K ■■ THE WHOLE WORKS OF THF. RIGHT REV. JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. LORD BISHOP OF DOWN, CONNOR, AND DROMORE. VOL. I. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 ( «- V • 0 https://archive.org/details/wholeworksofrigh01tayl_0 o THE ^ ^ ^ -j WHOLE WORKS OF THE RIGHT REV. JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. LORD BISHOP OF DOWN, CONNOR, AND DROMORE: WITH AN ESSAY, BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON; HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. MDCCCXLIV. JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY. n T^\ V>\ CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. < 5 ^ A PAGE An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Jeremy Taylor ...... i A Funeral Sermon, preached at the Obsequies of the Right Reverend Father in God Jeremy, Lord Bishop of Down: who deceased at Lisburn, August 13, 1667. By George Rust, D.D. Lord Bishop of Dromore . Ixiv Christian Consolations; taught from five Heads in Re- ligion : I. Faith ; II, Hope ; III. The Holy Spirit ; IV. Prayer; V. The Sacraments . . . Ixxii PART I. THE LIFE OF OUR BLESSED LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. Dedication ...... 3 The Preface ...... 5 An Exhortation to the Imitation of the Life of Christ 21 The Prayer ... ... 26 SECTION I. The History of the Conception of Jesus . . 27 Ad Section 1.] Considerations upon the Annuncia- tion of the Blessed Mary, and the Conception of the Holy Jesus ...... 27 The Prayer ...... 30 SECTION II. The bearing of Jesus in the Womb of the Blessed Virgin . . .... 30 Ad Section II.] Considerations concerning the cir- cumstances of the Interval between the Conception and Nativity ...... 31 The Prayer . . .... 33 SECTION III. The Nativity of our Blessed Saviour Jesus . . 34 Ad Section III.] Considerations upon the Birth of our Blessed Saviour Jesus . . . .35 The Prayer ...... 37 Discourse I. Of nursing Children, in Imitation of the Blessed Virgin-Motner. . . . .38 The Prayer ...... 42 SECTION IV. Of the great and glorious Accidents, happening about the Birth of Jesus . . . . .42 Ad Section IV.] Considerations upon the Apparition of the Angels to the Shepherds The Prayer ...... Considerations of the Epiphany of the Blessed Jesus by a Star, and the Adoration of Jesus by the Eastern Magi The Prayer ...... SECTION V. Of the Circumcision of Jesus, and his Presentation in the Temple ...... Ad Section V.] Considerations upon the Circumci- sion of the Holy Child .lesus The Prayer ...... D iscouRSE II. Of the Virtue of Obedience A Prayer for the Grace of Holy Obedience Considerations upon the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple . . . . /<■ . The Prayer ...... D ISCOURSE III. Of Meditation . . The Prayer ...... SECTION VI. Of the Death of the Holy Innocents, or the Babes of Bethlehem, and the Flight of Jesus into Egypt Ad Section VI.] Considerations upon the Death of the Innocents, and the Flight of the Holy Jesus into Egypt . . . . . The Prayer ...... SECTION VII. Of the younger Years of Jesus, and his Disputation with the Doctors in the Temple Ad Section VII.l Considerations upon the Disputa- tion of Jesus with the Doctors in the Temple The Prayer ...... SECTION VIII. Of the Preaching of John the Baptist, preparative to the Manifestation of Jesus .... Ap Section VIII.] Considerations upon the preach- ing of John the Baptist .... The Prayer ...... Discourse IV. Of Mortification and Corporal Aus- terities ...... The Prayer ...... SECTION IX. Of Jesus being baptized, and going into the Wilder- ness to be tempted . . = . . Ad Section IX.] Considerations upon the Baptizing, Fasting, and Temptation of the Holy Jesus by the Devil . . .. . PAGK 45 47 47 50 50 51 54 54 63 64 65 66 73 73 75 79 79 80 82 82 83 86 86 95 95 97 : ^ J r IV CONTENTS. PAGE The Prayer ...... 102 Discourse V. Of Temptation . . . 102 The Prayer 114 Discourse VI. Of Baptism. Parti. . . 114 Of baptizing Infants. Part II. . . . 123 The Prayer * 137 Appendix ad Section IX.] Christ’s Prayer at his Baptism ...... 137 PART II. THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE HOLY JESUS. Dedication ...... 139 SECTION X. Of the first Manifestation of Jesus, by the Testimony of John, and a Miracle .... 140 Ad Section X.] Considerations touching the Voca- tion of five Disciples, and of the first Miracle of Jesus, done at Cana, in Galilee . . . 141 The Prayer ...... 144 Discourse VII. Of Faith .... 144 The Prayer ...... 150 SECTION XL Of Christ’s going to Jerusalem to the Passover, the first time after his Manifestation, and what followed, till the Expiration of the Ofiice of John the Baptist Ad Section XI. 1 Considerations upon the first Journey of the Holy Jesus to Jerusalem, when he whipped the Merchants out of the Temple . The Prayer ...... Discourse VIII.] Of the Religion of Holy Places The Prayer ... . . SECTION XII. Of Jesus’ Departure into Galilee ; his Manner of Life, Miracles, and Preaching; his calling of Disciples; and what happened until the Second Passover Ad Section XII.] Considerations upon the Inter- course happening between thd Holy Jesus and the Woman of Samaria . ... . The Prayer ...... Ad Section XII.] Considerations upon Christ’s First Preaching, and the Accidents happening about that Time ....... The Prayer ...... Discourse IX. Of Repentance The Prayer ...... Uj^n Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, and of the Eight Beatitudes ...... The Prayer ...... Discourse X. A Discourse upon that Part of the De- calogue, which the Holy Jesus adopted into the In- stitution and Obligation of Christianity The First Commandment . . . . The Second Commandment .... The Third Commandment .... The Fourth Commandment .... The Fifth Commandment .... The Sixth Commandment .... The Seventh Commandment .... The Eighth Commandment .... The Ninth Commandment .... The Tenth Commandment .... The Prayer ...... Discourse XI. Of Charity, with its Parts, Forgiving, Giving, not Judging. — Of Forgiveness. Parti. Of Alms. Part if. . . . . . Of not Judging. Part III. . . . . The Prayer Di scourse XII. Of the second additional Precept of Christ; namely, of Prayer . . . . The Prayer ...... Discourse XIII. Of the third additional Precept of Christ; namely, of the Manner of Fasting . 150 152 153 154 160 160 165 168 168 171 172 190 190 199 199 201 204 205 209 210 211 215 216 216 216 217 217 222 224 224 225 233 234 FAOK The Prayer ..... 237 D iscouRSE XIV. Of the Miracles which Jesus wrought, for Confirmation of his Doctrine, during the wdiole Time of his Preaching . . . 237 The Prayer ...... 241 PART III. Dedications ..... 242, 243 SECTION XIII. Of the Second Year of the Preaching of Jesus . 243 Discourse XV. Of the Excellence, Ease, Reason- ableness, and Advantages of bearing Christ’s Yoke, and living according to his Institution . . 247 The Prayer ...... 262 D ISCOURSE XVI. Of Certainty of Salvation . 262 The Prayer ...... 266 SECTION XIV. Of the Third Year of the Preaching of Jesus . . 267 Discourse XVII. Of Scandal, or giving and taking Offence . . ... .274 The Prayer ...... 2^ Discourse XVIII. Of the Causes and Mannerof the Divine Judgments ..... 280 The Prayer ...... 286 SECTION XV. Of the Accidents happening from the Death of Lazarus, until the Death and Burial of Jesus . . 287 Ad Section XV.] Considerations of some preparatory Accidents before the Entrance of Jesus into nis Pas- sion . . . . ' . . . 296 The Prayer ...... 300 Considerations upon the Washing of the Disciples’ Feet by Jesus, and his Sermon of Humility . .301 The Prayer ...... 305 Discourse XIX. Of the Institution and Reception of the holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper . . 305 The Prayer ...... 316 Considerations upon the Accidents happening on the Vespers of the Passion .... 316 The Prayer ...... .320 Considerations upon the Scourging, and other Acci- dents, happening from the Apprehension till the Crucifixion of Jesus ..... 321 The Prayer ...... 325 Discourse XX. Of Death, and the due Manner of Preparation to it . . . . . 326 The Prayer ...... 335 Considerations upon the Crucifixion of the Holy Jesus 3<36 The Prayer ...... 340 SECTION XVI. Of the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus . . 340 Ad Section XVI.] Considerations upon the Acci- dents happening in the Interval after the Death of the Holy Jesus, until his Resurrection . . 342 The Prayer ...... 349 CONTEMPLATIONS OF THE STATE OF MAN. Addresses to the Reader .... 350 LIBER I. CHAPTER I. Contemplations on Time, and of the State of Man in this Life ...... 351 The Prayer ...... 352 y CONTENTS. V PACK CHAPTER II. All things on this side Heaven are inconstant and transitory ...... 352 CHAPTER HI. All Sublunary Things are contemptible, and of no V alue 355 CHAPTER IV. The Vanity of Man ..... 357 CHAPTER V. PAOR CHAPTER I. CONSIDERATIONS OF THE GENERAL INSTRUMENTS AND MEANS SERVING TO A HOLY LIFE, BY WAY OF INTRO- DUCTION. SECTION I. The first General Instrument of Holy Living, Care of our Time ...... 403 Rules for employing our Time . . . 403 The Benefits of this Exercise .... 406 The Miseries of Temporal Life . . . 359 SECTION II. CHAPTER VI. The End of Temporal Life CHAPTER VII. Of Death, and the Certainty of it 361 364 The second General Instrument of Holy Living, Purity of Intention ...... Rules for our Intentions . . . . Signs of Purity of Intention . . . . SECTION HI. CHAPTER VIII. Of that Moment wherein we are to die, and Life to end 366 The Prayer ...... 367 CHAPTER IX. The End of Temporal Life is terrible . . . 367 The Prayer ...... 371 CHAPTER X. The End of all Time ..... 371 CHAPTER XI. Of the last Day of Time, and of the Judgment which is to pass upon all Things in the World . . 374 LIBER II. CHAPTER I. Of the Greatness of Things Eternal . . . 376 CHAPTER II. The Greatness of the Eternal Honour of the Just . 377 CHAPTER III. Of the Riches of the Eternal Kingdom of Heaven . 379 CHAPTER IV. Of the Greatness of Eternal Pleasures . . 380 The Prayer ... . . .382 CHAPTER V. The Excellency and Happiness of the Souls and Bodies of the Just, in the Life Eternal . . . 382 The Prayer . . . . . .386 CHAPTER VI. Considerations of Eternal Evils, and of the miserable State of the Damned ..... 386 The Prayer ...... 389 CHAPTER VII. Of the Slavery and Pains Eternal . . 389 CHAPTER VIII. The Pains of the Powers of a damned Soul . . 391 The Prayer ...... 394 The third General Instrument of Holy Living ; or the Practice of the Presence of God Several Manners of the Divine Presence Rules of exercising this Consideration The Benefits of this Exercise .... Prayers and Devotions according to the Religion and Purposes of the foregoing Considerations For Grace to spend our Time well The first Prayers in the Morning, as soon as we are dressed ...... An Act of Adoration, being the Song that the Angels sing in Heaven . , . . , An Act of Thanksgiving, being the Song of David for the Morning ...... An Act of Oblation, or presenting ourselves to God for the Day ...... An Act of Repentance or Contrition Prayer or Petition ..... An Act of Intercession or Prayer for others, to be added to this or any other Office, as our Devotion, or Duty, or their Needs, shall determine us For the Church . . . . . F or the King ...... For the Clergy ...... For Wife or Husband ..... For our Children ..... For our Friends and Benefactors For our Family ..... For all in Misery . . . . . Another Form of Prayer, for the Morning An Ejaculation . . . . . An Exercise to be used at any Time of the Day Hymn, collected out of the Psalms, recounting the Excellences and Greatness of God , Another Hymn ..... Ejaculations ...... Pr^er . . . . A Form of Prayer for the Evening, to be said by such who have not time or opportunity to say the Public Prayers appointed for this office Another Form of Evening Prayer, which may also be used at Bedtime ..... Ejaculations and short Meditations to be used in the Night, when we wake .... Ad Section II. 1 A Prayer for holy Intention in the Beginning^and Pursuit of any considerable Action, as Study, Preaching, &c. Ad Section III.] A Prayer meditating and referring to the Divine Presence .... 406 407 407 409 409 410 411 412 412 412 412 413 413 413 413 413 413 413 413 413 414 414 414 414 414 415 415 415 415 415 416 416 417 417 418 418 CHAPTER IX. The Fruit which may be drawn from the Consideration of Eternal Evils ..... 394 CHAPTER X. The Infinite Guilt of Mortal Sin, by which we lose the Felicity of Heaven, and fall into Eternal Evils . 395 THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY LIVING. Dedication . ..... 399 CHAPTER II. OF CHRISTIAN SOBRIETY. SECTION I. Of Sobriety in the general Sense . . . 418 Evil consequences of Voluptuousness or Sensuality . 419 Degrees of Sobriety ..... 419 Rules for suppressing Voluptuousness . . 419 SECTION II Of Temperance in Eating and Drinking . . 420 Measures of Temperance in Eating . . . 420 Signs and Effects of Temperance . . . 420 Of Drunkenness ..... 420 Evil consequents of Drunkenness . . . 422 CONTENTS. PAGE j Signs of Drunkenness ..... 423 Rules for obtaining Temperance . . . 423 SECTION III. Of Chastity . ’ . . . . . . 424 The evil Consequents of Uncleanness . . 425 Acts of Chastity in general , ' . . . 426 Acts of Virginal Chastity .... 426 Rules for Widows, or vidual Chastity . . 427 Rules for married Persons, or matrimonial Chastity . 427 Remedies against Uncleanness . . . 428 SECTION IV. Of Humility ...... 429 Arguments against Pride, by way of Consideration . 430 Acts or Offices of Humility . . . . 430 Means and Exercises for obtaining and increasing the Grace of Humility ..... 432 Signs of Humility ..... 434 SECTION V. Of Modesty ...... 434 Acts and Duties of Modesty, as it is opposed to Curiosity 435 Acts of Modesty, as it is opposed to Boldness . 436 Acts of Modesty, as it is opposed to Indecency . 436 SECTION VI. Of Contentedness in all Estates and Accidents . 437 Instruments or Exercises to procure Contentedness . 439 Means to obtain Content, by way of Considerations . ‘^142 Poverty, or a low Fortune .... 445 The Charge of many Children .... 447 Violent Necessities ..... 447 Death of Children, or nearest Relatives and Friends . 447 Untimely Death ..... 448 Death unseasonable .... 418 Sudden Death, or violent .... 449 Being Childless ..... 449 Evil or unfortunate Children .... 449 Our own Death ..... 449 Prayers for the several Graces and Parts of Christian Sobriety ...... 449 A Prayer against Sensuality .... 449 For Temperance ..... 450 For Chastity; to be said especially by unmarried Persons ...... 450 A Prayer for the Love of God, to be said by Virgins and Widows, professed or resolved so to live; and may be used by any one .... 450 A Prayer to be said by married Persons in behalf of themselves and each other .... 450 A Prayer for the Grace of Humility . . . 450 Acts of Humility and Modesty, by way of Prayer and Meditation ...... 451 A Prayer for a contented Spirit, and the Grace of Moderation and Patience .... 451 CHAPTER HI. OF CHRISTIAN JUSTICE. SECTION I. Of Obedience to our Superiors . . . 452 Acts and Duties of Obedience to all our Superiors . 452 Remedies against Disobedience, and Means to endear our Obedience, by way of Consideration . . 453 Degrees of Obedience ..... 454 SECTION II. Of Provision, or that Part of Justice which is due from Superiors to Inferiors .... 455 Duties of Kings, and all the Supreme Power as Law- givers ....... 455 The Duty of Superiors, as they are Judges . . 456 The Duty of Parents to their Children . . 456 Rules for mamed Persons .... 457 The Duty of Masters of Families . . . 458 The Duty of Guardians or Tutors . . . 458 SECTION III. Of Negotiation, or civil Contracts . . . 458 Rules and Measures of Justice in Bargaining . 458 SECTION IV. Of Restitution ...... 459 Rules of making Restitution . . . 460 Prayers to be said, in relation to the several Obliga- tions and Offices of Justice . . . . A Prayer for the Grace of Obedience, to be said by all Persons under Command .... Prayers for Kings and all Magistrates, for our Parents, spiritual and natural, are in the following Litanies, at the End of the Fourth Chapter A Prayer to be said by Subjects, when their Land is invaded and overrun by barbarous or wicked People, Enemies of the Religion or the Government A Prayer to be said by Kings or Magistrates, for them- selves and their People .... A Prayer to be said by Parents for their Children A Prayer to be said by Masters of Families, Curates, Tutors, or other obliged Persons, for their Charges A Prayer to be said by Merchants, Tradesmen, and Handicraftsmen . . . . . A Prayer to be said by Debtors, and all Persons obliged, whether by Crime or Contract A Prayer for Patron and Benefactors CHAPTER IV. OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Of the Internal Actions of Religion SECTION I. Of Faith ...... The Acts and Offices of Faith . . . . Signs of True Faith . . . . The Means and Instruments to obtain Faith . SECTION II. Of the Hope of a Christian . . . , The Acts of Hope ..... Rules to govern our Hope . . . . Means of Hope, and Remedies against Despair SECTION III. Of Charity, or the Love of God The Acts of Love to God .... The Measures and Rules of Divine Love Helps to increase our Love to God, by way of Exercise The two States of Love to God Cautions and Rules concerning Zeal Of the External Actions of Religion SECTION IV. Of Reading or Hearing the Word of God Rules for Hearing or Reading the Word of God Advice concerning Spiritual Books and Ordinary Ser- mons ....... SECTION V. Of Fasting ...... Rules for Christian Fasting . . . . The Benefits of Fasting . . . . SECTION VI. Of keeping Festivals, and Days holy to the Lord ; par- ticularly the Lord’s Day . . . . Rules for keeping the Lord’s Day, and other Christian Festivals ...... SECTION VII. Of Prayer ...... Motives to Prayer ..... Rules for the Practice of Prayer Cautions for making Vows . . . Remedies against Wandering Thoughts in Prayer Signs of Tediousness of Spirit in our Prayers and aU Actions of Religion . . . Remedies against Tediousness of Spirit SECTION VIII. Of Alms . . . . Works of Mercy, or the several Kinds of Corporeal Alms ....... Works of Spiritual Alms and Mercy Rules for giving Alms ..... Motives to Charity ..... PACK 462 462 462 462 463 463 463 464 464 4fil 465 465 465 465 466 467 467 467 468 470 470 471 471 472 472 473 473 474 474 475 475 477 477 477 479 479 479 482 482 483 483 484 485 485 485 487 CONTENTS. vii Remedies against Unmercifulness and Uncharitable- ness . . . . . 1. Against Envy, by way of Consideration 2. Remedies against Anger, by way of Exercise Remedies against Anger, by way of Consideration 3. Remedies against Covetousness, the third Enemy of Mercy ...... SECTION IX. Of Repentance ...... Acts and Parts of Repentance Motives to Repentance .... SECTION X. Of Preparation to, and the Manner how to receive the Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper The Effects and Benefits of worthy Communicating . Prayers for all sorts of Men and all Necessities; re- lating to the several Parts of the Virtue of Religion A Prayer for the Graces of Faith, Hope, Charity Acts of Love, by way of Prayer and Ejaculation; to be used in Private ..... A Prayer to be said in any Affliction, a-s Death of Children, of Husband or Wife, in great Poverty, in Imprisonment, in a Sad and Disconsolate Spirit, and in Temptations to Despair .... Ejaculations and short Meditations to be used in Time of Sickness and Sorrow, or Danger of Death An Act of Faith concerning the Resurrection and the Day of Judgment, to be said by Sick Persons, or meditated ...... Short Prayers to be said by Sick Persons Acts of Hope, to be used by Sick Persons after a Pious Life ....... A Prayer to be said in behalf of a Sick or Dying Person ...... A Prayer to be said in a Storm at Sea An Act of Resignation .... A Form of a Vow in the Time of Danger A Form of a Prayer to be used for a Blessing on an Enterprise ...... A Prayer before a Journey .... Ad Section IV. 1 A Prayer to be said before the Hearing or Reading the Word of God Ad Section V. IX. X.] A Form of Confession of Sins and Repentance, to be used upon Fasting Days, or Days of Humiliation : especially in Lent, and be- fore the Holy Sacrament • . . . Prayer ....... [1.] Ex Liturgia S. Basilii magna ex parte A Short Form of Thanksgiving to be said upon any Special Deliverance, as from Childbirth, from Sick- ness, from Battle, or imminent danger at Sea or Land, &c. ...... A Prayer of Thanksgiving after the receiving of some great Blessing, as the Birth of an Heir, the Success of an honest Design, a Victory, a good Harvest, &c, . A Prayer to be said on the Feast of Christmas, or the Birth of our Blessed Saviour Jesus: the same also maybe said upon the Feast of the Annunciation and Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary A Prayer to be said upon our Birth-Day, or Day of Baptism ...... A Prayer to be said upon the Days of the Memory of Apostles, Martyrs, &c. .... A Form of Prayer recording all the Parts and Myste- ries of Christ’s Passion, being a short History of it : to be used especially in the Week of the Passion, and before the receiving of the Blessed Sacrament Prayer ....... Ad Section VII. VIII. X.] A Form of Prayer or Intercession for all Estates of People in the Chris- tian Church. The Parts of which may be added to any other Forms: and the whole Office, entirely as it lies, is proper to be said in our Preparation to the holy Sacrament, or on the Day of Celebration 1. For Ourselves ..... 2. For the whole Catholic Church 3. For all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors . 4. For all the Orders of them that minister about holy Things ...... 5. For our nearest Relatives, as Husband, Wife, Chil- dren, Family, &c. ..... 6. For our Parents, our Kindred in the Flesh, our Friends and Benefactors . . . . PACK 488 488 489 490 491 493 493 496 497 499 500 500 500 PACK 7. For all that lie under the Rod of War, Famine, Pestilence: to be said in the Time of Plague, or War, &c. . . . . . .511 8. For all Women with Child, and for Unborn Chil- dren . . . . . . . 512 9. For all Estates of Men and Women in the Chris- tian Church ...... 512 Ad Section X.] The Manner of using these Devo- tions, by way of preparation to the receiving the blessed Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper . .513 A Prayer of Preparation or Address to the holy Sacra- ment ....... 513 An Act of Love ..... 513 An Act of Desire ..... 513 An Act of Contrition ..... 513 An Act of Faith ..... 513 Petition . . . . . • .513 Ejaculations to be said before, or at, the receiving the holy Sacrament . . . . • 514 Ejaculations to be used any time that Day, after the Solemnity is ended . . . • .515 501 501 THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY DYING. 502 502 Dedication CHAPTER I. 516 503 503 503 503 503 504 504 504 504 505 505 A GENERAL PREPARATION TOWARDS A HOLY AND BLESSED DEATH, BY WAY OF CONSIDERATION. SECTION I. Consideration of the Vanity and Shortness of Man’s Life . . . ' . . . .520 SECTION II, The Consideration reduced to Practice . . 523 SECTION III. Rules and Spiritual Arts of lengthening our Days, and to take off the Objection of a Short Life . . 525 SECTION IV. Consideration of the Miseries of Man’s Life . . 529 SECTION V. The Consideration reduced to Practice . . 531 507 508 508 508 509 509 510 511 511 511 511 511 511 511 CHAPTER II. A GENERAL PREPARATION TOWARDS A HOLY AND BLESSED DEATH, BY WAY OF EXERCISE, SECTION I. Three Precepts preparatory to a holy Death, to be practised in our whole Lite .... 533 SECTION II. Of Daily Examination of our Actions in the whole Course of our Health, preparatory to our Death-bed 5.35 Reasons for a Daily Examination . . . 535 The Benefits of this Exercise .... 535 SECTION III. Of exercising Charity during our whole Life . . 538 SECTION IV. General Considerations to enforce the former Practices 539 The Circum.stances of a Dying Man’s Sorrow and Danger ...••• 539 CHAPTER 111. OF THE STATE OF SICKNESS, AND THE TEMPTATIONS INCIDENT TO IT, WITH THEIR PROPER REMEDIES. SECTION I. Of the State of Sickness .... 540 CONTENTS. viii PACK SECTION II. Of the first Temptation proper to the State of Sickness, Impatience ...... 542 SECTION III. Constituent or integral Parts of Patience . . 542 SECTION IV. Remedies against Impatience, by way of Consideration 543 SECTION V. Remedies against Impatience, by way of Exercise . 546 SECTION VI. Advantages of Sickness .... 548 SECTION VII. The second Temptation proper to the State of Sick- ness, Fear of Death, with its Remedies . . 553 Remedies against the Fear of Death, by w^ay of Con- sideration ...... 554 SECTION VIII. Remedies against Fear of Death, by way of Exercise 556 SECTION IX. General Rules and Exercises whereby our Sickness may become safe and sanctified . . . 558 CHAPTER IV. OF THE PRACTICE'OF THE GRACES PROPER TO THE STATE OF SICKNESS WHICH A SICK MAN MAY PRACTISE ALONE. SECTION I. Of the Practice of Patience .... 561 The Practice and Acts of Patience, by way of Rule . 562 SECTION II. Acts of Patience, by way of Prayer and Ejaculation . 564 The Prayer to be said in the Beginning of a Sickness 566 An Act of Resignation, to be said by a Sick Person in all the evil Accidents of his Sickness . . 566 A Prayer for the Grace of Patience . . . 566 A Prayer to be said when the Sick Man takes Physic 567 SECTION III. Of the Practice of the Grace of Faith, in the Time of Sickness ...... 567 SECTION IV. Acts of Faith, by way of Prayer and Ejaculation, to be said by Sick Men in the Days of their Temptation 569 The Prayer for the Grace and Strengths of Faith . 569 SECTION V. Of the Practice of the Grace of Repentance in the Time of Sickness ..... 570 ' SECTION VI. Rules for the Practice of Repentance in Sickness . 571 Means of exciting Contrition, or Repentance of Sins, proceeding from the Love of God . . . 573 SECTION VII. Acts of Repentance, by way of Prayer and Ejaculation, , to be used especially by Old Men in their Age, and by all Men in their Sickness . . . 575 The Prayer for the Grace and Perfection of Re- pentance ...... 575 A Prayer for Pardon of Sins, to be said frequently in Time of Sickness, and in all the Portions of Old Age ....... 576 An Act of holy Resolution of Amendment of Life, in case of Recovery ..... 576 SECTION VIII. An Analysis, or Resolution of the Decalogue, and the special Precepts of the Gospel, describing the Duties enjoined, and the Sins forbidden respective- W : for the Assistance of Sick Men in making their Confessions to God and his Ministers, and the ren- dering their Repentance more particular and perfect 577 PAGE I. Comm. Thou shalt have none other Gods but me . 577 II. Comm, Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven Image, nor worship it . . . . 577 III. Comm. Thou shalt not take God’s Name in vain 578 IV. Comm. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day ...... 578 V. Comm. Honour thy Father and thy Mother . 578 VI. Comm. Thou shalt do no Murder . . 578 VII. Comm. Thou shalt not commit Adultery . 579 VIII. Comm. Thou shalt not Steal . . . 579 IX. Comm. Thou shalt not bear False Witness . 579 X. Comm. Thou shalt not Covet . . . 579 The special Precepts of the Gospel , , . 579 SECTION IX. Of the Sick Man’s Practice of Charity and Justice, by way of Rule ...... 581 SECTION X. Acts of Charity, by way of Prayer and Ejaculation; which may also be used for Thanksgiving, in case of Recovery ...... 582 Prayer ....... 583 CHAPTER V. OF VISITATION OF THE SICK: OR THE ASSISTANCE THAT IS TO BE DONE TO DYING PERSONS BY THE MINISTRY OF THEIR CLERGY-GUIDES. SECTION I. General Observations ..... 584 SECTION II, Rules for the Manner of Visitation of Sick Persons . 584 SECTION III. Of Ministering in the Sick Man’s Confession of Sins and Repentance ..... 586 Arguments and Exhortations to move the Sick Man to Confession of Sins ..... 586 Instruments, by way of Consideration, to awaken a careless Person, and a stupid Conscience . . 587 SECTION IV. Of the ministering to the Restitution and Pardon, or Reconciliation of the Sick Person, by administering the holy Sacrament . . . . . 590 SECTION V. Of ministering to the Sick Person by the Spiritual Man, as he is the Physician of Souls . . 594 Considerations against unreasonable Fears of not hav- ing^our Sins pardoned .... 594 An Exercise against Despair in the Day of our Death ...... 597 SECTION VI. Considerations against Presumption . . . 599 SECTION VII. Offices to be said by the Minister, in his Visitation of the Sick ...... A Prayer to be said by the Priest secretly The Psalm Another Prayer ..... A Prayer to be said by the Standers-by Another Prayer ..... Ejaculations ...... The Blessing ...... The Doxology , , . . ... A Prayer to be said in the Case of a sudden Surprise W Death, as by a mortal Wound, or evil Accidents in Childbirth, when the Forms and Solemnities of Pre- paration cannot be used .... 600 600 600 601 602 602 603 603 603 604 SECTION VIII. A Peroration concerning the Contingencies and Treat- ings of our departed Friends after Death, in order to their Burial, &c. ..... 604 CONTENTS. IX TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS, PREACHED AT GOLDEN GROVE, THEIR ORDER, NUMBER, AND TEXTS. PAGE SERMON I. II. III. ADVENT SUNDAY. Dooms-Day Book; or, Christ’s Advent to Judg- ment 612, 618, 625 2 Cor. V. 10. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. SERMON IV. V. VI. The Return of Prayers ; or, the Conditions of a prevailing Prayer . . . 631, 636, 642 John ix. 31. Now we know that God heareth not sinners ; but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doth his will, him he heareth. SERMON VII. VIII. IX. Of Godly F ear, &c. . . . 648, 654, 659 Heb. xii. part of the 28th and 29th verses. Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God with re- verence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. SERMON X. XI. The Flesh and the Spirit . . . 664, 670 Matt. xxvi. 41 ; latter part. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. SERMON XII. XIII. XIV. Of Lukewarmness and Zeal ; or, Spiritual Fer- vour 676, 681, 687 J erem. xlviii. 10 ; first part. Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully. SERMON XV. XVI. The House of Feasting; or, the Epicure’s Measures ..... 693, 698 1 Cor. XV. 32; last part. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. SERMON XVII. XVIII. The Marriage-Ring; or, the Mysteriousness and Duties of Marriage .... 705, 710 Ephes. V. 32, 33. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in parti- cular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. SERMON XIX. XX. XXI. Apples of Sodom; or, the Fruits of Sin 716, 723, 728 Rom. vi. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed ? For the end of those things is death. SERMON XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. The good and evil Tongue. — Of Slander and Flattery.—The Duties of the Tongue 734, 739, 745, 750 Ephes. iv. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. TWENTY-SEVEN SERMONS, THEIR ORDER, NUMBER, AND TEXTS. PAGE SERMON I, II. WHITSUNDAY. Of the Spirit of Grace ... . 759, 764 Rom. viii. 9, 10. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin ; but the Spirit is life, because of righteousness. SERMON III. IV. The descending and entailed Curse cut off . 771, 776 Exod. XX. 5, 6. I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. SERMON V. VI. The Invalidity of a late or Death-bed Repent- ance ...... 782, 788 Jerem. xiii. 16. Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while you look for light, ( or, lest while you look for light,) he shall turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. SERMON VII. VIII. The Deceitfulness of the Heart . . 794, 800 Jerem. xvii. 9. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked ; who can know it ? SERMON IX. X. XI. The Faith and Patience of the Saints; or, the righteous Cause Oppressed . . 805, 811, 817 1 Pet. iv. 17, 18. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God : and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God ? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ? SERMON XII. XIII. The Mercy of the Divine Judgments; or, God’s Method in curing Sinners . . . 823, 829 Rom. ii. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-sufifering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance ? SERMON XIV. XV. Of Growth in Grace, with its proper Instru- ments and Signs .... 834, 839 2 Pet. iii. 18. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, both now and for ever. Amen. SERMON XVI. XVII. Of Growth in Sin ; or, the several States and Degrees of Sinners, with the Manner how thev are to be treated . . . 845, 851 Jude Epist. ver. 22, 23. And of some have compassion, making a difference : and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire. X CONTENTS. PACK SERMON XVIII. XIX. The Foolish Exchange .... 857, 863 Matt. xvi. 26. For xvhat is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? or, what shall a man give in ex- change for his soul ? SERMON XX. XXI. XXII. The Serpent and the Dove ; or, a Discourse of Christian Prudence . . . 869, 874, 879 Matt. X. 16; latter part. Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. SERMON XXII I. XXIV. Of Christian Simplicity Matt. X. 16 ; latter part. And harmless as doves. SERMON XXV. XXVI. XXVII. The Miracles of the Divine Mercy Psal. Ixxxvi. 5. For thou. Lord, art good and ready to forgive. in mercy to all them that call upon PACK 886, 891 897, 903, 909 and plenteous thee. AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS OF JEREMY TAYLOR. Jeremy Taylor forms the subject of one of the most beautiful pieces of biography in our language. We refer to Bishop Heber’s life of him; a work which, for the most part, is singu- larly free from the vices which too often attach to that species of composition. The writer’s enthusiastic admiration of his author does not blind him to a perception of his faults or imper- fections ; and the work, therefore, is not, what biography so often is, a tissue of indiscriminate eulogy. Its merits as a composition are of no common order ; the narrative is dignified by the spirit of philosophy, and adorned and enlivened by an elegant and chastened imagination ; above all, it is, for the most part, pervaded by a degree of moderation, charity, and candour, not often seen in those whose task it is to write of those eventful times, and probably inspired in no small degree by familiar converse with the lovely spirit which breathes in the immortal productions of his author. But if the merits of that piece of biography be so great, — and no man can be more willing, or even eager, to admit them than the present writer, — some apology may be deemed necessary for the apparent presumption implied in this attempt to furnish another critical introduction to his writings. Two very sufficient reasons, however, may be assigned to justify the attempt. It seemed desirable that the present edition of Jeremy Taylor’s Works should not be sent forth to the world without some general introduction ; and it is obvious that whatsoever the merits of Bishop Heber’s “ Life,” that work could not be prefixed to these volumes. But this is not the only reason for the present attempt. The principal object of the present Essay is distinct from that of the Life;” what is subor- dinate in the one is principal in the other. Bishop Heber’s object was to furnish, what had never been furnished before, an accurate, and as far as his materials would permit, a copious, account of Taylor’s life, with an extensive examination of his writings. That of the present Essay is to attempt a minute analysis of his character, intellectual, moral, and religious ; to which will be appended a brief critical'estimate of his principal productions. It is true, indeed, that many valuable and strik- ing observations on Jeremy Taylor’s character are to be found in Bishop Heber’s “ Life,” but with the exception of a very few pages at the close, they are, (as might be expected in a work of continuous narrative,) interwoven with the narrative itself, rendering it impossible to obtain a consistent view of Jeremy Taylor’s character except by a diligent comparison of different parts of the volume. The present is an attempt to furnish a full analysis of it in a systematic form ; and it is confidently hoped, that it will not be found a mere repetition of what has been already given in other shapes to the public. But as it may be interesting to the reader, and is, in some measure, necessary for the illustration of the following pages, to give some account of the principal occurrences of his life, we shall preface b IV AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS the combined influence of poverty and gratitude, partly in compliance witli the base fashion of adu- lation which distinguished the dedications of the day,*) Hatton must have been a man of considerable worth, learning, and ability. Taylor’s history during the rest of the civil war is involved in the deepest obscurity. Wood tells us that he followed the king’s army as chaplain, and that he often preached before the court at Oxford. But one of his letters, the original of which is still extant in the British Museum, shows that during, at all events, a part of the year 1643, he was residing with his mother-in-law. Some expressions in it seem to betray the fact that Taylor was already involved in those pecuniary embarrassments, from which he was at few periods of his life perfectly exempt. His residence with his mother-in-law could have been but temporary, for the following year he is found in Wales, whither, as Bishop Heber conjectures, he had retired after his second marriage. Here circumstances again brought him into connexion with part of the royal army. In such ill- omened company even the mountain solitudes of Wales could afford him no protection. In the victory gained by the parliamentary forces over Colonel Gerard, near Cardigan Castle, Taylor was taken prisoner ; at least none will feel the slightest doubt that he is the “ Dr. Taylor ” whom Whitelocke mentions as taken on this occasion. Some light is thrown on this portion of his history by Jeremy Taylor himself in the dedication to his “ Liberty of Prophesying.” But though the passage fully shows that Jeremy Taylor had been exposed to some such calamity as that above mentioned, he has so completely disguised the narrative under the form of allegory, that it is impossible to tell, from his excessively figurative language, what the precise facts of the case were. The passage is, indeed, so beautiful in itself, and so eminently characteristic of the writer, that we cannot refrain from transcribing it. Nor is the close of it, in which he makes honourable mention of the gentleness and mercies of a noble enemy,” the least worthy of notice. It is delightful to reflect that as, in that ferocious struggle, there were men who were capable of performing such kind offices to their foes, so there were others who, like Taylor, could gratefully record them. “ My Lord, “ In this great storm, which hath dashed the vessel of the church all in pieces, I have been cast upon the coast of Wales, and, in a little boat, thought to have enjoyed that rest and quietness, which, in England, in a greater, I could not hope for. Here I cast anchor, and thinking to ride safely, the storm followed me with so impetuous violence, that it broke a cable, and I lost my anchor ; and here again I was exposed to the mercy of the sea, and the gentleness of an element that could neither distinguish things nor persons. And but that he who stilleth the raging of the sea, and the noise of his waves, and the madness of his people, had provided a plank for me, I had been lost to all the opportunities of content or study. But I know not whether I have been more preserved by the courtesies of my friends, or the gentleness and mercies of a noble enemy : 01 yap (3dp(3apoi 'n-apeixou ou Tvxovcrav (fnXuv^pMTriav vpilv' dudxf/avTts yap Trvpdv, TrpoatXd^ovTO nrdvTa's vpd^, I long truly to con- verse with you ; for I doe not doubt but in those liberties we shall both goe bettered from each other. For your Lu- cretius, I perceive you have suffered the importunity of too kind friends to prevaile with you. I will not say to you that your Lucretius is as far distant from the severity of a Christian as the faire Ethiopian was from the duty of Bp. Heliodorus ; for indeede it is nothing but what may become the labours of a Christian gentleman, those things onely abated which our evil age needes not ; for which also I hope you either have by notes, or will by preface prepare a suf- ficient antidote : But since you are ingag’d in it, doe not neglect to adorne it, and take what care of it it can require or neede ; for that neglect will be a reproofe of your own act, and looke as if you did it with an unsatisfied mind, and then you may make that to be wholly a sin, from which onely by prudence and charity you could before be advised to abstain. But, S'’, if you will give me leave, I will impose such a penance upon you for your publication of Lucretius, as shall neither displease God nor you ; and since you are buisy in that which may minister directly to learning, and indirectly to error or the confidences of men, who of themselves are apt enough to hide their vices in irreligion, I know you will be willing, and will suffer your selfe to be intreated, to imploy the same pen in the glorifications of God, and the ministeries of eucharist and prayer. S'’, if you have MS'". Sillion de /’ Immortalite de /’ Ame^ I desire you to lend it mee for a weeke ; and believe that I am in great heartiness and dearenesse of affection, “ Deare S'", “ Your obliged and most affectionate friend and servant, “JER. TAYLOR.” About this period, he published his “ Deus Justificatus ; or, a Vindication of the Glory of the Divine Attributes in the Question of Original Sin.” In the same year appeared a “Treatise on Artificial Handsomeness,” which was, at one time, generally attributed to Taylor, and which many of his admirers still believe to be his. It appears to the writer of this Essay, that Bishop Heber has satisfactorily demonstrated this supposition to be erroneous. The internal evidence even of the style (though it sometimes unquestionably reminds the reader of Taylor’s peculiarities) is, on the whole, against such an hypothesis : but a far more conclusive refutation of it is furnished by the nature of many of the sentiments, or rather by the whole strain of argument, the tract is designed to support. It contradicts Taylor’s known and recorded opinions. The tract in question is an elaborate defence of artificial beauty; and those who have read attentively Taylor’s “ Holy Living,” and his “ Great Exemplar,” will not need to be told that he was not likely to prostitute his genius in the advocacy of any such absurdities. In the latter part of the same year, Taylor was visited with a severe domestic calamity. He suddenly lost two of the three “ hopeful” boys which were the fruit of his second marriage. The following letter, a copy of which is in the British Museum, contains a touching reference to this sad bereavement. It is not known to whom it was addressed. “ Deare Sir, — I know you will either excuse or acquit, or at least pardon mee that I have so long seemingly neg- lected to make a returne to your so kind and friendly letter ; when I shall tell you that I have passed through a great cloud which hath wetted mee deeper than the skin. It hath pleased God to send the small poxe and feavers among my children ; and I have, since I received your last, buried two sweet, hopeful boyes ; and have now but one sonne left, whom I intend, if it please God, to bring up to London before Easter, and then I hope to w^aite upon you, and by your sweet conversation and other divertisements, if not to alleviate my sorrow, yet, at least, to entertain myself and keep me from too intense and actual thinkings of my trouble. Dear S'", will you doe so much for mee as to beg my pardon of Mr. Thurland, that I have yet made no returne to him for his so friendly letter and expressions. S^ you see there OF JEREMY TAYLOR. IX is too much matter to make excuse ; my sorrow will, at least, render me an object of every good man’s pity and commiseration. But, for myself, I bless God, I have observed and felt so much mercy in this angry dispensation of God, that I am almost transported, I am sure, highly pleased, with thinking how infinitely sweet his mercies are when his judgments are so gracious. S^, there are many particulars in your letter which I would faine have answered; but, still, my little sadnesses intervene, and will yet suffer me to write nothing else ; but that I beg your prayers, and that you will still own me to be, “ Deare and Honoured Sir, “ Your very affectionate friend and hearty servant, “ Feb. 22, 165^.” “ JER. TAYLOR.” Shortly after this melancholy event, and probably in consequence of it, he is said to have left Golden Grove for a considerable time, and to have repaired to London ; it is also said that he there officiated to a small congregation of episcopalians. This is Wood’s representation. On this point, however, there is great doubt. Bishop Heber thinks that, in all probability, his visits to the metropolis were merely occasional, and that he never permanently resided there. In 1657, his pecuniary perplexities were most generously relieved by the grant of a yearly pen- sion from Evelyn. Taylor’s short letter in reply to it, is characteristic of the warmth and ardour of his affections. “TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. “ Honour’d and deare Sir, — A stranger came two nights since from you with a letter, and a token ; full of humanity and sweetnesse that was, and this of charity. I know it is more blessed to give than to receive ; and yet as I no ways repine at the Providence that forces me to receive, so neither can I envy that felicity of yours, not onely that you can, but that you doe give ; and as I rejoyce in that mercy which daily makes decrees in heaven for my support and comfort, soe I doe most thankfully adore the goodnesse of God to you, whom he consignes to greater glories by the ministeries of these graces. But, Sir, what am I, or what can I doe, or what have I done, that you thinke I have or can oblige you ? Sir, you are too kinde to mee ; and oblige me not onely beyond my merit, but beyond my modesty. I onely can love you, and honour you, and pray for you : and in all this I cannot say but that I am behind hand with you, for I have found so great effluxes of all your worthinesse and charities, that I am a debtor for your prayers, for the comfort of your letters, for the charity of your hand, and the affections of your heart. Sir, though you are beyond the reach of my returnes, and my services are very short of touching you, yet if it were possible for me to receive any commands, the obeying of which might signify my great regards of you, I could with some more confidence converse with a person so obliging ; but I am oblig’d and asham’d, and unable to say so much as I should doe to represent myselfe to be, “ Honour’d and deare Sir, “ Your most affectionate and obliged friend and servant, “ May 15, 1657.” “ JER. TAYLOR.” This same year, /Taylor republished several of his pieces, controversial and practical, in one volume folio, under the title 2up/3oXov HStJco-TroXept/cov. The “ Liberty of Prophesying,” in this edition, contained some few additions, while the volume was enriched with one valuable and beau- tiful little tract, never before published, the “ Discourse of Friendship.” Early in the year 1658, Taylor was once more in London, though in no enviable lodgings ; — the Tower ! It appears that his publisher had prefixed to his “ Collection of Offices,” a picture of Christ in the attitude of prayer ! By an act recently passed, all such “ effigies ” were declared “ scan- dalous,” and “ tending to idolatry,” and as, in those strange times, there was often as much injustice in the execution of the laws as in the laws themselves, Taylor had to pay for his book- seller’s indiscretion. By the good offices, however, of his never-failing friend, Evelyn, he was soon set at liberty. Evelyn, shortly after this, lost two sons — Richard and George Taylor, at all times well qualified to administer consolation, was in this case peculiarly fitted for this office. He could the more deeply sympathize with his friend’s sorrows, that he had so recently been called to drink the same bitter cup even to the dregs. The following is the eminently beautiful letter of condolence which he addressed to Evelyn on this occasion, and which we make no apology for transcribing entire. “TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. “ Deare Sir, — If dividing and sharing griefes were like the cutting of rivers, I dare say to you, you would find your streame much abated ; for I account myselfe to have a great cause of sorrow, not onely in the diminution of the numbers of your joys and hopes, but in the loose of that pretty person, your strangely hopeful boy. I cannot tell all X AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS my owne sorrowes without adding to yours ; and the causes of my real sadnesse in your losse are so just and so reason- able, that I can no otherwise comfort you but by telling you, that you have very great cause to mourne ; so certaine it is that griefe does propagate as fire does. You have enkindled my funeral torch, and by joining mine to yours, I doe but encrease the flame. ‘ Hoc me male urit,’ is the best signification of my apprehension of your sad story. But, Sir, I cannot choose, but I must hold another and a brighter flame to you, it is already burning in your heart ; and if I can but remove the darke side of the lanthorne, you have enoughe within you to warme yourselfe, and to shine to others. Remember, Sir, your two boyes are two bright starres, and their innocence is secured, and you shall never hear evil of them agayne. Their state is safe, and heaven is given to them upon very easy termes ; nothing but to be borne and die. It will cost you more trouble to get where they are ; and amongst other things one of the hardnesses will be, that you must overcome even this just and reasonable griefe ; and, indeed, though the griefe hath but too reason- able a cause, yet it is much more reasonable that you master it. For besides that they are no loosers, but you are the person that complaines, doe but consider what you would have suffer’d for their interest : you would have suf- fered them to goe from you, to be great princes in a strange country ; and if you can be content to suffer your owne inconvenience for their interest, you command [commend] your worthiest love, and the question of mourning is at an end. But you have said and done well, when you looke upon it as a rod of God ; and he that so smites here will spare hereafter : and if you, by patience and submission, imprint the discipline upon your own flesh, you kill the cause, and make the effect very tolerable ; because it is, in some sense, chosen, and therefore, in no sense, insufferable. Sir, if you doe not looke to it, time will snatch your honour from you, and reproach you for not effecting that by Christian philosophy which time will doe alone. And if you consider, that of the bravest men in the world, we find the seldomest stories of their children, and the apostles had none, and thousands of the worthiest persons, that sound most in story, died childlesse : you will find it is a rare act of Providence so to impose upon worthy men a necessity of perpetuating their names by worthy actions and discourses, governments and reasonings. If the breach be never repair’d, it is be- cause God does not see it fitt to be ; and if you will be of his mind, it will be much the better. But, Sir, you will pardon my zeale and passion for your comfort, I will readily confesse that you have no need of any discourse from me to comfort you. Sir, now you have an opportunity of serving God by passive graces ; strive to be an example and a comfort to your lady, and by your wise counsel and comfort, stand in the breaches of your owne family, and make it appeare that you are more to her than ten sons. Sir, by the assistance of Almighty God, I purpose to wait on you some time next weeke, that I may be a witnesse of your Christian courage and bravery ; and that I may see, that God never displeases you, as long as the main stake is preserved, I meane your hopes and confidences of heaven. Sir, I shall pray for all that you can want, that is, some degrees of comfort and a present mind ; and shal alwayes doe you honour, and faine also would doe you service, if it were in the power, as it is in the affections and desires of, “ Dear Sir, “ Your most affectionate and obliged friend and servant, “Feb. 17, 1657-8. “JER. TAYLOR.” The friends of Taylor, probably prompted as much by fears for his safety as by compassion for his poverty, now suggested an expedient for securing the one and relieving the other ; an expedient which, as Heber properly remarks, would, under any other circumstances, have excited the utmost astonishment. They proposed to banish him to a sort of Patmos, — out of the way of further perse- cution, — to the north-eastern part of barbarous Ireland ! The proposal originated with the Earl of Conway, who had immense possessions in the neighbourhood of Lisburne. It was this nobleman, in all likelihood, who procured for Taylor that offer of an alternate lectureship at Lisburne, which, as appears by the following extract from a letter of Taylor to Evelyn, in reply to the proposal, excited no very pleasant sensations. “ Honour’d Sir, — I returne you many thankes for your care of my temporal affaires : I wish I may be able to give you as good account of my watchfulnesse for your service, as you have of your diligence to doc me benefit. But concerning the thing itselfe, I am to give you this account. I like not the condition of being a lecturer under the dispose of another, nor to serve in my semi-circle, where a preshyterian and myselfe shall be like Castor and Pollux^ the one up and the other downe ; which, methinkes, is like the worshipping the sun, and making him the deity, that we may be religious halfe the yeare, and every night serve another interest. Sir, the stipend is so inconsiderable, it will not pay the charge and trouble of remooving my selfe and family. It is wholly arbitrary ; for the triers may overthrow it ; or the vicar may forbid it ; or the suhscrihers may die, or grow weary, or poore, or be absent. I be- seech you. Sir, pay my thankes to your friend, w'ho had so much kindnesse for mee as to intend my benefitt ; I thinke myselfe no lesse obliged to him and you than if I had accepted it.” ***** * Yielding, however, to the dictates of prudence and the importunities of friendship, and cheered by the prospects of comfort which, he was assured, awaited him, he at length quietly resigned him- self to this sentence of exile from all he most cherished. He proceeded to his destination with the strongest letters of recommendation from Sir Wm. Petty and other persons of distinction. The persons to whom those letters were addressed were of equal distinction ; amongst the rest, the lord chancellor of Ireland ; the Lord Pepys; General Tomlinson ; OF JEREMY TAYLOR. XI the lord chief baron. Above all, Cromwell himself, either because he respected and admired the man, or because he was not unwilling that so stanch a loyalist should be removed from England, or more probably from both these motives, “ gave him a passport and protection for himself and family under his sign manual and privy signet.” He sailed from England in June. In Ireland, he is said to have lived alternately at Lisburne and Portmore, which places were about eight miles from each other. It is conjectured, that he might have visited Lisburne merely to discharge his public functions ; for, if we may trust the tradition of the family, he almost constantly resided in a house near the mansion of the Earl of Conway. He did not quite restrict the exercise of his ministerial functions to his lectureship ; he is said to have some- times addressed a little assembly of loyalists “ in the half-ruined church of Kilulta.” The spot in which Taylor now lived must have been exactly suited to all the native tastes and dispositions of his mind. The noble mansion of his patron stood amidst scenes of romantic beauty ; diversified with wood and water, hill and dale. Two lakes. Lough Neagh and Lough Bag, one larger, the other smaller, both of them decked with fairy islands, watered these princely domains. In these retreats, more especially Ram Island on Lough Neagh and a still smaller islet on the lesser lake, Jeremy Taylor, who here found all that could gratify his fancy or feed his passion for contemplation and retirement, frequently buried himself. “ Poor and dependent as Taylor was,” to adopt a natural and just reflection of his biographer, “ this was probably the happiest part of his life.” His letters from this obscure, yet delightful retreat, are just such as might be expected from a literary man under such circumstances. He was still anxious to know what was occurring in that intellectual world, for a total seclusion from which even the most enchanting scenery of nature could hardly compensate. A single paragraph from his first letter to Evelyn will amuse the reader. “ Honoured Sir, — I feare I am so unfortunate as that I forgot to leave with you a direction how you might, if you pleased to honour me with a letter, refresh my solitude with notice of your health and that of your relatives, that I may rejoyce and give God thankes for the blessing and prosperity of my dearest and most honour’d friends. I have kept close all the winter, that I might, without interruption, attend to the finishing of the imployment I was engaged in : which now will have no longer delay than what it meetes in the printer’s hands. But, Sir, I hope that by this time you have finished what you have so prosperously begun, — your owne Lucretius. I desire to receive notice of it from yourselfe, and what other designes you are upon in order to the promoting or adorning learning ; for I am con- fident you will be as useful and profitable as you can be, that, by the worthiest testimonies, it may by posterity be remembered that you did live. But, Sir, I pray say to me something concerning the state of learning ; how is any art or science likely to improove ? what good bookes are lately publike ? what learned men, abroad or at home, begin anew to fill the mouth of fame, in the places of the dead Salmasius, Vossius, Mocelin, Sirmond, Rigaltius, Des Cartes, Galileo, Peiresk, Petavius, and the excellent persons of yesterday ?"****** Taylor had not been long at Portmore before he found that nothing short of absolute solitude is a protection against calumny. A person named “ Tandy,” whose precise relations to Taylor’s new patrons it is not very easy to ascertain, but who on some account was meanly jealous of Taylor’s reputation, “ denounced him to the Irish privy council as a dangerous and disaffected character.” Though the Earl of Conway took up the cause of his protege with becoming spirit, Taylor was summoned before the council to answer to the accusations preferred against him. He was, in all probability, soon discharged ; yet his journey to Dublin, undertaken in the midst of winter, occa- sioned a severe indisposition. In his letters to Evelyn at the close of 1659, and the beginning of 1660, he declares his intention of visiting London in the coming April. This purpose he accomplished at a moment most opportune for his future advancement. He arrived in the metropolis in time to affix his name to the celebrated declaration of the loyalists, dated April 24, 1660, expressive “ of their confidence in Monk and his government.” This was a favourable introduction to the attention of the young monarch ; to whom moreover he did not neglect to dedicate* his great work, then just completed, the “ Ductor Dubi- tantium.” In the same year appeared the “ Worthy Communicant,” to which was attached his funeral sermon for Sir George Dalstone. The king must have been even more base and ungrateful than he afterwards proved to be, had he wholly overlooked the merits of such a man as Jeremy Taylor. He was accordingly nominated, * This dedication, by the way, considering all the circumstances of this case, is by no means so adulatory as some of his other dedications. Xll AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS on the 6th of August, to the bisliopric of Down and Connor ; and though he might naturally have expected a more splendid reward, in that distribution of the “good things” which the restored monarch had to bestow, his attachment to Ireland, — his adopted country, his refuge in poverty and trouble, and by this time sanctified by so many delightful associations, — doubtless reconciled him to this appointment. Shortly after his elevation to the episcopate, he was elected, at the instance of the Duke of Ormond, vice chancellor of the university of Dublin. The duties which these situations imposed were exceedingly arduous. But Jeremy Taylor was no idler, and he therefore set about the discharge of them with vigour and perseverance. The affairs of the university, which had gone into sad confusion and disorder, he subjected to a complete re- vision, not only correcting many abuses, but digesting a complete body of statutes and regulations. This task, though heavy, was performed satisfactorily enough. Though Bishop Taylor laboured with equal or even with greater diligence in the duties of his diocess, it is not to be wondered at that those labours were only partially successful. In that imbittered state of feeling, with which the different classes of religionists regarded one another, the character of a Jeremy Taylor on the one side or of a Howe on the other, could do comparatively little. The “ odium theologicum ” is always strong enough, even where nothing but controversy has inflamed it ; but where, as in this case, the animosity of contending sects was aggravated by a long and ferocious civil conflict and by the remembrance of ten thousand mutual wrongs, hardly angelic virtue could have secured any man of any party from the suspicion and the hatred of the rest. Whatever opinions may be formed of the ecclesiastical system of which Jeremy Taylor formed so great an ornament, and which was now restored, none who have studied his character and his writings can doubt, that he discharged what he deemed his duties, though with zeal and diligence, yet in the spirit of a Christian, — with mildness, with gentleness, with charity. This his history tells us ; but even if it did not, his character alone would be authentication sufficient. Happy had it been for the church of which he was so distinguished a member, had all her dignitaries displayed the same spirit of moderation, and the same conciliatory temper! But though Taylor’s efforts in his diocess were, as might be expected, only partially successful, they did unquestionably produce in due time a powerful effect ; and, indeed, while human nature remains what it is, such conduct and such a spirit as his will necessarily do more towards the real subjugation of mankind, than the utmost force of the most perfect despotism. Tyranny may be defied ; but persevering kindness, how few can long resist ! Jeremy Taylor was now placed in a situation where he would be necessarily exposed to all the annoyances arising from extensive religious differences ; a situation which would put his principles of toleration to a severe practical test. Under these circumstances, he has sometimes been charged with having abandoned, or, at all events, seriously qualified, some of the principles laid down in his “ Liberty of Prophesying ; ” more especially in his “ Sermon before the two Houses of Parliament,” preached on the 8th of May, 1660. This charge we shall briefly examine in a subsequent part of this Essay. The cup of honours and dignities was not yet quite full. In the following February, he was made a member of the “ Irish privy council ; ” and in April, was commissioned to undertake, together with his own diocess, the neighbouring one of Dromore. The reason assigned in the writ under the privy seal for this appointment, was an illustrious tribute to his worth and excellence. He was chosen, it stated, “on account of his virtue, wisdom, and industry.” His “ Sermon before the Parliament,” his “ Consecration Sermon,” and a little manual for his clergy, were all that Taylor sent to the press during the first year of his episcopate ; and considering his manifold labours, even these were more than could have been expected. That there were moods, in which he looked back with regret to the delights of the retirement he had lost, and in which, had it been consistent with duty, he would gladly have laid down the oppressive honours of the mitre in exchange for the studious quiet of his former life, may not only well be conceived from his passion for solitude and abstraction, but seems almost implied in the language he employs in a letter to his old friend Evelyn, written somewhat more than a year after his installation. It is dated Dublin. “ Sir,” says he, “ I am so full of publicke concernes and the troubles of businesse in my diocess, that I cannot yet have leisure to thinke of much of my old delightful employment. But I hope I have brought my affaires almost to a consistence, and then I may returne againe.” OF JEREMY TAYLOR. xiii Scarcely any thing is known of Taylor’s private life during the few years he adorned the mitre. It is certain he had a house and farm at Portmore, his old and much-loved retreat, where he lived in intimacy with his friend and former patron the Earl of Conway. It was perfectly natural that he should make this his favourite place of residence. The works which Taylor published between his elevation to a bishopric and his death, were “Via Intelligentia ; ” a sermon preached before the university of Dublin, 1662; Xpung TeXetwrtfcr;, “A Defence and Introduction to the Rite of Confirmation ; ” three sermons delivered at Christ Church, Dublin; a “Funeral Sermon” for Archbishop Bramhall, all of which appeared in 1663 ; and his “ Dissuasive from Popery,” which he had undertaken, though reluctantly, at the desire of the whole body of Irish bishops. This last work appeared in 1664, about three years before his death. The domestic afflictions which imbittered the close of Taylor’s life, were more severe than any which had befallen him at an earlier period. The only remaining son by his second marriage, Edward, he had lost in less than a year after his elevation to the see of Dromore. But this was the least part of his misfortunes. The two surviving sons by his first marriage died about this time, and, as already intimated, under the most distressing circumstances. The elder, who was a cavalry captain in the king’s service, was killed in a duel with a brother offlcer ; (an event which, as one of the family assures us, nearly caused the death of the father ;) the younger, originally intended for the church, and actually educated at Dublin university with this view, became, as there is too much reason to fear, decidedly vicious. He at all events more than justified such suspicions, by becoming the companion of the licentious Buckingham, at whose house he died of a decline, in 1667. This event occurred only a few days before Taylor’s own death ; and the good bishop was in all probability spared the pain even of hearing of it. He was attacked on the third of August, 1667, by a fever, which proved fatal in little more than a week. He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age ; and was buried in the church of Dromore. His funeral sermon was preached by his ancient friend Dr. Rust, whom he had invited over into Ireland in 1661, and who succeeded Taylor in the see of Dromore. That sermon is prefixed to the present edition of Taylor’s works, and furnishes some valuable information with respect to the character and habits of the deceased prelate, though it is not always expressed in the happiest manner, nor distinguished for unimpeachable accuracy. Taylor is said to have possessed much personal beauty ; and if his portraits speak truth, (and there is no reason to doubt it,) we may well believe this. The countenance is singularly expressive of the man ; his gentle melancholy, the half ascetic turn of his mind, his love of contemplation, are all strongly indicated in his features. Such is a very rapid sketch of the principal events of Jeremy Taylor’s life. Those who wish to see a fuller account of him, so far at least as the scanty materials which time and death, and fire and flood, have left, — for all these have, *it appears, made havoc of the memory and remains of Jeremy Taylor, — will do well to read Bishop Heber’s life of this great man. The naked facts stated with all brevity, is all that could be attempted within the compass of the present design. The authority of Bishop Heber’s work has in all doubtful matters been followed in the present sketch ; a confidence which is fully warranted by the accuracy and care which distinguish it, by the patience of investigation with which the excellent author explored every source of information, and the singular sagacity which he has often displayed in putting together scattered hints and frag- ments, and in reconciling conflicting statements. Having given this brief account of Jeremy Taylor’s life, it is time to proceed to the principal object of the following pages, — an analysis of his character. It may be truly affirmed that there have been few men of any note in the annals of literature, whose intellectual character is more difficult of exact analysis, than that of Jeremy Taylor. It is true, indeed, that some of his more prominent peculiarities are stamped on all his productions, even on those which are the least valuable. That surpassing splendour and richness of fancy, with which he adorns even his most ordinary conceptions, are not only obvious to his most negligent readers; but is apt to incapacitate them for a perception of the less dazzling, but scarcely less extraordinary peculiarities of his intellect ; peculiarities which render it, in the opinion of the present writer, one * See Heber’s life, p. exxv. XIV AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS of the most complex which was ever submitted to the analysis of intellectual philosophy. Never perhaps, was there a man, in whom qualities so heterogeneous existed in such intimate com- bination, or who possessed excellences so rare, in such close neighbourhood with such glaring defects. From one end of his works to the other, he alternately charms and provokes us by unparalleled beauties and the most unpardonable faults; he now fills the whole firmament with light and glory, and is now labouring in the darkest and most disastrous eclipse ; he is one moment soaring in “ the highest heaven of invention,” and the next, sinks at once “ten thousand fathoms down” into the nethermost abyss of extravagance or absurdity. Not a few of the readers and admirers of Jeremy Taylor think all this eccentricity and inequality of genius sufficiently accounted for, by affirming that there was an immense disparity between his powers of reasoning and his imagination. This explanation will not bear a close examination ; for in the first place, the alleged fact is not true, and even if it were, it would not account for the phenomena. First, the alleged fact is not true. It is far from the intention of the present writer to affirm that Taylor’s powers of reasoning are equal to those of his imagination ; but it may be safely affirmed, and will be conceded by every careful student of his writings, that there is not that immense interval between them which many imagine. But secondly, it may be denied that this vast inferiority of reason, if it really existed, would solve the phenomena of Taylor’s mental eccentricities, at least, if by powers of reasoning be meant, what is generally meant, an aptitude for logical illation. It would not account even for his inequalities as a reasoner, much less for those inequalities which characterize almost equally the exercise of all his other faculties. If he had feeble powers of reasoning, this would indeed sufficiently account for the instances in which he has reasoned ill, but can never account for those instances, and they are far from few, in which he has displayed con- summate acuteness and ingenuity ; much less can it account for the inequalities, which, as already intimated, and as we shall hereafter have abundant opportunity of showing, characterized alike all the movements of his intellect. These inequalities, — inequalities not between one faculty and another, or in their relative proportions, but in the exercise of all alike, — are not to be accounted for by supposing any very considerable disparity between any two of them ; but by supposing the absence of that principle of harmony, usually called judgment in respect of the reason, and taste in respect of the fancy, which alone could secure uniformity and regularity of action. Abstractedly^ Jeremy Taylor appears to have possessed nearly all the elements of the highest order of minds, but in the actual exhibition of each, is marked by the same inequality. This view of his intellectual character his works abundantly confirm. He has said many of the profouiidest, and some of the most foolish things ; he has constructed some of the most acute and ingenious trains of reasoning, and he has fallen prostrate before the most miserable fallacies ; he has dragged truth from some of its darkest and most obscure recesses, and has stumbled into the most obvious errors in the light of noon-day ; he has often unravelled the most intricate and grasped the most comprehensive questions, and at other times has managed to lose his way in the straightest road, and to miss the object of his search when it lay just under his eye ; he has delighted us with the most glorious visions which ever unfolded themselves to an uninspired imagination, and has offended us with the wildest rhapsody and bombast ; he has sometimes employed his boundless learning with admirable skill, and for purposes of adequate importance, and has at others lavished it on a prodigal illustration of the most trivial themes. His excellences and his faults are not only equally great, but often dwell close together, nay in the compass of the very same sentence ; as though the supreme and only perfect Being had intended to teach us by a very peculiar and affecting exhibition of human frailty, that man “ at his best estate is altogether vanity.” On the hypothesis, then, here maintained, Jeremy Taylor’s was not a mutilated intellect ; it pos- sessed all the requisite parts and members separately taken, and that, too, on a gigantic scale, but they were ill compacted, and consequently incapable of harmonious or uniform action ; or he might be compared to those unhappy victims of epilepsy, who, though they possess all the faculties of body and of mind, and ordinarily exercise all the functions of life aright, are sometimes suddenly, and without any apparent cause, seized with paroxysms which distort every limb and feature into hideous deformity. Jeremy Taylor’s mind, as actually displayed in his writings, reminds one of some yet unfinished work of Phidias ; the outline of more than mortal grace and beauty is half transparent through the still rugged and imperfectly chiselled marble. OF JEREMY TAYLOR. XV There are many, it is true, who would demur to the statement that Jeremy Taylor’s mind, as originally constituted, possessed, in high degrees of excellence, almost all the qualities which usually distinguish the loftiest order of genius. While willingly admitting his transcendent brilliancy of fancy, they would deny that he possessed any considerable force of reason. But the contrary of this is in our opinion conclusively proved by the fact, that there are in his works many insulated trains of reasoning marked by a closeness, originality, and acuteness, not often equalled, and seldom surpassed, and for which nothing but great native aptitude for argument can account. Such passages might be easily multiplied from his “ Treatise on Transubstantiation ; ” his “ Dis- suasive from Popery and above all, from every part of his “Ductor Dubitantium.” We cannot refrain from vindicating our representation by citing two or three passages. Take for instance the following from Section XI. of the Treatise against Transubstantiation. He is showing, let it be ob- served, that reasoning on the very premises on which the papists absurdly affirm that the bread is changed into Christ’s body, they are inconsistent in affirming, as they are compelled to do, that the apparent qualities, or, as they term it, the accidents of bread, still remain. “ First; I shall lay this prejudice in the article, as relating to the discourses of reason; that in the words of in- stitution, there is nothing that can be pretended to prove the conversion of the substance of bread into the body of Christ, but the same will infer the conversion of the whole into the whole ; and therefore of the accidents of the bread into the accidents of the body. And, in those little pretences of philosophy, which these men sometimes make to cozen fools into a belief of the possibility, they pretend to no instance, but to such conversions, in which, if the sub- stance is changed, so also are the accidents : sometimes the accident is changed in the same remaining substance ; but if the substance be changed, the accidents never remain the same individually ; or in kind, unless they be symbolical, that is, are common to both, as in the change of elements, of air into fire, of water into earth. Thus when Christ changed water into wine, the substances being changed, the accidents also were altered, and the wine did not retain the colour and taste of water ; for then, though it had been the stranger miracle, that wine should be wine, and yet look and taste like water, — yet it would have obtained but little advantage to his doctrine and person, if he should have offered to prove his mission by such a miracle. For if Christ had said to the guests ; ‘ To prove that I am come from God, I will change this water into wine ; ’ well might this prove his mission : but if, while the guests were wondering at this, he should proceed and say, ‘ Wonder ye not at this, for I will do a stranger thing than it, for this water shall be changed into wine, and yet I will so order it, that it shall look like water, and taste like it, so that you shall not know one from the other ; * certainly this would have made the whole matter very ridiculous ; and indeed it is a strange device of these men to suppose God to work so many prodigious miracles, as must be in transubstanti- ation, if it were at all, — and yet that none of these should be seen ; for to what purpose is a miracle, that cannot be perceived ? It can prove nothing, nor do any thing, when itself is not known whether it be or no. When bread is turned into flesh, and wine into blood, in the nourishment of our bodies, (which I have seen urged for the credibility of transubstantiation,) the bread, as it changes his nature, changes his accidents too, and is flesh in colour, and shape, and dimensions, and weight, and operation, as well as it is in substance. Now let them rub their foreheads hard, and tell us, it is so in the holy sacrament. For if it be not so, then no instance of the change of natural substances, from one form to another, can be pertinent : for, 1. Though it be no more than is done in every operation of a body, yet it is always with change of their proper accidents ; and then, 2. It can, with no force of the words of the institution, be pretended, that one ought to be, or can be, without the other. For he that says, this is the body of a man, says that it hath the substance of a human body, and all his consequents, that is, the accidents : and he that says, this is the body of Alexander, says (besides the substance) that it hath all the individuating conditions, which are the particular accidents ; and therefore Christ, affirming this to be his body, did as much affirm the change of accidents as the change of sub- stance ; because that change is naturally and essentially consequent to this. Now if they say, ‘ they therefore do not believe the accidents of bread to be changed, because they see them remain ; ’ I might reply, ‘ Why will they believe their sense against faith ? ’ since there may be evidence, but here is certainty ; and it cannot be deceived, though our eyes can : and it is certain, that Christ affirmed it without distinction of one part from another of sub- stance from his usual accidents. ‘ This is my body:’ ‘ Hoc,’ ‘ Hie,’ ‘ Nunc,’ and ‘ Sic.’ — Now, if they think their eyes may be credited for all the words of our blessed Saviour, why shall not their reason also ? or is it nothing so certain to the understanding, as any thing is to the eye ? If, therefore, it be unreasonable to say, that the accidents of bread are changed against our sense, so it will be unreasonable to say, that the substance is changed against our reason ; not but that God can and does often change one substance into another, and it is done in every natural production of a substantial form ; but that we say it is unreasonable, that this should be changed into flesh, not to flesh simply, for so it is when we eat it ; — nor into Christ’s flesh simply, for so it might have been, if he had, as it is probable he did, eaten the sacrament himself, — but into that body of Christ, which is in heaven ; he remaining there, and being whole, and impassible, and unfrangible, this, we say, is unreasonable and impossible: and that is now to be proved.” Or take the following exposure of a sophism of his popish antagonist, from the “ Introduction ” to the “ Second Part” of his “Dissuasive.” Jeremy Taylor had asserted in the first part of his work that certain doctrines, in later times alleged to be catholic and essentially necessary, could -\V1 AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND \VRITINGS not have been so in earlier times, inasmuch as we have the decided dissent of two or three eminent fathers against them ; and in such a case the dissent of two or three is, it is alleged, sufficient. “ Against this J. S. hath a pretty sophism, or, if you please, let it pass for one of his demonstrations. ‘ If one or two denying a point, which many (others) affirm, argues that it is not of faith ; then, ‘ a fortiori,’ if one or two affirm it to be of faith, it argues it is of faith, though many others deny it.’ This consequent is so far from arising from the antecedent, that nothing in the world destroys it more. For, because the denial of one or two argues a doctrine is not catholic, though affirmed by many, therefore it is impossible that the affirmation of one or two (when there be many dissentients) should sufficiently prove a doctrine to be catholic. The antecedent supposes that true which therefore concludes the consequent to be false ; for, therefore, the affirming a thing to be catholic, by two or three, or twenty, does not prove it to be so, unless all consent, because the denying it to be catholic (which the antecedent supposes) by two or three, is a good testimony that it is not catholic. J. S.’s argument is like this; if the absence of a few makes the company not full, then the presence of a few when more are absent, ‘ a fortiori,’ makes the company to be full. But because I must say nothing but what must be reduced to grounds, I have to show the stupendous folly of this argument, a self-evident principle, and that is, ‘ Bonum,’ and so, ‘ Verum ’ is ‘ ex integra causa, malum ex qualibet particular! ; ’ and a cup is broken, if but one piece of the lip be broken ; but it is not whole, unless it be whole all over. And much more is this true, in a question concerning the universality of consent, or of tradition. For J. S. does prevaricate in the question, which is, whether the testimony be universal, if the particulars be not agreed : and he instead of that thrusts in another word which is no part of the question : for so he changes it, by saying, ‘ The dissent of a few does not make but that the article is a point of faith ; ’ for though it cannot be supposed a point of faith, when any number of the catholic fathers do profess to believe a proposition contrary to it ; yet possibly it will by some of his side be said to be a point of faith, ‘ upon other accounts ; ’ as upon ‘ the church’s definition,’ or the ‘ authority of plain Scriptures ; ’ but this will be nothing to J. S.’s hypothesis; for if a part of the catholic fathers did deliver the contrary, there was no irrefragable, catholic, oral tradition of the church, when so considerable a part of the church delivered the contrary as their own doctrine, which is not to be imagined they would have done, if the consent of the church of that age was against it. And if we can suppose this case, that one part of the fathers should say, ‘this is the doctrine of the church,’ when another part of the fathers are of a contrary judgment, — either they did not say true, and then the fathers’ testimony, speaking as witnesses of the doctrine of the church of their age, is not infallible ; — or if they did say true, yet their testimony was not esteemed sufficient ; because the other fathers, who must needs know it, if it was the catholic doctrine of the church then, do not take it for truth or sufficient. And that maxim which was received in the council of Trent, that ‘a major part of voices was sufficient for decreeing in a matter of reformation ; but that a decree of faith could not be made, if a considerable part did contradict,’ relies upon the same reason ; faith is every man’s duty, and every man’s concern, and every man’s learning ; and, therefore, it is not to be supposed that any thing can be an article of faith, in which a number of wise and good men are at differ- ence, either as doctors or as witnesses. The next shall be an admirable passage from the same introduction, in which he most admirably explodes the absurd theory of his opponent, — that the fathers were infallible. “ It is false that ‘ the testimony of the fathers, speaking of them properly as such, is infallible.’ For ‘ God only is true, and every man a liar ; ’ and since the fathers never pretended to be assisted by a supernatural miraculous aid, or inspired by an infallible spirit ; and infallibility is so far beyond human nature and industry, that the fathers may be called angels much rather than infallible ; for if they were assisted by an infallible spirit, what hinders but that their writings might be canonical Scriptures ? And if it be said they were assisted infallibly in some things, and not in all, it is said to no purpose ; for unless it be infallibly known where the infallibility resides, and what is so certain as it cannot be mistaken, every man must tread fearfully, for he is sure the ice is broken in many places, and he knows not where it will hold. It is certain St. Austin did not think the fathers before him to be infallible, when it is plain that in many doctrines, as in the damnation of infants dying unbaptized, and especially in questions occurring in the disputes against the Pelagians about free-will and predestination, without scruple he rejected the doctrines of his predecessors. And when, in a question between himself and St. Jerome, about St. Peter and the second chapter to the Galatians, he was pressed with the authority of six or seven Greek fathers, he roundly answered, that he gave no such honour to any writers of books, but to the Scriptures only, as to think them not to have erred : other authors he read so as to believe them, if' they were proved by Scriptures or probable reason. Not because they thought so, but because he thought them proved. And he appeals to St. Jerome, whether he were not of the same mind con- cerning his own works. And for that St. Jerome hath given satisfaction to the world, in divers places of his own writings : ‘ I suppose Origen is, for his learning, to be read as Tertullian, Novatus, Arnobius, Apollinarius, and some writers, Greek and Latin, that we choose out that which is good, and avoid the contrary.’ So that it is evident the fathers themselves have no conceit of the infallibility of themselves or others, — the prophets, and apostles, and evan- gelists only excepted ; and, therefore, if this be an avowed doctrine of the Roman church, there is no oral tradition for it, no first and self-evident principle to prove it ; and either the fathers are deceived in saying they are fallible, or they are not : if they be deceived in saying so, then that sufficiently proves that they can be deceived, and, therefore, that they are not infallible ; but if they be not deceived in saying that they are fallible, then it is certain that they are fallible, because they say they are, and in saying so are not deceived. But then if in this the fathers are not deceived. OP JEREMY TAYLOR. xvii then the church of Rome, in one of her avowed doctrines, is deceived, saying otlierwisc of the fathers than is true, and contrary to what themselves said of themselves.” One more shall suffice; it shall be a short passage from the “ Ductor Dubitantium.” He is opposing that sad sophism of many of the Roman casuists, that a judge might give sentence even against his conscience, provided his sentence was according to law. It is only a small part of a very long and acute train of reasoning. “ It is true that a judge hath a double capacity, and he hath offices proportionable ; some as a man, some as a judge ; that is, he hath some natural and essential obligations, some which are superinduced upon his office. And therefore, I refuse to use this distinction as it is commonly used, and so made more subject to mistake and abuse. In this case the judge is not to be considered as a public man and a private man ; for private is as much superinduced as public, and his other relations are as much to yield to his essential duty, as that of a judge ; such as are the relation of a husband, of a father, of a tutor, of a master ; and, amongst these, the more private is often tied to yield to the more public. But therefore in this case the judge is to be considered as a judge and as a man ; and in this case the duties are sometimes disparate, but never contrary ; and when there is a dispute, the superinduced must yield to that which is original ; for whatsoever is his duty as a man, the judge may not prevaricate ; for it is the man that is the judge, in the man that office is subjected, and the office of a judge is bound upon him by the conscience of the man. If the judge had two consciences, and two real persons, then it were to be granted that they were to be served and attended to in their several callings ; but it is not so ; they are but two persons in fiction of law, but materially, and to all real events, the same : it is the same conscience ministering to divers duties : and therefore as the judge is always that man, so his conscience is the conscience of that man ; and because as a man he must not go against his conscience, — so when that man is a judge, he must not go against the man’s conscience, for the judge is still that man ruled by that conscience. The essential duty of a man cannot by any superinduced formality be dispensed with. Now to go ac- cording to our conscience and knowledge is the essential rule and duty of a man, which he cannot put off by being a judge. The new office superinduces new obligations, but non-e contrary, no more than he can cease being a man by being a judge. ‘ Certe prior anima quam litera, et prior sermo quam liber, et prior sensus quam stylus, et prior homo quam philosophus et poeta ; ’ He is first a man, and then a philosopher, a poet, or a judge ; and that which is first, cannot be prejudiced by what is superinduced. And if the judge go against the conscience of the man, pretending to do according to the conscience of the judge, the man shall be damned, — and where the judge shall then appear, any child can tell. If the bishop of Bayeux, as earl of Kent, will rebel against his prince, the earl of Kent shall lose his head, though the bishop of Bayeux may plead his clergy. For in this there is a great mistake. To be a man and to be a judge, are not to be compared as two distinct capacities of equal consideration. To be a bishop and to be a judge are properly such, and have distinct measures : but to be a man is the subject of the two capacities, and cannot be laid aside as either of the other may ; and therefore the distinction is vain and sophistical : and if it could be ad- mitted in metaphysics, (in which yet it appears to have an error,) yet it can never be suffered to pass to real events. This being the ground of all the contrary opinion, and being found false, the superstructure must also fall to the ground.” These specimens might be easily multiplied ; but there is no occasion. It is not pretended that these are the best that might possibly be selected ; still less that the topics all required such elaborate logic. They have been selected principally on account of their being of convenient length ; but though short, they afford sufficient proof that Jeremy Taylor’s logical powers were worthy of what we have said of them. The mere existence of such passages incontrovertibly demonstrates, that his frequent errors of reasoning are not to be imputed to any original feebleness or inferiority in the powers of reasoning themselves, but to some intervening causes, which for the time appeared to paralyze them, and which, as already stated, have dimmed the lustre of his fancy as frequently as they have disturbed the exercise of his reason. Effects must, at least, have proportionate causes ; and though where a power exists, we can account for its suspended exercise or frequent perversion, we cannot, upon the sup- position that it does not exist, account for any one of its appropriate effects. A man who lifts a certain weight, must at least have strength proportioned to the task, even though at other times he may give but feeble indications of his possessing any such strength. One cause for the very general impression of the comparative feebleness of his reasoning powers, which pervades the minds of Jeremy Taylor’s readers, may be readily imagined ; his most successful argumentative efforts are to be found in his controversial works, and these are little read in compari- son with his practical and devotional writings. In these last, of course, impressive sentiment and beautiful imagery are not only more frequent than subtlety of reasoning, but more appropriate. “ As a reasoner,” says Bishop Heber, “ I do not think him matchless.” Few, it is presumed, would be inclined to dispute this position. In originality, continuity, accuracy, and comprehensive- ness of reasoning, he is vastly inferior to Locke, or Chillingworth, or Barrow. All that is now c AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS xviii maintained is, that he naturally possessed powers of argument, wliicli, if sedulously eultivated and thoroughly disciplined, would have raised him to a rank amongst logicians, little inferior to that which he has attained in the class of imaginative writers. It is impossible, however, not to feel that Taylor’s powers of reasoning, whether originally feeble, as some think, or strong, as in the opinion of the present writer, never had fair play. They were often unquestionably overborne by the united influence of his ever-active fancy and his stupendous learning. Strong as his native aptitude for argument might be, it must have been far stronger still, to have maintained any thing like a decided and uniform ascendancy against the combined influence of these disturbing forces. It is true there have been some few men, (but Jeremy Taylor was far from being one of them,) who have been distinguished by a happy harmony between reason and imagination ; in whom, the latter has been content to hold the place only of a ministering spirit ; never tempted into an ambitious contest for the dominion of the mind ; waiting in patient silence the result of the most tedious processes of investigation or reasoning, and still unoffended, though the judgment, in its anxiety to present some train of argument in the closest and most forcible forms, should reject her choicest ornaments or put away in scorn her proffered flowers. Where, however, the imagination is very vigorous, and the reason not possessed in more than equal measure, it is seldom that the former aspiring faculty will not be sometimes tempted into a contest for the supremacy ; and even when in the main subdued, will, by frequent revolt, occasion a divided and distracted empire. This sufficiently accounts for the rarity of those instances in which mutual subor- dination and harmony are maintained throughout all the movements of the mind ; as well as for another fact, that those men have been the greatest as reasoners, and indeed in every other depart- ment of intellectual eminence, who have been remarkable for the ascendancy maintained by some particular faculty. There, and there alone, can there be that intense concentration of the mind on one subject — that constancy of purpose — that undivided attention and that perseverance, which are essential to unrivalled excellence in any pursuit whatever. Not that even where the reason and the imagination are so harmoniously adjusted, as to insure to the former its just prerogatives, and to keep the latter in its due subordination, will the full force of great powers of argument be so likely to be perceived by those who can appreciate it at all, as where those powers exist almost alone. When the argument is denuded of all the ornaments of fancy, then it is that the powers of reasoning it displays will be likely to be best appreciated by the comparatively few who can thoroughly relish it, — because seen alone. Imagination neces- sarily breaks in on the continuity and restrains the impetuosity of the argument; it tempts to digression; it introduces matter not essentially necessary to the expression of the reasoning; and though by all this, it often renders the reasoning not less, but more intelligible to the generality of readers, who could not have comprehended it at all in a more condensed form, yet it disguises and conceals the acuteness of the argument considered merely as such. Thoroughly to appreciate the complex excellence of acute and continuous reasoning expressed in the forms of poetry, implies a power of analysis which comparatively few possess ; not to mention that it will always seem easier, and in some respects is so, to express an argument in the diffusive style, which pleases the imagina- tion, than in the severe methods which a close logic would require. Where the premises and the conclusions immediately deduced from them are logically stated, and all this in as small a compass and with as much brevity as possible, — the powers of the reasoner are likely to be most strongly seen, at least by those who in such a shape can relish his argument at all ; though it may still be quite true, that for the bulk of mankind it would be far better to dilute every page of such quintessen- tial logic in ten pages of looser matter. Reasoning, in the above naked shape, resembles the leafless tree of winter ; every branch is clearly defined against the sky. It is when the anatomist has laid bare the nerves and muscles, and all that complication and intertexture of parts, which make up that mystery of harmony and beauty, the human frame, that he enters upon those demonstrations which would otherwise have perplexed the student. — Even where Jeremy Taylor’s reasoning is most powerful and original, invested, as it always is, with the lavisli ornaments of his uncontrollably active fancy, it is, from the causes above specified, often difficult to estimate it at its full value. His beautiful illus- trations, his ingenious apologues, his long similes, often extended into allegory, all tend to conceal the strength and sinew of the reasoning; and not only to divide the admiration of the reader, but often to fix on the illustrations alone a great part of the admiration which is justly due to the reasoning also. OP JEREMY TAYLOR. XIX In Jeremy Taylor’s case, however, we do not lay very much stress on this circumstance. Some allowance, indeed, ought justly to be made for it, as must always be the case where argument is conveyed in the language of poetry. But in estimating his character as a reasoner, it is not the apparent injury it may have sustained from the mere profusion of his imagination, whicli chiefly demands attention. It is the real injury, which, in many instances, it has sustained from this, as well as from other causes, — more especially his boundless and ill-digested erudition. The mere exuberanee of his fancy, or the excessive copiousness of his style, may conceal from the reader the strength of his reasoning when just, but cannot render it unsound. They may impair its effect on the mind of a severe thinker, but cannot diminish its intrinsic validity ; nay, in some cases may even enhance its practical worth. Unhappily, however, in Jeremy Taylor’s case, they have often done more than this. There can be no doubt that in many instances, the prodigality of his fancy and the vastness of his learning have oppressed his reasoning powers, and made them not only appear less vigorous than they are, but really made them as feeble as they appear. They have often occasioned positive inaccuracy in reasoning, and still more frequently rendered his rea- soning, even when radically sound, so obscure as to be almost unintelligible. That they often occasioned positive inaceuracy will appear wonderful to none, who consider how fruitful of fallacies and ambiguity must be that excessive employment of figurative language, and that loose and copious diction, which were the inevitable result of an imagination so ardent and a range of reading so boundless. But even where he is really or probably sound in his reasoning, the same causes often render him so obscure as to be nearly or wholly unintelligible. He so overlays his thoughts with words — wanders into such frequent episodes — takes up so much of extraneous matter in the course of his argument — indulges in such rhetorical exaggerations — dazzles and confounds by such incessant flashes of imagination — and overwhelms and v/earies the reader with such an array of learned quotations, with such a waste of needless and ill-sorted erudition, that to trace some of his trains of arguments is like tracing the course of some river which gradually loses itself in a morass. The stream, it may be, is clearly defined for a short distance ; but the lazy waters soon begin to ooze through the dissolving banks, and gradually diffusing themselves over a boundless expanse of mud and reeds, stream and bank at length both disappear, and you feel that if you follow you are inevitably lost. Just so it is oftentimes in tracing the progress of Jeremy Taylor’s reasoning. His preliminary propositions, it may be, seem clear enough ; but he soon wanders into such an immensity of poetical ornament and learned citation, indulges in so many digressions, enters on so many extraneous topics, and expresses all in such a vast quantity of words, that you begin to be utterly perplexed ; the channel of the argument at length almost disappears, and you find yourself on the brink of an unfathomable gulf, of that “ Serbonian bog, Where armies whole have sunk.” These extreme cases are, we admit, comparatively rare, but he who wishes to see our observations exemplified by a particular instance, has only to turn to the “ Chapter on the Law of Nature,” in the “ Ductor Dubitantium.” We feel persuaded, so far as we are able clearly to penetrate his meaning, that Taylor’s fundamental principles are correet and sound ; yet he has managed to wrap them up in such a mass of words — has here and there reasoned on such apparently contradictory principles — has qualified and seemingly retracted so much of what he had previously affirmed — that it is no easy task to trace the exact course of his argument, or to perceive the entire consistency of his opinions. Precisely the same observations apply to several other passages in the same work ; as for instance, his very dubious speculations, as to the lawfulness of public men sometimes doing evil for public necessity.” Similar instances occur in his other works, more especially in his “ Unum Necessarium.” His ardent fancy was a source of occasional inaccuracy and of frequent obscurity in reasoning, in another less direct manner. The inevitable tendency of a very imaginative mind, is to exag- geration and undue strength of expression. Thus in the utterance of a present feeling, or in giving strong expression to what is deemed an important truth, such a mind is very apt to pass the cautious bounds which the severity of logical truth has imposed ; and if such language be inter- preted, (as in controversial pieces it generally is, and ought in strict justice to be,) with any degree of literality, the author may often be supposed to advocate most pernicious error, where he is in fact c 2 ' XX AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS only stating- a sentiment substantially true in too unqualified a manner ; and if, as often happens, he lias expressed himself with equal want of caution when treating the same topics under other asjiects, he may be even charged with actual contradictions. This is remarkably the case with Jeremy Taylor; no one can less afford to be interpreted literally, or by single passages, than him- self; and the observation now made will go far to account for many of the apparent contradictions which are to be met with in his writings. It is far from being asserted, indeed, that many of these discrepancies are not real as well as apparent ; for such was the intensity with which Jeremy Taylor felt any present view of a subject, that he sometimes falls into extravagances of sentiment as well as of expression. No more is affirmed, than that a fair interpretation of his sentiments, with a candid reference to the above-mentioned peculiarities of his intellectual character, will sufficiently account for many of the seemingly contradictory statements with which he has been charged. The reader may very easily conceive the apparent errors into which Jeremy Taylor’s unguarded strength of expression and rhetorical exaggerations might often lead him, from a very simple illus- tration. And it the better answers our purpose that, in this case, he could not be misunderstood. In his “ sermon ” on the “ Foolish Exchange,” when expatiating in a strain of magnificent eloquence on the inconceivable worth of the soul, he affirms that, “ besides that this was a donation of intel- ligent faculties, such as we understand to be perfect and essential, or rather the essence of God ; !” Now here he cannot be misunderstood ; he cannot for a moment be imagined to mean literally what his words convey. Every one therefore would easily perceive, and as readily admit, that he was merely indulging in a rhetorical amplification. But if he had expressed himself thus strongly where the subject itself did not secure him from misinterpretation, (as he often does,) he would very probably be suspected of some dangerous error, even though his meaning might be equally inno- cent. Nay, even in such a plain instance as the one above, there have not been wanting theologians in former ages, so uncandid, so ready to avail themselves of an opponent’s indiscretion, that they would have been pleased to interpret even such an obvious hyperbole to Jeremy Taylor’s disad- vantage, and probably affected to believe that he had embraced certain wild doctrines of some of the ancient philosophers and mystics ! In the general conduct of a train of argument, it need hardly be said, that the causes already specified as affecting his character as a reasoner often produced like ill effects. It may, moreover, be observed, that some of these causes must have exerted no mean influence on the early development of his mind. The activity of his fancy and his appetite for knowledge must have effectually precluded that thorough discipline which in his case was so peculiarly necessary. The nature and extent of the influence of these disturbing causes on his character as a reasoner, are fully apparent, if we compare his usual style of argumentation with that of the great masters of the art. Such men are chiefly characterized by exactness and precision in the use of terms, the utmost conciseness and brevity of diction, the strictest continuity of reasoning, and as it regards the general management of their subject, a judicious selection of proofs, and a stern rejection not only of every unsound, but of every questionable argument. Compared in all these points, Jeremy Taylor’s defects become immediately apparent. There are few men who more frequently dispense with exact and rigid definitions of terms ; few who introduce new ones with greater license, or who vary the old with less caution ; few who use them in a more ambiguous or indeterminate manner. As to copiousness of diction, he is faulty almost to a proverb, not only using many words where a few would suffice, but oftentimes actually darkening his meaning by excessive amplification, and instead of endeavouring to make it clear by one perspicuous and unexceptionable expression, vaitdy striving to effect it by a wearisome repetition of what is dubious and obscure. But as it is in the nice selection and judicious arrangementof arguments really decisive of the question, and the rejection of every thing either unnecessary or extraneous, that the most powerful reasoners have chiefly manifested their skill, so it is in these points that Jeremy Taylor most frequently shows his inferiority to them. It is true, indeed, that in all reasoning which depends solely on moral evidence, the conclusion must depend on a calculation of separate probabilities ; and as each of these probabilities — often drawn from the remotest sources — forms a distinct argument, there may undoubtedly be cases in which these several probable arguments are so nearly balanced in force as to make it difficult to say which shall be retained and which rejected, or to render it necessary to adduce them all. In general, however, this is not the case. Such instances form the exceptions. In all ordinary cases OF JEREMY TAYLOR. XXI there are sure to be a few arguments of a magnitude sufHcient to decide tlie question in debate ; and these are the arguments on which a judicious reasoner will always hx ; which he will endeavour to put in the strongest light, and on which he will willingly suspend the fate of his rea- soning. And in order that they may be seen in the most favourable light, he will not only think it undesirable to say all that might be said on the question, but will say not a word more than is absolutely necessary. He knows that a few such arguments, (more luminous and perspicuous for being stated alone,) will have more effect than if combined with a number of inferior considerations, of little intrinsic value. He knows very well, that unless he were reasoning with minds of uncommon compass and comprehensiveness, (which cannot generally be the case,) minds which can distinguish between the relative values of different arguments, and allot to each its due place in the final cal- culation ; which can reject an argument which appears inconclusive, without suffering it to impair the force of others ; and which, if all are sound, can comprehend them all, — he would be likely to injure rather than benefit his cause, by adducing, in complicated cases, every argument which might be adduced. The generality of mankind would rather be bewildered than enlightened by such scru- pulous exactness, and by such a minute and elaborate induction of particulars. Ordinary rea- soners, like the ancient Pharisees, would forget the ‘‘ weightier matters ” in this laborious tithing of “ mint and cummin ; ’’ or at best, the attempt to calculate such infinitesimal arguments, would impair the force of the more important and decisive ones, by distracting and dividing the attention of the reader; not to say that in many cases — and we could adduce several from the “ Ductor Dubitantium ” alone— 'they would extend to such length and magnitude as to produce, when the mind has traversed them all, only a vague and unsatisfactory impression. They have all been seen, it is true, but few are distinctly remembered ; the whole have passed under review in detail, but the mind is baffled in the attempt to calculate them all ; the very number of the arguments has transformed what might have been a well-appointed army into an .indistinguishable rabble. Their very strength has been the cause of weakness. Moreover, if any argument be not only not seen to be conclusive, but supposed to be dubious, it will extend suspicion to the rest. It will not be, as in all fairness it ought to be, simply deducted. Nor can this be avoided, so long as the generality of men are not only gifted with a feeble reason, but enslaved by prejudice. The judicious reasoner, therefore, will, except in very remarkable cases, (as when the arguments are all of nearly equal value, or when he is writing for a peculiar class of readers,) confine himself to those topics which are really decisive of the question. By lopping off the superfluous branches, he knows that the strength and majesty of the trunk will be only the more apparent. Having accurately stated the larger sums, he will not descend into a piddling calculation of fractions and farthings. This, too, he will do not only for the purposes of general conviction, but from the force of his own logical habits. Proof is what he seeks, and in his estimation, the most direct road to it is the best. He will not be satisfied with less than conclusive reasons ; and he does not ask for more. If the mere multiplication of unnecessary or simply inconclusive arguments has a tendency to impair the force of a train of reasoning, much more, of course, is this the result of the injudicious introduction of arguments actually unsound. We need not mention that they give the caviller and the sophist at least something to refute ; success which often encourages such disingenuous reasoners to pretend that they have refuted every thing, though the main parts of the argument, it may be, remain as irrefragable as ever. We find by experience, that such unwise intermixture of arguments, sound and unsound, has a most unfavourable effect even on the mind of the fair and honest reader ; at all events, unless he be a person not only of unusual candour, but of unusual perspicacity too. It is true that, in all reason, an unsound argument, as already stated, ought merely to be detached from the rest, and then the force of the remainder calculated as though such unsound argument had never been introduced ; but we find in fact that it is not so ; nor can it be so, so long as human beings are not pure intelligencies, but creatures of passion and prejudice. They inevitably extend their ordinary rules of judgment and conduct to cases in which they do not apply. The discovery of a few acts of fraud and treachery shall chill the ardour of general benevolence, and lower the estimate of human virtue. In a similar manner, the unequivocal detection of a few fallacies in a train of argument, is sure to infect the rest with suspicion ; to engender a belief that as some have been found hollow, sophistry lurks under all ; and that it only requires closer attention or a keener perspicacity to penetrate their disguises. Or if the writer be still supposed sincere and honest. xxn AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS the caviller objects, that a mind whi(!;h could be imposed on by such convicted fallacies is not trustworthy in his other statements. Probably most men have been more or less conscious of the influence of these contagious doubts, when following a train of argument of very varying merit. The reader is apt to feel, at least unless he possesses a much larger share of intelligence and much severer logical habits, than characterize the generality of mankind, that an invalid argument cannot be merely subtracted from the series to which it belongs ; strong association spreads from one part to another, until they are inseparably viewed as a whole. They are not a mere aggre- gate of still perfectly separable parts ; they are held together, if we may so speak, not merely by proximity, but by a sort of chemical union ; by the strong affinity of mental association. They remind one of the mixture of two fluids which enter into intimate combination with each other, a combination from which no ordinary process can release them ; nor is it an uncommon thing to see a person of feeble reason, viewing with suspicion, through his whole life, a really valid argument, from strong recollection of certain ludicrously weak arguments with which it was associated, and which probably he had been long accustomed to laugh at. We have been the longer on this point, because it serves to illustrate not merely a prominent, but, it may be affirmed, the most prominent defect in the character of Jeremy Taylor as a reasoner. There is no man, so far as we know, who (as has been already remarked) is so deficient in a prin- ciple of selection and judicious arrangement of his proofs ; no man who is so apt to diminish the force or injure the impression of his reasoning by an absurd intermixture, not only of questionable arguments, but sometimes of the most unpardonable fallacies ; no man who more fatally mingles his iron with clay.” — But Jeremy Taylor is not only guilty of the frequent employment of sound and unsound arguments in the establishment of the same proposition, but he often places arguments of most various value in the closest juxtaposition in his series of proof. The weak are not put by themselves, with a wise caution that they are merely thrown in as some slight additament of probability ; no such thing. He carries his gold and his baser metal all in one purse. The fact is, often he seems to have marshalled his arguments in the order in which they first sug- gested themselves ; and thus the rawest recruits are often seen side by side with the best disciplined in the troop. Illustrations of these defects will immediately offer themselves to the attentive reader of his works. These peculiarities are in great measure to be attributed to his vast and ill-digested learning, and the credulous regard to authority and antiquity which was the result of it. Hence he frequently seems to estimate his arguments rather by number than by weight, and to adduce not such as his deliberate judgment would approve, but such as his multifarious reading has supplied. No matter how suspicious the source from which an argument is obtained or how insufficient the grounds on which it rests, it is sure to be adduced if it answers a present purpose. The most problematical, nay, the most evidently fabulous facts in physics or history, are not unfrequently pressed into the service, not merely as illustrations, but as grave analogical arguments. A curious instance of this occurs in his correspondence with his friend Evelyn. Evelyn, it appears, had been troubled with some doubts on the subject of the separate existence of the soul after death. In a long, and on the whole a very admirable letter, Jeremy Taylor endeavours to solve them ; and amongst many other much sounder arguments gravely urges on his friend a consideration of tlie following absurdities. “ But to the thing. That the felicity of Christians is not till the day of judgment I doe believe next to an article of my creed : and so far I consent with you : but then I cannot allow your consequent; that the soul is mortal. That the soule is a complete substance, 1 am willing enough to allow in disputation ; though, indeed, I believe the contrary; but I am sure no philosophy and no divinity can prove its being to be wholly relative and incomplete. But, suppose it ; it will not follow that, therefore, it cannot live in separation. For the flame of a candle, which is your owne simili- tude, will give light enough to this enquiry. The flame of a candle can consist or subsist, though the matter be ex- tinct. I will not instance Licetus his lampes, whose flame had stood still 1500 years, viz. in Tullie’s wife’s vault. For, if it had spent any matter, the matter would have been exhaust long before that : if it spends none, it is all one as if it had none ; for what need is there of it, if there be no use for it, and what use if no feeding the flame, and how can it feed but by spending itselfe ? But the reason why the flame goes out when the matter is exhaust, is be- cause the litle particle of fire is soon overcome by the circumflent aire and scattered, when it wants matter to keepc it in union and closenesse ; but then, as the flame continues not in the relation of a candle’s flame, when the matter is exhaust, yet fire can abide without matter to feed it : for itselfe is matter ; it is a substance. And so is the soule : and as the element of fire, and the celestial globes of fire eat nothing, but live of themselves ; so can the soule when it is OF JEREMY TAYLOR. xxiii divested of its relative, and so would the candle’s flame, if it could get to the regions of lire, as the soule docs to the region of spirits. Questionable facts in ancient history are still more frequently employed as argument, than doubtful facts in science. It must be admitted, however, that they occur chiefly as illustrations. To this point we shall recur again in a subsequent part of this Essay. It has been already stated, that it is not meant that Jeremy Taylor’s reasoning is (jenerally cha- racterized by the defects which have now been pointed out. We only mean that they are of no iinfrequent occurrence, and, in a greater or less degree, impair the effect of all his controversial writings. We know not whether in the above remarks we have always succeeded in clearly expressing our meaning, but any reader who will carefully compare any portions of Jeremy Taylor’s elaborate “ Dissuasion from Popery,” or his “ Treatise on Transubstantiation,” with those portions of Chilling- worth’s great work, ‘‘ The Religion of Protestants,” which treat of the same topics, may easily find an illustration of it. It will be recollected that we have in a former part of this Essay contended that Jeremy Taylor possessed far greater native powers of reasoning and speculation, than probably the generality of his readers would be willing to admit ; and we have attributed their partial failure and their almost ha- bitual perversion to the operation of specific causes. If it be asked which of those two great elements of the philosophical character he possessed in the higher degree, — compass or subtlety of mind ; an aptitude for a comprehensive investigation of premises or for logical illation, it might be replied that he appears to have originally possessed both in a nearly equal degree, but in the exercise of these qualities has exhibited all his characteristic inequality. Thus he frequently displays, more especially in his controversial writings, an acuteness which startles the reader with delight and surprise, by eliciting inferences at once the most unexpected and just, from some trivial or well-known premises ; while, at other times, he is deceived by an ambiguity that would hardly have imposed on the most unexperienced tyro. Again, he often manifests in the discussion of intricate questions, — such, for instance, as frequently occur in his ‘‘ Ductor Dubitantium,” a reach and comprehensiveness of mind seldom equalled. All the arguments that could by the remotest possibility affect the decision of the question are adduced from every conceivable source and from every region of speculation.* But, at other times, he will found important conclusions on the most partial and contracted data imaginable. It may be observed, however, that his comprehensiveness is rather that of a learned man, than of a man possessed of very strong original powers of observation ; of one who was accustomed to accumulate the materials of reasoning, than of one whose mind spontaneously suggested them ; of one who had ransacked every source of evidence, than of one accustomed to digest, discriminate, and select. Even his most extensive investigations, and his most elaborate trains of reasoning, pro- bably contain few propositions or arguments, which might not be found in some writer or other, although often collected from the obscurest sources and from the literature of every country and of every age. Indeed he generally puts this matter beyond doubt by quoting some author or other, for at least the germ of his thoughts ; thoughts, by the by, which but for him might have lurked for ever, without the slightest risk of quotation, within the profound recesses in which his most discursive and multifarious reading first discovered them. In this respect his honesty (if, indeed, it were not rather simple-hearted love of learning) is well worthy of general imitation. If he had availed himself of his erudition to the full extent, he might, in innumerable instances, have obtained the praise of greater originality than the simplicity of his nature coveted ; for all that he had to do was simply to adopt the thoughts of others without acknowledging the source from which they were derived : in very many instances there would have been little danger of his being convicted of plagiarism. The forms of reasoning he has adopted are of course characterized by the peculiarities of the age. Its outward fashion is that of the schoolmen, whose barbarous technicalities, formal divisions, and parade of logical method, he abundantly employs. This was in some measure to be expected; and, in such * The reader may see a striking instance of these observations, in Taylor’s remarks on the Provinces of Faith and Reason, in Rule III. Chap. II. of his “Ductor,” which contain many passages conceived in the noblest spirit of philoso- phy ; and a still more striking one in Rule VIII. of the same chapter, in which he is discussing the alleged lawfulness of a judge’s giving sentence against his conscience, if that sentence be according to law. \X1V AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS an age, a slight infusion of such terms of art merely to preserve a more severely logical method, to secure greater brevity and compression, or to obviate the necessity of lengthened explanations, might be pardoned in treatises intended for the learned alone, or on philosophical or metaphysical subjects. Nothing, however, can be more ridiculous than the ostentatious employment of them, in which not Jeremy Taylor alone, but almost all the divines of the age indulged ; and that too, not merely in erudite treatises, but in “ sermons” and “discourses,” professedly intended for the vulgar. Nor did the matter rest here. It had been well for the divines of that age, if they had suf- fered only thus far from their familiarity with the schoolmen ; if it had merely rendered some of their writings comparatively obscure or unintelligible, from peculiarities of method and expression. But such familiarity necessarily led in some measure (though perhaps, for reasons hereafter to be stated, this was less the case with Jeremy Taylor than with most of the divines of his age) to an adoption of the methods of reasoning and the style of speculation, which had characterized the schools, and the influence of which was still far from inconsiderable on the existing systems of theology. Not that the schoolmen by any means deserve the indiscriminate censure and ridicule which are so often poured upon them ; as the slightest actual investigation of their writings cannot fail to con- vince any impartial man. Their grand error, an error which, it must be confessed, vitiates so large a portion of their speculations, consists in the frequent assumption of their premises; an error of prodigious magnitude. Yet in their mere trains of deductive reasoning from those premises, they often exhibit a subtlety and acuteness, which few even of the most exact reasoners have reached. On this point.. Bishop Heber has justly remarked that some of their works deserve to be regarded “ as models of fair and patient investigation ; the works of men whose errors are rather from their imperfect means of knowledge, than from any defect in (what they principally professed) their mode of arranging knowledge already acquired.” In this respect, arid this alone, are they entitled to our admiration ; — when viewed in relation to truth, and the only rational methods of acquiring it, they are too often utterly worthless. Now though it is true that in the seventeenth century tl e principles of inductive science were not only generally recognised, but had done much to purify several branches of natural philosophy, and to restrain that license of speculation which had been the characteristic of preceding ages, the influence of the scholastic philosophy was far from small. It has been already stated, that philoso- phers and theologians not merely borrowed from it its technicalities and its forms, (a circumstance which alone would tend to maintain it in a certain degree of influence,) but from early familiarity with it, unconsciously imbibed somewhat of its spirit and habit. And thus it is, that many of the writers of the seventeenth century, both philosophical and theological, exhibit precisely the character which might be expected to result from a nearly equal discipline in the old and the new schools ; an alternation of dogmatism and caution ; they now catch a strong glimpse of the recently elicited principles of inductive science and maintain a rigid adherence to them, and now relapse into all the absurdities of an exploded philosophy. This was natural ; the errors of ages are not to be recti- fied in a day. When the limbs have been long galled with fetters, they will, even when restored to freedom, still fall into the unnatural movements which long constraint has imposed; ol ttoXvp ^povoj^ CsdivTeg, K(^v \vde~iev, 6v Zwafitvoi vTro «««* m a foreign language as much ^e as nd2od f P"'’ asfhTrre n T! many 0 e?wh ichte la F The following, amon^ “ Funest7;r 1 ad77; "“i >1 above remarks.* formed;” « deordiion ”1f 7 7 “77’ “scattered;” « deturpated ” for «de- : ; KtTtr bit. “=-o. .y. -b. ... C-. ....... + i rudent and wisG JlexuTcsJ’* d 2 XXXVl AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS in tlie sense of compfliances “ intcnerate ” * for “ render soft.” These instances might easily be multiplied. But his familiarity with Greek and Latin leads him, in numberless cases, beyond this ; he not only uses foreign words before unknown to the language, merely giving them an anglicised form and termina- tion, but he very frequently uses words of foreign derivation, already appropriated to a different meaning, in their original or foreign sense. The following are a few specimens : — “ Immured” f as an active verb for “encompassed;” “remarked” for “rendered remarkable ;” ;j: “extant” in the sense of “standing out ;”§ “ insolent ” for “ unusual ;” || “ irritation ” for “ making void ^ “ contrition ” for a “ bruise.” ♦♦ Many more such instances might be adduced if it were necessary, but these specimens, it is presumed, will be sufficient. • To the above may be added one which Bishop Heber has noted, and' which has a most ludicrous air; — “ excellent” for “ surpassing.” In this sense of the word, Taylor in one place speaks of an “ excellent pain. To the same cause — his being so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the classic writers as to adopt unconsciously their habits of thoughts and their style of expression — are to be attributed many of the bold and unusual combinations of phrase we so often meet with in his writings ; belonging rather to the idioms and laws of other languages than of that in which he wrote ; some of them, indeed, we should expect to find ordy in the choruses of the Greek tragedians, and they are scarcely to be justified any where else. Such, for instance, is the expression, that “ slander, like an earwig, creeps into the ear, and makes a diseased noise and a scandalous murmur” Amongst these peculiarities of style may be also mentioned Jeremy Taylor’s frequent use of the abstract and the concrete, or of bold metaphorical phrases and sober general terms within the same clause, as well as his frequently qualifying his substantives not by simple adjectives, but by the use of other substantives, expressing the force of them in the abstract. The following instances will convey a slight idea of our meaning: — “ Prevents the rivulet from swelling into rivers and a vastness “ it makes a fraction of the species by incrassation and a shadow “ it is confined into b. prison of darkness and a cloud “ is changed into the scorchings and little images of hell ;” “ it is just in God to seal the cisterns and little emanations of the creatures from thee ;” “ being thrown from his pride and attempt of passing towards the seat of the stars.” But such expressions as these might be multiplied without end. We are aware that in presenting them in this dislocated form, we are hardly doing Taylor justice. Seen in their connexion, and rendered familiar by frequent perusal of the writings of this great man, they often strike the mind as exceedingly beautiful and expressive. Another peculiarity of Jeremy Taylor’s style which may be noticed, is the liberty which he takes in forming plurals. Many of the writers of his day used, it is true, considerable latitude ; yet few went his length. “ Strengths,” “ dissolutions,” “ prudencies,” “ aversenesses,” are such as few would have thought tliemselves justified in employing. In this enumeration of Jeremy Taylor’s more striking idlomatical peculiarities, it would be unpardon- able not to mention his very frequent use of the comparative degree without the forms of comparison. This form is often exceedingly striking ; as in the expression, “ so when a Libyan tiger drawn from his wilder foragings.” Such expressions are of perpetual occurrence. These peculiarities, taken together, make up much of what are usually called Jeremy Taylor’s extrava- gances of style, and which are so often imputed to the eccentricities of his ungovernable imagination. This, when the peculiarities are merely those of style and expression, appears to us erroneous. Such pecu- liarities, in by far the greater number of instances, are rather to be imputed to his having so completely imbibed the manner and air of his classical models. The idiom is often purely Greek and Latin, not English. Now, however repulsive such peculiarities may justly be, viewed simply in relation to the laws of that language in which Jeremy Taylor wrote, they are by no means altogether displeasing to one * “ Intenerate the stubborn pavement.” f “ And when God had given himself a name, and immured it with dread and reverence.” ;J; “ With which God hath remarked your family and person.” § “ All sorts ol representations, (speaking of the prohibition of images of God,) flat or extant, painted or carved.” II “ But these (speaking of certain rare instances) are insolent examples.” II “ But they may not violate them by irritation.” ** The use of this word is, in one instance, exceedingly ludicrous: “ For so serpents, as they are curious to preserve their heads from contrition or a bruise.” OF JEREMY TAYLOR. XXXVIl who has formed a strong taste for classical literature. In the eyes of such a man, the style of Jeremy Taylor “ Is rich with barbaric pearls and gold ; ” and though he would be sorry to see such license taken by writers in general, he is willing to extend his indul- gence to this remarkable genius, the eccentricity of whose thoughts seems to harmonize with the fantastic garb in which he has dressed them ; not to say that this transfusion of the idiom of the Greek and Latin into our own language, serves to give the enthusiast in the classics a more vivid idea and a clearer percep- tion of the peculiarities he has so often admired in the great writers of antiquity. Though there is no part of our copious language of which Jeremy Taylor was not master, yet his pro- found and intimate acquaintance with the learned languages, leaves little room for surprise that his style should be characterized by a much larger infusion of words of Greek and Latin origin than of Saxon. There is a striking difference, in this respect, between him and an equally celebrated contemporary ; of one, who though equally imbued with a love of classical literature, possessed, at the same time, unrival- led command over our expressive vernacular. The fact is, that Milton was far better acquainted than Jeremy Taylor with the early English literature, — with such writers as Chaucer, Spencer, and Shakspeare. Though the style of Jeremy Taylor is characterized by so large an infusion of classical idioms, it is a fact that the structure of his sentences is far less Latinistic and involved than that of most of the great writers of his own or of a preceding age ; far less so than that of Bacon or Hooker, Milton or Barrow. Indeed it may be generally affirmed that they are constructed in a very simple manner, and in a great ma- jority of instances have in this respect nothing to offend the ear even of the most fastidious modern reader. Though his sentences are often very long, yet each clause has a distinct meaning independent of the rest, and is joined to the others by the simplest connectives. His favourite, and by far most common, mode is to connect them by the copulative conjunction, “ and.” Take the following brief specimen out of a vast number which might be easily collected from his writings. “ But when Christian religion was planted, and had taken root, and had filled all lands, then all the nature of things, the whole creation, became servant to the kingdom of grace ; and the head of the religion is also the head of the creatures, and ministers aU the things of the world in order to the Spirit of grace : and now ‘ angels are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for the good of them that fear the Lord and all the violences of men, and things of nature and choice, are forced into subjection and lowest ministries, and to co-operate, as with an united design, to verify all the promises of the gospel, and to secure and advantage all the children of the kingdom : and now he that is made poor by chance or per- secution, is made rich by religion; and he that hath nothing, yet possesses all things; and sorrow itself is the greatest comfort, not only because it ministers to virtue, but because itself is one, as in the case of repentance ; and death ministers to life, and bondage is freedom, and loss is gain, and our enemies are our friends, and every thing turns into religion, and religion turns into felicity and all manner of advantages. But that I may not need to enumerate any more particulars in this observation, certain it is, that angels of light and darkness, all the influences of heaven, and the fruits and produc- tions of the earth, the stars and the elements, the secret things that lie in the bowels of the sea and the entrails of the earth, the single effects of all efficients, and the conjunction of all causes, all events foreseen and all rare contingencies, every thing of chance, and every thing of choice, is so much a servant to him whose greatest desire, and great interest is, by all means, to save our souls, that we are thereby made sure, that all the whole creation shall be made to bend, in all the flexures of its nature and accidents, that it may minister to religion, to the good of the catholic church, and every person within its bosom, who are the body of him that rules over all the world, and commands them as he chooses.” In this simple structure of sentences, as well as in many other respects, Jeremy Taylor’s style remark- ably resembles that of Chrysostom. Nor were these the only or the most important points in which these wonderful men were like each other. We remark that Jeremy Taylor’s frequent use of archaisms and of classical idiom impairs scarcely at all the simply English structure of his style. Of this it would be easy to accumulate instances. The fol- lowing from his beautiful sermon, entitled “ The Mercy of the Divine Judgment, or God’s Method of curing Sinners,” (as well as many of the extracts which have been already made, may serve) to illustrate these observations. The passage is as musical, and as full of rhythm, as the smoothest that could be selected from the pages of the most accomplished modern writer. “At first we cannot serve God but by passions and doing violence to all our wilder inclinations, and suffering the violence of tyrants and unjust persons: the second days of virtue are pleasant and easy in the midst of all the appendant labours. But when the Christian’s last pit is digged, when he is descended to his grave, and hath finished his state of sorrows and suffering; then God opens the river of abundance, the rivers of life and never-ceasing felicities. And this is that which God promised to his people : ‘ I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.’ So much as moments are exceeded by eternity, and the sighing of a man by the joys of an angel, and a salutary frown by the light of God’s countenance, a few groans by the infinite and eternal hallelujahs; so much AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS xxxviii are the sorrows ot the godly to be undervalued in respect of what is deposited for them in the treasures of eternity. Their sorrows can die, but so cannot their joys. And if the blessed martyrs and confessors were asked concerning their past suf- ferings and their present rest, and the joys of their certain expectation, you should hear them glory in nothing but in the mercies of God, and ‘ in the ci*oss of the Lord Jesus.’ Every chain is a ray of light, and every pri.son is a palace, and every loss is the purchase of a kingdom, and every affront in the cause of God is an eternal honour, and every day of sorrow is a thousand years of comfort, multiplied with a never-ceasing numeration ; days without night, joys without sorrow, sanctity without sin, charity without stain, possession without fear, society without envying, communication of joys without lessen- ing : and they shall dwell in a blessed country, where an enemy never entered, and from whence a friend never went away.” As a preacher it may be safely affirmed, that Jeremy Taylor’s genius was too poetical to permit liim to obtain the very highest excellence. Great reputation it is true he could not but obtain ; unbounded ad- miration and applause would necessarily wait on eloquence so sublime as his. Still if the severe principles of rhetoric be applicable at all to the pulpit, as they undoubtedly are, — if eloquence there, as in the senate or at the bar, be considered as the great instrument of conviction and persuasion, then there can hardly be a doubt, that whatever the rank Jeremy Taylor is fairly entitled to hold, it is less tlian that of some other celebrated preachers. Regarded in this point of view, he was far too imaginative. It will be observed that we are not now speaking of the mere vices of style or manner, superinduced by circumstances or education ; vices which were not so much his own, as those of the age in which he lived, and from which, therefore, scarcely any one was free. We are not speaking of the quaint conceits, the frivolous distinctions, the misapplied learning, the needless subdivisions, the quantities of learned quota- tion, with which his sermons abound ; we are speaking of his genius for oratory abstractedly, and in re- lation to its original structure and native tendencies. Thus regarded, the excess of the poetical tempera- ment is at once apparent. He delights in luxuriant description and ample illustration for their own sake ; he never thinks of employing his imagination, as the orator always should, merely within the limits most likely to subserve the great practical purpose of oratory. And what is that object ? It is not, like that of poetry, to please, to amuse, or even to instruct, alone ; nor indeed at all, except in subordination to a higher end : its object is to convince and persuade, and to convince for the very purpose of persuasion. The eloquence of the orator is always practical; and has ever an important practical result in view. It follows from this, that the consummate orator will employ all the faculties of his mind, strictly with reference to this end; every thing in the shape of argument or of illustration, will be sternly subordinated to it. If this be the case, the imagination, like every other faculty, will of course be subjected to the same discipline and con- trol, and will never be permitted to transgress those limits within which alone it can conduce to the pro- posed end. And if it be thus regulated, if it be thus constantly rendered subservient to ends higher than those of delight and pleasure, it will be always employed with moderation. Let us judge of this matter by those unerring practical maxims which nature inspires, and which we instinctively adopt in common life. When really intent on gaining some important object, when really under the influence of impassioned feeling, though the mind will often give utterance to deep emotion by figurative, aye, the most figurative language, it will never seek expression in far-fetched, ingenious, or prolonged similitudes. It is not in nature to do so. Such conduct would argue a coolness, a premeditation, a self-possession of mind, totally at variance with intense emotion, and would in general inevitably give the lie to every pretension to it. The imagination, therefore, so far as employed at all, will be employed to render argument more perspicuous or striking by appropriate illustration, and, within certain just limits, even to adorn it ; that is, where the pleasure it imparts may be made directly subservient to the great purpose of persuasion : but even then the true orator will let it appear that it is subsidiary, and not principal ; that it is his servant, not his master. When it flashes, it will flash like the lightning, to consume, and not to play in the heavens like the beautiful meteors of a northern sky. Its exhibition, therefore, will be uniformly characterized far more by force than by beauty, by energy than by elegance ; and will be restrained within the compressed forms of metaphor, never per- mitted to expand into the luxuriance of prolonged or laboured simile. The success of the few who have obtained the highest rank as orators, and we may also add the com- parative failure of the many, who have, notwithstanding, been justly accounted, in a subordinate sense, very eloquent, go to prove that the chief elements of the most effective eloquence, that is, of the eloquence which is most likely to persuade, are — vigorous reasoning, animated by intense passion, and that a pro- fuse employment of the imagination is absolutely unfriendly to the orator’s real object. Such is the character of that eloquence, which, of all that has been uttered, is alone entitled to be denominated perfect ; — we mean that of Demosthenes. It may be granted, indeed, that the exuberance of an excessive imagination OF JEREMY TAYLOR. XXXIX will often procure for the orator more admiration and more enthusiastic dcmonslrations of applause, tiian the most successful efforts of a more practical eloquence, and consequently render a speaker in one sense more popular. But then it is to he considered that so far as the professed end of the orator is concerned, — the actual persuasion of his audience to a certain course of conduct, — all this is a very questionable test of his skill. This loud applause of his rhetorical qualities may be utterly worthless, nay in many instances absolutely detrimental ; for it not unfrequently happens that while they have been admiring him^ they are farther than ever from being suitably impressed with the truth and importance of the sentiments he has been ineulcating, simply because their exclusive admiration of the speaker has had direct tendency to with- draw their attention from his subject. They have been attending a, spectacle ; they expected, they sought their end in the delight they should enjoy there : it will bo admitted they have been very well amused ; but it is now all over, and they are retiring to their homes, and to the serious business of life, and — as when retiring from the theatre — their first object is to forget what they have heard. There may be, it is true, much dispute as to what constitutes an excessive use of the imagination in the orator ; it may be justly contended that much will depend on circumstances ; on the character of the times, on the habits of the audience, on certain intellectual peculiarities of the speaker. All this may be admit- ted without impairing the general trutli of the preceding remarks ; and general truth is all that is here contended for. Accordingly, it may be said, that whenever the prevailing feeling of an auditor, at the time he is listening to a speaker, would give utterance to itself in such words as these ; “ that is fine,” “ that is a beautiful illustration,” that is an ingenious thought,” “ that is a brilliant expression,” there, however the auditor may admire the man^ the orator has failed of his object ; the audience are really doing homage to the speaker’s powers only when they feel that what he is uttering is important truth, and are silently resolving to act upon it. An intense and overpowering interest in the subject, and a subse- quent conduct influenced by what they have heard, or, at all events, resolutions that they will adopt such conduct, — these form the most conclusive test of the orator’s eloquence. Success is his highest praise. Not that the orator need fear that, if successful after this uninviting fashion, he will be defrauded of his fame, even though the audience, at the time he is addressing them, may not have a thought to waste on him. Yet, alas ! it is this fear which in so many instances is the secret of false and ambitious eloquence ; of an injudicious, and, if the orator be a preacher, the criminal attempt to employ to an undue extent those qualities, which shall fix admiration immediately on the speaker. To act thus is to abandon the substance to grasp at a shadow. — But though the orator need not fear lest he should be defrauded of his fame, it will not flow in upon him at the very moment of his success ; it is a reversionary possession : it is when he has effected his object, when the excitement of his audience has subsided, when they have been induced to act, or at least have resolved to act as he would have them, it is then, by making his elo- quence the subject of distinct reflection or analysis, it is then that his powers will be felt and his merits appreciated. The great principle which should regulate every orator in the general management of his powers, is, as we have already observed, best illustrated by the manner of men in ordinary life, when, little thinking that they are sustaining the character or performing the office of orators, they are sincerely and deeply anxious to persuade their neighbour to some important course of conduct ; to perform some urgent duty, or confer some much needed benefit. The man, it is true, may wnnt many of the qualifications of wliich undoubtedly no public speaker should be destitute ; he may want education, copiousness of language, and correctness of style. Still, how does he unconsciously exemplify, in his conduct, all the great principles which ought to actuate the orator, — and which did actuate Demosthenes! How does he select just those arguments which in his opinion will be likely to prevail, and abstain from all of a questionable, or even useless character ! With what impassioned earnestness, with what simplicity, — the infallible evidence of sincerity, — does he express them ! If, as is likely when under the influence of intense emotion, he expresses himself figuratively, how few, how condensed such expressions are ! All must have had opportunities of seeing practical illus- trations, more or less striking, of these remarks. But suppose all this reversed ; suppose the conduct either of the too philosophical, or of the too imaginative orator, (who it must be recollected, profess to have precisely the same objects in view, only on a larger scale,) should be adopted in private life. If, for instance, a man, who wished to obtain an im- portant benefit from another, instead of taking for granted that the same passions and sympathies, the same principles of action, dwelt in the bosom of his neighbour as in his own ; instead of selecting those practical arguments which suggest themselves from the relations in which the parties stood to one another, xl AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS iihoiild enter into certain lengthened, refined, elaborate, and it may be metaphysical arguments,* to prove that benevolence is a duty ; and after having thus proved what the man never doubted, (who in fact was only in doubt as to whether in this particular case he was called to exercise benevolence or not,) he should treat him to some elaborate disquisition on the sublimity of those principles he inculcates ; and what is at least as bad as all the rest, express the whole of this edifying harangue, in the language of a florid and extravagant rhetoric, or in far-fetched, laboured, and fantastic imagery. What should we say ? To say that the party addressed would listen to the whole with contemptuous coolness, and be possessed with a most absolute persuasion that the idle talker could have no practical object in view whatever, and cared not whether he obtained the benefit he sought or not, — to say that the speaker would infallibly fail of his object, and that he deserved to fail, — would be the least. We should pronounce him the most egregious fool imagin- able. And yet he is not a greater, — not so great, if folly on a larger scale be greater folly, — as the orator who commits the very same errors in addressing a public audience. It is not asserted, indeed, that so complete a departure from the principles of practical rhetoric, as the above, is often seen in a public speaker ; or that even if there ever were such, it could, under such different circumstances, be equally glaring. That there are infinitely varied degrees within which such faults may display themselves, does not affect the general principles here laid down. In proportion as such faults exist, however, they must necessarily exert a pernicious influence, and in that proportion will they defeat tlie avowed and, indeed, the only worthy object of the orator. Neither is it meant that nothing more is demanded of an orator than of any man in private life who endeavours to persuade. Far from it. The difference of the circumstances will, no doubt, dictate a pro- portionable difference of conduct ; and the great complexity of intellectual effort, which efficient public speaking implies, requires unquestionably the highest order of genius. Still the general principles, some- what modified, are in both cases the same. The most effective eloquence is always compounded of the same great elements, although they may be conjoined in very different proportions. Whether, indeed, the peculiarities which distinguish the style of Demosthenes could ever be introduced into the eloquence of the pulpit, to the same extent as into that of the senate or the bar ; or, if at all, to what precise extent they could be introduced, are questions which it is not necessary to discuss here. At the same time the writer cannot conceal his opinion that they might be adopted much further, not only than they ever have been, — for as yet they have scarcely been recognised at all, — ^but to a much greater extent than would at first sight probably be thought practicable. It must be admitted, indeed, that since the eloquence of the pulpit has so much to do with the general principles of human character and conduct, and with topics which, though abstractedly of overpowering magnitude and sublimity, yet relate to the future and invisible world, far more of general reasoning and of imaginative description are pardonable in this than in any other species of eloquence. We concede, also, that the eloquence of the pulpit is in a great measure didactic ; and, moreover, that it affords little scope for that intense emotion, those transports of passion, (at least of the more powerful kinds of passion,) which so generally accompany successful eloquence on merely secular topics. The strongest feelings of which it admits have little in common with those turbulent and tumultuous emotions in which, as imme- diately prompting to energetic action, human nature most delights, and the mere display of which tends to excite a sympathy so much more profound than the exhibition of those gentle and subdued feelings, which must ever reign in the bosom of the minister of Christ. All these abatements, however, by no means imply that the eloquence of the pulpit is something totally and essentially different from eloquence of any other kind. They only indicate the modifications and limitations under which the same general principles must be applied. As long as it is admitted that the object of the Christian orator is to convince and to persuade, and to convince that he may persuade — and that, moreover, to the most important conduct ; as long as that nature on which he is instrumentally to operate is essentially the same ; and as long as the same great conditions of persuasion must be complied with, so long must the Christian preacher, if he would be successful, manage his tastes and habits and discipline his faculties, in accordance with the principles of universal rhetoric. It is to be feared, that the true reason why the pulpit has in proportion produced so much less really effective eloquence than the bar or the senate, is to be sought not so much in the different circumstances in * It will be at once seen that the writer has a reference more particularly to the pulpit, where the absurdities here sup- posed have been enacted a thousand times. But here alone. In no other orator, — in no political assembly — would such folly be tolerated for an instant. OF JEREMY TAYLOR. xli which the preacher is placed, or to the peculiarity of the subject-matter of his eloquence, but to the melancholy fact, — universally characteristic of our fallen race, — that both the speaker and his audience feel less deeply the important truths of religion than the most inconsiderable topics connected with the present life. The remoteness and distance of these truths leave them comparatively little power to affect the mind : consequently the preacher has often been tempted to treat them in a cold and professional manner ; and the audience, to demand curious disquisitions to please their reason or brilliant illustration to amuse and delight the fancy, rather than that which alone would satisfy them in other cases, — practical arguments to convince the understanding, and motives directly prompting to action. But whatever the causes which have led to this result, certain it is, that the principles of the most effec- tive eloquence have been far less influential in this department than in any other ; and should a vast augmentation of piety, or more just principles of rhetoric in reference to this subject, or, which is more probable, the concurrence of both, lead to an entire revolution both of opinion and practice, — a revolution which in our opinion must take place before the eloquence of the pulpit can attain its proper ascendency or exercise its legitimate influence, — the great mass of printed sermons will excite the astonishment of the Christian church. Vast numbers of them, indeed, will be read and admired as much as ever, and justly : but they will be admired for being what they are, excellent dissertations on particular points of theological science ; or wonderful specimens of metaphysical subtlety and profound reasoning, of acute criticism or ingenious speculation ; of beautiful and impressive description ; of rich and varied imagery : many of them will be regarded as well fitted for the closet, where even poetry, and the delight it brings, may often serve indirectly the offices of eloquence ; as admirably adapted to the retired hours of a contemplative or meditative piety ; but, whatever their merits in these or other respects, the great mass of “ printed ser- mons” will be regarded as totally destitute of all the characteristics of “ sermons,” if by that term is meant, — what is generally meant, — a certain species oi persuasive discourses. That they should ever have been delivered from the pulpit with such pretensions, and published under such a name, will justly appear the most astounding of paradoxes. Few and far between, indeed, along the vast range of pulpit literature, are those passages which fully exemplify the principles we have endeavoured to illustrate ; at all events, though some favourable specimens might be selected from the compositions of most celebrated preachers, such pas- sages have no sort of proportion to others. Perhaps Chrysostom is the man in whom, notwithstanding his general resemblance to Jeremy Taylor, such passages most frequently occur. If the “ sermons” of Jeremy Taylor be examined on these principles, the defects of his mind become instantly apparent. His peculiarities could not but disclose themselves ; such an imagination as his would defy the control of the severest discipline. Though his sermons, therefore, are wonderful compo- sitions, regarded in any other light than that of “ sermons,” they are not distinguishable, except by name, from his other devotional and practical writings. It is true, there are some few passages of great force and energy, as well as beauty, one or two of which we here select. The first shall be from the impressive sermon, entitled, “ Doomsday Book ; or Christ’s Advent to Judgment.” “ And because very many sins are sins of society and confederation; such are fornication, drunkenness, bribery, simony, rebellion, schism, and many others ; it is a hard and a weighty consideration, what shall become of any one of us, who have tempted our brother or sister to sin and death : for though God hath spared our life, and they are dead, and their debt-books are sealed up till the day of account ; yet the mischief of our sin is gone before us, and it is like a murder, but more execrable : the soul is dead in trespasses and sins, and sealed up to an eternal sorrow ; and thou shalt see, at dooms- day. what damnable uncharitableness thou hast done. That soul that cries to those rocks to cover her, if it had not been for thy perpetual temptations, might have followed the Lamb in a white robe; and that poor man, that is clothed with shame and flames of fire, would have shined in glory, but that thou didst force him to be partner of thy baseness. And who shall pay for this loss ? a soul is lost by the means ; thou hast defeated the holy purposes of the Lord’s bitter passion by thy impurities; and what shall happen to thee, by whom thy brother dies eternally ?” We shall indulge our readers with one other extract. It shall be from the discourse, entitled, “ The Mercy of the Divine Judgments; or, God’s Method in curing Sinners.” The latter part of the following extract is exceedingly affecting. Let, therefore, every one of us take the account of our lives, and read over the sermons that God hath made us : besides that sweet language of his mercy, and his ‘ still voice ’ from heaven, consider what voices of thunder you heard, and pre- sently that noise ceased, and God was heard in the ‘ still voice’ again. What dangers have any of you escaped ? were you ever assaulted by the rudeness of an ill natured man? Have you never had a dangerous fall, and escaped it? Did none of xlii AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS you ever escape drowning, and in a great danger saw the forbearance of God ? Have you never been sick (as you feared) unto death ? Or, suppose none of these things have happened, hath not God threatened you all, and forborne to smite you ? or smitten you, and forborne to kill you? That is evident. But if you had been a privado, and of the cabinet-council with your guardian angel, that from him you might have known how many dangers you have escaped, how often you have been near a ruin, so near, that if you had seen your danger with a sober spirit, the fear of it would have half killed you ; if he had but told you how often God had sent out his warrants to the exterminating angel, and our blessed Saviour by his intercession hath obtained a reprieve, that he might have the content of rejoicing at thy conversion and repentance ; if you had known from him the secrets of that providence which governs us in secret, and how many thousand times the devil would have done thee hurt, and how often himself, as a ministering spirit of God’s “ goodness and forbearance,” did interpose and abate, or divert a mischief which was falling on thy head : it must needs cover thy head with a cloud of shame and blushing at that ingratitude and that folly, that neither will give God thanks, nor secure thy own well-being.” In general, however, his ungovernable imagination is perpetually leading hun into diffuse and copious description, and into curious and fantastic images, which are only distinguishable from the highest poetry by wanting metrical arrangement ; while his habits of mind are continually betraying him into the style of philosophical disquisition, and his fulness of knowledge into discussions and allusions foreign to the subject. The defects of Jeremy Taylor’s pulpit style, so far as they flowed from his ungovernable imagination, have been well pointed out by a man whose vigour of mind, severity of taste, and intensity of passion would probably almost have raised him to the rank of Demosthenes of the pulpit, had it not been for certain de- fects, partly his own and partly common to his age. We mean South. The passage now referred to is so curious that we beg to cite it, not merely for the amusement of the reader, but to illustrate the preceding remarks on the vices of Taylor’s oratory. Though there might be, and very probably was, somewhat of malice and envy lurking in his satire, it is at the same time full of important truth. Even though the phrases he ridicules had not been found in Jeremy Taylor’s writings, they ai*c so characteristic that the person, for whom the satire is Intended, could not have been mistaken ; they are, however, Taylor’s veritable expressions, and are to be foiuid in his “ Sermons.” The passage from South is cited from a sermon preached at Christ’s Church, Oxford, 1668. The text was Luke xxi. 16. “ For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.” “ And thus also it is with the most necessary and important truths ; to adorn and clothe them is to cover them, and that to obscure them. The eternal salvation and damnation of souls are not things to be treated of with jests and witticisms. And he who thinks to furnish himself out of plays and romances with language for the pulpit, shews himself much fitter to act a part in the revels, than for a cure of souls. “ ‘ I speak the words of soberness,’ said St. Paul, Acts xxvi. 25 ; and I preach the gospel not with the ‘ enticing words of man’s wisdom,’ 1 Cor. ii. 4. This was the way of the apostle’s discoursing of things sacred. Nothing here, ‘ of the fringes of the north star ;’ nothing of ‘ nature’s becoming unnatural,’ nothing of the ‘ down of angels’ wings,’ or the ‘ beautiful locks of cherubims :’ no starched similitudes in- troduced with a ‘ thus have 1 seen a cloud rolling in its airy mansion,’^ and the like. No, these were sublimities above the rise of the apostolic spirit. For the apostles, poor mortals, were content to take lower steps, and to tell the wmrld in plain terms, ‘ that he who believed should be saved, and that he who believed not should be damned.’ And this was the dialect which pierced the conscience, and made the hearers cry out, ‘ Men and brethren, what shall we do ?’ It tickled not the ear, but sunk into the breast : and when men came from such sermons, they never commended the preacher for his taking voice or gesture ; for the pureness of such a simile, or the quaintness of such a sentence ; but they spoke like men conquered with the overpowering force and evidence of the most concerning truths ; much In the words of the two disciples going to Emmaus; ‘ Did not our hearts burn within us, while he opened to us the scriptures ?’ “ In a word, the apostles’ preaching was therefore mighty and successful ; because plain, natural, and familiar, and by no means above the capacity of their hearers : nothing being more preposterous, than for those who were professedly aiming at men’s hearts, to miss the mark, by shooting over their heads.” It may also be remarked not ordy that the jneditative character of Jeremy Taylor’s mind, and the excess of his imagination, (the former in some measure the natural consequence of the latter,) were unfavourable to his reaching the highest excellence as an orator ; but — and this was also in a great degree the result of his peculiar intellectual temperament — there was too little of passion in his nature ; his feelings were altogether of the gentle, calm, and subdued kind. Of the deficiencies here pointed out, it is impossible to obtain a clearer idea than by comparing the style of Jeremy Taylor with the prose style of Milton, — a man who to an imagination scarcely less active than that of Taylor, and more lofty and sublime, added a larger portion of the terrible energy of Demosthenes, than any otlier man that ever lived. It is impossible for any Intelli- OF JEREMY TAYLOR. xliii gent reader to peruse any considerable portion of the writings of these wonderful men, without perceiving the immeasurable superiority of the oratorical genius of the one to that of the other. Though Milton is almost as lavish as Jeremy Taylor in the use of his imagination, yet how much more severe are the forms it assumes, by how much more brevity are they characterized, and how much more energy do they possess ! A metaphor, an epithet or two, often do the work of what would be, in Taylor, a long description. The principal features of Jeremy Taylor’s moral and religious character are such as cannot fail to secure him the reverence and the love of all who study his life and writings. His piety was sincere and eminently practical, his devotion in an unusual degree sustained and elevated, while benevolence and charity, candour and forbearance, and all the softer and more lovely features of the Christian character, appear to have been in habitual exercise. In this as in every other instance, however, the aspect his religious character assumed was in great measure determined by the peculiarities of his intellect, original and acquired. — Re- ligion was never designed to reduce all human character to the same uniform standard. Here, as in every other department of his works, God loves to afford, in the most prodigal manner, the most various exhibi- tion of his power and wisdom ; and for this, has made abundant provision in the original diversities of mental and moral structure, and the multiform discipline of human life. Almost innumerable combinations of Christian excellence, some of them presenting the most marked contrasts and others differing by indistin- guishable shades, are to be found in the members of the universal church. Religion is intended, it is true, to correct all vice and to remove all imperfections ; but the kinds, and degrees, and modifications, and aspects of positive excellence are as numberless as the peculiarities of individual character. The productions which adorn the paradise of God, from the loftiest cedar of Lebanon, to the lowliest plant that flourishes beneath its shade, are all pervaded by the same great principle of spiritual life ; are all sustained by the same influences of heaven and of earth ; all imbibe living moisture from the same dew and shower, and rejoice in the genial radiance of the same celestial sun-shine ; but they, at the same time, present endless varieties of form and structure, of fruit and flower, of leaf and fragrance. The waters of life, (if we may vary the figure,) as they exist in the bosom of each Christian, may exhibit the same purity and crystalline clearness, and possess the same invigorating and refreshing qualities ; and yet, in each case, may be marked by some slight tincture derived from those strata of character, through which they have been distilled into the heart. To apply these general observations to Jeremy Taylor. His gentle melancholy ; his ascetic tendencies ; his brilliant imagination, and his consequent love of the picturesque in religion ; his extensive erudition and the associations formed upon it, particularly his reverence for antiquity, imparted a peculiar tone and colour- ing to his religious sentiment and religious feeling. A word or two on each of these points. It is obvious, that with all the admirable social qualities he possessed, he was characterized by a spirit of gentle melancholy, in some measure natural to him, but too surely confirmed by the sorrows of his life ; and this, though it is evident that religion was not only his daily employment, but his daily delight, has impressed itself strongly on his devotional and practical writings. Had he lived in those early ages of Chris- tianity when the hermit’s life was so eagerly sought, and could plead a strong apology for its extravagance in the severity of perseeution, he would probably have buried himself in the solitudes of the desert, and retiring from the haunts of men and the engagements of aetive life, have abandoned himself to that love of contempla- tion which was undoubtedly his ruling passion. It may, however, be justly questioned, whether even then he would have fallen into any of the extravagances of the early devotees, or practised any of their self- denying austerities from the superstitions which so soon corrupted primitive piety. Amidst all his tenden- cies to asceticism, there was a large residuum of strong practical wisdom ; and whenever he enters on the discussion of these topics in his works, he carefully distinguishes between the abstract worthlessness of all self-denying austerities in themselves, and their occasional uses in reference to the distinct ends of self- control and self-discipline ; and in general discriminates the limits within which such austerities may be practised, and within which they ought to be restrained, with great precision and sagacity. His habitual melancholy has given a peculiar tinge to all his devotional writings. His religion was full of “ hope,” but not of “ joy gentle and tranquil, but a stranger to the rapture and triumph which have often characterized piety not more eminent. By this we by no means mean to imply that Jeremy Taylor was more in bondage to doubts and fears, as to his final state, than many other Christians ; for there is the most abundant testimony that he was not more troubled with these than any good man must expect to be, who knows himself, his fluctuating feelings and his many infirmities ; nor can it be thought that a con- xliv AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS lidence which never falters, which knows neither fears nor doubts, is the result of “ the assurance of faith it is too often the fruit of ignorant presumption. — Of all this, however, we are not at present speaking. The present observations merely apply to the general tone and colouring which attach to the expression of his religious feelings. It was doubtless this disposition to melancholy, which so often made Jeremy Taylor, in his meditations and devotional writings, dwell at such disproportionate length, and with such sad intensity of feeling, on the sorrows of life, on the vanity and nothingness of the world, on death, and on all the gloomy topics connected with it ; topics which, judiciously tempered with the grand and inspiring consolations of the gos- pel, are admirably calculated to produce an abundantly beneficial impression ; but which, in Jeremy Taylor’s writings, are often indulged to excess because insisted on too exclusively. These observations are more particularly applicable to his “ Holy Living and Dying ” and his “ Contemplations on the State of Man.” It has been already remarked that the activity of his imagination had no mean influence in the forma- tion of his religious character. It predisposed his mind to a more incessant and intent contempla- tion of those sublime realities, and grand and imposing truths, which constitute the Christian faith. Here he is at home indeed ; and, in innumerable passages, the combined influence of ardent feeling and a glow- ing fancy has presented us with descriptions that are paralleled by nothing out of the volume of inspira- tion itself, — of the felicities and glories of heaven ; of the sublime realities of the invisible and eternal world ; of the Divine love as displayed in the gospel ; of the profound wisdom which pervades its whole economy ; of the beauty and mutual harmony of the principles of conduct which it enjoins, and the excel- lence of that immortal character which it is intended to develope.* When on such themes, he often pours forth strains of the loftiest eloquence, in a style not unworthy of the lyric muse ; strains such as Pindar, had he written prose, need not have been ashamed to own. So uniform, indeed, so irrepressible is the energy of his imagination, that it often breaks out even in that species of composition in which it ought to have been most subdued, and the great charm of which consists in the most unadorned simplicity of expres - sion ; — we mean in his prayers and forms of devotion. That whenever this is the case, Jeremy Taylor is guilty of an egregious violation of taste, we need not state. Such instances, however, are not very fre- quent ; his directly devotional style is usually characterized by all those qualities which place the liturgical compositions of his, and of a preceding age, at an immeasurable distance from those of more modern times ; they are distinguished by that sublime simplicity, that deep solemnity of spirit, that harmony and music of expression, which we shall in vain seek in the devotional writings of later times. It need hardly be remarked that the influence of the imagination, as well as of the “ gentle prejudice of antiquity,” as he himself calls it, led him to lay no mean stress on the externals of religion ; on matters of a ritual and ceremonial nature. No one, indeed, could believe more firmly than he did, that the essence of religion did not consist in these things. Yet the tendency of his nature was evidently rather to over- rate their importance than the contrary ; so much is this the case, that probably nothing but a protestant education could have checked them ;f while, if he had been born within the communion of the church of Rome, there is but little presumption in saying that his reverence for ancient customs, for rites and cere- monies, for fasts and festivals consecrated by the example of ages and invested by his ardent imagination with all that is striking and imposing, would have degenerated into the most abject superstition ; and though we cannot believe that, even under such circumstances, Jeremy Taylor would have lost his charac- teristic mildness and spirit of charity, or that he would not have sustained a reputation worthy of compari- son with that of a Fenelon or a Pascal, yet the combined influence of imagination and of his prejudices in favour of antiquity, would probably have rendered him one of the most strenuous champions of that very system, the main errors of which he has done so much to expose. If Jeremy Taylor erred, however, on the side of excessive attachment to matters of mere ritual, he erred no more than one of the most celebrated of his contemporaries erred on the opposite side ; we refer to Milton. These great men in some respects more nearly resembled one another, and in others were more completely unlike, than any other men of the age. It is astonishing that any one with so much imagination as Milton, should have finally adopted a system of opinions on this subject at the remotest possible distance from all in which imagination delights, from all that * See particularly instances of such passages in his “ Preface” to his “Life of Christ;” Rules iii, iv. of Chap. i. Book II. of the “ Ductor Dubitantium;” and in his sermons entitled “ The Return of Prayers “ The Faith and Patience of the Saints, or the Righteous Cause Oppressed;” “ Of Growth in Grace;” and “ The Miracles of the Divine Mercy.” t It was doubtless these tendencies, together with his ascetic habits, which fixed on him the suspicion of a leaning to popery; a suspicion, which, in spite of the clearest evidence to the contrary, continued to follow him throughout life. OF JEREMY TAYLOR. xlv appeals to the senses and the material part of our nature ; which regarded man as a purely spiritual essence. Still more extraordinary is it that his imagination after rejecting its appropriate aliment, could sustain itself in such strength and vigour, on the few simple abstractions which, even at an earlier period, formed his creed; or that the poet should have been able to create such sublime and enchanting visions as are often presented in his prose writings, from such unpromising and unpoetic materials. We have nothing to do here, however, with the signal triumph of genius and imagination, which Milton has achieved ; we are only concerned to point out the error of stripping Christianity of every thing external ; an error which, if generally adopted, and carried to the extent to which Milton carried it, in his latter days, would be far more fatal than the opposite error of his great contemporary. It is difficult to say with what excess of forms religion may still exist ; but except in the instance of Milton, — and where is there another such, — it is difficult to say how it should exist at all in a mind that rejects all those circumstantials, which, as human nature is at present constituted, can alone effectually fix our duties on our memories ; remind us of the times of their recurrence ; render them more easy by rendering them regular and habitual ; and bind upon us the performance of our devotions, by a powerful complication of associations ; — a mind, which, under the vain apprehension of enslaving itself to the external and material, will observe no set hours or days for devo- tions, no outward signs, no particular postures, no stated place. Christianity, though the most sublimely spiritual system of religion, has availed itself of the aid which the external can minister to the immaterial, just so far as is compatible with the most efficient provisions against superstition. Its rites and cere- monies, its external observances of all kinds, are as few and as simple as possible ; but still it is not with- out them. That divine philosophy which pervades the whole scheme of the gospel, and which has so exactly adapted it to the intricate mechanism of human nature, knew man too well, and understood too perfectly his dependence on the senses, the extensive influence of the material world on all his habits and associations, and the inevitable necessity that it should tend powerfully either to vice or virtue, to neglect so important a feature in his constitution. The grand difficulty, however, is to maintain this middle path of wisdom. With that passion for ex- tremes which is ever characteristic of human nature, we see in the age of Jeremy Taylor and Milton, two parties, one of which endeavoured to encumber Christianity with a vast number of idle and fantastic cere- monies, and the other to strip it, to very nakedness, of all that is external. These tendencies existed in dif- ferent degrees in different individuals. Jeremy Taylor, however, on his side carried the tendencies of his party to a much less fatal extent than Milton did on his. But to proceed with the analysis of Taylor’s religious character. It was remarked that the profound erudition of Jeremy Taylor, more especially his intimate acquaintance with aU the writings of ecclesiastical antiquity, tended, in conjunction with many other qualities of his mind, to modify his religious character. This observation has been already partly illustrated in speaking of his excessive attachment to what was external and ceremonial in religion. This effect was in part the result of his imagination. It is observable, however, that his imagination sought no innovations ; antiquity had already determined the direction it should take. The same cause, his familiarity with antiquity, has given a peculiar tinge to his religious phraseology, and probably, also, in some measure to his religious feelings. Thus we find him both in his controversial and his devotional writings perpetually adopting, and often apparently unconsciously, not only the religious terms and phraseology of early ecclesiastical antiquity, but of those devotional and casuistical writers of the Roman church, with which he was so profoundly acquainted. Sometimes, indeed, his mode of expression, borrowed from these sources, requires to be interpreted with candour, and will inevitably afford abundant room for suspicion and cavil to all those w'ho have not made themselves familiarly acquainted with the general strain of his writings. But on this point we need say little ; it having been already observed that there is no writer who can so ill afford to be interpreted by single expres- sions, or insulated passages. For instance, had he not frequently declared his belief, that the spirit of religion is something very different from external forms and ceremonies, and that the want of it can never be compensated by any frequency or diligence in acts of mere outward devotion, one would almost bo led to think, from his occasional phraseology, that he imagined there was a species of mechanical efficacy in the mere number and assiduity of our prayers, fasts, thanksgivings, alms, and other acts of religion and of charity. Interpreted, however, by an enlarged view of his writings, and not by an exclusive attention to insulated sentences, and making due allowance for the peculiar tinge and colouring which all his habits of thought communicated to his style, we are persuaded there is little foundation for any such suspicions. The religion of Jeremy Taylor was eminently influential on his whole nature ; it is this which imparts xlvi AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS to his character its chief beauty and lustre, and to his writings their chief interest and value. He evidently took enlarged and sublime views of the character which the gospel is designed to form within us ; of the purity and spirituality, elevation and simplicity of mind, which it inculcates ; of the habitual benevolence, the charity, the meekness, the lowliness, the humility it enjoins ; and of all those retiring but more difficult virtues on which all other systems of religion have poured scorn, as incompatible with magnanimity and greatness ; but which the gospel more justly accounts amongst the most heroic and superhuman achieve- ments of excellence. And as Jeremy Taylor formed these correct and sublime views of the objects and requirements of the gospel, so he habitually and diligently endeavoured to form himself after this model. It is this which gives such a peculiar value to his practical writings, and sets them so very far above his con- troversial. It is the general tone of these latter^ however, that affords the most unequivocal displays of that elevated personal piety, which shines through all his writings. It is true that all his works breathe a delightful spirit of benevolence and charity ; but in controversy he was called on to display and maintain its spirit. It may be fairly said that an amiable spirit in controversy, (which is so apt to influence, in a greater or less degree, the malignant passions, and which is so very rarely disjoined from them,) forms one of the most incontrovertible evidences of elevated piety ; because it is precisely this point in which so many men of indubitable excellence have failed. These remarks are further strengthened by reflecting on the controver- sial spirit which characterized the age ; an age of almost boundless licence in abuse and sarcasm. In that age many of the best men, if we may judge from their writings, seemed to consider controversy a province over which the charities of Christianity, which extended to all things else in human character and conduct, was to have no influence. Jeremy Taylor is an honourable exception. It may, without hesitation, be asserted that, considering their extent and the haste with which many of them were composed, his controversial writings will sustain a comparison not only with those of most of the divines of his age, but of any age ; nay, there are not only few, — very few, who can be compared with him in this respect, but very few who have equalled him ; while we know of none who have surpassed him, unless it be the truly great Howe. Even in his controversies with the Romanists, the appalling consequences and the infinite absurdity of whose errors, and the eminent want of candour with which they carried on the controversy, would have excused some con- siderable asperity, Jeremy Taylor maintains in general an amiable spirit. There was but one instance in which he failed, and that was in his controversy with Dr. Jeanes, on the subject of “ original sin.” In this case, however, peculiar circumstances tended to inflame his passions ; not to mention that he was in the wrong, a circumstance alone often sufficient to account for loss of temper. Nor was it in controversy only that Jeremy Taylor manifested this amiable and lovely spirit. We have dwelt on this merely as affording the most signal proof of it. Throughout the whole of life, in all its relations, (and many of its scenes were of a peculiarly trying character,) he displayed the same spirit of unfeigned piety, humility, gentleness, and benevolence. The general spirit of his writings, and all the traditionary accounts of his character, attest his great personal and social worth, — his eminent excellence as a man and a Christian. There is one defect in Jeremy Taylor’s practical writings, which deserves to be noticed ; because, with- out any fault of his, they are liable to be misunderstood ; and probably have been so by many a reader. It is this ; that considering what the bulk of his readers probably would be, he has not brought forward with sufficient frequency those grand doctrines of the gospel upon which the whole superstructure of Christian duty rests ; doctrines which alone can furnish motives sufficiently powerful to secure obedience, or to transform the reluctant and servile spirit of duty into a service of freedom, of cheerfulness, and love. He seems to have taken it for granted, that his writings would be read principally by those (and they are indeed the parties calculated to derive most benefit from them) who are already experimentally ac- quainted with the gospel ; impressed with all its great peculiarities ; readers who would not need to be reminded at every step of those elementary principles, without which duty is slavery, and the spirit of peace and of joy impossible of attainment. Unless the readers of Taylor’s practical writings should (as their author doubtless intended) habitually carry in their minds these principles, and interpret him by them, it ^3 not improbable that they may form erroneous views of the excellent author’s intentions ; and, unless they be well established in just notions of the faith, extract poison from that which he designed for nourishment. As a purely speculative theologian, Jeremy Taylor, for reasons which have been largely specified in a former part of this Essay, is very far from being worthy of implicit reliance. It has been observed, how- ever, in a preceding page, that, considering the extent of his writings, he rarely touches on such matters. II is works are almost wholly practical. OP JEREMY TAYLOR. xlvii And, in matters purely practical, liowever complicated and difficult of decision the matters which come before him, he is almost always correct. Here he affords a striking exemplification of peculiarities already noticed in a previous part of this Essay. His general correctness in these questions is undoubtedly to be attributed to his strong perception of the principles of the gospel, and his paramount regard to them ; in other words, the elevation and activity of his practical piety, the love and the admiration of goodness. This philosophy of the heart, if we may use such an expression, this disposition to do what is rights — a disposition which the practical influence of Christianity cannot fail to inspire even into understandings immeasurably inferior to that of Jeremy Taylor, is often as unerring as an oracle ; and will avail more than the acutest powers of speculation, in clearing up the intricacies of a subtle casuistry. Where such a spirit exists, the judgment will be always happily, nobly biassed to the side of virtue and goodness ; even where it errs in its decisions, it will always be in favour of the more religious, the more charitable view of the question ; since it will avoid not only “ evil,” but even the “ appearance of it,” and, therefore, will be always safe if not always right. Nor is it to be wondered at, that such a spirit should be generally right, since wisdom and goodness dwell eternally together, and righteousness and truth are twin sisters. That he who loves what is right should generally hit upon what is true, is but a fulfilment of the promise, “ that he who doth the will of God, shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.” In a curious, and we may add eloquent, passage in the “ Ductor Dubitantium,” in which Jeremy Taylor characterizes the merits of the earlier and the more modern writers on the subject of Christian ethics, he has unconsciously drawn that very feature of his character which we are now considering. After balancing the greater speculative acuteness of the latter casuists, against the more simple-minded piety of the former, he seems disposed to think that altogether the superiority rested on the side of the ancients. He says, “ But to proceed in the comparing the ages : these latter ages have more heresies, but the former had more dangerous; and, although the primitive piety was high and exemplary, yet the effect of that was, that in matters of practice they were more to be followed, but not in questions of speculation ; these later ages are indeed diseased, like children that have the rickets, but their upper parts do swell, and their heads are bigger; “ sagaciores in dogmate, nequiores in fide;” and if they could be abstracted from the mixtures of interest, and the engagement of their party, they are in many things better able to teach the people, than the ancients ; that is, they are best able to guide, but not always safest to be followed.” Whether this representation of the two classes of writers Jeremy Taylor contrasts, is quite correct or not, it is certain that it affords a very striking view of some of his own peculiarities. Of the practical writings of Jeremy Taylor it would be difficult to speak too highly ; but if asked pre- cisely what was his theological system, it would be no easy matter to give a distinct answer. As a theologian, he scarcely belongs to any particular school. For though there were some denominations with which he much more nearly symbolized than with others, he altogether agreed with none. There is, indeed, throughout the whole of his writings, an astonishing disregard of the precision and caution, — in a word, of all the chief peculiarities of systematic theology. Far be it from us to blame this popular style, in writings like his, the great bulk of which were practical and intended for popular use. It is, however, an inevitable result of such a style, that it will often be difficult to ascertain exactly what was an author’s precise theory of doctrine ; not to mention that there will be many instances, in which he himself will forget it. In theological works of this kind, doctrines are introduced detached and in fragments ; and their connexion and harmony with the system of truth in the writer’s mind, is not pointed out. If they are doc- trines, whose theoretical consistency with others will only be apparent by the utmost caution of expression, the writer will often seem to be contradictory when he really is not ; not to mention, that when deeply impressed with the importance of some particular truth or when urging on men with holy vehemence some practical duty, theologians forget for a moment the cold and frigid system to which they are attached, and speak of that particular truth, which for the moment absorbs attention, with a degree of warmth and zeal apparently disproportionate to the other great truths with which it stands in connexion. This is nature ; and thus it is, that the Calvinist is often found apparently adopting the language of Arminian- ism, and Arminians that of Calvinism. At such moments, they forget the technicalities and subtle dis- tinctions of their respective systems, and though all that they say may be, in their own minds, capable of being perfectly reconciled with those systems, they seldom, at such moments, enter into any such elabo- rate distinctions, nor are they often understood if they do. A truth may be stated with great power for all practical purposes, where there is any thing but the accuracy of systematic theology ; nay, often the more forcibly on these very grounds. xlviii AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS For example, the Armlnian believes that it is true, in a certain sense, that man’s salvation is wholly tlie fruit of Divine grace ; and there is a sense in which the Calvinist believes that every man can he saved if he will, and that it is entirely his own fault if he be not saved; now whether the explanations and dis- tinctions by which these theologians reconcile their sentiments to their systems, the main parts of which may seem so much at variance with them, be satisfactory or not, it is obvious, that when under the influ- ence of strono- and excited feeling, and solely intent on a practical exhibition of,what they feel rather than perceive to be important truth, they will use nearly the same language and appear to occupy each other’s ground. The subtle distinctions with which each, in a cooler statement of his opinions, reconciles his practice to his theory, are quite forgotten : each abandoning what is peculiar in his system, they must for a moment meet on that common ground where both parties are in the right. The same remarks, to a considerable extent, apply even where there is in the author’s mind a consistent system of doctrine. A perfect freedom from the precision of a system, eminently characterizes the sacred writings, which were intended to treat theology, not as it is taught in the schools, but in the most impres- sive form for all practical purposes ; it is conveyed to us in fragments and detached parts, as present exigencies or peculiar circumstances suggested ; and the consequence is, that the sacred writers often express themselves with a strength and energy, which at first sight, and without a careful comparison of such passages with others, would appear to be hardly consistent. Jeremy Taylor’s loose and popular phraseology, together with another circumstance already adverted to, the characteristic ardour with which he expresses himself on any topic which, for the moment, engages his attention, perpetually betray him into apparent discrepancies of statement, but which, in very many instances, are, we are persuaded, no more than apparent. This, however, will be granted only by those who possess an extensive familiarity with his phraseology, and a disposition to interpret it with candour. But this apology, it must be admitted, only extends to certain points. It cannot be denied, that his works abound in many real as well as apparent discrepancies and misstatements, and show, as before stated, that he did not hold any consistent systeyn of theological opinions. Thus, in the question of original sin, he was in some respects a Pelagian, yet (as Heber observes) these sentiments are at direct variance with numberless expressions in his practical writings. Again, that he was no Calvinist in theory, is certain ; yet he often uses language which can by no possibility be made to quadrate with any opposite system of doctrine. This Essay will be concluded with some very brief remarks on the general character of Jeremy Taylor’s principal productions. Little or nothing will be said of his peculiarities of manner or style ; enough, it is conceived, has already been said on these points in the preceding parts of the Essay. No author ever stamped his writings with the impress of his mind more strongly than did Jeremy Taylor. In noticing his works, we shall generally take them in the order in which they were published, except when they are on the same or kindred subjects ; — such will be classed together. The first work which, according to this arrangement, demands attention, is his “ Episcopacy Asserted published at the request of Charles I. in 1642. As the few observations to be made on this piece equally apply to his “ Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy,” first published in 1646, and his “ Dis- course of Confirmation,” which did not appear till 1663, they may all be classed together. On such subjects, Jeremy Taylor might have been expected to put forth all his powers ; yet these works may be safely pronounced, on the whole, the least successful of his controversial writings. Some of his readers may pro- bably impute this inferiority rather to the nature of the subjects, than to any fault in the writer. On this point, it is not for us to deliver a judgment. “ Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” The ‘‘ Apology for Liturgies,” however, is undeniably far superior to the other two. Of the “ Dis- course of Confirmation,” even Bishop Heber is constrained to say, that he cannot consider it “ a favourable specimen of Taylor’s genius.” In these works, hut especially the first and last, he has furnished most conclusive evidence of the cor- rectness of certain remarks formerly made on his character as a reasoner, and of the influence his learning exerted over his logical powers. It was there remarked, that he is but too apt to measure his arguments more by number than by weighty and to furnish rather what his vast reading has supplied, than what his deliberate judgment could approve. This is obviously the case in the present instances. In his eagerness to make good, and more than make good his positions ; to render unassailable, institutions which he so profoundly reverenced and admired ; — he presses every argument, sound and unsound, into the service ; OF JEREMY TAYLOR. xlix and, though he omits nothing tliat Is really valid, Introdueos much that Is perfectly worthless, and whlcli no judicious advocates in the same cause, even in his own time, ever thought of employing. He who, in defending episcopacy^' could argue that the form of ecclesiastical government and polity which Olirist intended for his church, must be purely matter of revelation, and who could then attempt to seek epis- copacy in the New Testament, in all its parts, and in its fully developed form ; he who could find, in the appointment of the twelve apostles and seventy disciples, the first institution of bishops and pres- byters ; he who, in defending the rite of confirmation, could allege the descent of the Holy Ghost on our Lord after his baptism, and our Saviour’s declaration to Nicodemus, of the necessity of baptism by water and the Spirit, proof XhaX confirmation is a, divinely constituted rite, can hardly be trusted as a judicious controvertist, however multifarious or profound his learning. Not seldom would he be likely to impair the force of arguments really sound, by mingling them with others so obviously absurd and puerile. All these treatises, however, are full of learning ; and in many parts distinguished by great acuteness and ingenuity of argument; while the “ Apology for the Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy, contains many splendid specimens of Taylor’s characteristic eloquence. The next considerable work which demands notice, and which first appeared in 1648, is his “ Liberty of Prophesying.” This, of all his controversial pieces, is the one by which his name is best known, and which has most endeared him to posterity. It is, as already stated, a defence of toleration, a doctrine then little understood and less practised. Though one of the earliest, and by far the most eloquent work, that had as yet appeared on this much controverted subject, it was by no means the first. The independents, to whom undoubtedly belongs the immortal honour of having first advocated, and of having first attempted to carry into practice, the princi- ples of toleration, had already published several tracts and sermons in defence of this doctrine. It is true that Jeremy Taylor’s work is a defence of toleration, yet those who should judge of it merely from a knowledge of other great works on the same subject, (more especially that of Locke,) would form a very erroneous conception of its nature. It differs from other works very materially, both in the nature of the arguments on which it lays the most stress and in the extent to which it advocates the doctrine itself. In some respects the toleration for which Taylor pleads, is far more limited than a just and enlarged view of the subject would demand, and in others more extensive than is contended for even by many of its advo- cates at the present day. A word or two on these points. As to his arguments, he has chiefly insisted on those which other writers on the same subject have con- sidered subordinate, while those which they justly regard as principal, he has nearly omitted altogether. Thus, while the generality of those who have advocated toleration, at least since Locke’s time, have founded their arguments principally on the inalienable right of all men to form their own opinions on the subject of religion, as irresponsible, except to the Supreme, for the exercise of their freedom of thought, Jeremy Taylor pleads for it principally on the grounds of the infinite difficulty, and, in many cases, absolute im- possibility, of ascertaining what is truth ; and the consequent expediency and duty of treating differ- ences of opinion with enlarged charity and forbearance. He pleads for it from a deep compassion for human infirmities and frailty ; others, from a consciousness that such freedom is an inalienable prerogative of our nature. It follows, of course, from his mode of exhibiting and defending the doctrine, that his toleration would only extend to those subordinate and non-essential points, in which it may be absolutely impossible or exceedingly difficult to ascertain the truth ; and that, consequently, if there are any funda- mental truths which may be deemed sufficiently plain to all, and about which there is little or no dispute, toleration is not to be extended to those who deny them. It is precisely within these limits that he con- structs his theory. In consequence, as it was necessary, on his hypothesis, to draw the line somewhere, he would ex- tend toleration to all who agree in the belief of the prime articles of the Christian faith, as embodied in the Apostles’ creed, with the single exception of the clause respecting “ Christ’s descent into hell leaving all at perfect liberty to form their own opinions on all subordinate points of doctrine and of church government. This theory, defective as it is, was, it must be confessed, an astonishing triumph of charity for that age, and, had it been fully acted upon, would, in those times, have been productive of as much practical benefit to the nation to which it was more immediately proposed, as a theory founded on principles far more compre- hensive and abstractedly more just ; and for this simple reason, that in that age there were few who did. not agree in the fundamental, articles of the Apostles’ creed; all the more bitter and intolerant feeling was 1 AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS ANl) WRITINGS illi>j)laytHl precisely on those points, on which Taylor wonkl have left every man to the liberty of his own reason. Still, however, viewed as a theory of toleration, irrespective of the peculiarities of the age and nation, it must be acknowledged to be exceedingly imperfect. It was this which induced us to observe, that in some respects, the toleration for which he pleads is far more limited than it ought to be. It is ob- vious that his theory extends no indulgence to those who should deny any of the prime articles of the Apostles’ creed, (a class of men who are now universally admitted to have as much right to toleration as any other classes of religionists,) still less to those who should reject Christianity altogether, or to the professors of a totally different system of religion. There are many passages of the work, howevei-j which indicate that Jeremy Taylor was not far from more comprehensive views of the subject, and that he often found himself shackled by the limits he had imposed on himself. This is clearly apparent in his apologies for the “ anabaptists” and “ papists,” apologies which subjected him in many quarters to the severest censures. It is not difficult to trace the causes which induced Jeremy Taylor to found his plea for toleration, rather on the pity due to human frailty than on the rights of reason. It was another of the many instances, — some of which have been already referred to, — in which his philosophy was the fruit of his benevolence, and in which the instincts of an ardent and unfeigned charity, in the absence of more enlarged and com- prehensive speculation, led him at least a considerable distance on the road to truth. But it has been remarked, that if in one respect Jeremy Taylor’s theory was defective, and the tolera- tion for which he pleaded too limited, in another it is far more extensive than many of its advocates in the present day would approve. He goes so far as to contend, (as indeed might be inferred from the title of the work,) that no communion ought to impose on its ministers the belief of any other articles, than those fundamental ones on which he bases his whole scheme of toleration. Into this view he was naturally led by considering the question not merely as an advocate of the rights of men, but as a theolo- gian anxious for the growth and prosperity of the Christian church. The mere advocate of the civil rights of men has done his duty on this great point, when he has vindicated their liberty to form and express their own opinions without reference to any particular system of religious belief. It is enough for him if no man imposes his peculiar opinions on his neighbour, and no communion its doctrines on another commu- nion. But the Christian, viewing the whole subject in relation to the principles of that religion he pro- fesses, would go somewhat farther. It is, indeed, a general truth, that every community of men has an abstract right to admit and exclude its own members on its own terms ; but Jeremy Taylor would have these terms as few and as simple as possible ; not multiplied beyond the most apparent necessity, nor be- yond the candid interpretation of the great statute-book. Such a man would argue thus for the sake of the union and the consequent progress of the universal church. Whether Jeremy Taylor’s principles can ever be acted on to the fullest extent, with respect to the ad- mission or exclusion of the ministers or stated members of any particular communion, may admit of ques- tion ; but there is little hazard in asserting, that they ought at least to regulate the intercourse of the ministers and members of differing communions, with one another. Viewed in this light, his system ex- hibits a profound knowledge of the great principles of evangelical charity, and forms an illustrious instance of the extent to which a sublime and eminently practical piety can sometimes overbear all the prejudices of a particular age and country, and anticipate that better order of things, — that reign of universal forbearance and love, — to which all things are tending. It maybe confidently affirmed that the views of Jeremy Taylor on this subject are rapidly diffusing themselves in the present day. While religious communions continue to stand sullenly aloof from one another on points which they all mutually admit to be non-essential ; while their ministers refuse all interchange of offices ; so long must they, when judged by the enlarged principles of the gospel, be accounted intolerant, whatever liberty they may allow to one another. They may not wish to impose their creed on other denominations of Christians ; but so long as there is no sym- pathy, no communion, no interchange of kindness between the differing parties, so long are they violating the great principle of Christian toleration. They may retain their different opinions ; they may, they must form separate communions on those differences ; but whenever those differences are confessedly non-essen- tial, it ought not to prevent, and the time is coming when it will not prevent, a truly fraternal intercourse. Then, and not till then, will they be truly tolerant. Jeremy Taylor, after he had attained the honours of a bishopric, was charged with having at least partially abandoned the principles maintained in the “ Liberty of Prophesying,” in certain public dis- courses, more especially in his “ Sermon,” preached at the opening of the Parliament in Ireland. It ap- OF .lERKMY TAYLOli. li pears, however, to the present writer, as to Bishop Heber, that Taylor cannot he justly charged with having materially modified any of his main opinions. The supposition has very probably flowed from the altered tone which Jeremy Taylor adopted. We all know that a total change of circumstances will make a won- derful difference in the mode of stating certain sentiments we still hold, as well as in the degree of zeal with which we defend them. It was not in human nature that Jeremy Taylor (and with all his excellencies, he was by no means exempt from our common frailties) should express himself, when raised to a bishopric, and, above all, severely annoyed by those very differences of religion for which he had claimed toleration, with the same earnestness and eagerness with which he expressed himself, when his own church was under a cloud, and a suppliant for that indulgence which she, in common with other communions, had so lonxr denied to others. The “ Liberty of Prophesying ” is introduced by a beautiful dedication to Hatton, in which the writer briefly but most eloquently expounds the principles of the work. The work itself is divided into twenty- two sections. The first two are occupied in explaining the general principles on which his scheme of toleration is founded; the following seven, in showing that there is no certain judge of controversies; neither “ scripture,” from the differing views of its interpreters ; nor “ tradition,” nor “ councils,” nor “ the pope,” nor the “ fathers or writers ecclesiastical,” nor the church “ in its diffusive capacity.” The next three sections are employed in discussing the “ authority of reason,” and “ the causes which render errors innocent in pious persons.” The thirteenth and fourteenth enjoin the conduct to be pursued “ towards those who differ from us ;” the fourteenth is a noble chapter on the origin of persecution. From the fifteenth to the twentieth sections, the author is engaged in showing within what limits the principle of toleration should be adopted by churches and governors, with an apology for the anabaptists and Roman catholics. The last two sections are thus entitled ; “ The duty of particular churches in allowing commu- nion,” and, “ That particular men may communicate with churches of different persuasions, and how far they may do it.” Such is the general character and such the outline of this great work. There are some subordinate statements with which few would in this day agree, but which cannot be specifically noticed in the narrow limits of the present Essay. The whole work abounds in learning, and is full of Taylor’s sublime and characteristic eloquence. The next work of any considerable magnitude was, his “ Life of Christ, or the Great Exemplar.” As the “ Holy Living and Dying,” (which was published very shortly after it,) and the ‘‘ Contemplations on the State of Man,” are all mainly of a practical and devotional character, they will here be classed together, as they have many of the same general features of resemblance, and were intended to serve precisely the same great ends. To these works, more especially, are applicable certain observations which were made some few pages back, when speaking of Jeremy Taylor’s religious character. It was then mentioned, as a matter of regret, that the pious author did not always give sufficient prominence to those cardinal doctrines of the gospel, which lie at the basis of the whole Christian system ; and, without which, precepts may be enjoined, indeed, but will never be fully obeyed. That Jeremy Taylor firmly believed all this ; that he was deeply imjjressed with the beautiful and symmetrical structure of the gospel, and the mutual subordination of all its parts, — is evident from numberless passages of his works ; still he is apt, in the works now under consideration, to introduce the grand and inspiring topics of the Christian faith with too great a rarity ; to insist on many^ * These observations apply not so much to the “ Great Exemplar,” however, as to the “ Holy Living and Dying,” and the “ Contemplations on the State of Man.” As a brief illustration, we may point to the following observations in the section on “ Contentedness in all Estates and Accidents,” We should like to know whether a bereaved parent or friend was ever very effectually consoled by such considerations as these. “ To cure which, [sorrow for a departed friend,] we may consider, that all the world must die, and therefore to be impatient at the death of a person, concerning whom it was certain and known that he must die, is to mourn, because thy friend or child was not born an angel; and, when thou hast awhile made thyself miserable by an importunate and useless grief, it may be thou shalt die thyself, and leave others to their choice, whether they will mourn for thee or no : but, by that time, it will appear, how impertinent that grief was, which served no end of life, and ended in thy own funeral. But what great matter is it, if sparks fly upward, or a stone falls into a pit ; if that which was combustible be burned, or that which was liquid be melted, or that which is mortal do die ? It is no more than a man does every day ; for every night death hath gotten possession of that day, and we shall never live that day over again ; and when the last day is come, there are no more days left for us to die.”