best explanation of his last Prayer, Father, forgive them. For the notes and characters of a Christian, as they are described in the Gospel, are Patience, are easie putting up and digesting of injuries, Humility, a preferring of all before our selves. And St. James tells us, that the wisdom which is from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easie to be intreated; where he giveth the first place unto Purity. It would be a sin almost to compare Christian virtues together, and make them strive for precedency and place: yet he that shall mark how every where the Scripture strives to commend unto us Gentleness and Meekness, and that Peace is it quam nobis Apostoli totis viribus Spiritûs Sancti commendant, as Tertullian speaks, which the Apostles endeavour with all the strength and force of the Holy Ghost to plant amongst us, might be bold a little to invert the words of St. James, and read them thus, The wisdom which is from above, is first peaceable, gentle, easie to be intreated, then pure. For the Son of God, who is the Wisdom of the Father, and who for us men came down from above, first and above all other virtues commended this unto the world. At his birth the Song of the Angels was, Peace on earth, and Good­will towards men. All his Doctrine was Peace; his whole life was Peace, and no man heard his voice in the streets. And as Christ, so Christians. For as in the building of Solomons Temple there was no noise of any hammer, or other instrument of iron, so in the spiritual building and frame of a Chri­stian there is no sound of any iron, no noise of weapons, nothing but Peace and Gentleness and Meekness. Ex praecepto fidei non minùs rea est Ira sine ratione suscepta, quàm in operibus legis Homicidium, saith Augustine; Unad­vised Anger by the law of Faith and the Gospel is as great a sin as Murder was in the Law of Moses. Thus you have seen how proper Meekness is to the Gospel and Church of Christ. Now in the last place we shall draw this Virtue forth to you as most necessary to the well-being not only of a Church, but of every particular member of it; necessary to lift us up to the Reward, the inheritance of the earth; Which whither you take for that Earth which is but earth, or that Earth which by interpretation is Heaven, ad omnia occurrit mansuetudo, Meekness reacheth both, both the Foot­stool and the Throne of God; it gives us title to the things below, and it makes us heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven. Without this we can have no mansion in Heaven, nor any quiet and peaceable possession of the earth. And thus with our last hand we shall set you up that copy which you may draw out in your selves. For Meekness in character, in leaves of paper, in our books, is rather a shadow than a picture, and soon vanisheth away; but being drawn out in the soul and practice of a Christian, it is a fair and last­ing piece; even the image of Christ himself, which the Angels and God himself desire to look upon. And with these we shall exercise your Chri­stian Devotion at this time.

And first Meekness may seem most necessary to Christians, if we consi­der the nature of Christianity it self, which stands in opposition to all other Professions in the world, confutes the Philosopher, silenceth the Scribe, strikes Oracles dumb, cryes to every man in the world to go out of it. Be­hold, saith our Saviour to his Disciples, I send you forth as sheep in the Matth. 10 16. midst of wolves, which will tear you to pieces for no other reason but be­cause you are sheep. It is a disease very incident to men, to be jealous of every breath which blows in opposition to that which they have already re­ceived, to swell against that which is contrary to them; and though it be [Page 43] true, to suspect it; to wonder what it should mean; to be troubled, and affraid of it, as Herode and all Jerusalem were when the new Star appear'd; and, though it be as visible to any wise man as the Star was in the East, yet to seek to put it out, or, if they cannot, to destroy those over whom it stands. And therefore Tertullian tells us, Cum odio sui coepit, that Christia­nity was hated as soon as known, and did no sooner shew it self in the world, but it found enemies who were ready to suppress and cast it out; men that could hate it for no other reason but because it taught to love; that could be angry with the Christian because he was meek, and destroy him because he made it his profession to forgive; men who counted Revenge no sin, as the ancient Grecians did sometimes Theevery, because it was so commonly practis'd amongst them. Again, as it was planted in rerum colluvie, in the corruption of men and manners; so it doth in a manner bid defiance to the whole world. It tells the Jew his Ceremonies are beggerly; the wise man of this world, that his Philosophy is but deceit, and his wisdom madness. It plucks the Wanton from the harlots lips, tumbles down the Ambitious from his pinacle, disarms the Revenger, strips the Rich. It writes over the Rich mans Gates, Blessed are the poor; over the Doctor's Chair, Where is the disputer of this world? over the Temple, NON LAPIS SUPER LAPIDEM, That not a stone shall be left upon a stone which shall not be thrown down. For a NON OCCIDES it brought down a NE IRAS­CARIS, and made Anger Murder; for a NON MAECHABERIS a NON CONCUPISCES, and made Desire adultery. It brought down sin to a look, to a thought: and therefore no marvell if there arose against Christians tot hostes, quot extranei, as many enemies as there were Heathen, or Jews. But besides their open and professed adversaries, they found e­nemies amongst those who were of their own houshold. What was there which could make men miserable, or move their impatience, which did not break in upon them every day? Could Contempt? They were counted the off-scouring of the world. Could Violence? It was counted Re­ligion to kill them. Could Hatred? Accusabantur vocabula, the very name of CHRISTIAN was an accusation. If there were any seeds of evil in them, so much fire as is in the Flint, there was outward violence enough to strike it out. So that a Christian may seem to be, as he spake of Palladius, coagulum omnium aerumnarum, the very compound of all calamities, and the Centre wherein all miseries meet. Now it is almost natural to Misery to breath it self out in complaints, as Lovers use to do, to complain to the Day and the Night, to the Sun and the Moon. Flesh and bloud draws it self in at the very sight and approach of any thing that distasts it; and when it is touched, it swells and evaporateth. A hard thing it is for men in disgrace not to be impatient, and a common thing [...], for men who have struggled long with afflictions, with injustice and in­juries, to grow fierce and revengeful; and because they are contemned of all, to hate all, and to treasure up that wrath which, if ever opportunity breath upon it, will break forth and burn like fire. Whence the Historian ob­serves of Otho, that he was longo exsilio efferatus, grown fierce and cruel upon long exile; Agrippam ignominiâ accensum, that the disgrace which Agrippa received had much altered his disposition. Therefore our Savi­our here to prevent the like in his Disciples, who but for the hope of that which is to come were of all men most miserable, teacheth them a new method of Revenging injuries, by forgiving them; of Subduing misery, by en­during it; of Conquering an enemy, by falling down at his feet: to take up no other buckler then Meekness against the worst of those evils which he saw would befall them. And thus he provided that, though the Religi­on which he did set up might displease, yet those whom he sent forth to pub­lish [Page 44] it should offend no man, and save themselves as it were by the fire of Persecution. This is the Policy which Christ hath established in his Church, and by which he establisheth the pillars of it. For Meekness in the Sepul­chre, the Land of Oblivion, in which all injuries are buried, never to rise again, nor see the light; when I forgive, I do by Injuries as God doth by my Sins, forget them, cast them behind my back, and blot them out, that no tittle of them appear to raise an angry thought. But Anger and Re­venge are an irrational and treacherous remedy. They take not away the evil, but double it, invenom and inrage it, make that a Scorpion which was but a whip, and that a monster which to Meekness is nothing; they per­petuate and transmit it from youth to age, from age to the very hour of death, nay from one generation to another. The sting of an Injury is Im­patience, and the strength of Impatience is Revenge; but to forgive an in­jury is to swallow it up in victory. I call it therefore the Wisdom and Po­licy of Christ, though the world call it by another name, and count them but fools that practise it. For lay open all the Books in the world which have been written of Republicks and Government, yet we find not any di­rections which can propagate a Government, and make it everlasting: But now perhaps we see a State flourish; but anon it will decline, and at last have its fatal period, and fall to pieces. But this Christian Wisdom makes the Church and every Member of it as immovable as a Rock, more glori­ous in adversity then in peace, more happy in a tempest then in a calm, vi­ctorious when ready to fall, and most safe when forsaken. Besides, the Wisdom of this world how oft doth it meet with a check! how often is it defeated, and in a while changeth its name, and is turn'd into folly! How many digg a pit, and fall into it! How many hath their Wit brought almost home to their intendments, and then left them looking after them with an­ger and grief! How many hath it brought to the end of their desires, and ruined them there! How many have built up their hopes with one hand, and demolished them with the other. The Devil, saith Basil, is the great Poli­tician of the world; but yet he is deceived with his own Sophistry, and taken in his own craft; and in setting hard at the Church, he falls himself to the ground; or, if he destroy a soul, he doth but add torment to him­self, and with his own malice enrage the fire of Hell. The Jews, to keep out the Romans, did banish themselves; and taking counsel together against Christ, they put him to death, at whose death the Veil of the Temple rent in twain. All the imaginations of men have been either faint and feeble at first; or else, making haste to that which they proposed, they have lost that which they so eagerly pursued; and overtook nothing but what they look't upon with horror. All the wisdom in the world, if you put it into the balance, will be found but light: but this necessary wisdom, this wisdom which is from above, never fails; but though it be sowen in dishonour, it riseth again in honour, and through scorn and contempt, through poverty and death it self, it makes its way to that effect which it is as powerful to produce as it is weak in shew. Oh that we were wise, so wise as to rely on the wisdom of God, which through uncouth and desolate paths, through the wilderness, through a sea of bloud, will safely waft us over to the heaven where we would be; and not trust to our own sensual, vain and uncertain providence, which, though the way be smooth and pleasant, yet reaps nothing but bitterness in the end; which carries us on in a giddy, staggering, pleasing, displeasing course, but evermore into the pit; which makes our feet like Hinds feet, lifts us up on the wings of Hope, and at last knocks out our brains against the mark we aimed at; which brings us to the honey we long for, and smothers us in the Hive. Number up all the fatal miscarriages of the Sons of men, and you shall find they were all from this, [Page 45] and this alone, That they took upon them to be wiser then God. If we were content our wayes should be as Gods wayes, and would walk in those wayes which he hath appointed, and steer our course by his Compass, we should then look upon Revenge as a fury, and cleave to Meekness as our Angel-keeper; we should soon see the weakness and folly of the one, and the victories and trophies of the other; we should find the one the most noxious thing in the world, and the other most necessary.

For, in the next place, as the observance of this duty hath promoted the Gospel, so the neglect of it hath hindred the growth of Christianity, and made those rents and schisms in the Church which good men may la­ment with tears of bloud, but the wisest cannot make up again with all their care and endeavour, which most times we see, in stead of closing and healing such wounds, do make them wider then before. We see the undi­screet and unseasonable defense of the truth doth but call in more company to side with the opposer, draws down even Zelotes themselves to an indif­ferency, in which they do not long stand wavering, but soon fall into error. It is not noise, but silence that prevaileth. It is not the rough but tender hand that binds up these wounds. It is not power nor subtilty of wit, not disputation nor consultation, not the tongue of the eloquent, nor the pen of the ready writer, which can compose these differences in the Church. We cannot but observe that after all the labour and travel of the learned, there is yet Altar against Altar, Religion against Religion, and Christ a­gainst Christ: and the wounds the Church hath received, bleed still afresh, and are every day more inflamed, more incurable. What have all our pri­sons and whips and fire and sword done? What one hair have they added to the stature of Christianity? Is she not rather contracted and shrunk? Is she now of so large a size and proportion as she was in her infancy and cradle? Is she as powerful in her Catholick extent and universality as she was in a few Fishermen? Certainly the best balm is this Wisdom of our Saviour, by which we are directed to forgive injuries and errors, to yield so far to our brethren as not to hate them, not to be angry with them, be­cause they are not of our opinion. The want of this temper, of this soft­ness and sweetness of disposition, was the true Mother of Schisme, which Meekness hath not edge enough to make. It is but taking it up again, and all this business will be at an end, and conclude in peace. Yet do I not here derogate from Counsels or Disputations. These are the means ap­pointed by God himself to settle men who doubt. We must consult before we give sentence, and he that instructs disputes. No; these are [...], the pillars and tropheys where all Heresies are hung up, en­graven and shewen openly to the Sun and the People. I know they may be Antidotes against the poyson of the Serpent, who is as ready to cast his mist about the Understanding part as to infect the Will: and I may subscribe to that of Isidore, Ideo Christi veritas in diversas haereses est scissa, &c. That Origin. 6. Christianity had formerly been divided into so many Sects, because before the times of Constantine, and those halcyon-dayes, the Bishops durst not meet together to consult. This indeed may be a reason, but not all the reason which may be given. For even in Constantine's time did the Arian Heresie shew and vaunt it self, and after the Council of Nice, so famous o­ver the world, did so prevail that it was a doubt which way the Church did look and incline; whether to the Arian tenents or the determination of that Councel, because the Arians did almost equal the Orthodox in num­ber, and in eloquence and learning far exceed them. Afterwards this Heresie was revived, though with another name, in the Origenists: and not long after tot erant symbola, quot professores, there were almost as many Creeds as Professors. And one main reason thereof, I suppose, was the [Page 46] want of Meekness and Moderation; when the noyse and violence of the one party would not give the other so much leasure as to bethink themselves; when men would raise tempests only for a thought which did not please them, and most men were like Scaurus in the Oratour, qui nullius unquam impunitam stultitiam transire passus est, who would not suffer a soloecisme or any error to pass without a heavy censure; when, as Luther speaks, for the omission of a syllable or of a letter they would novos infernos cudere, make another Hell, and devote their brethren to the Devil, thundring out Anathema's one against the other, which many times both deserved rather for their heat and bitterness then for their errors. For the Church may erre: but if she drive Charity and Meekness out of her quarters, she is no longer a Church. Ambition and Covetousness, these break down her hedges, and Malice is the wild Boare which destroyeth and eats up her grapes. When this fire is once kindled in her bowels, then ruit Ilium, then her Pillars shake, and she is ready to fall. But, as I remember, I have spoken at large of this heretofore.

You see, Beloved, then that Meekness is necessary to the Church ad be­ne esse, to keep its parts together from flying asunder; and so to every Christian, to keep him compact and at unity with himself and others. But now, in the next place, I may say it is necessary to the very being of the Church, as without which no man can be admitted into the Congregation of the first-born which are written in Heaven. With wanton Christians, that trifle away their souls, and would walk to Heaven with earthly members and unwashen feet, there is but unum necessarium, one thing necessary, and that is Faith; which because it doth alone justifie, we leave it alone, naked and destitute, or take it along with us as a comfort to us whilst we labour and sweat in a world of wickedness. For what title to Heaven can the most Christians shew but this CREDO, I believe? The rest of the copy is Malice and Envy and Covetousness, the black lines of reprobation: Po­verty and Mourning and Meekness are no part of their claim. But let us look upon our Charter again, and we shall find Meekness to be one of those paucissima necessaria, of those few things necessary to give us right to our inheritance, and that Faith is nothing, is dead, and so cannot give life, if it do not work by Love, even work out all our venom and malice, and so leave us liable and open to receive reproaches and blows, but without tongues or hands to return them, as so many dead marks for every dart to stick in, till by the power of Meekness they drop from us, or by the hand of the highest are plucked out, and shot back upon our enemies. A truth so plain that I dare boldly say there is not a plainer in the whole Scripture. For what can a guilty condemned person plead for himself that he should enter into this inheritance, but forgiveness? For this is the object of our Faith, That God will be reconciled to us in his Son. And then this is plain English, I am sure, That if we forgive, God will also forgive us: But if Mat. 6. 14, 15. we forgive not men their trespasses, neither will our heavenly Father forgive us ours. Et qui ad tam magnum tonitruum non expergiscitur, non dormit, sed mortuus est, saith St. Augustine; He that awakes not out of his pleasant dream of Revenge at this thunder, is not asleep, but dead. For, He will not forgive you, is the same with this, He will damn you with those malicious Spirits, the Devil and his Angels; and, He will forgive you, is equivalent to this, He will receive you into his Kingdom, to his seat of mercy and glory. We may say then that Meekness is necessary, as a cause to this effect, as a virtue destined to this end, at least, causa sine qua non, a cause so far as that without it there is no remission of sins. For though I have faith to remove mountains, and have all Knowledge, yet if I have not Meekness, there is no hope of heaven. Or it is causa removens prohibens, a cause in as much as [Page 47] it removes those hindrances which stand between us and the Mercy of God: For how can I appear before the Father of compassion with a heart spotted and stained with the gall of bitterness? How can I stand before the Mercy-seat with my hands full of blood? And thus Meekness is a cause of Forgive­ness, and may be said to produce this effect, because though it have no po­sitive causality, yet without it mercy will not be obteined. Blessedness is joyned to Meekness as in a chain which hath more links: and If you shall forgive your enemies, my Father will forgive you, doth not shew what is sufficient, but what is necessarily required to the expiation of sin, and the inheritance of heaven.

Again, by Meekness we resemble him who is a God that blotteth out trans­gressions. When we are angry, we are like unto the beasts that perish, yea, we are as the raging waves of the Sea, foming out our own shame: But when we yield to our brother's infirmity, and forgive him, we are as Gods.

Thirdly, This virtue is seldom, I may say never, alone; but it suppo­seth Faith, which is sigillum bonorum operum, the seal to every good work, to make it current and authentick, yea, and all that fair retinue of Virtues which as Handmaids wait upon Faith, and make her known to the world. For he whose mind is so subact as to bear another mans burthen, and to lift himself up upon the ruins of himself, and create virtue out of injury and contempt, cannot be far from the Kingdom of heaven, nor destitute of those sacrifices wherewith God is well pleased. And this, I say; though it be not necessary, yet is very probable. For these, to be Covetous, to be Luxu­rious, to be Wanton, and to be Meek, cannot lodge in the same breast. For we see Prodigality as well as Covetousness is a whetstone to our Anger, and makes it keen and sharp: And the Wanton will as soon quarrel for his Whore as the Miser for his Purse. But Meekness believeth all things, hopeth all things, beareth all things, and doth nothing unseemly. For the mind of the Meek is like the Heavens above: Semper illîc serenum est, there is continual serenity and a perpetual day there. It is as Wax, fit to receive any impres­sion or character of goodness, and retein it; a fit object for Gods benefits to work upon; ready to melt at the light of his countenance, and to yield at the lifting up of his hammer. And therefore;

In the last place, this Meekness and Readiness to forgive maketh us more capable of the Gospel of Christ and those other Precepts which it doth contain, and so fits and prepareth and qualifieth us for this Blessedness, for this great benefit of Remission of sins. For he that is ready to forgive all injuries, will be as ready to be poor, very forward to go to the house of mourning, merciful, a peace-maker, one that may be reviled and persecuted, and so rightly qualified for those Beatitudes. And he who can suffer an in­jury will hardly do one; whereas they commonly are most impatient of wrongs who make least conscience of offering them; qui irascuntur quia iras­cuntur, who play the wantons, and are angry with their brother for no o­ther reason but because they are pleased to be angry. Now the Oratour will tell us that Nullus rationi magìs obstat affectus, there is no affection which is so great an enemy to Reason as Anger. For Sorrow, and Fear, and Hope, and the rest, make an assault and lay hard at us, but anger as a whirlwind overwhelms us at once. I may be stricken with Fear, and yet hearken to that counsel which will dispel it: I may hang down my head with Sorrow, and yet be capable of those comforts which may lift it up again; for every one is not as Rahel, that would not be comforted: but we deal with Angry men as we do with men overcome with drink, never give them counsel till the fit be over. For fairly to be speak a man thus transported, is to as much purpose as to bid the Sea go back, or to chide the Winds. And as the Rea­son and Judgment are dimmed and obscured with that mist which sudden [Page 48] Anger casts, so are they also by that which they call [...], a lasting or abiding Anger, which is the forge or alembick of Revenge, and works it by degrees. And till this be dispelled and scattered, there is no room for the Doctrine of the Gospel, which breaths nothing but meekness and forgiveness. Disce, sed ira cadat naso: To be angry and To learn are at as great a distance as To be in motion and To stand still. He that fills his thoughts with Revenge, can leave no room for the Precepts of that Master who was led to the slaughter as a sheep: But the Meek man is like him, is a Sheep, his Sheep, and will soon hear his voice, draw nearer and nearer un­to him, and by Meekness learn Purity and those other virtues which will bring him into the arms of his Saviour and the Kingdom of Heaven. And thus you see how necessary a virtue Meekness is for the Church, and for e­very part of it, for every Christian, to entitle him to the inheritance of the earth; as the earth is taken for that new earth, Rev. 21. 1. the Earth not of li­ving, dying men, but that Earth where we shall live for ever; that state of hap­piness which, like the Earth, shall stand fast for ever. For what is Meek­ness but a pregustation and fore-taste of that quiet and peaceable estate which is no where to be found but at the right hand and in the presence of God? That as God, who is slow to anger and full of goodness and mercy, is properly and naturally in a constant and immoveable state of bliss, so Christians, who by divine grace and assistance raise themselves up to this height and pitch as to look down from a quiet mind, as from heaven, upon all the injuries and reproaches which shall be thrown against them, so com­municate as it were with God, and are assimilated to him, may also by the grace and favour of God participate with him of the same lasting and un­changeable glory. And now we should descend to shew the title the Meek have to the Earth, as it is in the letter, and signifies temporal happiness, and the quiet possession of the things of this world: but the time is well-near spent; now therefore we will add but a word or two by way of Ap­plication of what hath been already spoken, and so conclude.

And did I say that Meekness was a necessary virtue to the Church of Christ, and that without it we cannot receive the Gospel, nor be our selves received into the Kingdom of Heaven? Certainly I mistook: at least the greatest part of Christendom will rise up against me, and arraign me as guil­ty of a dangerous heresie. For in their practice they confute it every day. It was indeed a necessary virtue for the infant, baby Church, when she could not move her arms, nor her tongue but in prayers and blessings; when Chri­stians were ready to suffer, but knew not what it was to strike; when they were expeditum morti genus, readier to breath forth their souls in the fire then to kindle one, readier to receive the sword into their bowels then to draw it: But now the Church is aged and forgetful, and men have learnt to dispute and distinguish themselves out of their duty, have found out a new light, by the guidance of which they may walk on securely, and follow their brutish passions and covetous desires to the mark they have set up, and by this light wade on and wash their feet in the bloud of their brethren. It was a virtue; it is now the mark of a lukewarm Reprobate: It was the beauty and glory of the Church; but later times have looked upon it as a fowl dishonour: It was the only buckler the former Christian had; but those of after-times have thrown it away, and for it took up the sword, which they brandish with terror, as that weapon which Christ himself hath put into their hands: It was the proper virtue of Christians and most ne­cessary for them; it is now an Anathema. Now not to curse, deserves a curse. The Church was a flock, a little flock of sheep; it is now become as terrible as an army with banners, and Christ is already brought into the world in that posture in which the Jews expect their Messias, with Drum [Page 49] and Colours. Shall I tell you what is counted necessary now? It is ne­cessary to contend for the Faith, to stand up against Error, to be zealous for the glory of God. And what man of Belial dare be so bold as to stand up and say this is not necessary? God forbid that Faith should fail; that Error should take the chair, that the Glory of God should be trod under foot. It is true: but then though this be necessary, it is necessary to do it in that way and order which Christ himself hath prescribed, and not in that which our Malice and Covetousness and Ambition draws out in bloud. And the Sword of the Lord, the Word of God, managed with the Spirit of Meekness is more apt and fit to enter the soul and the spirit then the Sword of Gideon. Religionis non est cogere religionem, saith Tertullian; Religion cannot be forced, which, if it be not voluntary, is not at all. For there cannot be a grosser soloecism in Divinity then to say a man is good against his will. And sad experience hath taught us that they who thus contend for the Faith with noyse and fury do name Christ indeed, but mean themselves. We may instance in the Church of Rome. They who defend the Truth, non syllogismis, sed fustibus, as St. Hierome speaks, not with Reason and Scripture, but with clubs and swords, do but glance up­on the Truth, but press forward to some other mark. And THE GLO­RY OF GOD is but written in their foreheads, that whilst men look stedfastly upon that, they may with more ease and less discerned lay hold on the prey, and so be Villains with applause. Yee suffer fools gladly, 2 Cor. 11. 19, 20. saith St. Paul, such as boast, and count themselves the Sages of the Age, because you your selves are wise in your own conceit, though as very fools as they. Yee suffer if a man bring you into bondage, (what do not the Romish Proselites endure?) if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face. For how willing have men been to be deceived, and to canonize them for Saints who wrought the cheat, to think them the best Pastors who devour them, and them the humblest men who exalt themselves, and them the most gentle friends who smite them on the face. Such a Deity, such an Idole, such a Nothing is Religion and Christianity made in this world; cried up with noyse, and beat down with violence; pretended in every thing, and denied in every thing; magnified in those actions which destroy her, forced to draw that sword which she commanded her disciples to put up, made a sanguinary and shedder of bloud, of which (could she prevail, and have that power which God hath given her) there would not one drop fall to the ground. But the World is the World still, and would make the Church like un­to it: And though it be Ambition, or Covetousness, or Malice, yet we call it Religion; and when that word is once spoken, then down goes all Morality, all Humanity, all Meekness, and Religion it self. Is it not for her cruelty that we make the Church of Rome the seat of Antichrist, and call her the BEAST? And let it be the mark and character of the Beast still. Let not that which a Turk or Jew would run from with disdain, be fastned as an ornament of glory on the Christian, who is better drawn and expressed in chains and fetters then with his feet on the neck of his ene­mies. For where should a Christian be seen but under the Cross? When he flings it upon others, he may call himself by what name he please, but he is not a Christian. Do we not make this our plea against the Church of Rome, That sentence of death was never past upon any of them for Religion? and therefore let not our words anathematize, and our actions justifie them. Let us not do that which in a Papist we call an abominati­on. Let us not name the Lord Jesus, and then fall down and worship the Prince of this world, when he lures us to him with the glory of it, and those things which he will give us. A strumpet is not a whit the less a [Page 50] strumpet because she calls her neighbour so; and the name of Antichrist will belong to us as well as to that Church, if we partake with her in those sins for which we call her so. And it will little avail us to call her Anti­christ, whilst our selves are drunk with the bloud of our brethren. But ‘ —Dii talem terris avertite pestem;’ God banish from the earth this kind of Popery. And let us be able to make that glorious profession which the Christians did to the Heathens in the times of Nazianzene, QUAM LIBERTATEM VOBIS ERIPUI­MUS? When our Emperour was a Christian, and the Church had peace, and flourish'd, what one part of your liberty did we deprive you of? Did we spoil you of your wealth, or cast you into prison? Did we raise up the people to rage against you? Did we call for the sword of the Magistrate, and invite the secular Power to destroy you? Did we degrade you from your honours, or remove you from your offices? Did we displace your Praetors? They are the Fathers own words. What did you hear from us but hearty wishes, earnest exhortations, and vehement prayers for your salvation? So far were we from shedding your bloud, that we were ready to powre out our own for your souls. This was all our violence: and indeed you esteem'd it so. You imputed to us even our very meekness as a crime, and counted our patience to be violence. This we can, but this you cannot say for your selves. You by most exquisite torments would force us to a false Religion, who by our very Religion are forbid to use any violence to draw you to a true one. It is true, the Kingdom of Heaven cannot be taken but by violence: but it is by violence upon our selves; upon our Anger, to bridle it; upon our fleshly Lusts, to controll them; upon our unruly Affections, to moderate them; upon the Old man, to crucifie him. We make our addresses unto you in the spirit of meekness, we beseech you to be reconciled unto Christ; but we were never taught to present our Religion to you on the point of the sword. O that we could make this glorious pro­fession! This is the Gospel-way, the only way to open the Gates of Hea­ven to our selves and others: For we wrestle not, saith St. Paul, against flesh and bloud, against the Neros and Nabals of the earth; against the Jews, who solemnly curse us three times a day, saith St. Hierome; against the Turk, who delights in our bloud; against the Papists, who make it a sport to a­nathematize us; nor against those who hate them with a perfect hatred, and are worse then they; not against the Slanderer, whose tongue is a rasour; nor against the Oppressour, who hath the teeth of a Lion; nor against the Detractour, whose whisper is as the sting of a Scorpion, and hurts unseen: but we fight against Principalities and Powers, and the Rulers of the darkness of this world. These are a Christian mans enemies, and with these he so­lemnly wageth war. And his weapons are answerable, the Breastplate of Righteousness, the Shield of Faith, the Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, which though they are mighty to pull down strong holds, yet will they not touch an enemy that appears in the shape of a man. The Breast­plate of Righteousness will not defend me from them that shoot their arrows in private. The Shield of Faith, though it quench the fiery darts of Satan, yet will not quench that fire, destroy that Tongue, which is a world of ini­quities. And the Sword of the Spirit cannot beat back the malice of an inra­ged enemy, or smite down those that hate us. But if we believe, and trust to this part of providence which the Wisdom of the Father hath taught us, we shall see greater things then these. We shall find our selves disarm'd, with never a hand to strike, with a tongue that cannot curse, with weapons which may resist a Devil, but cannot hurt a man; which will cast down a [Page 51] sin, but not an enemy: not able to move when the heathen rage, and when the enemy drives towards us, like Jehu, furiously; making the greatest pre­paration against our own Impatience; fighting against our Anger, when we will not hold up a hand against those that hate us; for the Truths sake Rom. 8. 36, 37 killed all the day long, and appointed as sheep for the slaughter, yet in all these things more then conquerors. These are the riches of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria. These are the victories and trophees of a Christian, a ploughed back, a face spit upon, hands bound, and feet in fetters, and a heart melt­ing and bleeding for them, that do it, and powring forth supplications and prayers for them, the only coals he heapeth upon their heads. And thus the Christian doth, seculi fluctus calcare, praeeunte Christo; he treads upon the proud waves of this world, Christ going before him; he walks in Christ's steps; he wadeth not in the bloud of his enemies, but in his own, to that inheritance which is laid up for him. He learneth of Christ, who is meek and lowly, and so heals every malidy, binds up every wound, wipeth off all disgrace, triumphs over all the evil in the world, and so finds that rest unto his soul which our Pride, our Animosities, our Rage can never purchase us. To conclude; Though Meekness do not open the Gates of Heaven, yet it makes our admittance more easie: Though it be not sufficient to save us, yet it is a fair means to make us wise unto salvation: Though it do not merit re­mission of sins, yet it makes us like to our Father which is in Heaven. And at the great day of retribution this also which we have done shall be mention­ed, and our Father shall say unto us, Well done, true and faithful servants: You have bowed down your backs to the smiter, you have loved your enemies, and prayed for your persecutors; behold, I have loosed you and forgiven you all your debt: enter into your Masters joy. To which He bring us who hath dearly bought us with his bloud, JESUS CHRIST the Righteous.

THE words are plain, and need not the gloss of any learned Interpreter, That God is our Father, and we his children; That as children we must be followers of him in those wayes which lead us to him. There is no man so much a child in understanding but will un­derstand this without a Philip, without any man to help or guide him. But yet, Beloved, many times the plainest places of Scripture require our pains and la­bour as much as the obscurest, and are far more useful and necessary then high and deep speculations; as we find a stone out of the Quarry more fit to build a house with then a Diamond. These words, which I have read, as plain as they are, are as a rich Mine, which being well searcht into, will yield abundance of ore, even the rich treasury of that wisdom which will make us wise unto salvation. If we desire Wealth, the earth is the Lords, and all that therein is; if Strength, he is the Lord of hosts; if Wisdom, He created her, and saw her, and numbred her, and powred her out upon all his works; if Life, he is the living God; if Immortality, he only is immortal. There is none like unto the Lord our God; and if we follow him, we shall be rich, and wise, and strong; we shall live, and live for ever. Let us then look stedfastly upon these plain words: And upon the opening of them we shall behold the Heavens open, and God himself looking down upon the children of men, upon his children, displaying his rays, and manifesting his beauty, to draw them near unto himself, to allure and provoke them to follow after him; teaching Dust and Ashes to raise it self to the region of Happiness, Mortality to put on Immortality, Death to put on Life, and our Sinful nature to make its approaches nearer and nearer to Purity it self, that where He is, there we may be also.

My Text is a general Proposition depending upon that which our Apo­stle had told the Ephesians in the former Chapter. And it is an Exhortati­on to a Duty of a high nature, even reaching to Heaven it self; a Perswasi­on to look upon God as an ensample, Be yee followers of God. But what? must the Ephesians be enjoyned a duty where impossibility stands in the way between them and performance? Not so. They are Gods children, and they are his dear children. And as he is their Father, so he will be their Patern too. He will draw with his finger as it were the lines by which they must walk: nay, he will go before them in the way, and they shall hear a [Page 53] voice saying, This is the way; walk in it: I am merciful; be yee merciful: I am long-suffering; be yee patient: I forget your transgressions; do yee forgive your enemies: Be yee followers of me. This is as if the Apostle had thus bespoken the Ephesians, My task is to perswade you to forgive one a­nother: What better argument, what stronger motive can I use then to tell you that you are Gods dear children. If you be Children, it is the glory of a child to resemble his Father: But you are children; and not that only, but [...], dear children; and Children strive to imitate their Pa­rents, to whom they are dear. Nay, farther yet, you are not only [...] dilecti, but [...] diligibiles, through Christ, who hath made you worthy to be beloved. And the more you imitate your Father, the more lovely still you appear. Be yee therefore followers of God, &c.

So now you may see here a medicinal water, and not an Angel, as in the pool of Bethesda, but God himself moving of it, and calling us to enter, that we may be healed. Or you may behold that great Penman of the holy Ghost drawing out as it were, and setting the Ephesians, a copie, so legible, that one may run and read it. Briefly, you have a Patern proposed, Be yee followers of God; and the Persons whose duty it was to be imitators, the Ephesians, who were dear children. Or thus; Here is a Duty enjoyned, Be yee followers; the Object of imitation, God; the Motive, as you are dear children; or, because you are dear children; 1. Because you are children; 2. Because you are dear children. Of these in order.

What the Oratour spake of his Art is most true of ours; Magna pars ar­tis continetur imitatione. The greatest part of Rhetorick consists in imita­tion; So too doth our Christian profession. God hath not only fixed the two Tables for us to look upon, or his Command to be our direction: That indeed is via veritatis, the way by which we are to walk. But there is too lumen vitae: He hath also placed many lights in the way; the light of spiri­tual Understanding, that we may see the way; and the light of Imitation, that seeing others walk in the way we may tread in their steps. So Abra­ham shall teach his family; so Solomon shall look upon King David; and My son, hear my voice, saith Solomon: So the weak Christian, and he that eateth milk, shall walk as it were upon the strength of him that eateth stron­ger meat. And lest these helps should not be strong enough to uphold our weakness, lest these lesser lights should be too divine to lead us, God him­self hath cast his rayes upon us, and hath made even those Virtues which He is, exemplary. And indeed how much we stand in need of this help of Example, in respect of our frailty, our Saviour laid open when he took our nature. He was disciplina morum; His whole life was so as if he had descended only to be an Ensample. Yea, although he himself were ensam­ple enough to have instructed the whole world, yet he proposeth others. The Samaritane shall instruct the Lawyer: And if the Lawyer approve the Mercy of the Samaritane to the man wounded on the way, our Saviour is ready with his, Do you likewise. If the Apostles grow proud, he will bring a Child in the midst of them; and if contentious, to wipe out that stain, he will wash their feet. We are not only deprived of our former health in paradise, as the Papists would have it, but we are also wounded and maimed, and stand in need of these crutches, as it were, of Precepts and Ensamples. We are still going on in the paths of death, and thither we would hasten with hinds feet, did not God pull us back again, and sometimes lead us with the cords of men, with the bands of love, and sometimes drive us by his threatnings, and sometimes hearten us with the sight of others labouring on the way. And if the opinion of some were true, that Original sin consisteth most in imitation, here were ample and suffici­ent remedy, in that God leads us by ensample. To this end he hath placed [Page 54] us in the communion of Saints; a gift which we either understand not, or undervalue; and he hath wisely ordein'd that one Christian should be a les­son to another, which he should take out and learn, and teach again, and then strive to improve. For it is here as in Arts and Sciences, Qui agit ut prior sit, forsitan, si non transierit, aequabit; He who, spurred on with an holy ambition, makes it his industry to exceed his patern, shall no doubt become as glorious a star as he, and by his holy emulation far out-shine him. Only endeavour we must, and not shut our eyes when God hath set his lights in his candlesticks. A shame it is that Lot should be in Sodom, and his Devotion be imprisoned at home with him; that Davids soul should be where there are haters of peace; that Peter should pass by, and not so much as his shadow reach us; that the lesser stars, nay the Sun it self, should shine, and we be in darkness; that it should be noon-day with us, and we grope as if it were midnight. The Philosopher would not speak it with­out a Pudet dicere, without a Preface of Shame, Nunquam apertiùs quàm coram Catone peccatum, That for all so great an ensample of severity as Cato was, yet Vice was still impudent. And Pliny speaks it as a commendati­on of Trajane, That he was good among the worst: For, saith he, when Ca­millus and Scipio lived, when Virtue had as it were made her self visible in those Worthies, it was a matter of no difficulty to be good: Tunc enim imitationis ardor, & semper melior aliquis accenderet: For then the heat of Imitation inflamed men, and still the life of some better man was a silent call to the weaker to follow after. Beloved in our Lord and Saviour, the time was when this our Land was overcast with as thick a darkness as that of Ae­gypt, and there was no Goshen for a true Israelite, no light but that of the faggot, no place to profess safely in; yet they then were followers of Christ, and in the Scriptures diligently searcht out the steps of the Apo­stles, and in spite of fire and persecution walked in them. And although the Gospel was unto them but as a light in a dark cloud, yet by this light they traced the paths of the primitive Fathers, sub Principe dura, Tempori­búsque malis; and in bad times they durst be good, when the Queen was even as a Lioness amongst the Lions, and Cruelty lurkt no where more then under a Mitre and Rochet. The case, God be thanked, is otherwise with us now; The bands of our cativitie are snapt asunder; The cup of God's wrath is taken out of our hands, and God hath made us as it were a strong brasen wall, and his enemies and ours have fought against us, and have not prevailed. Antichrist is revealed, the mystery of iniquity laid open, er­rors of all kind detected, the Bible unclasped, teachers of truth like stars in the firmament, eminent, Wisdom cryeth out in the streets, and Religion hath as it were placed her tabernacle in the Sun; and shall we still have a frost at our heart? shall we have withered hands? shall we be cold and be­numned, and not able to set one foot forward in the steps of our Forefa­thers? Beloved, let us look over into the tents of our enemies, into the ta­bernacles of Wickedness. What doth that Church of Rome more crack of than of Antiquity, how like she is to the Church in former times, how she hath still the same gate, and traceth the same paths? and that we are but of yesterday, that Luther breathed into us our first breath, that it troubleth us much, saith Gregory of Valence, that we are not able to shew any company of people in times past known to the world, whom we follow in our Doctrine and Religion? If we would pull down the Images out of their Church, they cry us down with a Populus eruditur, They are the Books of Laymen, by which they are instructed in the Articles of Faith, and have as it were before their eyes laid open the wholesome examples of the faith­ful, which may move them to compose their lives to the imitation of them. If we would pull off those wings which they have given to Nature to soar [Page 55] up above her power, if we deny their Freewil, if we pull down their Ba­bel of Merits, they then tell us of the ancient Worthies of their Church, and add some Saints that were wicked men; yea some that never were men. They will shew you what they have layed up for others in the treasury of the Church, to discharge their Debts before they owed them. They say that we walk blindfold in our own waies, and will not open our eyes to see the times of old, that we have run away from the bosome of our Mother, and now suck strange breasts. It is true indeed, that we can both silence them in their boast, and wipe out their accusation; we can tell them that Rome is unlike her self: Non Roma praestat Romam, as Scaliger speaketh: That the Church began not with Luther, but began then to be les, corrupt: That we left not her, but her Superstition: That we walk in the old way, and are followers of the Professors of the primitive Truth which was then em­braced when the Popes kitchin was not yet heated by the fire of Purgatory, when his Exchequer was not fill'd by Indulgences, when there was no cor­ner-Mass, when Transubstantiation was yet unbaked, when all Sins were accounted mortal, when Pardons were sold only for Prayers and Repen­tance, when there were no Merits heard of but our Saviours, when the peo­ple were not cousened of the Cup; when the Pope was not Jupiter fulmi­nans, when he had no thunderbolt, no power of deposing Kings and Em­perours. But, Beloved, our Christian care and industry should be, that we rank not our selves amongst those of whom St. Paul affirms that they Rom. 1. 18. held the truth of God in unrighteousness, that we walk as children of the truth, ne dicta factis deficientibus erubescant, as Tertullian speaketh; that our life give not our profession the lye; that we may put to silence the igno­rance of foolish men, as St. Peter saith, that when they speak evil of us, they 1 Pet. 3. 16. may be ashamed which blame our good conversation in Christ: For if we follow Christ and his Apostles only in word and shew, if we wear Christs colours, and fight under the Devils banner, the title of CHRISTIAN will no more befit us then that of BONIFACE a hard-visage, or that of URBANUS a cruel Pope. Therefore a Christian is well defined by an ancient Father to be qui Christum verbis & operibus quantum homini possibile est imitari nititur, that striveth, as much as lies in the power of Man, to imitate Christ, by making his Hand as active as his Tongue, to imitate him both in his deeds and in his words.

You see, Beloved, that our Weaknes's stands in need of that which God hath graciously reached out unto us, this help of Example. As he hath made the Ear, so the Eye also, to obtein Learning. And lest we should complain of impossibility to perform what he commands, he hath proposed unto us men of the same mould we are of. This Doctrine then concerns us two ways; 1. in respect of our selves; 2. in respect of others. In respect of our selves, 1. to remove the letts and hindrances of Imitation; 2. to observe the rules of Imitation. Now there are divers hindrances. I will mention but three.

The first is spiritual Pride and Self-conceit. We willingly perswade our selves that we are out of danger, and that we can go upon our own strength; that we may rather be examples to others than follow them. At a sight on­ly of our Saviour, at the least feeling of the operation of the Spirit, with Peter, we cast our selves into the Sea, we venture upon any temptati­on, and think we can walk in the most dangerous places without a leader. And this Self-conceit proceedeth from want of grace. Grace teacheth us to remove this hinderance. Non extollit, sed humilitat, saith one: Grace doth not puff up, but humble a man: It shews him unto himself. The more a man tasts of these spiritual vanities, the greater is his hunger, and he will leap for joy to eat them at any table. Therefore it was a good rule of St. Hirome, Omnium simus minimi, ut omnium fiamus maximi, Let us in our [Page 56] own opinion be the least of all, and then we shall strive forward and for­ward, and by a willingness to follow others example grow up to be the greatest of all. This Self-conceit works in us a Prejudicate opinion, and makes us undervalue and detract from the worth of our brother, Which is the second hinderance. We may see it in the Scribes and Pharisees. They were forsooth Moses disciples, and were swelled up with the thought of that chair: As for Jesus, he was not known unto them from whence he was. And how crafty were they, being cheated themselves, to deceive others. They buzze into the peoples ears that he was but the Carpenters Son, that none of the rulers believed on him. And so daily in themselves they encrea­sed a willing and obstinate ignorance; and at last, not knowing him, they crucified the Lord of life. Therefore the Apostle, speaking of the diversi­ty of gifts, and offices of the members of Christ, gives this counsel, In Rom. 12. 10. giving honor, go one before another. Our honor, our preferment, our pre­cedencie is to honor our brother. If we honor him for those good gifts which God hath bestowed upon him, we shall strive to benefit our selves by them, lumen de lumine accendere, to light our candle at his, to borrow of his lustre, to sit at that heavenly fire which warms his breast. When Naa­man was to be healed of his Leprosie, Elisha bad him wash himself seven times in the River of Jordan: but at this the Syrian was wroth, and his 2 Kings 5. thoughts were at home. Abanah and Pharpar, Rivers of Damascus, were better with him then all the waters of Israel. And if he after had not been bet­ter advised, he had still remained and died a Leper. Beloved, if thy brother hath tasted of Gods graces, If the river of God hath made his heart glad, and God hath appointed that thou shouldst wash at this river, that thou shouldst amend by his fruitful example, and thou then esteeming him to be dry and barren, thinkst of a fountain at home, of thine own ability, take heed that thou still retain not thy leprosie of sin; take heed thou perish not in thy sin, and that it may not truly be said of thee, He that is a scholar to himself hath a fool to his master. To this end let Charity possess thy heart, that excellent gift of Charity, quae se consiliis suis non credit, which trusts not her self to her own counsels, as Ambrose speaks, which envieth not, which thinketh not evil. Whose contemplation blesseth it self with the 1 Cor. 13. Patience of Job, the Sincerity of David, the Courage of Nehemiah, the In­dustry of Paul: Which writes in our memories these good examples, and teacheth us to turn them over every day: Which will not suffer us to under­value our brother; but makes us nourish the least spark of goodness in him, and, if we can, blow it and enliven it into a flame both in his breast and ours.

The third and last hinderance of Christian Imitation is spiritual Drow­siness. The Schoolmen call it Acedia, the Devils dormitory and sleepy potion, by which each faculty of the soul is laid in a deep sleep; so that though God call never so loud by his cryers, the Preachers of his word, by the open and visible examples of good men, yet we hear not, we stir not, we walk not, or, if we do, it is but like those that walk in their sleep: our phansie is troubled, and we know not whether we do or no. If we stir and move, it is but like the Sluggard in the Proverbs, to fold the hands, to lye down, and sleep again in sin; like Eulychus in the Acts, whilst Paul is a preaching, whilst the example of good men is vocal, we are fast asleep, in danger to fall down, and break our necks. By this we suffer our souls to gather rust, which should shine and glister with the continual exercise of good works, which should be rub'd and furbished as it were with the frequent meditation of the good life of others. By this we are utterly deprived of that great help in our warfare, the Imitation of others. Rowse then up your selves, Beloved, and remove this hindrance: awake from this sleep, and stand up. Let the quire of Angels and the joyes [Page 57] of Heaven wake you. Let the howling and gnashing of teeth, the noise of the damned, stir you. As ye have heretofore drunk nothing but the top of the cup, the sweet of sin, so now take and drink the dregs of it, that it may be bitter to your soul, and that your spirit may be wounded: and then yee will not be able to bear it, then yee will stir and move and be a­ctive, then yee will make use of the examples of good men, and do any thing to be rid of this cup.

Thus we have opened the door, and removed the barr, and are now as it were in the plain field, in our walk: In the second place we must take heed how we walk, and observe the Rules of Imitation.

And first we must not take our patern upon trust; no, not St. Paul him­self. He brings it in indeed as a Duty, Be yee followers of me; but he adds 1 Cor. 11. 1. this direction, as I am of Christ. For in imitation, besides the persons, there is also to be considered, saith Quintilian, quid sit, ad quod efficiendum nos comparemus, what it is we must imitate in the persons. We must no fur­ther follow them than they follow the rules of Art. And he tells us of many in his age who thought themselves perfect Ciceronians if they could shut up a period with esse videatur. Some there were quibus vitium pro ex­emplo erat, saith Seneca, who imitated nothing but that which was bad in the best. It is so in our Christian profession; We must view, and try, and understand what we are to imitate. We must not make use of all eyes, but of those only which look upon the Lord. We must not walk as it were up­on other mens feet, unless we know what paths they tread. We must not follow all guides: for some may be blind, and lead us into the ditch. To this end God hath bounded and limited us in our walks, and drawn out as it were certain lines. In the Scripture he tells thee, Thus far shalt thou go; Thus far shalt thou follow, and no further. If any do transilire line as, as Tertullian speaks, leap over the lines, pass the limits, thou must leave him there, and keep within thy bounds. All other waies are dangerous, all others paths slippery, all other imitation damnable. This the Church of Rome is well acquainted with; and therefore she breaks down the bounds, pulls down the limits, hides the lines, dammeth up the Kings high­way. She pulls out thy eyes, and there she leads thee in a way indeed, but not of Truth, in a by-path, in a way leading out of the way. The way of Truth it cannot be: For veritas nihil erubescit, nisi solummodò abscondi; Truth blusheth at nothing, but to be hid: But I must walk their way, and not know whether it be a way or no. Though I doubt, yet I must not dare to question it, but must still walk on, and put it to the adventure. If I­dolatry and Superstition and blind Obedience will saint a man, then I am sure to be a Saint in heaven. That Church reacheth forth unto thee a cup, and sayes it is of the water of life, when indeed it is but poison. She hath an open breast, and a motherly affection: she shews thee a milky way, but which neither Christ nor his Apostles ever trod in: No tracking of them but by bloud. She shews thee an easie way, a sensual way, made passable by Indulgences, and Pardons, and private Masses, and Supererogation: only thou must walk in it without offense to the Church of Rome. Thus, like those Physicians Sidonius speaks of, officiosè occidit, she will kill thee with good words; like some kind of Serpents, she will sting thee, and thou shalt dance when thou art stung; she will flatter thee to thy destructi­on, and thou shalt perish as it were in a dream. Beloved, what shall we do then? We will pray to God with Paul, to guide our journey; with Da­vid, to make our way upright. We will say as Israel said to Sihon King of the Amorites, We will neither turn aside into the fields, nor into the vinyards, Numb. 21. 22. neither drink of the waters of the wells. We will neither walk in those spe­cious pleasing wayes, nor taste of the Wine which that Harlot hath mingled, [Page 58] nor draw water out of those Wells which they have digged unto themselves: but we will go in the Kings high-way, even in that way wherein the Apo­stles, the Prophets, the blessed Martyrs, the holy Saints, all our Fore­fathers, by the light of Scripture have gone before us.

The second Rule of our Christian Imitation is, That we strive to imi­tate the best. Stultissimum est, non optimum quemque proponere, saith Pli­ny; It is great folly not to propose alwaies the best patern. And, Elige Catonem, saith Seneca; Chuse a Cato, a prime eminent man, by whose autority thy secret thoughts may be more holy, the very memory of whom may compose thy manners; whom not only to see, but to think of, will be a help to the reformation of thy life. Dost thou live with any in whom the good gifts and graces of God are shining and resplendent, who are strict and exact, and so retein the precepts of God in memory that they for­get them not in their works: Then, as St. James saith, Take the Prophets for example, so I say, Take these for an ensample; lodge them in the closet of thy heart; confer with their virtuous actions, and study them: And if at any time the Devil and the World put thee upon those actions which might make thee to forget thy copy, then take it into thy hands, and look it over again; and as St. Cyprian would often call for Tertullians works, with a Da magistrum, Give me my master; so do thou, Da praeceptores, Give me the instructing examples of these good men; let them alwaies be before my eyes, let them be a second rule by which I may correct my life and manners: Let me not loose this help which God hath granted me, of Imitation.

But, Beloved, here beware we must, that we mistake not the Goats for the Sheep, the left hand for the right; that we weigh not Goodness by the number of Professors. For it is the Devils policie to make us think that the most are the best: and so he shuts us out of the little flock, and thrusts us into the folds of Goats; and thus we deceive our selves. Plerique du­cimur non ad rationem, sed ad similitudinem; We are not guided by Reason, but let her slip, and so are carried away as it were in a throng, non quà eundum, sed quà itur, not indeed whither we should go, but whither the many-headed multitude lead us. Therefore thou must take this as a Rule, Multitudo, argumentum mali; No surer argument that men are evil, then that they are many. The City of the Lord is not so peopled as the City of the World, which the Devil hath erected; neither is Heaven so full as Hell; nor are there so many Saints as there are Devils, not so many chosen as there are past-by, not somany good examples as there be bad ones. We undervalue true professors, we make their Paucitie a blemish, whereas our Saviour tells us his flock is little, a lily amongst the thorns; and when God commands us Exod. 23. as in this so in all actions, not to follow a multitude in evil.

And this in our Christian Imitation we must observe in respect of our selves. We must be careful too in respect of others. And since God hath made Imitation such a help to our Salvation, we must strive to be guides and lights unto our weaker brethren, not an ignis fatuus, or lambens, a fat and foggy meteor, to lead them out of the way, but stellae micantes, bright and glistering stars, to lead them to Christ. And this in the first place con­cerneth the Ministers and Messengers of God. It is St. Paul's charge to Ti­mothy, even before the holy Angels, that he should keep himself unblamable before all men: Valentinian's to his Bishops, that they should vitâ & ver­bo gubernare, govern the Church both with their life and with their do­ctrine; and as Nazianzene spake of Basil, they should have thunder in their words, and lightning in their deeds, [...], speaking and doing: Not like Lucian's Apothecary, who sold Medicines for the Cough, when he and all his houshold were infected with it; nor like those Physicians Na­zianzene [Page 59] speaketh of, [...], laying their hands to cure the wounds of others, whilst themselves were full of sores: But striving to come forth glorious and wholsome examples, that they humble not those with their life whom they have raised up with their do­ctrine; Considering that sin doth not only shew but teach it self. And what a heavy doom will reach them, if they beat down those with a bad, whom they should raise up and set a walking with a good example!

But, Beloved, I here mistake my Auditory, and speak to this Congrega­tion as if I were amongst an assembly of Levites. And yet I know too, and I need not fear to speak it, that it is an argument of a wicked and profane heart, of a sensual love of the world, that no doctrine now-adayes is more acceptable then that by which a Minister may be arraigned; no Ser­mons more applauded then those that strike at the Ephod; nothing that the peoples ears do more itch after, or more greedily suck in, than the Dis­grace or Weakness of their leaders. I will speak it, (and, as Salvian spake in another case, utinam mentirer, I would to God in this I were a liar; I would you might accuse, I would you might justly reprove me) no news more welcome, especially to the wicked, then that which carrieth with it the sin of a Teacher. No calling more spurned (I mean by the wisest) then that of Priesthood. As Job speaketh, they whose fathers he refused to set with the dogs of his flock mockt him; so the children of fools, more vile then the earth, make their Pastours their song; and the greatest sinners, the most debaucht sinners, when they have outcries within them, when they have a tempest within them, when their conscience affrights them with dole­ful alarums, will still the noise, will becalm the tempest, will drown the cryes with this breath, with this poysonous blast, with a defamation of the Messengers and Ministers of the Lord. But let these men know that a day will come, when no excuse shall lull them asleep, when their conscience shall awake them, when the billows shall rise higher, when the tempest shall be louder, when the cry shall be more hideous, when they shall know that though God will require their bloud at their Pastors hand, yet it is a poor comfort to them to dye in their sin; whenas he shall be punished for giving, and they for following a bad example.

But as this concerns most especially the Ministers of the Lord, and those that serve at the Altar, so, in the next place, it concerneth the people too, and that nearly, as nearly as the safety of their souls concerns them. For Beloved, the womb of Sin is not barren, but she is very fruitful, and brings forth too without sorrow or travel. The Devil hath his Crescite & multiplicate, Increase and multiply. It is enough for Sin to shew her self, and be delivered. And therefore most true it is, Plus exemplo peccatur quàm scelere, We sin more against God by example then by the sin it self. Adultery, whilst it lyes close in the thought, is only hurtful at home; but if it break forth into act, it spreads its contagion, and it seizeth upon this Christian and that Christian, and in them it multiplies, and; like the Pesti­lence, goeth on insensible, invisible, inavoidable. If the father be given to that great sin of Taking Gods name in vain, it will soon be upon the tongue of the little infant, and he will speak it as his own language; nay, he will speak it before he can speak his own language, before he knows whe­ther it be a sin or no: he will be, as by birth, so by sin a child. It was held a miracle that Nicippus Sheep did yean a Lion: and almost impossible it is that he should swear that never heard an oath before; that the child should be like a Lion, greedy of the prey, and the father as innocent as a Lamb; that so many should trace the paths of Death, the broad way to Destruction, without a leader. Hence it is that in punishing of sin God looks not only with the eye of Justice upon it, as it is [...], a transgression [Page 60] of the law, but as it is exemplary, as it hinders the edification of the body of Christ, and the gathering together of the Saints; and is the milstone that hangs upon the neck of the sinner, and sinketh him, not only for the parti­cular sin it self, but because he hath been an occasion of his brothers fall. Thus then you see we must be careful in the performance of this duty in re­spect both of our selves and of others also: of our selves, in removing the lets and observing the rules of Imitation; of others, in so going before them that we lay not a stumbling-block for them in the way. And thus much the general doctrine of Imitation implyed here hath afforded us. Behold now the love of a good Father, the tender care of our best Master. He will not only set his best Scholars over us, and teach us by others, but he will read the lecture himself, and be a patern for our Imitation. And so I come to the more especial Object of Imitation here proposed, and that is GOD; Be yee followers of God.

The Soul of man, as it takes not the infection of original sin before its union with the Body, so makes the Body her minister as it were and helper, to abate Corruption, to keep down Concupiscence, to make the shafts of the Devil less mortal. She sees with the eyes, and hears with the ears, and reacheth forth the hands, and walks with the feet. But yet all this is an argument of weakness and imperfection, that we stand in need of these helps; that I must learn of him whose pedigree is the same with mine, who is an Adamite as well as I, who was conceived in sin as I was; nay more, that a rational and immortal crea­ture must be sent to School to an Ox and an Ass, nay, to the Pismire. There­fore Isa 1. 3. Prov. 6. 6. the Soul is then most her self, and comes nighest to her former estate, when forgetting the weight and hinderance of the body, she enjoyes her self, and takes wings as it were, and soars up in the contemplation of God and his goodness; cùm id esse incipit quod se esse credit, as Cyprian speaks, when she begins to be that which she must needs believe her self to be, of a celestial and heavenly beginning. When the inward man lifts it self up with the contempt of the outward, then we are illuminated with blindness, we are cloathed with nakedness, we see without eyes, we walk without feet, we hear without ears, and we encrease our spiritual wealth by not making use of those outward gifts which seem to enrich us. Hence it is that God so often calls upon us to take up our thoughts from the earth, and imploy them above, and to have our conversation in heaven. And to this end he speaks to us in Scripture after the manner of men, and tells us that he is gracious, and merciful, and long-suffering. And when he calls that cruel servant to account for pulling his fellow by the throat, he condemns him by example, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, be­cause Matth. 18. 32, 33. thou desiredst me. Oughtest not thou also to have had pity on thy fellow-servant, even as I had of thee? Not that these virtues are in God as acci­dents. To say this, were to be blasphemous, and to deny him to be God. They are so indeed in Man, and admit degrees of perfection and imperfe­ction: but in God they are essential. He is Justice, he is Mercy, he is Truth, he is Wisdom it self. And therefore the Schoolmen call them, as they are in God, exemplares virtutes, no otherwise Virtues then as they are exemplary, because these Divine virtues, which are essential to him, must be exemplary to us. We must make him the rule of Goodness in all our actions: we must be just, to observe the Law; valiant, to keep down our passions; temperate, to conform our wills to the rule of Reason; and wise, to our salvation. But there is no virtue that makes us more resem­ble God then this the Apostle here exhorts the Ephesians to; and that is Mercy. For although all virtues are in the highest degree, nay above all degrees, most perfect, in him, yet in respect of his creatures, none is so resplendent as Mercy. If thou callst him Health, I understand thee, [Page 61] saith St. Augustine, because he gives it thee. If thou call'st him thy Re­fuge, it is true, because thou fliest unto him. If thou saist he is thy Strength, it is because he makes thee strong. But if thou namest his Mercy, thou hast named all: for whatsoever thou art, thou art by his mercy. His Good­ness is infinite, and looks over all; even his Justice hath a relish of it. It is extended unto the very damned: for their torments are not so great as God could inflict, or as they deserve. And in respect of us it exceeds his Justice: For his Justice hath a proportional object to work upon; we be­ing children of wrath, and worthy of punishment: but his Mercy hath none at all; we deserve not to fly to its sanctuary, to be covered under its wings. When we lay weltring in our bloud, there could no reason be given why God should take any of us out: He did it [...], saith S. James, because he would. There were none then that could have interceded and pleaded for us, as the Elders did for the Centurion, They are worthy that thou Luke 7. shouldst do this for them. Mercy is the Queen and Empress of Gods Virtues; It is the bond and knot which unites Heaven and Earth, that by which we hold all our titles, our title to be Men, our title to the name of Christian, our title to the profession of Christianity, our title to Earth, our title to Heaven. I could loose my self in this Paradise; I could build a Tabernacle upon this Mount Tabor; I could still look upon this Mercy-seat: Even to speak of it is great light. But from the contemplation of God's Mercy I must descend lower, and lead you to the imitation of it, and with the Apostle here ex­hort you to be followers of God, to forgive one another, to walk in love, e­ven as Christ loved us; and when God reacheth out his hand of mercy to you, not to draw in yours to your brother. And here I see three paths, as it were, to follow God in, three things required to this Imitation: 1. the Act of Imitation it self; 2. That this Act be performed ex studio imitandi, out of a love of God's Mercy, and a desire to imitate him; 3. A Conformity of the act of imitation to the patern followed. In the first place then as God forgiveth us, so we must forgive our enemies. It will not be enough to have Gods Mercies on our tongues, or to speak of them with admiration, with joy to go over the bridge, and then pull it up to our bro­ther. We account him not a good Painter who can only commend a Pi­cture, and not use the Pencil himself to draw a line: Neither is he fit to be governour of a ship that having past a tempest doth only praise the Pilate, but scarce knows the Rudder himself. Good God! what a soloecisme in Christianity is it to have a cruel heart, and a tongue speaking nothing but Mercies? to be in the gall of bitterness, and most devilishly malici­ous, and yet to cry out, Taste and see how gracious the Lord is! Hierome censureth Virgil for his ‘ Foelix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,’ for calling him happy that knew the cause of things; Apparet ipsum igno­râsse quod laudat; He was ignorant, and knew not that happiness which he commended: So these merciless Patrons of Mercy ignorant quod lau­dant, they praise they know not what. They talk of Forgiveness, and cloth themselves with malice. Their tongue is smooth, and their heart is rugged. They speak in a still voice, but in their breast is thunder. Their words are more soft then butter, but they think of swords.

In the second place, as we must forgive, so Gods Mercy must be the motive: we must do it ex studio imitandi, out of a desire to imitate God: Not out of propension of nature, out of meekness of disposition. For we cannot say the child doth imitate his father in eating, because eating is natural. Not out of a Stoical affectation, contumeliam contumeliae [Page 62] facere, to think it revenge enough to beat off an injury with a witty jest; Not out of love of peace, and fear of trouble: Nor, lastly, out of ne­cessity, therefore to forgive because thou canst not revenge? Quod ne­cessitas facit, depretiat ipsa. For as he told the Emperour that wearied Cruelty is not Clemency, so an inability or an impossibility of revenge is not Mercy. A Lion, though within the grates, is a Lion still, as fierce, as wild, as ravinous as before; and a Bear is a Bear still, still greedy of blood, though without a tooth, without a paw. Thou sayst thou doest forgive thy enemy with all thy heart? But O quàm cuperes tibi ungues esse! thou wantest but fangs, thou wantest but ability to revenge. If the lines were loosed, and thy teeth sharp, thou wouldst grinde thine enemy to powder, thou wouldst triumph in thy revenge, thou wouldst shew what thy Forgiveness was. Though a wall be placed between thee and thy enemy, that thy Artillery cannot reach him, and thou canst not be revenged, yet voto jugulasti, as St. Hierome speaketh, thou hast performed it in thy wish. And thus to forgive, Beloved, is so far from following God, that we run away from him. God forgives not because he is not able to destroy thee. No; as Caesar once spake, and nobly too, Facilius est facere quàm dicere, It was easier for him to be revenged than to talk of it. So did not Gods Mercy restrain him, he could with a word destroy the whole World. He hath a Sword, and Fire, and a Qui­ver; a glittering Sword, a Sword that shall eat flesh; and a Fire kindled in his wrath, that shall burn unto the bottom of hell; and a Quiver full of arrowes, of arrowes that shall drink bloud; yet he will in mercy sheath Deut. 31. his Sword, he will quench his fire, he will hide his arrowes in his Qui­ver, that when we feel the operation of the sweet influence of his Mercy within our selves, we may also with an upright and sincere heart derive it to our brother. Lastly, we must conform our Imitation to the Pa­tern. He with one act of mercy wipes out all scores; so must we. When he forgives our sins, he is said to cast them behind him, never to think of them, so to forget them as if they never had been; so must we. He doth it too without respect of persons; and so we ought to do. We must forgive all, for ever; and so far must we be from respect of persons that we must acknowledge no title but that of Christian. To conclude this point; How slight soever we make of it, there is no surer mark that we are not in the true Faith, than Hatred of our brethren; no stronger Argument that we are not Members of that Body whereof Christ is the Head, then the (I will not say Hatred, but) Not-loving of the weakest Member of it. For he that loveth not his brother, the love of God cannot dwell in him. He may slatter himself with a vain opinion that he loveth God, but the love of God is not really in him; it abides not, it dwells not, it hath not residence in him. And he that hateth his brother is in 1 John 2. 11. darkness. He may think he enjoyes the light of the Gospel, and that he is under the Covenant of Grace, but there is no such matter. He is Dia­boli ludibrium, the Devils laughing-stock; nay, the very forge of Satan, wherein he hammereth and worketh all iniquity. And he walketh in dark­ness, saith S. John. His Hatred hath blinded his eyes so that he walks on, and thinks he is in the right way. He labours in his vocation, he goes to Church, he receives the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ, he can do any Christian office, and so he thinks he is sound and healthful, even when the poyson is at his very heart. And therefore S. John addeth, He knoweth not whither he goeth: He falls into many sins, whilst he thinks he doth well. An opinion he hath he is in the right way to Heaven, but no Christian knowledge thereof, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes, so blinded his eyes that he discerneth not any as he should. [Page 63] If he be a Prophet, he obeys him not; if a just man, he respects him not; if otherwise a friend, he knows him not. For Malice hath as it were informed his soul; and as she makes the Body her instrument, so the Soul the place of her dominion; and she reigns there as the Devils Tributary, Custos peccatorum, the keeper of the door of the soul, that Sin fly not out. And watchful she is too: for she never sleeps. If but a thought of repentance arise, she will chain it up. So that whilst Hatred possesseth thy heart, thy heart is a stone: Broken it may be; but softned it cannot be. And though thou flat­terest thy self that thou hast repented of thy sins, yet it hath no more reality then thy Eating or Running in a Dream. Oh then, Beloved, let us put on brotherly love, the certain sign and note that God in Christ hath begotten us his children. Let us forgive our ene­mies, that so we may resemble our Father. Let us root out the bit­ter weed of Malice; the strongest Argument of a true and serious Re­pentance. Let us cloath our selves with Charity, which will make our wayes, otherwise rugged and uneven, to be smooth and passable, being the very barr and petard to break up each door and hinderance in our way. Lastly, in our Apostles words, Let us be followers of God, as dear children.

WHEN my meditations first fastned themselves upon this parcel of Scripture, I then thought that the space of an hour would have both quitted them and me. But this holy Oyl, like that of the Widows in the Book of Kings, encreased under my hands, and I could not then pour it out all unto you. I therefore then became your debtor. And it is [...], a holy and sacred debt: and I am come now to quit my promise, to pour out the remainder of the Oyl, and to pay my debt, even there where I obliged my self, in the holy Sanctuary. I then observed that these words contained in them a Duty, Be yee followers of God, and the Persons enjoyned this Duty, the Ephesians, who are stiled dear children. Which title includes motives to win and enforce them to the Duty, 1. because they were children, a great prerogative; 2. because dear children, a graci­ous adjunct. The Duty hath been handled. The Motives remain. Which I say, include a high priviledge or prerogative. For if, as we are men, we esteem it honourable to be of such a race and stock, to be descended from this Potentate or that Prince; surely then, as we are Christians, when we have put on our better and more heavenly thoughts, we shall account it the greatest honour to derive our pedigree from Heaven, to be called the Sons of God as St. John speaketh, to be filii Divini be­neficii, as St. Augustine, children of the Divine kindness, to be children of God, and heirs of a Kingdom, and that a heavenly Kingdom; to have title to a Crown, and that a Crown of life: But so it is, Beloved, that when we hear of charters and grants, of priviledges and prerogatives, our thoughts go no farther, but stay themselves in the meer grant and pri­viledge. The Gospel is indeed [...], good news; and we delight to hear of a Saviour, of a Prince of peace, of one that shall make our peace, and take away the sins of the world: But we think not of any allegiance or duty which we owe to this Prince. Glad we are he is victorious, and that he hath the Keyes of Hell and of Death. And wear his colours too we would; but we would not come under his banner, we would not fight his battels. Children we all would be; but where is our Duty? We desire to be endeared; but where is our gratitude? Nay further yet, we would be accounted lovely, and yet remain enemies to the Grace of God. Our sins we would have cover'd, but not blotted out: We would have God for­get them, and yet still walk in them. And here we mistake the nature of a [Page 65] Priviledge. For the tye thereof is as strong as that of the Law; and the greatest sins are those against the Gospel. Our own Chronicles will tell us that riots and disorders in Cities in one Kings reign, have weakned and disannulled Charters and Priviledges granted by a former King. Beloved, God is the King of Kings, the same to day, and yesterday, and for ever: and he grants not his priviledges or charters that we should let loose the rains to Impiety, and make our strength the law of unrighteousness. The trumpet of the Gospel sounds not that we should take up the weapons of Sin to pre­pare our selves to the Devils battel: Neither did that Tree of life grow up that we should sin securely under the bough and shadow of it. And there­fore the Apostle here, exhorting the Ephesians to Imitation of God, uses this method. He taketh not his argument ab inutili; He shews them not Gods quiver, nor points to the arrow which is now set to the very breast of them if they obey not. He tells them not it will be disadvantageous unto them if they follow not God. But he draws his argument à congruo. He layes open and unfolds before them the riches of Gods Mercy: He propo­seth God in his full beauty; his head as the most fine gold, his locks curled, his cheeks as a bed of spices, and as sweet flowers, and his lips like lilies drop­ping down pure myrrhe. He brings him in as a Father, not dropping only, but ready to pour out his choicest blessings on his children. Or rather he draws his argument à necessario: They must needs be obedient, and imitate their Father, or else they cannot be children. And he rises as it were by a Gradation: 1. They are children; and Children ought to learn of their Parents. 2. They are dear children; and here the tye is made stronger. 3. They are [...], diligibiles filii. Their sins are wiped out, and they appear lovely through Christ. And here is the fulness of Gods Grace, and it will bring us with David to a Non plus, to a Quid retribuam? What shall I return to the Lord for this his kindness? Thus these Waters of com­fort issue forth like those in the vision Ezek. 47. and God leads all his through them. 1. They are children: and here the waters are as it were to the ancles. 2. They are dear children: and here they reach up to the loyns. 3. In Christ they are worthy to be beloved: and here the waters are risen, they flow, and cannot be passed over: No line can measure them, no cogitation fathom them, no gratitude reach them; our thoughts, our words, our actions, all are too weak to express the depth of them. Now each Christian must be as a fruitful tree planted by this river of waters, whose seat faaes not, and whose fruit fails not. If he be a child, he must be obedi­ent; if he be dear, he must be the more grateful; if he be made worthy of love, his conversation must be as becometh the Gospel of Christ. So we have heard beneficium and officium, a Benefit, and a Tye; the Benefit, telling us whose children we are; the Tye, pointing out to our obedience. We will plainly and briefly view them both.

In the first place, the Ephesians are Children: A great prerogative, if we consider their former estate, what they were before. They were Sata­ni mancipia; no otherwise: servants, and that servants and slaves to Sa­tan; under the Law, and that a killing Law; but now redeemed, that they Gal. 4. 5. may receive the adoption of sons; and having this adoption sealed too, and that by the Spirit of God; and their names written in a Book, and that not only in libro vocationis, amongst those who are outwardly called, but in the Book of life, which admits no blot, no blur, no defacing; in which whosoever is written, is one of Gods Children, and is accounted so, and shall be so to all eternity. Now the Civilians define Adoption to be the Receiving of a stranger in alienam familiam, inque jus familiae, into ano­ther family, and to have title and right to be of that family. And stran­gers the Ephesians were, even aliens from the Covenant of Grace, sine spe, [Page 66] sine operibus, as he told his adopted Jugurtha; without the least hope, with­out any spiritual wealth or endowments, naked and languishing, and even panting under the terrors of the law, and (which was the complement of their misery, and an addition to their contumelius condition) not deser­ving a better estate. And this, Beloved, raiseth the worth and dignity of the benefit, and begets in us at once both comfort and wonder, That Chil­dren we are, and yet deserve not this adoption, this filiation. Amongst men it is otherwise; Desert alwaies was the ground of Adoption. The Emperour Nerva adopts Trajane, and takes him to be his son, h. e. unicum auxilium fessis rebus, saith the Orator, as a stay and prop to his declining estate. Temerè fecerat, si non adoptâsset; He had done very unadvisedly if he had not done it. And Galba adopts Piso, quia eò necessitatis ventum e­rat, because he was driven unto it by necessity. He had a brother elder then he worthy of that fortune, but that he was more worthy. And Mi­cipsa, after divers attempts to take away Jugurtha's life, at last adopts him, quia gloria invidiam vicit, because his Virtue now in its full splendor shone so bright that Envy could not dimme it. But what worth was there in us below? what spark, what appearance, what shew of desert in us? All in us, not extinct, or in the embers, but naturally darkness: a night on our understanding, stone at our hearts, rebellion in our affections; and we dead, and that not in a dream, (as the Anabaptists foolishly conceive, cal­ling Originial sin the dream of Augustine) but truly and really. All in the loins of that one Adam, when that one Adam by his rebellion shew us all, and made us all slaves, not worthy to be Gods hired servants. But see here a [...], God hath set forth his love, nay, the exceeding riches of his grace. Rom. 5. 8. Ephes. 2. 7. And it is worth our observing that God is not rich as Man is, to his own good and profit. His Riches serve not himself, but us. And whereas Man gathers not wealth by giving, God calls himself rich by making us so. Man adopts because he is rich; but God then terms himself rich when he doth adopt. Thus with the eye of favour he looked upon us when we were deeply plunged in our deserved misery. And by this favour navigamus spei velo: In this deluge of Sin we hoyse up the sailes of Hope, and make forward for the high prize and price of our calling. In this great tempest He became our Pilote; majorque dum exacerbatur, erupit, and even in his anger forgot his anger, slumbered in the tempest, becalmed the storm; and, when we were in the mouth of Danger, even almost on the rocks of De­spair, the light of his countenance shone round about us, and by that light we saw the haven where we would be. So that now our Weakness became a strong argument of Gods Power; and the seed of Corruption in us brought forth in him the sweet fruit of Forgiveness. None thunder-struck or killed with a curse but the Serpent, the Devil, who was the procurer of it. Though we were enemies, though we were darkness, though we were Rom. 5. 10. Ephes. 5. 8. Tit. 3. 3. disobedient and rebellious in our affections, yet even in this hostility God became our friend; in this darkness He was our light; in this rebellion He seal'd our pardon; in this poverty He was our true wealth; and of slaves He made us his children, and brought us into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. And Sons only we are not but Heirs; Heirs of God, and coheirs, joynt­heirs, Rom. 8. with Christ. As he is Son, so we by his right are sons too. All is ours, Paul is ours, and Cephas is ours, because we are Christs, and Christ is Gods. So that St. John might well usher-in this great advancement which an ECCE, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. 1 John 3. 1.

But, in the second place, besides this grace of Adoption, we are chil­dren too in a manner by Generation. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. But not so as he begat his only begotten Son, by an eternal gene­neration, James 1. 18. [Page 67] as Fulgentius speaks, but by a voluntary regeneration. In him without any natural beginning there remained an eternal na­tivity, but Gods Will preceded and went before our new birth. And to this end he placed us in gremio matris Ecclesiae, even in the bosome of the Church our Mother, who conceived us of the incorruptible seed of Gods word, as St. Peter speaketh, the blessed Spirit quickening this seed, till a new creature be brought forth, not into this temporary but into the eter­nal light; which she feeds with the bread of life, the word of truth; which she nourisheth with the milk of faith; which she strengthneth with the bread of affliction, with the bloud of Martyrs, till growing up from strength to strength, from virtue to virtue, it became at last a perfect man in Christ Je­sus. And this may well be called a birth: for indeed it much resembles our natural birth, but especially in two respects. First, here are the two terms of Generation, Non-ens tale, and Ens tale; the Matter out of which it was produced, and the Substance or Entity which it is now; Terms truly con­tradictory, as different as Heaven and Hell, as Light and Darkness: So that here is mira mutatio, the change is wonderful. View Man in his natu­rals, as not yet regenerate, and he is as the Apostle saith, the child of wrath: candidatus Diaboli, saith Tertullian, one that hath abjured Heaven, and is as it were a competitor, and one that stands for Hell, nay, one that may be imployed as the Devils instrument to bring others thither. As Pliny said of Regulus, Quicquid à Regulo sit necesse est fieri sicut non oportet, so of him, Whatsoever he doth must needs be done amiss, because he doth it. Who would ever look that a sweet stream should flow from this corrupt Fountain? Who would expect that this Nehustitan, this rude piece of brass, should ever be polisht? Or is it possible, so far as in our conceit, that out of this Cockatrice-egge there should be hatcht a Dove? Hence then encrease thy gratitude and obedience, and admire Gods Power. With meer man this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. And this Change too, as the Introduction of a humane soul, is instantaneous and in a moment, though the growth be by degrees. Non opus est morâ Spiritui Sancto; The holy Ghost needs not the help of delays. But if even in­to this dead and corrupt matter he breathe the breath of spiritual life, it shall stand up from the dead, and live, and be a new creature: Which is the terminus ad quem, the second term of this spiritual birth. And here view him, and he is [...], he is changed, another out of another; a child of light, candidatus aeternitatis, one that thinks of nothing but Aeter­nity. Certainly a blessed birth and happy change. A happy day it was when it might be said that such a child was conceived, a child of peace, a child of blessings, a child of God. That day was a day of brightness, a day of rejoycing, a typical day of that eternal day when time shall be no more.

The second resemblance of our spiritual birth to our natural is in re­spect of the difficulty and pains in bringing forth this child. And here it is but a resemblance: it will not admit a comparison. For though the pains of a woman in travel are great, so that almost they are become proverbial, yet they are but light afflictions, scarce worth note or naming, in respect of the sorrow and pain endured in this delivery, but rods to these scor­pions, but as a cramp or convulsion to this rack, as scratches to these wounds, scarce breaking the upper skin, as Seneca speaks, whilst these divide asunder the soul and the spirit, whilst they enter the bowels and the heart; scarce worth the speaking of in respect of these sighs and groan­ings▪ which the Apostle saith Rom. 8. 26. are unspeakable. For indeed the grief of the body is but the body of Grief, but the pain of the soul is the very soul of Pain; and the Soul it is that is afflicted in this birth; The sighs are hers, and the groans are hers; and all is to dead in her self the root of [Page 68] Sin; non exercere quod nata est, as St. Hierome, not to be what she is; to be in the body, and yet out of the body; to tame the wantonness of the flesh; to empty the whole man of luxury; to prune the over-spreading passions; all to be delivered, and to bring forth this New creature. Quantae solicitudines? quantae contritiones? saith St. Ambrose; What solicitude? what anxiety? what contrition? what tye of Continence? what lashes of Conscience? what bitterness of soul? Qualis adversarius? What an ad­versary to cope withall and to remove, that would strangle this Infant in the womb, in the conception; nay, that would destroy it in semine, in principiis, before it were an embryon, that would not suffer it to have pow­er to become a child of God: But yet though there be pain and grief in the travel, there is joy and comfort after the delivery. Quae parturit, quatitur & compungitur; In the travel there is a conquassation and compunction as it were: but quae peperit, exsultat; when the woman is delivered, when the little Infant hangs on the teat, there is joy and exsultation; and the Mo­ther forgets the pain, because a child is born into the world. So Christ is our joy, [...]he Child to be formed in us, as the Apostle speaketh, at the first is bit­ter and distastful to us, and we are not willing to conceive him in the womb of our soul, because this new birth cannot be without a funeral. For to be thus born we must dye, we must dye to our selves, to the world, to the flesh: we must hate that which we most love; we must renounce all that may hinder this birth. But when Christ is fully formed in us, the cloud of sorrow is removed, all is serene and bright, and we forget the pangs and grief and sorrow which before we endured: for the holy Ghost hath come upon the soul, and the most High hath over-shadowed it, and now that holy thing which is born shall be called the Son of God.

And this, Beloved, is the Benefit or Priviledge I told you of. A great priviledge: for remittuntur ei peccata cui filii nomen ascribitur; His pardon is sealed who hath this title and name given him to be the Child of God. But as it is beneficium, so it is officium, it is obligatory, and hath a duty annexed unto it. If we be Children, we must be Obedient. We have now alter'd our language. Our dialect was a strange dialect; we spake words clothed with death: but now our language and voice is, Abba, Father. And this first cry, these first words of our nativity, as Cyprian speaks, Our Father, which art in Heaven, are as witnesses to remember us that we have renoun­ced all carnality, and, as Children in Christ, know only our Father which is in heaven. Be yee therefore followers of God, as children; or, because yee are children. For this very appellation is an admonition; this title is a remembrancer; this honor and dignity must either instruct us, or it will condemn us. It was a speech worthy the mouth of an Emperor which A­lexander Severus used, Conabor me dignum praestare nomine Alexandri, I will endeavour to be worthy the name of Alexander. And it was a speech worthy the mouth of a Christian which Basilides, a converted Executioner, used to return upon his companions who perswaded him to swear by the name of Caesar, Non licet jurare, quia sum Christianus, It is not lawful for me to swear by him, because I am a Christian. Great honours are contu­melies, and upbraid us, if our comportment and behaviour be not answer­able. What a ridiculous thing was it to see Nero an Emperour with his Harp or Fidle; or in his buskins acting on a Stage; to see Domitian catch­ing of flies, or Hercules at his Distaff? So what an incongruous thing is a Christian and a Blasphemer, a Disciple and a Traytor; to be in area Eccle­siae, in the court or floor of the Church, and yet chaff; to be within the pale, and yet a Devil; to be a child of God with the teeth of a Lion, ravening for the prey, and ready to devour his brother? If I am a Father, where is my honor? saith God. Where is your Understanding captivated, your [Page 69] stubborn Wills conquered, your Passions subdued. And if you were A­brahams seed, you would do Abrahams works, and noth the Devils, saith our John 8. Saviour to the Jews. Good God! a wonder it is to see, a world of Sins, a world of Sinners, and yet all Christians; a deluge of Iniquity, and yet none drowned, all within the Ark; so many fighting against God, and yet all his Souldiers; so many abusing his Name for trifles, for nothing, indeed out of meer custom, and yet this with a Childs mouth; so many Rebels and Traytors, and yet all Children! But, Beloved, let us not deceive our selves and our own souls. It is not the name of Children that will entitle us to the Kingdom of Heaven, but the reality, the being so. Without this our Religion which we profess will accuse, and the relation which we boast we have to God will condemn us. For reatus impii, pium nomen, saith Sal­vian; A glorious title doth but more lay open our errors; and it adds to the guilt of a wicked man, that he hath his Christendome, and that his name is amongst the Children of God. But let us walk worthy of the Gospel of Hebr. 3. Christ, and as partakers of the heavenly vocation, consider the High-priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. Let every one that names Christ depart from 2 Tim. 2. iniquity. Let us walk as children of the light: and be followers of God, as v. 8. his children.

But here the weak Christian will reply, like the Sluggard in the Pro­verbs, that there is a Lion in the way, an impossibility of following God; that the dignity of the Gospel is so great that neither Man nor Angel are e­qual to it, or able to do any thing worthy of it. Indeed a weak Christian, and one that would be a child still, but, as the Apostle speaks, in understand­ing. For see: God desires but a competencie. He likes thee when thou followest him, though it be with a childs pace, with an Infants strength. So that thou follow him, he interprets thy endeavours performance. And though like a Gyant thou rowse not thy self up to run the race, yet if with all thy courage thou follow, he calls thee strong that made thee so, though thou hast but the strength of an Infant. But thou sayest it is impossible: Why, but that which is impossible may be necessary. For thou thy self hast made it so; The time was in paradise when it was not impossible. The best use thou canst make of it is to do what thou canst, saith St. Augustine, and then petere à Deo quod non possis, to entreat Gods help in that thou canst not per­forme. And thou needst not fear a denial: for behold, he is thy Father, and thou art his Child, nay [...], his dear child. Which is the gra­cious Adjunct, and comes next to be handled.

