Commentary on 2 Peter
Beside all these expressions comparatively, the sharpness of this punishment by fire, is aggravated by three gradations.
1 By the quality; it was not only fire, but a deluge of fire. The Lord rained fire: not sprinkled by drops, like a gentle shower, but Rained, as it were whole sheets of fire, the flashes of lightning are nothing to it; but flakes and streams of fire; The highest gave his thunder, hailstones and flames of fire. Not a little kindled, as fire in a house, that gathers force by degrees, and from small sparks riseth to a violent cumbustion; but the very beginning was a rain of fire. They had rained on the earth great cataracts of sins, and heaven rained on them great cataclismes of flames.
2 By their indisposedness to bear it; men quite destitute of the grace of God, • nd forfeited to all discomfort. Flesh and blood, in either valor or desperateness, • ave endured many strange torments in this world; lancings, searings, rackings, all • o protract a miserable life. Divers martyrs have leap'd into their beds of flames, as • eds of downes. But the sense of the torment hath been qualified by God's assistance • nd their patience. But he that could cool the burning furnace by the will of his mercy, did inflame this fire by the breath of his fury. There was fire for doing well, here is fire for doing ill. There was the fire of man against the love of God, hear • he fire of God against the lust of man. There was grace to allay it, here was sin • o enrage it. The punishment was the more sensible, as the patients were more • ensuall.
3 By the addition and mixture of it: not fire alone, but fire mingled with Brim • tone; a matter fit not to allay it, but increase it. Extendit, non extenuat flammam • ulphur. The perplexing properties of Brimstone are three: to burn darkly, sharp • y, loathsomely. Darkely to grieve the sight, sharply to afflict the sense, loathsomly • o offend the smell. The Scripture, to describe the extreme tortures of fire, adds often Brimstone. Fire and much wood, and the breath of the Lord like a river of brim • tone to kindle it. Where is both a Prosopopoia in the Breath, and a Topographia in the Brimstone: both figures to express the furious indignation of the Author, and fierce • everity of the Act. For the Allegory of Breath, to denote the rage of Saul against • he lambes of Christ, he is said to Breath out slaughter. To signify the Lord's wrath • gainst sinners, he is said to breath out fire. For Brimstone, it makes fire more terrible; darkening the splendor of it to the sight, sharpening the ferve • of it to the sense, and • ugmenting the stench of it to the smell.
This discovers to us the nature of sin, how stinking and loathsome it is to God, • hat burning Brimstone is not more offensive to us. Fatidius Deo peccatum, quàm • omini sterquilinium. No perfumes are more pleasant to the sinner, no dunghills more noisome to the Lord. Absalom thought his pride sweet, Zimri his adultery, Nabal his wealth sweet: the usurers gold, the lascivious man's harlot, the defrauders • gain; all fragrant smells to them; because they breath no other air but such pesti • ent corruptions. And the very sent of goodness would set them hard, as fen-men • re sick with a subtle air, or the soil-man swooned when he passed through Buck • ersbury. But if their hearts were unstop'd, and cleared from the cold and congeald • atarres of sin, they would be sensible of the stench; and there is no work of dark • esse but they would smell Brimstone in it. Our blessed Savior feedeth among the • ilies, lodgeth in the beds of spices, the sweet graces of his Church: let not us like Dor • es, love the dunghills: or like Scarabees, pass over all beauties, to light upon sores • nd ulcers. O that we could but discern sin as it is in it self: how should we then • ate our lusts, our lies, our oaths, our covetous desires and practices; smelling the •• ink of Brimstone in them all! Indeed we are all unsavowry of ourselves, odious • o that God, who hath pure eyes and pure nostrils: only our hope and comfort • s, to be sweetened with the perfume of Jesus Christ.
3 The Suddennesse; the fire was not long a dispatching them: but as it fell be • ore their expectation, so it destroyed them before their recollection. When the • un did rise, then began the rain to fall; now this was just at Lots entering into Zoar: • t break of day he went out of Sodom, at sun-rising he came into Zoar: between which spaces a man may go four miles, say the Hebrews. Now Abraham rose up early in the morning, yet he saw not the falling of the fire, but the rising up of the smoke only. This must needs be done suddenly: in all likelihood, less than half an hour determined all the glory of Sodom. The Prophet says, In a moment: Sodom was destroyed in a moment. Why then should not men believe the same power of the last fire to consume the world, and our changing even in a moment? In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. That fire gave the Sodomites no time of remembrance, nor shall the last fire give the world any time of repentance. Vita brevis, & ipsa brevitas incerta: that may come suddenly, which we know will come certainly. We have no more Patent of forbearance th ••• had Sodom: it is said of the wicked, In momento ad infernum, In a moment they go down to hell. Death doth not always creep upon a man by degrees, like Ezekiel's waters; from the ankles to the knees, from the knees to the loins, and so 〈◊〉 the heart: but swallows some ere they can swallow their spittle. The Judge standeth before the door. Would the thief break into the house, if he knew the Judge stood at the door? We may say of our sinning and dying, as Physicians of their critical days; the first is Index, the second Index. Our sins shows we shall die, our death judgeth us for our sin. But betwixt both these there is Me ••• , remedium, a gracious help, the intervention of our seasonable amendment, and applying the satisfaction of Jesus Christ.
4 The destructivenesse; Turned them to ashes. It is a fearful degree in punishment, in cineres redigi, to be reduced to ashes. God went far with Israel, wh •• they were Titio ereptus, a brand snatched out of the burning. He proceeded further, when he set the whole Forest of his people on fire; yet still a remnant was preserved, some did escape, even thorough the fire. The Prophet by the Dry bones, shadows out a desperate estate. A man is sick, there is danger: panting for life, great fear: dead, no hope: buried, despair: the flesh consumed, nothing but bones l • ft, here is the utmost extent, saving only his wholly mouldering to ashes. There is hope of a tree if it be cut down, that it will yet sprought again: but cut down, cast into the fire, and converted to ashes, no hope.
Yet is this the end of all flesh: the innumerable army of Xerxes, all become as • es. Herod that was honored as a god by men, was proved to be a man by worms; turned to ashes. The Roman Palace, the Spanish Escuriall, all the glorious Cities and buildings of the earth, shall meet in this catastrophe; be turned to ashes. Solomon from his royalty, Achitophel from his policy, Caesar from his monarchy, Plato from his Philosophy, even Moses from his humility; all good men from their sanctity, all bad men from their impiety, must descend to make ashes. Death is that impartial metamorphoser, that turneth all secular glory into ashes. Where are they that credits this Temple wherein we pray, that built those houses wherein we dwell, that founded the City wherein we live, that begun those societies whereof we are? ye know, all turned to ashes. Not turned to birds and beasts, as the Poets feigned, much less to stars; neither to plants nor planets; least of all to celestial Angels, but to dust and ashes.
There is difference of estates while we live; Cinerum sub pulvere nulla. Ye 〈◊〉 gods; there he considered their pomp and dignity: but ye shall die like men, there • e minds their end, that with the change of his note, they might also change co •• nance. He tells them their honor, but withal their lot. In power, wealth, tra •• e, titles, friends, they differ from others: in death they differ not from others. They are cold when winter comes, witherd with age, weak with sickness, and melt away with death, as the meanest: all to ashes, All flesh is grass, and the glory of m •• as the flower: the glory, that is the best of it, but a flower. No great difference, the flower shows fairer, the grass stands longer, one sithe cuts down both. Beasts f •• and lean fed in several pasture, killed in one slaughter. The Prince in his lofty palace, the beggar in his humble cottage, have double difference; local and ceremoni ••• height and lowness: yet meet at the grave, and be mingled in ashes. We walk i • this world, as a man in a field of snow: all the way appears smooth, yet cannot • e be sure of any step. All are like actors on a stage, some have one part and some ano •• er, death is still busy amongst us: here drops one of the Players, we bury him •• th sorrow, and to our scene again: then falls another, yea all, one after another, 〈◊〉 death be left alone upon the stage. Death is that damp, which puts out all the •• mme lights of vanity. Yet man is easier to believe that all the world shall die, •• n to suspect himself. Though we be older than those we follow to the grave, yet •• l we hope for a longer reprieve. If anything could have hired death to spare, •• r forefathers would have kept our possessions from us. But ashes must to ashes: •• st was our composition, and to dust must be our dissolution: only we look for a •• ter resurrection.
From all this observe the fit proportion of the punishment to the sin. They •• ich burned with the fire of lust, are consumed with the fire of vengeance. They •• ned against the rule of nature, and they perish against the course of nature. They •• d conjured up hell to earth; and God sent hell out of heaven. For their unnatu •• l lust, unnatural fire: there is a loathsome stench in their wickedness, and there • s the stink of brimstone in their confusion. Such is the Justice of God, not only 〈◊〉 strike for offending: but also the wisdom of God to strike according to the man •• r of offending. The Lord is known by executing Judgment: making Their sword •• er into their own heart. The Gibbet which Haman built for Mordecai, shall hang •• mselfe. Pharaoh made away the Hebrew males, and was requited with the death 〈◊〉 his first borne. Herod slew the infants of Bethlehem, and was punished by the •• rder of his own children. Hildebrand suborned a villain with a great stone on •• e Churches roof, to brain Frederick the Emperor doing his devotions after his • onted manner: and the same Traitor tumbled down, and was quashed in pieces •• th the same stone. Thus was Alexander the sixth poisoned with the same liquor •• ich he had ordained to make away some of his Cardinals. Three of those fie •• conspirators were maimed and disfigured, by the fiering of powder at Holbecke 〈◊〉 Worcester shire; who had meant by powder to blow up a whole State. Let all •• ese examples terrify the wicked: God will meet with them in their own kinds, •• d fill them a cup with their own tempering. As their tongues have walked a •• inst heaven, so they shall be confined to hell: Propter solutas linguas, they shall •• ve Catenatos pedes. For drunkenness, want of a drop of water: for covetousness, •• erlasting poverty of comfort.
Two things are yet further to be looked into. 1. how the Justice of God may 〈◊〉 justified in this universal confusion of the Sodomites. 2. what was the utmost •• ent, or what followed the ruin.
For the former; it is the Atheists exception against the Justice of God, that he •• founded the innocent with the guilty. The men indeed were given over to licenit •• snesse, but no such thing is testified of the women: and if the women were also sin •• , yet the infants were not capable nor culpable of such faults. For answer, first let •• hold this undeniable Tenent; The judgments of God are often secret, always just 〈◊〉 will show mercy to whom he will, and he does us undeserved favor. He will execute ••• gement on whom he will, and he does us no wrong. That he saves any, the cause •• n himself: that he condemns many, the cause is in them.
God is absolute Lord over all his creatures: and as it was his only pleasure to •• e life, so also to take it away. Neither are we more to demand a reason of the •• ter, than we are able to conceive a reason of the former. Whether he gives, or •• aches, still blessed be the Name of the Lord.
Children are parts of their Parents, and therefore may be justly infolded in ••• ir fathers punishments. They are guilty of original sin, a filthiness that they •• ve by propagation from their parents: for their souls were infected, so soon as •• r they were infused. Before the Justice of God there are none innocent. They •• t have sinned from their parents, may justly be enrolled with their parents. •• ough they be not guilty of their fathers actuals, yet they have by nature so much corruption, as may deserve sharp correction. How frequently hath God chastised the children for the fathers offenses. David's child begotten in adultery must die Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was borne blind? This the Apostle •• could easily see, howsoever they undescreetly asked: Quia antequam nasceretur, p • care non potuit ut cacus nasceretur. But the Son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father; a good son shall not answer for a bad father. But the child is a sinner, 〈◊〉 parvulus unius diei: and when it hath the fathers sin with the own it is punished 〈◊〉 the own sin, not for the fathers.
Thus do many children suffer for their parents being conceived in offense, and deriving their diseases from their birth: there is Morbus haereditarius, as Physicians speak. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Both the trees and fruit were corrupt, the spring and channels unclean, therefore involved in one ge •• rall ruin. So fully did the Justice of God triumph over them, that he left none •• maining; but even the very seed and offspring of the Sodomites perished. Unless the Lord had left us a remnant, we had been as Sodom? they had no rem ••• left. The very little ones infected with their parents sins, were wrappd up in their parents flames.
Nor only fell those Sodomites for the present but forever; suffering the v •• geance of eternal fire. A Judgment so fearful and singular, that it is able to strike a horror into our hearts with the very thought. This God did. 1. To show hi • perfect detestation of that wicked people; so apostate from all goodness, that their very seed was accursed. Because the fathers blaspheme against heaven, the childr •• go to hell. 2. To increase their sorrow and torment in seeing the destruction of their children: for if nature were not quite extinct, and they had but as much affection as beasts to their young; it must needs wound their hearts to see the lamentable ruin of their children. Who can hear the confused cry of so many Infants, and not cry for company? to see their tender and ungrowen limbs wrapped up in st ••• s of fire, as swath-bands: the shrinking of their soft nerves at every pull of grief their flesh scorched like a scroll of parchment; sprawling on the ground, and rock'd a sleep with dire destruction; would melt a heart of Adamant.
God himself, at other times, had a special regard to Infants: excepting only some places that were execrable in his sight, as Jericho, Edom, and Babylon, and here Sodom. Now the sight of such a Judgment among the little ones, that knew not the right hand from the left, that cleaved to their mothers breasts, as apples 〈◊〉 the tree; to be snatched away with death, and death in the frightfullest visage, b •• ning and tormenting death: this did aggravate their plague, and it had been much easier for them to have suffered alone. There is nothing more natural to us, tha • 〈◊〉 love our children; those living monuments of ourselves, that piece out morta ••• with succession, continue our names and Images upon the earth. These if we 〈◊〉 affect with our loves, let us not infect with our lives: let us hate our sins, lest th •• also perish with ourselves. Why should we destroy those, whom we have in a •• ner made? we brought them into the world with pain, up in the world with c •• let us not send them out of the world with sorrow. Repentance and amend •• 〈◊〉 life help us to prevent such an unhappiness; that we may neither smart f •• the wickedness of our forefathers, nor make our children everlastingly sma ••• us. Let us obey our Father in heaven, that he may bless our children up •• earth.
For the other consideration; the extremity of their punishment was not 〈◊〉 temporal death, but everlasting torment: Eternal fire. Their present fire 〈◊〉 not buy out the future. Run they into the fields, it rains fire: into the houses, 〈◊〉 flame with fire: into holes and caves, all places burn with brimstone. Mise ••• men, whether they fly or stay, struggle or lie still, fire possesseth them. Sc ••• sulphur, and burning stench, universally racking them. Yet is not all this enou ••• purge out their corrupption, but a worse torment succeeds, and the judgment 〈◊〉 earth doth but deliver them over to the condemnation of hell: which continually burns their souls, and shall never turn them to ashes; a fire neither tolerable nor • erminable. The breath of the Lord, like a river of brimstone doth inflame it, and the breath of ten thousand reprobates shall never be able to blow it out. When a drop of water shall be allowed, to cool the tongue that boils with unsufferable flames. Where heat doth follow smoke, and fire heat, and stench fire, and torment stench, and burning shall be added to burning. Thus are they cast into utter darkness, where neither light of Sun nor Moon, much less the light of heaven, and God's glorious face shall ever appear. Where their eyes must distill like fountains, and their teeth clatter like armed men.
These are those fearful vials of wrath, when God gives blood to drink unto them that boil with heat. Who can express their horrors, nay what horrors cannot they express? Sorrowes are met on their souls as at a feast: fear, despair, and anguish leap upon their hearts as a Stag, and the furies of hell divide their spirits among them. Torment calls to desperation, horror to pain, come and help us to torture these wretches. Lust sends one plague, and pride another, and covetousness a third; till they run thorough a thousand deaths, and yet cannot die. All their • ights are put out at once, they have no souls fit to be comforted. Thus they lie, as if they bore the weight of the whole earth: and so let them lie, saith the LORD, forever.
