The Heavenly Conversation and Natural Mans Condition

To the Christian Reader.

G Ive me leave with thy acceptation to do the office of a Timothy, in bringing to thee the Parchmonts lest behind, by that worthy man of God Doctor John Stoughton. These should have attended a larger Volumne, but other of his Sermons having gotten the start of them, and being left alone, they are now presented to thee in this little Manuell: They were left written with his own hand, and Preached in one of the Schools of the Prophets, and so fitted for a learned Auditory. That which did sway with me in the Publishing of these, and rhose other Sermons of his that are already brought forth into public view, next to the desire of the public good, was the fear of wrong that both the Church and Author might sustain by the publishing of more imperfect Copies: Those private and imperfect Copies which passed from hand to hand, did run the hazard of a surreptitious Edition, I clearly saw for some of them, and had just cause to suspect it in the rest, that if I would not publish them others would, they falling into the hands of some mercenary persons, whose boldness is such, as that it is not restrained, either by the good of the Church, or credit of the Author, whilst they look no higher than their own private gain, which is all their godliness, though many times their immaginary gain, proves their real loss.

What is here presented to thee, is entirely the Authors own, without adding the least tittle to them, least my Addition should detract from them. They are now published for the ingenious Readers benefit, and not the Critics censure, and are recommended not to a bare reading, but to thy practice. The blessing of these labors I commend to him that alone must give the increase: and the God of Heaven give a rich blessing to them for thy souls good.

A Methodicall Analysis of the chief heads handled in this Treatise, on Phil. 3. 20.

• 1. TExt:
  • 1 Dependance of the words; they look back.
    • 1 As part of a collation to the immediately precedent verses.
    • 2. As a ground of illation to the 17. verse.
  • 2. The sense of them.
  • The word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , may be rendered.
    • 1 Our city.
    • 2 Our municipal state and degres.
    • 3. Our politique bent and aim.
    • 4 Our political and civil administration.
    • 5. Our carriage and behavior as citizens.
  • 1 Observation. The conversation of a Christian is in heaven.
    • 1 There is explained what it is, and how a Christian hath his conversation in heaven.
      • 1 In affection.
      • 2 In endeavors, expressed in much,
        • 1 Alacrety.
        • 2 Diligence.
        • 3 Resolution.
      • 3 In act: by a double Analogy and conformity with heaven.
      • 1 Conformity of sanctity, which appears in his
        • 1 Heavenly meditations.
        • 2 Divine communications.
        • 3 Conscionable operations, expressed in his obedience.
        • 1 In the great things of the Law, such as are,
          • 1 Delight in God's Day.
          • 2 Exercise of Prayer, and other works of Piety.
          • 3 Helping forward the salvation of others.
        • 2 In the lesser things expressed in
          • 1 Doing all
            • 1 With the same care.
            • 2 By the same rule.
          • 2 Drawing the practice of Divinity to his earthly Domestical and daily affairs.
      • II Conformitie of felicity. Two things make a difference betwixt a Christians happiness here and hereafter.
        • Mis • y:
        • Sin: yet these do rather deprive us of the
          • 1. Degree, than truth,
          • 2. Perfection, than possession.
        • 1. Misery may
          • 1. Eclipse, but not
          • 2. Extinguish it.
        • 2. Sin, doth not
          • 1. Seperate us from Christ but,
          • 2. Drives us closer unto him.
    • II. Here is examined, whether the life of ordinary Christians be according to this Rule: Many bear, the name of Christ, and yet do not answer it; as
      • 1. Profane persons, whose conversation is in Hell.
      • 2. Worldlings, whose conversation is in the earth.
      • 3. Hypocrites whose conversion is betwixt heaven and earth.
    • III. Here is suggested the forceable motives that may persuade us to this heavenly conversation: taken from
      • 1. The excellency of heaven.
      • 2. The vanity of the world: consider
        • 1. A great estate
          • 1. Hath scarce a shadow of happiness.
          • 2. Brings no inward joy, cordial contentment.
          • 3. Hinders our speed in the race of godliness.
        • 2. A means estate
          • 1. Puts us upon a necessity of seeking heavenly things.
          • 2. Is our best security against spiritual enemies.
      • 3. Dignity of man; consider,
        • 1. What dignity nature hath conferred upon us in the
          • 1. Frame of the heart,
          • 2. Fabric of the body,
          • 3. Relics of nature.
        • 2. What dignity is confirmed upon us by grace.
      • 4. Brevity of life which should make us,
        • 1. Not to spend our precious time on trifles.
        • 2. To use all speed and diligence.
        • 3. At least to do as much for heaven as for earth.
      • 5. Necessity.
        • 1 Of our times, which should make us to be
          • 1. Zealous for Religion.
          • 2. Zealous in Religion, expressed in the practice of
            • 1. Serious repentance, and sincere reformation.
            • 2. Fervent and earnest Prayer.
        • 2. Of our place and calling.
          • 1. Christians they must not be all for the earth, it is against their dignity and advancement.
          • 2. Ministers they must not
            • 1. Bury their Talent but
            • 2. Work for heaven:
              • 1. Draw others to heaven by diligence in preaching.
              • 2. Go to heaven themselves by Holiness of life.
FINIS.

Errata.

PAge 28. line. 7. for was, Read and as: Ibid l. 26. for conversation, communication, p. 36. l. 2. for when, then, p. 40. l, 16. for an, in: p. 57. l. 10. blot out did: p. 111. l. 19. for men, that may p. 112. l. 13. for man's is, means: p. 113. l. 5. for faults, faculties: p. 120. l. 17. for bitter better: p. 121. l. 22. for more appear, it appears more: p. 127. l. 3. for comportures, compartners: p. 134. l. 17, for i, of, we, ibid. l. 18. for absent, present: p. 135. l. 23. for cause, case: p. 176. l. 14. blot out quoad, p. 184. l. 5. for law, lawgiver: p. 189. l. 26. for break, be only, p. 193. l. 23. for once, one: p. 194. l. 8 blot out, by: p. 195. l. 18. read did not actually: p. 146. l. 23, for loathsome in effects, the same in effects: p. 197. l. 18. for If, I: p. 198. l. 21. for no, a. p. 202. l. 17 for Displicere, Displeasure. p. 208 l. 25. for answer, am sure: p. 213. l. 20. for mouth, moth, p. 235. l. 15. for most, not.

THE HEAVENLY Conversation.

PHIL. 3. 20.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

Our Conversation is in Heaven.

T He Learned Origen being at the Church in Jerusalem, was requested to Preach there; but opening the Book for that purpose, he fell upon those words of the Psalm; But unto the wicked, saith God, what hast thou to do to take my words into thy mouth, seeing thou hatest to be reformed, and hast cast my Commandments behind thee, &c. which awakened more the memory of his sin, which was this; He being apprehended, and put to his choice by his persecutors, whether he would offer sacrifice to their Idols, or suffer his body to be defiled with a most ugly Blackmore, (one he must of force) shunning the latter, he yielded inconsiderately to the former: his conscience now as it were thundering from heaven against him; he could not go on, but closed the Book again, and sat him down with bitter weeping and lamentation; all the people also out of a tender affection, and sympathy of his sorrow, giving, as the Father speaks* a charitable contribution of tears towards the relief of his misery, and bearing a part in the burden of his sad Song, and doleful Ditty, the brief whereof they had then heard and seen.

Beloved, I fear that we must either close the Book, or disclose our own shame; for this Text upbraides our times; and Saint Paul, for ought that I see, is resolved, and speaks enough to shame us all. For where are the Christians now that can say the Responsall after him, Our conversation is in heaven, without blushing outward for shame, or bleeding inward for grief? Who can behold the deformity of his Crystal life, in this Crystal glass without tears, such as may truly be styled, Sanguis animae, the blood of the soul?

It is reported of one, that he was so lusty and quarrel some, that he was ready to fight with his own Image so often as he saw it in a glass: let us fall out with our sins, the spots that deface the Image of God in us: but God forbid that any should pick a quarrel with the glass of God's Word, by which we may dress ourselves to perfection of beauty: wisely Socrates, who commendeth the use of a glass to all sorts, as if the friend in it gave faithful counsel in all cases: Art thou beautiful and comely? Cave ne animi improbitate corpus tuum dehonestes: Art thou homely, and deformed? Fac • ut animus virtute corpus suum consecret: Art thou fair? take heed thy body be not like an Egyptian Temple, stately without, but having within a soul as black as a Gypsie with vice: Art thou foul? see that thy soul within make amends for thy body without, being like a rich pearl in a rude shell.

But most true is this of this Glass, which of all other knows not how to flatter: and who knows, whether there be not that virtue in this divine speculation, to restore a man to himself as he that was transformed into an Ass, returned to his own shape, when he came to behold himself in a Glass, the strength of the charm being wholly evacuated.

Well then let us behold ourselves here in this Glass, if not what we are, at least what we ought to be. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ,

The words look backward to the former, and that ambiguously, either, as part of a Collation to what is in the immediately precedent verses, if you read them with the Adversative, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , But, Illi sic, nos, autem non sic: They do thus, But we do not thus: or as a ground of Illation to the 17. Verse, if you read them with the Causal, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , For, Nos sic, vos ergo etiam sic, we do thus, and therefore do ye also thus; Be ye followers of me, and such as tread in our steps, For

Our conversation is in Heaven.

The word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , though it may be diversely rendered,

First, Our City, and so it suits best with the latter part of the Verse, wherein otherwise there will be an incongruitie of Language, if you refer 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , from whence we look, a singular Relative, to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the Heavens, a plural Antecedent, which may be salved, if you refer it to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as it may well stand in that sense.

Secondly, Our municipal state, and dignity, our Burgesship.

Thirdly, Our politique bent, aim, & fetch, for I suppose 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 may signify the same in civil affairs, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 doth in warlike.

Fourthly, Our Political, and Civil Administration, and managing of things.

Fifthly, our Carriage, deportment, and behavior, as we are Citizens, &c.

Yet I confine myself to the last, which I see our learned Interpreters have expressed also, whose judgment and authority I willingly follow, not troubling myself, or you, with any further anxious disputes, or curious Criticismes: the stones were hewed and squared in the mountains, there was no noise of hammer in the building of Solomon's Temple, which yet was so compact, they say, as if it had been but one stone without any jointing or ciment.

The Astronomers cut the heaven into many circles, and plough up many barren furrows by their suppositions, as lightly as the Mathematicians draw lines in the dust: but we shall not need many Hypotheses to salve the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or appearances of these heavens.

Observe also with me in the whole Frame, but one line which you see written in legible Characters, as it were with a Sun-beam. The conversation of a Christian is in Heaven.

In which notwithstanding it will be useful to consider, and distinguish three imaginary Points.

• First, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Conversation, the Axel-tree, upon which the whole sphere is turned.
• Secondly, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Our, the inferior Pole, and
• Thirdly, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , In Heaven, the superior Pole.

These shall be my Ecliptique Line, with in which, my Discourse shall bound it self.

First, I will explain Quid sit, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . what it is, and how a Christian hath his Conversation in Heaven.

Secondly, I will examine Quale sit 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Whether the life of ordinary Christians be according to this Rule, or not, and

Thirdly, I will suggest Quantum sit 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , How forcible motives may provoke us to this Heavenly conversation.

First, Let no man say, who shall give me Elias Chariot, in which I may mount up to heaven here needs no change of place, but a change of mind, which may lift it self up to heaven, while the body lies upon the earth, as Abraham went into the Mount, while the Servants and Asses staid below in the Valley.

Let no man say, what must I be like the profane Giants, which heaped mountain upon mountain to scale heaven (although the violent take the kingdom of heaven by force, as our Savior speaks in another sense) or like proud Lucifer who made his nest among the stars?

No, blessed is he who hath a Low mind, in an high Conversation, God is high, as Austin sweetly, and yet the more we lift ourselves up, the further we are from Him; the more we humble ourselves, the nearer: the swelling leaven of pride can never do it, the true growth and stature of Grace, and Virtue, makes a Christian as high as heaven, makes him in heaven many ways.

First, Affectu, in affection. A friend of Cyrus in Xenophon being asked where his treasure was which might enable him to bestow his daughter honourably, according to his rank and place; made this answer Where Cyrus is my friend: and a shame it is for a Christian, if he either know not, or profess not that his treasure is there, where the Lord is his friend. Where the body is, thither the Eagles, where Christ is, thither sharp-sigh ted and lofty souls will resort: for according to our Savior, Where the Treasure is, there is the heart also: and according to the Philosopher, Animus est ubiamat, non ubi animat, the mind is where it loves, not where it lives.

No marvel then, if in this respect, we say, The conversation of a Christian is in heaven, though you see his person here upon earth: so you see the stars sometime in the water, you see them move, which notwithstanding you know are fixed above in the Firmament: so the Christian, though he seem to flote up and down in the troublesome waves of the lower world, yet there is he fastened with the Anchor of Hope, and thither is he carried with the sails, and oars of desire: for as the rays of the Sun touch the earth, yet still are there from whence they are darted; so a lofty and pious, heart is familiarly conversant withus, but remains fixed in his Original; as Seneca makes the comparison, where being mounted like Saint Paul in Gregory Nyssen, ^d He lets fall a look upon these lower things from a loft, not without some scorn; they seem little or nothing in his eyes: and no wonder; for as heavenly things seem small to an earthly man, as the stars to him that beholds them from earth, appear but as a point, (a glistering point indeed, a golden point, and yet but a point) so by a far better reason to a godly man, whose affections have raised him to heaven, when he beholds it from thence, the whole earth is contracted to a Point, or rather appears like as they call a shadow nigrum nihil, a little black; and dark nothing: So a Christian indeed during the time of his Pilgrimage, useth these earthly things as necessaries, though he accounts them but as Accessaries; like the hairs upon our heads, they are but an excrement, yet they are an ornament; and as Austin speaks of Mary's, with which she wiped the feet of our Savior, They were superfluous for her own head, yet they were necessary for the feet of Christ. The Church in the Revelation hath a crown of stars upon her head, and the Moon is under her feet: The Spirit in the Acts descended upon the Head (they think) of the Apostles, the Disciples cast the money at their feet: Heavenly blessings, spiritual graces are the crown of a Christian, earthly things he tramples under his feet, according to that of the Psalmist, Blessings are upon the head of the righteous, that is, heavenly, Thou hast put all things under his feet, that is, all earthly: Heavenly blessings they are Bona throni, the goods of the throne; Earthly, they are Bona scabelli, the goods of the footstool (as Austin terms them) in the account of a Christian, who in this is like God himself, of whom the Scripture speaks, Heaven is his Throne, and the earth is his Footestoole: for so a Christian useth all earthly blessings but as helps, as a footstool to climb into the throne of Heaven: and this use is lawful; for as Tertullian saith, a Christian may make a Nose-gay of flowers to smell to, but he may not make a crown of flowers to set upon his head: so God allows the sweetness of outward blessings to his servants for a refreshing, always provided, they set them not in the highest place, in the highest price. In a word, Temporal blessings are for his use, but eternal, for his desire and affection, as Gregory speaks.

Anaxagoras being asked whether he cared not for his country, with the ruin whereof he seemed to be little moved; yes, said he, there is none of you that cares more than I do for my country, pointing with his finger up to heaven, as though heaven were his country: and so it is a Christians indeed: for if the proposition of the Philosopher be true, that is our country where we have the best fare, and entertainment, then his conclusion is infallible, therefore heaven is my country, without which I cannot live well, for there is a plenty of all good things. Let then the Philosopher comfort himself that he was not banished (though out of his country) and that he was not confined to any place, like a Snaile to her shell, because he was a free denizan, and a Citizen of the world; the Christian is not ashamed to confess the whole worlds liberty to be but a banishment to him, who is but a Pilgrim in a strange Land here, because he is a free Denizan, and Citizen of Heaven.

Nay more, he stays in the world, as in some more free and noble Prison, where you must pardon him, if he cannot be in love with his fetters, though perhaps of gold: He is in the body as a child in the womb, in a walking Sepulcher, his delivery from thence shall be his Nativity, from whence he means to begin the account of the term of his Life: To live with God is the only life, to reign with Christ, the only liberty according to that of Simeon, Now lettest thy servant depart, so that the body is as the Bridewell and Prison of our life, as Basil interprets it, this is that he sighs and breaths after, Woe is me that I am constrained to dwell in Meshech: I desire to be dissolved and be with Christ; Come Lord Jesus, come quickly: How long Lord, forever! Christ was borne in an Inn to teach him to make the world but a throwfare, where if he take his rest, yet he must not set up his rest.

Secondly, Conatu, in Endeavor, without which affection is like Rahel, beautiful but barren, neither doth a woman without a man, neither doth the Affection of hope, produce anything serviceable without Endeavor.

Pythagor as was wont to say that he had another errand to the Olympic games, then the most that frequented them: some came for pleasure, and to pot it in a knot of good fellows, which were like to meet there; some for gain, and to vent their commodities at a good rate in such a fair of people; some for Glory, and hope to be crowned conquerors, and win the Garland for valor, and activity in those sports and exercises; but he professed that he came only as a looker on: pleasure, and gain and glory are the Trinity which the world adores, and the behavior of the most is such, as though they came into the world upon no other errand, but to scramble for some of these.

They smile perhaps when they see children so fond, and busy and eager about their toys, making Houses, and Pies of dirt, kissing their babies of clouts, blowing bubles into the air out of a shell, and running after them; and when they read that Domitian the Emperor persecuted the poor Christians abroad in his Empire, and persecuted the poor flies at home in his Palace, they would take respite perhaps to decide the controversy, whether that act had more cruelty, or this idleness more folly: but let them look to it, whether they be not carius ineptis, haunted with a more tragical and costly folly, who being placed by God in this August Palace of the world, where the Heaven is the sieling, the Earth the floor, can find no better employment.

The carriage of a Christian I am sure hath passed this sentence upon them already, which is such, as though he repined that he was forced to be so much as a looker on at these Apish Anticks: which in, a scornful silence he checks with the severity of his frown, and confutes with the majesty of his countenance, in which you may read his mind written in Hieroglyphicall letters, that he thinks with Anaxagoras, that he was borne to contemplate heaven, & observe which way he may get thither: and therefore he follows the suite for these earthly things something coldly, & negligently as one that cares not much which end goes forward, or rather generously and nobly, tanquam Candidatus Caesaris, as a Favorite of Caesare (as they were wont to say at Rome) and if he speed, enjoys his conquests moderately, using them, as the dogs drink at Nile; or as Gidions Soldiers, lap and away, lest if he should let loose the reins, he might be guilty in the use of his lawful liberty, as a man (they say) may commit adultery with his own wife; in a word, useth them as though he used them not, tanquam aeternitatis Candidatus, as Tertullian speaks, as one that is a favorite of eternity.

But for heavenly things (good Lord) what alacrity shows he! what diligence! what resolution?

They report of Mahomet an ordinary Turk that this was the first step of his advancement to the Empire, his Master Suleiman the great, let fall a letter out of a window, which while the rest to approve their diligence to their Lord ran about for Ladders, he without anymore deliberation, or circuit leapt out of the window and returned presently: This is the nature of Love and Zeal to overlook all danger, to forget themselves to please God, and these are they that came to preferment, to be favorites in the Court of Heaven, when they that are so wise to look before they leap, may look long enough before they rise, and a fool he is that looks for any other ladder to climb to Honor besides his Masters favor.