Incongruous it is, you see, that a Child, so freely adopted from so base an estate, should prove refractory and disobedient. And pity it were, nay impossible, filium tot lacrymarum, as Augustines mother spake of him, that a child bought and begot with so much grief, with so many tears, should pe­rish at the last in rebellion. This prerogative was not granted in vain: But see here, the waters of comfort rise higher, and the priviledge is en­larged, and the tye made stronger. This Child of God, which was Ben­oni, a Son of sorrow, is now become Benjamin, a Son of Gods right hand, beloved and dear in his sight. And he will make him even as Joseph, a Son of encreasing, a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by the Well side. And here, Beloved, what wings might I wish for to fly a pitch proportionable to the height of Gods Love? Or what line might I use to sound the depth of Gods Mercy? Or with what words shall I express how he endears him­self to his Children? Shall I mention the love of Women? The love of Jo­nathan 2 Sam. 1. to David was greater. Shall I speak of Jonathans love to David? It was great indeed, but to a friend: But God embraces first, and loveth first. We love him, because he loved us first. He is [...], the 1 John 4. 19. Father of love; and he is [...], Love it self. And he delights in these [Page 70] titles and attributes, saith Nazianzene, [...], that he may as it were by proclamation promulge and publish his love. And no carnal friend, though as Chrysostome saith, he be mad in love, can so burn in affection to his friend, as God doth in love to our souls. Now this love of God is first a Pre­venting Love: It prevents our slowness and backwardness to entertain it. We sacrificed to the Queen of Earth, to Fortune, that she would love us; to the World, that it would favour us; and never thought of Gods Love. 2. It is a Purging Love: It washes away our corruption and filth, and sets us upon our leggs, that we may walk in love. 3. It is an Over­flowing Love, nimia charitas, as the Apostle speaks, exceeding great, too much Love, larger then our Thoughts, or our Desires, passing our Under­standing. Sermo non valet exprimere: experimento opus est; Speech cannot reach it: Experience must express it. Feel it we may; discourse of it we cannot. 4. Lastly, it is a Bountiful Love, and it is Perpetual. With an everlasting love have I loved thee, saith God; and He hath loved us, and Jer. 31. 3. given us everlasting consolation; and, He hath prepared for his children a crown; [...] Thess. 2. 16: and they are heads destinated to a diadem, saith Tertullian. His common gifts, his earthly goods, quae nec sola sunt, nec summa sunt, which are neither the greatest goods, nor yet alone, but have alwaies a mixture and taste of evil, he gives unto his bastard children, as Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his Gen. 25. Concubines; but the heritage to Isaac, the Kingdom and the Crown to the children of promise. Nay further yet; His Love is there greatest, where it appears least. In our misery and affliction, in the anguish of our soul, when we think he frowns upon us, and is angry, his love attends and waits upon us, his wings are over us, we alwaies carry his protection about us. Suppose it be an Asp, or a Basilisk, we shall walk upon it: a Lion, or a Dragon; we shall tread it under foot: a Red-sea; it shall divide it self: a hot fiery furnace; we shall be bathed in it: a Lions den; thou shalt be as safe in it as in thy private Chamber: Suppose it poyson; it shall not hurt thee: a Viper; thou shalt fling it off: the wittiest and most exquisite torment, thou shalt not feel it. For martyres non eripuit; sed nunquam de­seruit? he took not the Martyrs from the stake; but did he forsake them. No; his love was with them at the stake, and in the fire. And this heat of Love did so enflame them, that the fire burnt not, the rack tormented not, because the pain was swallowed up in Love. Nay, all shall work for the best to the children of God. Be they Afflictions? We miscall them; they are but tryals, but lessons and sermons. Be they tears? he puts them in his bottel. Be they enemies, and that a mighty host? Behold, they that 2 Kings 6. be with us are mo then they that be with them. The mountain was full of hor­ses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Or, if not, our Patience is re­venge; and our Sufferance heaps coals of fire upon the head of our adver­saries. Be it the World; We so use it, that we may enjoy God, saith St. Au­gustine. Be it the Flesh; by Gods power we beat it down. Be it the De­vil himself; In striving to take away, he encreases our glory. Be it Death; It is but a passage. What though we be here in disgrace, the very off-scouring of the world, the by-word and song of the people, accounted the cause of all evils, as the Christians were in the primitive times, (no hail, no great thunder, no inundation, but the Christians were accused for it) what though we be never so vile, never so contemptible in this world? we are here stran­gers; the world knows us not, because it knows not God. No marvel if a 1 John 31. King unknown in another Country, be coursly or injuriously used, because he is unknown, and in another Country. Let then the world esteem of Gods children as it please: They are here in an unknown place, peregrini deorsum, cives sursum; like mountains or high hills, as Seneca speaks of his Philosopher; Their growth and tallness appears not to men afar off, but to [Page 71] those who come nigh. At the Day of Judgment there will another account be made. When God appears, we shall be like unto him. Then the note will be changed, and the cry alter'd. We fools thought their life madness, and their end without honour: but now they are counted amongst the children of Wisd. 5. God, and their portion amongst his dear Saints. And are God's children dear unto him? Sure this benefit hath a tye, and this encrease of God's love calls for an increase of gratitude. He expects that he should be dear to us. For though God's love be not as Man's love, negotiatio, as Seneca speaketh, a kind of a market-love, with which we traffick, and from it expect gain; yet he expects that we should love him again: Not that our Love can profit him, but for our own sakes. He will not love at randome; he will not cast away his Love, nor his Mite, but he will have it repayed. But if his ten Talents be laid up in a Napkin, laid aside as not worth the using, then his anger riseth, and his indignation is high and he will not only take away his Talents, but will bind thee hand and foot, and cast thee into Prison, and punish thee as an unprofitable servant. It is so even with us Men. No wound greater to us then that which Ingratitude giveth. If it bad been my enemy, I could have borne it, saith David; but it was my familiar friend, with whom I took sweet counsel, that did me this wrong. When Cassius and the rest set upon Caesar with their Poniards in the Senate-house, he defended himself with silence: but when Brutus struck, he covered his face with his robe, with his [...]; What thou my son Brutus? That Brutus stab'd him, this was the Steletto at his heart. It is so with God. We cannot offend him more then by unthankfulness. Ingra­tum si dixeris, omnia dixeris. For in it are all sins. Infidelity begets it: and we cannot name a greater sinner then an Infidel. A sin this is so hate­ful and detestable to God that we find him complaining to the Heavens and to the Earth of the Jews ingratitude: Hear, O Heavens, and hearken, O Earth: Isa. 1. for I have nourished rebellious children. And he might well complain: The Jews were his peculiar people, culled out of the whole world, graced with the Title of Populus meus. They were his people, his dear people.; like Gideons fleece, full of the dew of heavenly benediction, when all the earth was dry besides; a Signet on God's right hand, a Seal on his heart, and as the Apple of his eye; his Vineyard, which he hedged about, planted with the best plants, built a Tower in the midst of it, and spared no diligence to better it; a Nation which he raised and increased and defended with wonders. How can he then now bear with their ingratitude? How can he be pleased with these wild grapes, of Disobedience, and Stubborness, and Rebellion? Surely, as he hath threatned, he will pluck off this Signet, he will take away this Hedge, he will dry this Fleece, he will pull this Eagle out of her nest. Though she make her nest high, he will pluck her down from Jer. 49. 15, 16. thence. She shall be small among the heathen. And this Populus meus shall be po­pulus nullus, this his people shall be no people, but a scatter'd nation, the scorn of the world, in quos omnium Caesarum ira detumuit, who have smarted as slaves under each Emperor; whose very name shall be odious, as it is at this day.

Beloved, to come home to our selves, and to change Jewry into England; If they then, surely we now are populus Dei, Gods people, as much endear­ed, as much obliged, as ever the Jews were. When the cloud of Supersti­tion darkned England, God dispersed that cloud, and placed the Candle in the candlestick, the Gospel in the Church: And this Taper hath burnt bright these many years, we may say by miracle; for our enemies whole industry hath been to extinguish it. We have also seen Gods wonders on the deep: For when we saw no door of hope to pass through, as the Prophet speaks, when our enemies were ready to devour us, as with an East-wind God scat­tered them: And that Navy which his Holiness had christned, and called [Page 72] Invincible, in a moment was overcome; and a Coin was stampt with a fitter name, a new inscription, VENIT, IVIT, FUIT, It came, it went away, it came just to nothing. Nay, when Hell it self fought against us, and there lacked nothing but the touch of a match to our destruction, God in an instant blasted and nullified the design of bloudy men. They were in travel with mischief, and were delivered too, but they brought forth a lye. These loving kindnesses, I know, you all will say deserve to be writ­ten in a pillar of marble, with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond, and to be shewen to all posterity. But, Beloved, it is not verbal thanks a­lone that God requires: but we must write these favours in our hearts, and the remembrance of them must drive us to repentance for that great sin of Ingratitude, it must win us to obedience, and inforce us to a more Chri­stian conversation, and that citò, hodiè, without delay, this day; lest God remove his Providence from our Tabernacle; lest he blow out our Taper, and remove our Candlestick; lest he darken our Sun, and turn our Moon into bloud; lest he furbish that sword which is already drawn against us, to cut us off and destroy us. The Jews were his children, as dear to him as we are; and now they are cast away, cut off, small and despised amongst men! Besides this larger Volume of Gods blessing, each Christian hath at least a pocket Manual, in which he may read Gods love unto himself, and tell what he hath done for his soul. If thou be rich, it was God's love that made thee so; and he looks for some restitution by the hands of the poor. If thou be full of daies, thou hadst them from Gods right hand; and he gave them not that thou shouldst still be a child in understanding. If thou be an Absolom for beauty, God made not so fair a soul for a bad guest, a foul soul. If thou hast a good thought, it was Gods love that wrought it, and thou must not be so unkind as to stifle it. If thou hast a holy intend­ment, it was God that raised it, and it is sacriledge to pull it down. If thou hast Perseverance in goodness, it was God that continued it, and thy prayer must be that he will not depart from thee. And then, if out of all these thou findest a full perswasion that thy sins are forgiven, and that thou art lovely in Gods sight, thou must also encrease thy obedience; and as thou tastest of Gods love in the highest degree, so thou must wind up this obedience to the highest pin; thou must be a follower of God, as a child worthy to be beloved, worthy to be dear. Which is the last step of this Gradation, and comes now to be handled.

A child of God, and a dear child; A great priviledge, a great tye. But now not only to be so, but to be made worthy to be so, not only to be endeared, but to be filius diligibilis, a child worthy of love, and of a deformed and defaced person to be made amiable, this is that cord of man, that band of Love that draws us, this is the co­vering of that Black which the Sun had looked upon: this is the work of our Cant. 1. well-beloved Christ Jesus. And now he calleth, Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. As when St. Chrysostome makes it an argument of the dignity of the Soul, that whereas a Body naturally deformed cannot by the most skilful Artist be brought to an apt and seemly proportion, yet the soul polluted, crooked and maimed may be cleansed, and set as it were, and made straight again: So must we here, with the Apostle, make it not only an argument of Gods Love, but a great motive to our Obedience, That our sins are forgiven us, That they shall not be imputed unto us, That we shall appear before our Judge not in our own likeness, but in the likeness of our elder Brother Christ Jesus, who is truly [...], Gods well-beloved Son, in whom he is well-pleased; When Joseph, a fair person and well-favoured, was enticed by Potiphars wife to lie with her, his answer was; My master hath made me ruler over his house, and hath committed all into [Page 73] my hand; he hath kept nothing from me, but thee: How then shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? Beloved, each Christian should thus dispute with himself; I was sore wounded, and God hath procured a salve for my sore: and shall I therefore lye still, and bleed my self to death? He hath for my sake humbled his Son, he hath multiplyed his mercies upon me, and shall I make his Mercy a cause of my obstinacie in sin? He hath kept nothing from me but his Honor; and shall I strive to diminish that? He hath freely forgiven me my sin; and shall Sin therefore abound? God forbid. God forbid that our Practice should not as well give Rome the lye as our Doctrine. She imputes it unto us, that we lull men asleep on the Pillow of Security; that we sing a Requiem to their souls, when the conscience is most clamorous; that we are meer Solifidians, leaning upon a Reed, relying only upon an empty and hollow Faith; that we do per contemplationem volare, saith Bellarmine, hover as it were on the wings of Contemplation; that we hope to go to Heaven with only thinking of it, and never strive for in­herent Righteousness; and that our Assurance that our sins are forgiven us is praesidium peccati, the Devils fense, and a strong bullwark, that the kingdom of Sin cannot be demolisht in us. So charitable is their opinion of us. And although Gods Messengers do lift up their voice like a trumpet against Sin, and whip the vice of Security out of the Temple, although our Pulpits ring and sound again with the Doctrine of Good works, and not one of our Writers that ever I could see (except some few hare-brained Lutherans) did ever let fall from their quills one word that might prejudice the neces­sity thereof, yet they cry out as men at great fires, as yet were the only in­cendiaries, and Religion were now a laying on the pile, and the whole Chri­stian world by us to be set on combustion. It is true, Beloved; we could pay them with their own coyn; we could cast before their eyes their Hay and their Stubble, stuff fit for the fire, their Indulgences and private Masses, their Pardons for sins not yet committed, pillows indeed and true dormito­ries to lay men asleep on. But Recrimination is no remedy; and Silence is the best answer to Impudence. Our best way to confute them is by our practice; as Diogenes confuted Zeno, that believed there was no such thing as Motion, by walking over the room. So if Christ say unto us, Your sins are forgiven you, let us then take up our beds, and walk. Let him that lies on the bed of Security, arise from that bed; on the bed of Idleness, awake from that sleep, from that slumber, and unfold his hands, and stand up, and walk be­fore God in the land of the living. For, Beloved, what? are we believers? are we faithful? Why, then we must, nay, we cannot chuse but be, obedient. For Faith and Assurance of forgiveness is the ground and foundation, not only of Christian Charity, but also of all other virtues, of all true Obedi­ence; having its residence not only in the Understanding, but also in the Will; not floating in the brain, but enflaming the heart, and thereby gaining dominion and a kingdom over the affections. Hence Faith is called obedi­ence 2 Thess. 1. 8. where Paul saith that there is a flaming fire provided for those who obey not the Gospel of Christ. For as he obeys his Physician, not who believes he is skilful, but who observes his prescripts, who takes the Recipe, and is careful of his own health and his Physicians honor; so he is truly faithful that obeys the Gospel of Christ; who doth not only believe that Christ is a most able Physician of his soul, and that the Gospel is the best Phy­sick, the best Purgation, but he who takes this Physick, although there be Wormwood or Gall or Aloes in it; who embraceth and receiveth Christ be­ing offered unto him, although he bring grief and afflictions along with him; who observes his rules, although he prescribes Diligence and Industry and Carefulness; who doth therefore the more hate Sin because it is forgiven him; lastly, who doth the more love God, because through Christ he is made [Page 74] a son worthy to be beloved. For, as Seneca saith well, Non est res delicata Vivere, It is nothing of delicacy and delight to Live, but even in this affli­ctions and sorrow will make us wish for death: So it is not all pleasure, all content, to be a Christian. There are thorns as well as roses; there are the waters of Marah as well as those flowing with milk and honey; there are sorrows within, and fightings without; there are the marks of Christ Jesus to be born; there is a book of Lamentations like that of Ezekiels to be de­voured Gal. 6. and digested too. In thy way to Heaven there lies a sword, saith Chrysostome, and fire, and contumelies, and disgrace: and thou canst not go about, but this Sword must prick thee, this Fire scorch thee, these Dis­graces light on thee. And before thou go thy journey, thy very bosome friends, thy old acquaintance, thy Sins, are to renounced. I have cast a­way all worldly desires, saith Nazianzene, [...], since I came to be of the order of Christ, and to rank my self amongst Christians. And, Pity it is, saith Cyprian, that frons cum Dei signo pura, that forhead which was signed with the sign of the Cross, should ever be compassed about with the Devils Garland. And, The Apostles of Christ, saith he, were tryed by afflictions and torments and the Cross it self, nè de Christo esset delicata con­fessio, that the tryal might be solid, and the confession then made, not when there was a calm, when the brim of the water was smooth and even; not in the sun-shine, but in the storm and tempest, when Persecution raged, and the Sword glittered, and the Enemy was terrible. This was the true tryal of a Christian: And indeed, Beloved, the Gospel (of which when we hear, we think of mercy, not of grace) is [...], a bitter-sweet; a potion indeed, and more cordial then we can imagine, but not without its bitterness. Nay, further yet; the Gospel holdeth us with a stronger bond then the Law. For although it add nothing to the Law in respect of inno­vation, as if that were defective, yet it doth in respect of illustration and interpretation. Our Saviour proposed non nova, sed novè, not new com­mands, but after a new manner. It was said of old, Thou shalt not steal; but thou mayest do this by denying an almes: for that is furtum interpre­tativum, theft by way of interpretation, because thou keepest that from the poor man which is due unto him. In the Law it is written, Thou shalt not commit adultery: under the Gospel an Eunuch may commit it: for he may fabulari cum oculis, as St. Augustine speaks: And he who hath looked upon a woman, to lust after her, is guilty of this sin, saith our Saviour. The language of the Law was, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but now it is, Good for evil; Bless for a curse. And plus lex quàm amisit invenit, the Law was a gainer, not a loser, by this precept of Christ, I say unto you, Love your enemies. Therefore the Schoolmen well call the Gospel onus al­levians, a lightning burden, much like the Wing of a bird, which maketh the bird heavier, but yet it is that it flies with. Beloved, to shut up all in a word; As he spake of Victory, It is not gotten sedendo, & votis, by sitting still, and wishing for it; so our spiritual Conquest flies not down into our bosome whilst we sit folding of our arms: Nor will Balam's wish be the chariot to carry us to heaven, Let me dye the death of the righteous: Neither will the walls of Sin fall down with good desires, with religious wishes, as the walls of Jericho did with rams horns. No; the World is deceitful still, and the Devil is a Devil still, and we are yet in the flesh; and a wonder it were that we alone amongst other Christians should tread the paths of life, and never sweat in them; that this way should be a way of bloud when the Apostles walkt in it, and strowed with roses now for us. Or can we expect that we should be carried up to heaven in a dream, or that God should draw us thither whether we will or no; as if he could not reign without us, nor the blessed Angels be happy but in our company. Good God! [Page 75] what a presumption is it to think that the name of Child, the meer opinion of Gods Love, and to talk of forgiveness of sins should help us! that good wishes will promote us! that, when we have cast our selves headlong into a sea of misery, into a deluge of sin, it will be enough to say, Master, save us; we perish. Beloved, be not deceived: God is not mocked. If we will have Christ to be our Priest, to satisfie for our sins, and to intercede for us, he must be our Prophet too, to teach us; and our King, to govern and rule us. If we will have the meat that perisheth not, we must labour for it; if eternal life, we must lay hold on it; if the garland, we must run for it; if we will enjoy the Benefit, we must perform the Office; if we will be chil­dren of God, we must be followers of God; if we would be endeared to him, he must be dear to us; if we would be lovely, we must be loving; and if God forgive our sins, we must forsake them; if we will have the crown of life, we must be faithful unto death; if we will have the victory, we must Rev. 3. [...]1. fight for it. Vincenti dabitur. To him that overcometh will Christ grant to sit upon his throne. He hath a Crown laid up for his Children, and his Children shall have their blessing, and shall know that they were dear unto him; They shall enter into their inheritance, the Kingdom prepared for them. And now not only Paul is theirs, and Cephas is theirs, but Christ is theirs, and God is theirs, and the Crown is theirs, and Heaven is theirs; not in hope only, but in reality; not in apprehension onely, but in fruition also; not in right and title only, but also in possession. Thither the Lord bring us who purchased it for us with his precious bloud.

HERE is a strange Question put up, and that by Disci­ples; and as strange an Answer given, and that by Christ himself. The Question is, Who should be the greatest in the kingdome of heaven. The Answer is, That in that kingdome a Child is the greatest. A Que­stion put up by men prepossessed with hopes of Great­ness, ignorant what this Kingdome, and what Great­ness was; and an Answer excellently fitted to that Question, checking at once their ignorance, and removing it. So that here you see Ambition and Ignorance put up the Question; and Wisdome it self makes the Answer. Ambition and Ignorance swell our thoughts into a huge bulk, and make us Giants; but Wisdome abates that tumour, con­tracts and shrinks us up into the stature of a Child. Who is the greatest? say the Disciples: that is the Question. A Child is the greatest? saith our Saviour, who was the Wisdome of the Father: That is the An­swer.

Indeed a man is known by his speech, and our words commonly are the evaporations of our Hearts. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, saith Matth. 15. 19. Christ, and evil questions too. Such as the Heart is, which is the fountain of life, such are the motions of the parts. Such as the Will is, which is the beginning of action, such are the motions and operations of the Soul, which flow from the Will, and are commanded by it. Our Words are the commentaries on our Will: For when we speak, we make as it were a de­fection of our own Hearts, and read an Anatomy-lecture upon our selves. Our wanton talk discovers a stews in the Heart: When our words are swords, the Heart is a slaughter-house: When we bear false witness, that is the Mint: When we worship Mammon, that is his Temple. The Heart is [...], the shop and work-house of all evil. In this we set up idols; in this we work mischief; in this we heap up riches, build up thrones, raise up Kingdomes. Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven? is the very dialect of Ambition, and shews that the Disciples hearts were so set on Honor that they could not ask a question right.

We read that they had disputed of this before amongst themselves by the Mark 9. 34. way: and then they put up this question to Christ, here in this Chapter. And again, Chap. 20. and again Luke 22. when he had eaten the Passeover with them, when he had foretold his Passion, and preacht unto them the doctrine of the Cross, when his Passion was nigh at hand, even then did these Disciples dream of honors and greatness and a temporal kingdome, and are [Page 77] not ashamed to tell it to Christ himself; Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven? First they dispute it among themselves in the way, and then they ask Christ the question. This is the method of the world at this day; First, to dispute every man in the way, in viâ suâ, in his own way; the Covetous in the way that leads to wealth, the Ambitious in the way that leads to honor, the Sacriligeous person in the way that leads to atheisin and profaneness: and then to ask Christ himself a question, and hope to strength­en their vain imaginations by Scripture, and to have an answer which shall fit their humor, and flatter their ungrounded resolutions, even from the mouth of Christ himself. From him they hear that they must work with their own hands: he then speaks of Riches and Honor. From him they hear that Bell boweth down; Dagon must fall, and all Superstition must be root­ed out. Nullum sine auctoramento malum est. We can now be covetous, be ambitious, be sacrilegious, be what the Flesh and our Lusts will have us, be any thing, by Scripture. Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven? the Disciples would never have askt the question, had not their thoughts run on Greatness, had they not thought that Christ had come to this end, to set up a throne of state for one of them.

I will not make this error of the Disciples greater then it is: and yet I cannot make it less because Disciples fell into it, and, which the Jesuits, for St. Peters sake pronounce it but a small and venial one. St. Chrysostome calls it [...], a fault. And it concerns us not so much to aggravate as to avoid it. It is sufficient for us that Christ hath resolved this Question, and brought a little Child upon the stage to teach Disciples, and to teach us to avoid that rock which the Disciples themselves had dasht upon.

In the words then we will observe, 1. the Occasion of the Question, pointed out unto us in the first words, At the same time; 2. The Persons that moved the Question; which are plainly named, The Disciples came un­to Jesus, saying; 3. The Question it self, Who is the greatest in the king­dome of heaven? Where we shall take some pains to discover the true na­ture of this Kingdome, that so we may plainly see the Disciples error and mistake, and carefully avoid it. These are the parts we shall speak of, and out of these draw such inferences as may be useful for our instruction; that as if by the Disciples doctrine, when they were inspired by the holy Ghost, so by their error, when they were yet novices in the School of Christ, we may learn to guide our steps, and walk more circumspectly in the wayes of truth; that by their ill putting up the Question We may learn to state it right. Of these in their order.

We are first to speak of the Occasion of this Question. And to disco­ver this, we must look back upon the passage immediately going before, Chapt. 17. and as it were ushering in my Text. There the Occasion pri­vily lurks, as the Devil did in the Occasion. And there we find how our Saviour in a wonderful manner both paid and received tribute, received it of the Sea, and paid it unto Caesar; in the one professing himself to be Caesars Subject, in the other proving himself to be Caesars Lord. You see, Caesar commands him to pay tribute, and Christ readily obeys; but with­al he commands the Sea, and behold the Fishes hasten to him with tribute in their mouths, Chapt. 17. 27. Now why our Saviour did so strangely mix to­gether his Humility and his Power, in part the reason is given by himself, Lest we should offend them. For having proved himself free, and therefore not subject to tribute, (for if the Sons of Kings be free, then the Son of the King of Heaven must needs be so) yet saith he unto Peter, That we give no offence, cast thy angle into the Sea. He is content to do himself wrong, and to loose his profit, to gain his peace. And as he did express his Hu­mility that be might not offend Caesar, so we may be easily perswaded that [Page 78] he did manifest his Glory that he might not offend his Disciples. For lest his Disciples peradventure should begin to doubt whether he was, as he pretended, Lord of heaven and earth, who did so willingly acknowledge a superior, look how much he seem'd to impair his credit by so humbly paying of tribute, so much and more he repaired it by so gloriously recei­ving it. Now saith the Text, At the same time, when this wonderful thing was acting, then was this Question proposed. But now in all this action let us see what occasion was here given to this Question, what spark to kin­dle such a thought in the Disciples hearts, what one circumstance which might raise such an ambitious conceit. They might indeed have learnt from hence Humility and Obedience to Princes, though Tyrants, and as Tyrants exacting that which is not due, and a Willingness to part with their right rather then to offend; That Christ is not offended when thus parting with our goods we offend our selves to please our Superiours. But a corrupt Heart poysons the most wholsome, the most didactical, the most exemplary actions, and then sucks from them that venome which it self first cast. A sick ill-affected stomach makes food it self the cause of a disease, and makes an Antidote poyson. Prejudice and a prepossessed mind, by a strong kind of Alchymie, turns every thing into it self, makes Christs Humility an occasion of pride, his Submission a foot-stool to rise up upon, and upon Subjection it self lays the foundation of a Kingdome.

Some of the Fathers, as Chrysostome, and Hierome, and others, were of opinion that the Disciples, when they saw Peter joyned with Christ in this action, and from those words of our Saviours, Take, and give them for me and thee, did nourish a conceit that Peter in this was preferred be­fore the rest, and that there was some peculiar honor done to him above his fellows: and that this raised in them a disdain against Peter: and that their disdain moved them to propose this Question, not particularly, Whether Peter should be, but [...], in general terms, Who should be, the greatest. And this the Church of Rome lays hold on; and founding her pretended Supremacy on Peter, wheresoever she finds but the name of Peter, nay, but the shadow of Peter, she seeks a mystery; and, if she cannot find one, she will make one. The Cardinal is fond of this interpretation, and brings it in as a strong proof of that claim the Bishop of Rome makes of being Prince of all the world. But what is this but interpretationibus ludere de scripturis? when the Text turns countenance, to put a face and a fair gloss upon it, and make it smile upon that monstrous Error which nothing but their Ambition could give birth and life unto? For, to speak truth, what honor could this be to Peter? To pay tribute is a sign of subjection, not of honor. And, if we will judge righteous judgment, nay, if we will judge but according to the appearance, the greatest honor which could here have accrewed to Peter, had been to have been exempted when all the rest had paid. To speak truth then, or at least that which is most probably true, not any honor done to Peter, but the dishonor which was done to Christ himself, may seem to be the true Occasion of this Question. I shall give you my reason for it. We see it a common thing in the world that men who dream of Honors, as the Disciples here did, grow more ambitious by the sense of some disgrace: As in Winter we see the fountains and hol­low caverns of the earth are hottest; and as the Philosophers will tell us that a quality grows stronger and more intense by reason of its contrary. Humility may sometimes blow the bladder of Pride; Disgrace may be as a wind to whet up our ambitious thoughts to a higher pitch. Or it may be as Water; some drops of it by a kind of moral Antiperistasis may kindle this fire within us, and enrage it; and that which was applyed as a remedy to allay the tumour, may by our indisposition and infirmity be made an oc­casion [Page 79] to encrease it. We trusted that this had been he who should have re­deemed Israel, say they Luke 24. 21. Is this he who should come with the Sword and with Power and with Abundance unto them? that should root up the Nations before them, and re-instate them in the Land of Canaan? Is this that Messias which, after many years victoriously past on earth, should at last resign up his life, and establish his Kingdome upon his Successors for ever? A conceit not newly crept in, but which they may seem to have had by a kind of tradition, as appeareth by that of our Saviour Luke 14. 15. Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdome of God: and by the mother of Zebedee's children, who requested that her two sons might sit, one at Christs Matth. 20. 21: right hand, the other at his left in his kingdome. And can Christ do this, and thus submit himself? Can he be a King that thus pays tribute? Some fit and pang of this distemper did no doubt trouble the Disciples minds at this time. They had been often troubled with it, and had sundry times discust amongst themselves, as we have observed, who should be the greatest. And now upon this occasion, seeing Christ bowing to Autority, and sub­mitting to them whom they thought he came to destroy; the fire burned, and they spake with their tongue. Seeing the Lord of heaven and earth thus challeng'd for tribute, and thus gently yielding to pay it, they lost the sight of his Power in his Humility; they forgot the miracle of the Money in the fishes mouth, because it was tribute: And being struck with Admiration, they began to enquire what Honors and what degrees of Greatness were in his Kingdome, which is his Church; and observing the King of Heaven himself thus subject to command, instead of learning Humility, they foment their Pride, they awake their Ambition, and rowse it up to seek the glory of this world; they are bold to ask him who was the Master and patern of Humi­lity, Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven? This I take to be the Occasion of this Question. And so I pass from it to the Persons who mo­ved it; The Disciples came unto Jesus.

And the Disciples, we doubt not, had been well and often instructed that the Kingdome of Christ was not of this world, but spiritual; yet the prejudicate conceit they had of the Messias did shut up their understand­ing against this truth; the shape they had drawn in their minds of Christ made Christ less visible in his own shape. So hard it is homini hominem exue­re, for a man to put off himself; for a man that looks for a Pearl, to inter­pret it Grace; for a man that is ambitious of Honor on earth, to look for it in heaven. Such a damp and darkness doth Prejudice cast upon the minds and understandings even of the best men, even of Disciples of Christ. For the Devil fits himself to the nature and disposition of every man. What he said of the Jesuite, JESUITA EST OMNIS HOMO, a Jesuite is e­very man to every man, can apply himself to all humors, all dispositions, is most true of our common enemy, Satan. He is in a manner made all things to all men. If he cannot cast us down into the mire of carnal and bruitish sin, he is very active and cunning to lift us up on the wings of the wind, and to whiff us about with the desire of honor and priority. Etiam in sin [...] discipulorum ambitio dormit, saith Cyprian; Ambition finds a pillow to sleep on even in the bosome of Disciples themselves. There she lyes as in a shade, lurks as in a bed-chamber; and at last she comes forth, and you may behold her raising of palaces, and measuring out kingdomes; and you may hear her asking of questions, Who shall be the greatest? Multimoda Satanae ingenia, saith Hierome; the craft of Satan is various, and his wiles and devises manifold. He knows in what breast to kindle Lust, into which to breathe Ambition. He knows whom to cast down with Sorrow, whom to deceive with Joy, whom to shake with Fear, and whom to mislead with Admiration. He searcheth our affections, he fans and winnows our hearts, [Page 80] and makes that a bait to catch us withal which we most love and most look upon. He fights, as the Father speaks, with our selves against our selves; he makes snares of our own desires, and binds and fetters us up with our own love. If he overcome us with his more gross tentations, he insults: but if he fail there, he then comes towards us with those tentations which are better clothed and better spoken. He maketh curious nets, entangles our phansie, and we strait dream of Kingdomes. If our weakness over­throw us not, tropheis triumphisque succumbemus, saith the Father, our own tropheys and triumphs shall destroy us. Like a wise Captain, he plants all his force and artillery at that place which is weakest and most attempta­ble. We see the Disciples hearts were here weakest, and here lay most o­pen: hither therefore the Devil directs his darts, here he placeth his en­gines, to make a breach. So dangerous a vice is Ambition; and so hard a thing it is even for good men, for mortified persons, for the Disciples of Christ, to avoid it. Who shall be the greatest? they are not alwaies the worst men that put up that question. Tully observes of the Philosophers, that though they wrote books of the Contempt of Glory, yet they would set their names to those books, and so seek for Glory by oppugning it, and even woo it in the way of a bold defiance. And Plutarch speaking of the Phi­losopher whose Dictor it was, LATENTER VIVENDUM, That a con­cealed life was best, yet adds withal, [...], That he would not have it concealed, that this Dictor or speech was his. What speak we of the Heathen Philosophers? The Philosophers of God, the Pro­phets of God, have been much infested herewith. Look upon Baruch; When he thrived not in the King of Judah's Court, he fell into discontent and repining; so that the Prophet Jeremy is sent unto him with express mes­sage, Seekest thou great things for thy self? seek them not. For I will bring evil upon the whole earth, saith the Lord. Behold Jonah under his gourd; What Jer. 45. 5. a pett and chafe is he in? How irreverent to his God? How doth he tell God even to his face that he did well to be angry even unto death. And all this Anger from what fire was it kindled? Certainly from no other then an overweaning conceit of his own reputation; lest the sparing of Niniveh, against which he had denounced ruin and destruction, should disparage him with the people, and lose him the name of a true Prophet.

And this we need not much marvail at if we consider the nature of this vice. For first of all, it is a choice vice, preserved on purpose by the Divel to abuse the best: nor will it grow in every soil. [...], Great and Noble natures, the best capacities, the most able wits, these are the fat soil in which this weed grows. Base and sordid natures seldom bear it. What cares the Covetous person for Honor, who will bow to durt? What cares he for rising in repute, who hath buried himself alive in the earth? What cares he for a name, that had rather see other mens names in his parchments then his own in the Book of Life? What cares the Wanton for renown, who had rather be crowned with roses then with a Diademe? or will he desire to rise higher, whose highest step is up to the bed of Lust and the embraces of a Strumpet? These Swine love not such water as this, nor such an oyntment, as a Good name, but will wallow still in their own mire. And therefore you may observe it Matth. 4. that the Devil sets not upon our Saviour with Lust, or Luxury, or Covetousness, or any such vulgar and inferior vice, but carries him to an exceeding high mountain, and from thence shews him the kingdome of the world, to see whether he will stoop at the prey.

Secondly, It is a vice to which the world is much beholding, and there­fore finds more countenance then any. Look upon the works of mens wits, their Books and Writings; look upon the works of mens hands, their Cha­rity [Page 81] and Alms-deeds and Hospitality; and we shall quickly discover that Honor and Desire to transmit their names to posterity have been in many (for to say, in all, were the greatest uncharitableness in the world; but in many they have been) the chiefest fires to set these alembicks a work. We will not now dispute the truth of that which the Schools teach, That Evil could not subsist if it were not founded in Good; but we may be bold to say that this evil of Ambition could hardly subsist if it were not maintained and rooted in Virtue. Other weeds will grow of themselves, finding matter within us to feed and nourish them. Murder is but the ebullition of our Choler; Luxury; a very exhalation of our Flesh; Lust boyles in our very bloud: But this vice, like unto Ivy or Woodbind; will hardly grow un­less it fix it self upon the Oke, upon some strong and profitable matter. If you see Absalom in Hebron paying his vow, it is to gain a kingdome. If 2 Sam 15. 7. the Pharisee fast and pray, it is to be called Rabbi; if he gives alms, it is with a trumpet? If Simon Magus desire to turn Apostle, it is to be some great one. If Diotrephes be of the Church, it is to have the praeemi­nence.

Last of all, it is a vice which amongst many men hath gained the repu­tation of Virtue. And, if it be not a virtue, saith the Orator, yet it is ma­ny times the cause of it. Ambition and Aemulation have ever been accoun­ted the nurses of wit, the kindlers of industry, the life of studies, and the mothers of all famous actions. And this is it which hath raised their price and estimation. But it here falls out as it doth with bodies which are nou­risht with unwholsome meats; They are in a short time corrupted with diseases, and dye by those meats they lived on. Wit and Industry, which are mainteined by these vices, do at last run to ruin by those vices which main­tein them. How many an alms is blown away with the breath of the Trum­pet? How many a Prayer is the shorter for its length, is not heard for its noyse, and is lost in the open streets? How many a Fast is buried in a dis­figured face? How many a Good deed had been registred in heaven, if it had not been first written on the walls? But, as we read in the Historian, that Thievery and Piracy were so commonly practised amongst the Grecians that men made publick profession of them, neither were they taken to be vices; so we find it by daily experience that Ambition is so like to Virtue that the world hath even taken her to be one, and made much of her, and extolled her, because she is so common. Disciples themselves will be talk­ing of Kingdomes and Greatness, will be asking the question, Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven? And yet it is as impertinent a question as could have been put to Christ. And of this we are to speak in the next place; But first we will draw such inferences out of that which hath been spoken as may be useful for our instruction.

And first, if we look back upon the Disciples, we cannot but look into our selves; and seeing what it was that kept them so long from the true knowledge of the Messias, who had been so long with them, with whom they ate and drank and conversed, and whose miracles they were eye-wit­nesses of, we cannot but search and ransack our inward man, empty it of all extravagant and heterogeneous matter, dispossess it of every evil spirit, of every carnal conceit, which may shut out Christ, sweep and garnish it, that the Truth may enter and dwell there. Prejudice puts [...]ut the eye of our Judgment. [...], Opinion is a great retarder of profici­ency; it being common to men to be jealous of every word that breaths in opposition to what they have already received, as of an enemy; and, though it be truth, to suspect it, because it breaths from a contrary coast. Moab is setled on his lees, hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel; therefore his Jer. 48. 11. taste remained in him, and his sent is not changed. He hath ever the same [Page 82] taste and the same sent: and this makes every thing, promises and threat­nings, judgments and blessings, doctrines and miracles, relish and taste and sent as he doth. He is the same under the rod and the same under blessings, the same in a calm and the same when it thunders. He is setled on his lees, and no change can change him. It is a world to see what power Prejudice hath to change the face and countenance of objects, and shape them like un­to it self. It makes a shadow a man, and a man a hobgoblin; it mistakes a friend for an enemy. It puts horror upon Virtue, and makes Vice it self of a ruddy countenance. It makes God the Author of sin, and the Devil a worker of miracles. It makes the Prince of peace a man of war; beholds a poor Christ, and makes him a King; receives him in the form of a servant, and builds him a Throne; dreams of Kingdomes in the house of mourning, and of triumph in persecution; makes Christs Humility an occasion of pride; makes a new Religion, a new Christ, a new Gospel; and thus gropes at noon-day; is deaf to thunder, is surly against good counsel, and thrusts him away that gives it; is an enemy to a friend; is a fiery furnace to devour those that minister unto it. When God opens the gates of hea­ven, this shuts them; when he displayes his rayes of mercy, this puts them by; when he would enter, this shuts the door; when he is ready to let fall his dew, this will not suffer him to be good unto us, will not suffer him to bless, will not suffer him to teach, will not suffer him to save us. This killed the Prophets, and stoned them that were sent; This whipped, and spet upon, and crucified the Lord of Life himself. For all mistakes is from the Eye, all error from the Mind, not from the Object. If the Eye be goggle, or mis-set; if the Mind be dimm'd with Malice or Ambition and Prejudice, it puts upon things what shape it pleaseth, recei­veth not the true and natural species they present, but views them at home in it self, as in a false glass, which renders them back again as it were by reflexion; which is most deceitful. This makes Gods and sets up Idols in it self, and then worships them. And this is the reason why Christ is so much mistaken, why the Gospel of Christ receives such different enter­tainment. Every man layes hold on it, wrests it to his own purpose, works it on his own anvil, and shapes it to his own phansie and affections; as out of the same mass Phidias made a Goddess, and Hysippus a Satyr.

Oh beloved! how many lye buried under Prejudice, corrupt and pu­trefied and even stinking in the nostrils of God and man, not to be awak'd till the last Trump! All exhortations, all reproofs, all admonitions, all reason, all truth is to them but as a mess of pottage set upon a dead mans grave; the tongue of Men and Angels but as sounding brass. How do they rejoyce in iniquity, triumph in evil, confirm themselves in wicked practises! What a paradise to they plant in Tophet! what a Heaven do they make in Hell it self! How busie are they to sanctifie and glorifie their error! What shift do they make to make themselves the Devils Children se­ven times more then they are! How do they argue and dispute themselves into hell! That which is a reason against them is made a reason for them; that which strikes at their error is made to uphold it; that which checketh them spurs them; that which binds them sets them loose; that which bids them, Touch not, Taste not, is to them as the voice to Peter, Acts 10. Rise, kill, and eat. Where Prejudice bears rule, every thing must bow; every sheaf, every occasion, every occurrence must fall down before it. If it be adversity, it is an argument; if good success, it is an argument. What shall I say? In the next world it is Holiness, but in this it is Prejudice, it is Covetousness, it is Ambition, that makes Saints. So dangerous was Prejudice and Prae-conceit to the Disciples that no words, no miracles of Christ could root it out, but it grew up in them, and spread it self into [Page 83] Thoughts and Questions, which are as the boughs of it, till a sound from heaven; till a mighty rushing wind, till fiery tongues beat it down and con­sum'd it. So dangerous was it to the Jews, that it had been better for them to have been utterly ignorant of their Messias. For this gross Prae­conceit of their Messias was yet the main reason that they entertained him not when he came, because he came in a posture so contrary to their expe­ctation, so unlike that Christ which they had set up already in their minds. So dangerous a thing is a Prepossessed mind to it self.

And therefore it well concerns us, as Chrysostome speaks, [...], to quiet and slumber these imaginations, these absurd reasonings and dialogues which we make within our selves. For why should such thoughts arise in our hearts, such thoughts as will shut out better, such thoughts of a temporal as will deprive us of an eternal Kingdom, such thoughts of goodness as will make us worse then the beasts that perish. And it well concerns us to be jealous and suspicious of our selves. For Jealousie and Suspicion, though in other matters it be a disease that no Phy­sician can cure, yet in respect of our Souls is a seasonable medicine, full of ef­ficacy and virtue. We cannot be too jealous of our own salvation. My jealousie of my Honor may draw on destruction, my jealousie of my Money may invite a thief, my jealousie of my wife may provoke her to folly; but my jealousie of my Soul doth enoble and enrich it, and present it a pure Virgin unto Christ. Let us then be afraid of our own thoughts, and take heed of all prejudicate conceits.

In the second place, since the Divel made use of this error of the Dis­ciples, and attempted them there where they were most open to him, let us, as wise Captains use to do, double our watch, and be careful to strengthen that part which is weakest and most assaylable; as Galen counsels, where the Affections are contrary, first wrestle with that which is most prevalent, and overcome it, that we may find our work the easier and less trouble to bring the rest in subjection. For, Beloved, as tentations work by the Sensitive part upon the Rational, so they have a diverse operation accord­ing to mens several constitutions and complexions. Every man is not equal­ly prone to every sin. This ravisheth the eye of one which another will not look on: This man liketh that which another abhorreth. He that made the Devil fly at the first encounter, may embrace him at the next. He that stood out with him in Lust, may yield to him in Anger: He that defied his Mammon, may stoop at his Kingdomes: He that would none of his Bread, may feed himself with his Ayre: He that feard not the roaring of the Lion, may be overcome with the subtilty of the Serpent. A man of a heavy and sluggish disposition is seldome ambitious; a man of lively and nimble spirits is seldome idle. As hard a matter it is for some men to commit some sin as it is for others to avoid it; as hard for the Fool in the Gospel to have spent his estate as for the Prodigal to have kept it. We see this man wondring at his brother that he should fall into such or such a sin, and the other won­dring as much at him how he should fall into the contrary. Therefore the Devil, who observes how we are elemented and composed, hath his [...], saith Macarius, his divers back-doors, out of which he may slip and return at pleasure; and, if his first bait be distastful, come again and present a­nother which will fit our taste and palate. If the Disciples leave all, and follow Christ, he will try them with Honor, and teach them to dream of a King­dome even in the School of their Master. It will concern us then to take pains, and go down and meet him at this door, at that door, which he is most likely to enter. If it be the Eye, shut it up by covenant: If it be the Ear, stop it, and be those Addars which will not hear his charmes: If it be our Taste, deny it: If it be our Appetite, be harsh to it: If it be our Phansie, watch it, and bind it up. For if this was done to the green tree, [Page 84] the Disciples of Christ; if they were endangered where they were weakest; what may not be done to the dry, which is ready to catch and take fire at every spark of a tentation? Let us then be ready and prepared, and stand in our complete armour at that door which the Enemy is most like to at­tempt. Let us put on the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand against every wile of the Devil, especially against that wile which may soon­est Ephes. 6. 11. ensnare us.

Let me give you one Use more, and so conclude this point. Let us not seek the World in the Church, nor Honors and Preferments in the Kingdome of Christ. Let us not fit Religion to our carnal desires, but lay them down at the foot of Religion. Make not Christianity to lacquey it after the World, but let Christianity swallow up the World in victory. Let us clip the wing of our Ambition, and the more beware of it because it carries with it the shape and shew of Virtue. For as we are told in Philosophy, In ha­bentibus symbolum facilior transmutatio, amongst the Elements those two which have a quality common to both, are easiliest changed one into the o­ther; so above all Vices we are most apt to fall into those which have some symbolizing quality, some face and countenance of Goodness, which are better drest and better clothed, and bespeak us in the name of Virtue it self, like a strumpet in a matrons stool. Let us shun this as a most dange­rous rock, against which many a vessel of burden after a prosperous voyage hath dasht and sunk. By Desire of honor and vain glory it comes to pass that many goodly and specious monuments which were dedicated rather to Honor then to God, have destroyed and ruined their Founders, who, like unfortunate mothers, have brought forth beautiful issues, but themselves have dyed in the birth of them. They have proved but like the ropes of silk and daggers of gold which Heliogabalus prepared to stab and strangle himself withall, adding, pretiosiorem mortem suam esse debere, that his death ought to be more costly then other mens; and they have served to no other end but this, ut cariùs pereant, that the workers of them might dye with greater state then other men, and might fall to the lowest pit, as the sword-players did in the Theater, with noyse and applause. I have spoken of the Occasion of the Question, and of the Persons who put it. Come we now, in the last place, to the Question it self, Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven?

The Disciples here were mistaken in terminis, in the very terms of their Question. For neither is Greatness that which they supposed, nor the King­dome of heaven of that nature as to admit of that Greatness which their phansie had set up. For by the Kingdome of heaven is meant in Scripture not the Kingdome of Glory, but the Kingdome of Grace, by which Christ sits and rules in the hearts of his Saints. When John the Baptist preacht Repentance, he told the Jews that the Kingdome of heaven is at hand. When our Saviour tells us that it is like seed sowen in good ground, like a net cast into the sea, like a pearl, like a treasure hid in the field, what else can he mean but his Kingdome of Grace on earth? not his Kingdome of Glory in heaven. So that for the Disciples to ask, Who is greatest in this king­dome? was to shape out the Church of God by the World; Much like to that which we read in Lucian of Priams young son, who being taken up into heaven, is brought-in calling for milk and cheese and such country cates as were his wonted food on earth. For in the Kingdome of Grace, that is in the Congregation of Gods Saints and the elect Members of Christ, there is no such difference of degrees as Ambition taught the Disciples to ima­gine. Not that we deny Order and Government in the Church of God. No; without these his Church could not subsist, but would be like Aristotles army without discipline, [...], an unprofitable rout. To this [Page 85] end Christ gave Apostles and Teachers and Pastors, for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the Ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. His Teachers call us, his Governors direct us to this Kingdome. But the Disciples, being brought up in the world, thought of that Greatness which they saw did bear the sway amongst men; Much like the [...], who thought that God bare the shape of a Man, because they read in Scri­pture of his Feet, and Hands, and Eyes, and the like. But that it was not so in Christs Kingdome, may appear by our Saviour's Answer to the Question. For he takes a Child, and tells them that if they will be of his Kingdome, they must be like unto it. By which he choaks and kills in them all conceit of Ambition and Greatness. For, as Plato most truly said, that those that dye do find a state of things beyond all expectation, diverse from that which they left behind, so when we are dead to the World, and true Citizens of the Kingdome of Christ, we shall find there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female; but all are one in Christ Gal. 3. 28. Jesus. God looks not what bloud runs in thy veins, he observes not thy Heraldry. If Greatness could have purchased heaven, Lazarus had been in hell, and Dives in Abrahams bosome. Earl, and Knight and Peasant are tearms of distinction on earth: in the Kingdome of heaven there is no such distinction. Faith makes us all one in Christ; and the Crown of glory shall be set upon the head of him that grindeth at the mill as well as upon his that sitteth on the throne. Christ requires [...], the nobility of the Soul: and he is the greatest in his Kingdome who hath the true and inward worth of Honesty and Sanctity of life, though in this world he lye buried in obscurity and silence. Here Lazarus may be richer then Dives, the beg­gar higher then the King, and a Child, the least, is greatest in this King­dome.

A main difference we may see between this Kingdome and the Kingdomes of the world, if we compare them. First, the Subjects of this Kingdome are unknown to any but to God himself. The foundation of the Lord stand­eth sure, saith the Apostle 2 Tim. 2. 19. having this seal, The Lord knowes who are his. And if they be unknown, who then can range them into or­ders and degrees. Secondly, of this Kingdome there is no end. Thirdly, the seat of this Kingdome is the hearts of the faithful. Cathedram habet in Coelo qui domat corda; His chair is in heaven that rules the hearts of the sons of men here on earth. This earth, that is, this body of clay, hath God given to the sons of men, to the Princes of the earth, under whose govern­ment we live; But our Heaven, our better part, our inward and spiritu­al man, he reserves to himself. Kings and Princes can restrain the outward man and moderate our outward actions by their laws and edicts. ‘ Illa se jactat in aulâ Aeolus:’ Thus far can they go; They can tye our Hands and Tongues; and they can go no further. For to set up an imperial throne in our Understandings and our Wills, belongs to Christ alone. He teacheth the lame to go, and the blind to see, and recovers the dry hand; He makes us active in this King­dome of Grace. Lastly, as their Subjects and Seat are different, so are their Laws; In the Common-wealth of Rome the Laws were the works of many hands. Some of them were Plebiscita, the acts of the people; others Se­natus Consulta, the decrees of the Senate; others, edicta Praetorum, the ver­dicts of their Judges; others, Responsa prudentum, the opinions of Wise men in cases of doubt; others, rescripta Imperatorum, the rescripts and an­swers of their Emperors when they were consulted with. Christiani ha­bent regulam, saith Tertullian; Christians have one certain immoveable [Page 86] rule, the Word of God, to guide and rule them in their life and actions. Besides, the Laws of the Kingdome of Christ are eternal, substantial, in­dispensable: But the laws made by humane autority are many of them light and superficial, all of them temporary and mutable. For all the humane autority in the world can never enact one eternal or fundamental law. Read the Laws that men have made, and lay them together, and we shall observe that they were made upon occasion and circumstance either of Time, or Place, or Persons; and therefore either by discontinuance have fallen of themselves, or by reason of some urgent occasion have been necessarily re­voked: But the Laws of our Great King are like himself, everlasting, ne­ver to be revoked or cancelled, but every [...] and tittle of them to stand fast, though heaven and earth pass away.

Thus you see the Kingdome of Christ and the Kingdomes of this world have not the same face and countenance; the Subjects of the one being dis­cernable, of the other unknown; their seat and place and lawes are diffe­rent. So that our Saviour, as he answered the sons of Zebedee, Yee know not what yee ask, so he might have replied to his Disciples here, Yee know not what yee speak. My kingdome is not of this world. The kingdome of heaven is within you. Why ask you then, Who is the greatest in the king­dome of heaven? That you commit no more such soloecisms, behold here a little child; let him teach you how to speak; and become like him, and you shall be great in the kingdome of heaven.

We see then that the Disciples of Christ were much mistaken in this question of greatness. And a common error it is amongst men to judge of spiritual things by carnal, of eternal by temporary. When our Saviour preached to Nicodemus the Doctrine of Regeneration and New life, what a gross conceit did he harp upon, of a Re-entry to be made into his mothers womb? When he told the Samaritane of the water of life, her thoughts ran on her pitcher and on Jacob's well. When Simon Magus saw that by laying on of hands the Apostles gave the holy Ghost, he hopes by money to purchase the like power. For seeing what a kingdome Money had amongst men, he streight conceived Coelum venale, Deumque, that God and Heaven might be bought with a price. Thus wheresoever we walk, our own shadow goes before us, and we use the language and dialect of the World in the School of Christ: we talk of Superiority and Power and Dominion in that Kingdome wherein we must be Priests and Kings too, but by being good, not great.

The sense which the Disciples through error meant, was this, Who should be greatest, Who should have most outward pomp and glory, Who should have precedency above others: But the sense which, as appears by our Saviours answer, they should have meant, was, Who is the greatest? that is, Who is of the truest and reallest worth in the kingdome of heaven? This had shew­ed them Disciples indeed, whose eyes should be the rather on the Duty then on the Reward, and who can have no greater honor then this, that they deserve it. Though there be places of outward government, of praeemi­nence and dignity in the Church, yet it ill becomes the mouth of a Disci­ple to ask such a Question. For though they all joyntly ask Who is the greatest? yet it appears by the very question that every one of them did wish himself the man. An evil of old very dangerous in the Church of Christ, but not purged out in after ages. Per quot pericula, sath St. Augu­stine, pervenitur ad grandius periculum? Through how many dangers and difficulties do we strive forward to Honor, which is the greatest danger of all? Ut dominemur aliis, priùs servimus, saith St. Ambrose; To gain Do­minion over others we become the greatest slaves in the world. What an inundation had this desire of Greatness made in the Church! how was it ready to overwhelm all Religion and Piety, had there not been banks set [Page 87] up against it to confute it, and Decrees made to restrain it! The Deacon would have the honor of the Priest; the Priest, the Consistory of the Bi­shop. The Bishops seat was not high enough, but he would be a Me­tropolitane, and to that end procured Letters from the Emperors, which the Greeks called [...], by which they obteined that, where there was formerly but one, there might now be two Metropolitanes. And all these no doubt were Disciples of Christ, if for no other reason, yet for this QUIS EST MAXIMUS? for their affectation of Great­ness. And now what followed? As one well observes, Ex religione ars facta; Religion was made a trade and an art to live by. Till at last it was cried down in divers Councels, at Chalcedon, at Trullum in Con­stantinople, and others: And in the Councel of Sandis a Bishop is for­bidden to leave the government of a small City for a greater. Of all men Ambition least becomes a Disciple of Christ: And therefore Christi­an Emperors did after count him unworthy of any great place in the Church who did affect it. Quaeratur cogendus, rogatus recedat, invitatus effugiat; Being sought for, let him be compelled; being askt, let him with­draw himself; being invited, let him refuse. Sola illi suffragetur necessitas recusandi; Let this be the only suffrage to enthrone him, that he refus'd it. Maximè ambiendus, qui non est ambitiosus; For it is fit that he that doth not seek for should be sought for by preferment. And to this purpose it was that our Saviour answers the Disciples, not to what they meant, but to what they should have meant, to divert them from all thought of do­minion. And withal he implyes that that is not Greatness which they ima­gined, but that Humility and Integrity of life was the truest Greatness and greatest Honor in his Kingdome.

And, to speak the truth, this only deserves the name of Greatness. [...]. For Goodness is not pla­ced in Greatness, but Greatness in Goodness. To go in costly apparel, to fare deliciously, to have a troup to follow us, perhaps wiser then our selves, this we may call what we please, but Greatness it cannot be. We read in Seneca the Orator of one Senecio an Orator, who affe­cted much grandia dicere, to speak in a lofty stile and great words. Which affectation in his art after turn'd to a disease, so that he would have no­thing in his house but what was great, great Servants, and great Ves­sels of Silver, calceos etiam majores, Shoes also too great for him. And from this fantastick humor he took his name, and was called SENECIO GRANDIO, Senecio the Great. Yet for all this he added not one hairs breadth unto his stature. Beloved, if we would measure our selves aright, we should find that that is not Greatness which the World calls by that name, outward state and pomp and stateliness to cast men on their knees with a frown, or to raise an army with a stamp of the foot. We are the less for these: and to think our selves greater for these, is to run upon the same error which Senecio Grandio did.

Again, it is but a phansie, and a vain one, to think there is most ease and most content in worldly greatness, or that we sleep best when our pil­low is highest. Alass, when our affrighted thoughts shall awake each other, and our conscience put forth her sting: when those sins shall rise up against us by which we have climb'd to this pitch, all the honor of the World will not give us ease. Will a legg or a cap, think you, still this noyse: Will the obsequious cringe and loud applause of the multitude drown the clamour of our Conscience, which like an awaked Lion will roar loud against us? No, Beloved: not all the pomp, not all the plea­sure of the world, not the merry Harp and the Lute and the Timbrel, no not a triumph, will be able to slumber the tempest within us, no more [Page 88] then the distressed weather-beaten Mariner can becalm a boysterous Sea with his whistle or a wish. We read of a Souldier who being to sleep upon a hollow piece of steel, complained his pillow was hard, but stuffing it with chaff he thought it much the lighter. Just so it fares with ambi­tious men: When they have run on in the wayes of Honor, when they have attained their ends, they shall find that their pillow is steel still; only they filled it with more chaff then other men. Besides, Honor doth not make him greater that hath it, but him that gives it. For if it proceed from virtue, bonum nostrum non est, sed alienum, it is not our virtue, but his that honors us; [...], a sign, saith the Philosopher, of another mans good esteem and opinion; which opinion is raised not from the person, but his virtue. And therefore the Apostles counsel is, In giving honor go one before another; as if he were truly honorable, not who receives honor, but who gives it, and all precedency were in this. And indeed Honor is, if not a virtue, yet a strong argument of it, in him who bowes himself in a just veneration of Goodness. Scias ipsum abundare virtutibus, qui alienas sic amat, saith Pliny; You may be sure he is full of virtue himself, who loves to see the splendor of it in other men. Lastly, Greatness and Honor adds nothing to Virtue. Nothing accrews to a Good man when he rises and comes on in the world; nothing is defaulked from him when he falls and decayes. The Steed is not the better for his strappings; nor doth the Instrument yield sweeter musick for its carved head, or for the ribbon which is tyed unto it. [...], Virtue in the open ayre, naked, destitute and afflicted, is of as fair a presence as when she sits under a canopy of state; David in the wil­derness as honorable as on his throne, Job on the dunghil as in all his wealth, and Joseph in the stocks as when he was a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house. When God speaks by his Prophet, he tells us that his wayes are not our wayes, nor our wayes his; and here, where Christ speaketh to his Dis­ciples, by his answer it appears that his judgment and theirs were not the same. When God sent Samuel to anoint David, Jesse brought forth Elias, and Samuel said, Surely this is the Lords annointed. But God corrected his error, and bade him not look upon his countenance, nor the height of his stature: for God seeth not as man seeth. Beloved, if with the Disciples here we have a thought that Christs Kingdome is a temporal Kingdome, God hath not cho­sen that thought. If we look upon the countenance of men, and think them the greatest who are of highest stature, and in honor and dignities are taller then their fellows by the head and shoulders, we are deceived, and the God of this world hath blinded our eyes, that this Pygmay in Christs Kingdome appears to us as big as a Colossus. But there is a little one, a child, behind, an humble and low Convert: And whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same shall be the greatest in the kingdome of heaven.

To conclude all; Let us seek for Honor; but seek for it in its own coasts. On earth it is nothing, or it signifieth nothing; and most commonly it is given to them who signifie as little. Therefore let us look up to the highest Heavens, where the seat of Honor is. Let him who put us into the Vine­yard give us our wages; and let the King of glory bestow honor upon us. Let us make him alone our Spectator, him alone our Judge; and He will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who by patient continuance in well­doing Rom. 2. 6, 7. seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life. Which God grant us all through Christ our Saviour.

AT the very reading of this Chapter the true Christi­an cannot but think himself in a kind of Paradise, and conceive he sees Charity growing up like a tree of Life, spreading its branches, full and hang­ing down the head, inviting him to gather such fruit from every one of them as may be pleasant to his taste, and abound to his account. At this time I have laid hold but on one of them, but such an one as will give you a taste of all the rest. For in true Hope there is Long-suffering and Kindness, there is Patience and Meekness; there is no Envy, no Malice, no Pride, no Suspition. And if we take down this, and digest it, the rest will be sweet unto our taste, and pleasant as honey to our mouth. The tree is a tree of Life, and every branch of it is beautiful and glorious, and the fruit thereof excellent and comely to them that Isa. 4. 2. are escaped of Israel. It is truly said that Charity doth virtually contein within her self all other Graces. St. Paul calls it the greatest virtue, and the complement and fulfilling of the Law. If there be Liberality, Charity in largeth the heart; if Temperance, she binds the appetite; if Chastity, she makes the Eunuch for the kingdome of heaven: if Patience, she works it; if Resolution, she makes us valiant. Charity, saith one, is as the Philoso­phers stone, that turns all into Gold. It makes suffering Patience, it makes giving Liberality; it puts value upon a Mite, or a cup of cold water. Charity baptizeth all the other virtues, and makes them Christian. She stands as a Queen among the Virtues, encircled and compassed about as with a crown. Patience waits on her; Bounty is as the breath of her no­strils; Long-suffering is her very spirit. In a word, Faith is the founda­tion; Charity the building, which reacheth as high as heaven; and Hope the pillar or buttress to uphold it.

We shall now find our way easier, and the task not hard, to bring Cha­rity and Hope together. For if Charity comprehend all virtues, I am sure Hope is one. I know that the essences of these virtues are distinct, and their offices divers. Distinct habits have their distinct acts. The act of Faith is to believe; of Charity, to love and embrace: of Hope, to expect: But yet though their acts and offices be divers and distinct, they may all meet in the same subject. They are distinct, but not separate. Nay, to speak truth, they are inseparable. Faith may be said to love, and Hope to believe, and Charity to hope. For he that doth truly believe, doth love; and he that doth truly hope, doth believe; and he that loveth, doth hope: and yet neither is Faith Hope, nor Hope Charity. The abstract doth [Page 90] here stand for the concrete, Charity for the Christian man indued with chari­ty. And the sense is, Charity is the sourse, the original, the immediate cause of Hope, that which alone produceth it. In subjecto, in supposito, in the same subject, in the same person two virtues may meet which notwith­standing in themselves are most distinct.

Besides, in this union of Virtues there is observable [...], a kind of communication of idiomes. As it is true to say of Christ, that he who is God is Man, and he who is Man is God, but blasphemy to say that his Deity is Humanity, or his Humanity Deity; so he errs not who affirms aut sperantem credere, aut amantem sperare, that he who hopes believes, or that he who loves hopes, but he were strangely deceived who should say that either Hope is Faith, or Faith is Charity.

Certainly when our Apostle says that Charity hopeth, [...], he com­mits no soloecisme, he speaks no absurdity, nothing which becomes not an Apostle. The most fearful and horrid Soloecisme is in our life and conver­sation, when we hope in God whom we do not love, and when we expect a reward from him who deserve a stripe. Sperare in Deum propter meip­sum, & non amare Deum propter seipsum, To hope in God for my own good and for my self, and not to love him for himself is a dangerous mistake. To divide and separate Hope from Love is as bad as to separate Love from Faith. The Apostle in the next verse tells us that Charity [...] ne­ver falleth away. He implyes a falling away of Faith and Hope in the last verse of the former Chapter, [...], Now, saith he, here in this world, abide Faith, Hope, and Charity, so knit and united and coupled that no divorce shall make a separation. If the hand of Charity wither, my Hope is dead. If I reach not forth drink to the thirsty, and meat to the hungry, and garments to the naked; if I be so palsie-strucken that I cannot give a cup of cold water, my Hope is sick and feeble and languish­ing, spes informis, a Hope without shape or form, as withered and hang­ing down as my Charity, as palsie-strucken as she, not able to reach to a reward, or lay hold on a blessing.

Now we cannot in strictness attribute Hope to the Saints departed; whose Charity notwithstanding is now perfected. For what should they hope for? Heaven? They already reign there. The robe of glory? They have put it on. The penny? They have received it. He who was their hope, is now their joy and crown. They are extra statum merendi aut de­merendi; They can neither merit nor offend. They are in termino quies­centiae, in that rest which remains to the Saints of God. That which is per­fect is come, and that which was in part is taken away. Those [...] and [...] of the ancient Church, their Prayers and Panegyricks and Obla­tions for the dead did rather testifie their own hope then perswade theirs. Expect they did the full complement of their bliss and beatitude, [...], dancing and triumphing before him who taught them to conquer. And being crown'd with victory, what should they hope for? Spes, quasi pes animae, saith Isidore; Hope is the foot of the soul. And to move the foot, this progressive motion, this striving forward, belongs to him who is going on his way. Spes absentis est we hope for that we see not: the Saints rest in God. Spes itinerantis est; Hope is my companion in my journey: at my journeys end Hope leaves me. Where there is Hope, there is motion, and with that motion she ends. In the Saints departed there is Charity, but Hope there is not. And indeed the Charity the Apostle here speaks of is not charit as patriae, but viae. This Charity that hath Hope to wait on her, this expecting Charity, is Charity that hath a hand to give, and a body to suffer, and a tongue to speak; is the Charity of him who can bestow his goods on the poor, and give his body to be burned, v. 3. [Page 91] is proper to him who walks and rejoyceth and labours in hope, as the Apostle speaketh. Well then, we may settle it as an undenyable conclusion, that Charity may be without Hope; but, in the next place, it is as true, that Hope cannot be without Charity. In heaven there is no room for Hope, where notwithstanding Charity is; nor shall there be in hell, where Cha­rity is not; Infinite joy there, infinite horror here. No addition to that which is infinite, no succession to Aeternity. Here our Arithmetick faileth us: we cannot add one cubit or inch to infinitude; we cannot multiply Aeternity, nor add one day to Immortality: and can we hope? The bles­sed Saints departed rest in God, who is the end of their Hope, do not hope: The Devils and damned reprobates hate God, and cannot hope, non ostio­lum spei, not the least wicket, not a crany of Hope is left to them. Behold, the bridegroom is come, and is entred, and the door is shut. Origen, whom Matth. 25. some have placed with a picklock in his hand to open these everlasting doors, and after the revolution of some thousands of years to empty hell, and break the chains of everlasting darkness, hath this censure in Photius, to have delivered [...], many absurd positions and full of impiety. If Charity could be found in hell, I would perhaps look for hope there. But to place Hope there without Charity, is to turn dark­ness into light, Judas into Peter, Satan into an Angel of light, and Hell it self into Paradise. But I mistake the Father. For the Cardinal will tell us he meant not Hell, but Purgatory, where there is perfect Charity, as intentively hot as the fire there. What? Charity there, and perfect? We inferr then, No Hope there. For perfect Love, as it casteth out Fear, so it casteth out Hope too; Which ebbs and flows, increaseth and decrea­seth, waxeth and waneth with Charity, and when it either fails, or hath its perfection, it endeth. We sow in hope; but when the harvest, the time of gathering and separation comes, Hope vanisheth. For my Charity raises my Hope by the same degrees she receives. But in culmine virtutis she swalloweth it up in victory. On the hills there is salvation, but in the bottome, in the valley of death there is omnimoda desolatio, a strange kind of desolation, not only of the Soul, but of all her comforts, even that last comfort, Hope. She is dead, say they in the Gospel; [...]; Why troublest thou the master any further?

We find, you see, this Hope neither in heaven, nor in hell: Neither in Abrahams bosom; there Lazarus is so sure that he may not carry a drop of water to cool a flaming tongue; nor in the place of torments; Dives's care, we read, is not for himself, but his brethren. In Hell there is no fire but that sulfureous tormenting fire; and in Heaven the fire of Charity is in in­tensis gradibus, clear, and bright, and resined, like the elementary fire, pure and invisible, wheeling and rowling about in an eternal gyre and circle. We must then descend unto earth; where Charity is visible, where this fire, like to the fire there, is of a grosser and more sensible temper, and, with that too, flameth upward, till it be refined and exalted to a caelestial heat, till its motion be heightned into perfection, and with it our Hope turned into possession.

By this fire we must sit down, nay, we must carry these coals in our bosome, if we will spem accendere, kindle Hope. If this fire be extin­guisht, if this heat perish, my Hope will either freeze and congeal and petrifie into a stubborn Despair, or else by a kind of Antiperistasis, being encompassed by excess of cold, beaten upon by the violence of a contra­ry quality, it will break forth into an unruly flame, and raise it self to a sawcy Presumption. But here it is, and here we find it, even spem in cha­ritate, Hope in Charity. For in amore haec insunt omnia, In Love are all these things which with the eye of Hope we look upon, or with the hand [Page 92] of Hope we lay hold on. First, the Object is the same. For Love is an affection joyning and uniting us to God, Love could not walk in that cir­cle of blessings, both spiritual and temporal, if God were not in the midst. Draw what lines you please; propose either Competencie of means, or Quiet of Conscience, or the Joys of Heaven, Hope will faint and lan­guish if God be not the center wherein these lines meet. Secondly, the character and mark whereby we may know them both is the same. Love is bold. We commonly say, We will build upon a friend. Put what objecti­ons and what scruples you please, of Inopportunity, Inconveniency, Im­probability, that he cannot now, that he wants leasure and a convenient time to do me good, Love answers all: And so doth Hope: Place Tribula­tion, Persecution, Death it self in the way, yet she presseth forward. Though he kill me, yet will I trust in him, saith Job. Thirdly, Love is jea­lous; it carrieth and conveyeth the soul to the object not enjoyed. Ubi amor, ibi animus; Where my love is, there is my mind; Where my treasure is, there is my soul. Ubi sum, ibi non sum, saith the old Lover in Plautus; where I am not, there I am; and where I am, there I am not. I am sure, ubi spes, ibi est animus; Where my Hope is, there my Soul is; my Under­standing, to apprehend it; my Care, to procure it. Spe jam sumus in cae­lo. We aim at heaven; and Hope puts us there already. And this earnest inclination to the object begets a Jealousie. To Love a glance is a frown, and a frown anger, and anger death; and yet it is Love still: And Hope hath these abatements, and fits, and shiverings; and yet it is Hope still. Lastly, Love is querulous and full of complaints; Why doth he pursue me? saith Job: Why dost thou set me as a mark? And, Why art thou angry with thine inheritance? saith David. How long, Lord? how long? Hopes own dialect. For there is a kind of thirst in Hope, more then that of a chased Hart. Festina Charitas, and festina spes; Love is on the wing and in haste; and so is Hope. Spes quae differtur affligit; Hope knows no affliction but delay. While she is, she is in trouble, in pangs, like a man fastened to a cross, who desires nothing more then to expire. The life of Hope is ex­spectation: answer that, and Hope is not.

And in this Relation stand Hope and Charity: Like Hippocrates's Twins, they are born and grow up together. Their operations, their postures, their gestures, are not unlike. Sic oculos, sic ille manus. As a well made, and well placed picture looks upon him that looks upon it, so doth my Chari­ty eye my Hope, and my Hope looks back upon my Charity. Nay, my Hope is the picture of my Charity, and my Charity is the lively represen­tation of my Hope. Would you see the pourtraiture, and lively view of my Hope? then behold my Charity. Would you take the lineaments and proportion of my Charity? look upon my Hope. Charity is a commen­tary upon my Hope; and my Hope is an interpretation of my Charity. To love God, and to hope in God, are terms reciprocal. He that loves him, hopes in him, and he that hopes in him loves him. So that take charitatem in via, Charity upon earth, and charitas sperat, is not only [...], but [...], a universal proposition, and the terms are aequalis ambitûs, of equal latitude. Where Hope is, there is Charity; and where Charity is there is Hope.

Thus the terms naturally stand; and yet a strange paradox is maintained in the world, That Hope may thrive well enough without the warmth and fomentation of Charity. We deny Hope to men already damned in hell: but candidatis diaboli, to men who are confederate with Hell, who call it unto them both with works and words; to men who are judged already, and Wisd. 1. 16. whose damnation sleepeth not, but is awake and in agitation, we deny it not: They who treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, who know nothing of [Page 93] Faith, Hope and Charity, but their naked names, a faithless generation, without Love in this world, and quite destitute of Hope, desperate sin­ners, yet notwithstanding hope. After their rebellion for a reward, af­ter their treason for a crown, after all the injuries and slights and denyals and repulses given to the holy Ghost for his loving and familiar parleys, for his kisses and embraces, post laesum Patrem, after they have renounced their Father which is in heaven, and sold their birthright, they howl after the blessing, and cry out with Esau, Bless me, even me also, my Father.

But this is not [...], to walk in the right way. This is a most me­thodical impiety. Insanit spes nostra, Our hope is mad and distracted. Nay, it is [...], an expectation without an hope, a maimed, bruised, lame Hope, spes exspes, a hopeless Hope, a Hope without a foot. Good God! should a Traytor on the Gibbet, now ready to be thrown down and quartered, expect to be honoured with rewards? Should a Ravilliac look to be made one of the Privy Counsel? Should Catiline demand a civil gar­land? or Cethegus, now to be strangled, ask what triumphant arches and statues are set up to honor him? Thou son of perdition, dost thou expect salvation? Thou son of Belial, dost thou hope for a crown? Thou hast flung a stone at Christ; and dost thou ask him bread? Thou hast given him a serpent, thy fraud and deceit, thy hypocrisie, thy windings and turnings in the Religion thou professest; and dost thou crave a fish? Canst thou hope to be saved by that Gospel thou despisest, and to be washt with that bloud thou tramplest under thy feet? Filius non es, & ibis ad patrem? Thou art no son, and dost thou go to the Father? Thou hast no Charity, and dost thou nourish Hope? Indeed some comfort it is to a condemned person, when the Sentence is past, to hope for a reprieve. Errare aliquan­do in via profuit; We wander sometimes with delight, and our error pleases us well, because we hope it is not an error. But when that day of reve­lation and manifestation, [...], that general day of visitation, shall come, when all things shall be [...], anatomized and naked, like a beast for sacrifice, cut down the back, whose very entrails are seen; When both shall meet, on the offenders part Desperation, and on the Judges Desertion; cùm judex ostendet suam sententiam, & reus suam conscientiam, when the Judge shall read his sentence, and the Offendor open the book of his conscience; then shall he who welcomed and entertained Hope, and yet shut Charity out of doors, confess not only [...], his want of method, but also [...], his dulness and stupidity. He shall then be too sensible what an absurdity and soloecisme it was to make his Hope his familiar and his domestick, and yet turn the key against Charity. Tuas tibi res habe, from Hope to Charity, is a dangerous form, a bill of divorce and separation of the soul from God. There is no way then but to unite and joyn them to­gether. Let Charity and Hope meet, and then that will follow, Righteous­ness and Peace, and a myriad of blessings, will kiss each other.

We have now made good this proposition, and shewed in what relation the terms stand. Quod speret, That Charity hopeth, we have already pro­ved. Our next task will be to give an answer to the Quid sperat, and point out to the Object of this Hope. And here we find it to be of very large compass, even [...], all things. And if I may hope all things, then is there nothing excepted, a NON LIGET no where engraven to fright a­way my Hope. I may yield up my Hope to my Ambition, I may prosti­tute her to Pleasure, I may sell her to Mammon, I may betray her to Re­venge, and lend her to my Malice. Quid non speremus? What is there that comes not within the compass of this omnia? What is there we may not hope for?

But we must here take in that rule in Divinity, Verba non sono sapiunt, sed [Page 94] sensu; nec auribus audienda, sed mentibus: We must not take the sound of the words, but the sense; and they are presented rather to our understand­ing then our ears! St. Pauls Expedit and Licet must come in, all things which are lawful, all things which are expedient. We must tye our hope to Gods promise, and limit one duly by another, our Hope by our Prayers. What God commands me to pray for, what he hath promised to give, may raise my Hope. Some things there are which are not inter omnia, not to be numbred amongst this ALL. Some things are nullius numeri, as good as nothing; and my estate may be better'd in being without them. Some things are worse then nothing; and my estate will be far worse if I have them. Some things are [...], indifferent, in their own nature neither good nor evil; and a naked circumstance, a condition, a bare If, may make it either good or evil to hope for them. Some things there be which are evil [...], saith Basil, simply and in their own nature evil, as Sin, and the Occasions of sin, and the Impunity of sin: and a great sin it is to hope for these. Some things are evil [...], which appear so to us, sensible evils, such indeed as we are most sensible of; Affliction, and Poverty, and Sorrow, and Disgrace; and these I am so far from ho­ping for that as I may pray against them. A Libera nos, Domine, is set up­on them. At the very naming of them we all cry out, Good Lord deliver us. I fear, I avoid, I run away from these. Spero meliora, I hope for better things.

We will then bound and limit this our Hope, and draw those lines which must fill up the circumference; And thus they lye. Charity hopeth all things; First, omnia bona, all Good things. For to wait for the twilight with the Adulterer; to catch at all opportunities which may be as steps to bring to the pinacle of honor; to have pervigiles occulos, our eyes still watching upon the prey, is not Hope, but Lust, or Ambition, or Covetousness. Etiam speravit, you know was spoken of Faelix Acts 24. 26. He hoped also that money should be given him of Paul; and what was this Hope but Cove­tousness. 2. Bona absentia, future, absent goods; goods at a distance. For when the object is present, Hope is no more. The Apostle before said that Charity is patient, [...], elongat animum, draws in its breath as it were, and stayeth, and defers, and prolongs it self. If we hope, we ex­pect in patience, saith the Apostle Rom. 8. 15. Spes omnes res spissas habet, saith he in the Comedy; All things to Hope are hard and massive, and must be beat out with the hammer. 3. Ardua, matters of difficulty. For Hope loves to struggle with its object, and sometimes is increased by opposition, and made bolder by being frighted. But if the object be ad manum & pa­rabile, at hand and cheap, my Hope is lazy and asleep; it moves not, it stirs not. [...], Hope above hope, Hope against hope, that is Hope indeed. For, as Tertullian, asking the question, Why Christ after his re­surrection did not manifest and publish himself to the whole world, and so put it out of all question that he was risen indeed, answers well, That this he did not, ut fides, cui magna merces debetur, non nisi difficultate constaret, That our Faith, which hath the promise of a great reward, might be com­mended by that difficulty which stood in its way; So may we say of Hope, [...], The way of Hope is hard and rugged. She passeth by the pomp of the world, and she treadeth dangerous paths; If a Serpent be in the way, she feareth not; if a Flower, some pleasing object, she ga­zeth not, but presseth on forward; over Riches and Poverty, over Honor and Disgrace, super culcatum patrem, over all relations and dependencies, and in this habit and attire, ruspata sanguine, as Tertullian speaks, torn and weather-beaten, and in her own gore, she striveth forward to her object. Though I see it not, yet I hope: Though it be in heaven, yet I hope: Though [Page 95] I am in chains, even fetter'd retinaculis spei, with those stays and hinderan­ces of Hope which the World or the Devil cast about me, yet I hope still 4. Lastly, Possibilia; Good things, though hard to obtain, yet possible. For Charity nihil perperam agit, is not foolish and indiscreet; It plows not the air, nor sows upon the rocks. What is easie and at hand, cannot raise a Hope; and what is impossible, overwhelms and swallows it. What is ready to fall into my bosome, I need not hope for: and what I cannot have, nec spes, nec votum est, doth scarce produce a wish, much less beget a hope.

These are the bounds, and these make up the object of my Hope, and as Lines drawn to the Circumference, fill up this OMNIA, this all-things, in the Text. Now, St. Basil's rule is most safe, [...], Not to remove these bounds, nor alter these everlasting limits. We must not take the Compass, and draw new lines, and put out God, and place Our selves in centro, in the midst. We must not build our Hope upon dust and rubbish, upon our own weak and rotten foundation. But we must keep our Hope close to Charity, which looks upon the right object. For Hope, as Fear, is measured by its object. Fear is a base and graveling, a cowardly passion, if either an Enemy or Disgrace or Danger beget it: But pone Deum, place God there, make him the object of thy Fear, and then that of Synesius is most true, [...], To faint and be daunted here doth strengthen us, and our greatest security is to fear. And my Hope is as its object is; If it be placed on Princes or in any Son of man, it is as frail and mortal as they are, and departs with their breath; It is chased away with a frown, it is blown out of their nostrils, and perisheth as soon as a thought. If I lay it on my own Strength or Wit or Policy; alass, I have set up a Paper-wall; nay, I have built my Fort in the air. And you need not plant a Canon against it to make a battery; it will down of it self, and o­verthrow and ruin the builder, and leave a mark, an ECCE, upon him, Behold, the man that made the arm of flesh his strength, and put his confidence in himself! But make God its object, and Hope is a rock, a castle, an im­pregnable cittadel, canon-proof, as we say; no assault, no battery shall force it. For the Lord, saith the Prophet Nahum, is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.

And indeed Charity keeps Hope where God would have it placed, at its right object. She is a perfect methodist. She guides hope, and leads her on orderly, draws every line to its true proper center; they turn it from the creature, and levels it on God. The order of Charity is the order of Unity. The Devil is a great disturber, the author of confusion. Whereas God hath placed Contempt upon the World, Love upon Goodness, and Shame upon Sin, [...], the Devil hath inverted this order, saith Chrysostome, and hath placed Shame upon Re­pentance, and Security upon Sin; Distrust upon Gods Providence, and Hope upon the World; He hath placed Hope upon Fear, and Fear upon Hope, [...], the most fearful and terrible things in the world, if we rightly understood them, those we hope for; and [...], the most de­sirable, the most conducible to our eternal happiness, those we fear. Now the office and work of Charity is [...], even an act of Justice, to make every wheel move in its own place, to give every a­ction, every affection, its proper end and work, to place my Hatred on the World, my Love on God; my Anger on Sin, my Delight on Goodness; my Fear on God, and my Hope on God. Put CHARITAS to SPERAT, joyn Charity and Hope, and OMNIA, all things, will follow: we cannot hope amiss. Thus doth Charity edifie, even build us up as high as heaven; and Hope being the supporter, and bringing in with it [...], all things, doth establish and strengthen the building.

But, in the last place, as we build up our selves, so must we edifie others also in our most holy faith: and as we hope for all things for our selves, so must we reserve a Hope for those also who are tied in the same link and bond of Love. When we see a house tottering, we must not make our censure a wind to blow it down, but hope that even a broken beam, a loose rafter, nay the very rubbage it self, may in time be made a sound part of the build­ing. When I see my brother fall, I must lend him my Hand to help him up. If my Hand will not help him, I must lend him my Pity and Compassion and Prayer. And when all the rest fail, I must give him my Hope. Charity hath an eye abroad as well as at home; nor doth she nurse up Hope for her self alone, but makes it as catholick as the Church, nay, as the World. Ae­grotis dum anima est, spes esse dicitur, saith Tully; Hope lasteth as long as life lasteth, nor can it expire but with the soul: And how desperately soe­ver we see our brother plunged in sin, yet we must hope well, that his sick­ness is not unto death. How did the Church of Christ frown upon the Novatians, who denyed hope of pardon to those who fell away in time of persecution. St. Cyprian calls them pietatis paternae adversarios, enemies to the grace of God. Isidore tells them, they were proud and foolish boast­ers; and Nazianzene, that their religion was [...], more in their tongue then in their heart. They would be stiled [...], the purest Christians, craftily making, as he after observes, the elegancy and beauty of that name a bait to catch the ignorant and unwary multitude. This spiritual pride, saith the Schools, and contempt of our brother spring­eth from that conceit, that self-flattery we nourish in our breasts, that we have stood strong against the violence of temptations. And then with us he is scare a Christian who is tempted. And so having no leasure to bring our own hypocrisie to the balance, we begin to look bigg and call it Zeal that swells us. We walk upon the pavement of heaven, and from thence behold our poor brother on the ground: and then how vile doth he seem in our eyes, a woman, a wretch, a son of perdition! Then we can thunder, when God is silent; we snatch the sword out of his hand, and latch it in his side who doth but shrink at an invasion: Whereas those Christians whom a fre­quent visitation of their own hearts hath taught to make a virtuous use of their brothers sin, would not only after a fainting, but after a fall; not on­ly after a fall, but after a bruise; not only after seven falls, but after seven­ty times seven falls, at least hope well, reach out the hand of mercy to him, and rather shew him comfort in the Creed than denounce judgment against him out of the Decalogue. This is truly to be followers of him who who will not break a bruised reed. Greatness of autority may make us to be fear­ed, and depth of learning to be admired; abundance of wealth or honor may gain us a knee or an hat: but that which makes one man a God unto a­nother is Charity; which, when she hath spent the whole box, doth yet annoint her brother with her Hope, and where she cannot help, yet will hope the best. Therefore Tertullian tells us that anciently among the Hea­then the professors of Christianity were called not Christiani, but Chrestiani, from a word signifying sweetness and meekness and benignity of disposition. I cannot but conceive that this was the reason why the ancients, many of them, conversed even with the heathen themselves. No doubt they did it out of hope of their recovery. We find in our Books that they held a friendly in­tercourse of Epistles; St. Basil with Libanius the Sophister, Nazianzene and Augustine with others. And Antiquity hath either left us true or for­ged us false Epistles between St. Paul himself and Seneca the Philosopher, as we find them copied out by Sixtus Senensis.

And indeed why should we not hope well of every man, suppose he were a Judas, and by our Christian industry strive to recover his drooping soul, [Page 97] and to revive the flame of Charity in his breast, which may warm him into a temperate Hope? How know we but that the word of God through our ministery may of this stone raise up a child unto Abraham? Debilem facito manu, debilem pede: vita dum superest, bene est, as Maecenas sometimes basely spake in another case: But let our weak brother be lame hand and foot, sick in head and heart, yet as long as there is life in him, our Cha­rity must visit him, and our Hope makes us active to his recovery: Other­wise, like unskilfull Physicians, we shall suffer him to dye under our hands, and then pretend his Disease was incurable. The Priest and the Levite, who saw the man wounded on the way, and passed by on the other side, are Luke 10. not proposed as paterns of our imitation, but the Samaritane who came near to the place, and came and looked on him, and no doubt hoped well: for he bound up his wounds, and poured in wine and oyl; and brought him to an Inn, and made provision for him. The reason why we reach not out the hand of help unto others is, because we hope well of none but our selves. Nay, we make it a great part of our Christian zeal, to challenge an assurance to our selves, and to entitle our brother to despair; and so we forfeit our Hope for want of Charity. But our Apostle here brings in Charity in a­nother dress, hoping all things of all men. And indeed this is a kind of pri­viledge that Charity hath in respect of Faith. To Faith the number of the Elect appears but small; but to Charity the Church is large and copious. Faith makes up a Church as Gideon did his army, who took not up all he met, but out of a many thousands elected a band of three hundred and no more: But Charity sees not any of that great company which she will dis­miss, but thinks that all may fight and conquer. You will say perhaps that this is an error of my Charity. I confess it is, but it is a very necessary error. For it is my Charity thus to erre; and it is not a lye, but a virtue in me, in my brothers case to hope for that good which he shall never enjoy. The holy mistakes of Charity shall never be imputed, nor be numbred a­mongst my sins of ignorance. Nay, he that errs not thus, he that hopes not the best he can of all he sees, wanteth something, and comes yet short of a good Christian. Christianum est errare; It is the part of every Chri­stian thus to erre. And there is good reason for it: For we see not where nor how the grace of God may work. How sinful soever a man be, yet if he come behind, and but touch the hemn of Christs garment, the grace of God may cure him. Nay, were he dead in sin, who knows what God may do? Forsitan & mihi in sepulcro scelerum jacenti dicat, Hieronyme, veni fo­ras, saith St. Hierome; Peradventure God may call unto him lying yet stinking in his sin, as in a grave, Lazarus, come forth. The Proverb in nature is, Ex quolibet ligno non fit Mercurius, Every crooked piece of tim­ber is not fit to make a God of. For Nature cannot make what she plea­seth of what she list. But God finds no subject unfit for his skill: but out of the most rotten and crooked piece can make an image and erect a statue of himself. And therefore Charity, because she may, nay because she must, be deceived, is at SPERAT in the thickest cloud, and hopes for day-break in the darkest and longest night. Our Apostle tells us, SPE­RAT OMNIA, she hopeth all things; she friendly extends and commu­nicates her Hope to every man.

