A Century of Sermons

All that I bend towards in my instruction is this: That forasmuch as we have but this one day allotted for our exercise of extraordinary Prayer and Mortification, the benefit may dispread unto tomorrow, and the morrow after, and so spin it out, that we may keep time with Nehemiah, and say we have mourned certain days.

But why hath he not expressed how long he continued in this sad habit of repentance; I mourned certain days: and wherefore are his certain days so uncertain? Because he did not keep reckoning with God, and take a precise account how much service he did him: as the Pharisee had it at his fingers ends, I fast twice a week: and as the most are perfect to number their few good deeds, I give so much yearly to the poor, I frequent the holy Communion so often: I go now and then on working days to morning Prayer. And perhaps before night some will break out into boasting, how many hours they have spent at Church upon this solemn Fast. This is to serve God by weight and measure, and to score up every good minute we have spent, lest the Lord should forget it. But Nehemiah doth not make ostentation of the just length of time, which he spent in devotion and sorrow, but closeth it up indefinitely in this manner, I mourned certain days.

And this mourning drew on another exercise of religious affliction, which denominates the Piety of this day, He fasted. It is very proper that this partner should go hand in hand with mourning. I wept and chastened myself with fasting, says David. A pensive mind will seldom have a hungry stomach: True sorrow will make a man forget to eat his bread. Some will not deny that there is an harmony between Fasting and Mourning not to be broken, but they cannot abide to come under the penance of Fasting, and then they shut mourning out of doors because it wants its Mate. But the Libertine maunders, Fasting, what is that to the advantage of Repentance? The Kingdom of Heaven is not meat and drink. If we eat, we are not the worse: and if we eat not, we are not the better. And what God hath given us freely, why is our liberty abridged, that we may not use it when we will?

I answer, None is more firmly enfeoffed of anything than the Husband is of the Wife, and the Wife of the Husband: And yet they may keep asunder with consent for a time, that they may give themselves to Fasting and Prayer, 1 Cor. vii. 5. So the Lord hath given us the earth, and the fullness of it: but it is expedient sometimes, as on this day, to abstain from meats, that the Spirit may be the stronger to work by the subjection of the body. It is a means, both upon the extraordinariness of it, to make us look exactly into the bottom of our conscience, as also to elevate the mind, and to make it more capable of heavenly thoughts. As we see it in St. Peter, he fasted, and fell into a trance, and saw that Vision, happy for us, the calling of the Gentiles, Act. x. So Daniel eat no pleasant bread, nor drank Wine for three weeks, and he was the better composed for those Prophetical Revelations which were imparted to him, Dan. x. 2. It is not the bare abstinence from meats, take it alone by itself, that pleaseth God: but as it is in conjunction with other holy duties: as to dispose the body to Chastity, and to heighten up the mind to the contemplation of heavenly things. That you may know the right Fast from the wrong, there are three to one in whom there is no profit at all. Jejunat justus, mendicus, hypocritá, parcus, says the old verse. 1. The Hypocrite abstains from meats, and looks sadly, not that he may cast himself down before God, but that he may exalt his name among men. 2. The Niggard fasts, and torments his body to spare his Purse. 3. The poor man fasts, because he hath not wherewithal to relieve his hunger. These are not within the compass of Religion. But fourthly the devour man fasts, to give his soul the true bias of penance and mourning, and to testify before heaven and earth, that nothing shall comfort him but the mercy of God, whom he hath offended.

I will come to particularise in the Sphere of our Nation. First, if there were no other sin among us (but woe and alas we abound with a great deal more) but if we had no other fault, yet the strange intolerable luxury brought in in these consuming days, the great mystery of Cookery, utterly unknown to the laudable hospitality of our forefathers; this wanton, aromatical Ambergriece-diet (what should I call it?) Doth it not deserve to be expiated by a Public Fast? Doth it not require that we should set aside all manner of food for one day till Even? As good men and temperate were ashamed to eat for necessity, because costly Palats are so profusely lavish in superfluity. Let us confess, and declare in act, that we deserve not that which God hath given us: let us subscribe by this humiliation, that we have forfeited that right and dominion which we had in the Creatures, and that we are not worthy so much as to gather up the Crums under our Masters Table.

Secondly, We dwell in a Land, upon which the heaven doth cast its most propitious influence: it is the true Ganaan of the Western world, flowing with so much plenty, that I have oftener heard it grumbled at, that it brought forth too much, than that it brought forth too little. Either it brings forth all manner of store, or all manner of store by commodious Navigation is brought into it. Ex te provenient, vel aliunde tibi. And how unthankful have we been for this most bounteous sustenance? How slack in our acknowledgment, that God hath opened the windows of heaven to rain down plenty upon us? Is it not fit therefore that we should do justice upon ourselves, forbear, and touch no more food, until we have sanctified a Fast, and made an atonement for our ingratitude, and pressed it upon ourselves to be more thankful?

Thirdly, The poor and needy have been neglected by us: They have been almost famished when we have surfeited: and they have wanted that which the rich men's Dogs have devoured. O therefore chastise your bodies with hunger at this once, that you may avenge the injuries which you have done to the poor upon your own flesh. Cornelius the Centurton fasted and gave Alms: whereupon, says St. Austin, Cornelius, when himself fasted, fed others who had no meat, that their replenishing might make his Fast the more acceptable to God. So this day you must feed the poor out of your own bellies, and whatsoever you spare from your meal, spend it on them, and you shall feed your Savior in them.

And as • asting is a pious occasion, thereby to ask pardon of God for our Gluttony, our unthankfulness to God, our hard heartedness to the poor, so fourthly I would it might work some good amendment upon our most scandalous drunkenness. I pro • e • s I have little hope that that sin is corrigible among us. For I believe verily I make my account right, that we spend three hundred Cups of Wine in these days in this Kingdom for one that, was spent when I was a Child. Therefore • o dehort from this debauchery, I shall but put new wine into old bottles, religious instruction before old unreclaimable Drunkards. These bottles are stopped, and will never receive my Doctrine. They had rather be Swine than Men, Horseleeches that are always sucking at corruption. He that cares not by over quaffing himself to lose his reason, the most precious thing that is in the soul of man, he is so drowned in intemperance, that till he hates that Vice, and casts it off, he deceives himself if he thinks he can set any true valuation upon the grace of God. But O that this holy Fast might reclaim those in this most conspicuous place or the whole Kingdom, who are prone to be overwhelmed in the dead Sea of drink! That you would fear least God should take you away when you are so pitifully overtaken! That you would remember how they who enflame themselves with Wine now shall hereafter want a drop of water to cool their tongues in hell fire.

Yet for all those who forget themselves in that, or in any other manner, we keep this Public Fast to remember God in their behalf. Publicum jejunium est solemnis professio reatus, they are the words of Calvin; To call a Public Fast is to draw a solemn profession from the tongues of all men, in the behalf of all men. So do we for those who out of stubbornness, and frivolous exceptions against our Liturgy, will not join with us in this Church duty: So we do for those, who out of blindness in a superstitious breeding, had rather mutter they know not what in an unknown Tongue, than pray with us in that Language wherein they may be comforted and edified: So we do for those, who out of profaneness, and Atheism, think not of these things, and have no affection to bear a part in common Supplications. We fast for all these today as for ourselves, desiring God, as it is in our Litany, that he will have mercy upon all men. The sick that desire to join with us in Prayer, and cannot come: Infants and Sucklings, whose tongues are not yet framed to magnify the Lord, we represent all these, and include them in our faithful and charitable Supplications; for ourselves, and for all these, we pray to our heavenly Father, that as we spread not our Table this Noon, so he will fit us against Night to eat our meal with a good conscience, with confidence and comfort that he hath restored us to all his blessings again: And though we have been Prodigal Children, yet we shall be brought into our Fathers house to eat the bread of life, and the fatted Calf, even Jesus Christ. A Fast is commonly the Eve before some Holy-day: and I pray to God that this Public Fast may be such, the Eve, or forerunning day to joyful times to come: and so it will be if, as sure as this is a Fast, the time to come be observed with all diligence as holy to the Lord.

And now in the conclusion of all, that you may know that Nebemiah fulfilled all righteousness for Jerusalem's sake, when so many exercises of humiliation had gone before, in the upshot he prayed before the God of heaven. Weeping, and Mourning, and Fasting are about Prayer like prickles about a Rose. But as no sweet Rose is without prickles, so no powerful Prayer is without these, or some of these. But this is the Rose, this is the flower of Religion, this is the Odor of sweet Incense, that ascends up before the Lord. Ibi nuntius noster oratio mandatum per agit, quo caro pervenire non potest, says St. Austin; It delivers our Message like an Ambassador in the Sanctuary of God, whither corruptible flesh and blood cannot enter. For as the Winds and Air have free access unto those places which are immured and watched that no foot of man can approach unto them: So though a Cherubim brandish a flaming Sword before Paradise, that the Seed of mortal man cannot come to it without destruction; yet our Prayers are Spirits and Angels that fly upon the wings of the wind, and come boldly to that place where God is wonderful in light inaccessible. A poor whelp hath found out a way by nature to lick itself whole with its tongue when it is bitten, or wounded: So when we are oppressed with any evil of sin, or of punishment, our tongue is our instrument to lick the sore. Call upon the Lord in the time of trouble, and he will hear thee and help thee.

Yet very much goes to it to make Prayer speeding and effectual. Go unto the House of the Lord as often as you can, and join in humble Petition with the Spirit of the whole Church, with the Congregation of Saints: and bring your mind with you as well as your body, your zeal as well as your voice. Observe your constant times of private Prayer, at least every Morning and every Evening (if oftener the better.) Cast yourself upon your knees with a resolved preparation to be a faithful, a penitent, an earnest Supplicant: Intermit not this practice for any worldly avocation, either to serve yourself, or to serve your friends, and I can tell you this will bring such admirable effects to pass, when you have got the habit and perseverance of that virtue, as I durst not name, but that the Spirit of God hath got assurance of it. It will give you knowledge of divine things, when you will wonder how you learnt them: It will pick the thorns of Concupiscence out of your flesh, when you will marvel how you were rid of them: It will give you courage in dangers, when there is small hope to escape: And content, when desire is not obtained: And cheerfulness, when everything that should procure joy is far from you. It is grace and peace, health and wealth, and every good thing that concerns this life and a better. Only ask, seek, and knock: ask with confidence, seek with diligence, knocb with perseverance. No Father if his Child ask him bread will give him a stone, or if he ask a fish will give him a Scorpion. If they that are evil give good things, how much more will your heavenly Father? If we ask him Victory, he will not give us a Defeat: If we ask him Peace, he will not give us continuance of War: If we ask him for Justice, he will not give us Oppression: If we ask him for the continuance of true Religion, he will not give us Idolatry and Superstition. But ask zealously, faithfully, devoutly, with love unfeigned, with a clean heart, as becometh Saints. For if you ask amiss, you shall go without.

Look towards the pattern of Nehemiah: he was one of great integrity, and uprightness, and therefore fit to carry the Petitions of all the people in his lips to God. He prayed before God, not like an Hypocrite to be seen of men. He set God always before him, assured that he was present to hear his words, and to see his ways. But they that have the itch of the Pharisees, to draw the eyes of men upon them, the Lord will turn away his face, and reject their Prayers. He prayed before the God of heaven, he did not pray to the Saints in heaven. No, says Friar Walden, we confess that none of the just men in the Old Testament did ever pray to any Saint departed, partly because the souls of the righteous were not admitted unto the Vision of God in heaven before Christ by his Ascension did open the Kingdom of heaven to all believers. Even as much then as now, for ought he knows, and how much or how little either then or now, it is hard for him or us to know. But his second reason is, that the Jews were kept from the custom of praying to Saints, least they should run into Idolatry. I thank him for that caution, for that mis led practice of praying to Saints is a symptom of Idolatry. Let us direct our Petitions to the Lord alone, in whom we have assurance that he doth hear us, and will help us. I have said unto the Lord thou art my God, hear the voice of my Prayer O Lord, Psal. xl. 6. Is there any Precept in Scripture that gives the least perfunctory admonition to pray to Saints? None. Is there any example in the Book of God of any of his Servants that did it? None. The rich Glutton was a Reprobate that called out of hell upon Abraham. Is there any Promise annexed to invocation of Saints that God will bless it? None. Then happy are they that keep close to the Religion of Nehemiah, who prayed before the God of heaven.

I have held you long, and will dispatch now with a few auspicious words. Auspicious, I say, because they come from the heart, the hope, the comfortable persuasion of one, though a mean one, that hath sought the Lord. We are met today like Nehemiah before the God of heaven, before the God of the Waters above the heaven, before the God of the Seas, and of the Earth, and of all dry places. God will bless us, and go out with our most magnanimous Prince, with our Fleet and Host, for the justness of our Cause, helped with strong Faith, fervent Prayer, reformed lives, united minds, and religious ends.

First, The ground of confidence is the justness of the Cause. Unless any would think it fit to have the Lion sleep while Water-rats pull him by the Mane. Every private Subject may appeal to Law for redress of his injuries: there is a Magistrate set over him to do him right. A King, being immediately Supreme under God, cannot plead before an earthly Tribunal. Surely if he receive wrong by Foraign ill-willers his case is not more remediless than the meanest Subjects. A Treaty is a formal course of Arbitration; it hath no absolute power to command that to be straight which was crooked before. Therefore it is left to a King to do himself right by his Sword against the provocation of his enemies. To wage War is a felicity to ill Princes, and sometimes a necessity to the good.

Secondly, The courage of a Warriour is a strong Faith. Let me apply unto it, Ephes. vi. 16. Take ye the shield of Faith, and it will quench the firy Darts; and why not the firy shot of the wicked? And cover you with the Helmet of Salvation. If you would not have the Seas make a noise and roar, believe that Christ is in the same Ship with you, and that he is awake, and not asleep in the hinder part: But if ye distrust, he will rebuke you, and say, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Every steadfast faith is charged like a Canon, and will do as great execution upon our Aggressors. The Heathen themselves are Witnesses to us, that a Legion of Christians, marching in the Army with Marcus Aurelius, by their Faith in Christ, and Prayer, obtained great Thunder and Lightning, which utterly routed the Host that came against them, and that Legion was called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the thundering Legion for an whole Age after. And I am confident we have many such thundering Faiths among the Regiments of the Royal Fleet.

Thirdly, Be fervent and uncessant in Prayer. As Moses held up his hands to the going down of the Sun, when Joshua fought, and vanquished Amalek, Exod. xvii. 12. My heart rejoiceth within me, when I consider how many Congregations are in Prayer this day to crave victorious success, about ten thousand. Why it is as if so many Ships were equipped to be added to the gallant Argosies of his Majesty's upon the Seas, who cry aloud to God for the long felicity of the King in this, and in all his enterprises, for the welfare of the Realm, the prosperity of the Army, and particularly, that God will be the Anchor to keep our Anchor firm and sure.

Fourthly, O that the reformation of our lives may go together with our Prayers. They are the works of Justice, Temperance, Mortification, that will make us strong, and our Enemies feeble. Then our Fasts shall famish them, our tears shall drown them, and our Repentance shall condemn them. As for Lust, Riot, Swearing, Libertinism, let them not be named among the Chieftains, nor among the meanest Boat-swains. Let our enemies be such flashy ill-framed Christians. It is a pious, undefiled, chaste conversation that will be an invincible Bulwark about this fortunate Island. If riotous sins rise out of evil manners, they are worse than Capers, and Skippers, than the Devil and all his Instruments.

Fifthly, Minds and hearts united are a brave advantage to the present Service. And that is apparent, that both Houses of Parliament have made this the Cause of the whole Nation, and provided liberally for the Pay and Reward of the Enterprise. It is the felicity of our King David, the man after God's own heart, and the man after the Peoples own heart, that he bowed the heart of Israel as the heart of one man, 2 Sam. xix. 14. Yet I cannot dissemble it with you, that many of the Nobles of Judah, when Nehemiah was so careful for them, turned recreants, sent Letters to Tobiah, and kept intelligence with him, Chap. vi. 17. Those that be like him are Vultures, who, when two Armies are to encounter, flutter about the place, to watch upon what side most will be slain, that they may prey upon the reeking Carkasses. If there be any such Vultures among us I will read them their doom. The story is in Socrates, lib. 6. c. There was War between Theodosius and the strong Rebel Maximus. Theophilus, a cunning Gipsie, (for he was an Alexandrian born) writes two fawning Letters, one to Theodosius, the other to Maximus, and sent them by his Servant Isidore, with a great Sum of Gold, to present that to him that got the Victory. A Soldier, looking for a booty in Isidores Knapsack, while he slept, happened to find both the Letters, and gave them both to Theodosius, who defeated Maximus. You may imagine what became of Isidore, whose Carkass was made a prey to Vultures on a Gibbet, because he was a Spy to halt on both sides. So God detect them to their confusion, who are as double-minded as that Egyptian.

Lastly, A laudable and virtuous end crowns all. Now what end do we propound to ourselves in our common Supplications today? No doubt it is, that, violence and injustice being suppressed by War we may live in peace. For if Peace be not the end of War it is barbarous immanity, as in the Turkish Crescent. But the next question is the more principal, what end do we propound to ourselves upon the settlement of Peace? Why, to enjoy the fruits of it thankfully to God's glory. Blessed are the People whose hearts are so affected. I will promise them the Palm of Victory in this life, and Eternal mercy hereafter. But if you desire Trade may flourish and be opulent, that you may fill your Cups fuller, throw away heaps of Gold in Gaming, shine in Jewels, swim in Luxury, you may pray till the Sun go down, and rise again, and God will never hear you. Or if you mean, when your Foes are subdued abroad, to oppress those whom you hate and malign at home, you shall neither thrive abroad nor at home. Pyrrho haec & Samnitibus. I can wish our Enemies no greater harm than such corrupted minds. That Pyrrhus (it is in Plutarch ) was a rambling Warriour, and cared not whom he oppressed. Says Cyneas to him, his best Counselor, Shall we live thus always? No, says Pyrrhus, when we have vanquished the Romans, Compotabimus, & in otio vivemus; We will drink stoutly, and live merrily. His Horse would have said as much, if he could have spoken, that when his service was done he would stand in the Stable, and eat his Provender. But the end of War is Peace, and the end of Peace is to die unto Sin, and to live unto Righteousness.

