Commentary on 2 Peter

nd power be matches only: and when his decree hath gone before, an answerable •• ccesse doth ever attend it. Therefore for the correction of those Merchants, who • old traffic without God, and resolve on voyages without his pasport: the Apo • le chargeth all human language to observe that necessary Parenthesis; If the Lord • ill. William Rufus proudly threatened, from the rocks of Wales to make a bridge • ver into Ireland. But a Prince there understanding that he asked no leave of God; • nswered, that he never feared that bridge whose foundation was not God: the Name of whom the King had omitted, in a presumptuous confidence of his own • rength.

If it be the Lord's determinate decree, this Judgment shall come upon them. But • ecause God often threatens, before he once strikes; allow it not so absolute, but that may admit an intervention of repentance. When God threatens to pull down, • ucke up, and destroy a nation; if that nation shall repent of the evil they have • one, God will repent of the evil he thought to do. But whosoever shall con • ue in this blasphemous course of disobedience, their Judgment shall hasten, and • eir damnation not linger. The consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness. • o close up the passage or hinder the course of divine Justice, will be more impossi • e than for a man to stop the flowing of the sea with his arms, or to beat back the • htning into the clouds with his breath. The name of God shall be famous in eve •• sinners infamy. The wicked may as soon steal the book of vengeance out of God's hand, as steal themselves from the plagues written in his book: Their judgment shall come. They can no more fly the power of their Judge above them, than they could stand still if there were an earthquake under them. There is no appeal from this tribunal: no writ of error lies against this Judge, though he be both Judge and party; because he can neither be over-borne, nor overseen. It is the LORD of hosts that can muster up plagues out of the dusts of the earth: that Strong man, that will break forth in a Martial manner against his enemies.

2 For whose sake doth God execute judgment and confusion upon these false Teachers; and cut off the Instruments of sedition and error? For his own glory, and the Churches good, that they may no longer cozen men's souls with their Impostures. God hath two sorts of works; some of position, some of privation. His positive works are those of Creation, making heaven and earth; of Supportation, bearing up all things with the word of his power; of Redemption and reconciliation, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself: of Restitution and reparation, the time of the restitution of all things. Thus he giveth, maintaineth, or bettereth the being of things. Which we now clearly read in the book of nature, more clearly in the book of grace, most clearly shall read in the book of glory. His privative works are of judgment; corruptive, destructive works; acts of desolation; destroying the annoyances of his Saints. Both these he appropriateth to himself, Deut. 32.39. I kill, and I make alive: I wound, and I heal. Now in these desolating actions of his Justice, the only end is not to mar, destroy, and deprive of being: but to further the growth of the Church; as a man roots up the weeds of his garden, that the good herbs may grow the better. Cut it down, why cumbreth it the ground? why does it take up the room where a good plant might prosper, and bring forth acceptable fruit? So that their corruptions are our generations; their desolations our consolations; their impairings our repairings: judgments upon them are creations, recreations to us. As God destroyed the Canaanites, to make room for the Israelites. God is the Judge: he putteth down one, and setteh up another. He breaketh the bow, &c. Cutteth the spear in sunder, he burneth the Chariot in the fire. Those instruments of spoil and murder; the bow that kills a far, the spear at hand, those winged Chariots, with hooks and scythes to mow down all their opposites: these doth the Lord disappoint and desolate. Those menaces against his children, and insolencies against his own Majesty, his Justice doth retaile into their own bosoms. That 88 for a year, and 5 ^th of November for a day, put us in mind of such an intended destruction, and such an intervenient desolation; as that day and year shall be forever both famous and infamous for. It is the ruin of enmity, that is the resurrection of peace: unless severity be shown to our adversaries, security cannot dwell in our streets. Our Redemption was a work of this nature: sin by the Devil, and death by sin, not only entered, but triumphed over the world as a tyrant: like Alexander; Pervenimus ad solis ortum et occasum. Now because no man hath lived and not sinned, or having sinned should have lived, or could have escaped the second death, by reason of his universal usurpation of sin: thefore there came a work of destruction between, that disappointed the work of death. For this cause the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil. He rased, spoiled, unharnessed those principalities and powers; confounding our enemies, that we might be saved. So still doth he deal wi •• all the instruments of Satan; their Judgment and Damnation is hastened, that deli •• rance may be to all that trust in him.

3 Though the Lord will judge these wicked persons, yet this forbids not Magistrates to execute their justice upon them. They that are called after God's o ••• name, seated on his own throne, armed every way with his own authorit •• , let them also bring forth Judgment, in imitation of their father. It is a cruel 〈◊〉 that is shown to incorrigible offenders: like water poured upon lime, that in stea • of quenching, doth enflame the furious heat of sin. Let favor be shown to • he wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness. I know that the life of man is • recious, yet is the life of the whole Church more precious. And though in • esse important things, Judges may proceed on by fair and not fast degrees: yet in • ch capital causes as endanger the whole, the expedition should be more quick and • eremptory. I will early, or in the morning, destroy all the wicked of the land. It was David's morning work, let none put it off to th'evening of their declination; as the set • ng sun makes the larger shadows. This killing preservation of notorious and insuf • enable offenders, is a discouragement to them that in the most desperate times dare • eepe a good conscience. If Popish Incendiaries may be tolerated to make merchan • ise of men's souls, and never be judged for this; what remains, but that we appeal • o a greater Court, and open our grievances to a higher Judge! no Judge dormant; • hose sentence is no dead letter, but a determinate Oracle without admission of ei • her appeal or reprieve. If they hold their peace, enlargement and deliverance shall arise 〈◊〉 us from another place: but they and their fathers house shall be destroyed. God shall bring • very work into judgment; every work, not one shall escape: with every secret • ought: not the work only, but even the thought, and that be it never so deeply • id up in the heart: to cut off all opinion of secrecy; so well as of impunity. Sin • ers shall hear and fear; and woeful experience shall wring from them this ac • nowledgment; that when God enters into judgment, no sinful flesh shall be ju • ified. Judgment, that rough hand-maid of heaven, remains still a virgin: nei • er power can force her, not wealth win her, nor anything in the world corrupt • er. The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his • eete in the blood of the wicked. So that a man shall say, verily there is a reward for the • ighteous: verily, he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

4 Their judgment.] Their own: as proper to them as the Inheritance they have • ought with their moneys. They forsake their own mercy: the mercy that might • ave been their own, to embrace vengeance which they have made their own. So • s it said of dead Judas; He went into his own place: as the stone naturally inclines • o the center, the proper place and home: so the wicked are never at home, and in • heir proper place, till they be in hell. The rod of the wicked shall not rest upon • he lot of the righteous. It is Their rod, made for them; if God scourge his children 〈◊〉 little with it, he doth but borrow it from the immediate and natural use for which • t was ordained: Their rod, Their judgment. So it is called Their cup; This is • he portion and potion of their cup. If the godly be made to taste a little of the top, it • s but a draught lent from their cup: But the dregs thereof the wicked shall wring out, • nd drink off, Psal. 75.8. Their end is damnation, such an end can come to none • ut themselves. Theirs, it is as surely their own, as if they already had it. He that • eleeveth not, is condemned already: as we say of a sentenced malefactor, Mortuus in • lege; he is dead in Law.

Whence infer, that sin doth naturally draw on punishment: and is like the • hunder that breaks the cloud, and makes way, for the lightning of God's vengeance. Wheresoever presumption goes before, destruction follows after. When the evil servant had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The wife may be taken for concupiscence, the children for fruits of it. Or thus, Vxor stulti est stultitia; the wife of the covetous is avarice, the wife of the haughty is Pride, &c. These things are very dear to them, but they must be sold. The children of Israel committed fornication, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. There is punishment of sin, 1. In the full measure, They fell; nothing bated of utter ruin. 2. In the full number. 23. thousand; a few examples would not serve the turn. 3. In the due time, In one day, no long forbearane. For the measure, it was not sickness, not flying before enemies, not scourging, but death; They fell: either by plague, or some other immediate Judgment: some of them were hanged up against the Sun. For number the Apostle speaks of three and twenty thousand: but ( Numb. 25.9.) there is mention of one thousand more. Paul did not exceed the number; nor doth the Scripture tie it self always so precisely. It is most probable, that the Princes with their servants that were hanged up, made up the other thousand. For time, it is in one day; no space of preperation, they presently fell. Thus if adultery walk in our streets, the plague will bear it company. GOD is angry with all sin, but his wrath is most hot against universal sin: thousands fall, a whole army of men. When God rides his circuit, he will strike fearfully; with death, with general death. Universal sin will bring universal destruction: and it is his great mercy, if he do not always punish so generally. Error omnium, p ••• paucorum: all offend, some only are punished; because so it pleaseth him. There is no policy against God's judgments: Caesar Borgias is made by Machiavell, a Precedent of Policy to Princes; yet he was caught at his own trick. The escaping for a while, is no argument of exemption: God's temporal plagues are but short excursions before the main battle.

5 Their Judgment: but is it so certain theirs, that no repentance can prevent i • , yes, serious repentance may avert the vengeance, if their gracious God gives the repentance. For the Apostle makes a Prophetical prediction of such Heretics, as should invade Christ's flock after his time: and threatens them with the malediction of God, if they attempt such impostures. By which if they receive warning, and lay it to heart, they may avoid the sin, and so escape the denounced Judgment. And this hath ever been the mercy of our God, that he will speak before he strike: and preach the lecture of premonition, before he pronounce the sentence of perdition. And this is a course that shall make men either preveniently thankful, or inexcusably desperate.

It is a question among Philosophers, whether it be better Praescire vel nescire mala futura; to know or not to know future evils: and this dispute is crept into the Schools Erasmus opposing the Astrologians, held all prognostications and predicttions unprofitable: for if they foretold joyful news, they decrease our future pleasure: if evil tidings, they increase our present pain: the fear of danger being often more bitter than the danger it self: Pejor bello timor ipse belli. Thus Phav • rit •• reasons; either adverse or prosperous fortunes are foretold. If they say prosperous, and those fail thee; Miser fies frustra expectando, thou art made miserable by thy vain expecting: if adverse, and those thou scapest, yet Miser fies frustra timend • , thou art made miserable by thy vain fearing. Howsoever, thus wretched is a man made by a false prediction. Suppose they foretell a truth: let it be calamity; I •• inde ex animo miser fies, antequam a fato fias: thy own mind shall afflict thee, before fate touch thee. Let felicity be promised and come, yet here are two incommodities. First our mind will be tired with expectation: and our joy be abated before the object reach us. Again, hoping for a prosperous estate to come, we grow idle for the present. Men of an indifferent fortun having, (after the expiration of some years) a great Inheritance assured them; prodigally spend that which is, for that which shall be; yea, they spend that which shall be before it is.

But they run this argument beyond a gallop; let them take truth along with them. Whatsoever Erasmus and Favorinus have written more subtly than soundly, in this argument; it is a conclusion acknowledged by all sober men, that it is better to know a calamity before we feel it, than to feel calamity before we know it. Indeed, any unhappiness that ariseth from prescience, is only incident to a weak mind. Where there is not a well fortified reason, there expectation makes an evil greater, and a good less. But in a resolved mind, it digests an evil before it comes, and makes a future good long before present.

First, they say; evil foretold racks a man with as much torment of fear, as when it is present, it doth with torment of pain. Nay, but it rather pre-arms the well tempered mind, vel vincere vel ferre, & ferendo vincere: either to conquer or to suffer, and in suffering to conquer. He that hath already borne the burden, and overcome the extremest brunt, takes up the cross with joy: he Counts it his joy to fall in • o trial, and out of trouble extracts peace. When the Prophets servant saw the host of chariots compassing the city, he cried out; Alas, Master, how shall we do? Elisha answered, Fear not, there be more with us: he knew it before. When Satan • hinkes to scare thee with sorrows, and says as Delilah, The Philistines be upon the Sampson, there is an army against thee; answer, I fear not, my soul knew that be • ore, and I have by prayer made my provision against them. The burden seems • ight, that hath been borne before.