What diligent? The Ancients were wont to paint fortune taking Cities in a net, for one Timothy an Athenian Captain whom they drew sleeping by: but our Timothy knows the new Jerusalem, the City above cannot be taken otherwise, and therefore plants a straight siege about it with an army of virtues, plies the battery with the ordinance of prayer, casts up mounts against it, giving all diligence that he may add to faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, mountain upon mountain as the Giants did, that at last he may scale heaven.

What resolution? the famous Artificer Phidias advised the Athenians, to make the statue of Minerva the Tutelary goddess of the City, of Marble rather then Ivory, alleging two reasons.

First, because Marble was more durable and this passed with allowance.

Secondly, because Ivory was more chargeable: at the mention whereof, with infinite indignation they commanded him silence: base wretches, that study to beat down the price of heaven, and will not deal, except they may have it underfoot: the ancients were wont to call an Holocaust prodigam hostiam, the prodigal Sacrifice: but a Christian thinks it the best thrift, and most saving bargain, when he can offer himself wholly to God a living Sacrifice, pleasing and acceptable in his sight: and therefore resolves with David, I will not serve the Lord of that which cost me nothing, and follows our Savior whose counsel it is, Let not thy right hand know what thy left hand doth, do not anxiously compute the charge of a good work, as men do some Sum upon the fingers end, consult not with flesh and blood, for what can be so bard, that he is afraid to undergo? or what so sweet, that he is not resolved to forgo, that he may gain heaven? The way is straight and narrow, yet he will strive to enter, for the way to heaven is not easy, he is like to meet scoffs, and scars, and a thousand Scarcrowes (for many thwarting inconvenience, and discouragements lie cross in the way to heaven) but he accounts these the glory of his triumph, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 I have fought the good fight, saith the Apostle Paul as a word in a boasting; it is a goodly thing to go to heaven any way, lame, maimed, or blind, even the right foot, the right hand, the right eye, if it offend him, cut it off, pluck it out, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , it is a goodly thing. Burn my foot if you will, that it may dance everlastingly with the blessed Angels in heaven, stilled the Martyr in Basel nobly. He is a wise Merchant, that can purchase heaven at any price.

To conclude, he knows this life is but a way to life, as the Spartan mother comforted her son, who in a battle where he fought valiantly, had received a wound, of which he was like to limpe ever after, that his halting would but make him remember virtue every step: so the worst that can happen to him, doth but make him remember virtue every step, that every step may set him so much nearer to heaven: he thinks he is placed in this world as in a royal Theatre: the Earth, the Stage, the Heavens the Scaffolds round about: the spectators, God, men, and Angels, himself an Actor, his part, Piety; his reward, Eternity; his conscience always prompting him behind the Curtain; it skills not what the spectators think, or say, look to the Judge, be ambitious to please God who beholds thee: and therefore resolves though the world hisses me, yet I hear, I ear not, so I may hear a plaudite from him, Well done good servant, enter into thy masters joy: O blessed plaudite, he stirs his hands to clappe them, and drops a crown of life from between them upon my head.

Thirdly, Actu, In act; for he cannot be out of heaven, whose conversation makes that place heaven, wheresoever he is, and that by a double Analogy, and conformity with heaven, of sanctity and felicity, of happiness and holiness.

First, Conformit as sanctitatis, a conformity of sanctity, which appears in every part of his life, as the light of the candle breaks out at every side of the Lantern, and as the leaven in the Gospel, which the woman put into three pecks of meal, insinuates it self into his thoughts, words, and deeds, all which it makes to rise and swell toward heaven: for what shall we say of his Heavenly Meditations, in which methinks he resembles a Bird of Paradise, so called, which is reported by the Naturalists to fly continually without any rest, and was never observed so much as to touch upon the earth: no more doth this blessed Bird of Paradise, but is always upon the wing in divine medi •• tious, unless perhaps you may think he comes nearer the Phoenix, which is said to beget her heir of her own ashes, to which she is resolved in her bed of spice, her nest being nothing else but a pile of the most precious spices of Arabia, curiously collected by her afore for that purpose, and kindled by the heat of the Sunnebeames: as a Christian kindles by frequent meditation the sweet notes that he hath collected in reading or hearing, which like the Angel in the sacrifice of Manoach, carries him up to heaven in a flame of heavenly affection, and leaves her self an heir behind of her own ashes, a never failing succession of the like heavenly meditations.

I know this practice is not vulgar, or easy; for the Monk said truly, that to be a Monk in outward show, was easy, but to be a Monk in inward reality, was hard; it is no hard matter in comparison to make the outward man, the visible man a Monk, immure him in a Cloister, and retire him from worldly distractions: nor is it any easy matter to circumscribe the infinite liberty of the inward man.

But a Christian labors to be the same without, that he is within, like the beauty of a Diamond, not skin deep only, like the ordinary beauty; for if you could have a window in his breast, you should see nothing within but heavenly thoughts: he breathes not oftener than he thinks on God, according to the Father: he climbs often into Mount Nebo, the mount of Meditation, for a prospect of the land of Promise, from whence his blessed eyes of Faith and Hope; like Calib, and Joshua, the faithful Spies, animate him to a noble resolution by their happy tidings, The land is good, let us go up and fight for it: and if he chance to step aside sometime among worldly affairs, you must understand he is there, not as a turn-coat Traytour, but as a wise Intelligencer, as a Spie: was the Spies that went to Jericho to avoid being snared by any ambush, he returns by the Hill-country, that is, as I interpret it, improves even human occurrences to some divine expedience, and reduceth temporal occasions, to spiritual use: Wherefore saith Chrysostom very sweetly, The literal fowls of the heaven have wings, and these mystical fowls of the heaven have wisdom to fly aloft, that the snares and lime-twigges of the world may not entangle them; & surely in vain is the net spread before the eye of all that hath wings, as Solomon speaks.

Such in the second place is their Conversation, for as our Savior after his Resurrection conversing with his Disciples, spake of such things, as concerned the Kingdom of God: and Moses descended from the Mount, where he had conference with God, brought the Tables of the Law to the people: so the Law of Grace is in his lips, and out of the Abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. As the posts of the door of the house without were sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb which was eaten within; so the heart that is washed with the blood of Christ, cannot be ashamed to have their lips painted with the same. It is Nazianzens comparison; for this is the beauty of the Spouse in her Lord's eye, who like some elegant Lover, makes this a great part of her commendation, Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet: this is the safety of the Spouse, as the blood sprinkled upon the Posts, was the Israelites, as the scarlet thread in the window was Rahab's; for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth man confesseth to salvation.

The Latins call the roof of the mouth, Coelum, Heaven, and the lower part, Solum palati, the ground of the palate: The most men's speech is altogether of earth, as though they had no heaven in their mouth, they dash all their words against the earth, like the fish in the Gospel, either dumb, or nothing but gold in their mouth: It is clean contrary with S. Paul's Christian, who not content to be a silent, and dumb spectatour of heaven, like the fish so called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and so to suffer the conceptions of his mind to die there, like abortive births smothered in the womb, but labors to bring them to the light, and deliver them to others, that they may also partake of his sweetness, and so dividing himself between solitariness, and company, meditation and communication, thoughts, and speech, that one may make the other profitable, the one being begun, and inducted into the soul by the Spirit, and the other having instructed others in the way of godliness, as the Father hath it.

See in the last place, his operation, for what is his whole life, but an Angels work, a continual attendance upon God. The Church is, as the Father stiles it, an heaven upon earth, the presence Chamber of the great King: how often doth he wait there? with what devotion? like David, according to Saint Austin's Gloss, I will go into the house of the Lord, as a stone in his building, saith the Father: like Christ himself, his parents sought him in vain, in cognatione carnis, among his kindred, but found him employed in domo Patris, in his Fathers house.

The Sabbath is the Lord's day, our rest, and employment, then a short abridgement of the long story of eternity is seasonable, how truly doth He call this Day his delight: how cheerfully doth he welcome in? He cometh forth of his chamber like a Bridegroom, and rejoiceth as a Giant to run his race: like the Jew, that was wont to put on his best apparel, to expect the approach of this day, and hasten it forward, wooing with these words, Veni sponsa mea, Come my Spouse; like the Spouse in the Canticles, rather, until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountains of Myrrh, and to the hill of Frankincense: he hath espoused his soul to the beauty of holiness in these blessed ordinances; and therefore his eyes will prevent the morning watch, that he may adorn, and prepare himself be times, and meet these solemnities with the sweet perfume, and incense of meditation and prayer.

Prayer, and the rest of the works of Piety are the Ladder to Heaven; how often may you see him like the Angels in Jacob's vision, ascending and descending by this? It is a received maxim in Philosophy, that Oratio is Quantitas discreta, but it is a certain truth in Divinity, that Oratio debet esse Quantitas continua, according to that of the Apostle, Pray continually: Too much discretion in the world hath brought too little devotion, and unjustly censured the heat of devotion, for want of discretion: But 'tis not either the virulence of the tongue, or violence that can make a Christian intermit this course. The Angel that strove with Jacob said, Let me go, for the morning approacheth, forsooth afraid, as the Rabbins would have it, that if he were detained any longer, he should incur • e some censure of irregularity, or be enjoined some penance for tardinesse at his Mattins: But a Christian saith indeed to his dear sins, Let me go, solicitous to prevent all entanglements, to shake of all impediments, which might hazard the least interruption of his sweet intercourse with God in prayer.

And (to make no more particular instances) the heavenly Hierarchies of Angels, are they not all ministering Spirits, sent forth to minister for them that shall be heirs of salvation? or is not this the very trade and occupation of a Christian? the magnificence of Piolomaeus Philadelphus, I suppose gave original to the phrase, in which all noble and magnificent works are called opera Philadelphia: I dare say a Christian esteems that his most honorable employment, when he may provoke the glory of God, in the good of his brethren, especially in the matter of heaven and salvation, these are his opera Philadelphia, works of Charity: For he holds the common truth in Philosophy, the most proper work of a living creature is to beget one in his own likeness, to be a certain truth in Divinity, the most specifical, and characteristicall act of a living Christian is (at least to endeavor) to beget another in his own likeness: to draw many to God, and therefore that which Plato said divinely, was the end of marriage, that when out race shall be ended, and we must • radere Lampada, give up our borrowed light, we may have those that may rise up in our place, that may stand up instead, to serve God, that the fire of his Altar may never go out: this may be truly said, the end of all his commerce, and converse with others.

Neither is he thus in these great things of the Law only, but as careful in the less men will not lightly lose the least ends of Gold: the least Commandment observed, brings a great reward, and the least sin cannot be committed without great danger: even the secret lusts, and motions of the heart which cannot be discerned for sin (otherwise when motes, and atoms) in the tenth Commandment, as it were in the Sun-beams: the point of the spear pierced our Savior's side, so did the pricks of the thorns wound his sacred head: and therefore though counterfeit Christians make no bones of lesser sins, make no conscience of lesser duties, like Pharaoh's Magicians, whose art could not reach to make such things as were less then a Barly-Corn, and therefore failing in the production of Lice were forced to acknowledge the finger of God, as the Rabbins give the reason; yet a currant Christian is the same in great and less matters, in both like himself, if not like God himself, of whom Austin elegantly, he is so great an Artisan in great matters, as that he is not lesser in the smallest.

He did all with the same care, and by the same rule: the Jews have a Law, which enjoins them to take up any paper which they see lying on the ground, and the reason is, lest happily the Name of God be written in the paper, and ignorantly trodden underfoot: the Christian is free from such superstitious curiosity, yet full of religious care, observes every title in God's Word, least unawares he might dishonor the name of God, and trample upon any of the least of his Commandments: and therefore he hath respect to this in all his ways; this is the Card and Compass, without this, (as there be few men that can draw a straight line, or a circle, without a Rule or compass) none can lead their life aright, or make straight steps to heaven: with this they may, for as while one line of the Compass is firmly fastened upon the Card, the other goes steadily the true circuit: So while the mind of man is fixed upon the Word by contemplation and observes it, he may keep his life and actions within compass, and run safely the way of God's Commandments.

A man may huddle up a mudwall, a bank of earth in haste of that which comes next to hand, saith the moralist, but 'twere madness to attempt to build a Palace, a Temple without choice stones, without line and levels: Now a Christian by a holy life labors to build himself up a Palace for the great King, a Temple for the living God, and therefore thinks he can never be choice enough of the stuff, or workmanship, whereas any rubbish, trash, or any slovenly slubbering over is good enough for another use.

Socrates was said to have called Philosophy down from heaven to earth, so doth he draw the practice of Divinity even to his earthly and domestical, and daily affairs, and by this heavenly course rather then he should not be in heaven, makes his house wherein he walks before God in the uprightness of his heart, and sincerity, be it never so mean a Cottage a very heaven, as Chrysostom speaks.

To conclude this: That which the Ruffians in Seneca scoff at in the sober young man, is true of him in a sense more divine he so works, so recreates him self, so sups, so drinks, so speaks, so lives as one that is to give a just account to his heavenly Father, wherein he would not fail or be taken tripping for all the world: and in a word, he passeth his life in this world, as in a royal Temple, which God hath built for his own service, the world is a sacred Temple to those that study perfection, the moralist acknowledgeth, appointing man his Priest; every day of whose life is marked in the Calender of truth, for an holy day, upon which all other work is unlawful: this only we must labor, that we may serve our course, and keep our 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or turns so faithfully in the Temple of virtue here, that through it we may assuredly pass and be preferred to the Temple of honor, which God hath prepared for us in heaven, to which (God hath framed it so) there is no access but by the former, as it was also signified at Rome in the two Temples, which were so contrived, and so called.

Secondly, conformit as felicitatis. A Christian is an heaven by a conformity of happiness, which is so great, that the Father calls it, an heaven, before we come to heaven, not without reason. There be two things indeed, that make a broad difference, sin and misery, which we are subject to here, but shall be from hereafter, and yet these two deprive us rather of the degree, than of the truth of the perfection, rather than of the possession of happiness. The present tense in Grammar is accompanied with the imperfect: the future with the plusquam perfectum, and such is the condition of our present, and future happiness; our future is more then perfect, our present is imperfect indeed, but yet true happiness.

Misery may eclipse it here perhaps, but cannot extinguish it: they may kill me said a Philosopher to the Tyrants, but they cannot hurt me: they may take away my head, but they cannot take away my crown, saith the Christian: and divinely Tertullian, the thigh feels not the pain in the sinew, when the soul is in heaven: the heir of heavenly joys may pass through the veil of tears, and go mourning all the day, going weeping all the way, scattering his precious seed with his tears, but you know the saying, an Heirs tears are laughter under his mourning clothes.

Sin is infinitely the worse of the two; and yet sin doth not separate us from Christ, it drives us closer to him rather, and he cannot be far from heaven that is so near Christ, ^c For where Christ is, there is heaven, saith the Father. Sin doth not separate us from God, who reconciled in Christ, beholds us, not as a Judge, guilty malefactors, but as a father, weak children, and he is not far from heaven that is so near God: for where the King is, there is the Court, is our common saying; sin doth not separate us from the communion of the holy Spirit, who dwells in us, and makes us living Temples of God: and what difference I pray between the Temple of God and Heaven?

To end this in a word: a Christian is in this world like Adam in Paradise, which as some imagine was situate above the clouds, and therefore not defaced in the universal Deluge of waters: in the Paradise I say of a good conscience, the Garden of God, which is situate above the clouds of all misery, where the Tree of Life, is continually watered with the Torrent of pleasure, which never leaves running, till it ends his course in his Ocean of Eternity.

Such is the Conversation of a Christian in Heaven; but is Ours such? That was the second Point we propounded.

2.

I am afraid that some may say after this character of a Christian, as Linacer, when he had heard our Savior's Sermon upon the Mount, Either this is not Gospel, or we are not Christians, our Savior asked who touched him then when the multitude pressed about him: many throng about Christ in profession, and a form of godliness, but few touch him to draw any virtue from him, and power of godliness: many bear the name of Christians ^b to their judgment, and condemnation, not to their salvation and remedy, as the Father speaks, to whom we may say, as Alexander did to a soldier, who was called Alexander by his name, but played the coward egregiously, either fight better, either live better, or else presume not to usurp the glorious name: many fly to that of the Jews, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, and think to take Sanctuary, and save themselves there from all danger; as the Jews fable, that Og the King of Bashan escaped in the flood by riding astride upon the Ark without; though they never enter, as if they thought with Martius, that they could not possibly be condemned within sight of the Capitol, the Temple.

For to point at these in a word, are there not many Profane persons, whose conversation is in Hell? like the Demoniacke in the Gospel, whose abode was in the graves: and how far are they from hell, think you, who will go rather to an Alehouse, Whorehouse, Playhouse, then to the House of God? Vbi fuisti? Where hast thou been? apud Inferos, in Hell, saith Erasmus merrily, comparing Tipling Cellars to Hell. Her feet go down to death, her steppes take hold of Hell, saith Solomon of the Harlot: to leave a Sermon to go to a Play, is to forsake the Church of God; to betake ones self to the Synagogue of Satan, to fall from Heaven, to Hell.

And what are they, who do nothing else all their life, but war against heaven; more properly than the barbarous Scythians, who thought they did it valiantly, when they shot their arrows against heaven, which fell upon their own pates, the true Antipodes of God, and all goodness? that by a new found Art of memory, never remember the Name of God that made them, but in their oaths and blasphemies, and by a new found Art of forgetfulness, seem to have forgotten their own name, (as they say Messala did) that they are called Christians: that rather than fail of sinning, with mutual emulation, like unhappy boys, strive who shall go furthest in the dirt: they think it a foul shame, to be ashamed of sin, and their ambition is, who shall be most famous for infamy.

The Jews observe that the same word diversely pronounced, Bathsheba, with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Shibboleth, signifies the well of Oath, and Bethsaba with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Sibboleth, the well of plenty. I am sure, for Oaths the Land mourns, of which there is such store, as if men by an easy mistake of the point, used to draw and drop oaths (as it were) out of the well of plenty.

But I shall show you greater abominations then these, it is the Apostles exhortation, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , follow peace and holiness, without which no man shall see God: the word indeed is ambiguous, and signifies sometime to follow, and sometime to persecute: the Apostle delivers this with the right hand, and would have us follow, and pursue holiness, as it were withdrawing ourselves from earth, and retiring to heaven, and that apace, for fear we overtake them not; but many take this with the left hand, and running upon a wrong sent, follow neither peace nor holiness; but break the peace by proclaiming open war and persecuting holiness, without which no man shall see God, the tongue is set on fire on hell, and they set their mouths against heaven and blaspheme the Saints.

Good Lord, that ever the reformed Church should verify that which the Poet wrote once of Rome!

When it is lawful to be all things, but to be piously disposed, and these times to be the prophesy of the moral Philosopher, when Honor is attributed to vice! Gideon received those for his Soldiers, that bowed not the knee to drink, but lapped like a Dog, and Jephtha made that the trial of life, or death, if they could pronounce Shibboleth: and is not now swearing a sufficient pasport for entertainment in the world, and drunkenness, as good as letters of Commendation for preferment? he that is so precise he cannot kneel to Bacchus, and carouse it so, he that lisps at an oath Sibboleth, and cannot thunder them out thick and threefold with a full mouth Shibboleth, dismiss him for a coward, he is an Ephramite, and as he was wont to do, note him in your Calendar, for a Priscillianist, a Puritan, but they that can do both, and with a grace, he is a brave lad, a true trojan, a Gileadite: For those two (for the most part) are companions in evil, Simeon and Levi, as though wine sprung out of the earth from the blood of the Giants that fought against the God's (as they in Plutarch imagined) so it arms the Tongue against God & all his Saints, whose persons because they are out of reach, they rend and tear their names.

