A Key Opening Mysterious Texts of Scripture

THE REWARD OF PATIENCE. THE LII. SERMON.

THe drift of the blessed Apostle in the former part of this chapter, to which my Text cohereth, is to quench the fire-bals of contention cast among the Philippians by proud and ambitious spirits, who preached the Gospel of truth not in truth and sincerity, but in faction, and through emulation: ( Phil. 1.15.) Some indeed preach Christ out of envy and strife. This fire kindled more and more by the breath of contradiction, and nourished by the ambition of the teachers, and factious partaking of the hearers, Saint Paul seeketh to lave out, partly with his own tears, partly with Christ's blood, both which he mingleth in a passionate exhortation at the entrance of this chapter: If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any bowels of mercies; fulfill ye my joy, be ye like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory. Look not every man to his own things, but every man also to the things of others. Let the same mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God, thought it no robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, &c. In this context all other parts are curiously woven one in the other, only there is a bracke at the fifth verse, which seems to have no connection at all with the former: for the former were part of a zealous admonition to brotherly love and Christian reconciliation, add this to voluntary obedience and humiliation: in those he persuaded them to go together as friends, in this to give place one to the other: in those he earnestly beseecheth them to be of one mind among themselves, in this to be of the same mind with Christ Jesus. Now peace and obedience, love and humility seem to have no great affinity one with the other; for though their natures be not adverse, yet they are very divers. Howbeit, if ye look nearer to the texture of this sacred discourse, ye shall find it all closely wrought, and that this exhortation to humility, to which my Text belongeth, hath good coherence with the former, and is pertinent to the main scope of the Apostle; which was to re-unite the severed affections, and reconcile the different opinions of the faithful among the Philippians, that they might all both agree in the love of the same truth, and seek that truth in love. This his holy desire he could not effect, nor bring about his godly purpose, before he had beat down the partition wall that was betwixt them: which because it was erected by pride, could be no otherwise demolished than by humility. The contentions among the people grew from emulation among the Pastors, and that from vain glory. As sparks are kindled by ascending of the smoke, so all quarrels and contentions by ambitious spirits: the divisions of Reuben are haughty thoughts of heart. A high conceit of their own, and a low value and under rate of the gifts of others, usually keep men from yielding one to the other upon good terms of Christian charity. Wherefore the Apostle, like a wise Physician, applieth his spiritual remedy not so much parti laesae, to the part where the malady brake forth, as to the cause, the vanity of the Preachers, and pride of the hearers, after this manner:

For glory is of the nature of a Crocodile, which flieth from them that pursue it, and pursueth them that fly it, as S. Chrysostom excellently declareth it: Glory (saith he) cannot be attained but by eschuing it; if thou makest after it, it maketh away from thee; if thou flyest from it, it followeth thee; if thou desirest to be glorious, be not ambitious; for all truly honor them who affect not honor: as on the contrary they hold a base opinion of such as are ever aspiring to honor, and that for the most part without desert.

Two weighty reasons we have in this verse to incline all Christian minds to obedient humility or humble obedience, a pattern of it and the reward thereof: he humbled himse • fe so low, therefore God exalted him so high. Of the pattern most lively drawn in the life and especially the death of our Savior, I have said something already, and shall more hereafter; yet can never say all. As Socrates spake of Philosophy, that it was nothing but meditatio mortis, a meditation upon death, we may of Divinity, that it is in a manner nothing else but meditatio mortis Christi, a meditation on Christ's death: for the learnedest of all the Apostles would be known of no other knowledge that he had, or much esteemed but this, I desire (saith he) to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Pliny describeth unto us a strange kind of people in Africa, that had no mouths, but received all their nourishment at their nostrils (which is nothing else but sweet smells and fragrant odors) who if they are to take any long journey, provide themselves of great store of flowers, and sweet wood, and aromatical spices, lest they starve by the way. I will not warrant the narration, because I know it is a case over-ruled in Aristotle's philosophy, that smells nourish not; but the application I can make good out of the Apostle, who calleth the Gospel and the Preachers thereof odorem vitae ad vi • am, a savor of life unto life. Though the natural life be not, yet the spiritual is nourished by odors & savors. And howsoever we are not in our bodies, yet in our souls we are Astomi, and, like those people of Africa, rec • ive nourishment from sweet trees and roots. The sweet root we are always to carry about us, is the root of the flower of Jesse: the savoury wood we are to smell unto, is the wood of the Cross, that is, the tree of life in the midst of our Paradise. It is the ladder of Jacob whereby we ascend into heaven, it is the rod of Aaron that continually buddeth in the Church, it is the Juniper tree whose shade killeth the Serpent, it is the tree which was cast into the waters of Marah and made them sweet: no water so bitter, no affliction so brackish, to which the Cross of Christ giveth not a sweet relish.

But to proceed from the eff • ct of Christ's passion in us, our comfort and salvation, to the effect of it in himself, his glory and ex • ltation, expressed in the letter of my Text, Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him.

Wherefore. Although there can be no cause given of God's will, which is the cause of all causes; yet (as Aquinas teacheth us to distinguish) there may be ratio rei volitae, a reason of the thing willed by God: for God, according to the counsel of his own will, setteth divers things in such an order, that the former is the cause of the latter; yet none of them a cause, but an effect of his will. For example, in that golden chain drawn by the Apostle, Whom he hath predestinated those he hath called, whom he hath called he hath justified, whom he hath justified he hath glorified: predestination is a cause of vocation, vocation of justification, justification of glorification; yet all of these depend upon God's will, and his will upon none of them. In like manner, God hath so disposed the causes of our salvation, that Christ's incarnation and humiliation should go before his glory and exaltation, & the one be the meritorious cause of the other: yet neither of them is causa voluntatis divinae exaltantis, but ratio exaltationis volitae; neither of them a cause of God's will exalting, but the former the reason of Christ's exaltation, as willed by God.

God. Though Christ rose of himself, and, as himself speaketh, reared up the temple of his body after it was destroyed ration suppositi, yet ration principii it is most true, God raised him up: and therefore the Apostle saith else-where, that he was raised by the right hand of God, that is, divine, power; but because this divine power was his own, and essential to him as God, he may be truly said also to have raised himself.

Hath highly exalted. Above the grave in his resurrection, above the earth in his ascension, above the heaven in his session at the right hand of his Father. In the words highly exalted there is no tautology, but an emphasis, which is all one as if he had said, Super omnem altitudinem exaltavit, super omnem potestatem evexit, he exalted him above all highness, he gave him a power above all powers, and a name above all names.

Him. It is desputed among Divines, whether this him hath reference to Christ, considered as God or man: that is to say, whether he was exalted according to his human nature only, or according to the divine also. Some later Expositors of good note, and by name M ^r . Perkins on the Creed, resolve that Christ was exalted according to both natures; according to his human, by laying down all infirmities of man's nature, and assuming to himself all qualities of glory: according to his divine, by the manifestation of the Godhead in the manhood, which before seemed to lie hid. But this seemeth not to be so proper an interpretation, neither can it be well conceived how that which is highest can be said to be exalted; but Christ (according to his divine nature) is and always was, together with the Holy Ghost, most high in the glory of God the Father. It is true which they affirm, that the Deity more manifestly appeared in our Savior after his resurrection than before, the rays of divine Majesty were more conspicuous in him than before; but this cometh not home to the point. For this manifestation of the Deity in the human nature, was no exaltation of the divine nature, but of the human. As when the beams of the Sun fall upon glass, the glass is illustrated thereby, not the beam; so the manifestation of the Deity in the human nature of Christ, was the glory and exaltation of the manhood, not of the Godhead. I conclude this point therefore, according to the mind of the ancient and most of the later Interpreters, that God exalted Christ according to that nature, which before was abased even unto the death of the Cross: and that was apparently his human. For according to his divine, as he could not be humbled by any, so neither be exalted: as he could not die, so neither be raised from death.

Having thus parced the words, it remaineth that we make construction of the whole; which confirmeth to us a principal article of our faith, and giveth us thus much to understand concerning the present estate of our Lord and Savior, That because being in the form of God, clothed with majesty and honor, adored by Cherubims, Seraphim, Archangels and Angels, he dis-robed himself of his glorious attire, and put upon him the habit and form of a servant, and in it, to satisfy for the sins of the whole world, endured all indignities, disgraces, vexations, derisions, tortures and torments, and for the close of all death it self, yea that cruel, infamous and accursed death of the Cross: therefore God even his Father, to whom he thus far obeyed, and most humbly submitted himself, hath accordingly exalted him, raising him from the dead, carrying him up in triumph into heaven, setting him in a throne of Jasper at his right hand, investing him with robes of majesty and glory, conferring upon him all power and authority, and giving him a name above all names, and a style above all earthly stiles, King of Kings and Lord of Lord's, giving charge to all creatures of what rank or degree soever in heaven, earth, or under the earth, to honor him as their King and God, in such sort that they never speak or think of him without bowing the knee, and doing him the greatest reverence and religious respect that is possibly to be expressed.

In this high mystery of our faith five specialties are remarkable:

• 1 The cause, Wherefore.
• 2 The person advancing, God.
• 3 The advancement it self, exalted.
• 4 The manner, highly.
• 5 The person advanced, him. Begin we with the cause.

Wherefore. That which was elsewhere spoken by our Savior, He that humbleth himself shall be exalted, is here spoken of our Savior, he humbled himself to suffer a most accursed death, therefore God highly exalted him to a most blessed and glorious life. We are too well conceited of ourselves, & gather too much from God's love and gracious promises to us, if we expect that he should bring us by a nearer way and shorter cut to celestial glory, than he did his only begotten Son; who came not easily by his crown, but bought it dearly with a price, not which he gave, but rather for which he was given himself. His conquest over death and hell, and the spoils taken from them, were not Salmacida spolia, sine sanguine & sudore, spoils got without sweat or blood-shed; for he sweat, and he bled; nay he sweat blood in his striving and struggling for them. Wherefore if God humble us by any grievous visitation, if by sickness, poverty, disgrace, or captivity we are brought low in the world, let us not be too much dejected therewith; we are not fallen, nor can fall so low as our Savior descended of himself immediately before his glorious exaltation. The lower a former wave carrieth down the ship, the higher the later beareth it up: the farther back the arrow is drawn, the farther forward it flieth. Our affections as our actions are altogether preposterous and wrong: in the height of prosperity we are usually without fear, in the depth of misery without hope. Whereas if we weighed all things in an equal balance, and guided our judgment, not by sight, but by faith; not by present probabilities, but by antecedent certainties: we should find no place more dangerous to build our confidence upon, than the ridge of prosperity: no ground surer to cast the anchor of our hope upon, than the bottom of misery. How suddenly was Herod, who heard himself called a god and not a man, deprived of his kingdom & life by worms and no men? whereas David, who reputed himself a worm and no man, was made a King over men. Moses was taken from feeding sheep, to feed the people of God: but on the contrary, Nebuchadnezzar from feeding innumerable flocks of people, shall I say to feed sheep? nay to be fed as a sheep, and graze among the beasts of the field. O what a sudden change was here made in the state of this mighty Monarch? How was he that gloried in his building of great Babel brought to Babel, that is, confusion? he that before dropped with sweet ointment, feasted all his senses with the pleasures of a King, hath the dew of heaven for his ointment, the flowery earth for his carpets, the weeds for his sallets, the lowing of beasts for his music, and the sky for his star-chamber. How great a fall also had the pride of Antiochus, who riding furiously in his chariot against Jerusalem, was thrown out of it on the ground, and with the fall so bruised his members, that his flesh rotted and bred worms in great abundance? He that a little before thought that he might command the waves of the sea (so proud was he beyond the condition of man) and weigh the high mountains in a balance, was now cast on the ground, and carried in an horse-litter, declaring unto all the manifest power of God. So that the worms came out of the bowels of this wicked man in great abundance; and while he was yet alive his flesh fell off with pain and torments, and all his army was grieved with the stench. The King of Armenia, who had been formerly tributary to Cyrus, understanding that that puissant Prince was engaged in a dangerous war with Croesus, worketh upon this advantage, rebels against Cyrus, and maketh himself an absolute Prince. But within a few days Cyrus having got the conquest of Croesus, turns his forces against this rebel, taketh him, his wife and children prisoners; yet upon his submission, above his hope and expectation, both giveth him his life and his crown, and putteth him in a better state than ever he was. Whereupon that proud captivated, and humble restored Prince, acknowledging his treachery and folly, said, O how doth the wisdom of heaven over-shadow the providence of mortal men? how little are we aware of what may betide us? how glassy are our scepters? how brittle our estate? The other day when I made full account to have made myself a free absolute Monarch, I lost both liberty and crown; and this day when I gave myself for gone, and looked every hour to have had my head struck off, I have gained both pardon, liberty, and my crown better settled than ever before. Such examples are so frequent, not only in the sacred Annals of the Church, but also in profane stories, that a Philosopher being asked what God did in the world, answered, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he abaseth noble things, and ennobleth base; he turneth Scepters into Mattockes, and Mattocks into Scepters; he maketh hovels of palaces, and palaces of hovels; pulleth down high things, and raiseth up low: agreeably to the words of the Prophet Isaiah, Every valley shall be exalted, and every hill brought low.

Whence notwithstanding we are not to infer. That God is more the God of the vales than of the hills, or that he better esteemeth the low cottage of the beggar, than the high turrets of Princes: he taketh no pleasure in the fall of any, much less of his dear children. It is not their broken estate, but their contrite heart; not their poverty in goods, but in spirit; not their lowness of condition, but their lowliness of mind, which he approveth and rewardeth, giving honor to that virtue which ascribeth all honor to him. The Apostle saith not, because Christ was humbled and put to so cruel and shameful a death, therefore God highly exalted him; but because he humbled himself. Which reason of the Apostle may be confirmed, or at least illustrated by other paralle'd texts of Scripture: The pride of a man shall bring him low, but the humble spirit shall enjoy glory. Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, but before glory goeth lowliness. When others are cast down, thou shalt say, I am lifted up, and God shall save the humble: and, He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the lowly and meek. Yea to honor and exalt them he humbleth himself, and cometh down to dwell with them: for thus saith the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place: with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. When a Prince rideth in progress how much are they graced at whose house he lieth but for a night? how far greater honor is done to the humble soul, with whom God lodgeth not for a night or abideth for a few days, but continually dwelleth? what can there be wanting where God is, in whom are all things? how will he furnish his house? how will he set forth his rooms? how gloriously will he beautify and decke his closet and cabinet? I know not how God can raise the dwelling of the humble soul higher, who by his dwelling in it hath made it equal to the highest heaven: I dwell, saith he, in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. There is no more difference between the seat of the blessed above the heavens, and the caves of the poorest servants of God under the earth, than between two royal palaces, the one higher the other lower built, but both equally honored with the Court lying at them. In the weighing of gold the light pieces rise up, but the weighty bear down the scale; and surely they are but light who are lifted up in a self-conceit, but they who have true worth and weight in them are depressed in themselves, and bear down towards the earth. Look we to the wisest of all the Philosophers, he was the modestest; for his profession was, Hoc scio, quod nihil scio; This I know, that I know nothing. Look we to the learnedest of all the Greek Fathers, Origen, he was the most ingenuous; for his confession was, Ignorantiam meam non ignoro, I am not ignorant of mine own ignorance. Look we to the most judicious and industrious of all the Latin, Saint Augustine, he was the humblest; for even in his heat of contention with Jerome he acknowledgeth him his better, Hieronymus Presbyter Augustino Episcopo major est, though the dignity of a Bishop exceed that of a Priest, yet Priest Jerome is a better or a greater man than Bishop Augustine. Look we to the best of Kings, David, he was the freest from pride; Lord, saith he, I am not high-minded, I have no proud looks, I do not exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me: surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother, my soul is even as a weaned child. Look we to the noblest of all the Roman Emperors, his Motto was, Malo membrum esse Ecclesiae quàm caput Imperii; I account it a greater honor to be a member of the Church than the head of the Empire. Look we to him that was not inferior to the chief Apostles, surnamed Paulus (as some of the Ancient guess) quasi paululus, because he was least in his own eyes, not worthy to be called an Apostle, as himself freely confesseth. Look we to the mirror of all perfection, Christ Jesus, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and grace, he setteth out humility as his chiefest jewel; Learn of me, saith he, that I am meek and humble in heart. The rain falleth from the hills, and settleth in the vales; and God's blessings in like manner if they fall upon the high-minded and proud, yet they stay not with them, but pass and slide from them down to the meek and humble, where he commandeth them to rest. The reason is evident why the humblest men are best; for grace alone maketh good, and a greater measure thereof better: now God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble; and to the more humble the more grace, because they more desire it, and are more capable thereof. For the more empty the vessel is, the more liquor it receiveth; in like manner the more empty we are in our own conceits, the more heavenly grace God infuseth into us. To him therefore let our souls continually gasp as a thirsty land, let us pray to him for humility that we may have grace, and more grace that we may be continually more humble.

LOWLINES EXALTED: OR Gloria Crocodilus. THE LIII. SERMON.