Hear him that spake by experience. Being in hell in torments, he lifts up his eyes, &c. He looked upward, for he was low enough: he lift up his eyes, that could not lift up himself. Retrusus in locum imum, qui affectavit locum primum. He would not look down to Lazarus in his misery, he must now look up to Lazarus in his felicity. Oculos quos voluptas clausit, acerbitas aperit. Where remembering his pleasures past, considering his joys lost, sensible of pains present, and fearful of greater tortures to come: he sees Ad cumulum suae paenae. Lazarum in sinu Abrahae: Lazarus in Abraham's bosom. (Every believer is a child of Abraham, and whither should the child go but to the bosom of his Father?) Now he begs with more floods of scalding tears, than ever Esau sought the blessing, to have some comfort from Lazarus; send Lazarus, &c. His envious pride doth not yet forsake him. Non potuit ad Lazarum duci, sed Lazarum ad se deduci. He would have Lazarus come from the rest of heaven, to the terrors of hell. And what craves he? not an Ocean, not a river, not a pond or some small fountain, not a bucket or spoonfull; but a drop. And what if all the rivers in the South had been granted him, his tongue would still have withered, and he never have cried in the language of hell; It is enough. Or had his tongue been eased, the rest of his parts would still have fried. Water might be by him, but Vinctae sunt manus, he hath no hand to reach it. O bitter day! when not the least finger (I say not, of God, but) of the meanest Saint in heaven, shall bring the least drop (I say not, of the waters of life, but) of the waters of the brook to give him comfort. He fared as delicately as the Sodomites, in the fullness of all rare viands: he went not in sack-cloth, or common garments, nor with a diseased body as Lazarus: but in purple and fine linen, not on the best day of the seven, or when he went to the Court, where it is somewhat tolerable; but every day. But now, like the Sodomites, he is snatched from his libertine surfeit to famine, from a table of viands to a Table of vengeance, from boules of the lustiest wines to drink sulphur, from beds of downes to beds of flames, from bravery to misery, O here is the emblem of wretchedness! He would have one sent to his brethren, let this calamity give warning to us all. Flame torments him, not a moderate fire. In a flame there is Ardor and Splendor: but in hell there is burning without sight, as in the Empyreall heaven there is light without burning.
Thus had the Sodomites their portion on earth, and from the want of all miseries, were driven to the misery of all wants. God does not damn men because they be rich, for himself is infinitely rich; and Abraham that rejected the rich man, was on earth richer than he. Nor because they are Great, for himself is the greatest of all. But because they abuse these to the dishonor of his glorious Name. And to conclude; their torments are eternal. As our short affliction causeth to us an excellent and eternal Glory. so their short pleasure causeth to them an exceeding and eternal pain. Their sorrows are infinite, ration finis: they lie pressed under an unsupportable load, and still call for more weight to dispatch them, but cannot have it. What the Psalmist sings of God's mercy, is true also of his Justice, that it endure •• forever. Horrendum incidere in manus mortis viventis, & vitae morientis. Fi •• semper incipit, & defectus deficere nescit. If after so many millions of years as there be drops in the sea, there might be deliverance, they had some hope. Men may comfort themselves in temporal sufferings, Dabit Deus his quoque finem: but there is no limitation in hell: when the Lord shall give over his being, they shall have ease and not before; which is Never. An infinite Majesty is offended, therefore an infinite penalty imposed. In hell they shall ever remain sinners, therefore in hell they shall ever remain sufferers. Sin is like oil, and torment like fire: so long as the oil lasteth, the fire burneth, and that is forever. This is a long confusion, and therefore not to be passed over with a short meditation. Let us think again and again of it, and so fear it, that we may never feel it. It is a desperate madness, for the pleasure that one hour determines, to incur those pains that are capable neither of ease nor end. Thus I have insisted on the Sodōites punishment, that we being terrified with it, might learn by their example to prevent it. Which is the next point considerable, the Monument.
Made them an ensample to those that after should live ungodly.] This example of God's Judgment is one of the most conspicuous and remarkable in all the sacred History, and set out for a special precedent by the pen of the Holy Ghost; with a note of recordation, like a hand in the margent that directs to some observable thing in the Text; with a Mark this, as a thing of great consequence. Where collect four observations.
1 The right use of all God's mighty wonders, is when we take them for wonders: trembling at the sight of the works, and fearing the omnipotence of him that wrought them. When Israel saw that migh • y work upon the Egyptians, They feared the Lord. They are drowned in a sea of water, and the other do not drown it in a sea of forgetfulness. The sea was troublous, and the mariners feared: the sea was quiet, and yet they feared: this may seem strange; but the first was the fear of nature, the second of Grace: then they feared the creature, now the Creator. When Ananias and his wife fell suddenly dead, fear came upon all the Church. The Judgment was upon some, the fear came upon all. When the earth opened her jaws to swallow Corah, the people opened their mouth to cry; Let us flee. These things came unto them for ensamples, and are written to admonish us. These things they might have suffered, and their calamities have died with themselves, never been known to posterity: but they are written for us. God made a record of them, and if there be any faith in us, they be as present to us, as if they were done before our eyes. If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, nor will they believe one from the dead. Where faith makes a doubt, there sense will never be satisfied.
But if we trust not our ears; in all this ample theater of God's Judgments, did we never see any fetched away from a prosperous estate by strange accidents? were not they precedents for us? Cannot all make us afraid of overlaying God's patience. Did the blasphemer never hear how Rabshakeh sped? Did they that blush not to be called the roaring crew, (therein sentencing themselves) never read what beca • e of the Sons of Belial? Did the secure worldlings never hear of the general del • ge? Nor murmurers of those fiery Serpents? Nor unclean persons with their catam •• s, of the condemnation of the Sodomites? Shall not all this make us to break forth into those acclamations, this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Indeed these may work with the wicked to admiration, not to repentance. The very Jews beholding the wonders of Christ, could say, we never saw it on this fa ••• : and, The like was never done in Israel. Herod desired to see Christ for a miracle, as Felix to talk with Paul for a bribe. But God doth not work miracles for miracles, but for us. The gracious Lord hath so done his marvelous works, that they ought to be had in remembrance. I will live, to what end? to declare the works of the Lord: hitting the right end and use. The works of his Providence are miranda: of his Justice, miranda & metuenda: of his mercy, miranda, & diligenda. The thunder should waken our secure hearts, the rain soften our stony bowels, the lightning mind us of the coming of Christ to Judgment.
These things hath God left as memorials to the world, to be read and preached. We have the books, let us not be strangers to their contents. Our forefathers could once have said; We see not our signs, there is not one Prophet among us, nor any that divineth: or if any did divine, they divined lies. Though this sacred Book was not hid in a corner, as when Josiah began to reign: nor cut with a penknife. and thrown into the fire, as in the days of Iehoiakin. Yet the comfortable use was interdicted, the known language concealed, and men bound with a curse not to read it. It now lies open in our Churches, in our windows; God grant we shut • t not to our own hearts. Preaching applies it, and this help we have also: may we never know the want of it: yea we shall not, unless we voluntarily put it from us, • s a matter not worthy the keeping, and (with the Jews) judge ourselves unworthy of the kingdom of heaven. Diverse fearful calamities are threatened to the Jews, such • s shall turn their feasts into mourning &c. But if their eyes do not yet dazzle, nor their ears tingle; behind is a woe, that is beyond all woes; the famine of the word of God. Famine of bread is a sore plague, when a woeful mother for herself and son, is dressing their last provision. The extremity harder, when mothers by turns eat up their own children. But this is nothing to a dearth of holy knowledge. It is better not to be, than not to know: better unborne, than untaught.
2 God without all exception to the honor of his Justice, might enrole all the wicked at once in universal confusion: but so it pleaseth his goodness to single out some, and propose them as bleeding witnesses to the world: that their vengeance might bring many to repentance. Perit unus, ne pereat universus. Such an execution of his Justice doth more magnify his mercy; when he punisheth some, that he may spare many. As when many soldiers have faulted in a mutiny, the General executes martial law upon some, to strike a terror into the whole army. So doth the Lord; Nobis fit misericordia, illis non fit in juria. We have deserved, what they have suffered, they have suffered, that we might be delivered. If we make not use of this mercy, we deserve the greater penalty.
3 There is no sin which man can now commit, but God hath declared his wrath against it, in his punishments for it: we can do nothing without a precedent. • s any sacrilegious? there be precedents to forewarn him; Gehesi, Judas, and they • hat kept a market in the Temple. But these men fear nec lepram Gehesi, nec suspendium Iudae, nec ejectionem e Templo per Christum. Will the Jesuit be a traitor? there 〈◊〉 precedent. Absalom rebels, what was the end? His huge army defeated by a few, • he wood devouring that day more than the sword: twenty thousand lost. A sense • esse oak performs the part of a good subject, and apprehends the traitor: his beast • eft him to the gal-house, who was turned beast in renouncing his allegiance. The • arth refused to receive him, heaven was shut against him, none of his troupes left to • uard him; who had so unnaturally wronged the maker of all in his anointed vice • erent. The King gave charge for his reprievall, but the King of heaven had other • ise determined of him. And he that had ambitiously provided a stately monu • ent for his corps, a Pyramis or Pillar in the Kings dale; was tumbled with infa • ie into a ditch, like carrion under a heap of stones.
Can any be covetous without precedent? did he never read of Nabal's base pe •• riousnesse, and accursed end? Hath not the adulterer, Zimri for his example? • an he think of his sudden end, and not tremble to embrace his harlot? And for the factious, that are subject to their own lusts, but will be subject to no laws; observe they not the conspiracy of Corah against Moses; whom the earth buried alive, and stayed for neither executioner to dispatch them, nor sexton to make a grave for them? Can a man exact upon his brother by a biting interest, without a Jewish example? Or throw his unable debtor into prison without a precedent? The Vs ••• is a legal thief, the unmerciful creditor a legal murderer: they do nothing but by Law, and by Law they may go to the Devil together. The fraudulent trafficker cannot abuse his simple customer, but there is precedent for him, in Ananias; Did you sell the land for so much? cost your commodity so much? Yes, what followed? the lie he told before men, he was suddenly sent to answer before the God of truth. Do tyrants now persecute the Church, without example? So Julian sent his subjects to heaven in earnest himself went to hell merrily and in jest. Homicides have the example of Joab, whose gray hairs went not to the grave in peace. There is no profane libertine but had the example of Esau before him: who lost the blessing of heaven, for the pleasures of earth. They cannot tell a lie but by precedent: not swear an oath, not break a Sabbath, nor worship an Image, but by example. All these sins, and what other we can Imagine, have been committed in former ages, and plagued by former judgments. Non tulit nos sine exemplo, ut inveniat sine def • cto, vel tollat sine patrocinio. These iniquities if we admit, they retain not in so mean a quality, as before. Fratricide is now worse than in Cain, because it h ••• Cain's ensample. Apostasy now worse than in Lots Wife, because her example hath forewarned us. Adulterate painting worse now than in Jezebel, because we understand her fearful end. Vncleanesse now worse than in Sodom, because the Lord hath made them ensamples to those that after should live ungodly.
4 God's Judgments are so many real Sermons against the sins of men. He doth not only preach vocally by the ministry of his servants, but also actually by the execution of his Judgments. Once hath God spoken, twice have I heard it: once in his word written, a second time in his work done; his actions being so many declarations of his will. So Elihu in Job. These things will God work twice or thri •• with a man, to bring his soul back from the pit. Once he spake it, another time performed it, a third time redoubled it. There is no people can plead ignorance, or exuse themselves by wanting means of Instruction: for the whole earth is filled with the Judgments of God. When the fire devours a man's estate, or the sea wracks the Merchants hopes, or sudden death takes away our neighbors life, God preacheth visibly to us. Though we pronounce nothing by a peremptory rashness, for fear of CHRIST'S objurgation: Do you think they were greater sinners? For the cause is not revealed to us, as the Prophet spake of the troubled Shunamite; 〈◊〉 soul is vexed, and the Lord hath hid it from me. Yet let us take them to heart; we cannot discern them, they all concern us.
Let us be the better for all this, lest we become the worse. It had been easier for us never to have heard of Sodom’s ruin, than not to mend our lives by the e • sample. God's hand would have been lighter upon impenitent souls, if such precedents of his Justice had never been set before them. Lege Historiam, ne fias His •• ria. Let us raise ourselves out of their fall, and make their subversion the matter a •• means of our conversion. Exempla observemus, ne exempla simus. Let us be wa ••• by examples, lest we be made examples. If we will not learn by others, others 〈◊〉 learn by us. There is no learning so cheap, as that which comes at another's co •• . If their poison by good allaying, be made our physic: if the sword of vengea ••• that devoured them, amend us with the very sight and shaking of it: we shall escap •• God's fury, and become the blessed examples of his mercy.
Now there are three impediments which frustrate the good use of this doctrine, Contempt, neglect, and mis-interpretation.
1 Contempt, which is a proud and presumptuous humor in men; whom th • most palpable judgments, and evident executions, shall never deter from their damnable projects. The Judgments of God are high above his fight: tell him how • thers have perished, he answers; Tut, I shall never be moved. But this is the grea • est Judgment of all; Non intelligere delicta, ne sequatur panitentia: not to under • tand their errors, lest they should be brought to repentance.
2 Neglect and a forgetful slighting of such terrible things. It is to them but a • ang, or a transient stitch, a nine days wonder, or news that is quickly out of date. • haraoh was no sooner quitted of the plague but presently his heart was hardened. While God thundered, he trembled: but then as if the Lord had spent all his pow • er and shot, he is the same man he was. Like Ephraim's goodness, a morning dew. While the weather is cloudy, they are melancholy: but when the Sun of prosperi • y rises, and the storm of affliction clears up, their moisture is dried. Such a dew • ou shall have stand upon the stones of the Church against rain, but the stones are • ever the softer for it. Ahab hearing the denunciation of wrath, was humbled: the • and of judgment did but crush his heart like a piece of clay, till the moisture was • ressed out, leaving it then but more hardened earth. All Israel was affrighted at the • earefull end of Corah; yet even the very morrow after they fell upon Moses and • aron, murmuring; Ye have killed the people of God. Such small impression doth • he misery of others leave in us; as if we had, a protection from all arrest, a super • edeas against all suites. And what plagues soever we see inflicted on others, we think • hey have deserved them, never reflecting upon our own merits and mutable condi •• ons. We come short of the circumspection that is in birds and beasts: for they can • void the places where they see their fellows have miscarried, and are sensible by •• at token to remove.
3 Mis-interpretation, by soothing ourselves in our own courses, and turning •• e stream of God's Judgments another way. Some sport with these examples: • nd being set forth as Crocodiles in terrorem, they make them their play-fellows, • nd the subjects for the exercise of their wits. As to respect the conversion of • ots wife, no better than one of Ovid's Metamorphoses; Niobe into a Stone: as if •• ere was no difference betwixt God's actions, and Poets fictions. So they ascribe • oahs flood to some extraordinary aspect of the Moon, or concourse of watery pla • ets: and think not that God opened the windows of heaven, and fountains of •• rth. The drowning of Pharaohs Hoste, to the inconsiderate venturing over upon high Tide. It shall be imputed to anything rather than the true cause; God's an • er: these ensamples working no more upon them, than mere casualties. But woe 〈◊〉 those that shall not so understand them, as God meant them.
Here I have just cause to declare against three sorts of mistakers: with whose •• rors I will deal, as the venerable Judges do with seditious Attorneys, call them 〈◊〉 the Bench, pitch them over the Barre, put out their names from the Roll and let •• em go.