Poor blind men, that offer violence to the Saints, as Sampson laid hand upon the Pillars, to pluck the house upon their own heads: For this I fear will be the end of this sport, and I would to God only the Princes of the Philistines (as indeed they do) sat and laughed at this: the Poets say, Jupiter never throws his thunderbolt, but when the Furies wrest it out of his hand, I fear these Furies will draw God's judgments upon us.

I know not what vain hopes, like false guides, which set a man out of the way, bear us in hand, that we may go by sin and hell to holiness, and shut our eyes against the light of the Gospel, and yet at last come to heaven: the way indeed to hell is easy, for as Bias scoffed, the dead go thither blindfold, with their eyes closed: but let no man think, any life will bring a man to heaven, as though Christ sent blood out of his side to redeem us, and not water also to purge his redeemed, and wash them from their sins? As though those, whom the devil drives headlong to hell, as once he did the Gadarenes hogs into the deep, had any reason to conceive, they were mounting to the pinnacle of the Temple, to some high place in heaven, who, if there were as many heavens as there be days in the year, as the Basilidians foolishly dreamed, are not like to come to the lowest point of the lowest, without more then ordinary repentance?

Secondly, wordlings, whose conversation is in earth; who degenerate so far from all noble thoughts that they had rather be Terrae filii, sons of the earth, then heirs of heaven: which deface the Image of the heavenly Father, stamped in the soul (not in their coins) with continual rubbing against the earth. Wormes and no men, that do not walk upright to heaven, but crawl upon the earth: the seed of the Serpent, inheriting his curse, to creep upon their belly, and lick the dust, and like that better then the choice delicates, the food of Angels: like the Israelites of whom Tertullian, whose pallats relish Garlic or an Onion of the Egyptian earth, better than the Angelical viands of heaven: whom the earth hathwholly swallowed up, as once it did Corah: who lulled asleep with the flattering blandishment, and fair entertainment they meet with in the world, are nailed to the earth, as Sisera was by Jael; and will not so much as lift their eyes to heaven, unless it be as the moralist observes, that Hogs do, who go nodling down, and rooting in the earth all their life, and never look upward, till being ready to be killed, they are laid flat upon their back, and forced: so those men are all their life scraping in the dunghill, and never think upon God or heaven, till wrestling with the pangs of death, they are even overcome, and laid flat upon their back, then they that were prone to earthly cares like Martha, like the woman in the Gospel, that had a spirit of infirmity and was bowed downward, and careless, and supine to all heavenly things are forced to think of heaven: but perhaps can brook them little better then Cerberus did the light at which he startled, and struggled so, when Hercules had brought him so far, that he had well nigh twitcht him down back again to hell, if the hand, and the chain that held him, had not been the stronger: or as the noble King Richard, the first of the name, who when the rest of the Princes, and Gallants travailing in the Holy Land, where they then warred, were come to the foot of an hill, from whence they might view Jerusalem, the holy City (then possessed by Saracens without hope of recovery for the present) and therefore put Spurs to their Horses, everyone in a youthful contention who should be the first, and have the maidenhead of that prospect. He pulled down his Beaver over his eyes, and would not gratify them with the vain pleasure of so sad a spectacle; for God forbid said he, that I should be hold that City, though I could, which though I would, I know not how to rescue: so is it but cold comfort to such to think of heaven, whose life gives so weak evidence for their Title to it, whose possibilities are so remote, upon I know not what reversion, after such, and such, and such a thing done, which they find then too late, that they are not likely to have either space, or grace, or place to do.

Foolish men that lay the greatest burden upon the weakest horse, and leave that one thing which is necessary to their bed, when they are fit to do nothing: God called to them to hasten in their life, today if ye will hear my voice, harden not your hearts, then they were loath to forsake their sweet sins, as Lot to go out of Sodom, till the Angel plucked him out: then they answer coldly, as Austin reports of himself, Give Lord, but not yet; then they devise a thousand shifts to delay: let Solomon bid them remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, they are ready to say (to think at least) as the Devils to our Savior, Art thou come to torment us before our time? Whereas they are afraid, if they should begin too soon in Religion, they might be Saints; and happy before their time: but when death comes, they change their note, their pulse then beats quick, and faint, a dangerous symptom of Death, O Lord make speed to hear us, O Lord make haste to help us.

Then in haste the Minister, the Sacrament, their prayers, then Lord have mercy upon me; and so like Gallants that have lost their time in the Alehouse, to make amends, ride all upon the spurr suriously, (right Jehues march) ready to overrunne the sober traveler: so these run upon the speed at last, and think to be at heaven before those who have travelled soberly thitherward all their life: but what if God should answer their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , it is not yet time in their life, with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , at their death: what if God should say to him, as the Crabbe in the Fable to the Serpent, when he had given him his deaths wound for his crooked conditions, and then saw him stretch himself out straight, At oportuit sic vixisse; It is too late now, you should have lived so? What if the sword of God's Justice seize upon him? that flies so to the Sanctuary of his Mercy, as Joab was slain even at the horns of the Altar? May not a man receive unworthily, not discerning the Lord's body, by the eye of faith (for according to the Father, this is the food of Eagles, not of Daws) and so eat damnation to himself? for in this case, it is not meat but a knife, or sword, saith Cyprian: The Emperor was poisoned in the Hostie: and at last a man may die notwithstanding the Sacrament, as the Israelites in the Wilderness, died with Manna in their mouths.

Basilides the Emperor of Russia refused a Coelestiall Globe of gold (wherein the cunning Artificer, as it were in emulation of God, had curiously framed a model of heaven, nothing was wanting of the number of the spheres, or of the life of the motion) which was sent unto him as a rare present from the German Emperor; for, said he, I do not mean to busy myself in the contemplation of heaven, and in the mean time, did lose the possession of the earth, as the German Emperors do daily to these Turks; it may be wisely: and a m • id laughed at her master Thales, the great Astronomer, who gazing on the Stars on a sudden fell into a ditch: 〈◊〉 think justly: and the Jew is little pittled, who let go the helm of the ship, which he steered at the first approach of the Sabbath, and so suffered shipwreck, for ought I know, deservedly: For our Conversation must he in Heaven indeed; but it is not a Jacob's staff, but a Jacob's ladder will bring us thither; we must behold the heaven, but we may hold the helm also, and guide our course the better, as Pilots do; we may look to our estate, and walk in the labors of our calling with diligence, and if we do this with conscience, every day is a Sabbath, as Clemens speaks: what then is to be done as Basil in a like case? Let not all thy delight before earth, but mind also heaven: so here, we must not be all for the world, nothing for heaven: Suffer not the world to take up the best rooms in the heart, while Christ by that means, is shuffled into the stable: but as the Ethiopian Indges in all their meetings, reserve the highest seat empty for God: so do you seek the kingdom of Heaven in the first place. ^e That house is happy, where worldly Martha complains of heavenly-minded Mary, saith the Father. Happy is that soul, which is so tempered, that though it run between both, yet the by as is always drawing toward heaven, that abounds so much in expressions of love that way, that the world may have cause to be jealous, and complain of some neglect: that fears not the fear of the worlding, that if he should follow holiness toofast, he should not be able to live by the trade, like the Athenians, who in the Consulation, whether they should admit Alexander the Great into their Calender, and Canonize him for a God, which he sued for; at first were very zealous against his impious ambition, but were soon cold upon the poli • icke suggestion of a crafty companion, who put them in mind of the power of Alexander, and wished them to consider, lest while they stood so much for Heaven, they were likely to lose earth: so these had rather forgo heavenly, than undergo any hazard af the loss of earthly thinga; but the Christian not so, but resolves, Viderit utilitas, let the world look to that, let the world go as it will, I will do according to the command of my Savior, and build upon his Promise; Seek the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall he cast upon you.

Hypocrites, whose conversation is between heaven and earth: like Erasmus, as the Papists paint him: like the flying Angel in the Revelation; which in the Parable of the Sheep, seek out their goats: under the cloak of Religion, God's Livery which they wear, as though they served him, do but serve their own turn: like the Eagles which soars aloft, not for any love of heaven, her eye is all the while upon the prey, which by this means, she spies sooner, and seizes upon better: as Thales sometime contemplated the heaven for no devotion I wist, but to pick some gain out of it, as he did indeed: for re ading thus much in the volumne of heaven, that there was like to follow a scarcity of Olives, he got all that he could into his hands, and so having the monopoly, sold them at his own price.

Who would not have admired, and honored him as one sent from heaven, and God's near familiar, or intimate friend, according to the phrase of Tertullian, who not content to fit in the Temple of God; unless he were also pearcht upon the highest pinnacle of the Temple, were not the fetch long since transparent to the world, that he is mounted so high, only for the love of the situation and goodly prospect, it hath of all the kingdoms of the world, and to bargain with the devil for them, the Vicar of Christ, thought he was not well advised to refuse so fair an offer at which his fingers itched: as Gahazies teeth watered after the Talents and the change of raiment: and I suppose he would not be troubled to wear the keys of heaven at his girdle, but that he hath found that they will open to him the Treasures of the earth: and wherefore • doth he shroud himself under the shadow of Peter, but as they did, sometime to heal, and cure diseases? so at least to hide, and obscure the deformity of his swelling pride, and infinite ambition.

They say, when Astraea (Justice, and Piety suppose) betook her self from the unworthy world to heaven, her veil fell from her, (or mask I know not well whether) the only relique and monument, the earth can produce she once had her abode among men: and you may remember when Elias was taken up, and rode thither in his Triumphant chariot, his mantle dropt from him, and since that, how many have masked under the veil of Piety, and cozened the world with the mantle of Elias, (as the Devil once Saul with Samuel's) as though they came from heaven, or were left sole heirs to him: whereas God knows, they have not the least part of the Spirit of Elias, they are nothing akin unto him: they never came near heaven, but ascend out of the earth, as the counterfeit Samuel that cozened Saul, the true devil under his mantle.

For what are their letters of credence? but fair shows, good words, cheap ceremonies: pellucidae technae; shining and perspicuous juggling, who cannot see thorough these tricks? the Jews observe, that the second temple came short of the glory of the first in this especially, instead of U • im and Thummim, it had nothing but Bach Col, the daughter of a voice: and who sees not the glozing of the tongue, how short it falls of the glory of truth of sincerity? when one Alexander gave it out that he was Herod's son, Augustus to discover the impostor, felt his hand, and by his hard rough skin, easily found that there was no gentle blood ran in those veins, no noble spirit did be at in that pulse, he was some handycrafts man, he was not his craftsmaster: and who but blind Isaac would bless him for the first borne of God, the heir of heaven, whose voice is indeed smooth, the voice of elect Jacob, but his hands are rough with sin, the hands of reprobate Esau?

These Jugglers cannot play their tricks so cleanly, but they are perceived: they dance in a net, the world sees their dissembling, and accounts them but like those Images which you see sometimes underpropping the beams of some great building, they sweat, they stoop, and bow under the burden they lay their hands upon their head as it were to ease themselves as though the whole weight of the roof lay upon them, like to fall (you may make children perhaps believe so) if they should remove never so little and not support it: so these men are so busy, so zealous, so hot, a man would think the Church, the truth, the Gospel, all religion could not stand without them: when indeed they do no more then these Images: like Atlas, whom the Poets feign (for his skill in Astronomy) to bear up the heaven upon his shoulders: so everyone of these would make the world believe he were a Pillar, an Atlas of the Church: and so he is indeed an Atlas, but according to the Anagrammatisme of his name, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a miserable prop and pillar of the Church of God.

Miserable man in truth, whose dissembling, and doubling God sees, and will one day unmaske to all the world: and canst thou think foolish hypocrite to be saved by thy book at that trial: yes, get a fair Bible, bind it in a Velvet case, gild the leaves, make much of it, let all the world take notice of this in the mean time, live as thou list without book; but know that book is not subject to the Orators 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to be flattered or bribed with such a simple fee, not so much as to be silent: for though thou thinkest to stop the mouth for pleading against thee with such idle courtesies; and content that it should countenance thee before the people, as Saul would have Samuel, as if it were of this familiar acquaintance, whereas thou keepest it shut at home, and muzzled for fear it should worry thy darling sins; yet the books shall be opened one day, and thou shalt be judged by that book and condemned. Or wilt thou hope to take sanctuary at the Church? yes no doubt, because thou hast been diligent there to play the part of a Christian in seeming devotion, and mock God to his face: because thou hast cheated the world in the Church with the show of Piety, that thou mightest the better cheat them in thy shop, thou art like to scape well enough: shall I tell you how? Xerxes destroyed the Temples of the Grecians, because by building them, they seemed to overthrow the infiniteness of God, and circumscribe him within the roof of a Temple: and God will smite thee, thou whited wall, whose religion is circumscribed within the walls of the Church, and goes no farther.

All these according to the common similitude of the ferryman, look one way, and go another: they look to heaven when they are going to hell: though their forces, and their footsteps seem to stand toward heaven, yet the devil draws them to hell, when 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that wicked one, as the Poets say Cacus used to draw the Oxen he stole, by the tails backward into his men, that so men being set at a nonplus in their search, by this sophistry his theft might remain undiscovered.

3.

The third thing propounded, was to show the several motives which may provoke us to this heavenly conversation.

First, The excellency of heaven.

Jacob for the love of Rachel, covenanted to serve an apprenticeship of seven years to Laban; and when blear-eyd Leach was thrust upon him, he refused not her nor seven years more, that he might enjoy his beloved Rachel. God hath two daughters, eternal happiness the sairer, but the younger: and sineere holiness the elder indeed, but not so lovely; because she is something tender ey'd with the tears of repentance, & the exercises of mortification, which yet we must not refuse, if we love the other: The beauty indeed of celestial happiness like Rachel first woves a man to the service of God: but this is the Law of the place, the younger sister cannot be bestowed in marriage before the elder, a man cannot enjoy beautiful Rachel, unless he be content to embrace blear-eyd Leah, a man cannot enter the joys of heaven, till he have first passed through the valley of tears, neither is the condition hard: I suppose Jacob buried all his cares at last in the bosom of his beautiful Rachel, and forgot all his labor in her sweet embraces, as if he had tasted a cup of Nepenthe, or drunk the whole River of Oblivion.

And how much more shall a Christian in heaven? They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house, and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures, or as the old translation hath it they shall be drunken with the plenty of thy house, upon which Saint Austin thus descants, it is a most requisite, and exquisite word, they shall be drunken with the fatness of thy house. I, with this cup the Apostles were drunken, and therefore being beaten with rods, they went away from the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the Name of Christ, with this cup were the Hebrews drunken, and therefore suffered the spoiling of their goods with joy, expecting a City in the Heavens: with this cup were althe Martyrs drunk, who therefore) as we say a drunken man will take no hurt) ran to meet death, kissed the stake, sang in the midst of the flames, and felt no harm, being far from fear or pain.

Euagrius in Cedrenus bequeathed three hundred pound to the poor in his will, but took a bond before hand of Synesius the Bishop for the repayment of this in another life, (according to the promise of our Savior) with an hundred fold advantage; and the very next night after his departure, appearing to him in his shape, delivered in the bond canceled, as fully discharged. Beloved, one day in the presence of God, one day will make amends abundantly, abundantly for an hundred years trouble: you will not ask my bond for this, I know you will take God's word: but then, according to the Arabic proverb, shut your five windows, that the house and all that are therein may shine, consult not with your senses, with carnal reason, which like Sarah laughs at heavenly promises, looks only to earthly possibilities: and as the Sun whose rising discovers the Terresttiall Globe to our sight, but hides the stars, and the celestial: but believe these things, believe them firmly, and meditate on them freequently: and as Antaeus overcome by Hercules, renewed his strength, by falling to the earth: so let us quicken ourselves to an heavenly conversation, when we find the world hath dulled us, by raising our minds to the consideration of the excellency of Heaven.

Uanity of the world. Quod hic facio? What do I here, said Monica, Austin's mother, when she had heard an excellent discourse, of the incomparable joys of Heaven? What do we here say I, poring and losing our time about earthly things, who are invited to heavenly? What do we, I will tell you, like the young man at Athens, who fell in love with the Image of Good Fortune, an elegant statue that stood in the Senate house, and because he could not obtain her for his wife of the Senate to whom he commended his suit, set a crown, a garland of flowers upon the head of it, and put a rope about his own neck, and so died: and they are not like to make much the better match, who dote upon the glory of the world, scarce a picture, a counterfeit, a shadow of true happiness.

For what true content can all the world afford a Christian? They say it is not the great Cage, that makes the Bird sing: I am sure, it is not the great fortune, the great estate, that brings always the inward joy, the cordial contentment: therefore he who would seriously rejoice, let him take comfort in that which will never perish: many times great estates, like the Camels bunch will not suffer men to enter the straitegate, no more than that creature can go through an eye of a needle: and like long garments, a thousand to one, if they do not trippe up the heels, at the least, if they do not hinder our speed in the race of godliness, whereas a meaner condition makes us seek the way to heaven, and secures us in it: for as we see at London, because they are straited for room, they build more in height; and as soldiers are defended in their Tents, by a trench digged round about, which is nothing else but an hollowness, and want of earth, as Parisiensis, whose comparison this is: so for the most part, want of earthly things, puts us upon a necessity of seeking heavenly, and withal, is our best security against our spiritual enemies. Glass keeps out the wind and rain, but lets in the light, and therefore is useful in building; and a moderate estate is not much unlike it in nature or use, and therefore is most desirable, which is neither so mean as to expose a man to the injuries, nor so great, as to exclude a man from the influence of heaven.

His left hand is under my head, and with his right hand, he shall embrace me, saith the Spouse of her well-beloved in the Canticles: and this is the dealing of God with his Church for the most part, he bestows the blessings of the left hand upon her in such a measure, as to support her from perishing with want, or extremity, he holds her up by the other hand to keep her from drowning: his left hand is under my head: but so still, that she may be kept hungry, and longing for the blessings of the right hand, and account them the principal.

With his right hand, he shall embrace me: and while she is in this state, she is so far from murmuring, that she sings this as a song of triumph: and will be contentented, not troubles her self about many things, but in the words of Solomon, Uanitie of vanities, all is but vanity, bids adieu to the vanity of the world, and as the Father glosses upon these words, to rail upon them, and chide, and rail them away.

Dignity of man: They that look towards the earth only, are but equivocal men; ^c men in name, but not in mind, to use the words of Chrysostom: for what is there even in our nature which doth not lift us up to God, to Heaven: the frame and fabric of our bodies so upright, that it compels us to tread, to trample upon the earth, to look up to heaven, and for this purpose, Anatomists observe, that beside four muscles in the eyes, common to us with brute creatures, there is a peculiar one in man's to lift it upward; the head is therefore round, a fit seat for the mind, and withal, that it may be put in mind to think upon heaven whence it is, and whereof the figure is a resemblance: the heart is both a triangle, and a Pyramis, a Triangle, because the world cannot satisfy it, no more than a round can fill a Triangle, but there will be empty corners still, only the blessed Trinity can fill the capacity of the heart, whose Palace and Chamber of Presence it should be, according to the Initiall letters of the Latin word COR, which makes Camera Omnipotentis Regis, The Chamber of the Omnipotent Ruler, as some have seriously observed, and an inverted Pyramis, narrow below, almost sharpened to a point, that it might touch the earth no more than needs must, Tota in puncto, in Jerome's phrase, the whole stands in a narrow point, and broad above to receive the influence of Heaven.

