Commentary on 2 Peter

BAcksliding hath ever been a sin most odious to God: yea it is a pack or bundle of sins truss'd up together; all derogatory to his honor, and contrary to his Nature. For there is in it, first, Hypocrisy; which is adverse to Him, as he is the God of Truth. Secondly, Inconstancy; which is opposite to him whose Motto is, Ego Jehovah non muter; in whom is no variableness or shadow of turning. Thirdly, Infidelity; which is held the highest disparagement to his goodness. Disobedience breaks his word, Infidelity will not take his word. Fourthly, Ingratitude; to which all sins give way, and make room for in the highest place of damnation. Fifthly, Impenitency; which seals up the impossibility of forgiveness. Facilius inveni qui innocentiam servarent, quàm qui congrue poenitentiam agerent. It is better sleeping in a whole skin, than hazarding wounds to try the virtue of an approved medicine. All hurts are not recovered: but where no hurt is done, there needs no remedy. Well therefore may our Apostle further aggravate this impiety; It had been better for them if they had not known, &c.

GOD did easily pass over many sins in his Israel; yet he vehemently insists in those, into which they so often relapsed. Such were their murmurings against him in his Ministers and Instruments: their turning upon other gods, and embracing the idolatry of their neighbors. Murmuring is a slippery way to an irrecoverable bottom: and he comes near to God himself, that murmurs against him that comes from God. The Magistrate is the garment, in which God apparels himself: and he that shoots at the clothes, cannot say, he meant no ill to the man. Idolatry is the next slip to this fearful precipice and downfall. Their murmuring against God's Ministers did too often end in a departing from God himself: when they would have other Officers, they would have other gods: and still to-days murmuring, was to-morrows Idolatry. Their murmuring induced their Idolatry, and they often relapsed into them both. Not so much their murmuring and their Idolatry, as their relapsing into those sins, did seem to affect the Lord. They turned back and tempted God; and limited the holy One of Israel. That was their sin: but before he chargeth them with the sin it self, in the same place he chargeth them with reiterating, with redoubling of the sin: How often did they provoke him in the wilderness? How often? This was that sin which so exasperates the Lord against them. Their driving out of God whom they promised to serve, did cause him to bring in the nations whom he promised to drive out. They have seen my wounders, and yet provoked me these ten times; therefore they shall not see the Land which I sware unto their fathers. Though God had sworn it, he will rather break his Oath, than leave them unpunished. Why? because they had so often grieved him; ten times. No tongue but God's own can express his indignation against a relapsing people. Every general disobedience in a Nation is deadly: but when the disease is complicated with a relapse, after knowledge and profession of a former recovery, it is desperate. Nor is God's anger only incensed, where the evidence is pregnant, and without exception; but where there is but a rumor, a suspicion of such a relapse to Idolatry. Hereupon that message was sent by Israel to the Reubenites: Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we are not cleansed to this day? Wherein they object to them, not so much their present declination to Idolatry, as their relapse into a sin formerly committed, and punished with the slaughter of four and twenty thousand delinquents. At last they are satisfied; That Altar was not built for Idolatry, but for a Testimony; a Monument, whereby they professed themselves the servants of the same God: and the army returned without blood. It came not near a relapse: but because there was a suspicion, and fear of it, they were jealous. So odious to God, and so aggravating a weight of sin lies upon a relapse. Admit therefore our Apostles further declaiming against it: Satius, &c.

The Text is comparative, or an argument à malo ad pejus, à periculoso ad periculosius; inter damnosum simpliciter, & damnosum magis: wherein we have two states specified, and the worse of them remonstrated. First, the state of Iniquity, before illumination. Secondly, the state of Apostasy, after illumination. Thirdly, the worse of these decided by the comparison. First, the condition of nature and sin, They knew not the way of righteousness. Secondly, the tergiversation after knowledge, They turn from the holy Commandment. Thirdly, there is a weighing of both these in the Ballance, to try which is the heavier: and certainly, the former condition is found to be the lighter burden: sin in ignorance hath not so much to answer for, as impiety after knowledge; It had been better for them. First, consider we wherein the former state is defective: Non cognoverunt viam Iustitia; a blindness of heart, an averseness from the truth. Next, wherein the pravitie of the latter state consists: and this is discerned in two things. First, the excellency of the Direction; a holy Commandment given them. Secondly, the obstinacy of their recidivation; They willfully turn from it. The Rule or Direction hath three conveniencies: First, it is Praeceptum, a Commandment: therefore they are bound to obey it. But a Command may be defective or redundant, and so fail of integrity. Therefore secondly, this is a holy Commandment: perfect, without weakness; safe, without danger. But a Command may be holy and good, and yet not known: and who can fulfill an unrevealed Law? Therefore thirdly, Traditum illis, it was delivered unto them. Though they were bound to take notice of it, and ignorantia juris will not excuse: yet this is delivered to them, and they have known it; that the mouth of all wickedness might be stopped. The last point, is the trutination of both these estates, and a verdict given, which is the better, which the worse. The last is found the heavier: and if they had perished in the former, without being guilty of the latter, this for them had been the better. The better, that is, the easier: or the better, the less evil: both conditions are bad enough; one is the worse.

They have not known the way of righteousness.] Wherein we have two things. First, the happiness of the Object, The way of righteousness. Secondly, their unhapinesse, in being ignorant of it, They have not known it. The way of peace they have not known.

The way of righteousness is so called, because both Formaliter, it is a righteous way; and Effective, it makes the walkers in it righteous. Certainly, there is but one way to Heaven, and this is it. There be many ways to some famous City upon Earth, many Gates into it; the East-Gate, and the North-Gate, &c. But to the City of salvation and glory, there is but one Way, but one Gate, and that is a narrow one too, Via Iustitiae. There was a Way at the first; the Way of the Law, or rather of Nature: Adam was put into it, but he quickly went out of it. Of all his nine hundred and thirty years, he kept not this path one whole day. Since that, no man ever kept it one hour; but only he that knew the Way, that made the Way, that is the Way, even the new Way of righteousness, Jesus Christ. Now this Way is not demolished, or made up; but we are all weak, and not able to travail it: except it be some Romish Pharisee that undertakes it. And yet Saint Paul will lay no less a Wager than the credit of his Doctrine upon it, that he never goes through with it: Being ignorant of the righteousness of God, they go about to establish their own righteousness. Silly men; they blow at a Gloworme, instead of a coal of fire: and when all is done, they find a cold squalid matter, far unable to heat them. The Metaphor is there taken from shoring up an old rotten house, which no props can uphold; or setting a dead man upon his feet, to make him stand. They go about it, as the Nimrodians went about their Tower, emulating Heaven: but left it a rude heap of confusion, and a monument of their impious presumption. And their own righteousness, as if they would not be beholding to God for a righteousness of his appointing.

What then is the Way of righteousness? So God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him, should not perish: this is the Way, walk in it. If the righteousness of the Law, that is, our righteousness in observing the Law, could have justified us; God had been too prodigal of a needless blood: all those inconceivable agonies and sufferings of Christ had been superfluous: he needed no Peter to say to him, Master, favor thyself; for he would have spared those pains. But if our infinite Creditor took no other way to satisfy and pay himself, than in that precious Coine, the dear blood of his only Beloved Son; sure we shall find no way to get our own discharge, but by resting on the blood of that Son. Now in all this, God did not ordain Novam Iustitiam, a new righteousness; but Novam Iustitia viam, a new way of righteousness. The Law is too weak to justify us, indeed it is strong enough to condemn us: let us not seek that which the Law cannot do, but fear that which the Law can do. It can never make us righteous before God, through our best obedience; let us never hope for that: it can pronounce us unrighteous before God, and without faith and repentance condemn us; let us fear that.

Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.] The end of a thing is either Mathematical, or Moral. The Mathematical end is the utmost part of a thing, in which the length or continuance is determined: as a point is the end of a Line, death is the end of life, the day of Judgment is the end of the world. The Moral end, is the scope and perfection of it. Christ is the end of the Law both ways. First, he is the Mathematical end, and that both of the Ceremonial and Moral Law: of the Ceremonial, by a direct signification; of the Moral, by an accidental direction. The Ceremonies signified Christ, and ended at him; yea, ended in him. Mortals ante Christum, cum Christo mortuae, post Christum mortiferae. The Law of Manners did also (upon the reckoning) lead to Christ: for it led them to the Curse; and then reason would teach them to inquire for the remedy: as the sense of the disease guides a man to the medicine or Physician. Secondly, he is the Moral end of them: for both he is the Body of those shadows, and the perfect fulfiller of the Decalogue. So that whatsoever the Law required, that we should Be, Suffer, or Do, he hath performed for us. He is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the End, or Tribute; and we, by his payment, are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Tribute-free, discharged by him before God. Here is then still eadem Iustitia, the same righteousness which the Law requires; but non eadem via, not the same way of performing it. The former way required it in our own persons, the new way accepts it done for us in Jesus Christ: the Law would have it inherent, the Gospel admits it imputed. He that believeth in Christ, hath the way of righteousness. Talis est ill qui in Christum credit, die qua credidit, qualis ill qui universam legem implevit. We have a Liverie and Seisin of all the precious promises both in Law and Gospel, in the first moment of our Faith; yea, even an Earnest, and partly a possession of Heaven. He hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It is as possible to pluck Christ from thence, as to hinder believers from arriving thither. Whosoever denies, that we do even now possess Heaven in Christ, denies Christ to be in Heaven. Even when our Vessel splits, and the floods of temptation assault us, we shall by faith escape the shipwreck, and swim to shore.

This is the way of righteousness, which can only make us Iustos in via, and beatos in patria. Indeed this way hath two boundaries; Repentance, and Obedience.

1. Repentance on the one side; a mourning for sins past: which is as sure an effect or demonstration of faith, as faith is a cause of the peace of conscience. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Conscience cannot be good, without faith; nor faith lively, without a good conscience: as the Lamp yields no light, without Oil. Sins will be contracted; we cannot keep the way, without some wanderings: therefore had need to be often rectified. This is the office of Repentance; to set all strait again. Yea, faith it self may suffer shipwreck, though it cannot be cast away. A Horse of the best mettle, when he falls into the hands of a Carrier, and is made a Pack-horse, becomes dull and jadish. Let us not overload our faith with the unnecessary burden of willful sins: letting blood often, will lose much spirits. A Cordial is ever precious; but the force is abated, when it is turned into a Dyet. The frequency of distempers will weaken the virtue of the Receit.

2. Obedience on the other side: for though we live by faith, yet our faith doth not live, if it produce not good works. We suspect the want of sap in the root of a Tree, if we find barrenness in the branches. If either it have bad fruit, or no fruit, it is but a dead faith. This new way of righteousness doth not exclude obedience to the old; the Gospel does not abolish the Law: yea, without our endeavor to keep the Law, we have no comfort in the Gospel: The one is the Rule of believing, the other is the Rule of living. Shall we sin, because we are not under the Law, but under grace? God forbid: We have not so learned Christ. Of all the marks set up in the way of righteousness, this is a principal one, Good works, and Obedience. Christ is the end of the Law; Finis, non intersiciens, sed perficiens: Absolvens, non Dissolvens: not the destructive, but impletive end: non consumendo, sed consummando finis est: not the killing, but the fulfilling end. The noble Heir, when he is come to his Lands, neglects not his School-master: nay, if he be of an heroical disposition, he rather prefers him. Though the Law were sharp to thee in the infancy of a Christian, yet (consider) it hath brought thee to Christ; and for this office thou wilt love it. The matured Scholar is far past the first rudiments of learning, yet he doth not scorn his Grammar: nay he will hardly make congruous speech, if he directly cross those first rules. Now we believe not for thy saying, (it was the Samaritans speech to the woman) for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ: yet still there is some respect due to the first messenger. When the Merchant is come aboard his ship by the help of his boat, he does not presently sink his boat; but fastens it to his ship, because he may have use of it another time. The Law hath been a means to bring us to this way of righteousness; but it is not it self out of the way. We are God's workmanship, created in Jesus Christ unto good • orkes, which he hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. This walk was ordained for us, before Christ was actually given unto us. Yea, it will be the delight of a Christian, then to be doing, when Christ is with him: Peter is ready to cast out the net at his Masters bidding, in hope of a happy success. When so good a Lord stands by him, that at once puts strength in his hand, and courage in his strength, with Well done good Servant; this will make him work out his heart; if he be faithful.

The way.] A way is ordained for going; they that go in it, be called Travelers; and those must have many requisites.

1. They inquire the nearest, fairest, and best way: in our journey to heaven we shall often be out of the way, if we do not ask direction. The Priests lips preserve knowledge.

2. In dangerous and unknown paths they seek for a sure guide. We have two that offer their assistance; the Spirit a gracious guide; the flesh, a giddy hairebraind guide. Let us take the Spirit, and take heed of the flesh.