1 The Impeachers of God's providence, among whom there are six errors, • . Of the Stoics, who call providence by the name of fate or destiny: which runs •• orow a rank of causes, so bringing in an absolute and inevitable necessity, that pini •• s the arms of God and man. Theodoret beats the nose of this error flat to the devi •• rs face. 2. Of such as tie God's providence only to celestial things, exempting 〈◊〉 sublunary and corrupt matters. Jerome says, this error was crept into the hearts • f the Jews; as he collects from Ezek. 9.9. The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and •• th us not. Therefore the LORD answers, mine eye shall not spare them; to show that • is power is also upon the earth. 3. Nicenus, with others, held that God's provi • ence extends it self to corruptible things only in a general manner: ad rerum gene •• vel species, non ad singularia, non ad individua. But our Savior comprehends un • er it not only the hairs of men, but even the feathers of birds. 4. Aquin. speaks of •• e error of Rabbi Moses the Jew; that among corruptible things, man only apper •• ineth to the divine providence. This Jeremiah confutes. Deus universae carnis; I 〈◊〉 the God of all flesh; both of men and beasts. 5. Of the Platonists, that distinguish three kinds of providence First, of the supreme God, that stretcheth primarily to spiritual things, in a second degree to all the world. The second, of separated substances, that move the heavens Circulariter; Intelligences. The last, of certain Damones, powers, which they place in the middle betwixt God and man. Such are those that worship Devils for a Ne noceant. 6. Of Atheists, that deny all providence, and admit only fortune. Lactantius hath confuted it by many arguments; b •• David's conviction is the best disgrace to it, who sets a Cockes-comb on the head of it; The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. In his heart he hath Said it, but i • his heart he never believed it. Look upon all creatures; they make one glorious army, marshalled into their several ranks, and marching to the will of their great general. Why do stones, plants, and insensible things, tend to the end for which they were created, when as yet they have no knowledge of it, but that they are directed by God? Young ones are no sooner borne, but they turn their mouths 〈◊〉 the breast of their mothers: yet man, against nature, reason, religion, doth not turn his mouth of confession, to acknowledge that God who made him. We see birds to come of eggs, and living things engendered of dead seed: why should we • as well believe the resurrection of our bodies, and the last account of all our actions?
2 As mis-construing perverters of God's Judgments. That the Jews after a curse of fifteen hundred years, and a vagabond dispersion like Cain, should not bethink themselves of their murder of the Lamb of God, is the stupefying spirit of error. One of them is driven to confess that as this plague so far exceeds all their former, captivity so the sin that caused it must exceed all their former sins. As much may justly be said of our Italianated fugitives; who seeing the terrible Judgments of God upon them, will not yet know the Lord. The powder plot is passed over with An unfortunate attempt; and the Instruments no further blamed than for their rash and ill luck: as if they confessed that it wanted nothing but success to make it lawful: worse than the sorcerers of Egypt; they could cry out; This is the finger of God.
They call for a Judge of controversies betwixt us, yet will not see that God himself is the Judge: declaring his sentence and derision by helping the side which he favoreth. All his judgments upon the conspirators, cannot learn them how much he detesteth such practices. Still they will not gather the unwarrantablenesse of their designs, though they have been forced in indignation to blunder out, that the Judge of all the world is become a Lutheran. Still they are mad to be made t • e wretched engines of his ambition, that sells the souls of men to buy himself reputation. Cannot the Catholicknesse of their doctrine, and the infallibility of their director, make their plots successful, and still are they blind? Such palpable demonstrations of God's wrath so directly against their proceedings; might at least make them suspect that something is amiss, and examine where the fault resteth. To have their Infallibilitie so deceived, might cause them to recollect themselves, if they were not drunk with the wine of Sodom. Though they smart with the vials of fury, yet they will not leave their sorcery, according to the prophecy of them. They will rather knaw their tongues for pain, than acknowledge God's judgments for sin. If we were such damnable heretics as they would make us, how comes it to pass that the Lord so takes our part? That they so often tempting us by flattery, and attempting us by fury, have not yet prevailed against us? Th •• ••• there the Popes Bulls nor curses have wrought the intended effects? Certainly if the LORD did not favor our cause; he would never so protect our S ••• e. Yet all these ensamples work not upon their consciences, nor will they confess their pernicious courses. Though many hundred of their treacherous Emissari •• have miscarried, yet still more follow on, as if no Precedent had bid them take heed. But Antichrist deals with them, as Amnon did with Tamar: first ravisheth them, and then turns them out of doors. But because they would not take example by whom they should, they shall be made examples to whom they would not: even 〈◊〉 reproach to all posterity, and a stink to the succeeding generations.
3 All profane persons that misapply these ensamples: what plagues soever come to others, they conceit of themselves no such desert: Quod perit, pereat: and no further mind it. Instead of a serious application, to make a jest upon others misery, • his is common. We should Weep with them that weep: woe to such as laugh at • heir brothers tears. Whereas, Ille hodie, ego cras, was Saint Bernard's use: and we • re, have been, or may be, as miserable as they; was Saint Augustine's. The seaman that sees another ship split on a rock, will avoid it. Passengers fear to travel • hat way, where they hear of continual robberies. Yet cannot these judicial pre • edents humble them; as if they had their salvation by Patent. Yea, they are but • emporally sensible of their own plagues: nor doth the thought outlast the smart. As that Father speaks of the afflicted Pagans; Perdiderunt utilitatem calamitatis: • iseri fiunt, & pessimi permanent: worse in body, and no better in soul. Either they • hinke they need no affliction, or so sure that they are above affliction. As if God, •• ke some skill-less Surgeon, when he comes to let blood, could not find a vein; •• t were not wise enough to choose that vein which is fittest to bleed.
They are lethargically secure, no ruin but their own can stir them. But • hat which could not Instruere, must Destruere: if they be not deterred by others • hey must be destroyed themselves. Thunder proceeds from a vapor lifted up from • he earth, and compassed with a cold cloud: in the agitation or struggling it takes •• re, and then breaks out where the cloud is thinnest: and being out, sometimes it •• rikes the clothes, not the body: sometimes the body, not the clothes. So doth • reaching; it is the vapor or breath of the Spirit, surrounded with the cold and • atrish humors of our sins: it struggles with them, and in the strife catcheth fire; • nd so vents it self to the terror of the world. Somtimes by menaces and examples, 〈◊〉 strikes our garments, not ourselves: sometimes it goes farther, and strikes also our • wne hearts. Oh then let us fear God's Judgments upon others, that we may ne • er feel them ourselves.
To conclude with application, albeit indeed the whole discourse is but a doctrine • f Application: for wherefore is an example propounded, but to be applied? • ypocrites are sick, and will not be known to stand in need of physic; they can •• ve no remedy. Profane ones are sick, and will accept of no physic; they will • ave no remedy. It is hard to say, which case is worst: now God have mercy on • hem both! Can we think, God will not deal with us, as he hath dealt with others • efore us? Jezebel suborned false witnesses, and had her neck burst for it: is there no • udgement for such offenders? Achan for Sacrilege is stoned, our Church rob • ers hope to scape. Miriam was proud, and became leprous: our plaisterd popin • yes fear not. Israelites distrusting in the Lord, die by a plague: how many want •• ith, and yet look not to want mercy? Esau seems to say unto all profane wretches; • ache warning by me: Ahab to all superstitious Idolaters, Saul to all malicious persecu •• rs, Absalom to all unnatural sons, Gehesi to all false servants, Nabal to all cove •• us churls, Shimei to all blasphemous railers Take warning by us. And the Sodo • ites here are made to speak in the language of sorrow, to all secure wantons, Take • arning by us.
Such measure is to be expected from God's hands, if such wickedness be found 〈◊〉 ours. If men like it well, to have their buildings on fire about their ears, to see •• eir infants dashed against the stones, or scorched with flames, to feel a bloody •• emy triumphing in their streets, to have their names a derision, their Cities a deso •• tion, their carcases exposed to fowls, and perhaps their souls to furies and tor • ents: they may then run on their impious courses without any repentance or de • recation. It is God's mercy, that we were not made the first fruits of his wrath, • nd examples to all the world: but how great is our unthankfulness, if having thus • scaped, we are not bettered? Or if we scape all this, yet the Lord will strike when • e sees his time, perhaps when we are in worse case to bear it. He can make our • eath-beds smart for this; he may reserve all horror and amazement to that desperate hour, and then lay on us the burden of all our sins. There is one thing, if we hear it, and heart it, enough to fright us all: Tolerabilius erit Sodomae: It shall be easier for them of Sodom in the day of Judgment, than for thee: and yet the Sodomites are now in hell. If we receive not the blessed Gospel with faith and fear, Sodom and Gomorrah never sinned as we sin; and Sodom and Gomorrah were never plagued as we shall be.
But as it is a happy alarm that brings in the straggling soldier to his Colours: and a good chance for the wandering sheep, by seeing the wolf prey on a goat, to be gathered home to the fold. So let the destruction of Sodom, be the instruction of England; let their curse become our blessing. It is a good compassion of nature, that shall bring us to the compunction of grace. So instead of fire and brimstone from heaven, or in hell; the Angels shall lift us up from the vale of mortality, and the brightness of glory receive us in the Paradise of joy; through the mercy of GOD that hath promised it, and the merits of CHRIST that hath purchased it for us.
To those that after should live ungodly. What Saint Paul says; Lex non est p • sita justo, The law is not made for the righteous man: so nor here is the Example set for the holy. But the law is for the lawless, and the example of the ungodly is for the ungodly. Ex malis moribus oriuntur bonae leges. He that freely obeys the truth, finds no adversary of the law: it serves to chastise the bad and backward, not to restrain the good and forward. The horse that reineth well, needs no bitte: nor • e that runneth freely, a spurr. Against the righteous there is no law. There is 〈◊〉 Condemning law, for they are in Christ: there is no Compelling law, for the Spirit is in them; and they do as willingly obey God, as if there was no law. Were the •• no hell, and God would not punish transgression with eternal death; yet would they avoid all sin because it displeaseth CHRIST Yea further, if CHRIST would not give them eternal life, yet would they love him, and desire the advancement of his kingdom. So these examples are not for the righteous, but for the ungodly.
1 Let us consider what this ungodliness is in the proper nature of it: for it seems to consist both in the privative or negative, excluding somewhat, and coming short of what is required: and in the Positive, committing somewhat that is prohibited. Vngodlinesse is a sin, which many defy in their mouths, and embrace i • their hearts: so much greater than the seven Popish deadly sins, as it is indeed the ground of them all. More dangerous; because being rooted in the heart, it is not so visible to the eye, nor discernible to his reason that owes it. More heinous, because it is more spiritual, immediately directed against God himself; being a brea •• of the first commandment of the first Table, robbing him of his due honor. 〈◊〉 consists, either in the true worship of a false god, or in a false worship of the 〈◊〉 God, or in the true worship of the true God with a false heart. Whereas Godlin •••• is a true service of the true God, in a true religion, with a true heart.
First, it gives him not his honor: secondly, it gives it to another: thirdly, 〈◊〉 do give him due honor, yet not after a due manner. The fool says in his 〈◊〉 , There is no God: not but that his conscience is convinced of the contrary: but on the least temptation his heart is willing to acknowledge none. Said, ot believed: examine him according to his Creed, and never fool believed in his heart, there is 〈◊〉 God. If he must confess his being, yet he renounceth all subjection. They say 〈◊〉 the Almighty, Depart from us &c. This is too outrageous to be the speech of th • tongue, it is the rebellion of the heart; not vocal, but actual. They will not 〈◊〉 him reign over them. They scorn to beg a blessing of him, They call not upon 〈◊〉 Lord. They that will crouch and attend the Court for a Lordship on earth, wi •• not so much as be petitioners for the Kingdom of heaven. They say the Lord 〈◊〉 do neither good, nor evil: they sleep, and dream that the Lord sleeps too. O • they not only deny this tribute to their Creator, but give it to some creature; 〈◊〉 David took the land from honest Mephibosheth, and gave it to Ziba a varlet. Or •• se they resolve to honor him, with that he hath declared to offend him: as Paul • n persecuting, and the Jews in executing CHRIST; thought they did God • ervice. Lastly, even in their best works, that may carry some show of devotion, • hey have a false heart: halting betwixt God and Baal; a mixed service. So Demas, • hough he forsook Paul, yet turned not to his Idols again.
But he that will admit the service of God no way but his own, shall find the mer • ie of God no way at all. There may be a denial of God in real fact, even when • here is a confession of God in verbal faith. A disease which this age labors of: in • reat ones it is a Noli me tangere; Physicians and Divines call it incurable. Yea our • ulgars are not exempted, and the Pulpit can prove nothing so appositely and direct • y by Scripture, but if it displease the people, it shall never come in their Creed. Let • eligion and the Gospel go whistle, if they speak not as this people would have • hem. When God's word and this ungodliness meets, you shall hear a rattling and •• ssing, as in the encounter of fire and water. Paul casts fire at Ephesus, Demetrius • oars: in comes the Town-clarke with the magnificence of Diana: alas, that was 〈◊〉 painted fire, no noise nor tumult at it. If we stroke your spleen, and tell you that • ou are predestinated to go to heaven in a Coach, or that a wherry shall gently waft • ou to Canaan; this is a painted fire that never troubles you. But when we speak • f denying your covetous lusts, abjuring your sacrilege, bleeding for malicious lies • nd slanders; here is presently an hissing, a mutinous mad rebellion.
The word in us labors to destroy ungodliness in you, and ungodliness in you •• bours to destroy the word in us. But consider what the Prophet told Amasiah; Qua non acquievisti consilio meo; Because thou hast not obeyed my counsel, I know that • od hath determined to destroy thee. The Sons of Eli would not hearken, because • he Lord meant to slay them: their hearts must be hardened, that they may be destroyed. Alas, the scholar is but the pattern of his master, and our knowledge but a beam • f God's knowledge: while ungodly men refuse us, (Truth hath said it) they reject God himself. They got Zechariah to be made away by the Kings command: he said • o more at his death, but videat Dominus, The Lord look upon it; what followed? While ungodly men are whetting a knife to cut our throats, God is whetting a word to cut their throats. One singular proof of ungodliness, is a contesting against • he preachers of Jesus Christ.
2 This example is set down for the ungodly; but it is rare to find any that • ill confess themselves ungodly: now men that have no sense of being ill, will • ever care for any medicines to make them well. And though the fruits of it were • ever more visible and notorious, yet the root lies buried in the ground, and boasts • f a concealment. We have some to whom the very Church is a shadow of death, • nd they have earnest business, which they love above God and their own souls. • xamine your fields, streets, waters, in the times of devotion; is not this ungodli • esse? And for them that make as though they would be saved, do they not sue for • heir inheritance in heaven, Formâ pauperis; refusing to give the least scrap of their • uperfluitie for eternal life? Yea, do not they even pull down that kingdom, • hich they seem to crave? Is not this ungodliness? If they hear, is it not with • ontempt, spleen, censure, and (if they durst) with controlment? How few, when • he Sermon is done, think either the worse of themselves for the present, or become • he better afterward? How many brutish men find we, that continually mistake • he soul for the body? Soul, eat, drink, &c. his meaning was, body eat. He • hought his soul was delighted with sensualls, whereas it is the lay-part, the very •• ast of man, that is thus pleased.
Lust is with the affections, as Jezebel with her chamberlaines; she paints and •• eases: grace comes like Jehu, who is on my side? O that she were hurled down. If • ealth increase, there is a dish added to the table, a set to the ruffe, a tie to the shoes: •• t not a dram to devotion, not a mite to the Church, not a scrap to the poor, not a grace to the soul. Not to speak of the professed enemy to all goodness, the engines of hell, and deputies of the Devil, whose souls are nothing else but moving anatomies: such as are yet to choose their faith, and think religion an humor or fancy following the complection. Like a condemned wretch, that Explet ventrem, damnatus effundere sanguinem; jests away his soul. (Pardon all holy impatience: •• ruly patients make sharp physicians.) Men that think all we preach to be but fables: yet on their death-beds, if their lethargiz'd conscience be suffered to wake 〈◊〉 it go to hell; they would give all the world to be sure what we say were not true: are not these ungodly?
To omit those hypocrites, that are shufled among professors, as Saul was among the Prophets: for there is no cure of an unknown grief. To omit those swearers and adulterers, who are out of the reach of civil Justice, but God puts them in his own kalendar: Iudging the one, and; not holding guiltless the other. And those Toes of the land that rot with Idleness; lasy beggars: as it hath been observed; Great men make thieves, and then hang them up: make them, by suffering sloth to slide into villainy. And all those capital oppressors, that like Felix, when they can get no money, will bind Paul, if it be but to curry favor with the Jews. They grew rich by the undoings of men, yet under the shadow of power and authority, They wrap it up. Wrappe it up, as mud in Crystal, or a fowl thing in a fair clout. Which was detested by a very Tiberius, chiding his polling officer; Tonderi volo pecus, non deglubi. This is rank impiety: but to come closer home, and happy is the bosom which is not conscious of these evils.
