Works Volume 4

a crown of felicity. I have done what I had to do, and now 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , there is nothing behind but to receive my pay.

I have been too long upon the general consideration of the connection between confidence and duty; if it were an extravagance, I hope 'twas a pardonable one; I descend with speed to the hypothesis, the connection betwixt this confidence and this performance, claiming of temporal plenty upon giving of alms, my last particular. And that I shall give you clearly in this one proposition; That alms-giving or mercifulness was never the wasting or lessening of any man's estate to himself or his posterity, but rather the increasing of it. If I have delivered a new doctrine, that will not presently be believed, an unusquis{que} non potest capere, such as every auditor will not consent to, I doubt not but there be plain texts of Scripture, more than one, which will assure any Christian of the truth of it. Consider them at your leisure, Psal. 41.1, 2. Ps. 112. all to this purpose, Pro. 11.25. & 12.9. & 19.17. and 28.27. Add to these the words of Christ, Mar. 10.30. which though more generally delivered of any kind of parting with possessions for Christ's sake, are applied by S. Hier. to the words of Solomon, Pro. 11.24. There is that scattereth and yet increaseth, quia centuplum accipient in hoc tempore, because, saith he, they receive an hundred fold in this world. And that no man may have any scruple to interpose, 'tis set in as large, and comprehensive a style, as the art, or covetous, scrupulous wit of man could contrive for his own security. There is no man who shall not —

All which being put together, must (to my understanding) make it as clear to any that acknowledges these for Scripture, as if the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 daughter of voice were come back into the world again, and God should call to a man out of heaven by name, bid him relieve that poor man, and he should never be the poorer for it. 'It is not now to be expected of me in conscience, having produced this kind of proof, the express texts of Scripture, to add any second to it. I might else farther evidence it from examples, not such as Moscus 's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 will furnish you with, for I know not of what authority they are; nor yet from S. Jerome's observation, who is said to have turned over histories on purpose, and never found any merciful man, which met not with some signal blessing in this world, as the reward of that virtue; but even by appealing to yourselves, and challenging any man here present, to bring but one instance of a prudent alms-giver, that hath yearly or weekly consecrated some considerable part of his revenue or increase to that use, and can say that ever he found any real miss of that, anymore than of the blood let out in a pleurisie ; nay▪ if he have done it constantly, and sincerely from the one true principle, compliance with the command and example of God, let him speak his conscience, if he do not think, that all the rest hath thrived the better for that, as Phlebotomy hath saved many men's lives, letting out some ounces of blood, been the securing of the whole mass, that it hath had a secret, blessing influence, a vital, anspicious infection upon the remainder, by this art of consecrating our estates, intitling God to the fence, and safeguard of them, as of his temples, and altars, that thieves, and oppressors, and devils, conceive a reverence due to them, and a kind of sacrilege to approach, or purloin from them, as they that put the crown into their intail, do thereby secure it to the right heir, that it can never be out off. The poor widow of Sarepta, what a strange trial made she of this truth ? When the last of her store was fetched out to make the funeral feast for herself and family, that they might eat and dy, that very last cake, that all that was left, she gives to Elijah in his distress, and this is so far from ruining her, that it brought a blessing on her barrel and her cruse, that she and all hers were not able to exhaust ; I might add the poor widow in the Gospel, that, if we shall disbelieve Christ himself, cast in all that she had into the Corban, even her whole substance ; the Christians, that sold all and laid it at the Apostles feet, and yet we never read of any of these, that brought himself to distress by this means. But these are ex abundanti, more than is required for the vouching of my present proposition, and of a higher strain, than what I design for your imitation.

'It is time that I begin to retire, and wind up with some application, which you cannot imagine should be any other, after all this preparation, but a Go and do thou likewise. And if you can but believe this one thing, that I have brought many witnesses from heaven to restifie, that your goodness shall not impair your plenty, that your store shall never be lessened by so giving, I doubt not but you will be as forward to go, as any man to have you. The only holdback is the affection and passionate love, that we bear to our wealth, that lust, or sensuality of the eye, as the Apostle calls it. 'It is ordinarily observed of young men and dissolute, that they have many times a great aptness and ingeniousness, and withal patience to any speculative knowledge, the Mathematics, or any such the abstrusest studies, but for moral precepts, rules of good life, they will not be digested ; And, my brethren, give me leave to tell you in the spirit of meekness, that the like, in another respect, is observed of this auditory, anything wherein their wealth is not concerned, is most readily entertained, none more attentive, ingenious auditors: but when their profit is intrench'd on, their beloved golden Idol (of which I may say with Moses, O this people have committed a great sin, made them God's of gold ) when this, I say, begins to be in danger, as the silver shrines at S. Paul's preaching, Acts 19. then, as it follows in that place, the whole city is filled with confusion : like that young man in the Gospel, that would do anything that Christ would require, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life! So far as that Jesus loved him, when he beheld him ; yet when Christ proceeds to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , one thing is wanting to thee, go sell, give to the poor, then follows the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he went away sad and sorrowful, sighing and groaning, as if he had been to part with blood and bowels ; And this is the ground of Christ's most considerable observation, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , how hard (and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , how impossible) is it for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven, for a worldly-minded man to be a Christian ? Could you but reduce into order this one mighty exorbitant humor, purge out this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as S. Peter calls it, this over-flowing of the gall, this choler and bitterness, that lies cak'd upon the soul, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as he goes on, in the aggravating of covetousness, we English it band of iniquity, but it signifies a complication of wickedness bound up all in one volume, mingled into one hypostasis, this legion of earthly devils, that come out of the tombs to enter into thee, and there continue crying and cutting thee with stones ; I should then proceed with some heart and spirit; and tell you that, that every man knows but such demoniacs, that alms-giving is in itself a thing, that any man living, if he have but the relics of unregenerate nature, and the notion of a Deity about him, would take pleasure in it, were he but satisfied of this one scruple, that 'twould not hinder his thriving in this world. 'It is more blessed to give than to receive, is the Apophthegme of S. Paul quoted from Christ, though it be not rehearsed in the Gospel, and Clemens hath turned it into a maxim, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , 'tis giving, not possessing that signifies a man to be happy ; and this happiness the highest, & most divine sort of happiness, 'tis a blessed thing to give. And of the same inclination in the worst of you, I will no more doubt, than I do of your being men, of your having human souls about you, could you be but fortified against this one terror, were but this one trembling spirit exorcised, and cast out, this apprehension of impairing your estates by that means: Now of this, an ordinary Jew makes so little doubt, merely upon authority of the places of the Old Test. which I cited, that he may read thee a lecture of faith in this particular. Paulus Fagius assures me of the modern Jews, who have not been observed to be over-liberal ; that they still observe the payment of the poor man's tithe, merely out of design to enrich themselves by that means, and tells us of a Proverb of Rabbi Akiba, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 tithes are the hedges to our riches, and on the contrary, that there be seven kinds of judgments that come upon the world for seven prevarications, and the first is famine upon not tithing, and the second again, another kind of famine upon another not tithing, and that second plainly belongs to the poor man's tithing, when (as it follows) some are full, and others are famished, and the third is a plague upon not obeying the Law concerning the fruits of the Sabbatical year, which you know, were to be left to the poor. And again, that there are four seasons, wherein the plague was wont to rage especially, in the fourth year upon the non-payment of the poor man's tithe the third year, on the seventh, upon the like default in the sixth, in the end of the seventh, upon default concerning the seventh years fruits, that were to be free and common, and the last yearly, in the close of the feast of tabernacles, upon the robbing of the poor of those gifts that at that time were left unto them, the gleanings of the harvest, and vintage, the corners of the field, the fallings, &c. Add to this, one place more of Rabbi Bechai, Though, saith he, it be unlawful to prove or tempt the Lord, for man must not say, I will perform such a commandment, to the end I may prosper in riches, yet Mal. 3.10. and Prov. 3.10. there is an exception for payment of tithes and works of mercy, intimating that on the performance of this duty, we may expect even miracles to make us rich, and set to that performance, on contemplation and confidence of that promise. And 'tis strange, that we Christians, should find more difficulty in believing this, than the griping reprobated Jews; strange, that all those books of Scripture should be grown Apocryphal, just since the minute, that I cited those testimonies out of them. This I am resolved on, 'tis wan • of belief, and nothing else, that keeps men from the practice of this duty, whatsoever 'tis in other sins, we may believe aright, and yet do contrary (our understanding hath not such a controlling power over the Will as some imagine) yet in this particular, this cannot be pretended; Could this one mountain be removed, the lessening of our wealth, that alms-giving is accused of, could this one scandal to flesh and blood be kicked out of the way, there is no other devil would take the unmerciful man's part, no other temptation molest the alms-giver. And how unjust a thing this is, how quite contrary to the practice at all other Sermons, I appeal to yourselves. At other times, the doctrine raised from any Scripture is easily digested, but all the demur is about the practical inference; but here, when all is done, the truth of the doctrine still [ that we shall not be the poorer for alms-giving ] is that, that can never go down with us, lies still crude unconcocted in our stomachs; A strange prepossession of worldly hearts, a petitio principii, that no artist would endure from us. I must not be so unchristian, whatsoever you mean to be, as to think there is need of any farther demonstration of it, after so many plain places of Scripture have been produced; Let me only tell you, that you have no more evidence for the truth of Christ's coming into the world, for all the fundamentals of your faith, on which you are content your salvation should depend, than such as I have given you for your security in this point. Do not now make a mockery at this doctrine, and either with the Jew in Cedrenus, or the Christian in Palladius, throw away all you have, at one largess, to see whether God will gather it up for you again; but set soberly, and solemnly about the duty, in the fear of God, and compliance with his will, and in bowels of compassion to thy poor brethren, that stand in need of thy comfort, those Emeralds and Jacinths, that Macarius persuaded the rich virgin to lay out her wealth upon; and this out of no other insidious or vain-glorious, but the one, pure, Christian forementioned design, and put it to the venture, if God, ever suffer thee to want, what thou hast thus bestowed. Dorotheus hath excellently stated this, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . There are, saith he, that give alms, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that their farms may prosper, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and God blesseth and prospers their farms; There be that do it for the good success of their voyage, and God prospers their voyage; some for their children, and God preserves their children; yea, and some to get praise, and God affords them that; and frustrates none in the merchandise he designed to traffick for, but gives everyone that which he aimed at in this liberality. But then, all these traffickers must not be so unconscionable, as to look for any arrear of farther reward, when they are thus paid at present, they must remember 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , they have no depositum behind laid up with God for them, and therefore it is necessary for a Christian to propose to himself more ingenuous designs to do what he doth in obedience to, and out of a pure love of God, and then there is more than all these, even a kingdom prepared for him, Matt. 25.

I must draw to a conclusion, and I cannot do it more seasonably, more to recapitulate, and enforce all that hath been said, than in the words of Malachi, c. 3.10. Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, (no doubt but this comprehends the duty in the text, the compleveris anno tertio, the poor man's tithing▪) that there may be meat in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. If this will not open the misers hand, unshrivel the worldlings heart, I cannot invent an engine cunning, or strong enough to do it. Thou that hast tired and harass'd out thy spirits, in an improsperous, successess pursuit of riches, digged and drudged in the mines, thy soul as well as thou, and all the production of thy patience, and industry crumbled and mouldered away betwixt thy fingers; thou that wouldest fain be rich, and canst not get Plutus to be so kind to thee, art willing to give Satan his own asking, thy prostraveris, for his totum hoc, to go down to hell for that merchandise, and yet art not able to compass it; let me direct thee to a more probable course of obtaining thy designs, to a more thriving trade, a more successful voyage; not all the devotions thou daily numbrest to the Devil, or good fortune, not all the inventions, and engines, and stratagems of covetousness managed by the most practiced worldling, can ever tend so much to the securing thee of abundance in this life, as this one compleveris of the text, the payment of the poor man's tithing. And then, suffer thyself for once to be disabused ; give over the worldlings way, with a hâc non successit, reform this error of good husbandry, this mistake of frugality, this heresy of the worldling and come to this new Ensurers office, erected by God himself, prove and try if God do not open thee the windows of heaven — Shall I add for the conclusion of all, the mention of that poor, unconsidered merchandise, the treasures of heaven, after all this wealth is at an end, the riches of the coelestial paradise, which like that other of Eden is the posing of Geographers, pars globi incognita, undiscovered yet to the worldlings heart. Methinks there should be no hurt in that, if such friends may be made of this Mammon of unrighteousness, this falsehearted, unfaithful wealth of yours, that when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations, sure this may be allowed to join with other motives to the performance of a well-tasted, wholesome duty. In a word, if earth and heaven combined together, be worth considering, the possession of the one, and reversion of the other, abundance and affluence here, the yearly wages of alms-giving, and joys and eternity hereafter, the final reward of alms-giving, a present coronet, and a future crown, a Canaan below, and a Jerusalem above, if the conjunction of these two may have so much influence on your hearts, as in contemplation of them to set you about the motion, that nature itself inclines you to, and neither world nor flesh have any manner of quarrel to feign against it; then may I hope that I have not preached in vain, that what I have now only, as a precentor, begun to you, the whole chorus will answer in the counterpart, what hath been now proclaimed to your ears, be echoed back again by your hearts, and lives, and the veryest stone in the temple take up its part, the hardest, impenetrablest, unmercifullest heart join in the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .

And this shall be the sum not only of my exhortation, but my prayer, That that God of mercies will open your eyes first, and then your hearts to the acknowledgement, and practice of this duty, direct your hands in the husbanding that treasure entrusted to them, that mercy being added to your zeal, Charity to your devotion, your goodness may shine as well as burn, that men may see, and taste your good works, glorify God for you here, and you receive your crown of glory from God hereafter.