But then they say, suppose the threatened evil comes not, then in vain thou hast disquieted thyself with a needless fear. Nay, but I have bettered my soul by a • autionate repentance. Nineveh was menaced, Yet forty days and it shall be destroyed. They quaked, and repented in sackcloth and ashes, turning from their wickedness; Nineveh stood still. Did they lose anything by their sorrow, fasting, humiliation? No, their conversion saved them from subversion: had they not sorrowed, they had • eene destroyed indeed. No man is the worse for his repentant grief: if the evil do come, it is a labor well spent: if the evell do not come, it is a labor well lost. • f the body be not the worse, yet the soul is the better.

But would it not have doubled Saul's sorrow, if he had known that he was to fall into the mountains of Gilboah, and that his enemy should succeed him? Could • iron the French martial have been so merry at the banket, had he known his instant arrest for treason? would Julius Caesar have gone to the Senate, knowing his ruin there? These be poor exceptions against the forwarning of future evils: for, as knowing them contingent, they would have sought to prevent: so knowing them certain, they would have sought to repent. But saith Boskier, this made CHRIST himself Agelastum, kept him from laughter; the prescience of his dire future passion: he wept for other causes, but for this especially: he often spake of it, because it ran in his mind: and in the garden, he sweet blood to think of it. Grant this in part to be true: he told it to his Apostles, not for his own fear, but to show how much he loved them, that would suffer this for them: to strengthen their faith in him, and love to him; neither wept he so much for his own sorrows, as for our sins. We were more unkind and cruel to him than the thorns and nails. That which drew blood from his side, drew tears from his eyes: we were so guil • ie, that he could not be merry. Therefore he foretold his Disciples, that they should • e sorrowful, weep and lament. As a learned Physician looks not only to the disease of his patient that afflicts him for the present, but often administers physic to prevent a future malady. Therefore he called together his Disciples, as Jacob did his sons; and told them what evils they should suffer for his names sake.

This then be the sum; Judgments forewarned comes more easily on the prepared heart. Minus Iacula feriunt quae praevidentur, Greg. The wise mariner in a calm makes all his tacklings sure and strong against a storm. The fen-man mends his banks in summer, lest his ground be drowned in winter. Howsoever these predictions may afflict the body, they benefit the soul, Therefore if the phycisian perceive evident reasons of approaching death in his patient, he is bound not to flatter him with hope of life: Ne dum quaerat quod suum est, perdat quod Christi est: lest seeking his own gain, he lose CHRIST'S purchase. But the conceit will exasperate his disease, and the dejection of mind hinders the recovery of body. Yield it, yet is this no reason of concealment, unless the body were more worth than the • oule, a life mortal than a life immortal, the company of sinners on earth, than the communion of Saints in heaven. I have seen some such physicians, (for not seldom the phycisian and Divine meet in the sick chamber) that when we have been • t prayers to the God of life, have neither bowed their knee, nor uncovered their head: as if the name of God were but a mockery, and they could cure a man without him. But let not my body fall into his hands, that hath no care of his own soul: he that loves not God, will never love me. Alas, how should that potio • work health where the chief ingredient, the grace of God is left out? Or, how should the blessing of God be found, when the God of blessing is not regarded?

Indeed no man is worthy to know the time of his own dissolution: God 〈◊〉 ignota vestigia, secret steps. Thy foot-steps are not known. Though we dare 〈◊〉 pray: Lord, let me know the number of my days, that I may be certified how long I 〈◊〉 to live: yet still we pray, Deliver us from evil; especially from that evil; From sudden death good Lord deliver us. Some naturallists have affirmed that sudden dissolution is the best: and seemed to desire, (if at least they did desire in heart) so to 〈◊〉 Vbi non est spes futuri, nec dolor praeteriti, sola manet cura praesentis. They looked 〈◊〉 backward to their sins past, nor forward further than death: of that they saw a necessity, therefore wished a facility. Now the least sense is of the shortest p •••• though it be violent, it is not permanent. There is no protraction of sorrows, nor extension of pains in sudden dispatching: death doth not like a tyrant keep • them long a dying, racking out life to farther days, and cutting off with pi • ing ••• nesse; but quickly begins and makes an end. But let it rot in the dust with them, 〈◊〉 that suddenness be suddenly forgotten.

There is a generation of men amongst us, Christians, yea the most ardent and furious Christians, that blame our Liturgy for that prayer; From sudden death Lord deliver us. These men are so sure of heaven, that let God take them where he will and when he will, they are for him. Presumptuous men! do they sin, and would they in that sin be taken away? There is a time when the dearest Saints 〈◊〉 God had rather live then die. What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? he was sick, but at that time had no heart to die. Elisha, when he 〈◊〉 in Spirit, that the King had sent a messenger to kill him, bade them shut the 〈◊〉 and hold him fast. Sick Hezekiah wept and prayed to live. Jonah cries from the dismal prison not to die yet, but to be forborne to a longer day. These Sai •• would not die then: they found some sins yet burdening their consciences, 〈◊〉 scower off which they wished the conveniency of farther time. Let me alone, that I may take comfort a little, before I go whence I shall not return. It was a violent and swift departure which David and Job deprecated: but alas, what do you compare David and Job to these men; mere dwarfes to these giants? They have cast up their accounts as well as Paul, and are every moment prepared; their reckoning is ever ready in their pockets: they know themselves chosen, the spirit told them so, and then the elect cannot perish. It is true indeed, that not death amongst the re •• , death of what kind soever, lingering or sudden, can separate true believers from Christ: yet pardon me, if I be charitably jelous of such presumers of sanctification. Do they never lie to their neighbor, never lust after forbidden flesh, never rankle another's credit with malicious report, never pamper the grome with feeding, never covet penny of another man's, are they never puffed up with a self-opinion? Suppose God strike thy proud heart in this act of sin, when thou hast not so much leas ••• or sense as to say, Lord have mercy on me; goes not thy soul then to the Judgment seat without a prepared answer? We leave thy censure and sentence to him that knows thy heart: but though charity hopes a mercy inter pontem et fontem; • ter actum culpae, et ictum paenae: yet be not angry with me for praying; God keep my soul from such a venture. There proceed from heaven lightnings, from ea •• damps, from the body palsies and apoplexies, from men those murderous engines, pistols and poinards: these make sudden riddance, and allow not the leisure and liberties of repentance.

Think ye secure wretches, that have promised your own souls to repent when you are sick: alas, the least of a thousand things can kill you, and give you 〈◊〉 leisure to be sick. Loe now if there be any hope, it is the extraordinary mercy of God in Jesus Christ. For us, vita est in indicium, mors est in judicium. We have charity, God hath mercy.

To conclude, Deprecamur talem mortem, non damnamus taliter mortuum: we • ondemne not him that so dies, yet we pray against such a death. We say of death, • s David of Absalom; make speed to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly. Lord, ne • er let the sin of our souls, and the end of our lives, come so near together. Give • s grace to break off our sins by repentance, before thou break off our lives by • eath let us have time to repent, grace to our time, thy mercy to both, and the me • its of our Savior CHRIST to all: and then come Lord JESUS, come quickly. Oh it is swift when the prayers of our hearts shall usher the journey of our souls: • hen our faith hath unlocked the gates of heaven, ready for our spirits to enter: when by our comfortable declarements, we have testified our assurance of blessed • esse; left the perfume of a good conscience to sweeten our death-beds; and our • ertues and graces, like fragrant flowers to stick round about our hearse. When af • er a consolating valediction to our mourning friends, we have commended our spi • ts into the hands of JESUS CHRIST. Let the confidence of others be as bold • s it pleaseth; let my soul pray, and let them that love their souls join with me, • nd the God of mercy hear us all; From sudden death good Lord deliver us, Amen.

6 Their judgment, and their damnation.] Observe, the proportion and aptation • f their punishment to their sin. It holds in diverse analogies. 1. They denied the Lord • hat bought them, therefore the same Lord shall judge them. It is fit, ut quem fece • nt suum carnificem, inveniant suum judicem. They made the profession of Christ color for their bloodiness, and under the counterfeit seal of his name committed • utrages: now therefore the same injured King shall sit upon them and condemn • hem. 2. They acted all their villainy in secret, therefore now it shall be laid open. • . The way of truth hath been blasphemed by them; therefore now it is fit that it be • lorified on them. 4. Before they sold men in covetousness: therefore now they • all be sold themselves in justice. GOD'S debts must be paid: and they that • ade merchandise of others are fit to be made merchandises themselves. 5. Be • re they brought in the Heresy of damnation: therefore now they shall sustain the • enaltie of damnation. 6. Before they did pull on themselves destruction volunta •• lie: therefore now must father the child of their own begetting, and suffer destru • ion necessarily. 7. Their sin did hasten punishment, and make it swift: there • ore fit it should no longer tarry; it lingers not. You see with what a pro • er analogy, their sinning meets with their suffering: and makes way for • is note.

God always punisheth De condigno, sometimes De congruo. For the former, 〈◊〉 the School truly says, that God rewardeth his elect Supra meritum, above their • eserts: so it teacheth, that he punisheth the reprobate citra condignum, short of their • e-merits. But as he will requite anything in mercy, that will recompense a cup • f cold water: so he will deny anything in justice, that will deny a cup of cold wa • r. CHRIST'S tribunal is said to be a white throne; milk white, without any • rop of injustice to alter the color, or stain the seat. Moral men have come • ended Justice: the Grecians placed her between Leo and Libra; courage and in • fferencie. The Egyptians in their hieroglyphickes had the figure of a man with • ut hands, winking with his eyes. And our emblem is as good as the rest; as • e best: the picture of a man holding a balance in one hand, and a sword in the o • er. By the balance intending judgment, and by the sword due execution. The • lance puts no difference between gold and lead, but gives them equal or unequal • oise: not attributing more to the gold for the excellency of the metal; nor less 〈◊〉 the lead for the drossy baseness: but with an even hand waighes the poor man's • se with the rich. It is said of the throne of David's house, that it was placed in the • te of the City towards the Sun rising. In the gate, that all might have access 〈◊〉 it, poor and rich: for all sorts had egress and regress through the gate. To • ards the sun rising; to signify that their judgments should be as clear from corruptions, and errors, as the Sun in his glorious brightness. Now he that calls upon magistrates to do justice, shall he not do it himself? Shall not the Judge of all the world do right? yes certainly; as he will crown the faithful with eternal glory above their deserts, so he will lode the wicked with eternal torments according to their deserts So that a man shall say, verily there is a reward for the righteous, verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

For the other, as he will punish all sin in some kind, so he will punish so •• sin in the own kind. For it is just with him to recompense tribulation to them the trouble you, 2. Thes. 1.6. With the froward he will show himself froward. Psal. 18.26. Who so sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. But sometimes it is not so, but always it should be so, and certainly the magistrate that omits it, shall find his case like Ahab's; Thy life shall go for his life. Mat. 26.52. They that take the sword, shall perish with the sword: they that Take it, before it be given them by lawful authority. His punishment is qualified to his sin, that is made Gladio pe ••• , who did Gladio perimere. He that stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, 〈◊〉 cry himself and not be heard. Qui non tribuit petenti, petet a non tribuente. Judgment without mercy shall be to him that shows no mercy. Frustra quaerit e •••• se, quod noluit habere intrase. In vain he seeks mercy out of himself, that had now within himself, Esa. 33.1. Woe to thee that spoilest, for thou shalt be spoiled. It is just that they who ruin others, should be ruined themselves, Gal. 5.15. If ye but and devour one another, take heed ye be not consumed one of another. If the greater serpent devours the less, there is a dragon to devour him. The fire of the Sodomites lusts flamed up to heaven, therefore heavens fire of wrath flamed down upon them, Levite. 10.2. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire, and therefore they suffered strange fire. Hos. 4.12. They have gone a whoring from their God, therefore their Daughters shall commit whoredom, and their spouses adultery. Spiritual fornication shall be punished with corporal pollution. If we consider that shop of pride, Esa. 3. we shall find every ornament made an abhorment, ver. 24. In ste •• of sweet smell, there shall be a stink: for the girdle, a rent: for well set hair, baldness. Observe how the particular plagues are proportioned to the nature of the particular sins, Prov. 23.29. They loved the rednes of wine, they shall feel the redness of eyes. Gen. 20.18. Do they detain Abraham's Wife? none of their wives shall be pregnant. This Job acknowledged to be just: If mine heart have been deceived by a woman, then let my Wife grind unto another, Wis. 11.15. Beasts they worshiped, and by beasts they shall be devoured. That they might know wherewithal a man sinneth, by the s • me he shall also be punished, Exod. 19.24. Let not the people break thorough unto the Lord, lest the Lord break forth upon them. Jonah crossed to the sea, therefore he was lost i • the sea. He would needs to the water, he shall have water enough, Judge. 8.16. Their flesh was torn with briers and thorns, that were briars and thorns to tear others. Rev. 16.6. They have shed the blood of thy Saints, and thou hast given them blood 〈◊〉 drink. as Tomyris gave Cyrus: to give one blood, is to put him to death, Ezek. 1 • . I will cause thee to be slain, as men are slain in the burning rage of wrath and jealousy, ver. 39. Thou didst lay open thy nakedness in sin, I will therefore lay open thy nakedness in shame. To allow the sins of others, is to be come guilty of 〈◊〉 same sins: as CHRIST condemned the living Jews for killing of Zacharias, wh •• their ancestors slew many ages before: because they approved their courses, and therefore justly inherited their fathers sins and judgments, Mat. 23.