For conclusion, and to apply all; Let us lay hold on Charity, and then Hope will follow; for they are linked together. But if we let Cha­rity loose, Hope will take wing, and leave us nothing but a false perswa­sion, which Hypocrites call by that name, when it is nothing like it, no­thing but a meer thought. And a thought will not give leggs to the lame, nor crown a beggar, nor write his name in the Book of Life who hath made himself to every good work reprobate. It is not a feeble thought, it is an [Page 98] active Charity, that is the foundation of Hope. Run to and fro through Jerusalem, go about the streets thereof, muster up together all that name the Lord Jesus, and you shall find every man is full of Hope; and then you may conclude that every man is charitable. Whatsoever the premisses be, whatsoever the actions of our life be, most men make this the conclusion, and dye in hope, assure themselves of happiness, by no better experience then that which Flesh and Bloud and the Love of our selves are ready to bring in. They fill themselves with Hope, when they are full of nothing but Malice and Envy and Uncleanness; of which we are told, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdome of heaven. And what Hope, what assurance is this? An assurance without a warrant; an Hope which only we our selves have sub­scribed to with hands full of bloud; a Hope which is no hope, but a cheat, a delusion, presenting us nothing but heaven, when we are condemned already. It is true that Hope is a fair tye and pledge of what we shall enjoy hereafter, but it is not then the work of the Phansie, but of the Heart; to be wrought out with fear and tremb­ling, and not to be taken up as a thing granted, as the [...], we cannot set up a pillar of Hope where there is no basis, no founda­tion for it, but a weak and feeble thought. I know it is put up by some as a question, Whether we ought to be assured of our salvation; but it is but an impertinent question, and not well put up. For will any man ask Whether we ought to be in health, and not rather, Whether we ought to feed on wholsome meats, and keep a temperate diet? Beloved, let us have Charity, and Hope will as certainly follow and as naturally as Growth and Health do a moderate diet. Otherwise to hope is a sin, it is not Hope, but Presumption. For what Hope is that which looks towards Liberty, and leaves us in chains? that which promiseth life, when we are children appointed to dye? Let us then possess our hearts with Charity, and Hope will soon enter in; for they love to dwell and breathe together. But it will not enter a froward and perverse heart; for that will not receive it: nor the heart of a Nabal; for that is stone, and will beat it back: nor a heart that is fat as grease; for it slips through it: nor a Pharisee's heart; for that is hollow and doth nothing but sound; every thought is a knell, and proclaimeth the fall of some in Israel. None have less hope of others then they who presume for themselves. None condemn more to hell then they whose feet are swift to shed bloud, and who delight in those wayes which lead unto death. Their very mercies are cruelty. To put on the New man with them is to put off all bowels. Every word they speak is clothed with Death. And if Malice and Deceit and Uncharitableness lead not thither, I may be bold to say, There is no Hell at all. They who make God as cruel as themselves, do de­stiny men to destruction only because he will, and to build up men on purpose to ruin them for ever, that make the Wickedness of men de­pend on the antecedent will of God absolutely and irresistibly efficacious; (They are their own words) that say that God doth work all things in all men, even in the reprobate; that the Induration and Incredu­lity of men is from the Praedestination of God, as the effect from the cause; that God calls men to salvation who are condemn'd already; that though the elect (which are themselves) fall into adultery, murder, treason, and other crying sins, yet they fall not from grace, but still remain men after Gods own heart, when they do the works of their fa­ther the Devil. These are they whose words are as sharp swords to cut off their brethren from the land of the living. These men breathe forth [Page 99] nothing but hailstones and coals of fire, but death and destruction. These make a bridge for themselves to Happiness, but pluck it up to their brethren. These are in heaven already, and shut it up, that none else may enter. Certainly a new way to heaven, never yet disco­vered by the King of Heaven, who hath put the keys into the hand of Charity, who may boldly enter her self, and who also is very willing to let in others; who brings forth a Hope, a Hope for our selves, and a Hope for others. Whoso makes haste to perfection, is very willing to forward others in the way: he calls upon them, he waits on them, he expects when they will move forwards; and though they move not, yet he hopes still. Charity, which brought down Christ from heaven, lifts us up unto that holy place; and we are never car­ried with more delight, then when we go with most company, there to joyn with the quire of Angels, and to sing praises to the God of Love for evermore. We love God, because he loved us first; and for his loves sake we love every man. And now what is our Hope, but that together with others we may have our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul, in his eternal and everlasting glory?

IN these words we have 1. an Act, Restore; 2. an A­gent, God, Restore thou; 3. the Person suing, David, unto me; 4. the blessing sued for, the joy of God's sal­vation: Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Da­vid (as the Title sheweth us) being awakened by Na­than out of the slumber wherein he had long layn after his foul fact with Bathsheba, penned this Psalm, and pub­lished it; a truly Penitential Psalm, full of humble and hearty acknowledgments of sin, and of earnest petitions for mercy and for assurance of God's favour. His great fall had so bruised him that he felt no ease or comfort, all was discomposed and out of tune, his soul cast down and disquieted within him, his heart broken, his spirit wounded. And a wounded spirit who can bear? Hence it is that he prayeth with such ve­hemence Prov. 18. 14. and fervencie that God would be pleased in great merey to blot out all his transgressions, and to wash and cleanse him from his sins and iniquities; that he would not cast him away from his presence, nor take his holy spirit from him; and, here in my Text, that he would restore unto him the joy of his salvation. But however these last expressions may seem to be the breathings of a disconsolate spirit, and of one even out of hope, yet we must not think that this man after God's own heart, this great Saint; though grievously fallen, was quite fallen from grace, and that his faith had now utterly failed and was extinguished. No; Faith can never be lost. Or rather, if it be lost, it never was true Faith; as St. Hierome speaketh of Charity.

Tell me not of Saul's annointing, of Judas's Apostleship, of Balaam's prophetick spirit: Tell me not of those who are in the Church, but not of the Church; who, like the Pharisees, have the Law written on their frein­ges, Religion on the outside, when the Devil is in their heart. For Judas was but a traytor lurking under the title of a Disciple. Sub alterius habitu alteri militavit: He wore Christs livery, but was the Devils servant. Saul was amongst the Prophets, but never received a Prophets reward. And Balaam blessed the people from God, but he died not the death of the righ­teous. There may be some gifts of the Spirit where the Spirit never tru­ly was. There may be a beam of grace, a shew of godliness, where the power thereof is denyed. And Faith in him may seem to be dead where it never had true life or being. So Nazianzene speaking of those who forsook the colours under which they had formerly fought, says they were [...], men which negligently and for fashions sake handled matters of Religion; having an Hosanna in their mouth when [Page 101] a Crucifige was in their heart; like Meteors, which either being drawn up by the heat of the Sun, or lifted up by some puff of wind into the air, there for a while they remain, and draw mens eyes to behold them, till at last they go out, and infect it: But true Faith is like the Sun, which is not there­fore not at all because a cloud hath overcast it: or like the Moon, it wax­eth and waneth, but still receives some light from the Sun. The Papists and Arminians in this point, as Augustine spake of Hereticks of the same stamp, should have rather our prayers then our dispute, and will sooner be recalled by our devotion then yield to the strength of our reason. But if there be any infant in religion, which is not yet grown up to this truth, whose earthly thoughts cannot reach to the height of this heavenly mystery, if he will not believe God in the book of his Words, he may see and read a resemblance of it in the book of his Works. Come, Christian; look up­on the Tree. In the winter it is stripped of its fruit and leaves, nipped by the frost, covered with snow, so that it seems to be withered and dead, and fit only to be cast into the fire. Say then; May not Faith be where Sin and the filth of the Flesh hath oppressed it? Can a winter of affliction dead it? Or shall we think that man whose Works alwaies speak not his Faith, whose light sometimes shines dimly before men, to be in the sha­dow of death, and only fit fuel for hell-fire? No: this were to wrong our Charity as well as our Faith, to make the way to hell broader then it is, to enlarge the kingdome of Satan, to undervalue the gift of Grace, to mistrust the promise of God, and to make him a liar like unto our selves. What if we be weak and feeble? What if the arm of flesh cannot uphold us? Yet God directeth us in our paths; and is as tender-hearted to us as a nurse to her child when she teacheth it to go, sometimes leading and guid­ing us by his mercy, sometimes catching if we slip, and, if we fall, ha­stily pulling us up again, and snatching us to his embraces.

Hear this, and leap for joy, you who are members of Christs mystical body. You may fall, but you shall rise again. Your names are written in the Book of Life; and neither the malice nor the policy of Satan can blot them out. God hath made a league with you; and you may be sure he will be as good as his word. He hath married himself to you for ever; and then you need not fear a divorce. He hath written his law in the midst of your heart; and the Devil shall never rase it out. He hath put his fear into you, and such, and so great a fear, as St. Augustine speaks, that you shall alwaies adhere unto him, that shall make you fly Sin as a Serpent; and, if it chance to bite and sting you, shall make you look up to that brasen Serpent lifted up, and you shall be healed. If you be tempted, he will give the issue: Only thou must so be confident that you presume not; 1 Cor. 10. so fear, that you despair not. Faith and Fear together make a blessed mix­ture; Fear being as the lungs, and Faith as the heart, which will get an heat, and over-heat, as one speaketh, if by Fear, as by cool air, it be not tempered. If then Faith uphold thy Fear, and Fear temper thy Faith, though thou take many a fall by the way, yet at last thou shalt come to thy journeys end. Though the Devil shake thy Faith, yet God will protect it: Though he for a while steal away this precious Jewel, the joy of thy salvation, yet God will restore it. Which is my second part, the Person whose act it is; Restore thou.

It is not the tongue of an Angel can comfort David. The Prophet might awake him, but raise him up he could not. Nathans Parable had been but as a Proverb of the dust, and his Thou art the man had sooner forced a frown then a tear from a King, had not Gods Spirit fitted his heart, had not the holy Ghost been the Interpreter. For it is not so with the Heart as it is with the Eye. The Eye indeed cannot make light nor colours, yet it can open [Page 102] it self, and receive them, but the Heart neither can produce this Joy, nei­ther can it open it self to receive it: But God must pulsare, & aperire; knock, and open; take away the bars, and open the doors of it, and purge and cleanse it. He must write in it the forgiveness of sins, and shine upon it with the light of his countenance, or else the weight of Sin will still oppress it. This Joy ariseth out of the forgiveness of our sins: Now such is the nature of Sin, that though actus transit, yet reatus manet, as Lombard speaks. Sin no longer is, then it is a committing; but the guilt of Sin still remains; like a blazing star, which, though it self be extinct, yet leaves its infection behind it. For to rise from sin is not only to cease from the act of sinning, but to repair our former estate; not only to be rid of the disease, but to enjoy our former health. Now in sin, as Aquinas saith, there are two things, peccati macula, and poenae reatus; the Blot and Stain of sin, which doth darken the lustre of Grace. And we, who made this stain, can blot it out again. It is lost labour to wash our selves. Can we Leopards lick out our own spots? Can we purge our selves with hyssope, and be clean? Can we wash our black and polluted souls, and make them whiter than snow? And for the Guilt and Punishment due to sin, we all stand quaking at God's Tribunal, we look towards the mercy-seat: and if God extreamly mark what is done amiss, whose joynts of his loins are not loosed? whose knees smite not one against another? who is there able to abide it? God is our Judge, and he alone must quit us. He is offen­ded, and he must forgive us. Come, and let us return unto him: for he hath suffered us to be spoiled, and he will heal us; to be wounded, and he will bind us up. After two dayes he will revive us, and the third he will raise us up. He is our Creditour, and hath taught us to pray unto him to forgive us our debts. Every sin properly is against him; either immediately, when we sin against the first Table; or mediately, when we sin against the second, when we strike God through our neighbour's side, and so by breaking the Law wrong the Law-giver. And therefore he only can forgive our sins, against whom our sins are most properly committed. Nathan indeed pronounced Davids pardon, Deus transtulit peccatum, and so may be said to remit his sin ministerialiter, by way of office and ministery; but God did it autori­tativè, by way of power, right and autority. Nathan had his commission from God: and if comfort had not shined from thence, David had still lain in sorrow, and as yet remained in the dust of Death. Ten moneths were now passed since his sin was committed, and yet we read of no compuncti­on. He lay stupefied in sin, and was like a man sleeping in the midst of his enemies. Oh then whose heart can conceive those thoughts which possessed him when he awaked? His river of tears could not now express his grief. He saw God, who was wont to guide him in his paths and direct him in his wayes, now withdrawing himself, hiding his face from him, and leaving him under the burden of his sin. And high time it was to call him back again, to seek him by importunity of prayer; to send after him sighs and groans; to sow in tears, that he might reap in joy.

Look now upon David, whosoever thou art that carriest Man and Frail­ty about thee. Behold him lying on the ground, see him pressed down with the burden of his sin; and then think his case thine. Think the time may come when thou mayest have no feeling of Christ at all, and thy poor soul may be as a man desolate in the night, without comfort; that it may be beaten down to the dust, and thy belly cleave unto the earth. Tell me, whom then wilt thou fly unto for succour? what balme wilt thou search out to refresh thee? The Pope may be liberal, and open his treasuries, and let fly an Indulgence: But it is not a Pardon from him can help thee. Alass! miserable comfort is this. A merry tale well told is far better. Yet it [Page 103] may be thou hopest to make the law of Unrighteousness thy strength, to drown thy sorrows in a cup of wine; to leave them behind thee, and lose them amongst merry company. In this thou dost but like the Dog, break the chain, and draw a great part of it after thee: O then, if thou fall with David, with David trust in the Lord. What if his Jealousie burn like fire? let thy tears quench it. Let thy prayers like pillars of smoke mount up­wards, and pierce the clouds, and offer an holy violence to God. Then when Hope is almost changed into Despair, thou shalt find Christ, and feel him coming again; then Faith shall revive, and lay faster hold on him; then shall the joy of thy salvation be restored. And when thy soul is heavy, and thy heart is disquieted, and thy bowels vexed within thee, then will he look upon thy misery, and cause his face to shine; and the peace of conscience, like a sweet sleep, shall fall upon thee.

I come now, in the third place, to speak of the Person, King David: Restore to me. And who can look upon him but thorough tears: Who can behold him, and not look down unto his own steps? Whose pride can lift him up so high as to make him think the Devil cannot reach him, and pull him down? Or is not David sent to us as Nathan was to him, to tell us by his example that, unless God put under his hand, he that stands surest may take a fall, and that he who thinks himself like mount Sion may be moved? Surely if there be such Perfectionists, such proud Pharisees, that dare fling a stone at an adultress, and proclaim themselves without sin; if there be any whose Purity dare stand out with God, and answer him more then for one of a thou­sand; they might well take leave to demand that priviledge which that cur­sed Sect in Saxony bragged of, of whom Sleidan reporteth: Who boasted that they had private conference with God, and a command from him to kill all the wicked of the earth, and so to make a new world, whose purity should plead for it self, and not need the help of a Mediatour. But these men were possessed with more then a Novation spirit, and in their adven­ture to hell out-bid the [...], Which the manners of many turbulent spi­rits in our Church have long since Englished; Whose Religion, as Nazian­zene speaketh, was [...], whose piety was boasting, whose purity was impure; We craftily made, as he after observes, the ele­gancy of the name a bait to catch the ignorant and unwary multitude. Cursed and cruel men, who have not so much pity in them as the Levite in the Go­spel! He saw the man wounded, vouchsafed him a look, and then passed by: These by a witty and new kind of cruelty, as Cyprian calls it, till him that is already wounded, take away even the hope of recovery, and oppose the thunder of an excommunication even to the least noise of sin, refusing the penitency and contrition of their brother, and denying the mercy of their Father which is in heaven; justly deserving a hell, because they threaten it; and the surest heirs of damnation, because they make all others so. But what? is this the state of Mankind, that we must either be viler then the worms of the earth, only fuel for hell-fire, or else stand out with God, and contend for purity with the Most High? No, foolish Sectary, we have bet­ter learned Christ. Each Christian, if he look upon David, will quickly see upon what ground he stands; and that if every fall after Baptism were as far as hell, Gods promise would be suspected, and Repentance, which is offered to the greatest sinner, would be proposed to mock, not to com­fort us; like a staff held out to look on, not to help us; or like a mess of meat upon a dead mans grave, for which we should be never awhit the better. We behold the Saints throwing down their crowns before the Throne, and can we either, with the Anabaptist, think we can attain to a perfect Rev. 4. degree of regeneration, or, with the supererogating Papist, rob God of his honor, pull heaven unto us, and make it not Gods gift but our own con­quest? [Page 104] What suckling in Religion knows not to distinguish between perfe­ction of Parts and perfection of Degrees? We know our Sanctification is uni­versal, not total; in every part, but in part. Our Understanding is enlight­ned, yet there remains some darkness; our Will rectified, yet some per­versness; our Affections ordered and subdued, yet prone to disobedience; our whole man sanctified, but not wholly. We propose to our selves not this or that, but every commandment, to observe. We compose and order our life to the rule, and shun whatsoever is repugnant to it; but we do but be­gin, not finish. We make Perfection our prayer, not our boast; and expect it not here, but in heaven. One while we have need of the cords of love to lead us, another while of the thunderbolts of Gods judgments to terrifie us: One while the thought of hell must beat us from sin, another while the love of heaven must lead us in the paths of righteousness: Now his promi­ses, now his threatnings must excite us. Let Fulgentius conclude this point; Perfecti sumus spe futurae glorificationis, imperfectionere corruptionis: It is in his Book ad Monimum: We are perfect in respect of the hope of future Glory; imperfect, if we consider this body of death, this burden of corruption: per­fect in expectation of the reward, the crown of glory; imperfect, as we are in the battel, in the race, fighting and running to obtain this Crown. And this was St. Pauls Perfection, Let as many as be perfect, that is, in some degree, and Phil. 3. 15. in respect of others. For v. 12. he accounts not himself to have obtained, or to be already perfect. And v. 13. he professeth, Brethren, I account not my self that I have attained: one thing I do; I forget that which is behind, and endea­vour my self to that which is before. Now then let not Frailty and Infirmity dispute with its Creator. He that once was taken up into the third heaven, had so much earth about him as to feel the combat between the Flesh and the Spirit. He that was a chosen vessel had some cracks in him, and had fallen to pieces, and lost that heavenly treasure, had not God preserved it. Job's an­swer best fits a Christian's mouth, Behold, I am vile: what shall I answer thee? Job 40. 4. I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Yet look up too. Let not Desperation keep thee down; but let the power of godly Sorrow lift thee up again. Know that to confess thy sin and to repent, is as it were to make the Angels a ban­quet, and to send more joy to heaven. Let Repentance reconcile thee with God: then though the Devil strive to cover thee over in the grave of sin, yet thou shalt come forth: though thy bones be broken, yet they shall rejoyce; and to thee now, as to David then, the joy of thy salvation shall be restored; The last part, the Object, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.

Davids request is for Peace of conscience, the joy of Gods salvation; that which St. Paul calls joy in the holy Ghost. The Septuagint render it by the Rom. 14. 17. Greek word [...], which signifies more then joy, even exultation, and rejoy­cing, and triumphing for joy; like that of the Church Psal. 126. When the Lord brought again the captivity of Sion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with joy. It is the highest degree, almost excess and surfet, of Joy. God may let me feel it, but express it I never can. Tell me, Christian, (or indeed canst thou tell me?) what joy thou conceivest at this spiritual banquet. Doth doubt arise within thee because Christ is not present? See, here he hath left a pledge and pawn behind him, his blessed Sacrament; Take, eat; this is his body: Thou shalt never hunger. Take, drink; this is his bloud: Thou shalt never thirst. Dost thou believe? Believe then, he is nearer to thee in these outward elements then the Papists would make him; beyond the fiction of Transubstantiation. When the Priest delivers to thee the sanctified Bread, let thy meditation lead thy Saviour from his Cradle to his Cross. His whole life was to lead thy cap­tivity captive. And now with the eyes of faith behold him stretcht out upon the Cross, and think thy self unburdened, and that heavy weight laid [Page 105] upon thy Saviours shoulders, and then thou canst not chuse but suppose thou heardst him groan; It was a heavy burden that fetcht that groan from him. A strange thing! thy sins, which were not yet committed, pierced him. Yet let not despair take thee. Anon thou shalt hear that triumphant and victo­rious noise, It is finished; A voice which rent the vail of the Temple in twain, clove the stones, made the earth to quake, and was able to have changed not that place alone (to what once it was, if we may believe some Geographers) but the whole world into a Paradise. When the Priest offers thee the Cup, think then thou seest Christ bleeding, and pouring out non guttam sed undam sanguinis, not drops but streams of bloud. Think thou seest per vulnera vis­cera, through his wounded side the bowels of Compassion. And then think thou art partaker of his promise already, and that now thou drinkest with him in his Fathers kingdome. Tell me now: Where art thou? Is not this to be rapt into the third heaven; Now thou canst call God Father; now thou art sure of thy perseverance; now thou canst think of hell without fear and horror. Thou canst make thy bed of sickness look sorrowful only to thy friends: and, whilst they stand weeping and howling by thy bed side; thou shalt have no other cause of lamentation but that they lament thee. And then in the midst of shreeks and outcryes, when with trembling hands they close up thy eyes as if they close up their hopes, thy soul shall pass away, and settle it self in Abrahams bosome. If this be not joy indeed, and exultati­on and triumphing for joy, if this be not above an [...], tell me, What Paradise shall we search for it? where shall we find it? When my cogita­tions settle upon this blessed object, methinks I see a Christian in his white and triumphant robes, walking upon the pavement of heaven, laughing at and scorning the vanities of the world, looking upon them as an aged man would on childrens toyes, beginning, with Nazianzene, [...], to be a fellow-citizen with the Angels, and, with Cyprian, miserere sae­culi; to look down upon the world with pity and compassion; being even now a type of a glorified Saint, and the resemblance of an Angel. I could loose my self in this Paradise; I could build a Tabernacle upon this Mount Tabor: for even but to speak of it is delight. My Conclusion shall be in Prayer.

O thou who art the Father of this joy, and God of all consolation, whose king­dome consists not in meats and drinks, but in joy unspeakable, even the joy of the holy Ghost; prevent us with thy mercy, that we fall not. But if, with David, we fall, in mercy restore us. Seal unto us the forgiveness of our sins, and fill our hearts with this joy!

WE begin as the Church beginneth. And we cannot be­gin better, nor chuse a more exact method then that we find in domo doctrinae (as the Chaldee Paraphrase calls the Church, upon the first of the Canticles) in the house of wisdome and learning. No method to the method of the Church, nor any language so delightful to the child as the language of the Mother. We need say no more. The autority of the Church makes good the choice of my Text. But yet we cannot but observe the wisdome of the Church in fitting the Text to the Time. For as it is one commendation of an Ora­tor apta dicere, to fit his speech to the matter he speaks of, so is it also op­portuna dicere, to level and apply it to the time. The Orator will tell us, Non idem signorum concentus procedente ad praelium exercitu, idem receptui carmen, An alarum and a retreat have different notes; nor is the sound of the Trumpet the same when we bid battel as when we leave it. This time of Lent, these thirty six dayes, which is Quadrage sima propriè dieta, as Bellarmine speaks, the whole time of our clean Lent, the Church of Christ hath cull'd out and set apart as the tith of our dayes, saith St. Bernard, as the tith of the year, saith Aquinas, as the tith of our life, saith Gerson; wherein she calls upon her children in a more especial manner not only [...], as Julian speaks, to wage war with their belly and appetite, by fasting and ab­stinence, but to fight against themselves, their irregular desires and inor­dinate lusts, to make a retreat from Sin, and to fight the battels of the Lord of hosts. I confess, as Clemens speaketh of a Christian mans life, [...], the whole term of it should be a feast, a holy day unto the Lord, wherein he should continually offer up the sweet-smelling sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving: so the Lent of a Christian man should take up not forty dayes only but all the dayes and hours of a Christian man. But since we are so willing to forget our selves, and suffer our souls to gather rust; since few men would faste at any time if there were not statum jejunium, an allot­ted time of fasting; the Church calls upon us in the words of the Apostle, [...], Behold, now is the accepted time, now an occasi­on worth the laying hold of, [...], now is the day of salvation, a time of fasting, to prepare our selvs for the great Feast; a time of Lent, to pre­pare us for Easter. And as it is prescribed the Jews Deut. 20. 2. that when they were come near unto the battel, the Priest should come forth to encourage the people: And in all ages Captains have had their Orations to their Soul­diers, quibus animos addant, to make them bold and stout in the battel: So [Page 107] doth the Church bring in St. Paul, [...], as Nazianzene speaks, the Captain and Champion of all the faithful Souldiers of Christ Jesus, bespeaking the Corinthians, and in them the whole Christi­an world throughout all Generations, now at this time to put on the armor of light; and, as they have given up their names unto Christ, so to receive regium characterem, the Imperial mark and character of Christ; to engrave it not on their arm, but on their heart; non desinere esse quod esse dicuntur, as the Imperial laws require of Governors and Guardians of Cities, not to leave off to be what they are said to be; to please him who hath chosen them to be 2 Tim. 2. 4. Souldiers, to labor, but as good Souldiers; and in the words of my Text, To receive the grace of God; but that is not all; so to receive it, that they receive it not in vain.

I know this Text by Bellarmine and others is applyed to this time of Lent: And so it may very well. For by this we are taught the right use of Fasting, and how to improve this time, this short time, this fleeting time, these forty dayes to Aeternity it self. But being unwilling to draw the words from their native and primitive sense, and intending to make that the subject and work of the next day, and now only to glance at it by the way; I will take the words [...], as they ly in St. Paul, and in that sense which he first intended. And then I may call my Text St. Pauls fidei-commissum, his Legacy, which he leaves as a feoffment in trust to all poste­rity; Breviarium totius Evangelii, a Breviary of the whole Gospel; a short Catechisme for Christians, which whoso learns by heart is a true Gospeller indeed. Not to receive the grace of God in vain, is signaculum super brachi­um, a signet upon the arm, and signaculum super cor, a seal upon the heart, the true seal and character of a Christian. Ecce panem; parate fauces, as St. Bernard saith, Behold, here is the bread of life! Take it down by attention, and digest it by meditation and practise: And with me consider first the Duty proposed by way of negation, shall I say? or caution, Receive not the grace of God in vain. For the Civilians will tell us, Vetita quadam ex­ceptione corrigunt quae jubentur; A negative precept by a kind of cautelous exception doth restrain and correct a positive. To receive the grace of God is a Christians best Recipe: for with it he receiveth all things. It is his Wealth, to supply his poverty; his Strength, to establish his weakness; his Happiness, to sweaten all the misery of the world. It is [...]; a catholick remedy against all evil. But not to receive it in vain, is a restricti­on, a direction how we should receive it. It is not in the gift, but in the hand; not in the meat, but in the stomach; not in the physick, but in the Recipiatis; not in the grace, but in the receiving of it. Volenti est salus, nolenti supplicium, saith St. Augustine, As I receive it, it may be my phy­sick; and as I receive it, it may be my poyson. Great care then to be had to the Recipiatis, how we receive it. But then, in the second place, con­sider St. Paul's Motive or Insinuation. He draws his argument ab officio, from his high calling and dignity; [...], We as fellow-workers together with God exhort and beseech you; We who have obteined a dignity above the very Angels themselves, [...], working together with God, as God by us, we from God, and God by us, beseech you. For this end we received our Commission, that you might not receive the grace of God in vain. So the Ne recipiatis is both an Exhortation and a Command. Potestas, cùm rogat, jubet; The Insinuations of Autority are Commands; their In­treaties, Precepts. But this circumstance perhaps will be neither seasona­ble, nor welcome. The dignity and high calling of a Priest is no argument now-adayes, but only then when Malice can draw it close to meet with our infirmities. We are never so high as Angels till we are lower than Men, e­ven like to the Beasts that perish. Then argumentum à persona, an argument [Page 108] from our person, from our office and dignity, is readily taken up; and we are very skilfull in these Topicks. Humanum aliquid patimur? Do we betray our selves to be men of the like passions and infirmities with you? Do we fall like other men? then, and then only, we are Angels. Then Lu­cifer is fallen from heaven, the worker hath forgot his rule, and the helper is in the ditch. When we sow our spiritual things, we are not helpers: When we should reap your temporal things, we are not helpers: When we do not help our selves, then we are, and we hear it loud enough. When our mouth is open unto you, and our affections vehement and vocal, then our mouths are open against us, and our titles of honour accuse us: A main reason, I perswade my self, that the Nè recipiatis finds so hard an entrance into your hearts, and that so many receive the grace of God in vain.

But I will wave this circumstance, and in this spare you. And indeed the Duty here, the Nè recipiatis, is of such consequence that it commends its self without a Preface: Nor needs there any motive where the prescript is Salvation. Maltùm valet oratio remedio intenta, saith Seneea; That speech is powerful which is fixt and intentive and level'd on the good of the hear­er. It is easie, one would think, to perswade a sick man to be well, a poor man to be rich, and a wretched man to be happy. Not to receive a gift in vain, what need there any art to commend it? We will therefore fix our meditations here, and carry them along by these steps or degrees. We will shew you 1. What this Grace of God is; 2. That received it must be. And these two will serve for an introduction to the last, and bring in the Caution, Nè recipiatis, which casts a kindly reflexion on, and sweetens and seasons both the other; For what is Grace, if it be not received? and what is the recipiatis, if it be in vain? Of these in their order.

There is nothing more talked of then Grace, nothing less understood, nothing more abused. Every man fills his mouth with it, justus ad aequita­tem, perjurus ad fraudem; the upright man for honesty, the perjured man for deceit, the humble for piety, the proud for aemulation, Ebrius ad phialam, mendicus ad januam, the Drunkard at his cups, the Beggar at the gate. The Tradesman in his shop. The Schools are intricate, and the Fathers profuse in this argument. Totius mundi una vox Gratia est, Men mention nothing oftner; as if they had studied nothing else. By Grace we are good, by Grace we are rich, and by Grace we are honourable: and if we be evil, it is for want of Grace. But bring the greatest sort of men to a tryal, and we shall find them no better proficients in the study of Grace then Boethias's Scholar in Poetry, who having a long time studied Vir­gil askt at length whether Aeneas was a man or woman. Not to trouble you with curious speculations, which commonly make things more obscure by interpretation, and the Commentary harder then the Text; the Grace of God is [...], hath divers significations. It is taken for the favour of God, inherent in God himself; and it is taken for sanctifying Grace, in­herent in the regenerate person, a gift flowing from the former: It is taken for Habitual Grace, and it is taken for Inherent Grace. In the language of the Schools it is auxilium speciale, that special and immediate furtherance by which God moves us to will and to do; a supernatural quality, which sweetly and readily directs us in our way unto the end, by illuminating our mind, by enflaming our love, by strengthning our hand, that we see how to work, and are willing and able to work; the three necessary re­quisites to the performance of every good action. It works in us, without us; and it worketh in us, with us; It prevents, and it follows us. By it we begin, and by it we persevere, and by it we are brought unto glory. By it, saith St. Augustine, we are healed, and by it we are made active, by it we are called, and by it we are crowned. And this is that which St. Paul [Page 109] mentioneth 1 Cor. 15. 10. By the grace of God I am that I am; and his grace was not in vain. For see the blessed and fruitful effects it wrought, in the next words, I laboured more abundantly then they all. Yet startling as it were, and afraid of the very mention of himself, he corrects himself, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Would you know what materials Grace had to work upon? He tells you ver. 9. that he was a per­secutor of the Church of Christ. Strange materials to square an Apostle out of, and a statue of Christ. Primus pietatis aries Evangelii retusus est mucro, saith St. Hierome; He who was as a battering Ram or Engine to shake the Gospel, by the grace of God had his edge taken off and his force abated, and was made a pillar of that Truth which he sought to ruin. Thus can the Spirit of God work miraculously where it pleaseth, and, to sow the seed of grace, alter the complexion and nature of the soil. Though the heart be as hard as flint, and barren as the sand, he can make it as soft as wax, and as fertile as Canaan or the Paradise of God. Indeed no man can deny the operation of Grace but he that feels it not: and such a mans deny­al can be no argument that there is no Grace: for his very want of Grace confutes it. Noctua non praejudicat aquilae, The Batt doth not prejudice the light which the Eagle sees: Nor would we credit a blind man that should tell us there were no Sun.

This Grace then we must acknowledge: But this is not the Grace meant in the Text; nor indeed (as we are made believe by some) can it be. For this Grace, say they, ideo datur ut non recipiatur in vanum, is therefore given that it may not be received in vain. When it is offered, it is recei­ved; and when it is received, it is received to that end and purpose for which it was offered. No heart is stone enough to beat it back, no soul so stubborn as to resist it: neither height, nor depth, nor the Devil, nor Sin it self can evacuate it. The Recipiatis is unavoidable, and the in vanum impossible. And every man is a St. Paul, a priviledged person, not sweet­ly water'd with abundance, but violently driven on with a torrent and inun­dation of Grace. We must therefore find out another sense of the word: Although, for ought that can be said, the Exhortation may concern us in this sense also, and teach us to hear when God speaks, to open when he knocks, not to be deaf to his thunder, nor to hide our selves from his lightning, nor to quench the spirit, nor [...], to resist and fall cross with Acts 7. 51. the holy Ghost. But in the Scripture two words we find by which the Gra­ces of God are expressed. There is [...], here in the Text; and [...], spiritual gifts. Plainly, there are more common and necessary Graces, which 1 Cor. 12. concur to sanctification of life, to uprightness and common honesty: And there are peculiar graces, as Quickness of Will, Depth of Understanding, Skill in languages; or supernatural, as gifts of Tongues, gifts of Healing, of Miracles, of Prophesie, and the like. These are not [...], but [...], rather gifts then graces, and are distributed but to certain persons in such measure as seems best to Gods Wisdome. Why men are not as strong as Samson, or as learned as Solomon, why they prophesie not as Jeremy, and work not miracles as Paul, all this is from God. But why men are not righteous as Noah, devout as David, zealous as Elias, we must find the cause in our selves, and not lay the defect on God. Now the Grace in the Text is none of all these, but is that gratia Evangelii, the Grace of reconciliati­on by Christ, the Doctrine of the Gospel, which Christ commanded to be preached to all Nations. And in this sense it is most frequently used in holy Scripture, in the Epistles of St. Paul, where we so often find it placed in opposition to the Works of the Law. This is it which he so oft commends unto us: This is it which he here exhorts us to receive. This is it for the propagation of which he was in afflictions, necessities, distresses, in stripes, [Page 110] in prisons, in labors, in tumults; which are a part of the catalogue of his sufferings in this Chapter. And this is not only [...], but [...], a grace, and a gift too, without which all other gifts and graces, aut nihil sunt, aut nihil prosunt, deserve not that name: Strength is but weakness, Learn­ing is but folly, Prophesies are but dreams, Miracles are sluggish, all are not worth the receiving, or are received [...], in vain. Shall I say it is a greater gift then that robe of Righteousness with which God clothed Adam in Paradise? It so far exceeds it that we dare not compare them. There is a MULTO MAGIS set upon it by St. Paul Rom. 5. 15. and a NON SIC, Not as the offense, so is the free gift; The Loss not so great as the Recovery. Nay, cui Angelorum? What speak we of Adam? To whom of the Angels did God give such a gift? What a glory would we count it out of Nothing to be made an Angel, a Seraphim? By this gift, by the Grace of Christ, we are raised from Sin, above the perfection and beauty of any created substance whatsoever, above the Hierarchy of Angels and Archangels. A Christian, as he is united to Christ, is above the Seraphims. For take the substance of a Seraphim by it self, and compare it to a Man re­conciled to God by this Grace, and the difference will be as great as be­tween a Picture and a Man. An Artificer may draw his own Picture: but he can only express his likeness, his color, his lineaments; he cannot re­present his better part, his Soul, which constitutes and makes him what he is: Take all the creatures of the Universe, and they are but weak and faint shadows and adumbrations of Divine perfection. God is not so ex­prest by an Angel as by a Christian, who is his lively image, as the Son is the image of his Father, by a kind of fellowship and communication of na­ture. The Creature represents God as a Statue doth the Emperor; but a Christian, as the Son his Father, between whom there is not only likeness, but identity, and a participation of the same nature. For by this gift, by these promises, we are made partakers of the Divine nature, saith St. Peter. [...] Pet. 1. 4. And as a Father takes more delight to look upon his Son then upon his Pi­cture and Figure, so God looks more graciously upon a Christian then upon any created essence, then upon the nature of Angels. He that gave the Gift, he that was the Gift, pray for us John 17. 21, 22. that we may be all one; and as his Father is in him, and he in his Father, so we may be one in them, as they are one. This is the Gift by which God did [...], saith the Apostle, gather together and re-establish the decay'd nature of Man; [...], saith St. Chrysostome, knit and joyn together, Heaven and Earth. And as Christ spake of John Baptist Matth. 11. 14. Hic est Elias, si vul­tis recipere; He shall be Elias to you, if you will receive him; so, Haec est gratia Dei; The Gospel, the Reconciliation made by Christ, is the Grace of God, if we will receive it. Which is my next part.

And what is a Gift if it be not received? Like a mess of pottage on a dead mans grave, like Light to the blind, like musick to the deaf. The dead man feeds not, the blind man sees not, the deaf man hears not. What were all the beauty of the Firmament, if there were no eye to descry it? What is the Grace of God without Faith? The Receiving of it is it which makes it a Grace indeed, which makes it Gospel. If it be not received, it is [...], in vain. An unbelieving heart turneth this bread into gravel, this honey into gall; and, as much as in him lyes, doth not only crucifie but an­nihilate the Lord of Life. We usually compare Faith to a Hand, which is reached forth to receive this Gift. Without a Hand a Jewel is a trifle, and the treasure of both the Indies is nothing: and without Faith the Gospel is but Christus cum suâ fabulâ, as the Heathen spake in reproach, but a fable or relation. And therefore an absolute necessity there is that we receive it. For without this receipt all other receipts are not worth the casting [Page 111] up. Our Understanding receives light, to mislead her; our Will power, to overthrow her; our Afflictions which are [...], incorporeal hands, receive nothing but vanity. Our moral goodness makes us not good: our Philosophy is deceit. Our acquisite Habits lift us no further then the place where they grow, that is, Earth and Nature. But with this gift we receive all things; we receive the favor and gracious countenance of our Creator; who in Christ is well pleased, and in him looks upon us as the Emperor did behold wars and slaughter and ruine and desolation in a large Emerald, whose color temper'd the object, and made it appear less horri­ble then it was. Unum est donum, & unius sunt omnia dona; It is but one gift, but it turns all things into it self, and makes them a gift. All the works of Nature, all the wonders of Grace, all the Saints are shut up in this Receit. All happiness, all misery, that which we long for, that which we run from, that which we roar under, with this Grace is a gift. Nay, our very Sins are made useful and beneficial to us by the light of the Gospel; as Light cast upon a dark body, which it cannot illuminate, is doubled by reflexion. And therefore every man in respect of Grace should be ad instar materiae, like as the Matter is to the Form, which Plato calls [...], which comes from the word [...] in the Text, the receptacle of the Form, should be so inclinable to receive it as if it could have no exsistence without it; should even labor and travel, as the Apostle speaks, till Christ be fully formed Gal. 4. 19. in him. For what though we receive the good things of this world? There is a Nuno autem follows them, Now art thou tormented in the end of that receipt. What if we receive Honor? Shame follows at the very heels of it. What if we receive those ornaments of the mind which Philosophy calls Virtues? They are but splendida peccata, but glorious sins, like Glo­worms, which in the night cast some brightness, but will not warm us. Tell we receive this grace, we are nothing; we are worse then nothing, but Ne­hustitan, a lump of brass, tell by this Grace we are reformed and transfi­gured into a statue of Christ. I need not stand longer on this point; and I intended it but as an introduction. For I am sure all here have recei­ved this Grace, at least profess they have. And there is as great danger in receiving it as in unbelief. For the Philosopher will tell us, Quicquid reci­pitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis: All is not in the gift; the greatest mat­ter is in the manner of receiving it. The Gospel is grace indeed; but it will not save a Devil, nor an obstinate offendor. Stomachus vitiatus, saith Se­neca, alimentum in causam doloris trahit, A foul stomach corrupts all that it receives, and turns that meat, which should nourish the body into a disease: and a corrupt heart poysons the very water of life, ut evangelium Christi sit evangelium hominis, saith St. Augustine, it alters the very nature of the Gospel, and makes it not the Gospel of Christ but of Man. Judas receives a sop, and with it the Devil. The grand mistake of the world is in the manner of receiving Christ. For as in the dogmatical part of Chri­stianity we find that in former times they could not agree in the manner of receiving Christ, [...], but some would receive him after this manner, some after another, they knew not how themselves; some a created Christ, others a half-Christ, some through a conduit-Pipe, others less visible then in a type, in an aereal phantastical body, a Christ, and not a Christ; a Christ divided, and a Christ contracted; and [...], saith Nazianzene, many Christs, indeed as good none at all: So in the practical part we often erre, and dangerously, in our receiving him. We say Anathema to the Arians, and Manichees, and Anabaptists: and let them pass with the censure of the Church upon them: But how do we receive him? Our own conscience will tell us; with his cur­led locks and spicy cheeks, with his flagons and his apples; to save sinners, [Page 112] not to instruct them; with grace as much as he will, but with no command or law; a Physician, that should heal us, without a prescript; a King, with­out a Scepter; a Son, that would be kistt, (we like that well) but not be angry. Nor can we now impute this to the Gospel and the Grace of God: for that is [...], of but one shape and hiew, and presents salvation to every receiver. The fault is not in the Grace, but in our receiving it: As we do not blame the Table for a rude piece that is drawn upon it, but the Painter, who forgot his art. The Stoicks conceive that every thing hath two handles, and as men take hold either of one or other, so they prove either de­lightful or irksome. The truth is, the Gospel hath not two handles; but we rather have two hands, diverse manners of receiving it. To one it is the savor of life unto life; and to others, the savor of death unto death. Great care then must be taken how we receive it, that we may not receive it in vain. We must re­ceive 2 Cor. [...]. 16. this grace of God to that end it was given. I know you will quickly say, that was to save us. For this end Christ came into the world: we have Scri­pture for it. The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all 2 Tit 2. 11. men. But doth it not follow; teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts? and that is Scripture too. We must receive it as Law as well as Physick. His, Do, ut des; & facio, ut facias: God gives us this gift, that we may give him our obedience; and he hath done this for us, that we may do something, even work out our salvation with fear and trembling; This Grace then we must receive both to save us and instruct us; as a royal Par­don, Jam. 2. 8. and as a royal Law; To interline the Pardon, and despise the Law, makes a nullity: and this is [...], to receive in vain.

And in the first place, a Pardon we must not interline. For to mix and blend it with the law of Works, or our own Merits, is to disannul and make it void, and, in St. Paul's phrase, [...], to cast away the grace of God. By Gal. 2. 21. grace you are saved, and not by works, saith the Apostle. Works, though they be conditio justificandi, a condition required of a justified person, yet Ephes. 2. 8, 9. are not pars justificationis, cannot be brought in as a part or helping cause of our Justification. Satisfaction and Merits are but false interlineary glosses, and corrupt the Text: and to receive the grace of God with this mixture is in Tertullians phrase Galaticare, to be as foolish as the Galatians. For indeed a great folly it is, when God hath plainly revealed his will, when he hath concluded all under sin, and St. Paul proves both against Jew and Gentile that all have sinned; when God is pleased to justifie us freely by his Grace, then to bring in our inherent Righteousness to joyn with Grace, as Rom. 3. 24. if we were unwilling to be too far ingaged to God's Mercy. It is true in­deed, every good act doth justifie a man so far as it is good, and God so far esteems them holy and good. He taketh notice of his own graces in his children: He registers the Patience of Job, the Zeal of Phinehas, the Devo­tion of David. A Cup of cold water, a Mite flung into his treasury shall have its reward. But yet all the good works of all the Saints in the world cannot satisfie for the breach of the Law, no more then a Traytor can re­deem his Treason against the King by giving an alms, or, which is more, by dying for his Country. The point is plain and easie, delivered in terminis in Scripture, urged, proved, and strongly confirmed by St. Paul almost in every Epistle, that all is from Grace: Et cum de voluntate Dei constat, omnis de merito quaestio vana est; When we know Gods will, what dispute we any longer of Merit? But such is our ingratitude and curiosity that we will not take Gods Grace as we find it: we will not take Gods gifts in the build­ing, but we beat and work them out into what form we please: we come and stamp them; and be the piece what mettal it will, we set our image and superscription upon it. God in Scripture sets these two terms, Grace and Works, at extream opposition; but by a trick of wit we have learnt [Page 113] to work them into one piece, making a good work meritorious because it is of Grace; as Pelagius of old confounded Nature and Grace, because even Nature it self is a Grace: A flat contradiction. For if it be of grace, how doth it merit? unless we will say that the Gift deserves something of the Giver, or that a charitable man is indebted to a beggar for the penny and almes which he gave him. I have said enough to clear the point, which hath been too much obscured with needless disputes. I will not say with Cal­vine Diabolica illa ars quae Scholasticae nomen obtinet, that devilish art of wrangling, which we call School-Divinity, hath put out the light of this truth; nor with Martin Luther, Theologia Scholastica est mater ignorantiae, that Scholastical disputations are the mother of ignorance: but, as Pliny spake of the Graecians, Cùm gens ista literas suis dedisset, omnia corrupit, they have corrupted the Truth, and put her in such a dress, that we cannot know her: they have shut up this doctrine in perplexed obscurity, which before was plain and easie to the understanding. For what hath been observed of the study of Philosophy, is true also in the pursuit of Divine knowledge; When men made Wisdome the only aim and end of their studies, then was Philoso­phy referred to its proper end: but when they used it only to fill up their time, or satisfie their ambition, or delight their will, then Philosophy lost her complexion and strength, and degenerated into folly: then Diogenes got him a tub, and Epicurus a swarm of Atomes: then the Stoicks brought in their Decrees and Paradoxes: then were there mille familiarum nomina & discrimina, so many sects that it is not easie to name them: and some there were who did shew the diversity of their opinions by outward signs alone, by Weeping and Laughing. So in Divinity we find it, that Truth never suffered tell she was made a matter of wit and ambition, tell out of private respects Policy was made a moderator and stater of questions; then for one Justification we had two, nay three: then meritum de condigno, and de congruo, Merits of Condignity and Congruity, of Worthiness and Fitness, were brought in to help at a dead lift: And, that they may appear more glorious, tinguntur sanguine Christi, pains have been taken to dye them over with the bloud of Christ: and in these red colours they are presented, which they borrowed from art, and not from Scripture. Sure I am, in St. Pauls phrase this is to cast away the grace of God, and to evacuate the death of Christ; this is against the nature of Grace, which blended with humane Satisfaction and Merit is no more Grace, this is against the evidence of the Prophet Habakkuk often repeated by St. Paul, The Just shall live by faith, or, as some render it, The Just by faith, shall live. And if their Divinity on their death-bed be not better then that in their Schools, I fear me, there will be a Frustrà. For thus to receive the grace of God, is to deny it, or rather to despise it: and to de­spise it, I think I may boldly say, is to receive it in vain. Beloved, if it were but for this alone, for this derogation from the Grace of God, yet even for this alone might we justifie our separation from the Church of Rome, and send home the loud imputations of Heresie and Schism to her own gates, where first they were conceived. For where false conclusions are obtruded for truths, or truths corrupted with false additions there to consent were conspiracy; and open contestation is not faction or schism, but Christian animosity. They rather are guilty of the schism who made it necessary: It was a weak and foolish speech of Bosius in Tully, who professed that, if his friend Gracchus would bid, he would set fire on the Capitol. Chri­stianity admits no such friendship. If that Church will commend to us works of piety, we will hear with reverence; if enjoyn us to faste on Friday, or observe Lent-fast, we condemn it not; we will faste with her, we will pray with her, we will be reverent in Gods house with her: but if she bid us set fire on the Capitol, on this main and capital point of [Page 114] Religion, (for so I may call it, arcem & Capitolium religionis) here to obey were to be a Schismatick, to separate our selves from the truth and comforts of the Gospel, and from Christ himself. ‘ Non tanti est, tibi ut placeam, perire.’ Better it is that our opposers should be angry then we perish.

But we leave this vain receiving, and proceed to the other no less dange­rous then this, when we receive the grace of God only as a Pardon, and not as a Law. For who is not willing to be justified by Christ? To be freed from the Law, to be delivered from the Law, to be dead to the Law, it is musick to every ear, and a continual feast. Evangelical righteousness we are glad to hear of; and we could wish perhaps that there were no other mentioned. Lex ligat; Enact a law, and we are in fetters. Nay, lex occidit; The Law is a killing letter in this sense also. Who would look to find the Law in the Gospel? But we must remember that there is Lex evangelica, an evangeli­cal Law; that the grace of God, as it excludes the Law sub ratione foederis, as it is a covenant, so admits it sub ratione regulae, as it is a rule. The rigor of the covenant is abolisht, but the equity of the rule is as everlasting as the Lawgiver? It is our happiness by Grace to be freed from the covenant and curse of the Law; but it is our duty, and a great part of our Christianity, to square our lives by the rule of the Law. Therefore Religion was called in her purer times Christiana lex, the Christian Law; and the Bishops, E­piscopi Christianae legis, Bishops of the Christian Law. Evangelium commen­tum Divinitatis, saith Tertullian: The Gospel was the invention of the Deity. And God did not set up the Gospel to destroy, but to reform the Law. No, saith Nazianzene, [...], The Gospel of Christ is more laborious then the Law. Pythagoras is reported to have command­ed his Scholars, when they saw a man burdened, not to go about to ease him, but add rather unto his load: So our Saviour was so far from easing our bur­den, that he seemeth rather to add weight, and make it much heavier then it was before. For whether he did advance and encrease the strictness of the Law, as the Ancients did conceive, or whether he did but only clear the Law from those corrupt glosses with which the Jewish Doctors had infected it, certainly in shew and appearance he leaves it much heavier then it had formerly been understood by the Jew. Innocency and obedience to the Law hath alwaies been the badge of a Christian. Look into our Prisons, saith Tertullian, you find no Christian there. If you find a Christian there, the fault that laid him there is but this, That he is a Christian. We sail with you, we traffick with you, we go to war with you. Plus nostra misericor­dia insumit vicatìm quam religio vestra templariò; Our Charity spendeth more on the poor in our streets then your Superstition on your Gods in your Temples! Nihil Christiano foelicius, nihil laboriosius; Nothing is more hap­py then a Christian, nothing more painful. Thus the grace of God presents us with two things quite contrary, with Comfort and Labor; that Comfort might not puff us up, nor abundance of pain deject and throw us down. For the Grace of God appeared not to enfeeble our hands; or, with a dispensati­on from the works of Piety; nor to make us more indulgent to our selves; but that we might abound more and more in virtuous actions. I will not say with Socinus, that upon the very receiving of this Grace we receive also afflatum quendum Divinum, a kind of Divine inspiration, which toucheth the heart, and raiseth our hope, and warmeth our affections, and setteth our hands to work. For every one that receives this grace doth not work. Nor can I think that all the world is damned for infidelity. But a strange thing it may seem, that after we have given up our names unto Christ, after this certainty of knowledge and conscience of the truth, our ingratitude should kick with the heel, and despise these promises though an Angel from heaven [Page 115] should perswade them. It is a good saying of St. Augustine's, Nemo sibi permittat quod non permittit Evangelium; Let no man make the promise lar­ger then the Gospel hath made it, nor presume too much on the Grace of God. For such is the nature of Grace that it will not be fashioned to our actions, but we must proportion our actions to it. It is not [...], a bus­kin, to be indifferently drawn on upon any design. It will not fit my Ambi­tion in the eager pursuit of honor, nor my Covetousness in the grasping of wealth, nor my Luxury in doting on pleasures: But if I shape my actions to it, it is my honour, my wealth, my pleasure, my ALL. We are told by those who have written in the praise of Musick, that it holdeth great sympathy with the nature of Man; that it applies it self to all occasions, of Mirth, of Sorrow, of Company, of Solitude, of Sports, of Devotion. And such is the wonderful harmony of Grace that it fits it self to all estates, all degrees, all sexes, all ages, all actions whatsoever. It will labor with thee at the Plow, trade with thee in the Shop, study with thee in thy closet, fight with thee in the Field: and it keeps every man within the bounds of his calling and ho­nesty. But if I make it a pandar to my Pleasure, a stirrop to my Ambiti­on, a steward to my unbounded Avarice; if I make it my Parasite to flatter me, and not my Counsellor to lead and direct me, I am injurious to that Grace for the publication of which the Lord of life was crucified, I receive this grace, but in vain, and by my ungrateful receiving turn my antidote in­to poyson.

We cannot better conclude then with that of St. Hierome in his Epistle to that noble Matron Celantia, Illi terrena sapiant qui coelestia promissa non habent; Let them grovel on the earth who have not received these exceeding great and precious promises. Let the Epicure be wanton, and the Atheist pro­fane, 2 Pet. 1. 4. and the Philosopher vain glorious. Let them perish to whom the Gospel is hid. But let Christians imitate their Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus; and as he was crucified for us, so let us crucifie our selves, even our lusts and affections, that we may receive him, and not receive him in vain; but as we receive him here, and with him his Grace, his Gospel, his glorious Promises, so we may receive him at the last day, when he shall come to judge the quick and the dead according to this Gospel, and with him glory, im­mortality, and eternal life.

IT was my labor the last day to arm you against the glit­tering sword and terrors of Persecution; and I have now thought it fit to lead you further in these wayes of Horror, and to raise and build up in you a holy con­stancy and resolution against those fearful signs and af­frightments which shall usher in the end of the world. Then I strengthen and establish you against the Sons of men who are set on mischief, and whose right hand is full of bloud: Now I am to prepare you against the coming of the Son of Man and Son of God to judge both the quick and the dead, to plead the cause of the innocent, but to punish the hypocrite and oppressor with unquenchable fire; that is, to set the world at rights again, and to bring every man to his own place.

Our Saviour in this Chapter foretelleth the dreadful signs and appariti­ons that shall go before his second coming, to the end that when they come we may not be dismayed and affrighted at the sight, but may entertain them as Angels which bring us good tidings of good things; that we may look upon them as Objects of joy, rather then of amazement; that they may not dead our spirits, or change our countenances, or trouble our joynts, or make us hold down our heads like a bullrush, but rowse up our hearts, and fill us with joy, and make us to say, This is the day which the Lord hath made, a day of exaltation and redemption, a day of jubilee and triumph, and so look up, and lift up our heads.

And here, methinks, I see in my Text a strange conjunction, of Night and Day, of Brightness and Darkness, of Terror and Joy; or a chain made up as it were of these three links, Terror, Exultation, and Redemption. Yet they will well hang together, if Redemption be the middle link: For in this they meet and are friends: Redemption being that which turns the Night into Day, maketh affliction joyful, and puts a bright and lovely colour upon Horror it self. When these things come to pass. Why? these things are terrible. It is true; yet lift up your heads. But how can we lift up our heads in this day of terror, in this day of vengeance, in this day of gloomi­ness and darkness? Can we behold this sight, and live? Yes; we may. The next words are quick and operative, of power to lift up our heads, and to exalt our horn and strength as the horn of an Unicorne, and make us stand strong against all these terrors; Look up, lift up your heads; for your redemp­tion draweth nigh. Not to detein you longer by way of Preface; Four things there are which in these words that I have read are most remarkable. 1. The [Page 117] Persons unto whom these words are uttered, in the particle Your; Lift up your heads. 2. What things they are of which our Saviour here speaks, in the first words of the Text; Now when these things begin to come to pass. 3. The Behaviour which our Saviour commends unto us, in these words, Look up, lift up your heads. 4. Last of all, the Reason or Encouragement, words of life and power to raise us from all faintness of heart and dullness of spirit; For your redemption draweth nigh.

I have formerly upon another Text spoken of the two first points, the Persons to whom, and the Things whereof our Saviour here speaketh. Be­fore I come to the third point, the Behaviour prescribed to be observed by them who see the signs foretold in this Chapter come to pass, it will not be amiss a little to consider whence it comes to pass that in the late declining age of the world so great disorder, distemper and confusion have their place: And it shall yield us some lessons for our instruction.

And first of all it may seem to be Natural, and that it cannot be otherwise. For our common experience tells us that all things are apt to breed some­what by which themselves are ruin'd. How many Plants do we see which breed that worm which eats out their very heart? We see the body of Man, let it be never so carefully, so precisely ordered, yet at length it grows foul, and every day gathers matter of weakness and disease, which at first occasioning a general disproportion in the parts, must at the last of neces­sity draw after it the ruin and dissolution of the whole. It may then seem to fall out in this great body of the World as it doth in this lesser body of ours; By its own distemper it is the cause of its own ruin. For the things here mentioned by our Saviour are nothing else but the diseases of the old decaying World. The failing of light in the Sun and Moon, what is it but the blindness of the World? an imperfection very incident to Age. Tu­mults in the Sea and Waters, what are they but the distemper of superfluous humors, which abound in Age? Wars and rumors of wars are but the fal­ling out of the prime qualities, in the union and harmony of which the very being of the creature did consist. It is observed by the Wise, Libidinosa & intemperans adolescentia effoetum corpus tradit senectuti; Youth riotously and luxuriously and lewdly spent delivers up to old age an exhaust and juyceless and diseased body. Do we not every day see many strong and able young men fade away upon the sudden, even in the flower of their age, and soon become subject to impotency and diseases and untimely death? These commonly are the issues of riot, luxury and intemperance: Nor can it be otherwise. Therefore we cannot but expect that the World should be exceedingly diseased in its old decaying age, whose youthful dayes, and not only those, but all other parts of its age, have been spent in so much intemperance and disorder. Scarcely had the World come to any growth and ripeness, but that it grew to that height of distemper that there was no way to purge it but by a general Floud, purgati baptisma mundi, as St. Hierome calls it, in which, as it were in the Baptism, its former sins were done away. And after that, scarcely had three hundred years past, but a general disease of Idolatry over-spread and seized on all well-near, Abra­ham and his Family excepted. Yet after this once more it pleased God to take the cure into his hands, by sending his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, the great Physician and Bishop of our souls. But what of all this? After all this was done tantorum impensis operum, by so much cost and so much care, his Physick did not work as it should, and little in comparison was gained upon the World. For the Many of us, we are still the sons of our fathers. Therefore we have just cause of fear that God will not make ma­ny more tryals upon us, or bestow his pains so oft in vain. Christ is the last Priest and the last Physician that did stand upon the earth; and if we [Page 118] will not hear him, what remains there, or what can remain, but a fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the world: Ephraim is turned unto Idols; let him alone. I will spend no more labor in Hos. 4. vain upon him. Thus as Physicians, when they find the disease incurable, let the diseased go on unto his end, so God having now as it were tryed his skill in vain; having invited all, and seeing so few come; having spoken to all, and so few hear; having poured out his Sons bloud to purge the World, and seeing so few cleansed; for ought we know, and it is very probable, hath now resolv'd the World shall go unto its end; which in so great a body cannot be without the disorder and confusion our blessed Sa­viour here speaketh of.

But you may peradventure take this for a speculation, and no more; and I have urged it no further then as a probable conjecture. And therefore I will give you a second reason. Besides this natural Inclination, God him­self hath a further purpose in it. He that observes the wayes of God as far as he hath exprest himself, shall find that he hath a delight to shew unto the world those that are his, to lift them up on high, and mark and character them out by some notable tryal and temptation. Thus he made tryal of A­brahams Faith by such a command as struck at the very foundation of his faith. In Isaac shall thy seed be blessed: and yet, Take thy son, thy only son, thy son Isaac, in whom alone all the Promises made to Abraham were to be made good. Ill signs for Abraham to look upon, signs that with him the world would soon be at an end; yet God set them up before him to look upon; but by looking upon them he became the Father of the faithful. Thus God made tryal of Job, by putting all that he had into the power of Satan, who presently sent Sabaeans to fall upon his servants and oxen; Fire, upon his sheep; Chaldeans, upon his camels; and a great wind, to beat down the house upon his sonns: [...]ll signs for Job to look upon: but by looking upon them he became operarius victoriae Dei, as Tertullian speaketh, Gods workman, hired as it were and prest by God, to gain a conquest for him, and in him to triumph, and erect a trophee over Satan. To draw this down to our present purpose; To try the Strength, the Faith, the Love, the Perseverance of those who are his, God is pleased to give way to this tumult and danger in the last dayes. And as the Eagle brings out her young, and then counts them hers, if she can make them look up against the Sun; so Christ here in my Text brings forth those who are his, and proposeth before them the dreadful spectacles here mentioned, to try whether they can [...], as the Text speaks, whether they can out-look them, and lift up their heads when all the world doth hang down theirs. Or he deals with his as the Jesuites are said to deal with their Novices. They are wont to try of what courage and heart they are by frighting them with feigned apparitions of Hobs and Bug-bears in the night: And if they find them stout and fearless, they entertain them as fit for their use; if otherwise they dismiss them as not for their turn and purpose. Even thus may God seem to deal with them whom he means to make his, of the order and general assembly and church of the first-born, who are written in heaven, whom he means to place amongst the great and few examples of eternal happiness: he scareth them with dreams, and terrifieth them with visions. He sets before us these terrors and affrightments, to see whether we fear any thing more then him, or whether any thing can shake the alliance and trust which we repose in him; whether our Faith will be strong when the World is weak; whether our Light will shine when the Sun is darkned; whether we can e­stablish our selves in the power of Gods Spirit when the powers of heaven are shaken. And indeed what are all these signs here mentioned but Mor­mos, meer toyes to fright children with, if we could truly consider that, [Page 119] if the world should sink, and fall upon our heads, it cannot hurt a soul, nor yet so grind the body into dust that God cannot raise it up again? Can the Heavens, with all their blackness and darkness, have any operation up­on a Soul, which is of a more noble essence than they? Can the Waters drown, or the Plague devour, or Famine starve, or Fire consume and waste a Soul? Can an immortal Soul be lost in the noise and tumults of the people? For all these signs and apparitions, if we know whom we have believed, or be­lieve what we have read in St. Paul; neither life nor death, nor angels, nor Rom. 8. 38, 39 principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now, in the third place, I will adde one reason more, and so make an end of this point. If Fear will give us leave to consult with our Reason and with Scripture, we shall find that all this army of dismal events are nothing else but the effects of that Love which God bears to the World, especially to Man, the creature which he made after his own image, and therefore cannot hate him because he so made him. As men are wont to say of sick persons, that so long as there is breath, be they never so sick, there is hope of their recovery; for our hope expires not but with our soul: so though we be far gone, though we be dead in sin, though we be sick of a Con­sumption of grace, yet God lays not down the expectation of our recove­ry so long as there is breath in us. Many examples we have of Gods long-sufferance in Scripture. Betwixt Niniveh and final Desolation there stood but forty dayes, or, as the Septuagint render it, but three: for whereas we read it, fourty dayes, they render it [...], Yet three dayes, and Niniveh shall be destroyed: Yet God sent his Prophet unto them, and upon their repentance turned away those evils which he had denounced against them, and which were now in their approach, even at their very doors. Ma­ny messages had God sent unto King Ahab to reclaim him; yet amongst them all none was more signal then that which was sent him immediately before his fall. It should seem that God had already determined with himself the de­struction of Ahab, and that he should fight and fall at Ramoth-Gilead; yet notwithstanding Micaiah the Son of Imlah, a Prophet of God, even against the Kings will, is brought before him, and telleth him to his head that he should go and fall at Ramoth-Gilead: Nor can we now think that this was done by chance: For notwithstanding four hundred Prophets of his own had smooth'd and flatter'd him with hopes of good success, yet Micaiah, one whom the King hated, against the Kings will, is constrained to come; and when he seemed at first either to mock or fail in the delivery of his mes­sage, he is deeply adjured to deliver the truth; How many times, saith the 1 Kings 22. 16. King, shall I adjure thee, that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord? Now from whence did all this come but even from this, that God had not laid down the care of Ahabs conversion, but truly desired that he would return and live?

To apply now all this to our present purpose. From hence, even from Gods love it is, that the last and worst age of the World is attended upon with dreadful signs and wonders. For God, who delights to be called a Pre­server of men, will never forsake his creature whilst there is any hope of return. O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee: O Judah, what shall I do Hos. 6. 4. unto thee? Canst thou find out any thing? Alass! what canst thou find out, who art as a silly dove, without heart? But whatsoever my Wisdome, my in­finite Hos. 7. 11. Wisdome, can find out, whatsoever may forward thy conversion, what­soever may be done, I will do it. And therefore as Sin and Iniquity have increased, so have the Means to reclaim it. As Wickedness hath broken in as a floud, so hath Judgment been poured forth, and doth swell, wave [Page 120] upon wave, line upon line, judgment upon judgment, to meet it, and purge it, and carry it away with it self, and so run out both together into the boundless ocean of Gods Mercy. This is Gods method; who knows where­of we are made, and therefore must needs know what is fittest to cure us. For as when our bodies having been long acquainted with some gentle kind of Physick, and the disease at last grows too strong for it, it commends the art of the good Physician to add strength to his potion, that so at last he may conquer the malady: So Mans sinful disease in the last age of the World being much increased, it pleaseth God to use stronger means to cure it. If his little army of Caterpillars, if common calamities, will not purge us, he brings in Sword, and Famine, and Pestilence to make the potion stronger. If the enemies Sword cannot launce our ulcers, he will make us do it with our own. If fightings without cannot move us, he will raise terrors within. He will pour down hailstones and coals of fire, that we may thirst for his dew and gentle rain. He will set us at variance with one another, that we may long to be reconciled to him, and by the troubles of one Kingdome learn to pray, and pray heartily, for that other which is to come; That so, if pos­sible, he may save some, and pull them as brands out of the fire, singed and scorcht, but not consumed; That if men will repent them of their evil wayes, he may repent him of the evil he imagined against them, as he some­times told his people by the mouth of his Prophet Ezekiel.

Our third general part was the consideration of the Behaviour which our Saviour commends unto us in these words, [...], Look up, and lift up your heads; words borrowed from the behaviour which men use when all things go as they would have them. When we have what we desire, when success hath fill'd our hopes, and crowned our ex­pectation, then we look up, and lift up our heads. As Herbs, when the Sun comes near them, peep out of the earth, or as Summer-Birds begin to sing when the Spring is entred, so ought it to be with us when these things come to pass. This Winter should make us a Spring; this noise and tumult should make us sing. Wars, Famines, Plagues, Inundations, Tumults, Confusion of the world, these bring in the Spring of all true Christians; and by these, as by the coming of Summer-Birds, we are forewarned that our Sun of Righteousness draws near. Indeed unto Nature and the eye of the World such are sad and uncouth spectacles, sights far from yielding comfort, or being taken for authors of welcome news: and therefore our Saviour point­ing out to the behaviour, which in this case the world doth use, tells us in the words foregoing my Text, [...], men should be ready to sound for fear, ARESCENTIBUS HOMINIBUS, saith the Vulgar, men should dry and wither away for fear; as Leaves smitten with mildew or blasting, or fading away with unreasonable heat. Lest therefore our hearts should fail us upon the sight of these signs, our Saviour forewarns us that all these ostenta, these apparitions, bode us no harm, nor can bring any evil with them but what we our selves will put upon them; that for all these signs in the heaven, for all this tumult and confusion upon earth, even then when the foundations are shaken, and the world is ready to sink, we may lift up our heads: When you see these things come to pass, look up, lift up your heads. Let us a little weigh these words. For they are full and ex­pressive, talent-weight. They are a prediction, and they are an admoniti­on: which is, saith Clemens, as the diet of the soul, to keep it in an e­qual temper and a setled constitution, against those evils and distempers of the mind which, as Tully speaks, do tumultuantem de gradu dejicere, cast it down with some kind of disorder and confusion from that [...], that quietness and silence which is the best state and condition of the soul; as Fear and Sorrow, the unhappy parents of Murmuring and Repining; which press [Page 121] down the soul [...], into the gross and bruitish part, which they call [...], the fall of the Soul, the symptomes and indications whereof are a cast-down Look, and a Head bowed down like a bull-rush. For 1. Fear is a burden that maketh us not able to look upwards, towards that which might rid and ease us of it, but towards something that may hide and cover us. When Adam had sinned, God comes toward him in the cool of the day, in a wind, as it is rendred by some, and as the word signifies, in such a sound as he never heard before; and he presently runs into the thicket, hides himself amongst the trees of the garden. If the King of Je­richo pursues Joshua's spies, they run under the stalks of flax; and if Saul pursues David, he betakes himself to some cave. Fear may make us look distractedly about, with a wandring, inconstant, unsetled eye; but not to look up: it may make us hide our heads, but not lift them up. If an Evil bite, Fear is the tooth; and if it press down, Fear is the weight. Behold, here this tooth is broken, and this weight is taken away by Wisdome it self, in these words, Look up, lift up your heads. 2. Grief is another weight, that presseth down. Why art thou cast down, O my Soul? saith David. And, Psal. 42. Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop, saith Solomon. Sorrow Prov. 12. 2 [...]. kept Aaron from eating the sin-offring, cast Job on the ground, and David on the ground, and Ahab on his bed. An evil disease it is under the Sun: but here you have a medicine for it, a medicine to make a merry heart; Look up, lift up your heads. 3. These two, Fear and Sorrow, are the mo­ther and the nurse, the beginners and fomenters, of all Murmuring and Re­pining. For as Fear so Sorrow is nothing else but a kind of distaste and grudge of the mind. Imperari dolori silentium non potest; The Murmurer cannot be silent: He will complain to any man, to any thing; to the Night, to the Day; to the Sun, to the Moon, as he in the Comedy. He will re­proach his Head, his Belly, his Stomach, any part that causes grief: as Tragaedians use to chide their Eyes, as if they heard; as the Poet brings in Ulysses in a dialogue and contention with his own Heart. When he is fed with Manna, he will ask for Garlick and Onyons. When he is in the way to a land flowing with milk and honey, he will return to sit by flesh-pots: he will chide with Moses, and chide with God, and prefer a Calf to them both. He will have this to day, and will not have it to morrow. He will have night when it is day, and day when it is night. He will have miracles, and slight them; signs, and run from them. He doth palos terminales Deo figere, as Tertullian speaks, bound and circumscribe God, limitate the Holy one of Israel, set up a stake and land-mark to which God must come, and yet not know where to place it. He loaths the meat should feed him, and the physick which should work his health. In a word, Mur­muring and Repining is a monster that, as the Proverb is, is never well nei­ther full nor fasting. I call it a Monster: For it is the issue of divers pas­sions, Fear and Sorrow, which meeting in the heart, ingender and bring it forth, to quarrel with the Wisdome and question the Providence of God, to censure his counsels, and to condemn his proceedings; to approve of that which he complains of, and complain of that which he dispenseth for our Good. Why was I not made impeccable? saith one: why was not I so made up that I might not sin? Why do I feel this fight and contention between the Spirit and the Flesh? Why was I made weak, and commanded to be strong? Why was I born in these times of hurry and noise, saith another, and not in these halcyon-dayes of peace and plenty? Why was I reserved to these last dayes, to hear of wars and rumors of wars, of earthquakes, and famine, and plague? to see the Church broken into Sects, and crumbling away into Conventicles? to see the world return into a worse Chaos and confusion then that out of which it was made? that is, Why am I a man? The language of the Murmurer is, Why hast thou made me thus? The Power of God, the Wisdome of God, the [Page 122] Goodness and Mercy of God cannot quiet and silence him, who wavering and double-minded, resting only on his own fickle, flitting, abortive thoughts, is never at rest. For he that doth do nothing but what he list, will do nothing what he should. He that will be nothing but what he please, is his own i­dol, and so is Nothing in this world. Now these words here of our Savi­our are like that pitch and fat and hair which Daniel did seeth together: and if we can put them into this Monsters mouth, it will soon burst asunder. If we can take them down and digest them, they will remove our Fear, dry up our Sorrow, and stop the mouth of the Murmurer for ever. For when Christ bids us look up, and lift up our heads, his meaning is, that we should so fit and prepare our selves that we may look up, and lift them up. He would not bid the Covetous man, who is buried alive in the earth, look up: He would not bid the Wanton, who is drowned in lust, look up: He would not bid him who is dead in sin, look up: Or, if he did, his meaning would be, First learn to hate the world, to fight against thy lusts, to arise from the dead; and then Christ shall give thee light and strength, that thou mayest look up, and lift up thy head. Then thou art his Servant; and when he says, Go, thou must go, though it be upon the point of the sword; or else thou art not his servant: Then thou art his Merchant; and when he holds forth his rich pearl, thou must buy it, though it be with thy bloud; or else thou art not his Merchant: then thou art his Souldier; and thou must fight when and where he placeth thee, against all terrors whatsoever; or else thou art not his Souldier. Lo, I have told you before, saith our Saviour; see that you be not troubled. If you be not wanting to your Captain, your Cap­tain will not be wanting unto us, he will neither leave us nor forsake us. In this one Look there is more then a look; there is Charity labouring, Faith quickning, Hope reaching forth her hand. These three will lift up our heads above these terrors, into the highest heavens. We read in the book of Judges, that when Gideon set upon the Midianites, his army had nothing but empty pitchers and trumpets and lamps in their hands, yet was this enough to put to rout the whole army of the Midianites. Even thus doth our Captain Jesus Christ. For this army of Signs in heaven, in the sea, in the earth, Famine, Plague, Persecution, and the like, what are they but trumpets and empty pitchers to them that know them? And if we fear them, and disorder and rout our selves, and run away, we are not of the army of God and of Gideon; we are but Midianites.

I know these things may seem somewhat hard, nay peradventure utterly impossible, with men who are but dust and ashes. And I may be thought to speak tanquam in republica Platonis, non tanquam in face Romuli; as if I were in a congregation of Saints, and not in an assembly of men subject to passions and so to sin; ready to fear where no fear is, to grieve, for that which is pleasant and behoofful, to murmure where there is no cause, to hang down their heads like a bullrush when they should lift them up. Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh of brass. Illi ferrum & aes triplex Job 6. 12. circa pectus. Is it possible we should see the world fall down about our ears, and not fear? And in Famine, to hear our children calling for bread, when there is none to give them, and not be disconsolate. In time of Plague, to see our selves forsaken of all, and constrained perhaps to breathe out our last upon no better pillow then a stone or a turf, under no better canopy then the cold air, and be content? Can we hear the noise of the whip, and the jumping of the chariots, and the prancing of the horses, nay the noyse and groans of dying men, who would but cannot dye, and be unmoved? Can we see the tears of widows drilling down their cheeks, behold little or­phans made miserable before they know what misery is, and deprived of their fathers before they could call them so; can we see rivers of bloud, and [Page 123] have dry eyes? Shall a whole Nation totter, and we stand fast? Shall we have no safe place for our heads, and yet lift them up? I know Compassion is a virtue; and to weep with them that weep is a virtue: but then even when we weep, we must also rejoyce in tribulation. Nature may draw tears, but Grace must dry them. And can we do all this? If we be truly Christians, we can, yea, in all these things [...], be more then conquerers; not only be undaunted, but even joy in them; as if now, and never till now, the world went as we would have it. What manner of men, think you, must they be who do thus? Do not put on wonder: let not your hearts be troub­led. For Truth it self will tell you that, if you be the men whose name you bear, if your eyes, your ends, your hopes, be fixed upon Christ a­lone, then are you all such persons as I have now described. Tantum di­stat a Christiano: Look how much every man is defective and wants in this kind of constancy and resolution, and so much he comes short and wants of his Christianity. What are all the pleasures, what are all the terrors of the world to him that is made one with Christ, who conquered also? That therefore this doctrine may pass the better, which at first sight is but harsh and rugged, we will shew you, 1. That it is possible to arm our selves with such courage and resolution in common calamities; 2. That it is great folly not to do so; 3. What impediments and hindrances they be which over­throw our courage, and take our hearts from us; when such things as these come to pass. And first of the Possibility of this do­ctrine.

And, if we look a little upon the manners of men, we shall find them very apt and ready to plead impossibilities and difficulties where their own practice confutes them. One saith he hath bought five yoke of Oxen, and Luke 14. must go to try them; another saith he hath married a wife, and therefore he cannot, that is, he will not, come. Haec omnia dura invitis, saith Hierome; All things seem hard and difficult to them who have no heart, which easily perswade themselves that cannot be done which they will not do. Go to a Rich man, and require him to lay down his wealth at the feet of the poor, or otherwise to sacrifice it to the service of Christ; how hard a lesson is it? how ill sounding? how ridiculous and absurd a proposal? What a fool will he soon conclude you be, and how prodigal of your good coun­sel, when you advise him to be wise? But yet let some flattering Pleasure come in the way, or some spleen against his neighbour, or some suit of Law, or the like, or something that may forfeit his soul, and how easily shall all go to the final hazard and undoing of him and his posterity? I see, he can do that for his spleen, his humor, his strumpet, which when he is to do for his God, he startles at as a thing impossible. In the one is his desire, in the other death. To gain the earth with him is to enter Paradise: but to knock and strive to enter into heaven is as terrible as hell it self. Go to one of our painted Gallants, and require him to do but what an ethnick man can do by no better help then the light of Nature, even rather to lay down his life then to do any thing that common Reason checketh at, and which a good man thinks a shame to speak of; rather to leave off to be a man then in that shape and likeness to become a beast; [...], how great a request do you move? Yet how prodigal will he be of his life when his lust or some drunken quarrel shall call for it? To fetch home a phansie, a fashi­on, a toy, we will go as far as France, or to the Indies, for a clod of earth, or a piece of glass; but to visit the fatherless and widows, a Sabbath-days journey is too far. Every thing that may make us happy is hard; but we never boggle at that which leadeth to destruction. Heaven with all its allure­ments, with all its beauty and glory, with all its everlastingness cannot win us to that which the glistering of a diamond, which the shadow of a trifle, [Page 124] which the dream of a shadow will do. God with all his beseeching and entreaties and rich promises shall not move us, when the cringe of a flatterer, the only tongue of a parasite, the smile of a courtesan shall carry us about the world. Nor is Glory so eloquent to prevail with us for it self as Shame and Dishonour is to our confusion. Nemo non in causa sua potest, quod in causam Dei dubitat; Every man can do that in his own cause which he can­not in Christs; can do that for the Devil which he cannot for himself. So that the reason, why many suppose this behaviour here required by our Saviour to be a matter so hard and difficult, is from the same error. Now to manifest the possibility of this, I think I cannot do it better then by an ensample: and I will give you one, and that too of an Ethnick man, that knew not Christ, nor his rich promises, nor ever heard of the Glory of the Gospel. There is a Hill in Italy, Vesuvius they call it, which is wont some­times to break out in flames of fire to the terror and amazement of all that dwell nigh unto it. The first time, that in the memory of man it fired, was in the dayes of Vespasian the Emperor; at which time it break forth with that horrible noise and cry, with that concussion and shaking of the earth near about it, with that darkness and stench, that all within the compass thought of nothing now but aeternam illam & novissimam mundo noctem, that Time was ended, and the World drawing to its dissolution. Pliny the great Philosopher, and the Author of the famous History of Nature, lay then at Misenum, not far off: and out of a desire he had to inform himself, he drew near to the place where he thought the fire begun. And in the midst of that horror and confusion so undaunted and fearless was he that he studi­ed, and wrote, and eat, and slept, and omitted nothing of his usual Course. His Nephew, a great man afterwards with Trajane the Em­peror, out of whom I take this history, reports of himself, that being there at that time, notwithstanding all the terrors and affrightments, yet he cal­led for his books, he read, he noted, as if he had not been near the Moun­tain Vesuvius, but in his study and closet: and yet was at that time but eigh­teen years of age. I have been somewhat the more large, besides my cu­stome, in opening the particulars of this story, because it is the very em­bleme, the very picture of the Worlds dissolution, and of the behaviour which is here enjoyned Christians when that time shall come. All these fearful signs which here our Saviour reckons up, if we but follow the en­samples which I have now proposed, ought not so much prevail with us as once to make us break our sleep; much less to torment and amaze us; much less to take off our chariot-wheels, to retard and cripple us in the ways of righteousness, and in that course which leads to bliss; much less to drive us out of the way. What though there be signs in the Sun and Moon and Stars? must my light therefore be turned into darkness? must my Sun set at noon, and my Stars, those virtues which should shine in my soul, fall out of their sphere and firmament? What though the Seas roar and make a noise? shall my impatience be as loud? And if they break their bounds, must I for­get mine? What though there be a Famine in the land? must I make my Soul like unto the season, lean and miserable: What though there be wars and rumors of wars? must I be at variance with my self, and bid defiance to the Lord of hosts? What though my friends betray me? must I deceive my self? And if the World be ready to sink, must I fall into Hell? Nay ra­ther, when we see these things come to pass, when these signs come to pass, let it be that we do as occasion serves us: for God is with us in these signs: Let 1 Sam. 10. 7. them be as Signs to us, perswading signs: Let them have the command­ing eloquence of Signs. Let them not be as Shadows, which pass by us, and we regard them not: but let them be signa significantia, signs that sig­nifie something, signs to represent something to our Understanding, and so [Page 125] make an impression on our Wills. Let them be as the Voice of God calling us out of Egypt into a land flowing with milk and honey. Let them be as the Finger of God, and let us follow in that way the line is drawn. Let them be as a Hand of God, and let us humble our selves under his mighty hand. Let them be the great Power of God, and let us fall down and worship; that so we may in his signis signari, with these signs be signed and sealed up to the day of our redemption. When the Sun is darkned, think it is to up­braid thy ignorance, and learn to learn to abound more in knowledge and all Phil. 1. 9. judgment. When the Moon shall be turned into bloud, think it is to chide thy Cruelty, and put on the bowels of mercy and loving kindness. When the Col. 3. 12. Stars fall from heaven, the professors of truth speak lyes, do thou stand fast in the faith. When the powers of heaven are shaken, when there be ma­ny sects and divisions, do thou keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, Ephes. 4. 3. every mans brother, if he will; and if he will not, every mans brother. If the Plague break in, do thou purge the plague of thine own heart, and keep thy self unspotted of the world. If there be a Famine in the land, do thou fill thy self with the bread of life as with marrow and fatness. If Ban­ners be displaid as signs, as the Psalmist speaks, let them be as signs to thee to fight against thy lusts. When Parents and Brethren and Kinsfolk are false, do thou look up to thy Father in heaven, who is truth it self. When the World is ready to sink, do thou raise thy self with expectation of eternal glory. This constancy, this resolution, this behaviour Christ requires at our hands: and it will be in vain to plead impossibilities. For could these men under Nature go so far? and cannot we, who are under Grace, do so much? Could they think that nothing without them could hurt them? and shall fear nothing more then that which is without? Good God! how comes it to pass that Nature should bear more sway in a Pagan, then the Grace of the Gospel in a Christian? Or have we disputed and trifled Grace out of its power? or hath our abuse of Grace swallowed even Nature and Reason it self up in victory? Tanti vitrum, quanti margaritum? Were these men so rich that they could bestow so much upon a trifle, upon a toy of glass? and cannot we, who are under Grace, give the same price for a rich Jew­el. When Themistocles was leading forth his army, by chance he past by where Cocks were fighting, and shewing them to his Souldiers, Lo, saith he, these have neither altars, nor temples, nor children to fight for; and you see how stoutly they fight for no other end but who shall be the conqueror. And to this end have I shewn unto you the examples of these Heathen men, as The­mistocles did the Cocks to his Army. For these men nec aras habebant, ne­que focos. They were without Christ in the world, received not the promises, neither saw they them so much as afar off; saw not so much as a glimering of that Light which lightneth every man that commeth into the world. Of immortality and eternal life they knew little: What was their hopes? what was their end? As for Heaven and Hell, their knowledge of them was small. Yet their stomach and courage was such that we, who are Christians, hear it only as a tale, and can scarcely believe it. Beloved, I speak this to our shame. For a great shame it is that Nature, defamed Nature, should more prevail with them then God and Grace with us; that they by the power of their Reason should stand the strongest assault and shock of misery, and we run away affrighted from the very phansie and shadow of it. For to whom more is given, of them more shall be required. And if we Christians cannot look undauntedly when we see these things come to pass, how shall we behold the Heavens gathered together as a Scrowl, the Elements melted, and the Earth burnt up? how shall we be able to hear the trump and the voice of the Arch-angel? If we cannot look up, and lift up our heads when we see these things, with what face shall we meet our Saviour in the clouds? Therefore [Page 126] as our Saviour in this Chapter exhorts, v. 19. let us possess our souls with pa­tience: Let us withdraw our souls from our bodies, our minds from our sensual parts; that what is terrible to the eye may have no such aspect on the mind, and what is dreadful to the ear may be as musick to the spirit, and what wounds and torments the body may not touch the soul; that so we may be what we should be, our selves, our own Lords, in our own posses­sion; that Christ at his coming may find us not let out to Pleasure, not sold to this Vanity, nor in fetters under that fear, nor swallowed up in that Ca­lamity, nor buried in the apprehension of those evils which shall come up­on this generation; but free in Christ, alive in Christ, active, making these our adversaries friends, these terrors blessings, these signs miracles; by Christs power working light out of darkness, plenty out of famine, peace out of these wars; that at his second coming he may find us looking up upon him, and lifting up our heads, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemp­tion of our body, that so we may be caught up together in the clouds, and be for ever with the Lord in his everlasting Habitations.

