Works Volume 4

IT is observable from History with what difficulty Religion attempts to propagate, and establish itself with the many: what Countenance and encouragement it hath required from those things which are most specious, and pompous in the World: how it hath been fain to keep its dependencies and correspondencies, and submit to the poor condition of sustaining itself by those beggarly helps which the World and the flesh will afford it. Two main Pillars which it relies on, are Power and Learning, the Camp and the Schools, or in a word, authority of great ones, and countenance of Scholars; the one to force and extort obedience, the other to insinuate belief and assent; the first to ravish, the second to persuade. One instance for all: if we would plant Christianity in Turkey, we must first invade and conquer them, and then convince them of their follies: which about an hundred years ago Cleonard proposed to most Courts of Christendom, (and to that end himself studied Arabic) that Princes would join their strength, and Scholars their Brains, and all surprise them in their own land and language, at once besiege the Turk and his Alcoran, put him to the Sword, and his Religion to the touchstone; command him to Christianity with an high hand, and then to show him the reasonableness of our commands. Thus also may we complain, but not wonder, that the Reformation gets ground so slow in Christendom, because the Forces and potent Abettors of the Papacy, secure them from being led captive to Christ; as long as the Pope is riveted so fast in his Chair, and as long as the Rulers take part with him, there shall be no doubt of the truth of their Religion; unless it please God to back our arguments with steel, and to raise up Kings and Emperors to be our Champions, we may question, but never confute his supremacy. Let us come with all the power and Rhetoric of Paul and Barnabas, all the demonstrations of reason and spirit, yet as long as they have such Topics against us, as the authority of the Rulers and Pharisees, we may dispute out our hearts, and preach out our Lungs, and gain no Proselytes: all that we shall get, is but a scoff and a Curse, a Sarcasm and an Anathema, in the words next after my Text, This people which know not the law, are cursed, there is no heed to be taken to such poor contemptible Fellows. To bring all home to the business of the Text, Let Christ come with all the enforcement, and violence and conviction of his Spirit, sublimity of his Speech and Miracles, all the power of Rhetoric, and Rhetoric of his power, so that all that see or hear, bear witness that never man spake as this man, yet all this shall be accounted but a delusion, but an enchantment of some seduced Wretches, unless the great men, or deep Scholars will be pleased to Countenance them. And 'tis much to be feared, they are otherwise possessed, and rather than this shall not be followed, Christ shall be left alone; rather than they shall speak in vain, the Word itself shall be put to silence : and if they which were appointed to take and bring him to judgment, shall be caught by him they came to apprehend, and turn their accusations into reverence, the Pharisees will not be without their reply, they are Doctors in the Law, and therefore for a need, can be their own Advocates: Then answered the Pharisees, are ye also deceived, have any of the Rulers or Pharisees believed on him ?

Concerning the infidelity of the rulers in my Text, as being not so directly appliable to my audience, I shall forbear to speak. My Discourse shall retire itself to the Pharisee, as being a Professor of learning, brought up at the University in Jerusalem, and God grant, his vices and infidelity be not also Academical.

The words we shall divide not into several parts but considerations, and read them either as spoken by the Pharisee, or recorded by the Evangelist. In the first, we have the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the rational force of them, as they are part of an argument, that they which believed in Christ, were deceived, sub hâc formâ ; he that would judge of the truth of his life, is to look which way the greatest Scholars are affected; and then, though in that case it concluded fallaciously, yet the argument was probable, and the point worth our discussion; that the judgment of learning and learned men, is much to be heeded in matters of Religion.

In the second we have the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the rational sense of the words being resolved, as affirmative interrogations are wont, into a negative Proposition, Have any, &c. The Pharisees did not believe on him, i. e. the greatest Scholars are not always the best Christians. And first of the first, the authority of learning and learned men in matters of Religion, noted from the logical force of the words, Have any, &c.

Amongst other acts of God's Providence and wise Economy of all things, there is not one more observable than the succession of his Church, and dispensation of his most precious gifts attending it; you shall not in any age find the flourishing of learning severed from the profession of Religion ; and the proposition shall be granted without exception; God's people were always the learnedst part of the World. Before the Flood, we are not so confident as to define and set down the studies and proficiency in all kinds of knowledge amongst those long-lived ancients; how far soever they went, belongs little to us. The Deluge made a great chasm betwixt us, and 'twould be hard for the liveliest Eyes to pierce at such distance through so much Water; let those who fancy the two Pillars, in which all learning was engraven, the one of brick, the other of marble, to prevent the malice either of Fire or Water, please themselves with the Fable, and seem to have deduced all arts from Adam. Thus far 'tis agreed on, that in those times every Father being both a Priest and a King in his own Family, bestowed on his Son all knowledge both secular and sacred which himself had attained to: Adam by tradition instructing Seth, and Seth Enoch in all knowledge as well as righteousness. For 'tis Josephus his observation, that whilst Cain and his Progeny employed themselves about wicked and illiberal inventions, groveling upon the Earth, Seth and his bore up their thoughts as well as Eyes towards Heaven, and observed the course and discipline of the Stars: wherein it was easy to be exquisite, every man's age showing him the several conjunctions and oppositions, and other appearances of the luminaries, and so needing no Successors to perfect his observations. Hence Philo calls Abraham 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and says his knowledge in Astronomy led him to the notice of a Deity, and that his sublime speculation gave him the name of Abram a high exalted Father, before his Faith had given the better Compellation of Abraham, Father of many Nations: hence from him, 1. Chaldea, 2. Egypt, 3. Greece, came all to the skill they brag of; so that Proclus made a good conjecture, that the Wisdom of the Chaldeans was, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a gift of some of the gods, it coming from Abraham who was both a Friend, and in a manner an acquaintance of the true God, and far ancienter and wiser than any of their false. In sum, all learning as well as religion was pure and classical only among the Hebrews, as may appear by Moses in his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the only true natural Philosophy that ever came into the World: so that even Longinus, which took the story of the Creation to be a Fable, yet commends Moses his expression of it, Let there be light, and there was light ] for a Speech admirably suited to a God; for the greatest 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or sublimity that any Rhetorician could strain for. And Demetrius Phalareus commends the Pentateuch to Ptolemy 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. as the most Philosophical, accurate discourse he had ever heard of. And if by chance any scraps or shreds of knowledge were ever scattered among the Gentiles, they certainly fell from the Chaldeans table: from whence in time the poor beggarly World gathered such Baskets-full, that they began to feed full, and be in good liking, and take upon them to be richer than their Benefactors, and Athens at last begins to set up as the only University in the World. But 'tis Austin's observation, that 'twas in respect of Christ, and for the propagation of the Church, that learning was ever suffered to travel out of Jewry. Christ was to be preached and received among the Gentiles, and therefore they must be civiliz'd beforehand, lest such holy things being cast abruptly before swine, should only have been trampled on: or as Moses his Books falling among the Poets, have been only distorted into Fables, turned also into Prodigies, Metamorphoses, and Mythical Divinity. Cum enim prophetae, &c. Under Abraham and Moses, whilst the learning and the Sermons of the Prophets were for Israel's use, the Heathen World was as ignorant as irreligious, but about Romulus his time, when the Prophecies of Christ which belonged also to the Gentiles, were no longer whispered, but proclaimed by the mouth of Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, Micah, and Jonas from the reign of Uzziah, to Hezekiah Kings of Judah, then also began learning to flourish abroad among the Nations, to dilate itself over the World: Greece began to hearken after wisdom, and brag of its 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Thales and the like, ut fontes divinae & humanae sapientiae pariter erupisse videantur. That then secular knowledge might dare to shed itself among the Nations, when Christ began to be revealed, the expectation of the Gentiles. 'Twere an infinite discourse to present unto you the like proceedings through all Ages, the continual marriages, the Combinations, and never any divorce betwixt Learning and Religion. The Fathers before mentioned are large in drawing it down to our hands in tables of collateral descent throughout all generations; and I hope the present state of the World will sufficiently avouch it. For what is all the beggarly skill of the Arabians in Physicks and the Mathematics, all the Cabalisms of the Jews ; in sum, all the rather folly than wisdom, that either Asia, or Africa, pretend to? what hath all the World beside that dare look a Christian in the face? I doubt not but this corner of Europe where we live, may challenge and put to shame, nay upbraid the ignorance of the learnedst Mahometan, and be able to afford some Champions which shall grapple with the tallest Giant, with the proudest Son of Anak that Italy can boast of. I will hope and pray, and again dare to hope, that as all Europe hath not more moderation and purity of Religion than this Kingdom, so it never had a more learned Clergy ; never more encouragement for learning from Religion; never more advantages to religion from learning. But all this while we hover in the air, we keep upon the wing, and talk only 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , at large and in Thesi: we must descend lower to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and hypothesis here; where heed is to be taken to the Pharisee, to the Doctor in my Text. The Disciples were but Fishermen and Mechanics, illiterate enough, and yet a word of theirs shall more sway mine assent, and rule my faith, than the proudest dictates out of Moses Chair. And thus indeed are we nowadays ready to repose as much trust in the Shop as in the Schools, and rely more on the authority of one Lay-Professor, than the sagest Elders in theirs or our Israel. Learning is accounted but an ostentatious complement of young Scholars, that will never bring the Pastor or his Flock the nearer to the way toward Heaven. But to recall our judgments to a milder temper, we are to learn from Clemens, that although the Wisdom of God, and Doctrine of the Gospel be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , able to maintain, and fence, and authorize itself, yet even Philosophy and secular learning is of use, nay necessity to defeat the treacheries and sophisms, and stratagems of the Adversary: And although the truth of Scripture be the bread we live on, the main sta • f and stay of our subsistence; yet this exoterical learning, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Sophronius calls them, this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of the Schools must be served in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as cates and dainties to make up the Banquet; nay they are not only for superfluity, but solid and material uses. 'Twas a custom of old, saith Dionysius Halic. to build Cities 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , never far from some Hill, or Mountain, that beside the natural strength, the hold from the foundation, they may receive some security and safeguard from so stout and tall a Neighbor: thus will it stand us upon, so to build our Faith upon a Rock, th •• we may also have some shelter near us to fence and fortify our Fabric, when the wind or tempes • shall arise. Had not Peter indeed and the rest at Christ's call left their ignorance with their nets, and trades: had they not been made Scholars as well as Disciples, all trades promiscuously might justly have challenged and invaded the Pulpit, and no man denied to preach, that was able to believe. Bu • you are to know that their calling was an inspiration, they were furnishit with gifts as well as graces; and whatever other learning they wanted, sure I am they were the greatest Linguists in the World. Yea, the power and convincing force of argument, which the Heathen observed in Peter, made them get the Oracles to proclaim that he had learnt Magic from his Master. To drive the whole business to an issue in brief, take it in some few Propositions.

1. There is not so great a dependence betwixt learning and religion in particular persons, as we have observed to be in Ages and Countries: so that though plenty of knowledge be a symptom or judiciary sign, that that Church where it flourishes is the true Church of God, yet it is no necessary argument, that that man where it in special resides is the sincerest Christian; for upon these terms is the wisest man, the Scribe, the disputer of the World, the loudest braggers of Jews or Grecians are found guilty of spiritual ignorance, 1 Cor. 1. as the last part of our Discourse shall make evident.

2. Matters of Faith are not Ultimo resolubilia in principia rationis, therefore not to be resolved any farther than the Scriptures ; they are not to beg authority from any other Science; for this is the true Metaphysics, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the mistress and commandress of all other knowledges, which must perpetually do their homage to it, as Servants always to attend and confirm its Proposals, never to contradict it, as Aristotle hath it, Met. 2.2.

3. Though Faith depend not upon reason, though it subsist entirely upon its own bottom, and is then most purely Faith when it relies not on reason, and adheres wholly to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of God's word, yet doth the concurrence, and agreement, and evidence of reason add much to the clearness, and beauty, and splendor of it: takes away all fears and jealousies, and suspicious surmisings out of the understanding, and bestows a resolution and constancy on it. For Faith, though in respect of its ground, God's word, it be most infallible, yet in its own nature is, as the Philosopher defines it, a kind of opinion, and in our human frailty subject to demurs, and doubts, and panic terrors, for fear it be false grounded, and therefore Aristotle saith of it, that it differs from knowledge 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as a sickly man from a strong, 'tis very weak and aguish, subject to sweats, and colds, and hourly distempers: whereas the evidence and assurance of sense and reason added to it, bestows a full health and strength upon it, an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a perfect state that it shall never be forced or frighted out of. In brief, where reason gives its suffrage, it unvails Faith, and to adherence super-adds evidence, and teaches us to feel, and touch, and handle what before we did believe; to gripe, and hold, and even possess what before we apprehended: and these are believers in a manner elevated above an Earthly condition, initiated to the state which is all Vision, where everything is beheld 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , naked and displayed, as the entrails of a Creature cut down the back; or with open face beholding as in a glass, 2 Cor. iii.28.