I might be endless in the prosecution of this doctrine. They shall bury i • P •• phet, till there be no more place. In Tophet they had committed that monstrous th • nation, burning their children in the fire to Moloch: in Tophet they shall find destruction. The Jews report that in Tophet there was a deep pit or ditch, called Os Inferni, never filled: in the pit that Chaldeans threw their slain bodies, Mat. 1 • .25. The Lord commanded him to be sold, wife and children and all that he had. Perhaps he sinned in his wife and children, therefore was punished in his wife and children. He might turn his wife into an Idol, and set her in the place of God: he might be indulgent to the vices of his children: therefore, Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. How usual is it for men to obey the will of their wives before the will of God! How just is it with the Lord to suffer the wife so luxuriously allowed, to dote on adulterous mixtures: and for another's sak to break her faith with her husband who for her sake had broke his faith with God! Why doth such a man find fault? he doth by his servile affordments what he can to make his wife a harlot, and then complains that she is so. Immoderate diet, inordinate will, immodest apparel, himself proudly vouchsafes her: what are these but mid-wives to bring forth that shame, he is loath to hear of? what more usual than to buy places in reversions, expectant on the lives of three, four, six, to be served and expired, before theirs bear date? Therefore what more just, than to cut them short, and extend the decaying terms of the other? Let his days be few, and another take his office. They have admitted invasions upon their own honesty, secretly to wish that the days of others might be few, that they might take their office. Therefore shall their own days be few, and another take their office. The Proverb fits them; he that waits for dead men's shoes, shall go bare-foot. The Rivers that Pharaoh bloodied with the slain infants, are turned into blood: that he might read the color of his sin in the sanguine waters. Thus murderous men, so prodigal in slucing out blood, have been affronted and affrighted with bloody visions. They think their eyes see nothing but blood, their ears hear nothing but the sound of blood, all their meat tastes of blood, their drink hath a bloody color: the very ways they travel are sanguine, they dream of nothing but blood, till their heads, like Nero's, be soaked in blood: Thou hast thirsted for blood, of blood take thy fill. This sufferance could not even David scape: his house was haunted with the sword. He sinned in a proud numbering of his people, therefore was punished in shortening the number of his people.

Herodias daughter, that like a dancing whirlegig footed away the head of John the Baptist, was her self cut shorter by the head with ye. Caesar had undone three and twenty countries, he died of three and twenty wounds. Cresus that loved gold insatiately, had of gold his throat full. Aurum sitisti, aurum bibe. Many penurious fathers are so scraping for their children, that they ravish the poor children of God: but the hand of the LORD shall be against their young Lions. They join house to house, and field to field: but their children shall be vagabonds, and beg; seeking their bread out of their desolate places. How many a covetous moale is now digging a house in the earth for his posterity, and never dreams of this sequel? That God should make those children beggars, for whose sake the fathers have made so many beggars! This is a quittance which the Sire will not believe, but as sure as God is just the son shall feel. Now if he had but leave to come out of hell for an hour, and see this, how should he curse his folly? sure if possible, it would double the pain of his infernal torture. Be moderate then ye that so insatiately devour, as if you had an infinite capacity: you overlode your stomachs, it is fit they should be disburdened in shameful spewing. How quickly doth a worldly minded man grow a defrauder, from a defrauder to an Usurer, from an Usurer to an oppressor, from an oppressor to an extortioner: if his eyes do but tell his heart of a bootie, his heart will charge his hand, and he must have it, Mic. 2.2. They do but aspicere, concupiscere, and arripere: see it, like it, and take it. Observe their due payment. Psal. 109.11. Let the extortioner take all he hath: they got all by extortion, they shall • ose all by extortion. They spoiled their neighbors, strangers shall spoil them. How often hath the poor widow and orphan cried, wept, groaned to them for • ercie, and found none! They have taught God how to deal with themselves: Let there be none to extend mercy to them. They have advanced houses for a memorial, and dedicated lands to their own names: Psal. 49.11. All to get them a name, and even in this they shall be crossed. Psal. 109.13. In the next generation their name shall be quite put out.

Our neighbors of Rome presume that they have the keys of heaven and hell some they bring down from heaven to hell, as they did that blessed Queen, Eliz • beth: others they lift up from hell to heaven, canonizing bloody Traitours: they censure as they will, not as God will. But their punishment is fitted by CHRIST, Mat. 7.2. With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. When they shall find that they have mistaken the keys, and learn what it is to condemn, by being condemned. Because they have put away sacred marriage, therefore they are given upon unclean cloistures, stinking brothels, and preternaturall stews.

Not to be favorable to ourselves at home; what is the reason that this land 〈◊〉 so defiled with blood; and that (not feeling the sword of an enemy) a man complains I am wounded in the house of my friends? Nor is this alone in those un •••• lie trials of man-hood in the fields; but even in the streets, in the houses: no place is safe, but a mistaken word is requited with a stab or some mortal blow. And when this comes to be censured, it is found chance-medley, at worst man-slaughter and that perhaps Se defendendo. Whereupon these homicides are so fleshed with blood, that they make no more to kill a man, than a fly. Oh they may mend, and become good Christians, good subjects: but that sin is rarely repented off. If he had been cut off for the first murder, the second man had been alive. Why do we presume to cozen God by the warrant of Law, to purloine the maintenance of the Minister, and to put ourselves in God's place! What is this, but to point God the way to plague us, and to send upon us a famine of preaching, who have brought a famine upon the preachers? Is it not just with God to take away the Lamp from that nation, which hath taken away the holy oil that should maintain it? And Lord, that I might herein be a false Prophet! I fear that England shall want the Gospel, when the Barbarians receive it: because England had the Gospel, and would not give a penny to keep it. We hope this nation shall live to see the fall of Rome and Antichrist, so we may, if our sins, and among the rest unthankful sacrilege, do not first give Rome a triumph over us. Consider how immediately upon this charge of rendering the Teacher his portion, the Holy Ghost infers; 〈◊〉 not deceived, God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, the same shall he also reap. You may deceive yourselves, you shall never mock God: you shall drink as you have brewed. Thus when we see surfeits do we not point at gluttony precedent? when a body is drowned with a dropsy, do we not say, there hath gone an in un •• tion of drink before? When that Neapolitane evil hath wasted the marrow, and rotted the flesh; we know this fire was f • tched from the hearth of whoredom. The matter of sin is written with capital letters in the punishment. God is just, he hath ways enough to punish us, we have no way to escape him. If he doth not punish the adulterer with rottenness in his bones, yet he can add fire to fire; to the flame of lust, the flame of hell. If the Usurer escape bonds here: yet he that bound others above, may be bound himself below. The litigious may get the better, until God comes to enter his action against him. There is no evasion but seasonable repentance: let us punish ourselves, that God be not put to do it. Let us correct drunkenness by abstinence, pride by humility, covetousness by charity, cruelty by mercy, uncleanness by chastity, anger by patience, usury by restitution. This is to take a congraous and proportionate vengeance on ourselves, that God may spare us in the day of reckoning.

7 Damnation is principally taken for the censure or sentence condemning: as the sentence follows the trial, and the execution the sentence: here it intends the extration of the Judgment. But if damnation be meant for the execution, how doth it preceede the sentence? Seeing it seems very unjust to execute a man before his ju •• gement; after that old scandal of the Stanneries Law; that hanged a man in the forenoon, and sat in judgment on him in the afternoon. The day of judgment is the second appearing of Christ: now for evil men to receive their damnation before hand, were to antedate the sentence, and to execute persons unjudged. It is easi • y answered; Every unbeliever must pass through two Judgment days: a particu • ar, when his guilty soul leaves his unfortunate body: a general, when both body and soul having been co-instruments of sin, shall be made copartners in punishment. Hence the soul, as it hath been the principal in offending, being that part of man wherein God hath placed natural reason and knowledge of his will, shall be the first in suffering. Leaving the body a dead and insensible piece of earth, while her self grows under the burden of unsupportable torments alone, till the body comes • o suffer with it.

If it be objected; what need any second Judgment, seeing the world stands wholly either of believers or unbelievers? And the believer. Shall not come into • ondemnation, but is already passed from death unto life. And the unbeliever is already condemned, Why then any further Judgment? Yes, for though the believer shall not come into the judgment of condemnation, yet he must also pass the judgment of absolution: and as he is made just by Christ, so must he before all the world be pronounced. Vt justitia, qua justificatur coram Deo, ipsa justificetur coram mundo. The first justifies the person, the second justifies God's righteousness. So the unbeliever is condemned already in effect three ways. 2. Propositor Dei; God did foresee and fore • appoint his damnation, as it is the punishment of sin, and execution of his Justice. 2. Verbo Dei, by the word of God, which sets down his damnation, finding him in the number of those to whom it is due, and out of Christ by whom alone he might escape it. 3. Testimonio conscientiae, by the verdict of his own conscience; which doth so judge him here, as God will judge him hereafter: therefore it is called Vicede • us, a deputy God. But if their be a precedent damnation upon the reprobates, why is it here said, Their damnation hastens? That cannot be called closely propinquant, nearly future, which is actually present, yea which hath been before. If they were damned in the purpose of God for their sin, and are damned in the word of God judging sin, how are they said to be hereafter damned, or, Their damnation lingers not? I answer; for their former damnation in the decree of God, they know • it not: for their present damnation in the word of God, they mind it not: and for the damnation of their own conscience, they feel it not. Therefore the execution of this shall fall upon them, and then they shall know it, mind it, feel it.

Thus death shall execute his office to kill their bodies, and hell his office to receive their souls, and the Devil his office to infflict torments; when God hath pronounced on them the particular sentence of his Justice. This damnation then is that fearful punishment of sin imposed on reprobates: made up of an extremity, universality, and eternity of torments. So extreme that they refuse addition, so universal that no part hath exemption, so everlasting that they never admit conclusion. Their extremitiy is undefin'd, their universality unconfined, their eternity without hope of end.