— “ But (as concerning thy own particular) remove thy thoughts back to those days in which thy child was. not born, and you are now, but as then you was, and there is no difference, but that you had a son born; and if you reckon that for evil, you are unthankful for the blessing; if it be good, it is better that you had the blessing for a while, than not at all ; and yet, if he had never been born, this sorrow had not been at all.” e 2 lii AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS of the very subordinate motives to obedience, at a lengtli very dIsj)roportIoned to tlieir relative magnitude and Importance ; and now and then, though not very often, to enforce great duties, or inculcate self-control, moderation, severity of manners, and contempt of the world, by a profuse employment of arguments, not false in themselves, but totally inefficacious ; arguments which would better befit the pages of those stoical moralists, whom he so lavishly quotes, than those of a Christian theologian ; arguments which, if they are worthy of mention at all, might be glanced at with the utmost brevity ; so inconsiderable is the influence they exert, compared with those grand and overpowering motives which the gospel supplies, which ought ever to be the principal incentives to “ Holy Living and Dying,” and the never-ceasing subjects of those who would teach the way either to the one or the other. It may also be observed, that a more cautious style of expression would have been eminently desirable in many instances, to guard his readers against the error and the danger of supposing that there is some meritorious efficacy in their good deeds, or that heaven may be purchased by a certain amount of prayers and alms. It is certain, that Taylor’s fixed and often repeated opinion was, that a Christian’s obedience flows simply from an unfeigned reception of the cardinal doctrines of the gospel, and derives its whole value from the efficacy of Christ’s work. It was stated in a preceding page that Jeremy Taylor was apt to express himself with extraordinary latitude and want of caution, and the causes of this peculiarity were pointed out ; there are, perhaps, few of the instances of Incautious expression referred to in the above work, which, when Interpreted, as in all fairness they ought to be, by comparison with other portions of his writings, are not susceptible of a sound solution. Still there are some Instances in which he cannot be vindicated from inconsistency of statement ; while there are many others, in which, though he may have meant well, he has not expressed himself wisely. To him, however, who peruses these works witli correct views, and who habitually applies to them, as he goes on, the grand principles and doctrines of the gospel, there are few pieces of practical theology which may be rendered more profitable. They are evidently the productions of one who had attained very exalted views of that elevation and purity of character, which it is the object of Christianity to form in all who embrace it ; who himself panted to attain it ; and who habituallv, and diligently, and prayerfully used all those holy “ arts,” and “ instruments,” and “ methods,” which Infinite Wisdom has enjoined for the con- servation and increase of piety. They are the works of one who knew much of human nature — of its infirmities, and its temptations ; and of the whole science (and it is a profound one) of Christian experience. The “ Life of Christ, or the Great Exemplar,” is as characteristic both of Jeremy Taylor’s peculiar excellences, and his peculiar defects, as any of his works ; and it may be added, that it is one in which the former appear in the most attractive, and the latter in their least repulsive, forms. The chief excellences of Jeremy Taylor do not, as is well known even to his most superficial readers, consist in continuity of thought, or regularity of method, but in detached passages of exquisite beauty. Now, as the work in question is, in fact, nothing more or less than a number of devout meditations on the principal incidents of our Saviour’s life, the qualities above mentioned are not much missed, because not much wanted. The title of the work, “ The History of the Life of Christ,” can give the. reader but a very imperfect, or rather an erroneous, idea of its nature or its contents. The “ Great Exemplar,” by which it is gene- rally known, gives a much more correct impression. It is, as already stated, a series of devout reflections and meditations on the principal events in our Saviour’s history. It is almost wholly practical, and has scarcely an observation of a critical nature in it. Nay, the author not only makes no attempt to elu- cidate the critical difficulties of the gospel narrative, or to harmonize apparent discrepancies, or to arrange the events of Christ’s life in chronological order, but avails himself of the accounts, often most fabulous and absurd, which the traditions of the early ages have preserved respecting our Lord, his family, and his disciples. Many of these Discourses” are amongst the most beautiful and impressive specimens of Jeremy Taylor’s eloquence. And It may be remarked, as a proof of the exuberance and fertility of his mind, that many of those “ sections,” which are on subjects apparently the most barren, are rich in vigorous thought and beautiful illustration. It is impossible not to admire, with what felicitous art, — with what originality, — he will often found, on the most trivial fact of sacred history, a train of the most impressive reflection. Tlie reader may easily see an illustration of this remark, by turning to discourse the first, section third, on the “ Duty of nursing Children in Imitation of the blessed Virgin Mother or the discourse, section fourth, entitled “ Considerations of the Epiphany of the blessed Jesus by a Star, and the Adoration of Jesus by the Eastern Magi and to the thoughts on ‘‘ Meditation,” which, by the by, with the exception of OF JEREMY TAYLOR. liii one or two incautious expressions, are cliaracterized throughout by the })rofoiin(lest wisdoirj, and the highest, because a sanctified and truly Christian philosopliy. The next work was the Holy Living and Dying it is probably the production by which he is best known. Its object, as appears by the dedication, was to furnish the members of the church of England (“ then under a cloud”) with a ‘‘ help ” to their piety and devotion, while unable to attend the regular ministrations of their own communion. It has very little in it, however, (and in this it resembles Jeremy Taylor’s other practical writings,) which is not equally fit and equally unfit for every communion. The “ Holy Living” is divided into four chapters ; the first is occupied with the “ Consideration of tlie general Instruments and Means serving to a holy Life ;” the second is on Christian Sobriety ;” the third oil “ Christian Justice ;” the last on “ Christian Religion.” There is obviously some peculiarity in this arrangement, which is, however, easily accounted for. The very title of the second and third chapters shows that Jeremy Taylor never intended that Christian religion^ taken in its widest sense, is something exclusive of Christian sobriety and justice ; which are, in fact, only particular exhibitions of Christian prin- ciples, in relation to certain personal and social duties. All the difficulty is avoided, by bearing in mind that Taylor here uses the word “ religion,” merely to designate its immediate acts and appropriate offices ; all those which relate to the intercourse between the soul and God. There is one false and pernicious speculation in this work, (at least so the present writer deems it,) which deserves specific mention. Jeremy Taylor’s views on the subject of the sabbath were not such as have generally been held by the most sound divines. He believed that the command to observe any such day ceased with the Jewish dispensation ; and that it is no longer matter of positive institution. He still contended, however, that such observance was a Christian duty, resting it on apostolic precedents, on the usages and sanction of Christian antiquity, and on ecclesiastical authority. Such an admission as this neutralized, in his particular case, all the mischievous effects which might otherwise flow from such an opinion. The same view of the subject is defended at greater length in the third book of the “ Ductor Dubltantium.” The “ Holy Dying ” is divided into four chapters ; the first is entitled, “ A general Preparation towards a holy and blessed Death, by way of consideration the second, “ A general Preparation towards a holy and blessed Death, by way of exercise the third, “ Of the State of Sickness, and the Temptations incident to it, with their proper Remedies the fourth, “ Of the Practice of the Graces proper to the State of Sickness, which a sick Man may practise alone.” The “ Contemplations on the State of Man in this Life, and in that which is to come,” is a posthu- mous work, and by no means equal to the ‘‘ Life of Christ,” or “ Holy Living and Dying.” It contains many passages of great splendour and beauty, but a more than usual display of vicious taste, a perverted rhetoric, and ill-applied learning. It is distributed into two books, corresponding to the great general divisions of the subject. Each book is prefaced by an address to the reader. A portion of his ^viavrog, or year of sermons, was his next publication of any considerable size. The observations now about to be made, apply equally to all his discourses. The “ Sermons ” of Jeremy Taylor are amongst the most valuable, — perhaps it might be affirmed that altogether they are the most valuable, of his writings. The reader has, however, been already fully forewarned that they are not strictly to be regarded as “ sermons” at all. Qf the deficiencies of Jeremy Taylor’s genius in relation to pulpit eloquence, enough has been already said. If the remarks previously made be well founded, it could not but be expected that, considered strictly as discourses intended to convince and persuade, his sermons should be marked by very glaring defects. But the fact is, there is scarcely a single peculiarity of the sermon in them ; there is no attempt at adaptation to a public audience. Nothing except the name, distinguishes them from compositions intended for the closet or the study. There is not one of them, it is true, which does not contain much that is admirable and impressive, and which no audience could hear without profit ; yet not only is there no special adaptation of such matter to a public discourse, not only might it with just as much propriety be introduced unaltered into theo- logical disquisitions intended for private reading ; but It is almost always combined with matter that ought by no means to be found in sermons at all. In none does he refrain from the most prodigal display of his erudition ; Greek and Latin strew the pages (more particularly those of the sermons entitled the “ Mar- riage Ring, “ Apples of Sodom,” and the “ House of Feasting”) as plentifully as In his works intended more especially for the learned. In none does he abstain from incidental discussion of the most profit- less subjects of speculation, if they chance to suggest themselves amidst more important matter. IV AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS It has indeed been plausibly conjectured by Bishop Heber, that the “ sermons” of Jeremy Taylor were not delivered precisely in the form in which they were printed ; that, in at least one respect, they were somewhat modified previous to publication. So profuse are his quotations from learned authors, that his biographer thinks it impossible that any man could be guilty of the absurdity of adducing them in the hearing of an illiterate audience ;* that they must, therefore, have been suppressed on the actual delivery of the “ sermons,” and introduced only when they were given to the world. It may be admitted, indeed, that there is considerable plausibility in this conjecture ; and if we were to measure the habits of that age by our own, or even by the dictates of common sense, the conjecture would appear abundantly probable. But so universal was the practice of learned quotation in those days, so infinitely absurd the tricks which pro- found erudition could play in the pulpit, that there appears nothing incredible in the supposition, that Jeremy Taylor interlarded his discourses, even when first delivered, with all the edifying scraps of Greek and Latin which are now found in them. Nor is he, after all, more frequently guilty of this practice (in proportion to his learning) than the generality of the preachers of the age. They, so far as we may judge by their writings, never spared their Greek and Latin any more than did Jeremy Taylor ; the only differ- ence appears to have been, that they could not afford to be so profuse. They quoted up to the measure of their learning, and he up to the measure of his. If, then, we may judge by the universal practice of Taylor’s contemporaries, the hypothesis of Bishop Heber is not sustained by sufficient proof ; unless, indeed, we also imagine — of which there is not the vestige of any evidence, but decisive evidence to the contrary — that his contemporaries also restrained the flow of their learning when in the pulpit, and merely indulged it when preparing their discourses for the press. The most astounding fact connected with this practice is yet to be mentioned. There is but too con- clusive proof, that in many instances the taste of the audience was as vicious as that of the preacher. They were often not content with “ sermons,” unless they were adorned with the spoils of at least two or three learned languages, nor thought themselves fully edified, unless they heard a few things which they could not understand. Probably, the preachers of that day thought it a sufficient excuse for the practice, that the quotations with which they bedizened their sermons were generally translated as soon as uttered. Jeremy Taylor has almost universally adopted tliis custom in his printed sermons, and indeed in almost all his writings. This was, it may be conceded, some palliation of the folly ; but nothing can be urged as a sufficient justification of it. It is truly wonderful that it should have prevailed so generally and lasted so long. Jeremy Taylor’s “ sermons,” however, as already stated more than once, are not to be viewed as ser- mons, but as eloquent theological disquisitions, adapted to practical purposes and to private reading ; and in this point of view, they are well worthy of frequent and earnest perusal. They are, on the whole, pro- bably more thoroughly imbued with his characteristic excellences than any of his other writings, and have no more than the usual portion of his defects. As to these latter, some of the observations made on his “ Life of Christ” apply with equal force to his “ sermons.” In these short pieces his irregularity of method and his abrupt transitions of thought, are of less consequence than in his larger works. Tlie ‘‘ sermons” of Jeremy Taylor are sixty-four in all: of which the fifty-two which compose the Eviavrog, and three of the “ supplementary sermons,” (published some time after the yearly course appeared,) are on general subjects. The remaining nine were all preached on special occasions. AH these sermons abound in detached passages of the sublimest and loftiest eloquence, on all those topics which, as already intimated in a previous part of this Essav, Jeremy Taylor was so peculiarly well qualified to treat. Though not free from occasional inaccuracies, and in some instances chargeable with serious inconsistencies of statement, they are full of the noblest Christian philosophy ; of the most capti- vating descriptions of the grandeur and glory of the gospel, as a system for the renovation and purification of our nature ; of its tendencies to elevate and ennoble humanity ; of the beauty and glory of spiritual ex- cellence in all its forms ; of its universal harmony with the well-being of all intellectual existence. Nor has he shown himself less profoundly acquainted with all the deformity and obliquities of that depraved heart which the blessed system of the gospel was designed to renovate. He has furnished us with the most deeply affecting descriptions, not only of the more appalling exhibitions of wickedness and vice, but of those more subtle forms under which it lies hid in the recesses of the soul, and not unfrequently under the mask of a * These sermons were preached at Golden Grove, in Wales. OF JEREMY TAYLOR. Iv spurious virtue, or even in close alliance witli excellence tliat is real. He has also, as in his other practical works, shown himself deeply skilled in Christian experience, and in a knowledge of all the in- struments and methods of spiritual discipline, for attaining greater elevation of piety and higher degrees of holiness. The most splendid and eloquent of these wonderful discourses are, “ The Miracles of the Divine Mercy;” “ The Faith and Patience of the Saints, or the righteous Cause oppressed “ Doomsday Book, or Christ’s Advent to Judgment “ The descending and entailed Curse cut off “ The Mercy of the Divine Judgments, or God’s Method of curing Sinners;” “ The House of Feasting, or the Epicure’s Measures ;” “ The Apples of Sodom, or the Fruits of Sin ;” and “ The Foolish Exchange.” Amongst the most beautiful and impressive may be classed the “ Return of Prayers ;” “ The Flesh and the Spirit ;” “ The Righteousness evangelical described.” But those which, perhaps, are the most edifying and uniformly excellent of the whole, are the sermons On Growth in Grace, with its proper instruments and signs,” and “ Growth in Sin, or the several states and degrees of sinners, with the manner how they are to be treated.” It is singular that his biographer has mentioned the latter of these with distinct approbation, but not the former ; whereas, as it appears to us, the former are far more excellent, though not perhaps quite so striking. They exhibit greater sobriety of style, as well as more uniform excellence of matter, than any other discourses in the whole series. The sermons on “ Christian Prudence,” more especially the first and second parts, and those on ‘‘ Christian Simplicity,” are full of practical wisdom and of a truly sanctified philosophy. In the last sermon on “ Christian Prudence,” he has an amusing opportunity of exemplifying the principles for which he is contending. In his advice as to “ choosing a religious guide,” he has, of course, occasion to refer to the peculiarities of many of the sects of the day : in so doing he has followed his own advice given in a preceding part of the discourse, “ that we should not by an indiscreet zeal cast ourselves into a needless danger,” and that we should often reprove the errors of others, not by a distinct mention of those who hold them, but by “ categorical propositions and abstracted declarations.” By the way, we may observe that this sermon has one not very complimentary reference to Milton. Amongst the imitators and successors of the Nicolaitans, the Carpocratians, the Gnostics, and “ all their impure branches,” he reckons those who maintain, ‘‘ that we are not tied to the law of commandments ; that the law of grace is a law of liberty ; and that liberty is to do what we list ; that divorces are to he granted upon many and slight causes” Perhaps the sermons most characteristic are those entitled “ The Marriage Ring, or the Mysteriousness and Duties of Marriage,” and the “ House of Feasting, or the Epicure’s Measures.” Of the sermons preached on special occasions, it is not necessary to say any thing further. That on the “ Gunpowder Plot ” was his earliest publication, and though it has some fine passages, it is, as might be expected, far more strongly marked by his characteristic extravagancies and his florid rhetoric, than his subsequent productions. The “ Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the blessed Sacrament,” first published in 1655, and his “ Dissuasive from Popery,” which was the last considerable work of his life, but is introduced here as belonging to the papistical controversy, are by far the most successful of his polemical efforts. The former will more than sustain comparison with any of the works published on the much controverted subject on which it treats ; and the latter is probably surpassed by no work in our language, if we except Chillingworth’s “ Religion of Protestants.” The former of these able treatises is divided into thirteen sections ; the points he endeavours to establish are these : that “ transubstantiation is not warranted by scripture ;” here he enters into a very full and acute examination of all the passages alleged in the controversy; “ that it is against sense “ that it is wholly without or against reason;” and that it was not the doctrine of the primitive church.” The most powerful sections are the fourth, fifth, and sixth, in which he examines the “ words of institu- tion ;” the ninth, in which he shows, from the universal language of scripture, that the words of institution are not to be interpreted literally but figuratively ; the tenth and eleventh, in which he shows that the doctrine he controverts is alike contradicted by the senses and by reason ; and the twelfth, in which he most triumphantly proves that transubstantiation was not the belief of the primitive church. Here his immense learning is displayed to great advantage. It is a pity, however, that Tajlor should have introduced the word “ real ” into his treatise at all. Ivi AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS Though the innocence of his meaning is shown by the most abundant explanation, yet it is not true in any tolerable sense of the word “ really^' that Christ’s body is really in the sacrament. All that he means is, as himself contends, that Christ’s body is figuratively there ; which is just as much as admitting that he has used the word “ really ” in an improper sense. The “ Dissuasive from Popery,” as already intimated, was published, after Taylor’s elevation to the episcopal chair, at the request of the whole body of Irish bishops, who thought that some able and popu- lar treatise on the subject might be useful to the common people, and tend to abate the nuisance of popery. In requesting Jeremy Taylor to write such a treatise, they surely forgot either the object they had in view, or the character of the man to whom they applied. It was as though a deputation had waited on Sir Isaac Newton, with a request that he would be pleased to compile an elementary book of arithmetic for the use of the lower forms in schools. Even if Jeremy Taylor had produced the treatise they wanted, at the best it would have been only what a far inferior genius might have supplied quite as well. But admi- rable as Taylor’s genius was, it was not in his nature to write any thing of an “ ad populum ” cast on such a subject. The result was such as might have been expected. The “ Dissuasive” is a conclusive work on the subject on which it treats, but fit only for the learned ; and as little capable of being understood or appre- ciated by vulgar readers, as the “ Ductor Dubitantium.” It is divided into two parts ; the second is pre- faced by an introduction, in which he replies to the animadversions of an anonymous popish antagonist, who had published some strictures on the first part. The first part consists of three chapters, in the first of which he shows that “ The doctrine of the Romish Church, in the controverted articles, is neither catholic, apostolic, nor primitive in the second, that “ The Church of Rome, as it is at this day dis- ordered, teaches doctrines, and uses practices, which are in themselves, or in their true and immediate consequences, direct impieties, and give warranty to a wicked life in the third, that “ The Church of Rome teaches doctrines, which in many things are destructive of Christian society in general, and of monarchy in special ; both which, the religion of the church of England and Ireland does, by her doctrines, greatly and christianly support.” Of these, the first chapter, as might be expected, shows Taylor’s immense reading to the best advantage ; though the second is, perhaps, on other grounds, the most pow'erful. Those sections which are entitled “ On the Doctrine of Indulgences “ Purgatory ;” “ Public Prayer denied to the common people in a language they understand “ On picturing God and the Trinity “ The Roman Doctrines of Repentance, Penances, and Satisfactions “ The Roman Doctors differ as to the efficiency of Indulgences “ Roman Errors in reference to Prayer “ Effects of worshipping Images are, perhaps, the most admirable. The second part is divided into two books, in which he views many of the same subjects under other aspects, and reiterates and confirms former statements. The sections on “ Traditions “ Of the suffi- ciency of the Scriptures “ On the expurgatory Indices in the Roman Church “ On auricular Confession are all excellent. The style of these treatises on the Roman catholic controversy is very superior to that of his other polemical pieces. It possesses both more polish and more vigour ; while the dull learning and dry argu- ment are relieved by much vivacity, wit, and humour. Some passages, as specimens of these qualities, have already been cited in a former part of this Essay. “ The Doctrine and Practice of Repentance,” as its very title imports, is partly theological and contro- versial, partly practical. In pursuance of this design, each section of the work is followed by some appro- priate meditation or prayer. It is this work which contains Taylor’s singular speculations on the subject of original sin. They form the seventh chapter. On this chapter a few remarks will be made, after the general merits and defects of the work have been briefly pointed out. To none of Jeremy Taylor’s pieces are those remarks which have been already made on Taylor’s charac- ter, as a theologian, more completely applicable, than to the present ; it is most strongly marked both by his peculiar defects as a speculative writer and by his excellences as a teacher of practical piety. Much of what is purely controversial and doctrinal is false, or, at best, dubious; while the large portion of what is practical is calculated to be eminently useful. So much is this the case, that even his errors, with respect to the doctrine of “ original sin,” are in a great measure neutralized, by the strong admissions which, when simply inculcating the lessons of piety, he often makes of human weakness and depravity, and of the absolute necessity of the illumination and influences of divine grace, to renovate and purify our OF JEREMY TAYLOR. Ivii nature. Under the deep and humbling consciousness of human infirmity he forgets, or seems to forget, his speculative theology. The work is divided into ten chapters, the first of which treats of the “ Foundation and Necessity of Repentance the second, “ Of the nature and definition of Repentance ; and what parts of duty are signified by it in Holy Scripture the third, “ Of the distinction of Sins, mortal and venial ; in what sense to be admitted ; and how the smallest sins are to be repented of and expiated a chapter in which he explodesj in an admirable manner, the absurd distinctions of the papists ; the fourth treats of “ actual single sins, and what repentance is proper to them the fifth, “ of habitual sins, and their manner of eradication and cure, and their proper instruments of pardon the sixth and seventh, on “ concupiscence and original sin ; and whether or no, or how far, we are bound to repent of it the eighth, “ of sins of infirmity the ninth, “ of the effect of repentance ; namely, the remission of sins the last, “ of ecclesiastical penance, or the fruits of repentance.” Of these, the first, the second, third, fourth, and eighth, are decidedly the best. Section the second, of the first chapter, ‘‘ of the possibility or impossibility of keeping the precepts of the gospel,” is on the whole exceedingly acute, and contains statements and admissions which, pursued to their legitimate conse- quences, virtually refute his theory on the subject of original sin. Most of the other chapters contain many things which are decidedly erroneous ; many others which must be received with caution ; and many more still, which are stated with that want of precision which has so often been represented as characteristic of this great writer, and as demanding, in every reader who would do him justice, eminent candour, an enlarged acquaintance with his works, and a liberal interpretation of particular points. The manner in which he introduces the subject of “ original sin,” in this treatise, a subject which might, at first sight, appear to have no immediate connection with its principal topics, is sufficiently apparent from the statement just given of its contents. The slightest glance at that statement shows how the seventh chapter is connected with the rest. Taylor was led into the discussion by the desire of ascertaining whether original sin be a “ sin ” in the ordinary sense of that word, and whether, as a con- sequence, man is or is not obliged to repent of it. That “ original sin ” is not “ sin ” in the ordinary sense of the word ; that in this connection it is used in a peculiar and technical sense ; that it is not the best word that could have been employed for the pur- pose ; and that, as “ original sin ” is not sin in the ordinary sense, no man can repent of it in the ordinary sense of repentance, — are points, which are now almost universally conceded by theologians on both sides of this intricate question. And, perhaps, a candid interpretation of the language of those whom Taylor opposed, might have convinced him that, even in his day, there was sufficient agreement on these points, to absolve him from the necessity of discussing such a topic in a “ Treatise on Repentance.” He appears, however, to have thought otherwise. The principal cause of Jeremy Taylor’s errors on this subject are sufficiently apparent from a careful perusal of his treatise. It is evident that he was driven to adopt the extreme opinions by his horror of those who had really or as he imagined, pushed the doctrine of original sin to pernicious and dangerous consequences ; especially those who contended that even infants might be eternally condemned for the transgression of our first parents. That there have been some theologians who have maintained this fearful paradox, we admit ; and such men Jeremy Taylor has satisfactorily confuted, by arguments which, it need not be said, have nothing to do with his peculiar theory of original sin. That there have been a still greater number of theologians, who have expressed themselves with most eminent want of caution, and even with culpable negligence on this subject, we are as little disposed to deny. Still we cannot help thinking that, in the majority of instances^ carelessness and negligence are all with which they are chargeable, and that they would have recoiled, as cordially as did Taylor himself, from the horrible consequences which he attaches to their doctrine. This seems evident from the fact that, if we may judge from the general strain of their writings, they by no means contend that Adam’s posterity are condemned irrespectively of their own moral state, or the actual development of the evil tendencies of our common nature ; clearly showing, that when they say that all are condemned in Adam as the federal head of his race, they only mean that, as all his posterity morally resemble him, it is just to treat them as he is treated ; that he is with propriety regarded as a specimen of the class ; that, consequently, if any individual of our race could be found, who had lived in undeviating obedience to the Divine law, he would in no sense be condemned for Adam’s sin ; m other words, that none are finally condemned for Adam's sin alone. This great truth is, we believe, now generally admitted both by Calvinists and Arminians. If there are Iviii AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS any who deny it, it may be freely conceded that they fall under the triumphant arguments by which Jeremy Taylor has refuted this enormous error. If Taylor had stopped here, he would have done well ; but in the prosecution of his argument he has gone much further. In his eagerness to vindicate the Divine government, he has been betrayed into speculations by no means necessary to the refutation of the errors which filled him with such indignation ; speculations equally at variance with Scripture and with fact ; and which, even if admitted to be founded in truth, would leave this stupendous difficulty just where they found it. His theory is briefly this : — that man’s nature is totally untouched by the fall ; that he now enters the world in precisely the same state in which Adam first came from the hand of his Creator ; with neither more nor less of moral excellence ; with an equal power of standing or of falling ; that the great advantage which Adam possessed was not in any original superiority of nature, but in certain “ supernatural ” com- munications of grace bestowed, so long as he continued obedient, over and above all those native endow- ments which belonged to him as a creature : that, on his fall, these supernatural communications were withdrawn, and have never been vouchsafed to his descendants. Of this reasoning, it may be safely affirmed, first, that the premises are all pure assumptions ; and secondly, that even if they were not so, they would leave the main difficulties of the question still unsolved. As to the premises^ — it is needless to remind the reader that the Scripture says not one syllable of these “ supernatural endowments,” with which God is supposed to have succoured the originally infirm nature of our first parent ; a nature which, on Taylor’s hjqjothesis, God himself is supposed to have created as weak as our own. This supposition, as will be hereafter shown, has as disastrous an aspect on the Divine attributes of goodness and benevolence, as the errors which, on these very grounds, it was Taylor’s avowed object to confute. — It may, moreover, be remarked, that the general strain of Scripture, fairly and honestly interpreted, inevitably leads to the supposition that the nature of Adam was originally transcend- ently superior to what it was after his fall, or than that which any of his descendants have possessed since. But premises, even if facts, would leave the main difficulties of the question just where they were. In the first place, it may be observed that if obedience is, as Taylor contends, impracticable, impos- sible, without such supernatural aids as Adam possessed ; in other words, if man is created with such a nature as that his disobedience is inevitable, unless he be succoured with such “ grace” as God has not vouchsafed, then it will be to the full as difficult to vindicate the justice and goodness of God in having created such a being, and still more in punishing him for disobedience, to him inevitable, as in the conduct which the more received hypotheses on the subject of original sin impute to the Divine Being. Secondly, it is evident that Taylor’s hypothesis really supposes man’s nature as deeply injured by the “ original transgression,” as does that of his opponents ; for if, as he imagines, those supernatural aids which were vouchsafed to Adam, were sufficient to compensate for all the deficiencies of nature, and that they would have been vouchsafed to his descendants, had he not fallen, it is obvious that the injury inflicted on them is as great as though their very nature had received the shock which it is truly supposed to have received. So long as man is placed by Adam’s fall in circumstances which render his sinning inevitable, (as Taylor admits,) it little matters whether this is immediately occasioned by an external or an inter- nal injury ; by the withdrawal of preternatural graces or by an actual depravation of our native faculties. Indeed, so long as the great fact is admitted, (as it now usually is,) that man, by the fall of Adam, is such or so situated, that he will as surely sin as that he exists ; the great difficulty remains where it was, whatever hypothesis be formed as to the mode in which the injury has been sustained. That difficulty is, — to show how it can consist with justice and equity, that the moral state of one being should be ine- vitably determined by his dependence on another. That such is the case with man, is abundantly proved by fact, and is confirmed by a thousand analogous cases, which present themselves throughout the whole of created nature, the great law of which is mutual dependence. The virtue and the vice, the joys and the sorrows, the happiness and the misery of this • lower creation are intertwined in one inextricable web. The difficulty is evidently to be met, not by the construction of any such unsatisfactory hypothesis as that of Jeremy Taylor. The only answer of which the case admits, — and even in our present imperfect state of knowledge, it is sufficient to confirm our faith, if not to satisfy bur curiosity, — is, that no man will be condemned for original sin alone, but for sins which, even with all our infirmities and all our natural depravity, it was our duty to have avoided and our guilt that we have committed. Precisely the same observations apply to the controversies which have been carried on with respect to OF JEREMY TAYLOR. lix the extent of the injury sustained in consequence of the original transgression. The question of the more or the less ” is surely of little importance, so long as all admit, that the injury is of such a nature as inevitably leads to a state of transgression, which, without the redeeming efficacy of the gospel, will for ever exclude us from the favour of God. An aggravation of this, it might be imagined, it would be not very easy to conceive ; and as to any extenuation of it, while this tremendous consequence remains, all that can be offered is less than the dust in the balance. On this point we cannot refrain from citing the judicious observations of Bishop Heber. “ The fact is, indeed, that with the allowances which all these divines have made, — the difference between their view of man’s corruption, and that which is taken by the Calvinists, is not, as to any practical consequence, worth disputing. Both sides allow that man is so far fallen as to be unable, without grace, to rise to heaven or escape everlasting punishment; and Taylor, in particular, has, in many of his argumentative and all his devotional passages, admitted, in the humblest language, his vileness, his helplessness, his worthlessness. But, if the ruin be effectual, it signifies little whether it be total ; and if man is by nature the heir of wrath, it is a question of very inferior importance, whether there may or may not be some scattered good qualities yet remaining about him, which may make a difference in his final lot, so far at least as a mitigation of punishment.” In attempting to get rid of the main difficulty against the hypothesis that our nature is still just what it was before the fall, — namely, the universal wickedness of human nature, Jeremy Taylor falls into an amusing fallacy. He reasons in a circle. He argues that this universal wickedness is the effect of “ evil education and immoral examples as though these were any thing more than particular exhibitions of that very depravity of which they are offered as a sufficient solution, or, as though an effect could be the cause of itself. At the very best, such a statement only removes the difficulty one step further back, reminding one of that sage system of Indian cosmogony, in which the earth is represented as upborne on the back of an elephant and the elephant on an enormous tortoise. The question immediately returns, “ And what supports the tortoise ?” In like manner, it may be asked in the present case. What causes that universal prevalence of evil education and evil example, which are supposed to account for the uni- versality of human wickedness ? It has been already remarked, that this incautious speculation was of little consequence in Taylor’s particular case ; his deep and unfeigned humility, his habitual and profound consciousness of his own in- firmities, and of the difficulties which impede all progress in holiness and virtue, prevented the pernicious effects which might otherwise have followed from his system, and serve to show how far asunder a man's speculative belief and his practical sentiments may often be. In this instance, he reminds one of what he himself beautifully observes of certain classes of religionists, in his sermon on “ The Miracles of the Divine Mercy,” “ that they are often innocently and invincibly mistaken, and mean nothing but truth ; and that while in the simplicity of their heart they talk nothing but error, in the defiance and contradiction of their own doctrines, they live according to its contradictory.” The “ Doctor Dubitantium, or Rule of Conscience,” which is the last work which demands any particu- lar observations, is the most voluminous of all Jeremy Taylor’s productions, yet of inferior practical utility to almost any of the rest. It is that on which he expended most time and labour ; that in which his great genius and his prodigious learning are most prodigally displayed ; above all, it was the work to which he himself looked as the basis of his fame, and which he accordingly elaborated with the most unwearied diligence. In this expectation he completely deceived himself ; for there is not a production of his pen which is not more read than this great work of casuistry. His error, however, consisted in an ill choice of his subject,^ not in his mode of treating it. A minute treatise on casuistry is not to be rendered attractive ; there is a radical vice in the subject, which no power of genius can fully obviate. Jeremy Taylor, indeed, has done all that mortal man could do to enliven and adorn it ; but not even the magic of his genius could render it generally interesting. It is sufficient praise, that it is by far the least repulsive work on the subject that has ever been given to the world. One great reason of the general neglect into which this work has fallen, is, that people no longer feel an interest in by far the greater number of the discussions to which it relates. In his estimate of the import- ance of such discussions, Jeremy Taylor committed a great error. The fact is, he thought that the nation stood in much greater need of casuistry, than was really the case. It was true, indeed, (as he complains,) that protestants had generally neglected the study of this uninviting science, and that, while the Romisli church, with whose writers he was so familiar and lx AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS from whom he contracted much of his taste for casuistical theology, possessed numberless works on this subject, protestants could hardly point to one. He should have remembered, however, that this very neglect was, if not the result of a deliberate judgment of the comparative insignificance of the science, a necessary consequence of a return to the simplicity of the Christian system as developed in the New Tes- tament, and a hearty adoption of those comprehensive laws of morals, which it has delivered to us ; — laws which, for the most part, are of such easy application to the actual circumstances of life. It is true, that in the infinite complexity and ever-changing relations of human affairs, there will still be, even in spite of the most attentive study of the great rules of the New Testament, aye, or even of the most voluminous sys- tems of casuistry, many cases of much intricacy and of difficult solution. These, however, will form a very small proportion, compared with those to which the great principles of the New Testament are im- mediately applicable ; while even of these exceptions, there are few on which the judgment cannot come to a satisfactory decision, if the heart be but sincere and honest in its inquiries after truth ; and, above all, if it be rendered (as it will be by such a disposition) anxious to take the safe side of every practical difficulty, and willing rather to forego some advantage, than snatch at it with a possible violation of what is right. And as to difficulties connected with religion, — the subject which has hitherto been far more fruitful of casuistical discussion than any other, — there is hardly a single case of importance that is not determined by a simple recurrence to the divine simplicity of the New Testament. He who habitually believes that “ God looketh on the heart that thence are the “ fountains of life that the essence of good and evil actions is the motive from which they are performed ; that the circumstances of actions are always less important than the actions themselves ; that the means derive their sole dignity and value from the end, and not the end from the means ; that though the external duties of religion are all to be per- formed, it is purely to promote the spiritual life of the soul, and that, consequently, their importance is always to be estimated by the great purpose they are designed to serve ; and above all, that in doubtful cases it is always better to lose a little than to endanger all ; to take always that road which w'e hnow is nearest to heaven and to greater degrees of purity and holiness than one of the direction of which we are in a degree uncertain ; — he, who habitually carries with him these principles, and a few more of like com- prehensive import, may safely dispense with the wearisome discussioiLS and frivolous distinctions of a minute and unprofitable casuistry. These are the ‘‘ great lights ” which rule the day, and, so long as they are above the horizon, render needless that dim and dubious light which is all that can reach us from the brightest luminaries of casuistical science. Thus, then, if protestants neglected this science, it was because the grand principles they embraced placed them above the necessity of frequently appealing to it. They had removed into a well-built and commodious habitation, and no longer needed the clumsy buttresses which were necessary to support the vast, ill-compacted, and ruinous tenement of the church of Rome. But when, as amongst the ancient Jews, or in the Romish church, all the above grand principles of ethics are subverted ; when vice and virtue are subjected to weight and measure ; when duties are ex- changed and bartered, like any other commodities ; when merit and holiness are bought and sold by the pound and the bushel ; when the external circumstances of actions are magnified into greater importance than the actions themselves ; when the modes of duty are represented as more essential than the duties of which they are the instruments or the expressions ; when the great object of the whole system of religion is not only to enable men to do all, however doubtful, that they may lawfully do, but even to encourage them in doing what is unlawful with a secure conscience, and to reconcile eternal felicity with every earthly gratification ; and when for this purpose recourse is had to an infinity of subtle distinctions ; — it is no won- der that books of casuistry are multiplied, and that guides are rendered necessary for threading those intricate and mazy labyrinths, which themselves have first constructed to perplex mankind. The former evil is a necessary consequence of the latter ; such voluminous casuistry is an artificial remedy for difficul- ties equally artificial. As the whole system is full of snares for the conscience, so it was necessary to invent methods of releasing it from its perpetual entanglements and perplexities. But protestants, no longer exposed to the same dangers, no longer need the same securities. In consequence, a comparatively small part of Jeremy Taylor’s work is taken up with those matters which, in the books of the Romish casuists, constitute the principal part of the cases of conscience. The “ Ductor Dubitantium” is divided into four books. The first treats of “ Conscience, the kinds of it, and the general rules of conducting them.” Under this he treats, in distinct chapters, “ Of the Rule of Conscience in general “ Of the right or sure Conscience “ Of the confident or erroneous Conscience OF JEREMY TAYLOR. Ixi Of the probable or thinking Conscience “ Of a doubtful Conscience and “ Of a scrupulous Con- science.” These chapters, on the whole, form, in the view of the present writer, the most valuable part of the work. Bishop Heber prefers the last book, on the “ causes of good and evil ; their limits and circum- stances ; their aggravations and diminutions;” but though very admirable, few, we apprehend, will think it equal to the first, either in general merit or practical utility ; not to mention that these introductory chapters contain, either directly or by implication, most of what is found in the last book. The general remarks about to be made on the one, however, will apply to both. The first book, it will be seen, is in fact preliminary to what is, more strictly speaking, the casuistical portion of the work ; and the last is supplementary. But it is precisely this circumstance which renders these books so interesting and valuable ; they are taken up, for the most part, in the discussion and estab- lishment of great general principles, — principles to be afterwards applied to particular cases. They may, consequently, be read with benefit by every body. Indeed, as Jeremy Taylor aptly and wittily observes, at the close of the chapter on a doubtful conscience, “ these advices or discourses of conscience in general, are intended but as directions how to take our physic, and what order to observe ‘ in diebus custodiae but the determining the several doubts is like preparing and administering the medicines, which consist of very many ingredients.” Throughout these preliminary discussions, Jeremy Taylor contends for the great principle — without which, indeed, any consistent theory of human duty is impossible — that conscience, that is, the conviction that such and such actions are a duty, always obliges, whether it be rightly informed or not. The firmness with which he grasps this great maxim, shows that he had profoundly considered the whole ques- tion of the grounds of human obligation, and forms a striking contrast to the hesitating and contradictory manner in which many ethical writers have held the same doctrine.* It is true that, at first sight, it appears a dangerous admission, that conscience binds to the performance of an action intrinsically wrong, and con- sequently absolves from guilt in reference to ihsit particular action performed at such a bidding. Yet all danger is removed by the consideration, that though no man is bound to attain clearer views of truth than he can, and consequently cannot be blamed for doing what his conscience, at the very time of action, sincerely tells him it is his duty to do, he is answerable for every instance in which he has neglected the proper means and opportunities of rightly informing himself or in which he has willingly shut his eyes, lest he should be set right ; that wherever the action need not be immediately performed, he is bound to reconsider the grounds of it ; that in all cases of habitual conduct, where the slightest doubt remains within or is sug- gested from without, he is bound to traverse the reasons of his conduct and to hold himself always ready to receive fresh light from whatsoever quarter it may be offered ; that so far as he neglects any of these means of informing his conscience, he is accessory to its abuse ; and, by consequence, in that degree, guilty ; and that it is only absolutely unavoidable error which absolves the man from all guilt, both as regards the intrinsically evil action which he performs, and the mental process by which he arrived at the conclusion that he ought to perform it. Whenever this absolutely unavoidable error does exist indeed, the man is absolved from all guilt ; and by parity of reason, his guilt is diminished as his opportunities of correct information were small, and the difficulties of attaining it great. To say otherwise, is to contradict all the cardinal principles of morals ; it is to affirm that a man is guilty of what he cannot avoid ; and that not only moral but physical necessity may be compatible with crime. The above great principles, therefore, Jeremy Taylor firmly holds throughout the whole of the'se preliminary books on Conscience ; and they have imparted unusual clearness and consistency to his speculations. They have shed a guiding light over many of the intricate questions which come under discussion in the subsequent parts of the work. The most valuable portions of these preliminary chapters appear to us to be, — rule iii. chap, i., on which he gives cautions against mistaking prejudice or passion, fancy and affection, error or illusion, for con- science ; — rule iii. chap, ii., entitled, “The practical Judgment of a Right Conscience is always agreeable to the speculative determination of the Understanding ;” in which will be found the admirable discussion already referred to, on the limits of faith and reason; — rule viii. of the same chapter, entitled, “ He that sins against a right and sure Conscience, whatever the instance be, commits a great sin, but not a double * A highly intelligent friend lately pointed out to the present writer a beautiful Latin ode of the great Barrow, in which he as fully and fearlessly maintains the same fundamental principle. It is entitled, “ Conscientia erronea obligat,” and will be found in the eighth volume of the octavo edition of his Works, published at Oxford, 1830. Ixii AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS one and in which he confutes the notion of the Roman casuists, that it was lawful for a judge, or other public functionary, to act against the conscience, provided such conduct was according to law ; — tlie close of rule ix. of the same chapter, in which he examines, with great acuteness, “ what changes may be made in moral actions by the persuasion and voice of conscience,” and in which he establishes the im- portant principle, “ that conscience hath power in obligations and necessities, but not so much nor so often in permissions in other words, that we must do what she commands, but it does not follow that we are always right in doing all that she does not condemn. The most impressive parts of chap. iii. are, — rule ii., “ An erroneous Conscience binds us to Obedience — rule iii. that “ An erring Conscience is a cause of Sin — rule iv. “ That it is a greater Sin to do a good Action against our Conscience, than an evil Action in obedience to it — rule vi. “ That Conscience is to be obeyed even against the Command of our Superiors.” The most valuable rules in the fourth chapter, which is on “ The probable or thinking Conscience,” are, — the second, entitled “ A probable Conscience may be made certain ;” — the fourth, “ An Opinion specu- latively probable is not always practically the same — the sixth, “ While two Opinions remain equally probable, the last Determination is to be made by collateral Inducements ;” — and the fifteenth, The pro- bable Sentence of a prudent Man is more than a probable Warranty to Actions otherwise undeterminable.” The fifth chapter is “ Of a doubtful Conscience,” and every part of it is well worthy of attentive perusal. But, perhaps, the most judicious, and certainly the most eloquent, of these introductory chapters, is the last, which is on “ The scrupulous Conscience,” the whole of which is excellent. These admirable chapters do not contain any great principles absolutely false, yet they contain some false applications of principles in themselves true. Of these the chief which occur to us are, his incautious admission that it is not absolutely unlawful to enter on the ministry, the party having for the first and im- mediate design temporal support and maintenance ;* his equally incautious admission that it is allowable in some cases to attempt to persuade men to the belief of a true proposition, by arguments with which the party himself is not persuaded, and which he believes are not sufficient ;j- his strange admission, in the same rule, (and after much admirable reasoning on the same subject,) “ that it is in some cases right to frighten children and fools, and all those whose understanding is little better,” by false terrors, “ to their own good,” if the matter cannot be managed in a better way. His language is curious enough. “ To children and fools, and all those whose understanding is but a little better, it hath been in all ages practised, that they be affrighted with mormoes and bugbears, that they may be cozened into good. But this is therefore permitted, because other things which are real, certain, or probable, cannot be understood or perceived by them : and therefore these things are not to be permitted, where it can well be otherwise. If it cannot, it is fit that their understandings should be conducted thither where they ought to go, and by such instruments as can be useful.” To these may be added, some parts of rule v. of the first chapter of the third book, in justification of certain instances of fraud and deception. The titles of the remaining books are as follows : — “ Of the Laws Divine, and all collateral obligations.” — “ Of human Laws, their obligation and relaxation ; and of the collateral, indirect, and accidental bands of Conscience.” — “ Of the Nature and Causes of Good and Evil, their limits and circumstances, their aggravations and diminutions.” Of the contents of these books it is hardly necessary to offer any distinct analysis. The most tempting bill of fare, which the most enthusiastic admirers of such delicacies — and there are not many such epicures in our days — could prepare for the reader, would be totally insufficient to stimulate his languid appetite. The reason is obvious. Though these “ books ” contain many discussions of a curious, and some of an important nature, a very large proportion of them turn on matters which, however interesting in the days of Taylor, are totally insignificant in ours. Many of the popular prejudices which then gave rise to scruples of conscience, exist no longer ; and many of the errors which then lingered in the public mind, errors so Inveterate that nothing but the revolution of ages could remove them, have yielded to the progress of public opinion. Thus, for example, — whether it be “ lawful or not to eat blood-puddings ;” whether there be any * In rule v. chap. ii. entitled, “ When two motives concur to the determination of an action, whereof one is virtuous and the other secular, a right conscience is not prejudiced by the mixture.” The general strain of the section accords with truth. t In rule vi. chap. ii. — Yet the principal part of the rule is excellent. JEREMY TAYLOR. Ixiii sufficient reason to “ forbid cousins-gcrman to marry whether the Jewish sahhath is of perpetual observ- ance or the Christian sabbath designed to supersede it ; whether it is lawful under any circumstances to worship images ; whether the people are entitled to partake of the eucharist in both kinds or only in one ; whether the pope or any one else “ has any power to dispense in the laws of Christ whether the Lent fast has any claim to be considered either as a tradition or canon apostolical ; whether bishops and priests may marry whether passive obedience and non-resistance are duties of the subject or not, (for the affirma- tive of which Jeremy Taylor, as a devoted loyalist, most strenuously contends,) are questions which will minister matter of scruple to very few in the present day. All the above questions, with the exception of the last, Taylor decides, it is true, according to the principles of truth and of common sense ; but then, unfor- tunately for his popularity, the bulk of mankind in the present day do not need such elaborate reason to convince them. In all these books, however, more especially the third, which treats of “ Human Laws and their Obligations,” the philosophical spirit of Jeremy Taylor is constantly displaying itself ; he is perpetually ascending from matters of transient or local interest to principles of universal and permanent importance. Such is a brief view of the principal productions of this extraordinary genius. There are two or three smaller pieces, such as his “ Discourse on Friendship ” (on the whole one of the happiest efforts of his pen) ; his posthumous piece, entitled ‘‘ Christian Consolations his “ Divine Institution of the Office Ministerial his “ Rules and Advices for the Clergy and his ‘‘ Golden Grove on which it is not deemed necessary to offer any further observations. They are all, however, worthy of perusal, for Jeremy Taylor’s most casual productions are all impressed with the peculiar, the characteristic splendours of his genius. * This question, as sufficiently appears by the elaborate manner in which Jeremy Taylor has treated it, ministered matter of scruple to many in that day. Such is the force of prejudice. There are still some absurd prejudices more or less prevalent with respect to the “ prohibited degrees of marriage,” fostered by certain parts of the canon law; these prejudices, however, are fast yielding, like those which once respected “ the marriages of cousins-german.” f These, and a great many other questions, which properly belong to the popish controversy, are incidentally treated by Taylor in this great work ; clearly showing the truth of a remark previously made,- — that to “ protestants ” works of such a nature are of comparatively little utility. Taylor is obliged to seek for the very illustrations of his principles, amongst the abuses of the Romish church, — abuses which have alone rendered the subtleties of casuistry necessary. His reasonings are, consequently, useful principally to persons in danger of falling into Romish errors, or who have been only partially reclaimed from them. It is needless to say that this class of persons was much larger in the days of Jeremy Taylor than in our own. — These observations apply more particularly to the second and some parts of the third books. A FUNERAL SERMON, PREACHED AT THE OBSEQUIES OF THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD JEREMY. LORD BISHOP OF DOWN : WHO DECEASED AT LISBURN, AUGUST 13, 1667. BY GEORGE RUST, D. D. LORD BISHOP OF DROMORE. 1 John hi. 2. It doth not yet appear what we shall he. Glorious things are spoken in Scripture concerning the future reward of the righteous ; and all the words that are wont to signify what is of greatest price and value, or can represent the most enravish- ing objects of our desires, are made use of by the Holy Ghost, to recommend unto us this transcendent state of blessedness : such are these ; “ Rivers of pleasures ; a fountain of living w^ater ; a treasure that can never be wasted, nor never taken from us ; an inheritance in light ; an incorruptible crown ; a kingdom ; the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of Christ ; the kingdom of glory ; a crown of glory, and life, and righteousness, and immortality ; the vision of God ; being filled with all the fulness of God ; an exceeding eternal weight of glory,” KaB' vTrtpt>o\i)v elg vTTEp^oXrjr al^vwv ftapog ho^yg, words strangely emphatical, that cannot be put into English ; and if they could, they would not be able to convey to our minds the notion that they design ; for it is too big for any expressions : and, after all that can be said, w^e must resolve with our apostle, “It does not yet appear what we shall be.” At this distance, we cannot make any likely guesses or conjectures at the glory of that future state. Men make very imperfect descriptions of countries or cities, that never were there themselves, nor saw the places with their own eyes. It is not for any mortal creature to make a map of that Canaan that lies above ; it is, to all us that live here on the hither side of death, an unknown country, and an undiscovered land. It may be, some heavenly pilgrim, that, with his holy thoughts and ardent desires, is continually travelling thitherward, arrives sometimes near the borders of the promised land, and the suburbs of the New Jerusalem, and gets upon the top of Pisgah, and there he has an imper- fect prospect of a brave country, that lies a far way off ; but he cannot tell how to describe it ; and all that he hath to say to satisfy the curious inquirer, is only this, “ If he would know the glories of it, he must go and see it.” It was believed of old, that those places that lie under the line were burned up by the continual heat of the sun, and were not habitable, either by man or beast : but later discoveries tell us, that there are the most pleasant countries that the earth can show ; insomuch that some have placed Paradise itself in that climate. Sure I am, of all the regions of the intellectual world, and the several lands that are peopled either wdth men or angels, the most pleasant countries they lie under the line, under the direct beams of the Sun of righteousness, where there is an eternal day, and an eternal spring ; where is that tree of life, that beareth twelve manner of fruits, and yieldeth her fruit every month. Thus we may use figures, and metaphors, and allegories, and tell you of fruitful meads, and spacious fields, and winding rivers, and purling brooks, and chanting birds, and shady groves, and pleasant gardens, and lovely bowers, and noble seats, and stately palaces, and goodly people, and excellent laws, and sweet societies ; but this is but to frame little comparisons to please our childish fancies ; and just such discourses as a blind man would make concerning colours, — so do we talk of those things we never saw, and disparage the state while w^e should recommend it. Indeed, it requires some saint or angel from heaven to discourse upon the subject ; and yet that would not do neither : for though they might be able to speak something of it, yet we would want ears to hear it. Neither can those things be declared but in the language of heaven, which would be little understood by us, the poor inhabitants of this lower W’orld ; they are, indeed, things too great to be brought within the compass of words. St. Paul, when he had been rapt up into the third heaven, saw pr}para apprjra, “ things unlawful, or impossible, to be uttered ;” and “ eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive, what God hath prepared for them that love him ;” and, “ it does not yet appear what we shall be,” said that beloved disciple, that lay in the bosom of our Saviour. You will not now expect that I should give you a relation of that which cannot be uttered, nor so much as conceived; or declare unto you what our eagle-sighted evangelist tells us “ does not yet ap- pear.” But that you may understand that that which sets this state of happiness so beyond the reach of all imagination, is only its transcendent excellency, I shall tell you something of what does already appear of it, and may be known concerning it. 1. First of all, we are assured that we shall then be freed from all the evils and miseries that we now labour under ; vanity and misery, — they are two words that speak the whole of this present world ; the enjoyments of it are dreams, and fancies, and shadow^s, and appearances; and if any thing be, it is only evil and misery that is real and substantial. Vanity and folly, labour and pains, cares and FUNERAL SERMON. Ixv fears, crosses and disappointments, sickness and diseases, they make up the whole of our portion here. This life, it is begun in a cry, and it ends in a groan ; and he that lives most happily, his life is chequered with black and white, and his days are not all sunshine, but some are cloudy and gloomy, and there is a worm at the root of all his joy, that soon eats out the sap and heart of it ; and the gourd in whose shade he now so much pleases himself, by to-morrow will be withered and gone. But heaven is not subject to these mixtures and uncertainties ; it is a region of calmness and serenity, and the soul is there gotten above the clouds, and is not annoyed with those storms and tempests, that are here below. All tears shall then be wiped from our eyes ; and though sorrow may endure for the night of this world, yet joy will spring up in the morning of eternity. 2. We are sure we shall be freed from this earthly, and clothed with a heavenly and glorified body. These bodies of ours, they are the graves and sepulchres, the prisons and dungeons of our heaven- born souls ; and though we deck and adorn them, and pride ourselves in their beauty and comeliness, yet, when all is done, they are but sinks of corruption and defilement, they expose us to many pains and diseases, and incline us to many lusts and passions ; and the more we pamper them, the greater burden they are unto our minds ; they impose upon our reasons, and, by their steams and vapours, cast a mist before our understandings ; they clog our affections, and, like a heavy weight, depress us unto this earth, and keep us from soaring aloft among the winged inhabitants of the upper regions : but those robes of light and glory, w'hich we shall be clothed withal at the resurrection of the just, and those heavenly bodies which the gospel hath then assured unto us, they are not subject to any of these mischiefs and inconveniences, but are fit and accommodate instruments for the soul in its highest exalt- ations. And this is an argument that the gospel does dwell much upon, viz. the redemption of our bodies, that, “ He shall change our vile bodies, that they may be like unto his glorious body and we are taught to look upon it as one great piece of our reward, that we shall be “ clothed upon with our house which is from heaven that “ this corruptible shall put on incorruption, — and this mortal, immor- tality that, “ as we have borne the image of the earthly, so we must bear the image of the heavenly Adam ; “ who was ovpavov eTrovpariog, of “ heaven heavenly as “ the first man was tic yfjg )(oVfcoc, of the earth earthy.” And, therefore, I think, the schools put too mean a rate upon this great promise of the gospel — the resurrection of our bodies ; and, I believe it might be demonstrated from the principles of sound philosophy, that this article of our Christian faith, which the atheist makes so much sport withal, is so far from being chargeable with any absurdity, that it is founded upon the highest reason : for, see- ing we find by too great an experience, that the soul hath so close and necessary a dependence upon this gross and earthly mass that we now carry about with us, it may be disputed with some probability, whether it ever be able to act independently of all matter whatsoever : at least, we are assured that the state of conjunction is most connatural to her, and that intellectual pleasure itself is not only multi- plied, but the better felt, by its redundancy upon the body and spirits ; and if it be so, then the purer and more defecate the body is, the better will the soul be appointed for the exercise of its noblest operations ; and it will be no mean piece of our reward hereafter, that that which is sown aCjjjia ipvxii^op, an animal, shall be raised a heavenly body. 3. We are sure, that we shall then be free from sin, and all those foolish lusts and passions that we are now enslaved unto. The life of a Christian, it is a continual warfare ; and he endures many sore conflicts, and makes many sad complaints, and often bemoans himself after such a manner as this ; “Woe is me, that I am forced to dwell in Meshech, and to have my habitation in the tents of Kedar ; that there should be so many Goliahs within me, that defy the host of Israel; so many sons of Anak, that hinder my entrance into the land of promise, and the rest of God ; that I should toil and labour among the bricks, and live in bondage unto these worse than Egyptian task-masters.” Thus does he sit down by the rivers of Babylon, and weep over those ruins and desolations, that these worse than As- syrian armies have made in the city and house of his God. And many a time does he cry out in the bitter- ness of his soul, “ Wretched creature that I am ! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” And though, through his faith, and courage, and constancy, he be daily getting ground of his spiritual enemies, yet it is but by inches ; and every step he takes, he must fight for it ; and living, as he does, in an enemy’s country, he is forced always to be upon his guard ; and if he slumber never so little, presently he is surprised by a watchful adversary. This is our portion here, and our lot is this : I but when we arrive unto those regions of bliss and glory that are above, we shall then stand safely upon the shore, and see all our enemies. Pharaoh and all his host, drowned and destroyed in the Red sea, and, being delivered from the world, and the flesh, and the devil, death, and sin, and hell, — we shall sing the song of Moses, and of the Lamb, an epinicion, and song of eternal triumph, unto the God of our salvation. 4. We shall be sure to meet with the best company that earth or heaven affords. Good company, it is the great pleasure of the life of man ; and we shall then come “ to the innumerable company of angels, and the general assembly of the church of the first-born, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant.” The oracle tells Amelius, inquiring what was become of Plotinus’s soul, that “he was gone to Pythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato, and as many as had borne a part in the choir of heavenly love.” And I may say to every good man, that he shall go to the company of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Moses, David, and Samuel; all the prophets and f ixvi FUNERAL SERMON aposlles, and all the holy men of God, that have been in all the ages of the world. All those brave and cxeellent persons that have been scattered at the greatest distance of time and place, and, in their several generations, have been the salt of the earth, to preserve mankind from utter degeneracy and corruption, — these shall be all gathered together, and meet in one constellation in that firmament of glory. “ 0 prseclarum diem, cum ad illud divinorum animoruin concilium coetumque proficiscar, atque ex hac turba, ac colluvione discedam !” “ 0 that blessed day, when we shall make our escape from this medley and confused riot, and shall arrive to that great council and general rendezvous of divine and godlike spirits !” But, which is more than all, we shall then meet our Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of our recovery, whose story is now so delightful unto us, as reporting nothing of him, but the greatest sweetness and in- nocence, and meekness and patience, and mercy and tenderness, and benignity and goodness, and what- ever can render any person lovely or amiable : and who, out of his dear love and deep compassion unto mankind, gave up himself unto the death for us men, and for our salvation. And if St. Austin made it one of his wishes, “to have seen Jesus Christ in the flesh,” how much more desirable is it to see him out of his terrestrial weeds, in his robes of glory, with all his redeemed ones about him ! And this I cannot but look upon as a great advantage and privilege of that future state ; for I am not apt to swallow down that conceit of the schools, that we shall spend eternity in gazing upon the naked Deity ; for certainly the happiness of man consists in having all his faculties, in their due subordinations, gratified with their proper objects; and I cannot but believe a great part of heaven to be the blest society that is there ; their enravishing beauty, that is to say, their inward life and perfection, flowering forth and raying itself through their glorified bodies; the rare discourses wherewith they entertain one another ; the pure, and chaste, and spotless, and yet most ardent, love, wherewith they embrace each other ; the ecstatic devotions wherein they join together. And, certainly, every pious and devout soul will readily acknowledge with me, that it must needs he matter of unspeakable pleasure, to be taken into the choir of angels and seraphims, and the glorious company of the apostles, and the goodly fellowship of the prophets, and the noble army of martyrs ; and to join with them in singing praises, and halle- lujahs, and songs of joy and triumph, unto our great Creator and Redeemer, the Father of spirits, and the Lover of souls, unto him that sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. 5. We are sure w^e shall then have our capacities filled, and all our desires answered ; “They hunger no more, neither thirst any more : for the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.” What vast degrees of perfection and happiness the nature of man is capable of, we may best understand, by viewing it in the person of Christ, taken into the nearest union with Divinity, and made God’s Vicegerent in the world, and the Head and Governor of the whole creation. In this our narrow and contracted state, we are apt to think too meanly of ourselves, and do not understand the dignity of our own natures, what we were made for, and what we are capable of: but as Plotinus somewhere observes, “We are like children, from our birth brought up in ignorance of, and at a great distance from, our parents and relations ; and have forgot the nobleness of our extraction, and rank ourselves and our fortunes among the lot of beggars, and mean and ordinary persons ; though we are the offspring of a great Prince, and were born to a kingdom.” It does, indeed, become creatures to think modestly of themselves; yet, if we consider it aright, it will be found very hard to set any bounds or limits to our own happiness, and say, “ Hitherto it shall arise, and no further.” For that wherein the happiness of man consists, viz. truth and goodness, the communication of the Divine nature, and the illapses of Divine love, — it does not cloy, or glut, or satiate; but every participation of them does widen and enlarge our souls, and fits us for further and further receptions : the more we have, the more we are capable of ; the more we are filled, the more room is made in our spirits ; and thus it is still and still, even till we arrive unto such degrees as we can assign no measures unto. We shall then be made like unto God, 'H rreor-qpia erepiog yiverai, el jjiij ^eovfJLevwv rwv (Tioi^oixivtov, said the Areopagite ; “ Salvation can no otherwise be accomplished, but by becoming God-like.” “It does not yet appear what we shall be;” but “when he shall appear, we shall be like him,” says our evangelist ; for “ we shall see him as he is.” There is no seeing God as he is, but by becoming like unto him ; nor is there any enjoying of him, but being transformed into his image and simili- tude. Men usually have very strange notions concerning God, and the enjoyment of him; or rather, these are words to which there is no correspondent conception in their minds : but if we would under- stand God aright, we must look upon him as infinite wisdom, righteousness, love, goodness, and whatever speaks any thing of beauty and perfection ; and if we pretend to worship him, it must be by loving and adoring his transcendent excellencies : and if we hope to enjoy him, it must be by conformity unto him, and participation of his nature. The frame and constitution of things is such, that it is impossible that man should arrive to happiness any other way. And, if the sovereignty of God should dispense with our obedience, the nature of the thing would not permit us to be happy without it : if we live only the animal life, we may indeed be happy, as beasts are happy ; but the happiness that belongs to a rational and intellectual being, can never be attained but in a way of holiness and conformity unto the Divine will : for such a temper and disposition of mind is necessary unto happiness, not by virtue of any arbitrarious constitution of heaven, but the eternal laws of righteousness, and immutable respects of things, do require and exact it : yea, I may truly say, that God and Christ, without us, cannot make us happy : for we are not conscious to ourselves of any thing, but only the operations of FUNERAL SERMON. Ixvii our own minds ; and it is not the person of God and Christ, but their life and nature, wherein consists our formal happiness : for, what is the happiness of God himself, but only that pleasure and satisfac- tion that results from a sense of his infinite perfections? And how is it possible for a creature to be more happy, than by partaking of that, in its measure and proportion, which is the happiness of God himself ? The soul being thus prepared, shall live in the presence of God, and lie under the influences and illapscs of Divine love and goodness : “ Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.” They that fight manfully under the banners of Heaven, and overcome their spiritual enemies, “ they shall eat of the hidden manna, and become pillars in the temple of God, and shall go no more out : they shall stand before the throne of God continually, and serve him day and night in his temple ; and he that sitteth on the throne, shall dwell amongst them.” God shall put under them his everlasting arms, and carry them in his bosom, and they shall suck the full breasts of eternal goodness : for now there is nothing can hinder the most near and intimate con- junction of the soul with God ; for things that are alike, do easily mingle with one another : but the mixture that is betwixt bodies, be they never so homogeneal, comes but to an external touch ; for their parts can never run up into one another. But there is no such avTLTVTria, or “ resistance,” amongst spiritual beings ; and we are estranged from God, ov tottu) aXX kr£p6rr]ri Kai diacjiop^, “ not by distance of place, but by difference and diversity of nature,” and when that is removed, he becomes present to us, and we to him : ware ecpapjjioaai ical oiov £(paipaardai /cat ^iyeiv avTOV ofxoiorrjTi, &c. like the “ magni- tudines congruse ” in the mathematics, “ Quando prima primis, media mediis, extrema extremis, par- tes denique partibus usquequaque respondent : ” “Each of whose parts do exactly one to the other.” This, therefore, is the soul’s progress from that state of purgation to illumination, and so to union. There are several faculties in the soul of man, that are conformed to several kinds of objects; and, according to that life a man is awaked into, so these faculties do exert themselves : and though, whilst we live barely an animal life, we converse with little more than this outward world, and the objects of our senses, — yet there are faculties within us that are receptive of God ; and when we arrive once unto a due measure of purity of spirit, the rays of heavenly light will as certainly shine into our minds, as the beams of the sun, when it arises above the horizon, do illuminate the clear and pellucid air ; and from this sight and illumination, the soul proceeds to an intimate union with God, and to a taste and touch of him. This is that rj(Tv)(OQ Trpog ekeIvov E7ra(f)rj, that “ silent touch ” with God, that fills the soul wdth unexpressible joy and triumph. For, if the objects of this outward world, that strike upon our senses, do so hugely please and delight us ; what infinite pleasure then must there needs be in those touches and impresses, that the Divine love and goodness shall make upon our souls ! But these are things that we may talk of, as we would do of a sixth sense, or something we have no distinct notion or idea of; but the perfect understanding of them belongs only to the future state of comprehension. Lastly, we shall have our knowledge, and our love, which are the most perfect and beatifying acts of our minds, employed about their noblest objects in their most exalted measures ; for a man to resolve himself in some knotty question, or answer some stubborn argument, or find out some noble conclusion, or solve some hard problem, what inelfable pleasure does it create many times to a contemplative mind ! We know who sacrificed a hecatomb for one mathematical demonstration ; and another, that, upon the like occasion, cried out, EvptjKa, EvprjKa, in a kind of rapture. To have the secrets of nature disclosed, and the mysteries of art revealed ; but above all, the riddles of providence unfolded, — are such jewels as I know many searching and inquisitive spirits would be willing to purchase at any rate. When we come to heaven, — I wdll not say we shall see alb things in the mirror of divinity, for that, it may be, is an extravagancy of the schools ; nor that any one true proposition, through the concatenation of truth, will then multiply itself into the explicit knowledge of all conclusions whatsoever, for I be- lieve that a fancy too ; — but our knowledge shall be strangely enlarged, and, for aught I can determine, be for ever receiving new additions and fresh accruments ; the clue of Divine providence wdll then be unravelled, and all those difficulties which now’ perplex us, will be easily assoiled ; and we shall then perceive that the wisdom and goodness of God is a vast and comprehensive thing, and moves in a far larger sphere than we are aware of in this state of narrow’ness and imperfection. But there is some- thing greater and beyond all this; and St. John has a strange expression, that “ we shall then see God even as he is;” and God, we know, is the w^ll-spring of perfection and happiness, the fountain and original of all beauty ; he is infinitely glorious, and lovely, and excellent; and if we see him as he is, all his glory must descend into us and become ours : for w^e can no otherwise see God, as I said before, but by becoming deiform, by being changed into the same glory. But love, that is it which makes us most happy, and by that we are most intimately conjoined unto God, for “he that dw^elleth in love, dw’elleth in God, and God in him ;” and how’^ pleasant beyond all imagination must it needs be, to have the soul melted into a flame of love, and that fire fed and nourished by the enjoyment of its beloved ; to be transported into ecstasies and raptures of love, to be swallow^ed up in the embraces of eternal sw^eetness ; to be lost in the source and fountain of happiness and bliss, like a spark in the fire, or a beam in the sun, or a drop in the ocean ! It may be, you wall tell me, I have been all this while confuting my text, and giving you a relation of that which St. John tells us, “ does not yet appear w'hat it is ;” but my design has been the same wdth the holy evangelist’s ; and that is, to represent unto you how^ transcendently great that state of f 2 Ixviii FUNERAL SERMON. happiness must needs be : when as, by what w ay we are able to apprehend of it, it is infinitely the object of our desires ; and yet we are assured by those, that are best able to tell, that the best and greatest part of the country is yet undiscovered, and that we cannot so much as guess at the pleasure of it, till we come to enjoy it. And, indeed, it is impossible it should be otherwise ; for, happiness being a matter of sense, all the words in the w'orld cannot convey the notion of it into our minds : and it is only to be understood by them that feel it ; fii) Kara ETnaTy]fn]v i] avveaiq ekeIvov, fxrjde Kara vorjcriv, uxnrEp ra dWa vorird, dWd Kara Trapovaiav ETTiarijfxrjQ KpEirrova. But though it does not yet appear what w'e shall be ; yet so much already appears of it, that it can- not but seem the most w-orthy object of our endeavours and desires ; and by some few clusters that have been showm us of this good land, w'e may guess what pleasant and delightful fruit it bears : and if we have but any reverence of ourselves, and wdll but consider the dignity of our natures, and the vastness of that happiness w^e are capable of ; methinks we should be alw^ays travelling towards that heavenly country, though our way lies through a wilderness : and be striving for this great prize and immortal crowm : and be clearing our eyes, and purging our sight, that W'e may come to this vision of God ; shaking off all fond passions and dirty desires, and breathing forth our souls in such aspirations as these : My soul thirsteth for thee, O Lord, in a dry and barren land, where no water is ; O that thou w^ouldst distil, and drop dowm the dew of thy heavenly grace into all its secret chinks and pores. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that w’ill I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, and behold his glory : for a day in thy courts is better than a thousand, and I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of the Lord, than dw'ell in the tents of wickedness. All the kings of the earth, they are thy tributaries ; the kings of Tarshish, and of the isles, bring presents unto thee ; the kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts. 0 that w^e could but pay thee that, W'hich is so due unto thee, the tribute of our hearts ! The heathen are come into thine inheritance ; thy holy temple have they defiled ; help us, 0 God of our salvation, and deliver us, and purge away our sins from us, for thy name’s sake ! 0 that the Lord, w'hom W'e seek, w^ould come to his own house, and give peace there, and fill it with his glory ! Come and cleanse thine owm temple, for we have made it a den of thieves, which should have been a house of prayer ! O that we might never give sleep to our eyes, nor slumber to ■ our eyelids, till we have prepared a house for the Lord, and a tabernacle for the God of Jacob ! The curse of Cain it is fallen upon us, and we are as vagabonds in the earth, and wander from one creature to another. O that our souls might come at last to dw^ell in God, our fixed and eternal habita- ■ tion ! We, like silly doves, fly up and down the earth, but can find no rest for the sole of our feet ; ‘ O that, after all our weariness and our wanderings, we might return into the ark; and that God would put forth his hand, and take us, and pull us in unto himself! We have too long lived upon vanity and ^ emptiness, the wind and the whirlwind ; 0 that we may now begin to feed upon substance, and delight ^ ourselves in marrow and fatness ! O that God would strike our rocky hearts, that there might spring up a fountain in the wilderness, and pools in the desert ; that we might drink of that water, ^ whereof whosoever drinks, shall never thirst more ; that God would give us that portion of goods that ■ falleth to us, not to w'aste it with riotous living, but therewith to feed our languishing souls; lest they I be weary and faint by the way ! We ask not the children’s bread, but the crumbs that fall from thy j table : that our baskets may be filled with thy fragments : for they will be better than wine, and | svv^eeter than the honey and the honeyeomb, and more pleasant to us than a feast of fat things. We I have wandered too long in a barren and howling desert, where wild beasts, and doleful creatures, owls j and bats, satyrs and dragons, keep their haunts: 0 that we might be fed in green pastures, and led by 1 the still waters, that the winter might be past, and the rain over and gone, that the flowers may appear ^ on the eartii, and the time of the singing of birds may come, and the voice of the turtle may be heard , in our land ! We have lived too long in Sodom, which is the place that God at last wall destroy : 0 that we might arise, and be gone ; and, while we are lingering, that the angels of God would lay hold upon our hands, and be merciful unto us, and bring us forth, and set us without the city ; and that we ' may never look back any more, but may escape unto the mountain, and dwell safe in the Rock of ages! Wisdom hath killed her beasts, she hath mingled her wine, and furnished her table ; O that we might eat of her meat, and drink of her wine which she hath mingled ! God knocks at the doors of our hearts ; O let us open unto him those everlasting gates, that he may sup with us, and we with him ; for he will' bring his cheer along with him, and will feast us with manna and angels’ food; 0 that the Sun of righteousness might arise, and melt the iciness of our hearts ! That God would send forth his Spirit, and, with his warmth and heat, dissolve our frozen souls ! That God w'ould breathe into our minds those , still and gentle gales of Divine inspirations, that may blow up and increase in us the flames of heavenly love ! That we may be a whole burnt-offering, and all the substance of our souls be consumed by fire from heaven, and ascend up in clouds of incense ! That, as so many sparks, we might be always mount- | ing upward, till we return again into our proper elements! That, like so many particular rivulets, we may be continually making toward the sea, and never rest till w^e lose ourselves in that ocean of good- \ ness, from whence we first came ! That we may open our mouths wide, that God may satisfy them ! j That we may so perfectly discharge ourselves of all strange desires and passions, that our souls may be nothing else but a deep emptiness and vast capacity to be filled with all the fulness of God ! Let but these be the breathings of our spirits, and this Divine magnetism will most certainly draw down God FUNERAL SERMON. xi:t into our souls, and we shall have some prelibations of that happiness ; some small glimpses, and little discoveries whereof, is all that belongs to this state of mortality. I have as yet done but the half of my text : and 1 have another text yet to preach upon, and a very large and copious one, — the great person, whose obsequies we here come to celebrate : liis fame is so great throughout the world, that he stands in no need of an encomium ; and yet his worth is much greater than his fame ; it is impossible not to speak great things of him, and yet it is impossible to speak what he deserves; and the meanness of an oration will but sully the brighfiiess of his excel- lencies : but custom requires that something should be said, and it is a duty and a deln that we owe only unto his memory : and I hope his great soul, if it hath any knowledge of what is done here below, will not be offended at the smallness of our offering. He was born at Cambridge, and brought up in the free-school there, and was ripe for the uni- versity afore custom would allow of his admittance; but by that time he was thirteen years old, he was entered into Caius college ; and as soon as he was graduate, he was chosen fellow. Had he lived among the ancient pagans, he had been ushered into the world with a miracle, and swans must have danced and sung at his birth ; and he must have been a great hero, and no less than the son of Apollo, the god of wisdom and eloquence. He was a man long afore he was of age, and knew little more of the state of childhood, than its innocency and pleasantness. From the university, by that time he was Master of Arts, he removed to London, and became public lecturer in the church of St. Paul’s, where he preached to the admiration and astonishment of his auditory, and by his florid and youthful beauty, and sweet and pleasant air, and sublime and raised discourses, he made his hearers take him for some young angel, newly de- scended from the visions of glory. The fame of this new star, that outshone all the rest of the firmament, quickly came to the notice of the great archbishop of Canterbury, who would needs have him preach before him, which he performed not less to his wonder than satisfaction ; his discourse was beyond exception and beyond imitation : yet the wise prelate thought him too young ; but the great youth humbly begged his grace to pardon that fault, and promised, if he lived, he would mend it. However, the grand patron of learning and ingenuity thought it for the advantage of the world, that such mighty parts should be afforded better opportunities of study and improvement, than a course of constant preaching would allow of ; and to that purpose he placed him in his own college of All Souls, in Oxford ; where love and admiration still waited upon him : which, so long as there is any spark of ingenuity in the breasts of men, must needs be the inseparable attendants of so extraordinary a worth and sweetness. He had not been long here, afore my Lord of Canterbury bestowed upon him the rectory of Uppingham in Rutlandshire, and soon after preferred him to be chaplain to King Charles the martyr, of blessed and immortal memory. Thus were preferments heaped upon him, but still less than his deserts ; and that not through the fault of his great masters, but because the amplest honours and rewards were poor and inconsiderable compared with the greatness of his worth and merit. This great man had no sooner launched into the world, but a fearful tempest arose, and a barbarous and unnatural war disturbed a long and uninterrupted peace and tranquillity, and brought all things into disorder and confusion : but his religion taught him to be loyal, and engaged liim on his prince’s side, whose cause and quarrel he always owned and maintained, with a great courage and constancy : till at last, he and his little fortune were shipwrecked in that great hurricane, that overturned both church and state : this fatal storm cast him ashore in a private corner of the world, and a tender providence shrouded him under her wings, and the prophet was fed in the wilderness ; and his great worthiness procured him friends, that supplied him with bread and necessaries. In this solitude he began to write those excellent discourses, which are enough of themselves to furnish a library, and will be famous to all succeeding generations, for their greatness of wit, and profoundness of judgment, and richness of fancy, and clearness of expression, and copiousness of invention, and general usefulness to all the purposes of a Christian. And by these he soon got a great reputation among all persons of judgment and indifferency, and his name will grow greater still, as the world grows better and wiser. When he had spent some years in this retirement, it pleased God to visit his family with sickness, and to take to himself the dear pledges of his favour, three sons of great hopes and expectations, within the space of two or three months : and though he had learned a quiet submission unto the Divine will, yet the affliction touched him so sensibly, that it made him desirous to leave the country; and going to London, he there met my Lord Conway, a person of great honour and generosity, who making him a kind proffer, the good man embraced it, and that brought him over into Ireland, and settled him at Portmore, a place made for study and contemplation, which he, therefore, dearly loved ; and here he wrote his “ Cases of Conscience a book that is able alone to give its author immortality. By this time the wheel of Providence brought about the king’s happy restoration, and there began a new world, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and out of a confused chaos brought forth beauty and order, and all the three nations were inspired with a new life, and became drunk with an excess of joy : among the rest, this loyal subject went over to congratulate the prince and people’s happiness, and bear a part in the universal triumph. It was not long ere his sacred majesty began the settlement of the church, and the great Doctor Jeremy Taylor was resolved upon for the bishopric of Down and Connor; and not long after, Dromore Ixx FUNERAL SERMON. was added to it : and it was but reasonable that the kingdom and church should consider their cham- pion, and reward the pains and sufferings he underwent in the defence of their cause and honour. With what care and faithfulness he discharged his office, we are all his witnesses; what good rules and direc- tions he gave his clergy, and how he taught us the practice of them by his own example. Upon his coming over bishop, he was made a privy counsellor; and the university of Dublin gave him their testi- mony, by recommending him for their vice-chancellor : which honourable office he kept to his dying day. During this being in his see, he wrote several excellent discourses, particularly his “ Dissuasive from Popery,” which was received by a general approbation ; and a “ Vindication” of it (now in the press) from some impertinent cavillers, that pretend to answer books, when there is nothing towards it more than the very title-page. This great prelate improved his talent with a mighty industry, and managed his stewardship rarely well ; and his Master, when he called for his accounts, found him busy and at his work, and employed upon an excellent subject, “ A Discourse upon the Beatitudes;” which if finished, would have been of great use to the world, and solved most of the cases of conscience that occur to a Christian, in all the varieties of states and conditions. But the all-wise God hath ordained it otherwise, and hath called home his good servant, to give him a portion in that blessedness, that Jesus Christ hath promised to all his faithful disciples and followers. Thus having given you a brief account of his life, I know you will now expect a character of his person; but I foresee it will befall him, as it does all glorious subjects, that are but disparaged by a commendation ; one thing I am secure of, that I shall not be thought to speak by hyperboles ; for the subject can hardly be reached by any expressions ; for he was none of God’s ordinary works, but his endowments were so many and so great, as really made him a miracle. Nature had befriended him much in his constitution ; for he was a person of a most sweet and oblig- ing humour, of great candour and ingenuity; and there was so much of salt and fineness of wit, and prettiness of address, in his familiar discourses, as made his conversation have all the pleasantness of a comedy, and all the usefulness of a sermon. His soul w'as made up of harmony ; and he never spake, but he charmed his hearer, not only with the clearness of his reason, but all his words, and his very tone and cadences, were strangely musical. But that which did most of all captivate and enravish, was the gaiety and richness of fancy ; for he had much in him of that natural enthusiasm, that inspires all great poets and orators ; and there W'as a generous ferment in his blood and spirits, that set his fancy bravely a-work, and made it sw^ell, and teem, and become pregnant to such degrees of luxuriancy, as nothing but the greatness of his wit and judgment could have kept it within due bounds and measures. And, indeed, it w’^as a rare mixture and a single instance, hardly to be found in an age : for the great trier of wits has told us, that there is a peculiar and several complexion required for wit, and judgment, and fancy ; and yet you might have found all these in this great personage, in their eminency and perfection. But that which made his wit and judgment so considerable, was the largeness and freedom of his spirit; for truth is plain and easy to a mind disentangled from superstition and prejudice ; he was one of the ’EKKeKriKot, a sort of brave philosophers that Laertius speaks of, that did not addict themselves to any particular sect, but ingeniously sought for truth among all the wu'angling schools ; and they found her miserably torn and rent to pieces, and parcelled into rags, by the se- veral contending parties, and so disfigured and misshapen, that it was hard to know her; but they made a shift to gather up her scattered limbs, which as soon as they came together, by a strange sympa- thy and connaturalness, presently united into a lovely and beautiful body. This was the spirit of this great man ; he weighed men’s reasons, and not their names, — and was not scared with the ugly visors men usually put upon persons they hate, and opinions they dislike ; not affrighted with the ana- themas and execrations of an infallible chair, w’hich he looked upon only as bugbears to terrify w'eak and childish minds. He considered that it is not likely any one party should wholly engross truth to themselves ; that obedience is the only way to true knowledge ; which is an argument that he has managed rarely w^ell, in that excellent sermon of his which he calls, “ Via Intelligentise that God al- ways, and only, teaches docible and ingenuous minds, that are willing to hear and ready to obey, accord- ing to their light; that it is impossible a pure, humble, resigned, God-like soul, should be kept out of heaven, whatever mistakes it might be subject to in this state of mortality ; that the design of heaven is not to fill men’s heads, and feed their curiosities, but to better their hearts, and mend their lives. Such considerations as these made him impartial in his disquisitions, and give a due allow- ance to the reasons of his adversary, and contend for truth, and not for victory. And now you will easily believe that an ordinary diligence would be able to make great improvements upon such a stock of parts and endowments ; but to these advantages of nature, and excellency of his spirit, he added an indefatigable industry, and God gave a plentiful benediction : for, there were very few kinds of learning, but he was a Mystes, and a great master in them : he was a rare humanist, and hugely versed in all the polite parts of learning; and had thoroughly concocted all the ancient moral- ists, Greek and Roman, poets and orators ; and was not unacquainted with the refined wits of the later ages, whether French or Italian. But he had not only the accomplishments of a gentleman, but so universal were his parts, that they were proportioned to every thing ; and though his spirit and humour were made up of smoothness and gentleness, yet he could bear with the harshness and roughness of the schools ; and was not unseen in FUNERAL SERMON. Ixxi their subtilities and spinosities, and, upon occasion, could make them serve his purpose ; and yet, 1 be- lieve, he thought many of them very near akin to the famous Knight de la Mancha, and would make sport sometimes with the romantic sophistry, and fantastic adventures of school-errantry. His skill was great, both in the civil and canon law, and casuistical divinity ; and he was a rare conductor of souls, and knew how to counsel and advise ; to solve difficulties, and determine cases, and quiet consciences. And he was no novice in Mr. I. S.’s new' science of controversy ; but could manage an argument and repartees, with a strange dexterity ; he understood what the several parties in Christendom have to say for themselves, and could plead their cause to better advantage than any advocate of their tribe ; and when he had done, he could confute them too ; and show, that better arguments than ever they could produce for themselves, w^ould afford no sufficient ground for their fond opinions. It would be too great a task to pursue his accomplishments through the various kinds of literature : I shall content myself to add only his great acquaintance with the fathers and ecclesiastical writers, and the doctors of the first and purest ages both of the Greek and Latin church ; which he has made use of against the Romanists, to vindicate the church of England from the challenge of innovation, and prove her to be truly ancient, catholic, and apostolical. But religion and virtue is the crown of all other accomplishments ; and it w^as the glory of this great man to be thought a Christian, and whatever you added to it, he looked upon as a term of diminution : and yet he w'as a zealous son of the church of England; but that w^as because he judged her (and with great reason) a church the most purely Christian of any in the w^orld. In his younger years he met with some assaults from popery : and the high pretensions of their religious orders were very accommodate to his devotional temper ; but he was alw^ays so much master of himself, that he would never be governed by any thing but reason, and the evidence of truth, which engaged him in the study of those controversies ; and to how good purpose, the world is by this time a sufficient witness : but the longer and the more he considered, the worse he liked the Roman cause, and became at last to censure them with some severity ; but I confess I have so great an opinion of his judgment, and the charitable- ness of his spirit, that I am afraid he did not think w'orse of them than they deserve. But religion is not a matter of theory and orthodox notions ; and it is not enough to believe aright, but we must practise accordingly ; and to master our passions, and to make a right use of that avrs^ou- mov, and “ power that God has given us over our own actions,” is a greater glory than all other accomplish- ments that can adorn the mind of man ; and, therefore, I shall close my character of this great per- sonage with a touch upon some of those virtues, for which his memory wdll be precious to all posterity. He was a person of great humility ; and notwithstanding his stupendous parts, and learning, and eminency of place, he had nothing in him of pride and humour, but was courteous and affable, and of easy access, and would lend a ready ear to the complaints, yea, to the impertinencies of the meanest persons. His humility was coupled wdth an extraordinary piety, and, I believe, he spent the greatest part of his time in heaven ; his solemn hours of prayer took up a considerable portion of his life ; and we are not to doubt but he had learned of St. Paul to pray continually ; and that occasional ejacu- lations, and frequent aspirations and emigrations of his soul after God, made up the best part of his de- votions. But he was not only a good man God-ward, but he w^as come to the top of St. Peter’s gradation, and to all his other virtues added a large and diffusive charity ; and whoever compares his plentiful incomes with the inconsiderable estate he left at his death, will be easily convinced that charity was steward for a great proportion of his revenue. But the hungry that he fed, and the naked that he clothed, and the distressed that he supplied, and the fatherless that he provided for ; the poor chil- dren that he put to apprentice, and brought up at school, and maintained at the university, will now sound a trumpet to that charity which he dispersed with his right hand, but would not suffer his left hand to have any knowledge of it. To sum up all in a few w'ords : This great prelate had the good humour of a gentleman, the eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the acuteness of a school-man, the profoundness of a philosopher, the wisdom of a counsellor, the sagacity of a prophet, the reason of an angel, and the piety of a saint : he had devotion enough for a cloister, learning enough for an university, and wit enough for a college of virtuosi ; and, had his parts and endowments been parcelled out among his poor clergy that he left behind him, it would, perhaps, have made one of the best diocesses in the world. But, alas ! “ Our father! our father! the horses of our Israel, and the chariot thereof!” he is gone, and has carried his mantle and his spirit along with him up to heaven; and the sons of the prophets have lost all their beauty and lustre, which they enjoyed only from the reflection of his excellencies, which were bright and radiant enough to cast a glory upon a whole order of men. But the sun of this our world, after many attempts to break through the crust of an earthly body, is at last swallowed up in the great vortex of eternity, and there all his maculae are scattered and dissolved, and he is fixed in an orb of glory, and shines among his brethren-stars, that, in their several ages, gave light to the world, and turn- ed many souls unto righteousness ; and we that are left behind, though we can never reach his perfec- tions, must study to imitate his virtues, that we may at last come to sit at his feet in the mansions of glory; which God grant for his infinite mercies in Jesus Christ ! to whom, with the Father, through the Eternal Spirit, be ascribed all honour and glory, worship and thanksgiving, love and obedience, nov/ and for evermore. Amen. CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS ; TAUGHT FROM FIVE HEADS IN RELIGION ; I. FAITH ; II. HOPE ; III. THE HOLY SPIRIT ; IV. PRAYER ; V. THE SACRAMENTS. [The following piece, as appears by the preface prefixed to the original edition by the publisher, was first written for the private use of a “ noble and excellent lady.” Before the late edition of Jeremy Taylor’s whole works was published, this little treatise had become exceedingly scarce, not more than one copy being known to exist. There is no doubt about its being a work of Jeremy Taylor. Every page bears the marks of the author’s peculiar style and manner.] TO THE READER. This manual of Christian Consolations, derived from Five Heads of great importance in Religion, was written by a late Reverend Prelate of our church, and now is printed according to his own copy. The papers were presented by him to a person of honour, for whose private use they were designed ; but, as the noblest spirits are most communicative, that noble and religious lady was pleased to impart them for the good also of others. We read in the Evangelists, how that the holy Jesus, who “ went about doing good,” (that is the short, but full, character which Saint Peter ^ gives of him,) did, by a miracle of mercy, bless five loaves to the feeding of a very great multitude. And may the same Almighty goodness bless and prosper whatsoever spiritual good is contained in these Five Helps and Directions FOR A Christian’s Comfort, to the refreshing and strengthening of such souls as truly hunger and thirst after God ! May the serious and devout readers taste and see how good the Lord is, that his loving- kindness is better than life, — and that the light of his countenance, the sense of his favour, is infinitely more heart-cheering, and brings with it a truer and larger satisfaction, than the increase of “ corn, and wine, and oil,” ’’ doth to the men of this world, who only or chiefly “ mind earthly things,” and un- wisely place their felicity in the fading and empty enjoyments of this present life. It is a good thing, then, that a man should both hope, and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord ; for, “he is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.”*^ He who is the God of love, and even Love itself he who is the ever-flowing fountain of goodness, will not fail to fill the hungry with good things. Such a Christian hath meat to eat which the world knows not of ; he feeds on the hidden manna : he hath (as St. Austin said of St. Ambrose) “ occultum os in corde ejus,” and with this he doth “ sapida gaudia de pane Dei ruminare.” “ The Father of the world, who openeth his hand, and satisfieth the desire of every living thing, giving to all their meat in due season ;” ® “ he is as ready to fulfil the desire of them that fear him ; he will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”^ And here, from the character and qualification of the persons, (them that fear him, and them that walk uprightly,) it highly concerns us to observe, and to lay it to heart, that a sincere desire and serious endeavour to fear God and walk uprightly, is a necessary and indispensable condition to qualify and make us meet for the receiving of the best of Divine favours and blessings. We must first walk in the fear of the Lord, if we would walk in the com- fort of the Holy Ghost; as these two are set together. s If we would have the Spirit to be our com- forter, we must follow the Spirit as our guide and counsellor. If we would find rest unto souls, we must take Christ’s yoke upon us,^ the yoke of his precepts, which are all holy, and just, and good. A state of inward comfort and true tranquillity of spirit can never be secured and preserved, but by a continued care to walk before God in faithful obedience to his will in all things. For “ there is no peace to the wicked,” ^ as is twice expressed by the noble prophet Isaiah but “ great peace have they that love thy law,” * saith the royal psalmist, the man after God’s own heart, * Acts X. 38. Psalm iv. ^ Lam. iii. 1 John iv. ® Psalm cxlv. ^ Psalm Ixxxiv. 8 Acts ix. 31. Matt. xi. ' Chap, xlviii. 22. ^ Chap. Ivii. 21. ' Psalm cxix. 165. THE INTRODUCTION. Ixxiii who herein spake his own experience ; and elsewhere, “ Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.” ™ While he lives, he lives in peace, his soul dwells at ease ; he feels an unspeakable joy and pleasure within, upon the sense of his doing his duty, and being faithful in obedience to his Lord and Master in heaven. And when he dies, he departs in peace," and shall “ enter into peace,” and “ into the joy of his Lord.” ® Here he “ tastes how sweet the Lord is,” but there “ he shall be abundantly satisfied with the plenty of God’s house, and made to drink of the river of his pleasures.” p “ The meek shall eat and be satisfied, and their heart shall live for ever.” And so full and complete shall be their joy and satisfaction, that “ they shall neither hunger nor thirst any more ; for the Lamb shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters : and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”*^ This is the happy portion of those souls who have the Lord for their God, with whom “there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures,” most pure and permanent, “ for evermore.” THE INTRODUCTION. The work of the ministry consists in two things, in threatenings or comforts. The first is useful for the greatest part of Christians, who are led by the spirit of bondage, and fear to do evil, because of wrath to come ; which grows out of love to themselves. The second is fit for the best Christians, that are led by the spirit of love ; who endeavour to do righteousness, because they love righteousness, and to be like unto God, who, they know, is only good, (which grows out of the spirit of adoption,) and obey as sons and daughters, and not as servants. Our Saviour and his apostles insist sometimes upon the former way, threatening the impenitent, yet qualifying it with tidings of peace, if they return and amend their lives. For sharpness must be ap- plied, according to the power which the Lord has given us, for edification, and not for destruction.* The same apostle propounds both in the former epistle,^ “ Shall I come unto you with a rod ? or in love, and in the spirit of meekness ?” Which latter is most suitable to the gospel, to proclaim peace on earth, and good will towards men: and when James and John would have had fire to come down from heaven upon the Samaritans, Christ reproved them, saying, “ The Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them and St. Paul, “ God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” ^ And surely there is cause to apply a cluster of consolation against a few grains of terror: 1. Because we are all concluded under sin, and the guilt is ever present unto us. 2. Because of the weakness of the graces that are in us ; not that they are weak, but that human corruption is mixed with them. 3. Because of the strength and manifoldness of temptations. 4. Because we are to be exercised with the sufferance of the cross, and we are infirm to bear it. Lastly, because little is communicated to us, at the present, of that reward we look for ; least of all, is any share of it present and before our eyes. Forasmuch then, as there are so many in-draughts that break into our heart, to make us sick of sorrow and fear, let us seek comfort from God, who hath left no disease without a remedy to cure it, “ who healeth all thy diseases.”® I say, it is to be sought from God, lest we light upon them that tell false dreams, and comfort in vain.^ The right place for it must be the word of God, as it is :§ “ that we, through patience, and comfort of the Scripture, might have hope.” Which comfort, scattered up and down in that holy book, and not cast all in a lump together, by search- ing it diligently, we may draw our consolation out of five things, — faith, — hope, — the in-dwelling of the Spirit, — prayer, — and the sacraments. CHAPTER I. That Faith is the Ground and Foundation of a Christian's Comfort : several Doubts and Scruples about believing, answered. Faith is the root of all blessings. Believe, and you shall be saved : believe, and you must needs be sanctified : believe, and you cannot choose but be comforted : believe that God is true in all his Psalm XXX vii. 37. " Isaiah Ivii. ® Matt. xxv. P Psalm xxxvi. n Psalm xxii. Rev. vii. ^ 2 Cor. xiii. 10. ^ Ibid. iv. 21. ^ Luke ix. 56. 1 Thess. v. 9. ® Psalm ciii. 3. f Zech. X. 2. g Rom. xv. 4. Ixxiv HOW FAITH IS THE FOUNDATION Chap. I. promises, and you are the seed of faithful Abraham, and shall inherit the promises made to Abraham : believe that you are Christ’s, and Christ is yours ; and then you are sure that none can perish, whom the Father hath given to him. “There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” ‘‘ And as Martha said, “ Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died ^ so let all that groan and pine away in sorrow, say. Lord, if thou hadst been here, if thou hadst appeared to my soul in thy goodness, I had not fainted in my trouble. Isaiah foretells, that it should be Christ’s office “ to give the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. For St. John saw in the spirit, that they that follow Christ, are clothed in “white garments,” in garments of joy, in the livery of gladness. Solomon, describing the provident mistress of a family,^^ says, “ She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet.” So the house- hold of Christ are not afraid of frost and snow, nor of any bitter blast; they have put on the garment of dependence on Christ, which protects them, and do resolve never to put off their privy coat of confi- dence in their Saviour. With this did Christ encourage the poor woman, being under confusion, who had secretly touched the hem of his garment ; “ Be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole.” ® The first time that the word comfort is found in Scripture, is upon the birth of Noah ; his father says, “ This son shall comfort us so when God did give Christ to be made man, he did, as it were, say unto us, “ This Son shall comfort you, for his name is Jesus, and he shall save his people from their sins.” He that gave us him, hath given us all things wdth him. As it is true to say, that Mat- thew left all to follow Christ, so is it as true, that he got all that can be wished by following him. It is the chemistry of faith (let me use that word) to turn all things into good and precious ore. It is Abraham’s country in a strange land : Jacob’s wages, when Laban defrauded him : Moses’s honour, when he refused to be the son-in-law of Pharaoh’s daughter: Rahab’s security, when all Jericho besides did perish : David’s rescue, when there w'as but a step between him and death : the power of the apostles, to be able to cast out devils : Mary Magdalen’s sweet ointment, to take away the ill-savour of her sins. Plead, therefore, with the oratory of faith, and say, “Lord, I have no life but in thee, I have no joy but in thee, no salvation but in thee : but I have all these in thee ; and how can my soul refuse to be comforted ?” But some wdll say, perhaps, “Faith is a powerful comforter: but I, poor wretch, had need to be com- forted concerning my faith. 1 find the pulse of it w^eak, and sometimes it intermits, as if it beat not at all. Methinks I am not drawn near to Christ, or that I am so far off, that I cannot embrace him.” Some such infirmity may seem to have been in the Thessalonians ; and therefore St. Paul says, “ I have sent Timotheus to establish you, and to comfort you, concerning your faith.” e Now, to turn this water into wine, and the trembling of this objection into peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, conceive as if these questions were put to you ; “ Do you often accuse yourself of a w’eak faith in secret unto God ?” I like it for a good symptom ; for an hypocrite doth not use to accuse himself. — “And do you bewail your w^ant to the Lord, because you would have it better supplied?” that is a good sign too, for it is the same as to thirst for the living God. They that have not the gift of faith, do not miss it : but they that have it, though but in a little, do insatiably desire the increase of it. But do you find that the more you put forward to come to Christ, the more you are put back by doubts and temptations ? It is right the resemblance of him that was sick of the palsy fain he would have been brought to Christ, but could not come at him for the press. This press that stops you, are the snares of the world, vain imaginations, nay, perhaps humility, a broken heart, and a tender conscience : yet find out a way to come to your Saviour, though the throng be cumbersome. If there be no other way, untile the house, break down the roof to be brought unto him : call unto the Lord to dissolve this house of clay, that thy soul may see him clearly without all impediment. But, at the worst of all, do you lie in a swoon, as it were ? do you think there is no lift, no motion in your faith ? do you fear the light of grace is so eclipsed, that you have lost all communion with Christ? Remember, and be assured, that you could not miss Christ so much, unless Christ were in you. Because God loves you, he seems to leave you ; and withdraws out of the way for a time, because he would be found ; and makes you desire to seek him, that you may hold him the surer to you, when you enjoy him. A mother that hath conceived, may think, not long after, that she perceives some tokens of her concep- tion ; in a while, she doubts of it again, and wisheth some signs of better satisfaction : she hangs long under many assays of fear and persuasion : at last she finds the babe spring in her womb, and is utterly confirmed. So it is with them in whom Christ is born anew; they have found the J.iord, — yet some- time, as it is in the Canticles, “ He is behind the lattice,” that we miss him by a spiritual jealousy, and fall into many of these fits, as if he were quite departed. And in this state of trepidation we must be exercised, that we may know, that holy fear and a troubled spirit are heavenly qualities, that may consist with faith. Yet I have more to ask. Do you look dejectedly upon your faith, because you apprehend it is not full of life in the root, nor laden with fruit in godly practice ? Woe be to them that are not sensible of those infirmities. It is one of the best lessons in the New Testament, “ Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus but it is one of the hardest. God gives a measure of faith to all in the covenant ® Romans viii. 1. John xi. 21. c Isaiah Ixi. 3. Prov. xxxi. 21. Matthew ix. 22. ^ Gen. V. 29. ? 1 Thess. iii. 2. Mark ii. 4. ' 2 Tim. ii. 1. Chap. I. OF A CHRISTIAN’S COMFORT. Ixxv that call upon him ; but we have this gift in earthen vessels, and taint it with the affections of our carnal mind. The best faith is weak and wavering, short-sighted, riseth and falls like a tune in music. Therefore, to encourage a perplexed mind, hearken to Isaiah,*^ “ Say to them that are of a sorrowful heart. Be strong, fear not.” For though it be but an infant faith, it is a true faith : as an infant is a true man in the essence of a man, though not a man in growth ; perfect in the real being, though not in the degrees, wherein we must strive to grow up more and more. To prove the truth of it, be- lieve all the word of God, and it can be no wider : and for the soundness of it, believe in Christ, and look for salvation in him alone ; then it is as legitimate and true-born as is the faith of any saint that is far more noble. A dim or a blear eye, that looked upon the brazen serpent, did procure a remedy for a wound, as much as a clear and well-conditioned eye. And a little faith, casting its weak beams on Christ and his death, will go far. The quantity of a grain of mustard-seed hath warmth and virtue in it to spread abundantly. If faith on earth hath shaken off all frailty, and comprehended the joys of heaven, without casting its eye aside to the love of this world, I do not conceive how the body could subsist any longer here, but that the soul, in that ecstasy, would be dissolved, and fly away. Lastly ; as God sees such sins in you as you cannot see, so he sees such graces in you as you can- not perceive. The charitable, to whom Christ speaks when they are at his right hand,* do deny such good things to be in them, as Christ did profess they had. The Canaanitisli woman found no better in herself than the vileness of a dog, that waited for crumbs under the table; but Christ com- mends her for her great faith. The centurion*" saw nothing but unworthiness in his person; but Christ gave him the praise above all those to whom he had preached in Israel. Confess then, and be not ashamed to say, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” And take consolation, that water-springs shall flow out of a barren ground, which suspected itself to be parched and dry. Though you see but little by your own light, it is because it is put into the lantern of humility. And let these be the con- solations of faith. CHAPTER II, 7'hat a Christian\s Comfort flows from the Grace of Hope. The Object of Hope is, I . That which is good. 2. A Good absent. 3. Though absent, yet possible ; and that for three Reasons. 4. Though possible, yet difficult. An account of two Sorts of Difficulties, with particular Encouragements against them. Yet know that faith never rides single, but it carries hope before it. “ Faith is the substance of things hoped for.”^ No scripture doth better contain them both in a little than Titus:** the apostle says, that “ the faith of God’s elect,” first, “ acknowledgeth the truth : ” secondly, that “ it is accord- ing to godliness thirdly, “ it is in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” When you see a weight of iron tied to a line, wound upon a wheel from the ground to the top of a house, — remember it is like the heart of a sinner, leaden and heavy, lying upon the ground, and wound up in this text, with the line of hope, to the top of heaven. Heaven then is the express and fair object of hope, and God, in his promise, is the procurer. “Promise,” I say: for w^e do not grope for heaven blindfold, and fall upon it out of our own head without a warrant : but our assurance is incomparably the best that can be given, and in the best manner ; “ a promise made before the world began;” that is, freely, unrequested, when we could have no being to ask it ; and made over to Christ the Mediator, that it should be put into his hand to perform it to us. And it is unchange- able, as is all the truth of God : for “ he cannot lie,” neither is there any shadow of change in him. What can we desire more ? Carry this evidence along with you, and show it to yourself upon every disquietness and deep plunge of heart ; and how can you choose but convince yourself, that your melancholy and distrust is causeless ? “ The hope of the righteous shall be gladness.”" And “ we rejoice in hope.” ^ The design of hope is considered four ways. First, it intends unto that which is good; — which makes a difference between hope and fear : for we hope for that which is good, we fear that which is evil. Secondly, it is not that good w'hich is present, but absent ; and this makes a dif- ference between hope and fruition. “ Hope that is seen, is not hope : for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?”" Thirdly, though it be a good absent, and not yet obtained, yet it is possible; — which is the difference between hope and despair: but we have no colour for despair, since all things are possible to God. Fourthly, it is a possible good, but “ bonum arduum,” to be gotten with difficulty and pains ; which puts a difference between the diligence of hope and careless security. These are the four promontories of hope, and a good wind blows from every quarter. I. First, it is good for a man to hope, since we hope for that which is good, so good that it exceeds ^ Chap. XXXV. 4. ' Matt. xxv. 34. Matt. viii. 10. » Heb. xi. 1. Chap. i. 1, 2. ^ Prov. X. 2G. Rom. xii. 12. e Rom. viii. 24. Ixxvi HOW A CHRISTIAN’S COMFORT Chap. II. all that eye hath seen : for as yet we see not God hut in his creatures. Nor ear hath heard it, that is, in its full, unutterable excellency, which the words of Holy Scripture cannot express to our imperfect reason. Then “ neither can it enter into the heart of man : ” for things can seem no greater than words can utter. “ We know as yet but in part, hereafter we shall know as we are known.” If we have boasted to the heathen, that we look for a kingdom and a crown of glory, we are sure we shall not be ashamed of that hope.*^ We may be ashamed that we have doted upon petty things out of which we have devised felicity, and they have failed and deceived us : but our treasure laid up in the heaven is so sure, that in the end, and in the day of trial, none shall insult over our hope and say, “ Where is now the Lord your God?” If a mortal man detain the wages of the labourer, it is a sin : therefore, it cannot be incident to God, “ who is not unrighteous to forget our work and labour of love.” s “ We shall not always be forgotten: our expectation shall not perish for ever.” ^ The judgment of a good eye-sight is to see afar off; so, in the judgment of a good hope, to remark the unspeakable reward of a better age to come. Whereupon it hath sufficient satisfaction and content to leave or to lose all it hath, things “ not worthy to be compared to the glory which is revealed in us.” ^ The rich mines and golden trade of both the Indies are on the other side the line : so the rich trade of hope is in the other world. Change your poor freight, which is your lading in this vessel of clay, and barter it for an immortal possession. Hope that is not under the embers, but mounts up into a trembling flame, reckons not what it is worth by a very little which it hath in hand, but by its share which is reserved in the storehouse of God’s eternal recompence. Now I am abased; but there is mine honour, a far more abundant exceed- ing weight of glory. Now I carry about a crazy, sickly body; there it shall be immortal, and incident to no distemper. Now my neighbours and acquaintance despise me, and run far from me; there I shall be enrolled with angels and saints, and “ with the church of the first-born, and with the spirits of just men made perfect.”^ Now I live in all disorder of church ordinances, in distraction of schisms, in the filthy stench of old and new heresies: but there is the New Jerusalem, where all things set forth the glory of the Lamb, in beauty, and holiness, and truth. Now I must die, and deliver up my body unto the dust ; but Christ died and rose again the third day, and will bring again with him, in due time, all those that sleep : and “ comfort one another with these words,” saith St. Paul.^ And as when Christ as- cended into heaven, “ he went up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trum- pet so let every heart break out into praise and gladness, whose hope flies up unto the Lord in his holy places : “ holding fast the confidence and the rejoicing of hope firm unto the end.” " II. Stay yet, and consider it is a good which is absent that we hope for: when it is come, and brought to pass, hope is at the journey’s end. “ Say to the righteous, it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.” ° It shall be well; “ dixit, — erit.” It is not paid down, as we say, in ready money, but we have a good bond for assurance. Let one object upon this,“ Doth not hope deferred afflict the soul?” Yet be not disheartened : it is better than so. For first, we have somewhat in hand ; because that which faith lays hold of, is really and actually its own : now hope is faith’s rent-gatherer, and takes up that which faith claims upon the bargain which Christ hath made for us. To be clearer yet: “ We are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance.”? You seey then, that though we have not the inheritance as yet, we have the earnest of it ; and an earnest penny is more than nothing. Here I must distinguish between a pledge and an earnest. A pledge is laid down for assurance to repay that which was lent ; but an earnest is given upon a bar- gain, to keep that till the rest be brought in. Now the earnest we receive of the kingdom to come is the seal of the Spirit, an imprinted comfort that it shall be ours, a seal that cannot be defaced, a com- fort that cannot be taken from us. So much as you have of that seal, so much you have of the earnest: therefore, you cannot say that hope hath quite nothing to stay its longing. The blossoms of the spring do not only promise, but are God’s earnest, to represent the fruits which will wax ripe in autumn. I will make it out in another similitude. He that is in a merchant’s warehouse, where spices are stored up, shall have some taste of them in his palate by their strong scent, though he put not one corn into his mouth : so we taste heaven, because the Spirit that comes from heaven, dwells in us, and gives many delightful signs of a glorified reversion. But to go forward: it may not be denied but that hope is anxious and restless, till it come to enjoy. How tedious a thing it is to stay long without the company of them whom we entirely love ! and can it be otherwise than irksome, to be so long absent from the vision of God, and of Christ, com- passed with innumerable angels? St. Paul says noless:*! “We that have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.” Here are groans and sighs indeed; but we shall never be sea-sick with that easy tossing, having “ hope as an anchor of our souls.”*^ Hope of the right stamp, looking for the appearance of God, and the reward that he brings with him, hath a good mate that goes together with it, and that is patience. In the saddest book of the Scripture,® it is written, “ It is good that a man should hope, and quietly wait for f Rom. V. 5. e Heb. vi. 10. ^ Psalm ix. 18. ' Rom. viii. 18. Heb. xii. 23, ' 1 Thess. iv. 14. Psalm xlvii. 5, " Heb. iii. 6. " Isaiah iii. 10, i’ Eph. i. 13, 14. <1 Rom. viii. 23. '' Heb. vi. 19. ^ Lam. iii. 26. Chap. II. FLOWS FROM THE GRACE OF HOPE. ixxvii the salvation of the Lord.” Which, that it may not be wanting, we must contend for it in prayer, as it is, ^ “ The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and the patient waiting for Christ.” And it is no difficult thing to be persuaded. For when we are held off for a while from the inheritance of heaven, do we not attend God’s leisure ? And will the handmaid wait for her mistress, being in some degrees of place above her ? And shall not the creature stay the leisure of the Creator, so infinite above us ? Beside, the expectation of the recompence will increase the recompence, and make it more superlative ; therefore, “ let not him that believes, make haste.” ^ Nay, so your spirit will be patient, the Lord will allow you your importunity to call upon him to hasten : “ My strength, haste thee to help me.” ^ Finally, stay for that contentedly, which, when it comes, it comes but once, and shall abide for ever. III. Another degree upon which hope steps higher, is this, that her aim is possible. I have said how that which is proposed to it, is good ; that it is not disconsolate, though it be in futurition, and not yet obtained (for it is too good to be yet obtained) ; if patience have its perfect work, it can attend cheerfully. “ My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him.”y Strike we, therefore, pleasantly upon this third string, that the past object of Divine hope is to be accomplished. “ For I run not as uncertainly, I fight not as one that beateth the air.” ^ Paul did do all things, and suffer all things, for that which is feasible and might be achieved. The covetous is a projector for so much wealth as can never be gotten. The epicure longs for so much pleasure as can never be enjoyed. Great clerks and philosophers seek for so much knowledge as can never be found ; which, in Isaiah’s words, is “ to spend money for that which is not bread, and to labour for that which doth not satisfy.” ^ This is able to break the brain and to break the heart ; for there is no labour like to lost labour. “ But the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life.” ^ His hope stands upon a sound bottom ; it is all comfort for three reasons ; 1. It is possible, because it comes from an infinite power; 2. Because it is derived from infinite love and goodness ; 3. It hath abundant satisfaction from long and constant experience ; and what can we desire more ? 1. The first pillar that props it up, is the almightiness of God. “Abba, Father, all things are pos- sible to thee,” says our Saviour.*^ Talk not to me how the seas should be turned into dry land, or how the poor can be raised up to be set with the princes of the people ; or how stones can be raised up to be children of Abraham ; or how palsies and fevers can be cured with a word. I will stop all gaps of infidelity with this one bush, “ That God is able to do it.” He that is made by no cause, cannot be confined in his being ; and he that hath no bounds in his being, can have no bounds and restriction in his power. And if any fancy start out of our weak brain, to cavil that somewhat is impossible to God, — it is soberly spoken by one, that “it were better to say that this could not be done, than that God could not do it.” There is no possibility, therefore, for Christian hope to despair, because all things are possible to God. There is no horizon under heaven, or above heaven, that hope cannot look beyond it. For that comfort that is commensurable with the strength and power of God, is as large as can be contained in the heart of a creature. But if you lean upon the help of men, and hosts, and angels, they are slender reeds, and will give you a fall : as God said of the vain trust of the Jews, “ They shall be ashamed of Ethiopia their expect- ation.” How many do I see to sink under a little sorrow, because they have too much temporal com- fort! The world is too liberal to them ; it hath given them of all things so largely, that they have not the patience to want any thing : as God told Gideon, that he had too much of man in his army to depend upon the Almighty for victory, and he bade him retain but the thirtieth part, and his foes should flee before him.® Throw all the miserable comforts of the world out of doors for rubbish, and cast yourself upon the strength of God, and upon that alone : and then say, “ Lord, receive me, for I have driven all other solace from me, that I might enjoy thee alone: now I am ready for my Saviour, for there is none to help me but only thou, O Lord ! ” 2. That which holy hope hath in its prospect, is possible, not only for the infiniteness of power, but for the infiniteness of the mercy of our God. It is easy to get the favour of a gracious and a gentle nature among the sons and daughters of men ; and the most generous are the most reconcilable. Then what possibility, nay, what readiness will hope find to be reconciled to God, “ merciful, gracious, long- suffering, abundant in goodness and truth ? ” ^ The devil is not more frequent nor more strong in any temptation, than to undermine hope in this point, that it is too forward and too peremptory to expect remission of sins : fain he would have a tender conscience stick in this mire, and never get out of it. Some reverend writers go so far as to teach that Satan himself at first, when he began his mischief in Paradise, was of opinion, that sin could not be forgiven, it being his own case ; and he would never have tempted Eve to disobedience, if he had imagined the eating of the forbidden fruit could be par- doned ; not suspecting that God would have given his only Son to die for our redemption. Which I pass by, because it depends upon a grave question, whether God could pardon sin by his absolute power, without satisfaction made to his justice ? Deep disputings will yield but shallow comforts. Of this we are assured, that the means which the Father appointed, are excellent, into which “ the angels desire to look,” ? — to give us “ redemption and forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ, accord- ! “ Isaiah xxvii). 16. ^ Psalm xxii. 19. y Psalm Ixii. 5. ^ 1 Cor. ix, 26. ^ Chap. Iv. 2. ’ 1 rov. xi. 30. c Mark xiv. 16. Isaiah xx. 5. ® Judges vii. 4. ^ Exod. xxxiv. 6. si Pet. i. 12. Ixxviii HOW A CHRISTIAN’S COMFORT Chap. II. ing to the riches of his grace.” “ We have trespassed against our God, but there is hope concerning this thing.” ‘ “Forgiveness of sins” is put into our creed : he that doth not believe it, hath no creed nor Christianity in him. Do you believe a “ catholic church ?” that is the dowry of that church, which Christ espoused to him in his blood. Do you believe “ a communion of saints ?” this is it in which we are baptized, in which all our communion doth join, “ That through Christ is preached forgiveness of sins ; and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which W'e could not be justified by the law of Moses.” ^ So also it is put into our prayer, as well as into our creed. And he that taught us to pray, “ Forgive us our sins,” — hath taught us this comfort, that sins are pardonable. Yet an afflicted conscience will receive suggestion, that some sins indeed are pardonable, but not all, not the sin of the evil angels, not the sin against the Holy Ghost : “ and there is a sin unto death, I do not say ye should pray for it,” says St. John.^ These, verily, are set out for instances of irreversible judgment, to deter us from committing crimes of a vast magnitude. But mark, the Holy Scriptures have not unfolded it clearly and explicitly, wherein the heinousness of these sins did consist, that we may not accuse ourselves of them, and fall into despair, as if we had committed them. Since you know not expressly what these are, how can you lay them to your own charge? Nay, if you lay them to your own charge, you must be mistaken ; for he that condemns himself, shall not be con- demned of the Lord. Such incurable castaways as have their consciences seared, are not sensible of their guilt. Who more like to be of that number than the Pharisees, who justified themselves, saying, “ Are we also blind ? ” “ Well,” says a forlorn sinner, “my sins then are not the forenamed, nor out of possibility of mercy; but it is almost as bad that they are in an unlikelihood to mercy, for they are very heinous.” As unto that confession that your trespasses are very heinous, conceive so of them, and spare not : true rej>etLtance thinks no sin to be a little one. So St. Jerome spake to the commendation of the lady Paula, in her funeral sermon, that she was wont to bewail every fault she had committed as if it were one of the most presumptuous crimes. But be it so really, that God hath let you incur no small de- linquencies : as Aaron was not free from idolatry, — nor David, from adultery, — nor Peter, from ab- juration of Christ, — nor Paul, from persecuting the church, — nor Manasses, from witchcraft, — nor Mary Magdalen, from indefinite scandal ; well, I know not what ; who yet all obtained mercy, for a pattern to them, who hereafter should believe in Christ to everlasting life."’ They were called Novatians, who blotted out the beginning of the eighth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, because the story tells us, that Christ dismissed the woman taken in adultery, with a gracious gentleness. Why should not his pro- cedure in judgment be like his doctrine ? Did he not preach that publicans and harlots should go into heaven before proud justiciaries ? “ Be merciful unto my sin, for it is great,” says David." This is not the way to deal with mortal judges, when we stand at their bar ; but this is the way to obtain propiti- ation from our God; “heal me, for I am sore wounded; cure me, for I am very sick; be merciful to my sin, for it is very great.” Zozimus, a pagan, that envied the honour of Constantine the Great, makes this tale to discredit him in his history ; that Constantine had put his wife, Fausta, and his son, Crispus, to death; after which, being haunted with an ill conscience, that gave him no quiet, he sought among the heathen priests for expiation, and they could give him no peace : but he was told that the religion of Christians was so audacious as to promise pardon to all sins, were they never so horrible. Is not this to commend the emperor and his religion under the form of a dispraise ? for what rest could a troubled mind attain to from the rites and superstitions of idol gods ? But, in the immense value of the price of the blood of Christ, there is redemption for every sinner that repents and believes. “ Whatso- ever ye loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven,” says Christ to his apostles." Oh, loose not a sylla- ble of such comfort in this discomfortable world ! “ Quodcunque ” is “ all manner of sin,” great and little. And if Christ hath given such commission to men on earth, to unloose every sin by the power of their offlce, and the word of consolation, — then how unbounded is his own clemency ! No sins can supcrabound his grace, if we do not sin presumptuously, because grace abounds. Yet the poor publican will beat his breast, and cry out dolefully, “ My sins are many ; they are more in number than the hairs of my head.” The bill of indictment is a true bill ; who can tell how oft he offendeth ? Scarce any sin we act, but hath a nest of sins in it ; then think we what a heap will they make when they are put all together? Peter, it seems, misdoubted, that if a man were forgiven, that had trespassed often, it would be scandalous, and encourage the offender ; therefore, he thought it fit to stint indulgence to some mediocrity, as it is,P “ Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? — until seven times? Jesus answereth, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven times.” So that Christ commends a boundless forgiveness in a finite number for an infinite. And, doubtless, himself would not stick with us for the same number. God forbid we should think he taught to be more merciful, or of greater perfection, than himself. “ Her sins, which are many, are forgiven.”^ Be thankful, and admire the mercies of our Father, both for nailing our great sins to the cross of Christ, and for acquitting us from the innumerable fry of minim sins, those of daily incursion : because when one of the least is remitted, all are remitted together. Mark that considerately. One that com- ^ Epli. i. 7. ' Ezra x. ‘2. ^ Acts xiii. 38, 39. ' 1 Epist. v. 16. 1 'I’im, i. 18. " Psalm xxv, 11, " Matt, xviii, 18. P Matt, xviii. 21. 'i Luke vii. 17. Chap. II. FLOWS FROM THE GRACE OF HOPE. Ixxix mittecl some foul and leprous sin, goes mourning upon the deep sense of it, and especially the horror of it makes him fear damnation : yet he greatly deceives himself if he think his other sins are passed over, — and this great one, or a few such, do remain to his perdition. For do you hope comfortably that some faults of omission, some idle words, some garish and customary fashion of pride, are remitted to you ? With the same affiance, leaning on Christ, you may hope that you are discharged from your greatest enormities. For all unrighteousness is covered at once to them, with whom God is well pleased. No sin is forgiven to him that is not in Christ, — and against him that is in Christ, there is no condem- nation. They are the sons of God, to whom the Lord doth graciously remit any fault ; but where any fault is not remitted, they are his enemies. He that is justified from any sin, must be truly penitent ; but a true penitent is sorry for all sins together, hates them, eschews them all alike. Then follows a plenary absolution from all iniquity, through Christ our Lord. And beware that you overlook not these multitudes of sins of the under size, as if little grief or anx- iety would serve for them. Are they not numberless corns of sand ? And may not a weight of too much sand sink a ship as soon as a burden of too much iron. The dailiness of sin must be bewailed with the dailiness of sorrow. And then “ when thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid ; yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.” Now, tell me, if this balm be not enough to heal the bleedings and bruisings of despair ? Talents of sins in small money, you may hide them all in the wounds of Christ. It is possible for God to do the benefit, and possible for thee to receive it. “ Let Israel hope in the Lord : for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption ; and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” ® 3. It must now be added, how that which hope waits for, is possible, since it may find satisfaction from long and constant experience. In the younger days of the world, somewhat might be said to excuse the backwardness of hope : they wanted proof and demonstration in those times. Even Cain was the sooner overtaken with despair, crying out, “ My sin is greater than can be forgiven me.” He had not lived so long to be taught the contrary by experience. But every age hath given advantage to hope to be satisfied better and better. “ O God, we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us, the noble works that thou didst in their days, and in the old time before them.” ^ The records of God do tell us how the armies of aliens have been discomfited before his children ; how the rocks have given them drink, and the barren wilderness bread ; how the church hath been scattered and re-collected ; the righteous continually supported, either with deliverance or patience ; that the dead have been raised up to life ; nay, that Enoch and Elias were taken up alive into heaven, to implant into our minds, that both they that are in the graves, shall hear the voice of Christ, and come forth ; and that such as shall be found living at that day, shall be caught up in the clouds, and be translated into heaven. And I challenge hope to instance, if it can surmise, that any thing is impossible to be brought to pass, since there is a precedent in every thing to demonstrate, that the right hand of the Lord hath brought mighty things to pass. There is one thing, I confess, for which there is no example, neither can be evidenced, till all things be accomplished, that is, the coming of the Lord Christ with the new heavens and the new earth ; and yet, to confirm us in that mystery to come, St. John did see the idea or glimpse of it in his Revelation. The use of all this is to remember the transactions of God in the times that are gone before. Whoever saw the righteous forsaken ? or the wicked flourish long? Was there ever any persecution of the church which hath not ended in its triumph ? But stay for it, and pray for it, and condole for the delays of God’s providence, till you may say in earnest, “My soul fainteth for thy salvation.” “ How easy is it for a Christian that hath any nostril, to run after God in the odour of his sweet ointments, and trace his steps from point to point ! and then to say with David, “ I have remembered thy judgments of old, 0 Lord, and have comforted myself.”^ And from another prophet,y “ Ye shall see their way, and their doings, and ye shall be comforted concerning all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem.” The great storehouse of consolation is hope : therefore, all this, and more, must be said to keep it fresh, like a green olive tree, having never a sear or withered bough upon it. I come now to complete it ; I have shown it aims only at good, and that which is only and excellently good : at such a good whose harvest is not brought in all in a year, but still there is more and more to be had, and the most to come. It is possible, through the greatness of God’s power and mercy, as all ages have witnessed. 4. But lastly ; that which may seem to pinch is, that it is “ bonum arduum,” “ a good not easily attained,” but with great labour and diligence, to give warning against sloth and security. It were not worth our longing, to say we hope for petty things, easy, and at hand ; but for things of value, for which we must struggle with many lets and impediments to possess them. No man need to hope to find cockle shells on the shore ; but to find pearls in the sea, that is an object for the adventure of a jeweller. Neither is the jewel of Christian hope easily purchased. But as Elijah said to Elisha, “Thou hast asked a hard thing ; nevertheless, if thou see me, when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee.” ^ Much after that sort 1 commune with my heart, and say, “ It is good to seek for eternal life, pursue it, as the hart brayeth after the rivers of waters : there will be much ado to get it, for “many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” ^ Nevertheless, if thou canst see the Lord, ■■ Proy. 111 . 24. s Psalm rxxx. last verse. t Psalm xliv. 1. “ Psalm cxix. 31. " 1 salm cxix. 52. y Ezek. xiv. 22. ^ 2 Kings ii. 10. » Luke xiii. 14. Ixxx HOW A CHRISTIAN’S COMFORT Chaf. II. as if he were continually before thee, thou shalt not miss of that thou desirest : for all things are possible to him, whose eyes are ever toward the Lord.” These difficulties upon which I strike, are either in ourselves, or in our adventure : in ourselves, partly through natural imbecility, partly through contracted impotency. 1. Our natural languor is that of original contagion, which makes us so weak, that there is none that doth good, no, not one : which is not to be extenuated, as if the malignity of it might be suppressed with a little resistance. It is good to know the power of so strong an enemy, that we may be fortified against it. It is a root of bitterness never to be digged up out of corrupt nature: a coal of fire spitting out sparks of temptations continually: as inward to us as the marrow” is in our bones. Yet there is hope in Christ to slake this fire, though not utterly in this life to quench it. It is a body of death, a whole body, consisting of all the members of sin ; yet a body is but flesh, and a spirit is mightier than flesh. Apply that of the prophet Zechariah to it, as we may read it by the direction of our margin, and keep to the original “ If it be difficult in the eyes of this people, shall it be difficult in mine eyes ? saith the Lord.” Therefore, since God is our help against the insurrection of this rebellious sin, let us be comforted in his help, and not in excuses. For w^e must not plead our personal maladies and natural inclinations, and think that God will take it for an answer, and ask no more. “ I am dull of understanding,” says one, “ and what I am taught I cannot bear it away. I am suddenly transported with indignation, and cannot choose but break out : I am retentive of an injury, and cannot easily be reconciled.” All this, and the like, is no better than the answer of those ill-mannered guests in the gospel, which are invited to a feast made by a king, — “We cannot come, I pray you have us excused:” w”hich sounds like confession and humility, but it is denial and defiance. Spend your breath in a better way, and cry out often and affectionately, — “ Give me not over to myself, O Lord; take aw'ay from me my stony heart, and give me a heart of flesh. Drop down upon this barren earth, and it shall bring forth quite against the bias of nature. The high-minded will grow meek as a lamb, the covetous will begin to disperse and scatter abroad, the lying lips w'ill confess the truth, bitter cruelty will melt into pity, new-fangled braveries will be laid aside, and blush at vanity.” To what purposes are the pour- ings in of the Spirit, but that what is wfickedly inbred from our conception, should be shaken off from the tree, and a better fruit spring up in the place, from the increase of God? Mark the rain that falls from above, and the same shower that dropped out of one cloud, increaseth sundry plants in a garden, and severally according to the condition of every plant : in one stalk it makes a rose, in another a violet, divers in a third, and sweet in all. So the Spirit works its multiformous effects in several complexions, and all according to the increase of God. Is thy habit and inclination choleric? Why, try thyself if thou be very apt to be zealous in a good cause, and it turns thy natural infirmity into holy heat. — Is melancholy predominant ? the grace of God wall turn that sad humour into devotion, prayer, and mortifying thy pleasures to die unto the world. — Is thy temperature san- guine and cheerful? the goodness of God wall allow it unto thee in thy civil life, in a good mean; but over and above, it will make thee bountiful, easy to pardon injuries, glad of reconciliation, comfortable to the distressed, always rejoicing in the Lord. — Is a man phlegmatic and fearful ? if this freezing dis- ease, which is in thee from thy mother’s womb, be not absolutely cured, yet the Holy Ghost will work upon it, to make thy conscience tender, wary to give no offence, to make thee pitiful, penitent, contrite, ready to W”eep for thy transgressions. “ There are two handles to take hold of every thing,” says a hea- then : a dissolute man takes hold of original frailties, and makes them serpents: a holy man declines their serpentine nature, and catcheth them by that part which may conduce to all manner of virtue. This is the comfort of hope against original inquination, that this great enemy, by the operation of the Spirit, shall be made our friend, or our footstool. “ 0 wretched man that I am ; w”ho shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”^^ What is stronger than a lion? yet, if the lion be killed, “ out of the strong comes forth sweetness.”^ For all this, the worst is not past : beside natural pronity to sin, we have contracted much more evil by custom, education, strong habits, noxious examples, bad enticements, and infusions. The cockatrice’ egg was laid, when we w^ere in our mother’s womb, but it proves more venomous being hatched, and growm able to fly abroad. There are seventy sons of Ahab, who shall kill thee? Even the sw”ord of the Spirit: “ there is none like it,” as David said of that of Goliah.® This is sufficient, not merely to cut down grass and briars, but to hew down the trees, to cut off the branches, to shake the leaves, to scatter the fruit, to frighten away the fowls from the branches, and the beasts from grazing under it ; ^ or, as the apostle comforts us in plain w”ords, w”ithout a parable, “ I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me.” 8 If you be overtoiled and heated too much, you know how to cool: cast off some garments, wipe away the sweat, sit still and stir not, lest you inflame yourself with motion. Follow the same method ; lay aside the burden of sin, that inflames you, cast off the weight and the superfluity of naughtiness : bear in mind that Christ sweat drops of blood in his agony, to make you ashamed of toiling and sweating in Satan’s drudgery. Take ease in a sabbath of holy rest, and moil not in the unprofitable works of darkness. Try what refrigeration this will give unto your conscience : else take heed that you be not put to a terrible sweat of fear, lest God take you away in his wrath, and give you up for ever unto Satan, whom you have served so willingly. ^ Chap. viii. 6. ^ Rom. vii. 21. Judges xiv. 14. ® 1 Sam. xxi. 9. ^ Dan. iv. 14. e Phil. iv. 13. Chap. II. PLOWS FROM THE GRACE OF HOPE. Ixxxi “ To the law and to the testimony mind no examples, but when they are wrapt up therein. “ Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” What a case had Noah been in, if he had framed his life by common practice, when all flesh had corrupted their way ? Choose better company, as Enoch did, to walk with God.‘ And “ can two walk together unless they be agreed?”*^ It is more than agreement: it imports endearment, benevolence, friendship with God. No title can be greater or sweeter : what can match that honour of Abraham and the apostles, to be called the “ friends of God and Christ?” No league in the world more sought for or more will- ingly accepted: no amity less burdensome or more beneficial. St. Austin^ brings in a couple that served the Roman emperor, thus debating upon it : “ What can we look for in this palace, more than to be called the friends of our sovereign ? When we have got this, it is no sure and unchangeable fa- vour. And how long shall we attend before we be promoted to it? But let us then turn to God in this hour, and sue to be his friends, and it shall be done instantly, and remain eternally.” — “ Ask, and it shall be given ; seek, and we shall find.” And as we trespass by sins of daily prevention, there is a daili- ness of mercy to comfort us. But as you love Christ and would be beloved, struggle with temptations, do not yield upon the first enticement, no, nor upon the second or third assault. “ Resist the devil, and he will fly from you:” quit yourself like a man, fight like a Christian : “ the flesh is weak, but the Spirit is willing, ready, able to assist you.”'" Thus hope waxeth valiant, and assures itself of victory against customs, habits, and all contracted impotencies. 2. Lay now our adventure, the toil and peril of our labour, wherein we are employed, in another balance, and more difficulty will appear. For hope is wise, and doth not flatter itself, as if the kingdom of heaven were accessible with little pains. What carefulness ought this to wmrk in us ! what self-de- nial ; what fear ; what zeal ; what unblamable conversation ! “ I run, I fight, I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection.”" “ For Christ Jesus I have suffered the loss of all things.”" Christ, having overcome the sharpness of death, hath opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers : yet to put us to our labour and skill to follow, mark what he has taught us, — “ Strait is the gate, and nar- row is the way, that leadeth unto life ; and few there be that find it.” p And, therefore, is it so strait and narrow ? a question worthy to be resolved, to teach us and to com- fort us. First ; a very religious life is said, by a metaphor, to go in at a strait gate, because it is our master- piece to find the door, or to begin well ; therefore, it is called “ to be born again.” For, as to be born into the world needs more art and skilful midwifery, than to bring us up; so to be regenerate, to begin to live the life that is in Christ, is exceeding irksome to flesh and blood : so many are the enticements that throng about the way, to keep us from the door, and to hold us in love with those sins, which have been our companions. As an orator will be more timorous to deliver the first period of his speech, than all that follows; so we stick long at the .first onset to reform, to be strict, to pass away with so much vanity as must be forsaken. The penitent thief could not find the door, till he was going out of the world: St. Paul, as some compute, was twenty-eight years old before he left to be a blasphemer. But rush on, and make way through all resistances : he that hath one foot over the threshold, and hath cast the world behind him, is well advanced into the courts of our God. Secondly ; a heavenly mind gathers itself up into one wish, and no more. “ One thing have I de- sired of the Lord, which I will require.” i Grant me thyself, 0 Lord, and I will ask no more. The new creature asks nothing of God, but to enjoy God ; give me this, 0 Lord, and for the rest, let Ziba take all. I will part with all to buy that one pearl, the riches of heavenly grace. The servant of sin hath all manner of pleasures under heaven to trade in. Can he ask for a shop with more variety of ware ? why may he not have these, you will say, and life eternal to boot ? Some of them are incon- sistent with life eternal; but all are not, so they be added, and not sought for: as our Saviour distin- guisheth, “ First, seek the kingdom of God, and these things shall be added.”'' But if you seek them, which is to love them for themselves, and above the kingdom of God, it is like a man that carries a piece of timber at breadth upon his back; there is no room for a man to get in with such an impedi- ment upon his shoulders. It is not the gate that excludes him, but he thrusts himself out w'ith his own improvidence. Thirdly ; there are thousands of scandals, millions of errors, to be avoided, but truth and holiness are in the middle, in a little compass ; and happy is he that shuns extremes, and falls perpendicularly upon the golden mean. The commandments of God are “ but ten words ;” ® the inventions of men, and the forms of will-worship are innumerous. “ Pray, fast, give alms ;” Christ comprehends much external duty under those three heads, but the traditions of men are more than can be put in a catalogue. “ Call upon God in the time of trouble ; ” that, and no more, is the pole-star of faith in prayer ; but what a compass doth monkishness take in, to drop beads in the invocation of angels and saints ! Pro- faneness neglects the honour of God : superstition falls into needless excesses about it : the true fear of God is in the centre, as far from the one extreme as from the other. As in an accurate song, you must keep minim time, or else you will put the whole choir out ; so look that you sing the new song ^ ' Gen. v. 24. Amos iii. 3. ' Confess. 8. c. 6. XXVI. 41. n 1 Cor. ix. 26, 27. o Phil. iii. 8. p Matthew vii. 14. ^ Psalm xxvii. 4. Matthew vi. 33. * Deuteronomy iv. 13. Ixxxii OF THE INHABITATION AND CnAi*. HI. of the Lord witli trembling and accurate observation, miss neither cliff’ nor note, that is, neither sound doctrine nor pious practice. These are the reasons why it is so hard to get access to Christ in a narrow w^ay, and through a strait gate. If these difficulties be not discerned by some, it is because they take up Christianity as it is in use amongst men, and as they are born to it. But they that came to it in their years of understanding, and were trained up in church-discipline many years before they were baptized, and all that time were put to exact trial what they would prove, and were taught it over and over, how the laws of Christ were far stricter than any other laws in the world ; — these were pre-acquainted with the covenant which they must perform, and then received it, with the largest and hardest conditions. Yet they were brought on with two special comforts: first, that God did behold from heaven the mightiness of the task, which we took upon us, the troubles of persecutions, the dangers of temptations, the infirmities of man to resist them. “ He knows whereof we are made, he remembereth we are but dust;” it puts him to admire the performances of his saints, as Jesus marvelled at the centurion’s faith.^ Se- condly, when we are under our hazards, we shall have an answer from the Lord, as St. Paul had, “ My grace is sufficient for thee : for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” “ Therefore, as the Lord said of David, when he had chosen him, “ I have laid help upon one that is mighty so we, casting ourselves upon the help of God, upon one that is almighty, though of ourselves we have gathered little into our omer, the blessing of God upon it will not let us lack. “ Every hard matter that rose among the people, was to be brought to Moses.” ^ So in every hard cause, desire the Lord to plead it, and to judge it ; bring it to him, leave it in his court, and he will end it. These are the cordials to revive hope, touching the difficulties it finds in the way to obtain that good which is set before it. CHAPTER IIL IIow a Christian's Comforts Jlow from the Inhabitation and Testimony of the Holy Ghost ; as also from the Sanctiftcatioyi of the Spirit unto all Obedience ^ and the Fruits of Righteousness. 1 HAVE insisted with so much length and variety upon hope, because it is the largest inlet of Christian consolation. Yet, in the third place, that which carries it on, nay, that which causeth it, is the Holy Ghost. As the air is the medium through which the eye doth see all things, yet it is the light that shines in it that makes all things visible : so hope is the principal means, enlivened by faith, through which we rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory ; yet it is the Spirit inhabiting, that kindles it, that enlightens it, which makes it affect its object, and cleave unto it. Our Saviour left the world, and ascended into heaven, for many reasons ; one was “ to give gifts unto men,” which gifts, though very many, are all united in their fountain, the Holy Ghost. Of which legacy, Christ gave warning before his death.''* “ I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.” “ The world knows him not, because it sees him not : but ye know him, for he shall dwell with you, and shall be in you.” ° “I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.” “ If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you: but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” This Comforter, the everlasting Spirit, to speak after the phrase of men, is the proxy of Christ, his repre- sentative in our hearts. And so it was fulfilled : for when the Spirit descended in great abundance upon the church, St. Peter says, “ This is that which is come to pass.” ® “ Thou hast made known to me the ways of life ; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.”^ And for the evidence of it, it is said, “ The churches were edified, walking in the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.” s Which text begins this note, that Christian solace consists in two things, which we may call the root and the fruit. The root is the Holy Ghost taking up his tabernacle in us, so that “ our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in us.”** To walk by it in the fear of God is the fruit of sanctification in all manner of obedience. 1. Unto the former, the in-dwelling of the Spirit, let this be premised. When we speak of any one dwelling in safety, the great question is, who keeps the house ? When David fled from Jerusalem for fear of Absalom, there was no likelihood that his palace would hold out, for “ he left ten women, that were concubines, to keep the house.”* So if we leave our concubines, our lusts and carnal desires, to keep our conscience, they will betray us to Satan to get the possession. “But wdio can take the city, if the Lord keep it ?”** How impregnable are we, if he dwell in us, and we in him, “ because he hath given us of his Spirit.” ‘ All that one can say unto this, who is doubtful in faith, will be, “ Show me that the Father of mercies, and that the God of all comfort, is entered into me, and it sufficeth.” I answer, I cannot show, that is, demonstrate it to another, that this eternal life is in him ; but I can persuade an apt scholar to stir up * Matt. viii. 10. " 2 Cor. xii. 9. Psalm Ixxxix. 19. > Exod. xviii. 16. '' John xiv. 16. Verse 17. *-■ Verse 18. ^ Chap. xvi. 7. ^ Acts ii. * Verse 28. s Acts ix. .31. 1 Cor. vi. 19. ' 2 Sam. XV, 16. Psalm cxxvii. 1. ' 1 John iv, 13. I Chap. III. TESTIMONY OF THE HOLY GHOST. Ixxxiii the grace which is in him, that he may show it to himself. I say, he may do it, if he give his mind to it. Else, St. Paul made a question to no purpose, “Know ye not that ye are the temples of the Holy Ghost, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you I deny not but the devil hath a way to fetch it about, to make you misknow, and take no heed of that you do perceive, if he did not stagger you with delusions. This is the first lesson that he reads out of his morals, “ That distrust is a high point of wisdom ; and be not over-reached with opinion : you are sure of that you see, and of no more.” But to meet with this fallacy : Is nothing certain, or at least so certain as that which may be seen ? Why, the wind will blow away this objection, the air will confute it. What can you make up so close that the air and the wind will not get into it ? Yet you see it not, you know not whence it comes, it is an invisible messenger : “ So is every one that is born of the Spirit.”" Breath is an imperceptible expiration ; therefore, Christ breathed on his apostles, and said, “ Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” ® Some gales of western winds, in the spring, make the earth glad with their gentle blast, and open the buds and flowers : so there is a breath of omnipotent virtue, which fans the heart that was hot in sin, with its coolness, which carries away the caterpillars that eat up the tender leaf of our first greenness : which widens our blossoms to make their expectation show itself openly : which perfume the evil scents of scandals that annoy us, as it is express to that intent in the mystical song. “ Awake, thou north wind ; and come, thou south ; and blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.” I bring the case again to be examined : Is no witness so competent to depose for truth, unless it be sensible, and chiefly discerned by the eye ? then what ail all sects of philosophers to say, “ That the sun, and all the stars above, work upon these bodies below by heat and light, and likewise by influence ?” An invisible virtue that doth enter into the production of many effects ; which seems to have God’s approbation with his own voice, who mentions there “ the sweet influences of Pleiades, and the bands of Orion.” *1 And can the constellations of the firmament drop down good upon minerals and plants, upon man and beast, and by a secret derivation ? What an error, or rather what a madness, is it then, to scruple whether he that made the heavens, can dart celestial beams into man’s soul, without a sensible perception! And this is all I will say more unto it; Is not the soul of man above a material appre- hension ? Pliny, or Galen, or whosoever unadvisedly deny the immortality of it, will yield there is a soul in our composition, that holds all the parts of the body together, and moves and acts in them ; yet they can as soon take a pencil, and paint an echo, as describe the intelligible nature of a soul, by species drawn out in our sensitive fancy. Therefore, it concerns us, in maintenance of the dignity of oiir own nature, to say, that the Spirit of God can inform our soul, as well as our soul can inform our body. I know not what temptation may rise to gainsay the truth, that the soul is known by her powers and operations, that it justifies itself to be an immaterial substance, a spark kindled in us by God from reason, and will, and memory. But what evidence is there that there is a Divine cause that worketh in, and is more than, these natural faculties ? It is requisite to work close unto this question : and I answer, first, because the bounds of nature are known, beyond which, nature cannot reach forth itself : as it works in its own sphere to preserve itself in being, and in well-being, in health, in wealth, in fame and glory, in extending ourselves unto ages to come by leaving a posterity, in preserving our country where we are born, and the like. But to have our conversation in heaven, at this present in heaven, to ascend thither in our desires, and in the tendencies of all our actions, to aspire to live in blessedness for ever, to long to be at that rest, where there is no sin ; to look for a church which hath neither spot nor wrinkle : this could not enter into us to prosecute it all industriously, constantly, cheerfully, but by a supernatural elevation far above the vigour of a soul pressed down by a corruptible body, that is, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Secondly; I feel the pulse of that Divine Spirit beating in me, by “ delighting in tribulations” for Christ’s sake, and “taking pleasure in infirmities” upon the same score.*^ And again, “ I am filled with consolation, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulations.” ® An obstinate pagan might arm himself with patience and resolution, to vex his persecutors, and rather fall into them, than decline them, out of spite and contumacy. But self-love being spun out of our bowels, bred in the bone ; who could rejoice to endure anguish upon anguish, that God might be glorified, but by strength which we are not born unto, but which is given us because we are born again of the Spirit ? Go farther yet. How much is the content of a natural man laid aside, when a good Christian in his deliberate thoughts sometimes prays to have the rebellions of his heart kept under by some expedient cross ? wisheth for wholesome correction to beat down the rankness of his sins ? expects God’s fan to winnow the chaff from the wheat ? For he knows that as too much light dazzles the eyes, so too much prosperity surfeits the mind. Therefore, a good practitioner in repentance perceives there is no better way to bring him in from his wanderings, than to be scourged home with the gentle hand of God. To which, some expositors say, the spouse alludes, (reading one word as it is right in our margin,) “ Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have puffed me up.’”- If we be puffed up, it is time to pray that the eye of God’s outward mercy be for a little turned from us. But where had nature learned that lesson, if the Holy Ghost had never taught it ? 1 Cor. iii. 16. " John iii. 8. " John xx. 22. p Cant. iv. 16. i Job xxxviii. 31. 2 Cor. xii. 10. * 2 Cor. vii. 4. t Cant. vi. 5. g 2 4 XXXI V COMFORTS FLOWING FROM THE Chap. Ilf. Thirdly; as the apostle says, “No man hates his own flesh.” Every man, not overcome with a frenzy of melancholy, loves his own being, and would preserve his life. The devil, that cannot die, knows how loth we are to die : “ All that a man hath, will he give for his life.” " But how many saints have undergone, how^ many more are willing to undergo the fiery trial, and offer up their bodies for the testimony of the Lord Jesus! not to be cried up in popularity; not to be enrolled in the fame of a history, as there was such a sprinkling among the heathen. But they have died like lambs in the midst of wolves, when they have been hated, and evil spoken of in excess, because they would die for the truth of the gospel, which their prosecutors accounted to be blasphemy against the gods which they worshipped. If parents, or wives, or children, hung upon their arms, and besought them with tears to spare them- selves, they threw them off as Christ did Peter, “ Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence unto me.” ^ To see a martyr at the point of death feel no horror in his fleshly nature, but to be raised up as high as the third heavens with zeal ; what human power could bring him to it ? nothing but the Holy Ghost did, as I may say, lure his soul out of the body, with the bait of a crown of glory. Fourthly ; “ The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, goodness, faith, temperance,” y &c. Is not the tree known by the fruit ? Such a cluster hanging all together, growing constantly, and being fair and sound, (Tota, in toto tempore, cum toto corde,) it is not possible they should grow like a bulrush out of the mud of corrupt nature. “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost,” that is, say it effectually, and from true allegiance to serve him as a Lord ; for else Christ will say, “ Why call you me Lord, Lord, and do not the thing which I say ? ” This is the Spirit that acts not only in prophecies and miraculous gifts, but in every child of God. Even in the Old Testament, “ Thou gavest thy good Spirit to instruct them :” ^ “ them,” that is, those that were led out of Egypt by Moses, and hearkened to him. And much more in the state of the New Testament ; “ The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.” ® This might be extended into a great length, that the Holy Ghost is the Comforter, called so by appropriation, though it belong to every person of the Holy Trinity, and is well expressed in the first Divine Song, which is printed before the Psalms of David in metre ; “ Thou art the very Comforter In all woe and distress ; The heavenly gift of God most high. Which no tongue can express.” This is “ the unction, which we have from the Holy One ;” “ the anointing which we have received of him that abideth in you ;”® anointing oil is an oil to cure the sick “ an oil of gladness :”s a foment- ation to mitigate aches and torments in the bones, and in the heart. 2. And can the fruits choose but be answerable to the root ? they must needs partake of it. First, because all that we do to the honour of God, must be done with gladness, willingly, and cheerfully : else it comes not from the spirit of sons, but either from the spirit of bondage, or rather from the spirit of the world. The new disciples received the word gladly, and were baptized.*' They continued with one accord daily in the temple, “ with gladness, and simplicity of heart.”' “ I was glad when they said unto me. We will go into the house of the Lord.” ^ “Sing psalms, make a joyful noise unto God.” * “ Let us come with assurance in our supplications that we shall be heard praying with faith in the Holy Ghost.”*" “ And then the prayer of the upright shall be God’s delight ;” " and why God’s delight, but because his servants delight in prayer ? “ He that showeth mercy, let him do it with cheerfulness.” " And he that giveth, oflfereth a blemished sacrifice, if he do it grudgingly : “ For God loveth a cheerful giver.” P Not so much but our losses and tribulations must be sustained with gladness. “Thy rod and thy staff do comfort me.” Enter into the combat willingly, and the continuance will be a pleasure. Our consolation aboundeth by Christ : for “ as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.”*^ Therefore the apostles did change the name of a famous disciple, called Joses, into a notion of this theme, and called him Barnabas, which is, being interpreted, “ The son of consolation.” ® The rabbies of the Jew's hold themselves very close to this doctrine, and w'ould have it observed, that “ the merrier the heart is in the Lord, the more capable it is of the Spirit of God partly, because Miriam, when she prophesied of the mighty acts of Jehovah, took a timbrel in her hand and danced:* partly, because that Samuel, after he had anointed Saul to be king over Israel, told Saul, “ Thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming dowm from the high place, with a psaltery, a tabret, a pipe, and a harp ; and they shall prophesy, and the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man.”** More emphatically, when Jehoshaphat called for Elisha to inquire of the Lord ; says Elisha, “ Bring me a minstrel : and it came to pass when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him ;” that by the ravishing strains of music, his mind might be exalted into heavenly contemplations. Which is a great check to that drowsy dul- ness in devotion, which our late reformers have brought in, and have excluded the solemn melody of the organ, and the raptures of warbling and sweet voices out of the cathedral choirs. They that miss that “ Job ii. 4. ^ Matt. xvi. 23. y Gal. v. 22. ^ 1 Cor. xii. 3. “ Luke vi. 46. Nehem. ix. 20. Rom. V. 5. ** 1 John ii. 20. ® Verse 27. ^ James v. 8 Psalm xlv. *’ Acts ii. 41. ‘ Verse 46. Psalm cxxii. J. • Psalm Ixvi. 1. "* Judever. 20. " Prov. xv. 8. ” Rom. xii. 8. >’ 2 Cor. ix. 7. ‘I Psalm xxiii. 4. '' 2 Cor. i. 7. ® Acts iv. 36. * Exod. xv. 20. “ 1 Sam. x. 5, 6. 2 Kings iii. 15, Chap. III. SANCTIFICATION OP THE SPIRIT, &c. Ixxxv harmony, can best tell how it was wont to raise up their spirit, and, as it were, to carry it out of them to the choir in heaven. And beside, cheerfulness is not only an adjunct, or companion with all the works of grace, in that time they are bringing forth; but being done and finished, that which is “post nate,” the after-birth, as I may call it, comes with such a gleam gliding over all the soul, with such serenity and peace of mind as cannot be expressed ; our conscience bearing us witness that we have been conversant in doing the pleasure of the Lord, as it is, “ For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, we have had our conversation in the world.” y Here I shall find work to heal the broken in heart, w'ho look upon the fruits of their lives with no content in themselves, but are unsolaced, and cast down, because neither in number nor in weight have they brought in that which the Lord required : they look on their ways, and they find them crooked : they look on their heart, and they find it is not constant to good purposes. To whom I re- join ; if this proceed from penitence, from quick sense of sin, from humility, which is opposite to a self-justifying, they have cause to praise God, that they are thus affected. Let them look narrowly if this gold (for it may prove no worse) be current, when it is brought to the touch-stone ; then they may lift up their eyes, and look cheerfully towards Christ ; for it is no flattery to say, they are under his grace and mercy. Deal clearly, that you are astonished at your frailties, because you think you can never work enough, never shun sin enough ; and though your conscience condemn you, God will afford you equity against the rigour of conscience ; for He that searcheth the heart, “knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit.” ^ We are conceived in sin, and it is so intimate unto us, that we have no promise to be so spiritualized in this life, that we shall not often trespass. “ God hath concluded all in sin, all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.” ^ But it is one thing to fall into sin, another thing to run into it. One thing to be carried away by the passions of it, another to covet, and desire it. One thing to be overtaken in a fault, another thing to abide in it without repentance. And great odds between those that are given over to please themselves in filthiness, and between them that labour and desire to please God, though many times they attain not to perfect that willingness. The scope of the seventh chapter to the Romans, as I apprehend the mind of the apostle, is, to refresh our guilty con- sciences, that a regenerate man is not obnoxious to condemnation, though his flesh, upon some tempta- tions, make him the servant of sin, because still in his mind he serves the law of God. And I am con- firmed in that sense, because without all contradiction he teacheth the like doctrine : “ The flesh and the spirit are contrary one to another, so that we cannot do the thing that we would.” And will the righteous God require more of a sick and feeble servant, than his best endeavour ? Will not Christ accept from us the same that he did from Mary, that broke the box of ointment over his head ; “ She hath done what she could ? ” Let a contrite heart, that would fain be righteous, remem- ber the prayer of Nehemiah ; “Let thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name or the protestation of St. Paul ; “We trust we have a good conscience, in all things, willing to live honestly.” ® But this desire and willingness must be without hypocrisy ; not like iron that is gilded, base metal within, and rich without : it must be steady, industrious, instant to perform. Vehement holy desire is a great degree to perfection in our state ; “ For the beginning of wisdom is the desire of discipline,” ^ but a lazy careless desire is a great token of imperfection. “ The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing;” 8 and again, “ the desire of the slothful killeth him, for his hands refuse to labour ;”^ like vagabonds, that when an officer catcheth them, will feign that they desire a service, and to be set at work : but take them at their word, and they will run away, that they may live in loitering, and upon other men’s labours. St. Paul, provoking both rich and poor to liberality, according to their respective abilities, frames a rule upon that occasion, which is applicable to all good works. “If there be a willing mind, it is accepted according to that which a man hath, and not according to that which he hath not.”* Yea, in some cases, when I desire a good thing, I am at my furthest. I 1 desire the appearance of the Lord Jesus at the great day. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. I can do no more. I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. I must do no more ; for I must not attempt my own dissolution. I wish for the conversion of the Jews to the faith ; I must not compel them. This holds in a few things. In the most willingness must show some practice ; as in the same chapter : “ Now, therefore, perform the doing of it : that as there was a readiness to will, so there may ; be a performance also of that which you have.” ** But to desire to do, and to do little, is a sign that (l there was little desire. This hath overthrown many, that they desire not to reach high. But we know that God gives his grace by talents, and notin petty sums, yet a lukewarm professor can be content i with mites. Could such a one get a moderate competency of righteousness, knowing that “ witliout holiness no man shall see God,” then he would sit down, and let others strive, if they like it, to be tallest cedars in the house of the Lord. There are many such indifferent disciples, that would be always babes, and never come to a manly ; growth ; wrap themselves about with as many fig-leaves as would cover their shame, and think they want no more apparel. These, if they knew what it were to a dram, that would serve them to attain salvation, — they would reach so far if the grace of God would assist them ; but would put themselves to no trouble to purify their body and spirit any further. Here is a pretence of desire to serve God, ■ y 2Cor. i. 12. =5 Rom. viii.27. I Heb. xiii. 18. f Wisd. vi. 17. ‘ Rom. xi. 32. " Prov. xiii. 4. Gal. V. 17. Mark xiv. 8. Nehemiah i. 11. Prov. xxi. 25. ' 2 Cor. viii. 12. ^ Verse IL Ixxxvi PRAYER IS THE GREAT INSTRUMENT Chap, IV. but with so much laziness, with so much lethargy, that the Lord disdains it as dead carrion. He would serve God, and he would serve mammon. He approves much prayer, but he cannot attend it. He would not for all the world but be a Christian ; yet a small share in profit, or a snap at a little pleasure, will pervert him to be a dishonest Christian. But real and holy desire stands up for much, though it can- not do so much honour to God as he would : like the disease “ ephialtes,” that oppresseth us in the night, between sleeping and waking, we would turn to the other side of the bed, and cannot. But to shake olf this “ incubus,” it listens after all the noble exploits that the saints of God have done, and would exactly follow them ; or, if it were possible, run before them : if not, it will be heartily sorry that frailty makes it come short of the best. It would compound for no less than to pay all, if it were able. Then you shall find the heart pant often with these inward yearnings : “ Sweet Saviour, should any of thy servants love thee better than I ? should any of thy disciples be more obedient than I ? No, Lord : for none of thine are so much indebted to thy passion, because none had so many sins to be for- given. How amiable are thy commandments, 0 Lord of hosts ! my soul thirsteth to be the nearest of them that shall stand before the presence of the living God. Lord, let me love thee as Peter did ; Lord, let me love thee more than these !” So I have revealed the first comforts flowing from the Holy Ghost, by his inhabitation and inward testimony : and the next comforts by the fruits of righteousness, and those sincere desires of godliness, which, by Christ’s merciful interpretation, supply our failings. All which I conclude out of our church- song made to the Holy Ghost. “ Visit our minds, and into us Thy heavenly grace inspire, That in all truth and godliness We may have true desire.” CHAPTER IV. Prayer is the "reat Instrument of a Christianas Comfm't. Concerning Prayer, three things to be considered ; I. The Substance or Matter of Prayer, in three Heads ; 1 . Thanksgivings ; “2. Suppli- cations ; 3. Intercessions : II. The Qualif cations of them that pray : III. The Fitness of Time for Prayer. The order laid down in the beginning, carries me to the fourth part of Christian consolation, — the heavenly delight of prayer. It is the lively expression of faith, the ambassador which hope sends to God, the comfort of love, the fellowship of the Spirit, our advocate unto our Advocate Christ Jesus ; our incense, whose smoke ascends up, and is sweet in the nostrils of the Most High; which promiseth such abundant success, that humility had rather conceive than utter it, lest we should seem to boast. A lowly supplicant to God never rose up from his knees, without some stirrings of gracious expectation, nor without a prophetical instinct that the mercy of the J^ord was nigh at hand. Which fortunate presage Isaiah confirms unto us,^ “ I will make them joyful in my house of prayer.” And how readily may we use this mighty ordinance of God ! how soon it may be done, if we have a mind to it ! What freedom have we (no man can deny it) to utter a brief prayer, and very often, if we will, in the greatest toil and business! “The tongue of the stammerer shall be ready to speak elegantly.”’’ It is so facile a part of religion, as he that hath a tongue can scarce miss it. It is as easy to say, “ Our Father, which art in heaven,” as to see heaven, which is always in our eye. Every sect of pagans and idolaters were taught by instinct to fly unto it “ex tempore ;” as the heathen mariners cried every man to his god.® An atheist, falling into a sudden danger, as suppose a pistol were put to his breast, would cry out as soon to God to help him as any true believer. And he that, upon deliberation, did say there was no God, will break out into a confession, before he is aware, that there is a God, by natural impulsion. A poor whelp hath found a way to lick its own sores whole with its tongue ; so when we are oppressed with misery, whether the evil of sin or the evil of punishment, we are prompted, by the natural notions of our soul, to lick the sore with our tongue; that is, to call for help from heaven. That soul which God did breathe into man, cannot shake oflf this principle, — that all succour comes from above, for which it must breathe out itself unto God. No creature among beasts but, being smitten, will fall upon : the way to relieve itself, except a blind, incogitant sinner. Such as have written upon their sagacity i in that kind, tell us, that the fishes in the fresh water, being struck with a tool of iron, will rub them- selves upon the glutinous skin of the tench to be cured. The hart, wounded with an arrow, runs to the herb dittany to bite it, that the shaft may fall out that stuck in his body. The swallow will seek i out the green tetterwort, to recover the eyes of her young ones, when they are blinded. Only a stupid j sinner forgets how to redintegrate his miserable estate, by throwing himself down prostrate before God j " Chap. Ivi. 7. ^ Isaiah xxxii. 4. Jonah i. 5. j Chap. IV. OF A CHRISTIAN’S COMFORT. Ixxxvii in humble petition. He walks forward, lost to liimself, lost to his right wits, because lie hath no knowledge, or no good opinion, of the comfort of prayer. Which is my purpose to make him learn, by that which follows, looking upon, I. The substance or matter of prayer : II. The (pialificalion of him that prayeth : and. III. The fitness of time when prayer is to be made. I. The “ matter of prayer” is as copious as all occasions that can be named; it will suffice for my purpose to treat of three heads : “ Glorifications v.'ith thanksgivings. Supplications, and Intercessions.” 1. The first is bent to magnify the Almighty, to extol his name, to praise him for his goodness. This is the Hallelujah of David, and of the saints in heaven; that is. Give glory to Jah, or the great Jehovah; which is followed with a rare variety in the song of the three children : “ () all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise him, and magnify him for ever!” It is a ditty that is balsamed all over with a profusion of delight, to praise God from all things that he hath made, from the centre of the earth to the top of heaven. And this is most divinely expressed in that which is called St. Ambrose’s hymn in our common prayer: “We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.” And let the servant of God that will listen to me, repeat it often and often : for it is a piece of devotion so sweetly spread out into the branches of heavenly praise, confession of faith, and devout petitions, that the like did never come forth since the time it was penned. Let me speak to others out of the sense of my own heart, and I may safely profess, that in the service and w orship of God, I find nothing so delightful as to continue in the praise and honour of the Lord. If another contradict it, and say, that there are some means more aptly calculated, as I may speak, for the high meridian of comfort; he is he, and I am I, and I appeal from him to myself, what I find in my own motions and feelings. And “ what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him ? ” ^ And observe that in the prudent institution of our church, to hold forth the consolation we have in Christ, after the participation of his body and blood in the blessed sacrament, it teacheth us to break out altogether in a jubilee, “ Glory be to God on high ; we praise thee, we bless thee, we glorify thee,” &c. For when we are full of that holy feast, and have eaten angels’ food, we fall into the tune of angels, and signify immediately, before w^e depart, how much our spirit rejoiceth in God our Saviour. But who knew better the mind of the Lord than the Spirit itself, in those admirable ecstasies of David? “ Sing praises unto God; for it is pleasant.”® “ Sing praises unto our God ; for it is plea- sant, and praise is comely.” ^ “ Sing aloud unto God our strength ; make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.” s Every furrow in the book of the Psalms is sown wfitli such seeds. I know nothing more certain, more constant, to expel the sadness of the world, than to sound out the praises of the Lord as with a trumpet : and when the heart is cast down, it will make it rebound from earth to heaven. This was the wisdom of the holy church throughout all the world, (till distempers put us out of the right way not long since,) to solemnize the praise of our Saviour upon the feast of Christmas, Easter, &c. ; that we might celebrate the great works which God hath done for us, “ with the voice of joy, and praise, and with a multitude that kept holiday.” 0 give thanks unto the Lord, by telling of his mercy and salvation from day to day : Give thanks unto him with cheerfulness, for a joyful and plea- sant thing it is to be thankful. Who is a just man, and fair conditioned, that would not pay a debt, and be exonerated of it ? He that can say he hath paid what he owed, is it not quietness to his mind to be discharged ? It goes further a great deal, and brings more advantage, when we ofler up the sacrifice of retribution, the incense of thanksgiving unto the Lord; for we draw on more benefits, when we declare the good- ness of the Lord upon the receipt of the old. And the gratuitum which God gives, is a thousand-fold greater than the present which w^e bring. This is proposed to them that will fly high from the pin- nacle of the Lord’s prayer, the first petition, “ hallowed be thy name.” 2. Neither let them faint, that stoop low in supplication : for mercy will embrace them on every side. Two things being put together are of much weight: we pray with God’s Spirit, and by his word. He invites us in his word to pray, and he gives the gift with which we pray. “ I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications.”^ Did he pour upon us his grace ? and have we received a commandment, the outward sign of his will? and can we suspect, after all this, that he will put us off, and deny us ? Is his grace given in vain ? or hath he sent his W'ord to delude us ? He hath kindled a fire in our breasts, and it is a heavenly flame that burns within us. “ Lord, though we are vile and despicable, thou canst not despise the acting of thine own Spirit, nor frustrate thine own operations. Or do we come unbidden, when w^e cast ourselves down in thy presence ? Nay, Lord, thou hast beckoned and called us : “ Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden.” Hold fast to these two, and who can forbid us to be comforted ? The Lord bids us pray, and he gives us a heart to pray. For it is not strange to his mercy (perhaps it is strange to man’s conceit) to give us strength to bring forth that obedience, both to will and to do, which himself hath commanded : — as he gave the blessed Virgin strength to bring forth the babe, who was conceived and formed in her womb by the Holy Ghost. This I do the rather enforce, because we can see no comfort in ourselves : therefore, as I derive all the virtue and spirituality that is in prayer, from the efficacy of grace — so I refer all the success to Christ, in whom “ we are blessed with all spiritual blessings.”*' “ Whatsoever ye ask the Father in ^ 1 Cor. ii. 11. e Psalm cxxxv. 3. ^ Psalm cxlvii. 1. a Psalm Ixxxi. 1. Psalm xlii. 4. ’ Zech, xii. 10. ^ Eph. i. 3. Ixxxviii PRAYER IS THE GREAT INSTRUMENT Chap. IV. my name, he will give it.” ^ But he and his Father are one; therefore he says, “ If ye shall ask the Father any thing in my name, I will doit.”"' If we had no better means to God than ourselves and our own merits, there were no hope to speed; nay, our hearts would be as faint and dead as if we heard ourselves denied before we had opened our lips : but we conclude as it is in the most of our col- lects, “ through Christ our Lord.” When we bring that name in the rear, and quote him for our merit and Mediator, then I know' it wdll be w^ell, and that the Lord will hear the petitions of his servants. Should we not put our requests into Christ’s hand to offer them to his Father, Sion might spread forth her complaints, and there would be none to comfort her; and we might remain for ever in that heavy plight. “ I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit W'as overwhelmed.”*^ But if w'e renounce our wu-etched selves, and imagine not the least intrinsical perfection to be in our prayers, do we sail then by the cape of good hope? Yes ; because God is contented to yield upon such ad- dresses. Jacob may w'restle with the angel all night, and protest he will not let him go till he have blessed him. But “ victus est quia voluit:” God “ was overcome, because he would be overcome” of Jacob : he lets us prevail, because he is willing to yield; but there is no strength in us to win, if he would not suffer himself to be vanquished. There is no other person but Christ, in whom the Father (I know not what kind of necessity to call it) cannot but be well pleased ; w'hich made him say before his disciples,® “ Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me, and I know% that thou hearest me always:’’ as it is also,P “ Who in the days of his flesh, W'hen he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, was heard for his piety.” This is the pre-eminence of our High Priest, who is an orator for us all, that the Lord cannot reject his prayers. Therefore, committing our daily orisons to our High Priest, to bear them into the holy of holies before his Father, they are in a sure hand : and “ they that know’^ his name, will put their trust in thee:”^ much more they that know his office perfectly. Wherefore let prayer carry on these considerations wdth it ; that we are invited by God to that duty ; that the Spirit instigates us unto it, and “ helps our infirmities.”*^ That it is presented to the Father by the mediation of the Son; then how canst thou be sad, 0 my soul, and fear to miscarry ? Is not the lot fallen unto thee in a pleasant field? and mayest thou not promise to thyself a very goodly heritage? II. Without all dispute, then, proceed unto prayer, and for a beginning, 1. “ Ask in faith ;”® that is, attribute unto God that he is almighty, and can do above all that we can ask or think : consent to his truth, that he is faithful in his promises : for he that believeth not those, makes God a liar. Acknow- ledge his goodness and mercy through Christ, that he will withhold no good thing from them that live a godly life. Let there be no wavering, no disputing about these attributes of God, lest we be condemned out of our own mouth. So much faith, so much efficacy, so much confidence, so much comfort in prayer. Then will a solicitous Christian reply, “ What will become of me ? I have not that plenitude of faith ; at least, in sundry occasions, I have it not to ascertain myself that I shall prevail with God.” No more had Abraham himself a perfect faith without any flaw. Excellent things are spoken of him, “ who against hope believed in hope ; and that he staggered not at the promise, but was strong in faith.” ^ Yet see how he stooped a little: “ Shall a son be born unto him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sarah that is ninety years old bear? O that Ishmael may live !” " God is not extreme to mark what is done amiss in every convulsion of faith : — which appears,*^ “ I said in my haste, I am cast out of thine eyes : nevertheless, thou heardest the voice of my supplication, when I cried unto thee.” You must be sure that, in general, David subscribed to the power, and truth, and goodness of God : but there was a temptation upon him at that time, in some particular case, in which he distrusted, or doubted that there was no likelihood to prevail. But if there be such a one that says, “ I will pray, but I know I shall be never the better,” he is an infidel, and mocks God: in that bad mind he did well to say, “ he should be never the better ;” for he did usurp a form of godliness, and denied the power thereof. He is the right supplicant, but a very rare one, that hath no staggering or diffidence in his heart, that comes close up to our Saviour’s rule, “ Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”y Yet the Lord will not cast them off, who are but in the next form, and do not resolutely promise success unto themselves in the instant of their present suppli- cations : but bear it thus between faith and doubting, “ whether I shall succeed in this or that, I am not confident, but of this I am most assured, that I shall be the better for my prayers. And I would it were thus and thus, because I conceive it would be best for me : but I am certain it will be better than the best that I can imagine, which the Lord knows to be most expedient.” Another, perhaps, may wrangle himself into an error, and say, “ How do the heathen and the wicked obtain good things, if nothing will prevail with God but the prayer of faith?” Consider that even a pagan and idolater would never pray, but that they have some kind of belief to obtain fruit by their prayers. The king of Nineveh had a solemn fast at the hearing of Jonah’s prophecy ; “ for,” says he, “ who can tell if God will turn, and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?” * None but a lunatic would ask for relief from them, that hath neither knowledge of his case, nor power to redress it. — “ 0, but the prayers of such are not grounded on the faith that we speak of.” It is true, ' John XV. 16. John xiv. 14. " Psalm Ixxvii. 3. " John xi, 41. p Heb. v. 7. ^ Psalm ix. 10. f Kom. viii. '26. James i. 6. * Rom. iv. 20. " Gen. xvii. 18. Psalm xxxi. 22. Mark xi. 24. * Jonah iii. 9. Chap. IV. OF A CHRISTIAN’S COMFORT. Ixxxix such a faith as possessed idolaters, is not that which impetrates mercy from God. Then I say, nei- ther Jews, nor Mahometans, nor wicked men, get any thing by that prayer, to w'hich the promise is made, “ Ask, and ye shall have.” For whether they pray or not, all that they obtain had come to pass, though they had held their peace. It is for our sins, and to scourge us, that they have kingdoms, and victories ; it is not their motley faith that did purchase them. And for all manner of store and plenty that the earth yields to them, it is hut as God gives fodder to the cattle, and meat to the young ravens that call upon him. 2. The prayer of faith, then, is only available, but out of the mouth of an humble suitor. For who will give an alms to a proud beggar ? “ Thus saith the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity ; I dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” ^ Let the comparison between the publican and the Pharisee remain for ever in our memory.^ The prayer of the poor destitute, the contrite, the penitent, the bleeding heart, is a sacrifice well seasoned with the salt of anguish and misery. Away with high looks and high words. “Lord, thou dost hear the desire of the humble, and dost prepare their heart.” And “ God comforteth those that are cast down.” Put yourself back, who art but dust and ashes, in a great distance from the Lord, that you may behold him the better in his infinite greatness. And a lowly heart will never spare to deject the body. “ 0 come, let us worship and fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker.” Solomon prayed upon his knees so did Daniel so did Peter, when messengers came to him from Cornelius ; s so St. Paul : “ For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus.” ^ And not only men upon earth, but the glorious spirits in heaven, cast themselves and their crowns down before him that sitteth on the throne.* Nay, the Son of God feU down upon his knees, and prayed unto his Father. And fasting, which is a pregnant circumstance of humiliation, was much in use with prayer ; the instances are innumerous, to signify we had no part in any comfort, nor any delight in the creatures, till we were reconciled to the Lord. So was sackcloth used ; and all apparel of beauty, all ornaments of riches and pride, were put off for that time. Let them be no more than outward circumstances ; yet they are significant. But that which is a sure companion, and most intimate to humility in prayer, is patience. It breaks not away in a pet, because it is not answered at the first or second asking : that is disdainful and arrogant. It holds on, and attends, and cries till the throat is dry ; “ I waited patiently for the Lord.” ^ And there must be “ patient continuance in them that seek for glory and immortality.” "* Faith is the foundation of prayer: and, to continue the metaphor, patience is the roof. The winds blow: look to the foundation, or the building will fall. Rain and storms will descend : but if they light upon a roof that is close and compact, they run aside, and are cast upon the ground. He that expects God’s pleasure from day to day, will neither faint nor fret, that his suit hangs long in the court of requests : such storms as proceed from murmuring, cannot beat through a solid roof. Says Habakkuk," A great thing will the Lord bring to pass, but not presently, says the Lord : “the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come.” Man}^ diseases will never be cured well, unless they be long a curing ; and many deliverances will never be thoroughly settled, unless they be long a preparing ; and many mercies are hid, like seed in the ground, and will be long a growing. I give God thanks that every blessing of worldly comfort that I prayed for, the longer I was kept from it, and the more I prayed for it, I found it the greater in the end. Observe that there is nothing of moment, yea, be it of lesser and vulgar size, with which the provi- dence of God hath not interwoven a thousand things to be despatched with it, which require time, perhaps seven years, to finish them. Expect, therefore, from the Divine wisdom, to do all things in their order ; and give honour to the supreme Majesty to wait his leisure. “ For yet a little, and he that shall come, will come, and will not tarry.” ® 3. The third thing which gives assurance of comfort to prayer, is, zeal, devotion, fervency, which will pluck on patience further and further. For he that is zealous in any thing will not easily give over till he have brought his ends to pass. Zeal is a continual and an earnest supplicant, it prays “ without ceasing ;”P prays “exceedingly;”*! asks with confidence, seeks with diligence, knocks with perseverance. A swarm of bees, that is, many thousands, must gather into a hive to fill it with honeycombs : and a swarm of prayers is sweeter before the Lord than the honey and the honeycomb. Likewise, it is as vehement as it is assiduous, “labouring fervently for you in prayers.’”^ Stir up your wit, and diligence, and memory, and meditations, when you come to spread out your wants before your Father: but if you yawn out your heedless, heartless petitions, you shall depart with discourage- ment ; as it is,® “ O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry with the prayer of thy people ?” The Laodiceans were lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, in the worship of God : therefore, the Spirit said to the angel of that church, “ Be zealous, and repent.” ^ Zeal is defined to be “ a vehement and inflamed love.” There must be an ardour, and a flame in prayer, as if we would mount it up like fire ^ Isaiah Ivii, 15. ^ Luke xviii. Psalm x. 17. 2 Cor. vii. 6. ® 2 Chron. vi. 13. f Chap, vi. Acts X. h Ephes. iii. 14. > Rev. iv. Lukexxii. 14. * Psalm xl. 1. Rom. ii. 7. " Habak. ii. 3. " Heb. X. 37. p 1 l^hess, v. 17. 'i 1 Thess. iii. 10. Coloss. iv. 12. ® Psalm Ixxx. 4. * Rev. iii. 19. xc PRAYER IS THE GREAT INSTRUMENT Chap. IV. to heaven. Then we may say, that a seraphim hath laid a coal from the altar upon our mouth, and touched our lips.“ Zeal takes away the soul for a time, and carries it far above us. I write to them that have felt it, that it darts a man’s spirit out of him, like an arrow out of a bow. This is it which infallibly begets hope, comfort, patience, all in a sheaf, — as they are divinely put together:^ “Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer.” The transportment of zeal will excuse, or rather commend some ejaculations of prayer, which seem to be too bold with God ; as, “ How long wilt thou turn away thy face from us, O Lord ? and forgettest our misery and trouble.”y So, “ Why shouldest thou be as a man asleep ? and as a mighty man that cannot save ns And we do but follow our Saviour’s pattern in it upon the cross, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?” Tell not a troubled heart that is in anguish, tell it not of modesty : it is a compliment it will not be tied to. The Shunamite, swallowed up in sorrow for the loss of her child, runs to mount Carmel to Elisha, and before she said any thing, she caught him fast by the feet. Gehazi thought it irreverent and imwomanlike behaviour, and laid hold to thrust her away : “ Let her alone,” says the prophet, “ for her soul is vexed within her.”^ The passions of an afflicted soul have much indulgence to break out far. They are not in good compass, till vehemency of zeal carry them beyond ordinary rule and fashion. Mary Magdalen did more than this the first time she came to our Saviour she came into a strange house without leave and admittance ; into the house of a Pharisee, and those hypocrites would not admit suspected sinners : she takes opportunity to come at dinner-time, being a guest unbidden : she gives no salutation to the company, but falls down at our Saviour’s feet, and lays her kisses thick upon them : says a holy writer to it, — it is Gregory the Great, — “Hast thou no forehead, woman? hath modesty quite left thee?” And he answers himself, “ Minime, pudor intus erat;” “ that which she was ashamed of, was within her;” she was so ashamed of her sins, that she forgat all other shamefacedness. You see that zeal will pardon boldness, and will give authority to prayer to expostulate with God, and hath a toleration, as it were, to quarrel with his mercy. Now a Christian, sensible of many imperfections, will cry out, “ O that I could attain to some degrees of zeal ! I am no Shunamite, no Mary Magdalen, no Paul, fervent in spirit. I am carried away with ' distractions, when I speak unto the Lord in prayer; and through the multitude of various thoughts, I . forget what I am about.” 0 Christ, help our frailties, and keep our minds fixed upon thee, when we ■ ask any thing in thy name. One body cannot be in two places at once : and one heart cannot be in | heaven and earth together. 0 let us cover our faces with the wings of the cherubims,'^ that we may not see enticements to distract us. Watch and pray : watch this wandering heart, that it may not be , stolen away by fancies, that move in our mind continually, like motes in the beams of the sun. Defy i Satan, and bid him abandon. As they that have committed a robbery, run away from a hue and cry, — ^ so the devil will run away from the noise of your supplications, when you challenge him for sacrilege, that he hath robbed you of your devotion. ' To do more yet, I will assay to prescribe a remedy to a disease, I fear, not quite to be cured. But first feel your own pulse, and your fitness for the heavenly work of prayer, before you begin it. See ! that you be not drowsy and slothful ; for a sluggard will be encumbered with various and recurrent | thoughts. Neither would I have you to protract prayer to that length, which otherwise you would | have done, when your mind and devotion fail you. Short and pithy prayers, collects well filled with < words and matter, and not protracted till they may be censured for babbling, are more prevalent with God, j when zeal doth manage them, than to spend out time without a fervent and well fixed intention. The j prayers of the great men in Scripture are compendious, they are strong in sense, and speak home. A j rose is sweeter in the bud, than in the blown flower : and what you abate at one time, in length, to ' | anticipate distraction, you may fill up the measure when you will, by using them the oftener. I have ! known some servants of God, very circumspect in their ways, that use, for the most part, to read their > prayers either printed or written, that seeing the matter of them before their eyes, they might the better contain themselves from all extravagancies. To which end, it is prescribed in the church of„; Rome, though a priest can say the mass by heart, yet he must read it out of his book, to keep the ■ closer to the intention of his duty. But when all is said, happy are they that offend least in this kind : for all offend. > And whom can we blame but ourselves, that are remiss, and not half so earnest as we should be, to ] I prevail with God ? Which I demonstrate thus : let there be any thing in our prayers, which we are - f more eagerly set upon to obtain than all the rest, we will never start aside, nor run out of our circle i when we come to that petition. “ Animus est ubi amat,” “ The mind is with that, and in that which | it loves.” If we did long for every member of our prayer, as much as for that special thing, which we did so eminently desire, we would continue, from the beginning to the end of prayer, with little or j no diversion. I This bottom is not wound up till I give a warning to zeal, as it is,^^ “ It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing.” Look that your petitions be modelled into such things, as the word f and Spirit do appoint, and stir you up to ask, and “ you shall not be ashamed of your sacrifice.”® But | ■J Isaiah vi. 7. Rom. xii. 11, 12. r Psalm xliv. ^ Jer. xiv. 9. ® 2 Kings iv, 27. f Luke vii 37. '' Isaiah vi. 2. Gal. v. 13. ® Hos. iv. 19. Chap. IV. OF A CHRISTIAN’S COMFORT. XCI if you be frivolous, the prophet will tell you again, “ Ye have sown the wind, and ye shall reap the w'hirlwind.” ^ Or the apostle tells you plainly, “Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” ^ Ask for the kingdom of heaven, for the maintenance of God’s glory, for newness of life, and obedience to the will of God ; ask for pardon of sins in Christ Jesus, for grace in the Holy Ghost to resist temptations; ask our offended Father for mercy, to be delivered from the wrath which we have deserved : and let the seventh part of our prayer be for the things of this life, and for them with moderation, according to that port and person which we bear in the world, and be content with the portion allotted to you : aim by this level, and you hit the mark. What mighty blessings did fall upon Solomon, because he desired not the advantages of pomp and luxury, when God put it to him in a dream what to ask ! He desired an understanding and a wise heart : and “ the speech pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing.” 3. Intercessions, that is, prayers wherein we meditate to God for others, must now be thought of, and the comfort redounding from them. The duty is strictly commanded, to pray for one another.^ And, “ I will that intercessions be made for all men, for kings, and all that are in authority.’^ ^ When we do so, we have done what we are bidden : and having done that, albeit we are unprofitable servants to God, we are not uncomfortable to ourselves. For it is the first part of the reward of a good deed, that we can say to our conscience “ we have done it.” Beside, the work of love is delightful to the spirit ; and to help others in our prayers is the largest and widest work of charity, willing to do good to all upon the face of the earth, and stretching forth its hands that the whole world may be better for the calves of our lips. Chiefly commending the whole state of Christ’s church to God’s mercy, yet also (as may be seen in our collect used on Good Friday) not forgetting to remember Christ for Jews, Turks, infidels, heretics, to take from them ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of the word : not only that the sheep of Christ’s pasture might be blessed, but that it might be well with Nero, and such as he, that were the lions who devoured us. This is charity, not only to have communion with all the saints, but compassion for all the world. Therein we follow the footsteps of Christ in his mediatorship, as far as we are able, who hath an “ unchangeable priesthood, and ever lives to make intercession for us.”^ And “ who bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Likewise it is the office of those that have great interest in God’s favour, to bless others with their prayers, as the Lord told Abimelech, king of Gerar, “ Abraham is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live.” ” So he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, and to his two other friends, “ My servant [Job] shall pray for you, for him will I accept.” ° All Israel had been destroyed for worship- ping the calf in Horeb, “ had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath.” P “ "What ! ” says an old writer, “ art thou, Moses, more merciful than God ? art thou more pitiful to the people than he that saves us from all evil ? No,” says he, “ thou art infinite short of the loving-kindness of the Lord ; but he put thy charity to the proof, to see what vehement entreaties thou wouldest make for the deliverance of the nation.” When the same people were like to be overrun by the Philistines, w'hat course did Samuel take ? Says he, “ Gather all Israel to Mizpeh,” (which w’as a proseucha, or place for public prayer,) “and I will pray for you to the Lord.”^ “And yon shall find most victorious success upon it.”*' What comfortable orators are the mighty saints of God! What a safeguard it is unto us all, when they live among us ! “ A wise man is the price and redemption of many fools,” says a heathen : so a mediator that is very dear to God, is a protection not only to the good, but to the wicked that are about him. Have we not cause, then, to pray for the continuance of such, that they may live long to pray for us ? Should Paul need to desire the prayers of the Thessa- lonians or of the Hebrews Could they forget that, which so much concerned their welfare ? Now the worthy servants of the Lord may prevail much one by one : others of the common rank had need to meet by hundreds, and by thousands, in great congregations, that every single man’s prayer may be a drop in a shower, that while every man prays for all, all may pray for every man. So great is the opinion of good consequents from the intercession of God’s servants, that infidels and ungodly, who thought it would be labour in vain to speak to God for themselves, have sued unto the saints on earth to prefer petitions for them. Darius, that worshipped false gods, sent to the Jews at Jerusalem, to “ pray for the life of the king and his sons.”** And they that persecuted Jeremy, besought him, “ Pray for us unto the Lord our God.”^ And Simon Magus turned himself to Peter and the apostles to intercede for him, “ Pray unto the Lord for me, that none of these things which you have spoken come upon me.” ^ This is the sum, that intercession of prayer, whether active or passive, whether it be to give or to receive a blessing, is exceeding full of consolation. 2. To go in order to the next head ; Who they be that shall get benefit and comfort by prayer, is quickly defined. We know that “ all things work together for good to them that love God;”^ — to none other, you may be sure. He that doth not truly call the God of heaven his Father, as Christ begins his prayer, — shall have no share in the portion of sons. .We may intercede for profane and impenitent men, and our prayer shall return into our own bosom. But while they remain such, the mercies of the Ijord will be strange unto them. They are not of the body of the mystical church, and all the fresh * Hos. viii. 7. Isaiah liii. 12. * 1 Thess. V. 25. 8 James iv. 3. " Gen. XX. 7. * Chap. xiii. 18. '' 1 Kings iii. 10. "Job xlii. 8, 9. " Ezra i. 10. ‘ James v. 16. 1 Tim. ii. 1. ’ Heb. vii. 25. P Psalm cvi. 23. ^ 1 Sam. vii. 5. ’’ Verse 10. Jer. xlii. 20. >' Acts viii. 24. Rom. viii. 28. X XCll PRAYER IS THE GREAT INSTRUMENT Chap. IV. springs are derived unto them that are within the sanctuary. While the Jews continued under the hardness of their heart, God discharged the prophet for appearing in their behalf : “ Pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me, for I will not hear thee.”'^ And with no less, or rather more severity,^ “ Though these three men, Noah, Job, and Daniel, were in the land, they should deliver none but their own souls.” And if the wicked commence a suit in their own name, the Lord will not be entreated of them. What have they to do with holy ordinances, that have no fellowship with holy practices ? To come before the Lord with a lap full of sins, and a mouth full of prayers, what an heterogeneal sacrifice is it ! Will the Mediator, Christ Jesus, bring it for them before his Father ? “ If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” ® “ And the throne of iniquity shall have no fellowship with thee.” ^ Many in our land, and in our days, pray for the confusion of them that brought all to confusion ; but themselves are in pursuance of notorious crimes, and rebellion against God. They would advance that government, to which we have sworn to be faithful by the oaths of supremacy and allegiance ; but they make no conscience to break their oaths and covenants, which they have made to God. It is not to suppress sin, and tyranny, and injustice, that they are instant with God ; but to be revenged for their own injuries and losses. Their prayers are compounded with such sins as quite mar them. So many a pair of beads have been dropt in corners for the extirpation of the protestant religion. Many a mass hath been said for the good success of Jesuitical treasons. Many a rosary was run over to bring the powder treason to its bloody birth. If they have no better stuff than this in their matins, they had as good pray to devils as to saints. “ I will that men pray, always or every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath.” * Let go wrath, and malice, and bitterness. Holiness becometh the house of prayer, and holiness becometh the mouth of prayer. “ If any man be a worshipper of God, and doth his will, him he heareth.” ^ Do justly, live chastely, give charitably, walk circumspectly, and then pray confidently. “ For I whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in his sight.” § But then will the trembling Christian say, “ Woe is me, for I am a great sinner ; woe is me, for I am filthy, and polluted, and of unclean lips !”^ then how shall I turn me to my God in prayer ? O thou that fullest low upon the earth, oppressed with the burden of thy sins, stand up, and be cheerful before God : none is fit for prayer in the militant church but such an humble sinner. God draws thee, and none but those that are like unto thee, near unto his mercy. Though thy sins do cleave unto thee, be comforted that thou dost not cleave unto thy sins. Elkanah gave a more worthy portion to Hannah, that was barren, but meek and devout, than to Peninnah, that bare him sons and daughters, but was proud and scornful.* God that heard his beloved Son, when he made prayers for sinners ; will hear those sinners that are his sons, when they ask any thing in the name of Christ. 3. Good fruit must be brought forth in a good season, which only remains to be thought upon, and to be added to the consolation of prayer. “ For every thing there is a season, and a time to every pur- pose under the heaven.” ^ But neither days, nor hours, nor seasons, did ever come amiss to faithful prayer. “ Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud, and he shall hear my voice :” ’ which includes all the space of duration ; for all time is included in “ morning, noon, and night.” “ Pray without ceasing.” "* “ Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance.”" Short passes, quick ejections, concise forms and remembrances, holy breathings, prayers like little posies, may be sent forth without number on every occasion, and God will note them in his book. But all that have a care to walk with God, fill their vessels more largely as soon as they rise, before they begin the work of the day, and before they lie down again at night ; which is to observe what the Lord appointed in the Levitical ministry, a morning and an evening lamb to be laid upon the altar. So with them that are not stark irreligious, prayer is the key to open the day, and the bolt to shut in the night. But as the skies drop the early dew and the evening dew upon the grass, — yet it would not spring and grow green by that constant and double falling of the dew, unless some great showers, at certain seasons, did supply the rest ; so the customary devotion of prayer, twice a day, is the falling of the early and the latter dew ; but if you will increase and flourish in the works of grace, empty the great clouds sometimes, and let them fall into a full shower of prayer : choose out the seasons in your own discretion, when prayer shall overflow, like Jordan in the time of harvest. Keep strictly, as much as you are able, to those times of the day, which you have designed to ap- pear in before the Lord : for then you offer up not only your prayers, but the strict observation of set times, which is a double sacrifice, and an evidence that you will not dispense to pretermit that holy work for any avocation. He that refers himself at large to pray, when he is at leisure, gives God the worst of the day; that is, his idle time. I account them prudent, therefore, that are precise in keeping canonical hours of prayer, as they call them, so they pray to God alone, who alone know's their heart : and so they pray “ with the Spirit, and with the understanding;”" that is, in a tongue wherein they know what they say, and understand the language wherein they vent the meditations of the Spirit. Jer. vii. 16. Ezek. xiv. 14. c Psalm Ixvi. 18. ** Psalm xciv. 20. ® 1 Tim. ii. 8. f John ix. 31. 8 1 John iii. 22. Isaiah vi. 5. ' 1 Sam. i. 5. Eccles. iii. 1. ' Psalm Iv. 17. '"1 Thcss. v. 17. " Ephes. vi. 18. 1 Cor. xiv. 15. Chap. IV. OF A CHRISTIAN’S COMFORT. xciii This was the milk that the church of England gave every day out of her breasts, to praise God in common prayer at set hours, before noon and after, in the assemblies of her devout children. How many have rejoiced to hear the chiming of bells to call them together, and would never miss their station! Thus “ Peter and John went together to the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.” P 0, when will these profane days come to an end, that we may again, so orderly, so delight- fully, appear before the living God ? Of one thing the devil hath disappointed us many years past in the time of prayer, which was the night-offices of prayer, called “ vigils,” which are disused, because it was feared they grew incident to scandal and uncleanness. And though they be left off (I believe for good reason) in a concourse of open meeting, yet let not God lose his tribute of prayer, which should be paid him in the still and quiet opportunity of the night. The day is God’s, and the night is God’s ; the darkness and light to him are both alike ; let not so many hours, as run out from our lying down to our rising up again, pass away without any prayer. Says David, “ 0 Lord, I remembered thee in my bed, and meditated on thee in the night-watches.” ^ It seems, while the tabernacle of Moses stood, that the priests did some duties in it all night long.’" “ Bless the Lord, ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord.” The apostle allowed “ widows must continue in supplication and prayers night and day ^ and Anna, the widow-prophetess, “ served God with fasting and prayer night and day.” * The Lord hath foretold that “ he will come as a thief in the night at the great day.” “ Therefore, O Lord, with my soul will I desire thee in the night, and at midnight will I think upon thee, and call unto thee ; that if it shall be this night, even now, when Christ Jesus will come to judge the world, my soul may find mercy from him, and both body and soul may be glorified, and so continue with him for ever. All this about the opportunity of time, shall shut up with one institution of the psalmist : ^ “ Every one that is godly, shall pray unto thee, 0 Lord, in a time that thou mayest be found.” When you find stirrings and impulsions more than ordinary to provoke you to prayer, follow the admonition of the Spirit, and let not such a time slip. You know not whether such a Divine presage may roll in your thoughts again, I make no question but there are some critical moments, wherein God offers more than he will do again, if you neglect him, when he courts you with so great advantage. But now change the case from mine to the whole nation’s, from private to public, then thus I will be peremptory in my resolution : There is no time too late for any Christian that lives, in his single person, to beseech God to be merciful to him ; he may find the same propitiousness that the penitent thief did : but there may be a time too late to save a kingdom or a state from ruin, when the Lord hath decreed the period of it. Therefore, when confusions threaten and begin to peep out, watch them betimes, and let the whole land pray for peace, and let the governors prepare conditions for it, to avert public calamity. If you let tumults and conspiracies grow to a head, it will be in vain to struggle by monthly or weekly humiliations, when our destiny is unavoidable. Plutarch says, that a discontented person challenged the oracle of Delphos, that it never gave a comfortable answer. “ That is your fault,” says the oracle, “ for none of you come to me till your case is past help.” “ Venimus hue lapsis quaesitum oracula rebus,” says the poet, that ever keeps decorum in his verses. Therefore, awake right early : seek the Lord in the first season, that the coarse of misery may not wax too strong and remediless. Otherwise the prophet will say, “ The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come ; Israel shall know it;” y and then whither will ye fly for help to be delivered ? But prevent such dismal tribulations, while it is called to-day : for nothing is more consolatory than seasonable supplication. CHAPTER V. How the Sacraments minister to a Christian’s Comfort. A General Survey of Sacraments. Five Reasons why God ordained two Sacraments under the Gospel. What Comforts flow from the Grace of Baptism. What Comforts flow from the Lard’s Supper. Though by that which hitherto hath been set forth, I trust I may assume, that every one that sets his heart to make use of it, hath drunk well ; yet, as the ruler of the feast said at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, “ I have kept the good,” that is, the best, “ wine until now ^ the water of life in baptism, — the wine that delighteth the spiritual thirst in the Lord’s supper. Other things in the word report unto us what a good land the Lord hath promised to his Israel ; but these two sacraments are Caleb and Joshua, spies that have seen and searched the land, and bring us sensible and sure tidings, that it is a noble land, flowing with milk and honey; by the grapes wffiich they have brought with them, and by their ocular and diligent survey, they yield evident testimony that God hath provided a P Acts iii. 1. <1 Psalm Ixiii. 6. ■■ Psalm cxxxiv. 1, s 1 Tim. v, 5. ^ Luke ii. 37. “ 2 Pet. iii. 10. Psalm xxxii. 6. J’ Hos. ix. 7. “ John ii. 10. XCIV OF SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL. Chap. V. gracious country for us in the kingdom of heaven. To put all my work of consolation into one prospect together, prayer, the best comfortable grace, is married to hope ; the Holy Ghost gives it in marriage ; faith is the priest that joins them together; and the two sacraments are the outward signs, by which they have declared their consent, as it were, by giving and receiving a ring, and by joining of hands. First ; I will treat of sacraments in general : then of each in particular by itself. “ A sacrament being a visible sign of inward grace, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof;” or, more at large, (which compriseth the end of all such outward signs,) “ a token to confirm men’s faith in the promises of God — observe first, that God hath condescended above all expression to our weakness, that he would have us to take notice of his mercies in gross and sensible things : a way that is framed to our level and dull apprehension. “ For God is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and truth ;” ^ that is purely a heavenly way. But some alterations have been admitted, to bring us forward in our own pace, that is, after human and bodily fancies. “ Dens quandoque infantilia loquitur!” for our sakes, the Lord speaks in the Scriptures in a plain and vulgar emphasis, strangely beneath his infinite wisdom : as a nurse useth to babble to her infant, so he is pleased to give himself to our hands, to our eyes, to our taste, in common and obvious matter, but out of his surpassing wisdom, to make us more spiritual, by clothing religion in a bodily attire. The church began in innocency, and yet it began with a sacrament, the Tree of Life, — instituted to keep mankind on earth immortal by tasting it, if Adam had not ambitiously eaten of the tree of knowledge. When the old world was drowned, and repaired again, God told Noah,® “ I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a token of a covenant between me and the earth, that the waters shall no more become a flood, to destroy all the earth.” This is the world’s covenant, and not the church’s ; a covenant to save all the earth from a total deluge. And God is to be perceived, and to be thought of in that sign. The glory of the throne of God was “ as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain ; this was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord ^ and so the same glory is figured in the rainbow.® After this, it being not discovered who did openly and entirely profess the worship of the true God, Abraham was called out of Chaldea, and he and his family were embodied into a church, and received ^ the sign of circumcision, as a mark stamped upon them, to be known to be those whom God had called ; out for his own, and did admonish them “ to circumcise the foreskin of the heart ^ chiefly to imprint into them, that the promised Seed should come from that stock, in whom all nations should be blessed. When Abraham’s seed became a national church, before they could get out of Egypt, the blood of * a lamb was sprinkled upon their doors, with a statute given upon it, that from thenceforth every family, at that time of the year, should give account for a lamb slain, and be eaten within their houses, till John Baptist’s Lamb was slain to take away the sin of the world. Under the like discipline they were trained up for a while in the wilderness, when Moses set up the , figure of a serpent upon a pole, that they might look upon it, and live, that were stung by serpents. ^ , The author of the Book of Wisdom writes divinely upon it. “That they might be admonished for a ? small season it was a sign of salvation, — and he that turned himself toward it, was not saved by the | thing he saw, but by thee that art the Saviour of the world.” ' Neither are we such perfect men under the New Testament, to be taught only by the words of holiness j and truth, but are received into the covenant of grace, and preserved in it by mysteries signifying won- | derful things to our outward senses, that we may suck, and be satisfied with the church’s “ two breasts of consolation and be filled with the “ two golden pipes, that empty the golden oil out of themselves.” ^ I stand upon the number of “ two,” because they are put together J “ The Israelites were all | baptized in the cloud, did all eat the same spiritual meat, and all drank of the same spiritual drink.” As good account for it is,*" “ By one Spirit w^e are all baptized into one body, and have been all made to drink into one spirit.” Or learn it from St. John;" “Christ came not by water | alone, but by water and blood. And there are three that bear witness, the Spirit,” that is, i the ministry of the gospel, “the w^ater,” that is, baptism, and “the blood,” that is, the Lord’s j supper. I will not promise a precise testimony out of antiquity, which shall say there are j but two sacraments under the gospel, and no more ; but learned men have produced out of the ! fathers as much as amounts unto it, to them that will not be contentious. Justin Martyr,® to the emperor, speaks of these two marks, or professed signs of Christianity, and no other. Tertullian against Marcion,? brings them that are married to baptism and the Lord’s supper. St. Cyprian,'! to | Stephen, “ Then they are sanctified, w'hen they are born again by both sacraments.” St Cyril and St. : Ambrose, writing purposely of sacraments, speak but of two. St. Austin,’" to Januarius, “ Christ hath ; subjected us to a light yoke, to sacraments of the smallest number, easy in observation, excellent in dignity : baptism in the name of the holy Trinity, and the communion of Christ’s body and blood ;” and if any thing else be commanded in Scripture. And many allude to that number from Cant. iv. 5 : ' ® John iv. 24. Gen. ix. Ezek. i, 28. ® Rev. iv. 3. ^ Dent. x. 16. I s Numb. xxi. 9. ’’ Chap. xvi. 6, 7. * Isaiahlxvi.il. ^ Zech. iv. 12. ‘1 Cor. x. 3. 1 Cor. xii. 13. " 1 Epist. v. 6. "2 Apol. p Lib. iii. c. 51. ‘i Lib. ii. ep. 1. Ep. 118. j CllAl'. V. THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. xcv “ Thy breasts are like two young roes that are twins.” Here is a brief survey, how Cod, in all ages, hath communicated with us in sacraments. May the reason of it be discovered ? Nay, “ Who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been his counsellor ? ” ® Yet it is no trespass against the sobriety of wisdom, to ask why Christian religion depends so much upon visible sacraments ? 1. It is to give faith a third manner of corroboration; and a threefold cord is not easily broken. First, God hath promised us all blessings in Christ : Secondly, He gave an oath for it unto Abraham, “ That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation Thirdly, After he had plighted both oath and promise, he hath given us holy signs to confirm it. When God hath both promised and sworn, durst we of ourselves have asked a sign to con- firm it, to make us more believing ? No, truly, we durst not ; for “ an evil and an adulterous generation seeketh after a sign it were a great blemish in faith, if we should appoint God to lend us a crutch to lean upon. But God hath prevented us herein ; and, as we say in the common prayer, “ That which for our unworthiness we durst not ask,” he hath supplied of his own accord, and hath instituted sacred signs, wrapt up in the creatures, of most ordinary use, to make it more easy to lay hold of the hope that is set before us, 2. Secondly ; Every great deliverance in God’s book was accompanied with some outward sign, to make it more comfortable upon so remarkable an impression. As Moses, being appointed to be the captain to lead Israel out of Egypt, was bade to cast his rod before the people, and to let it turn into a serpent, and return unto a rod again ; to make his hand leprous, and whole again in an instant, by put- ting it into his bosom, and by drawing it out. And Moses showed these signs in the sight of the people, and they believed.'^ It would be tedious to recite the stories, of Asa, Hezekiah, Joash, &c. These were persuaded, by the signs of God, that he would visit them with a mighty deliverance. But there is no deliverance like unto that, which is brought to pass for us through the death and bloody passion of Christ. And the two sacraments are the remonstrance of that great salvation, which hath set us free out of the hands of all our enemies. 3. Thirdly ; It is meet that great benefits should be fastened to our memories by a sure nail. There- fore, God distrusting man’s memory, represents his greatest works of mercy in the ordinances of mani- fest signs to prevent forgetfulness. The help of some outward mark doth avail by experience, to bring that to mind that else would have slipt away. As upon occasion, we use to tie a thread about our fingers, or to unloose the gemmal of a ring, to make us mindful of a promise or some weighty business. 4. Fourthly ; Though all our worship must hold its tenure, as it were, “in capite,” from the Spirit, if we hope to have it acceptable to God, yet we are better capable of such worship by the opportunity of material conveyances. Only angels and blessed souls in heaven can serve God in the pure and im- material zeal of their mind. But while we are clothed with flesh, the mind receives all it takes in from bodily objects ; and what passeth in by the pipes of the senses, it is connatural to us to apprehend with more tenacity and fast hold. Finally ; As Christ descended into the womb of his mother, to walk with us upon earth, so God hath vouchsafed to offer his word and promise to us in the creatures of the earth ; setting a seal unto the word, which makes the patent very valid, and of force and comfort. For if a commandment of promise were remarkable, that of honouring our parents, “ the first commandment of promise ” in the second table,-’^ — much more is a seal and sacrament of promise remarkable. Doubt not, then, but as faith is our hand to receive Christ, so the sacraments are, as it were, God’s hand to give him unto us. Being past the general survey of visible sacraments, it is time to enter into the consideration of bap- tism ; which God hath exalted to marvellous virtue and consolation, by his omnipotent appointment. The Jews, that first received it, will teach us, that they expected this new and gracious ceremony upon the coming of Christ. For “ The priests and Levites sent to ask John, Why baptizest thou, if thou be not the Christ?” y &c. It seems they had a tradition, that baptism should come into the church with the Messias ; which they derive, as I take it, from two of the prophets. Isaiah states out a famous praise of Christ’s kingdom ; then it brings in this, “ In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious ; when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Sion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof.” The other place is a plain prophecy of Christ’s kingdom,^ and he thus describes it : “ Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be cleansed from all your filthiness.” John made way unto this sacrament, and it came from heaven; therefore, the “ Pharisees rejected the counsel of God, being not baptized of John.”^ But in the fulness of the gospel Christ confirmed it. For he that made the promise, was the only able person to set the seal to ratify it. Except his admired doctrine and his miracles, all things else about Christ did make no show to outward appearances, so he would go no higher in the institution of an outward sign of cleansing and regeneration, than to bring the people to a river to be washed, or to a vessel of water to be sprinkled. For faith is drawn through these narrow and abject means, that, like himself, have no comeliness “ in specie ;” and when we see them, there is no comeliness that we should desire them.<^ = Rom. .XI, 31. t Heb. vi. 18. “ Exod. iv. 31. * Ephes, vi. 2, y John i. 25. ^ Isaiah iv. 3. a Ezek. xxxvi. 25. “ Luke vii 30. ^ Isaiah liii. 2, XCVl WHAT COMFORTS FLOW FROM Chap. V. Nevertheless, it is fit we should be well taught in the contemplation of the hidden virtue enclosed in baptism, or else we could never think it worth our labour and obedience. Our Common Prayer-Book (a store-house of rare divinity) tells us what is to be expected at that laver for them that come to be baptized. 1. That God hath promised to be the Father of the faithful and of their seed, and will most surely perform and keep his promise with them ; and by this introduction we are incorporated into the holy congregation. Behold, they whom we love above all others by nature, our children, are naturalized to be the citizens of the heavenly kingdom, and enter into it through this door of grace. 2. Secondly; As God did save Noah and his family from perishing by water, and safely led the chil- dren of Israel through the Red sea, while their enemies were drowned; so the millions of the nations whom God hath not given to Christ for his inheritance, are drowned in their own lusts and corruptions. But, O what a privilege it is to be among those few, that are received into the ark of Christ’s church, to be exempted from the common deluge, and to be the faithful seed of Abraham, led through the channel of the sea, and baptized in the cloud, that went along with them, when the armies of the mighty are mightily consumed ! 3. Thirdly ; We may gather out of our church-office for baptism, that the everlasting benediction of heavenly washing affords two comforts : it signifies the blood of Christ to cleanse us “ per modum pretii,” as the price that was paid to ransom us from death ; and the sanctifying of the Holy Spirit to cleanse us, “ per modum habitus,” by his inbeing and celestial infusion : and both are put together in one collect, “that all that are baptized, may receive remission of sins by spiritual regeneration.” “ There is no remission of sin without blood,” ^ says the apostle, meaning the invaluable blood of the Lamb of God.® And the heavenly thing is represented by the visible element of water ; for there must be some aptitude between the sign and the thing signified, else it were not a sacrament ; — that as water washeth away the filth of the body, so the blood of Christ delivereth our souls from the guilt and damnableness of sin. “ The blood of Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” ^ The metaphor of cleansing must have respect to baptismal water. Again, “ Who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood.” ^ Where the Scripture speaks of washing from sin, it must be taken from the water of baptism, figuring the virtue of Christ’s blood, that in the sight of his Father makes us white as snow. The scriptures indeed, strike most upon the other string, and more directly, as “ Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.” “ He saved us by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost ^ and in many other places. Therefore, our liturgy falls most upon the purifying operation of the Spirit, to be shadowed in the outward washing of water. As when it prays, “ Send thy Holy Spirit to these infants, and grant that they may be baptized with water and with the Holy Ghost:” and, “ grant that all that are baptized, may receive the fulness of thy grace.” Spiritual regeneration is that which the gospel hath set forth to be the principal correlative of baptism. O happy it is for us to be born again by water and the Holy Ghost ! For better it were never to be born than not to be born twice. God put a good mind unto us, and reform one great fault in us ; which is, that, our baptism being past over a great while ago, we cast it out of our memory, and meditate but little upon the benefits and comforts of it. We are got into the church, and do in a sort forget how we got in. Whereas the whole life of a Christian man and woman should be a continual reflection how in baptism we entered into covenant with Christ, “ to believe in him, to serve him, to forsake the devil, the vanities of the world, and all sinful desires of the flesh.” Water is a pellucid element to look through it to the bottom : so often look through the sanctified water, to see what Christ hath done for you, and what you have en- gaged to do for Christ. And there is no heart so full of blackness and melancholy, but will recover upon it, and be as fresh in sound health, as if it were filled with marrow and fatness. Well did St Paul put baptism among the principals and foundations of Christian doctrine ; ^ for all the weight of faith, sanctification, and mercy doth lie upon it. Recount this by particulars. 1. The first thought that my soul hath upon it is, that I am no longer a stranger and foreigner, but a fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household of God.' I am no more afar off, but made nigh by the blood of Christ, partaker of the privileges of the church, and called by the new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name,"^ — a Christian. 2. Secondly ; I find that I have gained to have the highest point of faith unfolded to me, which was but darkly discerned in the Old Testament, to confess the Holy Trinity, in which faith I was baptized. For because that mystery was revealed at Christ’s baptism, it goes ever along with this sacrament ; all nations being baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 3. Thirdly ; I observe that my Christian engagement allows me not the liberty of sinning after tne custom of the world ; but oblige th me to the strict discipline of my Lord, to live holily, justly, and soberly, to walk in newness of life, as planted into the likeness of Christ’s death, so to die unto sin ; for “ he that is dead is freed from sin.” " In every thing, and at all times, I must remember what the sureties at the font, called godfathers and godmothers, did promise for me in my name ; which the liturgy of Geneva retains in these words, — “ Do you promise to warn this child to live according to Heb. ix. 22. ® Verse 14. ^ 1 John i. 7. k Rev. i. 5. Ephes. v. 25. ' Titus iii. G. Heb. vi. 2. ' Ephes. ii. 19. Isaiah Ixii. 2. ” Horn. vi. 7. Chap, V. THK SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. xcvn God’s word, and make the law of God the square of his life to live by ?” It is a binding ceremony, and we are brought up from our tender years in the knowledge of it, that we continually may feel the work of the ordinance, to have our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with clean water.® And “as many as are baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.” p To put on Christ, is to follow Christ in the law of a new creature, and to perfect holiness ; without which no man shall see God. 4. Fourthly ; I have assurance that the Spirit is not disjoined from the water ; for God’s word cannot fail, that we shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. “ But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.’’^ The power given to keep the covenant makes it a covenant of grace ; else we shall administer but the letter, and not the spirit. The outward act of man, unless we make ourselves unworthy, is certainly assisted wfith the in- crease of God. If the good effect ensue not, the sacrament doth not want its virtue, but the receiver marred it. Very much is to be ascribed to the word preached : it is a powerful means to convert us, and to save us. “ Take heed unto thy doctrine, for in doing this thou shalt save thyself, and them that hear thee.” ^ And, “ Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth in you.” ® The word disposeth and prepares : God is the efficient cause of our regeneration. Now this sacrament, whether we speak of infants, they are to call to mind how they received the outward seal of grace ; or whether we speak of converts of ripe years, who, at the same time, were taught the virtue of it, it hath reason to work more powerfully and effectually upon their knowledge and affections, than doctrine alone ; because Christ and his benefits are manifested in a sensible operation, which himself did dignify in his own person, at the waters of Jordan, and afterward institute it to be used by his disciples. 5. The fifth thing that I draw from hence, gives me exceeding consolation in Christ, that no man who is made the child of God, is in the damnable state of sin ; therefore, in baptism, being made the adopted child of God, I have obtained the pardon of all sins, original and actual : as Naaman was cured of all his leprosy. “ Who saved us by the washing of regeneration.” ^ “ Be baptized every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins.”“ So Ananias said to Paul, — “ Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins.”* Yea, but some will cavil, “ Infants have not faith ; and God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood : and he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved.” y I will not contend about it, whether baptized infants have a secret imperceptible habit of faith : I am sure there is innocency of life in them instead of faith. They that are of age to come to the knowledge of faith, must bring their own faith with them to the font : but for infants, they have privilege to be in church communion, by the faith of the church wherein they were born. There is another contest made by some, that, “ Notwithstanding baptism, original sin remains in us all the days of our life.” True : the sin is not blotted out in the infant, but it is blotted out of the book of God. And as actual sins are pardoned for Christ’s sake, yet it cannot be brought about that they should never be done, which are done and past, but it is enough that they shall not be imputed : so original sin cleaves unto us ; it is not cast out, for I feel it in me ; but it is remitted. 6. For the complement of this subject, the largest and the longest comfort flowing from the grace of baptism, is, that we are to rely upon the covenant, made between God and us therein, for the remission of all our sins, which we commit after baptism to the end of our life. Far be it from me to say, that it sufficeth us to cast our eyes back to the covenant then made, as if the bare and historical memory of it did suffice to blot out sins ; that is but an empty flash and a vapour of presumption. But this I say, — ^build upon the eternity and infallibility of God’s truth ; and then, by a true and sure grasping faith, joined with repentance, renew yourself in God’s mercies by the promise of the old baptismal covenant. Repentance is a condition never to be omitted to lift us up again, when we have been overtaken with sins. But faith doth not comfort itself in the sincerity of repentance, which in us is ever imperfect, but in Christ’s merits once for all, consigned to us in baptism. For the Scriptures speak indefinitely, that the laver of regeneration purgeth away all our sins ; it doth not speak restrictively of sins past, as if it did operate no longer than in that moment, when the water is sprinkled : for baptism doth now, at the very present time, save us.* And some collect it out of that figurative place,^ “ Every thing where the waters do come, shall live.” After a shower of rain hath fallen, and ceaseth, the grass con- tinues to grow. By grievous and presumptuous sins we debar ourselves from the sense and comfort of the covenant for the present ; yet when we repent, we come not to make a new covenant with God, but to beseech him to be gracious to us for the old covenant’s sake ; as an adulteress, if she be received again, and pardoned by her husband, is not new married, but accepted for a wfife upon the first contract of marriage. Take some examples of those in the New Testament, that sinned against God, and in their return again did not suppose the first covenant of baptism to be abolished, but they comforted themselves that the mercies promised them would hold firm, and not fail them. St. Paul challengeth the Corinthians, ^ that they had been adulterers, effeminate, and much of the like. Yet he speaks thus to them, “ Ye are washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.”