3. Travelers are loath to go alone; yet rather alone, than with bad company. Let us seek out the Saints, and such as excel in virtue. Good society takes away all tediousness from a journey.

4. They do not clog themselves with superfluous luggage. Long garments and heavy burdens take away both ease and speed: impertinent and unnecessary cares will make us lagge behind. Herein the poor Christian hath advantage of the rich: this is before him for this world, the other gets the start of him for the Kingdom of heaven. He hath no barns to build, nor farms to let, nor moneys to dispose; no such trouble in his way.

5. Travelers go not without weapons, for fear of robbers. Our way is dangerous; a great number of thieves lie in ambush for us. Satan is the grand thief; all temptations be his prolers. Let us hold fast our faith; this shall serve us both for a weapon to fight with, when we are beset: and for a staff to rest upon, when we are weary. A shield of proof to ward all blows; a pistoll ready to dispatch all enemies. This shall uphold us, if we hold up it. While Peter kept this staff in his hand, he could walk upon the sea; but when he let it fall, he presently began to sink; Lord save me.

6. They are well shod that know they have a long rough journey; lest they be laid up by the way. Our passage to heaven is full of tribulations, thorns, and stones: we had need of greaves: and our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel.

7. Travelers carry with them some cordials and comfortable waters, to cheare up their spirits when they faint with weariness. We have a Cellar of the waters of life ever ready, the Gospel of salvation: every promise is a Cordial, able to fetch back the swooning soul. There is no condemnation to them that are in Jesus Christ, a blessed Cordial!

8. They meddle not with unconcerning quarrels; but mind their way and business. We cannot hear our God contemned with patience: nor with impatience, ourselves. For the brawls of the wicked, though we wish peace, we dare not thrust in (without a calling) to make it. Much less do their tumults breed a war in our bosoms: we do not beat ourselves, because they beat one another. Some indeed, because they see contentions about religion, give over all religion. As if a man seeing a fray, wherein he needs not to have a hand because they will not put up their swords, must therefore go hang himself. What a desperate pusillanimity is this? Shall we go out of the way, because others quarrel about the way? Or be of the Colliars mind; who seeing some suffering as Protestants for denying the Supremacy of the Pope, others as Papists for denying the Supremacy of the King, at one time: spake in his rusticall language, that he would be nere nother? God forbid.

9. Travelers linger not at every bush; nor tarry longer at their Inn, than for necessary refreshing; and renew their walk the next morning. Thus must we use the world, as though we used it not: requiring only our needful repast. So far it may have our custom, as to be buyers of requisite provision, a moderate viaticum for the sustentation of life; but not to be purchasers: we settle our inheritance in no land but the land of Promise. As for carnal pleasures, we balk them unsaluted: we dare not drink of that cup for fear of Inchauntment. He that looks for worldly joys in the way of righteousness, thinks to find Canaan in the wilderness.

10 They go on to the end: walking is a perpetual motion: not in circuitu, so the ungodly move like an Horse in a mill: but in progressu, going forward. Howsoever their natural corruptions do sometimes bear them aside, or into some cross way; yet they look to the main journey. A snail creeping on a grindstone may keep on her pace though the grindstone be whirled the contrary way. The inferior orbs, though they be violently moved by the upper, yet have a particular contrary motion of their own. A traveler is stayed against his will, by a stronger force; from which he no sooner gets loose, but he runs his own way the faster. As in walking there seems to be a kind of emulation between the feet; as if the one did strive to be before the other, and the body would be afore them both, and the mind afore the body: so must our desires labor toward the improvement of goodness; and to be better tomorrow than we are today. Thus let us go on in love and peace; and as Joseph charged his brethren, let us not fall out by the way, lest we fall out of the way. But with humility and charity let us follow the way of righteousness, and our end shall be everlasting peace.

They have not known the way.] I will not charge their ignorance so far, as to say they knew no God, or believed none. Atheism destroys the nobility of man: for man is a-kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his soul, he is a base and ignoble creature. Yea, it confounds all magnanimity, and the advancement of human nature. Take a Dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on, when he is maintained by a man: who is to him instead of a god, or at least melior natura, whereby it is manifest, that that creature, without the confidence of a better nature than his own, could never be so courageous. So man, when he resteth himself upon the Divine protection and favor, gathers a force and ability, which human nature it self could never attain. Therefore that ignorance (if at least there can be any such ignorance) is in all respects hateful, that deprives human nature of the means to exalt it self above human frailty. But whatsoever the fool says in his heart, every man knows in his heart, that there is a God. None will deny there is a God, but those for whom it maketh that there were no God. Never any nation fell wholly to Atheism: they acknowledged some God, though they missed of the right.

Nor will I charge their ignorance with a false god: It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him. The one is unbelief, the other contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of Deity. Yield them to know God, and the true God: were they yet ignorant of h •• • orship▪ Did they not know the Law▪ Then their punishment were less 〈◊〉 , unless their ignorance were voluntary. Or rather say, they knew the Law, 〈◊〉 w •• h a P • arisai •• ll knowledge; as if they could be justified by the L •• . Herei • , as wide as the whole Heaven, they erred from the way to Heaven. Not that there is any imperfection in the Law, as if it were not able to justify us: but the imperfection and fault is in ourselves, that are not capable to be justified by it. A cunning Carver can cut the similitude of any creature; but not on a rotten stick: yet is it no imputation to the skill of the Carver. The Law hath ability enough to justify, but cannot perform this work on our rotten nature. The Law, thus, is weak even to save one, but it is strong enough to damn thousand. What then?

They knew not the way of righteousness:] That is, the salvation which comes by Jesus. All ignorance is a Curse; but that which knows not Christ, is the most miserable. Homo cùm sis, id fac s • mper intelliga • . If a man be ignorant of that which concerns him not, he is excusable. As for a Preacher to be ignorant of the Art of Physic, or a Physician of the Art of Navigation. But if the Phys • c •• n be ignorant of Medicines, or the Divine of the Scriptures; this ignorance is •• pardonable. Ignorance is the mother of error: and as well may we expect a • oice from fishes, as virtue from the want of knowledge. The Philosopher being asked, Why men sought more to the rich, than to the wise? answered, Because it was possible for them to be rich, never to be wise. Why do men blanch the religious company, to frequent the wanton? Because they have more mind to be wanton, than to be religious. To be carnally minded, is death. They say of a wild graceless man, he hath a good wit: but it is indeed a naughty wit, that ends in death. Of the covetous worldling, He is a wise fellow; God says, he is a very fool. Come, let us deal wisely, saith Pharaoh: but indeed he played the fool. Gehazi thought himself wiser than his Master, Naaman shall not carry away all his money: this wisdom got him the Leprosy. Peter would be counted a wise fellow, Master, sav ••• thyself: but Christ puts upon him a worse name than Fool, even Satan. Achitop • el lived a deep Politician; but he died a natural, an unnatural fool. There is wisdom in the worldling, but it is as life in one that hath the falling sickness, or sense in a mad man, far from the life and sense of sound men.

They turn from the holy Commandment given unto them.] The second estate is described by the clearness of the Direction, and by the soulenesse of their recidivation. The Dire • tion is set forth by three just Prerogatives; Mandatum, Sanctum, Traditum: First, it is a Commandment; they have no exemption from it: Secondly, it is Holy; they can find no fault with it: Thirdly, it is Delivered unto them; they cannot plead ignorance of it.

The Commandment.] Some have thought, all the duty of a Christian to be [unspec 1] contained in the Decalogue, and that there are but ten Commandments. As if the Gospel were but a thing upon the By; Consilium, patius quàm Praceptum: a remedy, proposed to us, not imposed on us. But does not Christ call Lev • , a N •• Commandment? You will say; This, and divers other, had their institution in Nature, their re-ordination in the Law▪ only they were lost, in the corruption of manners. So that now, Non nova, sed •• vata, they are now, not in themselves, but to us. Nor was Christ's, Ego autem dic • , a contradiction of the Law, but a clear explanation. Non vellicavit, sed vindicavit Legem: 〈◊〉 s • p • s • it, as a Garment no more to be worn; sed exposuit, as a Light, that was •••• ded by their false Glosses. This is true; But is there no more in the New Testament, but that which expoundeth the Old? Why is it called Nova L •• e, a new Law: Can there be a Law, without Commandments? Most plainly; This is God's Commandment, that we should bel • eve in the Name of his Son Jesus Christ. Indeed this does not bind those Pagans, that know 〈◊〉 Christ; for this Commandment is not delivered unto them: but every soul within the Pale of the Church. The Spirit of God shall convince the world of sin, because they believe not on Christ. Now there can be no sin, in not doing that which is not commanded to be done. Vengeance shall be ta •• n on them that 〈◊〉 not God, and obey not the Gospel of Christ. The Gospel therefore is a Law, which they shall perish, that obey not.

Indeed it is jug •• facile, and 〈◊〉 leve, an easy yoke, a light burden: His Commandments are not grievous, saith the Apostle. I know, that of ourselves it is as possible to keep the whole Law, as to believe. But Lex imperat, fides impetra • : the Gospel does not only j • bore qu • d placet, but dare quod jubet. A King, when he commands a Castle to be built, may allow the materials: but he cannot give arms, or veins, or brains; neither strength, nor will, nor skill. But God, together with his Precept, gives the power of performance. Believe the grace of the Gospel, the Gospel shall give thee grace to believe. Now the obedience to this Commandment, is Faith; as the obedience to the former, was Love. This is the fulfilling of the Law; that other, the fulfilling of the Gospel: Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace. But, They have not obeyed the Gospel: for, Lord, who hath believed our report? The obedience to the Gospel, is called the believing our report. There are two things required to Faith: first, the determination of that which is to be believed: secondly, the inclination and persuasion of the heart, to believe it. Preaching determines this Commandment; but it is God that persuades, by Preaching. God can do this, without Preaching; but Preaching cannot do it, without God. Our voice can say, Repent: but repentance is the gift of Heaven. Paul preaches to Lydia's ear, but God only hath the Key of her heart. Rebecca cook'd the Venison, but Isaac gave the Blessing. Paul may plant, and Apollos may water; but without Christ, nothing shall prosper. Faith cannot well be, without Preaching going before it; but Preaching may be, without Faith following after it. But if the hearer do not obey this Commandment, yet the Preacher shall not lose his Fee. The Advocate is rewarded, how-ever the Cause goes. Though we preach, and you repent not, yet we shall never repent of our pains: if we may not be a sweet savor to you, yet we are a sweet savor to God, in you. And well may we be content to lose our labor, when God loseth the Seed, whose the Ground is. Give we then our hearts to Christ, like the two Tables, to write his whole Law upon them. Upon the first Tablet let him write Faith; upon the second, Love: so shall we have both Legem in cord, and cor in Lege, and give obedience to the Commandment of God, which is

Holy.] The Father is holy: Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. The Son is holy: Ye denied the holy One. The blessed Spirit is holy; therefore called the Holy Ghost. Thus we treble the word, in our praises of God; Holy Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabbath. Yea, God is Holiness it self: therefore from him can come no Commandment, but that which is most holy. Holy, for the Author, the holy God: Holy, for the Matter, a holy Truth: Holy, for the effect, it makes us holy creatures: Holy, for the end; it unites us to the most Holy, both in present grace, and future glory. A good air may make a man healthier, meat and digestion may make him strong and lusty, great achievements may make him famous and worthy, the Prince may make him noble and mighty, industry and thrift may make him rich and wealthy, company may make him pleasant and merry: nothing in the world, but the grace of the Gospel, can make him holy; and nothing but that holiness, can make him truly happy.

The Law is indeed Holy, and the Commandment holy, and just, and good: but the holiness of it did not comfort us, because it could not make us holy: N •• debilitate suâ, sed incapacitate nostr • . The Law speaks stones: it is impossible to make Bread of stones. It came in Lightening and Thunder: Thunder and Lightning are no medicines to cure a broken heart. The Gospel is not only holy, but comforts us in the remedy of our unholiness. To this purpose was it given us before the Law: for before Israel received the Law from Mount Sinai, they had both Manna and the Water from the Rock; which Paul plainly says, was Christ in the Gospel. The Sacraments of Grace were before the Legal Covenant; so did the goodness of God prevent our obedience: therefore should we keep the Law, because we have a Savior. O the mercy of our God, which before we see what we are bound to do, shows us our remedy, if we do it not. We all fail in our duty; Christ supplies all, and makes us holy.