WEe are come to keep holy the solemnest feast the Church ever appointed, to recount thankfully the greatest benefit mankind ever received, to celebrate joyfully the happiest day time ever brought forth: and if the rising of the sun upon the earth make a natural day in the Calendar of the world, shall not much more the rising of the Sun of righteousness out of the grave with his glorious beams, describe a festival day in the Calendar of the Church? If the rest of God from the works of creation was a just cause of sanctifying a perpetual Sabbath to the memory thereof; may not the rest of our Lord from the works of redemption, more painful to him, more beneficial to us, challenge the like prerogative of a day to be hallowed and consecrated unto it? shall we not keep it as a Sabbath on earth, which hath procured for us an everlasting Sabbath in heaven? The holy Apostles, and their Successors, who followed the true light of the world so near that they could not miss their way, thought it so meet and requisite, that upon this ground they changed the seventh day from the creation, appointed by God himself for a Sabbath, and fixed the Christian Sabbath upon the first day of the week, to eternize the memory of our Lord's resurrection. This day is the first borne of the Church feasts, the Prototypon and samplar Lord's day, if I may so speak, from whence all the other throughout the year were drawn as patterns: this is as the Sun it self, they are as the Parelii the Philosophers speak of, images and representations of that glorious light in bright clouds, like so many glasses set about the body thereof. With what solemnity then the highest Christian feast is to be celebrated, with what religion the Christian Sabbath of sabbaths is to be kept, with what affection the accomplishment of our redemption, the glorification of our bodies, the consummation of our happiness the triumph of our Lord over death and hell, and ours in him and for him is to be recounted, with what preparation & holy reverence the Sacrament of our Lord's body and blood, which seals unto us these inestimable benefits, is to be received; with that solemnity, that religion, that affection, that preparation, that elevation of our minds we are to offer this morning sacrifice. Wherefore I must entreat you to endeavor to raise your thoughts and affections above their ordinary level, that they fall not short of this high day, which as it representeth the raising and exaltation of the worlds Redeemer, so it self is raised and exalted above all other Christian feasts. Were our devotion key cold, and quite dead, yet me thinks that the raising of our Lord from the dead should revive it, and put new life and heat into it, as it drew the bodies of many Saints out of the graves to accompany our Lord into the holy City. After the Sun had been in the eclipse for three hours, when the fountain of light began again to be opened, and the beams like streams run as before, how lightsome on the sudden was the world? how beautiful, being as it were new gilt with those precious rays? how joyful and cheerful were the countenances of all men? The Sun of righteousness had been in a total eclipse, not for three hours, but three whole days and nights, and then there was nothing but darkness of sor • ow over the face of the whole Church; but now he appears in greater glory than ever before; now he shineth in his full strength. What joy must this needs be to all that before sat in darkness and in the shadow of death? In the deadest time of the year we celebrated joyfully the birth of our Lord out of the womb of the Virgin, and shall we not this Spring as much rejoice at his second birth, and springing out of the womb of the earth? Then he was borne in humility, and swaddled in clouts, now he is borne in majesty, and clothed with robes of glory; then he was borne to obey, now to rule; then to die, now to live forever; then to be nailed on the cross at the right hand of a thief, now to be settled on a throne at the right hand of his Father.

As Cooks serve in sweet meats with sour sawces, Musicians in their songs insert discords, to give relish as it were to their concords, and Rhetoricians set off their figures by solaecismes or plain sentences: in like manner the Apostle, to extol our Savior's exaltation the higher, depresseth his humiliation the lower; he expresseth his passion in the darkest colors, to make the glory of his resurrection appear the brighter, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he emptied himself, word for word, made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. Wherefore God also 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , highly exalted him, Superexaltavit: as if ye would say, he highly raised him on high. The stroke is doubled upon the nail to drive it in further; the beam is reflected to give more light and heat; the word is repeated for more significancy and efficacy: as, Visitando visitabo, and desiderando desideravi, and benedicendo benedicam, and gavisi sunt gaudio magno; a • , in visiting I will visit, that is, I will most surely visit: and I have desired with desire, that is, I have vehemently desired to eat this Passover: and the wise men rejoiced with joy to see the star, that is, they exceedingly rejoiced: and in blessing will I bless thee, saith God to Abraham, that is, I will wonderfully, I will extraordinarily bless thee with store of blessings; so here superexaltavit, he highly raised on high signifieth he raised him by many degrees, he exalted him to the highest honor he was capable of: so highly, that all creatures whatsoever are far below him. In these two words, highly exalted, are wound up three Articles of our Christian Beliefe immediately following one the other in the Apostles Creed,

• 1. Resurrection,
• 2. Ascension,
• 3. Session at the right hand of God.

When he was raised from the dead, he was exalted; but when he ascended, and took his place at the right hand of God above all thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, he was highly exalted. As there are three descents in his humiliation; his death, his going down to Hell, his lying in the grave three days and three nights: so there are three ascents in his exaltation correspondent unto them; to the first degree of his humiliation, his death, answereth the first degree of his exaltation, his resurrection: to the second, his descent into hell, his ascension into heaven: to the third, his lying three days and three nights in the grave, which was the lowest degree of his humiliation, the highest degree of his exaltation, his sitting at the right hand of God. The sweet flower of Jesse, which was set at his death, and thrust deep into the ground at his burial, is now sprung up from the earth in his resurrection, openeth his leaves, and sends forth a savor of life unto life to all that by faith smell unto it.

But to keep to the words of my Text; the parts whereof resemble insecta animalia, those creeping things, which if you cut them asunder, will join again: therefore is as the communis terminus to them all, because the Son of God was so far humbled, it was fit he should be exalted accordingly; because he humbled himself, therefore God exalted him; because he humbled himself so low, God exalted him so high: where humility goes before, there is a just cause of exaltation; and where there is a cause, God will exalt; and where God exalteth, he exalteth highly.

Wherefore. It is hotly argued between the reformed Divines and Papists, Utrum Christus sibi meruerit; Whether Christ merited anything for himself, or only for us. The Romanists stand for the first, the Protestants for the second opinion. I see no cause why this controversy should not be composed: for questionless Christ's humiliation deserved an exaltation, neither can we attribute too much glory to our Redeemer. Albeit therefore as Mediator he merited for us, yet as man he might also merit for himself: and the word Quaproptet, Wherefore, seemeth rather to imply the meritorious cause of his exaltation, than a consequence only of the hypostatical union. Where God exalteth, there is always some cause; he advanced not his Son without merit. Whose example, if they (in whose gifts the greatest preferments are) did always follow, the garlands of honors should not be taken from them that win the race, and given to standers by. Cato was in the right, who said, he had rather that men should ask why hath Cato no statue or monument, rather than why should he have a monument? And surely it is a greater honor, that men should inquire why such a man of worth is not preferred, than why is such a man of no worth preferred; yet as in nature, so in states, the heaviest bodies will ascend ad supplendum vacuum, to fill up a vacuity. Worthlesse men, like Apes and Monkies, will not be quiet till they have got to the top of the house, and when they are there, what do they but make mouths and faces at passengers, or break glasses, or play other ridiculous feats? The old thorowfaire to the Temple of honor among the Romans, was by the Temple of virtue; but now it is said men have found a nearer way through the postern gate of Juno Moneta. The ancient Philosophers did but dream of a golden age, but we see it:

This may be well esteemed the golden age, in which gold is in greatest esteem. Gold supplies all defects, and answereth to all things: A Calf shall be worshipped with divine honor, if he be of gold. But the best is, they that rise like Jonas gourd in a night, are blasted in an hour; and as they are raised no man knows why, so they fall no man knows how. It is not possible that a high and great building should stand without a foundation. Now if we will believe Saint Augustine, the foundation of honor is worth, and this must be laid deep in the ground of humility.

He humbled himself; therefore God highly exalted him. If Christ, who humbled and abased himself so low, be now so highly exalted above all principalities, and powers, and thrones, and dominions, there is no cause then why any of God's children humbled under his hand, how low soever they are brought, should despair of rising again. Look they upward or downward, they may fasten the anchor of their hope: beneath them our Savior was, who now is above the heavens. Are they spoiled of their goods? he was stripped stark naked. Have they left a great estate, he left a Kingdom in Heaven. Are they falsely accused? he was condemned of blasphemy. Are they railed at? he was spit upon. Are they pricked with griefs? he was crowned with thorns. Do they lie hard? he hung upon the cross. Do they sigh for their grievous afflictions? he gave up the ghost in torments. Are they forsaken of their friends? he was for a time of his Father: ( My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ) Have they things laid to their charge they never knew? he was charged with the sins of the whole world, which pressed him down to the earth, nay yet lower, to the grave; and yet behold he now sitteth at the right hand of God, and he who was abased beneath the lowest creatures, is advanced above all, and all bow unto him. And therefore as the oak

taketh heart as it were, and groweth by the stroke of the axe; and as Anteus the Giant recovered his strength by his fall on the ground: so should they take comfort from their afflictions, and gather arguments of their future exaltation from their present fall and humiliation. They are fallen and humbled, therefore in case to be raised; there is a why and a wherefore they should be exalted: they are in a good way to honor, wherein they may see our Savior's footsteps before them. God woundeth and healeth, he killeth and reviveth, he letteth his children down to the gates of hell to terrefie them for their sins, and make them clasp about him, and lay faster hold on his promises; for he bringeth them back again. The solemnity used at the inauguration of the Emperor of the Tartars somewhat resembleth God's dealing with his children & the heirs of the crown of heaven. Bodin thus relateth it: When the Nobles and Peers are assembled, the Prince to be crowned is taken out of a chair of estate, and set upon a low stool or plank on the ground: the Priest who is to sacre him useth these words, Look up to heaven and acknowledge the sovereign Commander of the whole world, and know that if thou rule justly, he will establish thy Throne under thee, and settle the crown upon thee: but if thou cast away all fear of him, and car • of the people's safety and welfare, he will pull thee down from thy high Throne, and lay thee on the ground, take all from thee that he hath given thee, and leave thee not so much as this sorry board thou sittest upon. After which words he is invested with Princely robes, carried up in great state, set in his Imperial Throne, crowned and proclaimed Emperor: in like manner, God before he advanceth his dearest children, and putteth the Crown of glory upon their heads, setteth them as it were upon a low plank, in some mean or deplorate condition upon earth, that they may humble themselves under that mighty hand of his, which raiseth the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dounghill, that he may set them even with the Princes of his people. Since then God raiseth the poor from the dounghill to tread upon cloth of estate, and sit in the Throne of Princes, since he advanceth men of smallest means to great estates, and casting the bright beams of his favor upon the lowest and obscurest hovells and cottages, maketh them illustrious and glorious, why should any of God's children by any extremity whatsoever be driven to resign their estate in his promises? to close their own eyes before they are dead? and yield up their last breath with sighs of grief and groans of despair? They lie but in the dust, God raiseth from the dounghill, as he did Job; nay from the dungeon, as he did Daniel and Jeremy; nay yet lower, from the grave, as he did Lazarus; nay yet lower, from the neathermost hell, as he did our Savior. Kings have long hands, and God hath out-stretched arms: there is no place so high which they cannot reach, and from thence pluck down the proud: no depth so low, which they cannot sound, and from thence draw up the humble. The celestial bodies distill their influence down to the lowest vales, which stayeth not all there, but some part of it is conveyed yet lower, by pores & secret passages, even to the bosom and bowels of the earth, to the generation and perfection of the metals and mineralls there: and shall we not think that the beams of God's favor can carry down the sweetest influences of his graces into the deepest dungeon of misery, and darkest chambers of death? If art can make of ashes and trash pure and shining glass, if nature produceth gold of the basest of all the elements earth, and precious stones of excrementitious moisture; what marvel is it, that God should make scepters of mattockes, cedars of shrubs, and of those that are accounted the off-scouring of all things stars of heaven? No Christian doubteth of his power: all the question that can be made, is of his will; and thereof we can make no question that hear his gracious promise, that he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Why then are not all that are humbled exalted? A short answer may be, because they humble not themselves as Christ here did, neither are truly humbled. All that are thrown down presently do not yield; sickness may bring the body low, and calamity the estate lower, and yet the mind be high and haughty: and that de facto they are not humble, who complain that they are not raised, their repining at others preferment, and their staying behind them maketh it manifest. For nothing is so repugnant to humility as ambition: (ambition is of the Eagle and Falcons brood, it soareth aloft; but humility is e genere reptilium, of the nature of worms that creep on the ground.) He whom humility truly informeth how small his deserts, how great his defects are, how vain the pomps of this world, how secure a quiet and retired life, cannot inordinately desire preferment, which in his judgment is not preferment, since he preferreth a lower estate above it, as more suitable to the lowliness of his mind. With this two-forked ram therefore we may push down all the forts which discontented spirits raise against the divine providence: if they are truly humble, they desire not to be exalted; if they are not humble, they deserve not.

Howbeit, the cunning painter of vices in the tables of men's hearts setteth such a fair color upon ambition, that he sometimes deceiveth humble Christians, and ere they are aware, maketh them enamored with it. The color is the advancement of God's glory by their preferment: for these or the like thoughts he suggesteth, God hath bestowed upon you some eminent gifts or graces, this to deny were not humility, but unthankfulness; to bury these in oblivion and obscurity, cannot but be prejudicial to his glory: therefore since his commandment is, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven, it is your part to endeavor to take your candle from under the bushel which covereth it, and set it on a high candlestick, that is, some eminent place of dignity in Church or Common-wealth, that it may give light to the whole house of God. But latet anguis in herbâ, there lieth a foul affection under this fair pretence. For such as are overtaken with this temptation of Satan, seek not their own advancement for God's glory, but God's glory (if so at all they seek it) for their own advancement: they pray that the Sun may clearly show forth his beams, but it is, that their gifts, which are but as motes in comparison, may be seen and glissen in his rays. They are like false friends and cunning spokesmen, they bear the world in hand that they woo for God, but they speak for themselves. Otherwise it would be indifferent to them, if any other of as good or better parts than themselves, should be preferred to those dignities they aspire unto: and howsoever they could not but rest satisfied with the answer of God himself, I have glorified my name, and will glorify it. God hath a greater care of his glory than they can have: neither is there one only way by which he setteth forth his glory; for the ways of the Lord are mercy and justice. All that are exalted are not exalted in mercy, some are exalted in justice, as malefactors are carried up to a high scaffold for more exemplary punishment. God bestoweth no gifts in vain, he will make the best benefit and advantage for his glory, fear they it not: he knoweth the value of all the jewels of his grace, and he will sort and rank them where they may most decke and adorn his Spouse, take they no care for it. As for their condition, what doth their obscurity and privacy disparage them? their Father who seeth their good parts in secret will reward them openly.

I fore-see what may be further objected against the doctrine delivered; if he that humbleth himself shall be exalted, how cometh it to pass, that none are usually more vilified and dis-esteemed, than they who make themselves cheap? Tanti eris, quanti te feceris, a man is accounted of according to that he valueth himself: his gifts of mind and body are never thought worth more than himself priseth them at. Who get sooner into the highest places of preferment, than those who are still climbing? Doth not pride and ambition exalt many? or at least are not those that are in high places high minded? and consequently, neither are the humble exalted, nor those that are exalted humble? I answer that the proud are often exalted in this world, yet not by God; but either by the world, who like a cunning wrestler, lifteth up his adversary above ground to give him the greater fall: or by the Devil, who doth his best by his instruments to set them in high places, that through giddiness they may fall and ruin themselves: Or if it be by God, it is in justice, not in mercy, as soldiers condemned to the strapado, are drawn up to the highest round, that they may be more tortured in their fall. My collection out of this Text standeth yet firm, None are exalted by God in mercy, especially to a Crown in heaven, of which the Apostle here speaketh, but such as are dejected in themselves, and bear a low sails in their minds. For God acknowledgeth none for his but those that deny themselves; he is pleased with none, but those that are displeased with themselves: he accounteth none worthy of honor, but those that account themselves unworthy.