A TABLE OF THE XIX SERMONS.

A Sermon on Ezek. 16.30. The work of an imperious Whorish Woman.

Page 561.

A Sermon on Philip. 4.13. I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me.

p. 569.

A Sermon on Prov. 1.22. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity?

p. 575.

A Sermon on Matth. 1.23. Immanuel, which is by interpretation, God with us.

p. 582.

A Sermon on Luke 9.55. You know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

p. 588.

A Sermon on Ezek. 18.31. For why will you die?

p. 595.

A Sermon on Jer. 5.2. Though they say, The Lord liveth, surely they swear falsely.

p. 601.

A Sermon on Luke 18.11. God I thank thee, that I am not as other men, &c.

p. 607.

A Sermon on Matth. 3.3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

p. 618.

A Sermon on John 7.48. Have any of the Pharisees believed on him?

p. 625.

A Sermon on Matth. 10.15. It shall be more tolerable for the Land of Sodom and Gomorrhah, &c.

p. 633.

Two Sermons on Acts 17.30. And the times of this Ignorance God winked at, &c.

p. 639, & p. 646.

A Sermon on Rom. 1.26. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections.

p. 653.

A Sermon on Gal. 6.15. But a new Creature.

p. 663.

Two Sermons on 2 Peter 3.3. Scoffers, walking after their own lusts.

p. 670, & 676.

Two Sermons on 1 Tim. 1.15. Of whom I am chief.

p. 681, and p. 687.

SERMON I.

N OT to chill your ears by keeping you long at the doors; not to detain you one minute with a cold unprofitable Preface : This Chapter is the exactest History of the Spiritual estate of the Jews, i. e. The elect of God, and the powerfullest exprobration of their sins, that all the Writings under Heaven can present to our eyes. From the first time I could think I understood any part of it, I have been confident, that never anything was set down more rhetorically, never more 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , more affection and sublimity of speech, ever concurred in any one writing of this quantity, either sacred or profane. 'Twere a work for the solidst Artist to observe distinctly every part of Logic and Rhetoric that lies concealed in this one Chapter, and yet there is enough in the surface and outward dress of it, to affect the meanest understanding that will but read it. For our present purpose it will suffice to have observed, 1. That the natural sinful estate of the Jews, being premised in the five first Verses; 2. The calling of them in this condition, in their pollutions, in their blood, and bestowing all manner of spiritual ornaments upon them, following in the next ten Verses; the remainder is most what spent in the upbraiding and aggravating their sins to them, in a most elevated strain of reproof; and the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or highest pitch of it, is in the words of my Text, The work of an imperious Whorish Woman.

For the handling of which words, I first beg two postulata to be granted and supposed, before my discourse, because I would not trouble you to hear them proved.

I. That the elect chosen people of God, the Jews, were degenerate into heathen, desperate, devilish sinners.

II. That what is literally spoken in aggravation of the Jews sin, is as fully applicable to any other sinful people, with whom God hath entered Covenant, as he did with the Jews.

And then the subject of my present discourse, shall be this, That Indulgence to sin, in a Christian, is the Work of an imperious Whorish Woman. And that, 1. Of a Woman, noting a great deal of weakness; and that not simple natural weakness, through a privation of all strength, but an acquired, sluggish weakness, by effeminate neglecting to make use of it. 2. Of a Whore, noting unfaithfulness and falseness to the Husband. 3. Of an imperious Whore, noting insolency and an high pitch of contempt.

And of these, briefly and plainly; not to increase your knowledge, but to enliven and inflame the practical part of your souls; not to enrich your brains with new store, but to sink that which you have already, down into your hearts.

And first of the first, That Indulgence to sin, in a Christian, is the work of a Woman ; an effect and argument of an infinite deal of weakness, together with the nature and grounds of that weakness; The work, &c.

And this very thing, that it may be the more heeded, is emphatically noted three several times in this one Verse. 1. The work of a Woman, in my Text, a poor, cowardly, pusillanimous part [ 1] that anybody else, any one that had but the least spark of valor or manhood in him, would scorn to be guilty of, an argument of one that hath suffered all his parts and gifts to lie sluggish and unprofitable, and at last, even quite perished by disusing. As the weakness of Women, below Men, proceeds not only from their constitution and temper, but from their course of life ; not from want of natural strength, but of civil manlike exercise, which might stir up and discipline, and ripen that strength they have: For if their education were as warlike, and their strength by valiant undertaking, so set out; Virago 's and Amazons, would be well-nigh as ordinary as Soldiers. And so will the comparison hold of those womanish, sluggish, abusers of God's graces. Then in the first [ 2] words of this Verse, How weak is thy heart ?] noting it to be a degree of weakness below ordinary; as we call one a weak man, that hath done anything rashly or unadvisedly, which, if he had but thought on, he could never have been so sottish, his ordinary reason would have prompted him to safer counsels. In brief, Any frequent, indiscreet actions, argue a weak fellow : Not that he wants strength of discretion to do better, but that he makes no use of it in his actions. Thirdly, How [ 3] weak is thy heart?] Thy heart, i. e. the principal part of the Man, (as the Brain is the speculative) the fountain of good and evil actions, and performances. Now the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the Original, signifying the heart ; being naturally of the Masculine Gender, is here set in the feminine, out of order, perhaps emphatically, to note an unmanlike, impotent, effeminate heart; all its actions are mixed with so much passion and weakness, they are so raw and womanish, that it would grieve one to behold a fair, comely, manlike Christian in show, betraying so much impotency in his behavior, (even like the Emperor a spinning) one who had undertaken to be a Champion for Christ, led away, and abused and baffled by every pelting paltry lust. 'It is lamentable to observe what a poor, cowardly, degenerous spirit is in most Christians ; with how slender assaults and petty stratagems, they are either taken captive, or put to flight; how easily in their most resolute undertakings of piety or virtue, they are either vanquished, or caught. The ordinariest, coarsest, hard-favouredst temptation that they can see, affects and smites them suddenly; they are entangled, before they are wooed; and the least appearance of any difficulty, the vizard or picture of the easiest danger, is enough to fright them forever from any thought of Religion, or hope of Heaven.

For a mere natural man, that hath nothing but original sin, or worse in him, that hath received nothing from God and his parents, but a talent in a broken Vessel, a soul infected by a crazy body, diseas'd as soon as born; for an Heathen, that hath nothing to subsist on; but a poor pittance of natural reason, but one eye to see by, and that a dim one; for a mere Barbarian, or Gentile, to be thus triumphed over by every Devil, (as an Owl by the smallest Bird in the air) might be matter of pity rather than wonder: and yet few of them were such cowards; those very weapons, that Nature had furnished them with, being rightly put on, and fitted to them, stood many of them in very good stead. There were few passions, few sins of an ordinary size, but a Philosopher, and mere Stoic would be able to meet and vanquish: and therefore 'tis not so much natural, as affected weakness ; not so much want of strength, as sluggishness, and want of care; not so much impotency, as numbness and stupidity of our parts, which hath so extremely dis-abled those that take themselves to be the weakest of us.

The truth is, we are willing to conceive that our natural abilities are quite perished and an • ibilate, and that God hath no ways repaired them by Christ, because we will not be put to the trouble of making use of them: we would spare our pains, and therefore would fain count ourselves impotent, as sluggards that personate and act diseases because they would not work; or the old Tr • gedians which could call a God down upon the Stage at any time, to consummate the impossiblest Plot, and therefore would not put their brains to the toil of concluding it fairly.

Certainly the decrepitest man under Heaven (if he be but a degree above a Carkass) is able to defend himself from an ordinary Fly ; 'tis one of the Devils titles to be Beelzebub the Prince of Flies; and such are many of his temptations: he that hath but life in him, may keep himself from any harm of one of them; but the matter is, they come in flocks, and being driven once away, they return again. Musca est animal insolens, and the Devil is frequent in these temptations, and though you could repel them as fast as they come, yet 'twould be a troublesome piece of work; it will be more for your ease to lie still under them, to let them work their will: so in time Fly-blows beget noysomness and vermin in the soul ; and then the life and death of that man, becomes like that of the Egyptians, or Herod, and no plague more finally desperate, than those two of Flies and Lice. I am resolved there be many temptations which foil many jolly Christians, which yet a mere natural man that never dreamed of Scripture, or God's Spirit, might, if he did but bethink himself, resist, and many times overcome. Many acts of uncleanness, of intemperance, of contempt of superiors, of murder, of false-dealing, of swearing and profaning, that cheap, unprofitable, that untempting, and therefore unreasonable sin. Many acts I say, of these open, abominable sins, which either custom or human Laws make men ashamed of, and the like; the very Law of Reason within us, is able to affront, and check, and conquer. That 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Methodius calls it, that Law born with us; Naturale judicatorium, saith Austin against Pelagius; Lux nostri intellectûs, say the Schoolmen out of Damascene ; nay, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith the Stoic, the promise that everyone makes to nature, the Obligation that he is bound in when he hath first leave to be a man, or as Hierocles on the Pythagorean Verses, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , That Oath that is coaetantous, and co-essential to all reasonable natures, and engages them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. not to transgress the Laws that are set them. This is I say, enough to keep us in some terms or compass, to swathe and bind us in, to make us look somewhat like men, and defeat the Devil in many a skirmish. But how much more for a Christian, who if it were by nothing but his Baptism, hath certainly some advantages of other men: for one that, if he acknowledge any, worships the true God, never went a fooling after Idols, which was the Original of the Heathens being given up to vile affections, Rom. i. for one that lives in a civil Country among people that have the faces and hearts of men and Christians, made as it were, to upbraid his ways, and reprove his thoughts ; for one that is within the sound of God's Law, and Light of his Gospel, by which he may edify more than ever Heathen did by thunder and lightning; for one that cannot choose but fear and believe, and love, and hope in God, in some measure or kind, be he never so unregenerate; for him, I say, that hath all these outward restraints, and perhaps some inward twinges of Conscience, to curb and moderate him, to be yet so stupid under all these helps, as never to be able to raise up one thought toward heaven, to have yet not the least atom of Soul to move in the ways of godliness, but to fall prostrate like a Carkass, or a Statue, or that Idol Dagon with his feet stricken off, not able to stand before the slightest motion of sin; or if a lust, or a fancy, or a devil, be he the ugliest in Hell, anything but God appear to him, presently to fall down and worship. This is such a sottish condition, such an either Lethargy or Consumption of the Soul, such an extreme degree of weakness, that neither original sin, that Serpent that despoiled Adam, nor any one single Devil can be believed to have wrought in us; but that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (as the Platonics call it) Apopular Government of sin, under a multitude of Tyrants, which have for so long a while, wasted and harassed the Soul; so that now it is quite crest-fallen, as that legion of Devils, Mar. v.3. which dwelt among the Tombs in a lifeless, cadaverous, noisome Soul; or more truly that evil spirit, Mark. i.23. that made the man disclaim and renounce Christ and his mercies, when he came to cure, Let us alone, what have we to do with thee? by which is noted, That contentedness and acquiescence in sin ; that even stubborn willfulness, and resolvedness to die, that a long sluggish custom in sin, will bring us to; and that you may resolve on, as the main discernible cause of this weakness of the heart, a habit, and long service and drudgery in sin. But then, as a ground of that, you may take notice of another, a fancy that hath crept into most men's hearts (and suffers them not to think of resisting any temptation to sin) that all their actions, as well evil as good, were long ago determined and set down by God ; and now nothing left to them, but a necessity of performing what was then determined. I would fain believe, that that old heresy of the Stoics, revived indeed among the Turks, concerning the inevitable production of all things; that fatal necessity, even of sins, should yet never have gotten any footing or entertainment among Christians ; but that by a little experience in the practice of the world, I find it among many, a main piece of their faith, and the only point that can yield them any comfort; that their sins, be they never so many and outrageous, are but the effects, or at least, the consequents of God's decree ; that all their care, and solicitude, and most wary endeavors, could not have cut off any one sin from the Catalogue ; that unless God be pleased 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to come down upon the Stage, by the irresistable power of his constraining spirit, as with a Thunderbolt from Heaven, to shake and shiver to pieces the carnal man within them, to strike them into a swoon as he did Saul, that so he may convert them; and in a word, to force and ravish them to Heaven : unless he will even drive and carry them, they are never likely to be able to stir, to perform any the least work of reason ; but fall minutely into the most irrational, unnatural sins in the world, nay, even into the bottom of that pit of Hell, without any stop, or delay, or power of deliberating in this their precipice. This is an heresy that in some Philosopher-Christians hath sprouted above ground, hath shown itself in their brains and tongues; and that more openly in some bolder Wits; but the Seeds of it are sown thick in most of our hearts, I sear in every habitual sinner amongst us, if we were but at leisure to look into ourselves. The Lord give us a heart to be forewarned in this behalf.

To return into the rode: Our natural inclinations and propensions to sin, are, no doubt, active and prurient enough within us, somewhat of Jehu 's constitution and temper, they drive very furiously. But then to persuade ourselves, that there is no means on earth, besides the very hand of God, and that out of our reach, able to trash, or overslow this furious driver; that all the ordinary clogs that God hath provided us; our reason and natural conscience, as Men ; our Knowledge, as Christians ; nay, his restraining, though not sanctifying graces, together with the Lungs and Bowels of his Ministers, and that energetical powerful instrument, the Gospel of Christ, Which is the power of God unto salvation, even to every Jew, nay, and Heathen, Rom. 1. To resolve, that all these are not able to keep us in any compass, to quell any the least sin we are inclined to; that unless God will by force make Saints of us, we must needs presently be Devils, and so leave all to God's omnipotent working, and never make use of those powers, with which he hath already furnished us. This is a monstrous piece of unchristian divinity ; a way, by advancing the Gr •• e of God, to destroy it, and by depending on the Holy Ghost, to grieve, if not to sin against him; to make the corruption of our nature equal to, nay, surpassing the punishment of the Devils; a necessary and irreversible obduration in all kinds and measures of sin.