Thus is this Doctrine holy, not only Subjective, in it self; but Effective, to us: as when we call meats wholesome, we mean not so much in themselves, as of the actions they transmit to us. So they be not only Mandata sana, but in reference to us, Sanantia. This is that which turns all those Legal terrors into comfortable effects: for God is gracious and holy, both in the Oil of his promises, and Wine of his menaces; and through both, he makes us holy. Therefore Paul calls it sound Doctrine; making us of a sound constitution, if we follow that Dyet. For the Word of God is a Dyet, to keep us in health: if we sin, and be sick, we must confess that we have not kept the Dyet. This attribute, Holy, doth illustrate in the Gospel two excellencies:

1. The perfection of it: for if the Law were perfect, that doth condemn us; how perfect is the Gospel, which doth save us? As many as walk after this Rule, peace be on them and mercy. The professor of any Art, or Quality, must have a certain Rule, or Principle, whereby to order it: and that must be a true Rule, or else he is subject to error and obliquity. Here is a Rule, and a perfect Rule; a Commandment, therefore a Rule; a Holy commandment, therefore a perfect Rule. A Commandment, that we might not walk without a Rule: a Holy one, that we might not walk by a false Rule. He that hath no Rule, goes whither he knows not: he that hath a false Rule, goes whither he should not. To preclude the pretence of Ignorance, here is a Rule, a Commandment. To prevent the danger of error, here is a perfect Rule, a Holy commandment. Bellarmine says, there be two things requirable in a perfect Rule; Certainetie, and Evidence: if it be not certain, it is no Rule: if not evident, no Rule to us. Traditions betray their own credit in both these regards: but this holy Commandment is no less conspicuous, than infallible. This was Christ's Sword against all the powers of darkness, Scriptum est. Fabulous Legends are a wooden Dagger, and Traditions a rusty Scabbard: but this is, in truth and manifestation, a perfect Rule. A holy Commandment, the true Canon: other Writings may have Canonical verity, this only hath Canonical authority.

This is the Judge of all differences and doubts. As an earthly father, fearing that his children will fall out after his decease, and wrangle for Legacies, or about the division of his goods; sets down his Will in writing, under his hand, not without witnesses. If there arise any debate among the brethren, presently they have recourse to the Will, and that ends the Controversy. If there fall out any dissention about our Fathers Inheritance, whither should we run, but to our Fathers Will? To the Law, to the Testimony. But as we have some evil expounders of the Law, that interpret the Will against the Testators meaning; and so make it their own Will, rather than his: not that there be Knots in good men's Testaments; no, the Knots be in the Lawyers brains. So by those Popish spirits of contradiction, the Will of Christ, this holy Commandment, that should decide all questions, must come it self to be questioned. Blasphemous presumption; where God himself must be brought to the Barre, the Pope sitting as Judge, with a Parliament of Tridentine Fathers, and a Jury of Jesuits, to pass upon the Lord Jesus. How can he not take this dealing worse, than that he had under Pontius Pilate?

2. The Honor of it: Holiness is right nobility, without goodness there can be no true glory. Therefore is it called a Glorious Gospel. If the ministration of death were glorious, how much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory? The Law was a glorious fear, the Gospel is a glorious joy. Old 〈◊〉 calls it The glory of Israel. First, glorious for the Testimony; glorious Angels brought the news, and their song to it was Gloria Deo in excelsis, Glory to God on high. Secondly, glorious for the matter propounded, which is our Reconciliation to God. Honor forsakes the man, whom the King disfavours: we were in disgrace with God by our sinful nature: the Gospel restores us to honor, clothes us like Mordecai, with royal robes, our Savior's righteousness; gives us Princes for our attendants, the blessed Angels; and proclaims before heaven and earth, Thus shall it be done to the men whom the Almighty King will hon • ur: And such honor have all his Saints. Thirdly, glorious for the object, which is Christ, God and Man: that sits in the glory of his Father; even the brightness of his glory: and shall come in his glory to judge the world. Fourthly, glorious for the power; it vanquisheth all enemies, subdues the flesh, overcomes the world, foils and confounds the devil, even while it seems to be conquered, it gets the victory. When the Martyrs of it lie bleeding at the feet of persecution, who would not think the honor of it eclipsed? No, even then it is glorious; every drop of blood that comes from a Christian, breeding a new Christian; that which intended to kill us with infamy, crowns us with glory. Fifthly, glorious for the end: through glorious grace it brings to gracious glory: for the seed of Grace is the root of glory; as seed is in potentia of corn. I commend you to the Word of his grace, that builds you up to eternal glory.

It is holy, honorable, glorious; what confusion then belongs to that face which despiseth it? He that caused the Gospel to be brought with the blood of his servants, will require the blood of the contemners of it. It hath made many forsake their families, their goods, their bloods, and dearest lives; and can it not make us leave our bad and base courses? You will say, It is full of scorn and pain. But it is no Gospel of pain and scorn, except only by accident: it is the Gospel of glory. It teacheth us patience: and it is the nobility of virtue, to suffer: a man's patience is his honor; there is glory enough even in that, to swallow up the worlds shame.

Let us maintain this glory, not only with our lips, but in our lives. Then do we glorify it, then shall it glorify us; when it subdues our rebellious and vile affections. Let us beware of a relapse, for this crosseth Christ's Resurrection: let us not stoop down to the world, for this crosseth Christ's Ascension. Then do we honor it, when we honor them that bring it. Quam speciosi pedes, How beautiful be the feet of such men? Then do we honor them, when we give them due maintenance; when they that preach the Gospel, live of the Gospel. They that will not allow us to live of the Gospel for the welfare of our bodies, shall never live by the Gospel for the comfort of their souls. It should be the shame of Christians, to rob their Teachers. But when a Spaniard was so pitilesse to his Moore-slave, as to let him go extreme bare and naked in the dead of Winter, and was reprehended by his kinsman for his hard-heart; adding (besides his want of mercy) that it was a shame for him: answered, let him make what shift he can with the cold; and as for me, I shall shift well enough with the shame. So let us take care how otherwise we may live: and for the shame of defrauding us they will abide that. But they that dishonor the Gospel, shall have no honor of Him whose it is.

Delivered unto them. What was it only by tradition? for this Traditum ill • is a golden word with the Church of Rome, the very sound of it makes them crow like Cockes of the game, Victoria. But God did not leave his Church without a stronger Testimony, than that which passeth from mouth to mouth: though it be also true, Audivimus a Patribus, and Tradidimus Filiis. But I have written to them the great things of my Law: this was God's course. Shall we interpret this of an invisible manuscript; I will write my Law in their hearts; Indeed this is a blessed writing; and be all our hearts like Ezekiel's Rowle, thus written upon within and without. But the Lord did not so trust his sacred Truth only, that no visible characters of it should be upon record, to convert, or convince the world. But the same Spirit which did persuade Jeremiah to receive that God had commanded, moved also Baruch to write that Jeremiah had dictated. Therefore both for suggestion of the matter, and direction of the manner, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. The Word of God is called The Scripture: that great Testator left his will in writing; and left it with his wife, the Church, to teach her children; as to the Jews were committed the oracles of God.

God thought letters the chiefest means, both for preservation, and propagation of religion. Experience teacheth us that the words of the best Preachers are but fleeting sounds; moving for the present, but soon removing away, unless they be taken alive, as it were while they are upon the wing, in the snare of this profitable invention. So is the loss of the ear restored to the eye, and Truth secured in the memory. Aelian writes of the Egyptian frogs, that taking a kind of reed in their mouths, they save themselves from being devoured by the water-serpents. The weakest conceits taking hold of writing, cannot be consumed by the revolution of years, whose Hieroglyphic was a Serpent; a fit emblem! Thus the tyranny of time, which like Saturn, would devour his own children, is beguiled. Non ferrum poterit, nec edax abolere vetustas. This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created, shall praise the Lord. It is but a trick that Rome puts upon the Church, the needless overplus of their unwritten supplies: by which cozenage, themselves that are the parties, be conveyed into the room of Judges. But these written evidences (we are sure) be God's own deeds and specialties: and they are cursed and abominable, that shall offer to piece his word, to mend his workmanship, to mingle and sophisticate his precious gold of the Temple, with the base dross and unsanctified refuse of their own inventi • ns. Yet this hath been the silly shift of Roman brokery, to discredit the Scriptures, for the better vent of their own traditions. Yea, when they were opposed in the setting up of their unwritten fancies, they fell in the end to open railing at the Scriptures: calling it a mute, a brute, a dumb, or dead letter, a black Gospel, or a piece of inky Divinity. So did the luxuriant wits of Rome end in barrenness and beggary; when they had spent all their colors, and could find no more cavils, turning the edge of their malice from our cause, against God's ordinance: and at their lowest ebb, in the ruins of their strength, they bid battle to the Lord of Hosts, their strongest and mightiest adversary. God delivered his holy Commandment to the people; they sacrilegiously take that away, and deliver their own. Thus they deal with them, as the soldiers did with Christ: first blind them, then strike them, and last ask them, Quis est qui te percussit? Do but open their eyes, and show them this holy word, and they will soon perceive who hath so long abused them.

Well, Traditum est: there is no denial of the Deliverie of it. Our eyes see it written and published, our ears hear it preached: ô that we could prove it practiced. Many make it the argument of their discourse, as if they would be Critics in Divinity; but you see not a syllable of it in their lives. Plutarch laughed at those that would be counted wise as Plato, yet would be drunk with Alexander. The Church doth bring up divers, and nurse them with Indulgence, which prove like Water-fowls, hatched under a Hen: they remain with their Damme for a while; but according to their kind, they will to the Water. They learn this holy Commandment of the Church: but they leave both Church and Commandment, and all, for the World. A Hare, when she is hotly pursued and down-hunted, plies her to some beaten path; not for any love she hath to it, but that there, by the feet of the passengers she may lose her Sent, and deceive the Dogs. Many will be in the Church-way, the Road of Profession; not for any love they bear to devotion, but that the filthy Sent of their turpitudes might not be discerned. As this Law is given to us, so we must be given to it, that we may be saved.

They turn from the holy Commandment.] This is the foulness of their Backsliding; justly aggravated from the three excellencies of their Charge. First, they are commanded, and that by the Highest, no less than their Maker. Secondly, that command is Holy; to be honored, for the matter. Thirdly, it is not wrapped up in obscurity, but published to them in such a manner: yea, they receive it, and covenant with God to keep it, in their Baptism. Yet they turn: first, from a Commandment; which manifests their disobedience: secondly, from a Holy commandment; which argues their profaneness: thirdly, from this Delivered, and accepted; which shows their revolting, and rebelling wickedness.

1. They turn from the Commandment. Humidum male terminatur termino proprio, because it is by nature fluid: but been terminatur alieno, because it hath a matter in which to subsist. Our nature is moist, airy, waterish, apt to flow into the aspectable things of this world: if it be terminated only by our own wills, and have no other banks or boundaries, it will run out into infinite lusts. Therefore it must be hedged in by a more constant and perfect will, as the Sea is shore'd in with limits: and this is the Commandment of God: to transgress that term and fence, is disobedience. Corrupt nature and carnal reason will plead for more scope, as if the Commandment were not broad enough. (Contradicting that of the Psalm; I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy Commandment is exceeding broad. ) But it does not make the Teddar so long, as to fetch in all their own Commons into God's several; his Laws into so large a compass, as their desires. Therefore first they will not obey, and then study evasions why they should not: as Saul first took the bootie, and then thought on an excuse. The Gate is too narrow: What, not think a loose thought? not speak a false word, for an advantage? Who can keep himself within so strict confines? But if a man were imprisoned for some foul fact, condemned, and sure to die the next morrow; and his friends in mean time tell him a means of escape, There is a Window or Grate in the Jail, through which he may creep: would he not strip off his clothes, yea, be content to rase his skin, to save his life? We are by nature Satan's slaves, shut up in his prison, the bondage of sin: there is but one way to escape into the glorious liberty of God's children; this is a narrow Gate, a narrow Grate, our new obedience: Shall we not put off our lusts, our riches, our pleasures, our dear wills and desires, to save our souls?

2. They turn from the holy Commandment: this is their Prophanesse. Fanum à fando; the Temple was so called, because it was the speaking place, where God did speak to man, and man to God: They that contemn holy things, have no part in the holy place. The Church cannot hallow them, that dis-hallow the Church. Procul hin • , procul este profani. I know there be some that put on holiness as a loose garment, to cover their pollutions; and seem to pray devoutly in those Temples, which they have spoiled by their sacrilege: and these do more hurt, than they that profess no holiness at all. It was said, There were many oppressors in Rome, but they were all drunk, except C • s •• , and he was a sober one. Licentious Libertines, the Idolaters of B • th •• , and Votaries of Venus, are all propha •• ts of the holy Gospel; but they be drunken ones. But demure hypocrites, black Saints, that worship God a • their Pe • e • , and Mammon in their Closers, these be the secret underminers of the Gospel, though they be sober ones. For howsoever they call for Sermons with their voices, they destroy the livelihood of Preachers, by their deeds; and root up the holy ground, while they call for holy fruits.