4. There be some difficulties in Religion at which an illiterate understanding will be struck in a maze ; some depths of mystery where an Elephant can scarce tread Water, a Lamb must not hope to wade. Many above the apprehensions of the most capacious brain, where reason being not able to express, must be content to shadow, and describe in some rude lines what it cannot perform in pourtraicture: and here, I say, learning, though it cannot reach, yet can heave up and point at ; profit, though not perfect us, help us to some images and resemblances, to conceive that which we cannot fully comprehend: so saith Philoponus, will Mathematical abstractions facilitate the simplicity of God's Essence to our understandings, the lucid nature of the Sun express the brightness of his glory, and the mysterious numbers of the Pythagoreans, represent the Trinity to our fancies. And thus doth Zoroastes in Patricius, Philosophari de Deo, subdue, as it were, divinity to reason, and raise up reason to join issue with divinity, and by his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that paternal depth made of three threes, comprise all the secrets of the Godhead. But besides these secrets of the upper Cabinet, these supernatural depths, there are others secundae altitudinis, and as Halicar. calls those which are above the reach of all but Philosophers, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and Aristotle 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , natural miracles, which none but Scholars can attain to. And these I hope shall never be discust upon a Shop-board, or enter into any brain that is not before well ballast with weight and substance at the bottom: I need not name them to you, you may know them by this, that when they come into an empty brain, they breed Winds, and turn all into vertigoes and dizziness. There be yet farther lights of a third magnitude, which yet everyone hath not Eyes to gaze on, and of this condition are almost all the speculations in divinity ; nay the ordinariest truth in a Catechism can scarce be forced into a vulgar understanding; his brain is not set that way, and many of our subtilest Worldlings have mistaken the Virgin Mary for an Angel, and the Apostles Creed, where only they find mention of her, for a prayer: and then you cannot imagine what stead a little learning would stand these men in, what even Miracles 'twould work upon them.

5. 'It is but necessity and exigence of nature that those which are the weak should apply themselves for help and directions to those that are stronger ; the Child in a Cradle must be put to a Nurse, which may give it suck till it be able to eat, and for a while bear it in her arms, that it may be taught to go. There be in nature, saith Aristotle in his Mechan. many wants ; she performs not all our needs, and therefore Engines were invented to supply defects. Thus is Art a Machina or invention, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to furnish us with those abilities which nature was a niggard in: and therefore to deprive ourselves of this guidance when it is offered, is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to put out an eye of his, that hath but one in all, which was of old a great aggravation to the injury in the Rhetor. indeed to leave ourselves desperately blind. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Iambl. In matters of Religion we must not so much as speak, nay, not think without a Candle, we shall want the guidance of some Teacher to direct every such word out of our mouths or thought into our hearts. An ignorant man must not have leave so much as to meditate on God without a guide; for he is mad, say the Philosophers, and then every thought of his will be a kind of delirium or frenzy. 'It is the law of nature, saith the Historian, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that superiors should have a kind of sovereignty over all that are inferior to them, a magisterium and command over them, to rule and order them; and this superiority and sovereignty hath the learned Pastor, or generally the Scholar over all ignorant men, be they never so rich or potent; and whosoever denies or scorns thus to obey, I say not, is to be slain (as the Law was in the ancient Wars) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , without an assizes ; but to be condemned of much peevishness and more stupidity, and his punishment is, Let him fall into his own hands, i. e. be ruled by a fool or mad man.

6. Much of the speculative part of Religion may be had from a Pharisee as well as a Disciple. Christ himself bears witness of him, that he was Orthodox in matters concerning the Law: They sit in Moses Chair, and therefore whatsoever they bid you, that observe and do, Mat. xxiii.3. They err indeed in prescribing their additions to duty, as divine command, but the chief obliquity was in their lives: they were Heretics, nay Apostates from their Doctrine, and therefore do not after their works, for they say and do not, verse 4. If I am resolved of such a man's abilities in learning, but see him a scandalous Liver, I will borrow of his gifts, and pray God to increase his graces. In matters of spiritual joy and sorrow, I will, if I can, be counseled by an heart which once was broken, that I may see how he recovered, and repair my breaches by a pattern; and yet even these things may be learnt from him which never had them, but in his speculation; as the Physician may cure a Disease, though himself was never sick of it. But for the ordinary Theories of Religion, I will have patience to receive instructions from any one, and not examine his practices, but in modesty, and in submission, and humility receive the Law at his mouth. But all this with caution, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as to a guide not a Monarch of my Faith ; rule he shall my belief, but not tyrannize over it. I will assent to my teacher till I can disprove him, but adhere, and anchor, and fix myself on the Scripture.

7. In matters of superstruction, where Scripture lays the foundation, but interpreters, i. e. private spirits build upon it, some gold, some stubble, &c. and I cannot judge or discern which is firmliest rooted on the foundation; I will take the Philosophers Counsel in the first of his Rhetor. and observe either 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , be guided either by the ancientest, if they have shown themselves in the cause, or else men alive, which be best reputed of for integrity and judgment: I shall scarce trust the honestest man you can commend to me, unless I have some knowledge of his parts; nor the learned'st you can cry up, unless I can believe somewhat in his sincerity.

8. All the contradictions and new ways of my own brain, opposite or wide from the current of the learned, I must suspect for a work of my own fancy, not entitle them to God's spirit in me. Verebar omnia opera mea, saith Job, whatever a man can call his own, he must be very cautious and jealous over it. For 'tis no less than atheism which the scorners of the last age are to fall upon by walking after their own lusts, 2 Pet. iii.3. And thus was the Pharisees practice here, who makes use of his own authority to deny Christ; 'twas the Pharisees that said, Have any of the Pharisees believed on him? There is not a more dangerous Mother of Heresies in the midst of Piety, than this one, that our fancy first assures us that we have the spirit, and then that every fancy of ours is Theopneust, the work of the spirit. There are a multitude of deceits got altogether here; 1. We make every idle persuasion of our own the evidence of God's Spirit, then we join infallibility to the person, being confident of the gift; then we make every breath of our Nostrils, and flame that can break out of our hearts an immediate effect of the spirit and fire which hath spiritually enlivened us, and then we are sure it is authentical; and all this while we never examine either the ground or deductions from it, but take all upon trust from that everlasting deceiver our own heart, which we ought to sit upon and judge of by proofs and witnesses, by comparing it with other men's dictates, probably as godly, perhaps more learned, but certainly more impartial Judges of thee, than thou canst be of thyself.

Lastly, If the word of God speak distinctly and clearly, enforce, as here by miracles done before, all men to their astonishment and redargution, then will I not stay my belief to wait on or follow the learnedst man in the world : when Christ himself speaks to my Eyes, the proudest, eminentest Pharisee in Earth or Hell, nay if any of their Sect have crowded into Heaven, shall not be able to charm my Ear, or lay any clog upon my understanding. So that you see the Pharisees argument in that case was sophistical, (the matter being so plain to them that they needed no advice, His works bore witness of him, John v.36.) yet in the general it holds probable, and learning remains a good guide still, though an ill Master in matters of Religion, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the first thing we undertook to demonstrate.

And this we should draw down yet lower to our practice, and that variously, but that almost every Proposition insisted on, hath in part spoken to your affections, and so prevented store of uses. This only must not be omitted; For Scholars, to learn to set a value on their precious blessing which God hath vouchsafed them above all the World beside; to bless God infinitely that they understand and conceive what they are commanded to believe: this I am sure of, there is not a greater and more blessed privilege, besides God's spirit, which our human condition is capable of, than this of learning, and specially divine knowledge, of which Aristotle himself witnesseth, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , none i • better than it. As long as we have no evidence or demonstration from that (which yet it most nearly concerns us to rely upon) we cannot enjoy without an immediate supernatural irradiation, a tranquility and consistency of spirit, we cannot peremptorily have resolved ourselves that we have built upon the rock: every temptation proves a discouragement to us, many horrors take hold of us, and sometimes we must needs fall to that low ebb, not far from despair, which the Apostles were in, Luke xxiv.22. We had trusted, but now we know not what to think of it, that this was he that should have redeemed Israel. But to see all the Articles of my Faith ratified and confirmed to my understanding, to see the greatest treasure and inheritance in the World, sealed and delivered to me in my hand, written in a Character and Language that I am perfectly skilled in; O what a comfort is this to a Christian Soul! O what a fullness of joy, to have all the mysteries of my Salvation transcribed out of the Book of the Lord, and written in my heart, where I can turn and survey, and make use of them, as much and as often as I will! Nay, where I have them without Book, though there were neither Father nor Bible in the World▪ able out of my own stock to give an account, nay, a reason of my faith before the perversest Papist, Heathen or Devil. This serves me instead of having lived, and conversed, and been acquainted with Christ. By this I have my fingers put into the print of the nails, and my hands thrust into his side, and am as sure as ever Thomas was; I see him as palpably as he that handled him, that he is my Lord and my God.

'Twas observed by the Philosopher as an act generally practiced among Tyrants, to prohibit all Schools and means of learning and education in the Commonwealth, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to suffer neither learning, nor Schools, nor common meetings, that men being kept blind might be sure to obey, and tyrannical commands through ignorance be mistaken for fair Government. And thus did Julian interdict the Christians all manner of literature, and chiefly Philosophy, for fear, saith Nazianzen, they should be able to grapple with the Heathen, and cut off Goliath 's Head with his own Weapon. The continuance of these arts of spiritual Tyranny, you may observe in the prescribed stupidity and commanded ignorance of the laity through all Italy. All which must call for a superlative measure of thanks, to be expressed, not in our tongues and hearts only, but in our lives and actions; from us I say, who have obtained not only a knowledge of his laws, but almost a Vision of his secrets, and for as much as concerns our eternal bliss, do even see things as they were acted, having already comprehended in our reason, (not only in our Faith) the most impossible things in nature; the breadth, and length, and depth and height of the conceived, incarnate, and crucified God: and if all that, will not serve our turn, but we must press into his Cabinet-secrets, invade the Book of Life, and oversee, and divulge to all men abscondita Domini Dei nostri, then are God's mercies unworthily repaid by us, and those indulgences which were to bestow civility upon the World, have only taught us to be more rude. In sum, the reallest thanks we can perform to God for this inestimable prize, is modestly and softly to make use of it, 1. To the confirming of others Faith, and 2. to the expressing of our own. For 1. he is the deepest Scholar, saith the Philosopher, who is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , best able to teach other men what himself conceives: and then 2. he hath the habit most radicated, who hath pressed it down into his heart, and there sowed a Seed which shall increase and fructify, and spread, and flourish, laden with the fruits of a lively Faith. He is the truest Scholar that hath fed upon learning, that hath nourished and grown, and walked, and lived in the strength of it. And till I see you thrive and bestir yourselves like Christians, I shall never envy your learning: the Pharisees were great Scholars, well seen in the Prophets, and 'tis much to be suspected, could not choose but find Christ there, and acknowledge him by his Miracles; they saw him plain enough, and yet not a man would believe on him; My second part, The greatest Scholars are not always the best Christians.