This one practical Heresy will bring us through all the prodigies of the old Philosophical Sects, from Stoics to Epicurism, and all sensual Libertinism, and from thence to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of the Pythagoreans. For unless the soul that is now in one of us, had been transplanted from a Swine, or some other the most stupid, sottish, degenerous sort of Beasts, it is impossible that it should thus naturally, and necessarily, and perpetually, and irrecoverably, delight and wallow in every kind of sensuality, without any check or contradiction, either of Reason, or Christianity. If I should tell you that none of you, that hath understood and pondered the Will of God, wants abilities in some measure to perform it, if he would muster up all his forces, at time of need; that every Christian hath grace enough to smother lusts in the Womb, and keep them, at least, from bringing forth; to quell a temptation before it break out into an actual sin, you would think perhaps that I flattered you, and deceived myself in too good an opinion of your strength. Only thus much then, It would be somewhat for your edification to try what you could do: Certainly there is much more in a Christians power (if he be not engaged in a habit of sin) than we imagine; though not for the performing of good, yet for the inhibiting of evil. And therefore bethinking ourselves, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith Arian, That we are the sons of God, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Let us not have too low and degenerous an opinion of ourselves. Do but endeavor resolutely and courageously to repel temptations as often as they solicit thee; make use of all thy ordinary restraints; improve thy natural fear and shamefac'dness, thy Christian education, tender disposition to the highest pitch; do but hold sincerely as long as thou art able, and though I will not say that all thy sins shall be confined to those two heads of original (a branch of which are evil motions) and of omission ; yet I will undertake, that thou shalt have an easier burden of actual commissions upon thy soul, and that will prove a good ease for thee: those are they that weigh it down into the deep, that sink it desperateliest into that double Tophet of obduration and despair. Final obduration being a just judgment of God, on one that hath filled up the measure of his iniquities, that hath told over all the hairs of his head, and sands of the Sea in actual sins; and a necessary consummation of that, despair; the first part, the Prologue and Harbinger to that worm in Hell.

'Twere easy to show how faith might afford a Christian sufficient guard and defense against the keenest weapon in the Devils armory, and retort every stroke upon himself: But because this is the Faith only of a Wife, not as we now consider as a Woman at large, but in a nearer obligation, as a Spouse, We shall more opportunely handle that in the next Part, where we shall consider Indulgence in sin, as the work of a whorish Woman ; where whoredom, noting adultery, presupposes wedlock, and consists in unfaithfulness to the Husband, the thing in the next place to be discovered: The Work, &c.

That Christ is offered by his Father to all the Church for an Husband ; that he waits, and begs, and sends presents to us all to accept of the proposal, the whole Book of Canticles, that Song of spiritual love, that affectionate wooing Sonnet will demonstrate: that every Christian accepts of this Match, and is Sacramentally espoused to Christ at his Baptism ; his being called by the Husbands Name imports: for that is the meaning of the phrase, Isai. iv.1. Let us be called by thy Name, i. e. marry us. That Faith is the only thing that makes up the Match, and entitles us to his Name, and Estate, is observable, both from many places of Scripture, and by the opposition which is set betwixt a Christian, and all others, Jews and Infidels, betwixt the Spouse, and either the destitute Widow, or barren Virgin ; the ground of which is only Faith.

So then, every Christian at his Baptism being supposed a Believer, and thereby espoused Sacramentally to Christ, and so obliged to all the observances, as partaker of all the privileges of a Wife: doth at every unchaste thought, or adulterous motion, offend against the fidelity promised in marriage, by every actual breach of this faith, is for the present guilty of Adultery, but by indulgence in it, is downright a whore; i. e. either one that came to Christ with an unchaste, adulterous love to gain somewhat, not for any sincere affection to his person, but insidious to his estate; and having got that, is soon weary of his person: or else one that came to him with pure virgin thoughts, resolving herself a perpetual captive to his love, and never to be tired with those beloved fetters of his embraces; but in time meets with a more flattering amiable piece of beauty, and is soon hurried after that, and so forgetteth both her vows and love.

Thus shall you see an handsome, modest, maidenly Christian, espoused to Christ at the Font, and fully wedded by his Ring at Confirmation : Nay, come nearer yet to him, and upon many solemn expressions of fidelity, and obedience, vouchsafed the seal of his very heart in the Sacrament of his Blood: another that hath lived with him a long while in uniform, constant loyalty, noted by all the neighbourhood for an absolute Wife; a grave solemn, matronly Christian: yet either upon the allurements of some fresh sprightful sin, or the solicitations of an old-acquaintance lust, the insinuations of some wily intruder, or a specious show of a glorious glittering temptation; or when these are all wanting, upon the breaking out of an evil heart of unbelief (which some outward restraints formerly kept in) departing from the living God, profess open neglect and despite against the Husband which before they so wooed, and flattered and made love to. 'Twere long to number out to you, and give you by tale a Catalogue of those defections and adulterous practices which Christians are ordinarily observed to be guilty of, (which whether they go so far as to make a divorce betwixt the soul and Christ, or whether only to provoke him to jealousy, whether by an intercision of Grace and Faith, or by an interruption and suspension of the acts, I will not now examine) I will go no farther than the Text, which censures it here as a piece of spiritual whoredom, of treacherous unfaithful dealing, to be light, inconstant, and false to Christ; whose Spouse they are esteemed, whose Name they bear, and Estate they pretend title to. And so indeed it is, for what greater degree of unfaithfulness can be imagined? What fouler breach of Matrimonial Covenan • , than to value every ordinary prostitute sin, before the precious chastest embraces of an Husband, and a Savior? to be caught and captivate with the meanest vanity upon earth, when it appears in competition with all the treasures in Heaven? Besides, that spiritual Armor which Faith bestows on a Christian, Eph. vi.16. sufficient to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, or, as the Greek hath it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that wicked one, the Devil, methinks there is a kind of moral influence from Faith on any wise and prudent heart, enough to enliven, and animate, and give it spirit, against the force or threatenings of any the strongest temptation, and to encourage him in the most crabbed, uncouth, disconsolate undertakings of godly obedience. For what sin didst thou ever look upon with the fullest delight of all thy senses, in the enjoying of which, thy most covetous, troublesome, importunate lusts would all rest satisfied, but one minute of Heaven, truly represented to thy heart, would infinitely out-weigh? A Turk is so affected with the expectation of his carnal Paradise, those Catholic everlasting Stews, which he fancies to himself for heaven, that he will scarce taste any wine all his life-time, for fear of disabling and depriving him of his lust; he will be very stanch from sin, that he may merit and be sure to have his fill of it. And then certainly one clear single apprehension of that infinite bliss which the eye of Faith represents to us, were enough to ravish a world of souls, to preponderate all other delights, which the most poetical fancy of man or Devil could possess us with. Were but the love of Christ to us, ever suffered to come into our hearts, (as Species to the eye by introreception) had we but come to the least taste and relish of it, what would we not do to recompense, and answer, and entertain that love? what difficulty would it not ingratiate to us? what exquisite pleasure, or carnal rival, would not be cheap and contemptible in its presence? If thou hast but faith to the size of a grain of Mustard-seed, speak to this mountain, and it shall be removed, the tallest, cumbersome, unwieldy temptation which all the giants in Hell can mould together, (as once they are feigned to do the Hills to get up to Heaven, Pelion Ossae, &c.) if thou dost but live, or breath by Faith, shall vanish at the least blast of thy nostrils. The clear representation of more valuable pleasures, and more horrid dangers than any the flesh can propose, certainly attending the performances, or breach of our Vow of Wedlock, is enough to charm and force us to perpetual chastity; to fright or scoff all other wooers out of our sights; to reprobate and damn them as soon as they appear: there is in this husband of ours a confluence of all infinite imaginable delights, which whosoever hath but once tasted, but from a kiss of his mouth, he is not inconstant, but sottish, if he ever be brought to any new embraces. But then openly to contemn, to profess neglects, to go a wooing again, to tempt and solicit even temptations, to give gifts to all thy lovers, to hire them that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredoms, verse. 33. of this Chapter; this is a degree of stupidity and insolence, of insatiable pride and lust, that neither the iniquity of Sodom, nor stubbornness of Capernaum, nor the Rhetorical'st Phrase almost in the very Scripture can express, but only this in my Text, which comes in the last place with a marvelous Emphasis, Imperious,] The work, &c.

In which one Epithet many of the highest degrees of sin are contained. 1. Confidence and shamelessness in sinning, an imperious Whore, mulier impudicae libidinis, one that is better acquainted with lust, than to blush when she meets with it; modesty and coyness are but infirmities rather than good qualities of youth; effects of ignorance and tenderness and unexperience in sin, a little more conversation in the world, will season men to a bolder temper, and in time instruct them, that this modesty is the only thing they ought to be ashamed of. 'It is not ingenuity but cowardice, a poor degenerous, pusillanimous humor, to go fearfully about a vice, to sin tremblingly and with regrets: this Country disposition, or soft temper, when we come abroad into the world, amongst men, 'tis quite out-dated: thus is impudence and a forehead of steel, grown not the armor only, but even the complexion of every man-like spirit. He is not fit for the Devils war, that is so poorly appointed either with courage or munition, as to be discomfited by a look ; 'tis part of his honor not to fear disgrace, and his reputation, not to stand upon so poor a thing as reputation.

2. Imperious, ] taking all authority into her own hands, scorning to be afraid either of God or Devil, quae regno posita neminem timeat, having fancied herself in a throne, never thinks either of enemy to endanger, or of superior to quell her; but sins confidently, & in Cathedrâ, Psal. i.1. in state, in security, and at ease, and never doubts or fears to be removed.

And this is most primarily observable in the Jews, depending on their carnal Prerogatives, as being of Abraham's seed; and yet thus also may we suspect do many among us, some tying God's decree of Election to their persons, and individual entities, without any reference to their qualifications, or demeanors ; others by a premature persuasion that they are in Christ, and so in such an irreversible estate, that all the temptations, all the Devils, nay all the sins in Hell, shall never dispossess them: others resolved, that God can see no sin in his children, in imitation of Marcus in Irenaeus, whose Heresy, or rather fancy it was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that by the redemption they were become invisible: upon these I say, and other grounds (how true, I will not now examine) do many rash presumers abuse the grace of God unto wantonness; never fear to sin, because they need not fear to be punished; never cease to provoke God, because they are sure he is their friend; and being resolved of him as a Savior, contemn him as a Judge. Multi ad sapientiam pervenissent, &c. saith he, Many had come to learning enough, had they not believed too soon they had attained it. No such hindrance to proficiency, as too timely a conceit of knowledge: thus might we ordinarily guess some men to have been in good towardly estates, had they not made too much hast to conceive so; and having once possessed themselves of heaven on such slight grounds, such not as a solemn examination of themselves, but some gleams of their fancy had bestowed upon them; 'tis no wonder if all the effects of their assurance be spiritual security and supine confidence in sinning: they have hid their heads in Heaven by their vain speculation, and then think their whole body must needs be safe, be it never so open and naked, and bare to all temptations. Nay, be they up to the shoulders in carnality, nay, earth, nay, hell, yet seeing caput inter nubila ] their head is in the clouds, there is no danger or fear of drowning, be it never so deep or miry. This was Laodiceas estate, Rev. iii.17. She fancied herself great store of spiritual riches, and brought in an Inventory of a very fair estate, I am rich and am increased in goods, and have need of nothing: anymore accession even of the graces of God, would be but superfluous and burthensome, not knowing all this while, That she was wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. There is not a blessing upon earth, that can any way hope or seem to parallel a sober well grounded assurance here, that in time we shall be Saints in Heaven; 'tis such a Paradise upon Earth, that Heaven itself seems but a second part of it, differing from it rather in degrees, and external accomplishments, than in any distinct specifical kind of happiness: (the Lord of Heaven by his mighty working, when it shall please him, begin and consummate it in us.) But then to make use of this Patent of Heaven to engage us further in the deep, to keep us not from the Devils works, but from his attachments ; only as a protection to secure our misdemeanors, not to defend our innocence : for a man thus appointed to venture on a Precipice, as the Turks, saith Busbequius, are wont to try the goodness of an horse, by riding him post down the steepest hill; to outdare the Devil in his own territories, (as Christ is said to descend thither to triumph over him) to besiege and set upon Hell, presuming of our interest in Heaven, as of a Magical Charm, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to keep us safe from death or maims in the midst of enemies, nay of friends; this is a piece of spiritual pride of Lucifer 's own inscribing, an imperious majestic garb of impiety, a triumphant or processionary pomp, an affected stately gate in sin; that nothing but a violent rending power of the Spirit, or a boisterous tempestuous judgment can force us out of. Such a profane Fiduciary as this, which hath even defiled Heaven by possessing it, such an Hellish Saint is like to be torn out of the third Heaven into which his speculation hath wrapped him, and after a long dream of Paradise, find himself awake in Hell. And from this degree of religious profaneness, this confidence in sinning on presumption that we are under grace; from this premature resolution, that no sin, no Devil can endanger us; from this imperious whoredom, as from the danger of Hell, Good Lord deliver us.