But how doth this stand with the Justice of God, for finite transgression to give infinite destruction? Sins are the actions of time, done in a temporalitie, limited in a certain space. Now if the punishment be proportionate to the sin, how can the one be temporal, the other eternal: sin transient, plague permament? I answer, this equity and equality is observable in our civil punitions: the thief dispatcheth a robbery in half an hour; he lies many days in irons for this, and at last answers it with his neck. Adultery is soon perpetrated, a long and infamous shame depends upon it. Treason may be a villainy of no length; yet the delinquent finds mercy if he but lie in prison for it all his life, and lose his possessions forever. Hic non quaer •• da temporis aequalitas, sed expendenda sceleris gravitas. A man quickly gives himself a wound, but the Surgeon cannot so quickly heal him. David was not long in killing Uriah with the sword, yet did the sword never depart from his house. A man commits murder but once, and it was soon done; yet he is condemned to the perpetual galleys. There was one sick 38 years, John. 5.14. and Christ says, this was because of his sin. Consider some reasons why their punishment is not less than damnation eternal.

1 Because their sins are infinite in number. David propounds a Quoties, who can find a Toties for it? Psal. 19.12. Who can tell how oft he offendeth? No man, The hairs of a man's head may be told: the stars appear in multitudes, yet some have undertaken to reckon them: but no Arithmetic can number our sin. Before we can recount a thousand, we shall commit ten thousand more; and fo •• there multiply by Addition, than divide by Subtraction: there is no possibility of moderation. Like Hydra's head, while we are cutting off twenty by repentance, we find a hundred more grown up. It is just then that infinite sorrows should follow infinite sins.

2. Because they are committed against an infinite Majesty. He that clippeth the Kings coin, or, defaceth the Kings arms; or, counterfeits the broad. Seal of England, or the privy. Seal, is adjudged to die as a Traitor: because this fact offenses disgrace against the person of the King: much more doth he deserve the second death, that violates the Law of the King of Kings: seeing that breach doth not only tend to the defacing of his own Image in us; but reflects upon the person of God himself, who in every sin is contemned and dishonored. If one man sin against another, the Judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall 〈◊〉 for him? compare Protafis with Apodosis, sequel with sequel, the former with the latter, by the rules of opposition. What doth the former affirm? no more but a civil meditation for a temporal satisfaction. What doth the latter deny? a religious or divine intercession for eternal satisfaction. Sins receive their nature from their objects in a formal consideration: to be plain with all capacities, sins take their nature from their aim. When the will from within shall give the King o • Arams charge; Fight neither against small nor great, saving only against the King of Israel: this must needs be immediate treason. According to worth, Injur •• patientis auget culpam facientis, Salvian. That sin is foulest, that strikes at the fairest. Therefore the sin directed against an infinite Majesty, deserves infinite penalty. Ask a Recusant what that servant merits, which like an Onesimus, is a fugitive from his master. What will he say, but the whipping post, or, house of correction? But what deserves he that changeth his God, his religion? yet there and be no whipping post for such a renegade, no correction-house for him; whatsoever he condignly suffers, is held persecution. Ask the sacrilegious what shall be done, to him that steals; hang him, he cries. But what shall be done to him that robs his God? here he can see no felony: he shall feel it. Ask a man abused in his name whether he will send his reviler: he presently curseth him, as if he meant him to hell, but howsoever he will send him to the consistory. But whether shall he go, that dishonors the name of God? Doth that bear no action? no, cursing and swearing infers no defamation. Yes, he is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , damned of his own self. If they could satisfy an infinite Justice simul & semel, at once together; their plague, though it admits of no latitude or weight, being in universal extremity; yet if should have an end. But what to the uncapable subject is defective in place, must be made up in durance. He shall not come forth, till he hath paid the uttermost for thing. He might pay this at once if he had it: but because non habet unde, he hath i • not; he must be paying it successive sine fine, and answer it with his own imprisonment forever.

3 Because they frustrate a price of redemption that is infinite. Did the Son of God accept their nature, shed his precious blood, and pay that infinite de •• 〈◊〉 God's Justice for all believers; and will they make void to themselves that would of unspeakable goodness? He is worthy of eternal damnation, that despiseth the redemption of him that is eternal. It is just with Christ to forsake them forever that forsake him forever. There remains no more sacrifice for them: therefore 〈◊〉 Christ die again, they must lie in hell, that is forever. They that fall from everlasting grace, justly meet with everlasting wrath: from salvation eternal, to destruction eternal. Every drop of Christ's blood doth save the believing soul forever: if that inestimable treasure be trode underfoot, the soul is justly lost forever. Who pities that man's death; who having the medicine by him which can help him, dies and will not take it? Serjeants are out to arrest thee, the Law hath condemned thee; we may say of thee as of a sentenced malefactor, mortuus in lege; thou art dead in Law: speed then to Christ, if thou be taken before thou get to thy Surety, thou wilt be laid up forever.

4 Because they are unthankful for blessings and graces infinite. God give them life while they can live: if they be ingrate, he will give them death while they can die. His mercy strove the utmost to make them blessed, his Justice shall strive the utmost to make them cursed. If any deliverance, preferment, or content come to an unthankful person; let him know that it is but his impropriation; God will make him pay for it. Contribution of blessings requires retribution of thanks, or will bring distribution of plagues. We have many Adeodates, but return few Deodates. God gives freely and continually, so let us praise him: voice & cord, with the voice and the heart: not the voice alone, for then the heart is tied; not the heart alone, for then wear tongue-tied. Continually; for if thou canst find one hour wherein he doth not give thee something; take that hour to return him nothing. Yet is there thanks enough owing for the former: but there is no new hour which is not witness of new benefits. Thy mercies are new every morning. CHRIST hath bought us both in body and soul; we must glorify him in both, or he will destroy us in both. He will be glorified either in our voluntary obedience, or necessary vengeance. Thus how easy is it for a reprobate to bring upon himself damnation. The more God lodes him with benefits, the more he lodes himself with accounts. Be thankful, this is the way to ease thy reckoning: fly to CHRIST, this is the way to get it quite taken off. As Alcibiades told the steward, when he complained of his trouble about making his accounts; that his care were better bestowed, Quod non reddat, quàm quod reddat, how to make no account at all, than how to make his accounts even. If our faith have gotten CHRIST to account for us, we shall make no reckoning at all. Every benefit forgotten in present gratitude, must be remembered in future servitude. Thus he that receives infinite favors, and remains unthankful, deserves infinite pains.

5 Because they have omitted infinite duties: the hours that are not spent in obedience against sin, are spent in sin against obedience. Wicked men think they commit but a single sin, when indeed they always double it. For in faciendo quod non debent, non faciunt quod debent: While they do what they should not, they leave undone what they should, and so bind two sins together. The Sabbath-ranger that is gone about the business of the pot, thinks he only offends in his excess, forgets his not serving God at the Church. It is one sin to be absent from the house of God, though, he did not admit the other, to be present in the house of sin. Doth the oppressor barely transgress in wringing the poor? yea, at that very time he should have relieved the poor. Think not thy hours wast papers, to fill them up with nothing but blanks: as if God would take this for a good reckoning, When the book of thy conscience comes to be opened, all those blanks are filled up with Indictments: and thou shalt find it a nequam, which thou thoughtest a nequicquam. No greatness of blood can privilege idleness, no more than much money can justify Usury. When God calls thee to account, Quare te non praebuisti solertem? Why wast thou not industrious? It will be no good answer; Quia tu me fecisti divitem; because thou hast made me rich. Now that these omissions deserve eternal destruction, it is manifest, because we are bound to the duties. Therefore in the form of CHRIST'S judicial proceeding, the wicked are condemned for sins of omission, perpretrations not being spoken of, as if there were no question of their guiltiness: to show that their is damnation enough wrapped up in those very omissions. Neither shall they be only punished with the privation of all joys and peace, and no further for then they were mere indifferences. But with the position of torments, to declare that good works were imposed; not voluntary, but necessary. Now if these be as innumerable as our waking minutes; how infinite must be the unrepentants destruction for them!

6 Because sin is infinite in their desires, and the desire of sinning God judgeth sin it self. As the desire of grace is grace, and the desire of repentance is one degree of repentance: so the concupiscence of iniquity is the iniquity. He that l • sts after a woman, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart. Optans, oper •• : desiderator, scortator. Now what is more insatiate than the desires of the wicked? They enlarge themselves beyond all bounds, and are scarce limited with the world. How unsatisfied is the adulterers desire! he goes from woman to woman, as the sick man from fountain to fountain, and none can quench his thirst. For woman is not the bounds of lust, but womankind. Loves number is no number, but one: he that errs from that, is incessant in concupiscence; and if it were possible, would embrace all the beauties he sees, in his luxuriant arms. Vice hath no mean, measure nor cessation; till it hath no being. One wife is the desire of love, but lust would have infinite. And though it be straitened to enjoy but one at once: ye • it hath an infinite desire to many; neither doth all the variety of the earth change it: whensoever his pleasure is served, he is the same man he was before, and begins again to desire a fresh. For lust is still a beginning, and would more common be than any one, could it, as other sins, be done alone. But age ceaseth it, therefore not infinite: then Desire faileth? yet many in age though they cannot desire, yet desire to desire. Now an infinite fire of lust, must have an infinite fire of hell. What limits hath the ambitious desire? what degrees of honor, though Phaeton like to for in the chariot of the Sun, would content him? Let him reduce all the kingdoms of the world to one monarchy, and possess as much as ever the devil promised Christ: yet Aestuat infaelix angusto limit mundi, he wants elbow-room. He calls for more worlds, or, is angry that God made this no bigger: yea erects his statute, and would be worshipped as the Lord himself. He thought the whole earth too little for him, and why should God think the whole hell too much for him? The Angel that would have all the glory in heaven, is justly damned to all the pains i • hell. If thou be infinite in thy sinning, why may not God be infinite in thy punishing.

What confines have ever hedged in covetousness; whoever heard it say. Sa ••• Domine, O Lord I have enough; A handful of corn cast into the bushel makes it the fuller: put water into the sea, it hath by so much the more. But he that love • silver, shall not be satisfied with silver. One desire may be satisfied, but another comes. Crescit amor nummi quantum ipsa pecunia crescit. Natural desires are finite: as the thirst is satisfied with drink, the hungry appetite with meat. But unnatural desires are infinite: as it is with the body in burning fevers; Quo plus sint pota, Pl •• sitiuntur aquae: the more they drink, the more they thirst. Now as these proceed not from natural causes, but from diseases: so exorbitant affections arise not De s ••• mente, sed de morbo animae: not from the temper but from the distemper of the soul. Grace can never fill the purse, nor wealth fill the heart. Here is an infinite sin, why should it not have an infinite punishment? Hence covetousness is compared to hell it self, for the near affinity between them: both alike promise at once to be satisfied. Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied. As the covetous enlarge their mouths to swallow the earth, so Hell hath enlarged her self, and opened her mouth to swallow them, Esa. 5.14. Let not our oppressors now fla •••• themselves, that hell is full, and there is no room for them: for the Lord hath made it Large, of immense capacity. It is Lacus magnus, Revel. 19. a great la •• able to receive all that are cast into it. If it were not so spacious, and there seemed to want room for oppressors: yet God would take out thieves and harlots, and drunkards, I had almost said liars, and swearers, to put in oppressors; they must have room. Hell from beneath is moved for them to meet them at their coming. Hell it self will come to meet them in state, as glad to give them entertainment. Now if the usurer can keep himself out of the number of oppressors, he may hap to scape. But are not their desires unlimited; that join field to field, till there be no place; They would leave no room for others, but engross all the earth to themselves: therefore though there should want room for others, they shall have all hell to themselves If sin have an infinite desire to offend God, God will have an infinite hand to punish it.

