Commentary on 2 Peter
4. The Fatalitie of this peril may yet be further amplified, by the insulting tyranny of this implacable Thief. It does not only rob sinners of all, and that suddenly; but domineeres over them with painful derision. It mocks their fear, and laughs at their destruction. Bloody thieves, when they are once Masters of the house, first bind the family, then put them to racks and tortures, to force out a Confession of their concealed treasure: to all this agony, they aide scorn and contempt, which is a rack upon the rack, a mercielesse aggravation of their torments. The Day of the Lord doth not only bind reprobates with the everlasting chains of darkness, that they cannot move hand not foot: but delivers them over to those tormentors, who will never cease torturing of them, till they have both confessed and paid the uttermost penny. Their temporal goods they call their moveables; their bodies are also their moveables; and both these may be removed without prejudice to their souls. When thieves in the night had robbed a Merchants house of some bedding and such household-stuff; he hearing the noise, rose and went down, and finding them but new gone, followed to see what would become of his goods: the thieves espying him, threatened him for dogging them: But the Merchant answered, I only come to see whither you remove me. If the soul could be safe, as that Merchant was, whilst it saw miss-fortune remove her goods to the stranger, or death remove her body to the grave; there were but a slight ground of complaint. But as nothing but the dishonor and rape of Tamar, could please Am ••• , and nothing but the blood of Amnon could satisfy Absalom, and nothing but the heart of Absalom could content Joab, and nothing but the death of Joab could pacify Solomon: So nothing but the Soul of an impenitent sinner can appease the just wrath of this Day. Desperate thieves break three of the Divine Precepts at once: they do not only steal and kill, but they bind three transgressions together, committing adulteries, deflowering Virgins, and ravishing Marrons. The carnal Souls Pleasure is his wife, to which he is so uxorious, that he neglects Christ; I have married a wife, and I cannot come: His daughters be the fruit and issue of both; such vanities and sins as he hath begotten upon this concubine. This mistress of his affections shall be ravished from his side, and these Children shall be dashed against the stones before his eyes: Not unlike that fearful doom of Zedekiah: first his sons are slain before his eyes, and then those eyes of his (as if they had seen enough, when they had seen himself childless) are put out.
The Reprobates shall cry at the last day, Hide us from the Face of him that sits on the Throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. Can the Lamb be angry? or is there such Lion-like terror in that mild face, so full of beauty and sweetness, when it looks upon wickedness? Why would they be hidden? and hidden from the Lamb? O, guiltiness would fain keep out of sight: the Limbes of that infernal head, shall not esteem it the least part of their torment at that day, to see the most lovely spectacle that Heaven can afford. He, from whom they fled in his offers of Grace, shall be so much more terrible, as he was and is more gracious. When Christ was in his humbled estate, that Prince of darkness was so humble as to kneel to him: and though he had so much boldness as to expostulate, Art thou come to torment us before our time? yet withal he had so much fear as to deprecate, I beseech thee torment me not. For the former; whether it were music to Satan to hear the shriekes and roarings of sinners, because he useth to enjoy their torments: and therefore held it a piece of his own torture, to be restrained in the exercise of his tyranny. Or whether, as himself professeth, he were now in a fearful expectation of being commanded down into the deep, for a further degree of actual execution. Or whether the very Presence of Christ was his rack; for the guilty spirit cannot behold the Judge, or the Executioner, without a renovation of horror: Howsoever, he deprecates a greater infelicity. Yet what a thing is this, to hear the devil at his Prayers? I beseech thee torment me not. Nature teaches every Creature to wish a freedom from pain: the soulest spirits cannot but love themselves, and this love must needs produce a deprecation of evil. Devotion is not guilty of this prayer, but fear. There is no Grace in the suit of Devils, but nature: no respect of God's Glory, but of their own ease: They cannot pray against sin, but against torment for sin. It can be no news to hear the profanest mouth, in extremity, imploring that sacred Name, when even the Devils do so. The worst of all Creatures hates punishment, and can say, Lead me not into pain: only the good heart can say, Lead me not into temptation. If we can as heartily pray against sin, for the avoiding of displeasure, as against punishment, when we have displeased; there is true Grace in the Soul.