Let them talk what they will, they love the Lawyer better than the Preacher: for they give their money to the Lawyer, that he may defend them from paying their dues to the Preacher. No charity to the poor, no equity to the Church, no love of neighbourhood is in them. For the first Table: they will be no Idolaters, no swearers, no Sabbath-contemners, no friends of Papists; and all this is well: you would think these men very holy. But come to the second Table: try them with obedience to Magistrates, with all those holy duties to their brethren; here they bewray themselves. Sure if they had been in Moses his time, they would never have grudged at the mis-carriage of the second Table: but were well content it should be broke then, for they have broke it ever since. Thus, as if they could part the Commandment, and Holy; they would fain be holy, without the Commandment. But all their holy shows of observing the former Table, when they perpetually violate the second, in their pride, and malice, and covetousness, are but green herbs in the window, to hide the dust and sluttish cobwebs. As if he that forbad us to swear, did not also forbid us to lie: as if he that commanded us to sacrifice, did not also charge us to prefer mercy. Go thou fool, that thinkest holiness to consist in hearing Sermons, and not in a conscionable obedience of the Text. Two walking together, found a young Tree laden with fruit: both did gather, and satisfy themselves for the present. One of them took all the remaining fruit, and carried it with him: the other seeing him gone with the fruit, took up the Tree it self, and planted it in his own ground; where it prospered, and bore plentifully every year. The first had more fruit for the present; but the other sped best, for he had fruit when the other had none. At Sermons, some have large memories, and can gather many observations; which they keep a while, to rehearse, not to practice. Another hath a weaker capacity, but he gets the Tree it self, the root and substance of the Text, plants it in his heart, feeds on the fruits of comfort; and his soul is nourished to eternal life.

3. This is a Commandment delivered unto them; which they have received, yea covenanted and sworn to keep: yet as if they had only taken it upon liking, they turn from it: this is their Apostasy. It was not delivered with such terror as the Law, but with sweet mildness. Then, the very hill where God appeared, might not be touched of the purest Israelite: Here, the very hem of his garment was touched by the woman that had the flux of blood; yea, his very face was touched with the lips of Judas. There the very earth was prohibited them where he descended: Here, his very body and blood is proffered to our touch and taste. So gracious was God in this delivery of the Gospel: how unthankful are we, if we do not acknowledge this mercy to us, above his ancient people! They were his own, yet must stand off, like strangers: we were strangers, and he hath made us his own. It is our sin and shame, if in these • ants of inti • enesse, we be no better acqu ••• ed with God, than they which in their greatest familiarity were commanded 〈◊〉 . Yet we have counted this favor a strange thing; not only through simple ignorance, but want of reverence and respectfulnesse. A man may be strange, either when he is not perceived, or •••• ived. Not understood▪ that God calls a str •• ge Nation, whose language th •• know not. Barbarus hôc 〈◊〉 , quia non intellig • r. Not accepted: They 〈…〉 in my house, co • nt f •• a stranger. This holy Commandment may be said ••• ge, when it is unknown; and so the bea • ers are fools privative • o • when it is • eglected, and not cared for▪ and so they proceed higher, and are fools p ••• tive. They turn from it: ••• st, because there is a negative indispos •• ion in t • e • to receive it; through ignorance, wa •• ing faith; or through 〈◊〉 wanting knowledge; as the Septuagint render that, Esa. 11. If you will not believe, you shall not understand: which is a sound position, though I dare not call it a sound translation. Secondly, because there is a positive disposition of resistance against it, in their own wisdom: for the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God. The more a man adheres to the judgment of sense, reason, and experience; the further off he is (without special grace) from the Kingdom of Heaven. Nicodemus was a great Doctor in Israel, yet he wonders at the Regeneration: the Doctrine of the Gospel begets in such men a question, How can these things be? What will this babbler say? Yet these were not the vulgar, but Philosophers: of no vile City, but of Athens; the Greece of that Greece, which counted all the world, but themselves, Barbarians.

Hence ariseth that contempt, both of the Gospel, and of them that bring it. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace? The feet: not because they wore Slippers embroidered with Gold and Pearl; as that Scripture is abused, to the consecrating and kissing of the Popes toe. But because the feet are the instruments of going: as we familiarly say of poor men, They get their living by their fingers ends; because they are the instruments of working. This Commandment is holy: holiness and beauty go together; as the Psalmist speaks, The beauty of holiness, which makes the holiness of beauty. Like Youth, which we call the pride and flower of Life; wherein is that mixture of White and Red, which is called Beauty. Like the Spring, when the fields begin to be adorned with buds, blossoms, grass, and flowers, in which all creatures rejoice. The Gospel turns the squalid Winter of barren sins, into the flourishing Spring of heavenly graces. Yea, and like Autumn too, for the ripeness of fruits: unripe fruit is dangerous; ripe, is both well-coloured, and well-tasted; wholesome. The beauty of the Saints doth not decay, but increase, with their years. We may more truly say of souls, than Euripides could of bodies, that retained beauty in their age; Not only the Spring is pleasant, but even the Autumn. Yea, this Tree yields fruit every month; ever seasonable. Many of our daintiest meats are not, but the Gospel is always in season. In the Winter of trouble, in the Summer of ease, in the Spring of youth, and Fall of age; never out of season. The glory of it perhaps is not illustrious to carnal eyes: alas, Id minus conspicuum, quod magis praclarum; excellentissima, occultissima. We see the leaves, the flowers, and fruits of a Tree; but the precious sap is hidden. In man, the body only is visible, not the soul; we see the accidents of things, not the form and substance. Men may love others, for sensible respects; God loves his children, for their secret and invisible graces. Omnis decor ab intus, The Kings daughter is all glorious within. The glory of this Evangelical Law is only seen of spiritual eyes; and of them, with desire and ravishment. These love it, and all the servants God employs in it. Some love their Ministers, because they keep good hospitality, which is commendable: some, because they gain by them in their Altarages, which is carnal: some for loose respects, which is sensual: some, because they seldom preach, which is abominable: some, because they would be held religious, which is hypocritical: but to love them for their works sake, this is conscionable: and those men shall find peace to their hearts, and salvation to their souls, which is comfortable.

STill doth the Apostle proceed in a further conviction of Apostasy: so odious is it to revolt from that Truth, to which men have bound themselves by holy Covenant. This is a Returning indeed: first, they were all turned from God and their creative goodness in Adam: then, their Maker called them by his grace in Christ, and they turned again to him: now lastly, from this grace, they are returned to the state of sin; a Returning in the worst sense: God send them yet another Turn, That they may return from this wretched condition, to repentance. Young Plants bend their bodies with the wind, and grow that way which those violent blasts incline them: a Northern wind inclines them to the South, a Southerne wind bends them Northward: but when they are become sturdy Trees, they grow according to their former position: a new wind may stir their boughs, and leaves, it cannot alter their bulks and bodies, unless it be such an one as came to Elias, that re • ds up their very roots. So desperate is it to be rooted in sin, and to grow on stubbornly warped to disobedience. Let a Mountain be covered with Snow all Winter-long 〈◊〉 when the Sun in the Spring doth cast his beams upon it, the Snow melts; and of the water distilling from the Snow, arise great floods. The Ice and Snow which a cold heart contracts in the Winter of stupefying sin, are dissolved by the bright rays which the Eye of Heaven, the Sun of Righteousness reflects upon it; and fall into penitent tears. But the heart that was frozen in the Winter, and begins to thaw in the Spring; if by a new unseasonable Cold it gathers a second hardness, and becomes congealed in Summer, like Snow or Ice in a Vault or deep Pit, which antiperistically waxeth cold, for the neighbouring heat: here is no means left for repentance▪ for the very moisture that should make tears, is turned into obduratenesse. It must be a miraculous and extraordinary heat of grace, that thawes such an heart.

A Sheep is untoward enough to drive in the way; but when it is once strayed out of the way, and re-entangled, this requires more pains in the Shepherd, to reduce it: yea, so it troubles him, that sometimes in anger he lets it even alone. Sinners may so weary the invincible patience of God, that he will say of them, as he did of Ephraim: Ephraim is joined to Idols, let him alone. But when they that were Sheep, become Beasts of a worse nature, and degenerate into Dogs and Hogs; this more incenseth him. When that great Shepherd of Israel comes to look for the Sheep he made, and finds them transformed into Curres and Swine; how can he own them? Not, but that he made such creatures; but he never made them such creatures. The Spirit of God so detests gross turpitudes, that he sticks not to shadow them out by the most homely comparisons. He does not only call them the worst of men, but Beasts; and the worst kind of Beasts, Hogs and Dogs: and these in their worst actions, their natural, unnatural filthiness; the Dog licking up his own vomit, the Hog wallowing in the dunghill: and that in the worst manner and season of these actions; Post potionem canis, post lotionem porcus: the one, after his digestion; the other, after her washing. The Dog resumes that with greediness, which he disgorged with sickness: the Sow is but lately made clean, and presently returns to the mire. Nor is this strange and rare, though it be loathsome; but familiar and customary with them, and noted by a Proverb.

The general parts appear to be two; a Conclusion, and a Comparison. In the Conclusion are two particulars: first, the verity of the Proverb; A true Proverb: secondly, the verification of it, in them; It is happened unto them according. In the Comparison there be two creatures, two actions, two objects. The creatures are both Beasts, their actions or motions are both returnings, their objects are both filthy; vomit, and mire.

To begin with the verity of the Proverb. The first and second King of Peace taught much by Parables and Proverbs. Parables are dark speeches, till they be expounded: like stars, the thickest and darkest part of their Orbes, till they be enlightened. Proverbs are plain and pithy expressions of evident truths. Solomon wrote three thousand Proverbs; the choice Rules of his divine Arts, Ethickes, Politickes, Oeconomickes; for the government of Behaviour, Common-wealth, Family. No doubt, he had also his Physickes and Metaphysickes, and Herbals: for of mere man, since Adam, there never was so great an Herbalist; who wrote, from the Cedars of Lebanon, to the moss on the wall: neither did the vegetables, nor irrational creatures, escape his discourse. Only it pleased the wisdom of God to bereave mankind of his profound Commentaries of Nature; but to reserve his Divine Morals, to out-live the world: as knowing, that those would but feed men's curiosity; these would both direct his life, and judge it. The Lord hath done this, in expectation of our good, and his own glory: which if we answer, the benefit is ours. He was the royallest Philosopher, the wisest King; and hath given us those Precepts, which the Spirit of God gave him. From him is this Proverb derived; who so well understood the n •• ure of these Beasts, that he could draw experimental observations from them, and make them useful to the best reason of man. Good Proverbs are commended to us for five special excellencies, wherein they transcend other discour •• :

1. For their Antiquity. The sayings of our Fathers and Ancestors have a reverend estimation among us: nor do we wrap them up in the Bundle of our ordinary Lessons, but preserve them as dear Relics of their happy memories. As Motto's in the Heraldrie of Arms descend to their Heirs, together with their Honors, and brook not alteration. This was the saying of my Father, or Grandfather: how awful an impression doth it make in the heart of the posterity? Antiquiora, nobiliora. An Egyptian Priest thus twitted Solon: You Grecians are ever children; you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of knowledge. Certainly, there be many precious Jewels locked up in the Casket of antiquity. It hath been said, that Age appeareth best in four things; old Wood best to burn, old Wine best to drink, old Friends best to trust, and old Authors best to read: and of those old Authors (let me add the piece of a fifth) old Proverbs best to be observed. We call them Old-said Sawes; matters seen by the wisdom of the Ancients.

2. For their brevity: They are concise and compendious, and so more portable for the memory. Tedious discourses induce a lassitude on the memorative faculty, and fall like violent showers upon a steep hill, which as suddenly fall off: whereas fine dews abide, and cause fertility. Many a one says, when he hears a pithy Apothegme, or material Proverb; I shall remember this as long as I live. Not that I would have discourses of the Lacedaemonian Last, who used to speak all Laconicâ brevitate; which being in Empire, they might do by authority. But Epaminondas answered them home: when after a defeat, they made an invective speech against him of some length; he stood up and said no more, But I am glad we have taught you to speak long. Proverbs are for ornament, not for the whole stuff: Pearls grace a garment; but it were a strange garment made of nothing but Pearls. We will make thee Borders of Gold, with Studdes of Silver: Studdes and Borders; the Vesture it self is made of another piece. The words of the wise are as Nayles: Nayles finish the Building; other materials went before. Otherwise we may say of a Speech, as Nero did of his Master Seneca's style; It is like Mortar of Sand, without Lime; or a Body made all of bones, without nerves, sinews, ligaments, and a skin; most ugly to behold. But when Proverbs are used as Ornaments, Summes, and Corollaries, brief and happy conclusions; they both leave a deeper impression in the heart, and take a stronger hold of the head.