Have we anymore than a mere form of godliness, reserving the pride and choice allowance to our own lusts? As our treacherous Romists, that give their liege their complements, but to a foreign Prince their hearts. Do not men spend ten hours about Mammon, before one minute about devotion? do they not think of their last account, as the last thing to be thought of? Is not covetousness chief commander of the Fort, and nothing done without her permission? Where did the bad servant bury his tallent, but in the Earth? earthy affections, covetousness buries all. This is that which eats out the heart of grace, by eating grace out of the heart. Is not this ungodliness got into the midst of that execrable rabble? The Devil may seem to take example by covetous worldlings, to chide his spirits, and upbraid their sloth: mortal men in so few years can heap up so many thousands, and g •• abundance into their hands: and you that should in quickness outstart them, lie sleeping like drones by the hearth of hell, and seek not to people our kingdom.
And who can wonder that those men disregard their Ministers, that have cast away all respect of their own souls? Or what marvel that S t Anthony's vision, which is said to be two years before the Arian heresy arose; should now be palpable Beasts about the Altar, kicking it with their heels, dashing it with their horns, and trampling on it with their fowl hooves; till like Job, it be made poor to a proverb. Covetousness makes ungodliness flourish. Yet is not this all: for where is the subjection of heart to the will of God? Who suffers that supreme law to rule his actio •• and affections? who trembles at that thing which may offend his maker? Men little think of their conscience, when they are going about to please their concupiscence: they study their ends, not their End. And how hardly will they prefer God • glory before their own souls, that will not prefer it to a piece of artificial clay? Is not this ungodliness? Innumerable be the fruits of an ungodly heart, whereof the fewer we see in ourselves, the more they be, and the more to be lamented. If we be not evil, why do we pray, Deliver us from evil? Wretched are they that stat •• themselves, and blessed are they that can prove themselves, to be out of the rank of the ungodly. The omniscient eye can find ungodliness enough in the best. To us the •• is this Ensample appliable: let it make us confess that we are as they were, and repent that we may never be as they are. Lord, take away our ungodliness, and th •• shall find none.
3 Lastly, consider the state of ungodliness. To be ungodly implies two things; • ickednesse and wretchedness. He is mortal, yet covetous: poor, yet proud: • olish, yet head-strong. He takes great pains to build an house on another man's •• ound: he seeks for sweet water in the midst of the salt sea. He studies more to be •• vanced, than to be worthy of that advancement. He hath lost himself, and de •• erately cares not what he does, to find his will. Nor his goods, nor his honors, •• r his friends go with him, but his sins: so he departs to torments boundless, •• dlesse.
The Scripture says of him, that he is in sin: it is one thing to have sin in 〈◊〉 , another thing for us to be in sin. Sin is in us all; Saint Paul conf • sseth it of him •• lfe; sin dwelleth in me. But all are not in sin, drowned, captivated, dungeon'd. • e say, such a man is in drink: drink may be in him, and yet he sober: but for him 〈◊〉 be in drink, argues him drunken. The ungodly doth hunt after sin: the eye and •• e ear being a couple of beagles to put up the game, and the whole man turned in •• a beast to follow the course. Only here is the difference: there the heart or hare •• at is chased dies, and the hound lives: here the sin survives, and the hunter peri •• es. He is slaved to sin; whatsoever lust dictates, he subscribes to: there is no base •• ficer in his family of wickedness, but let him come with the most unnatural suite, 〈◊〉 writes Fiat. He is holden with the cords of his sins: God help the man thus ma •• cled: this is a case, wherein a King may be pitied by a galley-slave. Here is no fly •• g, no changing his master: sua mutare potest, non se: he may change his place, e •• te, repose; lodging, repast; he cannot change himself. Whethersoever he goes, 〈◊〉 takes himself along with him.
He hath latam & expansam conscientiam, a broad conscience; which is like a •• rne door, it can take in a whole load of corn: he can swallow a camel. All ra •• nous fishes have large and wide mouths: the devil will never mince this man's •• eat, he is able to swallow it whole. (Whereas the good conscience is like the lit •• door to the Sanctum sanctorum, that lets in none but the high Priest, JESUS • HRIST.) He confirms his heart in evil a by voluntary custom; till he can wi • h • ore ease digest the heardest offense, than the stomach of an Ostrich can digest iron • e is pleased with the success, vexed with the prevention of any sinful purpose. If • s plot be crossed, and his hand cannot act that wickedness by day which his head •• th devised by night; he is taken with a fit of melancholy, sick of the sullens; as •• s Ahab and Haman. He thinks it a death that he cannot be suffered to die, it is a •• l to him, that the gates of hell are shut against him.
If he be punished, he can grieve at the smart, not at the cause: in sickness he can 〈◊〉 . My head, my head, or my belly, my belly: but my sin, or my soul, is none 〈◊〉 his complaint. To wail some small effects, and never to think of the cause; is 〈◊〉 be curious in healing the clifts of skin at the root of our nails, never minding 〈◊〉 corruption that is in our heads or hearts. His whole business is sin, he hath •• thing else to do in the world. He may taste of the waters of life by chance, as a •• gge laps at Nile; but his voyage is bound for mischief. And like a fire •• rke on a line, he runs on while his matter lasts, then goes out with stink and •• rack.
Though I cannot say to all men, be not sinners: yet let me say, be not ungodly •• ough you admit sin, do not intend sin: do not seek it, though it finds you. • old men know what is in their hearts, and distinguish betwixt rebellions and in •• mities? Pirates forage on the seas, rob Merchants, refuge themselves at Dun •• ke or Argiers. They complain to the Spaniard or Turk for redress: No, say •• y, they are none of ours, we give them no such allowance, we own them not. • ell, if yet secretly they receive them to land, help them with fresh water, meat, •• kling, provision; and thus under hand relieve them; sure these do allow them. ••• n profess piety, yet admit, of lusts in themselves, injuries to others: whose acts • hese? none of ours, alas! against our wills, we cannot but sin, yet we consent not to it. Nay, but if concupiscence be in the mean time fostered, purveyed for by the eye, battened by riot, armed with approbation, justified by dissembling; this is not weakness, but rank ungodliness. It is a habit; every act doth not make a habit, diverse have fallen into incontinence, soon repented, and avoided the sin; this cannot be called ungodliness. Transient escapes do not denominate an ungodly ma • , because the sins committed are now loathed. But avarice, injustice, malice, &c. These are ungodliness: because here is a continuance of will, and a will of continuance. Now as the Orator said, when he had declaimed against drunkenness, it was but to keep men sober: so this discourse of ungodliness is intended to t •••• men's hearts to piety. But this may be planted by Paul, and watered by Apellos, 〈◊〉 increase can be but by the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
This was their ungodliness. God often spareth the wicked for the righteous sake: such as are either allied in blood, as Cham was in the Ark: or by cohabitation and proximitie, as Paul had all the souls in the ship given him. Sapiens est stulti redemptio: as a Physician is an antidote against sickness, and a valiant man a muniment against enemies. When Augustus had conquered Anthony, and taken Alexandria, and the Citizens expected nothing but present massacre: the Emperor proclaim • a general pardon, for Arius sake, a philosopher of that City, and his familiar friend. Thus doth God forbear men for men, one for another, but all for JESUS. B •• where all apostates, all perish. Noah could deliver but eight out of a world, and Abraham beginning at fifty, went no lower than ten, lest he should have been 〈◊〉 bold with God. He doth stay at ten, not as though God for a less number will not spare a city: for as sometimes for more than fifty he will not suspend his Judgments; as Samaria and Israel found, when seven thousand good men were among them: so for fewer than ten he will sometimes show mercy, as he promised to spa •• Jerusalem for one. Find but one man that seeketh the truth, and I will spare it. B •• here all were ungodly, only one family shunned their filthy conversation, and s • escaped their fiery conflagration.
The sins of Sodom.
TO take a short catalogue of their ungodliness, principally their sins were fix: four whereof be mentioned, Ezek. 16. Verse 49. a fifth by Saint Jude. Ver. 7. following strange flesh: the last, Gen. 19. Verse 9. contempt of all holy admonition.
1 Pride will ever be foremost: it seeks the highest place in preferment, it sh ••• have the uppermost place in torment. Not unto us O Lord, not unto us, but to 〈◊〉 own Name give the praise: this pride contradicts; To us, to us, and to none but 〈◊〉 . We may say of Humility, as of that good woman; Many daughters have d ••• virtuously, but thou excellest them all: but of pride, other sins do vilely enough, but that surmounts them all. God resisteth the proud, for the proud resist God: 〈◊〉 piece of rotten dust, so soon as it is made, recoileth against the maker, oppos ••• that Majesty which the Angels adore, the Thrones worship, the Devils fear, a •• the heavens obey. But he gets nothing by it, for if GOD resist him who 〈◊〉 d • fend him? If against the proud, he sent his Law with such thunder, how will hi • self come?
The world is apt to admire pride, her words are held oracles, her works •• racles, her garments true ornaments. This so flesheth and flusheth her, that she thi ••• no more of God, except it be with Saul, Honor me before this people. As •••• chadnezzar built much for his own honor, nothing for the honor of God. Th ••• fore the Lord will grace humility, and give her the glory. When the ambiti •• promoter of himself shall be fetched down, God will say to her, Friend sit up higher. Pride is like smoke; Est quod videas, non est quod teneas. But humility is a substantial grace, so that pride it self is proud of her mantell: as Absalom so rank with pride, yet put on a show of humbleness, in complement. And this is the glory of humility, that proud men are glad of her livery. But pride must learn better manners or if she scape the Sodomites fire on earth, she must feel the Sodomites fire in hell.
2 Fullness of bread.] But is this a sin? Is not bread the staff of life, and the fullness of it a blessing? Yes, but that good mother brought forth two bad daughters; Pride in habit, and excess in diet. It is not the fullness of bread, but our fullness of belly, that is the sin. Charge the rich that they be not high minded; no sooner rich, but presently high minded. The fat valleys of such as are overcome with wine: they that dwell in fat valleys, will fume with wines. Let their table be made a snare: the most riotous table is the most dangerous snare. I will leave in the midst of thee an humble and poor people, and they shall trust in the Name of the Lord! They that have nothing to trust unto in the world, will sooner be brought to trust only in the LORD. Haman's abundance made him proud, and his pride advanced him fifty cubits higher than the earth, to a stately gibbet. If our gold become our fetters, we had better have lived beggars. The Israelites fared daintily on their Quails, fed with meat of Princes, and bread of Angels: but their sauce was two sharp, when that they put into their mouths, GOD fetched back at their nostrils.
It is better to want necessaries and iniquities, than to have with the fullness of bread, the fullness of pride and riot. Lest I be full and deny thee. If full, deny thee, presently follows. It was the Lord's caveat to Israel; Take heed, lest When thou hast eaten and art filled, thou forget the Lord. All they that be fat on earth, shall eat and worship: thus it should be. They wax fat, and spurn with their heels: They were filled, their heart was exalted, therefore have they forgotten me: thus it is. We all desire plenty; but as when one wished the son to be like the Father, Cato replied, is this a blessing or a curse? would our plenty do us good, or harm? The wicked have their desire, Yea, more than their hearts can wish: what's the issue? They set their mouths against heaven. CHRIST did not teach us to beg variety of dishes, nor abundance of wines, but Bread; and that but for the day, Daily bread It is emptiness that values God's providence, not fullness. When the LORD deals with us, as Frederick Duke of Saxony with his servants: who in hawking had rode over much corn, and carelessly spoiled it: gave charge that their messes of meat should not be abridged, but not one bit of bread should be allowed to their supper.
Plenitude breeds many diseases, I am not Physician good enough to number them: not only pride, that worm of riches; which naturally begets another worm that never dieth, the worm of conscience. But surfeit and drunkenness, the sins of this City. Call your wines by what names you will; French, or Greek, or Spanish; it is Vinum Londinensium, the Londoners wine. Where there is such immoderate feasting, the world must needs believe that it is not maintained without sin and deceit: and for such meat you had need of strong wine to help digestion. Here it is, and here it is immeasurably taken, abused, urged; as if our brothers fall were not the Devils victory. Some have thought that martyrdom and Christ's passion was called by the name of a Cup, from the loathsome filling and violencing the appetite with drink. The youngest daughter of this fullness, is wantonness. They rose up like fed horses, neighing with lust. But of that anon: this is the dependence of Pride and Riot: one would think that they had no acquaintance, but they are very near. He that exalts himself above his creation by pride, falls below his creation by drunkenness. It is the voice of pride, all is mine: then riot answers, I may do what I list with mine own. Both are contraries to sobriety, one of the mind, the other of the body. They are often coupled and united: The proud ma • and he that transgresseth by wine. Pride turned Nebuchadnezzar into a beast, so doth drunkenness: their union in sin shall find no separation in punishment.
3 Idleness;] this is another effect of fullness: they that flow with abundance, never mind any diligence. As it was in the days of Lot; they did eat and drink, they bought and sold, they planted and built. These were all Otia, rather than Neg ••• a, as they used them: even that labor was Idleness. To Marry, is honest and honorable; yet was the old world taxed for this. Not because only, as some answer they married not with any conjugal love, but with a voluptuous lust: for this is a remedy, not an iniquity that God so severely punisheth. They minded their lo •• s, they minded not God's Laws, here was the sin. So in the days of Lot, as if Lo • was only in the day light, all the rest in night and darkness, They ate and drank, this is natures necessity: and is not reprehended in quantum naturae subsidium, sed i • quantum nequitiae fomentum: not the conveniency, but the superfluity is fa •• ed. They bought and sold, this was a lawful negotiation: therefore not the mutual commercement, but the unjust defraudment, is taxed. They built and planted; both i • themselves allowable. CHRIST blames not their felling of trees, nor building of houses, but the baseness of their desires; who sought eternity upon earth, and had no heart to the God of heaven. In eating and drinking was their Saturitie: i • building and planting, their security: in buying and selling, their covetousness. The •• were all superfluous to that one necessary thing, and therefore Idleness. They feared not the Lord, but lay drownd in their own sensuality; this was their invincible stupidity. Thus rotten were they in their lees of sin, that unless they had ani •• pro sale, they had been all stinking carcases.
Here we see, it is not enough to forbear evil, but it is damnable not to do well. CHRIST pretermits the enumeration of their horrible delinquishments, and speaks of their acts lawful in appearance; censuring them. If they were condemned for feeding, what is the wages of surfeiting? If they for necessary trading, what shall be for fraudulent deceiving? If they for building their own houses, what shall become of them that pull down God's house? If such a judgment fell upon marriage, what is the curse of adultery? Matth. 25. CHRIST mentions not the sins of commission, as if they were damnable enough by concession; b •• the omitted duties: Ye did not feed me, &c. Not that the other shall pass 〈◊〉 judged, but to show that there is damnation enough wrapped up in these to destroy the world.
Thus easily doth fullness degenerate into idleness: and where is no need of gains, there no vouchsafing of pains. To many a man will God say; I made thee an husbandman, who made thee a Gentleman? I will make man a helper meet for him: this intends that neither should be idle. The man is compared to the Sun, the wife to the Moon; that borrows light of him, yet hath some of her own. M • liar fulget radiis mariti. But when the Sun shall shine only by the Moon light, th •• is preposterous. He is a Sodomite that will eat none but another's bread, and wea •• no coat of his own weaving. The slothful will not plow because of winter: th ••• fore shall he beg in summer, and no man shall give him. He shall beg, that's bad: and no man shall give him, that's worse. But yet a man may be busy enough, and b • i •• labor on himself with a vengeance: when he shall labor in that he hath no tha ••• for, and be idle in that should do him good: thus a man may go to hell for hi • pains. Sodom thus labored in sin, and now labors in torment. Let us so work on our Eve, that we may rest on our Sabbath; work up our salvation on earth, an • reap our salvation in heaven.
4 Contempt of the poor.] This is an execrable sin, a thing that hastens before the time. If he be condemned that says no more, but God help thee: how sore i • his Judgment that says in heart, I despise thee? That omission is culpable, that go •• no further than Be warmed: but that damnable, that says, be starved. It were fa ••• enough to pass by them, like the Levite, without succor: but horrible, not to pass by them without disdain. Cast thy bread on the waters, that is, on the watery eyes, which do weep for want: but if we cast not our morsels, let us forbear to cast our scorns. How basely soever we esteem them, they are the members of Christ, and such as he honors, and sets near him: taking notice of every benefit, and recording every wrong, that is done them. It will be no light or slight offense; to con • emne the brother of the Son of God.