These are the last words I have to say now: In the justness of our Cause, confidence of Faith, fervor of Prayer, amendment of our Lives, United Hearts, and in our Religious and Noble ends, we commend our most serene and excellent Admiral, the whole Royal and gallant Expedition, which he manageth, to God. In whom alone is our help: For there is none that fights for us powerfully and irresistibly but only thou O God. To which God, &c.

A SERMON UPON

PROV. iii. 3.

Let not mercy and truth forsake thee.

T HE Children of Israel were exhorted from their Prophet Moses to write the Law upon the Posts of their doors, and to have Copies of it in the Fringes of their Garments; as if the whole Land of Jury had been bound into one Sacred Volume to make a Bible for them. This was Mandatum latissimum, as David said, a Commandment exceeding broad; but a Proverb being by the very interpretation of the name 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as St. Basil says, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a quaint speech used in every street of the City, and every high way of the field, it is more vulgar and common than the Law itself, that thou mayest be inexcusable O man when his words are gone forth into the ends of the world. Now in this brief essay which I have read unto you as the Heathen were wont to set up the Image of Mercury, in the turnings of highways to direct Passengers their journey, which was called Mercurialis acervus, so King Solomon in these words hath reared up a Pillar in the broad way to instruct our ignorance, which is ready to turn aside, and wander like the lost sheep, that whithersoever we set our face we keep this Via Regia, the Kings high way. Let not, &c.

Mercy and truth, so excellent a workmanship that I reverse what I said before, it is not like a Pillar set up for an heathen Idol, but rather Solomon hath made a new Cherubin for a new Temple, a Cherubin with two wings stretched out upon our soul. The wings are Mercy and Truth, which either bear up the body to heaven, as David says, My soul flieth unto the Lord before the morning watch, I say before the morning watch: Or if it grow laden with sin, that so great a burden cannot be supported, these wings can fly away alone, these virtues will be gone like Elias in his firy Chariot, for a wounded Conscience who can bear it? But if it be true that Tertullian says, Omnis spiritus ales est; Every Spirit is winged to fly, much more let the Spirit of every regenerate man be this Avis Paradisi, that our soul may say as David, the Sparrow hath found her a nest, and the Swallow a place to lay her young ones, even thine Altar O Lord of Hosts, and being thus fledg'd Mercy and Truth shall not forsake us.

Out of which words I collect these parts in order. The first wing of a Christian soul is Mercy. He shall protect me under his wings, and I shall be safe under his feathers, so God was merciful unto David, and mercy is a Wing. Secondly, The next that answers unto it is Truth. For the word of the Lord is that flying roll which Ezekiel saw, and the Word of the Lord is the truth it self, so that Truth is a wing. Thirdly, Note their conjunction, Mercy and Truth, they are coupled together: Mercy and Truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other; they met long ago in Christ the head, and we must not part them in his members. Fourthly, You must know that we may be so careless in our holy Profession that we may be stripped of all the good endowments which we had, Mercy and Truth may forsake us, and then say we had them. Lastly, If we look to our part, the gifts of God are without repentance, ne deserant, let them not depart, there is a careful way whereby we may imp these wings from flying, that they shall not forsake us, else ne deserant, were sounding brass, and no true doctrine; these are the five Lamps, it remains I put oil into them.

I begin at Mercy the fairest Omen that ever the World had in it. The unmerciful brethren of Joseph consulted to put the blame of their cruelty upon the beasts, we will say a cruel beast hath devoured him. It is very well that they durst not profess themselves to be men who were so barbarous. But neither is • t in every beast of the field to be stony hearted. The fouls of the air are gentle in their kind, witness the Ravens that fed Elias; and for the Cattle upon the hills, the Ass forsook not his old Master the Prophet that was rent by the Lion. The meanest of Creatures then have mercy by instinct of nature; yea, and the most glorious also; dread not the Angels though they be called flaming spirits, but rather consider what pity they have shewn in their Function towards the Sons of men. To execute God's wrath few do always come down as loath to be Ministers of indignation. One destroying Angel appeared to punish Jerusalem, one alone brought weeping news to Bochim, Jud. ii. Three appeared unto Abraham to bring him the joyful Message of a Son, but their company grew less by one, and but two of them brought tidings to Lot of the vengeance of Sodom. But Elishas Servant saw Chariots, and Horsemen, and thousands in the Mountain to protect them. To publish peace and joy heaven itself, as I may so speak it, was empty, and there appeared a multitude of the heavenly Host to the Shepherds and sang praises unto God: surely then one of their wings is Mercy.

But we must fetch our example further than the Angels, let us go boldly to the throne of grace and fetch it from the third heavens. Be you merciful with a sicut, says our Savior as your heavenly Father is merciful. And if we cast our eye upon that pattern, it blossoms like the rod of Aaron into these two buds, condonationem and donationem. First, To forgive and remit sins. Secondly, To give liberally as God hath enabled us. In the first I will thus proceed: First that it is God's nature and property to forgive; secondly, that man should rather forgive than God.

It did well deserve record in holy Scripture both how the Devil tempted Christ to see if He were God, and how the Pharisees brought a case before him to try if He were Messias. Cast thyself down from the Pinacle of the Temple, says Satan, if thou be the Son of God: No, that were cruelty against his own person, and charity begins at home. Then the Pharisees brought a sinner before him taken in adultery, Joh. viii. Their fingers itcht to be casting stones at her, but he would not suffer them. And this mercy proved him both to be Messias, and the Son of God. If men and Angels had kept good, we had only known the friendship of God what it was, and not his anger, that was natural unto him. We provoked justice violently, and wrung it out of his hands. And as the King of Israel said to Elisha when his enemies were enclosed within his power, Shall I smite them my Father, shall I smite them; No, says the Prophet, but set bread and water before them. So Justice said to God when we had transgressed, Shall I smite them? Shall I consume them at once? O no, says our Savior, but set bread and wine before them, the Sacrament of his body and blood, which being eaten by faith will save our souls.

Christ wept but twice in all; once over his friend Lazarus, that was a natural grief; and once over Jerusalem that sought his blood, that was a coelestial passion. Nay, though he went but a foot pace from one City to another to preach the Gospel, yet he would needs ride to Jerusalem, so to make haste to suffer, longing till the work of our Redemption was finished. St. Ambrose says he groaned as well to have the bitter Cup come quickly, as to have it pass away, and grew weary of delay till He had paid the Hand-writing which was against us. There passed but a little time from midnight to midday, betwixt his Attachment, his Arraignment, and his Execution, as if his feet had stood upon thorns until his head was crowned with them. Now tell me how you will look upon this Christ, O ye malicious hearted, whose feet are swift to shed blood, in Duels and fierce Encounters; your hatred, and his pity; your desire to destroy your enemies, and his good will to recover them and bless them, they savor undoubtedly of two sort of Serpents. Christ is the Brazen Serpent lifted up, who cured the infirmities of the People, they are like the fiery Vermin which stung God's Travelers in the Wilderness.

And when God was put to it to punish, see how Mercy wrestled with Indignation. Ah I will be avenged of mine enemies, says the Prophet Isaiah; he sighed because he must be wrathful, as it was said of the mild Emperor Vespasian, Indoluit quoties debuit esse ferox. When he destroyed Sodom with an heayy wrath, his justice came down but in slow drops of fire; but his mercy is a full torrent, like Jordan in a time of Harvest, it brought Israel to a Land flowing with milk and honey, for his mercy endureth forever. His goodness is swifter than Eagles; for in six days he framed the World and all that is therein. But he took forty days to destroy one City of Nineveh, and then he spared it. When he was first angry with man he did but walk in the cool, says the Text, to chide Adam; but the Father of the Prodigal, you know who I mean, ran in haste to meet his Son and pardon him, when he was yet far from him. Finally, it is written in Mat. xxv. that benediction is from God; Come ye blessed of my Father: But malediction and cursing are not from him, Go ye cursed, but not cursed of my Father, no such word in the Text, he has no hand in that.

It was God's Dialogue with Jonas, Shouldst thou grieve that the Gourd of herbs is decayed, and should not compassion touch me much more for this mighty People? true Lord; but if thou pardonest man for sin, who in thy sight is but as a flower of the field, less than the Gourd of Jonas; should not man much more remit the offense of his Brother which is done against him? I say much more it behooveth man, and I will hold myself to that.

For first there is somewhat in our eyes that blinds them, it is pulvis humanitatis, the dust of our human nature, that makes us when we are the most sharp censurers of other men's faults, not to discern truly the filth of their sin: but the eyes of the Lord are bright as a couple of flaming Torches in the Revelation, and offenses appear before them more ghastly and tragical than our dim Candle half put out can enlighten us to perceive. For instance hereof: To morrow there is a Feast unto Jehovah, says Aaron, but the Lord could see that the Feast was luxury they rose up to play, and the Sport was flat Idolatry. So Saul could discern no harm in himself but a little foolish pity when he spared Agag, but the flaming eye saw it was Rebellion, as foul as the sin of Witchcraft. And is the Lord merciful to our transgressions when they cry unto him like the sound of many waters, and should not Man much more acquit the World of every offense done against him, for as much as we conceive not what is evil, because ourselves are evil? Secondly, among men a gift pleaseth the eyes, and a recompense is a safe correcting of an injury, but that were peccatum bis tinctum, a sin died in scarlet, to think to blot out sins before the Lord with the Fruit of our Body, or with Rivers of Oil: And can this God be reconciled then, and should not man much more be merciful? Beloved in the third place: We are all full of our own infirmities: Who knows whose turn it may be next to fly unto the Altar for a pardon? Two that grind in the same Mill, and two that walk in the same Field; nay Barnabas and Paul fellow Laborers in the same Gospel may daily stumble one at another. Our communication together cannot choose but be offensive, as the earth licks up the water, and the water devours the earth: but who is the churlish Labourer to whom God cannot say, Friend I do thee no wrong. O can the just one have mercy upon us? and should not offenders between themselves, sinners unto sinners much more be charitable?

But there is one thing more in mercy than forgiveness; alms and bounty: to do good and distribute: to be Oil and Physic to the wounded like the good Samaritan, this is also a full Plume in the Wing of Charity, like that other Mat. xxiii. how often would I have gathered thee under my wings, as a Hen doth her Chickens, but thou wouldest not.

Beloved, God hath suffered his fire to be unmerciful to sweep away the Habitation of the fatherless and innocent, that our hands might build it up again. And we shall not only build up houses of clay, the reward of the Israelitish Midwifes, but good deeds also, which like the Alms of Cornelius, shall reach up to Heaven. The Sea hath raged horribly and swallowed the Innocent, the Stream hath gone even over his Soul, that we might restore it again as mercifully as the Whale did Jonas, with the increase of our substance, that we might cast our bread, as Solomon preached, upon the waters. God hath suffered an heavy sickness to wast away the afflicted, and to consume his bones; not that the Dogs should be more merciful than Dives, and lik the poor man's sores, but that our liberality might make him whole. Canaan, and the Patriarchs were well nigh famished with hunger, what? because God had forgotten to be gracious, and had shut up his loving kindness in displeasure. Not so; but that Egypt might relieve them with their Granaries. The Husbandman soweth seed in the ground, and the increase comes up thereafter; God giveth it a body, and to every seed his own body: but the merciful man soweth a Loaf of bread in the belly of the hungry, and it shall rise up again unto a plentiful Harvest. Christ was made poor, says Paul, that we might be made rich, and for the good use of our riches he hath made many poor.

There are few so hard-hearted, but will protest with an oath, if our Savior had been incarnate in these our days, how they would have strived to make him welcome, their choicest Palace should have received him, and his Diet should have been whatsoever the Earth and Sea afforded. I, says Tertullian, Porrigat manum Jupiter & accipiat; if Jupiter himself would ask alms he should have it; every man can say so. Alas to promise this excess to him who needs it not, is a kind of spiritual bribery. Keep your costly Mansions to yourselves, and afford him some sustenance in an Hospital: Take the plenty of the Earth to your own Table in sobriety and temperance, and feed him with your Alms Basket. If he say loe here is Christ, or loe there he is, and that every distressed Christian is nourished for his sake you may believe him. Haec est tunica quam dedisti mihi Martin, it is an old Story in Sulpitius; the good Bishop Martinus clothed a Criple with his Coat in the day time, and in the Dreams upon his Bed he saw Christ himself wear it, and thank him for it.

Such there are, whom otherwise we may call good men, but spoil their good parts, as Crassus did, with the love of money, and having closed their Ark, will not suffer so much as a Crow to fly out of it; they will not believe this Divinity, that to spend well upon Earth is to lay up treasure in Heaven. Such a man's eyes are made of Spittle and Clay, but not by Christ, and they love to behold nothing but Gold, which is indeed a refined Clay burnt well like a Brick by the heat of the Sun, and the influence of the other stars.

Now there are but two common pretendments to make us spare our Purse, and keep our hand withered in our bosom. Semper aliquid curtae deest rei, we have nothing to spare, we have but five loaves and two fishes, and what are they among so many? O can you forget those mighty Mites which the poor Widow cast into the Treasury? Three things, says St. Gregory are incruenta sacrificia, Sacrifices well pleasing unto God, without drop of blood shed, Castitas in juventute, sobrietas in ubertate, liberalitas in paupertate; a Chast Youth unspotted touching the Flesh, Sobriety in Plenty, and Liberality in Poverty. And this is the Devils Topics to persuade us, we must repay nothing back again unto God, unless He would give us as much as we could wish for. Plato thought he made a charitable Common Wealth when by his evil Law to permit promiscuous lust no man knew another, whether he were Stranger or Brother, or of nearer Consanguinity. So hath God knitted his Church together, that we are all Christ's, and Christ is ours, and yet we feel not the afflictions of Joseph, they are nothing to us.

Nay it were well if we were not readier to give Stones than Bread, and for a Fish a Scorpion. This was Nabal's Largess to David, he told him he was a Runnagate from Saul his Master. The next excuse against Charity is, the great abuse of all good deeds and the wrong employment. But though men be evil, and the days are evil, and the bounty of holy men is oft times wrong employed, yet the Churches of God are no Transgressors; why do the Rich men of the World nothing for them? Do you expect that the Holy Ghost should come down again like a mighty rushing wind and enter in, that every Wall and Window is left naked and decayed, especially in famous Cathedral Churches to the injuries of the weather? Good God! what was the zeal of our Fore-fathers, that they should build more unto Religion than we can keep in reparation? When St. Paul pleaded for a Collection for the poor Saints of Jerusalem, feed them says he with your plenty, who are enriched with their abundance. With what abundance did the Apostle mean? O say the Friers with the abundance of their good works and zeal, as a bought or borrowed sanctity: No such matter, but for the abundance of the Words sake, which first came out of the bosom of Jerusalem. But all the Gospel which is preached in our Cathedral Churches cannot procure them so much benevolence as to preserve them from the curse of desolation, that one stone be not left upon another. And I would the innocent stones could fall down from their high Pinnacles into the bowels of the earth from whence they were digged, then were they safe and would be at rest again, but now great men take them up, and we must say in charity, that which made God a Chancel serves to build them up a Kitchen or a Stable. O if you will not be so merciful as your Father which is in Heaven, be but as merciful as your Forefathers upon Earth, who were zealous for the House of the Lord. But these things should rather be done then spoken: Therefore let this suffice for mercy, which is the first part of my Text.

Now a complete Christian is not like a small Vessel which recovers his Haven with one Sail alone, with Mercy only. If you will have Religion to be ponderibus librata suis, full poised on every side, magna est veritas & praevalet, truth also is a prevailing part; let not mercy and truth forsake thee. And what is truth? says Pilate, but he would not stay to take his answer. Why the Spirit is truth, says St. John 1. Ep. v. I am the truth, says Christ, John xiiii. God is Truth, and in him is no error. In a word, your holy Faith is the Truth: that which is armatura lucis, the Armor of Light with St. Paul, Rom. xiii. that which is stronger than all things, says Zerubbabel in his Parable.

But you must know that there is a threefold evidence of truth to be distinguished: First there is the evidence of our outward senses, Matt. xvi. when it is Evening you say it will be fair weather, for the Sky is red. O ye hypocrites, can you discern the face of heaven, says our Savior? as who should say then, there is more to be understood. 2. There is the evidence of knowledge, which will condemn the Heathen that know not God; for the invisible things may be understood by the things which are made, even his eternal Godhead, Rom. i. both these truths, you see, are fruitless without a third; and what is that, but the evidence of faith, Heb. xi. As for other Truths every man is in the high way to get them, capiat qui capere potest: but as for this Truth, it hath looked down from Heaven, says David, looked upon whom it listeth, and all men have not faith.

Whether Faith be the evident Truth or not, all the World almost upon a time stuck at that point but only Abraham, either because their eyes were dim, or because it shined like the face of Moses that they could not behold it. Yea we have sundry Traditions that some Philosophers cast an eye upon the first verse of the Scripture, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, but they started at it like the Host of Israel at the dead Corps of Amasa, and went no further. Alas poor Philosophy, who knows not how to confound the wisdom of her Principles? The fire hath been as temperate as the morning air, Dan. 3. the waters have stood upon an heap like the strong ribs of a Mountain, Exod. xiv. the Sun hath hid his face at noon day, when Astronomy could find no reason for it, their Art was as blind as the Heaven in the Eclipse. But every part of nature should be out of frame, Heaven and Earth should pass away before one title of God's book should perish, that with the dissolution of the Heavens no Angels might remain, and with the ruin of the Earth no men might be left to testify against it. The holy Martyrs have forsaken their lives that this truth might not forsake them. And as it is reported of our Philosopher, that the ashes spread upon the high Mountains of Tenariffa retain forever any letters drawn out upon them, by reason of the tranquility of the place: So no wind or storm can scatter away those holy words of God's Book since they have been written in the ashes of the Martyrs; the Law cannot endure better in the Tables of Stone, than the Gospel in that sacred dust.