Now the reason why God exalteth the humble is apparent; for he hath promised, Honorantes me honorabo; Them that honor me, I will honor: and none more honoreth God than the humble, who ascribeth nothing to himself but all to God. If Princes most willingly advance those to high places under them, who they are persuaded will most honor them, and do them best service in their offices; whom then should God rather raise than the humble, who the more they are exalted, the more they extol him? the more glorious they are, the more they glorify him? the more light of honor they receive, the more they reflect back? Besides, to whom is honor more due than to those who fly it? who fitter to govern than they who know best what it is to obey? who are like to be freer from oppressing and depressing others, than they who in the height of their fortune most deject their minds? Those virtues which are most attractive, and are aptest to win our love and affection, are all either parts or adjuncts of humility. None so religious as the humble, who by so much hath a higher conceit of God by how much he hath the lower of himself. None so thankful as he, who acknowledgeth all God's blessings undue. None so patient as he, who acknowledgeth all the chastisements that are inflicted upon him most due unto him. None so obedient as he, who utterly denieth himself, and bringeth every thought in subjection to God's Word. None so fervent in prayer as he, who is most sensible of his wants. None so penitent as he, who abhorreth himself for his sins, and repenteth in dust and ashes. None so merciful as he, who accounteth himself the greatest offender. None so free in contribution to others as he, who maketh reckoning that any better deserves God's blessings than himself. These graces and beautiful ornaments of the humble soul kindle an affection in God himself, and shall they not inflame our love to this virtue? Look we not to the acts of it, which seem vile and base, but to the effects, which are glorious and honorable: It is called poverty in spirit, yet it enricheth the soul; it is in name and nature lowliness, yet it exalteth; it is vile in the eyes of the world, but precious in God's esteem. The grass upon the house top withereth, and the July-flowers on the wall soon lose their sent; but the Violets and other flowers that grow near to the ground smell sweeter, and last longer. What do the twelve precious stones shining in the foundation of the heavenly Jerusalem signify, but so many Christian virtues laid in the ground of humility? Neither let it trouble any, that men who put not themselves forth, though they are of extraordinary parts, are often forgotten in states, and neglected by those who should tabulas been pictas collocare in bono lumine, bring them into the light: for such men are most fitly compared to the statues of Brutus and Cassius, that were not brought forth nor carried with the rest in the funerals of Junia, of whom the wise Historian saith, Eo ipso praefulgebant quod non visebantur. If true honor, as all wise men judge, consist not in pomp and retinue, or lands, or possessions, or houses, plate, or jewels, but in the judgment and estimation of virtue; doubtless they have more true honor done unto them, whom the best reverence in their minds for their eminent gifts and graces, how obscure soever their condition and place be, than those of less or no worth, to whose office and place they give the cap and knee. When the Ass that carried the Idol of Isis upon his back, saw all the people fall down before the goddess, he lift up his head, and kicked up his heels, and never left braying, as being proud of so great honor done unto him: which folly of the silly beast the people checked in such sort for the present, that it grew afterwards for a Proverb, Non tibi, sed Isidi; Alas, stupid beast, the worship is not performed to thee, but to the image which thou bearest. I know ye prevent me in the application; and therefore I press these things no further: only give me leave to offer to them, who are out-stripped by men of inferior quality in their way of preferment, these considerations following. That the coal which is healed in the ashes liveth, when that which is raked out and blown soon dieth: the jewel in the casket is safe and most resplendent, when that which is taken out and worn is soyled or lost. Public offices and eminent places in Church and Commonwealth expose those that hold them to the view of all; as their good parts are taken notice of, so their bad cannot be concealed. Now if any man or woman other ways fair or beautiful, should yet have someone foul deformity in their face, were it a cut, or scar, or boil, or botch, or the like, would they desire much to be seen? would they not either keep in, or by a mask or veil cover this imperfection? Beloved Christians, there is none that hath not some or other greater imperfection in his mind, than any deformity in the body can be. Privacie, and places of small or mean employment cast a veil over those infirmities and imperfections, in such sort that none or very few espy them; public callings, and places of great action discover them to the view of all. In which consideration if we compare one with the other, the setting forth of their vices and imperfections, with the blazing of their virtues and good parts, if they have any; I am persuaded that never any proud and worthless, or vain-glorious, or ambitious person obtained their end, the constant applause and praise of men. For though for a time they are upon the tongue of all, and entertained with greatest acclamations before their blind sides and manifold imperfections are known; yet after veritas temporis filia hath brought in her evidence against them, their acclamations are turned into exclamations against them, & their name putrefieth even whilst yet they are alive. If a Soldier that hath done good service in a country where there were no good coin, but brass or lead pieces made currant by the Princes command for the present necessity, should have this condition offered him, that if he would be content with so much of his pay as might defray his necessary charge, and forbear the rest till he returned to his own country, he should receive so much in quantity in the purest gold as he might there in basest coin; could he except against it? nay should he not be very unwise to refuse so good an offer? The like condition is propounded by God unto them that daily fight his battles; for the good service they do, and the losses, wounds, infamy, or disgrace they suffer, glory and honor is due unto them, at least by promise: the glory of this world is of less value in comparison of celestial, than the basest coin in comparison of the purest gold; yet the country wherein they serve (this earth) affordeth no better: but if they forbear till they return to their own home in heaven, there they shall receive gold for copper, pearl for glass, a massy crown of gold for a gilt paper coronet, glory from God and his Angels for glory from men.

Lastly, the words of the Apostle Saint Peter are very remarkable to this purpose, Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: they who are not yet may be exalted in due time, if the due time fall by their life time, no man shall be able to cross them in their advancement, nor defeat them of it: if not, they cannot commence any suit of unkindness against our gracious God for not exalting them sooner than he did the greatest instruments of his glory, the Prophets and Apostles, nay and his only begotten Son, who became obedient unto death before he exalted him. The belssed Apostle S. Paul expected not his garland before he had run his race; neither did any of the Roman Captains think it long to stay for their donatives till the day of triumph, when they received a Crown from the Emperor, not below in the streets, but above in the Capitol. Our day of triumph is the day of judgment, when we are to receive a crown of righteousness, not on earth, but in heaven. In the mean while, if any preferments or honors be cast upon us, let us not esteem them as our hire, but take them only as earnests: but if we lead our life ingloriously, and breath out our last breath in silence and obscurity, let this be our solace, that as there can be no darkness where the sun shineth, so neither is there any place to be accounted private or inglorious where God and his Angels are present. There needs no other proof where God is an eye-witness of our labors and performance, no applauders where his Angels are spectators. I fill up this border therefore with a flower taken from Saint Cyprians samplar. This Martyr understanding of the discontent taken by some Martyrs in his days, that the Proconsull had so ordered that they should be put to death privately, and thereby made Martyrs sine martyribus, witnesses deposing for the faith of Christ without any to testify their constancy, or take example by their patience; thus he quieteth their minds: The glory of your martyrdom, saith he, is nothing eclipsed by the privacy of your suffering, so the cause be for the faith of Christ it will be abundantly sufficient proof of your patience, and assurance to you of your reward, that he for whom you suffer seeth what you suffer, and that he is your witness who will be your rewarder and crowner, even God himself. And so I fall upon the next circumstance, the person exalting. Wherefore

God highly exalted him. He humbled himself, but God exalted him. The fruit which we are to gather from this branch of my text is like to the former; yet there is a difference between them: the former qualified and pacified the mind from murmuring and discontent at our present estate and calling, how low and mean soever it were; this keepeth it from aspiring thoughts, and unwarrantable projects and attempts for the raising of our fortunes, and advancing our estate. Before the burden of our song was, He that humbleth himself shall be exalted; but now it is, He that exalteth himself shall be brought low. The latter is as true as the former, both were uttered with one breath by our Savior. As not he that commendeth himself is to be commended, so neither is he that exalteth himself to be approved, but he whom God exalteth. If any might ever have magnified and exalted himself, certainly our Lord and Savior might best, who both spake as never man spake, and did as never man did, and suffered what never man did or could suffer; yet he himself professeth, If I honor myself mine honor is nothing, it is my Father that honoreth me. He honoreth and exalteth himself who either vainegloriously setteth forth his own wares, blazoneth his own arms, and is the trumpet of his own praises: or he who ambitiously desireth such dignities and preferments whereof he is unworthy, or useth indirect means to compass those places whereof he might otherwise be worthy and capable. This vicious affection is discried in Diotrephes, noted in the Pharisees, sharply censured in the Disciples, severely punished in Adonijah, Seba, Absalom, and Haman. Jacob saw in his vision Angels ascending upon a ladder to heaven; what need Angels go by steps to heaven, who being spirits (as the Schools teach) can mount thither and back again in an instant? might it not be to teach us that Magistrates and Ministers, who are both in Scripture styled Angels, are not suddenly to leap or hastily to climb up to places of preferment, but ascend by degrees when God setteth a ladder for them? Thistle-down, and feathers, and vapors, and other light and imperfect mist bodies raise themselves from the earth; but precious metal, and all perfect mist bodies move not upwards but perforce. Trajan, if we may believe Pliny, was in nothing more over-ruled by Nerva than in taking the rule of the Empire into his hand. What violence was used to Saint Augustine and Ambrose at their investiture? the one wept, the other hid himself for a while, both hung off and drew back with all their strength. How doth Saint Gregory complain of them that chose him Bishop of Rome? What have ye done my friends? ye have laid such a burden upon me that presseth me down to the earth, in such sort that I cannot lift up my mind to the contemplation of the things that are above. Public charges, and eminent places, besides the great troubles they bring with them, expose them that hold them to great perils and dangers:

The high hills are struck with thunderbolts, the tops of trees blasted with lightnings, the pinnacles of Temples, and fanes of turrets, and weathercockes of steeples are frequently blown down with the wind, and all the storm, and violence of weather beateth upon the roofs and tops of houses:

The opposition between the members of these two verses is very observable, He humbled himself so low, therefore God exalted him so high. When man humbleth himself God exalteth, but when man exalteth himself God humbleth: how much better is it to humble ourselves and be exalted by God, than to exalt ourselves and to be humbled by him. As none can raise so high, so none can pull down so low as he. Lucifer who would have exalted himself above the stars of heaven, was thrown down below the worms of the earth: contrariwise, our Savior who humbled himself beneath the earth, even to the gates of hell, was raised by God above the highest heavens. My exhortation therefore unto you is the same with that of the Apostle S. Peter: Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: submit yourselves one to another, decke yourselves inwardly with lowliness of mind. There is no virtue drawn by the pensill of God in more lively colors, with brighter beams of his favor shining upon them, than it: for he that dwelleth in the highest heavens hath respect to the lowest and lowliest, he visiteth them, and dwelleth with them, he familiarly converseth with them, and revealeth unto them his secrets: he bestoweth on them the treasures of his grace, he raiseth them and advanceth them to a kingdom on earth, yea to a kingdom in heaven.

To whom, &c.

A SUMMONS TO REPENTANCE. THE LIV. SERMON.

WEE read in our Calendars of some things that come in at one season and go out at another; but sin is not of that nature, it is always coming in, but never goeth out till our exit out of this world. Therefore nothing is more necessary at any time, or more seasonable at all times, than the doctrine of repentance: we cannot hear too often of it, because none knoweth how oft he offendeth. Such is the weakness of our nature, and the slipperiness of our way in this sea of glass whereupon we walk, that we slip and fall daily, and are often maimed and wounded by our falls; and unless by grace the use of our limbs be restored unto us and we raised up by repentance, we lie as a prey for the Devil, who runneth about like a roaring Lion, seeking whom he may devour. Let it then not seem grievous unto you to punish and take revenge of yourselves often, who transgress more often: to afflict your souls often, who grieve God's holy spirit more often, whereby ye are sealed to the day of redemption. Sit par medicina vulneri, let the remedy be answerable to the malady, let the plaster fit the wound; if the wounds be many let the plasters be divers, if the wounds be wide let the plasters be large. Now to persuade all that hear me this day willingly to apply these smarting plasters, to undertake joyfully this task of godly sorrow, and perform cheerfully this necessary duty of mourning for our sins, I have chosen this Text: wherein God by expressing his desire of the life of a penitent sinner, assureth us that we shall obtain our desires, and recover the health of our soul if we take the Physic he prescribeth.

Have I any desire that a sinner should die, and not that he should return from his wicked way and live? If the wicked shall turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him; in his righteousness that he hath done, he shall live. But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity, and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth, shall he live? All the righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them he shall die. That is briefly, If repentance follow after sin, life shall follow after repentance; if sin follow finally after repentance, death shall follow after sin. O presumptuous sinner despair not, for repentance without relapse is assured life: O desperate sinner presume not, for relapse without repentance is certain death. Art thou freed from desperation? take heed how thou presumest: hast thou presumed? yet by no means despair. Nec spera ut pecces, nec despera si peccasti; Neither hope that thou mayest continue in sin, neither despair after thou hast sinned, but pray and labor for repentance never to be repented of.

But before I pitch upon the interpretation of the words, give me leave to glance at the occasion, which was a Proverbiall speech taken up by the Jews in those days wherein Ezekiel prophesied; ( The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge: ) of which we may say as Velleius Paterculus doth of Curio, It is a witty, but a wicked Proverb, casting a blot of injustice upon the proceedings of the Judge of all flesh. Aristotle reporteth it for a certain truth, That vulturs cannot away with sweet ointments; and that the Cantharides are killed and die suddenly with the strong sent and smell of roses: which makes it seem less strange to me that the doctrine of the Gospel, which is a savor of life unto life, should prove to some no better than a savor of death unto death: and the judgments of God which were sweeter to David's taste than the honey and the honey comb, should taste so sower and sharp in the mouths of these Jews (with whom the Prophet had to do) that they set their teeth on edge, and their tongue also against God himself; whom they stick not to charge with injustice for laying the fathers sins to the sons charge, and requiring satisfaction of the one for the other. Our fathers, say they, have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge: What justice is there in this? why should we smart for our forefathers sins? and lie by it for their debt? The depulsion of which calumny is the argument of this Chapter; wherein the Prophet cleareth the justice of God from the former foul aspersion, both by denying the instance, and disproving the inference upon it. They were not, saith he, the grapes your fathers ate that have set your teeth on edge, but the sour fruit of your own sin. Neither doth God seek occasion to punish you undeservedly, who is willing to remit the most deserved punishments of your former sins, upon your present sorrow and future amendment. So far is he from laying the blame of your fathers sins upon you, that he will not proceed against you for your own sins, if you take a course hereafter to discharge your consciences of them. The sufficiency of which answer will appear more fully, by laying it to the former objection; which may be thus propounded in form:

In which Syllogism, though the major or first proposition will hardly bear scale in the uneven balances of man's judgment, (for in some case the son loseth his honor for his fathers sake, as of treason) yet the Prophet taketh no exception at it, but shapes his answer to the assumption, which is this in effect, that their accusation is a false calumny, that he that eateth the sour grapes his teeth shall be set on edge: that the son shall not bear the iniquity of his father, but that the soul which sinneth shall die. For howsoever God may sometimes spare the father for many excellent virtues, and yet cut off the son for the same sin; because he is heir of his fathers vices, but not of his virtues: or he may launce sometimes the sin in the son, when it is ripe, which he permitted to grow in the father without applying any such remedy outwardly unto it: yet this is most certain, that he never visiteth the sin of the father upon the children, if the children tread not in the wicked steps of their father. Thus much the words that follow in the second Commandment imply, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. He often showeth mercy to the son for the fathers sake, but never executeth justice upon any but for their own sins. The sin of the son grows the more unpardonable, because he would not take example by his father, but abused the longsuffering of God, which should have called him to repentance. The Latin Proverb ( Aemilius fecit, plectitur Rutilius; Aemilius committeth the trespass, and Rutilius was merced for it) hath no place in God's proceedings, neither is there any ground of the Poets commination,

For God is so far from inflicting punishment upon one for the sins of another, that he inflicteth no punishment upon any for his own sin or sins, be they never so many and grievous, if he turn from his wicked ways, and cry for mercy in time: for God desireth not the death of a sinner, but of sin: he would not that we should die in our sins, but our sins in us. If we spare not our sins, but slay them with the sword of the Spirit, God will spare us. This is the effect of the Prophets answer, the sum of this chapter, and the contents of this verse: in which more particularly we are to observe,

• 1. The person, I.
• 2. The action or affection, desire.
• 3. The object, death.
• 4. The subject, the wicked.

• 1. The person sovereign, God.
• 2. The action or affection amiable, delight.
• 3. The object dreadful, deprivation of life.
• 4. The subject guilty, the wicked.

The words are uttered by a figurative interrogation, in which there is more evidence and efficacy, more life and convincing force. For it is as if he had said, Know ye not that I have no such desire? or think ye that I have any desire? or dare it enter into your thoughts, that I take any pleasure at all in the death of a sinner? When the interrogation is figurative, the rule is, that if the question be affirmative, the answer to it must be negative: but if the question be negative, the answer must be affirmative. For example: Who is like unto the Lord? the meaning is, none is like unto the Lord. Whom have I in heaven but thee? that is, I have none in heaven but thee. On the other side, when the question is negative, the answer must be affirmative: as, Are not the Angels ministering spirits? that is, the Angels are ministering spirits: and, Shall the Son of man find faith? that is, the Son of man shall not find faith. Here then apply the rule, and shape a negative answer to the first member being affirmative, thus: I have no desire that a sinner should die; and an affirmative answer to the negative member, thus: I have a desire that the wicked should return and live; and ye have the true meaning and natural exposition of this verse.

Have I any desire that the wicked should die? 1. God is not said properly to have anything: 2. if he may be said to have anything, yet not desires: 3. if he may be said to have a desire of anything, yet not of death: 4. if he desire the death of any, yet not of the wicked in his sin.

Have I? As the habits of the body are not the body, so neither the habits of the soul are the soul it self. Now whatsoever is in God is God: for he is a simple act, and his qualities or attributes are not re ipsâ distinct from his essence; and therefore he cannot be said properly to have anything, but to be all things.

Any desire. Desires, as Plato defineth them, are vela animi, the sails of the mind, which move it no other ways than the sails doth a ship. Desire of honor is the sails which moveth the ambitious: of pleasure is the sails which moveth the voluptuous: of gain is the sails which moveth the covetous. Others define them spurs of the soul to prick us on forwards to such things as are most agreeable to our natural inclination and deliberate purposes. Hence it appears, that properly there can be no desires in God, because desire is of something we want; but God wanteth nothing. Desires are means to stir us up, but God is immovable as he is immutable. If then he be said to desire anything, the speech is borrowed, and to be understood 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in such sort as may agree with the nature of God; and it importeth no more than God liketh or approveth such things.