7 Gregory adds another reason of this infinite punishment. He that dies without repentance, is pr • supposed by Justice, that if he could have lived forever, he would have sinned forever. And it is just; if thou wilt rebelliously sin so long as thou livest; God should punish so long as he liveth. If thou wilt peccare in aeterno tuo, God will punire in aeterno suo. Nothing is more proportionable, than that those who will sin against God so long as they have a being, without repentance; should perish from God so long as he hath a being, without mercy. It is the Lord's just Judgment, ut nunquam mortuus careat supplicio, qui nunquam vivus carere voluit peccato; ut nullus detur iniquo terminus ultionis, qui quamdiu valuit, habere noluit terminum criminis. They would have lived forever, that they might have sinned forever. Their injustice would put no date to their sins, God's justice shall put no date to their sufferings. On earth he that will still run in debt while he lives at liberty, shall at last be cast into prison to lie while he lives in misery. Shall man have this law against his brother, and not God against his creature? yes, there will come a day when all reckonings shall be cast over, when justice must be satisfied to the full; atleast so full as the delinquent can satisfy it, not with ready money, the merits of Christ: then with eternal durance, he must lie by it forever. Till he hath paid the uttermost farthing; and which is lamentable, he hath not one farthing towards it. The reprobate cannot do many things he would: the needy drunkard cannot be an usurer: the base pilferer cannot be a rich commonwealths oppressor; no thanks, they would but they cannot. The power, not the will, is wanting in them to any wickedness. Now it is just, velle malum et non posse, pati malum et non velle. He that doeth what he will, must suffer what God will.

8 The sinner is often admonished, often threatened: dealt with all mildly, and taken up roundly: now tempted with a crown, than terrified with a scourge: allured with the promises of heaven, affrighted with the menacres of hell: encouraged to Grace by the Gospel, thundered against for sin by the Law: offered either a cursed. Devil to torment him, or, a blessed Christ to save him. Neither is life and death set before him only once, but all his days. All day long hath God stretched forth his hands unto him. This choice is put to him so long as he lives on earth: therefore if he make election of sin, it must stick by him so long as he lives in hell. What could God do more in mercy, what can he do less in justice? The sinner is shown an easy way to salvation; Believe in Christ the remission of sins, and endeavor in thyself amendment of life, and thou shalt be saved. The Publican said but only. God be merciful to me a sinner: Quid hic sudoris, quid laboris? what great labor or pains was this? Chrys. The malefactor on the Cross declared three things; reprehension of his fellows sins, confession of his own sins, supplication for mercy; and he was taken up into that glorious paradise. He that will not take so little pain to get so much ease, is worthy of little ease and much pain. If men make God lose all the labor of his mercy, to save them, he will not lose all the labor of his Justice to punish them.

9 Though it be true that every sin is finite as considered in respect of the act: as • it is a transient action it is finite. But it is infinite in respect of the inherence in the subject. For the foul of man is immortal, and so the sin which sticketh on it, is made immortal with it. For the guilt can no ways be taken from it, but by imputing it to Christ. And besides the guilt contracted by the fact, there is a blot that doth stain the soul: as the scarlet or crimson die doth the silk or wool: which can no ways be undyed or gotten out but by the blood of the Lamb. All the Saints had stains, blemishes, and polluted colors; but They washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 1 Cor. 6.11. Such were ye, but you are washed, &c. Now those turpitudes and aspersions so died in grain by sin in the soul, if they be not purged by him, remain forever inseparable: and can no more but taken from it, than the spots from the Leopard, or the scarlet can fade till the cloth be worn out. So long therefore as this stain abides, the wrath of God abides: and as that tincture can never be gotten off, so the fire of hell can never be bu ••• out. There is no more extinguishing the one, than relinquishing the other; both remain forever.

10 There is an habit of evil in the wicked. Some think that sin in it self is nothing, because it hath no formal being or subsistence: but punishment is a thing of being and position. Now shall that which is nothing be punished with something; Shall a creature be punished for nothing; This were, as David complained of his persecutors, a course of injustice; They hated me without a cause. But that which is held nothing in a positive existence, will be found something in a priuative sufferance. To clear this point, we must examine what sin in it self is. In its own proper nature it is, saith S ^t John an Anomie, or want of conformity to the Law of God: or an Ataxie, and absence of goodness and integrity in the thing that subsisteth. In Adam before his fall were three, not indistinguishable, yet inseparable things. 1 His substance. 2 The faculties and powers of his body and soul. 3 And the Image of God consisting in straightness, conformity, and rectitude of all these to his will. What then was his sin; not the want of the two former, he had his substance and faculties still: but of the latter, the conformity of God's will. In a musical Instrument there is not only the substance of it, and the sound, but also the harmony in the sound. That which is contrary to harmony, is none of the two former: but only the last, that is the disorder or discord in music, which is the absence or want of harmony, we may call it Disharmonie. Neither is this a mere absence of goodness, but also a presence or habit of evil. As it is received into man's nature, it is only a privation of good: but as being received it continues, it is a habit of evil. But it may be said, that a mere and single privation can perform no act: as darkness, which is the absence of light, can stir nothing: silence cannot move or produce an effect. But concupiscence draws away the heart from God's service, and entiseth it to evil: now this is an action, and no action can proceed of a mere privation. To answer this we must distinguish of original sin: as it is of its own nature, so it is no inclination or action, no moving power, but only a want. But as it is mixed with the subject wherein it is, it inclines, moves, compels to evil.

The like reason holds in actuals. In murder are two things. 1 The moving of the body, and exercise of the weapons: this considered as an action is properly no sin: because every action comes from God, the first cause of all things and action • . 2 The killing of a man, defacing the Image of God: this is the misorder and abe • ration of the action, whereby it is disposed to a wrong use or end; and thus it is 〈◊〉 .

For the sum then, the nature of sin lies not in the action, but in the manner of doing the action. So that it holds, sin is nothing formally subsisting, (for then God should be the author of it, as being creator and ordainer of everything and action) but a want of that which ought to be and subsist, partly in the nature of man, and partly in the actions of nature. In peccato nihil positivum; as the School in thi • truly. But now to the question; If there be no positive thing in sin, why should there be a positive thing in punishment; If it be only the want of goodness; why is it not revenged only with the want of blessedness? So here should 〈◊〉 no place for damnation or the torments of hell. Certainly if it were no mo •• , this was punishment enough to be deprived of the glory of God, Rom. 3.23. 〈◊〉 have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. But there is more, for upon the absence of goodness there necessarily follows the presence of evil. And the sinner doth not only omit what he should do, but also commit what he should not do. And as there can be no difference inter non bonum & malum: so at the same instant when a man loseth his goodness, he contracts badness. There is in sin four things: the fault whereby God is offended: the guilt whereby the sinner is bound to punishment: the Punishment it self, which is damnation: and the Blot or stain which defiles the person. Culpa, reatus, pana, macula. Now it is not the second and third, but the first and last which make man a sinner. Hereupon it follows, that after a man hath committed a sin, and the offense is done and gone Quoad actum twenty years; yet he does not therefore cease to be a sinner. Now why is he called a sinner in the time present, that did the sin in a time so far past? It is the Macula, or stain, as it were the fruit of the fault, that so denominates him. And this is an indisposition of the heart to all good, and an inclination to all evil. He that hath forefeited his goodness, is like the dropsy-patient; the more he sins, the more he is apt to sin, and the more desirous of sin. As he that turns his face from the sun, remains so till he turn again unto it. Once turning from GOD, we continue naughty, till we return to him by repentance. David was not only a sinner in the very act of his adultery: but when the act was done and past, he remained still an adulterer: because a proneness to sin had got place and strength in his heart, • ill he rid himself of all by unfeigned repentance. There being therefore in the reprobate an inconformitie to goodness, an unchangeable disposition to evil, and an • ncleansable pollution by evil; there must remain an interminable damnation for evil.

11 God's temporal plagues are images of his eternal judgments: but the • emporall often last all the days of their life on earth, why not the other all the days of their death in hell? There be some sins that may be called Peccata peccantia, • inning sins: for they leave a perpetual venom and malignity behind them: and continuate a pestilent act without any less termination than the world: as oppressi • n, Sacrilege, &c. There be also public sins, that leave a bad example behind • hem: and such men do sin as long as they cause sin. Such was Jereboam's making Is • ael to sin: let himself be dead, yet so long as any worshipped his Calves, Jeroboam • inned. This urged the Rich man to desire one from the dead, to warn his brethren: • ecause he felt his own torment increase, so long as their sin increased, which they • ad derived from his cursed precedent. There be sins not so manifest, and expo • ed to the common eyes or sense; not hurting others in their posterity, nor corrup • ing them by lewd pattern: but do Intra orbem suum furere; as private lusts: yet • hese turn the soul into a Black-moore: and for mortal endeavors to wash them • u • , we may call it the labor in vain. The sins that damnify our brethren, without • estitution, are perpetual: and so is the wrath of God upon them. It shall remain in • he midst of his house. This argues not only a dominering and reigning nature, which •• rinkes not into corners, but takes possession in the middle and most honorable • ome: mediâ dominatur in aulâ. Like Princes that have chosen the middle places of • ingdomes for their seats. According to the old similitude: the way to keep a stiff • ed hide from rising at the sides round about, is to set your feet on the midst. He •• at stands in the center, may the readilier see the whole circumference that envirous • im. But it further intimates the stubborn and indomitable quality of vengeance; 〈◊〉 doth remain; if once admitted, it will not suddenly remove; nor yet remaining • ill ever be quiet. Athanasius pronounced of Julian's hot persecution; Nubecula 〈◊〉 , & cito transibit: it is a cloud, and will soon be blown over. The ground of that • roicall persuasion and confidence, was the knowledge of God's temporary casti •• ions and trials of his Church. But to the unbeliever, The wrath of God abi • th on him. Which words like Ianus, have a double aspect. One backwards, as 〈◊〉 it were a wrath of great antiquity: it comes not now, it was before upon him, Aug. Another aspect forwards, as some expound it; noting the countenance of wrath it shall not depart from him. Upon him, as another noteth on the word upon; the intimation of advantage from an upper place: as though vengeance did stand continually preying upon him: as in the Poet, the ravenous bird upon Promethe •• ; or, that other upon Titius, in hell.

If any impenitent sinner complain; Why is my heaviness continual, my plague desperate, and cannot be healed: There is matter within himself to make him answer. Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? There is the inquisition of the proper cause. Let us search and try ourselves, and term • • gain to the Lord: there's the application of the proper remedy. No wonder if the curse continue with them, that continue in obstinatenesse: impenitence can have no hope of mercy, Rev. 16.9.11. Though they suffer that extreme burning for sin, yet they repent of their sin, They blaspheme God for their sores, yet repent not of their misdeeds. It is an argument of their vain ignorance, to wonder that the term of their heavy visitation is not yet expired: while their sins are unrepented, their lives unamended. Correct the passion of thy heart, and direct it to contrition for sin, or, expect no cessation of penalty. As when the sinner is dead, all the while any moisture remains, the worms will not forsake his carcase. So while he lives in his sin, the curse will wait close upon the cause: still a sinner, and still a sufferer. Israel could not stand before their enemies, till they had put away the execrable thing. Nor will the plague forsake oppressors and sacrilegious usurpers, till their treasures of wickedness be returned back to the right owners. Let the example of little Zacchaeus, the greatest example that ever was, for effectual and substantial restitution; teach them to break off their injustice with righteousness, which giveth every m •• his own: and their iniquity, with mercy to the poor. Lest they find this sin heavier than a millstone, when the shallow rivers of temporary punishments, shall 〈◊〉 into the ocean sea of eternal torments. Where is no restitution, there is no remission: where is no remission of the guilt of sin, no decrease of the power of sin: and where the power of sin is not lessened, there the plague of sin will be augmented. Nec desinet illi paenae sensus, cui non desivit culpae assens • s.