3. For their Significancie; comprehending much matter in few words. They are called Mucrones verborum, pointed speeches: yet not Riddles and Paradoxes, hard to be understood: but no less familiar, than profound: as intelligible, as succinct. If they were enigmaticall, their shortness could not make amends for their darkness: they would be more troublesome for the capacity, than esie for the memory. But these be plain and brief expressions of our meanings. Otherwise, as Arras that is spread abroad, shows us fair Images and Portraitures: but being contracted and wrapped up together, it is like Packes. All Countries have Proverbs familiar to themselves; whose uses are sometimes confined to their own Orbes. Yea, there be some, which we wish determined with their own coasts, or rather extermined out of all coasts; profane, senseless, superstitious Proverbs. Live an honest man, and die a Beggar: profane! for to live otherwise, is the way to die an infamous Caitiffe. Every man for himself, and God for us all: senseless! it overthrows all charity and common society on earth. Indeed, if we be not one for another, God will be against us all. The nearer the Church, the further from God: Atheistical! it would cut the throat of all holy Profession. But we cannot come into a Perfumers shoppe, and not carry away some of the sweetness. Ignorance is the mother of devotion: a Proverb digged out of the dark Cavernes of Hell; intended to stupefy the Conscience, by putting out the Eye of Knowledge. A young Saint, an old Devil: a devilish Proverb! it would rob God of the prime of our youth, under color lest we should not yield him our rotten age: it forbids us to be good at first, for fear of not being good at last. But the Spirit of Wisdom hath other manner of Proverbs: Teach a child in his youth, &c. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Wherewithall shall a young man cleanse his way? These be the Proverbs of grace, the other are the a • ages of Hell.

4. For experience: the Sages have tried that doctrine themselves, which they commend to others. I gave my heart to know wisdom: upon all Solomon's rules and medicines of the soul, he did set a Probatum est. Proverbs are the extracts of experience, wrought out by practice: Credimus expertis. They paid for their experience, we have them without expense; as if we did feed at another's cost. One soweth, and another reapeth. Our progenitors purchased lands with their moneys, and left them to us for inheritances: and they purchased rules by dear experience, and left them to us for holy legacies. Solomon receives from David, Consilium simul & coronam: Keep the charge of the Lord thy God that thou mayest prosper. Himself had found the sweetness of a good conscience, and now he commends it to his Successor. If Solomon were wise, David was good: and if old Solomon had well remembered the counsel of old David, he had not so foul-lie miscarried. We are miserably unthankful, if we scorn to be wise good cheap. Thou thinkest to gain: by lying; but remember the proverb; A poor man is better than a liar. Or to grow rich with falsehood; but remember the Proverb; The bread of deceit is sweet, but if fills the mouth with gravel. Or to insinuate by flattery; but this shall be a curse unto thee. Or to thrive by covetousness; but the Proverb says no to it, This shall tend unto poverty. There is a Proverb for the lazy, and here is a proverb for the filthy; The Dog turneth to his ••• ite again. For the direction of our manners, I would we were better acquainted with these holy Proverbs: so vice could not assault us, but we were able proverbially to repel it; as Christ flung a Scriptum est in the face of the Tempter.

5. Lastly, for their Truth: false proverbs are Satan's Logic; which he hopes, will be received for their wit, though they savor not of honesty or verity. It is no shame to steal, but to bring it home again: false! for it is better to abide shame in this world, than be condemned to everlasting shame and sorrow in the world to come. Wealth is the best wisdom; false! for God calls the rich man a Fool. He that knows not to dissemble, knows not to live: false! a coozening proverb that teacheth cozenage: for God takes none up into his Mountain, but such in whose lips is found no guile. Do as the most do, and the fewest will find fault: but God chargeth us not to follow a multitude in evil; and the broad way hath most passengers, yet it leads to hell. Serve the times; wicked counsel! we are made to serve God. It is safe being of the Kings Religion: impiously false! Jeroboam by this made Israel to sin. There can be no safety without faith, there is no faith without a promise, and no promise is made 〈◊〉 disobedience. If thou offend because thou art commanded, thou shalt go to hell because thou hast offended.

There is a number of these false proverbs: but that which is dictated by the Holy Ghost, hath both Divine verity and authority: we need not rack our faith to believe it, nor put ourselves to the cost and pain to try it. When pride comes, shame comes: Idleness shall bring poverty: envy shall wast the marrow of the bones: drunkenness shall sting like a Serpent: these be true proverbs: let them instruct us, lest they be fulfilled upon us.

To conclude this point: Proverbs are not only ornaments, but especial arguments of a discourse: whereof wisdom is neither so niggardly as that any guest should complain, nor yet so prodigal as to cloy their stomachs. Dainty dishes are wont to be sparingly served out: homely ones supply in their bigness what they want in their worth. Brevity, where it is neither obscure nor defective, is very pleasing even to the quaintest ears. As some affect to have great personages drawn in little Tablets, or as we see the countries of the world, worlds of countries, described in the compass of small mappes: or Iliades in a nut-shell: so most men desire much good counsel in a narrow room. Frustrà s • t per plura, quod fieri potest per panciora. The powers of good advice being thus united, are the stronger; and brevity makes counsel more portable for memory, and readier for use. Let us observe the Proverbs of God, lest God make us a proverb to the world: Job became poor to a proverb, yet he was restored. But the Lord threatens Israel, that for their disobedience and revolting, he would make them a proverb and a by-word to the nations. Happy are we, if proverbs, parables, or any way of Doctrine can bring us to holiness and salvation.

It is happened unto them:] This is the verification of the proverb: there hath been, and will be found still some such unclean beasts to justify it. But woe unto them the whiles: The Son of man goeth as it was determined, but w • e unto that man by whom he is betrayed. Offences will come, but woe to him through whom they come. Hogs and Dogs will return to their old filthiness; but woe unto those men that shall degenerate into such brutish qualities. It becomes them worse than those beasts, and a far worse end shall come unto them than unto beasts. The beasts perish that they may vanish; but these perish to perish. There is not an example of God's fearful judgment upon apostasy and unrepented wickedness in all his holy Book, but the like or worse shall betide them. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. There is not a curse on all mount Ebal, nor a plague threatened in any of those sacred leaves, whereof they may not likewise perish. There is no judgment on earth, no torment in hell, from which they can plead a privilege. If these things be dreadful to hear, how horrible will they be to feel? They begin with mirth, and proceed in jollity, and never think of sorrow: but their end shall be in such desperate sorrow, that they shall never think of comfort. Their weeping shall much exceed their laughing: all their joys are momentary, but there shall be no end of their woes; tears shall not fail continually to gush from their eyes, nor shall they ever be wiped off. If they were put to shed but one tear for every year they remain in that bottomless dungeon; yet those tears would swell to a greater number and measure than there be drops of water in the Ocean. Though we cannot number the drops of water in the sea, yet God can tell precisely how many they be to a drop. But the tears and sorrows in hell are past all numeration, for they are infinite. And who would buy a spurt of sensual pleasures with the sense of everlasting torments? Let them wallow in their sins like beasts; but let us mourn for our sins like Turtles, and chatter like Cranes; not • yring our souls after they are washed with tears. And then the streams of Jordan shall be divided before us, and we shall pass with comfort and thanksgiving to our Canaan of blessedness. They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy.

The Dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the Son that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.] First, I am to speak of the two creatures; and of them Conjunction and Division. Together considered, we have two observations:

1. Sin doth liken men to beasts, to sordid beasts, and that in their basest filthiness. If men do sensual acts, let them not think scorn to be called beasts; for beasts would scorn such sensual deeds if they were turned to men. Beasts cannot sin, for they had no Law; and where is no commandment, there can be no transgression. Man hath a Law, reason to obey that Law, knowledge of grace to guide his reason; yet he often does things whereof the very beasts would be ashamed: and if they had the privilege of Balaam's Ass, they would open their mouths to reprove their impotent governors. The Ox knows no owner but man, and him he doth acknowledge: had he the like knowledge with us of his Maker, he would worship him better than doth his Master. We find the beasts praised for thankfulness and obedience; we read them not charged with wickedness: they groan under our corruptions, ours causally, their own only passively. Quid meruistis oves? Man that is in honor, and understandeth not, is like unto the beasts that perish: he is like them in death, not like them after death. For they at once cease to be miserable, and to be at all: which is a far better condition, than to end a short beginning of pleasure, and to begin an endless end of sorrow. And if those creatures that survive at the final and universal dissolution of the world, be restored to that primordiall state and dignity which they had in the Creation; as some have probably conjectured: then how happy shall it be with them, in comparison of damned reprobates? They have a renewed and beautified Earth, whereas the other are jayled up in the dark and stinking Dungeon of Hell. How must it vex the wicked, to think, that a Stone or Tree shall be preferred before them? How will they vainly wish to change conditions with those creatures, which in the pride of their life they have contemned and abused? It is high time for us to convert and amend our lives, or we are in worse case than the very Dog that lies under our Tables.

The rich Churl denied Lazarus crumbs, the Dogs licked his sores: when those Dogs are extinct and gone, their Master is begging a drop of water, to ease his torments. Who sees this, and would not refuse to be that rich man; yea, not rather choose (of the twain) to be that rich man's Dog? Let us not be like the Apostate Jews, that offer up their beasts to God in the way of sacrifice, and themselves to Satan in the way of service. Sure those beasts were in better case than their masters, and had a fairer honor. But now, how odious are those sins, which can thus transform men into beasts? The Poets labored of their fabulous Metamorphoses, and monstrous mutations, turning men into brutish substances. We will not so far discredit their judgments, as to think, that those mis-shapen Dreams had no further scope: their Moral intended to show, how far vice is able to bestialize men. When Circes had turned Ulysses his followers into beasts, and Ulysses had again obtained of her, that they might come back to men, if they would; custom had so far corrupted nature, that they refused to return to that prerogative and excellency of kind by choice, from which they were estranged by necessity. They preferred the Simples of the field before the Drugges of the Apothecary. Yea, they alleged reasons against such a regression: as that now they were not distracted with cares, but content with present supplies: they know their friends from their foes, by nature: they could skill their own diet, their own Physic, and neither trouble Cook, nor trust Physician. Therefore they utterly renounced the benefit of Circes grant, and desired Ulysses that he would not press them with the re-accepting of reason. How many are called by the Word of Grace from their brutish sensuality, and deny it? What, make them men? No, they thank you as much as if you did, they had rather be beasts still. We would not have our Horse turned into a Toad, because we think that a worse creature; nor our Dog into a Serpent: but our bodies be better than our beasts, our souls than our bodies; and yet filthy sin is able to turn them into Leprosies, into carcasses. Corrupt nature sits upon the soul, like a Tubbe whelmed on a grasseplot: whereby not only the grass or remnants of original goodness wither away; but many an ugly Toad, Evet, Sow-worm, and such venomous vermin continually breed. Insomuch that the dampish and sour vapors of a new opened vault are not more offensive to us, than such polluted souls be to God. And his grace only can overturn the Tubbe, make the vermin fly from us, or die in us, that fresh flowers may spring up in the plot.

2. God made us little inferior to Angels, and we make ourselves little superior to beasts. Who would have thought that had seen Adam sitting like an universal monarch, and summoning all creatures before him, to receive from him their names, as they did from God their natures; that any son of Adam should become baser than all those creatures? That man, taming and subduing the Dog and Swine to his use and service, should through his own folly become worse than they? Was this our eagerness to perke above our creative condition? Ye shall be as God's: Thou liest Satan, they shall rather be as beasts. The mark whereat our first parents roved, was equality with God: the bow wherewith they shot, was vain-glory: the shafts, aspiring thoughts, fethered with misbeleefe, and drawn out of the quiver of inconstancy: the wind that carried them beyond the mark, was misprizing of God: Satan himself gave the aim: the woman undertook to make the wager: Adam was persuaded to shoot the match: then came disobedience and struck up the game. Thus they lost the stake, eternal life: yea more, for their arrow rebounded from the mark (which was too impenetrable) and recoiled upon themselves with shame, remorse, horror, and banishment from bliss. Thus were they wounded with their own arrows shot upward; and could not be cured till Christ was wounded for them; and that by the arrows of God's wrath, when he hung on the cross as a mark in the But. Saint Aug. says that Eve took up sin from Satan, by loan, at first upon her own bare word: Adam by his unadvised consent subscribed to the Bond: Vsura crevit posteritati, the burden of the interest lies upon their posterity: they that inherit their parents goods, must pay their parents debts. Adam sinned, but he fell not alone: the fault was his, the fine is ours: and so we have the success of that unhappy match, wherein man would shoot with his Maker.

What gained Pan by comparing with Apollo? or Arachne with Minerva? Silenus with Mercury? or Phaeton by menaging the teame of Phoebus, though he were his father? Or Icarus by mounting up with his waxen wings, though directed by Daedalus? or Farfalla, the poor fly, who for love of the light, would be sporting with the flame? or the Satyrs that presumed but to kiss the coals in token of humility, which were kindled by Prometheus? or the bird, that for more security would needs build her nest within the circle of the Sun? All which fictions were but resemblances of man's ambition, who contended to be like his Maker. Still doth mankind labor of this disease: and while they would be wiser than the Angels, they become more foolish than the beasts. Thus we rely upon our own crazy hopes, which the Prophet compares to the shelter of a naked hedge in a frosty night: or depend upon the title of a Tenant, which holds neither by soccage, nor Knights service; but by sufferance and courtesy at will: when as we might have a state from the Lord of Lord's, paying but the fine and rent, faith and obedience; not for three lives, or one and twenty years, but for ourselves and our heirs forever. Who craves favor of the Jailor, that may surely receive it at the hand of the Prince? Who would be at the trouble to dignity a deep pit, that hath ready prepared a clear fountain?