3. Imperious ] signifies more distinctly a tyrannical Lording behavior, usurping and exercising authority over all. And this the Apostate Jew and Christian Libertine doth: 1. By tyrannizing over himself, i. e. his faculties and estate: 2. Over all that come near him. Over himself, by urging and driving on in a carnal course; not patient of any regrets and resistances that a tender disposition, motions of God's Spirit, or gripes of Conscience can make against it, goading and spurring on any of his faculties, as being too dull, and unactive, and slothful in the ways of death, even forcing them (if they be any time foreslowed and trashed by either outward or inward restraints) to sin even in sight of them, and hastening them to a kind of unvoluntary disobedience. Thus will a stone when 'tis kept violently from the ground, being held in a man's hand, or the like, press and weigh towards the Earth incessantly, as if it were naturally resolved to be revenged on any one; to tire him out, that thus detained it from its place; nay, when it is let down, you may see it yet press lower, make its print in the Earth, as if it would never be satisfied, till it could rest in Hell. The sinner is never at quiet with himself, Instat & imperat; He is urgent and importunate upon himself, to satisfy every craving lust. Not the beggarliest affection, or laziest, unworthiest desire of the flesh, but shall have its alms and dole, rather than starve, though it be an atom of his very soul, to the utter undoing and bankrupting of him that gives it.

And for his tyranny over his estate, whether Temporal or Spiritual, his goods of Fortune, or gifts of Grace, they must all do homage to this carnal Idol. All his treasures on Earth are richly sold, if they can but yield him the fruition of one beloved sin. And for Spiritual Illuminations, or any Seeds of Grace, he will lose them all; and even shut himself forever into the darkness of Hell, rather than ever be directed by their light, out of those pleasing paths of death.

A restraining grace was but a burthensome, needless incumbrance ; and a gleam of the Spirit, but a means to set Conscience a working, to actuate her malice and execution on sin ; and it were an happy exchange, to get but one loving delight or companion for them both. Let but a sin be coy and stanch, not to he gained at the first wooing, and all these together, like Jacob 's Present out of all his goods, shall be all little enough for a sacrifice or bribe, to solicit, or hire it. And this the Prophet notes here distinctly, Vers. 33. and 34. Thou art contrary to all the Whores in the World. In other places Men give gifts to all Whores, but thou givest gifts to all thy lovers. None follow or bribe thee to commit whoredoms: Thou givest a reward, and no reward is given to thee; therefore thou art contrary.

The sinner in my Text, scorns to set so low a value on sin, as that profit or advantage should ingratiate it to him; it is so amiable in his eyes of itself, he will prize it so high, that any other treasure shall not be considerable in respect of it: It is part of his loyalty and expression of his special service to the Devil, to become a bankrupt in his cause, to sell all that he hath, both God, and fortunes to follow him. It is the art and Cunning of common Whores, to raise men's desires of them, by being coy, Difficultate augere libidinis pretium, to hold off, that they may be followed, Vers. 34. But this sin is not so artificial, her affections are boisterous and impatient of delay; she is not at so much leisure as to windlace, or use craft to satisfy them; she goes downright a wooing, and if there be any difficulty in compassing, all that she hath is ready for a dowry, and prostitute before her Idol, Lust.

Lastly, Imperious over all that come near him, either men or sins : every man must serve him, either as his pander or companion, to further or associate him. I told you he sinned in Cathedra, Psal. 1.1. that is also doctorally and magisterially ; every spectator must learn of him, it is his profession, he sets up school for it, his practices are so commandingly exemplary, that they do even force and ravish the most maidenly tender conscience. And then, for all inferiors, they are required to provide him means and opportunities of sinning, to find him out some game; and no such injury can be done, as to rouse or spring a sin, that would otherwise have lodged in his walk. It was part of the Heathenish Romans quarrel against the Primitive Christians, saith Tertullian, that they drove away their Devils : These Exorcist-Christians had banished all their old familiars out of the Kingdom, which they were impatient to be deprived of. And thus careful and chary are men of their helps of opportunities to sin; it is all the joy they have in the world, sometimes to have a temptation, and to be able to make use of it; to have the Devil continue strong with them, in an old Courtier 's phrase, It is their very life ; and he that deprives them of it, is a murderer.

And for the sins themselves, Lord, how they tyrannize over them ; how they will rack, and torture, and stretch every limb of a sin, that they may multiply it into infinites, and sin as often at once, as is possible? Adam in the bare eating of an Apple, committed a multitude of sins. Leo in his 86 Epist. August. de Civit. Dei. and other of the Fathers, will number them out to you. And thus far this tyrant over Impiety and Lust, will be a Pelagian, as to order all his deviation by imitation of Adam 's. Every breach of one single Law shall contain a brood or nest, into which it may be sub-divided; and every circumstance in the Action shall furnish him with fresh matter for variety of sin.

Again, How imperious is he in triumphing over a sin, which he hath once achieved? If he have once got the better of good nature and Religion ; broke in upon a stubborn, sullen vice, that was formerly too hard for him; how often doth he reiterate and repeat, that he may perfect his conquest, that it may lie prostrate and tame before him, never daring to resist him? And if there be any Virgin modest sins, which are ashamed of the light, either of the Sun, or Nature, not coming abroad but under a veil, (as some sins being too horrid and abominable, are fain to appear in other shapes, and so keep us company under the name of amiable or innocent qualities ) then will this violent imperious sinner call them out into the Court or Market place; tear away the veil, that he may commit them openly; and, as if the Devil were too modest for him, bring him upon the stage against his will, and even take Hell by violence and force.

Thus are men come at last to a glorying in the highest impieties, and expect some renown and credit, as a reward for the pains they take about it; and then certainly, honor is grown very cheap, when it is bestowed upon sins, and the man very tyrannical over his spectators thoughts, that requires to be worshipped for them. This was a piece of the Devils old tyranny in the times of Heathenism (which I would fain Christianity hath out-dated) to build Temples, and offer sacrifice to sins under the name of Venus, Priapus, and the like; that men that were naturally 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , superstitious adorers of Devils, or anything that was called God, might account Incontinence Religion, and all impieties in the world a kind of adoration. Thus to profess whoredoms, and set up trophies in our eyes, to build their eminent place in the head of every way, in the verse next to my Text, was then the imputation of the Jews, (and pray God it prove not the guilt of Christians ) from whence the whole Church of them is here styled, An imperious, &c.

Thus hath the Apostate Jew represented to you, in his picture and resemblance, the Libertine Christian ; and Ezekiel become an Historian as well as Prophet. Thus hath indulgence in vice among Professors of Christianity been aggravated against you, 1. By the weak Womanish condition of it; nature itself, and ordinary man-like reason, is ashamed of it; 2. By the Adulterous Unfaithfulness, 1. Want of Faith, 2. Of Fidelity bewray'd in it; 3. By the imperiousness of the behavior, 1. In shamelessness, 2. In confidence and spiritual security, 3. In tyrannizing over himself and faculties, by force compelling, and then insulting over his goods and graces, prodigally mis-spending them in the prosecution of his lusts, and Lording over all that come near him, men, or sins; first pressing, then leading the one, and both ravishing and tormenting the other, to perform him the better service.

Now that this discourse may not have been sent into the air unprofitably; that all these prophetical censures of sin may not be like Xerxes his stripes on the Sea, on inanimate senseless bodies; 'tis now time that every tender open guilty heart begin to retire into itself; everyone consider, whether he be not the man that the parable aims at; that you be not content to have your ears affected, or the suburbs of the Soul filled with the sound, unless also the heart of the City be taken with its efficacy. Think and consider whether, 1. This effeminacy and womanishness of heart, and not weakness, but torpor and stupidity, 2. This unfaithfulness and falseness unto Christ expressed by the spiritual incontinence and whoredoms of our souls and actions, 3. That Confidence and magnanimous stately garb in sin, arising in some from Spiritual Pride, in others from Carnal Security; whether any or all of these may not be inscrib'd on our Pillars, and remain as a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 against us, to upbraid and aggravate the nature and measure of our sins also. I cannot put on so solemn a person as to act a Cato or Aristarchus, amongst an Assembly that are all Judices critici, to reprehend the learned and the aged, and to chide my Teachers: you shall promise to spare that thankless task, and to do it to yourselves. It will be more civility perhaps, and sink down deeper into ingenuous natures, fairly to bespeak and exhort you; and from the first part of my Text only, (because 'twould be too long to bring down all) from the weakness and womanish condition of indulgent sinners, to put you in mind of your strength, and the use you are to make of it, in a word and close of Application.

We have already taken notice of the double inheritance and patrimoney of strength and graces, which we all enjoy, first, as Men ; secondly, as Christians : and ought not we, Beloved, that have spent the liveliest and sprightfullest of our age and parts, in the pursuit of Learning, to set some value on that estate we have purchased so dear, and account ourselves somewhat the more men, for being Scholars ? Shall not this deserve to be esteemed some advantage to us, and a rise, that being luckily taken, may further us something in our stage towards Heaven? That famous division of Rational Animals in Jamblichus out of Aristotle, into three different species, that some were Men, others God's, others such as Pythagoras ; will argue some greater privileges of Scholars above other men: That indeed, the deep Learneder sort, and especially those that had attained some insight 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in divine affairs, were in a kind of a more venerable species, than ordinary ignaro 's

And for the benefits and helps that these excellencies afford us in our way to Heaven, do but consider what a great part of the world overshaded in Barbarism, brought up in blind Idolatry, do thereby but live in a perpetual Hell, and at last, pass not into another kind, but degree of darkness; Death being but an officer to remove them from one Tophet to another; or at most, but as from a Dungeon to a Grave. Think on this, and then think and count what a blessing divine knowledge is to be esteemed; even such a one as seems, not only the way, but the entrance ; not only a preparation, but even a part of that vision which shall be forever beatifical : and therefore it will nearly concern us to observe, what a talent is committed to our husbanding, and what increase that hard Master will exact at his coming. For as Dicaearchus in his Description of Greece, saith of the Chalcidians, That they were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , born, as it were, with one foot in Learning, and both by the genius of the place and Language, which they spake, being Greek, even sucked the arts from their Mothers Breasts, at least were prepared for, and initiated in them by nature; and therefore it would be a great shame for them, not to be Scholars : So most truly of those of us, that are learned, full, illuminate Christians ; the very language that we speak, and air we breath in, doth naturally infuse some sacred instincts into us; doth somewhat enter us in this Spiritual, Heavenly Wisdom ; will be some munition for us, and not suffer us to be so pitifully baffled, and befooled, and triumphed over by that old Sophister. And if, for all these advantages, we prove dunces at last, it will be an increase, not only of our torments, but our shame ; of our indignation at ourselves, at the day of doom ; and the reproach and infamy superadded to our sufferings, will scarce afford us leisure to weep and wail, for gnashing of our teeth. And therefore, as Josephus of the Jews, that they prayed to God daily, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. not that he would bestow good things on them; for he did that already on his own accord, pouring out plenty of all in the midst of them: But 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that they might be able to receive and keep what he bestowed. So will it concern us to pray, and labor mainly, for the preserving, that we be the better for this great bounty of God 's: that neither our inobservance of his gifts, suffer them to pass by us unprofitably, and neglected, being either not laid hold on, or not employed; nor the unthrifty mis-husbanding of them, cause the Lord to call in the talent entrusted to us already, because unworthy of anymore.

It was a shrewd, though Atheistical speech of Hippocrates, That sure, if the God's had any good things to bestow, they would dispense them among the rich, who would be able and ready to requite them by Sacrifices: But all evil presents, all Pandora's Box should be divided among the poor, because they are still murmuring and repining, and never think of making any return for favors.

The Eye of Nature, it seems, could discern thus much of God and his gifts, that they are the most plentifully bestowed, where the greatest return may be expected: and for others, from whom all the liberality in the world, can extort no retribution, but grumbling and complaints; it is not charity or alms, but prodigality and riot to bestow on them. These are to be fed not with bread but stripes ; they are not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , rather beggars than poor, like Pharaohs lean Kine, after the devouring of the fat ones, still lank and very ill-favored. And the judgment of these, you shall find in the Gospel, From them shall be taken away even that which they have. And therefore, all which from God, at this time, and forever, I shall require and beg of you, is the exercise and the improvement of your talent ; that your learning may not be for ostentation, but for traffick ; not to possess, but negotiate withal; not to complain any longer of the poverty of your stock, but presently to set to work to husband it. That knowledge of God which he hath allowed you, as your portion to set up with, is ample enough to be the Foundation of the greatest estate in the World; and you need not despair, through an active, laboring, thriving course, at last to set Heaven as a Roof, on that Foundation : only it will cost you some pains to get the materials together for the building of the Walls ; it is as yet but a Foundation, and the Roof will not become it till the walls be raised; and therefore every faculty of your Souls and Bodies must turn Bezaleels and Aholiabs, Spiritual Artificers for the forwarding and perfecting of this work.