That the wicked should die. A sinner may be said to die two manner of ways; either as a sinner, or as a man: as a sinner he dieth when his sin dieth in him, and he liveth: as a man he dieth, either when his body is severed from his soul, which is the first death; or when both body and soul are forever severed from God, which is the second death. God desireth the death of a sinner in the first sense, but no way in the latter: he desireth that sin should die in us, but neither that we should die the first death in sin, nor die the second death for sin. He is the author of life, preserver of mankind. He is the Savior of all, especially them that believe. He would not that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. If he should desire the death of a sinner, as he should gain-say his own word, so he should desire against his own nature. For being is the nature of God, Sum qui sum, I am that I am, but death is the not being of the creature. No more than light can be the cause of darkness, can God, who is life, be the cause of death. If he should desire the death of a sinner, he should destroy his principal attributes of wisdom, goodness, and mercy: Of wisdom; for what wisdom can it be to mar his chiefest work? Of goodness; for how can it stand with goodness to desire that which is in it self evil? Of mercy; for how can it stand with mercy, to desire or take pleasure in the misery of his creature? Doth he desire the death of man, who gave man warning of it at the first, and means to escape it if he would: and after that by his voluntary transgression he was liable to the censure of death, provided him a Redeemer to ransom him from death; calleth all men by the Gospel to faith and repentance unto life, giveth charge to his Apostles and their successors to preach the Gospel unto every creature, saying: Whosoever believeth and is baptized, shall be saved?

But here some cast a dark mist, which hath caused many to lose their way. How (say they) do we maintain that God desireth not the death of a sinner, who before all time decreed death for sin, and sin for death? This mist in part is dispelled by distinguishing of three sorts of God's decrees:

1. There is an absolute decree and resolute purpose of God, for those things which he determineth shall be.

2. There is a decree of mandate, or at least a warrant for those things which he desireth should be.

3. There is a decree of permission for such things, as if he powerfully stop them not, will be.

Of the first kind of decree or will of God, we are to understand those words of the Psalmist, Quaecunque voluit, fecit Deus; Whatsoever God would, that hath he done: and of our Savior, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am. To the second we are to refer those words of the Apostle, God would have all men to come to the knowledge of the truth, God would that all should come to repentance: and, This is the will of God, even your sanctification: and, Be ye not conformed to this present world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the acceptable and perfect will of God. In the last acception the Apostle seemeth to take the word will in those words: It is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing than for evil doing: and Saint Augustine, where he maintaineth that even those things that are most repugnant to the Law of God, and so directly against his revealed will, are not besides his will, but in some sort fall within the compass of his decrees. The will of God is done by or upon them, who seem to cross his will, after a wonderful and unspeakable manner; that comes not to pass but by God's will (that is, his secret decree) which is done against his will, (that is, his command.) For it could not be if he suffered it not, neither doth he suffer it against his will, but with his will: neither would he who it good suffer evil to be, but that by his omnipotency he can draw good out of evil.

The second distinction, which much cleereth the point in question, is of good things, which may be sorted thus:

• 1. Some are good formally, good in themselves, and by & for selves: as all divine graces, and the salvation of the elect.
• 2. Some things are good suppositively and consequently: as war is good not simply, but when without it either the safety or the honor of the state cannot be preserved: in like manner executions are nor good simply, but upon presupposall of heinous crimes worthy of death in him that is executed especially for the terror of others. No man will say that it is simply good to launce or cut off a joint, yet is it good in case that other ways the sore cannot, be healed, or the sound parts preserved from a gangrene.
• 3. Some things are good occasionally only or by accident, from whom some good may come, or be made of them, or out of them: as treacle of poison, and wholesome pills of such ingredients as are enemies to nature.

If ye rightly apply these distinctions, ye may without great difficulty loosen the knots above tied: the first whereof was, whether God decreed sin original or actual. Ye may answer according to the former distinctions, that he decreed effectually all the good that is joined with it, or may come by it, or it may occasion: but he decreed permissively only the Anomy, obliquity, or malignity thereof: he neither doth it, nor approveth of it when it is done, but only permitteth it, and taketh advantage of it for the manifestation of his justice. When Fulgentius denieth that God decreeth sin, and the Arausican Council thundereth out an anathema against any that dare maintain such an impious assertion, they are to be understood of a decree of effecting, or commanding, or warranting it. But when Calvin pleads hard for Adams fall to have not come to pass without a decree from God; lest he should make God an idle spectatour of an event of so great consequence, we are to interpret his words of a decree of permission of the event, and disposing of the fall foreseen by him, to the greater manifestation of his justice and mercy. Ordinavit (saith Junius ) id est, statuit ordinem rei, non rem ipsam decrevit.

To the second question, which toucheth the apple of the eye of this Text, whether God decreeth the death of any? ye may answer briefly, that he doth not decree it any way for it self, as it is the destruction of his creature, or a temporal or eternal torment thereof; but as it is a manifestation of his justice.

Here I might take occasion (as many do) to dispute divers intricate questions concerning the decrees of God, especially of reprobation, both absolute and comparative; and the acts of it, privative and positive: whether it depend merely upon the will of God, or pass ex praevisis, or propter praevisa peccata, upon, or for sins foreseen, original or actual: as also concerning the object, whether it be homo condendus, conditus, integer, or lapsus, whether man considered in fieri, as clay or red earth in the hands of God, out of which some vessels were to be made to honor, some to dishonor; or as created of God according to his image before his fall, or as fallen in Adam, tainted with original sin: or lastly, singular persons considered in the state of infidelity or impenitency, and so dying; sed nolo scrutari profundum, ne eatur in profundum; I will not approach too near this deep whirl-pool, lest with many through giddiness of brain I fall into it. For although I have read what S. Augustine writeth touching these points to Sixtus, Prosper to Vincentius, Falgentius to Monimus, what the 4. Councils held at Arles, Arausica, Valentia, & Mainz decreed against or for Godescalcus, & what Aquinas, Bonaventure, Ariminensis, Basolis, Biel, Banes, Capreolus, and Mediovillanus, and the Dominicans resolve on the one side; and what Scotus, Argentinensis, Herveus, Occam, Cumel, Molina, and the Franciscans generally on the other side, and lastly what the Remonstrants & Contra-remonstrants in our age have published one against the other to the worlds view: yet I profess I find many thorny difficulties, which cannot be plucked out but with that strong hand of the Apostle, O man, who art thou that disputest with God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? When all mankind in Adam lay in the snares of death, in which they entangled themselves, to have left all in that woeful plight had been justice without mercy, to have plucked all out had been mercy without justice; but to draw out some, and leave others in that doom which all had deserved, declareth both the divine attributes of justice and mercy: justice eternally shining in the deserved flames of the damned, and mercy in the undeserved crowns of the elect. But why more are not ordained to be saved than to be damned; why of children yet unborne one should be loved, and another hated; why the Infidels child sometimes comes to baptism, and the seed of the faithful dieth without it; why Christ wrought not those miracles in Tyrus and Sidon, which he did in Capernaum, since he knew they would have brought those Heathens to repentance in sackcloth and ashes, whereas they took no good effect with the Capernaits; why St. Paul was forbid to preach in some places where they found no opposition in the people, and commanded to preach in other places where the people shown themselves unworthy the means of salvation; why it is given to some to know the mysteries of Christ's Kingdom, and they are hid from others; why God is found of some who seek him not, and not found of others who seek him with tears; why some of most harmless and innocent carriage yet live and die in those places, where they never can hear of any tidings of the Gospel, others who have given scope to their vicious desires, and for many years continued in a most abominable estate of life, defiling their mouths with blasphemy, their hands with theft and murder, their whole body with uncleanness, yet before their death have the Gospel preached unto them, and their hearts opened to give heed unto it, and they sealed to the day of redemption: I profess with Saint Ambrose, Latet discretionis ratio, non latet ipsa discretio; this difference which God maketh of men is apparent, but the reason thereof is not apparent. I confess with S. Gregory, he that findeth not a reason of the actions of God, finds a reason in his own infirmity why he cannot find it. I resolve with Saint Augustine, Seek thou a reason, I will tremble at the depth of God's councils: dispute thou, I will believe: I see depth, I find no bottom. Doest thou, O man, look for a reason of me? I am a man as well as thou; therefore let us both give ear to him, who saith, O homo, O man, what art thou who standeth upon terms with thy Maker, and holdeth out argument against him? If ever that censure of the Poet fell justly upon any, Nae intelligendo faciunt, ut nihil intelligant; they understand themselves out of their wits, it most deservedly lighteth on those in our age, who cast all God's works in the mould of their own brain, and take upon them to yield a reason of his eternal counsels; as if they had been his counselors, who search into the unsearchable judgments of God, and will seem to find those ways which are past finding out. O the deph of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out? Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor? These men resemble those that unskilfully handle knots of wier strings, who by taking the wrong end, the more they labor to untwist them, the more they tangle them, and in the end are forced to cast them away as unserviceable for their instruments: wherefore leaving their curious speculations upon my Text, I come to a brief application.

1. Doth God take no pleasure in the death of the wicked that daily transgress his Law, grievously provoke his wrath, ungraciously abuse his mercy, and slightly regard his judgments? Doth he use all good means to reclaim them, and save them from wrath to come? Is the life of every man so precious in his eyes? Doth he esteem of it as a rich jewel engraven with his own image? how careful then and chary ought we to be, who are put in trust with it (locked up in the casket of our body) that we lose it not by careless negligence, much less expose it for a prey to others by duels, either sending or accepting challenges? Do we set such an invaluable jewel, as is the life of our bodies and souls, at so low a rate, that we will put it to the hazard, as it were to the cast of a Die for a matter of naught, a toy, a trifle, a jussle, a taking of the wall, an affront, a word? Do we make so small reckoning of that which cost our Savior his dearest hearts blood?

2. If Judges, & all those who sit upon life and death did enter into a serious consideration thereof, they would not so easily (as sometimes they do) cast away a thing that is so precious, much less receive the price of blood. For if it be accounted, and that deservedly, a sin of a deep die, to buy and sell things dedicated to the service of God, what punishment do they deserve, who buy and sell the living image of God? It is reported of Augustus, that he never pronounced a capital sentence without fetching a deep sigh; and of Titus the Emperor, that he willingly accepted of the Priests office, that he might never have his hand dipped in blood; and of Nero, that when he was to set his hand to a capital sentence, he wished that he could not write, Utinam literas nescirem: therefore let those Judges think what answer they will make at Christ's Tribunal, who are so far from Christian compassion, and hearts grief, and sorrow, when they are forced to cut off a member of Christ by the sword of justice, that they sport themselves, and break jests, and most inhumanely insult upon the poor prisoner, whose neck lieth at the stake. If any sin against our neighbor leave a deep stain in our conscience, it is the bloody sin of cruelty. Other sins may be hushed in the conscience, and rocked asleep with a song of God's mercy; but this is reckoned in holy Scripture among those crying sins, that never will be quiet till they have awaked God's revenging justice. This is a crimson sin, and I pray God it cleave not to their consciences, who wear the scarlet robe. If there be any such Judges, I leave them to their Judge, and briefly come to you, Right Honorable, &c. with the short exhortation of the Apostle, [ 3] Put you on the bowels of mercy and compassion; and if ever the life of your brethren be in your hands, make special reckoning of it, in no wise rashly cast it away: let it not go out of your hands, unless the law and justice violently wrest and extort it from you. Assure yourselves, that it is a far more honorable thing, and will gain you greater love and favor with God, and reputation with men, to save a man whom ye might have cast away, than to cast him away under any pretence whom ye might have saved.

4. If a malefactor arraigned at the bar of justice, should perceive by any speech, gesture, sign, or token, an inclination in the Judge to mercy, how would he work upon this advantage? what suit? what means would he make for his life? how would he importune all his friends to entreat for him? how would he fall down upon his knees & beseech the Judge for the mercies of God to be good unto him? Hoe all ye that have guilty consciences, and are privy to yourselves of many capital crimes, though peradventure no other can appeach you, behold, the Judge of all flesh makes an overture of mercy, he bewrayeth more than a propension or inclination, he discovereth a desire to save you, why do ye not make means unto him? why do ye not appeal from the bar of his justice to his throne of grace? why do ye not fly from him as he is a terrible Judge, to him as he is a merciful Father? Though by nature ye are the sons of wrath, yet by grace ye are the adopted sons of the Father of mercy, and God of all consolation, who stretcheth out his arms all the day long unto us. Let us turn to him, yea though it be at the last hour of our death, and he will turn to us: let us repent us of our sins, and he will repent him of his judgments: let us retract our errors, and he will reverse his sentence: let us wash away our sins with our tears, and he will blot out our sentence with his Sons blood. When Belshazzar saw the hand-writing against him on the wall, his heart mis-gave him, all his joints trembled, and his knees smote one against the other. Beloved Christians, there is a hand-writing of ordinances against us all, and if we see or mind it not, it writeth more terrible things against us. What shall we do to be rid of this fear? Is there any means under heaven to take out the writing of God against us? Yes beloved, tears of repentance with faith in Christ's blood maketh that aqua fortis that will fetch out even the hand-writing of God against us. The Prophet recordeth it for a miraculous accident, that the sun went back many degrees in the Dial of Ahaz. Beloved, our fervent prayers and penitent tears will work a greater miracle than this, they will bring back again the Sun of righteousness, after he is set in our souls. God cannot sin, Angels cannot repent, only man that sinneth is capable of repentance; and shall we not embrace that virtue which is only ours? Other virtues are remedies against special maladies of the soul: as humility against pride, hope against despair, courage against fear, chastity against lust, meekness against wrath, faith against diffidence, charity against covetousness; but repentance is a sovereign remedy against all the maladies of the mind. Other virtues have their seasons: as patience in adversity, temperance in prosperity, alms-deeds when our brothers necessity calleth upon our charity, fasting when we afflict our souls in time of plague, or any other judgment of God; but repentance is always in season, either for our grosser sins, or for failing in our best actions: if for no other cause, yet we are to repent for the insincerity and imperfection of our repentance. I will end this my exhortation as the Prophet doth this chapter, Repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed, and make you new hearts and new spirits, for why will ye die O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God? wherefore turn yourselves and live ye.

Amen. Cui, &c.

THE BEST RETURNE. THE LV. SERMON.

SAint Augustine lying on his death-bed caused divers verses of the penitential Psalms to be written on the walls of his chamber, on which he still cast his eyes, and commented upon them with the fluent Rhetoric of his tears. But I could wish of all texts of Scripture that this of the Prophet Ezekiel were still before all their eyes who mourn for their sins in private. For nothing can raise the dejected soul but the lifting up of God's countenance upon her; nothing can dry her tears, but the beams of his favor breaking out of the dark clouds of his wrath, and shining upon her: nothing can bring peace to an affrighted and troubled conscience but a free pardon of all sins, whereby she hath incurred the sentence of death; which the Prophet tendereth in the words of the text. Which are as the very heart of this chapter, and every word thereof may serve as a principal vein to convey life-blood to all the languishing, or benumbed and deadened members of Christ his mystical body. Return and live. These words are spirit and life, able to raise a sinner from the grave, and set him on his feet, to tread firmly upon the ground of God's mercy: as also to put strength and vigor into his feeble and heavy limbs; 1. to creep, then to walk, and last of all to run in the paths of God's commandments. The explication whereof to our understanding, and application to our wills and affections, were the limits of my last Lord's-days journey. By the light which was then given you, ye might easily discern our lusts (which are sudden motions) from God's desires, which are eternal purposes: and distinguish between a sinner who is not purged from all dregs of corruption, and a wicked person who Moab -like is settled upon his lees; between a common infirmity, and a dangerous sickness; between sin in the act, and wickedness in the habit. Questionlesse there is more reason to pity him that falleth or slippeth, than him that leapeth into the sink of sin, and daily walloweth in the mire of sensual pleasures. Yet such is the mercy and goodness of almighty God, that he desireth not that the wicked, such as make a trade of sin, and have a stiff neck, a hard heart, a seared conscience, that the wretchedst miscreants that breathe should either die in their sins here, or for their sins hereafter. The former of the two is the death of life, the latter we may significantly term the life of death, which exerciseth the damned with most unsufferable pangs and torments for evermore. Here when we part life dieth, but in hell death liveth, and the terrors and pangs thereof are renewed and increased daily; the former death is given to the vessels of wrath for their earnest, the latter is paid them for their wages. This death is properly the wages of sin, which God cannot in justice with-hold from the servants of sin, and vassals of Satan.

For God, whose infinite wisdom comprehends not only the necessity of all effects in their determined, but also the possibility in their supposed causes; foreseeing from all eternity what an intelligent nature, endued with freewill, left to himself, would do; how he would fall, and wound himself by his fall; and knowing how he could so dispose of his fall, and cure his wound, that his (the Creators) glory might be no whit impaired, but rather increased by not powerfully hindering it; decreed to create this creature for his glory: which he appointed to show upon him by three means. 1. By way of general bounty, in placing the first parents of mankind in Paradise, and in them giving all sufficient means to bring them to eternal happiness; an end infinitely elevated above the pitch of their own nature: and after the abuse of their free-will, and loss of that happy estate in which they were created, and bringing themselves into thralldom to sin and Satan. 2. By way of special mercy, graciously freeing, freely justifying, justly glorifying some in and by Christ, viz. the vessels of mercy prepared unto glory. 3. By way of justice, in utterly leaving, or uneffectually calling, and upon abuse or refusal of some measure of grace offered to them, deservedly hardening, and upon their final incredulity and impenitency necessarily condemning, and in the end eternally punishing others, to wit, the vessels of wrath, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , made up, or fitted to destruction. This fabric of celestial doctrine, strongly built upon evident texts of Scriptures, may serve for a fortress to defend this text, and the principal doctrines contained in it, against all the batteries of Heretics and Atheists made against it. viz.