These be our two evils, (for mischiefs at least come by couples) to forsake the fountain of living waters, for waterless Cisterns, dry Pits: Pits indeed; and such, wherein we may sooner famish a Joseph, than take up a Jeremiah. Thus is man a Beast, by his knowledge: yea, I would that only Ignorance had thus transformed us, and not flagitious filthiness. Our brutishness consists in our wickedness: we were borne sinners, but we have made ourselves Dogs and Swine. O that this could work in us a just estimation of sin! How then would our souls abhor that, for which God doth abhor our souls! She that hath any tolerable opinion of her own fairness, seeks not to corrupt her face with foul aspersions: yea, she will rather help it with art, than spoil it with neglect. We are unreasonable souls, if we make no more account of the beauty of our conscience, than so to pollute it with sordid lusts, that the great Prince, our Suitor, must needs in scorn and detestation turn from us. It was a resolute answer of a Lover, when the Virgin whom he had long (unprevailingly) affected, had now prostituted her self to another; and after that yielding to him, but perceiving his coldness, challenged him of inconstancy; Idem ego, non eadem 〈◊〉 : I loved a Virgin, I never promised to marry a Strumpet. Decked bodies are for Kings Courts: and not sluttish, but fair, pure, holy souls, are for the Bride-chamber of Christ.

Thus of them together; now severally. First, the Dog hath many good qualities, and is divers ways useful and serviceable to man: either for our pleasure, in hunting other beasts; or profit, in defending our houses and goods: yet still he is a Dog. A wicked man loseth not his substance, or faculties, so that he ceaseth to be specifically a man: but he ceaseth to be a good man. There is such a corruption diffused through all those powers and faculties, that he is a wicked one. God's common gifts are not denied to the very reprobates: the Tyrians may be curious Embroiderers, Tertullus famous for eloquence, the children of this world wise in their generations; Achitophel may give shrewd counsel, and policy be found in a Machiavel. These natural endowments, improved by art, are truly the gifts of God; and such he gives even to them that be his enemies. Yea, divers moral virtues may appear, where saving grace is not. So we may find in them that magnanimity, which is magna potius quàm bona: that justice, which will give every man his own, but cares not to give God his own. Respect of their credit teaches them to pay their debts, while they think it no discredit to rob Christ. Divers civil men will not be drunk: they abjure intemperance for fear of sickness, not out of conscience. The foundation of all this virtue is weak; a mere self-respect, not in relation to God. The Dog loves his master, but it is because he feeds him: so sinners flatter their Patrons, but it is a collateral love; their main scope, is themselves. They refrain the doing of some evils, not because they would not, but because they dare not.

To render good for good, is human; evil for evil, is belluine; evil for good, is devilish. If they do not the last, which is the work of Devils; yet they allow the next, which is the mind of Beasts. And for the first; not to return evil, they think requital sufficient for any good received. The Fox got the Crane to pluck a bone out of his throat, wherewith he was almost choked; the Crane did it, and then required a reward: but the Fox replied, That he had sufficiently rewarded her, in that he did not bite off her head when he had it in his mouth. But now to render good for evil, which is Christian; this is a Lesson which they omit to learn, or learn to omit. Thus though Dogs fawn, and lick, and sent, and hunt, and give warning; yet still they are Dogs: unregenerate men may have excellent knowledge, and arts, and faculties; yet still they are sinners.

Our Apostle here compares them to Dogs, for one special act of filthiness: let me borrow by the way so much liberty, as to tell you, that in some other respects there is a likeness:

1. For barking; men that delight in snarling at others, are therefore called Cynics. Hypsiphiles Dogs will bark at the Moon: and bunglers will quest when there is no game. Dogs do not always bark prae feritate, for cursnesse; but sometimes prae consuetudine, for custom. And some men swear, detract, rail, because they know no other language. A dumb Dog is useless, but a biting cur is mischievous. Such a Dog was Shimei: how well was that cur worthy of stones, who both did cast stones, and speak stones against David and his army? The husbandmen (in the Apologue) were commanded to tie up all their Dogs, that their Lord's game might not be marred, by their disquieting of those wilder beasts. But in the mean time, those Farmers fruits were spoiled and destroyed; while the Hart of ambition, the Boar of voluptuousness, the Fox of imposture, the Wolf of oppression, and the little Coney of adulation, might range undisturbed. Some Satyrs and Cynickes are not unnecessary; for they reach Authority to apprehend those thieves whereat they are still barking. The Pasquin on Tiber tells Rome of her faults: Pope Adrian the sixth was angry at it, and threatened to have that bawling cur thrown into the river. But one wittily answered, that that was no good course: for then the Dog would turn frog; and whereas now he barked only by day, then he would never linne croaking both day and night. But those Dogs, whereof David complained, that are always grinning at the corners of the streets, snarling at all passengers, and vellicating all actions with their venom-mouthed murmurs; that no great man, no good man can escape their slanders; deserve like Shepherds curres, to have their teeth beaten out, to prevent their biting: yea, and their chops muzzled for fear, of opening. Beware of these Degs.

2. For flattering: the Dog is a fawning creature: but sycophants are worse Dogs; whose tongues do more hurt than their teeth; and make deeper festering wounds with their lickings, than with their bitings. These be called the Court-dogs, that wait upon great Persons. Flattery and Treachery are but two names of one vice, attired in two sundry suits of mischief. For flattery is but gilded treason; poison in an ennameld cup. It is an evil more tame, not less dangerous. It had better for many Princes not to have been, than to have been in their conceits more than men. For this unnatural tumour they may thank those meal-mouthed Dogs. Trechery spills the blood, flattery spills the virtues of the rich and noble, yea even of Kings. That takes them from others, this bereaves them of themselves. That, in spite of the actors, doth but change their crown, this steals it from them forever. How many have been so bewitched with the enchantments of their parasites; as to allow Temples, Statues, Altars, and Sacrifices, dedicated to the greatness of their glories? Now all their actions must be good, comely and with a grace. Nothing can come from them that is worthy of blame, unworthy of admiration. Their very blemishes are beauty, their errors witty, their paradoxes divine, their humors justice, their excesses heroical. Such is the houndish servilitie of base minds, that will persuade others of that, which themselves laugh to see belayed; But virtue ever scorns to borrow the false colors of adulation; and will break those glasses which shall present her a face not her own. If we were not all self-love, we would banish there as the most mischievous Curs.

3. There be more resemblances of these canine properties; which I will but touch, because they are out of the Center of the argument. Furst, There is Caninus appetitus, a greedy and insatiate covetousness, which devours a man and his heritage. Tantum in terris ingurgitant, quod non nisi apud inferos digerunt. What they swallow on earth, they digest in hell. These be greedy Dogs, that can never have enough. The overcharged Dog must needs vomit; and Though they have swallowed down riches, they shall vomit them up again, God shall fetch it out of their bellies. That is a ravenous Dog, which devours more than he can put over: but worldlings have such a greedy worm, that they labor of a Nunquam satis. Secondly, there is caninus somnus: the dissembling hypocrite sleeps dog-sleep. You will trust him with the fold, as confident that he will do no harm: turn but your back, and have at a Lamb: the sheep-keeper becomes a sheepbiter. Thirdly, there is Canina servilitas: hold up a crust, the Dog comes fawning: hold up a cudgel, he run away leering. Let God multiply his blessings on the wicked, that they may be rich with ease, and merry with riches; and so long he is their good Master. But if he comes with affliction, poverty, and trouble, to correct them for their faults; they are gone to seek a new master. Yea, some kind of Dogs, as they report of Spaniels, are the better for beating, and will love the hand that struck them. But ungodly men are the worse for all God's chastisements; and the anvil is the harder for all the blows.

There is also a base cruelty mong Dogs; they will take the strongest part against the weakest: that if two set upon a third, and wrong him, all the Curres in the Town will do the like. To tread down the poor, to persecute the smitten, gravatis addere gravamina, is a merciless Dog-trick. A fault wherewith the land is justly charged, and whereof I would it were discharged, when the weakest are put to the walls; as if there be a contusion in one of the members, all the ill humors in the body run thither to make it worse. Thus as if the I will of Dogs were broke loose, as if the bandogs of Satan and Antichrist were no more restrained, as if the most were borne under the Dog-star, we may call these (too truly) Dog-days; full of barking clamours, and biting furies; Ca • icula persecutionis, as Tertullian called it: and those Dogs that should be glad of the scrappes which fall from the servants board, now snatch away the bread of the children. They have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the Dogs of my flock: they deride, and lode him with contumelies, whom in his prosperity he would have scorned to make his Dog-keepers. But without shall be Dogs, they must lie without doors, and scarce be favored with kennels. Let us pray with David; Deliver my darling from the power of the Dog; that we neither suffer under his malice, nor partake of his bad qualities.

The Hog is not without some good properties: there is no creature not endued [unspec 2] with some goodness in the kind: though nature be corrupted, it is not abolished. He that made all things valde bona, exceeding good, kept them by his providence from being prorsus mala, altogether evil. First, Hogs will be kept in order by the Heardsman, and fall under a kind of discipline: to the conviction of those men, who will not be bounded by the lawful authority of their superiors. A King that hath a great multitude to govern, Tutior essee Pastor ursorum et Tigridum, might as safely be a keeper of Bears and Tigers. The Lion will kiss his keeper, the Elephant will be ruled and led about by little Dwarfe; s • ine will obey the whistle; but man is an indomable creature. Secondly, Swine are naturally apprehensive of wind and weather, by an engrafted knowledge: and run crying home before the storm, seeking shelter in their coats and flies. Sinnefull men do not foresee the judgments of God, but run on their ungracious courses, till they be overtaken with the tempest of vengeance. But my argument is their filthiness: and here (not to prevent the principal quality touched by the Apostle, their wallowing in the mire ) observe, first, that the hog is [unspec 1] a churlish creature, grudging any part of his meat to his fellows. And have we no such hoynish men, whose insatiate eye envies every morsel that enters into their neighbors mouth? Secondly, the Swine is ravenous, and devouring all within his reach: a fit emblem of worldly men, who because they have no [unspec 2] inheritance above, engross all below: nor is there any means to keep them quiet, till they see no more to covet. The still Sow eats up all the draff, but if you vex these hoggish men, they will leave there own food to take away yours.

[unspec 3] Swine are ever rooting in the ground, and destroying the very means of increase. If the covetous could have their wills, the whole Earth should not yield a handful of Corn, but that which grows on their own Lands, or lies moulding in their Garners. Their affections, the looks of their souls, are still groveling, and digging in the Earth, their proper Element; as if they would make a [unspec 4] way to the Antipodes, for the finding out of golden Mines. Fourthly, if the Hog be troubled, he sets up his bristles, and foames with anger. Such a savage impatience possesseth many hearts, that with fierce wrath they foam at their mouths, and strike with their tushes, and supply the defect of their words, with [unspec 5] wounds. Fifthly, the Hog cannot endure to be handled: offer but to touch him, he grunts and cries, because he thinks it can be with no good meaning towards him. The Sheep being taken with man's hand, is patient; because she knows that she shall but lose a little Wooll, and so be let go again: the Cow stands till the hand hath stroked her, knowing that Milk is to be taken from her, which was her burden: the Horse yields to the Bridle, and the Dog to the Couple, mistrusting no harm, but only the present use of their service. But the Hog is guilty of his own barrenness, that he hath neither Milk, nor Wooll, nor any other commodity acceptable to the Taker, but his life; and therefore suspects every touch for death. The covetous man, while he lives, is nec Deo gratus, nec homini utilis, and he knows it; being conscious of his many iniquities and injuries, but of no good quality, for which he should be desired. Therefore he trembles at every approach of death; because then there will be a dissipation of his hoards, a Jail-delivery of his imprisoned riches: the poor will rejoice, his executors fill their Purses, the world is glad of his riddance; only his body must be tumbled into the earth, and his soul hurried by fiends into torments. This is the miserable condition of these reasonable Hogs: they are ringed and yoked for the present; restrained by Divine Providence from doing all their intended mischiefs: any excellent Art or singular quality in them, is but like a Ring of Gold in the snout of a Swine. At last, when they are saginated and franked, their turn comes to bleed, and that by the knife of an unmerciful murderer.