12 Lastly, this equity and equality of damnation to sin, is illustrated and prov •• by the contrary. As Mark. 10.30. every good deed shall have a hundred-fold of comforts: so every bad deed a hundred fold of torments. God's mercy is forever to them that please him: so his wrath is forever upon them that offend him. The faithful find eternal mercy, therefore the unfaithful shall find eternal misery. He that endureth to the end, shall be saved: By what rule or proportion? Because God in his goodness doth presuppose, if that man had continued forever living, he would have continued forever well doing. Josiah feared God all the days of his life: therefore God hath Crowned his everlasting life in heavent. Be thou faithful unto 〈◊〉 death, and I will give thee the Crown of life. Fidelitie for a short service, hath a ••• dem of never ending glory. Thus as God in his good mercy doth reward pers •• rance in good with immortal life: so in his just judgment he doth punish imp ••• tense with eternal death. Thus is guilty man punished, and the just God cleared, i • this damnation of the wicked: though it be a total, final, (call it what you will) 〈◊〉 extreme, universal, eternal punishment. But to cease preaching of it, and 〈◊〉 praying against it: Spare us good Lord, spare the people whom thou hast redeemed. For 〈◊〉 death of thy eternal Son, let us not be the sons of eternal death. Be not 〈◊〉 with us; or, if we do provoke thee, let not thy anger be forever. Let not 〈◊〉 wrath burn like fire: but whensoever our sins have kindled it, LORD quenchi •• the blood of CHRIST. Let us not undergo the malignity of one sin, ev •• 〈◊〉 least, the shortest: for it deserves great and eternal torment. Our greatest g ••• nesse merits not the least glory: but our least wickedness deserves great pain. A 〈◊〉 leak will sink the vessel unstop'd, a great one will not do it, if well called. 〈◊〉 weakest instrument can pierce the flesh, and take away the life, unarm'd: 〈…〉 our of proof will beat off strong assaults, There is no wickedness so weak, • t it can destroy us without Christ: none so strong as to destroy us with Christ. As •• chel cried to Jacob, Give me children or else I die: so give us our Father, or else • e perish. Lord, behold us not out of Christ, though robbed with all our righte •• snesse: but behold us in Christ, though with all our sinfulness. Preserve us in him, •• wneus with him, that we may give all glory to him; together with thyself, •• d most holy Spirit.

8 Sleepeth not, lingereth not, slumbereth not.] Though it be not yet present, it is • opinquant: if not extant, yet instant. If it be not visible, yet it doth not linger: • t linger, it doth not slumber: if it seem to slumber, it doth not sleep. To sleep • ore than to slumber, to slumber more than to wink, to wink more than to look • on a thing though with disregard, not minding it. Neither sleep, nor slumber, nor • nnivence, nor neglect of anything, can be incident to God. Because he doth not ex ••• e present judgment, and visible destruction upon sinners, therefore blasphemy • sumptuously inferreth; Nunquid curat Dominus? Ea cura quietos sollicitat? Will • od trouble himself about such petty matters? So they imagined of their imagi •• ry Jupiter; Non vacat exiguis rebus adesse Iovem. What a narrow and finite appre • sion this is of God! He that causeth and produceth every action, shall he not 〈◊〉 present at every action? What can we do without him, that cannot move 〈◊〉 in him? He that takes notice of sparrows, and numbers the seeds which the very • ugh-man thrusts in the ground: can any action of man escape his knowledge, or slip • m his contemplation? He may seem to wink at things, but never shuts his eyes. 〈◊〉 doth not always manifest Scientiam reprehensivam, a reprehensive knowledge: • t he always retains Scientiam apprehensivam, an apprehensive knowledge. Quia 〈◊〉 arguit, ergo non novit? Though David smote not Shimei cursing, yet he heard • imei cursing. As Judges often determine to hear, but do not hear to determine: • though God do not see to like, yet he likes to see. It is only the forbearance of 〈◊〉 correction, that makes sinners presume of his connivence. These things thou hast • e, and I held my peace; therefore thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thy • fe. Impune ferens peccatum, Deumcogitat pacatum. God holds his hands, and he holds 〈◊〉 peace, but he does not hold his eyes: and he sees, whatsoever he says. All things are • ed and open to his eyes: not because he will observe them, but because he cannot look side them. But. The time of your ignorance God winked at? He is said to connive, •• ause he doth not correct. It is the promise of his mercy to pass over the sins of •• verts, as a father winkes at the error of his little child. So we pray, Advert • os, Turn away thine eyes from our sins, Psal. 51.9. Absconde faciem; Hide thy face 〈◊〉 my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. That is, Omitte, remit, demitte indem • um. Still the Lord sees; I have done this evil in thy sight. He doth observe all • in knowledge, he doth not reserve all to vengeance. He is said not to make it, be • se he doth not punish it. But if the Lord do wink at the aberrations of his servants, • st he therefore slumber? Doth everyone shuts his eyes, presently fall into a slum •• ? Or, if he seem to slumber, can he sleep? Sleep is to refresh the weary, can 〈◊〉 it self be weary? Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. He • o far from sleeping, that he doth not put his eyes together. This might be Iu • opinion of her Jupiter: whom Homer relates making an earnest suit to Somnus, • op • rare oculos Iovis. This is for a Baal; Cry aloud, for peradventure he sleepeth. A • essary slumber for a temporary god.

Sleep (such is the nature of it, that it) cannot occur to the nature of God: • o is an Eternity of rest, without any vicissitude or change. There is no mutati •• himself, nor mutuation or borrowing from another. Phabus ab externo radios 〈◊〉 mutuatur: much less God. Rom. 11.25. Who hath first given to him, and it shall • compensed? Who hath laid out anything for him, and it shall be paid him a • e? In sleep the exterior senses are bound up, and there follows a quiescence • n motion. As of the contrary; Vigilia est solutio & remissio sensuum, ut libere agant secundum suam naturam. Wakefulnesse is the remission and unbinding of the senses, that they may freely officiate the requirements of nature. But the Lord mo • all; and created things derive their first motion from him. Aristotle says, 〈◊〉 is a retirement of the heat to the inward parts: and a confluxe of that natural ••• lation which ariseth from out sustenance; Compresso primo sensitorio, that is 〈◊〉 but God lives not by nourishment, therefore hath no need of sleep. Cale •• fines it to be a remission of the soul, according to nature, ab extremis ad prin •••• binding up the mind, and discharging the sensitive instruments of their office 〈◊〉 heat which is taken up in those organs, being recalled to the heart and lungs. Oth •• thus summarily▪ Sleep is the rest of the animal virtues, together with 〈◊〉 tention of the natural faculties, stirred by a profitable humor in the brain: 〈◊〉 in the soul suspends her functions in the outward parts, to relieve the inward 〈◊〉 principal, for the health of the whole. But God is not capable of any weary 〈◊〉 therefore not liable to any sleep. Nothing needs sleep, but what is nourish • wearied? No spirit is subject to such a nutrition, therefore not desiderable of 〈◊〉 a cessation. The sword of God may be said to sleep in the scabbard, while he 〈◊〉 bears to draw it, but he that wears it, sleepeth not.

9 This wakeful and prepared vengeance is threatened against the ungodly 〈◊〉 fitly. For nothing is more proper to the nature of sin, than to sleep in security. E • 5.14. Awake thou that sleepest; that is, Repent thou that sinnest. The godly 〈◊〉 their nappes, the wicked their sound sleeps. Continuance in sin may be compa • to Sleep in many resemblances.

1 For the cause of sleep: the natural heat drawing in his virtue, stirs 〈◊〉 vapor or exhalation, which ariseth from the meat, or from labor, sorrow, •• rinesse: this ascending, the coldness of the brain beats back again, and so co •• sleep. Thus the heat of concupiscence in the sinner first reigns within, and st ••• to fortify it self in a complacency of evil: and when the conscience sends any •• tions or considerations to the intellect, like vapors to the brain, they are re •• berated back again by the extreme cold and grossness, which possesseth the ra • nal part; and thus follows the sleep of sin. When the conscience cannot pr •• with the concupiscence, it is rocked asleep in sin, and all the organical forces 〈◊〉 called in to wait upon lust.

2 As Aristotle delivers the formal cause of sleep, to be an Antiperista •• , 〈◊〉 being made by a reciprocal motion: the stomach sending up fumes to the head and the head sending them back to the heart: so by reason of this conflict 〈◊〉 obstruct all the organs of sense, locking up the exterior parts as they pass in 〈◊〉 journey. As a river that ebbs and flows, is driven by her own floods. The heat drives these vapors from the heart, the coldness from the brain, and 〈◊〉 must needs rest some where: hinc faciunt gravedinem oppilando, & inde Somnus 〈◊〉 spiritual sleep, the coldness of the brain is ignorance, the heat of the heart is 〈◊〉 cupiscence, the exhalations are lusts. while these with a sensitive pleasure are ba •• up and down, the whole man becomes fast a sleep: and sin reigns like an 〈◊〉 bed Lord in all faculties of body and mind, neither feeling nor suspecting the 〈◊〉

3 As there is a difference in corporal sleep, so in the spiritual slumber, 〈◊〉 dicitur 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Suspirare: for the lungs do not fail their office in 〈◊〉 Now some bodies are so well composed, that they send forth a soft and gentle 〈◊〉 and respire an easy spirit. Others that labor of some error in the Arteriatrach • , 〈◊〉 lung-pipe, Strumosi, draw their breath with such difficulty and distance, as if 〈◊〉 were in danger of suffocation. That the wind being held in, breaks forth 〈◊〉 troublous noise: per multos anfractus ducitur: it comes out by many circuits and • dings, involued in the muscles: and the breath being gathered into those str •• with a forcible eluctation opens the artery, breaking out with an allision and 〈◊〉 mure, as the pent air at an evaporation. Thus spiritually: some take a quiet 〈◊〉 an unmolested security in wickedness, without the least starting or jogging of 〈◊〉 • onscience. The Lord hath poured out upon them the spirit of deep sleep. The breath • ey draw is Tenuis aura, such as sometimes in summer riseth from the earth with 〈◊〉 insensible effumigation. Ducunt mollem anhelitum, they sin without trouble about 〈◊〉 as a great part of England now sleeps in Sacliledge, and their hearts are never • sturbed for it. Other men sleep indeed, but unquietly; full of startings, stop • ngs, and reluctations: as if they were affrighted with some sudden noise, and • eir own conscious thoughts did like Faeries, nippe and pinch them, interrupting • eir desired repose. There is more hope of these than the former: for they that • e often disquieted, will at last be wakened. When a man begins to stir in his bed, • e conceive some likelihood that he will before long arise.

But they that can sleep when it thunders; like the Catadupans, inhabitants of • e cataracts, who hear not the roarings of Nile, ingenti cum sonitu se praecipitantis: • ummes and trumpets, and that loud rupture of the air with Ordinance, being • e soft music to their ears to play them asleep: what hope of their waking? • eclaration of sins, denunciation of judgments, description of torments, no more • rre them, than a tale moves a man in a dream. Here is a supine stupidity, 〈◊〉 capable of excitation, as the sea-rocks are of motion, or the sea-billows of come • ession. As Mori mortem is to die an everlasting death, so this Dormire somnum (as • e Psalmist speaks) is to sleep an everlasting sleep. The Hebrews call sleep by • ree distinct and gradual terms. Therumah, which signifies a light sleep, Capitis • tatio, quasi prima rudimenta somni. Schemah is a more profound sleep. Tharde • h exceeds all, as it were a dead sleep. The Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon •• am: that he neither had his sight offended, nor his sense oppressed, when his side • as opened, Gen. 15.12. Thardemah irruit: a deep sleep fell upon Abraham. So the • reekes distinguish them; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which is a certain necessity of sleep: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , • hich is Torpor, a heaviness of sleep: and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , an inexpugnable appetite of • eping. The Latins, if we consult Physicians, distinguish them into Somnum, • orem, & veternum: a natural sleep, a preternaturall sleep, and a continual slum • r. The faithful cannot avoid some nappes their nature is so weak; some sins • ey admit: vulgar sinners have long and drowsy slumbers: only the desperately •• cked are cast into a dead sleep; an exstaticall stupefying lethargy of sinfulness, • rd even to be a little roused. The first is a natural, the second a preternaturall, • e last a contranaturall sleep. A natural sleep is short, for six or eight hours, owed by Physicians, to the body; but allowed not by Divines, to the soul. The • eter natural is a drowsy slothfulness, an inordinate desire of sinning. Yet a lit • slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. The last contranaturall, is omnem • dum exundans, beyond all measure, a lethargical kind of death, which will never •• ke until it hath no more power to sleep. The natural sleep of the body is for 〈◊〉 reparation of natures forces, so much as may only be sufficient to absolve conco • on: but the last, as in sweating sickness, sleeps to death.