'It is observable in the temper of men, that the cowardly are most inquisitive, their fears and jealousies make them very careful to foresee any danger, and yet for the most part, they have not spirit enough to encounter, and they are so stupid and sluggish, that they will not get out of its way when they have foreseen it: the same baseness and timorousness makes them a sort of men most diligent at a distance to avoid, and near hand most negligent to prevent. Thus in Dan. iv.5. Nebuchadnezzar dreams and is affrighted, and a Proclamation is made for all the Wisdom of the World to come in and consult and sit upon it, and give their verdict for the interpretation of the Dream; and when he had at last got the knowledge of it by Daniel, that his fears were not in vain, that the greatest judgment that ever was heard of, was within a twelve Month to fall on him, then, as though he had been a Beast before his time, without all understanding, he goes and crowns himself for his slaughter. Just when, according to the Prophecy, he was to suffer, then was he walking in his pride; whilst he was ignorant, he was sensible of his danger, and now he sees it before his Eyes, he is most prodigiously blind. At the end of twelve months, when his ruin was at hand, ver. 29. he walked in the Palace of the Kingdom of Babylon, and the King spake and said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built, &c. In brief, he that was most earnest to understand the Dream, is most negligent of the event of it, and makes no other use of his knowledge of God's Will, but only more knowingly and willfully to contemn it. And this generally is the state of corrupt nature, to keep a distance and a bay betwixt our knowledge and our wills, and when a truth hath fully conquered and got possession of our understanding, then to begin to fortify most strongly, that the other Castle of the Soul, the affections may yet remain impregnable. Thus will the Devil be content to have the Out-works and the Watch-Tower taken, so he may be sure to keep his treasure within from danger: and will give us leave to be as great Scholars as himself, so we will continue as profane. And so we are like enough to do for all our knowledge: for Wisdom, saith Aristotle, is terminated in itself, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , it neither looks after, nor produces any practical good, saith Andronicus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , nay there is no dependence betwixt knowing and doing: as he that hath read and studied the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , may perhaps be never the better Wrastler, nor the skillfullest Physician the more healthy: experience and trial must perfect the one, and a good temperature constitute the other. A young man may be a good Naturalist, a good Geometer, nay a wise man, because he may understand 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , wonders, depths, nay Divine matters, but he'l never be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , prudent or actually virtuous, i. e. a good Moralist: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , moral precepts they cannot be said to believe, they have not entered so far, they float only in their memories, they have them by heart, they say them over by rote, as Children do their Catechism, or Plato 's Scholars (saith Plutarch) his depths of Philosophy: they now recite them only, and shall then understand them, when they come of Age, when they are stayed enough to look into the meaning of them, and make use of them in their practice. The Mathematics, saith Aristotle, have nothing to do with the end or chief good that men look after: never any man brought good or bad, better or worse, into a demonstration; there's no consultation or election there, only plain downright diagrams, necessary convictions of the understanding. And therefore for these mere speculations, which hover only in the brain, the youngest Wit is nimblest; for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , sharpness of apprehension, is a sprightfulness of the mind, and is there liveliest, where there be most spirits: but prudence and active virtue requires an habituate temper of passions, a stayedness of the mind, and long trial and experience of its own strength, a constancy to continue in virtue, in spite of all foreign allurements or inward distempers. And the ground of all this is, that those things that most incumber the Will and keep us from practice, do nothing clog or stop the understanding; sensuality or pleasure hinders us not from knowing 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. that a Triangle hath three angles equal to two right ones, and the like. Nay the most insolent tyrannizing passions which domineer over us, which keep us in awe, and never suffer us to stir, or move, or walk, or do anything that is good, will yet give us leave to understand as much as we would wish; they have only fettered our hands and feet, have not blinded our Eyes; as one shut up in the Tower from the conversation of men, may be yet the greatest proficient in speculation; The affections being more gross and corporeous (from thence called the heels of the Soul) and so easily chained and fettered; but the understanding most pure and spiritual, and therefore uncapable of shackles: nay, is many times most free and active, when the will is most dead and sluggish. And this may be the natural reason that even Aristotle may teach us, why the greatest Scholars, are not always the best Christians: the Pharisees well read in the Prophets, yet backwardest to believe, because faith which constitutes a Christian, is a spiritual prudence, as 'tis best defined, and therefore is not appropriate to the understanding: but if they be several faculties, is rather seated in the Will; the objects of Faith being not merely speculative, but always apprehended and assented to, sub ration boni, as being the most invaluable blessings which ever we desired of the Lord, or can require. The speculative part of divine wisdom may make us 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , intelligent spirits, nay possibly do it in the worst notion, render us Devils. Real practical knowledge, only prudence, will make Angels, ministering spirits unto God, teach us to live and be better than we did. So then, in the first place, learning doth neither make nor suppose men Christians: Nay secondly, it doth per accidens many times hinder, put a rub in our way, and keep us from being Christians. Philoponus and Synesius (Miracles of learning) were therefore hardest to be converted, they were so possessed and engaged in Peripatetical Philosophy; that however they might be persuaded to the Trinity, they will not believe the Resurrection. 'Twas too plain a contradiction to philosophical reason, ever to enter theirs. Thus in the 1 Cor. i.21. the World by wisdom knew not God: they so relied on their reason, and trusted in it for all truths, that they concluded everything impossible, that would not concur with their old Principles. But this resistance which reason makes, is not so strong, but that it may easily be suppressed; and therefore Synesius was made a Bishop, before he explicitly believed the resurrection, because they were confident, that he which had forsaken all other errors, would not long continue perverse in this, and so good a Christian in other things, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , could not choose but be illuminated in time, in so necessary a point of Faith: and indeed so it happened in them both.

But there are other more dangerous engines, more insidious courses which learning uses to supplant or undermine belief; other stratagems to keep us out of the way, to anticipate all our desires or inclinations, or thoughts that way-ward: and these are spiritual pride, and self-content. Men are so elevated in height of contemplation, so well pleased, so fully satisfied in the pleasures and delights of it, that the first sort scorn to submit or humble themselves to the poverty and disparagement of believing in Christ; the second are never at leisure to think of it. For the first, spiritual pride, 'tis set down as a reason that the natural man receives not the things of the spirit, 1 Cor. ii.14. receives them not, i. e. will not take them, will not accept of them, though they are freely given him; for they are foolishness unto him, i. e. so his proud brain reputes them. The pride of Worldly wisdom extremely scorns the foolishness of Christ, and consequently, is infinitely opposite to Faith, which is wrought by special humility.

Secondly, for self-content: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith Heraclitus in Hesych. Wise men need no friends, they are able to subsist by themselves without any help: they will have an happiness of their own making, and scorn to be beholding to Christ for a new Inheritance, they are already so fully possessed of all manner of contents. Let any man whisper them of the joys of the new Jerusalem, of the Intercessor that hath saved, of the way thither and made it passable, of all the privileges and promises of our adoption, they will hear them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as old wives fables ; they have the fortunate Islands too, their exactest tranquility and serenity of mind in a perpetual contemplation, and all the golden Apples in Paradise shall not tempt or allarm them out of it. 'It is strange to see when such a man is called, what a do there is to get him out of his Dream, to hale him out of his study to the Church, how sleepy, and drowsy, and lethargical he is, in matters of Religion: how soon a little devotion hath tired him out, that could have pored over a Book incessantly all his life long, and never thought thus to have been interdicted the delights of human learning, thus to have been plucked and torn from the embraces of his Athenian Idol. His conversion is much unlike another man's: that which calls others into compass, seems to let him loose, thrust him abroad into the World, teaches him to look more like a man than ever he meant, makes him a member of the Common-wealth, that was formerly but an Anchoret, and forces him to walk and run the way of God's commandments, that had once decreed himself to a Chair forever. In brief, there is as little hopes of one that indulges himself, and gives himself up to the pride and contents of any kind of learning, of him that terminates knowledge either in itself, or else in the ostentation of it, as of any other that is captiv'd to any one single worldly or fleshly kind of voluptuousness. This of the brain, in spite of the Philosopher, is an intemperance, as well as that of the throat and palate, and more dangerous, because less suspected, and seldomer declaimed against; and from this Epicurism, especially of the Soul, good Lord deliver us.

Not to heap up reasons of this too manifest a truth, (would God it were not so undeniable) take but this one more, of the unsufficiency of learning never so well used, to make a man a Christian. Let all the knowledge in the World, profane and sacred, all the force and reason that all Ages ever brag'd of, let it concur in one brain, and swell the head as big as his was in the Poem that travel'd of Minerva: let all Scriptures and Fathers join their power and efficacy, and they shall never by their simple activity produce a saving faith in any one; all the miracles they can work, are only on the understanding, the will distinctly taken, is above their sphere or compass: or if their faculties are not distinguished, and to will is present with me, Rom. vii.18. as well as to understand▪ yet they can produce only an absolute simple general will, that is, an assent and approbation of the absolute goodness of the thing proposed, not a resolute will to abandon all other Worldly purposes to perform that which I will. Knowledge and right apprehension of things may convince me first of the History, that all that is spoken of, or by Christ, is true, and then, of the expedience to apply all his merits to my Soul; but when I see, all this cannot be done without paying a price, without undoing myself, without pawning all that I have, my learning, my wealth, my delights, my whole worldly being, without self-denial, then the general assent, that absolute will, is grown chill and dead; we are still (whatever we believe) but Infidels; all the Articles of the Creed thus assented to, are not enough to make us • hristians. So that the issue of all is, all knowledge in the World cannot make us deny ourselves, and therefore all knowledge in the World, is not able to produce belief; only the spirit must breath this power into us, of breathing out ourselves, he must press our Breasts, and stifle, and strangle us; we must give up the natural ghost, he must force out our Earthly Breath out of our Earthly Bodies, or else we shall not be enlivened by his spiritual. Thus have you reasons of the common divorce betwixt knowledge and faith, i. e. the no manner of dependence betwixt them in nature. Secondly, the open resistence in some points betwixt reason and Scripture. Thirdly, the more secret reluctancies betwixt the pride and contents of learning and the spirit. And lastly, the insufficiency of all natural knowledge, and transcendency of spiritual, so that he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discern • d. I should now in very charity release you, but that there is one word behind of most important necessity to a Sermon, and that is of Application.

That laying to our hearts the important documents of the Text, our righteousness and faith may exceed that o • the Pharisees, Mat. v.20. our preaching and walking may be like that of Christ's, in power, and as having authority, and not as the Scribes, Mat. vii.29. and we not content with a floating knowledge in the Brain, do press and sink it down into our inferior faculties, our senses and affections, till it arise in a full Harvest of fruitful, diligently working Faith. It was Zenophanes his fancy, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and that God was all Eyes and all Ears, but breathed not, there was no use of that in him; and so is it with us, who are always exercising our knowledge, powers to see and hear what e're is possible; but for any breath of life in us, any motion of the spirit, we have no use of it: it is not worth valuing or taking notice of, nothing so vulgar and contemptible in them that have it, nothing of which we examine ourselves so slightly, of which we are so easily mistaken, so willingly deceived, and nothing that we will be content to have so small a measure of. A little of it soon tires as out, 'tis too thin aery diet for us to live upon, we cannot hold out long on it; like the Israelites, soon satiated with their bread from Heaven, nothing comparable to their old food that Nile yielded them, Numb. xi.5. We remember the fish that we did eat in Egypt, but now our Soul is dried away, there is nothing but this Manna before our Eyes, as if that were not worth the gathering.

Pythagoras could say, that if any one were to be chosen to pray for the people, to be made a Priest, he must be a virtuous man, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . in Iamblichus, because the God's would take more heed to his words: and again, that many things might be permitted the people, which should be interdicted preachers. It was th • confirmation of his precepts by his life, and practice, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that made Italy, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , all the Country his School, and all that ever heard him his Disciples. Nothing will give such authority to our Doctrine, or set such a value on our calling, as a religious Conversation. He that takes such a Journey, as that into Holy Orders, must go on, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 according to his 15 Sym • olum, must not return to his former sins as well as trade, saith Iamblichus: the falling into one of our youthful Vices, is truly a disordering of ourselves, and a kind of plucking our hands from the Plow. A Physician, saith Hippocrates, must have color and be in flesh, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , of a good promising healthy complexion, and then men will guess him a man of skill, otherwise the patient will bid the Physician heal himself, and having by his ill look a prejudice against his Physic, his fancy will much hinder its working. You need no application; He again will tell you, that the profession suffers not so much by anything as by rash censures, and unworthy Professors. In brief, our very knowledge will be set at naught, and our gifts scoffed at, if our lives do not demonstrate that we are Christians as well as Scholars. No man will be much more godly for hearing Seneca talk of Providence, nor be affected with bare words, unless he see them armed and backed with power of him that utters them. Consider but this one thing, and withal, that my Doctrine is become a Proverb, and he is a proud man that can first draw it upon a Scholar, his learning and his clergy make him never the more religious. O let our whole care and carriage, and the dearest of our endeavors, strive and prevail to cross the Proverb, and stop the mouth of the rashest declamer. That Comedy of Aristophanes took best, which was all spent in laughing at Socrates, and in him involved and abused the whole condition of learning; though through Alcibiades his Faction it miscarried and mist its applause once or twice, yet when men were left to their humor, 'twas admired and cried up extremely. Learning hath still some honorable Favourers which keep others in awe with their Countenance; but otherwise, nothing more agreeable to the people, than Comedies or Satyrs, or Sarcasms dealt out against the Universities: let us be sure that we act no parts in them ourselves, nor perform them before they are acted. Let us endeavor that theirs may be only pronunciations, a story of our faults as presented in a Scene, but never truly grounded in any of our actions. One woe we are secure and safe from, Woe be to you when all men shall speak well of you ] we have many good Friends that will not let this Curse light on us. O let us deliver ourselves from that Catalogue of woes which were all denounced against the Pharisees for many Vices, all contained in this accomplisht piece, 〈◊〉 say but do not, Mat. xxiii.4. And seeing all our intellectual excellencies cannot assure, or bribe, or woo God's spirit to overshadow us, and conceive Christ, and bring forth true and saying F • ith in us; let all the rest of our studies be ordered in a new course; let us change both our method and our Tutor, and having hitherto learnt God from ourselves, let us be better advised, and learn ourselves from God. Let us all study all learning from the Spring or Fountain, and make him our instructer, who is the only Author worth our understanding, and admit of no Interpreter on him but himself. The knowledge of God shall be our Vision in Heaven, O let it be our speculation on Earth. Let it fill every conceit or fancy that we at any time adventure on. It is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the last work in which all the promises, all our possible designs are accomplished: O let us in part anticipate that final revelation of him, lest so sudden and so full a brightness of glory be too excellent for the Eyes of a Saint: and labor to comprehend here, where the whole comfort of our life is, what we shall then possess. And if all the stretches, and cracking, and torturing of our Souls will prevail, the dissolving of all our spirits, nay, the sighing out of our last breath will do anything, let us join all this, even that God hath given us, in this real service to ourselves, and expire whilst we are about it, in praying, and beseeching, and importuning, and offering violence to that blessed spirit, that he will fully enlighten and enflame us here with zeal as well as knowledge; that he will fill us with his grace here, and accomplish us with his glory hereafter.

Now to him that hath elected us, hath created us, and redeemed us, &c.

SERMON XI.