® In the same manner he deals with the ® Heb. X. 21, 22. p Gal. iii. 27. i 1 Cor. vi. 11. >• 1 Tim. iv. 15. « i Pet. i. 23. ‘ Tit. iii. 6. « Acts ii. 38. * Acts xxii. 16. y Mark xvi. 16. * ] Pet. iii. 21 * Ezek. xlvii. 9. ^1 Cor. vi. ' Ver. 11. h WHAT COMFORTS FLOW FROM xcvii) Chak V. Galatians, who had embraced much false doctrine, mingled Judaism with the gospel: yet“ as many of you as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” ^ Can any thing equal all these heart-refreshings that swim in the pool of baptism ? Therefore, in many ages past, the joy of the neophytes was exces- sive, that came to be baptized. Many torches were lighted, and carried before them, to show it was the day of their illumination. They came in white garments, and wore them constantly eight days together, — a most festival habit. Yet they affected too much to defer their baptism till their elder, nay, their later years, out of the erroneous principle, that baptism was the healing water for the remission of sins past : and they rather relied upon repentance than upon the baptism which they had received, for the remission of sins that did follow. Whereas repentance is not a new paction with God, but a return to the use of the old ; a restitution, as it were, of our blood, when we had been tainted by com- mitting treason against God ; that is, repossession of mercy endangered to be forfeited. But were it a new covenant, we should have some new visible sign for it, which never was. Therefore, this is the very soul of mine and every one’s baptismal consolation, — that, being once done, it seals pardon for all our sins, through Christ’s blood, unto our life’s end. But as if many spouts should open into one cistern, so all comforts conspire to meet in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. Nothing else but the actual enjoying of heaven is above it. The church, which dispense th all the mysteries of salvation, can bring forth no better. Children that are come to age, can ask no more than the whole portion of their father’s goods that come unto them : and what is that but the blood of Christ ? and this is the New Testament in that blood. Christ is mine, his body is mine, his blood is mine, all is mine. “ O be glad and rejoice, and give honour to the Lord God omnipotent, for the marriage of the Lamb is come.” ® And the Spirit saith, write, “ Blessed are they that are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb.” It is much to be received into the covenant with God by the former sacrament : is it not more to be kept in covenant by the other ? It is much in baptism to be brought from death to life : but what is life without nourishment to preserve it ? This keeps us in the lease of the old covenant, that the years of it shall never run out, and expire. This is food to keep us in health and strength, that we never decay and faint. By it we lay hold of the promise, — “ My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be re- moved, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.” § Then why should I not imbolden my heart with holy security against all fears ? for the Lord hath put himself into my hand, and into my mouth, and into my spirit : of what then should I be afraid ? This is that courage which our liturgy sounds forth, as with a shrill trumpet, to all that come to this banquet well prepared. It begins, that “ it is a com- fortable thing to all them that receive it worthily it bids us “ come with a full trust in God’s mercy, and with a quiet conscience :” it proclaims aloud. Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly come unto him, “ So God loved the world,” &c. “ This is a true saying,” &c. It hath gathered the sallies of spiritual joy, as it were, into a bundle of myrrh. It adds, “ Christ hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries, as pledges of his love, and for a continual remembrance of his death, to our great and endless comfort.” And if all this put together will not blandish our conscience, and stablish our joy, we would be dull and spirit-broken, though an angel from heaven should come and say unto us, as he did unto Gideon, “ The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.”*^ For an angel of the Lord cannot plead so much to the solace of the heart, as the great Angel of the cove- nant hath done in these great demonstrations of love, as followeth. 1. First; As baptism was the former, so this is the second visible publication of God’s apparent mercy. It is not a bare message, but a lively apprehension of them by palpable means: notin a vision, or a dream, but in a real object. Call to mind that the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared unto him twice.* Once the Lord hath appeared unto us in the token of his love by water : and once again he appears unto us in the elements of his holy table. Twice he hath appeared to bless thee. Therefore, “ eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart.”^ For if you turn away from comfort, when the Lord hath appeared twice unto you to give it you, he will be angry, and leave you to a thick darkness of sorrow, such as fell upon the land of Egypt. 2. Secondly ; The Lord can appear comfortably unto us, though with a sword in his hand, and in the midst of a camp, as he did to Joshua :* or, in a flame of fire, as he did to Manoah or, in a tempest upon the sea, as he did to the apostles or, at the grave’s mouth, as he did to Mary Magdalen.® But here he appears unto us in a feast, which is a time of innocent delight. The glory of God, which we look for, is set forth unto us in that which our senses apprehend for sweetness and pleasure : as, “ I appoint unto you a kingdom — that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom :” v which is translated from bodily pleasure to spiritual, that, in the heaven of blessedness, the soul shall feed con- tinually as at a banquet: of which we have now a taste in the kingly provision of Christ’s supper. It is a kingly feast, although imparted in a little pittance of bread and wine : yet it is more costly and precious in that which it signifies, than Solomon and all his court had for their diet day by day.*! We ^ Gal. iii, 27. ® Rev. xix. 7. ^ Ver. 9. 8 Isaiah liv. 10. Judg. vi 12. ' 1 Kings xi, 39. Eccles. ix. 7. ' Josh. v. 13. Judg. xiii. 20. " Matt. xiv. 27. ” John XX. 14. P Luke xxii. 29. i 1 Kings iv. 22. Chap. V. THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD’S SUPPER. XCIX are brought to eat at the king’s table, as Mephibosheth was, like one of the king’s sons;' to eat together is a communion of more than ordinary acquaintance: do you note the endearing favour of God in that? And what are we, that are not thrust, as our kind might look for it, to gather up crumbs under the board, but to eat our portion before the Lord, with the Lord, out of the hands of the Lord ? For he that brake bread, and gave it to the apostles, gives it to us, as our High Priest, though he be in heaven. I exhort you, therefore, to enter into the guest-chamber with a quiet and unshaken heart: for the Lord hath not invited us as Absalom did Amnon, to kill us ; nor as Esther did Haman, to accuse us ; but, as Melchizedec brought forth bread and wine to Abraham, to bless us. He gives us Asher’s portion, bread that shall be fat, and royal dainties.® Only the case is altered, if Christ shall say, “ The hand of him that betrays me, the hand of him that loves me not, the hand of him that believes not in me, the hand of him that will not keep my sayings, is on the table that wretch shall be thrown out, and be fed with bread of sorrow and water of affliction, nay, where there shall not be a drop of water to cool his tongue. 3. Thirdly ; That which astonisheth the communicant and ravisheth his heart, is, that this feast affords no worse meat than the body and blood of our Saviour. Those he gave for the life of the world, these are the repast of this supper, and these we truly partake. For there is not only the visible reception of the outward signs, but an invisible reception of the thing signified. There is far more than a shadow, than a type, than a figure. Christ did not only propose a sign at that hour, but also he gave us a gift, and that gift, really and effectually, is himself, which is all one, as you would say, spiritually himself ; for spiritual union is the most true and real union that can be. That which is promised, and faith takes it, and hath it, is not fiction, fancy, opinion, falsity, but substance and verity. Being strengthened with power, by the Spirit, in the inward mind, Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith. ^ As by a ring, or a meaner instrument of conveyance, a man may be settled in land, or put into an office ; and by such conveyances, the ratification of such grants are held to be real ; how much more real is the gift and receipt of Christ’s body and blood, when conveyed unto us by the confirmation of the eternal Spirit! For observe, “it is the same Spirit that is in Christ, and that is in us, and we are quickened by one and the same Spirit.”" Therefore it cannot choose, but that a real union must follow between Christ and us ; as there is a union between all the parts of the body, by the animation of one soul. But faith is the mouth wherewith we eat his body, and drink his blood ; not the mouth of a man, but of a faithful man ; for we hunger after him, not with a corporeal appetite, but a spiritual ; therefore, our eating must be spiritual, and not corporeal. Yet, this is a real, a substantial partaking of Christ crucified, broken, his flesh bleeding, his wounds gaping ; so he is exhibited, so we are sure we receive him, which doth not only touch our outward senses in the elements, but pass through into the depth of the soul. For, in true divinity, real and spiritual are sequipollent ; although with the papists nothing is real, unless it be corporeal ; which is a gross way to defraud us of the sublime and soul-ravishing virtue of the mystery. “ A mystery neither to be set out in words, nor to be comprehended sufficiently in the mind, but to be adored with faith,” says Calvin.'^ But herein we pledge Christ in the cup of love ; herein we renew the covenant of forgiveness strongly assured by the sprinkling of blood ; the life is in the blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission of sins, — because death is the wages of sin. Sin is the greatest dishonour that can be done to God : and death in Christ’s per- son is the greatest satisfaction that can be made. He died, and gave himself for me ; he died, and gave himself to me, as he was dead in his gored and pierced body, that his sacrifice might be in me, and in all those that are redeemed by it. We read of some mothers, that, in a great famine, have eaten their own children ;y but what mother, in the time of famine, did ever give her own flesh to save the life of her child ? But Christ hath given himself for us, that we might not perish. “ 0 Lord, I owe all my life to thee, because thou hast laid down thy life for me ; 0 let me bleed out my sins, that thy blood may fill all the veins of my spirit ; 0 let my body be transfigured to the heavenly by cleanliness and chastity, by being used only for thy worship and service, that the body of my Saviour may come under the roof of it. Then when the King shall set forth his table, and give himself to me in his wonderful feast, my spikenard shall send forth a sweet smell my soul shall magnify the Lord, and my spirit shall rejoice in Christ my Saviour.” “ We have found the Messias,” says Philip to Nathanael ; and where have we found him ? at a feast : a feast of his own body and blood, but set out with no more cost and show than a piece of bread and a sip of wine. In this manner, it is brought to pass by the omnipotency of God’s pleasure to institute it, with the efflcacy of a strong faith concurring to receive it. The church had done very ill, if, of its own head, it had made so mean a representation of Christ ; but the Lord must be obeyed, and ought to be admired in the humility of his ordinance, who hath not given us rich viands, and full cups, but made the feast out of the fragments of the meanest creatures. Let them that will make themselves fit to be his guests, bring a preparation of humility suitable to the exility of those oblations. “ The meek shall eat and be satisfied, they shall praise the Lord, and seek him and at that season, let the riotous remember his fulness of bread, and excess of wine. God is honoured in a little, and his liberality is abused in the excess of his creatures. And it is worth the noting, that the elements which '■ 2 Sam. ix. 11. s Qgn xlix. 20. ‘ Ephes. iii. 17. " Rom. viii. 11. * Lib. Instit. c. 17. sect. 5. y 2 Kings vi. Cant. i. 12 ® Psalm xxii. 26. h 2 WHAT COMFORTS FLOW FROM Chap. V. we are invited to take, are of fruits that grow out of the earth ; to show that the earth, which was cursed for Adam’s sake, is blessed for Christ’s sake. As it brings forth thorns and thistles to call to mind our rebellion, so it brings forth bread and wine to call to mind our redemption. Neither doth God supply us with bread only out of the furrows of the earth, but sometimes it hath fallen out of the clouds of heaven. “ Behold,” says God, “ I will rain bread from heaven for you.” ^ This was “ manna,” called “ the corn of heaven.” This was the spiritual meat or angels’ food, in which the old believers in the wilderness did eat Christ with an implicit faith. Our outward sign is the bread of the earth, true bread that grows in the fields ; yet the bread signified is that, which the “ Father hath given us from hea- ven.” Bread is a great part of man’s nourishment ; so Christ crucified is the sole refection of faith. Bread is champed in the mouth to make it fit for the stomach ; so the body of Christ was ordained to be slain, before it could profit us. “If the corn of wheat fall not into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” ® By his life we learn to live, and by his death we are made alive. Bread, when it is ground between our teeth, and eaten, is turned by concoction into the substance of our body ; which explains our mystical union with Christ, that we are made one spirit with him by faith, as this sensible food is converted into our flesh and bone. Beside, in the several parts of the outward signs, it is God’s meaning we should conceive how he loves the gathering together of many into one, which is thus to be qualified. At a common supper, or any meal, all that are at the board feed of the same meats ; yet every one feeds to himself, and to none beside : so, every communicant eats Christ to himself, and the just shall live by his own faith. Nevertheless, it is a sacrament to combine, and to knit together, holding us fast into one communion, that there may be no breaking asunder of the parts and members. Many grains of wheat are knead- ed into one loaf, many grapes are trodden, that their liquor may be pressed into one cup. We, being many, are one bread, and one body ; for, “ we are all partakers of that one bread.” ^ Now, natural learning will teach us, what a comfort there is in union, and that fractions and dissolutions are painful and grievous. Behold, how good and pleasant a thing it is ! behold, what a strengthening to the mys- tical body to continue in one fellowship and breaking of bread, to link faith and love together in Jesus Christ ! It was but one deliverance common to all Israel, whose solemnity was kept at the passover, though every lamb was eaten by itself in a several family ; so, it is one cup of salvation which God hath given us to drink, though distributed to the faithful according to the multitude of persons ; and it is one bread of which we do all eat, though some have one share of it, and some another. It is necessary that many pieces be broken off from one loaf, to typify the body of the Lord broken for us, and that the benefits of his passion are distributed among us. There are many instances that are pregnant to prove, how pieces of something, broken and divided into many shares, do import a communication of somewhat among the dividers. The heathen, at the making of a league, did now and then break a flint-stone into pieces ; and they that entered into a league, kept the parts in token of a covenant. Some upon a contract of marriage will break a piece of gold, and the two halves are reserved by the contractors. Shall I go further, and yet come nearest to our case ? The Roman soldiers parted our Saviour’s garment among them, and in that symbolical accident is shown, that the gentiles should share in the satisfaction of his death. So Peter takes this morsel of bread, — John, another, &c. ; yet Christ is not divided. The same ticket, as it were, in words in substance, is put into every hand, on which is written, “ Take and eat it in remembrance of me.” “ Take it,’’ says Christ : and be not afraid, as Saul was, to take a kingdom, since Christ hath appointed it; be not afraid, as David was, to be a king’s son, since such honour is predestinated to thee. Take it, and fear not, as Peter did, saying, “ Depart from me. Lord, for I am a sinful man it is the Lord’s delight to seek and to save that which is lost. Take it, and take heed you let not go your hold ; the thing is fast and firm, if you do not let it go and lose it. Take it, but not to hold the pleasures of the world and your sinful lusts in your gripe together ; if your hands be full of these things, you can never hold this. Take it, and take Christ with it; for he that made the testament in his blood, hath set the seal unto the testament, which gives you interest and possession of the redemption by his blood. Take it, and reach out your hand, to signify that you receive Christ with the hand of faith. They are too nice, for fear of I know not what, in the Roman church, of losing a crumb, or so forth, that they put the body of Christ into the mouth of their disciples : and in pretence that they give it as a mother doth her breast into the mouth of her child ; whereas we receive this sacrament, not as babes, but as those that are grown to the measure of a good age. And if we be not worthy to take it into our hands, we are not worthy to receive it in our mouths. Take it, and eat it ; for it is not enough to be sprinkled without, but to feed on Christ, and to digest him within. If upon the supply of corn, and beasts, and cattle, Paul might say, that “ God hath filled our hearts with food and gladness ;” s if we are glad of that which sustains us for a time, and yet we must die ; how glad will we be to eat of that, as will give us such a life, that will endure for ever ! “ Eat of the forbidden tree,” says the serpent to Eve, “ and you shall not die ;” but he lied unto her. Therefore, to dissolve the works of the devil, our Saviour hath appointed that which we shall eat, and assured the promise of everlasting life unto it. Eat, as Jonathan did of the honey-comb, that you may be lusty to pursue your enemies; and though Satan hath sworn your death, as Saul did Jonathan’s the Lord will deliver you. Pine not away with ^ T=',xod. xvi. 4. ® Psalm Ixxviii. 24. ^ John vi. 31. ® John xii, 24 ^ 1 Cor. x. 17. s Acts xiv. 17. '' 1 Sam. xiv. 44. Chap. V. THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD’S SUPPER. Cl the consumption of an evil conscience ; 'but eat, and be strong in the Lord and in his mercy ; as the spirit of the Egyptian, who was half dead, came to him again, when he had eaten a little.‘ Eat, and grind the bread between your teeth, to show the Lord’s death. For Christ could have said, — “ This is my body slain, — This is my body crucified^' but he had rather say, “ This is my body broken for you to show the great injuries of his sufferings. Eat, then, and remember you eat the body as it was broken ; and remember that you drink the blood, as it flowed out of his wounds. To keep these things in remembrance is the great design of the sacrament; an object which keeps the fancy of the soul waking, that otherwise, it may be, would fall asleep. In the sixth of St. John, Christ preacheth over and over of eating his flesh, and drinking his blood without a sacrament, by the power of faith. But to keep it in fresh and frequent meditation, the Lord hath given us a palpable and signal token, as if he would engrave it upon the palms of our hands, and upon the roofs of our mouths, upon the membranes of our brain, and upon the foreskin of our heart. This is a blessing twice, and twenty times given, because it is given that it may never be forgotten. They that love others, would live in the memory of those they love ; it is because Christ loves us entirely, that he would be remem- bered of us. And no friend will say to another, “ remember me when I am gone,” but that he means reciprocally to remember his friend, to whom he spake it. If you will remember Christ, he will remem- ber you. And the thief on the cross will teach you, that it is good to continue in his memory ; “ Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” 0 blessed Christ ! thou art good, and dost good : thou hast not only provided an invaluable benefit for thy church, but dost put it into our hands, that we may not lose it ; and dost bring it into our eyes by clear ostension, that we may not forget it. We are apt to remember injuries and to forget benefits ; unthankfulness will undo us, if we take not heed of it. 0 rub over your memory, and consider the noble works of the Lord, especially this great work, how he suffered for us unto death. Remember seriously this one thing as you ought, and God will let you forget nothing that will do you good. There is no grievous sin which we incur, but, for the present, Christ is forgotten, as if he had never come to charge us to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. But look upon his wounds which bleed for our transgressions, and it will stanch the flux of sin, and make our hearts bleed, because we have forgotten obedience. In our distresses, our sickness, and losses, we cry out that God hath forgotten us, he hath forgotten to be gracious, and shuts up his loving-kindness in displeasure. But distrust him not ; a mother cannot forget her child, much less such a father. Every tribulation which he inflicts, is but a thorn in our sides to prick us and awake us, because we have forgotten God. And remember the death of Christ, not only casting your eyes back to the large histories of it in the Gospels, as if that would suffice, — but affectedly, practically, zealously ; and then every thing else will come to mind to perfect holiness. When we remember his death, we are sure he is past death, and risen again, now to die no more, and that he is ascended into heaven, and makes intercession for us. We have obtained that faith that we partake in the New Testament of his blood, and that, our names being found in the Testament, we are heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ. The custom of the world will teach us, that an heir is bound to execute the will of the testator, to see every thing performed, that he hath charged and bequeathed. Do your part like a good executor, with a righteous adminis- tration in remembrance of him. But forgetfulness cannot creep upon us, when there is so visible a monument before us to bring it often into our thoughts. Luther says, “ It will help a man more in the study of piety, to meditate profoundly upon Christ’s passion one day, than to read over all the Psalms of David.” A bold comparison : it will, indeed, ravish the soul with trembling, to consider how much Christ loved us, by how much he suffered for us ; it will make us look upon sin with hor- ror, which begat such torment and ignominy to the innocent Lamb of God; it will comfort our weak faith, that he who hath done so great things for us, will not abandon us, — and having subdued our enemies, will not let them renew the battle to overcome us : it will encourage us to lay down our life for him, who hath laid down his life for us. “ My meditation of him shall be sweet, I will be glad in the Lord.”*^ He hath drunk up the cup of sorrow, that I might drink of nothing but the cup of salvation. This is the wine,^ which, being given unto him that hath a heavy heart, confutes all the objections of infidelity, despair, an evil conscience, or whatsoever the tempter can suggest against the hope of my glorification. Says the son of Sirach,™ “ The remembrance of Josias was sweet as honey in all mouths, and as music at a banquet of wine.” If the name of Josias was so precious for restor- ing religion, what melody is there in remembrance of Christ’s name, what music in his banquet, which is the very mercy-seat, from whence the voice of the Lord gives the principal oracles of consolation ! whose definition I have reserved to be the last words of all : “ Consolatio est conveniens unio potenti® cum objecto ;” as our best scholars have it, “ Consolation is convenient union of any faculty with its object.” As when the eye meets with light, it is the comfort of the eye : when the ear meets with harmony, it is the comfort of the ear. What is the most transcendent consolation, therefore, but the union of the soul with God, the best object, in a real and most significative manner, the union of the Spirit with Christ in the sacrament of his holy supper ! To whom be praise, and glory, and thanks- giving. Amen. ' 1 Sam. XXX. 12. Psalm civ. 34. • Prov. xxxi. 6. m Chap. xlix. 1. THE SECOND EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO A NEW AND EASY INSTITUTION OF GRAMMAR, 1647 .^ TO THE MOST HOPEFUL CHRISTOPHER HATTON, ESQUIRE, SON AND HEIR TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD HATTON, OF KIRBY. Sir, All that know the infinite desires and the many cares, my lord your most honoured father hath of your education in learning and exemplary piety, will expound this address to you, as a compliance with those thoughts and designs of his, by which he intends hereafter to represent you to the world, to be a person like himself ; that is, an able instrument of serving God, and promoting the just and religious interests of God’s vicegerent and God’s church. It is yet but early day with you, “ Adhuc tua messis in herbd but if we may conjecture by the most hopeful prognostics of a clear morning, we who are servants and relatives of my lord your father, promise to ourselves the best concerning you : and those are, that you will become such as your honourable father intends you, who had rather secure to you a stock of wisdom than of wealth, or of the most pompous honours. These sadnesses, which cloud many good men at this present, have taught us all, that nothing can secure a happiness or create one, but those inward excellencies, which, like diamonds in the night, sparkle in despite of darkness. And give me leave to tell you this truth, that however nature and the laws of the kingdom may secure you a great fortune, and mark you with the exterior character of honour, — yet your fortune will be but a load of baggage, and your honour an empty gaiety, unless you build and adorn your house as your father does, with the advantages and ornaments of learning, upon the foundation of piety. In order to which give me leave to help you in laying this first stone, which is cut small, and yet according to the strictest rules of art, but with a design justly complying with your end ; for it is contrived with no small brevity, that since you are intended for a long journey, to a great progress of wisdom and knowledge, you may not be stopped at your setting out, but proceed like the sun, whose swiftness is just proportionable to the length of his course. For, sir, you will neither satisfy your honourable father’s care, nor the expectation of your friends, nor the humblest desires of your servants, if you hereafter shall be wise and pious but in the even rank of other men. We expect you to show to the world an argument, and make demonstration whose son you are, that you may be learned even to an example, pious up to a proverb : and unless you excel those bounds, which custom and indevotion hath made to be the term and utmost aim of many of your rank, we shall only say “ you are not vicious, not unlearned;” and what a poor character that will be of you, yourself will be the best judge, when you remember who and what your father is. Sir, this freedom of expression 1 hope you will pardon, when you shall know that it is the sense and desires of one of the heartiest and devoutest of your honoured father’s servants ; who hath had the honour to have so much of his privacies communicated to him, as to be witness of his cares, his sighs, his hopes, and fears concerning you ; and for the advantage and promotion of your best interests. I hope. Sir, that neither this monition, nor the present Institution of the first, but the most necessary, art and instrument of knowledge, will become displeasing to you, especially if you shall accept this testimony from me, that it is done with much care and choice : and though the scene lies in Wales, yet the representment and design is one of the in- stances for Kirby, and that it is the first and the least testimony of the greatest service and affection which can proceed from the greatest aflfections and obligations ; such as are those of, Honoured Sir, Your most obliged and affectionate servant, J. T. * See page v, of the Essay on the Genius and Writings of Jeremy Taylor. THE GREAT EXEMPLAR OF SANCTITY AND HOLY LIFE, ACCORDING TO THE CHRISTIAN INSTITUTION ; DESCRIBED IN THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE EVER-BLESSED JESUS CHRIST, THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD. WITH CONSIDERATIONS AND DISCOURSES UPON THE SEVERAL PARTS OF THE STORY, AND PRAYERS FITTED TO THE SEVERAL MYSTERIES. IN THREE PARTS. VOL. 1. t *"y'' ■■■ A- 1 V T?.; ■ ^ /: / • 'Ni*' •: ^.' ■' ' ***t. .l/fCK '^- ■; .4 ; '■ * ] 1 ' ‘ __, . ■* ■ mv-.’i • f •. ■ > , ^'Vr ¥ ,n j'y-'i ~ ' '• ' , 41 Sa »%'' i>'jJ >■ »-f • • '.w,-« yiSOi* '■ •i»i‘4f' '■ ”, "■%!§ ■ w ' ' ' . ^ •' ' , ■ ' «-*^ jjt ■ /C V . ; \ . 1 ' :,'r*ir. imi v" 9.» »;.r ik ? .. ’V rtnif- 'k» .' . t'Mfi •M ._, , ‘V r-i. j, ,..^■4' ' ^ ■ ‘.'-ft! ■ . V..W. 'f» . Mp' f*. f '■ .■' > .., ^ • -.V- V:;;r; ■.'^i >■..■: ‘i ^V W-( JiV ' '•'ifWli _! \<0-i Rr ,'f. ■ " ^ ' , >* f ■ •’•■-. "" „■;, u»l i; k -'WlHSi' -V ' 'ir. :, ' I ‘.f.- A' „ ■ j' ' . ■' .. liV' 4. .yy ‘ - -rt ■. 7f V ,'V ‘' a • 4 - kA'.>., . 1 /V, ;, ■ ' '; -t i'.'T , j. . '.‘-^ ,'£ " "^>1 •:«. wM:: :/y^- A *... ■ ' nf ;‘i f ,44 .|^tw«S*»i i' ''Ae y/rtt' ilvV».-.i'-;'4-V ' :'^r TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MOST TRULY NOBLE LORD, CHRISTOPHER LORD HATTON, BARON HATTON OF KIRBY, &c. My Lord, When interest divides the church, and the calentures of men breathe out in problems and unactive dis- courses, each part, in pursuance of its own portion, follows that proposition, which complies with and bends in all the flexures of its temporal ends ; and while all strive for truth, they hug their own opinions dressed up in her imagery, and they dispute for ever ; and either the question is indeterminable, or, which is worse, men will never be convinced. For such is the nature of disputings, that they begin commonly in mistakes, they proceed with zeal and fancy, and end not at all but in schisms and uncharitable names, and too often dip their feet in blood. In the mean time, he that gets the better of his adversary, often- times gets no good to himself ; because, although he hath fast hold upon the right side of the problem, he may be an ill man in the midst of his triumphant disputations. And therefore it was not here, that God would have man’s felicity to grow : for our condition had been extremely miserable, if our final state had been placed upon an uncertain hill, and the way to it had been upon the waters, upon which no spirit but that of contradiction and discord did ever move : for the man should have tended to an end of an un- certain dwelling, and walked to it by ways not discernible, and arrived thither by chance; which, be- cause it is irregular, would have discomposed the pleasures of a Christian hope, as the very disputing hath already destroyed charity, and disunited the continuity of faith ; and in the consequent there would be no virtue and no felicity. But God, who never loved that man should be too ambitiously busy in imi- tating his wisdom, (and man lost paradise for it,) is most desirous we should imitate his goodness, and transcribe copies of those excellent emanations from his holiness, whereby as he communicates himself to us in mercies, so he propounds himself imitable by us in graces. And in order to this, God hath de- scribed our way plain, certain, and determined : and although he was pleased to leave us undetermined in the questions of exterior communion, yet he put it past all question, that we are bound to be charitable. He hath placed the question of the state of separation in the dark, in hidden and undiscerned regions ; but he hath opened the windows of heaven, and given great light to us, teaching how we are to demean ourselves in the state of conjunction. Concerning the salvation of the heathens he was not pleased to give us account ; but he hath clearly described the duty of Christians, and tells upon what terms alone we shall be saved. And although the not inquiring into the ways of God and the strict rules of practice has been instrumental to the preserving them free from the serpentine enfoldings and labyrinths of dispute, yet God also, with a great design of mercy, hath writ his commandments in so large characters, and engraven them in such tables, that no man can want the records, nor yet skill to read the hand-writing upon this wall, if he understands what he understands, that is, what is placed in his own spirit. For God was therefore desirous that human nature should be perfected with moral, not intellectual excellencies ; be- cause these only are of use and compliance with our present state and conjunction. If God had given to eagles an appetite to swim, or to the elephant strong desires to fly, he would have ordered that an abode in the sea and the air respectively should have been proportionable to their manner of living ; for so God hath done to man, fitting him with such excellencies, which are useful to him in his ways and progress to perfection. A man hath great use and need of justice, and all the instances of morality serve his natural and political ends ; he cannot live without them, and be happy : but the filling the rooms of the under- B 2 A DEDICATION. standing with airy and ineffective notions, is just such an excellency, as it is in a man to imitate the voice of birds ; at his very best the nightingale shall excel him, and it is of no use to that end, which God designed him in the first intentions of creation. In pursuance of this consideration, I have chosen to serve the purposes of religion by doing assistance to that part of theology which is wholly practical ; that which makes us wiser, therefore, because it makes us better. And truly, my lord, it is enough to weary the spirit of a disputer, that he shall argue till he hath lost his voice, and his time, and sometimes the question too ; and yet no man shall be of his mind more than was before. How few turn Lutherans, or Calvinists, or Roman catholics, from the religion either of their country or interest ! Possibly two or three weak or interested, fantastic and easy, prejudi- cate and effeminate understandings, pass from church to church, upon grounds as weak as those, for which formerly they did assent; and the same arguments are good or bad, as exterior accidents or interior ap- petites shall determine. I deny not but, for great causes, some opinions are to be quitted : but when I consider how few do forsake any, and when any do, oftentimes they choose the wrong side, and they that take the righter, do it so by contingency, and the advantage also is so little, I believe that the triumphant persons have but small reason to please themselves in gaining proselytes, since their purchase is so small, and as inconsiderable to their triumph, as it is unprofitable to them who change for the worse or for the better upon unworthy motives. In all this there is nothing certain, nothing noble. But he that follows the work of God, that is, labours to gain souls, not to a sect and a subdivision, but to the Christian reli- gion, that is, to the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus, hath a promise to be assisted and rewarded: and all those that go to heaven, are the purchase of such undertakings, the fruit of such culture and la- bours ; for it is only a holy life that lands us there. And now, my lord, I have told you my reasons, I shall not be ashamed to say, that I am weary and toiled with rowing up and down in the seas of questions, which the interests of Christendom have com- menced, and in many propositions, of which I am heartily persuaded I am not certain that I am not de- ceived ; and I find that men are most confident of those articles, which they can so little prove, that they never made questions of them : but I am most certain, that by living in the religion and fear of God, in obedience to the king, in the charities and duties of communion with my spiritual guides, in justice and love with all the world in their several proportions, I shall not fail of that end, which is perfective of human nature, and which will never be obtained by disputing. Here, therefore, when I had fixed my thoughts, upon sad apprehensions that God was removing our candlestick, (for why should he not, when men themselves put the light out, and pull the stars from their orbs, so hastening the day of God’s judgment ?) I was desirous to put a portion of the holy fire into a re- pository, which might help to re-enkindle the incense, when it shall please God religion shall return, and all his servants sing, “ In convertendo captivitatem Sion,” with a voice of eucharist. But now, my lord, although the results and issues of my retirements and study do naturally run to- wards you, and carry no excuse for their forwardness, but the confidence that your goodness rejects no emanation of a great affection ; yet in this address I am apt to promise to myself a fair interpretation, because I bring you an instrument and auxiliaries to that devotion, whereby we believe you are dear to God, and know that you are to good men. And if these little sparks of holy fire, which I have heaped together, do not give life to your prepared and already enkindled spirit, yet they will sometimes help tc entertain a thought, to actuate a passion, to employ and hallow a fancy, and put the body of your piety into fermentation, by presenting you with the circumstances and parts of such meditations, which are symbol- ical to those of your daily office, and which are the passe-temps of your severest hours. My lord, I am not so vain to think, that in the matter of devotion, and the rules of justice and religion, (which is the business of our life,) I can add any thing to your heap of excellent things : but I have known and felt comfort by reading, or hearing from other persons, what I knew myself; and it was unactive upon my spirit, till it was made vigorous and effective from without. And in this sense I thought I might not be useless and impertinent. M)’ lord, I designed to be instrumental to the salvation of all persons, that shall read my book : but unless (because souls are equal in their substance, and equally redeemed) we are obliged to wish the sal- vation of all men, with the greatest, that is, with equal desires, I did intend, in the highest manner I could, to express how much I am to pay to you, by doing the offices of that duty, which, although you less need, yet I was most bound to pay, even the duties and charities of religion ; having this design, that when posterity (for certainly they will learn to distinguish things and persons) shall see your honoured name employed to separate and rescue these papers from contempt, they may with the more confidence expect in them something fit to be offered to such a personage. My lord, I have my end, if I serve God and you, and the needs and interests of souls ; but shall think my return full of reward, if you shall give me pardon, and put me into your litanies, and account me in the number of your relatives and servants ; for indeed, my lord, I am most heartily, Your Lordship’s most affectionate And most obliged Servant, JER. TAYLOR. THE PREFACE. Christian religion hath so many exterior advan- tages to its reputation and advancement, from the Author and from the ministers, from the Fountain of its origination and the channels of conveyance, (God being the Author, the Word incarnate being the great Doctor and Preacher of it, his life and death being its consignation, the Holy Spirit being the great argument and demonstration of it, and the apostles the organs and conduits of its dissemina- tion,) that it were glorious beyond all opposition and disparagement, though we should not consider the excellency of its matter, and the certainty of its probation, and the efficacy of its power, and the perfection and rare accomplishment of its design. But I consider that Christianity is therefore very little understood, because it is reproached upon that pretence, which its very being and design does in- finitely confute. It is esteemed to be a religion contrary in its principles or in its precepts to that wisdom,^ whereby the world is governed, and commonwealths increase, and greatness is acquired, and kings go to war, and our ends of interest are served and promoted; and that it is an institution so wholly in order to another world, that it does not at all communicate with this, neither in its end nor in its discourses, neither in the policy nor in the philosophy ; and therefore, as the doctrine of the cross was entertained at first in scorn by the Greeks, in offence and indignation by the Jews, so is the whole system and collective body of Chris- tian philosophy esteemed imprudent by the politics of the world, and flat and irrational by some men of excellent wit and sublime discourse ; who, be- cause the permissions and dictates of natural, true, and essential reason, are at no hand to he contra- dicted by any superinduced discipline, think that whatsoever seems contrary to their reason is also violent to our nature, and offers indeed a good to * Fatis accede deisque, Et cole felices, miseros fuge. Sidera terr&, Ut distant, et flamma mari, sic utile recto. Sceptrorum vis tota perit, si pendere justa Incipit ; evertitque arces respectus honesti. Libertas scelerura est, quae regna invisa tuetur, Sublatusque modus gladiis. Facere omnia saeve Non impune licet, nisi dum facis. Exeat aul4 Qui volet esse plus : virtus et summa potestas Non coeunt. Semper metuet quern saeva pudebunt. Bt'CAN. I. viii. 486. ^ Ovic 'lovCdiafioQ, ovx Tig srepa, (scil. ante dilu- us, hut by ways unnatural and unreasonable. And I think they are very great strangers to the present affairs and persuasions of the world, who know not that Christianity is very much undervalued upon this principle, men insensibly becoming unchristian,, because they are persuaded, that much of the great- ness of the world is contradicted by the religion. But certainly no mistake can be greater; for the holy Jesus by his doctrine did instruct the under- standings of men, made their appetites more obe- dient, their reason better principled, and argumenta- tive with less deception, their wills apter for noble choices, their governments more prudent, their present felicities greater, their hopes more excellent, and that duration, which was intended to them by their Creator, he made manifest to be a state of glory : and all this was to be done and obtained re- spectively by the ways of reason and nature, such as God gave to man then, when at first he designed him to a noble and an immortal condition ; the Christian law being, for the substance of it, nothing hut the restitution*’ and perfection of the law of nature. And this I shall represent in all the parts of its natural progression ; and I intend it not only as a preface to the following books, but for an intro- duction and an invitation to the whole religion. 2. For God, when he made the first emanations of his eternal being, and created man as the end of all his productions here below, designed him to an end such as himself was pleased to choose for him, and gave him abilities proportionable to attain that end. God gave man a reasonable and intelligent nature ; ^ and to this noble nature he designed as noble an end : he intended man should live well and happily, in proportion to his appetites, and in the reasonable doing and enjoying those good things, which God made him naturally to desire. For, since God gave him proper and peculiar appetites vium) aX\’ Mg siVitr, j ) vvi^ Triarig sfXTToXiTevofisvri tv ry dpTi dyiq,TOv Qtov koOoXik^ ttcKXrjcrii^, dir' dpxvg ovira, Kal rjiTTtpov TToXiv d.7roKaXv^9ti(Ta. — Epiph. Panar. 1. i. tom. i. hum. 5. Nihil autera magis congruit cum hominis natura quam Christi philosophia, quae pene nihil aliudagitquam ut naturam collapsam suae restituat innocentiae. — Erasm. in xi. cap. Matt. Ratio Dei Deus esthumanis rebus consulens, quae causa est hominibus bene beateque vivendi, si non concessum sibi munus a summo Deo negligant. — Chalcid. ad Timae. 16. 6 PREFACE. with proportion to their own objects, and gave liini reason and abilities not only to perceive the sapid- ness and relish of those objects, but also to make reflex acts upon such perceptions, and to perceive that he did perceive, which was a rare instrument of pleasure and pain respectively ; it is but reasonable to think, that God, who created him in mercy, did not only proportion a being to his nature, but did also provide satisfaction for all those appetites and desires, which himself had created and put into him. For, if he had not, then the being of a man had been nothing but a state of perpetual affliction, and the creation of men had been the greatest unmerci- fulness in the world ; disproportionate objects being mere instances of affliction, and those unsatisfied appetites nothing else but instruments of torment. 3. Therefore, that this intendment of God and nature should be affected, that is, that man should become happy, it is naturally necessary that all his regular appetites should have an object ap- pointed them, in the fruition of which felicity must consist : because nothing is felicity but when what was reasonably or orderly desired is possessed ; for the having what is not desired, or the wanting of what we desired, or the desiring what we should not, are the several constituent parts of infelicity ; and it can have no other constitution. 4. Now the first appetite man had in order to his great end was, to be as perfect as he could, that is, to be as like the best thing he knew as his nature and condition would permit.‘^ And although by Adam’s fancy and affection to his wife, and by God’s appointing fruit for him, we see the lower ap- petites were first provided for ; yet the first appetite which man had, as he distinguishes from lower creatures, was to be like God ; (for by that the devil tempted him;) and in order to that he had naturally sufficient instruments and abilities. For although by being abused with the devil’s sophistry he chose an incompetent instrument, yet because it is naturally certain, that love is the greatest as- similation of the object and the faculty, Adam by loving God might very well approach nearer him according as he could. And it was natural to Adam to love God, who was his Father, his Creator, the fountain of all good to him, and of excellency in himself ; and whatsoever is understood to be such, it is as natural for us to love, and we do it for the same reasons, for which we love any thing else; and we cannot love for any other reason, but for one or both these in their proportion ap- prehended. 5. But because God is not only excellent and good, but, by being supreme Lord, hath power to give us what laws he pleases, obedience to his laws therefore becomes naturally, but consequently, ne- cessary, when God decrees them ; because he does make himself an enemy to all rebels and disobe- ** ’Ev Tolg Euric. Androm. 179. cession of God, nor the order of the thing; but such actions only, which naturally produce the end of this provision and satisfaction, are natural, regu- lar, and good. 9. But by this means man grew into a society and a family, and having productions of his own kind, which he naturally desired, and therefore loved, he was consequently obliged to assist them in order to their end, that they might become like him, that is, perfect men, and brought up to the same state : and they also by being at first impotent, and for ever after beneficiaries ^ and obliged persons, are for the pre- sent subject to their parents, and for ever after bound to duty ; because there is nothing which they can do, that can directly produce so great a benefit to the parents as they have to the children. From hence naturally descend all those mutual obligations between parents and children, which are instru- ments of protection and benefit on the one side, and duty and obedience on the other ; and all these to be expressed according as either of their necessities shall require, or any stipulation or contract shall ap- point, or shall be superinduced by any positive laws of God or man. 1 0. In natural descent of the generations of man this one first family was multiplied so much, that for conveniency they were forced to divide their dwellings ; and this they did by families especially, the great father being the major-domo to all his minors. And this division of dwellings, although it kept the same form and power in the several fami- lies, which were in the original, yet it introduced some new necessities, which, although they varied in the instance, yet were to be determined by such instruments of reason, which were given to us at first upon foresight of the public necessities of the world. And when the families came to be divided, that their common parent being extinct, no master of a family had power over another master; the rights of such men and their natural power became equal, because there was nothing to distinguish them, and because they might do equal injury, and invade each other’s possessions, and disturb their peace, and surprise their liberty. And so also was their power of doing benefit equal, though not the same in kind. But God, who made man a sociable creature, because he knew it was “ not good for him to be alone,” so dispensed the abilities and possi- bilities of doing good, that in something or other every man might need or be benefited by every man."’ Therefore, that they might pursue the end of nature, and their own appetites of living well and happily, they were forced to consent to such contracts, which might secure and supply to every one those good things, without which he could not live happily. Both the appetites, the irascible and the concupisci- ble, fear of evil and desire of benefit, were the suf- ' Nihil enim est liberis proprium, quod non parentum sit prius, qui aut de suo dederant, aut acquirendi praebuerant causas. — Philo, Animus inveniet liberalitatis materiam, etiam inter angus- tias paupertatis. — Senec. de Benefic. c. i. .s PREFACE. ficient endearments of contracts, of societies, and republics. And upon this stock were decreed and hallowed all those propositions, without which bodies politic and societies of men cannot be happy." And in the transaction of these, many accidents daily happening, it grew still reasonable, that is, necessary to the end of living happily, that all those after obligations should be observed with the proportion of the same faith and endearment which bound the first contracts. F or though the natural law be al- ways the same, yet some parts of it are primely necessary, others by supposition and accident; and both are of the same necessity, that is, equally ne- cessary in the several cases. Thus, to obey a king is as necessary and naturally reasonable as to obey a father, that is, supposing there be a king, as it is certain naturally a man cannot be, but a father must be supposed. If it be made necessary that I pro- mise, it is also necessary that I perform it : for else I shall return to that inconvenience, which I sought to avoid when I made the promise ; and though the instance be very far removed from the first necessi- ties and accidents of our prime being and produc- tion, yet the reason still pursues us, and natural reason reaches up to the very last minutes, and orders the most remote particulars of our well- being, 1 1 . Thus, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to kill, are very reasonable prosecutions of the great end of nature, of living well and happily ; but when a man is said to steal, when to be a murderer, when to be incestuous, the natural law doth not teach in all cases ; but when the superinduced con- stitution hath determined the particular law, by natural reason we are obliged to observe it : because, though the civil power makes the instance, and de- termines the particular ; yet right reason makes the sanction, and passes the obligation. The law of nature makes the major proposition ; but the civil constitution, or any superinduced law, makes the assumption in a practical syllogism. To kill is not murder ; but to kill such persons, whom I ought not. It was not murder, among the Jews, to kill a manslayer, before he entered a city of refuge ; to kill the same man after his entry, was. Among the Romans," to kill an adulteress or a ravisher in the act, was lawful ; with us, it is murder. Murder, and incest, and theft, always were unlawful ; but the same actions were not always the same crimes. And it is just with these, as with disobedience, which was ever criminal ; but the same thing was not estimated to be disobedience ; nor indeed could any thing be so, till the sanction of a superior had given the instance of obedience. So for theft: to catch fish in rivers, or deer, or pigeons, when they were esteemed ferse naturae, of a wild condition, and so primb occupantis, was lawful ; just as to take or kill badgers or foxes, and beavers and lions : but when the laws had appropriated rivers, and divided shores, and imparked deer, and housed pigeons, it became theft to take them without leave. To despoil the Egyptians was not theft, when God, who is the Lord of all possessions, had bidden the Israelites ; but to do so now, were the breach of the natural law, and of a divine commandment. For the natural law, 1 said, is eternal in the sanc- tion, but variable in the instance and the expres- sion. And indeed the laws of nature are very few ; they were but two at first, and but two at last, when the great change was made from fami- lies to kingdoms. The first is, to do duty to God ; the second is, to do to ourselves and our neighbours, that is, to our neighbours as to ourselves, all those actions, which naturally, reasonably, or by institu- tion or emergent necessity, are in order to a happy life. Our blessed Saviour reduces all the law to these two : 1 . Love the Lord with all thy heart : 2. Love thy neighbour as thyself. In which I observe, in verification of my former discourse,!’ that love is the first natural bond of duty to God, so also it is to our neighbour. And therefore all intercourse with our neighbour was founded in, and derived from, the two greatest endearments of love in the world. A man came to have a neighbour, by being a husband and a father. 12. So that still there are but two great natural laws, binding us in our relations to God and man; we remaining essentially, and, by the very design of creation, obliged to God in all, and to our neigh- bours in the proportions of equality, as thyself ; that is, that he be permitted and promoted, in the order to his living well and happily, as thou art ; for love being there not an affection, but the duty that results from the first naturM bands of love, which began neighbourhood, signifies justice, equality, and such reasonable proceedings, which are in order to our common end of a happy life ; and is the same with that other, “ Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you to them ;” and that is certainly the greatest and most effective love ; because it best promotes that excel- lent end, which God designed for our natural per fection. All other particulars are but prosecutions of these two, that is, of the order of nature : save only that there is a third law, which is a part of love too ; it is self-love ; and therefore is rather supposed, than at the first expressed, because a man is reasonably to be presumed to have in him a sufficient stock of self-love, to serve the ends of his nature and creation ; and that is, that man demean and use his own body in that decorum, which is most orderly and proportionate to his perfective end of a happy life ; which Christian religion calls sobriety ; and it is a prohibition of those uncha- ritable, self-destroying sins of drunkenness, glut- tony, and inordinate and unreasonable manners of lust, destructive of nature’s intendments, or at least no ways promoting them. For it is naturally law- ful to satisfy any of these desires, when the desire does not carry the satisfaction beyond the design of nature, that is, to the violation of health, or that happy living, which consists in observing those contracts, which mankind thought necessary to be made, in order to the same great end ; unless where Commoda pra>terea patriae tibi prima putare. — Lucilu s, ^ A. Gellius, 1. X. 23. P Num. 4. PREFACE. 9 God hath superinduced a restraint, making an in- stance of sobriety to become an act of religion, or to pass into an expression of duty to him : but then it is not a natural, but a religious sobriety, and may be instanced in fasting or abstinence from some kinds of meat, or some times or manners of conjugation. These are the three natural laws, de- scribed in the Christian doctrine ; that we live, 1 . godly ; 2. soberly ; 3. righteously. And the particulars of the first are ordinarily to be deter- mined by God immediately, or his vicegerents, and by reason observing and complying with the acci- dents of the world, and dispositions of things and persons ; the second, by the natural order of nature, by sense, and by experience ; and the third, by hu- man contracts and civil laws. 13. The result of the preceding discourse is this. Man, who was designed by God to a happy life, was fitted with sufficient means to attain that end, so that he might, if he would, be happy ; but he was a free agent, and so might choose. And it is possible, that man may fail of his end, and be made miserable, by God, by himself, or by his neighbour; or, by the same persons, he may be made happy in the same proportions, as they relate to him. If God be angry or disobeyed, he be- comes our enemy, and so we fail : if our neighbour be injured or impeded in the direct order to his happy living, he hath equal right against us, as we against him, and so we fail that way : and if I be intemperate, I grow sick and worsted in some faculty, and I so am unhappy in myself. But if I obey God, and do right to my neighbour, and con- fine myself within the order and design of nature ; I am secured in all ends of blessing, in which I can be assisted by these three, that is, by all my relatives ; there being no end of man designed by God in order to his happiness, to which these are not proper and sufficient instruments. Man can have no other relations, no other discourses, no other regular appetites, but what are served and satisfied by religion, by sobriety, and by justice. There is nothing, whereby we can relate to any per- son, who can hurt us, or do us benefit, but is pro- vided for in these three. These, therefore, are all ; and these are sufficient. 14. But now it is to be inquired, how these be- come laws ; obliging us to sin, if we transgress, even before any positive law of God be superinduced : for else, how can it be a natural law, that is, a law obliging all nations and all persons, even such who have had no intercourse with God by way of special revelation, and have lost all memory of tradition ? For either such persons, whatsoever they do, shall ob- tain that end, which. God designed for them in their nature, that is, a happy life according to the duration of an immortal nature ; or else they shall perish for prevaricating of these laws. And yet, if they were no laws to them, nor decreed and made sacred by sanction, promulgation, and appendant penalties, they could not so oblige them, as to be- come the rule of virtue or vice. 15. When God gave us natural reason, that is, '1 Annal. vi. 6. sufficient ability to do all that should be necessary to live well and happily, he also knew, that some appetites might be irregular, just as some stomachs would be sick, and some eyes blind ; and a man, being a voluntary agent, might choose an ill with as little reason, as the angels of darkness did, that is, they might do unreasonably, because they would do so ; and then a man’s understanding should serve him but as an instrument of mischief, and his will carry him on to it with a blind and impotent desire ; and then the beauteous order of creatures would be discomposed by unreasonable, and uncon- sidering, or evil persons. And therefore it was most necessary, that man should have his appetites confined within the designs of nature, and the order to his end; for a will, without the restraint of a superior power or a perfect understanding, is like a knife in a child’s hand, as apt for mischief as for use. Therefore it pleased God to bind man, by the signature of laws, to observe those great natural reasons, without which man could not arrive at the great end of God’s designing ; that is, he could not live well and happily. God, therefore, made it the first law to love him; and, which is all one, to worship him, to speak honour of him, and to express it in all our ways, the chief whereof is obedience. And this we find in the instance of that positive precept, which God gave to Adam, and which was nothing but a particular of the great general. But in this there is little scruple, because it is not ima- ginable, that God would, in any period of time, not take care, that himself be honoured, his glory being the very end why he made man ; and therefore it must be certain, that this did, at the very first, pass into a law. 16. But concerning this and other things, which are usually called natural laws, I consider, that the things themselves were such, that the doing them was therefore declared to be a law, because the not doing them did certainly bring a punishment pro- portionable to the crime, that is, 1 . a just deficiency from the end of creation, from a good and happy life : 2. and also a punishment of a guilty conscience : which I do not understand to be a fear of hell, or of any supervening penalty, unless the conscience be accidentally instructed into such fears by experience or revelation ; but it is a “ malum in genere rationis,” a disease or evil of the reasonable faculty ; that, as there is a rare content in the discourse of reason, there is a satisfaction, an acquiescency, like that of creatures in their proper place, and definite actions, and competent perfections ; so, in prevaricating the natural law, there is a dissatisfaction, a disease, a re- moving out of the place, an unquietness of spirit, even when there is no monitor or observer. “ Adeo facinora atque flagitia sua ipsi quoque in supplicium verterant. Neque frustra prsestantissimus [Plato] sapienticE firmare solitus est, si recludantur tyran- norum mentes, posse aspici laniatus et ictus, quando ut corpora verberibus, ita ssevitia, libidine, malis consultis animus dilaceretur,” said Tacitus^ out of Plato,’^ whose words are; ’ AWa TroWaicig rov yueya- \uv (3a(nXi(t)Q l7rt\aj36fxerog, ri ctXXou hriovv /3a(Tt- ^ In Gorgia, § 61. 10 PREFACE. Xiujg i) dxn'afTTOv, Kureldey ovdey vyieg oy ri/g \l/v)(r/g, uWa diaiJ.ejj.a^Lyu)fxiyr]y i:ai ovXuiy iJ.e(7T))y, vtto emop- K(U)y K'at adiKiag. It is naturally certain, that the cruelty of tyrants torments themselves, and is a hook in their nostrils, and a scourge to their spirit ; ® and the pungency of forbidden lust is truly a thorn in the flesh, full of anguish and secret vexation. Quid, demeus, manifesta negas ? En pectus inustse Defonnant maculae, vitiisque inolevit imago, said Claudian * of Rufinus. And it is certain to us, and verified by the experience and observation of all ■wise nations, though not naturally demonstrable, that this secret punishment is sharpened and pro- moted in degrees by the hand of Heaven, the finger of the same hand, that writ the law in our under- standings. 17. But the prevarications of the natural law have also their portion of a special punishment, be- sides the scourge of an unquiet spirit. The man that disturbs his neighbour’s rest, meets with dis- turbances himself: and since I have naturally no more power over my neighbour than he hath over me, (unless he descended naturally from me,) he hath an equal privilege to defend himself, and to secure his quiet by disturbing the order of my happy li\dng, as I do his. And this equal permission is certainly so great a sanction and signature of the law of justice, that, in the just proportion of my receding from the reasonable prosecution of my end, in the same proportion and degree my own infelicity is become certain ; and this in several degrees up to the loss of all, that is, of life itself : for where no farther duration or differing state is known, there death is ordinarily esteemed the greatest infelicity ; where something beyond it is known, there also it is known, that such prevarication makes that farther duration to be unhappy. So that an affront is natu- rally punished by an affront, the loss of a tooth with the loss of a tooth, of an eye with an eye, the vio- lent taking away of another man’s goods by the los- ing my own. For I am liable to as great an evil as I infer, and naturally he is not unjust that inflicts it. And he that is drunk is a fool or a madman for the time ; and that is his punishment, and declares the law and the sin : and so in proportions to the transgressions of sobriety. But when the first of* the natural laws is violated, that is, God is dis- obeyed or dishonoured, or when the greatest of natural evils is done to our neighbour, then death became the penalty : to the first, in the first period of the world ; to the second, at the restitution of the world, that is, at the beginning of the second period. He that did attempt to kill, from the be- ginning of ages might have been resisted and killed, if the assaulted could not else be safe ; but he that killed actually, as Cain did, could not be killed himself, till the law was made in Noah’s time ; be- cause there was no person living that had equal power on him, and had been naturally injured. * Luciah. in Catapl. Rhadamanthus, 'OirSaa dv rig vfioiv TTovijpd tpynarjrai itapd rbv j3iov, koB’ sicaffTOv dv- ToJv d(f>avr) aTiypara Itti rrjg \f/vxfjg TTspKpspfi . — Bipont. t. iii. p. 205. While the thing was doing, tlie assailant and the assailed had equal power ; but when it was done, and one was killed, he that had the power or right of killing his murderer, is now dead, and his power is extinguished with the man. But after the flood, the power was put into the hand of some trusted person, who was to take the forfeiture. And thus, I conceive, these natural reasons, in order to their proper end, became laws, and bound fast by the band of annexed and consequent penalties. “ Me- tum prorsus et noxiam conscientije pro foedere ha- beri,” said Tacitus C’ and that fully explains my sense. 1 8 . And thus death was brought into the world ; not by every prevarication of any of the laws, by any instance of unreasonableness : for in proportion to the evil of the action would be the evil of the suffering, which in all cases would not arrive at death ; as every injury, every intemperance, should not have been capital. But some things were made evil by a superinduced prohibition, as eating one kind of fruit ; some things were evil by inordination : the first was morally evil, the second was evil natu- rally. Now the first sort brought in death by a prime sanction ; the second by degrees and variety of accident. For every disobedience and transgres- sion of that law, which God made as the instance of our doing him honour and obedience, is an integral violation of all the band between him and us ; it does not grow in degrees, according to the in- stance and subject matter ; for it is as great a dis- obedience to eat, when he hath forbidden us, as to offer to climb to heaven with an ambitious tower. And therefore it is but reasonable for us to fear, and just in him to make us at once to suffer death, which is the greatest of natural evils, for disobeying him : to which death we may arrive by degrees, in doing actions against the reasonableness of sobriety and justice, but cannot arrive by degrees of disobe- dience to God, or irreligion ; because every such act deserves the worst of things, but the other natu- rally deserves no greater evil than the proportion of their own inordination, till God, by a superinduced law, hath made them also to become acts of disobe- dience as well as inordination, that is, morally evil, as well as naturally ; for, “ by the law,” saith St. Paul, “sin became exceeding sinful,”'^ that is, had a new degree of obliquity added to it. But this was not at first. For therefore saith St. Paul, “Be- fore,” or until “ the law, sin was in the world ; but sin is not imputed when there is no law ^ mean- ing, that those sins, which were forbidden by Mo- ses’s law, were actually in the manners of men and the customs of the world ; but they were not im- puted, that is, to such personal punishments and consequent evils, which afterwards those sins did introduce ; because those sins, which were only evil by inordination, and discomposure of the order of man’s end of living happily, were made unlawful upon no other stock, but that God would have man ^ Claudian de Rufin. lib. ii. 504. " Ann. vi. 4. Rom. vii. 13. * Rom. V. 13, II PREFACE. to live happily ; and therefore gave him reason, to effect that end ; and if a man became unreasonable, and did things contrary to his end, it was impossible for him to be happy ; that is, he should be miser- able in proportion. But in that degree and man- ner of evil they were imputed ; and that was sanc- tion enough to raise natural reason up to the constitution of a law. 19. Thirdly, the law of nature, being thus de- creed and made obligatory, was a sufficient instiu- ment of making man happy, that is, in producing the end of his creation. But as Adam had evil dis- courses and irregular appetites before he fell, (for they made him fall,) and as the angels, who had no original sin, yet they chose evil at the first, when it was wholly arbitrary in them to do so or otherwise ; so did man. God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions.” Some men were ambitious, and by incompetent means would make their brethren to be their servants ; some were co- vetous, and would usurp that, which, by an earlier distinction, had passed into private possession : and then they made new principles, and new discourses, such which were reasonable in order to their private indirect ends, but not to the public benefit, and therefore would prove unreasonable and mischiev- ous to themselves at last. 20. And when once they broke the order of crea- tion, it is easy to understand, by what necessities of consequence they ran into many sins and irrational proceedings. y .diffian tells of a nation, who had a law binding them to beat their parents to death with clubs, when they lived to a decrepit and unprofitable age. The Persian Magi mingled with their mothers and all their nearest relatives. And by a law of the Venetians, says Bodinus,^ a son in banishment was redeemed from the sentence, if he killed his banished father. And in Homer’s time, there were a sort of pirates,'*^ who professed robbing, and did account it honourable. But the great prevarications of the laws of nature were in the first commandment ; when the tradition concerning God was derived by a long line, and there were no visible remonstrances of an extraordinary power, they were quickly brought to believe, that he whom they saw not, was not at all, especially being prompted to it by pride, tyranny, and a loose, imperious spirit.^ Others fell to low opinions concerning God, and made such as they list of their own ; and they were like to be strange gods, which were of man’s making. When man, either maliciously or carelessly, became unreason- able in the things that concerned God, God was pleased to “ give him over to a reprobate mind,” ^ that is, an unreasonable understanding, and false principles concerning himself and his neighbour, that his sin against the natural law might become its own punishment, by discomposing his natural hap- piness. Atheism and idolatry brought in all un- y Tivd Twv kS/viHv e^nypi(DTai, dixit Porphyrius. * De Rep. 1. i. c. 4. ^ Ovic ado%ov rjv rrapa toIq TraXaioXQ to Xyareveiv, dX\ fvSo^ov — Scholiast, in Horn. Odyss. r. Vide etiam A. Gel. 1. xi. c. 18. ’’ "Oooi anb (iKaSidprov T^vfVfiaroc, sp,7rf(f>oprifXtvoi, Kai vtto 1 1 natural lusts, and many unreasonable injustices. And this we learn from St. Paul : “ As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient that is, incongruities towards the end of their creation ; and so they be- came full of unrighteousness, lust, covetousness, malice, envy, strife, and murder, disobedient to pa- rents, breakers of covenants, unnatural in their af- fections,” and in their passions : and all this was the consequent of breaking the first natural law. ‘‘ They changed the truth of God into a lie : for this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. ® 21. Now God, who takes more care for the good of man, than man does for his own, did not only imprint these laws in the hearts and understandings of man, but did also take care to make this light shine clear enough to walk by, by adopting some instances of the natural laws into religion. Thus the law against murder became a part of religion in the time of Noah ; and some other things were then added concerning worshipping God, against idolatry, and against unnatural and impure mixtures. Some- times God superadded judgments, as to the 23,000 Israelites for fornication. For although these punishments were not threatened to the crime in the sanction and expression of any definite law, and it could not naturally arrive to it by its inordina- tion ; yet it was as agreeable to the Divine justice to inflict it, as to inflict the pains of hell upon evil livers, who yet had not any revelation of such in- tolerable danger ; for it was sufficient, that God had made such crimes to be against their very na- ture ; and they who will do violence to their nature, to do themselves hurt, and to displease God, deserve to lose the title to all those good things, which God was pleased to design for man’s final condition. And because it grew habitual, customary, and of inno- cent reputation, it pleased God to call this precept out of the darkness, whither their evil customs and false discourses had put it ; and by such an extra- regular, but very signal punishment, to remind them, that the natural permissions of concubinate were only confined to the ends of mankind, and were hal- lowed only by the faith and the design of marriage. And this was signified by St. Paul, in these words : “ They that sin without the law, shall also perish without the law ^ that is, by such judgments, which God hath inflicted on evil livers in several periods of the world, irregularly indeed, not signified in kind, but yet sent into the world with designs of a great mercy ; that the ignorances, and prevarica- tions, and partial abolitions of the natural law, might be cured and restored, and by the dispersion of pre- judiees the state of natural reason be redintegrate. 22. Whatsoever was besides this, was accidental and emergent ; such as were the discourses of wise men, which God raised up in several countries and (pav\if]Q a.vctTpo(p^Q icai lBu>v (pnvXiov iccii vofioiv TTOvrjpQv bca^Bap&vTsg touj (pvtUKag kvvoiag UTToiXtoav- — Just. Mart. Dial. Tryph. c Rom. i. 25, 26, &c. ‘‘ V er. 28, &e. e Ver. 25, 26. f Rom. ii. 12. 12 PREFACE. ages, as Job, and Eliphaz, and Bildad, and those of the families of the patriarchs dispersed into several countries ; and constant tradition in some noble and more eminent descents. And yet all this was so little and imperfect, not in itself, but in respect of the thick cloud man had drawn before his under- standing, that darkness covered the face of the earth in a great proportion. Almost all the world were idolaters ; and when they had broken the first of the natural laws, the breach of the other was not only naturally consequent, but also, by Divine judgment, it descended infallibly. And yet God, pitying man- kind, did not only still continue the former remedies, and added blessings, “ giving them fruitful seasons, and filling their hearts with food and gladness,” so leaving the nations without excuse ; but also made a very noble change in the world : for having chosen an excellent family, the fathers of which lived ex- actly according to the natural law, and with obser- vation of those few superadded precepts, in which God did specificate their prime duty ; and having swelled that family to a great nation, and given them pos- session of an excellent land, which God took from seven nations, because they were egregious violators of the natural law ; he was pleased to make a very great restitution and declaration of the natural law, in many instances of religion and justice, which he framed into positive precepts, and adopted them into the family of the first original instances, making them as necessary in the particulars, as they were in the primary obligation : but the instances were such, whereof some did relate only to the present constitution of the commonwealth ; others to such universal contracts, which obliged all the world, by reason of the equal necessity of all mankind, to admit them. And these himself writ on tables of stone, and dressed up their nation in a body politic by an excellent system of politic laws, and adorned it with a rare religion, and left this nation as a piece of leaven in a mass of dough, not only to do honour to God, and happiness to themselves, by those instruments, which he had now very much ex- plicated, but also to transmit the same reasonable propositions into other nations : and he therefore multiplied them to a great necessity of a dispersion, that they might serve the ends of God and of the natural law, by their ambulatory life and their numerous disseminations. And this was it which St. Paul affirms, “ The law was added because of transgression g meaning, that because men did transgress the natural, God brought Moses’s law into the world, to be as a strand to the inundation of impiety. And thus the world stood, till the ful- ness of time was come : for so we are taught by the apostle, “ The law was added because of trans- gression but the date of this was to expire at a certain period, it was added to serve but “ till the seed should come, to whom the promise was made.” 23. For, because Moses’s law was but an imper- fect explication of the natural ; there being divers parts of the three laws of nature not at all expli- cated by that covenant, not the religion of prayers, 8 Gal. iii. 19. not the reasonableness of temperance and sobriety in opinion and diet ; and in the more noble instances of humanity and doing benefit, it was so short, that, as St. Paul says, “The law could not make the comers thereunto perfect ;” and, which was most of all considerable, it was confined to a nation; and the other parts of mankind had made so little use of the records of that nation, that all the world was placed “ in darkness, and sate in the shadow of death :” therefore it was, that in great mercy God sent his Son, “ a light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel :” to instruct those, and consummate these; that the imperfection of the one, and the mere darkness of the other, might be illustrated by the Sun of righteousness. And this was by restoring the light of nature, which they, by evil customs, and false principles, and evil laws, had obscured ; by restoring man to the liberty of his spirit, by freeing him from the slavery of sin, under which they were so lost and oppressed, that all their discourses and conclusions, some of their moral philosophy, and all their habitual practices, were but servants of sin, and made to co-operate to that end, not which God intended as perfective of human nature, but which the devil and vicious persons superinduced, to serve lit tle ends and irre- gular, and to destroy the greater. 24. For certain it is, Christianity is nothing else but the most perfect design that ever was, to make a man happy in his whole ca]>acity : and as the law was to the Jews, so was philosophy to the gentiles, a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ, to teach them the rudiments of happiness, and the first and lowest things of reason ; that when Christ was come, all mankind might become perfect ; that is, be made regular in their appetites, wise in their understandings, assisted in their duties, directed to and instructed in their great ends. And this is that which the apostle calls “ being perfect men in Christ Jesus;” perfect in all the intendments of nature, and in all the designs of God. And this was brought to pass by discovering, and restoring, and improving the law of nature, and by turning it all into religion. 25. For the natural law being a sufficient and a proportionate instrument and means to bring a man to the end designed in his creation, and this law being eternal and unalterable, (for it ought to be as lasting and as unchangeable as the nature itself, so long as it was capable of a law,) it was not imagin- able, that the body of any law should make a new morality, new rules, and general proportions, either of justice, or religion, or temperance, or felicity ; the essential parts of all these consisting in natural proportions, and means toward the consummation of man’s last end, which was first intended, and is always the same. It is as if there were a new truth in an essential and a necessary proposition. For although the instances may vary, there can be no new justice, no new temperance, no new relations, proper and natural relations and intercourses be- tween God and us ; but what always were in praise.' and prayers, and in adoration and honour, and iu PREFACE. 13 the symbolical expressions of God’s glory and our needs. 26. Hence it comes, that that which is the most obvious and notorious appellative of the law of nature, that it is “ a law written in our hearts,” was also recounted as one of the glories and excellencies of Christianity. Plutarch, saying that “ kings ought to be governed by laws,” explains himself, that this law must be “ a word, not written in books and tables, but dwelling in the mind, a living rule, the interior guide of their manners, and monitor of their life.” ^ And this was the same which St. Paul expresses to be the guide of the gentiles, that is, of all men naturally. “The gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law ; which shows the work of the law written in their hearts.”^ And that we may see it was the law of nature, that returned in the sanctions of Christianity, God declares, that, in the constitu- tion of this law, he would take no other course than at first, that is, he would write them in the hearts of men : indeed with a new style, with a quill taken from the wings of the holy Dove ; the Spirit of God was to be the great engraver and the scribe of the new covenant, but the hearts of men should be the tables. “ For this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord ; I will put my laws into their hearts, and into their minds will I write them : and their sins and their iniqui- ties will I remember no more :” ^ that is, I will provide a means to expiate all the iniquities of man, and restore him to the condition of his first creation, putting him into the same order towards felicity which I first designed to him, and that also by the same instruments. Now I consider, that the Spirit of God took very great care, that all the records of the law of Jesus should be carefully kept and transmitted to posterity in books and sermons, which, being an act of providence and mercy, was a provision, lest they should be lost or mistaken, as they were formerly, when God writ some of them in tables of stone for the use of the sons of Israel, and all of them in the first tables of nature with the finger of creation, as now he did in the new creature, by the finger of the Spirit. But then, writing them in the tables of our minds, be- sides the other, can mean nothing but placing them there, where they were before, and from whence we blotted them by the mixtures of impure princi- ples and discourses. But I descend to particular and more minute considerations. 27 . The laws of nature either are bands of reli- gion, justice, or sobriety. Now I consider concern- ing religion, that whenever God hath made any particular precepts to a family, as to Abraham’s ; or to a single person, as to the man of Judah prophe- sying against the altar of Bethel ; or to a nation, as to the Jews at Sinai; or to all mankind, as to the world descending from Noah; it was nothing else but a trial or an instance of our obedience, a par- ticular prosecution of the law of nature, whereby h OvK ytypanpLSvoQ, ovdk l.v ^vXoig, aXX’ MV tavTfp Xoyog, dtl o v^'otiu-h', Kai firjdiwoTe Tt}V xjyvxJ^v tMv tprjfiov KriSepoviag. we are obliged to do honour to God, which was to be done by such expressions, which are natural intercourses between God and us, or such as he hath made to be so. Now in Christianity we are wholly left to that manner of prosecuting this first natural law, which is natural and proportionable to the nature of the thing, which the holy Jesus calls “worshipping God in spirit and truth;” in spirit, that is, with our souls heartily and devoutly, so as to exclude hypocrisy and indifferency ; and in truth, that is, without a lie, without vain imagina- tions and phantastic resemblances of him, which were introduced by the evil customs of the gen- tiles, and without such false guises and absurd in- decencies, which, as they are contrary to man’s reason, so are they contrary to the glory and repu- tation of God ; ^ such as was that universal custom of all nations, of sacrificing in man’s blood, and offering festival-lusts and impurities in the solemni- ties of their religion; for these being against the purpose and design of God, and against right rea- son, are a lie, and enemies to the truth of a natural and proper religion. The holy Jesus only com- manded us to pray often, and to praise God, to speak honour of his name, not to use it lightly and vainly, to believe him, to revere the instru- ments and ministers of religion, to ask for what we need, to put our trust in God, to worship him, to obey him, and to love him ; for all these are but the expressions of love. And this is all Christ spake concerning the first natural law, the law of religion. For concerning the ceremonies or sacra- ments, which he instituted, they are but few, and they become matter of duty but by accident ; as being instruments and rites of consigning those effects and mercies, which God sent to the world by the means of this law, and relate rather to the contract and stipulation, which Christ made for us, than to the natural order between duty and felicity. 28. Now all these are nothing but what we are taught by natural reason, that is, what God en- abled us to understand, to be fit instruments of in- tercourse between God and us, and what was prac- tised and taught by sober men in all ages and all nations, whose records we have received, as I shall remark at the margin of the several precepts. For to make these appear certainly and naturally necessary, there was no more requisite, but that man should know there was a God, that is, an eternal Being, which gave him all that he had or was ; and to know what himself was, that is, indi- gent and necessitous of himself, needing help of all the creatures, exposed to accidents and cala- mity, and defensible no ways but by the same hand that made him ; creation and conservation, in the philosophy of all the world, being but the same act, continuing and flowing on him from an instant to duration, as a line from its mathematical point. And for this God took sufficient care ; for he con- versed with man, in the very first, in such clear, and certain, and perceptible transaction, that a ' Rom. ii. 14, 15. ^ Heb. X. 16, 17. ’ Polyd. Virg. de Invent. I. v. c. 8, 14 PREFACE. man could as certainly know that God was, as that man was. And in all ages of the world he hath not left himself without witness, but gave such tes- timonies of himself that were sufficient; for they did actually persuade all nations, barbarous and civil, into the belief of a God.'" And it is but a nicety to consider, whether or no that proposition can be naturally demonstrated. For it was suffi- cient to all God’s purposes, and to all man’s, that the proposition was actually believed ; the instances were therefore sufficient to make faith because they did it. And a man may remove himself so far from all the degrees of aptness to believe a pro- position, that nothing shall make them join. For if there were a sect of witty men, that durst not be- lieve their senses, because they thought them fal- lible, it is no wonder if some men should think every reason reprovable. But in such cases de- monstration is a relative term, and signifies every probation, greater or lesser, which does actually make faith in any proposition ; and in this God hath never been deficient, but hath to all men, that be- lieve him, given sufficient to confirm them ; to those few, that believed not, sufficient to reprove them. 29. Now in all these actions of religion, which are naturally consequent to this belief, there is no scruple, but in the instance of faith, which is pre- sented to be an infused grace, an immission from God, and that for its object it hath principles super- natural, that is, naturally incredible ; and therefore faith is supposed a grace above the greatest strength of reason. But in this I consider, that if we look into all the sermons of Christ," we shall not easily find any doctrine that, in any sense, troubles na- tural philosophy, but only that of the resurrection (for I do not think those mystical expressions of plain truths, such as are, “being born again, eating the flesh of the Son of man, being in the Father, and the Father in him,” to be exceptions in this assertion). And although some gentiles did believe and deliver that article, and particu- larly Chrysippus, and the Thracians ; (as Mela and Solinus report of them ;) yet they could not naturally discourse themselves into it, but had it from the imperfect report and opinion of some Jews that dwelt among them : and it was certainly a re- velation or a proposition sent into the world by God. But then the believing it is so far from being above or against nature, that there is nothing in the world more reasonable, than to believe any thing which God tells us, or which is told us by a man sent from God, with mighty demonstration of his power and veracity. Naturally our bodies cannot rise, that is, there is no natural agent or natural cause sufficient to produce that effect; but this is an effect of a Divine power : and he hath but a little stock of natural reason, who cannot conclude, that the same power, which made us out of nothing, can also restore us to the same condition, as well and easily, from dust and ashes certainly, as from Maxim. Tyr. Dissert. Tawra 6''E\\r]v Xeytt, icai 6 lidpfSapog Xkyn, Kai 6 TjTrsipwrjjt', koi 6 SfaXamoQ, Kai 6 ao(p6c. Kai 6 dao^oQ. — p. G. ed. Dav. " A pud Lactant. 1. vii. c. 23. mere nothing. And in this, and in all the like cases, faith is a submission of the understanding to the word of God, and is nothing else but a confess- ing, that God is truth, and that he is omnipotent; that is, he can do what he will, and he will, when he hath once said it. And we are now as ignorant of the essence and nature of forms, and of that which substantially distinguishes man from man, or an angel from an angel, as we were of the greatest article of our religion, before it was revealed ; and we shall remain ignorant for ever of many natural things, unless they be revealed ; and unless we knew all the secrets of philosophy, the mysteries of na- ture, and the rules and propositions of all things and all creatures, we are fools, if we say, that what we call an article of faith, I mean, truly such, is against natural reason. It may be indeed as much against our natural reasonings, as those reasonings are against truth. But if we remember, how great an ignorance dwells upon us all, it will be found the most reasonable thing in the world only to inquire, whether God hath revealed any such proposition ; and then not to say. It is against natural reason, and therefore an article of faith ; but, I am told a truth which I knew not till now, and so my reason is become instructed into a new proposition. And although Christ hath given us no new moral pre- cepts, but such which were essentially and naturally reasonable, in order to the end of man’s creation ; yet we may easily suppose him to teach us many a new truth, which we knew not, and to explicate to us many particulars of that estate, which God de- signed for man in his first production, but yet did not then declare to him ; and to furnish him with new revelations, and to signify the greatness of the designed end, to become so many arguments of en- dearment to secure his duty, that is, indeed, to se- cure his happiness, by the infallible using the instru- ments of attaining it. 30. This is all I am to say concerning the pre- cepts of religion Jesus taught us : he took off" those many superinduced rites, which God enjoined to the Jews, and reduced us to the natural religion; that is, to such expressions of duty, which all wise men and nations used ; save only, that he took away the rite of sacrificing beasts,® because it was now deter- mined in the great sacrifice of himself, which suffi- ciently and eternally reconciled all the world to God. All the other things, as prayers, and adora- tion, and eucharist, and faith in God, are of a natu- ral order and an unalterable expression : and, in the nature of the thing, there is no other way of address to God than these, no other expression of his glo- ries and our needs ; both which must for ever be signified. 31. Secondly; concerning the second natural precept, Christian religion hath also added nothing beyond the first obligation, but explained it all : “ Whatsoever ye would men should do to you, do ye so to them ; ”p that is the eternal rule of justice ; ” Just. Mart. Resp. ad Orthodox, ad qu. 83. Tertul. adv. Marcion. ii. 2. Maimon. Moreh Nevochim, 1. iii. c. 32. P Heec sententia saepissime a Severo Imperatore prolata. "O fiKTHQ, firjStvi TToiricrtiQ, d'oB. iv. 15. Dixit Mimus, “Ah alio expectes, alteri quod feceris.” PREFACE. 15 and that binds contracts, keeps promises, affirms truth, makes subjects obedient, and princes just ; it gives security to marts and banks, and introduces an equality of condition upon all the world, save only when an inequality is necessary, that is, in the relations of government, for the preservation of the common *1 rights of equal titles and possessions, that there be some common term endued with power, who is to be the father of all men by an equal pro- vision, that every man’s rights be secured by that fear, which naturally we shall bear to him, who can, and will, punish all unreasonable and unjust viola- tions of property. And concerning this, also, the holy Jesus hath added an express precept of paying tribute, and all Caesar’s dues, to Caesar : in all other particulars it is necessary, that the in- stances and minutes of justice be appointed by the laws and customs of the several kingdoms and re- publics. And therefore it was, that Christianity so well combined with the government of heathen princes;’^ because, whatsoever was naturally just, or declared so by the political power, their religion bound them to observe, making obedience to be a double duty, a duty both of justice and religion : and the societies of Christians growing up from con- venticles to assemblies, from assemblies to societies, introduced no change in the government ; but by little and little turned the commonwealth into a church, till the world being Christian, and justice also being religion, obedience to princes, observa- tion of laws, honesty in contracts, faithfulness in promises, gratitude to benefactors, simplicity in dis- course, and ingenuity in all pretences and transac- tions, became the characterisms of Christian men, and the word of a Christian the greatest solemnity of stipulation in the world. 32. But concerning the general, I consider, that in two very great instances it was remonstrated, that Christianity was the greatest prosecution of natural justice and equality in the whole world. The one was in an election of an apostle into the place of Judas : when there were two equal candi- dates of the same pretension and capacity, the ques- tion was determined by lots, which naturally was the arbitration in questions whose parts were wholly indifferent ; and as it was used in all times, so it is to this day used with us in many places, where, lest there be a disagreement concerning the manner of tithing some creatures, and to prevent unequal arts and unjust practices, they are tithed by lot, and their fortuitous passing through the door of their fold. The other is in the cenobitic life of the first Christians and apostles : they had all things in common, which was that state of na- ture, in which men lived charitably and without in- justice, before the distinction of dominions and pri- vate rites. But from this manner of life they were soon driven by the public necessity and constitution of affairs. I SiiifTulomm interest, si universi regantur. Nec natura potest justo secernere iniquum, Dividitut bona diversis, fugienda petendis. Hoh. 1. i. Sat. 3. * Vina sitim sedant, natis Venus alma creandis Sei’viat: hos fines transiliisse nocet. — V-irg. 33. Thirdly, whatsoever else is in the Christian law, concerns the natural precept of sobriety, in which there is some variety and some difficulty. In the matter of carnality, the holy Jesus did clearly reduce us to the first institution of marriage in pa- radise, allowing no other mixture, but what was first intended in the creation and first sacramental union : and in the instance he so permitted us to the natural law, that he was pleased to mention no instance of forbidden lust, but in general and com- prehensive terms of adultery and fornication : in the other, which are still more unnatural, as their names are concealed and hidden in shame and se- crecy, we are to have no instructor, but the modesty and order of nature. 34. As an instance of this law of sobriety, Christ superadded the whole doctrine of humility, which Moses did not, and which seemed almost to be ex- tinguished in the world; and it is called by St. Paul, “ sapere ad sobrietatem,” the reasonableness or wisdom of sobriety. And it is all the reason in the world, that a man should think of himself but just as he is. He is deceived that thinks other- wise, and is a fool. And when we consider, that pride makes wars, and causes affronts, and no man loves a proud man, and he loves no man but himself and his flatterers, we shall understand, that the pre- cept of humility is an excellent art, and a happy in- strument towards human felicity. And it is no way contradicted by a natural desire of honour ; it only appoints just and reasonable ways of obtaining it. We are not forbidden to receive honour ; but to seek it for designs of pride and complacency, or to make it rest in our hearts. But when the hand of virtue receives the honour, and transmits it to God from our own head, the desires of nature are suffi- ciently satisfied, and nothing of religion contra- dicted. And it is certain, by all the experience of the world, that in every state and order of men, he, that is most humble in proportion to that state, is (if all things else be symbolical) the most honoured person. For it is very observable, that when God designed man to a good and happy life, as the natu- ral end of his creation, to verify this, God was pleased to give him objects sufficient and apt to satisfy every appetite : I say, to satisfy it naturally, not to satisfy those extravagancies, which might be ac- cidental, and procured by the irregularity either of will or understanding ; ® not to answer him in all that his desires could extend to, but to satisfy the necessity of every appetite; all the desires that God made, not all that man should make. For we see, even in those appetites which are common to men and beasts, all the needs of nature, and all the ends of creation, are served, by the taking such pro- portions of their objects, which are ordinate to their end, and which in man we call temperance (not as much as they naturally can ); such as are mixtures of sexes merely for production of their kind, eating *0 fikv TotQ vTTeplSoXdg dia)icu)v Tutv })Sstov, 77 ica^’ virep- (3o\d.Q, 7] did Trpodipemv, Kal di airdp, Kai /irjdev di erepov aTTolSalvov, aKoXairroQ. — Arist. Ethic. 1. vii. c. 7. p, 294, ed. Wilk 1C PREFACE. and drinking for needs and hunger. And yet God permitted our appetites to be able to extend beyond the limits of the mere natural design, that God, by restraining them, and putting the fetters of laws upon them, might turn natural desires into sobriety, and sobriety into religion, they becoming servants of the commandment. And now we must not call all those swellings of appetites natural inclination, nor the satisfaction of such tumours and excrescencies any part of natural felicities ; but that, which does just co-operate to those ends, which perfect human nature in order to its proper end. For the appe- tites of meat, and drink, and pleasures, are but in- termedia! and instrumental to that end, and are not made for themselves, but first for the end, and then to serve God in the instances of obedience. And just so is the natural desire of honour intended to be a spur to virtue ; (for to \drtue only it is naturally consequent, or to natural and political superiority ;) but to desire it beyond, or besides, the limit, is the swelling and the disease of the desire. And we can take no rule for its perfect value, but by the strict limits of the natural end, or the superinduced end of religion in positive restraints. 35. According to this discourse we may best un- derstand, that even the severest precepts of the Christian law are very consonant to nature and the first laws of mankind. Such is the precept of self- denial, which is nothing else but a confining the appetites within the limits of nature : for there they are permitted, (except when some greater purpose is to be served, than the present answering the par- ticular desire,) and whatsoever is beyond it is not in the natural order to felicity ; it is no better than an itch, which must be scratched and satisfied, but it is unnatural. But, for martyrdom itself, quitting our goods, losing lands, or any temporal interest, they are now become as reasonable in the present constitu- tion of the world, as taking unpleasant potions, and suffering a member to be cauterized, in sickness or disease. And we see, that death is naturally a less evil than a continual torment, and by some not so resented as a great disgrace ; and some persons have chosen it for sanctuary and remedy : and therefore, much rather shall it be accounted prudent and rea- sonable, and agreeable to the most perfect desires of nature, to exchange a house for a hundred, a friend for a patron, a short affliction for a lasting joy, and a temporal death for an eternal life. For so the question is stated to us by Him, that understands it best. True it is, that the suffering of losses, afflic- tions, and death, is naturally an evil, and therefore no part of a natural precept, or prime injunction. But when, God having commanded instances of re- ligion, man will not suffer us to obey God, or will not suffer us to live, then the question is. Which is most agreeable to the most perfect and reasonable desires of nature, to obey God, or to obey man ; to fear God, or to fear man ; to preserve our bodies, or to preserve our souls ; to secure a few years of uncertain and troublesome duration, or an eternity of a very glorious condition ? Some men, reasonably enough, choose to die for considerations lower than that of a happy eternity ; therefore death is not such an evil, but that it may, in some cases, be de- sired and reasonably chosen, and, in some, be re- compensed at the highest rate of a natural value : and if by accident we happen into an estate, in V'^hich of necessity one evil or another must be suffered, certainly nothing is more naturally reasonable and eligible than to choose the least evil; and when there are two good things propounded to our choice, both which cannot be possessed, nothing is more certainly the object of a prudent choice than the greater good. And therefore, when once we under- stand the question of suifering, and self-denial, and martyrdom to this sense, as all Christians do, and all wise men do, and all sects of men do in their several persuasions, it is but remembering, that to live happily after this life is more intended to us by God, and is more perfective of human nature, than to live here with all the prosperity which this state affords ; and it will evidently follow, that when vio- lent men will not let us enter into that condition by the ways of nature and prime intendment, that is, of natural religion, justice, and sobriety, it is made, in that case, and upon that supposition, certainly, na- turally, and infallibly reasonable, to secure the per- fective and principal design of our felicity, though it be by such instruments, which are as unpleasant to our senses, as are the instruments of our res- titution to health ; since both one and the other, in the present conjunction and state of affairs, are most proportionable to reason, because they are so to the present necessity ; not primarily intended to us by God, but superinduced by evil accidents and the violence of men. And we not only find that Socrates suffered death in attestation of a God, though he flattered and discoursed himself into the belief of an immortal reward, “ de industria consults sequanimitatis, non de fiducia compertie veritatis,” as Tertullian says of him ; but we also find, that all men, that believed the immortality of the soul firmly and unmovably, made no scruple of exchanging their life for the preservation of virtue, with the interest of their great hope, for honour sometimes, and often- times for their country. 36. Thus the holy Jesus perfected and restored the natural law, and drew it into a system of propo- sitions, and made them to become of the family of religion. For God is so zealous to have man attain to the end to which he first designed him, that those things, which he hath put in the natural order to attain that end, he hath bound fast upon us, not only by the order of things, by which it was, that he that prevaricated did naturally fall short of fe- licity, but also by bands of religion ; he hath now made himself a party and an enemy to those, that will not be happy. Of old, religion was but one of the natural laws, and the instances of religion were distinct from the discourses of philosophy. Now, all the law of nature is adopted into religion, and by our love and duty to God we are tied to do all that is reason ; and the parts of our religion are but pursuances of the natural relation between God and us ; and beyond all this, our natural condition is, in all senses, improved by the consequents and ad- herences of this religion. For although nature and P REPACK. 17 grace are opposite, that is, nature depraved by evil habits, by ignorance, and ungodly customs, is con- trary to grace, that is, to nature restored by the gospel, engaged to regular living by new revela- tions, and assisted by the Spirit ; yet it is observable, that the law of nature and the law of grace are never opposed. “ There is a law of our members ,” ^ saith St. Paul ; that is, an evil necessity introduced into our appetites, by perpetual evil customs, examples, and traditions of vanity ; and there is a law of sin, that answers to this : and they differ only as inclina- tion and habit, vicious desires and vicious practices. But then contrary to these are, first, “ a law of my mind,” which is the law of nature and right reason, and then the law of grace, that is, of Jesus Christ, who perfected and restored the first law, and by as- sistances reduced it into a law of holy living : and these two differ as the other ; the one is in order to the other, as imperfection and growing degrees and capacities are to perfection and consummation. The law of the mind had been so rased and obliterate, and we, by some means or other, so disabled from observing it exactly, that until it was turned into the law of grace, (which is a law of pardoning infirmi- ties, and assisting us in our choices and elections,) we were in a state of deficiency from the perfective state of man, to which God intended us. 37 . Now, although God always designed man to the same state, which he hath now revealed by J esus Christ, yet he told him not of it ; and his permissions and licenses were then greater, and the law itself lay closer folded up in the compact body of necessary propositions, in order to so much of his end, as was known, or could be supposed. But now, according to the extension of the revelation, the law itself is made wider, that is, more explicit ; and natural reason is thrust forward into discourses of charity and benefit, and we tied to do very much good to others, and tied to co-operate to each other’s felicity. 38. That the law of charity is a law of nature, needs no other argument but the consideration of the first constitution of man. The first instances of justice or intercourse of man with a second or third person, were to such persons, towards whom he had the greatest endearments of affection in the world, a wife and children ; and justice and charity, at first, was the same thing. And it hath obtained in ages far removed from the first, that charity is called righteousness : ^ “ He hath dispersed and given to the poor ; his righteousness remaineth for ever.” y And it is certain, Adam could not in any instance be unjust, but he must in the same also be uncharitable : the band of his first justice being the ties of love, and all having commenced in love. And our blessed Lord, restoring all to the intention of the first perfection, expresses it to the same Rom. vii. 23. “ Ibid. ^ O dvOpoJTTOC IvfOytTlKOC 7 T£ 0 VKf M. AnTON. 1 . ix. Psalm cxii. 9. * 1 John ii. 7, 8. “ "Avdpa S' w^eXtTv, cJt/ Ei^ot re (cai Svi/airo, KclWiarog vovujv. SopHOCL. CEdip. Ty»-. sense, as 1 formerly observed ; justice to our neigh- bour, is loving him as ourselves. For, since jus- tice obliges us to do as we would be done to, as the irascible faculty restrains us from doing evil for fear of receiving evil, so the concupiscible obliges us to charity, that ourselves may receive good. 39. I shall say nothing concerning the reason- ableness of this precept, but that it concurs rarely with the first reasonable appetite of man, of being like God. “ Deus est mortali juvare mortalem, atque hmc est ad cuternitatem via,” said Pliny ; and, “ It is more blessed to give than to receive,” said our blessed Saviour : and therefore the command- ment of charity, in all its parts, is a design not only to reconcile the most miserable person to some participation and sense of felicity, but to make the charitable man happy ; and whether this be not very agreeable to the desires of an intelli- gent nature, needs no further inquiry. And Aris- totle, asking the question. Whether a man hPtd more need of friends in prosperity or adversity ? makes the case equal : yap drv^povvrec ciovrui ETTLKOVpiaQ’ Ot Si eVTV)(OVPT8C ot)Q tVlTOO]- (Tcoaiv. “ When they are in want, they need as- sistance ; when they are prosperous, they need partners of their felicity, that, by communicating their joy to them, it may reflect and double upon their spirits.” And certain it is, there is no greater felicity in the world, than in the content that re- sults from the emanations of charity. And this is that which St. John^- calls “the old command- ment,” and “the new commandment.” It was of old, for it was from the begiiming,*^ even in nature, and to the offices of which our veiy bodies had an organ and a seat; for therefore nature gave to a man bowels and the passion of yearning; but it grew up into religion by parts, and was made per- fect, and, in that degree, appropriate to the law of Jesus Christ. For so the holy Jesus became our lawgiver, and added many new precepts over and above what were in the law of Moses, but not more than was in the law of nature. The reason of both is, what I have all this while discoursed of : Christ made a more perfect restitution of the law of nature, than Moses did, and so it became the second Adam to consummate that, v/hich began to be less perfect, from the prevarication of the first Adam. 40. A particular of the precept of charity is forgiving injuries ; and besides that it hath many superinduced benefits, by way of blessing and re- ward, it relies also upon this natural reason, that a pure and a simple revenge does no way restore man towards the felicity, which the injury did interrupt. For revenge is a doing a simple evil, and does not, in its formality, imply reparation ; for the mere repeating of our own right is perrnitted to them, Hoc I'eges habent Magniiicum et iugens, nulla quod rapiat dies ; Prodesse miseris, supplices fido lare Protegere Senec. Med. 222. Mollissima corda Humano generi dare se natura fatetur, Quae lacrvmas dedit ; hoec nostri pars optima sensus. Jt:vEi\. Sat. 15, 131. VOL. I. C FR KFxVCK. that Avill do it by cliaritable iiistrumciitii ; and to secure myself or the public against the future, by positive inflictions upon the injurious, (if I be not judge myself,) is also within the moderation of an unblamable defence, (unless some accidents or cir- cumstances vary the case) ; but forgiving injuries is a separating the malice from the wrong, the tran- sient act from the permanent effect ; and it is cer- tain, the act which is passed cannot be rescinded ; the effect may ; and if it cannot, it does no way alleviate the evil of the accident, that I draw him, that caused it, into as great a misery ; since every evil, happening in the world, is the proper object of pity, which is in some sense afflictive ; and there- fore, unless we become unnatural and without bowels, it is most unreasonable, that we should increase our own afflictions by introducing a new misery, and making a new object of pity. All the ends of human felicity are secured without revenge, for, without it, we are permitted to restore our- selves ; and therefore it is against natural reason to do an evil, that no way co-operates towards the proper and perfective end of human nature. x\nd he is a miserable person, whose good is the evil of his neighbour and he that revenges, in many cases, does worse than he that did the injury; in all cases, as bad. For if the first injury was an injustice to serve an end of an advantage and real benefit ; then my revenge, which is abstracted, and of a consideration separate and distinct from the reparation, is worse ; for I do him evil, without doing myself any real good ; which he did not, for he received advantage by it. But if the first injury was matter of mere malice without advantage, yet it is no worse than revenge, for that is just so ; and there is as much fantastic pleasure in doing a spite, as in doing revenge : they are both but like the pleasures of eating coals, and toads, and vipers. And certain it is, if a man, upon his private stock, (muld be permitted to revenge, the evil would be im- mortal. And it is rarely well discoursed by Tyndarus in Euripides : “ If the angry wife shall kill her hus- band, the son shall revenge his father’s death, and kill his mother, and then the brother shall kill his mother’s murderer, and he also will meet with an avenger for killing his brother.” llfpag ct] Trot KUKioy 7cpo(Dr]aETCU',^ “ What end shall there be to such ” inhuman and “ sad accidents?” If in this there be injustice, it is against natural reason: and, if it be evil, and dis- orders the felicity and security of society, it is also against natural reason : but if it be just, it is a strange justice, that is made up of so many inhu- manities. 41. And now, if any man pretends specially to o 'O TifXMoCjp Tov TrpovTrdp^avTog aSiKWTtpog.-- Maxim. Tyriijs in Dissert, an referenda sit Injuria, p. 26. " kTravra rd tan paKapiMnpa, Kv civayKu’nov kukuiv, ' Ax'toi Trap' avrwu tTtpu 7rpoa7ropi(^optv. A LiTToi'/ifff , Sfv 'KTCipy Tig' dv tiTry KaKijjg, reason, to the ordinate desires and perfections of nature, and the sober discourses of philosophy, here is in Christianity, and no where else, enough to satisfy and inform his reason, to perfect his nature, and to reduce to act all the propositions of an intel- ligent and wise spirit. And the Holy Ghost is pro- mised and given in our religion, to be an eternal band to keep our reason from returning to the dark- nesses of the old creation, and to promote the ends of our natural and proper felicity. For it is not a vain thing, that St. Paul reckons helps, and govern- ments, and healings, to be fruits of the Spirit. For since the two greatest blessings of the world, per- sonal and political, consist, that in health, this in government ; ^ and the ends of human felicity are served in nothing greater for the present interval, than in these two ; Christ did not only enjoin rare prescriptions of health, such as are fasting, tempe- rance, chastity, and sobriety, and all the great en- dearments of government ; (and, unless they be sa- credly observed, man is infinitely miserable ;) but also hath given his Spirit, that is, extraordinary aids to the promoting these two, and facilitating the work of nature; that (as St. Paul says at the end of a discourse to this very purpose) “ the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”® 42. I shall add nothing but this single consider- ation : God said to the children of Israel, “Ye are a royal priesthood,” ^ a kingdom of priests : which was therefore true, because God reigned by the priests, and the priests’ lips did then preserve know- ledge, and the people were to receive the law from their mouths ; for God having, by laws of his own, established religion and the republic, did govern by the rule of the law, and the ministry of the priests. The priests said, “ Thus saith the Lord ; ” and the people obeyed. And these very words are spoken to the Christian church: “Ye are a royal priest- hood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him, that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” That is, God reigns over all Christendom, just as he did over the Jews. He hath now so given to them and restored respectively all those reasonable laws, which are in order to all good ends, personal, eco- nomical, and political, that if men will suffer Christ- ian religion to do its last intention, if men will live according to it, there needs no other coercion of laws or power of the sword. The laws of God, revealed by Christ, are sufficient to make all socie- ties of men happy ; and over all good men God reigns by his ministers, by the preaching of the word. And this was most evident in the three first ages of the church, in which all Christian so- cieties were, for all their proper intercourses, per- fectly guided, not by the authority and compulsion, 'Opyi^ofitO'’ dv ’iSyng tvvTTviov, a, KaiTovg rotovrouQ, (TO(povg fifv, (pQoviyiovg 5’ ov (paatv tlvai, orav iSojmv ayvoovvrag to. ryvfi(f)Spovff avToig’ Kal irfpirra fuv, icai Oavnaard, Kai X/a9d CTfiTovmv. — Abist. 1. vi. Eth. cap. 7. p. 241. goras and his, especially Hierocles ; all the old academics and stoics wdthin the Roman schools :) more pleasure, I say, in reading these, than the triflings of many of the latter schoolmen, w'ho pro- moted a petty interest of a family, or an unlearned opinion, with great earnestness ; but added nothing to Christianity but trouble, scruple, and vexation. And from hence I hope, that they may the rather be invited to love and consider the rare documents of Christianity, which certainly is the great treasure- house of those excellent, moral, and perfective dis- courses, which wdth much pains and greater pleasure w^e find respersed and thinly scattered in all the Greek and Roman poets, historians, and philoso- phers. But because I have observed, that there are some principles entertained into the persuasions of men, w'hich are the seeds of evil life, such as are — the doctrine of late repentance, the mistakes of the de- finition of the sins of infirmity, the evil understand- ing the consequents and nature of original sin, the sufficiency of contrition in order to pardon, the effi- cacy of the rites of Christianity without the necessity of moral adherencies, the nature of faith, and many other ; I was diligent to remark such doctrines, and to pare off the mistakes so far, that they hinder not piety, and yet, as near as T could, wdthout engaging in any question, in w^hich the very life of Christi- anity is not concerned. Hsec sum profatus baud ambagibus Implicita, sed quae, regulis aequi et. boni Sumilta, rudibus pariter et doctis patent.' My great purpose, is to advance the necessity, and to declare the manner and parts, of a good life and to invite some persons to the consideration of all the parts of it, by intermixing something of pleasure with the use ; others, by such parts which wdll better entertain their spirits, than a romance. I have followed the design of scripture, and have given milk for babes, and for stronger men stronger meat ; and in all I have despised my own reputa- tion, by so striving to make it useful, that I was less careful to make it strict in retired senses, and em- bossed with unnecessary, but graceful, ornaments. I pray God, this may go forth into a blessing to all that shall use it, and reflect blessings upon me all the way, that my spark may grow greater by kindling my brother’s taper, and God may be glorified in us both. If the reader shall receive no benefit, yet I intended him one, and I have laboured in order to it ; and I shall receive a great recompence for that intention, if he shall please to say this prayer for me, — “ That while I have preached to others, I may not become a cast-away.” ' Polynic. apud Eurip. Pboen. 504. Pors. 'H Trapovffa irpayiiartia ov SrewpiagivtKa ianv, loaTTip ai dXKai' ov ydp 'iv dSdutv t'i ianv r] dpfrrj, aKtTrTOfitBay dX\’ tV dyaBol yivihjxiBa. — Arist. Ethic. 1. ii. c. 2. AN EXHORTATION TO THE IMITATION OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. However the person of Jesus Christ was depressed with a load of humble accidents, and shadowed with the darknesses of poverty and sad contingencies, so that the Jews, and the contemporary ages of the gentiles, and the apostles themselves, could not at first discern the brightest essence of divinity ; yet as a beauty, artificially covered with a thin cloud of Cyprus, transmits its excellency to the eye, made more greedy and apprehensive by that imperfect and weak restraint ; so was the sanctity and holi- ness of the life of Jesus glorious in its darknesses, and found confessors and admirers even in the midst of those despites which were done him upon the contrariant designs of malice and contradictory am- bition. Thus the wife of Pilate called him “ that just person ; ” Pilate pronounced him guilt- less;” Judas said he was “innocent;” the devil himself called him “ the Holy One of God.” For however it might concern any man’s mistaken ends, to mislike the purpose of his preaching and spiritual kingdom, and those doctrines, which were destruc- tive of their complacencies and carnal securities ; yet they could not deny but that he was a man of God, of exemplar sanctity, of an angelical chastity, of a life sweet, afifable, and complying with human conversation, and as obedient to government as the most humble children of the kingdom. And yet he was Lord of all the world. 2. And certainly, very much of this was with a design, that he might shine to all the generations and ages of the world, and become a guiding star and a pillar of fire to us in our journey. For we, who believe that Jesus was perfect God and perfect man, do also believe, that one minute of his intole- rable passion, and every action of his, might have been satisfactory, and enough for the expiation and reconcilement of ten thousand worlds ; and God might, upon a less effusion of blood, and a shorter life of merit, if he had pleased, have accepted hu- man nature to pardon and favour : but, that the « 1 Pet. ii. 21. holy Jesus hath added so many excellent instances of holiness, and so many degrees of passion, and so many kinds of virtues, is, that he might become an example to us, and reconcile our wills to him, as well as our persons to his heavenly Father. 3. And indeed it wdll prove but a sad consider- ation, that one drop of blood might be enough to ob- tain our pardon, and the treasures of his blood run- ning out till the fountain itself was dry, shall not be enough to procure our conformity to him ; that the smallest minute of his expense shall be enough to justify us, and the whole magazine shall not procure our sanctification; that at a smaller expense God might pardon us, and at a greater we will not imi- tate him : for therefore “ Christ hath suffered for us,” saith the apostle, “ leaving an example to us, that we might follow his steps.” ^ The least of our wills cost Christ as much as the greatest of our sins. And therefore he calls himself “ the Wav, the Truth, and the Life : ” that as he redeems our souls from death to life, by becoming life to our persons ; so he is the truth to our understandings, and the way to our will and affections, enlightening that, and leading these in the paths of a happy eternity. 4. When the king of Moab was pressed hard by the sons of Isaac,^ the Israelites and Edomites, he took the king of Edom’s eldest son, or, as some think, his own son, the heir of his kingdom, and offered him as a holocaust upon the wall ; and the Edomites presently raised the siege at Kir-haraseth, and went to their own country. The same, and much more, was God’s design, who took not his enemy’s, but his own Son, his only begotten Son, and God himself, and offered him up in sacrifice, to make us leave our perpetual fightings against Hea- ven ; and if we still persist, we are hardened beyond the wildnesses of the Arabs and Edomites, and nei- . ther are receptive of the impresses of pity nor hu- manity, who neither have compassion to the suffer- ’» 2 Kings iii. 27. 22 AN EXHORTATION TO THE ing of Jesus, nor compliance with the designs of God, nor conformity to the holiness and obedience of our Guide. In a dark night, if an ignis fatuus do but precede us, the glaring of its lesser flames does so amuse our eyes, that we follow it into rivers and precipices, as if the ray of that false li^^ht were designed on purpose to he our path to tread in : and therefore not to follow the glories of the Sun of righteousness, who indeed leads us over rocks and difficult places, but secures us against the danger, and guides us into safety, is both the greatest indecency and unthankfulness in the world. 5. In the great council of eternity, when God set down the laws, and knit fast the eternal bands, of predestination, he made it one of his great pur- poses to make his Son like us,^^ that we also might be like his holy Son ; he, by taking our nature ; we, by imitating his holiness : “ God hath predes- tinated us to be conformable to the image of his Son,” saith the apostle. For the first in every kind is in nature propounded as the pattern of the rest ; and as the sun, the prince of all the bodies of light, and the fire of all warm substances, is the principal, the rule and the copy, which they in their proportions imitate and transcribe ; so is the Word incarnate the great example of all the pre- destinate ; for “ he is the first-born among many brethren.” ^ And therefore it was a precept of the apostle, and by his doctrine we understand its meaning, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.”^ The similitude declares the duty. As a garment is composed and made of the same fashion with the body, and is applied to each part in its true figure and commensuration ; so should we put on Christ, and imitate the whole body of his sanctity, con- forming to every integral part, and express him in our lives, that God, seeing our impresses, may know* whose image and superscription we bear, and we may be acknowledged for sons, when we have the air, and features, and resemblances of our elder brother.® 6. In the practice of this duty we may be helped by certain considerations, which are like the pro- portion of so many rewards. For this, according to the nature of all holy exercises, stays not for pay, till its w’ork be quite finished; but, like music in churches, is pleasure, and piety, and salary be- sides. So is every work of grace ; full of pleasure in the execution, and is abundantly rewarded, be- sides the stipend of a glorious eternity. 7 . First: I consider that nothing is more ho- nourable than to be like God; and the heathens, worshippers of false deities, grew vicious upon that ^ Aia Oiofunrjaiav iiQ ^sorcTiav d^itortpoQ S. Dionys. Rom. viii. 29. c Ibid. f Rom xiii. 14. H (TVficpOJVOQ T(i> v6fi(i) rjTlQ OVaiOQ i(TTl TWV Tifuofiaviov yvoKTiq, Kai r} Trpo^ dvrtjv Kara dvvafxiv V^o- fioiMcng' d yap dyaTr^ Tig, icai fxifiHTai oaov olov rt' Mg yap oi/3oc, ri Trdcry^u TrapBsvovg (Sii^yafitov, ripo^i^axTi TvalSag tKTtKvovptvog XdS'pa OvrjiTKOVTag, dp,k\H /lo) av y’’ aXX’ tTrti Kpart7g, ’Aperdg biioKt. Eurip. Ion. 436. Admonetur omnis aetas fieri posse, quod aliquando factum est. Exempla fiunt, quae jam esse facinora destiferunt.- S. Cyprian. IMITATION OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 23 virtue, which, like a well-kiiidled fire fitted witli just materials, casts a constant heat; not like an in- flamed heap of stubble, glaring with great emissions, and suddenly stooping into the thickness of smoke. His piety was even, constant, unblamable, comply- ing with civil society, without affrightment of pre- cedent, or prodigious instances of actions greater than the imitation of men. For if we observe our blessed Saviour in the whole story of his life, al- though he was without sin, yet the instances of his piety were the actions of a very holy, but of an or- dinary life ; and we may observe this difference in the story of Jesus from ecclesiastical writings of certain beatified persons, whose life is told rather to amaze us, and to create scruples, than to lead us in the evenness and serenity of a holy conscience. Such are the prodigious penances of Simeon Stylites, the abstinence of the religious retired into the mountain Nitria, but especially the stories of later saints, in the midst of a declining piety and aged Christendom, where persons are represented holy by way of idea and fancy, if not to promote the interests of a family and institution. But our blessed Saviour, though his eternal union and adherencies of love and obedi- ence to his heavenly Father were next to infinite, yet in his external actions, in which only, with the cor- respondence of the Spirit in those actions, he pro- pounds himself imitable, he did so converse with men, that men, after that example, might for ever converse with him. We find that some saints have had excrescencies and eruptions of holiness in the instances of uncommanded duties, which in the same particulars we find not in the story of the life of J esus. John Baptist was a greater mortifier than his Lord was ; and some princes have given more money than all Christ’s family did, whilst he was alive ; but the difference, which is observable, is, that although some men did some acts of counsel in order to attain that perfection, which in Jesus was essential and unalterable, and was not acquired by degrees, and means of danger and difficulty ; yet no man ever did his whole duty, save only the holy Jesus. The best of men did sometimes actions not preciscdy and strictly requisite, and such as were besides the precept ; but yet, in the greatest flames of their shining piety, they prevaricated something of the commandment. They that have done the most things beyond, have also done some things short of, their duty; but Jesus, who intended him- self the example of piety, did in manners as in the rule of faith, which, because it was propounded to all men, was fitted to every understanding ; it was true, necessary, short, easy, and intelligible. So was his rule and his copy fitted, not only with excellencies worthy, but with compliances possible, to be imitated : of glories so great, that the most early and constant industry must confess its own imper- fections ; and yet so sweet and humane, that the greatest infirmity, if pious, shall find comfort and encouragement. Thus God gave his children manna from heaven ; and though it was excellent, ' Qc fvxoiJiivog Toig utrtcoQi^y fiiv anb ttjq TrXiov ^ Seiea tAa^to’S’o*, dixit Eunapiusde lamblicho. like the food of angels, yet it conformed to every palate, according to that appetite whidi their several fancies and constitutions did produce. 9. But now, when the example of Jesus is so ex- cellent, that it allures and tempts with its facility and sweetness, and that we are not commanded to imitate a life, whose story tells of ecstasies in prayer, * and abstractions of senses, and immaterial transportations, and fastings to the exinanition of spirits, and disabling all animal operations ; but a life of justice and temperance, of chastity and piety, of charity and devotion ; such a life, without which human society cannot be conversed, and by which, as our irregularities are made regular, so our weak- nesses are not upbraided, nor our miseries made a mocker}^ We find so much reason to address our- selves to a heavenly imitation of so blessed a pattern, that the reasonableness of the thing will be a great argument to chide every degree and minute of neglect. It was a strange and a confident en- couragement, which Phocion used to a timorous Greek, who was condemned to die with him : — “ Is it not enough to thee, that thou must die with Phocion?” I am sure, he that is most incurious of the issues of his life, is yet willing enough to reign with Jesus, when he looks upon the glories represented without the duty ; but it is a very great stupidity and unreasonableness, not to live with him in the imitation of so holy and so prompt a piety. It is glorious to do what he did, and a shame to decline his sufferings, when there was a God to hallow and sanctify the actions, and a man clothed with infirmity to undergo the sharpness of the passion ; so that the glory of the person added excellency to the first, and the tenderness of the person excused not from suffering the latter. 10. Thirdly : Every action of the life of Jesus, as it is imitable by us, is of so excellent merit, that, by making up the treasure of grace, it becomes full of assistances to us, and obtains of God grace to enable us to its imitation, by way of influence and impetration. For, as in the acquisition of habits, the very exercise of the action does produce a faci- lity to the action, and in some proportion becomes the cause of itself ; so does ever}^ exercise of the life of Christ kindle its own fires, inspires breath into itself, and makes an univocal production of itself in a differing subject. And Jesus becomes the foun- tain of spiritual life to us, as the prophet Elisha to the dead child : when he stretched his hands upon the child’s hands, laid his mouth to his mouth, and formed his posture to the boy, and breathed into him, the spirit returned again into the child, at the prayer of Elisha; so when our lives are formed into the imitation of the life of the holiest Jesus, the Spirit of God returns into us, not only by the efficacy of the imitation, but by the merit and im- petratibn of the actions of Jesus. It is reported in the Bohemian story,™ that St. Wenceslaus, their king, one winter night going to his devotions, in a remote church, barefooted in the snow and sharp- Histor. Bohem. lib. iv. 24 AN EXHORTATION TO THE ness of unequal and pointed ice, his servant Poda- vivus, who waited upon his master’s piety, and en- deavoured to imitate his affections, began to faint through the violence of the snow and cold, till the king commanded him to follow him, and set his feet in the same footsteps, which his feet should mark for him : the servant did so, and either fancied a cure, or found one ; for he follow'ed his prince, helped forward wdth shame and zeal to his imita- tion, and by the forming footsteps for him in the snow. In the same manner does the blessed Jesus; for, since our way is troublesome, obscure, full of objection and danger, apt to be mistaken and to affright our industry, he commands us to mark his footsteps, to tread where his feet have stood, and not only invites us forward by the argument of his example, but he hath trodden down much of the difficulty, and made the way easier, and fit for our feet. For he knows our infirmities, and himself hath felt their experience in all things but in the neighbourhoods of sin ; and therefore he hath pro- portioned a way and a path to our strengths and capacities, and, like Jacob, hath marched softly and in evenness with the children and the cattle, to en- tertain us by the comforts of his company, and the influences of a perpetual guide. 1 1 . Fourthly : But we must know, that not every thing which Christ did is imitable by us ; neither did he, in the work of our redemption, in all things imitate his heavenly Father. For there are some things which are issues of an absolute power, some are expresses of supreme dominion, some are actions of a judge. And therefore Jesus prayed for his enemies, and wept over Jerusalem, when at the same instant his eternal Father laughed them to scorn; for he knew that their day was coming, and himself had decreed their ruin. But it became the holy Jesus to imitate his Father’s mercies; for himself was the great instrument of the eternal compassion, and was the instance of mercy ; and therefore, in the operation of his Father’s design, every action of his was univocal, and he showed the power of his divinity in nothing but in miracles of mercy, and illustrations of faith, by creating arguments of cre- dibility. In the same proportion we follow Jesus, as himself followed his Father : for what he abated by the order to his intendment and design, we abate by the proportions of our nature ; for some excel- lent acts of his were demonstrations of divinity, and an excellent grace poured forth upon him without measure was their instrument; to which propor- tions if we should extend our infirmities, we should crack our sinews, and dissolve the silver cords, be- fore we could entertain the instances, and support the burden. Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights ; but the manner of our fastings hath been in all ages limited to the term of an artificial day ; and in the primitive observations and the Jewish rites, men did eat their meal, as soon as the stars shone in the firmament. We never read that Jesus laughed, and but once, that he rejoiced in spirit ; but the declensions of our natures cannot bear the weight of a perpetual grave deportment, without the intervals of refreshment and free alacrity. Our ever blessed Saviour suffered the devotion of Mary Magdalene to transport her to an expensive ex- pression of her religion, and twice to anoint his feet with costly nard ; and yet if persons, whose conditions were of no greater lustre or resplendency of fortune, than was conspicuous in his family and retinue, should suffer the same profusion upon the dressing and perfuming their bodies, possibly it might be truly said, “ It might better be sold, and distributed to the poor.” This Jesus received, as he was the Christ and anointed of the Lord ; and by this he suflfercd himself to be designed to burial, and he received the oblation as eucharistical for the ejection of seven devils; for “therefore she loved much.” 12. The instances are not many. For however Jesus had some extraordinary transvolations, and acts of emigration beyond the lines of his even and ordinary conversation, yet it was but seldom; for his being exemplary was of so great consideration, that he chose to have fewer instances of wonder, that he might transmit the more of an imitable vir- tue. And therefore we may establish this for a rule and limit of our imitations ; because Christ, our Lawgiver, hath described all his Father’s will in sanctions and signature of laws ; whatsoever he commanded, and whatsoever he did, of precise mo- rality, or in pursuance of the laws of nature, in that we are to trace his footsteps : and in these his laws and his practice differ but as a map and a guide, a law and a judge, a rule and a precedent. But in the special instances of action, we are to abate the circumstances, and to separate the obedience from the effect : whatsoever was moral in a ceremonial performance, that is highly imitable ; and the obe- dience of sacrificing, and the subordination to laws actually in being, even now they are abrogated, teach us our duty, in a differing subject, upon the like reason. Jesus’s going up to Jerusalem to the feasts, and his observation of the sabbaths, teach us our duty in celebration of festivals constituted by a competent and just authority. For that which gave excellency to the observation of Mosaical rites, was an evangelical duty ; and the piety of obedience did not only consecrate the observations of Levi, but taught us our duty in the constitutions of Christianity. 13. Fifthly : As the holy Jesus did some things, which we are not to imitate ; so we also are to do some things, which we cannot learn from his ex- ample. For there are some of our duties, which presuppose a state of sin, and some suppose a violent temptation and promptness to it ; and the duties of prevention, and the instruments of restitution, are proper to us, but conveyed only by precept, and not by precedent. Such are all the parts and actions of repentance, the duties of mortification and self-denial. For whatsoever the holy Jesus did, in the matter of austerity, looked directly upon the work of our re- demption, and looked back only on us by a reflex act, as Christ did on Peter, when he looked him into repentance. Some states of life also there are, which Jesus never led; such are those of temporal governors, kings, and judges, merchants, lawyers. IMITATION OF THE LIFE OF CIIRllbx. 25 and the state of marriage : in the course of which lives many cases do occur, which need a precedent and the vivacity of an excellent exami)le, especially since all the rules, which they have, have not pre- vented the suhtilty of the many inventions which men have found out, nor made provision for all con- tingencies. Such persons, in all their special needs, are to govern their actions by the rules of propor- tion, by analogy to the holiness of the person of Jesus, and the sanctity of his institution; consider- ing what might become a person professing the discipline, of so holy a Master, and what he would have done in the like case ; taking our heights by the excellence of his innocency and charity. Only remember this, that, in such cases, we must always judge on the strictest side of piety and charity, if it be a matter concerning the interest of a second per- son; and that, in all things, we do those actions which are farthest removed from scandal, and such as towards ourselves are severe ; towards others, full of gentleness and sw^eetness : for so would the righte- ous and merciful Jesus have done. These are the best analogies and proportions. And in such cases, when the wells are dry, let us take water from a cistern, and propound to ourselves some exemplar saint, the necessities of whose life have determined his piety to the like occurrences. 14. But now, from these particulars we shall best account to what the duty of the imitation of J esus does amount : for it signifies, that we “ should walk as he walked,” tread in his steps, with our hand upon the guide, and our eye upon his rule ; that we should do glory to him, as he did to his Father ; and that whatsoever we do, we should be careful that it do him honour, and no reproach to his institution ; and then account these to be the integral parts of our duty, which are imitations of his actions or his spirit, of his rule or of his life ; there being no better imitation of him, than in such actions as do him pleasure, however he hath ex- pressed or intimated the precedent. 15. He that gives alms to the poor, takes Jesus by the hand ; he that patiently endures injuries and affronts, helps him to bear his cross ; he that com- forts his brother in affliction, gives an amiable kiss of peace to Jesus ; he that bathes his own and his neighbour’s sins in tears of penance and compassion, washes his Master’s feet : we lead Jesus into the recesses of our heart by holy meditations ; and we enter into his heart, when we express him in our actions ; for so the apostle says, “ He that is in Christ, walks as he also walked.”" But thus the actions of our life relate to him by way of worship and religion ; but the use is admirable and effectual, ?\’^hen our actions refer to him as to our copy, and we transcribe the original to the life. He that con- siders, with what affections and lancinations of spirit, with what effusions of love, Jesus prayed ; " 1 John ii. 6. o Seneca, Ep. 11. P Athenagoras, lib. iii. et xiii. et Theognis de sc. Idem testantur Laertius et Lactantius. Hoc notat S. Cyrillus, lib. vi. contra Julian. Narratur et prisci Catonis Saepe mero caluisse virtus. — Horat. 3. 21. 11. Majorum et sapientissimorura disciplina, Gracci Socratis et what fervours and assiduity, what innocency of wish, what modesty of posture, what subordination to his Father, and conformity to the Divine pleasure, were in all his devotions; is taught and excited to holy and religious prayer : the rare sweetness of his de- portment in all temptations and violences of his passion, his charity to his enemies, his sharp repre- hensions to the scribes and Pharisees, his ingenuity toward all men, are living and effectual sermons to teach us patience, and humility, and zeal, and can- did simplicity, and justice in all our actions. I add no more instances, because all the following dis- courses will be prosecutions of this intendment. And the life of Jesus is not described to be like a picture in a chamber of pleasure, only for beauty,, and entertainment of the eye ; but like the Egyp- tian hieroglyphics, whose every feature is a precept,, and the images converse with men by sense, and signification of excellent discourses. 16. It was not without great reason advised," that every man should propound the example of a wise and virtuous personage, as Cato, or Socrates, or Brutus ; and, by a fiction of imagination, to suppose him present as a witness, and really to take his life as the direction of all our actions. The best and most excellent of the old lawgivers and philosophers among the Greeks had an allay of viciousness, and could not be exemplary all over : some were noted for flatterers, as Plato and Aristippus ; some for in- continency, as Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno, Theognis, Plato, and Aristippus again; and Socrates, whom their oracle affirmed to be the wisest and most per- fect man, yet was by Porphyry noted for extreme intemperance of anger, both in words and actions : and those Romans who were offered to them for examples, although they were great in reputation, yet they had also great vices-; Brutus dipped his hand in the blood of Caesar, his prince, and his father by love, endearments, and adoption ; and Cato was but a wise man all day, at night he was used to drink wine too liberally ; and both he and Socrates did give their wives unto their friends ; p the philosopher and the censor were procurers of their wives’ un- chastity : and yet these were the best among the gentiles. But how happy and richly furnished are Christians with precedents of saints, whose faith and revelations have been productive of more spiritual graces, and greater degrees of moral per- fections ! And this I call the privilege of a very great assistance, that I might advance the reputation and account of the life of the glorious Jesus, which is not abated by the imperfections of human nature, as they were, but receives great heightenings and per- fection from the divinity of his person, of which they were never capable. 17. Let us therefore press after Jesus, as Elisha did after his master, with an inseparable prosecu- tion, even whithersoever he goes; that, according Romani Catonis, qui uxores suas amicis communicaverunt, uas in matrimonium duxerant liberorum causa, et alibi crean- orum, nescio quidem an invitas ; quid nam de castitate cu- rarent, quam mariti tarn facile donaverant? O sapientiae Atticse, O Romance gravitatis exemplum! Leno est philoso- phus et censor. — Teijtul. Apolog. c. 39. 2G AN EXHORTATION, Ac. to the reasonableness and proportion expressed in St. Paul’s advice, “ As we have borne the image of the earthy, we may also bear the image of the heavenly.” ^ For, “ In vain are we called Christi- ans, if we live not according to the example and disciplme of Christ, the Father of the institution.”'^ When St. Laurence was in the midst of the tor- ments of the gridiron, he made this to be the matter of his joy and eucharist, that he was admitted to the gates through which J esus had entered ; and therefore thrice happy are they who walk in his courts all their days. And it is yet a nearer union and vicinity, to imprint his life in our souls, and ex- press it in our exterior converse ; and this is done by him only, who (as St. Prosper® describes the duty) despises all those gilded vanities which he despised, that fears none of those sadnesses which he suffered, that practises or also teaches those doc- trines which he taught, and hopes for the accom- plishment of all his promises. And this is truest religion, and the most solemn adoration.^ THE PRAYER. 0 eternal, holy, and most glorious Jesu, who hast united two natures of distance infinite, descending to the lownesses of human nature, that thou mightest exalt human nature to a participation of the Divinity ; we, thy people, that sat in darkness 1 Cor, XV. 49. Dictum Malachiae Abbat, apud S. Bernarduiii, in Vita S. Mai. and in the shadows of death, have seen great light, to entertain our understandings and enlighten our souls with its excellent influences; for the ex- cellency of thy sanctity, shining gloriously in every part of thy life, is like thy angel, the pillar of fire, which called thy children from the dark- nesses of Egypt. Lord, open mine eyes, and give me power to behold thy righteous glories; and let my soul be so entertained with affections and holy ardours, that I may never look back upon the flames of Sodom, but may follow thy light, which recreates and enlightens, and guides us to the mountains of safety, and sanctuaries of holi- ness. Holy Jesu, since thy image is imprinted on our nature by creation, let me also express thy image by all the parts of a holy life, conform- ing my will and affections to thy holy precepts ; submitting my understanding to thy dictates and lessons of perfection ; imitating thy sweetnesses and excellencies of society, thy devotion in prayer, thy conformity to God, thy zeal tempered with meekness, thy patience heightened with charity ; that heart, and hands, and eyes, and all my facul- ties, may grow up with the increase of God, till I come to the full measure of the stature of Christ, even to be a perfect man in Christ Jesus; that at last in thy light I may see light, and reap the fruits of glory from the seeds of sanctity, in the imitation of thy holy life, 0 blessed and holy Saviour Jesu ! Amen. s Lib. ii. de Vita Contcmplat. c. 21. t Relisfiosissimus Cultus imitari. — Lactant. O THE LIFE OF OUR BLESSED LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. PART I. BEGINNING AT THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, UNTIL HIS BAPTISM AND TEMPTATION, INCLUSIVELY. SECTION I. The History of the Conception of Jesus. 1. When the fulness of time was come, after the frequent repetition of promises, the expectation of the Jewish nation, the longings and tedious wait- ings of all holy persons, the departure of the “ sceptre from Judah, and the lawgiver from be- tween his feet;” when the number of Daniel’s years was accomplished, and the Egyptian and Syrian kingdoms had their period; God, having great compassion towards mankind, remembering his pro- mises, and our great necessities, sent his Son into the world, to take upon him our nature, and all that guilt of sin, which stuck close to our nature, and all that punishment, which was consequent to our sin : which came to pass after this manner. 2. In the days of Herod the king, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a holy maid, called Mary, espoused to Joseph, and found her in a capacity and excellent disposition to receive the greatest honour that ever was done to the daughters of men. Her employment was holy and pious, her person young, her years florid and springing, her body chaste, her mind humble, and a rare repository of divine graces. She was full of grace and excel- lencies ; and God poured upon her a full measure of honour, in making her the mother of the Mes- sias : for the “ angel came to her, and said. Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee ; blessed art thou among women.” 3. We cannot but imagine the great mixture of innocent disturbances and holy passions, that, in the first address of the angel, did rather discompose her settledness, and interrupt the silence of her spirits, than dispossess her dominion, which she ever kept over those subjects, which never had been taught to rebel beyond the mere possibilities of natural imperfection. But if the angel appeared in the shape of a man, it was an unusual arrest to the blessed Virgin, who was accustomed to retire- ments and solitariness, and had not known an ex- perience of admitting a comely person, but a stranger, to her closet and privacies. But if the heavenly messenger did retain a diviner form, more symbol- ical to angelical nature, and more proportionable to his glorious message, although her daily em- ployment was a conversation with angels, who, in their daily ministering to the saints, did behold her chaste conversation, coupled with fear, yet they used not any affrighting glories in the offices of their daily attendances, but were seen only by spi- ritual discernings. However, so it happened, that “ when she saw him, she was troubled at his say- ing, and cast in her mind, what manner of saluta- tion this should be.” 4. But the angel, who came with designs of ho- nour and comfort to her, not willing that the in- equality and glory of the messenger should, like too glorious a light to a weaker eye, rather con- found the faculty than enlighten the organ, did, be- fore her thoughts could find a tongue, invite her to a more familiar confidence than possibly a tender virgin (though of the greatest serenity and com- posure) could have put on, in the presence of such a beauty and such a holiness. And “ the angel said unto her. Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.” 5. The holy Virgin knew herself a person very 28 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE ANNUNCIATION Part I. unlikely to be a mother ; for, although the desires of becoming a mother to the Messias were great in every of the daughters of Jacob, and about that time the expectation of his revelation was high and pregnant, and therefore she was espoused to an ho- nest and just person of her kindred and family, and so might not despair to become a mother ; yet she was a person of a rare sanctity, and so morti- fied a spirit, that for all this desponsation of her, according to the desire of her parents, and the cus- tom of the nation, she had not set one step toward the consummation of her marriage, so much as in thought ; and possibly had set herself back from it by a vow of chastity and holy celibate : for “ Mary said unto the angel. How shall this be, seeing I know not a man ? ” 6. But the angel, who was a person of that na- ture which knows no conjunctions but those of love and duty, knew that the piety of her soul, and the religion of her chaste purposes, was a great imitator of angelical purity, and therefore perceived where the philosophy of her question did consist ; and, being taught of God, declared that the manner should be as miraculous, as the message itself was glorious. For the angel told her, that this should not be done by any way, which our sin and the shame of Adam had unhallowed, by turning nature into a blush, and forcing her to a retirement from a public attesting the means of her own preservation ; but the whole matter was from God, and so should the manner be : for “ the angel said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee : therefore also that holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.” 7 . When the blessed Virgin was so ascertained, that she should be a mother and a maid, and that two glories, like the two luminaries of heaven, should meet in her, that she might in such a way become the mother of her Lord, that she might with better advantages be his servant ; then all her hopes and all her desires received such satisfaction, and filled all the corners of her heart so much, as indeed it was fain to make room for its reception. But she to whom the greatest things of religion, and the transportations of devotion, were made fa- miliar, by the assiduity and piety of her daily prac- tices, however she was full of joy, yet she was car- ried like a full vessel, without the violent tossings of a tempestuous passion, or the wrecks of a stormy imagination : and, as the power of the Holy Ghost did descend upon her like rain into a fleece of wool, without any obstreperous noises or violences to na- ture, but only the extraordinariness of an exalta- tion ; so her spirit received it with the gentleness and tranquillity fitted for the entertainment of the spirit of love, and a quietness symbolical to the holy guest of her spotless womb, the Lamb of God ; for she meekly replied, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it unto me according to thy word. * quae ventre beato Gaudia matris habens cum virginitatis honore, N ec primam similem visa es, nee habere sequentem ; Sola sine exemplo placuisti foemina Christo.— Seoul. And the angel departed from her,” having done his message. And at the same time the Holy Spirit of God did make her to conceive in her womb the im- maculate Son of God, the Saviour of the world. Ad SECTION I. Considerations upon the Annunciation of the Blessed Alary ^ and the Conception of the Holy Jesus. 1. That which shines brightest, presents itself first to the eye; and the devout soul, in the chain of excellent and precious things which are repre- sented in the counsel, design, and first beginnings of the work of our redemption, hath not leisure to attend the twinkling of the lesser stars, till it hath stood and admired the glory and eminencies of the Divine love, manifested in the incarnation of the Word eternal. God had no necessity, in order to the conservation or the heightening his own felicity, but out of mere and perfect charity, and the bowels of compassion, sent ^ into the world his only Son, for remedy to human miseries, to ennoble our nature by an union with Divinity, to sanctify it with his justice, to enrich it with his grace, to instruct it with his doctrine, to fortify it with his example, to rescue it from servitude, to assert it into the liberty of the sons of God, and at last to make it partaker of a beatifical resurrection. 2. God, who, in the infinite treasures of his wis- dom and providence, could have found out many other ways for our redemption than the incarnation of his eternal Son, was pleased to choose this, not only that the remedy by man might have proportion to the causes of our ruin, whose introduction and in- tromission was by the prevarication of man; but also that we might with freer dispensation receive the influences of a Saviour, with whom we commu- nicate in nature. Although Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, were of greater name and cur- rent, yet they were not so salutary as the waters of Jordan to cure Naaman’s leprosy. And if God had made the remedy of human nature to have come all the way clothed in prodigy, and every instant of its execution had been as terrible, aflrighting, and as full of majesty, as the apparitions upon mount Sinai ; yet it had not been so useful and complying to human necessities, as was the descent of God to the susception of human nature, whereby (as in all medicaments) the cure is best wrought by those in- struments which have the fewest dissonances to our temper, and are the nearest to our constitution. For thus the Saviour of the world became human, alluring, full of invitation, and the sweetnesses of love, exemplary, humble, and medicinal. 3. And, if we consider the reasonableness of the thing, what can be given more excellent for the re- demption of man, than the blood of the Son of God ? And what can more ennoble our nature, than that ^ (’lim inter nos et Deum discordiam peccando fecimus, ta- men ad nos Deus legatum suum prior misit, ut nos ipsi, qui peccavimus, ad pacem Dei rogati veniamus.— St. Greg Sect. f. AND THE CONCEPTION OF JESUS. 29 by the means of his holy humanity it was taken up into the cabinet of the mysterious Trinity ? What better advocate could we have for us, than he that is appointed to be our Judge And what greater hopes of reconciliation can be imagined, than that God, in whose power it is to give an absolute par- don, hath taken a new nature, entertained an office, and undergone a life of poverty, with a purpose to procure our pardon? For now, though, as the righteous Judge, he will judge the nations righte- ously ; yet, by the susception of our nature, and its appendant crimes, he is become a party ; and, hav- ing obliged himself as man, as he is God he will satisfy, by putting the value of an infinite merit to the actions and sufferings ofhis humanity. And if he had not been God, he could not have given us remedy ; if he had not been man, we should have wanted the excellency of example. 4. And till now, human nature was less than that of angels ; but, by the incarnation of the Word, was to be exalted above the cherubims : yet the arch- angel Gabriel being despatched in embassy to re- present the joy and exaltation of his inferior, in- stantly trims his wings with love and obedience, and hastens with this narrative to the holy Virgin. And if we should reduce our prayers to action, and do God’s will on earth, as the angels in heaven do it, we should promptly execute every part of the Divine will, though it were to be instrumental to the exaltation of a brother above ourselves ; knowing no end but conformity to the Divine will, and mak- ing simplicity of intention to be the fringes and exterior borders of our garments. 5. When the eternal God meant to stoop so low as to be fixed to our centre, he chose for his mother a holy person and a maid, but yet affianced to a just man, that he might not only be secure in the inno- cency, but also provided for in the reputation of his holy mother : teaching us, that we must not only satisfy ourselves in the purity of our purposes and hearty innocence, but that we must provide also things honest in the sight of all men, being free from the suspicion and semblances of evil ; so mak- ing provision for private innocence and public honesty : it being necessary, in order to charity, and edification of our brethren, that we hold forth no impure flames or smoking firebrands, but pure and trimmed lamps, in the eyes of all the world. 6. And yet her marriage was more mysterious ; for as, besides the miracle, it was an eternal honour and advancement to the glory of virginity, that he chose a virgin for his mother, so it was in that man- ner attempered, that the Virgin was betrothed, lest honourable marriage might be disreputed, and seem inglorious, by a positive rejection from any partici- pation of the honour. Divers of the old doctors, from the authority of Ignatius,^^ add another reason, saying, that the blessed Jesus was therefore born of a woman betrothed, and under the pretence of mar- Quod sperare nullus audebat: quod si forte in mentem alicujus incidisset, poterat aestimare se in blasphemiam incur risse. — St. Primasil’s. ^ Ayadtv S’ ovSnl^Trepl ouStvo? ouStTroTS kyyivtTai <^0oi/os. — Hier. in Pythag. riage, that the devil, who knew the Messias was to be born of a virgin, might not expect him there, but so be ignorant of the person, till God had served many ends of providence upon him. 7 . The angel, in his address, needed not to go in inquisition after a wandering fire, but knew she was a star fixed in her own orb : he found her at home ; and, lest that also might be too large a circuit, she was yet confined to a more intimate retirement ; she was in her oratory, private and devout. There are some curiosities so bold and determinate, as to tell the very matter of her prayer,® and that she was praying for the salvation of all the world, and the revelation of the Messias, desiring she might be so happy as to kiss the feet of her, who should have the glory to be his mother. We have no security of the particular ; but there is no piety so diffident as to require a sign to create a belief that her employ- ment at the instant was holy and religious ; but in that disposition she received a grace, which the greatest queens would have purchased with the quitting of their diadems, and hath consigned an ex- cellent document to all women, that they accustom themselves often to those retirements, where none but God and his angels can have admittance. For the holy Jesus can come to them too, and dwell with them, hallowing their souls, and consigning their bodies to a participation of all his glories. But re- collecting of all our scattered thoughts and exterior extravagances, and a receding from the inconveni- ences of a too free conversation, is the best circum- stance to dispose us to a heavenly visitation. 8. The holy Virgin, when she saw an angel, and heard a testimony from heaven of her grace and piety, was troubled within herself at the salutation, and the manner of it : for she had learned, that the affluence of divine comforts and prosperous successes should not exempt us from fear, but make it the more prudent and wary, lest it entangle us in a vanity of spirit ; God having ordered that our spirits should be affected with dispositions in some degrees contrary to exterior events, that we be fearful in the affluence of prosperous things, and joyful in ad- versity ; as knowing that this may produce benefit and advantage ; and the changes that are consequent to the other, are sometimes full of mischiefs, but always of danger. But her silence and fear were her guardians ; that, to prevent excrescences of joy ; this, of vainer complacency. 9. And it is not altogether inconsiderable to ob- serve, that the holy Virgin came to a great perfection and state of piety by a few, and those modest and even, exercises and external actions. St. Paul tra- velled over the world, preached to the gentiles, dis- puted against the Jews, confounded heretics, writ excellently learned letters, suffered dangers, in- juries, affronts, and persecutions to the height of wonder, and by these violences of life, action, and patience, obtained the crown of an excellent religion Orieen. Homil. vi. in Levit. Hier. Comment, in 1 Matth. St. Basilius, et alii. ® St. Bernard. 30 HISTORY OF JESUS BEING IN THE WOMB. Bart I. and devotion. But the holy Virgin, although she was engaged sometimes in an active life, and in the exercise of an ordinary and small economy and go- vernment, or ministries of a family, yet she arrived to her perfections by the means of a quiet and silent piety, the internal actions of love, devotion, and contemplation ; and instructs us, that not only those who have opportunity and powers of a magnificent religion, or a pompous charity, or miraculous con- version of souls, or assiduous and effectual preach- ings, or exterior demonstrations of corporal mercy, shall have the greatest crowns, and the addition of degrees and accidental rewards ; but the silent affec- tions, the splendours of an internal devotion, the unions of love, humility, and obedience, the daily offices of prayer and praises sung to God, the acts of faith and fear, of patience and meekness, of hope and reverence, repentance and charity, and those graces which walk in a veil and silence, make great ascents to God, and as sure progress to favour and a crown, as the more ostentous and laborious exer- cises of a more solemn religion. No man needs to complain of want of power or opportunities for re- ligious perfections : a devout woman in her closet, praying with much zeal and affections for the con- version of souls, is in the same order to a “ shining like the stars in glory,” as he who, by excellent dis- courses, puts it into a more forward disposition to be actually performed. And possibly her prayers obtained energy and force to my sermon, and made the ground fruitful, and the seed spring up to life eternal. Many times God is present in the still voice and private retirements of a quiet religion, and the constant spiritualities of an ordinary life ; when the loud and impetuous winds, and the shining fires of more laborious and expensive actions, are profitable to others only, like a tree of balsam, dis- tilling precious liquor for others, not for its own use. THE PRAYER. O eternal and almighty God, who didst send thy holy angel in embassy to the blessed Virgin mother of our Lord, to manifest the actuating thine eternal purpose of the redemption of man- kind by the incarnation of thine eternal Son ; put me, by the assistances of thy divine grace, into such holy dispositions, that I may never impede the event and effect of those mercies which, in the counsels of thy predestination, thou didst de- sign for me. Give me a promptness to obey thee to the degree and semblance of angelical alacrity ; give me holy purity and piety, pru- dence and modesty, like those excellencies which thou didst create in the ever-blessed Virgin, the mother of God : grant that my employment be always holy, unmixed with worldly affections, and, as much as my condition of life will bear, retired from secular interests and disturbances ; that I may converse with angels, entertain the holy Jesus, conceive him in my soul, nourish him with the expresses of most innocent and holy af- fections, and bring him forth and publish him in a life of piety and obedience, that he may dwell in me for ever, and I may for ever dwell Muth him, in the house of eternal pleasures and glo- ries, world without end. Amen, SECTION II. The Bearing of Jesus in the Womb of the Blessed Virgin. 1. Although the blessed Virgin had a faith as prompt and ready, as her body was chaste, and her soul pure ; yet God, who uses to give full measure, shaken together, and running over, did, by way of confirmation, and fixing the confidence of her as- sent, give an instance of his omnipotency in the very particular of an extraordinary conception. For the angel said, “ Behold, thy cousin Elizabeth hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her that was called barren : for with God nothing shall be impossible.” A less ar- gument would have satisfied the necessity of a faith which had no scruple ; and a greater would not have done it in the incredulity of an ungentle and pertinacious spirit. But the holy maid had com- placency enough in the message, and holy desires about her, to carry her understanding as far as her affections, even to the fruition of the angel’s mes- sage ; which is such a sublimity of faith, that it is its utmost consummation, and shall be its crown, when our faith is turned into vision, our hopes into actual possessions, and our grace into glory. 2. And she, who was now full of God, bearing God in her virgin womb, and the Holy Spirit in her heart, Avho had also overshadowed her, enabling her to a supernatural and miraculous conception, arose with haste and gladness, to communicate that joy which was designed for all the world ; and she found no breast to pour forth the first emanations of her overjoyed heart so fit as her cousin Elizabeth’s, who had received testimony from God to have been “ righteous, walking in all the commandments of the Lord blameless,” who also had a special portion in this great honour : for she was designed to be the mother of the Baptist, who was sent as a fore- runner, “ to prepare the ways of the Lord, and to make his paths straight. And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah.” 3. Her haste was in proportion to her joy and desires, but yet went no greater pace than her re- ligion : for as in her journey she came near to Jerusalem, she turned in, that she might visit his temple, whose temple she herself was now; and there, not only to remember the pleasures of reli- gion, which she had felt in continual descents and showers falling on her pious heart, for the space of eleven years’ attendance there in her childhood, but also to pay the first fruits of her thanks and joy, and to lay all her glory at his feet, whose humble handmaid she was, in the greatest honour of being his blessed mother. Having worshipped, she went on her journey, “ and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth.” Sect, II. CONSIDERATIONS I'PON THE INTERVAL, &c. 31 4. It is not easy to imagine what a collision of joys was at this blessed meeting : two mothers of two great princes, the one the greatest that was born of woman, and the other was his Lord, and these made mothers by two miracles, met together with joy and mysteriousness ; where the mother of our Lord went to visit the mother of his servant, and the Holy Ghost made the meeting fes- tival, and descended upon Elizabeth, and she pro- phesied. Never, but in heaven, was there more joy and ecstasy. The persons, who were women whose fancies and affections were not only hallow- ed, but made pregnant and big with religion, meet- ing together to compare and unite their joys, and their eucharist, and then made prophetical and in- spired, must needs have discoursed like seraphims and the most ecstasied order of intelligences ; for all the faculties of nature were turned into grace, and expressed in their wmy the excellent solemnity. “ For it came to pass when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb ; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost,” 5. After they had both prophesied, and sung their hymns, and re-saluted each other with the religion of saints and the joys of angels, “ Mary abode with her cousin Elizabeth about three months, and then returned to her own house.” Where when she appeared with her holy burden to her husband Joseph, and that he perceived her to be with child, and knew that he had never unseal- ed that holy fountain of virginal purity, he was troubled. For, although her deportment had been pious and chaste to a miracle, her carriage reserved, and so grave, that she drave away temptations, and impure visits, and all unclean purposes from the neighbourhood of her holy person ; yet when he saw she was with child, and had not yet been taught a lesson higher than the principles of na- ture, “he was minded to put her away,” for he knew’ she w^as with child ; but yet “ privily,” be- cause he was a good man, and knew her piety to have been such, that it had almost done violence to his sense, and made him disbelieve what was visible and notorious, and therefore he would do it privately. “ But while he thought on these things, ihe angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of Da^vid, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that w'^hich is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. Then J oseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife.” Ad SECTION II. Coiuide rations concerning the Circumstances of the Interval between the Conception and Nativity. 1. When the blessed Virgin was ascertained of the manner of her becoming a mother, and that her tremblings were over, upon the security she should preserve her virgin purity as a clean obla- tion to the honour of God, then she expressed her consent to the angelical message, and instantly she conceived the holy Jesus in her womb, by the su- pernatural and divine influence of the Holy Ghost. For she was highly zealous to reconcile her being mother to the Messias, with those purities and holy celibate which she had designed to keep as advantages to the interests of religion, and his honour who chose her from all the daughters of Adam, to be instrumental in the restitution of grace and innocence to all her father’s family. And we shall receive benefit from so excellent example, if we be not so desirous of a privilege as of a virtue, of honour as of piety : and as w^e submit to the w^eight and pressure of sadnesses and infelicities, that God’s will may be accomplished; so we must be also ready to renounce an exterior grace or fa- vour, rather than it should not be consistent with exemplar and rare piety. 2. When the Son of God was incarnate in the womb of his virgin mother, the holy maid arose ; and though she was super-exalted by an honour greater than the world yet ever saw, she still dwelt upon the foundation of humility ; and to make that virtue more signal and eminent, she arose and went hastily to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who also had conceived a son in her old age : for so we all should be curious and watchful against vanities and transportations, when we are advanced to the gaieties of prosperous accidents, and in the greatest privileges descend to the low^est, to ex- ercise a greater measure of virtue against the dan- ger of those temptations, which are planted against our heart, to ruin our hopes and glories. 3. But the joys that the virgin mother had, were such as concerned all the world ; and that part of them which was her peculiar, she would not conceal from persons apt to their entertainment, but go to publish God’s mercy toward her to another holy person, that they might join in the praises of God ; as knowing, that though it may be convenient to represent our personal necessities in private, yet God’s gracious returns and the bless- ings he makes to descend on us, are more fit, W’hen there is no personal danger collaterally appendant, to be published in the communion of saints ; that the hopes of others may receive increase, that their faith may have confirmation, that their charity and eucharist may grow up to become excellent and great, and the praises of God may be sung aloud, till the sound strike at heaven, and join with the hallelujahs, which the morning stars in their orbs pay to their great Creator. 4. When the holy Virgin had begun her journey, she made haste over the mountains, that she might not only satisfy the desires of her joy by a speedy gratulation, but lest she should be too long abroad under the dispersion and discomposing of her re- tirements; and therefore she hastens to an en- closure, to her cousin’s house, as knowing that all virtuous women, like tortoises, carry their house on their heads, and their chapel in their heart, and their danger in their eye, and their souls in their hands, and God in all their actions. And indeed her very little burden, which she bare, hindered her not but she might make haste enough ; anrl as he»’ 32 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE INTERVAL Part I. spirit was full of cheerfulness and alacrity, so even her body was made airy and vegete : for there was no sin in her burden, to fill it with natural incon- veniences : and there is this excellency in all spi- ritual things, that they do no disadvantage to our persons, nor retard our just temporal interests. And the religion, by which we carry Christ within us, is neither so peevish as to disturb our health, nor so sad as to discompose our just and modest cheerfulness, nor so prodigal as to force us to needs and ignoble trades ; but recreates our body by the medicine of holy fastings and temperance, fills us full of serenities and complacencies, by the sweet- nesses of a holy conscience and joys spiritual, pro- motes our temporal interests, by the gains and in- creases of the rewards of charity, and by securing God’s providence over us, while we are in the pursuit of the heavenly kingdom. And as in these disposi- tions she climbed the mountains with much facility, so there is nothing in our whole life of difficulty so great, but it may be managed by those assistances we receive from the holiest Jesus, when we carry him about us ; as the valleys are exalted, so the mountains are made plain before us. 5. When her cousin Elizabeth saw the mother of her Lord come to visit her, as the Lord himself descended to visit all the world in great humility, she was pleased and transported to the height of wonder and prophecy, and “ the babe sprang in her womb,” and was sanctified, first doing his homage and adoration to his Lord that was in presence. And we, also, although we can do nothing unless the Lord first prevent us with his gracious visitation, yet if he first come unto us, and we accept and entertain him with the expresses and correspond- encies of our duty, we shall receive the grace and honour of sanctification. But if St. Elizabeth, who received testimony from God that she “ walked in all the commandments of the Lord blameless,” was carried into ecstasy, wondering at the dignation and favour done to her by the mother of her Lord ; with what preparations and holy solemnities ought we to entertain his addresses to us by his holy sacrament, by the immissions of his Spirit, by the assistances of his graces, and all other his vouchsafings and de- scents into our hearts ? 6. The blessed Virgin hearing her cousin full of spirit and prophecy, calling her blessed, and praising her faith, and confirming her joy, instantly sang her hymn to God, returning those praises, which she received, to him to whom they did appertain. For so we should worship God with all our praises, being willing upon no other condition to extend one hand to receive our own honour, but that with the other we might transmit it to God ; that as God is honoured in all his creatures, so he may be honour- ed in us too ; looking upon the graces which God hath given us, but as greater instruments and abilities to serve him, being none of ours, but talents which are intrusted into our banks to be improved. But as a precious pearl is orient and medicinal, because God hath placed those excellencies in it for ends of his own, but itself is dead to all apprehen- * Frontemque a crimine sumit. sions of it, and knows no reflections upon its own value, only God is magnified in his work ; so is every pious person precious and holy, but mortified to all vainer complacencies in those singularities and eminencies, which God placed there, because he was so pleased, sa}dng, there he would have a temple built, because from thence he would take delight to receive glory and adoration. 7 . After all these holy and festival joys, which the two glad mothers feasted themselves withal, a sad cloud did intervene and passed before the face of the blessed Virgin. The just and righteous Joseph, her espoused husband, perceiving her to be with child, “ was minded to put her away,” as not know- ing the divinity of the fountain which watered the Virgin’s sealed and hallowed womb, and made it fruit- ful ; but he purposed to do it “ privily,” that he might preserve the reputation of his spouse, whose piety he knew was great, and was sorrowful it should now set in a sad night, and be extinct. But it was an exemplar charity, and reads to us a rule for our deportment towards erring and lapsed persons, that we entreat them with meekness, and pity, and fear : not hastening their shame, nor provoking their spirit, nor making their remedy desperate by using of them rudely, till there be no worse thing for them to fear, if they should be dissolved into all licentiousness. For an open shame is commonly protested unto, when it is remediless, and the person either despairs and sinks under the burden, or else grows impudent,*^ and tramples upon it. But the gentleness of a modest and charitable remedy pre- serves that which is virtue’s girdle, fear and blush- ing ; and the beginning of a punishment chides them into the horror of remembrance and guilt, but preserves their meekness and modesty, because they, not feeling the worst of evils, dare not venture upon the worst of sins. 8. But it seems the blessed Virgin, having re- ceived this greatest honour, had not made it known to her husband Joseph ; and when she went to her cousin Elizabeth, the Virgin was told of it by her cousin, before she spake of it herself, for her cousin had it by revelation and the spirit of pro- phecy. And it is in some circumstances and from some persons more secure to conceal visions and those heavenly gifts, which create estimations among men, than to publish them, which may pos- sibly minister to vanity ; and those exterior graces may do God’s work, though no observer note them, but the person for whose sake they are sent : like rain falling in uninhabited valleys, where no eye ob- serves showers : yet the valleys laugh and sing to God in their refreshment without a witness. How- ever, it is better to hear the report of our good things from the mouths of others, than from our- selves : and better yet, if the beauty of the taber- nacle be covered with skins, that none of our beau- ties be seen but by worshippers, that is, when the glory of God and the interests of religion or charity are concerned in their publication. For so it hap- pened to be in the case of the blessed Virgin, as she related to her cousin Elizabeth ; and so it hap- Sect, II. BETWEEN THE CONCEPTION AND NATIVITY. 33 pcned not to be, as she referred to her husband Joseph. 9. The holy Virgin could not but know that Joseph would be troubled with sorrow and insecure apprehensions concerning her being with child; but such was her innocence and her confidence in God, that she held her peace, expecting which way God would provide a remedy to the inconvenience ; for if we “ commit ourselves to God in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator,” preserving the tranquillity of our spirits and the evenness of our temper in the assault of infamy and disreputation, God, who loves our innocence, will be its patron, and will assert it from the scandal, if it be expedient for us : if it be not, it is not fit we should desire it. But if the holy Jesus did suffer his mother to fall into misin- terpretation and suspect, which could not but be a great affliction to her excellent spirit, rarely tem- pered as an eye, highly sensible of every ruder touch, we must not think it strange, if we be tried and pressed with a calamity and unhandsome acci- dents : only remember, that God will find a remedy to the trouble, and will sanctify the affliction, and secure the person, if we be innocent, as was the holy Virgin. 10. But Joseph was not hasty in the execution of his purposes, nor in making his thoughts deter- minate, but stood long in deliberation, and longer before he acted it, because it was an invidious mat- ter, and a rigour. He was, first, to have defamed and accused her publicly, and, being convicted, by the law she was to die, if he had gone the ordinary way ; but he, who was a just man, that is, according to the style of Scripture and otherwise writers,^ “a good, a charitable man,” found that it was more agreeable to justice to treat an offending person with the easiest sentence, than to put things to extremity, and render the person desperate, and without remedy, and provoked by the suffering of the worst of what she could fear. No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.® A just man does justice to every man, and to every thing ; and then, if he be also wise, he knows there is a debt of mercy and compassion due to the infirmities of man’s nature, and that debt is to be paid : and he that is cruel and ungentle to a sinning person, and does the worst thing to him, dies in his debt, and is unjust. Pity, and forbear- ance, and long-suffering, and fair interpretation, and excusing our brother, and taking things in the best sense, and passing the gentlest sentence, are as cer- tainly our duty, and owing to every person that does offend, and can repent, as calling men to ac- count can be owing to the law, and are first to be paid ; and he that does not so, is an unjust person : which because Joseph was not, he did not call furi- ously for justice, or pretend that God required it at his hands presently, to undo a suspected person, but waved the killing letter of the law, and secured his own interest and his justice too, by intending to dismiss her privately. But, before the thing was 1 John i. 9. Psalm Cxi. 3. ^LKaiOfTVVI], YpiJCTTOT?]?, aya^oi-ij^, (j^iXav^ptoTria. — PniLOSTU. de Vita Apollon. 1. 111. c. 7 . VOL. I. irremediable, God ended his question by a heavenly demonstration, and sent an angel to reveal to him the innocence of his spouse, and the divinity of her Son; and that he was an immediate derivative from heaven, and the Heir of all the world. i\nd in all our doubts we shall have a resolution from heaven, or some of its ministers, if we have recourse thither for a guide, and be not hasty in our discourses, or inconsiderate in our purposes, or rash in judgment. For God loves to give assistances to us, when we most fairly and prudently endeavour that grace be not put to do all our work, but to facilitate our la- bour; not creating new faculties, but improving those of nature. If we consider warily, God will guide us in the determination ; but a hasty person outruns his guide, prevaricates his rule, and very often engages upon error. THE PRAYER. 0 holy Jesu, Son of the eternal God, thy glory is far above all heavens, and yet thou didst descend to earth, that thy descent might be the more gra- cious, by how much thy glories were admirable, and natural, and inseparable ; I adore thy holy humanity with humble veneration, and the thank- ful addresses of religious joy, because thou hast personally united human nature to the eternal Word, carrying it above the seats of the highest cherubim. This great and glorious mystery is the honour and glory of man. It was the ex- pectation of our fathers, who saw the mysterious- ness of thy incarnation at great and obscure dis- tances. And blessed be thy name, that thou hast caused me to be born after the fulfilling of thy prophecies, and the consummation and exhi- bition of so great a love, so great mysterious- ness. Holy Jesu, though I admire and adore the immensity of thy love and condescension, who wert pleased to undergo our burdens and infirmities for us ; yet I abhor myself, and de- test my own impurities, which were so great, and contradictory to the excellency of God, that, to destroy sin, and save us, it became necessary that thou shouldst be sent into the world, to die our death for us, and to give us of thy life. II. Dearest Jesu, thou didst not breathe one sigh, nor shed one drop of blood, nor weep one tear, nor suffer one stripe, nor preach one sermon for the salvation of the devils : and what sadness and shame is it then, that I should cause so many insufferable loads of sorrows to fall upon thy sacred head ! Thou art wholly given for me, wholly spent upon my uses, and wholly for every one of the elect. Thou, in the beginning of the work of our redemption, didst suffer nine months’ imprisonment in the pure womb of thy holy mother, to redeem me from the eternal servitude ‘‘Non solum ab ultionis atrocitate, sed etiam ab accusa- tionis severitate, aliena justi persona est. — A mbros. D 34 HISTORY OF THE NATIVITY. Part I. of sin, and its miserable consequents. Holy Jesu, let me be born anew, receive a new birth and a new life, imitating thy graces and excel- lencies, by which thou art beloved of thy Father, and hast obtained for us a favour and atonement. Let thy holy will be done by me, let all thy will be wrought in me, let thy will be wrought con- cerning me ; that I may do thy pleasure, and submit to the dispensation of thy providence, and conform to thy holy will, and may for ever serve thee in the communion of saints, in the so- ciety of thy redeemed ones, now, and in the glo- ries of eternity. Amen. SECTION III. The Nativity of our Blessed Saviour Jesu<;. 1 . The holy maid longed to be a glad mother ; and she who carried a burden, whose proper corn- mensuration is the days of eternity, counted the tedious minutes, expecting when the Sun of right- eousness should break forth from his bed, where nine months he hid himself as behind a fruitful cloud. About the same time, God, who in his in- finite wisdom does concentre and tie together in one end things of disparity and disproportionate na- tures, making things improbable to co-operate to what wonder or to what truth he pleases, brought the holy Virgin to Bethlehem, the city of David, “ to be taxed,” with her husband Joseph, according to a decree upon all the world, issuing from Au- gustus Caesar.^ But this happened in this con- junction of time, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet Micah ; — “ And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of J udah ; for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.” This rare act of Providence was highly remarkable, because this taxing seems wholly to have been or- dered by God, to serve and minister to the circum- stances of this birth ; ^ for this taxing was not in order to tribute. Plerod was now king, and received all the revenues of the Fiscus, and paid to Augustus an appointed tribute, after the manner of other kings, friends and relatives of the Roman empire : neither doth it appear, that the Romans laid a new tribute on the Jews, before the confiscation of the goods of Archelaus. Augustus, therefore, sending special delegates to tax every city, made only an inquest^ after the strength of the Roman empire in men and monies ; and did himself no other advan- tage, but was directed by Him, who rules and turns the hearts of princes, that he might, by verifying a “ ’Hy OV TOVTO StVTEpOV Kul TEO'aapaKOCT'rdv tVoS TOU AvyoucTov iSac-iXsias, AiyvTTTov 8' xjTroTay^rtl TO 3'£tOI/ ; ()t£i evv Tov<5 ^avouTa>i, u) NtK:?/oaTf, T(Wc()Tti u7ro(T?(9 uf'ra\uft6i/Ta9 f.u (Viw, I' 1 Cor. xvi. 22. UlPHII.es. Sect. III. CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE NATIVITY. 37 blind eyes, raising dead persons to life ; those hands which fed many thousands, by two miracles of multiplication ; that purged the temple from pro- faneness ; that, in a sacramental manner, bare his own body, and gave it to be the food and refresh- ment of elect souls, and after were cloven and rent upon the cross, till the wounds became (after the resurrection) so many transparencies and glorious instruments of solemn, spiritual, and efficacious benediction. Transmit this meditation into affec- tions and practices, “ lifting up pure hands” in prayer, that our devotions be united to the merits of his glorious intercession ; and putting ourselves into his hands and holy providence, let us beg those effects upon our souls and spiritual cures, which his precious hands did operate upon their bodies, trans- ferring those similitudes to our ghostly and per- sonal advantages. 9. We may also behold his holy breast, and con- sider, that there lay that sacred heart, like the dove within the ark, speaking peace to us, being the regi- ment of love and sorrows, the fountain of both the sacraments, running out in the two holy streams of blood and water, when the rock was smitten, when his holy side was pierced: and there, with St. John, let us lay our head, and place our heart, and thence draw a treasure of holy revelations and affections, that we may rest in him only, and upon him lay our burdens, filling every corner of our heart with thoughts of the most amiable and beloved Jesus. 1 0. In like manner we may unite the day of his nativity with the day of his passion, and consider all the parts of his body, as it was instrumental in all the work of our redemption ; and so imitate, and in some proportion partake of, that great variety of sweetnesses, and amorous reflexes, and gracious in- tercourses, which passed between the blessed Virgin and the holy Child, according to his present capaci- ties, and the clarity of that light, which was com- municated to her by Divine infusion. And all the members of this blessed Child, his eyes, his face, his head, all the organs of his senses, afford variety of entertainment and motion to our affections, ac- cording as they served, in their several employ- ments and co-operations, in the mysteries of our restitution. 1 1 . But his body was but his soul’s upper garment, and the considerations of this are as immaterial and spiritual as the soul itself, and more immediate to the mystery of the nativity. This soul is of the same nature and substance with ours ; in this inferior to the angels, that of itself it is incomplete, and dis- cursive in a lower order of ratiocination ; but in this superior : 1 . That it is personally united to the Divinity, full of the Holy Ghost, overrunning with grace, which was dispensed to it without measure. (And by the mediation of this union, as itself is ex- alted far above all orders of intelligences, so we also have contracted alliances with God, teaching us not to unravel our excellencies by infamous deport- ments.) 2. Here also we may meditate, that his memory is indeterminable and unalterable, ever remembering to do us good, and to present our ' Col. ii. 3. needs to God by the means of his holy intercession. 3. That his understanding is without ignorance, knowing the secrets of our hearts, full of mysteri- ous secrets of his Father’s kingdom, in which “ all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God are hidden.” ^ 4. That his will is impeccable, enter- tained with an uninterrupted act of love to God, greater than all angels and beatified spirits present to God in the midst of the transportations and ravishments of paradise : that this will is lull ol love to us, of humility in itself, of conformity to God, wholly resigned by acts of adoration and obe- dience. It was moved by six wfings ; zeal of the honour of God, and compunction for our sins, pity to our miseries, and hatred of our impieties ; desires of satisfying the wrath of God, and great joy at the consideration of all the fruits of his nativity ; the appeasing of his Father, the redemption of his bre- thren. And upon these wings he mounted up into the throne of glory, carrying our nature with him above the seats of angels. These second consider- ations present themselves to all, that with piety and devotion behold the holy Babe lying in the ob- scure and humble place of his nativity. THE PRAYER. Holy and immortal Jesus, I adore and worship thee, with the lowest prostrations and humility of soul and body, and give thee all thanks for that great love to us, whereof thy nativity hath made de- monstrations ; for that humility of thine, expressed in the poor and ignoble circumstances, which thou didst voluntarily choose in the manner of thy birth. And I present to thy holy humanity, enchased in the adorable Divinity, my body and soul ; humbly desiring, that, as thou didst clothe thyself with a human body, thou mayest invest me with the robes of righteousness, covering my sins, enabling my weaknesses, and sustaining my mortality, till I shall finally, in conformity to thy beauties and perfections, be clothed with the stole of glory. Amen. II. Vouchsafe to come to me by a more intimate and spiritual approximation, that so thou mayest lead me to thy Father ; for of myself I cannot move one step toward thee. Take me by the hand, place me in thy heart, that there I may live, and there I may die : that as thou hast united our nature to thy eternal being, thou mightest also unite my person to thine by the interior adunations of love, and obedience, and conformity. Let thy ears be open to my prayers, thy merciful eyes look upon my miseries, thy holy hands be stretched out to my relief and succour : let some of those precious distilling tears, which nature, and thy compas- sion, and thy sufferings, did cause to distil and drop from those sacred fontinels, water my stony heart, and make it soft, apt for the impressions of a melting, obedient, and corresponding love ; and moisten mine eyes, that 1 may, upon thy 38 THE DUTY OF NURSING CHILDREN. Part I. stock of pity and weeping, mourn for my sins ; that so my tears and sorrows, being drops of water coming from that holy Rock, may indeed be united unto thine, and made precious by such holy mixtures. Amen. III. Blessed Jesus, now that thou hast sanctified and exalted human nature, and made even my body precious by a personal uniting it to the Divinity, teach me so reverently to account of it, that I may not dare to profane it with impure lusts or caitive affections, and unhallow that ground, where thy holy feet have trodden. Give to me ardent desires, and efficacious prosecutions of these holy effects, which thou didst design for us in thy nativity, and other parts of our redemp- tion : give me great confidence in thee, which thou hast encouraged by the exhibition of so glorious favours ; great sorrow and confusion of face at the sight of mine own imperfections, and estrangements, and great distances from thee, and the perfections of thy soul ; and bring me to thee by the strictnesses of a zealous and affectionate imitation of those sanctities, which, next to the hypostatical union, added lustre and excellency to thy humanity ; that I may live here with thee in the expresses of a holy life, and die with thee by mortification and an unwearied patience ; and reign with thee in immortal glories, world with- out end. Amen. DISCOURSE I. Of nursing Children, in imitation of the blessed Vir- gm-Mother. 1 . These later ages of the world have declined into a softness above the effeminacy of Asian princes, and have contracted customs, which those innocent and healthful days of our ancestors knew not ; whose piety was natural, whose charity was operative, whose policy was just and valiant, and whose economy was sincere, and proportionable to the dispositions and requisites of nature. And in this particular, the good women of old gave one of their instances.*^ The greatest personages nursed their own children, did the work of mothers, and thought it was unlikely women should become vir- tuous by ornaments and superadditions of morality, who did decline the laws and prescriptions of na- ture, whose principles supply us with the first and most common rules of manners and more perfect actions. In imitation of whom, and especially of the Virgin Mary, who was mother and nurse to the holy Jesus, I shall endeavour to correct those soft- nesses and unnatural rejections of children, which * Quod si pudica inulior in partem juvet Doinum atque dulces li'oeros : ( Sabina qualis, aut perusta solibus Pernicis uxor Appuli.) Non me Lucrina juverint conchylia Magis, &c. Hoh. EpoJ- “• are popular up to a custom and fashion, even where no necessities of nature or just reason can make excuse. 2. And I cannot think the question despicable, and the duty of meanest consideration : although it be specified in an office of small esteem, and sug- gested to us by the principles of reason, and not by express sanctions of Divinity. For although other actions are more perfect and spiritual, yet this is more natural and humane ; other things, being su- peradded to a full duty, rise higher, but this builds stronger, and is like a part of the foundation, having no lustre, but much strength ; and however the others are full of ornament, yet this hath in it some degrees of necessity, and possibly is with more dan- ger and irregularity omitted, than actions, which spread their leaves fairer, and look more gloriously. 3. First : Here I consider, that there are many sins in the scene of the body and the matter of sobriety, which are highly criminal, and yet the laws of God, expressed in Scripture, name them not; but men are taught to distinguish them by that reason, which is given us by nature, and is imprinted in our understanding, in order to the con- servation of human kind. For since every creature hath something in it sufficient to propagate the kind, and to conserve the individuals from perish- ing in confusions and general disorders, which in beasts we call instinct, that is, an habitual or prime disposition to do certain things, which are propor- tionable to the end whither it is designed; man, also, if he be not more imperfect, must have the like : and because he knows and makes reflections upon his own acts, and understands the reason of it, that which in them is instinct, in him is natural reason, which is, a desire to preserve himself and his own kind ; and differs from instinct, because he understands his instinct and the reasonableness of it, and they do not. But man, being a higher thing, even in the order of creation, and designed to a more noble end in his animal capacity, his ar- gumentative instinct is larger than the natural instinct of beasts : for he hath instincts in him, in order to the conservation of society,'^ and there- fore hath principles, that is, he hath natural desires to it for his own good ; and because he understands them, they are called principles, and laws of nature, but are no other than what I have now declared ; for beasts do the same things we do, and have many the same inclinations, which in us are the laws of nature, even all which we have in order to our common end. But that, which in beasts is na- ture and an impulsive force, in us must be duty and an inviting power : we must do the same things with an actual or habitual designation of that end, to which God designs beasts, (supplying by his wisdom their want of understanding,) and then, what is mere nature in them, in us is natural rea- son. And therefore marriage in men is made ^ Naturale jus partim, -to Slkulov, 'rraenv av^pwTroi^ ofioiw^ \v(TiTE\s.(TTaTOL>' partim, to Trpd^ KO^OKaya^fiau kolvov ci'jratTL, i 'I ^Wpov k(TTLU kvi-vYelu Bootou^. ~ JEsCHYL. k’TTTa f-TTL Bvp. rouxo yap acTiv dva-rj Kru to eIvul all our own desires, and to take up objects of God’s propounding, contrary to our ov/n, and desires against our nature, this is that, which God design- ed as a sacrifice of ourselves to him. And, there- ■ fore, God hath made many of his laws to be pro- ; hibitions in the matter of natural pleasure, and j restraints of our sensitive appetite. Now, this < being become the matter of Divine laws, that we < should, in many parts and degrees, abstain from ' what pleases our senses, by this supervening acci- ' dent it happens, that we are very hardly weaned from sin, but most easily tempted to a vice. And then we think we have reason to lay the fault upon original sin, and natural aversation from goodness, when this inclination to vice is but accidental, and occasional upon the matter and sanction of the laws. Our nature is not contrary to virtue, for the laws of nature and right reason do not only oblige us, but incline us to it ; but the instances of some virtues are made to come cross to our nature, that is, to our natural appetites ; by reason of which it comes to pass, that (as St. Paul says) “we are by nature the children of wrath meaning, that, by our natural inclinations, we are disposed to contra- dict those laws which lay fetters upon them, we are TotOUTOS /USD OVV O TOtS \oyLKOl9 ytD£(TL ivOCTLOV /J.SV09 OOK09, jUL)! 7rapaftaiv£iv ftt’ dvTMV [0fou] 6iopicr^ivTa9 v6fiov9. — Hiekoc. Ephes. ii 3. Sect. V. CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE CIRCUMCISION. ,53 apt to satisfy the lusts of the flesh ; for in these he there instances. G. Rut in things intellectual and spiritual, where neither the one nor the other satisfy the sensual part, we are indifferent to virtue or to vice ; and, when we do amiss, it is, wholly, and in all degrees, inex- cusably our own fault. In the old law, when it was a duty to swear by the God of Israel in solemn causes, men were apt enough to swear by him only ; and that sometimes the Israelites did swear by the queen of heaven, it was by the ill example and desires to comply with the neighbour nations, whose daughters they sometimes married, or whose arms they feared, or whose friendship they desired, or with whom they did negociate. It is indifferent to us to love our fathers, and to love strangers, ac- cording as we are determined by custom or educa- tion. Nay, for so much of it as is natural and original, we are more inclined to love them than to disrepute them ; and if we disobey them, it is when any injunction of theirs comes cross to our natural desires and purposes. But if, from our infancy, we be told concerning a stranger, that he is our father, we frame our affections to nature, and our nature to custom and education, and are as apt to love him who is not, and yet is said to be, as him who is said not to be, and yet indeed is, our natural father. 7. And in sensual things, if God had com- manded polygamy or promiscuous concubinate, or unlimited eatings and drinkings, it is not to be sup- posed but that we should have been ready enough to have obeyed God in all such impositions : and the sons of Israel never murmured, when God bade them borrow jewels and ear-rings, and spoil the Egyptians. But because God restrained these de- sires, our duties are the harder, because they are fetters to our liberty, and contradictions to those natural inclinations, which also are made more ac- tive by evil custom and unhandsome educations. From which premises we shall observe, in order to practice, that sin creeps upon us in our education so tacitly and undiscernibly,*^ that we mistake the cause of it, and yet so prevalently and effectually, thatw'e judge it to be our very nature, and charge it upon Adam, to lessen the imputation upon us, or to in- crease the license or the confidence, when every one of us is the Adam, the “ man of sin,” and the parent of our own impurities. F or it is notorious, that our own iniquities do so discompose our naturals, and evil customs and examples do so encourage impiety, and the law of God enjoins such virtues, which do Non enim nos tarditatis natura damnavit, sed ultra nobis quod oportebat indulsimus : ita non tarn ingenio nos illi su- peramnt quam proposito. — Quinctil. Af.voKpaTi\5 tov? Ik tmv ducrKoXojv ku'l ynXf.Trwv, ijuTrsp ft>nLva)VTaL fXf]okv oixolol 'roi^ yov&vaiv ovxas. — Isocrates Ep. Timoth. K Nomen enim Jesu Hebraice prolatum nihil aliud est nisi Ten-pay pa/xuaTov vocatum per Schin. Videat, cui animus est, multa de mysterio bujus nnminis apud Galatinum. Ad eundem scnsum I'uit vaticinium Sibyllse : Ai] TOTE yap fXEydXoi.o Ofov n-oc9 dpS'pwTroto'ip "H^ei (rnpKOf(>dpo^, ^vpn-ol^ 6fxoiavp.evo^- tu yij, T trro'apa rjycoi'Vfi’Tn (fnpwu, to X" ncpiouov iv avTip. 54 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE CIRCUMCISION. Part I. name of God could not be pronounced truly, till it came to be finished with a guttural, that made up the name given by this angel to the holy Child; nor God received or entertained by men, till he was made human and sensible, by the adoption of a sensitive nature, like vowels pronunciable by the intertexture of a consonant. Thus was his person made tangible, and his name utterable, and his mercy brought home to our necessities, and the mystery made explicate, at the circumcision of this holy Babe. 9. But now God’s mercy was at full sea, now was the time when God made no reserves to the effusion of his mercy. For to the patriarchs, and persons of eminent sanctity and employment in the elder ages of the world, God, according to the de- grees of his manifestation or present purpose, would give them one letter of this ineffable name. For the reward, that Abraham had in the change of his name, was, that he had the honour done him to have one of the letters of Jehovah put into it ; and so had Joshua, when he was a type of Christ, and the prince of the Israelitish armies : and when God took away*‘ one of these letters, it was a curse. But now he communicated all the vdiole name to this holy Child, and put a letter more to it, to signify that he was the glory of God, “ the express image of his Father’s person,” God eternal; and then manifested to the world in his humanity, that all the intelligent world, who expected beatitude, and had treasured all their hopes in the ineffable name of God, might find them all, with ample returns, in this name of Jesus, w'hich God “hath exalted above every name,” even above that, by which God, in the Old Testament, did represent the greatest awfulness of his majesty. This miraculous name is above all the powers of magical enchantments, the nightly rites of sorcerers, the secrets of Mem- phis, the drugs of Thessaly, the silent and myste- rious murmurs of the wise Chaldees, and the spells of Zoroastres. This is the name, at which the devils did tremble, and pay their enforced and in- voluntary adorations, by confessing the divinity, and quitting their possessions and usurped habitations. If our prayers be made in this name, God opens the windows of heaven, and rains down benediction : at the mention of this name, the blessed apostles, and Hermione, the daughter of St. Philip, and Philotheus, the son of Theophila, and St. Hilarion, and St. Paul the Eremite, and innumerable other lights, who followed hard after the Sun of righte- ousness, wrought great and prodigious miracles : “ Signs and wonders and healings were done by the name of the holy Child Jesus.” This is the name, which we should engrave in cur hearts, and write upon our foreheads, and pronounce with our most harmonious accents, and rest our faith upon, and place our hopes in, and love with the overflowings of charity, and joy, and adoration. And as the re- velation of this name satisfied the hopes of all the world, so it must determine our wn)rshippings, and the addresses of our exterior and interior religion ; it being that name, whereby God and God’s mercies ^ Isa. xxi. 11. in casu Iduineos ; Duma vocatur, dempto H. are made presential to us, and proportionate objects of our religion and affections. THE PRAYER. Most holy and ever blessed Jesu, who art infinite in essence, glorious in mercy, mysterious in thy communications, affable and presential in the descents of thy humanity ; I adore thy glorious name, whereby thou hast shut up the abysses, and opened the gates of heaven, restraining the power of hell, and discovering and communicating the treasures of thy Father’s mercies. O Jesu, be thou a Jesus unto me, and save me from the precipices and ruins of sin, from the expresses of thy Father’s wrath, from the miseries and insuf- ferable torments of accursed spirits, by the power of thy majesty, by the sweetnesses of thy mercy, and sacred influences and miraculous glories of thy name. I adore and worship thee in thy excellent obedience and humility, who hast submitted thy innocent and spotless flesh to the bloody covenant of circumcision. Teach me to practise so blessed and holy a precedent, that I may be humble, and obedient to thy sacred laws, severe and regular in my religion, mortified in my body and spirit, of circumcised heart and tongue; that what thou didst represent in symbol and mystery, I may really express in the exhi- bition of an exemplar, pious, and mortified life, cutting off all excrescences of my spirit, and whatsoever may minister to the flesh, or any of its ungodly desires ; that now thy holy name is called upon me, I may do no dishonour to the name, nor scandal to the institution, but may do thee honour and worship, and adorations of a pure religion, 0 .most holy and ever-blessed Jesu. Amen. DISCOURSE II. Of the Virtue of Ohedience. 1 . There are certain excellencies, either of habit or consideration, which spiritual persons use to call general ways ; being a dispersed influence into all the parts of good life, either directing the single actions to the right end, or managing them with right instruments, and adding special excellencies and formalities to them, or morally inviting to the repetition of them. But they are like the general medicaments in physic, or the prime instruments in mathematical disciplines : such as are the considera- tion of the Divine presence, the example of Jesus, right intention ; and such also is the virtue of obe- dience, which perfectly unites our actions to God, and conforms us to the Divine will, which is the original of goodness ; and sanctifies and makes a man an holocaust to God, which contains in it eminently all other graces, but especially those graces, whose essence consists in a conformity of a part or the whole (such are faith, humility, pa- Sect. V. OF OBEDIFNCE. .')5 lienee, and cliarily) ; whicli gives quielness and tranquillity to the spirit, and is an antepast of Pa- radise (where their jubilee is the ])erpetual joys of obedience, and their doing is the enjoying the Divine pleasure) ; which adds an excellency and lustre to pious actions, and hallows them which are indifferent, and lifts up some actions from their un- hallowed nature, to circumstances of good and of acceptation. If a man says his prayers, or com- municates out of custom, or without intuition of the precept and Divine commandment, the act is like a ship returning from her voyage without her venture and her burden, as unprofitable as without stowage. But if God commands us either to eat or to abstain, to sleep or to be waking, to work or to keep a sabbath ; these actions, which are naturally neither good nor evil, are sanctified by the obe- dience, and ranked amongst actions of the greatest excellency. And this also was it which made Abraham’s offer to kill his son, and the Israelites’ spoiling the Egyptians, to become acts laudable, and not unjust : they were acts of obedience, and therefore had the same formality and essence with actions of the most spiritual devotions. God’s com- mand is all our rule for practice ; and our obedience, united to the obedience of Jesus, is all our title to acceptance. 2. But by obedience, I do not here mean the exterior execution of the work ; for so, obedience is no grace, distinct from the acting any or all the commandments : but besides the doing of the thing, (for that also must be presupposed,) it is a sacrifice of our proper will to God, a choosing the duty, be- cause God commands it. For beast^ also carry burdens, and do our commands, by 'compulsion; and the fear of slaves, and the rigour of task-mas- ters, made the number of bricks to be completed, when Israel groaned, and cried to God for help. But sons, that labour under the sweet paternal re- giment of their fathers, and the influence of love, they love the precept, and do the imposition, with the same purposes and compliant affections, with which the fathers made it. When Christ com- manded us to renounce the world, there were some, that did think it was a hard saying, and do so still ; and the young rich man forsook him upon it : but Ananias and Sapphira, upon whom some violences were done by custom, or the excellent sermons of the apostles, sold their possessions too ; but it was so against their will, that they retained part of it. But St. Paul did not only forsake all his secular for- tunes, but “ counted all to be dross, that he might gain Christ he gave his will, made an offertory of that, as well as of his goods, choosing the act which was enjoined. This was the obedience the holy J esus paid to his heavenly Father, so voluntary, that it was “meat to him to do his Father’s will.”*^ 3. And this was intended always by God, “ My son, give thy heart and particularly by the holy * John iv. 34. ^ S. Hieron. Epist. ad Licin. Hispan. Idem m Matt. xix. 28. Fidelis obediens nescit moras, fugit crastinum, ignorat taiaitatem, preecipit praecipientem, parat oculos visui, aures auditui, linguam voci, manus operi, itineri pedes : totum se Jesus : for, in the saddest instance of all his pre- cc})ls, even that of sulfering i)ersecution, we are commanded to “ rejoice, and to be exceeding glad.” And so did those holy martyrs, in the primitive ages, who upon just grounds, when God’s glory, or the edification of the church, had interest in it,’’ offered themselves to tyrants, and dared the vio- lence of the most cruel and bowelless hangmen. And this is the best oblation we can present to God. “ To offer gold,^ is a present fit to be made by young beginners in religion, not by men in Christianity ; yea. Crates the Theban threw his gold away, and so did Antisthenes : but to offer our will to God, to give ourselves, is the act of an apostle, the proper act of Christians.” And there- fore, when the apostles made challenge of a reward for leaving all their possessions, Christ makes no reply to the instance, nor says, “ You who have left all;” but, “You who have followed me in the regeneration, shall sit upon twelve thrones, and judge the tv/elve tribes of Israel:” meaning, that the quitting the goods was nothing ; but the obe- dience to Christ, that they followed Jesus in the regeneration, going themselves in pursuit of him, and giving themselves to him, that was it which entitled them to a throne. 4. And this, therefore, God enjoins, that our offerings to him may be entire and complete ; that we pay him a holocaust; that we do his work without murmuring ; and that his burden may be- come easy, when it is borne up by the wings of love and alacrity of spirit. For, in effect, this obe- dience of the will is, in true speaking and strict theology, nothing else but that charity, which gives excellency to alms, and energy to faith, and acceptance to all graces. But I shall reduce this to particular and more minute considerations. 5. First : We shall best know, that our will is in the obedience, by our prompt undertaking, by our cheerful managing, by our swift execution ; for all degrees of delay are degrees of immorigerousness and unvvfillingness. And since time is extrinsical to the act, and alike to every part of it, nothing determines an action but the opportunity without, and the desires and willingness within. And there- fore he who deliberates beyond his first oppor- tunity, and exterior determination and appointment of the act, brings fire and wood, but wants a lamb for the sacrifice ; and unless he offer up his Isaac, his beloved will, he hath no ministry prepared for God’s acceptance. He that does not repent to-day, puts it to the question, whether he will repent at all or no. He that defers restitution, when all the circumstances are fitted, is not yet resolved upon the duty. And when he does it, if he does it against his will, he does but do honorary penance with a paper upon his hat, and a taper in his hand ; it may satisfy the law, but not satisfy his con- science ; it neither pleases himself, and less pleases colligit, ut imperantis colligat volimtatem. — S. Bernarp. Serm. de Obedient. Et barbaris cunctatio servilis, statini exsequi regium. — Tacit, lib. vi. Annul. 32. 5G OF OBEDIENCE. Part I. God. A sacrifice without a heart was a sad and ominous presage in the superstition of the Roman augurs, and so it is in the service of God ; for wdiat the exhibition of the work is to man, that the presentation of the will is to God. It is hut a cold charity to a naked beggar to say, “ God help thee,” and do nothing ; give him clothes, and he feels your charity. But God, who is the searcher of the heart, his apprehension of actions relative to him is of the inward motions and addresses of the will ; and, without this, our exterior services are like the paying of a piece of money, in which we have de- faced the image ; it is not current. 6. Secondly : But besides the willingness to do the acts of express command, the readiness to do the intimations and tacit significations of God’s pleasure is the best testimony in the world, that our will is in the obedience. Thus did the holy Jesus undertake a nature of infirmity, and suffer a death of shame and sorrow, and became obedient from the circumcision even unto the death of the cross ; not staying for a command, but because it was his Father’s pleasure mankind should be re- deemed. For, before the susception of it, he was not a person subjicible to a command : it was enough, that he understood the inclinations and designs of his Father’s mercies. And therefore God hath furnished us with instances of uncommanded piety to be a touchstone of our obedience. He that does but his endeavour about the express com- mands, hath a bridle in his mouth, and is restrained by violence ; but a willing spirit is like a greedy eye, devours all it sees, and hopes to make some proportionable returns and compensations of duty for his infirmity, by taking in the intimations of God’s pleasure. When God commands chastity, he that undertakes a holy celibate, hath great obedi- ence to the command of chastity. God bids us give alms of our increase ; he obeys this with great facility, that “ sells all his goods, and gives them to the poor.” And, provided our hastiness to snatch at too much, does not make us let go our duty, like the indiscreet loads of too forward persons, too big, or too inconvenient and uncombined, there is not in the world a greater probation of our prompt obe- dience, than when we look farther than the precise duty, swallowing that and more with our ready and hopeful purposes; nothing being so able to do mira- cles as love, and yet nothing being so certainly ac- cepted as love, though it could do nothing in pro- ductions and exterior ministries. 7 . Thirdly : But God requires that our obedience should have another excellency to make it a becom- ing present to the Divine acceptance; our under- standing must be sacrificed too, and become an in- gredient of our obedience. We must also believe, that whatsoever God commands, is most fittinsr to be commanded, is most excellent in itself, and the best for us to do. The first gives our affections and desires to God, and this also gives our reason, and is a perfection of obedience not communicable to the duties we owe to man. For God only is Lord of this faculty, and, being the fountain of all wisdom, therefore commands our understanding, because he alone can satisfy it. We are bound to obey human laws, but not bound to think the laws we live under are the most prudent constitutions in the world. But God’s commandments are not only “ a lantern to our feet, and a light unto our paths,” but a rule to our reason, and satisfaction to our understandinsrs ; as being the instruments of our address to God, and conveyances of his grace, and manuductions to eter- nity. And therefore St. John Climacus defines obe- dience to be “ an unexamined and unquestioned motion, a voluntary death and sepulture of the will, a life without curiosity, a laying aside our own dis- cretion in the midst of the riches of the most excel- lent understandings.” 8. And certainly there is not in the world a greater strength against temptations, than is depo- sited in an obedient understanding ; because that only can regularly produce the same affections, it admits of fewer degrees, and an unfrequent alteration. But the actions proceeding from the appetite, as it is de- termined by any other principle than a satisfied un- derstanding, have their heightenings and their de- clensions, and their changes and mutations, according to a thousand accidents. Reason is more lasting than desire, and with fewer means to be tempted; but affections and motions of appetite, as they are procured by any thing, so may they expire by as great variety of causes. And therefore, to serve God by way of understanding, is surer, and in itself [unless it be by the accidental increase of degrees] greater, than to serve him iipon the motion and prin- ciple of passions and desires ; though this be fuller of comfort and pleasure than the other. When Lot lived amongst the impure Sodomites, where his righteous soul was in a continual agony, he had few exterior incentives to a pious life, nothing to en- kindle the sensible flame of burning desires toward piety ; but in the midst of all the discouragements of the world, nothing was left him but the way and precedency of a truly-informed reason and conscience. Just so is the way of those wise souls, who live in the midst of “ a crooked and perverse generation:” where piety is out of countenance, where austerity is ridiculous, religion under persecution, no examples to lead us on ; there the understanding is left to be the guide, and it does the work the surest ; for this makes the duty of many to be certain, regular, and chosen, constant, integral, and perpetual : but this way is like the life of an unmarried or a retired per- son, less of grief in it, and less of joy. But the way of serving God with the affections, and wfith the pleasures and entertainments of desires, is the way of the more passionate and imperfect, not in a man’s power to choose or to procure ; but comes by a thousand chances , meeting with a soft nature, cre- dulous or weak, easy or ignorant, softened wdth fears, or invited by forward desires. 9. Those that did live amidst the fervours of the primitive charity, and were warmed by their tires, grew inflamed by contact and vicinity to such burn- ing and shining lights. And they therefore grew to high degrees of piety, because then every man made judgment of his own actions by the propor- tions which he saw before him, and believed all dc- Sect. V. OF OBEDIENCE. 57 scents from those greater examples to be so many de- grees from the rule. And he tJiat lives in a college of devout persons, will compare his own actions with the devotion and customs of that society, and not with the remissness of persons he hears of in story, but what he sees and lives with. But if we live in an age of indevotion, we think ourselves well assoiled if we be warmer than their ice ; every thing, which is above our example, being eminent and conspicuous, though it be but like the light of a glow-worm, or the sparkling of a diamond, yet, if it be in the midst of darkness, it is a goodly beauty. This I call the way of serving God by desires and affections: and this is altered by example, by public manners, by external works, by the assignment of offices, by designation of conventions for prayer, by periods and revolutions of times of duty, by hours and solemnities ; so that a man shall owe his piety to these chances, which, although they are graces of God, and instruments of devotion, yet they are not always in our power ; and therefore they are but accidental ministers of a good life, and the least constant or durable. But when the principle of our piety is a conformity of our understanding to God’s laws; when we are instructed what to do, and therefore do it, because we are satisfied it is most excellent to obey God ; this will support our piety against objections, lead it on in despite of disad- vantages : this chooses God with reason, and is not determined from without. And as it is in some de- gree necessary for all times, so it is the greatest security against the change of laws and princes, and religions and ages : when all the incentives of affections and exterior determinations of our piety shall cease, and perhaps all external offices, and “ the daily sacrifice,” and piety itself, shall fail from the face of the land; then the obedience, founded in the understanding, is the only lasting strength left us to make retreat to, and to secure our conditions. Thus, from the composition of the will and affections with our exterior acts of obedi- ence to God, our obedience is made willing, swift, and cheerful ; but from the composition of the un- derstanding our obedience becomes strong, sincere, and persevering ; and this is that which St. Paul calls “our reasonable service.” 10. Fourthly: To which if we add, that our obedience be universal, we have all the qualifica- tions which make the duty to be pious and prudent. The meaning is, that we obey God in all his sanc- tions, though the matter be in common account small and inconsiderable, and give no indulgence to our- selves to recede from the rule, in any matter what- soever. For the veriest minute of obedience is worth our attention, as being by God esteemed the trial of our obedience in a greater affair. “He that is unjust in a little, will be unjust in a greater,” ® said our blessed Saviour. And since to God all matter is alike, and no more accrues to him in an hecatomb than in a piece of gum, in an ascetic severity than in a secular life, God regards not the matter of a precept, but the obedience, which in all instances is the same; and he that will prevaricate, ® Luke xvi. 10. when the matter is trifling, and, by consequence, the temptations to it weak and impotent, and soon confuted, will think he may better be excused, when the temptations are violent and importunate ; as it commonly happens in affairs of greater im- portance. He that will lie to save sixpence, will not stick at it when a thousand pound is the purchase ; and possibly there is more contempt and despite done to the Divine authority, when we dis- obey it in such particulars, wherein the obedience is most easy, and the temptations less troublesome. I do not say there is more injustice or more malice in a small disobedience than in a greater; but there is either more contempt, or more negligence and dissolution of discipline, than in the other. 1 1 . And it is no small temptation of the devil, soliciting of us not to be curious of scruples and grains, not to disturb our peace for lighter disobe- diences ; persuading us that something must be in- dulged to public manners, something to the civilities of society, something to nature, and to the ap- proaches of our passions, and the motions of our first desires ; but that “ we be not over-righteous.” And true it is, that sometimes such surreptions and smaller indecencies are therefore pardoned, and lessened almost to anullity, because they dwell in the confines of things lawful and honest, and are not so notorious as to be separated from permissions by any public, certain, and universal cognizance ; and therefore may pass upon a good man, sometimes without observation. But it is a temptation, when we think of neglecting them by a predetermined incuriousness, upon pretence they are small. But this must be reduced to more regular conclusions. 12. First: Although smaller disobediences ex- pressed in slight misbecoming actions, when they come by surprise and sudden invasion, are, through the mercies of God, dashed in the very approach, their bills of accusation are thrown out, and they are not esteemed as competent instruments of sepa- ration from God’s love ; yet when a smaller sin comes by design, and is acted with knowledge and deliberation, (for then it is properly an act of dis- obedience,) “ malitia supplet defectum aetatis,” the malice of the agent heightens the smallness of the act, and makes up the iniquity. To drink liberally once, and something more freely than the strict rules of Christian sobriety and temperance permit, is pardoned easier, when without deliberation and by surprise the person was abused, who intended not to transgress a minute, but by little and little Avas mistaken in his proportions : but if a man by design shall estimate his draughts and his good fellowship, and shall resolve upon a little intemperance, think- ing, because it is not very much, it is therefore none at all, that man hath mistaken himself into a crime ; and although a little wound upon the finger is very curable, yet the smallest prick upon the heart is mortal : so is a design and purpose of the smallest disobedience in its formality, as malicious and de- structive as in its matter it was pardonable and ex- cusable. 58 OF OBEDIENCE. Bart J. 13. Secondly: Although every lesser disobedience, V’hen it comes singly, destroys not the love of God ; (for, although it may lessen the habit, yet it takes not away its natural being, nor interrupts its accep- tation, lest all the world should in all instants of time be in a damnable condition ;) yet when these smaller obliquities are repeated, and no repentance intervenes, this repetition combines and unites the lesser till they be concentred, and by their ac- cumulation make a crime : ^ and therefore a care- less reiterating, and an incurious walking in misbe- coming actions, is deadly and damnable in the re- tium, though it was not so much at the setting forth. Every idle word is to be accounted for, but we hope in much mercy ; and yet he that gives himself over to immoderate talking, s will swell his account to a vast and mountainous proportion, and call all the lesser escapes into a stricter judgment. He that extends his recreation an hour beyond the limits of Christian prudence, and the analogy of its severity and employment, is accountable to God for that im- providence and waste of time ; but he that shall misspend a day, and because tha,t sin is not scan- dalous like adultery, or clamorous like oppression, or unusual like bestiality, or crying for revenge like detaining the portion of orphans, shall therefore misspend another day, without revocation of the first by an act of repentance and redemption of it, and then shall throw away a week, still adding to the former account upon the first stock, will at last be answerable for a habit of idleness, and will liave contracted a vain and impertinent spirit. For since things, which in their own kind are lav/ful, become sinful by the degree ; if the degree be heightened by intention, or become great, like a heap of sand by a coacervation of the innumerable atoms of dust, the actions are as damnable as any of the natural daughters and productions of hell, when they are entertained without scruple, and renewed without repentance, and continued without dereliction. 14. Thirdly : Although some inadvertencies of our life and lesser disobedience accidentally be- come less hurtful, and because they are entailed upon the infirmities of a good man, and the less wary customs and circumstances of society, are also consistent with the state of grace ; yet all affection to the smallest sins becomes deadly and damnable. “ He that loves his danger, shall perish in it,” saith the wise man; and every friendly entertain- ment of an indecency invites in a greater crime ; for no man can love a small sin, but there are in the greater crimes of its kind more desirable flat- teries, and more satisfactions*of sensualihu than in those suckers and sprigs of sin. At first, a little disobedience is proportionable to a man’s temper, and his conscience is not fitted to the bulk of a rude crime : but when a man hath accepted the ^ Quae humanae fragilitati, quamvis parva, tamen crebra subrepunt, si collecta contra nos fuerint, ita nos gravabunt et oppriment, sicut unuin aliquot! grande peccatum.— S. Aug. lib. 1. bom. 50. Idem lib. de Poenit. Peccata venialia si multiplicentur, decorum nostrum ita exterminant, ut a coelcs- tis sponsi amplexibus nos separent. S rXtoertru /xaTuia '(^r]/xia '7r()o2 particulars ; for an action may be a sin in the prince commanding it, and yet innocent in the person exe- cuting ; as in the case of unjust wars, in which the subject, who cannot, ought not to be a judge, yet must be a minister ; and it is notorious in the case of executing an unjust sentence, in which not the exe- cutioner, but the judge, is the only unjust person and he that serves his prince in an unjust war, is but the executioner of an unjust sentence : but whatever goes farther, does but undervalue the person, slight the government, and unloose the golden cords of dis- cipline. For we are not intrusted in providing for degrees, so we secure the kind and condition of our actions. And since God, having derived rays and beams of majesty, and transmitted it in parts upon several states of men,y hath fixed human authority and dominion in the golden candlestick of under- standing, he that shall question the prudence of his governor, or the wisdom of his sanction, does un- clasp the golden rings that tie the purple upon the prince’s shoulder ; he tempts himself with a reason to disobey, and extinguish the light of majesty by overturning the candlestick, and hiding the opinion of his wisdom and understanding. And let me say this ; he that is confident of his own understanding and reasonable powers, (and who is more than he that thinks himself wiser than the laws ?) needs no other devil in the neighbourhood, no tempter but himself to pride and vanity, which are the natural parents of disobedience. 