The Conclusion is; If those wicked spirits trembled to come before Christ in his Humiliation, when he was to Suffer: how shall sinful dust appear before him in his glory, when he comes to Judge? As one and the same thing works diversely upon divers constitutions, and the nourishment of one, is the offense of another: So this Day brings contrary Effects to contrary dispositions; and that which is the greatest joy to some, is most terrible to the rest. The Goats on the left hand never apprehended so dreadful a sound, as that of the last Trump: The Sheep on the right hand never heard such music. For the dissolution of temporal things, Communis terminus, there is the same end to all. Men dealing in the world for riches, are but like scolars playing at dice for counters; which come and go; now the heap is on this side, by and by on that: on a sudden comes in the Master, and he swoopes all, both dice and counters; not without some just correction of the gamesters. So men tug, and scramble, and wrangle for these paltry vanities, wealth and honors: This Fountain dries, that Cistern fills: one noble house withers, whiles another of low degree swells up to a Lord: today this Merchant hath the cash, tomorrow that: But the Lord's Day confiscates all; and then who is the richer man? This world is like a broad Table with a scant or narrow Table-cloth; which every man is still drawing to his own side, though he pluck his neighbors part from him: this Day comes with a fatal voider, and takes away all, cloth, meat, table, and guests too. Thus far together, all are served alike: but then comes the difference. All men hope well, and think themselves good: but let me tell them of this Day, as Moses did those rebellious Levites; To morrow the Lord will show, who are his, and who are holy. A common Hen, together with her own Egges, may hatch the eggs of Eagles that are laid under her: but when they are grown up, while her own brood keep the base earth, those of a higher kind fly upwards. This world breeds us all, and is both to good and bad a common mother: but when that great day of separation comes, all they that are begotten of immortal seed shall leave their mother, and take after their Father; and while their kindred in the flesh sink down under their natural corruptions, these Eagles that are sprung from above, shall mount up to the Eternal nest of Glory.
5. The irremediablenesse of that fatality shuts up the terror of this point. Thieves may have some mercy, in the prostration of their bootie. First, either they will not take all the goods of the house. If Grape-gatherers come unto thee, will they not leave some gleaning Grapes? If Thieves come by night, they will but destroy till they have enough. They will not, or, if they would, they cannot carry away all. Secondly, or they may be overcome with persuasions, and melted with the pitiful complaint of their undone Clients: It was the little Children's cries and tears that made Theodosius weep too, and reverse the sentence. Thirdly, or if they seize on the goods, they may spare the life: It is a rare cruelty, in this land, to cut the throats of the yielding; to second, and secure theft with blood. Fourthly, or if they spill some blood in the conflict, they will not take the rest after the conquest: Those thieves had so much pity, as though they proceeded to wound the traveler, yet they Left him but half dead. Fifthly, or if nothing but both estate and life can satisfy them, yet their rage can extend no further: all the malice of man is there determined: Death is the end of all the sufferers misery, and murderers cruelty. But the Judgment of this day is not confined to these weak limits: It will not take away some of their riches, but all; not riches only, but their lives; not lives only, but their souls: nor their souls for a time only, but forever: nor to repose them in tranquility and ease, but in the extremity of torments. Poverty, or casualty of losses is a thief; but it can only steal away thy riches temporal: and that is often no more than depriving a Girle of Chalke or Oatmeale, that is troubled with the green sickness, or disarming a mad man of the weapon, wherewith he would wound both himself and others. Infamie or disgrace is a thief; but it can only steal away an aiery title, an imaginary Crown: which makes men prouder than they should be, because they think themselves better than they are. Humility hath made many good, Promotion can only make them great. Advancement may thank God for the beginning; but if it swell into pride, the Devil is at the ending. There is no sin doth more assimilate men to that cursed nature: for all other sins the Devil made, only Pride made the Devil. Sickness is a thief; but it can only steal away health: and how many a man speeds like that Soldier with the inveterate ulcer; who receiving a hurt in the place so desperately affected, was made whole of the grief, which before could not be cured. The soul hath grown healthful by the bodies sickness, and one disease hath done more good upon them, than many Sermons. Death is a thief too, yet what can it rob a man of, but a long, tedious, and troublesome way? Thieves take away from the traveler some of his money; this thief doth but rob him of some of his journey. When a young man is bereaved of life, he is but deprived of a Die, wherewith he might either win or lose. Our life is not more uncertain, whether it will be long or short, than the use of it is, whether we will spend it well or ill. When one wished the son to prove like the father, Cato replied, is this a blessing, or a curse? When long life is apprecated to a child, it may be demanded, Whether is this a blessing or a curse? When it is said, Every man shall be rewarded according to his works, it may be doubted, whether this is a blessing, or a curse. If death takes a man from his Lands, Houses, Coyne, and helps him to a starry Throne, a robe of immortality, a glorious kingdom; he rather rights him like a friend, than robs him like a thief. All the good that may be found in death (as the cessation of trouble, the extinction of sin, the deliverance from Satan, the quiet rest of the body, and infranchisement of the soul) the good man steals from death; and so in effect, doth but rob the thief: That which is not worth his respect or keeping; as his molestations, sicknesses, sorrows; of these death robs him, and much good doit him with them.