The Rabbins also have observed, that there be just so many bones in a man's body, as there be letters in the Decalogue: and just so many joints and members, as there be days in the year, teaching us to offer up a double Holocaust of all our strength, and all our time wholly to God, in the obedience of his commandments:

And the whole man is Inversa planta, a tree turned upside down, (as the Philosopher hath noted long ago) whose roots are towards heaven, from whence it derives all the sap and juice of Grace, which makes the branches towards earth flourishing, and be fruitful in good works: My well-doing extends not unto thee, saith the Psamist, but unto the Saints that do excel in virtue: and therefore to conclude, this in a word (because I know these are but allusions, and Theological comparisons are not Syllogisticall to enforce an argument to prove) is a work most proper, and peculiar to the heavenly Jerusalem, Plant even Christ himself, who is God-man blessed forever in heaven, as Clemens speaks.

And though the fall of man hath defaced the Image of God in him, yet the very relics of his Nature do testify, that he was framed for him, for heaven: for as the statue of Olympian Jupiter was framed lying all along upon the ground, out of that vastness of proportion and stature, that any one might easily discern that if it were set upright, the roof of the Temple could not contain it: so man, the Image of God, though his fall hath laid him groveling on the earth, yet even so we cannot but perceive, that if Grace should please to raise him, there is a royal capacity in him, for which all the world is too little.

For if nature hath not conferred so much dignity upon man, that he cannot stoop to the earth without abasing himself: I am sure Grace hath: Christ hath redeemed him with his own blood, and made us Kings and Priests to God; and therefore 'tis not amiss before we be serviceable for the world to put Alexander question to his follower that persuaded him to run at the Olympicke games, Do Kings use to run at the Olympicks? and to follow the instruction of the Philosopher to a Prince, for a direction how he should carry himself at a banquet, in saying no more but this, Remember thou art a Kings son.

Fourthly, brevity of life: we read in Solomon's Ephemerides, there is a time to be borne, & a time to die; the time to live is so short as some observe, that he skips it over, and vouchsafeth not once to name it: The Philosopher affirms, that man is therefore the wisest of all creatures, because he alone can number, and they note this as an essential difference between them, that Bruta non numerant; brute creatures cannot number; I am sure this is most true of that divine Arithmetic which the Psalmist prays for, Lord teach us so to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom, then we may not spend our precious time upon trifles: the Italian proverb is, he that will lodge well at night, must set out early and take up his Inn betimes. Beloved we cannot begin too soon to set onward upon our journey toward the new Jerusalem: the Jews tell of Ben Syra yet a child, that he begged of his master to instruct him in the Law of God, who deferred it, and put him off; saying, he was to young yet to be entered into divine mysteries: then he replied, but master, said he, I have been in the Churchyard, and perceive by the graves which I have lain down by and measured, and find shorter then myself that many have died younger than I am, and what shall I do then? and if I should die before I have learned the Law of God, what would become of me then master? The consideration of our short life should cause us to make haste to learn to know, and serve God, and to think we cannot begin to study that lesson too soon, that can never be learned too well.

And withal to use all speed and diligence, lest so, as Chrildren have usually torn their books, we have ended our lives, before we have learned our lessons: let us therefore translate our care, and greediness from earth to heaven, and as some do cut off their horses tails to make their backs stronger, and fitter for burden, 'tis the Rabbins comparison which they apply to liberality, so let us cut off all superfluous expenses of time, that we may afford to be more liberal towards necessary and noble uses: lest if we let much water go beside the mill, we spend much time beside the main business, as it was observed of Demosthenes, that his breast was too short for his periods, so we find it true in a case of the greatest importance, that the period of our days be ended before we come to the period of our desires, the comfortable assurance of eternal happiness.

At least, let us not think much to do as much for heaven as we do for earth. Percute quâ aratrum, bestir thyself as if thou wert at plough, said a father to his son Glaucus, when he saw him overcome by his Antagonist at the Olympic games, where he had forced him to contend in hope of gaining great glory, because he had observed great experiments of strength in his ploughing: So may I say with the same diligence that men use in plowing the earrh, if they would employ it that way, men might purchase heaven; why then are we so foolish to refuse a motion so equal? a bargain so advantageous? why do we stick to bid a point of Time to buy a Circle, a Crown of eternity: especially seeing we cannot but know it better then the heathen Philosopher did, that pronounced all that resolved it, Unless I had been admitted to partake of these, it had been no great matter to be borne: unless we get a part of heaven, it was not worth the while for us that we are borne.

Fourthly, Necessity double of ours times and place.

First, Times; for send your meditations abroad as Noah did the Dove out of the Ark, and they will find no place to rest, but return and tell you of an universal deluge of affliction, which hath well nigh overwhelmed the Church of God, unless as the Duke of Alva told the King of France, who asked him, whether he had observed the late great Eclipse, no said he, I have so much to do upon earth, that I have no leisure to behold the heaven: so we are so busied in the world, that we think not on God's kingdom, or be so rude and barbarous to think the state of the Church is nothing to us abroad, while we at home feel nothing. But what if ourselves be in more danger, the more secure we are? Have we any privilege above our neighbors? May not God justly take away his Gospel, and his mercies from those that abuse them? I read it observed in the Scriptures, that when the Israelites came to eat of the fruits of the land, de frugibus terrae, the Manna ceased: If Honey be thy friend, do not swallow all, saith the Arabic proverb; Let us take heed we abuse not the gentleness of God toward us, lest if we grow earthly minded, God take away his heavenly Manna, the richer the Wine is, the sowrer is the Vinegar saith the German, and ^c if his love hath been so unspeakable towards us, his hatred of our lewdness will be infinite like himself, being void of limits and bounds, saith a father, and how shall we prevent our own danger, or relieve the miseries of our brethren? When Jerusalem was taken, there was heard (they say) a voice from heaven, Migremus, Let us depart hence, let us do so, betake ourselves to God, to Heaven for help in these dangerous times, an heavenly conversation; lest God's judgments cease upon us, as the Soldier slew Archimedes while he was drawing lines in the dust so busily.

First, Be zealous for Religion.

A Lacedaemonian woman delivered her son going to the war his fathers Buckler, with this mothers blessing, either let me see thee bring this back to me my son with life, and victory, or let me see thee brought back again upon this dead with honor: either fight victoriously, or die valiantly. The Serpent (say they) if he be so environed, that he must of necessitle pass thorough one of them, will sooner adventure upon the flame, or fire, then the shadow of the Poplar Tree: Let us resolve either to live with the Gospel, or die for the Gospel, and the faith of our Fathers, the Buckler that defended them from all dangers: and let us fear more the black shadow of Roman superstition, then the bright flames of a Marian persecution.

There is a prophesy reported in Telesphorus, that Antichrist shall never overcome Venice, nor Paris, nor the royal city of London. But we have a more certain word, and let us take heed we be not lukewarm in Religion, lest God spew us out of his mouth.

Secondly, be zealous in Religion.

To this end let us then practice,

First, Serious repentance, and sincere reformation.

If the book of the Law chance to fall upon the ground, the Jews custom is presently to proclaim a fast: why should not we do so, who have let the Law of God fall to the ground many times, and trample upon it too by disobedience: I have heard sometime that one of the wisest Statesmen that ever sat at the stern of this Kingdom had this verse written upon his Study door.

The English nation is most healthful when it swims in tears, and more dangerous to fall into a sickness, when it overflows with laughter. The truth whereof, our late experience hath confirmed: In the Plague, what shows of devotion? what fair promises? but some have well observed a double fault in our nation concerning the state of their bodies, which may be better applied to the state of their minds, that the English are not sick soon enough, and they are well too soon: to correct both which let me give but one word of advice. Let our repentance be swift and currant, lest God's decree outrun it; and let our fasts be according to an old Canon, which defines their continuance, even until the stars appear in the Firmament; and let us humble ourselves betimes before the decree come forth, and let us go thorough still with the work when it is begun, and resolve with Jacob, I will not let thee go, until thou bless me.

Secondly, Let us be servant and earnest in Prayer.

The Jews have a blasphemous fable, that our Savior found out the right pronounciation of the name of God, the Tetragrammaton, and that wrought all his miracles; but the right invocation of the name of God will indeed work miracles; and do we think much to ask and have?

There was one at Rome offered the book of the Sibyls to sale entire and whole: a rare monument, but set a round price, which the King would not adventure upon; then burning the half of the books, and doubling the price of the whole for the remainder, he made a second offer, and that was also refused: he made no more ado, but burnt again the half of the half, and doubled again the whole price of the whole, and so once more he offered the relics the third time, and then the King at last (bethought himself, and) bought.

Beloved, God offers us now his Gospel, his son, with peace, and prosperity) all blessings are as it were let down from heaven to us in the sheet which Peter saw) and that at no great price, our prayers only: if we make nice and dainty to purchase these blessings when the Lord is so willing to make sale, I fear the time will come, when we would be content to bid tears, and sweat, and blood, and our very souls for the least part of them, and yet may go without: Let us pray earnestly then for ourselves, for our brethren, let us not think much to weep for them, that bleed for Christ. The Jews have a saying, that since the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, the doors of Prayer have been shut: but the door of tears was never shut; a son of tears cannot perish. Let us knock at that done. Our place and Calling.

It is one of Jeremiah's Lamentations, that they that are brought in scarlet, should embrace the dung; and the Lapwing is made an Hieroglyphic of infelicity, because it hath as a Coronet upon the head, and yet feeds upon the worst of excrements: it is a pitiful thing that any child of God redeemed, and washed in the blood of Christ, should bedable his scarlet Robe in the stinking puddle of the world: but most lamentable it is that the fowls of the heaven, by the enchantments of the world, should be metamorphoz'd into the beasts of the earth: that they should degenenerate so low, whom God hath advanced so high, as to be his Ambassadors; and more, to be Kings and Priests to him, in a more peculiar manner.

I will be sanctified in those that come near Mee, saith God himself: The souls of priests must be purer than the Sun-beams, saith. Chrysostom: when I am lifted up, saith our Savior, I will draw many after me: The Minister is not like to draw many thither, unless himself be first lifted up to heaven. Let us then leave the plough, as Elisha did to follow Elijah; leave the nets, as the Disciples did, to follow our Savior: cast off the cares of the world, that we may be free for the Lord's Work. They say, Swallows will lade and clog their wings with dirt, that with it they may build these neasts: and Falconers do this with their Hawkes, sometime clippe • their wings (Ierre in the phrase) to imp out their trains: I wish many did not so spend their excellent wits and parts, which as with wings they might fly to heaven, by doing God's faithful service in his Church, to nothing but that they may heap thick clay together, and sit warm in their nests at home, or go sooping in a silken coat, and Ruffe, with a goodly train after them in the street: they do not remember, it seems, that the Peacock hath the more painted plumes, gayer train, and yet the Eagle is the Queen of Birds, they say, because she flies nearest heaven.

Divines contend earnestly that Tythes are due by the Law of God, and I blame them not, but then methinks, they should not contend so earnestly, that the Sabbath is observed by the law of man, lest the world think they play fast and loose; fast for themselves, and loose for God, when they would have the people tied to their pay, and would not themselves be tied to their pains: to muzzle the truth in silence, is to bury gold under ground, is most true in our case, and a fearful crime you know it is in the Parable, to bury the Lord's Talent in a Napkin: it is our duty to plant with Instruction, to water with tears of Repentance, and nourish by Examples, as Austin excellently, to preach in season, and out of season: Inveniat me stantem Christus, & praedicantem, said a worthy Bishop of ours, I pray God, that when Christ comes to judgment, he may find me standing, and preaching. Beatus servus, Blessed is the servant, whom his master when he comes, shall find so doing.

Let us then draw others to heaven by diligence in preaching, and go to heaven by holiness of life: methinks, Austin is affectual the unlearned arise, and take heaven by violence: and shall we perish with all our Learning? who if we seek not heaven in the first place, are like of all other to lie lowest in Hell.

But better I go like a Candle, so that I leave a sweet farewell, though all you burn day-light: I will rather therefore put myself upon your wisdom, and end hastily, then presume upon your patience, and not seasonably.

THE NATVRALL Mans Condition.

I Have made choice of this place of Scripture to make the groundwork of my Discourse: In which, to let pass the former part, which hath been handled in another place, in another manner, and to another purpose, I come to the latter part: We pray you in Christ's stead or in Christ's name be ye reconciled to God: wherein three principal parts may be observed.

First, The condition of man by nature, and this is but implied in the word Reconciled, and may be thus expressed; Every man by nature is an enemy of God, for reconciliation imports so much.

Secondly, the duty of man in this condition, if he will escape the misery of it, The only way is to reconcile himself to God.

Thirdly, The office of the Minister, who must urge man to the performance of this duty, we pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled to God: I might add something concerning the first estate of man in integrity for the term of Reconciling supposeth, first an agreement, secondly, a falling out, and then thirdly, the restitution from the latter jarring to the former agreement: but because that is not so necessary for my scope I will rather omit it: But in the second point it will not be amiss to distinguish two things for more perspecuity.

First, the medicine, in those words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .

Secondly, the application in the main duty, he ye reconciled: And then in recompense of this increase I will leave out the third point altogether, concerning the office of the Minister as not so pertinent to my scope: so shall there remain in the words still three points.

First, the misery of man, who is by nature the enemy of God.

Secondly the remedy of that misery, which is Christ our mediator.

Thirdly, the fruit of that remedy our reconciliation with God: The first point which I shall only insist on is this:

That we are by nature enemies of God: For the further explication of which I suppose the meaning of the Tearmes, as facile and easy, and conceived by everyone in this place, to be this.

The first word, We, or Man, which is the Subject of the Proposition to be generally understood in the utmost extent of the nature of mere man: The sons of the mighty, and the men of the earth, as the Psalmist terms thē by way of disparagement: Filii 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and filii Enos, filii viri, & filii hominis, be they but filii Adam, the sons of Adam descended from him; All men are by nature God's enemies.

The second word by nature, the qualification of the Subject, not by force of the principles of nature, qua homines, but by participation of corruption superadded to this nature, qua tales: not by nature as primitive and created by God, but by nature as derived corrupt from Adam: All men came out of his loins by natural generation, before supernatural regeneration, the stock of Adam being not transplanted into Christ the second Adam, All men are thus by Nature God's enemies.

The third word Enemies, God's enemies, the predicate in the Proposition attributed to the Subject, because it implies a relative disposition between two: and Inimicitia, Enmitie, as you all know, is nothing else but the reciprocal affection of a moral opposition, viz. Hatred between two persons in a reasonable nature: in which there must concur those three Conditions.

First, that it is between two.

Secondly, that it be reciprocal; for if the hatred be but on the one part, not on the other, it is truly hatred indeed, but it is not properly Inimicitia.

Thirdly, that it is only between persons in a reasonable nature for the same reason, because among them only can be found the reflection of the like affection of Hatred: for a man may hate a toad, or some such creature, and that by a secret antipathy, yet that is not enmity, by reason of the defect of that condition: therefore this word Enemies I understand both Actively and Passively. We are enemies to God and hate him, and God is an enemy to us and hates us; and so in both respects. All men are by Nature God's enemies. Now to handle both these briefly.

First, jointly: The ground, of both is a dissimilitude, which is between God and us, as we are by nature, we are men of polluted hearts, and polluted lips; God is a God of pure eyes that can behold no iniquity: We are wholly infected with sin and corruption, but God is He to whom the Cherubims and Seraphim, do most justly cry, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabbath: and if the Trinity were multiplied by it self, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , were thrice three times redoubled, as ye have it nine times written in Plantines Edition in the fourth of the Revelation, yet how far were it from that which the Saints acknowledge in God, who are said there not to rest day nor night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty: and how much more short of the infinite holiness in God, whose Attributes are himself, and therefore he is even Holiness it self. No marvel then seeing there is such dissimilitude between them, nothing on man's part but sin and pollution, nothing on God's part but Sanctitie and perfection, no marvel seeing such a dissimilitude, if we say there is such dislike that they are mutual Enemies: for if the moral maxim which is most true be received, this cannot be avoided which follows out of it by an easy consequence, according to the Law of contraries, Similitudo est mater amoris: But Secondly, by the opening of these distinctly, This will better appear, and first for the former.

We are by nature enemies to God.

Perhaps some will say to me here: and do we hate God? How can that be, that he should be hated, who is the perfection of Beauty, the pitch of Nobility, the pattern of Wisdom, the Idea of all Virtue, in a word, who is goodness it self, whereas the Object of hatred is some evil always: And do we hate God who hath made this world, this all, and us in it a a little world, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as they called Athens the principal of all the rest; and as it were an All in all: who governs all things by his providence, and by whose favor we have all that we have, In whom we live and move, and have our being: so that if he had not bound us to love him by the transcendent excellency of his nature, yet he hath even brought us by the infiniteness of his mercy towards us, and can we repay all this Love with Hatred? And do we hate God? Scientia neminem habet inimicum nisi ignorantem; say the Heathen, that have not known his Nature, hate him, but as for them that live in the bosom of the Church, that have sucked milk out of the breasts of the Spouse of Christ, they cannot choose but draw in the love of God their Father, with the milk of the Church their Mother. And do we hate God? Or do not you rather like some 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , an hater of mankind; say mankind is an hater of God, and fasten a false accusation, a slander upon them all unjustly?

Indeed (to answer this, if I speak this without the warrant of the Word of God, then say, if you will, that my tongue is noslander: but if I bring that to avouch so much as I have said of every unregenerate man; consider well whether I have not slandered them with a truth: I need not put you in mind of this place which (as I observed before) says it in effect: but I will produce a parallel place, which will give better light to this, and greater strength to the matter in question, Col. 1. 21. And you that were sometimes strangers and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled: Where you see you have the same phrase of reconciling, and lest men signify this obscurely; you have further, you that were strangers and enemies in your mind, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , where that was but intimated and insinuated only in the former wotd is literally and punctually expressed. And that there are some indeed that hate God that are his enemies, appears generally out of infinite places of Scripture, where there is mention made of God's enemies; and more particularly in the 139. Psalm, 21. Verse. Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred, I count them my enemies. And tell me what man's is that title of honor, that Elogium that Paul gives the Heathen and natural men in the Catalogue, Rom. 1. where he hath heaped up the most of them together, Backebiters, haters of God, despiteful, &c. there you have among the rest 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , haters of God: And if that be not plain enough, I think the eight Chapter of the Romans speaks home enough to this purpose: where you shall find these words in the seventh verse, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : where according to the stream of our interpreters, the subject is emphatical, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , not the inferior faults, as the Papists would have it, but the highest, the most refined portion of the unregenerate, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : and the predicate is emphatical 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the abstract for the concreat, as though there were no composition of substance and quality, of constitution and corruption, but all were turned into mere and simple enmity 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . The wisdom of the flesh saith the old translation, the carnal mind, saith the new, is enmity against God: and if the common axiom be true, men's cujusque, is est quisque. I think it may be thus resolved at last, The carnal man is an enemy to God: And what do they want think you of being God's enemies, or what injury should a man do them if he called them so, of whom the Apostle speaks, in 2 Tim. 3, 4. that they are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God: do not you think that they love God much, that love pleasures more: If there were yet need of further testimony to this truth, I might confirm it with advantage out of the third Chapter of the Pilippians and the 18. verse. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ: Here be enemies, and many enemies, and that of Christ (which is more I think then of God) and that of the Cross of Christ, which is more perhaps than of Christ simply: of whom the Apostle told the Philippians, and told them often, and told them weeping. But I think by this time it is clear enough out of Scripture that so it is, that we are enemies of God, and hate him: Now to answer the objection distinctly, and show how this may be, that God may be hated as an enemy, seeing he is goodness it self, and the object of hatred is some evil: You must consider three things.