I have done with the first Point, the Possibility of the Doctrine, That we must arm our selves with courage and resolution against common calamities. I proceed now to the second, That it is an argument of great folly not to do so. What is Folly but a mistake of things, a mistake of their nature, and of their end? Not only a privative ignorance, which may be in chil­dren and simple men; but, as the Hebrew Doctors call it, a possessive igno­rance, possessing us with false opinions of things; making us run counter to that light which Wisdome holdeth forth; placing pleasure upon that which bringeth no delight, and horror upon that which rightly considered hath no terror at all; transforming a Devil into an Angel of light, and turning Light it self into Darkness; making the signs of Gods favor argu­ments of his wrath; calling Afflictions and Calamities, which are the in­structions of a Father, the blows of an Enemy; and if Calamities be whips, making them Scorpions. An unwise man, saith the Psalmist, knoweth it not, and a fool doth not consider it: He doth not consider either the nature of these signs, or the end for which they are sent; but is led by likeness and opinion. The natural man perceiveth not the things of Gods spirit, but they 1 Cor. 2. 14. are foolishness unto him; as the words of fools, which signifie nothing: And therefore he puts what sense and meaning he please upon them, an interpreter the worst of a thousand. And so he finds not evils, but makes them; makes them the mothers of his sorrow, which might be the helpers of his joy. When Reason and Religion are thrust out of the chair, the Passions full soon take their room, and dictate heavy things. Then either Fear shakes us, or Hope makes us mad; either Grief pulls us down, or Joy transports us. One is afraid where no fear is, as the Psalmist speaks: another is struck dead at the sight of a statue: and to some even Joy it self hath been as fatal as a thunder­bolt. All is from Opinion, the mistress of fools, which makes the shaking of a leaf as terrible as an earth-quake; makes Poverty more sad, the Plague more infectious, Famine and the Sword more killing then they are. It is not the tooth of Envy, it is my Phansie bows me. It is not the reproach of an Enemy hurts me: It was but a word, and Opinion hath turned it into a stone. It is not an army of Sorrows, it is my own Phansie overthrows me. What St. Ambrose speaks of Poverty, is true of all those evils which are so terrible to flesh and bloud; Non naturae paupertas, sed opinionis vis est, Po­verty, as men call it, is but a phansie; there is no such thing indeed. It is but a figment, an Idole: Men first framed it, and set it up, and trembled before it. As some Naturalists tell us that the Rainbow is oculi opus, a thing framed only by the eye, because there are no such colours on the cloud as we see; so this difference of Rich and Poor, of Honorable and Disho­norable, [Page 127] of Wars and Peace, of Sorrow and Joy, is but a creature of the Eye. Did we not think the Souldier tremble, we had disarmed him: Did we not think Calamities grievous, we might rejoyce in them: Did not our Folly make these Signs terrible, we might then look up, and lift up our heads. We read of Smyndenides the Sybanite, that he was so extreamly dainty that he would grow weary at the sight of another mans labour, and therefore, when he sometimes saw a man labouring and painfully digging, he began to faint and pant, and desired to be removed: Quàm inclementer fodicat! saith he, What a cruel and merciless digger is this? So it is with us. Our delicate and tender education, our familiarity with the vanities of this world, have betrayed our Reason to our Sensual parts, so that we startle at every unu­sual object, tremble at every apparition, make War and Famine and Perse­cution more terrible then they are, sink under those signs and warnings from heaven at which we should look up, and lift up our heads. This our way uttereth our foolishness, as the Psalmist speaks. For is it not a great folly to create evils, to multiply evils? to discolour that which was sent for our good, and make it evil? to make that which speaketh peace and comfort unto us a messenger of Death?

Let us now consider the Lets and Impedimens, or the Reasons why our hearts fail us at such sights as these. I shall at this time only remove a preten­ded one; having formerly at large upon another Text, Matth. 24. 25. spoken of Self-love and Want of Faith, which are real and true hindrances of Christian Courage. The main pretense we make for our pusillanimity and cowardise is our natural Weakness, which we derived from our first parents, and brought with us into the world. For thus we lay every burden upon our fore-fathers shoulders, and Adam is arraigned every day as guilty of e­very defect, of every sin which is committed in the world. HOMOSUM; I am a man, the child of Adam, born under wrath, is the common apology of the men of this world, when they fall into those sins which by watching over themselves they might, and which in duty they are bound to avoid. As we fell in Adam, so Adam falls in us, falls under fears and sorrows and calamities, unto the end of the world. And, if we observe it, this is so common a plea, and so stoutly and resolvedly stood to, as if men did rather boast of it then bemoan it; and did rather make use of it as a comfort after sin, then fear it as a burden pressing and inclining to it. For the best excuse they have, the best plea they make, is, that they are the children of Adam. I deny not that we drew this Weakness from our first parents: I leave it not after Baptisme as subsistent by it self, but bound to the center of the earth, with the Manichee; nor washt to nothing in the Font, with Pelagius: But yet (and it will be worth your observation) I take it to be a matter of difficulty to judge of what strength it is. I fear we make it stronger then it is; and I am sure a Christian is bound by that religion which he professes to encounter and tame and crucifie it. For take us in our infancy, not altered à puris naturalibus, from that which we were made; and then we do not understand our selves, much less the Weak­ness of our nature. And then take us in our years of discretion; before we can come to discover it, Custome and Education, if good, hath much abated; if evil, hath much improved the force of it, and our Sloth or Cowardise hath made it strong. A strange thing it is to see little children in their tender years prompt and witty to villany, as if they had gone to School to it in their mothers womb: and this we may impute to origi­nal Sin. But yet Divines generally consent that this original Sin is alike in all; only it works more or less according to the diversity of mens tempers, as water runs swifter down a Hill then in a Plain. Again, even in chil­dren we see many good and gracious qualities, which by good education [Page 128] come to excellent effect. In pueri elucet spes plurimorum, saith Quintili­an, quae cùm emoritur aetate, manifestum est non defecisse naturam, sed curam; In children many times there is a beam and hope of Goodness, which, if not cherisht by Discipline, is dampt and darkned; a sign that Nature was not wanting, but our Care. Now from whence this difference should come is not easie to discern: but this we cannot but observe, That be the strength of original Sin what it will, yet there is no man but is more wick­ed then the strength of any natural Weakness or primitive Corruption can constrain. For when evil Education, bad Enamples, long Custome, and Continuance in sin have bred in us a habit of sinning, cùm per secordiam vires, tempus, ingenium defluxere, naturae infirmitas accusatur, when through sloth and idleness, through luxury and distemper our time is lost, our bo­dies decayed, our wits dulled, we cast all the fault upon the Weakness of our Nature; and our full growth in sin we attribute to that Seed of sin which we should have choaked.

Behold, the Signs in the heaven, the Sun darkned, the Moon turned in­to bloud; See Poverty coming towards you as an armed man, Famine ri­ding upon a pale horse, killing with Hunger and with Death; Behold the Plague destroying, Persecution raging. I say, Behold these: for to this thou wert made, for this thou wert sent into the world, to behold and look up upon these; to look up, and be undaunted; nay, to look up, and leap and rejoyce. For thy whole life is but a preparation and Eve to this great Holiday of sights. If the eye of Nature be too weak, thou hast an unction from the Holy one, the unction of the blessed Spirit. For this end [...] John 2. 20. Christ came into the world, for this end did he pour forth his grace, that he might refresh thy spirits, and clear thy eye-sight, that thou mayest look up, and lift up thy head. For tell me; Why were we baptized? why are we Christians? Is it not to mortifie our earthly members and lusts, to dead in our selves the bitter root of Sin? Is it not to spiritualize, to angelifie, (I had almost said to deifie) our Nature? For we are no further Chri­stians nisi in quantum caeperimus esse angeli, but so far forth as we are like unto the Angels; I may add, and St. Peter doth warrant me, so far forth as we are made partakers of the Divine Nature. Were we not baptized in­to this faith? I speak to Christians, whose life should be a continual war­fare, not against Beasts, but our Passions, which, if they be not tyed up and held in with bitt and bridle, are as fierce and violent as they: And a strange kind of weakness it is to talk of Weakness when we are to fight; for this is to yield before we strike a stroke; not to be put to flight, but to run away. Nec mirum, si vincantur, qui jam victi sunt; and it is no marvail if we fall by conquest, who in our own opinion are already over­come. Beloved, are we weak in Adam? Yet are we strong in Christ. I can do all things, saith Paul, and suffer all things, through Christ that strength­neth me. Though many blemishes befall us by Adams sin in our understand­ings and in our wills, yet what we lost in Adam, that with infinite advan­tage is supplyed in Christ. Are we truly Christians? Then these things, these fearful sights, cannot hurt us. If they hurt us, it is because we are not Christians. There is a fable that past amongst the Heathen, that Vulcan offended with the men of Athens, told them they should be all fools; but Pallas, who favoured them, told them they should indeed be fools, but with­all that their folly should not hurt them. Our case is not much unlike: For though the Devil hath made us fools and weak, yet Christ the Wisdome of the Father hath given us this gift, that this Weakness shall never hurt us unless we will. Fear not therefore: why should we fear? Christ hath sub­dued our enemies, and taken from them every weapon that may hurt us. He hath taken the sting not only from Sin, but from those evils which are the [Page 129] natural issues and products of Sin. He hath made Afflictions joyful, Ter­rors lovely, that thou mayest look up upon them, and lift up thy head. I have done with this pretense of natural Weakness, and with my second part; and I come now to the third and last, the encouragement our Saviour giveth; For your redemption draweth nigh.

And when these things come to pass, when such terrible signs appear, this news is very seasonable. As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is the promise Prov. 25. 25. of liberty to those who have been in bondage all their life long, under the fear Heb. 2. 15. of those evils which shew themselves unto us, and lead us captive, and keep us in prison, so that we cannot look up. When we are sold under Sin, and by that sold under fears of Calamities, of Death, of Hell; when the Heaven loures upon us, and Hell opens its mouth; then a message of Redemption is a word fitly spoken, a word upon its wheels, guided and directed by art, and is as delightful as apples of Gold with pictures of silver. It is that Peny in the evening which makes the Labourer bear the burden all the day. How will that Souldier fight who heareth of a reserve and party at hand to aid him? How will the Prisoner even sing in his chains, when news is brought that his ransome is paid, and his redemption near at hand? It is a liberty to be told we shall be free: And it is not easie to determine whither it more affect us when it is come, or when it is but in the approach, drawing nigh; when we are free, or when we are but told that shortly we shall be so. And indeed our Redemption is actus individuus, one entire act; and we are re­deemed at once from all; though the full accomplishment of it be by de­grees. When we are redeemed from Sin, we are redeemed from the Grave, redeemed from the fear of Death; redeemed from all fear of these fearful Signs and Apparitions, redeemed by our Captain, who besides the ransome he paid down, hath taught us to handle the weapons of our warfare, hath pro­posed a crown, hath taught us to shake off our fetters and break our bonds asunder. For to this end, he paid down the ransome: and, if we do it not, we are not redeemed, no not when we are redeemed. It is enough for him to open the prison-doors: Certainly it is our duty to come out, and not still to love our fetters, because our Redeemer hath led Captivity captive. But we may say truly of this first Redemption what some in St. Paul said falsly of the second Resurrection, This Redemption is past already, past on our Re­deemers side, nothing left undone by him: only it remains on ours to sue out our pardon, and make our Redemption sure. Nor is it any derogation from our Saviours merit that we have a part in this work. For would we have our Saviour redeem them from prison who will not go out? free them from sin who are resolved to continue in sin because this grace hath abounded, and will be more slaves because they had leave to be free? or seal up their Re­demption who will not sue it out? But now this is but redemptio elevans, as the Schools speak, a Redemption which lifts us up from our former low condition, and puts us in a fair possibility of enlargement; nay in a cer­tainty, if we our selves hinder not. But yet when it hath its proper and natural working, when we do not ponire obicem, when we hinder it not, it works according to the capacity of the subject. It works out Sin, yet leaves us sinners; it regulates our Passions, let leaves us subject to them; it works out Fear, yet leaves us fearful. The Old man is crucified, but not yet dead; the Passions are subdued, but not quite extinguished. The Inward man dare look Death and all the terrors of the world in the face, but the Out­ward man turns away from such sight. And therefore there is another Re­demption that they call praeservantem, which settles and establishes us, pre­serves us in an Angelical state, free from Sin, from Passions, from Fear. And when this comes, we shall sin no more, hope no more, fear no more: All sins shall be purged out, all hope shall be fulfilled, all tears shall be wiped from [Page 130] our eyes, and all trembling from our hearts. And this is the Redemption here meant, the only trust of the Christian, the expectation of the faithful, the water of life to refresh them in this valley of tears, the only cordial for the passion of the Heart, the only rock for Hope to anchor at, the true fountain from which the waters of Comfort and Salvation are to be drawn. But then I must tell you, this Fountain of comfort is like the pool of Be­thesda; it is not medicinable till an Angel hath stirred it. For our own carnal Imaginations, may be as so many evil Angels to trouble it; and then we draw bitterness and poyson instead of comfort. For, a little to change St. Paul's words, Why should it be thought a thing incredible, why should it be thought a thing desirable with some men that the world and all that is in the world should have an end? Why should they desire the coming of Christ? Should he come to meet the Hypocrite with his form of Religion, his feigned sighs and cheating grones, as he is acting his part, and playing Judas in the shape of Peter? Should he meet Balaam when he is not so wise as his Ass? or Jonah, when he runs from Niniveh to Tarsus? Should he come to us at midnight, when we are in our beds of lust and sensuality? Can there be any comfort to the wicked in that fire which devours before him, or in that tempest which is round about him? But if we be qualified as we ought to be, if we repent of our sins, and bring forth fruits worthy of amendment of life; if we keep our loins girt, and our lamps burning; if we be do­ing our Masters will, and waiting for his coming; then the signs of his coming, that fill the hearts of others with dread, will fill ours with joy. Then when the ungodly shall cry to the mountains to cover them, we shall look up with confidence, and lift up our heads: for our redemption draweth nigh.

THE words are St. Pauls. And it sounds well when an Apostle blows the trumpet before the Magistrate, and proclaims his power. But as the sound was good, so was it now high time it should be heard. Christia­nity was at the bar, and the Gospel arraigned of high Treason. Christ and Caesar were set at odds; and, as if his Disciples had forsaken him to follow Judas the Acts 5. Galilaean; and of Christians were turned Gaulenites, the rumor was, that this new doctrine endangered the State, and one King­dome was set up to ruin another; and the knitting of a Church was the un­tying of civil Society. This was one of the Devils first assaults against the Church: And he made it not but upon advantage. For a sect of peo­ple there were, who as Josephus saith, would have [...] * [...], no Lord but God, no King but the King of Kings; and all this under the fair pretense of maintaining their priviledge and freedom. They would have heard with delight St. Paul speak of a quiet and peaceable life: but his [...], Be subject, was a word which bored their ears, and changed their countenance. What? sell their freedom to buy their peace, and af­ter an entail of Liberty yield their neck to the yoke of Subjection? This was not for the honor of a Galilaean, or a Jew, of those who had Abra­ham to their father. This coat of Disobedience you see was made up by [Page 132] others; but some said Christianity did wear it. Therefore the Apostle here presents her in an humble posture, upon the knee, bowing to the Sword, and kneeling to Authority. And he proceeds like a perfect Me­thodist. In the former Chapter he laid open and unfolded [...], that large body of Philosophy, those numerous precepts of mutual conver­sation. He levelled the hills, and raised the valleys; he disarmed men of all instruments of private revenge; and he points in this Chapter to the higher Powers, and enjoyeth Loyalty and Obedience. And having laid his ground work, and drawn that first and fundamental axiome, That all Pow­er and Jurisdiction is from God, he brings in the Magistrate [...], [...] a souldier, with a Sword in his hand; and the motto is, NON FRUS­TRA: For he beareth not the sword in vain.

We no sooner hear of a Sword, but we think of Power. When the An­gel held one at the East-side of Paradise, it was to keep the way of the tree of life. When Abraham drew one for recovery of his Nephew Lot, he had jus gladii, the power of the Sword; and so had David, when he smote his enemies on the hinder parts: Do we hear the Word called a sword. It is [...], mighty in operation. Is the Spirit a sword? That Sword is power. So saith St. Ambrose, Spiritus, gladius verbi; verbum, gladius Spiritûs, The Word is the sword of the Spirit, and the Spirit the sword of the Word; both are Swords, both powerful. The Sword was insigne magistratûs, an ensign and badge of autority, put into the hand of Kings and Emperours when they put on their robes, their purple, [...], those Princely and peculiar vestiments, to work obedience in the people, and to win re­verence from the subject, nè orederentur esse privati, saith Aquinas, lest the people should mistake them, and esteem them as private men, as fit to feel a sword as to bear one.

Not to be too anxious in cutting out our way and making our passage; the Civilians will enform us that the word Sword is not taken meerly pro telo, for a material sword, but that it includes merum imperium, the Right of drawing the sword, that vindicative and coactive Power, pressing on, and breaking through the strongest opposition, battering down tumults, sediti­on, disorders, and making way to the peace of the weal-publick.

Well then, we see, a coercive and restraining power, a Sword there is. For the Almighty teacheth not Man only by his immediate Wisdome, nor guideth him alone by his invisible finger, but with a finger hath drawn out many visible copies of his words and works, that Man may even see and feel and handle those instructions which may make him wise; so neither doth he govern the world alone by his immediate unapprehensible Power, by that fulness and infiniteness which he is, but he also derives a power, conveys an instrument, lets fall a Sword, to be employed in the very eyes of men. But, in the next place, a Sword is but a dead instrument, able of it self to produce no effect: all you find in it is an aptness and disposition to obey the force and virtue of the agent. Goliah's sword, if Abimeleck wrap it up in a linnen cloth behind the Ephod, what is it? what doth it? But let David take it to pursue the Philistines, there is none to that. Therefore St. Paul not only shews the Sword, but also points out to the hand that bears it; [...], and [...], the Prince, the Judge, the Magistrate, he is the Swords-man.

But now the Sword is in the Hand, what must our expectation wait for? Doth it come forth against an adversary? or will it strike at randome? Om­ne instrumentum disponitur ad virtutem agentis, say the Schoolmen, The in­strument obeys the agent. A Sword it is, and there is much in the Hand that bears it. He may latch it in the side of Innocency, and wound Justice her self: Naboth may lose his vineyard, and life too, John Baptists head go [Page 133] off, and St. Paul be smitten against the law. I say, the Sword neither hurts nor helps: It is the Hand that doth it. We must then, in the next place, fix up the Motto, engrave St. Pauls NON FRUSTRA upon the Sword; and then strike he must, or else he doth but bear; and in the right place too, and our fear is vanisht.

We may now behold the Magistrate placed as he should be, in his proper place, in the midst between the Offender and the Innocent, looking upon both. To the good the word is [...], It is a Sword, but fear not: thy innocency hath made him that beareth it both thy friend and champion: But if thou hast done evil, the dialect is altered, and he speaks in thunder, [...], Fear, it is a sword, and terrible. So then we have here wrapt up the Power and the Subject; the Instrument, the Agent, and the End; Autori­ty granted, confined, and directed; a Sword committed, born, and used. The parts then are these, and by these lines we are to pass. First, we must place the Sword, and fasten it too, in its proper place, the hand of the Magistrate; Secondly, we must joyn the NON FRUSTRA to the Sword: and that will bring us in the Third place to the most proper and peculiar work of the Magistrate, to his prime care, That he beareth it not in vain. Of these in their order.

He beareth the sword: That is his Autority, his Commission. For of God it can­not in strict terms and properly be said that He beareth a sword. God is Omni­potency, and Aeternity, and Power; [...], a sea of essence, saith Na­zianzene, and [...], a sea of power; but the Magistrate is the chan­nel and conveyance of the rivulet. God giveth the Power, the Magistrate hath it; God lendeth the Sword, the Magistrate bears it. Autoritas dicitur de diplomate principis manu obsignato; Autority presumes a Commission. And though Ambiti­on (as one observeth) hath presented this Power under divers forms and com­plexions, of Popularity, Aristocrasy and Monarchy, which is the fairest and compleatest piece, yet the Commission and seal is still the same. For behold him who beareth this Sword, and is invested with this power, and you shall see him sealed, and that Divinâ manu, with the very finger of God. The Kings broad Seal, what is it. The matter is wax; a small piece of mo­ney will buy a greater quantity: But having the image and superscription of my Prince, it is either my Pardon, or my Liberty, or my Charter, or my Possessions. So the Magistrate, what is he? Behold the Man, my fellow, dust and ashes, of as near alliance to the Worm and Corruption as my self: Nay, behold a sinful man, of as near kin to Adam as my self: And yet he awes me, and he bounds me, and he keeps me in on every side. One mono­syllable of his turneth me about, and is my motion. If he say, Go, I got If he say, Come, I come: If he say, Do this, I do it. For he is sealed, and hath the image and superscription of the Deity. And as we say that Laws are numismata reipublicae, the Coin, the Money, in which we may behold the face and the livelyhood of a Common-wealth: so is the Magistrate nu­misma Dei, a piece of Coin taken out of Gods Mint. We need not ask whose image or superscription he hath; for he hath Gods: And though he bear the Sword, yet he had it from Him who is said to bear all things. And Heb. 1. 3. being thus armed, like to God himself, he keeps every wheel in its due motion, every man in his right place; the master on horsback, and the servant on the ground: and where Impudence encreaseth, he checks it with a, Friend, sit down lower. He keeps the hands of the ungodly from the white hairs of the aged, and the teeth of the oppressor from the face of the widows. He lays his hand upon the orb of that Common-wealth, [...], that it move not incomposedly and unsteddily. And in this he doth give unto God those things which are Gods, his own coin, his own image, not clipt, not dasht, not defaced; a powerful Just man, the fairest picture and representation of his Master.

But though God hath conveyed his Power, and given his Sword, yet he hath not done it to every man upon the same terms; not to Joab the Cap­tain of the Host as to David the King; not to Shaphan the Chancellour as to Josiah on the throne; not to Gallio the Deputy as to Caesar the Empe­rour; not to the under Officers as to the lower Justices; not to the Justi­ces as to the Judge; not to the Judge as to the King. Non variatur praero­gativa autoritatis aut differentiae numero illorum quibus est concredita potestas, That the prerogative of Authority is the same in all, that a Burgomaster of Amsterdam shall stand in competition with the greatest Monarch for Right and Soveraignty, is a doctrine which trips at the very chair of Ma­jesty, and calls for Parity and Popularity. But let it dy, and be buried with the Author, that man of contention; or if not, let it breathe in its own coast, and be a beyond-sea-doctrine still. Here is no such equalizing of Powers, no print or foot-step thereof in the Apostle. For see here even an order of Order, [...] and [...]. These Powers are ordinatae, not per­mitted, but ordained; 2. [...], subordinate, under God; 3. [...], Marshalled, set in order; constituted, decreed, subordinate, ordained. Here rota in rota, a wheele within a wheele, and a sphere within a sphere. God, the first Orbe, the great compassing Wheele; the Kings is absolutum Dominium, absolute under God; yours, concreditum & delegatum, depen­dant, and by way of delegation. Mutuato splendetis lumine, you spangle in your spheres like stars, but it is with a borrowed light: and he who holds you now in his right hand, may let you fall, and fix up others. For he it is who by you conveyeth and lets forth himself to his subjects, his house is the tribunal while you are sitting. When you bespeak the Jury, the Charge is his; and when you give sentence, he condemns the guilty. Therefore Na­zianzene, where he tells us that Magistrates are the very image of God, thus sorteth he; the King, a complete peece; the middle sort, but half-pictures; the lowest like those [...], drawn but to the shoulders.

But yet again, all carry the image of God, and every one beareth the sword, though delivered some at the second or third hand, as they say. And God hath both appropriated and fastned it. No private man may be a swords-man. If Peter will be drawing to lop off an eare, Christi patientia in Malcho vulneratur, Saint Tertullian; Christs Patience is wounded by Peters impatience, and he must hear, Put up thy sword into its place, for he that draws Matth. 26. the sword shall perish by the sword. God puts the sword out of our reach. For Revenge is [...], an imbred desire, kindled in the very heart of Man by Nature. And to that lesson and dictate of our first Mother, Vim vi repellere, To defend our selves, and to drive back force by violence, we have added [...], the Thirst and pursuit of retaliation. And this Les­son the World hath long since taken out and digested, and reads it in its own corrupt edition, and calls it Justice. Esau will kill his brother Jacob; for should he have my birth-right? Every male of the Shechemites must fall under the sword; for should Shechim abuse our sister as a whore? But our later and more gallant times have commented, and glossed upon this Lesson, have drawn out leges [...], a method of Quarrelling, and an art of Murder. And they proceed sub formata, under a set form; as legally as you use to do in your Courts of Justice. Every hand with them is fit for a sword; every arm, an arm of Justice; the right Sword is not thought on, till they feel it. Further yet; as God hath appropriated the Sword, to make it the Magistrates, so hath he fastend it, to keep it in his hand. No discontent shall move it, no argument stir it, no murmuring sheath it; no time, no calling, no liberty free or priviledge from the power of it. It may be drawn at Jerusalem as well as at Athens, in the Land of Jewry as well as in streets of Ashkelon, amongst the faithfull as well as amongst unbelievers: [Page 135] Let them accuse one another, may be the voice of a Christian as well as of the Acts 19. Town-Clerk of Ephesus.

A Generation there are that would long since have wrencht the Sword out of the Magistrates hand, and broke it. A Generation that had raised themselves to such a pitch of Perfection that they could be wicked, and not guilty; to such a health of spiritual goodness, that sickness it self might be their health; to such a constitution and temper of Holiness, that no ai­rasie, no distemper could alter it: like those Beguniae in the Historian, or those Indian Gymnosophists, who by a few years austerity had purchased an age of licentiousness and luxury. They were now become [...], more regular then the Rule, more exact than the Law, more bright then Light, above the Command. Will you hear them in their own Dialect? A Heze­kias is no better than a Sennacherib; a Constantine as unsufferable as a Julian; every Magistrate a tyrant, and every tyrant a Divel. What need of other guide then the Spirit? of other Court than Heaven? of other lash than that of Conscience? Speak we of Tribulation? It is their portion. Injurie is a benefit. Take away their cloak, they punish it with the gift of a coat; Meum and Tuum are harsh words in the Church. They are almost of the mind of the Corpocraliars in Clement, who because the Ayre was common, would have their Wives so too. Ridiculous men! who not onely mistake their God, but would teach him. It is true; rather than thou shouldst take the Sword into thy own hand, let thy Eye go out, thy Coat be lost, and thy right Hand be cut off: But let the Magistrate strike, and the blow is not a blow of Revenge, but of Justice. Morality teacheth us to do no wrong: That which Religion addeth is no more but this, to keep our mind in an ha­bitual preparation of Suffering it. And thus the Schoolmen and Casuists out of Augustine interpret those precepts of our Saviour, That we ought then to retain the heart of a friend when we have taken upon us the name of an adversary, and so compose our selves that we should chuse rather to loose our Right than our Charity. But Charity seeketh not her own. A good Argument not onely to keep me from the Tribunal, but to drive me also from the Church. And yet he who bid me cast my bread upon the waters, hath prescrib'd me also that form of prayer, Give us this day our dayly bread. It is true; Regulae Caritatis latiùs patent quàm juris, The rules of Charity are of a larger extent than those of the Law. If thou owest a hundred measures of oyle, Charity takes the bill, and sets down quickly, and writes Fifty: And if thy vessels be quite empty, she cancels the bill, and teareth the Indenture. But it is as true too, that Charity begins at home, and he that provides not for his own family is worse than an Infidel. These precepts of our Saviour non consistunt in puncto, are not to be read in that narrow compass they lye, but have their certain latitude. Let my Charity shine forth like the Day, but not to darken the lustre of Justice. Let her stretch out her hand to the furthest, but not to reach at the Sword of the Magistrate. And as they mistake our Saviour, so would they take upon them to teach him. A trick the world hath long since got, To be angry with Gods Providence, To teach his Wisdom, To guide his Hand, and as he in Photius, To put their own shape upon the Deity, and to confine and limit God to their own phansie. If that be thwarted, the most blessed Peace is but tumult, the most gracious Go­vernment tyranny, and Order it self disorderly. Why should Christ become man? say some. He might have satisfied [...], with his bare naked Divinity. If he will take flesh, and redeem, he may do that, and not sa­tisfie, say others. And saith the Cardinal, God had not dealt discreetly, if he had not establish'd a visible and infallible, a universal Catholick, and yet particu­lar, Church. And if God be Judge of all men and Deus ultionum, what need then [...] and [...], these counsel-tables and seats of judgment, and the dread and horror of an earthly tribunal? What use of a Sword in the hand of a Magistrate.

I have grappled, you see, with a mean adversary; but I found him in my way, and could not well balk him; I leave him to that censure of the Phi­losophers on those who should deny either Worship to God or Love to Pa­rents, [...], He should smart under the Authority he denies, and be confuted with the edge of that Sword he questions.

But we shall meet with Gyants indeed. Not a Sword you see but they snatch at. If they meet with two at once, Ecce duo gladij, both theirs: And they take them, and put them into the hand of that Man of pride; and he fights against Authority, Sword and Bearer, King and Caesar, Christ and all. They read these words as we do: And this Sword is secular Power with them too. But then this Power is a subordinate and dependent Power; this Sword is a sword at will, as we say; a sword which like Josephs bre­threns sheaves to his sheaf, must bow and make obeysance to the high Priests Sword. And the Magistrate is left palsy-strucken, and the Sword tottering in his hand: a breath, a frown of the supreme Head disarms him. But oh the artifice and slight of Satan! The Conclusion is, He must be disarmed; but the first Proposition is, He beareth his sword. For by these degrees and approaches they reach at it. The First step is, He beareth the sword; and therefore he must be able to wield it; and therefore he must have some Master of defence, the Pope forsooth, to instruct him; and therefore he must guide his arme by his direction, and strike as he prescribes: If he misplace his blow, he must be corrected; if he be incorrigible, he must be disarmed. There is the last, Syllogismus verè destructivus, a bloudy destructive Syllogisme. Inauguration is the Medium, & Deposition inferred. This is a Chain to bind Kings in, and the first link is Power. Here is a Building ruin'd by the Foundation which should sustain it, and the Magistrate disabled by his Commission. Thus hath the yielding Devotion and forward Piety of some Christian Emperours warmed and animated the Bishops of Rome, and made them active to que­stion that Power which once did shelter them; and then the Sword became their port and argument which was before their terror. For look back, and behold them temporibus malis, when persecution raged; they were no Sword-men then. You might see them in another posture; a borer in their eyes, a whip on their backs: no Sword, but what was drencht in their own bloud, and their Crown was Martyrdom. Or look and behold S. Paul here pleading the right of this Magistrate, upholding that Sword which he was to feel, adoring that Power he sunk under, and bowing to Majesty when the throne was Nero's. It is the gloss of a Jesuite upon the Apostle; but he glosseth too upon that Gloss: Ecclesia non subvertit Regna; The Ephod and the Robe suit well: The Church thwarts not secular Power, nor is one sword drawn to break another; but both together glitter in the face of Dis­obedience, to strengthen the pillars of a Kingdom. Let then both swords be drawn together, the one to pierce through the heart, the other, to drink the Luke 35. 2. bloud of the wicked, the one, to cut out those causarias partes animae, those Deut. 32. maims and bruises of the soul; the other, to cut off the ungodly from the earth: the one, to hang over [...], that laboratory and work­house of the soul, that no Babel be erected there, no curious piece of guile shap'd there, no refuse silver come there, no works of iniquity set up there; but then Vengeance lying at the door, and the other sword ready, if they come forth and appear, to abolish them, to pull down that Babel, to break those carved pieces, to dash those plots, to demolish these works: The one, to guide us [...], in things pertaining to God; the other, [...], in matters of this present life.

We have now put the Sword into the Magistrates hand. It is now time to proceed, and place the NON FRUSTRA upon the sword. Having setled Authority in its proper subject, our next task must make good, that it is not there in vain. Our second part.

Those actions which are irregular, and swarve from the rule, the Philo­sopher calls [...], odious, frivolous actions, to no purpose: Nec quid, nec quare; No reason can be given why they should be done. Adul­tery to night is pleasure; to morrow, my disease. Murder is now my thirst; anon, my melancholy. Here is a Frustrà indeed: I am more vain than Vanity it self. But the Quare? the Wherefore? to me, and you have silenced me. But those things which are laid and driven to a right end will admit a Quare? Wherefore the sword? Wherefore Authority? The Apo­stle is ready, and meets you with an answer, That we may lead a quiet and 1 Tim. 2. 2. peaceable life in all godliness and honesty; That every man may sit under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree; that the poor man may keep his lamb, and the jawbone of the oppressor be broken; that Peace may shadow the Common-wealth, and Plenty crown it. There is scarce one Quare? resol­ved with so many Answers. [...], saith Basil, This is not a matter of jest, but earnest. For would you have divers Families drawn into one body politick? This is [...], the very bond and tye of Society. Would have the Laws kept? This is [...], a watch, a guard set upon the Laws. Nay, would you have any Laws at all? This is [...], the Law-giver. For, as Julian calls the Law [...], the Child of Justice, so may we call it the child of Authority. For as Autho­rity nurseth and defendeth and strengthneth it, so it was the Midwife which brought it forth, and the Mother too which conceived it. When it was in semine, in principiis, when it lay hid in the lap of the Law natural, Authori­ty framed and shaped and limb'd it; gave it voice, and taught it to speak its own language, but more audibly; declared, expounded, amplified it, and was its interpreter. Will you have a Church? Authority gathers it. Would you have the Church continue so, a Church still, and not fall asunder into Schisms, nor moulder into Sects, nor crumble into Conventicles? Au­thority is the juncture, the cement, the Contignation, [...], the pale, the fence, the wall of the Church keeping it so, that neither the Wolf break in, nor the Sheep get out; that neither Heresie undermine the bulwarks without, nor Schisme raise a mutinie within. Such an accord and sympathy there is between the Secular and Spiritual Sword, between the Church and body Politick, that if the one be sick, the other complains [...], saith Socrates, at the same time. If the Common-wealth swell into tumors and seditions, you may see the marks and impressions thereof in the Church: and if the Church be ulcerous and impostumate, you may see the symptomes and indications in the body Politick. So that now we may well render [...], non sine causa: There is good cause, good rea­son, that a Sword should be held up, that Authority be established. And to this Non frustrà we may add [...]. Authority is not onely not in vain, but profitable. And we may now ask not onely Quare; but, [...]; not onely, Wherefore? but, What profit is there? And we can an­swer and resolve with the Apostle, [...], Much every man­ner of way. For let Cities talk of Charters, and Tradesmen of gain; let Scholars speak of learning, and Noble-men of honour; let the Church sing of peace to the Common-wealth, and the Common-wealth echo it back again to the Church. Attribute these to what you will; this is [...], this is all. This is Isaiahs nayle in a sure place, on which hand both Laws, and Church, and Common-wealth. If you but stir it, you endanger; if you pluck it out and remove it, you batter all. And this argument ab utili, quite shuts up Frustrà. [...], That which is profitable is good: and that which is good is not in vain. But to step one degree further; To this [...] we may add [...], Necessity to Profit. Profit may lead me, Necessity chaineth me. I run and meet with Profit, but I am forced and [Page 138] pluckt by Necessity. And if it be not onely well it should be so, but be so as that it cannot be otherwise, then is it not in vain. It not Profit, yet Ne­cessity excludes Frustrà. And necessary Authority is, not so much on Gods part as on ours. For, as Aquinas speaks of the natural Temple, Propter Deum non oportuit Templum fieri, God had no need of a Temple made with hands, but Man had need that God should have one: so God could have redeemed us by his own immediate absolute Soveraignty; he could have govern'd us without a Sword; but it was not good for Man to be so go­vern'd. We were gone away from God, and set our selves at such a distance that it was not good he should come too nigh us. And therefore St. Basil calls it [...], his love to Man, that as he had drawn Heaven as a cur­tain, and made it [...], the veile of his Divine Majesty, so in all his operations and proceedings upon Man he is still Deus sub velo, God under a veile; hidden, but yet seen; in dark characters, but read; silent, and yet heard; not toucht, but felt; still creating the world by con­serving it. I say, Necessity hath put the Sword into the hand. For God appears through other veils, by other Mediums, but we hide the face, and will not see that light which flasheth in our eyes. He is first sub velo naturae, under the veile of natural impressions, speaking to us by that Law which Tertullian calls legem naturalem, and naturam legalem, and speaking in us, but at a distance, preventing us with anticipations, drop­ping on us, and leaving in us, [...], those common notions, and practick principles. To love God, hate evil, To worship God, and the like, domi nascuntur. To do as I would be done to, [...], it is my contemporary, my domestick, born and bred with me. I received it with my first breath; and it will live in me, though I attempt to strangle it; it will live with me, though I would chase it away. Non iniquitas de­lebit, saith Augustine: These things are written with the finger of God, and Sin it self cannot blot them out. But though I cannot blot them out, I may enterline them with false glosses, though I cannot race them out, I may deface them. My Envy may drop on them, my Malice blur them, and my Self-love misplace them. On this foundation of Innocence I may build in bloud; on this ground-work of Justice I may set up Oppression. I may draw false consequences from these true principles: I must do good; I do so to my self when I wrong my neighbour: I must shun evil; I think I have done that when I run from goodness. Like those [...] in Aristotle those stiff and stubborn defendants, to what is first proposed, we easily yield as­sent; but at last [...], we hunt-out tricks and evasions: We are all So­phisters, but it is to cheat and delude our selves. And now if we read these principles in the worlds corrupt edition, if unjust man may be the Scho­liast, thus they lye: see, and read them: INJURIAM FECISSE, VIRTUTIS EST; to do injury is vertue; To oppress is power; Craft is police; Murder is valour, Theft is frugality; The greatest Wis­dom is, not to be wise to salvation.

And therefore, in the second place, God presents himself again under another Medium, sub velo legis scriptae. He would be read as it were in ta­bles of stone. And in these tables he writes and promulges his Law Mo­ral. Will this prevaile? No, he must back and strengthen it with the Judi­cial. Sin must be brought forth, and seen in its own shape, Murder wal­lowing in the bloud she spilt, Fornication in a whitesheet with shame upon her forehead, Blasphemy with its brains dasht out, Idleness starved, Theft sub hasta, brought to publick sale, and condemned to slavery. But under the Gospel Hell it self is unlockt, her mouth open'd, and all her terrors dis­plaied. Who would now think that this were not enough to stay our fli­ting humour, to quell our raging temper, to bind our unlimited desires? [Page 139] Who would not think that this two-edged sword of the Word would fru­strate and annihilate all other swords? If I had set my face to Destruction, this should turn me, if I were rushing forward, this should stay me.

But, alass! we break through these repagula, we run over these suffla­mina. God speaks in us by the Law of Nature, but we hear him not. He writes to us by way of Letter and Epistle in his Divine Law, but we an­swer him not. Besides this, we too often reject and reverberate his gracious instructions and incitements by the wise counsel and examples of good men. In both God beckneth to us. It is now high time he speak to us through a vaile of Bloud, that he put the bridle into our mouths. If Hell will not fright us, then we must hear those more formidable words, as S. Augustine saith, more formidable to humane ears, Occido, Proscribo, Mitto in exilium, Death, Proscription, Banishment. Tribuno opus, & carcere: Lay the whip upon the fools back. For to be thus question'd many times prevails more then a Catechisme.

Therefore Theodorete calls this Sword, this Power, [...], a most catholick and soveraign remedy; and Luther, necessarium corruptae na­turae remedium, a necessary remedy for weak decayed nature. When the Fear of God boundeth us not, imponit timorem humanum, saith Irenaeus, he aws us with the Sword and humane Authority. When the destillation of his dew and small rain will not soften us, down came his hailstones and coals of fire to break us. A remedy it is our disposition and temper looks for and re­quires. For we are led for the most part by the Sense. We love and fear at a distance. And as the object is either nigh or remote, so it either affects or frights us. [...], The greatest evils, and so the greatest goods too, are least sensible. Villam malumus quam caelum, saith Augustine, We had rather have a Farme, a Cottage, than Paradise, and three lives in that than eternity in Heaven. We had rather be rich than good, mighty then just. Saint Ambrose gives the reason; For, saith he, quis unquam justitiam contrectavit? Who ever saw Virtue, or felt and handled Justice? And as our Love, so stands our Fear: Caesarem magis timemus quam Jovem; We fear Man more than God, and the shaking of his whip than the scorpions of a Deity, A Dag at hand frights more than great Ordinance from the Mount, and a Squib than a crack of Thunder. He that could jest at a Deity trem­bled at a Thunder-bolt. The Adulterer saith Job, watcheth for his twilight; as if God had his night. And, The ungodly lyeth in wait to spoil the poor, saith David. He seeketh a day and an opportunity, as if God had not one every moment; and he doth it secretly, as if that [...], that reveng­ing Eye, were put out. And though he stand as a butt for Gods Vengeance, and a mark for his arrow, and fuel for his fire, the very centre wherein all Gods curses may meet; yet he cleaves to his sin, he hugs and embraces it. Would you have a separation and divorce made? It is more probable a Whip should do it then a Sermon, an Officer then a Preacher, a Warrant then an Anathema. You must sue for it in the Court of Justice, not in the Church. So sensual, so senseless many are. Therefore the Holy Ghost in Scripture presents and fashions himself to the natural affections of men. And that we may not turn bankrupts, and sport or sell away our livelihood and estate in Heaven, and so come to a spiritual nothing, to bring us to the other world, he tells us of something which we most fear in this. To those who love li­berty, he speaks of a prison, a jaylor, an arrest. Those who dare not step into the house of mourning, he tells of weeping and gnashing of teeth; and to those tender constitutions who can endure no smart, he threatens many stripes. NON SINE CAUSA GLADIUM, is the servants and hire­lings argument; and many times it convinces and confutes him, it dulls and deads the edge of his affection. It destroys Murder in anger, quenches [Page 140] Adultery in the desire, sinks Pride in the rising, binds Theft in the very purpose; and, ut seta filum, as the bristle draweth the thread, it fits and prepares a way for Charity and Religion it self.

We may now then engrave this NON FRUSTRA upon the Sword, and settle it as an undoubted conclusion, That Autority was not granted in vain. Unless you will say that the Law was in vain, and Reason in vain, and Man in vain: unless you will Put the FRUSTRA upon the Church, the World, Hell, Heaven it self. And if the Sword be not in vain, then in the next place, by an easie illation the Duty of the Magistrate will follow, which is, Operam fortem & diligentem dare, as the form runs, Strenuously to con­tend [...], nè frustrà, that he bear not the Sword in vain. My third and last part.

There is no danger of a frustrà but here. For potestas habet se indifferen­ter ad bonum & malum, saith Aquinas; Autority, though directed and or­dained to good alone, yet stands in an even aspect and indifferency to both good and evil. In it is the life of the innocent, and in it is the destructi­on of the wicked; and it may be the flourishing of the wicked, and the death of the innocent. The Magistrate may (as the Devil is said to do) [...], invert the order of things, put shame upon Integrity, and security upon Sin. The Sword is an instrument; and he may use it as he will: and so of a fiery and sharp sword he may make it gladium ficulneum, a wooden and unprofitable sword; and then the drun­kard may reel in the streets, and injury may rage at noon-day for all that; or pictum gladium, no better then a Sword in a painted cloth, only to be lookt upon. He may use it, not like a Sword, but like David's rasour, to cut deceitfully: or he may let it rust in his hands, that, as that Lawyer complained of the Sword in his time, it may be fit for nothing but to cut a purse, let out a bribe.

Thus it may be. But our task is to keep off this Frustrà from the Magi­strate. And see in my Text they are severd and diametrically opposed; Frustrà is placed è regione, point blanck to the Magistrate. For the Apo­stle lays it down [...] and [...], he puts a Non, a negation, between them. He speaks it positively, and he speaks it destructively, [...], he beareth not the sword in vain. The [...] and the [...], the Duty and the Power, the Office and the Definition the same. That which should be so is so, and it is impossible it should be otherwise, say the Civilians. For at this distance these tearms naturally stand. But when we read a corrupt Judge, a perjured Jurer, a false Witness, we have conciliated them, and made up the contradiction.

These terms naturally stand at a distance: we must then find out some­thing to keep them so, to exclude this Frustrà, to safeguard the Magi­strate, that he bear not the sword in vain. And we need not look far. For it is the first thing we should look upon; and the Philosopher pointeth it out to us, [...], to propose an end. Non agitur officium, nisi inten­datur finis, say the Schools. I stir not in my duty, if this move me not; and I faint and sink under my duty, if this Continue not that motion. And down falls the Sword with a Frustrà upon it, if this uphold it not; I am but Man, and my actions must look out of themselves and beyond them­selves. I have not my compleatness, my perfection, my beatitude within my self; and therefore I must take aim at something without my self to enfeoff and entitle me to it.

Now the Magistrate hath divers ends laid before him; First, that first and architectonical end, the Glory of God; and then, that which leads to that, the Peace of the Church; and that which procures that, the Preser­vation of Justice; and that which begins that, the proper work of Justice [Page 141] it self, to stand in the midst between two opposite sides till he have drawn them together and made them one; to keep an equality even in inequality; to use the Sword not only rescindendo peccatori, to cut off the wicked, but communi dividundo, to give Mephibosheth his own lands to divide to every man his own possessions. Then the NON FRUSTRA is upon the Magistrate as well as upon the Sword, when the Law is not only the edge of this Sword, but flabellum justitiae, a fan to blow and kindle up Ju­stice in the breast of the Magistrate, that it may warm and comfort the op­pressed, but to the wicked become [...], a consuming fire: When he layeth not these ends aside, and instead thereof placeth others; for the Glory of God, some accession and addition of Honor to himself; for the good of the Commonwealth, the filling of his Coffers; for the Peace of the Church, the avoiding of a frown: for the right of the oppressed, his own private conveniencies; and for the Truth, Mammon. There are many ends, you see; but that is most pertinent to our present purpose which the Apostle sets down in this Chapter; Terror to the wicked, Secu­rity of the good, Justice on both sides.

And first, the Magistrate, like God himself, [...], governs us by that which is adverse to us, curbeth the transgressor by the execution of poenal laws; which St. Basil calls [...], a purging, cleansing, refining fire, even of that other fire, which when it breaks forth is Lust, Adultery, Murder, Sedition, Theft, or what else may set the Church and Commonwealth in a combustion.

And, in the next place, this end hath its end too. For no Magistrate doth simply will the affliction and torture of the offender, or punish only to shew his autority, but [...]. He hath an end for that too. His Power rests not in the evil of punishment, but looks further, to the good of amendment, and to the good of example; not to the taking off heads, but piercing of hearts; not to binding of hands, but limiting of wills; not to the trouble of the sinner, but the peace of the Commonwealth. This is the very end of Punishment, to destroy that proclivity and proneness to sin which every evil action begets in the very committing of it. Lay the whip upon the fools back, and slumber is not so pleasant; bring him to the post, and he unfolds his arms. Set up the Gibbet, the Gallants sword sticks in his scabberd; exact the mulct, and he hath lost the grace of his speech and half his Gentility. Let the sword be brandisht, and Sin is not so impu­dent, but croucheth and mantleth her self, and dares not step forth before the Sun and the people.

Gird then the sword upon the thigh, O most mighty. You who are inve­sted with this power, remember the end. Remember you were placed with a Sword, hostire iniquitatem, in a hostile manner to pursue the wick­ed; to run after the oppressor, and break his jaw, and take the prey out of his mouth; to destroy this Wolf; to chase away the Asp, the poisonous heretick; to cut off the hands of Sacriledge; to pierce through the spot­ted Leopard. And in doing this you perform the other part; You defend and safegard the innocent. The death of one murderer may save a thou­sand lives; and the destruction of one traiterous Jesuite as many souls. Qui malos punit, bonos laudat; The Correction of the evil is the Commendation, nay, it is the buckler, the castle, the defense, of the good. And it may prove too the Conversion of the wicked. The bloud of one Wolf may work an alteration and change of another; the Leopard may come to dwell with the Kid, the Wolf may feed quietly with the Lamb, the Lion may eat straw like an Ox, and the Asp play with a Child. Isa. 11.

The poenal Statutes are [...], copies, and samplers: and a Judge must do as a Painter doth, saith Plato, follow and imitate his forms and draughts. [Page 142] Where the Law is drawn in lines of bloud, he must not lay on colours of oyl: Where the Law shews the offender in chains, he must not present him at liberty: Where it frowns, he must not draw a smile, nor, Timanthes like, draw a veil, as not able to express that frown. No; he must take his proportions and postures from the Law, Oppression must be portrayed with its teeth out; Murder, pale, and wounded to death; Idleness, whipt; the common Barretter, with papers in his hat. He must similem pingere, not a Man for a Beast, not a Dog for a Lion, not a Fox for a Wolf, not Man­slaughter for Murder, not Usury for Extorsion, not Deceit for Oppressi­on, not a sum of daily incursion for a devouring one. He must not depose and degrade a gallant boystrous sin, and put it in a lower rank, to escape unpunished with a multitude. The neglect hereof brings in not only a fru­strà but a nocivum with it. It is hurtful and injurious. It heaps injury up­on injury: And the first lights upon God himself, of whose Divine Power this Power is a very beam; which falling upon a minister of Justice, falls as the rayes of the Sun upon a still quiet cloud: the reflexion is equal and glori­ous: But falling upon a corrupt unjust man, it falls as upon St. Jude's cloud without water, or St. James his wave of the sea, tost with the wind, and car­ried about: the impression is flitting and vanishing, and the reflexion un­stedfast and unequal. That this beam from heaven should be cast away up­on an empty cloud or a wave, is a piece of injustice. Besides it is contu­melious to God. For by injustice men undervalue him, and put him be­low his vassal, as if his Omnipotency were weaker then Man, his Honor cheaper then a Fee, Heaven at a lower price then a Bribe, and Christ him­self not worth forty pieces of silver.

From God the injury descends to the Commonwealth. It brings in that which it should cast out. Sin unpunished makes a greater breach then Sin committed. For Adultery and Murder, Drunkenness and Deceit, may give the blow, but Injustice wounds. They may call for the vials of Gods wrath, but this poureth them forth: They may invite his vengeance, but this pulls it down. Talk of those numerous volumes of Sin, but this is all, this doth all. This dislocates and perverts the course of Nature; this changeth it, saith Basil, [...], into another temper. It puts su­pernatural aspects upon natural effects. If it be a Comet, it makes it omi­nous; if a vapor, it dampeth it with a plague. Will you have no Sword hang over the Common-wealth? Then use that power which is put into your hand. Would you have her of a healthy constitution and temper? Then cut off putred and fester'd members. Turpis est pars quae toti suo non convenit: It is an ill member for which the whole body is the worse. Ut in Sermone literae, saith St. Augustine, As Letters in a word or sentence, so Men are Elementa civitatis, the principles, the parts, which concur to make up the Syntaxis of a Commonwealth. [...], saith he in Thucy­dides, for men are the city. But then each capital and grand offendor is a letter too much, or rather a blur, in the sentence. Blot it out therefore, wipe him off from the face of the earth, and the composition is en­tire.

Thirdly, many times the injury falls upon the offendor; Who hath lost his Physick, (for Punishment is [...], medicinable, and doth heal) whose greatest punishment it is that he is so much wrong'd as to be befriended, and so much favoured as to be unpunished, to have his wounds exulcerate by a gentle hand, to be poysoned with oyl, to be chained with liberty, and being freed from prison to bear about with him the cause of his imprisonment.

But the wrong wrests and dwells in the Magistrate; Who in a manner ab­jures his office, degrades himself by his connivence, and makes the Sword less terrible by not using it; the not executing the Law upon the greatest work­ing [Page 143] a secret, and reserved contempt thereof in the meanest. What speak you of the Law? I can have it in sudariolo, in the corner of my handker­chief. What though it be vocal against me? I can silence it. What fright you me with a Sword? I can play with it. [...], That invisible tyrant, Gold, as Nazianzene speaks, dominers and kings it over the Ma­gistrate himself; and it is the Judge, the Advocate, the Law, the Sentence, and the Magistrate sits guilty on the Bench, and the lesser thief, saith Basil, holds up his hand at the bar.

Here is then the danger of a Frustrà. And this is the authentick and ori­ginal Frustrà. And from the Magistrate we transcribe this Frustrà, upon the Law and Autority too: For the Law of it self is surda res, as the young men in Livy complain'd, deaf and unexorable, Though thou speak aloud, it hears thee not; and though thou speak it fair, it regards thee not: It is immovable, like a rock; and it keeps its countenance, and stares the offen­der in the face. Thou canst not complement with it. No riches can bat­ter it, no Power move it, no Bribe alter it. If it seem to change counte­nance, it is not its own face, but the paint and visard of the Magistrate. When Injustice drives and beats upon this rock, that falls out which Tertullian observes of Infidelity meeting with a convincing Argument, Injustice pre­vaileth, and the Law is vanquisht, and (which is monstrous) the Ship is safe, and the Rock shipwrackt. For the Magistrate, as he is the life, so may be too the death of the Laws. In the Law there is vis movens, and vis obligans, say the Jesuites, there is regula and imperium; and it looks upon two faculties of the soul. It is both directive, and coactive; it is a rule, and a command; a rod and a staff. It hath its lightning, and its thunder; it flashes upon the Understanding, and it thunders upon the Will; it di­rects and regulates, it obligeth and constrains. These be its proper and pe­culiar functions and operations. But then the Magistrate may slumber and benum it in all these; he may dead its force, and weaken its power, and slug its motions. He may beat back this lightning, and drown the noyse of this thunder; he may put a Frustrà upon it: that it would be better have no Laws, than to give them life, and then bury them alive; or, if you suffer them to live, to rack and torture them; to sell them to those crimes they frown at; to give them to my wife, my friend, my servant, my lust. Better no Sword, than that a Frustrà should be upon it, then that Injustice should draw it.

Oh then, you that have this Sword put into your hands, as you tender the life of the Laws, the peace of the Common-wealth, the good of your bre­thren, the glory of God, the dignity of the Sword it self; bear it not in vain. Sever not the Duty from the Power; let not the Sword destroy the bearing, nor one Sword be living and eminent in the Text, and the other [...], like a flower in its fading, ready to wither and vanishand steal a­way. Think of your Power, but think of your Duty too: think of the Sword, but think of the hand that bears it, and think of that hand that put it into the hand, whose every finger is Power. Think then it is a Sword, and draw it against the most gyant like sinner, the most proud and insolent offender, and draw it for those grashoppers, even those who seem little and mean in the eye of the world, and those who per­haps loose in their esteem to preserve their honesty. Draw it [...], and [...], to cut off the hand of Violence, and to guard and shelter the in­nocent, and revenge his cause. Let Wisdom direct your hand, and cou­rage strengthen it. With the one pierce thorough to the Truth, even through those black mists of Trade and Overture, and false accusations and crafty Undermining, and those mists which either the Lawyer or Witness, or Infor­mer shall cast, and those fogs which the corrupt heart of man may send up [Page 144] of Ambition, Covetousness, Pride, Uxoriousness; and then, like good archers, having found your mark, be men, and draw up your arrow to the head. End not where you began, with a fair intent and good resolution; but crown it with performance. March forward to the end; go on in that strength, O thou man of Power. Let not a gift out of the bosom stay thee, nor a letter divert thee, nor a frown from Greatness tyre thee, till thou come ad terminum, till thou hast taken Justice, and drawn her out of these mists, and dispersed these fogs, and led her thorough those retardations and incumbrances; till thou hast cloath'd thy self with her, and canst say thou hast finish'd thy course. And to this end give me leave, Right Honoura­ble, by way of conclusion, to be to you à memoria, not à consiliis for this time to be your Register, and to reach into your hands the book of Re­cords. And I find therein a Curse enrol'd for the sowering of Justice, for turning Judgment into wormwood, by corrupting, and into vinegar by delay­ing it, and I find a Day of Visitation for not executing the judgment of the fa­therless. But then in this book too I find as many Blessings in a fair and le­gible character, for executing of judgment, and destroying the wicked. Take, read them to your Comfort; For the Non Frustrà of bearing the Sword, ma­ny Jer. 5. Non Frustra's; a Non Frustrà upon the Church; peace within her walls, and prosperity within her palaces: a Non Frustrà upon the Common-wealth, gold there as silver, and silver as brass: a Non frustrà upon the Laws; they shall now be seen, and heard; they shall lighten, and they shall thunder: and a Non frustrà upon your selves. To you that thus bear the Sword, it shall not be in vain: but in life it shall be your crown and garland? and in death, when the Sword falls out of your hand, no crys of orphans, no tears of the widdow, no groans of the oppressed will disquiet your peace: but having resigned your Power, delivered up your Sword Jovi vindici, to the the God of Revenge; having, Curtius like, given your selves for your Coun­try, sacrificed your selves, all your selves, your Covetousness, your Ambition, your Self-love, he will receive his own, his Deputy, his representation; and the Non frustrà shall be seated with an Euge, not only Not in vain, but Well done. And for a tribunal on earth you shall have a mansion in heaven. Your circuit shall be enlarg'd, you shall judge not some Shire or County, but the world: and be arrayed in whole robes of Innocence, even of that Inno­cency which you have protected. And for Mortality you shall receive E­ternity, for Power Glory, for a Sword, a Crown. Which God grant us all for his Son Christ Jesus sake.

LET every soul be subject to the higher Powers, saith St. Paul the Doctor of the Gentiles, Submit your selves Rom. 13. 1. to every ordinance of man, saith St. Peter here, the Apo­stle of the Circumcision. So this precept of Obe­dience to Governours reacheth home unto all: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither bond nor free, but cometh under this Law. We have two Apostles (one whereof in another case withstood the other to the face) Gal. 2. 11. both joyntly standing up for the higher Powers, even for that Authority which struck off the head of the one, and nayl'd the other to the cross. Both deliver what they received from Christ: For what they lay down concerning Authority is but an exposition and Commentary upon Christs, Give unto Caesar those things which are Caesars. Obedience, Submis­sion and Subjection take in all, all even to a penny. Above all we cannot but observe how wisely and fully both the Apostles press this doctrine, how they fight with the same weapons to defend the King on his throne; how they bring the same Arguments, Arguments as irresistable as that Power which they defend, [...], saith St. Paul; [...], saith St. Peter: to the higher Powers, saith the one; to Kings and to Governours sent by them, saith the other. And they both walk by the same rule, ground their pre­cepts upon the same reason. All power as from God, saith St. Paul; and Sub­mit for the Lords sake, saith S. Peter. They both hold up the same Sword, terrible to evil doers, and which shall win praise to them that do well. A­gain, not for wrath, but for conscience sake, saith the one; for so is the will of God, saith the other. And the Will of God is in a manner the essence of every Duty; It brings it home to the inward man, and to the very con­science, and leaves it not as matter meerly arbitrary, but which must be per­formed upon pain of Death and Damnation. Hitherto both these glorious Apostles, as they minded the same thing, so speak almost the same words; [Page 146] scarce any difference between them. But St. Peter seems to be more par­ticular, and at large to unfold what is more briefly wrapped up by St. Paul. First he strives to take off a foul imputation which was laid upon Christia­nity, That it made men disobedient and refractorie to Government, in these words, That by well-doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Secondly, he taketh away all pretence from the Christian, which might shake his Loyalty, or make him cast a favourable eye on that Disobe­dience which might open the mouth of an Infidel, not onely against the Chri­stian, but even against Christianity it self, in these words, as free, and not using your liberty as a cloak of maliciousness. Take the conclusion of the whole matter; [...], We must needs be subject. The King is placed in his throne; his Governours set abroad by him: and we must sub­mit, 1. propter Dominum, because the Lord hath so commanded it; 2. prop­ter nos ipsos, for our own sakes, that we may live a Godly and peaceable life, whilst, the wicked are punisht, and the good praised. 3. Propter imprudentes, for those fools sake, qui hominum vitam rebus assignant, who are very ready to draw an Argument from the Person to blemish and deface his Calling and Profession. Nor can our Freedom by Christ priviledge us: for we must submit quasi liberi, as free, and quia liberi, because we are free. For to this end we are made free, that we should work all righteousness, and not make our Freedom [...], a cloak of maliciousness; that by obeying of Kings and Governours we may be the Servants of God.

This is the sum of these words. In them there be divers circumstances observable, which we cannot handle now. We will therefore confine our meditations, and consider the Object, which is [...], every hu­mane ordinance; which hath here its distribution into Superior and Infe­ferior, first, the King, secondly, those Governours which are sent by him, and are his Vicegerents. 2. What is meant here by Submission. 3. The Mo­tives to win us to the performance of this Duty. One is drawn ab autori­tate, from the Authority of God himself, whose Deputys, Kings and Go­vernours are; We must submit for the Lords sake; another, ab utili, from the Good and Benefit we receive from them, in the punishment of evil doers, and the praise and encouragement of those that do well. Of these in their order; and first of the Object, Submit your selves to every ordinance of man.

What this [...], this ordinance of man, this humane creature, is, there is some dispute, and by divers hands it hath been fashion'd and sha­ped as it were into divers forms. Some have tender'd it as a Law, as a Constitution, made by man; Others have presented it as a Man, though not invested with Authority; and so have made every man both a King and a Subject; a King, to receive honour; and a Subject to give it; every man being bound by Christianity, as by a Law, to esteem every man his Supe­rior, and better than himself. Some take it for the civil Power it self, which though it be ordained of God, and so is his creature, yet it was first received and approved of men, and so may be said to be a humane constitution: à Deo, saith St. Paul, because all power is derived from God; humana crea­tura, saith St. Peter, because even Nature it self hath taught men this lesson, That two are better than one, and that every family and every man, is most safe in a collection and Society, which cannot subsist but by a mutual depen­dance, Eccles. 4. 9. and a friendly subordination of parts, where some are govern'd, and others bare rule. To reconcile all, we may observe that rule in St. Au­gustine, Turpe est disputantibus in verborum quaestione immorari, cùm certa­men nullum de rebus remanserit, It is a thing not seemly to dwell long upon the words, and to contend and criticize thereupon, when the sense is plain. Though we cannot separate the Power from the Man whose power it is, yet [Page 147] it is plain by the distribution which follows, that it cannot be meant of the Power, but of the Man upon whose shoulders the Government lyeth. For we cannot properly say of Power, that it is either King or his Deputy. It is very probable, what a late writer hath observed, that by this phrase the name of Magistrate is exprest in general; and that St. Peter calls him [...], a creature, as the Latines say, creare consulem, to make or create a Consul; and that he stiles him a humane creature, not that the Magistrate hath his Au­thority from men, but because Magistrates themselves, who are endowed with this Authority, are men. So that the word [...] hath reference, not to the Efficient cause, but to the Subject, to the Man in Authority, who is the creature of God, from heaven, heavenly. Nor indeed is it much material which sence we take, but that the words will bear this last better then the other. For as the man is, such is his strength; and as the Magistrate is, such is his Power. They are [...], and bear so near a relation that they cannot subsist but together: And St. Paul joyns them together, and makes them one. For whom he calls Rulers in one place, he calls the higher Powers in another. They are humane creatures, as being men, and formen; but in respect of their power, neither of men, nor by men, further then their consent. No: [...], could the Pythagoreans say, Kings and Governours are creatures of Gods making: And we may say of them as the people spake of Paul and Barnabas, Gods are come down to us in Acts 14. the likeness of men.

Now this humane ordinance or creature, if you take it for the Power it self, is still the same: and though it be conveyed by divers subordinations unto divers, yet it differs no more then Water in the chanel doth from what it was in the fountain. For as the King rules in nomine Dei, in the name and place of God, so doth the lower Magistrate judge the innocent and punish the offendor, but withall in nomine Regis, in the Kings name. But if we take it for the Magistrate himself, then it hath degrees of Sub and Su­prà. [...], the King, is [...], supreme and transcendent: The Ru­lers and Governours, which are sent and appointed by him, move in a lower sphere, and, as the Stars, differ from one another in glory. For, as we say in Logique, that the middle Species is the Genus in respect of a lower, yet but the Species in respect of the Genus, so Magistrates in comparison of Infe­riors are publick persons, and yet again but Private men in respect of him who is Supreme. There is indeed a derivation, but no equalizing of power. Regis absolutum Dominium, the Kings Dominion is absolute under God; theirs who are sent, concreditum & delegatum, dependant, and by way of delegation. For the King is in the Kingdom as the Soul in the Body. And the Philosopher will tell us, Anima est ubi animat, The Soul is wheresoever it hath its operation. And so is the King wheresoever he ruleth: For he sends his Governours, and by them conveigheth and lets forth himself into every corner of his Kingdom. His house is the Tent whilst the Captain is a commanding; the Province, whilst the Deputy is a governing; the Tribu­nal, whilst the Judge is a sitting; the Consistory, whilst the Bishop is a cen­suring. And there is no place hid from his power, but his power is every where, where his Laws are in force. For these Governours are taken in in partem curarum, to ease the King of his burden; not in partem imperij, to share with him in his Supremacy. The King then, or Emperour, is still [...], in his sublimity, in the very Zenith of state, and admits none to be above him, or in the same altitude. He is the first compassing wheel; others are carried about by his motion, moving as the Kings Law moves, and, as he gives charge in the Comedy, ubi hic respicit, illi continuò respiciunt, watching his eye and commanding the execution of his Laws. In a word, the King is sent from God, à quo est secundus, post quem primus, from whom [Page 148] he is the second, and after whom the first: and the lower Governours are sent from the King, who hath power from God thus to send them. Their Sheaves must stand round about and make obeisance to his Sheave; the Sun, and the Moon, and the Stars must yield submission to him, ut supereminenti, as to one supereminent; and all men must yield obedience to the Gover­nours and Magistrates, as to God's indeed (for so they are called) but mis­sis ab eo, as sent and deriving their power from him who is supreme. And in this eminency the King stands pro omnibus, & supra omnes, for all, and a­bove all. Nor can any hand depose or draw him lower. None can draw him from that pitch and height where God hath placed him: but he is still Supreme, as over the People, so over the Priest. Nor doth the Water of Baptisme wash off his ointment: He is not less a King because he is a Chri­stian; but then Supreme when he makes himself a Servant to all. The Holy Ghost hath thus stiled him. And it may more truly be said of the words of God then of the words of Consecration. Id operantur quod indi­cant, They work that which they signifie, and make him Supreme who they stile so: Supreme in temporal things, to appoint Officers, to send out Go­vernours; and Supreme in spiritual, to punish them that do evil, and encou­rage them that do well. He is bound indeed sceptra subjicere Christo, to lay down his Scepter at the foot of Christ, to serve him in holiness and righteous­ness all the days of his life, to punish wickedness and vice, and to maintain Gods true Religion and Virtue. But all this, I am sure, cannot amount to this, least he should come down a step lower, and yield to that spiritual power of the Pope, who pretends to direct and guide, but will at last de­voure his temporal, and disrobe the King because he is a Christian. This were to make his Supremacie not a priviledge, but a bare title, to be play'd withall, and tossed from Gloss to Gloss, from distinction to distinction; to call him Supreme as they did that Pope Boniface, who had indeed but a hard and unpleasing countenance. Therefore though the high Priest turn Polititian, and take up two Swords at once, the Spiritual and the Tempo­ral, and by the Word of God will make himself a God, to set up Kings, and depose them at pleasure, yet the King is in his Zenith, in that pitch of Ma­jesty in which the hand of God hath placed him, and the Nobles and Ma­gistrates, which he sends forth, circle and compass him about as a ring; using his power to defend his Power; holding up his hands as Aaron and Hur did the hands of Moses; ruling under him, and for him, and keeping him still [...], Supreme above both Priest and People. And to the King, as Supreme, and to the Governours, as sent by him, we stand here com­manded to submit our selves. Which is the Duty, and comes next to be considered.

To submit our selves is a hard Duty, from which our very nature is a verse. Not to do what we would, and to be subject to whom we would not, is a hard saying, and few there are can bear it. Such is the perversness of our dispositions that we would do many things which we omit, were they not tendred unto us under the high terms of a command. And this Indisposi­tion of our minds, this Unwillingness to be brought under, though many times it hinders our submission, yet, when we subdue and master it, it crowns our Obedience. We had need therefore of these remembrances, which may kill this humour in us, and make us obey, not grudgingly, but with a willing mind. For this Submission, how harsh soever the name sounds, is that by which we purchase our liberty. And as it is perfect freedom to serve God, so is it no impeachment to our Liberty, to submit our selves to the Magistrate▪ but we are then most highly exalted when we couch and lye down at his feet. Dementia est potiùs trahi quàm sequi; It is a kind of mad­ness, when Authority speaks, to hold back and withdraw our selves, to be [Page 149] drawn rather then to follow and to submit rather upon the noyse of the whip than of the Law. We may perhaps think it a gay and pompous thing to sit in the Throne or Seat of Justice, from thence to breath forth words of power, to say to one, Go, and to another, Come, to shew what wonders we can work with a frown, to send forth Edicts, and promulge Laws. This may fill the minds of those whose eyes dazle at the beams of Majesty. But it is no paradox to say that there is as great glory in Obe­dience. For he who subjugates his Will to the lawfull commands of others, hath set up a throne within himself, and commands that which no King can force; nay, he sets up a tribunal in his Soul, and passeth sentence upon the Judge himself, and shews that he is as able to obey as the other is to com­mand. He who is thus a servant is the Lords freeman; and he who can thus obey is his own King and Judge.

Now this Submission consists not in the casting-down of the eye, or in the bend of the Knee onely, but in the yielding up and surrendry of the whole man; Of the Hand, not to lift it up against that Power which is Gods, and which, if we do not submit, will crush us to pieces. To say, Hayle master, to the Magistrate, and then to oppose him, is but Judas-like to kiss Authority, and betray it. To say with the Church of Rome, O King, live for ever, and yet to strike at his Crown and Dignity, is to leave him a Crown indeed, but made of thornes, and to make his Power more irksome than Subjection. To stand up against those Governours which are sent, and not to give them their due honour because they are not Caesar, is a breach of the same Law, and a flat defiance of the King, onely one removed, and at the second hand.

And as we must submit the Hand, and not lift it up, so must we also the Tongue. This member is very apt to swell, and lift it self up, and speak proud things. It will sooner blaspheme than pray; because Prayers are troublesome, being to be utter'd with an humble and submissive voice; but Rayling and Liberty of language seem to place me above my Betters, make me Superior to my Governours, a King of Kings, and a Lord of Lords. Now this liberty of the Tongue is well-near as dangerous as that of the Hand. For no sooner hath Discontent breathed it self forth, but it infects like the Plague, because it commonly meets with those dispositions and tempers which are very apt to take it. No sooner is the word gone out of the mouth, but it enters the heart of the standers by; who, saith Mr. Hooker, are very attentive and favourable hearers, to suck in any poyson which is breathed forth against the King or the Governour which are sent forth; and anon it multiplies, and every valley and obscure corner is ready to echo it back again.

Lastly, as we must submit the Tongue and the Hand, so the Thought also. Else the Tongue will be a sharp sword still, and the Hand ready to reach at every weapon and instrument of cruelty it finds. Bene subactum cor, a Heart well subdued and conquer'd, will nayle the Tongue to the roof of the mouth, and make the Hands hang down as not able to strike. But if the Heart be not hammer'd and softned and kept under, then the Tongue will be loose, and run through the earth, and the Hand will be lifted up to pull the King and his Governours on the ground, and lay their honour in the dust. That Disobedience which at last is talkative and proves as violent as a tempest, was at first but a whisper in the heart: and an army drawn out in the field was at first muster'd up in cogitatorio, as Tertullian speaks, in the Phansy, which is the shop and elaboratory of the Thoughts, and sets up a whole family of them in the Soul. Kingdoms have been ruin'd, Magistrates have been slain, States have been distracted, seditions raised; and all these had no more solid foundation at the first than a Thought; That we may [Page 150] therefore truly submit to the King and his Governours, we must [...], as Chrysostom speaketh, Slumber all vain and absurd imaginations, lest that pleasure, which we do not repress in the Phansy, do at last break forth and domineer in action; lest that which is now but a dis­contented thought, may gather strength by degrees, and at last break forth into open impatience and disobedience. And if our own Safety and Se­curity, if the Peace of the Common-wealth, if Plenty and Prosperity, be not of force enough to shackle our Hands, to shut up our Lips, and to keep down our Thoughts from rising in our hearts; if these be weak motives, let him that shakes the heaven and the earth move us, and let us submit to at least Governours for the Lords sake. Which is the first Motive, drawn from the Authority of God himself, and comes now to be handled.

And this is a Motive indeed, [...], the greatest and most winning Motive. For the Will of God is the rule of all our actions. Man, who is a reasonable creature, made after Gods own image, must hearken to Gods voice, bow down to his Authority, and amongst all his attributes espe­cially look upon his Will. If he had no Eye to see us, no Hand to strike us, no thunder to destroy us, yet what he willeth we must do, because we are his creatures and the work of his hands. Hath Discontent drawn thy Sword? Let the will of God sheath it. Do thoughts arise in thy heart? Let the remembrance of this slumber them. Art thou now ready to sinite the Magistrate, and those who are in authority, with the tongue? Seal up thy lips, for the Lords sake: not for fear of the whip, or the keen edge of Authority, which commonly cuts through the heart of those who rise up; not because the Magistrates hand is too heavy for thee and keeps thee under; but submit for the Lords sake. Now we may be sure it is to be done for the Lords sake: For, all power is from God, saith the Apostle; all Authori­ty is his. Ille regna dispensat cujus est orbis qui regnatur, & homo qui reg­nat; He disposeth of Kingdoms who made the world which is govern'd, and the men that govern. Indè Imperator unde homo antequam Imperator. The King receives his power, from that Hand which made him, and his Commission from that mouth which first breath'd into him the breath of life. For the Emperor to say, mihi hoc Imperiumpeperi, This Sword hath gained me the Crown, is foul ingratitude. And for the Pope to say, Mihi data est potestas. All power is given to me to root up and plant as I please, is high treason against the Majesty of Heaven and Earth. Indeed St. Peter calls the King the ordinance, or creature, of man: and so he may be, and yet the creature of God also. For though this power be communicated by the consent of men, yet notwithstanding it is also from God; as water is from the fountain, in what channel soever it is carried along.

Behold then, It is Gods power; and if thou look'st upon the Man, who is thy fellow, dust and ashes, if thou look'st upon his Weakness and infirmi­ties, which peradventure thou mayst discover in the midst of all his Glory and Majesty, and thereupon art unwilling to submit for the Mans sake, who is of like frailty and passions with thee; or for the Kings sake, who is but a man; or for Authorities sake, which hath no pleasing aspect; yet do it for the Lords sake, and because the Authority is his. For his sake do it, though it be to a Man; though it be to a Man of infirmities; though it be to Authority, which sometimes speaks better things. It may peradventure be a sin for thee to obey; but it shall never be laid to thy charge, if thou submit. This, I say, is a strong motive. And indeed that is true Submis­sion which draws à Jove principium, its beginning from God, which is from heaven heavenly, which is brought about by Religion and Conscience. That Obedience is a Sacrifice which I offer up for the Lords sake. That O­bedience more resembles God and his Eternity, because it is constant and [Page 151] lasting: but that Submission which like Pharaoh's, is driven on with an East­wind, passeth away with that wind, or moves like the wheels in a Clock, no longer then the plummets are on, no longer than Fear or Hope, or other hu­mane considerations stirr it about: When these are taken off, or fall to the ground, PROPTER DOMINUM, for the Lords sake, will little avail: though God speak once and again, yet we lift up our heads, and stand stiff against Authority. And therefore though this be a Motive one of a thou­sand, one that may stand alone by it self, our Apostle here backs it with ano­ther, not so powerfull in it self indeed, but to flesh and bloud, more per­swasive which he draws ab utili, from the Good and Benefit we receive from Kings and Governours, in the punishment of evil doers, and praise of them that do well. With which we will conclude.

These two, Reward and Punishment, are as two pillars to uphold the bo­dy politique. For though we ought, as the Orator speaks, virtutes propter seipsas gratis deligere, to love every Virtue for it self, and for that na­tive beauty which the eye of reason doth soon discover, and though interest omnium rectè facere, it concerns every man, though there were no cord of Love to draw him, to do that which is right and just; yet if the Sword be not as ready to protect the innocent as to devoure the wicked, if there be not Praise for the one as well as Punishment for the other, the best will soon fail in their duty, and sink and fall in the performance, wanting that Spirit which should cheer them up, and keep them in life and action. The King and his Governours, as they scatter and fan away evil with their eyes, so do Prov. 20. 8. they derive a kind of influence on Goodness, to make it grow and flourish.

Authority is both a Sword and a Buckler, a Buckler for the innocent, and a Sword to cut off the wicked from the earth. And in this respect Syne­sius in his 12. Epistle tells us that this [...], this publick Sword of Justice, is as necessary for the purging of a City, for the scouring of all mischief out of it, as the great Basons which were wont to be set at the en­trance of Temples were for the cleansing of their hands who were to en­ter. And therefore it is an axiome in Policy subscribed to long since, That it is better to live sub durâ lege quàm sub nullâ, under the hardest Law then under none at all, to live in a State where the least apparency of offence is punisht with rigour, than under such an one where every man may do what is pleasing in his own eyes without restraint. For Severity or Ty­ranny (as one observeth) is but like a Tempest or Whirle-wind, that throw­eth down here and there a fruitfull tree, and here and there peradventure a tall Cedar; but Confusion and Anarchie, like a Deluge, sweepeth away all before it, all the fatness of the earth, all the increase of Cattel, beats down Towns and Countrys, and makes of walled Cities a Wilderness. Whilst Justice and Authority prevails, He that soweth, soweth in hope; and he that Joh. 4. thresheth, thresheth in hope, that he may be partaker of his hope, as the Apostle speaks: but in Confusion, the proverb is fulfilled: One soweth, another reapeth; and as it is said of that community of the first Christians, No man can say that that which he possesseth is his own.

Now the proper work of the Magistrate is not onely to cut off the wick­ed from the earth, but to divide to every man his own possessions; to break the jaw of the ungodly, and to take the prey out of his mouth; to be a wall of brass to the innocent, and terror to the wicked. And this will usher in a myriad of blessings, and make up that Hymne, that Angelical Antheme, Peace on earth, good will towards men, and glory to God in the highest heaven. For to punish evil persons, is to do a cure upon those who have broke the Laws, and upon others also, that they may not break them. And the Ma­gistrate, like God himself, doth de perverso sanare, govern us by that which is adverse to us; and in the way of the transgressour he placeth contrarium [Page 152] aliquid & impedicus, sets up something to stop his course, to check his vio­lence, to curb him in his full carreere, to wit, the execution of penal Laws, which is the execution of the very anger of God. Nor doth he [...], simply will, the affliction and torture of the offendor, nor rests in the evil of Punishment; but he looks forward to the good of Amendment. For this is the very end of Punishment, To destroy that proclivity and prone­ness which is in evil men to break their bounds, To take off the illecebrae, the inticement and allurement of Sin, To wash off its paint, To pull the hony­comb from the lips of the Harlot, To wipe the oyle from off her mouth, To sowre the sweetness of stoln waters, and by the sharpness of external terror to take away the savour and complacency of some habitual delight­full Sin; that so every man may sit under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree, and drink waters out of his own cistern; that Peace may shadow the Common-wealth, and Plenty crown it; that Oppression grind not the face of the poor; nor Lust climb up to an unlawfull bed, nor Deceit remove the landmark, nor Sacriledge destroy the Temple; ut peccare non liceat, that evil-minded men may not be so miserable as to carry a Licence about with them to commit sin, nor a Protection in their bosom from the stroke of punishment.

Thus doth not onely the Hand, but the Eye, the Counsel and Wisdom of the King, who is supreme, and of the Governours, which he sends, scatter away all evil; fight against corruption in Religion, in Manners, in Doctrine, that Truth and Peace may kiss each other. Thus are they sent out to watch over us for our good. This they do for us: And we cannot do less than submit unto them, if not for the Lords sake, yet for our own, whose affairs they manage, whose estates they secure, whose sleep they make sweet, and labour fruitfull; by whose means we enjoy much peace. Parce tibi, si non Carthagini; if we will not submit unto them for the Common-wealths sake, yet let us do it for our own; if not submit unto them, yet at least to our own Good, to that which is our Wealth, our Safety, our Happiness. And let us not only submit unto them, but bow the knee and fall down before that God by whom Kings reign, and Governours decree justice; and offer up strong cries & supplications to him, that he would preserve our most pious and religious King Charles, and bind up his Soul in the bundle of life; that he would give his judgments to the King, and his righteousness to those Gover­nours which are sent by him; that so the Lord may speak peace unto us, and and to our Land; that we be not led into captivity, and that the enemy be never able to shoot an arrow amongst us; that whatsoever the King doth may please the people, and whatsoever the people do may be for the safety of the King; that God would bless and protect both King and Nobles, and the Governours which are sent, and the People for evermore.

I Will not stand to reconcile opinions which may arise concerning the title and occasion of this Psalm; whither it be [...] or [...], A Psalm of Davids composing; or, A Psalm made for him, and delivered per manum David, by the hand of David, to him that excelleth, or the Master of Musick. Whosoever composed it, at the first hearing of the words you cannot but apply it to our present occasion. For enemies God hath who are ga­ther'd together, and our prayer is they may be scattered; enemies shall hate him, and defie him to his face; and these who should be glad to see to fly from his face. Our hope is they are but smoke, and may be driven away; but wax, in appearance a hard and solid body, strongly united and compact together by the devils art, but yet as wax will melt before the fire of his wrath, and when it shall please God to arise, shall perish at the presence of God. You may, if you please, take the words either as a Prayer or as a Prophesy; as a Prayer, that they may; or as a Prophesy, that they shall be scatter'd. Or you may read it, SURGENTE DOMINO, As soon as the Lord shall arise, his enemies shall be scatter'd, and so make it a Theological axiome: and so it is a proposition aeternae veritatis, everlastingly true, true in the first age of the world, and true in the last age of the world, and will be true to the worlds end. We may make it our prayer, that they may be destroyed; and we may prophesy that they shall be destroyed. Summa votorum est, non ex incerto poscentis, sed ex cognitione, scientiâque sperantis, saith Hilary; It is a prayer, not proceeding from a doubting and wavering heart, as if God did at sometimes deliver his Church, and at others fail and leave her to the will of her enemies; but grounded upon certain knowledge and infallible assurance that he will arise, and not keep silence, and avenge himself of his enemy. For there is a kind of presage and prophesy in Prayer: If we pray as we should, he hath promised to grant our request: Which is a fairer assurance than any Prophet can give us. Let God arise, and God will arise, is but the difference of a Tense, and the Hebrews commonly use the one for the other.

Whoever compiled this Psalm, most plain it is that he borrowed it from Moses, who when the Ark set forward used this very form, Rise up, O Lord, [Page 154] and let thine enemies be scatter'd; and let them that hate thee fly before thee; and, when it rested, Return, O Lord, to the many Thousands of Israel. Now Numb. 10, 35. 36. the occasion of this Psalm is diversly given. The Jews refer it to the overthrow of the army of Senacherib, when the Angel of the Lord smote in one night a hundred fourscore and five thousand of the Assyrians. O­thers to Davids victories over his neighbouring enemies, the Ammonites, Moabites, Syrians, and Idumaeans. Others to the pomp and triumph in 2 Kings 19. 35. which the Ark was removed by David from Kiniathaarim to the house of Obed-Edom; and from thence to Sion its resting-place: The Fathers most of them, apply it unto Christ, who most gloriously triumphed over the Devil and the powers of this world, and shewed them openly, who led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men, as S. Paul himself borroweth the words out of this Psalm. Take the Cliff how you please, the Notes will follow, and we Eph. 4. 8. may take them up. No Assyrian so cruel, no Rabshakeh so loud, no Am­monite, no Moabite, no Philistine so bloudy as a Jesuite, or a Jesuited Pa­pist. Take in the Devil himself, and then you have a parallel, the wicked one indeed [...], as Basil terms him, the wonderfull mis­chief, who like the Tyrant in the Story, if all men in the world had but one neck, would strike it off at a blow; as his instruments at this day would ruine three Kingdoms by shaking of one. Or, if you please, suppose now you saw the children of Israel moving their tents, and the Ark, which was the pledge and testimony of Gods presence, on the Levites shoulders; and the same thought almost will apply it to the Church, where we may be sure God is as present as he was in the Ark. Indeed wicked persons, as wicked as the Amalekites, have a long time endeavoured, and do now strive, to throw it down from the shoulders of those that bear it, and cannot endure to hear that God should be worshipped in spirit and truth. But no Ama­lekite, no Ammonite, no Jebusite, no Philistine did overthrow the one; no Jesuite, no Devil shall prevail against the other; but the Ark shall be brought to its resting-place, and the Church, which is the pillar of truth, shall be upheld by the Truth, and after many removals, after many persecutions, after many oppositions, though the Devil rage, and wicked men take coun­sel together, shall be brought in triumph to its resting place, and appear before God in Sion. God will never fail his Church, Though his enemies gather themselves together, they shall be scatter'd; though they fight against him with hatred and malice; they shall fly before him; They are but smoke and they shall vanish, they are but wax, and they shall melt away. Upon an Exsurgit follows a dissipabuntur. If God arise, all the plots and machinations of his enemies shall be but as smoke. You may pray for it; you may conclude upon it. Let God arise, and let his enemies be scatter'd; or, God will arise, and his enemies shall be scatter'd; they also that hate him shall fly before him, &c.

In which Prayer, or Prophesy, or Conclusion, you may as in a glass, be­hold the providence of God over his people, and the destiny and fatal de­struction of wicked men. Or you may conceive God sitting in heaven, and looking down upon the children of men, and laughing to scorn all the de­signs of his enemies, his Exsurgat, his Rising, as a tempest to scatter them, and as a fire to melt them. And these two, Exsurgat, and Dissipabuntur, the Rising of God, and the Destruction of his enemies, divide the Text, and present before our eyes two parties, or sides as it were, in main opposition. Now though the Exsurgat be before the Dissipabuntur, God's Rising before the Scattering, yet there must be some persons to rowse God up and awake him before he will rise to destroy. We will therefore, as the very order of nature requir'd, consider first the persons which are noted out unto us by three several appellations, as by so many marks and brands in their fore­head; They are 1. enemies, 2. haters of God, 3. wicked men. But God Ri­sing [Page 155] in this manner is more especially against the Fact than the Person, and against the Person but for the Fact: We must therefore search and enquire after that; and we find it wrapt up and secretly lurking in the Dissipabun­tur, in their punishment. For Scattering supposeth a gathering together, as Corruption doth Generation. That then which moved God to rise was this; His enemies, they that hated him, the wicked, were gathered together, and consulted against God and his Church. As we see it this day; and seeing it, are here meet together to fall down before God in all humility, that he may arise and scatter them. This is Nunc opportunitatis, the very time, and appointed time, for God to arise. In which Phrase is implyed a kind of pause and deliberation, as if God were not alwayes up, and ready to exe­cute judgement. And hereby he manifesteth 1. his Patience to the wicked; He is not alwayes up, as it were, to destroy his enemies: 2. his Justice, which cometh at length, though it come not so soon as men in misery ex­pect: 3. his Mercy to his children; Though for a while he seem to sleep, and not to hearken to the voice of their complaints, yet at last he rises up and helps them. Lastly, we shall take notice of the Effect or End of this Ri­sing; and that is the Destruction of his enemies, here drawn out to our view in four several expressions, as in so many colours. 1. DISSIPABUNTUR, they shall be scatter'd; 2. FUGIENT, they shall fly; 3. DEFICIENT, they shall vanish like smoke; 4. LIQUEFIENT, they shall be melted as wax: Which all meet and are concentred in PERIBUNT, they shall perish at the presence of God. And of these in their order.