1. That God approveth not the death of the wicked in his sin, but on the contrary, liketh, and commandeth, and taketh pleasure in his conversion.

2. That he decreeth not, or desireth the death of any wicked for it self, as it is the misery and destruction of his creature; but as a manifestation of his justice. For he punisheth not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 with his heart, or willingly: he made not death, nor delighteth in the destruction of the living. Thy destruction is from thyself, O Israel, but in me is thy help. The wicked after his hardness and impenitent heart, treasureth up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God: who rendereth to every man according to his works. Upon which texts the Fathers infer, that not only the execution, but the very decree of damnation of the reprobate passeth upon their sin foreseen. Saint Augustine, The vessels of wrath are wicked men created for the good of nature, but destinated to punishment for their sins: And again, If they are fitted to destruction let them thank themselves. Saint Prosper: They that fall away from holiness through uncleanness, lie not under a necessity of perishing because they were not predestinated: but therefore were not predestinated, because they were foreknown that they would be such by voluntary prevarication. Fulgentius: Those unjust men whom God foresaw that they would end their life in sin, he decreed to punish in endless torments: And again, he predestinated them to punishment who he foresaw would depart from him by the fault of their evil will: And again, God foresaw the sins of men, against which he pronounced a sentence in his decree of predestination. And the Fathers in the Synod held at Valentia: The wicked perish not because they could not, but because they would not be good, remaining in the mass of corruption by their own fault, original or also actual: As likewise in the Synod at Arles.

3. That he no way desireth, nor decreeth, nor so much as permitteth the death of any of his Elect; though before their calling to the knowledge of the truth, and sometimes after also, they so grievously transgress his holy laws, that they may be numbered, at least for the time, among the wicked. For how far soever they go in the ways of wickedness, they will turn at the last; and if a sinner turn from his ways even at the brink of destruction and gate of hell, he shall live: for, Have I any desire at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should

Return? There are many turnings in the life of a Christian: The first turning or conversion is by a sanctified phrase called regeneration, whereby we are mortified in the flesh, but renewed in the spirit of our mind; we cast off the old man, and put on the new. All after conversions are but so many particular acts of repentance, and returns from those courses which we ordinarily fall into, and follow, if God's preventing grace stop not the motions of our corrupt nature. This first conversion is as it were a general purgation of all the peccant humors of our soul, & is of that force that it changeth and altereth our temper and complexion. After this, all other aversions from sin and returns to God, are but like special purgations, prescribed by the Physician of our souls, to be taken upon special occasion, for the curing of some particular malady. In the first, non agimus, sed agimur; we work not, but are wrought upon, being, as the reformed Divines speak, mere passive: in the other, acti agimus, being wrought upon we work, like the wheels in the vision of Ezekiel, being moved by the spirit we move to Godward. At our first conversion the Scripture compareth us to dead men, that are not able to stir any joint; but in all later conversions, after God hat breathed into us the spirit of regeneration, to sick or weak men lying upon their bed, that are able to turn themselves with some help. This distinction of conversions is not new coined by us, but beareth the stamp of ancient truth, and is current in the Scriptures: in which wheresoever the faithful speak thus to God, Turn us and we shall be turned, they aim at the first conversion; but where God thus speaketh to his people, Turn ye unto me, or, turn from your wicked ways, we are to understand such texts of later conversions.

From his ways. Not from the ways of God, and paths of righteousness, but his own ways, that is, such courses as he hath taken beside, and against the direction of God's Spirit. More particularly thus; Have I not a desire that the ambitious should leave his inordinate pursuit of honor, the covetous of gain, the voluptuous of pleasure, and all of vanity, and that they should turn to me with their whole heart, with a perfect hatred of their former wickedness, and full and constant purpose of amendment, and so

Live? That is, escape eternal death, the due wages of sin, and attain everlasting life, the undue reward of righteousness. If the fear of hellish torments cannot make a separation between us and our beloved sins: nor hope of heavenly joys win us unto God, it will be to small purpose to go about to scare any with temporal plagues threatened in God's law against sin, or prick them with the sting of conscience, or confound them with shame, or amplify upon the losses of spiritual graces, which can never be recovered but by speedy and hearty repentance. The Spye of nature, in his book of the length and shortness of life, demonstrateth natural heat and radical moisture to be the sole preservers and maintainers of life, and the store of both in due proportion to be the cause of longer life. As life is compared in Scripture, so it is resembled in sculpture to a light or lamp burning; the fire which kindleth the flame of this lamp is natural heat, and the oil which feedeth it is radical moisture: without flame there is no light, without oil to maintain it, no flame: in like manner if either natural heat, or radical moisture fail, life cannot last: and as in a lamp, if by reason of the thickness of the week the flame be too great, it oversoon sucketh up the oil; if the oil be poured in in too great abundance, it choketh the light: so in us, if natural heat or radical moisture exceed measure or proportion, the lamp of our life burneth dimly, and in a short space is extinguished. Answerable to the natural life in the body is the spiritual life of grace in the soul: for as that is preserved calido & humido, by heat and moisture; so is this also by the heat of love, or zeal of devotion, and the moisture of penitent tears. Tears are the oil which feed this flame: for when we prick deep the tenderest veins in our heart with remembrance of our manifold and grievous transgressions, whereby we have dishonored God our Father, displeased Christ our Redeemer, and grieved the Spirit of grace our Comforter: when we take kindly to heart how that the better God hath been unto us, the worse we have proved unto him; the more grace hath abounded, the more sin hath super abounded; when our hearts melt with these considerations, and our eyes resolve into showers of tears; then we perceive that as salt water cast into fire increaseth the heat, so the salt water of our tears inflameth our devotion, kindleth our zeal, and quickeneth all our spiritual exercises of piety.

To nourish and maintain this oil, that our lamp go not out, I will endeavor to open two springs in my Text; the one a higher, the other a lower: the one ariseth from God and his joy, the other from ourselves and our salvation. That the conversion of a sinner is a joy and delight to God, I need not to produce arguments to prove, or similes to illustrate; he that spake as never man spake, hath represented it unto us by many exquisite emblems: The joy of a woman for her lost groat found, of a shepherd for his wandering sheep recovered, of a father for his prodigal child returned and reclaimed. Saint Augustine yieldeth a reason hereof, The more danger there is in the conflict with temptation, the greater joy in the triumph. Such was the joy of the Church for Castus and Aemilius, who though at the first upon the sight of fire prepared for them, they gave back, and were at a kind of stand, yet afterwards, beyond all hope and expectation, made a noble profession of their faith, and gloriously endured the fiery trial. To whom did our Savior ever more honor, than to Zacchaeus the converted Publican, to whose house he came being not invited, and brought with him the gladdest tidings that ever were heard there, This day salvation is come to this house: and to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he cast seven Devils, to whom he first appeared after his resurrection, whose spikenard he mingled with the ointment of the Gospel, in such sort that whosoever smelleth the savor of life, hath a sent also of the box of sweet perfume which she brake upon our Savior's head? Scipio (as Livy writeth) never looked so fresh, nor seemed so beautiful in the eyes of his soldiers, as after his recovery from a dangerous sickness which he took in the camp: neither doth the soul ever seem more beautiful, than when she is restored to health after some dangerous malady. The Palladium was in highest esteem both with the Trojans and Romans, not so much for the matter or workmanship, as because it was catched out of the fire when Troy was burnt. And certainly no soul is more precious in the eyes of God and his Angels, than that which is snatched out of the fire of hell and jaws of death. As the woman in the Gospel more rejoiced for her lost groat after she found it, than for all the groats she had safe in her chest: and as the shepherd took more delight in his lost sheep after, he found it, than in the rest which never wandered; so saith our blessed Savior, There shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.

I have opened the first spring, and we have tasted the waters thereof: I am now to open the second, which is this, That as our repentance is joy unto God and his Angels, so it is grace and salvation to ourselves. As repentance is called repentance from dead works, so also repentance unto life. For God pawns his life for the life of the penitent: As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should return and live. Pliny writeth of a fountain in Africa, in which torches that are blown out being dipped are kindled again: such is the fountain of tears in the eyes of a penitent sinner; if the light of his faith be extinguished to his sense and all outward appearance, yet dipped in this fountain, it is kindled again, and burns more brightly than ever before. The Scripture furnisheth us not with many examples in this kind, lest any should presume; yet some we find that none might despair. A man could hardly run a more wicked race than the thief upon the Cross, who lived both in caede and ex caede, maintaining his riot and wantonness by robbery and murder; yet he holdeth on his course even to the goal, and there taketh a greater booty than ever before: for he stealeth a celestial Crown. And behold this thief nailed hand and foot to the Cross, yet coming to our Savior by faith, and embracing him by love, and receiving from him, together with a discharge from the prison of hell, a fair grant of Paradise, This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. It should seem they were ill employed either all or the greatest part of that day, who came in but at the last hour into the Lord's Vineyard, yet they who came in then, received their full hire. The Devil occupied a large room in Martes heart, and found there good entertainment, else he would have never taken six other inmates with him to dwell and lodge there; yet Christ cast all seven out of her, and a whole legion out of another: and though this were a great miracle, yet to cheare up the drooping looks, • nd comfort the fainting spirits, and strengthen the feeble knees of all • hat bow to h • m for pardon and forgiveness, he wrought far greater. For he raised three dead men; the first newly departed: the second brought out, and lying upon the beer: the third buried, and stinking in his grave. A man may be ill a long time before he take his bed, and lie long in his bed before he feel the pangs of death, and be long dead before he be buried, and a good while buried before he putrefy: yet to show that no time prescribeth against God's mercy, nor excludeth our repentance from dead works, Christ by miracle raised two that were dead, and a third stinking in his grave. To comfort those that are wounded in conscience, the good Samaritan cured him that was wounded between Jerusalem and Jericho, and left half dead: to comfort them that are sick in soul, he recovered Peters wives mother lying sick in her bed: to comfort them that have newly as it were given up the ghost, he raised Jairus daughter: to comfort them that have been sometimes dead in sins and transgressions, he raised the widows son: to comfort them that have been so long dead in sins that they begin to putrefy, he raised up Lazarus stinking in his grave. God forbid that any one Devil should get possession of our hearts, yet seven, nay a legion may be cast out by fasting and prayer. God forbid that any of us should be long sick of any spiritual disease, yet those that have been sick unto death have been restored; yea those that have been long dead have been raised. God forbid that we should forsake our heavenly Fathers house, and in a strange country waste his goods, and consume our portion; yet after we have run riot, and spent all the gifts of nature, and goods of this life, and lavished out our time the most precious treasure of all, yet in the end if we come to ourselves, and look homewards, our heavenly Father will meet us, and kill the fat calf for u • . Therefore if we have grievously provoked God's justice by presumption, let us not more wrong his mercy by despair; but hope even above hope in him, whose mercy is over all his works. Against the number and weight of all our sins, let us lay the infiniteness of God's mercy, and Christ his merits, and the certainty of his promise confirmed by oath: As I live, I desire not the death of a sinner; if he return, he shall live. Oh (saith Saint Bernard) that mine eyes were springs of tears, that by my weeping here I might prevent everlasting weeping and gnashing of teeth in hell. What pity is it that we should fret and grieve, and disquiet ourselves and others for the loss of a Jewell from our ear, or a ring from our finger, and should take no thought at all for the loss of the Jewels of God's grace out of our souls? We are overwhelmed as it were in a deluge of tears at the death of our friends, who yet are alive to God, though dead to this world: but have we not a thousand times greater reason to open those floodgates of salt waters which nature hath set in our eyes, for ourselves, who are dead to God, though alive to the world? St. Cyprian hath a sweet touch on this string; If any of thy dear friends were taken away from thee by death, thou wouldst sigh, thou wouldst sob, thou wouldst put on blacks, thou wouldst hang do • ne thy head, thou wouldst dis-figure thy face, thou wouldst let thy hair hang carelessly about thine ears, thou wouldst wring thy hands, thou wouldst knock thy breast, thou wouldst throw thyself down upon the ground, thou wouldst express sorrow in all her gestures and postures: O wretched man that thou art, thou hast lost thy soul, thou art spiritually dead, thou survivest thyself, and carriest a dead corps about thee, and dost thou not take on? dost thou not fetch a deep sigh? hast thou not a compassionate tear for thyself? wilt thou not be thy own mourner? especially considering that all thy weeping and howling for thy friend cannot fetch him back again, or restore him to life; whereas thy weeping for thyself in this vale of tears, and seriously bewailing thy sins, may and by God's grace shall revive thy soul, and recover all thy spiritual losses, and that with advantage. Experience teacheth us that the presentest remedy for a man that is stung in any part of his body by a Scorpion, is to take the oil of Scorpions, and therewith oft to anoint the place: sin is the Scorpion that stingeth our souls even to death, if we apply nothing to it; yet out of this Scorpion sin it self, and the sorrow for it, an oil or water may be drawn of penitent tears, wherewith if we anoint or wash our souls, we shall kill the venom of sin, and allay the swelling of our conscience. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , It is a most sovereign water which will fetch a sinner again to the life of grace, though never so far gone. It is not Well water springing out of the bowels of the earth, nor rain poured out of the clouds of passion, but rather like a dew falling from heaven, which softeneth and moisteneth the heart, and is dried up by the beams of the Sun of righteousness.

Have not I a desire that the wicked should turn from his ways and live? When a subject hath rebelled against his natural Sovereign, or a servant grievously provoked his master, or a son behaved himself ungraciously towards his father, will the Prince sue to his subject, or a master to his servant, or a father to his son for a reconciliation? Will not an equal that hath a quarrel with his equal hold it a great disgrace and disparagement to make any means that the quarrel may be taken up? will he not keep out at full distance, and look that the party, who (as he conceiveth) hath wronged him, should make first towards him, and seek to him? Yet such an affection God beareth to us, that though we (silly worms of the earth) swell and rise against him, yet he seeketh to us, he sendeth Ambassadors to treat of peace, and entreat and beseech us to be reconciled unto God. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be reconciled unto God. Stand not out, my dear brethren, resign the strong holds of your carnal imaginations and affections, deliver up your members, that they may serve as weapons of righteousness, and yield yourselves to his mercy, and ye shall live.

Turn and live. Should a prisoner led to execution hear the Judge or Sheriff call to him, and say, Turn back, put in sureties for thy good behavior hereafter, and live; would he not suddenly leap out of his fetters, embrace the condition, and thank the Judge or Sheriff upon his knees? And what think ye if God should send a Prophet to preach a Sermon of repentance to the devils and damned ghosts in hell, and say, Knock off your bolts, shake off your fetters, and turn to the Lord and live? would not hell be emptied and rid before the Prophet should have made an end of his exhortation? This Sermon the Prophet Ezekiel now maketh unto us all here present, As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he turn from his ways and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die? Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions: so iniquity shall not be your destruction. Cast away all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart, and a new spirit: for why will ye perish? Shake off the shackles of your sins, and quit the company of the prisoners of death, and gally-slaves of Satan, put in sureties for your good behavior hereafter, turn to the Lord your God with all your heart, and live, yea live gloriously, live happily, live eternally: which the Father of mercy grant for the merits of his Son, through the grace of the Spirit. To whom, three persons and one God, be ascribed all honor, glory, praise, and thanks now and forever. Amen.

THE DANGER OF RELAPSE. THE LVI SERMON.