First, the degrees of hatred which are three.

First, the first is not to love so much as we ought, or not so much as some other: and so the beloved Wife, and the hated are distinguished in the Law, where is not meant that she is absolutely hated, but not so much loved as the other, and from this degree may arise this distinction of hatred, that is, either absolute or comparative.

Secondly, the second degree is, where there is no love at all, and in this case this is sufficient from this negation, to conclude an affirmation of the contrary, for between love and hatred in respect of God, there is no Medium abnegationis, according to our Savior's speech: He that is not with me is against me: And from this degree you may frame a second distinction of Hatred, that it is either Negative or Positive.

Thirdly, the third degree is a positive ill-will or hatred, where there may be conceived a great latitude, and so many degrees likewise: but it will be sufficient to declare the nature of it, if you observe but one distinction: for this positive hatred may be either explicitly such, or implicitly, either formaliter, or interpretative: by the former I mean such hatred as a man entertains against anything wittingly, and upon actual consideration and intention: by the latter, such as (although the former be not seen) by which a man doth the same things in effect, as if he did purposely hate a thing: He that sinneth against me hateth his own soul, saith Wisdom, Prov. 8. All they that hate me love death: not that any man hateth his own soul expressly or purposely: for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, saith the Apostle, Ephes. 5. much less his spirit, his soul: neither doth any man love death in that manner: but they that do those things which proceed indeed from hatred (though they intend not so much) are said to hate interpretative: So the Wise man saith, He that spareth the rod hateth his son: because if he hated him, he could not do him a worse turn: And thus you have a third distinction of hatred, that it is either of Ignorance or Malice.

And this is the first thing to be considered, the degrees, or if you please, the several acceptions of hatred.

Secondly, the second thing is the degrees of Corruption which is to be found in a carnal man: which be two, according to the two kinds Original and Actual,

First, Original is equal in all men: for it contains in it all sins, and all degrees of sins, tanquam in origin, and that I may so speak, tanquam in ration seminati: but

Secondly, Actual is diverse in diverse men; in some more, in some less, and that not from any special, which is in one man more then another by nature, for all (as I said) are equally poisoned and infected with the bitter root of Original sin, but from the General Grace of God, who in his providence doth bridle and restaine that unlimited boundless disposition of sinning, as it seems good to his own wisdom, by civil education, and moral instructions and the like; and doth not administer those occasions which should serve to educe it into acts, which if they were applied to all alike, all would be alike, as rank in sin one as another. And this is the second thing, the degrees of corruption.

Thirdly, the third thing to be considered, is concerning the Object of love or hatred, Good or Evil: which are of two sorts.

First Absolute, as they are in their own nature: and so every creature much more; God is good and cannot be hated, and no creature, much less God, is evil.

Secondly Relative, in respect of some other thing: and so we see there is a natural hatred or opposition between some creatures, which is properly called Antipathy, where the cause is secret: not because such a nature is in it self evil, but because it is evil to it: and the first of these kinds may be called simply Bonum or Malum, the second perhaps, bitter, conveniens or inconveniens, Congruum or Incongruum: and that which is bonum may not be conveniens: And these two are to be found in God, who according to his absolute being is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but according to diverse respect to diverse creatures, may have diverse aspects of convenience or unconvenience? these three things being premised according to the faculty, and the degree of corruption in it, and the object with the kinds of good or evil in it, and the affection or habit of hatred, in the degrees of it, it is not hard to answer the question, and declare how it comes to pass that man by nature should be God's enemy and hate him: and thus you may take it.

All men, that are yet in their original corruption, be the degree of their actual, what it will, more or less, cannot choose but hate God in all the degrees of hatred, Comparative, Negative, Positive: though in some more appear, in somelesse: in those namely whose actual corruption, is improved more through God's just judgment, there it appears more foul, and more clear, and more explicitly, who harden their forehead, and with set malice fight against God: in those whom God's bridle of restraining grace hath curbed, more or less, and but implicitly, according to that explication which I gave before: and the ground is manifest out of that which hath been said before in general; now, not for any evil that is in God, but for that good rather, because they being evil, there is no congruity or convenience between them and it: And as there be two things in them First A Love to Malum Culpae, and secondly an Hatred to Malum Poenae: and two things in God, clean opposite to those, first an Hatred to their Malum Culpae, and secondly a Love to their Malum Poenae, supposing the other: the former flowing from his Holyness, the latter from his Justice, they must needs hate him in both respects: As Author legis prohibiting all Malum Culpae which they love, by severe laws, and as ultor peccati inflicting upon them Malum Poenae which they hate, vindicating their Malum Culpae by sharp punishment: and these are so predominant in them, that they cast an aspect of deformity upon other the most lovely attributes of God, an aspersion of bitterness upon the most sweet among them: so that his infinite perfection, and incomparable mercy, are so far from altering and enchanting them, that they drive them further from him; because though they can see in them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , yet not finding 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : they see perfection of beauty, but they cannot see affection whereupon to ground propriety: And therefore they think they do, as indeed they do, make so much the more against them: and hence it is, that though they cannot hate God for them directly, yet they hate him with them, and indirectly for them; as infinitely aggravating by accident, the heinousness of their crime, as well as the grievousness of their condemnation: And thus you see the truth is salved, and the objection satisfied: which if it be not sufficiently opened out of the testimony of the word, and the general ground of man's sinfulness, I will further show how that makes a man enemy to God.

And first you may easily understand it out of the general nature of sin: which standing so opposite to God, the love of it must needs argue the hatred of God: for as our Savior requires obedience as a trial of the truth of his Disciples love to him, If you love me keep my Commandments; Then the Argument will be as strong to conclude backward, If you keep not God's Commandments ye hate him. But this hath been intimated already: the second more particularly, Sin is enmity to God, and that two ways.

First, Immediately in himself, Secondly, Mediately.

Immediately, against in all those three degrees of hatred; which I mentioned before.

First, Comparative Hatred; which is, when something is preferred before God in our affection, and prized above him: and this is done in every sin, otherwise how could it come to pass that we should cleave to it, or any inferior thing rather then to God, nay forsake God to cleave to it? How could we disobey God to obey a filthy lust: and that this is truly hatred, appears by that of our Savior, Matth. 6. 24. No man can serve two Misters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon, nor God and pleasure, and the like: Where you see such an opposition, that if we love anything beside God, so as to be a servant to it, we are beside the love of God that should make us his servants, we will hate him: we must be so far from serving anything before him, that we have no liberty to serve anything beside him, if we mean to stay in his service, this Text excludes not only all superiors that may outstrippe him, but all equals that may compare with him, yea all comportures and competitors with him in our love and service: If this be not plain enough then that is, Mat. 10. 37. He that loveth Father or Mother more then me, is not worthy of me: compared with Luke 14. 26. If any man come to me, and hate not his Father and Mother, and Wife and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my Disciple: Whence it appears that remisser love is but hatred, and so to love anything more then God, is to hate him; and the reason is plain, both in general because if those two so unequally loved should come to thwart one another, then to show the love to the principal, they would not stick to do real acts of hatred against the other, and so discover themselves: and in particular because of the infinite eminency of God's goodness above any other thing, and so of our obligation to proportionable love: But I need not stay long in this: it being so plain that men by nature are wholly averse from God and convert themselves to the creature, and therefore enemies and haters of God.

Secondly, the second degree is of Negative hatred, namely, where there is no love at all: and this is easy to be observed in all natural men toward God: for whereas it is the nature of love wheresoever it is rooted to have the command of the whole man, and sway it as it listeth, all other affections, and faculties, and parts giving attendance to it as their Queen and Sovereign: and in the love of God this is to be seen in a peculiar manner: and therefore we are commanded to love him with all our heart, and all our soul and all our might; and all our mind: The understanding, the will, the affections, all the faculties of the soul together, with all the powers of the body, must be wholly taken up with this love, you shall find that none of these in the carnal man, are anything of kin to the love of God. Love is busy in:

First, Not his understanding, the mind and thoughts will be always running on the party beloved; dies inoctisque • ames me, me desideres, me somnies, me expectes, de me cogites, me spires, me te oblectes, mecum tota sis, meus fac sis postremo animus, quando ego sumtum. You know who said it, and in this case; and in this respect the common saying I think is verified, especially animus est ubi amat potiùs quàm ubi animat. Where it loves rather then where it lives: But is there any such thing in the wicked toward God? No surely, All things concerning him are mere strangers with them, and very unwelcome guests, that mar all their mirth.

The wicked will not seek after God, God is not in all his thoughts, Psal. 10. 4. And if God offer himself, as he doth many times, And be found of those that sought him not, they will not stick to say, either with the fool, in their heart there is no God, or with them in Job 20. 14. That say unto God depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.

Again, Love is learned in the knowledge of all the commendable parts, and perfections in the party beloved: But is there any such thing in the wicked toward God? No surely, the Book of Nature lies open before them, and will not suffer them to look off it, though they would: and yet they will not vouchsafe to look on it though they ought, and read a noble story of the Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness, and Magnificence and Beauty of their Creator, but seal up their eyes with a sullen ignorance, which would fain feast themselves with the sight of of their blessed Maker, and bury their talent of understanding, which would fain be employed to his use, and improved to his honor, with this profane Epitaph, The sweetest life is to understand nothing.

Lastly, Love is witty in devising means to enjoy the party beloved: if wanting to procure it, if gotten, to perpetuate, if lost, to rerecover union with him.

But is there any such thing in the wicked towards God? No truly: For my people (saith the Lord in Jeremiah, 4. 22.) is foolish, they have not known me, they are sottish children, and they have no understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. I might enlarge this, but I must pass to that which is behind: for though we have viewed the intellectual part of the carnal man, and can observe no footsteps of the love of God, yet perhaps his will and affections are better, which are indeed the proper reason of Love; but if there be so little light in the understanding, I am afraid there is little heat to be expected in them; What the eye sees not, the heart rues not, is so of sorrow, a and a liking is derived from looking; and who knows not ^b Ignoti nulla cupido: The will moves when the understanding gives the watch-word, and depends upon it, as the Verdict of the Jury upon the Judges information: and that as we have seen that his understanding hath no tang of the love of God in the first place, so it must needs follow. Secondly in the second place, Not his will and affections neither, which you shall understand, if you run over in your mind, but three kind of affections.

First, such as are conversant immediately about the good we love, either absent, as Desire, or present, as Joy; where there is no joy in the presence of God in the light of his countenance, nor desire of it; where there is no delight in his Ordinances, nor desire to them which should lead us, as it were, by the hand to him, to hear him speak in his Word to us, or to speak in our prayers to him, to walk with him in obedience of his Commandments: where there is no cheerful entertainment of messengers that come frō him; no delight or desire to hear of him, which is evident of the natural man to God, you shall pardon me if I believe not that there is any here.

Secondly, look upon such affections as are occupied about the will, that are contrary to the good. 1 of love: either absent, as fear; or present as grief; where there is no fear of the loss of the former good even now mentioned, or grief, if through our fault or negligence we have lost them; I think my caution will not deserve blame, if I dare not trust with such a rich Jewell, such a precious grace, as the Love of God is, without better security than their simple word, a better pawn than their bare profession.

Thirdly, look upon their anger, a mixed affection, the object it self being evil indeed, but the motive good, whereby the mind rises against some evil of difficulty, that hinders it in the prosecution of some good: where there is not an holy anger, a zeal, an indignation against sin or Satan, the world, or the flesh, that either diminisheth the good of God or derogates from his glory, as we love him for him self, amore benevolentiae, or desturbs our union and conjunction with God, as we love him for our only happiness, amore concupiscentiae: in this cause tis true that Phavorinus in Collins, saith of of anger in great wits, It is well neigh, or almost a noble passion: and where this is not to be found, at least in some measure (and it is impossible it should be found in wicked men and carnal) that is true, which Austin saith in a like case, Qui non zelat non amat: and you may conclude, The love of God dwells not in him. You see then how a natural man doth not love God with all the mind; nor with all the heart: and perhaps it will be needless to touch the third, with the whole strength, because as the understanding composes the Ditty, so the will chants the Song: and after these, the rest of the powers and parts will dance: yet we will mention this too, as we have done the rest, and but mention it, and that may note the highest intension of the other, that they must be set at the highest pegge and pitch that can be, and that both in actu primo & secundo: but we will take it now for all other things by which the former do use to manifest their love: and they are three.

First, a man's tongue: secondly, the rest of his members: thirdly, his goods.

All these, how willingly will they be employed about that we love? with what dexterity, what diligence, what expedition will they behave themselves therein? Well might Plato descant upon the word Whom men call Love, the immortal call winged: for love hath two wings when, it is to go to or for the thing that is loved: but on the contrary, what dullness, what deadness, what difficulty is there for a carnal man to perform any service for God; which is an evident argument there is no love: but I do but name this. I should come to the Positive Hatred, which I principally and only intended. My purpose is not to repeat anything that hath been said concerning those two degrees of hatred of God, which are to be found in every natural and unregenerate man Comparative, whereby he comes short both of that which he owes him, and that which he bestows most freely upon other things: and Negative, whereby he denies him that love that he requires in all particulars, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; neither loving him with all his mind, or all his heart, or all his might: neither will enlarge any of them: but proceed rather to show

The third degree, the positive hatred, that every carnal man hath towards God: and as this is most properly Hatred, so it is principally to be considered: for though that be a pitiful condition, man, in whom the Image of God is, should so far degenerate from his nature, as to prefer in his affections the creature before the Creator, and as the Apostle speaks, Rom. 1. 25. They worshipped and served the creature before the Creator, who is God blessed forever: and that yet worse, to yield him no love, no service at all: yet to harden the forehead, to profess open enmity, to proclaim war against him, to make our understandings, or wills and affections, our tongues, together with all our members, which • he hath formed and fashioned, with all our outward good things which his providence hath fastened upon us, to make all these as so many weapons of unrighteousness, to fight against him; I know not whether I should say that it stirs more misery, or more madness, but this I think you all conceive that it is the top and heighth of both: But so it is with every son of Adam, in his natural condition, by the same reason that he is the Heir of Original, and the Father of Actual sin, his soul and all the powers thereof, being but a shop of sin, his body and all the parts of it tools of sin, his life and all his actions of both soul and body, a trade of sin, by the same reason.

I say he is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and Giant-like, doth fight against Heaven and against God: I must desire you here to remember only the distinction, which I propounded when I spake of this last degree of positive hatred, that it is either explicit, when it is purposed and intended, upon actual consideration; or inplicite when the same thing is done which we would do, if we did purpose and intend hatred against God, the use and ground of which I then shown you out of some; places of Scripture.

Secondly, remember the difference of the degrees of corruption in men: for though all men be equally infected in regard of the root and original of sin; yet it doth not equally break forth into actual, but in great variety, according as they be more or less bridled and curbed by God's restraining grace: which makes that though all men have the seeds of all sins, and all the degrees of sin in them, yet they do not bud and bring forth fruit in all alike; These things being remembered, I shall easily clear the point in hand, which in plain terms is this.

That Sin (in which all men are natural) is direct enmity to God, and hatred of him: And so consequently, all men as they are in this estate of sin (in which they are all naturally) are direct enemies and haters of God.

To Illustrate this you may consider

The definition of Love, and so compare hatred with it, according to the nature of opposition; and that is this, as you have it in Aristotle To love is to will to any one the things be thinks good for his sake, but not for his own sake, and to practice them according to his ability: and others say the same in substance: in which description there be three things observable especially.

First, the affection it self, the willing of good to the party we love.

Secondly, the ground and formalis ratio of this affection, not for our own benefit, or any good that redounds to us therefrom, but sincerely for his sake.

Thirdly, the effect or fruit of it, which is a forward disposition and endeavor, to procure the good we wish him, so far as it shall lie in our power to do it: and the contrary to these three will shadow forth unto us the nature of hatred, which hath therefore three things in it.

First, a wishing of evil to the party hated.

Secondly, not for any injury of his offered to us, but simply for himself.

Thirdly, a disposition to endeavor so much as lies in us, to bring those evils upon him which we wish unto him: for though the second condition be not so necessarily required, to make up that hatred which the Schoolmen call odium immicitiae but rather makes that other kind, which they use to call odium abominations, which is not needful to find in sinners toward God: yet because it doth indeed agree to them, and therefore to set it out so much the more fully; and because it then agrees better with the description of love alleged out of Aristotle, and therefore to parallel it more fitly, I would not omit it. Now that all three are in the carnal man,

First, A wishing of all evil to him.

Secondly, and that not for any injury done to him, or good that would redound to him for his evil.

Thirdly, and both with a disposition and endeavor to bring the evil upon him, so much as lies in him, it were no hard thing to show distinctly and severally, if I did not fear I should exceed the time, and excercise your patience too much in a tedious discourse upon one and the same argument: and therefore were not forced in a manner to contract as much as I may conveniently: I will insist therefore only, which virtually includes the rest, in the last: and make it plain, how natural men study and labor to the utmost of their power, to bring all evil upon God.

'It is true indeed that he by reason of the excellency of his nature is not capable of any suffering in that kind, and therefore as he answered them that told him the company laughed at him, These men scoff at thee; but I scoff not, said he again: so though these men wrong God, he is not wronged: yet no thank to them, for they doing their good will to do it, though it succeed not for another reason beyond their reach: nay, so far are they from hurting God, that it reflects all upon themselves: as the big and boisterous waves, swollen as it were with pride as well as exhalations, rushe furiously upon some solid rock, thinking surely to overturn it, or eat it up, and swallow it presently: but what is the issue, the rock remains immovable, and they do but dash themselves in a thousand pieces: so it is with the wicked that rise up against God; and yet this doth not excuse them: nay more, God hath such an over-ruling hand in all their actions, that what is done by them to his hurt, is directed by him to his honor: non fit praeter Dei voluntatem, quod fit contra ejus voluntatem, saith Austin: And again, Non sineret omnipotence fieri mala, nisi sciret de malis bonum facere: the wicked in breaking his command, fulfill his counsel, in opposing his will they do but accomplish it; and yet this doth not excuse them: for though the hand that acts whether it will or not, be an instrument of God, yet the wicked mind which aims at another thing quite contrary, makes them culpable though the execution must needs suite with his decree, and cannot cross it, yet the wicked intention, whereby they would fain, makes them as guilty before him: Jason had little cause to thank his enemy, that meant to kill him by shedding his blood, though he chanced to cure him by opening his Imposthume, which the Physicians could not do. As little thank may Judas look for at God's hand, for betraying his Lord and Master, the Lord of life, though he did that which God had determined: And the Jews as little as Judas, who crucified Christ, Him have ye taken, being delivered by the determinate counsel, and foreknowledge of God, Act. 2. 23. and all sinners as little as the Jews: for the wages is given according to the work indeed, but the work is judged according to the will of him that doth it: so that the wicked doing those things whereby they bring evil to God as much as they can, it must be imputed to them, as if they had indeed power to do it, and had done it. And thus I come to the point, which is this.