Saint Jerome tells us, that the Hog hath three properties which no other living creature hath besides. First, he eats of more diversity of meats than any other. Kine feed on grass, not on flesh: Dogs feed on flesh, not on grass: but no food comes amiss to the Swine; he feeds on all. The ambitious is all for honor, the voluptuous for pleasure, the malicious for revenge, the proud for praise: the covetous is for all; all is fish that comes to his Net. Secondly, the more a Hog is adorned, still the more unhandsome: put a garland about the neck of a Sow, decke her with flowers, and the pride of May, hang her with jewels and ornaments; she appears so much more ugly. The more cost that God is at with worldlings, the less worship: the more they have to feed on, the leaner and more ill-favor'd they look. Such an one cares more to fill his eye, than his belly. All his honors sit on his back as the Caparisons of a Horse upon an Ass; and he appears like an Ape clad in Scarlet. Midas his Gold cannot hide his large ears. Nabal's feast, like a King, at the sheering of his three thousand Sheep in Carmel, cannot keep him from being a man of Belial. Thirdly, the Hog never looks up to Heaven, but he cries: lay him on his back, and he cries continually. So the worldling hath all his delight downward; his thoughts are downward, his desires downward. From the earth ariseth all his felicity; and to the earth he repayes all his devotion, thanks, and duty. He cannot look up to heaven with any comfort; he knows he hath no patrimony there: he hath laid up no treasure within those glorious doors; no prayers, no alms, to entertain him in that Court: yea, from thence he expects judgments, and wrath, death and vengeance; and therefore whines forth desperate cries, when he is but shown those celestial and immortal riches.

I conclude: These are both sordid and uncleanely beasts, yet there be worse. First, some beasts are profitable alive, not dead: as the Dog or Horse, serviceable while they live, once dead, they are thrown out for carrion. Secondly, some are profitable dead, not alive: as the Hog, that does mischief while he lives; is wholesome food, dead. Thirdly, some are profitable both alive and dead: as the Ox that draws the Plow, the Cow that gives Milk, while they live; and when they are killed, nourish us with their flesh. Fourthly, some are good neither dead nor alive; as the Wolf, noxious in life, and stinking in death. First, men that are profitable living, not dead, are the Politicians, that have subtle heads, without religious hearts: Achitophel did much good to Israel by his counsel; but dying, he left an odious report behind him. Secondly, they that are commodious dead, not living, are the covetous worldlings, that oppress and wrong the poor all their life: only by their death, some good comes of their goods. Thirdly, they that be neither good living nor dead, are the profane and luxurious Epicures; who swallow the fat of the earth into their living bowels, drink the sweat of poor laborers, without returning them so much as crumbs: and by that time they come to die, their estates are quite spent, they have not a Legacy left to give, but their bodies to the worms, and their souls they know not whither. Fourthly, they that be good living and dead, are the charitable: who do not only feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, while they live; but also leave them somewhat to live on, when they are dead. That not only adorn the Gospel with holy lives, but are ready to witness it with their own bloods, and so convert souls by their very deaths. That have shined like Lights in the world, winning others by their good conversations; and taught the way to Heaven by their blessed examples, drawing men to Christ by their sweet encouragements. Happy are we, if we be of this number: so the mercy of God shall shadow us while we live, and the glory of God shall crown us when we die. I come to their actions, which are Returnings; where we have two considerable observations:

1. The force of nature: One would think, that the sick Dog should loath that he hath disgorged; that the washed Sow should abhor the mire wherein she wallowed. But the medicining of the one, and cleansing of the other, did not take away their nature; still the one remained a Dog, the other a Hog. If there could have been an alteration of their natures, there would have followed a cessation of these odious qualities. Turn them into Sheep, they will detest both mire and vomit. You may bend a Tree by violence; but when your hand and hold is off, it will return to the former position of crookedness. Want of stomach, or want of drink, may keep the drunkard sober: but let him come to ability of body, and conveniency of being intemperate, and he returns to his old v •• ite: nothing can cure him, till his nature be changed. Paul was a ravening Wolf in the evening, the Lord made him a peaceable Lamb in the morning: but as his Name was changed, so was his Nature; otherwise he would have returned to his former disposition. Locke up the Wolf, and your flocks be safe: but if he get loose, ware the Lambes, for he is a Wolf still. The carnal mind is enmity against God: not an enemy, as the vulgar reads it, in the Adjective, or Concrete; for that will neither agree with the Gender of the Substantive, nor with the accenting of it. But Enmitie, in the abstract; noting the excess: as we say of the proud man, There goes Pride. An enemy may be reconciled, enmity cannot: a vicious person may be made virtuous; but vice can never be made virtue. Enmitie is a mutual malevolence: so God hates the flesh, and the flesh hates God: though man by this hatred hurts not God, but himself; for he is God's enemy, non nocendo, sed resistendo. The cause is in us; for Adam was the friend of God, and God was the friend of Adam: This enmity came from sin, which we have cause to bewail with tears of blood. For a creature to hate the Maker, what can be more monstrous? For the Creator to hate the creature, what can be more grievous? The carnal mind i • not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be.

It is usual for enemies to cross one another. It is not subject, there is contumacy: It cannot be, there is impotency. If the Sun, created to give light, should cast abroad darkness: if the fire, made to give heat, should cool us; we would think it preposterous. All the question betwixt God and man, is but this; whose will should be done. But de his qui faciunt quae non v •• i, facit ipse qua vi • e. God chargeth them to do his will, and they will not: they would have their own will stand, but they shall not. Quid tam p • n •• o, quam semper ve • e quod nunquam erit, & semper nolle quod nunquam non erit? They shall never obtain what they desire, and they shall ever sustain what they dislike. So then, they that are in the flesh, cannot please God. In the flesh, not that have the flesh in them. We say of a man overcome with anger, he is in heat, of one overcome with Wine, he is in drink: as Simon Peter told Simon Magus; Thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity. Not only these were in him, but he in them. These cannot please God: as Snow can never be made hot, while it is Snow; for fire will dissolve it into water, and then it may be heated, but it ceaseth to be Snow. Carnal men, in that state, cannot please God: change them into a sanctified condition, then they can. Change the nature of these beasts, and then they will put off these filthy habits. But otherwise, the Stone doth not more naturally incline to the Center, than they are proclive to sin: if either of them be stayed, it is by violence.

Thus easy is it to discern Sheep from Hogs and Dogs, as between Muske and a Muck-hill, by the sent; or between Gall and Honey, by the taste. The Be delights to be among flowers: but no Garden can stay a Dorre; he passeth by all, till he comes to a dunghill. The worldling is Dog-weary of all religious exercises: (Let Christ go into his Garden, to gather Lilies ) this is none of his felicity: nothing pleaseth him, till he return to his sensual courses: nor can this be helped, till his dunghill-disposition be altered. Every thing lives according to the kind; the Horse in the pasture, the Fish in the water: present holy things to a carnal heart, either he sleeps, or dislikes; for he is quite out of his element. In diet, that which is one man's meat, is another's poison; because of their different tempers and constitutions. It is impossible for the same creature, to be both a Lion in the forest, and a little Dog in a Ladies lap. Repentance is a change of the mind, and Regeneration is a change of the man: till the first Adam be changed into the second, there is no hope of entering into Heaven. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. All are flesh and blood, but some are not all flesh and blood: there is corruption in the best, but there is something in them beside corruption. The better part, if not the greater part, is the seed of grace; and this shall fructify to life eternal. But they that are all flesh and blood, will return to the works of flesh and blood.

He is an unhappy man, that adviseth with his flesh, for the rule of his life: it is as if a King should call a Traitor to his Council-Table; or as if a man should commit his body and goods to a Bottom, that is steered by such a Pilot, as ever drowns all the passengers. Paul being sent to preach, conferred not with flesh and blood. It was Christ's rule in our alms; Let not the left hand know what the right hand doth: let not the flesh know what the spirit doth: as Abraham would not tell Sara, when he went to offer up Isaac, lest she should dissuade him. The best policy of State, is to dis-arm the Rebell: so let us dis-furnish the flesh of idleness, intemperance, high feeding, pompous clothing; taking away the arms, munition, and artillery; that though it would, it cannot do mischief. The Jews offered up Victi • am pro peccato, let us offer up Peccatum pro victima; not a sacrifice for our sins, but our sins for a sacrifice: this is most acceptable. A City being hard besieged, and not able to hold out, did light upon this policy: in the night-time they took all their dead men, which were many, what with war, and what with famine, and set them upright in their armors on the outside of their walls. The enemy seeing this bold spectacle in the morning, and not suspecting the Stratageme, thought them alive, resolute, and supplied with fresh forces, and so raised the siege. Let as mortify our carnal affections, and set them up in Satan's view, with a resolved defyance; this will dismay his courage: dead lusts dis-appoint the Devil. The King of Edom removed the siege, by sacrificing his son, his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead, and that for a burnt-offering to the Devil. The God of Heaven abominates all such unnatural facts: not our sons, but our sins, are the burnt-offerings he requires: such Holocausts shall both remove his judgments, and dis-hearten all the assaults of our spiritual enemies. But alas, can the Leopard change his spots, or the Black-moore whiten his skin? both, as easily as we can alter our own natures. Only He, that can turn the highest mountains into humble valleys, can take away the corruption of our natures; and of unclean beasts, make us holy Lambes unto Jesus Christ.

2. The danger of returning to old sins. We are all conceived on the Sea, and borne upon a shelf, in manifest danger of drowning in the main: there our parents left us, as their parents left them, and our first parents left us all. The undeserved, unexpected Grace of God did lay hold on us in Jesus Christ, and put us off from these quick-sands, in a vessel of Hope, steered by his Ministers, the Compass being his holy Word, and the promise of heaven that shore where we all are to land. Now if we, thus mercifully delivered, shall willfully return to the first danger, and be led by the false marks of gain or pleasure, to those desperate sands, how worthy are we to miscarry? It is true indeed, that the elect cannot turn from God with all their heart; or if they could fail totally, yet not finally. But when we read, Because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith: Be not high minded, but fear. And, Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy Crown: it may provoke us carefully to look over our evidence, that we may be sure. I know there be some that would shake the foundation of a Christian, urging that of Paul; If thou continuest in God's goodness, otherwise thou shalt be cut off; and inferring an absolute proposition from a conditional. As if one should collect thus; If the Sun rise not tomorrow, it will be dark, therefore it will be dark tomorrow. But the Sun holding his course, it will be light: and God's promise holding, which cannot fail, and grace continuing, believers shall not fall from salvation. They as weakly conclude from that of Christ; If those mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in sack-cloth and ashes: that a little knowledge had saved them. We might as well presuppose a power of speaking in stones, because our Savior says; If these should hold their peace, the stones would cry out.

Yet let none presume: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold (not thine, but) the goodness of God: if thou be saved, the praise is his: if lost, the fault is thine own. There be two things that carry men away from God; Despair, and Presumption. As the act of seeing is hindered two ways, either by seeing too much light, or no light at all: so the comfort of conscience is prejudiced, either by seeing no mercy, or by seeing nothing else but mercy. To keep us from the one, Despair, let us meditate of that infinite mercy, which never failed the most odious sinners, when they became humble converts. To prevent the other, Presumption, let us remember how God punished relapsing David, the man after his own heart: and Moses, whom he called friend; and that for one fault; and that so secret, that by reading the story we can scarce find it out. This way a thousand perish, for one the other way: Desperation is a course that Satan takes but with few; because it is tedious to flesh and blood, and (not seldom) the occasion of true repentance: and so the Devil is over-shot in his own Bow. But Presumption is pleasing: To fly out when we list, to enjoy our pleasures, to return from our devotions to sensual lusts, and then to be sure of Heaven when we have done; what can sooner win us? Sic redit ad tumidas • a • fraga puppit aquas. Though we have committed sins, and been bitten by them, and smitten for them: yet forgetting all that anguish, those fears and tears, and sorrows; we return to the cause of all those mischiefs. The Merchant, after a three years voyage to the Indies, hath with many doubtful hazards of Rocks, and Pirates, brought home store of Gold; and is no sooner come ashore, but in one night plays it all away. You will say, He may fetch more; he is not sure of that: but the man is far less sure of regaining God's favor, that hath so prodigally spent it in wantonness.