SAint Jerome maketh a profitable use of the Angels ascending and descending upon the ladder which Jacob saw in a dream, reaching from the earth to heaven. The ladder he will have to be the whole frame of a godly life, set upwards towards heaven, whereupon the children of God, who continually aspire to their inheritance that is above, arise from the ground of humility, and climb by divine virtues, as it were so many rounds one above another, till Christ take them by the hand of their faith, and receive them into heaven. They are styled Angels in regard of their heavenly conversation: these Jacob saw continually ascending and descending upon that ladder, viz. ascending by the motions of the spirit, but descending through the weight of the flesh; rising by the strength of grace, but falling through the infirmity of nature: and hereby (saith that learned Father) we are lessoned not to despair of grace, because Jacob saw Angels ascending; as they fell so they rose: nor yet presume of their own strength, for he saw Angels descending also; as they rose so they fell. Presumption and desperation are two dangerous maladies, not more opposite one to the other, than to the health of the soul: presumption overpriseth God's mercy, and undervalueth our sins: and on the contrary desperation overpriseth our sins, and undervalueth God's mercy: both are most injurious to God; the one derogateth from his mercy, the other from his justice, both band against hearty and speedy repentance; the one opposing it as needless, the other as bootless: presumption saith thou mayest repent at leisure, gather the buds of sinful pleasures before they wither, repentance is not yet seasonable: desperation saith, the root of faith is withered, it is now too late to repent. The learned dispute whether of these two be the more pernicious and dangerous; the answer is easy, presumption is the more epidemical, desperation, the more mortal disease. Presumption, like the Adder, stingeth more; but desperation, like the Basilisk, stings more deadly: many meet with Adders, which are almost found in all parts of the world; but few with Basiliskes. Presumption is more dangerous extensive, for it carrieth more to hell: but desperation intensive, for those whom it seizeth upon it carrieth more forcibly and altogether irrecoverably thither: and final desperation never bringeth men to presumption, but presumption bringeth men often to final desperation. To meet with these most pernicious evils, God hath given us both the Law and the Gospel; the Law to keep us under in fear, that we rise not proudly and presumptuously against him; and the Gospel to raise us up in hope that the weight of our sins sink us not in despair: the threats of the one serve to draw and asswage the tumour of pride; the promises of the other, to heal the sores of wounded consciences: and the Scripture (as Saint Basil rightly calleth it) is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a common Apothecaries shop, or physic school, wherein are remedies for all the diseases of the soul. In these verses, as in two boxes there are sovereign recipes against both the maladies above named: against the former, to wit, desperation, verse. 23. against the later, viz. presumption, v. 24. And it is not unworthy your observation, that as in the beginning of the Spring when Serpents breed and peep out of their holes, the Ash puts forth, which is a present remedy against their stings and teeth: so the holy Ghost in Scripture for the most part delivereth an antidote in, or hard by those texts, from whence libertines and carnal men suck the poison of presumption. The texts are these: God hath raised up an horn of salvation for us, that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear. Where sin abounded grace did much more abound. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. We are called to liberty. Now see an antidote in the verses following. Lest any man should suck poison from these words in the first text, Serve him without fear; it is added in the next words, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. Lest any man should abuse the second, the Apostle within a verse putteth in a caveat, What shall we say then? shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid: how shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? verse. 1, 2. Lest any should gather too far upon that general speech of the Apostle, There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, there follows a restriction in the same verse, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. Lest any should stumble at those words of the same Apostle, Ye are called to liberty, he reacheth them a hand, and giveth them a stay in the next clause; only use not liberty for an occasion unto the flesh. Lest any presumptuous sinner should lay hold on the horns of the Altar, and clasp about that gracious promise, The grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all men hath appeared, he beateth off their fingers in the next verse: teaching us, that denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. In like manner, lest any should wrest the former verse of this Prophet, as they do the other Scriptures, to the building forts of presumption, but to the apparent ruin of their own souls, the Prophet forcibly withstandeth them in the words of my text, But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, &c. The life of a Christian is not unfitly compared to a long and dangerous sea voyage; the sea is this present world, the barks are our bodies, the sailers our souls, the pylot our faith, the card God's Word, the rudder constancy, the anker hope, the main mast the cross of Christ, the strong cables our violent affections, the sails our desires, and the holy Spirit the good wind which filleth the sails and driveth the bark and mariners to the fair haven which is heaven. Now in our way which lieth through many temptations and tribulations, there are two dangerous rocks, the one on the right hand, the other on the left; the rock on the right hand to be avoided is presumption, the rock on the left threatening shipwreck is despair; between which we are to steer our ship by fear on the one side and hope on the other. To hold us in a solicitous fear that we touch not upon presumption, let us have always in the eye of our mind,

• 1 The glorious and most omnipotent majesty of God.
• 2 His all-seeing providence.
• 3 His impartial justice.
• 4 His severe threatenings against sin.
• 5 The dreadful punishments he inflicteth upon sinners.
• 6 The heinousness of the sin of presumption, which turneth God's grace into wantonness.
• 7 The difficulty of recovery after relapses.
• 8 The uncertainty of God's offer of grace after the frequent refusal thereof.

To keep us in hope, that we dash not upon the rock of despair on the contrary side, let us set before our troubled and affrighted consciences these grounds of comfort:

• 1 The infiniteness of God's mercy.
• 2 The price and value of Christ's blood.
• 3 The efficacy of his intercession,
• 4 The virtue of the Sacraments.
• 5 The universality and certainty of God's promises to the penitent.
• 6 The joy of God and Angels for the conversion of a sinner.
• 7 The communion of Saints, who all pray for the comfort of afflicted consciences, and the ease of all that are heavy laden with their sins.
• 8 The examples of mercy shown to most grievous sinners.

Upon these grounds the contrite penitent may build strong forts of comfort after this manner.

But to confine my meditations to the letter of my text. Before ye heard, Repent you of your sins and you shall surely live. God pawneth his life for it, therefore despair not how grievous soever your sins be. But now I am to tell you plainly, if you repent you of your repentance, and turn from righteousness to sin, and end your days in that state, you shall surely die eternally: therefore presume not, how complete soever your former righteousness seem to have been. In these two verses are implied a double conversion:

• 1 From evil to good.
• 2 From good to evil.

To turn from evil, is good; from good, is evil: the former is repentance, upon which I spent my last discourse: the later is relapse or apostasy, against which I am now to bend all my forces.

But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, &c. in the transgression which he hath transgressed, and in the sin which he hath sinned, in them he shall surely die. The contents of this verse are like the Prophet Jeremiah's figs, of which we read that the bad were exceeding bad; for in the antecedent or fore-part we have apostasy, & that total: and in the hinder part or consequent, death, and that final. The words divide themselves into (first) a supposition, When, or, if the righteous forsake: secondly, an inference, his former righteousness shall not be remembered, &c. The supposition is dangerous, the inference is pernicious.

To establish you in the truth of this supposition, or rather hypothetical commination, it will be needful to lay down certain grounds.

1. That the certainty of the end no whit impeacheth the necessary use of all means for the attaining it. For the end and means are coordinata, and both involved in the same decree. As the means are appointed for the end, so the end is decreed to be attained by such means; for example, the propagation of mankind by marriage, the maintaining our temporal life by food and sustenance, the recovery of health by physic, the reaping the fruits of the earth by manuring and tillage, the government of the world by laws, the calling of men to the knowledge of the truth by the Word and Sacraments, the keeping the children of God from presumptuous sins by admonitions and comminations. The heathen themselves saw a glimmering of this truth: for the Stoic Philosophers, who taught the foreknowledge of God, and thence inferred inevitable necessity of all events according to that foreknowledge, yet most strictly urged the performance of all moral duties and virtuous actions; and generally, the use of all means for the attaining that end any man proposeth to himself. Be it thy destiny (say they) to have many children by thy wife, yet thou must not neglect conjugal duties; be it thy destiny to recover of thy disease, yet thou must not neglect the prescriptions of the Physician; be it thy destiny to conquer thine enemy, yet thou must not forget to bring thy weapon with thee into the field; be it thy destiny to be a great Professor in Philosophy, yet thou must not neglect thy study; be it thy destiny to die a rich man, yet thou must not be careless of thy estate.

2. That this and the like comminations in holy Scripture are spoken generally to all, Elect as well as Reprobate: and they are of special use to both; to terrify the Reprobate, and keep them within some bounds, or at least to convince their consciences, and debar them from all excuse at the day of judgment; and to stir up the Elect to watchfulness over all their ways, and diligence and constancy in the use of all such means as by God's grace may keep them from back-sliding and dangerous relapses, to hold them in continual awe, and excite them to make their calling and election sure, and work out their salvation with fear and trembling, as Saint Augustine declareth at large through his whole book de correptione & gratiá.

3. That all Israelites are not true Nathaniel's, all converts are not absolutely so, nor all penitents thoroughly cleansed from their sins; many are regenerated but in part, they repent of their sins, but not of all, they keep a sweet bit under their tongue, they have a Delilah in their bosom, or an Herodias at their table, or a Bathsheba in their bed; though they be healed of all other diseases, yet not of the plague of the heart, some secret sin hath a kind of predominancy in them. Now as the Peacockes fl • sh, if it hath but an ordinary seething, grows raw again, cocta recrudescit; and wounds that are not perfectly healed, though they may be skinned over, break out again, and bleed afresh; so a man that is not perfectly regenerated in all parts, though he hath a taste of the heavenly gift, and may believe with Simon Magus, and tremble at God's judgments with Felix, and hear the Word gladly with Herod, and do many things; yet because the seed of the word hath not taken deep root in him, it is possible for him with Demas to forsake the Gospel, and embrace this present world; with Hymenaeus and Philetus, to make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience; with Julian to become an Apostate, and a persecutor of the truth.

4. The Prophet Ezekiel in this place speaketh not of Evangelical righteousness, but of legal: for he saith not simply when a man turneth from righteousness, but from his righteousness. And verse. 5. he defineth a just man to be he That doth that which is lawful and right, and hath not eaten upon the mountains, nor defiled his neighbors wife, &c. Now whatsoever may be alleged for the stability of evangelical righteousness, and their permanency who are engraffed into the true Vine, Christ Jesus; daily experience showeth that the most righteous on earth may and sometimes do remit of their strict observance of their duty; & that it is not only possible, but very facile for them to let loose the reins to sensual desires, and to follow the gainful, or ambitious, or voluptuous courses of the world, at least for a time. For the way to heaven is up-hill, but the way to hell is down-hill, and thither the weight of our sinful flesh forcibly tendeth.

A man may without any pain slip down to the place of everlasting pains and torments: Yea (saith Seneca ) a gouty man may get thither in a trice: But saith the Poet, all the labor is to come back from hell, and get up out of the deep pit: so he. But the truth is, no labor can work it, no skill compass it: for from hell there is no redemption. We know there is great strength required to bend a bow of steel, which will unbend it self, if the string break or but slip. Our motions to Godward, and proceedings in a sanctified course of life, are like the rowing of a small boat against a strong wind and tide (the blasts of the evil spirit, and the propension of our corrupt nature) much labor and sweat is required, and very little is done with much ado; and if we sl • cke our hands, and miss but one stroke, we are carried down with the stream, and cast further back than we can fetch again with many strokes. Did not Solomon turn away from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and do according to all the abominations of the wicked, when he defiled his body and soul with spiritual and corporal fornication? Did not David likewise, when he spilled the blood of Uriah, that he might more freely stay in the bed of Bathsheba? I spare the rest (because I would be loath with my breath to stain the golden and silver vessels of the Sanctuary) and come à Thesi ad Hypothesin, from the indefinite to the singular, from the hearers at large to this present auditory.

Ye hear out of the Text how incommodious and dangerous a thing it is for a righteous man to degenerate, and turn away from his righteousness; it depriveth him of all the benefit of his former travels in the way to heaven: it blasteth all the fruits of his labors, & without a second return to God, dasheth all his hope of reward, & leaveth him in a fearful expectation of eternal death. I doubt not but that some of you were pricked in heart with this sharp reproof of sin, which ye heard in the handling of the former Verses, and ye resolved forthwith to turn from your evil ways, and walk in the paths of God's commandments: what remains but that ye hold on your holy course, to the end that ye may win a garland of the flowers of Paradise? Beware of turning out of the way, to take up the golden apples which the Devil casteth before you; if ye turn never so little aside, ye endanger your crown of glory, and hazard your lives.

All your former righteousness which ye have done shall not be mentioned, and in the trespass that ye have trespassed, and in the sin that ye have sinned, in them ye shall die. What a soul and shameful thing is it with the dog to return to your vomit of luxury, and with the swine to your wallowing in the mire of sensual pleasures? As in the diseases of the body, so also much more of the soul, all relapses are dangerous, and in some diseases altogether incurable: the reason whereof alleged by some learned Physicians is this, that when we first take our bed the malignity of the disease worketh upon corrupt humors in the body, which when they are purged, and we restored to health, if after by any distemper we fall into the same malady, the malignity of the disease worketh upon our vital spirits: in like manner the malignity of sin before our conversion worketh but upon our corrupt nature, but after upon the graces of God's Spirit. Remember the possessed man in the Gospel, who when the unclean spirit went out of him returned to his own home, and finding it swept and garnished, took seven worse spirits than that which before haunted him, and so his last state was worse than his first. Sin no more, saith our Savior to the impotent man, lest a worse thing befall thee. Lysimachus was wont to say, that it was impardonable carelessness to stumble twice at the same stone. The first time we offend we may plead ignorance and over-sight: but he that twice runneth upon the same rock, if he be cast away, cannot blame his hard chance, but his reckless folly. Tertullian acutely observeth, that he who after his conversion to God, and giving his name to Christ, falls again to serve Satan in any vicious course of life, seemeth to have put God and the Devil in the same balance, and having weighed both their services deliberately, and upon a settled judgment, to have preferred the service of the Devil, and pronounced him the better Master of the two, whom he the second time chooseth to serve after he hath made trial of both. To be overtaken with some kind of temptation or other is the lot of all the sons of Adam; but when God hath delivered us out of the snare of the Devil, and we have escaped the danger, and undertaken a new course of life, and held it for some time; then to turn back to the wiles of sin, and walk of Satan, what is it else than to break all our former promises and vows made to God? to resist the motions of the Spirit? to strive against grace? to cast his fear and commandments behind us? and, presuming upon his gentleness and patience, to run desperately upon the point of his glittering sword, which he hath whet, and threatened to make it drunk with the blood of all reckless and presumptuous sinners? Notwithstanding all these great and fearful dangers which we incur by relapses, how many turnings do we make in our way to Heaven? how often do we slack our pace? how often do we unbend our desires? nay rather fly back like a broken bow? After we have made an open confession of our sins, and a solemn profession of amendment; after we have protested against our former courses, and vowed to walk in newness of life, and taken the holy Sacrament of our Lord's blessed body and blood upon it, yet how soon do we look back to Sodom with Lots wife? how soon do we forget that in private, which we promised in public? how soon do we leave the strait paths of God's commandments, and follow the sent of our former sinful pleasures? After we have eaten the food of Angels, we devour Satan's morsels: after we have drunk the blood of our Redeemer, we greedily swill in iniquity like water. We find in Scripture many desperately sick, yet cured the first time by our Savior: but where do we read in all the Gospel of any blind man's eyes twice enlightened? of any deaf ears twice opened? of any tied tongue twice loosened? of any possessed with Devils twice dispossessed? of any dead twice raised? No doubt Christ could have done it, but we read not that ever he did it, that we should be most careful to avoid relapses into our former sins, the recovery whereof is always most difficult, and in some case (as the Apostle teacheth us) impossible. I tremble almost to rehearse his words: It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the holy Ghost, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come; if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance: seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which bringeth thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned. The Scolopendra having devoured the bait, when she feeleth the hook to prick her, casteth up all that is in her belly till she have got up the hook; but as soon as ever that is out of her bowels, she suppeth up all that which before she had cast from her. How excellently hath nature in the property of this fish set before our eyes the condition and manner of a sinner? who after he hath devoured Satan's morsels, feeling the hook in his conscience, and being pricked with some remorse, rids the stomach of his soul by confession, and never leaveth fasting, and praying, and sighing, and sobbing till the hook be out, and the wound of his conscience healed with the balm of Gilead; but that being done, resorbet interiora omnia, he returneth to his former vomit, and greedily gurmandizeth the bait which before he had vomited up. Beloved, is God bound to help us up as often as we fall carelessly and willfully? What if he let us lie as a prey for the Devil, who runneth about like a Lion seeking whom he may devour? Can we promise ourselves a continual supply of grace, if we still turn it into wantonness? Will he believe our sighs and tears, which have so oft proved false ambassadors of our hearts? We see by the fearful judgments of Ananias and Sapphira how dangerous a thing it is to lie to the Spirit of God: what do we else when we daily profess in our prayers, that we are heartily sorry for our sins, that we loath and detest our vicious courses, that the remembrance of all our former transgressions is grievous unto us, and the burden of them is intolerable; whereas our deeds testify to the world, that we are so far from loathing our former filthiness, that we hunger and thirst after it: so far from hearty repentance, that our heart is set, and our affections wholly bent to follow wickedness with greediness? Let us not deceive our own souls, Beloved, God we cannot: so many sins as we willingly commit after our humble confession and seeming contrition, so many evidences we give against ourselves that we are dissembling hypocrites, and not sincere penitents: for this is the touchstone of true repentance, it a plangere commissa, ut non committas plangenda, so to bewail that we have committed, that we commit not that we have bewailed. I before compared this life to a sea, and now I may not unfitly most of the fish in it either to the Scolopendra, of which before, or to the Crab, which either standeth still or swimmeth backward. Do we dream (as Nebuchadnezzar did) of an image with an head of gold, and arms of silver, and thighs of brass, and legs of earth and clay? Do we not see many that are gold and silver in their childhood and youth precious vessels of grace, brass and iron in their riper years, and no better than earth and clay in their old age? The Lioness in the natural story, which at the first bringeth forth five young ones, and after fewer by one, in a short time becometh quite barren.