THE whole new Covenant consists of these two words, Christ and Faith ; Christ bestowed on God's part, Faith required on ours; Christ the matter, Faith the condition of the Covenant. Now to bring or present this Faith before you, as an object for your understandings to gaze at; or to go farther to dissect (and with the diligence of Anatomy instruct) in every limb, or joint, or excellency of it; were but to recall you to your Catechism, and to take pains to inform you in that which you are presumed to know. The greater danger of us is, that we are behind in our practice, that we know what Faith is, but do not labor for it; and therefore the seasonablest work will be on our affections to produce, if it were possible, this precious virtue in our souls, and to sink and press down that floating knowledge which is in most of our brains, into a solid weighty effectual Faith, that it may begin to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a work of faith, which was formerly but a fancy, dream and apparition. To this purpose to work on your wills, no Rhetoric so likely, as that which is most sharp and terrible, no such Physic for dead affections as Corrosives, the consideration of the dismal, hideous, desperate estate of infidels here in my Text; and that, both in respect of the guilt of the sin, and degree of the punishment, proportioned to it, and that above all other sinners in the World, It shall be more, &c. Where you may briefly observe, 1. the sin of infidelity, set down by its subject, that City which would not receive Christ being preached unto it, v. 14. 2. the greatness of this sin, expressed by the punishment attending it; and that, either positively, it shall go very sore with it, and therefore it is to be esteemed a very great sin, implied in the whole Text; or else comparatively, being weighed with Sodom and Gomorrhah in judgment, it shall be more tolerable for them than it : and therefore 'tis not only a great sin, but the greatest, the most damning sin in the world. And of these in order plainly, and to your hearts rather than your brains, presuming that you are now come with solemn serious thoughts to be edified not instructed, much less pleased or humor'd. And first of the first: The sin of infidelity, noted in the last words, that City.

To pass by those, which we cannot choose but meet with, 1. a multitude of ignorant Infidels, Pagans and Heathens; 2. of knowing, but not acknowledging Infidels, as Turks and Jews ; We shall meet with another order of as great a latitude, which will more nearly concern us; a world of believing Infidels, which know and acknowledge Christ, the Gospel and the promises, are as fairly mounted in the understanding part as you would wish, but yet refuse and deny him in their hearts, apply not a Command to themselves, submit not to him, nor desire to make themselves capable of those mercies, which they see offered by Christ in the World; and these are distinctly set down in the verse next before my Text, Whosoever shall not receive you, i. e. entertain the acceptable truth of Christ, and the Gospel preached by you, as 'tis interpreted by the 40. verse, He that receiveth you, receiveth me, i. e. believes on me, as the word is most plainly used, Mat. xi.14. If you will receive it, i. e. if you will believe it, this is Elias which was for to come. And John i.12. To as many as received him, even to them that believe in his name. For you are to know, that Faith truly justifying, is nothing in the World, but the receiving of Christ. Christ and his sufferings and full satisfaction was once on the Cross tendered, and is ever since by the Gospel and its Ministers offered to the world: and nothing required of us, but an hand and an heart to apprehend and receive: and to as many as received him, he gives power to become the sons of God, John i.12. So that Faith and Infidelity are not acts properly determined to the understanding, but indeed to the whole Soul, and most distinctly to the Will, whole part it is to receive or repel, to entertain or resist Christ and his promises, the Author and Finisher of our salvation. Now this receiving of Christ, is the taking or accepting of the righteousness of Christ, and so making it our own, as Rom. i.17. being rightly weighed, will enforce. Read and mark, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in it, or by it, the Gospel mentioned in the former verse 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the righteousness of God by Faith, as Rom. iii.22. i. e. the not legal but Evangelical righteousness, which only God accepts, directly set down Phil. iii.9. That righteousness which is through Faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by Faith; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , is revealed to Faith, is declared that we might believe; that finding no life or righteousness in ourselves, we may go out of ourselves, and lay hold on that which is offered us by Christ: and this you will find to be the clearest meaning of these words, though somewhat obscured in our English reading of them. Now the accepting of this righteousness, is an act of ours, following a proposal or offer of Christ 's, and consummating the match or bargain between Christ and us. Christ is offered to us as an Husband in the Gospel, we inquire of him, observe our own needs, and his excellencies and riches to supply them, our sins and his righteousness; and if upon advice we will take him, the match is struck, we are our beloved's, and our beloved is ours; we are man and wife, we have taken him for our husband, and with him are entitled to all his riches: we have right to all his righteousness, and enjoy by his Patent all the privileges, all the promises, all the mercies of the Gospel. But if, the offer being thus made by God, to give us his Son freely, we stand upon terms, we are too rich, too learned, too worldly-minded, too much in love with the praise of men, John xii.43, i. e. fixed upon any worldly vanity, and resolve never to forego all these, to disclaim our worldly liberty, our own righteousness, and to accept of so poor an offer as a Christ; then are we the Infidels here spoken of, We will not come to him, that we might have life, John v.40. When he is held out to us, we will not lay hold on him, we have some conceit of ourselves, and therefore will not step a foot abroad to fetch his righteousness home to us. And indeed if any worldly thing please you; if you can set a value upon anything else, if you can entertain a Paramour, a Rival, a Competitor in your hearts, if you can receive the praise of men, how can you believe? John v.44. So that in brief, Infidelity consists in the not receiving of Christ, with a reciprocal giving up of ourselves to him, in the not answering affirmatively to Christ's offer of himself, in the not taking home and applying Christ to our souls. And this is done, either by denying to take him at all, or by taking him under a false person, or by not performing the conditions required or presumed in the making of the match. They that deny to take him at all, are the profane, negligent, presumptuous Christians, who either never hearken after him, or else are so familiar with the news, as to underprize him: have either never cheapned Heaven, or else will not come to God's price; like Ananias and Sapphira, perhaps offer pretty fair, bring two parts of their estate, and lay them at the Apostles feet, but will give no more; fall off at last for a trifle, and peremptorily deny Christ, if they may not have him on their own Conditions. Some superfluities, some vanities, some chargeable or troublesome sins perhaps they can spare, and those they will be inclinable to part withal; but if this will not serve, Christ must seek for a better Chapman, they stand not much upon it, they can return as contentedly without it as they came. And this arises from a neglect and security, a not heeding or weighing of God's justice, and consequently undervaluing of his mercies. They have never felt God as an angry Judge, and therefore they now scorn him as a Savior : they have lived at such ease of heart, that no legal terror, no affrightments, or ghastly representations of sin, can work upon them: and if the reading of the law, that killing letter, have been sent by God to instruct them in the desperateness of their estate, to humble these libertine souls to the spirit of bondage, and so school them to Christ, they have eyes, but see not, ears, but hear it not, they are come to this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Rom. i.28. a reprobate sense, or as it may be rendered, an undiscerning mind, not able to judge of that which is thus read and proposed to it: or again, a sense, without sense, not apprehensive of that, which no man that hath eyes can be ignorant of: nay in Theod. phrase 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , an heart that will reverberate any judgment or terror, receiving no more impression from it than the Anvil from the Hammer, violently returns it again, smooth'd somewhat over perhaps by often-beating, but nothing softened. Nay if the law cry too loud, and by an inward voice preach damnation in their bowels, and resolve to be heard before it cease; then do they seek out some worldly employment to busy themselves withal, that they may not be at home at so much unquietness: they will charm it with pleasures, or overwhelm it with business, as Cain, when his Conscience was too rough, and rigid for him, Gen. iv. went out from the presence of the Lord, ver. 16. and as 'tis observed, built Cities, v. 17. got some of his progeny to invent Music, v. 21. perhaps to still his tumultuous raving Conscience, that the noise of the hammers and melody of the Instruments, might outsound the din within him, as in the sacrifices of Moloch, where their children, which they offered in an hollow brazen vessel, co • ld not choose but howl hideously, they had tymbrels and tabarets perpetually beating, (whereupon Tophet, where these sacrifices were kept, is by Grammarians deduced from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 tympanum ) to drown the noise of the children's cry; These I say, which will not be instructed in their misery, or bettered by the preaching of the law, which labor only to make their inward terrors insensible, to skin not cure the wound; are Infidels in the first or highest rank, which deny to take him at all, will not suffer themselves to be persuaded that they have any need of him; and therefore let him be offered forever, let him be proclaimed in their ears every minute of their lives, they see nothing in him worth hearkening after; and the reason is, they are still at home, they have not gone a foot abroad out of themselves, and therefore cannot lay hold on Christ. He that never went to school to the law, he that was never sensible of his own damned estate, he that never hated himself, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , will never receive, never accept of Christ.

Secondly, Some are come thus far, to a sense of their estate, and are twing'd extremely, and therefore fly presently to the Gospel ; hearing of Christ, they fasten, are not patient of so much deliberation, as to observe whether their hands be empty, they are in distress, and Christ must needs save them suddenly; they lay hold as soon as ever they hear a promise, and are resolved to be saved by Christ, because they see otherwise they are damned. And these take Christ indeed, but under a false person : either they take the promises only, and let Christ alone; or take Christ the Savior, but not Christ the Lord : Are willing to be saved by him, but never think of serving him: are praying forever for Heaven and glory, but never care how little they hear of grace: the end they fasten on, the Covenant they hug and gripe with their embraces, but never take the condition of repentance and obedience: this is not for their turn; they abstract the cheap and profitable attributes of Christ, his Priestly office of satisfaction and propitiation; but never consider him as a King; and so in a word, lay hold of the estate, before they have married the husband, which they have yet no more right to, than a mere stranger: for the communicating the riches of a husband, being but a consequence of marriage is therefore not yet made over, till the marriage (which is the taking of the husbands person) be consummate. And this I say, is a second degree of infidelity, somewhat more secret and less discernible, when by an error of the person, by taking Christ the Savior for Christ the Lord, or his promises abstracted from his person, we believe we shall be saved by him, but deny to be ruled; desire to enjoy all the privileges, but subtract all the obedience of a Subject.

In the third place, they which have accepted and received the true person of Christ, as a Master, as well as a Jesus, they which have taken him on a resolved vow of performing this condition of homage and obedience, are not in event as good as their engagements: when they think the match is fast, and past danger of recalling, when they seem to have gotten a firm title to the promises, and are in a manner entered upon the goods and estate of their Husband, they do begin to break Covenant, and either wholly subtract, or else divide their love ; they married him for his wealth, and now they have that, they are soon weary of his person: they came with the Soul of an Harlot, looking only what they should get by him, and now, they have many other old acquaintances they must needs keep League with; their self denial, their humility, their vows of obedience, were but arts and stratagems that want and necessity put them upon, and now they have got their ends, all those are soon out-dated; they have Faith, and so are justified, and sure of their estate, and so now they may sin securely, there is no condemnation to them, they are in Christ, and all the sins, nay, all the Devils in the World, shall never separate them. And this is a sanctified religious piece of infidelity in men, which think they have made sure of the main, and so never think of the Consectaries; they have Faith, and so 'tis no matter for good works; the Lease is sealed, the Wedding solemniz'd, and then never dream or care for Covenants. And these men's fate is like to be the same spiritually, which we read of Samson 's bodily strength: he vowed the Vow of a Nazarite, and as long as he kept unshaven, no opposition could prevail against him; but as soon as he broke his Vow, when he had let his Mistress cut his Locks, his strength departed from him. All the promises and privileges of our being in Christ, are upon condition of our obedience; and our Vow being broken, the Devil and the Philistines within us, will soon deprive us of our eyes and life. Whatsoever livelihood we presume we have in Christ, we are deceived, we are still dead in trespasses and sins. Thus do you see the three degrees of infidelity frequent amongst Christians, 1. a not taking him at all; 2. a mistaking of his person; 3. a breaking off the Covenants: now that you may abhor and fly from, and get out of each of them by a lively Faith, my next particular shall warn you, the greatness of this sin, and that first positively in its self, it shall be very tolerable for that City.

Faith may be conceived in a threefold relation, either to men, the subjects of it, and those Sinners; or 2. to Christ and his sufferings, the objects of it, with all the effects, remission of sins, and Salvation attending it: or 3. to God the Father, the Author and Commander of it, as the only condition annexed to all his promises. And consequently infidelity, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , shall be aggravated by these three depths or degrees, each adding to its exceeding sinfulness.

As Faith respects its subject, and that a sinful miserable one, engaged and fixed in an unremediable necessity of sinning and suffering forever; so is it the only means upon Earth, nay in the very counsel of God, able to do us any help; all the arts and spiritual Engines even in Heaven besides this, are unprofitable. Nay, the second Covenant now being sealed, and God forever having established the rule and method of it; I say, things thus standing, God himself cannot be presumed to have mercy upon any one, but who is thus qualified; it being the only foundation on which our Heaven is built, the only ground we have to hope for anything, as is manifest by that place, Heb. xi.1. being rightly weighed, Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, where the Greek phrase, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , signifies the ground or foundation of every of those things which can be the object of a Christians hope. So that where no ground-work, no building; if no Faith, no hope, no possibility of Heaven. If the Devil could have but stolen this Jewel out of the World, he had shut up Heaven Gates eternally, and had left it as empty of Saints, as it is full of glory, not capable of any flesh but what Christ 's Hypostatical union brought thither. And this is no more than I conceive the learned mean by necessitas med • i, that Faith is necessary as a means, i. e. there is no means besides of power, either absolutely or ex hypothesi, of itself, or on supposition of God's Covenant, to bring us to Heaven. Nothing is of force besides in reason to prepare, or morally accommodate; and God hath not promised to accept in mercy of anything else. For whereas the promises are sometimes made to repentance, sometimes to obedience, as whosoever repenteth shall be saved, and the like; you are to know, that it is on this ground, of the necessary union of these graces, that where one of them is truly and sincerely, there the rest are always in some degree, there being no example of penitence or obedience in any subject which had not faith also. For he that comes to God, must believe that he is, &c. Heb. xi.6. And he that heartily believes he is, and is a rewarder of them that seek him, will not fail to search, pursue, and follow after him. So that though the promises are made promiscuously to any one which hath either of these graces, yet 'tis upon supposal of the rest; if it be made of Faith, 'tis in confidence that faith works by love, Gal. v.6. and as S. James enforces it, is made perfect by works, James ii.22. So that in the first place, infidelity is sufficiently aggravated in respect of the subject; it being a Catholic destroyer, an intervenient that despoils him of all means, all hope, all possibility of Salvation: finding him in the state of damnation, it sets him going, suffers him not to lay hold on anything that may stay him in his Precipice; and in the midst of his Shipwrack, when there be planks and refuges enough about him, hath numm'd his hands, deprived him of any power of taking hold of them.