4 As by sleep Cerebrum fumis obnubilatur, nervi hebetantur, venae obstruuntur, • ist. The brain is clouded, the nerves dulled, the veins obstructed. So by cu • mary sinning, the understanding is darkened, the spirits blunted, the affections stu • ied, the receptacles of grace filled with the obstructions of lust. And there is not • lie an Indisposition to goodness, but a mad and unrestrained precipice to all man • r of mischief.

5 As nothing is more pleasing to man's nature than sleep; Quia perpetuus mo • naturae inferiori regugnat. It is most acceptable, illabens animantibus amicâ dull • ne. Somne quies rerum, placidissime Somne deorum, Ovid. Sleep is feigned to love • thea, because it is a common benefit to all living creatures. Quae a rerum veri •• d fabulas, Graeca levitas & Poetica vanitas transtulit, Aret. So there is no • ng more pleasing to corrupt nature than pravitie: it is a delight to the wicked to 〈◊〉 evil: and sleep is not more welcome to the body, than that is to the lust of 〈◊〉 soul.

6 As sleep is justly called Frater mortis, the brother of death: so is sin S ••• paenae, the sister of pain. There is little difference between him that sleeps and the dead, save only in time: both are void of sense, both like trunkes Vterque caecus, surdus, elinguis: both blind, deaf, dumb. Vterque sedat c • ras, finite labores; either of them appeaseth our cares, finisheth our labors: only death is the longer and more perfect privation. Stulte, quid est somnus gelide • is • mortis imago? Ovid. Consanguincus lethi sopor. Medium inter vivere & mori, An •• . A certain middle thing betwixt life and death. Dulcis & alma quies, placidaeque simillima morti, Aeneid. Death is a long sleep, sleep a short death. So fin is the elder brother of death: if man had not sinned, he should not have died. Sin was been first, but The elder shall serve the younger: for death shall swallow the whole inheritance. Here, the sleep of rebellion precedes the sleep of damnation. They sleep but their destruction sleepeth not. The Apostle said of Lazarus; LORD, if 〈◊〉 sleepeth he shall do well: but if you sleep, you shall do ill. As it is with the improvident heir involved in Usurers bonds; while he sleepeth, his interest runs o •• Destruction takes the wicked napping, as Banah and Rechab slew Ishbosheth: or, as Somnus is said to slay Palinurus; soporatum in mare praecipitavit, Aeneid. 5. He is easily subdued, whom his own slothfulness hath left unarmed. As death corporal proceeds of a cold vapor possessing the brain, and oppressing the animal senses and spirits. So from the cold dregs of sin, freesing up the heart in wickedness, comes the sleep of destruction: as Gideon slew the secure and careless host. When Di • genes Synopensiis slept much in his sickness, and was dissuaded by his Physician, he was answered, Ne mireris, frater fratrem antevertit: one brother doth but prevent another. Sampson could not be bound, till he was first got a sleep. Temporal death is •• t the only punishment of his sinful security: but while the worms are sporting among the reprobates bones, the devils will make themselves merry with his torments.

7 Lastly, as sleep turns a man in non hominem, so doth sin in non bonum hominem. In sleep he neither hears like a man, nor speaks like a man, nor walks like a ma • So in this spiritual lethargy, he neither thinks like a Christian, nor understand • like a Christian, nor effects like a Christian; nor acts like a Christian, nor appears like a Christian. There be three seasons, wherein a wise man differs not from a fool: in his infancy, in sleep, and in silence. For in the two former all are fools; and in the latter we are all wise. In sleep the wisdom of the wise is not exercised, and the folly of the fool is not discovered. In the 115. Psalm. ver. 5. There are f •• impediments orderly specified, wherein the sinner differs not from the sleeper. The sinner hath. 1. Impeditum os ab actu confitendi; They have mouths, but they spe •• e not. He cannot confess his sins, nor profess his faith, nor pour out his prayers. 〈◊〉 sin, as in sleep he hath a mouth, but not to speak. 2. Oculos impeditos ab actu vid •• di: They have eyes, but they see not. They have closed their eyes, lest they should see. They differ something in this from an Idol: the Idol hath Oculum fictum, a counterfeit eye: these Oculum clausum, a shut eye. See, that cannot; these can and will not. Who is so blind as he that will not see? The object is exhibited, their sight is self-darkened. They have eyes, but not to see. 3. Aures impeditas ab offici • •• diendi. They have ears, but they hear not. The blind hath eyes, but not to see: the cripple feet, but not to go: the spiritual sleeper hath ears, but not to hear. The ear is a benefit of nature, but an ear to hear is the benefit of grace. 4. No • impeditos ab of ficio odorandi. They have noses, but they smell not. Futura non prase •• unt. They give themselves to sleep, and never suspect the danger that may prevent their waking. Let them come into that blessed Garden of God, where i ••• merable flowers give delectable sents; they neither smell the odors, nor relli •• the fruits. They receive not the things of the spirit. 1 Cor. 2.14. the Naturian is not capable. They have noses, but not to smell. 5. Manus impeditas ab actu benef •• endi. They have hands, but they handle not. As that organum organorum, the instrument of instruments, the busy and active hand, is bound in sleep. So sin ha •• enervated the practice of goodness; and obsessed the sinner, not only with a dedig • ation of good works, but also with an indignation against good workers, and an • unsatisfied delight in misdeeds. God reacheth out mercy to him, as the charitable doth an alms to the maimed; alas, he is fast asleep, and puts not forth a hand • o receive it. They have hands, but not to work. 6. Pedes impeditos ab actu am • ulandi. They have feet, and walk not. Worse than that cripple, Act. 3. he thought • e could not go, would be carried to the Temple: but these have feet and will • ot go to the Temple; they have no desire to be brought into that vigilant and waking place. There the Preachers voice would be like a Trumpet, and they can • ot endure noise. They have feet, but not to walk.

Nothing is more dangerous than this drousiness and security in sin: when men think they can pass as they please; thorough the womb to grace, • horow grace to wantonness, thorough wantonness to glory. With Gallio, • hey think Religion only a question of names and words, and therefore will not • eddle with it Or, if they resolve to hear it, with Felix they can neither get 〈◊〉 convenient time, nor a convenient heart for it. They are not like the Be that • illeth her belly and thighs with honey from the flowers: but like the butter fly, which only dies and paints her wings in their colors, and so leaves them. They • wimme like Dolphins, playing upon the waves of carnal delights; and are always • erriest, when destruction is nearest. Wake therefore, and learn to die before • hou die; that when thou must die, thou mayest have no more to do but to die. While • he foolish virgins slept, they lost their entrance into that joyful bride-chamber • or ever. Watch and pray: they that would keep themselves waking, do it best • y talking. Hold thyself in a continual conference and discourse with God, so • halt thou not fall asleep in sin. If thou dost fall into aslumber, yet let thy heart • ache. But the reprobate doth sleep soundly, Somno sepultus. Therefore let us not • eepe as others do, but let us watch and be sober, 1 Thes. 5.6. As Christ couples wat • hing and prayer: so the Apostle couples watching and sobriety. Sobriety is either • orporall, the moderation of appetites: or mental, the moderation of affections. Now as drunkenness enforceth sleep, so sobriety keepeth awake. But as Phy • tians rid their hands of incurable patients, and send them to the mineral or me • lline bathes, or leave them Deo & naturae, to God and nature. So I remit these 〈◊〉 their maker to be wakened; either by the Evangelical trumpet here, or by the • rchangelicall trumpet hereafter.

10 Observe that sin will not let Justice sleep, but sends it up continual chalen • es and defiances: provoking him to draw that sword, which he had rather should • st and rust in the scabbard, than be sheathed in the bowels, or shine with the galls • f his own creatures. But in piety will not let him alone, nor give him over, till is righteousness breaks forth into vengeance. As the prayers of the Saints with kind of prevailing importunacie, offer holy and humble violence to his mercy: • at he descends with the flag of truce, in the milk white ornaments of peace; pardo • ng sins, and healing sorrows. If importunate solicitations could move an unjust • dge to equity, will they not much more move a merciful God to pity? Give him • st till he establish Jerusalem, Esa. 62.7. As the kingdom of heaven requires and re • ites this holy violence: so the king of heaven is content to have his hands as • nicled from executing wrath, and his sword locked up by the prayers and tears 〈◊〉 penitents. Let me alone, saith the Lord to Moses, that I may smite them: as if • e groans of his heart did hold God's hand. So do the sins of the wicked hasten • dgement, and cry to vengeance, Come away, why tarriest thou so long? Thus the • ood of Abel murdered, cried for the blood of the murderer. Wickedness is not • oveling, but aspiring: not base, shame-faced and fearful to advance it self; but • elling like Jordan above the banks. Their wickedness is come • p before me. It • s not hid in the secrecy of private chambers, not kept close in the closet of their • ne breasts; but an ascending, aspiring, climbing wickedness • so impudent that it durst press into God's presence. Before me: it wakens makes my justice, and will 〈◊〉 me sleep no longer. Gen. 18.20. Because the cry of Sodom and Gommorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous.

Peccatum cum voice, sin with a voice is sin in action: Peccatum cum cl ••• , sin with a cry is sin in presumption, Greg. Their wickedness passed the bo ••• of all moderation: the fame of it was not only spread upon earth, and blown 〈◊〉 the ears of men: but it pierceth the air, passeth the stars, climbs like the Sun in the morning, comes up amongst the Angels of God, and exposeth her filthiness 〈◊〉 the throne of his Majesty. This iniquity here is not less than a theomachie, a d •• perate war against heaven, a tower of sin like Babel, reaching to the clouds. A sin which the Scripture calls lifting up the hand, and lifting up the heel, against the Lord. Manum in contendendo, calcem in contemnendo: lifting up the hand in opposition, the heel in contempt.

There are two Ladders whereby men climb up into heaven, and become acquainted with God. The Ladder of Petition, and the Ladder of presumption. The Sa ••• ascend by the one to their consolation, the wicked by the other to their confusi •• . Both press into the Presence-chamber, both have the like access, both have not the like success. The one thrusts in lik a conspirator to practice treachery: the other 〈◊〉 a petitioner to implore mercy. Wickedness is saucy and peremptory, and will be notable though hit be notorious. It scorns to keep low water, or live in an • b: 〈◊〉 like pride, is only to that end proud, that some notice may be taken of it. Commonly it is gone from the memory of the offender, ere it come with so fierce an i ••••• tion before the punisher. And that wind of rebellion which causeth justice to wa •• , rocks unrighteousness a sleep. But shall our sins come up before God, and 〈◊〉 first come before ourselves; who dwell in the region where they were borne, a •• were present when they were done? This is the greatest fault of our ignorance, to be ignorant of our faults. Must heaven know what is done on earth, before earth 〈◊〉 self be acquainted with it? As Tully said, he could hear at Antium what news 〈◊〉 at Rome, better than at Rome it self. Shall we turn our wickedness so far o •• 〈◊〉 our own remembrance, that we never think of it till we feel it in vengeance. These be willful mistakings, tricks to make ourselves blind. Alceus took a mo •• upon ones face for a grace, it was none by his leave. The more quietly and securely sinners sleep in the good opinion of themselves, the more certainly their dami •• on sleepeth not.