But because I have spoken at large of the dangerous antecedent, hear (I beseech you) a word of the dreadful consequent: All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned. Would it not vex a Scrivener after he had spent many days and much pains upon a large Patent or Lease, to make such a blot at the last word, that he should be forced to write it all again? yet so it is, that as one foul blot or dash with a pen defaceth a whole writing, so one soul and enormous crime dasheth and obliterateth the fairest copy of a virtuous life, it razeth out all the golden characters of divine graces imprinted in our souls. All our fastings and prayers, all our sighing and mourning for our sins, all our exercises of piety, all our deeds of charity, all our sufferings for righteousness, all the good thoughts we have ever conceived, all the good words we have ever uttered, all the good works we have ever performed: in a word, all our righteousness is lost at the very instant, when we resolve to turn from it. As one drop of ink coloureth a whole glass of clear water; so one sinful and shameful action staineth all our former life: yet this is not the worst; for it followeth:

In his transgression that he hath committed, and in the sin that he hath 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 sinned, in them he shall die. Doth God threaten this judgment only? doth he not execute it upon presumptuous transgressors? When Balthazar took a piece of the plate of the Sanctuary to quaffe in it, behold presently a hand writing his doom upon the wall; and in the transgression that he had committed, and in the sin that he had sinned, in it he died. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had no sooner opened their mouth against Moses, than the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up quick, and in the trespass which they had trespassed, and in the sin which they had sinned, in it they died. Ananias and Sapphira had no sooner told a lie to Saint Peter, and stood to it, but they were struck down to the ground, and in the trespass that they trespassed, and in the sin that they sinned, in it they died. Herod had scarce made an end of his oration to the people, and received their applause, crying, The voice of God, and not of man, when the Angel made an end of him, and in the trespass which he trespassed, and in the sin that he sinned, in it be died. Oh that our blasphemous swearers, and bloody murderers, and unclean adulterers, and sacrilegious Church-robbers, when the Devil edges them on to any impiety or villainy, would cast but this rub in their way: What if God should take me in the manner, and strike me in the very act I am about, and cast me into the deep dungeon of Hell, there to be tormented with the Devil and his angels for evermore? Do I not provoke him to it? Do I not dare him? Hath he not threatened as much? Hath he not done as much? Nonne cuivis contingere potest quod cuiquam potest? that which is ones case, may it not be any ones case? Yea, but they will say, God is merciful. He is so (else the most righteous upon earth would despair a thousand times) but not to those that continually abuse his longsuffering, and presume upon his mercy. If there be among you (saith God by Moses) a root that beareth gall and wormwood, and it come to pass that when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart to add drunkenness to thirst: the Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.

Yea, but God promiseth pardon at all times to the penitent. But where doth he promise at all times grace to repent? Be it that God would tender us his grace at what hour we please, which is presumption in us to hope for, yet the longer we defer the applying of the remedy, the more painful and dangerous the cure will be. In the conversive proposition concerning our conversion to God, I admit of the convertens, viz. True repentance is never too late; so they will take along with them the conversa, viz. that late repentance is seldom true. Howsoever, what piety is it? nay what equity? nay rather what abominable iniquity and impiety is it florem Diabolo consecrare, faeces Deo reservare? To consecrate the flower of their youth to the Devil, the world, and the flesh, and reserve the lees or dregs of their old age for God? To dedicate to him our weak and feeble dotage if we live to it, what is it better than to offer the blind and the lame for sacrifice, which God abhorreth? Repent therefore repent, repent at the first offer of grace. Ye shall scarce find any precept of repentance in Scripture, which requireth not as well that it be out of hand, as that it be from the heart: Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your heart. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Now he may be found, now he seeketh us, now he calleth to us: let us therefore break off all delays, and prick on forward our dull and slow affections with that sharp and poynant increpation of Saint Augustine, Why do I still procrastinate my coming unto thee, O Lord? Why not now? why not this day? why not this hour an end of my sinful course of life? Deo Patri, Filio, & Spiritui sancto sit laus, &c.

THE DEFORMITY OF HALTING THE LVII. SERMON.

ELijah, who sometimes called for fire from heaven, was himself full of heavenly fire, the fire of zeal for the Lord of Hosts. His words, like fire,

• 1 Give light,
• 2 Heate,
• 3 Consume.

1 They give light to this undoubted truth, That one, and but one Religion is to be embraced: either God or Baal must be worshipped, in no case both. Stand firm to one: How long halt ye between two?

2 They heat and enflame true zeal and devotion: If the Lord be God, follow him.

3 They burn up indifferency and neutrality: If Baal be he, go after him. This passage of Scripture relateth a Sermon of Elijah; wherein we are to note more particularly,

• 1 The Preacher, Elijah.
• 2 The Auditory, the whole Parliament of Israel.
• 3 The Text or Theame handled by him, viz. What God is to be worshipped, what religion to be established and maintained by Prince and people?

Now although I persuade myself that there is none in this whole assembly who halteth between the Popish and reformed Churches, or hath once bowed his knee to the Romish Baal: yet because Satan hath of late not only turned himself into an Angel of light, to dazzle the eyes of weak Christians in point of Doctrine, but also into a Seraphim of heat and zeal, under color of devotion to bring us to offer strange fire upon God's Altar; and especially because there is no lamp of the Sanctuary that burneth so brightly, but that it needeth oil continually to be poured into it to feed the flame: the opening of this Scripture cannot but be seasonable and useful to reduce you into the path, if you swerve from it never so little; or to prick you on, if you are in the right way that leadeth to the kingdom of God. The key to open this Text is the occasion of this exhortation of the Prophet: wherefore before I proceed to the exposition of the words, I must entreat you to cast a look backwards to the occasion of them, and the cause of the people's halting down-right: a circumstance not giving more light to the right understanding of the Prophets reproof, than strength to our steadfast standing, and upright walking in the high way to Heaven. What the religious Father spake by way of Apology, for handling controversial points in the pulpit, Ideo non dubitavimus dubitare, ut vos non dubitaretis, We therefore make no scruple to move doubts, that ye may not doubt, but upon the solution of them, be more settled in your most holy faith; I may say truly, that therefore I hold it needful to make a stay at the cause of the poeples halting, that their halting may be no stay to your godly proceedings, that you may never halt upon their ground, which was so slippery that they slid now this way, now that way, not able to set sure footing anywhere. Elijah by his divine commission drew them to God's Altar; but Ahab, especially at the instigation of Jezebel, by his royal power enforced them to offer at Baals groves: between both they were miserably perplexed, their minds distracted, and their worship divided between God and Baal.

Men are led by examples more than precepts, especially by the examples of Princes or Potentates, which carry a kind of Sovereigntie over men's affections and manners, as they themselves have over their persons: insomuch, that their moral vices, yea and natural deformities also, have been drawn and patterned out by some of their subjects, as if they were virtues and graceful ornaments. Diodorus Siculus telleth us in sober sadness, that it was the custom of the Ethiopians to maim or lame themselves in that part or foot on which their Prince limped, because they thought it a great disparagement for their Prince, that any about him should go more upright, or have a more graceful gate than he. And Atheneus likewise reporteth of Dionysius his familiars, that because himself was somewhat purblind, they, as they sat at table, reached towards dishes as it were by aim, and sometimes missed, that they might not seem more quick-sighted than he. And to make up the number, when Philip received a wound in his eye, Clisophus, as if he had got a blow on the same eye, putteth a patch on it: and when afterwards Philip was run thorough the right thigh, in comes Clisophus all to be plastered on that thigh, and out-halteth his Master. We can hardly hold laughing when we read or hear of the madness, rather than folly, of so gross flattery; yet we have cause rather to weep at the sight of a far worse flattery, and yet most usual, whereby some indeere themselves into great personages, by imitating their vices and profane carriage. To express these, they account it a kind of merit of favor, or at least an homage due to their greatness, because (saith Lactantius) to imitate the vices of Princes and Nobles, is a Court-complement, nay a part of the service and obsequiousnesse due to their persons: all men in Jupiter's time castaway the fear of God, lest they should seem to upbraid ungodliness to their King. Wherefore no marvel since Ahab was stark lame on his right leg, that the Israelites here, after the manner of Clisophus, followed him limping, looking sometimes to God's Altar, sometimes to Baals. O the subtlety of the enemy of our souls! how many fetches and turnings hath that wily Serpent to get in his head? if he get it not one way by Atheism, nor the contrary by Superstition, yet he hath a third way, to slide in by indifferency. Whom he cannot bring to coldness in the true religion, or hot eagerness in the false, he laboreth with a soft fire to make luke-warm, as he did the people of Israel, to whom he suggested these, or the like thoughts.

As the people thus reasoned with themselves, and after much swagging on both sides, in the end came to fix and resolve upon this middle way: out cometh the Prophet Elijah, and fearing no colors, presenteth himself first to Ahab, and afterward to the people: by Ahab he is entertained with this discourteous salutation, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? How darest thou appear in my presence? The Prophet as well appointed with patience to bear, as the King armed with rage to strike, encountreth the King on this wise; It is not I that trouble Israel, but thou and thy fathers house; in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and have followed Baal. We see here by the freedom of the Prophets reproof, that though the servants of God may be in bonds, yet the word of God is not bound; nay it bindeth Ahab and all his servants to their good behavior, they cannot stir hand or foot against the Prophet. They are so far from silencing him, that in God's name he commands them, saying; Send and gather unto me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the Prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the Prophets that eat at Jezebels table. The King taketh the word from Elijah, and gives it to the people, and a Parliament is on the sudden assembled, wherein Elijah is the speaker: his speech is an invective against unsettled neutrality, and dissembling in matter of religion: unsettledness is taxed in the word halt; indifferency in the words, between two opinions; dissembling and temporizing in the words following, if the Lord be God, follow him.

How long halt ye between two opinions? The Prophet here useth no flourish at all, no prolusion after the manner of Fencers, but presently he falls to blows, and that so smart, that he stunned his adversaries: for so we read, they answered him never a word? How long halt ye? An abrupt Exordium becometh a man that is in a vehement passion: such an one now surprised Elijah; the Baalites profaning God's name, polluting his Altars, slaying his Prophets, heat him above his ordinary constitution. In such a case as this was to have been luke-warm, had been little better than key-cold. When God is highly dishonored, the true religion wronged, gross idolatry patronized, not to be moved, is an argument either of insincerity or cowardice: Patientia digna omni impatientiâ: Such patience is insufferable, such silence is a crying sin, such temper a distemper. Wherefore no marvel if Elijah's spirit, in which there was always an intensive heat, now flamed, and his words were no other than so many sparks of fire.

How long halt ye between two opinions? Not why? but how? not do ye now? but how long will ye? not lose or miss your way, or go awry, but halt? not in a wrong path, but between two ways? How aggravateth the unseemelinesse of their gate by their manner, long by the continuance, halt by the deformity, between two opinions by the uncertainty. Is it not a most shameful thing to halt after an unseemly manner for a long time between two ways, not certain which to take or leave?

Out of the manner of Elijah's reproof observe the duty of a faithful Minister of God, when just cause is given to be round with his hearers, and to reprove them plainly, calling halting halting: if they do not so they halt in their duty, and the vengeance of God is like to overtake them, denounced by the Prophet Jeremiah; Behold, I will come against the Prophets that have sweet tongues, and say, He saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies and by their lightness, yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all. But because this note sorteth not well with this time and this queere, I leave it, and insist rather upon those that follow, the first whereof is the consideration of the time, or rather duration of this infirmity in the people.

How long? They that are sound in their limbs, may by a small strain or blow upon their legs halt for a while, but sure long to halt is a sign of some dangerous spraine or rupture: now this people (as it should seem) halted in this manner at least three years. The strongest and soundest Christian sometimes halteth in his mind between two opinions, nay which is worse, between religion and superstition, faith and diffidence, hope and despair: but he halts not long, Christ by his word and spirit cureth him. As in our bodies, so in our souls we have some distempers; doubts suddenly arise in our minds as sparks out of the fire, which yet are quenched in their very ascending, and appear not at all after the breath of God's spirit hath kindled a flame of truth in our understanding. Heresies and moral vices are like quagmires, we may slightly pass over them without any great danger: but the longer we stand upon them the deeper we sink, and if we be not drowned over head and ears in them, yet we scape not without much mire and dirt. Hereof S. Augustine had lamentable experience during the space of many years, in which he stuck fast in the heresy of the Manichees: Had I but (saith he) slipped only into the error of the Manichees, and soon got out of it, my case had been less fearful and dangerous; but God knows that for almost nine years I wallowed in that mud; the more I strived to get out the faster I stuck in. Beloved, if we have not been so happy as to keep out of the walk of the ungodly, yet let us be sure not to stand in the way of sinners, much less sit in the seat of the scornful: if we are not so pure and clean as we desire, at least let us not with Moab settle upon the lees of our corruption: if we ever have halted as Jacob did, yet let us not long halt with the Israelites, whom here Elijah reproveth, saying, How long

Halt ye? It may be, and is very likely that many of the Israelites ran to Baals groves and altars, and yet they were liable to this reproof of Elijah. For though we run never so fast in a wrong way, we do no better than halt before God. Better halt (saith S. Augustine) in the way, than run out of the way. This people did neither, they neither ran out of the way, nor limped in the way; but halted between two ways, and missed both.

Between two opinions. Had they been in the right way, yet halting in it, the night might have overtaken them before they came to the period of their journey; but now being put out of their way, and moving so slowly as they did, though the Sun should have stood still as it did in the valley of Ajalon, they were sure never to arrive in any time to the place where they would be. Yet had they been in any way, perhaps in a long time it would have brought them, though not home, yet to some baiting place; but now being between two ways their case was most desperate: yet this is the case of those whom the world admireth for men of a deep reach & discreet carriage: they are forsooth none of your Simon Zealots, Ahab shall never accuse them, as he doth here Elijah, for troubling Israel with their religion, they keep it close enough: whatsoever they believe in private (if at least they believe anything) they in public will be sure to take the note from the Srate, & either fully consort with it, or as least strike so soft a stroke, that they will make no jar in the music. Besides other demonstrations of the folly of these men, their very inconstancy and unsettledness convinceth them of it: for mutability and often changing, even in civil affairs that are most subject to change, is an argument of weakness; but inconstancy in religion, which is always constant in the same, is a note of extreme folly. Whence it is that the spirit of God taxeth this vice under that name, as, Oh ye foolish Galatians, who hath bewitch • d you? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? And, Be not like children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine. If religion be not only the foundation of Kingdoms and Common-wealths, but also of every man's private estate, what greater folly or rather madness can there be, than to build all the security of our present and hope of our future well-fare upon a sandy foundation? He that heareth my words and doth them not, is likened to a foolish man which buildeth his house upon the sand. All the covenants between God and us, of all that we hold from his bounty, are with a condition of our service and fealty: which since a man unsettled in religion neither doth, nor ever can perform, he can have no assurance of anything that he possesseth, no content in prosperity, no comfort in adversity, no right to the blessings of this life, no hope of the blessedness of the life to come: what religion soever gain heaven, he is sure to lose it. Whether the Lord be God, or Baal be God, neither of them will entertain such halting servitours. Were he not worthy to be begged for a fool, that after much cautiousnesse and reservednesse, would make his bargain so, that he were sure to sit down with the loss? such matches maketh the worldly-wise man; howsoever the world go, whether the true or the false religion prevail in the State, while he continueth resolved of neither, he is sure to lose the pearl which the rich merchant sold all that he had to buy. What shall I speak of inward wars and conflicts in his conscience? Now he hath strong inducements to embrace the Gospel, shortly after meeting with a cunning Jesuit, he is persuaded by him that he is an Enfant perdue, out of all hope of salvation if he be not reconciled to the Roman Church: the next day falling aboord with the brethren of the separation, he beginneth to think the Brownists the only pure and refined Christians; for all other Christians, if we believe them, build upon the foundation hay and stubble, but they gold, silver, and precious stones. When he is out of these skirmishes, and at leisure to commune with his own heart, his conscience chargeth him with Atheism, indifferency in religion, and hollow-hearted neutrality. Add we hereunto the judgment of all understanding men, who esteem such as double with God, and are of a changeable religion, to have no faithfulness or honesty. By how much the graces and perfections of the mind exceed those of the body, by so much the imperfections and deformities of the one surpass the other: what may we then judge of wavering inconstancy, which is compared to a spiritual palsy, or an halting in the mind?

Halt ye. Though the metaphor of halting used in my text might signify either a slackness or slowness in the way of godliness, or a maim in some member or article of their faith: yet, according to the scope of the place, and consent of the best Expositors, I interpret it unsettled wavering and inconstancy. For he that halteth is like a man of a giddy brain in a cock-boat or wherrie, who turneth the boat sometimes this way, sometimes that way, not knowing where to set sure footing. The opposite virtue to this vice is a steadfast standing in the true faith; whereto S. Paul exhorteth the Corinthians, Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And the Colossians, If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel: and for it he heartily prayeth; For this cause I bow my knees to the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all Saints, what is the breadth, & length, & depth, & height: & to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. The Pythagorians, who delighted to represent moral truths by mathematical figures, described a good man by a cube; whence grew the proverb, Homo undi{que} quadratus, A perfect square man every way. The reason of this emblem is taken from the uniformity & stability of this figure, which consisteth of six sides exactly equal, & on which soever it falleth it lies steadfast. As the needle in the mariners compass, while it waggleth to & fro till it be settled & fixed to the North-point, giveth no direction: no more doth our faith till it be settled immovably, & pointeth directly to the true religion, which is the only Cynosure to guide our brittle barks to the fair havens where we would be.

Between two opinions. It is bad to halt, but worse (as I shown before) to halt between two opinions: which may be done two manner of ways.

• 1. Either by leaving both, & keeping a kind of middle way betwixt them.
• 2. Or by often crossing from one to the other, and sometimes going or rather limping in the one and sometimes in the other.