In the second place, in respect of Christ and his sufferings, the objects of our Faith, so Faith is in a manner the Soul of them, giving them life and efficacy, making things which are excellent in themselves, prove so in effect to others. Thus the whole splendor and beauty of the World, the most accurate proportions and images of nature, are beholding to the Eye, though not for their absolute excellency, yet for both the account and use that is made of them; for if all men were blind, the proudest workmanship of nature would not be worth the valuing. Thus is a learned piece cast away upon the ignorant, and the understanding of the Auditor, is the best commendation of a Speech or Sermon. In like manner, those infinite invaluable sufferings of Christ, if they be not believed in, are but, as Aristotle saith of divine knowledge, a most honorable thing, but of no manner of use ; if they be not apprehended, they are lost. Christ's Blood if not caught up in our hearts by Faith, but suffered to be poured out upon the Earth, will prove no better than that of Abel, Gen. iv▪ 10. crying for judgment from the ground ; that which is spilled, is clamorous, and its Voice is toward Heaven for Vengeance; only that which is gathered up, as it falls from his side, by Faith, will prove a medicine to heal the Nations. So that infidelity makes the death of Christ no more than the death of an ordinary man, in which there is no remedy, Wisd. ii.1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , there is no cure, no physic in it ; or as the same word is rendered, Eccles. xxviii.3. no pardon, no remission wrought by it, a bare going down into the Grave, that no man is better for. It doth even frustrate the sufferings of Christ, and make him have paid a ransom to no purpose, and purchased an Inheritance at an infinite rate, and no man the better for it. Again, Christ is not only contemned, but injured, not only slighted, but robbed, he loses not only his price and his thanks, but his servant, which he hath bought and purchased with his blood. For redemption is not an absolute setting free, but the buying out of an Usurpers hands, that he may return to his proper Lord; changing him from the condition of a Captive to a Subject. He which is ransomed from the Gallies, is not presently a King, but only recovered to a free and tolerable service: nay generally, if he be redeemed he is eo nomine, a servant, by right and equity his Creature that redeemed him, according to the express words, Luke i.74. That we being delivered, might serve him. Now a Servant is a Possession, part of ones Estate, as truly to be reckoned his, as any part of his Inheritance. So that every Unbeliever is a Thief, robs Christ not only of the honor of saving him, but of one of the Members of his Family, of part of his goods, his Servant; nay, 'tis not a bare theft, but of the highest size, a Sacrilege, stealing an holy instrument, a Vessel out of God's Temple, which he bought and delivered out of the common calamity, to serve him in holiness, Luke i.74. to be put to holy, special services.

In the third place, Faith may be considered in reference to God the Father, and that, 1. as the Author or Fountain of this Theological grace ; 2. as the commander of this duty of believing; and either of these will aggravate the Unbelievers guilt, and add more Articles to his indictment. As God is the Author of Faith, so the Infidel resists, and abandons, and flies from all those methods, all those means, by which God ordinarily produces Faith; all the power of his Scriptures, all the blessings of a Christian Education, all the benefits of sacred knowledge ; in sum, the Prayers, the sweat, the Lungs, the Bowels of his Ministers, in Christ's stead beseeching you to be reconciled, 1 Cor. v.20. spending their dearest spirits, and even praying and preaching out their Souls for you, that you would be Friends with God through Christ. All these, I say, the Infidel takes no notice of; and by his contempt of these inferior graces, shows how he would carry himself even towards God's very spirit, if it should come in power to convert him, he would hold out and bid defiance, and repel the Omnipotent God with his omnipotent charms of mercy: he that contemns God's ordinary means, would be likely to resist his extraordinary, were there not more force in the means, than forwardness in the man: and thanks be to that controlling, convincing, constraining spirit, if ever he be brought to be content to be saved. He that will not now believe in Christ when he is preached, would have gone very near, if he had lived then, to have given his consent, and joined his suffrage in Crucifying him. A man may guess of his inclination by his present practices, and if he will not now be his Disciple, 'twas not his innocence, but his good fortune, that he did not then betray him. 'Twas well he was born amongst Christians, or else he might have been as sour a professed Enemy of Christ, as Pilate or the Pharisees: an Unbelieving Christian is, for all his livery and profession, but a Jew or Heathen, and the Lord make him sensible of his condition.

Lastly, Consider this duty of Faith in respect of God the Father commanding it, and then you shall find it the main precept of the Bible. 'Twere long to show you the ground of it in the law of nature, the obscure, yet discernible mention of it in the moral law, both transcendently, in the main end of all, and distinctly, though not clearly, in the first Commandment; he that hath a mind to see may find it in Pet. Baro. de praest. & dignit. div. legis. 'Twere as toilsome to muster up all the commands of the Old Testament, which exactly and determinately drive at belief in Christ, as generally in those places where the Chaldee Paraphrase reads instead of God, God's Word, as, Fear not Abraham, for I am thy shield, say they, my word is thy shield, which speaks a plain command of Faith; for not to fear, is to trust; not to fear on that ground, because God's Word, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Word, Joh. i.1. i. e. Christ, is ones shield, is nothing in the World but to believe, and rely, and fasten, and depend on Christ. Many the like commands of Faith in Christ, will the Old Testament afford; and the new is nothing else but a perpetual inculcating of it upon us, a driving and calling, entreating and enforcing, wooing and hastening us to believe. In which respect the Schools call it also necessary necessitate praecepti, a thing which though we should be never the better for, we are bound to perform. So that though Faith were not able to save us, yet infidelity would damn us, it being amongst others a direct breach of a natural, a moral, nay, an Evangelical Commandment. And so much for the danger of infidelity considered positively, in relation to the Subject, whom it deprives of Heaven; the Object, Christ and his offers in the Gospel, which it frustrates; and lastly, the Author and Commander of it, God the Father, whom it resists, disobeys, and scorns. You will perhaps more feelingly be affected to the loathing of it, if we proceed to the odious and dangerous condition of it, above all other sins and breaches in the World, which is my third part, its comparative sinfulness, It shall be more tolerable, &c.

And this will appear, if we consider it, 1. in itself ; 2. in its consequences. In itself, it is fuller of guilt, in its consequences fuller of danger, than any ordinary breach of the moral Law. In itself, so it is 1. the greatest aversion from God, (in which aversion the School-men place the formalis ratio, the very Essence of sin) it is the perversest remotion and turning away of the Soul from God, and getting as far as we can out of his sight, or ken, the forbidding of all manner of Commerce or spiritual Traffick, or correspondence with God, as may appear by that admirable place, Heb. x.38. The just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul hath no pleasure in him: and verse 39. We are not of them which draw back unto perdition, but of them that do believe to the saving of the Soul. Where the phrase of drawing back opposed here to Faith and Believing, is in the original 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a cowardly, pusillanimous subducing of ones self, a getting out of the way, a not daring to meet, or approach, or accept of Christ when he is offered them; the same with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 among the Physicians, a contraction of the Soul, a shriveling of it up, a sudden correption and depression of the mind, such as the sight of some hideous danger is wont to produce, so 2 Mac. vi.12 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. to be discouraged, and to forsake the Jewish Religion, because of the calamities. So is the word used of Peter, Gal. ii.12. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. He withdrew and separated himself, fearing those that were of the Circumcision. The Infidel, I say, draws back, withdraws and sneaks out of the way, as if he were afraid of the mercies of his Savior, as if it were death to him to be so near salvation; as if Christ coming to him with the mercies of the Gospel, were the mortal'st enemy under Heaven, and there were no such mischief to be done him, as his conversion. This indeed is an aversion in the highest degree, when we fly and draw back from God when he comes to save us, when the sight of a Savior makes us take our heels. Adam might well hide himself, when God came to challenge him about his disobedience; the guilty conscience being afraid of revenge, may well slink out of his presence with Cain, Gen. iv.16. But to tremble and quake at a proclamation of mercy, when God draws with cords of a man, Hos. xi.4. a powerful phrase expressed in the next words with the bands of love ; when he loveth us, and calls his Son out for us, v. 1. then to be bent to backsliding, in the 7. ver. to draw back when he comes to embrace, this is a stubbornness and contraction of the soul, a crouching of it in, a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that neither nature nor reason would be guilty of: an aversion from God, which no other sin can parallel, and therefore of all other, most intolerable, in the first place.

2. Infidelity gives God the lie, and denies whatever God proclaims in the Gospel. The reason or ground of any ones belief, the objectum formal quo, that by assenting to which, I come to believe, is God's Veracity, the Confidence that God speaks true, the relying on his word, is that which brings me to lay hold on Christ; and therefore the Infidel is down right with God; he will not take his word, he will never be persuaded that these benefits of Christ's death that are offered to all men, can ever do him any good. Let God call him to accept them, he will never come; his surly, resolute carriage, is in effect a contradicting of whatever God hath affirmed, a direct thwarting, a giving the lie to God and his Evangelists : and this is an aggravation not to be mentioned without reverence or horror, the most odious affront in the World: the Lord be merciful to us in this matter.

Next, this sin is a sin of the most dangerous consequences of any.

1. It produces all other sins, and that positively, by doubting of his justice, and so falling into adulteries, blasphemies, and the like, in security and hope of impunity; by distrusting of his providence and mercy, and so flying to covetousness, murmuring, tempting, subtlety, all arts and stratagems of getting for our temporal estate, and ordinary despair in our spiritual: then privatively, depriving us of that which is the mother and soul of our obedience and good Works, I mean faith, so that everything for want of it, is turned into sin, and thereby depopulating the whole man, making him nothing in the World but ruins and noysomness, a confluence of all manner of sins, without any concomitant degree of duty or obedience.

2. It frustrates all good Exhortations, and forbids all manner of superstructions, which the Ministers are wont to labor for, in moving us to charity and obedience, and joy, and hope, and prayer, by not having laid any foundation whereon these must be built; any of these set or planted in any Infidel heart, will soon wither: they must have a stock of faith whereon to be grafted, or else they are never likely to thrive. As Galba 's Wit was a good one, but 'twas unluckily placed, ill-seated, there was no good to be wrought by it. The proudest of our works or merits, the perfectest morality, will stand but very weakly, unless it be founded on that foundation, whose corner stone is Christ Jesus.

1. It leaves no place in the world for remedy : he that is an Idolater, a Sabbath-breaker, or the like; he that is arraigned at the law, and found guilty at that Tribunal, hath yet an Advocate in the Gospel, a higher power to whom he may appeal to mitigate his sentence: but he that hath sinned against the Gospel, hath no farther to go, he hath sinned against that, which should have remitted all other sins; and now he is come to an unremediable estate, to a kind of hell, or the grave of sin, from whence there is no recovery. There's not a mercy to be fetched in the world, but out of the Gospel, and he that hath refused them, is past any farther treaty: He that believeth not, is condemned already, John iii.18. his damnation is sealed to him; and the entail past cutting off, 'tis his purchase, and now wants nothing but livery and seizin; nay 'tis his patrimony, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Ecclus. xx.25. he is as sure of it, as of any penny worth of his inheritance. And the reason is implied, 1 Cor. xv.17. If Christ be not risen, you are yet in your sins: there is no way to get out of our sins, but Christ's resurrection; and he that believeth not, Christ is not risen to him; 'twere all one to him, if there had never been a Savior; and therefore he remains in his old thralldom; he was taken captive in Adam, and hath never since had any other means to restore him: the ransom that was offered all, he would none of, and so he sticks unredeemed, he is yet in his sins, and so forever like to continue. And now he is come to this state, 'twere superfluous farther to aggravate the sin against him; his case is too wretched to be upbraided him, the rest of our time shall be employed in providing a remedy for him, if it be possible, and that must be from consideration of the disease, in a word and close of application.