We are to find out first the Parties here to be scatter'd; and they are termed the enemies of God. And we may conceive it a very hard matter to find out any at jar and opposition with God, whose very Essence is Good­ness; whose Power is irresistible, whose Justice is impartial, whose eye is ten thousand times brighter then the Sun, whose Word runneth very swiftly, and whose Word did make, and whose Word can dissolve the world. I know, saith Job, That thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be Job. 42. 2. with-holden from thee. And from this knowledge of his he draws, this con­clusion and resolution, to abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes. Behold v. 6. the Angels, they are ravisht with his infinite beauty, and fall down at his feet; the Creature keeps it self in a natural and constant league and friend­ship with him. He commands the Sea and it obeys; the Moon knoweth her seasons, and the Sun his going down. All the Creatures observe that course which he hath establisht, not guilty of sacriledge, as Tertullian calls it, or rebellion against the Lord their Maker, which is their concord and sympathie, with his eternal Goodness. Look on the whole Universe, and you find no enemies to God but the Devil and those quos perditus cupit per­dere, whom, being destroyed himself, he desires to bring into the same de­struction. Here then we may find God's enemies, even amongst those whom he created after his own image, whom he made capable of eternal happiness, whom he was willing to call his friends. The Oxe knoweth his owner, and the Ass his master's crib. Every creature is at his beck, and bows down in an hum­ble submission unto his will: Onely Man doth not consider the wonderfull beauty and love and goodness of his Maker; but embraceth Vanity, and makes leagues with Death it self, and for the love of every trifle that flatters his phansie is presently at odds and opposition with his Creator.

Amongst Men then are Gods enemies, nay [...], as St. Paul calls them, and as they are here termed in the Text, Haters of God; not onely odio ini­micitiae, by being at odds and variance with him, and by the neglect of his commands, but odio abominationis & fugae, by running back from him in all their wayes, being angry with his Providence, ready to teach his Wisdom, controlling his Precepts, loathing his Ordinances, which is in effect to wish [Page 156] there were no God at all. Consider God in himself, as he is [...], as the Philosophers call him, the perfection of Goodness; as he is [...], that infinit and exemplary Beauty; as he is [...], the Lover of mankind (for so he delights to be called) and in this perfection and beauty and love we cannot more hate him than we can be ignorant of him who filleth all things. But then consider and behold him in those beams & radiations which flow from him, in the effects of his providence and justice, which though they alwayes fall even in a right line where they should, yet many times they thwart and fall cross to our inordinate wills and affections; and so the world is full of enemies and haters of God; men who are angry with the commands of Goodness, because they will be evil, men who repine at his instructions, because they will not obey; men who murmure at his threat­nings, because they deserve his judgments; men who would, if it were in their power, pull him out of Heaven, because he sitteth there to fling them down to Hell. We have a common saying, but it is not so true as common, That all men are naturally enemies to God. This cannot hold of that nature in which we were created. For no man doth or can hate God till he have first given God a just occasion to hate him; no man can be his enemy till he offend him. For to keep God's commandments is to love him. But then when Lust hath conceived, and hath brought forth Sin, as St. James speaks, and when Sin is finished, and hath brought forth Death; then when men fear the heat of God's displeasure, and look upon his hailstones and coals of fire now ready to fall upon them, there ariseth that dissonancie and disaf­fection which is the cause of Hatred between God and Man. Odium timor spirat, saith Tertullian, Hatred is a kind of exhalation, and breatheth from Fear. And as it is amongst Men, so is it here; Proprium est humanae infirmitatis odisse quem laeseris, It is proper and peculiar unto us to hate those whom we have wrong'd. So here, when we have drawn God's Sword against us, and tremble at the blow which is ready to be given, then we turn countenance against God, and are not onely inimici, enemies, but osores, Haters of God: then the very common notions with which we were born begin to be slurr'd and blemisht in us; our Envy drops on them, our Malice discolors them, and our Lust polluteth and defaceth them. As for God, the thought of him is not in all our ways. And now when God saith, Thou shalt not commit adultery, no bed is pleasant, but that of the Harlot; and when he says, Thou shalt not steal, no bread is sweet but the stollen; and though he say, Thou shalt not lye, yet we make lying as common as our Language; and we break the two tables of the Law, not in zeal, with Moses, but in opposition, with a heart full of rancor and malice against God himself. And this is it, I con­ceive, which Aquinas meaneth when he tells us, Prius est odium proximi quàm Dei, We first wrong our neighbour, and then God. First we oppose those decrees which God hath past to bound and limit us in our conversation, and so by consequence bid defiance to the eternal Law-giver. For he that slanders his neighbour, will be as ready to blaspheme God; nay, in slan­dring his brother he doth blaspheme his Father which is in Heaven. He that taketh his brother by the throat rather then his humour should be crossed, if God were within reach, would pluck him out of heaven. And thus we grind him in our Oppression, we rob him by our Sacriledge, we wound him by our Cruelty, we pollute him with our Lust. If he make Laws, we make it our strength to break them. If he raise one to the pin­nacle of state, and leave us in the dust, we quarrel at his Justice. If he esta­blish Government, we desire change. And though he build his Church and found it upon himself, yet we are ready with axes and hammers, and all the power we have to demolish it. When he hath a controversy with us, we hold a controversy with him, and nothing pleaseth us but the work of our [Page 157] own hands. Men never fight against God till the thunderbolt is in his hand, ready to fall on them.

And now we may descry those peculiar Enemies and Haters of God whom the Prophet here prays against, even those who are enemies to the Truth and the peace of the Church. I told you that this prayer was uttered by Moses at the removing of the Ark. When the Ark was lifted up on the Le­vites shoulders, the voice and acclamamation was, EXSURGAT DOMI­NUS, Let the Lord arise. And therefore we may observe, that Moses Num. 10. and David did call the very Ark it self God; not that they were so idola­trous as to make a wooden God, but that they knew the Ark to be the surest testimony of Gods presence here on earth. So that God's enemies are those who are enemies to the Ark, to the Church of God, and to the peace of the Church. And let men flatter themselves as they please with this or that fair pretence they shall, certainly learn this lesson in the end, That they may as well fight against God himself as against the Church, That neither they nor the gates of Hell can prevail against it. To draw this yet closer to our purpose; the Ark was a type of the Church; nay, by the Apostles quotation of this Psalm, the words, though they are verified in both, yet are more applyable to the Church then the Ark. And though we do not call the Church God, yet we shall find that God is married unto her; that he is ready to hide her under his wing; that he is jealous of the least touch, the least breath that comes toward her to hurt her; that he that toucheth her toucheth the apple of his eye. When the Church complains to God of her enemies, God also complains as if he himself suffered persecution. When Saul breathed forth threatnings and slaughters against the Disciples of the Lord, he presently hears a voice, Saul Saul, why persecutest thou me? And that voice was the voice of God, which struck him to the ground. When Acts 9. and Acts 7. 51. St. Stephen tells the stiff-necked Jews, that they alwayes resisted the Holy Ghost; he presently in the next verse gives the reason, Which of the Pro­phets have not your fathers persecuted? So that to persecute the Prophets, that blessed Protomartyr may make the Commentary, is to resist, [...], to fall cross with, the Holy Ghost, with God himself. Touch not mine anointed, Psal. 105. 19. saith God, and do my Prophets no harm. Touch them not, for they are mine: And whatsoever you do unto one of them is done unto me, is true in the bad sense as well as in the good. For certainly God cannot be toucht any other way. Our Blasphemys, our Uncleanness, or Rebellions, though they fight against him, yet touch him not: but when wicked men conspire against the Truth and the professors of it; when their Swords are drawn not onely to touch, but to strike them through; then up God riseth, and bestirs himself, as if he were in danger to be toucht and hurt. We know all that the Devil work­eth against mankind is done out of malice to God himself. Prius votum Daemonis fuit Deum esse; alterum, nè Deus esset: His first attempt was to be God; his second, that there should be no God at all, to destroy that Ma­jesty which he could not atchieve. Which since it is impossible for him to compass, all his devises and machinations are, nullum sinere ex portione Dei esse, as the Father speaks, to rob God of his inheritance; to strike at his heart whose knee bows unto him, to persecute them that sin­cerely worship him, and to make all men like unto himself, enemies to God. To this end he sets upon the Ark, he levels his forces against the Church of Christ, he sends forth his emissaries, his instruments, his Apostles, as Syne­sius calls them, to undermine it without, and raises mutinies within. Not a heresie, but he hammers it; not a schisme, but he raiseth it; not a sword, but he draws it; not a rebellion, but he beats up the drum. INIMICI EJUS, Gods enemies, are the Devil and his complices, who say of Jerusalem, the place of his rest and delight, down with it, down with it, even to the very Psal. 137 7. ground.

We know now where to rank his disciples, our enemies this day, who have already shaken the pillars of one Kingdom, and if God, rise not up, will ruine all: Whose religion is rebellion, and whose faith is faction: whom nothing can quiet, but a Desunt vires, a want of strength. Poor souls! they are willing to suffer for the holy cause; they are obedient to Govern­ment, loyal to their Prince, true to their Country; that is, They are very willing to suffer any thing when they can do nothing. They will not strike a stroke, not they; not indeed when Authority is too strong for them, and hath bound them hand and foot: But if some wished opportunity un­shackle them, if these cords fall from them, and they are once loose, then these dead men arise, and stand up upon their feet, and make up an exceeding great army. They were before as Ezekiels dry Bones, very dry; but when some Ezek. 37. 2. fair opportunity, as a gale of wind, hath breathed upon them, behold, they live; Live? I, and come to the field, and fight against that Authority un­der which they lay before as quietly as if they had been dead. And where can we rank these but amongst the enemies of God? They saw the Ark in its resting place, the Church reformed and flourishing, setled and establisht by the religious care of three glorious Princes; They beheld their holy Father the Pope every day more and more in disgrace amongst us; and I am half perswaded, had it not been for the turbulent and irregular zeal of some few amongst us, who think they never love Religion till they toy and play the wantons with it, his Honour had ere this lain in the dust; For when were the skirts of that Church more discover'd, when was her shame more laid open to the world by many amongst us, who for their great pains have no better reward then to be called his Shavelings? This they saw, and their heart waxt hot within them, and at last this fire kindled which is now ready to consume us. Before they whisper'd in secret; now they speak it on the house-top: before they husht up their malice in silence; now they noise it out by the drum; Enemies to the Ark, enemies to the Church, enemies to Government and Order, enemies to Peace; which par­ticulars make up this entire sum, INIMICI DEI, enemies to God.

But now what if we see RELIGIONIS ERGO written upon their de­signs: and that this Rebellion was raised, and is upheld, for the cause of God and Religion? shall we then call them Gods enemies, who fight his battels, who venture their lives for the common cause, for Christs Vicar, for Reli­gion, for the Church, for God himself? [...], All they intend is good. Nihil malè, sed rem sacram facio. So said Cillicon; I do no evil; I do but sacrifice, when he betrayed a City. Let us rise up in arms let us cut the heretiques throats, let us destroy them that they be no more a Nation: It is no harm at all, but an acceptable sacrifice to God, Sed quid verba audio, cùm facta videam? what are words, when we feel the smart of their blows? All this will not change their title, nor blot their names out of the Devils Kalender, out of the number of those that hate God. For a man may be an enemy to God, and yet do some things for Gods sake. And it is too common a thing in the world sub religionis titulo evertere religionem, to cry up Religion when we beat it down. The Father well said. Many good intentions are burning in Hell, Multa non illicita vitiat animus; It is true indeed: The mind and intention may make a law­full action evil, but it cannot make an evil action good. Propose what end you please, set up Religion, the Church and God himself, yet Treason and Rebellion are sins which strike at his Majesty. No enemies to those who stroke us with one hand, and strike us with the other; who dig down the foundation, and then paint the walls. We may observe, when Reason and Scripture fail them, they bring in the Church at a dead lift; and when they are put to silence by the evidence of the Truth, then they urge the Au­thority [Page 159] of the Church, and make this word to be like Anaxagoras his M [...]ne in Aristotle, to answer all Arguments. The Church is their scarre-sun by which they fright poor silly souls from their faith. The Church must make good Purgatory, Transubstantiation, Invocation of Saints, &c. And in­deed this is the best and worst Argument they have. And as they make it an Argument for their grossest errors, so they have learnt to make it an excuse for Treason, for Rebellion, for Murder. And to the Church they are enemies, because they love the Church. ‘ Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum;’ Such heart and life and bloud doth the fair pretence of the Church and Religion put into wicked men: so desperately do they fight against God under his own colours; No sin, I will not say venial, but meritorious, drawn on for the advantage of the Catholick cause.

But for all these glorious pretences, enemies they are, and Haters of God, and, to bring in the third appellation, wicked persons, not sinners of an ordinary rank, but gyant-like sinners, who fight against God with a high hand. Now there is a great difference, saith Hilary, inter impium & pec­catorem, betwen a Sinner and a Wicked man: For every wicked man is a sinner, but every sinner is not a wicked man; Et carent impietate, qui non carent crimine, and they may be guilty of sin who are not guilty of Impie­ty. The justest man alive falls seven times a day; but this fall is not a ri­sing against God, not contumelious to his Majesty. But the wicked make sin their trade; nay, their Religion, Deum non ex Dei ipsius professione, sed ex arbitrij sui voluntate metiuntur, saith the same Father; They measure God, not by those lines by which he is pleased to manifest himself, but by their own perverse will. They entitle his Wisdom to their fraud, his Ju­stice to their rebellion, his Truth to their treason. He could not have given us a better mark and character of these men. What pretend they the Holy cause, the Honour of God, the Liberty of Conscience, the pro­moting of Religion; and these pretences make the fact fouler, and their re­bellion more abominable, because they thwart the plain definitions, and the evident commands of God, and break his Law under colour of doing his will. Nec minoris est impietatis, Deum fingere quam negare; It is as great impiety and wickedness to frame a God unto our selves as to deny him, to feign a God who will applaud sin, countenance murder, reward rebellion, and crown treason. So that, to conclude this, these men may well bear all these titles of Enemies, of Haters of God, of wicked persons; If there were ever any such in the world, these are they.

But to drive it yet a little more home; There is not the like danger of enemies when they are sever'd and asunder as when they are collected as it were into one mass and body, not so much danger in a rout as in a well-drawn army. Vis unita fortior. Let them keep at distance one from ano­ther, and their malice will not reach to the hurt of any but themselves; but being gathered and knit together in one band, their malice is strong to do mischief to others. The rulers were gathered together against the Lord and a­gainst Psal. [...] his anointed. Paquine renders it fundati sunt, were founded: Be­fore they were but as pieces scatter'd here and there, but being gather'd gather'd together they have a foundation to build on. While the vapours are here and there dispersed upon the earth, they present no appearance of evil; but when they are drawn up into the ayr, and are compact, they be­come a Comet, and are ominous and portend shipwracks and seditions, and the ruine of Kings and Common-wealths. And such a Comet hangs over us at this day in which we see many thousands are drawn together, not by vir­tue [Page 160] of the stars or any kindly heat from heaven, but by an irregular zeal and a false perswasion that they can do God no better service than to de­stroy us. Before they were gathered together in mind and resolution; but that was but as the gathering together of a heap of stones in a field: now they are knit together as in a building: And now we may cry out with the Prophet: Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Sion: for the time to have Psal. 102. 13. mercy upon her, yea, the appointed time, is come. When God's enemies, when they who hate him, when the wicked are gathered together, then is the time for God to arise. And so I pass from their part, which is to gather them­selves, to God's, which is to arise and scatter them. EXSURGAT DEUS, Let God arise.

By this Rising of God we may perhaps be induced to conceive that God doth sometimes sit down and sleep, and not regard us; that he is willing his people should suffer, and that his enemies should wash their feet in their bloud; that he lets loose the raines to the wicked too long, and maketh not that haste which he promiseth to help the oppressed. But this were to make him like the heathen Gods, who did meridiari, sleep at noon. Which was the reason the Gentiles never enter'd their Temples at that hour of the day, for fear of waking them. No; He that keepeth Israel doth neither slumber nor sleep, but is awake at all times and hours and moments unto all the world. And the reason is manifest; Non habet in se diversitatem sui quicquid est simplex, saith Novatian well; God is a most pure and uncom­pounded Essence, and therefore not capable of any diversity in himself; not awake to day and asleep to morrow; not fitting now, and rising anon; but everlastingly present to all the world. From him no cloud or darkness can shadow us, no secret grot or cave hide us. He hath [...], as the Greek Father speaks, an eye which cannot sleep. He seeth all things ad nudum & lucidum, naked and plain, even when they are vailed over with the darkest night. Why then is God said to arise? St. Hilary gives the reason, Per corporalem significationem spiritualis instruitur. We must upon this corporal and sensible expression, build up a Spiritual sense, and not so much consider God as our selves. He doth neither sleep nor arise, nor for­get nor remember, nor depart nor draw near, but secundum nostrorum meri­torum differentiam, but fits himself to the different quality of our works. When our enemies consult together against us, and are ready to prevail, then to us he is asleep: When he breaks them to pieces like a potters vessel, then he is risen. When we offend him he is absent; and when we repent, and fulfill his will, he is present with us. Whilst we are his servants, and obey him, his friends and love him, nemo officiosior Deo, none more officious and more active to help us than God; but when we dissemble with him, and call him Father, but honour him not, non est praevaricator suae perspicaciae; Though his forbearance makes us believe he sees us not, yet he is no doubter and prevaricator, nor will he betray his omniscience. His sleep is his patience, which he shews both toward the righteous and the wicked. For God is not slack in rising, as some count slackness; not slack to the wick­ed, for vengeance hangs over their head; not slack to the righteous, for salvation is at hand. To the one he is as asleep to heap coals of fire upon his head, to leave him without excuse: to the other he seems not to be risen, that being exercised under the cross they may awake him, and long and cry for deliverance. Hoc est paululum unde pendet aeternitas; On this little space of his seeming rest depend eternity of punishment to the one, and eternity of peace to the other. God hath these pauses and intervals in all his pro­ceedings, in his punishments, and in his deliverances; and he useth a kind of deliberation, and works as it were by the rule. When God would build up Jerusalem, he promiseth that a line should be stretched forth upon her: Zech. 1. 16. [Page 161] And when he would destroy the Idumaeans; he threatens, Extendetur super eam mensura, that he would stretch out upon it the line of confusion. When he Isa. 34. 11. will destroy, and when he will build, he stretcheth out a line. Which is a metaphor taken from Building: And it shews that he doth not suddenly lift up his hand to strike, nor stretch it forth to help, but applys the lines, prepareth his instruments, works by line and measure, and takes as much leasure time in destroying, as artificers do in building; he waits and ex­pects that his Patience may make way for his Justice on the one, and magni­fie his Mercy and Goodness on the other. How long did the Lord endure the old world, even an hundred and twenty years, while the Ark was a pre­paring. The Amorites? till their wickedness was full? How long did ne bear with his own people, first the ten Tribes, then the other two; even till there was no hope of amendment, till the Prophets cried out, NOAH It is desperate. Now the reason of this his delay, of this his not rising at that instant we expect, is to make it manifest to the world that his wayes are not as our wayes. Therefore many times he presents himself in a shape contrary to our expectation, and doth those things which bear a resem­blance of some repudiancie to his known and declared will, as it were on purpose to put our Faith and Constancy to a tryal, whether we will take him to be our God or no, and worship him as well in his thunder as in his still voice; or else to besiege and compass-in the wicked and obstinate of­fendors, to shut them up in their own net, to bury them in the pit which they have made, to strike them through with their own sword, and as they have trifled with his judgments, so to deal with them as that they shall not easily know how or when they are led to destruction, or not know it till it be too late. For many times the wrath of God comes upon them, as the Psalmist speaks, when the meat is yet in their mouthes, when they feed sweetly upon their hopes and dream of victory and triumph. Thus he who promises to love and defend his children as with a shield, sometimes he handles them as if he never loved them, or had left off to love them, or would not hear and help them; and he stands as it were at a distance from them, though even at this distance he is nigh to them that fear him. Again, though he have threat­ned to raine fire and brimstone upon the wicked, yet many times he delays, and makes as if he would not punish them; nay, he seems to cast a look of favour upon them, delayes not the blow onely that it may fall the heavier, but many times gives them those rewards which are promised to godliness, fills their garners, makes them mighty in power, crowneth them with hap­piness; and gives them their hearts desire; but then, in this great security: upon the sudden, when their prosperity hath befooled them, when they are ready to conclude they are therefore good because they are temporally happy, he falls upon them, and makes that which was their triumph their ruine: and now he strikes them at once for all; strikes the tabret out of their hand, infatnates their counsels; makes them see that they are the poorer for their riches, the weaker for their power, the baser for their ho­nour; and leaves them to their captain the Devil, who alwayes leads in the forefront of a rebellion; and then how fearfully and horribly are they consum'd and brought to utter desolation? Yet a little while, and the wicked Psal. 37 10. shall not be. Nor is this unjust with God. For he doth not tell the wicked that this little while is theirs, and that they may do what they please without fear of punishment. But the wicked abuse this his long-suffering and indul­gence, sport in this little while, though the end be death: Which should have been looked upon as an invitation to repentance. Therefore this stay, yet a little while, before God arise, this his Patience; hath its effect answer­able to the disposition and temper of those on whom it is shewed; a bad on the repentant, and a good on the penitent sinner. For as God is said in [Page 162] Scripture to laugh at the destruction of those who run on in their evil wayes, so he may seem in a manner to mock their security with his proceedings, and to use the same method in punishing which they do in offending. They defer their repentance, and he defers his punishment. He hath them in a line, and when they are run on to the end of it, he pulls them on their backs. It is the nature of Delay in other things to keep back and hin­der proceedings which fail many times and sink to the ground in the very pause; For not to do a thing seasonably is to rob our selves of the faculty and power of doing it at all: But in Gods punishing of the wicked it is otherwise; Gravitate supplicii moram pensat, He supplies and makes up the delay in punishing with the smart of the blow when it lights. His wrath like wind, shut up long in the caverns of the earth, at last breaks forth in a tempest. His Patience makes way for his Justice. Though he seem to be asleep, and not to see what is done by his enemies, yet at the appointed time he will not fail an inch. Plures idcirco Domino non credunt, quia saeculo iratum tamdiu nesciunt, Many men think that God observes not what they do, be­cause he presently thunders not from heaven, nor sends into the world what the Tyrant wished for in his days, some strange and unheard of calamity. Many men run on in their sin, because God sends not a fire into their bones to make them sensible of his displeasure. But de artifice non nisi artifex. Ig­norance of God is the cause why we judge so corruptly of his Providence and Justice. Sometimes he displays it before the sun and the people, in the open destruction of the wicked; sometimes it works invisibly; and we can no more find it out then the way of an arrow in the air or of a ship in the sea: And this peradventure we may esteem a sleep: but whether secretly or openly, he doth at last make it evident that he hath set banks and prefixed a time which his enemies shall not pass. Though they work never so secretly, though they make Religion a veil to cover and mantle their designs, yet he will find them out, and strike them to the ground, even in those Meanders and Labyrinths which they made to hide themselves in. And when they are risen, and think they stand strong, and can never be moved, in an hour when they think not on him, nay in an hour when they think he hath been with them in their armies and fought their battels, and been their Lord of Hosts, he will arise as a man out of sleep, and make his sword drunk in the bloud of his enemies. We may pray for it, we may prophesy it; EX­SURGAT DEUS, &c. Let God arise, and his enemies shall be scatter'd, they also that hate him shall flee before him. And so I pass to the effect or end of Gods Arising, DISSIPABUNTUR INIMICI, His enemies shall be scatter'd, &c.

And we need not doubt of event. For when God ariseth, there ariseth Power and Wisdom, in respect of which all the strength in the world is but weakness, and all the wisdom in the world but foolishness. A look of his is able to disperse all the Nations of the earth: What then is his Rising? In St. Hieromes time the Sun was darkned by a Tempest, and men present­ly thought the world was at an end; and so it is with the wicked. When God begins to look up, they dive under water like ducks at every pibble that is thrown. What then will they do when he shall speak in thunders and rain down hailstones and coals of fire upon them? Look forward, and you shall see their end; They shall be scatter'd; They shall flee; They shall vanish; They shall melt away. What did Sennacherib get by advancing his banner against the City of the Lord? Even this, to preach by his statue, Let him that looketh upon me, learn to fear God. What did Acts 12. 23. Herod get by casting Peter into prison? He was smitten by an Angel, and eaten up of worms. What did Pharaoh gain by flinging the children of Israel into the river? He brought him into his Court who deprived him of his [Page 163] crown and life. The wicked are insnared in the work of their own Psal. 9. 16. hands, saith David. For this, saith Basil, is not onely inflicted as a pu­nishment, but it is the very nature of Sin, to make a net and dig a pit for it self.

What gained those hellish Traytors in the time of the Virgin Queen, and in the time of that King of peace, King James? I am almost ashamed in this place to tell you: Nothing but an halter and everlasting ignominy and shame. Let the wicked be never so wise, yet there is a wiser than they; and let them be never so strong, yet there is a stronger than they. Do you yet doubt whether God's Rising be visible in the execution of his wrath upon his enemies? Behold then his creature up in arms with him. There is a spiritual writ of outlawry gone out against them; and every man they meet, every stone in the streets, every beast of the field is ready to become their execu­tioners. When God riseth up, every creature is a souldier; an Angel over­comes the Assyrians, an army of Frogs and Lice over-run Aegypt, Haylstones from Heaven destroy the Canaanites. The pouder flasheth in the faces of the traiterous pioners. Infelix exitus Haereticorum, The unhappy end of Heretiques is not so good a note of the Church as the Cardinal would make it; but sure it is an evident mark that God is risen up, and shews the EXSURGAT in Capital letters. Many glorious examples we have of God's Rising of old in Humane and Divine Histories. As the Apostle speaks, the time would fail me to speak of his leading his people out of Aegypt, his bringing them again from captivity, and the like. How many millions of his servants hath he delivered, how many of his enemies hath he destroyed, whose names notwithstanding are no where recorded? It was an observa­tion of the Junior Pliny, Facta, dictáque illustrium virorum alia majora, alia clariora. All men have not gained credit in the world according to their desert. Some things of no great worth are very famous in the world, when as many things of better worth are less spoken of, and perchance lie alto­gether buried in obscurity, caruerunt quia vate sacro, because they lighted not on such who would transmit them to posterity. But God is the same yesterday, and to day and for ever; the same in the preservation of his people Israel then, and the same in the preservation of his servants now; the same in these his Risings which have left no mark or impression behind them, and the same in those which are writ in the bloud of his enemies; Adjutor in opportunitatibus, an helper in time of need; a God who when we are fallen lowest, and when our enemies are even treading us down under their feet, if we trust in him, will up and arise. For, in the next place, if we weigh it well, it cannot be otherwise, the parties being so opposite, God and the wicked, that they cannot both subsist together. Either God must be dis­armed; or his enemies be scatter'd. If then God ariseth, the dispersion of the wicked is a kind of emanation from him. For they cannot stand in his sight. And you may observe it; They seldom gather together till they are half perswaded there is no God at all. Again, the strength of the whole is not onely from the union, but from the parts, and such parts there may be as you can never collect and draw together so as to make the collection strong, but at last, though it hath been artificially wound together, it will fly to pieces: And therefore, when a greater power appears, it must needs be broken and scatter'd. What parts have smoke? But thin, and vanish­ing ones. Vides magnam molem: habes quod videas, non habes quod teneas, saith the Father: We may see as it were a mountain of smoke: we may see it, but we cannot hold it: It may be terrible to the eye, but we cannot grasp it in our hand. And commonly such are the congregations and col­lections of the wicked. They are but as Wax, hard in shew, but inclinable, in respect of the materials it is made of, to melt: They are like smoke, hu­midâ, [Page 164] non solidâ magnitudine, of some bulk, but of no solidity, ready to vanish and fly asunder. Their very consultations are but as smoke, the parts of them we see will scarce hang together. Lastly, their very ga­thering together is one cause of their Scattering; as plants naturally breed that worm which destroyeth them. Do the wicked gather together a­gainst God and his Church? This collection is one degree and approach to scattering and dissolution. For when their thought is as high as the Crown, their Head deserves to be as high as the Gallows. It is now but a lump of Wax? anon, having felt the heat, you cannot discern the form that it had. It is but smoke; and its very elevation is its dissolution: Quantò sit su­perior, tantò faciliùs disperit; The higher it is raised, the thinner it grows, and the sooner it vanisheth: You see it lifted up, and anon you see it not at all. So then, to conclude all; Gods enemies may gather themselves toge­ther, but they shall be scattered: they may stand out against him in some shew of opposition, but at last they shall flee: like Wax, their consulta­tions may have some form and shape but at the fire of God's Exsurgat, at his Rising who is a consuming fire, they shall melt and be spread abroad and di­lated, amd receive no other Impression but that of God's wrath. And we may make it our Prayer, or we may prophesy; Thus let God arise; and so let thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love him, be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.

That we may prophesy, it is most certain. For Prophetia vox Domini, saith Tertullian, Prophesy is the voice of God. Nay, without any Divine inspiration we may foretell the destruction of the wicked, as a thing as cer­tain as if it were done before our eyes. They have their destiny in their name. If enemies to God, they must be scatter'd and perish. If this coun­sell or this work be of men, it will surely come to nought, said Gamaliel that great Doctor of the Law. 'Tis true, Gods enemies shall perish, but not whilst they are ours, unless we make it a Prayer as well as a Prophesy. For God many times raiseth up those whom himself will at last rise against, to punish their sins who profess his name. O Assyrian, the rod of mine Anger, and the staffe in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an Hypocriticall Nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets, As if he had said, I will send the Heathen, that know me not, to punish my people in Jewry, who call upon my name. I will send the superstitious Papist to whip the hypocritical Protestant. I will make a rod to whip my people; and when that is done, I will burn it. And therefore, that God may scatter the wicked whilst they are our enemies, we must not be too bold to prophesie till we have fallen on our faces before God, and tendred these words as a prayer for our selves, and for our distressed bretheren in Ireland. And this is our duty as we are brethren, and members of that body which is one, this God commands, that we do good unto, and pray for all sorts of men, but especially those of the houshold of faith. [...], was in the Ancients [...], part of their Letany, as it is of ours. They prayed for men diseased, for prisoners and captives, for men in persecution. And they prayed [...], with great earnestness and intention. Pete, quaere, insta: petendo & quaerendo crescis ut capias. Let us put up our pe­titions, let us renew them, and press them again and again, let us multi­ply them every moment, till we come to the growth to be fit to receive that which till we pray for, till we and our distressed brethren be rid both of our enemies and of our fears. And are our Prayers of such force as to chase away our enemies? Yes St. James saith they will prevail much, if they be fer­vent. For as our enemies are only nostris vitiis fortes, made strong by our sins, and arm'd as it were against us with our iniquity; as they fight against a [Page 165] nation, not so much with their own sword, as with the luxury and pride and wantonness of that nation, (all which are our sins and our enemies weapons) so non gladiis pugnamus, sed orationibus; non telis, sed meritis, saith Ambrose; we fight against them not with sharp swords, but with strong supplications; not with weapons, but with alms and fasting, with sighs and groans. And as when we sin we put deadly weapons into their hands, so when we repent we shall disarm them. And indeed it is Repentance which kindles this heat, and makes our prayers fervent: which other­wise will be but so many sins to help our enemies. Without Repentance our Prayers are indeed but the sacrifice of fools. For what more foolish and ridiculous quàm quod voto volumus actu nolle? then to pray for that which we will not have? to cry for help against our enemies, by our continuance in sin to increase their number? cry, Help, Lord; how long shall the wicked prevail? and yet to help them more by our transgression, then we do God by our contribution: to call upon God to fight for us, when we fight against him: to desire peace, when we are the only incendiaries? to fight it out, and pray for a blessed Commonwealth, and yet not be willing to reach forth so much as the little finger to uphold it? Certainly this noise will never a­wake God; nor can we think he will be raised up with words, with empty, flattering, deceitful words; with words, as Job speaks, without counsel. No: If we will have our prayers make a noise to awake God, we must drop our tears upon our prayers, which we drop out of our own substance, as it were the bloud of Martyrs, saith Anastasius. And Bloud, we know, will cry and be loud. Non sileat pupilla oculi tui. Let not the apple of thine eye cease or be silent. And then we must feed our prayers with fasting. This doth nourish our Devotion, as a woman doth her child with the teat. God hath an ear to harken to our Fasting. Ostendit se Mosi jejunii colle­gae, saith Tertullian, He shews himself presently to Moses his copartner in fasting. And after this we must adorn them with our Alms, our free-will offering, our Contribution to the work. For can we pray for that which we will not forward? And then as our prayers are heard, so shall our alms come up before God, and with an holy importunity urge and provoke him to arise; for in the midst of so many Prayers, of so many Sighs and Groans, of so many Tears, and when our Charity speaks, whose voyce is shriller than the tongues of Men and Angels, God cannot rest, but will hear from the Heavens our prayer and supplication, and maintain our cause. He will cloath us with Salvation, and our enemies with shame; that we may enter his House with joy, and his Courts with Praise; that we may sit every man under his own vine and under his own fig-tree, and may make our lives a con­tinual holyday, singing praises to the God of our deliverance. This duty let us so perform here that after we shall have finished our course we may be admitted unto the quire of Angels, with them to praise God for evermore

We will add but one word to bring it home to our present occasion, And it will apply it self. This is a day of Thanksgiving, and here is a feast of Thanksgiving; A day of Thanksgiving for our deliverance from our outward fraud; A feast of Thansgiving for our redemption from our spiritual enemies. Let us offer up therefore sacrificium eucharisticum, a pay-offring, or sacri­fice of payment; let us pay to God Confession and Thanks for our delive­rance and for his mercies in both. Let us, as Jacob exhorts his Sons Gen. 43. 11. take of the best fruits of the land, of the Musick and Melody of the land, as the word signifieth; let us bring with us the fruits of the spirit, Gal. 5. 22. Love, Joy, Peace, Long-suffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith; let us bring forth fruits meet for Repentance, meet for these blessed mysteries, which will be as Musicks, even those songs of Sion which God is most de­lighted with. For if there be a blessing even in a cluster of grapes; what [Page 166] songs of praise are due to him who is the true Vine, and hath given us Wine to make our hearts glad, pressed bloud out of his very Heart, that we might drink, and be nourisht up unto everlasting Life? Let us then praise him for our deliverance this day; praise him, and not be like them out of whose snare we have escaped; not imitate their actions whose ruine we tremble at; but praise him by our Meekness and Gentleness, by our Pati­ence and Obedience to lawful Authority. For what praise is that which is breathed out of the mouth of a Traytor? If we be as ready to spoyl others as our enemies were to devour us, our Harp is but ill strung, and our songs of Thanksgiving will be quite out of tune. Let us double our praises, and magnifie God for that which is presented to us in the Sacrament, our delive­rance out of Hell, the destruction of our worst enemy, Sin, and our last e­nemy, Death. Here is that Red Sea in which that spiritual Pharaoh and his Host were overthrown. And what is our Praise? To speak good of his name; This is not enough: we may do this, and crucify him: We must prayse him by obedience, by love, by sincerity, and by a lively faith; This is indeed to eat of his Body which was broken for us, and to drink of that Bloud which was shed for remission of Sins. For he that truly believes and repents, as he is sick of sin, so he is sick of love, even of that love which in this Sacrament is sealed and confirmed to us. He is ever bowing to Christs sceptre; he is sincere, and like himself in all his wayes; he makes his Faith appear in the outward man, in Godly lips and in li­beral Hands; he breaths forth nothing but devotion, but Hallelujahs, Glory and Honour and Prayse for this great love: And so he becoms Peniel, Gen. 32. 30. as the face of God, as the shape of Christ, repre­senting all his Favours and Graces back upon Him, a pillar engraven, with the bowels of Christ a memorial of his love Thankfully set up for ever. It is usual with the Fathers to make the Ark a Type of Christ, his Word as the two Tables, his Discipline as Aarons Rod, and the Sacra­ment of his Supper as the Pot of Manna. EXSURG AT CHRISTUS, Let Christ arise, who is a brighter image of God then ever the Ark was. Let us take him up, but not upon prophane Shoulders, lest we dy. First, let us be Priests unto the Lord, without blemish, not blinded by the Prince of this world, not halting between God and the World, but perfect men in Christ Jesus, to offer up Sacrifices to the King of Heaven. When we receive him by a lively Faith, we may say he is risen. To this end he lifted up himself upon his cross, that we might lift up our Hearts, and so lift him up again, and present him to his Father: Who for his sake, when he sees him, as the Ark, lifted up, will bring mighty things to pass; will scat­ter our Sins, which are our greatest enemies, and separate them from us as far as the East is from the West. And though they be as the Smoke of the bottomless pit he will drive them away; and though they be complicated and bound together as wax into a kind of body, he will melt them, and de­liver us from this body of Death. For what Sin of ours dares shew it self when this Captaine of ours shall arise? Let God arise; that is the first verse of this Psalm; that is our Prayer: And let us conclude with the Psalm; in Thanksgiving and ascribe the strength unto God, saying, His excellency is over his Israel, to deliver them from their Enemies, and to deliver them from their Sins, and his Strength is in the clouds. O God, thou art terrible in thy holy places. The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power to his people, against the machinations of Men, and against the wills of the Devil; against sinful Men, and against Sin it self. Blessed be God. And let all the people say, AMEN.

WE have here the antiquity of Apologies: we find them almost as ancient as the World it self. For no sooner had Adam sinned, but he runneth behind the bush. No sooner had our first parents broken that primor dial Law, as Tertullian calleth it, which was the womb and matrix of all after-laws, but they hide themselves Vers. 8. amongst the trees of the Garden; and, as if they had made a covenant and agreement, they joyntly frame excuses. The Man casteth it off upon the Woman, and in effect upon God himself; The Woman gave it me, and Thou gavest me the Woman; and thus he lyeth down, and sleepeth, and is at rest. The Woman removeth it from herself upon the Serpent, The Serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. So that now, Vers. 13. God having made inquisition for the fact, neither Adam nor Eve are retur­ned, but the Serpent; nay indeed God himself, who maketh the Inquiry, is charged as a party and accessory; The Man did eat because the Woman gave, and God gave the Woman: and Adam thinketh himself safe behind this bush. And therefore as Adam hideth himself from God, so doth God return his folly upon his own head, and seemeth to seek him as if he were hid indeed, Adam where art thou? in a kind of ironie he acteth the part of an ignorant person, he calleth as at a distance, and seemeth not to know him who was so unwilling to be known. Or, if we take Tertullian's in­terpretation, Adv. Mar­cion. l. 2. we must not read it simplici modo, id est, interrogatorio sono, UBI ES, ADAM? as a plain and easy and kind interrogation, WHERE ART THOU, ADAM? sed impresso, & incusso, & imputativo, ADAM, UBI ES? but as a sharp and smart demand, as a demand with an imputation, ADAM, WHERE ART THOU? that is, jam non hic es, Thou art not here, not where thou wast, not in paradise, not in a state of immortality, but in a state of perdition, in a state of corruption, never more open and naked then in the thicket and behind the bush. This was not quaestio, but vagulatio, as it is called in the XII Tables. All the thick trees in the Garden could not conceal Adam, and keep him from the eyes of his God; but thus God was pleased to question his folly with some bitterness and scorn. It is the first question that was ever put to Man. And we may be sure all is not well when God asketh questions. His Laws, his Precepts, his Counsels, yea, his Comminations, are all delivered per rectam orationem, by a plain and positive declaration of his mind: HOC FAC, ET VIVES, Do this and live; Luk. 10. 23 [Page 168] If thou eatest of the forbidden fruit, thou shalt dic the death. What he com­mandeth Gen. 2. 17. to be done he supposeth will be done; and never beginneth to ask questions till our Disobedience questioneth his Law: Then he proceedeth against us ex formula, in a kind of legal and judiciarie way. When the Angels fall, he calleth after them, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lu­cifer, Isa. 14. 12. son of the morning? and when Adam is in the thicket, he seeketh him, Adam, where art thou? A question, one would think, of force to plow up his heart, and to rend it in pieces, that so his sin might evaporate and let it self out by an humble confession; a question sufficient, one would think, to fill his soul with sorrow, horrour and amazement. But though Adam were now out of the thicket, he was behind the bush still, He striveth to hide himself from God when he is most naked, and speaketh of his Fear, and of his Nakedness, but not at all of his Sin, I heard thy voice, saith he, in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid my self. He Gen. 3. 10. was sensible, not of the breach of the Law, but of his nakedness: It was the voice of God that frighted him, not his transgression. We commonly say, Suam quisque homo rem bene meminit, that every man hath a good memorie for that which concerneth him. Only Sin, which is properly ours, and whereof we are the proprietaries, to which we can entitlenei­ther God, nor the Devil, nor any other creature but our selves, we are un­willing to own and to call ours. Ours it is whilst it is in committing; on it we spend and exhaust ourselves; we prostitute our wills, we give up our affections, we sell our selves, all the faculties of our souls and all the parts of our bodies; we woe it, we wait for it, we purchase it: But when it is committed, we cast it from us, we look upon it as upon a bastard issue, we strive to raize it out of our memories; we are afraid when we are de­prehended, we deny when we are accused; when we are questioned our to answer is an excuse, Nolumns esse nostrum, quia malum agnoscimus, Ours we will not call it because we know it to be evil. One would think that Excuse were the natural offspring of Sin; or rather, that Sin and Excuse were twins. Omne malum pudore natura suffundit; No sooner hath Sin stai­ned the soul, but shame dieth the face with a blush. The Philosopher will tell us that, shame is nothing else but [...], fear of just reprehension; which to avoid we seek out many inventions: We run behind the bush; and when the voice of God calleth us from thence, we make a thicket of our own, a multitude of excuses, where we think our selves more safe then amongst all the trees of the Garden. Behold here the first sin that ever was committed, and behold our first Father Adam ready with an excuse as soon as it was committed. God came unto him, not in a sire devouring be­fore Psai. 51. 3. Gen. 3 8. 1 Cor. 4. 21. him, nor in a mighty tempest round about him, but in the cool of the day he cometh not with a rod, but with meekness: he inviteth him to mercy, and prompteth him to repentance; he asketh him, Adam, where art thou? not out of ignorance, as if he saw him not; but as a remembrance, that he might see himself. And when he cannot extort from him so much as a bare mention of his sin, but only of his fear and his nakedness, which were in­deed the bitter effects of it, he cometh nearer to him, and is instant with him, as if he would dictate to him, and bespeak him to confess, and put a form of words into his mouth; Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I com­manded v. 11. thee that thou shouldest not eat? A question so plain, so keen, of such an edge, that it was able to have cleft his heart in twain, and let his sin out at his mouth by an humble confession. What was it but as the Hand writing upon the wall? and sure now it cannot be but Adam's countenance is Dau. 5 5. changed, his thoughts troubled, his joynts loosed, and his knees smiting each other. Against this battery what hold can prevail? But oh the Sinful­ness of Sin! oh the mighty powea of sin; which so stupifieth the heart, [Page 169] and so filleth it with it self, that it feeleth it not, which transformeth an heart of flesh into brass or marble, that no hammer can malleate it, no sword can pierce it, no influence from God himself can mollifie it! In ipso pec­cato impudentiam discimus, & ab ipso, In sin it self we learn a kind of im­pudent remorselessness, and we learn it from it. These two are contrary, saith St. Chrysostom, Sin and Repentance. In Sin we see shame and confu­sion; in Repentance, hope and confidence: but the devil hath changed and in­verted this order, and hath placed upon Sin boldness and confidence, and shame upon Repentance. Adam here was not ashamed to commit sin, but he is a­shamed to confess it; and therefore he maketh an apron for his sin, as he had done for his body; but he was never more naked then in his fig-leaves: And the man said, The VVoman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

My Text then, ye see, is not an Answer, but an Excuse, and therefore will not so easily admit a methodical division. For in these ambages in the turnings and windings, in the mazes and labyrinths of Excuses, what or­der can we find? But though we cannot orderly divide this excuse, we will dissect and anatomize it, and make some use of our Father's sin. God may seem sometimes to have been more ready to discredit his Saints then to ho­nour them, in that he setteth down oftentimes and recordeth their faults, but wrappeth up their repentance in silence. The story of Noah is shut up Gen. 9. with his drunkenness. After the relation of Lots's incest we hear no more Gen. 19. of him. After the storie of Solomon's idolatry, it followeth immediate­ly, And Solomon slept with his Fathers. Adam no doubt did repent; yet we 1 Kings 11. 43 see his storie concluded with his punishment. Nor may we think that this was done by chance, but, as the Apostle speaketh, all these things are writ­ten 1. Cor. 10. 11. [...] for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. As therefore they who come to see dead bodies cut up, although they purpose not to learn Anatomie, yet by that sight go away informed, what manner of substance the Heart, the Spleen, the Liver are of; so by dissection of this Excuse of Adams, and by view and inspection as it were of the very entralls of our Progenitors, we may read our own disease, we may learn to search and examine our own hearts, and find that our [...], and constitution is the very same with theirs, that we resemble them not only in their fall, but also in their excuse, and that we are as skilful ar­tificers to few fig-leaves together, to apologize for our sins and to extenuate them, as ever our first father was. The lines then by which we are to pass are these. First we will anatomize and disect this excuse of Adam's: Next, we will look into our selves, take some notice of our own hearts, and of those excuses which we commonly frame; and then, to make an exact A­natomie-lecture, we will lay open the danger of the disease, that we may learn to avoid what was fatal to our Parents, and though we sin with Adam, yet not with Adam to excuse our sin. Of these in their or­der.

And the Man said, The VVoman, &c.] I told you this was no Answer, but an Excuse; For indeed an Excuse is no Answer. An answer must be fit­ted to the question which is asked; but this is quite besides it. We find indeed ambages, a circuit of words, which the Philosopher calleth [...], because they run round as it were in a circle, and never point in a direct line to the matter in hand, never present it with what the Question expecteth▪ but something else in stead of it. The Question here is, Hast thou caten of the forbidden tree? The Answer is wide from the purpose, an accu­sation of the Woman, yea of God himself; The VVoman whom thou gavesl to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. In civil Courts Pa­tronus negat, defendit, transfert, minuit, deprecatur, saith the Orator; It is [Page 170] usual and commendable for him who taketh upon himself to be an Advocate either to deny the fact, or defend it, or translate it, or extenuate it, or put it off; and he who falleth short of this act, deserveth not the name of a Patron. But in the court of Conscience there is no room for this act: Here every man must be not his own advocate but accuser and judge. For when God asketh the question, maketh inquisition for bloud or any o­ther sin, to extenuate the offense is to aggravate it, to put it off is to draw it closer on, to defend it is to augment it. There is no answe­ring of God, when he questioneth us, but by acknowledgment.

But to proceed orderly in our Dissection; We find the Man doth not deny, but in plain terms confess that he did eat. And COMEDI, I have eaten, by it self, had been a wise answer: but it is COMEDI, with▪ MULIER DEDIT, I did eat it, but the Woman gave it, a confession with an extenuation: And such a confession is far worse than a flat denyal. I did eat were words that might have proved as sweet as the rivers of para­dise, had it not been for the poison of the excuse. But Adam's last words Gen. 41. 4. are lost in the former, as the lean and ill-favoured Kine in Pharaoh's dream ate up the fat ones. Deny indeed the fact he could not. For as God had built him up in his own image and likeness, so he had raised up within him [...], a natural tribunal, his Conscience, and made him thus far a God unto himself, as not only to discern evil from good, but also to search the very inwards of his own heart, [...], &c. saith St. Chrysostome; all men, of what rank soever, though they sit not in the throne of justice, though they be not Judges and Magi­strates, though they have no executioners, nor prisoners, nor gives, nor bolts, yet they judge and condemn Sin in themselves and others, and that by the common principles of Discourse and Reason, and by that secret verdict and sentence which every man carrieth in his own breast. The first man that condemneth a Sinner is a Sinner himself; Se judice nemo nocens absolvitur; in himself he beareth about him a Court and Seat of justice from which no appeal lieth. His reason is his judge, his Conscience is his ac­cuser, himself his own prisoner: The terrours of an afflicted Conscience hang him up and crucifie him every day, though no forreign autority arrest him. For as the shadow followeth the body, saith Basil, so doth Sin the Soul; and whithersoever we go, it presenteth it self before us. No sooner do we reach out our hand to the Apple; no sooner is our eye full of the adulteress, 2 Pet. 2. 14. Jam. 1. 15. no sooner hath Lust conceived and brought forth Sin, but presently verbera­mur tacito cogitationis nostrae opprobrio, as St Ambrose speaketh; our own thoughts are as whips and scorpions to scourge us; our conscience striketh us with amazement and horrour when no man pursueth us, she plougheth up our soul, and maketh deep furrows there, laniatus & ictus, as the Hi­storian speaketh, stripes and wounds, when no other hand is lift up against us. But as Judges would see more clearly and judge more uprightly if they were not blinded with a bribe, so would the Conscience speak more plainly, if we did not teach her broken and imperfect language, to pro­nounce Sibboleth for Shibboleth, to leave out some letter, some aspiration, Judg. 12. 6. some cicumstance in sin. But to speak truth, the Conscience cannot but speak out to the offender, and tell him roundly that he hath broken God's law. But as we will not hearken to Reason when she would restrain us from sin, so we slight her when she checketh us for committing it; we neither give ear to her counsel before we eat, nor to her reproof after we have ea­ten; we observe her neither as a friend nor as an enemy. Adam's consci­ence told him he had broken the command, had eaten of the forbidden fruit and must die; but the shame of what he had done, and the fear of what would follow, made him as deaf to his conscience after his fall as he was [Page 171] before, as unwilling to acknowledg his sin as to prevent it; and therefore he seeketh to palliate and colour over what he could not deny, he faltreth in his language, and instead of a confession rendreth nothing but an excuse, an excuse which indeed is nothing.

Now to dissect and examine the Excuse; We shall find that Adam dea­leth like an unskilful Phisitian, qui pro morbo extinguit hominem; He re­moveth not the disease, but destroyeth himself, and by applying a reme­dy worse than the disease maketh the disease incurable. His Apologie up­braideth him, and he condemneth himself with his excuse. For first, MULIER DEDIT, The woman gave it me, weigh it as we please, is an aggravation of his sin. We may measure Sin by the tentation: It is alway the greatest when the tentation is least. A great sin it would have been to have eaten of the forbidden fruit, though an Angel had given it, what is it then when it is the Woman that giveth it? Why should the Wo­man prevail over the Man? the weaker over the stronger vessel? He was made her head, and was to rule over her. His Duty saith St. Chrysostome, was not only to have refused the woman's offer, but also, to have shewed her the greatness of the sin, and to have kept her from eating; not only to have saved himself, but to have plucked her also out of the fire. But for Strength to yield to Weakness, for the Head to be directed by the Body, for him to put himself in subjection who ought to command, for him to fol­low to evil who should lead to good, was to invert the order which God had constituted. What a shame do we count it for a man of perfect limbs to be beaten by a criple? for a son of Anak to be chased by a grashopper? for Xerxes 's army which drank up the sea, to be beaten out of Greece by three hundred Spartains? Certainly he deserveth not power who betray­eth it to Weakness. The VVoman gave it me, then, was a deep aggrava­tion of the Man's transgression.

Again, it is but, The VVoman gave it. And a gift, as we commonly say, may be either taken or refused; and so it is in our power whether it shall be a gift or no. Had the man been unwilling to have received, the Woman could have given him nothing. Nunquid obsecravit? num disseruit? num decepit? saith the Father. Did she besiege him with her intreaties? did she use the battery of discourse? did she cunningly undermine him with a fallacie? No, it is but dedit; she only gave it him. The Orator will tell us, Necessitas est magnum humanae infirmitatis patrocinium, that Ne­cessity is the best Plea that humane weakness hath for the misery that be­falleth us: But it is too common a thing, as Tertulian saith, licentiam usurpa­re praetextu necessitatis, to make Necessity a pretense for our liberty and licentiousness in sinning. At this door enter-in Covetousness, Intempe­rance, Revenge, Pride, which we might easily keep out, even with one of our fingers. Nusquam est necessitas, nusquam violentia, sed electio & voluntas: Here was no necessity, no violence. It is but DEDIT, she gave it him, and he was willing to receive it. Oh how are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battel! how is Adam fallen in the midst of his strength! He who had the Graces of God encompassing him about as a ring, who had his Understanding richly adorn'd, and his Will obedient to his Understan­ding, who had an harmonie in his Affections, and an Heaven in his Soul, who had the Angels for his guardians, and God for his strength, who was himself a kind of God upon earth, and had dominion over all the creatures surrendreth up all at the sight of a gift, a gift which he might have refu­sed, and which he was bound to refuse. [...], saith the Plato de Log. proverb, The Gods themselves have not strength enough to strive against Ne­cessity; but he is weaker than a man who yieldeth where there is no necessi­ty: The VVoman gave it me, then, is but a weak apology.

Further yet, What was the gift? was it of so rich a value as to counter­vail the loss of Paradise? No: it was DE FRUCTU ARBORIS, the fruit of the tree. We call it an Apple. Some would have it to be an Indi­an Fig. The Holy Ghost vouchsafeth not once to name it, or to tell us what it was. Whatsoever it was, it was but fruit, and of that tree of which Man was forbidden to eat upon penalty of death. Quasi vero rationis a­liquid Gen. 2. 17. haberet haec defensio, saith a Father; As if this defense had any shew of reason in it, when he confesseth that he preferred this apple, this slight gift of the Woman, before the command of God, The Woman gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Here are two, God, and the Woman; the Gift, and the Command; the Apple, and Obedience. To hearken to the Woman, and to be deaf to God; to forsake the command for the gift; to fling off obedience at the sight of an apple, is that which sheweth Adam's sin in its full magnitude, and yet is taken-in here for an apologie. But perhaps this fruit may be of high price, this apple may be an apple of God, with this glorious inscription upon it, ERITIS SICUT DII, if ye eat it, ye shall be as Gods: Who would not venture then to touch upon such hopes? who would not eat an Apple to become a God? It is true, if this had not been the Devil's inscription, whose every letter is a lie, and whose grea­test gift is not worth an apple, whose kingdoms of the world and glorie of Mat. 4. 8. them are overbought with a thought. Mala emtio, saith the Oratour, semper ingrata est, quia semper exprobrare videtur domino stultitiam; An evil bargain is an ey-sore, because it alwayes upbraideth him with folly who made it. And such a bargain here had our first father made. He had bought gravel for bread, wind for treasure, spem pretio, hope for a certainty, a lie for truth; an apple for paradise. The Woman, the Gift, the gift of an Apple, these are brought-in for an excuse, but are indeed a li­bel.

Further still, to aggrandize Adam's fault, consider how the reason of his excuse doth render it most unreasonable. Why doth he make so buisy a defense? why doth he shift all the blame from himself upon the woman? Here was no just detestation of the offence, but only fear of punishment. The fruit of the tree had been pleasant to the eyes and tast, but MORTE MORIERIS, Thou shalt surely die, was bitter as gall. He would offend Gen. 3. 6. Gen. 2. 17. with the woman, but with the woman he would not be punished. For love of her he did eat; but now he hath eaten, see how he loveth her. Behold, the Lord cometh with a fiery sword to take vengeance for his sin! Doth he oppose himself to the danger? doth he stand between the sword and his wife? doth he urge her weakness? doth he plead for her? doth he call for the blow on himself? No: She gave, and let the blow light upon her. Per­nitiosè misericors, & pernitiosiùs crudelis, saith Bernard; He had been too pliant and kind to sin with his wife, but now most cruel when he should be merciful. It was too much mercy to joyn with her in the sin, but cruelty without mercy to leave her in the Punishment. And here is a sign that A­dam is fallen indeed, even fallen from the high degree of a Lord to the low condition of a Servant; who feareth not to offend, but to be puni­shed; would break the command at pleasure but that Death is the best re­ward that followeth. To a good man Punishment appeareth not in so hor­rid a shape as sin: for punishment is but the evil of passion inflicted for the evil of action, and of the two the evil of action is far the worse. The lips of an harlot are far worse then the biting of a cockatrice: Theft is far worse then the whip: Yea, to sin, as Anselm saith, is far worse then to be damned. For there is a kind of justice in punishment which is not sin. [...], Neither God nor Man will deny but that it is most just that he who sinneth should suffer for his sin. Omnis pana, si justa [Page 173] est, peccati paena est, saith Augustine. But for sin punishment were not just. We may bespeak Adam in the stile of the imperial Law, ipse te subdedisti paenae; thou hast brought thy self under punishment, and deservest to have it doubled for shifting it off to thy wife. He had taken possession of Pa­radise upon condition, and had made a contract with God: And the Scho­liast on the fifth of Aristotle's Ethicks will tell us, [...], There is in punishment a kind of giving and receiving; in which the nature of all contracts doth consist. He who receiveth by theft, [...]. The Latine phrase is, dabit paenas, he must give punishment. Adam receiveth an apple, and he must give paradise, yea his life, for it. We have said enough to shew that Adam did but pavemen­tare peccatum, as St. Augustin speaketh, parget and plaister ever his sin, and did [...], alleage that for a cause of his transgression which in truth was none. But,

In the last place, that which maketh his apologie worse than a lie; and rendreth his excuse inexcusable, is, that he removeth the fault from the Woman on God himself; Not the Woman alone is brought in, but MU­LIER QUAM TU DEDISTI, The Woman whom thou gavest me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Which indeed is a plain sophism non causae pro causa: That is made a cause which is not a cause, but an occasion only. It is a common axiome, Causa causae est causa causati, That which produceth the cause, produceth also the effect of that cause: And it is true in Causes and effects essentially coordinate. But here it is not so, God indeed gave Adam the Woman: but he gave him not the Woman to give him the Apple Dedit sociam, non tentatricem; He gave her for a companion, not for a tempter: He gave her not to do that which he had so plainly forbidden. The true cause of Adam's sin was in himself and in his own will. It was not the Woman, which God gave him, but the Woman which he gave him­self, who gave him the fruit: God gave him a Woman to be obedient to him, not to command him. God gave him a Will to incline to his com­mand, but not to break it. Whatsoever God gave him was good: The Woman was good, the Fruit was good, his Will was good, the Command was good; but he gave himself a Woman who was a seducer, fruit which was poison, a will which was irregular, and the command he made his ru­ine. And now he who affected to become like unto God, doth desire also to make God like to himself; he who would be made a God, maketh God a man, and bringeth him in as guilty of the transgression: And so he added to his guilt by defending it, ut culpa ejus atrocior fieret discussa, quàm fuit per­petrata, saith the Father: His sin was greater being excused than it was when first committed. To exalt it to the highest, we may well call it Blas­phemy. For as we may blaspheme by giving that to the Creature which is proper to God, so may we also by attributing that to God which is the Creatures only. To worship an Angel, or a Saint, is contumelious to God; to make God an Angel is blasphemy; what is it then to make him a Man? what is it to make him a Sinner? I know nothing that Adam could call his own but the transgression. There is some truth in the TU DEDISTI; for his Wife God had given him: So Paradise was God's gift, and his Body God had created him. But if we bring-in his Sin, then TU DEDISTI is blas­phemy: For God gave him not that, nay God could not give it him; but he must father it who was the father of us all.

To recollect all, and lay before you these bella tectoriola, these excuses, in brief. What if the Woman gave it? The Man was stronger then the Wo­man, and Lord over her. What though it were a Gift? He had will to re­fuse it, his hands were not bound, nor his feet put into fetters; there was no chain of necessity to force him. But then it was but an Apple: and what [Page 174] was all the fruit in Paradise to the loss of his obedience? What was the Devil's promise to God's threatning? how unjust and cruel was he to his wife, in transferring the fault upon her? Lastly, how blasphemous was he against God, in imputing his very gift unto him as the only cause of his sin? If the Woman seduce him, must it be with a Gift? If a Gift will prevail, must it be no more then an Apple? Must an Inscription, a Promise, a Lie de­ceive him? and must he buy the false hope of eternity with the certain loss of Paradise? If he sin with Eve, why is he unwilling to be punished with Eve? And why doth he dispute with God, and darken counsel by words with­out knowledg? We may well cry out, Adam, where art thou? In a thicket Job 38. 2. amongst the trees, nay, amongst the leaves. For all excuses are so, even leaves, nay, not so good shelter as leaves: for they do not cover, but be­tray us. Adam increaseth his shame by endeavouring to hide it. Mulier quam dedisti, is not an excuse, but an accusation.

And now I wish that the leaves of those trees among which Adam hid himself had cast their shadow only upon him. But we may say as St. Am­brose doth of the storie of Naboth and Ahab, Adami historia tempore ve­tus est, usu quotidiana; This historie of Adam is as antient as the World; but is fresh in practice, and still revived by the sons of Adam. We may therefore be as bold to discover our own nakedness as we have been to pluck our first father from behind the bush. We have all sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, and we are as ready to excuse sin as to commit it; that we may seem to take this at least from Adam, as Pelagius thought we do all other defects, only by imitation. Do we only excuse our sin? No; Many times we defend it by the Gospel, and even sanctifie it by the doctrine of Christ himself. Superstition we commend for Reve­rence, prophaneness for Christian liberty, indiscretion for Zeal, will-wor­ship for Obedience: Nay, doth not Rebellion come towards us under the grave habit of Religion, with a Sword in one hand, and a Bible in the o­ther; as if God himself had decreed to set up these men of Belial against his own ordinance, and the word of God were powerful not to demolish imaginations, but Kingdoms. The Oratour telleth us, that honesta verba moribus perdidimus, by our evil manners we have lost the proper and native signification of many good and honest words, so have we also almost lost the knowledg of our Sins in words, in borrowed titles, and assumptitious names. And hence it cometh to pass that neither our Virtues are as they appear; nor our Vices appear to us as they are, but we look upon our de­fects without grief, and applaud our false virtues with joy, our feigned Temperance, our adulterate Charity, our mock-Fasts, our superficial Mortifi­cation, our spurious Humility, our irregular Devotion, our Pharisaical Zelé, our Obedience with a sword drawn and ready to strike: Nor are we con­tent alone to be deceived, but we affect it, & sub nomine religionis famulamur errori, we talk of God, but worship our own imaginations, & sub velamento nominis Christi adversus nomen Christi militamus, we fight against Christ even under his own colours. This disease of Adam's runs through each vein and passage of our soul, by which we are still unlike ourselves, like Adam indeed in Paradise, but then when he was in the thicket, and like unto him out of the thicket, but with an excuse in his mouth. We may observe, that many things in themselves not commendable do yet help to make up our defects, and one vice serveth to set out another. Impudence promo­teth Ignorance. For do we not see many whose boldness is the greatest part of their learning, and whose confidence is taken for judgment and wisdome? Good God! what cannot a brow of brass, a sad countenance and a forced deportment do? This Quintilian maketh one reason why a­mongst the vulgar sort Ignorance many times beareth the bell, and is more [Page 175] amiable and gratious than Knowledg. And may we not in like manner think that that peace and quietness we have at home in our own breasts, and that approbation we gain abroad, is due; not alwaies to our virtue, but oft­times to our whorish and impudent looks, not to that constant tenour and equality of life which Reason prescribeth, but to this art of apologi­zing, to our manifold evasions and excuses; which, if we look nearer up­on them, are of a fouler aspect then those sins they colour and com­mend.

To come close home therefore, we will stay a little, and draw the pa­rallel, and shew the similitude that is betwixt Adam and his sons. We shall still find a Mulier dedit to be our plea as well as his. Some Woman, some­thing weaker then our selves, overthroweth us, and then is taken-in for an excuse. Omnes homines vitiis nostris favemus; & quod propriâ facimus voluntate, ad naturae referimus necessitatem. saith Hierom to Amandus, We all favour ourselves, and our vices too; and what we do willingly, we ac­count as done out of necessity of nature. If we taste the forbidden fruit, we are ready to say, The Woman gave it us. Again, it is some gift, some pro­fer, that prevaileth with us, something pleasant to the eye, something that flattereth the body and tickleth the phansie, something that insinuateth it self through our senses, and so by degrees worketh upward, and at last gai­neth power over that which is [...], and should command, our Reason and Understanding. Whatsoever it is, it is but a Gift, and may be refu­sed. Homo potest peccare; sed, si nolit, non facit, saith St. Augustine; Man may fall into sin; but if he will not, he doth not. What though it be plea­sant? I may distast it. What though it flatter? I may frown upon it. What though it be Honour? I may look down upon it. What though it be Wealth? I may cast it upon the waters, or fling it into the sea. What if Eccles. 11. [...]. the Devil say, All these things will I give thee? If we will not reach out Mat. 4. 9. the hand, they are not a gift. No insinuation, no flattery, no smiling ten­tation, no argument, no rhetorick is of more power and activity then the Will, which may either take or refuse the gift as it please. Further, as it is something presented in the manner of a gift which overcometh us, so commonly it is but an Apple, something that cannot make us better, but may make us worse; something offered to our Hope, which we should fear; something that cannot be a gift till we have sold our selves; nor be dear to us till we are vile and base to our selves; at the best but a guilded temptation, an Apple with an Inscription, with an ERITIS SICUT DII, upon it, with some promise, some shew, and but a shew and glimpse, of some great blessing; but earthy and fading, yet varnished with some re­semblance of heaven and eternity. Look upon those gifts which are most welcome unto us, and which we run after as unwilling to stay till they be proferred, and ye shall find an ERITIS SICUT DII upon them. There is upon Honour such an Inscription; For Honour either maketh us God's, or at least maketh us think we are so. There is the like upon Wealth: for when our chests are full, how do we worship ourselves, and sacrifice to Habac. 1. 16. our own net! Nay, ye may see it written in the dresses and paint and fore­head of the Harlot: for are not the strumpets smiles the wantons paradise? are not her embraces his heaven? in a word, it is written upon every thing that is offered as a gift, and being received is a sin: For when we sin, vo­lumus Divinam excellentiam imitari, saith the Father, we emulate the Ma­jesty of the Highest, we acknowledg no superior, but would be as Gods, to do what we please. Lastly, the TU DEDIST I will come in too. For be it the World, God created it; be it Wealth, he openeth his hand and giveth it; be it Honour, he raiseth the poor out of the dust; be it our Flesh, he fashioneth it; be it our Soul, he breathed it into us; be it our [Page 176] Understanding, it is a spark of his Divinity; be it our Will, he gave it us; be it our affections, they are the impressions of his hand: But be it our In­firmity, we are too ready to say that that is a Woman too of God's making. But God never gave it. For suppose the Flesh be weak, yet the Spirit is strong: & si spiritus carne fortior, nostrâ culpâ infirmiora sectamur, saith Tertullian; If the Spirit be stronger than the Flesh, it is our fault if the weaker side prevail. And therefore let us not flatter our selves, saith he, because we read in Scripture that the flesh is weak; for we read also that the Mat. 26. 41. spirit is ready, that we might know that we are to obey, not the flesh, but the spirit. Of all discourses those of our own infirmity prove many times most dangerous. For this indeed is the Woman which giveth us the Apple. If we blaspheme God's name, it is our infirmity; if we revenge our selves, it is our infirmity; if we steal, it is our infirmity; if we taste of forbid­den pleasures, it is our infirmity: when our greatest infirmity is to talk so much of infirmity, and still to alledg it as an excuse of our faults. Ine­very sin we commit we renew this antient storie, and Eve continually o­vercometh Adam. Nay further yet, as Adam excused himself by Eve, so do we excuse our selves by Adam; we lay all our sins on his shoulders, and hide all our actual transgressions within the folds of original corruption. When God cometh to question us, and to ask us, Where and In what state we are, we cannot but be guilty and conscious to ourselves of sin; we cannot but say that we have eaten, and done that which was forbidden: But then nolumus esse nostrum, quia malum agnoscimus, though the sin be ours, we are unwilling to own it because of its deformity, We carry Sin about us; Nay, saith Luther, unusquisque infernum in se habet, every man hath an Hell with­in himself, and therefore he casteth-in this water, these cold excuses, to cool and allay it.

And thus ye see what a near resemblance and likeness there is be­tween Adam and his posterity, that we are so like him in this art of apo­logizing, ‘ Ut sit tam similis sibi nec ipse,’ that we cannot easily tell whether had most skill to paint Sin with an ex­cuse, the Father, or the Children. Adam behind the bush, Adam with a Mulier dedit, is a fair picture of every sinner; but it is not easy to say that it doth fully express him. But now, to draw towards a conclusi­on, that we may learn exuere patrem, to cast off the old man, and to avoid that danger that was fatal to him, we must remember that we are not only of the first Adam, but also of the second; not only of the earth, earthy, but also 1 Cor. 15. 47. 49. of the Lord from heaven; and as we have born the image of the earthy, so we must also bear the image of the heavenly: We must remember that we are born with Christ, that we are baptized and buried with Christ, and that we must rise with Christ; that the Woman was given to be in subjection, the Flesh to be subdued by us, and the World to be troden under our feet; that we must not count these as enforcements and allurements before sin, lest we take them up as excuses after sin; that we must not yield to them as stron­ger than ourselves, that we may not need to run to shelter ourselves under them in time of trouble. A strange weakness it is to talk of Weakness when we are to sight: for this is to yield before we strike a stroke; and no won­der, si vincantur, qui jam victi sunt, if they fall by conquest who in their own opinions are already overcome. And as great weakness it is when the Woman hath prevailed, and we have given up our strength to infirmity, then, out of that to draw an apologie, from whence by resistance we might have raised that virtue which would have crowned us with honour and glo­ry. It was the Woman, saith Adam: It is my Melancholy, saith the [Page 177] Envious; it is my Bloud, saith the Wanton; It is my Appetite, saith the Glutton; It is my Choler, saith the Murderer. But God gave Adam a wife, not a tempter: and God gave an appetite, not Gluttony; natural tempers and constitutions, not Envie, not Luxurie, not Revenge. And the Envious should clear-up the cloud of Melancholy with the light of Reason, the fu­rious Gallant purge his Choler, the Wanton quench the fire in his bloud, and make himself an Eunuch for the Kingdom of heaven, and the Glutton [...], Mat. 13 12. wage war with his appetite, put a knife to his throat, and beat down Prov. 23. 2. Cor. 9. 27. his body with fasting and abstinence. Beloved, if this care were general and serious, we should not hear Adam complain of Eve, nor should we complain of Adam, nor make our Infirmity an apologie for sin, nor our Weakness to resist temptation a temptation to those sins which encrease our weakness. God sendeth us into the world as the Romans did their armies against Carthage, not to return but with conquest. If we fail and be foiled, it will be in vain to urge and plead our Infirmity. It is the perverse­ness of the will, saith St. Ambrose that damneth the wicked; but no necessity of nature nor infirmity of the flesh can excuse them. God indeed gave the Woman to Adam, but dedit in adjutorium, he gave her him to be an helper: So there is not any thing which God hath given us that of it self can hurt us. There is no natural appetite or inclination in man, say the Schools, which may not be drawn up to a virtuous act: There is no fuel, no spark, in our na­ture which may not be improved and fixed up at last as a star in the firma­ment of the soul. For every inclination is from God, and therefore is good, and tendeth to good. My inclination to Anger may end in true Christian Fortitude; my inclination to Sorrow may be perfected in Repentance; my inclination to meats, in Sobriety and Abstinence. If the Woman had been given to Adam to have given him the Fruit, he might have tasted, and not dyed; and if our natural inclination did necessitate us to the act, we may say it, and be no lyars, that we have no sin: What pretence then can we find, what excuse can we possibly frame, when we break God's command? That Sin doth insinuate? A Christian hath a charm. That it is invisible, and so insensible? Faith unfoldeth it. That our nature is weak? Christ doth strengthen us. That there is a Woman with an Apple in her hand, many incitements to sin? There are more and stronger to goodness. There needeth no instructour to teach us, saith St. Basil, no Ora­tour to perswade us, to hate a loathsom disease; and by the common principles of Reason we commend Justice and Temperance, and condemn that which is evil. [...], There is, saith he, in the soul of Man an avers­ness from evil, which he never learned, but brought with him into the world. But then what if Evil look well, and speak well, and appear in some glory? We have light enough to discover that imposture. For the Fruit with the inscription there is a Morte morieris. If the World flattereth, God threatneth. If Nature incline, grace is a bridle. If the Devil sug­gest, the Angels are our guardians. If he fetch his circuit and compass to see where he may foil us, they are ready to pitch their Tents round a­bout us. What speak we of Temptations? They are officina meritorum, a shop to build good works in. If Temptation cloath it self with Lust, I may make it Chastity and Temperance. If it smile in a piece of gold, I may make it poverty of spirit. If it cringe to me in his knee that ho­noureth me, I may shadow it with humility. Our Passions which have quandam mulieritatem, a kind of womanishness in them, and are many times as froward and perverse as any of that Sex, yet may be made use­ful and serviceable, cùm illud quod in illis foemininum est, virile facimus, saith the Father, by turning their effeminacy into true manhood; by making my Fear a Centinel to warn me of danger, my Anger a Magistrate to punish [Page 178] my sin, and my sorrow, a penetentiary to water my couch with tears: nay, cùm illud quod in illis ferinum, est divinum facimus, by making that Divine which was bestial and brutish in them. And indeed, wherein can we more nearly resemble God then in the destruction of sin? and this we may work by help of our passions. This fleshly part of ours God hath given us; but dedit sociam, he gave it for a companion, not an enemy. Nyssene will tell us that the Soul may set it in tune, as a Musician doth his Harp and Lute, and make such an harmony as shall be very delightful in the ears of God. And a friend also we may make it to exalt and promote us. It may help us to a Confessors place in Heaven by the con­fession of the tongue, it may procure us a Virgin's place by chastity, and crown us with Martyrdome by dying for Christ. Nemo non in cansa Dei facere potest quod in causa sua quotidiè facit. We are prodigal of our blood and of our life, if our Lust or some quarrel call for it; why should it then be so difficult a matter to employ and spend it in the cause of God? If we shall search the Scripture to improve our knowledge, if we shall earnestly beg of the God of grace to inflame our Love, let the Woman tempt never so much, we shall not hear her. Let our natural endowments be what they will, he that doth little amongst us shall do much, and he that doth much shall do much more. And for our enemies which we so fear; and which we bring in as an excuse of our cowardise, one of us (as Deut. 32. 30. it was said of the Israelites) shall chase a thousand of them, and if they Deut. 28. 7. come out against in one way, they shall flee before us seven wayes. Nor shall we ever so forget our selves as to palliate our offences, and when God and our Conscience, or our Conscience, which is our God, shall call us to account; put them off upon Adam, as Adam did here upon Eve: There shall never come a MULIER DEDIT, or a TU DEDISTI, The Woman both done this, or, Our Flesh hath done this, or, God hath done this, into our apology: Nor will we hide our selves under any Tree but that whose leaves are to heal the Nations, nor run unto any Rock but the Rev. [...]. [...]. holes and sides of the Rock Christ Jesus.

To shut up all, and conclude (for I fear I have trespassed) my advice shall be first that of Arsenius the Eremite, Impera Evae, & cave serpentem, & tutus eris; tutior autem si arborem non inspexeris: Command Eve, and beware of the Serpent, and thou shalt be safe: but, if thou wilt be out of the reach of danger, do not so much as look towards the forbidden Tree. Let thy Reason take its place, and hold dominion over thy Will: Look not upon the VVine when it is red, nor upon Beauty when it smileth, Prov. [...]. 31. nor upon the Apple when it is pleasant to the eye, but fly all occasion and ap­pearance 1 Thes. 5. [...]2. of evill, and hate Sin even in a Picture: And this, that thou mayst not sin. But in the second place, if thou hast sinned, if thou hast tasted of the forbidden fruit, if thou hast meddled with the accursed thing, then, as Joshua speaketh to Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glorie to the Lord Joh. 7. 19. God of Israel, and make confession unto him. Run not behind the Bush, studie not apologies: make not the Woman, which should help thee to stand, an excuse of thy fall: nor think that paint, or curtains, can hide thy sin from him whose eyes are ten thousand times brighter than the Sun, and Eccl. 23. 19. in whose besom thou art, even when thou runnest into the thicket of excu­ses. No: Give glory to God, that God may seal a pardon to thee: Open thy sin by confession to God, and the mercy of God will hide it; Con­demn it, and judg thy self for it, and thy excuse is made, thou shalt never be judged for it by the Lord: Lay it open before the Lord, and he will blot it out for ever. Excuse can make but an imaginarie Saint; and such Saints shall houl in utter darkness: But Confession maketh us glorious in his sight who cannot be deceived: It maketh our head fit for a Diademe: [Page 173] It lifteth us up when it casteth us down, maketh us appear lovely in out de­formity, and by condemning absolveth us, [...], (as the Greek Fathers were bold to speak) making the Judg even ashamed of our shame, working in him compassion, that his bowels yern at our sighs and groans, that he maketh haste and falleth upon our necks, and embraceth us, cancel­leth Col. 2. 14. the hand-writing that was against us; and seeing our sins lye open before him, he covereth them with his mercy, forgiveth them, forgetteth them, as if they had never been; and finding us thus humbled under his hand, with his hand he lifteth up our heads, and crowneth them with glorie and immortality.

IN the first verse of this Chapter we are told that the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two into every city and place: Which was their Mission. And he sent them to preach the Gospel of Peace: Which was their Commission. And that they might not start aside or faint in the way, he tells them be­fore-hand of wolves and enemies to peace: Which was their Praemunition against all assaults. 1 He sends them. 2 He endues them with power, 3 He forewarnes them; Go your wayes: be, ver. 3. hold, I send you forth as Lambs among wolves, Though you be Lambs, inno­cent and weak, though you meet with wolves, ravening wolves, who will tear you to pieces, yet Go your wayes: though you meet with enemies to peace, yet wish peace unto them. Though you shall meet with some who will not receive you into their House, yet provide neither Gold nor Silver, Mat. 10 9. Let not any cross accident retard you; Let not the disposition of those you are sent to change and alter yours; Let not the sight of the Wolf fright you from the innocency of the Lamb, Look not upon the event; consider your Duty, be the event what it will, either fair welcome, or foul contempt. Be they Sons of peace or enemies to peace, yet say unto them, The Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. And into whatsoever House you enter, first say, Peace be to this house.

In these words we may discover, 1 A fayre intimation, or Prediction ra­ther of what would befall the Disciples in the course of their ministery, That some would receive them and some would not. 2 We may take no­tice of their Letters of credence, or Commission, in these words, Into what­soever House you enter, first say, Peace be to this House; Where two things are observeable; first the Message, secondly the Order of delivering it. The Message is Peace; and it must be delivered [...] first; first say, Peace be to this House. 3 We may find an Encouragement, that they faint not in the way, and upon every rub look back, and take their Hand from the plow if the Harvest, the Event, answer not their expectation: for If the Son of peace be there, it shall rest upon it: If not, if you meet with those who [Page 181] at the very hearing of Peace do bend themselves to war and opposition, your salvation shall not be lost; but your Peace, your neglected and scor­ned Peace, [...], saith St. Luke, shall bow it self back and look towards you, [...], saith St. Mathew, it shall return to you again. Or thus; Here is first a Praediction of what should befall them; Secondly, an Injunction; In which we consider, 1 Salvation, Peace be to this House; 2 The Order of it, [...], first speak peace; 3 the Persons whom they were thus to sa­lute; not only the sons of Peace; but wheresoever they enter, this must be their form. They must wish Peace to the Sons of Peace, and to the Ene­mies of Peace, to all they met with. Where two sorts of men are decypherd, the one by the name of the sons of peace, men of a peaceable disposition, fitted and prepared for the message of Peace; the other placed in oppo­sition to them. And last of all here is a Promise, that their Peace shall rest upon the one, and return from the other. So that he who forbid them to car­ry a Staff, hath given them a Staff to walk with, which shall uphold them in all their wayes, a Promise full of comfort. For whether their Peace rest or return, the Disciples have encouragement to do their office, to wish Peace to every House whithersoever they come.

First, We must take notice of the Intimation or plain Prediction rather of what would befall the Disciples in their embassage. And this Christ fore­telleth them again and again. Ye shall be hated of all men for my names Mat. 10. 22. sake; Ye shall be hated of all Nations, They shall deliver you up to the Coun­cels, Mat. 24. 9. and scourge you in their Synagogue; And they shall put you out of their Mark. 13. 23. Synagogue. Behold I have soretold you all things. In the former Chapter, where he sends his twelve Apostles, and in this, where he appoints other seventy also, as he indued them with power to do miracles, and autority o­ver all Devils, so doth he also arm them with the foreknowledg and prae­meditation of those evils, which would affront them in the way, and might slacken and retard them in the performance of their Duty, ut eò minùs per­turbent venientia, quo magis fuerint praescita, saith Gregorie, In that being Darts foreseen they might lightly pass by, and being shown before they came, they might come wit less pomp and terror; that by foreknowledg of them, they might have power also over them, to cast them out, as they did the Devils.

And good reason there was that our Saviour, who knew their he [...], and what was in man, should prepossess them with the thought of what was like­ly to ensue. For the Disciples having received Legative autority from Christ, and being armed with the power of working miracles and casting out devils, might well have fed themselves with Hope of fair weather, and of welcome whithersoever they enterd, and with a high conceit that all men must needs vail and submit to them, who had power to subdue even the devils themselves. For can Flesh and Bloud stand out against that name through which Hell it self is made subject? A conceit than which nothing could have been more pernitious; it being incident to most men to bury all Thought of their Duty in the remembrance of their power and dignity; to dream of kingdoms, when they should be up and awake to do their office; and so at last they strip themselves of all succour and ly naked and open to those injuries and calamities which must needs take off their courage and slug their obedience, because they come unlookt for, and so surprize them in a pleasant dream. What? Christs embassadours to be sent without purse or script, to speak and wish Peace to that House which will not give them welcome, to tell men of a Kingdom, and be shut out of doors? to cast out Devils, and find men as malitious as those Devils they cast out? to cure di­seases, and for a reward to receive a wound? this is Durus sermo, a hard saying, to men in autority, to men who go about doing good, who carry [Page 182] health and blessings along with them whithersoever they go; I say, a hard saying; who can bear it? a saying not well digested, but wondred at to this day. We pray, but thou hearest not: We fast, but thou regardest it not: We give our Bread, and receive a Stone: We pipe, and no man danceth: We mourn and no man lamenteth: Our Patience is derided, our meekness is trod under foot, our humility is scorn'd. Do we not many times say in our hearts with those Mal. 3. 14. It is in vain to serve the Lord: There is no pro­fit in keeping his ordinances: But this is to forget the Things which our eyes have seen. This is to forget God, and what he hath told us. For he hath told Deut. 4. 9. us before, that Prayer and Fasting and Alms have their End, when they have not their end. Prayer may be heard and accepted, and not Granted; for to obtain is not the only end of Prayer. Fasting may appease God, and yet not remove the plague. Thy Alms may be abused and trod under foot, and yet come up before God. God hath presented his Gifts and Graces as glorious as the Sun and Lights; but he hath prognosticated and foretold us of cloudy dayes and tempestuous weather, which shall darken and obscure them. He hath promised to hear our prayers; but that he grants them not alwaies, is for our sakes. He hath promised to crown every good deed, but not in this life. Therefore let us comfort our selves when our expectati­on is frustrate, seeing nothing befalls us which was not foretold. Let us consider upon what condition and terms we gave up our names unto Christ; to do what he commands, though we see no fruit at all; to paint, though there be no increase. There hath no Temptation taken you but such as is com­mon to man, saith St. Paul There hath nothing befallen us, which was not 1 Cor. 10. 13. foretold. Why do we slug and fail in our Duties? Why do we bow under the very shadow of terrors, and are crest-faln at the sight of that evil which comes towards us, when we are working of wonders, curing diseases and preaching of Peace? Beloved, Distrust and Impatience will never tread upon Serpents and Scorpions, nor pass through the power of the ene­my to the end of the Duty. Hearken not to the found of many waters, but to the voice of the Prophet. Look not on the grim visage of that evil that haunts you in the performance of your Duty, but remember the word that Christ hath said unto you. He told you of Contempt, but which should make you Honourable; of Persecution, which should make you blessed; of Ser­pents, [...]ut such as should not hurt you; of Wolves, but such as you should overcome with the meekness of a Lamb. Remember what he hath told you; and then into whatsoever House you enter, whether it be the Habitation of Peace; or House of the wicked; whether it be a House at unity within it self, or a House divided; whatsoever it be, deliver you your message: Into whatsoever house you come, say, Peace unto it. Which is the Form prescri­bed, or the Salutation, Peace be to this House.

And, Paece be to this House, is a fit Salutation for them to use who were Disciples and Embassadours to the Prince of Peace. For, as Tully spake of a certain Embassadour, That he did senatûs faciem secum afferre & autorita­tem reipublicae, that he brought with him the countenance and presence of the whole Senate and the autority of the Commonwealth, from whence he was sent, so the Disciples of Christ were to speak in the stead and person 2 Cor. 5. 12 of Christ, and carried about with them his autority; and therefore they were to use his language, that form of words which they had heard from him, and that Salutation which he had put into their mouths. For 1 This was most proper for him that sent them. Decet largitorem pacis haec Saluta­tio, sayth Cyril; from him who gives peace, who is our Peace, who is the Joh. 14. 27. Ephes. 2. 4. Isa. 9. 6. Prince of Peace, no fitter Salutation than Peace. 2 It is most proper for the Gospel which they were to preach, which is a Gospel of Peace. This was Christs first gift when he was born, Peace on Earth, and [...], [Page 183] his last gift, when he was to dy; Peace I leave with you; My peace I give Joh. 1 [...]. 2 [...]. unto you. For this he was layd in the Cratch; for this he Hung on the Cross. This he breathed for, this he laboured for, this he wrought out of his very bowels. And after his resurrection, he comes and stands in the midst of the Disciples and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side: As if he had wisht them to Joh. 20. 19, 20. consider at how dear a price he had bought that Peace which we hate, which we betray to our lust, which we are ready to fell away for a Trifle. That which we desire, and will not have, or, if we have it, are soon weary of it; that Peace with others, and which we ourselves break every day; that Peace within our selves, which we do but talk of; that Peace with God, which we do but phansie, cost our Saviour those marks in his Hands and feet and side, and drew from him his very Hearts bloud.