The former is their heinous sin who in diversity of religions are of none, the latter of them who are of all. The former S. Augustine confesseth with tears to have been his piteous case, when being reclaimed from the heresy of the Manichees, and yet not fully persuaded of the truth of the Catholic cause, he was for the time neither Catholic nor Manichee. Which estate of his soul he fitly compareth to their bodily malady, who after a long and grievous disease, at the critical hours, as they call them, feel suddenly a release of pain, yet no increase of strength or amendment: at which time they are in greater danger than when they had their extreme fits on them, because if they mend not speedily they end. For there can be no stay in this middle estate between sickness and health. The wise Law-giver of Athens, Solon, outlawed and banished all those, who in civil contentions joined not themselves to one part. How just this Law may be in Common wealths on earth, I dispute not: this I am sure of, that our heavenly Law-giver will banish all such out of his Kingdom, who in the Church civil wars with Heretics, join not themselves to one part, I mean the Catholic and Orthodox. The Praetor of the Samnites spake to good purpose in their Senate, when the matter was debated whether they should take part with the Romans against other Greeks, or carry themselves as neuters. This middle way (saith he) which some would have us take as the safest for us, because thereby we shall provoke neither party, as bolding fair quarter with both, is the unsafest way of all; for it will neither procure us friends, nor take away our enemies. Of the same mind was the great Statesman Aristenus, who after he had weighed reasons on all sides, resolved that the Romans so peremptorily demanding aid of them as they did, they must of necessity either enter into confederacy & strict league with them, or be at deadly fewd; that middle way there was none. Apply you this to the Roman faith, and it is a theological verity; upon necessity we must either hold communion with the Roman Church, or professedly impugn her and her errors. God cursed Meros for not taking part with the Israelites against their and God's enemies: and Christ in the Gospel openly professeth, He that is not with me is against me. Media ergo via nulla est.

The second kind of halting between two opinions, may be observed in those, who are sometimes of one and sometimes of another. Men of this temper, though they seem to be nearer health than others, yet indeed they are in more danger; as the Angel of Laodicea his censure maketh it a clear case. For though they may seem to be more religious than they who profess no religion: yet since it is impossible that truth & falsehood should stand together, all their religion will be found to be nothing else but dissimulation, and so worse than professed irreligion. Here that speech of Philip concerning his two sons Hecaterus and Amphoterus, may have place: Hecaterus is Amphoterus, and Amphoterus is Udeterus, that is, he whose name is Either of the two, is worth Both, but he whose name is Both is neither. The Nazarean Heretics (saith S. Augustine ) while they will be both Jews and Christians, prove neither one nor the other. Doth zealous Augustine say so only? doth not the holy Spirit confirm it, that they who embrace or maintain more religions are indeed of none? How read we? The people of divers nations (saith the text) whom the King of Assur planted in Samaria feared the Lord, but served other gods. Now let us hear the censure of the holy Ghost, which follows, To this day they do after the old manner: they neither fear God, nor do after their ordinances, nor after the Law, nor after the commandment which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob; Fear no other gods, nor bow to them, nor sacrifice to them. Hence we may strongly infer, that Ambodexters as they are called, are Ambosinisters, & Omnifidians are Nullifidians: and that there is no greater enemy to true religion than worldly policy, which under pretence of deliberation hindereth sound resolution, under pretence of discretion extinguisheth true zeal, under color of moderation slackeneth or stoppeth all earnest contention for our most holy faith; yet without contention no victory, without victory no crown. How should they ever hope to be incorporated into Christ, whom he threateneth to spew out of his mouth? But I hope better things of all here present, though I thus speak, and things that accompany salvation, through the sincere and powerful preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ among you. Cui, &c.

OLD AND NEW IDOLATRY PARALLELED. THE LVIII. SERMON.

THe sum and substance of the speech made by the Prophet Elijah before King Ahab, the Nobles and Commons of Israel assembled on Mount Carmel, is a quick and sprightly reproof of wavering unsettledness, fearful lukewarmness, and temporizing hypocrisy in matter of Religion, which we are steadfastly to resolve upon, openly to profess, and zealously to maintain even with striving unto blood, which is gloriously died by death for the truth with the tincture of Martyrdom. How long halt ye between two opinions? &c. This reprehensory exhortation, or exhortatory reprehension was occasioned by the mammering in which the people were at this time: the causes whereof I lately inquired into, to the end that as the fall of the Jews became the rise of the Gentiles; so the halting of the Israelites between the right way and the wrong, might prove our speedy running in the race of godliness to the goal of perfection, for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The cause which I then declared unto you of their halting between two opinions was this: Ahab (instigated especially by his wife Jezebel, partly by his example, but much more by furiously brandishing before them the sword reking with the hot blood of the slaughtered Prophets and servants of the true God) drove them to Baals groves, where they prostrated themselves before that abominable Idol, and offered the flames of their Holocausts to the bright beams of the Sun. This their bowing to Baal, and burning incense to the host of Heaven, so incensed the God of Heaven, that he barred up the windows of Heaven, and punished their not thirsting after the water of life, with such a drouth, that not men only and beasts, but the earth also everywhere chopped & gasped for some moisture to refresh her dried bowels, which for the space of well-nigh three years had no other irrigation than the effusion of Saints blood. The people thus miserably perplexed, as being persecuted on the one side by the Prince, and plagued on the other side by God himself, in the end faint, and yield to the worship both of God & Baal. The crafty Serpent of Paradise resembleth the Serpent called Amphisbaena, which hath two heads, & moveth contrary ways at the same time. For when he could not make them hot in Idolatry by fear, he cooleth them in the service of God, and bringeth them to a luke-warm temper in the true Religion. At this the Prophet Elijah is exceedingly moved, and put out of all patience: his fiery spirit carrieth him first to Ahab, whom he thus charmeth; It is not I, but thou and thy fathers house that have troubled Israel, because ye have followed Baalim: after up to Mount Carmel, where meeting with a Parliament of all Israel, he thus abruptly and boldly setteth upon them: How long halt ye between two opinions? Every word hath his spirit and accent: How long? and halt ye? and between two opinions? It is a foul imperfection to halt, and yet more shameful long to halt, most of all between two ways, and miss them both. To be inconstant in civil affairs, which are in their own nature inconstant, is weakness: but in Religion, which is always constant and one and the self same, to be unsettled, is (as I proved to you heretofore) the greatest folly in the world. For he who is not assured of one Religion, is sure to be saved by none. Yet as massy bodies have some quaverings and trepidations before they fixe and settle themselves, so the most resolved and established Christian hath a time before he rest immovable in the foundations of the true Religion; but he is not long in this motion of trepidation, he is not altogether liable to this reproof of Elijah, How long halt ye between two opinions? Halting between two opinions may be (as I then exemplified unto you) two manner of ways, either by limping in a middle way betwixt both, or by often crossing ways, and going sometimes in one way, sometimes in another.

Against these two strong holds of Satan the Prophet Elijah setteth a dilemma, as it were an iron ram with two horns; with the one he battereth down the one, and with the other the other. If the Lord be God, then are ye not to stay or halt as ye do between two religions, but speedily and resolutely to follow him, and embrace his true worship; but if ye can harbor such a thought, as that Baal should be God, then go after him. Either Jehovah is God, or Baal is he, as ye all agree; whether of the two be, it is certain neither of them liketh of halting followers. If God be the Sovereign of the whole world, why bow ye the knee to Baal? if Baal be he, why make ye supplications to God? why inquire ye of his Prophets? What Lord soever be God, he is to be followed: if the Lord be he, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.

I hold it needless to make any curious enquiry into the names or rites of this Idol; that which way suffice for the understanding of this and other Texts of Scripture, I find that Baal was the abomination of the Sidonians, a people of Phoenicia, who (as Sanchoniacho an ancient writer of that country, and Herodian a later Roman Historian affirm) worshipped the Sun, invocating him Beel, or Baal-Samen, that is in their language, Lord of Heaven. Though this Idol were but one, yet in regard of the divers Images set up to it in divers places, we read of Baalim, & Baal-Peor, and Baal-Zebub; just (saith Ribera the Jesuit) as the Blessed Virgin, though she be but one, yet she is called by divers names, taken from the places where her Images are erected, as namely, she is called sometimes Lady of Loretto, sometimes of Monte serato, sometimes of Hayles.

But before I come to parallel the Papists and the Baalites, give us leave, right Honorable, who are Ambassadors for Christ, to endeavor to imitate that virtue which is most eminent in men of your place, I mean courage and liberty, to deliver what we have in commission from our Lord and Master. Ye will say, what need this preface? what doth this Text concern any here? though it be set upon the tenter hooks never so long, it cannot reach to any Christian congregation. It were ignorance and impudency to affirm, that any who have given their names to Christ halt between God and Baal, or offer incense to the Sun. I hope I may excuse all here present from the sin of the Baalites, & I would I could also all others, who profess themselves Christians; but that I cannot do, so long as the whoredoms of the Romish Jezebel are as evident as the Sun-beams, which the Baalites worshipped. I find not in Scripture Idolaters branded chiefly because they were Baalites, but Baalites because they were Idolaters. If then any who bear the name of Christians may be justly charged with idolatry, they fall under the sharp edge of this reproof in my Text, as also do all those who are not yet resolved which Religion to stick unto, the Romish or the Reformed. Now before we lay Idolatry to the charge of the Romish Church, it will be requisite to distinguish of a double kind of Idolatry or Superstition.

1. When religious worship is given to a false god, which is forbidden in the first precept of the Decalogue.

2. When a false or irreligious worship is given to the true God, which is forbidden in the second Commandment.

With Idolatry in the first sense we charge them not; for they receiving with us the Apostles Creed, worship one God in Trinity with us: but from Idolatry in the second acception they can never clear themselves, but by changing their tenets, and reforming their practice. For every will-worship, or worship devised by man against or besides God's commandment, is a false worship: and what is Popery almost else but an addition of human traditions to God's commandments & his pure worship? What is their offering of Christ in the Mass for a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead? their elevation of the host? their carrying it in solemn Procession? their dedicating a feast to it, called Corpus Christi day? What are their benedictions of oil, salt, and spittle, christening of Bells and Gallies? What are their invocation of Saints, Dirges, and Requiems for the dead? going in pilgrimages to the Images and Relics of Saints and Martyrs, but religious, or rather irreligious rites brought in by the Church without any command or warrant from God's Word? Secondly, other learned Divines distinguish Idolatry into

• 1. Crassam, a gross or palpable kind of Idolatry, when the creature it self is worshipped in or for it self.
• 2. Subtilem, a subtle and more cunning kind of Idolatry, when the creature is denied to be worshipped, but God in, by, and through it.

For as the same wool may be spun with a courser or with a finer thread, so the same sin specie may be committed after a grosser or more subtle manner. As for example: he may be said to commit gross murder, who cuts a man's throat, or chops off his head, or runneth him through the heart, and not he who poisoneth his broth, or his gloves, or his spurs, or his saddle; and yet the latter is as guilty of murder before God as the former. In like manner, he who defileth corporally the body of his neighbors wife, may be said to commit gross adultery, yet he is not free from that foul crime, who lusteth after a woman in his heart, though he commit not the foul act; so we may say, that he who robbeth a man upon the highway, or cutteth his purse in a throng, committeth gross theft; yet certainly he that cheateth or couzeneth a man of his money, is as well a breaker of the eighth commandment as the former: The same we are to conceive concerning Idolatry forbidden in the second commandment. For whether it be crassa or subtilis, a worship of the creature it self, or a pretended worship of God in or by the creature, it is odious and abominable in the sight of God. For the people that worshipped the golden Calf made by Aaron, and the ten Tribes which worshipped the Calves set up by Jeroboam, worshipped the true God in and by those Images. For Aaron, when he saw the golden Calf, built an Altar before it, & made a Proclamation, To morrow is a feast Jehovae, to the Lord. And Jeroboam (as Josephus testifieth) appointed not that the Calves that he set up in Dan and Bethel should be adored as gods, sed ut in Vitulis Deus coleretur; but that God should be worshipped in and by those Calves. Nay the Baalites, who were esteemed grosser Idolaters than the other, had this plea for themselves, that under the name of Baal-Samen, the Lord of Heaven, they worshipped the true God, as may be more than probably gathered out of the words of God by the Prophet Hosea, And it shall be in that day (saith the Lord) that thou shalt call me Ishi, my husband, and shalt call me no more Baal: for I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall be no more remembered by their name. Yet the Scripture styleth these Idolaters: Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them, as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. And God proceedeth against them, as if they were gross Idolaters: for Moses took the Calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed i • upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. And he said to the sons of Levi, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. Neither did the ten Tribes after, or the Baalites escape better: for the Kings of Israel were plagued for their Idolatry, and all the people led into captivity. And for the Baalites, they were slain with a sword, and the Temple of Baal made a Jakes.

Here I would not be mistaken, as if I put no difference between an Heathen and a Papist, an Heretic and an Infidel. For although the Papists in their transcendent charity exclude Protestants out of all possibility of salvation, deny them to have any Church, any faith, any hope of salvation, any interest in Christ, any part in God; yet we have learned from the Apostle to render to no man evil for evil, nor rebuke for rebuke, nor slander for slander: we deny them not to have a Church, though very corrupt and unsound; we doubt not but through God's mercy many thousands of our forefathers, who lived and died in the communion of their Church, and according to that measure of knowledge which was revealed unto them out of holy Scripture in the mysteries of salvation, led a godly and innocent life, not holding any error against their conscience, nor allowing themselves in any known sin, continually asking pardon for their negligences and ignorances of God, through Christ's merits, might be saved, though not as Papists, that is, not by their Popish additions and superstitions, but as Protestants, that is, by those common grounds of Christianity which they hold with us. All that I intend to show herein is, that in some practices of theirs, they may be rightly compared to the Heathen: as when the Apostle saith, that he that provideth not for his own family is worse than an Infidel, his meaning is not, that every Christian that is a careless householder, is simply in worse state than a Heathen; but only by way of aggravation of that sin, he teacheth all unthrifts that in that particular they are more culpable than Heathen: In like manner my meaning is not to put Papists and Heathen in the same state and rank, as if there were not more hope of a Papist than a Painims salvation; but to breed a greater loathing and detestation of Popish idolatry and superstition, by paralleling Baalites and other Heathens together, I will make it evidently appear, that some particular practices of the Roman Church are no better than Heathenish. Of this mind were they who laid the first stones of the happy reformation in England. Our Image maintainers and worshippers have used and use the same outward rites and manner of honoring and worshipping their Images, as the Gentiles did use before their Idols: and that therefore they commit idolatry as well inwardly as outwardly, as did the wicked Gentile Idolaters.

If any reply, that these Homilies were but Sermons of private men transported with zeal, and carry not with them the authority of the whole Church of England: I answer, that as those Verses of Poets alleged by the Apostle were made part of the Canonical Scripture by being inserted into his inspired Epistles; so the Homilies, which are mentioned by name in the 35. Article, and commended as containing godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for the times, are made part of the Articles of Religion which are established by authority of the whole Convocation, and ratified and confirmed by the royal assent. Were not this the express judgment of the Church of England, (whose authority ought to stop the mouth of all that profess themselves to be her children, from any way blaunching the idolatrous practices of the Roman Church) yet were not the fore-heads of our Image-worshippers made of as hard metal as their Images, they would blush to say as they do, that the testimonies which we allege out of Scriptures and Fathers make against Idols, and not against Image-worship. For the words are, Ye shall make no Idol or graven Images, nor rear up any standing Image, nor set up any Image of stone, to bow down to it. The words are, Thou shalt not make to thyself any Pesel, that is, anything carved or graven: And if there may seem any mist in this general word to any, the words following clearly dispel it, Nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth. The third Text is thus rendered in their own vulgar Latin: Take therefore good heed to your souls; for ye saw no manner of similitude in the day which the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest peradventure being deceived, ye make you a graven Image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth. Neither is our allegation out of the Prophet Isaiah less poignant than the former: To whom will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? The workman melteth a graven Image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation, chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman, to prepare a graven Image, &c. As tor the words Imago and Idolum, if we respect the original, they are all one: for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is derived from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , signifying the shape or species of anything: and therefore not only Aristotle calleth the shapes of things, which are received into our senses, the idols of the senses, but Cardinal Cajetan also the images of the Angels in the Ark, Idola Cherubinorum. If we regard the most common use of the words, they differ as mulier and scortum, that is, a woman and a strumpet. For as a woman abused or defiled by corporal fornication, is called a strumpet; so all such Images as are abused to spiritual fornication are called Idols. Thus Saint Isidore defineth an Idol: An Idol is an Image consecrated in an human shape. And at the first all Idols were such, but after men fell into grosser idolatry, and turned the glory of God not only into the similitude of a corruptible man, but also of beasts, and fowls, and creeping things. The difference which Cardinal Bellarmine maketh between an Image and an Idol (viz.) that an Idol is the representation of that which hath no existence in nature; but an Image the likeness of something really existent, is false, and repugnant to Scripture. For the Cherubims in the A • ke were Images, yet never was there anything in nature existent in such a form as they were expressed, viz. in the face of a child with six wings. And no man doubteth, but that the Image which Aaron made, the Nehustan which Hezekiah brake down, Bell and the Dragon, Rempham, Baal, and Dagon were Idols, and the worshippers of them Idolaters: yet were these figures the representations of things existent in nature, viz. of a King, a Beast, a Serpent, a Star, the Sun, and a Fish: and therefore what arguments the ancient Fathers, Origen, Arnobius, Lactantius, and Minutius Felix use against the Heathenish Idols, will serve as strong weapons to knock down and batter in pieces all Popish Images. What a madness is it (saith Lactantius) either to make that which they ought to fear, or to fear that which themselves have made? If ye worship the Images for themselves, ye are more senseless and blockish than they: for they if they had life and sense as ye have, would not suffer you to worship them, but themselves would fall down and worship you their makers. But if,