If Faith be not a Truth, how did Abraham see Christmas day and rejoice, and keep it a solemn Festival more than a thousand years before the name was entered into our Calender. He knew the faithfulness of God's Promise, that made Jesus our Redemption so undoubtedly, that he swore him a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek. The Mother of our Lord might ask reverently quomodo? How should these things be? The best in the World have their doubts of infirmity: but Domine non erit tibi, this thing shall not be so, when Christ had spoken it, that was a mistake in St. Peter, and yet behold the Evidence of Truth shown itself more abundantly anon after in the faith of that Apostle, than in all the skill of Greece and Egypt. Tell me, what Physician could promise recovery to the Cripple lying at the Beautiful Gate? Durst all the College of Galen say unto him confidently stand up and walk? but the Apostle saw that one grane of faith could give him the use of his feet and ancle bones that he might leap and praise the Lord.

Whatsoever is confirmed by the mouth of two or three Witnesses it passeth for truth by the Law of God and Man, and good reason for it. Now the Old Testament was confirmed under the name of three Patriarchs, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. In the New Covenant, whether it were at the Transfiguration of Christ, Peter, James and John, three Attendants did bear him company to Mount Tabor, in like manner at the raising up of Jairus Daughter, and in the Mount of Olives, when he sweat and prayed, so many were with him as before, and the self same three Disciples, all was confirmed under the mouth of three Witnesses. But I will take no more pains in this point, to prove Faith to be a Truth, as I remember the great Orator reports of a good man, Q. Metellus he was excused, or rather forbidden to show his proof unto the Senate, in a Controversy to be debated, lest the Bench should seem to distrust so reverend a Citizen.

None but Julian the Apostate, and such accursed as he hath left behind him, would scoff at Faith, whose cavil it was, as Nazianzen reports, that we had a starting hole for all objections in one silly word Believe. These men knew not that Faith in a little Pearl was worth all the substance of a Merchant, and he sold all he had to buy the Pearl, Matt. xiii. Surely if the Womb of Mary deserved a Blessing from all Generations that bore the Infant from everlasting, if the Arms of Simeon deserved a Church Anthem every Evensong that enclasped him; if the Tomb of Joseph was attended by Angels where his body lay; then cut down Palms, and spread your Garments in the way, for Christ is rode in triumph into that heart into which faith is entered.

Now Truth is fruitful and brings forth Truth, a Daughter not unlike herself; Divine Truth is the cause of Human Truth, of a true Conversation, of a right Balance, and a just Fphah. Her Merchandise is such as Abraham's was with the Hittites, Gen. 23. which I will ever commend, when he bought a Tomb for Sarah, such as the ancient Romans was, aedes pestilentes vendo, the Seller was not ashamed to confess that his House had the Pestilence: Not as St. Jerome told the Trades of his time, tanti vitrium quanti margaritam, to chop away Glass for Rubies: or as St. Basil says of Gordias the Martyr, that his Soul was vexed with the City, and he retired into the Wilderness, leaving 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he could not endure the Buyers and Sellers, the forswearers and liars. And what doth all come to when they cast up their Audit, Prov. xxi. 6. The getting of riches by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death. Let our Merchants beware that they carry not that report which the Wits of St. Paul's time put upon the Cretans, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , always liars, evil beasts, and slow-bellies: or as Plutarch spake of Demades the Pleader, then grown past the best, that there was nothing left in him but his Tongue and his Paunch, his Tongue to tell lies, and his Belly to surfeit, the mere Relics of an Ox sacrificed. Nay, I beseech you Brethren, let your word be pure, able to endure the fiery trial, even for his sake who in the beginning was the Word, and that Word was God: As for such double tongues whose Heart is a Jew and their Tongue a Christian; and for those aequivocating Jesuits, who teach you to adulterate Truth in mental reservation, let them have their portion with Sisera, that told a lie, and so spake his last; for he warned Jael to deny him if any did inquire for him, and then says the Text he slept and then he perished.

So much hath been spoken for these Celestial Graces, Truth and Mercy considered in disjunction; but as the Wings of the Cherubims touched one another in the midst of the House, so there must be a copulation of these spiritual Blessings; for Mercy and Truth are such a Pair as will either lodge together or leave together. There was such a similitude of nature between the Twins of Love, Eros & Anteros, that at once they wept, and at once they smiled; they fell sick together, and they recovered jointly. Such are the Twins of Grace Truth and Mercy; she that would have them cut in twain and parted is an Harlot; she that cries spare and preserve them whole, she is the Mother and must enjoy them.

Look upon them in a state of policy; Mercy without Truth is a sweet shower dropping on the barren sands, quite spilled, and no blessing follows it: Truth without Mercy is extreme right, and extreme injury: Mercy without Truth is a dangerous pity: Truth without Mercy is not verity but severity. Consider them towards God and Heaven, and then most unfit it is that either should be alone. A Faith of mere Protestation without Good Works, such is Truth without Mercy; it might have been in the Gergasens Swine, for such a Faith is in the Devil, says St. James, and therefore might have been in the Gergasens Swine to bear him company; and all the integrity of the Heathen, all the goodness that Socrates could teach, because it is not in Christ, such is Mercy without Truth, it comes tardy like Esau's Venison, and the Blessing is removed upon the head of Jacob. St. Austin compares them thus. A Pagan living without blame before men is a man with his eyes open in the dark midnight, and he that professeth Christ and not mercy, but is sold to commit iniquity, is one with his eyes shut in the clear day, and he sees as little. Such an unadorned Faith is like a fair Shield which the Tyroes among the Romans carried to the battle, it is a piece of Harness indeed, as Faith is called by St. Paul, but it makes no show, it hath not the imprese of any Stratagem upon it. Our holy Life, and conscionable Conversation must be engraven upon our Faith, like the Posy of the Lover upon the Tree, Crescetis amores, as the bark grew so the letters waxed bigger, if the one prospered the other thrived as well. For the whole Jury of our Creed, the twelve Articles will not save us, unless the Law be on our side. Though not altogether that is impossible, yet by endeavor and pious industry to acquit ourselves of many trespasses. The sum of all is, Two are better than one.

I know that some rely too much upon the Example of the Penitent Thief, the eyes of whose Faith were not opened until his hands and feet were pierced with the nails of death: but look a little better into his Practice, and you shall see that he proved himself so good a Christian in the last hour, as if he had been reprieved from the Cross for another Assizes. First he reproved the scorner. Secondly he preached Moses, Dost thou not fear God? Thirdly, he confessed his guiltiness, But we suffer justly. Fourthly he justified the innocent, This man hath done nothing amiss. Fifthly he consented to the power of the Magistrate, We receive the reward of our deeds. Sixthly, he acknowledged Christ's Divinity, as he did his Humanity before, saying that Heaven was his Kingdom. Lastly, he prayed and believed, Lord remember me in thy Kingdom. See what a Swarm of Bees hang upon his lips in a few words, lest in this one Example the mercies of Christ might be made an occasion to excuse the mercy of man. But Faith and Truth are our Wedding Garment, Good Works and Mercy are the Broidering upon it. Haec est tunica filii mei, this is my Sons Coat, says the Lord, and the Spouses Cloathing is of wrought needle-work, Psal. xlv.

Let them hear of this especially, who by their Profession are the Pillars of Truth in the Church, and should be the Censors of sweet Perfume also; let them look to it, that these Wings of Truth and Mercy be equally poised, that their knowledge preach continually in their holy life, lest it prove with us, as St. Austin spake of Antony the Eremite, that grew exceeding devout when all the Cloisters were idle and lascivious, and the Eremite being so ignorant that he knew not letters, rapiunt indocti regnum coelorum, & literati excluduntur; the great Clerks studied for Heaven, but the simple People took it by violence and possessed it. What should I speak more? If Man be a little World, and his Soul a great Heaven in it, then these are duo magna luminaria. Truth is the Orient Star of the Understanding, and Mercy is the b • ightness of the Will, like the Sun and Moon in the Firmament, like the faithful Witness in Heaven. But take heed that the Stars themselves be not swept away from the Sky with the Tail of the Dragon: take heed lest like the dastard Ephraimites, being harnessed and carrying Bows, we turn our backs in the day of battle; for so it follows in the fourth part of my Text, there is a deserant, God's Gifts may forsake us; and let him that standeth take heed lest he fall. Mercy and Truth they may forsake us.

What, will some man say, our Justification, our Righteousness in Christ, may that forsake us? Superbia quo ascendis? Why doth the presumption of man move such angry questions? But Beloved, I have no such uncomfortable Doctrine at this time to deliver. I wish it prosperously that the head of the Serpent may be bruised, that there be no leading the free-born into Captivity, and no complaining in our streets. But Sanctification shakes her leaves sometimes like the accursed Fig tree. Mercy in King David spilled the blood of an innocent; truth forsook truth with a curse in the mouth of St. Peter. Now every quality may cease to be, and grow to nothing three ways as it is distinguished in Philosopny: 1. Defectu firmae inhaesionis seu radicationis. 2. Admotione contrarii. 3. Desitione subjeoti. I will explain them in order.

First, I say defectu firmae inhaesionis: When Truth and Mercy want root, and have no hold to stay long. As a luke-warm heat quickly evaporates out of the water, if the fire be not maintained. An Inceptor that proceeded not was a fool among the Galatians; and with King Agrippa's leave, almost a Christian, was three parts an Atheist. Such a glimmering light of zeal is like a Morning mist, which quickly vanisheth away, and it is Christus suffuratus, as the Soldiers said, Christ stolen away, and pilfered out of our heart I know not how. He that never saw the Sea is as near his journeys end to pass it over, as he that wades but to the ankles. The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands shall finish it, Zach. iv. 9. that was a blessing from the Lord. To be of Caesar's mind, Nil actum credens cum quid superesset agendum; to think nothing done when anything was undone that was a Spirit to make a Conqueror. My love is a bundle of Myrrh, Cant. xiii. As if she were like Seleucus shafts which could not be broken in the cluster. Such a bundle of Myrrh is in St. Peter, 2 Epist i. 5. Give all diligence, and add to your faith virtue, to your virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to all these charity. What, will all these serve the turn when they stand as thick as corn in harvest? Yes, says the Apostle, Si abundaverint; if they abound in you, they will make you, you shall not be barren and fruitless. Thus then Truth and Mercy will forsake us if we do not further the gift of God, take away the single Talent, and give it to him that hath ten more.

The next way to make our heart cast this happy brood, and to miscarry when it travels with Truth and Mercy, is admotione contrarii, by taking part both with God and Belial. Asahal was not more nimble than St. John to fly away, when he spied Cerinthus the eldest Son of Satan in the same Bath with him, and therefore do not think to make your soul an Ark for the clean and unclean beasts to lie together. A little frosty air is so forcible that it bursts the clouds, and forceth out the hot exhalation 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , it is spirted out between the fingers, and gone before you can think of it. Beloved, that field in Israel was hated like Aceldama, which was sown with divers seeds, and Nehemiah cursed the children that spake one half in the Hebrew Tongue, and another part in the Language of Ashdod. Covetousness is so wealthy, and it thrives so fast that it easily purchaseth the whole heart of man, and whom at first you entertained like a foreiner to have one moyety in your heart, it buys the whole possession over Mercies head, Veios migrate coloni, and so casts it forth. And likewise so incompatible is truth with the least falsehood, that the haters of the Lord were found liars at our Savior's arraignment, when he spake nothing. Is it not strange? Very strange? That Christ should come before unrighteous Judges, be impeached by malicious Adversaries, all this while hold his peace, and yet the Witness not agree. Will you know the reason? There came two false Witnesses, Mat. xxvi. Averring, that this fellow said, I am able to destroy the Temple of God, and to build it again in three days. There is another tale told, Mar. xiv. We heard him say, I will destroy this Temple made with hands, and will build another without hands. But what said our Savior in very deed? You shall find his saying, Joh. ii. 19. Neither I can destroy, with the former, nor I will destroy, with the latter. But vos solvite, do you destroy, and solvite templum hoc, the Temple of his body, and in three days I will raise it up. You cannot clap good and bad together but with waxen pins, if you move them a little they fly asunder, the wax melteth, and it confounds the Chariot and his Rider. For what agreement hath light with darkness, or the Temple of the Lord with Idols?

Touching the third manner and the last, how a quality may cease to be, desitione subjecti, when that faileth wherein it is, it hath no place only in Truth and Mercy. Other things indeed we can expect to remain no longer than the house of our body lasteth; beauty ceaseth with the blood, and strength faileth with the sinews, nay, tongues shall cease, and knowledge shall vanish away, but mercy and charity abideth forever. Yea, and truth also, but veritas in vision, not in fide; Truth in the clear vision of God, and not darkly in faith. In a word, as Joseph furnished his Brethren both with food for their travel, and Corn to keep house with in the Land of Canaan: So there are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. James, gifts for our Pilgrimage in this life, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , gifts to abide with us in our Country above, perfect gifts descending from the Father of lights. So some endowments drop away with this house of flesh, but after glorification this voice shall no more be heard in our ears, let not Mercy and Truth forsake thee.

But this uncomfortable deserant, that God's gifts may forsake us, is to view Jacob but as a Criple, halting and failing in his combat: but ne deserant, let them not forsake thee, shows Israel wrestling with the Angel, and keeping God, as I may speak it with reverence, fast unto him with a chain of Faith. To begin therefore with Mercy, there are two ways to keep a firm possession of it, by Meditation, and by Petition. The Meditations also shall be twain, and very short ones for the time sake. First, Consider that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as the Greek Fathers call it, the deep engagement of our Charity in the Lord's Prayer, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive our brethren, and no otherwise. Lord what a deep curse do we bring upon our soul if this be not said in earnest.

Secondly, Consider the compassion of all the Members in that mystical body whereof Christ is the head. He that is hard hearted against a Christian is cruel against a part of himself. Nero might fill the streets with the slaughtered bodies of the Saints, For why, he was none of ours, but a Lion in the Sheepfold: but a little bitterness, a disdaining contempt, a reviling malediction, the neglect of the misery of a Christian at the hands of a Christian is more unnatural. It was St. Basils counsel, and most elegant, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that as he that looks upon the sore eye of another man, may chance to provoke the rheum in his own eyes, so our eyes should grow feeble and conceive tears when we see the tears of our brother.

If we chance to offend against Mercy, and to forget one of these Meditations, it is very likely that it will stop at the other, but if both fail then we must fly unto uncessant Prayer and Petition. That is Anchora sacra, for the last refuge let us fall down before his footstool, and confirm God's grace to our soul, as Elias made the heavens of brass. I do not mean so, as if our charity could be altogether inoffensive. No, the Spirit helpeth our infirmities, Rom. viii. but it doth not quite take away all infirmity: we are not made of the substance of Angels while we travel in this mortal flesh. Sanctification will leak out at certain crannies, but all is made sure with cupio dissolvi, take in sunder the soul and body by death, and in the state of our Exaltation Mercy can never get away. There is a molting time for these two Wings, and the best Christian displumes certain feathers through temptation, but O that I had wings like a Dove, says David, for then would I fly away and be at rest.

Now the last Point is that which troubles all the world, especially our Western world, which is in continual combat with our Romish Adversaries, wherein the Art lies to preserve Truth that it may not forsake us. But some there are, clouds without water, men unstable in their minds, halting between God and Baal, that think the whole Church is at a loss, for truth and we can steadfastly trust to nothing. For it will easily break prison out of the Syllogism of the old Philosophers, witness so many busy disputations of late, and the success so unprofitable it cannot be bound up in the laborious Tomes of Controversies, no Age more industrious to write than ours hath been, and none further from Peace. To think that the limits of Truth are bound to St. Peters Chair so called is most childish and frivolous. The two Testaments indeed are the touchstone of Truth, but they are stained with presumptuous glosses, and we do not ask nowadays, Quomodo scriptum est? How is it written? But Qomodo expositum est? What is the intepretation of Expositors? Lastly, If we say that Truth is the Daughter of Time, and that the reverend Antiquity of the Fathers must be her Register. What if one say one thing, and some another? What if they be equally divided? What if index expurgatorius spunge out all that should be justly alleged? And hear what Cyprian says, Non dixit Christus ego sum consuetudo, sed ego sum veritas. Surely yet among these many conflicts there is a way to bind truth as a Crown unto us, give me leave to unfold it without ornament of Language in a particular declaration.

In the midst of a froward Generation whose Wits sweat on both sides to win the day, who would not take a sure course which cannot be reproved? Now all the Law and the Prophets are comprised in these three things: 1. In Prayer and Thanksgiving to God. 2. In a sincere belief. 3. In obedience to his Commandments. The absolute form of Prayer is the same which Christ taught us, Mat. vi. The sum of our Belief is the Apostles Creed. And the two Tables of the Law want nothing which should teach Religion and Justice towards God and men. What Christianity can be more secure than this? How can Truth forsake him that rules himself to the Letter of these holy Institutions and goes no further? But whatsoever is more than this is tossed about with every blast of disputation, it may be erroneous, it may be Will-worship, it cannot be the substance of things not seen, it impeacheth God's wisdom, as if he would not reveal unto man the explicit way of his salvation.

When I come into the Temple, and see a devout Monk running over the Hierarchy of heaven upon his Beads, and filling the Saints with the noise of his complaints, and when I see another Christian piercing the highest heavens with zeal, and coming boldly to the Throne of Grace to God alone, to which part shall he that is unlearned say Amen? Beloved, if Our Father would not serve the turn, it may seem John the Baptist did teach his Disciples to pray better than Christ. Sweet Jesu they are thine own words, therefore I cannot do amiss to turn me from the Angels when I have Christ for my Master, but they that make the Elders about the Throne Partners with God in Invocation, they cannot be so confident that truth doth not forsake them.