I know it was a common Salutation amongst the Jews, Go in Peace, or Peace be with you: And under this they comprised all prosperity whatso­ever. But we may say of them as Jehu did to Joram's Horsman, What had they to do with Peace! and turn them behind. But our Saviour takes it up, and doth as it were infranchize it. He sets it as a Jewel in its proper place; he makes it a Gospel, and puts it into their mouths who were the Embassa­dours of Peace; Who came not with blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a Trumpet; but with an Olive-branch, with Tidings of all good Things whatsoever. A Salutation proper to the Gospel; Which the Church of Christ hath retain'd in all ages in their Liturgies and forms of publique Service. Peace be with you was pronounced by the Bishop or Priest [...], from the highest ascent of his seat or chair; It was signacu­lum orationis, as a seal with which they closed up. After the Lords prayer followeth, saith St. Augustine, this Benediction from the Priest to the Peo­ple, Peace be with you; and the People echo back again, And with thy Spi­rit. And as they began, so they ended, with The Peace of God, which pas­seth all Understanding. PEACE BE TO THIS HOUSE was a fit Salu­tation then for the Disciples of Christ.

But we must not here imagine that it was a bare complement, a Salutation, and no more, like that in St. James Depart in peace; a wish and no more; No, it was a Prayer as well as a Salutation. The Disciples spake it not from the lips outward, but from the very heart, they taught men the ways of Peace, and told them of a Kingdom of Peace which was at hand, ready to offer it self, if they would receive it. to wish Peace when we think of war; to say, Peace be unto you, when our Sword is as nimble as our tongue; to speak peaceably to our brother, and smite him under the fifth rib, is not Apostolical, nor the language of the Seventy; but it is the dialect of many Christians in these later and worst times who lay down all Ceremony in Religion, when all the world sees that all their religion and the piety they have is but a Complement.

Will you then know the meaning of this Salutation? the words are plain. It is Peace the Disciples are to wish: And who knows not what Peace is? ‘ —Pacem te poscimus omnes’ We all desire Peace; We all talk of Peace. In time of trouble we howle For her, as Rachel for her Children, and will not be comforted, because she is not. for her sake, they say, wise men wage war. With her we ly down and sleep and awake again, because she susteins us. And when she is absent, we see a Sword hanging but as upon a hair; which will not let us sleep, though our head be circled with a Crown. It is our daily bread, and our daily speech. We speak of it, and forget it; we love it, and neg­lect [Page 184] it; we extoll and break it. Peace may seem to be like Psyche in A­puleius, a fair damsel, whom all commended, all admired, yet none would take her to wife. I think I may truly say for the Many, they know not what Peace is. Some will not behold her unless, she come with Plenty in her hand, but are at war with themselves and others if they feel the smart of want. Some, saith St. Hierom call Tyranny Peace, and nothing else; think all the world is out of order, if all hands subscribe not to their unwar­ranted demands. Some call Disobedience Peace, and cannot be at peace but with their Quod volumus sanctum est, when they are let loose to do what they please. Omri is not at peace unless his Statutes be kept; Zimri is not at peace till he kill his master; Hamon is not at peace for want of a leg; Absolom is not at peace for want of a crown. Every man desires peace and every man breaks it. Every man calls for it, and every man chaseth it away. Every man would bring her in, and every man proscribeth her. As St. Augustine spake of the Donatists; They were the greatest peace-breakers in the world, yet talk'd of nothing more than Peace: So that in this noyse and hurry for Peace. Peace is lost, and men seem to deal with her as the African parents did with their children, whom when they sacri­ficed to Saturn, they stopped their crying with kisses, and smothered their noyse in embraces, and so did at once kiss and kill their infants. It was a grave complaint of St. Hierome, non reddimus unicuique rei suum vocabu­lum, We are guilty of a strang Misnomer; we do not give every thing its due name, but call that Peace which is Tyranny, which is Disobedience, which is Faction, which is Senseleseness and Stupidity, because we know not the true nature and property of Peace. I may have Peace when other men are at war amongst themselves, yea, when other men are at war with me, even the Peace of Conscience, the Peace of a reconciled sinner, which makes all quiet and still within me, and will stay with me in the strongest wind, in the Earthquaks, the fire, and will live and dwell within the midst of per­secution, In tumultu secretum invenit, It builds us a chappel of ease, draws out a place of retirement and a paradise, when the earth is disquieted; and in the midst of all the busy noyse the world can make,

Nor do I here exclude our Peace with men; for that comes within the compass of this Salutation, because it is a fair branch of the Disciples do­ctrine▪ and must be taken in, if it be possible, and as much as in us lyes. If we Rom. 12. 18. be worthy of this Salutation, we may have peace with all the world, though peradventure our opinions be as distant as one end of the world is from the other.

Neither do I exclude the external Peace of the Church: No, Blessed are the peace-makers; and blessed times they are when the Church sings of peace to the Common-wealth, and the Common-wealth echoeth it back again to the Church. This is Musick, which both Men and Angels are delighted with; Angels, I say, who being now made one with us, make it part of their joy to see us at unity amongst our selves. Happy, thrice Happy times when the Poets could sing of the Spiders making their webs in the Soul­diers Helmets and coats of armour! These then are not excluded, but wrapt up in this Salutation: For all peace is carried along in this, in the Peace of the Gospel. When the world is out of frame this establisheth the pillars of it, brings every part to its own place, the Sensual parts under the Rational, the Flesh under the Spirit, the Will under the command of the Understanding; which is the Peace of the Soul. It brings the obe­dience of Faith under the eternal Law of Christ; which is our Peace with God. It draws with it the Servant under the Master, the Child under the Parent, the subject under the Magistrate; which is the Peace of a House, [Page 185] of a Common-wealth, of the World. It makes every part dwell together in unity, it observes a parity in disparity, an equality in an inequality; it keeps every wheel in its own motion, every man in his right place, the Ma­ster on Horseback, and the Servant on the ground; and where Impudence incroacheth, it checketh it with a Friend, sit down lower. It keepeth the hands of the ungodly from the gray hairs of the aged, and the teeth of the oppressor from the face of the widow. Like an Intelligence, it moves the lesser Sphere of a Family, and the greater Orbe of the Common-wealth composedly and orderly. Peace is the right order and the harmony of things. A Father calls it an Harp; and it is never well set or tuned but by the hand of Charity. For all the Peace that is in the world is derived from this Salutation, from the Peace of the Gospel, which slacketh and lets down the String of our Self-love even to a Hatred of our selves, and windeth the string of our Love to our brother to an equal proportion with the Love of our selves. We must hate our life in this world, and we must John. 12. 25. Math. 22. 39. love our brother as our selves. Nay, it lets it down lower yet, to our very ene­mies, the sound must reach even unto them. Talk what we will of peace; If it be not touched and tuned by Charity, it will be but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal: or rather, if it take not its rise and spring from this Peace here, from the Peace of the Gospel, it will be but a dreadful sound, as Job 15. 21. Eliphaz speaketh, either in the Soul, or in the Family, or in the Church, or in the Common-wealth.

I am the bolder thus to interpret the Disciples Salutation, because I find it part of their Commission to say, The Kingdome of God is at hand, which was indeed to give notice of the Gospel of Peace. This as it commends un­to us all Peace but that which is in evil: (which indeed is not Peace, but a conspiracy) so especially it inculcates this, by which Christ hath made both Eph. 2. 14. one, and broken down the partition-wall which was between the Jew and the Gentile, and that partition-wall also which Covetousness and Ambition, Envy and Malice sets up between man and man; that we may be one in him, as He and the Father are one. It was the prime care of the primitive Joh. 1 [...]. Christians to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And to this Eph 4. 3. end they bound themselves by oath, sayth Pliny a heathen witer, nè furta committerent, nè fidem fallerent, not to steal, or lye or deceive, or break their word. This course had the world upheld to this day, we should perhaps have no reason to complain that Peace hath left the earth, or that the Prince of Peace hath not a hole to hide his head in. If men were truly Christians and had not made a sad divorce between Honesty and Religion, the Disciples Salutation would not turn to them again, but rest on every House, and on every Common-wealth, For Christian Religion is the greatest preserver of Peace that ever was, and hath layd a greater horror and a fowler ble­mish upon Discord and Dissention then Philosophy ever did when she was most rigid and severe. She commands us to pray for peace, She enjoyns us to study to be quiet, and to follow Peace with all men, She enjoyns us to loose 1 Tim. 2. 2. 1 Thes. 4. 11. our right for Peace, and to part with coat and cloak, and all, rather then with Peace, quale regnum, talis pax; Look upon the Kingdom the Di­sciples Heb. 12. 14. M [...]. 4729. speak of, and you shall soon discern what Peace they wish: Peace with God, Peace of Conscience; there is no doubt of that. But Peace a so with men: For this is truly Evangelical, motus aliena naturae pace nostra cohibere, as Hilary speaketh; to place a peacable disposition as a bank or bulwark against the violence of anothers rage, by doing nothing to con­quer him who is up in arms, and spends himself and laboureth in the mine to ruine me. This is the work of the Gospel, to beat down noyse with silence, and injury with patience; To overcome evil with good: To keep peace between the rich and the poor, by prescribing mercy to that [Page 186] one, and meekness to the other; between the high and the low, by prescri­bing justice to the one, and submission to the other; between the evil and the good, by threatning the one, and upholding the other. Thus it levelleth the hills, and raiseth the valleys, and casteth an aspect and influ­ence upon all conditions, all qualities, all affections of men, that, as it was prophesyed of the Times of the Gospel, The VVolf may dwell with the Lamb, and the Leopard ly down with the Kid, a little Child lead Isa. 11. 6. the Lion; that there may be abundance of peace so long as the Moon en­dureth.

O beloved! did this Salutation take place, did the Peace of the Gos­pel rest upon us, our conversation would be more smooth and even, and Salutations not so rugged and churlish as they commonly are. They would not be so supercilious, the dictates of our Pride, Stand thou there; or, sit thou Jam. 2. 3. here under my footstool; They would not be so surly, the expressions of our Scorn; VVho made thee a Judg over us? They would not be so treache­rous; This is he, hold him fast. They would not be so cruel, the messen­gers of Death; Smite him, till he dyeth. They would not be so querulous, the breathings of our Envy; VVhy is he made rich? VVhy is he in honour? VVhy hath he, who came in but now, as much as I, that have born the heat and burden of the day? But every Family and every Common-wealth would be fitly joyned and compacted by that which every joynt, every part, supplies; every member having its place and subordination and dependance, which to start from is to loose itself; the rich supplying the poor, and the poor blessing the rich; the mighty protecting the weak, and the weak observing the mighty; the wise teaching the ignorant, and the ignorant hearking to the wise; every man being as an Angel-keeper and a ministring spirit to eve­ry other man, ut quod est omnium, sit singulorum, that that which is all mens may be every mans; and that which is every mans belongs unto the whole. And this order, this Peace, will be, if the Disciples Salutation take place, if the Peace of the Gospel rest upon us. And thus much be spoken of the Salutation, Peace be unto this house.

We pass now from the Message to the Order of delivering it. It must be done [...], first; First say. Here we may observe the method of our Saviour. He coming to fight against the Pomp, the Covetousness, the Luxury of the world, first offers terms of Peace, and instructs his Disciples as God did Moses: When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclame Peace unto it. As we read of Tamerlaine, he first hangs out his white flag Deut. 20. 10. of Peace, not his black nor his bloudy colours. He fights not against us to destroy us, till we have wearied his Mercy, and stood out too long, [...], first he tenders Peace: but it is the wickedness of the wicked, the obstinacy of the Enemy, that draws his Sword. For God doth not as Nimrod, destroy men for pleasure; he doth not set them up as a mark, and then shoot deadly arrows at them; or, as some are pleased to give a bloudy instance, strike them dead with the same liberty that an Huntsman doth his Deer: as if an immortal Soul, which Christ sets at a higher rate than the whole world, were of no more value then a beast. A foul injurie to be layd to His charge who is Goodness it self, and nothing else but Good­ness; a Blasphemy as loud as that which denies him to be God. He seems ra­ther to carry Peace and War in sinu, in his bosom, as Fabius did in the skirt of his Gown, and leaves it to our choice, which we will have. First Peace shews it self, in his love, in his precepts; nay, in his threatnings and fear­ful menaces. For ideo denunciat bellum, ne inferat; He therefore denoun­ceth war that we may chuse peace. He bends his bow and sets his arrow in the string, as the Psalmist speaks, that he may not shoot. He opened the mouth of his servant Noah, a preacher of righteousness, before he ope­ned [Page 187] the windows of Heaven, and broke up the fountains of the great deep. He Gen. 7. opened the mouth of his Servant Moses, before the earth opened her mouth to swallow up Dathan and Abiram, and their complices. He doth not un­dermine Numb. 16. us with double voices and double counsels and a holy dissimulation, as some call it, crying Peace, when he girds himself with strength, and pre­pares himself to battel, saying Peace to that House which he meaneth to le­vel with the ground: But he sends his Embassadours, and Peace is the first clause in their Commission; First they must salute us, before he will strike us; first wish Peace, before he will furbish his sword. This is [...], In the Job. 40. 9. first place. But then, if we will have an arm like God, and think to thun­der like him; if we harden our faces against his profer of Peace; then, ob certas causas, and ob eam rem, as the form runneth, for these causes and for this thing, for our ingratitude and impenitency and rebellion, he speaks unto us by his Disciples and Ambassadours as the Roman Heralds and Offi­cers at arms did to the enemies of that State when they denounced war. Quòd populus meus nolit auscultare, bellum indico facioque. See it translated, Psal. 81. 1 [...]. 1 [...] Because my people would not hearken to my voice, and Israel would none of me: Therefore I gave them up to their own Hearts-lusts, and they walked in their own counsels. But still Peace is first. First God speaks by his Prophets be­fore he speak by his judgments; First, as it were, he breaths Peace upon us, before it return and leave us. And the reason of this is undeniable. For Severity in God seems to be a quality not natural, but casual and occasio­ned. It is in a manner constrained, and besides his Nature. For he hath but one only property or quality, saith Trismegistus, and that is Good­ness. Prior Bonitas secundum naturam, posterior Severitas secundum causam; saith Tertullian against Marcion: The prime quality in him is Goodness: Severity is later, as being occasioned. That is eternal, this is adventiti­ous; that is proper unto him, this is but borrowed; that inwardly flows from him, this is forced from him. First he created Man, but left him not as the Ostrich doth her eggs, upon the shore, but he took him to himself, and placed him in a place of pleasure: Which was an Argument of his Good­ness. Then he gave him a Law by which to order his steps, by the obser­vance of which, as the Angels by Jacobs Ladder, he might ascend to su­pernatural and heavenly bliss. Hitherto Gods countenance is fair, as the Sun in its strength. But when Mans folly, by breach of the law, had wrought him against his Nature into another mould, then his Severity shewed it self. And then as Naomi speaks of herself in the book of Ruth; Call him no more Naomi, that is, pleasant; but call hin Marah, that is, bitter. For he will deal bitterly with us. Fecimus, non accepimus severum: He is no more the God that made us, but he is that God which we have made not a calm and gentle, but a fierce and severe and angry God. God is a Foun­tain of Peace, and nothing issueth from him naturally but Peace. Nor doth his Jealousy burn like fire till our refusal of peace do kindle it: He speaks to the Husbandmen by his Servants, and he speaks to them by his Son, and till they killed him, till they utterly renounce Peace, he doth not come to destroy. First Peace comes out of his mouth, before his two edged sword. Still the word is, [...], First say, Peace be unto this House.

I might here enlarge my self; But I perceive the time is past. Let us then apply this Salutation to our selves. And the best use we can make of it, is, to look both upon the Peace and the Order of delivering it, and to look upon them on the right side. I told you that Peace implyeth Order and Harmo­ny, that it is as a Harp or Lute, which you must be careful to touch with a skilful hand, even with the hand of Charity. Otherwise, this Peace may by our neglect raise a war in our members; We may continue in Sin because [Page 188] Grace aboundeth, Peace is as the Sun, which with its beams quickneth and Rom. 6. 1. refresheth and enlightneth all Things: But we may play the wantons in this Sun, and turn the Peace of God into wantonness: and this first and free overture of Peace may make us dull and heavy and careless in entertaining it. God's Alpha may be our Omega; his first may be our last; his early mor­ning blessings, his day-spring from on high may not win a good look from us, not be thought of till our declining dayes, till our Sun be ready to set. And this will be to look upon Gods offer of Peace ex adverso situ, on the wrong side. Rather let us run and meet and kiss Peace, woo and embrace and marry it at the first displaying of its beauty. Let God's first and our first, his offer and our acceptance, meet in the same moment of time. For why should it, being the first thing that God doeth, be the last thing that we Think of: Let us remember that Mercy rejoyceth and triumpheth over Judg­ment, but only in this life, when Peace is offered. As Mercy hath her day of Triumph here, so Justice will have her day too, when that Peace which we now refuse will fight against us. To day, if you will hear his voice, to day you may hear it. But if that day be once shut up, God will speak no more. When Jacob awaked out of that pleasant sleep in which he had seen a lad­der reaching unto Heaven, and Angels ascending and descending on it; he cries Gen. 25. 17. out, How terrible is this place! On which place a Father tells us that he did stu­pere propter magnam misericordiam Dei, that he was amaz'd and affraid at that great mercy of God which was shewn unto him. And indeed Gods over­tures of Mercy and Peace have their terror as well as his Judgments. there is mercy and Peace with God, that he may be feared. In this life of ours Psal. 130. 4. (which is but as a dream in respect of that beatifical vision we shall have of God hereafter) we see a Ladder as it were reaching up to Heaven, and all Gods blessings and promises, as so many Angels, ascending and descending upon it: And God is in the midst of them; for we may find Heaven in these. Et quàm terribìlis! How terrible is this place! Here is Templum Spiritûs, the Temple of the Holy Ghost: for by these he instructs us. Here is Ara Misericordiae, an altar of Mercy; And what doth God require at our hands but to offer up ourselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto him, even upon this altar of his Mercy; When he speaks, to say, thy servant heareth; to follow Peace at the first sight of it, to rise at the first call. We may indeed fly from Gods Justice to his Mercy; But if we fly from his Mer­cy, if we reject Peace, what asylum, what sanctuary can we find? It is Peace: Fly not from it. It is offered first: Make speed, haste, and stay not; stay not with any fading vanity from that Peace which makes way for Glory and Honour and everlasting Peace.

THE Salutation hath already sounded in your ears; Peace be to this House; even all manner of Peace; but especially the Peace of the Gospel, the Peace of the Prince of Peace, that Peace which passeth all un­derstanding. This the Disciples of Christ here do breath forth in every place, to bring along with them to every House. And this is to be done [...], in the first place; it being the method of our Saviour first to offer terms of Peace; not to question us before he invites us; not to war against us till we have renounced peace; not to strike us as enemies, till we cast him from us, and will not be his Friends. This have we dilated upon at large. Now this Peace is a great benefit. This Salutation is worth our best welcome and acceptation. Peace be unto this House, is that which in a manner builds the house; it is the foundation of the foundation, that which makes it compact and at unity with it self. Yet that befalls this Peace which doth all other benefits of God: Like to the Sum and Rain, it shines and falls both upon good and bad; sometimes upon unthankful persons, who, when God speaks of Peace, are bent to war, and somettmes upon those who sing prayses to the God of Peace for evermore. Sometimes it falls up­on a Son of Peace, whose heart is fitted and prepared, who listneth and harkens after it; and there it rests and multiplies, and brings forth the fruits of Peace in all righteousness and holiness. The Text sayth, [...], it shall rest upon him, as upon its proper place. Some­times it falls upon a stubborn and perverse heart, a heart hardned against Peace; and then it seems to fall away and be lost, because it finds no enter­tainment nor rest there: But yet though it fall here, it is not lost. For [...], it shall turn back again to those who sent it. And this is the high prerogative of this Peace; it will either rest, or return. This is the crown and rejoycing of all those who bring glad tidings of Peace; their PAX DO MUI HUIC, their Salutation, can not be lost. It is but first saying, Peace be to this House: And if the Son of Peace be there, your Peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again.

In these words are discovered to the Disciples, First, two sorts of men they should meet with in the discharge of their duty; some that were sons of peace, others that were not. Secondly, the nature or property of the Saluation; On the one sort it will rest, from the other it will return: And that the Publishers may not think it lost, it will return to them again. For, we may consider, 1 a Prediction, that their Salutation, though it be Peace, will not find welcome with all, but only with the sons of Peace; 2 an En­couragement, that for all this they may not be affraid of their Message, affraid to say, Peace be to this House; For whither it rest, or not, return it will to them again. Upon the sons of Peace it will rest, and so rest as not to leave them: and if it meet with those on whom it cannot rest, it will look back, and return to the Disciples again. But for our more plain and or­derly proceeding, and for your better instruction, we will draw up all, and bound our discourse within the compass of these three positions; 1 That as at the first preaching of the Gospel, so alwaies there will be this difference, of Good and Evil; of Sons of Peace, and Enemies to Peace; of Willing and Obstinate hearers of this Message. 2 That this Peace will rest on none but those who are fit to receive it. 3 That though it do not rest, yet it is not lost but will return to those who pub­lish it. And with these we shall exercise your Devotion at this time.

In the first place, that a difference there will alwaies be, of Good and Evil, not only in the world, but also in the Church, not only amongst those who have not heard of the name of Christ, but among those also who have heard the Salutation of Peace sound in their ears, our Saviour himself hath shewed us in the parable of the Good seed and the Tares, and of the Draw-net; which being cast into the Sea draweth of every kind, Puto me non timere dicere, sayth St. Augustine, alios sic esse in domo Dei ut sint domus Dei; Mat. 13, 47. alios sic esse in domo Dei ut non pertineant ad compaginem domus. It is no rashness to say that some are so in Gods Church that they are Gods Church, and others are so in the Church that they are not so much as a part of the building. Some are sons of peace, and some there are on whom Peace cannot rest: Some there are to be amended and brought to repentance, as Peter; some to be suffered and born with, as Judas; and some who lye hid and unknown to the world till that great day of manifestation, till the day of gathering the Corn from the Tares; till that day of separation, of se­vering the Goats from the Sheep. Boni nusquam soli sunt nisi in coelo; & mali nusquam soli sunt nisi in inferno, saith Gregorie; the good are never a­lone, but in Heaven, and the bad are never alone, but in that place where they are tormented together. The Earth as it is placed in the midst between Heaven and Hell, so is it a common receptacle both of those who are citi­zens of Heaven, and of those who are to have their portion with the De­vil and his Angels.

Nor doth this proceed from any decree of God, but that of Permission. For nothing is more contrary to the Will of God, than Sin. Yet the Per­mission of sin is a positive act of his Will: For God decreeth to permit it. For as he made Man upright, so he made him also mutable, so that he might incline to either side, either embrace evil, or resist it. And though we cannot say that by the Providence of God it comes to pass that some men are evil: (for he speaks peace to every man) yet the providence of God orders and directs the actions of the wicked. He circumscribes them in their time and duration, that they last no longer than his Wisdom shall think fit. He bounds them in their encrease and greatness: Hitherto they shall go, and no further. He directs and limits them from that object to which they are carried to something else, and makes them serve, not to that [Page 191] end which the Sinner proposes, but to that which he himself hath set up Out of that Sin which the Sinner commits to satisfie his lust, will God ma­nifest his glory: Upon his Unrighteousness he will build up the glory of his Justice. By that sin which was a Tempest to beat down and overthrow, will God establish his Church; and by those evil men whom the Devil pla­ceth as thorns and pricks in the eyes of the righteous, will God try and purge his chosen ones. In a word, God makes not Sin, but he makes it use­ful and advantageous. And to this end he suffereth and permitteth this mixture and composition of Good and Evil, he suffers the Tares and the Corn to grow together till the time of the Harvest. Qui semel aeternum judi­cium destinavit, non praecipitat discretionem, saith Tertullian; He who hath ap­pointed and ordained a day of separation, doth not make that separation until that day. And this he doth, not only to magnifie his Justice and Wis­dom, which out of so great darkness can draw wondrous light, and can ex malis faecundare bona, make use of Sin as the Husbandman doth of Dung to manure and fatten his ground, that it may bring forth a more plentiful harvest; but for other reasons also, which Christ hath laid open in his Gospel.

I. To shew his patience and longanimity towards sinners, who fight against him, towards those who are offended with his Salutation, that they may yield at last, and become sons of Peace. For the long suffering of God is Salvation, sayth the Apostle. He doth not say it worketh, or 2 Pet. 3. 1 [...]. brinketh forth, but positively, it is Salvation: It is for this end, and if it be not hindred it will produce this effect. That we prolong our dayes on earth, that we number more sins than days, nay then hours, than minutes, is not from any want of knowledg in God, that he sees us not; or from want of strength, that he cannot put the hook into our nostrils; but from his patience and longanimity, who gives us many times the longer life, that we may at last recal ourselves, and turn back unto him. Non ille perdidit potentiam, sed malos reservat ad paenitentiam; He hath not lost his power, but he keeps evil men to the day of repentance. [...], He first exhorts, then promises, then threatens, then chides, then prepares his dead­ly weapons, then puts them up again; and then again he threatens; but he never strikes till he hath opened an effectual door, and made a way for us to safety. As he is Lord of hosts in regard of his strength, so he is in this respect also, that as an Host or Army he comes on but slowly, by degrees in his march, and makes a shew before he strikes; nec accedit ad decretorium stilum nisi plus sit quod timet quàm quod damnat; He doth not bid battel, till there is no hope of reconcilement. Nor doth he punish, till that be more which he fears than that which he blames. He makes no end of his suffering till he sees there will be no end of Sinning.

II. Gods suffers this mixture of Evil with Good, that the evil may be re­formed by the Good. For as he is able out of stones to raise up children unto Abraham, so by the sons of peace he gains more children unto peace, there proceeding a kind of virtue from their good example, as there did from Christs garment to cure those who were diseas'd. Aristotle in his Pro­blemes makes a question, Why Health doth not infect as well as Sickness; Why men grow sick many times by unwary conversing with the diseases, but no man grows well by accompanying the healthy. And indeed it is so with the healthiness of the Body: It hath no transient force on others. But the strength and healthiness of the Mind carries with it a gracious kind of in­fection; and common experience teacheth us that nothing profits evil men more than the company of the good. How many Saints may the holy con­versation of one man beget? How many Martyrs hath the patience and silence of one man brought to the stake? How many Evil men have lost them­selves [Page 192] and their evil in the company of the Good? We must not therefore make the separation before the time. For we may be in Societate impio­rum, in the company of evil men, but in solitudine vitiorum, in respect of their evil be alone. We may be with them in participatione sacramentorum, sayth Augustine, in the participation of the same sacraments, but not in consensione factorum, in our consent to their evil deeds. We may be like the Ark of Noah, in the deluge, yet not drown'd; like Mose's Bush in the fire, yet not burnt. We may carry about with us [...], as Plato calls it, a kind of charm and spell, which may slumber our turbulent affections and those motions which are so ready to subvert our Reason, that we may be near enough to them to help them, but yet at such a distance that no poyson which is breathed from them shall hurt us. I Please all men in all things, sayth St. Paul, all men, even evil men, not by fashioning himself to them, 1 Cor. 10. 33. but by reforming them to the copie of his own innocency. For what saith Tertullian? Numquid Saturnalia celebrans hominibus placebat? did he please men by celebrating the same heathenish idolatrous Feasts with them? No; but by gravity and patience, by modesty and integrity. Again, I was made all things to all men. Numquid idololatris idololatres? What? was he 1 Cor. 9. 22. made an idolater to idolaters, a heathen to heathens, and a carnal man to carnal men? No; there was no such friendship between St. Paul and evil men. He was not drawn by them, but made it his industry to draw them unto him: He made not himself like unto them, but made them like unto himself: He pleased evil men, but it was to make them good. And in this manner licet convivere, commori non licet; We may live with evil men but we may not die with them,; We may possess the world with them, but not their error. And this is it by which we of the reformed Churches justify our separation from the Church of Rome. We do it not as the Donatists did of old, and our Separatists now a dayes, only to avoid the commu­nion of bad men, but to free our selves from a necessity of joyning with bad men in their impieties. We go not from them, but from their dan­gerous errors. We divide not our selves from them, (for our hearts de­sire is that they may repent, and be saved) but from their superstition. And thus to divide our selves is no Schism, but Christian animosity. And in this case we say with Cyprian, Pereant sibi solis qui perire volunt; If they will perish, let them perish to themselves alone.

III. God suffers this mixture of Good and Evil men not only for the reformation of the Evil, but also for the benefit of the Good. For mali bonis prosunt, saith the Father; Evil men may prove advantageons to the good. They may awake many glorious virtues in them which otherwise would be but as the seed in the ground, not yet in the ear and blossome. Plutarch hath written a Book How togather profit from an enemy, How to make our selves better by them who would make us worse. But Christ in the Book of his Gospel hath taught us yet a more excellent way, How to improve our Virtue by other mens sin; How to increase more and more in good by the very sight of evil; How to make those sins which press o­thers down to Hell as a Scale and Ladder to lift us up to Heaven; so that we may make friends not only of the unrighteous Mammon, but even of unrigh­teous men, to lift us up unto those everlasting habitations. Some men there are who for want of skill in this book and through ignorance of this art put upon themselves a strange behaviour, and at the very thought of wicked men are so troubled and transported that they forget they are men, and sub­ject to the same infirmities; that they forget they are Christians, who should work a cure upon them, and not murder them. You may behold them angry and fierce, cruel and bloudy, breathing forth nothing but curses and exsecrations. As with a Sword in my bones my enemies reproach me, [Page 193] whilst they daily say unto me, Where is thy God? saith David, Objurgant Psal. 41. 10. quasi oderint; their very reprehensions are Swords, and their exhortations the expressions of their hatred. With James and John, those Sons of Thun­der, they are ready with their Domine, vis dicamus ut ignis descendat; If it were in their power, they would call down fire from heaven to destroy them Luk. 9. 54. as Elias did. To put off all bowels of compassion with them is to put off the Old man: So that, if we rightly consider it, they are greater Sinners than those they condemn; and it may be said to them as the one Thief said to the other, Do you not fear God, seeing you are in the same condemnation? Thus it is with evil men; They grow worse and worse, by that which should better them; and their ungrounded Zeal consumes not them, but their Cha­rity. But he who is a Son of Peace hath learnt that thriving art, to be richer for other mens poverty, to rayse himself higher and higher at the sight of his brothers fall, to make others sin the occasion of many virtues in himself, to say unto himself, There they are fallen, that I may look to my steps. And here his Circumspection shews it self. He had broke the Law; and my eyes shall gush out with rivers of water. In those tears his Piety is res­plendent. He is sore wounded; but I will powr oyl into his wounds. Here his Charity stretcheth forth her hand, even that Charity which shall hide a multitude of sins. Thus by the Wisdom and providence of God, Sin, which bringeth forth Death, may bring forth life; and the wicked many times are turned from the error of their way at the sight of those virtues which shine in glory at the sight of their Sin. In a word, the Good are made manifest by the Evil, and the Evil may be converted by the Good. Still this diffe­rence there will be in the Church; and the Salutation here is directed to both, both to the Sons of peace, and to those who will not receive it. Into whatsoever house they goe, the Disciples must say, peace be unto this House. And, so much be spoken concerning the Difference of the Per­sons.

We come now in the second place, to the Nature and Property of the Salutation, That it will rest on none but those who are prepared to receive it. Peace will rest on none but on a Son of Peace; on him who is worthy of peace; who is docile, and not averse from it, who is willing to hear of it. For, as Pothinus the Bishop of Lions, being ask'd by the Pre­sident of the place, Who was the God of the Christians? made no other reply but this, [...], You shall know, if you be worthy; so may we say of this Peace, They who are worthy, who are fitted and prepared, shall receive it. And if you ask on whom it will rest, I answer, It will rest on them that love it. Where is the place of my rest, saith God; The Isa. 66. 1. Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. All these things hath my hand made. But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. He that created all things, and made the Heaven and the earth, will not chuse out of these his seat, but leaves them all, and will rest no where, but in a contrite and broken heart, which divides and opens it self; and makes a way to receive him. And certain­ly, as we see in Nature, we cannot put any thing into that, which is full already, no more will peace enter that heart which is filled with Satan, with malice, and with the very gall of bitterness. The Gospel will find no place in that Soul which is already filled and praepossessed with preju­dice against the Gospel. Into a malicious Soul Wisdom shall not enter, saith Wisd. 1. 4. the Wiseman, Or, if it do enter, it shall not dwell there; not dwell there, as a Lord, to command the Will and Affections; no not as a friend, to find a welcome for a time; but be thrust out as a stranger, as an enemy. What is the place for peace to rest in? Not in a Nabals heart, which is as stone; Not in the Wantons heart, which is as a troubled Sea; not on the Fool, [Page 194] who hath no heart, whose conscience is defiled and judgment corrupted by many evil and vitious habits, ubi turpia non solum delectant, sed placent, who doth not only delight in that which is opposite to this Peace, but approves it as that without which he cannot be at Peace. No; the spirit of Peace and the unclean spirit may seem in this to agree: They will not enter the House before it be swept and garnished. Ill weeds must be rooted out before you can sow good corn. Every valley must be filled, and every mountain and hill must be brought low, all that inequality and repug­nancy of our life must be taken away, and all made smooth, and even. For as the Prince of peace, so Peace hath a way to be prepared before it will enter. What is the reason that all the seed which the Sower sowed brought not forth fruit? Because some fell in stony places, where there was not much Mat. 13. earth, where the Soul did not sympathize and bear a friendly correspon­dence with the Word, as good ground doth with the seed; and some fell by the way-side, which was never plowed nor manured, and the fouls of the air, those sly imaginations which formerly prepossessed the Soul, devoured it up. Nothing can be well done when the mind is already taken up with some­thing else. What room for the Gospel in the Jew, who maketh his boast of the Law? What room for Religion where it is accounted the greatest pi­ety to be prophane? What room for Righteousness when we rejoyce in im­piety? When the Prince of this world hath blinded our eyes with cove­tousness, ambition and lust, what room is there for Peace? Non magìs quàm frugibus, terrâ sentibus & rubis occupatâ, as the Orator speaks; and they are the very words of our Saviour; No more than there is for good corn in the ground which is full of bryars and thornes: [...]; Whither dost thou cast thy seed, thy good precepts, saith the Philosopher to one that read a lecture of Philosophy to a scornful person. Thou flingest it into a foul and stinking vessel, which corrupts every thing it receives, and takes no savour from it, but makes it relish of it self. Lord, what a rock is a pre­possessed mind! What an adamant is a Stubborn and perverse heart! How harsh and unpleasant is this Salutation of Peace to those who are hardned against it! How Stoical and rigid and peremptory are they against their own Salvation! Obstrepunt, intercedunt, nè audiant; They are so far from receiving the Salutation, that they are troubled and unquiet at the very name of Peace, and desire they may not hear that word any more. The complaint in Scripture is, They will not understand, and The waies of Peace they will not know. Experience will teach us, that it is too common in the world to stand stiff upon opinion against all evidence whatsoever, though it be as clear as the Day. And it is the reason which Arnobius gives of the Heathens obstinacy, to whom this Salutation of Peace was, but as a fable, Quid facere possumus considerare nolentibus secumque loqui; What can we do, or say, or how can we convince them who will not be induced once to de­liberate and consider, nor can descend to speak and confer with themselves and their own reason? A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump; and so doth a prejudicate opinion the whole mind of man: All our actions and re­solutions have a kind of taste and relish of it. Whatsoever comes in to streng­then an anticipated conceit, whatsoever walks within the compass of our desires or lustful affections, we readily embrace, and believe it to be true, because we wish it so. But if it thwart our inclination; if it run coun­ter to our intendments, though it be Reason, though it be Peace, though it be a manifest truth, though it be written with the Sun-beams, we will not once look upon it. It is an easy matter, saith Augustine, to answer a fool; but it is not so easy to satisfie him. It is easy to confute, but not to reform him. For his Folly barreth him from seeking the meanes of understanding: and when light is offered, it shuts up his eyes, that he cannot receive it. [Page 195] We have many domestick examples of this obstinacy (and I wish they were not so near us) of men who may be overcome, but cannot be perswaded; who will not yield to any strength of reason, nec cùm sciant id quod faciunt non licere, no, not though they cannot be ignorant that the course of their life runs with more violence and noyse than is answerable to the Peace of the Gospel; who know what they are, and yet will be what they are. And these we meet with quocunque sub axe, in every place, in every corner of the earth. These multiply and increase every day. For it cannot be but the greatest part of men will be the weakest. We have troops and armies of these; and the regiment consists of boys and girls, and women led away captive by their ignorance and lusts. And if there be aged men amongst them, you may soon discover that their greatest wisdom is their grey hairs. And will Peace rest upon these? It will rest as soon in a whirlwind, or in St. Judes cloud without Water, or in St James wave of the Sea tossed up and down with every wind. But I forbear, for I list not to be too particular. We read in our Books, of one Timotheus an excellent Musician, that he was wont to require a greater pay from those who had been taught by others be­fore, than from those who came unto him rude and untaught. And his reason was, Dedocendi officium gravius & prius quàm docendi; That it was a greater task to unteach them what they had already ill learnt, and a necessity to be done before he could teach them his skill. Beloved, it is so with those who are to instruct others in the way of Peace: Geminatur onus; Whatsoever their reward is, their burden is doubled. It is not only enough to say, Peace be unto this House, but they must cleanse and purge the house, that Peace may enter. It is not enough only to salute, but they must make way for the Salutati­on. The Jew must be untaught his beggerly elements and rudiments of the world, before he can be taught and instructed for the kingdom of Heaven: His Ceremonies and the Law must be rased out, before he can be the Apostle of Cbrist, before the Gospel of Peace can be written in his heart. The Gen­tile must be untaught those lessons which even Nature is ashamed of, before he can receive the doctrine of Grace. The Carnal man must learn to cru­cifie the flesh, before he can become spiritual. False principles must be destroyed, before you can build up true ones in their place. Whilst we please our selves in the errors of our life, whilst we rejoyce in our selves, and, as the Apostle speaks, measure our selves by our selves, we are not fit for this Evangelical Salutation, Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. No, These strong holds must be pulled down, these imaginations cast to the ground, and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God, every thought must be brought into captivity 2 Cor. 10. 5. unto the obedience of Christ. Scio quibus viribus opus sit, saith St. Augustine, I know what power it must be that must perswade proud men that Humili­ty is a virtue. And I know what power it must be that must perswade a carnal man that there is no peace but where the spirit fights and overcomes the Flesh. But non aliter haec sacra constant; This Salutation will not pass where this preparation is not made. This Peace will not enter into that Soul where there are tumults and thunders, noyse and destruction. Never did any plant grow up and flourish in the field of the Church which was not ramus propendens, as Nazianzene speaketh of his Father, a branch or bough hanging over and looking that way. Nor doth Gods saving Grace bring Peace, till his exciting and preparing Grace hath made a way for it. When we are Sons of Peace, when we have some title to the in­heritance of Peace, when our hearts are hammer'd and softned and subjugated, when we are willing hearers, then this Salutation is brought home to our doors, and Peace will enter, and rest upon us. If the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon him; if not, it shall re­turn [Page 196] to you again. And so I pass to my last Position; That though it do not rest, yet it shall not be lost, but shall return to those that pub­lish it.

The word is spoken, the Salutation past, Peace be to this house; On the sons of peace it will rest; but on others it will not. And this is enough to take the word out of the Disciples mouths, and stop the message: for there is in every one of us [...], a kind of flitting humour, which will not hold out long, but faints and falls to the ground at the sight of some gross event which may fall out. What? plow the winds, and sow the rocks? bring Peace to them who will not receive it? bring it thither where it will not rest? Who would willingly be employed in such a Message? For all this the word must be spoken, and the Salutation given: And that no groundless fear may seal up the Disciples lips, they are told that even there where the Salutation will not rest, it is not lost, but will return again; as David Psal. 35. 13. spake of his prayer for his malicious enemies, Though peradventure it do not prevail, yet it will return into their bosom. And this is it which stays and upholds us in the performance of all the duties of our life, the Assurance that nothing that we do is lost. Common­ly, upon a pretense of doing little Good, we affect a kind of intem­pestive prudence and unseasonable discretion in performing that lit­tle good we do; which shews it self in us like the Sun in winter, long ere it arise, and quickly gone. We are unwilling to bear the Salutation; and at the first rub and opposition we are weary of it. If all be not Sons of Peace, we will no longer be preachers of Peace: But this Return of the Salutation adds spirit and courage to us, and makes us venture into every house, even into his who is an enemy to Peace. First then, for our comfort, lost this Salutation cannot be. For every good deed pays it self in the very doing. And therefore saith the Orator, Interest omnium rectè facere; It concerns every man to do his duty; and when he can reap no other fruit, to content him­self with the very doing of it. Do not say the Word is cast a­way because it met not with a son of Peace. It cannot be spoken, and cast away: For when it is spoken, all is done. Fac quod debes, & eveniat quod vult; it is an Arabick Proverb: Do that which thou shouldest, and let the Event be what it will. In the second place, to do our duty is all that is required at our hands. We are but to plant and water: the increase is from another hand. We can but say, Peace be to this House. It is not in our power to make it rest there. Laus imperatori victo; A skilful and wise Captain may deserve high honour and commendations, though he fall before his enemy, and an Orator may be famous for his eloquence, though his Client be condemned. The Philosopher in his Topicks will tell us, [...]; It is not exacted from an Orator that he perswade, but that he frame those arguments and motives which are perswasive; nor of a Physitian, to heal those who are ill affected, but to prescribe those medicines which are soveraign. If the earth be brass, we can­not say the dew of Heaven hath no virtue: nor, if we put out our eyes, can we say the Sun doth not shine. Son of man, saith God to his Prophet, if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wicked Ezek. 3. 19. way he shall die in his iniquity, but, thou hast delivered thine own Soul. There is the Return of his Prophecy. Whether the Salutation rest, or not, it doth not vanish, Numquid consecrata perdimus? For can we think that lost which we consecrate to God? Still the Apostles incense smells even when it is out. We are unto God, saith St. Paul, a sweet 2 Cor. 2. 15. [Page 197] savour in them that are saved. That we doubt not of. But it follows; and in them that perish: For neither Death nor Hell can take away the sweet and fragrant smell of this incense. Though many that heard St. Paul, did wax wanton against Christ, though many had their consci­ences 1 Tim. 5. 11. seared with an hot Iron; though many made shipwrack of their Faith, 1 Tim. 4. 2. yet St. Paul is bold to proclaim it to the whole world, I have fought 1 Tim. 1. 19. a good fight, I have finisht my course. All that is required at our hands is, that we speak the Word, though we be not heard. For though we speak, and be not heard; yet no other thing befalls us, than what befalls our Lord and Master, who knows and sees that his Sunshine and Rain is every day abused; and yet the Sun becomes not as a Sack, nor the earth as brass: Who calls, and calls aloud, and again and again to those deaf Adders which will not hear: Whose pro­vidence many times watcheth over those who deny his Providence, and in a manner cast him out of the World. And therefore as he saith, Demus, etiamsi multa in irritum demus, Let us give, though we give many things in vain; so let us speak the word, let us preach the do­ctrine of Peace though the event prove not answerable to our hopes.

For, in the third and last place, in vain it cannot be, though it be in vain; and lost it cannot be, though it be buried. Though it find not the effect to which it was principally ordeined, yet an ef­fect it will have. Aut fiet in illis, aut de illis; It shall be accomplisht either in those to whom it is spoken, or upon them. For it is not the Disciples word, but the Masters; and when it is gone forth out of his mouth, it shall not return unto him voyd, it shall not fall to Isa. 55. 11. 1 Sam. [...], 4. 1 [...]. the ground, ‘ Quicquid condidit virtus, coelum est,’ sayth the Poet; Whatsoever is done by the hand of Virtue, is as lasting as the Heavens. But that which we do at the command of our Master, in the name and person of Christ, is more lasting than the Heavens; Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away: Luk. 21. [...] ▪ The Heavens shall be gathered together as a scrowle, but one iota or title shall in no wise pass from Gods word. That Word which we contemn and tread under our feet, shall rise up again, and rise up against us. That Word which we laught at, is still in being, and shall appear a­gain to make us cry and howl. That Word for which we stoned the Prophets and killed those that brought it, shall be quick and active and vocal to condemn us. That Word for which Micah was smitten on the face, shall make that face as the face of an Angel. That Word which brought St. Paul unto the block, shall return and bring him in­to Heaven, and put a crown upon his head. Whether it meet with honour or dishonour, with stripes, with imprisonment, with perse­cution, with death, [...], it will certainly return again. Cast thy Eccl. 11. 1. bread upon the waters, sayth Solomon; for thou shalt find it after ma­ny dayes, even find it there where it might be thought to perish and be lost. The wiseman seems to allude to the nature and property of some Rivers, which when they have run on sweetly, and watered some few Provinces, hide themselves under the earth, and at last break forth again, and rise and appear in other coasts. Cast thy bread, venture all thy dutys, upon these waters, which though they seem to run out of thy sight, and to bury themselves in the bowels of the earth, though they be covered over with calumnies and disgraces, with misery and affliction, yet will break forth and have their course a­gain, [Page 198] and bear thee before the Sun and the People to the land of the living. To shut up all in a word; Publish Peace, and whether thy Salutation meet with a son of Peace, or an enemy of Peace; whether it be entertained with reverence, or rejected with scorn; whether it meet with a pre­pared heart, or a heart of stone; whatsoever the event be, thy labour is not in vain in the Lord. For though it seem to be lost, yet it will re­turn again. It will return to thee in this life with an olive-branch, with peace of Conscience and joy in the holy Ghost. Nor will it leave thee so; but when thou art dead, it will follow thee to those new heavens, and that new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness and peace and joy un­speakable for evermore.

MAN being a reasonable Creature, one would think he should need no other conduct to lead him in his way to bliss than the light of those precepts which are most reasonable. Be not high-minded. Why should we? but fear. Why should we not? the one posting us one till we bulg on the rocks, the other warily steering our course till we are brought unto the Ha­ven. What need there any more incitements to the ful­filling of a Law then Knowledg of it that it is just, and faculty and ability to perform it? Indeed good reason it is that our Reason and Will should incline to that which is reasonable, but, Man as he is endued with Reason so is he also with Passion, by which he becoms [...], various and manifold and mutable in his wayes. Nullum morosius animal, nul­lum majori arte tractandum, could the Philosopher say; No creature more froward and headstrong, none more intractable, than Man. And there­fore God also condescends in mercy, and is [...], various and manifold in his instruction, teaching us to avoid those evils which bring desolation on our Souls, not only [...], by his written word, but [...], by the examples of other men, so visible that we may run and read them. He hath painted out every Sin with the ve­ry bloud of the offendor. He hath beat out the teeth of oppression in one, whipt Idleness in another, Stricken Pride in a third: So that Sins are not better known than the Punishment of Sins, nor Gods Precepts more re­markable than his Judgments. Now all these things happen'd unto them for ensamples, and are written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world are come. And as Clemens speaks of the pillar of salt into which Lots 1 Cor. 10. 11. wife was turned, [...], that it was not a meer heavy and lumpish Statue, but had life and activity enough to season and preserve us from recidivation; so may we say, of all the fearful and terrible examples of Gods wrath in Scripture, they are not only the marks of his Justice, but the characters of his Love, silent Sermons, but of more efficacy many times than those that we preach: Our blessed Apostle here presents us 1 Pet. 3. 1. with one, and that the most remarkable we find; not the cutting off of some wicked person from the city of the Lord, but the casting away of a whole nation, even the Israel of God. The Israelites were Gods peculiar nation, cul [...]'d out of the whole world, like Gedeon's fleece, full of the dew of heavenly benediction when all the world was dry beside. To them were committed the oracles of God. They had the Law and the Prophets: Rom. 4. 1. [Page 200] Illis apud Deum gratia, saith Tertullian, they were in great favour with God, that God taught them by word of mouth. God taught them by his Won­ders, and by his Prophets, and by those many Ceremonies, which were as pictures, saith Melanchthon, and ocular Sermons, praenunciativae observa­tiones, saith St. Augustine, so many prophecies of Christ. By these they might have been prepared and qualified for the receiving of the Messias. But these high Prerogatives, which should have level'd their minds, and carried them on in an even course to the fulness of time when their Redee­mer should come, wrought a contrary effect, and swelled and lifted them up to the admiration of themselves, that they could not stoop to entertain [...], a Messias so poor and naked and inglorious as Christ. Fi­duciâ patrum inflati, sayth Tertullian, they were puft up with the conceit that Abraham was their Father, that God had raised up many famous men, amongst them. Quasi naturalem jactabant se habere justitiam, sayth Augu­stine. They thought righteousness came to them by kind, and was deri­ved unto them from the loins of their glorious predecessors. Well, saith the Apostle, for all this, for all they were branches of the good Olive-tree, and did partake of the root and juice and fatness thereof, by which they might have grown up, and been transplanted into the Paradise of eternity, yet [...], they were broken off, and scattered and dispersed, & coeli & so­li extorres, driven about the earth, banished from their own country as well as from Heaven, made the scorn of the world, and the contempt of nations, not suffered to stay so much as in the borders of their own land. [...], No man must dwell with them under the same roof, [...], or in the greatest sickness or extremity take Physick of them. None must wash in the same bath, not talk with them. It is a Canon of a Council in Trull. They are shut out, sayth Crusius, from the City in a place called Pera, by an arm of the Sea, nor are permitted to come to Constantinople to traffick but by ship. In a word, they are become a Proverb of obstinate impiety, so that when we call a man a Jew, we think we have rayled loud enough. Our Apostle com­prehends all in this one word, [...], they were broken off; or if this will not serve, [...] will. They were not only branches lopt off, but cast away. A sad exsample, and now fresh and bleeding in the eyes of V. 15. those primitive Christians in quos gratiam transtulit Deus pleniorem, on whom God had powred forth more plentiful and abundant Grace, who had been cut out off the wild olive, and grafted contrary to nature into the good V. 24. olive-tree. And the most fit and opposite example it was they could look upon. What better spectacle for the Church than the Synagogue, in whose ruines and desolation she may read the dangerous effects of spiri­tual Pride and Haughtiness of mind, and thence learn not to insult, but tremble. Therefore our Apostle hath drawn the picture of her ruine with this. Impress or Motto, NOLI ALTUM SAPERE, Be not high min­ded, but fear. In which words you see we have a negative precept, Be not high-minded, and a positive and affirmative, but fear. The first is a Caution, the second a Prescript. The first gives us notice of a dan­gerous disease, Haughtiness of mind: the second presents us an an­tidote, Fear. For as spiritual Pride may cut us off, with the Jew, from the favour of God, so Fear is a [...], a preservative, Be not high-minded; It cut off the Jew: But Fear, that being grafted into the good O­live thou mayst grow and blossom and bring forth fruit and flourish for e­ver. Of these in their order.

[...], Noli altum sapere, is good counsel; and I find it often gi­ven in the writings of the learned, to men of lofty eyes, who exercise them­selves in great matters and in things too high for them, men of curious spe­culation, Psal. 131. 1. [...], as Nyssine [Page 201] speaks, who being busy in the pursuit of things out of reach, unhappily pass by and oversee those more necessary things which are at hand; qui o­mittunt quod possunt videre, dum quod non possunt intuentur, as Hilary; who loose the sight of those truths which are visible and easy, whilst they make too steddy a gaze on those which are past finding out; with the children of Ben [...]amin, learning to fling stones at a hairs breadth, and yet not able to see [...], the wide and open and effectual Door of Faith. A Judg. 20. 16. disease indeed very dangerous, and which strikes and hinders us in our spi­ritual growth. But this is rather [...] than [...]; and not so op­posite to our present purpose and the intent of the Apostle. The Mala­dy here aimed at is an overweening conceit of our own worth, whether in respect of the knowledg of divine truths, or the practise of those virtues which are commended to us as the marks and characters of men in the favour and love of God. A disease mortal and fatal to the Jew; and to which the Christian was most obnoxious. He was newly come out of the valley and shadow of Death into the land of the living, and by the others fall and loss was entitled to great riches, as our Apostle speaks, V. 12. and therefore he was more subject to this Disease of Haughtiness of mind. For the Orator will tell us, Nihil insolentius novitio divite; Men sud­denly graced with favours and prerogatives are most insolent▪ and proud. And the Philosopher in his Rhetoriques saith, that men raised from the Dunghill to great fortunes and riches have commonly all the vices of rich men, and more.

And now that we may open this malady; we will search and inquire the cause of it, and see what it is that lifts up the mind to this dangerous pitch; what it is that swells and puffs us up, and makes us grossos, & grossi cordis, as Parisiensis most properly though barbarously speaketh, that makes the heart of man grosser and greater than it self; as in Italy they have long time had an art to feed up a foul 'till they make the Liver bigger than the body. What is there in Christianity that naturally can have this operation? We confess it is from heaven heavenly, [...], as Sy­nesius speaks, deriving its pedegree from God. We read of rich glori­ous promises; of royal prerogatives; of truth and peace and mercy which came by Jesus Christ: But all these are like the Physitians [...], to purge and cleanse us from the gross and corrupt humours, rather than full diet, to feed us up to that bulk that we are not able to weild and move ourselves in any order. The Gospel is from heaven; but we are of the earth, earthy. These Prerogatives are grants, not rewards. And Truth and Mercy are not the work of our hands, but the purchase of our Savi­our. Quantò magìs lumen gratiae respicimus, the more stedfastly we look upon the throne of grace, Tantò magìs nos ipsos reprehèndimus; sayth the devout Schoolman. The more light we have, the more we see our own wants and impotency, and so become the more vile in our own eyes. Let 2 Pet. 1. 5, 6. us joyn Virtue with Faith, and with Virtue Knowledg, and with Knowledg Tem­perance, and with Temperance Patience, yet none of these, not all these, of their own nature can produce any such effect as to make us be in love with our selves, or to raise us to that height as to overlook not only our selves, but our brethren. Were these virtues truly ours, or being ours did they appear to us in their own native shapes; they would discover unto us that the way to happiness is as the eye of a needle through which it is impo­ssible for men of gross and overgrown conceits to enter. The cause then of this disease is not in the Gospel, or in the Riches of the Gospel, but in our selves, who are willing to be deceived; and in the Devil, who is totius erroris artifex, as Tertullian calls him the forges of all error and de­ceit. For as God, whose very essenee is Goodness, doth in mercy mani­fest [Page 202] that Goodness out of Sin it self; So the Devil who is [...], that Wic­ked one, abuseth Good unto evil; and when he cannot drive us to dispair by reason of our sin, he takes another course, and makes us presume upon con­ceit of our righteousness. Take Virtue in its own shape, and it seems to call for fear and trembling, and to bespeak us to be careful and watchful that we forfeit not so fair an estate for false riches: But take it as from the De­vils forge, and then, contrary to its own nature, it helps to blind and hoodwink us, that we see not the danger we are in, how that not only the way but our feet are slippery. It unfortunately occasions its own ruine, whilst we, with Nero in Tacitus, spend riotously upon presumption of treasure. The Schools teach us that Evil could not subsist if it were not founded in Good: How true this is in general I discuss not; but experi­ence makes it plain that not only that Good which but appears so, which smiles upon us in an alluring pleasure, or glitters in a piece of Gold, or cringeth to us in his knee, that honours us, but also verum & plenum bonum, as St. Augustine calleth it, that which is fully and truly Good, not only pre­tious Promises and high Prerogatives, which of themselves cannot make us good, but Piety and Patience and Holiness do swell and puff us up. That Good which makes us good, which names us good, is that by which we are made evil; And all this proceeds from our own wilful error and mistake: for Pride is the daughter of Ignorance, sayth Theodoret. Were we not deceived, with false visions and apparitions, it were impossible that either our eye should be haughty, or our neck stiff. The Philosopher will tell us that objects present themselves unto us like those [...] or Ma­thematical bodies which have many sides; and they who see one side, think all are like it, or the very same. We see the Gospel ex uno situ, but on one side, or, as Seneca speaks, ex adverso, on the wrong side. We see it pictu­red in glory, but not in vengeance▪ It appears to us in a shape of mercy, not as it carries fire before it to consume us▪ We behold Christ as a Sa­viour, not as a Lords We entertain Prerogatives as prerogatives, and no more, and never look on the other side where the obligation is drawn. We comtemplate Virtues as the work of our own hands, but are blind to those imperfections which they bear in their very forehead. Nay, our Sins pre­sent themselves before us, but colour'd and painted over with the prero­gatives of mercy and forgiveness. We consider our selves as Branches graf­ted in, but cannot see the Tu excidêris, that we may be cut off. We consi­der our strength, not our weakness. But could we totum rerum conceptum exhaurire, take-in the whole conceipt of our wayes, and apprehend our actions in their full being and essence, without those unnatural shadows and glosses, our minds would be as even as the Sea when no wind troubles it, and not raise those bubbles which are lost in the making, nor those raging waves which foam out nothing but our shame. But being thus lightned of our burden by error, every puff of wind lifts us up, above our sins, above the mutability of our nature, above ourselves, and above God himself. A Prerogative, which is but a breath; an appearance of Virtue, which is but a shadow; our own conceits, which are vainty, set us in our altitude where the hand of Mercy cannot reach us, but a hand of Vengeance hovers over us, which, when it strikes, tumbles us headlong into an amazing pit of horror, and leaves us strugling with our distracted thoughts under the terrors of the Law, of Death and of Desperation. Will you see then spi­ritual Pride in its full shape and likeness? You must then conceive it blind, yet of perfect sight; deaf, but of a quick ear, deceiving, and being de­ceived; happy, and most miserable; quick to see the least appearance of goodness, but blind to the horror of sin; a continual listning to the pro­mises and prerogatives of the Gospel, but deaf to the Thunder of the Law [Page 203] its own parasite, happy in conceit, but indeed most miserable; entitling us to heaven, when it is but a wind, which at once blows us up, and kindles the fire of Hell. Strange contradictions! but such are we made up of when we do [...], think highly of our selves; when we remember what we are, not what we may be; and not what we are in whole, but in part; joy­ning together Weakness and Stability, Sin and Security, Mutability and Assurance, than which nothing is more contrary, more dissonant; as in a strange dream, where however the parts of it are incohaerent and contrary one to the other, yet the dreamer thinks that all cleaves well enough toge­ther.

And now having shewed you the true cause of this disease of Haughti­ness of mind, we will in a word point out at one evil effect which naturally issues from it, and but one, because the rest we must necessarily touch up­on when we prescribe the Remedie. This is most proper here, because our Apostle most points at this; and we find it & tu excidêris. This V. 22. Haughtiness of mind doth not only hinder the progress, but even the con­tinuance of Goodness: It doth not only slug and retard us in our course of piety, but it also criples us that we can walk no more: It doth not on­ly wither the branch, but it also cuts it off. St. Paul speaks plainly, The Christian may fall, as the Jew; and, if he continue not in Gods goodness, he also shall be cut off. When we have gone but a sabbath-days journey with the Jew in the wayes of holiness; when we have done but quod dictum est anti­quis, what was said to them of old; when we have absteined but from those sins which even a Jew would hate, and performed those duties only which will keep us from the lash of the Tongue, do we not begin to raise and ca­nonize our selves? But if we forgive an enemie; if we do good to an ene­my; if we faste a day, and give our provision to the poor; if we do any thing which Christ commanded with an Ego verò dico, then streight, with Absolom, we raise up a pillar to ourselves, and we write upon it, NUN­QUAM MOVEBOR, We shall never be moved. A Cup of cold water shall answer for our Oppression, an Alms at our door for the fraud in our shop, our frequenting of Sermons for our neglect of Prayer, our Libera­lity to some factious Teacher for our Sacriledg to the Church, an open Ear for a prophane Heart: And all is now quiet within us; we seem to walk on the pavement of Heaven, [...], to fly in the air, and from thence to behold our brethren (who have more piety with less noyse) as grashop­pers, as worms, as wretches, as nothing in respect of our selves. When our Hypocrisie hath edg enough to cut us from the Olive, our spiritual Pride keepeth us in: When the least of our numerous backslidings are a fearful presage of eternal perdition, upon one good deed, upon one good intention, upon one good thought, nay upon a meer mistake of all, we build the Assurance of our Salvation. I deny not but that a good Chri­stian may not only have confidence, but may attein to that perfection as to assure himself that God will so guide and protect him that he shall never fall. Yet this is very rare, and peculiar to those happy Souls who enjoy it. But to make it a question, Whether every man ought to be assured of his Salvation, I think it, at the best, most unnecessary. And this Nature, and common Experience will teach us. Should I ask whether every man ought to grow, to be in health, to digest, I cannot think but that you would judg it a ridiculous question, seeing Nature it self hath secretly taught us to eat and to drink with temperance and sobriety, and then Growth and Health will naturally follow. You cannot but apply it your selves. For Assurance of Salvation is no voluntary thing, to be taken up at will, upon command, but the natural issue of something else, of Faith and Obedience, of Holiness of life and conversation: Let us but believe and keep an up­right [Page 204] conscience, let us joyn together Piety towards God, and Honesty to­wards men, (which can never be severed) and Assurance will as certainly follow as Growth and Health upon Diet taken with Sobriety. Talk what we please of Assurance, it is not duty, but the effect of all the performances of life. We are no where comanded to be assured, but we have divers pre­cepts and commands to make our election sure. Yet we see with what ea­gerness of spirit this question hath been kept afoot, and how ready those are to talk of Assurance of whose Salvation, Statu quo sunt, Charity it self would make a doubt. Tenemur esse certi; We are bound to be assured; that is the Doctrine. And the Use is, Many men make it an Article of their Creed, to which they subscribe with hands full of bloud, oppression and fraud. And I am verily perswaded that in those who most boast of it, it has no better ground than this spiritual Pride and Highness of mind. For let them cry it up as long they will for an article of their Creed, their own evil wayes do make it heretical. And one day they will find it true, that that Doubting out of Humility, which is raysed from a diffidence in our selves, may find heaven-geats wide open, when bold Presumption shall be shut out of doors; that it will concern every Christian not to be too bold and confident, but to search his own heart, and to try and examine his way, to look narrowly into his life and conversation [...], as Pelus. speaks, with ten thousand eyes, and [...], clear and free from all perturbation; [...], thrice every day to take a survey of his words and actions, as the Pythagoreans used; when he is in his best estate, compas­sed about with the graces of God, in this his health and cheerfulness, to take Saint Pauls prescript here, [...], TIMERE, to fear, nay, [...], SUPERTIMERE, so Clemens renders it, in this depth and un­certainty of Gods judgments, to assume and exact, absolute, perfect fear, a fear beyond all fear: Which is the Remedy here prescribed, and comes next to be handled.

Now to make way to our ensuing discourse, we may guess what the na­ture of Fear is by Hope. For Fear and Hope are hewed out of the same rock, the common matter out of which they are framed being Expectation. For according as the thing is which we expect, so are we sayd to hope or to fear; if good, we call it Hope; if evil, we term it Fear. As Hope is no­thing else, but an expectation of some good to come: So Fear hath its be­ginning from the apprehension of some approaching evil. And as Heat and Cold, though contrary qualities, yet are never solitary without admis­tion of either with the other; so is it with Hope and Fear; they are both mixed and blended together in us. Seldom is any Hope so strong as to be without some tincture of Fear: Seldom any fear so strong as to admit of no mixture of Hope. For if they be alone and in excessu, they loose their names. Hope without Fear is no more Fear, but Confidence; and Fear without Hope is no more Fear, but Despair. All this we find in natural Fear. But Divines have taught a fourfold Fear, a Civil fear, a Filial fear, a Servile fear, and a fear of Cautelousness and Circumspection; all which have their several use; but I take the two last to be most proper to my Text. For what greater enemy to spiritual Pride than Wariness and Circumspe­ction? And what can make us more watchful to look about us than the Fear of some evil approaching; which is a Servile fear? You see in this para­ble of the Natural and the Wild Olive-tree St. Paul advising the new engraf­ted Gentile not to wax proud against the Root, makes Fear a remedy; Be not high-minded, saith he, but fear. And he presently gives the rea­son; v. 21. For if God spared not the natural branches, much less will he spare them. Fear then of being cut off, which is a punishment no less than Damnati­on, if St. Pauls reason be Good, is the best means to repress in us all proud conceit and Highness of mind.

And first, in a matter of so great an alley as is our Union with Christ no care and circumspection can be enough. Here qui cavet nè decipiatur, vix cavet etiam cum cavet, our greatest diligence will fall short, and we are scarce then weary when we are most circumspect. And the reasons are plain; and, if we will but animos advertere, take the pains to observe it, we need not draw them from any other common place than our selves. The first is an Overeasiness to perswade our selves that we are in account and favour with God. For men, we see, are generally more apt to presume then to despair. Every day yields us examples of the one, few of the other: If Despair hath killed her thousands, Presumption, we may be sure, hath killed her ten thousands. It is the observation of Aristotle in his Rhe­toriques, that old men commonly, in regard of their long experience, are very jealous and wary, but young men [...], apt to nourish and to en­tertain great hopes. And St. Basil, at large expressing the humours of young men, tells us, when they get them alone by themselves, either in the night, or in some solitary place, [...], they frame unto themselves strange Chimaera's, vainly supposing themselves to live in some glorious fashion, that they are Lords of countryes, yea favorites to Kings, yea, that they are possessed of Kingdoms; and which is more, they knew these to be but Meteors and vain speculations, yet through extremity of folly they please themselves as if they did really enjoy them. A dange­rous humour where it hath footing and very expensive of time, being the issue of nothing but Melancholy and Idleness. Just so it fares with us in our conceits of the things of God as Aristotle sayth it doth with young men in regard of things of this world; we love our selves well, and therefore in regard of our little experience are very apt to entertain such aery and vain speculations. We are very willing to conceive our selves to be high­ly beloved of God, to be possest of the Kingdom of Heaven. We hear not of a reward but its ours, no crown but we lay hold on it. If St. Paul be in the third heaven, we are above. If Mary have an exsultation, we have a Jubilee. And we are fully perswaded that it is so, as if it were so indeed. With this conceit many run on, and think themselves well when they are in the very mouth of dangers, as the Syrians, being blinded, thought they went towards Dothan till they found themselves in the midst of Sama­ria. 2 King. 16. 20. This is the difference, sayth Theodoret, between the Sickness of the body and the Diseases of the mind; In the one we are sensible of our grief, we cry out and complain, Ociùs Archigenes; and in all haste we send for the Physitian; but in the other we are stupid and senseless, we start back at the mention of a Physitian, [...], we are more afraid of Physick than of our disease. We admit of miserable comforters, that will flatter us to Death; and rather than we will want flatterers, we take the office on ourselves, nec magìs alienâ adulatione perimus quàm nostrâ; nor could we dy so soon if we were not our own Physitians. Thus having upon Presumption some especial favour with God securely run out the course of our dayes, and mispent that time in vain imagination which might profitably have been spent in the work of our Salvation, we draw near unto our end; and before our breath departeth, these thoughts perish, and instead thereof we hear nothing but wailing and bitter lamenta­tion.

A second reason to move us to this Fear of Jealousy and Circumspecti­on, is the Uncertain knowledg we have of the quality of our Works. For in our best intentions there may be imperfections which we know not. We may take that to be good which is evil, and mistake on both hands. I may come short or fail in the matter, manner, or some circumstance. My Devo­tion may be irregular; my Patience stupidity; my Zeal, rage. O quàm [Page 206] honestâ voluntate miseri sunt! sayth Lactantius; With what good meaning do many poor souls do evil! When the Ark of God was shaken, Uzzah layd his hand upon it to save it; and no doubt he thought he did God good ser­vice in it: yet we see what reward his unseasonable well-meaning brought him: He was smitten in the place that he died. Who can tell how oft he offendeth? sayth David, Who can tell how many of these sly insinuating 2 Sam. 6. 7. Psal. 19. 12. Sins creep into his actions? The best plea we can make in defense of our actions, if we err, is but this, That we have done it honestâ voluntate, with a very good meaning. And therefore the Church of Rome, though she stifly maintains that we are justifyed by works, yet notwithstanding propter incertitudinem, for this uncertainty, confesses we can place no trust or confidence in them. In this present world, though we have the day to walk in, yet we meet with many mists and fogs, through which we can­not perfectly see the danger we are in; and therefore, like men benighted, we must take the more care to our steps. We must not think that all is safe and well with us, but work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

To this we may add a third; and that is, The Over-ripe conceit and too speedy apprehension of our sufficiency and growth in the duties of Chri­stianity. We are very apt to flatter our selves, and conceive that, when we are but newly set forth, we are at our journeys end. All excellency and perfection in Christianity we can put off to others that have more time to learn it, & commorari in eo quod novimus quàm discere quod nondum scimus melius putamus, and we had rather dwell upon little than trouble our selves in the obtaining of more. The Jew is content with his Ceremonies, and the Christian with his outward Profession, but less significant than they. And all this proceedeth from a carelessness and indifferency in the wayes of godliness. This is certainly a great hindrance to our studies in Christi­anity. [...], Opinion is a great retarder of proficiency. Ma­ny had won more ground, had they with Job feared their own works, been jealous of their ways, and circumspect in their walk, had they had that ho­ly Jealousy and Mistrustfulness which is inseparably joyned to this Fear of Covetousness and Circumspection.

But indeed this Fear is most requisite in respect of those enemies of our Souls which are ever in readiness to surprize us; which being more subtile than strong, could never overcome us but by our own weapons. They are many indeed, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, John. 2. 16. every passion, every vain object: but these could never prevail against us, if this Fear did keep us awake. For let us weigh it well, and we shall find that it is not the strength of our adversaries, nor their multitude, nor yet our own weakness, which strikes us to the ground, but want of that cautelousness and circumspection which we should use: Dyed Abner as a Fool dyeth? saith David lamenting over Abner, thy hands were not bound, 1 Sam. 3. 33, 34. nor thy feet put into fetters: but as a man falleth before the wicked, so fallest thou. This is the case of many Christians: Their hands are not bound, nor their feet put into fetters: no outward violence, no strength of the enemy, but only their own unwariness hath overthrown them. I should be loth to make the Devil less devil than he is; yet I may be bold to say that many men are cut off by themselves and their own folly, when the Devil beareth the blame. And St. Chrysostom gives the reason for me: For if there were any inforcing necessity in the Devils temptations, then in good reason all that are tempted must necessarily yield and miscarry. And in one of his Epistles to Olimpias, considering, how careless Adam was, and open to admit of counsel so weak and forceless, he concludes, [...], that he would have fallen if the Devil had not been. No marvail if he sur­prize us when he finds us asleep in our watch. He doth no more than Iphi­crates [Page 207] did to his Centinel whom he found fast asleep, Tales relinquit, quales invenit. He striketh us through with his Spear, and wounds us to death, and leaves us but as he found us in a dead sleep, to sleep for ever. Satana nullae feriae: The Devil is ever in arms. But if we stood upon our guard and were ready to resist, he could never hurt us. So necessary a thing is this Fear of Cautelousness and Circumspection, that if we had no other defence or buckler but this, yet we could never be overthrown. Mater timidi rarò flet, A wary and fearful child seldom brings sorrow to his mother; and a careful and fearful Christian can never be cut off.

And therefore to keep this Jealousy awake in us, the Apostle awakes one Fear with another, the Fear of Circumspection with the fear of Punishment: He sets up a NE EXCID ARIS, a fear of being cut off, to bring on the o­ther. For naturally fear of evil works, a Fear of Jealousy and Circum­spection: and this fear of Cautelousness ushers-in that fear by which we may call Abba, Father. For seeing evil before us ready to seize upon us, we begin to advise with our selves how to avoid it. [...], sayth Aristotle; Fear brings us to Consultation. Call the Steward Luk. 16. 3. to an account, and he is straight at his QUID FACIAM? What shall I do? When a King goes to war, (and War is a bloudy and fearful trade) Luk. 14. 31. Luk. 16. 4. the Text tells us, [...], he first sits down, and takes council. Fear is the mother of Advise: and Consultation dies with Fear. When we pre­sume, Counsel is needless; and when we despair, it is too late. Alexan­der was as bold a leader as we read of in any history; yet the Histori­an observes, That upon some great hazard his confidence was chang'd to pensiveness and solicitude: Ipsam fortunam verebatur; He began to mis­trust that fortune which had formerly crown'd him with so many conquests. It is even so with Christians: For the most part we boldly venture on in the wayes of dangers: but when the bitterness of Death shews it self, or the fond face of a Nè excidaris is set before us, our courage fayls, and we begin to mistrust that security which thrust us forward in the wayes of evil, and made us bold adventurers for Hell. There be three things, fayth St▪ Basil, which perfect and consummate every consultation [...], First we consult, then we establish and settle our consul­tation, and last of all, we gain a constancy and perseverance in those actions which our consultations have engaged us in. And all these three we have from this servile Fear. Did we not fear, we should not consult: Did not Fear urge and prick us forward, we should not determine. And when this breath goeth forth, our counsels fall, and all our thoughts perish. The best pre­servative of a Branch now grafted is a Nè excidaris, the sight and fear of that knife which may cut him off. For this servile Fear, though it hath got an ill name in the world, yet is of singular use; and for want of it many branches have been cut off and cast away. How many go to Hell in a plea­sant dream! How many have been cut off because they never feared it! How many hath a feigned and momentany assurance destroy'd for ever! Cheer­ful they are, rejoyce in the Lord alwaies: no Law concerns them; no curse can reach them; if it thunder, they melt not; and if the tempest rise, they are asleep: as for Fear, it is not in all their wayes: And this they make a mark and infallible note of a Child of God. Timor Capitalis & Diabolicus; Fear is deadly and diabolical. A pleasing errour, this; but very dange­rous. For, alass! this Joy may be but an abortive, begot by the conquest of some few temptations; this Cheerfulness may be an incantation; This As­surance, insensibility; and this Security, stupefaction. For as the Historian observes of men in place and authority, Cùm se fortunae committunt, etiam naturam dediscunt; When they rely only upon their greatness and authority, [Page 208] they loose their very nature, and turn savage, and quite forget they are men; in like manner it befalls these spiritualized men, who build up to themselves a pillar of Assurance, and lean and rest themselves upon it. They loose their very nature and reason; they forget to fear, and become like those whom the Philosopher calls [...], madmen, because their boast was they did not fear a thunderbolt.

For conclusion then, Take comfort, thou disconsolate Soul, whosoever thou art that art stricken down into the place of Dragons, and art in ter­ror and anguish of heart. For this Fear of thine is but a cloud, and it will distill and drop down in blessings upon thy head. This Anxiety is a benediction, and will keep thee from falling, when the Presumption of o­thers shall lay them on the ground. Thy cloud is more clear than their Sun, thy Fear better than their Confidence, thy Doubting better security than their Assurance. Timor tuus, securitas tua. Thy Fear of being cut off will keep thee in the olive green and flourishing; thy Fear of being cut off will end in expectation of eternal life. Though thy ship be rent, thy tackling crackt, and thy mast spent, yet thou shalt at last thrust into shore, when those proud saylers shall shipwrack in a calme. There is no better sym­ptome that thou shalt never be cast away than this Fear that thou must be cut off. For whatsoever the beginning be, this Fear doth commonly end in righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost.

WHEN the Devil draws his sword, he flings the scab­bard into the fire; and though he strike not, yet he hath it alwayes ready in his hand. It was already dy­ed in the bloud of James the brother of John, v. 2. and now he strives to latch it in the sides of St. Peter also. We call this the Book of the Acts, or Doings of the A­postles. But indeed it is a history of their Passions and Sufferings, every page opening almost some new scene, and presenting some part of their Tragedy. Chap. 2. 13. they are markt for Drunkards. Chap. 4. 3. Peter and John are laid hold on and put into prison; they are threatned and silenced, v. 18. Peter and the rest are beaten, Chap. 5. 40. Stephen is stoned, Chap. 7. Persecution rageth, Chap. 8. 1. Paul is laid wait for, Chap. 9. Then had the Churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galile and Samaria; and were multiplyed, v. 31. For, as it is reported of the Island of Rhodes, that scarce there is any day so cloudy but at some time or other the Sun shews it self, so it fares with the Church of God. The blackness and darkness of persecution never so ob­scureth her but at some time or other she shews her self: But it is but as the Sun peeping out of a cloud, ready to be taken in and darkned with ano­ther. Let Peter come up to Jerusalem, Chap. 11. and he is accused for being at Caesaria, and they of the Circumcision contend with him for his Ser­mon to the Gentiles, v. 2. But this was rather an offer then a blow: for all was laid and ended in a Gloria Deo, v. 18. They held their peace, and glorifi­ed God. But here in this Chapter he is striken home by the hand of a Po­litician; of Herodes Agrippa, who being now restored to his Kingdome by Claudius the Emperor, did strive to establish it with bloud. He vext the Christians, to please the Jews: and had they all had but one neck, he would have cut it off at one blow. James already was sacrificed to their malice: Which bathing it self with pleasure in his bloud, bespake the Ty­rant cruelly to offer more. He proceeded farther therefore, and took Peter also, v. 3. But he sacrificed him not, because of the feast: for then were the dayes of unleavened bread, saith the Text. But to make all sure, he puts him in prison; and to make the prison sure, he delivers him to four quater­nions of souldiers to keep him. Where he lyes shackled with two chaines, quasi sepulcro inclusus, saith Calvin, buried before he was slain. Peter there­fore was kept in prison, &c.

These words present unto us the true face of the Church militant; One member suffering, and all the members suffering with it; St. Peter in chains, and the Church on their knees; he ready to be bestowed for the Church, and the Church emptying her bowels and compassion on him; St. Peter suf­fering, the Church praying. Though they cannot help him, yet they will [Page 210] pray for him; and they will pray for him, that they may help him. Though they cannot break the prison, they will weary heaven, and pray [...], without ceasing. And this makes up a glorious harmony, the groaning of a prisoner tempered with the prayers of the Church. These ascending to­gether, and coming up to heaven before God, commonly bring down some Angel from thence.

Now these two, St. Peter and the Church, divide the Text into two parts, which we call St. Peters Passion, and the Churches Compassion. In the first we consider Peters Imprisonment, and the Causes of it, or the Mo­tives which induced Herod to shut him up. In the second the Churches Compassion. Observe that it was not only in the inward man, true and hearty, but also expressed outwardly, and made vocal in prayer, which was first publick of the whole Church; secondly; [...], earnest and importunate, and without ceasing. Peter therefore was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto God for him. Of these in their order.

And a Prison one would think were not a fit place for St. Peter. We should rather look to see him in his Chair. For he had the Keys commit­ted to him, and a Commission to feed Christs sheep. Will God suffer this great Light to be confined, and this Pillar to be shaken with the stormes of persecution? Shall he who was to teach and govern the Church now stand in need of the prayers of the Church? Where is the providence of God? may some say. Why; certainly even in this, that he many times suffers his best Saints and his selected servants to be beat upon by the waves of affliction, and to feel the lash of persecution. Ordinis haec res est in hâc allegoricâ Aegypto, ut Pharaoh incedat cum diademate, Israel cum cophino, saith Sidonius; It is a common sight in this Aegypt of the world to see Pha­raoh with his diademe, and Israel with a basket; Herod on his throne, and St. Peter in prison. And all this is, saith St. Basil, [...], by Gods own ordering and dispensation. For what is a prison to St. Peter, where he had not now been had not the Spirit enter'd with him? You will say, saith Tertullian, it is domus Diaboli, the Devils house, for Villains and Ruffians. Conculcabit in domo suâ; He shall trample him under his foot in his own house. The Prison hath darkness, but he is light: the Prison hath chains, but he is free in fetters. Nihil interest ubi sit in soeculo, qui extra soeculum est: In this world it matters not where he is confined who is already out of the world.

We commonly distinguish the ages of the Church into times of Persecu­tion and times of Peace: and indeed in respect of the visible state of the Church such times there are: But the Saints of God, the Kingdom of Christ on earth, never had peace, nor possibly can have. But by the wisdom of God it comes to pass that that which we call Persecution is indeed the peace of the Church! Fire, and Sword, and Imprisonment, these build up the Church of God. Perversitas, quam putas, ratio est; quod saevitiam existi­mas, gratia est, saith Tertullian; That is good Order which we take to be Confusion; and that which we call Persecution is Favour and Mercy. Cum Ecclesia in attonito est, Then the Church enjoys her peace when she is astonisht with terrors. We cannot think that St. Peter lost his peace with his liberty, or that he was a Saint less glorious because he was in prison. The Church of Rome hath given us no less then fifteen Notes of the true Church, and one we find to be temporal Felicity; but most of them are but doctae ineptiae, laborious vanities and learned impertinencies. Had she soberly consulted with this book of Acts, or but with this Text of mine, she would not have found the least appearance of temporal happiness to make up a Note with; unless we shall call it a temporal happiness to be [Page 211] beaten, to be stoned, to be imprisoned. St. Peter here in prison would be a stronger argument to beat down her State, then the Prayers of the Church to build up St. Peter a regal Throne. Would ever any man once dream that my Text would yield any materials for a chair of Supremacy for St. Peter and his Successor? but the Jesuit by his cunning hath framed one; and St. Peter must needs be setled in it, because the Church here prays for St. Peter, and not for St. James. O qualis artifex? What a skilful arti­ficer hath Ignatius Loyola begot, that would perswade the world the Church prayed not for St. James, or that her prayers to help St. Peter out of prison did lift him up into the Chair! But what rubbage will not these men make use of, who lay hold on a monosyllable, on the little particle ET, ET PETRUM, he took Peter also? That also hath an Emphasis, and makes Peter higher then the rest of the Apostles by the head and shoulders. Nay, his very Shadow hath some substance in it, and overshadows not only the sick, but all the world. Thus when TU ES PETRUS will not serve, ET PETRUM is brought in to help a particle, a shadow, nothing. And when they cannot hew him a Chair out of the rock, they build one up of sand; where they find no Cedar, they are content with straws. Indeed they are so busie in raising Peter to height of State, that they quite forget that he was ever kept in prison, and therefore they phansy to themselves such a flourishing state as may become a universal Monarch, and receive him with both his Swords, of temporal, and spiritual jurisdiction. And now we need not wonder that she brings forth the Church of Christ like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts, [...], with great pomp and train, because we see she makes profession of Religion to gain the world. Infelicity and Supremacy will not blend together; and therefore to hold up her Supremacy, she maintains State: and wheresoever she finds the name of Peter, she seeks a mystery; and if she cannot find one, she will make one. Thus is Christianity constrained to lacquey it to the World, and become the means of the greatest secular Pomp that the world hath seen. St. Peter, as Erasmus tells us, was lodged in the house of one Simon a Tan­ner; at nunc tria regum palatia non sufficiunt, but now, saith he, three Kings palaces are not able to entertain the pomp and state of Peters Successor. When the triple Crown is on his head, what, think you, can he dream of else then outward pomp and temporal felicity? Tully tells us of a Musici­an, that, being askt what the Soul was, answered it was Harmony; Et i [...] saith he, difficulter à principiis artis suae recessit, he knew not how to leave the principles of his own art. Plato's Scholars had been altogether bred up in Arithmetick and the knowledge of Numbers; whence deverting their studies to Natural and Moral Philosophy, wheresoever they walkt, they still phansied to themselves something like unto Number. Just so it fares with these men, who fashioned out the Church by the World; Difficulter à principiis artis suae recedunt; They cannot leave their old principles. In the World they are bred, the World they study; and this follows then in the pursuit of the knowledge of Christ and the Church. They still phan­sie something like unto the World, Riches, and Honour, and a universal Monarchy. What shall we now think of the Church butchered in Abel, floating in the Ark, a pilgrim in the Patriarchs, captive in Aegypt, hiding her self in the time of idolatrous persecutors? after, of Christ vexed by the Jews, persecuted by Heathen; and no less by those who professed themselves Christians, by Arian and haeretical Emperors? What shall we think of St. Peter in prison here? We shall not see this mark upon him no more then upon Abraham, Moses, David, Hezekiah, and Josiah, whom notwithstanding the Cardinal brings in to make temporal happiness a to­ken and note of true professors: Abraham afflicted with famine in Aegypt. [Page 212] forced to forego his wife, and deny her; Moses exposed by his parents, put in an ark of bull-rushes into the river, after many difficulties when he came to the very borders of Canaan, forbid to enter in; David beg­ging his bread, and persecuted by his own son; Hezekiah mourning like a Dove, and chattering like a Crane; Josiah slain at Megiddo; and St. Peter fast in chains. This Note was not de fide then. No; it was de fide, & seriptum est, it is written, and we must make it an article of our belief, Blessed are you when men persecute you, and revile you. Poverty, and Af­fliction, Matth. 5. 11. and Imprisonment, and Persecution, are not only bona, but bea­titudines; not only good, but Beatitudes and Blessings. Rubus ardens est sigura ecclesiae, saith St. Hierom; The Church is like the bush which was all on fire but consumed not. To conclude, we may say of temporal Felicity in respect of the Church as Tertullian speaketh of the unveiling of Virgins in the Church, Id negat quod ostendit, It denyes the Church by shewing it.