The sin being thus displayed to you with its consequences, O what a spirit should it raise in us! O what a resolution and expression of our manhood, to resist and banish out of us this evil heart of unbelief! Heb. iii.12. what an hatred should it work in our bowels, what a reluctancy, what an indignation, what a revenge against the fruit of our bosom, which hath so long grown and thrived within us, only to our destruction! which is provided as it were to eat our souls, as an harbinger to prepare a place within us for the worm in Hell, where it may lie and bite and gnaw at ease eternally! 'It is an Examination that will deserve the most precious minute of our lives, the solemnest work of our souls, the carefullest muster of our faculties, to shrift and winnow, and even set our hearts upon the rack, to see whether any fruit or seed of infidelity lurk in it; and in a matter of this danger, to prevent God inquest by our own, to display everything to ourselves, just as it shall be laid open before God in judgment, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Heb. iv.13. naked and discernible as the entrails of a Creature cut down the back, where the very method of nature in its secrecies is betrayed to the eye. I say, to cut ourselves up, and to search into every crany of our souls, every winding of either our understanding or affections ; and observe whether any infidel thought, any infidel lust, be lodged there: and when we have found this execrable thing, which hath brought all our plagues on us, then must we purge, and cleanse, and lustrate the whole City for its sake; and with more Ceremony than ever the heathen used, even with a superstition of daily, hourly prayers, and sacrificing ourselves to God, strive and struggle, and offer violence to remove this unclean thing out of our Coasts; use these unbelieving hearts of ours, as Josiah did the Altars of Ahaz, 2 King. xxiii.12. break them down, beat them to powder, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron ; that Cedron which Christ passed over when he went to suffer, John xviii.1. even that brook which Christ drank of by the way, Psa. cx.7. And there indeed is there a remedy for infidelity, if the Infidel will throw it in. If he will put it off, be it never so died in the contempt of Christ's blood, that very blood shall cleanse it: and therefore

In the next place, let us labor for Faith ; let not his hands be stretched out any longer upon the cross, to a faithless and stubborn generation. 'Twere a piece of ignorance that a Scholar would abhor to be guilty of, not to be able to understand that inscription written by Pilate in either of 3. languages, Jesus of Nazareth, King, John xix.19. Nay for all the Gospels and Comments written on it, both by his Disciples and his works, still to be non-proficience, this would prove an accusation written in Marble, nay an Exprobration above a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . In a word, Christ is still offered, and the proclamation not yet outdated, his sufferings in the Scripture proposed to everyone of you to lay hold on, and his Ministers sent as Ambassadors beseeching you to be reconciled, 2 Cor. v.20. and more than that, in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, his body and blood set before our eyes to be felt and gazed on, and then even a Didymus would believe; nay, to be divided amongst us, and put in our mouths, and then who would be so sluggish as to refuse to feed on him in his heart?

For your Election from the beginning to this gift of Faith, let that never raise any doubt or scruple in you, and foreslow that coming to him; this is a jealousy that hath undone many, in a resolvedness that if they are not elected, all their Faith shall prove unprofitable. Christ that bids thee repent, believe, and come unto him, is not so frivolous to command impossibilities, nor so cruel to mock our impotence. Thou mayest believe, because he bids: Believe, and then thou mayest be sure thou wert predestinated to believe; and then all the decrees in the World, cannot deny thee Christ, if thou art thus resolved to have him. If thou wilt not believe, thou hast reprobated thyself, and who is to be accused that thou art not saved? But if thou wilt come in, there is sure entertainment for thee. He that begins in God's Counsels, and never thinks fit to go about any Evangelical duty, till he can see his name writ in the book of life, must not begin to believe, till he be in Heaven; for there only is that to be read radio recto. The surer course is to follow the Scripture; to hope comfortably everyone of ourselves, to use the means, apprehend the mercies, and then to be confident of the benefis of Christ's suffering: and this is the way to make our Election sure, to read it in ourselves radio reflexo, by knowing that we believe, to resolve that we are elected; thereby we know that we are past from death to life, if we love the brethren, 1 John iii.14. And so is it also of Faith; for these are inseparable graces. So Psal. xxv.14. Prov. iii.32. God's secret and his Covenant, being taken for his decree, is said to be with them that fear him, and to be shown to them, i. e. their very fearing of God, is an evidence to them that they are his elect, with whom he hath entered Covenant. Our Faith is the best argument, or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by which to make a judgment of God's decree concerning us. I say, if we will believe, God hath elected us; 'tis impossible any true Faith should be refused, upon pretence the person was predestined to destrustion; and if it were possible, yet would I hope that God's decrees (were they as absolute as some would have them) should sooner be softened into mercy, than that mercy purchased by his Son, should ever fail to any that believes. The bargain was made, the Covenant struck, and the immutability of the Persian Laws are nothing to it, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life, Joh. iii.15. Wherefore in brief, let us attend the means, and let what will or can come of the End; Christ is offered to every soul here present, to be a Jesus, only do thou accept of him, and thou art past from death to life ; there is no more required of thee, but only to take him; if thou art truly possessor of him, he will justify, he will humble, he will sanctify thee; he will work all reformation in thee; and in time se • l thee up to the day of redemption: Only be careful that thou mistakest not his Person ; thou must receive him, as well as his promises; thou must take him as a Lord and King, as well as a Savior, and be content to be a subject, as well as a Saint. He is now proclaimed in your ears, and you must not foreslow the audience, or procrastinate; To day if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. He holds himself out on purpose to you, and by the Minister woos you to embrace him: and then it nearly concerns you, not to provoke so true, so hearty, nay even so passionate a friend: if he be not kissed, he will be angry. Lastly, if in this business of believing, so vulgarly exposed, there yet appear some difficulties in the practice, to be overcome before it prove a possible duty: If self-denial be incompetible with flesh and blood; if delights and worldly contentments, if an hardened heart in sin, and a world of high Imaginations, refuse to submit or humble themselves to the poverty of Christ; if we cannot empty our hands to lay hold, or unbottom ourselves to lean wholly on Christ, then must we fly, and pray to that spirit of power, to subdue, and conquer, and lead us captive to itself, to instruct us in the baseness, the nothingness, nay the dismal, hideous wretchedness of our own estate, that so being spiritually shaken and terrified out of our carnal pride and security, we may come trembling and quaking to that Throne of Grace, and with the hands of Faith though feeble ones, with the eye of Faith, though dimly, with a hearty sincere resigning up of ourselves, we may see and apprehend, and fasten, and be united to our Savior: that we may live in Christ, and Christ in us, and having begun in the life of Grace here, we may hope and attain to be accomplished with that of Glory hereafter.

Now to him which hath elected us, &c.

SERMON XII.

THE words in our English Translation carry somewhat in the sound, which doth not fully reach the importance of the Original, and therefore it must be the task of our Preface not to connect the Text, but clear it; not to show its dependence on the precedent words, but to restore it to the integrity of itself, that so we may perfectly conceive the words, before we venture to discuss them; that we may 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Aristotle phrases it, first represent them to you in the bulk, then describe them particularly in their several lineaments. Our English setting of the words, seems to make two Propositions, and in them a direct opposition betwixt the condition of the ancient, and present Gentiles; that God had winked at, i. e. either approved, or pitied, or pardoned the ignorance of the former Heathens; but now was resolved to execute justice on all, that did continue in that was heretofore pardonable in them, on everyone everywhere that did not repent. Now the Original runs thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. that is, in a literal construction, God therefore passing over the times of ignorance, as if he saw them not, doth now command all men everywhere to repent. Which you may conceive thus, by this kind of vulgar 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or sensible proceeding in God. God always is essentially and perfectly everyone of his Attributes, Wisdom, Justice, Mercy, &c. but yet is said at one time to be peculiarly one Attribute, at another time another, i. e. to be at one time actually just, at another time actually merciful, according to his determination to the object. As when God fixes his Eyes upon a rebellious people, whose sins are ripe for his justice, he then executes his vengeance on them, as on Sodom: when he fixes his Eyes upon a penitent believing people, he then doth exercise his mercy, as on Nineveh. Now when God looks upon any part of the lapsed World, on which he intends to have mercy, he suffers not his Eye to be fixed or terminated on the medium betwixt his Eye and them, on the sins of all their Ancestors from the beginning of the World till that day; but having another account to call them to, doth for the present 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , look over all them, as if they were not in his way, and imputing not the sins of the Fathers to the Children, fixeth on the Children, makes his Covenant of mercy with them, and commandeth them the condition of this Covenant, whereby they shall obtain mercy, that is, everyone everywhere to repent. So that in the first place, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , must not be rendered by way of opposition, he winked then, but now commands, as if their former ignorance were justifiable, and an account of knowledge should only be exacted from us. And in the second place, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a word read but this once in all the New Testament, must be rendered, not winking at, but looking over, or not insisting upon; as when we fix our Eyes upon a Hill, we suffer them not to dwell on the Valley, on this side of it, because we look earnestly on the Hill. Now if this be not the common Attical acception of it, yet it will seem agreeable to the penning of the New Testament, in which whosoever will observe, may find words and phrases which perhaps the Attick purity, perhaps Grammar, will not approve of. And yet I doubt not but Classic authorities may be brought, where 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 shall signify, not a winking, or not taking notice of, but a looking farther, a not resting in this, but a driving higher, for so it is rendered by Stephanus, Ad ulteriora oculos convertere ; and then the phrase shall be as proper as the sense, the Gre • k as authentical as the doctrine, that God looking over and not insisting upon the ignorance of the former Heathen, at Christ's coming entered a Covenant with their Successors, the condition of which was, that every man everywhere should repent.

And this is made good by the Gr. Schol. of the N. T. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. that is spoken, not that the former heathen should be unpunished, but that their Successors to whom St. Paul preached, if they would repent, should not be called to an account of their ignorance, should not fare the worse for the ignorance of their Fathers; and at this drives also Chrysostom, out of whom the Scholiasts may seem to have borrowed it, their whole 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 being but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , gleanings out of the Fathers before them. I might farther prove the necessity of this interpretation, if it were required of me: and thus far I have stayed you to prove it, because our English is somewhat imperfect in the expression of it. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith Aristotle, Two Cubes are not a Cube, but another figure very different from it: and indeed our English Translations by making two Propositions of this Verse, have varied the native single Proposition in that regard, and made it unlike itself, which briefly (if I can inform myself aright) should run thus, by way of one simple Enunciation; God therefore not insisting on, but looking over those times of ignorance, doth now command all men everywhere to repent ; of which those three lines in Leo his fourth Sermon de Passione Domini, are a just Paraphrase, Nos sub veteris ignorantiae profunda nocte pereuntes, in Patriarcharum societatem, & sortem electi gregis adoptavit. So then the words being represented to you in this Scheme or single Diagram, are the Covenant of mercy made with the Progeny of ignorant Heathens upon condition of repentance, in which you may observe two grand parallel lines, • . the ignorance of the Heathen, such as in the justice of God, might have provoked him to have pretermitted the whole world of succeeding Gentiles: 2. the mercy of God, not imputing their ignorance to our charge, whosoever everywhere to the end of the world shall repent. And first of the first, the ignorance of the Heathen in these words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the times, &c.

If for the clearing of this bill, we should begin our inquest at Japheth the father of the Gentiles, examine them all by their gradations, we should in the general find the evidence to run thus; 1. That they were absolutely ignorant, as ignorance is opposed to learning: 2. Ignorant in the affairs of God, as ignorance is opposed to piety or spiritual wisdom: 3. Ignorant supinely, perversely, and maliciously, as it is opposed to a simple or more excusable ignorance.

Their absolute ignorance or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , their want of learning, is at large proved by St. Austin 18. de Civ. Dei, Eusebius Praepar. 10. Clemens in his Protr • p. and others, some of whose writings to this purpose (because it is easier for my Auditors to believe me in gross, than to be troubled with the retail) is this, that the beginnings of learning in all kinds, was among the Jews, whilst the whole Heathen world besides, was barbarously ignorant; that Moses appointed Masters among the tribes, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which initiated the youth of Israel in all kind of secular learning; or if you will believe Patricius and his proofs, that Sem erected, and afterwards Heber enlarged Scholas Doctrinarum, Schools or Seminaries of learning, where learning was professed and taught, that Abraham, as Eusebius cites Nic. Damascenus for it, was excellent in the Mathematics, and dispersed and communicated his knowledge in Chaldea, from whence the Egyptians, and from them the Grecians came to them; that Enoch was probably judged by Polyhistor, to be that Atlas to whom the Heathen imputed the beginning of Astronomy ; that in the sum, all learning was primitive among the Hebrews, and from them by stealth and filching, some seeds of it sown in Phoenicia, Egypt, and at last in Greece. For they make it plain by computation, that Moses (who yet was long after Enoch, and Sem, and Heber, and Abraham, all in confesso great Scholars) that Moses, I say, was 1500 years ancienter than the Greek Philosophers, that all the learning that is found and brag'd of amongst the Grecians (whose ignorance my Text chiefly deals with, St. Paul's discourse here being addrest to the Athenians) was but a babe of a day old, in respect of the true antiquity of learning: that all their Philosophy was but scraps, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which fell from the Jews tables ; that in their stealth they were very imprudent, glean'd only that which was not worth carrying away, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. stuffed their sacks, which they carried into Egypt to buy food, only with some unprofitable chaff, with empty speculations that would puff up, not fill or nourish the soul, but brought no valuable real commodity away with them, whereby they might improve their knowledge, or reform their manners; upon which two grounds, 1. the vanity and unprofitableness of their learning ; 2. the novelty of it in respect of the Hebrews from whom they stole it afar off; they are not thought worthy of the title of Scholars; and for all the noise of their Philosophy, are yet judged absolutely ignorant, as ignorance is opposed to learning.