Again, one Church entertains the craft of Demetrius, and the Silversmiths even upon God's own Shrine, their eyes are filled with their molten Images when they look unto the hills from whence cometh their salvation. But they distinguish, that they keep their body to a lesser Religious Worship, and not to the highest Adoration, and they exalt the Image of the true God, not the Idols of the heathen. Our Church refuseth no Ornaments of Decency, no Histories of Piety, no remembrance of eternal Glory: But the Law is not in our eye, but in our heart, and we pray as if it were our Savior at midnight in the Garden, when no resemblance could be before him. What should a soul say here disquieted with the rents of Zion? Why thus. Lord thou hast forbidden all graven Similitudes, thy Commandment did not comment upon a petty duty to the Saints, a nice Hyperdulia to our Lady, and an admirable Latria to thyself; thou hast not made me so good a Lapidary to discern in stocks and stones between an Image and an Idol. I may be an Idolater with the Inventions of the former, I cannot err in the spiritual Worship of the latter, Confounded then be all they that worship carved Images, I will not let thy Truth forsake me.

Thirdly, Concerning that inquinatissima purgatio, that loathsome cleansing of sins after this life in torments, which is a kind of Spanish Inquisition; Why art thou so vexed O my soul? And why do thoughts arise within thee? So trust in God, not as fearing the scorching Kitchen of Purgatory, or the freezing of St. Patricks Lake for a season, but as dreading an eternal death forever: not as if my punishment must be mitigated after my death, by the Beads, and Orizons, and Bribery of my forgetful Executors, but as if in my life they must be redeemed by the luke-warm blood of Jesus Christ. Then for the thing propounded. I know my Savior descended into Hell to triumph over Satan, and bruize his head; I know He ascended up into Heaven to make Intercession for us to God the Father, this is my Creed I am sure, and the third place is Apocrypha, my belief is as broad as the holy Apostles made the pattern, and if I stop mine ears at the rest I will not let thy truth forsake me.

Fourthly, Concerning the material part of the holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, I take my Savior's words into the explication of my Faith, This is my body, this is my blood. But what have I to do to let men interpret Christ's meaning, when themselves confess it is such a mystery that cannot be comprehended? Is it not enough for me to receive these precious gifts with thanksgiving, but that I must argue how, and after what manner Christ is present at that participation? I am sure the outward Elements of Bread and Wine are there, for as God gave me an heart to believe, so he gave me not my outward senses to delude me. I am sure that Christ is there, and I partake the meritorious Passion of his Body crucified, and his Blood shed upon the Cross; all that men controvert more than this is to beget sorrow to the Church, and laughter to the Devil. My soul dwelleth among them that are enemies unto peace, but I am content to say this is my Savior, who offered himself up for me, therefore I will not let thy truth forsake me.

Lastly, In that great Controversy of Justification, there is a way in which the mists of error cannot arise, and there is a way in which the substantial food is lost by striving to comprehend the shadow with it. By virtue of the Law I know my duty that I must be a Doer, and thereby I discern my infirmity that I must be a Debtor. By virtue of the Lord's Prayer I find myself arreraged in iniquities that are past, my flesh trembling at temptations to come, my soul and body gasping for deliverance from evil round about me. I find not one line wherein I may obtest unto God by any part of my own Sanctification. Thirdly, By virtue of my Creed I find that my Savior was incarnate, suffered, and rose again to purchase Redemption unto us, and Remission of our sins. The Angels are not more sure of their incorruptible glory than we may be to say, As many as walk in this rule peace be to them, and mercy, and on the Israel of our God. Cogita de Deo quicquid meliùs potes, & de teipso quod deterius vales, says St. Bernard; and then thy truth is like Mount Zion which cannot be removed. But to go a little further, and to creep into the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ, there is no likelihood but it should prove an unthankful blasphemy.

Being rooted in this most holy Faith, and in our active Mercy toward the whole body of Christ's Church, there remains for us a passive mercy which will not forsake us, the sure mercies of David in our blessed Redeemer, who is called Amen, and in whom are all the Promises. And there is a truth which will stick to us as fast, and answer for us against the slanders of Satan, who is the Reviler of the Brethren. For he that confesseth me before men, (there is truth on our part) I will confess him before my Father which is in heaven, (there is truth on God's part) to which God, Father, &c.

A SERMON UPON THE RECHABITES.

A T the first hearing of these words I may conjecture that some men thought of no such Scripture, and that most men look for a strange construction: and you shall have a construction to mollify the Paradox, since it was ever safe to decline extremes in all opinions: for they are like Jehu in his furious march, what have they to do with peace? Indeed if you will recount among many who they were that have professed so much austerity, as those that say in my Text, We will drink no wine, you will neither commend them for wisdom, nor for piety. Lycurgus in the Luxury of his Country cut up every Vine by the roots, and destroyed the Vineyards; like those inconsiderate men in our days, superexcessive Reformers of Religion, who think there is no way to amend that which is abused, but with Hezekiah Justice against the Brazen Serpent, utterly to consume it. The Manichees would not endure to taste the Cup at the holy Communion, as if Christ had been too prodigal to bestow Wine at his last Supper upon his Disciples: And you know who they are that want not much to be Manichees. Tertullian mentions a most harsh Discipline among the Romans, that no Woman might know the taste of Wine, sed sub Romulo quae vinum tetigerat impune à marito trucidata est; that it was lawful for the Husband to shed his own Wifes blood, if she tasted of the blood of the Grape. So likewise there were certain Christians, called Severiani by a nick name, that grudged the whole World St. Paul's allowance, that Modicum which he granted unto Timothy; and Pharaohs Butler with these men had been kept forever in prison, had he pressed a few Grapes into the Kings own Cup. But for all these men, who grudge Cato his draught of wine, when he is wearied with the affairs of the Common-wealth, I say their abstemious life is perverseness, and such were not the Rechabites, that say in my Text, We will drink no wine.

In which Text, barren as it may seem, there are many things very Religious and profitable, to make up my Treatise at this time. And as boldly as Prudentius said by a Catachresis, that there were jejuniorum victimae, many Sacrifices offered up to God by fasting, and abstaining from meats; so say I, that this Text is abstemiorum racematio, there is a fruitful Vintage to be gathered out of non bibemus, We will drink no wine.

This whole Chapter is but of one entire piece, like the silver Trumpets of Moses, Numb. 10. so is the discourse thereof without interruption, or almost without full point from the beginning to the end. First God is provoked to wrath by the rebellions of Judah: False Prophets were crept in that had taught strange Doctrine, and the People had itching ears, and were worse Disciples. Now what instrument should the Lord choose to lay open his indignation? whom but Jeremy the Prophet, and him God knew to be fit for the Errand, not as he knew Nathaniel under the shade of his Fig-leaves, sed sub carnis umbraculo, in his Mothers Womb. Jeremy sets himself to the Task, and lays open their sins; not by revilings, by menacies, by zeal as hot as fire (and who could do less? they made Moses, the meekest Soul alive, throw stones at them, and break the Tables) but setting before them the Example of the Rechabites, promising their obedience should be had in an everlasting remembrance, and Judah his stubborn Son should see their happiness and want it. Et spectet nostros jam plebs Romana triumphos: Will it not grieve them to see Strangers and Aliens bear the Bell away, and themselves look on, and be quite neglected? Lastly, what was the Obligation that kept the Rechabites under such awe and duty? for Jeremy spread a Table, entreated them courteously, and set Flagons of wine before them: Why nothing but this, their Father Jonadab had made them protest to take this austere life upon them, that they would drink no wine.

A hard case between God and Israel, if you mark it. What was Jonadab? or who was it that gave him wisdom? no steadfast faith could be put in his Laws, nor certainty in his Statutes: nay upon this Text it is Calvin's opinion, laudatur obsequium filiorum, non legi approbatum fuisse consilium paternum: 'tis true that Jeremy commends the Sons of Jonadab for their obedience, but the Holy Ghost did nowhere commend Jonadab for making such an Ordinance: but the Laws of the Lord are pure and just, like Silver purged seven times in the fire without dross or corruption; yet Jonadab is obeyed, and God despised. 2. Where was Jonadab now? composed in the Grave of silence, dust to dust, the end of all men. The Lord liveth forever, and there is no end of his days. Yet Jonadab preacheth being buried, and the words of the Lord are like a Dream, which he that waketh hath forgotten. 3. Jonadab was austere, and his yoke exceeding heavy, to dwell in no Houses but Shades and Tents, not to till the ground, the happiness of Cain above his younger Brother. To live in poverty in Canaan, where it was easy for all to be rich: but Israel, that I may not run into many particulars, had but ten Commandments to keep, and ten thousand Blessings for their Guerdon. Et merces ab eo, qui jubere potest, vim necessitatis affert, says Tacitus: the days work may be well done, when the Bondman is made an hired Servant. Yet Jonadab finds duty in his Children, and God finds rebellion in Israel. Lastly, was there anything to give advantage to the Rechabites in the way of godliness more than Israel had? did they want the snare of a delicious Table to make them wanton? read what a Banquet Jeremy spread before them in the former verses, But they said, &c.

St. Austin says of the Syrophaenecian Woman, who was both hardly spoken of by out Savior at first, and anon commended highly before her face; quae contumeliam maximam sine dolore pertulit, etiam & laudationem perferret sine superbiâ; she that took not her reproach in scorn, would not wax arrogant upon her commendation; so these Rechabites who lived with good content in a life full of neglect, may the better endure to have their good deeds scanned, without fear of begetting ostentation. And therefore I will branch out my Text into these four parts, in every of which they will justly deserve our praise, and in some our imitation. First, when the Prophet Jeremy did try them with this temptation, whether they would feast it and drink wine, they make him a resolute denial, a Prophet could draw them to no inconvenient act, nolumus we will not. 2. Very dutiful and religious was their obedience to the Orders of their Father Jonadab; ask them if they will rebel and transgress: no, for obedience sake, nolumus, we will not do it. 3. Junquets and banqueting were provided for them, but they had weaned their Bodies from the Paps of luxury; and thus says Temperance, nolumus, we will drink no wine. 4. Here is stedfastness in their Vow made unto God: For this is more than a frugal Diet, it is the Vow of Sobriety, nolumus in aeternum, say the last words of this verse, We have said forever, &c.

Some are good men of themselves, but easily drawn aside by allurements, such are not the Rechabites. Some will lead well, but they cannot follow: good Masters but bad Servants; all for freedom, and nothing for obedience: So are not the Rechabites. Some are sober in their Diet, but will not endure the Laws to interdict meats for a season, and enjoin Fasts and Abstinence; such were not the Rechabites. Some will protest unto God, and oblige themselves to many performances, which are instantly dissolved into wind and air, such were not the Rechabites. Resist Enticements, love Obedience, follow Temperance, promise unto God, and perform your Vows. These are the praises of the Rechabites, these are the four Distributions of my Text, and of these in order.

I begin with Nolumus. Jeremy hath no answer but they will not. It is a hard case in earnest, and the World will never run otherwise, a Prophet must be acquainted with nolumus, and look to be denied. Do you speak for God and for his Altar? Practice patience with that old Philosopher, that solemnly begged alms among the Statues and Images in Athens; and thus he tried how to bear with hard fortune, when living men should refuse him. Nolumus, we will not. Is this all the account, may some man say, of a Prophets words? Our Savior might excuse the Woman of Samaria, a weak Vessel, like the Pitcher wherewith she drew her water. Hadst thou known who it is that asked of thee, then thou wouldest have granted it: but the Rechabites could not plead ignorance, that they knew not Jeremy, who was set up for a Sign against Judah and Benjamin. Again our Savior did commend St. Peters judgment, that there might be many worse men than the churlish Son, that said He would not to his Father, yet he turned his mind, and did as he would have him. But with these men non is as much as nunquam, they will never do it, repentance is hid from their eyes.

Resolve we therefore, that this is such a request, where the Petitioner sued for nolumus, and to be said nay is the fairest courtesy. For that which Jeremy propounded, it was not petitio beneficii, but probatio fidei. So Christ asked Philip for bread to feed the Multitude; in Philippo non desideravit panem, sed fidem; he did it to prove his faith. This is the Doctrine. Let not thy Soul consent to be enticed unto folly, When Sirens and Allurers come with honey in their mouths, be you as wise as they were, that had wax in their ears. Like a sure Musician, maintain your part, and though some be out of tune, be not carried away with their discords, to offend against good harmony; Ut rupes immota, &c. says the Poet; let a wave dash against you, and a billow break itself in twain and foam, but for thy part give no ground unto the Tempter.

Jeremy nor any man alive must look to obtain more than the Servants of Naaman thought fit to be granted; si magnum, if the Prophet ask a great thing it must be done for the Prophets sake; si malum, if it be an unlawful thing, si per amicitiam patris atque suam, the highest Power upon earth hath not power to command it. O what an excellent Court did King Saul keep? not one of his Servants, no not one about him would slay the Priests of God for the Kings Command. Turn and slay the Priests of God, says Saul unto his Guard, 1 Sam. xxii. they durst not do it, those mighty men of volour durst not draw a sword in a bad Cause, because they feared the Lord. Then Doeg is called for from among the Beasts, a Herdsman more brutish than the Flocks he kept; and he slew that day 85 persons that did wear a Linnen Ephod. Such another was that Tribune of the Roman Army, that had rather worship Idols with Gallienus the Emperor, than serve the true God with Fructuosus the Martyr; Jussum est Caesaris ore Gallieni, quod princeps colit haec colamus omnes. But Amram the Father of Moses is recounted among St. Paul's Saints, Heb. 11. because he hid the Child three months, and would not consent to Pharaoh's tyranny.

He that will sin to please another, makes his Friend either to be a God that shall rule him, or a Devil that shall tempt him. Three things, says Aristotle, do preserve the life of friendship. 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to answer love with like affection. 2. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , some similitude and likeness of condition. 3. But above either, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , neither to sin ourselves, nor for our sakes to lay the charge of sin upon our familiars. No he is too prodigal of his kindness, that giveth his Friend both his heart and his conscience. I may not forget how Agesilaus his Son behaved himself in this point toward his own Father: the cause was corrupt wherein his Father did solicit; the Son answers him with this modesty, Your Education taught me from a Child to keep the Laws, and my youth is so inured to your former Discipline, that I cannot skill the latter. Here let Rhetoricians declaim whether this were duty, or disobedience. But let us examine the case by Philosophy. I am sure that no man's reason is so nearly conjoined to my soul, as my own appetite, although my appetite be merely sensitive. And must I oftentimes resist my own appetite, and enthral it as a civil Rebel? and have I not power much more to oppose any man's reason that persuades me unto evil, his reason being but a stranger unto me, and not of the secret Council of my Soul? Yes out of question. Remember what Herodias asked, when the Kings oath was passed to deny her nothing. St. Paul put in a caution that his Galatians should beware of them that came to pervert their faith in the shape of Angels. Licet Angelus. What could he say more? for it is not the Angel of Smirna and Thiatira, they had their faults: not the Angel of Milan and Hippona, the noble Army of the Church, they might have their faults. But if an Angel from Heaven preach another Gospel unto you than we have preached; what then? dare we say nolumus? nay, but anathema, let him be accursed.

How it pities me to hear some men say, that they could live as soberly, as chastely, as Saintlike as the best, if it were not for Company? Fie upon such weakness: what Simeon and Levy Brethren in iniquity? let such a one be a Proverb and a By-word, like Milo the Wrestler, whose strength was so great, that no Champion in Greece could wring a Pomegranet out of his hand, but some lascivious Mistress, some painted Harlot, could make him let go his hold with a kiss. Quid refert utrum in matre an in uxore dummodo Eva in omni muliere caveatur, says St. Austin; If thy Mother speak thee fair, if the Wife of thy Bosom tempt thy heart, beware of Eve, and think of Adam. The Serpent was a wise creature, Gen. iii. and Eve could not but take his word in good manners. Fond Mother of Mankind, so ready to believe the Devil, that her posterity ever since have been slow to believe God. This is the weakness of our Times; and to use holy Nazianzens words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to overwhelm sobriety with Wine in sweet courtesy and Healths, as if every tipsie Friend were a Physician. I doubt not but the men of Sodom, that perished with fullness of bread, even they, how uncivil soever, would have shewn enough of this kindness unto Lot and the Angels. But is not this against nature, says St. Basil, to invite Acquaintants to a Feast for the sustenance of their lives, and to endeavor to carry them out of doors like dead men. Do you not pity the old Prophet, that threatened Jeroboams Altar, and made the ashes to tremble by the mighty power of his Message, but yet was allured foolishly to turn in and eat when God forbad him. He could not say non bibam, and stand to it; but a Lion out of the Forest did rend the morsels out of his belly before they were digested. Beloved, never can there be a better season for nolumus, for every Christian to be a Rechabite, then when any man reacheth out a Cup of intemperance unto us, to say boldly, we will not drink it.

And what if I should put you in mind of a more pernicious Cup, than that which begets the surfeit of drunkenness? it is called the Golden Cup of abominations, and the Jesuits are the Cupbearers. God give you grace to refuse it when it is reached out unto you: and these are the days of trial, when swarms of Romanists buz about to pervert the innocent. What can they say unto you, Beloved? are they so meek and humble as we are, who built their Popedom above Kings, and made their Cardinals the Princes of the Earth? Is their life more holy than ours? tell me why Stews are maintained; why they do sell Indulgences for sins: Are they so merciful? Who knows not Duke d'Alva 's bloody days? Queen Mary's Bonfires? and the torments of Inquisitions? Are they so loyal-hearted? alas, woe for the loss of so many Princes by their Treasons and Conspiracies. But is Christ more magnified by them? Why do they interfere upon his Intercession by praying to Saints, upon his Mediation by their own Merits? Is their Worship of God more spiritual? wherefore do I see their Images? Are God's Ordinances so strictly observed in Rome? why do some marry incestuously? why are some forbidden Marriage? Can they prove their Doctrine by so good a foundation as we do? wherefore do they urge Traditions? Finally, Is their Religion more ancient? no more than Abraham's Idolatry at Ur in Chaldea was ancienter than the Worship of the living God. Wherefore, as our Savior said to Peter, Thou art Simon Bar Jonah, but thou shalt be called Peter. Jonah signifies a Pigeon, and Peter an hard Stone; as who should say, quem inveni timidum ut columbam, efficiam lapidem. So God confirm the feeble, such as tremble on both sides, and are fearful as Doves, that they may be as the Rock, against which the Gates of Hell cannot prevail, that you may hold fast your Profession, and say against that Cup as the Rechabites did to this, non bibemus, we will drink no poison.