And thus much may be spoken by occasion of Peters Imprisonment. In the next place let us take notice of the Motives which induced Agrippa to keep him in prison. You may perhaps imagin that Zeal for religion drew his sword, and hatred of the Gospel. And indeed love of one religion naturally begets hatred of another; and Love substitutes Hatred as her Captain or Proconsul, to bring on her forces, and fight against every thing that looks a contrary way, and opposeth what we love. [...], saith Nazianzene; It is as a Play or Comedy to a Jew to see a Christians bloody Tragedy. The Philosopher will tell us that Anger is alwayes [...], in respect of particulars, but Hatred [...], bent against some general thing. Evil men hate Philosophy because it speak­eth truth; but they are angry with Socrates. The Jews were implacable haters of Christianity; but their Anger stretcheth forth their hand against James and Peter. We read indeed that this Herod Agrippa was Judaeorum studiosissimus, a great lover of the Jews and of their religion; that he ob­tained of Caesar for them the freedom of their religion; that he fenced Je­rusalem with new walls higher and larger then before; that he was very much offended with the Doritae because they had set up Caesars statue in the Synagogue. And we see here what reverence he bare to their feast; see­ing to shew himself a Jew indeed, he would not till the feast was past, shed the bloud no not of a Christian. We cannot now but imagin that it was pure Zeal that whet his sword; that he loved Moses better then Christ; that he would not see the Law abrogated, the Ceremonies destroyed, the ancient Religion go to the ground. But there was no such matter. For see the holy Ghost hath made a window in his breast, and tells us that all this was done ut placeret Judaeis, that he might please the people. You would think the Sword he fought with were of God; but indeed it was of Gide­on, his alone. He had been formerly removed out of his Kingdome, and but lately restored, as we find by Josephus. and now finding the Jews a headstrong people, impatient of the yoke, he strives to strengthen his Kingdome by the same art he gained it. And as before he flattered the Em­peror with a great feast of amity, so now he pleaseth the people with a feast of bloud. Religion may be the pretense, but the Cause is his Crown and Kingdome. Thus he who is a slave to his Affections is sold to all the world besides: a King becomes his Subjects parasite. And when that Pow­er and Wisdome leave him which should uphold his Kingdome, the strong­est pillar for him to lean on is this [...], flattery, [...]. He must flat­ter those who flatter him. Look now, and see John Baptists head in a Plat­ter, that they that sate at table might not be displeased. Pilate sends Christ to Herode; Herode mocks him, and sendeth him back again: And the same day Herode and Pilate are made friends together. Pilate proclaimeth Christs Luke 23. 12. [Page 213] innocency; I have found, saith he, no evil in him: But when he is told that he is not Caesars friend, at this thunder he is astonisht, and gives sentence that it should be as they required. Darius at the instance of his Nobles flings Daniel into the lions den. Flaminius at his table beheads a man, to please his whore, who had never seen that butchery before. Nay, the first sin that ever was committed was from this source and fountain. So that Hierome states the fault of Adam, That he ate the forbidden fruit nè contrà staret delicias suas, lest he should cast her whom he loved so much into an immoderate dejection. He that strives to please another, hath lost himself; he squares his actions by his eye, not by the rule. Quis place­re potest populo, cui placet virtus, saith Seneca: He that strives to please the people, is not well-pleased himself with Virtue. For that art which gains the people, will make the like unto them. If Herode will please the Jews, he must vex the Christians, and be as cruel as a Jew. Non pro­babant nisi quem agnoverint, They approve none but whom they acknow­ledge; nor can any please them who is not wholly theirs. When I see thee famous in the peoples mouth, when the women and the children cry thee up, when thou canst not stir but applause doth follow thee, when the people cry aloud, The voice of a God, and not of a man, dost thou think I count thee happy? No; I pity thee, cùm sciam quae via ad istum favorem ferat, because I know the way that bringeth thee to the peoples favour is of their own chalking but. They commend none but they make him their slave. If thou wilt purchase their breath, thou must sell thy▪ honesty. If thou wilt please them, thou must be factious, or commit a murder. If Herode will make the Jews his friends, he must be an enemy to the Christians; The head of James must be stricken off, and Peter must be kept in prison.

We have now done with St. Peters part; and in the next place must take notice of the behaviour of the Christians. And you may know them to be Christians by their devotion and compassion. [...]. It is a Divine thing to be compassionate, a true badge and mark of those who are commanded to be perfect, as their heavenly Father is perfect. And therefore Tertullian tells us that even amongst the heathen▪ Professors of Christianity were not called Christiani, but Chrestiani, from a word sig­nifying sweetness and benignity of disposition. Is St. Peter in prison? they are not free. Is he in fetters? their Compassion binds them in the same chains: And though he alone be apprehended, yet the whole Church doth suffer persecution. For it is in the Church as in Pythagoras his family which he shaped and framed out unto his Lute: There is 1. [...], an integrity of parts, as it were a set number of strings; 2. [...], an apt composition and joyning of them together. The parts are [...], cou­pled and knit together by every joynt, saith the Apostle, even by the bond of Charity, which is copulatrix virtus, as Prispes calleth it, that virtue which couples all together. And then 3. every string being toucht in its right place and order begets a harmony. This was the face of the pri­mitive times, when the very name of Christianity was accounted as a crime; when the Devil and Judaism and Heathenism strove joyntly to destroy the Gospel in the bud. When cruel Tyran's spake nothing but bonds and torments and imprisonment, then Charity broke out in a pure flame, by which the afflicted receiveth warmth from each other. Seldome but they found comfort assoon as imprisonment And if the Churches keep­er forbad a personal visitation, mittcbant libellos consolatorios, saith Rhena­nus, upon Tertullian; their hearts were enflamed with compassion; and that did soon dictate an epistle of comfort. That too much Chirity, as Eu­sebius calls it, lib. 7. of the Christians in Alexandria, when the pestilence [Page 214] had spread its contagion in that city, may in these times of ours, which hath fulfilled the Apostles prophesie, 2 Tim. 3. 1. move us to wonder, though not to imitation. The Pagans, saith he, forsook their friends, though of nearest alliance, upon a fit of shivering, or a pale look; when the Christians did diligently minister to their sick, though they ran into the mouth of danger; and to save their friends lives endanger'd their own; yet they presumed their compassion might stile it Martyrdome. If we now cast a look upon these our times, we shall scarce find a spark of that fire which enflamed their breasts, scarce a degree of that heat of Charity. We have strangely degenerated from our forefathers, and re­tained nothing of them but the name of Christians. We have not compas­sion enough to follow St. Peter into prison.

But in the next place, to make one step further, Compassion, if it be right, is not an idle but a serious thing, will not rest in the heart, but will publish it self. If you see it not active in the hand, you shall hear it vocal in the tongue. It will open the mouth, and pant, as David speaks, and pour forth it self in prayer and supplications. My Text tells us that prayer was made by the Church. And [...], saith Epi­phanius; The prayers of the Church are the best weapons. The Supersti­tion of the Heathens framed their Auguries, their Expiations, their Sa­crifices, their Oracles, their Omens, their Rings, their Inchantments, their Supplications, their Triumphs, to keep off misery, to procure happiness, to begin, to transact, to end publick businesses: Christiani unicum & simplex habent remedium; Christians have not so many reme­dies, but one which is more soveraign and powerful then they all. They plyed their superstitions, as they did their Gods: We have but one God, and in all our miseries but one refuge, our recourse by Prayer unto him.

I will not frame a panegyrick on Prayer, but rather commend the Churches prayer here: 1. Because it was of the whole Church, and most likely met together in publick, as many Interpreters collect. For though private prayer be of singular use, yet it cannot be of that force which Prayer hath when made in publick. St. Chrysostome is peremptory, Thou canst not pray so well at home as at Church: There thou findst many fires to kindle thy zeal, the Example of others, the Reverence of ceremony, the presence of God, the Place it self. Coimus quasi manu facta, saith Ter­tullian; We meet together as an army, to besiege, compass, and invade the Majesty of heaven. God requires not only private devotion, that thou pray to him in thy closet, but he farther requireth that prayers be made in publick by troops and assemblies of men. Such was the force, saith St. Chrysostome upon this place, of publick prayer that it brought down an Angel from heaven, broke St. Peters chains, opened the prison doors and the city gates, and led the Apostle to the very place where many were praying for him.

That which in the second place commends their Prayer is, that it was [...], instant and earnest. For fervent prayer prevaileth much, saith St. James. Otherwise, if it be faint and heartless, it is but breathed out in­to the ayr, there to vanish; it is lost in the very making, and like a Glass in the very blowing, falls to nothing, yea (which is worse) it is turned into sin. We may think perhaps that it is a great boldness thus to urge the Majesty of heaven: But we much mistake the God we pray to. He thirsts as it were, to be thirsted after, saith Nazianzene; he loves to be intreated; he commands us to be urgent: and thus not to be bold, is to be too familiar with him. To think he will hear us at the first, is to set up an Idole, a God of our own making. For what else is Idolatry but a mistake of that God [Page 215] whom we chuse to serve and worship? God is a God of state and magnifi­cence, qui solet difficilem habere januam, a God whose gates will not o­pen so soon as we suppose. We must knock, and knock again. Though he hear not, we must call till he do hear; and though he open not, we must knock till he do open. This is that welcome force by which the kingdome of heaven is taken by violence. This is the way by which God delighteth to be wooed and won, to be besieged and conquered▪ For this very end doth God delay, and doth not presently send his Angel. Commen­dat dona, non negat, saith St. Augustine: His delay is not a denyal, but a commendation of his gift. Thy hunger will make thy meat the sweeter; and thy frequent prayer will not only obtain, but enlarge thy soul, and make it more capable of that good which thou dost long for. Deus exercet de­siderium, quò poscimus capere quod praeparat dare; God exercises our desire, not to dead and destroy it, but, as the ayr doth fan a torch, to make it burn the brighter; so doth he kindle thy desire, not extinguish it; and so makes thee fit for that which he intends to give. By this we learn more and more to stand in awe of his Majesty, to love his goodness, and our Piety hereby encreaseth, as Heat doth by motion and agitation. We learn to carry God about with us in every contemplation, in all our thoughts; as he that looks upon the Sun with a steddy eye, though he remove his eye, yet hath the i­mage of the Sun presented in every object he beholds. I might be infinite in this subject: but this one example of the Church is enough to perswade you that God doth not only require modestiam fidei, the modesty of your faith and private devotion, but the urgency of your publique piety, [...], as St. Luke calls it, an holy impudence, and violent importunity of prayer; which may look upon the very face of God, and stare upon him, which will take no denyal, but, as the Fathers express it by a strange kind of phrase, [...], even make God ashamed, and so yield at last, and grant you your requests. When St. Peter is in prison, when any affliction fetters our brother, we must then pour forth our supplications, and call up all the for­ces of our souls, and pray not coldly and faintly, as if we cared not whe­ther we were heard or no, but [...], earnestly and without ceasing, as if we would not be denyed.

For conclusion then; St. Peter is still in prison. Many a Christian is in misery and irons; many poor and naked and destitue, quibus causa pau­pertatis probitas fuit; the only cause of whose poverty is integrity of life and conversation; who might have been rich perhaps if they could have been dishonest; of whom the world is not worthy. Nay, many a soul, and thy own soul too, is shackled and manacled with many sins and pertur­bations of the mind, wallowing in the filth and mire of lust: which is, not to be in prison only, or to sleep between two souldiers, but in the Pla­tonicks phrase, [...], to be asleep in hell it self. Here, here is matter for thy Piety to work on; here pour out thy bowels of compassion; here drop thy tears, the only aqua fortis to eat these chains asunder: here spend thy devotion, thy intention, thy zeal, that it may increase, like the Widows oyl, in the pouring out, and cast such a savor on thy actions, ut & opera & ipse somnus sit oratio, that every work, nay, thy very sleep, may be a kind of prayer. You have the example of the Church here, and of the Church in following ages. [...], was in their [...], and part of their Letany: They prayed for men diseased, for pri­soners and captives. And they prayed [...], with great earnestness and intention; with their eyes lifted up, and their arms spread abroad, not only to express the passion of our Saviour, but to manifest also the heat of their devotion. You have the same incouragement, the same God, much more attentive in hearing then you are intent in praying; who [Page 216] will hear you when you call; who will hear you before you call; and up­on your earnest and continued prayers for any St. Peter, for any sick affli­cted Saint, for your own souls, will make some light of comfort shine in the very prison; will call back his destroying Angel, and send a messen­ger of comfort unto you, who will take thy soul out of prison, and deliver it out of the hand, not of Herode, but of the Devil, and from all the expectation of his evil Angels, and will set thy feet at li­berty, to walk before him in the land of the living.

THese words, are like the Pillar of the cloud, a cloud Exod. 14. 19. 20. and darkness to the Wicked, but giving light to the Meek in the night, in the darkest night that Affliction can make. They are words of terror, and they are words of comfort: of terror to the Wicked; Why boast­est thou thy self in mischief, thou mighty man? The goodness of God endureth Continually. His eye wat­cheth every thought and imagination; it follows thee in all thy wayes: and yet a little while, and his hand will tumble thee down into the pit which thou hast made. And they are words of comfort to the Meek, which now sigh and groan and cry unto the Lord: as the Souls un­der the Altar. How long, Lord? how long dost thou not avenge our cause? Rev. 6. 9, 10, how long shall the wicked triumph? Why, wait on the Lord: ADHUC PAULULUM, yet a little while, and this night will pass, and the day will break, and you shall see the Salvation of the Lord. Yet a little while, and the wicked, which flourish like a green bay-tree, shall wither and shri­vel and be cut off: He that thought he had built himself up an everlasting habitation, shall have no being; and he that made the world his own, shall have no place. And yet a little while, and the meek, who have not a foot of ground, shall inherit the earth; and they whose Sorrows were multiplied every day, shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. And as these words bring comfort to the one, and terrour to the o­ther, so they plead strongly for the Providence of God against them both: Against the Wicked, who fight against Heaven it self, and strive to put out the eye of Gods Providence, and are as bold and daring in their pro­ceedings, as if God had no eye: And against the Meek; who when God doth but touch them, as Job speaketh, thinks he will destroy them; and when he doth but withdraw himself to call them after him, are too rea­dy to forget that even then his wing of protection is spread over them. For behold, the providence of God is awake, , when they both sleep; is then working to the end, when they see it not; is then preparing a sword to enter the bowels of the one, and a shield to defend the other, when the one thinketh he can never be moved, and the other is in the dust. And though it move along in hidden and obscure wayes, that we can no more perceive it than the passage of a Ship in the Sea, or of an arrow in the air, yet it alwayes comes home to the mark, and is most evident in the destruction of the one, and the Salvation of the other. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be, &c.

We shall not need to stand any longer upon descant, or to use any cu­riosity in the division of the Text: Which many times is but like the long tuning of an instrument, which diferreth the Musick, and makes it shorter: or as Musick, it is heard, and perhaps delights, and that is all. I never yet loved to put a tune to Divinity. The Notes which my Text doth naturally yield are these three: First, we may observe Gods Patience and Delay both towards the Wicked, and towards the Meek; ADHUC PAULULUM, yet a little while, he bears with the one, and helps not the other: Secondly, his justice on the Wicked, which strikes at last, though it strike not so soon: For the Wicked himself, NON ERIT, he shall not be; and for his Place, NON EXSTABIT, it shall not be found. 4. Lastly his Goodness and Mercy to the Meek: Though they be driven from place to place, though they have no place, yet HAE­REDITABUNT TERRAM, they shall inherit the Earth. And with these we shall exercise your Christian Patience and Devotion at this time. And first of the first.

ADHUC PAULULUM, Yet a little while. And a little while is too long to men in misery. For who would stay so long as to salute Affliction in the way? Who can think of it, and not be afflicted with the very thought? And yet a little while is too long to men who make their Strength the Law of unrighteousness. Their reign is too long, though it be but an hour. But God is not slack concerning his coming, as some count slackness. Not 2 Pet. 3. slack to the Wicked: for vengeance hovers over his head: Not slack to the Meek,: for his Salvation is nearer than he can believe. In this lit­tle while coals of fire are kindling, which must fall upon the head of the Wicked, and leave him without excuse; and in this little while God is hearkning to the cryes and groans of his Meek ones, and even in this stay doth make haste to help them. Upon this little while depends eter­nity of punishment to the one, and eternity of peace to the other. Nor can we complain of the delay of that which will surely come to pass. Be­loved, God hath these pauses and intervals and halts in all his procee­dings; in his punishments, and in his deliverances. He seems to study and meditate and use a kind of deliberation. He works as it were by rule and line. When God would build up Jerusalem, he promiseth that a line should be stretched out upon her. And when he would destroy Zech. 1. 16. the Idumaeans, he threatens, that he would stretch out upon them the line of Esa. 34. 11. confusion. So that when he will destroy, and when he will build; he stretcheth forth a line. It is a Metaphor taken from Building, which is a work of time and deliberation. God is not sudden to lift up his hand to strike, nor is he sudden to stretch forth his hand to help; but, as Builders do, he first fits down, and thinks, he takes time as it were, he fits and prepares his instruments, he sets every thing in order, and, as wise artificers do, he works by line and measure; that he may make good his justice on the Wicked, and magnify his mercy on the Meek. How long did the Lord endure the old world? even a hundred and twenty years, while the Ark was a preparing: And then there was a new Aera; the Deluge brake in. How long did he bear with the Amorites? Even till their Wickedness was full, and ripe for judgment, as corn in harvest is for the sickle? How long did he forbear his own people, first the ten Tribes, and then the other two? Even till there was no remedie, no hope of amendment; till the Prophets cryed out HOASH, It is desperate; There is no hope; All is lost. Nor need we wonder at this his delay, since the reason of it is plain and evident. For God to manifest to the world, that this wayes are not as our wayes, but that he walks in a higher sphere, beyond the reach of a carnal eye, presenteth himself sometimes in a shape contrary [Page 219] to our expectation; nay more, doth those things which bear a resemblance of some opposition and repugnancy to his known and declared will. And this he doth as it were on purpose to put our Faith and Constancy to a tryal; to ask us the question, (and his afflictions are but questions) Whe­ther we will take him to be our God though he change his shape, and worship him as well in his thunder as in his still voyce, and call him Fa­ther in as loud an accent when he strikes us as we do when he favours us. Or else, on the other side, he doth it to besiege and compass in obstinate offendors, to shut the wicked up in their own net, to bury them in their own pit, and to strike them thorough with their own sword; and, as they have sported and trifled with his judgments, so to mock and delude them, that they shall not easily know when or how they are led to destruction, or not know it till it be too late, but run on in a merry dance to their ruine and into Hell at once. God promises to love his Meek ones, and to defend them as with a shield; yet sometimes he so handles them as if he loved them not, or had left off to love them, or would not hear and help them; stands as it were at a distance from them; but even at this distance he is nigh to them that fear him. Again, though he have threat­ned to rain fire and brimstone upon the wicked, yet many times he stays his Pasal 11. 6. hand, and doth not strike; he makes as if he would not punish them, so that they walk delicately, like Agag, and say, Surely the bitterness of 1 Sam. 15. 32. Death is past. Nay, often seems to cast an eye of favour upon them, not to delay the blow, it may fall yet heavier, but (which flesh and bloud too oft kindles at, and frets it self) to give them those rewards which are pro­mised to Godliness. He fills their Granaries; he makes them mighty in power, and to reign as Kings (and would to God they did reign as Kings, and not as Tyrants) he crowneth them with happiness; he seems to plead their cause as if it were just, even against his own cause; he makes them stron­ger than those whom he commands to oppose them, and as bold and famili­ar with him as if they had him in a string. But in this pleasant dream, in this great security, upon the sudden, when their prosperity hath be­fooled them, when they are ready to conclude they are good because they are temporally happy, and that they have as good a title to Heaven as they have to the Earth, (and I fear indeed they have but as good a claim to the one as they have to the other) in the midst of these big and triumphant thoughts God falls upon them, and makes that which was their triumph their ruine. He striks them at once for all; he strikes the timbrel out of their hands, and in the place thereof he leaves the cup of trembling. He makes them see that they were the poorer for their riches, the baser for their honour, the weaker for their power, and most wretched for their happiness; that their successful proceedings, which they boasted of, were but as a beam darted from the Sun before a Tempest. And now how fearfully and horribly are they consumed, and brought to utter desolation. Nor is this unjust with God: For he comes not in this tempest till their obstinate impiety force him out of the cloud, where he lay as hidden. He doth not tell the Wicked that this PAULULUM, this little while is theirs, and that they may do what they will in it, even beat their fellow-servant without fear of punishment; that, like Behemoth in the book of Job, they may drink up a river, and make it their sport to draw up Jordan, even a whole Kingdom, into their mouth. I dare say there was never any PAULULUM, never any so little little while, in which God granted such a Commission. But the Wic­ked abuse his long suffering and Divine indulgence. They sport in this lit­tle while, they send forth their edicts and make Orders against Law, and De­clarations against the Truth; they teach God himself how to speak in Scrip­ture, and account that as an applause of their designs which was but an in­vitation [Page 220] to repentance. And this is a bold Remonstrance against the King of Heaven himself.

And therefore this yet a little while, this Divine Patience, hath an effect answerable to the disposition and temper of those on whom it is shewed. To them that make this PAULULUM God's PAULULUM, that make use of this little while as of a little while, and therefore make haste to be reconci­led, it is redemption and deliverance. But to those who will be Domini rerum & temporum will be Lords and commanders of this little while, and so let it out to their own Lusts and ungrounded imaginations, it is but a little while, and soon ends in eternal destruction. God hath them in a chain, and when they have run out their length, he gives them a check, and pulls them on their back.

The long suffering of God is Salvation. But when men value it not at its [...] Pet. 3. 15. true rate, nor account it what it is, but make that which is Salvation some­thing else, even turn it into an Apology for sin, count it an applause from God himself, and make it a confirmation of their designs, how illegal and unwarrantable soever; then it is justice with God to kill up in such men all seeds of Grace, to strike them with the spirit of error and madness, to with­hold his Thunder, and in a manner to dissemble with them, and deceive them; non dignari irasci, not to favour them so much as to be angry with them; to take off his jealousy from them, as the Prophet saith; that they shall have eyes, and see not; ears, and hear not; that they shall have [...], as the Apostle speak, a reprobate mind, and [...], as Theodoret renders it, a reverberating mind, a heart of marble, to beat back all the words of the wise, and the word of God it self; to open their ears to one fool, who shall per­swade them to kick against the pricks, and to stop their ears to seven wise men that can render a reason; to rejoyce in the error of their wayes; to think to build up Religion upon the ruines of Christiani­ty, and to purge the Church with bloud; to count it a savory language and the holy tongue to revile their Prince; to call Discharging of great Ordinance at him fighting for him, and Murdering of Charles preser­ving of the King alive; to call them the only Seers who are blind, and those the truest Prophets, who, like Balaam, will rise up early in the morning to curse Israel for reward or rather such who are more like the Ass than that Pro­phet, who uttered words indeed, but understood not what she sayd; or ra­ther indeed not so wise as that beast: for what she spake was sense, and full of reason; a language which those of them which I have heard speak (and those were not a few) I am sure have little skill in; to think this, and speak this, and do this, and call it the Defense of the Protestant Religion, as if the Papist were to be carried out upon the Atheists Shoulders; to do this, and more than I could believe from any witness but my Eye: I say, It is justice in God to suffer such Giantlike Sinners to do this, and that for a little while; and in this little while (which was time enough for avoyding the blow) to whet and furbish his sword, and then to make it drunk in the bloud of these his enemies. It is the Nature of Delay in other things to hold back and hinder our proceedings. For not to do a thing betimes and in its proper season is to rob our selves of the faculty of doing it at all. But it holds not true in Gods Punishing of the Wicked. For gra­vitate supplicii moram pensat, He supplies and makes up the delay in punishing with the smart of the blow when he lights. His wrath, like wind shut up long in the Caverns of the earth, at last breaks forth in a Tempest. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be; thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be, &c. And so we pass from the Delay to the Certainty of Gods Justice on the Wicked and of his delivery of the Meek: My second Observation.

Let all the earth rejoyce before the Lord: for he cometh, for he cometh to Psal. 96. 13. judge the earth, saith the Prophet David. Flatter not thy self then that he defers his coming. For he cometh, he cometh. He is set out already, and well on in his journey. When this little while is past, at the appointed time you shall see him with his sword and his quiver. Plures idcirco Domi­no non credunt, quia seculo iratum tamdiu nesciunt; Many men think that God is like unto themselves, observing their actions no more then they do his commands, because he thunders not from heaven, nor sends into the world what that Tyrant wisht for in his dayes, some strange, unheard-of calamity. Many run away with the burden of their sins, and feel it not, because God sends not a fire into their bones. But the Father will tell us, Malus in­terpres Divinae providentiae, humana infirmitas: The weak eye of man may read many lines through which the Providence of God doth run: but we commonly do erre in our interpretations: That gloss must needs be ac­cursed which Flesh and Bloud, which our sensual lusts and affections do bring. Divine Providence is most methodical in those actions which per­haps to us appear under no other shape but of confusion and disorder. It consists in the ordering and bringing things to the right end: And be the way what it will, God leads and drives every thing to that end which his Wisdome hath fitted to it. The meek he leads to bliss; but through many afflictions; which may form a crooked and uneven, but is the nearest way. The Wicked tend to destruction, as naturally as a Stone doth to the center. Whether the sky be fair or cloudy, be the passage what it will, yet the Wicked in his highest pitch thither falls at last. Sometimes Providence dis­playes it self openly before the Sun and the people, in the destructions of the wicked; sometimes it works more invisibly: but whether secretly or openly, day unto day teacheth knowledge, and in the end of their dayes God will write this truth with their bloud. Though they work never so pri­vily, as it were in a vault; though they make Religion it self a vault to hide their designs in, yet their damnation sleepeth not; but God at last will find them out, and strike them to the ground, even in those Meanders and Labyrinths which they made to hide themselves in. The Philosopher tells us the greatest tempests are not of long continuance. No whirlwind lasteth a day, no not an hour. And as a whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more. Prov. 10. 25. Suppose he here rage, and with his breath kindle those coals which consume a kingdome; Suppose he dispose of mens goods and lives at pleasure; yet he passeth away as a whirlwind; he drives down all before him, and maketh a huge noyse, and presently is not. Suppose he fill up a page in Chroni­cle; yet what was before in action, is but now in story. All we can say is, that he was; At such a time there was a subtle Traytor, a politick Devil. And we may both write and say it, At such a time there was a whirlwind. What did Sennacherib get by advancing his banner against the City of God? Even this, To preach by his statue, Let him that looketh on me learn to fear God. What did Herod get by casting of Peter into prison? He was smitten by an Angel, and eaten up of worms. What did Pharaoh get by flinging the children of the Hebrews into the river? He brought him into his Courts who deprived him of his Crown and life. The wicked is snared in the work Psal. 9. 16. of his own hands. This, saith St. Basil, is not added as a punishment onely; but it is the very nature of Sin to make a nett and to digg a pitt for it self. The cruel man is his own just executioner; nor is he taken so much in the hands of God as in his own. What did ever any seditious and turbulent spirits gain in the work which should be as Hell it self? There is nothing to affright, no grudging of conscience, no fear, no soruple, no sad relu­ctancy or dejection of spirit; and this for a little while: But look up anon, and you shall see them lifted up indeed; their heads lifted up on high, so [Page 222] high, that the ravens of the valley may pluck out their eyes: A woful in­deed, but a useful spectacle. It thus bespeaks every passer-by, My son, fear thou God, and the King, and meddle not with those who are given to change. Prov. 24. 21, 22. For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both? Look upon those sons of Belial who are given to change, who, like Cleon in Athens, wish for wars and civil tumults, thereby to advantage themselves, and to sodder up their estates broken by intemperance and prodigious lust; who are never warm, but when a Kingdom is in combustion. Look upon them, and mark them, how horribly they are consumed and brought to de­solation before the Sun and the people. Behold Corah and his mutinous conspirators swallowed up alive of the earth, and going down quick into Hell. Behold Bigthan and Theresh hanging at the Court-gate. Behold Absalom Numb. 16. Est. 2. Sam. 18. hanging on a tree with three darts through him. Behold one in a moment, and in the twinkling of an eye falling down with a shot from a Church, who had devoured all the Churches in the land, in his thoughts: And in that less then a moment he and all his thoughts perisht. Behold another Sheba receiving his death-swound in that very field, where he first blew the trum­pet. A Northern army may break in upon the children of Israel; but God tells them that he will remove this Northern army farr off, and drive them in­to a land barren and desolate. Nay, but if Religion must whet their sword Joel. 2. 20. (for how little of the thing it self they have is but too manifest) if they will by violence enter into a land which is none of theirs, some of them shall possess it indeed, yet but so much of it as shall make them a grave: Others shall be captives in it to those whom they threatned to bring into captivi­ty: And for the rest, no land can be too barren or dissolate for them. I confess it is not safe to make too bold a descant upon those calamities which indifferently befall both good and bad; but when they are so remarkable and so signal, it is not good to neglect them. This I dare commend unto you. In whose hands soever you see the instruments of injustice and cru­elty, think you see that man digging a pit for himself. When his anger is high­est, when the tempest is loudest, his PAULULUM, his little while, is drawing to an end: and be sure of it; it will breath it self out whilst it seeks to destroy. Why art thou then cast down, O my soul? why art thou so disquieted within me? Disquieted, to see wicked men in arms? which be­ing interpreted, is to hasten to their destruction. It is not their power, but our ignorance of Gods wayes, which casts us down, and thus disquie­teth us: Nihil imperitiâ impatientius, Nothing is more impatient then Ig­norance: To it every breath is a tempest, every cloud an inundation, eve­ry frown a desention; ADHUC PAULULUM, yet a little while, a span of time, is a kind of eternity. Why, hope in God, wait on the Lord, yet a little while, who waiteth upon thee from thy mothers womb to thy gray hairs: Possess thy soul with patience under that hand which in this little while is working thy Salvation. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be. It is a sad theme we are faln upon, the Downfall of the wicked. We will therefore withdraw your eyes from Gods Sword to his Mercy-seat, and lead you from the power of his Wrath under the wing of his Protection, while we consider and examine the Priviledge of the Meek; The wicked shall not be: but they meek shall inherit the Earth. My last is Servation.

And when all is done, when we have wearied our selves and our imagi­nations in ploting for wealth and honour, we shall find that we are as far to seek as when we first set out; that we have labour'd for the wind, for that which is not bread; like those Spirits in Minerals which Cornelius Agrippa speaks of, which dig, and cleanse, and sever metals, but when men come, they find nothing is done. Let us therefore learn to seek the [Page 223] price of the world in our own breasts. And when Policie and Power and all our busy endeavours fail, our very silence and our Meekness shall pur­chase for us the inheritance of the earth. Nor need we take this earth for that new earth discovered by St. Peter, or with others, for the land of 1 Cor. 4. 3. Caanan, into which the meekest man on the earth was not suffered to enter. But we may take it, for ought I see, (and I have St. Augustine and St. Chry­sostome on my side) for this habitable earth, which is divided amongst so many nations by the sword and violence. And lend but your Patience, and we shall take some pains to make it good in the very letter.

What is thy Beloved more than other Beloveds? It is spoken to the Cant. 5. 9 [...] ▪ Spouse. So, what is Meekness more than other virtues? We may say, Here is Synecdoche speciei; one particular taken for the General, one Vir­tue for all the rest. Or the Effect is put for the Cause; because Meekness is one of the principal and cheifest parts of holiness. But if you will give me leave to conjecture, the holy Ghost may seem in this Promise at once to shew the condition of the Church, and to comfort her; and because, being layd hard at on every side, she stands in need of this vir­tue more than any other, to fit and fashion the reward to the virtue, to cherish and exalt it in us with the promise of something beyond our ex­pectation, even the inheritance of the earth. And indeed what fitter re­ward can there be of Meekness? What more fit and just, than that they who have been made the anvil for injuries to beat on, who have been vi­ri perpessitii, as Seneca speaks of Socrates, men of great sufferance, who have suffer'd not only their goods to be torn from them by oppression and wrong, but their reputations to be wounded with the sharp rasor of de­traction, and have withstood the shock of all, spectantibus similes, with the patience of a looker on, should be raised and comforted with a promise of that which their Meekness gave up to the spoil; and that by the pro­vidence of God, which loves to thwart the practice of the world, they should be made heirs even of those possessions which the hand of Violence hath snatched from them; It is a common proverb in the world, Cum lu­pis ululandum, That amongst a company of Wolves we must howl as loud as they; for he that amongst Wolves will make himself a Sheep shall be sure to be eaten. Vim vi repellere, To arm our selves with force against violence, and with Circumspection against deceit, To be ready to strike with one hand whilst we defend ourselves with the other, are lessons writ­ten upon every post, the neglect of which will entitle us to Folly, though in other things we be as wise as Solomon. What though we speak with the tongues of men and angels? What though we understand all mysteries and all knowledg; What though we have all faith, even to remove mountains? yet if we want this [...], this quickness and dexterity of wit, in removing those obstacles and retardances which are laid in our way to honour and wealth, we are but as sounding brass or tinckling Cymbals, not to fright our enemies, but to make them sport and melody. But St. Hierome will tell us. Aliud est judicium tribunalis Christi, aliud anguli susurrorum, that there is great difference between the Judgment of the world and the Tri­bunal-seat of Christ. What a vain fellow was David to day? sayth Mich. when he danced before the Ark. He did it as a man after my own 2 Sam. 6. 20. heart, saith God. He is a weak man, saith the world, and knows not to tread those paths which lead to honour and preferment; but, He is my Soul­dier, sayth Christ, and will take the kingdom of heaven by force. It is a very small thing to be judged of the world, or of mans judgment. O let 1 Cor. 4. 3. me even wear that fools coat which shall be changed for a robe of glory! The language of the world is, [...]. He that will be rich, must ask council of his wits, must betake himself to violence, must some­times [Page 224] lurk like a serpent, and at other times roar like a lion. For this sheepish virtue of Meekness is like the equus Sejanus, a certain horse which none could ever thrive that kept him. This Divinity goes for Orthodox in the world. But David, a man of war, of whom it was sung that he killed his ten thousands, tenders us a doctrine of another strain, shews yet a more excellent way, by so ridiculous and contemptible a virtue as Meekness to purchase the inheritance of the Earth.

And indeed if we look nearer upon Meekness, and behold the beauty of her countenance, we shall even fall in love with her, as with the most thriving virtue, as with a virtue which will place us in a more firm and setled pos­session of that which is ours, then all the Engins of deceit, then all the wea­pons of the mighty. But because most men are hard of belief when they are told that Godliness is great gain, and that we may encrease our stock by loo­sing it with Patience, and rely on their own brain and reach, as a surer staff to walk with then the Providence of God, I will make this yet plainer by reason, and lay it open and naked to the very eye.

To this end we may observe two divers and contrary dispositions in the nature of Man, by which we may divide and distinguish almost all the world: The one rough and stern and contentious; which is most remarka­ble in evil men. [...], saith Demosthenes; For wickedness is commonly bold and daring and contentious. I never yet saw the Face of brass; but the Heart was adamant. Take it in St. James ex­pression, The wisdom which descendeth not from above is earthly, sensual, and di­vilish, full of tumult and confusion. The other, that which the Philosopher calls [...]m. 3. 15. [...], a soft and sweet and flexible disposition, which is the com­mon character of a good man. [...], sayth the same Orator; For Goodness is peaceable and gentle, easy to be intreated, ready to be diminished and brought low by oppression, evil and sorrow. Now take a survey of them both. The first naturally produceth Fear; Fear as naturally begetteth Hatred; which is longer-lived than Fear. Hatred raiseth up Contention, saith Solomon; which seldom endeth but in the de­struction of those we hate; whom we cease not to hate till they cease to be; But Meekness is her own safeguard and castle of defense,

and keeps us in quieter possession of that which is ours then the Law can do. Whoever yet took up arms against the Meek? Who will pursue a fly, or a dead dog? Who will strive with him, that will not fight? I confess, we have of late seen a generation (I cannot say, of Christians; I cannot say, of Men; I know not what to call them) whose word is, Kill and Slay, not only those who are in arms against us, but those damned Neutrals: (For so they call them who will not help them kill and slay.) But this is not natural and common, but monstrous and unusual. All that Meek­ness probably can expose us to is contempt: Et quot contemptu tuti? How many have made themselves contemptible to keep themselves safe? Sure I am, Brutus was never wiser then when he put on the person of a fool. I know it is a very hard matter to perswade the world of the truth of this which I have taught. For as St. Peter tells us, there shall come mockers, who will say, Where are the promises of his comming? and do not all things continue alike since the creation? So there may be who will ask, Where is the promise of the possession of the earth made good unto the Meek? Is it not with them as it is with other men? Nay, is it not worse with them than with any men? Is any man poor, and they are not poor? [Page 225] Is any man weak, and they are not weak? Is any man persecuted, and they are not persecuted? Are not the Meek every day driven out of their pos­sessions? And are they not driven out because they are Meek? He that shall look into the state and condition of Meek men, will peradventure be fully perswaded there is just cause of these complaints: And therefore to drown and silence them, we must remove some errors which are cast as a cloud before our eyes that we cannot see the truth of this promise, the meek shall inherit the earth.

And first, we must not look for certainty in moralibus, in matters of this nature, as we do in natural Philosophy, and in the Mathematicks. This and the like propositions may be true, although that which they affirm fall not out [...], at all times and in every place. It is a Topick proposi­tion, and shews what (if we consider the nature of the terms and of the things themselves,) is likely to be, we have the very same almost, Prov. 2. 21. The just shall live in the land, and the righteous shall remain in it. And yet no doubt there have been just men, who have been driven up and down in the world and not had a hole to hide their heads in. And again, Mercy doth establish the Throne: And yet we have read of Kings who have lost their crowns, and that by being too merciful. And in another place, He that is diligent in his wayes shall stand before Kings: Yet we cannot think but that there have been many industrious men who never saw the inside of a Court. There is a fair applicability and correspondency between these, Mercy in a King, and a long Reign; Industry, and Honour; Meekness and the quiet possession of the earth; but there is not so necessary a connexion as there is between these, a Man, and a living Creature. If the world were dissolved, yet this proposition is everlastingly true, Man is a living Crea­ture. But many cross accidents may intervene to make Mercy malevolent, which of its own nature is a preservative; to keep industry in a corner, which of it self doth raise the dilligent out of the dust; and to drive the Meek out of possession, who carry about with them the strongest title to an Inheritance.

A second error there is, and it is this; We are too prone to mistake the nature and quality of God's Promises; and when we read that God will pre­serve and continue the Meek in their estates, we presently conceive that God is oblig'd by this promise to exempt us from common casualties, and to alter the course of things for our sakes. When common calamities like an inundation break in and overflow the world, we expect that God, who fits in Heaven, and looks upon the children of men, should bow the Heavens and come down, and work a miracle for us, even do by us as he did by No­ah at the Floud, build us an Ark to float in till the waters abate. Which is no less then to dictate to the Wisdome of God, and to teach him who made the world how to govern it. Beloved, God never promised to ex­empt the Meek from the common casualties of the world: but he hath pro­mised to uphold them in all, and to take care for them in such a sort as the world never useth to do. Will you take a line and measure out the circuit of the promise and St. Hierome is ashamed to do it, in his Epistle to Dar­danus; Pudet dicere latitudinem terrae promissionis: He was ashamed to draw the map, lest he should give occasion to the Heathen to blaspheme. For from joppa to Bethlehem are but six and forty miles: and yet God made his people there a mighty nation, multiplied them as the stars of Heaven, and made them a fear and terror to the nations round about them. Folow them in­to captivity and the Psalmist tells us, that he gave them favour in the eyes of their enemies, and made all those who led them away captive to pitty them. And Psal. 1 [...]6. 46. it is more to find favour from an enemy, than to have no enemy at all; more to be pittied of our enemies, than to tread them under our feet: for this [Page 226] is to gain a conquest even in our chains. Whether in captivity or liber­ty, whether in riches or poverty, the Meek person is still in manutenen­tia Divina, in the hands of a powerful God, who makes good his promise even then when it seems to be broken.

For, in the third place, many times God's promise is made good unto us when we believe it not; for as the Jews would not receive Christ himself because he came not in that pomp and state in which they lookt for their Messias; So if God come short of our desires, we are ready to except a­gainst and question the truth of his promises. We are at a stand, and begin to think that Meekness is not so thriving a virtue as the Scripture hath made it. Whereas we rather ought to consider that, be it much or little that falls unto us, it is sufficient to make good Gods promises. For that a Meek man thrives at all, is meerly from God; For consider the malice and craft of the Wicked, how his eyes are privily against the Meek, with what hu­mility and crouching he waits for the prey, and what a Lion he is when he hath caught it; how he pretendeth that God himself is his Second and a-better, and though the Devil be his leader, yet he falls on in the name of the Lord of Hosts; consider this, and you cannot but cry out, Digitus Dei est hic; That what part soever the Meek man hath in the earth, it is measured to him by the finger of God himself, who is miraculous in his preservation.

Again, in the last place, this promise is cum conditione, not absolute, but made over to us upon condition. The Inheritance of the earth is given to us as an handmaid to wait on us to a better Inheritance, even to an abiding city, whose builder and maker is God. This is the full extent of the pro­mise. And therefore if God see that earthly possessions will be as mountains in our way to the heavenly Jerusalem, we have no reason to complain if he romove them. His mercies are renewed every morning, and he remem­breth us in our low estate, because his mercy endureth for ever. But if the case so stand, that my portion shall be in this life only, then, Nolo, Domine, hanc miserecordiam, saith St. Bernard, Lord, I will have none of this kind of mer­cy. If this be the case, I had rather God should frown than smile on me, I had rather he should wound than kiss me, and break me on a wheel than lay me in a bed of roses; I had rather have no place on earth than loose my mansion in Heaven. If we ask God bread, should he give us a stone? if we ask him fish, should he give us a Serpent? This bread we ask may be a stone, this Fish a Serpent, & liberalis est Deus dum negat; God is very liberal if he deny us what we expect as a promise: for the promise is fulfilled though he deny us; Still it is true, The meek shall inherit the earth.

To look back, and sum up all, and so conclude. We have first seen the Wicked in his rise, followed him with our eye to his very Zenith, where like a Comet we saw him blaze a little while and after fall. We have taken the extent of the promise made to the Meek, and the full compass of his in­heritance. And we may now walk about, and tell the towers, and every part of it; That commonly he is full; that God is his supply when he is empty; that he supplies him by miracle; that if he do not supply him, it is for his greater gain; that God is to him both in poverty and riches, both in life and death, advantage. And all this God doth in a very little while, both pull down the mighty from their seat, and exalt the humble and meek. But what shall God, who is the Antient of dayes, only move in this little while? and shall we whose breath is in our nostrils, sit down and sleep, and hope to purchase this inheritance, in a dream? to think thus of God, is to loose both the while and the inheritance. For God doth not sow Wheat as the Devil doth Tares, dormientibus hominibus, while men sleep. The time will come, saith our Saviour of his Disciples, that the bridegroom shall be taken from them; and then shall they fast. Now this PAULULUM, this little [Page 227] while, may seem to be that time, and the Bridegroom to be taken from us. For his bodily presence, his presence by temporal blessings, of peace and Health and Plenty, we enjoy not; and therefore we fast and pray, to subdue the Flesh to the Spirit, that the Soul may be more free and active in operati­on. The while is well spent, if we do this. But if we will avoyd the bit­ter curse of Meroz, there is something else to be done in this while. We must come to help the Lord; help him, by helping his Anointed; help him, by opposing the Wicked man; help him, by promoting the endeavours of loyal Subjects; help him, by following peace, if so be we can overtake it; help him, by destroying those Sins which hinder him in his work. For as many times he cannot punish by reason of the importunity of our prayers, so also many times he cannot deliver because of the importunity of our Sins. And he may say to us, let me alone, in the one, as well as in the other. And if we let him but alone, and hinder him not by the noyse of our Sins; of Sacriledg, for why should we help them, that rob him? of Oppressi­on, for why should he help them, that grind his face? of Uncleanness, for why should he help them that make his members the members of an Harlot? of Revenge, for why should he help them that wound him? of Hypocrisy, for why should he help them that mock him? if we silence these, then will he move and work forward, and within a while perfect his work. And though the people imagine a vain thing, though Jesuites, and worse than Jesu­ites would drive us out of the land, (for the bottomless pit never sent out worse Locusts than those, that will eat up their own country) yet wait yet a little while, and keep his way, and he shall exalt us to inherit the land. Our Silence shall drown their Noyse, our Patience shall dull the edg of their Malice, our Simplicity shall be wiser than their Policy, our Weakness stron­ger than their Power, and our Meekness shall be unto us all in all, even Strength and Policy and Deliverance; and all this after a little while: And then, where there is no while, when Time shall be no more, he shall lead us into those new heavens, and into that new earth wherein dwelleth righteous­ness; where there are no war nor rumors of wars, but joy and peace and immortality and eternal life: Into which he bring us, who is that Prince of Peace, even Jesus Christ the Righteous; To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost be all honour and glorie now and for ever.

THis woman came from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, saith our Evangelist, v. 21, 22. was a Greek, a Syrophoenici­an by nation, saith St. Mark, 7. 26. and so a Gentile by birth. Which when we remember, saith St. Chrysostom, we cannot but consider the virtue of Christs coming, and the power of his most glorious dispensation, which reached from one end of the world unto the other, and took in those who had not only forgot God, but had also overturn'd the laws of Nature, and darkned that light which was kindled in their hearts; which called sinners to repentance, even gross idolaters, and admitted doggs to eat of the childrens bread. A Greek she was, and in this she bespeaks us Gentiles exire è fini­bus Tyri & Sidonis, to come out from those coasts which whilst we remain in we are indeed no better then doggs; to leave our sins, and the occasions of sin; to leave the coasts where Sin breaths, and to come to Christ, to be dispossessed of those evil spirits which vex our souls, and will destroy them.

The Story of this Cananaean concerns us, you see. But wherefore comes she out of her own coasts? You shall hear that in her loud cry, [...], saith the Text, v. 22. she speaks it in a still voice, Her daughter was grievously vexed with a devil. No wind so powerful to drive us from Tyre and Si­don to Christ, from the coasts of Sin to the land of the living, as Calamity. When we are vexed, eximus; when this wind blows, we presently be­think our selves, and depart out of those coasts.

But better stay at home then not be heard when we cry. She cryes; but Christ answers her not a word. Yet she cryes still. His Disciples come, and beseech him: and then he answers; but his answer is rather a reason of his silence then a grant. He answers that to help her was beside his errand, that he was not sent to that purpose, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Non ostiolum spei, not the least wicket of hope is set open to her, not any beam of comfort shines. Lost indeed she was, but not a lost sheep, a dogg rather; and of Canaan she, not of the house of Israel.

Here is a linguarium, one would think, a muzzel to shut up her mouth in silence for ever, a hedge of thorns to stop up her way: but Faith and the Love of her daughter drive her on even against these pricks, and pull her on her knees; [...], saith the Text; Like a Dogg she crouch­eth before him, she falls down and worships him, saying, Lord help me. And now he who seemed to be deaf to her cry, makes answer to her silence; and he who regarded not her noyse makes a reply to her reverence and adorati­on. Not a word from Christ till he sees us upon our knees. Our noyse is [Page 229] not alwayes heard, but he speaks when we worship. But yet his answer carries less fire with it to kindle any hope of comfort then did his Silence. Indeed Menander will tell us, ‘ [...],’ that silence to a wise man is an answer. But a flat denyal must needs come more unwelcome then silence; and here is not a bare denyal, but a denyal with a reason, with an [...], It is not good to take the childrens bread, and to cast it to doggs. What now can this distressed woman reply? or how will she be able to hold up her side, now she is come ad [...], to the hardest part of the Dialogue, which the Orators call Contention? What can she answer to Reason? Behold, I will not say a facelious or witty, but a wise answer. Behold an apple of gold in a picture of silver. Here is a cloud drawn over her; yet her faith sees a star in this cloud: and by a strange kind of Alchi­my she draws light out of darkness; and makes that sharp denyal the foundation of a grant. She answers by way of concession, Truth, Lord: The Jewes are Children; nay, Masters: let them have the bread. I am a Dogg, and am content with a Doggs reward; even with the crums that fall from the Table. His silence she answers with her knee, and his bitter an­swer with humility; an answer which Wisdome it self doth not only ap­prove but admire; Then Jesus answered, and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. Before, silence; now ad­miration: before, a reproof; now, a commendation: before, a dogg, now, a woman: before, not a crum; now, more bread then the children. She cryed before and Christ answered not; but now Christ answers, and not only gives her a crum, but the whole table; answers her with a FIAT TIBI, Be it unto thee even as thou wilt!

The words which I have read are the last part and conclusion of the Dia­logue; a happy conclusion. For where Misery begins well, and holds out and perseveres, Christ alwayes concludes in mercy. Truth, Lord, is an­swered with O mulier; and a prayer for a crum is rewarded with a grant of all we can desire. So then the parts are two; a Commendation of the womans faith, and a Grant of her request. And of these we will speak in their order.

The commendation is not ordinary, nor delivered by way of common expression: but here we have [...], an holy exclamation; O wo­man, great is thy faith! This is not Signum perturbati animi, sed docentis Magistri; We must not conceive this to be the sign of any motion or per­turbation in Christ, but the lesson of a good Master, who would move us to admiration, that admiration might win us to faith. Exprimit in se, ut exprimat de te; In himself he expresseth it, that he may bring it from us. In anger he is, that we may be angry with our sin: In grief he complains, that we may be grieved for our selves: and he is loud in his approbations, to awake our sloth, and to make us active in the pursuit of that which he admires. Per tropum probat, aut miratur; when he commends, or admires, he doth it by a trope. If his plain instructions will not prevail, he is con­tent to condescend, and bring us to belief by a figure.

But now what is it that Christ commends and admires? It is the greatness of the womans faith. Now Faith may be said to be great either in respect had to the Understanding, or to the Will. For the act of Faith proceeds from them both: and it may be said to increase and be great, either as the Understanding receives more light, or the Will more warmth; as the one doth more firmly assent, and the other more readily embrace. In the Un­derstanding it is raised by certainty and assurance, and in the Will by de­votion [Page 230] and confidence. This womans faith was great in both respects. She most firmly believed Christ to be the Lord, able to work a miracle on her daughter: and her Devotion and Confidence so strongly built, that neither Silence nor Denyal nor a Reproach could shake it! And because we are told, Magnitudo virtutis ostenditur in effectu, that the greatness of virtue is best seen in the effects; as we best judge of a Tree by the spreading of its branches, and of the Whole by the parts; we will therefore contem­plate this womans Faith in those several fruits it brought forth; in her Pa­tience, in her Humility, in her Perseverance; Which are those lesser stars that shine in the firmament of our souls, and borrow their light from the lustre of Faith, as from their Sun.

And first, we cannot but admire her Patience; Which is bona valetudo fi­dei, the very health of Faith, saith Tertullian, and shews it to be of a good growth. And surely if Socrates was stiled senex perpessitius for his great sufferance, this Canaanitess may well be called mulier perpessitia, a woman which endured much; in her misery, reproach; in the bitterness of her soul, a repulse, silence, and denyal, and the name of dogg. Fabius Verru­cosus was wont to call that grant which was given with some roughness and asperity, panem lapidosum, stony and gravelly bread, which will sooner break the teeth than nourish the body. What then think you is a denyal with a reproach? Not bread, but a stone. Yet we see this womans Patience was able to digest this stone, and turn it into bread. And indeed this is one part of a Christians Omnipotency; his Patience is infinite, and suffereth all things: It swalloweth down stones. Christ himself was a stone of of­fense, but yet Patience digests this stone with disgraces, with poverty, with afflictions, with martyrdome, with sword and persecution, and makes them beatitudes. Never any contumely, never any loss, never any smart so great, which could weary a true Christian Patience: Talia tantáque do­cumenta, saith Tertullian: Such precepts, such examples have we of Pati­ence, as that with Infidels they seem incredible, and call in question the truth of our profession. But with us they are the very ground and foundation of our Faith. [...], saith Gordius the Martyr in St. Ba­sil; What a loss am I at, that I can dye but once for my Saviour? No Christi­an whose Patience hath not met with a stone; if not Martyrdome, yet Po­verty; if not Poverty, yet Contumely. In labors abundantly, in stripes a­bove measure, in deaths oft. And could St. Paul do no more? Yes; he could: Sed ubi historiam perstare non potuit, votum attulit; when he could not fill up his history; he brings in a wish, even to endure the pains of hell for the salvation of Israel, his kinsmen according to the flesh; I cannot now say that this womans Patience was so great; but she received those darts of denyals, of disgrace, clypeo patientiae, upon the buckler of Patience: and a Denyal with Reproch, is, if not so terrible as Hell, yet many times as bitter as Death. I may be bold to say, A Patience it was that represented to our Saviour (though a dark, yet) a picture of his own. Hinc vel maximè, Pharisaei, Dominum agnoscere debuistis. Patientiam hujusmodi nemo homi­num perpetraret, saith Tertullian to the Pharisees. If there had been no o­ther argument to prove Christ God, yet his wonderful Patience had been sufficient. So we may truly say, Were there no other argument to prove that this womans Faith was great, yet this great measure of Patience were enough to make it good: For so great a Patience could scarce have subsisted if Christ had not been in her of a truth.

Next follows her Humility, a companion of Patience. Quis humilis, ni­si patiens? saith Tertullian: There cannot be Humility without Patience, nor Patience without Humility. But here we have even [...], as the Father speaks, an extreme humility; Humility on the ground: [...], [Page 231] she worshipt him. Not a humility which stayes at home, but which comes out of her coasts after Christ. She cryes after him; he answers not. She falls on the ground; he calls her dogg. A humility that is not silent; but helps Christ to accuse her. A Humility not at the lower end, but under the table, content with the crums which fall to the doggs. Thus doth the Soul by true Humility go out from God to meet him, and beholding his im­mense Goodness looks back unto her self, and dwells in the contemplation of her own poverty; and being conscious of her own emptiness and nihi­liety, she stands at gaze, and trembles at that unmeasurable Goodness which filleth all things. Ecce, saith St. Augustine, factus sum mihi regio egestatis. This consideration hath laid me waste; I am become to my self a wilder­ness, where I can discover nothing but unruly passions and noysome lusts, ready to take my soul and devoure it. Foelix anima quae taliter exit à Deo! Happy soul that so departs from God! It is a good flight from him which Humility makes. For thus to go away from God into the valley of our own imperfections is to meet him. We are then most near him when we place our selves at such a distance: As the best way to enjoy the Sun is not to live in his sphere. We must therefore learn by this Woman here to take heed how we grace our selves. When Perseus the Macedonian King had re­belled against the Romans, and was now overthrown by Aemilius, he wrote unto them letters of submission, but dated them with the name of Perseus the King; and therefore the Consul would not answer them. Sensit Per­seus cujus nominis esse obliviscendum, saith Livy; Perseus quickly perceived what name he was to forget, and therefore leaving out the title of King, he writes the letters again, and so received an answer. What Perseus there did by constraint, this woman here performs in true humility; forgets the name of child, nay of woman, and to gain but a crum stiles herself a dogg. A pattern for us, to learn to think our selves but Doggs, that we may be Children. For nothing can make the heavens as brass unto us, to deny their influence, but a high conceit of our own worth. If no beam of the Sun touch the in the midst of a field at noon day, thou canst not but think some thick cloud is cast between thee and the light; and if amongst that myriad of blessings which flow from the Fountain of light, none reach home to thee, it is because thou art too full already, and hast shut out God by the conceit of thy own bulk and greatness. Certainly, nothing can con­quer Majesty but Humility, which layeth her foundation low, but raiseth her building to heaven. This Canaanitess is a Dogg; Christ calls her wo­man: She deserves not a crum, he grants her the whole loaf, and seals his Grant with a FIAT TIBI: It shall be to Humility even as she will.

And now, in the third place, her Humility Ushers in her Heat and Per­severance in prayer. Pride is as glass: Vitream reddit mentem, saith Da­mianus; It makes the mind brittle and frail. Glitter she doth, and make a fair shew; but upon a touch or fall is broken asunder. Not only a Re­proach, which is ictus, a blow, but Silence, which can be but tactus, a touch, dasheth her to pieces. Reproach Pride and she swells into anger, infermento est; she is ready to return the Dogg upon Christ. But Humili­ty is murus aheneus, a wall of brass, and endureth all the batteries of op­position. Is Christ silent? she cryes still, she follows after, she falls on her knees. Calls her Dogg; she confesseth it. She will endure any thing, hear any thing, bear any thing, do any thing; and all this to gain but a crum: From Humility springs this her Fervor and Perseverance, [...], from the depth of an humble and low conceit of her self. A common er­ror it is reigning amongst us, and our Pride begets it, when we frame unto our selves a facil and easie God; a God who will be commanded of us, and led as it were in a string; a God that will welcome us whensoever we come, [Page 232] and be content with whatsoever little we bring. This is nothing else but to set up a God of our own making, an idole. For what else is Idolatry but the mistake of that God whom we chuse to serve? But if we knew our selves, if we knew the distance between heaven and earth, the difference between God and a Worm, we should find God to be a God of state and magnificence, qui solet difficilem habere januam, whose gates open not so ea­sily as we suppose; a God who expects that our addresses unto him should be accurate, and joyn'd with long attendance and expectancy. Did we rightly dread his Majesty, and weigh our own baseness, we should think then with Pythagoras, Deum non esse salutandum in transitu, that God will not be spoken to in the By and passage; we should fear that by our slight and trivial prayers we were too bold with him, and that in wrath and indig­nation he should reply as Augustus did to his friend who entertained him coena percâ & quotidianâ, with course and ordinary fare, Non putâramme tibi tam familiarem fuisse, I did not think I had made my self so familiar with my creature. Christ here no doubt knew the Womans faith before he heard it in her cry, but he is silent, but he denyes, but he calls her Dogg; and all this, to make her importunate; ut exploret affectum recurrentem, to see whether her desire would recoyl upon the repulse. He withdraws himself, that she may follow closer after. He puts her back, that she may press forward in pursuit, and invade him with violence; ut excitet affectum languentem, to fet an edge upon her affection, to inflame her love, and to raise her importunity with delay. For the prayer of Faith res est seria & gravis & improba, a serious, a daring, an imperious thing, which will take no denyal; but looks upon the very face of God, and stares upon him, if he refuse to hear. Which the ancients used to express by a strange kind of phrase: They said this was [...], an holy importunity to make God ashamed. For certainly even in this sense it is true, Est quaedam prevaricatrix modestia, est quaedam sancta impudentia; there is a kind of Modesty that betrays us, and there is a holy and sanctified Impudence, when with the Woman here we will not be answered neither with silence, nor with a denyal, nor with a reproch. Though he kill me, saith Job, and, Though he call me Dogg, saith the Woman here, yet will I pray, and double my cry; I will not leave till a FIAT be spoken, till the devil doth leave my daugh­ter. Haec est illa grata vis Deo; This is that welcome violence, with which the kingdome of heaven is taken by force; This is the way by which God delights to be wooed and won. Servat tibi Deus quod non vult citò dare, God lays up that for thee which he will not give thee at the first, ut magna magnè desideres, that what thou accountest great in the possession, thou mayest make also great in the purchase. Thou must hunger for a crum, nè fastidium veniat ad panes, that thou loath not the whole loaf. Our Saviour himself, when he negotiated our reconciliation, continued in sighs and sup­plications, praying [...], with strong crying: and now be­holding as it were himself in this Woman, and seeing though not the same yet the like fervor and perseverance in her, he approves it as a piece of his own coin, and sets his impress upon it, O MULIER, MAGNA EST FIDES TUA; O woman, great is thy faith.

And these three, Patience, Humility, Perseverance and an undaunted Constancy in prayer, measure out her Faith. For Faith is not great but by opposition: Non nisi difficultate constat, It cannot subsist, much less increase, if it find no difficulty to struggle with. If there were nothing to make me doubt, where were my Faith? What I see I believe not: but when some mountain, some difficulty, comes between my eye and the ob­ject, the virtue and crown of Faith is to look through it. The woman cryes; Christ is silent; she doubles her cryes; he denyes; she cryes still; [Page 233] he answers with a term of reproach; she is the more importunate: Quic­quid est, id porrò est; What she was before, she is still.

I might add a fourth, his Prudence, but that I scarce know how to di­stinguish it from Faith. For Faith indeed is our Christian Prudence: which doth [...], saith Philo, inoculate the soul, give her a clear and pearcing eye, by which she discerns great blessings in little ones, a talent in a mite, and a loaf in a crum; which sets up [...], a gol­den light, by which we spy out all spiritual advantages, and learn to thrive in the merchandize of Truth. We may see a beam of this light in every passage of this Woman; but it is most resplendent in her art of thrift, by which she can multiply a crum. It is but a crum she demands: For so in­deed are not only temporal blessings, Honor, and Riches, and Health, but Miracles also themselves, if compared to that Bread of life, to our spiri­tual estate. Yet she will make use of this Crum, and dispossess at once both her daughter and her self, her daughter of a devil, and herself of her for­mer impiety. A Crum shall turn this Dogg into a child of Abraham. To our eye a Star appears not much bigger then a candle; but Reason corrects our Sense, and makes it greater then the globe of the Earth: so Opportuni­ties and Occasions of good, and those many Helps to increase grace in us, are apprehended as atomes by a sensual eye; but our Christian Prudence beholds them in their just magnitude, and makes more use of a Crum that falls from the table, then Folly doth of a sumptuous feast. A little, saith the Psalmist, which the righteous hath is more then great revenues of the Psal. 37. 16. wicked. A little wealth, a little knowledge, nay a little grace, may be so husbanded and improved that the increase and harvest may be greatest where there is least seed. It is strange, but yet we may observe it, many men walk safer by star-light then others by day. There is, saith St. Hierome, sancta rusticitas: Many times it falls out that Ignorance is more holy then Knowledge: Do any of the Scribes and Pharisees believe in Christ? What saw they, in Christ? A carpenters son; a friend of publicanes, a conjurer. What gain'd they by his miracles but their own obduration, and to be worse than they were; But this simple Woman saw a Lord, a Divine power in his miracles, and knew how to satisfie her desires and fill herself even with a crum that fell from his table. Where then is the fault? Not in the light but in him that bears it. For commonly we are more bold in the day when it is clearest: we attribute all to the light, and think not of our feet; so that peradventure we should see more had we less light. Great wits are commonly ambitious, and loath to yield. What once their error hath set down, they think they are bound for ever to maintain. For a Pharisee to believe in Christ, were to pull off his phylacteries, and banish him the sect! But this Woman here, though she sate not in Moyses chair, was more skil­ful then they who did; saw that in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon which they could not in Jewry, and became there a child, a Daughter of Abra­ham, whilst they remain'd Doggs at Jerusalem; a child indeed of Abra­ham, heir to his Humility, who called himself Dust and ashes; heir to his Patience, qui tam grave praeceptum quod nec Deo perfici placebat, patienter audivit; O si Deus voluisset, implesset, saith Tertullian; who heard patient­ly that heavy command to sacrifice his son, which God liked not himself; and had fulfilled it, had God given him leave: heir to his zealous Fervor in prayer, which followed and urged God from Fifty to Ten. Lastly, heir 1 Gen. 18. to his Faith: and for this we need no more proof than our Saviours Elogi­um, then my Text, O woman, great is thy faith.

Shall we now take the pains to measure our Faith by this Canaanitish womans? We may as well measure an Inch by a Pole, or an atome by a mountain. Here was a patience that could digest stones; ours will not digest bread, no not Christs blessings. His Gospel we take down as a pill, [Page 234] and his Precepts as poyson: Do this, and live. We had rather dye then do it. Well said Tertullian, Malùm impatientia boni; Evil is nothing else but im­patience of that which is good. We are not only impatient of Afflictions, of Poverty, of Reproaches, but also impatient of Godliness, of Sobriety, of common Honesty, of the Gospel, of Christ, of Heaven it self upon those terms it is profer'd us. And all that bread which should nourish us up to everlasting life we turn into stones. Blow what wind will, we are still in finibus Tyri & Sidonis, at home in our own coasts.

But next, for Humility, who vouchsafeth once to put on her mantle? Hu­mility! it is well we can hear her name with patience: But humi serpere, to creep on the ground, is not our posture. You will say Christ doth not call us Doggs. Yes; he doth; For, though he be in heaven, yet he speaketh still, and in his Scripture calleth every sinner a Dogg, a Swine, yea, a Devil. He up­braids us to our faces, as oft as we offend. But we will not own these titles; but call our selves Priests, when we sacrifice to Baal; and Kings too, when we are the greatest slaves in the world. If Humility still live in the world, sure it is not the same Humility which breathed here in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.

Lastly, For our Perseverance and Fervor in devotion, we must not dare once to compare them with this Womans. For, Lord! how loath are we to begin our prayers, and how willing to make an end! When God is silent, we think he will not speak: when he answers, we think he is silent: But when we are told that our sins do hinder our prayers, and that Christ can­not help us because we are Doggs, then we desist, and will pray no more, because we will sin more, and rather suffer the Devil to vex our souls, then dipossess him with noyse. Yea, which is ridiculous and monstrous, Quod affectu volumus, actu nolumus; we pray for that we would not have, and de­sire help which we would not enjoy. Every day we pray for Grace, and every day we quench and stifle it: Every day we desire Christs help, and every day we refuse it: So that we may well, with a little altera­tion, use our Saviours words, The woman of Canaan shall rise up in the judg­ment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from Tyre and Si­don, and would not be denyed; we live in the Church, and are afraid that Christ should grant our requests. Her devotion was on fire, ours is congealed and bound up with a frost. We talk much of Faith; but where are its fruits? Where is our Patience, our Humility, our Perseverance in devotion? which gave the just proportion to this Womans faith, and commend the greatness of it to all posterity. For these are glorious virtues, and shew the full growth of her Faith. These answer St. James his OSTENDE MIHI, Shew me thy faith by thy works. But yet to come up close to our Text, our Saviour mentions not these, but passeth them by in silence, and commends her Faith: Not but that her patience was great, her Humility great, and her De­votion great: But because all these were seasoned with Faith, and sprung from Faith, and because Faith was it which caused the miracle, he mentions Faith alone, that Faith may have indeed the pre-eminence in all things.

First, Faith was the virtue which Christ came to plant in his Church. Non omnium est credere, quod Christianum est, saith Tertullian; This vertue belongs not to all, but is peculiar to Christians. [...], It is the first inclination to health, and the ground-work of our salvation. Let the Heathen accuse the very title and name of Faith; [...], as Theo­doret calls it; let them object that our Religion brings in meram credulita­tem, a meer and foolish credulity, and that we do [...], but play the fools, in taking up things upon trust; yet this Perswasion, this Belief, this Faith is it which draws us from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, takes us from the num­ber of Doggs, and makes us citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. When we [Page 235] could not do what we should, not fulfil the Law God taught us to believe: and it was the riches and glory of his Mercy to find out this way, and save us by so weak an instrument as Faith. Besides, Faith was the fountain from whence these rivulets were cut, from whence those virtues did flow. For had she not believed, she had not come, she had not cryed, she had not been patient, she had not humbled herself to obtain her desire, she had not per­severed; But having a firm perswasion that Christ was able to work the miracle, no silence, no denyal, no reproach, no wind could drive her a­way. A sign that our Faith now-adayes is not so strong; it falls off so soon, at the least opposition, and fails and falls to the ground with a very breath, a sign that we have paralyticas cogitationes, as one speaks, paralytical thoughts, which cannot reach a hand to our Will, nor guide and govern our desires to the end.

Lastly, Faith is that virtue which seasons all the rest, maketh them use­ful and profitable, which commends our Patience and Humility and Perse­verance, and without which our Patience were but like the Heathens, ima­ginary, and paper-Patience, begotten by some premeditation, by habit of suffering, by opinion of fatal necessity, or by a Stoical abandoning of all af­fections. Without Faith our Humility were pride, and our Prayers bab­ling. For whereas in natural men there be many excellent things, yet with­out Faith they are all nothing worth, and are to them as the Rainbow was before the Flood, the same perhaps in shew, but of no use. It is strange to see what gifts of wisdome and temperance, of moral and natural consci­ence, of justice and uprightness did remain not only in the books but in the lives of many Heathen men: but this could not further them one foot for the purchase of eternal good, because they wanted the Faith which they derived, which gives the rest [...], a loveliness and beauty, and is alone of force to attract and draw the love and favour of God unto us; These graces otherwise are but as the matter and body of a Christian man, a thing of it self dead, without life; but the soul, which seems to quicken this body, is Faith. They are indeed of the same brotherhood and kindred, and God is the common Father unto them all; but without Faith they find no entertainment at his hands. As Joseph said unto his brethren, You shall not see my face except your brother be with you; So nor shall Patience and Humi­lity and Prayer bring us to the blessed vision of God, unless they take Faith in their company. You see our Saviour passeth by them all; but at the sight of Faith he cryes out in a kind of astonishment, O woman, great is thy faith! And for this faith he grants her her request, Be it unto thee even as thou wilt: Which is my next part, and which I will touch but in a word.

FIAT TIBI is a grant; and it follows close at the heels of the Com­mendation, and even commends that too. For what are Commendations with ut a Fiat, but as that Faith in St. James which bids the naked and de­stitute, Be warmed, and filled, but gives them nothing which is needful? And such are our Commendations for the most part, no more then a sound, verba sine penu & pecunia, as he in Plautus speaks, words without profit or com­fort. A miracle it is to hear a charitable panegyrick: But Christs Com­mendations end here in a miracle. For as St. Augustine speaking of those words of the Gospel, Stulte, hâc nocte, giveth us this descant, STULTE: Tale in quenquam Dei verbum judicium est, Such a word from God as FOOL is a judgment. For when God calls us Fools, he passeth a sentence: So may we say that O mulier, with Christ is a FIAT, his Commendations a Grant. For what he approves he rewards, and what he commends be crowns: And the best approbation is her Reward, the best commendations a Crown.

The FIAT follows close upon the Acclamation. And indeed a large grant [Page 236] it is. Yet some have strived to improve and enlarge it. Origen thinks that Christ did not only heal this womans daughter, but gave her power to do it herself, and was so pleased with her that he was content to give her part of his Power, and a hand in the miracle. But a meer phansie it is, without shew of sense. But even our age hath coined the like; That Christ did not on­ly merit for us, but by his merit purchast us a patent of meriting our selves. One would think these men had slept upon Origen's pillow, and dreamt the same dream; these for the soul, as he for the body. For to what purpose is this new invention? FIAT, Let it be done, let but her daughter be cured, and the womans noyse is laid. Nor can the miracle be less welcome be­cause Christ works it himself. Or; let her do it, yet she must do it by Christs power; and so the FIAT is Christs still, and we are where we were before. And why should we affect to merit our selves? Is it not enough that Christ will bring us to heaven? Or is the Crownless welcome if our hand do not help to put it on? And if our merit be not coin'd without the impression of Christ, what then have we gained! For the payment is his still. This is no­thing else but interpretationibus ludere de scripturis, by false glosses to sport with the Truth and the Scripture: And we may say of these additions as the Orator spake of Figures in speech, Possumus sine istis vivere, We can live and be saved without them. Let Christ say, FIAT TIBI, to the Ca­naanitish woman, and it is enough; her daughter shall be made whole by that very FIAT, from that very hour. And let him say unto us, FIAT VOBIS, Be unto you as you will; and we shall be dispossest of our spiritual enemies, of our lusts and foul affections; and, as his children, we shall not only have the crumbs, but shall sit at his table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with this Canaanitish woman; and shall enjoy not only quicquid volumus, what we will, but more then we can will or desire. Which the Lord for his mer­cies sake set a FIAT to, and grant unto us all for Christ Jesus sake: To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost be all honour and glory.

IN the morning you beheld David the father rejoycing, and committing his joy to song, LAETATUS SUM, Psal. 122. 1. I rejoyced: In the words which I have read Solomon the son openeth the fountain of joy, and points out un­to you the spring from whence it flows, and that is o­bedience to Gods will, whether seen in the fruit of our Mouth; we shall be satisfied by the fruit of our mouth; or manifested in the fruit of our hands; The recom­pense of a mans hands shall be rendred unto him. We may add the fruit of our Minds, in our thoughts: for these make a character and impression in the soul, and hang there like pictures, saith Basil, and such pictures as may put on the substance of those actions which they represent, and therefore are to be esteemed [...], as compleat works already finisht in the soul. For, saith Tertullian, they are wrought in the flesh, and with the flesh, and by the flesh, adeò & sine opere & sine effectu cogitatus est carnis a­ctus; so that a thought is a work in the flesh, when it produceth no act at all. Wheresoever Goodness is, whether it bridle our Tongue, or guide our Hand, or regulate our Phansie, it carries its satisfaction, its recompense along with it. Our songs of praises echo back again upon us; the works of our hands follow us, and fill us with joy; and our thoughts, if Good­ness raise them, are comforts. What need we then run to and fro through the earth, and seek for joy and satisfaction, when it is so near us, even in our mouth, and in our Hands, and in our minds. If it may lye wrapt up in a thought, much more will it be loud in our words; and if our words may carry it along, it will flow and abound in our good works. I may say it is the reflexion of our thoughts, the echo of our words, and the resultance from our works, and musick and melody in all. The sense and sum of all that the Wise-man hath here proposed unto us in these words is this, That Goodness, whether in thought, word or deed, will satisfie us, that is, fill us with joy; and nothing will satisfie us but goodness. For the argument will hold à contrario, If that which is good satisfie us, then that which is evil cannot. If Goodness have its reward, which is satisfa­ction, then Evil hath its wages of another nature, which is death. A man shall be satisfied with good, but there can be no satisfaction in evil. The lines then by which we are to pass are but these two; first, that Goodness doth satisfie; secondly, that nothing else can satisfie us but Goodness.

And that Goodness doth satisfie we cannot doubt if we know what it is, and consider the nature of it, and the fountain from whence it springs. For [Page 238] it flows from God, as Joy and Satisfaction do from Goodness. It is a beam from that eternal Light, an emanation from God himself, I had almost sayd a portion of the Divinity; and if I did positively say it, doth not even the Scripture say as much? That by it we are made partakers of the Divine Nature, by escaping the corruption which is in the world by lust? For of his John 1. 16. 2 Pet. 1. 4. Ephes. 1. 23. fulness we receive [...]t, and Grace for Grace. For the free gift of Grace and Good­ness, the free addition of satisfaction from his fulness that filleth all in all, filleth all in every Good man, filleth the Mind with light, the Will with holy affecti­ons, and the Body with an obsequious inclinableness and obedience to the Will, and makes the whole man a Temple to himself, full of light, of peace, of glory; so filleth it that it is satisfied as with marrow and fatness with all satie­ty of joy. The Chaldee Paraphrase brings it home to my Text; satisfied with marrow and fatness, that is, with thy Law, that is, with that which is Good. And thus we may draw an argument from the nature of Goodness, which the nea­rer it carryeth us to the fountain of Goodness, the more satisfaction it brings with it, and the fuller is our Cup. Inebriabuntur ab ubertate domûs tuae, saith the Psalmist, They shall be overcome and even intoxicated with this cup. Without God we cannot be happy in heaven it self, nay without him there could be no heaven; and with him we shall enjoy what we can desire even in the lowest pit. Nihil illi satis est cui non sufficit Deus: We can never be satisfied till we rest in the greatest Good; and Goodness lays us in his very bosome, nay in his heart. We never find our selves and all things but in him.

And as we draw an argument from Piety, so may we draw another from the Love of it; and therefore amamus amorem nostrum, saith Augustine, we do not only love Goodness, but even the Love with which we embrace it, and delight in both: And this satisfaction proceeds not only from that which is good, but from our hearty affection to it. Goodness shines up­on us, and kindles our Love; and as there is a glory in goodness, so there is in our Love. For Joy and Satisfaction is a resultancy from Love, for our delight is to have and do what we love. That which we love is also the joy of our heart. If Love be as the Sun, Joy and Satisfaction are as the beams that stream from it. If Love fill the heart, it will heave and work it self out, and break forth in joy. Gaudium de amore, say the Schools; our Satisfaction is the off-spring of Love, and issueth from it, and bears its shape and likeness. For as our Love is, such is our Joy. If our Love be kindled from heaven, our Joy will be also from the hea­ven, heavenly, and resemble that of the Angels: But if it be placed on things below, on that which is transitory, on that which will not satisfie, it will be also transitory and unsatisfying. What is the satisfaction of a Worldling? a thief may break through and steal it away. What is the satisfaction of the Ambitious? a frown will chase it away. What is the satisfaction of the Wanton, burnt and consumed in his lust? The adulterer waiteth for the twilight; the twilight cometh, and to night sin is as a pur­chase, but to morrow it is rottenness to his bones, and dulness to his un­derstanding; to night it is the horn of beauty, and to morrow a fury. Goe, compass about the world, and what satisfaction can you find? Draw all its beauty and honor and riches together, and all is but ingens fabula & magnum mendacium, a long tale and a huge lye; and Satisfaction and Joy may seem to be exhaled out of these as noysome vapours are out of the earth, to be seen a while, and then to be nothing; or, which is worse, to gather into a cloud, and dissolve in tears of sorrow and bitterness. Ever as our Love and Desire is, such is our Satisfaction.

One argument we take more, à minori ad majus, to perswade us to this Truth. If the bare opinion of Piety, in those who are not yet made per­fect, satisfie, though it be but for a while, then Piety it self will satisfie [Page 239] much more. If the shadow, if a weak representation of Virtue and Piety will refresh us, what will it do when it shines upon us in perfection of beauty? If one good act, which is but the shell and outside of Goodness, in them who rather approve than love it; if one good thought, one good word, one good action lift us up, how will a habit of goodness exalt us! If, I say, the shadow hath this operation, what hath the substance, the thing it self? If the giving a Cup of cold water will raise and settle content in us, how will that Heart be filled with joy which is sacrificed to its Maker? We may, if we please, discover this in our selves. What feel we in our Heart when our Hand hath reached out a peny? Doth it not make a kind of melody there; doth it not so fill us that it is ready to break out at the lips? What hear you when you give good counsil? doth it not echo back again upon you? When you have heard two Sermons on the Lords-day, do you not tell your selves you have sanctified the Sabbath? When you have received a Prophet, though in your own name, do you not look for a Pro­phets reward? See what a paradise one leafe of the Tree of life may make (for all these may be but leaves) what a glorious structure may be raised upon a Thought. And if Error, if Opinion, may work some satisfaction, then Truth may much more. If a Dream may enlighten us, what will a Re­velation from God himself do? And if the embracing of a cloud do so much please us? How shall we be transported when we shall find our Juno, even Goodness it self, in our arms! If a form of Godliness, then much more Godliness in its full power will fill and satisfie us. Run to and fro through Jerusalem, go about the streets thereof; muster up together all that name the Lord Jesus, and you shall find that every man is full, every man al­most is satisfied, few drooping and hanging down the Head. In our Health we comfort our selves, and on our bed of Sickness we send for comforters; and as miserable comforters as they are, we are willing to hear them, and a little opiate Divinity, a few good words, the name of JESUS doth set­tle and satisfie us. There be very few Rachels, that will not be comfor­ted. We run from that which is good, and sit down in the shadow of it; we wound our Conscience, and then stain it over again; we break the whole Law, and one sigh is satisfaction; nay we break the Law, and per­swade our selves we have kept it; any perswasion is satisfaction. We break one Law, and satisfie our selves in the misinterpretation of another, and so break it when we think we have kept it. Industry is commanded, and that must countenance our love of the world. Zeal is commended, and that must raise a faction. Truth must be defended, and that must beat up a drum. It is not women only, but men, that are never to seek for an excuse, and that is satisfaction. Every man posts to destruction, yet every man would seem to be on the wing to heaven; Every man is sick, yet every man is well; Every man is empty, yet every man is full: We tread the paths that lead to destruction, and yet we are in the way to happiness? Where is the shaking and the trembling spirit? where is the broken heart? where are those prickings at the heart? or who puts up the question, What shall I do to be Acts. 2. 37. saved? Every man is satisfied; and, if it were true, we might conclude every man is good. For whatsoever the promises be, most men are bold to make this the conclusion, and though they have raised a tempest, con­clude in peace. And it is a great deal more common to infer what pleaseth us, and what may serve for satisfaction, though it be upon a gross mistake, and oftener, then upon a truth. And thus we assure our selves of happi­ness upon no better evidence then that which flesh and bloud and the love of our selves are ready to bring in, and satisfie our selves with false hope of life, when we are full of malice, envy, and uncleanness, of which we are told, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdome of heaven. Gal. 5 21. [Page 240] And what satisfaction is this? a Satisfaction without a warrant, a Satisfa­ction which we our selves only have subscribed to with hands full of bloud; a Satisfaction which is but a cheat, but a delusion, presenting us nothing but a reward, when we are condemned already; filling us with hopes of bliss, when we are in the mouth of destruction. That which is Satisfacti­on indeed hath no other basis to stand on then Piety and conformity of our works, words and thoughts to the will of God: And then it is as mount Sion, which cannot be removed: it stands firm, for it is built upon God him­self. If thou raise it upon Phansie, thou buildest in the ayr. If thou lay it upon Gods eternal Decree in thy election, that will slide from thee, and let the fall into hell: for that concerns thee not unless thou be good; but another decree contrary to that, which thy neglect of piety hath drawn thee under, belongs unto thee, because thou wouldst not know what be­longs to thy peace, and what might bring Satisfaction. Wilt thou lay it on the infinite Mercy of God, that will cover a multitude of sins, but not those sins which are thy only satisfaction; that will distill as dew, but not on the hairy scalp of him that goeth on in his sins: And though she triumph over Justice, yet here she yields, and calls it in to double vengeance upon thee, because thou wert an enemy to Mercy, which first shewed thee the way to be satisfied, and now turns from thee, and will not hear when thou callest to her to satisfie thee being out of the way. If thou wilt have Mercy crown thee, thou must be merciful to thy self: If thou wilt make thy ele­ction sure, thou must do it [...], as it is supplyed in some copies, by piety, that is by faith and good works. For Goodness is that, and that alone, which satisfies us, which fills us with joy and peace in the holy Ghost, and for which God will satisfie us with his likeness, and fill us with glory in the life to come. And so we pass to that which we proposed in the second place; and it was this,

2. It is the prerogative of Goodness and Piety to be alone in this work. Nothing can satisfie us but Piety and our transforming our selves by the Rom. 12. 2. renewing of our mind, and shaping our thoughts, words and actions to the will of God. For first Satisfaction is but a name on earth; as St. Paul speaks of Idols, we know it is nothing in the world. The earth and all that therein is cannot yield it; the round world and they that dwell therein could never find it. And as God spake to Moses, Thou heardst a voice, but sawest no shape; so Satisfaction, which flows from God alone, in this resem­bles him: The voice of it hath sounded in our ears, but as for the shape and substance of the thing it self we have seen none. But as the world, ha­ving heard of God, but not knowing him aright, sought him in stocks and stones, in birds and creeping things; so men having heard of Satisfaction, which can be found no where but in God, by a kind of Idolatry against God have sought it in the creature, in Beauty, which fades whilst we look upon it; in Riches, which have wings, and fly away; in Honour, which is but a blast, and not in me, but in him that gives it. In these it can no more be found, then the very nature of God himself. These conceits and notions of Satisfaction do universally pass amongst men. Now as that ge­neral consent and voice of all nations, That there was a God, though they erre, not knowing where to seek him, yet is a fair proof that there is a God; and as the same general consent of men, that God is to be worshipt, though they mistook the manner of it, yet proves certainly that there is some form of worship acceptable to Him: so this oecumenical conceit of satisfaction to be had, which hath thus overspread and possest the heads of all men, cannot be in vain, but is an evidence that there is some good that will satisfie, that hath a contenting quality, and in which we may set up our rest. Only vain men, who have their mind in their eyes and not in [Page 241] their hearts, as Augustine speaketh, have been willing to mistake, to tread the waters, and to walk upon the wind, to trust to that, and to make that their mount Sion which slides away from them, and gives no rest to their souls. Rest to our souls we never find till with the Dove we return to the Ark, to the Church of Christ, where our tongues are made God's glory, and our hands the instruments of righteousness wherein that Piety and Goodness dwelleth which alone can satisfie.

For secondly, such is the nature and quality of the soul, that it is not fashioned nor proportioned to the things of this world. What is a wedge of gold, what is beauty, what is a Crown to a soul? This being an immor­tal and spiritual substance can be satisfied with nothing but what is wrought in it by the Spirit of God, with Holiness and Piety; which be­ing as immortal and spiritual as the soul, is most apt to assimilate, and fill and satisfie it. Will I eat, saith God of himself, the flesh of bulls, or drink the bloud of goats? Can God take any delight therein? It is not the sacri­fice, but the heart which being offered up brings a sweet savor unto him: without this, sacrifice is an abomination. And so, what is a feast, a banquet of wine, the sound of a viol, the whole world, to a soul, which must needs check it self when in condescention to the flesh it takes part in that de­light they bring? Will ye spend these upon it? as the Babylonians did their sheep and flower upon their Idole Bell? Behold, the Soul can neither eat nor drink any thing; and is no more satisfied with these then the Angels, were with Abrahams fine meale and cakes which he bak't upon the hearth. No: the meat which must satisfie the soul is bak't and drest in the mind, and then brought forth by the tongue and hands. It is the flesh and bloud of the Son of man, which is indeed his death, his doctrine, his obedience, humility, righteousness. For we cannot abstract these, and divide Christ from his doctrine: This is the gross error of the world, and fatal to ma­ny: but we must joyn together Christ and his precepts; and these will sa­tisfie a soul.

And to this end, in the next place, God hath imprinted in the soul and in the very nature of Man [...], an infinite and insatiable desire, which cannot be satisfied with any thing that the world can present. The Heart is a little, but a vast member: Our desires are as Numbers, you cannot give a last. The Soul, which is made capable of God, can be satisfied with no­thing but with God, not with any thing that is to be seen in this shop of vanities. The Covetous is never rich enough, the Ambitious is never high enough, and the Philosopher never knows enough. The Appetite is infi­nite, and cannot be satisfied with that which is finite. Now we have an axiome in Philosophy, That God and Nature never made any thing in vain. He that made Hunger, hath made bread to stench it; and he that made Thirst, hath made drink to quench it. And he that hath imprinted this infinite and insatiable desire in man, hath made and prepared something al­so to satisfie it: Which since we see we cannot find in the world, though we should live Methuselah 's age, nay, though we should live to the end of it; we must seek for it somewhere else, even above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God; we must seek it in him who is the fulness of time that filleth all things, and in that Piety and Goodness by which we dwell in him, and he in us; and so partake of that fulness which will fill us for ever­more.

We will draw but one argument more, and that is à contrario, from Wick­edness and Impiety, the licentiousness of the Tongue, and the wantonness of the Hands. In these we can find no satisfaction, no more then in Hell it self. Sin delights and torments [...] ▪ gives us a Hail, a flattering saluta­tion, and betrays us; cryes Hosanna, and crucifies us; leads us in tri­umph, [Page 242] but in chaines; and when our heart is merry, breeds a worm to eat it out; which gives some satisfaction indeed, but such as the Serpent gave with the Apple, which brought with it shame and pain and sorrow and death. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked: and where there is Isa. 57. 20. no peace, there can be no satisfaction: but they are like a troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast out mire and dirt. No true peace, no true satisfaction can there be, but gaudium quasi, saith St. Augustine, joy and satisfaction in a manner and as if it were, Satisfaction in a picture, in a shadow, in a representation, drawn out in the colours of the rainbow, which appear and are not, as when an hungry man dreameth, and behold, he eateth, and when he awaketh, his soul is empty, as the Prophet expresseth Isa. 29. 8. it; As if I were a king, might the begger say; As if I were in health, may the sick man say; As if I were a Philosopher, may the Idiot say; As if I were in heaven, may Dives say. As if is but as the bringing in of a pi­cture for a Man, which is but as if it were so. What being hath that which is but as if it were? not a satisfaction, but a torment. For to be as if it were is not to be. The picture of Heaven is not Heaven, and the pi­cture of Satisfaction and Happiness is no more then a thin and fading re­presentation thereof, no more then a shadow, nay, not so much; for be­ing sensual, it cannot be the shadow of that which is spiritual. Well said the Father, Gaudium illorum habet QUASI; Tristitia illorum non habet QUASI; Their Joy and Satisfaction is but as if it were; their Misery true and real: their Joy is a picture, their Torment substantial and sensi­ble; their Satisfaction is a phantasme and an apparition, but their Sin and Sorrow shall be ever before them, ever against them. Nor can we ever be satisfied with good but by the words of our mouth and the works of our hands; These alone carry Satisfaction as their recompense along with them.