24. But a man’s disobedience never seems so reasonable,^ as \rhen the subject is forbidden to do an act of piety, commanded indeed in the general, but uncommanded in certain circumstances. And forward piety and assiduous devotion, a great and indiscreet mortifier, is often tempted to think no authority can restrain the fervours and distempers of zeal in such holy exercises ; and yet it is very often as necessary to restrain the indiscretions of a for- ward person, as to excite the remissness of the cold and frozen. Such persons were the Sarabites, spoken of by Cassian,*'^ who were greater labourers and stricter mortifiers, than the religious in families and colleges ; and yet they endured no superior, nor laws. But such customs as these are humiliation without humility ; humbling the body and exalting the spirit; or, indeed, sacrifices, and no obedience. It was an argument of the git-at wisdom of the fathers of the desert when they heard of the prodigious severities exercised by Simeon Stylites upon himself, they sent one of the religious to him, with power to inquire what was his manner of living, and what warrant he had for such a rigorous undertaking, giving in charge to command him to give it over, and to live in a community with them, and according to the common institution of those religious families. The messenger did so ; and immediately Simeon re- moved his foot from his pillar, with a purpose to de- ^ Is damnum dat, qui jubet dare : ejus verb nulla culpa ost, cui parere necesse lit. — Ulpian, 1. 130. y yovEvai, Kav ^'ucciLa — Laert. Modum autem tenere in oo difficile est, quod bonum esse credideris.— Sen. ep. 23. •' Collat. xviii. c. 17. A pud Euagrium. De endcm Stylile consulat lector scend; but the other, according to his commission, called to him to stay, telling him his station and se- verity were from God. And he that in so great a piety was humble and obedient, did not undertake that strictness out of singularity, nor did it transport him to vanity ; for that he had received from the fathers to make judgment of the man, and of his in- stitution : whereas if upon pretence of the great holiness of that course, he had refused the com- mand, the spirit of the person was to be declared caitive and imprudent, and the man driven from his troublesome and ostentatious vanity. 25. Our fasts, our prayers, our watchings, our intentions of duty, our frequent communions, and all exterior acts of religion, are to be guided by our su- perior, if he sees cause to restrain or assuage any excrescence. For a wound may heal too fast, and then the tumour of the flesh is proud, not healthful ; and so may the indiscretions of religion swell to vanity, when we think they grow towards perfection : but when we can endure the caustics and correctives of our spiritual guides, in those things in which we are most apt to please ourselves, then our obedience is regular and humble ; and in other things there is less of danger. There is a story told of a very reli- gious person,*^ whose spirit in the ecstasy of devotion, was transported to the clarity of a vision; and he seemed to converse personally with the holy Jesus, feeling from such intercourse great spiritual delights and huge satisfactions. In the midst of these joys, the bell called to prayers ; and he, used to the strict- ness and well instructed in the necessities of obedi- ence, went to the church, and having finished his devotions, returned, and found the vision in the same posture of glories and entertainment ; which also said to him, “ Because thou hast left me, thou hast found me ; for if thou hadst not left me, I had pre- sently left thee.” Whatever the story be, I am snre it is a good parable ; for the way to increase spiri- tual comforts is, to be strict in the offices of humble obedience ; and we never lose any thing of our joy, by laying it aside to attend a duty ; and Plutarch reports more honour of Agesilaus’ prudence and modesty, than of his gallantry and military fortune ; ^ for he was more honourable by obeying the decree of the Spartan senate, recalling him from the midst of his triumphs, than he could have been by finish- ing the war ■\\dth prosperous success and disobedi- ence. 26. Our obedience, being guided by these rules, is urged to us by the consignation of Divine pre- cepts and the loud voice of thunder, even sealed by a signet of God’s right hand, the signature of greatest judgments. Gor God did, with greater severity, punish the rebellion of Korah and his com- pany, than the express murmurs against himself; nay, than the high crime of idolatry : for this crime God visited them with a sword; but for disobedi- Epiph. lib. i. c. 13. Theocl. et 7. Synod, gener. et Baron, ad A. D. 432. c Cassian. Collat. iv. Abbat. Dam. c. 20. et S. Basil. Exhort, ad Vitam Monast. S. Grey. lib. xxxv. Moral, c, 13. S. Bern. De Ord. Yitfe et Morum Instit. c. 1, '* Titus Manlius securi percussit filium, postquam hostem gloriose vicerat in intcrdicta pugna.— .A. Gelc. lib. ix. c. 13. Sect. V. OF OBKDIKNC^F. G3 CTicc and mutiny against their superiors, (iod made tile earth to swallow some of them, and fire from heaven to consume the rest ; to show that rebellion is to be pmiished by the conspiration of heaven and earth, as it is hateful and contradictory both to God and man. And it is not amiss to observe that obe- dience to man, being as it is, “ for God’s sake,” and yet to a person clothed with the circumstances and the same infirmities with ourselves, is a greater in- stance of humility, than to obey God immediately, whose authority is divine, whose presence is terri- ble, vdiose power is infinite, and not at all depress- ed by exterior disadvantages or lessening appear- ances ; just as it is both greater faith and greater charity to relieve a poor saint for Jesus’ sake, than to give any thing to Christ himself, if he should appear in all the robes of glory and immediate ad- dress. For it is to God and to Christ, and wholly for their sakes, and to them that the obedience is done, or the charity expressed ; but themselves are persons whose awfulness, majesty, and veneration, would rather force than invite obedience or alms. But when God and his holy Son stand behind the cloud, and send their servants to take the homage or the charity, it is the same as if it were done to them, but receives the advantage of acceptation, by the accidental adherences of faith and humility to the several actions respectively. When a king comes to rebels in person, it strikes terror and vene- ration into them, who are too apt to neglect and despise the persons of his ministers, whom they look upon as their fellow-subjects, and consider not in the exaltation of a deputed majesty. Charles the Fifth found a happy experience of it at Gaunt, in Flanders, whose rebellion he appeased by his presence, which he could hardly have done by his army. But if the king’s authority be as much revered in his deputy, as it is sacred in his own person, it is the greater humility and more confident obedience. And as it is certain, that he is the most humble that submits to his inferiors ; so, in the same proportion, the lower and meaner the instrument upon which God’s authority is borne, the higher is the grace that teaches us to stoop so low. I do not say, that a sin against human laws is greater than a prevari- cation against a Divine commandment; as the in- stances may be, the distance is next to infinite, and to touch the earth with our foot within the octaves of Easter, or to taste flesh upon days of absti- nence, (even in those places, and to those persons, where they did or do oblige,) have no consideration, if they be laid in balance against the crimes of adultery, or blasphemy, or oppression, because these crimes cannot stand with the reputation and sacred- ness of Divine authority ; but those others may, in most instances, very well consist with the ends of government, which are severally provided for in the diversity of sanctions respectively. But if we make our instances to other purposes, we find, that to ^ Isaiah vii. 13. f 1 Samuel xv. 23. H/alj/ TToWcoU VOjJiUlV Kal KaXu)V OVTWV, /cdXXiCTTOS OUTOS EaTL, Ttfx(ti> fiaa-iXia, Kal TrpocrievasTa sbeoua Osou 'iruv'ra Ga>X^ovToropoiTioned to every understanding; and the greatest mysteries of Christianity are plainest, and yet most fruitful of meditation, and most useful' to the j)i’oduction of piety. High speculations are as barren as the tops of cedars ; but the fundamentals of Christianity are fruitful as the valleys or the crecj)ing vine. For know, that it is no meditation, but it may be an illusion, when you consider mys- teries to become more learned, without thoughts of improving piety. Let your affections be as high as they can climb towards God, so your considerations be humble, fruitful, and practically mysterious. “ Oh that I had the wings of a dove, that I might fly away and be at rest,” said David. The wings of an eagle would have carried him higher, but yet the innocent dove did furnish him with the hettcr emblem to rej^resent his humble design ; and lower meditations might sooner bring him to rest in God. It was a saying of .^gidiiis, “ that an old and a simple woman, if she loves Jesus, may be greater than was brother Bonaventure.” Want of learning, and disability to consider great secrets of theology, do not at all retard our progress to spiritual perfec- tions ; love to Jesus may be better promoted by the plainer understandings of honest and unlettered people, than by the finer and more exalted specula- tions of great clerks, that have less devotion. For although the way of serving God by the understand- ing be the best and most lasting, yet it is not necessary the understanding should be dressed with troublesome and laborious notions : the reason that is in religion is the surest principle to engage our services, and more j)erpetual than the sweetnesses and the motives of affection ; but every honest man’s un- derstanding is then best furnished with the dis- courses and the reasonable parts of religion, when he knows those mysteries of religion upon which Christ and his apostles did build a holy life, and the superstructures of piety ; those are the best ma- terials of his meditation. 11. So that meditation is nothing else but the using of all those arguments, motives, and irra- diations, which God intended to be instrumental to piety. It is a composition of both ways; for it stirs up our affections by reason and the way of understanding, that the wise soul may be satisfied in the reasonableness of the thing, and the affec- tionate may be entertained with the sweetnesses of holy passion ; that our judgment be determined by discourse, and our appetites made active by the caresses of a religious fancy. And, therefore, the use of meditation is, to consider any of the mysteries of religion with xmrposes to draw from it rules of life, or affections of virtue, or detestation of vice ; and from hence the man rises to devotion, and mental prayer, and intercourse with God : and, after that he rests himself in the bosom of beatitude, and is swallowed up with the comprehensions of love and contemplation. These are the several de- grees of meditation. But let us first understand that part of it which is duty, and then, if any thing succeed of a middle condition between duty and rr- Sect. V. OF MEDITATION. ward, wc will consider also how tliat duty is to he ])crfonned, and how the reward is to he managed, that it may prove to he no illusion : therefore I add also this consideration. 1 2. Thirdly : Whatsoever pious purposes and deliberations are entertained in the act of medita- tion, they are carefully to be maintained and thrust forward to actual performances, although they were indefinite and indeterminate, and no other ways de- creed but by resolutions and determinations of rea- son and judgment. For ■ God assists every pious action according to its exigence and capacity ; and therefore blesses holy meditations with results of reason, and prepossessions dogmatically decreeing the necessity of virtue, and the convenience of cer- tain exercises in order to the purchase of it. He, then, that neglects to actuate such discourses, loses the benefit of his meditation ; he is gone no farther than when he first set out, and neglects the inspira- tions of the Holy Spirit. For if, at any time, it be certain what spirit it is that speaks within the soul, it is most certain, that it is the good Spirit that moves us to an act of virtue, in order to acquisition of the habit : and when God’s grace hath assisted us so far in our meditations, that we understand our duty, and are moved with present arguments, if we put not forth our hand and make use of them, we do nothing towards our duty ; and it is not certain, that God will create graces in us, as he does the soul. Let every pious person think every conclu- sion of reason in his meditation to have passed an obligation upon him : and if he hath decreed, that fasting so often, and doing so many religious acts, is convenient and conducing to the production of a grace he is in pursuit of ; let him know, that every such decree and reasonable proposition is the grace of God, instrumental to piety, part of his assistance, and therefore, in no case, to be extinguished. 13. Fourthly: In meditation, let the understand- ing be restrained, and under such prudent coercion and confinement, that it wander not from one dis- course to another, till it hath perceived some fruit from the first ; either that his soul be instructed in a duty, or moved by a new argument, or confirmed in an old, or determined to some exercise and inter- medial action of religion, or hath broke out into some prayers and intercourse with God, in order to the production of a virtue. And this is the mys- tical design of the spouse in the Canticles of Solo- mon : “I adjure you, 0 you daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that you stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.”^ For it is lightness of spirit to pass over a field of flowers and to fix nowhere, but to leave it without carrying some honey with us; unless the subject be of itself barren and unfruitful, and then why Avas it chosen ? or that it is made so by our indisposi- tion, and then indeed it is to be quitted. But (it is St. Chrysostom’s simile) as a lamb sucking the breast of its dam and mother, moves the head from one part to another, till it hath found a distilling fontinel, and then it fixes, till it be satisfied, or the fountain cease dropping ; so should we, in medita- Cant. iii. 5. (>!) tion, reject such materials as arc barren like the to})s of hills, and fix upon such thoughts which nourish and refresh ; and there dwell, till the nou- rishment be drawn forth, or so much of it as we can then temperately digest. 14. Fifthly : In meditation, strive rather for graces than for gifts, for affections in the w^ay of virtue more than the overflowings of sensible devo- tion ; and, therefore, if thou findest any thing by which thou mayest be better, though thy spirit do not actually rejoice, or find any gust or relish in the manducation, yet choose it greedily. For al- though the chief end of meditation be affection, and not determinations intellectual ; yet there is choice to be had of the affections ; and care must be taken, that the affections be desires of virtue, or repudiations and aversions from something cri- minal ; not joys and transportations spiritual, com- forts, and complacencies ; for they are no part of our duty : sometimes they are encouragements, and sometimes rewards ; sometimes they depend upon habitude and disposition of body, and seem great matters when they have little in them ; and are more bodily than spiritual, like the gift of tears, and yearning of the bowels ; and sometimes they are illusions and temptations, at which if the soul stoops and be greedy after, they may prove like Hippomenes’s golden apples to Atalanta, retard our course, and possibly do some hazard to the whole race. And this will be nearer reduced to practice, if we consider the variety of matter, which is fitted to the meditation in several states of men travelling towards heaven. 15. For the first beginners in religion are em- ployed in the mastering of their first appetites, casting out their devils, exterminating all evil customs, lessening the proclivity of habits, and countermanding the too great forwardness of vicious inclinations ; and this, which divines call the purga- tive way, is wLolly spent in actions of repentance, mortification, and self-denial : and therefore, if a penitent person snatches at comforts, or the tastes of sensible devotion, his repentance is too delicate ; it is but a rod of roses and jessamine. If God sees the spirit broken all in pieces, and that it needs a little of the oil of gladness for its support and restitution to the capacities of its duty, he will give it : but this is not to be designed, nor snatched at in the medi- tation : tears of joy are not good expressions nor in- struments of repentance ; we must not “ gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles no re- freshments to be looked for here, but such only as are necessary for support; and w^hen God sees they are, let not us trouble ourselves ; he will provide them. But the meditations, which are prompt to this purgative way and practice of first beginners, are not apt to prodiice delicacies, but in the sequel and consequent of it. “ Afterwards it brings forth the pleasant fruit of righteousness,” but “ for the present it hath not joy in it,” no joy of sense, though much satisfaction to reason. And such are medita- tions of the fall of angels and man, the ejection of them from heaven, of our parents from paradise, the 70 OF MEDITATION. Part I. horror and obliquity of sin, the wrath of God, the severity of his anger, mortification of our body and spirit, self-denial, the cross of Christ, death, and hell, and judgment, the terrors of an evil conscience, the insecurities of a sinner, the unreasonableness of sin, the troubles of repentance, the worm and sting of a burdened spirit, the difficulties of rooting out evil habits, and the utter abolition of sin : if these net- tles bear honey, we may fill ourselves; but such sweetnesses spoil the operations of these bitter potions. Here, therefore, let your addresses to God, and your mental prayers, be affectionate desires of pardon, humble considerations of ourselves, thoughts of re- venge against our crimes, designs of mortification, indefatigable solicitations for mercy, expresses of shame and confusion of face ; and he meditates best in the purgative way, that makes these affections most operative and high. 16. After our first step is taken, and the punitive part of repentance is resolved on, and begun, and put forward into good degrees of progress, we then enter into the illuminative way of religion, and set upon the acquist of virtues, and the purchase of spiritual graces ; and, therefore, our meditations are to be proportioned to the design of that employ- ment: such as are considerations of the life of Jesus, examples of saints, reasons of virtue, means of ac- quiring them, designations of proper exercises to every pious habit, the eight beatitudes, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost, the promises of the gos- pel, the attributes of God, as they are revealed to represent God to be infinite, and to make us religi- ous, the rewards of heaven, excellent and select sen- tences of holy persons, to be as incentives of piety. These are the proper matter for proficients in reli- gion. But then the affections producible from these are, love of virtue, desires to imitate the holy Jesus, affections to saints and holy persons, conformity of choice, subordination to God’s will, election of the ways of virhie, satisfaction of the understanding in the ways of religion, and resolutions to pursue them in the midst of all discomforts and persecutions ; and our mental prayers or intercourse with God, which are the present emanations of our meditations, must be in order to these affections, and productions from those : and in all these, yet there is safety and piety, and no seeking of ourselves, but designs of virtue in just reason and duty to God, and for his sake; that is, for his commandment. And in all these parti- culars, if there be such a sterility of spirit, that there be no end served but of spiritual profit, we are never the worse; all that God requires of us is, that we will live well, and repent in just measure and right manner ; and he that doth so, hath meditated well. 1 7. From hence, if a pious soul passes to affec- tions of greater sublimity, and intimate and more immediate, abstracted and immaterial love, it is well; only remember, that the love God requires of us, is an operative, material, and communicative love; “If ye love me, keep my commandments so ® Serm. 1. de Assumpt. Kal tmv 7rpocr(f)epoiuLt.vcov ttoXv- 'TtXtuc TLp. 1 ] Qeov ov yivzTaL, ei /uli] fXf.Ta toD kv^iov cppo- i/rijuaxos TTpoadyoiTO. Au>pa ynp Kal dinjTroXiaL d(pp6i/wv, Tn/oos 'Tpofpti’ Kal dva^r'ifxa'ra, IspocrvXoi^ -)(^opy]yLa. To 6e that still a good life is the effect of the sublimest meditation ; and if we make our duty sure behind us, ascend up as high into the mountain as you can, so your ascent may consist with the securities of your person, the condition of infirmity, and the interests of your duty. According to the saying of Ildefonsus, “ Our empty saying of lauds, and recit- ing verses in honour of his name, please not God so well, as the imitation of him does advantage to us ; and a devout imitator pleases the spouse better than an idle panegyric.”® Let your work be like his, your duty in imitation of his precept and example, and then sing praises as you list; no heart is large enough, no voice pleasant enough, no life long enough, nothing but an eternity of duration and a be- atifical state can do it well : and therefore holy David joins them both : “ Whoso offereth me thanks and praise, he honoureth me ; and to him that ordereth his conversation aright, I will show the salvation of God.”^ All thanks and praise, without a right- ordered conversation, are but the echo of religion, a voice and no substance ; but if those praises be sung by a heart righteous and obedient, that is, singing with the spirit and singing with understand- ing, that is the music God delights in. 18. Sixthly: But let me observe and press this caution : It is a mistake, and not a little dangerous, when people, religious and forward, shall too promptly, frequently, and nearly, spend their thoughts in con- sideration of Divine excellencies. God hath shown thee merit enough to spend all thy stock of love upon him in the characters of his power, the book of the creature, the great tables of his mercy, and the lines of his justice ; we have cause enough to praise his excellencies in what we feel of him, and are refreshed with his influence, and see his beau- ties in reflection, though we do not put our eyes out with staring upon his face. To behold the glories and perfections of God with a more direct intuition, is the privilege of angels, who yet cover their faces in the brightness of his presence: it is only per- mitted to us to consider the back parts of God. And, therefore, those speculations are too bold and imprudent addresses, and minister to danger more than to religion, when we pass away from the direct studies of virtue, and those thoughts of God, which are the freer and safer communications of the Deity, which are the means of intercourse and relation be- tween him and us, to those considerations concern- ing God which are metaphysical and remote, the formal objects of adoration and wonder, rather than of virtue and temperate discourses : for God in Scripture never revealed any of his abstracted per- fections and remoter and mysterious distances, but with a purpose to produce fear in us, and therefore to chide the temerity and boldness of too familiar and nearer intercourse. 19. True it is that every thing we see or can consider, represents some perfections of God ; but this I mean, that no man should consider too much, kudeov cf)p6vi)iuLa, dtapKu)? r\Bpa et^rj Svo' f] fiiv viro vocrr]fxdTuyv avSrpwjrivoDV, n vtto 3"£ias £^aX\ay?j9 . — Plato in Phaedr. c. 48. 22. Indeed, when persoTis have been long soften- ed with the continual droppings of religion, and their spirits made timorous and apt for impression by the assiduity of juayer, and perpetual alarms of death, and the continual dyings of mortification ; the fancy, which is a very great instrument of devo- tion, is kept continually warm, and in a disposition and aptitude to take fire, and to flame out in great ascents ; and when they suffer trcinsi)ortations be- yond the burdens and support of reason, they suffer they know not what, and call it what they please ; and other pious people, that hear talk of it, admire that devotion, which is so eminent and beatified ; (for so they esteem it;) and so they come to be called raptures and ecstasies, which, even amongst the apostles, were so seldom, that they were never spoken of ; for those visions, raptures, and intuitions of St. Stephen, St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John, were not pretended to be of this kind ;§ not excesses of religion, but prophetical and intuitive revelations, to great and significant purposes, such as may be and are described in story ; but these other cannot ; for so Cassian reports, and commends a sa)ung of Antony the Eremite, “ That is not a perfect prayer, in which the votary does either understand himself or the prayer ;” meaning, that persons eminently religious were “divina patientes,” as Dionysius Areopagita said of his master Hierotheus, patics in devotion, suffering ravishments of senses,^ trans- ported beyond the uses of humanity, into the suburbs of beatifical apprehensions : but whether or no this be any thing besides a too intense and in- discreet pressure of the faculties of the soul to in- conveniences of understanding, or else a credulous, busy, and untamed fancy, they, that think best of it, cannot give a certainty. There are, and have been, some religious, who have acted madness, and pre- tended inspirations ; and when these are destitute of a prophetic spirit, if they resolve to serve them- selves upon the pretences of it, they are disposed to the imitation, if not to the sufferings, of madness ; and it would be a great folly to call such “ Dei ple- nos,” full of God, who are no better than fantastic and mad people. 23. This we are sure of, that many illusions have come in the likeness of visions, and absurd fancies under the pretence of raptures ; and what some have called the spirit of prophecy, hath been the spirit of lying ; and contemplation hath been nothing but melancholy and unnatural lengths ; and stillness of prayer hath been a mere dream and hy- pochondriacal devotion, and hath ended in pride or despair, or some sottish and dangerous temptation. It is reported of Heron, the monk, that having lived a retired, mortified, and religious life, for many T^S 3'£ias TE'T'rdpMV 3'EWI/ Tt'TTapa p.ipi] SLsXoflEVOl, [xavTLKi]V jxkv aTTLirvoLau ’AttoXXwi'os Alovvctov Sk 'TsXtaTLKriV, XloVCTOiV S’ du TTOirjTiKj;!/, 'T£TdpTriI/’'EpCt}T09, &C. — Ibid. ’'Eyuwi/ ouu dv 7T£pl 'ruiv 'rrouj'roiv kv oXiyw xoOto’ otl ov ao(f)'ia TTOLoleu, diroLOLEV, dXXd (pvasL tlvI, Kai kvdovcnd'i^ov'r£i, loarTTEp 6l ^aofidvTEi? Kai 6l yjpiicr fxtpSoL' Kai ydp ovtol XkyovaL fxkv TToXXd, lisacn Sk ovSkv, dv Xiyovai. — Plato in Apol. c. 7. OF MEDITATION. Part I. /2 years together, at last he came to that habit of austerity or singularity, that he refused the festival refection and freer meals of Easter, and other so- lemnities, that he might do more eminently than the rest, and spend his time in greater abstractions and contemplations ; hut the devil, taking advantage of the weakness of his melancholic and unsettled spirit, gave him a transportation and an ecstasy, in which he fancied himself to have attained so great per- fection, that he was as dear to God as a crowned martyr, and angels would be his security for in- demnity, though he threw himself to the bottom of a well. He obeyed his fancy and temptation, did so, bruised himself to death, and died possessed with a persuasion of the verity of that ecstasy and trans- portation. 24. I will not say, that all violences and extra- vagances of a religious fancy are illusions ; hut I say, that they are all unnatural, not hallowed by the warrant of a revelation, nothing reasonable, nothing secure. I am not sure, that they ever consist with humility ; but it is confessed, that they are often produced by self-love, arrogancy, and tlic great opi- nion others have of us. I will not judge the con- dition of those persons, who are said to have suf- fered tliese extraordinaries ; for I know not the circumstances, or causes, or attendants, or the effects, or whether the stories be true that make report of them ; but I shall only advise, that we follow the intimation of our blessed Saviour, that “ we sit down in the lowest place, till the master of he feast comes, and bids us sit up higher.” If we entertain the in- ward man in the purgative and illuminative way, that is, in actions of repentance, ^virtue, and pre- cise duty, that is the surest way of uniting us to God, whilst it is done by faith and obedience; and that also is love ; and in these peace and safety dwell. And after we have done our work, it is not discretion in a servant to hasten to his meal, and snatch at the refreshment of visions, unions, and abstractions ; but first we must gird ourselves, and wait upon the master, and not sit down ourselves, till we all be called at the great supper of the Lamb. 25. It was, therefore, an excellent desire of St. Bernard, who was as likely as any to have such alti- tudes of speculation, if God had really dispensed them to persons holy, fantastic, and religious : “ I pray God grant to me peace of spirit, joy in the Holy Ghost, to compassionate others in the midst of my mirth, to be charitable in simplicity, to rejoice with them that rejoice, and to mourn with them that mourn ; and with these I shall be content : other exaltations of devotion I leave to apostles and apostolic men ; the high hills are for the harts and the climbing goats ; the stony rocks, and the re- cesses of the earth, for the conies.” It is more healthful and nutritive to dig the earth, and to eat of her fruits, than to stare upon the greatest glories of the heavens, and live upon the beams, of the sun : so unsatisfying a thing is rapture and trans- portation to the soul ; it often distracts the faculties, hut seldom docs advantage piety, and is full of dan- ger in the greatest of its lustre. If ever a man be more in love with God by such instruments, or more endeared to virtue, or made more severe and watch- ful in his repentance, it is an excellent grace and gift of God ; but then this is nothing but the joys and comfort of ordinary meditation : those extraor- dinary, as they have no sense in them, so are not pretended to be instruments of virtue, but are, like Jonathan’s arrows, shot beyond it, to signify the danger the man is in, towards whom such arrows are shot. But if the person be made unquiet, in- constant, proud, pusillanimous, of high opinion, pertinacious, and confident in uncertain judgments, or desperate, it is certain they are temptations and illusions : so that, as all our duty consists in the ways of repentance and acquist of virtue ; so there rests all our safety, and, by consequence, all our solid joys; and this is the effect of ordinary, pious, and regular meditations. 26. If I mistake not, there is temptation like this, under another name, amongst persons Avhose religion hath less discourse and more fancy, and that is a familiarity with God ; which, indeed, if it were rightly understood, is an affection consequent to the illuminative way ; that is, an act or an effect of the virtue of religion and devotion, which con- sists in prayers and addresses to God, lauds, and eucharists, and hymns, and confidence of coming to the throne of grace, upon assurance of God’s vera- city and goodness infinite : so that familiarity with God, which is an affection of friendship, is the inter- course of giving and receiving blessings and graces respectively ; and it is produced by a holy life, or the being in the state of grace, and is a part of every man’s inheritance, that is a friend of God. But when familiarity with God shall be esteemed a pri- vilege of singular and eminent persons, not commu- nicated to all the faithful, and is thought to be an admission to a nearer intercourse of secrecy with God, it is an effect of pride, and a mistake in judg- ment concerning the very same thing, which the old divines call the unitive way, if themselves that claim it understood the terms of art, and the consequents of their own intentions. 27. Only I shall observe one circumstance : That familiarity with God is nothing else but an admis- sion to be of God’s family, the admission of a ser- vant, or a son in minority, and implies obedience, duty, and fear on our parts ; care and providence, and love on God’s part : and it is not the familiarity of sons, but the impudence of proud equals, to ex- press this pretended privilege in even, unmannerly, and irreverent addresses and discourses: and it is a sure rule, that whatsoever heights of piety, union, or familiarity, any man pretends to, it is of the devil, unless the greater the pretence be, the greater also be the humility of the man. The highest flames are the most tremulous ; and so are the most holy and eminently religious persons more full of awfulness, and fear, and modesty, and humility ; so that, in true divinity and right speaking, there is no such thing as the unitive way of religion, save only in the effects of duty, obedience, and the expresses of the precise virhie of religion. ISIeditations in order to a good life, let them be as exalted as the capacity of the Sect. Y. OF MEDITATION. 73 ])erson and subject will endure, up to the lieiglit of contemplation; but if contemplation comes to be a distinct thing, and something besides or beyond a distinct degree of virtuous meditation, it is lost to all sense, and religion, and prudence. Let no man be hasty to eat of the fruits of paradise before his time. 28. And now I shall not need to enumerate the blessed fruits of holy meditation ; for it is a grace, that is instrumental to all effects, to the production of all virtues, and the extinction of all vices ; and, by consequence, the inhabitation of the Holy Ghost within us is the natural or proper emanation from the frequent exercise of this duty ; only it hath something particularly excellent, besides its general influence : for meditation is that part of prayer, which knits the soul to its right object, and confirms and makes actual our intention and devotion. Medi- tation is the tongue of the soul, and the language of our spirit; and our wandering thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of meditation, and recessions from that duty; and according as we neglect medi- tation, so are our prayers imperfect; meditation being the soul of prayer, and the intention of our spirit. But, in all other things, meditation is the instrument and conveyance ; it habituates our affec- tions to heaven, it hath permanent content, it pro- duces constancy of purpose, despising of things be- low, inflamed desires of virtue, love of God, self- denial, humility of understanding, and universal correction of our life and manners. THE PRAYER. Holy and eternal Jesus, whose whole life and doc- trine was a perpetual sermon of holy life, a treasure of wisdom, and a repository of divine materials for meditation; give me grace to under- stand, diligence and attention to consider, care to lay up, and carefulness to reduce to practice, all those actions, discourses, and pious lessons, and intimations, by which thou didst expressly teach, or tacitly imply, or mysteriously signify, our duty. Let my understanding become as spiritual in its employment and purposes, as it is immaterial in its nature ; fill my memory, as a vessel of election, with remembrances and notions highly compunc- tive, and greatly incentive of all the parts of sanc- tity. Let thy Holy Spirit dwell in my soul, instructing my knowledge, sanctifying my thoughts, guiding my affections, directing my will in the choice of virtue ; that it may be the great em- ployment of my life to meditate in thy law, to study thy preceptive will, to understand even the niceties and circumstantials of my duty ; that ig- norance may neither occasion a sin, nor become a punishment. Take from me all vanity of spirit, lightness of fancy, curiosity and impertinency of inquiry, illusions of the devil, and fantastic de- ceptions : let my thoughts be as my religion, plain, honest, pious, simple, prudent, and charitable ; of great employment and forqe to the production of virtues and extermination of vice ; but suffering ® Sic ait Glossa ordinaria; sed Onuphrius in Fastis ait hanc no transportations of sense and vanity, nothing greater than the capacities of my soul, nothing tliat may minister to any intemperarua s of spirit; but let me be wholly inebriated witit love ; and that love wholly spent in doing such actions, as best please thee, in the conditions of my infirmity and the securities of humility, till thou shalt please to draw the curtain, and reveal thy interior beauties, in the kingdom of thine eternal glories : which grant, for thy mercy’s sake, O holy and eternal Jesu. Amen. SECTION VI. Of the Death of the Holy Innocents, or the Babes of Bethlehem, and the Flight of Jesus into Egypt. 1. All this while Herod waited for the return of the wise men, that they might give directions where the child did lie, and his sword might find him out with a certain and direct execution. But “ when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, he was exceeding wroth.” For it now began to deserve his trouble, when his purposes, which were most secret, began to be contradicted and diverted with a pre- vention, as if they were resisted by an all-seeing and almighty Providence. He began to suspect the hand of Heaven was in it; and saw there was nothing for his purposes to be acted, unless he could dissolve the golden chain of predestination. Herod believed the Divine oracles, foretelling that a king should be born in Bethlehem; and yet his ambition had made him so stupid, that he attempted to cancel the decree of Heaven. For, if he did not believe the prophecies, why was he troubled? If he did believe them, how could he possibly hinder that event, which God had foretold himself would cer- tainly bring to pass ? 2. And, therefore, since God already had hinder- ed him from the executions of a distinguishing sword, he resolved to send a sword of indiscrimina- tion and confusion ; hoping, that if he killed all the babes of Bethlehem, this young king’s reign also should soon determine. He, therefore, “ sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.” For this execution was in the be- ginning of the second year after Christ’s nativity, as in all probability we guess ; ^ not at the two years’ end, as some purpose : because as his malice was subtle, so he intended it should be secure ; and though he had been diligent in his inquiry, and was near the time in his computation, yet he, that was never sparing in the lives of others, would now, to secure his kingdom, rather overact his severity for some months, than, by doing execution but just to the tittle of his account, hazard the escaping of the Messias. caedembiennio post Christum natum contigisse. 74 HISTORY OF THE DEATH OF THE INNOCENTS, Part I. 3. This execution was sad, cruel, and universal : no abatements made for the dire shriekings of the mothers, no tender-hearted soldier was employed, no hard-hearted person was softened by the weep- ing eyes and pity-begging looks of those mothers, that wondered how it was possible any person should hurt their pretty sucklings ; no connivances there, no protections, or friendships, or consider- ation, or indulgences ; but Herod caused, that his own child, which was at nurse in the coasts of Bethlehem, should bleed to death : which made Augustus Csesar to say, that, “in Herod’s house, it were better to be a hog than a child;” ^ because the custom of the nation did secure a hog from Herod’s knife, but no religion could secure his child. The sword, being thus made sharp by Herod’s commis- sion, killed fourteen thousand pretty babes ; as the Greeks, in their calendar, and the Abyssines of Ethiopia, do commemorate in their offices of liturgy. For Herod, crafty and malicious, that is, perfectly tyrant, had caused all the children to be gathered together ; which the credulous mothers (supposing it had been to take account of their age and number, in order to some taxing) hindered not, but unwit- tingly suffered themselves and their babes to be betrayed to an irremediable butchery. 4. “ Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying. Lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted.” All the synonymas of sadness were little enough to ex- press this great weeping, when fourteen thousand mothers, in one day, saw their pretty babes pouring forth their blood into that bosom, whence, not long before, they had sucked milk ; and, instead of those pretty smiles which used to entertain the fancy and dear affections of their mothers, nothing but affright- ing shrieks, and then ghastly looks. The mourning was great, like “ the mourning in the valley of Hinnom, and there was no comforter ;” their sorrow was too big to be cured, till it should lie down alone, and rest with its own weariness. 5. But the malice of Herod Avent also into the hill country; and hearing, that of John, the son of Zacharias, great things were spoken, by which he was designed to a great ministry about this young prince, he attempted in him also to rescind the pro- phecies, and sent a messenger of death towards him ; but the mother’s care had been early with him, and sent him into desert places, where he continued till the time appointed “ of his manifesta- tion unto Israel.” But, as the children of Bethle- hem died in the place of Christ, so did the father of the Baptist die for his child. For “ Herod slew Zacharias between the temple and the altar,” because he refused to betray his son to the fury of that rabid bear.^^ Though some persons, very eminent amongst the stars of the primitive church, report a tradition,® ^ Macrob. Satui’nal. lib. ii. c. 4. ^ Qualis apud Lucianum describitur Tyrannicid. ’E/cttvos 7]U 6 (ppovpav KpaTvvwUy 6 tov<; 'rvpavvov/j.f.vov^ iKKOir'rcov, 6 'Toti? i'TTLfiuvXs.vov'ra^ 6 tous £4>>;j8ous dvacrTrMv, d kvvfipV^uiV Tf/ts yd.fxoi’S' Ikelvw ai irap^ivoL dvnyov'ro" Kal tt 'Tiuts crepayat, Kal el 'tlve's (j)vyal, Kal y^prifiaTOiv dcpaipicTELS, Kui fidaavoi,Kal v^pEi^, &C. — BiPONT. vol. iv. p. 311. that a place being separated in the temple for \irgins, Zacharias suffered the mother of our Lord to abide there after the birth of her holy Son, af- firming her still to be a virgin ; and that for this reason, not Herod, but the scribes and Pharisees, did kill Zacharias. 6. Tertullian reports,^ that the blood of Zacha- rias had so besmeared the stones of the pavement, which was the altar, on which the good old priest was sacrificed, that no art or industry could wash the tincture out, the dye and guilt being both in- delible ; as if, because God did intend to exact of that nation “ all the blood of righteous persons, from Abel to Zacharias,” who was the last of the martyrs of the synagogue, he would leave a charac- ter of their guilt in their eyes, to upbraid their irre- ligion, cruelty, and infidelity. Some there are, who affirm these words of our blessed Saviour not to relate to any Zacharias, who had been already slain ; but to be a prophecy of the last of all the martyrs of the Jews, who should be slain imme- diately before the destruction of the last temple, and the dissolution of the nation. Certain it is, that such a Zacharias, the son of Baruch, (if we may believe Josephus, s) was slain in the middle of the temple, a little before it was destroyed ; and it is agreeable to the nature of the prophecy and re- proof here made by our blessed Saviour, that, (from Abel to Zacharias,) should take in “all the righte- ous blood” from first to last, till the iniquity was complete ; and it is not imaginable, that the blood of our blessed Lord, and of St. James their bishop, (for whose death, many of themselves thought, God destroyed their city,) should be left out of the ac- count, which yet would certainly be left out, if any other Zacharias should be meant, than he whom they last slew : and in proportion to this, Cyprian de Valera expounds that, which we read in th-e past tense, to signify the future, “ye slew,” i. e. “shall slay ;” according to the style often used by pro- phets, and as the aorist of an uncertain signification will bear. But the first great instance of the Di- vine vengeance for these executions, was upon Herod, who, in very few years after, was smitten of God with so many plagues and tortures, that him- self alone seemed like an hospital of the incurabili : for he was tormented with a soft, slow fire, like that of burning iron or the cinders of yew, in his body ; in his bowels, with intolerable colics and ulcers ; in his natural parts, with Avorms ; in his feet, vdth gout; in his nerves, with commlsions, difficulty of breathing ; and out of divers parts of his body is- sued out so impure and ulcerous a steam, that the loathsomeness, pain, and indignation, made him once to snatch a knife, with purpose to have killed him- self ; but that he was prevented by a nephew of his, that stood there in his attendance. 7 . But as the flesh of beasts grows callous by ** Sic Chrysost. et Petrus Martyr, episc. Alexandr. Niceph. et Cedrenus. e Sic aiunt Origen. tract. 2.3. in Evang. Matt. S. Basil. Homil. de Humana Chri^ti Generatione. Nyssen. in Natcili Christi. Cyril, adv. Anthropomorphitas. In Scorpiaco, cap. 8. s Lib. iv. Sect. VI. AND THE FLIGHT OF JESUS INTO EGYPT. 75 stripes and the pressure of the yoke ; so did the heart of Herod, by the loads of Divine vengeance. God began his hell here ; and the pains of hell never made any man less impious : for Herod, per- ceiving that he must now die,*‘ first put to death his son Antipater, under pretence that he would have poisoned him ; and that the last scene of his life might, for pure malice and exalted spite, outdo all the rest, because he believed the Jewish nation would rejoice at his death, he assembled all the nobles of the people, and put them in prison, giving in charge to his sister Salome, that, when he was expiring his last, all the nobility should be slain, that his death might be lamented with a perfect and uni- versal sorrow. 8. But God, that brings to nought the counsels of wicked princes, turned the design against the in- tendment of Herod; for when he was dead, and could not call his sister to account for disobeying his most bloody and unrighteous commands, she re- leased all the imprisoned and despairing gentlemen, and made the day of her brother’s death a perfect jubilee, a day of joy, such as was that when the na- tion was delivered from the violence of Haman, in the days of Purim. 9. And, all this while, God had provided a sanc- tuary for the holy child Jesus. For God, seeing the secret purposes of blood which Herod had, sent his angel,* “who appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying. Arise, and take the young Child and his mother, and fly into Egypt, and be thou there, until I bring thee word ; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy him. Then he arose, and took the young Child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt.” And they made their first abode in Hermopolis,^ in the country of The- bais ; whither, when they first arrived, the child Jesus, being by design or providence carried into a temple, all the statues of the idol-gods fell down, like Dagon at the presence of the ark, and suffered their timely and just dissolution and dishonour, ac- cording to the prophecy of Isaiah : “ Behold, the Lord shall come into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence.” ^ And in the life of the prophet Jeremy, written by Epiphanius, it is reported, “that he told the Egyptian priests, that then their idols should be broken in pieces, when a holy virgin, wdth her child, should enter into their country :” which prophecy possibly might be the cause, that the Egyptians did, besides their vanities, worship also an infant in a manger, and a virgin in her bed. 10. From Hermopolis to Maturea went these holy pilgrims, in pursuance of their safety and pro- visions ; where, it was reported, they dwelt in a garden of balsam, till J oseph, being, at the end of seven years, (as it is commonly believed,) ascertain- ed by an angel of the death of Herod, and com- manded to return to the land of Israel, he was obe- dient to the heavenly vision, and returned. But hearing that Archelaus did reign in the place of his ^ AtLvai yap Kal koltul airoLYoaivoio \iovTOS- * Matt. ii. 13. father, and knowing that the cruelty and ambition of Herod was hereditary, or entailed upon Archelaus, being also warned to turn aside into the parts of Galilee, which was of a distinct jurisdiction, go- verned indeed by one of Herod’s sons, but not by Archelaus, thither he diverted ; and there that holy family remained in the city of Nazareth, whence the holy Child had the appellative of a Nazarene. Jd SECTION VI. Co7isiderations upon the Death of the Innocents, 0. nd the Flight of the Holy Jesus into Egypt. 1. Herod, having called the wise men, and re- ceived information of their design, and the circum- stances of the Child, pretended religion too, and desired them to bring him word when they had found the Babe, “ that he might come and worship him meaning to make a sacrifice of him to whom he should pay his adoration ; and, instead of investing the young Prince with a royal purple, he would have stained his swaddling-bands with his blood. It is ever dangerous, when a wicked prince pretends religion ; his design is then foulest, by how much it needs to put on a fairer outside ; but it was an early policy in the world, and it concerned men’s interests, to seem religious, when they thought that to be so was an abatement of great designs. When Jezebel designed the robbing and destroying Na- both, she sent to the elders to proclaim a fast ; for the external and visible remonstrances of religion leave in the spirits of men a great reputation of the seeming person, and therefore they will not rush into a furious sentence against his actions, at least not judge them with prejudice against the man, towards whom they are so fairly prepared, but do some violence to their own understanding, and either disbelieve their own reason, or excuse the fact, or think it but an error, or a less crime, or the inci- dences of humanity ; or, however, are so long in decreeing against him, whom they think to be reli- gious, that the rumour is abated, or the stream of indignation is diverted by other laborious arts, in- tervening before our zeal is kindled ; and so the per- son is unjudged, or, at least, the design secured. 2. But in this, human policy was exceedingly in- fatuated: and though Herod had trusted his design to no keeper but himself, and had pretended fair, having religion for the word, and “ called the 'wise men privately,” and instructed them with no em- ployment but a civil request, an account of the suc- cess of their journey, which they had no reason, or desire, to conceal ; yet his heart was opened to the eye of Heaven, and the sun was not more visible, than his dark purpose was to God; and it succeeded accordingly : the Child was sent away, the wise men warned not to return, Herod was mocked and en- raged ; and so his craft became foolish and vain : and so are all counsels intended against God, or any thing, of which he himself hath undertaken the pro- Euseb. cle Demonstr. c. 20. S. Athanas. lib. de Incarnat, Verbi. Palladius in Vita S. Apollon. 'Isa.xix. 1. Dorotheus in Synopsi. Pallad. in Vita Apollop- CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE DEATH Part I. 7 () tection. For, although we understand not the rea- sons of security, because we see not that admirable concentring of infinite things in the Divine Provi- dence, whereby God brings his purposes to act by ways unlooked for, and sometimes contradictory ; yet the public and perpetual experience of the world hath given continual demonstrations, that all evil counsels have come to nought; that the suc- ceeding of an impious design is no argument that the man is prosperous ; that the curse is then surest, when his fortune spreads the largest; that the contradiction and impossibilities of deliverance to pious persons are but an opportunity and engagement for God to do wonders, and to glorify his power, and to exalt his mercy, by the instances of miraculous or extraordi- nary events. And as the afflictions, happening to good men, are alleviated by the support of God’s good Spirit; and enduring them here are but con- signations to an honourable amends hereafter ; so the succeeding prosperities of fortunate impiety, when they meet with punishment in the next, or in the third age, or in the deletion of a people five ages after, are the greatest arguments of God’s provi- dence, who keeps wrath in store, and forgets not to “ do judgment for all them that are oppressed with wrong.” It was laid up with God, and was per- petually in his eye, being the matter of a lasting, durable, and unremitted anger. 3. But God had care of the holy Child; he sent his angel to warn Joseph, vdth the Babe and his mother, to fly into Egypt. Joseph and Mary in- stantly arise; and without inquiry, how they shall live there, or when they shall return, or how he se- cured, or what accommodations they shall have in their journey, at the same hour of the night, begin the pilgrimage with the cheerfulness of obedience, and the securities of faith, and the confidence of hope, and the joys of love, knovdng themselves to be recompensed for all the trouble they could endure ; that they were instruments of the safety of the holy Jesus; that they then were serving God; that they were encircled with the securities of the Divine Providence : and, in these dispositions, all places were alike ; for every region was a paradise, where they were in company with Jesus. And, indeed, that man wants many degrees of faith and prudence, who is solicitous for the support of his necessities, when he is doing the commandment of God.'^ If he commands thee to oflfer a sacrifice, himself will provide a lamb, or enable thee to find out one ; and he would remove thee into a state of separation, where thy body needs no supplies of provision, if he meant thou shouldest serve him without provisions. He will certainly take away thy need, or satisfy it;*^ he will feed thee himself, as he did the Israelites ; or take away thy hunger, as he did to Moses ; or send ravens to feed thee, as he did to Elias ; or make charitable people minister to thee, as the widow to Elisha ; or give thee his own portion, as he main- tained the Levites ; or make thine enemies to pity thee, as the Assyrians did the captive Jews. For whal soever the world hath, and whatsoever can be “ TOUS OeOUS E')(^U)V TiS aV (^I'XoUS, apioTT^V paVTlK1]V fc'xot 5 omois.— Eurip. Helen^. 766. conveyed by wonder or by providence, all that is thy security for provisions, so long as thou doest the work of God. And remember, that the assurance of blessing, and health, and salvation, is not made by doing what we list, or being where we desire, but by doing God ’s will, and being in the place of his appointment. We may be safe in Egypt, if we be there in obedience to God; and we may perish among the babes of Bethlehem, if we he there by our own election. 4. Joseph and Mary did not argue against the angel’s message, because they had a confidence of their charge, who, with the breath of his mouth, could have destroyed Herod, though he had been abetted with all the legions, marching under the Roman eagles; but they, like the two cherubims about the propitiatory, took the Child hetv^een them, and fled, giving way to the fury of persecution, which possibly, when the materials were withdrawn, might expire, and die like fi're, which else would rage for ever. Jesus fled, undertook a sad journey, in which the roughness of the ways, his own ten- derness, the youth of his mother, the old age of his supposed father, the smallness of their viaticum and accommodation for their voyage, the no-kindred they were to go to, hopeless of comforts and exterior supplies, were so many circumstances of poverty, and lesser strokes of the persecution; things, that himself did choose to demonstrate the verity of his nature, the infirmity of his person, the humility of his spirit, the austerity of his undertaking, the bur- den of his charge; and by which he did teach us the same virtues he then expressed, and also con- signed this permission to all his disciples, in future ages, that they also may fly from their persecutors, when the case is so, that their work is not done; that is, they may glorify God with their lives, more than with their death. And of this they are ascertained by the arguments of prudent account : for sometimes we are called to glorify God by dying, and the interest of the church and the faith of many may be concerned in it; then we must abide by it. In other cases it is true, that Demosthenes said, in apology for his own escaping from a lost field, “ A man that runs away, may fight again.” And St. Paul made use of a guard of soldiers, to rescue him from the treachery of the Jewish rulers; and of a basket, to escape from the inquisition of the gover- nor of Damascus; and the primitive Christians, of grots and subterraneous retirements ; and St. Atha- nasius, of a fair lady’s house; and others, of deserts and graves ; as knowing it was no shame to fly, when their Master himself had fled, that his time and his work might be fulfilled ; and, when it was, he then laid his life down. 5. It is hard to set do\m particular rules, that may indefinitely guide all persons, in the stating of their own case; because all things, that depend upon circumstances, arc alterable unto infinite. But as God’s glory and the good of the church are the great considerations to he carried before us all the way, and in proportions to them we are to determine Heb. xiii. 5, 6. ^ 'Avi]p b (pEvycov Kal ttoXiv p.ayvfyt'rcu. Sect. VI. OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS, &c. 77 and judge our questions ; so also our infirmities are allowable in the scrutiny : for I doubt not, but God intended it a mercy, and a compliance with human weakness, when he gave us this permission, as well as it was a design to secure the opportunities of his service, and the consummation of his own work by us. And since our fears, and the incommodities of flio-ht, and the sadness of exile, and the insecurities and inconveniences of a strange and new abode, are part of the persecution; provided that God’s glory be not certainly and apparently neglected, nor the church evidently scandalized by our flight; all inter- pretations of the question in favour of ourselves, and the declension of that part, which may tempt us to apostasy, or hazard our confidence, and the choosing the lesser part of the persecution, is not against the rule of faith, and always hath in it less glory, but oftentimes more security. G. But thus far Herod’s ambition transported him, even to resolutions of murder of the highest person, the most glorious and the most innocent upon earth; and it represents that passion to be the most troublesome and vexatious thing that can afflict the sons of men. Virtue hath not half so much trouble in it; it sleeps quietly, without startings and affrighting fancies ; it looks cheerfully ; smiles with much serenity ; and, though it laughs not often, yet it is ever delightful in the apprehensions of some faculty; it fears no man, nor no thing, nor is it dis- composed ; and hath no concernments in the great alterations of the world, and entertains death like a friend, and reckons the issues of it as the greatest of its hopes: but ambition is full of distractions; it teems with stratagems, as Rebecca with struggling tvdns ; and is swelled with expectation, as with a tympany; and sleeps sometimes, as the wind in a storm, still and quiet for a minute, that it may burst out into an impetuous blast, till the cordage of his heart-strings crack ; fears, when none is nigh ; and prevents things, which never had intention ; and falls under the inevitability of such accidents, which either could not be foreseen, or not prevented. It is an infinite labour to make a man’s self miserable ; and the utmost acquist is so goodly a purchase, that he makes his days full of sorrow, to enjoy the troubles of a three years’ reign ; for Herod lived but three years, or five at the most, after the flight of J esus into Egypt. And therefore there is no greater unreasonableness in the world, than in the designs of ambition: for it makes the present certainly miserable, unsatisfied, troublesome, and discontent, for the uncertain acquist of a,n honour, which no- thing can secure ; and, besides a thousand possi- bilities of miscarrying, it relies upon no greater certainty than our life ; and, when we are dead, all the world sees who was the fool. But it is a strange caitiveness and baseness of disposition of men, so Dubia pro certis solent timere reges. Senec. Qidip. 700. ^ Hostis Herodes impie, Christum venire quid times ? Non auferet teiTestria, Qui regna dat ccelestia. furiously and unsatiably to run after perishing and uncertain interests, in defiance of all the reason and religion of the world ; and yet to have no appetite to such excellencies, which satisfy reason, and con- tent the spirit, and create great hopes, and ennoble our expectation, and are advantages to communities of men and public societies, and which all wise men teach, and all religion commands. 7. And it is not amiss to observe, how Herod vexed himself extremely upon a mistake.'^ The child Jesus was born a King, but it was a King of all the world; not confined within the limits of a province, like the weaker beauties of a torch, to shine in one room ; but, like the sun, his empire was over all the world; and if Herod would have be- come but his tributary, and 'paid him the acknow- ledgments of his Lord, he should have had better conditions than under Caesar, and yet have been as absolute in his own Jewry as he was before:® “His kingdom was not of this world;” and he, that gives heavenly kingdoms to all his servants, would not have stooped to have taken up Herod’s petty coronet. But as it is a very vanity which ambition seeks, so it is a shadow, that disturbs and discomposes all its motions and apprehensions. 8. And the same mistake caused calamities to de- scend upon the church ; for some of the persecu- tions commenced upon pretence Christianity was an enemy to the government: but the pretence was in- finitely unreasonable, and therefore had the fate of senseless allegations, it disbanded presently; for no external accident did so incorporate the excellency of Christ’s religion into the hearts of men, as the innocency of the men, their inoffensive deportment, the modesty of their designs, their great humility and obedience, a life expressly in enmity and con- testation against secular ambition. And it is to be feared, that the mingling human interests with re- ligion, will deface the image Christ hath stamped upon it. Certain it is, the metal is much abated by so impure alloy, while the Christian prince serves his end of ambition, and bears arms upon his neigh- bour’s country, for the service of religion, making Christ’s kingdom to invade Herod’s rights : and, in the state ecclesiastical, secular interests have so deep a portion, that there are snares laid to tempt a per- secution, and men are invited to sacrilege,^ while the revenues of a church are a fair fortune for a prince. I make no scruple to find fault with paint- ers, that picture the poor saints with rich garments ; for though they deserved better, yet they had but poor ones : and some have been tempted to cheat the saint, not out of ill-will to his sanctity, but love to his shrine, and to the beauty of the clothes, with which some imprudent persons have, of old time, dressed their images. So it is in the fate of the church ; persecution and the robes of Christ were Qui sceptra duro soevus imperio regit, Timet timentes, metus in authorem cadit. Senec. CEdip. 705. ^ Kai h 'Twv Trpoa-cpipo/JLyvwv iroXvTtXeia eis Qsov ou yLVETai, el p.i] pe^a tou ev^eov ippovripaTO^ irpocrayoiTO. ^wpa yap Kal ^vr\TroXiai uef^povuiv, Tri/pos 'rpo(pn' i Heb. X. 25. VOL. I. G 82 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE DISPUTATION, &c. Part I. for a while, to absent himself : and his doing of it sometimes, upon the just provocations of our de- merits, makes us, at other times, with good reason, to suspect ourselves, even in our best actions. But sometimes we are vain, or remiss; or pride invades us in the darkness and incuriousness of our spirits ; and we have a secret sin, which God would have us to inquire after ; and, when we suspect every thing, and condemn ourselves with strictest and most angry sentence, then, it may be, God will, with a ray of light, break through the cloud ; if not, it is nothing the worse for us : for, although the visible remon- strance and face of things, in all the absences and withdrawings of Jesus, be the same, yet, if a sin be the cause of it, the withdrawing is a taking away his favour and his love ; but, if God does it to se- cure thy piety, and to inflame thy desires, or to pre- vent a crime, then he withdraws a gift only, nothing of his love, and yet the darkness of the spirit and sadness seem equal. It is hard, in these cases, to discover the cause, as it is nice to judge the condi- tion, of the effect ; and therefore it is prudent to ascertain our condition, by improving our care and our religion; and, in all accidents, to make no judg- ment concerning God’s favour by what we feel, but by Avhat we do. 6. When the holy Virgin, with much religion and sadness, had sought her joy, at last she “ found him, disputing among the doctors, hearing them, and asking them questions ;” and besides, that he now flrst opened a fontinel, and there sprang out an ex- cellent rivulet from his abyss of wisdom, he con- signed this truth to his disciples : That they, who mean to be doctors and teach others, must, in their first accesses and degrees of discipline, learn of those, whom God and public order hath set over us, in the mysteries of religion. THE PRAYER. Blessed and most holy Jesus, fountain of grace and comfort, treasure of wisdom and spiritual emana- tions, be pleased to abide with me for ever, by the inhabitation of thy interior assistances and re- freshments; and give me a corresponding love, acceptable and unstained purity, care, and watch- fulness over my ways, that I may never, by pro- voking thee to anger, cause thee to remove thy dwelling, or draw a cloud before thy holy face ; but if thou art pleased, upon a design of charity or trial, to cover my eyes, that I may not behold the bright rays of thy favour, nor be refreshed with spiritual comforts ; let thy love support my spirit by ways insensible ; and, in all my needs, give me such a portion, as may be instrumental and incentive to performance of my duty : and, in all accidents, let me continue to seek thee by prayers and humiliation, and frequent desires, and the strictness of a holy life ; that I may fol- low thy example, pursue thy footsteps, be sup- ported by thy strength, guided by thy hand, en- ® Niceph. lib. i. c. 14. S. Chrys. Horn, de Nativ. S. Jo. Baptistse. ^ Gen. xxi. 17. 1 Kings xix. 5. lightened by thy favour, and may, at last, after a persevering holiness and an unwearied industry, dwell with thee in the regions of light and eter- nal glory, where there shall be no fears of part- ing from the habitations of felicity, and the union and fruition of thy presence, O blessed and most holy Jesus. Amen. SECTION VIII. Of the Preaching of J ohn the Baptist, preparative to the Manifestation of Jesus. When Herod had drunk so great a draught of blood at Bethlehem, and sought for more from the hill country, Elizabeth carried her son into the wil- derness, there, in the desert places and recesses, to hide him from the fury of that beast, where she at- tended him with as much care and tenderness, as the affections and fears of a mother could express, in the permission of those fruitless solitudes. The child was about eighteen months old, when he first fled to sanctuary but, after forty days, his mother died ; and his father Zacharias, at the time of his ministration, which happened about this time, was killed in the court of the temple ; so that the child was exposed to all the dangers and infelicities of an orphan, in a place of solitariness and discomfort, in a time when a bloody king endeavoured his de- struction. But, “ when his father and mother were taken from him, the Lord took him up.” For, ac- cording to the tradition of the Greeks,*^ God deputed an angel to be his nourisher and guardian, as he had formerly done to Ishmael,^ who dwelt in the wilderness ; and to Elias,^ when he fled from the rage of Ahab ; so to this child, who came in the spirit of Elias, to make demonstration, that there can be no want, where God undertakes the care and provision. 2. The entertainment, that St. John’s proveditore, the angel, gave him, was such as the wilderness did afford, and such as might dispose him to a life of austerity ; for there he continued spending his time in meditations, contemplation, prayer, affections and colloquies with God, eating flies and wild honey, not clothed in soft, but a hairy garment,® and a leathern girdle, till he was thirty years of age. And then, “ being the fifteenth year of Tiberius, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, the word of God came unto John in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching” and baptizing. 3. This John, according to the prophecies of him, and designation of his person by the Holy Ghost, was the forerunner of Christ, sent to dispose the people for his entertainment, and “prepare his ways ;” and therefore it was necessary his person should be so extraordinary and full of sanctity, and e Vestis erat curvi setis conserta cameli, Contra luxuriem molles duraret ut artus, Arceretque graves compuncto corpore somnos.— Paumn. Sect. VHI. HISTORY OF THE PREACHING OF JOHN. S3 so clarified by great concurrences and wonder in the circumstances of his life, as might gain credit and reputation to the testimony he was to give concern- ing his Lord, the Saviour of the world. And so it happened. 4. For as the Baptist, while he was in the wil- derness, became the pattern of solitary and con- templative life, a school of virtue, and example of sanctity and singular austerity ; so, at his emigra- tion from the places of his retirement, he seemed, what indeed he was, a rare and excellent person- age : and the wonders, which were great, at his birth, the prediction of his conception by an angel, which never had before happened but in the per- sons of Isaac and Samson, the contempt of the world, which he bore about him, his mortified countenance and deportment, his austere and ere- mitical life, his vehement spirit and excellent zeal in preaching, created so great opinions of him among the people, that all held him for a prophet in his office, for a heavenly person in his own par- ticular, and a rare example of sanctity and holy life to all others : and all this being made solemn and ceremonious by his baptism, he prevailed so, that he made excellent and apt preparations for the Lord’s appearing ; for “ there went out to him Je- rusalem, and all Judea, and all the regions round about Jordan, and were baptized of him, confessing their sins.” 5. The Baptist having, by so heavenly means, won upon the affections of all men, his sermons and his testimony concerning Christ were the more likely to be prevalent and accepted ; and the sum of them was “ repentance and dereliction of sins,” and “ bringing forth the fruits of good life in the promoting of which doctrine, be was a severe reprehender of the Pharisees and Sadducees; he exhorted the people to works of mercy ; the pub- licans to do justice and to decline oppression ; the soldiers to abstain from plundering, and doing vio- lence or rapine ; and publishing, that “ he was not the Christ; that he only baptized with water, but the Messias should baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire ;” he finally denounced judgment and great severities to all the world of impenitents, even abscission and fire unquenchable. And from this time forward, viz. “From the days of John the Baptist, the kingdom of heaven suffered vio- lence, and the violent take it by force.” For now the gospel began to dawn, and John was like the morning star, or the blushings springing from the windows of the east, foretelling the approach of the Sun of righteousness: and as St. John Bap- tist laid the first rough, hard, and unhewn stone of this building in mortification, self-denial, and doing violence to our natural affections ; so it was con- tinued by the Master-builder himself, who pro- pounded the glories of the crown of the heavenly kingdom to them only who should climb the cross to reach it. Now it was, that multitudes should throng, and crowd to enter in at the strait gate, and press into the kingdom ; and the younger brothers should snatch the inheritance from the elder, the unlikely from the more likely, the gentiles from G 2 the Jews, the strangers from the natives, the pulj- licans and harlots from the scribes and Pharisees, who, like violent persons, shall, by their importunity, obedience, watchfulness, and diligence, snatch the kingdom from them, to whom it was first offered ; and “Jacob shall be loved, and Esau rejected.” Ad SECTION VIII. Consider atio7\s upon the Preaching of J ohn the Baptist. 1. From the disputation of Jesus with the doc- tors to the time of his manifestation to Israel, which was eighteen years, the holy Child dwelt in Nazareth, in great obedience to his parents, in ex- emplar modesty, singular humility ; working with his hands in his supposed father’s trade, for the support of his own and his mother’s necessities, and that he might bear the curse of Adam, that, “ in the sweat of his brows he should eat his bread all the while, “ he increased in favour with God and man,” sending forth excellent testimonies of a rare spirit and a wise understanding in the temperate instances of such a conversation, to which his humility and great obedience had en- gaged him. But, all this while, the stream ran under ground : and though little biibblings were discerned in all the course, and all the way men looked upon him as upon an excellent person, dili- gent in his calling, wise cind humble, temperate and just, pious and rarely tempered ; yet, at the mani- festation of John the Baptist, he brake forth like the stream from the bowels of the earth, or the sun from a cloud, and gave us a precedent, that we should not show our lights to minister to vanity, but then only, when God, and public order, and just dispositions of men, call for a manifestation : and yet the ages of men have been so forward in prophetical ministries, and to undertake ecclesias- tical employment, that the viciousness, and indis- cretions, and scandals, the church of God feels as great burdens upon the tenderness of her spirit, are, in great part, owing to the neglect of this instance of the prudence and modesty of the holy Jesus. 2. But now the time appointed was come ; the Baptist comes forth upon the theatre of Palestine, a forerunner of the office and publication of Jesus, and, by the great reputation of his sanctity, pre- vailed upon the affections and judgment of the peo- ple, who, with much ease, believed his doctrine, when they had reason to approve his life ; for the good example of the preacher is always the most prevailing homily, his life is his best sermon. He, that will raise affections in his auditory, must affect their eyes ; for we seldom see the people weep, if the orator laughs loud and loosely : and there is no reason to think, that his discourse should work more with me than himself. If his arguments be fair and specious, I shall think them fallacies, while they have not faith with him ; and what ne- cessity for me to be temperate, when he that tells 84 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE Part I. me so, secs no such need, but hopes to go to heaven without it ? or, if the duty be necessary, I shall learn the definition of temperance, and the latitudes of my permission, and the bounds of lawful and un- lawful, by the exposition of his practice ; if he binds a burden upon my shoulders, it is but reason I should look for him to bear his portion too. “ Good works convince more than miracles ^ and the power of ejecting devils is not so great proba- tion, that Christian religion came from God, as is the holiness of the doctrine, and its efficacy and productions upon the hearty professors of the insti- tution. St. Pachomius, when lie wore the military girdle under Constantine the emperor, came to a city of Christians, who, having heard that the army, in which he then marched, was almost starved for want of necessary provisions, of their own charity relieved them speedily and freely. He, wondering at their so free and cheerful dispensation, inquired what kind of people these were, whom he saw so bountiful. It was answered, they were Christians, whose profession it is to hurt no man, and to do good to every man. The pleased soldier was convinced of the excellency of that religion, which brought forth men so good and so pious, and loved the mother for the children’s sake ; threw away his girdle, and became ehristian, and reli- gious, and a saint. And it was Tertullian’s great argument in behalf of Christians, “ See how they love one another, how every man is ready to die for his brother it was a living argument, and a sen- sible demonstration, of the purity of the fountain, from whence such limpid waters did derive. But so John the Baptist made himself a fit instrument of preparation; and so must all the Christian clergy be fitted for the dissemination of the gospel of Jesus. 3. The Baptist had, till this time, that is, about thirty years, lived in the wilderness under the dis- cipline of the Holy Ghost, under the tuition of angels, in conversation with God, in great mortifi- cation and disaflections to the world, his garments rugged and uneasy, his meat plain, necessary, and without variety, his employment prayers and devo- tion, his company wild beasts, in ordinary, in extra- ordinary, messengers from heaven ; and all this, not undertaken of necessity to subdue a bold lust, or to punish a loud crime, but to become more holy and pure from the lesser stains and insinuations of too free infirmities, and to prepare himself for the great ministry of serving the holy Jesus in his pub- lication. Thirty years he lived in great austerity ; and it was a rare patience and exemplar mortifica- tion : we use not to be so pertinacious in any pious resolutions, but our purposes disband upon the sense of the first violence ; we are free and confi- dent of resolving to fast, when our bellies are full but, when we are called upon by the first necessi- ties of nature, our zeal is cool, and dissoluble into air, upon the first temptation; and we are not up- S. Chrys. Orat. de S. Babyla. Satiatis et expletis jucundius est cavere quam frui CicKKO de Seuect. c, 47. In solitudine aid- purior, cceium apertius, familiarior Dens OiUG. held in the violences of a short austerity without faintings and repentances to be repented of, and “ inquirings after the vow is past,” and searching for excuses and desires to reconcile our nature and our conscience ; unless our necessity be great, an4 our sin clamorous, and our conscience laden, and no peace to be had without it; and it is well, if upon any reasonable grounds, we can be brought to suffer contradictions of nature, for the advantages of grace. But it would be remembered, that the Baptist did more upon a less necessity; and, possibly, the great- ness of the example may entice us on a little farther than the customs of the world, or our own indevotions, would engage us. 4. But, after the expiration of a definite time, John came forth from his solitude, and served God in societies. He served God, and the content of his own spirit, by his conversing with angels, and dia- logues with God, so long as he was in the wilder- ness ; and it might be some trouble to him to mingle with the impurities of men, amongst whom he was sure to observe such recesses from perfection, such violation of all things sacred, so great despite done to all ministries of religion, that to him, who had no experience or neighbourhood of actions cri- minal, it must needs be to his sublimed and clarified spirit more punitive and afflictive, than his hairer shirt and his ascetic diet was to his body ; but now himself, that tried both, was best able to judge, which state of life was of greatest advantage and perfection. 5. “ In his solitude he did breathe more pure inspiration ; heaven was more open, God was more familiar,”^^ and frequent in his visitations. In the wilderness his company was angels, his employ- ment meditations and prayer, his temptations sim- ple and from within, from the impotent and lesser rebellions of a mortified body, his occasions of sin as few as his examples, his condition such, that, if his soul were at all busy, his life could not easily be other than the life of angels ; for his work and re- creation, and his visits, and his retirements, could be nothing but the variety and differing circum- stances of his piety : his inclinations to society made it necessary for him to repeat his addresses to God ; for his being a sociable creature, and yet in solitude, made that his conversing with God, and being partaker of Divine communications, should be the satisfaction of his natural desires, and the supply of his singularity and retirement ; the dis- comforts of which made it natural for him to seek out for some refreshment, and, therefore, to go to heaven for it, he having rejected the solaces of the world already. And all this, besides the inno- cencies of his silence,^^ which is very great, and to be judged of in proportion to the infinite extrava- gancies of our language, there being no greater perfection here to be expected,® than “ not to of- fend in our tongue.” “ It was solitude and retire- ment in which Jesus kept his vigils; the desert TToXXots yap av^pwiroia-L (pappaKov KUKUiV aiyh, fia- XlO-Trt S' 1(70-1 (7 $reiav bp-OLUicnv k'Travdyova'a’ 'rau'ra Se TTE ipvKEv dpETi; Kal oXb^ELU /xdXt(TTa diTEp'yd'^EcrSrai' /uep, Ttfu up.E'Tp'iav TU3V Tradcov E^opi^oi/cra, // bk, to 3'e7o// eISo?, burden ; so do all that are thus mortified ; they place misfortunes and sadness amongst things eligible, and set them before the eyes of their de- sire, although the flesh and the desires of sense are factious and bold against such sufferings. 10. Of these three degrees of interior or spiritual mortification, the first is duty, the second is coun- sel, and the third is perfection. We sin if we have not the first ; we are in danger without the second ; but without the third we cannot “be perfect, as our heavenly Father is,” but shall have more of human infirmities to be ashamed of, than can be excused by the accrescences and condition of our nature. The first is only of absolute necessity ; the second is prudent, and of greatest convenience ; but the third is excellent and perfect." And it was the consideration of a wise man, that the saints in heaven, who understand the excellent glories and vast differences of state and capacities amongst beatified persons, although they have no envy nor sorrows, yet if they were upon earth, with the same notion and apprehensions they have in heaven, would not for all the Avorld lose any degree of glory, but mortify to the greatest eminence, that their glory may be a derivation of the greatest ray of light; every degree being of compensation glo- rious,® and disproportionably beyond the inconsi- derable troubles of the greatest self-denial. God’s purpose is, that we abstain from sin ; there is no more in the commandment ; and therefore we must deny ourselves, so as not to admit a sin, under pain of a certain and eternal curse : but the other de- grees of mortification are by accident, so many de- grees of virtue ; not being enjoined or counselled for themselves, but for the preventing of crimes, and for securities of good life ; and, therefore, are parts and offices of Christian prudence, which who- soever shall positively reject, is neither much in love with virtue, nor careful of his own safety. 11. Secondly : But mortification hath also some designs upon the body. For the body is the shop and forge of the soul, in which all her designs, which are transient upon external objects, are framed : and it is a good servant, as long as it is kept in obedience and under discipline ; but “ he that breeds his servant delicately,” will find him contumacious and troublesome, bold and confident as his son : and, therefore, St. Paul’s practice (as himself gives account of it) was “ to keep his body under, and bring it into subjection, lest he should become a cast-away ;” 4 for the desires of the body are, in the same things in which themselves are sa- tisfied, so many injuries to the soul; because upon every one of the appetites a restraint is made, and a law placed for sentinel, that if we transgress the bounds fixed by the Divine commandment, it be- comes a sin: now it is hard for us to keep them within compass, because they are little more than au(f)vcb? E)(ou(ra, TTpoaKTco/xipf }’ — HlEROCLES in Pj'tha- gor. “ Tantam gloriam omni horil negligimus, quanta bona in- terim facere possemus, si otiose eani transigimus. — S. Bo- na vent. P Prov. xxix. 21. '1 1 Cor. ix. 27. Rom. vi. 4. Ileb. xii. 1. 1 Pet. ii. 1. and iv. 1. 90 OF MORTIFICATION AND CORPORAL AUSTERITIES. Part I. agents merely natural, and therefore cannot inter- rupt their act, hut covet and desire as much as they can, without suspension or coercion, but what comes from wdthout; which is, therefore, the more trou- blesome, because all such restraints are against na- ture, and without sensual pleasure. And, therefore, this is that that St. Paul said, “ When we were in the flesh, the passions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.”*^ • For these pleasures of the body draw us as loadstones draw iron, not for love, but for prey and nutriment : it feeds upon the iron, as the bodily pleasures upon the life of the spirit, which is less- ened and impaired, according as the gusts of the flesh grow high and sapid. 12. He that feeds a lion must obey him, unless he make his den to be his prison. Our lusts are as wild and as cruel beasts ; and, unless they feel the load of fetters and of laws, will grow unruly and troublesome,^ and increase upon us as we give them food and satisfaction. He that is used to drink high wines, is sick if he hath not his proportion, to what degree soever his custom hath brought his ap- petite : and to some men temperance becomes cer- tain death, because the inordination of their desires hath introduced a custom, and ' custom hath in- creased those appetites, and made them almost na- tural in their degree : but he that hath been used to hard diet and the pure stream, his refreshments are much within the limits of temperance, and his desires as moderate as his diet. St. Jerom affirms, that to be continent in the state of widowhood, is harder than to keep our virgin pure : and there is reason, that then the appetite should be harder to be restrained, when it hath not been accustomed to be denied, but satisfied in its freer solicitations. When a fontinel is once opened, all the symbolical humours run thither, and issue out ; and it is not to be stopped without danger, unless the humour be purged or diverted. So is the satisfaction of an impure desire ; it opens the issue, and makes way for the emanation of all impurity ; and, unless the desire be mortified, will not be stopped by purposes and easy desires. 13. Since, therefore, the body is the instrument of sins, the fuel and the incentive, our mortification must reach thither also, at least in some degrees, or it will be to small purpose to think of mortifying our spirit in some instances of temptation. In vain does that man think to keep his honour and chas- tity, that invites his lust to an activeness, by soft beds and high diet, and idleness and opportunity. Make the soul’s instrument unapt, and half the W'ork is done. And this is true in all instances of carnality or natural desires, whose scene lies in the low’er region of passions, and are acted by the body ; but the operation of the cure must be in proportion to the design; as the mortification of the spirit is in several degrees, so the mortification of the body ^ Rom. vii. b. * Aicr'^pov Twv jxiv OLKiTwv ap')(tiv,'raL^ v^ovol^ SovXeveiv. — Isocu. ad Demonic. * Huic epulae, vicisse famem ; magnique penates, Summovisse hyemem tecto ; pretiosaque vestis, also hath its several parts of prudence, injunction, and necessity. For the prescribing all sorts of mortifications corporal, indefinitely and indiscri- minately to all persons, without separation of their ends and distinct capacities, is a snare to men’s con- sciences, makes religion impertinently troublesome, occasions some men to glory in corporal austerity, as if of itself it were an act of piety, and a distinction of the man from the more imperfect persons of the world, and is all the way unreasonable and inartificial. 1 4. First : Therefore, such whose engagements in the world, or capacities of person, confine them to the lowest and first step of mortification ; those who fight only for life and liberty, not for privileges and honour ; that are in perpetual contestation and close fightings with sin; it is necessary that their body also be mortified in such a degree, that their desires transport them not beyond the permissions of Divine and human laws.^ Let such men be strict in the rules of temperance and sobriety, be chaste within the laws of marriage, cherish their body to preserve their health, and their health to serve God, and to do their offices. To these persons, the best instru- ments of discipline are the strict laws of temper- ance ; denying all transgressions of the appetite, boil- ing over its margin and proper limits ; assiduous prayer, and observation of the public laws of fast- ing ; which are framed so moderate and even, as to he proportionable to the common manner of living of persons secular and encumbered. For though many persons of common employments, and even manner of living, have, in the midst of worldly avo- cations, undertaken austerities very rude and rigor- ous, yet it was in order to a higher mortification of spirit ; and it is also necessary they should, if either naturally, or habitually, or easily, they suffer violent transportation of passions : for since the occasions of anger and disturbance in the W'orld frequently oc- cur, if such passions be not restrained by greater violence than is competent to the ordinary offices of a moderate piety, the cure is weaker than the hu- mour, and so leaves the work imperfect. 15. Secondly : But this is coincident to the se- cond degree of mortification ; for if, either out of desire of a farther step towards perfection, or out of the necessities of nature or evil customs, it be neces- sary also to subdue our passions, as well as the di- rect invitations to sins ; in both these cases the body must suffer more austerities, even such as di- rectly are contrariant to every passionate disturb- ance, though it be not ever sinful in the instance. All mortifiers must abstain from every thing that is un- lawful ; hut these, that they may abstain from things unlawful, must also deny to themselves satisfaction in things lawful and pleasant : and this is in a just proportion to the end, the subduing the passions, lest their liberty and boldness become licentious. And we shall easier deny their importunity to sin, when we will not please them in those things in Hirtam membra super, Romani more Quiritis, Induxissc togam. De Catone dixit Lucanus, ii. 384. Intonsos rigidam in frontem descendere canos Passus erat, moestamque genis increscere barbam. De eodem, ii. 37G. Sect. VIH. OF MORTIFICATION AND CORPORAL AUSTP:RITIES. 91 which we may : sucli in which the fear of God, and the danger of onr souls, and the convictions of rea- son and religion, do not immediately co-operate. And this was the practice of David, when he had thirsted for tlie water of Bethlehem, and some of his worthies ventured their lives, and brought it ; “ he refused to drink it, but poured it upon the ground unto the Lord ^ that is, it became a drink-offering unto the Lord ; an acceptable obla- tion, in which he sacrificed his desires to God, de- nying himself the satisfaction of such a desire, which was natural and innocent, save that it was something nice, delicate, and curious. Like this was the act of the fathers, in the mountain Nitria,'"‘ to one of which a fair cluster of dried grapes being sent, he refused to taste them, lest he should be too sensual and much pleased, but sent them to another, and he to a third; and the same consideration transmitted the present through all their cells, till it came to the first man again ; all of them not dar- ing to content their appetite in a thing too much desired, lest the like importunity, in the instance of a sin, should prevail upon them. To these persons, the best instruments of discipline are subtractions, rather than imposition, of austerities ; let them be great haters of corporal pleasures, eating for neces- sity, diet spare and cheap ; abridging and making short the opportunities of natural and permitted solaces ; y refusing exterior comforts ; not choosing the most pleasant object; not suffering delight to be the end of eating, and therefore separating de- light from it as much as prudently they may ; not being too importunate with God to remove his gentler hand of paternal correction, but inuring our- selves to patient suffering, and indifferent accepta- tion of the cross that God lays upon us, at no hand living delicately, or curiously, or impatiently. And this was the condition of St. Paul, suffering with excellent temper all those persecutions and incon- veniences, which the enemies of religion loaded him withal ; which he called “ bearing the marks of the Lord Jesus in his body,” ^ and “carrying about in his body the dying or mortification “ of the Lord Jesus:” it was in the matter of persecu- tion, which because he bare patiently, and was ac- customed to, and he accepted with indifference and renunciation, they were the mortifications and the marks of Jesus; that is, a true conformity to the passion of Christ, and of great effect and interest for the preventing sins by the mortification of his natural desires. 16. Thirdly: But in the pale of the church, there are, and have been, many tall cedars, whose tops have reached to heaven ; some there are that choose afflictions of the body, that, by turning the bent and inclination of their affections into sensual displeasures, they may not only cut off all preten- sions of temptation, but grow in spiritual graces, and perfections intellectual and beatified. To this “ 2 Sam. xxiii. 16. ^ A pud Pallad. in Histor. Lausiac. y Quanto quisque sibi plura nearaverit, a Diis plura feret. Hor. iii. 16, 21. ’ c ^ Gal. vi. 17. * 2 Cor. iv. 10. purpose they served themselves with the instances of sack-cloth, hard lodging, long fasts, pernocta- tion in prayers, renunciation of all secular pos- sessions, great and expensive charity, bodily labours to great weariness and affliction, and many other prodigies of voluntary suffering, which Scripture and the ecclesiastical stories do frequently mention. St. Lewis, king of France, wore sackcloth every day, unless sickness hindered; and St. Zenobius, as long as he was a bishop. And when Severus Sul- pitius sent a sackcloth to St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, he returned to him a letter of thanks, and discoursed piously concerning the use of corporal austerities. And that I need not instance, it was so general, that this was, by way of appropriation, called “ the garment of the church,” ^ because of the frequent use of such instruments of exterior mortification : and so it was in other instances. St. James neither ate flesh nor drank wine ; St. Mat- thew lived upon acorns, seeds, and herbs ; and, amongst the elder Christians, some rolled themselves naked in snows, some upon thorns, some on burn- ing coals, some chewed bitter pills and masticated gums, and sipped frequently of horrid potions, and wore iron upon their skin, and bolts upon their legs, and, in witty torments, excelled the cruelty of many of their persecutors, whose rage determined quickly in death, and had certainly less of torment than the tedious afflictions and rude penances of Simeon, sur- named Stylites. But as all great examples have excellencies above the ordinary devotions of good people, so have they some danger and much con- sideration. 17. First, therefore, I consider, that these bodily and voluntary self-afflictions can only be of use in carnal and natural temptations, of no use in spi- ritual : for ascetic diet, hard lodging, and severe disciplines, cannot be directly operative upon the spirit, but only by mediation of the body, by abat- ing its extravagancies, by subtracting its mainte- nance, by lessening its temptations ; these may help to preserve the soul chaste or temperate, because the scene of these sins lies in the body, and thence they have their maintenance,*^ and from thence also may receive their abatements. But in actions which are less material, such as pride, and envy, and blas- phemy, and impenitence, and all the kinds and de- grees of malice, external mortifications do so little co-operate to their cure, that oftentimes they are their greatest inflamers and incentives, and are like cordials given to cure a cold fit of an ague, they do their work, but bring a hot fit in its place : and be- sides that great mortifiers have been soonest as- saulted by the spirit of pride, we find that great fasters are naturally angry and choleric. St. Hierom found it in himself, and Rufflnus felt some of the effects of it. And, therefore, this last part of cor- poral mortification, and the choosing such afflictions by a voluntary imposition, is at no hand to be ap- ^ Deposuerunt seculi byssum, et sumpserunt ecclesiee ves- timentum, quod est cilicium. — Ruuicius, ep. 20. Euseb. lib. ii. Hist. c. 22. Clem. Alex. Paedag. lib. ii. c. 1. ^ ’Ey 'Tr\t] OL 'vroWoL KaXavovTa?, dXXoL Sk, /j.ncr'r lycvvTa^' ol Sk y^apLtcT'rtpoL, nal (Tioripy -ras iTTLCpavaia^ auTwv KaTa^vov'ra )(^cipiv Kal Xointov ^apauiv ’Tois'rf/v diKaiocn'ivp? uirXoi^, dyoo- vlX,av TOTE, Kal el ^eXei^ EvayyeXi'^ov. — C yijii.. Hicr. Cat. 3. by the refreshment of his promises ; for if God gives not provisions into our granaries, he can feed us out of his own, that is, out of the repositories of charity. If the flesh-pots be removed, he can also alter the appetite ; and when our stock is spent, he can also lessen the necessity ; or if that continues, he can drown the sense of it in a deluge of patience and resignation. Every word of God’s mouth can create a grace, and every grace can supply two necessities, both of the body and the spirit, by the comforts of this to support that, that they may bear each other’s burden, and alleviate the pressure. 1 1 . But the devil is always prompting us to change our stones into bread, our sadnesses into sensual comfort, our drynesses into inundations of fancy and exterior sweetnesses : for he knows, that the ascetic tables of mortification and the stones of the desert, are more healthful than the fulnesses of voluptuousness and the corn of the valleys. He cannot endure we should live a life of austerity or self-denial ; if he can get us but to satisfy our senses, and a little more freely to please our natural desires, he then hath a fair field for the battle ; but so long as we force him to fight in hedges and morasses, encircling and crowding up his strengths into dis- advantages, by our stone walls, our hardnesses of discipline and rudenesses of mortification, we can with more facility repel his flatteries, and receive fewer incommodities of spirit. But thus the devil will abuse us by the impotency of our natural de- sires ; and therefore let us go to God for satisfaction of our wishes. God can and does, when it is good for us, change our stones into bread : for he is a Father so merciful, that “ if we ask him a fish, he will not give us a scorpion ; if we ask him bread, he will not offer us a stone ;” but will satisfy all our desires by ministrations of the Spirit, making stones to become our meat, and tears our drink ; which, although they are unpleasant and harsh to natural appetites, yet, by the operation and influences of God’s Holy Spirit, they are made instruments of health, and life, and salvation. 12. The devil, perceiving Jesus to be a person of greater eminence and perfection, than to be moved by sensual and low desires, makes a second assault, by a temptation something more spiritual, and tempts him to presumption and indiscreet confidence, to a throwing himself down from the pinnacles of the temple ; upon the stock of predestination, that God might secure him by the ministry of angels, and so prove his being the Son of God. And indeed it is usual with the devil, when severe persons have so much mortified their lower appetites, that they are not easily overcome by an invitation of carnality or intemperance, to stir them to opinions of their own sanctity, and make their first escaping prove their second and greater dangers. But that the devil should persuade Jesus to throw himself down, be- ^ ’Eai/ aoi -irpoa^dXij pLETa to fSd’TTTiap.a o tov (poi^ioiKTi]^ Kal TreLpaaTij^, 'Trpoa-jSaXe'l oe, (/cat ydp Kal tu> Xdyco Kal Oeco juou 'TTpocrifiaXE Sid to KdXvppa, tio KpvTTTcp cficoTt did to Psalm cxxxix. 12. Sect. IX. OF TEMPTATION. Ill These, cand many more to the same design, are the voices of Scripture, that our spirits may retire into the beholding of God, to the purposes of fear and holiness, Avith whom we do cohabit by the necessi- ties of nature, and the condition of our essence, wholly in dependence ; and then only we may sin securely, when we can contrive to do it so, that God may not see us. 30. There are many men who are “ servants of the eyes,”^ as the apostle’s phrase is ; who, when they are looked on, act virtue with much pompous- ness and theatrical bravery but these men, when the theatre is empty, put off their upper garment, and retire into their primitive baseness. Diogenes endured the extremity of winter’s cold, that the people might wonder at his austerity and philoso- phical patience ; but Plato, seeing the people ad- miring the man and pitying the sufferance, told them, that the way to make him warm himself, was for them to be gone, and to take no notice of him. F or they that walk as in the sight of men, serve that design well enough, when they fill the public voice with noises and opinions, and are not, by their pur- poses, engaged to act in private ; but they who are servants of the eyes of God, and walk as in the Divine presence, perceive the same restraints in darkness, and closets, and grots, as in the light and midst of theatres ; and that consideration imposes upon us a happy necessity of doing virtuously, which presents us placed in the eyes of our Judge. And, therefore, it was not unhandsomely said of a J ewish doctor, “ If every man would consider God to be the great eye of the world, watching perpetually over all our actions, and that his hand is indefatigable, and his ear ever open, possibly sin might be extir- pated from off the face of the earth.” And this is the condition of beatitude ; and the blessed souls within their regions of light and felicity cannot sin, because of the vision beatifical, they always behold the face of God : and those who partake of this state by way of consideration, which is essential to the condition of the blessed, and derive it into prac- tice and discourse, in proportion to this shall retain an innocence and a part of glory. 31. For it is a great declension of human reason, and a disreputation to our spirits, that we are so wholly led by sense, that we will not walk in the regions of the Spirit, and behold God by our eyes of faith and discourse, suffering our course of life to be guided by such principles, which distinguish our natures from beasts, and our conditions from vicious, and our spirits from the world, and our hopes from the common satisfactions of sense and corruption. The better half of our nature is of the same consti- tution with that of angels : and therefore, although ‘ Ephes. vi. 6. ’Oc^QoX/ulSSovXol. Non enim virtute ac studiis, ut haberentur philosophi, labo- rabant; sed vultum et tristitiam, et dissentientem c\ cseteris habitum, pessimis moribus prsetendebant.— Quintil. lib. i. pi'ooem. Ambitio et luxuria et impotentia scenam desiderant ; sana- bis ista, si absconderis. — Senec. ep. 15. Magna vobis, si dissimulare non vultis, injecta necessitas probitatis, cum omnia agitis ante oculos judicis cuncta cernen- tis. — Boeth, lib. V, Consol, prosault. ' Acts xvii. 27.; we are drenched in matter and the communications of eartli, yet our better part was designed to con- verse with God : and we had, besides the eye of reason, another eye of faith put into our souls, and both clarified with revelations and demonstrations of the Spirit, expressing to us so visible and clear cha- racters of God’s presence, that the expression of the same Spirit is, “We may feel him, for he is within us,”^ and about us, and we are in him, and in the comprehensions of his embracings, as birds in the air, or infants in the wombs of their pregnant mothers. And that God is pleased not to communi- cate himself to the eyes of our body, but still to remain invisible, besides that it is his own glory and perfection, it is also no more to us but like a retreat behind a curtain, where, when we know our Judge stands as an espial and a Avatch over our actions, we shall be sottish, if we dare to pro- voke his jealousy, because we see him not, Avhen we know that he is close by, though behind the cloud. 32. There are some general impressions upon our spirits, which, by way of presumption and cus- tom, possess our persuasions, and make restraint upon us to excellent purposes ; such as are the re- ligion of holy places, reverence of our parents, pre- sence of an austere, an honourable, or a virtuous person.™ For many sins are prevented by the company of a witness, especially if, besides the ties of modesty, Ave have also towards him an endearment of reverence and fair opinion ™ and if he were with us in our privacies, he Avould cause our retirements to be more holy. St. Ambrose reports of the Virgin Mary, that she had so much piety and religion in her countenance and deportment, that divers per- sons, moA'^ed by the veneration and regard of her person, in her presence have first commenced their resolutions of chastity and sober living. However the story be, her person certainly was of so express and great devotion and sanctity, that he must needs have been of a very impudent disposition, and firm immodesty, who durst have spoken unhandsome language in the presence of so rare a person. And why then any rudeness in the presence of God, if that were as certainly believed and considered ? For whatsoever amongst men can be a restraint of vice or an endearment of virtue, all this is highly verified in the presence of God, to whom our conscience, in its A^ery concealments, is as a fair table written in capital letters by his own finger ; and then, if we fail of the advantage of this exercise, it must proceed either from our dishonourable opinion of God, or our own fearless inadvertency, or from a direct spirit of reprobation : for it is certain, that this consideration is, in its own nature, apt to correct our manners, to TlETrtLa/jLivoL otl 6l dtoi ’Hepa E(T(rd/nEVOL TravT-t] (pOLTMcriv i'lr' cuav, ’ AvOpd)TrU)V vl3p£L Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens Uxor; neque harum, quas colis, arborum Te, praetor in visas cupi’ossos, Ulla brevem dominum sequetur. Hor. lib. ii. od. 14. Hie est apex suinmoe sapientiae, ea viventem facere, quae morienti esserit appetenda. * Kat yap eyw CTro^ds si/JU, Nti/oi; /xiyuXr]wry)p, “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour,” made it an abbreviature by writing only the capitals, thus, I. X. 0. Y. S. which the heathens, in mockery and derision, made which signifies a fish, and they used it for Christ, as a name of reproach : but the Christians owned the name, and turned it into a pious metaphor, and were content that they should enjoy their pleasure in the acrostic ; but upon that occasion Tertullian speaks pertinently to this article, “Nos pisciculi, secundum lj(dvv nostrum Jesum Christum, in aqua nascimur f Christ, whom you call a fish, we ac- knowledge to be our Lord and Saviour ; and we, if you please, are the little fishes ; for we are born in water, thence we derive our spiritual life.” And because from henceforward we are a new creation, the church uses to assign new relations to the cate- chumens, spiritual fathers, and susceptors ; and at their entrance into baptism, the Christian and Jewish proselytes did use to cancel all secular affections to their temporal relatives. “Nec quic- quam prius imbuuntur quam contemnere deos, exuere patriam, parentes, liberos, fratres vilia ha- bere,”^ said Tacitus of the Christians : which was true in the sense only that Christ said, “ He that doth not hate father or mother for my sake, is not worthy of me ;” that is, he that doth not hate them pr(B me, rather than forsake me forsake them, is unworthy of me. 1 7. Fourthly : “ In baptism all our sins are par- doned,” according to the words of a prophet, “ I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness.” § “ The catechumen descends into the font a sinner, he arises purified ; he goes down the son of death, he comes up the son of the resurrection; he enters in the son of folly and prevarication, he returns the son of recon- ciliation ; he stoops down the child of wrath, and ascends the heir of mercy ; he was the child of the devil, and now he is the servant and the son of God.” They are the words of Ven. Bede concern- ing this mystery.*^ And this was ingeniously sig- nified by that Greek inscription upon a font, which is so prettily contrived, that the words may be read after the Greek or after the Hebrew^ manner, and be exactly the same; NI^ON ANOMHMA, MH MON AN O^IN, “Lord, wash my sin, and not my face only.” And so it is intended and promised : “ Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, and call on the name of the Lord,” ^ said Ananias to Saul ; for “ Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, rw Xovrptp rov vSarog ev pr'ipari, with the wash- ing of water in the word ;” ^ that is, baptism in the yiVEfTLa, Kai (r^jpayis, /cai cpvXaKTripLOV, kul (pw'Tia’ixo'S. Damasc. lib. iv. Orth. Fid. c. 10. ® Lib. de Baptis. c. 1. j Lib. 5. Hist. 6 Ezek. xxxvi. 25. TiKX^tvoy tv ftn'rr'r'icrp.a eis apay\c, a seal,^ “ In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise 8 to fiev vZiop tcadaipsi, to Se Uyev^a rr(f)payi^£i Tt]v t\jvyriv. “ The water washes the body, and the Spirit seals the soul,” viz. to a par- ticipation of those promises which he hath made, and to which we receive a title by our baptism. 22. Secondly : The second effect of the Spirit is light or illumination ; that is, the Holy Spirit be- comes unto us the author of holy thoughts and firm persuasions, and “ sets to his seal that the word of God is true,” into the belief of which we are then baptized, and makes faith to be a grace, and the un- derstanding resigned, and the will confident, and the assent stronger than the premises, and the propo- sitions to be believed, because they are beloved: and we are taught the ways of godliness after a new manner, that is, we are made to perceive the secrets of the kingdom, and to love religion, and to long for heaven and heavenly things, and to despise the world, and to have new resolutions, and new per- ceptions, and new delicacies, in order to the estab- lishment of faith and its increments and perseve- rance. Tiji Xajjiirovcry K'amfcXvfTjUoi) dyi- SpvOcig o OeoQ, oiov el Opovov dvT)]V eavT

^ Tw vofiM yaau, fj dk kp tcS kvayys- Atw tKEL yap TTipiToai] rrapKiKt] wTr^jpeTjjcracra \o6vm, ews VOL. 1 . K partakers of it by being Christ’s servants, united to Christ, and so are become Abraham’s seed, as the apostle at large and professedly proves in divers places, but especially in the fourth to the Romans, and the third to the Galatians. And, therefore, if infants were then admitted to it, and consigned to it by a sacrament, which they understood not any more than ours do, there is not any reason why ours should not enter in at the ordinary gate and door of grace as well as they. Their children were circum- cised the eighth day, but were instructed afterwards, when they could inquire what these things meant. Indeed, their proselytes were first taught, then cir- cumcised ; so are ours baptized : but their infants were consigned first ; and so must ours. 16. Thirdly: In baptism we are born again; and this infants need in the present circumstances, and for the same great reason that men of age and reason do. For our natural birth is either of itself insufficient, or is made so by the fall of Adam, and the consequent evils, that nature alone, or our first birth, cannot bring us to heaven, which is a super- natural end, that is, an end above aU the power of our nature as now it is. So that if nature cannot bring us to heaven, grace must, or we can never get thither; if the first birth cannot, a second must : but the second birth spoken of in Scripture is baptism ; “ a man must be born of water and the Spirit.” And therefore baptism is \ovrp6v TraXiy- ysye(Tiag, “ the laver of a new birth.” ^ Either then infants cannot go to heaven any way that we know of, or they must be baptized. To say they are to be left to God, is an excuse, and no answer ; for when God hath opened the door, and calls that the “ entrance into heaven,” we do not leave them to God, when we will not carry them to him in the way which he hath described, and at the door which himself hath opened : we leave them indeed, but it is but helpless and destitute : and though God is better than man, yet that is no warrant to us ; what it will be to the children, that we cannot warrant or conjecture. And if it be objected, that to the new birth are required dispositions of our own, which are to be wrought by and in them that have the use of reason ; besides that this is wholly against the analogy of a new birth, in which the person to be born is wholly a passive, and hath put into him the principle, that in time will produce its proper ac- tions, it is certain that they that can receive the new birth are capable of it. The effect of it is a possibility of being saved, and arriving to a super- natural felicity. If infants can receive this effect, then also the new birth, without which they cannot receive the effect. And if they can receive salva- tion, the effect of the new birth, what hinders them but they may receive that, that is in order to that effect, and ordained only for it, and which is nothing of itself, but in its institution and relation, and which may be received by the same capacity in which /ULEydXl}^ 'TTtpLTO/ULT']^, 'TOVTiaTL TOU /3a7TXt(TftaXOS TOM 'mpiTf.fivov'TO'i Vjjid's diro dp.ap'rt]p.dTU)v, Ktil <7(j)payLcrav'To OF BAPTIZING INFANTS. Part I. tom he noted and acknowledged, and hath also, in the preceding discourse, fairly proved. And indeed, (that St. Cyprian‘S may superadd his symbol,) “ God, who is no accepter of persons, will also be no accepter of ages. For if to the greatest delin- quents, sinning long before against God, remission of sins be given, when afterwards they believe, and from baptism and from grace no man is forbidden ; how much more ought not an infant be forbidden, who, being new born, hath sinned nothing, save only that being in the flesh, born of Adam, in his first birth he hath contracted the contagion of an old death ! who therefore comes the easier to obtain re- mission of sins, because to him are forgiven not his own, but the sins of another man. None ought to be driven from baptism and the grace of God, who is merciful, and gentle, and pious unto all; and therefore much less infants, who more deserve our aid, and more need the Divine mercy, because, in the first beginning of their birth, crying and weep- ing, they can do nothing but call for mercy and re- lief.” “ For this reason it was,” saith Origen,® “ that they, to whom the secrets of the Divine mys- teries were committed, did baptize their infants, be- cause there were born with them the impurities of sin,” which did need material ablution, as a sa- crament of spiritual purification. For that it may appear, that our sins have a proper analogy to this sacrament, the body itself is called the “body of sin :” and therefore the washing of the body is not inef- fectual towards the great work of pardon and aboli- tion. Indeed, after this ablution there remains con- cupiscence, or the material part of our misery and sin ; for Christ, by his death, only took away that which, when he did die for us, he bare in his own body upon the tree. Now Christ only bare the punishment of our sin, and therefore we shall not die for it ; but the material part of the sin Christ bare not : sin could not come so near him; it might make him sick and die, but not disordered and stained. He was pure from original and actual sins ; and therefore that remains in the body, though the guilt and punishment be taken off, and changed into ad- vantages and grace ; and the actual are relieved by the Spirit of grace descending afterwards upon the church, and sent by our Lord to the same purpose. 33. But it is not rationally to be answered what St. Ambrose says,^ “ Quia omnis peccato obnoxia, ideo omnis setas Sacramento idonea :” for it were strange that sin and misery should seize upon the innocent and most unconsenting persons ; and that they only should be left without a sacrament, and an instrument of expiation. And although they cannot consent to the present susception, yet neither do they refuse ; and yet they consent as much to the grace of the sacrament as to the prevarication of Adam ; and because they suffer under this, it were but reason they should be relieved by that. And “ it were better,” as Gregory Nazianzen affirms,^ ^ S. Cyprian, ep. ad Fidum. ® Origen, lib. v. ad Rom. c. 6. f S. Ambros, de Abraham. Patriar. lib. ii. c. 11. 6 Greg. Naz. K^tlaa-ov yap dj/aiad^Tcus ayiaadijvaL, f; aTTtXdtiv dar(f)payiocn ‘^1 W ol 1^1 l;^jo .)L«.jj .)-Acn^ jLrcoxijj jLmscL^o jfjVo |Lj^a 23 cs) jocnlj )L<»cno )L-.£0*-.0 JLictlo) jocn )bao jo i^x^j |Ljj jjixxlj jjoOT : jLxibd:^j cxl::^9 .)L!Sx^oj )Lm;«D i^oi |lxXla cxxJ^.25 |.£d;.j3-2s t^jo jjen I « .ch L-iO jJt^oJLoj cn.x-A.*-ia-io cxCTi)a>Q.i^> j^oi |.xx::i CTL-LN^ ^CTUO . )L/>.J.xX:Sl^ cx^j jLxxjo jLxiri cru) ^*^Nio )J9 j^jo . jlopo ^xxQ-o» jLicfi^ jLx::o^o ^ocn^ JLjJ joenj ^j^cn )i..llLx/^D |Lxx 09 9 «i.^ . jLucn ♦-D . crL2s9 0 : 50^.20 )Lax 09 OOl >^a.JLx^^v J cA.i. 0 ^ |ocTiA.»JjL:i jjbcioo J^axJ J^)Lxm.a Kx-oofl CnJkii.^^9 *. jtjjb vir, et linguarum Orientalium apprime gnarus, Dud. Loftus, J. U. D. et Jur. Civil. Prof, publicus in Acad. Dublin, apud Hibernos, professor linguarum Orientalium apud eosdem. 138 OF CHRIST’S PRAYER AT HIS BAPTISM. Part I. Christ’s Prayer at his Baptism. O Father, according to the good pleasure of thy will, I am made a man ; and from the time, in which I was born of a virgin, unto this day, I have finished those things which are agreeing to the nature of man ; and, with due observance, have performed all thy commandments, the mys- teries and types of the law : and now truly I am baptized; and so have I ordained baptism, that from thence, as from the place of spiritual birth, the regeneration of men may be accomplished : and as John was the last of the legal priests, so am I the first of the evangelical. Thou therefore, O Father, by the mediation of my pray^er, open the heavens, and from thence send thy Holy Spirit upon this womb of baptism ; that as he did untie the womb of the virgin, and thence form me, so also he would loose this baptismal womb, and so sanctify it unto men, that from thence new men may be begotten, who may become thy sons, and my brethren, and heirs of thy kingdom. And what the priests under the law, until John, could not do, grant unto the priests of the New Testament, (whose chief I am in the oblation of this prayer,) that whensoever they shall celebrate baptism, or pour forth prayers unto thee, as the Holy Spirit is seen with me in open vision, so also it may be made manifest, that the same Spirit will adjoin himself in their society a more secret way, and will by them perform the minis- tries of the New Testament, for which I am made a man ; and as the high priest, I do offer these prayers in thy sight. This prayer was transcribed out of the Syriac Catena, lipon the third chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, and is, by the author of that Catena, reported to have been made by our blessed Saviour immediately before the opening of the heavens at his baptism : and that the Holy Spirit did descend upon him while he was thus praying : and for it he cites the authority of St, Philoxenus. I cannot but foresee, that there is one clause in it, which will be used as an objection against the authority of this prayer ; viz. “as John was the last of the legal priests;” for he was no priest at all, nor ever officiated in the temple. or at the Mosaic rites. But this is nothing : because, that the Baptist was of the family of the priests, his father Zachary is a demonstration ; that he did not officiate, his being employed in another ministry is a sufficient answer ; that he was the last of the priests is to be understood in this sense, that he was the period of the law, the common term between the law and the gospel : by him the gospel was first preached solemnly, and therefore in him the law first ended. And as he was the last of the prophets, so he was the last of the priests ; not but that, after him, many had the gift of prophecy, and some did officiate in the Mosaical priesthood ; but that his office put the first period to the solemnity of Moses’s law ; that is, at him the dispensation evangelical did first enter. That the ministers of the gospel are here called priests, ought not to be a prejudice against this prayer in the persuasions of any men ; because it M^as usual with our blessed Saviour to retain the words of the Jews, his countrymen, before whom he spake, that they might, by words to which they were used, be instructed in the notice of persons and things, offices and ministries evangelical, which afterwards were to be represented under other, that is, under their proper names. And now all that I shall say of it is this : 1, That it is not unlikely but our blessed Saviour prayed, when he was baptized, and when the Holy Ghost descended upon him ; not only because it was an employment symbolical to the grace he was to re- ceive, but also to become to us a precedent by what means we are to receive the Holy Spirit of God. 2. That it is very likely our blessed Lord would consecrate the waters of baptism to those mysterious ends whither he designed them, as well as the bread and chalice of the holy supper. 3. That it is most likely the Easterlings did preserve a record of many words and actions of the holy Jesus, which are not transmitted to us. 4. It is certain that our blessed Lord did do and say many more things than are in the holy Scriptures ; and that this was one of them, we have the credit of this ancient author, and the authority of St. Philoxenus. However, it is much better to make such good use of it as the matter and piety of the prayer will minister, than to quarrel at it by the imperfection of uncertain conjectures. THK HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE HOLY JESUS. PART II. BEGINNING AT THE TIME OF HIS FIRST MIRACLE, UNTIL THE SECOND YEAR OF HIS PREACHING. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND EXCELLENT LADY, THE LADY MARY, COUNTESS DOWAGER OF NORTHAMPTON. I AM now to present to your Honour part of that production, of which your great love to sanctity was parent; and which was partly designed to satisfy those great appetites to virtue, which have made you hugely apprehensive and forward to entertain any instrument, whereby you may grow and increase in the service of God, and the communion and charities of holy people. Your Honour best knows, in what soil the first design of these papers grew ; and, but that the excellent personage who was their first root, is transplanted for a time, that he might not have his righteous soul vexed with the impurer conversation of ill-minded men, I am confident you would have received the fruits of his abode to more excellent pur- poses. But because he was pleased to leave the managing of this to me, I hope your Honour will, for his sake, entertain what that rare person “ conceived,” though I was left to the pains and danger of “ bringing forth and that it may dwell with you for its first relation, rather than be rejected for its appendant imperfections, which it contracted not in the fountain, but in the channels of its progress and emanation. Madam, I shall beg of God that your Honour may receive as great increment of piety and ghostly strength in the reading this book, as I receive honour if you shall he pleased to accept and own this as a confession of your great worthiness, and a testimony of the service, which ought to he paid to your Honour, by. Madam, Your Honour’s most humble And most obliged Servant, JER. TAYLOR. 140 HISTORY OF THE MANIFESTATION OF JESUS. Part II. PART II. BEGINNING AT THE TIME OF HIS FIRST MIRACLE, UNTIL THE SECOND YEAR OF HIS PREACHING. SECTION X. Of the first Manifestation of Jesus^ by the Testi- mony of J ohn, and a Miracle. 1. After that the Baptist, by a sign from hea- ven, was confirmed in spirit and understanding that Jesus was the Messias, he immediately published to the Jews what God had manifested to him; and first to the priests and Levites, sent in legation from the sanhedrim, he professed indefinitely, in answer to their question, that himself was “ not the Christ, nor Elias, nor that Prophet,” whom they, by a special tradition, did expect to he revealed, they knew not when. And concerning himself defi- nitely he said nothing, but that he was “ the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.” He it was who was then “ amongst them,” hut “ not known,” a person of great dignity, to whom the Baptist was “ not wor- thy” to do the office of the lowest ministry, “who, coming after John, was preferred far before him,”^ who was to increase,*^ and the Baptist was to de- crease, who did “ baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”® 2. This was the character of his personal prero- gatives ; but as yet no demonstration was made of his person, till after the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Jesus, and then whenever the Baptist saw Jesus, he points him out with his finger, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world ; this is he.” ^ Then he shows him to An- drew, Simon Peter’s brother, with the same de- signation, and to another disciple with him, “ who both followed Jesus, and abode with him all night ® Andrew brings his brother Simon with him, and then Christ changes his name from Simon to Peter, or Cephas, which signifies a stone. Then Jesus himself finds out Philip of Bethsaida, and hade him follow him; and Philip finds out Nathanael, and calls him to see. Thus persons bred in a dark cell, upon their first ascent to the chambers of light, all run staring upon the beauties of the sun, and call the partners of their darkness to communicate in their new and stranger revelation. 3. When Nathanael was come to Jesus, Christ saw his heart, and gave him a testimony to be truly honest, and full of holy simplicity, “ a true Israelite, without guile.” And Nathanael, being overjoyed that he had found the Messias, believing out of » John i. 15, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 30. b John iii. 30. Matt. iii. 11. John i. 29, 36. * John i. 37, 39. ^ S. Aug. tra. xvii. c. 1. in Joan. " Hujusmodi fuerunt modesta ilia Sertorii convivia quae (lescripsit Plutarchus. — Gaudent. Brixian. love, and loving by reason of his joy, and no sus- picion, took that for a proof and verification of his person, which was very insufficient to confirm a doubt, or ratify a probability : but so we believe a story which we love, taking probabilities for demon- strations, and casual accidents for probabilities, and any thing creates vehement presumptions ; in which cases our guides are not our knowing faculties, but our affections; and if they be holy, God guides them into the right persuasions, as he does little birds to make rare nests, though they understand not the mystery of operation, nor the design and purpose of the action. 4. But Jesus took his will and forwardness of affections in so good part, that he promised him greater things ; and this gave occasion to the first prophecy which was made by Jesus. For “ Jesus said unto him. Because I said I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these :” and then he prophesied, that he should see “ heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” But, being a doctor of the law, Christ chose him not at all to the college of apostles.^ 5. Much about the same time, there happened to be a marriage in Cana of Galilee, in the vicinage of his dwelling, where John the evangelist is, by some, supposed to have been the bridegroom ; (but of this there is no certainty;) and thither Jesus being, w-ith his mother, invited, he went to do civility to the persons espoused, and to do honour to the holy rite of marriage. The persons then married were but of indifferent fortunes, richer in love of neighbours than in the fulness of rich possessions ; they had more company than wine. For the master of the feast (whom, according to the order and piety of the nation, they chose from the order of priests, to be the president of the feast,s by the reverence of his person to restrain all inordination, by his discretion to govern and order the circumstances, by his reli- gious knowledge to direct the solemnities of mar- riage, and to retain all the persons and actions in the bounds of prudence and modesty) complained to the bridegroom that the guests wanted wine. 6. As soon as the holy Virgin-mother had notice of the want, out of charity, that uses to be employed in supplying even the minutest and smallest articles of necessity, as well as the clamorous importunity of extremities and great indigences, she complained to her son by an indefinite address ; not desiring him Aelirva TroWitv ’i'j^ovTa aiSu> Kal Koa/xov’ oiidk opav tl toiv ai(T)(^pu)v ovTs aKOVf.LV VTTOfifvov'ro^' aWa Kal tous avvov'rav ivTUKTois Kal dvv(3pLpoav- vaL^ itit^oi/Tos. — P lot, in Sertor. Sect. X. CONSIDERATIONS OF THE VOCATION OF FIVE DISCIPLES. to make supply, for she knew not how he should ; but either, out of an habitual commiseration, she complained without hoping for remedy, or else she looked on him, who was the fountain of holiness and of plenty, as expecting a derivation from him, either of discourses or miracles. But “ Jesus answered her. Woman, what have I to do with thee ? mine hour is not yet come.” By this answer intending no denial to the purpose of his mother’s intimation, to whom he always bore a religious and pious rever- ence ; but to signify, that he was not yet entered into his period and years of miracles ; and when he did, it must be not for respect of kindred or civil rela- tions, but as it is a derivation of power from above, so it must be in pursuit of that service and design, which he had received in charge together with his power. 7. And so his mother understood him, giving ex- press charge to the ministers to do whatsoever he commanded. Jesus, therefore, bade them “ fill the water-pots,” which stood there for the use of fre- quent washings, which the Jews did use in all public meetings, for fear of touching pollutions, or contracting legal impurities : which they did with a curiousness next to superstition, washing the very beds and tables used at their feasts. The ministers “ filled them to the brim ;” and, as they were com- manded, “ drew out, and bare unto the governor of the feast,” who “ knew not of it,” till the miracle grew public, and like light, showed itself ; for while they wondered at the economy of that feast, in “ keeping the best wine till the last,” it grew appa- rent, that he who was the Lord of the creatures, who, in their first seeds, have an obediential capa- city to' receive the impresses of what forms he pleases to imprint, could give new natures and pro- duce new qualities in that subject, in which he chooses to glorify his Son. 8. “ This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee.” For all those miracles, which are reported to be done by Christ in his infancy, and interval of his younger years, are apocryphal and spurious, feigned by trifling understandings, (who think to serve God with a well-meant lie,) and promoted by the credulity of such persons, in whose hearts easiness, folly, and credulity are bound up, and tied fast with silken thread, and easy softnesses of religious affections, not made severe by the rigours of Avisdom and experience. This first miracle “ manifested his glory, and his disci- ples believed in him.” Ad SECTION X. Considerations touching the Vocation of five Dis- ciples, and of the first miracle of J esus, done at Cana in Galilee. 1. As soon as ever John the Baptist was taught, by the descent of the Holy Spirit, that this was Jesus, he instantly preaches him to all that came near him. For the Holy Ghost was his commission and instruction ; and now he was a minister evan- N1 gelical, and taught all those that have the honour to be servants in so sacred employment, that they must not go till they be sent, nor speak till they be instructed, nor yet hold their peace when their commission is signed by the consignation of the Spirit in ordinary ministry. For “all power and all wisdom is from above,” and in spiritual minis- trations is a direct emanation from the Holy Spirit : that as no man is fit to speak the mysteries of godliness, be his person never so holy, unless he derive wisdom in order to such ministries ; so, be he never so instructed by the assistance of art or infused knowledge, yet, unless he also have derived power as well as skill, authority as well as know- ledge, from the same Spirit, he is not enabled to minister in public in ordinary ministrations. The Baptist was sent by a prime designation, “ to pre- pare the way to Jesus,” and was instructed be the same Spirit, which had sanctified or consecrated him in his mother’s womb to this holy purpose. 2. When the Baptist had showed Jesus to An- drew and another disciple, they immediately followed him, with the distances and fears of the first approach, and the infirmities of new converts ; but Jesus see- ing them follow their first light, invited them to see the Sun: for God loves to cherish infants in grace; and having sown the immortal seed in their hearts, if it takes root downwards, and springs out into the verdure of a leaf, he still waters it with the gentle rain of the Holy Spirit, in graces and new assistances, till it brings forth the fruits of a holy conversation. And God, who knows that infants have need of pleasant, and gentle, and frequent nutriment, hath given to them this comfort, that himself will take care of their first beginnings, and improve them to the strength of men, and give* them the strengths of nature, and the wisdom of the Spirit, which en- noble men to excellencies and perfections. By the preaching of the Baptist they were brought to seek for Christ : and when they did, Christ found them, and brought them home, and made them “ stay all night with him which was more favour than they looked for. For so God usually dispenses his mer- cies, that they may run over our thoughts and ex- pectations, and they are given in no proportion to us, but according to God’s measures ; he considering not what we are worthy of, but what is fit for him to give ; he only requiring of us capacities to receive his favour, and fair reception and entertainment of his graces. 3. When Andrew had found Jesus, he calls his brother Simon to be partaker of his joys, which (as it happens in accidents of greatest pleasure) cannot be contained within the limits of the possessor’s thoughts. But this calling of Peter was not to a beholding, but to a participation of his felicities ; for he is strangely covetous, who would enjoy the sun, or the air, or the sea, alone : here was treasure for him and all the world ; and, by lighting his brother Simon’s taper, he made his own light the greater and more glorious. And this is the nature of grace, to be diffusive of its own excellencies ; for here no envy can inhabit : the proper and per- sonal ends of holy persons, in the contract and 142 CONSIDERATIONS OF THE VOCATION OF FIVE DISCIPLES. Part II. transmissions of grace, are increased by the partici- pation and communion of others. For our prayers are more etfectual, our aids increased, our encourage- ment and examples more prevalent, God more honoured, and the rewards of glory have accidental advantages, by the superaddition of every new saint and beatified person : the members of the mystical body, when they have received nutriment from God and his holy Son, supplying to each other the same which themselves received, and live on, in the communion of saints. Every new star gilds the firmament, and increases its first glories : and those who are instruments of the conversion of others, shall not only introduce new beauties, but when themselves “ shine like the stars in glory,” they shall have some reflections from the light of others, to whose fixing in the orb of heaven themselves have been instrumental. And this consideration is not only of use in the exaltations of the dignity apostolical and clerical, but for the enkindling even of private charities ; who may do well to promote others’ interests of piety, in which themselves also have some concernment. 4. These disciples asked of Christ where he dwelt: Jesus answered, “ Come and see.” It was an answer very expressive of our duty in this in- stance. It is not enough for us to understand where Christ inhabits, or where he is to be found ; for our understandings may follow him afar off, and we re- ceive no satisfaction unless it be to curiosity ; but we must go where he is, eat of his meat, wash in his lavatory, rest on his beds, and dwell with him : for the holy Jesus hath no kind influence upon those who stand at distance, save only the affections of a loadstone, apt to draw them nigher, that he may transmit his virtues by union and confederations ; but if they persist in a sullen distance, they shall learn his glories, as Dives understood the peace of Lazarus, of which he was never to participate. Al- though “ the Son of man hath not where to lay his head,” yet he hath many houses where to convey his graces ; he hath nothing to cover his own, but he hath enough to sanctify ours : and as he dwelt in such houses which the charity of good people then afforded for his entertainment ; so now he loves to abide in places, which the religion of his servants hath avowed to his honour, and the advan- tages of evangelical ministrations. Thither we must come to him, or anywhere else where we may enjoy him : he is to be found in a church, in his ordinances, in the communion of saints, in every religious duty, in the heart of every holy person ; and if we go to him by the addresses of religion in holy places, by the ministry of holy rites, by charity, by the adherences of faith, and hope, and other combining graces, the graces of union and society, or prepare a lodging for him within uS, that he may come to us, then shall we see such glories and in- terior beauties, which none know, but they that dwell with him. The secrets of spiritual benedic- tion are understood only by them, to whom they are conveyed, even by the children of his house.^ “ Come and see.” “ Secreta mea mihi etfiliis domfis meae.— Clem. Alex. Str. 5. St. Andrew was first called, and that by Christ immediately ; his brother Simon next, and that by Andrew; but yet Jesus changed Simon’s name, and not the other’s ; and by this change designed him to an eminency of office, at least in signification, principally above his brother, or else separately and distinctly from him : to show that these graces and favours, which do not immediately co-operate to eternity, but are gifts and offices, or impresses of authority, are given to men irregularly, and without any order of predisponent causes, or probabilities on our part, but are issues of absolute predestination ; and as they have efficacy from those reasons which God conceals, so they have some purposes as con- cealed as their causes ; only if God pleases to make us vessels of fair employment and of great capacity, we shall bear a greater burden, and are bound to glorify God with special offices. But as these ex- terior and ineffective graces are given upon the same good will of God, which made this matter to be a human body, when, if God had so pleased, it was capable of being made a fungus or a sponge ; so they are given to us with the same intentions as are our souls, that we might glorify God in the dis- tinct capacity of grace, as before of a reasonable nature. And, besides that it teaches us to magnify God’s free mercy, so it removes every such exalted person from being an object of envy to others, or from pleasing himself in vainer opinions : for God hath made him of such an employment, as freely and voluntarily as he hath made him a man, and he no more co-operated to this grace than to his own creation, and may as well admire himself for being born in Italy, or from rich parents, or for having two hands or two feet, as for having received such a designation extraordinary. But these things are never instruments of reputation among severe under- standings, and never but in the sottish and unmanly apprehensions of the vulgar. Only this, when God hath imprinted an authority upon a person, although the man hath nothing to please himself withal but God’s grace, yet others are to pay the duty, which that impression demands ; which duty, because it rap- ports to God, and touches not the man, but as it passes through him to the fountain of authority and grace, it extinguishes all pretences of opinion and pride. 6. When Jesus espied Nathanael (w^ho also had been called by the first disciples) coming towards him, he gave him an excellent character, calling him “ a true Israelite, in whom was no guile,” and admitted him amongst the first disciples of the in- stitution ; by this character in one of the first of his scholars hallowing simplicity of spirit, and receiving it into his discipline, that it might now become a virtue and duty evangelical. For although it con- cerns us, as a Christian duty, to be pradent, yet the prudence of Christianity is a duty of spiritual effect, and in instances of religion with no other purposes than to avoid giving offence to those, that are with- out and within ; that we cause no disreputation to Christianity ; that we do nothing that may encourage enemies to the religion ; and that those that are within the communion and obedience of the church, may not suffer as great inconveniences by the in- Sect. X. CONSIDERATIONS OF THE VOCATION OF FIVE DISCIPLES. 143 discreet conduct of religious actions, as by direct temptations to a sin. These are the purposes of private prudence, to which, in a greater measure, and upon more variety of rules, the governors of churches are obliged. But that which Christian simplicity prohibits, is the mixing arts and unhand- some means for the purchase of our ends ; witty counsels that are underminings of our neighbour, destroying his just interest to serve our own ; strata- gems to deceive, indefinite and insignificant answers, with fraudulent design ; unjust and unlawful con- cealment of our purposes ; fallacious promises and false pretences ; flattery, and unjust, and unreason- able praise ; saying one thing and meaning the con- trary ; pretending religion to secular designs ; breaking faith ; taking false oaths ; and such other instruments of human purposes framed by the devil, and sent into the world to be perfected by man. Christian simplicity speaks nothing but its thoughts ; and when it concerns prudence that a thought or purpose should be concealed, it concerns simplicity that silence be its cover, and not a false vizor; it rather suffers inconvenience than a lie ; it destroys no man’s right, though it be inconsistent with my advantages ; it reproves freely, palliates no man’s Avickedness ; it intends what it ought, and does what is bidden ; and uses courses regular and just, sneaks not in corners, and walks always in the eye of God and the face of the world. 7 . Jesus told Nathanael that he knew him, when he saw him “ under the fig-tree;” and Nathanael took that to be probation sufficient that he was the Messias, and believed rightly upon an insufficient motive: which, because Jesus did accept, it gives testimony to us, that however faith be produced, by means regular, or by arguments incompetent, whe- ther it be proved or not proved, whether by chance or deliberation, whether wisely or by occasion, so that faith be produced by the instrument, and love by faith, God’s work is done, and so is ours. For if St. Paul rejoiced that Christ was preached, though by the envy of peevish persons ; certainly God will not reject an excellent product, because it came from a weak and sickly parent: and he that brings good out of evil, and rejoices in that good, having first triumphed upon the evil, will certainly take delight in the faith of the most ignorant persons, which his own grace hath produced out of innocent, though insufficient, beginnings. It was folly in Naaman to refuse to be cured, because he was to re- cover only by washing in Jordan. The more in- competent the means is, the greater is the glory of God, who hath produced waters from a rock, and fire from the collision of a sponge and wool ; and it is certain, the end, unless it be in products merely natural, does not take its estimate and degrees from the external means. Grace does miracles, and the productions of the Spirit in respect of its instruments are equivocal, extraordinary, and supernatural ; and ignorant persons believe as strongly, though they know not why, and love God as heartily, as greater spirits and more excellent understandings : and when God pleases, or if he sees it expedient, he will do to others as to Nathanael, give them greater arguments and better instruments for the confirmation and heightening of their faith, than they had for the first production. 8. When Jesus had chosen these few disciples to be witnesses of succeeding accidents, every one of which was to be a probation of his mission and di- vinity, he entered into the theatre of the world at a marriage feast, which he now first hallowed to a sacramental signification, and made to become mys- terious : he now began to choose his spouse out from the communities of the world, and did mean to endear her by unions ineffable and glorious, and con- sign the sacrament by his blood, which he first gave in a secret representment, and afterwards in letter and apparent effusion. And although the holy Jesus did in his own person consecrate celibate, and ab- stinence, and chastity in his mother’s ; yet, by his presence, he also hallowed marriage, and made it honourable, not only in civil account and the rites of heraldry, but in a spiritual sense, he having new sublimed it by making it a sacramental represent- ment of the union of Christ and his spouse, the church. And all married persons should do well to remember what the conjugal society does represent, and not break the matrimonial bond, which is a mysterious ligament of Christ and his church ; for whoever dissolves the sacredness of the mystery, and unhallows the vow by violence and impurity, he dissolves his relation to Christ. To break faith with a wife or husband is a divorce from Jesus, and that is a separation from all possibilities of felicity. In the time of the Mosaical statutes, to violate mar- riage was to do injustice and dishonour, and a breach to the sanctions of nature, or the first constitutions : but two bands more are added in the gospel, to make marriage more sacred. For now our bodies are made “temples of the Holy Ghost,” and the rite of marriage is made significant and sacramental, and every act of adultery is profanation and irreligion ; it desecrates a temple, and deflours a mystery. 9. The married pair were holy but poor, and they wanted wine ; and the blessed Virgin-mother, pitying the affront of the young man, complained to Jesus of the want; and Jesus gave her an answer, which promised no satisfaction to her purposes. For now that Jesus had lived thirty years, and done in person nothing answerable to his glorious birth, and the miraculous accidents of his person, she longed till the time came, in which he was to mani- fest himself by actions as miraculous as the star of his birth : she knew, by the rejecting of his trade, and his going abroad, and probably by his own dis- course to her, that the time was near ; and the for- wardness of her love and holy desires possibly might go some minutes before his own precise limit. However, Jesus answered to this purpose, to show, that the work he was to do, was done not to satisfy her importunity, which is not occasion enough for a miracle, but to prosecute the great work of Divine designation. For, in works spiritual and religious, all exterior relation ceases. The world’s order, and the manner of our nature, and the infirmities of our person, have produced societies, and they have been the parents of relation ; and God hath tied them 144 CONSIDERATIONS OF THE FIRST MIRACLE, &c. Part II. fast by the knots of duty, and made the duty the occasion and opportunities of reward : but in actions spiritual, in which we relate to God, our relations are founded upon the Spirit, and therefore we must do our duties upon considerations separate and spiritual, but never suffer temporal relations to im- pede our religious duties. Christian charity is a higher thing than to be confined within the terms of dependence and correlation,*^ and those endearments, which leagues, or nature, or society have made, pass into spiritual, and, like stars in the presence of the sun, appear not, when the heights of the Spirit are in place. Where duty hath prepared special in- stances, there we must, for religion’s sake, promote them ; but, even to our parents or our children, the charities of religion ought to be greater than the affections of society : and though we are bound, in all offices exterior, to prefer our relatives before others, because that is made a duty ; yet to purposes spiritual, all persons eminently holy put on the effi- cacy of the same relations, and pass a duty upon us of religious affections. 10. At the command of Jesus the water-pots were filled with water, and the water was, by his Divine power, turned into wine ; where the differ- ent economy of God and the world is highly observ- able. “ Every man sets forth good wine at first, and then the worse but God not only turns the water into wine, but into such wine, that the last draught is most pleasant. The world presents us with fair language, promising hopes, convenient fortunes, pompous honours, and these are the out- sides of the bole ; but when it is swallowed, these dissolve in the instant, and there remains bitterness, and the malignity of coloquinteda. Every sin smiles in the first address, and carries light in the face, and honey in the lip; but “when we have well drunk, then comes that which is worse,” a whip with six strings, fears and terrors of conscience, and shame and displeasure, and a caitive disposition, and diffidence in the day of death. But when, after the manner of the purifying of the Christians, we fill our water-pots with water, watering our couch with our tears, and moistening our cheeks with the perpetual distillations of repentance ; then Christ turns our water into wine ; first penitents, and then communicants ; first waters of sorrow, and then the wine of the chalice ; first the justifications of correc- tion, and then the sanctifications of the sacrament, and the effects of the Divine power, joy, and peace, and serenity, hopes full of confidence, and confidence without shame, and boldness without presumption : for “ Jesus keeps the best wine till the last;” not only because of the direct reservations of the highest joys till the nearer approaches of glory, but also be- cause our relishes are higher after a long fmition than at the first essays; such being the nature of grace, that it increases in relish as it does in fruition, every part of grace being new duty and new reward. THE PRAYER. 0 eternal and ever-blessed Jesu, who didst choose disciples to be witnesses of thy life and miracles, so adopting man into a participation of thy great employment of bringing us to heaven by the means of a holy doctrine ; he pleased to give me thy grace, that I may love and revere their persons, whom thou hast set over me, and fol- low their faith, and imitate their lives, while they imitate thee ; and that I also, in my capa- city and proportion, may do some of the meaner offices of spiritual building, by prayers, and by holy discourses, and fraternal correption, and friendly exhortations, doing advantages to such souls with whom I shall converse. And since thou wert pleased to enter upon the stage of the world with the commencement of mercy and a miracle, be pleased to visit my soul with thy miraculous grace, turn my water into wine, my natural desires into supernatural perfections, and let my sorrows be turned into joys, my sms into virtuous habits, the weaknesses of humanity into communications of the Divine nature ; that since thou “ keepest the best unto the last,” I may, by thy assistance, grow from grace to grace, till thy gifts be turned to reward, and thy graces to participation of thy glory, 0 eternal and ever- blessed Jesu. Amen. DISCOURSE VII. Of Faith. 1. Nathanael’s faith was produced by an argu- ment not demonstrative, not certainly concluding ; Christ knew him when he saw him first, and he believed him to be the Messias : his faith was ex- cellent, whatever the argument was. And I believe a God, because the sun is a glorious body ; or be- cause of the variety of plants, or the fabric and rare contexture of a man’s eye : I may as fully as- sent to the conclusion, as if my belief dwelt upon the demonstrations made by the prince of philoso- phers in the eighth of his physics and twelfth of his metaphysics. This I premise as an inlet into the consideration concerning the faith of ignorant persons. For if we consider, upon what easy terms most of us now are Christians, we may possibly suspect that either faith hath but little excellence in it, or we but little faith, or that we are mis- taken generally in its definition. For we are born of Christian parents, made Christians at ten days old, interrogated concerning the articles of our faith by way of anticipation, even then when we understand not the ditference between the sun and a tallow-candle : from thence we are taught to say our catechism, as we are taught to speak, when we have no reason to judge, no discourse to discern, no arguments to contest against a proposition, in case we be catechized into false doctrine ; and all thnt dpsTiju 6/uXin.— P hilo in Exposit. General. ^ Huyytpfia yap olKsipa-tpa 7) ttoos oiKato(ruvr]v Kctl 'irdcrav Sect. X. OF FAITH. 145 is pat to us we believe infinitely, and without choice, as children use not to choose their language. And as our children are made Christians, just so are thousand others made Mahometans, with the same necessity, the same facility. So that, thus far, there is little thanks due to us for believing the Christian creed ; it was indifferent to us at first, and at last our education had so possessed us, and our interest, and our no temptation to the contrary, that as we were disposed into this condition by Provi- dence, so we remain in it without praise or excel- lence. For as our beginnings are inevitable, so our progress is imperfect and insufficient ; and what we begun by education, we retain only by custom : and if we be instructed in some slighter arguments to maintain the sect or faction of our country-reli- gion, as it disturbs the unity of Christendom; yet, if we examine and consider the account, upon what slight arguments we have taken up Christianity it- self, (as that it is the religion of our country, or that our fathers before us were of the same faith, or because the priest bids us, and he is a good man, or for something else, but we know not what,) we must needs conclude it the good providence of God, not our choice, that made us Christians. 2. But if the question be. Whether such a faith be in itself good and acceptable, that relies upon insufficient and unconvincing grounds ? I suppose this case of Nathanael will determine us : and when we consider that faith is an infused grace, if God pleases to behold his own glory in our weakness of understanding, it is but the same thing he does in the instances of his other graces. For as God enkindles charity upon variety of means and instru- ments, by a thought, by a chance, by a text of Scrip- ture, by a natural tenderness, by the sight of a dying or a tormented beast ; so also he may produce faith by arguments of a different quality, and by issues of his providence he may engage us in such conditions, in which, as our understanding is not great enough to choose the best, so neither is it furnished with powers to reject any proposition ; and to believe well is an effect of a singular predestination, and is a gift in order to a grace, as that grace is in order to salvation. But the insufficiency of an argument, or disability to prove our religion, is so far from disabling the goodness of an ignorant man’s faith, that as it may be as strong as the faith of the greatest scholar, so it hath full as much excel- lence, not of nature, but in order to Divine accept- ance. For as he who believes upon the only stock of education, made no election of his faith ; so he who believes what is demonstrably proved, is forced by the demonstration to his choice. Neither of them did choose, and both of them may equally love the article. 3. So that since a small argument in a weak un- derstanding, does the same work that a strong argu- ment in a more sober and learned, that is, it con- vinces and makes faith, and yet neither of them is matter of choice ; if the thing believed be good, and matter of duty or necessity, the faith is not rejected by God upon the weakness of the first, nor accepted upon the strength of the latter principles ; when we " Rev. ii. 10. h Gal. v. 6. ^ Gal. vi. 15. VOL. I. L are once in, it will not be inquired by what entrance we passed thither ; whether God leads us or drives us in, whether we come by discourse or by inspira- tion, by the guide of an angel or the conduct of Moses, whether we be born or made Christians, it is indifferent, so we be there, where we should be ; for this is but the gate of duty, and the entrance to fe- licity. For thus far faith is but an act of the under- standing, which is a natural faculty, serving indeed as an instrument to godliness, but of itself no part of it; and it is just like fire producing its act inevi- tably, and burning as long as it can, without power to interrupt or suspend its action ; and therefore we cannot be more pleasing to God for understanding rightly, than the fire is for burning clearly : which puts us evidently upon this consideration, that Christian faith, that glorious duty, which gives to Christians a great degree of approximation to God by Jesus Christ, must have a great proportion of that ingredient, which makes actions good or bad, that is, of choice and effect. 4. For the faith of a Christian hath more in it of the will than of the understanding. Faith is that great mark of distinction, which separates and gives formality to the covenant of the gospel, which is a “law of faith.” The faith of a Christian is his re- ligion, that is, it is that whole conformity to the in- stitution or discipline of Jesus Christ, which distin- guishes him from the believers of false religions. And to be one of the faithful signifies the same with being a disciple ; and that contains obedience as well as believing. For to the same sense are all those appellatives in Scripture, “ the faithful, breth- ren, believers, the saints, disciples,” all representing the duty of a Christian. A believer and a saint, or a holy person, is the same thing ; brethren signifies charity, and believers, faith in the intellectual sense ; the faithflil and disciples signify both ; for besides the consent to the proposition, the first of them is also used for perseverance and sanctity, and the greatest of charity mixed with a confident faith up to the height of martyrdom. “ Be faithful unto the death, (said the Holy Spirit,) and I will give thee the crown of life.”^ And when the apostles, by way of abbreviation, express all the body of Christian religion, they call it “ faith working by love ;” ^ which also St. Paul, in a parallel place, calls a “ new creature;”*^ it is “a keeping of the commandments of God that is the faith of a Christian, into whose definition charity is ingredient, whose sense is the same with keeping of God’s commandments ; so that if we define faith, we must first distinguish it. The faith of a natural person, or the faith of devils, is a mere believing a certain number of propositions upon conviction of the understanding ; but the faith of a Christian, the faith that justifies and saves him, is “ faith working by charity,” or “ faith keeping the commandments of God.”® They are distinct faiths, in order to different ends, and therefore of different constitution ; and the instrument of distinction is charity or obedience. 5. And this great truth is clear in the perpetual testimony of holy Scripture. For Abraham is called ^ 1 Cor. vii. 19. ® Gal. v. 6. 146 OF FAITH. Part II. the “ father of the faithful and yet our blessed Saviour told the Jews, that if they had been “ the sons of Abraham, they would have done the works of Abraham ; ” ^ and therefore good works are, by the apostle, called the “ footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham. ”8 For faith, in every of its stages, at its first beginning, at its increment, at its greatest perfection, is a duty made up of the concurrence of the will and the understanding, when it pretends to the Divine acceptance ; faith and repentance begin the Christian course. “ Repent and believe the gospel,” was the sum of the apostle’s sermons; and all the way after it is, “ faith working by love.” Repentance puts the first spirit and life into faith, and charity preserves it, and gives it nourishment and increase ; itself also growing by a mutual supply of spirits and nutriment from faith. Whoever does heartily believe a resurrection and life eternal, upon certain conditions, will certainly endeavour to acquire the promises, by the purchase of obedience and ob- servation of the conditions. For it is not in the nature or power of man directly to despise and re- ject so infinite a good : so that faith supplies charity with argument and maintenance, and charity supplies faith with life and motion ; faith makes charity rea- sonable, and charity makes faith living and effectual. And therefore, the old Greeks called faith and charity a miraculous chariot or yoke,^' they bear the burden of the Lord with an equal confederation : these are like Hippocrates’s twins, they live and die together. Indeed faith is the first born of the twins ; but they must come both at a birth, or else they die, being strangled at the gates of the womb. But if charity, like Jacob, lays hold upon his elder bro- ther’s heel, it makes a timely and a prosperous birth, and gives certain title to the eternal promises. For let us give the right of primogeniture to faith, yet the blessing, yea, and the inheritance too, will at last fall to charity. Not that faith is disinherit- ed, but that charity only enters into the possession. The nature of faith passes into the excellency of charity before they can be rewarded ; and that both may have their estimate, that which justifies and saves us, keeps the name of faith, but doth not do the deed till it hath the nature of charity. For to think well, or to have a good opinion, or an excel- lent or a fortunate understanding, entitles us not to the love of God, and the consequent inheritance but to choose the ways of the Spirit, and to relin- quish the paths of darkness, this is the way of the kingdom, and the purpose of the gospel, and the proper work of faith. 6. And if we consider upon what stock faith itself is instrumental and operative of salvation, we shall find it is, in itself, acceptable, because it is a duty, and commanded ; and therefore it is an act of obedience, a work of the gospel, a submitting the f John viii. 39. s Rom. iv. 12. Oav/nacrTi)u ^vvcopISa. ' To ayaS'ous /mlv sluai ijina's v kukov?, 6 Bfos ovk kv n-ij yvu3(Tii yivuiTKopiiviav, aWa kv tij alpkasL 'rwv alpov- pkvuiv. — Just. M. Resp. atl Orthod. ickpdo^ vy LOU'S 'TritTTSw?, ttoXiteios diEcfy^appiuijs. — Chhys. lib. iv. de Sacerd. Rom. xvi. 26. understanding, a denying the affections, a laying aside all interests, and a bringing our thoughts under the obedience of Christ. This the apostle calls “ the obedience of faith.”^ And it is of the same condition and constitution with other graces, all which equally relate to Christ, and are as firm instruments of union, and are washed by the blood of Christ, and are sanctified by his death, and ap- prehend him in their capacity and degrees, some higher, and some not so high ; but hope and charity apprehend Christ in a measure and proportion greater than faith, when it distinguishes from them. So that if faith does the work of justification, as it is a mere relation to Christ, then so also does hope and charity ; or if these are duties and good works, so also is faith : and they all being alike commanded in order to the same end, and encouraged by the same reward, are also accepted upon the same stock, which is, that they are acts of obedience and rela- tion too; they obey Christ, and lay hold upon Christ’s merits, and are but several instances of the great duty of a Christian, but the actions of several faculties of the new creature. But because faith is the beginning of grace, and hath influence and causality in the production of the other, therefore all the other, as they are united in duty, are also united in their title and appellative ; they are all called by the name of faith, because they are parts of faith, as faith is taken in the larger sense ; and when it is taken in the strictest and distinguishing sense, they are effects and proper products by way of natural emanation. 7. That a good life is the genuine and true-born issue of faith, no man questions, that knows himself the disciple of the holy Jesus; but that obedience is the same thing with faith,^ and that all Christian graces are parts of its bulk and constitution, is also the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, and the grammar of Scripture, making faith and obedience to be terms coincident and expressive of each other. For faith is not a single star, but a constellation, a chain of graces, called by St. Paul, “ the power of God unto salvation to every believer;”™ that is, faith is all that great instrument, by which God intends to bring us to heaven : and he gives this reason, “ In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith ;” for “ it is written, The just shall live by faith.” Which discourse makes faith to be a course of sanctity and holy habits, a con- tinuation of a Christian’s duty, such a duty as not only gives the first breath, but by which a man lives the life of grace. “ The just shall live by faith ;” that is, such a faith as grows from step to step, till the whole righteousness of God be fulfilled in it. “ From faith to faith ” (saith the apostle) ; which St. Austin expounds, from faith believing, to faith obeying ; " from imperfect faith, to faith made ' Ficles (auctore Cicerone) est firma opinio, et est fida man datorum executio. Dicta est autem tides (ut ait idem Cicero de Officiis) a fio, quod id fieri debeat, quod dictum et promis- sum est. Rom. i. 16, 17. "Ex fide annunciantium Evangeliura in fidem obedientium Evangelio. — S. Aug. Sect. X. OF FAITH. 147 perfect by the animation of charity ; that “ he who is justified, may be justified still.” For as there are several degrees and parts of justification, so there are several degrees of faith answerable to it ; that in all senses it may be true, that “ by faith we are justified, and by faith we live, and by faith we are saved.” For if we proceed “ from faith to faith,” from believing to obeying, from faith in the understanding to faith in the will, from faith barely assenting to the revelations of God to faith obeying the commandments of God, from the body of faith to the soul of faith, that is, to faith formed and made alive to charity ; then we shall proceed from justifi- cation to justification, that is, from remission of sins to become the sons of God, and at last to an actual possession of those glories, to which we were here consigned by the fruits of the Holy Ghost. 8. And in this sense the holy Jesus is called by the apostle “ the author and finisher of our faith :” ® he is the principle, and he is the promoter ; he be- gins our faith in revelations, and perfects it in com- mandments ; he leads us by the assent of our under- standing, and finishes the work of his grace by a holy life : which St. Paul there expresses by its several constituent parts ; as “ laying aside every weight, and the sin that so easily besets us, and run- ning with patience the race that is set before us, resisting unto blood, striving against sin :” p for in these things, Jesus is therefore made our example, because he is “ the author and finisher of our faith ;” without these faith is imperfect. But the thing is something plainer yet, for St. James says, that faith lives not but by charity ; *1 and the life or essence of a thing is certainly the better part of its constitu- tion, as the soul is to a man. And if we mark the manner of his probation, it will come home to the main point. For he proves, that “ Abraham’s faith was therefore imputed to him for righteousness, be- cause he was justified by works : was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered up his son ? And the scripture was fulfilled, saying, Abra- ham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness. F or faith wrought with his works, and made his faith perfect.” It was a dead and an im- perfect faith, unless obedience gave it being, and all its integral or essential parts. So that faith and charity, in the sense of a Christian, are but one duty, as the understanding and the will are but one rea- sonable soul; only they produce several actions in order to one another, which are but “ divers oper- ations, and the same spirit.” 9. Thus St. Paul, describing the faith of the Thessalonians, calls it that whereby they “ turned from idols,” and whereby they “ served the living God ;” ^ and the faith of the patriarchs “ believed the world’s creation, received the promises, did miracles, wrought righteousness,” ® and did and suffered so many things as make up the integrity of a holy life. And therefore, disobedience and un- righteousness is called “ want of faith ^ and heresy, which is opposed to faith, is “ a work of the flesh,” ^ because faith itself is a work of righte- ousness. And, that I may enumerate no more par- ticulars, the thing is so known, that the word aTrelS^eia,^ which, in propriety of language, signifies mispersuasion, or infidelity, is rendered disobedi- ence ; and the “ not providing for our families” is an act of infidelity, by the same reason and analogy that obedience, or charity, and a holy life, are the duties of a Christian, of a justifying faith. And al- though, in the natural or philosophical sense, faith and charity are distinct habits ; yet, in the sense of a Christian, and the signification of duty, they are the same ; for we cannot believe aright, as believing is in the commandment, unless we live aright ; for our faith is put upon the account just as it is made precious by charity ; according to that rare saying of St. Bartholomew, recorded by the supposed St. Denis, “ Charity is the greatest and the least the- ology y all our faith, that is, all our religion, is completed in the duties of universal charity ; as our charity or our manner of living is, so is our faith. If our life be unholy, it may be the faith of devils, but not the faith of Christians. For this is the dif- ference. 1 0. The faith of the devils hath more of the un- derstanding in it, the faith of Christians more of the will : the devils in their faith have better discourse, the Christians better affections : they, in their faith, have better arguments, we more charity. So that charity or a good life is so necessary an ingredi- ent into the definition of a Christian’s faith, that we have nothing else to distinguish it from the faith of devils; and we need no trial of our faith, but the examination of our lives. If you “ keep the com- mandments of God,” then have you the faith of Je- sus ; they are immediate, in St. John’s expression : but if you be importune and ungodly, you are in St. Paul’s list,^ amongst them that have no faith. Every vice, that rules amongst us, and sullies the fair beauty of our souls, is a conviction of infi- delity. 11. For it was the faith of Moses that made him despise the riches of Egypt; the faith of Joshua, that made him valiant ; the faith of Joseph, that made him chaste ; Abraham’s faith made him obedi- ent; St. Mary Magdalen’s faith made her penitent; and the faith of St. Paul made him travel so far, and suffer so much, till he became a prodigy, both of zeal and patience. Faith is a catholicon, and cures all the distemperatures of the soul ; it “ over- comes the world,” ^ saith St. John; it “works righteousness,” ^ saith St. Paul ; it “ purifies the heart,”^^ saith St. Peter ; “ it works miracles,” saith our blessed Saviour ; miracles in grace always, as it did miracles in nature at its first publication : and whatsoever is good, if it be a grace, it is an act of faith ; if it be a reward, it is the fruit of faith. So that as all the actions of man are but the productions of the soul, so are all the actions of the new man " Heb. xii. 2. P Heb. xii. 1, 4. Jam. 11 . 20, 21, 22, 23, 26. r i Thess. i. 8, 9. * Heb. xi, per totum. t Col. iii. 6. 2 Thess. iii. “ Gal. V. 20. X Eph. ii. 2. et v. 6. 1 Tim. v. 8. L 2 y V ayairii ^soXoyia ttoXXi;, kul k\a\L(TTri, f. 1. de Myst. Theol. ^ Apoc. xiv. 12. ^ 2 Thess. iii. 2. 1 John v. 4. ^ Heb. xi, 33. Acts xv. 9. 148 OF FAITH. Part II. the effects of faith. For faith is the life of Chris- tianity, and a good life is the life of faith. 12. Upon the grounds of this discourse, we may understand the sense of that question of our blessed Saviour : “ When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith on earth ?” ® Truly, just so much as he finds charity and holy living, and no more. For then only we can be confident, that faith is not “ failed from among the children of men,” when we feel the heats of the primitive charity return, and the calentures of the first old devotion are renewed ; when it shall be accounted honourable to be a ser- vant of Christ, and a shame to commit a sin. Then, and then only, our churches shall be assemblies of the faithful, and the kingdoms of the world Christian countries. But so long as it is notorious, that we have made the Christian religion another thing than what the holy Jesus designed it to be; when it does not make us live good lives, but itself is made a pretence to all manner of impiety, a stratagem to serve ends, the ends of covetousness, of ambition, and revenge ; when the Christian charity ends in killing one another for conscience sake, so that faith is made to cut the throat of charity, and our faith kills more than our charity preserves ; when the humility of a Christian hath indeed a name amongst us, but it is like a mute person, talked of only ; while ambition and rebellion, pride and scorn, self-seeking and proud undertakings, transact most of the great affairs of Christendom ; when the cus- tody of our senses is to no other purposes, but that no opportunity of pleasing them pass away ; when our oaths are like the fringes of our discourses, going round about them, as if they were orna- ments and trimmings ; when our blasphemies, pro- fanation, sacrilege, and irreligion, are become scan- dalous to the very Turks and J ews ; while our lusts are always habitual, sometimes unnatural ; will any wise man think that we believe those doctrines ^ of humility and obedience, of chastity and charity, of temperance and justice, which the Saviour of the world made sacred by his sermon and example ; or, indeed, any thing he either said or did, promised or threatened ? For is it possible, a man with his wits about him, and believing that he should cer- tainly be damned, (that is, be eternally tormented, in body and soul, with torments greater than can be in this world,) if he be a swearer, or liar, or drunkard, or cheats his neighbour ; that this man should dare to do these things, to which the tempt- ations are so small, in which the delight is so in- considerable, and the satisfaction so none at all ? 13. We see, by the experience of the whole world, that the belief of an honest man, in a mat- ter of temporal advantage, makes us do actions of such danger and difficulty, that half so much in- dustry and sufferance would ascertain us into a pos- session of all the promises evangelical. Now, let any man be asked, whether he had rather be rich or be saved? he will tell you, without all doubt, heaven is the better option by infinite degrees : for ® Luke xviii. 8. To a'KLCT'Ttiv XOtS iv'ToXoLI tK TOO TTpOS T)/!/ k KTt\ 7] p CO O' LV iK\t\v(T^(u Twv lvTo\u)v yivi'Tcti. — S. Chuys. ;ul Dcmetr. it cannot be that riches, or revenge, or lust, should be directly preferred ; that is, be thought more eligible than the glories of immortality. That, therefore, men neglect so great salvation, and so greedily run after the satisfaction of their baser ap- petites, can be attributed to nothing but want of faith ; they do not heartily believe that heaven is worth so much ; there is upon them a stupidity of spirit, and their faith is dull, and its actions sus- pended most commonly, and often interrupted, and it never enters into the will : so that the proposi- tions are considered nakedly and precisely in them- selves, but not as referring to us or our interests ; there is nothing of faith in it, but so much as is the first and direct act of understanding; there is no consideration or reflection upon the act, or upon the person, or upon the subject. So that, even as it is seated in the understanding, our faith is com- monly lame, mutilous, and imperfect ; and therefore much more is it culpable, because it is destitute of all co-operation of the rational appetite. 14. But let us consider the power and efficacy of worldly belief. If a man believes, that there is gold to be had in Peru for fetching, or pearls and rich jewels in India for the exchange of trifles, he in- stantly, if he be in capacity, leaves the wife of his bosom, and the pretty delights of children, and his own security, and ventures into the dangers of wa- ters and unknown seas, and freezings and calen- t tures, thirst and hunger, pirates and shipwrecks; ; and hath within him a principle strong enough to j answer all objections, because he believes that riches are desirable, and by such means likely to > be had. Our blessed Saviour, comparing the gos- ' pel to “ a merchantman, that found a pearl of great price,” and “ sold all to buy it,” hath brought this instance home to the present discourse. For if we did as verily believe, that in heaven those great felicities, which transcend all our apprehensions, are certainly to be obtained by leaving our vices ^ and lower desires, what can hinder us but we should \ at least do as much for obtaining those great feli- \ cities as for the lesser, if the belief were equal ? ■ For if any man thinks he may have them without j holiness, and justice, and charity, then he wants faith ; for he believes not the saying of St. Paul : “ Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall ever see God.” s If a man be- lieves learning to be the only or chiefest ornament and beauty of souls, that which will ennoble him to a fair employment in his own time, and an honour- able memory to succeeding ages; this if he believes heartily, it hath power to make him endure catarrhs, gouts, hypochondriacal passions, to read till his eyes almost fix in their orbs, to despise the plea- sures of idleness, or tedious sports, and to under- value whatsoever does not co-operate to the end of his faith, the desire of learning. Why is the Italian so abstemious in his drinkings, or the Hel- vetian so valiant in his fight, or so true to the prince that employs him, but that they believe it ? Heb, xii, 14. Sect. X. OF FAITH. 149 to be noble so to be ? If they believed the same, and had the same honourable thoughts of other virtues, they also would be as national as these. For faith will do its proper work. And when the understanding is peremptorily and fully determined upon the persuasion of a proposition, if the will should then dissent, and choose the contrary, it were unnatural and monstrous, and possibly no man ever does so : for that men do things without reason, and against their conscience, is, because they have put out their light, and discourse their wills into the election of a sensible good, and want faith to be- lieve truly all circumstances, which are necessary by way of predisposition, for choice of the intel- lectual. 15. But when men’s faith is confident, their reso- lution and actions are in proportion : for thus the faith of Mahometans makes them to abstain from wine for ever; and therefore, if we had the Chris- tian faith, we should much rather abstain from drunkenness for ever ; it being an express rule apostolical, “ Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. ” The faith of the Circumcellians made them to run greedily to violent and horrid deaths, as willingly as to a crown ; for they thought it was the king’s highway to martyrdom. And there was never any man zealous for his religion, and of an imperious bold faith, but he was also willing to die for it ; and therefore, also, by as much reason to live in it, and to be a strict observer of its prescrip- tions. And the stories of the strict sanctity, and prodigious sufferings, and severe disciplines, and expensive religion, and complaint and laborious charity, of the primitive Christians, is abundant argument to convince us, that the faith of Christians is infinitely more fruitful and productive of its uni- vocal and proper issues, than the faith of heretics, or the false religions of misbelievers, or the persua- sions of secular persons, or the spirit of antichrist. And therefore, when we see men serving their prince with such difficult and ambitious services, because they believe him able to reward them, though of his will they are not so certain, and yet so su- pinely negligent and incurious of their services to God, of whose power and will to reward us infinitely, there is certainty absolute and irrespective ; it is certain probation that we believe it not : for if we believe there is such a thing as heaven, and that every sin^e man’s portion of heaven is far better than all the wealth in the world, it is morally im- possible we should prefer so little before so great profit. 16. I instance but once more. The faith of Abraham was instanced in the matter of confidence or trust in the Divine promises ; and he being “ the father of the faithful,” we must imitate his faith by a clear dereliction of ourselves and our own interests, and an entire confident relying upon the Divine goodness, in all cases of our needs or danger. Now, I* Ephes. V. 18. ' Clare cognosceres non adeo esse facile Deo soli, re aliii non assumptn, credere, propter earn, quae in nobis est, cum mortali compage cognationem. Ab his autem purgari omnibus uni autem Deo confidere, magni et ccelestis animi est opus. this also is a trial of the verity of our faitli, the excellency of our condition, and what title we have to the glorious names of Christians, and faithful, and believers. If our fathers, when we were in pupilage and minority, or a true and an able friend, when we were in need, had made promises to supply our necessities; our confidence was so great, that our care determined. It were also well that we were as confident of God, and as secure of the event, when we had disposed ourselves to reception of the blessing, as we were of our friend or parents. We all profess that God is almighty, that all his promises are certain, and yet, when it comes to a pinch, we find that man to be more confident, that hath ten thousand pounds in his purse, then he that reads God’s promises over ten thousand times. ^ “ Men of a common spirit,” saith St. Chrysostom, “ of an ordinary sanctity, will not steal, or kill, or lie, or commit adultery ; but it requires a rare faith, and a sublimity of pious affections, to believe that God will work a deliverance, which to me seems impossible.” And indeed St. Chrysostom hit upon the right. He had need be a good man, and love God well, that puts his trust in him. For those we love, we are most apt to trust ; ^ and although trust and confidence is sometimes founded upon experience, yet it is also begotten and increased by love, as often as by reason and discourse. And to this pur- pose it was excellently said by St, Basil, “ That the knowledge which one man learneth of another, is made perfect by continual use and exercise ; but that which, through the grace of God, is engrafted in the mind of man, is made absolute by justice, gentleness, and charity.” So that if you are will- ing, even in death, not only to confess the articles, but in affliction and death to trust the promises ; if, in the lowest nakedness of poverty, you can cherish yourselves with the expectation of God’s promises and dispensation, being as confident of food and raiment, and deliverance or support, when all is in God’s hand, as you are when it is in your own ; if you can be cheer- ful in a storm, smile when the world frowns, be con- tent in the midst of spiritual desertions and anguish of spirit, expecting all should work together for the best, according to the promise ; if you can strengthen yourselves in God when you are weakest, believe when you see no hope, and entertain no jealousies or suspicions of God, though you see nothing to make you confident ; then, and then only, you have faith, which, in conjunction with its other parts, is able to save your souls. For in this precise duty of trusting God, there are the rays of hope, and great proportions of charity and resignation. 17. The sum is that pious and most Christian sentence of the author of the Ordinary Gloss. “ To believe in God through Jesus Christ, is, by believ- ing to love him, to adhere to him, to be united to him by charity and obedience, and to be incorporated into Christ’s mystical body, in the communion of et ejus qui nullis ampliiis capiatur eanim quas videmus renmi illccebris. — Phil. JuDiEus, libr. Quis Rerum Div. Has res. ^ ^'EytcrTt yap 'Trois tovto 'tij TvpavvL^L Nd oIkov dvnXdofiav, oIoi/"0/ui]no9 'rov Mfi/tXdou (fn}(TL — LuciAN. Philopat. de Templo Chrictiano. Skct. X[. OF THE RELIGION OF HOLY PLACES. 157 the Lamb in the eternal temple of the celestial Jeru- salem. 7. And to this purpose it is observed, that the holy Jesus first ejected the beasts of sacrifice out of the temple, and then proclaimed the place holy, and the scene of representing prayers, which in type in- timates the same thing which is involved in the expression of the next words, “ My house shall be called the house of prayer to all nations now and for ever, to the Jews and to the gentiles, in all circum- stances and variety of time and nation, God’s houses are holy in order to holy uses ; the time as unlimited as the nations were indefinite and universal. Which is the more observable, because it was of the outward courts, not whither Moses’s rites alone were admitted, but the natural devotion of Jews and gen- tile proselytes, that Christ affirmed it to be holy, to be the house of God, and the place of prayer. So that the religion of public places of prayer is not a rite of Levi, but a natural and prudent circum- stance, and advantage of religion, in which all wise men agree, who therefore must have some common principle, with influence upon all the world, which must be the univocal cause of the consent of all men : which common principle must either be a dictate of natural or prime reason, or else some tradition from the first parents of mankind ; which, because it had order in it, beauty, religion, and con- firmation from Heaven, and no reason to contest against it, it hath surprised the understanding and practices of all nations. And indeed we find, that even in paradise God had that which is analogical to a church, a distinct place where he manifested himself present in proper manner : for Adam and Eve, when they had sinned, “ hid themselves from the presence of the Lord and this was the word in all descents of the church, for the being of God in holy places, “ the presence of the Lord was there.” And probably, when Adam, from this intimation, or a greater direction, had taught Cain and Abel to offer sacrifice to God in a certain plaee, where they were observed of each in their several Offerings, it be- came one of the rules of religion which was derived to their posterity by tradition, the only way they had to communicate the dictates of Divine commandment. 8. There is no more necessary to be added in behalf of holy places, and to assert them into the family and relatives of religion; our estimate and deportment towards them is matter of practice, and therefore of proper consideration. To which pur- pose I consider, that holy places being the residence of God’s name upon earth, there where he hath put it, that, by fiction of law, it may be the sanctuary" and the last resort in all calamities and need, God hath sent his agents to possess them in person for him. Churches and oratories are regions and Quod ab omnibus gentibus observatum est, id non nisi a D eo saneitum est.— Socrates. Xpoi/o) KpaTi]^kv e'3'os yfci/ous Kal SrptforKtia^ ipoavvi]9 Kai Sucai’ oaruvil^, EVCTE(3ELa9 T£ KUL 0(7t0T1)T0S, KUL (TVp.'TTacr')]^ apET7]<3- —Philo. Legat. ad Caium. Mdi/os ydp ol8e 'rifiav b '7rpoi]yovfiivu3<3 lEpElov Eav'rbv TTpoc- ayuDv, Kai ayaXpa 6elou TEKTaiiov t7)v EavTou xf/vyijv, Kai vabv £is vTToboyrfv toD ^eLov cfiwTo^ tov EavTOu TrapaaKEvd^cov vovv . — Hier. in Pyth. Ka^apus tottov o’lKELOTEpov Eiri yrj? 3'eos ovk EyEi’ oi^ Kai b (TVfxcpipE'raL, Xtytav, ILvo’E^iaiu bk /SpoTois yduufiaL Tocrov baaov oXv/httm . — Idem. IGO OF THE RELIGION OF HOLY PLACES. Part If. For, since angels dwell in churches, and God hath made his name to dwell there too ; if there also be a holy people, that there he saints as well as angels, it is a holy fellowship, and a blessed communion : but to see a devil there, would scare the most con- fident and bold fancy, and disturb the good meeting ; and such is every wicked and graceless person : “ Have I not chosen twelve of you, and one of you is a devil ?” An evil soul is an evil spirit, and such are no good ornaments for temples : and it is a shame that a goodly Christian church should be like an Egyptian temple ; without, goodly buildings ; within, a dog or a cat, for the deity they adore. It is worse, if in our addresses to holy places and offices, we bear our lusts under our garments. For dogs and cats are of God’s making, but our lusts are not, but are God’s enemies ; and therefore, be- sides the unholiness, it is an affront to God to bring them along, and it defiles the place in a great degree. 16. For there is a defiling of a temple by insinua- tion of impurities, and another by direct and posi- tive profanation, and a third by express sacrilege. This “ defiles a temple ” to the ground. Every small sin is an unwelcome guest, and is a spot in those “ feasts of charity,” which entertain us often in God’s houses : but there are some, (and all great crimes are such,) which desecrate the place, un- hallow the ground as to our particulars, stop the ascent of our prayers, obstruct the current of God’s blessing, turn religion into bitterness, and devotion into gall ; such as are marked in Scripture with a distinguishing character, as enemies to the peculiar dispositions of religion : and such are, unchastity, which defiles the temples of our bodies ; covetous- ness, which sets up an idol instead of God; and unmercifulness, which is a direct enemy to the mer- cies of God, and the fair return of our prayers. He that shows not the mercies of alms, of forgiveness, and comfort, is forbidden to hope for comfort, relief, or forgiveness, from the hands of God. A pure mind is the best manner of worship,^ and the im- purity of a crime is the greatest contradiction to the honour and religion of holy places. And, therefore, let us imitate the precedent of the most religious of kings ; “ I will wash my hands in innocence, 0 Lord, and so will I go to thine altar ^ always re- membering those decretory and final words of St. Paul, “ He that defiles a temple, him will God destroy.” ^ THE PRAYER. 0 eternal God, who “ dwellest not in temples made with hands ; the heaven of heavens is not able to contain thee,” and yet thou art pleased to manifest thy presence amongst the sons of men. Quin demus id superis Compositum jus fasqup animis, sanctosque recessus Mentis, et incoctum generoso pectus honesto: Haec cedo ut admoveam teniplis, et farre litabo. Pers. Sat. ii, ' Animadverto gratiorem e.xistimari qui delubris deorum f iuram castamque mentem, qiuim qui ineditatum carmen intu- erit. — Plin. Sec. Pan. Trajan. by special issues of thy favour and benediction ; make my body and soul to be a temple pure and holy, apt for the entertainments of the holy J esus, and for the habitation of the Holy Spirit. Lord, be pleased, with thy rod of paternal discipline, to cast out all impure lusts, all worldly affections, all covetous desires, from this thy temple ; that it may be a place of prayer and meditation, of holy appetites and chaste thoughts, of pure intentions and zealous desires of pleasing thee ; that I may become also a sacrifice, as well as a temple ; eaten up with the zeal of thy glory, and consumed with the fire of love ; that not one thought may be entertained by me, but such as may be like per- fume, breathing from the altar of incense ; and not a word may pass from me, but may have the accent of heaven upon it, and sound pleasantly in thy ears. 0 dearest God, fill every faculty of my soul with impresses, dispositions, capacities, and aptnesses of religion ; and do thou hallow my soul, that I may be possessed with zeal and reli- gious affections ; loving thee above aU things in the world, worshipping thee with the humblest adorations and frequent addresses, continually feeding upon the apprehensions of thy divine sweetness, and considerations of thy infinite ex- cellences, and observations of thy righteous com- mandments, and the feast of a holy conscience, as an antepast of eternity, and consignation to the joys of heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. SECTION XII. Of Jesus’s Departure into Galilee ; his manner of Life, Miracles, and Preaching ; his calling of Disciples ; and what happened until the Second Passover. 1. “ When Jesus understood that John was cast into prison,” ^ and that the Pharisees were envious at him for the great multitudes of people that re- sorted to his baptism, which he ministered, not in his own person, but by the deputation of his dis- ciples, they finishing the ministration which himself began, (who, as Euodius,*’ bishop of Antioch, reports, baptized the blessed Virgin, his mother, and Peter only ; and Peter baptized Andrew, James, and John, and they others,) he left Judea, and came into Galilee ; and in his passage he must touch Sychar, a city of Samaria, where, in the heat of the day and the weariness of his journey, he sat himself down upon the margin of Jacob’s well; whither, when “ his disciples were gone to buy meat, a Samaritan ’ Ayvov 6i] vatoio 2'ucoSso^ ’di/Sov lov'ra ayvtu] S’ icTTi, (ppovtlv o(Tia PoRPHYR. de Non Esu Animal.' lib. ii. Optimus animus pulcherrimus cultus. Ka^apw KuSrapou eCpdlTTSCT^aL OV pLl] ^SjULl'TOV, — HiEROCL. Psalm xxvi. 6. I 1 Cor. iii. 17. ^ Matt. iv. 12. * Euthym. c. 3, in Joan. A pud Niccph. lib. ii. c. 3. Hist. Sect. XII. HISTORY OF THE SECOND PASSOVER. HH woman coinclli to draw water,’’ of whom Jesus asked some, to cool his thirst, and refresh his weariness. 2. Little knew the woman the excellency of the person that asked so small a charity : neither had she been taught, that “ a cup of cold water given to a disciple should he rewarded,” and much rather such a present to the Lord himself. But she pro- secuted the spite of her nation,^^ and the interest and quarrel of the schism ; and instead of washing Jesus’s feet, and giving him drink, demanded, why he, “ being a Jew, should ask water of a Samaritan ? for the Jews have no intercourse with the Samari- tans.” 3. The ground of the quarrel was this. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, Salmanasar, king of Assyria, sacked Samaria, transported the Israelites to Assyria, and planted an Assyrian colony in the town and country ; who, by Divine vengeance, were destroyed by lions, which no power of man could restrain or lessen. The king thought the cause was, their not serving the God of Israel according to the rites of Moses; and therefore sent a Jewish captive priest, to instruct the remanent inhabitants in the Jewish religion ; who so learned and practised it, that they still retained the superstition of the gentile rites ; till Manasses, the brother of Jaddi, the high priest of Jerusalem, married the daughter of Sanballat, who was the governor under king Darius. Manasses being reproved for marrying a stranger, the daughter of an unciremneised gentile, and admonished to dis- miss her, flies to Samaria, persuades his father-in- law to build a temple in mount Gerizim, introduces the rites of daily sacriflee, and makes himself high priest, and began to pretend to be the true successor of Aaron, and commences a schism, in the time of Alexander the Great. From whence the question of religion grew so high, that it begat disaffections, anger, animosities, quarrels, bloodshed, and murders ; not only in Palestine, but wherever a Jew and Sa- maritan had the ill fortune to meet. Such being the nature of men, that they think it the greatest injury in the world, when other men are not of their minds ; and that they please God most, when they are most furiously zealous ; and no zeal better to be expressed, than by hating all those whom they are pleased to think God hates. This schism was pro- secuted with the greatest spite that ever any was, because both the people were much given to super- stition ; and this was helped forward by the consti- tution of their religion, consisting much in externals and ceremonials, and which they cared not much to hallow and make moral, by the intertexture of spiritual senses and charity. And, therefore, the Jews called the Samaritans “accursed;” the Sa- maritans, at the paschal solemnity, would at mid- night, when the Jews’ temple was open, scatter dead men’s bones, to profane and desecrate the place ; and both would flght, and eternally dispute the question ; sometimes referring it to arbitrators, and then the conquered party would decline the arbitra- tion after sentence ; which they did at Alexandria, before Ptolemseus Philometor, when Andronicus had. Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti ; Quaesitum ad fontem solos dedneere verpos.— J uv. Sat. xiv. VOL. I. M by a rare and exquisite oration, procured sentence against Theodosius and Sabba3us, the Samaritan advocates : the sentence was given for Jerusalem, and the scliism increased, and lasted till the time of our Saviour’s conference with this woman. 4. And it was so implanted and woven in with every understanding, that when the woman “ per- ceived Jesus to be a prophet,” she undertook this question with him : “ Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus knew the schism was great enough already, and was not willing to make the rent wider: and though he gave testimony to the truth, by saying, “ Salvation is of the Jews ;” and “ we know what we worship, ye do not;” yet because the subject of this question was shortly to be taken away, Jesus takes occasion to preach the gospel, to hasten an expedient, and, by way of anticipation, to reconcile the disagreeing in- terests, and settle a revelation, to be verifled for ever. Neither here nor there, by way of conflnement ; not in one country more than another ; but wherever any man shall call upon God “ in spirit and truth,” there he shall be heard. 5. But all this while the holy Jesus was athirst, and therefore hastens at least to discourse of water, though as yet he got none. He tells her of “ living water,” of eternal satisfactions, of “ never thirsting again,” of her own personal condition, of matrimonial relation, and professes himself to be the Messias ; and then was interrupted by the coming of his dis- ciples, who wondered to see him alone, “ talking with a woman,” besides his custom and usual reser- vation. But the woman, full of joy and w'onder, left her water-pot, and ran to the city, to publish the Messias : and immediately “ all the city came out to see ; and many believed on him upon the testi- mony of the woman, and more when they heard his own discourses.” They invited him to the town, and received him with hospitable civilities for two days, after which he departed to his own Galilee. 6. Jesus, therefore, came into the country, where he was received with respect and fair entertainment, because of the miracles which the Galileans saw done by him at the feast: and being at Cana, where he wrought the first miracle, a noble personage ; a little king, say some ; a palatine, says St. Jerome ; a kingly person, certainly, came to Jesus with much reverence, and desired that he would be pleased to come to his house, and cure his son, now ready to die ; which he seconds with much importunity, fearing lest his son be dead before he get thither. Jesus, who did not do his miracles by natural opera- tions, cured the child at distance, and dismissed the prince, telling him his son lived ; which, by narra- tion of his servants, he found to be true, and that he recovered at the same time when Jesus spake these salutary and healing words. Upon which accident he and all his house became disciples. 7 . And now Jesus left Nazareth, and came to Capernaum, a maritime town, and of great resort, choosing that for his scene of preaching, and his ALappLxf/Lv avOpoiirtLODU octiov tv Tats (TToats Trotr/trat. — Joseph. Ant. lib. xviii. c. 3. 1G2 HISTORY OF WHAT HAPPENED Part II. place of dwelling. For now the time was fulfilled, the office of the Baptist was expired, and the kingdom of God was at hand. He, therefore, preached the sum of the gospel, faith and repentance : “ Repent ye, and believe the gospel.” And what that gospel was, the sum and series of all his sermons after- wards did declare. 8. The work was now grown high and pregnant, and Jesus saw it convenient to choose disciples to his ministry and service in the work of preaching, and to be “ witnesses of all that he should say, do, or teach,” for ends which were afterwards made public and excellent. Jesus, therefore, “ as he walked by the sea of Galilee,” called Simon and Andrew, who knew him before, by the preaching of John; and now “left all,” their ship and their net, “ and followed him. And when he was gone a little farther, he calls the two sons of Zebedee, James and John ; and they went after him.” And with this family he goes up and down the whole Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, heal- ing all manner of diseases, curing demoniacs, cleans- ing lepers, and giving strength to paralytics and lame people. 9. But when “ the people pressed on him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Genesareth,” and presently “ entering into Simon’s ship,” commanded him “ to launch into the deep,” and “ from thence he taught the people,” and there wrought a miracle ; for, being Lord of the creatures, he commanded the fishes of the sea, and they obeyed. For when Simon, who had “ fished all night in vain, let down his net at the command of Jesus, he enclosed so great a multitude of fishes, that the net brake ;” and the fishermen were amazed and fearful at so prodigious a draught. But beyond the miracle, it was intended, that a representation should be made of the plenitude of the catholic church, and multitudes of believers, who should be taken by Simon and the rest of the disciples, whom by that miracle he consigned to become “ fishers of men ;” who, by their artifices of prudence, and holy doctrine, might gain souls to God ; that when the net should be drawn to shore, and separation made by the angels, they and their disciples might be differenced from the reprobate portion. 10. But the light of the sun uses not to be confined to a province or a kingdom. So great a Prophet, and so divine a Physician, and so great miracles, created a fame loud as thunder, but not so full of sadness and presage. Immediately the “ fame of Jesus went into all Syria, and there came to him multitudes from Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, and Judea.” And all that had any “ sick with divers diseases, brought them to him;” and he laid his hands on every one of them, “ and healed them.” And when he cured the “ lunatics, and persons pos- sessed with evil spirits,” the devils cried out, and confessed him to be “ Christ, the Son of God ;” but he “ suffered them not,” choosing rather to work faith in the persuasions of his disciples, by moral arguments, and the placid demonstrations of the Spirit; that there might in faith be an excellency in proportion to the choice, and that it might not be made violent by the conviction and forced testi- monies of accursed and unwilling spirits. 1 1 . But when J esus saw his assembly was grown full, and his audience numerous, he “ went up into a mountain,” and when his disciples came unto him, he made that admirable sermon, called “ the sermon upon the mount ;” which is a Divine repository of most excellent truths and mysterious ffictates of secret theology, and contains a breviary of all those precepts which integrate the morality of Christian religion; pressing the moral precepts given by Moses, and enlarging their obligation by a stricter sense and more severe exposition, that their righte- ousness might “ exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.” “ He preaches perfection, and the doctrines of meekness, poverty of spirit, Chris- tian mourning, desire of holy things, mercy and purity, peace and toleration of injuries ; affixing a special promise of blessing to be the guerdon and inheritance of those graces and spiritual excellencies. He explicates some parts of the decalogue, and adds appendices and precepts of his own. He teaches his disciples to pray, how to fast, how to give alms, contempt of the world, not to judge others, forgiv- ing injuries, an indifference and incuriousness of temporal provisions, and a seeking of the kingdom of God and its appendant righteousness.” 12. When Jesus had finished his sermon, and descended from the mountain, a poor leprous person came and worshipped, and begged to be cleansed ; which Jesus soon granted, engaging him not to publish it where he should go abroad, but sending him to the priest, to offer an oblation, according to the rites of Moses’s law; and then came directly to i Capernaum, and “ taught in their synagogues upon • the sabbath-days ;” where, in his sermons, he ex- pressed the dignity of a prophet, and the authority of a person sent from God ; not inviting the people by the soft arguments and insinuations of scribes * and Pharisees, but by demonstrations and issues of i Divinity. There he cures a demoniac, in one of | their synagogues ; and by and by, after going | abroad, he heals Peter’s wife’s mother of a fever ; ^ insomuch that he grew the talk of all men, and their j wonder, till they flocked so to him to see him, to ’ hear him, to satisfy their curiosity and their needs, that after he had healed those multitudes which beset the house of Simon, where he cured his mother of the fever, he retired himself into a desert place very early in the morning, that he might have an opportunity to pray, free from the oppressions and noises of the multitude. i 13. But neither so could he be hid, but, like a j light shining by the fringes of a curtain, he was j soon discovered in his solitude ; for the multitude found him out, imprisoning him in their circuits and j undeniable attendances. But Jesus told them plain- ly, he must preach the gospel “ to other cities also ;” and therefore resolved to pass to the other side of i the lake of Genesareth, so to quit the throng. Whither as he was going, a scribe offered himself a disciple to his institution ; till Jesus told him his i condition to be worse than foxes and birds, for • whom a habitation is provided, but none for him ; ; Sect. Xlf. UNTIL THE SECOND PASSOVER. JG3 no, “ not a place where to bow his head,” and find rest. And what became of this forward professor afterwards, we find not. Others that were proba- tioners of this fellowship, Jesus bound to a speedy profession ; not suffering one to go home to bid his friends farewell, nor another so much as to “ bury his dead.” 14. By the time Jesus got to the ship it was late; and he, heavy to sleep, rested on a pillow, and slept soundly, as weariness, meekness, and innocence could make him : insomuch that “ a violent storm,” the chiding of the winds and waters, which then happened, could not awake him ; till the ship, being almost covered with broken billows and the impetuous dashings of the waters, the men already sunk in their spirits, and the ship like enough to sink too, the disciples awaked him, and called for help ; “ Master, carest thou not that we perish?” Jesus arising, reproved their infidelity, commanded the wind to be still and the seas peace- able, and immediately “ there was a great calm ;” and they presently arrived in the land of the Ger- gesenes, or Gerasenes. 15. In the land of Gergesites, or Gergesenes, which was the remaining name of an extinct people, being one of the nations whom the sons of Jacob drave from their inheritance, there were two cities ; Gadara, from the tribe of Gad, to whom it fell by lot in the division of the land, (which, having been destroyed by the Jews, was rebuilt by Pompey, at the request of Demetrius Gadarensis, Pompey’ s freedman,) and near to it was Gerasa, as Josephus reports : ® which diversity of towns and names is the cause of the various recitation of this story by the evangelists. Near the city of Gadara there were many sepulchres in the hollownesses of rocks, where the dead were buried, and where many superstitious persons used Memphitic and Thessalic rites, invo- cating evil spirits ; insomuch that, at the instant of our Saviour’s arrival in the country, “ there met him two possessed with devils from these tombs, exceed- ing fierce,” and so had been long, “ insomuch that no man durst pass that way.” 16. Jesus commanded the devils out of the pos- sessed persons : but there were certain men feeding swine, which, though extremely abominated by the Jewish religion, yet for the use of the Roman armies and quarterings of soldiers, they were permitted, and divers privileges granted to the masters of such herds : ^ and because Gadara was a Greek city, and the company mingled of Greeks, Syrians, and Jews, these last, in all likelihood, not making the greatest number; the devils, therefore, besought Jesus, he would not send them into the abyss, but “ permit them to enter into the swine.” He gave them leave ; ‘‘ and the swine ran violently down a steep place into the” hot baths, which were at the foot of the hill on which Gadara was built ; (which smaller con- ® Joseph, de Bel, Jud. lib. i. c. 5. et lib. iii. c. 2. et lib. v. c. 3. Epiph. contr. Eb. Haeres. 30. ^ Cod. Theod. de Sauriis. Joseph, lib. ii, de Bel. Jud. c. 33. ^ 8 Ut mare .^Eneum, vas templi ad aquarum receptionem. Cicero Ep. Famil. lib. xiii. et in Orat. pro Plancio. ' Idem ad Quint. Fratrem de Regimine Praefecturae Asian. M 2 gregation of waters the Jews used to call sea;e) or else, as others think, into the lake of Genesareth, “ and perished in the waters.” But this acoident so troubled the inhabitants, that they came and “ entreated Jesus to depart out of their coasts.” And he did so ; leaving “ Galilee of the Gentiles,” he came to the lesser Galilee, and so again to tlu city of Capernaum. 17- But when he was come thither, he was met by divers “ scribes and Ph^isees,” who came from Jerusalem, and “ doctors of the law from Galilee ;” and while they were sitting in a house, which was compassed with multitudes, that no business or necessity could be admitted to the door, a poor para- lytic was brought to be cured ; and they were fain to “ uncover the tiles of the house, and let him down in his bed with cords, in the midst before Jesus,” sitting in conference with the doctors. “ When Jesus saw their faith, he said, Man, thy sins be forgiven thee.” At which saying the Pharisees being troubled, thinking it to be blas- phemy, and that “ none but God could forgive sins;” Jesus was put to verify his absolution, which he did in a just satisfaction and proportion to their under- standinsrs. For the Jews did believe that all afflic- tions were punishments for sin ; ( “ Who sinned, this man or his father, that he was born blind?”) and that removing of the punishment was forgiving of the sin. And therefore, Jesus, to prove that his sins were forgiven, removed that which they sup- posed to be the effect of his sin ; and by curing the palsy, prevented their further murmur about the pardon : “ That ye might know the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed and walk. And the man arose, was healed, and glorified God.” 18. Awhile after Jesus went again towards the sea, and on his way,' “ seeing Matthew,” the publican, “ sitting at the receipt of custom,” he bade him “ follow him.” Matthew first feasted Jesus, and then became his disciple. But the Pharisees that were with him began to be troubled that he “ ate with publicans and sinners.” For the oflice of pub- lican, though amongst the Romans it was honest and of great account, and “ the flower of the Ro- man knights, the ornament of the city, the security of the commonwealth, was accounted to consist in the society of publicans,” yet amongst both the Jews and Greeks the name was odious,^ and the persons were accursed ; not only because they were strangers that were the chief of them, who took in to them some of the nation where they were employ- ed; but because the Jews especially stood upon the charter of their nation and the privilege of their religion, that none of them should pay tribute ; and also because they exercised great injustices and op- pressions,'^ having a power unlimited, and a covet- ousness wide as hell, and greedy as the fire or the ^ Vita Publicanorum aperta est violentia, impunita rapina, negotiatio nulla ratione constans, inverecunda mercatura. IIaj/T£S 'raXwvai, Trdv're^ siaiv apTrayts.— SuiDAS, V. Pub- licanus. Apud HebroeumtextumD. Mattheei publicani dicti Parisim, nomine proprio latronibus qui series et maceriam dirimunt, licet proprie dicti Gabaim ; unde tortasse Gabella. 1C4 HISTORY OF THE SECOND PASSOVER. Part If. grave. But Jesus gave so fair an account con- cerning his converse with these persons, that the objection turned to be his apology : for therefore he conversed with them, because they were sinners ; and it was as if a physician should be reproved for having so much to do with sick persons ; for there- fore was he “ sent, not to call the righteous, hut sinners to repentance ; ” to advance the reputa- tion of mercy above the rites of sacrifice. 19. But as the little bubbling and gentle murmurs of the water are presages of a storm, and are more troublesome in their prediction than their violence ; so were the arguings of the Pharisees symptoms of a secret displeasure and an ensuing war ; though at first represented in the civilities of question and scholastical discourses, yet they did but forerun vigorous objections and bold calumnies, which were the fruits of the next summer. But as yet they discoursed fairly, asking him “ why John’s disciples fasted often, but the disciples of Jesus did not fast?” Jesus told them, it was because these were the days in which the Bridegroom was come in person to espouse the church unto himself ; and, therefore, for “the children of the bride-chamber to fast” then, was like the bringing of a dead corpse to the joys of a bride, or the pomps of co- ronation ; “ the days should come, that the bride- groom should retire” into his chamber, and draw the curtains, “ and then they should fast in those days.” 20. While Jesus was discoursing with the Pha- risees, “Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, came to him,” desiring he would help his daughter, who lay in the confines of death, ready to depart. Whither as he was going, “ a woman met him, who had been diseased with an issue of blood twelve years,” without hope of remedy from art or nature ; and therefore she runs to Jesus, thinking, without pre- cedent, upon the confident persuasions of a holy faith, “ that if she did but touch the hem of his garment she should he whole.” She came trem- bling, and full of hope and reverence, and “ touch- ed his garment, and immediately the fountain of her unnatural emanation was stopped,” and reverted to its natural course and offices. St. Ambrose says, that this woman was Martha. But it is not likely that she was a J ewess, but a gentile ; because of that return which she made, in memory of her cure and honour of Jesus, according to the gen- tile rites. For Eusebius reports,^ that himself saw, at Caesarea Philippi, a statue of brass, representing a woman kneeling at the feet of a goodly per- sonage, who held his hand out to her in a posture of granting her request, and doing favour to her ; and the inhabitants said, it was erected by the care and cost of this woman; adding, (whether out of truth or easiness is not certain,) that at the pe- destal of this statue an usual plant did grow, which, when it was come up to that maturity and height ' Lib. vii. Hist. c. 14. 'Ettlo-ijiulou XpuTTOu ayaXfxa, et toD Xpifr-roD auSpiavTa. Apud Sozomen. lib. v. c. 20. Johan. Damas. de Imagiu. Orat. iii. ex Chronico Johan. Melalae Antioch. Episc. ait, supplicem libcllum oblatuin Phi- as to arrive at the fringes of the brass monument, it was medicinal in many dangerous diseases : so far Eusebius. Concerning which story I shall make no censure but this, that since St. Mark and St. Luke affirm, that this woman, before her cure, “ had spent all her substance upon physicians,” it is not easily imaginable how she should become able to dispend so great a sum of money, as would pur- chase two so great statues of brass : and if she could, yet it is still more unlikely that the gentile princes and proconsuls, who searched all places, public and private, and were curiously diligent to destroy all honorary monuments of Christianity, should let this alone ; and that this should escape, not only the diligence of the persecutors, but the fury of such wars and changes as happened in Pa- lestine ; and that for three hundred years together it should stand up in defiance of all violences and changeable fate of all things. However it be, it is certain that the book against images, published by the command of Charles the Great, eight hundred and fifty years ago, gave no credit to the story ; and if it had been true, it is more than probable, that Justin Martyr,^ who was horn and bred in Pa- lestine, and Origen, who lived many years in Tyre, in the neighbourhood of the place where the statue is said to stand, and were highly diligent to heap together all things of advantage and reputation to the Christian cause, would not have omitted so notable an instance. It is therefore likely that the statues which Eusebius saw, and concerning which he heard such stories, were first placed there upon the stock of a heathen story or ceremony ; and in process of time, for the likeness of the figures, and i its capacity to be translated to the Christian story, ' were, by the Christians in after-ages, attributed by a fiction of fancy, and afterwards by credulity con- fidently applied, to the present narrative. 21. “ When Jesus was come to the ruler’s house,” ' he found the minstrels making their funeral noises ( for the death of Jairus’s daughter, and his servants | had met him, and acquainted him of “ the death of j the child;” yet Jesus turned out the minstrels, and | “ entered with the parents of the child into her j chamber, and taking her by the hand, called her,” ? and awakened her from her sleep of death, and “ commanded them to give her to eat,” and enjoin- ed them not to publish the miracle. But as flames, suppressed by violent detentions, break out and rage with a more impetuous and rapid motion, so it happened to Jesus ; who, endeavouring to make the noises and reports of him less popular, made them to be oecumenical ; for not only we do that most greedily from which we are most restrained, but a great merit, enamelled with humility, and re- j strained with modesty, grows more beauteous and I florid up to the heights of wonder and glories. j 22. As he came from Jairus’s house, he cured fe two blind men, upon their petition, and confession [ lippo Tetrarchsc Trachonitidis regionis, ut licevet statuas eri- : gere in memoriam accepti beneficii. < ■T* Mark v. 26. Luke viii. 43. j " Lib. iv. de Imagin. cap. 15. I Sect. XII. CONSIDERATIONS UPON JESUS'S CONFERENCE, &c. IG5 that they did believe in him ; and cast out a dumb devil, so much to the wonder and amazement of the people, that the Pharisees could hold no longer, being ready to burst with envy, but said, “ he cast out devils by help of the devils their malice being, as usually it is, contradictory to its own de- sign, by its being unreasonable ; nothing being more sottish than for the devil to divide his kingdom upon a plot ; to ruin his certainties upon hopes fu- ture and contingent. But this was but the first eruption of their malice ; all the year last past, which was the first year of Jesus’s preaching, all was quiet; neither the Jews, nor the Samaritans, nor the Galileans, did malign his doctrine or per- son, but he preached with much peace on all hands ; ° for this was the year which the prophet Isaiah called in his prediction “ the acceptable year of the Lord.” Ad SECTION XII. Considerations upon the Intercourse happening be- tween the Holy J esus and the Woman of Samaria. 1. When the holy Jesus, perceiving it unsafe to be at Jerusalem, returned to Galilee, where the largest scene of his prophetical office was to be represented, he journeyed on foot through Samaria; and being weary and faint, hungry and thirsty, he sat down by a well, and begged water of a Samaritan woman that was a sinner ; who at first refused him, with some incivility of language. But he, instead of returning anger and passion to her rudeness, which Avas com- menced upon the interest of a mistaken religion, preached the coming of the Messias toher, unlocked the secrets of her heart, and let in his grace, and made ‘‘a fountain of living water to spring up” in her soul, to extinguish the impure flames of lust which had set her on fire, burning like hell ever since the death of her fifth husband,*^ she then be- coming a concubine to the sixth. Thus Jesus trans- planted nature into grace, his hunger and thirst into religious appetites, the darkness of the Samaritan into a clear revelation, her sin into repentance and charity, and so quenched his own thirst by relieving her needs : and as “ it was meat to him to do his Father’s will,” so it was drink to him to bring us to drink of “ the fountain of living water.” For thus God declared it to be a delight to him to see us live, as if he were refreshed by those felicities which he gives to us as communications of his grace, and instances of mercy, and consignations to heaven. Upon which we can look with no eye but such as sees and admires the excellency of the Divine charity, which, being an emanation from the mercies and essential compassion of eternity, . God cannot choose but rejoice in it, and love the works of his mercy, who was so well pleased in the works of his power. He that was delighted in the creation, was ® Epiphan. in Panar. lib. ii. tom. 1. haeres. 51. ^ Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu, ad- versusomnes alios hostile odium. — Tacit. Quae nubit toties non nubit, adultera lege est. Offender mcKchii simpliciore minus. — Martial. Ep, highly pleased in the nearer conveyances of himself, when he sent the holy Jesus to bear his image, and his mercies, and his glories, and ofier them to the use and benefit of man. For this was the chief of the works of God, and therefore the blessed Master could not but be highliest pleased with it, in imita- tion of his heavenly Father. 2. The woman, observing our Saviour to have come with his face from Jerusalem, was angry at him upon the quarrel of the old schism. The Jews and the Samaritans had differing rites, and the zealous persons upon each side did commonly dis- pute themselves into uncharitableness : and so have Christians upon the same confidence, and zeal, and mistake. For although “ righteousness hath no fellowship with unrighteousness, nor Christ with Belial ;” yet the consideration of the crime of heresy, which is a spiritual wickedness, is to be separate from the person, who is material. That is, no spiritual communion is to be endured with heretical persons, when it is certain they are such, when they are convinced by competent authority and sufficient argument. But the persons of the men are to be pitied, to be reproved, to be redargued and convinced, to be wrought upon by fair compliances and the offices of civility, and invited to the family of faith by the best arguments of charity, and the instances of a holy life ; “ having your conversation honest among men, that they may, beholding your good works, glorify God in the day when he shall visit them.”^ Indeed, if there be danger, that is, a weak understanding may not safely converse in civil society with a subtle heretic ; in such cases they are to be avoided,^^ not saluted : but as this is only when the danger is by reason of the unequal capaci- ties and strengths of the person ; so it must be only when the article is certainly heresy, and the person criminal, and interest is the ingredient in the per- suasion, and a certain and a necessary truth destroyed by the opinion. We read that St. John, spying Cerinthus in a bath, refused to wash there where the enemy of God and his holy Son had been.® This is a good precedent for us when the case is equal. St. John could discern the spirit of Cerin- thus ; and his heresy was notorious, fundamental, and highly criminal, and the apostle a person as- sisted up to infaRibility. And possibly it was done by the whisper of a prophetic spirit, and upon a miraculous design ; for, immediately upon his re- treat, the bath fell down, and crushed Cerinthus in the ruins. But such acts of aversation as these are not easily, by us, to be drawn into example, unless in the same or the parallel concourse of equally concluding accidents. We must not quickly, nor upon slight grounds, nor unworthy instances, call heretic ; there had need be a long process, and a high conviction, and a competent judge, and a neces- sary article, that must be ingredients into so sad and decretory definitions, and condemnation of a person c 1 Pet. ii. 12. ^ Tit. iii. 10. 2 Epist. John 10, ® Irenae. lib. iii. cap. 3. Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 13. 166 CONSIDERATIONS UPON JESUS’S CONFERENCE Part II. or opinion. But if such instances occur, come not near the danger nor the scandal. And this advice St. Cyprian ^ gave to the lay people of his diocess : “ Let them decline their discourses, whose sermons creep and corrode like a cancer ; let there be no colloquies, no banquets, no commerce with such who are excommunicate, and justly driven from the communion of the church.” “ For such persons (as St. Leo § descants upon the apostle’s expression of heretical discourses) creep in humbly, and with small and modest beginnings ; they catch with flat- tery, they bind gently, and kill privily.” Let, there- fore, all persons who are in danger, secure their persons and persuasions, by removing far from the infection. And for the scandal, St. Herminigilda gave an heroic example, which, in her persuasion, and the circumstances of the age and action, de- served the highest testimony of zeal, religious pas- sion, and confident persuasion. For she rather chose to die by the mandate of her tyrant father, Leonigildus the Goth, than she would, at the paschal solemnity, receive the blessed sacrament at the hand of an Arian bishop.^ 3. But excepting these cases, which are not to be judged with forwardness, nor rashly taken measure of, we find that conversing charitably with persons of different persuasions, hath been instrumental to their conversion, and God’s glory. “ The believing wife” may “ sanctify the unbelieving husband;” and we find it verified in church story. St. Cecily converted her husband Valerianus; St. Theodora converted Sisinius ; St. Monica converted Patricius, and Theodelinda, Agilulphus ; St. Clotilda persuaded king Clodoveus to be a Christian ; and St. Natolia persuaded Adrianus to be a martyr. For they, having their conversation honest and holy amongst the unbelievers, shined like virgin-tapers in the midst of an impure prison, and amused the eyes of the sons of darkness with the brightness of the flame. For the excellency of a holy life is the best argument of the inhabitation of God within the soul : and who will not offer up his understanding upon that altar, where a Deity is placed as the president and author of religion ? And this very intercourse of the holy Jesus with the woman is abundant argument, that it were well we were not so forward to refuse communion with dissenting persons, upon the easy and confident mis- takes of a too forward zeal. They that call heretic may themselves be the mistaken persons, and, by refusing to communicate the civilities of hospitable entertainment, may shut their doors upon truth, and their windows against light, and refuse to let salva- tion in. For sometimes ignorance is the only parent of our persuasions, and many times interest hath made an impure commixture with it, and so pro- duced the issue. 4. The holy Jesus gently insinuates his discourses. “ If thou hadst known who it is that asks thee water, thou wouldest have asked water of him.” Oftentimes we know not the person that speaks, and we usually choose our doctrine by our affections to the man : but then, if we are uncivil upon the stock ^ Lib. i. ep. 3. s Serm. 5. dc Jejun. Decimi Mensis. of prejudice, we do not know that it is Christ that calls our understandings to obedience, and our affec- tions to duty and compliances. The woman little thought of the glories which stood right against her. He that sat upon the well, had a throne placed above the heads of cherubims. In his arms, who there rested himself, was the sanctuary of rest and peace, where wearied souls were to lay their heads, and dispose their cares, and there to turn them into joys, and to gild their thorns with glory. That holy tongue, which was parched with heat, streamed forth rivulets of holy doctrine, which were to water all the world, to turn our deserts into paradise. And though he begged water at Jacob’s well, yet Jacob drank at his: for at his charge all Jacob’s flocks and family were sustained, and by him Jacob’s posterity were made honourable and redeemed. But because this well was deep, and the woman “ had nothing to draw water with,” and of herself could not fathom so great a depth, therefore she refused him ; just as we do, when we refuse to give drink to a thirsty disciple. Christ comes in that humble manner of address, under the veil of poverty or contempt, and we cannot see Christ from under that robe, and we send him away without an alms ; little considering, that when he begs an alms of us in the instance of any of his poor relatives, he asks of us but to give him occasion to give a blessing for an alms. Thus do the ministers of religion ask support ; but when the laws are not more just than many of the people are charitable, they shall fare as their Master did; they shall preach, but, unless they can draw water themselves, they shall not drink ; but, si scirent, if men did but know who it is that asks them, that it is Christ, either in his ministers, or Christ in his poor servants, certainly they could not be so obstructed in the issues of their justice and charity, but would remember that no honour could be greater, no love more fortunate, than to meet with an opportunity to be expressed in so noble a manner, that God himself is pleased to call his own relief. 5. When the disciples had returned from the town, whither they went to buy provision, they “ wondered to see ” the Master “ talking ” alone “ with a woman.” They knew he never did so before ; they had observed him to be of a reserved deportment, and not only innocent, but secure from the dangers of malice and suspicion in the matter of incontinence. The Jews were a jealous and froward people : and as nothing wfiU more blast the reputation of a prophet than eflfeminacy and wanton affections; so he knew no crime was sooner object- ed, or harder cleared, than that. Of which, because commonly it is acted in privacy, men look for no probation, but pregnant circumstances and argu- ments of suspect : so nothing can wash it oflT, until a man can prove a negative ; and if he could, yet he is guilty enough in the estimate of the vulgar for having been accused. But then, because nothing is so destructive of the reputation of a governor, so contradictory to the authority and dignity of his person, as the low and baser appetites of unclean- ness, and the consequent shame and scorn, (inso- Gregor, lib. iii. dial. iii. 13. Sect. XII. WITH THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. 1G7 much that David, having fallen into it, prayed God to confirm or establish him spiritit principali, with the spirit of a prince, the spirit of lust being imin- genuous and slavish,) the holy Jesus, who was to establish a new law in the authority of his person, was highly curious so to demean himself, that he might be a person incapable of any such suspicions, and of a temper apt not only to answer the calumny, but also to prevent the jealousy. But yet, now he had a great design in hand, he meant to reveal to the Samaritans the coming of the Messias ; and to this, his discourse with the woman was instrumental. And, in imitation of our great Master, spiritual per- sons, and the guides of others, have been very prudent and reserved in their societies and inter- course with women. Heretics have served their ends upon the impotency of the sex ; and having “ led captive silly women,” led them about as tri- umphs of lust, and knew no scandal greater than the scandal of heresy, and therefore sought not to decline any, but were infamous in their unwary and lustful mixtures. Simon Magus had his Helena partner of his lust and heresy ; the author of the sect of the Nicolaitans (if St. Jerome was not misin- formed) had whole troops of women ; Marcion sent a woman as his emissary to Rome ; Apelles had his Philomene ; Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla ; Donatus was served by Lucilla, Helpidius by Agape, Priscillian by Galla, and Arrius spreads his nets, by opportunity of his conversation with the prince’s sister, and first he corrupted her, then he seduced the world. 6. But holy persons, preachers of true religion and holy doctrines, although they were careful, by public homilies, to instruct the female disciples, that they who are heirs together with us of the same hope, may be servants in the same discipline and institution ; yet they remitted them to “ their hus- bands” and guardians to be “taught at home.”^ And when any personal transactions concerning the needs of their spirit were, of necessity, to intervene between the priest and a woman, the action was done most commonly under public test ; or if in private, yet with much caution and observation of circum- stance, which might as well prevent suspicion as preserve their innocence. Conversation, and fre- quent and familiar address, does too much rifle the ligaments and reverence of spiritual authority, and, amongst the best persons, is matter of danger. When the cedars of Libanus have been observed to fall, when David and Solomon have been dis- honoured, he is a bold man that will venture farther than he is sent in errand by necessity, or invited by charity, or warranted by prudence. I deny not but some persons have made holy friendships with women ; St. Athanasius with a devout and religious virgin, St. Chrysostome with Olympia, St. Jerome with Paula Romana, St. John with the elect Lady, St. Peter and St. Paul with Petronilla^ and Tecla. And, therefore, it were a jealousy beyond the sus- * 1 Cor. xiv. 35. Quam B. Petri filiam naturalem non fuisse recte probat Baronins. * J ohn V. 44. picion of monks and eunuchs, to think it impossible to have a chaste conversation with a distinct sex. 1. A pure and right intention, 2. an intercourse not extended beyond necessity or holy ends, 3. a short stay, 4. great modesty, 5. and the business of re- ligion, will, by God’s grace, hallow the visit, and preserve the friendship in its being spiritual, that it may not degenerate into carnal affection. And yet, these are only advices useful when there is danger in either of the persons, or some scandal incident to the profession, that to some persons, and in the con- junction of many circumstances, are oftentimes not considerable. 7. When Jesus had resolved to reveal himself to the woman, he first gives her occasion to reveal her- self to him, fairly insinuating an opportunity to con- fess her sins, that, having purged herself from her impurity, she might be apt to entertain the article of the revelation of the Messias. And indeed a crime in our manners is the greatest indisposition of our understanding to entertain the truth and doctrine of the gospel ; especially when the revelation con- tests against the sin, and professes open hostility to the lust. For faith being the gift of God, and an il- lumination, the Spirit of God will not give this light to them that prefer their darkness before it; either the will must open the windows, or the light of faith will not shine into the chamber of the soul. “ How can ye believe,” said our blessed Saviour, “ that receive honour one of another?”^ Ambition and faith, believing God and seeking of ourselves, are incompetent, and totally incompossible. And there- fore Serapion, bishop of Thmuis, spake like an angel, (saith Socrates,"") saying, “ that the mind, which feedeth upon spiritual knowledge, must thoroughly be cleansed. The irascible faculty must first be cured with brotherly love and charity, and the concupiscible must be suppressed with continency and mortification.” Then may the understanding apprehend the mysteriousness of Christianity. For, since Christianity is a holy doctrine, if there be any remanent affections to a sin, there is in the soul a party disaffected to the entertainment of the institu- tion, and we usually believe what we have a mind to : our understandings, if a crime be lodged in the will, being like icterical eyes, transmitting the species to the soul with prejudice, disaffection, and colours of their own framing." If a preacher should discourse, that there ought to be a parity amongst Christians, and that their goods ought to be in com- mon, all men will apprehend, that not princes and rich persons, but the poor and the servants, would soonest become disciples, and believe the doctrines, because they are the only persons likely to get by them ; and it concerns the other not to believe him, the doctrine being destructive of their interests. Just such a persuasion is every persevering love to a vicious habit ; it having possessed the understand- ing with fair opinions of it, and surprised the wdll with passion and desires, whatsoever doctrine is its n Lurida praeterea fiunt quaecunque tuentur Arquati Multaque sunt oculis in eorum denique mista, Quae contage suel palloribus omnia pingunt.—LucREx. 1. iv. Lib. iv. Hist. cap. 23. 