Now I proceed to the second part of my Text, which hath a strong connection with the former; for why did they resist these enticements, and disavow the Prophet Jeremy? because says the eighth verse of this Chapter, They will obey the voice of Jonadab the Son of Rechab in all things that he hath charged them all the days of their life. Their obedience is the second part of their Encomium, They will obey the voice of Jonadab their Father. The name of Father was that wherewith God was pleased to mollify our stony hearts, and bring them into the subjection of the fifth Commandment. Illa enim superioritas maxim amabilis est, & minime invidiosa, says Calvin: we cannot envy the superiority of a Father, every man being likely to succeed in the same dignity. Festus reports it of the Gaulish Priests among the Romans, that at first they were made Eunuchs only to punish their stubbornness against their Parents, that they being a generation of disobedient Children, might never beget Children that should obey them. And therefore it is pity, that the same justice was not executed upon Pope Gregory the VII. to cast him out forever being called a Father of the Church, who made the Emperor Henry the Fourth take arms against his own Father, and depose him. And that proud title of Rabbi should never have been given to the Pharisees, rather to the vilest Beggar in the Street, because it was their Tradition to swear by the Gift upon the Altar, never to relieve the wants of their distressed Parents. Surely as a Parricide, that killed his Father, was to have no burial upon the Earth, but sewed in an Ox Hide and cast headlong into the Sea; so he that despiseth his Father deserves not to hold any place of dignity above others, but to be a Slave to all men. For what are we but Coin that hath our Fathers Image stamped upon it? and we receive our current value from them to be called Sons of Men.

And yet the more commendable was the obedience of the Rechabites, that their Father Jonadab being dead, his Law was in as good force as if he had been living. It was a great mourning which Joseph and his Brethren did celebrate for their Father Jacob, Gen. the last. But that was the least honor done unto him. When his Sons did carry his Body, as he commanded them, to be buried in Canaan, in the Field of Mamre, which Abraham bought for a Possession, that was the best Solemnity in the Funerals of Jacob. It is an effeminate tenderness of heart, says Tacitus, prosequi defunctum ignavo fletu, to weep and lament over the dead; obsequi vero in iis quae jusserit, to execute the will of the Dead, that is the truest honor we can do them, and a faithful expression that we reverence their memory. Licurgus knew right well, what great benefit Lacedaemon received by his Laws; yet doubting the people's inconstancy, and foreseeing that when he was dead, good Laws might be cancelled, and bad Manners survive: He took a long Journey, and swore the Citizens to the observation of his Laws, until he returned in safety: but that was never: And some short time they remembered their own Oath, who on a sudden would have forgot his Laws and his Memory. Very often is it seen in this dissolute Age of ours, that which old Mitio said, Dum id rescitum iri credunt, tantisper cavent; young Heirs forget their godly Education, as soon as their Parents have breathed their last: then they run riot, and mortgage their Temperance to Taverns, their Chastity to Dens of uncleanness, and their Lands to the Usurer. What a rare example now is this of the Rechabites, custode remoto, being now in their own power and government, to remember the Life and Doctrine of their Father Jonadab, and to profess his austerity, Non bibemus, &c.

Concerning this Virtue of Obedience, let us extend our discourse a little further, and yet tread upon our own ground. Obedience is used in a large sense, for a Condition, or Modus, as the School calls it, annexed unto all Virtues. As the Magistrate may execute justice dutifully under his Prince, the Soldier may perform a valiant exploit dutifully under his Captain; but strictly, and according to the pattern of the Rechabites: Obedientia est sola virtus per se, cum res jubentur adiaphorae ad praestandum, says Aquinas; It is one peculiar and entire virtue, whereby we oblige ourselves, for Authorities sake, to do things indifferent to be done, or omitted: for sometimes that which is evil may be hurtful prohibito to the party forbidden: as the Laws forbid a man to murder himself: sometimes a thing is evil prohiben • i, so Treasons, Adulteries, and Thefts are interdicted: but sometimes the thing is no way in itself pernicious to any, but only propounded to make trial of our duty and allegiance, as when Adam was forbid to eat the Apple, and this is true obedience, not to obey for the necessity of the thing commanded, but out of conscience and subjection to just Authority.

Such obedience, and nothing else is that which hath made the little Common-wealth of Bees so famous: for are they not at appointment who should dispose the work at home, and who should gather honey in the fields? they flinch not from their Task, and no Creature under the Sun hath so brave an instinct of sagacity. Wherefore Epiphanius was wont to compare the godly Monks, that undertook their Office by the appointment of their Superior, some to labor with their hands, some to pray and meditate; I say he likened them to Bees, that hum about and make honey together. So some of these toil for the use of men, some sing Psalms unto God, thymum & hymnum proferunt. You shall hear an hundred boast of their great stomach, and of a spirit that could not be kept under. Brethren, as St. Paul said, your boasting is not good. But almost I never heard of any that professed themselves of a spirit which was subject to all obedience. One indeed I have read of, Nicolaus of Crete, how well it did become him, who was subject to Theodorus his Prelate, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as if he had no will of his own; full of reason and understanding, but utterly void of will and willfulness. What a pleasure was this, both to him and his Disciple? what a sight was this worth the seeing? as the Angels, says Aristotle, are never weary of moving the Heavens, and the Heavens are never weary of turning round. Such is the harmony between the Prelate and the demure Obedient: where Wisdom is the Sun, and Duty is the Dial upon which it shines. How near came this man's Soul to Adams in the state of Innocency? whose original purity the Schoolmen call by an elegant Title aureum froenum, a golden Bridle. For the Appetite had a Bridle to be checked under Reason; Reason had a Bridle to make it follow the supreme Will of the Creator: the very Beasts had a Bridle cast into their jaws to make them Homagers unto Man, which now would raven upon our Carkasses. Now there is nothing abroad or at home but bellum servile, Zimri riseth up against his Master.

Nothing hath more carried the World aside than those glorious words of Liberty, Power, and Prerogative. Among the Romans oppression and cruelty did not make a Tyrant, but the very name of Sovereignty. Nec clementes Dominos ferre poterant, says Tacitus, Masters, though they were meek, did offend as long as they were called Masters. Angustum annulum ne gesta, says Pythagoras, as if all subjection unto Discipline were like a strait Ring that pinched the finger. Plutarch coins a Fable, that the Tail of the Serpent grudged at the Head, because it went always foremost: The Head indeed had the right to go first, and the Tail to come after; but Officers were changed upon importunity, the Body was scratched, the Head was bruised, everything was out of order, and by consent of all parts the Head was restored to that dignity forever after, to lead the Body: And when disobedience hath disjointed the frame of any Polity, it is obedience must set all together, and unite the Fabric.

Observation of Ceremonies, and petty duties may seem perhaps to be maintained too severely, and the peremptory keeping of Circumstances, to be rather Rigour than Discipline. But it was the answer of a wise Magistrate to this complaint, that assault would quickly be made against greater matters, if the lesser were despised. For observe it in a Wine-vessel, the small twigs bind about the hoops, the hoops bind about the planchers, the planchers alone seem to contain the liquor, you would think; yet cut the small twigs, and the hoops fly asunder, the planchers start, and the wine is spilled. So is it with Ceremonies; to despise our Garments, our Gestures, our Canonical Ordinances may seem no damage to Religion, but the very substance of our Christianity would lie open to the wild Boar out of the Wood to root it up, if the Hedg were broken. In some cases I will grant it to be very true, that the Orator says, generosus est animus hominis magisque ducitur quàm trahitur; our mind is free and noble, and would rather go alone than be forced to duty; but what duty can be expected from them in greater cases, who are headstrong against Ecclesiastical Government in the smallest Ceremonies?

They that zealously wish abundance of happiness in the Church, will be so far from complaining that Ceremonies are a burden to their Liberty, that they would wish, I think, that Canonical obedience did lie more strictly upon the Clergy, in the whole course of their Profession: Which if it did, I am persuaded that the studies of the Learned, and the painful industry of Scholars had been more renowned in this Island, than over all the World. It is the sweet lenity of our Pilots to give us sea room to sail at random, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , if we were compelled to knit our strength in clusters, our prowess would be better tried in God's Cause, than when we come single and scattered one from another to write a Controversy. For when every man follows the genius of his own disposition, license cannot choose but bring in confusion: for though everyone should do well for his own part, yet the work must be out of order.

Some Monk will say perchance, this is our Religion, and just as we would have it. Immane quantum, &c. great is the difference between my Doctrine and theirs, and, I fear, we shall not part friends thus. First, I commend obedience, where the thing commanded is feizable, and may be done; as to build no houses, to drink no wine: they call for obedience in things impossible, as to water a dead stick and make it grow, to pour water into a Siev, and the like: This is not obedience, but pertinax inertia, loss of good hours, wasting of time, and fruitless negotiation. I commend obedience which turned the heart of the Children toward their Fathers, and gives this praise to the Rechabites, that they would not be enticed by Priest or Prophet, but in all things hearkened to the voice of Jonadab: they commend those unnatural Monks, that take a Cloister over their heads to sleep and fatten, though their Parents be most unwilling, and curse them for it. I commend the Rechabites obedience which is grounded upon the Scripture, approved by the Spirit of God, and his Prophet Jeremy: they have no ground for their Canonical Orders, but man's institution. Votum obedientiae non direct colligitur e scripturâ, says Gregory of Valentia: nay, temporibus Apostolicis non institutae sunt religiones, says Aquinas, our Religious Orders are later than the times of the Apostles. Lastly the obedience which I praise is such, where the things commanded are lawful and just. Wine in those hot Countries might well be forborne, and temperance the better maintained: in Tents they might dwell, and shades of Tabernacles, to acknowledge themselves but Strangers and Pilgrims in this World, and Heaven to be their Country: some say it was to forewarn the Israelites, that the Captivity of Babylon was hard at hand, and it was in vain to build Cities for a long habitation. Finally, having neither Barns nor Storehouses, their Herds and their Flocks were their riches, and they forbore to sow the ground, and to gather in the fruits of the Harvest; these things are lawful and honest, and in them it was expedient to hearken to the voice of Jonadab. But the Romanists commend obedience wherein fas and nefas are alike: to complot Treasons and Massacres, to dissemble and lie; for Priests to leave off their Weed, and ruffle it in other Countries like Gentlemen, all this is obedience: yea Maffaeus commends a Novice of the Jesuits Order, who was consecrating the Host at the Communion, his Superior Liola called him away for no other end but to try his duty, he left his God Almighty half made, and half unmade in the midst of Consecration, and hasted to his Superior. This is sweet obedience.

Men that have reason and will, subject themselves to the power and dominion of their Rulers by the inclination of their own will: natural agents are compelled to yield to forcible agents, because the weaker qualities cannot resist the stronger. Now the Underling that obeys his Praelate is exempted two ways from his Authority, as natural things two ways do control the virtue of a superior agent. 1. Propter impedimentum ex virtute superioris moventis, if a greater force oppose a lesser, the greater must carry the sway. Green wood resists the flame of a little fuel, because the mixture of the wood is too hard for so small a fire: so the supreme dominion and power belongeth unto God, and that obedience which is performed to Man against God, it is sacrificium de rapinâ, not Obedience but Atheism, not Obedience but Sacrilege, not Obedience but Flattery. The second resistance is when a natural body is subject in some qualities, and in some free from subjection; as wax subject to the fire to soften, to the Seal to set a stamp upon it. So an Handmaid is to yield all bodily service of labor to her Lord, but quoad prolis generationem aut corporis sustentationem non ligatur: To surfeit her body by excess of meats, or to pine it away with fasting; to commit uncleanness, or to enthral herself to Virginity, this is beyond the Sphere of Authority, and she is not bound unto it.

Let us gather up this second part of my Text into one closure; we commend the Rechabites for their Obedience, and by their example we owe duty to our Parents, natural and civil, those that begot us, those that govern us. We owe duty to the dead, after our Rulers have left us in the way of a good life, and changed their own for a better: We owe duty to our Rulers in all things honest and lawful; in obeying Rites and Ceremonies indifferent, in Laws Civil and Ecclesiastical. Illis imperii jus concessum est, nobis relicta est obsequii gloria. But where God controuls, or wherein our liberty cannot be enthralled, we are bound ad patiendum, and happy if we suffer for righteousness sake. Now that the obedience of the Rechabites was lawful and religious, and a thing wherein they might profitably dispence with freedom and liberty, the third part of my Text, that is their Temperance, will make it manifest, for in this they obeyed Jonadab, non bibemus, &c.

To spare somewhat which God hath given us for our sustenance, is to restore a part of the plenty back again; if we lay hands upon all that is set before us, it is suspicious that we expected more, and accused nature of frugality. And though the Vine did boast in Jotham’s Parable, that it cheered up the heart of God and Man, though it be so useful a Creature for our preservation, that no Carthusian or Coelestine Monk of the strictest Order did put this into their Vow to drink no Wine, yet the Rechabites are contented to be more sober than any, and lap the water of the Brook, like Gideon's Soldiers. Which moderation of diet (though, as I said in the beginning, as it is an extreme, and as it is a Vow forever to drink no Wine, I do not urge it to your imitation) yet it did enable them to avoid Luxury, and swinish drunkenness, into which sin whosoever falls makes himself subject to a fourfold punishment.

First, The heat of too liberal a proportion kindles the lust of the flesh; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as the Poet calls it elegantly, Wine is the milk of Venus. Lot who was not consumed in Sodom with the fire of Brimstone, drunkenness set him on fire with incestuous lust in Zoar. The Brimstone trickled down like rain, but Luxury broke in upon him like a breach of the Sea. And as Epaminondas said, Modicum prandium non capit proditionem; Treasons were never plotted at a frugal Table, so Fornications and Adulteries were never hatched in Cups of water, but then they steal upon us where our Bowls are crowned with superfluity. In jejuniis, in castitate, 2 Cor. vi. What St. Paul hath coupled, let us not divide, fastings go first, then follows pureness and chastity.

Secondly, How many brawls and unmanly combats have we seen? Nay, how much blood spilled under the Ensign of a Tavern Ivy bush? Memento te sanguinem terrae bibere, says Androcides in Pliny; Wine is but the blood of the earth, and blood toucheth blood, says the Prophet Hosea. Antonius vino gravis sitiebat sanguinem, says Seneca; When Antonius his head turned round with drink, he thirsted for the blood of his enemies. After Riot follows strife, says St. Paul, Rom. xiii. I will fill them with wine, and dash them one against another, says the Prophet Jeremy, Chap. xiii. It is a sweet thing that men must fall at odds, and stand nicely upon their terms of Honor in their drink, when no man can disgrace them so much as their own intemperance, which hath made them beasts: Is that a time to strive for Mastery when they are the vilest servants upon earth to their own brutish appetite?

Thirdly, Superfluity of drink it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the draught of foolishness. Such a misery, in my opinion, that I would think men had rather lose their right arm than the government of their reason, if they knew the Royalty thereof. Wine and the foolishness of Idolatry were in the Feasts of Belshazzar. And let St. Austin in his Epist. 64. be well discussed, and it will be found, that quaffing, which was used to be celebrated every year at the Tombs of the Martyrs, was the first thing that brought in Offerings and Prayers for the dead, a most erroneous Doctrine. St. Basil calls Wine-bibbers, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Idols of the Gentiles; for as David describes Idols in the Psalms, so they have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, hearts and understand not.

Lastly, Whereas 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , sobriety is the sustentation of that which decays in man, drunkenness is the utter decay of the body. It was all the excuse that Callisthenes had for himself, when he refused Alexanders drinking Feast, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , I had rather want your Feast than stand in need of Aesculapius. And when I see new Taverns multiply, the next thing I look to see, is to have more Apothecaries set up, and more Physicians practice among us. That then which bereaves our bodies of health, and our minds of reason: that which puts fury into our hands, and fire into our breasts; is that it which is grown the mean man's Recreation, and the great man's Solemnity? O ye Galatians, who hath bewitched you? Satisfie me in one question, and I will ask no more: To rob a man of his Garment, or his Purse, would you not think it dishonorable for you to do? And Theft to be punished by the Kings Laws? But, I pray you, which is the greater robbery, to force or flatter your Friend to kindness, whereby he loseth his reason, which is the Vessel of God's grace, or to bereave him of a little money, which is the instrument of fortune? Whosoever hath been guilty of this crime, to seduce another into weakness, if his heart do not burn within him for shame, know that Felix, the corrupt Governor, was more conscionable, for Felix trembled when Paul did preach of temperance.

Of all other sins surfeiting of meats and drinks is a transgression of private flattery: for every costly junquet is to content nature, to perfect nature, to strengthen nature; and poor nature is as innocent of these things as the Idol Bel, that had the name indeed, but tasted not the Kings Provision. Cum corpus impinguo, hostem adversus meipsum nutrio, says St. Bernard; To cram up our body too much, is to maintain a civil Rebel within our own skin and bone. Si contenti erimus naturâ, tam supervacuus est coquus quàm miles, says Seneca. In Peace what use have we of Soldiers? God forbid but their service should be rewarded nobly; but then we have no employment for their service: So if we go no further than the sustenance of mere Nature we shall have no use of Cookery. Beasts, and Fishes, and the Fowls of the Air find that at hand which is fit for their sustenance, Non fuit noverca natura, ut homo sine tot artibus non possit vivere; was Nature a Stepdame to man only, that no less than two hundred Arts and Trades may be reckoned before his Table can be furnished?