That all natural men do wish and work all evil to God, and therefore are direct enemies and haters of him.

Now because we cannot conceive anything of God almost, but in some proportion that we find in the creature to him: Removing all imperfections: I will instance in three good things, wherein they go about to wrong God.

First, In the content and tranquility of mind, or if you will, his pleasure, by displeasing him.

Secondly, In his good name, and honor due to him, by dishonoring him.

Thirdly, In his Riches and possessions, by dammaging him, yea even his Kingdom it self, in a manner de-throning, and deposing him. I will but briefly give a touch of everyone of these, because otherwise I shall not compass to dispatch so much as I desire.

The first then is the displeasing of God: Without faith it is impossible to please God, saith the Apostle, and so it is impossible for the unregenerate man butto displease God: their best actions stink in his nostrils, The prayers of the wicked is abomination to the Lord; in the Proverbs, My Soul abborreth your new Moons and appointed feasts, they are a trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them, as the Lord himself complaineth of the Jews, by the Prophet Isaiah 1. 14. But my purpose is not to show how much the Lord is displeased with them, because I shall have better opportunity for that in the next point, but how much they displeased the Lord: it is their whole course, and study so to do almost; I know saith Moses to the Israelites, that evil will befall you in the latter days, because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger through the works of your hands, Deut. 31. 29. And the Prophet threatens in God's name, 1 King. 14, 15. The Lord shall smite Israel, and shall root him out of this good Land, because they have made their Groves to provoke the Lord to anger: and Jereboam's sins, wherewith he sinned against God are termed in the same Book 15. 30. His provocations wherewith he provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger: And in the second Book, 17. 17. Where you have a Catalogue of the sins of Israel, this concludes all: They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divinations, and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. Out of which places you may see what is the issue of the sin of the wicked, what the scope, upon which their wit, and will, and ways, are wholly set, namely to provoke the Lord to anger: and that sin in this respect is enmity to God, and sinners enemies, I think it is plain enough: for is not this enmity to do all things, that we know will thwart and cross a man, and to omit and neglect anything, that might in any sort be to his liking: to delight to grieve, and vex, and fret him? which the wicked do in sinning against God.

Secondly, I might further illustrate this, from another peevishness, which the Apostle Paul hath observed in our nature, which is such that the Law of God, which should be a bridle to restrain and curb our lawless luft, is a spurr to provoke and prick it forward to run more violently; the more God forbids sin, the more we bid for it, the more greedily we desire it, Sin saith the Apostle, Rom. 7. 8. Taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence: for without the Law sin was dead, for I was alive without the Law once, but when the Commandment came, sin revived and I died, And the Commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death, for sin taking occasion by the Commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me: As if we did sin upon purpose, so much the more, because it is offensive to God, to displease him, and as you had it even now, to provoke him to anger: and if God had need to deal with us, as he did in the story, who was wont to command the contrary, when he would have anything done, because he knew they would cross him, and as the Philosopher cousend Alexander, who thinking that he would make suit to him to restore his Country, which he had ruined (from which he was utterly averse) when he saw him come toward him swore he would deny whatsoever he should desire, and he therefore demanded the clean contrary of what he intended, that he would not restore his Country, and by that wile sped in his suit because he did not speed.

Thirdly, I might further press this, because our disposition is such naturally toward God, for the most part, as we will be most refractary, in those things which he most earnestly requires at our hands: if there be any service more pure to him, any performance of ours more precious then other in his sight, any duty that he delights in, we are more aukward and untoward to that, as if we did it of purpose to displease him, and to provoke him to anger, and I could instance here particularly, in the Sanctifying of his day, in private and frequent prayer, and many other the like, but this that hath been said already may suffice concerning the first, the displeasing of God, to show that it is a character of enmity, a badge of hatred: and as it is said in the Gospel of the Tares, sown while the husbandman slept 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , an enemy hath done this, so the wicked that do this continually, may be branded in the forehead with this mark, and known to be an enemy.

Secondly, the second act of enmity whereby the wicked men seek to bring evil upon God is by dishonoring him: which they do in sinning many ways, both in conceiving very meanly and basely of him in their mind, or else they could not sin, and so speaking diminitively of his Majesty, yea, blaspheming his holy Name; as also in the very sin it self, which as it brings a deformity upon themselves is dishonorable to him as the Creator, and as it is a difformitie from his holy Will, and disobedience thereto is dishonorable to him, as the King and Governor of all things; for as the mangling and defacing of some noble Pictures, robs the Artificer of his deserved praise, and so tends to his disgrace: and as the disobedience of the Subjects is a dishonor to their Sovereign: so we blurring and mangling of our own souls with sin, and the Image of God in them, do impair the glory of his Wisdom and Workemanshippe of which he made them to have been Statues and Monuments, and rebelling against him, deny him the glory of his power and Soveraignetie, and make both his Wisdom and Power to be called in question: the defects that be in us, redounding in some sort to the discredit of him that made us, as though he wanted either power or wisdom to have prevented, or to redress it. Now ye know that God made all things to his glory, and he is most tender of his honor, and therefore to deprive him of that is the greatest indignity we can offer him, and must needs proceed from the greatest enmity: We cannot add anything indeed to the glory of God, who was all glorious in himself before the world was made, and stands not in need of the creature; much less can we dim or diminish it, but we are said to glorify him, and he takes it so, and rewards it so, when we do according to the prescript of his Will, the proper end of our creation: and then we dishonor him, when we transgress and swerve from that, as much as lies in us, though God cannot sustain any loss in this neither, because he is able to correct our active injustice, by his vindicative justice, and so reduce them to his glory, and then when we will not glorify him, yet he will be, and is glorified by us: Now both this and the former, the displeasing and dishonoring of God argues the deeper hatred in us, because they are joined with contempt.

First, in that we do these things and sin, notwithstanding God's command, his promises, his threatenings, is not this open contempt, as Aristotle defines it: Disdaine is an action of glory about that seems nothing worth.

Secondly, in that we do it in his presence, and before his face, as it were.

Thirdly, that we do it upon such beggarly terms, for so little advantage to ourselves: The first sin, was it not for an Apple; and are we any wiser Merchants, who exchange God and his favor for as small trifles for a little brutish pleasure, for a little red earth, for a shadow of honor, &c. which argues infinite contempt of the infinite Majesty.

But I pass to the third. Thirdly, evil which carnal men labor to bring upon God, which is of loss and damage, and that of his Kingdom: Thou Lord God Almighty art King of Saints, Revel. 15. 3. and there God reigneth in a more particular manner, where his Laws are obeyed; but they that disobey him, cast off his yoke, and acknowledge no subjection to him: and they rebel and fight against him, and so are enemies in all properties, and he accounts them so, as you see in the Parable, Luke 19. 14. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, we will not have this man to reign over us: and the noble man at his return, saith, v. 27. But those mine enemies which would not have that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me: yea, they do not only break their allegiance to God, and break out into rebellion against him, but even depose him, and set another in his throne: they make themselves the worst part of themselves, their flesh their God, nay, the sins of their flesh their master, For know ye not, saith the Apostle, Rom. 6. 16. that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness: now carnal men obey the law of the flesh, the law of sin, and it they follow, therefore that is their Master, their Lord, their God.

Secondly, the world is their God, and therefore covetousness one principal part of the worship of the world is styled Idolatry, Col. 3. 5. which may be proportionably accommodated to any other thing that is predominant in our heart and affections.

Thirdly, the Devil is their God, and so the spiritual enemies of the regenerate man are called, Principalities, and Powers, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Ephes. 6. 1. and it is said of wicked men, 2 Cor. 4. 4. In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the Image of God should shine unto them: and they are dead in trespasses and sins, Ephes. 2. Wherein in times past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. And is not this enough to make it true that man naturally is enemy to God and hates him, when they thrust him out of his Throne, and thrust the Devil, the World, the Flesh, into his Throne, to do all service and homage to them? And this leads me unto the last Consideration, whereby we may discover their hatred to God; for you may remember that I told you the last time, that we might take notice of their affection, both as it respected God immediately; which we have hitherto treated, and mediately as it is carried to some other thing: and that is of two kinds, the enemies of God, and the friends of God: for Amicorum omnia sunt communia; but more especially they have common enemies, and common friends: And therefore hence we know the hatred of carnal men to God, first, in that they love God's enemies, the Flesh, the World, the Devil, and all such men as yield their service and obedience to them, and that in so high a degree, that they rob God to pay them, that which they never owed them: They make them their King, they honor them, they please them: they love them with all their heart, and all their mind, and all their strength: which are due only to God; like some impudent whores, that bestow all their Jewels which they had received as love tokens, from their loving husbands, upon their lustful lovers; As the Lord also complains of the Israelites, by the Prophet Ezekiel, 16. 17. Thou hast also taken thy fair Jewels, of my gold, and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and diddest commit whoredom with them. And tookest thy broidered garments and covered them, and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them: My meat also which I gave thee, fine flower, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them, for a sweet savor: And thus it was, saith the Lord God: As Eudocia the Empresse, unwittingly incurred her Husband Theodosius his displeasure, by giving a fair Apple which he had given her, to Paulinus, who ignorant of the matter, presented it again as a rare one to the Emperor: and this was an Apple of strife between them: So both our first Parents gave the Apple to Diod as it were, and we all give all those precious graces of mind and body, and estate, which God hath given us, to the service of God's enemies, and so discover our hatred to him.

The Friendship of the world, &c. is enmity with God. John 4. 4.

Secondly, As this appears by our love to God's enemies, so by our hatred to his friends: The Apostle John saith, 1 John. 4. 20. If a man say I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? Now this is perpetual, for wicked men to oppose and hate the children of God. Ponam inimicitiam, &c. saith God himself, I will put enmity between thee and her, and between thy seed and her seed, the seed of the woman, and the seed of the Serpent, the seed of Satan, and the seed of Saints: And in those words, as one said, Incipit liber bellorum Domini, the Book of the wars of God begins: and as there is an hatred in general, so

Secondly, Those are most opposed of the world, and worldly men, which have most similitude with God, which is most like their heavenly Father, and resemble him most in all gracious carriage, all holiness of life and conversation: And those who in that respect are most dear to God: those especially, do wicked men shoot at, with reproaches and scorn, and slander: That garment of righteousness, parti-coloured with all variety of graces, is a great eyesore to them, and makes them maligned, as Joseph was of his Brethren, for some such testimonies of his Fathers special love toward him.

Thirdly, those that have more near and special relation to God, as his servants, in peculiar title, His Messengers, his Ministers, they are sure to have a large share in the worlds hatred: ••• ecially if they chance to come within a man's walk, if they come near them, then they will be sure to blurt it out, though they smothered it before perhaps, and say as Ahab to Elias, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? All which do argue that natural Antipathy which is between a natural man to God; for this is a certain conclusion, that they do inwardly hate the Saints of God: And that is a certain evidence that they remain still in their corruption, even as when we can say with the Psalmist, All my delight is in the Saints upon earth, those that excel in virtue, when we love the Brethren, that we are passed from death to life. 1 John. 3. 14. And this is a certain consequence, if we hate God's children, we hate God himself: And now beside our aptness to the hatred of God, directly confirmed, I might strengthen the same with the consideration of our aukernesse and averseness from all reconciliation to him: I have stretched out my band, saith Wisdom, Prov. 1. 14. And no man regardeth, Yea all the day long, saith the Lord in the Prophet, to a rebellious people: We are not willing to hear of a parley, much less of a peace: and this place is proof enough of it, where you see how far the Lord is forced as it were to condescend and yield to our untowardness, when his Ambassadors, to whom he hath committed the word of reconciliation, say thus, We are Ambassadors for Christ, as if God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God. But it is time to pass to the second point; and having shown the enmity of man to God, to show now in like manner the other part of this relative and reciprocal affection. The enmity of God to man.

The point then is this, that God is an enemy to all men, as they are by nature, and hates them. Before I proceed any further in the declaration of this truth, it will not be amiss I think to remove one objection, one scruple lest some may happily stumble at it: and that is this.

How can God whose essence is himself, who is a most pure and simple Act, and therefore 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. be said to have any affection, or be that granted, how can God who is said to hate nothing that he hath made; and whose 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is tender love to mankind, is particularly commended by the Apostle, Tit. 3. 4. be said to hate men? or admit that too de posse, that it may be, how can this appear true de facto esse, when as without controversy the elect of God, whom he loved from all eternity, never fall from that love, no not while they are in the state of nature, and for the Reprobate, God bestows many favors upon them in the things of this life, and offers freely and truly to them, at least many the participation of eternal life and happiness; and so that it is their fault that they have it not? There be three branches you see of this objection, which I will answer as I can, briefly and orderly.

First, for the first, there is no great difficulty: The answer consisting in two things.

First, God is to be considered two ways. First, as he is in himself, and his own excellency. Secondly, as he hath revealed himself, and so as it were bowed himself down to our capacity, in the former consideration, as in himself he is a simple essence, and pure act, without any composition of matter and form, and without all distinction and variety of qualities, he is only that which he is, and thus we cannot at all apprehend him but in the second as he hath revealed himself, so we may distinguish many attributes in him, which he hath taken to himself: That what we could not grasp together, we may by parts in some sort lay hold of: As Cyrus passed the river Euphrates by dividing it into many small streams.

Secondly, the second thing to be considered, is that among those things that are attributed to God from the creature: some things are simply perfections, some involve some imperfection in them also, or perhaps better, something in them is conceived as a perfection, to which notwithstanding there cleaves some imperfection also: here we must sever the one from the other, and ascribe the perfection to God, but proscribe and banish the imperfection: As in this case, Hatred is attributed to God, being taken from living, especially reasonable creatures: as it imports a dislike of evil, so it notes a perfection; but as it connotates a dislike by way of passion or perturbation, as it is in the creatures, so it hath a mixture of imperfection: in the former sense it is properly given to God, in the latter it cannot: thus you see the first part how hatred agrees to God: as an Attribute taken from Analogy to the reasonable creature, being a simple dislike, and aversion from evil without any motion or perturbation,

The second is, how God can hate any of his creatures, especially man.

I answer, man may be considered two ways, first as created, and so; God saw all things that they were good, and loved them, and above all, man, whom he had made according to his own Image. Secondly, as corrupted and defiled with sin, and God, who is a God of purest eyes, who is not a God that delighteth in iniquity, cannot choose but abhor him.

The third is something harder, and so the place, though it be alleged but out of the Apocrypha, God bateth nothing that he hath made, may be satisfied: not simply in it self and for it self, but yet he hateth Sin in man, which is not of his making, and man secondarily for his sin.

Thirdly, the third is somewhat harder. How this is true, since neither Elect nor Reprobate are hated by God, though in the state of corruption: for the Elect I answer they may be considered two ways, first according to God's eternal counsel and secret will toward them, and so he is unchangeable, he loves them from the beginning to the end, from eternity to eternity, Whom God loveth once, he loveth to the end: Job. 13. 1. For the gifts and calling of God, are without repentance, Rom. 11. 29. There is no interruption of this love, much less blotting out of the Book of life. Nulla litura in deretis sapientum, as the Stoics were wont to say. I have blessed him, and he shall be blessed, as Isaac said of Jacob. Quod scrip si scrip si, that which I have written, I have written, as Pilate said to the Jews.

But secondly the elect may be considered according to God's revealed will, and so during the time of their corruption, he reveals no other, but that he hates them: And he may be truly said to hate them in two respects, or with a double hatred.

First, as they are in themselves, Odio paterno, as a Father may be truly angry with his child, and during that state be said to hate him.

Secondly, as they are in Christ, Odio inimicitiae & proprio, as one doth his enemy: the former may be conceived in three respects.

First, Ex quoad parte termini, that I may speak so, because he sees nothing in them which he can love, being all over-spread with sin and corruption, nothing but what he may most justly hate:

Secondly, Ex parte effectus, because he gives no signification of anything but displeasure and hatred, neither causing the light of his countenance to sh ine upon them, not so much as giving them a good look, much less bestowing his favors upon them in that manner that he doth where he loveth; but on the contrary in token of displeasure many times sharply correcting and chastising them.

Thirdly, Ex parte sensus, which follows from the former two, because he behaves himself towards them, that they gather no comfortable assurance of love toward them, but evident tokens of wrath: and thus he may be said to hate them, as they are considered in themselves with a fatherly and improper kind of hatred: but secondly, as they have Christ their surety, so he hates them indeed and properly, so that he will inflict the utmost punishment upon that their sin, justice doth deserve, which being considered as suffered and undergone by them in the person of Christ their surety, then his love towards them is grounded upon a new title: for besides his free mercy of predestination, he loves them now in justice, as just by virtue of Christ's purchase and Redemption.

Now secondly, in the second place for the Reprobate, I say that God doth absolutely and simply hate them in the state of natural corruption: neither doth his favors of this life temporary conferred upon them, nor eternal of a better offered unto them prove the contrary: for the favors of God are of two sorts.

First, Common, which are indifferently distributed to all out of his general bounty and liberality.

Secondly, Special, such as are proper and Peculiar to his elect, both those are of the former kind, and all such gifts as in God's Decree have no necessary and infallible connection with everlasting life, and so no marvel if the Reprobate have part in them as well as the Elect or rather: God causeth his Sun to shine, and his rain to fall upon the evil and the good, the just and the unjust, Matth. 5. 45. for these are such things, as a man cannot know love or hatred by them, Eccle. 1. 9. The Papists abuse this place to prove that no man can know whether we be in the state of grace or no; but Solomon affirms not that, but only thus much at the most: no man can know it by all that is before them, as our Translation hath it, that is, by outward and common favors; for Junius reads it clean otherwise, only those are special favors, and tokens of God's special love which are conjoined with everlasting life, as faith, and other saving graces, and those belong only to the Elect. And thus having removed this dead Amasa out of the way which might have hindered our march; I go on to the proof of the Point: That God is an enemy to all men in their natural corruption, and doth hate them: I will not trouble you with many places of Scripture heaped up, because all that have been produced in the former Point, do give witness to this also, the term Enemy, as I then shown importing a reciprocal affection of hatred between two: two or three shall suffice: and first, that place I think is most pregnant in the Ephesians 2. 3. We were by Nature children of wrath, even as others; where the Apostle saith, that both the regenerate and others, even all men are children of wrath: which implies two things.

First, that we are subject and obnoxious to the wrath of God and the heavy effects of that eternal condemnation, for both, I think, are included in the word wrath.

Secondly, that we are borne so, which is the meaning of the other word, sons or children of wrath; and to set that down yet more expressly, there is another word joined with it, by nature, We are by nature children of wrath: Again, Rom. 5. 18. By the offenceof one the fault, as the old Translation supplies the Text, judgment, as the New, came on all men to condemnation; and in the 12. verse, By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned: Again, Gal. 3. 10. For as many as are of the Law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is every man that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them: and supposing that all are borne in sin, you have a plain and literal testimony, Psa. 5. 5. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity: But this will be more clear in laying out the ground of this hatred, which in general hath been already opened the last time, to be that dissimilitude which is between God and us: he is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , according to the acclamation of the Elders, Rev. 4. which the Etymologists derive from the privative Particle and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , earth, in whom there is no earth, no pollution, but all heavenly purity: & we are according to that proclamation of God, Ier. 22. 29. Earth, earth, earth, our understanding and will, and affection being altogether earthly, no purity in them, but all earthly pollution: He is the King of Saints, as you had it out of the Revelation 15. the holy one of Israel: but we are the slaves of sins and Satan, and by going a whoring from God, and committing folly with the creature, we are become everyone of us, as Tamar told her brother Ammon like one of the foolies in Israel. we are an adulterous seed, and he is a jealous God, and no marvel if there be adivorce of our affections: For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? 2 Cor. 6. 14. And can two walk together except they be agreed, saith the Prophet: but more particularly, as I said before, that man's hatred to God arose from two things.