Some think that the Sodomites would admit no strangers to come among • hem, as they speak now of China; and that this made them so furious against the Angels. There be four terms among men. 1. Mine is thine, and thine is thy own. • . Mine is mine, and thine is thine. 3. Mine is thine, and thine is mine. 4. Thine is mine, and mine is my own. The first is of Saints, the second of Moralists, the • hird of Populars, and the last is the voice of Devils: of this rank were the Sodomites. For this special cause they hated Lot, for his hospitality. When they came • n troupes to break into his house, he pleads the laws of hospitality: For this • ause came they under my roof. And when he sees their head strong purpose of vil • any, he chooseth rather to be an ill father to his own children, than an ill host to • trangers. Therefore is heaven called Abraham's bosom, because of his hospitality: • nd thither the Saints go; it is fit that hospitable men should go to their Father.
Let us make the poor our friends by our alms, not our enemies by our scorns. We had better have the ears of God full of their prayers, than heaps of money in our own coffers with their curses. Worldly men think themselves wise in getting wealth, and the Scriptures folly: therefore throughout the Scriptures God calls them fools for their labor. Thou fool. There is a tale of an Abbot that gave his fool a painted staff, willing him to bestow it on the veriest fool he could meet. This Abbot fell mortally sick, the fool was a visitant among the rest: and hearing him say, I must leave all and be gone, asked him whether he would go. The Ab • ot answers, into another country: but I hope, replies the fool, you will carry all your gold and Jewels and treasure with you: No, I must leave all. But sure you • ave sent great store of preparation, as rich hangings, coverings, beds, plate and fur • iture before you: No, I muust leave all behind. All? I hope at least you have sent • nough to furnish your own room, provision enough for yourself; No, not the • east pillow. Hold, saith he, take your Staff again; you are the veriest fool that • ver I met. It is easily applied: they that of so much under their custody on earth will make no provision for themselves in heaven, by giving to the poor; are well • axed of the extremest folly. Let us relieve them by our good deeds, that they may • elieve us by their good prayers; so shall we find mercy in the day of JESUS CHRIST.
5 Following strange flesh.] This was not only fornication or adultery; a man's wife is his own flesh, and she that is not so, is a stranger. But even an offense against • ature, for the Sodomites were not content with the common way of sinning, but were mad with a prodigious and preposterous lust. Bring forth the men that we may know them. Shall we say, herein the very Sodomites spoke modestly, though • heir intention were villanous? I do not think they meant any mannerly concealment, but it is the dialect of the Scripture; which by an honest name sets down a most dishonest thing. It hides the sin of Sodom, as the painter hid the scar in Agamemnons face. Certainly their impudence was monstrous, declaring their • inne; Bring them forth. Wherein they would make Lot, a father; not only a witness to the constupration and ravishment of the Angels, but even the very bawd •• r Pandar; Do thou bring them out.
Questionlesse, those heavenly guests were of an excellent form, and most sweet • avour, surpassing the sons of men: and the sight of this enflamed their more than • eastly lust. Such a natural desire hath wicked man, to mar what God made, to corrupt his most admirable workmanship: and where he hath imprinted the most fair characters of his glory, there they have most ambition to fasten: like cankers, that had rather be about one rose, than a thousand weeds. Beauty, meant for a mirror wherein to admire God, they turn into a snare to confound themselves. And so suck poison from the flower, that would yield them honey. Happy man, whom the temptation of beauty, cannot make to forget his duty!
This was the extremity of Sodom’s sins, for whose sake it shall be called Sodomy to the worlds end. Whether the first excogitation of it begun, or the received practice was infamous, among them; it is still the sin of Sodom. So abominable, that fire from heaven was the reward of it. As against nature was the transgression, so against nature is the destruction. It is natural for fire to ascend upward, but here contrary to the course of nature it is forced to come downward. Christ himself is said to rain that deluge from Jehovah his Father: why he? why not, as in other punishments, The Lord, without any further distinction? Quia Natur •• quam assumpturus erat, corruperant. Because they had corrupted that nature, which the Son of God was to take. Videns Dominus hoc peccatum in carne, paene defij • inc •• nari. The Lord seeing this sin in the flesh, had almost forborne to take flesh; or at least so long deferred it before he came. Some have written, that all the sinners in that kind, died the very same night that Christ was incarnate. This sin was infamous among the Gentiles; They burned in lust one toward another, and man with man wrought filthiness. For this horrid uncleanness in masculine venery, Socrates is branded among the Philosophers, and Nero among the Roman Emperors. As by lawful marriage, Two are made one, so by this turpitude, one is divided into two. But let this sin s •• le into hell with the Sodomites, and never more be remembered on the face of the earth. I now expel it out of my discourse, the Lord banish it out of all our hearts forever. Yea, not only that, but all manner of uncleanness; lest we be given over, like the Gentiles, to our own lusts, by a just retaliation. Who, as they had dishonored God, were suffered to dishonor themselves. And as they had turned Beasts into gods, so they turned themselves into beasts.
But this following of strange flesh hath a greater latitude and further extent, and fetcheth in all carnal pollutions. A sin that is a Burning, wheresoever it hath a being. The Apostle in one chapter hath six invincible arguments to dissuade 〈◊〉 from it.
1 The body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. If the body be for the Lord, it is not for uncleanness. If the Lord be for the body to glorify it, then he is for the body to rule and sanctify it. The husband is one with the wife, and the wife with the husband, while both are chaste: but if the bed be defiled, that concorporation dissolves.
2 He that raised up the Lord, shall raise us up by his power. If we desire our body to be raised with incorruption when we are dead, let us keep it without pollution while we live. Let us sow a gracious body, that we may reap a glorious body. How deformed and ugly will the fairest creatures look, when their bodies shall be raised with the marks of uncleanness upon them? Optimi corruptio pessima: if pro •• itution, maugre all the art of plaistering, can turn beauty into deformity, and make despisable on earth, how loathsome will it appear in the day of vengeance?
3 Shall I take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. Suppose a king sitting in his Chair of Estate, his temples crowned with a golden Diadem, his body adorned with royal robes and jewels: how ill favouredly would a torn shoe, or a leprous toe appear? It is our glory, to be parts of hi • that is the King of glory: let us not dishonor him by defiling ourselves. He is mad that forsakes a Saint to admit a Devil into his arms; that for the odious connection with a harlot, leaves the delicious embraces of Jesus Christ.
4 Every sin that a man doth, is without the body: but he that commits fornicati •• sins against his own body, Other sins are extra corpus, this is contra corpus. In these of all members the hand is principal, and blasphemy the tongue: but this above the rest, secundum plus & minus, leaves a sordid inquination upon the whole body. If • hen not for the love of God, whose the body is by creation: nor for desire of per • ect beauty at the resurrection: nor for hatred of the highest sacrilege, robbing Christ of his members by a carnal impropriation; yet for love of thyself, and re • pect to thine own body, flee fornication.
5 Know you not that your body is the temple of the holy Ghost? It is a great profane • esse to abuse the material Temple, made with men's hands: much worse to violate • he Spiritual Temple, made by the hand of God. s I have heard of some depopulators, • hat of the Choir of Saints have made a kennel for their dogs; that was nefarious • nough. Yet so far as God loves this corporeal Temple better than that, this • dulterous profanation exceeds the former. To turn the Holy Ghost out of his • hamber, and to make it the Devils sty and stews; most fearful! O think in •• ticulo tentationis, it is the Temple of God I now profane, defile, abuse: what fire •• nnot this meditation quench?
6 Ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and spirit, for they • re God's. By this token keep thy body intemerate, saith Christ; I shed my blood 〈◊〉 redeem it. What I have been at such cost to cleanse; do not thou carelessly • efile. No gold or jewels could ransom our bodies, but the blood of Christ: let 〈◊〉 value them according to the price, and we shall not do amiss. Do not for a • oments delight, make frustrate an eternal purchase. Most enormities of life pro • eed from an error in the understanding; We may do what we list with our own. We may speak what we list; why? our tongues are our own. We may spend • hat we list why? our riches are our own. Shall I take My bread and My meat, • ith churlish Nabal? He is deceived, for even of life it self man is not Dominus, •• d custos, saith Law and Case-divinity. The Lord is the possessor of heaven and •• rth, man but the Farmer. Our bodies are our own, therefore do with them • hat we please? It is false, they are none of ours: but in a true propriety, The Lord's. We have but a right of favor from the true Proprietary, and that liable to an ac • ount. He lends them us for our use, but his own service. Therefore answer all temp •• tion to lust; This body is not mine own, but His that made it, and bought it: I • are not alienate it from the owner, and remove the marks he hath set unto it. My • ody is Thine, Lord keep it, and save it forever.
6 The last sin of Sodom was contempt of heavenly admonition. Lot charged • hem from God, and they like a rusty or ill-wrought piece, recoiled in his face; Who made thee a Judge? we will deal worse with thee, than with them. They had all • ony hearts, and Lot could do small good in preaching to a heap of stones. O that • his sin of Sodom did not cleave too fast unto this land and time. They had but • ne Lot for four Cities, we have for one City four hundred Lots. What nation • nder heaven hath so many learned Teachers? Our Church looks like the Firma • ent in the glory, when a clear night shows it bespangled with stars of all lustres • nd diversity of lights. And if in some places they appear thinner, and shine less; • s the stars are thin to them that live under the Southerne Pole, and there be •• ttle sparkles in the Galaxie, scarce discernible: it is only for want of competency, • here is no provision to feed them. But to this City the Bees come in swarms, Crura thymo pleno, to empty their best honey in this glorious Hive. This honey • ou suck, and at last send them down again poor miserable drones. The number • f Preachers about the City, exceeds some whole Country in Christendom. For • ught I know, in the benefits of nature, and commodities of life, it may be equal • o others: in this it excels the rest. If Rome have the gayer Roods, and Spain • he richer Images; yet certainly we have the happyer Pulpits.
Thus great is our blessing, but how small is our estimation of it! Formally men • ome to Church, to hear a man talk, but it is no matter to them what he says. We • ay preach ourselves hoarse and dead, and yet do no good: the reason is, men's • earts are hardened in contempt. When Christ preached, The eyes of all were fastened on him; our eyes are turned another way. The time will come, when they will not suffer wholesome doctrine: the event hath sealed this Prophecy. To carpe at the phrase, method, voice, or gesture; this is nothing: such exceptions be like a flourish before a fight. The worlds quarrel is against the substance of Preaching: if we threaten, we are cruel: if we promise, we flatter: if mild, we dream: if bold, we rail: if we prove by arguments, it is called sophistry: our affability is held lightness: our austerity, madness: nothing can please them, that resolve they will not be pleased. For our personal disgraces, we armed ourselves for them whe • we took the Profession. We knew that we should be stared on as prodigies, hissed 〈◊〉 as ridiculous, shunned as infectious: endure all the reproaches, that the Devils scavengers can rake out of the kennells of hell, to throw on our faces. The worst language that hath been dipped in the fire, or tip'd at the forge of hell, is as good as God morrow, if they meet a Minister.
But here it is, though the contempt light upon us, it is meant at the Gospel; and CHRIST is wounded thorough our sides. To speak truth, here is the very head and heart of the controversy: the Word will not let men alone in their s ••• s, therefore they must be revenged on somebody: from hence proceed the sacrilege robbing, and the aspersions wronging the Ministers of Jesus Christ. Palato 〈◊〉 s • no paena est panis, qui sano est suavis. They hate him that rebukes in the gate. Ama •• ••• tem, oderunt redarguentem. Alas! what can work upon a hard heart? Take a ba ••• new come out of the fire, and the Smith can work it though it be iron: let him strike on his anvil never so long, there is no impression made, but rather a rebo ••• of the stroke.
The words of the wise are like goads, but men have Leviathans skins: They estee •• iron as straw, and brass as rotten bavins. They are nails, but driven upon marble or iron, and so turn again. This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness better. They excuse themselves from the sins of Sodom, Pride &c. but there is a sin within them, which makes them as far off from salvation. While you that see the light which Sodom never had, despise it more than Sodom ever did; It shall be more easy for Sodom in the day of Judgment than for you. Le • 〈◊〉 men flatter themselves from being obnoxious to those execrable enormities: while they do not humbly and obediently honor the Gospel, their estate is worse: and Sodom shall be saved sooner than these men.
Let Rome tremble, that hath too truly deserved this name. Spiritual Sodom. Roma amor est: qualis? praeposterus. Vnde? Roma mares. It were no sla • der, to tax Italy of Sodom. By their allowance? God forbid. Yet Ieroni •••• Mutius set out books of purpose, to defend this filthiness; and (it seems) they were allowed by the Bulls of Pope Julius the third. Casa the Archbishop of Benventum joined himself as a copes-mate to second him. They bestowed praises o • that sin, whereof Sodom it self would have been ashamed. But this must be no imputation to their doctrine, for that teacheth otherwise. And for ourselves, though in this we touch not upon Sodom’s filthiness, let us beware lest by other sins we bring ourselves to Sodom’s wretchedness. Let us hearken to the Gospel and love it, love it and believe it, believe it and obey it, obey it and so hono •• it, honor it and so be everlastingly saved by it. Amen.
VERSE 7. And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.
THe time is come at once, when Sodom must be burned, and Lot delivered. Zoar is preserved for Lot, as Lot was for Abraham. If Sodom had not been wholly wicked, he had not changed his dwelling: he could have procured • ercie to it, as well as to Zoar. Now at once the Sun rises upon Zoar, and fire falls • own upon Sodom. Abraham stands on the hill, and beholds the Cities smoa • ing. Lot is secure in his new habitation, and neither feels nor fears the Judgment. 〈◊〉 is fair weather with the Saints, when it is foulest with the wicked. When • arms of hornets sting and wound the Egyptians, not a fly must touch an Israelite. • hat such a winged army came not from nature or fortune, it is plain; but from 〈◊〉 offended God: because the very flies shall make a difference betwixt Egypt and •• shen. He that gave them a being, sets them a stint: they can no more sting an Israe •• e, than spare an Egyptian. The wings of those small creatures are directed by a • rovidence, and confess their limits.
The fire can go no further than the plain, not a spark shall reach to Zoar. But • hen Sodom hath never a Lot left in it, what should hinder the destruction? If God • eete with a very good field, he plucks up the weeds, and lets the corn grow: if •• ith an indifferent, he lets the corn and the weeds grow together: if with a very •• d one, he gathers the few ears of corn, and sets fire on all the rest. When he tur • ed Sodom into ashes, he delivered just Lot.
There are two principals in the verse; a Freedom, and a Thraldome: for So • ome was a Jail to Lot wherein he was tormented, Zoar a refuge wherein he was • uieted. There is a prisoner and a Preserver: Lot is the prisoner, God the pre •• rver.
In the Freedom consider four circumstances.
The
- Matter, What; A Deliverance.
- Manner, How; Eripuit, a violent deliverance.
- Time, When; the fire being ready to fall.
- Place, Where; by sparing Zoar for his sake.
For the Thraldome, the Prisoner is described by His
- Grace, he was a just man.
- Place, among the wicked.
- Case; he was vexed with them.
First, for his Freedom; here was a Deliverance, and God was the author of it. •• deed, who else can deliver? Deliver me O God, for vain is the help of man. Ma • y are the troubles of the righteous, and the Lord delivereth him out of all. Man can •• t deliver out of one, God out of all. The deliverer shall come out of Zion: An •• ls or men may be Instruments, CHRIST is The Deliverer. Deliver Israel, 〈◊〉 God, out of all his troubles. It was Rabshacehs blasphemy; What God can deliver •• t of my hand. What God? he found it to his cost. Can he deliver on the hills, •• d not in the valleys, O ye foolish Aramites! Thou hast delivered my soul from •• ath, &c. To me the mercy, to thee the glory: thou hadst no partner in the design, • one shall share with thee in the honor.