In the second, for their ignorance in the affairs of God, their own Authors examination will bring in a sufficient evidence. If you will sort out the chiefest names of learned men amongst them, you will there find the veriest dunces in this learning. The Deipnosophists, the only wits of the time, are yet described by Athenaeus, to employ their study only how to get good cheer a free-cost, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , they fed deliciously, and yet were at no charge for the provision; and amongst them, you shall scarcely find any knowledge or worship of even their Heathen God's, but only in drinking, where their luxury had this excuse or pretence of religion, that it was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , an experiment of the power of that good God, which had provided such a creature as Wine for them to abuse; which perhaps a drunken Romish Casuist stole from them, where he allows of drinking supra modum, ad glorificandum Deum, &c. to the glorifying of God, Creator of so excellent a creature, which hath the effect in it of turning men into beasts. So that it seems by the story of them in brief, that the Deipnosophists, men of the finest, politest conceits, as Ulpianus Tyrius, Calliphanes, and the like in Athenaeus, in the multitude of the Grecian God's had but one Deity, and that was their belly, which they worshipped religioso luxu, not singing, but eating and drinking praises to his name; to this add the Sophistae, Protagoras, Hippias, and the like great boasters of learning in Socrates his time, and much followed by the youth, till he persuaded them from admiring such unprofitable professors, and these are observed by Plutarch, to be mere hucksters of vain glory; getting great store of money and applause from their auditors, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , silver and popularity, but had no manner of profitable learning to bestow upon them, as Plutarch dooms them in his Platonic questions, and Socrates in his Dialogues in confutation of them; and certainly by their very profession 'tis plain that these men had no God to know or worship, except their gain. But not to insist on these or other their Professors of more curious, trim, polite learning, as their Philosophers, Grammarians, and Rhetoricians, it will be more seasonable to our Text to examine St. Paul's auditors here, the great speculators among them: (1) the deepest Philosophers, and there where you expect the greatest knowledge, you shall find the most barbarous ignorance; in the midst of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of the Grecians, the Philosophers (saith Clem. and 'tis plain by their writings) finding out and acknowledging in private this multitude of God's to be a prodigious vanity, and infinitely below the gravity and wisdom of their profession, took themselves off from this unreasonable worship, and almost each of them in private worshipped someone God. And here you would think that they jump'd with the Jews of that time, in the acknowledging an unity: but if you mark them you shall find that they did not reform the popular Atheism, but only varied it into a more rational way. Thales would not acknowledge Neptune, as the Poets and people did, but yet he deifies the water, as Clem. observes: another scorned to be so senseless as to worship wood or stone, and yet he deifies the earth, the parent of them both, and as senseless as them both; and does at once calcare terram, & colere, tread on the earth with his feet, and adore it with his heart. So Socrates (who by bringing in morality, was a great refiner and pruner of barren Philosophy) absolutely denying the Grecian God's, and thence called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , is yet brought in by Aristophanes, worshipping the clouds, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. and by a more friendly Historian described addressing a sacrifice to Aesculapius, being at the point of death. So that in brief, the Philosophers disliking the vulgar superstition, went to School, saith Clem. to the Persian Magi, and of them learnt a more Scholastic Atheism. The worship of those venerable Elements, which because they were the beginnings, out of which natural bodies were composed, were by these naturalists admired and worshipped instead of the God of nature. From which a man may plainly judge of the beginning and ground of the general Atheism of Philosophers, that it was a superficial knowledge of Philosophy, the sight of second causes and dwelling on them, and being unable to go any higher. For men by nature being inclined to acknowledge a Deity, take that to be their God which is the highest in their sphere of knowledge, or the supremum cognitum which they have attained to; whereas if they had been studious, or able, by the dependence of causes, to have proceeded beyond these Elements, they might possibly, nay certainly would have been reduced to piety and religion, which is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the knowledge and worship of God ; but there were many hindrances which kept them groveling on the earth, not able to ascend this ladder: 1. They wanted that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which Aphrod. on the Topics speaks of, that kindly, familiar good temper, or disposition of the soul, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by which the mind is able to find out and judge of truth ; they wanted either that natural harmony, or spiritual concord of the powers of the soul, by which it is able to reach those things which now in corrupt nature, are only spiritually discerned. For it is Clem. his Christian judgment of them, that the Gentiles being but Bastards, not true born sons of God, but Aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, were therefore not able to look up toward the Light, (as 'tis observed of the bastard-brood of Eagles ) or consequently to discern that inaccessible light, till they were received into the Covenant, and made 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , true proper Children of light. A second hindrance was the grossness and earthiness of their fancy, which was not able to conceive God to be anything but a corporeous substance, as Philoponus observes in Schol. on the books de anima, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. When we have a mind to betake ourselves to divine speculation, our fancy comes in, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , raises such a tempest in us, so many earthly meteors to clog, and over-cloud the soul, that it cannot but conceive the Deity under some bodily shape, and this disorder of the fancy doth perpetually attend the soul, even in the fairest weather, in its greatest calm and serenity of affections, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. saith Plato, even when the soul is free from its ordinary distractions, and hath provided itself most accurately for contemplation. Philoponus in this place finding this inconvenience, fetches a remedy out of Plotinus for this rarifying and purifying of the fancy, and it is the study of the Mathematics, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 &c. Let young men be brought up in the study of the Mathematics, to some acquaintance with an incorporeous nature: but how unprofitable a remedy this study of the Mathematics was, to the purpose of preparing the soul to a right conceit of God, I doubt not but he himself afterwards found, when he turned Christian, and saw how far their Mathematical and Metaphysical abstractions fell below those purest Theological conceits, of which only grace could make him capable. So that in brief their understanding being fed by their fancies, and both together fatned with corporeous phantasms, as they increased in natural knowledge, grew more hardened in spiritual ignorance, and as Clem saith of them, were like birds crammed in a Coop; fed in darkness, and nourished for death: their gross conceits groping on in obscurity, and furnishing them only with such opinions of God, as should increase both their ignorance and damnation. That I be not too large and confused in this discourse, let us pitch upon Aristotle one of the latest of the Ancient Philosophers, not above 340 years before Christ, who therefore seeing the vanities, and making use of the helps of all the Grecian learning, may probably be judged to have as much knowledge of God as any Heathen; and indeed the Colen Divines had such an opinion of his skill and expressions that way, that in their tract of Aristotle's Salvation, they define him to be Christ's Precursor in Naturalibus, as John the Baptist was in gratuitis. But in brief, if we examine him, we shall find him much otherwise, as stupid in the affairs of 1. God, 2. the Soul, 3. Happiness, as any of his fellow Gentiles. If the book 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , were his own legitimate work, a man might guess that he saw something, though he denied the particular providence of the Deity, and that he acknowledged his omnipotence, though he would not be so bold with him, as to let him be busied in the producing of every particular sublunary effect. The man might seem somewhat tender of God, as if being but newly come acquainted with him, he were afraid to put him to too much pains, as judging it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 &c. neither comely nor befitting the Majesty of a God, to interest himself in every action upon earth. It might seem a reverence and awe which made him provide the same course for God, which he saw used in the Courts of Susa and Echatana, where the King (saith he) lived invisible in his Palace, and yet by his Officers, as through prospectives and Otacousticks, saw and heard all that was done in his Dominions. But this book being not of the same complexion with the rest of his Philosophy, is shrewdly guest to be a spurious issue of latter times, entitled to Aristotle and translated by Apuleius, but not owned by its brethren, the rest of his books of Philosophy; for even in the Metaphysics (where he is at his wisest) he censures Zenophanes for a Clown for looking up to Heaven, and affirming that there was one God there, the cause of all things, and rather than he will credit him, he commends Parmenides for a subtle fellow, who said nothing at all, or I am sure to no purpose.

Concerning his knowledge of the soul, 'tis Philoponus his observation of him, that he persuades only the more understanding, laborious, judicious sort to be his Auditors in that subject, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. But dehorts men of meaner vulgar parts, less intent to their study, from meddling at all with this science about the soul, for he plainly tells them in his first de anima, 'tis too hard for any ordinary capacity, and yet in the first of the Metaph. he defines the wise man to be one who besides his own accurate knowledge of hard things, as the Causes of the soul, &c. is also able to teach anybody else, who hath such an habit of knowledge, and such a command over it, that he can make any Auditor understand the abstrusest mystery in it. So then out of his own words he is convinced to have had no skill, no wisdom in the business of the soul, because he could not explain nor communicate this knowledge to any but choice Auditors. The truth is, these were but shifts of pride, and ambitious pretences to cloak a palpable ignorance, under the habit of mysterious, deep speculation: when alas poor man! all that which he knew, or wrote of the soul, was scarce worth learning, only enough to confute his fellow ignorant Philosophers, to puzzle others, to puff himself; but to profit, instruct, or edify none.

In the third place, concerning happiness, he plainly bewrays himself to be a coward, not daring to meddle with Divinity. For 1 Eth. c. 9. being probably given to understand, or rather indeed plainly convinced, that if anything in the world were, then happiness must likely be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the gift of God bestowed on men, yet he there staggers at it, speaks sceptically, and not so magisterially as he is wont, dares not be so bold as to define it: and at last does not profess his ignorance, but takes a more honorable course, and puts it off to some other place to be discust. Where Andronicus Rhodius his Greek Paraphrase, tells us he meant his Tract 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , about Providence: but in all Laërtius his Catalogue of the multitude of his writings, we find no such title, and I much suspect by his other carriages, that the man was not so valiant as to deal with any so unwieldy a subject, as the Providence would have proved. Sure I am he might, if he had had a mind to it, have quitted himself of his engagements, and seasonably enough have defined the fountain of happiness there, in Ethics, but in the 10. c. it appears that it was no pretermission, but ignorance; not a care of deferring it to a fitter place, but a necessary silence, where he was not able to speak. For there mentioning happiness and miserableness after death, (where he might have shown his skill if he had had any) he plainly betrays himself an arrant naturalist, in defining all the felicity, and misery, to be the good or ill proof of their friends and children left behind them, which are to them being dead, happiness or miseries, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , of which they are not any way sensible. But of what hath been spoken it is plain that the Heathen never looked after God of their own accord, but as they were driven upon him by the necessity of their study, which from the second causes, necessarily lead them in a chain to some view of the first mover; and then, some of them, either frighted with the light, or despairing of their own abilities, were terrified or discouraged from any farther search; some few others sought after him, but as Aristotle saith the Geometer doth, after a right line only, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as a contemplator of truth, but not as the knowledge of it is any way useful or conducible to the ordering, or bettering of their lives: they had an itching desire to know the Deity, but neither to apply it as a rule to their actions, nor to order their actions to his glory. For generally whensoever any action drove them on any subject which intrenched on Divinity, you shall find them more flat than ordinary, not handling it according to any manner of accuracy or sharpness, but only 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , only as much use or as little as their study in the search of things constrained them to, and then for most part they fly off abruptly, as if they were glad to be quit of so cumbersome a subject. Whence Aristotle observes, that the whole Tract de causis was obscurely and inartificially handled by the Ancients, and if sometimes they spake to the purpose, 'twas as unskillful, unexercised fencers 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , they lay on, and sometimes strike a lucky blow or two, but more by chance than skill, sometimes letting fall from their pens those truths which never entered their understandings, as Theophilus ad Auto. observes of Homer and Hesiod, that being inspired by their Muses, i. e. the devil, spake according to that spirit, lies and fables, and exact Atheism, and yet sometimes would stumble upon a truth of Divinity, as men possessed with Devils, did sometimes confess Christ, and the evil spirits being adjured by his name, came out and confessed themselves to be devils. Thus it is plain out of the Philosophers and Heathen discourses, 1. Of God, 2. The Soul, 3 Happiness, that they were also ignorant, as ignorance is opposed to piety or spiritual wisdom, which was to be proved by way of premise, in the second place.