First, Because he forbids the evil of sin, which they love as an holy Law, and

Secondly, because he inflicts the evil of punishment, which they hate as a just Judge, and so crosses them in both respects, for in the former they see he is not like them, in the latter they perceive he likes them not: so proportionably there is a double respect in natural men as sinners upon which God's hatred to them is a ground.

First, sin as it is sin, by reason of which they are not like to God.

Secondly, sin as it is hatred to God, by which it appears they like not God: for there be two causes of love principal, as Gregory de Valentia notes, the first is the goodness of it; the second is the good inclination towards us: goodness of it self is attractive, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , because it doth as it were invite and call to it, and every man is willingly to run after it, but love is more lovely and more forcible, magnes amoris amor, as they say: the reason is because that seems to give us some propriety in this thing, so that we love it as our own, and this is enough to recompense the want of the other, yea to make it seem to be where it is not, Suum cuique, pulchrum, the Crow thinks her bird the whitest: and as it is in love, so you must understand it contrary, in hatred: there are two causes: first, evil in a thing: secondly hatred too, and these two things are in wicked and carnal men by nature: for which God is an enemy unto them, and hates them.

First, Sin, Isaiah 59. 2. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have bid his face from you. Sin makes the wall of separation between God and his people: Sin is the veil of covering that hinders the plople from beholding the Holy of Holies: and in the second of the Ephesians you have natural men, styled the children of disobedience; in the second verse, and in the third, it follows, the children of wrath, to note that our disobedience is that only cause of God's displeasure: and you shall observe it through the whole course of Scripture, that God was never angry with Israel, but Israel first provoked him by his sins: and therefore offense to note the connection of both these signifies both sin and anger, and this appears sufficiently out of all other places that have been alleged.

The second ground of God's enmity to us for our sin as it is hatred of him, is contained in the former, and needs no further explication: But now for the further illustration and confirmation of the whole Point, that God is an enemy, and hates men as in the state of sin and corruption; three things may be considered, out of which will appear, both that it is, and what it is, and wherein it consists, and what are the fruits of it.

• The first is the filthiness of sin,
• Secondly, the second the holiness of God.
• Thirdly, the third, the grievousness of the punishments that God inflicts for sin.

The two former I will pass over now, because I mean to make use of that which I think needful and pertinent in them, in a more oportune place: only remember what hath been delivered in the former point, that may help to the understanding of them.

I come to the third and last of them, the Punishments which God in his just wrath against sin, and hatred of it doth inflict upon sinners: which if you will see how great and grievous they are, take but a view of them three ways.

First, in some particular and remarkable examples.

Secondly, in the general nature and kinds of them.

Thirdly, in one singular, which hath both undergone, and overcome them all, our Savior Jesus Christ. And by this, God's detestation of sin, and sinners for sins sake, will be sufficiently manifested; and as I declared man's hatred to God by the effects of it, so the same course is more fit here, and more necessary, because there is no such affection to be conceived in God, but in relation to those effects, which he produceth like unto those creatures which are, and when they are so affected.

To speak first of the general nature and kinds of punishments, as man sustains for his sins; Punishment is nothing else but some evil inflicted, for some fault committed; and therefore includes two things.

First, the sufferance of some evil, and this is as it were the material of it.

Secondly, the reference to some fault precedent, and this is the formal as it were; which makes it properly punishment, which otherwise would break malum naturae: as suppose Adam, had been, blind or so before his transgression, that blindness would have been evil to him indeed, but only malum naturae, but because it was not inflicted by justice for sin, it would not have been malum Poenae, a Punishment: for Justice showeth its dislike to sin two ways.

First, before sin committed by prohibition.

Secondly, after sin is committed by punishment: I might perhaps add another clause, and say, there must be a third condition to make an evil, a punishment, that it be inflicted with a mind of punishment, and so maketwo kinds, or two significations of punishment.

First, Proper, where all those three conditions are found.

Secondly, Improper, where the last is wanting: the evils that God brings upon the wicked, are properly Punishments, because they are evils, and they flow from God's justice against sin, and that with a purpose of punishing that sin, the evils that God's children suffer, are improperly punishments, but properly chastisements, because though they be evil, and laid upon them for their sin, yet they are not so much animo puniendi, as animo corrigendi, not as from a Judge, but as from a Father, not to revenge, but to reform them: or rather they may be distinguished, not from the persons upon whom they are inflicted, but from themselves: for Punishments may be considered, either as intermedia or as ultima: the intermedia, &c. Chastisements of their own nature, intended for the amendment, both of the wicked and godly, upon whomsoever they fall: but Supplicium ultimum, because it cannot be conceived as medicinal at all, but as Poenall only that is properly and simply Punishment: so in Commonwealths, all other Punishments inflicted upon the delinquent party, are medicinal, for the recovering of them to honest life, according to the laws, but the last of Death, which is the last that the Magistrates power can extend it self unto, is only Poenall, and cannot be conceived as intended in love, for amendment of the malefactors.

But this shall suffice to have pointed out the nature of a Punishment, now to conceive distinctly of the kinds of punishments in general, which God in his just wrath, and indignation against sin, inflicts upon sinners: I think you must take the whole extent of the material of them, namely Evil: for man having offended against God's justice, which is infinite, cannot be satisfied unless all evil be brought upon the sinner, which he is capable of: for in civil Courts of Justice, indeed a punishment in the same kind that the offense was, at least in one kind of evil, will make sufficient satisfaction: but where the offense is against God, it is not so: for though it be exparte principii, but one fault, yet it hath ex parte objecti, an infinite guilt.

Nay, Secondly though it be ex parte principii, but one formaliter in that self, yet even in that respect also it is all virtualiter, in the seed, in so much as the offender in that once offended against God the Author of the Law, and so against the whole Law, according to that in the Apostle James 2. 10. Whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he 〈◊〉 said Do not commit adultery, said also do not kill.

And thirdly, though it be but one actually, yet it is interpretatively by all, because the same party hath a mind and will to commit all, if there were the like occasion, now as God accepteth the will for the deed, when: there is a willing mind, so he imputeth; And though we do not say that God will de facto punish the wicked for all the sins that they would have committed (as some fondly would have infants predestinated either to life eternal for the good, or to condemnation, for the evil which he foresaw they would have done, had he lent them longer life) because then all should have equal punishment; whereas there are degrees, and that no doubt according to the degrees of their actual sins. Yet it is no error to say, that God may de jure, punish any one sin with all kinds, and all degrees of punishment, not for sins they would have committed, to speak properly, but for that one which deserves all in strict rigor of Justice, as well as if all were indeed committed, and that for this reason, because that contains all in it, and is as much as all in the mind of the sinner that committed it, though he were hindered, that they did actually break forth: and as this is true of all sin, so properly of original, which is all: so that to make the fault and the punishment equal, we must divide punishment by the evil, and make it all evil that a man is capable of.

The whole laitude of evil, then you shall take by a threefold distinction:

The first is this, the first evil is either Damni or Sensus, as they use to distinguish punishment: either a loss and privation of good, or a position and feeling of some evil, privative or positive: for this distinction must not be restrained to eternal punishments, as the School seems to do, but is general to all, as you easily do and shall perceive: and this distinction is taken from the adjuncts or affections of evil, or at least we will take it so without scrupulous inquiry for the present.

Secondly, the second is taken from the causes or integral parts: and so evil is loathsome in effects, that death, as it is generally used in Scripture, and by name, in that of Genesis the intermination of God, 2. 17. In the same day that thou eatest therereof, that is, of the forbidden tree, thou shalt die surely: where according to the meaning of God, there is a Synec doche of one eminent kind of punishment for all the rest; and if the signification of the word be extended to all the particulars there under comprehended, there must needs be a metaphor in regard of some: for both the separation of the soul from God is so called Death by the trope, and eternal death hath the same reason: now to lay out the parts in some order: as if divided the good of man, in the explication of Happiness; and it was either Summum, the favor of God: or secondly, Subordinatum, and that again twofold; first, Internum, with the essence of man, as it were; or secondly, Externum, without him. Internum again twofold, first, in the Understanding, secondly, in the Will: first, in the Soul, secondly, in the Body. In the Soul again twofold, so it is contrary here, which you may reduce to these five.

First, the displeasure of God, and enmity with him.

Secondly, darkness of the Understanding, and ignorance.

Thirdly, perverseness and crookedness of the Will.

Fourthly, Distemper and diseases of the body.

Fifthly, Crosses in the outward estate, want, and shame, and all the rest: And let no man look back to the scope of this Discourse, which was to show how God shows his enmity to sinners, and hatred to sin, in bringing those punishments upon them for it, and than look upon this Catalogue and wonder, to see both man's sin which is in the third, the untowardness of the will, and God's wrath, which is the first of them: to be brought as punishments: for there is a double consideation of these two.

First, for the rise of them, and then the order of them is thus. Mans sin is the first which provokes God's displeasure, which brings all other punishments upon man.

Secondly, for the continuation, and then it is thus: God being provoked, justly suffers man to continue and go on in his sins, which continually adds fuel to the fire of God's wrath, and that being the principal link draws the chain of all plagues along with it: So that you see in this respect, both the continuation of sin, and of God's wrath, ariseth from God's wrath provoked by the first sin, and so are mutual causes one to the other: and this is the second distinction.

Thirdly, the third is from the effects, and contains the Species of punishment, which are two; first Temporal in this life; secondly, Eternal in the life to come: and the principal differences between these two are three-fold:

First, in regard of the intension of them for the punishments that God inflicts here, are not in the highest degree that they may be, but in a more remiss, mingled with the fruition of many mercies.

Secondly, in the Extension: for all punishments that make up our full misery are not inflicted, no not upon the wicked here, but in the life to come they are.

Thirdly, In duration: for punishments suffered here by the wicked, are neither continued without intermission, but have many Lucida intervalla, nor continual without end, but are all concluded in death, which brings a change of this estate: but the punishments of the life to come, are to endure without ease or end. And the reason is, because this life is the time of God's patience and long sufferance, and gentleness towards sinners; wherein he doth either win them by his blessings bestowed, or leaves them without excuse, by reason of his blessings abused, and so manifest both the inability of nature to help it self out of its misery, which it is fallen into by sin, and the equity of his judgments which are so sweetly tempered with many mercies, before they are excluded, and therefore all God's dealing towards men here is medicinal, though in it own nature it prove mortal, through the corruption of the wicked: but the other is supplicium ultimum, &c. And those are the three distinctions of Evil or Punishment: where the first must be in the second; and the affections in the parts; and both first and second in the third, as in the kinds. For example, in the distribution into integral parts.

The first was the Displicere and wrath of God: where you must understand a double punishment, both Poena damni, the loss of God's favor, and Poena sensus, the feeling of his displeasure, and so for all the rest; there is both the privation of some good conferring to our happiness, and the Position of some evil conspiring to our misery.

So likewise in the third Distribution, which was into Species or kinds, but in the first of Temporal, you must apply all the particulars of the second rank by the parts of punishment (of which I named them as principal) and that both privately, and positively according to the first: and in the second eternal, you must do the like, only adding those differences, which I mentioned before to their kinds.

And now if I should go about to rehearse the particulars, it would fill a large Volume which would be written Without and within, lamentation and mourning and woe: like that which the Prophet Ezekiel saw, 2. 10. If I should muster them all together, under their several Colours and Ensigns they would make a mighty army, the Army of the great Lord of Hosts: and it would appear by them, I think how highly the Lord is displeased with Sin, how terrible an Enemy he is to Sinners, and how he hates them. You may read a copious enumeration of many particulars, especially of external punishments, which are therefore set down, not because they are the greatest, but because carnal men are most sensible of them, Deut. 28. and this is also evident out of that place, that all those are brought upon a man in God's just hatred and anger for the transgressions of the Law: Who can tell the misery of man, when God doth not only withdraw the light of his countenance from him, which the Psalmist accounts the only good; Many say, who whill show us any good, but Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us, as you have it diverse times repeated, Levite. when it is, as Job speaks, 16. 12, He sets me up for his mark, His arrows compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder and doth not spare: he poureth out my gall upon the ground, he breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a Giant: and Chapter 6. verse 4. The arrows of the Almighty are with me, the poison whereof drinketh up my Spirit, the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me: when as the Prophet Jeremiah complains, Lament. 3. 12. He hath bent his how, and that like an enemy. Chap. 2. ver. 4. He stood with his right hand as an adversary, and set me as a mark for the arrow: he hath caused the sons of his quiver, as the Hebrew Text hath it, the arrows to enter into my reins.

Secondly, Again, what a misery to be struck with such blindndsse, that we cannot find the way to heaven, no more than the Sodomties that groped for, but could not find Lots door where the Angels went in, no, nor see the plainest truths that concern that way, not the fundamental and Elementary principle, no more than blind Sampson could see the pilla's of the house, but was fain to have a guide to lead him to them: but live in more than Egyptian darkness, and are given over to most gross errors by the just wrath of God against sin, as it was, and is in many Nations at this day, and in the Church of Rome, where Antichrist, in 2 Thes. 2. 9. whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceive ableness of unrighteousness in them that perish: and the reason follows, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, for this cause God hath sent them strong delusions, that they should be leeve a lie, that they all might be damned, who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Thirdly, What a depth of misery is it, that man should degenerate below the brute beasts in brutishness, which notwithstanding is a just effect of God's wrath for sin, as it may appear out of the first to the Romans, 21. Because that when they knew not God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened, &c. God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies: And again, ver. 26. God gave them up to vile affections: And Again, ver. 28. God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things that are not convenient.

But what Arithmetic can count the number of those miseries that attend man in regard of his body and outward man; deformity, aches, diseases, death, dishonor, poverty, famine, pestilence, war, and the rest: If the Cabalists count be good, there be so many precepts in the Law, as there are Letters in the Decalogue, and as many as are included in the numeral Letters of the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 namely 611. of which there are 365. Negative as many as there be days in the year: Affirmative 246. as many as the Anatomists number bones in a man's body: I answer, there be more punishments for every joint of a sinner, with which he hath transgressed every part of the most holy Law of God, than there are days in the year: And all these are the just effects of God's enmity to sinners, his wrath against sinners: And yet ye have not all, for what is all this, though we had called everyone of those particular plagues by the name, as Cyrus could have done all his Soldiers, and set them all in battle array against you, to that which is behind: the torments of hell, the blackness of darkness, the Rivers of brimstone, the fire that never goeth out, the worm that never dieth, the breath of the Lord kindles that fire, and the wrath of the Lord feeds that worm, the apprehension of which gnaws the conscience: That weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Nomina vel ipso pene tremenda sono, that I may not tell you of that banne of Proscription, that bill of Divorce, by virtue of which they shall be separated from God, and cast out of his blessed presence for evermore: Excommunicated as Adam was out of Paradise, and banished forever out of Heaven, from the beatifical vision of God, from beholding of Christ Jesus, from the society and Choir of Saints, and Angels, which sing perpetual Hallelujahs to the Lord, and to the Lamb that sits upon the throne: while they go cursed into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the Devil and his Angels; in a word, into everlasting condemnation: O Eternitas, as he cries out, O Eternitas in bonis infinitum bonum in malis infinitum malum!

I list not to play the Rhetoritian, upon the consideration of Eternity.

But which of you can think upon it, and weigh those words inserted, for Ever, without horror and astonishment? And now perhaps if you could but repeat those words sometimes with yourselves, tormented forever, and so often as you were about to be angry with God, to sin against him, as he counseled Augustus to repeat the Alphabet when he was angry, if you could rehearse that forever, you would take heed how you ever sinned. Dives thought his brethren would believe, if some were sent from hell to tell them the torments of the place, and to take heed that they near come there: Believe ye Moses, and the Prophets, believe the Law, and threatenings of God: Believe an humbled Christian, for he comes from hell scorched with the flames of God's wrath: and believe me that these argue God's hatred against sin, his enmity to sinners.

And thus much of the first things I propounded in general, to illustrate the wrath of God against sin, from the nature and several kinds of punishment which a sinner doth incur.

Secondly, the second thing was (as you may remember) the consideration of some remarkable particulars.

First, let the first be of the Angels.

The Angels, for one sin as most think, and it is probable, The Angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day, Jude 6. The excellency of their nature, which bare that Image of God with the nearest resemblance, and are therefore called the Sons of God in a singular manner: their multitude, the good that might have come from their preservation, their service and praising of God; the evil which was like to follow upon the contrary, the fall of man, their eternal blasphemies could not move God to compassion: but if Angels sin, even Angels shall smart for it: And now as it is Job 4. 18. Behold he put no trust in his servants, and his Angels he charged with folly: How much less on them which dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust: which are crushed before the mouth; that you may learn from hence how great the hatred of God is to sin.

Secondly, for I must but name those things that remain: Look upon the first sin of man, our forefather: w 〈…〉 though some ignorantly have thought it so small that they called in question God justice in punishing it, and the proud Pope blasphemously concluded, that if God were so angry for an Apple then he might be justly much more for a Peacock, which he missed at his table, yet how hath God shown his detestation of sin in that; in that for it man was deprived of that glorious Image of God, in which he was created, and cast out of Paradise, contracting also that guilt of eternal condemnation, and lying under the curse of God, the slavery of sin, the tyranny of the devil, and not himself only, but with his 100000. of souls that were in his loins, even all his posterity.

Thirdly, a third may be the Universal deluge, wherein God, the God of mercy, without mercy or compassion to man, of what condition or sex, or age soever; to beasts, to plants, to any creature, the workmanship of his own hands, swept away all, and defaced the beauty of the world, reducing all to the first Chaos. When the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, rather then not to revenge himself upon his enemies, the sinful men of those times: As though he had blotted that out of his titles which he saith of himself, Exod. 34. 6. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquities, and transgression, and sin: And now took up that Emperors Motto, Fiat Iustitia & pereat mundus.

A Fourth, may be the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrhah with fire and brimstone from heaven, which before are said to have been like the Garden of Eden, the Paradise of God, and perhaps the fruits like the tree of Life: but now is famous for the dead sea, which will admit of no living thing, and the fruit of Sodom, or apples are said to be nothing but dust or ashes: and of these, as the Apostle Peter reasons, 2 Pet. 2. 4. If God spared not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down into hell, and delivered them into the chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment: and spared not the old world but saved Noah, the eight person the Preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrhah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly. Then as he infers, The Lord knoweth how to reserve the unjust unto the day of Judgment to be punished: Then say I, you see how God showeth himself an enemy to sinners.

I might tell you of the strange plagues of Egypt, and above all, the lamentable destruction and dispersion of God's own peculiar people; the Jews, and their calamities which they have undergone, the ten Tribes for more then two thousand years, the two for almost 1600. so great, as one of their own Rabbins concludes from thence, that their Messiah must needs be come, and they must needs suffer so much for killing him, and so also the Apostle Paul, Rom. 11. 22. Behold the severity of God in their fall.

And I might add something of the last conflagration of the world, when by reason of the filthiness of this latter age of the world, it shall be so, that it cannot be washed with water as the old world was, God shall waste it with fire: When the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burnt up, 2 Pet. 3. 10. but I will pass to the third, and but name that neither.