Till Lot be delivered, not a spark must kindle: the impartial sword must not touch Rahab, nor the destroying Angel offer a blow to the sprinkled doors. Those Ministers of Justice have an Inkehorne as well as a Sword: an Inkehorne to mark the chosen first, then Go and smite. Great deliverances giveth He unto his King; a quantity of both kinds; multitude and magnitude: be they never so many, never s • mighty, against us; the LORD will deliver us. Saint Paul confesseth a Delivera ••• past, present, future: He hath, He doth, and he will deliver me. God doth not only deliver his out of the fire, but he puts out the fire too. The snare is broken, and we are delivered. He doth not stand to untie it, but breaks it a pieces. O • e deep ca •••• another: the depth of our misery for the depth of his mercy. Our lowness is God's height: the lower we are humbled, the higher is he exalted: the more grievous o •• exigent, the more glorious his advancement. We are more sure of our deliverance, than the Devil can be sure of our persecution.
Seeing the faithful shall be delivered, and God only doth it, let our confidence know no other refuge. All concur in him that make a perfect Deliverer, Power, skill, and will. There may be power and will, where is no skill to use it. If the ho •• were privy to his own strength, he would not suffer a boy to ride him. The Lord hath Wisdom with power: the School says that he knows Non entia; which they ground upon the Apostles words; He calleth those things which be not, as though • they were. These are of two sorts; Either such as are not now in act, but have been in time past, or shall be in time to come. Or such as neither are now in being, 〈◊〉 ever were, nor ever shall be. Now seeing foolish man often fears what never was, i • , nor shall be: it is best to fear God, that is, that was, and that shall be: who only knows, the things we fear shall never happen to us.
There may be power and skill, yet no will to use it. The Levite wanted neither ability nor knowledge, to unbind the Samaritan: he wanted will, a heart of pity. Diverse have money in their purses, and wit in their pates, when they see poor wretches: it is the want of compassion, that takes no compassion of their wax. I • this commiseration were not in God, he was less kind to his children, than man and beast to their young.
There may be will and skill, yet a defect of power: no such want can be in the Almighty. Philosophy says, that is most active which is most elevated à m • v • , separated from earthly parts. The Physician distills his simples into waters, thereof he makes extractions and quintessences, which are operatively strong: still the more elevated à materia, the stronger and more active. Water is stronger than earth, air than water, fire more active than air or water, as appeared in Elijah's sacrifice: Angels stronger than men, God stronger than all: above earth, above water, above air, fire, men, Angels, over all Actus purus; no weakness can be in him. It is a principle, variante materia forma manet eadem: according to the alteration of the air and climate, our bloods, humors, complections may change; but the soul is the same still. Cut off a leg or an arm, you cut off no part of the soul. Many p •• fessors may be lop'd off by martyrdom, yet Religion stands; to show that it is maintained by a Form and Soul that cannot vary. God is unchangeable, all c •••• hopes of deliveranee deceive us: men vary, times vary, weapons vary, policies o • war vary, advantages and successes vary: therefore it is best trusting to an obje •• that cannot vary; which is only God himself. Ashur shall not save us, nor 〈◊〉 we ride upon horses, nor say to the works of our hands, ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
Animalia multa agunt & patiuntur per Phantasiam: so it is fancy in me • 〈◊〉 makes them fear where no fear is; dreading the danger, not trusting the Deli ••• . The sheep at first sight of the Wolf, apprehends him for a terrible object, ••• rally fears and flies him: the Lion feels no terror, but passeth by him with ••• honorable scorn. A Malking frights a child, a man contemns it. Elsha's ser •••• quakes at the Syrian army, no fear invades the Prophet. He saw, and caused hi • man to see a greater Deliverer above. In the street we see men walk in there equal • ature and dimensions, they on a high turret appear little to us. Stand on a pro • ontory, they with you are great, they beneath you seem small: the situation of •• e eye makes or mars all, So it is with men in the time of trouble; if their eyes • e fixed on earth, their enemies appear great, and God that is so high seems little. • et our eyes be in heaven, and from thence look down upon our enemies, God • ill then appear mighty, our foes weak and contemptible, This was Jehoshaphat's • onfidence; there is no strength in us to stand against this multitude; but our eyes •• e toward thee. The returning Spies brought such bastard news; We saw Giants, •• e sons of Anak, compared with whom we appeared like grasshoppers. alas, their •• yes were fixed upon earth. Caleb had his eye in heaven, fixed on God's power and • romise, he apprehends no terror at all. Joshua had a Lions eye, that passed by all •• ese high Giants, and their higher walls, with an overlooking disdain. They are •• ead for us, fear them not, for the Lord is with us.
Samaria had a strong enemy without, a sore famine within: a Nobleman, the • ings own favourite, looking on the present miseries, took them to be greater than • od could cure; Though he should open the windows of heaven, and rain victuals. • ut the Prophet had his eyes in heaven, and knew that the LORD would do this • ithout windows. The flattering Courtier extolled the King, made him the • ightiest: his eyes were upon promotion. The Prophet saw no such matter; Ye •• all die like men. Even when they ride in chariots, millions attending, guards defen • ing, they are but Grashoppers and Crickets to the Lord of hosts: Domini terrae, •• t but Terra Domini. As Moses Serpent devoured the Enchanters, so God's pow •• swallows up all men's. We are all weak, in this mighty Deliverer be our confi • ence. When little children first learn to go, feeling their own feebleness, they •• rust out a hand to the wall to stay them. Our strength is but like children's; Our •• lpe standeth in the Name of the Lord.
2 The manner, how: Eripuit. It was not a Tradidit, as Judas delivered Jesus to •• e Jews, the Jews to Pilate, and Pilate to death. Not only a Liberavit, as Peter • as delivered, his bands falling off, and the prison doors ready for his Exit. But •• r puit, snatched him away, delivered him by a holy kind of violence. Make hast, •• r I can do nothing till thou come thither. Cannot? Is anything unpossible to God? • o it is said of CHRIST; He could do there no great works. It is not because he •• nnot, but because he will not; he had decreed the contrary. Here observe three •• ings.
1 Lot would not have hastened out of Sodom, had not the Angels pulled him •• rth by the hand. Thus impossible is it for us, to free ourselves from the bondage • f sin, unless the Lord draw us. Through many gradual motions we are deli • ered from the wickedness of this world, as Lot was from Sodom. The Angels at •• ined their end with one motion, one conversion to God; in the very instant of their •• eation blessed. But man may be compared to a Watch; he hath many gimmols •• rtaining to him, to move him; like a coach, he runs on many wheels. His head 〈◊〉 understanding is one principal wheel, his heart or will another, and that next the • pring: his affections are the minutes, his memory the little recollective wheel •• t winds up the rest: his life is the hand of the dial, which shows how the day •• es with him: his conscience is the striking clock: only the Primum mobile, the •• ring that sets all a working, and keeps every wheel in due motion, is the grace of • hrist. The string that unites the whole watch to the springs government, is faith. •• r est in peccatore, anima in cord, men's in anima, fides in mente, Christus in fide. There 〈◊〉 a heart in the sinner, a soul in his heart, a mind in his soul, faith in his mind, • hrist in his faith. The act of his intellect gives him one motion, his sensitive ap • tite another, and that contrary for Caro concupiscit adversus spiritum: his own •• ll another motion, the eternal object another: so was Eve coozend with the for •• dden fruit. God that hath the heart in his hand, and turns it as brooks of waters, gives it another motion. Some of these be regular, some retrograde, some forward, other oblique: O what a do there is to keep this watch in tune! it is no hard matter to tune the Virginals or Organs, though every string and pipe be out of frame. But man is a creature so proud, so subtle, so wedded to his own opinion, and rolling upon so many wheels: that to put all his strings and pipes in tune, to make all his motions consent in goodness; hic labor, this is a work for the finger of God only, a child can sooner conceive it self, than a man can convert himself: or we may say, This man made himself, as well as that he made himself good.
We wonder that after all the warnings by Angels, those Ministers of Christ; sinners will not leave their Sodom. The Citizen will not forbear his sacrilege nor be afraid to cozen God to his face. The malicious will not cease practicing mischief, seducing to perverseness, and overbearing goodness with a blustering authority. The covetous will still love their gain above their salvation. But this is no wonder; God hath not yet taken them by the hand; Non eripuit Domin •• , • ill then the political fool, the proud mad man, and he that makes his pew the Scorners chair, deriding Christ in his Gosp • ll and Ministers; cannot be humbled. Eripiat Deus, the Lord snatch them out of their filthy Sodom.
2 How loath even a Lot is to leave Sodom! For all his vexation by their filthiness, their violence against the Angels; the prediction of their instant ruin, and his peremptory charge of departure: yet He prolonged the time. Therefore the Angels, that thirsted at once after vengeance on Sodom, and Lots safety: that knew God would not strike Sodom till Lot was gone out, and that Lot could not be safe within those walls; are fain to break off his tardy neglect with a gracious violence. They caught him by the hand, with his wife and daughters, and brought them forth, and set them without the City. We are so naturally affected to Sodom, and so delightfully linger in it; that without great mercy we should be condemned with the world. Therefore is it added; The Lord be merciful unto him. I was upright, saith David, and kept myself from mine iniquity, mine iniquity; it is likely that he had some special sin of his own, whereunto he was most inclined. O how gracious a victory is this; I have kept me from mine iniquity!
Many being reproved, answer; Alas, you must bear with me in this, it is my fault: as if every man were allowed his own fault. There is a private Sodom within us, we are loath to part with that. Men say of their sins, as Jacob said of his sons; Go all but Benjamin. Other vices we will not so much stick for, bu • O th •• Ishmael might live. There is still some worm in the root of the tree, that will spo • e the fruit. We extenuate it; It is not a little one? But a little hair in the pen makes a great blot in the paper. It is said of the Lord, that he Weighes the mountains i • scales, and the dusts of the earth in a balance. We should no only weigh the mountains, our heinous rebellions, in scales; but even in the dust, our smallest escapes in the balance. Nor let our wits strive to make that good, which our wills have made necessary; grieving to leave what we love. But when God will Take 〈◊〉 the delight of our eyes, the pleasant Sodom of our affections, the sin that we most joy in; then say we resolutely; Pereat ne perdat, perish it, lest I perish by it. L •• us not higgle and dodge with God, as Pharaoh did to retain the service of the Hebrews: nor linger upon a dismission of that he calls for. But without any demure, Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel: save him a labor of fetching, prevent hi • with a free-will offering. Covetice, malice, uncleanness is our Sodom: how then hath God called us forth to the Zoar of kindness, charity, chastity! This world is a Sodom, and by death the Lord calls us out; yet how many delays doth mortal life make ere it be willing to go! O my dove that art in the clifts of the rock. Where we find a birds nest: O my Dove, that's the Bird: in the clifts of the rock, there's the nest. The soul may be compared to the Dove, the body to the nest or Rock; wherein are many clifts, vents, and fissures to let out life. This soul like Noah's Dove, goes out by suspiration, returns in by respiration, at last by expiration • eparts for all together. O that I had wings like a Dove, than would I fly away and be 〈◊〉 rest. If our souls had David's wings, we would not desire to stay in Sodom, •• t Mount up to Zion; they being borne up, as Lot was brought out by Angels.
3 Lots guests were his best friends: he had entertained Angels, and they now • eliver him: he would have preserved them, and they did preserve him. Where • old the Angels lodge, but with Lot? The houses of holy men are full of those • eavenly spirits, though they be not seen: their protection is comfortable, though • ot visible. In our tents they pitch their tents; and when devils would mischief • s, they turned them out of doors. It is the honor of God's Saints, to be atten • ed by Angels while they live, and to be exalted by Angels when they die. Laza •• s was carried by Angels into Abraham's bosom. As in a family, the greater chil • ren carry the less: so God hath charged his elder sons, the Angels to bear up our •• ules.
Thus was Lot requited for his kindness. Lodge strangers, for thereby some have •• tertained Angels. Never did man yet lose by his charity: the unthankful world • ay fail in due estimation, but God will regard it, and reward it. While Corneli •• is doling out his alms on earth, the Lord sends down to him an Angel from he • en. In charitable succor Extendere manum is ostendere humanum. But if in this • e be not so good as Lot, to give; let us not be so bad as Sodom, to take away. Now he that turned Sodom to ashes, and delivered Lot; turn our sins to ashes, and • eliver us.
3 The time: when the fire was even a kindling, and that sulphureous deluge prepa • ed in the clouds: for the Interim was small betwixt Lots deliverance, and Sodom’s • engeance. He was Titio ereptus, a brand plucked out of the burning; the prophet • luding to Lot, and naming this very overthrow. As when a heap of seditious • ookes are burning, and one good book ready to miscarry with the rest, is snatched • y some stander by out of the fire and saved. So near it came to him, yet did not • ouch him: that his heart might be sensible, both of a holy fear of the Judgment, • nd a thankful joy for his escaping. Indeed the Angels say to him, Escape for thy •• fe, lest thou be consumed: not that God meant to hurt him, but to terrify him.
It is God's delight, in the extremity of evil to be a Deliverer. When armies • ave besieged his servants, and they have no power to defend themselves; then he • usters up his Angels. Pharaoh pursues the departed Israelites: he had men of war, • hariots and horses; they were weak unarmed people. Therefore the Egyptians • ave themselves the victory before hand, and the Israelites gave themselves for dead • nd are already talking of their graves. The sea was before them, their enemies be • inde them: the wheels rattling, the waves roaring: as the Britain's once complai • ed to the Romans; Barbari ad mare nos repellunt, mare ad Barbaros: hinc vel jugu •• mur, vel obmergimur: the sword, or the deep; they knew not which had less • ercie. Yea, even they that had seen the wonders past, and the Pillar present; do • ow more fear, Egypt, than believe God. Their unbelief matured the danger; • ow could the Lord forbear them? Surely, his patience was no less miracle than • is deliverance. Yet even then he delivered them: and for assurance of it, he removes • he cloud that was erst before them, and sets it betwixt Egypt and Israel. As if he • old say, They shall first overcome me, before they shall touch thee. Now when •• ey saw the Pillar remove behind them, and the sea remove before them: who •• n tell, whether wonder should not exceed fear? That the deep should be • ome their protection, and the sea be made a Gallery or through-fare; no mor •• ll eye before it ever beheld such a path. Yet thus did the LORD Deliver •• em.
Take another instance; Consider Joseph in Puteo, cast into a ditch: he looked •• r brothers, and behold butchers: he came to inquire of their health, and may not •• turn the news of his own misery. Hardly are they restrained from cutting his throat: but stripping him naked, at least they will cast him into a deep hole, as it were alive into his grave. Thus with less mercy than is found in the savagest robbers, they purpose to torment him w th a lingering death: and not only to kill him, 〈◊〉 do what they can to kill their father in him. He like a poor suppliant, bowing his bare knees to them, he dreamed he should bow to him; with passionate pray •• and tears, imploreth mercy. Beseeching them by the dear name of brother-ho •• by their profession of one God, for their fathers sake, for their own souls sake, not to take away his life. But what can the nearness of fraternity prevail, wh •• humanity is lost? who could think of so innocent a youth, naked and desolate, 〈◊〉 a dry and deep pit, crying for pity, and not cry for company? But cast down 〈◊〉 is, and they sit down to eat his provision unmoved: never thinking by their o ••• hunger, what it was for their poor brother to be famished to death. Here was 〈◊〉 extremity; who shall now deliver Joseph? The Lord steps in with a ransom i • 〈◊〉 strange hand. Ishmael persecuted Isaac, yet the seed of Ishmael shall redeem the 〈◊〉 of Isaac. Money shall buy him to the Midianites, and from the Midianites to 〈◊〉 Egyptians. Little did they think, that that Joseph whom they left a poor sla ••• the Midianites, they should find the same a great Lord among the Egyptians. C ••• doth ever raise up some secret favorers of his children, among his most malici ••• enemies. Reuben saves him from the sword, Judah from the pit. How happily •• stowed was this little mercy? If Joseph had died for hunger in the pit; Jacob, I ••• and all had died for hunger in Canaan. How near was his soul unto death, 〈◊〉 present and marvelous was God's Deliverance?