But this day of the Lord is like a severer thief: not only robbing the wicked of all their delightful good, bvt lodging them with all sorrowful evil. Other thieves may be brought to a restitution: this only yields to a permutation; exchanging pains for pleasures, torment for sin; If a man take away thy russet, and give the velvet; we use to say, that change is no robbery: But if thou lose thy cordials for corrosives, thy peace and comfort for despair and punishment; surely this change is a robbery. A passenger stripped of his whole estate by thieves, may yet recover a greater fortune by the divine blessing upon his industry. But alas, the happiness which this thief steals, is irrecoverable: millions of years cannot wear it out, nor myriads of tears buy off, that everlasting loss. Consider the vastness of the Ocean, and conceive that a Sparrow were allowed, every hundred thousandth year to drink a draught of it, together with a promise to the damned, that when that little Bird had thus drunk up this great Sea, they should be released; here were some hope of an end, and some comfort from that hope, and some ease from the expectation of that comfort: But eternity cancells all, and puts out their light forever. Their worm dieth not, and the fire never goes out. It was a fearful fire that destroyed Sodom, yet it ceased with that destruction: but the fire of Tophet can never be quenched. Our bodies dy, and when the worms have devoured them, even those worms shall die too: but the worm bred in our souls is not capable of death. We are God's creatures, yet we are mortal: but there is a creature of our own which shall be immortal. We must die, but the Worm of our own conscience must never die. In our mortal life, this is but a mortal worm: the blood of Christ hath virtue enough to kill it: If now we mortify it, we shall feel it never: if it out-live us here, it will live with us forever. Let our faithful repentance, without pity, put it to death: and our blessed Redeemer will in mercy give us life.
To make some useful application of all this; If we would escape the danger of this great Thief, let us take heed of a little thief, Sin: this is the thief that does all the mischief. Could we fervently pray against sin, we need not pray against punishment; which is no other than the inseparable shadow of that body: But if we have not watched against this privy thief, Sin; in vain do we pray against the public thief, judgment: God must be just, and the wages of sin is death. This is a sly cunning thief, insinuating it self into all places, into all actions. It robbed man, in Paradise, of Paradise, of Innocence, of Peace, of Earth, of Heaven, It stole into that Garden like a thief, in the body of a Serpent: it stole into the eye of Eve, like a theeefe in the shape of an apple: it stole into her mind, in the form of an ambitious advancement: it stole into the heart of Adam like a thief, involved in an uxorious indulgence: from their transgression, it stole like a thief into the loins of all their posterity, by a secret, but certain way: we have it, and can scarce tell how we got it. It is a vain quaere, How came this thief in? Let it be our study to cast him out. No bars nor barricado's can preclude his entrance: the Monk in his Cell, the Hermit in his solitude, the Anachorete mued up in a wall, cannot forbid access to this thief. The very Temple is not free from him: there he robs men of their attention, of their devotion, and transports their minds into a wilderness of vain thoughts. It steals into our best works, and robs them of their perfection and integrity; I dare not say, the action is sin, I dare say there is sin in the action. It lays snares in every material; Laqueos in cibo, in potu, in vultu, in vest. It takes all forms, that it may be filching at all times: Fit fera, fit volucris, fit toto corpore serpens. Like a Cameleon, it can turn to all colors, but white the symbol of purity: it can be anything but innocent. Like a Thief, it creeps into the ears of the wavering, and robs them of their religion: it creeps into the eyes of the wanton, and robs them of their chastity: it creeps into the mouth of the drunkard, and robs him of his wit: It creeps into the breast of the malicious, and robs him of his charity. it sits in the brain of the ignorant, puts out the light of understanding, and rifles the house at pleasure. It sits at the door of the swearer, and flies fiercely at the majesty of our Maker: This thief hath broken into the heart of the proud, of the covetous, of the profane, of the hypocrite, and there keeps possession, yea, pleads prescription: challenging the house, not as a strong usurper, but as the right owner. It cannot rob God of us, it may rob us of God.