Thirdly, the third thing then in which we may behold the wrath of God and hatred against sin, is one singular example, which have both undergone and overcome all punishments due for our sins, namely, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: In which if you will consider three things.

• First, who it was that suffered.
• Secondly, what he suffered.
• Thirdly, for what.

The two former are excellently expressed, Philip. 2. 6. Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross: Christ Jesus then the Son of God, equal with God was the person: And his sufferings were,

First, his Incarnation, whereby he became in the form of a servant: laying down the glory which he had from all eternity, with his father, he abhorred not the womb of the Virgin.

Secondly, in his whole life, he humbled himself and became obedient.

Thirdly, in his death, and that the most shameful, and painful death of the Cross: if you will but read the Gospel, and go along with our Savior, in every passage of his infinite sufferings, and then consider something in your mind, which you cannot see with your eyes, even the pains of hell, which he suffered, as our best Divines think, and gather from his bloody sweat, arguing more then outward suffering, the apprehension of the wrath of God, and his exclamation, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? arguing a kind of separation of God, which makes the principal substance of hell torments, though he did not suffer them as the damned do, for in the greatest Paroxysm, when he complained, why hast thou forsaken me, even then he called him My God, My God: But think withal this is the Son of God that Created the heavens and the earth, that suffers this by vile sinners, his creatures, and for vile sinners, his enemies: And then consider if here be not a most incomparable demonstration of God's hatred against sin: and that in three respects.

First, in that it appears by this, he will not be appeased without satisfaction, so great is his anger, forever then his nature inclined to mercy, yet he would not hear of it till his justice were answered, and though he purposed in his Counsel to receive some sinners to grace, yet he will have the whole debt paid: and though it be curiously disputed, whether God might not have freely pardoned sin without such expiation, yet it is sufficient for us to know that he did not, nor would not.

Secondly, he requires an equivalent ransom, ex rigor justitiae: if not more than justice required: for suppose we could imagine a term of eternity in which sinners should have suffered that would be a full satisfaction, but the suffering of Christ the Son of God is far more than that would be, so far as the Creator surpasseth the creature in infinite degrees of excellencies; now because the suffering of any creature, or all creatures could not countervail the wrong done to his Justice, rather than that full restitution should not be made, he would have it made by him, who could not choose but pay it with overplus, if he did it at all, by reason of his infinite dignity.

Again, if all the world had been redeemed by the suffering of Christ, whereas the greatest part is not, he need not have suffered more than he did, but that would have been enough, ex rigor justitiae, nay, for all the devils too, if there were not another defect of a condition, rather propriety in that nature that suffered (he not taking upon him the nature of Angels) then sufficiency of the sufferings themselves, nay, for another world too if there were another world imagined, it would be sufficient for that too: so that God rather than he would depart one jot from his justice, he would revenge himself to the full, in taking a full discharge for all our debts, if not more, as hath been said.

Thirdly, rather than that should fail, he took it not of the debtors but of the sureties, and that though he were in so near relation to him, His only begotten and beloved son in whom he is well pleased, and so as God said to Abraham. Now I know that thou lovest me, in that thou hast not spared thins only son Isaac: so we may say to God, not only now we know, O Lord, that thou lovest us, since thou hast not spared thine only son Jesus; but also, Now we know that thou hatest sin, seeing thou hast not spared thine only son, but hast given him to die, rather than that should go unpunished, unpaied to the utmost farthing.

It remains now only that we come to make some use of that which hath been delivered, and so conclude the first Point: but as I have done in the rest hitherto, so I shall here also propound many things briefly, rather than press anything, and prosecute it fully: one general use I purpose to commend unto you,

For Instruction; We may from hence take notice of the miserable condition of every natural man: And this is not the least part thereof, that we are not sensible of it: it is Satan's course to deal with his captives, as the Philistines dealt with Sampson tyrannically, first, to put out their eyes; and all sinners are possessed with a spiritual kind of drunkenness which makes them see no danger when they are in most, as Solomon describes the corporal, Prov. 23. 34. Thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as be that lieth down upon the top of the mast: they have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick: they have beaten me, and I felt it not: and so it will not be amiss to awaken the enemies of God with an alarm from heaven, to cause an heavenly light to shine round about them, as it befell Saul in his furious march to Damascus, and I know not how it may be better done than by collecting the beams of those truths divine that ye have had already (as they do the Sun in a burning glass) and casting them in their faces: for they, I think will effectually discover the desperate misery they are in; for misery being opposite to happiness, as that is a state of Good, so it is of Evil, and evil being of two sorts, Evil of sin and punishment, it appears by that which hath been said, That a natural man is deep plunged in both these.

In sin by the first point, where it was shown, That man is an enemy to God and hates him: in punishment, where you heard, That God is an enemy to man and hates him: now can there be any greater height of sin, than that man should become an enemy to God? Or any greater weight of punishment, than that God should be an enemy to man? Or can there be any greater depth of misery, than both these joined? For though some may think perhaps according to the strict acceptions of misery that it is only in penal evil, and includes not sin; yet there must be a concurrence of both: for

First, it is impossible that there should be any misery properly where there is not sin: nay, it is sin that makes the thing which is but a natural evil in it self to be a mortal evil to the sinner.

Secondly, as there is required both an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to happiness, so contrary to misery, nay, as well doing is the principal in Happiness, so is doing evil in misery, rather than suffering evil: to speak then a little of both.

There is none of us but would defy any that should say that we are God's enemies, to be haters of him: and would account him a most profligate and forlorn wretch that should profess himself to be so: even that little spark of conscience left in corrupt nature shines in the midst of darkness, and discovers so much, that that must needs be a miserable estate to be so far forsaken? and would not everyone be ready to say to the Preacher that tells him such a thing, as Hazael told to the Prophet that foretold him of his cruelty, Am I a dog that I should do this thing? But you have heard that every natural man is an enemy to God many ways, and labors to do him all the mischief he can in displeasing him, in disobeying, in dishonoring, and as much as lies in him in dethroning him: and setting up another in his place, even the world, the lusts of his own flesh, the devil, the basest things, the most bitter enemies of God that are: and employs their mind and soul and strength to advance their kingdom; bring that cursedness home to themselves, and make much of it: but to lay out unto you the vileness of the natural man in this respect; consider some sew circumstances in it more distinctly: and to omit that filthiness with which itdefiles the nature of man, and many other, I will name but two: first, the universality: there is scarce any so bad almost, but he mislikes some that are given to other vices than himself or more, and thinks himself somebody in that he is not so bad as he: but if there were one that were infected with all vices, in the highest degree, how would they which are bad enough themselves, deplore his case as lamentable, and bless themselves an hundredth times that they are not so: and I pray tell me what sin is there which is not included in this to be an enemy to God? What would such an one stick to commit? But I pass from this.

Secondly, The iniquity: for

First, there is no reason for this hatred of God: as the Apostle Paul speaks, 2 Cor. 7. 2. Receive us, we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man: might not the Lord challenge entertainment in our hearts and best affections by the same reason? nay, doth he not expostulate the matter with the Israelites, Jer. 2. 5. to this purpose, Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain: if the Lord should make use of his Prerogative, yet shall the clay say to the Potter, what dost thou? yet he never doth so. But it were well if this were all: but

Secondly, there is great reason to the contrary why we should love God, and you may conceive that; especially three-fold.

First, for that excellency that is in God: how doth beauty entice the amorous, and gold the covetous, and honor the ambitious, everything that hath but any luster of good in it, breeds in us a lust to have it; the least appearance of it, is a loadstone of our affections, and is attractive: and how comes it to pass that the Ocean of goodness and beauty that is in God doth not draw us to him? nay, rather drives us from him; for then this to say truth is the height of our misery, that we are sofar from loving God, that we loath him for his goodness: this is the ground of the quarrel between us, as I shown in handling the Point before: and who doth not detest in his heart such a perverse nature, and hold it accursed? but this is not all yet, for

Secondly, God is not only good in himself, for if he were so, and withal, averse from us, and cruel to us, there were sistence of love (though even in this case we should say with Job, though he kill me, yet will I trust in him, yet will I love him) but it is not so, for God is also good to us; and may say too, as our Savior once to the Jews, many good works have I done among you, and for which of them do you stone me? I have created you of nothing, partly, and partly worse almost than nothing, the dust of the earth, and that according to mine own Image. I sustain and support you, In me you live, and move, and have your being; I have made you Lord's of the creatures, all do service to you, even my glorious Angels have I made ministering spirits for your good, not a day passes in which you receive not from me, a thousand remembrances of Love, a thousand love tokens, both positive and primitive graces, provision of good, and preservation from evil; I have sent my beloved Son out of my bosom to die for you, so did I love the world, and when you had cast me off, how often have I offered conditions of peace, and how often would I have gathered you as an hen gathereth her young under her wings, and ye would not. Would ye have anymore yet, Behold I, even I beseech you, I have made heaven and earth, that touch the Mountains and they smoke, the Earth and it trembles, I beseech you by my Ministers to be reconciled. All this have I done and much more, if you were not your own enemies in being my enemies, O ye Sons of men: and for which of my good works do you stone me, for which of them do you hate me, O ungrateful Children! Is this your kindness to your friend? to your benefactor? to your Creator? Hear O Heaven, and hearken O Earth, for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me: The Ox knoweth his Owner, and the Ass his Masters crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider: Isai. 1. 2. Perhaps that which hath been said, will make you to see something into the misery of a man's natural estate, and like it something the worse: For who is most ready to condemn an ungrateful wretch, and they are such in such measure as you see: but this is not all neither: for

Thirdly, God beside his essential goodness, and his actual graciousness to us, may allure us to love, or at least scare us from hatred, by his infinite greatness and Power; Who would not fear thee O Lord? Rev. 15. 4. And so who shall not love thee O Lord and glorify thy name? if not for piety, yet at least for policy; Who doth not pity those simple nations, that when it thunders, gather together and shoot their arrows to heaven, as who would say, to war and fight with God? who doth not pity those men that run themselves against stone walls, and the like, as thinking to bear down all before them? As Ulysses his companions told him, when he would needs provoke Polydimus 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 may not we say so to them much more that will needs provoke the Lord of hosts? if that be true anywhere, I am sure it is here: dulce bellum inexpertis: let them that know not the weight of God's hand, vant of their own strength, and desire him for their adversary: but let them know the Charots of God are twenty thousand, &c. which he will bring forth against his enemies, and see their own nullity, send Ambassadors before and desire peace: If God be with me, as David once said, I will not be afraid for ten thousand that shall campe round about me: but if God be the enemy, all the armies in the world cannot secure me. Therefore this argues the desperate misery and madness of a natural man, that will wage war with God: this might be wonderfully enlarged, and that not only from his power, to love us, but to do good unto us also

I might use this as a passage to the second consideration, but I shall omit that, because the vileness of our condition, doth appear sufficiently out of this, that we are enemies unto God, in our sins by nature, though our hearts abhor almost to think that any should be such, it is so fowl; and it appears the more, if we add that this enmity to God includes in it an universal pollution of Nature, because he that hates God, will not stick to do anything against him: yea the more, if we consider that this enmity is most unjust, upon no reason, which is extremely barbarous, yea it is against many reasons, as the incomprehensible excellency, and beauty, and goodness of God's nature, the unspeakable multitude and value of his graciousness and blessings, the incomprehensible omnipotency of his power, in rewarding or punishing, and in all which we cannot choose but give sentence against ourselves, for the horrible baseness and vileness of our nature.

A methodical Analysis of the principal things contained in this Sermon.

Doct.

• T Hat we are by nature enemies of God.
  • 1. Explication of the Termes.
    • 1. The subject of the proposition: We.
    • 2. The qualification of the subject: by Nature.
    • 3. The predicate, Enemies.
      • 1. What conditions concur to enmity.
        • 1. It must be between two.
        • 2. It must be reciprocal.
        • 3. It must be between persons in a reasonable nature.
      • 2. How it is here understood.
        • 1. Actively, we are Enemies to God, and hate him.
        • 2. Passively, God is an enemy to us and hates us.
• These are considered.
  • 1. Ioyntly: in the ground of it, Dissimilitude between God and us.
  • 2. Severally.
    • 1. We are by nature enemies to God.
      • 1. Proved by Scripture.
      • 2. Demonstrated.
        • 1. By the degrees of hatred.
          • 1. Not to love so much as we ought:

            • Hatred is,

              • 1. Absolute.
              • 2. Comparative.

          • 2. Not to love at all.

            • Hatred is,

              • 1. Negative.
              • 2. Positive.

          • 3. Positive ill will or hatred, which is,
            • 1. Explicite,
              • 1. Formal.
            • 2. Implicite.
              • 2. Interpretative.
  • II. By the degrees of corruption.
    • 1. Original.
    • 2. Actual.
  • III. By the object of
    • 1. Love
      • 1. Good.
    • 2. Hatred
      • 2. Evil.
        • 1. Absolute.
        • 2. Relative.
  • IIII. By the nature of sin.
    • 1. In general, it is so opposite to God, as that the love of sin argues a hatred of God.
    • 2. In particular, sin is enmity to God.
      • 1. Immediatly, in all the degrees of hatred.
        • 1. Comparative, to love anything more than God is to ha • e him.
        • 2. Negative, the love of God hath no command in him.
          • 1. Not in the understanding, if it were it would be known by these.
            • 1. The mind and thoughts would always run on the party loved.
            • 2. Love is learned in the knowledge of all the perfections of the party.
            • 3. Love is witty in devising means to enjoy its love.
          • 2. Not in the will and affections, expressed in three kinds of them.
            • 1. Such as are conversant immediately about the good we love, as
              • 1. Absent.
                • 1. Desire.
              • 2. Present.
                • 2. Joy.
            • 2. Such as are occupied about the will.
            • 3. Mixt affections.
          • 3. Not in the whole man: not in,
            • 1. Tongue.
            • 2. Rest of the members.
            • 3. Goods.
      • 3. Positive haired: where is
        • 1. Promised

          • 1. Distinction of hatred,

            • 1. Explicite.
            • 2. Implicite.

          • 2. Difference of degrees of corruption.
        • 2. Proved that sin is direct enmity to God: which is,
          • 1. Illustrated: by the nature of opposition, as
            • 1. Nature of love:
              • 1. Affection it self, willing good.
              • 2. Ground of it; for his sake.
              • 3. Effect or fruit of it.
            • 2. Nature of hatred, which is opposite.
              • 1. A wishing evil.
              • 2. For himself.
              • 3. Indeavour to bring all that evil upon him.
          • 2. Confirmed: in this proposition.
  • 2. That natural men labor to bring all the evil upon God that they can.
    • 1. Consider by way of caution.
      • 1. God is not capable of any injury.
      • 2. The hurt reflects upon themselves.
      • 3. What is done by them to his hurt is directed by him to his honor.
    • 2. By way of proof. They wrong him,
      • 1. By displeasing of him.
        • 1. Their best actions are displeasing.
        • 2. The more God forbids sin the more they desire it.
        • 3. They are most refractary in those things God doth most earnestly require.
      • 2. By Dishonoring of him.
        • 1. By conceiving basely of him in their mind.
        • 2. By speaking Diminitively of his Majesty.
        • 3. By the deformity of sin itself.
        • 4. By the contempt.
          • 1. Sinning against
            • 1. Commands.
            • 2. Promises.
            • 3. Threatenings.
          • 2. Sinning in his presence.
          • 3. Sinning for so little advantage.
    • 3. By damaging of him: making
      • 1. The flesh,
      • 2. The world,
        • their God
      • 3. The devil,
        • I. Mediately.
          • 1. They love the enemies of God.
          • 2. They hate his friends.
            • 1. All the children of God.
            • 2. Those that have most similitude with God.
            • 3. Those that are in more near and special relation to God.
        • II. God is an enemy to all men as they are by nature,
          • 1. Explication.
            • 1. How can God whose essence is himself, be said to have any affections.
              • 1. Consider God.
                • 1. As he is in himself.
                • 2. As he hath revealed himself.
              • 2. Consider that amongst those things attributed unto God,
                • 1. Some things are simply perfection.
                • 2. Some involve some imperfection in them.
            • 2. How can God hate man: man is considered,
              • 1. As created.
              • 2. As corrupted.
            • 3. How can this be since God hates neither Elect nor Reprobate, though in the state of corruption?
              • 1. Elect may be considered,
                • 1. According to God's eternal counsel.
                • 2. According to God's revealed Will.
                  • 1. As they are in themselves.
                    • 1. God sees nothing in them which he can love.
                    • 2. He gives no signification of anything but displeasure.
                    • 3. Expresseth many evident tokens of wrath.
                  • 2. As they are in Christ.
              • 2. Reprobate, favors of God, are,
                • 1. Common.
                • 2. Special.
        • II. Proof.
          • 1. By Scriptures.
          • 2. Grounds of God's hatred:
            • 1. Sin as it is sin.
            • 2. Sin as it is Hatred.
          • 3. Our special evidence of it in the punishment of sin.
            • 1 The general nature of punishments.
              • 1. Material of it: sufferance of some evil.
              • 2. Formal: reference to some fault.
              • 3. This inflicted with a mind to punish.
                • 1. The kinds of punishments, comprehended in that word Evil.
                  • 1. Evil of loss.
                    • 1. Privative.
                  • 2. Evil of sense.
                    • 2. Positive.
                • 2. The causes or integral parts, comprehended in the word death.
                  • 1. Displeasure of God.
                  • 2. Darkness of understanding.
                  • 3. Perversenesse of will.
                  • 4. Distemper of body.
                  • 5. Crosses in outward estate.
                  • 6. All evil is included if we consider,
                    • 1. The rice of them.
                    • 2. The continuation.
                • 3. The effects in the species of punishment.
                  • 1. Temporal.
                  • 2. Eternal, which are differenced,

                    • In regard of

                      • 1. Intension,
                      • 2. Extension,
                      • 3. Duration.

          • 2. Some remarkable examples of the
            • 1. Fall of Angels,
            • 2. Fall of Adam,
            • 3. Universal Deluge,
            • 4. Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
            • 5. Plagues of Egypt,
            • 6. Destruction of the Jews,
            • 7. Last Conflagration of the world.
          • 3. One singular example, The sufferings of Christ.
            • 1. Explication of his sufferings.
              • 1. Who it was that suffered.
              • 2. What he suffered.
                • 1. In his Incarnation,
                • 2. In his whole life.
                • 3. In his death.
            • 2. How God's hatred is demonstrated in this: In that
              • 1. He will not be appeased without satisfaction.
              • 2. He requires an equivalent ransom out of the rigor of justice.
              • 3. He took it not of the Debtor but of the Suerty.
      • II. Application.
        • 1. Instruction of the miserable condition of every natural man: being deeply

          • Plunged in

            • 1. Sin,
            • 2. Punishment.
              • 1. In general.
                • 1. There can be no greater height of sin than to be an enemy to God.
                • 2. No greater weight of punishment, then to be hated of God.
                • 3. No greater depth of misery then both these joined.
              • 2. In special, To hate God is extremely sinful.
                • 1. In respect of the universality of it.
                • 2. The iniquity of it.
                  • 1. There is no reason for it.
                  • 2. There is great reason to the contrary: if we consider that excellency that is in God.
                    • 1. His Essentiall goodness,
                    • 2. His Actual graciousness,
                    • 3. Infinite greatness and power.

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