It is not enough to have gotten an abstracted Mathematical Scheme or Diagram of this Spiritual Building in our Brain; it is the Mechanical laboring part of Religion, that must make up the edifice; the work and toil and sweat of the Soul ; the business not of the Designer, but the Carpenter ; that which takes the rough, unpolished, though excellent materials, and trims and fits them for use; which cuts and polishes the rich, but as yet deformed jewels of the Soul; and makes them shine indeed, and sparkle like stars in the Firmament. That ground or sum of Pythagorean Philosophy, as it is set down by Hierocles in his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , if it were admitted into our schools or hearts, would make us Scholars and Divines indeed; that Virtue is the way to Truth: Purity of affections a necessary precursory to depth of knowledge, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the only means to prepare for the uppermost form of Wisdom, the speculation of God, which doth ennoble the Soul unto the condition of an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , of an heroical, nay sacred person, is first to have been the person of a man aright, and by the practice of virtue to have cleared the eye for that glorious Vision. But the divinity and learning of these times, floats and hovers too much in the brain ; hath not either weight or sobriety enough in it, to sink down, or settle it in the heart. We are all for the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Clemens calls it; the art of sorting out, and laying in order all intellectual store in our brains, tracing the Counsels of God, and observing his methods in his secrecies; but never for the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the refunding and pouring out any of that store, in the alms, as it were, and liberality of our actions. If Gerson 's definition of Theology, that it is scientia effectiva non speculativa, were taken into our consideration at the choice of our professions, we should certainly have fewer pretenders to Divinity, but, 'tis withal hoped, more Divines.

The Lacedaemonians and Cretans, saith Josephus, brought up men to the practice, but not knowledge of good, by their example only, not by precept or law : The Athenians, and generally the rest of the Grecians used instructions of laws only, but never brought them up by practice and discipline: But of all Lawgivers, saith he, only Moses, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , dispensed and measured both these proportionably together. And this, beloved, is that for which that policy of the Primitive Jews deserved to be called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by a special name, the Government of God himself. This is it; the combination of your knowledge with your practice, your learning with your lives, which I shall, in fine, commend unto you, to take out both for yourselves and others. 1. For yourselves, that in your study of Divinity, you will not behold God's Attributes as a sight or spectacle, but as a Copy, not only to be admired, but to be transcribed into your hearts and lives; not to gaze upon the Sun to the dazzling, nay, destroying of your eyes, but, as it were, in a burning-glass, contract those blessed, sanctifying rays that flow from it, to the enlivening and inflaming of your hearts. And 2. In the behalf of others; so to digest and inwardly dispense every part of sacred knowledge into each several member and vein of Body and Soul, that it may transpire through hands, and feet, and heart, and tongue; and so secretly insinuate itself into all about you; that both by Precept and Example, they may see, and follow your good works, and so glorify here your Father which is in heaven : that we may all partake of that blessed Resurrection, not of the learned and the great, but the just ; and so hope and attain to be all glorified together with him hereafter.

Now to him, &c.

SERMON II.

T Hose two contrary Heresies, that cost St. Austin, and the Fathers of his time, so much pains; the one all for natural strength, the other for irrecoverable weakness ; have had such unkindly influence on succeeding ages, that almost all the actions of the ordinary Christian have some tincture of one of these: scarce any sin is sent abroad into the World, without either this, or that inscription. And therefore parallel to these, we may observe the like division in the hearts and practical faculties, between pride and sloth, opinion of absolute power, and prejudice of absolute impotence : the one undertaking all upon its own credit, the other suing, as it were, for the preferment, or rather excuse of being bankrupts upon record; that so they may come to an easy composition with God for their debt of obedience : the one so busy in contemplation of their present fortunes, that they are not at leisure to make use of them, their pride helping them to ease; and if you look nearly, to poverty too, Revel. iii.17. the other so fastened to this Sanctuary, this religious piece of profaneness, that leaving the whole business to God, as the undertaker and proxy of their obedience, their idleness shall be deemed devotion, and their best piety sitting still.

These two differences of Men, either sacrilegious or supine, imperious or lethargical, have so dichotomised this lower sphere of the World, almost into two equal parts, that the practice of humble obedience, and obeying humility, the bemoaning our wants to God, with Petition to repair them, and the observing and making use of those succors which God in Christ hath dispensed to us; those two foundations of all Christian duty, providing between them, that our Religion be neither 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , nor 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Neither the virtue of the Atheist, nor the prayer of the Sluggard, are almost quite vanished out of the world: as when the Body is torn asunder, the Soul is without any farther act of violence forced out of its place, that it takes its flight home to Heaven, being thus let out at the Scissure, as at the window; and only the two fragments of carcass remain behind.

For the deposing of these two Tyrants, that have thus usurped the Soul between them, dividing the Live child with that false Mother, into two dead parts; for the abating this pride, and enlivening this deadness of practical faculties ; for the scourging this stout Beggar, and restoring this Cripple to his Legs; the two Provisions in my Text, if the order of them only be transposed, and in God's method the last set first, will, I may hope and pray, prove sufficient. I can do, &c.

1. Through Christ that strengtheneth me. ] You have there, first, the Assertion of the necessity of grace ; and secondly, that enforced from the form of the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which imports the minutely continual supply of aids, and then, thirdly, we have not only positively, but exclusively declared the person thus assisting; in Christo confortante, it is by him, not otherwise, we can do thus, or thus. Three particulars all against the natural confidence of the proud Atheist.

2. The 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , I can do all things. ] First, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and secondly, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . 1. The power ; and 2. the extent of that power : 1. The potency ; and 2. the omnipotency ; and then 3. this not only originally of Christ that strengtheneth, but inherently of me, being strengthened by Christ. Three particulars again, and all against the conceived or pretended impotence, either of the false spy that brought news of the Giants, Anakims, Cannibals, in the way to Canaan, Numb. xiii.32. Or of the Sluggard, that is always affrighting and keeping himself at home, with the Lion in the streets, some 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or other difficulty or impossibility, whensoever any work or travel of obedience is required of us, Prov. xxvi.13.

It will not befit the majesty of the subject, to have so many particulars, by being severally handled, jointly neglected. Our best contrivance will be to shorten the retail, for the increasing of the gross, to make the fewer parcels, that we may carry them away the better, in these three Propositions.

• I. The strength of Christ is the Original and Fountain of all ours; Through Christ that, &c.
• II. The strength of a Christian, from Christ derived, is a kind of Omnipotency, sufficient for the whole duty of a Christian; Can do all things, &c.
• III. The strength and power being thus bestowed, the work is the work of a Christian, of the suppositum, the Man strengthened by Christ, I can do, &c.

Of these in this order, for the removing only of those prejudices out of the Brain, which may trash and encumber the practice of piety in the heart. And first of the first.

The strength of Christ is the Original and Fountain of all ours. The strength of Christ, and that peculiarly of Christ the second Person of the Trinity, who was appointed by consent, to negotiate for us in the business concerning our Souls. All our tenure or plea, to grace or glory, to depend not on any absolute, respectless, though free donation, but conveyed to us in the hand of a Mediator ; that Privy Seal of his annexed to the Patent, or else of no value at that Court of Pleas, or that Grand Assizes of Souls. Our Natural strength is the gift of God, as God is considered in the first Article of our Creed, and by that title of Creation, we have that privilege of all created substances, to be able to perform the work of nature, or else we should be inferior to the meanest creature in this; for the least stone in the street is able to move downwards by its own principle of nature: and therefore, all that we have need of, in the performing of these, is only God's concurrence, whether previous or simultaneous; and in acts of choice, the government and direction of our will, by his general providence and power. However, even in this Work of Creation, Christ must not be excluded, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 God's in the Plural, all the Persons of the Deity, in the whole work, and peculiarly in the Faciamus hominem, are adumbrated, if not mentioned by Moses. And therefore God is said to have made all by his Word, that inward, eternal Word in his bosom, an articulation, and, as it were, incarnation of which, was that fiat & factum est, which the Heathen Rhetorician so admired in Moses for a magnificent sublime expression. Yet [in] this Creation, and consequently this donation of natural strength, peculiarly imputed to the first Person of the Trinity ; because no personal act of Christ, either of his satisfaction or merit, of his humiliation or ex • ltation, did conduce to that; though the Son were consulted about it, yet was it not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , delivered to us in the hand of a Mediator. Our natural strength we have of God, without respect to Christ incarnate, without the help of his Mediation ; but that, utterly insufficient to bring us to Heaven, 2 Cor. iii.5. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything, i. e. saith Parisiensis, anything of moment or valor, according to the Dialect of Scripture, that calls the whole man by the name of his soul, (so many souls, i. e. so many men, and so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Pythagoreans word, thy soul is thou ) counts of nothing, but what tends to the salvation of that. But then our supernatural strength, that which is called Grace and Christian strength, that is of another date, of another tenure, of another allay; founded in the promise, actually exhibited in the death and exaltation of the Messias, and continually paid out to us, by the continued daily exercise of his Offices. 1. The Covenant sealed in his Blood, after the manner of Eastern Nations, as a counterpart of God's, to that which Abraham had sealed to before, in his Blood at his Circumcision. 2. The Benefits made over in that Covenant, were given up in numerato, with a kind of Livery and Seisin at his Exaltation ; which is the importance of that place, Ephes. iv.8. out of the lxviii. Psalm, Thou hast ascended on high ;] there is the date of it upon Christ 's inauguration to his Regal Office: Thou hast led captivity captive ;] there is the evidence of conveyance unto him, as a reward of his victory, and part of his triumph: Thou hast given gifts [or as the Psalm, received, Gifts for men ;] both importing the same thing, in divers relations, received from his Father, (all power is given to me) that he might give, dispense, convey, and steward it out to men; and so literally still, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the hand of a Mediator. And then, that which is thus made over to us, is not only the gift of Grace, the habit by which we are regenerate; but above that account, daily bublings out of the same Spring, minutely rays of this Sun of Righteousness, which differ from that gift of Grace, as the propagation of life from the first act of Conception, conservation from Creation ; that which was there done in a minute, is here done every minute; and so the Christian is still in fieri, not in facto esse ; or as a line which is an aggregate of infinite points, from a point in suo indivisibly ; the first called by the Schools, Auxilium gratiae per modum principii, the other Per modum concursus. And this is noted by the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , givings, Jam. i.17. neither 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as the Heathen called their virtues, as habits of their own acquiring; nor again so properly 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 gift • , because that proves a kind of tenure after the receipt, Data, eo tempore quo dantur, fiunt accipientis, saith the Law : but properly and critically 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , givings, Christ always a giving, confirming minutely, not our title, but his own gift ; or else that as minutely ready again to return to the crown : all our right and title to strength and power, is only from God's minutely donation. And the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the Present tense, implies, all depending on the perpetual presence and assistance of his strength. Hence is it, that Christ ▪ is called the Father of Eternity, Isai. ix.6. i. e. of the life to come ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , say the LXX, the age to come ) the state of Christians under the Gospel, and all that belongs to it; the Father ] which doth not only beget the Child, but educate, provide for, put in a course to live, and thrive, and deserves far more, for that he doth after the birth, than for the being itself; and therefore it is Proc • us his observation of Plato, that he calls God, in respect of all Creatures, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a Maker ; but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a Father, in respect of Man. And this the peculiar title of Christ, in respect of his Offices; not to be the Maker only, the Architect of that age to come, of grace and glory, but peculiarly the Father, which continues his Paternal Relation forever; yea, and the exercises of Paternal Offices, by the pedagogy of the Spirit, all the time of non-age, minutely adding and improving, and building him up to the measure and pitch of his own stature and fullness. And so again that sovereign Title of his Jesus, i. e. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Matt. i.21. this title and office of Physician, is peculiar to the second person, to repair the daily decays and ruins of the Soul, and not only to implant a Principle of health, but to maintain it by a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and confirm it minutely into an exact habit of Soul: and therefore, that Sun of righteousness is said to have his healing in his wings, i. e. in those rays which it minutely sends out, by which as on wings, this fountain of all inherent and imputed righteousness, of sanctifying and justifying Grace, takes its flight, and rests upon the Christian Soul; and this still peculiarly, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , not in God 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Christ ; In Christ that strengtheneth.

The not observing, or not acknowledging of which difference, between the gifts of God, and the gifts of Christ, the endowments of that first, and this second foundation, the hand of God, and the hand of a Mediator, is I conceive the ground of all those perplexing controversies about the strength of nature, and patrimony of grace. Pelagius very jealous and unwilling to part with his natural power, lest anything in the business of his Salvation should be accounted due unto God, they are his own words, if Jerome may be credited, Mihi nullus auferre poterit liberi arbitrii potestatem, ne si in operibus meis Deus adjutor extiterit, non mihi debeatur merces, sed ei qui in me operatus. Socinus again denying all merit and satisfaction of Christ, making all that but a Chimaera, and so evacuating or antiquating that old tenure by which we hold all our Spiritual Estate. The Romanists again, at least some of them, bestowing upon the blessed Virgin after Conception, such Jurisdiction in the temporal procession of the Holy Ghost, that no grace is to be had, but by her dispensing; that she the Mother, gives him that sends the Holy Ghost, and therefore gives all gifts, quibus vult, quomodo, quando, & per manus : that she is the neck to Christ the head, Cant. vii.4. and Sublato Virginis patrocinio, perinde ac halitu intercluso, peccator vivere diutius non potest : and store enough of such emasculate Theology as this. And yet others that maintain the quite contradictory to all these, acknowledging a necessity of supernatural strength to the attaining of our supernatural end, and then ask and receive this only, as from the hands and merits of Christ, without the mediation or jurisdiction of any other, are yet had in jealousy and suspicion as back-friends to the cause of God, and enemies to Grace, because they leave man any portion of that natural strength which was bestowed on him at his Creation. Whereas the limits of both of these being distinctly set, there may safely be acknowledged, first a natural power ; (or if you will call it natural grace, the Fathers will bear you out in the phrase; Illius est gratiae quod creatus est, St. Jerome; Gratia Dei quâ fecit nos, St. Austin ; and Crearis gratia, St. Bernard :) And that properly styled, the strength of God, but not of Christ, enabling us for the works of nature.