1G8 CONSIDERATIONS UPON JESUS’S CONFERENCE, &c. Part II. enemy, will with infinite clifFiculty be entertained. And we know a great experience of it, in the article of the Messias dying on the cross, wdiich, though in- finitely true, yet, because “ to the Jews it was a scandal, and to the Greeks foolishness,” it could not be believed, they remaining in that indisposition ; that is, unless the will were first set right, and they willing to believe any truth, though for it they must disclaim their interest: their understanding was blind, because the heart was hardened, and could not receive the impression of the greatest moral demonstration in the world. 8. The holy Jesus asked water of the woman, unsatisfying water ; but promised that himself, to them that ask him, would give waters of life, and satisfaction infinite ; so distinguishing the pleasures and appetites of this world from the desires and complacencies spiritual. Here we labour, but re- ceive no benefit ; we sow many times, and reap not; or reap, and do not gather in ; or gather in, and do not possess ; or possess, but do not enjoy ; or if we enjoy, we are still unsatisfied, it is with anguish of spirit, and circumstances of vexation. A great heap of riches makes neither our clothes warm, nor our meat more nutritive, nor our beverage more pleasant ; and it feeds the eye, but never fills it, but, like drink to an hydropic person, increases the thirst, and pro- motes the torment. But the grace of God, though but like a grain of mustard seed, fills the furrows of the heart ; and as the capacity increases, itself grows up in equal degrees, and never suffers any emptiness or dissatisfaction, but carries content and fulness all the way ; and the degrees of augmentation are not steps and near approaches to satisfaction, but in- creasings of the capacity ; the soul is satisfied all the way, and receives more, not because it wanted any, but that it can now hold more, is more recep- tive of felicities : and in every minute of sanctifica- tion there is so excellent a condition of joy and high satisfaction, that the very calamities, the afflictions, and persecutions of the world, are turned into feli- cities by the activity of the prevailing ingredient; like a drop of water falling into a tun of wine, it is ascribed into a new family, losing its own nature by a conversion into the more noble. For now that all passionate desires are dead, and there is nothing remanent that is vexatious, the peace, the serenity, the quiet sleeps, the evenness of spirit, and contempt of things below, remove the soul from all neigh- bourhood of displeasure, and place it at the foot of the throne, whither, when it is ascended, it is pos- sessed of felicities eternal. These were the waters which were given to us to drink, when, with the rod of God, the rock Christ Jesus was smitten : the Spirit of God moves for ever upon these waters ; and when the angel of the covenant hath stirred the pool, whoever descends hither shall find health and peace, joys spiritual, and the satisfactions of eternity. THE PRAYER. O holy Jesus, fountain of eternal life, thou spring of joy and spiritual satisfactions, let the holy stream of blood and water issuing from thy sacred side cool the thirst, soften the hardness, and refresh the barrenness of my desert soul ; that I, thirst- ing after thee, as the wearied hart after the cool stream, may despise all the vainer complacencies of this world, refuse all societies but such as are safe, pious, and charitable, mortify all sottish appetites, and may desire nothing but thee, seek none but thee, and rest in thee with entire dere- liction of my own caitive inclinations ; that the desires of nature may pass into desires of grace, and my thirst and my hunger may be spiritual, and my hopes placed in thee, and the expresses of my charity upon thy relatives, and all the parts of my life may speak my love, and obedience to thy commandments : that thou possessing my soul, and all its faculties, during my whole life, I may possess thy glories in the fruition of a blessed eternity ; by the light of thy gospel here, and the streams of thy grace, being guided to thee, the fountain of life and glory, there to be inebri- ated with the waters of paradise, with joy, and love, and contemplation, adoring and admiring the beauties of the Lord for ever and ever. Amen. Considerations upoji Christ’s First Preachmg, and the Accidents happening about that Time. 1. “ When John was cast into prison, then began Jesus to preach;” not only because the ministry of John, by order of Divine designation, was to precede the publication of Jesus, but also upon prudent con- siderations and designs of Providence, lest two great personages at once upon the theatre of Palestine might have been occasion of divided thoughts, and these have determined upon a schism, some profess- ing themselves to be of Christ, some of John. For once an offer was made of a dividing question by the spite of the Pharisees, “ Why do the disciples of John fast often, and thy disciples fast not ?” But when John went off from the scene, then Jesus ap- peared, like the sun in succession to the morning star, and there were no divided interests upon mis- take, or the fond adherences of the followers. And although the holy Jesus would certainly have cured all accidental inconveniences which might have happened in such accidents ; yet this may become a precedent to all prelates, to be prudent in avoiding all occasions of a schism, and, rather than divide a people, submit and relinquish an opportunity of preaching to their inferiors, as knowing that God is better served by charity than a homily ; and if my modesty made me resign to my inferior, the ad- vantages of honour to God by the cessions of humility are of grreater consideration than the smaller and accidental advantages of better penned and more accura,te discourses. But our blessed Lord, design- ing to gather disciples, did it in the manner of the more extraordinary persons and doctors of the Jews, and particularly of the Baptist, he initiated them into the institution by the solemnity of a baptism ; but yet he was jTeased not to minister it in his own Sect. XII. CONSIDERATIONS UPON CHRIST’S FIRST PREACHING, &c. 169 ])crson. His apostles were baptized in John’s bap- tism, said Tertullian ; or else, St. Peter only was baptized by his Lord, and he baptized the rest. However, the Lord was pleased to depute the minis- try of his servants, that so he might constitute a ministry ; that he might reserve it to himself as a specialty to “ baptize with the Spirit,” as his ser- vants did “ with water that he might declare, that the efficacy of the rite did not depend upon the dig- nity of the minister, but his own institution, and the holy covenant ; and lastly, lest they who were bap- tized by him in person might please themselves above their brethren, whose needs were served by a lower ministry. 2. The holy Jesus, the great Physician of our souls, now entering upon his cure, and the diocess of Palestine, which was afterwards enlarged to the pale of the catholic church, was curious to observe all advantages of prudence for the benefit of souls, by the choice of place, by quitting the place of his education, (which, because it had been poor and humble, was apt to procure contempt to his doctrine, and despite to his person,) by fixing in Capernaum, which had the advantage of popularity, and the opportunity of extending the benefit, yet had not the honour and ambition of Jerusalem ; that the ministers of religion might be taught to seek and desire employment in such circumstances which may serve the end of God, but not of ambition ; to pro- mote the interest of souls, but not the inordination of lower appetites. Jesus quitted his natural and civil interests, when they were less consistent with the end of God and his prophetical office, and con- sidered not his mother’s house and the vicinage, in the accounts of religion, beyond those other places in which he might better do his Father’s work : in which a forward piety might behold the insinuation of a duty to such persons, who, by rights of law and custom, were so far instrumental to the cure of souls, as to design the persons ; they might do but duty if they first considered the interests of souls before the advantages of their kindred and relatives : and although, if all things else be alike, they may in equal dispositions prefer their own before strangers ; yet it were but reason that they should first consider sadly if the men be equal, before they remember that they are of their kindred, and not let this consideration be ingredient into the former judgment. And another degree of liberty yet there is ; if our kindred be persons apt and holy, and without exceptions either of law, or prudence, or religion, we may do them advantages before others who have some degrees of learning and improvement beyond the other : or else no man might lawfully pre- fer his kindred, unless they were absolutely the ablest in a diocess or kingdom ; which doctrine were a snare apt to produce scruples to the consciences, rather than advantages to the cure. But then also patrons should be careful, that they do not account their clerks by an estimate taken from comparison with unworthy candidates, set up on purpose, that when we choose our kindred we may abuse our con- sciences by saying, we have fulfilled our trust, and made election of the more worthy. In these and the like cases, let every man who is concerned deal with justice, nobleness, and sincerity, with the sim- plicity of a Christian and the wisdom of a man, without tricks and stratagems, to disadvantage the church by doing temporal advantages to his friend or family. 3. The blessed Master began his office with a sermon of repentance, as his decessor, John the Baptist, did in his ministration, to tell the world that the new covenant, which was to be established by the mediation and office of the holy J esus, was a covenant of grace and favour, not established upon works, but upon promises, and remission of right on God’s part, and remission of sins on our part. The law was “ a covenant of works,” and whoever pre- varicated any of its sanctions in a considerable de- gree, he stood sentenced by it without any hopes of restitution supplied by the law. And therefore it was the “ covenant of works not because good works were then required more than now, or because they had more efficacy than now ; but because all our hopes did rely upon the perfection of works and innocence, without the suppletories of grace, pardon, and repentance. But the gospel is therefore “ a covenant of grace,” not that works are excluded from our duty, or from co-operating to heaven ; but that, because there is in it so much mercy, the im- perfections of the works are made up by the grace of Jesus, and the defects of innocence are supplied by the substitution of repentance. Abatements are made for the infirmities and miseries of humanity ; and if we do our endeavour now, after the manner of men, the faith of Jesus Christ, that is, con- formity to his laws, and submission to his doctrine, entitles us to the grace he hath purchased for us, that is, our sins for his sake shall be pardoned. So that the law and the gospel are not opposed barely upon the title of faith and works, but as the “ cove- nant of faith” and the “ covenant of works.” In the faith of a Christian, works are the great in- gredient and the chief of the constitution, but the gospel is not “ a covenant of works,” that is, it is not an agreement upon the stock of innocence with- out allowances of repentance, requiring obedience in rigour and strictest estimate. But the gospel re- quires the holiness of a Christian, and yet after the manner of a man ; for, always provided that we do not allow to ourselves a liberty, but endeavour with all our strength, and love with all our soul, that which, if it were upon our allowance, would be re- quired at our hands, now that it is against our will, and highly contested against, is put upon the stock of Christ, and allowed to us by God in the accounts of pardon by the merits of Jesus, by the covenant of the gospel. And this is the repentance and re- mission of sins which John first preached upon the approximation of the kingdom, and Christ at the first manifestation of it, and the apostles afterward in the name of Jesus. 4. Jesus now having begun his preaching, began also to gather his family ; and first called Simon and Andrew, then James and John, at whose voca- Lib. de Baptism. 170 CONSIDERATIONS UPON CHRIST’S FIRST PREACHING. Part II. tion he wrought a miracle, which was a signification of their office, and the success of it ; a draught of fishes so great and prodigious, that it convinced them that he was a person very extraordinary, whose voice the fishes heard, and came at his call : and since he designed them to become “ fishers of men,” although themselves were as unlikely in- struments to persuade men, as the voice of the Son of man to command fishes, yet they should prevail in so great numbers, that the whole world should run after them, and, upon their summons, come into the net of the gospel, becoming disciples of the glorious Nazarene. St. Peter, the first time that he threw his net, at the descent of the Holy Ghost in Pentecost, caught three thousand men ; and at’ one sermon, sometimes the princes of a na- tion have been converted, and the whole land pre- sently baptized; and the multitudes so great, that the apostles were forced to design some men to the ministration of baptism by way of peculiar office ; and it grew to be work enough, the easiness of the ministry being made busy and full of employment where a whole nation became disciples. And in- deed the doctrine is so holy, the principle so Divine, the instruments so supernatural, the pro- mises so glorious, the revelations so admirable, the rites so mysterious, the whole fabric of the disci- pline so full of wisdom, persuasion, and energy, that the infinite number of the first conversions were not so great a wonder, as that there are so few now ; every man calling himself Christian, but few having that “power of godliness” which dis- tinguishes Christian from a word and an empty name. And the word is now the same, and the arguments greater, (for some have been growing ever since, as the prophecies have been fulfilled,) and the sermons more, and “ the Spirit the same ;” and yet such “ diversity of operations,” that we hear and read the sermons and dictates evangelical as we do a romance, but that it is with less pas- sion, but altogether as much unconcerned as with a story of Salmanasar or Ibrahim Bassa : for we do not leave one vice, or reject one lust, or deny one impetuous temptation the more, for the four Gospels’ sake, and all St. Paul’s epistles mingled in the argument. And yet all think themselves fishes within Christ’s net, and the prey of the gospel : and it is true they are so ; for “ the kingdom is like unto a net, which enclosed fishes good and bad but this shall be of small advantage when the net shall be drawn to the shore, and the separa- tion made. 5. When Jesus called those disciples, they had been “ fishing all night, and caught nothing but when Christ bade them“let down the net,” they took multitudes : to show to us, that the success of our endeavours is not in proportion to our labours, but the Divine assistance and benediction. It is not the excellency of the instrument, but the capa- city of the subject, nor yet this alone, but the apt- ness of the application, nor that without an influ- ence from Heaven, can produce the fruits of a holy persuasion and conversion. “ Paul may plant, and ApoUos may water; but God gives the increase.” Indeed, when we let down the nets at the Divine appointment, the success is the more probable ; and certainly God will bring benefit to the place, or honour to himself, or salvation to them that will obey, or conviction to them that will not : but what- ever the fruit be in respect of others, the reward shall be great to themselves. And therefore St. Paul did not say he had profited, but, “ he had la- boured more than they all,” as knowing the Divine acceptance would take its account in proportion to our endeavours and intendments ; not by commen- suration to the effect, which being without us, de- pending upon God’s blessing, and the co-operation of the recipients, can be no ingredients into our ac- count. But this also may help to support the weariness of our hopes, and the protraction and de- ferring of our expectation, if a laborious prelate and an assiduous preacher have but few returns to his many cares and greater labours. A whole night a man may labour, (the longest life is no other,) and yet catch nothing, and then the Lord may visit us with his special presence, and more forward assistance, and the harvest may grow up with the swiftness of a gourd, and the fruitfulness of olives, and the plaisance of the vine, and the strength of wheat ; and whole troops of penitents may arise from the darkness of their graves at the call of one sermon, even when he pleases : and till then we must be content that we do our duty, and lay the consideration of the effect at the feet of Jesus. 6. In the days of the patriarchs, the governors of the Lord’s people were called shepherds : so was Moses, and so was David. In the days of the gospel they are shepherds still, but with the addi- tion of a new appellative, for now they are called fishers. Both the callings were honest, humble, and laborious, watchful and full of trouble ; but now that both the titles are conjunct, we may ob- serve the symbol of an implicit and folded duty. There is much simplicity and care in the shepherd’s trade ; there is much craft and labour in the fisher’s : and a prelate is to be both full of piety to his flock, careful of their welfare ; and because, in the political and spiritual sense too, feeding and governing are the same duty, it concerns them that have cure of souls to be - discreet and wary, ob- servant of advantages, laying such baits for the people as may entice them into the nets of Jesus’s discipline. “ But being crafty I caught you,” saith St. Paul; for he was a fisher too. And so must spiritual persons be fishers to all spiritual senses of watchfulness, and care, and prudence : only they must not fish for preferment and ambi- tious purposes, but must say with the king of Sodom, “ Date nobis animas, caetera vos tollite ;” which St. Paul renders, “We seek not yours, but you.” And in order to such acquist, the purchase of souls, let them have the diligence and the craft of fishers, the watchfulness and care of shepherds, the prudence of politics, the tenderness of parents, the spirit of government, the wariness of observa- tion, great knowledge of the dispositions of their people, and experience of such advantages by means Sect. XII. AND WHAT HAPPENED THEREUPON. in of which they may serve the ends of God, and of salvation upon their souls. 7. When Peter had received the fruits of a rich miracle, in the prodigious and prosperous draught of fishes, he instantly “ falls down at the feet of Jesus,” and confesses himself “ a sinner,” and unworthy of the presence of Christ. In which confession I not only consider the conviction of his understand- ing by the testimony of the miracle, but the modesty of his spirit, who, in his exaltation and the joy of a sudden and happy success, retired into humility and consideration of his own unworthiness, lest, as it happens in sudden joys, the lavishness of his spirit should transport him to intemperance, to looser affections, to vanity, and garishness, less becoming the severity and government of a disciple of so great a Master. For in such great and sudden accidents, men usually are dissolved and melted into joy and inconsideration, and let fly all their severe principles and discipline of manners, till, as Peter here did, though to another purpose, they say to Christ, “ Depart from me, 0 Lord ;” as if such excellencies of joys, like the lesser stars, did disappear at the presence of him, who is the fountain of all joys regular and just. When the spirits of the body have been bound up by the cold winter air, the warmth of the spring makes so great an aperture of the passages, and, by consequence, such dissolution of spirits, in the presence of the sun, that it beeomes the occasion of fevers and violent diseases. Just such a thing is a sudden joy, in which the spirits leap out from their cells of austerity and sobriety, and are warmed into fevers and wildnesses, and forfeiture of all judgment and vigorous understand- ing. In these accidents, the best advice is to temper and allay our joys with some instant consideration of the vilest of our sins, the shamefulness of our disgraces, the most dolorous accidents of our lives, the worst of our fears, with meditation of death, or the terrors of doomsday, or the unimaginable miseries of damned and accursed spirits.^ For such consider- ations as these are good instruments of sobriety, and are eorrectives to the malignity of excessive joys or temporal prosperities, which, like minerals, unless allayed by art, prey upon the spirits, and become the union of a contradietion, being turned into mor- tal medicines. 8. At this time “ Jesus preached to the people from the ship,” whieh, in the fancies and tropical discoursings of the old doctors, signifies the chureh, and declares, that the homilies of order and authority must be delivered from the oracle ; they that preaeh must be sent, and God hath appointed tutors and instructors of our consciences by special designation and peculiar appointment : if they that preach do not make their sermons from the ship, their dis- courses either are the false murmurs of heretics and false shepherds, or else of thieves and invaders of authority, or corrupters of discipline and order. For God, that loves to hear us in special places, will Simul et quod gaudes et quod times contrahe.— Seneca. <= Gal. iii. 19. XwpEty yap to o/iolov tt/oos opLOLOv, o^sv Kai p.6vo^ LE.pev^ 6 crorpos XeyeTui, p.6voLXav^pu}- 'KO'rapoy yavoiTo, ovic av<7LU kTravopdwcreco?. Sopater dixit dissimulanda Tci fxiKpa Kni cnjvriQy) 'Tunr djxap'rmxd.Tuyv. Male hoc; nisi in quantum \ daiJ non possunt. s Heb. xii, 14-17. ' Rom. vi. 7. h 1 John V. 16. 182 OF REPENTANCE. Part II. his present repentance, nor make atonement in the day of expiation, nor wash the stains away by chas- tising of himself ; but during his life it remains wholly in suspense, and, before death, is not extin- guished according to the saying of the prophet Isaiah, “ This iniquity shall not be blotted out till ye die, saith the Lord of hosts.”*^ And some wise per- sons have affirmed, that Jacob related to this in his expression and appellatives of God, whom he called “ the God of Abraham, and the fear of his father Isaac,” 1 because, as the doctors of the Jews tell us, Abraham, being dead, was ascribed into the final condition of God’s family; but Isaac, being living, had apprehensions of God, not only of a pious, but also of a tremulous fear : he was not sure of his own condition, much less of the degrees of his re- conciliation, how far God had forgiven his sins, and how far he had retained them. And it is certain, that if every degree of the Divine favour be not assured by a holy life, those sins, of whose pardon we were most hopeful, return in as full vigour and clamorous importunity as ever, and are made more vocal by the appendant ingratitude, and other acci- dental degrees. And this Christ taught us by a parable : for as the lord made his uncharitable servant pay all that debt which he had formerly forgiven him; even “ so will God do to us, if we, from our hearts, forgive not one another their tres- passes.”"^ “ Behold the goodness and severity of God,” saith St. Paul : “ on them which fell, se- verity ; but on thee goodness, if thou continue in that goodness ; otherwise thou shalt be cut off. For this is my covenant which I shall make with them, when I shall take away their sins.” " And if this be true in those sins which God certainly hath forgotten, such as were all those which were committed before our illumination ; much rather is it true in those which we committed after, concern- ing whose actual and full pardon we cannot be cer- tain without a revelation. So that our pardon of sins, when it is granted after the breach of our covenant, is just so secure as our perseverance is : concerning which, because we must ascertain it as well as we can, but ever with fear and trembling, so also is the estate of our pardon hazardous, condi- tional, revocable, and uncertain ; and, therefore, the best of men do, all their lives, ask pardon, even of those sins for which they have wept bitterly, and done the sharpest and severest penance. And, if it be necessary, we pray that we may not enter into temptation, because temptation is full of danger, and the danger may bring a sin, and the sin may ruin us : it is also necessary that we understand the condition of our pardon to be, as is the condition of our person, variable as will, sudden as affections, alterable as our purposes, revocable as our own good intentions, and then made as ineffective as our in- clinations to good actions. And there is no way to secure our confidence and our hope, hut by being perfect, and holy, and pure, as our heavenly Father Isaiah xxii. 14. ' Gen. xxxi. 42. Matt, xviii. 35. Rom. xi. 22, 27. " METafiiXeia. P MiTuvoia, M.£Tuiuu\i]^ti^ ETriarpExJ/E, cui in Act. Apost. is ; that is, in the sense of human capacity, free I from the habits of all sin, and active, and industrious, ! and continuing in the ways of godliness. For upon | this only the promise is built, and by our proportion i; to this state we must proportion our confidence ; we have no other revelation. Christ reconciled us to his Father upon no other conditions, and made the : covenant upon no other articles, but of a holy life, in obedience universal and perpetual : and the abate- ments of the rigorous sense of the words, as they are such as may infinitely testify and prove his mercy, so they are such as must secure our duty \ and habitual graces ; an industry manly, constant, and Christian : and because these have so great latitude, (and to what degrees God will accept our j returns, he hath no where punctually described,) he ; that is most severe in his determination does best ' secure himself, and, by exacting the strictest account I of himself, shall obtain the easier scrutiny at the ' hands of God. The use I make of this considera- , tion, is to the same purpose with the former ; for if ' every day of sin, and every criminal act, is a degree | of recess from the possibilities of heaven, it would | be considered at how great distance a death-bed i penitent, after a vicious life, may apprehend himself ! to stand for mercy and pardon : and since the terms ! of restitution must, in labour, and in extension of .j time, or intention of degrees, be of value great enough to restore him to some proportion or equiva- ' lence with that state of grace from whence he is i fallen, and upon which the covenant was made with 'I him ; how impossible, or how near to impossible, it will appear to him to go so far and do so much in that state, and in those circumstances of disability. ,\ 32. Concerning the third particular, I consider : that repentance, as it is described in Scripture, is a - system of holy duties, not of one kind, not properly consisting of parts, as if it were a single grace ; but ,i it is the reparation of that estate into which Christ ^ first put us, “ a renewing us in the spirit of our j) mind,” so the apostle calls it ; and the Holy Ghost J hath taught this truth to us by the implication of many appellatives, and also by express discourses. For there is in Scripture a “ repentance to be re- *1 pented of,”" and a “ repentance never to be repented of.”P The first is mere sorrow for what is past, an inefiective trouble, producing nothing good ; such as was the repentance of Judas, “ he repented, and hanged himself ;” and such was that of Esau, when it was too late ; and so was the repentance of the five foolish virgins: which examples tell us also when ours is an impertinent and ineffectual repent- ance. To this repentance pardon is no where pro- mised in Scripture. But there is a repentance which is called “ conversion, or amendment of life,” a repentance productive of holy fruits, such as the Baptist and our blessed Saviour preached, such as himself also propounded in the example of the ’ Ninevites;^ they “ repented at the preaching of Jonah,” that is, “ they fasted, they covered them in opponitur p.ETavoijcraTE ovv Kai ETrurTpExj/aTE, Acts iii. 19. ■ Huic enim promittitur peccatorum remissio in seq. ets to : E^u\ELvy>i, Kal a/ne'ra/uLaXi'iTOv 7) 7 rpu)Tr] TrapaauEvi] — Sin oute irpocrSoKiai^ twu XayojUE- vtov aya^MU to ovtod^ aya^ou av 'iraplSij, ovte ■ Tob. iv. 10. * 1 John iii. 3. ' Rom. V. 5. “1 Tim. iv. 8. ^ Gal. vi. 1. benefit, because, in all ages, wise men and severe penitents have chosen them for their instruments. THE PRAYER. 0 eternal God, who wert pleased in mercy to look upon us when we were in our blood, to reconcile us when we were enemies, to forgive us in the midst of our provocations of thy infinite and eter- nal majesty, finding out a remedy for us which mankind could never a.sk, even making an atone- ment for us by the death of thy Son, sanctifying us by the blood of the everlasting covenant and thy all-hallowing and divine Spirit ; let thy graces so perpetually assist and encourage my endea- vours, conduct my will, and fortify my intentions, that I may persevere in that holy condition which thou hast put me in by the grace of the covenant, and the mercies of the holy Jesus. O let me never fall into those sins, and retire to that vain conversation, from which the eternal and merciful Saviour of the world hath redeemed me ; but let me grow in grace, adding virtue to virtue, reducing my purposes to act, and increasing my acts till they grow into habits, and my habits till they be confirmed, and still confirming them till they be consummate in a blessed and holy perseverance. Let thy preventing grace dash all temptations in their approach ; let thy concomitant grace enable me to resist them in the assault, and overcome them in the fight : that my hopes be never discom- posed, nor my faith weakened, nor my confidence made remiss, nor my title and portion in the cove- nant be lessened. Or if thou permittest me at any time to fall, (which, holy Jesu, avert, for thy mercy and compassion’s sake,) yet let me not sleep in sin, but recall me instantly by the clamours of a nice and tender conscience, and the quickening sermons of the Spirit, that I may never pass from sin to sin, from one degree to another ; lest sin should get the dominion over me, lest thou be angry with me, and reject me from the covenant, and I perish. Purify me from all uncleanness, sanctify my spirit that I may be holy as thou art, and let me never provoke thy jealousy, nor presume upon thy goodness, nor distrust thy mercies, nor defer my repentance, nor rely upon vain con- fidence ; but let me, by a constant, sedulous, and timely endeavour, make my calling and election sure, living to thee and dying to thee ; that, having sowed to the Spirit, I may from thy mercies reap in the Spirit bliss, and eternal sanctity, and everlasting life, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour, our hope, and our mighty and ever glorious Redeemer. Amen. Upon Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, and of the Eisht Beatitudes. 1. The holy Jesus, being entered upon his pro- phetical office, in the first solemn sermon gave y Vide Disc, of Mortification, Part i. and Disc, of Fasting, Part ii. Sect. XII. CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE EIGHT BEATITUDES. 191 testimony that lie was not only an interpreter of laws then in being, hut also a Lawgiver, and an Angel of the new and everlasting covenant; which because God meant to establish with mankind by the medi- ation of his Son, by his Son also he now began to publish the conditions of it : and that the publication of the Christian law might retain some proportion, at least, and analogy of circumstance, with the pro- mulgation of the law of Moses, Christ went up into a mountain, and from thence gave the oracle. And here he taught all the disciples ; for what he was now to speak was to become a law, a part of the condition on which he established the covenant, and founded our hopes of heaven. Our excellent and gracious Lawgiver, knowing that the great argument in all practical disciplines is the proposal of the end, which is their crown and their reward, begins his sermon, as David began his most divine collection of hymns, with “blessedness.” And having enume- rated eight duties, which are the rule of the spirits of Christians, he begins every duty with a beatitude, and concludes it with a reward ; to manifest the rea- sonableness, and to invite and determine our choice to such graces which are circumscribed with felici- ties, which have blessedness in present possession, and glory in the consequence, which, in the midst of the most passive and afflictive of them, tells us that we are blessed, which is indeed a felicity, as a hope is good, or as a rich heir is rich, who, in the midst of his discipline, and the severity of tutors and governors, knows he is designed to, and certain of, a great inheritance. 2. The eight beatitudes, which are the duty of a Christian and the rule of our spirit, and the special discipline of Christ, seem like so many paradoxes and impossibilities reduced to reason ; and are in- deed virtues made excellent by rewards, by the sublimity of grace, and the mercies of God, hallow- ing and crowning those habits which are despised by the world, and are esteemed the conditions of lower and less considerable people. But God “ sees not as man sees,” and his rules of estimate and judgment are not borrowed from the exterior splen- dour, which is apt to seduce children, and cozen fools, and please the appetites of sense and abused fancy ; but they are such as he makes himself, ex- cellencies which, by abstractions and separations from things below, land us upon celestial appetites. And they are states of suffering rather than states of life: for the great employment of a ehristian being to bear the cross, Christ laid the pedestal so low, that the rewards were like rich mines interred in the deeps and inaccessible retirements, and did choose to build our felicities upon the torrents and violences of affliction and sorrow. Without these graces we cannot get heaven, and without sorrow and sad accidents we cannot exercise these graces. Such are, 3. First : “ Blessed are the poor in spirit ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” Poverty of spirit is in respect of secular affluence and abundance, or in respect of great opinion and high thoughts ; ‘‘ either of which have divers acts and offlees. That the first is one of the meanings of this text is cer- tain, because St. Luke, repeating this beatitude, delivers it plainly, “ Blessed are the poor ;” and to it he opposes riches. And our blessed Saviour^ speaks so suspiciously of riches and rich men, that he represents the condition to be full of danger and temptation: and St. James'^ calls it full of sin; describing rich men to be oppressors, litigious, proud, spiteful, and contentious ; which sayings, like all others of that nature, are to be understood in common and most frequent accidents, not regu- larly, but very improbable to be otherwise. For if we consider our vocation, St. Paul informs us, that “ not many mighty, not many noble, are called ;” but “ God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith :” and how “ hard it is for a rich man to enter into heaven,” our great Master hath taught us, by saying, “ It is more easy for a. camel to pass through a needle’s eye.” And the reason is, because of the infinite temptation which riches minister to our spirits ; it being such an opportunity of vices, thai nothing remains to countermand the act, but a strong, resolute, unaltered, and habitual purpose, and pure love of virtue ; riches, in the mean time, offering to us occasions of lust, fuel for revenge, instruments of pride, entertainment of our desires, engaging them in low, worldly, and sottish appetites, inviting us to show our power in oppression, our greatness in vanities, our wealth in prodigal ex- penses, and to answer the importunity of our lusts, not by a denial, but by a correspondence and satis- faction, till they become our mistresses, imperious, arrogant, tyrannical, and vain.® But poverty is the sister of a good mind ; it ministers aid to wisdom, industry to our spirit, severity to our thoughts, so- berness to our counsels, modesty to our desires ; it restrains extravagancy and dissolution of appetites ; the next thing above our present condition, which is commonly the object of our wishes, being tem- perate, and little proportionable enough to nature, not wandering beyond the limits of necessity or a moderate conveniency, or at farthest, but to a free refreshment, and recreation. And the cares of poverty are single and mean, rather a fit employ- ment to correct our levities, than a business to impede our better thoughts ; since a little thing sup- plies the needs of nature, and the earth and the a b c TlpOKO-TTri TTpOKOTril TaTTEtyaXTEW?. Luke vi. 20. Luke vi. 24. James ii. 6, &c. v. 1, &c. ® Nulli fortunae minus bene quam optimae creditur. AliS, felicitate ad tuendam felicitatem est opus. — Senec. Q(^e\es, (b 'TV(pXa 'TtXov'ts, fxri'r' kv yy, /ulv't' kv SraXaTTy, fiV'T ev yTTELpM (pavyvai, d\X.d TapTapov te vdsiv Kal dy^kpov- did are ydp TravTakv avdpunroL 'rapa’x^fji/ IvoiKovcrav avTU)v Tais x]!/wx«U.— S. Basil, in Psal. 33. Mansuetus et aequus secundum Arist. est f fxi'rpio?, et aTvyosv fx.i.yaK6\^v')(o^, VOL. T. I 93 indifference to any exterior accident, a being recon- ciled to all conditions and instances of Providence, a reducing ourselves to such an evenness and interior satisfaction, that there is the same conformity of spirit and fortune by complying with my fortune, as if my fortune did comply with my spirit.® And, therefore, in the order of beatitudes, meekness is set between mourning and desire, that it might balance and attemper those actions by indifference, which, by reason of their abode, are apt to the trans- portation of passion.*^ The reward expressed is “ a possession of the earth,” that is, a possession of all which is excellent here below, to consign him to a future glory, as Canaan was a type of heaven. For meekness is the best cement and combining of friendships, it is a great endearment of us to our company. It is an ornament to have “ a meek and quiet spirit,”" a prevention of quarrels, and pacifier of wrath ; ^ it purchaseth peace, and is itself a quietness of spirit : it is the greatest affront to aP injuries in the world ; for it returns them upon the injurious, and makes them useless, ineffective, and innocent; and is an antidote against all the evil consequents of anger and adversity, and tramples upon the usurping passions of the irascible faculty. 9. But the greatest part of this paysage and landscape is sky : and as a man, in all countries, can see more of heaven than of the earth he dwells on ; so also he may in this promise. For although the Christian hears the promise of “ the inherit- ance of the earth,” yet he must place his eye, and fix his heart, upon heaven, which, by looking down- ward also upon this promise, as in a vessel of lim- pid water, he may see by reflection, without looking upwards by a direct intuition. It is heaven that is designed by this promise, as well as by any of the rest; though this grace takes in also the refresh- ments of the earth by equivalence, and a suppletory design. But “ here we have no abiding city,” and therefore, no inheritance ; this is not our country, and therefore here cannot be our portion ; unless we choose, as did the prodigal, to go into a strange country, and spend our portion with riotous and beastly living, and forfeit our Father’s blessing. The devil, carrying our blessed Saviour to a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world ; but, besides that they were offered upon ill conditions, they were not eligible by him upon any. And neither are they to be chosen by us for our in- heritance and portion evangelical : for the gospel is founded upon ‘‘ better promises,” and therefore, the hopes of a Christian ought not to determine "0(Tcra TE Sai/uLOvnicTL Tvxai^ /SpoToi dXys ’ ’ixovaiu, 'Qv av /uLOipav irpaco? (pipE, p.-pS’ dyavaKTEi. Pythag. Carm. Aur. .dSquam memento rebus in arduis Servare mentem; non secus in bonis Ab insolenti temperatam Laetitia, moriture Deli. Horat. Carm. lib. ii. Od. 3. Quern res plus nimio delectavere secundee, Mutatae quatient. Ad Fuse. “ 1 Pet. iii. 4. ^ O Oupos cpovcov aLTLOv, auppopd^ cvpfxaxov, (3\dl3ri9 (yvvEpyov Kal d-rt/xtas, dTrwXEta, e/tl Se kuI epdopd^ dpxv ' ydi ,'. — Aristot. o i94 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE EIGHT BEATITUDES. Part H. upon any thing less than heaven. Indeed our blessed Saviour chose to describe this beatitude in the words of the Psalmist, so inviting his disciples to an excellent precept, by the insinuation of those Scriptures which themselves admitted. But as the earth, which was promised to the meek man in David’s psalm, was no other earth but the terra promissionis, the land of Canaan ; if we shall re- member that this land of promise was but a transi- tion and an allegory to a greater and more noble, that it was but a type of heaven, we shall not see cause to wonder why the holy Jesus, intending heaven for the reward of this grace also, together with the rest, did call it “ the inheritance of the earth.” For now is revealed to us “ a new heaven and a new earth, a habitation made without hands, eternal in the heavens.” And he understands no- thing of the excellency of Christian religion, whose affections dwell below, and are satisfied with a por- tion of dirt and corruption. “ If we be risen with Christ, let us seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.” But if a Christian desires to take possession of this earth in his way, as his inheritance or portion, he hath reason to fear it will be his all. We have but one inheritance, one country ; and here we are “ strangers and pilgrims.” Abraham told Dives that he had “enjoyed his good things here;” he had “ the inheritance of the earth,” in the crass material sense; and, therefore, he had no other portion but what the devils have. And when we remember that persecution is the lot of the church, and that poverty is her portion, and her quantum is but “food and raiment” at the best, and that pa- tience is her support, and hope her refreshment, and self-denial her security, and meekness is all her possession and title to a subsistence ; it will appear certain, that as Christ’s “ kingdom is not of this world,” so neither shall his saints have their por- tion in that which is not his kingdom. They are miserable if they do not reign with him, and he never reigned here ; but “ if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him” hereafter. True it is, Christ promised to him that should lose any interest for his sake, the restitution of “ a hundred-fold in this world.” But as the sense of that cannot be literal, for he cannot receive a hun- dred mothers or a hundred wives ; so whatsoever that be, it is to be enjoyed “ with persecution.” And then such a portion of the earth as Christ hath expressed in figure, and shall, by way of recom- pence, restore us, and such a recompence as we can enjoy with persecution, and such an enjoyment as is consistent with our having lost all our temporals, and such an acquist and purchase of it as is not destructive of the grace of meekness ; all that we may enter into our account as part of our lot, and the emanation from the holy promise. But in the foot of this account we shall not find any great afflu- ence of temporal accruements. However it be, although when a meek man hath earthly possessions. Non si male nunc, ct olirn Sic erit Rebus angustis animosus atque by this grace he is taught how to use them, and how to part with them ; yet if he hath them not, by the virtue here commanded, he is not suffered to use any thing violent towards the acquiring them, not so much as a violent passion, or a stormy imagin- ation ; for then he loses his meekness, and whatever he gets can be none of the reward of this grace. He that fights for temporals (unless by some other appendant duty he be obliged) loses his title, by striving incompetently for the reward; he cuts off that hand by which alone he can receive it. For unless he be indeed meek, he hath no right to what he calls “ the inheritance of the earth ;” and he that is not content to want the inheritance of the earth when God requires him, is not meek. So that if this beatitude be understood in a temporal sense, it is an offer of a reward upon a condition we shall be without it, and be content too : for, in every sense of the word, meekness implies a just satisfac- tion of the spirit, and acquiescence in every estate or contingency whatsoever, though we have no pos- sessions but of a good conscience, no bread but that of carefulness, no support but from the Holy Spirit, and a providence ministering to our natural neces- sities, by an extemporary provision. And certain it is, the meekest of Christ’s servants, the apostles and the primitive Christians, had no other verifica- tion of this promise but this, that “ rejoicing in tribulation, and knowing how to want, as well as how to abound, through many tribulations they entered into the kingdom of heaven for that is the country in which they are co-heirs with Jesus, But if we will certainly understand what this reward is, we may best know it by understanding the duty ; and this we may best learn from him that gave it in commandment. “ Learn of me, for I am meek,” said the holy Jesus: and to him was promised, that “ the uttermost ends of the earth should be his inheritance ;” and yet he died first, and went to heaven, before it was verified to him in any sense, but only of content, and desire, and joy in suffering, and in all variety of accident. And thus also, if we be meek, we may receive the inheritance of the earth. 10. The acts of this grace are: 1. To submit to all the instances of Divine Providence,^ not repining at any accident which God hath chosen for us, and given us as part of our lot, or a punishment of our deserving, or an instrument of virtue ; not envying the gifts, graces, or prosperities of our neighbours. 2. To pursue the interest and employment of our calling in which we are placed, not despising the meanness of any work, though never so dispropor- tionable to our abilities. 3. To correct all malice, wrath, evil-speaking, and inordinations of anger, whether in respect of the object or the degree. 4. At no hand to entertain any thoughts of revenge or retaliation of evil. 5. To be affable and courteous in our deportment towards all persons of our society and intercourse. 6. Not to censure or reproach the weakness of our neighbour, but support his burden, Fortis appare : sapienter idem Contrahes vento nimium secundo Turgida vela.— Hor. lib. ii. Od. 10. Sect. XII. CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE EIGHT BEATITUDES. 195 cover and cure his infirmities. 7. To excuse what may be excused, lessening severity, and being gentle in reprehension. 8. To be patient in afflictions, and thankful under the cross. 9. To endure re- proof, with shame at ourselves for deserving it, and thankfulness to the charitable physician that offers the remedy.'^ 10. To be modest and fairly man- nered toward our superiors, obeying, reverencing, speaking honourably of, and doing honour to, aged persons, and all whom God hath set over us, ac- cording to their several capacities. 11. To be ashamed and very apprehensive of the unworthiness of a crime ; at no hand losing our fear of the in- visible God, and our reverence to visible societies, or single persons.^ 12. To be humble in our ex- terior addresses and behaviour in churches and all holy places. 13. To be temperate in government, not imperious, unreasonable, insolent, or oppressive, lest we provoke to wrath those, whose interest of person and of religion we are to defend or promote. 14. To do our endeavour to expiate any injury we did, by confessing the fact, and offering satisfaction, and asking forgiveness. 11. Fourthly: “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness ,* for they shall be filled.” This grace is the greatest indication of spiritual health, when our appetite is right, strong, and regular ; when we are desirous of spiritual nourishment, when we long for manna, and “ follow Christ for loaves,” not of a low and terrestrial gust, but of that “ bread which came down from heaven,” Now there are two sorts of holy repast which are the proper objects of our desires. The bread of heaven, which is proportioned to our hunger ; that is, all those immediate emanations from Christ’s pardon of our sins, and redemption from our former conversation, holy laws, and commandments. To this food there is also a spiritual beverage to quench our thirst : and this is the effects of the Holy Spirit, who first “ moved upon the waters ” of baptism, and afterwards became to us “ the breath of life,” giving us holy inspirations and assistances, refreshing our wearinesses, cooling our fevers, and allaying all our intemperate passions, making us holy, humble, re- signed, and pure, “ according to the pattern in the mount,” even “ as our Father is pure.” So that the first redemption and pardon of us by Christ’s merits is the bread of life, for which we must hun- ger ; and the refreshments and daily emanations of the Spirit, who is the spring of comforts and pu- rity, is that drink which we must thirst after : a being first reconciled to God by Jesus, and a being sanctified and preserved in purity by the Holy Spirit, is the adequate object of our desires. Some, to hunger and thirst best, fancy the analogy and proportion of the two sacraments, the waters of baptism, and the food of the eucharist; some, the ^ Upw'Tov aya^Mv, to avafxdp'n^Tov' SEiWepov ok, alcrv^uvaL. Melis. Disc. 19. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur quam qui maxime laudari merentur.— Plin. lib, vii. c. 10. OpacrvarTOfiELV yap ov irpiirti tows 'daaovu'S. — .iEsCH. Tke- Tl^£9. ^ Salva res est, propter speixi salutis quam promittit indoles erubescentis Co m ce d . o 2 bread of the patin, and the wine of the chalice. But it is certain they signify one desire, expressed by the most impatient and necessary of our appe- tites, hungering and thirsting. And the object is whatsoever is the principle or the effect, the be- ginning, or the way, or the end of righteousness ; that is, the mercies of God, the pardon of Jesus, the graces of the Spirit, a holy life, a holy death, and a blessed eternity. 12. The blessing and reward of this grace is fulness or satisfaction : which relates immediately to heaven, because nothing here below can satisfy us. The grace of God is our viaticum, and enter- tains us by the way ; its nature is to increase, not to satisfy, the appetites : not because the grace is empty and unprofitable, as are the things of the world ; but because it is excellent, but yet in order to a greater perfection ; it invites the appetite by its present goodness, but it leaves it unsatisfied, be- cause it is not yet arrived at glory : and yet the present imperfection in respect of all the good of this world’s possession, is rest and satisfaction, and is imperfect only in respect of its own future com- plement and perfection ; and our hunger continues, and our needs return, because all we have is but an antepast. But the glories of eternity are also the proper object of our desires; that is the re- ward of God’s grace, this is “ the crown of right- eousness.” “ As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness ; and when I awake up after thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it.”*^ The acts of this virtue are multiplied according to its object ; for they are only, 1. to desire, and 2. pray for, and 3. labour for, all that which is righteousness in any sense : 1 . for the pardon of our sins ; 2. for the graces and sanctification of the Spirit; 3. for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom; 4. for the recep- tion of the holy sacrament, and all the instruments, ordinances, and ministries of grace ; 5. for the grace of perseverance ; 6. and finally, for the crown of righteousness. 13. Fifthly: “Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy.” Mercy is the greatest mark and token of the holy, elect, and predestinate persons in the world. “ Put ye on, my beloved, as the elect of God, the bowels of mercy, holy and precious.” For mercy is an attribute, in the manifestation of which as all our happiness con- sists,^ so God takes greatest complacency and de- lights in it above all his other works. “ He pun- ishes to the third and fourth generation, but shows mercy unto thousands.” Therefore the Jews say, that Michael flies with one wing, and Gabriel with two ; meaning, that the pacifying angel, the minis- ter of mercy, flies swift, but the exterminating an- gel, the messenger of wrath, is slow. And we are called to our approximation to God by the practice Pj^pdcrKcoi^ o’ dcTTolm p.ETaTTpi'irti, ovSk Tts avTov HXdiTTEiv ov8’ dtoov's ovSk oi/crje kSrtXsi. — Theog. Psalm xvii. 15. ^ iii, }2. Neque enim sunt isti audiendi qui virtutem duram et quasi ferream esse volunt; qua? quidem est cum in multis re- bus, turn in amicitia, tenera atque tractabilis, ut et bonis amici quasi diffundantur, et incommodis contrahantur.— LiELies apud M. T. Cic. 19G CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE EIGHT BEATITUDES. Part II. of tliis grace ; for we are made “ partakers of the Divine nature ” by being “ merciful as our hea- venly Father is merciful.” This mercy consists in the affections, and in the effects and actions. In both which the excellency of this Christian precept is eminent above the goodness of the moral pre- cept of the old philosophers, and the piety and charity of the Jews by virtue of the Mosaic law. The Stoic philosophers affirm it to be the duty of a wise man to succour and help the necessities of in- digent and miserable persons ; but at no hand to jDity them, or suffer any trouble or compassion in our affections : for they intended that a wise per- son should be dispassionate, unmoved, and without disturbance in every accident, and object, and con- cernment. But the blessed Jesus, who came to re- concile us to his Father, and purchase us an entire possession, did intend to redeem us from sin, and make our passions obedient and apt to be com- manded, even and moderate in temporal affairs, but high and active in some instances of spiritual con- cernment; and in all instances, that the affection go along with the grace ; that we must be as mer- ciful in our compassion, as compassionate in our exterior expressions and actions. The Jews, by the prescript of their law, were to be merciful to all their nation and confederates in religion ; and this their mercy was called justice : “ He hath dispersed abroad and given to the poor, his righteousness (or justice) remaineth for ever.” But the mercies of a Christian are to extend to all : “ Do good to all men, especially to the household of faith.” ® And this diffusion of a mercy, not only to brethren, but to aliens and enemies, is that which St. Paul calls goodness,” ^ still retaining the old appellative for Judaical mercy, “ righteousness:” “For scarcely for a righteous g man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some will even dare to die.” So that the Christian mercy must be a mercy of the whole man, the heart must be merciful, and the hand operating in “ the labour of love ;” and it must be extended to all persons of all capacities, accord- ing as their necessity requires, and our ability per- mits, and our endearments and other obligations dispose of and determine the order. 14. The acts of this grace are: 1. To pity the miseries of all persons, and all calamities, spiritual or temporal, having a fellow-feeling in their afflic- tions. 2. To be afflicted and sad in the public judgments imminent or incumbent upon a church, or state, or family. 3. To pray to God for remedy for all afflicted persons. 4. To do all acts of bodily as- sistance to all miserable and distressed people, to relieve the poor, to redeem captives, to forgive debts to disabled persons, to pay debts for them, to lend them money, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, to rescue persons from dangers, to defend and relieve the oppressed, to comfort widows and fatherless children, to help them to right that suffer wrong ; and, in brief, to do any thing of relief, sup- ® Gal. vi. 10. ^ Rom. v. 7. s Syrus interpres non legit ifirkp ^iKalov, sed aS'u Tw SiKaitp yap fiiy' (ppoveii/. — SoPHOC. Ajac. 204 OF THE DECALOGUE. Part II. we divide between him and sin, and God is not the Lord of all our faculties. But the instances of Scrip- ture are the best exposition of this commandment; for David “ followed God with all his heart, to do that which was right in his eyes;”*! and Josiah “ turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might.”*^ Both these kings did it: and yet there was some imperfection in David, and more violent recessions : for so saith the Scripture of Josiah, “ Like unto him was there no king before him ;” David was not so exact as he, and yet he “ followed God with all his heart.” From which these two corollaries are certainly de- ducible : that to love God with all our heart admits variety of degrees, and the lower degree is yet a love with all our heart ; and yet to love God requires a holy life, a diligent walking in the commandments, either according to the sense of innocence or of penitence, either by first or second counsels, by the spirit of regeneration, or the spirit of renovation and restitution. The sum is this : the sense of this precept is such as may be reconciled with the infir- mities of our nature, but not with a vice in our manners ; with the recession of single acts, seldom done, and always disputed against, and long fought with, but not with an habitual aversation, or a ready obedience to sin, or an easy victory. 15. This commandment, being the sum of the first table, had, in Moses’s law, particular instances which Christ did not insert into his institution ; and he added no other particular, but that which we call the third commandment, concerning veneration and reverence to the name of God. The other two, viz. concerning images and the sabbath, have some special considerations. The Second Commandment. 16. The Jews receive daily offence against the catechisms of some churches, who, in the recitation of the decalogue, omit the second commandment, as supposing it to be a part of the first, according as we account them ; and their offence rises higher, because they observe, that in the New Testament, where the decalogue is six times repeated, in spe- cial recitation and in summaries, there is no word prohibiting the making, retaining, or respect of images.® Concerning which things Christians con- sider, that God forbade the Jews the very having and making images and representments, not only of the true God, or of false and imaginary deities, but of visible creatures,* which, because it was but of temporary reason, and relative consideration of their aptness to superstition, and their conversing with idolatrous nations, was a command proper to the nation, part of their covenant, not of essential, indispensable, and eternal reason, not of that which we usually call “ the law of nature.” Of which also God gave testimony, because himself com- manded the signs and representment of seraphim 1 1 Kings xiv. 8. *’2 Kings xxiii. 25. * 'O SoKL/iiov^ Kal 'y\a(pupa9 Tf.x^a9,'^u)ypa alvai TOP Oeoi/.— Diodor. Sic de Moyse. Sect. XII. OF THF DECALOGUE. 205 a history, and sometimes a precept, into a table, by figures making more lasting impressions than by words and sentences. While the church stood within these limits, she had natural reason for her warrant, and the custom of the several countries, and no precept of Christ to countermand it : they who went farther were unreasonable, and, accord- ing to the degree of that excess, were superstitious. 17 . The duties of this commandment are learn- ed by the intents of it : for it was directed against the false religion of the nations who believed the images of their gods to be filled with the Deity ; and it was also a caution, to prevent our low imagin- ations of God, lest we should come to think God to be like man." And thus far there was indispens- able and eternal reason in the precept : and this was never lessened in any thing by the holy Jesus, and obliges us Christians to make our addresses and worshippings to no God but the God of the Chris- tians, that is, of all the world ; and not to do this in or before an image of him, because he cannot be represented. For the images of Christ and his saints, they come not into either of the two con- siderations ; and we are to understand our duty by the proportions of our reverence to God, expressed in the great commandment. Our fathers in Chris- tianity, as I observed now, made no scruple of using the images and pictures of their princes and learn- ed men; which the Jews understood to be forbid- den to them in the commandment. Then they ad- mitted, even in the utensils of the church, some celatures and engravings ; such was that Tertullian speaks of, “ the good shepherd in the chalice.” Afterwards they admitted pictures, but not before the time of Constantine ; for in the council of Eli- beris they were forbidden. And in succession of time, the scruples lessened with the danger, and all the way they signified their belief to be, that this commandment was only so far retained by Christ as it relied upon natural reason, or was a particular instance of the great commandment ; that is, images were forbidden where they did dishonour God, or lessen his reputation, or estrange our duties, or be- came idols, or the direct matter of superstitious observances, charms, or senseless confidences; but they were permitted to represent the humanity of Christ, to remember saints and martyrs, to recount a story, to imprint a memory, to do honour and re- putation to absent persons, and to be the instru- ments of a relative civility and esteem. But, in this particular, infinite care is to be taken of scandal “ T61/ aopaTov tlKovoypaf^iLV 77 ^La'irXdcrcri.Lv ov\ ocriov . — Philo de Legatione. Prioribus 170 annis templa quidem aedificabant [Romani], simulacrum verq nullum effigiatum faciebant ; permde atque nefas esset meliora per deteriorum similitudines exprimere, — Plutarch. Numa. E'it} ydp sv 'TovTO fxovo? 3 "£os, 7 Tepii')(ov diravTa^ Kal yrjy KUL ^aXaTTav, o Ka\ovfif.v ovpavov, Kal KoapLOV, Kal aj3a)ptj/os £X£y£' to yct.p loaTTEp EK nrapaaKEvT]? ij.iXXr)(TLV e/uttolel, kul fiovXEva-aadaL SlSwo'i. Sect. XII. OF THE DECALOGUE. Galatians, and Corinthians.* But these oaths were only assertory. Tertullian afhrmeth, that Christians refused to swear by the genius of their prince, be- cause it was a demon ; but they sware by his health, and their solemn oath was by God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the majesty of the emperor. The fathers of the Ephesine council made Nestorius and Victor swear; and the bishops at Chalcedon sware by the health of their princes. But as St. Paul did it extra-judicially, when the glory of God was concerned in it, and the interest of souls ; so the Christians used to swear in a cause of piety and religion, in obedience, and upon public command, or for the ends of charity and justice, both with oaths promissory and assertory, as the matter re- quired: with this only difference, that they never did swear in the causes of justice or charity, but when they were before a magistrate ; but if it were in a cause of religion, and in matters of promise, they did indeed swear among themselves,, but al- ways to or in communities and societies, obliging themselves by oath not to commit wickedness, rob- beries, sacrilege, not to deceive their trust, not to detain the pledge ; which rather was an act of direct intercourse with God, than a solemn or reli- gious obligation to man. Which very thing Pliny also reports of the Christians. 20. The sum is this Since the whole subject matter of this precept is oaths promissory, or vows, all promises with oaths are regularly forbidden to Christians, unless they be made to God or God’s vicegerent, in a matter not trifling. For, in the first case, a promise made to God, and a swearing by God to perform the promise, to him is all one ; for the name of God being the instrument and determination of all our addresses, we cannot be supposed to speak to God without using of his name explicitly, or by implication : and therefore he that promises to God, makes a promise, and uses God’s name in the pro- mise ; the promise itself being in the nature of a prayer, or solemn invocation of God. In the second case, when the public necessity requires it, of which we are not judges, but are under authority, we find the lawfulness by being bound to believe, or not to contradict, the pretence of its necessity ; only care is to be taken that the matter be grave or religious, that is, it is to be esteemed and presumed so by us, if the oath be imposed by our lawful superiors, and to be cared for by them; or else it is soto be provided for by ourselves, when our intercourse is with God, as in vows and promises passed to God ; being careful that we do not offer to God goat’s hair, or the fumes of mushrooms, or the blood of swine ; that is, things either impious or vain. But in our communication, that is, in our ordinary intercourse > Rom. i. 9. 2 Cor. xi. 31. Gal. i. 20. To val Kai to ov crvWa^aL Buo' aX\’ o^tos to KpaTKTTOv Twv ayaQwv, 7j aXriQzLa, Kal 6 £cr)(ctTO? opos ' t?]? TTOi/tipLa?, to ^£u5os, TOiS' ^l/cpols pnfJiaCTL TToXXuKL^ £^7T£pt£-)(£Tat. — S. Basil, lib. de Spjr. S. Necessitas magnum humanse imbecilitatis praesidium; quic- quid cogit, excusat.— Sen. * Heb. vi. 16. ^ M?; ofxvvvai Qzov^ aaKslu yocp av'Tov Btlv u^LOTrLcrTOV Trapt- Xf ii”.- Hierocl. Vide Marc. Anton, in Descriptione Viri Boni, lib. iii. /ulvits 207 with men, we must promise by simple testimony, not by religious adjurations, though a creature be the instrument of the oath. 21. But this forbids not assertory oaths at all, or deposing in judgment ; for of this Christ speaks not here, it being the proper matter of another command- ment : and since (as St. Paul affirms) “ an oath is the end of all controversy,”^ and that the necessity of commonwealths requires that a period should be fixed to questions, and a rule for the nearest certainty for judgment ; whatsoever is necessary is not un- lawful ; and Christ, who came to knit the bonds of government faster by the stricture of more religious ties, cannot be understood to have given precepts to dissolve the instruments of judicature and prudent government. But concerning assertory oaths, although they are not forbidden, but supposed in the ninth commandment to be done before our judges in the cause of our neighbour; yet because they are only so supposed, and no way else mentioned, by permission or intimation, therefore they are to be estimated by the proportions of this precept con- cerning promissory oaths ; they may be taken in judgment and righteousness, but never lightly, never extra-judicially; only a less cause, so it be judicial, may authorize an assertory than a promissory oath ; because many cases occur, in which peace and justice may be concerned, which without an oath are inde- terminable, but there are but few necessities to confirm a promise by an oath. And therefore the reverence of the name of God ought not to be in- trenched upon in accidents of little or no necessity ; God, not having made many necessities in this case, would not, in the matter of promise, give leave to use his name but when an extraordinary case happens. An oath in promises is of no use for ending questions and giving judicial sentences ; and the faith of a Christian, and the word of a just per- son, will do most of the work of promises : and it is very much to the disreputation of our religion or ourselves, if we fall into hypocrisy or deceit, or if a Christian asseveration were not of value equal with an oath. And therefore Christ forbidding promis- sory oaths, and commanding so great simplicity of spirit and honesty, did consonantly to the design and perfection of his institution, intending to make us so just and sincere, that our religion being infinite ob- ligation to us, our own promises should pass for bond enough to others, and the religion receive great honour, by being esteemed a sufficient security and instrument of public intercourse.*** And this was intimated by our Lord himself, in that reason he is pleased to give of the prohibition of swearing : “ Let your communication be Yea, yea. Nay, nay ; for whatsoever is more, cometh of evil :”** that is, opKov BsofXEVO?' T(jjv Bikulcdu vaL iTa9. — iilER0CL. Cum tibi sint fratres, fratres ulciscere laesos : Cumque pater tibi sit, jura tuere patris. Necessaria preesidia vitae debentur nis maxime. CiCER. Offic. 3. Sect. XII. OF TIIK DECALO(UJE. fathers in the sense of Scripture and laws, not only to our natural, but to our civil fathers, that is, to kings and governors. And the Scripture adds, mothers; for they klso, being instruments of the blessing, are the objects of the duty. The duty is, “ honour that is, reverence, and support, if they shall need it. And that which our blessed Saviour calls, “ not honouring our parents,”^ in St. Matthew, is called in St. Mark, “ doing nothing for them and honour is expounded by St. Paul,^ to be “ main- tenance,” as well as “ reverence.” Then we honour our parents, if with great readiness we minister to their necessities, and communicate our estate, and attend them in sicknesses, and supply their wants, and, as much as lies in us, give them support, who gave us being. The Sixth Commandment. 27 . “ Thou shalt do no murder.”s So it was said to them of old time. He that kills shall be guilty of judgment ; that is, he is to die by the sentence of the judge. To this Christ makes an appendix : “ But I say unto you, he that is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment,” This addition of our blessed Saviour, as all the other, which are severer explica- tions of the law than the Jews admitted, was di- rected against the vain and imperfect opinion of the lawyers, who thought to be justified by their external works ; supposing, if they were innocent in matter of fact, God would require no more of them than man did ; and what, by custom or silence of the laws, was not punishable by the judge, was harmless before God; and this made them to trust in the letter, to neglect the duties of repentance, to omit asking pardon for their secret irregularities, and the obliquities and aversations of their spirits ; and this St. Paul also complains of, that, neglecting “ the righteousness of God, they sought to establish their own,”^^ that is, according to man’s judgment. But our blessed Saviour tells them, that such an inno- cence is not enough ; God requires more than con- formity, and observation of the fact, and exterior piety, placing justice not in legal innocency, or not being condemned in judgment of the law and human judicature, but in the righteousness of the spirit also : for the first acquits us before man, but by this we shall be held upright in judgment before the Judge of all the world. And therefore, besides ab- stinence from murder or actual wounds, Christ for- bids all “ anger without cause against our brother,” that is, against any man. 28. By which not the first motions are forbidden; the twinklings of the eye, as the philosophers call them, the propassions and sudden and irresistible alter- ations ; for it is impossible to prevent them, unless we could give ourselves a new nature,^ any more than we can refuse to wink with our eye when a sudden blow is offered at it ; or refuse to yawn when Matt. XV. 6. e Mark vii. 12. f 1 Tim. V. 17, 18. Foi/aa? TLfxi]cr(x>fjii.v v'rrep^cihiKovTW’s, (Tco^aTos v7n]pev VTraXkvio yap Tt Kaidj TrtXexat' KOV(p\\ fitv dtipai Pk7a ua\\ dpyaXk?] ok (fikpkiv, y^aXf'Trii d' aTroOkadai. Hesiod. "Epy. lib. ii. tion; but if it goes forth into the stranger regions of the body, it makes a fever : and this anger, which commences upon natural causes, though so far as it is natural it must needs be innocent, yet when any con- sent of the will comes to it, or that it goes forth in any action or voluntary signification, it also becomes criminal. Such an anger is only permitted to be born and die ; but it must never take nourishment, or exercise any act of life. 33. But if that prohibition be indefinite, then it is certain, the analogy of the commandment, of which this is an explication, refers it to revenge or malice: it is an anger that is wrath, an anger of revenge or injury, which is here prohibited. And I add this consideration : That since it is certain, that Christ intended this for an explication of the prohibition of homicide, the clause of “ without cause,” ^ seems less natural and proper. For it would intimate, that though anger of revenge is forbidden, when it is rash and unreasonable ; yet that there might be a case of being angry, with a purpose of revenge and recompence, and that in such a case it is permitted to them, to whom in all other it is denied, that is, to private persons ; which is against the meekness and charity of the gospel. More reasonable it is, that as no man might kill his brother, in Moses’s law, by his own private authority ; so an anger is here forbidden, such an anger which no qualification can permit to private persons ; that is, an anger with purposes of revenge. 34. But Christ adds, that a further degree of this sin is, when our anger breaks out in contumelies and iU language, and receives its increment accord- ing to the degree and injury of the reproach. There is a homicide in the tongue, as well as in the heart ; and he that kills a man’s reputation’^ by calumnies, or slander, or open reviling, hath broken this com- mandment. But this is not to be understood so, but that persons in authority, or friends,® may re- prehend a vicious person in language proper to his crime, or expressive of his malice or iniquity. Christ called Herod, “ fox and although St. Mi- chael “ brought not a railing accusation” against Satan, yet the Scripture calls him “ an accuser,” and Christ calls him “ the father of lies and St. Peter, “ a devourer,” and “ a roaring lion and St. John call Diotrephes, “ a lover of pre-eminence,” or ambitious. But that which is here forbidden, is not a representing the crimes of the man for his emendation, or any other charitable or religious end, but a reviling him to do him mischief, to murder his reputation; which also shows, that whatever is here forbidden is, in some sense or other, accounted * Insuevit pater optimus hoc me, Ut fugerem exemplis vitiorum quseque notaiido ■ Quum me hortaretur parce, frugaliter, atque Viverem uti contentus eo quod mi ipse parasset; N onne vides Albi ut male vivat filius, utque Barrus inops ? A turpi meretricis amore Ciim deterreret; Sectani dissimilis sis. Ne sequerer mcechas • Deprensi non bella est fama Treboni, Aiebat. Horat. Sat. iv. lib. i 214 OF THE DECALOGUE. Part IL homicide ; the anger in order to reproach, and both in order to murder, subject to the same punishment, because forbidden in the same period of the law ; save only that, according to the degrees of sin, Christ proportions several degrees of punishment in the other world, which he apportions to the de- grees of death which had ever been among the Jews, viz. the sword, and stoning to death, which were punishments legal and judicial ; and the burning infants in the valley of Hinnom, which was a barbarous and superstitious custom used formerly by their fathers, in imitation of the Phoenician ac- cursed rites. 35. The remedies against anger, which are pre- scribed by masters of spiritual life, are partly taken from rules of prudence, partly from piety, and more precise rules of religion. In prudence: 1. Do not easily entertain, or at all encourage, or willingly hear, or promptly believe, tale-bearers and reporters of other men’s faults : for oftentimes we are set on tire by an ignis fatiius, a false flame, and an empty story. 2. Live with peaceable people, if thou canst. 3. Be not inquisitive into the misdemeanours of others, or the reports which are made of you. 4. Find out reasons of excuse, to alleviate and lessen the igno- rances of a friend, or carelessnesses of a servant. 5. Observe what object is aptest to inflame thee, and, by special arts of fortification, stop up the avenues to that part. If losses, if contempt, if incivilities, if slander, still make it the greatest part of your employment to subdue the impotency of that pas- sion that is more apt to raise tempests. 6. Ex- tirpate petty curiosities of apparel, lodging, diet, and learn to be indifferent in circumstances ; and if you be apt to be transported with such little things, do some great thing, that shall cut off their frequent intervening. 7. Do not multiply secular cares, and troublesome negociations, which have variety of conversation with several humours of men, and accidents of things ; but frame to thyself a life, simple as thou canst, and free from all affectations. 8. Sweeten thy temper, and allay the violence of thy spirit, with some convenient, natural, temperate, and medicinal solaces; for some dispositions we have seen inflamed into anger, and often assaulted by peevishness, through immoderate fasting and incon- venient austerities. 9. A gentle answer is an ex- cellent remora to the progresses of anger, whether in thyself or others. For anger is like the waves of a troubled sea ; when it is corrected with a soft reply, as with a little strand, it retires, and leaves nothing behind it but froth and shells ; no permanent mischief.*^ 10. Silence is an excellent art: and that was the advice which St. Isaac," an old reli- gious person in the primitive church, is reported to have followed ; to suppress his anger within his breast, and use what means he could there to strangle it, but never permitting it to go forth in language. Anger and lust being like fire, which if * Tenninum etiam marinis fluctibus fkbricator descripsit; arena maris exigua saepe inter duas acies mtercapedo est : si reprimere iramnon potes, memento quia indignabundum mare nil ultra spumam et fluctuationem etfert.— Simocatta, you enclose, suffering it to have no emission, it perishes and dies ; but give it the smallest vent, and it rages to a consumption of all it reaches. And this advice is coincident with the general rule which is prescribed in all temptations, that anger be sup- pressed in its cradle and first assaults.’^ 1 1. Lastly : let every man be careful, that in his repentance, or in his zeal, or his religion, he be as dispassionate and free from anger as possible; lest anger pass upon him in a reflex act, which was rejected in the direct. Some mortifiers, in their contestation against anger, or any evil or troublesome principle, are like criers of assizes, who, calling for silence, make the greatest noise; they are extremely angry, when they are fighting against the habit or violent in- clinations to anger. 36. But, in the way of more strict religion, it is advised, 1. That he who would cure his anger should pray often. It is St. Austin’s counsel to the bishop Auxilius, that, like the apostles in a storm, we should awaken Christ, and call to him for aid, lest we shipwreck in so violent passions and impetuous disturbances. 2. Propound to thyself the example of meek and patient persons ; remembering always, that there is a family of meek saints, of which Moses is the precedent ; a family of patient saints, under the conduct of Job. Every one in the moun- tain of the Lord shall be gathered to his own tribe, to his own family, in the great day of jubilee : and the angry shall perish with the effects of anger; and peevish persons shall be vexed with the dis- quietness of an eternal worm, and sting of a vexa- tious conscience, if they suffer here the transporta- tions and saddest effects of an unmortified, habitual, and prevailing anger. 3. Above all things endea- vour to be humble, to think of thyself as thou deserves!, that is, meanly and unworthily ; and in reason, it is to be presumed, thou wilt be more patient of wrong, quiet under affronts and injuries, susceptive of inconveniences, and apt to entertain all adversities, as instruments of humiliation, de- leteries of vice, corrections of indecent passions and instruments of virtue. 4. All the reason, and all the relations, and all the necessities of mankind, are daily arguments against the violences and inor- dinations of anger. For he that would not have his reason confounded, or his discourse useless, or his family be a den of lions; he that would not have his marriage a daily duel, or his society trouble- some, or his friendship formidable, or his feasts bitter; he that delights not to have his discipline cruel, or his government tyrannical, or his disputa- tions violent, or his civilities unmannerly; or his charity be a rudeness, or himself brutish as a bear, or peevish as a fly, or miserable upon eveiy acci- dent, and in all the changes of his life, must mortify his anger. For it concerns us as much as peace, and wisdom, and nobleness, and charity, and felicity are worth, to be at peace in oiw breasts, and to be “ Ex quo factus sum monachus, statui apudme, ut iracundia extra guttur meum non procederet, dixit S. Isaac Ereinita. Melius enim est negare priinum irse introitum, etiam de causa probabili satis et gloriosa, quam admissam ejicere. — S. Aug. ad Profutunun. Sect. XII. OF THE DECALOGUE. 215 pleased with all God’s providence, and to be in charity with every thing, and with every man. The Seventh Commandment. 37 . “ Thou shalt not commit adultery.” These two commandments are immediate to each other, and of the greatest cognation ; for anger and lust work upon one subject; and the same fervours of blood which make men revengeful, will also make men unchaste.^ But the prohibition is repeated in the words of the old commandment: so “ it was said to them of old;” which was not only a prohi- bition of the violation of the rights of marriage, but was, even among the Jews, extended to signify all mixture of sexes not matrimonial. For adultery, in Scripture, is sometimes used to signify fornication, and fornication for adultery ; as it is expressed in the permissions of divorce, in the case of fornica- tion : and by Moses’s law, fornication also was for- bidden ; and it was hated also, and reproved, in the natural. But it is very probable, that this precept was restrained only to the instance of adultery in the proper sense, that is, violation of marriage ; for Moses did, in other annexes of the law, forbid for- nication. And as a blow or wound was not esteemed, in Moses’s law, a breach of the sixth command- ment ; so neither was any thing but adultery esteem- ed a violation of the seventh, by very many of their own doctors : of which I reckon this a sufficient probation, because they permitted stranger virgins and captives to fornicate ; only they believed it sin- ful in the Hebrew maidens. And when two harlots pleaded before Solomon for the bastard child, he gave sentence of their question, but nothing of their crime. Strangers,^ with the Hebrews, signified, many times, harlots ; because they were permitted to be such, and were entertained to such purposes. But these were the licenses of a looser interpreta- tion; God having, to all nations, given sufficient testimony of his detestation of all concubinate not hallowed by marriage : of which, among the nations, there was abundant testimony ; in that the harlots were not permitted to abide in the cities, and wore veils, in testimony of their shame and habitual in- decencies ; which we observe in the story of Thamar,*^ and also in Chrysippus. And, although it passed without punishment, yet never without shame, and a note of turpitude. And the abstinence from for- nication was* one of the precepts of Noah, to which the Jews obliged the stranger-proselytes, who were only proselytes of the house : and the apostles en- force it upon the gentiles, in their first decree at J erusalem, as renewing an old stock of precepts and obligations, in which all the converted and religious gentiles did communicate with the Jews. y Ubi furoris insederit virus, libidinis quoque incendium necesse est penetrare. — Cassian. Numquid ego a te Magno prognatam deposco Consule Velatamque stola, mea cum conferbuit ira? H ORAT. Serm. lib. i. Sat. 2. ^ Sevas vocarunt Graeci meretrices et peregrinas, ad morem et ad verbum Hebraeorum ; et Menandrum transferens, Teren- tius peregrinam vocat Andriam. 38. To this Christ added, that the eyes must not be adulterous ; his disciples must not only abstain from the act of unlawful concubinate, but from the impurer intuition of a wife of another man : so, according to the design of his whole sermon, op- posing the righteousness of the Spirit to that of the law, or of works, in which the Jews confided. Christians must have chaste desires, not indulging to themselves a liberty of looser thoughts ; keep- ing the threshold of their temples pure, that the Holy Ghost may observe nothing unclean in the entry of his habitation. For he that lusts after a woman wants nothing to the consummation of the act but some convenient circumstances ; which, because they are not in our power, the act is im- peded, but nothing of the malice abated. But so severe in this was our blessed Master, that he com- manded us rather to “ put our eyes out,” than to suffer them to become an offence to us, that is, an inlet of sin, or an invitation or tra,nsmission of im- purity : by “ putting our eyes out,” meaning the extinction of all incentives of lust, the rejection of all opportunities and occasions, the quitting all con- ditions of advantage which ministers fuel to this hell-fire. And by this severity we must understand all beginnings, temptations, likenesses, and insinua- tions and minutes of lust and impurity, to be for- bidden to Christians ; such as are all morose delec- tations in vanity, wanton words, gestures, balls, revellings, wanton diet, garish and lascivious dress- ings and trimmings of the body, looser banquetings : all “ making provisions for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts of it,” all lust of concupiscence, and all “ lust of the eye,” and all lust of the hand, unclean con- tracts, are to be rescinded, all lust of the tongue and palate, all surfeiting and drunkenness : for it is impossible to keep the spirit pure, if it be exposed to all the entertainment of enemies. And if Christ forbade the wanton eye, and placed it under the prohibition of adultery, it is certain, whatsoever ministers to that vice, and invites to it, is within the same restraint ; it is the eye, or the hand, or the foot, that is to be cut off. To this commandment fastings and severe abstinences are apt to be re- duced, as being the proper abscission of the instru- ments and temptations of lust, to which Christ invites by the mixed proposition of threatening and reward ; for “ better it is to go to heaven with but one eye, or one foot,” that is, with a body half nourished, than with full meals and an active lust to “ enter into hell.” And in this our blessed Lord is a Physician rather than a Lawgiver : for absti- nence from all impure concubinate, and morose delectations so much as in thought, being the com- mandment of God ; that Christ bids us retrench the occasions and insinuations of lust, it is a facilitating ^ Gen. xxxviii. 14. Nihil I'efert quibus membris adulteraveris, dixit Archesi- laus philosophus.— P lutarch. ’Apxv 'Tou £pa)T09 opao'19 .— Plato. Ut jam servaris bene corpus, adultera mens est: Omnibus exclusis intus adulter erit. -Ovid. Incesta estetiam sine stupro quae stuprum quaerit. — Seneca. YloSff u tot’ apa yivsTaL ixol\wv yivo^\ £/c (cpi^’tcovTos av- opn^ av df^po^iCTioiv. — Cleanthes 216 OP THE DECALOGUE. Part II. the duty, not a new severity, but a security and caution of prudence. The Eighth Commandment. 39. “ Thou shalt not steal.” To this precept Christ added nothing ; because God had already, in the decalogue, fortified this precept with a restraint upon the desires.*^ For the tenth commandment forbids all coveting of our neighbour’s goods for the wife there reckoned, and forbidden to be desired from another man, is not a restraint of libidinous appetite, but of the covetous ; it being accounted part of wealth to have a numerous family, many wives, and many servants : and this also God, by the prophet Nathan, upbraided to David, as an in- stance of David’s wealth and God’s liberality. But yet this commandment Christ adopted into his law, it being prohibited by the natural law, or the law of right reason, commonwealths not being able to subsist without distinction of dominion, nor industry to be encouraged but by propriety, nor families to be maintained but by defence of just rights and truly purchased possessions. And this prohibition extends to all injustice, whether done by force or fraud ; whether it be by ablation, or prevention, or detaining of rights ; any thing in which injury is done, directly or obliquely, to our neighbour’s for- tune.® The Ninth Commandment. 40. “ Thou shalt not bear false witness.” That is, thou shalt not answer in judgment against thy neighbour falsely : ^ which testimony, in the law, was given solemnly and by oath, invoking the name of God. “ I adjure thee by God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ,” said the high priest to the blessed Jesus, that is, speak upon thy oath ; and then he told them fully, though they made it the pretence of murdering him, and he knew they would do so. Confessing and witness- ing truth is giving glory to God : but false witness is high injustice, it is inhumanity and treason against the quietness, or life, or possession of a just per- son; it is in itself irregular and unreasonable, and, therefore, is so forbidden to Christians, not only as it is unjust, but as it is false. For a lie in com- munication and private converse is also forbidden, as well as unjust testimony ; § “ Let every man speak truth with his neighbour,”*^ that is, in pri- vate society : and whether a lie be in jest or earnest, when the purpose is to deceive and abuse, though c Crescit induLens sibi dirus hydrops, N ec sitim pellit, nisi causa morbi Fugerit venis, et aquosus albo Corpore languor. — Horat. lib. ii. Od. 2. O ydp TOt5 aWo'rpioL^ eTTi/cs^pi/ws, koivo? TroXstos €)(3'pds* /SouXucrtt /nkv TrdvTMV, Bwa/nsi Sk 'rd tmv n-ivtav dv ^Kt\f/7J (TV TTapl TOV, SvCTTVXh^ OTUV TVyiU — MeNAND. Amicitiam si ad fructum nostrum referemus, non ad illius commoda quern diligimus, non erit ista amicitia, sed mercatura quajdam utilitatum suarum : prata, et arva, et pecudum greges diliguntur isto modo, quod fructus ex eis OF NOT JUDGING. PART III. Another instance of charity our great Master inserted in this sermon, “ not to judge our brother :” and this is a charity so cheap and so reasonable, that it requires nothing of us but silence in our spirits. We may perform this duty at the charge of a negative ; if we meddle not with other men’s affairs, we shall do them no wrong, and purchase to ourselves a peace, and be secured the rather from the unerring sentence of a severe Judge. But this interdict forbids only such judging as is ungentle and uncharitable : in criminal causes, let us find all the ways to alleviate the burden of the man by just excuses, by extenuating or lessening accidents, by abatement of incident circumstances, by gentle sentences, and whatsoever can do relief to the per- son, that his spirit be not exasperated, that the crime be not the parent of impudence, that he be not in- sulted on, that he be invited to repentance, and, by such sweetnesses, he be led to his restitution. This also, in questions of doubts, obliges us to determine to the more favourable sense ; and we also do need the same mercies, and, therefore, should do well, by our own rigour, not to disentitle ourselves to such possibilities and reserves of charity.” But it is foul and base, by detraction and iniquity, to blast the reputation of an honourable action, and the fair name of virtue with a calumny. But this duty is also a part of the grace of justice and of humility, and, by its relation and kindred to so many virtues, is furnished with so many arguments of amity and endearment. THE PRAYER. Holy and merciful Jesus, who art the great prin- ciple and the instrument of conveying to us the charity and mercies of eternity, who didst love us when we were enemies, forgive us when we were debtors, recover us when we were dead, ransom us when we were slaves, relieve us when we were poor, and naked, and wandering, and full of sadness and necessities ; give us the grace of charity, that we may be pitiful and compassionate of the needs of our necessitous brethren, that we may be apt to relieve them, and that, according to our duty and possibilities, we may rescue them from their calamities. Give us courteous, affable, and liberal souls ; let us, by thy example, forgive our debtors, and love our enemies, and do to them offices of civility, and tenderness, and relief : always propounding thee for our pattern, and thy capiuntur ; hominum charitas et amicitia gratuita est Cicer. de Nat. Deor. lib. i. " Qui ne tuberibus propriis offendat amicum Postulat, ignoscat verrucis illius : aequum est Peccatis veniam poscentem, reddere rursus. Horat. lib. i. Sat. 3. Ne judices proximum, donee ad ejus locum pertingas. — Prov Judaeor. eheu Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam .' Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur; optimus ille est Qui minimis urgetur. Horat. ibid. Sect. XIF. OF PRAYER. 22.5 mercies for our precedent, and thy precepts for our rule, and thy Spirit for our guide ; that we, showing mercy here, may receive the mercies of eternity by thy merits, and by thy charities, and dispensation, O holy and merciful Jesus. Amen. DISCOURSE XII. Of the second additional Precept of Christ ; namely^ of Prayer. 1 . The soul of a Christian is the house of God : “Ye are God’s building,”^ saith St. Paul; but the house of God is the house of prayer : and, therefore, prayer is the work of the soul, whose organs are intended for instruments of the Divine praises ; and when every stop and pause of those instruments is but the conclusion of a collect, and every breathing is a prayer, then the body becomes a temple, and the soul is the sanctuary, and more private recess, and place of intercourse. Prayer is the great duty and the greatest privilege of a Christian; it is his intercourse with God, his sanctuary in troubles, his remedy for sins, his cure of griefs, and, as St. Gre- gory calls it, “ it is the principal instrument where- by we minister to God, in execution of the decrees of eternal predestination and those things which God intends for us, we bring to ourselves by the mediation of holy prayers. Prayer is the “ ascent of the mind to God, and a petitioning for such things as we need for our support and duty.” It is an abstract and summary of Christian religion. Prayer is an act of religion and Divine worship,*^ confessing his power and his mercy ; it celebrates his attri- butes, and confesses his glories, and reveres his per- son, and implores his aid, and gives thanks for his blessings : it is an act of humility, condescension, and dependence, expressed in the prostration of our bodies, and humiliation of our spirits : it is an act of charity, when we pray for others ; it is an act of repentance, when it confesses and begs pardon for our sins, and exercises every grace according to the design of the man, and the matter of the prayer. 50 that there will be less need to amass arguments to invite us to this duty ; every part is an excellence, and every end of it is a blessing, and every design is a motive, and every need is an impulsive to this holy office. Let us but remember how many needs we have, at how cheap a rate we may obtain their remedies, and yet how honourable the employment is, to go to God with confidence, and to fetch our supplies with easiness and joy ; and then, without * 1 Cor. iii. 9. ’AvdfSao'L^ vov tt/oos 0eov, Kal at'ryjaLS twv TTpoatiKouTcoi/ Trapd Geou. — Damasc. lib. iii. Orthodox. Fid. ^ Qui fingit sacros auro vel marmore vultus, N on facit ille deos : qui rogat, ille facit. ** Cujusmodi ridet Luciauus in Icaro-Menippo ; ~Q Zev, to ^atrtXtixraL fioL yivoLTo to Zso, to. Kpofifxva /jloi cf>vuaL Kal T« CTKopoSa' to Zev, tov Tra'Ttpa fioi 'rayiu}^ diro^avELV’ o 51 Tis dv (pairi, KXrjpovofjihaat fiz t^§ yvuaiKO?’ al^e Xu^oLfXL ETTL^ovXtvcra^ Tto dSaX<{)cS’ yivoLTO fioi viKtitrai tj;v SiKtji/, (y‘Taf/>.yt)i/ai to: oXv fjcir ia‘ twv 'TrXaov'rwv o fiau liopaai/ OV’x^a'To aTTLiruavcrai, 6 Si Notov' 6 Si yauppyo^ Sanrov^ b Si yvaav? riXiou. VOL. I, further preface, we may address ourselves to tlie understanding of that duty by which we imitate the employment of angels and beatified spirits, by which we ascend to God in spirit while we remain on earth, and God descends on earth while he yet re- sides in heaven, sitting there on the throne of his kingdom. 2. Our first inquiry must be concerning the matter of our prayers ; for our desires are not to be the rule of our prayers, unless reason and religion be the rule of our desires. The old heathens prayed to their gods for such things which they were ashamed to name publicly before men ; and these were their private prayers, which they durst not, for their in- decency or iniquity, make public. And, indeed, sometimes the best men ask of God things not un- lawful in themselves, yet very hurtful to them : and, therefore, as by the Spirit of God and right reason we are taught, in general, what is lawful to be asked ; so it is still to be submitted to God, when we have asked lawful things, to grant to us in kindness, or to deny us in mercy : after all the rules that can be given us, we not being able, in many instances, to judge for ourselves, unless also we could certainly pronounce concerning future contingencies. But the Holy Ghost being now sent upon the church, and the rule of Christ being left to his church, to- gether with his form of prayer, taught and prescribed to his disciples, we have sufficient instruction for the matter of our prayers, so far as concerns the lawfulness or unlawfulness. And the rule is easy and of no variety. 1. For we are bound to pray for all things that concern our duty, all that" we are bound to labour for ; such as are glory and grace, necessary assistances of the Spirit, and rewards spiritual, heaven, and heavenly things. 2. Con- cerning those things which we may, with safety, hope for, but are not matter of duty to us, we may lawfully testify our hope and express our desires by petition ; but if, in their particulars, they are under no express promise, but only conveniences of our life and person, it is only lawful to pray for them under condition, that they may conform to God’s will and our duty, as they are good, and placed in the best order of eternity. Therefore, 1. For spiritual blessings let our prayers be particularly importunate, perpetual, and persevering : 2. For temporal blessings let them be generally short, ^ conditional, and modest: .3. And whatsoever things are of a mixed nature, and more spiritual than riches, and less necessary than graces, such as are gifts and exterior aids, we may pray for them as we may de- sire them, and as we may expect them ; that is, with more confidence and less restraint than in the Si tacito mala vota susurro Concipimus Pulchra Laverna, Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri ; Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice nubem.— Horat ^ Si consilium vis, Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus, quid Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris ; Nam pro jucundis aptissima quaeque dabunt dii. Juvenal. Sat. x. .3^16. Exorari in perniciem rogantium, saeva benignitas est. • Multa petentibus Desunt multa. Bene est, cui Deus obtulit Pare.a, quod satis est, manu. Hor. lib. iii. Od. 16. Q 22G EXPOSITION OF THE LORD’S PRAYER. Part II. matter of temporal requests, but with more reserved- ness, and less boldness of petition, than when we pray for the graces of sanctification. In the first case w'e are bound to pray ; in the second, it is only lawful under certain conditions ; in the third, it be- comes to us an act of zeal, nobleness, and Christian prudence. But the matter of our prayers is best taught us in the form our Lord taught his disciples ; wLich, because it is short, mysterious, and like the treasures of the Spirit, full of wisdom and latent senses, it is not improper to draw forth those eX' cellencies, w^hich are intended and signified by every petition ; that, by so excellent an authority, we may know what it is lawful to beg of God. ^ 3. “ Our Father, which art in heaven.” The address reminds us of many parts of our duty. “ If God be our Father, where is” his fear, and reverence, and obedience ? “ If ye w^re Abraham’s children, § ye would do the works of Abraham;” and, “Ye are of your father, the devil, for his w^orks ye do.” Let us not dare to call him Father, if we be rebels and enemies ; but if we be obedient, then we know he is our Father, and will give us a child’s portion, and the inheritance of sons. But it is observable, that Christ, here speaking concerning private prayer, docs describe it in a form of plural signification ; to tell us, that we are to draw into the communication of our prayers all those who are confederated in the common relation of sons to the same Father. “ Which art in heaven,” tells us where our hopes and our hearts must be fixed, whither our desires and our prayers must tend. Sursum corda ; “ Where our treasure is, there must our hearts be also.” 4. “Hallowed be thy name.” That is, Let thy name, thy essence, and glorious attributes, be honoured and adored in all the world, believed by faith, loved by charity, celebrated with praises, thanked with eucharist ; and let thy name be hallowed in us, as it is in itself. Thy name being called upon us, let us walk worthy of that calling ; that “ our light may shine before men, that they, seeing our good works, may glorify thee, our Father, which art in heaven.” In order, also, to the sanctification of thy name, grant that all our praises, hymns, eucharistical remem- brances, and representments of thy glories, may be useful, blessed, and effectual, for the dispersing thy fame, and advancing thy hononr over all the world. This is a direct and formal act of worshipping and adoration. The name of God is representative of God himself, and it signifies : Be thou worshipped and adored, be thou thanked and celebrated, with honour and eucharist. 5. “ Thy kingdom come.” That is, As thou hast caused to be preached and published the coming of thy kingdom, the peace and truth, the revelation and glories, of the gospel ; so let it come verily and effectually to us, and all the world ; that thou mayest ^ Oratio haec, quantum substringitur verbis, tantum diffun- ditur sensibus. — T ertull. Evangelii Breviarum. Idem 1. de Orat. c. 1, Si tamen recte et congruenter oramus, nibil aliud dicere possumus quam quod in Oi’atione Dominica continetur. -S. Aug. ad Frat. in Erem. s Vir bonus vera Dei progenies. — Senec. de Provident. Kal Tov [xtv yivo^ kcrfxtv . — Men AND. truly reign in our spirits, exercising absolute do- minion, subduing all thine enemies, ruling in our faculties, in the understanding by faith, in the will by charity, in the passions by mortification, in the members by a chaste and right use of the parts. And as it was more particularly, and in the letter, proper at the beginning of Christ’s preaching, when he also taught the prayer, that God would hasten the coming of the gospel to all the world ; so now also, and ever it will be, in its proportion, necessary and pious, to pray that it may come still; making greater progress in the world, extending itself where yet it is not, and intending it where it is already ; that the kingdom of Christ may not only be in us, in name and form, and honourable appellatives, but in effect and power. This petition, in the first ages of Christianity, was not expounded to signify a prayer for Christ’s second coming; because, the gospel not being preached to all the world, they prayed for the delay of the day of judgment, that Christ’s kingdom upon earth might have its proper incre- ment: but since then, every age, as it is more forward in time, so it is more earnest in desire, to accomplish the intermedial prophecies, that the kingdom of God the Father might come in glories infinite. And, indeed, the kingdom of grace being in order to the kingdom of glory, this, as it is prin- cipally to be desired, so may possibly be intended chiefly : which, also, is the more probable, because the address of this prayer being to God the Father, it is proper to observe, that the kingdom of grace, or of the gospel, is called the kingdom of the Son and that of glory, in the style of the Scripture, is the kingdom of the Father. St. German, patriarch of Constantinople, expounds it with some little differ- ence, but not ill : “ Thy kingdom come,” that is, let thy Holy Spirit come into us ; for “ the kingdom of heaven is within us,” saith the holy Scripture : and so it intimates our desires, that the promise of the Father, and the prophecies of old, and the Holy Ghost the Comforter, may come upon us. Let that “anointing from above” descend upon us, whereby we may be anointed kings and priests, in a spiritual kingdom and priesthood, by a holy chrism. 6. “ Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” That is, the whole economy and dispensation of thy providence, be the guide of the world, and the measure of our desire ; that we be patient in all accidents, conformable to God’s will, both in doing and in suflTering ; submitting to changes, and even to persecutions, and doing all God’s will : which be- cause without God’s aid we cannot do, therefore we beg it of him by prayer ; but by his aid we are con- fident we may do it, in the manner of angelical obedience ; that is, promptly, readily, cheerfully, and with all our faculties. Or thus : As the angels in heaven serve thee with harmony, concord, and peace ; Hoc donum excedit omne donum, ut Deus hominem vocet filium. — Leo. Ser. de Nativ. Matt, xxiii. 8. Eph. iv. 6. h Nihil nos delectet in infimis, qui Patrem habeinus in coelis — Leo. Ser. de Ascens. ' Colos. i. 13. Rev. i. 9. Matt, xiii. 41. Luke vi. 20. Matt. xvi. 28. Sect. XII. EXPOSITION OP THE LORD’S PRAYER. 227 so let US all join in the service of thy majesty, with peace and purity, and love unfeigned ; that as all the angels are in peace, and amongst them there is no persecutor, and none persecuted, there is none afflicting or afflicted, none assaulting or assaulted, but all, in sweetness and peaceable serenity, glorifying thee ; so let thy will be done on earth, by all the world, in peace and unity, in charity and tranquilli- ty : that with one heart, and one voice, we may glorify thee our universal Father; having in us nothing that may displease thee, having quitted all our own desires and pretensions, living in angelic conformity, our souls subject to thee, and our passions to our souls ; that “ in earth,” also, “ thy will” may “ be done,” as in the spirit and soul, which is a portion of the heavenly substance. These three petitions are addressed to God, by way of adoration. In the first, the soul puts on the affections of a child, and divests itself of its own interest, offering itself up wholly to the designs and glorifications of G od. In the second, it puts on the relation and duty of a subject to her legitimate prince, seeking the promo- tion of his regal interest. In the third, she puts on the affection of a spouse, loving the same love, and choosing the same objects, and delighting in unions and conformities. The next part descends lower, and makes addresses to God in relation to our own necessities. 7. “ Give us this day our daily bread.”^ That is, give unto us all that is necessary for the support of our lives, the bread of our necessity : so the Syriac interpreter reads it : “ This day give us the portion of bread, which is day by day necessary.” Give us the bread or support which we shall need all our lives ; only this day minister our present part. For we pray for the necessary bread or maintenance, which God knows we shall need all our days ; but, that we “ be not careful for to-morrow,” we are taught to pray, not that it be all at once represented or deposited, but that God would minister it as we need it, how he pleases : but our needs are to be the measure of our desires, our desires must not make our needs ; that we may be confident of the Divine providence, and not at all covetous : for therefore God feeds his people with extemporary provisions, that by needing always, they may learn to pray to him ; and, by being still supplied, may learn to trust him for the future, and thank him for that is past, and rejoice in the present. So God rained down manna, giving them their daily portion ; and so all fathers and masters minister to their children and servants, giving them their proportion as they eat it, not the meat of a year at once ; and yet no child ETTioi/crtos, ab iiTLovcra, quod diem posterum. significat. Nazarenorum Evangelium (referente S. Hieronymo) legit panem crastinum^ ; S. Lucas panern diitrnum, sive indies neces- sanum, to hp-ipav" ttKouto^ Ittl kt^otl^ (Tv/uLfiETpo^ Trpos EuSaijULOviav. Vivitur parvo bene, cui paternum Splendet in mensa tenm salinum, Nec leves somnos timor aut cupido Sordidus aufert. Horat. lib. ii. Od. 16. Fructibus Agrippoe Siculis, quos colligis, Icci, oi recte frueris, non est ut copia major Ab Jove donari possit tibi; tolle querelas: Pauper enim non est cui rerum suppetit usus. Q 2 or servant fears want, if his parent or lord were good, and wise, and rich. And it is necessary for all to pray this prayer : the poor, because they want the bread, and have it not deposited but in the hands of God : “ mercy ploughing the fields of heaven,” (as Job’s expression is,) brings them corn; and “ the cattle upon a thousand hills are God’s ;” and they find the poor man meat. The rich also need this prayer ; because, although they have the bread, yet they need the blessing ; and what they have now may perish, or be taken from them ; and as preservation is a perpetual creation, so the con- tinuing to rich men what God hath already bestowed is a continual giving it. Young men must pray, because their needs are like to be the longer; and old men, because they are present. But all these are to pray but for the present;^ that which, in estimation of law, is to be reckoned as imminent upon the present, and part of this state and con- dition. But it is great improvidence, and an un- christian spirit, for old men to heap up provisions, and load their sumpters still the more, by how much their way is shorter. But there is also a bread which came down from heaven, a diviner nutriment of our souls, the food and wine of angels, Christ himself, as he communicates himself in the ex- presses of his word and sacraments ; and if we be destitute of this bread, we are miserable and perish- ing people. We must pray, that our souls also may feed upon those celestial viands, prepared for us in the antepasts of the gospel, till the great and fuller meal of the supper of the Lamb shall answer all our prayers, and satisfy every desire. 8. “ Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” Not only those sins of infirmity, invasion, and sudden surprise, which, like excrescences of luxuriant trees, adhere to many actions by inadvertency, and either natural weakness or accidental prejudice ; but also all those great sins, which were washed off from our souls, and the stain taken away in baptism; or when by choice, and after the use of reason, we gave up our names to Christ, when we first received the adoption of sons : for even those things were so pardoned, that we must for ever confess and glory in the Divine mercy, and still ascertain it, by performing what we then promised, and which were the con- ditions of our covenant. For although Christ hath taken off the guilt, yet still there remains the dis- reputation ; and St. Paul calls himself “ the chiefest of sinners,” not referring to his present condition, but to his former persecuting the church of God, which is one of the greatest crimes in the world ; Si ventri bene, si lateri est pedibusque tuis, nil Divitige poterunt regales addere majus. Horat. ad Iccium, lib. ii. Ep. 12. M?; fiovov TOO Xpjv, ahXd kul tov UTro^uvcrKEiu, ti)v Tpo(f)i]i> flvai k(b6^Lov. — Plutarch. * Lsetus in prgesens animus quod ultra est Oderit curare ; et amara laeto Temperet risu. Horat. lib. ii. Od. 16. quid aeternis minorem Consiliis animum fatigas? Horat. lib. ii. Od. 11. Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat ineboare longam: Jam te premet nox, fabulaeque manes, Et domus exilis Plutonia. Horat. lib. i. Od. 4. ’ AvayKtoTUTov icpodiov. — Cone. Nicen. 228 EXPOSITION OF THE LORD’S PRAYER. Part II. and for ever he asked pardon for it : and so must we, knowing that they may return ; if we shake olf the yoke of Christ, and break his cords from us, the bands of the covenant evangelical, the sins will rebirn so as to undo us. And this we pray, with a tacit obligation to forgive ; for so only, and upon that condition, we beg pardon to be given or con- tinued respectively ; that is, as we from our hearts forgive them that did us injury in any kind, never entertaining so much as a thought of revenge, but, contrariwise, loving them that did us wrong ; for so we beg that God should do to ns : and, therefore, it is but a lesser revenge to say, I will forgive, but I will never have to do with him. For if he become an object of charity, we must have to do with him, to relieve him ; because he needs prayers, we must have to do with him, and pray for him : and to re- fuse his society, when it is reasonably and innocently offered, is to deny that to him, which Christians have been taught to deny only to persons excom- municate, to persons under punishment, i. e. to per- sons not yet forgiven : and we shall have but an evil portion, if God should forgive our sins, and should not also love us,"* and do us grace, and be- stow benefits upon us. So we must forgive others ; so God forgives us. 9. “ And lead us not into temptation,” St. Cy- prian, out of an old Latin copy, reads ii, “ Suffer us not to be led into temptation " that is, suffer us not to be overcome by temptation. And, therefore, we are bound to prevent our access to such tempta- tion, whose very approximation is dangerous, and the contact is irregular and evil ; such as are temptations of the flesh : yet, in other temptations, the assault sometimes makes confident, and hardens a resolution. For some spirits, who are softened by fair usages, are steeled and imboldened by a perse- cution. But of what nature soever the temptations be, whether they be such whose approach a Chris- tian is bound to fear, or such which are the cer- tain lot of Christians, (such are troubles and perse- cutions, into which, “ when we enter,” we must “count it joy,”) yet we are to pray, that we enter not into the possession of the temptation, that we be not overcome by it. 10. “ But deliver us from evil.” From the as- saults or violence of evil, from “ the wicked one,” who not only presents us with objects, but heightens our concupiscence, and makes us imaginative, fan- tastical, and passionate ; setting on the tempta- tion, making the lust active, and the man full of appetite, and the appetite full of energy and power : therefore deliver us from the evil one, who is inter- ested, as an enemy, in every hostility, and in every danger. Let not Satan have any power or advan- tage over us ; and let not evil men prevail upon us in our danger, much less to our ruin. Make us Parum est nobis non puniri, nisi mereamur et diligi. — Hugo de S. Victor. Allegat. in Matt. lib. iii. " Tt yap ; 0£o? eiorayet av^ptDTrov ^l<5 TTzipacrfiov', fxij yl- vono' OX) yap uL-tlo^ twu KaKwv 6 Ofcds " ctXXa 'TrapaKoXtcro- fiEU axjTov, iva Tot? ttoXXoTs auTOV oiKTipfiol^ fii] jdcrp v/xa^ Trupaa^rrjuai. — S. German. Patr. C. P. Trfpl 'Twv 'Izpovp, ” Pro jucundis aptissima quaeque dabunt dii Carior est illis homo quam sibi. Nos, animorum “ safe under the covering of thy wings,” against all fraud and every violence ; that no temptation de- stroy our hopes, or break our strength, or alter our state, or overthrow our glories. In these last peti- tions, which concern ourselves, the soul hath affec- tions proper to her own needs; as in the former proportion, to God’s glory. In the first of these, the affection of a poor, indigent, and necessitous beggar ; in the second, of a delinquent and penitent servant ; in the last, of a person in affliction or dan- ger. And, after all this, the reason of our confidence is derived from God. 11. “ For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever.” That is, these things which we beg, are for the honour of thy kingdom, for the mani- festation of thy power, and the glory of thy name and mercies : and it is an express doxology or ador- ation, which is apt and fit to conclude all our prayers and addresses to God. 12. These are the generals and great treasures of matter, to which all our present or sudden needs are reducible ; and when we make our prayers more minute and particular, if the instance be in matter of duty, and merely spiritual, there is no danger : but when our needs are temporal, or we are transported with secular desires, all descending to particulars is a confining the Divine Providence, a judging for ourselves, a begging a temptation oftentimes, sometimes a mischief : ° and to beg be- yond the necessities of our life, is a mutiny against that Providence, which assigns to Christians no more but “food and raiment” for their own use: all other excrescencies of possessions being intrust- ed to the rich man’s dispensation, only as to a steward ; and he shaU be accountable for the coat that lies by him, as the portion of moths, and for the shoes which are the spoils of mouldiness, and the contumely of plenty. “ Grant me, 0 Lord, not what I desire, but M’^hat is profitable for me.”P For sometimes we desire that, which in the suc- ceeding event of things will undo us. This rule is in all things that concern ourselves. There is some little difference in the affairs and necessities of other men : for, provided we submit to the Divine Provi- dence, and pray for good things for others, only with a tacit condition, so far as they are good and profitable, in order to the best ends ; though we be particular, there is no covetousness in it ; there may be indiscretion in the particular ; but in the general no fault, because it is a prayer, and a de- sign of charity. “ For kings, and all that are in authority,” we may yet enlarge, and pray for a peaceable reign, true lieges, strong armies, victories and fair success in their just wars, health, long life, and riches ; because they have a capacity which private persons have not : ^ and whatsoever is good for single persons, and whatsoever is apt for their Impulsu et caecS, magn^que cupidine ducti, Conjugium petimus, partumque uxoris : at illis Notum qui pueri, qualisque futura sit uxor. JuvEN. Sat. X. 349. P M»; p.oi yivoiy d ^ovXoa, dXX' d avacpipti. <1 Rege incolumi, mens omnious una; Ainisso, vupere fidem. Virg. Georg, iv "212. Sect. XII. OF PRAYER. 22D uses as public persons, all that we may and we must pray for; either particularly, for so we may, or in general significations, for so we must at least : “ that we may lead a godly, peaceable, and quiet life, in all godliness and honesty that is St. Paul’s rule, and the prescribed measure and purpose of such prayers. And in this instance of kings, we may pray for de- feating ail the king’s enemies, such as are truly such ; and we have no other restraint upon us in this, but that we keep our desires confined within the limits of the end w^e are commanded; that is, so far to con- found the king’s enemies, that he may do his duty, and we do ours, and receive the blessing ; ever, as much as we can, to distinguish the malice from the person. But if the enemies themselves will not also separate what our intentions distinguish, that is, if they will not return to their duty ; then, let the prayers operate as God pleases, we must be zealous for the end of the king’s authority and peaceable government. By enemies, I mean rebels or invaders, tyrants and usurpers ; for in other wars there are many other considerations, not proper for this place. 1 3. The next consideration will be concerning the manner ; I mean both the manner of our persons, and the manner of our prayers ; that is, with what conditions we ought to approach to God, and with what circumstances the prayers may or ought to be performed. The conditions to make our prayers holy and certain to prevail, are ; 1 . That we live good lives, endeavouring to conform, by holy obedi- ence, to all the Divine commandments. This con- dition is expressly recorded by St. John : “ Beloved, ^ if our hearts condemn us not, then have we confi- dence towards God, and whatsoever we ask of him we shall obtain:”'^ and St. James affirms, that “ the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much and our blessed Saviour, limiting the con- fidence of our prayers for forgiveness to our charity and forgiving others, plainly tells us, that the un- charitable and unrighteous person shall not be heard. And the blind man in the gospel understood well what he said, “ Now we know that God heareth not sinners ; but if any man be a worshipper, and doeth his will, him he heareth.”*^ And it was so decreed and resolved a point in the doctrine of their religion, that it was a proverbial saying. And although this discourse of the blind man was of a restrained oc- casion, and signified, if Christ had been a false prophet, God would not have attested his sermons with the power of miracles ; yet in general also he had been taught by David, “ If I regard iniquity in my heart “ the Lord will not hear my prayer.” And, therefore, when men “ pray in every place,” (for so they are commanded,) “ let them lift up pure hands, without anger and contention.”* And indeed, although every sin entertained with a free choice and a full understanding is an obstruction to our prayers ; yet the special sin of uncharitableness makes the biggest cloud,y and is, in the proper '■ 1 John iii. 21, 22. * James v. 16. ^ John ix. 31. " Psalm Ixvi. 18. * 1 Tim. ii. 8. ^ ut nubem peccatum, ne transeat oratio,— L am. 5. * Chm nam is qui displicet ad intercedendum mittitur, irati animus ad deteriora provocatur. — Gregor. Pastor. matter of it, an indisposition for us to receive mercy : for he who is softened with apprehension of his own needs of mercy, will be tender-hearted towards his brother; and, therefore, he that hath no bowels here, can have no aptness there to receive, or heartily to hope for mercy. But this rule is to be understood of persons who persevere in the habit and remanent affections of sin ; so long as they entertain sin with love, complacency, and joy, they are in a state of enmity with God, and therefore in no fit disposition to receive pardon and the gntertainment of friends : but penitent sinners and returning souls, laden and grieved with their heavy pressures, are, next to holy innocents, the aptest persons in the world to be heard in their prayers for pardon ; but they are in no further disposition to large favours, and more emi- nent charities. A sinner, in the beginning of his penance, will be heard for himself, and yet also he needs the prayers ofholy persons more signally than others ; for he hath but some very few degrees of dispositions to reconciliation : but in prayers of in- tercession or mediation for others, only holy and very pious persons are fit to be interested. All men, as matter of duty, must pray for all men but in the great necessities of a prince, of a church or king- dom, or of a family, or in a great danger and calamity to a single person, only a Noah, a David, a Daniel, a Jeremiah, an Enoch, or Job, are fit and propor- tioned advocates. God so requires holiness in us, that our prayers may be accepted, that he entertains them in several degrees, according to the degrees of our sanctity ; to fewer or more purposes, according as we are little or great in the kingdom of heaven. As for those irregular donations of good things which wicked persons ask for and have, they are either no mercies, but instruments of cursing and crime, or else they are designs of grace, intended to convince them of their unworthiness ; and so, if they become not instruments of their conversion, they are aggra- vations of their ruin. 14. Secondly : The second condition I have already explained in the description of the matter of our prayers.*^ For although we may lawfully ask for whatsoever we need, and this leave is consigned to us in those words of our blessed Saviour, “ Your heavenly Father knoweth what you have need of ;” yet, because God’s providence walks in the great deep, that is, his footsteps are in the water, and leave no impression ; no former act of grace becomes a precedent that he will give us that in kind which then he saw convenient, and therefore gave us, and now he sees to be inconvenient, and therefore does deny. Therefore, in all things, but what are matter of necessary and mingled duty, we must send up our prayers ; but humility, mortification, and con- formity to the Divine will, must attend for an answer, and bring back, not what the public embassy pre- tends, but what they have in private instructions to desire ; accounting that for the best satisfaction Immunis aram si tetigit manus, Non sumptuosa blandior hostia Mollivit aversos penates Farre pioet saliente mica.— Hor. lib. iii. Od. 23. ^ OLKa 'ia^ ovK duvKoo? ^td^. 230 OF PRAYER. Part II. which God pleases, not what I have either unneces- sarily, or vainly, or sinfully desired. 15. Thirdly : When our persons are disposed by sanctity, and the matter of prayers is hallowed by prudence and religious intendments, then we are bound to entertain a full persuasion and confident hope that God will hear us. “ What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall obtain them,” ^ said our blessed Saviour : and St. James taught from that oracle, “ If any of you lack wisdom, let hir^ ask it of God : but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering ; for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind, and tossed to and fro meaning, that when there is no fault in the matter of our prayers, but that we ask things pleasing to God, and there is no indis- position and hostility in our persons and manners between God and us, then to doubt were to distrust God ; for all being right on our parts, if we doubt the issue, the defailance must be on that part, which to suspect were infinite impiety. But after we have done all we can, if, out of humility, and fear that we are not truly disposed, we doubt of the issue, it is a modesty which will not at all discommend our per- sons, nor impede the event ; provided we at no hand suspect either God’s power or veracity. Putting trust in God^ is an excellent advantage to our prayers ; “ I will deliver him,” saith God, “ be- cause he hath put his trust in me.” And yet dis- trusting ourselves, and suspecting our own dispo- sitions, as it pulls us back in our actual confidence of the event, so because it abates nothing of our con- fidence in God, it prepares us to receive the reward of humility, and not to lose the praise of a holy trusting in the Almighty. 16. These conditions are essential: some other there are which are incidents and accessories, but at no hand to be neglected. And the first is, actual or habitual attention to our prayers, which we are to procure with moral and severe endeavours, that we desire not God to hear us when we do not hear ourselves. To which purpose we must avoid, as much as our duty will permit us, multiplicity of cares and exterior employments ; for a river cut into many rivulets divides also its strength, and grows contemptible, and apt to be forded by a lamb, and drunk up by a summer sun ; so is the spirit of man busied in variety, and divided in itself ; ® it abates its fervour, cools into indifFerency, and becomes trifling by its dispersion and inadvertency. Aqui- nas was once asked, with what compendium a man might best become learned ? he answered, By read- ing of one book : meaning, that an understanding entertained with several objects is intent upon neither, and profits not. And so it is when we Mark xi. 24. c .James i. 5, 6. ^ Chrysantio Deus in aurem hunc versiculum occinuit, "Os K£ 3 '£o7s £7rt7r£l'3’)}Tat, /ULuXa T tKXvOU aUTOV. — Eunapius in Vita Maximi. Signum futurae impetrationis est, quando Spiritus Sanctus movetad petendumeum fiducia, et quasi securitate impetrandi. — Cass I AN. Collat. ix. c. 32. Ecclus. XXXV. 17. Psalm cii. 17. ® Non in pluribus sint actus tui. —Ecclus. xi. 10. Impar quisque invenitur ad singula, dum confusa mente dividitur ad multa.— S. Greg. Past. p. i. c, 4. pray to God ; if the cares of the world intervene, they choke our desires into an indiflerency, and sup- press the flame into a smoke, and strangle the spirit. But this, being an habitual carelessness and in- temperance of spirit, is an enemy to an habitual attention, and therefore is highly criminal, and makes our prayers to be but the labour of the lips, because our desires are lessened by the remanent affections of the world. But besides an habitual attention in our prayers, that is, a desire in general of all that our prayers pretend to in particular, there is also for the accommodation, and to facilitate the access of our prayers, required, that we attend ac- tually to the words or sense of every collect or petition. To this we must contend with prayer, with actual dereliction and seposition of all our - other affairs, though innocent and good in other kinds, by a present spirit. And the use of it is, that such attention is an actual conversing with God ; it occasions the exercise of many acts of virtue, it increases zeal and fervency, and, by re- flection, enkindles love and holy desires. And al- though there is no rule to determine the degree of our actual attention, and it is ordinarily impossible never to wander with a thought, or to be interrupted with a sudden immission into our spirit in the midst of prayers ; yet our duty is, by mortification of our secular desires, by suppression of all our irregular passions, by reducing them to indiflerency, by se- verity of spirit, by enkindling our holy appetites and desires of holy things, by silence, and meditation, and repose, to get as forward in this excellency as we can : to which also we may be very much helped by , ejaculatory prayers and short breathings ; in which, as, by reason of their short abode upon the spirit, there is less fear of diversion, so also they may so often be renewed, that nothing of the devotion may be unspent, or expire for want of oil to feed and enter- tain the flame. But the determination of the case of conscience is this : habitual attention is absolutely necessary in our prayers ; that is, it is altogether our duty to desire of God all that we pray for, though our mind be not actually attending to the form of words ; and, therefore, all worldly desires, that are inordinate, must be rescinded, that we more earnestly attend on God than on the world. He that prays to God to give him the gift of chastity, and yet secretly wishes rather for an opportunity of lust, and desires God would not hear him, (as St. Austin confesses of himself in his youth,) that man sins for want of holy and habitual desires ; he prays only with his lips, what he in no sense attests in his heart. 2. Actual attention to our prayers is also necessary, not ever to avoid a sin, but that the present prayer become eflectual. He that means Magnam rem puta, hominem unum agere : prseter sapien- tem nemo unum agit; caeteri multiformes sumus. — Seneca. Mentem tantae rei intentam vacate omnibus aliis etiam culpa carentibus vitiis oportet. — Quintil. Inveni Dilectum meum in lectulo, i. e. in quiete; quia quae cura implicat, quies explicat— S. Bernard. Serm. 1. in Cant. Quis locus ingenio, nisi cum se carmine solo V exant Pectora nostra duas non admittentia curas ? Magnae mentis opus, nec de lodice paranda Attonitae Jcvenae. Sat. 7. Sect. XII. OP PRAYER. to feast, and to get thanks of God, must invite the poor ; and yet he that invites the rich, in that he sins not, though he hath no reward of God for that. So that prayer perishes to which the man gives no degree of actual attention, for the prayer is as if it were not ; it is no more than a dream, or an act of custom and order, nothing of devotion ; and so acci- dentally becomes a sin, (I mean there, where, and in what degrees it is avoidable,) by taking God’s name in vain. 3. It is not necessary to the pre- valency of the prayer, that the spirit actually ac- company every clause or word; if it says a hearty Amen, or in any part of it attests the whole, it is such an attention which the present condition of most men will sometimes permit. 4. A wandering of the spirit, through carelessness, or any vice, or inordinate passion, is in that degree criminal as is the cause, and it is heightened by the greatness of the interruption. 5. It is only excused by our en- deavours to cure it, and by our after-acts, either of sorrow, or repetition of the prayer, and reinforcing the intention. And certainly, if we repeat our prayer, in which we have observed our spirits too much to wander, and resolve still to repeat it, (as our opportunities permit,) it may in a good degree defeat the purpose of the enemy, when his own arts shall return upon his head, and the wandering of our spirits be made the occasion of a prayer, and the parent of a new devotion. 6. Lastly, according to the degrees of our actual attention, so our prayers are more or less perfect ; a present spirit being a great instrument and testimony of wisdom, and apt to many great purposes ; and our continual abode with God being a great endearment of our persons, by increasing the affections. ir. Secondly: The second accessory is “inten- tion of spirit,” or fervency ; such as was that of our blessed Saviour, who prayed to his Father with strong cries and loud petitions, not clamorous in language, but strong in spirit. St. Paul also, when he was pressed with a strong temptation, prayed thrice, that is, earnestly ; and St. James affirms this to be of great value and efficacy to the obtaining blessings,^ “ The effectual fervent prayer of a just person avails much and Elias, though “ a man of like passions,” yet by earnest prayer he obtained rain, or drought, according as he desired. Now this is properly produced by the greatness of our desire of heavenly things, our true value and estimate of religion, our sense of present pressures, our fears ; and it hath some accidental increases by the dis- position of our body, the strength of fancy, and the tenderness of spirit, and assiduity of the dropping of religious discourses ; and in all men is necessary to be so great, as that we prefer heaven and religion before the world, and desire them rather, with the choice of our wills and understanding : though there cannot always be that degree of sensual, pungent, or delectable affections towards religion, as towards the desires of nature and sense ; yet ever we must ^ To X.ri'TOVlXi.VOV aXcDTOV tK(btVytL T dllEXoVUEVOl/. — SopHocL. Q5dip. S T?; irpoa-tvyri irpoaKapTEpovvTi’s, Rom. xii. 12. Quod olim Cl at Levitarum et sacerdotum proprium. 23 f prefer celestial objects, restraining tlie a])])elitcs of the world, lest they be immoderate, and heighten- ing the desires of grace and glory, lest they become indifferent, and the fire upon the altar of incense be extinct. But the greater zeal and fervour of desire we have in our prayers, the sooner and the greater will the return of the prayer be, if the prayer be for spiritual objects. For other things our desires must be according to our needs, not by a value derived from the nature of the thing, but the use- fulness it is of to us, in order to our greater and better purposes. 1 8. Thirdly : Of the same consideration it is, that we “ persevere and be importunate ” § in our prayers, by repetition of our desires, and not remitting either our affections or our offices, till God, overcome by our importunity, give a gracious answer. Jacob wrestled with the angel all night, and would not dismiss him till he had given him a blessing : “ Let me alone,” saith God, as if he felt a pressure and burden lying upon him by our prayers, or could not quit himself, nor depart, unless we give him leave. And since God is detained by our prayers, and we may keep him as long as we please, and that he will not go away till we leave speaking to him ; he that will dismiss him till he hath his blessing, knows not the value of his benediction, or understands not the energy and power of a persevering prayer. And to this purpose Christ “ spake a parable, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”^ “ Pray- ing without ceasing,” St. Paul calls it ; that is, with continual addresses, frequent interpellations, never ceasing renewing the request till I obtain my desire. For it is not enough to recommend our desires to God with one hearty prayer, and then forget to ask him any more ; but so long as our needs continue, so long, in all times, and upon all occasions, to renew and repeat our desires : and this is “ praying con- tinually.” Just as the widow did to the unjust judge ; she never left going to him, she troubled him every day with her clamorous suit ; so must we “ pray always,” that is, every day, and many times every day, according to our occasions and necessities, or our devotion and zeal, or as we are determined by the customs and laws of a church ; never giving over through weariness or distrust, often renewing our desires by a continual succession of devotions, returning at certain and determinate periods. For God’s blessings, though they come infallibly, yet not always speedily ; saving only that it is a blessing to be delayed, that we may increase our desire, and renew our prayers, and do acts of confidence and patience, and ascertain and increase the blessing when it comes. For we do not more desire to be blessed than God does to hear us im- portunate for blessing ; and he weighs every sigh, and bottles up every tear, and records every prayer, and looks through the cloud, with delight to see us upon our knees, and, when he sees his time, his light breaks throngh it, and shines upon us. Only ^ Luke xviii. 1. Xp?) dSiaXti'TrTU)? £u)(£ Ohe jam desine decs, uxor, gratulando obtundere Tuam esse inventam gnatam : nisi illos tuo ex ingenio judicas, Ut nil credas intelligere nisi idem dictum est centies. Ter. Heaut. AaXtty apuTTo^, dovi^aTMTaTo^ Xtysiu. TeKfinpiov 6k Tovda T6v''Ojx->\pov Xdj3a’ Ouxos ydp ijfjuv fivpiada^ tTrcov ypdc^ti ' AXX’ ov8a ah"Ofxr}pov aLpr]Kav fiaKpov. — PhiLEM. Xtools xd, t' aliriiv TroXXd, Kai to. Kaipia. SoPHOCE. CEdip. 2. ^ In re trepida Tullus Hostilius duodecim vovit salios fanaque Pallori et Pavori.— Livius. Ego me majore religione quam quisque fuit ullius voti ob- strictum puto.— Cicek. ad Atticum. Solebant autem et vota fieri gratitudinis indicia. Voveram dulces epidas et album Libero caprum prope funeratus Arboris ictu. -Horat. lib. iii. Od. 8. God is delighted in the labour of the lips; but when reason is the guide, and piety is the rule, and necessity is the measure, and desire gives the pro- portion, let the prayer be very long ; he that shall blame it for its length, must proclaim his disrelish both of reason and religion, his despite of necessity, and contempt of zeal. 20. As a part and instance of our importunity in prayer, it is usually reckoned and advised, that in cases of great, sudden, and violent need, we corro- borate our prayers with a vow of doing something holy and religious in an uncommanded instance, something to which God had not formerly bound our duty, though fairly invited our will ; ^ or else, if we choose a duty in which we were obliged, then to vow the doing of it in a more excellent manner, with a greater inclination of the will, with a more fervent repetition of the act, with some more noble circumstance, with a fuller assent of the understanding, or else adding a new promise to our old duty, to make it become more necessary to us, and to secure our duty. In this case, as it re- quires great prudence and caution in the susception, lest what we piously intend obtain a present bless- ing and lay a lasting snare ; so if it be prudent in the manner, holy in the matter, useful in the con- sequence, and safe in all the circumstances of the person, it is an endearing us and our prayer to God by the increase of duty and charity, and therefore a more probable way of making our prayers gracious and acceptable. And the religion of vows was not only hallowed by the example of Jacob at Bethel, of Hannah praying for a child, and God hearing her, of David vowing a temple to God, and made regular and safe by the rules and cautions in Moses’s law ; but left by our blessed Saviour in the same constitution he found it, he having innovated nothing in the matter of vows : and it was practised accordingly in the instance of St. Paul at Cen- chrea ; of Ananias and Sapphira,^ who vowed their possessions to the use of the church ; and of the widows in the apostolical age, who therefore vowed to remain in the state of widowhood, because con- cerning them who married after the entry into re- ligion, St. Paul says, “ They have broken their first faith :” and such were they of whom our blessed Saviour affirms, “ that some make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven,” that is, such who promise to God a life of chastity. And con- cerning the success of prayer, so seconded with a Non est meum ad misei'as preces Decurrere, et votis pacisci, Ne Cypriae Tyriaeque merces Addant avaro divitias mari.— Id. lib, iii. Od. 29. Et laeta quidem in praesens omnia : sed benignitati deorum gratiam referendam, ne ritus sacrorum inter ambigua culti per prospera obliterarentur.— Tacit. Ann. lib. xi. * Ananias et Sapphira ideo condemnati, quia post votum abstulerunt quasi sua. — S. Hieron. Ep. 8. ad Demet. Quid enim est, fidem primam irritam fecerunt? voverunt, et non reddiderunt. - S. August. In vita nam aeterna est quaedam egregia gloria, non omni- bus in aeternum victuris, sed quibusdam ibi tribuenda; cui consequendae parum est liberatum esse a peccatis, nisi ali- quid liberator! voveatur, quod non sit criminis non vo- visse, sed vovisse ac reddidisse sit laudis. — Idem, de S. Vir- gin. c. 14. Sect. X. OF PRAYER. 233 prudent and religious vow, besides the instances of Scripture,*" we have the perpetual experience and witness of all Christendom ; and, m particular, our Saxon kings have been remarked for this part of importunity in their own chronicles. Oswy" got a great victory with unlikely forces against Penda the Dane after his earnest prayer, and an appendant vow; and Ceadwalla obtained of God power to re- cover the Isle of Wight from the hands of infidels, after he had prayed and promised to return the fourth part of it to be employed in the proper service of God and of religion. This can have no objection or suspicion in it among wise and disabused persons; for it can be nothing but an increasing and a re- newed act of duty, or devotion, or zeal, or charity, and the importunity of prayer, acted in a more vital and real expression. 21. All else that is to be considered concerning prayer, is extrinsical and accidental to it. First : Prayer is public, or private ; in the communion or society of saints, or in our closets : these prayers have less temptation to vanity ; the other have more advantages of charity, example, fervour, and energy. In public offices we avoid singularity, in the private we avoid hypocrisy : those are of more edification, these of greater retiredness and silence of spirit ; those serve the needs of all the world in the first intention, and our own by consequence, these serve our own needs first, and the public only by a secon- dary intention ; these have more pleasure, they more duty : these are the best instruments of re- pentance, where our confessions may be more par- ticular, and our shame less scandalous, the other are better for eucharist and instruction, for edifica- tion of the church, and glorification of God. 22. Secondly : The posture of our bodies in prayer had as great variety as the ceremonies and civilities of several nations came to. The Jews most commonly prayed standing : so did the Pharisee and the publican in the temple." So did the primitive Christians, in all their greater festivals and intervals of jubilee ; in their penances they kneeled. The monks in Cassian sat when they sung the psalter.P And in every country, whatso- ever, by the custom of the nation, was a symbol of reverence and humility, of silence and attention, of gravity and modesty, that posture they translated to their prayers. But, in all nations, bowing the head, that is, a laying down our glory at the feet of God, was the manner of worshippers : and this was always the more humble and the lower, as their devotion was higher ; and was very often expressed by pros- tration, or lying flat upon the ground ; and this all nations did, and all religions. Our deportment ought to be grave, decent, humble, apt for adoration, apt to edify ; and when we address ourselves to Eccles. V. 4, 5. Psalm cxxxii. 1, 2. Deut. xxiii. 21. Acts xviii. 18. " Oswy vovit filiam in servitutem religionis et vitam coeli- bem, simulque duodecim possessiones ad construendas aedes sacras. — Reddere victimas iEdemque votivam memento ; Nos humilem feriemus agnum.— Hor. lib. ii. Od. 17. " Nehem. ix. 5. Mark xi. 25. Luke xviii. 11. P Adoraturi sedeant, dixit Numa Pompilius, apud Plutarch. prayer, not instantly to leap into the office, as the judges of the Areopage into their sentence, “with- out preface or preparatory affections;” but, consider- ing in what presence we speak, and to what jmr- poses, let us balance our fervour with reverential fear : and, when we have done, not rise from the ground as if we vaulted, or were glad we had done ; but, as we begin with desires of assistance, so end with desires of pardon and acceptance, concluding our longer offices with a shorter mental prayer, of more private reflection and reverence, designing to mend what we have done amiss, or to give thanks and proceed if we did well, and according to our powers. 23. Thirdly : In private prayers it is permitted to every man to speak his prayers, or only to think them, which is a speaking to God. Vocal or mental prayer is all one to God, but in order to us they have their several advantages. The sacrifice of the heart, and the calves of the lips, make up a holo- caust to God : but words are the arrest of the desires, and keep the spirit fixed, and in less permissions to wander from fancy to fancy ; and mental prayer is apt to make the greater fervour, if it wander not : our office is more determined by words ; but we then actually think of God, when our spirits only speak. Mental prayer, when our spirits wander, is like a watch standing still, because the spring is down ; wind it up again, and it goes on regularly : but in vocal prayer, if the words run on, and the spirit wanders, the clock strikes false, the hand points not to the right hour, because something is in disorder, and the striking is nothing but noise. In mental prayer, we confess God’s omniscience ; in vocal prayer we call the angels to witness. In the first, our spirits rejoice in God ; in the second, the angels rejoice in us. Mental prayer is the best remedy against lightness, and indifferency of af- fections ; but vocal prayer is the aptest instrument of communion. That is more angelical, but yet fittest for the state of separation and glory ; this is but human, but it is apter for our present constitu- tion. They have their distinct proprieties, and may be used according to several accidents, occasions, or dispositions. THE PRAYER. I. 0 holy and eternal God, who hast commanded us to pray unto thee in all our necessities, and to give thanks unto thee for all our instances of joy and blessing, and to adore thee in all thy attributes and communications, thy own glories and thy eternal mercies ; give unto me, thy servant, the spirit of prayer and supplication, that I may un- derstand what is good for me, that I may desire id est, sint sedato animo. Et KadtjadaL irpoaKwiiWovTa^ dic- tum proverbialiter ad eundem sensum. Vide S. Aug. lib. iii. c. 5. de Cura pro Mortuis. Depositisque suis ornamentis pretiosis, Simplicis et tenuis fruitur velamine vestis, Inter sacratos noctis venerabilis hymnos Intrans nudatis templi sacra limina plantis ; Et prono sacram vultu prostratus ad aram, Corpus frigorese sociavitnobile terree. S. Rosweid de Hen. Imper. et de Othon. 234 OF FASTING. Part II. regularly, and choose the best things, that I may conform to thy will, und submit to thy disposing, relinquishing my own affections and imperfect choice. Sanctify my heart and spirit, that I may sanctify thy name, and that I may be gra- cious and accepted in thine eyes. Give me the humility and obedience of a servant, that I may also have the hope and confidence of a son, mak- ing humble and confident addresses to the throne of grace ; that, in all my necessities, I may come to thee for aids, and may trust in thee for a gra- cious answer, and may receive satisfaction and supply. II. Give me a sober, diligent, and recollected spirit in my prayers, neither choked with cares, nor scat- tered by levity, nor discomposed by passion, nor estranged from thee by inadvertency, but fixed fast to thee by the indissoluble bands of a great love and a pregnant devotion ; and let the beams of thy Holy Spirit, descending from above, en- lighten and enkindle it with great fervours, and holy importunity, and unwearied industry ; that I may serve thee, and obtain thy blessing by the assiduity and zeal of perpetual religious offices. Let my prayers come before thy presence, and the lifting up of my hands be a daily sacrifice, and let the fires of zeal not go out by night or day ; hut unite my prayers to the intercession of thy holy Jesus, and to a communion of those offices, which angels and beatified souls do pay before the throne of the Lamb, and at the celestial altar ; that, my prayers being hallowed by the merits of Christ, and being presented in the phial of the saints, may ascend thither where thy glory dwells, and from whence mercy and eternal benediction descends upon the church. III. Lord, change my sins into penitential sorrow, my sorrow to petition, my petition to eucharist; that my prayers may he consummate in the adorations of eternity, and the glorious participation of the end of our hopes and prayers, the fulness of never-failing charity, and fruition of thee, O holy and eternal God, blessed Trinity, and mysterious Unity, to whom all honour, and worship, and thanks, and confession, and glory, he ascribed for ever and ever. Amen. DISCOURSE XIII. Of the third additional Precept of Christ ; namely^ of the Manner of Fasting. 1. Fasting, being directed in order to other ends, as for mortifying the body, taking away that fuel ® Per universum orbem mos iste observatur, ut, in honorem tanti sacramenti, in os Christiani prius Doininicum corpus intraret quam caeteri cibi. — S. Aug. Ep. 18. which ministers to the flame of lust, or else relat- ing to what is past, when it becomes an instrument of repentance, and a part of that revenge which St. Paul affirms to be the effect of “ godly sorrow,” is to take its estimate for value, and its rules for prac- tice, by analogy and proportion to those ends to which it does co-operate.^ Fasting before the holy sacrament is a custom of the Christian church, and derived to us from great antiquity ; and the use of it is, that we might express honour to the mystery, by suffering nothing to enter into our mouths before the symbols. Fasting to this purpose is not an act of mortification, but of reverence and venerable esteem of the instruments of religion, and so is to be under- stood. And thus also, not to eat or drink before we have said our morning devotions, is esteemed to be a religious decency ; and preference of prayer and God’s honour before our temporal satisfaction, a symbolical attestation that we esteem the words of God’s mouth more than our necessary food. It is like the zeal of Abraham’s servant, who would not eat or drink till he had done his errand. And, in pursuance of this act of religion, by the tradition of their fathers, it grew to be a custom of the Jewish nation, that they should not eat bread upon their solemn festivals before the sixth hour; that they might first celebrate the rites of their religious so- lemnities, before they gave satisfaction to the lesser desires of nature. And, therefore, it was a rea- sonable satisfaction of the objection made by the assembly against the inspired apostles in Pentecost, “ These are not drunk, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day meaning, that the day being festival, they knew it was not lawful for any of the nation to break their fast before the sixth hour ; for else they might easily have been drunk by the third hour, if they had taken their morning’s drink in a freer proportion. And true it is, that religion snatches even at little things ; and as it teaches us to observe all the great com- mandments and significations of duty, so it is not willing to pretermit any thing, which, although by its greatness it cannot, of itself, be considerable, yet, by its smallness, it may become a testimony of the greatness of the aflfection, which would not omit the least minutes of love and duty. And, therefore, when the Jews were scandalized at the disciples of our Lord, for rubbing the ears of corn on the sab- bath day, as they walked through the fields early in the morning, they intended their reproof not for breaking the rest of the day, but the solemnity, for eating before the public devotions were finished. Christ excused it by the necessity and charity of the act ; they were hungry, and therefore, having so great need, they might lawfully do it: meaning, that such particles and circumstances of religion are not to be neglected, unless where greater cause of charity or necessity does supervene. 2. But when fasting is in order to greater and more concerning purposes, it puts on more religion, b Plebs autem non assentiebatur horum orationibus ; et proculdubio exorta fuisset seditio, nisi concionem solvisset sexta bora superveniens, quae nostris ad prandium vocare solet sabbatis. — Joseph, in VitS suS. Sect. XII. OP FASTING. 235 and becomes a duty, according as it is necessary or highly conducing to such ends, to the promoting of which we are hound to contribute all our skill and faculties. Fasting is principally operative to mor- tification of carnal appetites, to which feasting, and full tables, do minister aptness, and power, and inclinations. “ When I fed them to the full, then they committed adultery, and assembled by troops in the harlots’ houses.”^ And if we observe all our own vanities, we shall find that, upon every sudden joy, or a prosperous accident, or an opulent fortune, or a pampered body, and highly spirited and inflamed, we are apt to rashness, levities, incon- siderate expressions, scorn and pride, idleness, wan- tonness, curiosity, niceness, and impatience. But fastinsr is one of those afflictions which reduces our body to want, our spirits to soberness, our condition to sufferance, our desires to abstinence and customs of denial ; ^ and so, by taking off the inundations of sensuality, leaves the enemies within in a condition of being easier subdued. Fasting directly advances towards chastity ; and, by consequence and indirect powers, to patience, and humility, and indifference. But then it is not the fast of a day that can do this ; it is not an act, but a state of fasting, that operates to mortification. A perpetual temperance and fre- quent abstinence may abate such proportions of strength and nutriment, as to procure a body morti- fied and lessened in desires. And thus St. Paul “ kept his body under,” using severities to it for the taming its rebellions and distemperatures. And St. Jerome reports of St. Hilarion, that when he had fasted much, and used coarse diet, and found his lust too strong for such austerities, he resolved to increase it to the degree of mastery, lessening his diet, and increasing his hardship, till he should rather think of food than wantonness.® And many times the fastings of some men are ineffectual, be- cause they promise themselves cure too soon, or make too gentle applications, or put less proportions into their antidotes. I have read of a maiden, that, seeing a young man much transported with her love, and that he ceased not to importune her with all the violent pursuits that passion could suggest, told him, she had made a vow to fast forty days with bread and water, of which she must discharge her- self before she could think of corresponding to any other desire ; and desired of him, as a testimony of his love, that he also would be a party in the same vow. The young man undertook it, that he might give probation of his love : but, because he had been used to a delicate and nice kind of life, in twenty days he was so weakened, that he thought more of death than love ; and so got a cure for his ^ Jer. V. 7. ’Ey Tij KEv^ yaaTpl tu)U iraXtov Epcos ouk ectl" 'tteivuxtlv T} KUTTpi^ TTLKpd.—AcHJEvs apud Athenaeum. Extraordinarios motus in cippo claudit jejunium. — S. Gyp. Jejunia enim nos contra peccata faciunt fortiores, concu- piscentias vincunt, tentationes repellunt, superbiam inclinant, iram mitigant, et omnes bonaj voluntatis affectus ad maturita- tem totius virtutis enutriunt.— S. Leo, Serm. 4. de Jejun. Saginantur pugiles qui xerophagiis invalescunt.— Tertul. de Jejun. ® S. Hieron, in Vita. S. Hilarion. ^ Parcus cibus et venter semper esuriens triduana jejunia superant. -S. Hieron. Ep. 8. ad Demetriad. intemperance, and was wittily cozened into remedy. But St. Jerome’s counsel in this question is most reasonable, not allowing violent and long fasts, and then returns to an ordinary course ; for these are too great changes of diet to consist witli health, and too sudden and transient to obtain a permanent and natural effect : but “ a belly always hungry,” a table never full, a meal little and necessary, no extravagance, no freer repast, this is a state of fasting, which will be found to be of best avail to suppress pungent lusts and rebellious desires.*^ And it were well to help this exercise with the assist- ances of such austerities which teach patience, and ingenerate a passive fortitude, and accustom us to a despite of pleasures, and which are consistent with our health. For if fasting be left to do the work alone, it may chance either to spoil the body, or not to spoil the lust. Hard lodging, uneasy garments, laborious postures of prayer, journeys on foot, suffer- ance of cold, paring away the use of ordinary solaces, denying every pleasant appetite, rejecting the most pleasant morsels ; these are in the rank of “ bodily exercises,” which though, as St. Paul says, of themselves, “ they profit little,” yet they accustom us to acts of self-denial in exterior in- stances, and are not useless to the designs of mor- tifying carnal and sensual lusts. They have “ a proportion of wisdom”® with these cautions, viz. “ in will-worship,” that is, in voluntary susception, when they are not imposed as necessary religion ; ^ “ in humility,” that is, without contempt of others that use them not; “ in neglecting of the body,” that is, when they are done for discipline and mor- tification, that the flesh, by such handlings and rough usages, become less satisfied, and more de- spised. 3. As fasting hath respect to the future, so also to the present ; and so it operates in giving assist- ance to prayer. There is a “ kind of devil that is not to be ejected but by prayer and fasting,” that is, prayer elevated and made intense by a defecate and pure spirit, not laden with the burden of meat and vapours. St. Basil affirms, that there are certain angels deputed by God to minister, and to describe all such in every church who mortify themselves by fasting ; ^ as if paleness and a meagre visage were that “ mark in the forehead,” which the angel ob- served when he signed the saints in Jerusalem to escape the judgment. Prayer is the wings of the soul,^ and fasting is the wings of prayer. Tertul- lian calls it “ the nourishment of prayer.” ^ But this is a discourse of Christian philosophy ; and he that chooses to do any act of spirit, or understand- ing, or attention, after a full meal, will then per- 8 Coloss. ii. 23. Koyov (rocfiia^. "El TIV E'TTLCrKOTTO'i, &C. yUpLOV, Kal KpECOV Kal OLVOV, ov Sl a(TKr]aiu, aXA.fi Sid ^deXupLav diriyE'rai, fi Ka^^aLpEiadu}. Can. Apost. 50. * Serm. 5. de Jejun. ^ Jejunium animm nostrae alimentum, leves ei pennas pro- ducens.— S. Bern. Serm. in Vigil. S. Andreae. ’A/cpi<5as Ecrdiov'ra ’laxxvui^v, Kal irTspocpuiiaravTa ti]v if/v- Xhv, uixit S. Chrysost. * Jejuniis preces alere, lacrymari, etmugire nodes diesque ad Dominum. —Tertul. 236 OF FASTING. Part II. ceive that abstinence had been the better disposition to any intellectual and spiritual action. And, there- fore, the church of God ever joined fasting to their more solemn offices of prayer. The apostles “ fasted and prayed when they laid their hands,” invocated the Holy Ghost upon Saul and Bar- nabas.*" And these also, “ when they had prayed with fasting,” ordained elders in the churches of Lystra and Iconium." And the vigils of every holy day tell us, that the devotion of the festival is pro- moted by the fast of the vigils. 4. But when fasting relates to what is past, it becomes an instrument of repentance, ® it is a puni- tive and afflictive action, an effect of godly sorrow, a testimony of contrition, “ a judging of ourselves, and chastening our bodies, that we be not judged of the Lord.” The fast of the Ninevites, and the fast the prophet Joel calls for, p and the discipline of the Jews in the rights of expiation, proclaim this use- fulness of fasting in order to repentance. And, indeed, it were a strange repentance that had no sorrow in it, and a stranger sorrow that had no affliction ; but it were the strangest scene of afflic- tion in the world, when the sad and afflicted person shall eat freely, and delight himself, and to the ban- quets of a full table serve up the chalice of tears and sorrow, and no bread of affliction.*! Certainly he that makes much of himself, hath no great in- dignation against the sinner, when himself is the man. And it is but a gentle revenge and an easy judgment, when the sad sinner shall do penance in good meals, and expiate his sin with sensual satisfaction. So that fasting relates to religion, in all variety and difference of time : it is an antidote against the poison of sensual temptations, an advan- tage to prayer, and an instrument of extinguishing the guilt and the affections of sin, by judging our- selves, and representing, in a judicatory of our own, even ourselves being judges, that sin deserves con- demnation, and the sinner merits a high calamity. Which excellencies I repeat in the words of Baruch the scribe, he that was amanuensis to the prophet J eremy : “ The soul that is greatly vexed, which goeth stooping and feeble, and the eyes that fail, and the hungry soul, will give thee praise and righteousness, 0 Lord.” 5. But now, as fasting hath divers ends, so also it hath divers laws. If fasting be intended as an instrument of prayer, it is sufficient that it be of that quality and degree that the spirit be clear and the head undisturbed,® an ordinary act of fast, an abstinence from a meal, or a deferring it, or a lessen- ing it when it comes, and the same abstinence re- peated, according to the solemnity and intendment of the offices. And this is evident in reason, and the former instances, and the practice of the church, ™ Acts xiii. 3. " Acts xiv. 23. ® WtTavoca uticTeia^ apyiT. — S. Basil. P Joel ii. 15. Levit. xxiii. 27, &c. Isa. xxii. 12. 'l Ou (tlt'iov, ov ttotov E^ECTTi TTpocrEi/tyKEadai. — Philo. Poenitentia de ipso quoque habitu ac victu mandat, sacco ct cineri incubare, corpus sordibus obscurare, animum moero- ribus dejicere, atque ilia quae peccavit tristi tractatione mutare. — Tertul. de Pcenit. c. 9. '■ Baruch ii. 18. dissolving some of her fasts, which were in order only to prayer by noon, and as soon as the great and first solemnity of the day is over. But if fast- ing be intended as a punitive act, and an instrument of repentance, it must be greater. St. Paul, at his conversion, continued three days without eating or drinking. It must have in it so much affliction as to express the indignation, and to condemn the sin, and to judge the person. And although the mea- sure of this cannot be exactly determined, yet the general proportion is certain ; for a greater sin there must be a greater sorrow, and a greater sor- row must be attested with a greater penalty. And Ezra declares his purpose thus : “ I proclaimed a fast that we might afflict ourselves before God.”^ Now this is no further required, nor is it in this sense further useful, but that it be a trouble to the body, an act of judging and severity ; and this is to be judged by proportion to the sorrow and indigna- tion, as the sorrow is to the crime. But this afflic- tion needs not to leave any remanent effect upon the body ; but such transient sorrow, which is con- sequent to the abstinence of certain times designed for the solemnity, is sufficient as to this purpose. Only it is to be renewed often, as our repentance must be habitual and lasting ; but it may be com- muted with other actions of severity and discipline, according to the customs of a church, or the capacity of the persons, or the opportunity of circumstances. But if the fasting be intended for mortification, then it is fit to be more severe and medicinal, by continu- ance, and quantity, and quality. To repentance, total abstinences without interruption, that is, during the solemnity, short and sharp, are most apt: but towards the mortifying a lust, those sharp and short fasts are not reasonable ; but a diet of fasting, an habitual subtraction of nutriment from the body, a long and lasting austerity, increasing in degrees, but not vio- lent in any. And in this sort of fasting we must be highly careful we do not violate a duty by fondness of an instrument ; and because we intend fasting as a help to mortify the lust, let it not destroy the body, or retard the spirit, or violate our health, or impede us in any part of our necessary duty. As we must be careful that our fast be reasonable, seri- ous, and apt to the end of our designs ; so we must be curious, that by helping one duty uncertainly, it do not certainly destroy another. Let us do it like honest persons and just, without artifices and hypo- crisy ; but let us also do it like wise persons, that it be neither in itself unreasonable, nor, by accident, become criminal. 6. In the pursuance of this discipline of fasting, the doctors of the church and guides of souls have not unusefully prescribed other annexes and cir- cumstances ; as that all the other acts of deport- Laute edere et raeracius bibere nisticitatis erat apud veteres. Unde iiTLtTKv^i'^sLv, et 0pTji/c/tj afiwTi^, apud Callimachum : et in proverbium abiit, rj Tr\r] Isa. xxxv. 5, 6. Luke vii. ’ purgata recessit Per gemitum; propriique lavans in gurgite fletAs, solate persons loaded with sin and misery, to ‘ come to him,’ promising ‘ ease to their burdens,’ and ‘ refreshment to their wearines.s,’ and to exchange their heavy pressures into an ‘ easy yoke,’ and a ‘ light burden.’ ” 9. When Jesus had ended this sermon, one of the Pharisees,^ named Simon, invited him to “ eat with him into whose house when he was entered, a certain “ woman that was a sinner,” abiding there in the city, heard of it : her name was Mary ; she had been married to a noble personage, a na- tive of the town and castle of Magdal, from whence she had her name of Magdalen, though she herself was born in Bethany ; a widow she was, and prompted by her wealth, liberty, and youth, to an intemperate life, and too free entertainments. She came to Jesus into the Pharisee’s house ; not (as did the staring multitude) to glut her eyes with the sight of a miraculous and glorious person ; nor (as did the centurion, or the Syro-Phoenician, or the ruler of the synagogue) for cure of her sickness^ or in behalf of her friend, or child, or servant ; but (the only example of so coming) she came in remorse and regret for her sins, she came to Jesus to lay her burden at his feet, and to present him with a broken heart, and a weeping eye, and great affection, and a box of nard pistic, salutary and precious. For she came trembling, and fell down before him, weeping bitterly for her sins,^ pouring out a flood great enough to “ wash the feet” of the blessed Jesus, and “ wiping them with the hairs of her head ; ” after which she “ brake the box,” and “ anointed his feet with ointment.” Which ex- pression was so great an ecstacy of love, sorrow and adoration, that to anoint the feet even of the greatest monarch was long unknown, and in all the pomps and greatnesses of the Roman prodigality it was not used, till Otho taught it to Nero ; in whose instance it was by Pliny reckoned for a prodigy of unnecessary profusion, and in itself, without the circumstance of so free a dispensation, it was a present for a prince ; and an alabaster box of nard pistic was sent as a present from Cambyses to the king of Ethiopia. 10. When Simon observed this sinner so busy in the expresses of her religion and veneration to Jesus, he thought with himself that this was “ no prophet,” that did “ not know her to be a sinner or no just person, that would suffer her to touch him. For although the Jews’ religion did permit harlots of their own nation to live, and enjoy the privileges of their nation, save that their oblations were refused : yet the Pharisees, who pretended to a greater degree of sanctity than others, would not admit them to civil usages, or the benefits of ordi- nary society ; and thought religion itself, and the honour of a prophet, was concerned in the interests of the same superciliousness : and therefore Simon made an objection within himself. Which Jesus knowing, (for he understood his thoughts, as well Munda suis lacrymis redit, et detersa capillis. Seoul, lib. iii. ™ Plin. Natur. Hist. lib. xiii. c. 3. Vide Athen. Deipno- soph. lib. xii. c. 30. Herodotus in Thalia. 24G HISTORY OF THE SECOND YEAR Part III. as his words,) made her apology and his own in a civil question, expressed in a parable of two debtors, to whom a greater and a less debt respectively was forgiven; both of them concluding, that they would love their merciful creditor in proportion to his mercy and donative : and this was the case of Mary Magdalen ; to whom, because “ much was forgiven, she loved much,” and expressed it in characters so large, that the Pharisee might read his own incivili- ties and inhospitable entertainment of the Master, when it stood confronted with the magnificency of Mary Magdalen’s penance and charity. 11. When Jesus had dined, he was presented with the sad sight of a poor demoniac, possessed with a blind and a dumb devil, in whose behalf his friends entreated Jesus, that he would cast the devil out ; which he did immediately, and “ the blind man saw, and the dumb spake,” so much to the amazement of the people, that they ran in so prodigious companies after him, and so scandalized the Pharisees, who thought that, by means of this prophet, their reputation would be lessened and their schools empty, that first a rumour was scatter- ed up and down, from an uncertain principle, but communicated with tumult and apparent noises, that Jesus was “ beside himself:” upon which rumour his friends and kindred came together to see, and to make provisions accordingly ; and the holy Virgin- mother came herself, but without any apprehensions of any such horrid accident. The words and things she had from the beginning laid up in her heart, would furnish her with principles exclusive of all apparitions of such fancies ; but she came to see what that persecution was, which, under that colour, it was likely the Pharisees might commence. 12. When the mother of Jesus and his kindred came, they found him in a house, encircled with people full of wonder and admiration : and there the holy Virgin-mother might hear part of her own prophecy verified, that the generations of the earth should call her blessed; for a woman, worshipping Jesus, cried out, “ Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck.” To this Jesus replied, not denying her to be highly blessed, who had received the honour of being the mother of the Messias, but advancing the dignities of spiritual excellencies far above this greatest temporal honour in the world : “ Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and do it.” For, in respect of the issues of spiritual perfections, and their proportionable benedictions, all immunities and temporal honours are empty and hollow bless- ings : and all relations of kindred disband and empty themselves into the greater channels and floods of divinity. 13. For when, Jesus being in the house, they told him “ his mother and his brethren staid for him without ; ” he told them, those relations w'ere less than the ties of duty and religion : for those dear names of mother and brethren, which are hal- lowed by the laws of God and the endearments of nature, are made far more sacred when a spiritual cognation does supervene, when the relations are subjected in persons religious and holy: but if they be abstract and separate, the conjunction of persons in spiritual bands, in the same faith, and the same hope, and the union of them in the same mystical head, is an adunation nearer to identity than those distances between parents and children, which are only cemented by the actions of nature, as it is of distinct consideration from the spirit. For Jesus, pointing to his disciples, said, “ Behold my mother and my brethren ; for whosoever doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.” 14. But the Pharisees, upon the occasion of the miracles, renewed the old quarrel : “ He casteth out devils by Beelzebub.” Which senseless and illite- rate objection Christ having confuted, charged them highly upon the guilt of an unpardonable crime, telling them, that the so charging those actions of his, done in virtue of the Divine Spirit, is a sin against the Holy Ghost : and however they might be bold with the Son of man, and prevarications against his words or injuries to his person might, upon repentance and baptism, find a pardon ; yet it was a matter of greater consideration to sin against the Holy Ghost ; that would find no pardon, here nor hereafter. But taking occasion upon this dis- course, he, by an ingenious and mysterious parable, gives the world great caution of recidivation and backsliding after repentance. For if “ the devil returns into a house once swept and garnished, he bringeth seven spirits more impure than himself; and the last estate of that man is worse than the first.” 15. After this, Jesus went from the house of the Pharisee, and, coming to the sea of Tiberias or Gen- nesareth, (for it was called the sea of Tiberias from a town on the banks of the lake,) taught the people upon the shore, himself sitting in the ship ; but he taught them by parables, under which were hid mys- terious senses, which shone through their veil, like a bright sun through an eye closed with a thin eye- lid ; it being light enough to show their infidelity, but not to dispel those thick Egyptian darknesses, which they had contracted, by their habitual indis- positions and pertinacious aversations. By the parable of “ the sower scattering his seed by the way-side, and some on stony, some on thorny, some on good ground,” he intimated the several capacities or indispositions of men’s hearts, the carelessness of some, the frowardness and levity of others, the easi- ness and softness of a third ; and how they are spoiled with worldliness and cares, and how many ways there are to miscarry, and that but one sort of men receive the word, and bring forth the fruits of a holy life. By the parable of “ tares permitted to grow amongst the wheat,” he intimated the tolera- tion of dissenting opinions, not destructive of piety or civil societies. By the three parables of the “ seed growing insensibly,” of the “ grain of mus- tard seed swelling up to a tree,” of “ a little leaven qualifying the whole lump,” he signified the incre- ment of the gospel, and the blessings upon .the apostolical sermons. 1 6. Which parables when he had privately to his apostles rendered into their proper senses, he added Sect. XIII. OF THE FREACTIING OF JESUS. 247 to them two parables, concerning the dignity of the gospel, comparing it to “ treasure hid in a field,” and “ a jewel of great price, for the purchase” of which every good “ merchant must quit all that he hath,” rather than miss it: telling them withal, that however purity and spiritual perfections were intended by the gospel, yet it would not be acquired by every person ; but the public professors of Chris- tianity should be a mixed multitude, “ like a net, enclosing fishes good and bad.” After which dis- courses, he retired from the sea-side, and went to his own city of Nazareth ; where he preached so excellently, upon certain words of the prophet Isaiah," that all the people wondered at the wisdom which he expressed in his divine discourses. But the men of Nazareth did not do honour to the pro- phet, that was their countryman, because they knew him in all the disadvantages of youth, and kindred, and trade, and poverty ; still retaining in their minds the infirmities and humilities of his first years, and keeping the same apprehensions of him, a man, and a glorious prophet, which they had to him, a child, in the shop of a carpenter. But when Jesus, in his sermon, had reproved their infidelity, at which he wondered, and, therefore, did but few miracles there, in respect of what he had done at Capernaum, and intimated the prelation of that city before Nazareth, “ they thrust him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which the city was built,” intending to “ throw him down headlong.” But his work was not yet finished ; therefore he, “ pass- ing through the midst of them, went his way.” 17 . Jesus therefore, departing from Nazareth, went up and down to all the towns and castles of Galilee, attended by his disciples, and certain women, out of whom he had cast unclean spirits ; such as were Mary Magdalen, Johanna, wife to Chuza, Herod’s steward, Susanna, and some others, who did for him offices of provision, and “ minister- ed to him out of their own substance,” and became part of that holy college, which, about this time, began to be full; because now the apostles were returned from their preaching, full of joy, that the devils were made subject to the word of their mouth, and the empire of their prayers, and invocation of the holy name of Jesus. But their Master gave them a lenitive, to assuage the tumour and ex- crescence, intimating that such privileges are not solid foundations of a holy joy, but so far as they co-operate toward the great end of God’s glory, and their own salvation, to which when they are con- signed, and “ their names written in heaven,” in the book of election, and registers of predestination, then their joy is reasonable, holy, true, and perpetual." 18. But when Herod had heard these things of Jesus, presently his apprehensions were such as derived from his guilt ; he thought it was John the Baptist who was “ risen from the dead,” and that these “ mighty works” were demonstrations of his power, increased by the superadditions of immor- tality and diviner influences, made proportionable to the honour of a martyr, and the state of separation.P " Isaiah Ixi. 1, ® Vide Discourse of Certainty of Salvation, Num. 3. For, a little before this lime, Herod had sent to the castle of Macheruns, where John was prisoner, and caused him to be beheaded. His head Herodias buried in her own palace, thinking to secure it against a re-union, lest it should again disturb her unlawful lusts, and disquiet Herod’s conscience. But the body the disciples of John gathered up, and carried it with honour and sorrow, and buried it in Sebaste, in the confines of Samaria, making his grave between the bodies of Elizeus and Abdias, the prophets. And about this time was the pass- over of the Jews. DISCOURSE XV. Of the Excellency, Ease, Reasonableness, and Ad- vantages of hearing Christ’s Yoke, and living according to his Institution. 1 . The holy Jesus came to break from oflT our necks two great yokes : the one of sin, by which we were fettered and imprisoned in the condition of slaves and miserable persons; the other, of Moses’s law, by which we were kept in pupilage and minority, and a state of imperfection : and asserted us into “ the glo- rious liberty of the sons of God.” The first was a despotic empire, and the government of a tyrant : the second was of a school-master, severe, absolute, and imperious ; but it was in order to a further good, yet nothing pleasant in the sufferance and load. And now Christ, having taken off these two, hath put on a third. He quits us of our burden, but not of our duty ; and hath changed the former tyranny and the less perfect discipline into the sweetness of paternal regiment, and the excellency of such an institution, whose every precept carries part of its reward in hand, and assurances of after-glories. Moses’s law was like sharp and unpleasant physic, certainly painful, but uncertainly healthful. For it was not then communicated to them, by promise and universal revelations, that the end of their obedi- ence should be life eternal ; but they were full of hopes it might be so, as we are of health when we have a learned and wise physician. But as yet the reward was in a cloud, and the hopes in fetters and confinement. But the law of Christ is like Christ’s healing of diseases : he does it easily, and he does it infallibly. The event is certainly consequent ; and the manner of cure is by a touch of his hand, or a word of his mouth, or an approximation to the “ hem of his garment,” without pain and vexatious instruments. My meaning is, that Christianity is, by the assistance of Christ’s Spirit, which he pro- mised us and gave us in the gospel, made very easy to us : and yet a reward so great is promised, as were enough to make a lame man to walk, and a broken arm endure the burden ; a reward great enough to make us willing to do violence to all our inclinations, passions, and desires. A hundred- weight to a giant is a light burden, because his strength is disproportionably great, and makes it as easy to him as an ounce is to a child. And yet, if P Virtutem incolumem odimus, Sublatam ex oculisquaerimus invidi.— Hor. 1. iii. Od. 24. •248 OF THE EXCELLENCY, EASINESS, &c. Part III. we had not the strength of giants, if the hundred- weight were of gold or jewels, a weaker person would think it no trouble to bear that burden, if it were the reward of his portage, and the hire of his labours. The Spirit is given to us to enable us, and heaven is promised to encourage us ; the first makes us able, and the second makes us willing : and when we have power and affections we cannot com- plain of pressure. And this is the meaning of our blessed Saviour’s invitation; “ Come unto me, for my burden is light, my yoke is easy which St. John also observed : “ For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments ; and his command- ments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world ; and this is the victory that overcometh, even our faith that is, our be- lief of God’s promises, the promise of the Spirit for present aid, and of heaven for the future reward, is strength enough to overcome all the world. 2. But besides that God hath made his yoke easy, by exterior supports, more than ever was in any other religion ; Christianity is of itself, ac- cording to human estimate, a religion more easy and desirable by our natural and reasonable appetites, than sin, in the midst of all its pleasures and imaginary felicities. Virtue hath more pleasure in it than sin, and hath all satisfactions to every desire of man, in order to human and prudent ends; which I shall represent in the consideration of these par- ticulars. 1. To live according to the laws of Jesus is, in some things, most natural, and proportionable to the desires and first intentions of nature. 2. There is in it less trouble than in sin. 3. It conduces in- finitely to the content of our lives, and natural and political satisfactions. 4. It is a means to preserve our temporal lives long and healthy. 5. It is most reasonable ; and he only is prudent that does so, and he a fool that does not. And all this, besides the considerations of a glorious and happy eternity. 3. Concerning the first, I consider that we do very ill, when, instead of making our natural infirmity an instrument of humility, and of recourse to the grace of God, we pretend the sin of Adam to countenance our actual sins, natural infirmity to excuse our malice ; either laying Adam in fault, for deriving the disability upon us, or God, for putting us into the necessity. But the evils that we feel in this, are from the rebellion of the inferior appetite against reason, or against any religion, that puts restraint upon our first desires. And, therefore, in carnal and sensual instances accidentally, we find the more natural averseness, because God’s laws have put our irascible and concupiscible faculties in fetters and restraints : yet, in matters of duty, which are of immaterial and spiritual concernment, all our natural reason is a perfect enemy and contradiction to, and a law against, vice. It is natural for us to love our parents, and they who do not are unnatural ; they do violence to those dispositions, which God gave us to the constitution of our nature, and for the designs of virtue : and all those tendernesses of affection, those bowels and relenting dispositions, which are Matt. xi. 28, 30. ^ 1 John V. 3, 4. the endearments of parents and children, are also the bonds of duty. Every degree of love makes duty delectable : and, therefore, either by nature we are inclined to hate our parents, which is against all reason and experience, or else we are, by nature, inclined to do them all that, which is the effect of love to such superiors, and principles of being and dependence : and every prevarication from the rule, effects, and expresses of love, is a contradiction to nature, and a mortification ; to which we cannot be invited by any thing from within, but by something from without, that is violent and preternatural. There are also many other virtues, even in the matter of sensual appetite, which none can lose, but by altering, in some degree, the natural disposition. And I instance in the matter of carnality and un- cleanness, to which possibly some natures may think themselves apt and disposed : but yet God hath put into our mouths a bridle, to curb the licen- tiousness of our speedy appetite, putting into our very natures a principle as strong to restrain it, as there is in us a disposition apt to invite us ; and this is also in persons who are most apt to the vice, women and young persons, to whom God hath given a modesty and shame of nature, that the en- tertainments of lusts may become contradictions to our retreating and backward modesty, more than they are satisfactions to our too forward appetites. It is as great a mortification and violence to nature to blush, as to lose a desire ; and we find it true, when persons are invited to confess their sins, or to ask forgiveness publicly, a secret smart is not so violent as a public shame : and, therefore, to do an action which brings shame all along, and opens the sanctuaries of nature, and makes all her retirements public, and dismantles her enclosure, as lust does, and the shame of carnality, hath in it more asperity and abuse to nature, than the short pleasure to which we are invited can repay. There are un- natural lusts, lusts which are such in their very condition and constitution, that a man must turn a woman, and a woman become a beast, in acting them ; and all lusts, that are not unnatural in their own complexion, are unnatural by a consequent and accidental violence. And if lust hath in it disso- nancies to nature, there are but few apologies left to excuse our sins upon nature’s stock : and all that system of principles and reasonable induce- ments to virtue, which we call “ the law of nature,” is nothing else but that firm ligature and incorpora- tion of virtue to our natural principles and dispo- sitions, which whoso prevaricates, docs more against nature than he that restrains his appetite. And, besides these particulars, there is not, in our natural discourse, any inclination, directly and by intention of itself, contrary to the love of God, because by God we understand that Fountain of being which is infinitely perfect in itself, and of great good to us ; and whatsoever is so apprehended, it is as na- tural for us to love, as to love any thing in the world ; for we can love nothing but what we be- lieve to be good in itself, or good to us.<^ And be- ^ ’Eyo) yap ovk av ovdk aWo Trepi 3’eou o, ti av tiTTOifju, v oTi a'y«3’os TTE TravTairaa-iv tiri, kuI ^ujULiravTa tv t-jj t^ovcria Sect. XI IT. OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 249 yond this, there are, in nature, many principles and reasons to make an aptness to acknowledge and confess God ; and, by the consent of nations, which they also have learned from the dictates of their nature, all men, in some manner or other, worship God. And, therefore, when this, our nature, is de- termined in its own indefinite principle, to the man- ner of worship, all acts against the love, the obe- dience, and the worship of God, are also against nature, and offer it some rudeness and violence. And 1 shall observe this, and refer it to every man’s reason and experience, that the great difficulties of virtue, commonly apprehended, commence not so much upon the stock of nature, as of education and evil habits.*^ Our virtues are difficult, because we at first get ill habits ; and these habits must be un- rooted before we do well ; and that is our trouble. Rut if, by the strictness of discipline and whole- some education, we begin at first in our duty, and the practice of virtuous principles, we shall find virtue made as natural to us, while it is customary and habitual, as we pretend infirmity to be, and pro- pensity to vicious practices. And this we are taught by that excellent Hebrew who said, “ Wis- dom is easily seen of them that love her, and found of such as seek her: she preventeth them that de- sire her, in making herself first known unto them. Whoso seeketh her early shall have no great travel ; for he shall find her sitting at his doors.” ® 4. Secondly : In the strict observances of the law of Christianity there is less trouble than in the habitual courses of sin. For if we consider the general design of Christianity, it propounds to us in this world nothing that is of difficult purchase, ^ nothing beyond what God allots us, by the ordinary and common providence, such things which we are to receive without care and solicitous vexation : so that the ends are not big, and the way is easy ; and this walked over with much simplicity and sweet- ness, and those obtained without difficulty. He that propounds to himself to live low, pious, hum- ble, and retired, his main employment is nothing but sitting quiet, and undisturbed with variety of impertinent affairs : but he that loves the world, and its acquisitions, entertains a thousand businesses, and every business hath a world of employment, and every employment is multiplied, and made in- tricate by circumstances, and every circumstance is to be disputed, and he that disputes ever hath two sides in enmity and opposition; and by this time there is a genealogy, a long descent, and cogna- tion of troubles, branched into so many particu- lars, that it is troublesome to understand them, and T?; avTou Ss uicnrtp yivuiaKELV 'iKaff'ro^ virip avTwv OLSTUL, Kul Lpsus Kal i^tcoTfjs. — Procop. Gothic. 1. Totou-ros aiv ovv 6 'tol? XoyLKol^ yivE(TLV ivovv Kep^os Xa^slu ap.ELVOV, ohht vov aocf>ov. — SoPH. Elect, s Aleam exercent tanta lucrandi perdendive temeritate, ut cum omnia defecerunt, novissimo jactu de libertate et de cor- pora contendant Tacit, de Mor. Germ. t Virtus, repulsae nescia sordidae, Intaminatis fulget honoribus ; Nec sumit aut ponit secures Arbitrio popularis aurae.— Horat. lib. iii. Od. 2. Sect. XII I. OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION, 253 and a great advantage to a fair reputation, that it is praised “ by them that love it not, that it is honoured by the followers and family of vice, that it forces glory out of shame, honour from contempt, that it reconciles men to the fountain of honour, the Al- mighty God, who will “ honour them that honour him ; ” there are but a few more excellencies in the world to make up the rosary of temporal felicity. And it is so certain that religion serves even our temporal ends, that no great end of state can well be served without it ; not ambition, not desires of wealth, not any great design, but religion must be made its usher or support.^ If a new opinion be commenced, and the author would make a sect, and draw disciples after him, at least he must be thought to be religious ; which is a demonstration how great an instrument of reputation piety and religion is : and if the pretence will do us good offices amongst men, the reality will do the same, besides the ad- vantages which we shall receive from the Divine benediction. The “ power of godliness ” will cer- tainly do more than the “ form ” alone. And it is most notorious in the affairs of the clergy, whose lot it hath been to fall from great riches to poverty, when their wealth made them less curious of their duty ; hut when humility, and chastity, and exem- plary sanctity, have been the enamel of their holy order; the people, like the Galatians, would pull out their own eyes to do them benefit. And indeed God hath singularly blessed y such instruments, to the being the only remedies to repair the breaches made by sacrilege and irreligion. But certain it is, no man was ever honoured for that which was esteemed vicious. Vice hath got money and a curse many times, and vice hath adhered to the instru- ments and purchases of honour : but, among all nations whatsoever, those called honourable put on the face and pretence of virtue. But I choose to instance in the proper cognizance of a Christian, humility, which seems contradictory to the purposes and reception of honour; and yet, in the world, nothing is a more certain means to purchase it. Do not all the world hate a proud man ? And, there- fore, what is contrary to humility, is also contra- dictory to honour and reputation. And when the apostle had given command, that “ in giving ho- nour, we should one go before another,” he laid the foundation of praises, and panegyrics, and triumphs. And as humility is secure against affronts and tem- pests of despite, because it is below them ; so when, by employment, or any other issue of Divine provi- dence, it is drawn from its sheath and secrecy, it shines clear and bright as the purest and most polished metals. Humility is like a tree, whose root, when it sets deepest in the earth, rises higher, and spreads fairer, and stands surer, and lasts longer ; every step of its descent is like a rib of iron, com- bining its parts in unions indissoluble, and placing it in the chambers of security. No wise man ever “ virtus laudatur, et alget.— J uven. Preecipuam imperatorise majestatis curam esse prospici- mus, religioais indaginera; cujus si cultum retinere potueri- mus, iter prosperitatis humanis aperitur inceptis.— Theod. et Valent, in Cod. Theod. lost any thing by cession ; but he receives the hos- tility of violent persons into his embraces; like a stone into a lap of wool, it rests and sits down soft and innocently ; hut a stone falling upon a stone makes a collision, and extracts fire, and finds no rest : and just so are two proud persons, despised by each other, contemned by all, living in perpetual dissonancies, always fighting against affronts, jealous of every person, disturbed by every accident, a per- petual storm within, and daily hissings from without. 13. Fourthly: Holiness and obedience is an excellent preservative of life, and makes it long and healthful. In order to which discourse, because it is new, material, and argumentative, apt to persuade men, who prefer life before all their other interests, I consider many things. First : In the Old Testa- ment, a long and a prosperous life were the great promises of the covenant; their hopes were built upon it, and that was made the support of all their duty. “ If thou wilt diligently hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, I will put none of the diseases upon thee which I brought upon the Egyp- tians ; for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” * And more particularly yet, that we may not think piety to be security only against the plagues of Egypt, God makes his promise more indefinite and uncon- fined r “Ye shall serve the Lord your God, and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee, and will fulfil the number of thy days ;” ^ that is, the period of nature shall be the period of thy person ; thou shalt live long, and die in a seasonable and ripe age. And this promise was so verified by a long experience, that, by David’s time, it grew up to a rule : “ What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips, that they speak no guile.” And the same argument was pressed by Solomon, who was an excellent philosopher, and well skilled in the natural and accidental means of preservation of our lives : “ Fear the Lord, and depart from evil ; and it shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy hones.”® “Length of days is in the right hand of wisdom :” for “ she is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.”*^ Meaning, that the tree of life and immortality, which God had planted in paradise, and which, if man had stood, he should have tasted, and have lived for ever, the fruit of that tree is offered upon the same conditions ; if we will keep the command- ments of God, our obedience, like the tree of life, shall consign us to immortality hereafter, by a long and a healthful life here. And therefore, although in Moses’s time the days of man had been short- ened, till they came to “ threescore years and ten, or fourscore years, and then their strength is but labour and sorrow ;” ® (for Moses was author of that psalm;) yet to show the great privilege of those persons whose piety was great, Moses himself at- tained to one hundred and twenty years, which was y Dedit enim providentia hominibus munus, ut honesta magis juvarent, — Quintil. lib. i. c. 12. * Exod. XV. 26. ^ Exod. xxiii. 25, 26. ^ Psalm xxxiv. 12, 13. ^ Prov. iii. 7, 8. Ver. 16, 18. ® Psalm xc. 10. 254 OF THE EXCELLENCY, EASINESS, &c. Part III. almost double to the ordinary and determined period. But Enoch and Elias never died, and became great examples to us, that a spotless and holy life might possibly have been immortal. 1 4. I shall add no more examples, hut one great conjugation of precedent observed by the Jewish writers; who tell us, that in the second temple there were three hundred high priests, (I suppose they set down a certain number for an uncertain, and by three hundred they mean very many,) and yet that temple lasted but four hundred and twenty years ; the reason of this so rapid and violent ab- scission of their priests being their great and scan- dalous impieties : and yet, in the first temple, whose abode was, within ten years, as long as the second, there was a succession but of eighteen high priests : for they being generally very pious, and the pre- servers of their rites and religion, against the schism of Jeroboam, and the defection of Israel, and the idolatry and irreligion of many of the kings of Judah, God took delight to reward it with a long and honourable old age. And Balaam knew well enough what he said, when, in his ecstasy and prophetic rapture, he made his prayer to God : “ Let my soul die the death of the righteous.” ^ It was not a prayer that his soul might be saved, or that he might repent at last ; for repentance and immortality were revelations of a later date : but he, in his prophetic ecstasy, seeing what God had purposed to the Moabites, and what blessings he had reserved for Israel, prays that he might not die, as the Moabites were like to die, with an un- timely death, by the sword of their enemies, dis- possessed of their country, spoiled of their goods, in the period and last hour of their nation : but let my soul die the death of the just, the death de- signed for the faithful Israelites ; such a death which God promised to Abraham, that he should return to his fathers in peace, and in a good old age. For the deaths of the righteous is like the descending of ripe and wholesome fruits from a pleasant and florid tree ; our senses entire, our limbs unbroken, ^vithout horrid tortures, after pro- vision made for our children, with a blessing en- tailed upon posterity, in the presence of our friends, our dearest relative closing up our eyes, and bind- ing our feet, leaving a good name behind us. 0 let my soul die such a death ! for this, in whole or in part, according as God sees it good, is the manner that the righteous die. And this was Balaam’s prayer. And this was the state and condition in the Old Testament. 15. In the gospel the case is nothing altered. For, besides that those austerities, rigours, and mortiflcations, which are in the gospel advised or commanded respectively, are more salutary, or of less corporal inconvenience, than a vicious life of intemperance, or lust, or carefulness, or tyrant co- vetousness ; there is no accident or change, to the ^ Num. xxiii. 10. 6 MjjSe /U.OI a/c\av(7T09 SravaTO^ /iioXoi, dXXft (piXoiai KaXXgtTTotjUi ^av(j)u aXysa Kai aTovay^ci^. — Solon. Cicero, in Tuscul. 1. sic reddit: Mors mea non careat lacrymis : linquamus amicis Mcerorem, ut celebrent funera cum gemitu. sufferance of which the gospel hath engaged us, but in the very thing our life is carefully provided for, either in kind, or by a gainful exchange : “ He that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it, and he that will save his life, shall lose it.”^ And although God, who promised long life to them that obey, did not promise that himself would never call for our life, borrowing it of us, and repaying it in a glorious and advantageous exchange ; yet this very promise of giving us a better life in exchange for this, when we exposed it in martyrdom, does confirm our title to this, this being the instrument of permutation with the other: for God, obliging himself to give us another in exchange for this, when, in cases extraordinary, he calls for this, says plainly, that this is our present right by grace, and the title of the Divine promises. But the promises are clear. For St. Paul calls children to the ob- servation of the fifth commandment, by the same argument which God used in the first promulgation of it. “ Honour thy father and thy mother, (which is the first commandment with promise,) that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long upon the earth.” ^ For although the gospel be built upon better promises than the law, yet it hath the same too, not as its foundation, but as appen- dances and adjuncts of grace, and supplies of need. “ Godliness^ hath the promise of this life, as well as of the life that is to come.”^ That is plain. And although Christ revealed his Father’s mercies to us, in new expresses and great abundance : yet he took nothing from the world which ever did, in any sense, invite piety, or endear obedience, or co- operate towards felicity. And, therefore, the pro- mises which were made of old, are also presupposed in the new, and mentioned by intimation and im- plication within the greater. When our blessed Saviour, in seven of the eight beatitudes, had in- stanced in new promises and rewards, as “ heaven, seeing of God, life eternal in one of them, to which heaven is as certainly consequent as to any of the rest, he did choose to instance in a temporal blessing, and in the very words of the Old Testa- ment ; " to show, that that part of the old covenant, which concerns morality, and the rewards of obedi- ence, remains firm, and included within the condi- tions of the gospel. 16. To this purpose is that saying of our blessed Saviour : “ Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God ® meaning, that besides natural means, or- dained for the preservation of our lives, there are means supernatural and divine. God’s blessing does as much as bread : nay it is “ every word pro- ceeding out of the mouth of God that is, every precept and commandment of God is so for our good, that it is intended as food and physic to us, a means to make us live long. And therefore God hath done in this as in other graces and issues h Matt. X. 39. * Ephes. vi. 2, 3. ov yap £U(TT7j8£ta crwOvvaKeL ^poTo 1 ’ 25. I sum up this discourse with an observation, that is made concerning the family of Eli, upon which, for thp remissness of discipline on the father’s part, and for the impiety and profaneness of his sons, God sent this curse : “ All the increase of their house shall die in the flower of their age.”^ According to that sad malediction, it happened for many generations ; the heir of the family died as soon as he begat a son to succeed him : till the family, being wearied by so long a curse, by the counsel of Rabbi Johanan Ben Zachary, betook themselves universally to a sedulous and most de- vout meditation of the law, that is, to an exemplary devotion and strict religion : but then the curse was turned into a blessing, and the line masculine lived to an honourable old age. For the doctors of the Jews said, that God often changes his purposes con- cerning the death of man, when the sick person is “ liberal in alms,” or “ fervent in prayer,” or “ changes his name,” that is, gives up his name to God, by the serious purposes and religious vows of holy obedience. “ He that followeth after righte- ousness ” (alms it is in the vulgar Latin) “ and mercy, findeth life ^ that verifies the first : and the fervent prayer of Hezekiah is a great instance of the second : and all the precedent discourse was intended for probation of the third, and proves that no disease is so deadly as a deadly sin ; and the ways of righteousness are, therefore, advantages of health, and preservatives of life, (when health and Mi'a (pvXaKi) j) ivcrttEia' turrs^ov^ yap av^pwTrov ov Sai- jxuiv KaKO?, oijTS iiixapfiivt] KpaTil. Qe 6? yap posTai xoi/ £i/cT£jS?) £/c irav'TO’s KUKOV. t 6 yap iv, Kal fiovov tv, iv dv^’pcu- TTOie dya^^ov, sariv eva-tfSeia. — Lactant. AvvaTai n i'wia'rdfxwv ttoXX«s aTroao-ptij/ai tvfpyf ia^ tcov d(T'rip03V. — PtOLEM. Id est, sapiens doniinabitur astris. y Job xxi. 17, 21, 23. ^ 1 Sam. ii. A3. “ Prov. xxi. 21. Sect. XIII. OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 259 life are good for us,) because they are certain title to all God’s promises and blessings. 26. Upon supposition of these premises, I con- sider, there is no cause to wonder, that tender per- sons and the softest women endure the violences of art and physic, sharp pains of caustics and cupping- glasses, the abscission of the most sensible part, for preservation of a mutilous and imperfect body : but it is a wonder that, when God hath appointed a remedy in grace apt to preserve nature, and that a dying unto sin should prolong our natural life, yet few men are willing to try the experiment ; they will buy their life upon any conditions in the world but those, which are the best and easiest, any thing but religion and sanctity; although, for so doing, they are promised that immortality shall be added to the end of a long life, to make the life of a mor- tal partake of the eternal duration of an angel, or of God himself. 27. Fifthly: The last testimony of the excellency and gentleness of Christ’s yoke, the fair load of Christianity, is the reasonableness of it, and the unreasonableness of its contrary.*^ For whatsoever the wisest men in the world, in all nations and reli- gions, did agree upon, as most excellent in itself, and of greatest power to make political or future and immaterial felicities, all that, and much more, the holy J esus adopted into his law : for they, re- ceiving sparks or single irradiations from the re- gions of light, or else having fair tapers shining indeed excellently in representations and expresses of morality, were all involved and swallowed up into the body of light, the sun of righteousness. Christ’s discipline was the breviary of all the wis- dom of the best men, and a fair copy and transcript of his Father’s wisdom ; and there is nothing in the laws of our religion, but what is perfective of our spirits, excellent rules of religion, and rare expe- dients of obeying God by the nearest ways of imita- tion, and such duties which are the proper ways of doing benefits to all capacities and orders of men. But I remember my design now is not to represent Christianity to be a better religion than any other ; for I speak to Christians, amongst whom we pre- suppose that : but I design to invite all Christians in name to be such as they are called, upon the interest of such arguments, which represent the advantages of obedience to our religion, as it is commanded us by God. And this I shall do yet further, by consider- ing, as touching those Christian names who apprehend religion as the fashion of their country, and know no other use of a church but customary, or secular and profane, that, supposing Christian religion to have come from God, as we all profess to believe, there are no greater fools in the world, than such whose life conforms not to the pretence of their bap- tism and institution. They have all the signs and characters of fools, and indiscreet, unwary persons. 28. First : Wicked persons, like children and fools, choose the present, whatsoever it is, and neglect the infinite treasures of the future. They ^ Religio sapientiam adaiiget, et sapientia religionem. — Lactant.^ 2o(p(o yap aiaxpov s^apapTai/su/. — .^EsCHY. Prometh. s 2 that have no faith nor foresight, have an excuse for snatching at what is now represented, because it is that which can move tbicm : but then such per- sons are infinitely distant from wisdom, whose un- derstanding neither reason nor revelation hath carried further than the present adherences ; not only because they are narrow souls, who cannot look forward, and have nothing to distinguish them from beasts, who enjoy the present, being careless of what is to come ; but also because whatsoever is present, is not fit satisfaction to the spirit, nothing but gluttings of the sense and sottish appetites.^ Moses was a wise person ; and so esteemed and reported by the Spirit of God, because “ he despised the pleasures of Pharaoh’s court, having an eye to the recompence of reward;” that is, because he despised all the present arguments of delight, and preferred those excellencies which he knew should be infinitely greater, as well as he knew they should be at all. He that would have rather chosen to stay in the theatre, and see the sports out, than quit the present spectacle, upon assurance to be adopted into Caesar’s family, had an offer made him too great for a fool; and yet his misfortune was not big enough for pity, because he understood nothing of his felicity, and rejected what he understood not. But he that prefers moments before eternity, and despises the infinite successions of eternal ages, that he may enjoy the present, not daring to trust God for what he sees not, and having no objects of his affections, but those which are the objects of his eyes, hath the impatience of a child, and the indis- cretion of a fool, and the faithlessness of an unbe- liever. The faith and hope of a Christian are the graces and portions of spiritual wisdom, which Christ designed as an antidote against this folly. 29. Secondly : Children and fools choose to please their senses rather than their reason, because they still dwell within the regions of sense, and have but little residence amongst intellectual es- sences. And because the needs of nature first em- ploy our sensual appetites, these, being first in possession, would also fain retain it, and therefore, for ever continue their title, and perpetually fight for it : but because the inferior faculty, fighting against the superior, is no better than a rebel, and that it takes reason for its enemy, it shows such actions which please the sense, and do not please the reason, to be unnatural, monstrous, and unreason- able. And it is a great disreputation to the under- standing of a man, to be so cozened and deceived, as to choose money before a moral virtue ; to please that which is common to him and beasts, rather than that part which is a communication of the Divine nature ; to see him run after a bubble which himself hath made, and the sun hath particoloured, and to despise a treasure, which is offered to him, to call him off from pursuing that emptiness and nothing. But so does every vicious person; he feeds upon husks, and loathes manna ; worships cats and onions, the beggarly and basest of Egyptian deities, ^ ’Ei fjLtv yap TrpaTTEts tl fitd' rjoovt]^ aicy^pov, 1) ntv i)oouv TrapijX^e, to Sk kukov jxiviL. — HlEROCL. OF THE EXCELLENCY, EASINESS, &c. Part III. ‘iGO and neglects to adore and honour the eternal God; he prefers the society of drunkards before the com- munion of saints ; or the fellowship of harlots before a quire of pure, chaste, and immaterial angels ; the sickness and filth of luxury before the health and purities of chastity and temperance ; a dish of red lentil pottage before a benison ; drink before im- mortality, money before mercy, wantonness before the severe precepts of Christian philosophy, earth before heaven, and folly before the crowns, and sceptres, and glories of a kingdom. Against this folly Christian religion opposes contempt of things below, and setting our affections on things above. 30. Thirdly : Children and fools propound to themselves ends silly, low, and cheap; the getting of a nut-shell, or a bag of cherry-stones, a gaud to entertain the fancy of a few minutes ; and, in order to such ends, direct their counsels and designs. And indeed in this they are innocent. But persons not living according to the discipline of Christianity are as foolish in the designation of their ends ; choosing things as unprofitable and vain to themselves, and yet with many mixtures of malice and injurious- ness, both to themselves and others. His end is to cozen his brother of a piece of land, or to dis- grace him by telling of a lie, to supplant his for- tune, to make him miserable ; ends which wise men and good men look upon as miseries and perse- cutions, instruments of affliction and regret ; because every man is a member of a society, and hath some common terms of union and conjuncture, which make all the body susceptive of all accidents to any part. And it is a great folly, for pleasing of the eye, to snatch a knife which cuts our fingers ; to bring affliction upon my brother or relative, which either must affect me, or else I am a useless, a base, or dead person. The ends of vice are ignoble and dishonourable ; to discompose the quiet of a family, or to create jealousies, or to raise wars, or to make a man less happy, or apparently miserable, or to fish for the devil, and gain souls to our enemy, or to please a passion that undoes us, or to get something that cannot satisfy us ; this is the chain of counsels, and the great aims of unchristian livers ; they are all of them extreme great miseries. And it is a great indecency for a man to propound an end less and more imperfect than our present condition ; as if we went about to unravel our pre- sent composure, and to unite every degree of es- sence and capacity, and to retire back to our first matter and unshapen state, hoping to get to our journey’s end by going backwards. Against this folly the holy J esus opposed the fourth beatitude, or precept, of ‘‘ hungering and thirsting after righteousness.” 31. Fourthly: But children and fools, whatever their ends be, they pursue them with as much v/eakness and folly as they first chose them with indiscretion ; running to broken cisterns, or to puddles, to quench their thirst. When they are hungry, they make fantastic banquets, or put coloquintida into their pottage, that they may be furnished with pot herbs : or are like the ass that desired to flatter Tii Sfii/u KtpSi] Tnifiovu's apyuX^frai. - SoPHOCL. Antig. Hos {'elicilas ingvata suporffiiit, \it sompev pleni spoi, vaoui his master, and, therefore, fawned upon him like a spaniel, and bruised his shoulders. Such indecencies of means and prosecutions of interests we find in unchristian courses. It may be, they propound to themselves riches for their end, and they use covet- ousness for their means, and that brings nought home ; or else they steal to get it, and they are ap- prehended, and made to restore fourfold. Like moths gnawing a garment, they devour their own house, and, by greediness of desire, they destroy their content, making impatience the parent and instrument of all their felicity.^^ Or they are so greedy and imaginative, and have raised their ex- pectation by an over-valuing esteem of temporary felicities, that when they come, they fall short of their promises, and are indeed less than they would have been, by being, before-hand, apprehended greater than they could be. If their design be to represent themselves innocent and guiltless of a suspicion or a fault, they deny the fact, and double it. When they would repair their losses, they fall to gaming ; and, besides that they are infinitely full of fears, passions, wrath, and violent disturbances, in the various chances of their game, that which they use to restore their fortune ruins even the little remnant, and condemns them to beggary, or what is worse. Thus evil men seek for content out of things that cannot satisfy, and take care to get that content ; that is, they raise w'ar to enjoy present peace, and renounce all content to get it ; they strive to de- press their neighbours, that they may be their equals ; to disgrace them, to get reputation to themselves; (wfflich arts, being ignoble, do them the most dis- paragement;) and resolve never to enter into the felicities of God by content taken in the prosperi- ties of man : wdiich is making ourselves wretched by being wicked. Malice and envy is indeed a mighty curse ; and the devil can show us nothing more foolish and unreasonable than envy, wfflich is, in its very formality, a curse, an eating of coals and vipers, because m}’- neighbour’s table is full, and his cup is crowned with health and plenty. The Christian religion, as it chooseth excellent ends, so it useth proportionate and apt means. The most contradictory accident in the wmrld, when it becomes hallowed bv a pious and Christian design, becomes a certain means of felicity and content. To quit our lands for Christ’s sake, wdll certainly make us rich ; to depart from our friends, will increase our relations and beneficiaries : but the striving to secure our temporal interests, by any other means than obedient actions, or obedient sufferings, is declared, by the holy Jesus, to be the greatest improvidence and ill husbandry in the world. Even in this world, Christ wdll repay us an hundred-fold for all our losses, which w^e suffer for the interests of Christianity. In the same proportion w’e find, that all graces do the wmrk of human felicities, wdth a more certain power and infallible effect than their contraries. Gratitude endears benefits, and procures more friendships ; confession gets a pardon ; impudence and lying doubles the fault, and exasperates the offended per- commodorum, praesentibus caveant, dum futura prospectant. — Panegw. ad Constant. Filimn. Sect. Xlll. OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 2G1 son ; innocence is bold, and rocks a man asleep ; but an evil conscience is a continual alarm. Against this folly, of using disproportionate means in order to their ends, the holy Jesus hath opposed the eight beatitudes, which, by contradictions of nature and improbable causes, according to human and erring estimate, bring our best and wisest ends to pass in- fallibly and divinely. 32. But this is too large a field to walk in ; for it represents all the flatteries of sin to be a mere cozenage and deception of the understanding ; and we find, by this scrutiny, that evil and unchristian persons are infinitely unwise, because they neglect the counsel of their superiors and their guides. They dote passionately upon trifles ; they rely upon false foundations and deceiving principles ; they are most confident when they are most abused ; they are like shelled fish, singing loudest when their house is on fire about their ears, and being merriest when they are most miserable and perishing ; when they have the option of two things, they ever choose the worst ; they are not masters of their own actions, but break all purposes at the first temptation ; they take more pains to do themselves a mischief than would secure heaven; that is, they are rude, igno- rant, foolish, unwary, and undisceming people, in all senses, and to all purposes ; and are incurable, but by their obedience and conformity to the holy Jesus, the eternal Wisdom of the Father. 33. Upon the strength of these premises, the yoke of Christianity must needs be apprehended light, though it had in it more pressure than it hath ; because lightness or heaviness, being relative terms, are to be esteemed by comparison to others. Christianity is far easier than the yoke of Moses’s law, not only because it consists of fewer rites, but also, because those perfecting and excellent graces, which inte- grate the body of our religion, are made easy by God’s assisting, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost : and we may yet make it easier, by love and by fear, which are the proper products of the evangelical promises and threatenings. For I have seen per- sons in affrightment have carried burdens, and leaped ditches, and climbed walls, which their natural power could never have done. And if we understood the sadnesses of a cursed eternity, from which we are commanded to fly, and yet knew how near we are to it, and how likely to fall into it, it would create fears greater than a sudden fire, or a midnight alarm. And those unhappy souls who come to feel this truth, when their condition is with- out remedy, are made the more miserable by the apprehension of their stupid folly. For certainly the accursed spirits feel the smart of hell once doubled upon them, by considering by what vain, unsatisfying trifles they lost their happiness, with what pains they perished, and with how great ease they might have been beatified. And certain it is, Christian religion hath so furnished us with assist- ances, both exterior and interior, both of persua- ^ .r Quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam Freemia si tollas ? Juv. Sublatis studiorum pretiis, etiam studia peritura, ut minus decora.— Tacit. sion and advantages, that whatsoever Christ hath doubled upon us in perfection, he hath alleviated in aids. 34. And then, if we compare the .state of Christi- anity with sin, all the preceding discourses were in- tended to represent how much easier it is to be a Christian than a vile and wicked person. And he that remembers, that whatever fair allurements may be pretended as invitations to a sin, are such false and unsatisfying pretences, that they drive a man to repent him of his folly, and, like a great laughter, end in a sigh, and expire in weariness and indigna- tion ; must needs confess himself a fool, for doing that which he knows will make him repent that he ever did it. A sin makes a man afraid when it thunders ; and, in all dangers, the sin detracts the visor, and affrights him, and visits him when he comes to die, upbraiding him with guilt, and threat- ening misery. So that Christianity is the easiest law, and the easiest state ; it is more perfect and less troublesome ; it brings us to felicity by ways proportionable, landing us in rest by easy and un- perplexed journeys. This discourse I, therefore, thought necessary, because it reconciles our religion with those passions and desires, which are commonly made the instruments and arguments of sin. For we rarely meet with such .spirits which love virtue so metaphysically, as to abstract her from all sensible and delicious compositions, and love the purity of the idea. St. Louis, the king, sent Ivo, bishop of Chartres, on an embassy ; and he told, that he met a grave matron on the way, with fire in one hand, and water in the other ; and, observing her to have a melancholic, religious, and fantastic deportment and look, asked her what those symbols meant, and what she meant to do with her fire and water ? She answered, “ My purpose is, with the fire to burn paradise, and, with my water, to quench the flames of hell, that men may serve God without the incen- tives of hope and fear, and purely for the love of God.” Whether the woman were only imaginative and sad, or also zealous, I know not. But God knows he would have few disciples, if the arguments of invitation were not of greater promise than the labours of virtue are of trouble. And, therefore, the Spirit of God, knowing to what we are inflexible, and by what we are made most ductile and malle- able, hath propounded virtue clothed and dressed with such advantages, as may entertain even our sensitive part and first desires,® that those also may be invited to virtue, who understand not what is just and reasonable, but what is profitable ; who are more moved with advantage than justice. And be- cause emolument is more felt than innocence, and a man may be poor for all his gift of chastity ; the holy Jesus, to endear the practices of religion, hath represented godliness to us under the notion of “ gain,” and “ sin as unfruitful:” and yet, besides all the natural and reasonable advantage,s, every virtue hath a supernatural reward, a gracious pro- vide Ciceron. Tuscul. ii. Lact. lib. iii. c. 27. Instit. Virtus per seipsam non beata est, qnoniam in perferendis, ut dixi, malistota vis ejus est. — Idem, e. 12. Aug. Ep. 12. 2G2 OF CERTAINTY OF SALVATION. Part III. mise attending ; and every vice is not only naturally deformed, but is made more ugly by a threatening, and horrid by an appendant curse. Henceforth, therefore, let no man complain, that the command- ments of God are impossible ; for they are not only possible, but easy ; and they that say otherwise, and do accordingly, take more pains to carry the instru- ments of their own death, than would serve to ascer- tain them of life. And if we would do as much for Christ as we have done for sin, we should find the pains less, and the pleasure more. And, therefore, such complainers are without excuse ; for certain it is, they that can go in foul ways, must not say they cannot walk in fair : they that march over rocks, in despite of so many impediments, can travel the even ways of religion and peace, when the holy Jesus is their guide, and the Spirit is their guardian, and infinite felicities are at their journey’s end, and all the reason of the world, political, economical, and personal, do entertain and support them in the travel of the passage. THE PRAYER. O eternal Jesus, who gavest laws unto the world, that mankind, being united to thee by the bands of obedience, might partake of all thy glories and felicities ; open our understanding, give us the spirit of discerning, and just apprehension of all the beauties with which thou hast enamelled virtue, to represent it beauteous and amiable in our eyes ; that, by the allurements of exterior decencies and appendant blessings, our present desires may be entertained, our hopes promoted, our affections satisfied, and love, entering in by these doors, may dwell in the interior regions of the will. O make us to love thee for thyself, and religion for thee, and all the instruments of reli- gion in order to thy glory and our own felicities. Pull off the visors of sin, and discover its de- formities, by the lantern of thy word, and the light of the Spirit ; that 1 may never be bewitched with sottish appetites. Be pleased to build up all the contents I expect in this world, upon the interests of a virtuous life, and the support of religion ; that I may be rich in good works, con- tent in the issues of thy providence, my health may be the result of temperance and severity, my mirth in spiritual emanations, my rest in hope, my peace in a good conscience, my satisfaction and acquiescence in thee ; that from content I may pass to an eternal fulness, from health to immortality, from grace to glory ; walking in the paths of righteousness, by the waters of comfort, to the land of everlasting rest; to feast in the glorious communications of eternity, eternally adoring, loving, and enjoying the infinity of the ever-blessed and mysterious Trinity ; to whom be glory, and honour, and dominion, now and for ever. Amen. ** Ad Num. 17. ^ Quod dixit Jesus 72 discipulis, [Lucae x. 20.] eorum no- mina dcscripta esse in ccelo ; proedestinationem licet aliquate- nus denotet, non tamen ad gloriam, sed ad munus evangelicum et ministerium in regno. Alii autem verba ilia non rcm facti DISCOURSE XVI. Of Certainty of Salvation. 1. When the holy Jesus took an account of the first legation and voyage of his apostles, he found them rejoicing in privileges and exterior powers, in their authority over unclean spirits ; but weighing it in his balance, he found the cause too light, and, therefore, diverted it upon the right object: “ Re- joice that your names are written in heaven.”^ The revelation was confirmed, and more personally ap- plied, in answer to St. Peter’s question, “We have forsaken all, and followed thee ; what shall we have, therefore?” Their Lord answered, “ Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Amongst these persons, to whom Christ spake, Judas was ; he was one of the twelve, and he had a throne allotted for him ; his name was described in the book of life, and a sceptre and a crown were deposited for him too. F or we must not judge of Christ’s meaning by the event, since he spake these words to produce in them faith, comfort, and joy, in the best objects : it was a ser- mon of duty, as well as a homily of comfort; and, therefore, was equally intended to all the college : and since the number of thrones is proportioned to the number of men, it is certain there was no ex- ception of any man there included ; and yet it is as certain Judas never came to sit upon the throne, and his name was blotted out of the book of life. Now, if we put these ends together, that in Scripture it was not revealed to any man concerning his final condition, but to the dying penitent thief, and to the twelve apostles, that twelve thrones were designed for them, and a promise made of their enthroniza- tion ; and yet that no man’s final estate is so clearly declared miserable and lost, as that of Judas, one of the twelve, to whom a throne was promised; the result will be, that the election of holy persons is a condition allied to duty, absolute and infallible in the general, and supposing all the dispositions and requisites concurring ; but fallible in the particular, if we fall off from the mercies of the covenant, and prevaricate the conditions. But the thing which is most observable is, that if in persons so eminent and privileged, and to whom a revelation of their election was made as a particular grace, their con- dition had one weak leg, upon which because it did rely for one half of the interest, it could be no stronger than its supporters ; the condition of lower persons, to whom no revelation is made, no privileges are indulged, no greatness of spiritual eminence is appendant, as they have no greater certainty in the thing, so they have less in person ; and are, there- fore, to “ work out their salvation with” great “ fears and tremblings” of spirit. 2. The purpose of this consideration is, that we denotare, sed causam gaudii tantum enarrare justam et legiti- mam ; ex suppositione scil. et quando hoc contigerit, aut ad effectum perducetur. Utcunque autem verba significent, cer- tum est doctores ecclesiae non paucos tradidisse 72 discipulos Christum reliquisse, nec rediisse denuo. Sect. XIII. OF CERTAINTY OP SALVATION. 2G3 do not judge of our final condition by any dis- courses of our own, relying upon God’s secret coun- sels, and predestination of eternity. This is a mountain upon which whosoever climbs, like Moses, to behold the land of Canaan at great distances, may please his eyes, or satisfy his curiosity, but is certain never to enter that way. It is like in- quiring into fortunes, concerning which Phavorinus, the philosopher, spake not unhandsomely ; ^ “ They that foretell events of destiny and secret providence, either foretell sad things or prosperous. If they promise prosperous, and deceive, you are made miserable by a vain speculation. If they threaten ill fortune, and say false, thou art made wretched by a false fear. But if they foretell adversity, and say true, thou art made miserable by thy own ap- prehension, before thou art so by destiny ; and many times the fear is worse than the evil feared. But if they promise felicities, and promise truly what shall come to pass, then thou shalt be wea- ried by an impatience and a suspended hope, and thy hope shall ravish and deflower the joys of thy possession,” Much of it is hugely applicable to the present question; and our blessed Lord, when he was petitioned that he would grant to the two sons of Zebedee, that they might sit one on the right hand and the other on the left in his king- dom, rejected their desire, and only promised them what concerned their duty and their suffering; re- ferring them to that, and leaving the final event of men to the disposition of his Father. This is the great secret of the kingdom, which God hath lock- ed up and sealed with the counsels of eternity. “ The sure foundation of God standeth, having this seal. The Lord knoweth who are his.” ^ This seal shall never be broken up till the great day of Christ; in the mean time, the Divine knowledge is the only repository of the final sentences, and this “ way of God is unsearchable, and past finding out.” And, therefore, if we be solicitous and curious to know what God, in the counsels of eternity, hath decreed concerning us ; he hath, in two fair tables, de- scribed all those sentences from whence we must take accounts, the revelations of Scripture, and the book of conscience. The first recites the law and the conditions ; the other gives in evidence : the first is clear, evident, and conspicuous ; the other, when it is written with large characters, may also be discerned ; but there are many little accents, periods, distinctions, and little significations of actions, which either are there written in water, or sullied over with carelessness, or blotted with for- getfulness, or not legible by ignorance, or miscon- strued by interest and partiality, that it will be extremely difficult to read the hand upon the wall, or to copy out one line of the eternal sentence. And, therefore, excellent was the counsel of the son of Sirach : “ Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee, neither search the things that are above thy strength : but what is commanded Ad sceliis ab hujusmodi votis facillime tvansitur. — Tacit. Nos parvum ac debile vulgiis Scrutamur penitus Superos : bine pallor et irse, Hinc scelus, insidiajque, et nullamodestia voti.— SxATtus. thee, think thereupon with reverence ; for it is not needful for thee to see with thine eyes the things that are in secret.”® For whatsoever God hath revealed in general concerning election, it concerns all persons within the pale of Christianity. He hath conveyed notice to all Christian people, that they are the sons of God, that they are the heirs of eternity, “ co-heirs with Christ, partakers of the Divine nature ;” meaning, that such they are by the design of God, and the purposes of the mani- festation of his Son. The election of God is dis- puted in Scripture, to be an act of God separating whole nations, and rejecting others ; in each of which, many particular instances there were con- trary to the general and universal purpose ; and of the elect nations, many particulars perished, and many of the rejected people “ sat down with Abra- ham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven:” and to those persons to whom God was more par- ticular, and was pleased to show the scrolls of his eternal counsels, and to reveal their particular elec- tions, as he did to the twelve apostles, he showed them wrapped up and sealed ; and, to take off their confidences or presumptions, he gave probation, in one instance, that those scrolls may be cancelled, that his purpose concerning particulars may be altered by us ; and, therefore, that he did not dis- cover the bottom of the abyss, but some purposes of special grace and indefinite design. But his per- emptory, final, unalterable decree, he keeps in the cabinets of the eternal ages, never to be unlocked, till the angel of the covenant shall declare the un- alterable, universal sentence. 3. But, as we take the measure of the course of the sun by the dimensions of the shadows made by our own bodies, or our own instruments ; so must we take the measures of eternity by the span of a man’s hand, and guess at what God decrees of us, by considering how our relations and endear- ments are to him. And it is observable, that all the confidences which the Spirit of God hath cre- ated in the elect, are built upon duty, and stand or fall according to the strength or weakness of such supporters. “We know we are translated from death to life, by our love unto the brethren :” ^ meaning that the performance of our duty is the best consignation to eternity, and the only testimony God gives us of our election. And, therefore, we are to make our judgments accordingly. And here I consider, that there is no state of a Christian, in which, by virtue of the covenant of the gospel, it is effectively and fully declared, that his sins are actu- ally pardoned, but only in baptism, at our firs; coming to Christ ; when he “ redeems us from oui vain conversation ; ” when he makes us become “ sons of God ;” when he “justifies us freely by hi: grace,” when we are purified by faith, when W( make a covenant with Christ, to live for ever ac cording to his laws. And this I shall suppose I have already proved and explicated, in the Discourse ^ Futurum gaudii fructum spes tibi jam preefloraverit. — A. Gellius, lib. xiv. 2 Tim. ii. 19. ^ Ecclus. iii. 21, 22. f 1 John iii. 14. 264 OF CERTAINTY OF SALVATION. Part III. of Repentance. So that whoever is certain he hath not offended God since that time, and in nothing transgresseth the laws of Christianity, he is certain that he actually remains in the state of baptismal purity : but it is too certain, that this certainty re- mains not long ; but we commonly throw some dirt into our waters of baptism, and stain our white robe which we then put on. 4. But then, because our restitution to this state is a thing that consists of so many parts, is so divi- sible, various, and uncertain whether it be arrived to the degree of innocence ; (and our innocence consists in a mathematical point, and is not capable of degrees any more than unity, because one stain destroys our being innocent ;) it is, therefore, a very difficult matter to say, that we have done all our duty towards our restitution to baptismal grace ; and if we have not done all that we can do, it is harder to say that God hath accepted that, which is less than the conditions we entered into, when we received the great justification and pardon of sins. We all know we do less than our duty, and we hope that God makes abatements for human infirmities ; but we have but a few rules to judge by, and they not infallible in themselves, and we yet more fallible in the application, whether we have not mingled some little minutes of malice in the body of infirmi- ties, and how much will bear excuse ; and in what time, and to what persofis, and to what degrees, and upon what endeavours, we shall be pardoned. So that all the interval, between our losing baptismal grace and the day of our death, we walk in a cloud ; having lost the certain knowledge of our present condition, by our prevarications. And, indeed, it is a very hard thing for a man to know his own heart; and he that shall observe, how often himself hath been abused by confidences and secret imperfections, and how the greatest part of Christians, in name only, do think themselves in a very good condition, when God knows they are infinitely removed from it ; (and yet, if they did not think themselves well and sure, it is unimaginable they should sleep so quietly, and walk securely, and consider negligently, and 3 mt proceed confidently ;) he that considers this, and upon what weak and false principles of divinity men have raised their strengths and per- suasions, will easily consent to this ; that it is very easy for men to be deceived, in taking estimate of their present condition, of their being in the state of grace. 