4. Further yet, to shew how unsatisfying a thing Sin is, you may be­hold it tormenting the wicked man, and that not only after the act, but al­so before, and in it; first, forbidding it self, then perplexing him in the act, and after gnawing his heart. For this luctation, this, Shall I, or shall I not? even a wicked man may have. And then what trouble and business is there? what waiting for the twilight? what watching opportunities? what study, what cost, what defalcations from our selves for that which will undo us? And after Conscience follows Sin with a whip whither soever the sinner goes. Most sins we commit cost us dear, our wealth, our ho­nour, our health, our reputation. And within a while all our sins are set in order before us; and then versa est Cithara in luctum, all the musick and melody Sin made, ends in starts and sighs and cast-down looks, in horror and amazement.

To conclude this; There is no way left us, but to take the wings of a Dove, Piety and Conformity to our Maker, and to fly away from Sin, that we may be at rest. And since nothing can satisfie the mind but that which settles it, and nothing can settle it but Goodness and Holiness, let us ear­nestly seek after it, as being that which, as we are made after the image of God, makes us also after his likeness; not indeed so immutable as He is, but yet constant in our obedience, as far as our Humane nature is capa­ble; not all-sufficient, as he is, yet at peace and rest within our selves, be­cause we rest in him; not omnipotent, as he is, but by his assistance and grace able to do all things which may work our peace, and satisfie us; Be­ing filled with the fulness of God; not with that fulness which God is, (for Eph. 3. 19. that is impossible) but with the fulness of that Holiness which he hath or­deined to fill and satisfie us. For when our thoughts are heavenly, he whis­pers back unto us: when our tongues utter his prayses, he speaks to our hearts, and comforts us; when our hands are busie in his service, they at [Page 243] once finish a good work, and draw out the recompense of reward; The end is, They shall be satisfied with good—. Give me leave now but to cast an eye back, and gather something for our use; and then I shall com­mend both it and you to the blessing of God.

And first, if the fruit of our Hands and Lips be that alone which can sa­tisfie us, let us then up and be doing, buckle on the armor of light, quench every fiery dart of Satan, fight against principalities and powers, and beat down every strong imagination that opposeth it self to that righteousness which will satisfie us with good, and this imagination especially, That no endeavour of ours, no pressing forward, will bring us to the mark. We need not fear to enter the lists: for there be more with us then against us. To com­plain of weakness when we are called, to work out our own satisfaction, is not Humility, or, if it be, it is but a voluntary humility, nay but a depres­sion of mind, which hath not so much as the shew of wisdome; an Humility that will not acknowledge any power willing to do that which we are un­willing to do, and in the contrary of which we place all our delight and satisfaction; an Humility that pretends darkness of understanding, because it will not see, and perversness of will, because it will not work; which laments over us, as over the dead, who indeed have no mind nor desire to live, but love darkness more then light, the broad way more then the strait, and death better then life; an Humility which is not the fruit of the Spi­rit, but the work of the flesh to hold it up against the Spirit. Be humble and obedient; that Humility came down from Heaven: But what Humili­ty is that, that is the mother and nurse of Disobedience? That Humility which is commended to us in Scripture lifts us up to Heaven; this other, which is the parasite of the flesh, disables us, and sinks us to the lowest pit. That Humility boweth us down with sorrow, this binds our Hands with sloth: That gives us life and activity in the service of God, this buries us alive; That looks upon imperfections past, this makes way for more to come; That prepares and makes plain our way to perfection, this makes us more imperfect. I know no better argument to move us then this; for it is St. Pauls; Therefore be yee stedfast, unmoveable; alwayes abounding in the 1 Cor. 15. 58. work of the Lord, singing praises to the Lord, and making him melody with your obedience; forasmuch as yee know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord: As if this consideration only were enough to strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees, to fasten our roots, to build us up in Christ, to stablish us in the faith, and to make us an everlasting foundation. Satisfaction is the end, and you have all the means to attain it, Understand­ings and Wills, Directions and Precepts, Promises and Rewards, Heaven and Eternity to draw you on and encourage you. And if this Rhetorick have no power on those who are Men and yet will be stones, behold the Angels ministring unto you, and God himself calling, knocking, waiting, intreating; who will never be wanting to us if we be not wanting to our selves, who must needs do his own will, and his will is our satisfa­ction.

And therefore, in the next place, let us level our actions and endeavours on this, and not spend and waste our selves upon that which is not bread, and will never fill us. Let us not be so strong to do evil, and so weak to do good; be lame and impotent, when we should move towards Happiness; and rush upon Destruction as the Horse doth into the battel? Let us not seek after Satisfaction in the things of this world, as the sons of the Pro­phets did after Elijah upon a Peradventure when he was taken away. For it is the greatest folly in the world thus to misplace and mispend our dili­gence. This is to plow the winds, and to cast our seed upon the rocks, which will yield no incrrease; This is to work in glass, which will break [Page 244] in our Hand, when with the same labour and art we might cut out a Dia­mond to adorn us. Beloved, when I see men sending their hopes and thoughts afar off, and then following them with all heat and violence of action; when I see them stoop to their proposed ends with as swift a wing as the Falcon to her prey, and then miss them; when I see them climbing to the top of the tree, and then falling back again with nothing but those boughs they laid hold on; when I see men hastning to their desires, and not obtaining their ends, or, if they do, not those ends which they set up, finding that which they took for bread to be a stone, and that which they called fish a serpent; gathering riches, and possest with fear; ho­nor, but trembling at the height; pleasure, but with repentance: when I see men labor and strive, and war and fight, spoyling and spoiled, con-conquering and overcome, destroying and destroyed; when I see men working to their ends sometimes by ruine, sometimes by battery, some­times by craft, and, if that will not serve, by violence, when I see Kings pulling the crowns from one anothers heads; when I see such hot con­tentions, such tragoedies raised, for that which is not, which may not be, or, if it be, will not be of that fashion which we gave it in our thoughts; methinks I see not, as Alexander spake, the battel of Frogs and Mice (although that was to as much purpose as these) but the strivings of mad distracted men, whom History (which is not alwayes the light of truth) hath shewen to the world as Hero's and generous and great-spirited men. Or if I see Caligula in his march, with his great host and army which he raised not to fight, but to gather cockles on the shore. Or I behold men labouring in the world as Cornelius Agrippa sayes Spirits do in the mine­rals; they dig and cleanse and sever metals, and when men come, they find nothing is done. And can there be a greater folly and madness then this? or shall we call these men wise, politick, magnanimous, high-spirited men? Give them what name you please, if there be several kinds of mad­ness, as we are told there are, then these will come within the verge and reach of it. I am sure the Prophet David draws them within that com­pass, and calls them fools: This their way uttereth their foolishness. Psal. 49. 13.

For again, if nothing will satisfie us but Righteousness and Piety, we need not consult what we are to chuse here where the object hath all that goodness which can make it desirable. And therefore God by his Prophet, as if men did not wonder enough, or it were not enough for men to wonder, calls to the Heavens, Be astonisht, O yee heavens, at this: Jer. 2. 12, 13. for my people have committed two Evils, they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, which will hold no water. And may it not seem a strange thing, that men should refuse their meat, which would satisfie them, and so prodigally sell themselves, all themselves, for that which is not bread? as the Prophet Isa. 55. 2. speaketh. May it not go for a wonder, that men should debauch their Understanding, which should be their counsellor for their advantage and satisfaction, and make it their purveyor for their wealth, their surveyor in the works of the flesh, and no better then a pander to their lusts; that they should bow their Will to that which it would have even when it doth embrace it, but determines its act, and demolisheth it again in the twink­ling of an eye; that they should make their Memory a Treasury of no­thing but that which should be buried in the land of oblivion; that their Affections, those incorporeal heads, as Basil calls them, should catch and grasp nothing but ayr and emptiness; and then that they should pro­stitute all the members of their Body to be instrumental to the Soul in these her excursions and wanton sallies upon vanity, to fetch in that which brings leaness unto it, the snow of Lebanon in stead of waters out of the [Page 245] river of the Lord? But after all this, when I have so long fed on husks, to deceive my self into a perswasion that I have been all this while at my Fathers house and feasted at his table, to supply my defects and emptiness out of the book of life, and to conclude my name is written amongst the elect, when my tongue is an open sepulchre, and I am to every good work reprobate; that I should feed my self with a groundless and irregular thought of Gods mercy, which though it be over all his works, yet is not over a stubborn and unrepentant sinner, which is none of his works; that I should lay me down in peace, and sleep upon this pillow, upon this hope, That a sigh at last will go for mortification, and a prayer at my death for the obedience of my life, and a confession, when I can scarce speak, for that faith which worketh by charity. Hear, O Heavens, and wonder: nay rather, why art not thou troubled, O my Soul, and astonished with­in me? For what is this but to sleep at the gates of Hell, and to pass unto torment in a dream of satisfaction? to build our selves a pillar of assu­rance to lean upon, and then to fall into pieces with it? to stuff a hollow and false faith with vain and improfitable imaginations, as the souldier did his head-piece, which he felt hard under him, with chaff, and then thought he had made his pillow easier. In a word, what is it but to feed on poyson instead of meat, to smile and flatter our selves to death, to call in flesh and bloud with these deceitful thoughts to favour us, and to breath nothing but false hopes, till our breath departeth, and these hopes and these thoughts perish with it. O then, as the Wiseman speaks, if we be wise, let us be wise to our selves; wise to edification, and not to ruine; wise with that wisdome which is from above, and not with that which is earthly, sensual, devilish, as full of deceit as the Deceiver himself, as full of falshood as the Father of lyes: but let us hearken to the Lord God, who will teach us to profit; let us be wise unto salvation. And this is our wisdome, to chuse that which will satisfie.

To draw to a conclusion; If this be the prerogative of Godliness to be alone in this work, so that nothing else can work us satisfaction, let her have prerogative also in our hearts, and exercise full power and autority and dominion over our desires, to chase away from them all heterogenious and deceitful appearances, to banish all that are enemies unto her; that so we may captivate our Wills unto her, and not bring her into subjection to our Wills; not first distaste and refuse her, and then make use of her name; first bid her depart from our coasts, and then in her name not cast out de­vils, but let them in, or be as malicious and mischievous as they. In the name of Religion and Piety, why should that be Religion to day which in the dayes before us went under the name of Impiety? Why should Religion pass away with the fashion of the world, and change as often as that? Why should we take away its prerogative, and give it to the World, to com­mand our desires, and to command Religion to attend and promote them? in our hastning to wealth, and to turn covetous? in our grinding the face of the poor, and to turn cruel? in our pursuit of honor, and so turn am­bitious? as if nothing of Piety and Religion were desirable but the name, and the things of this world were the only object that could not fill our desires and satisfie them. And so we make up a religious Mammonist, a religious Oppressor, a religious Tyrant, a religious Atheist; we joyn together God and the Devil, the name of God and a Devil incarnate. Thus it falls out when we invert the order of things. It is too frequent and com­mon a thing in the world to cry up Religion and Godliness as the Ephesians did their Diana. Demesnius his Rhetorick, From this craft we have our gain; is that which moulds and fashions Religion: It shall be no longer Religion then it brings on advantage; if it prove dangerous, it shall loose [Page 246] both its name and prerogative. Hence it cometh to pass, that, as there are many that are called Gods, and called Lords, so there are many Religions. 1 Cor. 8. 5. The Covetous hath his, the Ambitious hath his, the Wanton hath his, and the Schismatick hath his; many Religions, and none at all, none that can satisfie us. Thus whilst we seek satisfaction in every object to which our lusts and affections lead us, we find something which we call by that name; but whilst we look upon it, it slips from us, and we see it no more: it doth but smile upon us, and leaves us. If we seek it in Beauty, that is but colour, and it is changed whilst we look on it. Who saw when that eye sunk which took so many hearts? who observed when that face wrinkled, which was so gazed on? All we can say is, this Star is shott, this Heaven is shriveled as a scrowl. If we look for it in Riches, they have wings, and fly away; Satisfaction dwells not in a misers bagg. Yet we rise up Prov. 23. 5. early and lye down late, we labour and sweat, we cheat and oppress, we venture our bodies and we venture our souls, we venture, nay cast away, that which would satisfie us indeed, only to gain this satisfaction, to dye rich, and we had rather pass with that esteem then with the honor of a Saint. And so we pass away, we dye rich, and our money and this mise­rable satisfaction perisheth with us. The fool in the Gospel sung a Requi­em to his soul at the sight of his barns, and that night there were those that came and took his soul from him. Again, if we seek it in Knowledge, there indeed one would think it might be found, Knowledge being so pro­portioned to the Soul; but alass! there it is not. For what satisfaction is it to attain unto this, to know that I am ignorant? or what comfort doth that light bring which shews my defects? The more we know, the more we see we are ignorant; and the more light we have, the more we disco­ver our wants. We may think at every small distance the heavens close with the earth; but when we make our approach nearer, a larger space opens then that we have left behind us. Ad immortalium cognitionem nimis mor­tales sumus, saith Seneca; We are too mortal to fathom the Ocean of Immor­tality. Much reading is a weariness of the flesh, and Knowledge, as it Eccl. 12. 12. brings content, so it brings also vexation to the spirit. But then when the times of refreshing, the time of satisfaction, shall come; that Beauty I doted on will become a fury to whip me; the rust of my silver and gold will James 5. 8. witness against me, and eat up my flesh as it were fire; and my Knowledge, if it wait not on Piety, will procure me many stripes. What is Alexan­der now the greater for his power? what is Caesar the higher for his ho­nor? what is Aristotle the wiser for his knowledge? what delight hath Jezebel in her paint, or Ahab in his vineyard? what is a delicious ban­quet to Dives in Hell? or what satisfaction can the remembrance of these transitory delights bring? All the beauty, honor, riches, knowledge in the world will not purchase one moment of ease: All the rivers of plea­sures, which are now run out and dry, and only flow in our remembrance, will not cool a tongue. The gate is shut against all these; and we find torment, endless torment, instead of satisfaction. Let us therefore seek for satisfaction, but not there where it cannot be found; not in the world, whose very figure and fashion passeth away, but in that faith 1 Cor. 7. 31. which overcomes the world, in that faith which worketh by charity, which 1 John 5. 4. doth [...], as Chrysostome speaketh, slumber Gal. 5. 6. all vain and absurd imaginations, that we now hugg and anon are afraid of, and all vain words, that now are musick unto us, and anon return upon us as swords, which doth guide our hands, that they may be reacht out to no forbidden thing. Let us seek satisfaction in the fruit of our lipps, and the work of our hands, in Piety and true Obedience. Lo, there it is found: Where this is in truth and reality there it hold its prerogative: it shapeth [Page 247] our thoughts, formeth our words, and mingles it self with all the works of our hands. Then Peace of conscience, that heaven upon earth, and Sa­tisfaction, that pillow on which we rest in all the storms that beat upon us, shall meet and compass us about on every side; not a fading false satisfa­ction, but true, as our Obedience is true; and solid and weighty, as [...]at is sincere; a fair pledge and earnest of that fulness of light, joy, peace and glory, of that infinite satisfaction which we shall receive in the highest heavens wherein dwelleth righteousness; where He that filleth all in all shall satisfie us, that is, crown us with Happiness for evermore.

CHrist is the Captain of our salvation, as the Apostle stiles him Hebr. 2. 10. And no sooner is he baptized, no sooner is he come out of the river, but he enters the field a­gainst the enemy of mankind, & omnia salutis nostrae sacramenta veluti juratus absolvit, as Hilary speaks; He performs all the Offices of a Saviour as fully and exactly as if he had taken a military oath to glorifie Gods name, and to finish the work which he gave him to do, of our Redemption. His Care of our welfare did not omit any tittle, any Iota. He lookt not only ad ultimum, to the end, but usque ad ultimum, to all those means and to all those particular acts which led him to it, that so he might [...], bring his work to perfection, and himself be made perfect by sufferings. It was not enough for him to be born, but he will condescend to be baptized by his servant. It was not enough for him to fulfill the Law, but he suffers him­self to be tempted to break it. It was not enough to suffer for sin, but he will suffer himself to be tempted to sin. He was content not only to be sent into the world, but to be led into the wilderness; and, that the De­vil may assault him, to present himself in the shape of a weak hungry man; to follow him to the pinacle, to the mountain, to any place from whence the Devil may hope to tumble him down. He would be any thing but a Sinner, that he might save sinners.

We will not so much as doubt whether this were a real Combat, or only performed [...], in imagination, and in a vision, as some of the An­cients thought. For this were to question his Baptism also, and the De­scending of the holy Ghost like a Dove; Which was so really done that Tertullian peremptorily concludes, that when the Spirit took this shape, there was as truly a Dove there as there was the Spirit; although St. Au­gustine and Chrysostome are of the contrary opinion. The Text here is plain, he was led [...], of the Spirit, which is as much as, by the hand of the Spirit. And that of the Father is most true, Nimis disputando fidei autoritas elevatur; We derogate from that autority and power which our Faith should have over us, by raising controversies where we need not: And whilst we start up doubts and questions, and then run after to catch them, we commonly lose the Truth. It is part of a continued History of [Page 249] the Acts of our Saviour: and there is no shew of reason which may per­swade us that, when all is said to be done by Christ, one part of it should be done really, and the other but in a vision; especially here being so ma­ny reasons to evince the contrary. For neither was it any honor for the Devil to cope with our Saviour, who for Man in the nature of man fought against him, and overcame him; nor any greater dishonour to Christ to be tempted, then to be a Man. [...]; as Nazianzene spake of his being born, so may I of his being tempted; Why should we fear where no fear is? [...]; Shall we honor him the less, be­cause he hath humbled himself so far as to enter the lists with our enemy? No: His Circumcision, his Tentation, his Fasting, his Hunger, his Sweat­ing, his Dying are the glorious and honorable marks of a victorious Cap­tain. And as Souldiers use to shew their wounds and skarrs as the badges of honor, and to publish and make it known; Haec vulnera, has cicatrices pro patria; These wounds we have received, these skarrs we bear about us, for the defense of our country; so may we magnifie our Saviour in that he fought and dyed for us men and for our salvation. Timeamus nobis de reverentiâ istâ, Let us be very wary that we offend not Christ out of too much reverence.

May it therefore please you to fix your eyes, and duly consider this Du­el or single Combate between Christ and the Devil, our Captain and our Enemy. In this Text we have the Preparation to it, and therein these cir­cumstances remarkable; 1. the Persons, Jesus, a Saviour; and the Devil, a Destroyer: Jesus, an Advocate; and the Devil, an Accuser of the Bre­thren and a Calumniator: The Lyon who fights for us, and the Lyon who seeks to devour us. 2. The manner how Christ was brought into the field, He was led by the Spirit. 3. The Time when; Then: After he was bapti­zed, and had the holy Ghost descend upon him in the shape of a Dove, and had heard a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, then he was led forth. 4. The Place where he fought it out, the Wilderness. This was campus certaminis, the field where this hardi­ment was to be tryed, this battel fought. 5. His preparation to it, he fasted forty dayes and forty nights. 6. And lastly, the Opportunity which the Devil took to set upon him; He set upon him when he was a hungry. and this we find in the Preparation; The Battel or Contention is spiri­tual; and it is called Tentation. And in all battels the tryal is who shall be the strongest. The Tentation is threefold, I. to Distrust; from the consideration of want; II. to Presumption, from the providence and praedestination of God; III. to flat and gross Idolatry, from hope of the pomp and glory of this world. First, if we want, the Devil concludes God cares not for us. Secondly, if he care for us, we may do what we please. Thirdly, we may have what we please, if we will but fall down and worship him. The price of the whole world is but a bow or prostra­tion of the body. These are the three darts which are thrown at Christ by an enemy of craft and advantage: And Christ puts forth his buckler, and quencheth them: and the Devil being disarmed runs out of the field, or at least makes a retreat. The Text says, The devil left him; and behold, Angels came and ministred unto him. I have presented you with a short view of the whole. Come we now to the particulars. First, I shall speak of the Persons.

In every action that passeth in the world the circumstance of the person carries it weight, and leaves a kind of impression upon it, and maketh it more or less remarkable to our view. Rei pondus etiam persona consum­mat, saith the Orator; That which makes up the full value of an action, that which consummates and seals it up, is the Person. It was not so much [Page 250] for the Levites to bear the Ark, as for David to dance before it. It was not so remarkable for a Publicane to invite Christ to his house, as for Christ to dine with him. It was not so much that the first Adam should fall, as it was that the second should be tempted. [...], saith Nazianzene; It is more for him to be pursued then it is for us to be taken. A strange thing it may seem that he who had the De­vil fast in a chain should let him loose to assault him. Sed nihil imperiosius charitate; Nothing is so imperious, nothing hath so commanding a power, as Love. It makes us forget our selves, put off our selves, lose our selves. And it made the Word flesh; It brought down Christ from Heaven, from amongst thoose troops of Angels and Arch-angels, into the wilderness, a­mongst the wild beasts; It brought him to hunger who feedeth the young Ravens which call upon him: It offered up him to the Tempter who knew no sin. The Schools conclude that Christ was obedient not according to his Divine will, but humane; and therefore that he was tempted as Man, it was no derogation from the Majesty of his Godhead. And therefore he pre­sents himself as a Man, in the form of a servant, that he might be a mark for the Devil to shoot at: He hungers, that he might tempt him to distrust: He stands upon the pinacle, to make it appear possible that he might throw himself down: He follows him to the mountain, and beholds what the De­vil did shew him. And it is very probable that had the Devil been fully perswaded he was God, he would never have cast away his darts. Having Scripture, as you see, at his fingers ends, he knew well enough that God could not sin, and that Wisdom it self could not be deceived. For all De­ceit proceeds, sayes Clemens, as well from the Ignorance of the party decei­ved as from the Crafts of the deceiver; as an overthrow doth from the Weakness of him that falls as much as from the Strength of the conquerer. Hoc unum non nisi duo faciunt. To be tempted and to sin are two distinct things, and cannot be done but by two. When we fall, the Devil and Our selves fling us down: And therefore Nazianzene, Orat. 46. layes it down as a positive truth, that the Devil did attempt Christ [...], because covered with the veil of Flesh. And [...], because of his Humanity, which was visible. And in another place he tells us, [...], that the Devil was entrapped with Christs Humanity. Or suppose he knew him to be God, yet it might fall out with him as it doth with us when we are his captives; What we know we know not; and those conclusions which before we were able to make good by demonstration, in the heat of some passion we forget as if we never had heard them. St. Gregory, I am sure, thought so; as he declares himself, 2. Moral. Anti­quus hostis Christum in mundum venisse cognovit; Our old enemy knew well enough that Christ was come into the world, when he cryed out in the per­sons possessed, What have we to do with thee, Jesus thou Son of God? But when he saw he was passible, and did suffer those things which were com­mon to mortal men, when he saw he was a hungry, and when he saw him disgraced, he was in doubt as men are who halt between two opinions, and know not which to subscribe to. Omne quod de ejus Divinitate suspicatus est, fastu superbiae suae rei in dubium venit: By his pride and disdain he be­gan to be jealous and suspicious even of that suspicion he formerly had of his Godhead. For, as St. Paul speaks of the Jews, Had they known it they had not crucified the Lord of glory; so may we of the Devil, Had he known Christ to be God and Man, and the Saviour of the world, he would never have put into the heart of Judas to betray him, nor have moved the Jews to put him to death, by which the determinate counsel of God was brought to pass, and by which himself was trod under-foot, and his kingdom o­verthrown. But such a Captain it behoved us to have, who could be [Page 251] tempted, but could not sin; who might be set hard at, but could not be overthrown; who could discover the falacies of that subtle Sophister; who could subsist, and not turn stones into bread; who could go up to the pinacle of the Temple, and come down from it; who could see the world and the glory of it, and contemn it. The Schoolmen, where they speak of this Tentation of Christ, tell us of a double tentation, an inward, and an outward; and rank our Saviour with our first Parents in the state of in­nocency, who, as they imagine, could have no inward tentation at all, be­cause the Flesh was then in full and perfect subjection to Reason, and their Reason in due obedience to God; whose Phansie could receive no species or phantasms but upon deliberate counsel, whose Understanding had no cloud to obscure it, and whose Will waited as an handmaid on the Under­standing, and followed as that led. All this may be true, and yet might our first Parents be tempted inwardly. For Tentation, if it go no further, is no sin. We are then tempted when objects are proposed to the Eye, and then pass to the Phansie, and from thence are tendred to the Understanding. I may see an object, (suppose the forbidden fruit) and think of it, and know it, and yet not sin. It is beauty in the Eye, and so in the Phansie, and it may be so in the Understanding, and yet the Will may not incline to it, because Reason may judge it, though fair to the eye, yet dangerous to the touch. Scire malum non facit scientem malum; To know evil cannot denominate us evil. For God, who is a pure essence and Purity it self, knows Evil more exactly then we, and therefore hates it with a perfecter hatred then we can. I may know the Apple to be fair to look to and plea­sant of taste, and yet not taste it. I may know that Bread is the staff of our life, and yet rely more upon the providence of God then on bread. I may know that the nearest way down from the pinacle is to fling my self off, and yet chuse the safer, and go down by the stairs. I may see Ri­ches to be the God of this world, and yet count them as dung. For I can­not see but the tentation may be inward, and yet no sin. Nay; if it be but a tentation, it is not sin; and if it be sin, the tentation is at an end. And if the tentation had not its operation upon the will and inward man as well as upon the outward and sensitive part, let them tell me how Adam fell. Besides, there is a great disproportion between the state of the first Adam and the state of the second, between our first Parents and Christ. For although they were created upright and in a state of innocency (for indeed they could not be created otherwise by God, who is Goodness it self) yet we do not read that they were conceived by the holy Ghost. In Christ there was no sin, nor could there be. He had not only Nolle pec­care, but Non posse peccare, not only a Will not to sin, but an Impossibility of sinning; although Durand, upon I know not what grounds, phansieth the contrary. The Prince of this world comes, and hath nothing in me, saith our John 14 30. Saviour, [...], nothing in him which he might accuse, not only no sin, but no fuel for his scintillations, his sparkles, his tentations; no fuel for his sullen tentations to fall upon, and smoke up in distrust; no combustible matter for his glorious tentations to settle upon, and flame up in ambition. There was nothing in Christ which the Devil had or could make his, no Ignorance of what he should do, no Dulness of Mind, no Difficulty in resisting tentations. The second Adam was like unto the first in all things, not only in his state of innocency, but in his fall, sin only ex­cepted. But in Adam though there was no fomes peccati, no fuel, yet there was a possibility of sinning, which was ad instar fomitis, and which the Devil made use of as of fuel, in which he raised that fire that consumed him to dust and ashes, brought death and the condition of mortality both upon him and his progeny. We will not here make any curious search to find out the degrees [Page 252] of this Tentation of our Saviour, or what operation it had upon him. Scru­tari hoc temeritas est, credere pietas est, nosse vita est & vita aeterna; To dive too far into this, into the manner how the tentation wrought, would be rashness; to believe that Christ was tempted, is an act of piety; and to know it, and make use of it, is life, and life eternal. And I know that dis­courses of this nature are not welcome in this age, where not Schoolmen but dunces are most in request, where men are afraid to hear of any truth that is new to them, and disdain to know more then they know already, al­though, if they were diligent, they might learn more in their Catechisme. And indeed in this point we can walk no further then we have light from the Scripture. And there we find that Christ did suffer something when he was tempted, that he did [...], that he was touched Hebr. 2. 18. with the feeling of our infirmities, like unto us in all things, sin only excep­ted. And [...], that he learnt something, that is, obedience, Hebr. 4. 15. by the things which he suffered. This we may receive simplici & notâ fide, by a plain and common faith: And we dare not stretch further for fear we stretch beyond the line. Tempted he was; but temptations did fall upon him as waves upon a rock, which dashed them into ayr, into nothing; or as hailstones upon marble, erepitant & solvuntur; They made some noyse, but no impression; they did no sooner fall, but were dissolved. And this is enough for any to know, but those quibus nihil est satis, who will know more then they can know.

It is sufficient for us to know that our Saviour was tempted: and it will be very necessary for us to know the end why he was tempted. For as he was made Man, so also was he tempted, for our sakes. First, as he was made a sacrifice for sin, so here he made himself an ensample which we should follow when the enemy assaults us. For, as Commentators on Ari­stotle observe that his rule many times lyes hid and is wrapt up in the ex­ample which he gives, so we need scarce any other rules for behaviour when we are tempted, then those which we may find in this story of our Savi­ours combat with our enemy. And our Saviour may seem to bespeak his brethren, even all Christians, as Ablimelech doth his Souldiers, Judg. 9. 48. What you have seen me do, make haste, and do likewise. It had been enough for our Saviour to have promulged his law and given us warning and dire­ction, and never have entred the lists himself; to have said as his servant doth Eph. 6. If the Tempter come, take the shield of faith, take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit; and not have taken up the sword himself. For what needed he a sword, who needed no defense? what needed he a buckler, who was invulnerable, and who with one word, with a [...], could have made the Devil fly away and leave him? But he was [...], a great lover of mankind; and, as a good Master, he would not only teach them, but make himself a copie; not only give them rules, but totas dictare materias, make a form for them; dictate by action as well as by words, and in his own tentation shew them a plain way, as the Apostle speaks, to escape in theirs. Habes auctorem quo facias hoc; Be the tenta­tion what it will, if you look upon Christ, you may learn to overcome it. Lo, saith our Saviour, I have given you an ensample. And certainly, as John 13. 15. the Apostle counsels us, to look upon Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, Hebr. 12. 2. that is, look earnestly upon him with an intentive and inquisitive look; so must we also look upon his Tentation, and consider it not as his tryal, but as our instruction. ‘ Sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat:’ These were his postures; Thus he did. Thus he quencht the Devils fiery [Page 253] darts; Thus he answered his falacies; Thus he broke the enemies thrust by shewing it was not home, and answered Scripture with Scripture, and beat the Devil at that weapon which himself had chosen. And as the more we look upon the Sun, the more we admire it; so the more we consider our Captain, the stronger and skilfuller we shall be. A very look on Christ our Champion if it be serious, will make us wise unto salvation, and stron­ger then the strong man that comes to bind us and rob us of our goods. For though the lesson be hard to Flesh and Bloud, yet when he who is Flesh and Bloud hath as it were con'd it himself and repeated it over unto us, it will be easie and plain.

Secondly, as Christ was tempted for an ensample to us, so in his tenta­tion there is a kind of law and decree that we must fight. For jubetur ex­emplis, in the examples of great and eminent persons there is a command, and they bind in manner of a Statute-law. We may conclude here à ma­jori ad minus, If Christ be tempted, we cannot be exempt. And as the A­postle tells us, The less is blessed by the better, so here, the less is taught by Hebr. 11. 7. the greater. If this be done to the green tree, what will be done to the dry? If the Devil set upon him who knew no sin, certainly he will not be afraid to assault us who are a [...] ready to sin as to breathe. For this end did Christ come into the world; and for this end did we come into this world. For this end were we created; nay, for this end were all things created. Fecit omnia Deus ad instruendum certamen rerum duarum; God made all things, saith Lactantius, to set two armies in array; the Flesh, and the Spirit; Sense, and Reason; Man, whom he made after his own image, and the Prince of this world. And therefore he hath mixt, as it were, an appearance of Good with that which is evil, various and delectable pleasantness in the things of this world, that by those fair allurements in shew there may be a possibility of inducement into that evil which is not seen: and he hath blended an apparancy of Evil with that which is Good, that by those sor­rows and labors which are distastful to the eye, there may be a possibility in us of refusing that good which is covered with such horrour. But the present pleasure he checketh with fear of punishment, and the present hor­ror and sharpness he sweatens with hope of reward: that we may see more with our mind then with our eye; that when our Sense would joyn with E­vil because of its coulour, our Reason may fly from it because of its smart; and when the Flesh declines Goodness because it is irksome; the Spirit may embrace it because it hath the promise of a reward: that when the Devil speaketh fair, we may shut our ears, because we know his words are as swords; and when God nayls us to the cross, we may bless his name, because he means to crown us. Thus indeed our Saviour did not stand in the middle betwixt these, in a possibility of falling from one to the other, (for then he could not have been a Saviour) but yet for to shew that he was Man, and to let us know the condition of Man, he put on a person, as it were, and was tempted as if he had. For we must not think of Christ as Alexander did of Philip his father, who every day added victory to vi­ctory, that in his tentations and victorious sufferings he did all himself, and left us nothing to conquer. No; as he is the first-fruits of our resurrecti­on to glory, so he is the first-fruits of our sufferings and tentations, and in that he was tempted, did but praeludere; take up the weapons and fight, that he might put them into our hands; walk upon the waters, that we might soeculi fluctus praeeunte Domino calcare, tread the proud waves of ten­tations under our feet, since he is gone over them before. Some men there be indeed that phansie to themselves an easie passage into heaven, and a vi­ctory over the Enemy sine sudore & sanguine, without any sweat or shed­ding a drop of bloud; and think they may wanton it on the way, and [Page 254] sport themselves into happiness; and because they have heard of some few, of the thief on the cross, and some others, who have been changed in their mind, as some shall be in their bodies at the general resurrection, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, think this favour may reach to all; be­cause Christian virtues are called gifts, will stay till they are given; and when they read that our Saviour hath overcome the World and the Devil, think all is done; no passion for them to subdue, no tentation to wrestle with, no Devil that can hurt them. A gross error, which strikes at the very life and soul of Christianity. For neither did the Thief nor any other enter into paradise but through tentations, and though there were a new and unusual power which wrought upon him as it did upon others in the first ages of the Church, yet he had the same tentations to revile Christ which the other had who hung with him; and one great tentation he over­came, when he askt help of him who in all appearance could not help him­self. And certain it is that as the Devil fought against Christ, so he fights against all mankind, and some he overcomes with more ease, others with more difficulty. But it never fares worse with us then when we look so long on priviledges till we make them rules; till what was but for term of life, for some time, for some men, we draw down an entail upon all posterity. What if some men have their peny who are called into the vine­yard in the evening and cool of the day? what is this to thee, who art cal­led at noon and in the heat of the day? What if some have breathed forth their souls from their bed? what is it to thee who art called to the stake? It is true, Christian virtues are Gifts; but yet they are seldome obtained but by labour and sweat. Seldome any temperate, who set not a knife to their throat; seldome any chast, who make not a covenant with their eyes. In a word, nisi vim inferas, regnum coelorum non intrabis, unless you labor and sweat, unless you first subdue and subjugate your selves, you can ne­ver conquer the Devil. Christ indeed conquered him, but it is for those who will fight. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life. Rev. 2. 7. Now the reason of this is most plain; For though our Saviour, when he coped with Satan, could have beat him as small as the dust before the wind, have put him in fetters, and chained him up for ever; yet was this neither ex­pedient for Us, nor agreeable with the infinite Wisdom of our Saviour: Not for Us; For, si defit hostis & pugna, nulla est victoria; If there be no ene­my, if there be no striving, there can be no victory. Tolle certamen, nè virtus quidem quicquam; Take away this combate with our spiritual ene­my, and Virtue is but a bare naked name, is nothing. If there were no possibility of being evil, we could not be good. What were my Faith, if there were no doubt to assault it? What were my Hope, if there were no scruple to stagger it? What were my Charity, if there were no injuries to dull it? ‘ Laetius est quoties magno sibi constat honestum;’ Then Goodness is fairest when it shines through a cloud; and it is difficul­ty which sets the crown upon Virtues head. Our Saviour was made glori­ous by his tentations and sufferings; So must we by ours. And therefore God hath placed us in the midst of tentations, that we may in vitâ vitam acquirere, in this painful and short time, in this course of tentations, pur­chase everlasting life. Nor can it consist with the Wisdome of Christ to overcome the Devil for those who will readily yield to him, to foil him in his proud tentation for those who will not be humble, and to beat off his sullen tentation for those who will distrust and murmure; nay, for such as make this his victory commeatum delinquendi, a licence and charter for [Page 255] all generations to fling away their weapons, and not strike a stroke, but stand still, as if they were a praedestinate mark set up on purpose for the Devil to shoot at. If he should have done thus, we could not take him for our Captain: and if we do thus, he will not take us for his souldiers. Non novimus Christum, si non credimus; We do not know Christ, if we be­lieve him not to be such a one as he is. Therefore as God dealt with the Israelites, so doth Christ with us. God rooted out the inhabitants of Ca­naan, Judg. 3. and made room for his people; yet he left some of them to prove Isra­el, even as many of them as had not known the wars of Canaan, namely, the Caananites and Sidonians, &c. And this for two reasons; 1. to teach them war; 2. to prove Israel, whether they would hearken to the commandments of the Lord. Even thus hath our Saviour disposed of our great Enemy: He hath abated his strength in the way, but hath not utterly rooted him out; though he hath spoiled his principality, yet he hath left him a Devil, an e­nemy to mankind still, for a purpose of his own, to prove us whether we will be his souldiers or no, and to teach us war, which we could not learn without an enemy.

Nor needs this be grievous unto us. For as he hath caught us both by his Word and Ensample to prepare our selves to the battle, and bestir our selves like those who fight under his colours; so, in the next place, there is a kind of influence and virtue derived from his Combate, which falls as oyl upon us, to supple our joynts, and strengthen our sinews, and make each faculty of our souls active and chearful in this exercise. Multum nobis de­disset, si nihil nobis dedisset praeter exemplum; Certainly he had given us much, if he had afforded us no more then his ensample. But to this he hath added his Precept, and set before us [...], the garland: And we could ne­ver fail, Si tanta in terris moraretur fides, quanta merces ejus exspectatur in coelis, if we could draw up our faith, and make it proportionable to the re­ward. But to this, as there is gratia jubens, a commanding grace, so there is gratia juvans, a helping grace; to help us in our melancholy, that we do not despair; to help us in loathsome tentations, that we be not swallowed up. Per Christum, & in Christo, by Christ, and in the power of Christ, we shall beat down all our enemies. This Man, whose will is mutable, shall vanquish that Devil whose malice is obdurate: This poor Beggar shall beat that Prince: This worm, this dust and ashes, shall disarm that Goliah, that Leviathan. For as Christ tells us that he will be with us, so doth he also fight with us, to the end of the world, setting us on by his precepts, urging us forward by his ensample, quickning us by his spirit: And if we fail, having the stronger on our side, it is manifest that we have prefer'd Satan our ene­my before Christ the Captain of our salvation. Our life is hid with Christ Col. 3. 3. in God, and whilst we there leave it by continual meditation of his merito­rious sufferings, by working and forming Christ in our souls, no dart of Sa­tan can reach us: But when we hide it in the minerals of the earth, in the riches of this world, the Devil is there, he is there to seize on it: When we hide it in malicious and wanton thoughts, they are his baits to catch it: When we hide it in sloth and idleness, we hide it in a grave which he digged to bury it: When we think to save it, we loose it: But when we hide it in Christ, when we do Deum per Christum colere, worship God through Jesus Christ our Lord, when we rely on his power in Christ, which is the foundation of all Christian Religion; then our life, having put off the old Adam, is clothed with righteousness, and is in a manner divine; our mortal hath put on immortality; and having hid our sins and weakness in Christ, the image of God brightly shines forth in every action, and the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh; so that our life with 2 Cor. 1. 11. him, and his life in our mortal flesh, in our weekness, in our infir­mities, [Page 256] arms us against all assaults, and makes us more then conque­rors.

Now, in the last place, Christ 's help we need not doubt of if we be not wanting unto our selves. For we have not such an high Priest who will not help us. But (which is one and the chief end of his Tentation) who is merciful and faithful, and was tempted that he might succour them which are tempted. He hath not only Power (for so he may have, and not shew it) but also Will and Propension, Desire and diligent Care to hold them up that are set upon for the tryal of their faith. Indeed Mercy without Power can beget a good wish, but no more; and Power without Mercy will neither strengthen a weak knee, nor heal a broken heart: But Mercy and Power together will work a miracle; will hold us up when we are ready to fall; will give legs to the lame, and eyes to the blind, and strength to the weak; will make a fiery fornace a bath, make a rack a bed; will keep us the same men amidst the changes and armies of sorrows; will moderate our sorrows when they are great, that they be not long; and when they are of continuance, will call the evils that are as if they were not; will uphold us against the terrors of Death; and when he sound­eth his retreat, and takes us off from the field by Death, will receive us to glory. And this Compassion and Mercy, though it were co­eternal with Christ as God, yet as Man he learnt it by his sufferings, saith the Apostle, Hebr. 5. 8. For the way indeed to know anothers misery is to be first sensible of our own. For we commonly see that men who are softly and delicately brought up, have hearts of flint. If Dives be clothed in purple., and fare deliciously every day, it is no marvail to see him less merciful then his Doggs when Lazarus was at his door. But you may say, Could Christ, who was the Son of God, forget to be merciful? or was he now to learn it as a new lesson, who by his wisdome made the heavens, because his mercy endureth for ever? No: He saw Joseph in the stocks, Job on the dung-hill, and the Ma­riners in the tempest: He heard the sighs and complaints of the poor, he numbred all their tears, and had compassion on his afflicted ones, even as a father hath on his only child. But then, before he empti­ed himself, and took upon him the form of a servant; sicut miseriam ex­pertus Phil. 2. 7. non erat, ita nec misericordiam experimento novit, as he had no acquaintance with sorrow, so neither had he any experimental know­ledge of mercy and compassion. In his sufferings he had tryal of mi­sery, and learn't to be merciful. His own Hunger moved him to work that miracle of the Loaves: For it is said in the Text, He had compas­sion on the multitude. His Poverty made him an Orator for the poor, and he beggs with them: and his Compassion melted him into tears at the sight of Jerusalem. When he became a man of sorrows, he became also a man of compassion. And yet his experience of sorrow added in truth nothing to his knowledge; But it rowseth our confidence to approach with boldness near unto him who by his miserable experi­ence is brought nearer to us, and hath thus reconciled us in the body 1 Cor. 21. 12. of his flesh. For he that suffered for us hath compassion on us, and suffers and is tempted with us, even to the end of the world. He was on the cross with St. Peter, on the block with St. Paul, in the fire with the Martyrs; He in his members is still destitute, afflicted, tor­mented. Would you take a view of Christ? You may look upon him in your own souls; take him in a groan, mark him in a sigh, behold him bleeding in the gashes of a wounded spirit. Or, to make him an object more sensible, you may see him every day begging at your [Page 257] doors. Christ learnt this Compassion in our flesh, saith the Apostle; Inasmuch, as the children are partakers of flesh and bloud, he also him­self Hebr. 2. 14. likewise took part of the same; and in our Flesh he was hungry, was spit upon, was whipped, was nayled to the cross. And all these were as it were so many parts of that discipline which taught him to be merciful; to be merciful to them who are tempted by fa­mine, in that he was hungry; to be merciful to them who are temp­ted by riches, because he was poor; to be merciful to them who tremble at disgrace, because he was whipt; and to be merciful to them who will not, yet will, suffer for him; who refuse, and yet chuse; tremble, and venture; are afraid, and yet dye for him; be­cause, as Man, he found Death a bitter cup, and would have had it pass from him: Who in the dayes of his flesh offered up prayers and sup­plications, with strong crying and tears, for mortal men, for weak men, for sinners, for those whose life is a warfare. Pertinacissimè durant quae discimus experientiâ; This experimental knowledge is rooted in Christ, is sixt and cannot now be removed, no more then his natu­ral knowledge. [...], saith the Philosopher; Expe­rience is a kind of collection and multiplication of remembrances, the issue and child of memory. Usus me genuit, mater peperit Memoria. It proceedeth from the memory of many particulars. And this experi­ence Christ had. And as the Apostle tells us he learnt, so the Pro­phet tell us he was acquainted with our griefs, and carried our sorrowes about with him, even from his birth, from his cradle to his cross. By his fasting and tentation, by his agony and bloudy sweat, by his precious death and burial, He remembers us in famine and tentati­on, in our agony and bloudy sweat, and all the penance we do up­on our selves for sin. He remembers us in the hour of death and in our grave, and will remember us at the day of Judgment. As a father pitieth his children, so he pities us, Psal. 103. 13. and the rea­son is given verse 14. For he knoweth our frame; he remembreth we are but dust: He knows our frame; he remembreth we are built up of flesh, as he was: And he knoweth what impressions Sorrow can make in flesh. He remembers that Man in the best estate is but vani­ty: that when he is strongest he is ready to fall. And then if he falls as a Man, out of frailty, and not as an Angel, as Lucifer 's presum­tuously, his Compassion is ready to lift him out of the dust. And this is a part of Christ's Priestly office, which he begun on earth, and in heaven performs for us even to the end of the world. This lasts even after the Consummatum est; when all was finished. Christ Jesus is an Intercessor yesterday, to day, and for ever. Behold, saith Saint Stephen, Acts 7. 56. I see the heavens open, and the Son of Man stand­ing at the right hand of God. And every Christian by the eye of faith may see him there also, even at the right hand of God interce­ding for us: Father, behold, here I am: and for my sake behold the children which thou hast given me. It is true, they have sinned; for even I was tempted. They have fallen, but by my help are risen a­gain. They have received many spots from the world, but they have been willing to wash them off with their tears, that I might wash them with my bloud. They have profaned thy name, but they have called on thy name. Oh give ear unto their cry; hold not thy peace at their tears. Or, if thou wilt not hearken to the tears of a sinner, yet be­hold the sighs, the tears, the bloudy wounds of a man that did never sin. And now, Father, forgive them as men, forgive them as my [Page 258] brethren. To these sinners I have given the glory which thou gavest me, that they may be one, even as we are one. And the Father of Mer­cy receives us, and embraceth us in his arms; puts upon us the best robe, puts immortality upon our mortality, impeccability upon our peccancie, and all at the intercession of his Son, who being himself tempted, learnt to succour them who are tempted.

HEre we have the Field where our Saviour coped with our adversary the Devil, and the Manner how he was brought thither: He was led-up of the Spirit. Which motion excludeth both all violence in the person leading, and all rashness and inconsiderateness in the person lead. The Spirit leads gently: and the quiet and gentle leading of the Spirit is as a document to us not to follow unadvisedly, or indeed rather not to out-run the Spirit. For when we run thus in haste, we commonly run our selves out of breath. [...], saith Nazianzene; Every man is commonly very hot in the beginning; but the nearer and nearer he comes to the object, the fainter and fainter he grows; and when he meets it, he falls down for want of spirit; now a zelote, anon a Laodicean; now consumed with zeal, anon chill and cold; now a Seraphim, but by and by a stone. The reason hereof is from the Will of man, which may easily be inclined and carried to any object, though never so terrible, whilst there is nothing to move the Sense, and by the Sense [...], the irrational part of the soul; because there the Reason doth but fight with a shadow and representation of evil, but here with the evil it self full of horror and af­frightment, naked as it is: Which now hath a double force, both upon the Sense and Apprehension, and by its operation on the one multiplies its ter­ror on the other; and the more it is felt, the more it is understood; far more terrible in its approach then in our books or contemplation. And therefore it will not be safe for us to challenge and provoke a temptation, but to arm and prepare our selves against it; to stand upon our guard, and neither to offer battel, nor yet refuse it. Sapiens feret ista, non eli­get; It is the part of a wise man not to seek for evil, but to endure it. And to this end it concerneth every man to exercise [...], his spiritual wisdome, that he may discover Spiritûs ductiones, & diaboli sedu­ctiones, the Spirit's leadings, and the Devil's seducements; lest he do not only seek tentations, but create them; and make that a provocation to e­vil, which bespeaketh only his obedience or patience; lest I conceive that the Spirit sendeth me when I resist him, when I do [...], fall cross with him, and run violently against him. And this we have gained by the Spirit's Leading.

We descend now in campum certaminis, into the place of tryal, the Wil­derness: For thither Jesus was led; amongst the wild beasts, saith St. Mark; into the most forsaken and solitary desart, as some have made the discove­ry; a mountainous place between Jerusalem and Jericho, not far from Galgala, the place where he that fell amongst thieves was wounded, where Luke 10. 20. John Baptist was before he baptized. And their conjecture is probable, because that desart is neer unto Jordan: So that the journey was not long from Jordan, where Christ was baptized, to this desart, where he was tempted. We will not stand much upon the place, or curiously search whe­ther it were this or any other; but rather modestly inquire the reasons why our Saviour would withdraw himself into a solitary place, there to be tempted. And here, as we cannot be so unreasonable as to think that Christ had no reason to induce him to withdraw himself for a while, (for this were to conceive that he was led thither by chance, and not by the Spirit) so we must not coin reasons of our own, and then set his image and superscription upon them; not frame conclusions, and then make his acti­ons, which are nothing like them, the premisses out of which they are na­turally drawn. For this hath been the mother of all Error and Supersti­tion: And, as Martin Luther says, Nihil periculosius Sanctorum gestis, No­thing is more dangerous then the actions of the Saints when they are mi­staken; so may we of Christs. For whilst we dote upon our own phan­sies, and then gaze and look to find them in the action of this Saint or that, or of Christ himself, by a kind of justice it falls out that we lose our sight, and walk in the dark, and think, when we have buried our selves alive in idleness, and a fruitless solitude, that even then we are with John Baptist, or with our Saviour, in the Wilderness. The resolution of Tertullian is most safe, malo minùs sapere, quàm contra; It is better a great deal to know less, then amiss; And not to know every reason which moved our Saviour to this retiredness, then for some ends of our own peremptorily to conclude this or that was the reason, which is none at all. Divers conjectures are given by the learned: I. That he wes led into the Wilderness to find that Sheep which was lost in Paradise, in the desart of the world. II. To pro­voke the Enemy, and conquer him in his own place: for he is said to walk through dry places. III. To draw the picture, as it were, and propose to Matth. 1 [...]. 13. us the true patern of a Poenitentiary, who must learn to go out of the world by contemning it, as those did whose faith is commended Hebr. 11. Of whom the world was not worthy, who wandred in desarts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. IV. To be free from importunity and trouble, that he might fast without interruption his full forty dayes. V. For prayer; which requires the collection and retirement of the whole man. VI. To add autority to his preaching and doctrine, that by his secession he might be thought to be sent from God, as Elijah and John Baptist were. VII. Some have been so bold as to conclude, that here he laid the founda­tion of a Monastical and Eremitical life; as if, because Christ went aside for forty dayes, they were most like unto Christ who did seclude them­selves in desarts, in caves, in cells, or shut up themselves between two walls all the dayes of their life. Many other reasons have been framed, according to the several constitutions and tempers of mens minds, and a [...] every man hath been willing to find himself in Christ. We shall make choice of some few, not censuring any but the last; and draw up all within the compass of these three: 1. That he was led into the wilderness to prepare himself for his great work and office; or rather, to teach us so to do, and not to venture upon any high employment without due preparation. 2. To sequester himself for prayer; to teach us to be alone, to take our selves from the world, when we pray. 3. Lastly, by this his retirement to draw [Page 261] to us a resemblance of a Christian mans life, which is nothing else but a se­cession and a holy pilgrimage out of the world. And having past over these, we shall in the close remove the pretended reason which draws down this action of Christ to countenance and confirm that high and ungrounded estimation which many have of a solitary life, placing perfection in that alone, as if a Christian never appeared in his full beauty but when he comes forth in a Monks cowle or in the habit of a Pilgrime and Eremite. Of these in their order.

And first, our blessed Saviour, before he puts his hand to that great work which was enjoyned him by his Father, withdraws himself from the socie­ty of men, and from the sight of his parents, afflicts his body with fasting, and fills his mind with holy and divine meditations. And this he did, as for us men and our salvation, so for our instruction also, teaching us not only [...], by his precepts, but also [...], by his example, to fit and prepare our selves for our office, and not to attempt any work of his [...], with unwashed hands. Thus did Moses and Elijah, and Jere­miah, [...], separate themselves for a while to God alone, saith Nazianzene; then to receive [...], a divine initiation; and then to give precepts, to work miracles, and prophesie. Thus did Basil and Nazianzene and Augustine and other holy men of God withdraw them­selves, and laying aside all other cares, were intent on themselvs alone and on God: And in this solitude, as in a heavenly shop, as the Father speaks, they did shape and form Christ in themselves, that from thence they might come forth more able servants of their Master, and more learned teachers to the people, and might present Christ unto them as they by long study had for­med him in themselves; present him as a meek Saviour to the Angry, as a liberal Redeemer to the Covetous, as a Patient Master to the Froward; that they might present him in such a shape as that the beauty of it might transform others into the likeness of him. Thus did they go as it were with Moses into the Sanctuary, and seek for light and counsel from God, that they might after break forth into action, and shine as bright in the world. It is reported of Augustine, and he writes of it himself, that be­ing urged by Valerian the Bishop to take the common care and government of the people upon him, he earnestly withstood him, and with many in­treaties besought him that in the time of Lent he might cease from that la­bor, and prepare himself for that office legendo, orando, plangendo, by rea­ding and prayer and mourning, and thus become acquainted with those wayes and means whereby which he might labor with more happiness in his work. Many like examples might be brought. But this hath been the practice not only of holy men, but of heathen men. Thus did Tully and Antony and Crassus make way to that honor and renown which they after­ward purchased in eloquence; Thus did they pass à solitudine in scholas, à scholis in forum, from their secret retirements into the schools, and from the schools into the pleading-place. Thus did Demosthenes by his look­ing-glass in his chamber learn that gesture which might take the eye of the spectator, and by the noise of the sea learnt to bear the tumult of the audi­tory: So that Valerius Maximus says wittily of him, Alterum Demosthenem mater, alterum industria enixa est; His Mother brought forth one Demost­henes, and his Industry another. And this even Nature it self teacheth: Nihil magnum citò vult effici: Nature hath so ordered it, that nothing of any great moment can be suddenly brought forth. Every work must find us fitted and prepared for it, or else, when we set about it, we shall find it will fly out of our reach, For every great work is res difficilis & morosa, coy and hard to be woed. Hence the Philosopher gives it as a reason that there be so few wise men, Quia sapientiam pa [...]i dignam putant quam nisi [Page 262] in transitu cognoscant, Because most men have so low an opinion of Wisdom that they think her not worth the saluting but by the by. Let us look in­to our selves, and we shall find the reason why we are no better then we are, is, Because we do not reverence our selves, but think that any thing will become us, that we may retain the honor of a Man, and yet stoop down to those actions which make us worse then the beasts that perish. And this befalls us in the performance of any great work; The reason why we do not perfect it as we should is, Because we do not reverence it as we should. We think to give an Almes is but to fling a mite into the treasury; to Fast, but to abstein for a day; to Pray, but to say, Lord, hear me, or (which is worse) to multiply words without sense; to Preach, but to speak an hour; to be a Hearer, but to come to Church; to be a Bishop, but to put on a mitre; to be a King, but to wear a crown; And this is to disesteem and undervalew these duties: This is to be officiperdae in this sense also, to de­stroy our work before we begin it. For what place can our work have amongst those thoughts which stifle it? and where the birth is so sudden and immature, how can it chuse but prove an abortive? I cannot conceive but that our Saviour could have performed the work he came about with­out this preamble or preparation: but yet in honor to this great work he would first step aside, and not suddenly enter upon it, but by degrees; first retire, and fast, and pray, and then work miracles; To teach us that a Christian is not made up in haste, that no good work will beget it self be­tween our fingers, nor come towards us unless we fit and prepare our selves to meet it. And yet some there be who are willing to think that this is more then needs; that it is in the greatest profession that is as it was in the Cirque-shews amongst the Romans, Odiosa circensibus pompa, that as there, so in this, all pomp and shew and preparation is in vain; that the sooner they enter upon it, the more dextrous they shall be in the perform­ance; Divines, as Nazianzene terms them, of a day old, made up ut è luto statua, assoon as you can make a statue of clay. No desart that they will go to, no cell that they will retire to, no secession that they will make; but presently upon the work they enter, leap into the Pulpit; and there they stir and make a noyse, semper agentibus similes, like unto those who are alwaies busie; or indeed rather like unto those spirits in minerals that Cornelius Agrippa speaks of, which digg and cleanse and sever the metals, but when men come to view their work, they find nothing is done. With these men there are no [...], no prefaces, no [...], nothing to be learnt first. All with them is the Work, no study or preparations: All is working of miracles: And indeed one great miracle they work; Docent antequam discunt, They teach that which they never learnt; and their skill and art is so teach men that they shall be more ignorant then before. Our Saviour here is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to prepare him for his work; but these will not prepare themselves because they pretend they are led by the Spirit. Nor is this evil of yesterday, or which befalls the weakest only: but the Devil hath used it in all ages as an engine to under­mine this good work; What men are not able to manage for want of due consideration, to bring in the Spirit as a supply. Tertullian was as wise a man as the Church had any, but being not able to prove the corporeity of the Soul, he flyeth to Revelation in his book De Anima; Non per [...]stimati­onem, sed revelationem; We cannot make this good by judgment, but by revelation: Post Joannem quoque prophetiam meruimus consequi; We have our Revelations as well as St. John. Our sister Priscilla hath plenty of them; she hath her traunces in the Church, and converseth with Angels, and with God himself, and can discern the hearts and inward thoughts of man. St. Hierom speaking of a Monk in his time, thus describes him; [...], [Page 263] There is start up a man who hath exactly learnt all know­ledge without a teacher, full of the spirit, his own master; who like a Carnea­des can dispute both for and against the truth; who needs no preparation, but can do what he will, and when he will. But this is not the Spirits manner of Leading: for he leads us by degrees and by a certain method. For even so he led our Saviour, first into the wilderness, and then to his work. And though his leading of the Apostles were extraordinary, yet even them he commands to stay at Jerusalem, and to expect his coming. And although their determinations were subscribed to with a VISUM EST SPI­RITUI SANCTO, It seemeth Good to the holy Ghost, yet they con­ferred one with another, met together in councel, and did deliberate be­fore they did determine. Nor did they once imagine that they had the Spirit in a string, or could command him when they pleased, or call him down to help them in their work sedendo & votis, by sitting still and do­ing nothing; that he would fly down unto them, and sit upon them, though they slept. Much less can we imagine that he will wait upon our spirit and humor, and when we have cripled and disenabled our selves for any service of his, in a moment anoint and supple our joynts, and make us a­ctive for the highest calling; when we have put our selves into prison, e­ven thrown our selves into the dark and loathsome dungeon of Ignorance, that he will come to us as the Angel did to Peter, Acts 12. and smite us on the side, and raise us up, and bid us arise up quickly, and go on an ambas­sage which we do not know; go set our hands to his plough, which are a great deal fitter for another. Certainly to be a Disciple of Christ is a greater work then to cast our garment about us, to take up the habit of a Mi­nister. No: we must be led into some secret and solitary place, there to fast and pray, to fit and prepare our selves for the work which we have to do, there to taste how sweet the word of God is, to ruminate and chaw upon it as it were and digest it, to fasten it to our very soul and make it a part of us, and by daily meditation so to profit that all the my­steries of Faith and precepts of Holiness may be as vessels are in a well­ordered family, ready at hand to be used upon any occasion. Now this we may imagine to be the work of the Spirit alone: and so it is; but of the Spirit leading us into the desart, placing us on the mount of Contem­plation, there by long study and industry to learn confusa disterminare, hiantia cogere, sparsu colligere; to separare those things which are confused and mixt together; to separate Fear from Despair, and Confidence from Presumption; to draw and unite those things together which are severed, as Faith and good Works, Knowledge and Practice; and to joyn together those Texts which bid us rejoyce with them which bid us mourn, those which command our Zeal with those which exact our Meekness. Et diligentia & pietas adhibenda est, saith St. Augustine; alterâ fiat ut quaerentes invenia­mus, alterâ ut scire mereamur: We must make use both of our Diligence and Piety; by the one we find when we seek, by the other we are filled both to seek and find. Unless we follow the Spirit in this his Leading, we have no reason to expect he should lead us further. Aliud est esse va­tem, aliud esse interpretem, saith St. Hierome; It is one thing to be a pro­phet, another to be an interpreter of Scripture. There the Spirit foretels things to come; here by our industry and skill in language we give that sense which the words will best bear: Those interpretations now-adayes which are entitled to the Spirit are so dark and obscure, ut interpretes in­terprete indigeant, that we must take the pains to interpret the interpreters, and find greater difficulty in their explanations then in the Text it self. It will be good therefore first to prepare our selves in private before we lift up our voice like a trumpet; and, if we will be [...], workers together, [Page 264] with the Spirit, to work as he directs us. It is a rule in Quintillian, Ut praeceptorum est docere, ità discipulorum est praebere se dociles: As it is the of­fice of the Master to teach, so is it of the Scholar to be attentive and apt to learn. And it holds true in Divinity also; As the Spirit is our teach­er, so are we bound to observe those rules which he hath drawn out for all those who will be his followers. Res enim aliter coalescere nequit sine dis­centis docentísque concordia; For this business will not close and be brought together without an agreement on both sides. If the Spirit will first lead me into the wilderness, and I will presently to the streets of Jerusalem, it is not likely my message should be from the Spirit, whom I have left be­hind me in the desart. And therefore to prepare our selves to this work, we must observe those rules which a learned Physician gives for the finding out of the truth; There must be 1. Amor operis, a Love of the work; 2. [...], a love of industry, and earnest study in our preparation; 3. [...], a methodical proceeding and progress; 4. [...], practice, and exercitation, and a conformity of our operations to the work. And this gold, though it be brought from Ophir, yet may be useful for those who are the living temples of the holy Ghost. My Love kindles a fire in me, and makes me active; my Industry is ruled by method, that it be not fruitless; and all is con­firmed by Practice: and then the Spirit [...], sets his seal and impression and character, and makes it a good work.

And first, if we ask the question, What moved Christ to make this pre­paration? we cannot better answer then by saying it was his Love unto the work; That he, having loved us first, might provoke us to love him a­gain, and prepare our selves to our work. And to this end Love is a pas­sion imprinted in us, saith Gregory Nyssene, [...], to this good end, to be leveled and fixed on the work of our Salvation; Where when it is once fastned, it is restless and unquiet. It will into the wilderness, though it meet with the Devil himself. It passeth all difficulties whatsoever; & nihil erubescit nisi nomen difficultatis, and is not ashamed of any thing, but that any thing should be too hard and heavy for it. Heat and Light are the two ornaments of the Sun, joyned and united together; & quò calidior radius, est lucidior; the hotter the beams are the more light there is. So the Love of a good work and the good Work which we love are as neerly united together as Heat and Light; and the more Heat in my Love, the more Light in my Work; and the more my Light shines forth, the more my Love encreaseth. They both are one to another, both mother and daugh­ter, both begotten and begetting.

For again, the love of knowledge, which fits and prepares us to the work of the Gospel, brings in [...], a love of labor and industry; Which will not do things by halves, nor bring us to the chair till we have sate at the feet of Gameliel. Thus it is in all the passages of our life. We pro­pose nothing to our selves of any great moment, which we can presently conquer. [...], saith Basil; Even the things of the Devil are not attained without labor and sweat. How laborious is thy Revenge? how busie thy Cruelty? how watchful and studious thy Lust? What penance doth thy Covetousness put thee to? Vitia magno coluntur, saith Seneca; Even our vices cost us dear, and stand us at a high rate. And can we expect such an easie and quick dispatch of those things which bring a­long with them an eternal weight of glory? Can a negligent and careless glance upon the Bible, can our aery and empty speculations, can our con­fidence and ignorance streight make us Evangelists? Or is it probable that Truth should come up è profundo putei, from the bottom of the well, and offer it self to them who stand idle at the mouth and top of it, and will let down no bucket to draw it up? This indeed is now-adayes conceived [Page 265] to be the Spirits manner of Leading, not about by the Wilderness, by a se­questred life, but streight to Jerusalem, to the holy City; where there is little enquiry màde whether they have been at Jacobs well, and let down their bucket; where by many God is served in spirit, but not in truth: And so they be born again of the Spirit, no matter for this water. Who glory in their ignorance, & amant ignorare, cùm alii gaudeant cognovisse, as Ter­tullian speaks; Whereas others can receive no satisfaction or content but in knowledge, their great joy it is to be ignorant. Some truth there is in what they say, that the Spirit is an omnipotent agent, but ill applyed by them, That since he can do all things, he will also teach those who will be ignorant, and who do him this great honor to call him Master, when there are no greater non-proficients in the world, ever learning of this good Ma­ster, and yet never coming to the knowledge of the truth. It is true, the Spi­rit is a powerful agent; but it is as true that he is a free agent, and will not teach them who will not learn; will not bring us to Jerusalem unless we will first follow him into the desart; qui pulcherrimo cuique operi proposuit difficultatem, who on purpose hath placed some rubs and difficulties be­tween us and Knowledge, that we may with labor and anxiety work out a way unto it. He hath cast some darkness upon Scripture, that our Indu­stry may strive to dispel it: and in some places, as Heraclitus speaks of the Oracle of Delphos, [...], he doth neither plainly manifest, nor yet hide the truth, but leaves some glimpse and intimation, that we may search and find it out. It was the saying of Scaevo [...]a the Lawyer, Jus vigilantibus scriptum, That the Civil Law was written to men awake, who could look about them, [...], as Cujacius adds out out of the Basilicae, not to men asleep. And can we then think that that Knowledge which is saving, which must make us happy, is of so easie pur­chase that it will be sown in every ground, or, as the Devils Tares, will grow up whilst we sleep? There is indeed that relation, that sympathy, be­twixt the Soul of man and the Truth that there is between the Seed and the Ground: but if it be not tilled and manured, if not cultivated and pre­pared, it will yield never an ear of corn, but bring forth bryars and thorns.

But we leave this, and pass to the third, which is, Method and orderly proceeding in the wayes of our calling. As in all Sciences, so in the busi­nesses of Christianity, we must not think to huddle up matters hand over head, as we please. Nemo vellus portat ad fullonem; no man carries his fleece to the Fuller first, before it be spun out and woven: Si te titillat clericatûs desiderium, saith St. Hierome; If thou hast a kind of spiritual itch, and be tickled with a desire of being a Preacher, if thou thinkest the nearest way to heaven is to go up into the Pulpit, yet at least discas quod possis docere, learn that first which thou mayest after teach, and think there is a pair of stairs unto Knowledge as well as into the Pulpit, and that thi­ther thou must ascend by steps and by degrees. Learn it by thy Sermon; if any thing may be learnt out of it; that as thou dividest thy Text, and thou handlest each part in its order, so thou must divide the parts of thy life, and spend them upon those particulars which will promote thy know­ledge. Sunt gradus multi per quos ad domum Veritatis ascenditur, saith Lactantius; There be certain steps and degrees by which we ascend into the house of Truth, and we must pass step by step unto it. For she will admit of no guests who will leap over the wall, but of those onely who come orderly and mannerly in. She looks down as it were upon us, and observes how we come towards her. If we are upon the wing, or leap up two or three steps at once, she shuts her door and turns her back upon us. To see him a Master of a Ship in the Adriatick Sea, who could [Page 266] never rule a cock-boat in a fish-pond, him a Captain who was never yet a Souldier, and him a teacher who is to learn, is a strange kind of [...], an immethodical disorderly proceeding, which is used in the world: and what can the issue be but a Shipwrack, a Defeat, gross Ignorance and Confusi­on?

The last is [...], exercise and practice of truths in that order in which we learnt there. This is of singular use to drive them home, as a nayl is by the masters of the assemblies, to make them enter the soul and the spirit, the joynts and the marrow; to do something by way of preparation which may bear some affinity and correspondence with the [...], the chief work, we have to do. Our preparations must not be like to those prefaces and pro­ems which the old Orators used to frame and lay by them to serve for any tract or oration: but it must be such as will fit and joyn it self to the work, and be one entire piece. You see our Saviour here makes use of Solitude and Fasting and Prayer: and what more agreeable then these to the work which he had to do, which was indeed to go about doing good, and then to suffer death for the sin of the world, which was now no paradise but a wilderness? It is a sign of a happy progress when our preparation is a kind of type and presage of our work; when our rising is fair; when the beholder may say, He is much given to meditation; it is like he will be a Divine; He is gone into the wilderness, he hath retired himself; sure he hath some great work in hand. But the event is most unprosperous when Idleness and Ignorance are made the key of the Scripture, when Darkness must usher in the Light, and Belial be a fore-runner to God. No work ends well which begins not well, which is taken in hand without due prepara­tion. When we have taken any great work upon us, it will be good for us to follow our Saviours method, first retire from the world, and go out into the wilderness; first fast and pray, and then work miracles. And so much be spoken of the first reason of our Saviours Secession, his Prepara­tion to his work.

The second is, That he might be fitter for Prayer. In monte orationi ad­haeret; miracula in urbibus exercet; For Prayer he chuseth the mountain, for his Works the city. He prayed all night, saith the Father, and wrought his miracles in the day. Our Saviour often retired, as we find in Scripture, and for this end. And when he gives us directions for Prayer, one is, En­ter into thy chamber, into thy closet; Shut thy door; Hide thy self for a little Isa. 26. 20. time. Which are works pointing out to those things which must be done without noise. Every good work requires the whole man, a soul divided and taken from the world; but especially Prayer, which is ascensus men­tis in Deum, a kind of an ascent of the mind unto God. SURSUM CORDA, Lift up your hearts; They are [...], mystical words: But how can we lift up a heart of flesh. It is much it should as­cend, having such a weight upon it as the Body, having an Eve which can­not alwaies be closed, an Ear which cannot ever be shut; but when the weight of Sin hangs upon it, when it is clog'd with impertinent thoughts, how should it ascend? Nunc creberrimè in oratione mea aut per porticus de­ambulo, aut de faenore computo, saith St. Hierome; Now many times it falls out in my prayer that I do nothing less then pray: I cry for Mercy, but the thought of Judgment is loud; I pray for chastity, when lustful thoughts sport in my heart. I walk, I talk, I fight, I dispute, I tell money in my prayer; and indeed I do but say my prayers. Therefore intention of mind is most necessary to Prayer; which is torn and distracted if it be not fastned on God alone. [...], is thought to be an A­postolical Constitution; Be thou not double-minded in thy prayer. Let not one thought stifle another, the thought of the world quench the desire of a [Page 267] blessing. Let not thy wandring imaginations contradict thy Prayers. Let not thy Devotion be stained with bloud, or polluted with lust, or spotted with the world. Quomodo te à Deo audiri postulas, saith Cyprian, cùm te­ipsum non audis? How canst thou hope to be heard of God, when thou dost not hear thy self; how canst thou expect that he should understand thee, when thou canst not tell thy self what thou meanst? when thou art to thy self a barbarian? How can thy soul parley with thy God in such a Fayre and concourse of evil thoughts? How canst thou ask a blessing from the Father which is now in heaven, when thou hast so many companions a­bout thee from the earth earthly? Thou askest for bread, but thou desirest a stone: Thou askest for grace, but thy mind is on riches: Thou askest fish, but thy hand is reached out to that Serpent which will sting thee to death. It might be said unto thee as St. Hierome once said to his Friend when he found him in ill company, What make you in such a troop? What dost thou on thy knees, when so many loose thoughts round thee about? What should a beadsman do in such a throng? But this, miserable men that we are! many times befalls us, because we do not retire, and call our thoughts out of the world. It is true that Devotion may mingle it self with the common actions of our life. Arator ad stivam HALLELUIAH cantat, The plowman may sing an Halleluiah at the plow-tail. He may collect some sacred colloquie. SERERE NE METUAS; If I miss this season, I shall have no harvest: If I remember not God in my youth, he will forsake me in my age. And God hears from heaven that prayer of his which he makes with his bow or hammer in his hand. But yet many times in the affairs of our life there is a kind of dust gathered, which soyls and darkens the brightness of our Devotion; Which when we have brushed off by seque­string our thoughts from the world, it will be more cleer. Sometimes we must, as St. Hierome speaks, Intrinsecùs esse cum Deo, be within in our hearts with God alone, so busie in our colloquie with him, so amazed at his Majesty, so trembling at his Justice, so ravisht at his Mercy, so swallow­ed up in the contemplation of him, that we even forget our selves, that we lose our selves, that we annihilate our selves; that we have eyes, and see not; ears, and hear not: that when a covetous thought would steal in at the windows of our eyes, we may be blind; and if musick be loud, we may not hear it. Some have so wrought upon themselves that they have forgot to eat, to taste, to speak. The Legend tells us of St. Agnes, as I remember, that in her devotion she was lifted three foot above the ground. And he that wrote the life of St. Bernard reports it of him, that he was so given to prayer and meditation, that living a whole year in his cell or chamber in a Monastery, when he came forth, he knew not whether it were cieled or no; and when there were several windows in it obvious to the eye, he thought there had been but one. In these, whether fables or truths, this truth is pointed to, That when we tender our prayers to God, we should abstract our selves from our selves and from the things of the world; That we should not come to him till we have cast our cares & our thoughts behind us. The Beads-mans Motto is, NON ALIUD NUNC CURO QUAM NE CUREM; I have but one care in this world, and that is, that I may never have more. When I call upon God, God doth as it were put forth his hand and beckon to me to escape from the world, not to be multiplex & varium animal, not to divide and distract my self, and part my self out to variety of objects; but be one in my self, that I may be one with him. The Psalmist prays unto God, Psal. 86. 11. Unite my heart to fear thy name. The Vulgar rendereth it, LAETETUR COR MEUM, Let my heart rejoyce. Hierome out of the Hebrew, UNICUM FAC COR MEUM, Make my heart one and alone. And so Symmachus, [...], which [Page 268] is the same. Aquila; SIT COR MEUM [...], Let my heart be alone; Let it be more retired and secluded from the world then any Monk, that it may be free from the thought of things below, that it may behold nothing but thee, that it may be all thine; that in respect of the world it may be like unto those who have been dead long ago. Thus when the Mind is ta­ken from the Sensual part, it begins to reflect upon it self, and then be­holds its own wants, its want of piety, its want of sincerity; then it be­holds ictus & laniatus, those gashes and wounds which Sin hath made in it; then it sees clearly to behold that receptacle, which should have been a temple of the holy Ghost, turned into a stews, a place for Ohini and Ziim to dance in, for the Devil to sport in. And after this sad survey of it self, it is restless and unquiet; it strives to empty it self of sin, to vent it self out in sighs and groans unspeakable, to send it self gushing out of the eyes in rivers of tears, and to breath it self forth at the mouth by an humble confession. And now, whether in the body or out of the body we cannot well tell, but it makes haste to be at rest, it presseth forward to­wards the Mercy-seat, and is as restless in her importunity as she was in her sin; never gives over till those wounds and gashes be cured by the bloud of her Saviour, till his sighs and groans speak for ours; never rests till the hand of Mercy wipe all tears from our eyes, and treasure them up in a bottle. This is the work of a devout soul. And he that will be such a Beads-man, must make his Senses follow his Mind, and not his Mind his Senses; which may be brought, saith Pliny, to have no other object then that which the Mind hath; when they are taken from their own. And thus I learn to be blind, though I have light; to be deaf, though I have my hearing; with our Saviour to go out of the world into the wilderness, or by my Christian art make the world it self a desart.

And here to shut up what hath been said with a short application to our selves; We of this Nation, in the first place, have great reason to be jea­lous over our selves with a godly jealousie, and just cause to fear that we have not come so prepared to duty as we ought. For what hath been the fruit and effect of these our many Fasts, of these our many Prayers? Certainly, the cloud which hung over our heads is more thick and dark then before. And, as the Prophet speaks, The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind, Isa. 9. 12. and they both devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not tur­ned away, but his hand is stretched out still. What shall we say? Hath God forgotten to be merciful? or is that inexhausted fountain of Goodness drawn dry? Or can the God of peace delight in those civil or uncivil broyls? Can he that shed his bloud for us delight to see ours spilt as water on the ground? No: We must seek for the reason at home in our own breasts; and St. James hath shewn us how we should find it, chap. 4. 2, 3. Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask a­miss. We pray for Peace, and lift up hands full of bloud and oppression. We pray to God to settle the pillars of the Kingdome, when our study is to shake them; to be favourable to Sion, when we fight against it. And there­fore saith God, When you spread your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you, and when you make many prayers, I will not hear: for your hearts are full Isa. 1. 15. of bloud. Will we have our prayers effectual? We must take the Prophets counsel in the next verse, Wash you, make you clean from oppression, cru­elty and deceit. This is the best preparation to Prayer. If we will hearken unto God, he will incline his ear to us; and if we love Peace, and pursue it, the God of peace will give it. Thus if we we call upon him, he will hear; and thus if we cry unto him, he will answer, here I am. Here I am, as ready to crown you with blessings as you are to ask them, as ready [Page 269] to send peace within your walls as you are to desire it, ready to crown you with external peace here, and with eternal hereafter.

Again, when we pray we must follow our Saviours example, and with­draw our selves and retire. When he had sent the multitude away, he went Matth. 14. 23. up into a mountain apart to pray. And he went forward a little, and fell Mark 14. 35. on the ground, and prayed. In Gethsemane he withdrew himself from his Disciples, that he might more freely pour forth his soul unto God. Reti­redness is most fit for passionate and affectionate prayers. Then our pas­sions may best vent themselves: Then our Indignation, our Fear, our vehe­ment Desire, our Zeal, our Revenge, may work freely upon the whole man; 2 Cor. 7. 11. may force tears from our eyes, and sobs from our tongues; may beat our breasts, and cast our bodies on the ground. Then Ingeminations and Rei­terations and Expostulations are more seasonable. That which peradven­ture Modesty would stifle in company, in our secret retirements is the true eloquence of a wounded soul. There God will hear us when we speak, and he will hear us when we do not speak. He will understand us when we express our selves; and he will understand us when our sorrows and tears are so great that we cannot express our selves. There every sigh is a prayer, every groan a loud cry: and though our language be imperfect, and come short of our wants, yet is it easie and plain to him, because it comes from a broken heart. And therefore what here by ensample Christ teacheth us, he giveth us a rule, To pray in private, To pray in our closet, and he promi­seth Matth. 6. 5, 6. that our Father that seeth, that heareth in secret, wil [...] reward us openly. He will lead us through the wilderness of this world into a paradise of pleasure, where all tears shall be wiped from our eyes; where there shall be no more sorrow, no more travel, no more fighting; but peace, and rest, and joy and glory for evermore.

We have done now with the two first reasons, or conjectures rather, why our blessed Lord and Master went into the wilderness. We come now to the third; which was, That by this his Retirement he might draw out to us the resemblance of a Christian mans life, which is nothing else but a Se­cession and holy Pilgrimage out of the world. For as the Wilderness is in­deed a part of the world, and yet in a manner out of the world, so is Christ in the wilderness a fair representation of a Christian, who lives in the world yet is not of the world, who is a part of the world, yet separate from it; who is no sooner born into the world, but is taught to renounce it. As Joseph is called a Nazarite in the Latin Translation; not that he was of Gen. 49. 26. that order, or observed their Law, which was made many ages after; but that by his strictness and severity of life, by his piety and innocency, he was severed and removed from others, whose lives were irregular; and therefore he is said to be separate from his brethren. Or as Macarius calls a virtuous man [...], a stranger, a barbarian to the World, in St. Pauls sense, because he understands not the World, nor the World him. The 1 Cor. 14. 11. Apostle repeats it again and again, that the Patriarchs were but strangers Heb. 11. in the land which was given them; in their own land, yet strangers. How­soever God had promised them an inheritance in Canaan, yet they took his word in another and higher sense, of the spiritual Canaan. They abode in the land of promise as in a strange country, looking for a city having a foundati­on, whose builder and maker is God: Which was to make a wilderness; in Canaan; nay, to make the land of Promise it self a Wilderness. Hence St. Hierome is positive and peremptory, That the Saints in Scripture are no where called inhabitatores terrae, the Inhabitants of the Earth, or of the World; but that it is a name alwayes given to sinners and wicked persons, to those of whom it is written, Wo to the inhabitants of the earth. St. Au­gustine Rev. 8. 13. saith, the wicked do only habitare in mundo, dwell and have their [Page 270] residence in this world, and may pass into a worse, but never into a better place; but the righteous can only be said esse, to be there, to have a be­ing and existence there; to be there as the Angels are said by the School­men to be in uno loco quod non sint in alio, to be in one place, not circum­scriptively, but because they are not in another; to be in the world, but not of the world; to be in this world, because they are not yet in the o­ther; to be on earth, because they are not yet in heaven. It is a hard saying this, and an unwelcome doctrine to flesh and bloud, to the children of this world; That we should be sent into the world ideo ut exeamus, to this end that we should go out of it; be placed in Jerusalem, and then bid to go out into the wilderness; be seated in such a paradise, and then dri­ven out of it, even whilst we are in it; be set to till the ground from whence we are taken, to digg and labor as in a mine, and then be taught to be a­fraid and run from the works of our own hands: to see Beauty, which we must not touch; Fruit, which we must not taste; Riches and Treasure, which we must tread under foot. It is indeed a hard saying; but even Scripture and Reason have made it good, and seal'd and ratifi [...]d it for a truth. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world, saith Christ John 17. 16. of his Disciples. A Christian is no more of the world then Christ himself. I have chosen you out of the world: which is in a manner a drawing them John 15. 19. out into the Wilderness. I have chosen you out of the world, to hate and contemn it, to renew and reform it; to fight against the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is [...], all that is in the world. 1 John 2. 16. St. John the beloved Disciple, who leaned on Christs breast, was nearest to him, and learned this doctrine from him, exhorts us not to love the 1 John 2. 15. world, nor the things of this world. And not to love it here is to hate it; and Hatred is as a wing to carry us away in haste into some wilderness from that thing we hate. If we hate the world, we shall not endure to look upon it, much less to stay and dwell in it, or build a tabernacle here. Love not the world. Fly afar off, and retire not only from those sins and vices which all men know and confess to be so, which are branded with a mark, and carry their shame in their forhead, but even from those devia­tions and enormities which by the profit and advantage they bring have gained some credit and repute amongst men, have not only scaped the stroke of reprehension, but are crowned with praise; and because they thwart not the statutes of Omri, and may consist with the laws of men, are new Christians as it were, and have the names of those virtues given them which are perfect and consummate in that obedience alone which is due to the Gospel of Christ and to the Law of God. Love not the world, is a se­questring, a kind of deportation, a banishment of us not only out of the world, but out of the confines and borders of it, even from that which weak Christians, and not yet perfect men in Christ, judge to be no part of the World. Love it not; look down upon it, crucifie it, as St. Paul did. By the virtue of Christs cross I am crucified to the world. The World looks Gal. 6. 14. down upon me with scorn and contempt and indignation. And the world is crucified unto me; I look down upon it with the like scorn and contempt. I pass by it, and revile it, and wag my head; I look upon it as upon a dead corpse, which I must not touch; as upon a crucified thief, who is expos'd to shame. To conclude this; As Christ withdrew himself from the City and multitude into the Wilderness, so doth the Christian withdraw himself from the World: He is not of the World, he is chosen out of it; he loves it not, but looks upon it as upon a dead carrion, and crucified carkase, a loathed object, an abomination, which threatens not only the ruin of the Temple, but even of Christianity it self.

And this will be more evident, if we consider the nature either of Man, [Page 271] that is led, or of the Spirit, that leadeth us; Man being elemented and made up in this world to look towards another, and the Spirit of God be­ing a lover of Man, a lover of the image of God, and ready to lead him out. For first as Man, when he builds a house, first sits down, and con­sults what use he shall put it to; so God, the Creator of the world, who made the world for mans sake, made up Man also to be made an ensample of his Wisdome and Goodness, made him to worship him, chalked out his way, beckon'd and called lowd after him to follow him in that way, that so at last, as it were by so many steps and degrees, by the example of his Son and the conduct of his Spirit he might bring him out of the world unto himself. I have made thee, I have created thee, I have formed thee for my Isa. 43. 7. glory, saith God by his Prophet; to communicate my goodness and wis­dome, to make thee partaker of the Divine nature, to make thee a kind of God upon earth, by which according to thy measure and capacity thou mayest represent and express God. In homine quicquid est sibi proficit; There is nothing in Man which is not advantageous to him, which may not help to carry him through this world to the region of Happiness. We can­not doubt of his better part, his Soul: for that being heavenly and a spark, as it were, of the Divine nature, cannot but look upward and look for­ward too upon its original; must needs be ashamed and weary of its house of clay, and be very jealous of the World, which is but a prison, and hath greater darkness and heavier chains to bind and fetter the Soul it self. And therefore when it looks on the World, and reflects and takes a full view of it self, and considers that huge disproportion that is between the World and an immortal Soul, you may find it panting to get out. As the hart panteth after the rivers of water, so panteth my soul after thee, O God, saith David; and, When shall I appear before the living Lord? Now was David recollected and retired into himself; now was he in his wilderness, communing with his own heart. We cannot doubt of the Soul, whilst it is a soul, and not made fleshy, immersed and drowned in sensuality. If it be not led by the Flesh, but lead it self, out of the world it will, and return to its rest, to its retirement. But then even the body being thus anima­ted with such a soul, may help forward the work. Glorifie God in your 1 Cor. 6. [...]0. body, saith St. Paul. Not only withdraw your Souls, but your Bodies also, out of the world. For as God breathed in the Soul, so his hands have made and fashioned the Body, and in his book are all our members written. He made Psal. 139. 16. the whole man, both Soul and Body, and built it up as a Temple of his blessed Spirit. And if the Soul be the Sanctuary, the Body is the Porch: and his hand moves from the inward parts to the outward, from the San­ctum sanctorum to the very door and entrance. What is there almost in this our retirement from the World which is not done by the ministry of the body? Our Fasting, our Prayers, our Alms, haec de carnis substantia im­molantur Deo, these are all sacrificed to God of the substance of the flesh. What is Martyrdome? That certainly is a going out of the world. And this advantage we have above the Angels themselves: We can dye for Christ, which the Angels cannot do, because they have no bodies. So that you see the end for which Man was made and sent into the world, was to be e­ver going out of it. His natural motion, and that which becomes him as Man, is to move forwards: Which motion is made easier every day by the word of the Spirit, by the Gospel of Christ, by the power of which the Eye that was open to vanity is pluckt out, the Hand that was reaching at forbidden things is cut off, the Ear which was open to Every Sirens song is stopped, the Phansie checked, the Appetite dulled, the Affections bridled, and the whole man sequestred and abstracted out of the world.