And then above this, is regularly superstructed the strength of Christ, special supernatural strength made over unto us, not at our first, but second birth; without which, though we are men, yet not Christians, Live, saith Clemens, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a kind of embryon, imperfect heathen, of a child in the womb, of the Gentile dark uncomfortable being, a kind of first draught, or ground colors only, and monogram of life: Though we have Souls, yet in relation to spiritual acts or objects, but weak consumptive cadaverous souls, (as 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Old Testament word for the Soul, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the 72, signifies, a carcass or dead body, Numb. v.2. and otherwhere:) and then, by this accession of this strength of Christ, this dead Soul revives into a kind of omnipotency ; the Pygmie is sprung up into a Giant, this languishing puling state improved into an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; he that even now was insufficient to think anything, is now able to do all things ; which brings me to my second Proposition,

The clearing of this truth from all difficulties or prejudices, will depend mainly on the right understanding of the predicate, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in my Text, or the whole duty of a Christian in the proposition: which two being of the same importance, the same hand will unravel them both. Now what is the whole duty of a Christian, but the adequate condition of the second Covenant? upon performance of which, salvation shall certainly be had, and without which, salvare nequeat ipsa si cupias salus, the very sufferings and saving mercies of Christ will avail us nothing. As for any Exercise of God's absolute Will, or Power, in this business of Souls under Christ's Kingdom, I think we may fairly omit to take it into consideration; for sure the New Testament will acknowledge no such phrase, nor I think, any of the Ancients that wrote in that language. Whereupon perhaps it will he worth observing, in the confession of the Religion of the Greek Church, subscribed by Cyril the present Patriarch of Constantinople, where having somewhat to do with this phrase, Of God's absolute Dominion so much talked on here in the West, he is much put to it to express it in Greek, and at last fain to do it by a word coined on purpose, a mere Latinism for the turn, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; an expression I think capable of no excuse but this, that a piece of new Divinity, was to be content with a barbarous phrase. Concerning this condition of the second Covenant, three things will require to be premised to our present inquiry;

1. That there is a Condition, and that an adequate one, of the same extent as the promises of the Covenant ; something exacted at our hands to be performed, if we mean to be the better for the demise of that Indenture; As many as received him, to them he gave power, &c. Joh. i.12. to these, and to none else, positively and exclusively: To him that overcometh will I give, Rev. ii.7. I have fought a good fight, &c. 2 Tim. iv.7. henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown ; then begins the title to the Crown, and not before: when the fight is fought, the course finished, the faith kept, then coelum rapiunt, God challenged on his righteousness as a Judge ; not on ground of it his absolute pleasure as a Lord, which will ; but upon supposition of a Pact or Covenant, which limits and directs the award and process, for according unto it God the righteous Judge shall give. And Mark xvi.16. in Christ's farewell speech to his Disciples, where he seals their Commission of Embassage and Preaching to every creature, He that believeth not, shall be damned ; this believing, whatever it signifies, is that condition here we speak of, and what it imports, you will best see by comparing it with the same passage set down by another Amanuensis, in the last verse of St. Matth. To observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : a belief, not of brain or fancy, but that of heart and practice, i. e. Distinctly Evangelical or Christian obedience, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in my Text, and the whole duty of a Christian in the proposition; which if a Christian by the help of Christ, be not able to perform, then consequently, he is still uncapable of Salvation by the second Covenant; no creature being now rescuable from Hell, stante pacto, but those that perform the condition of it, that irreversible Oath of God, which is always fulfilled in kind without relaxation, or commutation, or compensation of punishment, being already gone out against them; I have sworn in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest. And therefore when the end of Christ's mission is described, Joh. iii.17. That the world through him might be saved ; there is a shrewd [ But ] in the next verse, But he that believeth not, is condemned already : this was upon agreement between God and Christ, that the impenitent infidel should be never the better for it, should die unrescued in his old Condemnation. So that there is not only a logical possibility, but a moral necessity of the performing of this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or else no possibility of Salvation. And then, that reason of disannulling the old, and establishing the new Covenant, because there was no justification to be had by the old, rendered Gal. iii.21. would easily be retorted upon the Apostle thus, why, neither is any life or justification to be had by this second; the absurdity of which sequel being considered, may serve for one proof of the Proposition.

The second thing to be premised of this Condition is, that it is an immutable, unalterable, undispensable Condition. The 2 d. Covenant standing, this must also stand; that hath been proved already▪ because a condition adequate, and of the same latitude with the Covenant. But now secondly, this second, both Covenant and Condition, must needs stand an Everlasting Covenant, Ezek. xvi.60. No possibility of a change, unless upon an impossible supposition, there should remain some other fourth Person of the Deity to come into the world. The Tragic Poets, saith Tully, when they had over shot themselves in a desperate Plot, that would never come about, ad Deum confugiunt, they were fain to fly to a God, to lay that unruly spirit that their fancy had raised. Upon Adam's sin and breach of the Condition of the First Covenant, there was no possibility in the wit of man, in the sphere of the most Poetical fancy, Fabulae exitum explicare, to come off with a fair conclusion, had not the Second Person of the Trinity, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , come down in his tire, and personation of flesh, not in the stage Cloaths or Livery, but substantial form of a servant upon the stage. And he again having brought things into some possibility of an happy conclusion (though it cost him his life in the negotiation) leaves it at his departure in the trust of his vicegerent, the Spirit of his power, to go thorough with his beginnings; to see that performed (which only he left unperfected, as being our task, not his) the Condition of the Second Covenant. The Spirit then enters upon the work, dispatches Officers, Ambassadors to all Nations in the World, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to every creature, Mark xvi.15. And himself to the end of the World, goes along to back them in their Ministry : And then the next thing the Scripture tells us of, is the coming to Harvest, after this Seeds time, and he that believeth not, shall be damned ; and so that Sacred Canon is shut up.

The Issue of this second Praecognitum, is this; That if there still remain any difficulties, any impossibilities to be overcome; so they are like to remain forever, unless there be some other Person in the Godhead to be sent, to make up Pythagoras his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , there is no new way imaginable to be found out; and that perhaps is the reason of those peremptory denuntiations of Christ against them that sin against the Holy Ghost, against that administration of grace entrusted to him, that there shall be never any remission for them, in this world, or in another; i. e. Either by way of Justification here, or Glorification at that grand Manumission hereafter. And that may serve for a second proof of the Proposition, that if for all, the duty of a Christian is not feasible, it must remain so forever; an adumbration thereof you may see set down Heb. x. comparing the 16. with the 26. verse. In the 16. you have the Second Covenant described, and the condition of it in the Verses following; and then Vers. 26. if after this we sin willfully, then our estate becomes desperate, There remains no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation ; and he that takes not then quarter, accounted an adversary forever: the Apostate, whether he renounce his faith in fact or profession, must be a Cast away.

The third thing to be premised is, Wherein this condition of the second Covenant consists ; and that is not in any rigor of legal performance, (that was the bloody purport of that old obligation, that soon concluded us all under death irreversibly;) not in any Egyptian Pharaoh 's task, a full tale of Bricks, without Straw, without any materials to make them; no Pharisaical burden laid on heavy, and no finger to help to bear it; but an easy yoke, a light burden, Mat. xi.30. and not only light, but alleviating: he that was laden before, is the lighter for this yoke, Vers. 29. Take my yoke, and you shall find rest. And therefore Christ thinks reasonable, not to lay the yoke upon them as an injunction (as the worldly fashion is) but to commend it to them, as a thing that any prudent man would be glad to take up, in the beginning of the Verse, Take my yoke upon you.

In a word, it consists in the embracing of Christ in all his Offices, the whole Person of Christ ; but especially as he is typically described in Zacharias, a crowned Jesus, a Priest upon a Throne ; his Scepter joined to his Ephod, to rule and receive tribute, as well as sacrifice, and satisfy, and reconcile: Consilium pacis inter ambo ea, those two Offices of his reconciled in the same, our Priest become our King, That being delivered, we may serve him (in the other Zechariah 's phrase, Delivered without fear, serve him) in holiness and righteousness: the performance of that duty that Christ enables to perform; the sincerity of the honest heart; the doing what our Christian strength will reach to, and humbly setting the rest on Christ's score. And then, when that which can be done, is sure to be accepted, there is no room left for pretended impossibilities. Nay, because those things which there is a Logical possibility for us to do, and strength sufficient suppeditated, it is not yet morally possible to do all our lives long, without any default; because, as Parisiensis saith, even the habit of Grace, in the regenerate heart, is, as long as a man carries flesh about him, as an armed man positus in lubrico, set to fight in a slippery place, all his armor and valor will not secure him from a fall; or again, as the General of a Factious or false-hearted Army, a party of insidious flesh at home, which will betray to the weaker enemy that comes unanimous; or as a Warriour on a tender mouthed horse, impatient of Discipline, or check, is fetched over sometimes for all his strength and armor: because, I say, there is none but offend sometimes, even against his power; there is therefore bound up in this new Volume of Ordinances, an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a New Testament, a Codicil of Repentance, added to the Testament ; that Plank for Shripwrackt souls, that City of Refuge, that Sanctuary for the Man-slayer, after sin committed. And then, if sincere obedience be all that is required; and that exclude no Christian living, be he never so weak, but the false, faithless Hypocrite ; if repentance will repair the faults of that; and that exclude none but him, that lives and dies indulgent in sin, the common prostitute, final impenitent infidel: If whatsoever be wanting, be made over in the demise of the Covenants ; and whatsoever we are enabled to do, accepted in the condition of it; then certainly no man that advises with these premisses, and so, understands what is the meaning of the duty, can ever doubt any longer of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Omnipotence of the Christian, his sufficiency from Christ to perform his whole duty: Which is the sum of the conclusion of the second Arausican Council held against Pelagius, c. ult. Secundum fidem Catholicam credimus, quod acceptâ per Baptismum gratiâ omnes Baptizati, Christo auxiliante & cooperante, quae ad salutem pertinent, possint & debeant (si fideliter laborare voluerint) adimplere. The not observing of which, is, I conceive, the fomenter of all that unkindly heat of those involved disputes, whether a regenerate man in viâ, can fulfil the Law of God ; of that collision concerning merits, concerning venial and mortal sin, justification by works, or Faith, or both; all which upon the grounds premised, will to any intelligent sober Christian, a friend of truth, and a friend of peace, be most evidently composed. To bring down this thesis to these several Hypotheses, this time or place will not permit; I shall be partial to this part of my Text, if I pass not, with full speed, to that which remains; the third Proposition.

I, not I alone, abstracted from Christ, nor I principally, and Christ only in Subsidiis, to facilitate that to me which I was not quite able thoroughly to perform without help, (which deceitful consideration drew on Pelagius himself, that was first only for nature, at last to take in one after another, five Subsidiaries more; but only as so many horses to draw together in the Chariot with nature, being so pursued by the Councils and Fathers, from one hold to another, till he was at last almost deprived of all; acknowledging, saith St. Austin, Divinae gratiae adjutorium ad posse ; and then, had not the Devil stuck close to him at the exigence, and held out at the velle & operari, he might have been in great danger to have lost an Heretic: ) But I ] absolutely impotent in myself to any supernatural duty, being then wrapped above myself, strengthened by Christ's perpetual influence, having all my strength and ability from him, am then by that strength able to do all things myself. As in the old Oracle, the God inspired and spake in the ear of the Prophet, and then the Vates spoke under from thence, called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , echoed out that voice aloud, which he had received by whisper, a kind of Scribe, or Cryer, or Herald, to deliver out as he was inspired: The principal, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a God, or Oracle ; the Prophet, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , an inspired Enthusiast, dispensing out to his credulous clients, all that the Oracle did dictate; or as the Earth, which is cold and dry in its elementary constitution, and therefore bound up to a necessity of perpetual barrenness, having neither of those two procreative faculties, heat or moisture in its composition; but then by the beams of the Sun, and neighbourhood of Water, or to supply the want of that, rain from Heaven to satisfy its thirst, this cold dry Element begins to teem, carries many Mines of treasure in the Womb, many granaries of fruit in its surface, and in event, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , contributes all that we can crave, either to our need, or luxury. Now though all this be done by those foreign aids, as principal, nay sole efficients of this fertility in the earth to conceive, and of its strength to bring forth; yet the work of bringing forth is attributed to the Earth, Heb. vi.7. as to the immediate parent of all. Thus it is God's work 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith Cyril, to plant and water, and that he doth mediately by Apollos and Paul : yea, and to give the increase, that belongs to him immediately; neither to Man, nor Angel, but only ad Agricolam Trinitatem, saith St. Austin ; but after all this, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , though God give the increase, thou must bring forth the fruit. The Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary, and she was found with child, Mat. i.18. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , she was found; no more attributed to her; the Holy Ghost the principal, nay sole agent in the work, and she a pure, Virgin still: and yet Luk. i.31. 'tis the Angels Divinity, That Mary shall conceive and bring forth a Son. All the efficiency from the Holy Ghost, and partus ventrem, the work attributed, and that truly to Mary, the subject in whom it was wrought; and therefore is she called by the Ancients not only officina miraculorum, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The shop of Miracles, and The Work-house of the Holy Ghost, (as the Rhetoric of some have set it) but by the Councils, (that were more careful in their phrases) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , not only the Conduit through which he past, but the Parent of whose substance he was made. And thus in the production of all Spiritual Actions, the principal sole-efficient of all, is Christ, and His Spirit ; all that is conceived in us, is of the Holy Ghost: The holy Principle, holy Desire, holy Action, the posse, & velle, & operari, all of him, Phil. ii.12. But then, being so overshadowed, the Soul itself conceives; being still assisted, carries in the Womb; and by the same strength, at fullness of time, as opportunities do midwife them out, brings forth Christian Spiritual Actions; and then as Mary was the Mother of God, so the Christian Soul is the Parent of all its Divine Christian Performances; Christ the Father, that enables with his Spirit ; and the Soul the Mother, that actually brings forth.