Take one instance more. Moses is borne in the time of Pharaohs bloody decree; that all the male children of the Hebrews should be cast into the river and •• ned. His mother during all her pregnancie, could not but fear a son. She hath him, sees him, and now thinks of his birth and death at once. To consider, that the executioners hand must succeed the Midwives, makes her second throws more gri • vous than her first. In other mothers, the very sight of a new-borne son, wor •• a forgetfulness of the former anguish in travel. But their remedy is her sor ••• that which mitigates their pains, aggravates hers. Still she fearfully looks w ••• some fierce Egyptian should come in, to snatch the infant from her bosom, and c ••• it into the river. Therefore when she could no longer conceal in her womb, 〈◊〉 hides in her house: afraid, lest every cry of the child should guide the executio •• to his cradle. But now his age and hiding being a quarter old, the fearful pare •• adventure the childes life to save their own. In a reeden Ark she puts him 〈◊〉 the bulrushes by the rivers brink. Trusting him to the mercy of the waves, w ••• beasts, and ravenous fowls, and (which was more merciless than all) an Egyptian passenger. Thus exposed, she sets her daughter to watch her son: the mo ••• cannot forbear to love, whom she is forbidden to keep. But how shall the p •••• babe escape; feeble, forlorn, alone sprawling upon the waves? what, but ine ••• ble d • ath? Yes, there is a God that looks upon him, and in this pinch will di ••• ver him. No flood, no beast, no instrument of Pharaohs cruelty shall touch hi • No friend, not his own mother dares own him; now steps in his Deliverer, 〈◊〉 challengeth his tuition; he is mine. He was not safer in the midst of the te •• s 〈◊〉 Israel, a Prince guarded with so many thousands, than now. The tyrants da ••• ter must come forth to bathe, the ark offers it self to her eye, the cry of the in ••• to her ear, compassion leaps to her heart; his tears and beauty, were a preva ••• oratory. But is this all? And hath the Lord done? No, Moses must have 〈◊〉 Nurse; and the girl is ready to fetch his own mother; and who so fit to be a N ••• as a mother? She could not keep him before without danger, now she receives 〈◊〉 by authority. She would have given all she was worth to save him, and 〈◊〉 she hath wages to nurse him. She doth but change the name of Mother into N •••• and she hath her son without fear, not without great reward. Here was a d ••• verance, and that in season: O how should it fix our confidence in so gracious a 〈◊〉 server! The wicked say, God hath forsaken him, persecute him, and take him, for • here is none to deliver him. None, thus they conclude, but we find the contrary. As Apelles, striving to paint a drop of foam falling from a horses mouth, after long • tudy how to express it, even despairing lets his pencil fall, and that fall did it. Quod ars non potuit, casus fecit. When we see no means how to be delivered, no hope of extrication, or attaining our wished peace, even ready to despair; the Lord knows how to save us.
4 The place was Zoar; wherein consider three circumstances: his journey to Zoar, his safety in Zoar, and Zoars safety by him. For howsoever Zoar preserved Lot, yet more properly Lot preserved Zoar.
1 For his journey: believing the judgment; he desires a place of refuge: God • ppoints him one, he makes choice of another. Go to the mountain, saith the Lord: let me fly to Zoar saith Lot. Some say, this was done in a mystery: the mountain is not safe, but Zoar in the valley: a low and humble life hath more security, than high places. The proud like Capernauin, lift up themselves to heaven, • ut God shall depress them to hell. He refused the mountain, because of the craggy rocks, such as are now to be seen in the hills of Engedi. But more proper • y he preferreth Zoar for the vicinity; it was nearer to him, and he might with more speed and less danger reach it than the mountain. And such was his charitable heart, that although he could not redeem the rest, yet he would entreat for that. Therefore he useth an argument of the smallness: as being less populous, it might be less impious.
Well, Zoar is granted him, but with this double caution: Tarry not in the plain, look not behind thee. For the former; the very skirts and suburbs of Sodom, yea, the very smell of Sodom must not cleave to Lot, nor he to it. If we be departed from Babylon, let not a rag or a relict of superstition abide with us. What matters it, whether a man be slain with a great bullet, or with a small shot? The devil says like Pharaoh. Go out of Egypt but not far; be within call. But Moses separates Israel from Corah; Depart from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs: we cannot be two far off from such company. It is sorry comfort, to escape in Sodom, and perish in the plain. To the terror and conviction of them, that though they openly profess not love to Rome, yet still have an itch of popery upon them. A man cannot be too earnest of heaven: that kingdom is gotten with violence, not with indifference. He that loves little, shall have little: and he may love so little, as to have never a whit. Many fear to be too hot, but are not sensible of their own coldness. We say commonly; too much heat annoy, but too much cold de • troyes. Religion of all tempers, in these days does not complain of heat. O • hat as the advanced Sun heats the air, so our hearts were enflamed with zeal and • ove by that blessed Son of righteousness and salvation!
For the other, look not behind thee: not because it was dangerous to look into the infected air. But 1. To note the indignity of the place, not worthy to be looked on by an honest eye. 2. To avoid curiosity, that Lot might not pry too narrowly into God's judgments. 3. For fear the horror of the sight should have astonished him, or wrung out his commiseration. 4. For the better speed that there might be no stay in his passage; as the Apostles were forbidden the interruption of a Salute. 5. That his love might be quite lost to Sodom; no more to think of the wealth and pleasure he found in such an ungracious City. 6. Lastly, to make trial of his faith and obedience, as God proved Adam in the prohibited fruit. Small precepts from God are strong bonds: obedience is as well tied and tried, and disobedience as well punished, in a little as in much. Ananias nimm'd a little, he thought the Holy Ghost had no need of it, or could not miss it. But God credits us first with less things, • s men prove vessels with water, before they trust them with wine.
The same charge was given to his wife, which she obeyed not: in her flight she must needs turn an eye upon Sodom. Perhaps she believed not that it should be burned, or pitied and lamented in her heart that such a populous City should be burned, or curiously desired to see it burning, or so loved the pleasures of her co •• trey, that she could not choose but give it a look, and as it were bid it farewell. B •• for this she was turned into a monument of disobedience; a Pillar of salt. The Hebrews say, because she refused to bring salt to the guests the day before: this is their dream. But that opinion had need of salt, to keep it from stinking. Some 〈◊〉 it an allegory; They that divert their affections from spiritual to sensual things, become senseless pillars. Nor is it said to be of salt only in respect of the duration, as an everlasting covenant is called a Covenant of salt: for salt hath a preserving property, to keep things from putrefying, decaying, and corrupting. But she was turned into a material salty pillar: Josephus saith it remained in his time: others, that it is Duraturum usque ad tempus resurrectionis, to last unto the day of Judgment. N •• that her soul was thus metamorphosed, but her body. And though she suffer •• thus temporally on her flesh, yet her spirit might find mercy and peace forever.
But the use of this monument is Praestare fidelibus condimentum, to season the faithful. Remember Lots wife. Now what did it avail her to scape turning into a ••• in Sodom, who is turned into a pillar of salt in the plain? One would think i • small fault to look back, yet even this cannot the Lord endure. In re parvae pecc ••• , peccatum non parvum. To sin in a small thing, is no small sin. Being so far out o • that cursed city, she might now think her self safe, and no danger in looking behind. But if we provoke the Lord, he can as well meet with us out of Sodom. Th ••• is no place safe to sin, none dangerous to obedience: faith and observance of God • will shall secure us even in Sodom.
2 Thus for his journey to Zoar, now for his safety in it. Being come thither, he might well wonder at the stay of his wife, for in his flight he durst not look back to call her. Returning to seek her, he finds this alteration with wonder and sorrow. Sodom is turned to a heap of sulphur, and she to a heap of salt. This change he little expected; the loss of his wife touched him nearer than the loss of all Sodom. Yet he finds salt instead of flesh, a pillar instead of a wife. He that saved a whole City, could not save his own spouse. Here was a sharp misery clap'd on the heels of a sweet mercy. When God delivers us from destruction, he doth not secure us from all affliction. Though we be not condemned with the world, yet we may be chastened in the world.
Lot saved himself, yet he lost his Allies, lost his flocks and herds, lost his gold and riches, lost his habitation, and now for conclusion lost his wife, all b •••• crosses. Without some sauce of sorrow, all worldly delights are but like de ••• meat to a man that hath lost his taste. Let us give God leave to scourge us, so long as he doth save us. Our deliverance from the fire of hell is cause enough to make 〈◊〉 thankful, though the trifles we delight in be taken from us. Shall Lot say, I 〈◊〉 rich, I am now undone; and so be dejected with sullen grief? No, but I was i • danger of fire and brimstone, I am now escaped, I will therefore lift up my he • with thankful joy. If God do not answer us in everything, shall we take pleasure in nothing? Shall we slight all his favors, because in one thing he crosseth 〈◊〉 whereas his least mercy is beyond our best merit. Lord take away what thou pleasest, for thy glory and my good; so long as thou savest me from the fire of hell, a •• thy everlasting wrath.
Zoar shall be honored with Lots preservation, a little one, the least of all th ••• opulent cities. As Bethlehem, though little among the thousands of Judah, hono ••• with the birth of God's Son. This little city was safe, when great Sodom 〈◊〉 too hot for him. The city which God keeps, is strong be it never so small: 〈◊〉 he forsake it, the thickest walls and hugest turrets are weaker than paper. The Lo •• promiseth to be a wall of fire round about his elect: no scalado, no undermining 〈◊〉 blow it up: it shall both protect them, and consume their enemies. The good 〈◊〉 sleeps more securely in his tent, than the sinner in his barricado'd fortification. A •• the springs and rivers of the Plain, could not quench Sodom’s raging fire: one • rop of Lots faith and holiness in Zoar keeps it from kindling. How poor and • lender soever our cottage be, let us set our prayers as a guard without, and our •• ith as a lock within: the seven-fold walls of Babylon were not so strong. This is • ore truly, than was said of those Giants; to have a City walled up to heaven. Let • rayer be the key to open the morning, and prayer the bar to shut up the evening. Let us in every place trust upon God's providence, and every place shall be safer to • s than was Paradise. Be our faith upright with Lot, and in the last day when the • hole world shall burn with flames as Sodom once did, we shall find a Zoar, the • osome of Jesus Christ.
3 Lastly, Lot was not only delivered in Zoar, but Zoar was delivered for Lot. I will not overthrow this City for which thou hast spoken. As Lot in the danger of fire • o Paul in the danger of water; in the rage of both the elements, God doth not • nly give his their deliverance, but he also gives others for their sakes into the grant. 〈◊〉 wicked man hath the feet of a Wolf, whatsoever he treads on never prospers af •• r. But a whole family, a whole kingdom, shall fare the better for one Joseph: his • ery presence procures a common blessing, wheresoever he goes. Zoar might hap •• be as bad as Sodom, but here was the difference, it had a Lot within, Sodom • ad none.
But for God's dear children intermingled with the world, it could not stand. • he wicked persecute them, for whose sake they are forborne: they owe their lives • o those few Lots whom they contemn. Potiphar was angry with that Joseph, who • ade him prosper. The most contemptible man in the people's opinion, is he that • rocures their peace and toleration. Ahab's sin brought the famine, Elias prayer • rought rain, yet Ahab tells Elijah, thou troublest Israel. Cease ye malicious sin • ers to vex the religious: you are beholding to them for your very breath: if they • ere taken away, you should be tormented before your time. As Christ himself • as the Day-star to enlighten: not the Dog-star, to burn: and Paul no pestilent •• llow to sow sedition, but an instrument of blessedness and salvation: so the elect •• e good, not malignant stars. Yet still they speed at the worlds hands as did their • aster before them: Christ healed their diseases, fed their bodies and souls, every • ay did them good; yet they crucified him: and in killing him they did offer to •• ke the only Ship that might save them. As the Sun-beams shining on the earth • e not only heat that solid body, but by reflection also warm the region of the • re conterminate to it. So the mercy of God lighting on a Christians heart, not on •• heats that with inward comfort, but makes it reflect back consolation to others.
The faithful pray for the pardon of men's sins, for grace and favor to their • ules, and no good comes without their procurement; yet the world cannot abide •• em. Let the rich Aldermen thank these, that they have leisure to tell their gold. • hat the worldling builds houses and takes rents: that the City can feast with the •• ines of the Church, and miss of Belshazzar's sudden sauce; (for I am persuaded, •• ey get enough from the Temples, to maintain their Hals) even in this they are • eborne, because there be Lots among them. What doth a poor man find before •• em, but reproach and disdain? he that is not rich, with these men is neither wise • r good: only by their wealth they value themselves, and only by their wealth, 〈◊〉 Camels by their burdens, be they valued.
London bless thy lots, and GOD for them. Thine honor had long since • n laid in the dust, thine oppressions become a hissing to all nations, and nothing •• d been left of thee but a stinking memory, but for these. The subject of thy de •• sion, hath been the means of thy preservation: and those eyes have often been lif •• d up to heaven for thee in prayer, upon whom thou wouldst never cast an eye of •• arity. When thou wast sick, they humbled their soul with fasting, and mourned, as 〈◊〉 weepeth for his mother: thus do they for thee. But in their adversity thou rejoy •• , and tearest them without ceasing: thus doest thou for them. While the lascivious embraceth his harlot, the luxurious his riot, the covetous his money, the malicious his revenge; the fire of Judgment would flash in their faces, and the fire of torment swallow up their souls; but for God's elected, their despised Lots. Hi • mercy increase the number of them, and our love to them, and our endeavor to be like them, that as we are spared for them, we may be crowned with them in the day of Christ.
Delivered just Lot.] I come to consider his thralldom, and the prisoner described first, by his grace; a Just man. Wherein three points must be examined. 1. What this Justice is. 2. In what respects a man may be called Just. 3. The exceptions against his Justice.
First, what is Justice. There is an increated Justice, which cannot be in man, for he is finite, and this is infinite. Righteous art thou O Lord: and, God is righteous i • all his ways. A man is one thing, and his righteousness is another: but God and hi • righteousness is all one: therefore it is as impossible for man to be thus righteous, as it is for him to be God: this is proper to the Deity. Created Justice is either •• gall or Evangelical.
Legal righteousness is of three sorts. 1. Perfect, which consists in an absol ••• completion of the Law: this is lost beyond all recovery. But is it not restored by Grace? No, for our sanctification is but in part: as a child is a perfect man, in all the parts of a man, but not in the quantity of every part. But Rome saith, the Virgin was righteous, for she sinned not: her life was free from sin actual, her conception from sin original. This is false, for if she were no sinner she needed no Savior: and she died; now if she had not sinned, in Justice she should not have died. 2. Civil, which consists in an outward deportment conformable to the Law: when a man professeth religion, to answer the first Table; and refraines from public and visible sins, to answer the second. But in this the Pharisees went beyond us, yet they came short of heaven. Too many content themselves with this rotten and hear less righteousness: but if they have no better, they shall get into heaven, when the Pharisees come out of hell. 3. Internal, when a man by repentance after sin, and by endeavor after repentance, doth inwardly serve God. That this righteousness, legally considered, should justify us, is with Rome to abuse God's Justice, and to encroach upon his mercy. This may justify our faith, it cannot justify us. Our works deserve nothing; it is only in Christ that they are accepted, and only for Christ th •• they are rewarded.
Evangelical righteousness is that which is revealed in the Gospel: and should never have been revealed, if that of the Law could have saved us. But it could not; not through the own defect, but our default. This is to be had in Christ only: which, as he is mediator, consisted in the purity of his nature, which is separate from sin: and in the perfection of his obedience, which is satisfactory for si ••• . From so pure a nature proceeded so perfect an obedience: no original sin touching his conception, no actual staining his life. There is none perfectly righteous 〈◊〉 He: not one that is, not one that was, not one that is to come: but only he th •• and that was, and that is to come. This in him was active and passive: for us he ••• fered, what we should have suffered, and suffered not: for us he did, what we sh •••• have done, and performed not.