Adam went out of Paradise with a full stomach, he sunk like a Ship over-laden with Traffick, but Lazarus went fasting to heaven, scarce fraught with the crumbs of Dives Table. Moses did fast upon Mount Sinai when he talked with God, but in the Valley beneath the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. Elias did not drink for forty days, at length he did pray for rain, and had drink from heaven. But Luxury corrupts the Air, and breeds sterility. Tot curiis & decuriis ructantibus acescit coelum, says Tertullian by an excellent Hyperbole. Daniel by his slender food of pulse and water, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says St. Basil, taught the Lions to hunger and want their prey all night when he was cast into their Den. Therefore foul shame it was for the Pharisees, says the same Father, to look sowerly and sickly when they wanted their repast, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Why did they not rejoice rather for the healthfulness of their soul? Wherefore when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, says our Savior. You would think by this, that a Fast were the celebration of some Bridal. He was no Benefactor in Greece that did not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , mend their diet. No Emperor for the people of Rome that did not enter into his Kingdom with a Congiary, or Banquet. But the Saints of God will not let us know when, or what day they went to heaven without a Fast before it.

Let not this Doctrine give occasion to the Wealthy of this Kingdom to lessen their Magnificence, and pinch their Table: Charitable house-keeping hath been always the honor of this Realm, and a blessing destined for the poor. But whatsoever your eye beholds when you set before you plenteous provision, will you think, as the Epicure of Rome did, that the Table is furnished for your own throat, and boast that Lucullus sups with Lucullus? No Beloved, look upon it as the Father of a Family, whose eyes wait upon your benevolence; look upon it as the Steward of the poor, whose mouths shall bless God that hath enlarged your heart to do good unto them. And be not like the larded Epicure that eateth like Behemoth, Job xl.16. whose force is in the navel of his belly. What unfitness is in such a corps for speculation of knowledge? What dullness to Prayer and Devotion? Had we not need of a long Lent between our Shroving and our Easter?

And besides the sin of the gurmundizing Glutton, I must not spare to tell you, that there is luxuria in modico, a riotous diet which longs after nothing but dainties and delicates. As to be wanton stomacht after Mandrakes with Rachel; to long after the fruits of Pontus and Asia, with Lucullus. To affect strange Cookery of France and Italy. Why should you make more of your corruptible bodies than our Savior did of his glorified body? Ecquid habetis filioli? Children, have you anything to eat? Do but observe the prohibition of meats in the old Law; neither herbs, nor roots, nor any homely food were forbidden, but the curiosity of some delicious flesh was denied to the children of Israel. They had their Quails indeed in the Wilderness, when they lusted; and they that fasted three days in the Desert with our Savior, had nothing but two fishes and five barley loaves among two thousand. Choose you with whether of these you would make your Table: They with the Quails had the curse of God, and these had the blessing of our Savior. It is a mystery, methinks, that Father Jacob sent away his Honey and Spices, Nuts and Almonds for a Present unto Joseph, to buy him coarser food, I mean, the Corn of Egypt. Nos oleris coma, nos siliqua foeta legumine paverit innocuis Epulis, says the sweet Prudentius. In Ethnic Rome a Senator was charged to keep so mean a Table, by the Law called Centussis, that a Mess of Friers nowadays would rise an hungry from it. Ignorance it is, willful ignorance that hath made the world so riotous both in Gluttony and Drunkenness, because forsooth these are such sins as are not forbidden in the Ten Commandments. Not to trouble you with many conjectures why God did so, I will give you this answer for your utmost satisfaction. Nothing is forbidden in the Ten Commandments, Nisi direct deordinet hominem ad Deum aut ad proximum, says Hales; except it be a transgression directly against God or our Neighbor: Gluttony and drunkenness are principally inordinate passions, not against God and our Neighbor, but against our own body. But doth this diminish the guilt of these sins? No Beloved, but rather they do many ways dispose a man to disorder himself both to God and his Neighbor. God is often blasphemed, blood spilled, lust provoked, the Lord's day violated, the Magistrate disobeyed, and next to the pronity of original sin, intemperance of meats and drinks is the fuel of all sins: Wherefore be a Rechabite, or the next to a Rechabite, in surfeit and immoderation to drink no Wine.

There is but one thing remains to dispatch our exercise for this time. I have made a large discourse how Fasting and Temperance are the third Encomium or praise of the Rechabites. Indeed David doth wish it above all curses to the enemies of the Lord, that their Table may be made a snare. But for mensa laqueus, that a prodigal Table is a snare to a good conscience, it is no strange thing; What say you to inedia laqueus? To fast and subdue the body is made a greater snare, as the Devil hath contrived it among our Romish Adversaries. I knew the Devil could tempt an innocent to offend with eating, but would you think he could take advantage upon an empty stomach? Would you think that Lent, and a few Ember Weeks should be called Lutrum peccatorum; A satisfaction for sin? To cross this error, that it was not abstinence from meats and drinks simply taken which did commend us unto God, therefore as we lost the knowledge of God by Gluttony and eating, Gen. iii. So the Second Adam was known to his Disciples and Cleophas thrice after his Resurrection as they were at meat, to show that the Table of sobriety was sanctified in the Lord. Wherefore let the boast of the proud Pharisee, I fast twice a week, be made a Collect in the Roman Prayer-book: We are tied to say grace unto God when we receive our meat, but these men expect most impiously that God should say grace, and give them thanks for fasting, especially if it were a Vow, as this was of the Rechabites, Nunquam bibemus, forever we will drink no wine.

It is a blessed conspiracy when sundry souls confederate themselves together to serve the Lord. Glad was David's heart to have company to go to the Altar; I was glad when they said unto me we will go into the house of the Lord. Indeed, the Spouse of Christ is not one stick of Juniper, or a single lump of Frankincense though never so sweet, but Fasciculus Myrrhae, a bundle of Myrrh, Cant. i. Faith in unity it is the glory of Christianity. I know not what delight Owls may take to separate themselves and sit alone, but Ubi cadaver, ibi aquilae, where the body is, there will the Eagles be gathered. This is the fourth Pillar upon which the praise of the Rechabites is erected, they were Votaries in one Vow, they were joined in an order and confederacy to serve the Lord, When all other Relations will be out of date in heaven, perchance quite forgotten, the Title of Brotherhood among the Saints shall continue forever. Thus the Rechabites are combined; Et illi dixerunt, and they all said with one acclamation, We will drink no Wine.

But since I have spoken to the allowance and good liking of such as put themselves into one link and brotherhood of Religion, a thing unusual in our ears, a word will not be unfitting, before I proceed any farther, to explain myself, and let you know both whom I cast off, and whom I would entertain and justify in this Doctrine. First, God forbid I should allow any factious conjuration, like the desperate Campe of Absalom, like Theudas and his Banditi, like Judas of Galilee and his Swordmen; no, nor every foolish Rabble that meets at Tavern must be called an Order. We had of late times such as bound themselves in a League as if they had been Rechabites, and they chose a name for themselves as if they had been Sheperds, I will not say they did drink no wine: But this I dare say, if they had run riot as they began, they would have left themselves as little Land to plow as the Rechabites had, neither field nor vineyard.

The Friers and Monks of Rome, they are Orders that seem devoted to the Church, and so were the Pharisees. Verily some were anciently allowed in the Church to profess such austerity as needed not to counterpoise the Philosophical strict life of many Heathen. And as their original was not allowed from God, but man's institution, so in a little space they grew so bad that almost no zealous Spirit in any Age but did defy the Monasteries. In our time their profession of poverty is but lazy beggary, their obedience is to gain liberty against them who were made to command them, and to profess thralldom to one who usurps authority; their Vow of Chastity is to despise the Ordinance of Marriage, and to enjoy fleshly liberty; their practice is so profane that Boccace an Italian thought they spent all their study to find out this one conclusion, that there was no God.

But the Rechabites fixed themselves so curiously upon the true Worship of God, as the Star pointed in a right line to the Manger where Christ was reposed. For there is but this double error in enjoying the world: First, To think through infidelity Deum defuturum ubi promisit, that God will fail to provide for us notwithstanding his Promises. So runs the Devils Tentation against our Savior, Mat. iv. He must command stones to be made bread, or he must starve forever. Secondly, To run into presumption, Deum adfuturum ubi non promisit, that God would succor us in those cases where he never passed his word to do it. Behold it again in the Sophistry of Satan, Cast thyself down, for he will give his Angels charge over thee; to decline Infidelity the Rechabites commit their bodies to Tabernacles instead of houses. They live among strangers instead of their own people. Their Substance is the poor increase of their Flocks, instead of Lands and Revenues; their Diet is Parsimonious, they will drink no Wine. Yet to decline presumption, they exercise a Calling, they fill up a good employment in the Commonwealth, they have Children and Families to instruct in the Lord.

These are the Confederates and Votaries in whose holy life I found but three things before for your imitation: 1. Their constancy against enticements. 2. Their obedience and awful respects to the Laws of Jonadab. 3. Their temperance, and religious weaning of their bodies from the surfeited breasts of Drunkenness and Luxury; now your patience may expect, as it is my duty to perform the last task concerning the Vow of the Rechabites. The Fountain is but one, but the Head is parted into these four streams: 1. What inducements they had to make this Vow. 2. That their Vow being made stood upon just and lawful conditions. 3. That the greater defenders of Vows the Roman Monks do not imitate the Rechabites. 4. That Vows being justly made, they are solemnly to be performed, and then the Lord is pleased. Every part shall be offered again to your remembrance as it is handled.

In the first place, they had encouragement to take this Vow upon them for three reasons: 1. As being but strangers to the true Commonwealth of Israel. 2. To make the better preparation for the Captivity of Babylon. 3. To draw their affections to the content of a little, and the contempt of the world. We love for the most part to gaze at strangers, and curiosity will ask, as if it were in Office, about their birth and condition. Their Genealogy briefly (and under correction of better skill) is on this wise. Midian was born unto Abraham of Ketura, Gen. xxv. Jethro the Father of Zipporah the Wife of Moses came of that stock, being Priest and Son of Midian, Exod. ii. Hemath is the next in knowledge of that Race, and of Hemath came the Kenites, 1 Chron. ii. 55. Now the Kenites were the Children of Moses 's Father-in-Law, this is the very Text. Judge. i. 16. They went up out of the City of Palm trees with the Israelites, and dwelt among them in the Wilderness, and feared the Lord. But the Kenites were voluntary adjoyners, not of the Covenant, and Inheritance they had none in Canaan, no not a foot of ground. God having mightily blessed them with a little, only by keeping Sheep, as their Father Jethro and his Daughters did. Rechab and Jonadab provided assurance for their Children among the Israelites forever. And whereas strangers should cast about for two things especially, that is, neither to be burdensome to the place they live in, and eat out the Inhabitants, nor to be unprofitable as superfluous parts of the Kingdom. So did these men, they were bound to plant no Vineyards, to till no ground, or build houses; and who could say they robbed the Country of any Commodity. But they fed Flocks, and attended their charge in the field, least Israel should say, we have no need of you.

Happy men, who left the pleasant Country where they were born, and followed the Tabernacle into a strange Land, where they might be born again by the grace of God. As Tully said when he fled from Rome to Pompey, Exilium in Pompeii causâ est tanquam patria; he that was banished for so good a man was better than at home: So resolve we everyone to follow the true Church wheresoever it is tossed about in the World; there is no banishment to a Christian but to be far from God, Earth is our Pilgrimage, and Heaven our Country. Christus non in domo sed in viâ nascitur. Our Savior himself was born but in an Inn, as if he took up his lodging for a night in this world, and were but a Passenger. They that were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , sine aris focisque, without an hearth to kindle a fire, says Aristotle, of all men they were the most poor and wretched. That is no good Divinity, says St. Austin, writing concerning the tears of Judah by the waters of Babylon, Mirum hoc esset si aliquo duci poterant ubi Deus eorum non esset; If they that were hurried into Babylon could be carried away where God was not with them, then, and not till then, their translation were a misery. But as the Israelites removed from one journey to another, according as the Pillar of smoke did remove by day, and the Pillar of fire by night, so I tell you of such men in my Text that turned their station everywhere as God's Glory and his Worship did direct them. Whether it be affliction, or whether it be fear to give offense when we are in a strange Land, sure I am somewhat is in it, that makes such men most careful of their Religious Conversation. Deborah found the Kenites those sojourners most ready to pursue that Tyrant Sisera. Jehu could find no man to cleave unto him against the Idolatry of Baal but even this Jonadab, the Founder of this order of the Rechabites, who renounce all Mansion dwelling, and vow forever to live in Tents.

And as Abigail said to David, Let thine Handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the Servants of my Lord the King. So Jonadab puts his Children in a way to think themselves not worthy of Cities and Possessions among the Royal Nation whom God had chosen, but Shepherds they must be, and underlings to tend the Flocks of the Servants of the Lord. Felix illud saeculum fuit ante architectonas, says one. Fair buildings and curious houses had they been unreared, the Kitchins had not been plied so much to provide Banqueting and Luxury. It was a scoff cast upon the Rhodians, that they built as if they would live three Ages, and they fed as if they would die in three days: As if their fair Palaces moved them to make Feasts, and their Feasts were occasions to make them surfeit, and to sleep out their days in a Lethargy. You shall not wag your heads another day at these men's Tenements, and cry woe unto the houses that were built by Extortion. The stone out of the Wall, and the Beam of the Roof cannot condemn the Master. You shall not censure them as Seneca did his own Country-men the Romans, Unicuique suum si restituerent ad casas reducerentur; If every Nation whom they have robbed and spoiled had their own, they would have nothing left them, but, that which they began with, their Shepherds Cottages: And when you have erected such a place, that you may set your name upon it, says the Psalmist; yet what have you done, but paid Tribute where ye needed not, says Plutarch? Quare homines in auratis lectis dormiant, &c. Why should men put themselves to such cost to pay for their sleep, when if they will choose the open fields with Uriah, or choose a Tent with the Rechabites, it will cost them little or nothing. Nay, some are so curious, that they will not only have their houses for their lives, but set up Tombs for their dead Carkasses before they die. Nay, they dare endite Hic jacet upon their Monument when they are yet alive, when God knows whether their dust shall be scattered into all the quarters of the earth.

This that hath been spoken may serve to let you know how plausible it did seem to Jonadab to institute such a Vow, because his Brethren were strangers in the Land of Jury. And secondly, it was well considered, because their fortune might turn worse and worse; they might be greater strangers. For who is he that had not heard the threatening of the Babylonish Captivity? Nay, There are Psalms of Thanksgiving for their joyful return in the Prophet David. Did not Solomon's heart misgive him in this matter? Observe but one passage in his heavenly Prayer at the Dedication of the Temple, 1 Kings ix. 46. If they carry us away captive into the Land of the enemies far or near, and thy people repent, then hear our supplication in heaven, and maintain our cause. The time drew so near, that Jeremy and many Prophets spoke of it, as if the Calamity were already begun in the borders of the Country. Now when Captivity did ring in their ears, who would only live as if one day would be every day, and never provide for the Evening sorrow which might fall upon them? Who would not exercise his mind to know what it was to lose? Who would not cast away his burden against the flight of persecution? So did the Rechabites. For when the Chaldeans should sweep away the people, as an Ox licketh the grass, they were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , one Wain could carry them, their Tent, and their Family, Tectumque, laremque, armaque, it was but a progress to pass over Euphrates; but great was the sorrow of all the Tribes leaving their Houses and Vineyards; it made Jeremy endite a book of Lamentation. Noah left all he had unto the world seven days before the Flood began; and what got they who thought him foolish, and themselves happy to divide the spoils. Lot forsook his house, and the Sodomites did not enjoy it an hour who succeeded him.

A good Christian is indifferent to be cast into any mould by the hand of God. He that is prepared to die but one kind of death, is not yet fit to be a Martyr: And he that is prepared to live but one kind of life, is not yet fit to be a Confessor for the name of Christ. A good Actor, says Synesius, can represent either Creon or Telephus, and all is one in his skil to play the Prince, or the Bondslave. Hence ariseth all the misery of mankind, says Athenagoras in Plutarch, Quod quippiam nobis inexpectato accidit; That something befalls us which we did not expect, nor were provided for it. Foolish men, who love nothing but their present life, are like bad roots that grow sullen if you remove them from the earth that feeds them. There is no life to Shimei if he may not run at random, and rail, and backbite in every corner. As good it were to hang him out of the way as to confine him to one City, though it were Jerusalem. Such as can look no further into the world, than that they may retire to their own home if need be, are comprised under the Emblem of the Snail, that goes a very little space from her Shell with this word, Si pluit ingrediar, a dash of rain drives them back again. Your constant settled man is made for every fortune that is cast upon him, his Emblem is, Corpus quadratum, a square body; throw it as you will it lies flat and firm, every way it keeps the same decent posture. And so much for the second inducement which Jonadab had to ordain this Vow of Tabernacles and abstemiousness, it was for the better preparation against Captivity. In communi fame atque obsidione quàm utilis fuit frugalitas, &c. When Famine and Wars were in the City, great advantage had the Rechabites above other men, by their temperance, and hard lodging in Tents, says Calvin upon this place.

Lastly, Jonadabs counsel was as an Oracle of God to frame such a Vow at this season: Because the riches of the Land did exceedingly multiply above all Nations from the Reign of Solomon, and to profess so much contempt of the world when all Jury was like a rich Exchequer full of Silver and Gold, what an honor was this to the Rechabites that they durst be poor when all the Kingdom surfeited of plenty? Quid habere nobis turpe sit, quaeris? Nihil, says the Poet. Nothing was shameworthy in that place but to be poor and have nothing: Yet nothing they possess but such a quantity of substance as might best serve them to praise the Lord. Cattle they had, and Lambs they had wherewith the Priests might make atonement for their sins, and the sins of Judah: Goods and substance which was not useful to the Temple of God, to them such Riches were Apocryphal. Some bring Censors of Gold, some sweet Odours to the Altar. They have no such Offerings. But as it was said of Epictetus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . None so poor in the riches of this world, none so rich in the expectation of the next world.