And now that we may begin to draw up towards a conclusion, Two things we may raise from hence by way of inference to our Practice.

1. Where all the Christians non-proficiency is to be charged, either 1. Upon the Habitual Hardness, or 2. The Sluggishness, or 3. The Rankness of his own wretchless heart.

1. Hardness, That for all the seed that is sown▪ the softening dew that distils, and rain that is poured down, the enlivening influences that are dispensed among us, yet the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the hardness and toughness of the Womb, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that dry unnutrifying Earth in the Philosopher 's, or in Christ's dialect, stony ground, resists all manner of Conception, will not be hospitable, yield any entertainment, even to these Angelical guests, though they come as to Lot 's house in Sodom, only to secure the owner from most certain destruction. This is the reason that so much of God's Husbandry among us, returns him so thin, so unprofitable an Harvest, ceciderunt in petrosa ; and 'tis hard finding any better tillage nowadays; the very Holy Land, the milk and honey of Canaan, is degenerate, they say, into this Composition; and herein is a marvelous thing, that where God hath done all that any man, if it were put to his own partial judgment, would think reasonable for him to do for his Vineyard, gathered out stones, those seeds of natural hardness; and which deserves to be marked, built a Wine-press, Isa. v.2. a sure token that he expected a Vintage in earnest, not only mannered for fashion, or to leave them without excuse; yet for all these, Labruscas, wild, juiceless Grapes, heartless Faith, unseasoned Devotion, intemperate Zeal, blind and perverse Obedience, that under that name shall disguise and excuse Disobedience; tot genera labruscarum, so many wild unsavory fruits, is the best return he can hear of.

One thing more let me tell you; 'It is not the original hardness of Nature, to which all this can be imputed; for, for the mollifying of that, all this gardening was bestowed; digging and gathering out, and indeed nothing more ordinary, than, out of such stones to raise up children unto Abraham: But 'tis the long habit and custom of sin, which hath harrast out the Soul, congealed that natural gravel, and improved it into a perfect quarry or mine; and 'tis not the Preachers Charm, the Annunciation of the Gospel, that Power of God unto Salvation, unto a Jew or Heathen ; 'tis not David 's Harp, (that could exorcise the evil Spirit upon Saul, ) not the every day eloquence, even of the Spirit of God, that can in holy Esdras his phrase, persuade them to salvation.

2. Sluggishness, and inobservances of God's seasons and opportunities, and seed-times of Grace. God may appear a thousand times, and not once find us in case to be parlyed with: Christ comes but thrice to his Disciples from his Prayers in the Garden, and that thrice he finds them asleep, Mat. xxvi. Christ can be awake to come, and that in a more pathetical language, Sic non potuistis horâ unâ, as the vulgar most fully out of the Greek; Were you so unable to watch one hour? The Pharisee can be awake to Plot, Judas to betray, their joint Vigils and Proparasceve to that grand Passover, the slaying of the Lamb of God, and only the Disciples they are asleep, for their eyes were heavy, saith the Text; and this heaviness of eyes, and heaviness of heart (whereupon 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the LXXII. is ordinarily set for sinners) is the depriving us many times, not only of Christ, but of his Spirit too. So many apologies, and excuses to him when he calls; A little more sleep and slumber, and folding of the hands: Such drowsy-hearted slovenly usage when he comes, that no wonder if we grieve him out of our houses: such contentedness in our present servile estate, that if a Jubilee should be proclaimed from Heaven, a general Manumission of all servants from these Gallies of sin, we would be ready with those servants for whom Moses makes a provision, to come and tell him plainly, We will not go out free, be bored through the ear to be slaves forever, Ex. xxi.6.

3. Rankness, and a kind of spiritual sin of Sodom; Pride and fullness of bread, abusing the Grace of God into wantonness ; either to the ostentatious setting themselves out before men, or else the feeding themselves up to that high flood of spiritual pride and confidence, that it will be sure to impostumate in the soul. Some men have been fain to be permitted to sin, for the abating this humor in them, by way of phlebotomy ; St. Peter, I think, is an example of that. Nebuchadnezzar was turned a grazing, to cure his secular Pride; and St. Paul, I am sure, had a Messenger sent to him to that purpose, by way of prevention, that he might not be exalted above measure; and when he thought well of it, he receives it as a Present sent him from Heaven, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , reckons of it as a gift of Grace, or if you will, a medicinal dose, or recipe, but rather a plaster, or outward application, which per antiperistasin would drive in his spiritual heat, and so help his weak digestion of grace, make him the more thriving Christian forever after.

The Issue of this first Inference is this, That 'tis not God 's partial or niggardly dispensing of Grace; but either our unpreparedness to receive, or preposterous giddiness in making use of it, which is the cause either of Consumptions, or Aposthume in the Soul, either starving or surfeiting the Christian.

The second Inference, how all the Christians diligence is to be placed; what he hath to do in this wayfare to his home: And that is the same that all Travelers have, first, to be always upon his feet, advancing minutely something toward his next stage. See that we be employed, or else how can God assist; we must 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or else he cannot 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; and see that we be employed aright, or else God must not, cannot assist. The Sluggards devotions can never get into God's presence; they want heat and spirit to lift them up, and activity to press and enforce them, when they are there. It was an impression in the very Heathen, Porcius Cato in the History, That watching, and acting, and advising aright, and not emasculate womanish supplications alone, were the means, whereby God's help is obtained, Ubi socordiae atque ignaviae tradideris, frustra Deos implores. And Jerome to the same purpose, That their sacrifices are but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , food for the fire to devour; and their richest offerings to the Temple, but a spoil to the sacrilegious to prey on: And the sinners devotions must not be entertained there; they would even profane that holy place. He that was born blind, saw thus much, Joh. ix.31. Now we know that God heareth not sinners; but if any be a worshipper of God, and doth his will, him doth God hear.

And then secondly, to get furnished, whatever it cost him, of all provision and directions for his way; and so this will conclude in a double Exhortation, both combined in that of David to Solomon, 1 Chron. xxii.16. when all materials were laid in, and Artificers provided for the building of the Temple, and wanted nothing but a cheerful Leader to actuate and enliven them, Arise therefore and be doing, and 〈◊〉 Lord be with thee.

1. To set about the business as thine own work, as the task that will not be required of the Spirit of God, of the Scripture, of the Preacher, but of thee. When it is performed, thou wouldst be loath that God should impute all to himself, crown his own Graces, Ordinances, Instruments, and leave thee as a cypher unrewarded: And therefore, whilst it is a performing, be content to believe, that somewhat belongs to thee, that thou hast some hardship to undergo, some diligence to maintain, some evidences of thy good husbandry, thy wise managing of the Talent ; and in a word, of faithful service to show here, or else when the Euge bone serve is pronounced, thou wilt not be able, confidently to answer to thy name. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , said the Milesians to Brutus. All the Weapons in the world will not defend the man, unless the man actuate; and fortify, and defend his weapons. Thy strength consists all in the strength of Christ, but you will never walk, or be invulnerable in the strength of that, till you be resolved, That the good use (and so the strength of that strength to thee) is a work that remains for thee. If it were not, that Exhortation of the Apostles, would never have been given in form of Exhortation to the Christian, but of Prayer only to Christ, Stand fast, quit yourselves like men, be strong, 1 Cor. xvi.13.

Lastly, Or indeed that which must be both first and last, commensurate to all our diligence, the Viaticum that you must carry with you, is the Prayers of humble gasping Souls: Humble, in respect of what grace is received; Be sure not to be exalted with that consideration: Gasping for what supply may be obtained from that eternal unexhausted Fountain ; and these Prayers not only, that God will give, but, as Josephus makes mention of the Jews Liturgy, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , That they may receive ; And as Porphyry, of one kind of Sacrifice, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , That they may use ; and every of us fructify in some proportion answerable to our irrigation.

Now the God of all Grace, who hath called us into his eternal glory in Christ Jesus; after that you have obeyed a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

To him, be glory and dominion, forever and ever. Amen.

SERMON III.

T Hat Christ is the best, and Satan the worst chosen Master, is one of the weightiest, and yet least considered Aphorisms of the Gospel. Were we but so just and kind to ourselves, as actually to pursue what upon judgment should appear to be most for our interests, even in relation to this present life; And (without making Heaven the principle of our motion) but only think never the worse of a worldly temporary bliss, not quarrel against it, for being attended with an eternal: Were we but patient of so much sobriety and consideration, as calmly to weigh and ponder what course, in all probability, were most likely to be friend and oblige us here, to make good its promise of helping us to the richest acquisitions, the vastest possessions and treasures of this life; I am confident, our Christ might carry it from all the World besides, our Savior from all the tempters and destroyers; and (besides so many other considerable advantages) this superlative transcendent one, of giving us the only right to the reputation and title of Wisdom here in these Books, be acknowledged the Christians, i. e. the Disciples monopoly and inclosure; And Folly, the due brand and reproach and portion of the ungodly.

The wisest Man, beside Christ, that was ever in the World, you may see by the Text, had this notion of it, brings in Wisdom by a prosopopeiae (i. e. either Christ himself, or the saving Doctrine of Heaven, in order to the regulating of our lives; or again, Wisdom in the ordinary notion of it) libelling and reproaching the folly of all the sorts of sinners in the World, posting from the [ without in the streets ] Vers. 10. to the Assemblies of the greatest renown, [ the chief place of concourse,] i. e. clearly their Sanhedrin, or great Council, in the 21. from thence to the places of judicature ; for that is [ the openings of the gates ;] nay, to [ the City ] 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Metropolis and glory of the Nation ; and crying out most passionately, most bitterly against all in the loudest language of contumely and satyre, that ever Pasquin or Marforius were taught to speak: And the short of it is, That the pious Christian is the only tolerably wise; and the World of unchristian sinners, are a company of the most wretched, simple, Atheistical fools, which cannot be thought on, without a Passion, and Inculcation, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? And ye scorners, &c.

The first part of this Verse, though it be the cleanest of three expressions, hath yet in it abundantly enough of rudeness, for an address to any civil Auditory: I shall therefore contain my discourse within those stanchest limits, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? And in them observe only these three particulars;

1. The character of the ungodly man's condition, contained in these two expressions, Simple ones, and simplicity; How long, ye simple, &c.

2. The aggravation of the simplicity, and so heightening of the character, and that by two farther considerations,

First, From their loving of that which was so unlovely, That they should be so simple as to love simplicity.

Secondly, From their continuance in it, that they should not at length discern their error, That they should love simplicity so long.

3. The passion that it produceth in the speaker (be it Wisdom, or be it Christ, or be it Solomon) to consider it; and that passion, whether of pity, That men should be such fools; or of indignation, That they should love and delight in it so long, How long, &c.

I begin first with the first, The character of sin and sinners, i. e. of the ungodly man's condition, contained in these two expressions, Simple ones, and simplicity; How, &c.

Four notions we may have of these words, which will all be appliable to this purpose: You shall see them as they rise.

First, As the calling one simple, is a word of reproach, or contumely; the very same with the calling one 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Matth. v. i. e. Empty, brainless person, the next degree to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or thou fool, in the end of that and this Verse. And then the thing that we are to observe from thence, is, What a reproachful thing an unchristian life is; what a contumelious, scandalous quality.

A reproach to Nature first, to our human kind, which was an honorable reverend thing in Paradise, before sin came in to humble and defame it; a solemn, severe Law-giver, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Clemens, the System or Pandect of all Rational notions, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that either likes or commends all that now Christ requires of us, bears witness to the Word of God that all his Commandments are righteous; and so is by our unnatural sins, those 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ignoble dishonorable affections of ours (which have coupled together Sins and Kennels, Adulterers and Dogs, Rev. xxii.15.) put to shame and rebuke, dishonored and degraded, as it were. Not all the ugliness and poison of the toad, hath so deformed that kind of creatures, brought it so low in genere entium, as the deformed malignant condition of sin hath brought down the very nature and kind of men, making them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the children, i. e. the objects of all the wrath, and hatred in the World.

2. A reproach to our Souls, those immortal vital Creatures inspired into us by Heaven, and now raised higher, superinspir'd by the Grace of Christ ; which are then, as Mezentius 's invention of punishment, bound up close with a Carkase of Sin, tormented and poisoned with its stench, buried in that noysomest Vault, or Carnel-house. 'Twas an admirable golden saying of the Pythagoreans, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; what a restraint of sin it would be, if a man would remember the reverence he ought unto himself; and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , was their own explication of it; the Soul within thee is that self, to whom all that dread, and awe, and reverence is due. And O what an impudent affront, what an irreverential profaning of that sacred Celestial Beam within thee (that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as the Philosophers call it) is every paltry Oath, or Rage, or Lust, that the secure sinner is so minutely guilty of! Every sin, say the Schools, being in this respect a kind of Idolatry, an incurvation and prostitution of that Heavenly Creature (ordained to have nothing but Divinity in its prospect) to the meanest, vilest Heathen Worship, the Crocodile, the Cat, the Scarabee, the Dii Stercorei, the most noisesome abominations under Heaven.