Thus we have found out the righteousness that makes a man just: now let us s •• how Lot became just, or we are justified by it. This is done by imputation. 〈◊〉 that knew no sin, was made sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness 〈◊〉 God in him: what can be plainer? CHRIST was a sinner only by the imputation 〈◊〉 our sins, we are just only by the imputation of his righteousness. Christ is 〈◊〉 end of the Law for righteousness unto everyone that believeth. Not finis dissolve • s, 〈◊〉 absolvens: an abrogator of the ceremonial, but a fulfiller of the Law moral. A f •• filler, for whom? for all them that believe. So Christ by doing, and we by bel •• ving, fulfill the law; therefore are righteous. But can one man be wise by another's wisdom? Rich, or strong, or valiant, by the wealth, power, or courage of ano • her? We have no right in another's wisdom or valor, but we have a right and • ropriety in Christ's justice. One man's wisdom cannot be another's, because they • re two distinct persons: but Christ and the believer make but one mystical body: • o his righteousness is as truly his members, as the wisdom in the head belongs to • he whole body. But it is an Abamination to the Lord, to justify the wicked. Why • hen will he do it himself? No, but he first makes a man just, and then so accounts • im. He is indeed said to Iustifie the ungodly; that is, the man who was ungodly • efore, but is not so after: Distingue tempora, convenient omnia. Thus was Christ • ade a sinner by the reputation of our sins, and we made just by the imputation • f his righteousness. And as he that knew no sin in himself, undertaking for us, •• ffered death: so we that had no justice of our own, apprehending his righteous • esse, shall enjoy everlasting life.
But how is this justice imputed to us? By our faith. To as many as received •• m, he gave power to be the sons of God, to those that believe on his name. There is a re •• iving: what is that? It is expressly said, Believing. Man finding himself naked, 〈◊〉 this hand reacheth that glorious Robe, which is held out to him. This doth not •• stifie Effective, working an habitual justice in us: nor materialiter, as though faith •• self were our justification: but Objective, as it apprehendeth Christ: and Orga •• ce, as it instrumentally applieth his righteousness. Neither is it an opinion, which •• an uncertainty in the judgment: nor a suspicion, which is an uncertainty in the •• ill: nor a Science, for that is only by the demonstration of reason: neither love, • or hope. Love can extend the passions of the heart to the thing loved, yet cannot •• prehend Christ: he must be apprehended before he be loved. The office of hope 〈◊〉 to wait: it waits for salvation, but properly it apprehends it not. It is first belee •• d, then expected. It is good both to trust, and to wait for the salvation of the Lord. •• o trust that it will assuredly come, this is the action of faith: to wait until it do come, •• is is the action of hope. Faith is a taking hand, and love is a giving hand: faith •• es hold on Christ, love gives forth tokens of faith to God and man: hope is the 〈◊〉 , that looks out for the good things promised. As faith is the hand of the soul, 〈◊〉 love is the hand of faith, and hope is the eye of both. Of faith, love is the hand • hereby it worketh, and hope the eye whereby it waiteth. Thus faith worketh 〈◊〉 love, waiteth by hope, but believeth by it self. The point of our Justification •• ing thus cleared, let me touch at two useful meditations from it: there is in it ••• ter of humiliation, of consolation.
1 It serves to humble us. How fowl was our nature, that all the water in the •• rld could not cleanse it? Not the blood of all the creatures, not the righteousness 〈◊〉 men or Angels could cure it. All the men and Angels in the world cannot make •• e sinner righteous: but the Son of God must become man, suffer, die, and rise •• ine, and all to make us just. Vain man, whereof art thou proud? Yet how doth ••• tle polluted dust vaunt it self? Clothe a Leper in scarlet, is he not still a Leper? •• pose in Christ we be embraced, and even honored of God himself, shall we •• refore be high-looked over others? No, here is matter of exultation and glad •• se, not of insultation and haughtiness: let us be joyful, let us be thankful, let • ot be scornful. The natural Son of God was humbled for our pride, shall we • roud still? Quomodo non humiliatur homo, coram humili Deo? Shall man be •• d, when God himself is humble? He that is not humbled for his sin, is not ye • ••• ed from his sin. In his humility Christ wrought that great work of our re •• ption. Observe with wonder, that God did more for us in his humility, than 〈◊〉 he did in his glory. In his Majesty he only made us, but in his humility be 〈◊〉 saved us. Look we first down with humility upon our own wretchedness, 〈◊〉 then look up with faith unto Christ's righteousness.
2 We are Just before God by no Justice of our own, but by Christ's: and this is so much the better for us, as now we are sure it cannot be lest. God created Adam with a perfect legal righteousness: he received it for himself, and for us: and he lost it for himself, and for us. That being gone, he gives us another, a better: b •• because he saw man so ill a keeper of his own Jewels, he would not trust him with it: but sets it in the P • rson of his Son, charging him to keep it for us. We are dead, and our life is hidden with Christ in God. It is hid past Satan's finding, and locked up past our spending. We as ignorant of the worth, would quickly exhaust it: but CHRIST truly values it, dearly paid for it, heartily loves it, and therefore will safely preserve it: and when we come to his fathers presence, will cloth us with it then. It is now in a safe hand, where we are sure to find it, and have it, wh •• we most need it. We may sin, and so lose the present sensible comfort of a good conscience: but we cannot lose our righteousness. That is in our own •• nure, this is not.
It is impossible for a believer to be poor: take away all he hath, his wealth, heal •• friends, liberty, life: this is no more than he hath in his own hands, which he may easily lose. His true riches are in another's custody, no power can meddle with th ••• . His treasure is laid up, where no thief nor corruption can enter: he that is Tresp ••• with it, will faithfully keep it. Satan may make Job poor for this world, and take 〈◊〉 from him, from which God would one day take him. But Job hath a better stock going in heaven, in the hands of his Redeemer, the devil cannot touch this. Other possessions in death we leave behind, this inheritance by death we begin to possess. C ••• corpus resolvitur, anima absolvitur. Let Ziba take all, so I may come to the Son of David in peace.
Samson had his strength in himself, and betrayed it: Esau his birth-right, and sold it: the Prodigal his portion, and spent it: Hezekiah his treasure, and expos •• it: Solomon his wisdom, and abused it: Mary Magdalene her beauty, and pro ••• tuted it: Nabal his wealth, and lived beside it: Adam his integrity, and an Apple bought it. O what is in man, that he may not lose! The Master of a Family 〈◊〉 all his hired servants their wages into their own hands, suffers them to use and •• spose it at their own pleasures, without further injury: but the portions of his children, and their Jewels he keeps himself. LORD, what ever worldly thing thou take from us, keep our righteousness for us: though sin hath left uttered and death send us away naked; do thou cover us with the rich garment of Christ.
2. Thus is a man Just before God, but Lot was also just before men: and th •• is a visible Justice, so well as the invisible. We must therefore seek out for a fu •••• righteousness, an inseparable effect of the former, and that is, Holiness of life. The other is that Justice of Justification, this the Justice of Sanctification. As a si •••• justified by Christ's righteousness inherent in Christ himself: so he is sanctified by Christ's righteousness diffused from Christ into the sinner. His Justification is p •• fect, because that which justifies him, is still in Christ: his sanctification is unpa •••• because that which sanctifies him, is in himself. The one imputed to him, the 〈◊〉 infused and inherent in him. Therefore here we are to examine, in what resp ••• man may be called Just. Neither are we bound always to the same distinctio • 〈◊〉 conceive, a man may be approved Righteous, Praeparative, Separative, Reparative, 〈◊〉 ra • iva.
1 There is righteousness of preparation, which is a resolution and full p •••• of hear to be righteous. I have sworn, and am steadfastly purposed to keep thy •••• teous Judgments. Though he do sometimes admit sin, he doth never inten ••• If the Spirit could totally prevail over the flesh, he would never do ought to d •••• nour God. My heart is ready, my heart is ready: r • ady to hear thy will, ready 〈◊〉 it. Give what thou commandest, command what thou pleasest. Perfect my purpose 〈◊〉 thy gracious performance, and then I shall be righteous. By this resolution 〈◊〉 bound for Canaan, and thitherward steeres his course: notwithstanding the p •• l •• s rocks and pyrates, and contrary gusts and storms, that would put him out of •• e way.
2 There is a righteousness of separation, because it is seen to decline the pla •• of temptation. So they are called Saints, because Separate from the world. He • n a manner guilty, that frequents the occasion of being made guilty. A wise Se •• or, whose Coach-man had driven him over a dangerous passage, which he might •• lie have avoided by fetching a little compass about; though he scaped without •• me, yet turned him of, as unworthy of future trust. What thanks to us, if pre •• itating ourselves in the known snares of sin, we are kept by God's preventing •• ace? He that is begotten of God, keepeth himself that the wicked one touch him not. I • e not say that God deals with us on such an advantage, as a furious Papist answe •• d: when he was asked by one of his own Sect, why in the gunpowder treason •• ey would destroy children with bastards, Catholics with Heretics: Inventi •• er haereticos, pereant cum haereticis: If they were found among heretics, let them •• rish with heretics. Yet often he makes them smart: as the Magistrate inflicting • ere punishment on a dissolute crew, one cried out to him; Parce filio, spare thy 〈◊〉 : what, my son among the enemies of peace and goodness? No, Sociaris in •• pa, nec separaberis in poena: as thou hast offended with them, thou shalt smart with •• em. We will trust no antidote, to go into the house where the plague is: if ten •• on find us, never let us seek temptation.
3 There is a righteousness of reparation; which consists in the reforming of •• rors, and conforming of manners, salving past defects by a bettered life; and is in •• ed the righteousness of repentance. Righteous, not because there is no sin come •• itted, but because there is no sin that is nor repented God esteems a fault indeed •• rowed, as if it had never been indeed admi ted. Aliud est peccare, aliud peccatorem •• se: it is one thing to sin, another thing to be a sinner. Everyone that handles a ••• te is not a Musician: nor every that doth an unrighteous action; is strait an un •• ghteous person. The unrighteous shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven: to be •• just damns, not to have done some actions unjustly: the habit, not the act, casts •• to hell.
O blessed effect of repentance, that can make unrighteous manners cease to de • ominate an unrighteous man! I will show you a riddle. A foul mother brought •• rth a fair daughter: the mother bred her laughing, yet the daughter is always • eeping. The father that begot the daughter, could never abide the mother, nor • ver came near her bed. She was no sooner borne, but she was the death of her • other; killing her that bred her, and (which is strange) she is blessed for it. She • as begotten in a miracle: no sooner conceived, than borne: no sooner borne, but • e spake: other children are borne crying, she also speaking: the first air she brea •• ed, heard her articulately declare her own desires. And ever since she works • iracles: she brings light out of darkness, life out of death: she makes the blind • o see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and even casts out devils. She looks • ackward, and moves forward: is her self a dark cloud, yet brings a fair Sun • hine. This riddle is expounded in Repentance. Sin is the mother, repentance the • aughter: the mother is foul, black, ugly; the daughter fair and lovely. Sin was •• erry and wanton, repentance is always sad and blubbering. God is the father of • epentance, and he could never endure the mother, Sin; but rather perfectly hates • et society. Being borne, she slew her mother: repentance could not have been • orne but by sin, and repentance is the only thing that kills sin. Peccatum tristitiam • p • rit, tristitia peccatum conterit. Sin breeds sorrow, and sorrow kills sin: and this • arricide makes her blessed. Miraculous is her birth: at her first conception by the • oly Ghost, she looks up and speaks; Open ye gates of heaven, and let mercy come • own upon me; her first breath is, Pardon. Miracles she worketh; turning the dark • esse of error into the light of knowledge, and making the dead heart live unto grace. The blind eyes by her, are made to see the filthiness of sin: the deaf ears now hearken to the word of truth: the dumb lips cry out for compassion and forgiveness; the devils lust is expelled. She still is looking backward to her sins past, and moving forward to holiness and perfection. To conclude, Repentance is her self cloudy, and made up of sadness, yet brings everlasting joy.
Such is God's mercy to Repentance: yet let no man, though he trust to this, 〈◊〉 to himself. The promise is to repentance, not of repentance. Nature flatters it self in that one in stance of the malefactor on the cross, who in an instant got repentance. But the calling and saving of that one soul at the last, hath by Satan's po ••• been the loss of many thousands.
4 There is a Righteousness of comparison; so was Lot just comparatively among the Sodomites. It is Christ's incommunicable privilege, to be The just: 〈◊〉 all other men on earth to pray, Enter not into Judgment with thy servants, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. And, Forgive us our trespasses, and to pray for th •• daily: perpetual remission argues perpetual aspersion. He that says, he hath no 〈◊〉 I am sure he hath no righteousness. But it is said of Zacharias and Elizabet, that they were both, Just before the Lord, walking in all his commandments, blameless. Before God, without hypocrisy: in his commandments, not the traditions of men, without flattery: in All of them, without reservation and partiality. Without repr •• , Sine querela, non sine macula: not scandalous and culpable in the eyes of men, and worthy of crimination. So, he that is borne of God, sinneth not, or committeth not s •• . Not the sinning sin, not the reigning sin, not peccatum scandalizans: not the sin •• to death, which cannot be repented, therefore must not be pardoned.
Compared with God there is none righteous: Omnes odit, qui malos odit: he hates all men, that hates ill men. Yet some may be so, respectively to others. Th •••• more righteous than Judah, yet Tamar sinful enough. The Publican rather •• stified than the Pharisee, yet not simply and sufficiently justified. The Spouse f ••• among women, yet she justly complains of her blackness. Some men have br ••• & levia peccata, less and fewer sins, yet they have sins: though fewer in number, and lighter in measure, yet sins in nature. The Moon is glorious to a candle, pa •• to the Sun. The lily white to the wool, short of the snow. The swarthy compared with the Black-moore, thinks himself fair.
Not that I would have men pitch themselves by the Pole of the dissolute. As because they are not so drunk as Nabal, therefore to think themselves sober: beca •• not so proud as Haman, therefore humble: because not so treacherous as Judas, therefore loyal. Compare not thyself with the worst, to see how far thou art beyond them: but with the best, to see how far thou art short of them. Luscus inter • a • acute videt: and the thick-eared hear well to the stark deaf. Among the numerous Cloistures of illiterate Monks, if one rarely get a smack of learning, he thinks himself a brave fellow, famous among his companions. They compare themsel •• with themselves, and measure themselves by themselves. He that hath but feried over 〈◊〉 Amsterdam, conceits himself a great Traveler, among those that never smelt other than their own smoke. How ploud is a vain fool of a strange language! apt 〈◊〉 think all the rest Idiots, that understand not his Spanish or Italian! Audax Insc ••• : none so bold as the blind.
Thou that thinkest thyself charitable and just, compare thyself with Zacc ••• after thy fourfold restitution, hast thou given half thy goods to the poor? Th •• that holdest thyself zealous in a cold generation, consider David: The zeal of • y house hath eaten me up. Thou that art humble, meditate on Paul, yielding to them th •• hated him. That art sober, think of the Rechabites: that chaste, look upon I • s •• h in his temptation by so great a Lady. The Pigmeys wonder at his stature, whom we esteem a dwarf. Do not look upon the profane, to admire thy own holiness: but on the Just, to condemn thy own unrighteousness. Rurall people admire and even adore a Lady, that never saw the Queen. When the Indians first saw the Spaniards. they held them fair and goodly creatures. But bleeding under their c •• c • ties, and beholding other from more cold and temperate climates, of fairer come •• ections and kinder dispositions; they took these last for Angels. We that have •• ized ourselves by those below us, let us now value ourselves by those above us: •• en all our pride will turn into shame, and we shall blush for our idle glory. Lord, 〈◊〉 they that had their faults be more righteous than we; what are we in respect of •• ee that hast none? Give us all grace to be more righteous, and when we •• ve done all we can, pardon our great unrighteousness in Jesus Christ.
5 There is an Operative righteousness, and this may be taken either strictly or •• gely.
Strictly, it is equity: he that deals truly withal, without respect of persons, is • ust man. And he that is not just in his conversing and commersing with men, will •• rdly be found righteous with God. This is not only to render what the Law •• quires, but even what a rectified conscience requires. As for instance; to bury the •• ad, this is not an action of charity only, but of equity. Funerals are called Iusta, •• cause they be as just to the dead, as meat is to the living. So to feed the poor: •• ul calls Alms, Righteousness. With-hold not thy good from the owners thereof. • hey are the owners of thy superfluities, and it is just to give every man his own. When thou doest thine alms; diverse copies read, Cum facias Iustitiam, when thou doest • y righteousness: so Eusebius reports it. Alms is thy Justice; If not Debitum proprie • tis, yet Charitatis: and he that denieth this, is an unjust man. That ministers do