Now in the third place, for the guilt of their ignorance, that it was a perverse, gross, malicious and inexcusable ignorance, you shall briefly judge. Aristotle, 1 Met. 2. being elevated above ordinary in his discourse about wisdom, confesses the Knowledge of God to be the best Knowledge and most honorable of all, but of no manner of use or necessity; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. No Knowledge is better than this, yet none more unnecessary, as if the Evidence of truth made him confess the nobility of this wisdom, but his own supine, stupid, perverse resolutions made him contemn it as unnecessary. But that I may not charge the accusation too hard upon Aristotle above others, and take as much pains to damn him, as the Colen Divines did to save him, we will deal more at large, as Aristotle prescribes his wise men, 1. Met. and rip up to you the unexecusableness of the heathen ignorance in general: 1. By the authority of Clemens, who is guest to be one of their kindest patrons in his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . where having cited many testimonies out of them, concerning the unity, he concludes thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. Seeing that the Heathen had some sparks of the divine truth, some gleanings out of the written word, and yet make so little use of it as they do; they do, saith he, show the power of God's word to have been revealed to them, and accuse their own weakness, that they did not improve it to the end for which it was sent ; that they increased it not into a saving knowledge; where (by the way) the word weakness is used by Clement by way of softening, or mercy, as here the Apostle useth ignorance, when he might have said impiety. For sure if the accusation run thus, that the word of God was revealed to them, and yet they made no use of it, as it doth here in Clem. the sentence then upon this, must needs conclude them, not only 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , weak, but perverse contemners of the light of Scripture. Again, the Philosophers themselves confess that ignorance is the nurse, nay, mother of all impiety: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. whatsoever an ignorant man or fool doth, is unholy and wicked necessarily; ignorance being 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a species of madness, and no mad-man being capable of any sober action; so that if their ignorance were in the midst of means of knowledge, then must it be perverse; if it had an impure influence upon all their actions, then was it malicious and full of guilt. 2. Their chief ground that sustained and continued their ignorance, proves it to be not blind but affected, which ground you shall find by the Heathen objection in Clem. to be a resolution not to change the religion of their fathers. 'It is an unreasonable thing, say the Heathens, which they never will be brought to, to change the customs bequeathed to them by their ancestors. From whence the Father solidly concludes, that there was not any means in nature, which could make the Christian Religion contemned and hated, but only this pestilent custom of never altering any customs or laws, though never so unreasonable: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. 'tis not possible that ever any nation should hate and fly from this greatest blessing that ever was bestowed upon mankind, to wit, the knowledge and worship of God, unless being carried on by custom, they resolved to go the old way to Hell, rather than to venture on a new path to Heaven. Hence it is, that Athenagoras in his Treaty with Commodus for the Christians, wonders much that among so many Laws made yearly in Rome, there was not one enacted 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that men should forsake the customs of their fathers, which were any way absurd. From whence he falls straight to their absurd Deities, as if it being made lawful to relinquish ridiculous customs, there would be no plea left for their ridiculous gods. So Eusebius Praep. l. 2. makes the cause of the continuance of superstition to be, that no man dared to move those things which ancient custom of the Country had authorized; and so also in his fourth book, where to bring in Christianity was accounted 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to change things that were fixed, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. and to be pragmatical, friends of innovation ; and so 'tis plain they esteemed St. Paul, and hated him in that name, as an Innovator, because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection, Acts 17.18. So Acts the 16.21. St. Paul is said to teach customs which were not lawful for them to receive nor observe, being Romans, because, saith Casaubon out of Dio, 'twas not lawful for the Romans to innovate anything in religion, for saith Dio, this bringing in of new God's, will bring in new Laws with it. So that if (as hath been proved) their not acknowledging of the true God, was grounded upon a perverse resolution, not to change any custom of their fathers, either in opinion or practice, though never so absurd; then was the ignorance (or as St. Paul might have called it, the idolatry ) of those times impious, affected, not a natural blindness, but a pertinacious winking, not a simple deafness, but a resolved stubbornness not to hear the voice of the charmer; which we might further prove by showing you thirdly, how their learning or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which might be proved an excellent preparative to religion, their Philosophy, which was to them as the Law to the Jews, by their using of it to a perverse end, grew ordinarily very pernicious to them. 4. How that those which knew most, and were at the top of profane knowledge, did then fall most desperately headlong into Atheism ; as Hippocrates observes, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and St. Basil, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the most perfect constitution of body, so of the soul, is most dangerous, if not sustained with good care and wisdom. 5. How they always forged lies to scandal the people of God, as Manetho the famous Egyptian Historian saith, that Moses and the Jews were banished out of Egypt, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , because of an infectious leprosy that over-spread the Jews, as Theophilus cites it, and Justine out of Trogus, and also Tacitus ; and the Primitive Christians were branded and abomined by them for three special fau • ts, which they were little likely to be guilty of; 1. Atheism, 2. Eating their Children, 3. Incestuous, common using of women, as we find them set down and confuted by Athen. in his Treaty or Apology, and Theophilus ad Autol. &c. 6. By their own confession, as of Plato to his friend, when he wrote in earnest, and secretly acknowledging the unity which he openly denied, against his conscience and the light of reason in him; and Orpheus the inventer of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , professing and worshipping 365. God's all his life time, at his death left in his will 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that, however he had persuaded them all the while, there was indeed but one God. And lastly, how these two affections in them, admiration and gratitude ; admiration of men of extraordinary worth, and gratitude for more than ordinary benefactions done either to particular men or Nations, were the chief promoters of idolatry; making the Heathens worship them as God's, whom they were acquainted with, and knew to be but men, as might be proved variously and at large. If I could insist upon any or each of these, it would be most evident, what I hope now at last is proved enough, that the ignorance of those times was not simple, blind ignorance, but malign, perverse, sacrilegious, affected, stubborn, willful, I had almost said, knowing ignorance in them; which being the thing we first promised to demonstrate, we must next make up the Proposition which is yet imperfect, to wit, that ignorance in these Heathen, in God's justice, might have provoked him to have pretermitted the whole world of succeeding Gentiles: which I must dispatch only in a word, because I would fain descend to Application, which I intended to be the main, but the improvident expense of my time, hath now left only to be the close of my discourse.

The ignorance of those times being of this composition, both in respect of the superstition of their worship, which was perverse, as hath been proved, and the profaneness of their lives, being abominable even to nature (as might farther be shown) is now no longer to be called ignorance, but profaneness, and a profaneness so Epidemical over all the Gentiles, so inbred and naturalized among them, that it was even become their property, radicated in their mythical times, and by continual succession derived down to them by their generations. So that if either a natural man with the eye of reason, or a spiritual man by observation of God's other acts of justice, should look upon the Gentiles in that state which they were in at Christ's coming, all of them damnable superstitious, or rather idolatrous in their worship ; all of them damnable profane in their lives ; and which was worse, all of them peremptorily resolved, and by a law of homage to the customs of their fathers, necessarily engaged to continue in the road of damnation ; he would certainly give the whole succession of them over as desperate people, infinitely beyond hopes or probability of salvation. And this may appear by St. Peter in the 10. of the Acts, where this very thing, that the Gentiles should be called, was so incredible a mystery, that he was fain to be cast into a trance, and to receive a vision to interpret it to his belief: and a first or a second command could not persuade him to arise, kill, and eat ▪ verse 16. that is, to preach to Gentiles; he was still objecting the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the profaneness and uncleanness of them. And at last, when by the assurance of the spirit, v. 15. and the Heathen Cornelius his discourse with him, he was plainly convinced, what otherwise he never dreamt possible, that God had a design of mercy on the Gentiles, he breaks out into a phrase both of acknowledgment and admiration, Of a truth I perceive, &c. verse 34. and that you may not judge it was one single Doctors opinion, 'tis added, verse 45. And they of the Circumcision which believed, were astonished, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. Nay, in the 3 to the Ephesians verse 10. it is plain, that the calling of the Gentiles was so strange a thing, that the Angels themselves knew not of it till it was effected. For this was the mystery which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God, verse 9. which was now made known by the Church to principalities and powers, verse 10. The brief plain meaning of which hard place is, that by St. Paul's preaching to the Gentiles, by this new work done in the Church, to wit, the calling of the Gentiles, the Angels came to understand somewhat, which was before too obscure for them, till it was explained by the event, and in it the manifold wisdom of God. And this Proposition I might prove to you by many Topics : 1. By symptoms, that their estate was desperate, and their disease 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , very, very mortal ; as that God, when he would mend a people, he punisheth them with afflictions ; when he intends to stop a current of impetuous sinners, he lays the ax to the root, in a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or total subversion of them: but when his punishments are spiritual, as they were here, when he strikes neither with the rod, nor with the sword, but makes one sin the punishment of another, as unnatural lust of idolatry, and the like; when he leaves a nation to itself, and the very judgment laid upon them, makes them only less capable of mercy ; then is it much to be feared that God hath little mercy intended for that people, their desertion being a forerunner of judgment without mercy. 2. I might prove it ab exemplo, and that exactly with a nec datur dissimile in Scripture, that the nine Monarchies which the learned observe in Scripture, were each of them destroyed for idolatry, in which sin the Heathen now received to mercy, surpass all the precedent world, and for all their many destructions, still uniformly continued in their provocation. These and the like arguments I purposely omit, as concerning St. Peters vision mentioned before out of the 10 of the Acts, sufficiently to clear the point, and therefore judging any farther enlargement of proofs superfluous, I hasten with full speed to Application.

And first from the consideration of our estate, who being the offspring of those Gentiles, might in the justice of God have been left to Heathenism, and in all probability, till St. Peters vision discovered the contrary, were likely to have been pretermitted eternally; to make this both the motive and business of our humiliation : for there is such a Christian duty required of us, for which we ought to set apart some tithe, or other portion of time, in which we are to call ourselves to an account for all the general guilts, for all those more Catholic engagements that either our stock, our nation, the sins of our progenitors back to the beginning of the world, nay, the common corruption of our nature hath plunged us in. To pass by that ranker guilt of actual sins (for which I trust, every man here, hath daily some solemn Assizes to arraign himself) my text will afford us yet some farther indictments; if 1700 years ago, our father were then an Amorite, and mother an Hittite, if we being then in their loins, were enclosed in the compass of their idolatry; and as all in Adam, so besides that, we again in the Gentilism of our Fathers, were all deeply plunged in a double common damnation ; how are we to humble ourselves infinitely above measure; to stretch, and rack, and torture every power of our souls to its extent, thereby to enlarge and aggravate the measure of this guilt against ourselves, which hitherto perhaps we have not taken notice of? There is not a better 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the world, no more powerful medicine for the softening of the soul, and keeping it in a Christian tenderness, than this lading it with all the burdens that its common or private condition can make it capable of; this tiring of it out, and bringing it down into the dust, in the sense of its spiritual engagements. For 'tis impossible for him, who hath fully valued the weight of his general guilts, each of which hath lead enough to sink the most corky, vain, fluctuating, proud, stubborn heart in the world; 'tis impossible, I say, for him either willfully to run into any actual sins, or insolently to hold up his head in the pride of his integrity. This very one meditation, that we all hear might justly have been left in heathenism, and that the sins of the Heathens shall be imputed to us their children, if we do not repent, is enough to loosen the toughest, strongest spirit, to melt the flintiest heart, to humble the most elevated soul, to habituate it with such a sense of its common miseries, that it shall never have courage or confidence to venter on the danger of particular Rebellions.

2. From the view of their ignorance or impiety, which was of so heinous importance, to examine ourselves by their indictment, 1. For our learning ; 2. For our lives ; 3. For the life of grace in us. 1. For our learning, Whether that be not mixed with a great deal of Atheistical ignorance, with a delight, and aquiescence, and contentation in those lower Elements, which have nothing of God in them: whether we have not sacrificed the liveliest and spritefullest part of our age, and souls, in these Philological and Physical disquisitions, which if they have not a perpetual aspect and aim at Divinity, if they be not set upon in that respect, and made use of to that purpose; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith Clement, their best friend, they are very hurtful, and of dangerous issue; Whether out of our circle of human heathen learning, whence the Fathers produced precious antidotes, we have not sucked the poison of unhallowed vanity, and been fed either to a pride and ostentation of our secular, or a satiety or loathing of our Theological learning, as being too coarse and homely for our quainter palates; Whether our studies have not been guilty of those faults which cursed the Heathen knowledge, as trusting to ourselves, or wit and good parts, like the Philosophers in Athenagoras, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. not vouchsafing to be taught by God, even in matters of religion, but every man consulting, and believing, and relying on his own reason; Again, in making our study an instrument only to satisfy our curiosity, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , only as speculators of some unknown truths, not intending or desiring thereby either to promote virtue, good works, or the Kingdom of God in ourselves, or which is the ultimate end (which only commends and blesses our study or knowledge) the glory of God in others.

2. In our lives, to examine whether there are not also many relics of heathenism, altars erected to Baalim, to Ceres, to Venus, and the like; Whether there be not many amongst us whose God is their belly, their back, their lust, their treasure, or that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that earthly unknown God (whom we have no one name for, and therefore is called at large) the God of the world ; Whether we do not with as much zeal, and earnestness, and cost, serve and worship many earthy vanities which our own fancies defy for us, as ever the Heathen did their multitude and shole of gods; And in brief, whether we have not found in ourselves the sins, as well as the blood of the Gentiles, and acted over some or all the abominations, set down to judge ourselves by, Rom. i. from the 21 verse to the end.

Lastly, for the life of grace in us, Whether many of us are not as arrant heathens, as mere strangers from spiritual illumination, and so from the mystical Commonwealth of Israel, as any of them; Clem. Strom. 2. calls the life of your unregenerate man, a Heathen life, and the first life we have by which we live, and move, and grow, and see, but understand nothing; and 'tis our regeneration by which we raise ourselves 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , from being still mere Gentiles : and Tatianus farther; that without the spirit, we differ from beasts, only 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by the articulation of our voice. So that in fine, neither our reason, nor Christian profession, distinguisheth us either from beasts, or Gentiles; only the spirit in the formalis ratio by which we excel and differ from the Heathen sons of darkness. Wherefore, I say, to conclude, we must in the clearest calm and serenity of our souls, make a most earnest search and inquest on ourselves, whether we are yet raised out of this heathenism, this ignorance, this unregeneracy of nature, and elevated any degree in the estate of grace; and if we find ourselves still Gentiles, and (which is worse than that) still senseless of that our condition, we must strive, and work, and pray ourselves out of it, and not suffer the temptations of the flesh, the temptations of our nature, the temptations of the world, nay, the temptations of our secular, proud learning, lull us one minute longer in that carnal security, lest after a careless unregenerate natural life, we die the death of those bold, not vigilant, but stupid Philosophers. And for those of us who are yet any way Heathenish, either in our learning or lives; which have nothing but the name of Christians to exempt us from the judgment of their ignorance;

Now to God, who hath elected us, hath, &c.

Pars Secunda.