3. A reproach to God, who hath owned such scandalous Creatures, hath placed us in a degree of Divinity next unto Angels ; nay to Christ, that by assuming that nature, and dying for it, hath made it emulate the Angelical Eminence, and been in a manner liable to the censure of partiality in so doing, in advancing us so unworthily, dignifying us so beyond the merit of our behaviours, honoring us so unproportionably above what our actions can own, Whilst those that are in scarlet, embrace the dunghill, as it is in the Lamentations, those that are honored by God, act so dishonourably. 'Twas Plato 's affirmation of God in respect of men, that he was a Father, when of all other Creatures he was but a Maker ; and 'tis Arian 's superstruction on that, that remembering that we are the Sons of God, we should never admit any base degenerous thought, anything reproachful to that stock, unworthy of the grandeur of the Family from whence we are extracted: If we do, it will be more possible for us to profane, and embase Heaven, than for the reputation of that Parentage of ours, to ennoble us; the scandal that such a degenerous, disingenuous Progeny, will bring on the house from whence we came, is a kind of Sacrilege to Heaven, a violation to those sacred mansions, a proclaiming to the World, what colonies of polluted Creatures came down from thence, though there be a nulla retrorsum, no liberty for any such to return thither.

Lastly, 'It is a reproach to the very Beasts, and the rest of the Creation, which are designed by God, the servants and slaves of sinful Man; which may justly take up the language of the slave to his vicious Master in the Satirist, Tune mihi Dominus? Art thou my Lord, who art so far a viler Bond-slave, than those over whom thou tyrannizest? a slave to thy Passion, thy Lust, thy Fiends; who hast so far dethroned thyself, that the beast becomes more beast, when it remembers thee to have any degree of sovereignty over it.

Put these four Notions together, and 'twill give you a view of the first intimation of this Text, the baseness and reproachfulness of the sinners course; and unless he be the most abject, wretchless, forlorn sot in the whole Creation, unless he be turned all into earth, or phlegm ; if he hath in his whole Composition, one spark of Ambition, of Emulation, of ordinary sense of Honor; the least warmth of Spirit; impatience of being, the only degenerous wretch of the Earth now, and of Hell to all Eternity; if he be not absolutely arrived to Arian 's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (his practical as well as judicative faculty, quite quarr'd and petrifi'd within him) to that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the Gospel, that direct ferity and brutality, in comparison of which, the most crest-fallen numness, palsy or lethargy of Soul, were Dignity and Preferment ; if he be not, all that is deplorable already, and owned to be so forever; he will certainly give one vital spring, one last plunge, to recover some part of the Honor and Dignity of his Creation ; break off that course that hath so debased him, precipitated him into such an abyss of filth and shame, if it be but in pity to the Nature, the Soul, the God, the whole Creation about him; that like the seven importunate Women, Isai. iv.1. lay hold on this one insensate person, in the eager clamorous style of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 take away our reproach. And let that serve for a first part of the Sinners Character, the consideration of his reproachful, scandalous, offensive state, which might in all reason work some degree of good on him, in the first place.

A second Notion of this Phrase, and degree of this Character, is the giddiness and unadvisedness of the Sinners Course; as simplicity ordinarily signifies sencelesness, precipitousness, as Trismegistus defines it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a species of madness in one place, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a kind of drunkenness in another, a wild irrational acting; and this doth express itself in our furious mischieving ourselves, in doing all quite contrary unto our own ends, our own aims, our own principles of action: and this you will see most visible in the particulars, in every motion, every turn of the sinners life. As

1. In his malices, wherein he breaths forth such Aetna 's of flames against others, you may generally mark it, he hurts neither God nor man, but only himself. In every such hellish breathing, all that malignity of his cannot reach God ; he is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , untemptable by evil in this other sense, I mean impenetrable by his malice; All that was shot up towards God, comes down immediately on the sinners own head: And for the Man against whom he is enraged, whose blood he thirsts after, whose ruin he desires, he does him the greatest courtesy in the World, he is but blest by those curses; that honorable blissful estate that belongs to all poor persecuted Saints, (and consequently, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , matter of joy and exultation ) is hereby become his portion ; and that is the reason he is advised to do good to him by way of gratitude, to make returns of all civility and acknowledgments, not as to an Enemy, but a benefactor, to bless and pray for him by whom he hath been thus obliged: Only this raving mad-man 's own Soul is that against which all these blows and malices rebound; the only true sufferer all this while; first, in the very meditating and designing the malice, all which space he lives not the life, but the Hell of a Fiend or Devil (that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that enemy-man, as he is called) his names-sake, and parallel: and again secondly, in the executing of it; that being one of the basest, and most dishonorable employments; that of an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , an Angel or Officer of Satan 's, (to buffet some precious Image of God ) which is to that purpose filled out of Satan's fullness, swoln with all the venomous humor that that fountain can afford to furnish and accommodate him for this enterprise: and then lastly, after the satiating of his wrath, a bloated, guilty, unhappy Creature, one that hath fed at the Devils table, swill'd and glutted himself in blood, and now betrays it all in his looks and complexion.

And as in our malices, so, Secondly, in our loves, in our softer as well as our rougher passions, we generally drive quite contrary to our own ends and interests; and if we obtain, we find it experimentally, the enjoyment of what we pursue most vehemently, proves not only unsatisfactory, but grating, hath to the vanity, the addition of vexation also; not only the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 no manner of fruit, then at the point of enjoying an empty paltry nothing, but over and above, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , shame, and perturbation of mind (the gripings and tormina of a confounded Conscience) immediately consequent; and 'twould even grieve an enemy to hear the Apostle go on to the dear payment at the close, for this sad nothing, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ex abundanti, and over and above, the end of those things, is death. And oh what a simplicity is this! thus to seek out emptiness and death, when we think we are on one of our advantageous pursuits, in this error of our ways, as the Wise man calls it, is sure, a most prodigious mistake, a most unfortunate error; and to have been guilty of it more than once, the most unpardonable simplicity.

From our loves, proceeding to our hopes ; which if it be any but the Christian hope, than this hope on him, 1 John iii.3. i. e. hope on God, and that joined with purifying, it is in plain terms the greatest contrariety to itself, the perfectest desperateness; and for secular hopes, the expectation of good, of advantages from this or that staff of Egypt, the depending on this, whether profane, or but ordinary innocent auxiliary, 'tis the forfeiting all our pretensions to that great aid of Heaven (as they say, the Loadstone draweth not, when the Adamant is near) 'tis the taking us off from our grand trust and dependence, setting us up independent from God; and that must needs be the blasting of all our enterprises; that even lawful aid of the Creature, if it be looked on with any confidence as our helper, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Rom. i. beside, or in separation from the Creator, is (and God is engaged in honor, that it should be) struck presently from Heaven, eaten up with worms like Herod, when once its good qualities are deified; broken to pieces with the brazen Serpent, burnt and stamped to powder with the golden Calf : and the strong shall be as tow, Isa. i.31. the false Idol strength is but a prize for a flash of lightning to prey on. And as St. Paul and Barnabas are fain to run in a passion upon the multitude, that meant to do them worship, with a Men and Brethren, &c. and the very Angel to St. John, in Rev. xxii. when he fell down before him, vide ne feceris, see thou do it not; for fear if he had been so mistaken by him, he might have forfeited his Angelical estate by that unluckiness; so certainly the most honorable promising earthly help, if it be once looked on with a confidence, or an adoration; if it steal off our eyes and hearts one minute from that sole waiting and looking on God; 'tis presently to expect a being thunder-struck from Heaven, as hath been most constantly visible among us; and that is all we get by this piece of simplicity also.

And it were well, when our worldly hopes have proved thus little to our advantage; our worldly fears, in the next place, might bring us in more profit. But alas! that passionate perturbation of our faculties, stands us in no stead, but to hasten and bring our fears upon us, by precipitating them sometimes, casting ourselves into that abyss which we look on with such horror, running out to meet that danger which we would avoid so vehemently; sometimes dispiriting and depriving us of all those succors which were present to our rescue; the passion most treacherously betraying the aids which reason, if it had been allowed admission, was ready to have offered ; but perpetually anticipating that misery, which is the thing we fear, the terror itself being greater disease sometimes, constantly a greater reproach and contumely to a Masculine Spirit, than any of the evils we are so industrious to avoid. 'It is not a matter of any kind of evil report, really to have suffered, to have been squeez'd to atoms by an unremediable evil, especially if it be for well-doing; but to have been sick of the fright, to have lavish'd our constancy, courage, conscience, and all, an Indian sacrifice to a Sprite or Mormo, ne noceat, to escape not a real evil, but only an apprehension, or terror; this is a piece of the most destructive wariness, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the greatest simplicity that can be.

I shall not enlarge the prospect any further, as easily I might, to our Unchristian Joys, that do so dissolve, our Unchristian Sorrows, that do so contract and shrivel up the Soul; (and then as Themison, and his old sect of Methodists resolved, that the laxum and strictum, the immoderate dissolution or constipation, were the principles and originals of all diseases in the World, so it will be likely to prove in our spiritual estate also:) nor again, to our heathenish 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , rejoicing at the Mischiefs of other men; (which directly transform us into fiends and furies, and reak no malice on any but ourselves, leave us a wasted, wounded, prostitute, harrast Conscience, to tire and gnaw upon Its own bowels, and nothing else.) I have exercised you too long with so trivial a subject, such an easy every days demonstration, the wicked man's contradictions to all his aims, his acting quite contrary to his very designs, a second branch of his Character, a second degree and advancement of his simplicity.

The Third notion of Simplicity, is that of the Idiot, the Natural, as we call him, he that hath some eminent failing in his intellectuals, the laesum principium, the pitcher or wheel, in that 12. of Ecclesiastes, I mean the faculty of understanding, or reason, broken or wounded at the fountain or cistern ; and so nothing but animal, sensitive actions to be had from him. And of this kind of imperfect Creatures, it will be perhaps worth your marking, that the principal faculty which is irrecoverably wanting in such, and by all teaching irreparable and unimproveable, is the power of numbering ; I mean not that of saying numbers by rote, (for that is but an act of sensitive memory) but that of applying them to matter, and from thence that of intellectual numbering, i. e. of comparing and measuring, judging of proportions, pondering, weighing, discerning the differences of things by the power of the judicative faculty ; which two, seem much more probably the propriety and difference of a man from a beast, than (that which the Philosophers have fancied) the power of laughing or discoursing. To reckon and compute, is that which in men of an active clear reason, is perpetually in exercising per modum actus eliciti, that naturally of its own accord, without any command or appointment of the Will, pours itself out upon every object: we shall oft deprehend ourselves numbering the panes in the Window, the sheep in the Field; measuring everything we come near with the eye, with the hand; singing Tunes, forming everything into some kind of metre (which are branches still of that faculty of numbering) when we have no kind of end or design in doing it. And this is of all things in the world, the most impossible for a mere Natural or Idiot. And so you have here the third, and that is the prime, most remarkable degree of simplicity, that the unchristian fool, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , whether you render it the animal or natural man, is guilty of; that piteous laesum principium, that want of the faculty of weighing, pondering, or numbering; that weakness, or no kind of exercise of the judicative faculty, from whence all his simplicity and impiety proceeds. The Hebrews have a word to signify a wise man, which hath a near affinity with that of weighing and pondering 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which hath no difference in sound from that which signifies ponderavit, whence the Schecle, the known Hebrew word is deduced, to note as the Psalmist saith, that he that is wise, will ponder things. All the folly and Unchristian Sin, comes from want of pondering; and all the Christian Wisdom, Piety, Discipleship, consists in the exercise of this faculty. Whatsoever is said most honourably of Faith in Scripture, that sets it out in such a grandeur, as the greatest designer and author of all the high acts of Piety, Heb. xi. and as the Conqueror over the World, 1 John v.4. is clearly upon this score, as Faith is the Spiritual Wisdom, or Prudence ; (for so it is best defined) and as by comparing, and proportioning, and weighing together the Promises, or the Commands, or the Terrors of the Gospel on one side, with the Promises, the Prescriptions, and Terrors of the World on the other, it pronounces that Hand-writing on the Wall against the latter of them, the Mene tekel upharsin. They are weighed in the balance, and found most pitifully light, in comparison of those which Christ hath to weigh against them; and so the Kingdom, the usurped Supremacy (that they have so long pretended to in the inconsiderate simple precipitous world) is by a just judgment, torn and departed from them.

Will you begin with the Promises, and have but the patience a while to view the Scales, and when you have set the Beam even, removed the carnal or secular prejudices (which have so possessed most of us, that we can never come to a right balancing of anything; the beam naturally inclines still as our customary wonts and prepossessions will have it:) when, I say, you have set the beam impartially, throw but into one scale the Promises of Christ, those of his present, of his future bliss; of present, Such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man to conceive, 1 Cor. ii.9. prepared for them that love God, and that at the very minute of loving him (the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , referring to the manna of old; the Hebrew deduced from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 praeparavit, and therefore described by the Author of the Book of Wisdom, according to that literal denotation of the Hebrew, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , bread baked, as it were, and sent down ready from heaven, to the true Israelite ) the gust of every Christian duty, being so pleasurable and satisfactory to the palate, as it were, of our human nature, so consonant to every rational soul, that it cannot practice, or taste, without being truly joyed and ravished with it: and so that which was the Israelites feast, the Quails and Manna, being become the Christians every day ordinary diet, you will allow that to be of some weight or consideration, if there were nothing else but that present festival of a good conscience in the scale before you: but when to that, you have farther cast in the glory, honor, immortality,