The Almighty Father hath been our Physician, the glorious Son hath been our Physic, the blessed Spirit hath prepared and applied all to us: shall we now, our willful selves, overthrow the work of all them three, by relapsing into those sicknesses, from which their infinite goodness hath delivered us? Shall the bounty of our Maker fill our Measure with mercy, and shall we still empty it as fast? Hath God nothing else to do with his riches, but to wait upon our riot with supplies? He hath corrected us, and then we came home: again he received us: shall we, after all this, return to our old aberrations, and re-embrace those sins, which did induce upon us his former judgments? Yet alas, so slippery the custom of sin hath made the ways of sin; that if the God of constancy and perseverance should not hold us up, we could not stand one moment. Saint Paul was shipwreck'd thrice, and yet escaped. So do the rocks and sands, the heights and the shallowes, the prosperous and adverse fortunes of the world, diversely threaten us; so do our own Leakes endanger us; so do temptations, like Pirates, assault us; so do the Mariners, our own thoughts, mutine within us; that nothing but the everlasting mercy of our God can preserve us. But let us be careful, never to put ourselves aboard with Hymenaeus, nor to make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. Though infirmities overtake us, and God hath graciously warned, My son, thou hast sinned, do so no more: though that which we most earnestly pray against, should fall upon us; a relapse into those sins which we have truly repented, and God hath fully pardoned: yet let us beseech him that is JEHOVAH, and changeth not, that the Spirit of remorse and compunction may never depart from us; yea, that the Spirit of consolation may never forsake us. A Garden once digged, and then let alone, becomes more weedy: a backsliding Christian proves most ungodly. The just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

The objects to which they return, follow; the first whereof is vomiting. This proceeds from an ill-affected stomach, and a sick stomach from a bad repletion. This may be an argument offensive to the weak, nauseating their stomachs: but to show the odiousness of sin, the Scripture often useth it. And that both literally, when the Prophet applies it to the Drunkards, shameful spe • ing shall be for their glory: and figuratively, as Z • phar awards it to the oppressor, He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly. Yea, God himself is said to vomit out some kind of sinners, Because thou art luke-warm, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Though he seemed to have received them into his inward parts, because of their formal profession; yet being offensive to his stomach, he spu • 〈◊〉 out: and certainly God will never return to his own vomit. The conscience is to the so • le, is the stomach is to the body: sin doth distemper the one, as unwholesome meat or su •• e • s do the other. Both are sick alike, bo • h complain of their burdens vomit is a forcible clearing of the stomach, confession is a voluntary • nloding of the conscience. The Physician prescrib • a medicine, the Patient takes it, and is cased. The Minister chargeth the surcharged soul to confess and acknowledge h • s iniquities, he doth so, and is comforted. That man worthily perisheth of his disease, that lets it rankle without revealing it. If we know a burdened conscience, we give it a vomit; He th •• hideth hi • 〈◊〉 , shall not 〈…〉 • hat co • f • ss • th and forsaketh them, shall have mercies. No wise man • ill fall upon that dish again, which hath made him dangerously sick: and he is a mad man, that after such disgorging his offense, will return and li • ke up his own vo • it. No less foolish and desperate is that sinner, who having emp • i •• his heart of all his troublesome and indigestible faults, by a liberal and frank acknowledgement, shall again willfully relapse into them: what is this, but with the Dog, to return to his 〈◊〉 vomit?

Saul, as if he were again now entered into the bounds of Naioth in Ramah, prays and prophecies good to him, whom for good he maliced. The Lord reward thee good, for that thou hast done unto me this day: and he lift up his voice and wept. There is no heart made of flesh, which at some time or other relents not: even flint and marble will in some weather stand on drops. Nor can we think those tears and protestations feigned: doubtless, Saul meant as he said; and passed through sensible fits of good and evil. Let no man like himself the better for some good motions; the praise and benefit of these guests is not in the receipt, but in the retention. Who, that had seen this meeting, could but have thought all had been sure on David's side? What can secure us, if not prayers, and tears, and oaths? Yet behold in the loose, Saul goes home, but David and his men go up to the hold. One would think, Saul had emptied his stomach of all those crudities, rage, envy, malice: yet stay awhile, and you see him return to his own vomit, hunting after the blood of the innocent; and gives not over David. The adulterer comes to shrift, pours out all his uncleanness in the ears of his confessor; and now having cleared his mind, returns with the fiercer appetite to his former vomit. The friend of riot and disordered company visits the Church in the forenoon, prostrates his body, and opens his mouth with the congregation, in a general acknowledgement of his (inordinate) sins: and now, as if he were exonerated of all his corruption, and had only made room for more excess by his confession; he re-greets that sin for which he regretted, and falls afresh to his luxurious cups.

I know there be some constitutions so strongly retentive, that scarce physic can procure a vomit: there be stupefied consciences, that will not confess. Let the covetous man hear his unjust practices aggravated to his face; yet custom hath so preoccupated his heart, that he never grows sick upon it; as poison by familiar use, becomes natural food. We cannot say this man returns to his vomit, for that unrighteous Mammon never troubled his dead conscience. But he shall spew once for all; the earth shall spew out his body, his body shall spew out his soul, his soul shall spew out his riches; nothing shall spew out his sins; they shall make him sick forever in a bed of quenchlesse flames. The Law of God, repeated by Christ himself to a rich young man, was but answered, With all these have I kept; it could not bring him to a sense of his sins. All these have I kept? Miserable and false man, he had kept never a one of them; yet he would not be brought to a Vomite. That other Churl talked of filling his barns, not emptying his sins. But for men to disburden their troublesome iniquities, by humble confessions, and then to resume them; as the Viper spues out her poison in Winter, and takes it again in the Spring; this is most dog-like. We may not take the children • bread and throw it to Dogs: such dainti •• are not for reprobate stomach in the whip and cudgel are for Dogs. The Jews cou ••• d the Gentiles Dogs, and grudged them any of their own meat, as if they should not have sufficient for themselves. But Paul rather compares the Jews to Dogs, and such as lie in the manger, to keep the Gentiles from their foot •• piners, that lie like some churlish curr • s at the door, to •• epe away beggared, and hinder them from their Masters alms, should be driven away, that humble suppliants might have access to heaven gates.

〈◊〉 Quis m • debit •• c •• i res •• b ••• i vomitum? There is no vomiting without pain • • man's stomach regests that made him sick, and he feels the headache: his conscience is troubled with the sense of his errors, and he must needs feel heart ach. Why do we not consider lov • d 〈◊〉 such a morsel of si • ne hath cost • s, before we suffer it again to pass down our throats? Was not our conscie • ce loden with agonies, and laboring with pangs, more than a travelling woman with ••• wes▪ Did we not feel a thorn in our most tender, sensible, and vital parts; stinging us at the very heart? Did it not appear like a black bill against us, written without unanswerable debt to an infinite justice? Did it not make us part and roar for the very disquietness of our hearts? Did not sleep forsake our eyes; and after many tumblings and tossings, did we not still complain the want of ease? Did not Satan set us hard with desperation, for a monstrous and (under the name of an) unpardonable sin? Did not our souls weep blood, and our eyes run down with tears? Were we not brought to the pits brink of forlorn unhappiness, before we could feel any comfort of forgiveness? Have we now forgotten all that smart, woe, grief, and horror? Can the short and scarce sensible pleasure of any sin make amends for such torments? Or if we could flight our own sorrows, and let the memory of them die with the feeling; yet let us consider what those sins cost the Lord Jesus. Was he reviled with taunts, beaten with buffets, macerated with scourges, harrowed with thorns, crucified with thieves, and slain with unspeakable sufferings, to expiate them, and shall we embrace them, and so re-crucify the Lord of life? Have we received a medicine of so dear ingredients, Christ's meritorious passion, and our own compunction, to disburden our souls of that which offended both God and them; and shall we drown the remembrance of all in a deluge of vanities, recoiling to our former vomites? God forbid it, and the thankful respect of his honor and our own souls heartily forbid it.

The Dog returns to his own vomit; there be some that seek up alterius vomitum, another's vomit: that will sin by president. They will adulterize, because David did: they will drink to sleep, because Noah did. Indeed those holy men committed such unholy facts, but they humbly repented, and begged pardon for them, in the anguish of their hearts. They confessed them to be evil, these men take them up for lawful, or at least tolerable: what is this but to lick up their vomit? But whether it be their sins, for which they have repented; or our own sins, under which we have groaned; let us never return to so loathsome a vomit. Sin, like Stibi •• , will tarry with nobody: up it must, either here by an humble confession, or here after by a wretched confusion. Let us disburden our consciences of those sins wherewith they are surcharged, but never turn again to them whereof they are disburdened.

1. Both the Sexes are mentioned: the Dog in the masculine, Ca •• s regr • ssus: in the feminine, the Hog, Su • l • ta. In Christ there is neither male nor female, men have no more privilege of salvation than women. Nor is there any difference out of Christ, women have no more immunity from damnation than men. Indeed, bad men are more apt to nimble sins, as the Dog ranges abroad: and bad women are more prone to lazy sins, as the Sow wallows 〈◊〉 the •• re.

2. There is more ways to Holl than one, as we say there is to the Wood. Whether men go by the Dog-like rapacitie, or Swi ••• or plead, it matters not: either will serve turn, to bring them to destruction. Heaven is a glorious City, yet hath it but one Gate, and that a narrow one: Hell •• th a thousand, and they are always both easy, and open. They that refuse the way of pragmatical mischief, with the Dog; may take the path of sordid uncleanness, with the Sow: yea, which is strange, men may even fit still, and yet get thither too soon: for idleness is able to bring them unto Hell.

3. The very washing of the wicked, is a preparation to their worse foulness. Hogs will wade through the Foord for no other purpose, but to come to the mire on the other side. Some are so graceless, that they come to the Temple, mingle themselves with the Saints, and partake the holy mysteries, to this end, that they may with less suspicion follow their filthiness. Do you see that Hog, and in what a pickle he is now? he was in the River this morning. Do you see that man, and how debauched he is now? he was yesterday at the Communion. A woeful hearing, that a man should be the fouler after washing!

4. Of all sins, Satan hath most power over uncleanness. Since the first possession of the Serpent, we do not read that Satan entered into any beasts, but Hogs. He set the Sabaeans, Chaldeans, and fire, to destroy Job's Oxen, Sheep, Camels; himself did not enter into them. But when the Devils were cast out of the men, they petitioned Christ, that they might enter into the Heard of Swine: and the whole Heard ran violently down a steep place, and perished in the waters. The impetuousness was no less than the speed: it was no small force that could do this. But if the Swine had been so many mountains, •• ose spirits by God's permission, had th •• transported • hem. How easily then can they carry those soul • hat are 〈◊〉 their power, to destruction? Swine 〈◊〉 he m •• e, therefore the Devil loves Swine: un • lean •• a • ts that wallow in the • ire of sensuality, bru ••• sh Dr ••• ards tr • ns • o •• ing themselves by excess; • ven they are the Swine, whom the Legion carries headlong to the Pit of perdition.

5. All sins are soul • , some be more 〈◊〉 , and the •• a • tisers of them may be said to wall •• w in the mire. • irst, the bru •• 〈◊〉 of the flesh, whoredom and uncleanness a •• rie and sordid wickedness▪ which makes the body not more leprou • • an the soul and 〈◊〉 • he • emple of the Holy-Ghost into a Hog-sty. 〈◊〉 any ma • in his wits p •• p • re to entertain his King, yea, his ordinary friend, in a Hog-sty? Shall •• at Almighty King, our Maker and comforter, have no room • allowed him, but that heart which filthy lust hath made a Pad of dirt, or a Hogs-coat? Thou receivest the Sacrament, and hopest to feed upon thy Savior, that he may enter into the very bowels of thy soul: but bethink thy 〈◊〉 ▪ Will the God of all majesty come into that house in the morning, where 〈◊〉 Swine have layne all night? How noisome is that dwelling, where the best rooms, the Parlour, is but a Stable; and the Lodging-chamber, the heart, but a Hog-sty? Weigh it rightly; Thou liest in thy Bed of uncleanness, as a Hog in a puddle of mire. Thy luxurient thoughts, thy lascivious dalliances, show more odious to God, than can to thee any Swine tumbling in the mire. Secondly, intemperance; ingurgitating more meat and drink than a well-ordered appetite desires, is not only a Swinish, but a muddy sin: not so much by that effect, because it makes men muddy-headed; but by a worse, it makes them muddy-hearted. Their body is become a dunghill to their soul; their soul a dunghill, in respect of all goodness: nothing breeds in it but Weeds; nothing moves in it but Wormes, nothing wallows in it but Hogs. The Drunkard is but a moving muc • -pit, a speaking dunghill. The unclean spirit could 〈◊〉 no rest in dry places, but he finds rest in drunk •• 〈◊〉 . Thirdly, worldly covetousness is a di • tie sin: and howso • ver 〈◊〉 think, that they swim in pleasures, while they wallow in riche • , yet they are deceived, they do but roll in mirie puddles. It may be a d • scredit, it is no slander • o Riches, to call them D • ng; for to the most they are no b ••• er. Mucke when it lies upon heepes, gives but an ill odour, a very st • nch: but when it is spread abr • ad upon the ground, it is a cause of much fruit. All out 〈◊〉 of coin and wealth are but heaps of mucke; which thus abused, do not only stink of themselves, but make a stench in our hearts. Let us spread them abroad by our charity, in useful, merciful, and pious deeds; then will they help the barren ground of our souls to bring forth fruit unto everlasting life. Lord, lift us up out of the mire and deep Pit, wherein we stick fast by nature, wash us by thy grace, and present us undefiled in the Day of JESUS CHRIST. Amen.

AN EXPOSITION UPON THE SECOND EPISTLE GENERALL OF THE HOLY APOSTLE, Saint PETER. CHAP. III.