The children of the true Church are compared to sheep coming from the shearer, Cant. i. Whereupon says one, Christianus est ovis detonsa, hoc est, omnibus mundanis spoliata; A Christian is a sheep that stands dumb, and is willing to part with all his Fleece, and to lay it at the feet of the Shearer. The Lord is merciful calcantibus terram, says the Prophet Isaiah, to them that spurn the earth. From whence St. Austin raised this Meditation, Est iis misericors qui amore coelestium terrena contemnunt, He is merciful to men who trample the riches of the earth under feet, and meditate upon the Kingdom of Heaven. For as the Fathers observe upon St. Peters words, Depart from me for I am a sinful man, that such a depart was a Fishers hook to draw Christ nearer unto him: So for these men to plant neither Vine, nor Olive, nor to so Seed in the Canaan beneath, was to purchase the holy Paradise of happiness which remains forever. O let me oppose the life of these men to the covetous death of many in our Age, that put out money upon Usury after they are buried, like him in the Poet having his deaths wound, Terram ore momordit, he would carry his mouth full of earth away with him, as if he should not have enough in his grave.

Had not the Israelites been too richly furnished with golden Ear-rings, they had never had stuff to make an Idol, there had been no Calf in Horeb. Had not Hezekiah been exalted with the pomp of so great a Treasury, the Messengers of the King of Babylon had not known the riches of the Kings Palace, an Army had not been brought against the Kingdom. Methinks, says Seneca, the Romans should tremble at nothing more than to see Plate in their Streets, and Jewels in their Chains, and Gold upon the Posts of their doors. Cogitet Romanus has apud victos se reperisse; When they were first Conquerors they had none of these, but they found them among their vanquished Captives. So let Judah remember that they found their Gold and Silver among the Canaanites who were slain and rooted out. And are they not fair baits to fall again into the hands of Conquerors? Now alas, says Synesius, no man can think he is enthralled in the Fetters of Captivity as long as his Fetters be of Gold, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , we are not wary of mischief being in a glorious misfortune. Had they been all as wise as the Rechabites, their abundance had not dazzled the eyes of their enemies: but now like Fowls which shed their feathers about their Nest, they betray themselves by their own superfluity. I have read of an Advocate of Rome, that professed himself to be able to teach any man the Law to save his Lands from all question, that he might be disquieted by no impleadment. I do not value that cunning, says Seneca, but teach me to lose all I have, and not to be moved with the misfortune, and then I will pay you for my learning. In like manner had Jonadab left a great volume of Precepts behind him how to teach his Kindred thrift and husbandry, had he bequeathed to them the magisterium of the Philosophers Stone, why all this labor had only made them worldly and avaricious. But to institute a course, and to put them in practice how to want and suffer scarcity, as many as walk in that rule may have bodies that can live without this world, as they have souls that can live without these bodies.

And so much for the three laudable inducements unto which Jonadab did respect, when he made his Children vow a Vow unto the Lord. 1. It was expedient for strangers. 2 It was a Cordial to comfort them in the Captivity of Babylon. 3. It was an occasion both to withdraw the fuel which kindled the love of the world in their souls, and it extinguished the envy of their Adversaries who were about to subdue their Country. Now I follow my own method to handle the second consideration of this Vow, that these circumstances were not only well foreseen, but that the conditions of the thing vowed are just and lawful.

Not to tumble over all the distinctions of the Schoolmen, which are as multiplicious in this cause as in any; of Vows, some are singular in uno individuo, which concern one man and no more, as when David vowed to build an house unto the Lord, this was not a Vow of many associated in that pious work, but of David only. Some are public when there is an unity of consent in divers persons to obtest the same thing before the presence of God. And such was this Vow in my Text, it concerned the whole Family of the Rechabites. Again, some Vows are private, not in regard of the persons which may be numerous, but in respect of the place; some Vows are solemn when the protestation is made unto the Church. So was not this Vow, it was not solemn, it was no Church matter. To say that the Rechabites lived about the Temple, and were a kind of Monks, I know not what could be spoken more ignorantly by our Adversaries, and yet it hath been written in defiance of our Religion. None lived about the Temple but Priests and Levites, except some great Prophetical Spirit was discerned in them. That the Nazarites had any dwelling in the Temple Maldonado is mistaken, no more had these Shepherds who lived in Tabernacles. Again, some constrain themselves to the observation of a Vow but for a time; for never any but Samson, that we read of, was a perpetual Nazarite; some oblige the Votary forever, such was this which I treat of, in Tabernacles they must live forever. Fourthly, Some stand upon conditions, like that of Anna, if she had a Son she would give him to the Lord. Some are absolute, like the Vow of Baptism, wherein there is no capitulation. But were it a Vow in any rank of these which I have named, yet the complexion of the matter must have these four conditions according to the Schoolmen. We will take that which is sound, and refuse that which is corrupt. Esto, say they, res adiaphora, possibilis, licita, faciens ad cultum Dei. 1. The thing vowed must be indifferent and free from necessity. 2. An atchievment possible, and not out of the reach of human frailty. 3. Unless it be lawful we offer our service unto Devils. 4. That which we vow unto God must not be every idle fancy of our own brain, it must bear weight and moment if we promise it unto the Lord.

To begin with the first: A thing not commanded, but indifferent to be done or not done is the first condition of a Vow, says Aquinas. Stay there a while. Shall I believe Aquinas or the Patriarch Jacob? For I learn that the first ground of making a Vow is in Jacob's example, Gen. xxviii. by the light of nature before the Law: and he vows both res praeceptas, that God should be his God, and res adiaphoras, where the Stone was set to build up an house to God. Beloved, be not deceived with the leaven of the Jesuits, this is Diana of the Ephesians, and their credit lies upon it. Indeed such Commandments as literally forbid sin are negative, and obligant ad semper, the yoke of them is never off from our conscience, and so it is easy to acknowledge that they are Commandments; But whereas inclusively there are duties to be done quae non obligant ad semper, which bind us but at times and seasons, therein we may meet with many parts of Divine Worship which seem superfluous, and as it were, given into the bargain: Especially we want a good inspection to make a difference between these three things. 1. There is the end of a Christian life. 2. The next and immediate means to that end. 3. The remoter means, and further off. The end is God's glory, and we cannot oversee that point, but that it is the first injunction which lies upon our Soul. The next and the proper end to that means are the strict words of the Commandments, and those, we cannot gainsay it, are a necessary part of Christianity: But as for the remote means, which are further of, there we boast that we do pay that which we did never owe, but supererogate with God.

O deluded Conscience! hearken and consider; purity of body and soul is the scope of the seventh Commandment. The next means to avoid Adultery is in some men Marriage, in some the shunning of lascivious talk and lewd Company: there are means more distant to subdue the wantonness of the body, by strict Fastings, by Canonical hours of Prayer, to shun the very Country where bewitching Beauties tempt our affections. Should you tell me in this case that your Prayers, your Fastings, your Pilgrimages were more than measure, and above the Commandment I would tell you, you did lie against God and your Conscience; against God who hath commanded all that you can perform by might and strength; and against Conscience; for whatsoever my heart tells me will give me advantage to serve the Lord, conscientia in iis est regula faciendorum, and it is sin to omit it.

I appeal to a Jury of the Schoolmen: Why did Christ and his Angels vow no vow? because they are the most perfect Creatures of reasonable essence, full of the noblest speculation: yet they keep the Law of God and observe it. Down then with that blasphemy, that the observation of the Law is but Milk for Babes, and Vows are left to try the virtues of an excellent and heroic spirits, greater Tasks for the Champions of the Militant Church. The Law is like the Passover which must be eaten; Devotions of indifferency, when conscience doth prescribe them, are like the sower herbs to be eaten with it. If you think the Sawce better than the Meat, the Herbs more costly than the Lamb, they are fermentum in Paschate, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. You will say, was not this res adiaphora? was it not in the power of the Rechabites to drink wine or refrain? yes; but when conscience had set it down before them as an excellent disposition to serve the Lord, conscience hath made that which was indifferent in itself necessary unto them, and their Task in this very thing to please the Lord. If this Chapter be not strong enough to convince our Adversaries, though they glory in the Example of the Rechabites, let them take the Cause. For although they restrained themselves to the poorest life of keeping sheep, and dwelt in Pavillions and drank no wine, yet it came not from these observations that they were acceptable to God; no, God himself reduceth their good service to the fifth Commandment in the last verses of this Chapter; because they have obeyed their Father Jonadab in all things, therefore there shall not want a man of that Race to stand before him forever. And so much for the first condition of this Vow; the observations in themselves are of indifferency and liberty, but yet media remota ad praeceptum, they are reducible to the fifth Commandment.

In the second condition I concur with the Schoolmen, that a Vow must be possible to accompass, lest they that pass by shake their heads and say, this man laid a foundation and was not able to build it up: non est votum sed ostentatio, it is no Vow, but plain boasting and ostentation. They deal as certain of the Sect called Druids among the Gauls, that took much upon trust in this life, to pay their Creditors in the Resurrection. When St. Peter would trust his feet to walk upon the Seas to Christ, the waves surged, and had well nigh drowned an Apostle. A good Emblem for those who finding their affections calm and even, say tomorrow will be as yesterday, and vow for the years to come; but in time our heart loatheth this Manna, and what are we but Bankrupts unto God, and Peter sinketh. A true Votary, says Anselm, gives unto God the whole tree with the fruit, root, and branches; the works of the will, and the power of the will forever. But if the Thistle should vow, and threaten to bring forth grapes, would it not be trodden down by the Beasts of the field? as it is in the Parable? But this Vow of the Rechabites may be discharged with facility. Of their Pastoral life they had many examples in other Countries of men living in Woods, as if they had been born of Trees: and of their temperate life they had an instance in the Nazarites.

But nothing is more feizable in the World than evil; therefore in the third place it concerns a Vow to be lawful. To resolve upon evil is a defiance against God; omnis promissio mali est comminatio: Isaiah calls it an agreement with Hell, and a Covenant with Death. Lamech that swore in his wrath to kill a man: the Mother of Michah who did solemnly dedicate her Silver for a molten Image; the Swordmen that vowed the death of Paul, these gave their faith in hostage to the Devil to work iniquity. Put to these the revengeful Romanist, that is sent to sea by his Ghostly Father, with a worse Devil in him than was in the Gergasens Swine, to set Kingdoms in combustion, and to destroy the Lord's Anointed. There are also unlawful Votaries, but not so bad as the former, whose heart was right with the Lord in their Vow, but being rash and sudden, never considered that the issue might be dangerous. Thus Jepthab returning from the slaughter of the Ammonites brought a deliberate curse upon his own Daughter. And what justice was in the Oath of Saul, that swore every man should die that tasted food that day, as well he that heard the Law as Jonathan that did not. These are Vows like sharp arrows shot up into Heaven, soft enough while they are in the air, but the danger is whose head they light upon when they return again.

Well, I acquit the Vow of the Rechabites from any harm; to drink or spare is lawful; it is our freedom making no conscience. Not one Expositor of many but conceive that Jonadab and his Children took this penance upon them, because it grieved them to hear that Zion should be desolate, and Jerusalem an heap of stones. Let others feast it while destruction comes upon them unawares. There are such lovers of themselves, qui mallent stellam de coelo perire quàm vaccam de armento, who had rather Heaven should lose a Star than himself be endamaged a Sheep, the Vine will not leave his sweetness, nor the Olive his fatness, neither would put away private content for the public good: but a zealous Rechabite is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and leaves both the sweetness of the Wine, and all power forever to plant Vineyards, the better to be prepared to pray for Jerusalem.

Lastly, multa licent quae non expediunt: May it be done safely? that is some content: but is it fit to be done? faciens ad cultum Dei? is it profitable for holiness? that is the fourth Condition. Every act of Divine Worship well placed raiseth up our melody unto God in a higher note: the noise of every idle superstition drowns the Music. When David vowed an Habitation for the mighty God of Jacob, Arise O Lord into thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy strength, then he filled Heaven and Earth with his Melody: We heard of the same at Ephratah, and found it in the woods. But that rude noise, Templum Domini, Templum Domini, to vow Pilgrimages, and gadding about to I know not what, it breeds no incensement of devotion: a mere 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , like an Artist more busy than well occupied, that made a Chariot for a Fly to draw it.

But that this Vow was of some moment in the practice of piety, it appears by God's benediction upon them in the last verse of this Chapter. For as it was said of Socrates his goodness, that it stood the Commonwealth of Athens in more stead than all their warlike Prowess by Sea and Land, so that Religious life of the Rechabites was the best Wall and Fortress to keep Judah in peace and safety. Those that like Thomas the Apostle would put their finger into the world, and thrust their hand into riches, and see the print of their nails, or else they will not believe; these would make you think that they were Disciples of Christ, and yet indent to receive Tribute from him, as if he were their Servant: And almost who doth not follow Christ rather to be a gainer by him than a loser. Ecce nos reliquimus omnia, Behold we have left all and followed thee; that was the perfection of the Apostles, that was the state of the Rechabites; not simply all, everything that belonged to the maintenance of a man, and so to live upon beggary, sed quid velle debeant didicerunt, they have learned to ask nothing but a Gourd to cover their head, a few Flocks of Sheep to employ their hands, the Spring water to quench their thirst. They that must have no more, have cut off superfluous desires, that they can never ask more. And so I have declared that piety and a godly life were chiefly aimed at in the Vow of the Rechabites.

But admit it had all in one Vow which could be good in any; will it avail to license a Profession of Votaries in our Reformed Church; my Text casts this Question in the way, and I will remove it in a word. If any man would make a single Vow for his own person by this Example, let him go on and prosper. Advice is necessary in so great a business, and in the multitude of Counselors there is safety. A Vow of Private Devotion hath always been allowed in these cases following. First, when the heart of any humble Supplicant did earn to obtain some great mercy from God. 2. When a terror of some imminent judgment did hang over the head of sinners, and threaten destruction not to be forty days distance off, as in the case of the Ninevites. 3. It may be a caveat to check concupiscence, lest we sin over our enormous sins, not once, but often. Lastly, it kindles a frozen and benumbed zeal, and puts a flame into it as if it had been set afire by a Seraphin with a Coal from the Altar.

Now for public Confederacy of many persons in one Order, it is as lawful, being well managed, as it is full of exceptions before the institution. Why may there not be holy Combinations to praise the Lord, as there are Orders for Chivalry and Honor in divers Countries? as the most noble Order of the Garter in our own Kingdom, the Knights of the Golden Fleece, and the like. I know not any well advised man that can take exceptions at the Knights of the Sepulcher instituted in a strict Collegiate life, covenanting to fight against Pagans for the Christian Faith upon their own charges, and bearing Crosses about their neck in remembrance of our Savior's five wounds: but if any other condition shall intervene to the affronting of Religion, quae dederam supra repeto funemque reduco, I will no more approve such knots of superstition, than I would allow of Sheba the Son of Bichri, and his Conspiracy against King David. And so much hath been spoken for the four just Conditions of the Vow of the Rechabites. 1. It was a thing indifferent, but reducible to the fulfilling of the Law. 2. Let it be possible in the Sphere of our own ability. 3. Let it be just and lawful. 4. Let it be full of weight and moment, to draw us to the fear of the Lord.

The third part of my Text I have destined out to show unto you, that the Romish Monks whose strictness and devotion is so famous among our Adversaries, that their Canons are not built upon the imitation of the Rechabites. That any particular Church may have Religious Orders and Votaries. I grant it, That point shall break no peace between us. In points not fundamental our Savior's rule must hold, He that is not against us is with us: But Vows undertaken, wherein they do neither consult with the strength of man if they can be done, nor with conscience if they may be profitably done, nor with the Text of Scripture if they may be lawfully done; this cannot but break out into a quarrel. And in Essential points it is also a Maxim from our Savior's mouth; He that is not with us is against us. Whatsoever is in the world, says St. John, it is either the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eye, or the pride of life. For the correcting of these three Tentations the Friers have propounded three Vows: The Concupiscence of the Eye is remedied by Monastical Poverty, say they; and why not as well by a contented mind? The Concupiscence of the Flesh is remedied by the Vow of Chastity, says the Romanist; I am sure experience doth tell us that God's Remedy is the surest, the Bed of Marriage. The Pride of Life is remedied by Blind Obedience, says the Papist; and why not as well by humility and acknowledgment of our own unworthiness?

Wonder you so much that so many should retire themselves into Voluntary Poverty? is this such news abroad? when you cannot walk the Streets at home but swarms of Canters meet you, who will not live by the hope of their labor, but by alms and charity. The poor Artisan, the painful Plowman who cannot make his long days labor feed him and refresh him at night, doth this man I pray you look like one who deserves relief, or an obstinate Mendicant? a Rechabite that watcheth night and day to feed his Flock? or a Capuchin that trudgeth night and noon about the City to feed his belly? Did Christ descend of the seed of Jonadab and Lazarus? no but of Abraham, a mighty Prince. Crates and Antisthenes may cast their Silver from them, and retain their vices, true Christians give up themselves to God, and with themselves they give up all things. Cosmus and Damianus who grudged a Monk his Christian Burial, because he had laid up a little Silver in his Study, were too prodigal of their zeal, and mist our Savior's meaning. To leave Lands and Houses for his Names same, was to beget an exercised mind for patience; to prepare Worldlings to be ready to cast away their Burdens for the flight of persecution. It is good for a man in some sort to depend upon God's temporal blessings, lest we grow careless of Prayer. In Egypt where the River Nile waters the earth, and fats the ground without rain, nemo oratorum coelos aspicit. Pray who will, they trust in Nile. Then I may contest against the Sectaries of St. Francis and the like, that Voluntary Poverty is not built upon the foundation of the Rechabites, and those idle swarms of the Cloisters have not left the World but civility.