I know that some sins are not so solicitous and urging upon the Justice of God as being the infirmities of his children, which he passeth by with connivence. Y •• he doth not strike at every provocation of the wicked. There is a time when Go • is said to take especial notice of sin. Because thy rage against me, and thy tu •••• 〈◊〉 come up into mine ears, &c. But is there any sin when the eye of his knowledge is bl •• ded? No, but this devotes to us the order of the actions of his knowledge. He 〈◊〉 sin in the Book of eternity, before sinners hearts do conceive it: he sees it in the •• breasts, before their hands do commit it. He sees the conception, birth, and comm ••• meant of it: but then he sees it to purpose, when being in the mature ripeness be •• ceth it. Ier. 2.24. They that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month thy shall find her. When the measure is full, God will find them out; as the wild 〈◊〉 in her month, great with foale. Thus he sees it with fiery eyes, bent to vengean • . There are some aspiring sins, pressing unto God's throne, like presumptuous m ••• taines darted at his own Majesty. They arise with a vocal ascension; the 〈◊〉 that mount them up so high, being the cry of their malignity in the ears of God As oppression, I am. 5.4. From this Job in his apology presented to his Judge, ••• sed himself. If my land cry against me, Hab. 2.11. The stone shall cry out of the 〈◊〉 and the beam out of the timber shall answer it, Ier. 6.7. Violence and spoil is be ••• in her, before me continually is grief and wounds. So the Prophet tells Israel, 〈◊〉 God being displeased with Judah, and delivering them into their hands; they 〈◊〉 slain them in a rage that reacheth up even to heaven. This is an outrageous impudence, that is ambitious of enhauncing sin, despising the censures of men, and judgments of God. Though they have been plagued, they change not the color of one hair of their heads, one work of their lives: nor add a cubit to their statures, one inch to their Christian growths. This, this is the way to fall upon that irrevocable sentence, which God hath purposed, and he will not repent, nor turn back from it. As the wicked cannot sleep till they have offended: so they will not let God sleep till he be avenged.

11. Long ago. There is a preordination of plagues for reprobates, and the very moment of the execution appointed, Jude ver. 4. They were of old ordained to this condemnation. As if they were booked, enrolled, and billed to this confusion, and their particular names set down in a book. God keepeth a book of Registry and Records, in which he engrosseth the persons behaviors, and eternal state of all men. Besides the book of providence, wherein are all our members written: and the Book of Life, which contains the names of the faithful: there is also the book of Judgment, out of which the wicked shall be judged. To think these material books, were a gross conception: they are the counsel, providence, pleasure, knowledge and justice of God; which comprehend all things as if they were written in a book. Therefore, howsoever, in respect of men things be contingent and casual: yet in regard of God there is no chance, nor event by it; for he hath all things written before him with their causes. God's providence, and fortune, • re direct contraries. Hereupon, the very actions of wicked men come not to pass without God's purpose. He not only foreseeth, but wisely ordereth them, and even that which is done against the will of God, is not done without the will of God. He doth not command it, he doth suffer it. Albeit he esteem not evil to be good, yet he accounteth it good that evil should be.

This serves to qualify our impatientce, when we see some reject the means of salvation, despise the word, vilipend the Ministers of it, rob God of his Churches • atrimonie, malign the professors of the truth, and give over themselves to a resolute contradiction of godliness: knowing that some are of old and long ago ordai • ed to this condemnation; and that Their judgment, (a dest ruction which is properly their own) is long agee prepared. And for ourselves, though we be confident in • ESUS CHRIST, through the testimony of the HOLY GHOST; ^d Yet be • ot high minded, but fear. Our fidelity must take heed of security.

This point is not barren, but useful to us in a double application; the one of • aution, the other of consolation:

1 Seeing God doth not sleep in his Justice, let not us sleep in our unjustice. When Alexander had a great battle to fight, he was found fast a sleep in his Tent. We have listes to enter with the Justice of God, ô let not the slumber of our souls, • nd the Judgment of our sins, come so near together. Jonah was gone down into • he sides of the ship, and he lay fast a sleep. The air is troubled, and sends out a tem • est, the waves roar, the winds blow, the sea is disturbed, the ship almost broken, the Mariners afraid, happy man that can pray fastest, the burden of the vessel unloden: • nd all this for the Prophets cause, yet the Prophet alone is ignorant of the matter, • e is fast a sleep. It could not be but he much forgot himself: though he had re • used to preach at Nineveh, yet here was an auditory and an occasion that required Sermon: and the conversion of one sinner is a blessed work: because he covers multitude of sins, which either the converter, or the converted hath committed. The • try uncircumcised Master wakens him; What meanest thou O sleeper? call upon thy • od. An infidel leads him that knew God, to his prayers. The Prophet is be • ome an auditor, and the auditor a Prophet: the sheep leads the Shepherd, the • atient heals the Physician, the Gentiles are devout in their superstition, the Israe •• e cold in his religion. Truth is truth wheresoever we find it; Call upon thy God, • as good counsel from a heathen.

It is desperate for men over shoes, to run over shoulders; and having transgressed the bounds of obedience, to neglect any desire of revocation. Cyprian, who was at last a Martyr, wrote of himself, that being a persecutor, he was so far i • that he had no hope of getting out: therefore freely welcomed all vice, as resolving upon the worst that could befall him. Sleep departeth from the eyes of distressed and anguished spirits, Job 7.4. I am full of tossings too and froo, unto the dawning of the day. He that is troubled in his conscience for his iniquities, will resolve with De ••• not to suffer his eyes to sleep, nor his eye-lids to be closed down with slumber: as he, till he found a resting place for God: so this, till he find rest for his own soul.

Yet how hath this sleep possessed even God's children! David being full 〈◊〉 into idleness; from idleness he passeth to concupiscence, concupiscence beg ••• adultery, adultery hatcheth murder. And when all these ingredients put together, would have troubled the strongest and most retentive stomach; he takes a sleep with them of almost a year long. Thus are sinners like a man surcharged wi •• gluttonous meal, who is apt, his belly being full, to lay his bones at rest. Ch •••• came to his Disciples and found them asleep, Mat. 26.40. He had often incul ••• this admonition to them; Watch: yet now in the greatest extremity they are 〈◊〉 asleep. I know that sleep is necessary to human nature; all living creatures 〈◊〉 earth have their sleeps. Though the Poet Salse sed false of the nightingale; T ••• tare simul nocte dreque potes; that she sings night and day; if at least he mean, with ••• intermission: as Pliny also too confidently avers, Lib. 10. cap. 75. The credi •• 〈◊〉 Aelian is engaged for as much, that she is expers somni, without all sleep: but by 〈◊〉 leave, it was an error. Sleep is that natural help, Quod corpora duris fessa •••• sterijs mulcet, reparatque labori. Therefore the Pythagoreans used to play a lesson on the harp and sing to it, when they were going to bed: Quo citius & bl •••• obdormirent. The Apostles therefore having supped late, drank wine, wea ••• , with travel, now being midnight sleeps principal season, not walking but fire •• still: all which were valde 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , suadentia somnum, as virgil speaks: provo ••• and attractive of sleep. Why then doth CHRIST reprove them, for not w ••• ing with him one hour? But is there not a time to wake, and a time to sleep? W ••• in that very hour when the Lord of life was betrayed into the hands of death; 〈◊〉 King ready to die for his people, the creator as it were unmade to new male is creatures, the innocent suffering for the nocent, could they not even then forb ••• sleeping? Not one hour, ecce brevitatem, it was short: watch, ecce facilitatem, it 〈◊〉 easy; not be exposed to scorn, not cast into prison, not beaten with scourges; 〈◊〉 dura verba, nec duriora verbera perpeti: but only spectare & expectare, to look 〈◊〉 wait, while their Master was finishing that great work of their own redem ••• . Not watch with me, Mee your Savior; one hour, I say not a whole night. He • 14.37. He found them all sleeping, but directs his reprehension to Saint Peter: because he before fluctuans aestu had confidently promised this, yea far more th •• this, to lay down his life for Christ; Simon sleepest thou? There is a time to 〈◊〉 without reproof: Samuel slept, David slept, Psal. 4.

Christ himself slept, Mat. 8. Peter had often slept before without reprehensi •• yea, and afterwards too with consolation; Angels guarding and delivering 〈◊〉 Acts 12.7. But now to sleep; Couldest thou not watch with me one hour? 〈◊〉 not a thousand, nor a hundred, nor a score, but one: not month or week, or 〈◊〉 or whole night, but Houre: and this not to fight for me, but to watch with me: 〈◊〉 mon dormis? Simon, signifies obedience; Christ calls him not Peter, nor Ceph • 〈◊〉 Simon: arguing his forgetfulness, not only of his Masters love, but of his 〈◊〉 name. But if it be such a sin to sleep, What is it to betray? Judas tradis? 〈◊〉 worse than, Simon dormis? It is better to sleep with Peter, than to betray 〈◊〉 Judas. Tolerabilior est somnolentus Simon, quàm turbulentus Sinon. He that sleep •• well thinks no harm; but there be some that Study mischief in their beds. Vt ••• lent homines surgunt de nocte Latrones. We may better suffer Desidiosum Mo •••• , quàm insidiosum Iesuitam; than the Popes wakeful Judas, Discipulum decipulum, 〈◊〉 • nare and gin to entrap poor souls, and send them to Rome, like Virgins taken up for the Turk, to suffer his Antichristian ravishments.

To conclude, seeing that sleep comes from cold and moist humors domi • ant in the brain: and wakefulnesse from hot and dry reigning in the head: let us • ast away the cold and crude humors of sin, and stir up the holy and almost extin • uished fire of zeal. That as CHRIST at his first coming found the shep • eards by night watching over their flocks: so at his second coming whether by • ay or night, he may find us all watching over our souls.

2 As this is terror to the ungodly, so comfort to the righteous. As Justice is • ver waking, so mercy is never a sleep. He that keeps Israel, never lets his providence fall into a slumber. Yea, even in the lethargy of our disobedience, when we remit of our uprightness, the hand of this ever watching God preserves us. Da • id was a sleep a long while together, but the Lord that chose David slept not for • is good. Upon this confidence he betaketh himself to rest. I laid me down and • lept, for the Lord sustained me. I will lay me down in peace, and sleep, for thou Lord •• lie makest me dwell in safety. As he sets his Angels to guard us in the natural sleep of our bodies: so his preventing grace doth keep us in the spiritual slumber of our consciences. But let not this make us presume upon his mercy too much: nor so • respasse upon God's unsleeping protection, as to take our ease in our corruption. Thou sayest, others have long slumbered, and yet been graciously awakened; as David, Paul, Zacchaeus; Why not I? I dispute not: God will measure out his gra • es at his own pleasure: and though they run over to some, they are plentiful enough to all. The same Lord is rich unto all that call upon him. My grace is sufficient for thee, was Paul's answer: and it may suffice all suitors.

God hath given us no small space, not a few mercies: if we will sleep with Pe • er, we put it to the hazard whether we shall ever rise with Peter. We cannot expect miraculous revocations; a Whale to reduce us as Jonah, or, the Sun to stand still for us as to Joshua, or, the sea to divide it self as to Israel, or, a voice heard from he • ven as to Paul. Shall we say, The army of God is shortened, because we see not these wonders? Will we not be wakened without miracles? Must the course of nature b • • ltered, the pillars of earth moved, the channels of the sea discovered; must we see signs in the Sun and Moon, and have some rise from the dead to warn us, or we will not be wakened. The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: • ut we preach CHRIST crucified. Woe unto us if the open face of the Gospel cannot rouse us without a sign; and the simplicity of CHRIST persuade us without further wisdom. They that sleep, sleep in the night. But the night is past, let • s therefore give over slumbering. The less sleep we give sin in our souls, the sweeter sleep we shall find to our bodies. Thus shall we be sure, that while the wicked are overtaken with this unsleeping damnation, we shall be guarded and guided with a vigilant preservation. For CHRIST died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him, 1 Thes. 5.10. To whom be praise forever.