5. But there is great variety of men, and differ- ence of degrees ; and every step of returning to God may reasonably add one degree of hope, till at last it comes to the certainty and top of hope. Many men believe themselves to be in the state of grace, and are not ; many are in the state of grace, and are infinitely fearful they are out of it ; and many that are in God’s favour, do think they are so, and they are not deceived. And all this is certain. For some sin that sin of presumption, and flattery of R 1 Cor. iv. 4. Cummultis in rebus offendamus Deum, majorem tamcn of- fensarum partem ne intelligimus qiiidem ; idcirco ait aposto- lus, Nihil conscius sum, &c. q. d. Multa dclicta committo, quae c ommittere me non intelligo. Propter hanc causam propheta ait, Dclicta quis intclligit ?— S. Basil, c. ‘2. IMonast. Constit. themselves, and some good persons are vexed with violent fears and temptations to despair, and all are not : and when their hopes are right, yet some are strong, and some are weak ; for they that are well persuaded of their present condition, have persua- sions as different as are the degrees of their ap- proach to innocence ; and he that is at the highest, hath also such abatements, which are apt and proper for the conservation of humility and godly fear. “I am guilty of nothing,” (saith St. Paul,) “but I am not hereby justified ;”s meaning thus : Though I be innocent, for aught I know, yet God, who judges otherwise than we judge, may find something to re- prove in me : “ It is God that judges,” that is, con- cerning my degrees of acceptance and hopes of glory. If the person be newly recovering from a state of sin, because his state is imperfect, and his sin not dead, and his lust active, and his habit not quite extinct, it is easy for a man to be too hasty in pronouncing well. He is wrapt up in a cloak of clouds, hidden and encumbered ; and his brightest day is but twilight, and his discernings dark, con- jectural, and imperfect; and his heart is like a cold hand newly applied to the fire, full of pain, and whether the heat or the cold be strongest, is not easy to determine ; or like middle colours, which no man can tell to which of the extremes they are to be accounted. But according as persons grow in grace, so they may grow in confidence of their present condition. It is not certain they will do so ; for sometimes the beauty of their tabernacle is covered with goats’ hair and skins of beasts, and holy people do infinitely deplore the want of such graces, which God observes in them with great complacency and acceptance. Both these cases say, that to be cer- tainly persuaded of our present condition is not a duty ; sometimes it is not possible, and sometimes it is better to be otherwise. But if we consider of this certainty, as a blessing and a reward, there is no question but, in a great and an eminent sanctity of life, there may also be a great confidence and fulness of persuasion, that our present being is well and gracious, and then it is certain that such persons are not deceived. For the thing itself being sure, if the persuasion answers to it, it is needless to dis- pute of the degree of certainty and the manner of it. Some persons are heartily persuaded of their being reconciled ; and of these, some are deceived, and some are not deceived ; and there is no sign to dis- tinguish them, but by that which is the thing signi- fied : a holy life, according to the strict rules of Christian discipline, tells what persons are confident, and who are presumptuous. But the certainty is reasonable in none but in old Christians, habitually holy persons; not in new converts, or in lately lapsed people : for, concerning them, we find the Spirit of God speaking with clauses of restraint and ambiguity ; “ a perhaps,” ^ and, “ who knoweth,” and, “ peradventure, the thoughts of thy heart may ^ Eccles. ix. 1, 2. ' Beatus Daniel, prcescius futurorum, de sententia Dei dubi- tat. Rem temerariam faciunt, qui audacter veniam polficen- tur peccantibus.- S. Hieron. Dan. iv. 27. Joel ii. 14. Acts viii. 22. Sect. XIII. OF CERTAINTY OF SALVATION. 2G5 be forgiven thee;” Cod may have mercy on thee. And that God hath done so, they only have reason to be confident, whom God hath blessed with a lasting, continuing piety, and who have wrought out the habits of their precontracted vices. 6. But we find, in Scripture, many precepts given to holy persons, being in the state of grace, to secure their standing, and perpetuate their present condi- tion. For, “ He that endureth unto the end, he” only “ shall be saved, said our blessed Saviour : and, “ He that standeth, let him take heed lest he fall : ” ^ and, “ Thou standest by faith ; be not high- minded, but fear and, “ Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” ^ “ Hold fast that thou hast, and let no man take thy crown from thee.” ° And it was excellent advice ; for one church had “ lost their first love,” p and was likely also to lose their crown. And St. Paul himself, who had once entered within the veil, and seen unutterable glories, yet was forced to endure hardship, and to fight against his own disobedient appetite, and to do violence to his inclinations ; for fear that, “ whilst he preached to others, himself should become a cast-away.” And since we observe, in holy story, that Adam and Eve fell in paradise, and the angels fell in heaven itself, stumbling at the very jewels which pave the streets of the celestial Jerusalem ; and in Christ’s family, one man, for whom his Lord had prepared a throne, turned devil ; and that, in the number of the deacons, it is said that one turned apostate, who yet had been a man full of the Holy Ghost : it will lessen our train, and discompose the gaieties of our present confidence, to think that our securities cannot be really distinguished from danger and uncertainties. For every man walks upon tv^o legs : one is firm, invariable, constant, and eternal ; but the other is his own. God’s promises are the objects of our faith; but the events and final con- ditions of our souls, which are consequent to our duty, can, at the best, be but the objects of our hope. And either there must in this be a less certainty, or else faith and hope are not two distinct graces. God’s gifts and vocations “ are without repent- ance ;” 'i meaning, on God’s part : but the very people, concerning whom St. Paul used the expres- sion, were reprobate and cut off*, and in good time, shall be called again; in the mean time, many single persons perish. “ There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” ^ God will look to that, and it will never fail ; but then they must secure the following period, and “ not walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Behold the goodness of God towards thee,” saith St. Paul, “ if thou continue in his good ; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”® And if this be true, concerning the whole church of the gentiles, to whom the apostle then made the address, and concerning whose election the decree was public and manifest, that they might be cut off, and their abode in God’s favour was upon condition of their perseverance in the faith ; much more is it true in single persons, whose election, in particular. is shut up in the abyss, and permitted to the con- dition of our faith and obedience, and the revela- tions of doomsday. 7. Certain it is, that God hath given to holy per- sons “ the S])irit of adoption,” enabling them to “ cry, Abba, Father,” ^ and to account themselves for sons ; and by this “ Spirit we know we dwell in him;”“ and, therefore, it is called in Scripture, “ the earnest of the Spirit ^ though, at its first mission, and when the apostle wrote and used this appella- tive, the Holy Ghost was of greater signification, and a more visible earnest and endearment of their hopes, than it is to most of us since. For the visible sending of the Holy Ghost upon many believers, in gifts, signs, and prodigies, was an infinite argument to make them expect events, as great beyond that, as that was beyond the common gifts of men : just as miracles and prophecy, which are gifts of the Holy Ghost, were arguments of probation for the whole doctrine of Christianity. And this being a mighty verification of the great promise, the promise of the Father, was an apt instrument to raise their hopes and confidences, concerning those other promises which Jesus made, the promises of immortality and eternal life, of which the present miraculous graces of the Holy Spirit were an earnest, and in the nature of a contracting penny : and still, also, the Holy Ghost, though in another manner, is “ an earnest of the great price of the heavenly calling,” the rewards of heaven ; though not so visible and ap- parent as at first, yet as certain and demonstrative, where it is discerned, or where it is believed, as it is and ought to be in every person, who does any part of his duty ; because, by the Spirit we do it, and without him we cannot. And since we either feel or believe the presence and gifts of the Holy Ghost to holy purposes, (for whom we receive voluntarily, we cannot easily receive without a knowledge of his reception,) we cannot but enter- tain him, as an argument of greater good hereafter, and an earnest-penny of the perfection of the present grace, that is, of the rewards of glory ; glory and grace differing no otherwise, than as an earnest, in part of payment, does from the whole price, “ the price of our high calling.” So that the Spirit is an earnest, not because he always signifies to us, that we are actually in the state of grace, but by way of argument or reflection ; we know we do belong to God, when we receive his Spirit; (and all Christian people have received him, if they were rightly bap- tized and confirmed;) I say, we know, by that tes- timony, that we belong to God; that is, we are the people with whom God hath made a covenant, to whom he hath promised and intends greater bless- ings, to which the present gifts of the Spirit are in order. But all this is conditional, and is not an im- mediate testimony of the certainty and future event ; but of the event, as it is possibly future, and may, (without our fault,) be reduced to act as certainly as it is promised, or as the earnest is given in hand. And this the Spirit of God oftentimes tells us, in Rom. viii. 1, ^ Rom. viii. 15. 2 Cor. i. 22. v. 5. Matt. xxiv. 13. Rom. xi. 20. ® Rev. iii. 11. ' 1 Cor. x. 12. " Phil. ii. 12 P Chap. ii. 4. <1 Rom. xi. 29. s Rom. xi. 22. " 1 John iv. 13. 266 OF CERTAINTY OF SALVATION. Part III. secret visitations and public testimonies : and this is that which St. Paul calls, “ tasting of the heavenly gift, and partaking of the Holy Ghost,” and “ tast- ing of the good work of God, and the powers of the world to come.”y But yet, some that have done so have fallen away, and have “ quenched the Spirit,” and have given back the earnest of the Spirit, and contracted new relations ; and God hath been their Father no longer, for they have done the works of the devil. So that, if new converts be uncertain of their present state, old Christians are not absolutely certain they shall persevere. They are as sure of it, as they can he of future acts of theirs, which God hath permitted to their own power. But this certainly cannot exclude all fear, till their charity be perfect : only according to the strength of their habits, so is the confidence of their abodes in grace. 8. Beyond this, some holy persons have degrees of persuasion, superadded as largesses and acts of grace ; God loving to bless one degree of grace with another, till it comes to a confirmation in grace, which is a state of salvation directly opposite to obduration and as this is irremediable and irre- coverable, so is the other inadmissible : as God never saves a person obdurate and obstinately impenitent, so he never loses a man, whom he hath confirmed in grace “whom he” so “ loves, he loves unto the end ; ” and to others, indeed, he offers his per- severing love, but they will not entertain it with a persevering duty, they will not he beloved unto the end. But I insert this caution, that every man, that is in this condition of a confirmed grace, does not always know it ; but sometimes God draws aside the curtains of peace, and shows him his throne, and visits him with irradiations of glory, and sends him a little star to stand over his dwelling, and then again covers it with a cloud. It is certain, concern- ing some persons, that they shall never fall, and that God will not permit them to the danger or pro- bability of it : to such it is morally impossible : but these are hut few, and themselves know it not, as they know a demonstrative proposition, but as they see the sun, sometimes breaking from a cloud very brightly, but all day long giving necessary and sufficient light. 9. Concerning the multitude of believers, this discourse is not pertinent ; for they only take their own accounts by the imperfections of their own duty, blended with the mercies of God : the cloud gives light on one side, and is dark upon the other ; and sometimes a bright ray peeps through the fringes of a shower, and immediately hides itself : that we might be humble and diligent ; striving forwards, and looking upwards ; endeavouring our duty, and longing after heaven ; “ working out our salvation with fear and trembling;” and, in good time, “ our calling and election” may be assured, when we first, according to the precept of the apostle, “ use all diligence.” St. Paul, when he writ his first epistle to the Corinthians, was more fearful of y Heb. vi, 4, 5. ^ Hie felix, nullo turbante deorum ; Is, iiuUu parcente, miser — being reprobate ; ^ and, therefore, he used exterior arts of mortification. But when he writ to the Romans, which was a good while after, we find him more confident of his final condition; “ persuaded, that neither height, nor depth, angel, nor principality, nor power could separate him from the love of God, in Jesus Christ : ” and when he grew to his latter end, when he wrote to St. Timothy, he was more confident yet, and declared, that now a “ crown of righteousness was,” certainly, “ laid up for him ;” for now he had “ fought the fight, and finished his course, the time of his departure was at hand.” ^ Henceforth he knew no more fear ; his love was perfect as this state would permit, and that “ cast out all fear.” According to this precedent, if we reckon our securities, we are not likely to he re- proved by any words of Scripture, or by the condition of human infirmity. But when the confidence outruns our growth of grace, it is itself a sin ; though, when the confidence is equal with the grace, it is of itself no regular and universal duty, but a blessing and a re- ward, indulged by special dispensation, and in order to personal necessities, or accidental purposes. For only so much hope is simply necessary, as excludes despair, and encourages our duty, and glorifies God, and entertains his mercy ; but that the hope should be without fear, is not given, but to the highest faith, and the most excellent charity, and to habitual, ratified, and confirmed Christians ; and to them, also, with some variety. The sum is this : all that are in the state of beginners and imperfection, have a conditional certainty, changeable and fallible in respect of us, (for we meddle not with what it is in God’s secret purposes,) changeable, I say, as their wills and resolutions. They that are grown towards perfection, have more reason to be confident, and many times are so; but still, although the strength of the habits of grace adds degrees of moral certainty to their expectation, yet it is but as their condition is, hopeful and promising, and of a moral determination. But to those few, to whom God hath given confirmation in grace, he hath also given a certainty of condition; and, therefore, if that be revealed to them, their persuasions are cer- tain and infallible. If it be not revealed to them, their condition is in itself certain, but their persua- sion is not so ; but in the highest kind of hope, “ an anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast.” THE PRAYER. 0 eternal God, whose counsels are in the great deep, and thy ways past finding out ; thou hast built our faith upon thy promises, our hopes upon thy goodness, and hast described our paths between the waters of comfort and the dry, barren land of our own duties and affections : we acknow- ledsre that all our comforts derive from thee, and to ourselves we owe all our shame, and confu- sions, and degrees of desperation. Give us the assistances of the Holy Ghost, to help us in per- a 1 Cor. ix. 27. Rom. viii. 38, 39. c 2 Tim. iv. 6—8. Sect. XIV. THE THIRD YEAR OF JESUS’S PREACHING. 2G7 forming our duty ; and give us those comforts and visitations of the Holy Ghost, which tliou, in thy infinite and eternal wisdom, knowest most apt and expedient, to encourage our duties, to entertain our hopes, to alleviate our sadnesses, to refresh our spirits, and to endure our abode and constant endeavours, in the strictnesses of reli- gion and sanctity. Lead us, dearest God, from grace to grace, from imperfection to strength, from acts to habits, from habits to confirmation in grace, that we may also pass into the region of comfort, receiving the earnest of the Spirit, and the adoption of sons ; till, by such a signa- ture, we be consigned to glory, and enter into the possession of the inheritance, which we ex- pect in the kingdom of thy Son, and in the fru- ition of the felicities of thee, 0 gracious Father, God eternal. Amen. SECTION XIV. Of the Third Year of the Preaching of Jesus. 1. But Jesus, knowing of the death of the Bap- tist, Herod’s jealousy, and the envy of the Phari- sees, retired into a desert place, beyond the lake, together with his apostles ; for the people pressed so upon them, they had not leisure to eat. But neither there could he be hid ; but great multitudes flocked thither also, to whom he preached many things. And afterwards, because there were no villages in the neighbourhood, lest they should faint in their return to their houses, he caused them “ to sit down upon the grass,” and, with “ five loaves of barley, and two small fishes, he satisfied five thousand men, besides women and children,” and caused the disciples to “ gather up the frag- ments,” which, being amassed together, “ filled twelve baskets.” Which miracles had so much proportion to the understanding, and met so hap- pily with the affections of the people, that they were convinced that this was the “ Messias, who was to come into the world,” and had a purpose to have “ taken him by force, and made him a king.” 2. But he that left his Father’s kingdom to take upon him the miseries and infelicities of the world, fled from the offers of a kingdom, and their tu- multuary election, as from an enemy ; and, there- fore, sending his disciples to the ship to go before to- wards Bcthsaida, he ran into the mountains, to hide himself, till the multitude should scatter to their several habitations ; he, in the mean time, taking the opportunity of that retirement for the advan- tage of his prayers. But when the apostles were far engaged in the deep, a great tempest arose, with which they were pressed to the extremity of danger, and the last refuges, labouring in sadness and hopelessness, till “ the fourth watch of the night,” when, in the midst of their fears and la- bour, “Jesus comes, walking on the sea,” and appeared to them, which turned their fears into afTrightments ; for “ they supposed it had been a spirit but he appeased their fears with his pre- sence, and manifestation who he was ; which yet they desired to have proved to them by a sign. For “ Simon Peter said unto him. Master, if it be thou, command me to come to thee on the waters.” The Lord did so : and Peter, throwing himself upon the confidence of his Master’s power and pro- vidence, came out of the ship, and his fear began to weigh him down, and “ he cried, saying. Lord, save me. Jesus took him by the hand,” reproved the timorousness of his faith, and “ went with him into the ship where, when they had “ worship- ped him,” and admired the divinity of his power and person, they presently “ came into the land of Gennesareth,” the ship arriving “ at the port im- mediately and “ all that were sick,” or possessed with unclean spirits, “ were brought to him, and as many as touched the border of his garment were made whole.” 3. By this time, they whom Jesus had left on the other side of the lake, had come as far as Ca- pernaum to seek him, wondering that he was there before them ; but, upon the occasion of their so diligent inquisition, Jesus observes to them, “That it was not the divinity of the miracle that provoked their zeal, but the satisfaction they had in the loaves, a carnal complacency in their meal ; and, upon that intimation, speaks of celestial bread, the divine nutriment of souls ; and then discourses of the mysterious and symbolical manducation of Christ himself, affirming that he himself was ‘ the bread of life, that came dovm from heaven,’ that he would give his disciples ‘ his ffesh to eat, and his blood to drink,’ and all this should be ‘for the life of the world,’ to nourish unto life eternal ; so that, without it, a happy eternity could not be obtained.” Upon this discourse, “ divers of his disciples,” (amongst whom St. Mark, the. evangelist, is said to be one, though he was afterwards recalled by Simon Peter,) “ forsook him,” being scandalized by their literal and carnal understanding of those words of Jesus, which he intended in a spiritual sense. For “ the words that he spake” were not profitable in the sense of ffesh and blood, but “ they are spirit, and they are life,” himself ‘being the expounder, who best knew his own meaning. 4. When Jesus saw this great defection of his disciples from him, he turned him to the twelve apostles, and asked, if they “ also would go away ? Simon Peter answered. Lord, whither shall we go ? thou hast the words of eternal life : and we believe, and are sure, thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” Although this public confession was made by Peter, in the name and confidence of the other apostles, yet Jesus told them, that even amongst the twelve there was “ one devil;” meaning Judas Iscariot, “ who afterwards betrayed him.” This he told them prophetically, that they might perceive the sad accidents, which afterwards happened, did not invade and surprise him, in the disadvantages of ignorance or improvision, but came by his own knowledge and providence. !! Epiphan. Heeres. 15. 2G8 HISTORY OF THE THIRD YEAR Rart III. 5. Then came to him the Pharisees, and some scribes, which came from Jerusalem and Galilee, (for “ Jesus would not go to Judea, because the Jews laid wait to kill him,”) and quarrelled with him about certain impertinent, unnecessary rites, derived to them, not by Divine sanction, but “ ordi- nances of man such as were “ washing their hands oft when they eat, baptizing cups and platters, and washing tables and beds which ceremonies the apostles of Jesus did not observe, but attended diligently to the simplicity and spiritual holiness of their Master’s doctrine. But, in return to their vain demands, Jesus gave them a sharp reproof, for prosecuting these and many other traditions to the discountenance of Divine precepts ; and, in particu- lar, they taught men to give to the corban, and re- fused to supply the necessity of their parents, think- ing it to be religion, though they neglected piety and charity. And again, he thunders out woes and sadnesses against their impieties, for being curious of minutes, and punctual in rites and ceremonials, but most negligent and incurious of judgment and the love of God ; for their pride, for their hypocrisy, for their imposing burdens upon others, which themselves helped not to support ; for taking away the key of knowledge from the people, obstructing the passages to heaven ; for approving the acts of their fathers in persecuting the prophets. But, for the question itself concerning washings, Jesus taught the people, that no outward impurity did stain the soul, in the sight of God, but all pollution is from within, from the corruption of the heart, and impure thoughts, unchaste desires, and unholy purposes, and that charity is the best purifier in the world. 6. And thence “ Jesus departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into a house,” that he might “ not be kno\vn.” The diligence of a mother’s love, and sorrow and necessity, found him out in his retirement ; for a “ Syrophoenician woman came, and besought him, that he would cast the devil out of her daughter.” But Jesus dis- coursed to her by way of discomfort and rejection of her, for her nation’s sake. But the seeming de- nial did but enkindle her desires, and made her importunity more bold and undeniable ; she begged but “ some crumbs that fell from the children’s table,” but one instance of favour to her daughter, which he poured forth, without measure, upon the sons and daughters of Israel. Jesus was pleased with her zeal and discretion, and pitied her daugh- ter’s infelicity, and dismissed her with saying, “ The devil was gone out of her daughter.” 7. But Jesus staid not long here, but returning “ to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of Deca- polis, they brought unto him a man deaf and dumb,” whom Jesus cured by “touching his tongue, and putting his fingers in his ears which caused the people to give a large testimony in approbation of all his actions. And they followed him unto a mountain, bringing to him multitudes of diseased people, and he healed them all. But because the people had followed him “three days, and had nothing to eat,” Jesus, in pity to their need, re- solved to feast them once more at the charge of a miracle : therefore, taking “ seven loaves and a few small fishes, he blessed them, and satisfied four thousand men, besides women and children.” And there remained “ seven baskets full of broken bread and fish.” From whence Jesus departed, by ship, to the coasts ofMageddon and Dalmanutha, whither “ the Pharisees and Sadducees came, seeking of him a sign.” But Jesus rejected their impertinent and captious demand, knowing they did it to ill pur- poses, and with disaffection ; reproving them, that they “ discerned the face of the sky,” and the prog- nostics of “ fair or foul weather,” but “ not the signs of the times” of the Son of man. Hov^ever, since they had neglected so great demonstrations of miracles, gracious discourses, holy laws and prophecies, they must expect “ no other sign, but the sign of the prophet Jonas;” meaning, the re- surrection of his body after three days’ burial : and so he dismissed the impertinent inquisitors. 8. And passing again over the lake, as his disci- ples were solicitous, because “ they had forgot to take bread,” he gave them caution to “ beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the leaven of Herod;” meaning, the hypocrisy and vanities of the one, and the heresy of the other. For Herod’s leaven was the pretence that he was the Messias, which the sect of the Herodians did earnestly and spitefully promote. And, after this entertainment of themselves by the way, they came together to Bethsaida, where Jesus cured a blind man, with a collyrium of spittle, salutary as balsam, or the purest eye-bright, when his Divine bene- diction once had hallowed it. But Jesus staid not there, but, departing thence into the coasts of Cmsarea Philippi out of Herod’s power, (for it was in Philip’s jurisdiction,) after he had “ prayed with his disciples,” he inquired what opinion the world had of him, and “ whom they reported him to be ? They answered. Some say thou art John the Bap- tist, some that thou art Elias, or Jeremias, or one of the prophets:” for, in Galilee especially, the sect of the Pharisees was mightily disseminated, whose opinion it was, that the souls of dead men, according to their several merits, did transmigrate into other bodies of very perfect and excellent persons. And, therefore, in all this variety, none hit upon the right, or fancied him to be a distinct person from the ancients ; but, although they differed in the assign- ation of his name, yet, generally, they agreed it was the soul of a departed prophet, which had passed into another body. But Jesus asked the apostles their opinion ; and Peter, in the name of all the rest, made an open and confident confession, “ Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.” 9. This confession Jesus not only confirmed as true, but as “ revealed by God,” and of fundamental necessity : for, after the blessing of Peter’s person, upon allusion of Peter’s name, Jesus said, that “ upon this rock [the article of Peter’s confession] he would build his church,” promising to it assist- ances, even to perpetuity, insomuch that “ the gates of hell,” that is, persecution, and death, and the grave, “ should never prevail against it adding, withal, a promise to Peter, in behalf of all the rest, Sect. XIV. OF THE PREACHING OF JESUS. 2G9 as he made a confession for them all, that he would “ give unto him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, so that whatsoever he should bind on earth, should be bound in heaven; and whatsoever he should loose on earth, should be loosed in heaven a power which he never communicated before or since, but to their successors; greater than the large charter of nature, and the donative of creation, in which all the creatures under heaven were made subject to man’s empire, but, till now, heaven itself was never subordinate to human ministration. 10. And now the days, from henceforward to the death of Jesus, we must reckon to be like the vigils, or eves, of his passion ; for now he began, and often did ingeminate, those sad predictions of his unhand- some usage he should shortly find ; that he should be “ rejected of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and suffer many things at Jerusalem, and be killed, and be raised up the third day.” But Peter, hearing that sad discourse, so contrary to his hopes, which he had blended with temporal expect- ances, (for he had learned the doctrine of Christ’s advent, but not the mystery of the cross,) in great and mistaken civility, took Jesus aside, “ and began to rebuke him, saying. Be it far from thee. Lord ; this shall not be unto thee.” But Jesus, full of zeal against so soft and human admonition, that savoured nothing of God, or of abstracted, imma- terial considerations, chid Peter bitterly : “ Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence unto me.” And, calling his disciples to him, he told them a second part of a sad doctrine, that not only himself, but all they also, must suffer. For when the head was to be crowned with thorns, if the members were wrapt in softnesses, it was an unhandsome indecency, and a disunion too near an antipathy ; and, therefore, whoever will be the disciple of Jesus, must “ take up his cross, deny himself,” and his own fonder appetites, and trace his Master’s footsteps, marked out with blood, that he shed for our redemption and restitution. And, that there be no escape from the participation of Christ’s suffering, Jesus added this dilemma ; ‘‘ He that will save his life, shall lose it ; and he that will lose it, shall save it” to eternity. Which part soever we choose, there is a life to be lost: but as the first are foolish to the extremest misery, that will lose their souls to gain the world; so they are most wise and fortunate, that will give their lives for him ; because, when “ the Son of man shall come, in his own glory, and his Father’s, and of his angels, he shall reward every man ac- cording to his works.” This discourse Jesus con- cluded with a prophecy, that “ some, standing ” in that presence, “ should not die, till they saw the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” 11. Of the greater glories of which, in due time to be revealed, “ Jesus, after eight days,” gave a bright and excellent probation. For, “ taking with him Peter, and James, and John, he went up into the mountain Tabor, to pray; and while he prayed, he was transfigured before them, and his Beda de Locis Sanctis, c. 17. ‘‘ Saepe fui sovbendus aquis, suepe igne vorandus : Sed timuere tuas ignis et unda manus. face did shine like the sun, and his garments were white and glistering. And there appeared talking with him Moses and Elias gloriously, speaking of the decease which he should accom- plish at Jerusalem, which glory these apostles, after they had awaked from sleep, did behold.” And the interlocutors with Jesus, having finished their embassy of death, (which they delivered in forms of glory, representing the excellencies of the reward, together with the sharpness of the passage and interval,) departed, leaving the apostles “ full of fear,” and wonder, and ecstasy, insomuch that “ Peter talked he knew not what ; ” but nothing amiss, something prophetical, saying, “ Master, it is good to be here ; let us build three tabernacles.” And some devout persons, in memory of the mys- tery, did erect three churches in the same place, in after ages.'^ But, after the departure of those at- tendant saints, “ a cloud encircled Jesus” and the disciples, “ and a voice came from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, hear him.” The cloud quickly disappeared, and freed the disciples from the fear it had put them in. So they attended Jesus, and “ descended from the mountain,” being “ commanded silence,” which they observed, “ till the resurrection.” 12. The next day came to Jesus a man praying- in behalf of his son, “ lunatic and sore troubled with a devil,” who sought oft “ to destroy him in fire and water,” that Jesus would be pleased to deliver him. For his apostles tried, and “ could not,” by reason of the want of faith ; for this grace, if it be true, though in a less degree, is of power to “ remove mountains,” to pluck up trees by the roots, and to give them solid foundation in the Avaters. “ And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him” from that very hour. Thence Jesus de- parted privately into Galilee, and in his journey repeated those sadnesses of his approaching passion ; which so afilicted the spirits of the disciples, that they durst no more provoke him to discourse, lest he should take occasion to interweave something of that unpleasant argument with it. For sad and dis- consolate persons use to create comforts to them- selves by fiction of fancy, and use arts of avocation to remove displeasure from them, and stratagems to remove it from their presence, by removing it from their apprehensions, thinking the incommodity of it is then taken away, when they have lost the sense. 13. When Jesus was now come to Capernaum, the exactors of rates came to Simon Peter, asking him if his Master paid the accustomed imposition, viz. a side, or didrachm, the fourth part of an ounce of silver, which was the tribute ^ which the Lord imposed upon all the sons of Israel, from twenty' years old and above, to pay for redemption and pro- pitiation, and for the use of the tabernacle. “ When Peter came into the house, Jesus,” knowing the message that he was big v»dth, “ prevented him,” by asking him, “ Of whom do the kings of the nations take tribute ? of their own children or of strangers ? Peter answered. Of strangers.” Then Exod. XXX. 270 HISTORY OF THE THIRD YEAR Part III. “ said Jesus, Then are the children free meaning, that since the gentile kings do not exact tribute of their sons, neither will God of his. And, there- fore, this pension, to be paid for the use of the tabernacle, for the service of God, for the redemption of their souls, was not to be paid by him, who was the Son of God, but by strangers. “ Yet to avoid offence,” he sent Peter a-fishing, and provided a fish with two didrachms of silver in it, which he* com- manded Peter to pay for them two. 14. But when the disciples were together with “ Jesus in the house, he asked them what they dis- coursed of upon the way for they had fallen upon an ambitious and mistaken quarrel, “ which of them should be greatest in their Master’s kingdom,” which they still did dream should be an external and secular royalty, full of fancy and honour. But the Master was diligent to check their forwardness, establishing a rule for clerical deportment ; “ He that will be greatest among you, let him be your minister :” so supposing a greater and a lesser, a minister, and a person to be ministered unto, but dividing the grandeur of the person from the great- ness of office (that the higher the employment is, the more humble should be the man) ; because, in spiritual prelation, it is not as in secular pomps, where the dominion is despotic, the coercion bloody, the dictates imperious, the laws externally com- pulsory, and the titles arrogant and vain ; and all the advantages are so passed upon the person, that, making that first to be splendid, it passes from the person to the subjects, who, in abstracted essences, do not easily apprehend regalities in veneration, but as they are subjected in persons made excellent by such superstructures of majesty : but, in dignities ecclesiastical, the dominion is paternal, the regi- ment persuasive and argumentative, the coercion by censures immaterial, by cession and consent, by denial of benefits, by the interest of virtues, and the efficacy of hopes, and impresses upon the spirit; the laws are full of admonition and ser- mon ; the titles of honour monitors of duty, and memorials of labour and offices ; and all the advan- tages which from the office usually pass upon the person, are to be divested by the humility of the man ; and, when they are of greatest veneration, they are abstracted excellencies and immaterial, not passing through the person to the people, and reflected to his lustre, but transmitted by his labour and ministry, and give him honour for his labour’s sake, (which is his personal excellency,) not for his honour and title, which is either a derivative from Christ, or from the constitution of pious persons, estimating and valuing the relatives of religion. 15. Then “Jesus taketh a little child, and set- teth him in the midsi,” propounding him, by way of emblem, a pattern of humility and simplicity, without the mixtures of ambition or caitive dis- ® Injuriam qui tulit, oblivisci potest; qui fecit, nunquam. — T ACIT. ^ De poenis debitorum qui solvendo non sunt, vide Livium, Decad, i. lib. i. et vi. ; et Dionys. Halicarn. Hist. Rom. lib. vi. ; et A, Gellium, lib. xx. c. 1. qui ait, licuisse secare, si vellent, atque paitiri corpus debitoris. Eo tamen consilio (sic barbariem excusat Gellius) tanta immanitas poenae denun- tempers ; such infant candour, and loAvlincss of spirit, being the necessary port through which Ave must pass, if we will enter into the courts of heaven. But as a current of wholesome waters, breaking from its restraint, runs out in a succession of waters, and every preceding draught draws out the next ; so were the discourses of Jesus excellent and oppor- tune, creating occasions for others that the whole doctrine of the gospel, and the entire will of the Father, might be communicated upon design ; even the chances of words and actions being made regu- lar and orderly by Divine providence. For, from the instance of humility, in the symbol and hiero- glyphic of the child, Jesus discourses of “the care God takes of little children, whether naturally or spiritually such ; the danger of doing them scandal and offences ; the care and power of their angels guardian ; of the necessity in the event that scandals should arise, and of the great woe and infelicity of those persons, who were the active ministers of such offences.” 16. But if, in the traverses of our life, discon- tents and injuries be done, Jesus teaches hoAv the injured person should demean himself:® First, re- prove the offending party privately; if he repent, forgive him for ever, Avith a mercy as unwearied and as multiplied as his repentance. For the ser- vant, to whom his lord had forgiven ten thousand talents, because he refused to forgive his fellow-ser- vant one hundred pence, was delivered to the tor- mentors,^ till he should pay that debt Avhich his lord once forgave, till the servant’s impiety forced him to repent his donative and remission. But if he refuses the charity of private correction, let him be reproved before a few witnesses ; and in case he be still incorrigible, let him be brought to the tribunal of the church ; against whose advices if he shall kick, let him feel her power, and be cut off from the communion of saints, becoming a pagan or a publican. And to make that the church shall not have a dead and ineffectual hand in her animadver- sions, Jesus promises to all the apostles, what before he promised to Peter, a power of “ binding and loos- ing on earth,” and that it should be “ ratified in heaven,” what they shall so dispose on earth Avith an unerring key. 17. But John interrupted him, telling him of a stranger that “ cast out devils in the name of Jesus,” but because he was not of the family, he had “ for- bidden him.” To this Jesus replied, that he should “in no wise have forbidden him,” for, in all reason, he Avould do veneration to that person, whose name he saAV to be energetical and triumphant over devils, and in whose name it is almost necessary that man should believe, who used it as an instrument of ejection of impure spirits. Then Jesus proceeded in his excellent sermon and union of discourses, adding holy precepts “ concerning offences, which a ciata est, ne ad earn unquam pervenirent : dissectura esse an- tiquitus neminem neque legi, neque audivi. Duravit tamen ad ajvum Constantini IMagiii, ut plumbatis caederentur debi- tores ; qui tandem Chnstianam mansuetudinem in leges intro- duxit, et plumbatorum immanitatem sustulit. — Cod. Theod lib. iv. et vii. dc Exact. Sect. XIV. OF THE PREACHING OF JESUS. 271 man might do to himself ; in which case he is to be severe, though most gentle to others. For, in his own case, he must show no mercy, but abscission : for it is better to ‘ cut otf the offending hand or foot,’ or ‘extinguish the offending eye,’ rather than, upon the support of a troublesome foot, and by the light of an offending eye, walk into ruin and a sad eternity, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.’ ” And so Jesus ended this chain of ex- cellent discourses. 18. About this time was the Jews’ feast of Taber- nacles, whither Jesus went up, as it were, in secret; and, passing through Samaria, he found the inhabi- tants of a little village so inhospitable, as to refuse to give him entertainment ; which so provoked the intemperate zeal of James and John, that they would fain have “ called for fire to consume them, even as Elias did.” But Jesus rebuked the furies of their anger, teaching them to distinguish the spirit of Christianity from the ungentleness of the decretory zeal of Elias. For, since “ the Son of man came” with a purpose “ to seek and to save what was lost,” it was but an indiscreet temerity, suddenly, upon the lightest umbrages of displeasure, to destroy a man, whose redemption cost the effusion of the dearest blood from the heart of Jesus. But, contrariwise, Jesus does a miracle upon the ten leprous persons, which came to him from the neighbourhood, crying out, with sad exclamations, for help. But Jesus sent them to the priest, to offer for their cleansing. Thither they went, and but one only returned to give thanks, and he a stranger, who, “with a loud voice, glorified God,” and with humble adoration worshipped and gave thanks to Jesus. 19. When Jesus had finished his journey, and was now come to Jerusalem, for the first days he was undiscerned in public conventions, but heard of the various opinions of men concerning him : “ some saying he was a good man, others, that he deceived the people and the Pharisees sought for him, to do him a mischief. But when they despaired of finding him in the midst of the feast and the people, he made sermons openly, in the midst of the temple ; whom when he had eonvinced, by the variety and divinity of his miracles and discourses, they gave the greatest testimony in the world of human weak- ness, and how prevalent a prejudice is above the confidence and conviction of a demonstration. For a proverb, a mistake, an error in matter of circum- stance, did, in their understandings, outweigh mul- titudes of miracles and arguments ; and because “ Christ was of Galilee,” because “ they knew whence he was,” because of the proverb, that “ out of Galilee comes no prophet,” because “ the rulers did not believe in him,” these outweighed the demon- strations of his mercy, and his power, and divinity. But yet “very many believed on him; and no man durst lay hands to take him ; for as yet his time was not come,” in which he meant to give himself up to the power of the Jews: and therefore, when the Pharisees sent officers to seize him, they also be- came his disciples, being themselves surprised by the excellency of his doctrine. 20. After this “Jesus went to the mount of Olivet,” on the east of Jerusalem, and “the next day returned again into the temple,” where “ the scribes and Pharisees brought him a woman taken in the act of adultery,” tempting him to give sentence, that they might accuse him of severity or inter- meddling, if he condemned her ; or of remissness and popularity, if he did acquit her. But Jesus found out an expedient for their difficulty, and changed the scene, by bidding “ the innocent per- son among them cast the first stone at the adulteress ;” and then “ stooping down,” to give them fair occa- sion to withdraw, “he wrote upon the ground with his finger,” whilst they left the woman and her crime to a more private censure : “ J esus was left alone, and the woman in the midst,” whom Jesus dismissed, charging her to “ sin no more.” And, a while after, Jesus begins again to discourse to them, “ of his mission from the Father, of his crucifixion and exaltation from the earth, of the reward of be- lievers, of the excellency of truth, of spiritual liberty and relations ; who are the sons of Abraham, and who the children of the devil ; of his own eternal generation, of the desire of Abraham to see his day.” In which sermon he continued, adding still new excellencies, and confuting their malicious and vainer calumnies, till they, that they might also con- fute him, “ took up stones to cast at him ;” but he “went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” 21. But, in his passage, he met a man who had been born blind : and after he had discoursed cur- sorily of the cause of that blindness, it being a misery not sent as a punishment to “ his own or his parents’ sin,” but as an occasion to make public “the glory of God;” he, to manifest that himself was “ the light of the world” in all senses, said it now, and proved it by a miracle : for, sitting down, “ he made clay of spittle,” and, “ anointing the eyes of the blind man,” bid him “ go wash in Siloam ; ” which was a pool of limpid water, which God sent at the prayer of Isaiah the prophet, a little before his death,? to satisfy the necessities of his people, op- pressed with thirst and a strict siege ; and it stood at the foot of the mount Sion, and gave its water at first by returns and periods, always to the Jews, but not to the enemies. And those intermitted spring- ings were still continued, but only a pool was made from the frequent effluxes. The blind man “ went, and washed, and returned seeing ;” and was inces- santly vexed by the Pharisees, to tell them the manner and circumstances of the cure : and when the man had averred the truth, and named his phy- sician, giving him a pious and charitable testimony, the Pharisees, because they could not force him to disavow his good opinion of Jesus, “ cast him out of the synagogue.” But Jesus, meeting him, re- ceived him into the church, told him he was Christ ; and the man became again enlightened, and he “ be- lieved, and worshipped.” But the Pharisees blas- phemed : for such was the dispensation of the Di- vine mysteries, that the blind should see, and they which think they see clearly should become blind, because they had not the excuse of ignorance to 8 Epiphan. de Vita etintcritu Prophet. C; 7. 272 HISTORY OF THE THIRD YEAR Part III, lessen or take off the sin; but, in the midst of light, they shut their eyes, and doted upon darkness, and “ therefore did their sin remain.” 22. But Jesus continued his sermon among the Pharisees, insinuating reprehensions in his dog- matical discourses, which, like light, shined, and discovered error. For, by discoursing “ the pro- perties of a ‘ good shepherd’ and the lawful way of ‘ intromission,’ he proved them to be ‘ thieves and robbers,’ because they refused to ‘ enter in by Jesus,’ who is ‘ the door of the sheep ;’ and, upon the same ground, reproved all those false Christs, which be- fore him usurped the title of Messias ; and proved his own location and office by an argument, which no other shepherd would use, because he ‘ laid down his life for his sheep :’ others would take the fleece and eat the flesh, but none but himself would die for his sheep ; but he would first die, and then gather his ‘sheep’ together ‘ into one fold,’ (inti- mating the calling of the gentiles ;) to which pur- pose he was ‘ enabled by his Father to lay down his life, and to take it up ; ’ and had also endeared them to his Father, that they should be ‘ preserved unto eternal life, and no power should be able to take them out of his hand, or the hand of his Father :’ for because Jesus was ‘ united to the Father,’ the Father’s care preserved the Son’s flocks.” 23. But the Jews, to requite him for his so di- vine sermons, betook themselves to their old argu- ment : “ they took up stones again to cast at him,” pretending he had blasphemed: but Jesus proved it to be no blasphemy to call himself “ the Son of God,” because “ they to whom the word of God came, are,” in Scripture, “ called Gods.” But nothing could satisfy them, whose temporal interest was concerned not to consent to such doctrine, which would save their souls by ruining their tem- poral concernments. But when “ they sought again to take him, Jesus escaped out of their hands, and went away beyond Jordan, where John at first bap- tized :”which gave the people occasion to remember that “ John did no miracle,” but this man does many ; and John, whom all men did revere and highly account of, for his office and sanctity, gave testimony to Jesus. “And many believed on him there.” 24. After this, Jesus knowing that “ the harvest was great,” and as yet the labourers had been few, sent out seventy-two of his disciples, with the like commission as formerly the twelve apostles, that they might “ go before to those places, whither himself meant to come.” Of which number were the seven, whom afterwards the apostles set over the widows, and Matthias, Mark, and some say Luke, Justus, Barnabas, Apelles, Rufus, Niger, Cephas, (not Peter,) Thaddaeus, Aristion, and John. The rest of the names could not be recovered by the best diligence of Eusebius and Epiphanius. But when they returned from their journey, they re- joiced greatly in the legation and power, and Jesus also “ rejoiced in spirit,” giving glory to God, that he had “ made his revelations to babes” and the more imperfect persons ; like the lowest valleys, which Epiphan. Pan. lib. i. tom. 1. Euseb. lib. i. c. 12. Pa- receive from heaven the greatest floods of rain and blessings, and stand thick with corn and flowers, when the mountains are unfruitful in their height and greatness. 25. And now a doctor of the law came to Jesus, asking him a question of the greatest consideration that a wise man could ask, or a prophet answer : “ Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ?” Jesus referred him to the Scriptures, and declared the way to heaven to be this only, “ to love the Lord with all our powers and faculties, and our neighbour as ourself.” But when the lawyer, being captious, made a scruple in a smooth rush, asking what is meant by “ neighbour;” Jesus told him, by a parable of a traveller fallen into the hands of rob- bers, and neglected by a priest and by a Levite, but relieved by a Samaritan, that no distance of country or religion destroys the relation of neighbourhood ; but every person, with whom we converse in peace and charity, is that neighbour whom we are to love as ourselves. 26. Jesus, having departed from Jerusalem upon the fore-mentioned danger, came to a village called Bethany, where Martha, making great and busy preparation for his entertainment, to express her joy and her affections to his person, desired Jesus to dismiss her sister Mary from his feet, who sat there feasting herself with the viands and sweet- nesses of his doctrine, incurious of the provisions for entertainment. But Jesus commended her choice; and though he did not expressly disrepute Martha’s civility, yet he preferred Mary’s religion and sanctity of affections. In this time (because “ the night drew on, in which no man could work”) Jesus hastened to do his Father’s business, and to pour out whole cataracts of holy lessons, like the fruitful Nilus swelling over the banks, and filling all the trenches, to make a plenty of corn and fruits great as the inundation. Jesus therefore teaches his disciples “ that form of prayer, the second time, which we call ‘ the Lord’s Prayer :’ teaches them assiduity and indefatigable importunity in prayer, by a parable of an importunate neighbour borrow- ing loaves at midnight, and a troublesome wddow, who forced an unjust judge to do her right by her clamorous and hourly addresses : encourages them to pray, by consideration of the Divine goodness and fatherly affection, far more indulgent to his sons than natural fathers are to their dearest issue ; and adds a gracious promise of success to them that pray. He reproves Pharisaical ostentation ; arms his disciples against the fear of men and the terrors of persecution, wLich can arrive but to the incom- modities of the body ; teaches the fear of God, who is Lord of the whole man, and can accurse the soul, as well as punish the body. He refuses to divide the inheritance betw^een two brethren, as not having competent powder to become lord in temporal juris- dictions. He preaches against covetousness, and the placing felicities in w'orldly possessions, by a parable of a rich man, wdiose riches were too big for his barns, and big enough for his soul, and he ran over into voluptuousness, and stupid complacen- pius, apiul Euseb. lib. iii. c, Sect. XIV. OF THE PREACHINO OF JESUS. 273 cies in his perishing goods : he was snatched from their possession, and his soul taken from him, in the violence of a rapid and hasty sickness, in the space of one night. He discourses of Divine providence and care over us all, and descending even as low as grass. He exhorts to alms-deeds, to watchfulness, and preparation against the sudden and unexpected coming of our Lord to judgment, or the arrest of death : tells the offices and sedulity of the clergy, under the apologue of stewards and governors of their Lord’s houses ; teaches them gentleness and sobriety, and not to do evil upon confidence of their Lord’s absence and delay ; and teaches the people, even of themselves, to judge what is right concern- ing the signs of the coming of the Son of man. And the end of all these discourses was, that all men should repent, and live good lives, and be saved.” 27 . At this sermon “ there were present some, that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices.” For the Galileans were a sort of people, that taught it to be unlawfid to pay tribute to strangers, or to pray for the Ro- mans ; and because the Jews did both, they refused to communicate in their sacred rites, and would sacrifice apart: at which solemnity, when Pilate, the Roman deputy, had apprehended many of them, he caused them all to be slain, making them to die upon the same altars. These were of the province of Judea, but of the same opinion with those who taught in Galilee, from whence the sect had its ap- pellative. But to the story : Jesus made reply, that these external accidents, though they be sad and calamitous, yet they are no arguments of condemna- tion against the persons of the men, to convince them of greater guilt than others, upon whom no such visible signatures have been imprinted. The purpose of such chances is, that we should “ repent, lest we perish” in the like judgment. 28. About this time a certain ruler of a syna- gogue renewed the old question about the observa- tion of the sabbath, repining at Jesus, that he cured a woman that was crooked, loosing her from her infirmity, with which she had been afflicted eighteen years.” But Jesus made the man ashamed, by an argument from their own practice, who themselves “ loose an ox from the stall on the sabbath, and lead him to watering:” and by the same argument he also stopped the mouths of the scribes and Phari- sees, which were open upon him, for curing an hydropic person upon the sabbath. For Jesus, that he might draw off and separate Christianity from the yoke of ceremonies, by abolishing and taking off the strictest Mosaical rites, chose to do very many of his miracles upon the sabbath, that he might do the work of abrogation and institution both at once ; not much unlike the sabbatical pool in Judea, which was dry six days, but gushed out in a full stream upon the sabbath.^ For though, upon all days, Christ w^as operative and miraculous, yet many reasons did concur and determine him to a more frequent working upon those days of public ceremony and convention. But, going forth from ' Joseph, de Bello Jud. lib. vii. c. 24. T thence, he went up and down the cities of Galilee, re-enforcing the same doctrine he had formei'ly taught them, and daily adding new precepts, and cautions, and prudent insinuations : “ advertising of the multitudes of them that perish, and the paucity of them that shall be saved, and that we should ‘ strive to enter in at the strait gate ;’ that ‘ the way to destruction is broad’ and plausible, ‘ the way to heaven’ nice and austere, ‘ and few there be that find it ; ’ teaches them modesty at feasts, and enter- tainments of the poor : discourses of the many excuses and unwillingnesses of persons who were invited to the feast of the kingdom, the refreshments of the gospel; and tacitly insinuates the rejection of the Jews, who were the first ‘ invited,’ and the calling of the gentiles, who were the persons ‘ called in from the highways and hedges.’ He reprehends Herod for his subtilty and design to kill him ; pro- phesies that he should die at Jerusalem; and inti- mates great sadnesses future to them, for ‘ neglecting this, their day’ of visitation, and for ‘ killing the prophets and the messengers sent from God.’ ” 29. It now grew towards winter, and the Jews’ feast of Dedication was at hand; therefore, Jesus went up to Jerusalem to the feast, where he preach- ed in Solomon’s porch, which part of the temple stood entire from the first ruins : and the end of his sermon was, that the Jews had like to have stoned him. But, retiring from thence, he went beyond Jordan, where he taught the people, in a most elegant and persuasive parable, concerning “ the mercy of God in accepting penitents, in the parable of the ‘ prodigal son’ returning; discourses of the design of the Messias coming into the world, to re- cover erring persons from their sin and danger, in the apologues of the ‘ lost sheep,’ and ‘ groat ; ’ and, under the representment of an unjust but pru- dent steward, he taught us so to employ our present opportunities and estates, by laying them out in acts of mercy and religion, that, when our souls shall be dismissed from the stewardship and custody of our body, we ‘ may be entertained in everlasting habita- tions.’ He instructeth the Pharisees in the question of divorces, limiting the permissions of separations to the only cause of fornication : preferreth holy celibate before the estate of marriage, in them to whom the gift of continency is given, in order to the kingdom of heaven. He telleth a story or a parable, (for which is uncertain,) of a rich man (whom Euthymius, out of the tradition of the He- brews, nameth Nymensis) and Lazarus ; the first a voluptuous person, and uncharitable ; the other, pious, afflicted, sick, and a beggar ; the first died, and went to hell ; the second, to Abraham’s bo- som ; God so ordering the dispensation of good things, that we cannot easily enjoy two heavens ; nor shall the infelicities of our lives, if Ave be pious, end otherwise than in a beatified condition. The epilogue of which story discovered this truth also, that the ordinary means of salvation are the ex- press revelations of Scripture, and the ministries of God’s appointment ; and whosoever neglects these, shall not be supplied with means extraordinary, or, if he were, they would be totally ineffectual.” VOL, I. 2/4 OF SCANDAL. Part III. 30. And still the people drew water from the fountains of our Saviour, which streamed out in a full and continual emanation. For, adding wave to wave, “ line to line, precept upon precept,” he “ reproved the fastidiousness of the Pharisee, that came with eucharist to God, and contempt to his brother ; and commended the humility of the pub- lican’s address, who came deploring his sins, and, with modesty, and penance, and importunity, beg- ged, and obtained a mercy. Then he laid hands upon certain young children, and gave them bene- diction, charging his apostles to admit infants to him, because to them, in person, and to such, in emblem and signification, the kingdom of heaven does appertain. He instructs a young man in the ways and counsels of perfection, besides the ob- servation of precepts, by heroical renunciations, and acts of munificent charity.” Which discourse, because it alighted upon an indisposed and an un- fortunate subject, (“ for the young man was very rich,”) Jesus discourses “ how hard it is for a rich man to be saved ; but he expounds himself to mean, ‘ they that trust in riches and, however it is a matter of so great temptation, that it is almost im- possible to escape, yet ‘ with God nothing is impos- sible.’” But, when the apostles heard the Master bidding the young man “ sell all, and give to the poor, and follow him,” and for his reward pro- mised him “ a heavenly treasure Peter, in the name of the rest, began to think that this was their ease, and the promise also might concern them ; and asking him this question. What shall we have, who have forsaken all, and followed thee? Jesus an- swered, that they should “ sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” 31. And Jesus extended this mercy to every dis- ciple, that should “ forsake either house, or wife, or children, or any thing, for his sake and the gos- pel’s,” and that they “ should receive a hundred- fold in this life,” by way of comfort and equiva- lence, “ and, in the world to come,” thousands of glories and possessions, in fruition and redundancy. For “ they that are last shall be first, and the first shall be last;” and the despised people of this ^t'orld shall reign like kings, and contempt itself shall swell up into glory, and poverty into an eter- nal satisfaction. And these rewards shall not be accounted according to the privileges of nations, or priority of vocation, but readiness of mind and obe- dience, and sedulity of operation after calling : which Jesus taught his disciples in the parable of the labourers “ in the vineyard,” to whom the master gave the same reward, though the times of their working were different ; as their calling and employment had determined the opportunity of their labours. DISCOURSE XVII. Of Scandal, or giving and taking Offence.^ 1. A SAD curse being threatened, in the gospel, to tliem wdio “ offend any of Christ’s little ones,” ^ Ad Num. 3. Matt, xviii. 7. that is, such as are novices and babes in Christianity, it concerns us to learn our duty, and perform it, that we may avoid the curse : for, “ Woe to all them by whom offences come.”*^ And although the duty is so plainly explicated, and represented in gloss and case, by the several commentaries of St. Paul, upon this menace of our blessed Saviour ; yet, because our English word “ offence,” which is commonly used in this question of scandal, is so large and equivocal, that it hath made many pre- tences, and intricated this article to some incon- venience, it is not without good purpose to draw into one body those propositions, which the masters of spiritual life have described in the managing of this question. 2. First : By whatsoever we do our duty to God, we cannot directly do offence, or give scandal, to our brother; because, in such cases Vv-here God hath obliged us, he hath also obliged himself to re- concile our duty to the designs of God, to the utility of souls, and the ends of charity. And this proposition is to be extended to our obedience to the lawful constitutions of our competent superiors, in which cases we are to look upon the command- ment, and leave the accidental events to the dis- position of that Providence, who reconciles disso- nances in nature, and concentres all the variety of accidents into his own glory. And w'hosoever is offended at me for obeying God, or God’s vice- gerent, is offended at me for doing my duty ; and in this there is no more dispute, but whether I shall displease God, or my peevish neighbour. These are such, whom the Spirit of God complains of, under other representments : they “ think it strange we run not into the same excess of riot their “eye is evil, because” their Master’s “eye is good and the abounding of God’s grace also may become to them an occasion of falling, and the long-suffering of God the encouragement to sin. In this there is no difficulty ; for in what case soever we are bound to obey God, or man, in that case, and in that conjunction of circumstances, we have nothing permitted to our choice, and have no authority to remit of the right of God, or our su- perior. And, to comply with our neighbour in such questions, besides that it cannot serve any purposes of piety, if it declines from duty in any instance, it is like giving alms out of the portion of orphans, or building hospitals with the money and sj)oils of sacrilege. It is pusillanimity, or hypocrisy, or a deny- ing to confess Christ before men, to comply with any man, and to offend God, or omit a duty. What- soever is necessary to be done, and is made so by God, no weakness or peevishness of man can make necessary not to be done. For the matter of scandal is a duty beneath the prime obligations of religion. 3. Secondly ; But every thing which is used in religion, is not matter of precise duty ; but there are some things, which indeed are pious and religious, but dispensable, voluntary, and commutable; such as are, voluntary fasts, exterior acts of discipline and mortification, not enjoined, great degrees of ex- terior worship, prostration, long prayers, vigils : and c Rom. .xiv. 1 Cor. viii. Gal. ii. Sect. XIV. OF SCANDAL. 275 in these things, although there is not directly a matter of scandal, yet there may be some prudential considerations in order to charity and edification. By pious actions, I mean either particular pur- suances of a general duty, which are uncommanded in the instance, such as are the minutes and ex- presses of alms ; or else they are commended, but in the whole kind of them unenjoined, such as divines call the “ counsels of perfection.” In both these cases, a man cannot be scandalous. For the man doing, in charity and the love of God, such actions which are aptly expressive of love, the man, I say, is not uncharitable in his purposes : and the actions themselves, being either attempts or proceedings toward perfection, or else actions of direct duty, are as innocent in their productions as in themselves, and, therefore, without the malice of the recipient, cannot induce him into sin : and nothing else is scandal. To do any pious act proceeds from the Spirit of God, and to give scandal, from the spirit of malice, or indiscretion ; and, therefore, a pious ac- tion, whose fountain is love and wisdom, cannot end in uncharitableness or imprudence. But because, when any man is offended at what I esteem piety, there is a question whether the action be pious or not; therefore, it concerns him that works, to take care that his action be either an act of duty, though not determined to a certain particular; or else, be something counselled in Scripture, or practised by a holy person, there recorded, and no where reproved ; or a practice warranted by such precedents, which modest, prudent, and religious persons account a sufficient inducement of such particulars : for he that proceeds upon such principles, derives the warrant of his actions from beginnings, which se- cure the particular and quits the scandal. 4. This, I say, is a security against the uncharit- ableness and the sin of scandal ; because a zeal of doing pious actions is a zeal according to God : but it is not always a security against the indiscretion of the scandal. He that reproves a foolish person in such circumstances that provoke him, or make him impudent or blasphemous, does not give scan- dal, and brings no sin upon himself, though he occasioned it in the other : but, if it was probable such effects should be consequent to the reprehen- sion, his zeal was imprudent and rash ; but so long as it was zeal for God, and, in its own matter, law- ful, it could not be an active or guilty scandal : but if it be no zeal, and be a design to entrap a man’s unwariness, or passion, or shame, and to disgrace the man, by that means, or any other, to make him sin, then it is directly the offending of our brother. They that “ preached Christ out of envy,” intended to do offence to the apostles : but, because they were impregnable, the sin rested in their own bosom, and God wrought his own ends by it. And, in this sense, they are scandalous persons, who “ fast for strife,” who pray for rebellion, who entice simple persons into the snare, by colours of religion. Those very exterior acts of piety become an offence, be- cause they are done to evil purposes ; to abuse pro- ** hu daKTvX(u Oeov siKova /un) -irspKpfpELv, dictum prover- T 2 selytes, and to draw away disciples after them, and make them love the sin, and march under so splendid and fair colours. They who, out of strictness and se- verity of persuasion, represent the conditions of the gospel alike to every person, that is, nicer than Christ described them, in all circumstances, and deny such liberties of exterior desires and compla- cency, which may be reasonably permitted to some men, do very indiscreetly, and may occasion the alienation of some men’s minds from the entertain- ments of religion : but this being accidental to the thing itself, and to the purpose of the man, is not the sin of scandal, but it is the indiscretion of scandal, if, by such means, he divorces any man’s mind from the cohabitation and unions of religion : and yet, if the purpose of the man be to affright weaker and unwise persons, it is a direct scandal, and one of those ways which the devil uses to- wards the peopling of his kingdom; it is a plain laying of a snare to entrap feeble and uninstructed souls. 5. But if the pious action have been formerly joined with any thing that is truly criminal, with idolatry, with superstition, with impious customs or impure rites, and by retaining the piety, I give cause to my weak brother to think I approve of the old appendage, and, by my reputation, invite him to swallow the whole action without discerning ; the case is altered ; I am to omit that pious action, if it be not under command, until I have acquitted it from the suspicion of evil company. But when T have done what, in prudence, I guess sufficient to thaw the frost of jealousy, and to separate those dissonances, which formerly seemed united, I have done my duty of charity, b}- endeavouring to free my brother from the snare, and I have done what, in Christian prudence, I was obliged, when I have protested against the appendant crime : if, after- wards, the same person shall entertain the crime, upon pretence of my example, who have plainly disavowed it, he lays the snare for himself, and is glad of the pretence, or will, in spite, enter into the net, that he might think it reasonable to rail at me. I may not, with Christian charity or prudence, wear the picture of our blessed Lord in rings or medals,^^ though with great affection and designs of doing him all the honour that I can, if, by such pictures, I invite persons, apt more to follow me than to understand me, to give divine honour to a pic- ture ; but when I have declared my hatred of super- stitious worshippings, and given my brother warn- ing of the snare, which his own mistake, or the devil’s malice, v^as preparing for him, I may then, without danger, signify my piety and affections in any cml representments, which are not against God’s law or the customs of the church, or the analogy of faith. And there needs no other reason to be given for this rule, than that there is no reason to be given against it. If the nature of the thing be innocent, and the purpose of the man be pious, and he hath used his moral industry to secure his brother against accidental mischances and abuses ; bialiter, contra leves et inanes ceremonias civilis et popularis religionis. OF SCANDAL. Part III. 27(> his duty, in this particular, can have no more parts and instances. (i. But it is too crude an assertion, to affirm in- definitely, that whatsoever hath been abused to evil or superstitious purposes, must presently be abjured, and never entertained, for fear of scandal ; for it is certain, that the best things have been most abused. Have not some persons used certain verses of the Psalter, as an antidote against the toothach ? and carried the blessed sacrament in pendants about their necks, as a charm to countermand witches? and St. John’s Gospel, as a spell against wild . beasts, and wilder untamed spirits ? Confession of sins to the ministers of religion hath been made an instrument to serve base ends ; and so, indeed, hath all religion been abused : and some persons have been so receptive of scandal, that they suspected all religion to be a mere stratagem, because they have observed very many men have used it so. For some natures are like sponges or sugar, whose ut- most verge if you dip in wine, it drowns itself by the moisture it sucks up, and is drenched all over, receiving its alteration from within ; its own nature did the mischief, and plucks on its own dissolution. And these men are greedy to receive a scandal ; and when it is presented but in small instances, they suck it up to the dissolution of their whole religion ; being glad of a quarrel, that their impieties may not want all excuse. But yet, it is certainly very unreasonable to reject excellent things, because they have been abused ; as if separable accidents had altered natures and essences, or that they re- solve never to forgive the duties, for having once fallen into the hands of unskilful or malicious per- | sons. Hezekiah took away the brazen serpent, be- j cause the people abused it to idolatry ; but the ‘ serpent had long before lost its use : and yet, if the j people had not been a peevish, and refractory, and superstitious people, in whose nature it was to take all occasions of superstition; and further yet, if the taking away such occasions and opportunities of that sin in special, had not been most agreeable with the designs of God, in forbidding to the people the common use of all images in the second com- mandment, which was given them after the erection of that brazen statue ; tiezekiah possibly w’ould not, or at least had not, been bound to have destroyed that monument of an old story and a great blessing, but have sought to separate the abuse from the minds of men, and retained the image. But in Christianity, when none of these circumstances occur, where, by the greatness and plenty of reve- lations, we are more fully instructed in the ways of duty ; and when the thing itself is pious, and the abuse very separable, it is infinite disparagement to us, or to our religion, either that our religion is not sufficient to cure an abuse, or that we will never part with it; but we must unpardonabl}^ reject a good, because it had once upon it a crust or spot of leprosy, though, since, it hath been washed in the waters of reformation. The primitive Christians ab- stained from actions of themselves indifferent, which the unconverted people used, if those actions were symbolical, or adopted into false religions, or not well understood by those they were bound to satisfy : but when they had washed off the accrescences of gentile superstition, they chose such rites which their neighbours used, and had designs not impru- dent or unhandsome ; and they were glad of heathen temples, to celebrate the Christian rites in them, and they made no other change, but that they ejected the devil, and invited their Lord into the possession. 7. Thirdly : In things merely indifferent, whose practice is not limited by command, nor their nature heightened by an appendant piety, we must use our liberty so as may not offend our brother, or lead him into a sin directly or indirectly. For scandal being directly against charity, it is to be avoided in the same measure, and by the same proportions, in Avhich charity is to be pursued. Now we must so use ourselves, that we must cut off a foot, or pluck out an eye, rather than the one should bear us, and the other lead us, to sin and death ; we must rather rescind all the natural and sensual, or dearest invi- tations to vice, and deny ourselves lawful things, than that lawful things should betray us to unlaw- ful actions. And this rule is the measure of charity : our neighbour’s soul ought to be dearer unto us than any temporal privilege. It is lawful for me to eat herbs, or fish, and to observe an ascetic diet ; but if, by such austerities, I lead others to a good opinion of Montanism, or the practices of Pythagoras, or to believe flesh to be impure, I must rather alter my diet, than teach him to sin by mistaking me. St. Paul gave an instance of eating flesh, sold in the shambles, from the idol- temples : to eat it, in the relation of an idol-sacrifice, is a great sin; but when it is sold in the shambles, the property is altered to them that understand it so. But yet, even this Paul would not do, if, by so doing, he should encourage undiscerning people to eat all meat conveyed from the temple, and offered to devils. It is not in every man’s head to distinguish formalities, and to make abstractions of purpose from exterior acts ; and to alter their devotions, by new' relations and respects, depending upon intellectual and metaphysical notions. And, therefore, it is not safe to do an action which is not lawTul, but after the making distinctions, before ignorant and w'eaker persons, wdio swallow down the bole and the box that carries it, and never pare their apple, or take the core out. If I, by the law' of charity, must rather quit my own goods, than suffer my brother to perish ; much rather must I quit my privilege, and those superstructures of favour and grace, w^hich Christ hath given me beyond my necessities, than w'ound the spirit and destroy the soul of a weak man, “ for whom Christ died.” It is an inordinate affec- tion, to love my ow'n ease, and circumstances of pleasure, before the soul of a brother; and such a thing are the privileges of Christian liberty ; for Christ hath taken off from us the restraints which God had laid upon the Jew's, in meat and holydays : but these are but circumstances of grace, given us for opportunities, and cheap instances of charity. We should ill die for our brother, who w'ill not lose a meal to prevent his sin, or change a dish to save his soul. And if the thing be indifferent to us, yet Sect. XIV. OF SCANDAL. 277 it ought not to be indifferent to us whether our brother live or die. 8. Fourthly : And yet we must not, to please peevish or froward people, betray our liberty which Christ hath given us. If any man opposes the law- fulness and license of indifferent actions, or be dis- turbed at my using my privileges innocently ; in the first case, I am bound to use them still ; in the se- cond, I am not bound to quit them to please him. For, in the first instance, he that shall cease to use his liberty to please him that says his liberty is un- lawful, encourages him that says so in his false opinion, and, by complying with him, gives the scandal ; and he who is angry with me for making use of it, is a person that, it may be, is “ crept in, to spy out ” and invade “ my liberty,’^ but not apt to be reduced into sin by that act of mine, which he detests, for which he despises me, and so makes my person unapt to be exemplar to him. To be angry with me for doing what Christ hath allowed me, and which is part of the liberty he purchased for me, when he took upon himself the form of a servant, is to judge me, and to be uncharitable to me : and he that does so, is beforehand with me, and upon the ac- tive part ; he does the scandal to me, and, by offering to deprive me of my liberty, he makes my way to heaven narrower and more encumbered than Christ left it, and so places a stumbling-stone in my way ; I put none in his. And if such peevishness and discontent of a brother engages me to a new and un- imposed yoke, then it were in the power of my enemy, or any malevolent person, to make me never to keep festival, or never to observe any private fast ; never to be prostrate at my prayers, nor to do any thing but according to his leave ; and his humour shall become the rule of my actions ; and then my charity to him shall be the greatest uncharitableness in the world to myself, and his liberty shall be my bondage. Add to this, that such complying and obeying the peevishness of discontented persons, is to no end of charity ; for besides that such conces- sions never satisfy persons who are unreasonably angry, because by the same reason they may de- mand more, as they ask this, for which they had no reason at all ; it also encourages them to be peevish, and gives fuel to the passion, and feeds the wolf ; and so encourages the sin, and prevents none. 9. Fifthly : For he only gives scandal, who in- duces his brother directly or collaterally info sin, as appears by all the discourses in Scripture guiding us in this duty ; and it is called “ laying a stumbling- block in our brother’s way, wounding the conscience of our weak brother.”® Thus Balaam was said to lay a scandal before the sons of Israel, by tempting them to fornication with the daughters of Moab. Every evil example, or imprudent, sinful, and un- wary deportment, is a scandal ; because it invites others to do the like, leading them by the hand, taking off the strangeness and insolency of the act, which deters many men from entertaining it ; and it gives some offers of security to others, that they shall escape as we have done ; besides that it is in the nature of all agents, natural and moral, to assimi- ® 1 Cor. viii. 10, 12. Rom. xiv. 21. Matt. v. 29. xiii. 57. late, either by proper efficiency, or by counsel and moral invitements, others to themselves. But this is a direct scandal : and such it is, to give money to an idle person, who you know will be drunk with it ; or to invite an intemperate person to an opportu- nity of excess, who desires it always, but without thee wants it. Indirectly and accidentally, but very criminally, they give scandal, who introduce persons into a state of life, from whence, probably, they pass into a state of sin. So did the Israelites, who married their daughters to the idolatrous Moab- ites ; and so do they, who intrust a pupil to a vicious guardian. For, although God can preserve children in the midst of flames, without scorching ; yet if they singe their hair, or scorch their flesh, they that put them in are guilty of the burning. And yet, further, if persons so exposed to danger should escape by miracle, yet they escape not who expose them to the danger. They who threw the children of the captivity into the furnace, were burnt to death though the children were not hurt : and the very offering a person in our trust to a certain or probable danger, foreseen and understood, is a likely way to pass sin upon the person so ex- posed, but a certain way to contract it in ourselves ; it is directly against charity, for no man loves a soul unless he loves its safety ; and he cares not to have his child safe, that throws him into the fire. Hither are to be reduced all false doctrines, aptly productive of evil life; the doctrines are scandalous, and the men guilty, if they understand the conse- quents of their own propositions : or if they think it probable, that persons will be led by such doc- trines into evil persuasions, though themselves be- lieve them not to be necessary products of their opinions ; yet the very publishing such opinions, which, of themselves not being necessary, or other- wise very profitable, are apt to be understood, by weak persons at least, to ill ends, is against charity, and the duty we owe to our brother’s soul. 10. Sixthly: It is not necessary for ever to ab- stain from things indifferent, to prevent the offend- ing of a brother ; but only till I have taken away that rock, against which some did stumble, or have done my endeavour to remove it. In questions of religion, it is lawful to use primitive and ancient words, at which men have been weakened and seem to stumble, when the objection is cleared, and the ill consequents and suspicion disavowed : and it may be of good use, charity, and edification, to speak the language of the purest ages, although that some words were used also in the impurest ages, and descended along, upon changing and declining articles ; when it is rightly explicated, in what sense the best men did innocently use them, and the same sense is now protested. But in this case, it con- cerns prudence to see, that the benefit be greater than the danger. And the same, also, is to be said concerning all the actions and parts of Christian liberty. For if, after I have removed the uneven- ness and objection of the accident; that is, if when I have explained my disrelish to the crime, which might possibly be gathered up and taken into prac- Mark xiv. 27. vi. 3. iv. 17. Luke vii. 23. John xvi. 1 278 OF SCANDAL. Part III. tice ])y my misunderstood example, still any man will stumble and fall, — it is a resolution to fall, a love of danger, a peevishness of spirit, a voluntary misunderstanding; it is not a misery in the man, more than it is his own fault : and whenever the cause of any sin becomes criminal to the man that sins, it is certain, that if the other, who was made the occasion, did disavow and protest against the crime, the man that sins is the only guilty person, both in the effect and cause too ; for the other could do no more but use a moral and prudent industry, to prevent a being misinterpreted ; and if he were tied to more, he must quit his interest for ever in a per- petual scruple ; and it is like taking away all laws to prevent disobedience, and making all even to secure the world against the effects of pride or stub- bornness. I add to this, that since actions indifferent in their own natures, are not productive of effects and actions criminal, it is merely by accident that men are abused into a sin ; that is, by weakness, by misconceit, by something that either discovers malice or indiscretion ; which, because the act itself does not of itself, if the man docs not voluntarily or by intention, the sin dwells no where but with the man that entertains it : the man is no longer weak than he is mistaken, and he is not mistaken or abused into the sin, by example of any man who hath rightly stated his own question, and divorced the suspicion of the sin from his action ; whatsoever comes after this, is not weakness of understanding, but strength of passion ; and he that is “ always learning, and never comes to the knowledge of the truth,” is something besides a silly man. Men can- not be always “ babes in Christ,” ^ without their own fault; they are no longer “ Christ’s little ones” than they are inculpably ignorant. For it is but a mantle cast over pride and frowardness to think ourselves able to teach others, and yet pretend offence and scandal; to scorn to be instructed, and yet complain that we are offended, and led into sin for want of knowledge of our duty. He that under- stands his duty, is not a person capable of scandal by things indifferent. And it is certain, that no man can say, concerning himself, that he is scan- dalized at another ; that is, that he is led into sin by mistake and weakness ; for if himself knows it, the mistake is gone. Well may the guides of their souls complain, concerning such persons, that their sin is procured by offending persons or actions ; but he that complains concerning himself, to the same purpose, pretends ignorance for other ends, and con- tradicts himself by his complaint and knowledge of his error. The boy was prettily peevish, who, when his father bade him pronounce Thalassius, told him he could not pronounce Thalassius, at the same time speaking the word : just so impotent, weak, and undiscerning a person is that, who would forbid me to do an indifferent action, upon pretence that it makes him ignorantly sin; for his saying so con- futes his ignorance, and argues him of a worse folly : it is like asking my neighbour, whether such an action be done against my own will. II. Seventhly; When an action is apt to be mis- ' ’Arr3'£V£ts Trj Tr'io’Td. Rom. xiv. 1. 1 Cor. viii. 10, 12. taken to contrary purposes, it concerns the prudence and charity of a Christian, to use such compliance, as best co-operates to God’s glory, and hath in it the less danger. The apostles gave an instance in the matter of circumcision, in which they walked warily, and with variety of design, that they might invite the gentiles to the easy yoke of Christianity, and yet not deter the Jews, by a disrespect of the law of Moses. And therefore St. Paul circumcised Timothy, because he was among the Jews, and descended from a Jewish parent; and in the in- stance gave sentence in compliance with the Jewish persuasion, because Timothy might well be account- ed for a Jew by birth ; unto them the rites of Moses were for a while permitted. But when Titus was brought upon the scene of a mixed assembly, and was no Jew, but a Greek, to whom Paul had taught “ they ought not to be circumcised ;” § although some Jews watched what he would do, yet he plainly refused to circumcise him, choosing rather to leave the Jews angry, than the gentiles scanda- lized, or led into an opinion that circumcision was necessary, or that he had taught them otherwise out of collateral ends, or that now he did so. But when a .case of Christian liberty happened to St. Peter, he was not so prudent in his choice ; but, at the coming of certain Jews from Jerusalem, with- drew himself from the society of the gentiles ; not considering, that it was worse if the gentiles, who were invited to Christianity by the sweetness of its liberty and compliance, should fall back, when they that taught them the excellency of Christian liberty durst not stand to it, than if those Jews were dis- pleased at Christianity, for admitting gentiles into its communion, after they had been instructed that God had broken down the partition-wall, and made them one sheepfold. It was of greater concern- ment to God’s glory, to gain the gentiles, than to retain the Jews ; and yet if it had not, the apostles were bound to bend to the inclinations of the weaker, rather than be mastered by the wilfulness of the stronger, who had been sufficiently instructed in the articles of Christian liberty, and in the adopt- ing the gentiles into the family of God. Thus, if it be a question, whether I should abate any thing of my external religion or ceremonies, to satisfy an heretic or a contentious person, who pretends scan- dal to himself, and is, indeed, of another persua- sion ; and at the same time I know, that good per- sons would be weakened at such forbearance, and estranged from the good persuasion and charity of communion, which is part of their duty ; it more concerns charity and the glory of God, that I se- cure the right, than tvdne about the wrong, wilful, and malicious persons. A prelate must rather for- tify and encourage obedience, and strengthen disci- pline, than by remissness toward refractory spirits, and a desire not to seem severe, weaken the hands of conscientious persons, by taking away the marks of difference between them that obey and them that obey not : and in all cases, when the question is between a friend to be secured from apostasy, or an enemy to be gained from indifferency, St. Paul’s 3 Gal. ii. 3, 4, &c. Sect. XIV. OF SCANDAL. 279 rule is to be observed : “ Do good to all, but espe- cially to the household of faith.” When the church, in a particular instance, cannot be kind to both, she must first love her own children. 12. Eighthly: But when the question is be- tween pleasing and contenting the fancies of a friend, and the gaining of an enemy, the greater good of the enemy is infinitely to be preferred, be- fore the satisfying the unnecessary humour of the friend ; and, therefore, that we may gain persons of a different religion, it is lawful to entertain them in their innocent customs : that we may represent ourselves charitable and just, apt to comply in what we can, and yet for no end complying farther than we are permitted. It was a policy of the devil, to abuse Christians to the rites of Mithra, by imitating the Christian ceremonies ; and the Christians them- selves were beforehand with him in that policy ; for they facilitated the reconcilement of Judaism with Christianity by common rites, and invited the gen- tiles to the Christian churches, because they never violated the heathen temples, but loved the men, and imitated their innocent rites, and only offered to reform their errors, and hallow their abused pur- poses : and this, if it had no other contradictory or unhandsome circumstance, gave no offence to other Christians, when they had learned to trust them with the government of ecclesiastical affairs, to whom God had committed them : and they all had the same purposes of religion and charity. And when there is no objection against this, but the furies or greater heats of a mistaken zeal, the compliance with evil or unbelieving persons, to gain them from their errors to the ways of truth and sincerity, is great prudence and great charity; because it chooses and acts a greater good, at no other charge or ex- pense but the discomposing of an intemperate zeal. 13. Ninthly: We are not bound to intermit a good or a lawful action, as soon as any man tells us it is scandalous ; (for that may be an easy strata- gem to give me laws, and destroy my liberty ;) but either when the action is of itself, or by reason of a public known indisposition of some persons, pro- bably introductive of a sin ; or when we know it is so in fact. The other is but affrighting a man; this only is prudent, that my charity be guided by such rules, which determine wise men to actions or omissions respectively. And, therefore, a light fame is not strong enough to wrest my liberty from me ; but a reasonable belief, or a certain know- ledge, in the taking of which estimate we must nei- ther be too credulous and easy, nor yet ungentle and stubborn, but do according to the actions of wise men and the charities of a Christian. Hither we may refer the rules of abstaining fi'om things which are of evil report. For not every thing which is of good report is to be followed ; for then a false opinion, when it is become popular, must be professed for conscience sake : nor yet every thing that is of bad report is to be avoided ; for nothing endured more shame and obloquy than Christianity, at its first commencement. But by “ good report,” we are to understand such things, which are well reported of by good men and wise men, or Scrip- ture, or the consent of nations. And thus, for a woman to marry within the year of mourning is scandalous ; because it is of evil report, gives sus- picion of lightness, or some worse confederacy, be- fore the death of her husband. The thing itself is apt to minister the suspicion, and this we are bound to prevent ; and unless the suspicion be malicious, or imprudent and unreasonable, we must conceal our actions from the surprises and deprehensions of suspicion. It was scandalous amongst the old Romans not to marry; among the Christians, for a clergyman to marry twice, because it was against an apostolical canon : but when it became of ill re- port for any Christian to marry a second time, be- cause this evil report was begun by the errors of Montanus, and is against a permission of holy Scrip- ture, no lay Christian was bound to abstain from a second bed, for fear of giving scandal. 14. Tenthly: The precept of avoiding scandal concerns the governors of the church or state, in the making and execution of laws. For no law in things indifferent ought to be made to the provoca- tion of the subject, or against that public dispo- sition, which is in the spirits of men ; and will, cer- tainly, cause perpetual irregularities and schisms. Before the law be made, the superior must comply with the subject; after if is made, the subject must comply with the law. But in this, the church hath made fair provision, accounting no laws obligatory, till the people have accepted them, and given tacit approbation : for ecclesiastical canons have their time of probation ; and if they become a burden to the people, or occasion schisms, tumults, public dis- union of affections, and jealousies against authority, the laws give place, and either fix not when they are not first approved, or disappear by desuetude. And in the execution of laws, no less care is to be taken ; for many cases occur, in which the laws can be rescued from being a snare to men’s consciences, by no other way but by dispensation, and slacking of the discipline as to certain particulars. Mercy and sacrifice, the letter and the spirit, the words and the intention, the general case and the particular exception, the present disposition and the former state of things, are oftentimes so repugnant, and of such contradictory interests, that there is no stum- bling-block more troublesome or dangerous, than a severe literal and rigorous exacting of laws in all cases. But when stubbornness or a contentious spirit, when rebellion and pride, when secular interest, or ease and licentiousness, set men up against the laws, the laws then are upon the de- fensive, and ought not to give place. It is ill to cure particular disobedience, by removing a consti- tution, decreed by public wisdom, for a general good. When the evil occasioned by the law is greater than the good designed, or than the good which will come by it in the present constitution of things, and the evil can by no other remedy be healed, it con- cerns the lawgiver’s charity to take off such positive constitutions, which in the authority are merely human, and in the matter indifferent, and evil in the event. The sum of this whole duty I shall choose to represent, in the words of an excellent person, 2S0 OF THE CAUSES AND MANNER Part III. St. Jerome : “ We must, for the avoiding of scandal, quit every thing which may be omitted, without prejudice to the threefold truth, of life, of justice, and doctrine meaning, that what is not expressly commanded by God or our superiors, or what is not expressly commended as an act of piety and perfection, or what is not an obligation of jus- tice ; that is, in which the interest of a third person, or else our own Christian liberty, is not totally con- cerned, all that is to be given in sacrifice to mercy, and to be made matter of edification and charity, but not of scandal ; that is, of danger, and sin, and fall- ing, to our neighbour. THE PRAYER. 0 eternal Jesus, who art made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, give us of thy abundant charity; that we may love the eternal benefit of our brother’s soul, with a true, diligent, and affectionate care and tenderness. Give us a fellow-feeling of one another’s calamities, a readiness to bear each other’s burdens, aptness to forbear, wisdom to advise, counsel to direct, and a spirit of meekness and modesty trembling at our infirmities, fearful in our brother’s dangers, and joyful in his restitution and securities. Lord, let all our actions be pious and prudent, ourselves “ wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” and our whole life exemplar, and just and charitable ; that we may, like lamps shining in thy temple, serve thee, and enlighten others, and guide them to thy sanctuary ; and that, shining clearly and burning zealously, when the Bridegroom shall come to bind up his jewels, and beautify his spouse, and gather his saints together, we, and all thy Christian people, knit in a holy fellow- ship, may “ enter into the joy of our Lord,” and partake of the eternal refreshments of the king- dom of light and glory, where thou, 0 holy and eternal Jesu, livest and reignest in the excel- lencies of a kingdom, and the infinite durations of eternity. Amen. DISCOURSE XVIII. Of the Causes and Manner of the Divine ' J udgments . ^ 1. God’s judgments are like “ the writing upon the wall,” which was a missive of anger from God upon Belshazzar ; it came upon an errand of revenge, and yet it was writ in so dark characters, that none could read it but a prophet. Whenever God speaks from heaven, he would have us to understand his meaning ; and if he declares not his sense in par- ticular signification, yet we understand his meaning well enough, if every voice of God lead us to re- pentance. Every sad accident is directed against “ Ad Num. 21, et 27. ]\avTri (WavaTwv «^av>/s i/Jos avdpioTroiai . — SoLON. ^ I. like xiii. 2, 3. X(>ow(j) Tcu Kvpia t' ii> IIeOI'S (CTl'^roV Ti? finOTUiuSdtJcl .lEsC M. T/C£'riC£S. sin, either to prevent it, or to cure it ; to glorify God, or to humble us ; to make us go forth of our- selves, and to rest upon the centre of all felicities, that we may derive help from the same hand that smote us. Sin and punishment are so near relatives, that when God hath marked any person with a sad- ness or unhandsome accident, men think it warrant enough for their uncharitable censures, and condemn the man whom God hath smitten, making God the executioner of our uncertain or ungentle sentences. “ Whether sinned, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind ? ” said the Pharisees to our blessed Lord. “ Neither this man nor his parents,” was the answer : meaning, that God had other ends in that accident to serve ; and it was not an effect of wrath, but a design of mercy, both directly and collaterally. God’s glory must be seen clearly, by occasion of the curing the blind man. But, in the present case, the answer was something different. Pilate slew the Galileans when they were sacrificing in their conventicles apart from the Jews. For they first had separated from obedience, and paying tribute to Csesar ; and then from the church, who disavowed their mutinous and discontented doctrines. The causes of the one and the other are linked in mutual complications and endearment ; and he who despises the one will quickly disobey the other. Presently, upon the report of this sad accident, the people ran to the judgment-seat, and every man was ready to be accuser, and witness, and judge, upon these poor destroyed people. But Jesus allays their heat : and though he would by no means ac- quit these persons from deserving death for their denying tribute to Csesar, yet he alters the face of the tribunal, and makes those persons, who were so apt to be accusers and judges, to act another part, even of guilty persons too, that, since they will needs be judging, they might judge themselves : for “ Think not these were greater sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered such things. I tell you. Nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish ; ” meaning, that although there was great probability to believe such persons, schismatics (I mean) and rebels, to be the greatest sinners of the world, yet themselves, who had designs to destroy the Son of God, had deserved as great damnation. And yet it is observable, that the holy Jesus only compared the sins of them that suffered, with the estate of the other Galileans who suffered not ; and that also applies it to the persons present who told the news : to consign this truth unto us, that when persons, confederate in the same crimes, are spared from a present judgment falling upon others of their own society, it is indeed a strong alarm to all to secure themselves by repentance against the hostilities and eruptions of sin;‘^ but yet it is no exemption or security to them that escape, to believe themselves persons less sinful : for God sometimes decimates or tithes delinquent persons, and they die for a common crime, according Pius scilicet Deus partem percussit senteutiee suae gladio, ut partem corrigeret exemplo, probaretque omnibus simul et coercendo censuram, et indulgendo pietatem. — Salvian. Sect. XV. OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS. 281 as God hath cast their lot in the decrees of predesti- nation ; and either they that remain are sealed up to a worse calamity, or left within the reserves and mercies of repentance ; for in this there is some variety of determination and undiscerned provi- dence. 2. The purpose of our blessed Saviour is of great use to us in all the traverses and changes, and es- pecially the sad and calamitous accidents, of the world. But in the misfortune of others, we are to make other discourses concerning Divine judgments, than when the case is of nearer concernment to our- selves. For, first, when we see a person come to an unfortunate and untimely death,® we must not conclude such a man perishing and miserable to all eternity. It was a sad calamity that fell upon the man of Judah, that returned to eat bread into the prophet’s house contrary to the word of the Lord : he was abused into the act by a prophet and a pre- tence of a command from God ; and whether he did violence to his own understanding, and believed the man because he was willing, or did it in sincerity, or in what degree of sin or excuse the action might consist, no man there knew : and yet a lion slev/ him, and the lying prophet that abused him escaped, and went to his grave in peace. Some persons joined in society or interest with criminals,^ have perished in the same judgments; and yet it would be hard to call them equally guilty, who, in the accident, were equally miserable and involved. And they who are not strangers in the affairs of the world, cannot but have heard or seen some persons, who have lived well and moderately, though not like the flames of the holocaust, yet, like the ashes of incense, sending up good perfumes, and keeping a constant and slow fire of piety and justice, yet have been surprised in the midst of some unusual, unaccustomed irregularity, and died in that sin ; a sudden gaiety of fortune, a great joy, a violent change, a friend is come, or a marriage-day, hath transported some persons to indiscretions and too bold a license ; and the indiscretion hath betrayed them to idle company, and the company to drink, and drink to a fall, and that hath hurried them to their grave. And it were a sad sentence to think God would not repute the untimely death for a punishment great enough to that deflexion from duty, and judge the man ac- cording to the constant tenour of his former life ; unless such an act was of malice great enough to outweigh the former habits, and interrupt the whole state of acceptation and grace. Something like this was the case of Uzzah, who espying the tottering ark, went to support it with an unhallowed hand : God smote him, and he died immediately. It were too severe to say, his zeal and indiscretion carried him beyond a temporal death to the ruins of eternity. Origen, and many others, have “ made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven,” and did well after it; but those that did so, and died of the wound, ® De Anania et Sapphira, dixit Origines, digni enim erant m hoc seculo recipere peccatum suum, ut mundiores exeant ah hac vita, mundati castigatione sibi illata per mortem com- munem, quoniam credentes erant in Christum. Idem ait S. Aug. lib. iii. c. 1. cont. Parmen. et Cassian. were smitten of God, and died in their folly; and yet it is rather to be called a sad consequence of their indiscretion, than the express of a final anger from God Almighty. For as God takes ofl' our sins and punishments by parts, remitting to some persons the sentence of death, and inflicting the fine of a temporal loss, or the gentle scourge of a lesser sickness : so also he lays it on by parts, and according to the proper proportions of the man and of the crime ; and every transgression and lesser deviation from our duty does not drag the soul to death eternal, but God suffers our repentance, though imperfect, to have an imperfect effect, knocking off the fetters by degrees, and leading us in some cases to a council, in some to judgment, and in some to hell-fire : but it is not always certain that he who is led to the prison-doors, shall there lie entombed; and a man may, by a judgment, be brought to the gates of hell, and yet those gates shall not prevail against him. This discourse concerns persons, whose life is habitually fair and just, but are surprised in some unhandsome, but less criminal, action, and die, or suffer some great calamity, as the instrument of its expiation or amendment. 3. Secondly : But if the person upon whom the judgment falls be habitually vicious, or the crime of a clamorous nature or deeper tincture ; if the man “ sin a sin unto death,” and either meets it, or some other remarkable calamity not so feared as death ; provided we pass no farther than the sentence we see then executed, it is not against charity or prudence to say, this calamity, in its own formality, and by the intention of God, is a punishment and judgment. In the favourable cases of honest and just persons, our sentence and opinions ought also to be favourable, and, in such questions, to incline ever to the side of charitable construction, and read other ends of God in the accidents of our neigh- bour than revenge or express wrath. But when the impiety of a person is scandalous and notorious, when it is clamorous and violent, when it is habitual and yet corrigible, if we find a sadness and calamity dwelling with such a sinner, especially if the pun- ishment be spiritual, we read the sentence of God written with his own hand, and it is not sauciness of opinion, or a pressing into the secrets of Provi- dence, to say the same thing which God hath pub- lished to all the world in the expresses of his Spirit. In such cases we are to observe the “ severity of God, on them that fall severity;” and to use those judgments as instruments of the fear of God, and argu- ments to hate sin ; which Vv^e could not well do, but that we must look on them as verifications of God’s threatening against great and impenitent sinners. But then, if we descend to particulars, we may easily be deceived. 4. For some men are diligent to observe the ac- cidents and chances of Providence upon those especially who differ from them in opinion ; and f A'etabo qui Cereris sacruin Vulgarit arcauje, sub iisdem Sit trabibus, fVagilemque mecum Solvat phaselum : siepe Dicspiter, Neglectus, incesto addkiit integrum. — Hor. lib. iii. Od. 2. 282 OF THE CAUSES AND MANNER Part III. whatever ends God can have, or whatever sins man can have, yet we lay that in fault, which we there- fore hate, because it is most against our interest ; the contrary opinion is our enemy, and we also think God hates it. But such fancies do seldom serve either the ends of truth or charity. Pierre Calceon died under the barber’s hand ; s there wanted not some, who said it was a judgment upon him for condemning to the fire the famous Pucclle of France, who prophesied the expulsion of the English out of the kingdom. They that thought this, believed her to be a prophetess ; but others, that thought her a witch, were walling to find out another conjecture for the sudden death of the gentleman. Gamier, earl of Gretz, kept the patriarch of Jerusalem from his right in David’s tower and the city, and died within three days ; and, by Dabert the patriarch, it was called a judgment upon him for his sacrilege. But the uncertainty of that censure appeared to them, who considered that Baldwin (who gave com- mission to Gamier to withstand the patriarch) did not die ; but G odfrey of Bouillon did die imme- diately after he had passed the right of the patri- arch : and yet, when Baldwin w^as beaten at Rha- mula, some bold people pronounced, that then God punished him upon the patriarch’s score, and thought his sacrilege to be the secret cause of his over- throw ; ^ and yet his own pride and rashness w^as the more visible, and the judgment was but a cloud, and passed away quickly into succeeding victory. But I instance in a trifle. Certain it is, that God removed the candlestick from the Levantine churches, because he had a quarrel unto them ; for that punishment is never sent upon pure designs of emendation, or for direct and immediate purposes of the Divine glory, but ever makes reflection upon the past sin : but when we descend to a judgment of the particulars, God walks so in the dark to us, that it is not discerned upon what ground he smote them. Some say it was because they dishonoured the eternal Jesus, in denying the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. And in this some thought themselves sufficiently assured by a sign from hea- ven,‘ because the Greeks lost Constantinople upon Whitsunday, the day of the festival of the Holy Spirit. The church of Rome calls the churches of the Greek communion schismatical, and thinks God righted the Roman quarrel when he revenged his own. Some think they were cut off for being breakers of images ; others think that their zeal against images was a means they were cut off no sooner ; and yet he that shall observe what innu- merable sects, heresies, and factions were com- menced amongst them, and how they were wanton with religion, making it serve ambitious and unwor- thy ends, will see that, besides the ordinary conjec- tures of interested persons, they had such causes of their ruin, which we also now feel heavily incum- bent upon ourselves. To see God adding eighteen years to the life of Hezekiah upon his prayer, and s Pendula dum tonsor secat excrementa capilli, Exspirans cadit, et gelidS. tellure cadaver Decubat : ultrices sic pendunt crimina poenas. V ALERAND. yet cutting off the young son of David begotten in adulterous embraces ; to see him rejecting Adonijah, and receiving Solomon to the kingdom, begotten of the same mother, whose son God in anger formerly slew ; to observe his mercies to Manasses, in ac- cepting him to favour, and continuing the kingdom to him, and his severity to Zedekiah, in causing his eyes to be put out ; to see him rewarding Ne- buchadnezzar with the spoils of Egypt for destroying Tyre, and executing God’s severe anger against it, and yet punishing others for being executioners of his wrath upon Jerusalem, even then when he pur- posed to chastise it; to see Wenceslaus raised from a peasant to a throne, and Pompey, from a great prince, reduced to that condition, that a pupil and an eunuch passed sentence of death upon him ; to see great fortunes fall into the hand of a fool, and honourable old persons, and learned men, descend to unequal beggary ; to see him strike a stroke with his own hand in the conversion of Saul, and another quite contrary in the cutting off of Judas, must needs be some restraint to our judgments concerning the general state of those men who lie under the rod ; but it proclaims an infinite uncertainty in the parti- culars, since we see contrary accidents happening to persons guilty of the same crime, or put in the same indispositions. God hath marked all great sins with some signal and express judgments, and hath transmitted the records of them, or represented them before our eyes ; that is, hath done so in our age, or it hath been noted to have been done before ; and that being sufficient to affright us from those crimes, God hath not thought it expedient to do the same things to all persons in the same cases, having to all persons produced instances and examples of fear by fewer accidents, sufficient to restrain us, but not enough to pass sentence upon the changes of Divine providence. 5. But sometimes God speaks plainer, and gives us notice what crimes he punishes in others, that we may the rather decline such rocks of offence. If the crime and the punishment be symbolical, and have proportion and correspondence of parts, the hand of God strikes the man, but holds up one finger to point at the sin. The death of the child of Bathsheba was a plain declaration, that the anger of God was upon David for the adulterous mixture. That blasphemer, whose tongue was presently struck with an ulcerous tumour, with his tongue declared the glories of God and his own shame. And it was not doubted but God, when he smote the lady of Dominicus Silvius, the duke of V enice, with a loath- some and unsavoury disease, did intend to chastise a remarkable vanity of hers in various and costly perfumes, which she affected in an unreasonable manner, and to very evil purposes. And that famous person, and of excellent learning, Giacchettus of Geneva,'^ being by his wife found dead in the un- lawful embraces of a stranger woman, who also died at the same instant, left an excellent example of Baron. A. D. 1100 ot 2024. > Estius. ^ Fulgos. lib. ix. c. 12. Sect. XIV. OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS. 283 God’s anger upon the crime, and an evidence that he was then judged for his intemperate lust. Such are all those punishments, which are natural con- sequents to a crime : as dropsies, redness of eyes, dissolution of nerves, apoplexies,^ to continual drunkenness ; to intemperate eating, short lives and sudden deaths ; to lust, a caitive slavish disposition, and a foul diseased body ; fire and sword, and de- population of towns and villages, the consequents of ambition and unjust wars; poverty to prodigality; and all those judgmerrts which happen upon cursings and horrid imprecations, when God is, under a curse, called to attest a lie, and to connive at impudence ; or when the oppressed persons, in the bitterness of their souls, wish evil and pray for vengeance on their oppressors ; or that the church, upon just cause, inflicts spiritual censures, and “ delivers unto Satan,” or curses and declares the Divine sentence against sinners, as St. Peter against Ananias and Sapphira, and St. Paul against Elymas, and of old, Moses against Pharaoh and his Egypt. (Of this nature also was the plague of a withered hand in- flicted upon Jeroboam, for stretching forth his hand to strike the prophet.) In these, and all such in- stances, the offspring is so like the parent, that it cannot easily be concealed. Sometimes the crime is of that nature, that it cries aloud for vengeance, or is threatened with a special kind of punishment, which, by the observation and experience of the world, hath regularly happened to a certain sort of persons : such as are dissolutions of estates, the punishment of sacrilege ; a descending curse upon posterity for four generations, specially threatened to the crime of idolatry ; any plague whatsoever to oppression ; untimely death to murder ; an unthriv- ing estate to the detention of tithes, or whatsoever is God’s portion allotted for the services of religion : untimely and strange deaths to the persecutors of Christian religion: Nero killed himself; Domitian was killed by his servants ; Maximinus and Decius were murdered, together with their children ; Vale- rianus imprisoned, flayed, and slain with tortures, by Sapor, king of Persia; Diocletian perished by his own hand, and his house was burnt with the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, with fire from above ; Antiochus, the president under Aurelian, while Agapetus was in his agony and sufferance of mar- tyrdom, cried out of a dame within him, and died ; Flaccus vomited out his entrails presently after he had caused Gregory, bishop of Spoleto, to be slain ; and Dioscorus, the father of St. Barbara, accused and betrayed his daughter to the hangman’s cruelty for being a Christian, and he died by the hand of God by fire from heaven. These are God’s tokens, marks upon the body of infected persons, and declare the malignity of the disease, and bid us all beware of those determined crimes. ’ Pcena tamen praesens, cum tu deponis amictum Turgidus, et crudum pavonem in balnea portas. Hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus. JuvEN. Sat. 1. Quos nimis effraenos habui, nunc vapulo renes. Sic luitur juvenis culpa dolore senis. 6. Thirdly : But then, in these and all other accidents, we must first observe from the cause to the effect, and then judge from the effect concerning the nature and the degree of the cause. We cannot conclude. This family is lessened, beggared, or ex- tinct, therefore they are guilty of sacrilege : but thus. They are sacrilegious, and God hath blotted out their name from among the posterities, therefore this judgment was an express of God’s anger against sacrilege : the judgment will not conclude a sin, but when a sin infers the judgment with a legible cha- racter and a prompt signification, not to imderstand God’s choice is next to stupidity or carelessness. Arius was known to be a seditious, heretical, and dissembling person, and his entrails descended on the earth, when he went to cover his feet:”^ it was very suspicious that this was the punishment of those sins, which were the worst in him : but he that shall conclude Arius was an heretic or sedi- tious, upon no other ground but because his bowels gushed out, begins imprudently, and proceeds un- charitably. But it is considerable, that men do not arise to great crimes on the sudden, but by degrees of carelessness to lesser impieties, and then to cla- morous sins : and God is therefore said to punish great crimes, or actions of highest malignity, be- cause they are commonly productions from the spirit of reprobation; they are the highest ascents, and suppose a body of sin. And therefore, although the judgment may be intended to punish all our sins, yet it is like the Syrian army, it kills all that are its enemies, but it hath a special commission “ to fight against none but the king of Israel,” be- cause his death would be the dissolution of the body. And if God humbles a man for his great sin, that is, for those acts which combine and consummate all the rest, possibly the body of sin may separate, and be apt to be scattered and subdued by single acts and instruments of mortification: and therefore it is but reasonable, in our making use of God’s judg- ments upon others, to think that God will rather strike at the greatest crimes ; not only because they are in themselves of greatest malice and iniquity, but because they are the sum total of the rest, and, by being great progressions in the state of sin, sup- pose all the rest included ; and we, by proportion- ing and observing the judgment to the highest, acknowledge the whole body of sin to lie under the curse, though the greatest only was named, and called upon with the voice of thunder. And yet, because it sometimes happens, that, upon the vio- lence of a great and new occasion, some persons leap into such a sin, which, in the ordinary course of sinners, uses to be the effect of an habitual and growing state, then, if a judgment happens, it is clearly appropriate to that one great crime, which, as of itself it is equivalent to a vicious habit, and ni Ruit Arius alvo Infelix plus mente cadens, lethumque peremptus Cum Juda commune tulit, qui gutture pendens Visceribus curvatus obit: nec poena sequestrat Quos par culpa ligat, qui majestatis honori Vulnus ab ore parant. Hie prodidit, ille diremit Sacrilega de voce. Poet. Christ, apud Baron. T. 3. ad ann. Christ. 336. 284 OF THE CAUSES AND MANNER Part IIP interrupts the acceptation of all its former contraries, so it meets with a curse, such as usually God chooses for the punishment of a whole body and state of sin. However, in making observation upon the expresses of God’s anger, we must be careful that we reflect not with any bitterness or scorn upon the person of our calamitous brother, lest we make that to be an evil to him, which God intends for his benefit, if the judgment was medicinal ; or that we increase the load, already great enough to sink him beneath his grave, if the judgment was intended for a final abscission. 7. Fourthly : But if the judgments descend upon ourselves, w'e are to take another course ; not to in- quire into particulars to find out the proportions, (for that can only be a design to part with just so much as we must needs,) but to amend all that is amiss ; for then only we can be secure to remove the Achan, when we keep nothing within us, or about us, that may provoke God to jealousy or wrath. And that is the proper product of holy fear, which God intended should be the first effect of all his judgments : and of this God is so careful, and yet so kind and provident, that fear might not be produced always at the expense of a great suffering, that God hath provided for us certain prologues of judgment, and keeps us waking with alarms, that so he might reconcile his mercies with our duties. Of this nature are epidemical diseases, not yet ar- rived at us, prodigious tempests, thunder and loud noises from heaven ; and he that will not fear, when God speaks so loud, is not yet made soft with the impresses and perpetual droppings of religion. Venerable Bede reports of St. Chad,*' that if a great gust of wind suddenly arose, he presently made some holy ejaculation, to beg favour of God for all mankind who might possibly be concerned in the effects of that wind ; but, if a storm succeeded, he fell prostrate to the earth, and grew as violent in prayer as the storm was, either at land or sea. But if God added thunder and lightning, he went to the church, and there spent all his time, during the tempest, in reciting litanies, psalms, and other holy prayers, till it pleased God to restore his favour, and to seem to forget his anger. And the good bishop added this reason; because these are the exten- sions and stretchings forth of God’s hand, and yet he did not strike : but he that trembles not, when he sees God’s arm held forth to strike us, under- stands neither God’s mercies, nor his own danger ; he neither knows what those horrors were, which the people saw from mount Sinai, nor what the glories and amazement shall be at the great day of judgment. And if this religious man had seen Tul- lus Hostilius, the Roman king, and Anastasius, a Christian emperor, but a reputed heretic, struck dead with thunderbolts, and their own houses made their urns, to keep their ashes in ; there could have been no posture humble enough, no prayers devout enough, no place holy enough, nothing sufficiently expressive of his fear, and his humility, and his " Hist. Gent. Anglor. lib. iii. c. 18. ® 1 Cor. x. 8. P Foecunda culpae sccula nuptias Primum inquinavere, ct genus, et domes. adoration, and religion, to the almighty and infinite power, and glorious mercy, of God, sending out his emissaries to denounce war with designs of peace. A great Italian general, seeing the sudden death of Alfonsus, duke of Ferrara, kneeled down instantly, saying, “And shall not this sight make me religious ?” Three and twenty thousand fell,® in one night, in the Israelitish camp, who were all slain for fornication. And this so prodigious a judgment was recorded in Scripture for our example and affrightment, that we should not, with such freedom, entertain a crime which destroyed so numerous a body of men in the darkness of one evening. Fear, and modesty, and universal reformation, are the purposes of God’s judgments upon us, or in our neighbourhood. 8. Fifthly : Concerning judgments happening to a nation, or a church, the consideration is particu- lar, because there are fewer capacities of making sins to become national than personal ; and there- fore if we understand when a sin is national, we may the rather understand the meaning of God’s hand, when he strikes a people. For national sins grow' higher and higher, not merely according to the de- gree of the sin, or the intention alone, but according to the extension; according to its being national, so it is productive of more or less mischief to a kingdom. Customary iniquities amongst the people do then amount to the account of national sins, w^hen they are of so universal practice as to take in w^ell near every particular ; p such as was that of Sodom, not to leave “ ten righteous ” in all the country : and such were the sins of the old wmrld, w^ho left but “ eight persons” to escape the angry baptism of the flood. And such W'as the murmur of the children of Israel, refusing to march up to Canaan at the commandment of God, they all mur- mured but Caleb and Joshua; and this, God, in the case of the Amalekites, calls “ the fulfilling of their sins,” and a “ filling up the measure of their ini- quities.” And hither also I reckon the defection of the ten tribes from the house of Judah, and the Samaritan schism : these caused the total extirpa- tion of the offending people. For although these sins were personal and private at first, yet, w^hen they come to be universal, by diffusion and disse- mination, and the good people remaining among them are but like drops of \vine in a tun of water, of no consideration with God, save only to the pre- servation “ of their own persons ;” then, although the persons be private, yet all private or singular persons make the nation. But this hath happened but seldom in Christianity : I think indeed never, except in the case of mutinies and rebellion against their lawful prince, or the attesting violence done in unjust wars. But God only knows, and no man can say, when any sin is national by diffusion ; and therefore, in this case, we cannot make any certain judgment or advantage to ourselves, or very rarely, by observing the changes of Providence upon a people. 9. But the next above this, in order to the pro- FI oc fonte derivata clades In patviam populumque fluxit. — Hor. lib. iii. Od. 6. 'i Ezek. xiv. 20. Sect. XIV. OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS. 285 curing popular judgments, is public impunities, the not doing justice upon criminals publicly complain- ed of and demanded, especially when the persons interested call for justice and execution of good laws, and the prince’s arm is at liberty and in full strength, and there is no contrary reason, in the particular instance, to make compensation to the public for the omission, or no care taken to satisfy the particular. Abimelech thought he had reason to be angry with Isaac, for saying Rebecca was his sister ; for “ one of the people might have lain with thy wife, and thou shouldst have brought evil upon us meaning that the man should have escaped unpunished, by reason of the mistake, which very impunity he feared might be expounded to be a countenance and encouragement to the sin. But this was no more than his fear. The case of the Benjamites comes home to this present article ; for they refused to do justice upon the men that had ravished and killed the Levite’s concubine ; they lost twenty-five thousand in battle, their cities were destroyed, and the whole tribe almost extinguished. For punishing public and great acts of injustice is called, in Scripture, “ putting away the evil from the land ^ because, to this purpose, the sword is put into the prince’s hand, and he “bears the sword in vain,” who ceases to protect his people : and not to punish the evil is a voluntary retention of it, un- less a special case intervene, in which the prince thinks it convenient to give a particular pardon ; provided this be not encouragement to others, nor, without great reason, big enough to make compen- sation for the particular omission, and, with care, to render some other satisfaction to the person in- jured : in all other cases of impunity, that sin be- comes national by forbearing, which, in the acting, was personal ; and it is certain the impunity is a spring of universal evils, it is no thank to the pub- lic, if the best man be not as bad as the worst. 10. But there is a step beyond this, and of a more public concernment : such are the “ laws of Omri,” when a nation consents to and makes un- godly statutes ; when “ mischief is established as a law,” then the nation is engaged to some pur- pose. When I see the people despise their go- vernors, scorn, and rob, and disadvantage the ministers of religion, make rude addresses to God, to his temple, to his sacraments ; I look upon it as the insolence of an untaught people, who would as readily do the contrary, if the fear of God and the king were upon them by good examples, and pre- cepts, and laws, and severe executions. And further yet, when the more public and exemplar persons are without sense of religion, without a dread of majesty, without reverence to the church, without impresses of conscience and the tendernesses of a religious fear towards God ; as the persons are greater in estimation of law, and in their influences upon the people, so the score of the nation advances, and there is more to be paid for in popular judgments. But when iniquity or irreligion is made a sanction, ^ Deut. xvii. 12. xix. 13, 19. xxi. 9, 21, et alibi. ’ — — llion, llion Fatalis iiiceKtusque Judex, and either God must be dishonoured, or the church exauthorated, or her rites invaded by a law ; then the fortune of the kingdom is at stake.** No sin engages a nation so much, or is so public, so solemn iniquity, as is a wicked law. Therefore, it concerns princes and states to secure the piety and innocency of their laws ; and if there be any evil laws, which, upon just grounds, may be thought productive of God’s anger, because a public misdemeanour can- not be expiated but by a public act of repentance, or a public calamity, the laws must either have their edge abated by a desuetude, or be laid asleep by a non-execution, or dismembered by contrary provisoes, or have the sting drawn forth by inter- pretation, or else, by abrogation, be quite rescinded. But these are national sins within itself, or within its own body, by the act of the body (I mean) diffusive or representative, and they are like the personal sins of men in or against their own bodies, in the matter of sobriety. There are others in the matter of justice, as the nation relates to other peo- ple communicating in public intercourse. 1 1 . For as the intercourse between man and man, in the actions of commutative and distributive justice, is the proper matter of virtues and vices personal ; so are the transactions between nation and nation, against the public rules of justice, sins national directly, and in their first original, and answer to injustice between man and man. Such are commencing war upon unjust titles, invasion of neighbours’ territories, confederacies and aids upon tyrannical interest, wars against true religion or sovereignty, violation of the laws of nations, which they have consented to as the public instrument of accord and negociation, breach of public faith, de- fending pirates, and the like. When a public judg- ment comes upon a nation, these things are to be thought upon, that w^e may not think ourselves ac- quitted by crying out against swearing, and drunken- ness, and cheating in manufactures, which, unless they be of universal dissemination, and made national by diffusion, are paid for upon a personal score ; and the private infelicities of our lives will cither expiate or punish them severely. But while the people mourn for those sins of which their low con- dition is capable, sins that may produce a popular fever, or, perhaps, the plague, where the misery dwells in cottages, and the princes often have in- demnity, as it was in the case of David : yet we may not hope to appease a war, to master a rebel- lion, to cure the public distemperatures of a king- dom, which threaten not the people only, or the governors also, but even the government itself, unless the sins of a more public capacity be cut off by public declarations, or other acts of national justice and religion. But the duty which concerns us, in all such cases, is, that every man, in every capacity, should inquire into himself, and for his own portion of the calamity, put in his own symbol of emendation for his particular, and his prayers for the public interest ; in which it is not safe that Et mulier peregrina vevtit In pulverem, ex quo destituit Deos Mercede pacta Laomedou. — Hor. lib. iii. Od. 3, 28G OF THE CAUSES AND MANNER, &c. • Part IIU any private persons should descend to particular censures of the crimes of princes and states, no, not towards God, unless the matter be notorious, and past a question ; but it is a sufficient assoilment of this part of his duty, if, when he hath set his own house in order, he would pray with indefinite signi- fications of his charity and care of the public, that God would put it into the hearts of all whom it con- cerns, to endeavour the removal of the sin, that hath brought the exterminating angel upon the nation. But yet there are, sometimes, great lines drawn by God, in the expresses of his anger, in some judgments upon a nation ; and when the judgment is of that danger as to invade the very constitution of a kingdom, the proportions that judgments many times keep to their sins, intimate that there is some national sin, in which, either by diffusion or repre- sentation, or in the direct matter of sins, as false oaths, unjust wars, wicked confederacies, or un- godly laws, the nation, in the public capacity, is delinquent. 12. For as the nation hath, in sins, a capacity distinct from the sins of all the people, inasmuch as the nation is united in one head, guarded by a distinct and a higher angel, as Persia by St. Michael, transacts affairs in a public right, transmits influence to all particulars from a common fountain, and hath intercourse with other collective bodies, who also distinguish from their own particulars : so, likewise, it hath punishments distinct from those infelicities which vex particulars, punishments proportionable to itself, and to its own sins ; such as are changes of governments, of better into worse, of monarchy into aristocracy, and so to the lowest ebb of de- mocracy ; death of princes, infant kings, foreign in- vasions, civil wars, a disputable title to the crown, making a nation tributary, conquest by a foreigner, and, which is worst of all, removing the candlestick from a people, by extinction of the church, or that which is necessary to its conservation, the several orders and ministries of religion : and the last hath also proper sins of its own analogy ; such as are false articles in the public confessions of a church, schism from the catholic, public scandals, a general viciousness of the clergy, an indifference in religion, without warmth and holy fires of zeal, and diligent pursuance of all its just and holy interests.^ Now in these, and all parallel cases, when God by punish- ments hath probably marked and distinguished the crime, it concerns public persons to be the more forward and importunate in consideration of public irregularities : and, for the private also, not to neg- lect their own particulars ; for, by that means, al- though not certainly, yet probably, they may secure themselves from falling in the public calamity. It is not infallibly sure, that holy persons shall not be smitten by the destroying angel ; for God, in such deaths, hath many ends of mercy, and some of pro- vidence, to serve : but such private and personal emendations and devotions, are the greatest securi- ties of the men against the judgment, or the evil of it, preserving them in this life, or wafting them over ’ Diis te minorem quod geris, imperas. Hinc omne principium, hue refer exitum. to a better. Thus many of the Lord’s champions did fall in battle, and the armies of the Benjamites did twice prevail upon the juster people of all Israel; and the Greek empire hath declined and shrunk, under the fortune and power of the Otto- man family ; and the Holy Land, which was twice possessed by Christian princes, is now in the do- minion of unchristened Saracens ; and, in the pro- duction of these alterations, many a gallant and pious person suffered the evils of war, and the change of an untimely death. 13. But the way for the whole nation to proceed, in cases of epidemical diseases, wars, great judg- ments, and popular calamities, is to do, in the pub- lic proportion, the same that every man is to do for his private; by public acts of justice, repentance, fastings, pious laws, and execution of just and re- ligious edicts, making peace, quitting of unjust interests, declaring publicly against a crime, pro- testing in behalf of the contrary virtue or religion : and to this also, every man, as he is a member of the body politic, must co-operate ; that, by a re- pentance in diffusion, help may come, as well as by a sin of universal dissemination the plague was hastened and invited the rather. But in these cases, all the work of discerning and pronouncing, concerning the cause of the judgment, as it must be without asperity, and only for designs of correction and emendation, so it must be done by kings and prophets, and the assistance of other public persons, to whom the public is committed. Joshua cast lots upon Achan, and discovered the public trouble in a private instance ; and of old, the prophets had it in commission to reprove the popular iniquity of na- tions, and the confederate sins of kingdoms : and, in this, Christianity altered nothing. And when this is done modestly, prudently, humbly, and peni- tently, oftentimes the tables turn immediately, but always in due time ; and a great alteration in a kingdom becomes the greatest blessing in the world, and fastens the church, or the crown, or the public peace, in bands of great continuance and security ; and, it may be, the next age shall feel the benefits of our sufferance and repentance. And, therefore, as we must endeavour to secure it, so we must not be too decretory in the case of others, or disconsolate or diffident in our own, when it may so happen, that all succeeding generations shall see, that God pardoned us, and loved us, even when he smote us. Let us all learn to fear, and walk humbly. The churches of Laodicea and the Colossians suffered a great calamity, within a little while after the Spirit of God had sent them two epistles, by the ministry of St. Paul ; their cities were buried in an earth- quake ; and yet, we have reason to think, they were churches beloved of God, and congregations of holy people. THE PRAYER. O eternal and powerful God! thou just and righte- ous Governor of the world I who callest all orders Dii multa neglecti dederunt Hesperise mala luctuosa*.— Hor, lib. iii. Od.6. Sect. XV. FROM THE DEATH OF LAZARUS, &c. 287 of men by precepts, promises, and threatenings, by mercies and by judgments; teach us to ad- mire and adore all the wisdom, the effects, and infinite varieties of thy providence ; and make us to dispose ourselves so, by obedience, by repent- ance, by all the manners of holy living, that we may never provoke thee to jealousy, much less to wrath and indignation against us. Keep far from us the sword of the destroying angel, and let us never perish in the public expresses of thy wrath, in diseases epidemical, with the furies of war, with calamitous, sudden, and horrid acci- dents, with unusual diseases ; unless that our so strange fall be more for thy glory, and our eternal benefit, and then thy will be done : we beg thy grace, that we may cheerfully conform to thy holy will and pleasure. Lord, open our under- standings, that we may know the meaning of thy voice, and the signification of thy language, when thou speakest from heaven in signs and judg- ments ; and let a holy fear so soften our spirits, and an intense love so inflame and sanctify our desires, that we may apprehend every intimation of thy pleasure at its first, and remotest, and most obscure representment, that so we may, with repentance, go out to meet thee, and prevent the expresses of thine anger. Let thy restraining grace, and the observation of the issues of thy justice, so allay our spirits, that we be not severe and forward in condemning others, nor backward in passing sentence upon ourselves. Make us to obey thy voice, described in holy Scripture, to tremble at thy voice, expressed in wonders and great effects of providence, to condemn none but ourselves, nor to enter into the recesses of thy sanctuary, and search the forbidden records of predestination; but that we may read our duty in the pages of revelation, not in the labels of accidental effects ; that thy judgments may con- firm thy word, and thy word teach us our duty, and we, by such excellent instruments, may enter in, and grow up in the ways of godliness, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. SECTION XV. Of the Accidents happening from the Death of Lazarus, until the Death and Burial of Jesus. 1. While Jesus was in Galilee, messengers came to him from Martha and her sister Mary, that he would hasten into Judea, to Bethany, to relieve the sickness and imminent dangers of their brother Lazarus. But he deferred his going till Lazarus was dead; purposing to give a great probation of his divinity, power, and mission, by a glorious miracle ; and to give God glory, and to receive re- flections of the glory upon himself. For after he had staid two days, he called his disciples to go with him into Judea, telling them that Lazarus was dead, but he would raise him out of tliat sleep of death. But by that time Jesus was arrived at Bethany, “ he found that Lazarus had been dead four days,” and now near to putrefaction. But when Martha and Mary met him, weeping their pious tears for their dead brother, Jesus suffered the passions of pity and humanity, and wept, dis- tilling that precious liquor into the grave of Laza- rus ; watering the dead plant, that it might spring into a new life, and raise his head above the ground. 2. When Jesus had, by his words of comfort and institution, strengthened the faith of the two mourn- ing sisters, and commanded “ the stone to be remov- ed ” from the grave, he made an address of adoration and eucharist to his Father, confessing his perpetual propensity to hear him, and then cried out, “ Laza- rus, come forth ! And he that was dead came forth” from his bed of darkness, with his night-clothes on him : whom when the apostles had unloosed, at the command of Jesus, he went to Bethany: and many that were present “ believed on him ;” but others, wondering and malicious, went and told the Phari- sees the story of the miracle, who, upon that advice, called their great council, whose great and solemn cognizance was of the greater causes of prophets, of kings, and of the holy law. At this great assem- bly it was, that Caiaphas, the high priest, prophe- sied, that it was “ expedient one should die for the people. And thence they determined the death of J esLis.” But he, knowing they had passed a decre- tory sentence against him, “ retired to the city Ephraim,” in the tribe of Judah, near the desert, where he staid a few days, till the approximation of the feast of Easter. 3. Against which feast, when Jesus, with his disciples, was going to Jerusalem, he told them the event of the journey would be, that the Jews “ should deliver him to the gentiles ; ” that they “ should scourge him, and mock him, and crucify him, and the third day he should rise again.” After which discourse the mother of Zebedee’s children begged of Jesus, for her two sons, that “ one of them might sit at his right hand, the other at the left, in his kingdom.” For no discourses of his passion, or in- timations of the mysteriousness of his kingdom, could yet put them into right understandings of their condition. But Jesus, whose heart and thoughts were full of fancy, and apprehensions of the neigh- bour passion, gave them answer, in proportion to his present conceptions and their future condition. For if they desired the honours of his kingdom such as they were, they should have them, unless themselves did decline them ; they “ should drink of his cup,” and dip in his lavatory, and be “ washed with his baptism,” and “sit in his kingdom,” if the heavenly “Father had prepared it for” them ; but the dona- tion of that immediately was an issue of Divine election and predestination, and was only competent to them, who, by holy living and patient suffering, put themselves into a disposition of becoming vessels of election. 4. But as Jesus, in this journey, “ came near Jericho,” he cures “ a blind man, who sat begging by the way-side :” and “ espying Zaccheus, the chief FROM THE DEATH OF LAZARUS Fart HI. ‘iS8 of the publicans, upon a tree, (that he, being “ low of stature,” might upon that advantage of station see Jesus passing by,) he invited himself to his house ; who “ received him with gladness,” and re- pentance of his crimes, purging his conscience, and filling his heart and house with joy and sanctity ; for immediately upon the arrival of the Master at his house, he offered restitution to all persons whom he had inj ured, and satisfaction ; and half of his remanent estate he “ gave to the poor,” and so gave the fairest entertainment to Jesus, who brought along with him “ salvation to his house.” There it was that he spake the parable of the king, who concredited divers talents to his servants, and having at his return exacted an account, rewarded them who had improved their bank, and been faithful in their trust, with rewards proportionable to their capacity and improvement; but the negligent servant, who had not meliorated his stock, was punished with ablegation and confinement to outer darkness. And from hence sprang up that dogmatical proposition, which is mysterious and determined in Christianity; “To him that hath, shall be given; and from him that hath not, shall be taken away even what he hath.” After this, going forth of Jericho, he cured two blind men upon the way. 5. Six days before Easter, “ Jesus came to Beth- any,” where he was feasted by Martha and Mary, and accompanied by Lazarus, who “ sat at the table with Jesus.” But “ Mary brought a pound of nard pistic, ” and, as formerly she had done, again “anoints the feet of Jesus, and fills the house with the odour,” till God himself smelt thence a savour of a sweet-smelling sacrifice. But Judas Iscariot, the thief and the traitor, repined at the vanity of the expense, (as he pretended,) because it might have been “ sold for three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor.” But Jesus, in his reply, taught us, that there is an opportunity for actions of re- ligion, as well as of charity. “ Mary did this against the burial of Jesus,” and her religion was accepted by him, to whose honours the holocaust of love and the oblations of alms-deeds are, in their proper seasons, direct actions of worship and duty. But, at this meeting, “there came many Jews to see Lazarus, who was raised from death, as well as to see Jesus :” and because, by occasion of his resur- rection, “many of them believed on Jesus;” there- fore the Pharisees “ deliberated about putting him to death.” But God, in his glorious providence, Mms pleased to preserve him as a trumpet of his glories, and a testimony of the miracle, thirty years after the death of Jesus.^ 6. “ The next day,” being the fifth day before the passover, “Jesus came to the foot of the mount of Olives,” and “ sent his disciples to Bethphage, a village in the neighbourhood,” commanding them to “ unloose an ass and a colt, and bring them to him,” and “ to tell the owners it was done for the ® Pisticam, id est, spicatam, corrupte, uti ex Latinis fere solent Grseci. — Erasm. in xiv. Marci. Epiphan. cont. Manicli. ^ 'Yxf/7]\ui> dpETUU Kui ^Tl(pUlJU)V dwTOU 'yXvKVV . — Olyuip. V. 1. Master’s use ; and they did so : ” and when they brought the ass to Jesus, he rides on him to Jerusa- lem; and “the people,” having notice of his ap- proach, “ took branches of palm-trees, and went out to meet him, strewing branches and garments in the way, crying out. Hosanna to the Son of David ! ” which was a form of exclamation used to the honour of God, and in great solemnities, and signifies “ adoration to the Son of David, by the rite of carrying branches W'hich when they used in pro- cession about their altars, they used to pray, •“ Lord, save us ; Lord, prosper us ;” which hath occasioned the reddition of “ Hoschiannah” to be, amongst some, that prayer which they repeated at the carrying of the “ Hoschiannah,” as if itself did signify, “ Lord, save us.” But this honour was so great and un- usual to be done, even to kings,^ that the Pharisees, knowing this to be an appropriate manner of ad- dress to God, said one to another, by way of wonder, “ Hear ye what these men say?” For they w^ere troubled to hear the people revere him as a God. 7. When Jesus, from the mount of Olives, be- held Jerusalem, he “wept over it,” and foretold great sadnesses and infelicities futurely contingent to it ; which not only happened in the sequel of the story, according to the main issues and significations of this prophecy, but even to minutes and circum- stances it was verified. For in the mount of Olives, where Jesus shed tears over perishing Jerusalem, the Romans first pitched their tents, when they came to its final overthrow.® From thence descending to the city, he w^ent into the temple, and still the ac- clamations followed him, till the Pharisees were ready to burst with the noises abroad, and the tu- mults of envy and scorn within ; and by observing that all their endeavours to suppress his glories were but like clapping their hands to veil the sun ; and that in despite of all their stratagems, the whole nation was become disciple to the glorious Naza- rene. And there he cured certain persons, that were “ blind and lame.” 8. But whilst he abode at Jerusalem, “ certain Greeks, who came to the feast to worship,” made their address to Philip, that they might be brought to Jesus. “ Philip tells Andrew', and they both tell Jesus ;” w'ho, having admitted them, discoursed many things concerning his passion, and then pray- ed a petition, which is the end of his own sufferings, and of all human actions, and the purpose of the whole creation, “ Father, glorify thy name.” To which he was answ'ered by “ a voice from heaven, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” But this, nor the whole series of miracles that he did, the mercies, the cures, nor the divine discourses, could gain the faith of all the Jews, who were de- termined by their human interest ; for “ many of the rulers who believed on him, durst not confess him, because they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” Then Jesus again ex- Pindarus vocat palmamm ramos, altissimanim virtutum et coranamm florem suavem. Drusius de Vocib. Heb. N. T. c. 19. Canin. de locis, N. T. ^ Joseph, de bcllo Jud. lib. vi. c. 3. Sect. XV. TILL THE BURIAL OP JESUS. 289 horted all men, “ to believe on him, that so they might, in the same act, believe on God ; that they might approach unto the light, and not abide in darkness ; that they might obey the commandments of the Father, whose express charge it was, that Jesus should preach this gospel; and that they might not be judged at the last day by the word which they have rejected, which word, to all its ob- servers, is everlasting life.” After which sermon retiring to Bethany he abode there all night. 9. On the morrow, returning to Jerusalem, on the way being hungry, he passed by a fig-tree ; where, expecting fruit, he found none, and cursed the fig- tree, which, by the next day, was dried up and withered ; upon occasion of which preternatural event, Jesus discoursed of the power of faith, and its power to produce miracles. But upon this oc- casion, others,*^ the disciples of Jesus in after-ages, have pleased themselves with fancies and imperfect descants, as that he cursed this tree in mystery and secret intendment ; it having been the tree, in the eating whose fruit, Adam, prevaricating the Divine law, made an inlet to sin, which brought in death, and the sadnesses of Jesus’s passion. But Jesus, having entered the city, came into the temple, and preached the gospel; and the chief priests and scribes questioned his commission, and by what authority he did those things. But Jesus promising to answer them, if they would declare their opinions concerning John’s baptism, which they durst not, for fear of “ displeasing the people,” or throwing dirt in their own faces, was acquitted of his obliga- tion, by their declining the proposition. 10. But there he reproved the Pharisees and rulers, by the parable of two sons ; “ the first whereof said to his father, he would not obey, but repented, and did his command ; the second gave good words, but did nothing : meaning, that persons of the greatest improbability were more heartily converted than they, whose outside seemed to have appropriated religion to the labels of their frontlets. He added a parable of the vineyard let out to hus- bandmen, who killed the servants sent to demand the fruits, and at last the son himself, that they might invade the inheritance ; but made a sad com- mination to all such, who should either stumble at this stone, or on whom this stone should fall.” After which, and some other reprehensions, which he so veiled in parable, that it might not be ex- pounded to be calumny or declamation ; although such sharp sermons had been spoken in the people’s hearing, but yet so transparently, that themselves might see their own iniquity in those modest and just representments, the Pharisees would fain have seized him, but they durst not for the people, but resolved, if they could, “ to entangle him in his talk ;” and, therefore, “ sent out spies, who should pretend” sanctity and veneration of his person, who, with a goodly insinuating preface, that “ Jesus re- garded no man’s person, but spake the word of God,” with much simplicity and justice, desired to know if it were “ lawful to pay tribute to Csesar, or not.” A question which was of great dispute, be- ^ Isidor. ad Theopomp. lib. i. ep. 51. u cause of the numerous sect of the Galileans, who denied it, and of the affections of the people, who loved their money, and their liberty, and the privi- leges of their nation. And now, in all probability, he shall fall under the displeasure of the people, or of Cecsar. But Jesus called to “ see a penny,” and finding it to be superscribed with Ceesar’s image, with incomparable wisdom he brake their snare, and established an evangelical proposition for ever, saying, “ Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 1 1 . Having so excellently, and so much to their wonder, answered the Pharisees, the Sadducees bring their great objection to him against the resurrec- tion, by putting the case of a woman married to seven husbands, and “ whose wife should she be in the resurrection ?” thinking that to be an impossible state, which engages upon such seeming incongru- ities, that a woman should at once be wife to seven men. But Jesus first answered their objection, telling them, that all those relations, whose foun- dation is in the imperfections and passions of flesh and blood, and duties here below, shall cease in that state, which is so spiritual, that it is like to the condition of angels, amongst whom there is no dif- ference of sex, no cognations, no genealogies or derivation from one another ; and then, by a new argument, proves the resurrection, by one of God’s appellatives, who did then delight to be called “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:” for, since “ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” unto him even these men are alive ; and if so, then either they now exercise acts of life, and therefore shall be restored to their bodies, that their actions may be complete, and they not remain in a slate of imperfection to all eternity ; or if they be alive, and yet cease from operation, they shall be much rather raised up to a condition, which shall actuate and make perfect their present capacities and dispositions, lest a power and inclination should for ever be in the root, and never rise up to fruit or herbage, and so be an eternal vanity, like an old bud or an eternal child. 1 2. After this, the Pharisees being well pleased, not that Jesus spake so excellently, but that the Sadducees were confuted, came to him, asking, “ which was the great commandment ?” and some other things, more out of curiosity than pious de- sires of satisfaction. But at last Jesus was pleased to ask them concerning Christ, “ whose son he was ?” They answered, “ The Son of David but he replying, “ How then doth David call him Lord ? (The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,” &c.) they had nothing to answer. But Jesus then gave his disciples caution against the pride, the hypocrisy, and the oppression of the scribes and Pharisees : and commended the “ poor widow’s” oblation of her “ two mites into the treasury,” it being a great love in a little print, for it was “ all her living.” All this was spoken in the temple, the goodly stones of which when the apostles beheld with wonder, they being white and firm, twenty cubits in length, twelve in breadth, VOL. I. FROM THE DEATH OF LAZARUS, Part III. 2i)0 eight in depth, as Josephus reports, § Jesus pro- phesies the destruction of the place : concerning which prediction, when the apostles, being with him at the mount of Olives, asked him privately concerning the time and the signs of so sad event, he discoursed largely “ of his coming to judgment against that city, and interweaved predictions of the universal judgment of all the world ; of which this, though very sad, was but a small adumbration : adding precepts of watchfulness, and standing in preparation with hearts filled with grace, our lamps always shining, that, when the bridegroom shall come, we may be ready to enter in : which was intended in the parable of the five wise virgins and concluded his sermon with a narrative of his passion, foretelling that, within two days, he should be crucified. 13. Jesus descended from the mount, and came to Bethany, and, turning into the house of Simon the leper, Mary Magdalen having been reproved by Judas for spending ointment upon Jesus’s feet, it being so unaccustomed and large a profusion, thought now to speak her love once more, and trouble nobody, and therefore she “ poured oint- ment on his sacred head,” believing that, being a pompousness of a more accustomed festmty, would be indulged to the expressions of her aflfection : but now all the disciples murmured, wondering at the prodigiousness of the woman’s religion, great enough to consume a province in the overflowings of her thankfulness and duty. But Jesus now also entertained the sincerity of her miraculous love, adding this prophecy, that “ where the gospel should be preached,” there also a record of this act should be kept, as a perpetual monument of her piety, and an attestation of his divinity, who could foretell future contingencies ; Christianity receiving the greatest argument from that, which St. Peter calls “ the surer word of prophecy,” meaning it to be greater than the testimony of miracles, not easy to be dissembled by impure spirits, and whose efficacy should descend to all ages : for this pro- phecy shall for ever be fulfilling, and, being every day verified, does every day preach the divinity of Christ’s person and of his institution. 14. “Two days before the passover,” the scribes and Pharisees called a council, to contrive crafty ways of destroying Jesus, they not daring to do it by open violence. Of which meeting when Judas Iscariot had notice, (for those assemblies were pub- lic and notorious,) he ran from Bethany, and offered himself to betray his master to them, if they would give him a considerable reward. “ They agreed for thirty pieces of silver.” Of what value each piece vms, is uncertain ; but their own nation hath given a rule, that when a piece of silver is named in the pentateuch, it signifies a side ; if it be named in the prophets, it signifies a pound ; if in the other s Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 14. ’’ Elias Levita Jud. in Tisbi. Arias Montanus in diction. Syvo-Chaldaic. ' Matt, xxvii. 9, ubi citatur Jeremias pro Zecharia, per orrorem illapsum in codices. Nam tempore S. Augustini in nonnullis codicibus [Zecharias] legebatur; atque hodie in Syriac. T. Sed fortassis ex traditione hoc descendit a Jcremia writings of the Old Testament, it signifies a talent.*' This, therefore, being alleged out of the prophet Jeremiah by one of the evangelists,' it is probable the price, at which Judas sold his Lord, was thirty pound weight of silver ; “ a goodly price” for the Saviour of the world to be prized at by his undis- cerning and unworthy countrymen. 15. The next day was “the first day of unlea- vened bread,” on which it was necessary “ they should kill the passover;” therefore “Jesus sent Peter and John to the city to a certain man,” whom they should find “carrying a pitcher of water” to his house ; him they should follow, and there “ pre- pare the passover.” They went, and found the man in the same circumstances, and prepared for Jesus and his family, who at the even came to cele- brate the passover. It was the house of John, sur- named Mark, which had always been open to this blessed family, where he was pleased to finish his last supper and the mysteriousness of the vespers of his passion.*^ 16. When evening was come, Jesus stood wfith his disciples, and ate the paschal lamb ; after which he “ girt himself with a towel,” and, taking “ a basin, washed the feet of his disciples,” not only by the ceremony, but in his discourses, insti’ucting them in the doctrine of humility, which the Master, by his so great condescension to his disciples, had made sacred, and imprinted the lesson in lasting charac- ters by making it symbolical. But Peter was un- willing to be washed by his Lord, until he was told he must renounce his part in him, unless he were washed ; which option being given to Peter, he cried out, “ Not my feet only, but my hands and my head.” But Jesus said the ablution of the feet was sufficient for the purification of the whole man; relating to the custom of those counti’ies, who used to go to supper immediately from the baths, who therefore were sufficiently clean, save only on their feet by reason of the dust contracted in their passage from the baths to the dining-rooms ; from which when, by the hospitable master of the house, they were caused to be cleansed, they need no more ab- lution : and by it Jesus, passing from the letter to the spirit, meant, that the body of sin was washed in the baths of baptism ; and afterwards, if we re- mained in the same state of purity, it was only necessary to purge away the filth contracted in our passage from the font to the altar ; and then we are clean all over, when the baptismal state is unaltered, and the little adherencies of imperfection and pas- sions are also washed off. 17. But, after the manducation of the paschal lamb, it was the custom of the nation to sit down to a second supper, in which they ate herbs and unleavened bread, the major-domo first dipping his morsel, and then the family ; after which the father brake bread into pieces, and distributed a part to dictum, sicut multa alia in Vet. Test am. non descripta, et in N. T. repetita: quod eo magis est credibile, quia pro- verbialiter dictum apud Judseos, spiritum Jeremiae resedisse in Zecharia. ^ Alexand. Mon. apud Metaphvasten die 11 Junii. Vide Adrichom. in descript. Jems. n. 6. Sect. XV. TILL THE BURIAL OF JESUS. 201 every of the guests, and first drinking himself, gave to the rest the chalice filled with wine, according to the age and dignity of the person, adding to each distribution a form of benediction proper to the mystery, which was eucharistical and commemora- tive of their deliverance from Egypt. This supper Jesus being to celebrate, changed the forms of bene- diction, turned the ceremony into mystery, and gave his body and blood in sacrament and religious con- figuration ; so instituting the venerable sacrament, which, from the time of its institution, is called the “Lord’s Supper:” which rite Jesus commanded the apostles to perpetuate in commemoration of him, their Lord, until his second coming. And this was the first delegation of a perpetual ministry, which Jesus made to his apostles, in which they were to be succeeded to in all the generations of the church. 18. But Jesus being “ troubled in spirit,” told his apostles, that “ one of them should betray him ;” which prediction he made, that they might not be scandalized at the sadness of objection of the pas- sion, but be confirmed in their belief, seeing so great demonstration of his wisdom and spirit of prophecy. The disciples were all troubled at this sad arrest, “ looking one on another, and doubting of whom he spake ;” but they “ beckoned to the beloved dis- ciple, leaning on Jesus’s breast, that he might ask for they, who knew their own innocency and in- firmity, were desirous to satisfy their curiosity, and to be rid of their indetermination and their fear. But Jesus, being asked, gave them a sign, and “ a sop” to Judas, commanding him to “ do what he list speedily;” for Jesus was extremely “ straiten- ed,” till he had drunk the chalice off, and accom- plished his mysterious and afflictive baptism. After “ Judas received the sop, the devil entered into him ; and J udas went forth immediately, it being now night.” 19. When he was gone out, Jesus began his farewell sermon, rarely mixed of sadness and joys, and studded with mysteries as with emeralds, dis- coursing “ of the glorification of God in his Son, and of those glories which the Father had prepared for him ; of his sudden departure, and his migration to a place whither they could not come yet, but afterwards they should ; meaning, first to death, and then to glory : commanding them to love one another; and foretelling to Peter, (who made con- fident protests that he would die with his Master,) that ‘ before the cock should crow twice, he should deny him thrice.’ But lest he should afflict them with too sad representments of his present condi- tion, he comforts them with the comforts of faith, with the intendments of his departure ‘ to prepare places ’ in heaven ‘ for them,’ whither they might come by him, who is ‘ the way, the truth, and the life ; ’ adding a promise in order to their present support and future felicities, that, ‘ if they should ask of God any thing in his name, they should re- ceive it ;’ and, upon condition they would love him, and keep his commandments, he would pray for the ’ Quidam ex Hegesippo notant, ex irrorationc sanguinis u 2 Holy Ghost to come uj)on them, to supply his room, to furnish them with proportionable comforts, to enable them with great gifts, to ‘ lead them into all truth,’ and to abide with them for ever.” Then arming them against future persecutions, giving them divers holy precepts, discoursing of his emana- tion from the Father, and of the necessity of his departure, he gave them his blessing, and prayed for them ; and then, “ having sung a hymn,” which was part of the great Allelujah beginning at the 114th Psalm, “ When Israel came out of Egypt,” and ending at the 1 1 8th inclusively, “ went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, unto the mount of Olives, to a village called Gethsemane, where there was a garden, into which he entered to pray together with his disciples.” 20. But “ taking Peter, James, and John, apart with him about a stone’s cast ” from the rest, “ he began to be exceeding sorrowful,” and sad “ even unto death.” For now he saw the ingredients of his bitter draught pouring into the chalice, and the sight was full of horror and amazement ; he there- fore “ fell on his face, and prayed, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” In this prayer he fell into so sad “ an agony,” that the pains, inflicted by his Father’s wrath, and made active by his own apprehension, were so great, that a “ sweat” distilled from his sacred body as great and conglobated “ as drops of blood ; ” ^ and God, who heard his prayer, but would not answer him in kind, sent “ an angel to comfort him” in the sadness, which he was pleased not to take away. But, know- ing that the drinking this cup was the great “ end of his coming into the world,” he laid aside all his own interests, and divested himself of the affections of flesh and blood, “ willing his Father’s will ;” and because his Father commanded, he, in defiance of sense and passion, was desirous to suffer all our pains. But as, when two seas meet, the billows contest in ungentle embraces, and make violent noises, till, having wearied themselves into smaller waves and disunited drops, they run quietly into one stream: so did the spirit and nature of Jesus assault each other with disagreeing interests and distinguishing disputations, tilL the earnestness of the contention was diminished by the demonstra- tions of the Spirit, and the prevailings of grace, which the sooner got the victory, because they were not to contest with an unsanctified or a rebellious nature, but a body of affections which had no strong desires, but of its own preservation : and therefore “Jesus went thrice,” and prayed the same prayer, that, “ if it were possible, the cup might pass from him,” and thrice made an act of resigna- tion, and in the intervals “ came and found his apos- tles asleep,” gently chiding their incuriousness, and warning them to “ watch and pray, that they enter not into temptation ;” till the time that the traitor “ came with a multitude, armed with swords and staves, from the priests and elders of the people,” to apprehend him. 21. Judas gave them the opportunity of “ the Christi natam arborem. Sic Philippus Bosquius et alii. Sed hse sunt merge nug?e. •292 FROM THE DEzXTIl OF LAZARUS, Part III. night that was all the advantage they had by him, because they durst not seize him by day for fear of the people ; and he signified the person of his Master to the soldiers hy “ a kiss,” and an address of seeming civility. But when they came towards him, “ .Tesus said. Whom seek ye? They said, Jesus of Nazareth. He said, I am he.” But there was a divinity upon him, that they could not seize him at first : but as a wave climbing of a rock is beaten back and scattered into members, till, falling down, it creeps with gentle waftings, and kisses the feet of the stony mountain, and so encircles it : so the soldiers, coming at first with a rude attempt, were twice repelled by the glory of his person, till they, falling at his feet, were at last admitted to the seizure of his body, having, by those involuntary prostrations, confessed his power greater than theirs, and that the lustre and inllnence of a God are greater than the violences and rudenesses of soldiers.”^ And still they, like weak eyes, durst not behold the glory of this sun, till a cloud, like a dark veil, did interrupt the emissions of his glories ; they could not seize upon him, till they had thrown a veil upon his holy face: which, although it was a custom of the Easterlings, and of the Roman empire gener- ally;" yet in this case was violence and necessity, because a certain impetuosity, and vigorousness of spirit, and divinity, issuing from his holy face, made them to take sanctuary in darkness, and to throw a veil over him in that dead time of a sad and dismal night. But Peter, a stout Galilean,® bold and zealous, attempted a rescue, and “ smote a servant of the high priest, and cut oflf his ear;” but Jesus rebuked the intemperance of his passion, and com- manded him to “ put up his sword,” saying, “ All they that strike with the sword shall perish with the sword ;” so putting a bridle upon the illegal in- llictions and expresses of anger or revenge from an incompetent authority. But “ Jesus touched Mal- chus’s ear, and cured it.” 22. When Jesus had yielded himself into their power, and was now “ led away by the chief priests, captains of the temple, elders of the people, and soldiers,” who all came in combination and cove- nant to surprise him, “ his disciples fled ;” and John, the evangelist, who, with grief and an overrunning fancy, had forgot to lay aside his upper garment, which in festivals they are used to put on, began to make escape, but, being arrested by his linen upon his bare body, was forced to leave that behind him, that himself might escape his Master’s danger: for now was verified the prophetical saying, “ I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scat- tered. But Peter followed afar off ;” and the great- ness of John’s love, when he had mastered the first inconsiderations of his fear, made him to return a while after into the high priest’s hall. 23. Jesus was “ first led to Annas,” who was the prince of the sanhedrim, and had cognizance of prophets and public doctrines ; who therefore “ in- quired of Jesus concerning his disciples and his discipline but h’e answered, that his doctrine had S. Hieron. in Matt. c. 9. ^ I, lictor, obnube caput liberatoris uvbis hujus. — Liv. been public or popular, that he never taught in conventicles; and therefore referred him to the tes- timony of all the people. For which free answer, “ a servant standing by smote him on the face;” and Jesus meekly asked him what evil he had done. But Annas, without the seventy assessors, could judge nothing, and therefore “ sent him bound to Caiaphas, who was high priest that year,” president of the rites of the temple, as the other high priest was of the great council. Thither Peter came, and had admission by the means of another disciple, supposed to be John, who, having sold his pos- sessions in Galilee to Caiaphas, came and dwelt near mount Sion, but was, by intervention of that bar- gain, made “ known to the high priest,” and ‘‘ brought Peter into the house where, when Peter was challenged three times by the servants to be a Galilean, and of Jesus’s family, he “ denied” and “ forswore ” it; till “Jesus, looking back,” re- minded him of his prediction, and the foulness of the crime, “ and the cock crew ;” for it was now the second cock -crowing after ten of the clock in the fourth watch. “ And Peter went out, and wept bit- terly,” that he might cleanse his soul, washing off the foul stains he had contracted in his shameful perjury and denying of his Lord. And it is re- ported of the same holy person,? that ever after, when he heard the cock crow, he wept, remembering the old instrument of his conversion, and his own unworthiness, for which he never ceased to do actions of sorrow and sharp repentance. 24. On the morning the council was to assemble ; and whilst Jesus was detained in expectation of it, the servants “ mocked him,” and did all actions of affront and ignoble despite to his sacred head : and because the question was, whether he were a pro- phet, “ they covered his eyes, and smote him ” in derision, calling on him to “ prophesy who smote him.” But “ in the morning, when the high priests and rulers of the people were assembled, they sought false witness against Jesus, but found none” to pur- pose ; they railed boldly, and could prove nothing ; they accused vehemently, and the allegations were of such things as were no crimes ; and the greatest article, which the united diligence of all their malice could pretend, was, that “he said he would destroy the temple, and in three days build it up again.” But Jesus neither answered this, nor any other of their vainer allegations ; for the witnesses destroyed each other’s testimony by their disagreeing ; till at last Caiaphas, who, to verify his prophec}, and to satisfy his ambition, and to bait his envy, was fu- riously determined Jesus should die, “adjures him by the living God to say, whether he were the Chri.st, the Son of the living God.” Jesus knew his design to be an inquisition of death, not of piety or curiosity; yet, because “his hour was now come,” openly affirmed it, without any expedient to elude the high priest’s malice, or to decline the question. 25. When Caiaphas heard the saying, he accused Jesus of “blasphemy,” and pretended an apprehen- sion so tragical, that he over-acted his wonder, and ° ’'OTra ^paava'TOfiE 'S.Lfxoav. — Nonn. P Aisenius in Vitis Pp. Sect. XV. TILL THE BURIAL OF JESUS. 2i)3 feigned detestation ; for “ he rent his garments,” (which was the interjection of the country, and custom of the nation, but forbidden to the high priest,) and called presently to sentence : and, as it was agreed beforehand, “ they all condemned him as guilty of death,” and, as far as they had power, in- flicted it ; for they “ beat him with their fists, smote him with the palms of their hands, spit upon him,” and abused him beyond the license of enraged tyrants. When Judas heard that they had passed the final and decretory sentence of death upon his Lord, he, who thought not it would have gone so far, “repented him” to have been the instrument of so damnable a machination, and came and “ brought the silver,” which they gave him for hire, “ threw it in amongst them, and said, I have sinned in be- traying the innocent blood.” But they, incurious of those hell-torments Judas felt within him, because their own fires burnt not yet, dismissed him, and, upon consultation, bought with the money “ a field to bury strangers in.” And “ Judas went and hanged himself :” and the judgment was made more notorious and eminent by an unusual accident at such deaths, for he so swelled, that “ he burst, and his bowels gushed out.” But the Greek scholiast, and some others,^ report out of Papias, St. John’s scholar, that Judas fell from the fig-tree on which he hanged, before he was quite dead, and survived his attempt some while, being so sad a spectacle of deformity, and pain, and a prodigious tumour, that his plague was deplorable, and highly miserable, till at last he burst in the very substance of his trunk, as being extended beyond the possibilities and capacities of nature. 26. But the high priests had given Jesus over to the secular power, and carried him to Pilate, to be put to death by his sentence and military power; but coming thither, they “ would not enter into the judgment-hall” because of the feast; but Pilate met them, and, willing to decline the business, bade them “judge him according to their own law.” They replied, “ It was not lawful to put any man to death ;” meaning, during the seven days of unleavened bread (as appears in the instance of Herod, who detained Peter in prison, intending, after Easter, to bring him out to the people). And their malice was restless, till the sentence they had passed were put into ex- ecution. Others thinking,*^ that all the right of in- flicting capital punishments was taken from the nation by the Romans; and Josephus writes,® that when Ananias, their high priest, had, by a council of the Jews, condemned St. James, the brother of our Lord, and put him to death, without the consent of the Roman president, he was deprived of his priesthood. But because Pilate, who, either by common right, or at that time, was the judge of capital inflictions, was averse from intermeddling in the condemnation of an innocent person, they at- tempted him with excellent craft ; for, knowing that Pilate was a great servant of the Roman greatness, 1 Euthym. in 26 Matt. Cedren, in Compend. Q^cumen. in c. 1. Act. Juvencus Hist. Evang. lib. iv. Beda de Locis Sanct. c. 4. '■ S. Aug. Tract. 114. in Joan. Cyrill. in Joan. lib. xii. c. and a hater of tlie sect of the Galileans, the high priest accused Jesus, that he was of that sect, that he “ denied paying tribute to Cmsar,” that he “ called hiiOwself king.” Concerning which, when Pilate interrogated Jesus, he answered, that “his kingdom was not of this world ;” and Pilate, think- ing he had nothing to do with the other, came forth again, and gave testimony, that “ he found nothing worthy of death in Jesus.” But hearing that he was “ a Galilean,” and of “ Herod’s jurisdic- tion, Pilate sent him to Herod, who was at Jerusa- lem” at the feast. “ And Herod was glad, because he had heard much of him,” and, since his return from Rome, “ had desired to see him,” but could not, by reason of his own avocations, and the ambulatory life of Christ; and now “ he hoped to see a miracle done by him,” of whom he had heard so many. But the event of this was, that Jesus did there no miracle; “ Herod’s soldiers set him at nought, and mocked him. And that day Herod was reconciled to Pilate.” And “ Jesus was sent back,” arrayed in a white and splendid garments which though possibly it might be intended for derision, yet was a symbol of innocence, condemned persons usually being array- ed in black. And when Pilate had again ex- amined him, “Jesus, meek as a lamb, and as a sheep before the shearers, opened not his mouth ; insomuch that Pilate wondered,” perceiving the greatest innocence of the man, by not oflTering to excuse or lessen any thing : for, though “ Pilate had power to release him, or crucify him,” yet his con- tempt of death was in just proportion to his inno- cence ; which also Pilate concealed not, but pub- b'shed Jesus’s innocence, by Herod’s and his own sentence ; to the great regret of the rulers, who, like ravening wolves, thirsted for a draught of blood, and to devour the morning prey. 27. But Pilate hoped to prevail upon the rulers, by making it a favour from them to Jesus, and an indulgence from him to the nation, to set him free : for, oftentimes, even malice itself is driven out by the devil of self-love ; and, so we may be acknow- ledged the authors of a safety, we are content to rescue a man even from our own selves. Pilate, therefore, offered, that, according to the “custom” of the nation, Jesus should be “released” for the honour of the present festival, and as a donative to the people. But the spirit of malice was here the more prevalent, and they desired, that “Barabbas, a murderer, a thief, and a seditious person,” should be exchanged for him. Then Pilate, casting about all ways to acquit Jesus of punishment, and him- self of guilt, offered to “ scourge him, and let him go,” hoping that a lesser draught of blood might stop the furies and rabidness of their passion, with- out their bursting with a river of his best and vital liquor. But these leeches would not so let go ; “ they cry out, Crucify him ;” and to engage him finally, they told him, “ if he did let this man go, he was no friend to Caesar.” 6. Chrysost. Horn. 12. in Joan. Ambros. Senn. de Calend. Jannar. lib. xx. s Antiq. c. 8. Joseph, lib. xvi. c. 14. Idem in Vita sua. 294 FROM THE DEATH OF LAZARUS, Part HI. 28. But Pilate called for “ water and washed his hands,” to demonstrate his own unwillingness, and to reject and transmit the guilt upon them, who took it on them as greedily as they sucked the blood ; “ they cried out, His blood he on us and our chil- dren.” As Pilate was going to give sentence, “ his wife, being troubled in her dreams, sent,” with the earnestness and passion of a woman, that he should “ have nothing to do with that just person :” but he was engaged : Caesar and Jesus, God and the king, did seem to have different interests ; or, at least, he was threatened into that opinion ; and Pilate, though he was satisfied it was but calumny and malice, yet he was loath to venture upon his answer at Rome, in case the high priest should have accused him. For no man knows whether the interest or the mistake of his judge may cast the sentence ; and whoever is accused strongly, is never thought entirely innocent. And, therefore, not only against the Divine laws, but against the Roman too, he condemned an innocent person, upon objections notoriously malicious; he adjudged him to a death, which was only due to public thieves and homicides, (crimes with which he was not charged,) upon a pretence of blasphemy, of which he stood accused, but not convicted, and for which, by the Jewish law, he should have been stoned, if found guilty. And this he did put into present ex- ecution, against the Tiberian law, which, about twelve years before, decreed in favour of condemned per- sons, that, after sentence, execution should be de- ferred ten days.^' 29. And now was the holy Lamb to bleed. First, therefore, Pilate’s soldiers “ array him in a kingly robe, put a reed in his hand” for a sceptre, “plait a crown of thorns, and put it on his head; they bow the knee, and mock him ; they smite him” with his fantastic sceptre, and, instead of tribute, pay him with “ blows and spittings upon his holy head:” and, when they had emptied the whole stock of poisonous contempt, “ they divest him of the robes” of mockery, “ and put on him his own;” they lead him to a pillar, and bind him fast, and scourge him ” with whips, a punishment that slaves only did use to suffer,^ (free persons being, in cer- tain cases, beaten with rods and clubs,) that they might add a new scorn to his afflictions, and make his sorrows, like their own guilt, vast and moun- tainous. After which, Barabbas being “ set free, Pilate delivered Jesus to be crucified.” 30. The soldiers, therefore, having framed a “ Sueton. in Tiberio, c. 75. Dio Rom. Hist. lib. 57. Sub Tiberio et Druso Coss. Corruptus autem est codex Epist. Sidonii, qui ait, Nunc ex vetere S. C. Tiberiano triginta dierum vitam post sententiam trahit. Lib. in servorum, D. de pcenis. Lib. Levia, D. de Accus. y Lignum transversum solum portavit Jesus, scil. Patibu- lum, ad locum ubi crux, scil. lignum oblongum, terra defixum stetit. Sic Plautus, Patibulum ferant per urbem, et cruci affigantur. Male ergo pictores hodierni pingunt Jesum, ba- julantem utrumque lignum scil. — Liesius Tract, de Supplicio Crucis. EiaoKE 'iKavE (pa'ri'i^o/ULtvoio Kpavioa, ’ASa/uL TTpcoToyovoio <}>Bpa)i'Vfj.ov auTvyi Kopcrt]^. Nonnus in Joan. Golgotha locus est capitis, Calvaria quondam, “ cross,” sad and heavy, laid it upon Jesus’s shoulders, (who, like Isaac, bore the wood with which he was to be sacrificed himself,) and they drove him out to “ crucifixion,” who was scarce able to stand under that load. It is generally sup- posed that Jesus bore the whole tree, that is, both the parts of his cross ; but to him that considers it, it will seem impossible ; and, therefore, it is more likely, and agreeable to the old manner of crucify- ing malefactors, that Jesus only carried the cross part ; y the body of it being upon the place either already fixed, or prepared for its station. Even that lesser part was grievous and intolerable to his tender, virginal, and weakened body ; and when he fainted, “ they compel Simon, a Cyrenian,” to help him. “ A great” and a mixed “ multitude followed J esus to Golgotha,” the charnel house of the city, and the place of execution. But the “ women wept” with bitter exclamations, and their sadness was increased by the sad prediction Jesus then made of their future misery, saying, “Ye daughters of Jeru- salem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children ; for the time shall come that men shall say. Blessed are the barren that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck ; for they shall call on the hills to cover them, and on the mountains to fall upon them,” that, by a sudden ruin, they may escape the lingering calamities of famine and fear, and the horror of a thousand deaths. 31. “When Jesus was come to Golgotha,” ^ a place in the mount Calvary, (where, according to the tradition of the ancients, Adam was buried,^ and where Abraham made an altar, for the sacrifice of his son,^) by the piety of his disciples, and, it is probable, of those good women, which did use to minister to him, there was provided “ wine mingled with myrrh,” which, among the Levantines, is an excellent and pleasant mixture, and such as the piety and indulgence of the nations used to ad- minister to condemned persons.® But Jesus, who, by voluntary susception, did choose to suffer our pains, refused that refreshment, which the piety of the women presented to him. The soldiers, having stripped him, nailed him to the cross with four nails, and “ divided his mantle into four parts,” giving “ to each soldier a part ;” but for “ his coat,” because it would be spoiled if parted, “ it being” weaved “ without seam, they cast lots for it.” 32. Now Pilate had caused “ a title,” containing the cause of his death, to be “ superscribed” on a Lingua paterna prior sic ilium nomine dixit. Hie hominem primum suscepimus esse sepultum : Hie medium terrse est . =» Tertul. lib. ii. contra Marcion. Ori^n. Tract. 35. in Matth. Basil, in Levit. c. 5. Athan. de Pass, et Cruce, et fere omnes Pp. unico excepto, Hieronymo, in Epist. ad Ephes. c. 5. et in c. 27 Matt. o S. Aug. Serin. 71. de Tempore. c Plin. Nat. Hist, lib xiv. c. 13. Athenseus, lib. xi. c. 30. Si calidum potas, ardenti myrrha Falerno Convenit, et melior fit sapor inde mero. Martial, lib. xiv. Ego dabo ei talentum, primus qui in crucem excurrerit : Sed ea lege, ut affigantur bis pedes, bis brachia. — Plalt. Mostel. Sect. XV. TILL THE BURIAL OF JESUS. 295 table, “ in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; the Hebrew being first, the Greek next, and the Latin nearest to the holy body; but all written after the Jewish manner, from the right hand to the left ; for so the title is shown in the church of Santa Croce, in Rome, the Latin letters being to be read as if it were Hebrew ; the reason of which I could never find sufficiently discovered, unless it were to make it more legible to the Jews, who, by conversing with the Romans, began to understand a little Latin. The title was, “ JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS but the Pharisees would have it altered, and “ that he said he was king of the Jews.” But Pilate, out of wilfulness, or to do despite to the nation, or in honour to Jesus whom he knew to be a “ just person,” or being overruled by Divine pro- vidence, refused to alter it. ® “ And there were crucified with Jesus two thieves, Jesus being in the midst,” according to the prophecy, “ He was reckoned with the transgressors.” Then Jesus prayed for his persecutors ; “ Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But while Jesus was full of pain and charity, and was praying and dying for his enemies, “ the rulers” of the Jews “ mocked him,” upbraiding him with the good works he did, and the expresses of his power, “ saying. He saved others, himself he cannot save ;” others saying, “ Let him come down from the cross, if he be the King of the Jews, and we will believe in him : ” and others, according as their malice was determined, by fancy and occasion, added weight and scorn to his pains ; and of the two malefactors that were crucified with him, “ one reviled him, saying. If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us.” And thus far the devil prevailed, undoing himself in riddle, provoking men to do despite to Christ, and to heighten his passion out of hatred to him ; and yet doing and promoting that, which was the ruin of all his own kingdom and potent mischiefs : like the Jew, who, in indignation against Mercury, threw stones at his image, and yet was by his superior judged idolatrous, that being the manner of doing honour to the idol among the gentiles.^ But then Christ, who had, upon the cross, prayed for his enemies, and was heard of God in all that he desired, felt now the beginnings of success. For the other thief, whom the present pains and circumstances of Jesus’s passion had softened and made believing, “ reproved” his fellow for not fearing God,” con- fessed that this death happened “ to them deservedly, but to Jesus causelessly ;” and then prayed to Jesus, “ Lord, remember me when thou eomest into thy kingdom.” Which combination of pious acts and miraculous conversion, Jesus entertained with a speedy promise of a very great felicity, promising, that upon “ that very day he should be with him in paradise.” 33. “ Now, there were standing by the cross the ® Proconsulis tabella sententia est, quse semel lecta, nequc augeri litera unci, neque minui potest : sed utcunque recitata, ita provincise instrumento refertur. — Apul. Flor. lib. i. R. Manasses. Vide Dionys. Vossium in Annot. ad Rab. R. Maimon. R Origen. cont. Cels. lib. ii. Tertul. Apolog. Lucian in actis sui Mart. August. Ep. 80 ad Hesycbium. mother of Jesus, and her sister, and Mary Magda- len, and John.” And Jesus, being upon his death- bed, although he had no temporal estate to bestow, yet he would make provision for his mother, who being a widow, and now childless, was likely to be exposed to necessity and want; and, therefore, he did arrogate John, the beloved disciple, into Mary’s kindred, making him to be her adopted son and Iter to be his mother, by fiction of law ; “ Woman, be- hold thy son ; ” and, “ Man, behold thy mother. And from that time forward John took her home to his own house,” which he had near mount Sion, after he had sold his inheritance in Galilee to the high priest. 34. While these things were doing, the whole frame of mature seemed to be dissolved, arid out of order, while their Lord and Creator suffered. For “ the sun was so darkened” that the stars appeared ; and the eclipse was prodigious in the manner as well as in degree, because the moon was not then in conjunction, but full ; and it was noted by Phlegon, the freed man of the emperor Hadrian, by Lu- cian out of the acts of the Gauls, and Dionysius, while he was yet a heathen, excellent scholars all, great historians and philosophers ; who also noted the day of the week, and hour of the day, agree- ing with the circumstances of the cross, s For the sun hid his head from beholding such a prodigy of sin and sadness, and provided a veil for the naked- ness of Jesus, that the women might be present, and himself die, with modesty. 35. The eclipse and the passion began “ at the sixth hour,” and endured “ till the ninth,” about which time Jesus, being tormented with the unsuffer- able load of his Father’s wrath, due for our sins, and wearied with pains and heaviness, “ cried out. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and, as it is thought, repeated the whole two and twentieth psalm, which is an admirable narrative of the passion, full of prayer and sadness, and descrip- tion of his pains at first, and of eucharist, and joy, and prophecy at the last. But these first words, which it is certain and recorded that he spake, were in a language of itself, or else, by reason of dis- tance, not understood, for they thought he had “ called for Elias,” to take him down from the cross. Then Jesus, being in the agonies of a high fever, “ said, I thirst. And one ran, and filled a sponge with vinegar, wrapping it with hyssop, and put it on a reed,” that he might drink. The vinegar and the sponge were, in executions of condemned per- sons, set to stop the too violent issues of blood, and to prolong the death but were exhibited to him in scorn, “ mingled with gall,” to make the mixture more horrid and ungentle. But “ Jesus tasted it” only, and “ refused the draught.” And now, know- ing that the prophecies were fulfilled, his Father’s wrath appeased, and his torments satisfactory, he Suidas in Vita Dionys. ait eum dixisse, Aut Dens patitur, aut patienti compatitur : et hac de caus^ Athenienses erexisse aram dyi/oxn-w Oew aiunt quidam. Veteres spongise conglutinant vulnera.— Plin. Nat. Hist, lib. xxxi. c. 11. Poterit et de misericordia moveri defixus in morsus uneo- nim, et spongias rctiarioruin.— Tehtul. de Spcct. r. 25. 296 FROM THE DEATH OF LAZARUS, &c. Part III. said, “ It is finished, and crying with a loud voice, Father into thy hands I commend my spirit, he bowed his head, and yielded up his spirit” into the hands of God, and died, hastening to his Father’s glories. Thus did this glorious Sun set in a sad and clouded west, running speedily to shine in the other world. 36. Then “ was the veil of the temple,” which separated the secret Mosaic rites from the eyes of the people, “ rent in the midst, from the top to the bottom; and the angels, presidents of the temple, called to each other to depart from their seats ; ^ and so great “an earthquake” happened, that “the rocks did rend,” the mountains trembled, “ the graves opened, and the bodies of dead persons arose, walking,” from their cemeteries, “ to the holy city, and appeared unto many :” and so great apprehen- sions and amazements happened to them all that stood by, that they “ departed, smiting their breasts with sorrow and fear :” and “ the centurion,” that ministered at the execution, “ said. Certainly this was the Son of God;” and he became a disciple, renouncing his military employment, and died a martyr.^ 37 . But because the next day was the “Jews’ sabbath,” and a paschal festival besides, the Jews hastened that the bodies should be taken from the cross ; and, therefore, sent to Pilate to hasten their death by “ breaking their legs,^ that,” before sun- set,™ “ they might be taken away,” according to the commandment, and “ be buried. The soldiers, therefore, came, and brake the legs of the two thieves; but espying,” and wondering, “that Jesus was already dead, they brake not his legs ; for the scripture foretold, that a bone of him should not be broken : but a soldier, with his lance, pierced his side, and immediately there streamed out” two rivulets of “ water and blood.” But the holy Virgin-mother, (whose soul, during this whole passion, “ was pierced with a sword,” and sharper sorrows, though she was supported by the comforts of faith, and those holy predictions of his resurrec- tion and future glories, which Mary had laid up in store, against this great day of expense,) now that she saw her holy Son had suffered all that our ne- cessities, and their malice, could require or inflict, caused certain ministers, with whom she joined, to take her dead Son from the cross ; whose body when she once got free from the nails, she kissed, and embraced with entertainments of the nearest vicinity, that could be expressed by a person that was holy and sad, and a mother weeping for her dead Son. 38. But she was highly satisfied with her own meditations, that now that great mystery, deter- mined, by Divine predestination, before the begin- ning of all ages, was fulfilled in her Son ; and the passion, that must needs be, was accomplished : " she, therefore, first bathes his cold body with her ' S. Hieron. Ep. 150. q. 8. Apud Metaph. die 16 Octob. ‘ In hac ipsci genuum commissuiA qusedam buccarum ina- nitas est, qua perfossa, ceu jugulo, spiritus aufugit.— Plin. lib. xi. c. 45. warm tears, and makes clean the surface of the wounds, and, delivering a winding napkin to Joseph of Arimathma, gave to him in charge to enwrap the body, and embalm it, to compose it to the grave, and to do it all the rites of funeral, having first exhorted him to a public confession of what he was privately, till now : and he obeyed the counsel of so excellent a person, and ventured upon the displeasure of the Jewish rulers, and “ went confidently to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.” And “Pilate gave him ” the power of it. 39. “ Joseph, therefore, takes the bod}^, binds his face with a napkin,” washes the bod}% anoints it with ointment, enwraps it in a composition of “ myrrh and aloes, and puts it into a new tomb, which he, for himself, had hewn out of a rock ” (it not being lawful, among the Jews, to inter a con- demned person in the common cemeteries) : for all these circumstances were in “ the Jews’ manner of burying.” But when the sun was set, “ the chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate, telling him that Jesus, whilst he was living, foretold his own resurrection upon the third day ; and, lest his dis- ciples should come and steal the body, and say he was risen from the dead, desired that “ the sepul- chre might be secured ” against the danger of any such imposture. Pilate gave them leave to do their pleasure, even to the satisfaction of their smallest scruples. They, therefore, “ sealed the grave, rolled a great stone at the mouth of it,” and, as an ancient tradition says,® bound it about with labels of iron, and “ set a watch ” of soldiers, as if they had in- tended to have made it surer than the decrees of fate, or the never-failing laws of nature. Ad SECTION XV. Considerations of some preparatory Accideyits before the Entrance of Jesus into his Passion. 1. He that hath observed the story of the life of Jesus, cannot but see it, all the way, to be strewed with thorns and sharp-pointed stones ; and although by the kisses of his feet they became precious and salutary, yet they procured to him sorrow and disease : it was “ meat and drink to him to do his Father’s will,” but it was “ bread of affliction, and rivers of tears to drink ;” and for these he thirsted like the earth after the cool stream. For so great was his perfection, so exact the conformity of his will, so absolute the subordination of his inferior faculties to the infinite love of God, which sat re- gent in the court of his will and understanding, that, in this election of accidents, he never considered the taste but the goodness, never distinguished sweet from bitter, but duty and piety always prepared his table. And, therefore, now knovdng that his time, determined by the Father, was nigh, he hastened Vide Lactant. lib. i. c. 26. Cic. pro Rose. Philo de Leg. Special. Deut. xxi. " Metaphr. August. 15. ” Beda de Locis Sanctis, c. 2. Niceph. lib. i. c. 32. Sect. XV. CONSIDERATIONS OF SOME ACCIDENTS, &c. 297 up to Jerusalem; “ he went before” his disciples, saith St. Mark, “ and they followed him trembling and amazed and yet, before that, even then when his brethren observed he had a design of publication of himself, he suffered them “ to go before him, and went up, as it were, in secret.” For so we are in- vited to martyrdom, and suffering in a Christian cause, by so great an example : the holy J esus is gone before us, and it were a holy contention, to strive whose zeal were forwardest in the designs of humiliation and self-denial ; but it were also well, if, in doing ourselves secular advantage, and pro- moting our worldly interest, we should follow him, who was ever more distant from receiving honours than from receiving a painful death. Those affec- tions, which dwell in sadness, and are married to grief, and lie at the foot of the cross, and trace the sad steps of Jesus, have the wisdom of recollection, the tempers of sobriety, and are the best imitations of Jesus, and securities against the levity of a dis- persed and a vain spirit. This was intimated by many of the disciples of Jesus, in the days of the Spirit, and, when they had “ tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come ;” for then we find many ambitious of martyrdom, and that have laid stratagems and designs, by unusual deaths, to get a crown. The soul of St. Lawrence was so scorched with ardent desires of dying for his Lord, that he accounted the coals of his gridiron but as a julep, or the aspersion of cold water, to refresh his soul; they were chill as the Alpine snows, in respect of the heats of his diviner flames. And if these lesser stars shine so brightly, and burn so warmly, what heat of love may we suppose to have been in the Sun of righteousness ? If they went fast toward the crown of martyrdom, yet we know that the holy Jesus went before them all: no wonder that “ he cometh forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course.” 2. When the disciples had overtaken Jesus, he begins to them a sad homily upon the old text of suffering, which he had, well nigh for a year toge- ther, preached upon ; but because it was an un- pleasing lesson, so contradictory to those interests, upon the hopes of which they had entertained them- selves, and spent all their desires, they could by no means understand it : for an understanding, prepos- sessed with a fancy, or an unhandsome principle, construes all other notions to the sense of the first : and whatsoever contradicts it, we think it an objec- tion, and that we are bound to answer it. Rut now that it concerned Christ to speak so plainly, that his disciples, by what was to happen within five or six days, might not be scandalized, or believe it happen- ed to Jesus without his knowledge and voluntary entertainment, he tells them of his sufferings, to be accomplished in this journey to Jerusalem. And here the disciples showed themselves to be but men, full of passion and indiscreet affection ; and the bold Galilean, St. Peter, took the boldness to dehort his Master from so great an infelicity ; and met with a reprehension so great, that neither the scribes, nor the Pharisees, nor Herod himself, ever met with its parallel: Jesus called him Satan; meaning, that no greater contradictions can be oflered to the designs of God and his holy Son, than to dissuade us from suffering. And if we understood how great are the advantages of a suffering condition, we should think all our daggers gilt, and our pavements strewed with roses, and our halters silken, and the rack an instru- ment of pleasure, and be most impatient of those temptations which seduce us into ease, and divorce us from the cross, as being opposite to our greatest hopes and most perfect desires. But still this hu- mour of St. Peter’s imperfection abides amongst us : he that breaks off the yoke of obedience, and unties the bands of discipline, and preaches a cheap reli- gion, and presents heaven in the midst of flowers, and strews carpets softer than the Asian luxury in the way, and sets the songs of Sion to the tunes of Persian and lighter airs, and offers great liberty of living, and bondage under affection and sins, and reconciles eternity with the present enjoyment, he shall have his schools filled with disciples ; but he that preaches the cross and the severities of Chris- tianity, and the strictnesses of a holy life, shall have the lot of his blessed Lord; he shall be thought ill of, and deserted. 3. Our blessed Lord, five days before his passion, sent his disciples to a village to borrow an ass, that he might ride in triumph to Jerusalem; he had none of his own ; but yet he, who was so dear to God, could not want what was to supply his needs. It may be, God hath laid up our portion in the re- positories of other men, and means to furnish us from their tables, to feed us from their granaries, and that their wardrobe shall clothe us ; for it is all one to him to make a fish bring us money, or a crow to bring us meat, or the stable of our neighbour to furnish our needs of beasts. If he brings it to thy need as thou wantest it, thou hast all the good in the use of the creature whieh the owners can re- ceive ; and the horse which is lent me in charity does me as mueh ease, and the bread which is given me in alms feeds me as well, as the other part of it, which the good man, that gave me a portion, re- served for his own eating, could do to him. And if we would give God leave to make provisions for us in the ways of his own choosing, and not esti- mate our wants by our manner of receiving, being eontented that God, by any of his own ways, will minister it to us, we should find our cares eased, and our content increased, and our thankfulness en- gaged, and all our moderate desires contented, by the satisfaction of our needs. For if God is pleased to feed me by my neighbour’s charity, there is no other difference, but that God makes me an oceasion of his ghostly good, as he is made the occasion of my temporal ; and if we think it disparagement, we may remember, that God eonveys more good to him by me, than to me by him : and it is a proud impatience to refuse or to be angry with God’s pro- visions, because he hath not observed my circum- stances and ceremonies of election. 4. And now begins that great triumph, in which the holy Jesus was pleased to exalt his office, and to abase his person. He rode, like a poor man, 298 CONSIDERATIONS OF SOME ACCIDENTS Part III. upon an ass, a beast of burden and the lowest value, and yet it was not his own ; and in that equipage he received the acclamations due to a mighty prince, to the Son of the eternal King ; telling us, that the smallness of fortune, and the rudeness of exterior habiliments, and a rough wall, are sometimes the outsides of a great glory ; and that when God means to glorify or do honour to a person, he needs no help from secular advantages. He hides great riches in renunciation of the world, and makes great honour break forth from the clouds of humility ; and victory to arise from yielding, and the modesty of departing from our interest ; and peace to be the rew'ard of him that suffers all the hostilities of men and devils. For Jesus, in this great humility of his, gives a great probation that he was the Mes- sias, and the King of Sion ; because no other king entered into those gates riding upon an ass, and received the honour of “ Hosannah,” in that unlike- lihood and contradiction of unequal circumstances. 5. The blessed Jesus had never but two days of triumph in his life ; the one was on his transfigur- ation upon mount Tabor; the other, this his riding into the holy city. But, that it may appear how little were his joys and present exterior compla- cencies ; in the day of his transfiguration, Moses and Elias appeared to him, telling him what great things he was to suffer ; and in this day of his riding to Jerusalem, he wet the palms with a dew sweeter than the moistures upon mount Hermon, or the drops of manna; for, to allay the little warmth of a springing joy he let’ down a shower of tears, weeping over undone Jerusalem in the day of his triumph, leaving it disputable whether he felt more joy or sorrow in the acts of love ; for he triumphed to consider that the redemption of the world was so near, and wept bitterly that men would not be redeemed ; his joy was great, to consider that him- self was to suffer so great sadness for our good ; and his sorrow was very great, to consider that we would not entertain that good, that he brought and laid before us by his passion. He was in figure, as his servant, St. Paphnutius, was afterwards in letter and true story, “ crucified upon palms which, indeed, wms the emblem of a victory ; ^ but yet •such as had leaves sharp, poignant, and vexatious. However, he entered into Jerusalem dressed in gaieties, which yet he placed under his feet ; but with such pomps and solemnities, each family, ac- cording to its proportion, was accustomed to bring the paschal lamb to be slain for the passover; and it was not an indecent ceremony, that “ the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world” should be brought to his slaughter with the acknowledg- ments of a religious solemnity ; because now that real good was to be exhibited to the world, which those little paschal lambs did but signify and repre- sent in shadow : and that was the true cause of all the little joy he had. 6. And if we consider what followed, it might seem also to be a design to heighten the dolorous- ness of his passion ; for to descend from the greatest of worldly honours, from the adoration of a God, Palma est victorum, palmoe tu affixus es; ergo Laetus obi, and the acclamations to a king, to the death of a slave, and the torments of a cross, and the disho- nours of a condemned criminal, were so great stoop- ings and vast changes, that they gave height, and sense, and excellency to each other. This, then, seemed an excellent glory : but, indeed, was but an art and instrument of grief ; for such is the nature of all our felicities, they end in sadness, and in- crease the sting of sorrows, and add moment to them, and cause impatience and uncomfortable re- membrances ; but the griefs of a Christian, whether they be instances of repentance, or parts of perse- cution, or exercises of patience, end in joy and endless comfort. Thus, Jesus, like a rainbow, half made of the glories of light, and half of the moisture of a cloud ; half triumph, and half sorrow ; en- tered into that town where he had done much good to others, and to himself received nothing but af- fronts ; yet his tenderness increased upon him ; and that very journey, which was Christ’s last solemn visit for their recovery, he doubled all the instru- ments of his mercy and their conversion. He rode in triumph ; the children sang hosannah to him ; he cured many diseased persons ; he wept for them, and pitied them, and sighed out the intimations of a prayer, and did penance for their ingratitude, and staid all day there, looking about him towards even- ing ; and no man would invite him home, but he was forced to go to Bethany, where he was sure of a hospitable entertainment. I think no Christian that reads this, but will be full of indignation at the whole city ; who, for malice or for fear, would not, or durst not, receive their Saviour into their houses ; and yet we do worse ; for now that he is become our Lord, with mightier demonstrations of his eternal power, we suffer him to look round about upon us for months and years together, and possibly never entertain him, till our house is ready to rush upon our heads, and we are going to un- usual and stranger habitations. And yet, in the midst of a populous and mutinous city, this great King had some good subjects ; persons that threw away their own garments, and laid them at the feet of our Lord ; that being divested of their own, they might be re-invested with a robe of his right- eousness, wearing that till it were changed into a stole of glory ; the very ceremony of their recep- tion of the Lord became symbolical to them, and expressive of all our duties. 7 . But I consider that the blessed Jesus had af- fections no less than infinite, toAvards all mankind; and he who wept upon Jerusalem, who had done so great despite to him, and within five days were to fill up the measure of their iniquities, and do an act, which all ages of the world could never repeat in the same instance, did also, in the number of his tears, reckon our sins, as sad considerations and in- centives of his sorrow. And it would well become us to consider what great evil we do, when our actions are such as for Avhich our blessed Lord did weep. He who was seated in the bosom of felicity, yet he moistened his fresh laurels upon the day of his triumph with tears of love and bitter allay. His quoniam non nisi victor obis. Sect. XV. PREPARATORY TO THE PASSION. 299 day of triumph was a day of sorrow; and if we would weep for our sins, that instance of sorrow would be a day of triumph and jubilee. 8. From hence the holy Jesus went to Bethany, where he had another manner of reception than at the holy city. There he supped ; for his goodly day of triumph had been with him a fasting-day. And Mary Magdalen, who had spent one box of nard pistic upon our Lord’s feet, as a sacrifice of eucharist for her conversion, now bestowed another, in thankfulness for the restitution of her brother Lazarus to life, and consigned her Lord unto his burial. And here she met with an evil interpreter. Judas, an apostle, one of the Lord’s own family, pretended it had been a better religion to have given it to the poor ; but it was malice, and the spirit either of envy or avarice in him that passed that sentence ; for he that sees a pious action well done, and seeks to undervalue it by telling how it might have been better, reproves nothing but his own spirit. For a man may do very well, and God would accept it ; though to say he might have done better, is to say only, that action was not the most perfect and absolute in its kind : but to be angry at a re- ligious person, and without any other pretence but that he might have done better, is spiritual envy ; for a pious person would have nourished up that infant action by love and praise, till it had grown to the most perfect and intelligent piety. But the event of that man gave the interpretation of his present purpose ; and at the best it could be no other than a rash judgment of the action and in- tention of a religious, thankful, and holy person. But she found her Lord, who was her beneficiary in this, become her patron and her advocate. And hereafter, when we shall find the devil, the great accuser of God’s saints, object against the piety and religion of holy persons ; a cup of cold water shall be accepted unto reward, and a good intention heightened to the value of an exterior expression, and a piece of gum to the quality of a holocaust ; and an action, done with great zeal and an intense love, be acquitted from all its adherent imperfections ; Christ receiving them into himself, and being like the altar of incense, hallowing the very smoke, and raising it into a flame, and entertaining it into the embraces of the firmament and the bosom of heaven. Christ himself, who is the judge of our actions, is also the entertainer and object of our charity and duty, and the advocate of our persons. 9. Judas, who declaimed against the woman, made tacit reflections upon his Lord for suflfering it : and, indeed, every obloquy against any of Christ’s servants, is looked on as an arrow shot into the heart of Christ himself. And now, a persecution being begun against the Lord within his own family, another was raised against him from without. For the chief priests “ took crafty counsel against Jesus,” and called a consistory, to contrive “ how they might destroy him and here was the greatest representment of the goodness of God and the in- gratitude of man, that could be practised or under- stood. How often had Jesus poured forth tears for them ! How many sleepless nights had he awaked, to do them advantage ! How many days had he spent in homilies, and admirable visitations of mercy and charity ; in casting out devils, in curing their sick, in correcting their delinquencies, in reducing them to the ways of security and peace ; and, that we may use the greatest expression in the world, that is, his own, “ in gathering them as a hen gather- eth her chickens under her wings,” to give them strength, and warmth, and life, and ghostly nourish- ment! And the chief priests, together with their faction, use all arts, and watch all opportunities to get Christ ; not that they might possess him, but to destroy him ; little considering that they extinguish their own eyes, and destroy that spring of life, which was intended to them for a blissful immortality. 10, And here it was that the devil showed his promptness, to furnish every evil-intended person with apt instruments, to act the very worst of his intentions. The devil knew their purposes, and the aptness and proclivity of Judas; and, by bringing these together, he served their present design, and his own great intendment. The devil never fails to promote every evil purpose ; and, except where God’s restraining grace does intervene and interrupt the opportunity, by interposition of ditferent and eross accidents to serve other ends of Providence, no man easily is fond of wickedness, but he shall receive enough to ruin him. Indeed, Nero and Julian, both witty men and powerful, desired to have been magicians, and could not : and although, pos- sibly, the devil would have corresponded with them, who yet were already his own, in all degrees of security; yet God permitted not that, lest they might have understood new ways of doing despite to martyrs and afflicted Christians. And it concerns us not to tempt God, or invite a forward enemy ; for as we are sure the devil is ready to promote all vicious desires, and bring them out to execution ; so we are not sure, that God will not permit him : and he that desires to be undone, and cares not to be prevented by God’s restraining grace, shall find his ruin in the folly of his own desires, and become wretched by his own election. Judas, hearing of this congregation of the priests, went and offered to betray his Lord, and made a covenant, the price of which was “ thirty pieces of silver ;” and he returned. 11. It is not intimated in the history of the life of Jesus, that Judas had any malice against the person of Christ ; for when, afterwards, he saw the matter was to end in the death of his Lord, he re- pented : but a base and unworthy spirit of covetous- ness possessed him ; and the relics of indignation, for missing the price of the ointment which the holy Magdalen had poured upon h'is feet, burnt in his bowels, with a secret, dark, melancholic fire, and made an eruption into an act, which all ages of the world could never parallel. They appointed him for hire thirty pieces, and some say, that every piece did in value equal ten ordinary current deniers ; and so Judas was satisfied, by receiving the worth of the three hundred pence, at which he valued the nard pistic. But hereafter, let no Christian be ashamed to be despised and undervalued ; for he will hardly meet so great reproach, as to have so 300 CONSIDERATIONS OF SOME ACCIDENTS, &c. Part III. disproportioned a price set upon his life, as was upon the holy J esus. St. Mary Magdalen thought it not good enough to anneal his sacred feet; Judas thought it a sufficient price for his head : for cove- tousness aims at base and low purchases, whilst holy love is great and comprehensive as the bosom of heaven, and aims at nothing that is less than in- finite. The love of God is a holy fountain, limpid and pure, sweet and salutary, lasting and eternal : the love of money is a vertiginous pool, sucking all into it to destroy it; it is troubled and uneven, giddy and unsafe, serving no end but its own, and that, also, in a restless and uneasy motion. The love of God spends itself upon him, to receive again the reflections of grace and benediction : the love of money spends all its desires upon itself, to purchase nothing but unsatisfying instruments of exchange, or supernumerary provisions, and ends in dissatis- faction, and emptiness of spirit, and a bitter curse. St. Mary Magdalen was defended by her Lord against calumny, and rewarded with an honourable mention to all ages of the . church : besides the “ unction from above,” which she shortly after re- ceived, to consign her to crowns and sceptres : but Judas was described in the Scripture, the book of life, with the black character of death ; he was dis- graced to eternal ages, and presently after acted his own traged)^ with a sad and ignoble death. 12. Now, all things being fitted, our blessed Lord sends two disciples to prepare the passover, that he might fulfil the law of Moses, and pass from thence to institutions evangelical, and then fulfil hiis suffer- ings. Christ gave them a sign to guide them to the house, “ a man bearing a pitcher of water by which some, that delight in mystical significa- tions, say was typified the sacrament of baptism : meaning, that although, by occasion of the paschal solemnity, the holy eucharist was first instituted, yet it was afterwards to be applied to practice according to the sense of this accident : only baptized persons were apt suscipients of the other more perfective rite, as the taking nutriment supposes persons born into the world, and within the common conditions of human nature. But, in the letter, it was an instance of the Divine omniscience, who could pronounce concerning accidents at distance, as if they were present : and yet also, like the provision of the colt to ride on, it was an instance of Providence, and se- curity of all God’s sons for their portion of temporals. Jesus had not a lamb of his own, and possibly no money in the bags to buy one : and yet Providence was his guide, and the charity of a good man was his proveditore, and he found excellent conveniences in the entertainments of a hospitable good man, as if he had dwelt in Ahab’s ivory house, and had had the riches of Solomon, and the meat of his household. THE PRAYER. I. O holy King of Sion, eternal Jesus, who, with great humility and infinite love, didst enter into the holy city, riding upon an ass, that thou mightest verify the predictions of the prophets, and give example of meekness, and of the gentle and paternal government which the eternal Father laid upon thy shoulders ; be pleased, dearest Lord, to enter into my soul with triumph, trampling over all thine enemies : and give me grace to en- tertain thee with joy and adoration, with abjec- tion of my own desires, with lopping otf all my superfluous branches of a temporal condition, and spending them in the offices of charity and reli- gion, and divesting myself of all my desires, lay- ing them at thy holy feet, that I may bear the yoke and burden of the Lord with alacrity, with love, and the wonders of a satisfied and triumphant spirit. Lord, enter in, and take possession ; and thou, to whose honour the very stones would give testimony, make my stony heart an instru- ment of thy praises ; let me strew thy way with flowers of virtue, and the holy rosary of Christian graces : and, by thy aid and example, let us also triumph over all our infirmities and hostilities, and then lay our victories at thy feet, and at last follow' thee into thy heavenly Jerusalem with palms in our hands, and joy in our hearts, and eternal acclamations on our lips, rejoicing in thee, and singing hallelujahs in a happy eternity to thee, O holy King of Sion, eternal Jesus. Amen. II. 0 blessed and dear Lord, who w'ert pleased to per- mit thyself to be sold to the assemblies of evil persons for a vile price by one of thy owm ser- vants, for whom thou hadst done so great favours, and hadst designed a crown and a throne to him, and he turned himself into a sooty coal, and en- tered into the portion of evil angels ; teach us to value thee above all the joys of men, to prize thee at an estimate beyond all the w^ealth of na- ture, to buy wisdom, and not to sell it, to part with all, that we may enjoy thee : and let no temptation abuse our understandings, no loss vex us into impatience, no frustration of hope fill us with indignation, no pressure of calamitous acci- dents make us angry at thee, the fountain of love and blessing, no covetousness transport us into the suburbs of hell, and the regions of sin ; but make us to love thee as well as ever any creature loved thee, that we may never bilrn in any fires but of a holy love, nor sink in any inundation but what proceeds from penitential show'ers, and suffer no violence but of implacable desires to live with thee, and, when thou callest us, to suffer with thee, and for thee. III. Lord, let me never be betrayed by myself, or any violent accident and importunate temptation ; let me never be sold for the vile price of temporal gain, or transient pleasure, or a pleasant dream ; but, since thou hast bought me wdth a price, even then wLen thou w^ert sold thyself, let me never be separated from thy possession. I am thine. Sect. XV. OF JESUS’S WASHING THE DISCIPLES’ FEET. 301 bought with a price ; I^ord, save me ; and in the day when thou bindest up thy jewels, remember, Lord, that I cost thee as dear as any, and therefore cast me not into the portion of Judas ; but let me walk, and dwell, and bathe in the field of thy blood, and pass from hence, pure and sanctified, into the society of the elect apostles, receiving my part with them, and my lot in the communi- cations of thy inheritance, O gracious Lord and dearest Saviour, Jesus. Amen. Considerations upon the Washing of the Disciples' Feet by Jesus, and his Sermon of Humility J 1. The holy Jesus went now to eat his last paschal supper, and to finish the work of his legation, and to fulfil that part of the law of Moses in every of its smallest and most minute particularities, in which also the actions were significant of spiritual duties : which we may transfer from the letter to the spirit in our own instances, that as Jesus ate the paschal lamb with a staff in his hand, with his loins girt, with sandals on his feet, in great haste, with unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs : so we also should do all our services according to the significa- tion of these symbols, leaning upon the cross of J esus for a staff, and bearing the rod of his govern- ment, with loins girt with angelical chastity, with shoes on our feet, that so we may guard and have custody over our affections, and “ be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,” eating in haste, as becomes persons “hungering and thirsting after righteousness,” doing the work of the Lord zealously and fervently, without the leaven of malice and secular interest, with bitter herbs of self-denial and mortification of our sensual and inordinate desires. The sense and mystery of the whole act, with all its circumstances, is. That we obey all the sanctions of the Divine law, and that every part of our religion be pure and peaceable, chaste and obedient, confi- dent in God and diffident in ourselves, frequent and zealous, humble and resigned, just and charitable ; and there will not easily be wanting any just circum- stance to hallow and consecrate the action. 2. When the holy Jesus had finished his last Mosaic rite, he descends to give example of the first fruit of evangelical graces ; “ he rises from supper, lays aside his garment” like a servant, and, with all the circumstances of an humble ministry, “ washes the feet of his disciples,’”^ beginning at the first, St. Peter, until he came to Judas, the traitor ; that we might, in one scheme, see a rare conjunction of charity and humility, of self-denial and indifferency, represented by a person glorious and great, their Lord and Master, sad and troubled. And he chose to wash their feet‘s rather than their head, that he might have the opportunity of a more humble posture, and a more apt signification of his charity. Thus God lays every thing aside, that he may serve his ^ Ad Nuin. 16. ^ AolctQlov f.K TrpwTou fJLE'rauEVfXEvo^ ciWou a'K aXXoi/, 'LlfXUlVO’i, £OJ§ ISLoW cj)0V7]0^. — Nonn. IJch'CO pedes potius quam manus et caput : quia inlavan- dis pedibus, et aftectuosior est gestus humilitatis, et propin- servants: heaven stoops to earth, and one abyss calls upon another, and the miseries of man, which were next to infinite, are excelled by a mercy equal to the immensity of God. And this washing of their feet, which was an accustomed civility and entertainment of honoured strangers at the beginning of their meal, Christ deferred to the end of the paschal supper, that it might be the preparatory to the se- cond, which he intended should be festival to all the world. St. Peter was troubled that the hands of his Lord should wash his servants’ feet, those hands which had opened the eyes of the blind, and cured lepers, and healed all diseases, and, when lift up to heaven, were omnipotent, and could restore life to dead and buried persons ; he counted it a great in- decency for him to suffer it ; but it was no more than was necessary, for they had but lately been earnest in dispute for precedency ; and it was of itself so apt to swell into tumour and inconvenience, that it was not to be cured but by some prodigy of example and miracle of humility, which the holy Jesus offered to them in this express, calling them to learn some great lesson; a lesson which God descended from heaven to earth, from riches to poverty, from essential innocence to the disreputation of a sinner, from a master to a servant, to learn us, that is, that we should esteem ourselves but just as we are, low, sinful, miserable, needy, and unworthy. It seems it is a great thing that man should come to have just and equal thoughts of himself, that God used such powerful arts to transmit this lesson, and engrave it in the spirits of men ; and if the receipt fails, we are eternally lost in the mists of vanity, and enter into the condition of those angels, whom pride transformed and spoiled into the condition of devils ; and upon consideration of this great example, Guericus, a good man, cried out, “ Thou hast over- come, O Lord, thou hast overcome my pride ; this example hath mastered me ; I deliver myself up into thy hands, never to receive liberty or exaltation but in the condition of thy humblest servant.” 3. And to this purpose St. Bernard hath an affec- tionate and devout consideration, saying, “ That some of the angels, as soon as they were created, had an ambition to become like God, and to aspire into the throne which God had appointed to the holy Jesus in eternal ages. When God created man, presently the devil rubbed his leprosy upon him, and he would needs be like God too, and Satan promised him that he should. As the evil angels would have been like to God in power and majesty, so man would have been like him in knowledge, and have imitated the wisdom of the eternal Father. But man had the fate of Gehazi ; he would needs have the talent and garments of Lucifer, and he had also his plague ; he lost paradise for his pride. And now, what might befit the Son of God to do, seeing man so lost, and God so zealous of his honour ? I see (saith he) that, by occasion of me, the Father loses his creatures, for they have all aspired to be quior significatio charitatis, qua nos lavat sanguine suo a pec- catis nostris. — R upert. ^ Quomodo non humiliabitur homo sub tarn humili Deo ? — S. Bernard. 302 CONSIDERATIONS UPON Part III. like me, and are fallen into the greatest infelicities. Behold, I will go towards man in such a form, that whosoever from henceforth would become like me, shall be so, and be a gainer by it. And for this cause the Son of God came from heaven, and made himself a poor humble person, and by all the actions of his life commented upon the present discourse : ‘ Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.’ ” ® Blessed be that mercy and bounty which moved Almighty God to condescend to that so great appe- tite we had of being like him ; for now we may be like unto God, but it must be by humility, of which he hath given us an example powerful as miracles, and great as our own pride and misery. 4. And, indeed, our blessed Lord, knowing that examples are like maps and perfect schemes, in which the whole continent may at once be repre- sented to the eye to all the purposes of art and benefit, did, in the latter end of his life, draw up the dispersions and larger harvest of his precepts, bind- ing them in the bundle of great examples, and cast- ing them into actions as into sums total : for so this act of washing the feet of his own ministers, and then dying for them, and for all his enemies, did preach the three great sums of evangelical perfec- tion with an admirable energy and abbreviature ; humility, and charity, and sufferings, being to Chris- tianity as the body, and the soul, and the spirit, are to the whole man. For no man brings a sad funeral into the theatre to make his spectators merry, nor can well preach chastity in the impurity of the bordelli, or persuade temperance when himself is full of wine and luxury,*^ and enters into the baths to boil his undigested meat, that he may return to his second supper, and breathes forth impure belch- ings together with his homily : a poor eremite, or a severely-living philosopher, into whose life his own precepts have descended, and his doctrine is mingled with his soul, mingles also effect and virtue with homilies, and incorporates his doctrine in the hearts of his disciples. And this the holy Jesus did in his own person, bearing the burden first upon his own shoulders, that we may, with better alacrity, undergo what our blessed Lord bears with us, and for us. But that we may the better understand what our blessed Lord designed to us in this lecture, let us consider the proper acts of humility which integrate the virtue. 5. The first is, “ Christ’s humble man thinks meanly of himself and there is great reason every man should. For his body is but rottenness and infirmity covered with a fair mantle, a dunghill overcast with snow ; and if we consider sadly, that from trees and plants come oil, balsam, wine, spices, and aromatic odours, and that from the sinks of our body no such sweet or salutary emanations are ob- served, we may at least think it unreasonable to boast our beauty, which is nothing but a clear and well-coloured skin, which every thing in the world can spoil ; or our strength, which an ague tames ^ Matt. xi. 29. f Turgidus hie epulis, atque albo ventre lavatur, Gutture sulphureas lente exhalante Mephites. Pers. Sat. 3. into the infirmities of a child, and in which we are excelled by a bull; or any thing of our body, which is nothing but an unruly servant of the soul, marked with characters of want and dependence, and begging help from all the elements, and, upon a little disturbance, growing troublesome to itself by its own impurities. And yet there is no reason in respect of the soul for any man to exalt himself above his brother ; because all reasonable souls are equal ; and that one is wise, and another is foolish or less learned, is by accident and extrinsic causes : God at first makes all alike ; but an indisposed body, or an inopportune education, or evil customs, superinduce variety and difference. And if God discerns a man from his brother by distinction of gifts, it alters not the case ; still the man hath no- thing of himself that can call him excellent : it is as if a wall, upon which the sun reflects, should boast itself against another that stands in the shadow. Greater glory is to be paid to God for the discerning gifts ; but to take any of it to ourselves, and rise higher than our brother, or advance our own opinion, is as if a man should be proud of being in debt, and think it the greater excellency that he is charged with heavier and more severe accounts. 