But for the Covenant of perpetual Virginity, there they think to bear the Bell away, and that they only shall be the men who carry Palm Branches before the Lamb among the Virgins, Rev. 7. It is in weak man to afford God as much chastity as he pleaseth? Can our frail will cast anchor in the depth of concupiscence? and say unto the surging waves of lust as Christ did to the Sea, Peace, be still. So Xerxes threw chains into the Ocean to bind it; but trow you the Tide was the calmer? St. Paul durst not do so. He would admit no Widows into the strict Orders of the Primitive Church under sixty years of age. Yea, says Leo, the first of that name, rather than want a College full I will entertain them at forty: nay, says Pius the first, what if they profess Virginity at five and twenty? And now the Canons have opened the Market a little more, every Girl may enter into a Cloister at fifteen if she like them. As Elias set the Sacrifice on fire when the Trenches were filled with cold water round about; so unchaste acts may get predominance of the will, notwithstanding all the spiritual Scleragogie, and exercise to tame the body. Fasting humbleth; Prayer is powerful; honest Communication apparelleth the mind with good thoughts; Watching tameth the flesh. All this is spiritual, but I am carnal. Quoque magis premitur tanto magis aestuat ignis.

Is it not usual in the Court of Rome to grant Dispensations to supply the decay of Noble Families: but they are never granted to entangle an ensnared conscience. And do they love Virginity? In the Council of Chalcedon it was decreed, that there should be reserved for the Bishop 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . the absolute authority of Indulgence to pardon a distressed Maid, who disaccording to her Vow had married. But such a Marriage by the Romish Doctrine nowadays is esteemed worse than Adultery, and do they love Chastity? Finally, it was the Discipline of Numa against a Vestal Virgin, who had committed folly, to bury her alive. Such a fault in the Roman Monasteries is passed by, either with a full connivance, or with the smallest penance. For wot you why? it may be every man's case: and do they love Virginity? I am sure the Rechabites did honor Marriage, and propagated a good Generation to the World: They knew that the gift of perpetual continence is not a Grace of common course: and extraordinary Dispensations are not presumptuously to be arrogated to the use of every regenerate Christian, no nor for the command of any Prophet. Why should St. Paul leave Trophimus sick at Miletum? Why was Bishop Timothy his stomach weak? Paul could not help it. Grace allotted for extraordinary operations is not every man's portion; nor always at hand for them who at some seasons have a taste of it: and such is the Rose of the Garland, the gift of Chastity.

Finally, Obedience, which in our Voyage in this World, is like a sweet gale that fills the sails, and makes our Vessel fly swift upon the wings of the wind, yet as it is blind and Monastical, it is like a Serena, such a calm whereby the Bark can go neither backward nor forward, and it is not built upon the foundation of the Rechabites: not upon obedience to their own Father, but upon the sands of bondage and slavery. Ubi desinit Pharisaeus ibi incipit Monachus; the Pharisees if they took an oath upon the Altar not to relieve their Parents, thought it enough to say I know you not, to the Grey head which gave them education, and to the paps which gave them suck. Philo the Jew had it from hence when he concluded doctrinally, that a man was bound to provide sustenance for his Parents unless he had vowed the contrary. Not one jot more charitable are those shaven Crowns who afford their Parents no remembrance of their Birth, but to repent that they bore Children. Moreover what obligements did lie upon the Rechabites, but such as were calculated for common frailty. A Shepherds life, the drink of an abstemious man, the Estate of a Foreiner, to have neither Lands nor Possession, this doth neither press nor overload Obedience. But Sulpitius tells another tale for Monastical duty, nullum unquam recusaturus quamvis indignum toleratu imperium; to be commanded to sow the wind, and to reap folly, this is to abuse our Creation, which gave us bodies to do something; not to be set on work to lose good hours, and do nothing, to please a Superior. Besides, thus the Rechabites continued their life to follow the Statutes of Jonadab, that they might be accepted for their harmlessness and innocence as Strangers and Pilgrims in Israel. Are the Jesuits so? those undertakers of State affairs, who endenison themselves in every Kingdom, whose eyes, as one said very well, are like Burning-glasses, which fire all things upon which they look.

But this is their practice, to entitle the Worthies of the Scripture by the name of their own Orders, to whose conversation their life was nothing agreeable. Baronius makes the Mother of our Lord to live a cloistred Virgin in the Sanctum Sanctorum until she was betrothed to Joseph, and there was fed familiarly with Angels: Do you not believe it? when she trembled to hear one bring that good salutation, Ave Maria. In Nyssens time this was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a report that knew not the Author, and out of doubt a Fable. John the Baptist is tossed about in the Schools for the example of a contemplative Anchorite, because he lived in the Wilderness: But to be abroad in the Desert did no more make him an Hermit, than it made Nebuchadonosor who was mad seven years among the wild beasts. They presume also that Philip the Evangelists Daughters were Nuns, and had entered into some Covenant of Virginity, whereas in the third Book of Eusebius 's Ecclesiastical History, and the thirtieth chapter, the story is upon record that they were all happily married.

St. Chrysostom conjoyns an Eremite and Elias in some similitude, but to what purpose? I would our Adversaries would heed it better: that although an Eremite were as devout as Elias in the Wilderness, yet he would prefer a Bishop before him, who in the Cities of God taught the Word, and dispensed the Sacraments, St. Jerome I find calls the Rechabites Monks in the 13. Epist. ad Paulinum; not as if the causes or institution of both their lives were alike, but because they concurred in some points of austerity. If there be such suitableness between our Predecessors in the Law, and the Religious Orders of Rome nowadays, methinks Balaam should carry these marks of a Jesuit. First Balaam died in Arms, Jos. 13. and Loiola was a Soldier in the Field. Balaam was a great complotter with the King of Moab, they are busy and factious in all Kingdoms of Europe. Balaam was ready to curse God's Inheritance for a reward; this pernicious Fatherhood have laid their heads together to root out our reformed Israel. Balaam had the good gifts of Prophesy, but wanted grace; and so confer the Writings of the Jesuits and their practice, and you will say as Isaac did to his Father, Here's a pile of wood, but where is the Sacrifice? In like manner we may say here's a Volume of Divinity in our works, learned Fathers, but in your lives not an ABC of Religion. To conclude this point; Howsoever they bear the World in hand, that Vows of Monastical perfection are expressed in the Word of God; yet the alleged Examples are either such as never did vow, I mean the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, Elias, and Ananias says Cardinal Cajetan: or such as vowed rashly out of precipitant zeal like Saul and Jephta: or such as made no such Vow as they contrive by the Pattern, I mean the Nazarites, the Rechabites, and St. Paul's Widows. Who kept a College to entertain Disciples, and to tend the Funeral of Christians, like those Widows who washed the Body of Tabatha, Acts 9. If you will needs know from what Quiver they draw their Shafts, sift the Pythagoraeans, and their captive obedience; sift the Vestal Maids and their Devoted Virginity; sift the Pagan Philosophers and their Obstinate Poverty: is not the very Name to be found, that Cloister Lubbers were called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 by Heathen appellations. Search the Scriptures, and search Pagan Education, and the case will appear on our side, that the Romish Votaries enter into Orders, not by the Door of the good Shepherd, but by the dark Entry of Philosophers. And so much I have spoken to show that the Patrons of Monastical Perfection are much mistaken, though we praise the Rechabites.

The end and last part of all is this; That forasmuch as God was well pleased with these abstemious People that would drink no Wine, therefore promise unto the Lord, and do the deed; for that is my final conclusion, that a Vow justly conceived is to be solemnly performed. When we have breathed out nunquam bibemus, a resolved Protestation before God, it is like the hour we spake it in, past and gone, and can never be recalled. Effudi animam, says David, I have poured out my soul in prayer, as if upon his supplication it were no longer his, but God's forever. Surely if our Soul be gone from us in our Prayers, then much more in our Vows they are flown up to Heaven, like Lazarus to the Bosom of Abraham, they cannot, they should not return to earth again. He that changed his Sex in the Fable is not so great a wonder, as he that changeth any Covenant which is drawn between God and his Conscience: He that hath consecrated himself to God, doth, as it were, carry Heaven upon his shoulders. Support your burdens in God's name, lest if you shrink the wrath of God press you down to the nethermost pit.

I admonish the Friers of Italy to look to this, they cast a color upon their Vow of Lenten fasting, but they lie unto the Holy Ghost; whereas their Vow is not to eat bread till toward the Evening, as if God knew not how the day went but by the Church Saints-Bell, they read Even-song before twelve a clock at Noon, that the Clergy may go to Supper. Right Judas; quicquid facis fac cito; he had his sop before his fellows, and so was sent of his Errand. An old Wife in Greece was as crafty in this forgery as any Monk of them all: She vowed to drink nothing but water until she saw an hundred Suns; Centum soles de puro non nisi fonte bibam. Well the reservation was that she looked through the holes of a Sieve, and therein saw a thousand representations of the body of the Sun. Per crebra foramina cribrum inspicit, & soles callida mille videt. But will cozenage and equivocation serve to excuse a Votary, absit, God is not mocked.

I will spend no more of your leisure but to give a brief answer to one question. Is Christ so austere that he doth reclaim against all dispensation? no, says Aquinas, you are loose again, if the thing in vow be either simpliciter malum, inutile, aut majoris boni impeditivum; if it be sinful, nay if it be unuseful, nay if it cross the accomplishment of a greater good. This is good allowance, and well spoken. Hear then what another says. There is no dispensation for any Vow as it is a Vow, says Scotus: but take him right, and he means well. For as it stands not with civil peace, that any Law, as it is a Law, should be broken; but it stands with wisdom to disannul pernicious Laws; now, no man ever after breaks the Law because it is a Law no longer when it is disannulled. So the matter of an unlawful Vow being scanned, it is held fit by prudent Governors and Teachers that it should be a Vow no longer: then that which remains a Vow is always obligatory, that which is pronounced no Vow is not violated, but quite extinguished. Whatsoever Covenant Bondmen or Idiots, Children or Madmen cast themselves into, it skills not what they say, both for want of liberty to do what they would, and for want of reason to know what they should. But in a person both of liberty and reason, if that which was undertaken to give advantage to Devotion turn to be a snare rather than an help, magis est corrigenda temeritas quàm solvenda promissio, says St. Austin.

For herein the things vary, and not the will of the Votary; and so ipso facto he is free before God. The careful Pilot sets his Adventure to a certain Haven, and would turn neither to the right hand, nor to the left, if the winds were as constant as the Loadstone, but they blow contrary to his expectation. Suppose ye how a Rechabite protesting non bibam e fructu geniminis, to drink no wine, had lived after the Institution of our Savior's Supper when He consecrated the fruit of the Grape, and said, drink ye all of this, would it pass for an answer at the Holy Communion to say we will drink no wine? No more than if he had sworn before not to eat a Paschal Lamb, or any sower Herbs, quite against the Institution of the Passover. A most learned Bishop of our own Church resolves this Controversy thus, potentius est Christi sacramentum quàm votum hominis. There is enough in this Chapter to stride over this doubt if you mark it. Jonadab indented with God, that He and his Seed should live in Tabernacles forever; and in Tabernacles they did live for three hundred years. Then comes the King of Babylon with an Army into the Country to invade the Land. It was dangerous now to live in Tabernacles; there was no High Priest, I assure you, to absolve them; no money given to the Publicans of the Church for a Dispensation: but we said, Come and let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the Army of the Chaldeans and Syrians, and let us dwell at Jerusalem. The Vow was unprofitable, Tabernacles dangerous, and so the Bond is cancelled.

Yet, Beloved, do not take all the liberty due unto you, if I may advise you: there are two things which you may choose to untie the knot of a Vow, dispensationem aut voti commutationem. The peremptory rejecting of a bad Vow, and that is lawful, and the changing thereof into some other Vow, and that is more expedient, that God may have some service done unto him in eodem genere, by way of a vow. It is a satisfaction which is used in Civil Commerce between man and man. Praeceptum non habeo, consilium autem do: I think it is the fittest to do so unto God. And so much for the Obligation of Vows, and the Dispensation, both proved by the example of the Rechabites, which by method propounded is the conclusion of this Text.

THE FIRST SERMON UPON

JOHN iv. 13, 14.

Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again.

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst.

T Here is not a more superficial part of Science than an Emblem, when a moral Lesson is delivered in the Riddle of a Picture, yet in those shadows of invention if rules of wisdom be not better understood, I am sure they are better remembered. My Text well conceived is but an Emblem, for your fancy must apprehend as if it saw two fountains, the one a deep Lake, salt, and unsavory, which carries the transitory joys and riches of this world upon it, and they that lap at it are never content: The other a crystal stream, running with heavenly blessings, and those that taste of it their soul is satisfied. Satan shown our Savior all this world, and the glory of it in the twinkling of an eye, our Savior hath shewn the woman of Samaria all the vaninity, that is, the glory of this world, and the happiness of a better as it were in two Pitchers of water. The whole Scripture is a living fountain, and this Text is fons in fonte, a sweet spring running by itself out of that great fountain of life. It is impossible to match it with a better similitude, and I think, as the case stands, it would be hard to fit ourselves with a more convenient. For the Similitude itself, it lays two contraries so fairly together, that it makes the good part shine much the better; and by setting the grace of God, which is the immortal seed in our soul, against the meat which perisheth, it invites the appetite, which is not altogether unrelishable, to the better banquet. To ourselves it is thus proper, for several exhortations belong to the miserable times of persecution, and to the plentiful days of peace. When dreadful calamities are rife, men must be taught to be contented with their losses; when peace brings in abundance, take heed ye thirst not after too much, then men must be taught to be contented with their gains. I learn this difference from my Savior's mouth, Mat. xvi. 24. against the days of sorrow thus he prepares his Disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. In the next verse against the days of peace and riches, What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul? Gregory frames this clear Meditation upon it, Persecutionis tempore ponenda est anima, pacis tempore frangenda▪ sunt desideria; In the time of persecution lose your life that you may gain Christ, (that Lesson, God be praised, is out of date with us) in the time of peace lose your vast concupiscence that you may gain content. Here comes in our part, who have leisure to gather great store, and peaceable security to enjoy and increase it; for that we may lay our desires level with a moderate fortune, it is fit above all things to know, that you shall never measure these earthly things to the bottom, and you cannot measure the joys of heaven to the top, so said our Savior to the Samaritan as I have read it unto you, &c.

Now to bring on the division of the Text I lay this ground: Man is a most desiring, and a wishing creature; his heart doth reach itself forth so much to get and gain, that it resembles nothing better than an house with a deep Mote round about it: but for the most part the mote is full of puddle water, if that were cast out, which is the first part to be handled, a water which makes us always thirst, there is a sluice to let in better, which is contained in the second. For these two shall be the general heads to which I will refer all that I shall speak, the lading out of bad waters from our soul, and the letting in of better. I will not venture beyond the former of these two at this time; Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. And St. Austin preaching upon those words did thus divide them, Et verum est secundum hanc aquam, & verum est secundum quod significat haec aqua. It is true being spoken upon those waters drawn out of Jacob's well, and upon any other water; and it is true being spoken upon that unto which the Element of water did allude, that is, the riches and glory of this world; according to the very waters which our Savior looked upon when he preached. I will speak to these three points: 1. That all the refection of our body is commended in the phrase of drinking waters. 2. Heat consumes our moisture and makes us thirst, which is the punishment of our nature. 3. We thirst, and thirst again, which is the punishment of our sensual appetite. According to the water unto which our Savior alluded, I have three things more to observe. 1. That all these worldly things are compared to waters which slide away. 2. Here is the greediness of our heart to be filled with them, we would pour them in, and drink them down. 3. Here's their emptiness, they will never fill us; for drink both much and often, yet whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.

And first a few words literally of that outward Element, which the Woman of Samaria came to draw in her Pitcher; upon which this is the former observation, that all the refection of our body, especially that which cools our thirst, is delivered in the phrase of drinking waters. Indeed before temperance was perverted this phrase was well understood of all men to drink waters From the Creation to the Flood, above sixteen hundred years, it is affirmed by divers, scarce denied by any, that the World knew not what belonged to Wine, or to any artificial liquor, the great Rivers of the Earth were all their Sellarage, and they filled their Cup from thence without cost or labor. Therefore in the first of Genesis God stinted our first Parents and their Posterity what they should eat, namely the fruits of several Trees, all but one, and the Herbs of the Field; but they were not stinted what they should drink, because their nature was inclined to nothing but to the Fountain Element. And Noah having never perceived the malignity and headiness of too much Wine, neither in himself, nor any other person, surely not out of intemperance, we may well excuse him that, but out of ignorance he became drunken. It is too much perhaps to look back so far as before the Deluge, now we are sure that every Creature of God is sanctified by Prayer and Thanksgiving to them that use it well; it is the Lord that makes the Vine to swell with comfortable juice, that men may take it for infirmity of health, and upon occasions of cheerfulness: yet the good Patriarchs would never lay down the primitive sobriety of the World. I will go no further to show it than the verse before my Text. Says the Woman, Art thou greater than our Father Jacob, who drank himself of this Well, and his Children, and his Cattle? The Flocks and Herds quenched their thirst with no worse than their Master did: according to which simplicity of diet, God in the beginning allotted the same food for the Beasts that he made for Man, Gen. i. 30. I have given you, says He to Adam, every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, &c. and to every beast of the earth, and to every foul of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life: I have given every green herb for meat; and it was so. We and the Cattle you see had once the same allowance, or there was very little to choose between our Pasture and theirs.

I will wind about no longer, the scope is to let you see the difference between the frugal institutions of nature, and the monstrous inventions of that luxury which at this time prevails among us. Why doth the Scripture express all manner of Beverage in forty places by the name of water, but to insinuate sobriety? Why doth God's word in an hundred places call the whole repast of the belly by the name of bread, but to insinuate frugality? The Scripture makes but two words of that, whereof affected gluttony hath made twenty thousand. The Apostles did break bread from house to house, and eat their meat with gladness, Acts 2.46. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , alimentum non delicias, says St. Chrysostom, plain necessary nourishment is meant, which nature earns for, and cannot want; not piled dishes one upon another, to the intolerable scorn of God Almighty 's first Laws, as if you did not set, but build a Banquet. Our Savior will condemn you out of your own mouth if you pray his Prayer as you ought, Give us this day our daily bread; if the word be a Synecdoche one part of sustenance for all God's