6. This act consists not in declamations and forms of satire? against ourselves, saying, I am a miserable, sinful creature ; I am proud, or covetous, or ignorant; for many men say so, that are not willing to be thought so. Neither is humility a virtue made up of wearing old clothes, or doing servile and mean employments by voluntary under- taking, or of sullen gestures, or demiss behaviour, and artifice of lowly expressions : for these may become snares to invite and catch at honour; and then they are collateral designs of pride, and direct actions of hypocrisy. But it consists in a true un- derstanding of our own condition, and a separating our own nothing from the good we have received, and giving to God all the glory, taking to our- selves all the shame and dishonour due to our sinful condition. He that thinks himself truly miserable and vilified by sin, hates it perfectly ; and he that knows himself to be nothing, cannot be exalted in himself : and whatsoever is besides these two ex- tremes of a natural nothing and a superadded sin, must be those good things we have received, which, because they derive from God, must make all their returns thither. But this act is of greater difficulty in persons pious, full of gifts, and eminent in graces, who, being fellow-workers together with God, some- times grow tacitly, and without notice, given to con- fide in themselves, and with some freer fancy ascribe too much of the good action to their own choice and diligence, and take up their crowns, which lie at the foot of the throne, and set them upon their own heads. For a sinner to desire to be esteemed a sinner, is no more humility, than it is for the son of a ploughman to confess his father ; but, indeed, it is hard for a man to be cried up for a saint, to s Auferantur omnia figmenta verborum, cessent simulati gestus verum humilem patientia ostendit. — S. Hier. Sect. XV. CHRIST’S SERMON OF HUMILITY. walk upon the spire of glory, and to have no ad- herence or impure mixtures of vanity grow upon the outside of his heart. All men have not such heads as to walk in great heights, without giddiness and unsettled eyes : Lucifer, and many angels, walking upon the battlements of heaven, grew top-heavy, and fell into the state of devils ; and the father of the Christian eremites, St. Antony,^ was frequently at- tempted by the devil, and solicited to vanity, the devil usually making fantastic noises to be heard before him, “ Make room for the saint and servant of God but the good man knew Christ’s voice to be a low base of humility, and that it was the noise of hell that invited to complacencies and vanity ; and therefore took the example of the apostles, who, in the midst of the greatest reputation and spiritual advancements, were dead unto the world, and seemed to live in a state of separation. For, the true stating our own question, and knowing ourselves, must needs represent us set in the midst of infinite im- perfections, laden with sins, choked with the noises of a polluted conscience, persons fond of trifles, neglecting objects fit for wise men, full of ingrati- tude, and all such things, which in every man else we look upon as scars and deformities, and which use to single out, and take one alone as sufficient to disgrace and disrepute all the excellencies of our neighbour ; but, if we would esteem them with the same severity in ourselves, and remember with how many such objections our little felicities are covered, it would make us charitable in our censures, com- passionate and gentle to others, apt to excuse, and as ready to support their weaknesses, and in all accidents and chances to ourselves to be content and thankful, as knowing the worst of poverty and in- convenience to be a mercy, and a splendid fortune, in respect of our demerits. I have read, that “ when the duke of Candia had voluntarily entered into the incommodities of a religious poverty and retirement, he was one day spied and pitied by a lord of Italy, who, out of tenderness, wished him to be more careful and nutritive of his person. The good duke answered, ‘ Sir, be not troubled, and think not that I am ill provided of conveniences ; for I send a harbinger before, who makes my lodg- ings ready, and takes care that I be royally enter- tained.’ The lord asked him, who was his har- binger ? He answered, ‘ The knowledge of myself, and the consideration of what I deserve for my sins, which is eternal torments ; and when, with this knowledge, I arrive at my lodging, how unprovided soever I find it, methinks it is ever better than I de- serve.’ ” The sum of this meditation consists in believing, and considering, and reducing to practice those thoughts, that we are nothing of ourselves, that we have nothing of our own, that we have re- ceived more than ever we can discharge, that we have added innumerable sins, that we can call nothing our own but such things which we are ^ S. Hier. in Vita S. Anton. ' Ama nesciri et pro nihilo reputari. — Gerson. Appetere de humilitate laudem humilitatis non est virtus, serl subversio. Quid enim perversum magis aut indignius, quain ut inde velis haberi melior, unde tibi videris deterior. — S. Bernard. 3oa ashamed to own, and such things which are aj)t to ruin us. If we do nothing contrary to the purpose and hearty persuasion of such thoughts, then we think meanly of ourselves ; and, in order to it, we may make use of this advice, to let no day pass without some sad recollection and memory of some- what which may put us to confusion, and mean opinion of ourselves ; either call to mind the worst of our sins, or the indiscreetest of our actions, or the greatest of our shame, or the uncivilest of our aflfronts — any thing to make us descend lower, and kiss the foot of the mountain. And this considera- tion, applied also to every tumour of spirit as soon as it rises, may possibly allay it. 7. Secondly, “ Christ’s humble man bears con- tumelies evenly and sweetly, and desires not to be honoured by others ^ he chooses to do those things that deserve honour and a fair name ; but then eats not of those fruits himself, but transmits them to the use of others and the glories of God. This is a certain consequence of the other ; for he that truly disesteems himself, is content that others should do so too ; and he who, with some regret and im- patience, hears himself scorned or undervalued, hath not acquired the grace of humility : which Sera- pion, in Cassian, noted to a young person, who per- petually accused himself with the greatest sem- blances of humility, but was impatient when Sera- pion reproved him.^ “ Did you hope that I would have praised your humility, and have reputed you for a saint? It is a strange perverseness, to desire others to esteem highly of you for that in which to yourself you seem most unworthy.” He that in- quires into the faults of his own actions, requiring them that saw them to tell him in what he did amiss, not to learn the fault, but to engage them to praise it, cozens himself into pride, and makes humility the instrument. And a man would be ashamed, if he were told that he used stratagems for praise ; but so glorious a thing is humility, that pride, to hide her own shame, puts on the other’s vizor ; it being more to a proud man’s purposes to seem humble, than to be so. And such was the cynic whom Lucian derided, because that one searching his scrip, in expectation to have found in it mouldy bread, or old rags, he discovered a bale of dice, a box of perfumes, and the picture of his fair mistress. Carisianus walked in his gown in the feast of Saturn, and, when all Rome was let loose in wantonness, he put on the long robe of a senator, and a severe person; and yet nothing was more lascivious than he.^ But the devil, pride, prevails sometimes upon the spirit of lust. Hu- mility neither directly, nor by consequence, seeks for praise, and suffers it not to rest upon its own pavement, but it reflects it all upon God, and re- ceives all lessenings and instruments of affront and disgrace, that mingle not with sin or indecencies, more willingly than panegyrics. When others have Est qui nequiter humiliat se, et interiova ejus sunt plena dolo. — Ecclus. xii. 11. ' Nil lascivius est Cavisiano; In Satuinalibus ambulat togatus. — Mart. 304 CONSIDERATIONS UPON Part III. their desires, thou not thine ; the sayings of another are esteemed, thine slighted ; others ask and ob- tain, thou beggest and art refused ; they are cried up, thou disgraced and hissed at ; and, while they are employed, thou art laid by, as fit for nothing ; or an unworthy person commands thee, and rules thee like a tyrant; he reproves thee, suspects thee, reviles thee ; canst thou bear this sweetly, and en- tertain the usage as thy just portion, and as an ac- cident most fit and proper to thy person and con- dition ? Dost thou not raise theatres to thyself, and take delight in the suppletories of thy own good opinion, and the flatteries of such whom thou en- dearest to thee, that their praising thee should heal the wounds of thine honour by an imaginary and fantastic restitution? He that is not content and patient in affronts, hath not yet learned humility of the holy Jesus. 8. Thirdly, As Christ’s humble man is content in affronts, and not greedy of praise ; so, when it is presented to him, he takes no contentment in it; and, if it be easy to want praise when it is denied, yet it is harder not to be delighted with it when it is offered. But there is much reason that we should put restraints upon ourselves, lest, if we be praised without desert, we find a greater judgment of God ; or, if we have done well, and received praise for it, we lose all our reward, which God hath deposited for them that “ receive” not “ their good things in this life.” For “ as silver is tried in the melter, and gold in the crucible, so is a man tried in the mouth of him that praises him :” that is, he is either clarified from his dross, by looking upon the praise as a homily to teach, and an instrument to invite his duty ; or else, if he be already pure, he is consolidated, strengthened in the sobriety of his spirit, and retires himself closer into the strengths and securities of humility. Nay, this step of hu- mility uses, in very holy persons, to be enlarged to a delight in affronts and disreputation in the world. Now I begin to be Christ’s disciple,” said Igna- tius the martyr, when, in his journey to Rome, he suffered perpetual revilings and abuse. St. Paul “ rejoiced in his infirmities and reproach and all the apostles at Jerusalem went from the tribunal, “ rejoicing that they were esteemed worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.” “ This is an excel- lent condition and degree of humility. But I choose to add one that is less, but, in all persons, necessary. 9. Fourthly: “ Christ’s humble man is careful never to speak any thing that may redound to his own praise,” unless it be with a design of charity or duty, that either God’s glory, or the profit of his neighbour, be concerned in it ; but never speaking with a design to be esteemed learned or honourable. St. Arsenius had been tutor to three Ceesars, Theo- dosius, Arcadius, and Honorius ; but afterwards, when he became religious, no word escaped him that might represent and tell of his former great- ness: and it is observable, concerning St. Jerome, ^ Tanta enim consideratione trepidat (David,) lie aut de his in quibus laudatur, et non sunt, majus Dei judicium in- that although he was of noble extraction, yet, in all his own writings, there is not the smallest intima- tion of it. This I desire to be understood only to the sense and purposes of humility, and that we have no designs of vanity and fancy in speaking learnedly, or recounting our exterior advantages ; but if either the profit of our brother, or the glory of God, if either there be piety or charity in the design, it is lawful to publish all those excellencies with which God hath distinguished us from others. The young marquess of Castilion, being to do pub- lic exercise in his course of philosophy, made it a case of conscience whether he were bound to dis- pute his best, fearing lest vanity might transport him in the midst of those praises, which his col- legiates might give him. It was an excellent con- sideration in the young gentleman : but, in actions civil and humane, since the danger is not so imme- diate, and a little complacency, becoming the instru- ment of virtue, and encouragement of studies, may, with like care, be referred to God, as the giver, and celebrate his praises; he might, with more safety, have done his utmost, it being, in some sense, a duty to encourage others, to give account of our graces and our labours, and all the appendant vanity may quickly be suppressed. A good name may give us opportunity of persuading others to the dut)^ espe- cially in an age in which men choose their doctrines by the men that preach them : and St. Paul used his liberty when he was zealous for his Corinthian disciples, but restrained himself when it began to make reflections upon his own spirit. But although a good name be necessary, and in order to such good ends whither it may serve, it is lawful to de- sire it ; yet a great name, and a pompous honour, and secular greatness, hath more danger in it to ourselves, than, ordinarily, it can have of benefit to others ; and although a man may use the greatest honours to the greatest purposes, yet ordinary per- sons may not safely desire them : because it will be found very hard to have such mysterious and ab- stracted considerations, as to separate all our proper interest from the public end. To which I add this consideration. That the contempt of honour, and the instant pursuit of humility, is more effective of the ghostly benefit of others, than honours and great dignities can be, unless it be rarely and very acci- dentally. 10. If we need any new incentives to the prac- tice of this grace, I can say no more, but that humility is truth, and pride is a lie : that the one glorifies God, the other dishonours him ; humility makes men like angels, pride makes angels to be- come devils ; that pride is folly, humility is the temper of a holy spirit and excellent wisdom ; that humility is the way to glory, pride to ruin and con- fusion : humility makes saints on earth, pride un- does them : humility beatifies the saints in heaven, and “ the elders throw their crowns at the foot of the throne ; ” pride disgraces a man among all the societies of earth : God loves one, and Satan solicits veniat : aut de his in quibus laudatur, et sunt, competens proe- mium perdat. — S. Greg. " Acts V. 41. Sect. XV. CHRIST’S SERMON OF ITUMIUTY. 30:j the cause of the other, and promotes his own in- terest in it most of all. And there is no one grace, in which Christ propounded himself imitable so signally as in this of meekness and humility : for the enforcing of which he undertook the condition of a servant, and a life of poverty, and a death of disgrace ; and washed the feet of his disciples, and even of Judas himself, that his action might he turned into a sermon to preach this duty, and to make it as eternal as his own story. THE PRAYER. O holy and eternal Jesus, who wert pleased to lay aside the glories and incomprehensible majesty, which clothed thy infinity from before the begin- ning of creatures, and didst put on a cloud upon thy brightness, and wert invested with the impure and imperfect broken robe of human nature, and didst abate those splendours which broke through the veil, commanding devils not to publish thee, and men not to proclaim thy excellencies, and the apostles not to reveal those glories of thine, which they discovered encircling thee, upon mount Tabor, in thy transfiguration, and didst, by per- petual homilies, and symbolical mysterious ac- tions, as with deep characters, engrave humility into the spirits of thy disciples, and the discipline of Christianity; teach us to approach near to these, thy glories, which thou hast so covered with a cloud, that we might, without amazement, behold thy excellencies ; make us to imitate thy gracious condescensions ; take from us all vanity and fantastic complacencies in our own persons or actions ; and, when there arises a reputation consequent to the performance of any part of our duty, make us to reflect the glory upon thee, suf- fering nothing to adhere to our own spirits but shame at our own imperfection, and thankfulness to thee for all thy assistances : let us never seek the praise of men from unhandsome actions, from flatteries and unworthy discourses, nor entertain the praise with delight, though it proceed from better principles ; but fear and tremble, lest we deserve punishment, or lose a reward, which thou hast deposited for all them that seek thy glory, and despise their own, that they may imitate the example of their Lord. Thou, 0 Lord, didst triumph over sin and death ; subdue, also, my proud understanding, and my prouder affections, and bring me under thy yoke ; that I may do thy work, and obey my superiors, and be a servant of all my brethren in their necessities, and esteem myself inferior to all men by a deep sense of my own unworthiness, and in all things may obey thy laws, and conform to thy precedents, and enter into thine inheritance, 0 holy and eternal Jesus. Amen. DISCOURSE XIX. Of the Institutim and Reception of the holy Sacra- ment of the Lord’fi Supper. 1. As the sun among the stars, and man among the sublunary creatures, is the most eminent and noble, the prince of the inferiors, and their measure, or their guide ; so is this action among all the instances of religion : it is the most perfect and consummate, it is an union of mysteries, and a consolidation of duties; it joins God and man, and confederates all the societies of men in mutual com- plexions, and the entertainments of an excellent charity ; it actually performs all that could be ne- cessary for man, and it presents to man as great a thing as God could give ; for it is impossible any thing should be greater than himself. And when God gave his Son to the world, it could not be but he should give us all things else : and, therefore, this blessed sacrament is a consigning us to all fe- licities, because, after a mysterious and ineffable manner, we receive him, who is light and life, the fountain of grace, and the sanctifier of our secular comforts, and the author of holiness and glory. But as it was at first, so it hath been ever since ; “ Christ came into the world, and the world knew him not so Christ hath remained in the world, by the com- munication of this sacrament, and yet he is not rightly understood, and less truly valued. But Christ may say to us, as once to the woman of Sa- maria, “ Woman, if thou didst know the gift of God, and who it is that speaks to thee, thou wouldst ask him so, if w^e were so wise, or so fortunate, to know the excellency of this gift of the Lord, it would fill us full of wonder and adoration, joy and thankfulness, great hopes and actual felicities, mak- ing us heirs of glory, by the great additions and present increment of grace. 2. “After supper Jesus took bread, and blessed it,” and made it to be a heavenly gift : he gave them “ bread,” and told them it was “ his body ;” that body, which was broken for the redemption of man, for the salvation of the world. St. Paul calls it “ bread,” even after consecration ; “ the bread which we break, is it not the communication of the body of Christ ?” ^ So that, by Divine faith, we are taught to express our belief of this mystery, in these w^ords : The bread, when it is consecrated and made sacra- mental, is the body of our Lord ; and the fraction and distribution of it is the communication of that body, which died for us upon the cross. He that doubts of either of the parts of this proposition, must either think Christ was not able to verify his word, and to make “bread,” by his benediction, to become to us to be “ his body ;” or that St. Paul did not well interpret and understand this mystery, when he called it “ bread.” Christ reconciles them both, calling himself “ the bread of life and if we be offended at it, because it is “ alive,” and therefore less apt to become food, we are invited to it because it is “ bread ;” and if the sacrament, to others, seem * 1 Cor. X. 16. VOL. I. X 30G OF THE INSTITUTION AND Part III. less mysterious, beeause it is “ bread,” we are heightened in our faith and reverence, because it is “ life the bread of the sacrament is the life of our soul, and the body of our Lord is now conveyed to us, by being the bread of the sacrament. And if we consider how easy it is to faith, and how impossible it seems to curiosity, we shall be taught confidence and modesty ; a resigning our understanding to the voice of Christ and his apostles, and yet expressing our own articles, as Christ did, in indefinite signifi- cations. And, possibly, it may not well consist with our duty to be inquisitive into the secrets of the kingdom, which we see, by plain event, hath di- vided the church almost as much as the sacrament hath united it, and which can only serve the pur- poses of the school, and of evil men, to make questions for that, and Tactions for these, but pro- mote not the ends of a holy life, obedience, or charity. 3. Some so observe the literal sense of the words, that they understand them also in a natural; some so alter them, by metaphors and preternatural sig- nifications, that they will not understand them at all in a proper. We see it, we feel it, we taste it, and we smell it to be bread ; and, by philosophy, we are led into a belief of that substance, whose accidents these are, as we are to believe that to be fire, which burns, and flames, and shines : but Christ also affirmed, concerning it, “ This is my body and if faith can create an assent as strong as its object is infallible, or can be as certain in its con- clusion, as sense is certain in its apprehensions, we must, at no hand, doubt but that it is Christ’s body. Let the sense of that be what it will, so that we believe those words, and (whatsoever that sense is which Christ intended) that we no more doubt in our faith than we do in our sense ; then our faith is not reprovable. It is hard to do so much violence to our sense, as not to think it “ bread but it is more unsafe to do so much violence to our faith, as ^ Acceptum panem et distributum discipulis corpus suum ilium fecit, Hoc est corpus meum, dicondo, id est, figura cor- poris mei. Figura autem non fuisset, nisi veritatis esset cor- pus. — Tertul. lib. iv. contr. Marcion. c. 40. Quod si quicquid ingreditur in os, in ventrem abit, et in secessum ejicitur, et ille cibus qui sanctificatur per verbum Dei perquo obsecrationem, juxta id quod habet materiale, in ventrem abit, et in secessum ejicitur, &c. et hsec quidem de typico symbolicoque corpore.— Origen. in c. 15. S. Matt. Ta crvfxjSoXa tov croj^iaTO^ tOv SEcnroTLKOv kul tov a'ifxa'ro^ fXS.Ta T7]V k'TTLKXl'lGLV £7ri/3dXA.ETat, KUL £T£pa y'lVi'TCU, aW' ovK oIkelci^ i^LCTaTaL (pversu)^' /jlIvel yap kirl 'rrjs 'irpo'rtpa^ ov. de Cceiia Dom. Sect. XV. RECEPTION OF THE SACRAMENT. 309 that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him K Christ in his temple and his resting-place, and the worthy communicant in sanctuary and a place of protection : and every holy soul having feasted at his table, may say, as St. Paul, “ I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”*' So that, “ to live is Christ * “ Christ is our life,” ^ and he dwells in the body and the spirit of every one that eats Christ’s flesh and drinks his blood. Happy is that man that sits at the table of angels, that puts his hand into the dish with the King of all the creatures, and feeds upon the eternal Son of God ; joining things below with things above, heaven with earth, life with death ; “ that mortality might be swallowed up of life,” and sin be destroyed by the inhabitation of its greatest conqueror. And now I need not enumerate any particulars : since the Spirit of God hath ascertained us, that Christ enters into our hearts, and takes possession, and abides there ; that we are made temples and celes- tial mansions ; that we are all one with our Judge, and with our Redeemer ; that our Creator is bound unto his creature with bonds of charity, which no- thing can dissolve, unless our owm hands break them; that man is united with God, and our weak- ness is fortified by his strength, and our miseries wrapped up in the golden leaves of glory. 2. Hence it follows, that the sacrament is an instru- ment of reconciling us to God, and taking olf the remanent guilt and stain, and obligations of our sins. “ This is the blood that was shed for you, for the remission of sins. For there is no condemna- tion to them that are in Christ Jesus.” And such are all they who worthily eat the flesh of Christ ; by receiving him, they more and more receive re- mission of sins, redemption, sanctification, wisdom, and certain hopes of glory. For as the soul, touch- ing and united to the flesh of Adam, contracts the stain of original misery and imperfection ; so much the rather shall the soul, united to the flesh of Christ, receive pardon and purity, and all those blessed emanations, from our union with the second Adam. But this is not to be understood, as if the first beginnings of our pardon were in the holy communion; for then a man might come, with his impurities along with him, and lay them on the holy table, to stain and pollute so bright a presence. No; first, repentance must “ prepare the ways of the Lord : ” and, in this holy rite, those words of our Lord are verified, “ He that is justified, let him be justified still ;” that is, here he may receive the increase of grace ; and as it grows, so sin dies, and we are reconciled by nearer unions and approxima- tions to God. 9. Thirdly : The holy sacrament is the pledge of glory and the earnest of immortality ; * for when we have received him who hath “ overcome death, and e John vi. 56. h Qal. ii. 20. ' Phil- i- 21. k Col. iii. 4. ’ ’ Adavaaias cftap/uLaKov. — S. Ignat. Ep. ad Ephes. Spes resurrectionis.— Optat. Milevit. lib. vi. contra Parmen. Qui mandncat carnem meam, habet vitam seternain, et re- suscitabo eum in iiovissimo die.— S. John vi. 54. Colos iii. 3. ” S. Cyril. Alex. lib. iv. in Job. c. 14. henceforth dies no more,” he becomes to us like the tree of life in paradise ; and the consecrated sym- bols are like the seeds of an eternal duration, spring- ing up in us to eternal life, nourishing our spirits with grace, which is but the prologue and the in- fancy of glory, and diflers from it only as a child from a man. But God first raised up his Son to life, and by giving him to us, hath also consigned us to the same state ; for “ our life is hid with Christ, in God.” “ When we lay down, and cast aside the impurer robes of flesh, they are then but preparing for glory ; and if, by the only touch of Christ, bodies were redintegrate and restored to natural perfections ; how shall not we live for ever, who eat his flesh and drink his blood ? ” It is the discourse of St. Cyril." Whatsoever the Spirit can convey to the body of the church, we may expect from this sacrament ; for as the Spirit is the instru- ment of life and action, so the blood of Christ is the conveyance of his Spirit. And let all the mysterious places of holy Scripture, concerning the effects Christ communicated in the blessed sacra- ment, be drawn together in one scheme, we cannot but observe, that, although they are so expressed as that their meaning may seem intricate and involved, yet they cannot be dra\vn to any meaning at all, but it is as glorious in its sense as it is mysterious in the expression : and the more intricate they are, the greater is their purpose ; no words being apt and proportionate to signify this spiritual secret, and excellent effects of the Spirit. A veil is drawn be- fore all these testimonies, because the people were not able to behold the glory which they cover with their curtain ; and “ Christ dwelling in us,” and “ giving us his flesh to eat, and his blood to drink ; ” and “ the hiding of our life with God,” and “ the communition of the body of Christ,” and “ Christ being our life,” are such secret glories, that, as the fruition of them is the portion of the other world, so also is the full perception and understanding of them : for, therefore, God appears to us in a cloud, and his glories in a veil; that we, understanding more of it by its concealment than we can by its open face, which is too bright for our weak eyes, may, with more piety, also entertain the greatness, by these indefinite and mysterious significations, than we can by plain and direct intuitions ; which, like the sun in a direct ray, enlightens the object, but confounds the organ. 10. I should but in other words describe the same glories, if T should add. That this holy sacra- ment does enlighten the spirit of man, and clarify it with spiritual discernings ; and as he was to the two disciples at Emmaus, so also to other faithful people, “ Christ is known in the breaking of bread;” that it is a great defence against the hostilities of our ghostly enemies," this holy bread being, like the Sic et corpora nostra percipientia Eucharistiam jam non sunt corruptibilia, spem resurrectionis habentia. — Iren^. lib. iv. c. 34. ® Tanquam leones ignem spirantes recedamus ex illainensa, daemonibus facti terribiles. S. Chrys. Poculum quo inebriatur affectus fidelium.— S. Ambros. Ser. XV. in Psal. 118. 310 OF THE INSTITUTION AND Part III. cake in Gideon’s camp, overturning the tents of Midian; that it is the relief of our sorrows, the anti- dote and preservative of souls, the viand of our jour- ney, the guard and passport of our death, the wine of angels ; that it is more healthful than rhubarb, more pleasant than cassia ; that the betel and lareca of the Indians, the molyi^ or nepenthe of Pliny, the lirinon of the Persians, the balsam of Judea, the manna of Israel, the honey of Jonathan, are but weak expressions, to tell us that this is excellent above art and nature, and that nothing is good enough in philosophy to become its emblem. All these must needs fall very short of those plain words of Christ, “ This is my body.” The other may become the ecstasies of piety, the transportation of joy and wonder ; and are like the discourse of St. Peter upon mount Tabor, he was resolved to say some great thing, but he knew not what : but when we remember, that the body of our Lord and his blood is communicated to us in the bread and the chalice of blessing, we must sit down and rest our- selves, for this is, “ the mountain of the Lord,” and we can go no farther. 11. In the next place it will concern our inquiry, to consider how we are to prepare ourselves : for at the gate of life a man may meet with death ; and, although this holy sacrament be like manna, in which the obedient find the relishes of obedience ; the chaste, of purity ; the meek persons, of content and humility ; yet vicious and corrupted palates find also the gust of death and coloquintida. The Sy- barites invited their women to their solemn sacri- fices a full year before the solemnity; that they might, by previous dispositions and a long foresight, attend, with gravity and fairer order, the celebration of the rites.i And it was a reasonable answer of Pericles, to one that asked him, why he, being a philosophical and severe person, came to a wedding trimmed and adorned like a paranymph : “ I come adorned to an adorned person ;” trimmed, to a bride- groom. And we, also, if we come to the marriage of the Son with the soul, (which marriage is cele- brated in this sacred mystery,) and have not on a wedding-garment, shall be cast into outer darkness, the portion of undressed and unprepared souls. 1 2. For from this sacrament are excluded all un- baptized persons, and such who lie in a known sin, of which they have not purged themselves by the apt and proper instruments of repentance. For if the paschal lamb was not to be eaten but by persons pure and clean, according to the sanctifications of the law ; the Son of God can less endure the impurities of the spirit, than God could suffer the uncleannesses of the law. St. Paul hath given us instruction in this : “ First, let a man examine himself, and so let him eat : for he that eats and drinks unworthily, cats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”^ That is, althougli, in the P MwXu St fj.LV KaXtova-L ^toL' xaXtirov Si t’ opvatLV ’AvSpuLTi yt 3'vt]TOiaL’ dtoi St Tt iravTa ^uj/avrat.— H omer. ‘I Plutarch. Sympos. >■ 1 Cor. xi. 28, 29. ® Concil. Eliber. c. 3. t .S. Basil, de Bapt. lib. ii. c. 3. Legatur totum caput. S. Ambros. lib. vi. c. 37. in Luc. 9. Ubique mysterii ordo servatur, ut prius per reiuissionem church of Corinth, by reason of the present schism, the public discipline of the church was neglected, and every man permitted to himself ; yet, even then, no man was disobliged from his duty of private repentance, and holy preparations, to the perception of so great a mystery ; that “ the Lord’s body ” may be discerned from com- mon nutriment. Now, nothing can so unhallow and desecrate the rite, as the remanent affection to a sin, or a crime unrepented of. And self-examination is prescribed, not for itself, but in order to abolition of sin and death ; for itself is a relative term and an imperfect duty, whose very nature is in order to something beyond it. And this was, in the primitive church, understood to so much severity, that if a man had relapsed, after one public repentance, into a foul crime, he was never again readmitted to the holy communion ; and the fathers of the council of Eliberis call it a mocking and jesting at the commu- nion of our Lord, to give it once again, after a re- pentance and a relapse, and a second or third postu- lation.® And, indeed, we use to make a sport of the greatest instruments of religion, when we come to them after an habitual vice, whose face we have, it may be, wetted with a tear, and breathed upon it with a sigh, and abstained from the worst of crimes for two or three days, and come to the sacrament to be purged, and to take our rise by going a little back from our sin, that afterwards we may leap into it with more violence, and enter into its utmost angle ; this is dishonouring the body of our Lord, and de- ceiving ourselves. Christ and Belial cannot cohabit : but if we have left all our sins, and have no fond- ness of afiection towards them, if we hate tliem, (which then we shall best know when we leave them, and with complacency entertain their contra- ries,) then Christ hath washed our feet, and then he invites us to his holy supper. Hands dipped in blood, or polluted with unlawful gains, or stained with the spots of flesh, are most unfit to handle the holy body of our Lord, and minister nourishment to the soul. Christ loves not to enter into the mouth full of cursings, oaths, blasphemies, revilings, or evil speakings ; and a heart full of vain and vicious thoughts, stinks like the lake of Sodom ; he finds no rest there, and when he enters, he is vexed with the unclean conversation of the impure inhabitants, and flies from thence with the wings of a dove, that he may retire to pure and whiter habitations. St. Justin Martyr, reckoning the predispositions required of every faithful soul for the entertainment of his Lord, says, that “ it is not lawful for any to eat the eucharist, but to him that is washed in the laver of regeneration for the remission of sins, that believes Christ’s doctrine to be true, and that lives according to the discipline of the holy Jesus.”^ And therefore, St. Ambrose refused to minister the holy communion to the emperor Theodosius, ^ till, by public repeiiL peccatorum vulneribus medicina tribuatur, postea alimoiiia niensae coelestis exuberet.— Paulin, in Vit& S. Ambros. u Si dux quispiam, si consul ipse, si qui diademate ornatur indigne adeat, cohibe et coerce. Quod si ipse pellere non audes, mihi dicas, non permittam ista fieri ; animam potius tradam meam, quam Dominicum alicui corpus indigne. — S. Chrysost. horn. 83. in Matt. Sect. XV. RECEPTION OF THE SACRAMENT. 3) 1 ance, he had reconciled himself to God and the so- ciety of faithful people, after the furious and choleric rage and slaughter committed at Thessalonica : and as this act was like to cancellating and acircumval- lation of the holy mysteries, and in that sense, and so far, was a proper duty for a prelate, to whose dis- pensation the rites are committed ; so it was an act of duty to the emperor, of paternal and tender care, not of proper authority or jurisdiction, which he could not have over his prince, but yet had a care and the supravision of a teacher over him ; whose soul St. Ambrose had betrayed, unless he had repre- sented his indisposition to communicate in expres- sions of magisterial or doctoral authority and truth. For this holy sacrament is a nourishment of spiritual life, and, therefore, cannot with effect be ministered to them who are in the state of spiritual death ; it is giving a cordial to a dead man ; and, although the outward rite be ministered, yet the grace of the sacrament is not communicated ; and, therefore, it were well that they also abstained from the rite itself. For a fly can boast of as much privilege, as a wicked person can receive from this holy feast,-’^ and oftentimes pays his life for his access to for- bidden delicacies, as certainly as they. 13. It is more generally thought by the doctors of the church, that our blessed Lord administered the sacrament to Judas, although he knew he sold him to the Jews. Some others deny it, and suppose Judas departed presently after the sop given him, before he communicated.^ However it was, Christ, who was Lord of the sacraments, might dispense it as he pleased ; but we must minister and receive it according to the rules he hath since described ; but it becomes a precedent to the church in all succeeding ages, although it might also have in it something extraordinary, and apter to the first institution ; for, because the fact of Judas was secret, not yet made notorious, Christ chose rather to admit him into the rites of external communion than to separate him, with an open shame, for a fault not yet made open. For our blessed Lord did not reveal the man and his crime, till the very time of ministration, if Judas did communicate. But if Judas did not communi- cate, and that our blessed Lord gave him the sop at the paschal supper, or at the interval between it and the institution of his own, it is certain that Judas went out as soon as he was discovered, and left this part of discipline upon record. That when a crime is made public and notorious, the governors of the church, according to their power, are to deny to give the blessed sacrament, till by repentance such persons be restored.* In private sins, or sins not known by solemnities of law, or evidence of fact, good and bad are entertained in public commu- nion ; and it is not to be accounted a crime in them that minister it, because they cannot avoid it, or have not competent authority to separate persons, Exta praegusto De^im, Moror inter aras, templa perlustro omnia ; In capite regis sedeo, cum visum est mihi, Et matronarum casta delibo oscula. — Ph^edr. Fab. 80. y Negatur a Clemente Rom. v. Const, c. 16. ab Hilario, c. in Matt. Innocentio, lib. iii. de Myster. c, 13. a Ruperto, Hildebrand. Cenoman, et paucis aliis. whom tlie public act of the church hath not sepa- rated : hut if once a public separation he made, or that the fact is notorious, and the sentence of law is in such cases already declared; they that come, and he that rejects them not, both pollute the blood of the everlasting covenant. And here it is appli- cable, what God spake by the prophet: “ If thou wilt separate the precious thing from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth.” But this is wholly a matter of discipline, arbi- trary, and in the power of the church ; nothing in it of Divine commandment, but what belongs to the communicants themselves: for St. Paul reproves them that receive disorderly, but gives no orders to the Corinthian presbyters to reject any that present themselves. Neither did our blessed Lord leave any commandment concerning it, nor hath the holy Scripture given rules or measures, concerning its actual reduction to practice ; neither who are to be separated, nor for what oflences, nor by what au- thorit}% nor who is to be thejudge. And, indeed, it is a judgment that can only belong to God, who knows the secrets of hearts; the degrees of every sin, the beginnings and portions of repentance, the sincerity of purposes, by what thoughts and designs men begin to be accepted, who are hypocrites, and who are true men. But when many and common men come to judge, they are angry upon trifling mistakes and weak disputes ; they call that sin, that angers their party, or grieves their interest ; they turn charity into pride, and admonition into tyranny; they set up a tribunal, that themselves may sit higher, not that their brethren may walk more securely: and then concerning sins, in most cases, they are most incompetent judges; they do not know all their kinds ; they miscall many ; they are ignorant of the ingredient and constituent parts and circumstances ; they themselves make false measures, and give out according to them, when they please ; and when they list not, they can change the balance. When the matter is public, evident, and notorious, the man is to be admonished of his danger by the minister, but not, by him, to be forced from it : for the power of the minister of holy things is but the power of a preacher and a counsellor, of a physician and a guide ; it hath in it no coercion or violence, but what is indulged to it by human laws, and by consent, which may vary as its principle. Add to this, that the grace of God can begin the work of repentance in an instant, and in what pe- riod or degree of repentance the holy communion is to be administered, no law of God declares ; which, therefore, plainly allows it to every period, and leaves no difference, except where the discipline of the church, and the authority of the supreme power, doth intervene. For since we do not find in Scrip- ture that the apostles did drive from the communion of holy things, even those whom they delivered Nec a commuuione prohibere quenquam possumus, nisi aut sponto confessum, aut in aliquo sive seculari sive Ecclesi- astico Juv'iicio nominatum atque convictum. — S. Aug. lib. 1. Horail. 50. S. Thom. 3. p. q. 81. a. 2. ^ Jer. XV. 19. 312 OF THE INSTITUTION AND Part III. over to Satan or other censures, we are left to con- sider that, in the nature of the thing, those who are in the state of weakness and infirmity have more need of the solemn prayers of the church, and, therefore, by presenting themselves to the holy sa- crament, approach towards that ministry which is the most effectual cure ; especially since the very presenting themselves is an act of religion, and, therefore, supposes an act of repentance and faith, and other little introductions to its fair reception; and if they may be prayed for, and prayed with, why they may not also be communicated, which is the solemnity of the greatest prayer, is not yet clearly revealed. This discourse relates only to private ministry : for when I affirm, that there is no command from Christ, to all his ministers, to refuse whom they are pleased to call “ scandalous ” or “ sinners,” I intend to defend good people from the tyranny and arbi- trary power of those great companies of ministers, who, in so many hundred places, would have a ju- dicature supreme in spirituals, which would be more intolerable than if they had, in one province, twenty thousand judges of life and death. But when the power of separation and interdiction is only in some more eminent and authorized persons, who take public cognizance of causes by solemnities of law, and exercise their power but in some rare in- stances, and then also for the public interest, in which, although they may be deceived, yet they are the most competent and likely judges, much of the inconvenience, which might otherwise follow, is avoided: and then it only remains, that they con- sider, in what cases it can be a competent and a proper infliction upon sinners, to take from them that, which is the means and ministry of grace and recovery ; whether they have any warrant from Christ, or precedent in the apostles’ practice, and how far. As for the forms and usages of the primi- tive church, they were hugely different, sometimes for one cause, sometimes for another. Sometimes whole churches have been excommunicated; some- times the criminal, and all his household for his oflfcnce, as it happened in the excommunication of Andronicus and Thoas, in Synesius, in the year 411 sometimes they were absolved and restored by lay-confessors, sometimes by emperors, as it hap- pened to Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Theognis of Nice, who were absolved by Constantine, from the sentence of excommunication inflicted by the Nicene fathers ; and a monk did excommunicate Theodosius the younger. So that in this, there can be no cer- tainty to make a measure and a rule. The surest way, most agreeable to the precedents of Scripture, and the analogy of the gospel, is that, “ by the word of their proper ministry,” all sinners should be separate from the holy communion, that is, threat- ened, by the words of God, with damnation, and fearful temporal dangers, if themselves, knowing an unrepented sin, and a remanent affection to sin, to be within them, shall dare to profane that body and blood of our Lord by so impure an address. The evil is to themselves ; and if the ministers declare ^ Synes. ep. 79. this powerfully, they are acquitted. But concerning other judgments or separations, the supreme power can forbid all assembling, and, therefore, can permit them to all, and, therefore, can deny them, or grant them, to single persons; and, therefore, when he, by laws, makes separations in order to public benefit, they are to be obeyed : but it is not to be endured, that single presbyters should, upon vain pretences, erect so high a tribunal and tyranny over consciences. 14. The duty of preparation, that I here discourse of, is such a preparation as is a disposition to life ; it is not a matter of convenience or advantage, to repent of our sins before the communion ; but it is of absolute necessity, we perish if we neglect it; for we “ eat damnation,” and Satan enters into us, not Christ. And this preparation is not the act of a day or a week ; but it is a new state of life : no man, that is an habitual sinner, must come to this feast, till he hath wholly changed his course of life. And then, according as the actions of in- firmity have made less or greater invasion upon his peace and health, so are the acts of repentance to be proportioned ; in which the greatness of the pre- varications, their neighbourhood to death, or their frequent repetition, and the conduct of a spiritual man, are to give us counsel and determination. When a ravening and hungry wolf is destitute of prey, he eats the turf, and loads his stomach with the glebe he treads on ; but as soon as he finds better food, he vomits up his first load. Our secular and sensual affections are loads of earth upon the conscience ; and when we approach the table of the Lord, to eat the bread of the elect, and to drink the wine of angels, we must reject such impure adhe- sions, that holy persons, being nourished with holy symbols, may be sanctified, and receive the eternal reward of holiness. 15. But as none must come hither but they that are in the state of grace, or charity, and the love of God and their neighbours, and that the abolition of the state of sin is the necessary preparation, and is the action of years, and was not accepted as suffi- cient till the expiration of divers years by the pri- mitive discipline, and, in some cases, not till the approach of death : so there is another preparation, which is of less necessity, which supposes the state of grace, and that oil is burning in our lamps ; but yet it is a preparation of ornament, a trimming up the soul, a dressing the spirit with degrees and in- stances of piety, and progresses of perfection : and it consists in setting apart some portion of our time, before the communion, that it be spent in prayer, in meditation, in renewing the vows of holy obe- dience, in examining our consciences, in mortifying our lesser irregularities, in devotions and actions of precise religion, in acts of faith, of hope, of charity, of zeal and holy desires, in acts of eucharist or thanksgiving, of joy at the approach of so blessed an opportunity, and all the acts of virtue whatsoever, which have indefinite relation to this and to other mysteries; but yet are specially to be exercised upon this occasion, because this is the most perfect of external rites, and the most mysterious instru- '■ Theod. Hist. lib. v. 36. Baron, tom. v. A. D. 425. sect. 16. Sect. XV. RECEPTION OF THE SACRAMENT. 313 merit of sanctification and perfection. There is no time or degree to be determined in this prepara- tion; but they “ to whom much is forgiven, will love much and they, — who understand the ex- cellence and holiness of the mystery, the glory of the guest that comes to inhabit, and the indecency of the closet of their hearts, by reason of the ad- herences of impurity, the infinite benefit then de- signed, and the increase of degrees by the excel- lence of these previous acts of holiness, — will not be too inquisitive into the necessity of circumstances and measures, but do it heartily, and devoutly, and reverently, and, as much as they can, ever esteeming it necessary, that the actions of so great solemnity should by some actions of piety, attending like handmaids, be distinguished from common employ- ments, and remarked for the principal and most solemn of religious actions. The primitive church gave the holy sacrament to infants immediately after baptism,^^ and by that act transmitted this proposition. That nothing was of absolute necessity but innocency and purity from sin, and a being in the state of grace ;® other actions of religion are excellent additions to the dignity of the person and honour of the mystery ; but they were such, of which infants were not capable. The sum is this : After the greatest consociation of religious duties for pre- paration, no man can be sufficiently worthy to com- municate : let us take care that we be not unworthy, by bringing a guilt with us, or the remanent affec- tion to a sin. Est ^loriosus sane convictus Dei; Sed illi qui invitatur, non qui invisus est. 1 6. When the happy hour is come, in which the Lord vouchsafes to enter into us, and dwell with us, and be united with his servants, we must then do the same acts over again with greater earnestness and intention ; confess the glories of God and thy own unworthiness, praise his mercy with ecstasy of thanksgiving and joy, make oblation of thyself, of all thy faculties and capacities, pray, and read, and meditate, and worship : and that thou mayest more opportunely do all this, rise early to meet the Bride- groom, pray for special assistance, enter into the as- sembly of faithful people cheerfully, attend there diligently, demean thyself reverently, and, before any other meat or drink, receive the body of thy Saviour with pure hands, with holy intention, with a heart full of joy, and faith, and hope, and wonder, and eucharist. These things I, therefore, set down irregularly and without method, because, in these actions, no rule can be given to all persons ; and only such a love, and such a religion, in general, is to be recommended, which will overrun the banks, and not easily stand confined within the margent of rules, and artificial prescriptions. Love and religion are boundless, and all acts of grace, relating to the present mystery, are fit and proportioned entertain- ^ Clem. Rom. lib. viii. Constit, c. 20. Concil, Tolet. i. ■c. 11. S Aug. ep. 23. ad Bonif. et ep. 107. et lib, iv. de Trin. c. 10. ® Habentem adhuc voluntatem peccandi gravari magis dico eucharistiae perceptione quam purificari ; sed hoc de iis dico ments of our Lord, This only remember, that we are, by the mystery of “ one bread,” confederated into one body, and the communion of saints, and that the sacrifice, which we then commemorate, was designed, by our Lord, for the benefit of all his church : let us be sure to draw all faithful people into the society of the present blessing, joining, with the holy man that ministers, in prayers, and offerings of that mystery, for the benefit of all sorts of men, of Christ’s catholic church. And it weje also an excellent act of Christian communion, and agree- able to the practice of the church in all ages, to make an oblation to God for the poor ; that, as we are fed by Christ’s body, so we also should feed Christ’s body, making such returns as we can, a grain of frankincense in exchange for a province, an act of duty and Christian charity as eucharistical for the present grace, that all the body may rejoice and glory in the salvation of the Lord. 17. After thou hast received that pledge of im- mortality and antepast of glory, even the Lord’s body in a mystery, leave not thy Saviour there alone, but attend him with holy thoughts and colloquies of prayer and eucharist. It was sometime counted infamous for a woman to entertain a second love, till the body of her dead husband was dissolved into ashes, and disappeared in the form of a body. And it were well, that so long as the consecrated symbols remain within us, according to common estimate, we should keep the flame bright, and the perfume of an actual devotion burning, that our communion be not a transient act, but a permanent and lasting intercourse with our Lord. ^ But in this every man best knows his own opportunities and necessities of diversion. I only commend earnestly to practice, that every receiver should make a recollection of himself, and the actions of the day, that he improve it to the best advantage, that he show unto our Lord all the defects of his house, all his poverty and weak- nesses : and this let every man do, by such actions and devotions which he can best attend, and himself, by the advice of a spiritual man, finds of best ad- vantage. I would not make the practice of religion, especially in such irregular instances, to be an art, or a burden, or a snare, to scrupulous persons : what St. Paul said in the case of charity I say also in this ; “ He that sows plentifully shall reap plenti- fully, and he that sows sparingly shall gather” at the same rate ; “ let every man do as himself pur- poseth in his heart.” Only it were well in this sacra- ment of love we had some correspondency, and pro- portionable returns of charity and religious affections. 18. Some religious persons have moved a ques- tion, Whether it were better to communicate often or seldom ? some thinking it more reverence to those holy mysteries to come but seldom ; while others say, it is greater religion or charity to come frequently. But I suppose this question does not differ much from a dispute, Whether it is better to quos capitalia et mortalia non gravant.— Gennad. lib. iii. de Eccl. Dogmat. c. 53. ^ Male olim actum est, cum sacrificia compotationibus fini- erant. ' Aird 'TouTov yt (ftaai to fxt^oEiv iiniojxaadaL, otl ustcc to 7] toTs TTpoTtpois oivovcri^ai. 314 OF THE INSTITUTION AND Part III. pray often, or to pray seldom ? For whatsoever is commonly pretended against a frequent communion, may, in its proportion, object against a solemn prayer ; remanent affection to a sin, enmity with neighbours, secular avocations to the height of care and trouble : for these either are great indecen- cies, in order to a holy prayer ; or else, are direct irregularities, and unhallow the prayer. And the celebration of the holy sacrament is, in itself and its own formality, a sacred, solemn, and ritual prayer, in which we invocate God by the merits of Christ, expressing that adjuration, not only in words, but in actual representment and commemoration of his pas- sion. And if the necessities of the church were well considered, we should find that a daily sacrifice of prayer, and a daily prayer of sacrifice, were no more but what her condition requires : and I would to God the governors of churches would take care, that the ne- cessities of kings and kingdoms, of churches and states, were represented to God by the most solemn and efficacious intercessions ; and Christ hath taught us none greater than the praying in the virtue and celebration of his sacrifice. And this is the counsel that the church received from Ignatius : “ Hasten fre- quently to approach the eucharist, the glory of God. For when this is daily celebrated, we break the powers of Satan, who turns all his actions into hos- tilities and darts of fire.” But this concerns the ministers of religion, who, living in communities and colleges, must make religion the business of their lives, and support kingdoms, and serve the interest of kings, by the prayer of a daily sacrifice. And yet, in this ministry, the clergy may serve their own necessary affairs, if the ministration be divided into courses, as it was, by the economy and wisdom of Solomon, for the temple. 19. But concerning the communion of secular and lay persons, the consideration is something dif- ferent. St. Austin gave this answer to it: “ To re- ceive the sacrament every day, I neither praise nor reprove ; at least, let them receive it every Lord’s day.” g And this he spake to husbandmen and mer- chants. At the first commencement of Christianity, while the fervours apostolical and the calentures of infant Christendom did last, the whole assembly of faithful people communicated every day ; and this lasted in Rome and Spain until the time of St. Je- rome : ^ concerning which diligence he gives the same censure, which I now recited from St. Austin ; for it suffered inconvenience by reason of a declining piety, and the intervening of secular interests. But then it came to once a week ; and yet that was not every wdiere strictly observed.^ But that it be re- ceived once every fortnight, St. Hierome counsels very strongly to Eustochium, a holy virgin : “ Let the virgins confess their sins twice every month, or oftener ; and, being fortified with the communion of the Lord’s bod}q let them manfully fight against the devil’s forces and attempts.” A while after, it came to once a month, then once a year, then it fell from that too : till all the Christians in the west were R Gennadius, c. 54. de Eccles. Dogmat. ^ Epist. 80. ad Lucinum. ' Itaque sicut nobis licet veljejunare semper, vel semper commanded to communicate every Easter by the decree of a great council*^ above five hundred years since. But the church of England, finding that too little, hath commanded all her children to receive thrice every year at least, intending that they should come oftener ; but of this she demands an account. For it hath fared with this sacrament as with other actions of religion, which have descended from flames to still fires, from fires to sparks, from sparks to embers, from embers to smoke, from smoke to no- thing. And although the public declension of piety is such, that, in this present conjuncture of things, it is impossible men should be reduced to a daily communion ; yet that they are to communicate fre- quently is so a duty, that, as no excuse but impossi- bility can make the omission innocent, so the loss and consequent want is infinite and invaluable. 20. For the holy communion being a remem- brance and sacramental repetition of Christ’s passion, and the application of his sacrifice to us and the whole catholic church ; as they who seldom com- municate, delight not to remember the passion of our Lord, and sin against his very purpose, and one of the designs of institution ; so he cares not to re- ceive the benefits of the sacrifice, who so neglects their application, and reducing them to actual profit and reception. “ Whence came the sanctimony of the primitive Christians ? whence came their strict observation of the Divine commandments ? whence was it that they persevered in holy actions with hope and an unweary diligence ? from whence did their despising worldly things come, and living with common possession, and the distributions of an universal charity ? Whence came these, and many other excellencies, but from a constant prayer and a daily eucharist ? They who every day represented the death of Christ, every day were ready to die for Christ.” It was the discourse of an ancient and excellent person. And if we consider, this sacra- ment is intended to unite the spirits and affections of the world, and that it is diffusive and powerful to this purpose, (“ for we are one body,” saith St. Paul, “ because we partake of one bread,”) possibly we may have reason to say, that the wars of king- doms, the animosity of families, the infinite multi- tude of law suits, the personal hatreds, and the uni- versal want of charitv, which hath made the world miserable and wicked, may, in a great degree, be attributed to the neglect of this great symbol and instrument of charity. The chalice of the sacra- ment is called by St. Paul, “ the cup of blessing and if children need every day to beg blessing of their parents, if we also thirst not after this cup of blessing, blessing may be far from us. It is called “ the communication of the blood of Christ and it is not imaginable, that man should love heaven, or felicity, or his Lord, that desires not perpetually to bathe in that salutary stream, the blood of the holy Jesus, the immaculate Lamb of God. 21. But I find, that the religious fears of men are pretended a colour to excuse this irreligion. Men orare, et diem Dominicum, accepto corpore Domini, indesi- nenter celebrare gaudentibus, &c.— Idem. ^ Concil. Lat. Sect. XV. RECEPTION OP THE SACRAMENT. 315 are wicked, and not prepared, and busy, and full of cares and affairs of the world, and cannot come with due preparation ; and therefore better not come at all ; nay, men are not ashamed to say, they are at enmity with certain persons, and therefore cannot come. 1. Concerning those persons who are unpre- pared, because they are in a state of sin or un- c-hari tableness, it is true, they must not come ; but this is so far from excusing their not coming, that they increase their sin, and secure misery to them- selves, because they do not “ lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset them,” that they may come to the marriage-supper. It is as if we should excuse ourselves from the duties of charity, by saying we are uncharitable ; from giving alms, by saying we are covetous ; from chastity, by saying we are lascivious. To such men it is just that they graze with the goats, because they refuse to wash their hands, that they may come to the supper of the Lamb. 2. Concerning those that pretend cares and encumbrances of the world, if their affairs make sin and impure affections to stick upon them, they are in the first consideration ; but if their office be necessary, just, or charitable, they imitate Martha, and choose the less perfect part, when they neg- lect the offices of religion for duties economical. 3. But the other sort have more pretence and fairer virtue in their outside. They suppose, like the Persian princes, the seldomer such mysterious rites are seen, the more reverence we shall have, and they the more majesty : and they are fear- ful lest the frequent attrectation of them should make us less to value the great earnests of our redemption and immortality. It is a pious con- sideration, but not becoming them ; for it cannot be, that the sacrament be undervalued by frequent reception, without the great unworthiness of the persons, so turning God’s grace into lightness, and loathing manna : nay, it cannot be without an un- worthy communication; for he that receives wor- thily, increases in the love of God and religion, and the fires of the altar are apt to kindle our sparks into a flame ; and when Christ our Lord enters into us, and we grow weary of him, or less fond of his frequent entrance and perpetual cohabitation, it is an infallible sign we have let his enemy in, or are preparing for it. For this is the difference between secular and spiritual objects; Nothing in this world hath any pleasure in it long beyond the hope of it, for the possession and enjoyment is found so empty that we grow weary of it ; but whatsoever is spirit- ual, and in order to God, is less before we have it, but in the fruition it swells our desires, and enlarges the appetite, and makes us more receptive and for- ward in the entertainment : and therefore those acts of religion that, set us forward in time, and back- ward in affection, do declare that we have not well done our duty, but have communicated unworthily. So that the mending of our fault will answer the objection. Communicate with more devotion, and repent with greater contrition, and walk with more caution, and pray more earnestly, and meditate dili- ’ De Sac ram. lib. v. c. 4 gently, and receive with reverence and godly fear; and we shall find our affections increase together with the spiritual emolument; ever remembering that pious and wise advice of St. Ambrose, “ Re- ceive every day that which may profit thee every day. But he that is not disposed to receive it every day, is not fit to receive it every year.” ^ 22. And if, after all diligence, it be still feared that a man is not well prepared, I must say that it is a scruple, that is, a trouble beyond a doubt and without reason, next to superstition and the dreams of religion ; and it is nourished, by imagining that no duty is accepted, if it be less than perfection, and that God is busied in heaven, not only to destroy the wicked and to dash in pieces vessels of dishonour, but to “ break a bruised reed ” in pieces, and to cast the “ smoking flax” into the flames of hell. In opposition to which, we must know, that nothing makes us unprepared but an evil conscience,^" a state of sin, or a deadly act : but the lesser infirmities of our life, against which we daily strive, and for which we never have any kindness or affections, are not spots in these feasts of charity, but instruments of humility, and stronger invitations to come to those rites, which are ordained for corroboratives against infirmities of the soul, and for the growth of the spirit in the strengths of God. For those other acts of preparation, which precede and accompany the duty, the better and more religiously they are done, they are indeed of more advantage, and honorary to the sacrament ; yet he that comes in the state of grace, though he takes the opportunity upon a sud- den offer, sins not : and in such indefinite duties, whose degrees are not described, it is good counsel to do our best ; but it is ill to make them instru- ments of scruple, as if it were essentially necessary to do that in the greatest height, which is only in- tended for advantage, and the fairer accommodation of the mystery. But these very acts, if they be esteemed necessary preparations to the sacrament,, are the greatest arguments in the world that it is best to communicate often; because the doing of that, which must suppose the exercise of so many graces, must needs promote the interest of religion, and dispose strongly to habitual graces by our fre- quent and solemn repetition of the acts. It is necessary that every communicant be first examined concerning the state of his soul, by himself or his superior ; and that very scrutiny is in admirable order towards the reformation of such irregularities which time and temptation, negligence and incuri- ousness, infirmity or malice, have brought into the secret regions of our will and understanding. Now, although this examination be therefore enjoined, that no man should approach to the holy table in the state of ruin and reprobation, and that therefore it is an act, not of direct preparation, but an inquiry whether we be prepared or no; yet this verj' exa- mination will find so many little irregularities, and so many great imperfections, that it will appear the more necessary to repair the breaches and lesser ruins by such acts of piety and religion; because Tempestivum accessum sola conscientise integritas facit. — S. Chrys. 316 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE ACCIDENTS Part III. every communication is intended to be a nearer approach to God, a farther step in grace, a progress towards glory, and an instrument of perfection ; and therefore upon the stock of our spiritual interests, for the purchase of a greater hope, and the advan- tages of a growing charity, ought to be frequently performed. I end with the words of a pious and learned person:" “ It is a vain fear and an impru- dent reverence, that procrastinates and defers going to the Lord that calls them : they deny to go to the fire, pretending they are cold; and refuse physic, because they need it.” THE PRAYER. O blessed and eternal Jesus, who gavest thyself a sacrifice for our sins, thy body for our spiritual food, thy blood to nourish our spirits, and to quench the flames of hell and lust ; who didst so love us, who were thine enemies, that thou de- siredst to reconcile us to thee, and becamest all one Muth us, that we may live the same life, think the same thoughts, love the same love, and be partakers of thy resurrection and immortality; open every window of my soul, that I may be full of light, and may see the excellency of thy love, the merits of thy sacrifice, the bitterness of thy passion, the glories and virtues of the mys- terious sacrament. Lord, let me ever hunger and thirst after this instrument of righteousness ; let me have no gust or relish of the unsatisfying de- lights of things below, but let my soul dwell in thee ; let me for ever receive thee spiritually, and very frequently communicate with thee sa- cramentally, and imitate thy virtues piously and strictly, and dwell in the pleasures of thy house eternally. “ Lord, thou hast prepared a table for me against them that trouble me let that holy sacrament of the eucharist be to me a defence and shield, a nourishment and medicine, life and health, a means of sanctification and spiritual growth ; that 1, receiving the body of my dearest Lord, may be one with his mystical body, and of the same spirit, united with indissoluble bands of a strong faith, and a holy hope, and a never-failing charity, that from this veil I may pass into the visions of eternal clarity, from eating thy body, to beholding thy face in the glories of thy ever- lasting kingdom, O blessed and eternal Jesus. Amen. Corisideratio7is wpon the Acciderits happeiiirig on the Vespers of the Passion. 1. When Jesus had supped and sang a hymn, and prayed, and exhorted and comforted his disciples with a farewell sermon, in which he repeated such of his former precepts which were now apposite to the present condition, and reinforced them with proper and pertinent arguments, he went over the brook Cedron, and entered into a garden, and into the prologue of his passion ; choosing that place for " Joan. Gerson, in Magnificat. ® Eteniin in horto tanquam in carcere.— S. Chkys. his agony and satisfactory pains, in which the first scene of human misery was represented, and where he might best attend the offices of devotion pre- paratory to his death. Besides this, he therefore departed from the house, that he might give oppor- tunity to his enemies’ surprise, and yet not incom- modate the good man by whose hospitality they had eaten the paschal lamb ; so that he went “ like a lamb to the slaughter,” to the garden as to a prison,^ as if, by an agreement with his persecutors, he had expected their arrest, and staid there to prevent their further inquiry.^ For so great was his desire to pay our ransom, that himself did assist, by a forward patience and active opportunity, towards the perse- cution : teaching us, that, by an active zeal and a ready spirit, we assist the designs of God’s glory, though in our own sufferings and secular infelicities. 2. When he entered the garden, he left his disci- ples at the entrance of it, calling with him only Peter, James, and John: “ he withdrew himself from the rest about a stone’s cast, and began to be exceeding heavy.” He was not sad till he had called them; for his sorrow began when he pleased : which sorrow he also chose to represent to those three who had seen his transfiguration, the earnest of his future glory, that they might see of how great glory for our sakes he disrobed himself ; and that they also might, by the confronting those contradictory acci- dents, observe, that God uses to dispense his com- forts, the irradiations and emissions of his glory, to be preparatives to those sorrows, with which our life must be allayed and seasoned ; that none should refuse to partake of the sufferings of Christ, if either they have already felt his comforts, or hope hereafter to wear his crown. And it is not ill observed, that St. Peter, being the chief of the apostles and doctor of the circumcision, St. John, being a virgin, and St. James, the first of the apostles that was martyred, were admitted to Christ’s greatest retirements and mysterious secrecies, as being persons of so singular and eminent dispositions, to whom, according to the pious opinion of the church, especial coronets are prepared in heaven, besides the great “ crown of righteousness,” which in common shall beautify the heads of all the saints ; meaning this, that doctors, virgins, and martyrs, shall receive, even for their very state of life and accidental graces, more emi- nent degrees of accidental glory, like as the sun, reflecting upon a limpid fountain, receives its rays doubled, without any increment of its proper and natural light. 3. “Jesus began to be exceeding sorrowful,” to be “ sore amazed,” and “ sad even to death.” And because he was now to suffer the pains of our sins, there began his passion whence our sins spring. From an evil heart, and a prevaricating spirit, all our sins arise ; and in the spirit of Christ began his sorrow, where he truly felt the full value and demerit of sin, which we think not worthy of a tear or a hearty sigh ; but he groaned and fell under the burden. But therefore he took upon him this sad- ness, that our imperfect sorrow and contrition might Ut laborem minuat Judaeis se quaerontibus.— Theophyl. Sect. XV. ON THE VESPERS OF THE PASSION. 317 be heightened in his example, and accepted in its union and confederacy with his. And Jesus still designed a further mercy for us ; for he sanctified the passion of fear, and hallowed natural sadnesses, that we might not think the infelicities of our nature, and the calamities of our temporal condition, to be- come criminal, so long as they make us not omit a duty, nor dispose us to the election of a crime, nor force us to swallow a temptation, nor yet to exceed the value of their impulsive cause. He that grieves for the loss of friends, and yet had rather lose all the friends he hath than lose the love of God, hath the sorrow of our Lord for his precedent. And he that fears death, and trembles at its approximation, and yet had rather die again than sin once, hath not sinned in his fear ; Christ hath hallowed it, and the necessitous condition of his nature is his excuse. But it were highly to be wished, that, in the midst of our caresses and levities of society, in our fes- tivities and triumphal merriments, when we laugh at folly and rejoice in sin, we would remember, that for those very merriments our blessed Lord felt a bitter sorrow ; and not one vain and sinful laughter, but cost the holy Jesus a sharp pang and throe of passion. 4. Now that the holy Jesus began to taste the bitter cup, he betook him to his great antidote, which himself, the great Physician of our souls, prescribed to all the world to cure their calamities, and to make them pass from miseries into virtue, that so they may arrive at glory ; he prays to his heavenly Father, he kneels down, and not only so, but “ falls flat upon the earth,” and would, in hu- mility and fervent adoration, have descended low as the centre ; he prays with an intension great as his sorrow, and yet with a dereliction so great, and a conformity to the Divine will so ready, as if it had been the most indifferent thing in the world for him to be delivered to death, or from it: for, though his nature did decline death, as that which hath a natural horror and contradiction to the present in- terest of its preservation ; yet when he looked upon it, as his heavenly Father had put it into the order of redemption of the world, it was that “ baptism,” which he was “straitened till he had accomplished.” And now there is not in the world any condition of prayer which is essential to the duty, or any circum- stances of advantage to its performance, but were concentred in this one instance ; humility of spirit, lowliness of deportment, importunity of desire, a fervent spirit, a lawful matter, resignation to the will of God, great love, the love of a Son to his Father ; which appellative was the form of his ad- dress ; perseverance ; he went thrice, and prayed the same prayer ; it was not long, and it w^as so re- tired as to have the advantages of a sufficient soli- tude and opportune recollection ; for he was with- drawn from the most of his disciples : and yet not so alone as to lose the benefit of communion ; for Peter and the two Boanerges were near him. Christ, ytvoixtvo^ iv ayu)VLa, EKTivlcrTEpov 7rpocrr}U)(£TO, Luke xxii. 44. Exleusiih orahut, sic Latinus interpres reddit: Alii plures reddunt per intensins. in this prayer, which was the most fervent that he ever made on earth, intending to transmit to all the world a precedent of devotion to be transcribed and imitated ; that we should cast all our cares, and empty them in the bosom of God, being content to receive such a portion of our trouble back again, which he assigns us for our spiritual emolument. 5. The holy Jesus having in a few words poured out torrents of innocent desires, was pleased still to interrupt his prayer, that he might visit his charge, that “ little flock,” which was presently after to be “ scattered : ” he was careful of them in the midst of his agonies ; they, in his sufferings, were fast asleep. He awakens them, gives them command to “ watch and pray,” that is, to be vigilant in the custody of their senses, and observant of all acci- dents, and to pray that they may be strengthened against all incursions of enemies and temptations; and then returns to prayer ; and so a third time ; his devotion still increasing with his sorrow.'^ And when his prayer was full, and his sorrow come to a great measure, after the third, God sent his “ angel to comfort him ;” and, by that act of grace, then only expressed, hath taught us to continue our de- votions so long as our needs last. It may be, God will not send a comforter till the third time, that is, after a long expectation, and a patient sufferance, and a lasting hope : in the interim God supports us with a secret hand, and, in his own time, will refresh the spirit with the visitations of his angels, with the emissions of comfort from the Spirit, the Comforter. And know this also, that the holy angel, and the Lord of all the angels, stands by every holy person when he prays ; and although he draws before his glories the curtain of a cloud, yet in every instant he takes care we shall not perish, and in a just season dissolves the cloud, and makes it to distil in holy dew, and drops sweet as manna, pleasant as nard, and wholesome as the breath of heaven. And such was the consolation which the holy Jesus re- ceived by the ministry of the angel, representing to Christ, the Lord of the angels, how necessary it was that he should die for the glory of God ; ^ that, in his passion, his justice, wisdom, goodness, power, and mercy, should shine ; that, unless he died, all the world should perish, but his blood should obtain their pardon; and that it should open the gates of heaven, repair the ruin of angels, establish a holy church, be productive of innumerable adoptive chil- dren to his Father, whom himself should make heirs of glory : and that his passion should soon pass away, his Father hearing and granting his prayer, that “ the cup” should pass speedily, though indeed it should pass through him ; that it should be at- tended and followed with a glorious resurrection, with eternal rest and glory of his humanity, with the exaltation of his name, with a supreme dominion over all the world, and that his Father should make him King of kings, and Prince of the catholic church. These, or whatsoever other comforts the ^ Confovtatus est, sed tali confprtatione quae dolorem non minuit, sed magis auxit : confortatus enim est ex fructus magnitudine, non subtracta doloris amaritudine.— Beda, in Lueae 22. 318 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE ACCIDENTS Part III. angel ministered, were sucli considerations which the holy Jesus knew, and the angel knew not hut oy communication from that God, to whose assumed liumanity the angel spake ; yet he was pleased to receive comfort from his servant, just as God receives glory from his creatures,^ and as he rejoices in his own works, even because he is good and gracious, and is pleased so to do ; and because himself had caused a voluntary sadness to be interposed between the habitual knowledge and the actual consideration of these discourses ; and we feel a pleasure, when a friendly hand lays upon our wound the plaster, which ourselves have made, and applies such instru- ments and considerations of comfort, which we have in notion and an ineffective habit, but cannot re- duce them to act, because no man is so apt to be his own comforter : which Gfod hath therefore per- mitted, that our need should be the occasion of a mutual charity. 6. It was a great season for the angel’s coming, because it was a great necessity, which was incum- bent upon our Lord ; for his sadness and his agony was so great, mingled and compounded of sorrow and zeal, fear and desire, innocent nature and per- fect grace, that he “ sweat drops” as great as if the blood had started through little undiscerned fontinels, and outrun the streams and rivers of his cross. Euthymius® and Theophylact^ say, that the evan- gelists use this as a tragical expression of the greatest agony, and an unusual sweat, it being usual to call the tears of the greatest sorrow, “ tears of blood.” But, from the beginning of the church, it hath been more generally apprehended literall)?-, and that some blood, mingled with the serous substance, issued from his veins in so great abundance, that they moistened the ground, and bedecked his garment, which stood like a new firmament studded with stars, portending an approaching storm. Now “ he came from Bozrah with his garments red and bloody.” And this agony verified, concerning the holy Jesus, those words of David, “ 1 am poured out like water, my bones are dispersed, my heart, in the midst of my body, is like melting wax,” saith Justin Martyr.g Venerable Bede saith,'’ that the descend- ing of these drops of blood upon the earth, besides the general purpose, had also a particular relation to the present infirmities of the apostles, that our blessed Lord obtained of his Father, by the merits of those holy drops, mercies and special support for them ; and that effusion redeemed them from the present participation of death. And St. Austin meditates, that the body of our Lord, all overspread with drops of bloody sweat, did prefigure the future state of martyrs, and that his body mystical should be clad in a red garment, variegated with the sym- bols of labour and passion, sweat and blood ; by which himself was pleased to purify his church, CUm tristaris, solamen tristium, Te solantur cives coelestium. Res miranda! solus dans gaudium Rex a cive sumit solatium. — Hondemics Anglus. ® In Matt. xxiv. ^ In Lucam xxii. K Justin Mart. Dial. Tryph. Athanas. lib. vi. de Beat. Filii Dei. Aug. lib. vi. c. 5. de Consecr. Evang. Hier. lib. de Trad. Heb. Iren. lib. iv. c. 31. contra hacres. Idem aiunt Dionys. Alex. Aymonius, Epiphan. et alii. and present her to God holy and spotless. What collateral designs and tacit significations might be designed by this mysterious sweat, I know not; certainly it was a sad beginning of a most dolorous passion : and such griefs, which have so violent, permanent, and sudden effects upon the body, which is not of a nature symbolical to interior and imma- terial causes, are proclaimed by such marks to be high and violent. We have read of some persons, that the grief and fear of one night hath put a cover of snow upon their heads, as if the labours of thirty years had been extracted, and the quintessence drank off, in the passion of that night : but if nature had been capable of a greater o-r more prodigious impress of passion than a bloody sweat, it must needs have happened in this agony of the holy Jesus, in which he undertook a grief great enough to make up the imperfect contrition of all the saints, and to satisfy for the impenitencies of all the world. 7 . By this time the traitor, Judas, was arrived at Gethsemane, and being in the vicinage of the gar- den, Jesus rises from his prayers, and first calls his disciples from their sleep, and, by an irony, seems to give them leave to “ sleep on;” but reproves their drowsiness, when danger is so near, and bids them “ henceforth take their rest ;” meaning, if they could for danger, which now was, indeed, come to the garden doors. But the holy Jesus, that it might appear he undertook the passion with choice and a free election, not only refused to fly, but called his apostles to rise, that they might meet his mur- derers, who came to him “ with swords and staves,” as if they were to surprise a prince of armed out- laws, whom without force they could not reduce. So, also, might butchers do well to go armed, when they are pleased to be afraid of lambs, by calling them lions. Judas only discovered his Master’s re- tirements, and betrayed him to the opportunities of an armed band ; for he could not accuse his master of any word or private action, that might render him obnoxious to suspicion or the law. For such are the rewards of innocence and prudence, that the one secures against sin, the other against suspicion and appearances. 8. The holy Jesus had accustomed to receive every of his disciples after absence with entertain- ment of a kiss, which was the endearment of per- sons, and the expression of the oriental civility : and Judas was confident that his Lord would not reject him, whose feet he had washed at the time when he foretold this event, and therefore had agreed to signify him by this sign;’ and did so, beginning war with a kiss, and breaking the peace of his Lord by the symbol of kindness ; which, be- cause Jesus entertained with much evenness and charitable expressions, calling him “ friend,”'^ he gave evidence, that if he retained civilities to his ^ In Luc. lib. vi. ' O signum sacrilegum ! O placitum fugiendum ! ubi ab osculo incipitur bellum, et per pacis indicium pacis rumpitur sacrainentum. — Aug. Serm. 12. k Si honoras, 6 dulcis Domine, Inimicum amici nomine, Quales erunt, amoris carmine Quite canunt et modulamine. — Hondem. de Passione. Sect. XV. ON THE VESPERS OF THE PASSION. 3HJ greatest enemies in the very acts of hostility, he hath banquets, and crowns, and sceptres for his friends, that adore him with the kisses of charity, and love him with the sincerity of an atfectionate spirit. But our blessed Lord, besides his essential sweet- ness and serenity of spirit, understood well how great benefits himself and all the world were to receive by occasion of that act of Judas: and our greatest enemy does, by accident, to holy persons, the othces of their dearest friends; telling us our faults, without a cloak to cover their deformities, but, out of malice, laying open the circumstances of aggravation; doing us affronts, from whence we have an instrument of our patience ; and restraining us from scandalous crimes, lest we “ become a scorn and reproof to them that hate us.” And it is none of God’s least mercies, that he permits enmities amongst men ; that animosities and peevishness may reprove more sharply, and correct with more severity and simplicity than the gentle hand of friends, who are apter to bind our wounds up, than to discover them and make them smart ; but they are to us an excellent probation, how friends may best do the offices of friends, if they would take the plainness of enemies in accusing, and still mingle it with the tenderness and good affections of friends. But our blessed Lord called Judas “ friend,” as being the instrument of bringing him to glory, and all the world to pardon, if they would. 9. Jesus himself begins the inquiry, and leads them into their errand, and tells them he was Jesus of Nazareth, whom they sought. But this also, which was an answer so gentle, had in it a strength greater than the eastern wind or the voice of thun- der ; for God was in that “ still voice,” and it struck them down to the ground.' And yet they, and so do we, still persist to persecute our Lord, and to pro- voke the. eternal God, who can, with the breath of his mouth, with a word, or a sign, or a thought, re- duce us into nothing, or into a worse condition, even an eternal duration of torments, and cohabitation with a never-ending misery. And if we cannot bear a soft answer of the merciful God, how shall we dare to provoke the VTath of the Almighty Judge ? But in this instance there was a rare mixture of effects, as there was in Christ of natures; the voice of a man, and the power of God. For it is observed by the doctors of the primitive ages,”' that, from the nativity of our Lord to the day of his death, the divinity and humanity did so communicate in effects, that no great action passed, but it was like the sun shining through a cloud, or a beauty with a thin veil drawn over it ; they gave illustration and testimony to each other. The holy Jesus was born a tender and a crying infant ; but is adored by the magi as a king, by the angels as their God. He is circum- cised as a man ; but a name is given him, to signify him to be the Saviour of the world. He flies into ^g'ypb like a distressed child, under the conduct of * rtai/TES £7 t’ nW-^Xoicn ,u«v7;^ioy£S acTriSLui'rai AvTOfJ.aTOL TrtTTTOJ/T-f.S k'TrtaTOpVVVTO KOVL1J, np?7i»2£9, oi(T'rpy]divT89 (WEvyai XniXmrL Nonn. S. Cyril. S. Athanas. S. Leo, &c. " Isa. lii. ^ his helpless i)arents ; but as soon as he enters the country, the idols fall down, and confess his true divinity. He is presented in the temple as the son of man ; but by Simeon and Anna he is celebrated, with divine praises, for the Messias, the Son of God. He is baptized in Jordan as a sinner ; but the Holy Ghost, descending upon him, proclaimed him to be the well-beloved of God. He is hungry in the desert as a man ; but sustained his body without meat and drink, for forty days together, by the power of his divinity : there he is tempted of Satan as a weak man, and the angels of light minister unto him as their supreme Lord. And now, a little before his death, when he was to take upon him all the affronts, miseries, and exinanitions of the most miserable, he receives testimonies from above, which are most wonderful ; for he was transfigured upon mount Tabor, entered triumphantly into Jerusalem, had the acclamations of the people ; when he was dying, he darkened the sun ; when he was dead, he opened the sepulchres : when he was fast nailed to the cross, he made the earth to tremble ; now, when he suffers himself to be apprehended by a guard of soldiers, he strikes them all to the ground only by replying to their answer : that the words of the prophet might be verified, “ Therefore my people shall know my name ; therefore they shall know in that day, that I am he that doth speak : behold, it is I.” " 10. The soldiers and servants of the Jew’'s having recovered from their fall, and risen by the per- mission of Jesus, still persisted in their inquiry after him, who was present, ready and desirous to be sacrificed. He, therefore, permitted himself to be taken, but not his disciples : for he it was that set them their bounds ; and he secured his apostles to be witnesses of his suffering and his glories ; and this work was the redemption of the world, in which no man could have an active share ; ” he alone was to tread the wine-press ; and time enough they should be called to a fellowship of sufferings. But Jesus went to them, and they bound him with cords ; and so began our liberty and redemption from slavery, and sin, and cursings, and death. But he was bound faster by bands of his own ; his Father’s will and mercy, pity of the world, prophe- cies, and mysteries,^ and love held him fast : and these cords were as “ strong as death ;” and the cords, which the soldiers’ malice put upon his holy hands, were but sjmibols and figures, his own com- passion and affection were the morals. But yet he undertook this short restraint and condition of a prisoner, that all sorts of persecution and exterior calamities might be hallowed by his susception; and these pungent sorrows should, like bees, sting him, and leave their sting behind, that all the sweetness should remain for us. Some melancholic devotions have, from uncertain stories, added sad circum- stances of the first violence done to our Lord ; that " Semovit a periculo discipulos, non ign.orans ad se solum certamen illud et opus salutis nostrae pertinere. Regnantis enim, et non servientis, naturaj opus est — S. Cyril. P Dominum omnium mysteria, non anna, tenuerunt.— S. Amb. in Lucam. 320 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE ACCIDENTS, &c. Part III. they bound him with three cords, and that with so much violence, that they caused blood to start from his tender hands ; that they spat then, also, upon him, with a violence and incivility like that which their fathers had used towards Hur, the brother of Aaron, whom they choked with impure spittings into his throat, because he refused to consent to the making a golden calf. These particulars are not transmitted by certain records. Certain it is, they wanted no malice, and now no power ; for the Lord had given himself into their hands. 11. St. Peter, seeing his master thus ill-used, asked, “ Master, shall we strike with the sword ?” and before he had his answer, cut off the ear of Malchus. Two swords there were in Christ’s family, and St. Peter bore one ; either because he was to kill the paschal lamb, or, according to the custom of the country, to secure them against beasts of prey, which in that region were frequent, and dan- gerous in the night. But now he used it in an un- lawful war ; he had no competent authority ; it was against the ministers of his lawful prince, and against our prince we must not draw a sword for Christ himself, himself having forbidden us ; as his “ kingdom is not of this world,” so neither were his defences secular ; he could have called for many legions of angels for his guard, if he had so pleased ; and we read that one angel slew 185,000 armed men in one night; and, therefore, it was a vast power which was at the command of our Lord ; and he needs not such low auxiliaries as an army of rebels, or a navy of pirates, to defend his cause : he first lays the foundation of our happiness in his sufferings, and hath ever since supported religion by patience and suffering, and in poverty, and all the circumstances and conjectures of improbable causes. Fighting for religion is certain to destroy charity, but not certain to support faith. St. Peter, therefore, may use his keys, but he is commanded to put up his sword ; and he did so ; and presently he and all his fellows fairly ran away : and yet that course was much the more Christian ; for though it had in it much infirmity, yet it had no malice. In the mean time, the Lord was pleased to touch the car of Malchus, and he cured it ; adding to the first instance of power, in throwing them to the ground, an act of miraculous mercy, curing the wounds of an enemy made by a friend. But neither did this pierce their callous and obdurate spirits ; but they led him in uncouth ways, and through the brook Cedron,^ in which it is said the ruder soldiers plunged him, and passed upon him all the affronts and rudenesses which an insolent and cruel multitude could think of, to signify their contempt and their rage. And such is the nature of evil men, who, when they are not softened by the instruments and arguments of grace, are much hardened by them ; such being the purpose of God, that either grace shall cure sin, or accidentally increase it ; that it shall either pardon it, or bring it to greater punish- ment ; for so I have seen healthful medicines, abused by the incapacities of a healthless body, become fuel to a fever, and increase the distempe- n De torrente in via bibet.— Ps. cx. ult. rature, from indisposition to a sharp disease, and from thence to the margin of the grave. But it was otherwise in Saul, whom Jesus threw to the ground with a more angry sound than these perse- cutors : but Saul rose a saint, and they persisted devils ; and the grace of God distinguished the events. THE PRAYER. I. 0 holy Jesus, make me by thy example to conform to the will of that eternal God, who is our Father, merciful and gracious ; that I may choose all those accidents, which his providence hath actu- ally disposed to me ; that I may know no desires but his commands, and his will ; and that in all afflictions I may fly thither for mercy, pardon, and support ; and may wait for deliverance in such times and manners, which the Father hath re- served in his own power, and graciously dispenses, according to his infinite wisdom and compassion. Holy Jesus, give me the gift and spirit of prayer; and do thou, by thy gracious intercession, supply my ignorances, and passionate desires, and im- perfect choices ; procuring and giving to me such returns of favour, which may support my needs, and serve the ends of religion and the Spirit, which thy wisdom chooses, and thy passion hath purchased, and thy grace loves to bestow upon all thy saints and servants. Amen. II. Eternal God, sweetest Jesu, wfflo didst receive Judas with the affection of a Saviour, and sufferedst him to kiss thy cheek with the serenity and tranquillity of God ; and didst permit the soldiers to bind thee, with patience exemplary to all ages of martyrs ; and didst cure the wound of thy enemy, with the charity of a parent, and the ten- derness of an infinite pity ; O kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth, embrace me with the enter- tainments of a gracious Lord, and let my soul dwell and feast in thee, who art the repository of eternal sweetness and refreshments. Bind me, 0 Lord, with those bands which tied thee fast, the chains of love ; that such holy union may dissolve the cords of vanity, and confine the bold preten- sions of usurping passions, and imprison all ex- travagancies of an impertinent spirit, and lead sin captive to the dominion of grace and sanctified reason ; that 1 also may imitate all the parts of thy holy passion ; and may, by thy bands, get my liberty ; by thy kiss, enkindle charity ; by the touch of thy hand and the breath of thy mouth, have all my wounds cured, and restored to the in- tegrity of a holy penitent, and the purities of in- nocence ; that I may love thee, and please thee, and live with thee for ever, 0 holy and sweetest Jesu. Amen. Sect. XV. OP THE ACCIDENTS FROM THE APPREHENSION, &c. 321 Considerations upon the Scourging, and other Acci- dents, happening from the Apprehension till the Crucifixion of J esus. 1 . The house of Annas stood in the mount Sion, and in the way to the house of Caiaphas ; and thither he was led, as to the first stage of their triumph for their surprise of a person so feared and desired; and there a naughty person smote the holy Jesus upon the face, for saying to Annas, that he had made his doctrine public, and that all the people were able to give account of it : to whom the Lamb of God showed as much meekness and patience in his answer, as in his answer to Annas he had showed prudence and modesty. For, now that they had taken Jesus, they wanted a crime to object against him, and therefore were desirous to snatch occasion from his discourses, to which they resolved to tempt him, by questions and affronts : but his answer was general and indefinite, safe and true, enough to acquit his doctrine from suspicions of secret designs, and yet secure against their present snares ; for now himself, who always had the “ inno- cence of doves,” was to join with it the prudence and wariness of serpents ; not to prevent death, (for that he was resolved to suffer,) but that they might be destitute of all appearance of a just cause on his part. Here it was that Judas received his money ; and here that holy face, which was de- signed to be that object, in the beholding of which much of the celestial glory doth consist ; that face which the angels stare upon with wonder, like in- fants at a bright sunbeam, was smitten extrajudi- cially by an incompetent person, with circumstances of despite, in the presence of a judge, in a full as- sembly, and none reproved the insolence and the cruelty of the affront : for they resolved to use him as they use wolves and tigers, with all things that may be destructive, violent, and impious ; and in this the injury was heightened, because the blow was said to be given by Malchus, an Idumaean slave, and, therefore, a contemptible person ; ^ but far more unworthy by his ingratitude, for so he re- paid the holy Jesus for working a miracle and heal- ing his ear. But so the scripture was fulfilled ; “ He shall give his body to the smiters, and his cheeks to the nipper,” saith the prophet Isaiah ; and, “ They shall smite the cheek of the Judge of Israel,” saith Micah. And this very circumstance of the passion, Lactantius affirms to have been fore- told by the Erythrsean sibyl.'’ But no meekness, or indifference, could engage our Lord not to protest his innocence : and though, following his steps, we must walk in the regions of patience, and tran- quillity, and admirable toleration of injuries ; yet we may represent such defences of ourselves, which, by not resisting the sentence, may testify that our suffering is undeserved : and if our innocence will ^ Malchus Idumaeis missus captivus ab oris. Vida, Episc. Cremon. lib. ii. Christeidos. Isa. 1. 6. Mic. v. 1. ^ Elv avofjuav /cat dTricTODV varTEpou b^£t, Auxxovcnv TE 3'£(« paTTLafxaTa ')(^sp(rlv avdyvoi^. Instit. lib. iv. c. 18. not preserve our lives, it will advance our title to a better ; and every good cause ill judged shall be brought to another tribunal, to receive a just and unerring sentence. 2. Annas, having suffered this unworthy usage towards a person so excellent, sent him away to Caiaphas, who had formerly, in a full council, re- solved he should die ; yet now, palliating the design with the scheme of a tribunal, they seek out for witnesses, and the witnesses are to seek for allega- tions; and when they find them, they are to seek for proof, and those proofs were to seek for unity and consent, and nothing was ready for their pur- poses; but they were forced to use the semblance of a judicial process, that, because they were to make use of Pilate’s authority to put him to death, they might persuade Pilate to accept of their ex- amination and conviction without further inquiry. But such had been the excellency, and exemplar piety, and prudence, of the life of Jesus, that, if they pretended against him questions of their law, they were not capital in a Roman court : if they affirmed, that he had moved the people to sedition and affected the kingdom, they saw that all the world would convince them of false testimony. At last, after many attempts, they accused him for a figurative speech, a trope which they could not un- derstand ; which, if it had been spoken in a literal sense, and had been acted too, according to the let- ter, had been so far from a fault, that it would have been a prodigy of power; and it had been easier to raise the temple of Jerusalem, than to raise the temple of his body. In the mean time, the Lamb of God left his cause to defend itself, under the pro- tection of his heavenly Father ; not only because himself was determined to die, but because if he had not, those premises could never have inferred it. But this silence of the holy Jesus fulfilled a pro- phecy, it made his enemies full of murmur and amazement, it made them to see that he despised the accusations, as certain and apparent calumnies ; but that himself was fearless of the issue, and, in the sense of morality and mysteries, taught us not to be too apt to excuse ourselves, when the sem- blance of a fault lies upon us, unless, by some other duty, we are obliged to our defences ; since he, who was most innocent, was most silent : and it was ex- pedient that, as the first Adam increased his sin by a vain apology, the silence and sufferance of the second Adam should expiate and reconcile it.^' 3. But Caiaphas had a reserve, which he knew should do the business in that assembly ; he adjured him, by God, to tell him if he “ were the Christ.” The holy Jesus, being adjured by so sacred a name, would not now refuse an answer, lest it might not consist with that honour which is due to it, and which he always paid, and that he might neither despise the authority of the high priest, nor, upon so solemn occasion, be wanting to that great truth, ^ Victor in S. Marc. TaciturnitasChristiapologiam Adgeabsolvit.— S. Hieron. in Marc. VOL. I. Y 322 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE ACCIDENTS FROM Part III. which he came down to earth to persuade to the world. And, when three such circumstances con- cur, it is enough to open our mouths, though we let in death. And so did our Lord, confessed himself to be “ the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And this the high priest was pleased, as the design was laid, to call “ blasphemy;” and there they voted him to die. Then it was “ the high priest rent his clothes ;” the veil of the temple was rent when the passion was finished ; the clothes of the priests at the beginning of it : and as that signified the de- parting of the synagogue, and laying religion open ; so did the rending the garments of Caiaphas pro- phetically signify, that the priesthood should be rent from him, and from the nation.® And thus the personated and theatrical admiration at Jesus became the type of his own punishment, and con- signed the nation to deletion : and usually God so dispenses his judgments, that when men personate the tragedies of others, they really act their o'wm. 4. Whilst these things were acting concerning the Lord, a sad accident happened to his servant Peter : for, being engaged in strange and evil com- pany, in the midst of danger, surprised with a ques- tion without time to deliberate an answer, to find subterfuges, or to fortify himself, he denied his Lord shamefully, with some boldness at first, and this grew to a licentious , confidence, and then to impu- dence, and denying, with perjury, that he knew not his Lord, who yet was kno^vn to him as his own heart, and was dearer than his eyes, and for whom he professed, but a little before, he would die ; but did not do so till many years after. But thus he became to us a sad example of human infirmity ; ^ and if the prince of the apostles fell so foully, it is full of pity, but not to be upbraided, if we see the fall of lesser stars. And yet, that we may prevent so great a ruin, we must not mingle with such com- pany, who will provoke or scorn us into sin ; and if we do, yet we must stand upon our guard, that a sudden motion do not surprise us : or if we be ar- rested, yet let us not enter further into our sin, like wild beasts intricating themselves by their im- patience. For there are some, who, being ashamed and impatient to have been engaged, take sanctuary in boldness and a shameless abetting it, so running into the darkness of hell to hide their nakedness. But he also, by returning, and rising instantly, be- came to us a rare example of penitence ; and his not lying long in the crime did facilitate this resti- tution. For the Spirit of God being extinguished by our works of darkness, is like a taper, which if, as soon as the flame is blown out, it be brought to the fire, it sucks light, and, without trouble, is re- enkindled ; but if it cools into death and stiffness, it requires a longer stay and trouble. The holy Jesus, in the midst of his own sufferings, forgot not his servant’s danger, but was pleased to look upon him when the cock crew ; and the cock was the preacher, and the look of Jesus was the grace ® Conscidit vestimenta sua, ostendens turpitudinem suam, et nuditatem animae, et mysterium manifestans,conscindendum esse sacerdotium vetus. — Origen. Idem ait S. Hier. ^ "Ol> toottov al fia(Tiv 'iiroi/Tai, outws al that made the servant effectual : and because he was but newly fallen, and his habitual love of his Master, though interrupted, yet had suffered no natural abatement, he returned, with the swiftness of an eagle, to the embraces and primitive affections of his Lord. 5. By this time suppose sentence given, Caiaphas prejudging aU the sanhedrim ; for he first declared J esus to have spoken blasphemy, and the fact to be notorious, and then asked their votes ; which whoso then should have denied, must have contested the judgment of the high priest, who, by the favour of the Romans, was advanced, (Valerius Gratus, who was president of Judea, having been his patron,) and his faction potent, and his malice great, and his heart set upon this business ; all which inconveniences none of them durst have suffered, unless he had had the confidence greater than of an apostle at that time. But this sentence was but like strong dispositions to an enraged fever ; he was only declared apt and worthy for death, they had no power at that time to inflict it ; but yet they let loose all the fury of mad-men, and insolency of wounded smarting soldiers : and although, from the time of his being in the house of Annas, till the council met, they had used him with studied indig- nities ; yet now they renewed and doubled the un- mercifulness, and their injustice, to so great a height, that their injuries must needs have been greater than his patience, if his patience had been less than infinite. For thus man’s redemption grows up, as the load swells which the holy Jesus bare for us ; for these were our portion, and we, having turned the flowers of paradise into thistles, should for ever have felt their infelicity, had not Jesus paid the debt. But he bearing them upon his tender body with an even, and excellent, and dis- passionate spirit, offered up these beginnings of sufferings to his Father, to obtain pardon even for them that injured him, and for all the world. 6. Judas now% seeing that this matter went fur- ther than he intended it, repented of his fact. For although evil persons are, in the progress of their iniquity, invited on by new arguments, and support- ed by confidence and a careless spirit : yet, when iniquity is come to the height, or so great a propor- tion, that it is apt to produce despair, or an intoler- able condition, then the devil suffers the conscience to thaw and grow tender ; but it is the tenderness of a bile, it is soreness rather and a new disease j and either it comes when the time of repentance is past, or leads to some act w’hich shall make the pardon to be impossible : and so it happened here., For Judas, either impatient of the shame or of the sting, was thrust on to despair of pardon, Avfith a violence as hasty and as great as were his needs. And despair is very often used like the bolts and bars of hell gates ; it seizes upon them that had entered into the suburbs of eternal death by an habitual sin, and it secures them against all retreat. afiap'Tiai Tais clkoXov trover lv. — Agapet. Diac. Capit. admonit. 69. Leo Serm. 9. de Pass. Dom. et Euthym. in hunc locum. Sect. XV. THE APPREHENSION TILL THE CRUCIFIXION. 323 And the devil is forward enough to bring a man to repentance, provided it be too late : and Esau wept bitterly, and repented him ; and the five foolish vir- gins lift up their voice aloud, when the gates were shut; and in hell men shall repent to all eternity. But I consider the very great folly and infelicity of Judas : it was at midnight he received his money in the house of Annas, betimes in that morning he repented his bargain; he threw the money back again, but his sin stuck close, and, it is thought, to a sad eternity. Such is the purchase of treason, and the reward of covetousness ; it is cheap in its offers, momentary in its possession, unsatisfying in the fruition, uncertain in the stay, sudden in its de- parture, horrid in the remembrance, and a ruin, a certain and miserable ruin, is in the event. When Judas came in that sad condition, and told his miserable story to them that set him on work, they let him go away unpitied ; he had served their ends in betraying his Lord; and those that hire such servants, use to leave them in the disaster, to shame and to sorrow : and so did the priests, but took the money, and refused to put it into the treasury, because it was “ the price of blood; ”§ but they made no scruple to take it from the treasury to buy that blood. Any thing seems lawful, that serves the ends of ambitious and bloody persons, and then they are scrupulous in their cases of conscience, when nothing of interest does intervene : for evil men make reli- gion the servant of interest, and sometimes weak men think, that it is the fault of the religion, and suspect that all of it is a design, because many great politics make it so. The end of the tragedy was, that Judas died with an ignoble death, marked with the circumstances of a horrid judgment,*^ and perish- ed by the most infamous hands in the world, that is, by his own. Which, if it be confronted against the excellent spirit of St. Peter, who did an act as contradictory to his honour, and the grace of God, as could be easily imagined ; yet, taking sanctuary in the arms of his Lord, he lodged in his heart for ever, and became an example to all the world, of the excellency of the Divine mercy, and the efficacy of a holy hope, and a hearty, timely, and an opera- tive repentance. 7. But now all things were ready for the pur- pose, the high priest and all his council go, along with the holy Jesus, to the house of Pilate, hoping he would verify their sentence, and bring it to execution, that they might once be rid of their fears, and enjoy their sin and their reputation quietly. St. Basil affirms, that the high priest caused the holy Jesus to be led with a cord about his neck,^ and, in memory of that, the priests, for many ages, wore a stole about theirs. But the Jews did it according to the custom of the nation, to signify he was condemned to death : they desired Pilate that he would crucify him, they having found him wor- thy. And when Pilate inquired into the particulars, s Inde sacerdotes, pretiura quod sanguinis esset, Illicitum fantes adytis jam condere templi, Quod dare turn licitum, dum sanguis distraheretur, Credebant — they gave him a general and indefinite answer; “ If he were not guilty, we would not have brought him unto thee they intended not to make Pilate judge of the cause, but executor of their cruelty. But Pilate had not learned to be guided by an im- plicit faith of such persons, which he knew to be malicious and violent; and, therefore, still called for instances and arguments of their accusation. And that all the world might see with how great un- worthiness they prosecuted the Messias, they chiefly there accused him of such crimes, upon which themselves condemned him not, and which they knew to be false, but yet likely to move Pilate, if he had been passionate or inconsiderate in his sen- tences ; “ He offered to make himself a king.” This discourse happened at the entry of the prasto- rium ; for the Jews, who had no conscience of killing the King of heaven, made a conscience of the external customs and ceremonies of their law, which had in them no interior sanctity, which were apt to separate them from the nations, and remark them with characters of religion and abstraction : it would defile them to go to a Roman forum, where a capital action was to be judged ; and yet the effusion of the best blood in the world was not esteemed against their religion ; so violent and blind is the spirit of malice, which turns humanity into cruelty, wisdom into craft, diligence into subornation, and religion into superstition. 8. Two other articles they alleged against him : but the first concerned not Pilate, and the second was involved in the third, and, therefore, he chose to examine him upon this only, of his being “ a King.” To which the holy Jesus answered, that it is true, he was a King indeed, but “ not of this world;” his throne is heaven, the angels are his courtiers, and the whole creation are his subjects : his regiment is spiritual, his judicatories are the courts of conscience and church- tribunals, and at dooms-day the clouds : the tribute which he demands are, conformity to his laws, faith, hope, and charity ; no other gabels but the duties of a holy spirit, and the expresses of a religious worship, and obedient will, and a consenting understanding. And in all this, Pilate thought the interest of Caesar was not invaded. For certain it is, the discipline of Jesus confirmed it much, and supported it by the strongest pillars. And here Pilate saw how impertinent and malicious their accusation was ; and we, who de- claim against the unjust proceedings of the Jews against our dearest Lord, should do well to take care that we, in accusing any of our brethren, either with malicious purpose, or with an uncharitable circum- stance, do not commit the same fault which, in them, we so hate and accuse. Let no man speak any thing of his neighbour but what is true : and yet, if the truth be heightened by the biting rhetoric of a satirical spirit, extended and drawn forth in circumstances and arts of aggravation, the truth Non potuit Judas pejore manu perire, et quamvis scele- ratum occiderit, non debuit tamen. — S. August, de Civit. Dei, lib. i. c. 17. ' In Mystagog. Eccdes. Author. Com. in Marc, apud S. Hieron. JuvENcus. Hist. Evang. lib. iv. Y 2 324 CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE ACCIDENTS FROM Part III. becomes a load to tlie guilty person, is a prejudice to the sentence of the judge, and hath not so much as the excuse of zeal, much less the charity of Christianity. Sufficient to every man is the plain story of his crime ; and to excuse as much of it as we can, would better become us, who perish unless we be excused for infinite irregularities. But if we add this also, that we accuse our brethren before them that may amend them, and reform their error ; if we pity their persons, and do not hate them ; if we seek nothing of their disgrace, and make not their shame public, but when the public is neces- sarily concerned, or the state of the man’s sin re- quires it ; then our accusations are charitable ; but if they be not, all such accusations are accepted by Christ with as much displeasure, in proportion to the degree of the malice, and the proper effect, as was this accusation of his own person. 9. But Pilate, having pronounced Jesus innocent, and perceiving he was a Galilean, sent him to Herod, as being a more competent person to deter- mine concerning one of his own jurisdiction. Herod was glad at the honour done to him, and the person brought him, being now desirous to see some mira- cle done before him. But the holy Jesus spake not one word there, nor did any sign ; so to reprove the sottish carelessness of Herod, who, living in the place of Jesus’s abode, never had seen his person, nor heard his sermons. And if we neglect the op- portunities of grace, and refuse to hear the voice of Christ in the time of mercy and Divine appoint- ment, we may arrive at that state of misery, in which Christ will refuse to speak one word of com- fort to us ; and the homilies of the gospel shall be dead letters, and the spirit not at all refreshed, nor the understanding instructed, nor the affections moved, nor the will determined; but because we have, during all our time, stopped our ears, in his time God will stop his mouth, and shut up the springs of grace, that we shall receive no refresh- ment, or instruction, or pardon, or felicity. Jesus suffered not himself to be moved at the pertinacious accusations of the Jews, nor the desires of the tyrant, but persevered in silence, till Herod and his servants despised him, and dismissed him. For so it became our High Priest, who was to sanctify all our suffer- ings, to consecrate affronts and scorn, that we may learn to endure contempt, and to suffer ourselves, in a religious cause, to be despised ; and when it hap- pens in any other, to remember that we have our dearest Lord for a precedent, of bearing it with admirable simplicity and equanimity of deportment : and it is a mighty stock of self-love that dwells in our spirits, which makes us, of all afflictions, most impatient of this. But Jesus endured this despite, and suffered this to be added, that he was exposed in scorn to the boys of the streets. For Herod caused him to be arrayed in white, sent him out to be scorned by the people and hooted at by idle per- ^ 0Eto 3 "u£ Slu teXov? StKaio^ wv, Mt; Xa/x7T(j(k' mv Tais ~x\aiuiv^. — ./EsCH YL. Prom. Sect. XV. OF DEATH, AND THE DUE PREPARATION TO IT. 33;i that they might not see the persecutions and great miseries incnmhent upon the church : and if the desire be not out of impatience, but of charity, and with resignation, there is no reason to reprove it. Elias prayed that God would “ take his life,” that he might not see the evils of Ahab and Jezebel, and their vexatious intendments against the pro- phets of the Lord. And St. Austin, ‘ upon the in- cursion of the Vandals into Africa, called his clergy together, and, at their chapter, told them, “ he had prayed to God either to deliver his people from the present calamity, or grant them patience to bear it, or that he would take him out of the world, that he might not see the miseries of his diocese adding, “ that God had granted him the last and he pre- sently fell sick, and died in the siege of his own Hippo. And if death, in many cases, be desirable, and for many reasons, it is always to be submitted to when God calls. And as it is always a misery to fear death,*^ so it is very often a sin, or the effect of sin. If our love to the world hath fastened our affections here, it is a direct sin : and this is, by the son of Sirach, noted to be the case of rich and great personages : “ How bitter, 0 death, is thy remem- brance to a man that is at rest in his possessions !” ^ But if it be a fear to perish in the ruins of eternity, they are not to blame for fearing, but that their own ill lives have procured the fear. And yet there are persons in the state of grace, but because they are in great imperfection, have such lawful fears of death, and of entering upon an uncertain sentence, which must stand eternally irreversible, be it good or bad, that they may, with piety and care enough, pray David’s prayer, “ 0 spare me a little, that I may recover my strength, before I go hence, and be no more seen.” But in this, and in all other cases, death must be accepted without murmur, though without fear it cannot. A man may pray to be delivered from it ; and yet, if God will not grant it, he must not go as one haled to execution : but if, with all his imperfect fears, he shall throw himself upon God, and accept his sentence as righteous, whether it speak life or death, it is an act of so great excellency, that it may equal the good actions of many succeeding and surviving days ; and, perad- venture, a longer life will be yet more imperfect, and God therefore puts a period to it, that thou mayest be taken into a condition more certain, though less eminent. However, let not the fears of nature, or the fear of reason, or the fears of hu- mility, become accidentally criminal, by a murmur or a pertinacious contesting against the event, which we cannot hinder, but ought to accept by an elec- tion secondary, rational, and pious, and upon sup- position that God will not alter the sentence passed upon thy temporal life; always remembering, that, in Christian philosophy, death hath in it an excel- lency of which the angels are not capable. For, by the necessity of our nature, we are made capable 1 Kings xix. 4. » In Vita S. Aug. c. 16. ^ Fortem posce animum mortis terrore carentem, Qui spatium vitas extremum inter munera ponat Naturae, qui ferre queat quoscunque labores, Nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil Juven. of dying for the holy Jesus; and next to the privi- lege of that act, is our willingness to die at his com- mand, which turns necessity into virtue, and nature into grace, and grace to glory. 20. When the sick person is thus di.sposed, let him begin to trim his wedding garment, and dress his lamj), with the repetition of acts of repentance, perpetually praying to God for pardon of his sins, representing to himself the horror of them, the mul- titude, the obliquity, being helped by arguments apt to excite contrition, by repetition of penitential psalms and holy prayers ; and he may, by accept- ing and humbly receiving his sickness at God’s hand, transmit it into the condition of an act or effect of repentance, acknowledging himself by sin to have deserved and procured it, and praying that the punishment of his crimes may be here, and not re- served for the state of separation, and for ever. 21. But above all single acts of this exercise, we are concerned to see that nothing of other men’s goods stick to us, but let us shake it off as we would a burning coal from our flesh ; for it will destroy us, it will carry a curse with us, and leave a curse behind us.”' Those who, by thy means or impor- tunity, have become vicious, exhort to repentance and holy life ; those whom thou hast cozened into crimes, restore to a right understanding ; those who are, by violence and interest, led captive by thee to any indecency, restore to their liberty, and encourage to the prosecution of holiness ; discover and confess thy fraud and unlawful arts, cease thy violence, and give as many advantages to virtue as thou hast done to viciousness. Make recompence for bodily wrongs, such as are wounds, dismemberings, and other dis- abilities : restore every man, as much as thou canst, to that good condition from which thou hast re- moved him ; restore his fame, give back his goods, return the pawn, release forfeitures, and take off all unjust invasions or surprises of his estate, pay debts, satisfy for thy fraud and injustice as far as thou canst, and as thou canst, and as soon ; or this alone is weight enough, no less than a mill-stone about thy neck. But if the dying man be of God, and in the state of grace, that is, if he have lived a holy life, repented seasonably, and have led a just, sober, and religious conversation in any acceptable degree, it is to be supposed he hath no great account to make for unpretended injuries, and unjust deten- tions; for if he had detained the goods of his neigh- bour fraudulently or violently, without amends, when it is in his power and opportunity to restore, he is not the man we suppose him in this present ques- tion : and although, in all cases, he is bound to re- store according to his ability, yet the act is less excellent when it is compelled, and so it seems to be, if he have continued the injustice till he is forced to quit the purchase. However, if it be not done till then, let it be provided for then. And that I press this duty to pious persons at this time, ' Ecclus. xli. 1. Deteriores sunt qui vitam moresque bonorum corrum- punt, his qui substantias et prsedia diripiunt. — S. Gregor. 334 OF DEATH, AND THE DUE PREPARATION TO IT. Part III. is only to oblige them to a diligent scrutiny con- cerning the lesser omissions of this duty in the matter of fame, or lesser debts, or spiritual restitu- tion ; or that those unevennesses of account, which were but of late transaction, may now be regulated ; and that whatsoever is undone in this matter, from what principle soever it proceeds, whether of sin, or only of forgetfulness, or of imperfection, may now be made as exact as we can, and are obliged ; and that those excuses, which made it reasonable and lawful to defer restitution, as want of opportunity, clearness of ability, and accidental inconvenience, be now laid aside, and the action be done or pro- vided for, in the midst of all objections and incon- venient circumstances, rather than omit it, and hazard to perform it. 22. Hither, also, I reckon resolutions and for- ward purposes of emendation and greater severity, in case God return to us hopes of life ; which, there- fore, must be reinforced, that we may serve the ends of God, and understand all his purposes, and make use of every opportunity ; every sickness laid upon us being with a design of drawing us nearer to God ; and even holy purposes are good actions of the Spirit, and principles of religion : and though alone they cannot do the work of grace, or change the state, when they are ineffectual, that is, when either we will not bring them into act, or that God will not let us; yet, to a man already in the state of grace, they are the additions of something good, and are like blowing of coals, which, although it can put no life into a dead coal, yet it makes a live coal shine brighter, and burn clearer, and adds to it some accidental degrees of heat. 23. Having thus disposed himself to the peace of God, let him make peace with all those, in whom he knows, or suspects, any minutes of anger, or malice, or displeasure towards him, submitting himself to them with humility, whom he unworthily hath dis- pleased," asking pardon of them who say they are displeased, and offering pardon to them that have displeased him ; and then let him crave the peace of holy church. For it is all this while to be sup- posed, that he hath used the assistance and prayers, the counsel and the advices, of a spiritual man, and that, to this purpose, he hath opened to him the state of his whole life, and made him to understand what emendations of his faults he hath made, what acts of repentance he hath done, how lived after his fall and reparation, and that he hath submitted all that he did, or undid, to the discerning of a holy man, whose office it is to guide his soul in this agony and last offices. All men cannot have the blessing of a wise and learned minister, and some die where they can have none at all ; yet it were a safer course to do as much of this as we can, and to a competent person, if we can ; if we cannot, then to the best we have, according as we judge it to be of spiritual advantage to us : for, in this conjunc- " TT/oos Toi; T£X£i»'TJ7

ip£i’, Aristoph, BaTpax* Acts. Sc. 4. “No fortune can save that city, to whom neither peace nor war can do advantage.” And what is there left for God to mollify our hearts, whose tem- per is like both to wax and dirt ; whom fire hard- ens, and cold hardens : and contradictory accidents produce no change, save that the heart grows worse and more obdurate for every change of Providence ? But here also I must descend to particulars. 1. The heart of man is strangely proud. If men commend us, we think we have reason to distinguish ourselves from others, since the voice of discerning men hath already made the separation. If men do not commend us, we think they are stupid, and un- derstand us not ; or envious, and hold their tongues in spite. If we. are praised by many, then “ Vox populi, vox Dei, “ Fame is the voice of God.” If we be praised but by few, then “ Satis unus, satis nullus ; ” we cry, “ These are wise, and one wise man is worth a whole herd of the people.” But if we be praised by none at all, we resolve to be even with all the world, and speak well of nobody, and think well only of ourselves. And then we have such beggarly arts, such tricks, to. cheat for praise. We inquire after our faults and failings, only to be told we have none, but did excellently ; and then we are pleased ; we rail upon our actions, only to be chidden for so doing ; and then he is our friend who chides us into a good opinion of ourselves, which however -all the world cannot make us part with. Nay, humility itself makes us proud ; so false, so base, is the heart of man. For humility is so noble a virtue, that even pride itself puts on its upper garment : and we do like those who cannot endure to look upon an ugly or a deformed person, and yet will give a great price for a picture ex- tremely like him. Humility is despised in sub- stance, but courted and admired in effigy. And H^sop’s picture was sold for two talents, when him- self was made a slave at the price of two philippics. And because humility makes a man to be honoured, therefore we imitate ail its garbs and postures, its civilities and silence, its modesties and condescen- sions. And, to prove that we are extremely proud, in the midst of all this pageantry, we should be ex- tremely angry at any man that should say we are proud ; and that is a sure sign we are so. And in 3 F 2 the midst of all our arts to seem humble, we use devices to bring ourselves into talk ; we thrust our- selves into company, we listen at doors, and, like the greatbeards in Rome that pretended philosophy and strict life, of^eXiaKov icaraTrLOi^reg TreptTrarovfier, “ we walk by the obelisk,” and meditate in piazzas, that they that meet us may talk of us, and they tliat follow may cry out, peydXov ^tXoo-o^ou ! Be- hold ! there goes an excellent man ! He is very prudent, or very learned, or a charitable person, or a good housekeeper, or at least very humble. 2. The heart of man is deeply in love with wick- edness, and with nothing else : against not only the laws of God, but against his own reason, its own interest, and its own securities ? For is it imagin- able, that a man, who knows the laws of God, the revmrds of virtue, the cursed and horrid effects of sin ; that knows, and considers, and deeply sighs at, the thought of the intolerable pains of hell ; that knows the joys of heaven to be unspeakable, and that concerning them there is no temptation, but that they are too big for man to hope for, and yet he certainly believes, that a holy life shall infallibly attain thither : is it, I say, imaginable, that this man should, for a transient action, forfeit all this hope, and certainly and knowingly ipeur all that calamity ? Yea, but the sin is pleasant, and the man is clothed with flesh and blood, and their appe- tites are material, and importunate, and present ; and the discourses of religion are concerning things spiritual, separate and apt for spirits, angels, and souls departed. To take off this also, we will sup- pose the man to consider, and really to believe, that the pleasure of the sin is sudden, vain, empty, and transient ; that it leaves bitterness upon the tongue, before it is descended into the bowels ; that there it is poison, and “ makes the belly to swell, and the thigh to rot ; ” that he remembers, and actually considers, that as soon as the moment of sin is past, he shall have an intolerable conscience, and does, at the instant, compare moments with eter- nity, and with horror remembers, that the very next minute he is as miserable a man as is in the world : yet that this man should sin ? Nay, sup- pose the sin to have no pleasure at all, such as is the sin of swearing ; nay, suppose it really to have pain in it, such as is the sin of envy, which never can have pleasure in its actions, but much torment and consumption of the very heart : what should make this man sin so for nothing, so against himself, so against all reason, and religion, and interest, with- out pleasure, for no reward ? Here the heart be- trays itself to be “ desperately wicked,” What man can give a reasonable account of such a man, who, to prosecute his revenge, will do himself an injury, that he may do a less to him that troubles him. Such a man hath given me ill language : Ovre T^v KE(f>aX})p dXyel, ovte tov o^SaXpoF, ovte rov itj^Lov, OVTE TOV aypov anroXXvEi, “My head aches not for his language, nor hath he broken my thigh, nor carried away my land:” but yet this man must be requited; well, suppose that. But then let it be proportionably ; you are not undone, let not him Arrian, 804 THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART. Serm. VIII. be so. — Oh, yes ; for else my revenge triumphs not ; — well, if you do, yet remember, he will de- fend himself, or the law will right him ; at least, do not do wrong to yourself by doing him wrong : this were but prudence and self-interest. And yet we see, that the heart of some men hath betrayed them to such furiousness of appetite, as to make them willing to die, that their enemy may be buried in the same ruins. Jovius Pontanus tells of an Italian slave, I think, who, being enraged against his lord, watched his absence from home, and the employment and inadvertency of his fellow-serv- ants : he locked the doors, and secured himself for awhile, and ravished his lady ; then took her three sons up to the battlements of the house, and at the return of his lord, threw one down to him upon the pavement, and then a second, to rend the heart of their sad father, seeing them weltering in their blood and brains. The lord begged for his third, and now his only son, promising pardon and liberty if he would spare his life. The slave seemed to bend a little, and, on condition his lord would cut off his own nose, he would spare his son. The sad father did so, being willing to suffer any thing rather than the loss of that child. But as soon as he saw his lord all bloody with his wound, he threw the third son and himself down together upon the pave- ment. The story is sad enough, and needs no lustre and advantages of sorrow to represent it : but if a man sets himself down, and considers sadly, he cannot easily tell, upon what sufRcient inducement, or what principle, the slave should so certainly, so horridly, so presently, and then so eternally, ruin himself. What could he propound to himself as a recompence to his own so immediate tragedy ? There is not in the pleasure of the revenge, nor in the nature of the thing, any thing to tempt him ; we must confess our ignorance, and say, that “ The heart of man is desperately wicked and that is the truth in general, but we cannot fathom it by particular comprehension. For when the heart of man is bound up by the grace of God, and tied in golden bands, and watched by angels, tended by those nursekeepers of the soul, it is not easy for a man to w^ander ; and the evil of his heart is but like the ferity and wildness of lions’ whelps : but when once we have broken the hedge, and got into the strengths of youth, and the licen- tiousness of an ungoverned age, it is wonderful to observe, what a great inundation of mischief, in a very short time, will overflow all the banks of reason and religion. Vice first is pleasing, — then it grows easy, — then delightful, — then frequent, — then ha- bitual, — then confirmed ; — then the man is impeni- tent, — then he is obstinate, — then he resolves never to repent, — and then he is damned. — And by that time he is come half-way in this progress, he con- futes the philosophy of the old moralists: for they, not knowing the vileness of man’s heart, nor con- sidering its desperate, amazing impiety, knew no other degree of wickedness but this, that men pre- ferred sense before reason, and their understandings were abused in the choice of a temporal before an intellectual and eternal good : but they always con- cluded, that the will of man must of necessity follow the last dictate of the understanding, declaring an object to be good, in one sense or other. Happy men they were that were so innocent, that knew no pure and perfect malice, and lived in an age in which it was not easy to confute them. But, be- sides that now the wells of a deeper iniquity are discovered, we see, by too sad experience, that there are some sins proceeding from the heart of man, which have nothing but simple and unmingled malice : actions of mere spite, doing evil because it is evil, sinning without sensual pleasures, sinning with sensual pain, with hazard of our lives, with actual torment, and sudden deaths, and certain and present damnation ; sins against the Holy Ghost, open hostilities, and professed enmities, against God and all virtue. I can go no further, because there is not in the world, or in the nature of things, a greater evil. And that is the nature and folly of the devil ; he tempts men to ruin, and hates God, and only hurts himself and those he tempts, and does himself no pleasure, and some say he increases his own accidental torment. Although I can say nothing greater, yet I had many more things to say, if the time would have permitted me to represent the falseness and base- ness of the heart. 1. We are false ourselves, and dare not trust God. 2. V^e love to be deceived, and are angry if we be told so. 3. We love to seem virtuous, and yet hate to be so. 4. We are melan- cholic and impatient, and we know not why. 5. We are troubled at little things, and are careless of greater. 6. We are overjoyed at a petty accident, and despise great and eternal pleasures. 7- We believe things, not for their reasons and proper arguments, but as they serve our turns, be they true or false. 8. We long extremely for things that are forbidden us ; and what we despise when it is per- mitted us, we snatch at greedily when it is taken from us. 9. We love ourselves more than we love God; and yet we eat poisons daily, and feed upon toads and vipers, and nourish our deadly enemies in our bosom, and will not be brought to quit them ; but brag of our shame, and are ashamed of nothing but virtue, which is most honourable. 1 0. We fear to die, and yet use all the means we can to make death terrible and dangerous. 11. We are busy in the faults of others, and negligent of our own. 1 2. We live the life of spies, striving to know others, and to be unknown ourselves. 13. We worship and flatter some men and some things, because we fear them, not because we love them. 14. We are ambitious of greatness, and covetous of wealth, and all that we get by it is, that we are more beautifully tempted ; and a troop of clients run to us as to a pool, which first they trouble, and then draw dry. 15. We make ourselves unsafe by committing wickedness, and then we add more wickedness, to make us safe and beyond punishment. 16. We are more servile for one courtesy that we hope for, than for twenty that we have received. 17. We entertain slanderers, and, without choice, spread their calumnies, and we hug flatterers, and know they abuse us. And if I should gather the abuses, and impieties, and deceptions of Serm. IX. THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS. 805 the heart, as Chrysippus did the oracular lies of Apollo into a table, I fear they would seem remedi- less, and beyond the cure of watchfulness and reli- gion. Indeed, they are great and many ; but the grace of God is greater ; and “ if iniquity abounds,” then “ doth grace superabound and that is our comfort and our medicine, which we must thus use. 1. Let us watch our heart at every turn. 2. Deny it all its desires that do not directly, or by consequence, end in godliness : at no hand be in- dulgent to its fondnesses and peevish appetites. 3. Let us suspect it as an enemy. 4. Trust not to it in any thing. 5. But beg the grace of God with perpetual and importunate prayer, that he would be pleased to bring good out of these evils ; and that he would throw the salutary wood of the cross, the merits of Christ’s death and passion, into these salt waters, and make them healthful and pleasant. And in order to the managing these advices, and acting the purposes of this prayer, let us strictly follow a rule, and choose a prudent and faithful guide, who may attend our motions, and watch our counsels, and direct our steps, and “ prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight,” apt, and imitable. For without great watchfulness, and earnest devotion, and a prudent guide, we shall find that true in a spiritual sense, which Plutarch affirmed of a man’s body in the natural : that of dead bulls arise bees ; from the carcasses of horses, hornets are produced : but the body of man brings forth serpents. Our hearts, wallowing in their own natural and acquired cormptions, will produce nothing but issues of hell, and images of the old serpent the devil, for whom is provided the ever- lasting burning. SERMON IX. THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS; OR, THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE OPPRESSED PART I. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God : and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God ?- And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ? — 1 Peter iv. 17, 18. So long as the world lived by sense, and dis- courses of natural reason, as they were abated with human infirmities, and not at all heightened by the Spirit and divine revelations ; so long men took their accounts of good and bad by their being pros- perous or unfortunate : and amongst the basest and most ignorant of men, that only was accounted honest which was profitable ; and he only wise, that was rich ; and those men beloved of God, who received from him all that might satisfy their lust, their ambition, or their revenge. Fatis accede, Deisque, Et cole felices, miseros fu^e ; sidera terra Ut distant, ut flamma mari, sic utile recto. Lucan, But because God sent wise men into the world, and they were treated rudely by the world, and ex- ercised with evil accidents, and this seemed so great a discouragement to virtue, that even these wise men were more troubled to reconcile virtue and misery, than to reconcile their affections to the suf- fering ; God was pleased to enlighten their reason with a little beam of faith, or else heightened their reason by wiser principles than those of vulgar un- derstandings, and taught them in the clear glass of faith, or the dim perspective of philosophy, to look beyond the cloud, and there to spy that there stood glories behind their curtain, to which they could not come but by passing through the cloud, and being wet with the dew of heaven and the waters of affliction. And according as the world grew more enlightened by faith, so it grew more dark with mourning and sorrows. God sometimes sent a light of fire, and a pillar of a cloud, and the brightness of an angel, and the lustre of a star, and the sacrament of a rainbow, to guide his people through their portion of sorrows, and to lead them through troubles to rest : but as the Sun of right- eousness approached towards the chambers of the east, and sent the harbingers of light peeping through the curtains of the night, and leading on the day of faith and brightest revelation ; so God sent degrees of trouble upon wise and good men, that now, in the same degree in the which the world lives by faith, and not by sense, in the same degree they might be able to live in virtue even while she lived in trouble, and not reject so great a beauty, because she goes in mourning, and hath a black cloud of Cyprus drawn before her face. Literally thus : God first entertained their services, and allured and prompted on the infirmities of the infant-world by temporal prosperity ; but by degrees changed his method ; and as men grew stronger in I the knowledge of God, and the expectations of I heaven, so they grew weaker in their fortunes, more afflicted in their bodies, more abated in their ex-' pectations, more subject to their enemies, and were to endure the contradiction of sinners, and the im- mission of the sharpnesses of Providence and divine economy. First, Adam was placed in a garden of health and pleasure, from which when he fell, he was only tied to enter into the covenant of natural sorrows, which he and all his posterity till the flood ran through : but in all that period they had the whole wealth of the earth before them ; they needed not fight for empires, or places for their cattle to graze in ; they lived long, and felt no want, no slavery, no tyranny, no war ; and the evils that happened, were single, personal, and natural ; and ho violences were then done, but they were like those things which the law calls “ rare contingencies ; ” for which as the law can now take no care and make no provisions, 806 THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS; Serm. IX. so then there was no law, but men lived free, and rich, and long, and they exercised no virtues but natural, and knew no felicity but natural : and so long their prosperity was just as was their virtue, because it was a natural instrument towards all that which they knew of happiness. But this public easiness and quiet, the world turned into sin; and unless God did compel men to do themselves good, they would undo themselves : and then God broke in upon them with a flood, and destroyed that gene- ration, that he might begin the government of the world upon a new stock, and bind virtue upon men’s spirits by new bands, endeared to them by new hopes and fears. Then God made new laws, and gave to princes the power of the sword, and men might be punished to death in certain cases, and man’s life was short- ened, and slavery was brought into the world and the state of servants : and then war began, and evils multiplied upon the face of the earth ; in which it is naturally certain that they that were most violent and injurious, prevailed upon the weaker and more inno- cent ; and every tyranny that began from Nimrod to this day, and every usurper, was a peculiar argu- ment to show that God began to teach the world virtue by suffering ; and that therefore he suffered tyrannies and usurpations to be in the world, and to be prosperous, and the rights of men to be snatched away from their owners, that the world might be established in potent and settled governments, and the sufferers be taught all the passive virtues of the soul. For so God brings good out of evil, turning tyranny into the benefits of government, and violence into virtue, and sufferings into rewards. And this was the second change of the world : personal miseries were brought in upon Adam and his pos- terity, as a punishment of sin in the first period ; and in the second, public evils were brought in by tyrants and usurpers, and God suffered them as the first elements of virtue, men being just newly put to school to infant sufferings. But all this was not much. Christ’s line was not yet drawn forth ; it began not to appear in what family the King of sufferings should descend, till Abraham’s time ; and therefore, till then there were no greater sufferings than what I have now reckoned. But when Abraham’s family was chosen from among the many nations, and be- gan to belong to God by a special right, and he was designed to be the father of the Messias ; then God found out a new way to try him, even with a sound affliction, commanding him to offer his be- loved Isaac : but this was accepted, and being in- tended by Abraham, was not intended by God : for this was a type of Christ, and therefore was also but a type of sufferings. And excepting the suffer- ings of the old periods, and the sufferings of nature and accident, we see no change made for a long time after ; but God having established a law in Abraham’s family, did build it upon promises of liealth, and peace, and victory, and plenty, and riches ; and so long as they did not prevaricate the law of their God, so long they were prosperous : but God kept a remnant of Canaanites in the land, like a rod held over them, to vex or to chastise them into obedience, in which while they persevered nothing could hurt them ; and that saying of David needs no other sense but the letter of its own ex- pression, “ 1 have been young, and now am old; and yet I never saw the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.” The godly generally were prosperous, and a good cause seldom had an ill end, and a good man never died an ill death, — ■ till the law had spent a great part of its time, and it descended towards its declension and period. But, that the great Prince of sufferings might not appear upon his stage of tragedies without some forerun- ners of sorrow, God was pleased to choose out some good men, and honour them, by making them to become little images of suffering. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah, were martyrs of the law ; but these were single deaths : Shadrach, Meshech, and Abed- nego, were thrown into a burning furnace, and Daniel into a den of lions, and Susanna was ac- cused for adultery ; but these were but little arrests of the prosperity of the godly. As the time drew nearer that Christ should be manifest, so the suffer- ings grew bigger and more numerous : and Antio- chus raised up a sharp persecution in the time of the Maccabees, in which many passed through the Bed sea of blood into the bosom of Abraham ; and then Christ came. And that was the third period in which the changed method of God’s providence was perfected : for Christ was to do his great work by sufferings, and by sufferings was to enter into blessedness ; and by his passion he was made Prince of the catholic church ; and as our Head was, so must the members be. God made the same covenant with us that he did with his most holy Son, and Christ obtained no better conditions for us than for himself ; that was not to be looked for ; “ The ser- vant must not be above his master ; it is well if he be as his master : if the world persecuted him, they will also persecute us:” and “ from the days of John the Baptist, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force ; ” not “ the violent doers,” but “ the sufferers of violence for though the old law was established in the promises of temporal prosperity ; yet the gospel is founded in temporal adversity ; it is directly a covenant of sufferings and sorrows ; for now “ the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.” That is the sense and design of the text ; and I in- tend it as a direct antinomy to the common per- suasions of tyrannous, carnal, and vicious men, who reckon nothing good but what is prosperous : for though that proposition had many degrees of truth in the beginning of the law, yet the case is now altered, God hath established its contradictory ; and now every good man must look for persecution, and every good cause must expect to thrive by the sufferings and patience of holy persons : and, as men do well, and suffer evil, so they are dear to God ; and whom he loves most he afflicts most, and does this with a design of the greatest mercy in the world. 1. Then, the state of the gospel is a state of sufferings, not of temporal prosperities. This was foretold by the prophets ; “ A fountain shall go out Serm. IX, OR, THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE OPPRESSED. of the house of the Lord, ‘ et irrigabit torrentem spinarum,’ (so it is in the Vulgar Latin,) and it shall water the torrent of thorns ^ that is, the state or time of the gospel, which, like a torrent, shall carry all the world before it, and, like a torrent, shall be fullest in ill weather ; and by its banks shall grow nothing but thorns and briers, sharp afflictions, tem- poral infelicities, and persecution. This sense of the words is more fully explained in the book of the prophet Isaiah. “ Upon the ground of my people shall thorns and briers come up ; how much more in all the houses of the city of rejoicing Which prophecy is the same in the style of the pro- phets, that my text is in the style of the apostles. The house of God shall be watered with the dew of heaven, and there shall spring up briers in it: “ Judgment must begin there but how much more “ in the house of the city of rejoicing!” how much more amongst “ them that are at ease in Sion,” that serve their desires, that satisfy their appetites, that are given over to their own hearts’ lust, that so serve themselves, that they never serve God, that “ dwell in the city of rejoicing !” They are like Dives, whose portion was in this life, “ who went in fine linen, and fared deliciously every day :” they, indeed, trample upon their briers and thorns, and suffer them not to grow in their houses ; but the roots are in the ground, and they are reserved for fuel of wrath in the day of everlasting burning. Thus, you see, it was prophesied, now see how it was performed ; Christ was the Captain of our suf- ferings, and he began. He entered into the world with all the circum- stances of poverty. He had a star to illustrate his birth ; but a stable for his bedchamber, and a man- ger for his cradle. The angels sang hymns 'when he was born : but he was cold and cried, uneasy and unprovided. He lived long in the trade of a car- penter ; he, by whom God made the world, had, in his first years, the business of a mean and ignoble trade. He did good wherever he went ; and almost wherever he went was abused. He deserved heaven for his obedience, but found a cross in his way thither : and if ever any man had reason to expect fair usages from God, and to be dandled in the lap of ease, softness, and a prosperous fortune, he it was only that could deserve that, or any thing that can be good. But, after he had chosen to live a life of virtue, of poverty, and labour, he entered into a state of death ; whose shame and trouble were great enough to pay for the sins of the whole world. And I shall choose to express this mystery in the words of Scriphire. He died not by a single or a sudden death, but he was the “ Lamb slain from the beginning of the world :” for he was massacred in Abel, saith St. Paulinus ; he was tossed upon the waves of the sea in the person of Noah; it was he that went out of his country, when Abraham was called from Charran, and wandered from his native soil; he was offered up in Isaac, persecuted in Jacob, betrayed in Joseph, blinded in Samson, affronted in Moses, sawed in Isaiah, cast into the dungeon with Jeremiah: for all these were types y Joeliii. 10. ^ xxxii, 13. S07 of Christ suffering. And then his passion continued even after his resurrection. For it is he that suffers in all his members ; it is he that “ endures the contradiction of all sinners ;” it is he that is “ the Lord of life, and is crucified again, and put to open shame,” in all the sufferings of his servants, and sins of rebels, and defiances of apostates and rene- gadoes, and violence of tyrants, and injustice of usurpers, and the persecutions of his church. It is he that is stoned in St. Stephen, flayed in the person of St. Bartholomew : he was roasted upon St. Laurence’s gridiron, exposed to lions in St. Ignatius, burnt in St. Polycarp, frozen in the lake where stood forty martyrs of Cappadocia. “ Unigenitus enim Dei ad peragendum mortis suae sacramentum consummavit omne genus humanarum passionum,” said St. Hilary ; “ the sacrament of Christ’s death is not to be accomplished but by suffering all the sorrows of humanity.” All that Christ came for, was, or was mingled Vvdth, sufferings : for all those little joys which God sent, either to recreate his person, or to illustrate his office, were abated, or attended with afflictions; God being more careful to establish in him the covenant of sufferings, than to refresh his sorrows. Presently after the angels had finished their hallelujahs, he was forced to fly to save his life ; and the air became full of shrieks of the desolate mothers of Bethlehem for their dying babes. God had no sooner made him illustrious with a voice from heaven, and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him in the waters of baptism, but he was delivered over to be tempted and assaulted by the devil in the wilderness. His transfiguration was a bright ray of glory ; but then also he entered into a cloud, and was told a sad story what he was to suffer at Jeru- salem. And upon Palm Sunday, when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, and was adorned with the acclamations of a King and a God, he wet the palms with his tears, sweeter than the drops of manna, or the little pearls of heaven, that descended upon mount Hermon ; weeping, in the midst of his triumph, over obstinate, perishing, and malicious Jerusalem. For this Jesus was like the rainbow, which God set in the clouds as a sacrament to con- firm a promise, and establish a grace ; he was half made of the glories of the light, and half of the moisture of a cloud ; in his best days he was but half triumph and half sorrow : he was sent to tell of his Father’s mercies, and that God intended to spare us ; but appeared not but in the company or in the retinue of a shower, and of foul weather. But I need not tell that Jesus, beloved of God, was a suf- fering person ; that which concerns this question most, is, that he made for us a covenant of suffer- ings: his doctrines were such as expressly and by consequent enjoin and support sufferings, and a state of affliction ; his very promises were sufferings ; his beatitudes were sufferings ; his rewards, and his arguments to invite men to follow him, were only taken from sufferings in this life, and the reward of sufferings hereafter. For if we sum up the commandments of Christ, we shall find humility, — mortification, — self-denial. 808 THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS; Serm. IX. — repentance, — renouncing the world, — mourning, — taking up the cross, — dying for him, — patience and poverty, — to stand in the chiefest rank of Chris- tian precepts, and in the direct order to heaven : “ He that will be my disciple, must deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” We must follow him that was crowned with thorns and sor- rows, him that was drenched in Cedron, nailed upon the cross, that deserved all good, and suffered all evil : that is the sum of Christian religion, as it dis- tinguishes from all the religions of the world. To which we may add the express precept recorded by St. James: “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter he turned into mourning, and your joy into weeping.” ^ You see the command- ments ; will you also see the promises ? These they are. “ In the world ye shall have tribulation; in me ye shall have peace : — Through many tribu- lations ye shall enter into heaven : — He that loseth father and mother, wives and children, houses and lands, for my name’s sake and the gospel, shall re- ceive a hundred-fold in this life, with persecution ;” that is part of his reward : and, “ He chastiseth every son that he receiveth ; — if ye be exempt from sufferings, ye are bastards, and not sons.” These are some of Christ’s promises : will you see some of Christ’s blessings that he gives his church ? “ Blessed are the poor : blessed are the hungry and thirsty : blessed are they that mourn : blessed are the humble : blessed are the persecuted.” ^ Of the eight beatitudes, five of them have temporal misery and meanness, or an afflicted condition, for their subject. Will you at last see some of the rewards which Christ hath propounded to his servants, to invite them to follow him ? “When I am lifted up, I will draw all men after me when Christ is “ lifted up, as Moses lift up the serpent in the wil- derness,” that is, lifted upon the cross, then “ he will draw us after him.” — “ To you it is given for Christ,” saith St. Paul, when he went to sweeten and to flatter the Philippians well, what is given to them ? some great favours surely : true ; “ It is not only given that you believe in Christ,” — though that be a great matter, — “ but also that you suffer for him,” that is the highest of your honour. And therefore St. James, “ My brethren, count it all joy when ye enter into divers temptations and St. Peter ; “ Communicating with the sufferings of Christ, rejoice.”® And St. James again; “We count them blessed that have suffered ^ and St. Paul, when he gives his blessing to the Thessa- lonians, useth this form of prayer ; “ Our Lord direct your hearts in the charity of God, and in the patience and sufferings of Christ.” s So that if we will serve the King of sufferings, whose crown was of thorns, whose sceptre was a reed of scorn, whose imperial robe was a scarlet of mockery, whose throne was the cross ; we must serve him in suffer- ings, in poverty of spirit, in humility and mortifica- tion ; and for onr reward we shall have persecution, and all its blessed consequences. “ Atque hoc est esse christianum.” James iv. 9. ^ Matt. v. «■ Phil. i. 29. ^ James i. 2. ® 1 Pet. iv. 13. ^ James v. 11. Since this was done in the green tree, what might we expect should be done in the dry ? Let us, in the next place, consider how God hath treat- ed his saints and servants in the descending ages of the gospel : that if the best of God’s servants were followers of Jesus in this covenant of sufferings, we may not think it strange concerning the fiery trial, as if some new thing had happened to us.*^ For as the gospel was founded in sufferings, we shall also see it grow in persecutions ; and as Christ’s blood did cement the corner-stones, and the first foundations ; so the blood and sweat, the groans and sighings, the afflictions and mortifications, of saints and martyrs, did make the superstructures, and must at last finish the building. If we begin with the apostles, who were to per- suade the world to become Christian, and to use proper arguments of invitations, we shall find that they never offered an argument of temporal pros- perity; they never promised empires and thrones on earth, nor riches, nor temporal power ; and it would have been soon confuted, if they who were whipt and imprisoned, bound and scattered, persecuted and tormented, should have promised sunshine days to others, which they could not to themselves. Of all the apostles there was not one that died a natural death but only St. John;^ and did he escape ? Yes : but he was put into a caul- dron of scalding lead and oil before the Port La- tin in Rome, and escaped death by a miracle, though no miracle was wrought to make him escape the torture. And, besides this, he lived long in banishment, and that was worse than St. Peter’s chains. “ Sanctus Petrus in vinculis, et Jo- hannes ante Portam,” were both days of martyr- dom, and church-festival. And after a long and laborious life, and the affliction of being detained from his crown, and his sorrows for the death of his fellow-disciples, he died full of days and suffer- ings. And when St. Paul was taken into the apos- tolate, his commissions were signed in these words ; “ I will show unto him how great things he must suffer for my name ^ And his whole life was a continual suffering. “ Quotidie morior ” was his motto, “ I die daily ;” and his lesson that he daily learned was, to “ know Christ Jesus, and him cruci- fied;” and all his joy was “to rejoice in the cross of Christ;” and the changes of his life were no- thing but the changes of his sufferings, and the variety of his labours. For though Christ hath finished his own sufferings for expiation of the world ; yet there are varepiijiara “ por- tions that are behind of the sufferings ” of Christ, which must be filled up by his body, the church ; and happy are they that put in the greatest sym- bol ; for “ in the same measure you are partakers of the sufferings of Christ, in the same shall ye be also of the consolation.” And therefore, concern- ing St. Paul, as it was also concerning Christ, there is nothing, or but very little, in Scripture, relating to his person and chances of his private life, but his labours and persecutions ; as if the Holy Ghost P 2 Thess. iii. 5. Heb. ii, 10. ’’ 1 Pet. iv. 12. ■ Tertul. S. Hieron. ^ Acts ix. 16. Serm. IX. OR, THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE OPPRESSED. 809 did think nothing fit to stand upon record for Christ but sufterings. And now began to work the greatest glory of the Divine providence : here was the case of Christianity at stake. The world was rich and prosperous, learned and full of wise men ; the gospel was preached with poverty and persecution, in simpli- city of discourse, and in demonstration of the Spirit; God was on one side, and the devil on the other ; they each of them dressed up their city ; Babylon upon earth, Jerusalem from above. The devil’s city was full of pleasure, triumphs, victories, and cruelty ; good news, and great wealth; conquest over kings, and making nations tributary ; they “ bound kings in chains, and the nobles with links of iron ;” and the inheritance of the earth was theirs : the Romans were lords over the greatest part of the world ; and God permitted to the devil the firmament and increase, the wars and the suc- cess of that people, giving to him an entire power of disposing the great changes of the world, so as might best increase their greatness and power : and he therefore did it, because all the power of the Roman greatness was a professed enemy to Christianity. And on the other side, God was to build up Jerusa- lem, and the kingdom of the gospel ; and he chose to build it of hewn stone, cut and broken : the apostles he chose for preachers, and they had no learning ; women and mean people were the first disciples, and they had no power ; the devil was to lose his kingdom, he wanted no malice ; and there- fore he stirred up, and, as well as he could, he made active all the power of Rome, and all the learning of the Greeks, and all the malice of barbarous peo- ple, and all the prejudice and the obstinacy of the Jews, against this doctrine and institution, which preached, and promised, and brought, persecution along with it. On the one side, there was “ scan- dalum crucis ; ” on the other, “ patientia sanctorum and what was the event ? They that had overcome the world, could not strangle Christianity. But so have I seen the sun with a little ray of distant light challenge all the power of darkness, and, without violence and noise, climbing up the hill, hath made night so to retire, that its memory was lost in the joys and spritefulness of the morning : and Christianity without violence or armies, without resistance and self-preservation, without strength, or human elo- quence, without challenging of privileges or fighting against tyranny, without alteration of government and scandal of princes, with its humility and meek- ness, with toleration and patience, with obedience and charity, with praying and dying, did insensibly turn the world into Christian, and persecution into victory. For Christ, who began, and lived, and died in sorrows, perceiving his own sufferings to succeed so well, and that “ for suffering death, he was crowned with immortality,” resolved to take all his disciples and servants to the fellowship of the same suffering, that they might have a participation of his glory ; knowing, God had opened no gate of heaven but “ the narrow gate,” to which the cross was the key. And since Christ now being our high priest in heaven, intercedes for us by representing his pas- sion, and the dolours of the cross, that even in glory he might still preserve the mercies of his past suf- ferings, for which the Father did so delight in him ; he also designs to present us to God dressed in the same robe, and treated in the same manner, and honoured with “ the marks of the Lord Jesus ;” “ He hath predestinated us to be conformable to the image of his Son.” And if under a head crowned with thorns, we bring to God members circled with roses, and softness, and delicacy, triumphant mem- bers in the militant church, God will reject us, he will not know us who are so unlike our elder Brother : for we are members of the Lamb, not of the lion; and of Christ’s suffering part, not of the triumphant part : and for three hundred years together the church lived upon blood, and was nourished with blood; the blood of her own children. Thirty-three bishops of Rome in imme- diate succession were put to violent and unnatural deaths ; and so were all the churches of the east and west built ; the cause of Christ and of religion was advanced by the sword, but it was the sword of the persecutors, not of resisters or warriors : they were “ all baptized into the death of Christ ;” their very profession and institution is to live like him, and, when he requires it, to die for him ; that is the very formality, the life and essence, of Christianity. This, I say, lasted for three hundred years, that the prayers, and the backs, and the necks of Christians fought against the rods and axes of the persecutors, and prevailed, till the country, and the cities, and the court itself, was filled with Christians. And by this time the army of martyrs was vast and numer- ous, and the number of sufferers blunted the hang- man’s sword. For Christ first triumphed over the princes and powers of the world, before he would admit them to serve them ; he first felt their malice, before he would make use of their defence ; to show, that it was not his necessity that required it, but his grace that admitted kings and queens to be nurses of the church. And now the church was at ease, and she that sucked the blood of the martyrs so long, began now to suck the milk of queens. Indeed it was a great mercy in appearance, and was so intended, but it proved not so. But then the Holy Ghost, in pursuance of the design of Christ, who meant by suffering to perfect his church, as himself was by the same instrument, — was pleased, now that per- secution did cease, to inspire the church with the Spirit of mortification and austerity ; and then they made colleges of sufferers, persons who, to secure their inheritance in the world to come, did cut off all their portion in this, excepting so much of it as was necessary to their present being ; and by instru- ments of humility, by patience under, and a volun- tary undertaking of, the cross, the burden of the Lord, — hy self-denial, by fastings and sackcloth, and pernoctations in prayer, they chose then to exer- cise the active part of the religion, mingling it as much as they could with the suffering. And indeed it is so glorious a thing to be like Christ, to be dressed like the prince of the catholic 810 THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS; Serm. IX. church, who was “ a man of sufferings,” and to whom a prosperous and unafflicted person is very unlike, that in all ages the servants of God have “ put on the armour of righteousness, on the right hand and on the left : ” that is, in the sufferings of persecution, or the labours of mortification ; in pa- tience under the rod of God, or by election of our own ; by toleration, or self-denial ; by actual mar- tyrdom, or by aptness or disposition towards it ; by dying for Christ, or suffering for him ; by being willing to part with all when he calls for it, and by parting with wdiat we can for the relief of his poor members. For, know this, there is no state in the church so serene, no days so prosperous, in which God does not give to his servants the powers and opportunities of suffering for him ; not only they that die for Christ, but they that live according to his laws, shall find some lives to part with, and many ways to suffer for Christ. To kill and crucify the old man and all his lusts, to mortify a beloved sin, to fight against temptations, to do violence to our bodies, to live chastely, to suffer affronts pa- tiently, to forgive injuries and debts, to renounce all prejudice and interest in religion, and to choose our side for truth’s sake, (not because it is prosperous, but because it pleases God,) to be charitable beyond our power, to reprove our betters with modesty and openness, to displease men rather than God, to be at enmity with the world, that you may preserve friendship with God, to deny the importunity and troublesome kindness of a drinking friend, to own truth in despite of danger or scorn, to despise shame, to refuse worldly pleasures when they tempt your soul beyond duty or safety, to take pains in the cause of religion, the “ labour of love,” and the crossing of your anger, peevishness, and morosity : these are the daily sufferings of a Christian ; and, if w'e perform them well, will have the same reward, and an equal smart, and greater labour, than the plain suffering the hangman’s sword. This I have discoursed, to represent unto you, that you cannot be exempted from the similitude of Christ’s suffer- ings : that God will shut no age nor no man from his portion of the cross ; that we cannot fail of the result of this predestination, nor without our own fault be excluded from the covenant of sufferings. “ Judgment must begin at God’s house, and enters first upon the sons and heirs of the kingdom ; and if it be not by the direct persecution of tyrants, it will be by the direct persecution of the devil, or infirmities of our own flesh. But because this was but the secondary meaning of the text, I return to make use of all the former discourse. Let no Christian man make any judgment con- cerning his condition or his cause, by the external event of things. For although in the law of Moses, God made with his people a covenant of temporal prosperity, and “ his saints did bind the kings of the Amorites, and the Philistines, in chains, and their nobles with links of iron, and then, that was the honour which all his saints had;” yet, in Christ Jesus, he made a covenant of sufferings. Most of the graces of Christianity are suffering graces, and God hath predestinated us to sufferings, and wc are baptized into suffering, and our very communions are symbols of our duty, by being the sacrament of Christ’s death and passion ; and Christ foretold to us tribulation, and promised only that he would be with us in tribulation, that he would give us his Spirit to assist us at tribunals, and his grace to despise the world, and to contemn riches, and boldness to con- fess every article of the Christian faith, in the face of armies and armed tyrants. And he also promised that “ all things should work together for the best to his servants,” that is, he would “ out of the eater bring meat, and out of the strong issue sweetness,” and crowns and sceptres should spring from crosses, and that the cross itself should stand upon the globes and sceptres of princes ; but he never pro- mised to his servants, that they should pursue kings and destroy armies, that they should reign over nations, and promote the cause of Jesus Christ, by breaking his commandment. “ The shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit, the armour of right- eousness, and the weapons of spiritual warfare;” these are they by which Christianity swelled from a small company, and a less reputation, to possess the chairs of doctors, and the thrones of princes, and the hearts of all men. But men, in all ages, will be tampering with shadows and toys. The apostles at no hand could endure to hear that Christ’s “ kingdom was not of this world,” and that their Master should die a sad and shameful death ; though that way he was to receive his crown, and “ enter into glory.” And after Christ’s time, when his disciples had taken up the cross, and were marching the King’s highway of sorrows, there were a very great many, even the generality of Christians, for two or three ages together, who fell a dreaming, that Christ should come and reign upon earth again for a thousand years, and then the saints should reign in all abundance of temporal power and for- tunes : but these men were content to stay for it till after the resurrection; in the mean time, took up their cross, and followed after their Lord, the King of sufferings. But now-a-days, we find a generation of men who have changed the covenant of sufferings into victories and triumphs, riches and prosperous chances, and reckon their Christianity by their good fortunes ; as if Christ had promised to his servants no heaven hereafter, no Spirit in the mean time to refresh their sorrows ; as if he had enjoined them no passive graces ; but as if to be a Christian and to be a Turk were the same thing. Mahomet entered and possessed by the sword : Christ came by the cross, entered by humility ; and his saints “ possess their souls by patience.” God was fain to multiply miracles to make Christ capable of being a “ man of sorrows : ” and shall we think he will work miracles to make us delicate ? He promised us a glorious portion hereafter, to which if all the sufferings of the w^orld were put together, they are not worthy to be compared ; and shall we, with Dives, choose our portion of “ good things in this life?” If Christ suffered so many things only that he might give us glory, shall it be strano-e that we shall suffer who are to receive his O glory? It is in vain to think we shall obtain glo- Serm. IX. OR, THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE OPPRESSED. 811 ries at an easier rate, than to drink of the brook in the way in which Christ was drenched. When the devil appeared to St. Martin, in a bright splendid shape, and said he was Christ; he answered, “ Christas non nisi in cruce apparet suis, in hac vita.” And when St. Ignatius was newly tied in a chain to be led to his martyrdom, he cried out, “ Nunc incipio esse Christianus.” And it was ob- served by Minutius Felix, and was indeed a great and excellent truth, “ Omnes viri fortes, quos gen- tiles praedicabant in exemplum, serumnis suis inclyti lloruerunt;” “The gentiles in their whole religion never propounded any man imitable, unless the man were poor or persecuted.” Brutus stood for his country’s liberty, but lost his army and his life ; Socrates was put to death for speaking a religious truth ; Cato chose to be on the right side, but hap- pened to fall upon the oppressed and the injured ; he died together with his party. Victi'ix causa Deisplacuit, sed victaCatoni. — Lucan. And if God thus dealt with the best of heathens, to whom he had made no clear revelation of im- mortal recompences ; how little is the faith, and how much less is the patience of Christians, if they shall think much to suffer sorrow, since they so clearly see with the eye of faith the great things which are laid up for them that are “ faithful unto the death ?” Faith is useless, if now in the midst of so great pretended lights we shall not dare to trust God, unless we have all in hand that we desire ; and suffer nothing, for all we can hope for. They that live by sense have no use of faith : yet our Lord Jesus, concerning whose passions the gospel speaks much, but little of his glorifications ; whose shame was public, whose pains were notorious, but his joys and transfigurations were secret, and kept private ; he who would not suffer his holy mother, whom in great degrees he exempted from sin, — to be exempted from many and great sorrows, certainly intends to admit none to his resurrection but by the doors of his grave, none to glory but by the way of the cross. “ If we be planted into the likeness of his death, we shall be also of his resurrection;” else on no terms. Christ took away sin from us, but he left us our share of sufferings ; and the cross, which was first printed upon us in the waters of baptism, must for ever be borne by us in penance, in mortification, in self-denial, and in martyrdom, and toleration, according as God shall require of us by the changes of the world and the condition of the church. For Christ considers nothing but souls, he values not their estates or bodies, supplying our want by his providence ; and we are secured that our bodies may be billed, but cannot perish, so long as we preserve our duty and our consciences. Christ, our Captain, hangs naked upon the cross : our fellow-soldiers are cast into prison, torn with lions, rent in sunder with trees returning from their violent bendings, broken upon wheels, roasted upon gridirons, and have had the honour not only to have a good cause, but also to suffer for it ; and by faith, not by armies, — by patience, not by fighting, have overcome the world. “ Et sit anima mea cum christianis ;” “ I pray God my soul may be among the Christians.” And yet the Turks have prevailed upon a great part of the Christian world, and have them slaves and tributaries, and do them all spite, and are hugely prosperous ; but when the Christians are so, then they are tempted and put in danger, and never have their duty and their interest so well secured, as when they lose all for Christ, and are adorned with wounds or poverty, change or scorn, affronts or revilings, which are the obelisks and triumphs of a holy cause. Evil men and evil causes had need have good fortune and great success to support their persons and their pretences ; for nothing but innocence and Christianity can flourish in a persecution. I sum up this first discourse in a word : in all the Scripture, and in all the authentic stories of the church, we find it often that the devil appeared in the shape of an “ angel of light,” but was never suffered so much as to counterfeit a per- secuted sufferer. Say no more, therefore, as the murmuring Israelites said, “ If the Lord be with us, why have these evils apprehended us ?” for if to be afflicted be a sign that God hath forsaken a man, and refuses to own his religion or his question, then he that oppresses the widow, and murders the innocent, and puts the fatherless to death, and follows providence by doing all the evils that he can, that is, all that God suffers him, — he, I say, is the only saint and servant of God ; and upon the same ground the wolf and the fox may boast, when they scatter and devour a flock of lambs and harm- less sheep. SERMON X. PART II. 2. It follows now that we inquire concerning the reasons of the Divine Providence in this adminis- tration of affairs, so far as he hath been pleased to draw aside the curtain, and to unfold the leaves of his counsels and predestination. And for such an inquiry we have the precedent of the prophet Jeremy: “ Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee ; yet let us talk to thee of thy judgments. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper ? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously ? thou hast planted them, yea they have taken root : they grow, yea they bring forth fruit. Concerning which in general the prophet Malachi gives this account after the same complaint made : “ And now we call the proud happy ; and they that work wickedness are set up : yea they that tempt God are even delivered. They that feared the Lord spake often one to another ; and the Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord and thought upon his name. And they shall be mine (saith the Lord of hosts) in that Jer. xii. 1, 2. 812 THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS ; Serm. X. day when I bind up my jewels ; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked ; between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. In this interval, which is a valley of tears, it is no wonder if they rejoice who shall weep for ever ; and “ they that sow in tears ” shall have no cause to complain, when God gathers all the mourners into his kingdom, “they shall reap with joy.” For innocence and joy were appointed to dwell together for ever. And joy went not first; but when innocence went away, sorrow and sickness dispossessed joy of its habitation ; and now this world must be always a scene of sorrows, and no joy can grow here but that which is imaginary and fantastic. There is no worldly joy, no joy proper for this world, but that which wicked persons fancy to themselves in the hopes and designs of iniquity. He that covets his neighbour’s wife or land, dreams of fine things, and thinks it a fair condition to be rich and cursed, to be a beast and die, or to lie wallowing in his filthiness : but those holy souls who are not in love with the leprosy and the itch for the pleasure of scratching, they know no pleasure can grow from the thorns which Adam planted in the hedges of paradise ; and that sorrow, which was brought in by sin, must not go away till it hath returned us into the first condition of innocence : the same instant that quits us from sin and the fail- ings of mortality, the same instant wipes all tears from our eyes ; but that is not in this world. In the mean time, God afflicts the godly, that he might manifest many of his attributes, and his servants exercise many of their virtues. Nec fortuna probat causas, sequiturque merentes, Sed vaga per cunctos nullo discrimine fertur: Scilicet est aliud, quod nos cogatque regatque, Majus, et in proprias ducat mortalia leges. For, without the sufferings of saints, God should lose the glories, 1. Of bringing good out of evil : 2. Of being with us in tribulation : 3. Of sustaining our infirmities : 4. Of triumphing over the malice of his enemies. 5. Without the suffering of the saints, where were the exaltation of the cross, the con- formity of the members to Christ their head, the coronets of martyrs ? 6. Where were the trial of our faith?, 7 . Or the exercise of long-suffering ? 8. Where were the opportunities to give God the greatest love ? which cannot be but by dying and suffering for him. 9. How should that which the world calls folly, prove the greatest wisdom? 10. And God be glorified by events contrary to the probability and expectation of their causes? 11. By the suffering of saints, Christian religion is proved to be most excellent ; whilst the iniquity and cruelty of the adversaries proves the “ Illecebra sectfE,” as Tertiillian’s phrase is ; it invites men to consider the secret excellencies of that religion, for which and in which men are so willing to die : for that religion must needs be worth looking into, which so many wise and excellent men do so much " Mai. iii. 1 1, &c. value above their lives and fortunes. 12. That a man’s nature is passible, is its best advantage ; for by it we are all redeemed : by the passiveness and sufferings of our Lord and Brother we were all rescued from the portion of devils ; and by our sufferings we have a capacity of serving God beyond that of angels ; who indeed can sing God’s praise with a sweeter note, and obey him with a more unabated will, and execute his commands with a swifter wing and a greater power ; but they cannot die for God, they can lose no lands for him ; and he that did so for all us, and commanded us to do so for him, is ascended far above all angels, and is heir of a greater glory. 13. “ Do this, and live,” was the covenant of the law; but in the gospel it is, ‘‘’'Suffer this, and live :” — “ He that forsaketh house and land, friends and life, for my sake, is my disciple.” 14. By the sufferings of saints God chastises their fol- lies and levities, and suffers not their errors to climb up into heresies, nor their infirmities into crimes. TraOwi/ hi tl vriirio^ iyvu). “ Affliction makes a fool leave his folly.” — If David numbers the people of Judea, God punishes him sharply and loudly : but if Augustus Caesar numbers all the world, he is let alone and prospers. Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit, hie diadema. Juv. And in giving physic, we always call that just and fitting that is useful and profitable : no man com- plains of his physician’s iniquity, if he burns one part to cure all the body ; if the belly be punished to chastise the floods of humour, and the evils of a surfeit. Punishments can no other way turn into a mercy, but when they are designed for a medicine ; and God is then very careful of thy soul, when he will suppress every of its evils, when it first discom- poses the order of things and spirits. And what hurt is it to thee, if a persecution draws thee from the vanities of a former prosperity, and forces thee into the sobrieties of a holy life ? What loss is it ? what misery ? Is not the least sin a greater evil than the greatest of suiferings ? God smites some at the beginning of their sin ; others, not till a long while after it is done. The first cannot say that God is slack in punishing, and have no need to complain that the wicked are prosperous ; for they find that God is apt enough to strike : and therefore, that he strikes them, and strikes not the other, is not defect of jus- tice, but because there is not mercy in store for them that sin, and suffer not. 15. For if God strikes the godly that they may repent, it is no wonder that God is so good to his servants ; but then we must not call that a misery, which God intends to make an instrument of saving them. And if God forbears to strike the wicked out of anger, and because he hath decreed death and hell against them, we have no reason to envy that they ride in a gilded chariot to the gallows : but if God forbear the wicked, that by his long sufferance they may be invited to re- pentance, then we may cease to wonder at the dis- pensation, and argue comforts to the afflicted saints, thus : for if God be so gracious to the wicked, how much more is he to the godly ? And if sparing the Serm, X. OR, THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE OPPRESSED. 813 wicked be a mercy ; then, smiting the godly, being the expression of his greater kindness, affliction is of itself the more eligible condition. If God hath some degrees of kindness for the persecutors, so much as to invite them by kindness ; how much greater is his love to them that are persecuted ! And therefore, his intercourse with them is also a greater favour ; and, indeed, it is the surer way of securing the duty : fair means may do it, but severity will fix and secure it. Fair means are more apt to be abused than harsh physic ; that may be turned into wantonness, but none but the impudent and grown sinners despise all God’s judgments ; and therefore, God chooses this way to deal with his erring servants, that they may obtain an infallible and a great salvation. And yet if God spares not his children, how much less the reprobates ! and therefore, as sparing the latter commonly is a sad curse, so the smiting the former is a very great mercy. 16. For by this economy God gives us a great argument to prove the resurrection, since to his saints and servants he assigns sorrow for their present portion. Sorrow cannot be the reward of virtue ; it may be its instrument and handmaid, but not its reward; and therefore, it may be intermedial to some great purposes, but they must look for their portion in the other life : “ For if in this life only we had hope, then we were of all men the most miserable:” it is St. Paul’s argument to prove a beatifical resurrection. And we therefore may learn to estimate the state of the afflicted godly to be a mercy, great in proportion to the greatness of that reward, which these afflictions come to secure and to prove. Nimc et damna juvant; sunt ipsa pericula tanti : Stantia non poterant tecta probare deos. Martial. It is a great matter, and infinite blessing, to escape the pains of hell ; and therefore, that condition is also very blessed which God sends us, to create and to confirm our hopes of that excellent merc 5 ^ 1 T. The sufferings of the saints are the sum of Christian philosophy ; they are sent to wean us from the vanities and affections of this world, and to create in us strong desires of heaven ; whiles God causes us to be here treated rudely, that we may long to be in our country, where God shall be our portion, and angels our companions, and Christ our per- petual feast, and never-ceasing joy shall be our conditions and entertainment. “ 0 death, how bit- ter art thou to a man that is at ease and rest in his possessions !”® But he that is uneasy in his body, and unquiet in his possessions, vexed in his person, discomposed in his designs, who finds no pleasure, no rest here, will be glad to fix his heart where only he shall have what he can desire, and what can make him happy. As long as the waters of persecutions are upon the earth, so long we dwell in the ark : but where the land is dry, the dove iU self will be tempted to a wandering course of life, and never to return to the house of her safety. What shall I say more ? 18. Christ nourisheth his church by sufferings. 19. He hath given a single " Ecclus. iv. 11. p Matt. v. 12. blessing to all other graces ; but to them that are “ persecuted,” he hath promised a double one : i’ it being a double favour, first to be innocent like Christ, and then to be afflicted like him. 20. With- out this, the miracles of patience, which God hath given to fortify the spirits of the saints, would sig- nify nothing. “ Nemo enim tolerare tanta velit sine causa, nec potuit sine Deo : “As no man would bear evils without a cause, so no man could bear so much without the supporting hand of God;” and we need not the Holy Ghost to so great purposes, if our lot were not sorrow and persecution. And therefore, without this condition of suffering, the Spirit of God shall lose that glorious attribute of the Holy Ghost, “the Comforter.” 21. Is there any thing more yet? Yes. They that have suffered or forsaken any lands for Christ, “ shall sit upon the thrones, and judge the twelve tribes of Israel;” so said Christ to his disciples. Nay, “the saints shall judge angels,” saith St. Paul: well therefore might St. Paul say, “ I rejoice exceedingly in tribulation.” It must be some great thing that must make an af- flicted man to rejoice exceedingly ; and so it was. For since patience is necessary that we receive the promise, and tribulation does work this ; “ for a short time it worketh the consummation of our hope; even an exceeding weight of glory ; ” we have no reason to “ think it strange concerning the fiery trial, as if it were a strange thing.” It can be no hurt. The church is like Moses’s bush, when it is all on fire, it is not at all consumed, but made full of miracle, full of splendour, full of God : and unless we can find something that God cannot turn into joy, we have reason not only to be patient, but re- joice, when we are persecuted in a righteous cause : for love is the soul of Christianity, and suffering is the soul of love. To be innocent, and to be perse- cuted, are the body and soul of Christianity. “ I, John, your brother, and partaker in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus,” said St. John: *3 those were the titles and ornaments of his profession : that is, “ I John, your fellow-christian :” that is the plain song of the former descant. He, therefore, that is troubled when he is afflicted in his outward man, that his inward man may grow strong, like the birds upon the ruins of the shell, and won- ders that a good man should be a beggar, and a sinner be rich with oppression ; that Lazarus should die at the gate of Dives, hungry and sick, unpitied and unrelieved ; may as well wonder that carrion- crows should feed themselves fat upon a fair horse, far better than themselves ; or that his own excel- lent body should be devoured by worms and the most contemptible creatures, though it lies there to be converted into glory. That man knows nothing of nature, or Providence, or Christianity, or the rewards of virtue, or the nature of its constitution, or the in- firmities of man, or the mercies of God, or the arts and prudence of his loving-kindness, or the rewards of heaven, or the glorification of Christ’s exalted humanity, or the precepts of the gospel, who is offended at the sufferings of God’s dearest servants, or declines the honour and the mercy of sufferings q Rev, i. 9. 814 THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS ; Serm. X. in the cause of righteousness, for the securing of a virtue, for the imitation of Christ, and for the love of God, or the glories of immortality. It cannot, it ought not, it never will be otherwise ; the world may as well cease to be measured by time, as good men to suffer affliction. I end this point with the words of St. Paul ; “ Let as many as are perfect be thus minded : and if any man be otherwise minded, God also will reveal this unto you;”'" this, of the covenant of sufferings, concerning which the old prophets and holy men of the temple had many thoughts of heart : but in the full sufferings of the gospel there hath been a full revelation of the ex- cellency of the sufferings. I have now given you an account of some of those reasons, why God hath so disposed that at this time, that is, under the period of the gospel, “ Judgment must begin at the house of God and they are either n/xwp/at, or Zokl- fiaaiai, or fiaprvpLov, or imitation of Christ’s Xvrpoy, “ chastisements,” or “ trials,” or “ martyrdom,” or “ a conformity to the sufferings of the holy Jesus.” But now besides all the premises, we have another account to make concerning the prosperity of the wicked : “ For if judgment first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God ? ” that is the question of the apostle, and is the great instrument of comfort to persons ill-treated in the actions of the world. The first ages of the church lived upon promises and prophecies ; and because some of them are already fulfilled for ever, and the others are of a continual and a successive nature, and are verified by the actions of every day, therefore we and all the following ages live upon promises and experience. And although the ser- vants of God have suffered many calamities from the tyranny and prevalency of evil men their enemies, yet still it is preserved as one of the funda- mental truths of Christianity, that all the fair for- tunes of the wicked are not enough to make them happy, nor the persecutions of the godly able to make a good man miserable, nor yet their sadnesses arguments of God’s displeasure against them. For when a godly man is afflicted and dies, it is his work and his business ; and if the wicked prevail, that is, if they persecute the godly, it is but that which w^as to be expected from them ; for who are fit to be hangmen and executioners of public wrath, but evil and ungodly persons ? And can it be a wonder, that they whose cause wants reason, should betake themselves to the sword? that what he can- not persuade, he may wrest ? Only we must not judge of the things of God by the measures of men. Td av^pioiziva, “ the things of men” have this world for their stage and their reward ; but the “ things of God” relate to the w’orld to come : and for our owm particulars we are to be guided by rule, and by the end of all ; not by events intermedial, which are varied by a thousand irregular causes. For if all the evil men in the world w^ere unprosper- ous, — as most certain they are, — and if all good persons were temporally blessed, — as most certainly they are not ; yet this would not move us to become virtuous. “If an angel should come from heaven, Phil. iii. 15. or one rise from the dead” and preach repentance, or justice, and temperance, all this would be in- effectual to those, to whom the plain doctrines of God delivered in the law and the prophets will not suffice. For why should God work a sign to make us to believe that w^e ought to do justice, if we already believe he hath commanded it ? No man can need a miracle for the confirmation of that which he already believes to be the command of God : and when God hath expressly bidden us to “ obey every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, the king as supreme, and his deputies as sent by him it is a strange infidelity to think, that a rebellion against the ordinance of God can be sanctified by the success and prevalency of them that destroy the authority, and the person, and the law, and the religion. The sin cannot grow to its height, if it be crushed at the beginning ; unless it prosper in its progress, a man cannot easily fill up the measure of his iniquity : but then that sin swells to its fulness by prosperity, and grows too big to be suppressed wdthout a mira- cle ; it is so far from excusing or lessening the sin, that nothing doth so nurse the sin as it. It is not virtue, because it is prosperous ; but if it had not been prosperous, the sin could never be so great. Facere omnia sasve Non impune licet, nisi dum facis Lucan. A little crime is sure to smart ; but when the sinner is grown rich, and prosperous, and powerful, he gets impunity, Jusque datum sceleri Lucan. But that is not innocence : and if prosperity w^ere the voice of God to approve an action, then no man were vicious but he that is punished ; and nothing Avere rebellion but that which can be easily sup- pressed ; and no man were a pirate but he that robs with a little vessel ; and no man could be a tyrant but he that is no prince ; and no man an unjust in- vader of his neighbour’s rights but he that is beaten and overthrown. Then the crime growls big and loud, then it calls to Heaven for vengeance, when it hath been long a growing, when it hath thrived under the devil’s managing ; when God hath long suffered it, and wdth patience, in vain ex- pecting the repentance of a sinner. “ He that treasures up wrath against the day of wrath,” that man hath been a prosperous, that is, an unpunished, and a thriving sinner : but then it is the sin that thrives, not the man : and that is the mistake upon this whole question ; for the sin cannot thrive, unless the man goes on without apparent punishment and restraint. And all that the man gets by it is, that by a continual course of sin he is prepared for an intolerable ruin. The Spirit of God bids us look upon the end of these men ; not the way they walk, or the instruments of that pompous death. When Epaminondas was asked which of the three was happiest, himself, Chabrias, or Iphicrates, he bid the man stay till they were all dead ; for till then that question could not be answered. He that had seen the Vandals besiege the city of Hii)po, and had Serm. X. OR, THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE OPPRESSED. 815 had known the barbarousness of that unchristcned people, and had observed that St. Austin with all his prayers and vows could not obtain peace in his own days, not so much as a reprieve for the perse- cution, and then had observed St. Austin die with grief that very night, would have perceived his calamity more visible than the reward of his piety and holy religion. When Lewis, surnamed Pius, went his voyage to Palestine upon a holy end, and for the glory of God, to fight against the Saracens and Turks and Mamelukes, the world did promise to themselves that a good cause should thrive in the hands of so holy a man ; but the event was far otherwise : his brother Robert was killed, and his army destroyed, and himself taken prisoner, and the money which by his mother was sent for his re- demption, was cast away in a storm, and he was exchanged for the last town the Christians had in Egypt, and brought home the cross of Christ upon his shoulder in a real pressure and participation of his Master’s sufferings. When Charles the Fifth went to Algiers to suppress pirates and unchristened villains, the cause was more confident than the event was prosperous : and when he was almost ruined in a prodigious storm, he told the minutes of the clock, expecting that at midnight, when religious persons rose to matins, he should be eased by the benefit of their prayers ; but the providence of God trod upon those waters, and left no footsteps for discovery ; his navy was beat in pieces, and his de- sign ended in dishonour, and his life almost lost by the bargain. Was ever cause more baffled than the Christian cause by the Turks in all Asia and Africa, and some parts of Europe, if to be perse- cuted and afflicted be reckoned a calamity ? What prince was ever more unfortunate than Henry the Sixth of England ? and yet that age saw none more pious and devout. And the title of the house of Lancaster was advanced against the right of York for three descents. But then what was the end of these things ? The persecuted men were made saints, and their memories are preserved in honour, and their souls shall reign for ever. And some good men were engaged in a wrong cause, and the good cause was sometimes managed by evil men; till that the suppressed cause was lifted up by God in the hands of a young and prosperous prince, and at last both interests were satisfied in the con- junction of two roses, which was brought to issue by a wonderful chain of causes managed by the Divine Providence. And there is no age, no his- tory, no state, no great change in the world, but hath ministered an example of an afflicted truth, and a prevailing sin; for I will never more call that sinner prosperous, who, after he hath been permitted to finish his business, shall die and perish miserably ; for at the same rate we may envy the happiness of a poor fisherman, who, while his nets were drying, slept upon the rock, and dreamt that he was made a king; on a sudden starts up, and leaping for joy, falls down from the rock, and in the place of his imaginary felicities, loses his little portion of pleasure and innocent solaces he had from the sound sleep and little cares of his humble cottage. And what is the prosperity of the wicked ? To dwell in fine houses, or to command armies, or to be able to oppress their brethren, or to have much wealth to look on, or many servants to feed, or much business to despatch, and great cares to master ; these things are of themselves neither good nor bad. But consider, would any man amongst us, looking and considering beforehand, kill his lawful king, to be heir of all that which I have named ? AVould any of you choose to have God angry with you upon these terms? Would any of you be a perjured man for it all? A wise man or a good would not choose it. Would any of you die an atheist, that you might live in plenty and power ? I believe you tremble to think of it. It cannot therefore be a happiness to thrive upon the stock of a great sin. For if any man should contract with an impure spirit, to give his soul up at a cer- tain day, it may be twenty years hence, upon the condition he might, for twenty years, have his vain desires ; should we not think that person infinitely miserable ? Every prosperous, thriving sinner is in the same condition: within these twenty years he shall be thrown into the portion of devils, but shall never come out thence in twenty millions of years. His wealth must needs sit uneasy upon him, that remembers that within a short space he shall be extremely miserable ; and if he does not remember it, he does but secure it the more. And that God defers the punishment, and suffers evil men to thrive in the opportunities of their sin, it may and does serve many ends of providence and mercy, but serves no end that any evil men can rea- sonably wish or propound to themselves eligible. Bias said well to a vicious person, “ Non metuo ne non si's datums poenas, sed metuo ne id non sim visurus ;” “ He was sure the man should be pun- ished, he was not sure he should live to see it.” And though the Messenians that were betrayed and slain by Aristocrates in the battle of Cyprus, were not made alive again ; yet the justice of God was admired, and treason infinitely disgraced, when, twenty years after, the treason was discovered, and the traitor punished with a horrid death. Lyciscus gave up the Orchomenians to their enemies, having first wished his feet, which he then dipped in water, might rot off, if he were not true to them; and yet his feet did not rot till those men were destroyed, and of a long time after ; and yet at last they did. “ Slay them not, O Lord, lest my people forget it,” saith David. If punishment were instantly and totally inflicted, it would be but a sudden and single document ; but a slow and lingering judgment, and a wrath breaking out in the next age, is like an universal proposition, teaching our posterity that God was angry all the while, that he had a long indignation in his breast, that he would not forget to take vengeance. And it is a demonstration, that even the prosperous sins of the present age will find the same period in the Divine revenge, when men see a judgment upon the nephews for the sins of their grandfathers, though in other instances, and for sins acted in the days of their ancestors. We know that when, in Henry the Eighth or 81G THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OP THE SAINTS ; Serm. X. Edward the Sixth’s days, some great men pulled down churches and built palaces, and robbed reli- gion of its just encouragements and advantages; the men that" did it were sacrilegious ; and we find also, that God hath been punishing that great sin ever since ; and hath displayed to so many genera- tions of men, to three or four descents of children, that those men could not be esteemed happy in their great fortunes, against whom God was so angry, that he would show his displeasure for a hundred years together. When Herod had killed the babes of Bethlehem, it was seven years before God called him to an account; but he that looks upon the end of that man, would rather choose the fate of the oppressed babes, than of the prevailing and triumphing tyrant. It was forty years before God punished the Jews, for their execrable murder committed upon the person of their King, the holy Jesus ; and it was so long, that when it did happen, many men attributed it to their killing of St. James their bishop, and seemed to forget the greater crime. But “Non eventu rerum, sed fide verbo- rum stamus ;” “We are to stand to the truth of God’s word, not to the event of things — because God hath given us a rule, but hath left the judg- ment to himself ; and we die so quickly, (and God measures all things by his standard of eternity, and “ one thousand years to God is as but one day,”) that we are not competent persons to measure the times of God’s account, and the returns of judgment. We are dead before the arrow comes ; but the man escapes not, unless his soul can die, or that God cannot punish him. “ Ducunt in bonis dies suos, et in momento descendunt ad infernum,” that is their fate : “ They spend their days in plenty, and in a moment descend into hell.” ® In the mean time they drink, and forget their sorrow ; but they are condemned : they have drunk their hemlock ; but the poison does not work yet : the bait is in their mouths, and they are sportive ; but the hook hath struck their nostrils, and they shall never escape the ruin. And let no man call the man fortunate, because his execution is deferred for a few days, when the very deferring shall increase and ascertain the condemnation. But if we should look under the skirt of the prosperous and prevailing tyrant, we should find, even in the days of his joys, such allays and abate- ments of his pleasure, as may serve to represent him presently miserable, besides his final infelicities. For I have seen a young and healthful person warm and ruddy under a poor and a thin garment, when at the same time an old rich person hath been cold and paralytic under a load of sables and the skins of foxes. It is the body that makes the clothes warm, not the clothes the body : and the spirit of a man makes felicity and content, not any spoils of a rich fortune wrapt about a sickly and an uneasy soul. Apollodorus was a traitor and a tyrant, and the world wondered so see a bad man have so good a fortune ; but knew not that he nourished scorpions in his breast, and that his liver and his heart were eaten up with spectres and images of death ; his s Job xxi. 13. thoughts were full of interruptions, his dreams of illusions ; his fancy was abused with real troubles and fantastic images, imagining that he saw the Scythians flaying him alive, his daughters like pillars of fire dancing round about a cauldron, in which himself was boiling, and that his heart ac- cused itself to be the cause of all these evils. And although all tyrants have not imaginative and fan- tastic consciences, yet all tyrants shall die and come to judgment ; and such a man is not to be feared, not at all to be envied. And, in the mean time, can he be said to escape who hath an unquiet con- science, who is already designed for hell, he whom God hates, and the people curse, and who hath an evil name, and against whom all good men pray, and many desire to fight, and all wish him destroy- ed, and some contrive to do it ? Is this man a blessed man ? Is that man prosperous who hath stolen a rich robe, and is in fear to have his throat cut for it, and is fain to defend it with the greatest difficulty and the greatest danger ? Does not he drink more sweetly that takes his beverage in an earthen vessel, than he that looks and searches into his golden chalices for fear of poison, and looks pale at every sudden noise, and sleeps in armour, and trusts nobody, and does not trust God for his safety, but does greater wickedness only to escape awhile unpunished for his former crimes ? “ Auro bibitur venenum.” No man goes about to poison a poor man’s pitcher, nor lays plots' to forage his little garden made for the hospital of two bee-hives, and the feasting of a few Pythagorean herb-eaters. ovK laafTLV o(TM 'ttXLov ijfuav TravTo?, Ovd' oaov iv u.aXdyn te Ka i aarcbodiXuy iity’ ovsiap. Hesiod. E^y. They that admire the happiness of a prosperous, prevailing tyrant, know not the felicities that dwell in innocent hearts, and poor cottagers, and small fortunes. A Christian, so long as he preserves his integrity to God and to religion, is bold in all accidents, he dares die, and he dares be poor ; but if the persecu- tor dies, he is undone. Riches are beholden to our fancies for their value ; and yet the more we value the riches, the less good they are, and by an over- valuing affection they become our danger and our sin : but, on the other side, death and persecution lose all the ill that they can have, if we do not set an edge upon them by our fears and by our vices. From ourselves riches take their wealth, and death sharpens his arrows at our forges, and we may set their prices as we please ; and if we judge by the Spirit of God, we must account them happy that suffer ; and, therefore, that the prevailing oppressor, tyrant, or persecutor, is infinitely miserable. Only let God choose by what instruments he will govern the world, by what instances himself would be served, by what ways he will chastise the failings, and exer- cise the duties, and reward the virtues, of his ser- vants. God sometimes punishes one sin with another; pride with adultery, drunkenness with murder, carelessness with irreligion, idleness with vanity, penury with oppression, irreligion with blasphemy, and that with atheism : and therefore it Serm. X. OR, THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE OPPRESSED. 817 is no wonder, if he punishes a sinner by a sinner. And if David made use of villains and profligate persons to frame an army ; and Timoleon destroyed the Carthaginians by the help of soldiers, who themselves were sacrilegious ; and physicians use poison to expel poisons ; and all commonwealths take the basest of men to be their instruments of justice and executions : we shall have no further cause to wonder, if God raises up the Assyrian to punish the Israelites, and the Egyptians to destroy the Assyrians, and the ^Ethiopians to scourge the Egyptians ; and at last his own hand shall separate the good from the bad in the day of separation, in the day when he makes up his jewels. UOV TTOTS KSpCLVVol AtOS, fj HoD (pat^uiv (iXioi, Et 'rav'T i(popu)UTS9 }^pv^^Tov(7lv EKi^XoL ; Soph. Elect. God hath many ends of providence to serve by the hands of violent and vicious men. By them he not only checks the beginning errors and approach- ing sins of his predestinate ; but by them he changes governments, and alters kingdoms, and is terrible among the sons of men. For since it is one of his glories to convert evil into good, and that good into his own glory, and by little and little to open and to turn the leaves and various folds of providence : it becomes us only to dwell in duty, and to be silent in our thoughts, and wary in our discourses of God ; and let him choose the time when he will prune his vine, and when he will burn his thorns : how long he will smite his servants, and when he will destroy his enemies. In the days of the primitive persecu- tions, what prayers, how many sighings, how deep groans, how many bottles of tears, did God gather into his repository, all praying for ease and deliver- ances, for halcyon days and fine sunshine, “ for nursing fathers and nursing mothers,” for public assemblies and open and solemn sacraments : and it was three hundred years before God would hear their prayers : and all that while the persecuted people were in a cloud, but they were safe, and knew it not; and God “kept for them the -best wine until the last they ventured for a crown, and fought valiantly ; they were “ faithful to the death, and they received a crown of life and they are honoured by God, by angels, and by men. Whereas in all the prosperous ages of the church, we hear no stories of such multitudes of saints, no record of them, no honour to their memorial, no accident ex- traordinary ; scarce any made illustrious with a miracle, which in the days of suffering were fre- quent and popular. And after all our fears of se- questration and poverty, of death or banishment, our prayers against the persecution and troubles under it, we may please to remember, that twenty years hence (it may be sooner, it will not be much longer) all our cares and our troubles shall be dead ; and then it shall be inquired how we did bear our sorrows, and who inflicted them, and in what cause: and then he shall be happy that keeps company with the persecuted ; and the “ persecutors shall be shut out amongst dogs and unbelievers.” He that shrinks from the yoke of Christ, from VOL. I. , 3 G the burden of the Lord, upon his death-bed will have cause to remember, that by that time all his persecutions would have been past, and that then there would remain nothing for him but rest, and crowns, and sceptres. When Lysimachus, impa- tient and overcome with thirst, gave up his king- dom to the Getse, being a captive, and having drank a lusty draught of wine, and his thirst now gone, he fetched a deep sigh, and said, “ Miserable man that I am, who for so little pleasure, the pleasure of one draught, lost so great a kingdom !” Such will be their case, who, being impatient of suffering, change their persecution into wealth and an easy fortune : they shall find themselves miserable in the separa- tions of eternity, losing the glories of heaven for so little a pleasure, “ illiberalis et ingratse voluptatis causa,” as Plutarch calls it, “ for illiberal and un- grateful pleasure ;” in which when a man hath en- tered, he loses the rights and privileges and honours of a good man, and gets nothing that is profitable and useful to holy purposes, or necessary to any ; but is already in a state so hateful and miserable, that he needs neither God nor man to be a revenger, having already under his splendid robe miseries enough to punish and betray this hypocrisy of his condition ; being troubled with the memory of what is past, distrustful of the present, suspicious of the future, vicious in their lives, and full of pageantry and outsides, but in their death, miserable with ca- lamities real, eternal, and insupportable. And if it could be otherwise, virtue itself would be reproached with the calamity. Et yap 6 fiiv ^avMV Fa 'Tt Kai ovdtv u>v KEto-fTai TaXas* Ot 5 e /uLt] irdXiv Acocrouo-’ dvTLf^ovov^ SiKa^, *EppoT’ dv aiSct)9, dirdv'rMV T EvaritELa ^i>r]TU)i/. — SoPH. Elect. I end with the advice of St. Paul ; “ In nothing be terrified of your adversaries ; which to them is an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.” SERMON XT. PART III. But now, that the persecuted may at least be pitied, and assisted in that of which they are capa- ble, I shall propound some rules by which they may learn to gather grapes from their thorns, and figs from their thistles ; crowns from the cross, glory from dishonour. As long as they belong to God, it is necessary that they suffer persecution or sorrow; no rules can teach them to avoid that : but the evil of the suffering and the danger must be declined, and we must use some such spiritual arts as are apt to turn them into health and medicine. For it were a hard thing, first to be scourged, and then to be t Phil. i. 28. 818 THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS; Serm. XL crucified; to suflPer here, and to perish liereafter; through the fiery trial and purging fire of afflictions to pass into hell, that is intolerable, and to be pre- vented with the following cautions; lest a man suffer like a fool and a malefactor, or inherit damnation for the reward of his imprudent suffering. 1. They that suffer any thing for Christ, and are ready to die for him, let them do nothing against him. For certainly they think too highly of mar- tyrdom, who believe it able to excuse all the evils of a wicked life. A man may “ give his body to be burned, and yet have no charity and he that dies without charity, dies without God ; “ for God is love.” And when those who fought in the days of the Maccabees for the defence of true religion, and were killed in those holy wars, yet, being dead, were found having about their necks lep^ixara, or “ pen- dants consecrated” to idols of the Jamnenses ; it much allayed the hope, which, by their dying in so good a cause, was entertained concerning their bea- tifical resurrection. He that overcomes his fear of death, does well ; but if he hath not also overcome his lust, or his anger, his baptism of blood will not wash him clean. Many things make a man willing to die in a good cause ; public reputation, hope of reward, gallantry of spirit, a confident reso- lution, and a masculine courage ; or a man may be vexed into a stubborn and unrelenting suffering : but nothing can make a man live well but the grace and the love of God. But those persons are infi- nitely condemned by their last act, who profess their religion to be worth dying for, and yet are so un- worthy as not to live according to its institution. It were a rare felicity, if every good cause could be managed by good men only ; but we have found that evil men have spoiled a good cause, but never that a good cause made those evil men good and holy. If the governor of Samaria had erucified Si- mon Magus for receiving Christian baptism, he had no more died a martyr than he lived a saint. For dying is not enough, and dying in a good cause is not enough ; but then only w^e receive the crown of martyrdom, when our death is the seal of our life, and our life is a continual testimony of our duty, and both give testimony to the excellencies of the religion, and glorify the grace of God. If a man be gold, the fire purges him ; but it burns him if he be, like stubble, cheap, light, and useless : for mar- tyrdom is the consummation of love. But then it must be supposed, that this grace must have had its be- ginning, and its several stages and periods, and must have passed through labour to zeal, through all the regions of duty to the perfections of sufferings. And therefore, it is a sad thing to observe, how some empty souls will please themselves with being of such a religion, or such a cause ; and though they dishonour their religion, or weigh down the cause with the prejudice of sin, believe all is swallowed up by one honourable name, or the appellative of one virtue. If God had forbid nothing but heresy and treason, then to have been a loyal man, or of a good belief, had been enough ; but he that forbade rebel- lion, forbids also swearing and covetousness, rapine and oppression, lying and cruelty. And it is a sad thing to see a man not only to spend his time, and his wealth, and his money, and his friends, upon his lust, but to spend his sufferings too, to let the can- ker-worm of a deadly sin devour his martyrdom. He therefore that suffers in a good cause, let him be sure to walk worthy of that honour to wfflich God hath called him ; let him first deny his sins, and then “ deny himself,” and then he may “ take up his cross and follow Christ;” ever remembering, that no man pleases God in his death who hath walked perversely in his life. 2. He that suffers in a cause of God, must be in- different what the instance be, so that he may serve God. I say, he must be indifferent in the cause, so it be a cause of God ; and indifferent in the suffer- ing, so it be of God’s appointment. For some men have a natural aversation to some vices or virtues, and a natural affection to others. One man will die for his friend, and another will die for his money : some men hate to be a rebel, and will die for their prince; but tempt them to suffer for the cause of the church, in which they were baptized, and in whose communion they look for heaven, and then they are tempted, and fall away. Or if God hath chosen the cause for them, and they have ac- cepted it, yet themselves will choose the suffering. Right or wrong, some men will not endure a prison ; and some that can, yet choose the heaviest part of the burden, the pollution and stain of a sin, rather than lose their money ; and some had rather die twice than lose their estate once. In this our rule is easy. Let us choose God, and let God choose all the rest for us ; it being indifferent to us, whether by poverty or shame, by a lingering or a sudden death, by the hands of a tyrant-prince, or the de- spised hands of a base usurper or a rebel, we receive the crown, and do honour to God and to religion. 3. Whoever suffer in a cause of God, from the hands of cruel and unreasonable men, let them not be too forward to prognosticate evil and death to their enemies ; but let them solace themselves in the assurance of the Divine justice, by general con- sideration, and, in particular, pray for them that are our persecutors. Nebuchadnezzar was the rod in the hand of God against the Tyrians, and because he destroyed that city, God rewarded him with the spoil of Egypt : and it is not always certain that God will be angry with every man by whose hand affliction comes upon us. And sometimes two ar- mies have met, and fought, and the wisest man amongst them could not say, that either of the princes had prevaricated either the laws of God or of nations ; and yet, it may be, some superstitious, easy, and half-witted people of either side wonder that their enemies live so long. And there are very many cases of war, concerning which God hath de- clared nothing : and although in such cases, he that yields and quits his title, rather than his charity, and the care of so many lives, is the wisest and the best man ; yet, if neither of them will do so, let us not decree judgments from heaven^ in cases where we have no word from heaven, and thunder from our tribunals, where no voice of God hath declared Serm. XI. OR, THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE OPPRESSED. 819 the sentence. But in such cases, where there is an evident tyranny or injustice, let us do like the good Samaritan, who dressed the wounded man, but never pursued the thief ; let us do charily to the afflicted, and bear the cross with nobleness, and “look up to Jesus, who endured the cross, and despised the shame : ” but let us not take upon us the office of God, who will judge the nations righteously, and when he hath delivered up our bodies, will rescue our souls from the hands of unrighteous judges. I remember in the story that Plutarch tells, concerning the soul of Thespesius, that it met with a prophetic genius, who told him many things that should happen afterwards in the world ; and the strangest of all was this ; That there should be a king, “ qui bonus cum sit, tyrannide vitam finiet “ an excellent prince and a good man, should be put to death by a rebel and usurping power:” — and yet, that prophetic soul could not tell, that those rebels should, within three years, die miserable and accursed deaths. And in that great prophecy, recorded by St. Paul, “ That in the last days perilous times should come, and men should be traitors and selfish, having forms of god- liness, and creeping into houses;”^ yet he could not tell us when these men should come to final shame and ruin : only by a general signification, he gave this sign of comfort to God’s persecuted servants ; “ but they shall proceed no farther, for their folly shall be manifest unto all men ^ that is, at long running, they shall shame themselves, and, “ for the elect’s sake, those days of evil shall be shortened.” But you and I may be dead first: and therefore, only remember, that they that, with a credulous heart and a loose tongue, are too decretory and enunciative of speedy judgments to their enemies, turn their re- ligion into revenge, and therefore do believe it will be so, because they vehemently desire it should be so ; which all wise and good men ought to suspect, as less agreeing with that charity, which overcomes all the sins and all the evils of the world, and sits down and rests in glory. 4. Do not trouble yourself by thinking how much you are afflicted, but consider how much you make of it : for reflex acts upon the suffering itself can lead to nothing but to pride, or to impatience, to temptation, or to apostasy. He that measures the grains and scruples of his persecution, will soon sit down and call for ease, or for a reward; will think the time long, or his burden great ; will be apt to complain of his condition, or set a greater value upon his person. Look not back upon him that strikes thee, but upward to God that supports thee, and forward to the crown that is set before thee : and then consider, if the loss of thy estate hath taught thee to despise the world, whether thy poor fortune hath made thee poor in spirit ; and if thy un- easy prison sets thy soul at liberty, and knocks off the fetters of a worse captivity. For then the rod of sufferings turns into crowns and sceptres, when every suffering is a precept, and every change of condition produces a holy resolution, and the state of sorrows makes the resolution actual and habi- tual, permanent and persevering. For as the silk- “ 2 Tim. iii, 1, &c. 3 G 2 worm eateth itself out of a seed to become a little worm ; and there feeding on the leaves of mulber- ries, it grows till its coat be off’, and tlicn works itself into a house of silk ; then casting its pearly seeds for the young to breed, it leaveth its silk for man, and dieth all white and winged in the shape of a flying creature : so is the progress of souls. When they are regenerate by baptism, and have cast off' their first stains and the skin of worldly vanities, by feeding on the leaves of Scriptures, and the fruits of the vine, and the joys of the sacrament, they en- circle themselves in the rich garments of holy and virtuous habits; then, by leaving their blood, whicli is the church’s seed, to raise up a new generation to God, they leave a blessed memory, and fair example, and are themselves turned into angels, whose felicity is to do the will of God, as their employment was in this world to suffer. “ Fiat voluntas tua” is our daily prayer, and that is of a passive signification ; “ Thy will be done” upon us: and if from thence also we translate it into an active sense, and by suf- fering evils increase in our aptnesses to do well, we have done the work of Christians, and shall receive the reward of martyrs. 5. Let our suffering be entertained by a direct election, not by collateral aids and fantastic assist- ances. It is a good refreshment to a weak spirit to suffer in good company : and so Phocion en- couraged a timorous Greek, condemned to die ; and he bid him be confident, because that he was to die with Phocion : and when forty martyrs in Cappa- docia suffered, and that a soldier, standing by, came and supplied the place of the one apostate, who fell from his crown, being overcome with pain, it added warmth to the frozen confessors, and turned them into consummate martyrs. But if martyrdom were but a fantastic thing, or relied upon vain acci- dents and irregular chances, it were then very ne- cessary to be assisted by images of things, and any thing less than the proper instruments of religion : but since it is the greatest action of the religion, and relies upon the most excellent promises, and its formality is to be an action of love, and nothing is more firmly chosen (by an after-election at least) than an act of love ; to support martyrdom, or the duty of sufferings, by false arches and exterior cir- cumstances, is to build a tower upon the beams of the sun, or to set up a wooden ladder to climb up to heaven ; the soul cannot attain so huge and un- imaginable felicities by chance and instruments of fancy. And let no man hope to glorify God and go to heaven by a life of sufferings, unless he first begin in the love of God, and from thence derive his choice, his patience, and confidence, in the causes of virtue and religion, like beams, and warmth, and influence, from the body of the sun. Some there are that fall under the burden, when they are pressed hard, because they use not the proper instruments in fortifying the will in patience and resignation, but endeavour to lighten the burden in imagination ; and when these temporary sup- porters fail, the building that relies upon them, rushes into coldness, recidivation, and lukewarm- ^ 2 Tim. iii. 9. 820 THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS ; Serm. XI. ness : and, among all instances, that of the main question of the text is of greatest power to abuse imprudent and less severe persons. Nullosesse Deos, inane coelum, Affirmat Ccelius ; probatque, Quod se videt, dum negat haec, beatum. Martial. When men choose a good cause upon confidence that an ill one cannot thrive, that is, not for the love of virtue or duty to God, but for profit and secular interests, they are easily lost, when they see the wickedness of the enemy to swell up by impu- nity and success to a greater evil : for they have not learned to distinguish a great growing sin from a thriving and prosperous fortune. Ulla si juris tibi pejerati Poena, Barine, nocuisset unquam; Dente si nigro fieres, vel uno Turpior ungui ; Credere m Hor. They that believe and choose because of idle fears and unreasonable fancies, or by mistaking the accounts of a man for the measures of God, or dare not commit treason for fear of being blasted ; may come to be tempted when they see a sinner thrive, and are scandalized all the way if they die before him ; or they may come to receive some accidental hardnesses ; and every thing in the world may spoil such persons, and blast their resolutions. Take in all the aids you can, and, if the fancy of the stand- ers-by, or the hearing of a cock crow, can add any collateral aids to thy weakness, refuse it not : but let thy state of sufierings begin with choice, and !)e confirmed with knowledge, and rely upon love, and the aids of God, and the expectations of heaven, and the present sense of duty ; and then the action will be as glorious in the event, as it is prudent in the enterprise, and religious in the prosecution. 6. Lastly, when God hath brought thee into Christ’s school, and entered thee into a state of suf- ferings, remember the advantages of that state : con- sider, how unsavoury the things of the world appear to thee, when thou art under the arrest of death ; remember, with what comforts the Spirit of God assists thy spirit : set down in thy heart all those intercourses, which happen between God and thy own soul, the sweetnesses of religion, the vanity of sin’s appearances, thy newly-entertained resolutions, thy longings after heaven, and all the things of God. And if God finishes thy persecutions with death, proceed in them : if he restores thee to the light of the world, and a temporal refreshment, change but the scene of sufferings in an active life, and converse with God upon the same principles, on which, in thy state of sufferings, thou didst build all the parts of duty. If God restores thee to thy estate, be not less in love with heaven, nor more in love with the world ; let thy spirit be now as humble as before it was broken : and, to whatsoever degree of sobriety or austerity thy suffering condition did enforce thee, if it may be turned into virtue, when God restores thee, (because then it was necessary thou shouldst entertain it by an after-choice,) do it now also by a pre-election ; that thou mayest say with David, “ It is good for me that I have been afflicted, for thereby I have learned thy command- ments.” And Paphnutius did not do his soul more advantage, when he lost his right eye, and suffered his left knee to be cut off for Christianity and the cause of God, than that, in the days of Constantine and the church’s peace, he lived not in the tolera- tion, but in the active piety of a martyr’s condition ; not now a confessor of the faith only, but of the charity of a Christian. We may every one live to have need of these rules ; and I do not at all think it safe to pray against it, but to be armed for it : and to whatsoever degree of sufferings God shall call us, we see what advantages God intends for us, and what advantages we ourselves may make of it. I now proceed to make use of all the former discourse, by removing it a little farther even into its utmost spiritual sense : which the apostle does in the last words of the text; “If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the wicked and the sinner appear ?” These words are taken out of the Proverbs,^ according to the translation of the LXX. “ If the righteous scarcely be safe.” Where the word jxoXiQ implies that he is safe ; but by “ intermedial diffi- culties and aw^erai, he is safe in the midst of his persecutions ; they may disturb his rest, and discom- pose his fancy, but they are like the fiery chariot to Elias ; he is encircled with fire, and rare circum- stances and strange usages, but is carried up to heaven in a robe of flames. And so was Noah safe when the fiood came ; and was the great type and instance too of the verification of this proposition ; he was 6 ^Ikcuoq and ^LicaLO(Tvyr]Q he was put into a strange condition, perpetually wandering, shut up in a prison of wood, living upon faith, having never had the experience of being safe in floods. And so have I often seen young and unskilful persons sitting in a little boat, when every little wave sporting about the sides of the vessel, and every motion and dancing of the barge, seemed a danger, and made them cling fast upon their fellows ; and yet all the while they were as safe as if they sat under a tree, w'hile a gentle wind shook the leaves into a refresh- ment and a cooling shade : and the unskilful, inex- perienced Christian shrieks out, whenever his vessel shakes, thinking it always a danger, that the watery pavement is not stable and resident, like a rock ; and yet all his danger is in himself, none at all from without : for he is indeed moving upon the waters, but fastened to a rock ; faith is his founda- tion, and hope is his anchor, and death is his harbour, and Christ is his pilot, and heaven is his country ; and all the evils of poverty or affronts, of tribunals and evil judges, of fears and sadder appre- hensions, are but like the loud wind blowing from the right point, they make a noise, and drive faster to the harbour ; and if we do not leave the ship, and leap into the sea ; quit the interests of religion, and run to the securities of the world ; cut our cables, and dissolve our hopes ; grow impatient, and hug a wave, and die in its embraces ; we are as safe at sea, safer in the storm which God sends us, than in a calm when we are befriended with the world. 2. But may also signify “ raro “ If the y Chap. xi. 31. Serm. XL OR, THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE OPPRESSED. 821 righteous is seldom safe which implies that some- times he is, even in a temporal sense. God some- times sends halcyon days to his church, and when he promised “ kings and queens to be their nurses,” he intended it for a blessing ; and yet this blessing does oftentimes so ill succeed, that it is the greater blessing of the two, not to give us that blessing too freely. But fioXig, this is “ scarcely ” done ; and yet sometimes it is, and God sometimes refreshes languishing piety with such arguments as comply with our infirmities : and though it be a shame to us to need such allectives and infant-gauds, such w'hich the heathen world and the first rudiments of the Israelites did need ; God, who pities us, and will be wanting in nothing to us, as he corroborates our willing spirits with proper entertainments, so also he supports our weak flesh, and not only cheers an afflicted soul with beams of light, and antepasts and earnests of glory, but is kind also to our man of flesh and weakness ; and to this purpose he sends thunderbolts from heaven upon evil men, dividing their tongues, infatuating their counsels, cursing their posterity, and ruining their families. aX-XoTE K auTE ’'H xcoj/ yE CTTpaTov Evpvv aTrcoXECTEy, V oyt ’ H j/£as kv TTOUTM J^povidri^ aTroTLvvvTaL avTwv. Hesiod. Epy. Sometimes God destroys their armies, or their strong holds, sometimes breaks their ships.” But this happens either for the weakness of some of his servants, and their too great aptness to be offended at a prosperous iniquity, or when he will not suffer the evil to grow too great, or for some end of his providence ; and yet, if this should be very often, or last long, God knows the danger, and we should feel the inconvenience. Of all the types of Christ, only Joshua and Solomon were noted to be generally pros- perous : and yet the fortune of the first was to be in perpetual war and danger ; but the other was as him- self could wish it, rich, and peaceful, and powerful, and healthful, and learned, and beloved, and strong, and amorous, and voluptuous, and so he fell ; and though his fall was, yet his recovery was not, upon record. And yet the worst of evils that happen to the godly, is better, temporally better, than the greatest external felicity of the wicked : that in all senses the question may be considerable and argumenta- tive, “ If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly appear?” If it be hard with good men, with the evil it shall be far worse. But see the difference. The godly man is timorous, and yet safe ; tossed by the seas, and yet safe at anchor ; impaired by evil accidents, and righted by divine comforts; made sad with a black cloud, and re- freshed with a more gentle inffuence ; abused by the world, and yet an heir of heaven ; hated by men, and beloved by God ; loses one house, and gets a hundred ; he quits a convenient lodging-room, and purchases a glorious country ; is forsaken by his friends, but never by a good conscience ; he fares hardly, and sleeps sweetly ; he flies from his enemies, but hath no distracting fears ; he is full of thought, but of no amazement ; it is his business to be troubled, and his portion to be comforted ; he hath nothing to afflict him, but the loss of that which might be his danger, but can never be his good ; and in the recompence of this he hath God for his Father, Christ for his Captain, the Holy Ghost for his supporter; so that he shall have all the good which God can give him, and of all that good he hath the holy Trinity for an earnest and a gage for his maintenance at the present, and his portion to all eternity. But, though Paul and Silas sang psalms in prison, and under the hangman’s whips, and in an earthquake ; yet neither the jailer nor the persecuting magistrates could do so. For the prosperity of the wicked is like a winter’s sun, or the joy of a condemned drunkard ; it is a forget- fulness of his present danger and his future sor- rows, nothing but imaginary arts of inadvertency : he sits in the gates of the city, and judges others, and is condemned himself ; he is honoured by the passers-by, and is thought happy, but he sighs deeply ; “ he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them : ” he commands an army, and is himself a slave to his passions ; he sleeps because he needs it, and starts from his uneasy pil- lows which his thoughtful head hath discomposed ; when he is waking, he dreams of greatness ; when he sleeps, he dreams of spectres and illusions : he spoils a poor man of his lamb, and himself of his innocence and peace : and in every unjust purchase, himself is the greatest loser. ''Os Sk KEif ai/Tos 'kXijTai, di/aiSsiTjtpi TriOtja-as, Kai TE (TpuKpdv kou, to t kTay^ucoarev (piXov rjTop. Hesiod. Epy. For, just upon his oppression or injustice, he is turned a devil, and God’s enemy, a wolf to his brother, a greedy admirer of the baits of fishes, and the bread of dogs; he is unsafe by reason of his sin : for he hath against him the displeasure of God, the justice of the laws, the shame of the sin, the revenge of the injured person; and God and men, the laws of nations and private societies, stand upon their defence against this man : he is unsafe in his rest, amazed in his danger, troubled in his labours, weary in his change, esteemed a base man, disgraced and scorned, feared and hated, flattered and derided, watched and suspected, and, it may be, dies in the middle of his purchase, and at the end is a fool, and leaves a curse to his posterity. ToD t’ dp.avpoTtpyj yevs?] pbto'ttkt^e XkXELTTTai. Hesiod. Epy. “He leaves a generation of blacker children behind him ; ” so the poet describes the cursedness of their posterity : and their memory sits down to eternal ages in dishonour. And by this time let them cast up their accounts, and see if, of all their violent purchases, they carry any thing with them to the grave but sin, and a guilty conscience, and a polluted soul; the anger of God, and the shame of men. And what help shall all those persons give to thee in thy flames, who divided and scattered that estate, for which thou diedst for ever ? Audire est operae pretium, procedere recte Qui moechis non vultis, ut omni parte laborent ; Utque illis multo corrupta dolore voluptas, Atque haec rara cadat dura inter saepe pericla. Hor. 822 THE FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS; Serm. XL And let but a sober answerer tell me, if any thing in the world be more distant either from goodness or happiness, than to scatter the plague of an accursed soul upon our dearest children; to make a universal curse ; to be the fountain of a mischief ; to be such a person whom our children and nephews shall hate, and despise, and curse, when they groan under the burden of that plague, which their fathers’ sins brought upon the famil}^ If there were no other account to be given, it were highly enough to verify the intent of my text ; “ If the righteous scarcely be saved,” or escape God’s angry stroke, the wicked must needs be infinitely more miserable. Nuy lyu) fxvT auTos kv dvSrpojiTourL SiKaio^ julvt’ kjui.6^ ettei KaKov av8pa Slkulov ’'E p.p.evaL Hes. Epy. “Neither I nor my son” (said the oldest of the Greek poets) “ would be virtuous, if to be a just person were all one as to be miserable.” No, not only in the end of affairs, and at sunset, but all the day long, the godly man is happy, and the ungodly and the sinner are very miserable. Pellitur a populo victus Cato; tristior ille est Qui vicit, faciesque pudet rapuisse Catoni; Namque hoc dedecus est populi, morumque ruina. Non homo pulsus crat ; sed in uno victa potestas Romanumque decus And there needs no other argument to be added but this one great testimony ; that though the godly are afflicted and persecuted, yet even they are blessed, and the persecutors are the most unsafe. They are essentially happy whom affliction cannot make miserable, but turns unto their advantages : tQuis curaranegat esse te Deorum, Propter quern fait innocens ruina ?) Mart. And that is the state of the godly. And they are most intolerably accursed, who have no portions in the blessings of eternity, and yet cannot have comfort in the present purchases of their sin, to whom even their sun-shine brings a drought, and their fairest is their foulest weather : and that is the portion of the sinner and the ungodly. The godly are not made unhappy by their sorrows ; and the wicLed are such, whom prosperity itself cannot make fortunate. 3. And yet after all this, it is but fioXig c-uj^erai, not fjLuXiQ (T(x)0)ja-£rai, he “ escapes but hardly’^ here: it will be well enough with him hereafter. Isaac digged three wells. The first was called “ Conten- tion ;” for he drank the waters of strife, and digged the well with his sword. The second well was not altogether so hard a purchase, he got it with some trouble ; but that being over, he had some room, and his fortune swelled, and he called his well “ Enlargement.” But his third he called “ Abun- dance ;” and then he dipped his foot in oil, and drank freely as out of a river. Every good man first “ sows in tears ; ” he first drinks of the bottle of his own tears, sorrow and trouble, labour and dis- quiet, strivings and temptations : but if they pass through a torrent, and virtue becomes easy and habitual, they find their hearts enlarged and made sprightly by the visitations of God, and refreshment of his Spirit ; and then their hearts are enlarged. they know how to gather the down and softnesses from the sharpest thistles. T?;s S’ dpzTT]? iSpMTa Srsol TTpoirdpoi^Ev i^tjKav p.aKpo^ 6k Kal op^LO^ oip.or](rT6rr}TOQj “ the riches of his good- ness,” which whosoever despises, despises himself and the great interest of his own felicity ; he shall die in his impenitence, and perish in his folly. 1 . The first great instrument that God chooses to bring us to him, is -^rfarorrig, “ profit,” or benefit; and this must needs be first, for those instruments whereby we have a being, are so great mercies, that besides that they are such which give us the capaci- ties of all other mercies, they are the advances of us in the greatest instances of promotion in the world. For from nothing to something is an infinite space ; and a man must have a measure of infinite passed upon him, before he can perceive himself to be either happy or miserable ; he is notable to give God thanks for one blessing, until he hath received many. But then God intends we should enter upon his service at the beginning of our days, because even then he is beforehand with us, and hath already given us great instances of his goodness. What a prodigy of favour is it to us, that he hath passed by so many forms of his creatures, and hath not set us down in the rank of any of them, till we came to be “ paulo minores angelis,” “ a little lower than the angels !” and yet from the meanest of them God can perfect his own praise. The deeps and the snows, the hail and the rain, the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea, they can and do glorify God, and give him praise in their capacity ; and yet he gave them no reason, no immortal spirit, or capacity of eternal blessedness ; but he hath dis- tinguished us from them by the absolute issues of his predestination, and hath given us a lasting and eternal spirit, excellent organs of perception, and wonderful instruments of expression, that we may join in concert with the morning-star, and bear a part in the chorus with the angels of light, to sing hallelujah to the great Father of men and angels. But was it not a huge chain of mercies, that we were not strangled in the regions of our own natural impurities, but were sustained by the breath of God from perishing in the womb, where God formed us “ in secreto terrae,” told our bones, and kept the order of nature, and the miracles of creation ; and we lived upon that which, in the next minute after we were born, would strangle us if it were not re- moved ? but then God took care of us, and his hand of providence clothed us and fed us. But why do I reckon the mercies of production, which in every minute of our being are alike continued, and are miracles in all senses, but that they are common and usual ? I only desire you to remember, that God made all the works of his hands to serve him. And, indeed, this mercy of creating us such as we are, was not “ to lead us to repentance,” but was a design of innocence : intended we should serve him as the sun and the moon do, as fire and water do ; never to prevaricate the laws he fixed to us, that we might have needed no repentance. But since we did degenerate, and being by God made better and more noble creatures than all the inhabi- tants of the air, the water, and the earth besides, — we made ourselves baser and more ignoble than any : for no dog, crocodile, or swine, was ever God’s enemy, as we made ourselves. Yet then from thenceforward God began his work of “ leading us to repentance” by the “riches of his goodness.” He caused us to be born of Christian parents, under whom we were taught the mysteriousness of its goodness and designs for the redemption of man ; and by the design of which religion, repentance was taught to mankind, and an excellent law given for distinction of good and evil. And this is a blessing, which though possibly we do not often put into our eucharistical litanies to give God thanks for ; yet if we sadly consider what had become of us, if we had been born under the dominion of a Turkish lord, or in America, where no Christians do inhabit, where they worship the devil, where witches are their priests, their prophets, their physicians, and their oracles ; can we choose but apprehend a visible no- torious necessity of perishing in those sins, which we then should not have understood by the glass of a divine law to have declined, nor by a revelation have been taught to repent of? But since the best of men does, in the midst of all the great advan- tages of laws, and examples, and promises, and threatenings, do many things he ought to be ashamed of, and needs to repent of ; we can under- Serm. XII. OR, GOD’S METHOD IN CURING SINNERS. 825 stand the riches of the Divine goodness best, by considering, that the very design of our birth and education in the Christian religion is, that we may recover of and cure our follies by the antidote of re- pentance, which is preached to us as a doctrine, and propounded as a favour ; which was put into a lav% and purchased for us by a great expense ; which God does not more command to us as a duty, than he gives us as a blessing. For now that we shall not perish for our first follies, but be admitted to new conditions, to be repaired by second thoughts, to have our infirmities excused, and our sins for- given, our habits lessened, and our malice cured, after we were wounded, and sick, and dead, and buried, and in the possession of the devil ; this was such a blessing, so great riches of the Divine good- ness, that as it was taught to no religion but the Chris- tian, revealed by no lawgiver but Christ, so it was a favour greater than ever God gave to the angels and devils : for although God was rich in the effu- sion of his goodness towards them, yet they were not admitted to the condition of second thoughts ; Christ never shed one drop of blood for them, “ his goodness did not lead them to repentance but to us it was, that he made this largess of his good- ness; to us, to whom he made himself a brother, and sucked the paps of our mother; he paid the scores of our sin, and shame, and death, only that we might be admitted to repent, and that this re- pentance might be effectual to the great purposes of felicity and salvation. And if we would consider this sadly, it might make us better to understand our madness and folly in refusing to repent ; that is, to be sorrowful, — and to leave all our sins, — and to make amends by a holy life. — For that we might be admitted and suffered to do so, God was fain to pour forth all the riches of his goodness : it cost our dearest Lord the price of his dearest blood, many a thousand groans, millions of prayers and sighs, and at this instant he is praying for our re- pentance ; nay, he hath prayed for our repentance these sixteen hundred years incessantly, night and day, and shall do so till doomsday ; “ He sits at the right hand of God making intercession for us.” And that we may know what he prays for, he hath sent us ambassadors to declare the purpose of all his design ; for St. Paul saith, “ We are ambassa- dors for Christ, as though he did beseech you by us ; we pray you in Christ’s stead to be reconciled to God.” The purpose of our embassy and ministry is a prosecution of the mercies of God, and the work of redemption, and the intercession and mediation of Christ : it is the work of atonement and recon- ciliation that God designed, and Christ died for, and still prays for, and we preach for, and you all must labour for. And therefore here consider, if it be not infinite impiety to “ despise the riches of such a goodness,” which at so great a charge, with such infinite labour and deep mysterious arts, invites us to repentance ; that is, to such a thing as could not be granted to us unless Christ should die to purchase it ; such a glorious favour, that is the issue of Christ’s prayers in heaven, and of all his labours, his sorrows, and his sufferings on earth. If we refuse to repent now, we do not so much refuse to do our own duty, as to accept of a reward. It is the greatest and the dear- est blessing that ever God gave to men, that they may repent : and therefore, to deny it or delay it, is to refuse health, brought us by the skill and industry of the physician ; it is to refuse liberty indulged to us by our gracious Lord. And cer- tainly we had reason to take it very ill, if, at a great expense, we should purchase a pardon for a servant, and he, out of a peevish pride or negli- gence shall refuse it; the scorn pays itself, the folly is its own scourge, and sits down in an inglo- rious ruin. After the enumeration of these glories, these pro- digies of mercies and loving-kindnesses, of Christ’s dying for us, and interceding for us, and merely that we may repent and be saved ; I shall less need to instance those other particularities whereby God continues, as by so many arguments of kindness, to sweeten our natures, and make them malleable to the precepts of love and obedience, the twin-daugh- ters of holy repentance : but the poorest person amongst us, besides the blessing and graces already reckoned, hath enough about him, and the accidents of every day, to shame him into repentance. Does not God send his “ angels to keep thee in all thy ways ? ” are not they ministering spirits sent forth to wait upon thee as thy guard; art not thou kept from drowning, from fracture of bones, from mad- ness, from deformities, by the riches of the Divine goodness ? Tell the joints of thy body ; dost thou want a finger ? and if thou dost not understand how great a blessing that is, do but remember, how ill thou canst spare the use of it when thou hast but a thorn in it. The very privative blessings, the bless- ings of immunity, safeguard, and integrity, which we all enjoy, deserve a thanksgiving of a whole life. If God should send a cancer upon thy face, or a wolf into thy breast, if he should spread a crust of leprosy upon thy skin, what wouldst thou give to be but as now thou art? Wouldst not thou repent of thy sins upon that condition ? Which is the greater blessing, to be kept from them, or to be cured of them ? And why therefore shall not this greater blessing lead thee to repentance ? Why do we, not so aptly, promise repentance when we are sick, upon the condition to be made well, and yet perpetually forget it when we are well ? As if health never were a blessing, but when we have it not. Rather I fear the reason is, wlien we are sick we promise to repent, because then we cannot sin the sins of our former life ; but in health our appetites return to their capacity, and in all the way “ we despise the riches of the Divine good- ness,” which preserves us from such evils, which would be full of horror and amazement, if they should happen to us. Hath God made any of you all chapfallen ? Are you affrighted with spectres and illusions of the spirits of darkness ? How many earthquakes have you been in ? How many days have any of you wanted bread ? How many nights have you been without sleep ? Are any of you distracted of your 826 THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS; Serm. XII. senses? And if God gives you meat and drink, health and sleep, proper seasons of the year, entire senses and a useful understanding ; what a great unworthiness is it to be unthankful to so good a God, so benign a Father, so gracious a Lord ? All the evils and baseness of the world can show nothing baser and more unworthy than ingratitude : and therefore it was not unreasonably said of Aris- totle, Eari»x/a (juKodeog, “ Prosperity makes a man love God,” supposing men to have so much humanity left in them, as to love him from whom they have re- ceived so many favours. And Hippocrates said, that although poor men use to murmur against God, yet rich men will be offering sacrifice to their Deity, whose beneficiaries they are. Now, since the riches of the Divine goodness are so poured out upon the meanest of us all, if we shall refuse to repent (which is a condition so reasonable, that God requires it only for our sake, and that it may end in our fe- licity) we do ourselves despite, to be unthankful to God ; that is, we become miserable by making our- selves basely criminal. And if any man, whom God hath used to no other method but of his sweetness and the effusion of mercies, brings no other fruits but the apples of Sodom in return of all his culture and labours, God will cutoff that unprofitable branch, that with Sodom it may suffer the flames of ever- lasting burning. Oi'gt (TV TOUS SraVOVTa^, 5) l^LKtipaTE Tpv(f)ri^ dirdari^ fit'ToXa^ovTa's iv fSicp, JlEfjiuyivaL TO Philemon. If here we have good things, and a continual shower of blessings to soften our stony hearts, and we shall remain obdurate against those sermons of mercy which God makes us every day, there will come a time when this shall be upbraided to us, that we had not rovy avTirvTvov, a thankful mind, but made God to sow his seed upon the sand, or upon the stones, without increase or restitution. It was a sad alarm which God sent to David by Nathan, to upbraid his ingratitude : “ I anointed thee king over Israel, I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul, I gave thee thy master’s house and wives into thy bosom, and the house of Israel and Judah ; and if this had been too little, I would have given thee such and such things ; wherefore hast thou despised the name of the Lord ? ” But how infinitely more can God say to all of us than all this came to ; he hath anointed us kings and priests in the royal priesthood of Christianity ; he hath given us his Holy Spirit to be our guide, his angels to be our protectors, his creatures for our food and raiment ; he hath de- livered us from the hands of Satan, hath conquered death for us, hath taken the sting out, and made it harmless and medicinal, and proclaimed us heirs of heaven, coheirs with the eternal Jesus ; and if after all this we despise the commandment of the Lord, and defer and neglect our repentance, what shame is great enough, what miseries are sharp enough, what hell painful enough, for such horrid ingrati- tude ? St, Lewis the king having sent Ivo, bishop of Chartres, on an embassy, the bishop met a woman oil the way, grave, sad, fantastic, and melancholic, with fire in one hand, and water in the other, He asked what those symbols meant. She answered. My purpose is with fire to burn paradise, and with my water to quench the flames of hell, that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear, and purely for the love of God. But this woman began at the wrong end : the love of God is not produced in us after we have contracted evil habits, till God, with “ his fan in his hand, hath thoroughly purged his floor,” till he hath cast out all the devils, and swept the house with the instru- ment of hope and fear, and with the achievements and efficacy of mercies and judgments. But then, since God may truly say to us, as of old to his rebellious people, “ Am I a dry tree to the house of Israel ? ” that is. Do I bring them no fruit ? Do they “ serve me for nought ? ” and he expects not our duty till first we feel his goodness ; we are now infinitely inexcusable to throw away so great riches, to “ despise such a goodness.” However, that we may see the greatness of this treasure of goodness, God seldom leaves us thus : for he sees, (be it spoken to the shame of our natures, and the dishonour of our manners,) he sees that his mercies do not allure us, do not make us thankful, but, (as the Roman said,) “ Felicitate corrumpimur,” “We become worse for God’s mercy,” and think it will be always holiday ; and are like the crystal of Arabia, hardened not by cold, but made crusty and stubborn by the warmth of the Divine fire, by its refreshments and mercies ; therefore, to demonstrate that God is good indeed, he continues his mercies still to us, but in another instance ; he is merciful to us in punishing us, that we may be led to repent- ance by such instruments which will scare us from sin ; he delivers us up to the peedagogy of the Divine judgments : and there begins the second part of God’s method, intimated in the wmrd avo^U, or “ forbearance.” God begins his cure by caustics, by incisions and instruments of vexation, to try if the disease that will not yield to the allectives of cordials and perfumes, frictions and baths, may be forced out by deleteries, scarifications, and more salutary, but less pleasing, physic. 2. ’ Avoyi], “ Forbearance,” it is called in the text; which signifies “laxamentum” or “inducias that is, when the decrees of the Divine judgments temporal are gone out, either wholly to suspend the execution of them, which is “ induciae,” or “ a reprieve ;” or else, when God hath struck once or twice, he takes otf his hand, that is “ laxamentum,” an “ ease or remission ” of his judgment. In both these, although “ in judgment God remembers merc}^” yet we are under discipline, we are brought into the penitential chamber; at least we are showed the rod of God ; and if, like Moses’s rod, it turns us into serpents, and that we repent not, but grow more devils ; yet then it turns into a rod again, and finishes up the smiting, or the first-designed afflic- tion. But I consider it first in general. The riches ot the Divine goodness are manifest in beginning this new method of curing us, by severity and by a rod. And that you may not wonder that I expound this “ forbearance” to be an act of mercy punishing, I Serm. XII. OR, GOD’S METHOD IN CURING SINNERS. 827 observe, that besides that the word supposes the method changed, and it is a mercy about judgments, and their manner of execution ; it is also, in the nature of the thing, in the conjunction of circum- stances, and the designs of God, a mercy when he threatens us or strikes us into repentance. We think that the way of blessings and prosperous accidents, is the finer way of securing our duty ; and that when our heads are anointed, our cups crowned, and our tables full, the very caresses of our spirits will best of all dance before the ark, and sing perpetual anthems to the honour of our benefactor and patron, God ; and we are apt to dream that God will make his saints reign here as kings in a millenary kingdom, and give them the riches and fortunes of this world, that they may rule over men, and sing psalms to God for ever. But I remember what Xenophanes says of God, OvTE Si/Lia^ ^Vi]TO%(TlV OfXOUO^, OU-TS v6l]fxa. “ God is like to men neither in shape nor in coun- sel he knows that his mercies confirm some, and encourage more, but they convert but few : alone they lead men to dissolution of manners, and forget- fulness of God, rather than repentance : not but that mercies are competent and apt instruments of grace, if we would ; • but because we are more dis- persed in our spirits, and by a prosperous accident are melted into joy and garishness, and drawn off from the sobriety of recollection. “ Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.” Many are not able to suffer and endure prosperity ; it is like the light of the sun to a weak eye ; glorious indeed in itself, but not pro- portioned to such an instrument. Adam himself (as the rabbins say) did not dwell one night in Paradise, but was poisoned with prosperity, with the beauty of his fair wife, and a beauteous tree : and Noah and Lot were both righteous and exemplary, the one to Sodom, the other to the old world, so long as they lived in a place in which they were ob- noxious to the common suffering ; but as soon as the one of them had escaped from drowning, and the other from burning, and were put into security, they fell into crimes which have dishonoured their memories for above thirty generations together, the crimes of drunkenness and incest. Wealth and a full fortune make men licentiously vicious, tempting a man with power to act all that he can desire or design viciously. Inde irse faciles — Namque ut opes nimias mundo foiiuna subacto Intulit, et rebus mores cessere secundis, -Cultlis, gestare decoros Vix nuribus, rapuere mares;— totoque accersitur orbe Quo gens quisque perit — Lucan, lib. 1. And let me observe to you, that though there are in the New Testament many promises and pro- visions made for the poor in that very capacity, they having a title to some certain circumstances and additional of grace and blessing ; yet to rich men our blessed Saviour was pleased to make none at all, but to leave them involved in general com- prehensions, and to have a title to the special pro- mises only, by becoming poor in spirit, and in preparation of mind, though not in fortune and possession. However, it is hard for God to per- suade us to this, till we are taught it by a sad ex- perience, that those prosperities which we think will make us serve God cheerfully, make us to serve the world and secular ends diligently, and God not at all. Repentance is a duty that best complies with affliction ; it is a symbolical estate, of the same complexion and constitution ; half the work of re- pentance is done by a sad accident, our spirits are made sad, our gaieties mortified, our wildness cor- rected, the water-springs are ready to run over : but if God should grant our desires, and give to most men prosperity, with a design to lead them to re- pentance, all his pomp, and all his employment, and all his affections and passions, and all his circum- stances, are so many degrees of distance from the conditions and nature of repentance. It was re- ported by Dio concerning Nero’s mother, that she often wished that her son might be emperor, and wished it with so great passion, that, upon that con- dition, she cared not though her son might kill her. Her first wish and her second fear were both granted : but when she began to fear that her son did really design to murder her, she used all the art and instruments of diversion that a witty and a powerful, a timorous person and a woman, could in- vent or apply. Just so it is with us : so we might have our wishes of prosperity, we promise to under- go all the severities of repentance ; but when we are landed upon our desire, then every degree of satisfaction of those sensualities is a temptation against repentance : for a man must have his affec- tions weaned from those possessions, before he can be reconciled to the possibilities of repentance. And because God knows this well, and loves us better than we do ourselves, therefore he sends upon us the scrolls of vengeance, “ the hand-writing upon the wall,” to denounce judgment against us : for God is so highly resolved to bring us to repentance some way or other, that if, by his goodness, he can- not shame us into it, he will try if, by his judgments, he can scare us into it : not that he strikes always as soon as he hath sent his warrants out ; ovIe to~iq ajjapTavovffLy ev^vg eTre^eicriv 6 Qeog’ aXXa lidojai ^poyov elg jj^eravoiav, Kal rijv rov 6(j)eiX^ fj-arog ’lamr, said Philo. Thus God sent Jonas, and denounced judgments against Nineveh ; but with the avoyju with the “ forbearance ” of forty days for the time of their escape, if they would repent. When Noah, the great preacher of righteousness, denounced the flood to all the world, it was with the avoyi], with the “ forbearance” of a hundred and twenty years. And when the great extermination of the Jewish nation, and their total deletion from being God’s people, was foretold by Christ, and decreed by God ; yet they had the avo)(}) of forty years, in which they were perpetually called to repentance. These were reprieves and deferrings of the stroke. But sometimes God strikes once, and then for- bears. And such are all those sadnesses, which are less than death : every sickness, every loss, every disgrace, the death of friends and nearest relatives, sudden discontents ; these are all of them the louder 828 THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS; Serm. XII. calls of God to repentance ; but still, instances of forbearance. Indeed, many times this forbearance makes men impudent. It was so in the case of Pharaoh ; when God smote him, and then forbore, Pharaoh’s heart grew callous and insensible, till God struck again : and this was the meaning of these words of God, “ I will harden the heart of Pharaoh,” that is, I will forbear him ; smite him, and then take the blow off : “ Sic enim Deus induravit Pharaonis cor,” said St. Basil. For as water taken otf from fire will sooner congeal and become icy, than if it had not been attenuated by the heat; so is the heart of some men; when smitten by God, it seems soft and pliable, but taken off from the fire of affliction, it presently becomes horrid, then stiff, and then hard as a rock of adamant, or as the gates of death and hell. But this is beside the purpose and intention of the Divine mercy ; this is an arriTrepiffraaig, a plain “ contradiction” to the riches of God’s good- ness; this is to be evil because God is good; to burn with flames because we are cooled with water; this is to put out the lamps of heaven, or (if we cannot do it) to put our own eyes out, lest we should behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and be enamoured of his goodness, and repent, and live. 0 take heed of despising this goodness ; for this is one of God’s latest arts to save us ; he hath no way left beyond this, but to punish us with a lasting judg- ment and a poignant affliction. In the tomb of Terentia, certain lamps burned under ground many ages together; but as soon as ever they were brought into the air, and saw a bigger light, they went out, never to be re-enkindled. So long as we are in the retirements of sorrow, of want, of fear, of sickness, or of any sad accident, we are burning and shining lamps ; but when God comes with his avox% with his “ forbearance,” and lifts us up from the gates of death, and carries us abroad into the open air, that we converse with prosperity and temptation, we go out in darkness ; and we cannot be preserved in heat and light, but by still dwelling in the regions of sorrow. And if such he our weaknesses or our folly, it concerns us to pray against such deliverances, to be afraid of health, to beg of God to continue a persecution, and not to deny us the mercy of an affliction. And do not we find all this to be a great truth in ourselves ? Are we so great strangers to our own weakness and unworthiness, as not to remember when God scared us with judgments in the neigh- bourhood, where we lived in a great plague, or if we were ever in a storm, or God had sent a sickness upon us ? Then we may please to remember, that repentance was our business, that we designed mountains of piety, renewed our holy purposes, made vows and solemn sacraments to God to be- come penitent and obedient persons : and we may also remember, without much considering, that as soon as God began to forbear us, we would no longer forbear to sin, but add flame to flame, a heap of sins to a treasure of wrath, already too big ; being like Pharaoh or Herod, or like the ox and mule, more hard and callous for our stripes ; and melted in the fire, and frozen harder in the cold; worse for all our afflictions, and the worse for all God’s judgments ; not bettered by his goodness, nor mollified by his threatenings : and what is there more left for God to do unto us ? He that is not won by the sense of God’s mercy, can never find any thing in God that shall convert him ; and he whom fear and sense of pain cannot mend, can never find any argument from himself that shall make him wise. This is sad, that nothing from without, and nothing from within, shall move us : nothing in heaven, and nothing in hell ; neither love, nor fear ; gratitude to God, nor preservation of ourselves, shall make us to repent. Qeov TrXrjyrjv ov^ vTrepTrr)^^ jSpoTog' That shall be his final sentence : he shall never escape that ruin from which the greatest art of God could not entice, nor his terror scare him : “ he loved cursing, therefore shall it happen to him : he loved not blessing, therefore shall it be far from him.” Let, therefore, every one of us take the account of our lives, and read over the sermons that God hath made us : besides that sweet language of his mercy, and his “ still voice” from heaven, consider what voices' of thunder you heard, and presently that noise ceased, and God was heard in the “ still voice” again. What dangers have any of you escaped ? Were you ever assaulted by the rudeness of an ill-natured man ? Have you never had a dangerous fall, and escaped it? Did none of you ever escape drowning, and in a great danger saw the forbearance of God ? Have you never been sick (as you feared) unto death ? Or, suppose none of these things have happened, hath not God threatened you all, and forborne to smite you ? or smitten you, and forborne to kill you ? That is evident. But if you had been a privado, and of the cabinet-council with your angel-guardian, that from him you might have known how many dangers you have escaped, how often you have been near a ruin, so near, that if you had seen your danger with a sober spirit, the fear of it would have half killed you ; if he had but told you how often God had sent out his warrants to the exterminating angel, and our blessed Saviour by his intercession hath obtained a reprieve, that he might have the content of rejoicing at thy conversion and repentance ; if you had known from him the secrets of that provi- dence which governs us in secret, and how many thousand times the devil would have done thee hurt, and how often himself, as a ministering spirit of God’s “ goodness and forbearance,” did interpose and abate or divert a mischief which was falling on thy head : it must needs cover thy head with a cloud of shame and blushing at that ingratitude and that folly, that neither will give God thanks nor secure thy own well-being. Hadst thou never any dangerous fall in thy in- temperance ? Then God showed thee thy danger, and that he was angry at thy sin ; but yet did so pity thy person, that he would forbear thee a little longer, else that fall had been into thy grave. When thy gluttony gave thee a surfeit, and God gave thee a remedy, his meaning then was, that Serm. XIII. OR, GOD’S METHOD IN CURING SINNERS. 829 thy gluttony rather should be cured than thy sur- feit ; that repentance should have been thy remedy, and abstinence and fasting should be thy cure. Did ever thy proud and revengeful spirit engage thee upon a duel, or vexatious lawsuit, and God brought thee off with life or peace ? His purpose then was, that his mercy should teach thee charity. And he that cannot read the purposes of God written with the finger of judgment, (for as yet his whole hand is not laid on,) either is consigned to eternal ruin, because God will no more endeavour his cure ; or, if his mercy still continues and goes on in long- suffering, it shall be by such vexatious instruments, such caustics and corrosives, such tormenting and desperate medicaments, such which, in the very cure, will soundly punish thy folly and ingratitude. For, deceive not yourselves, God’s mercy cannot be made a patron for any man’s impiety ; the purpose of it is to bring us to repentance : and God will do it by the mercies of his mercies, or by mercies of his judgments ; he will either break our hearts into a thousand fragments of contrition, or break our bones in the ruins of the grave and hell. And since God rejoices in his mercy above all his works, he will be most impatient that we shall despise that in which he most delights, and in which we have the greatest reason to delight ; the riches of that good- ness which is essential, and part of his glory, and is communicated to us, to bring us to repentance, that we may partake of that goodness, and behold that glory. SERMON XIII. PART II. 3. MaKpo%iJ.la, “ Long-suffering.” — In this one word are contained all the treasures of the Divine goodness : here is the length and extension of his mercy : “ Pertrahit spiritum super nos Dominus,” so the Syrian interpreter reads, Luke xviii. 7. “God holds his breath : he retains his anger within him, lest it should come forth and blast us.” x\nd here is also much of the Divine justice : for although God suffers long, yet he does not let us alone ; he for- bears to destroy us, but not to punish us : and in both he, by many accidents, gives probation of his power ; according to the prayer of the wise man, he TravraQ, on Travra hvvaaaC Kal Trapop^ a^apnifxara av^p6}Tri»)v elg ixeravoiav' “Thou art merciful towards us all, because thou canst do all things : and thou passest by the sins of men, that they may repent.”^ And, that God should support our spirit, and preserve our patience, and nourish our hope, and correct our stubbornness, and mortify our pride, and bring us to him, whether we will or no, by such gracious violences and merciful judg- ments, which he uses towards us as his last reme- dies, is not only the demonstration of a mighty mercy, but of an almighty power. So hard a thing Wisd, xi. 24. it is to make us leave our follies, and become wise, that, were not the mercies of God an effective pity, and clothed in all the way of its progress with mightiness and power, every sinner should perish irrecoverably. But this is the fiery trial, the last purgatory-fire which God uses, to burn the thistles, and purify the dross. When the gentle influence of a sun-beam will not wither them, nor the wecding- hook of a short affliction cut them out ; then God comes with fiye to burn us, with the axe laid to the root of the tree. But then observe, that when we are under this state of cure, we are so near destruc- tion, that the same instrument that God uses for remedy to us, is also prepared to destroy us ; the fire is as apt to burn us to ashes as to cleanse us when we are so overgrown ; and the axe as instru- mental to cut us down for fuel, as to square us for building in God’s temple : and therefore when it comes thus far, it will be hard discerning what the purpose of the axe is ; and, whether the fire means to burn, we shall know it by the change wrought upon ourselves. For what Plato said concerning his dream of purgatory, is true here ; “ Quicunque non purgatus migrat ad inferos, jacebit in luto ; qui- cunque vero mitratus illuc accesserit, habitabit cum Deis “ He that dies in his impurity, shall lie in it for ever ; but he that descends to his grave purged and mitred, — that is, — having quitted his vices, ‘ et superinduens justitiam,’ ‘being clothed with right- eousness,’ shall dwell in light and immortality.” It is sad that we put God to such extremities : and as it happens in long diseases, those which physi- cians use for the last remedies seldom prevail ; and when consumptive persons come to have their heads shaven, they do not often escape ; so it is when we put God to his last remedies : God indeed hath the glory of his patience and his long-suffering, but we seldom have the benefit and the use of it. For if, when our sin was young, and our strength more ac- tive, and our habits less, and virtue not so much a stranger to us, — we suffered sin to prevail upon us, to grow stronger than the ruins of our spirit, and to lessen us into the state of sickness and disability, in the midst of all those remedies which God used to our beginning-diseases : much more desperate is our recovery, when our disease is stronger, and our faculties weaker ; when our sins reign in us, and our thoughts of virtue are not alive. However, although I say this, and it is highly considerable to the purpose that we never suffer things to come to this extremity, yet, if it be upon us, we must do as well as we can : but then we are to look upon it as a design of God’s last mercy, be- yond which, if we protract our repentance, our con- dition is desperately miserable. The w'hole state of which mercy we understand by the parable of the king reckoning with his servants that were in arrears to him : “ One was brought to him which owed him ten thousand talents : but forasmuch as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.” The man, you see, was under the arrest ; the sentence was passed upon him, he was a con- demned man : but, before the execution of it, he fell 830 THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS; Serm. XIII. down, and worshipped, and said, Y^vpie, fxaicpoSfvurj- (jov ; ‘‘ Lord, ‘ suffer me longer awhile ; ’ have pa- tience with me, and I will pay thee all,” This tells itsmeaning: this is “ along sufferance,” by being “a forbearance ” only of execution of the last sentence, a putting off damnation upon a longer trial of our emendation ; but in the mean time it implies no other case, but that, together with his long suffer- ance, God may use all other severities and scourges to break our untamed spirits, and to soften them with hammers ; so death be put off, no matter else what hardship and loads of sufferance W'^e have. “ Hie ure, hie seca, ut in jeternum parcas ;” so St. Austin prayed : “ Here, 0 Lord, cut me, here burn me ; spare me not now, that thou mayest spare me for ever.” And it is just like the mercy used to a madman, when he is kept in a dark room, and tamed with wdiips; it is a cruel mercy, but such as his condition requires ; he can receive no other mercy, all things else were cruelly unmerciful. I remember what Bion observed wdttily of the punishment inflicted upon the daughters of Danaus, whom the old poets feigned to be condemned in hell to fill a bottomless tub with water, and, to increase the pain, (as they fancied,) this wmter they were to carry in sieves, and never to leave work till the tub were full; it is well, (says he,) since their labour must be eternal, that it is so gentle ; for it were more pains to carry their water in whole vessels, and a sad burden to go loaden to a leaking tub wdth unfruitful labours. — Just so is the condition of those persons, upon whom a w*rath is gone out; it is a sad sentence, but acted with a gentle instrument ; and since they are condemned to pay the scores of their sins wdth the sufferance of a load of judgments, it is well they are such as will run quite through them, and not stick upon them to eternity. “ Omnes enim posnse non exterminantes, sunt medicinales ;” “ All punishments whatsoever, which do not de- stroy us, are intended to save us, they are lancets which make a wound, but to let forth the venom of our ulcers. When God slew twenty-three thousand of the Assyrians for their fornication, that was a final justice upon their persons, and consigned them to a sad eternity ; for beyond such an infliction there was no remed}^. But when God sent lions to the Assyrian inhabitants of Samaria, and the judg- ment drove them to inquire after the manner of the God of the land, and they sent for priests from Je- rusalem to teach them how to worship the God of Israel ; that was a mercy and a judgment too : “ the long forbearance of God,” who destroyed not all the inhabitants, “ led” the rest “unto repentance.” 1. And I must make this observation to you; that when things come to this pass, that God is forced to the last remedies of judgments, this long- sufferance will little or nothing concern particular persons, but nations and communities of men ; for those who are smitten with judgment, if God takes his hand off again, and so opens a way for their repentance by prolonging their time ; that comes under the second part of God’s method, the avoyj), or “ forbearance :” but if he smites a single person with a final judgment, that is “ a long-sufl'ering,” not of him, but towards others ; and God hath de- stroyed my neighbour, to make me repent, my neighbour’s time being expired, and the date of his possibility determined. For a man’s death-bed is but an ill station for a penitent; and a final judg- ment is no good monitor to him, to whom it is a severe executioner. They that perished in the gain- saying of Korah, were out of the conditions of re- pentance. But the people that were affrighted with the neighbourhood of the judgment, and the ex- presses of God’s anger manifested in such visible remonstrances, they were the men called unto re- pentance. But concerning the whole nations or communities of men, this long-sufferance is a ser- mon of repentance ; loud, clamorous, and highly ar- gumentative. When God suffered the mutinies, the affronts, the baseness and ingratitude, the follies and relapses, of the children of Israel, who murmured against God ten times in the wilderness ; God sent evil angels among them, and fiery serpents, and pestilence, and fire from heaven, and prodigies from the earth, and a prevailing sword of the enemies ; and in all these accidents, although some innocent persons felt the contingencies and variety of mor- tality, yet those wicked persons who fell by the de- sign of God’s anger, were made examples unto others, and instances of God’s forbearance to the nation ; and yet this forbearance was such, that al- though God preserved the nation in being, and in title to the first promises, yet all the particular per- sons that came from Egypt, died in the wilderness, two only excepted. 2. And I desire you to observe this, that you may truly estimate the arts of the Divine justice and mercy. For all the world being one continual and entire argument of the Divine mercy, we are apt to abuse that mercy to vain confidences and presump- tion ; first mistaking the end, as if God’s mercy would be indulgent to our sin, to which it is the greatest enemy in the world ; for it is a certain truth, that the mercy of God is as great an enemy to sin as his justice is ; and as God’s justice is made the handmaid of his mercy to cure sin, so it is the servant also and the instrument to avenge our despite and contempt of mercy ; and in all the way where a difference can be, there justice is the less principal. And it were a great sign of folly, and a huge mistake, to think our Lord and our friends do us offices of kindness, to make themselves more capable of affronts ; and that our fathers’ care over us, and provision for us, can tempt us to diso- bey them : the very purpose of all those emana- tions is, that their love may return in duty, and their providence be the parent of our prudence, and their care be crowned with our piety ; and then we shall all be crowned, and shall return like the year, that ends into its own circle ; and the fathers and the children, the benefactors and the beneficiary, shall knit the wreath, and bind each other in the eternal enclosures and circlings of immortality. But be- sides, as the men who presume to sin because of God’s mercy, do mistake the very end and design of God’s mercy, so they also mistake the economy of it, and the manner of its ministration. Serm. XIII. Oil, GOD’S METHOD IN CURING SINNERS. 831 3. For if God suffers men to go on in sins, and punishes them not, it is not a mercy, it is not a forbearance ; it is a hardening them, a consigning them to ruin and reprobation ; and themselves give the best argument to prove it ; for they continue in their sin, they multiply their iniquity, and every day grow more enemy to God ; and that is no mercy that increases their hostility and enmity with God. A prosperous iniquity is the most unprosperous con- dition in the whole world. “ When he slew them, they sought him, and turned them early, and in- quired after God but as long as they prevailed upon their enemies, “ they forgot that God was their strength, and the high God was their Re- deemer.” It was well observed by the Persian am- bassador of old ; when he was telling the king a sad story of the overthrow of all his army by the Athenians, he adds this of his own ; that the day before the fight, the young Persian gallants, being confident they should destroy their enemies, were drinking drunk, and railing at the timorousness and fears of religion, and against all their gods, say- ing, there were no such things, and that all things came by chance and industry, nothing by the providence of the Supreme Power. But the next day when they had fought unprosperously, and flying from their enemies who were eager in their pursuit, they came to the river Strymon, which was so frozen that their boats could not launch, and yet it began to thaw, so that they feared the ice would not bear them ; then you should see the bold gal- lants, that the day before said there was no God, most timorously and superstitiously fall upon their faces, and beg of God, that the river Strymon might bear them over from their enemies. What wisdom, and philosophy, and perpetual experience, and reve- lation, and promises, and blessings, cannot do, a mighty fear can ; it can allay the confidences of bold lust and imperious sin, and soften our spirit into the lowness of a child, our revenge into the charity of prayers, our impudence into the blushings of a chidden girl ; and therefore God hath taken a course proportionable : for he is not so unmercifully merciful, as to give milk to an infirm lust, and hatch the egg to the bigness of a cockatrice. And, therefore, observe how it is that God’s mercy pre- vails over all his works ; it is even then wlien nothing can be discerned but his judgments : for as when a famine had been in Israel in the days of Ahab for three years and a half, when the angry prophet Elijah met the king, and presently a great wind arose, and the dust blew into the eyes of them that walked abroad, and the face of the heavens was black and all tempest, yet then the prophet was most gentle, and God began to forgive, and the heavens were more beautiful than when the sun puts on the brightest ornaments of a bridegroom, going from his chambers of the east : so it is in the economy of the Divine mercy ; when God makes our faces black, and the winds blow so loud till the cordage cracks, and our gay fortunes split, and our houses are dressed with cypress and yew, “and the mourners go about the streets,” this is nothing but Psal. Ixxv. 8. c Psal. xeix. 8. the “ pompa misericordia?,” this is the funeral of our sins, dressed indeed with emblems of mourning, and proclaimed with sad accents of death ; but the sight is refreshing, as the beauties of the field which God had blessed, and the sounds are healthful as the noise of a physician. This is that riddle spoken of in the Psalm, “ Calix in manu Domini vini meri jAenus misto “ The pure impure, the mingled unmingled cup : ” for it is a cup in which God hath poured much of his severity and anger, and yet it is pure and unmingled ; for it is all mercy. And so the riddle is resolved, and our cup is full and made more wholesome ; “ Lymphatum crescit, dulcescit, Isedere nescit it is some justice, and yet it is all mercy ; the very justice of God being an act of mercy ; a forbearance of the man or the nation, and the punishing the sin. Thus it was in the case of the children of Israel ; when they ran after the bleating of the idolatrous calves, Moses prayed passionately, and God heard his prayer, and forgave their sin unto them. And this was David’s observation of the manner of God’s mercy to them ; “ Thou wast a God and forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their in- ventions. For God’s mercy is given to us by parts, and to certain purposes. Sometimes God only so forgives us, that he does not cut us off in the sin, but yet lays on a heavy load of judgments : so he did to his people, when he sent them to school under the discipline of seventy years’ cap- tivity. Sometimes he makes a judgment less, and forgives in respect of the degree of the infliction, he strikes more gently ; and whereas God had de- signed, it may be, the death of thyself, or thy nearest relative, he is content to take the life of a child. And so he did to David, when he forbore him ; “ The Lord hath taken away thy sin, thou shalt not die ; nevertheless, the child that is born unto thee, that shall die.”^^ Sometimes he puts the evil off to a farther day ; as he did in the case of Ahab and Hezekiah : to the first he brought the evil upon his house, and to the second he brought the evil upon his kingdom in his son’s days, God forgiving only so as to respite the evil, that they should have peace in their own days. And thus when we have committed a sin against God, which hath highly provoked him to anger, even upon our repentance we are not sure to be forgiven, so as we understand forgiveness, that is, to hear no more of it, never to be called to an account : but we are happy if God so forgive us, as not to throv/ us into the insufferable flames of hell, though he smite us till we groan for our misery, till we “ chatter like a swallow,” as David’s expression is. And though David was an excellent penitent ; yet after he had lost the child begotten of Bathsheba, and God had told him he had forgiven him, yet he raised up his darling son against him, and forced him to an inglorious flight, and his son lay with his father’s concubines in the face of all Israel. So that when we are forgiven, yet it is ten to one but God will make us to smart and roar for our sins, for the very disquietness of our souls. 2 Sam. xii. 13, 14. 832 THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS; Serm. XIII. For if we sin and ask God forgiveness, and then are quiet, we feel so little inconvenience in the trade, that we may more easily he tempted to make a trade of it indeed. I wish to God that for every sin we have committed, we could heartily cry “ God mercy” and leave it, and judge ourselves for it, to prevent God’s anger : but when we have done all that we commonly call repentance, and when possibly God hath forgiven us to some purposes, yet, it may be, he punishes our sin when we least think of it ; that sin which we have long since forgotten. It may be, for the lust of thy youth thou hast a health- less old age. An old religious person long ago complained it was his case. Quos nimis effraenes habui, nunc vapulo renes : Sic luitur juvenis culpa, dolore senis. It may be, thy sore eyes are the punishment of intemperance seven years ago ; or God cuts thy days shorter, and thou shaltdie in a dorid age ; or he raises up afflictions to thee in thine own house, in thine own bowels; or hath sent a gangrene into thy estate ; or with any arrow out of his quiver he can wound thee, and the arrow shall stick fast in thy flesh, although God hath forgiven thy sin to many purposes. Our blessed Saviour “ was heard in all that he prayed” (said the apostle) : and he prayed for the Jews that crucified him, “ Father forgive them, for they know not what they do:” and God did forgive that great sin ; but how far ? Whereas it was just in God to deprive them of all possibility of receiving benefit from the death of Christ, yet God admitted them to it ; he gave them time, and possibilities, and helps, and great advantages to bring them to repentance ; he did not presently shut them up in his final and eternal anger; and yet he had finally resolved to destroy their city and nation, and did so, but forbore them forty years, and gave them all the helps of miracles and sermons apostolical to shame them, and force them into sor- row for their fault. And before any man can re- pent, God hath forgiven the man in one degree of forgiveness ; for he hath given him grace of repent- ance, and taken from him that final anger of the spirit of reprobation : and when a man hath re- pented, no man can say that God hath forgiven him to all purposes, but hath reserves of anger to punish the sin, to make the man afraid to sin any more ; and to represent, that when any man hath sinned, whatever he does afterwards, he shall be miserable as long as he lives, vexed with its adherences, and its neighbourhood and evil consequence. For as no man that hath sinned, can, during his life, ever return to an integral and perfect innocence ; so neither shall he be restored to a perfect peace, but must always watch and strive against his sin, and always mourn and pray for its pardon, and always find cause to hate it, by knowing himself to be for ever in danger of enduring some grievous calamity, even for those sins for which he hath truly repented him, for which God hath, in many gracious degrees, passed his pardon : this is the manner of dispensa- tion of the Divine mercy, in respect of particular persons and nations too. But sometimes we find a severer judgment hap- pening upon a people; and yet in that sad story God’s mercy sings the triumph, which although it be much to God’s glory, yet it is a sad story to sin- ning people. Six hundred thousand fighting men, besides women and children and decrepit persons, came out of Egypt; and God destroyed them all in the wilderness, except Caleb and Joshua : and there it was that God’s mercy prevailed over his justice, that he did not destroy the nation, but still preserved a succession to Jacob, to possess the promise. God drowned all the world except eight persons ; his mercy there also prevailed over his justice, that he preserved a remnant to mankind; his justice be- voured all the world, and his mercy, which pre- served but eight, had the honour of the prevailing attribute. God destroyed Sodom and the five cities of the plain, and rescued but four from the flames of that sad burning, and of the four lost one in the flight ; and yet his mercy prevailed over his justice, because he did not destroy all. And in these senses we are to understand the ex- cellency of the Divine mercy : even when he smites, when “ he rebukes us for sin,” when he makes “ our beauty to fail, and our flesh to consume away like a moth fretting a garment,” yet then his mercy is the prevailing ingredient. If his judgments be but fines set upon our heads, according to the mercy of our old laws, “ salvo contenemento,” “ so as to preserve our estates,” to continue our hopes and possibilities of heaven; all the other judgments can be nothing but mercies, excellent instruments of grace, arts to make us sober and wise, to take us off from our vanity, to restrain our wildnesses, which, if they were left unbridled^ would set all the world on fire. God’s judgments are like the censures of the church, in which a sinner is “ delivered over to Satan to be buffeted ; that the spirit may be saved.” The result of all this is, that God’s mercies are not, ought not, cannot be instruments of confidence to sin, because the very purpose of his mercy is to the contrary ; and the very manner of his economy and dispensation is such, that God’s mercy goes along in complexion and conjunction with his judgments : the riches of his forbearance is this, that he forbears to throw us into hell, and sends the mercies of his rod to chide us unto repent- ance, and the mercies of his rod to punish us for having sinned, and that when we have sinned we may never think ourselves secured, nor ever be reconciled to such dangers and deadly poisons. This, this is the manner of the Divine mercy. Go now, fond man, and, because God is merciful, pre- sume to sin, as having grounds to hope that thou mayest sin, and be safe all the way ! If this — hope, shall I call it, or sordid flattery, could be reasonable, then the mercies of God would not lead us to re- pentance ; so unworthy are we in the sense and largeness of a wide fortune and pleasant accident. For impunity was never a good argument to make men to obey laws. “ Quotusquisque reperi- tur, qui impunitate propositd abstinere possit inju- riis? Impunitas est maxima peccandi illecebra,” said Cicero.^^ And therefore, the wisdom of God Offic. 5. Serm. XIII. OR, GOD’S METHOD IN CURING SINNERS. 833 hath so ordered the actions of the world, that the most fruitful showers shall be wrapped up in a cover of black clouds, that health shall be conveyed by bitter and ill-tasted drugs ; that the temples of our bodies shall be purged by whips, and that the cords of the whip shall be the cords of love, to draw us from the entanglings of vanity and folly. This is the long-suffering of God, the last remedy to our dis- eased souls: cind avaiaS^rjTOQ, oarig ttoWcl TraS^ujyov aio^pov Liberal, said Phalaris ; unless we be senseless, we shall be brought to sober courses by all those sad accidents, and wholesome, but ill-tasted mercies, which we feel in all the course and succession of the Divine long-sufferance. The use of all the premises is that which St. Paul expresses in the text, that “ we do not despise all this : ” and he only despises not, who serves the ends of God in all these designs of mercy, that is, he that repents him of his sins. But there are a great many despisers ; all they that live in their sins, they that have more blessings than they can reckon hours in their lives, that are courted by the Divine favour and wooed to salvation, as if mankind were to give, not to receive, so great a blessing, all they that answer not to so friendly summons, — they are despisers of God’s mercies : and although God overflows with mercies, and does not often leave us to the only hopes of being cured by unctions and gentle cataplasms, but proceeds further, and gives us “ stibium,” or prepared steel, sharp arrows of his anger, and the sword, and the hand of sickness ; yet we are not sure of so much favour as to be enter- tained longer in God’s hospital, but may be thrust forth among the “ incurabiles.” Plutarch reports concerning swine, that their optic nerves are so dis- posed to turn their eyes downward, that they cannot look upwards, nor behold the face of heaven, unless they be thrown upon their backs. Such swine are we : we seldom can look up to heaven, till God by his judgments throws us upon our backs ; till he humbles us and softens us with showers of our own blood, and tears of sorrow : and yet God hath not promised that he will do so much for us ; but for aught we know, as soon as ever the devil enters into our swinish and brutish hearts, we shall run down the hill, and perish in the floods and seas of intolerable misery. And therefore, besides that it is a huge folly in us, that we will not be cured with pleasant medicines, but must be longing for coloquin- tida and for vomits, for knives and poniards instead of the gentle showers of the Divine refreshments, be- sides that this is an imprudence and sottishness ; we do infinitely put it to the venture, whether we shall be in a saveable condition or no, after the rejection of the first state of mercies. But, however, then begins the first step of the judgment and pungent misery, we are perishing people : or, if not, yet at the least not to be cured without the abscission of a member, without the cutting off a hand or a leg, or the putting out of an eye : we must be cut, to take the stone out of our hearts, and that is the state of a very great infelicity ; and if we escape the stone, we cannot escape the surgeon’s knife ; if we escape death, yet we have a sickness ; and though that be a VOL. 1. 3 H great mercy in respect of death, yet it is as great misery in respect of health. And that is the first punishment for the despite done to the first and most sensible mercies ; we are fallen into a sickness, that cannot be cured but by disease and hardship. But if this despite runs further, and when the mercies look on us with an angry countenance, and that God gives us only the mercy of a punishment, if we despise this too, we increase but our misery, as we increase our sin. The sum of which is this : that if Pharaoh will not be cured by one plague, he shall have ten ; and if ten will not do it, the great and tenth wave, which is far bigger than all the rest, the severest and the last arrow of the quiver, then we shall perish in the Red sea, the sea of flames and blood, in which the ungodly shall roll eternally. But some of these despisers are such as are un- moved when God smites others ; like Gallio, when the Jews took Sosthenes, and beat him in the plead- ing-place, he “ cared for none of these things ; ” he was not concerned in that interest : and many Gal- lios there are among us, that understand it not to be a part of the divine method of God’s “ long-suffer- ance,” to strike others to make us afraid. But how- ever we sleep in the midst of such alarms, yet know, that there is not one death in all the neighbourhood but is intended to thee ; every crowing of the cock is to awake thee to repentance : and if thou sleepest still, the next turn may be thine ; God will send his angel, as he did to Peter, and smite thee on thy side, and wake thee from thy dead sleep of sin and sot- tishness. But beyond this some are despisers still, and hope to drown the noises of mount Sinai, the sound of cannons, of thunders and lightnings, with a counter-noise of revelling and clamorous roarings, with merry meetings ; like the sacrifices to Moloch, they sound drums and trumpets, that they might not hear the sad shriekings of their chil- dren, as they were dying in the cavity of the brazen idol : and when their conscience shrieks out or mur- murs in a sad melancholy, or something that is dear to them is smitten, they attempt to drown it in a sea of drink, in the heathenish noises of idle and drunken company ; and that which God sends to lead them to repentance, leads them to a tavern, not to refresh their needs of nature, or for ends of a tolerable civility, or innocent purposes; but, like the condemned persons among the Levantines, they tasted wine freely, that they might die and be in- sensible. I could easily reprove such persons with an old Greek proverb mentioned by Plutarch, Ilept Ty]Q ^v^vfjLiag, ovre TroEaypag aTraWarrei KaXKtog, “ You shall ill be cured of the knotted gout, if you have nothing else but a wide shoe.” But this re- proof is too gentle for so great madness : it is not only an incompetent cure, to apply the plaister of a sin or vanity to cure the s-mart of a divine judgment ; but it is a great increaser of the misery, by swelling the cause to bigger and mon- strous proportions. It is just as if an impatient fool, feeling the smart of his medicine, shall tear his wounds open, and throw away the instruments of his cure, because they bring him health at the 834 THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS, &c. charge of a little pain, ’Eyyyg Kuptou TrXrjpr^g fxcujTi- yiov, “ He that is full of stripes” and troubles, and decked round about with thorns, he “ is near to God:” but he that, because he sits uneasily when he sits near the King that was crowned with thorns, shall remove thence, or strew flowers, roses and jessamine, the down of thistles and the softest gos- samer, that he may die without pain, die quietly and like a lamb, sink to the bottom of hell without noise ; this man is a fool, because he accepts death if it arrest him in civil language, is content to die by the sentence of an eloquent judge, and prefers a quiet passage to hell before going to heaven in a storm. That Italian gentleman was certainly a great lover of his sleep, who was angry with the lizard that waked him, when a viper was creeping into his mouth : when the devil is entering into us to poison our spirits, and steal our souls away while we are sleeping in the lethargy of sin, God sends his sharp messages to awaken us ; and we call that the enemy, and use arts to cure the remedy, not to cure the dis- ease, There are some persons that will never be cured, not because the sickness is incurable, but because they have ill stomachs, and cannot keep the medicine. Just so is his case that so despises God’s method of curing him by these instances of long- sufferance, that he uses all the arts he can to be quit of his physician, and to spill his physic, and to take cordials as soon as his vomit begins to work. There is no more to be said in this affair, but to read the poor wretch’s sentence, and to declare his condition. As at first, when he despised the first great mercies, God sent him sharpness and sad accidents to ensober his spirits : so now that he despises his mercy also, the mercy of the rod, God will take it away from him, and then I hope all is well. Miserable man that thou art ! this is thy undoing; if God ceases to strike thee, be- cause thou wilt not mend, thou art sealed up to ruin and reprobation for ever ; the physician hath given thee over, he hath no kindness for thee. This was the desperate estate of Judah, “ Ah, sinful nation ! a people laden with iniquity : they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel. Why should ye be stricken any more ?” ® This is the dvd-9-e/.ia fxapav add, the most bitter curse, the great- est excommunication, when the delinquent is be- come a heathen and a publican, without the cove- nant, out of the pale of the church : the church hath nothing to do with them : “ for what have I to do with them that are without ?” said St. Paul. It was not lawful for the church any more to punish them. And this court Christian is an imitation and parallel of the justice of the court of heaven : when a sinner is not mended by judgments at long-running, God cuts him off from his inheritance, and the lot of sons ; he will chastise him no more, but let him -take his course, and spend his portion of prosperity, such as shall be allowed him in the great economy of the world. Thus God did to his vineyard which he took such pains to fence, to plant, to manure, to dig, to cut, and to prune : and when, after all, it brought forth wild grapes, the last and worst of ® Isaiah i. 4, 5. ^ Isaiah v. 5. Serm. XIII. I God’s anger was this; “ Auferam sepemejus:”^ f God had fenced it with a hedge of thorns, and “ God would take away all that hedge,” he would not leave a thorn standing, not one judgment to re- ' prove or admonish them, but all the wild beasts, | and wilder and more beastly lusts, may come and i devour it, and trample it down in scorn. And now what shall I say, but those words quoted by St. Paul in his sermon, “ Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish ; ” g perish in your own ' folly by stubbornness and ingratitude. For it is a huge contradiction to the nature and designs of God : God calls us, we refuse to hear ; he invites us with fair promises, we hear and consider not ; he gives us blessings, we take them and understand not his meaning ; we take out the token, but read not the letter : then he threatens us, and we regard not; he strikes our neighbours, and we are not concerned: then he strikes us gently, but we feel it not : then he does like the physician in the Greek epigram, who being to cure a man of a lethargy, locked him into the same room with a madman, that he by dry- beating him might make him at least sensible of blows ; bilt this makes us, instead of running to God, to trust in unskilful physicians, or, like Saul, to run to a Pythonisse ; we run for cure to a crime, we | take sanctuary in a pleasant sin ; just as if a man, 'I to cure his melancholy, should desire to be stung j with a tarantula, that at least he may die merrily. ; What is there more to be done that God hath not i yet done ? He is forced at last to break off with a i “ Curavimus Babylonem, et non est sanata,” “We ? dressed and tended Babylon,” but she was incura- * ble : there is no help but such persons must die in • their sins, and lie down in eternal sorrow. SERMON XIV. i OF GROWTH IN GRACE. \ PART I. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ: to whom he glon'y both noio and for ever. Amen. — 2 Pet. iii. 18. When Christianity, like the day-spring from the east, with a new light, did not only enlighten the world, but amazed the minds of men, and entertained their curiosities, and seized upon their warmer and more pregnant afiections, it was no wonder, that whole nations were converted at a sermon, mul- titudes were instantly professed, and their under- standings followed their afiections, and their wills followed their understandings, and they were con- vinced by miracle, and overcome by grace, and pas- sionate with zeal, and wisely governed by their guides, and ravished with the sanctity of the doc- trine, and the holiness of their examples. And this g Acts xiii. 41. Serm. XIV. OF GROWTH IN GRACE. 835 was not on]y their duty, but a great instance of providence, that by the great religion and piety of the first professors, Christianity might be firmly planted, and unshaken by scandal, and hardened by persecution ; and that these first lights might be actual precedents for ever, and copies for us to tran- scribe in all descending ages of Christianity, that thither we might run to fetch oil to enkindle our extinguished lamps. But then piety was so uni- versal, that it might well be enjoined by St. Paul, that “ if a brother walked disorderly,” the Christians should avoid his company : he forbade them not to accompany with the heathens that walked disorder- ly ; “ for then a man must have gone out of the world ; ” but they were not to endure so much as “ to eat with,” or, “ to salute, a disorderly brother,” and ill-living Christian. But now”, if we should ob- serve this canon of St. Paul, and refuse to eat or to converse with a fornicator, or a drunkard, or a perjured person, or covetous, we must also “ go out of the world :” for a pious or a holy person is now as rare as a disorderly Christian was at first ; and as Christianity is multiplied every where in name and title, so it is destroyed in life, essence, and proper operation ; and we have very great reason to fear, that Christ’s name will serve us to no end but to upbraid our baseness, and his person only to be our judge, and his laws are so many bills of ac- cusation, and his graces and helps offered us but as aggravations of our unworthiness, and our baptism but an occasion of vow-breach, and the holy com- munion but an act of hypocrisy, formality, or sacri- lege, and all the promises of the gospel but as pleasant dreams, and the threatenings but as arts of affrightment. For Christianity lasted pure and zealous, it kept its rules, and observed its own laws for three hundred years, or thereabouts ; so long the church remained a virgin ; for so long they were warmed with their first fires, and kept under disci- pline by the rod of persecution : but it hath de- clined almost fourteen hundred years together ; prosperity and pride, wantonness and great for- tunes, ambition and interest, false doctrine upon mistake and upon design, the malice of the devil and the arts of all his instruments, the want of zeal, and a weariness of spirit, filthy examples, and a dis- reputation of piety and a strict life, seldom prece- dents and infinite discouragements, have caused so infinite a declension of piety and holy living, that what Papirius Massonius, one of their own, said of the popes of Rome, “ In pontificibus nemo hodie sanctitatem requirit ; optimi putantur, si vel leviter mali sint, vel minus boni quam caeteri mortales esse solent : ” “No man looks for holiness in the bishops of Rome ; those are the best popes who are not ex- tremely wicked : ” the same is too true of the great- est part of Christians ; men are excellent persons, if they be not traitors or adulterous, oppressors or injurious, drunkards or scandalous, if they be not “ as this publican,” as the vilest person with whom they converse. Nunc, si depositum non inficietur amicus, Si reddat veterem cum tota aerugine federn ; Prodigiosa fides, et Thuscis digna libellis, Quoeque coronata lustrari debeat agna. Juv. Sat. 13 3 H 2 He that is better than the dregs of his own age, whose religion is something above profaneness, and whose sobriety is a step or two from downright in- temperance, whose discourse is not swearing, nor yet apt to edify, whose charity is set out in piety, and a gentle yearning and saying “ God help,” whose alms are contemptible, and his devotion in- frequent; yet, as things are now, he is “unus e mil- libus,” “one of a thousand,” and he stands eminent and conspicuous in the valleys and lower grounds of the present piety ; for a bank is a mountain upon a level : but what is rare and eminent in the manners of men this day would have been scandalous, and have deserved the rod of an apostle, if it had been confronted with the fervours and rare devotion and religion of our fathers in the gospel. Men of old looked upon themselves as they stood by the examples and precedents of martyrs, and compared their piety to the, life of St. Paul, and es- timated their zeal by flames of the Boanerges, St. James and his brother ; and the bishops were thought reprovable, as they fell short of the ordi- nary government of St. Peter and St. John ; and the assemblies of Christians were so holy, that every meeting had religion enough to hallow a house, and convert it to a church; and every day of feasting was a communion, and every fasting-day was a day of repentance and alms, and every day of thanksgiv- ing was a day of joy and alms ; and religion began all their actions, and prayer consecrated them, and they ended in charity, and were not polluted with design : they despised the world heartily, and pur- sued after heaven greedily ; they knew no ends, but to serve God and to be saved ; and had no designs upon their neighbours, but to lead them to God and to felicity ; till Satan, full of envy to see such ex- cellent days, mingled covetousness and ambition within the throngs and conventions of the church, and a vice crept into an office, and then the mutual confidence grew less, and so charity was lessened ; and heresies crept in, and then faith began to be sullied ; and pride crept in, and then men snatched at offices, not for the work, but for the dignity ; and then they served themselves more than God and the church ; till at last it came to that pass where now it is, that the clergy live lives no better than the laity, and the laity are stooped to imitate the evil customs of strangers and enemies of Christianity ; so that we should think religion in a good condition, if that men did offer up to God but the actions of an ordinary, even, and just life, without the scandal and allays of a great impiety. But because such is the nature of things, that either they grow towards perfection, or decline towards dissolution; there is no proper way to secure it but by setting its growth forward : for religion hath no station or natural periods ; if it does not grow better it grows much worse not that it always returns the man into scan- dalous sins, but that it establishes and fixes him in a state of indifference and lukewarmness ; and he is more averse to a state of improvement, and dies in an incurious, ignorant, and unrelenting condition. “But grow in grace ;” — That is the remedy, and that would make us all wise and happy, blessed in 836 OF GROWTH IN GRACE. Serm. XIV. this world, and sure of heaven : concerning which, we are to consider, first. What the state of grace is into which every one of us must be entered, that we may “grow” in it: secondly, The proper parts, acts, and offices of “growing in grace:” thirdly. The signs, consequences, and proper significations, by •which if we cannot perceive the “ grow'ing,” yet afterwards we may perceive that “ we are grown,” and so judge of the state of our duty, and concerning our final condition of being saved. 1. Concerning the state of grace, I consider that no man can be said to be in the state of grace, who re- tains an affection to any one sin. The state of pardon and the Divine favour begins at the first instance of anger against our crimes, when we leave our fond- nesses and kind opinions, when we excuse them not, and will not endure their shame, when we feel the smarts of any of their evil consequents : for he that is a perfect lover of sin, and is sealed up to a re- probate sense, endures all that sin brings along with it; and is reconciled to all its mischiefs; he can suflTer the sickness of his own drunkenness, and yet call it pleasure ; he can wait like a slave to serve his lust, and yet count it no disparagement; he can suffer the dishonour of being accounted a base and dishonest person, and yet look confidently, and think himself no worse. But when the grace of God be- gins to work upon a man’s spirit, it makes the con- science nice and tender : and although the sin, as yet, does not displease the man, but he can endure the flattering and alluring part, yet he will not en- dure to be used so ill by his sin ; he will not be abused and dishonoured by it. But because God hath so allayed the pleasure of his sin, that he that drinks the sweet should also strain the dregs through his throat; by degrees God’s grace doth-irreconcile the convert, and discovers, first, its base attendants, then its worse consequents, then the displeasure of God; that here commence the first resolutions of leaving the sin, and trying if, in the service of God, his spirit and the whole appetite of man may be better entertained. He that is thus far entered, shall quickly perceive the difference, and meets argu- ments enough to invite him farther ; for then God treats the man as he treated the spies, that went to discover the land of promise ; he ordered the year in plenty, and directed them to a pleasant and a fruitful place, and prepared bunches of grapes of a miraculous and prodigious greatness, that they might report good things of Canaan, and invite the whole nation to attempt its conquest; so God’s grace represents to the new converts, and the weak ones in faith, the pleasures and first deliciousnesses of religion ; and when they come to spy the good things of that way that leads to heaven, they pre- sently perceive themselves eased of the load of an evil conscience, of their fears of death, of the con- fusion of their shame ; and God’s Spirit gives them a cup of sensible comfort, and makes them to re- joice in their prayers, and weep with pleasures mingled with innocent passion and religious changes. And although God does not deal with all men in the same method, or in manners that can regularly be described ; and all men do not feel, or do not observe. or cannot, for want of skill, discern, such accidental sweetnesses and pleasant grapes at their first en- trance into religion ; yet God to every man does minister excellent arguments of invitation ; and such, that if a man will attend to them, they will certainly move either his atfections or his will, his fancy or his reason, and most commonly both. But while the Spirit of God is doing this work in man, man must also be avvepyog rov Qeov, “ a fellow- worker with God ;” he must entertain the Spirit, attend his inspirations, receive his whispers, obey all his motions, invite him farther, and truly re- nounce all confederacy with his enemy, sin; at no hand suffering any “ root of bitterness to spring up,” not allowing to himself any reserve of carnal pleasure, no clancular lust, no private oppressions, no secret covetousness, no love to this world, that may discompose his duty. For if a man prays all day, and at night is intemperate ; if he spends his time in reading, and his recreation be sinful ; if he studies religion, and practises self-interest; if he leaves his swearing, and yet retains his pride ; if he becomes chaste, and yet remains peevish and imperious ; this man is not changed from the state of sin into the first stage of the state of grace, he does at no hand belong to God; he hath suffered himself to be scared from one sin, and tempted from another by interest, and hath left a third by reason of his inclination, and a fourth for shame or want of opportunity ; but the Spirit of God hath not yet planted one perfect plant there : God may make use of the accidentally-prepared advantages ; but as yet the Spirit of God hath not begun the proper and direct work of grace in his heart. But when we leave every sin, when we resolve never to return to the chains, when we have no love for the world but such as may be a servant of God ; then I ac- count that we are entered into a state of grace, from whence I am now to begin to reckon the commence- ment of this precept, “ Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2. And now the first part of this duty is, — to make religion to be the business of our lives ; — for this is the great instrument which will naturally produce our growth in grace, and the perfection of a Christian. For a man cannot, after a state of sin, be instantly a saint ; the work of Heaven is not done by a flash of lightning, or a dash of affec- tionate rain, or a few tears of a relenting pity : God and his church have appointed holy intervals, and have taken portions of our time for religion, that we may be called off from the world, and remember the end of our creation, and do honour to God, and think of heaven with hearty purposes and peremp- tory designs to get thither. But as we must not neglect those times, which God hath reserved for liL service, or the church hath prudently decreed; nor yet act religion upon such days with forms and outsides, or to comply with customs, or to seem re- ligious; so we must take care, that all the other portions of our time be hallowed with little retire- ments of our thoughts, and short conversations with God, and all along be guided with holy intention ; that even our works of nature may pass into the re- Serm. XIV. OF GROWTH IN GRACE. 837 lations of grace, and the actions of our calling may help towards the “ obtaining the prize of our high calling while our eatings are actions of temper- ance, our labours are profitable, our humiliations are acts of obedience, and our alms of charity, and our marriages are chaste ; and “ whether we eat or drink,” sleep or wake, we may “ do all to the glory of God,” by a direct intuition, or by a reflex act ; by design, or by supplement; by foresight, or by an after-election. And to this purpose we must not look upon religion as our trouble and our hinderance, nor think alms chargeable or expensive, nor our fastings vexatious and burdensome ; nor our prayers a weariness of spirit ; but we must make these, and all other the duties of religion, our employment, our care, the work and end for which we came into the world; and remember that we never do the work of men, nor serve the ends of God, nor are in the proper employment and business of our life, but when we worship God, or live like wise or sober persons, or do benefit to our brother. I will not turn this discourse into a reproof, but leave it represented as a duty. Remember that God sent you into the world for religion ; we are but to pass through our pleasant fields, or our hard labours ; but to dodge a little while in our fair palaces, or our meaner cottages ; but to bait in the way at our full tables, or with our spare diet; but then only man does his proper employment, when he prays and does charity, and mortifies his unruly appetites, and restrains his violent passions, and becomes like to God and imitates his holy Son, and writes after the copies of apostles and saints. Then he is dressing himself for eternity, where he must dwell or abide, either in an excellent beatifical country, or in a prison of amazement and eternal horror : and after all this, you may, if you please, call to mind how much time you allow to God and to your soiRs every day, or every month, or in a year, if you please, for I fear the account of the time is soon made ; but the account for the neglect will be harder ; and it will not easily be answered, that all our days and years are little enough to attend perishing things, and to be swallowed up in avaricious and vain attendances, and we shall not attend to religion with a zeal so great as is our revenge, or as is the hunger of one meal. Without much time, and a wary life, and a diligent circumspection, we cannot mortify our sins, or do the first works of grace. I pray God we be not fotmd to have grown like the sinews of old age, from strength to remissness ; from thence to dissolu- tion, and infirmity, and death. Menedemus was wont to say, “ that the young boys that went to Athens, the first year were wise men, the second year philosophers, the third orators, and the fourth were but plebeians, and understood nothing but their own ignorance.” And just so it happens to some in the progresses of religion ; at first they are violent and active, and then they satiate all the ap- petites of religion ; and that which is left is, that they were soon weary, and sat down in displeasure, and return to the world, and dwell in the business of pride or money ; and, by this time, they understand that their religion is declined, and passed from the heats and follies of youth, to the coldness and in- firmities of old age : the remedy of which is only a diligent spirit and a busy religion ; a great industry, and a full portion of time in holy offices ; that, as the oracle said to the Cirrheeans, “ noctes diesque belligerandum,” they could not be happy “ unless they waged war night and day ;” so unless we per- petually fight against our own vices, and repel our ghostly enemies, and stand upon our guard, we must stand for ever in the state of babes in Christ ; or else return to the first imperfections of an unchristened soul and an unsanctified spirit. — That is the first particular. 2. The second step of our growth in grace is, — when virtues grow habitual, apt, and easy, in our manners and dispositions ; — for, although many new converts have a great zeal, and a busy spirit, apt enough, as they think, to contest against all the dif- ficulties of a spiritual life ; yet they meet with such powerful oppositions from without, and a false heart within, that their first heats are soon broken; and either they are for ever discouraged, or are forced to march more slowly, and proceed more temperately for ever after. Ti}iJ {xivTOL KaKOTifTa Kal iXaoov kuvafx6v karC w hich St. James well renders, “ He that keeps the whole law, and offends in one point, is guilty of all ; ” “ that is, if he prevaricates in any command- ment, the transgression of w hich, by the law, was capital, he shall as,^ertainly die as if he broke the whole law. And the same is the case of those sin- gle actions which the school calls deadly sins, that is, actions of choice in any sin that hath a name ; and makes a kind, and hath a distinct matter. And sins once pardoned return again to all the purposes of mischief, if we, by a new sin, forfeit God’s former loving-kindness. “ When the righteous man turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, all his righteousness that he hath done shaU not be remembered : in the trespass that he hath trespass- ed, and in the sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.” ^ Now then consider how great a fool he is, who, when he hath, with much labour and by suffering violence, contradicted his first desires ; when his spirit hath been in agony and care, and, with much uneasiness, hath denied to please the lower man; when, with many prayers and groans, and innumerable sighs, and strong cryings to God, wdth sharp sufferances and a long severity, he hath obtained of God to begin his pardon and restitution, and that he is in some hopes to return to God’s fa- vour, and that he shall become an heir of heaven ; w^hen some of his amazing fears and distracting cares begin to be taken off; when he begins to think that now it is not certain he shall perish in a sad eternity, but he hopes to be saved, and he con- siders how excellent a condition that is ; he hopes, w^hen he dies, to go to God, and that he shall never enter into the possession of devils; and this state, which is but the twilight of a glorious felicity, he hath obtained wdth great labour, and much care, and infinite danger : that this man should throw all this structure down, and then, w-hen he is ready to reap the fruits of his labours, by one indiscreet ac- tion to set fire upon his corn fields, and. destroy all his dear-earned hopes, for the madness and loose w^anderings of an hour : this man is an indiscreet gamester, wdio doubles his stake as he thrives, and, at one throw, is dispossessed of all the prosperities of a lucky hand. They that are poor, as Plutarch observes, are careless of little things; because, by saving them, they think no orreat moments can accrue to their estates; and they, despairing to be rich, think such ^ Ezek. xviii. 21. Serm. XVII STATES AND DEGREES OF SINNERS, &c. 85 :^ frugality impertinent : but they that feel their banks swell, and are within the possibilities of wealth, think it useful if they reserve the smaller minutes of expense, knowing that every thing will add to their heap. But then, after long sparing, in one night to throw away the wealth of a long purchase, is an imprudence becoming none but such persons who are to be kept under tutors and guardians, and such as are to be chastised by their servants, and to be punished by them whom they clothe and feed. dWa ical £/xTT»js Aiaxpov 'TOl Sl^pov T£ pLtVZLV, KEVEOV TE VEEddaL. HOM, II. /3. These men sow much and gather little, stay long and return empty ; and after a long voyage they are dashed in pieces, when their vessels are laden with the spoils of provinces. Every deadly sin destroys the rewards of a seven-years’ piety. I add to this, that God is more impatient at a sin committed by his servants, than at many b)^ persons that are his enemies ; and an uncivil answer from a son to a father, from an obliged person to a benefactor, is a greater indecency, than if an enemy should storm his house, or revile him to his head. Augustus Csesar taxed all the world, and God took no public notices of it ; but when David taxed and numbered a petty province, it was not to be expiated without a plague ; because such persons, besides the direct sin, add the circumstance of ingratitude to God, who hath redeemed them from their vain conversation, and from death, and from hell, and consigned them to the inheritance of sons, and given them his grace and his Spirit, and many periods of comfort, and a certain hope, and visible earnests of immortality. Nothing is baser than that such a person, against his reason, against his interest, against his God, against so many obligations, against his custom, against his very habits and acquired inclinations, should do an action Quart! nisi seductis nequcas committere divis; which a man must for ever be ashamed of, and, like Adam, must run from God himself to do it, and de- part from the state in which he had placed all his hopes, and to which he had designed all his labours. The consideration is effective enough, if we sum up the particulars ; for he that hath lived well, and then falls into a deliberate sin, is infinitely disho- noured, is most imprudent, most unsafe, and most unthankful. 2. Let persons tempted to the single instances of sin in the midst of a laudable life, be very careful that they suffer not themselves to be drawn aside by the eminence of great examples. For some think drunkenness hath a little honesty derived unto it by the example of Noah ; and adultery is not so scan- dalous and intolerably dishonourable, since Bath- sheba bathed, and David was defiled ; and men think a flight is no cowardice, if a general turns his head and runs ; “ Pompeio fugiente timent.” Lucan. Well might all the gowned “Romans fear, when Pompey fled.” And who is there that can hope to be more righteous than David, or stronger Ilian Samson, or have less hypocrisy than St. Peter, or be more temperate than Noah? These great ex- amples bear men of weak discourses and weaker resolutions from the severity of virtues. But, as Diagoras, to them that showed to him the votive garments of those that had escaped shipwreck, upon their prayers and vows to Neptune, answered, that they kept no account of those that prayed and vowed, and yet were drowned : so do these men keep catalogues of those few persons, who broke the thread of a fair life in sunder with the violence of a great crime, and, by the grace of God, recovered, and repented, and lived ; but they consider not con- cerning those infinite numbers of men, who died in their first fit of sickness, who, after a fair voyage, have throwm themselves over-board, and perished in a sudden wildness. One said well, “ Si quid Socrates aut Aristippus contra morem et consuetu- dinem fecerimt, idem sibi ne arbitretur quis licere : magnis enim illi et divinis bonis hanc licentiani assequebantur : ” “ If Socrates did any unusual thing, it is not for thee, who art of an ordinary virtue, to assume the same license ; for he, by a divine and excellent life, hath obtained leave or pardon re- spectively” for what thou must never hope for, till thou hast arrived to the same glories. First, be as devout as David, as good a Christian as St. Peter, and then thou wilt not dare, with design, to act that which they fell into by surprise ; and if thou dost fall as they did, by that time thou hast also re- pented like them, it may be said concerning thee, that thou didst fall and break thy bones, but God did heal thee and pardon thee. Remember that all the damned souls shall bear an eternity of torments for the pleasures of a .short sinfulness ; but for a single transient action to die for ever, is an intolerable ex- change, and the effect of so great a folly, that who- soever falls into it, and then considers it, it will make him mad and distracted for ever. 3. Remember, that since no man can please God, or be partaker of any promises, or reap the reward of any actions in the returns of eternity, unless he performs to God an entire duty, according to the capacities of a man so taught, and so tempted, and so assisted ; such a person must be curious, that he be not cozened with the duties and performances of any one relation. 1. Some there are, that think all our religion consists in prayers and public or private offices of devotion, and not in moral actions, or intercourses of justice and temperance, of kind- ness and friendships, of sincerity and liberality, of chastity and humility, of repentance and obedience. Indeed no humour is so easy to be counterfeited as devotion ; and yet no hypocrisy is more common among men, nor any so useless as to God : for it being an address to him alone, who knows the heart and all the secret purposes, it can do no service in or- der to heaven, so long as it is without the power of godliness, and the energy and vivacity of a holy life. God will not suffer us to commute a duty, because all is his due ; and religion shall not pay for want of temperance. If the devoutest hermit be proud ; or he that “ fasts thrice in the week,” 854 OF GROWTH IN SIN j OR, THE SEVERAL Serm. XVII. be uncharitable once ; or he that gives much to the poor gives also too much liberty to himself ; he hath planted a fair garden, and invited a wild boar to refresh himself under the shade of the fruit-trees ; and his guest, being something rude, hath dis- ordered his paradise, and made it become a wilder- ness. 2. Others there are, that judge themselves by the censures that kings and princes give con- cerning them, or as they are spoken of by their betters ; and so make false judgments concerning their condition. For, our betters, to whom we show our best parts, to whom we speak with caution and consider what we represent, they see our arts and our dressings, but nothing of our nature and de- formities : trust not their censures concerning thee ; but to thy own opinion of thyself, whom thou knowest in thy retirements, and natural peevish- ness, and unhandsome inclinations, and secret base- ness. 3. Some men have been admired abroad, in whom the wife and the servant never saw any thing excellent : a rare judge and a good commonwealth’s man in the streets and public meetings, and a just man to his neighbour, and charitable to the poor; for in all these places the man is observed, and kept in awe by the sun, by light, and by voices : but this man is a tyrant at home, an unkind hus- band, an ill father, an imperious master. And such men are like “ prophets in their own countries,” not honoured at home ; and can never be honoured by God, who will not endure that many virtues should excuse a few vices, or that any of his servants shall take pensions of the devil, and in the profession of his service do his enemy single advantages. 4. He that hath passed many stages of a good life, to prevent his being tempted to a single sin, must be very careful that he never entertain his spirit with the remembrances of his past sin, nor amuse it with the fantastic apprehensions of the present. When the Israelites fancied the sapidness and relish of the flesh-pots, they longed to taste and to return. So when a Libyan tiger, drawn from his wilder foragings, is shut up, and taught to eat civil meat, and suffer the authority of a man, he sits down tamely in his prison, and pays to his keeper fear a.nd reverence for his meat : but if he chance to come again, and taste a draught of warm blood, he pre- sently leaps into his natural cruelty. He scarce abstains from eating those hands, that brought him discipline and food.^ So is the nature of a man made tame and gentle by the grace of God, and re- duced to reason, and kept in awe by religion and laws, and, by an awful virtue, is taught to forget those alluring and sottish relishes of sin : but if he diverts from his path, and snatches handfuls from the wanton vineyards, and remembers the lasciviousness of his unwholesome food, that pleased his childish palate ; then he grows sick again, and hungry after unwholesome diet, and longs for the apples of Sodom. A man must walk through the world without eyes or ears, fancy or appetite, but such as are created and sanctified by the grace of God; and being once '‘Sic ubi, desuetse sylvis, in carcere clauste, Mansuevere ferae, et vultus posuere minaces, Atqup hominem didicere pali ; si torrida parvus made a new man, he must serve all the needs of nature by the appetites and faculties of grace ; na- ture must be wholly a servant : and we must so look towards the deliciousness of our religion and the ravishments of heaven, that our memory must be for ever useless to the affairs and perceptions of sin. We cannot stand, we cannot live, unless we be curious and watchful in this particular. By these, and all other arts of the spirit, if we stand upon our guard, never indulging to ourselves one sin because it is but one, as knowing that one sin brought in death upon all the world, and one sin brought slavery upon the posterity of Cham ; and always fearing lest death surprise us in that one sin; we shall, by the grace of God, either not need, or else easily perceive the effects and blessings of that compassion which God reserves, in the secrets of his mercy, for such persons whom his grace hath ordained and disposed with excellent dispositions unto life eternal. These are the sorts of men which are to be used with compassion, concerning whom we are to make a difference ; “ making a difference,” so says the text. And it is of high concernment that we should do so, that we may relieve the infirmities of the men, and relieve their sicknesses, and transcribe the copy of the Divine mercy, who loves not to “ quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed.” For although all sins are against God’s commandments directly, or by certain consequents, by line, or by analogy ; yet they are not all of the same tincture and mortality. Nec vincit ratio hoc, tantundem ut peccet idemque, Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti, Et qui nocturnus divum sacra legerit. “ He that robs a garden of coleworts, and carries away an armful of spinage, does not deserve hell, as he that steals the chalice from the church, or betrays a prince ; ” and therefore men are distin- guished accordingly. Est inter Tanaim quiddam socerumque Viselli. — H or. The poet that Sejanus condemned for dishonour- ing the memory of Agamemnon, was not an equal criminal with Catiline or Gracchus : and Simon Mao-us and the Nicolai tans committed crimes which O God hated more than the complying of St. Barna- bas, or the dissimulation of St. Peter ; and therefore God does treat these persons severally. Some of these are restrained with a fit of sickness, some with a great loss, and in these there are degrees ; and some arrive at death. And in this manner God scourged the Corinthians, for their irreverent and disorderly receiving the holy sacrament. For al- though even the least of the sins that I have dis- coursed of will lead to death eternal, if their course be not interrupted, and the disorder chastised ; yet because we do not stop their progress instantl}q God many times does, and visits us with proportionable judgments ; and so not only checks the rivulet from swelling into rivers and a vastness, but plainly tells Venitin ora cruor, redeunt rabiesque furorque, Admonitaequetument gustato sanguine fauces; Fervet, et atrepido vix abstinetiramagistro;— Phars. Serm. XVII. STATES AND DECREES OF SINNERS, See. 855 us, that although smaller crimes shall not l)e punished with equal severity as the greatest, yet even in hell there are eternal rods as well as eter- nal scorpions ; and the smallest crime that we act with an infant malice and manly deliberation, shall be revenged with the lesser strokes of wrath, but yet with the infliction of a sad eternity. But then that we also should make a difference, is a precept concerning church-discipline, and therefore not here proper to be considered, but only as it may concern our OAvn particulars in the aetions of repentance, and our brethren in fraternal correction. adsit Regula, quae pcenas peccatis irro^et ae.quas, Ne scutica dignuin horribili sectere flagello. Hor. Let us be sure that we neglect no sin, but repent for every one, and judge ourselves for every one, according to the proportion of the malice, or the scandal, or the danger. And although in this there is no fear that we would be excessive ; yet, when we are to reprove a brother, we are sharp enough, and, either by pride or by animosity, by the itch of government or the indignation of an angry mind, we run beyond the gentleness of a Christian monitor. We must remember, that by Christ’s law some are to be admonished privately, some to be shamed and corrected publicly ; and, beyond these, there is an abscission, or a cutting off from the communion of faithful people, “ a delivering over to Satan.” And to this purpose is that old reading of the words of my text, which is still in some copies, kcu tovq fxev £/\£y^er£ hiaKpivofxivovQ, “ Reprove them sharply, when they are convinced,” or “ separate by sen- tence.” But because this also is a design of mercy acted with an instance of discipline, it is a punish- ment of the flesh, that the soul may be saved in the day of the Lord ; it means the same with the usual reading, and with the last words of the text, and leaches us our usage towards the worst of recover- able sinners. 11. “ Others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.” Some sins there are, which in their own nature are damnable, and some are such as will cer- tainly bring a man to damnation ; the first are curable, but with much danger ; the second are desperate and irrecoverable. When a man is vio- lently tempted, and allured with an object that is proportionable and pleasant to his vigorous appetite, and his unabated, unmortified nature, this man falls into death ; but yet we pity him, as we pity a thief that robs for his necessity : this man did not tempt himself, but his spirit suffers violence, and his reason is invaded, and his infirmities are mighty, and his aids not yet prevailing. But when this single temptation hath prevailed for a single instance, and leaves a relish upon the palate, and this produces another, and that also is fruitful, and swells into a family and kindred of sin, that is, it grows, first into approbation, then to a clear assent, and an un- troubled conscience, thence into frequency, from thence unto a custom, and easiness, and a habit ; this man is fallen into the fire. There are also some single acts of so great a malice, that they must suppose a man habitually sinful, before he could arrive at that height of wickedness. No man begins his sinful course with killing of his father or his prince : and Simon Magus had ])rcambulatory im- pieties ; he was covetous and ambitious long before he offered to buy the Holy Ghost. “ Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.” And although such actions may have in them the malice and the mischief, the dis- order and the wrong, the principle and the perma- nent effect of a habit and a long course of sin; yet because they never, or very seldom, go alone, but after the predisposition of other ushering crimes, we shall not amiss comprise them under the name of habitual sins ; for such they are, either formally or equivalently. And if any man hath fallen into a sinful habit, into a course and order of sinning, his ease is little less than desperate ; but that little hope that is remanent, hath its degree, according to the infancy or the growth of the habit. 1. For all sins less than habitual, it is certain a pardon is ready to penitent persons ; that is, to all that sin in ignorance or in infirmity, by surprise or inadvertency, in smaller instances or infrequent re- turns, with involuntary actions or imperfect resolu- tions. ’E/vT£/var£ rag yelpag vpiwv Trpdg rov avTO- Kparopa Qedr, iKETevovrEg avTov 'IXeojv y£R£0’S'ot, ei TL uKoyTEg rjiuapTETE, said Clemens in his epistle : “ Lift up your hands to Almighty God, and pray him to be merciful to you in all things, when you sin unwillingly;” that is, in which you sin with an imperfect choice. For no man sins against his will directly, but when his understanding is abused by an inevitable or an intolerable weakness, or their wills follow their blind guide, and are not the per- fect mistresses of their own actions ; and therefore leave a way and easiness to repent, and be ashamed of them, and therefore a possibility and readiness for pardon. And these are the sins that v.'e are taught to pray to God that he would pardon, as he gives us our bread, that is, every day. For “in many things we offend all,” said St. James; that is, in many smaller matters, in matters of surprise or inevitable infirmity. And therefore Possidonius said, that St. Austin was used to say, that “he Mmuld not have even good and holy priests go from this world without the susception of equal and wor- thy penances : ” and the most innocent life in our account is not a competent instrument of a peremp- tory confidence, and of justif 3 nng ourselves. “ I am guilty of nothing,” said St. Paul; that is, of no ill intent, or negligence, in preaching the gospel ; “ yet I am not hereby justified ;” for God, it may be, knows many little irregularities and insinuations of sin. In this case we are to make a difference ; but humility, and prayer, and watchfulness, are the di- rect instruments of the expiation of such sins. But then, secondly, whosoever sins without these abating circumstances, that is, in great instances, in which a man’s understanding cannot be cozened, as in drunkenness, murder, adultery^ ; and in the fre- quent repetitions of any sort of sin whatsoever, in which a man’s choice cannot be surprised, and in which it is certain there is a love of the sin, and a delight in it, and a power over a man’s resolutions ; in these cases it is a miraculous grace, and an ex- 856 OF GROWTH IN SIN ; OR, THE SEVERAL Serm. XVH. traordinary change, that must turn the current and the stream of the iniquity ; and when it is begun, the pardon is more uncertain, and the repentance more difficult, and the effect much abated, and the man must be made miserable, that he may not be accursed for ever. 1. I say, his pardon is uncertain; because there are some sins which are unpardonable, (as I shall show,) and they are not all named in particular ; and the degrees of malice being uncertain, the sal- vation of that man is to be wrought with infinite fear and trembling. It was the case of Simon Ma- gus : “ Repent, and ask pardon for thy sin, if perad- venture the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee.”^ 1 f per advent lire ; it was a new crime, and concerning its jjossibility of pardon no revelation had been made, and by analogy to other crimes it was very like an unpardonable sin : for it was “ a think- ing a thought” against the Holy Ghost, and that was next to “speaking a word” against him. Cain’s sin was of the same nature : “ It is greater than it can be forgiven : ” his passion and his fear was too severe and decretory ; it was pardonable, but truly we never find that God did pardon it. 2. But besides this, it is uncertain in the pardon, because it may be the time of pardon is past ; and though God hath pardoned to other people the same sins, and to thee too sometimes before, yet it may be, he will not now ; he hath not promised pardon so often as we sin, and in all the returns of impu- dence, apostasy, and ingratitude ; and it may be, “ thy day is past,” as was Jerusalem’s in the day that they crucified the Saviour of the world. 3. Pardon of such habitual sins is uncertain, be- cause life is uncertain ; and such sins require much time for their abolition and expiation. And there- fore, although these sins are not “ neccssario morti- fera,” that is, unpardonable ; yet by consequence they become deadly ; because our life may be cut oft*, before we have finished or performed those ne- cessary parts of repentance, which are the severe, and yet the only condition of getting pardon. So that you may perceive, that not only every great single crime, but the habit of any sin is dangerous : and therefore these persons are to be “ snatched from the fire,” if you mean to rescue them : ek tov Trvpdg ap- Trd^ovTEQ. If you stay a day, it may be you stay too long. 4. To wffiich I add this fourth consideration, that every delay of return is, in the case of habitual sins, an approach to desperation; because the nature of habits is like that of crocodiles, they grow as long as they live; and if they come to obstinacy or con- firmation, they are in hell already, and can never re- turn back. For so the Pannonian bears, when they have clasped a dart in the region of their liver, wheel themselves upon the wound, and with anger and malicious revenge strike the deadly barb deeper, and cannot be quit from that fatal steel ; but, in fly- ing, bear along that which themselves make the in- strument of a more hasty death : so is every vicious person struck with a deadly wound, and his own hands force it into the entertainments of the heart ; *■ Acts viii. 22, ^ Chap, iv, 1, 3. ^ Ver. ult. and because it is painful to draw it forth by a sharp and salutary repentance, he still rolls and turns upon his wound, and carries his death in his bow- els, where it first entered by choice, and then dwelt by love, and at last shall finish the tragedy by Divine judgments and an unalterable decree. But as the pardon of these sins is uncertain, so the conditions of restitution are hard even to them who shall be pardoned : their pardon, and them- selves too, must be fetched from the fire ; water will not do it ; tears and ineffective sorrow^ cannot take off a habit, or a great crime. O nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina cajdis Tolli flumineii posse putatis aqua ! Bion, seeing a prince weep and tearing his hair for sorrow, asked if baldness would cure his grief ? Such pompous sorrows may be good indices, but no perfect instruments of restitution. St. James plainly declares the possibilities of pardon to great sins, in the cases of contention, adultery, lust, and envy, which are the four great indecencies that are most contrary to Christianity : ^ and in the fifth chapter,® he implies also a possibility of pardon to an habit- ual sinner, whom he calls rov TrXavrj^evra diro rrjg o^ov rfjg dXrj^eiag, “ one that errs from the truth,” that is, from the life of a Christian, the [life of the Spirit of truth : and he adds, that such a person may be reduced, and so be pardoned, though he have sinned long ; “ He that converts such a one, shall hide a multitude of sins.” But then the way that he appoints for the restitution of such persons, is humility and humiliation, penances and sharp penitential sorrows, and afflictions, resisting the devil, returning to God, weeping and mourning, con- fessions, and prayers, as you may read at large in the fourth and fifth chapters : and there it is that you shall find it a duty, that such persons should “ be afflicted,” and should “ confess to their breth- ren : ” and these are harder conditions than God re- quires in the former cases ; these are a kind of fiery trial. I have now done with my text ; and should add no more, but that the nature of these sins is such, that they may increase in their weight, and duration, and malice, and then they increase in mischief and fatality, and so go beyond the text. Cicero said well, “ Ipsa consuetude assentiendi periculosa esse videtur etlubrica “ The very custom of consenting in the matters of civility is dangerous and .slippery,” and will quickly engage us in error : and then we think we are bound to defend them ; or else we are made flatterers by it, and so become vicious : and we love our own vices that we are used to, and keep them till they are incurable, that is, till we will never repent of them ; and some men resolve never to repent, that is, they resolve they will not be saved, they tread under foot the blood of the ever- lasting covenant. Those persons are in the fire top, but they will not be pulled out : concerning whom God’s prophets must say as once concerning Babylon, “ Curavimus, ct non est sanata ; derelin- quamus earn — “ We would have healed them, but f Acad. Qu. lib. iv. Serm. XVII. STATES AND DEGREES OF SINNERS. S57 they would not be healed; let us leave them in their sins, and they shall have enough of it.” Only this: those that put themselves out of the condition of mercy, are not to be endured in Christian societi, s ; they deserve it not, and it is not safe that they should be suffered. But besides all this, I shall name one thing more unto you ; for nunquam adeu fceclis adeoque pudendis Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint. Juv. There are some single actions of sin of so great a malice, that in their own nature they are beyond the limit of gospel pardon : they are not such things for the pardon of which God entered into covenant, because they are such sins which put a man into perfect indispositions and incapacities of entering into or being in the covenant. In the first ages of the world atheism was of that nature, it was against their whole religion ; and the sin is worse now, against the whole religion still, and against a brighter light. In the ages after the flood, idolatry was also just such another : for God was known first only as the Creator ; then he began to manifest himself in special contracts with men, and he quickly was declared the God of Israel ; and idolatry per- fectly destroyed all that religion, and therefore was never pardoned entirely, but God did visit it upon them that sinned; and when he pardoned it inaome degrees, yet he also punished it in some : and yet rebellion against the supreme power of Moses and Aaron was worse ; for that also was a perfect destruction of the whole religion, because it refused to submit to those hands, upon which God had placed all the religion and all the government. And now,, if we would know in the gospel what answers these precedent sins ; I answer, first, the same sins acted by a reasonable hand and heart are worse now than ever they were : and a third or fourth is also to be added ; and that is apostasy, or a voluntary malicious renouncing the faith. The church hath often declared that sin to be unpardon- able. Witchcraft, or final impenitence and obstinacy in any sin, are infallibly desperate ; and in general, and by a certain parity of reason, whatsoever does destroy charity, or the good life of a Christian, with the same general venom and deletery as apostasy destroys faith : and he that is a renegado from charity, is as unpardonable as he that returns to solemn atheism or infidelity ; for all that is directly the sin against the Holy Ghost, that is, a throwing that away whereby only we can be Christians, whereby only we can hope to be saved. To “ speak a word against the Holy Ghost,” in the Pharisees was declared unpardonable, because it was such a word which, if it had been true or believed, would have destroyed the whole religion ; for they said that Christ wrought by Beelzebub, and by consequence did not come from God. He that destroys all the whole order of priesthood, destroys one of the greatest parts of the religion, and one of the greatest effects of the Holy Ghost: he that destroys government, destroys another part. But that we may come nearer to ourselves: To “quench the Spirit of God” is worse than to speak some words against him ; to “grieve the Spirit of God” is a part of the same impiety; to “ resist the Holy Ghost” is another part ; and if we consider that every great sin does this in proportion, it would concern us to be careful lest we fall into “ presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over us.” Out of this that I have spoken, you may easily gather what sort of men those are, who cannot be “ snatched from the fire ;” for horn, as St. John says, “we are not to pray;” and how near men come to it that continue in any known sin. If I should descend to particulars, I might lay a snare to scrupulous and nice consciences. This only : every confirmed habitual sinner does manifest the Divine justice in punishing the sins of a short life with a never-dying worm and a never- quenched flame ; because he hath an affection to sin, that no time will diminish, but such as would increase to eternal ages ; and accordingly, as any man hath a degree of love, so he hath lodged in his soul a spark, which, unless it be speedily and ef- fectively quenched, will break forth into unquench- able fire. SERMON XVIII. THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. PART I. For what is a man projited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? ofr what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? — Matt. xvi. 26. When the eternal mercy of God had decreed to rescue mankind from misery and infelicity, and so triumphed over his own justice ; the excellent wisdom of God resolved to do it in ways contradictory to the appetites and designs of man, that it also might triumph over our weaknesses and imperfect conceptions. So God decreed to glorify his mercy by curing our sins, and to exalt his wisdom by the reproof of our ignorance, and the representing upon what weak and false principles we had built our hopes and expectations of felicity ; pleasure and profit, victory over our enemies, riches and pompous honours, power and revenge, desires according to sensual appetites, and prosecutions violent and pas- sionate of those appetites, health and long life, free from trouble, without poverty or persecution. Hasc sunt, jucumlisshne Mavtialis, V itain quae fa>ciunt beatiorem. Mart. These are the measures of good and evil, the ob- ject of our hopes and fears, the securing our content, and the portion of this world ; and for the other, let it be as it may. But the blessed Jesus, — having made revelations of an immortal duration, of another world, and of a strange restitution to it, even by the resurrection of the body, and a new investiture of 858 THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. Serm. XVIII. the soul with the same upper garment, clarified and made pure, so as no fuller on earth can whiten it ; — hath also preached a new philosophy, hath can- celled all the old principles, reduced the appetites of sense to the discourses of reason, and heightened reason to the sublimities of the Spirit, teaching us abstractions and immaterial conceptions, giving us new eyes, and new objects, and new proportions : for now sensual pleasures are not delightful, riches are dross, honours are nothing but the appendages of virtue, and in relation to it are to receive their account. But now if you would enjoy life, you must die ; if you would be at ease, you must take up Christ’s cross, and conform to his sufferings ; if you would “save your life,” you must “lose it;” and if you would be rich, you must abound in good works, you must be “ poor in spirit,” and despise the world, and be rich unto God : for whatsoever is contrary to the purchases and affections of this world, is an endearment of our hopes in the world to come. And, therefore, he having stated the question so, that either we must quit this world or the other ; our affections, I mean, and adherences to this, or our interest and hopes of the other : the choice is rendered very easy by the words of my text, because the distance is not less than infinite, and the comparison hath terms of a vast difference ; heaven and hell, eternity and a moment, vanity and real felicity, life and death eternal, all that can be hoped for, and all that can be feared ; these are the terms of our choice : and if a man have his wits about him, and be not drunk with sensuality and senselessness, he need not much to dispute be- fore he pass the sentence. For nothing can be given to us to recompense the loss of heaven ; and if our souls be lost, there is nothing remaining to us whereby we can be happy. “ What shall it profit a man ? ” or, “ What shall a man give ?” Is there any exchange for a man’s soul ? The question is an avE,r](ng of the negative. Nothing can be given for an arraWayfia, or “ a price,” to satisfy for its loss. The blood of the Son of God was given to re- cover it, or as an drrdX\ay/.ia to God ; and when our souls were forfeit to him, nothing less than the life and passion of God and man could pay the price, I say, to God ; who yet was not concerned in the loss, save only that such was his goodness, that it pitied him to see his creature lost. But to us what shall be the dvrctWaypa ? what can make us re- compence when we have lost our own souls, and are lost in a miserable eternity ? What can then recompense us ? Not all the world, not ten thou- sand worlds : and of this that miserable man whose soul is lost is the best judge. For the question is advvrjTiKov, and hath a potential signification, and means Trocra up d^ar)' that is. Suppose a man ready to die, condemned to the sentence of a horrid death, heightened with the circumstances of trembling and amazement, “ what would he give” to save his life? “ Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and all that a man hath, will he give for his life.” And this turned to a proverb among the Jews ; for so the last words of the text are, ri arOptoiroQ drrdXXoypn rijc ipvxvs ; which proverb being usually meant con- cerning a temporal death, and intended to represent the sadnesses of a condemned person, our blessed Saviour fits to his own purpose, and translates to the signification of death eternal, which he first re- vealed clearly to the world. And because no in- terest of the world can make a man recompence for his life, because to lose that makes him incapable of enjoying the exchange, (and he were a strange fool, who, having no design upon immortality or virtue, should be willing to be hanged for a thou- sand pounds “ per annum,”) this argument increases infinitely in the purpose of our blessed Saviour ; and to gain the world, and to lose our souls, in the Christian sense, is infinitely more madness, and a worse exchange, than when our souls signify nothing but a temporal life. And although possi- bly the indefinite hopes of Elysium, or an honour- able name, might tempt some hardy persons to leave this world, hoping for a better condition, even among the heathen ; yet no excuse will acquit a Christian from madness, if, for the purchase of this world, he lose his eternity. Here, then, first, we will consider the proposi- tions of the exchange, the “ world and a man’s soul,” by way of supposition, supposing all that is propounded v/ere obtained, “ the whole world.” Se- condly, we will consider, what is likely to be obtain- ed “ really” and “indeed” of the world, and what are really the miseries of a lost soul. For it is propounded in the text, by way of supposition, “ if a man should gain the world,” which no man ever did nor ever can; and he that gets most, gets too little to be exchanged for a temporal life. And, thirdly, I shall apply it to your practice, and make material considerations. 1. First, then, suppose a man gets all the world, what is it that he gets ? It is a bubble and a fan- tasm, and hath no reality beyond a present transient use ; a thing that is impossible to be enjoyed, because its fruits and usages are transmitted to us by parts and by succession. He that hath all the world, (if we can suppose such a man,) cannot have a dish of fresh summer-fruits in the midst of win- ter, not so much as a green fig ; and very much of its possessions is so hid, so fugacious, and of so un- certain purchase, that it is like the riches of the sea to the lord of the shore ; all the fish and wealth within all its hollownesses are his, but he is never the better for what he cannot get : all the shell-fishes that produce pearl, produce them not for him ; and the bowels of the earth shall hide her treasures in undiscovered retirements ; so that it will signify as much to this great purchaser to be entitled to an inheritance in the upper region of the air ; he is so far from possessing all its riches, that he does not so much as know of them, nor understand the philoso- phy of her minerals. 2. I consider, that he that is the greatest pos- sessor in the world, enjoys its best and most noble parts, and those which are of most excellent per- fection, but in common with the inferior persons, and the most despicable of his kingdom. Can the greatest prince enclose the sun, and set one little Serm. XVIIL THE FOOLISH EXCTl2\NGE. 859 star in his cabinet for his own use, or secure to Ihmself the gentle and benign influences of any one constellation ? Are not his subjects’ fields be- dewed with the same showers that water his gar- dens of pleasure ? Nay, those things which he esteems his orna- ment, and the singularity of his possessions, are they not of more use to others than to himself? For suppose his garments splendid and shining, like the robe of a cherub, or the clothing of the fields, all that he that wears them enjoys, is, that they keep him warm, and clean, and modest ; and all this is done by clean and less pompous vestments ; and the beauty of theni, which distinguishes him from others, is made to please the eyes of the beholders ; and he is like a fair bird, or the meretricious paint- ing of a wanton woman, made wholly to be looked on, that is, to be enjoyed by every one but himself: and the fairest face and the sparkling eye cannot perceive or enjoy their own beauties but by reflec- tion. It is I that am pleased with beholding his gaiety ; and the gay man, in his greatest bravery, is only pleased because I am pleased with the sight ; so borrowing his little and imaginary complacency from the delight that I have, not from any inhe- rency of his own possession. The poorest artisan of Rome, walking in Csesar’s gardens, had the same pleasures which they minis- tered to their lord; and although, it may be, he was put to gather fruits to eat from another place, yet his other senses were delighted equally with Caesar’s ; the birds made him as good music, the flowers gave him as sweet smells ; he there sucked as good air, and delighted in the beauty and order of the place, for the same reason and upon the same perception as the prince himself ; save only that Caesar paid, for all that pleasure, vast sums of money, the blood and treasure of a province, which the poor man had for nothing. 3. Suppose a man lord of all the world (for still we are but in supposition) ; yet since every thing is received, not according to its own greatness and worth, but according to the capacity of the receiver, it signifies very little as to our content or to the riches of our possession. If any man should give to a lion a fair meadow full of hay, or a thousand quince trees ; or should give to the goodly bull, the master and the fairest of the whole herd, a thousand fair stags ; if a man should present to a child a ship laden with Persian carpets, and the ingredients of the rich scarlet ; all these, being disproportionate either to the appetite or to the understanding, could add nothing of content, and might declare the free- ness of the presenter, but they upbraid the inca- pacity of the receiver. And so it does if God should give the whole world to any man. He knows not what to do with it ; he can use no more but accord- ing to the capacities of a man; he can use nothing but meat, and drink, and clothes ; and infinite riches, that can give him changes of raiment every day and a full table, do but give him a clean trencher every bit he eats ; it signifies no more but wantonness and variety, to the same, not to any new purposes. He to whom the world can be given to any purpose greater than a private estate can minister, must have new capacities created in him ; he needs the understanding of an angel, to take the accounts of his estate ; he had need have a stomach like fire or the grave, for else he can cat no more than one of his healthful subjects; and unless he hath an eye like the sun, and a motion like that of a thought, and a bulk as big as one of the orbs of heaven, the pleasures of his eye can be no greater than to behold the beauty of a little prospect from a hill, or to look upon the heap of gold packed up in a little room, or to dote upon a cabinet of jewels, better than which there is no man that sees at all, but sees every day. For, not to name the beauties and sparkling diamonds of heaven, a man’s, or a wo- man’s, or a hav/k’s eye, is more beauteous and ex- cellent than all the jewels of his crown. And when we remember that a beast, who hath quicker senses than a man, yet hath not so great delight in the fruition of any object, because he wants under- standing and the power to make reflex acts upon his perception ; it will follow, that understanding and knowledge is the greatest instrument of plea- sure, and he that is most knowing, hath a capacity to become happy, which a less knowing prince, or a rich person, hath not ; and in this only a man’s capacity is capable of enlargement. But then, al- though they only have power to relish any pleasure rightly, who rightly understand the nature, and de- grees, and essences, and ends of things ; yet they that do so, understand also the vanity and the unsa- tisfyingness of the things of this world, so that the relish, which could not be great but in a great un- derstanding, appears contemptible, because its vanity appears at the same time ; the understanding sees all, and sees through it. 4. The greatest vanity of this world is remark- able in this, that all its joys summed up together are not big enough to counterpoise the evil of one sharp disease, or to allay a sorrow. For imagine a man great in his dominion as Cyrus, rich as Solo- mon, victorious as David, beloved like Titus, learned as Trismegist, powerful as all the Roman greatness; all this, and tlie results of all this, give him no more pleasure, in the midst of a fever or the tortures of the stone, than if he were only lord of a little dish, and a dishful of fountain water. Indeed the ex- cellency of a holy conscience is a comfort and a magazine of joy, so great, that it sweetens the most bitter potion of the world, and makes tortures and death not only tolerable, but amiable ; and, there- fore, to part with this, whose excellency is so great, for the world, that is of so inconsiderable a worth, as not to have in it recompence enough for the sor- rows of a sharp disease, is a bargain fit to be made by none but fools and madmen. Antiochus Epi- phanes, and Herod the Great, and his grandchild, Agrippa, were sad instances of this great truth ; to every of which it happened, that the grandeur of their fortune, the greatness of their possessions, and the increase of their estate, disappeared and expired like campliire, at their arrest by those several sharp diseases, which covered their head with cypress, and hid their crowns in an inglorious grave. 860 THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. Serm. XVIIT. For what can all the world minister to a sick person, if it represents all the spoils of nature, and the choicest delicacies of land and sea ? Alas ! his appetite is lost, and to see a pebble-stone is more pleasing to him : for he can look upon that without loathing, but not so upon the most delicious fare that ever made famous the Roman luxury. Per- fumes make his head ache ; if you load him with jewels, you press him with a burden as troublesome as his grave-stone : and what pleasure is in all those possessions that cannot make his pillow easy, nor tame the rebellion of a tumultuous humour, nor restore the use of a withered hand, or straighten a crooked finger ? Vain is the hope of that man, whose soul rests upon vanity and such unprofitable possessions. 5. Suppose a man lord of all this world, a uni- versal monarch, as some princes have lately de- signed ; all that cannot minister content to him ; not that content which a poor contemplative man, by the strength of Christian philosophy, and the sup- port of a very'Small fortune, daily does enjoy. All his power and greatness cannot command the sea to overflow his shores, or to stay from retiring to the opposite strand : it cannot make his children dutiful or wise. And though the world admired at the greatness of Philip the Second’s fortune, in the ac- cession of Portugal and the East Indies to his prin- cipalities, yet this could not allay the infelicity of his family, and the unhandsomeness of his con- dition, in having a proud, and indiscreet, and vicious young prince, likely to inherit all his greatness. And if nothing appears in the face of such a for- tune to tell all the world that it is spotted and im- perfect ; yet there is, in all conditions of the world, such weariness and tediousness of the spirits, that a man is ever more pleased with hopes of going otf from "'the present, than in dwelling upon that con- dition, which, it may be, others admire and think beauteous, but none knoweth the smart of it but he that drank off the little pleasure, and felt the ill relish of the appendage. How many kings have groaned under the burden of their crowns, and have sunk down and died ! How many have quitted their pompous cares, and retired into private lives, there to enjoy the pleasures of philosophy and religion, which their thrones denied ! And if we consider the supposition of the text, the thing will demonstrate itself. For he who can be supposed the owner and purchaser of the whole world, must either be a king or a private person. A private person can hardly be supposed to be the man ; for if he be subject to another, how can he be lord of the whole world ? But if he be a king, it is certain that his cares are greater than any man’s, his fears are bigger, his evils mountainous, the acci- dents that discompose him are more frequent, and sometimes intolerable ; and of all his great posses- sjons he hath not the greatest use and benefit ; but they are like a great harvest, which more labourers must bring in, and more must eat of; only he is the centre of all the cares, and they fix upon him, but the profits run out to all the lines of the circle, to all that are about him, whose good is therefore greater than the good of the prince, because what they enjoy is the purchase of the prince’s care ; and so they feed upon his cost. Privatusque magis vivam te rege beatus.— Hor. 1. i. sat. 3. Servants live the best lives, for their care is single, only how to please their lord ; but all the burden of a troublesome providence and ministration makes the outside pompous and more full of cere- mony, but intricates the condition and disturbs the quiet of the great possessor. And imagine a person as blest as can be supposed upon the stock of worldly interest ; when all his accounts are cast up, he differs nothing from his subjects or his servants but in mere circumstance, nothing of reality or substance. He hath more to wait at his tables, or persons of higher rank to do the meanest offices ; more ceremonies of address, a fairer escutcheon, louder titles : but can this multi- tude of dishes make him have a good stomach, or does not satiety cloy it ? when his high diet is such, that he is not capable of being feasted, and knows not the frequent delights and oftener possibilities a a poor man hath of being refreshed, while not only his labour makes hunger, and so makes his meat delicate (and then it cannot be ill fare, let it be what it will) ; but also his provision is such, that every little addition is a direct feast to him, while the greatest owner of the world, giving to himself the utmost of his desires, hath nothing left beyond his ordinary, to become the entertainment of his festival days, but more loads of the same meat. ^ And theii let him consider how much of felicity can this con- dition contribute to him, in which he is not further gone beyond a person of a little fortune in the great- ness of his possession, than he is fallen short in the pleasures and possibility of their enjoyment. And that is a sad condition, when, like Midas, all that the man touches shall turn to gold : and his is no better, to whom a perpetual full table, not re- created with fasting, not made pleasant with inter- vening scarcity, ministers no more good than a heap of gold does ; that is, he hath no benefit of it, save the beholding of it with his eyes. Cannot a man quench his thirst as well out of an urn or chalice as out of a whole river ? It is an ambitious thirst, and a pride of draught, that had rather lay his mouth to Euphrates than to a petty goblet; but if he had rather, it adds not so much to his content as to his danger and his vanity. eo fit, Plenior nt siquos delectet copia justo, Cum ripa simul avulsos ferat Aufidus acer. — Hor. For so I have heard of persons whom the river hath swept away, together with the turf they press- ed, when they stooped to drown their pride rather than their thirst. 6. But this supposition hath a lessening term. If a man could be born heir of all the world, it were something ; but no man ever was so, except him only who enjoyed the least of it, the Son of man, that “ had not where to lay his head.” But in the supposition it is, “ If a man could gain the whole world,” which supposes labour and sorrow, trouble '■* Hare volte ha fame chista sempre a tavola. Serm. XVIII. THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. SGI and expense, venture and hazard, and so much time expired in its acquist and purchase, that, besides the possession is not secured to us for a term of life, so our lives are almost expired before we become estated in our purchases. And, indeed, it is a sad thing to see an ambitious or a covetous person make his life unpleasant, troublesome, and vexatious, to grasp a power bigger than himself, to fight for it with infinite hazards of his life, so that it is a thousand to one but he perishes in the attempt, and gets nothing at all but an untimely grave, a reproachful memory, and an early damnation. But suppose he gets a victory, and that the unhappy party is put to begin a new game ; then to see the fears, the watch- fulness, the diligence, the laborious arts to secure a pos- session, lest the desperate party should recover a des- perate game. And suppose this, with a new stock of labours, danger, and expense, be seconded by a new success; then to look upon the new emergencies, and troubles, and discontents, among his friends, about parting the spoil; the envies, the jealousies, the slanders, the underminings, and the perpetual insecurity of his condition: all this, I say, is to see a man take infinite pains to make himself miserable. But if he will be so unlearned as to call this gallantry or a splendid fortune ; yet, by this time, when he re- members he hath certainly spent much of his time in trouble, and how long he shall enjoy this he is still uncertain ; he is not certain of a month ; and suppose it be seven years, yet when he comes to die, and cast up his accounts, and shall find nothing re- maining but a sad remembrance of evils and troubles past, and expectations of worse, infinitely worse, he must acknowledge himself convinced, that to gain all this world is a fortune not worth the labour and the dangers, the fears and transportations of pas- sions, though the soul’s loss be not considered in the bargain. II. But I told you all this while that this is but a supposition still, the putting of a case, or like a fiction of law ; nothing real. For if we consider, in the second place, how much every man is likely to get really, and how much it is possible for any man to get, we shall find the account far shorter yet, and the purchase most trifling and inconsider- able. For, first, the world is at the same time en- joyed by all its inhabitants, and the same portion of it by several persons in their several capacities. A prince enjoys his whole kingdom, not as all his people enjoy it, but in the manner of a prince ; the subject in the manner of subjects. The prince hath certain regalia beyond the rest; but the feudal right of subjects does them more emolument, and the re- galia does the prince more honour : and those that hold the fees in subordinate right, transmit it also to their tenants, beneficiaries, and dependants, to public uses, to charity, and hospitality ; all which is a lessening of the lord’s possessions, and a cut- ting his river into little streams, not that himself alone, but that all his relatives, may drink to be re- freshed. Thus the well where the woman of Sa- maria sat, was Jacob’s well, and he drank of it ; but so did his wives, and his children, and his cattle. So that what we call ours, is really ours but for our portion of expense and use ; we have so little of it, that our servants have far more ; and that which is ours, is nothing but the title, and the care, and the trouble of securing and dispensing ; save only that God, whose stewards we all are, will call such owners (as they are pleased to call them- selves) to strict accounts for their disbursements. And by this account, the possession or dominion is but a word, and serves a fancy, or a passion, or a vice, but no real end of nature. It is the use and spending it that makes a man, to all real purposes of nature, to be the owner of it ; and in this the lord and master hath but a share. 2. But, secondly, consider how far short of the whole world the greatest prince that ever reigned did come. Alexander, that wept because he had no more worlds to conquer, was in his knowledge de- ceived and brutish as in his passion : he overran much of Asia ; but he could never pass the Ganges, and never thrust his sword in the bowels of Europe, and knew nothing of America. And the olKovfiivr}, or “ the whole world,” began to have an appropriate sense ; and was rather put to the Roman greatness, as an honourable appellative, than did signify that they were lords of the world, who never went be- yond Persia, Egypt, or Britain. But why do I talk of great things in this question of the exchange of the soul for the world ? Because it is a real bargain which many men (too many, God knows) do make, we must consider it as ap- plicable to practice. Every man that loses his soul for the purchase of the world, must not look to have the portion of a king. How few men are princes ! and of those that are not born so, how seldom instances are found in story of persons, that, by their industry, became so ! But we must come far lower yet. Thousands there are that damn them- selves ; and yet their purchase, at long-running, and after a base and weary life spent, is but five hun- dred pounds a year : nay, it may be, they only cozen an easy person out of a good estate, and pay for it at an easy rate, which they obtain by lying, by drinking, by flattery, by force ; and the gain is nothing but a thousand pounds in the whole, or, it may be, nothing but a convenience. Nay how many men hazard their salvation for an acre of ground, for twenty pounds, to please a master, to get a small and a kind usage from a superior ! These men get but little, though they did not give so much for it : so little, that Epictetus thought the purchase dear enough, though you paid nothing for it but flattery and observance : Ov Trapsh:\i]^r]Q £(f> karia- aiv TivoQ', ov yap e^ujKag rw tca\ovvTL oaov 7rv Ktp^os Xafitiu dfxtivov, ovdi vov o-o ftporuQ /jLdXXov dvr]fxepoc. “ Man is the most harm- ful of all the wild beasts.” “ Ye are sent as sheep among wolves ; be, therefore, wise as serpents ;” when you can avoid it, suffer not men to ride over your heads, or trample you under-foot; that is the wisdom of serpents. And so must we ; that is, by all just compliances, and toleration of all indifferent changes in which a duty is not destroyed, and in which we are not active, so preserve ourselves, that we might be permitted to live, and serve God, and to do advantages to religion : so purchasing time to do good in, by bending in all those flexures of for- tune and condition which we cannot help, and which we do not set forward, and which we never did pro- cure. And this is the direct meaning of St. Paul : “ See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil ;” ^ that is, we are fallen into times that are troublesome, dangerous, persecuting, and afflictive ; purchase as much respite as you can ; buy or “ re- deem the time” by all honest arts, by humility, by fair carriage and sweetnesses of society, by civility and a peaceful conversation, by good words and all honest offices, by praying for your persecutors, by patient sufferance of what is unavoidable. And when the tyrant draws you forth from all these guards and retirements, and offers violence to your duty, or tempts you to do a dishonest act, or to omit an act of obligation, then come forth into the theatre, and lay your necks down to the liangman’s axe, and fear not to die the most shameful death of the cross or the gallows. For so have I known angels ascend- ing and descending upon those ladders ; and the Lord of glory suffered shame and purchased honour upon the cross. Thus we are “ to walk in wisdom towards them that are without, redeeming the time for so St. Paul renews that permission or command- ment ; give them no just cause of offence ; with all humility, and as occasion is offered, represent their duty, and invite them sweetly to felicities and virtue, but do not, in ruder language, upbraid and reproach their baseness ; and, when they are incorrigible, let them alone, lest, like cats, they run mad with the smell of delicious ointments. And, therefore, Pothinus, bishop of Lyons, being asked by the unbaptized president, “ Who was the God of Chris- tians ?” answered, ’Edv r|c d^ioc yrojaij, “ If you be disposed with real and hearty desires of learning, what )mu ask you shall quickly know ; ” but, if your purpose be indirect, I shall not preach to you, to my hurt, and your no advantage. — Thus the wis- dom of the primitive Christians was careful not to pro- fane the temples of the heathen, not to revile their false gods ; and, when they were in duty to reprehend the follies of their religion, they chose to do it from their own writings, and as relators of their own re- cords ; they fled from the fury of a persecution, they hid themselves in caves, and wandered about in dis- guises, and preached in private, and celebrated their synaxes and communions in grottoes and retire- ments ; and made it appear to all the world they were peaceable and obedient, charitable and patient, and at this price bought their time. Katf)os yap, warTrep avSpncri Mfc'yto’Tos epyou TravTO's kcT iTricrTaTi]^. SoPH. As knowing that, even in this sense, time was very precious, and the opportunity of giving glory to God by the offices of an excellent religion was not too dear a purchase at that rate. But then when the wolves had entered into the folds, and seized upon a lamb, the rest fled, and used all the innocent arts of concealment. St. Athanasius being overtaken by his persecutors, but not known, and asked whether he saw Athanasius passing that way, pointed out forward with his finger, “ Non longe ^ Eph. V. 15, 16. Col. iv. 5 874 OF CHRISTIAN PRUDENCE. Serm. XX. abest Athanasius,” “ the man is not far off,” a swift footman will easily overtake him. And St. Paul divided the counsel of his judges, and made the Pharisees his parties by a witty insinuation of his own belief of the resurrection, which was not the main question, but an incident to the matter of his accusation. And when Plinius Secundus, in the face of a tyrant court, was pressed so invidiously to give his opinion concerning a good man in banish- ment, and under the disadvantage of an unjust sen- tence, he diverted the snare of Marcus Regulus, by referring his answer to a competent judicatory, ac- cording to the laws ; being pressed again, by offer- ing a direct answer upon a just condition, which he knew they would not accept; and, the third time, by turning the envy upon the impertinent and mali- cious orator ; that he won great honour, the honour of a severe honesty, and a witty man, and a prudent person. The thing I have noted, because it is a good pattern to represent the arts of honest evasion, and religious, prudent honesty ; which any good man may transcribe and turn into his own instances, if any equal case should occur. For in this case, the rule is easy ; if we are com- manded to be “ wise ” and “ redeem our time,” that we serve God and religion, we must not use unlaw- ful arts which set us back in the accounts of our time, no lying subterfuges, no betraying of a truth, no treachery to a good man, no insnaring of a bro- ther, no secret renouncing of any part or proposi- tion of our religion, no denying to confess the arti- cle when we are called to it. For when the primi- tive Christians had got a trick to give money for certificates that they had sacrificed to idols, though indeed they did not do it, but had corrupted the officers and ministers of state, they dishonoured their religion, and were marked with the appella- tive of “ libellatici,” “libellers;” and were excom- municated, and cast off from the society of Chris- tians, and the hopes of heaven, till they had return- ed to God by a severe repentance. “ Optandum est, lit, quod libenter facis, diu facere possis;” “It is good to hcive time long to do that which we ought to do ;” but to pretend that which we dare not do, and to say we have when we have not, if we know we ought not, is to dishonour the cause and the person too ; it is expressly against confession of Christ, of which St. Paul saith, “By the mouth confession is made unto salvation ;” and our bless- ed Saviour, “ He that confesseth me before men, I will confess him before my heavenly Father;” and if here he refuseth to own me, I will not own him hereafter. It is also expressly against Christian fortitude and nobleness, and against the simplicity and sincerity of our religion, and it turns pru- dence into craft, and brings the devil to wait in the temple, and to minister to God ; and it is a lesser kind of apostasy. And it is well that the man is tempted no farther; for, if the persecutors could not be corrupted with money, it is odds but the complying man would ; and though he would, with the money, hide his shame, yet he will not, with the loss of all his estate, redeem his religion. Av7n]pojg h' (.1 Toi£ efxavrfjg rov (^lor crio^'i!) KaKolc' “ Some men will lose their lives, rather than a fair estate :” and do not almost all the armies of the world (I mean those that fight in the justest causes) pretend to fight and die for their lands and liber- ties ? and there are too many also, that will die twice, rather than be beggars once, although we all know that the second death is intolerable. Chris- tian prudence forbids us to provoke a danger; and they were fond persons that ran to persecution, and, when the proconsul sat on the life and death, and made strict inquisition after Christians, went and offered themselves to die ; and he was a fool, that, being in Portugal, ran to the priest as he elevated the host, and overthrew the mysteries, and openly defied the rites of that religion. God, when he sends a persecution, will pick out such persons whom he will have to die, and whom he will con- sign to banishment, and whom to poverty. In the mean time, let us do our duty when we can, and as long as we can, and with as much strictness as we can ; walking a.Kpit>wQ, (as the apostle’s phrase is,) “ not prevaricating ” in the least tittle ; and then, if we can be safe with the arts of civil, innocent, in- offensive compliance, let us bless God for his per- missions made to us, and his assistances in the using them. But if either we turn our zeal into the am- bition of death, and the follies of an unnecessary beggary; or on the other side turn our prudence into craft and covetousness ; to the first I say, that “ God hath no pleasure in fools;” to the latter, “ If you gain the whole world, and lose your own soul,” your loss is infinite and intolerable. SERMON XXI. PART II. 4. It is the office of Christian prudence so to order the affairs of our life, as that, in all the of- fices of our souls and conversation, we do honour and reputation to the religion we profess. For the follies and vices of the professors give great advan- tages to the adversary to speak reproachfully, and do alienate the hearts, and hinder the compliance of those undetermined persons, who are apt to be persuaded, if their understandings be not prejudiced. But as our necessary duty is bound upon us by one ligament more, in order to the honour of the cause of God, so it particularly binds us to many circumstances, adjuncts, and parts of duty, which have no other commandment but the law of pru- dence. There are some sects of Christians which have some one constant indisposition, which, as a character, divides them from all others, and makes them reproved on all hands. Some are so suspi- cious and ill-natured, that, if a person of a facile nature and gentle disposition fall into their hands, he is presently soured, and made morose, unpleasant, and uneasy in his conversation. Others there are, that do things so like to what themselves condemn. Serm. XXI. OF CHRISTIAN PRUDENCE. 875 that they are forced to take sanctuary and labour in the mine of insignificant distinctions, to make themselves believe they are innocent; and, in the mean time, they oflcnd all men else, and open the mouths of their adversaries to speak reproachful things, true or false (as it happens). And it re- quires a great wit to understand all the distinctions and devices thought of for legitimating the wor- shipping of images ; and those people that are liberal in their excommunications, make men think they have reason to say, “ their judges are proud, or self-willed, or covetous, or ill-natured people.” These that are the faults of governors, and con- tinued, are quickly derived upon the sect, and cause a disreputation to the whole society and institution. And who can think that congregation to be a true branch of the Christian, which makes it their pro- fession to kill men to save their souls against their will, and against their understanding? who, calling themselves disciples of so meek a Master, do live like bears upon prey, and spoil, and blood ? It is a huge dishonour to the sincerity of a man’s purposes, to be too busy in fingering money in the matters of religion ; and they that are zealous for their rights, and tame in their devotion, furious against sacrilege, and companions of drunkards, implacable against breakers of a canon, and careless and patient enough with them that break the fifth or sixth commandments of the decalogue, tell all the world their private sense is to preserve their own interest with scruple and curiosity, and leave God to take care for his. Thus Christ reproved the Pharisees for “ strain- ing at a gnat, and swallowing a camel ; ” the very representation of the manner and matter of fact dis- covers the vice by reproving the folly of it. They that are factious to get a rich proselyte, and think the poor not worth saving, dishonour their zeal, and teach men to call it covetousness : and though there may be a reason of prudence to desire one more than the other, because of a bigger efficacy the ex- ample of the one may have more than the other ; yet it will quickly be diccovered, if it be done by secular design ; and the Scripture, that did not allow the preferring of a gay man before a poor saint in the matter of place, will not be pleased, that in the matter of souls, which are all equal, there should be a faction, and design, and an acceptation of per- sons. Never let sins pollute our religion with arts of the world, nor offer to support the ark with un- hallowed hands, nor mingle false propositions with true, nor make religion a pretence to profit or pre- ferment, nor do things which are like a vice; neither ever speak things dishonourable of God, nor abuse thy brother for God’s sake ; nor be solicitous and over-busy to recover thy own little things, neither always think it fit to lose thy charity by forcing thy brother to do justice; and all those things which are the outsides and faces, the gar- ments and most discerned parts of religion, be sure that they be dressed according to all the circum- stances of men, and by all the rules of common honesty and public reputation. Is it not a sad thing that the Jew should say, the Christians worship images ? or that it should become a proverb, that the Jew spends all in his passover, the Moor in his marriage, and the Christian in his law-suits?” that what the first sacrifice to religion, and the second to public joy, we should spend in malice, covetousness, and revenge ? Pudet hajc opprobria nobis Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli. But among ourselves also we serve the devil’s ends, and minister to an eternal disunion, by saying and doing things which look unhandsomely. One sort of men is superstitious, fantastical, greedy of honour, and tenacious of propositions to fill the purse, and his religion is thought nothing but policy and opinion. Another says, “ he hath a good re- ligion,” but he is the most indifferent and cold per- son in the world either to maintain it, or to live according to it. The one dresses the images of saints with fine clothes ; the other lets the poor go naked, and disrobes the priests that minister in the religion. A third uses God worse than all this, and says of him such things that are scandalous even to an honest man, and such which would undo a good man’s reputation. And a fourth, yet, endures no governor but himself, and pretends to set up Christ, and make himself his lieutenant. And a fifth hates all government. And from all this it comes to pass, that it is hard for a man to choose his side ; and he that chooses wisest, takes that which hath in it least hurt ; but some he must endure, or live with- out communion; and every church of one denomi- nation is, or hath been, too incurious of preventing infamy or disreputation to their confessions. One thing I desire should be observed, that here the question being concerning prudence, and the matter of doing reputation to our religion, it is not enough to say, we can with learning justify all that w^e do, and make all whole with three or four dis- tinctions : for possibly that man that went to visit the Corinthian Lais, if he had been asked wffiy he dishonoured himself with so unhandsome an en- trance, might find an excuse to legitimate his act, or at least to make himself believe well of his own person ; but he that intends to do himself honour, must take care that he be not suspected, that he give no occasion of reproachful language ; for fame and honour is a nice thing, tender as a woman’s chastity, or like the face of ’the purest mirror, which a foul breath, or an unwffiolesome air, or a watery eye can sully, and the beauty is lost, although it be not dashed in pieces. When a man, or a sect, is put to answ'er for themselves in the matter of repu- tation, they, with their distinctions, wipe the glass, and at last can do nothing but make it appear it was not broken; but their very abstersion and laborious excuses confess it was foul and faulty. We must know that all sorts of men, and all sects of Chris- tians, have not only the mistakes of men and their prejudices to contest withal, but the calumnies and aggravation of devils ; and, therefore, it will much ease our account of doomsday, if we are now so pru- dentJhat men will not be offended here, nor the devils furnished with a libel in the day of our great account. 876 OF CHRISTIAN PRUDENCE. Serm. XXL To this rule appertains, that we he curious in ob- serving the circumstances of men, and satisfying all their reasonable expectations, and doing things at that rate of charity and religion, which they are taught to be prescribed in the institution. There arc some things which are indecencies rather than sins, such which may become a just heathen, but not a holy Christian ; a man of the world, but not a man “ professing godliness because when the greatness of the man, or the excellency of the law, hath engaged us upon great severity or an exem- plary virtue, whatsoever is less than it, renders the man unworthy of the religion, or the religion un- worthy its fame. Men think themselves abused, and, therefore, return shame for payment. We never read of an apostle that went to law ; and it is but reasonable to expect, that, of all men in the world, Christians should not be such fighting people, and clergymen should not command armies, and kings should not be drunk, and subjects should not strike princes for justice, and an old man should not be youthful in talk or in his habit, and women should not swear, and great men should not lie, and a poor man should not oppress ; for, besides the sin of some of them, there is an indecency in all of them ; and by being contrary to the end of an office, or to the reputation of a state, or the sobrieties of a graver or sublimed person, they asperse the religion as insuf- ficient to keep the persons within the bounds of fame and common reputation. But, above all things, those sects of Christians whose professed doctrine brings destruction and diminution to government, give the most intolerable scandal and dishonour to the institution ; and it had been impossible that Christianity should have pre- vailed over the wisdom and power of the Greeks and Romans, if it had not been humble to superiors, patient of injuries, charitable to the needy, a great exactor of obedience to kings, even to heathens, that they might be won and convinced ; and to persecu- tors, that they might be sweetened in their anger, or upbraided for their cruel injustice : for so doth the humble vine creep at the foot of an oak, and leans upon its lowest base, and begs shade and pro- tection, and leave to grow under its branches, and to give and take mutual refreshment, and pay a friend- ly influence for a mighty patronage ; and they grow and dwell together, and are the most remarkable of friends and married pairs of all the leafy nation. Religion of itself is soft, easy, and defenceless ; and God hath made it grow up with empires, and lean upon the arms of kings, and it cannot well grow alone ; and if it shall, like the ivy, suck the heart of the oak, upon whose body it grew and was support- ed, it will be pulled down from its usurped eminence, and fire and shame shall be its portion. We cannot complain, if princes arm against those Christians, who, if they were suflfered to preach, will disarm the princes : and it will be hard to persuade that kings are bound to protect and nourish those that will prove ministers of their own exauctoration : and no prince can have juster reason to forbid, nor any man have greater reason to deny, communion to a family, g etc Atoe yap eiKog ecrri TravO' “ Holy men “ Sophocl. ought to know all things from God,” and that re- late to God, in order to the conduct of souls. And there is nothing to be said against this, if we do not suffer the devil in this affair to abuse us, as he does many people, in their opinions, teaching men to suspect there is a design and a snake under the plantain. But so may they suspect kings when they command obedience, or the Levites when they read the law of tithes, or parents when they teach their children temperance, or tutors when they watch their charge. However, it is better to venture the worst of the design, than to lose the best of the assistance ; and he that guides himself, hath much work and much danger ; but he that is under the conduct of another, his work is easy, little, and se- cure ; it is nothing but diligence and obedience : and though it be a hard thing to rule well, yet nothing is easier than to follow and be obedient. SERMON XXII. PART III. 7 . As it is a part of Christian prudence to take into the conduct of our souls a spiritual man for a guide ; so it is also of great concernment that we be prudent in the choice of him, whom we are to trust in so great an interest. Concerning which it will be impossible to give characters and significations particular enough to enable a choice, without the interval-assistances of prayer, experience, and the grace of God. He that describes a man, can tell you the colour of his hair, his stature, and proportion, and describe some gene- ral lines enough to distinguish him from a Cyclops or a Saracen ; but when you chance to see the man, you will discover figures or little features, of which the description had produced in you no fantasm or expectation. And in the exterior significations of a sect, there are more semblances than in men’s faces, and greater uncertainty in the signs ; and what is faulty strives so craftily to act the true and proper images of things ; and the more they are de- fective in circumstances, the more curious they are in forms ; and they also use such arts of gaining proselytes, which are of most advantage towards an effect, and, therefore, such which the true Christian ought to pursue, and the apostles actually did ; and they strive to follow their patterns in arts of persua- sion, not only because they would seem like them, but because they can have none so good, so effective to their purposes; that it follows, that it is not more a duty to take care that we be not corrupted vuth false teachers, than that we be not abused with false signs : for we as well find a good man teaching a false proposition, as a good cause managed by ill men ; and a holy cause is not always dressed with healthful symptoms, nor is there a cross always set upon the doors of those congregations, who are in- fected with the plague of heresy. 8S0 OF CHRISTIAN PRUDENCE. Sekm. XXII. When St. John was to separate false teachers from true, he took no other course but to mark the doctrine which was of God, and that should be the mark of cognizance to distinguish right shepherds from robbers and invaders : “ Every spirit that con- fesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God ; he that denieth it, is not of God.” By this, he bids his scholars to avoid the present sects of Ebion, Cerinthus, Simon Magus, and such other persons as denied that Christ was at all before he came, or that he came really in the flesh and proper humanity. This is a clear note ; and they that conversed with St. John, or believed his doctrine, were sufficiently instructed in the present questions. But this note will signify nothing to us : for all sects of Christians “confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh,” and the following sects did avoid that rock, over which a great apostle had hung out so plain a lantern. In the following ages of the church, men have been so curious to signify misbelievers, that they have invented and observed some signs, which, in- deed, in some cases, were true, real appendages of false believers ; but yet such which were also, or might be, common to them with good men and members of the catholic church. Some few I shall remark, and give a short account of them, that by removing the uncertain, we may fix our inquiries and direct them by certain significations, lest this art of prudence turn into folly and faction, error and secular design. 1. Some men distinguish error from truth by call- ing their adversaries’ doctrine, “ new and of yester- day.” And certainly this is a good sign, if it be rightly applied ; for since all Christian doctrine is that which Christ taught his church, and the Spirit enlarged or expounded, and the apostles delivered : we are to begin the Christian era for our faith, and parts of religion by the period of their preaching; our account begins then, and whatsoever is contrary to what they taught is new and false, and whatso- ever is besides what they taught, is no part of our religion ; — and then no man can be prejudiced for believing it or not ; — and if it be adopted into the confessions of the church, the proposition is always so uncertain, that it is not to be admitted into the faith ; and therefore, if it be old in respect of our days, it is not, therefore, necessary to be believed ; if it be new it may be received into opinion accord- ing to its probability, and no sects nor interests are to be divided upon such accounts. This only I de- sire to be observed, that when a truth returns from banishment by a “ postliminium,” if it was from the first, though the holy fire hath been buried, or the river ran under ground, yet we do not call that new ; since newness is not to be accounted of by a propor- tion to our short-lived memories, or to the broken records and fragments of story left after the inunda- tion of barbarism, and W'^ar, and change of kingdoms, and corruption of authors ; hut, by its relation to the fountain of our truths, and the birth of our religion under our fathers in Christ, the holy apostles and disciples. A camel was a new thing to them that saw it in the fable, but yet it was created as soon as a cow or the domestic creatures ; and some people are apt to call every thing new which they never heard of before, as if all religion were to be mea- sured by the standards of their observation or coun- try customs. Whatsoever was not taught by Christ or his apostles, though it came in by Papias or Dio- nysius, by Arius or Liberius, is certainly new as to our account; and whatsoever is taught to us by the doctors of the present age, if it can show its test from the beginning of our period for revelation, is not to be called new, though it be pressed with a new zeal, and discoursed of by unheard-of argu- ments ; that is, though men be ignorant, and need to learn it, yet it is not therefore new or unneces- sary. 2. Some would have false teachers sufficiently signified by a name, or the owning of a private appellative, as of Papist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Zuin- glian, Socinian ; and think it enough to denominate them not of Christ, if they are called by the name of a man. And, indeed, the thing is in itself ill : but then, if by this mark we shall esteem false teachers sufficiently signified, we must follow no man, no church, nor no communion ; for all are, by their ad- versaries, marked with an appellative of separation and singularity, and yet themselves are tenacious of a good name, such as they choose, or such as is per- mitted to them by fame, and the people, and a na- tural necessity of making a distinction. Thus the Donatists called themselves “ the Flock of God,” and the Novatians called the Catholics “ Traditors,” and the Eustathians called themselves “ Catholics ;” and the worshippers of images made “ Iconoclast” to be a name of scorn ; and men made names as they listed, or as the fate of the market went. And if a doctor preaches a doctrine which another man likes not, but preaches the contradictory, he that consents, and he that refuses, have each of them a teacher ; by whose name, if they please to wrangle, they may be signified. It was so in the Corinthian church, with this only difference, that they divided themselves bynames which signified the same religion ; “ I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I am of Peter, and I of Christ.” These apostles were ministers of Christ, and so does every teacher, new or old, among the Christians pretend himself to be. Let that, there- fore, be examined ; if he ministers to the truth of Christ and the religion of his Master, let him be entertained a servant of the Lord; but, if an appel- lative be taken from his name, there is a faction commenced in it, and there is a fault in the man, if there be none in the doctrine ; but that the doc- trine be true or false, to be received or to be reject- ed, because of the name, is accidental and extrin- sical, and, therefore, not to be determined by this sign. 3. Amongst some men a sect is sufficiently thought to be reproved if it subdivides and breaks into little fractions, or changes its own opinions. Indeed, if it declines its own doctrine, no man hath reason to believe them upon their word, or to take them upon the stock of reputation, which (themselves being judges) they have forfeited and renounced in the changing that, which at first they obtruded pas- sionately. And, therefore, in this case there is Serm. XXII. OF CHRISTIAN PRUDENCE. 881 nollung to be done, but to believe the men so far as they have reason to believe themselves ; that is, to consider when they prove what they say ; and they that are able to do so, are not persons in dan- ger to be seduced by a bare authority unless they list themselves ; for others that sink under an un- avoidable prejudice, God will take care for them, if they be good people, and their case shall be con- sidered by and by. But for the other part of the sign, when men fall out among themselves for other interests or opinions, it is no argument that they are in an error concerning that doctrine, which they all unitedly teach or condemn respectively ; but it hath in it some probability, that their union is a testimony of truth, as certainly as that their frac- tions are a testimony of their zeal, or honesty, or weakness, — as it happens. And if we Christians be too decretory in this instance, it will be hard for any of us to keep a Jew from making use of it against the whole religion, which, from the days of the apostles, hath been rent into innumerable sects and under-sects, springing from mistake or in- terest, from the arts of the devil or the weakness of man. But from hence we may make an advantage in the way of prudence, and become sure that all that doctrine is certainly true, in which the gener- ality of Christians who are divided in many things, yet do constantly agree ; and that that doctrine is also sufficient, since it is certain, that because in all communions and churches there are some very good men, that do all their duty to the getting of truth, God will not fail in any thing that is necessary to them, that honestly and heartily desire to obtain it ; and, therefore, if they rest in the heartiness of that, and live accordingly, and superinduce nothing to the destruction of that, they have nothing to do but to rely upon God’s goodness, and if they perish, it is certain they cannot help it; and that is demon- stration enough that they cannot perish, considering the justice and goodness of our Lord and Judge. 4. Whoever break the bands of a society or communion, and go out from that congregation in whose confession they are baptized, do an intoler- able scandal to their doctrine and persons, and give suspicious men reason to decline their assemblies, and not to choose them at all for any thing of their authority or outward circumstances. And St. Paul bids the Romans to “ mark them that cause divi- sions and offences but the following words make their caution prudent and practicable, “ contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them they that recede from the doctrine which they have learned, they cause the offence, and if they also obtrude this upon their congregations, they also make the division. For it is certain, if we receive any doctrine contrary to what Christ gave and the apostles taught, for the authority of any man, then we “ call men master,” and leave our Master which is in heaven and in that case we must separate from the congregation, and adhere to Christ. But this is not to be done, unless the case be evident and notorious. But as it is hard that the public doctrine of a church should be rifled, and misunderstood, and reproved, and rejected, by VOL. !. 3 L any of her wilful or ignorant sons and daughters ; so it is also as hard, that they should be bound not to see, when the case is plain and evident. There may be mischiefs on both sides ; but the former sort of evils men may avoid if they will ; for they may be humble and modest, and entertain better opinions of their superiors than of themselves, and in doubtful things give them the honour of a just opinion ; and if they do not do so, that evil will be their own private ; for, that it become not public, the king and the bishop are to take care. But for the latter sort of evil, it will certainly become uni- versal; if, I say, an authoritative false doctrine be imposed, and is to be accepted accordingly ; for then all men shall be bound to profess against their conscience, that is, , “ with their mouths not to con- fess unto salvation, what with their hearts they believe unto righteousness.” The best way of reme- dying both the evils is, that governors lay no bur- den of doctrines or laws but what are necessary or very profitable ; and that inferiors do not contend for things unnecessary, nor call any thing necessary that is not ; till then there will be evils on both sides. And although the governors are to carry the question in the point of law, reputation, and public government, yet as to God’s judicature they will bear the bigger load, who in his right do him an injury, and by the impresses of his authority de- stroy his truth. But, in this case also, although se- parating be a suspicious thing, and intolerable, unless it be when a sin is imposed ; yet to separate is also accidental to truth, for some men separate with reason, some men against reason. There- fore, here all the certainty that is in the thing, is when the truth is secured, and all the security to the men will be in the humility of their persons, and the heartiness and simplicity of their intention, and diligence of inquiry. The church of England had reason to separate from the confession and prac- tices of Rome in many particulars ; and yet if her children separate from her, they may be unreason- able and impious. 5. The ways of direction which we have from Holy Scripture, to distinguish false apostles from true, are taken from their doctrine, or their lives. That of the doctrine is the more sure way, if we can hit upon it ; but that also is the thing signified, and needs to have other signs. St. John and St. Paul took this way, for they were able to do it infallibly. “All that confess Jesus incarnate, are of God,” said St. J ohn. Those men that deny it are heretics ; avoid them. And St. Paul bids to “ observe them that cause divisions and offences against the doctrine delivered ; ” them also avoid that do so. And we might do so as easily as they, if the world would only make their “ depositum” that doctrine which they delivered to all men, that is, “ the creed ;” and superinduce nothing else, but suffer Christian faith to rest in its own perfect simplicity, unmingled with arts, and opinions, and interests. This course is plain and easy, and I will not intricate it with more words, but leave it directly in its own truth and certainty, with this only direction, that when we are to choose our doctrine or our side, we take that which is in 882 OF CHRISTIAN PRUDENCE. Serm. XXII. the plain unexpounded words of Scripture ; for in that only our religion can consist. Secondly, choose that which is most advantageous to a holy life, to the proper graces of a Christian, to humility, to charity, to forgiveness and alms, to obedience, and complying with governments, to the honour of God and the exaltation of his attributes, and to the con- servation and advantages of the public societies of men ; and this last St. Paul directs, “ Let us be careful to maintain good works for necessary uses:” for he that heartily pursues these proportions, can- not be an ill man, though he were accidentally, and in the particular explications, deceived. 6. But, because this is an act of wisdom rather than prudence, and supposes science or knowledge rather than experience, therefore, it concerns the prudence of a Christian to observe the practice and the rules of practice, their lives and pretences, the designs and colours, the arts of conduct, and gaining proselytes, which their doctors and catechists do use in order to their purposes, and in their ministry about souls. For although many signs are uncertain, yet some are infallible, and some are highly probable. 7. Therefore, those teachers that pretend to be guided by a private spirit, are certainly false doctors. I remember what Simmias in Plutarch tells con- cerning Socrates, that if he heard any man say he saw a divine vision, he presently esteemed him vain and proud ; but, if he pretended only to have heard a voice, or the word of God, he listened to that religiously, and would inquire of him with curi- osity. There was some reason in his fancy ; for God does not communicate himself by the eye to men, but by the ear : “Ye saw no figure, but ye heard a voice,” said Moses to the people concerning God. And, therefore, if any man pretends to speak the word of God, we will inquire concerning it ; the man may the better be heard, because he may be certainly reproved if he speaks amiss ; but, if he pretends to visions and revelations, to a private spirit, and a mission extraordinary, the man is proud and unlearned, vicious and impudent. “No scripture is of private interpretation,” saith St. Peter, that is, “private emission” or “declaration.” God’s words were delivered indeed by single men, but such as were publicly designed prophets, re- marked with a known character, approved of by the high priest and Sanhedrim, endued with a public spirit, and his doctrines were always agreeable to the other scriptures. But, if any man pretends now to the Spirit, either it must be a private or public. If it be private, it can but be useful to himself alone, and it may cozen him too, if it be not assisted by the spirit of a public man. But if it be a public spirit, it must enter in at the public door of minis- tries and Divine ordinances, of God’s grace and man’s endeavour : it must be subject to the pro- phets ; it is discernible and judicable by them, and, therefore, may be rejected, and then it must pretend no longer. For he that will pretend to an extraor- dinary spirit, and refuses to be tried by the ordinary ways, must either prophesy or work miracles, or must have a voice from heaven to give him testi- mony. The prophets in the Old Testament, and the apostles in the new, and Christ between both, had no other way of extraordinary probation ; and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary, can- not, ought not to be believed, unless they have something more than their own word : “ If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true,” said Truth itself, our blessed Lord. But, secondly, they that intend to teach by an extraordinary spirit, if they pretend to teach according to Scripture, must be examined by the measures of Scripture, and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit, and stands or falls by the rules of every good man’s religion and public government ; and then we are well enough. But if they speak any thing against Scripture, it is the spirit of antichrist, and the spirit of the devil : “ For if an angel from heaven” (he certainly is a spirit) “ preach any other doctrine, let him be accursed.” But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride, erroi, and delusion ; a snare to catch easy and credulous souls, which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face ; it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine, impossible to be proved, and, therefore, useless to all purposes of religion, reason, or sober counsels ; it is like an invisible colour, or music without a sound ; it is, and indeed is so intended to be, a direct overthrow of order, and government, and public ministries : it is bold to say any thing, and resolved to prove nothing ; it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that oracles and the lying demons did of old time, abusing men, not by proper efficacy of its own, but because the men love to be abused : it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture, and asperses the Divine Providence, for giving so many ages of the church an imperfect religion, expressly against the truth of their words, who said, they “ had declared the whole truth of God,” and “ told all the will of God and it is an affront to the Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge, of order, and public ministries. But the will furnishes out malice, and the understanding sends out levity, and they marry, and produce a fantastic dream ; and the daughter, sucking wind instead of “ the milk of the word,” grows up to madness, and the spirit of reprobation. Besides all this, an extraordinary spirit is extremely unnecessary ; and God does not give emissions and miracles from heaven to no purpose, and to no ne- cessities of his church ; for the supplying of which he hath given apostles and evangelists, prophets and pastors, bishops and priests, the spirit of ordination and the spirit of instruction, catechists and teachers, arts and sciences, scriptures, and a constant suc- cession of expositors, the testimony of churches, and a constant line of tradition, or delivery of apos- tolical doctrine, in all things necessary to salvation. And, after all this, to have a fungus arise from the belly of mud and darkness, and nourish a glow- worm, that shall challenge to outshine the lantern of God’s w^ord, and all the candles which God set upon a hill, and all that the Spirit hath set upon the candlesticks, and all the stars of Christ’s right hand, is to annul all the excellent, established. Serm. XXII. OF CHRISTIAN PRUDENCE. 883 orderly, and certain effects of the Spirit of God, and to worship the false fires of the night. He, there- fore, that will follow a guide that leads him by an extraordinary spirit, shall go an extraordinary way, and have a strange fortune, and a singular religion, and a portion by himself, a great way off from the common inheritance of the saints, who are all led by the Spirit of God, and have one heart and one mind, one faith and one hope, the same baptism, and the helps of the ministry, leading them to the com- mon country, which is the portion of all that are the sons of adoption, consigned by the Spirit of God, the earnest of their inheritance. Concerning the. pretence of a private spirit for interpretation of the confessed doctrine of God, (the Holy Scriptures,) it will not so easily come into this question of choosing our spiritual guides ; because every person that can be a candidate in this office, that can be chosen to guide others, must be a pub- lic man, that is, of a holy calling, sanctified or separate publicly to the office ; and then to inter- pret is part of his calling and employment, and to do so is the work of a public spirit ; he is ordained and designed, he is commanded and enabled to do it : and in this there is no other caution to be inter- posed, but that the more public the man is, of the more authority his interpretation is ; and he comes nearer to a law of order, and in the matter of go- vernment is to be observed : but the more holy and the more learned the man is, his interpretation in matter of question is more likely to be true ; and, though less to be pressed as to the public confession, yet it may be more effective to a private persuasion, provided it be done without scandal, or lessening the authority, or disparagement to the more public person. 8. Those are to be suspected for evil guides, who, to get authority among the people, pretend a great zeal, and use a bold liberty in reproving princes and governors, nobility and prelates ; for such homilies cannot be the effects of a holy religion, which lay a snare for authority, and undermine power, and dis- content the people, and make them bold against kings, and immodest in their own stations, and trouble the government. Such men may speak a truth, or teach a true doctrine ; for every such de- sign does not unhallow the truth of God : but they take tome truths, and force them to minister to an evil end. But, therefore, mingle not in the com- munities of such men; for they will make it a part of your religion, to prosecute that end openly, which they, by arts of the tempter, have insinuated privately. But if ever you enter into the seats of those doc- tors that speak reproachfully of their superiors, or detract from government, or love to curse the king in their heart, or slander him with their mouths, or disgrace their person, bless yourself and retire quickly ; for there dwells the plague, but the Spirit of God is not president of the assembly. And, therefore, you shall observe in all the characters which the blessed apostles of our Lord made for describing and avoiding societies of heretics, false guides, and bringers in of strange doctrines, — still they reckon treason and rebellion. So St. Paul : » 2 Tim. iii. 1, &c. h 2 Pet. ii. 9, 10. “ In the last days perilous times shall come ; then men shall have the form of godliness, and deny the power of it ; they shall be traitors, heady, high- minded that is the characteristic note. So St. Peter : “ The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished : but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of un- cleanness, and despise government; presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.” ^ — The same also is recorded and observed by St. Jude: “ Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.” These three testimonies are but the declaration of one great contingency ; they are the same prophecy, declared by three apos- tolical men that had the gift of prophecy ; and by this character the Holy Ghost in all ages hath given us caution to avoid such assemblies, where the speaking and ruling man shall be the canker of go- vernment, and a preacher of sedition, who shall either ungird the prince’s sword, or unloose the button of their mantle. 9. But the apostles in all these prophecies have remarked lust to be the inseparable companion of these rebel prophets : “ They are filthy dreamers, they defile the flesh,” so St. Jude ; “ They walk after the flesh, in the lust of uncleanness,” so St. Peter ; “ They are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, incontinent and sensual,” so St. Paul. And by this part of the character, as the apostles remarked the Nicolaitans, the Gnostics, the Carpo- cratians, and all their impure branches, which began in their days, and multiplied after their deaths ; so they prophetically did fore-signify all such sects to be avoided, who, to catch silly women laden with sins, preach doctrines of ease and licentiousness, apt to countenance and encourage vile things, and not apt to restrain a passion, or mortify a sin : — such as these : that God sees no sin in his children; that no sin will take us from God’s favour ; that all of such a party are elect people ; that God requires of us nothing but faith ; and that faith wLich justifies is nothing but a mere believing that we are God’s chosen; that we are not tied to the law of command- ments ; that the law of grace is the law of liberty, and that liberty is to do what we list ; that divorces are to be granted upon many and slight causes ; that simple fornication is no sin. These are such doc- trines, that upon the belief of them men may do any thing, and will do that which shall satisfy their own desires, and promote their interests, and seduce their she-disciples. And, indeed, it was not without great reason that these three apostles joined lust and trea- son together ; because the former is so shameful a crime, and renders a man’s spirit naturally averse to government, that if it falls upon the person of a ruler, it takes from him the spirit of government, and renders him diffident, pusillanimous, private, and ashamed: if it happen in the person of a subject, it makes him hate the man that shall shame him and punish him ; it hates the light and the sun, because that opens him, and, therefore, is much more against c Jude 5, 8. 3 L 2 ■884 OF CHRISTIAN PRUDENCE. Serm. XXII government, because that publishes and punishes too. One thing I desire to be observed, that though the primitive heretics now named, and all those others, their successors, practised and taught horrid impurities, yet they did not invade government at all ; and, therefore, those sects that these apostles did signify by prophecy, and in whom both these are concentred, — were to appear in some later times, and the days of the prophecy were not then to be fulfilled. What they are since, every age must judge by its own experience, and for its own interest. But Christian religion is so pure and holy, that chastity is sometimes used for the whole religion ; and to do an action chastely signifies purity of in- tention, abstraction from the world, and separation from low and secular ends, the virginity of the soul, and its union with God ; and all deviations and estrangements from God, and adhesion to forbidden objects, is called fornication and adultery. Those sects, therefore, that teach, encourage, or practise impious or unhallowed mixtures, and shameful lusts, are issues of the impure spirit, and most contrary to God, who can behold no unclean thing. 10. Those prophets and pastors, — that pretend severity and live loosely, or are severe in small things, and give liberty in greater, or forbid some sins with extreme rigour, and yet practise or teach those that serve their interest or constitute their sect, — are to be suspected and avoided accordingly : “ Nihil est hominum inepta persuasione falsius, nec fictd severitate ineptius.” All ages of the church were extremely curious to observe, when any new teachers did arise, what kind of lives they lived; and if they pretended severely and to a strict life, then they knew their danger doubled ; for it is certain all that teach doctrines contrary to the established religion delivered by the apostles, all they are evil men. God will not suffer a good man to be seduced damnably, much less can he be a seducer of others : and, therefore, you shall still observe the false apostles to be furious and vehement in their reproofs, and severe in their animadversions of others; but then if you watch their private, or stay till their numbers are full, or observe their spiritual habits, you shall find them indulgent to themselves, or to return from their disguises, or so spiritually wicked, that their pride or their revenge, their envy or their detraction, their scorn or their complacency in themselves, their desire of pre-emi- nence and their impatience of a rival, shall place them far enough in distance from a poor carnal sinner, whom they shall load with censures and an upbraiding scorn ; but themselves are like devils, the spirits of darkness, “ the spiritual wickednesses in high places.” Some sects of men are very angry against servants for recreating and easing their labours with a less prudent and unsevere refresh- ment : but the patrons of their sects shall oppress a wicked man and unbelieving person; they shall chas- tise a drunkard and entertain murmurers ; they shall not abide an oath, and yet shall force men to break three or four. This sect is to be avoided, because although it is good to be severe against carnal and Eloquia Domini casta eloqnia. bodily sins, yet it is not good to mingle with them who chastise a bodily sin to make way for a spiritual ; or reprove a servant, that his lord may sin alone ; or punish a stranger and a beggar, that will not approve their sin, but will have sins of his own. Concerning" such persons, St. Paul hath told us, that “ they shall not proceed far, but their folly shall be manifest ;” ’OXiyov ')(p6yoy Svyair ay rig TrXdfraadai roy rpoiroy Tov avTov, said Lysias : “ Cito ad naturam ficta recide- runt suam.” They that dissemble their sin and their manners, or make severity to serve looseness, and an imaginary virtue to minister to a real vice ; they that abhor idols, and would commit sacrilege ; chastise a drunkard, and promote sedition ; declaim against the vanity of great persons, and then spoil them of their goods ; reform manners, and engross estates ; talk godly, and do impiously ; these are teachers which the Holy Spirit of God hath, by three apostles, bid us to beware of and decline, as we would run from the hollowness of a grave, or the despairs and sorrows of the damned. 11. The substance of all is this: that we must not choose our doctrine by our guide, but our guide by the doctrine ; and if we doubt concerning the doctrine, we may judge of that by the lives and designs of the teachers : “ By their fruits ye shall know them ;” and by the plain words of the Scrip- ture, by the apostles’ creed, and by the command- ments, and by the certain known and established forms of government. These are the great indices, and so plain, apt, and easy, that he that is deceived, is so because he will be so ; he is betrayed into it by his own lust, and a voluntary chosen folly. 12. Besides these premises, there are other little candles that can help to make the judgment clearer ; but they are such as do not signify alone, but in conjunction with some of the precedent characters, which are drawn by the great lines of Scripture. Such as are : 1. When the teachers of sects stir up unprofitable and useless questions. 2. When they causelessly retire from the universal customs of Christendom. 3. And cancel all the memorials of the greatest mysteries of our redemption. 4. When their confessions and catechisms and their whole religion consists ey yyojffei, “in speculations” and ineffective notions, in discourses of angels and spirits, in abstractions and raptures, in things they understand not, and of which they have no revela- tion. 5. Or else if their religion spends itself in ceremonies, outward guises, and material solemni- ties, and imperfect forms, drawing the heart of the vine forth into leaves and irregular fruitless suckers, turning the substance into circumstances, and the love of God into gestures, and the effect of the Spirit into the impertinent offices of a burdensome ceremonial ; for by these two particulars the apostles reproved the Jews and the Gnostics, or those that from the school of Pythagoras pretended conversation with angels, and great knowledge of the secrets of the spirits, choosing tutelar angels, and assigning them offices and charges, as in the church of Rome, to this day, they do to saints. To these add, 6. That we observe whether the guides of souls avoid to suffer for their religion ; for then Serm. XXII. OF CHRISTIAN PRUDENCE. 885 the matter is foul, or the man not fit to lead, that dares not die in cold blood for his religion. Will the man lay his life and his soul upon the proposi- tion ? If so, then you may consider him upon his proper grounds ; but if he refuses that, refuse his conduct sure enough. T. You may also watch whether they do not choose their proselytes among the rich and vicious ; that they may serve them- selves upon his wealth, and their disciple upon his vice. 8. If their doctrines evidently and greatly serve the interest of wealth or honour, and are in- effective to piety. 9. If they strive to gain any one to their confession, and are negligent to gain them to good life. 10. If, by pretences, they lessen the severity of Christ’s precepts, and are easy in dis- pensations and licentious glosses. 11. If they in- vent suppletories to excuse an evil man, and yet to reconcile his bad life with the hopes of heaven ; you have reason to suspect the whole, and to reject these parts of error and design, which in themselves are so unhandsome always, and sometimes criminal. He that shall observe the church of Rome so im- placably fierce for purgatory and the pope’s supre- macy, for clerical immunities and the superiority of the ecclesiastical persons to secular, for indulgences and precious and costly pardons, and then so full of devices to reconcile an evil life with heaven, re- quiring only contrition even at the last for the abo- lition of eternal guilt, and having a thousand ways to commute and take off the temporal ; wiU see he hath reason to be jealous that interest is in these bigger than the religion, and yet that the danger of the soul is greater than that interest ; and, therefore, the man is to do accordingly. Here, indeed, is the great necessity that we should have the prudence and discretion, the 6^v- Sspicsg of serpents. magis ut cernamus acutum Quam aut aquila, aut serpens Epidaurius . Hor, For so serpents, as they are curious to preserve their heads from contrition or a bruise, so also to safeguard themselves that they be not charmed with sweet and enticing Avords of false prophets, who charm not wisely but cunningly, leading aside un- stable souls; against these we must stop our ears, or lend our attention, according to the foregoing measures and significations. But here also I am to insert two or three cautions. 1. We cannot expect that by these or any other signs we shall be enabled to discover concerning all men, whether they teach an error or no : neither can a man by these reprove a Lutheran or a Zuin- glian, a Dominican or a Franciscan, a Russian or a Greek, a Muscovite or a Georgian ; because those that are certain signs of false teachers, do signify such men who destroy an article of faith or a com- mandment. God was careful to secure us from death by removing the lepers from the camp, and giving certain notices of distinction, and putting a term between the living and the dead : but he was not pleased to secure every man from innocent and harmless errors, from the mistakes of men and the failings of mortality : the signs which can distinguish a living man from a dead, will not also distinguish a black man from a brown, or a pale from a white : it is enough that we decline those guides that lead us to hell, but not to think that we are enticed to death by the weaknesses of every disagreeing brother. 2. In all discerning of sects, we must be careful to distinguish the faults of men from the evils of their doctrine ; for some there are that say very well and do very ill; elal yap Ai) i/apdijKOfpopoi TToWol, Ba/c)foi<5fc yt 'Travpoi, Multos thyrsigeros, paucos est cernere Bacchos ; Many men of holy calling and holy religion, that are of unholy lives : “ Homines ignavi opera, philo- sophi sententia.” But these must be separated from the institution : and the evil of the men is only to be noted, as that such persons be not taken to our single conduct and personal ministry. I will be of the man’s religion if it be good, though he be not; but I will not make him my confessor, Micw crocpto'Tiiv, o(TTLQ avT(p (TOipoQ.^ If he be not wise for himself, I will not sit down at his feet, lest we mingle filthiness instead of being cleansed and in- structed. 3. Let us make one separation more, and then we may consider and act according to the premises. If we espy a design or an evil mark upon one doc- trine, let us divide it from the other that are not so spotted. For indeed the public communions of men are at this day so ordered, that they are as fond of their errors as of their truths, and sometimes most zealous for what they have least reason to be so. And if we can, by any arts of prudence, separate from an evil proposition, and communicate in all the good, then we may love colleges of religious per- sons, though we do not worship images ; and we may obey our prelates, though we do no injury to princes ; and we may be zealous against a crime, though we be not imperious over men’s persons ; and we may be diligent in the conduct of souls, though we be not rapacious of estates ; and we may be moderate exactors of obedience to human laws, though we do not dispense with the breach of the Divine ; and the clergy may represent their caUing necessary, though their persons be full of modesty and humility ; and we may preserve our lights, and not lose our charity. For this is the meaning of the apostle, “ Try all things, and retain that which is good:” from every sect and community of Chris- tians take any thing that is good, that advances holy religion and the Divine honour. For one hath a better government, a second a better confession, a third hath excellent spiritual arts for the conduct of souls, a fourth hath fewer errors ; and by what in- strument soever a holy life is advantaged, use that, though thou grindest thy spears and arrows at the forges of the Philistines ; knowing thou hast no master but Christ, no religion but the Christian, no rule but the Scriptures, and the laws, and right reason : other things that are helps, are to be used accordingly. These are the general rules of Christian prudence, which I have chosen to insist upon : there are ® Eurip. 886 OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY. Serm. XXIII. many others more particular indeed, but yet worth not only the enumerating, but observing also, and that they be reduced to practice. For the prudence of a Christian does oblige and direct respectively all the children of the institution, that we be careful to decline a danger, watchful against a temptation, always choosing that that is safe and fitted to all circumstances ; that we be wise in choosing our company, reserved and wary in our friendships, and communicative in our charity ; that we be silent, and retentive of v.diat we hear and what we think, not credulous, not inconstant ; that we be deliberate in our election and vigorous in our prosecutions ; that we suffer not good nature to discompose our duty, but that we separate images from substances, and the pleasing of a present company from our religion to God and our eternal interest : for some- times that which is counselled to us by Christian prudence, is accounted folly by human prudence, and so it is ever accounted when our duty leads us into a persecution. Hither also appertain, that we never do a thing that we know we must repent of ; that we do not admire too many things, nor any thing too much ; that we be even in prosperity and patient in adversity, but transported with neither into the regions of despair or levity, pusillanimity or tyranny, dejection or garishness; always to look upon the scar we have impressed upon our flesh, and no more to handle dangers and knives ; to abstain from ambitious and vexatious suits ; not to contend with a mighty man ; ever to listen to him, who, according to the proverb, “hath four ears, reason, religion, wisdom, and experience rather to lose a be-nefit, than to suffer a detriment and an evil ; to stop the beginnings of evil ; to pardon and not to observe all the faults of friends or enemies ; of evils to choose the least, and of goods to choose the greatest, if it be also safest ; not to be insolent in success, but to proceed according to the probability of human causes and contingencies ; ever to be thankful for benefits, and profitable to others, and useful in all that we can ; to watch the seasons and circumstances of actions ; to do that willingly which cannot be avoided, lest the necessity serve another’s appetite, and it be lost to all our purposes : “ Insig- nis enim est prudentice ut quod non facere non possis, id ita facere ut libenter fecisse videaris ; ” not to pursue difficult, uncertain, and obscure things, with violence and passion. These if we observe, we shall do advantage to ourselves and to the re- ligion ; and avoid those evils which fools and unwary people suffer for nothing, dying or bleeding without cause and without pity. I end this with the saying of Socrates : XwpuTOjLtera /XwE, (riaaypa(j)ia rig j) r/ TOiavrrf apETt), KOI T(p ovTL av^paTTohrjg re, Kal ovdev vyieg, ovh' aXrjdeg, e^rj’ “ Virtue is but a shadow and a servile employment, unless it be adorned and in- structed with prudence ^ which gives motion and conduct, spirits and vigorousness, to religion, mak- ing it not only human and reasonable, but Divine and celestial. SERMON XXIIT. OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY. PART I. u4nd harmless as doves. — Matt. x. latter part of verse 16. Our blessed Saviour having prefaced concerning prudence, adds to the integrity of the precept, and for the conduct of our religion, that we be simple as well as prudent, innocent as well as wary. Harmless and safe together do well : for without this blessed union, prudence turns into craft, and simplicity de- generates into folly. “ Prudens simplicitas” is Martial’s character of a good man ; a wary and cautious innocence, a harmless prudence and pro- vision; “Verd simplicitate bonus.” A true sim- plicity is that which leaves to a man arms defensive, his castles and strong forts ; but takes away his swords and spears, his anger and his malice, his peevishness and spite. But such is the misery and such is the iniquity of mankind, that craft hath in- vaded all the contracts and intercourses of men, and made simplicity so weak a thing, that it is grown into contempt, sometimes with, and sometimes with- out reason ; “ Et homines simplices, minime malos,” the Romans called “ parum cautos, saepe stolidos ;” unwary fools and defenceless people were called simple. And when the innocence of the old simple Romans in Junius Brutus’s time, in Fabricius and Camillus’s, began to degenerate, and to need the Aquilian law to force men to deal honestly ; quickly the mischief increased, till the Aquilian law grew as much out of power as honesty was out of coun- tenance ; and there, and every where else, men thought they got a purchase when they met with an honest man : and ifXL^iov Aristotle calls, ^pr](jTov, and Tov opyiKov Kai rbv fmvLKov, airkovv' “ A fool is a profitable person, and he that is simple is little better than mad : ” and so it is when simplicity wants prudence. He that, because he means honestly himself, thinks every man else does so, and therefore is unwary in all or any of his intercourses, is a simple man in an evil sense ; and therefore St. Gregory Nazianzen remarks Constantins with a note of folly, for suffering his easy nature to be abused by Georgius, OiKeiovrat rr)v (^aaiXecog a7rX6r>/rd* ovTiog yctp eylo KoXio ar}^ Kovcporyjra, albovjj.£vog ti]v evXafieiar' “ The prince’s simplicity, so he calls it for reverence ;” ^ but indeed it was folly, for it was zeal without knowledge. But it was a better temper which he observed in his own father, // cnrXorrjg vat TO TOV rjdovg aboXor, such “ a simplicity which only wanted craft or deceit,” but wanted no prudence or caution : and that is truly Christian simplicity, or the sincerity of an honest, and ingenious, and a fearless person ; and it is a rare band, not only of societies and contracts, but also of friendships and advantages of mankind. « Orat. 21. f Plat. Phocdo, Serm. XXIII. OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY. 887 We do not live in an age in which there is so much need to bid men be wary, as to take care that they be innocent. Indeed in religion we are usually too loose and imgirt, exposing ourselves to temptation, and others to offence, and our name to dishonour, and the cause itself to reproach, and we are open and ready to every evil but persecu- tion : from that we are close enough, and that alone we call prudence ; but in the matter of interest we are wary as serpents, subtle as foxes, vigilant as the birds of the night, rapacious as kites, tenacious as grappling-hooks and the weighti- est anchors, and above all, false and hypocritical as a thin crust of ice spread upon the face of a deep, smooth, and dissembling pit ; if you set your foot, your foot slips, or the ice breaks, and you sink into death, and are wound in a sheet of water, de- scending into mischief or your grave, suffering a gi*eat fall or a sudden death, by your confidence and unsuspecting foot. There is a universal crust of hypocrisy, that covers the face of the greatest part of mankind. Their religion consists in forms and outsides, and serves reputation or a design, but does not serve God. Their promises are but fair language, and the civilities of the piazzas or ex- changes, and disband and untie like the air that beat upon their teeth, when they spake the delicious and hopeful words. Their oaths are snares to catch men, and make them confident ; their contracts are arts and stratagems to deceive, measured by profit and possibility ; and every thing is lawful that is gainful. And their friendships are trades of getting ; and their kindness of watching a dying friend is but the office of a vulture, the gaping for a legacy, the spoil of the carcass. And their sicknesses are many times policies of state ; sometimes a design to show the riches of our bedchamber. And their funeral tears are but the paranymphs and pious solicitors of a second bride. And every thing that is ugly must be hid, and every thing that is hand- some must be seen ; and that will make a fair cover for a huge deformity. And therefore it is, as they think, necessary that men should always have some pretences and forms, some faces of religion or sweet- ness of language, confident affirmatives or bold oaths, protracted treaties or multitude of words, affected silence or grave deportment, a good name or a good cause, a fair relation or a worthy calling, great power or a pleasant wit ; any thing that can be fair or that can be useful, any thing that can do good or be thought good, we use it to abuse our brother, or promote our interest. Leporina resolved to die, being troubled for her husband’s danger ; and he resolved to die with her that had so great a kind- ness for him, as not to outlive the best of her hus- band’s fortune. It was agreed ; and she tempered the poison, and drank the face of the unwholesome goblet; but the weighty poison sunk to the bot- tom, and the easy man drank it all off, and died, and the woman carried him forth to funeral; and after a little illness, which she soon recovered, she entered upon the inheritance, and a second marriage. ^ Dissert. 1. de Regno. Tuta frequensque via est It is a usual and safe way to cozen, upon colour of friendship or religion; but that is hugely crimi- nal : to tell a lie to abuse a man’s belief, and by it to enter upon any thing of his possession to his in- jury, is a perfect destruction of all human society, the most ignoble of all human follies, perfectly con- trary to God, who is truth itself, the greatest argu- ment of a timorous and a base, a cowardly and a private mind, not at all honest, or confident to see the sun, “ a vice fit for slaves ;” avorjrov Kal ^>ov- Xo7rp£7T££, as Dio Chrysostomus^ calls it; opwv Kal on ^r}pi(i)v to. d£ik6Tara kol dyeviorepa ra £K£~iva \p£v^£TaL TravTiov fiaXiara, Kal i^airara' “ for the most timorous and the basest of the beasts use craft,” and lie in wait, and take their prey, and save their lives by deceit. And it is the greatest injury to the abused person in the world: for, besides that it abuses his interest, it also makes him for ever in- secure, and uneasy in his confidence, which is the period of cares, the rest of a man’s spirit ; it makes it necessary for a man to be jealous and suspicious, that is, to be troublesome to himself and every man else : and above all, lying, or craftiness, and unfaith- ful usages, rob a man of the honour of his soul, making his understanding useless and in the con- dition of a fool, spoiled, and dishonoured, and despised, ndca ^icovaa oTepeTrat rrjg dXr/- d£iag, said Plato : “ Every soul loses truth very un- willingly.” Every man is so great a lover of truth, that if he hath it not, he loves to believe he hath, and would fain have all the world to believe as he does ; either presuming that he hath truth, or else hating to be deceived, or to be esteemed a cheated and an abused person. “ Non licet suffurari men- tem hominis etiam Samaritani,” said R. Moses ; *■ “ sed veritatem loquere, atque age ingenue “ If a man be a Samaritan, that is, a hated person, a per- son from whom you differ in matter of religion, yet steal not his mind away, but speak truth to him honestly and ingenuously.” A man’s soul loves to dwell in truth, it is his resting-place ; and if you take him from thence, you take him into strange regions, a place of banishment and dishonour. “ Qui ignotos Isedit, latro appellatur ; qui amicos, paulo minus quam parricida “ He that hurts strangers is a thief ; but he that hurts his friend is little bet- ter than a parricide.” This is the brand and stigma of hypocrisy and lying : it hurts our friends, “ Mendacium in damnum potens and makes the man that owns it guilty of a crime, that is to be punished by the sorrows usually suffered in the most execrable places of the cities. But I must reduce the duty to particulars, and discover the contrary vice by several parts of its proportion. 1 . The first office of a Christian simplicity con- sists in our religion and manners ; that they be open and honest, public and justifiable, the same at home and abroad ; for, besides the ingenuity, and honesty of this, there is an indispensable and infi- nite necessity it should be so ; because whoever is a hypocrite in his religion, mocks God, presenting ^ Can, Eth. 88S OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY. Serm. XXIII. to him the outside, and reserving the inward for his enemy ; which is either a denying God to be the searcher of our hearts, or else an open defiance of his omniscience and of his justice. To provoke God, that we may deceive men ; to defy his al- mightiness, that we may abuse our brother ; is, to destroy all that is sacred, all that is prudent ; it is an open hostility to all things human and Divine, a breaking from all the bands of all relations ; and uses God so cheaply, as if he were to be treated or could be cozened like a weak man, and an undis- cerning and easy merchant. But so is the life of many men : Vita fallax ! abditos sensus gerens, Animisque pulchram turpibus faciem induens Pudor impudentem celat, audacem quies, Pietas nefandum ; vera fallaces probant ; Simulantque molles dura. Senec. It is a crafty life that men live, carrying designs, and living upon secret purposes. Men pretend modesty, and under that red veil are bold against superiors ; saucy to their betters upon pretences of religion ; invaders of others’ rights by false propo- sitions in theology; pretending humility, they chal- lenge superiority above all orders of men ; and for being thought more holy, think that they have title to govern the world : they bear upon their face great religion, and are impious in their relations, false to their trust, unfaithful to their friend, unkind to their dependants ; 6(j)pvQ eir^pKoreQ, Kal ~6 y aZiKovfxevov rov fiaXiara (fuXig. TrpotrriKoyra, said Cyrus in Xenophon ; ^ A man, though he desires it, cannot be confident of the man that pretends truth, yet tells a lie, and is deprehended to have made use of the sacred name of friendship or religion, honesty or reputation, to deceive his brother. But because a man may be deceived by deeds and open actions as well as words, therefore it con- cerns their duty, that no man by an action on purpose done to make his brother believe a lie, abuse his persuasion and his interest. When Pythius,'^ the Sicilian, had a mind to sell his garden to Canius, he invited him thither, and caused fishermen, as if by custom, to fish in the channel by which the garden stood, and they threw great store of fish into their arbours, and made Canius believe it was so every day ; and the man grew greedy of that place of pleasure, and gave Pythius a double price, and the next day perceived himself abused. Actions of pretence and simulation are like snares laid, into which the beasts fall though you pursue them not, but walk in the inquiry for their necessary provi- sions : and if a man fall into a snare that you have laid, it is no excuse to say, you did not tempt him thither. To lay a snare is against the ingenuity of a good man and a Christian, and from thence he ought to be drawn ; and, therefore, it is not fit we should place a danger, which ourselves are therefore bound to hinder, because from thence we are obliged to rescue him. “ Vir bonus est, qui prodest quibus potest, nocet nemini “ When we do all the good M^e can, and do an evil to no man, then only we are accounted good men.” But this pretence of an action signifying otherwise than it looks for, is only forbidden in matter of contract, and the mate- rial interest of a second person. But when actions are of a double signification, or when a man is not * Lib, 8. Instit. abused or defeated of his right by an uncertain sign, it is lawful to do a thing to other purposes than is commonly understood. Flight is a sign of fear ; but it is lawful to fly when a man fears not. Circum- cision was the seal of the Jewish religion; and yet St. Paul circumcised Timothy, though he intended he should live like the gentile Christians, and “ not as do the Jews.” But because that rite did signify more things besides that one, he only did it to repre- sent that he was no enemy of Moses’s law, but would use it when there was just reason, which was one part of the things which the using of circum- cision could signify. So our blessed Saviour pre- tended that he would pass forth beyond Emmaus ; but if he intended not to do it, yet he did no injury to the two disciples, for whose good it was that he intended to make this offer : and neither did he pre- varicate the strictness of simplicity and sincerity, because they were persons with whom he had made no contracts, to whom he had passed no obligation : and in the nature of the thing, it is proper and natural, by an offer to give an occasion to another to do a good action ; and in case it succeeds not, then to do what we intended not ; and so the offer was conditional. But in all cases of bargaining, although the actions of themselves may receive naturally another sense, yet I am bound to follow that signi- fication which may not abuse my brother, or pollute my own honesty, or snatch or rifle his interest : because it can be no ingredient into the commuta- tion, if I exchange a thing which he understands not, and is, by error, led into this mistake, and I hold forth the fire, and delude him, and amuse his eye ; for by me he is made worse. But, secondly, as our actions must be of a sincere and determined signification in contract, so must our w^ords ; in which the rule of the old Roman honesty was this : “ Uterque si ad eloquendum venerit, non plus quam semel eloquetur “ Every one that speaks, is to speak but once that is, “ but one thing,” because commonly that is truth; truth being but one, but error and falsehood infinitely various and changeable : and we shall seldom see a man so stiffened with impiety as to speak little and seldom, and pertinaciously adhere to a single sense, and yet that at first, and all the way after, shall be a lie. Men use to go about when they tell a lie, and de- vise circumstances, and stand off at distance, and cast a cloud of -words, and intricate the whole affair, and cozen themselves first, and then cozen their brother, while they have minced the case of con- science into little particles, and swallowed the lie by crumbs, so that no one passage of it should rush against the conscience, nor do hurt, until it is all got into the belly, and unites in the effect ; for by that time two men are abused, the merchant in his soul, and the contractor in his interest : and this is the certain effect of much talking and little honesty. But he that means honestly, must speak but once, that is, one truth, — and hath leave to vary within the degrees of just prices and fair conditions, which because they have a latitude, may be enlarged or restrained according as the merchant pleases; save ^ Cicero. Serm. XXIV OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY. 893 only he must never prevaricate the measures of equity, and the proportions of reputation, and the public. But in all the parts of this traffic, let our words be the signification of our thoughts, and our thoughts design nothing but the advantages of a permitted exchange. In this case the severity is so great, so exact, and so without variety of case, that it is not lawful for a man to tell a truth with a col- lateral design to cozen and abuse ; and, therefore, at no hand can it be permitted to lie or equivocate, to speak craftily, or to deceive by smoothness, or in- tricacy, or long discourses. But this precept of simplicity in matter of con- tract, hath one step of severity beyond this: in matter of contract it is not lawful so much as to conceal the secret and undiscernible faults of the merchandise ; but we must acknowledge them, or else affix prices made diminutive and lessened to such pro- portions and abatements as that fault should make. “ Caveat emptor ” is a good caution for him that buys, and it secures the seller in public judica- ture, but not in court of conscience ; and the old laws of the Romans were as nice in this affair, as the conscience of a Christian. Titus Claudius Centumalus ® was commanded by the augurs to pull down his house in the Coelian mountain, because it hindered their observation of the flight of birds. He exposes his house to sale; Publius Calphurnius buys it, and is forced to pluck it down ; but complaining to the judges he had remedy, because Claudius did not tell him the true state of the inconvenience. Pie that sells a house infected with the plague, or haunted with evil spirits, sells that which is not worth such a price which it might be put at, if it were in health and peace ; and therefore cannot demand it, but openly and upon publication of the evil. To which also this is to be added, — That in some great faults, and such as have danger, (as in the cases now specified,) no diminution of the price is sufficient to make the merchant just and sincere, unless he tells the appendant mischief ; because to some persons in many cases, and to all persons in some cases, it is not at all valuable ; and they would not possess it, if they might, for nothing. Marcus Gratidianus bought a house of Sergius Grata, which himself had sold before ; but because Sergius did not declare the appendant vassalage and service, he was recompensed by the judges : for although it was certain that Gratidianus knew it, because it had been his ovm, yet “ oportuit ex bond fide denun- ciari,” said the law ; “ it concerned the ingenuity of a good man to have spoken it openly.” In all cases it must be confessed in the price, or in the words : but when the evil may be personal, and more than matter of interest and money, it ought to be con- fessed, and then the goods proscribed, lest by my act I do my neighbour injury, and I receive profit by his damage. Certain it is, that ingenuity is the sweetest and easiest way ; there is no difficulty or case of conscience in that; and it can have no objection in it, but that possibly sometimes we lose a little advantage, which, it may be, we may law- fully acquire, but still we secure a quiet conscience ; Cicero. (i Ibid. and if the merchandise be not worth so much to me, then neither is it to him ; if it be to him, it is also to me ; and therefore I have no loss, no hurt to keep it, if it be refused. But he that secures his own profit, and regards not the interest of another, is more greedy of a full purse than of a holy con- science, and prefers gain before justice, and the wealth of his private before the necessity of public society and commerce, — being a son of earth, whose centre is itself, without relation to heaven, that moves upon another’s point, and produces flowers for others, and sends influence upon all the world, and receives nothing in return but a cloud of perfume, or the smell of a fat sacrifice. God sent justice into the world, that all conditions, in their several proportions, should be equal ; and he that receives a good, should pay one ; and he whom I serve, is obliged to feed and to defend me in the same proportions as I serve ; and justice is a relative term, and supposes two persons obliged; and though fortunes are unequal, and estates are in majority and subordination, and men are wise or foolish, honoured or despised, yet in the intercourses of justice God hath made that there is no difference. And therefore it was esteemed ignoble to dismiss a servant, when corn was dear ; in dangers of ship- wreck, to throw out an unprofitable boy, and keep a fair horse ; or for a wise man to snatch a plank from a drowning fool; or if the master of the ship should challenge the board, upon which his passen- ger swims for his life ; or to obtrude false monies upon others, which we first took for true, but at last discover to be false ; or not to discover the gold, which the merchant sold for alchymy. The reason of all these is, because the collateral advantages are not at all to be considered in matter of rights; and though I am dearest to myself, as my neighbour is to himself, yet it is necessary that I permit him to his own advantages, as I desire to be permitted to mine. Now, therefore, simplicity and ingenuity in all contracts is perfectly and exactly necessary, because its contrary destroys that equality which justice hath placed in the affairs of men, and makes all things private, and makes a man dearer to him- self, and to be preferred before kings, and republics, and churches ; it destroys society, and it makes multitudes of men to be but like herds of beasts, without proper instruments of exchange, and secu- rities of possession; without faith, and without pro- priety ; concerning all which there is no other account to be given, but that the rewards of craft are but a little money, and a great deal of dishonour, and much suspicion, and proportionable scorn ; watches and guards, spies and jealousies, are his portion. But the crown of justice is a fair life, and a clear reputation, and an inheritance there where justice dwells since she left the earth, even “ in the kingdom of the Just,” who shall call us to “ judg- ment for every word, and render to every man according to his works.” And what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when the Lord taketh away his soul ? “ Tollendum esse ex rebus contrahendis omne mendacium ;” ® that is the « Cicero. 894 OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY. Serm. XXIV. sum of this rule. “No falsehood or deceit is to be endured in any contract.” 5. Christian simplicity hath also its necessity, and passes obligation upon us towards enemies, in questions of law or war. Plutarch commends Ly- sander and Philopoemen for their craft and subtlety in war ; but commends it not as an ornament to their manners, but that which had influence into prosperous events : just as Ammianus affirms, “ Nullo discrimine virtutis ac doli, prosperos omnes laudari debere bellorum eventus:” “ whatsoever in war is prosperous, men use to commend.” But he that is a good soldier, is not always a good man. Callicratidas was a good man, and followed the old way of downright hostility, cnrXovv teal yevva~iov rioy rjysfuovtov rpoirov. But Lysander was Travovpyog, Kat (TO(pi(rTr]Q aTraraig ^LciTroLKiWwv to. tov TroXtjxov, “ a crafty man, full of plots, but not noble in the con- duct of his arms.” ^ I remember Euripides brings in Achilles, commending the ingenuity of his breeding, and the simplicity and nobleness of his own heart ; ’Eyti S’ avSpos Ev