The day of the Lord is but like a thief;] but this is a thief indeed. No wise man, at least no honest man will entertain a known thief: shall we bid him welcome, make him good cheare, lodge him in our best chamber, and think nothing too costly for him, that we know comes on purpose to rob us? Yet such is our madness, to give sin not only admission, but indulgence; to invite it home to our houses, to honor it with banquets, to allow it the command of our servants, and to let it sleep in the soft bed of our hearts: our senses receive it, our affections wait upon it, our souls make much of it, as if it were a dear friend, and no dangerous thief. This is that little thief within, that opens the door to the great thief without: this is the Devils intelligencer, his agent, his pick lock, his engine, his trusty vassal, that betrays the whole world to his invasion. The thief robs the passenger, and if he scape apprehension, he applauds himself: but the sin of that act hath been a worse thief to him, and robbed him of the peace of conscience. Sacrilege presumes to rob the Church, and therein the Lord himself; yet is so impudent as to expostulate Wherein have we robbed thee? Alas poor thieves! they do but rob us of our temporary provision: but in the mean time, sacrilege is a thief that • ob • es them of their eternal salvation. It is just, that theft should be punish ••• • ith theft, that one thief should rob another. Oppressors rob us, sin robs them, death robs sin, and the Devil robs them all.
Our blessed Savior once challenged the people, that they came out against him, as against a thief, with swords and staves. He charged his Disciples, to be so unfurnished of weapons, whereby they might do violence, as not to take with them so much as staves: And yet in another place, he allows them nothing toward their journey, but staves: As a staff is a weapon, it was forbidden, not as it is for supportation. The master was taken as a thief; the servants may not be suspected. When they crucified him, it was between two thieves; one on his right hand, and the other on his left. Still he is crucified between thieves, in his afflicted members: The Client, between the corrupt Judge and the Lawyer: the Patient, between the ignorant Physician and Apothecary; the landed debtor, between the Usurer and Scrivener: the poor Minister, between the Simoniacal Patron and sacrilegious parishioner: in all these he is crucified between two thieves. All this while they have been thieves to him: but in the last day he shall come like a thief against them; and his just fury cannot be avoided. It is a happiness, when we shall meet with this great Thief, to have our goods safe in another place. He that shall say in this sense, Omnia mea mecum port • , I have all my wealth about me, shall be stripped of all by this impartial Robber. But if Our Treasure be laid up in Heaven, if our Riches be the merits of Jesus Christ, No thief can break through, and steal it. Then Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator, the empty traveler sings before the thief. Our wealth is at home, in the hands of Him that will never suffer it to miscarry.
Like a thief.] That natural dependence, which the most wise Creator of all things, hath made between all things: may, by way of Paradox, be called a kind of theft. The sea doth rob the land of some territories, and the land robs the sea of her waters. The Earth steals from the Heavens their influence, and Plants steal from the Earth her moisture: Among trees, one robs another; and the great Oke pines the Underwood. Flowers steal from the ground her fatness, Bees steal from the flowers their sweetness, Men steal from the Bees their honey. We are the universal thieves in this sense; for we steal from all: Our light from the Sun, our breath from the Air, our Physic from Plants and Mineralls, our food from Beasts, Fowls and Fishes: we rob the Sheep of their wool, and the Wormes of their silks, to cloth us: we steal warmth from the Fire, and coolenesse from the Air or water: we rob the Vine of her vital juice, and the Olive of her iunctuous fruit. We are the thieves in all this, and yet in all this we are no thieves; because the great owner of all things hath ordained all these benefits for us. Only then we are thieves, when we rob ourselves of their comfortable use, or of our thankful obedience by their abuse. Quod Deo donante fit nostrum, hoc nobis abutentibus fit alienum. In all this our taking away from the Creatures, we are rather borrowers than thieves; yea rather owners than borrowers. By that Patent sealed by the Father, first; then renewed by the Son, and now confirmed by the Holy Ghost; we are Lord's of these things, not usurpers; not thieves, but proprietaries.
Here is then no warrant for that Theft, which is the unlawful usurpation of another man's goods: therefore unlawful, because the owner was unwilling: whether deprived of his substance without his knowledge, by fraud and close carriage: or with his privity, but against his consent: and that either his full consent, as by violence and oppression; or his consent in part, as in the exaction of covenanted interest from distressed debtors. For howsoever they be driven by necessity, into that dangerous gulf of Usury, they wish with all their hearts, that creditors would lend according to the Nature of Loane, which is a contract of mere gratuity, their money according to the nature of money, which is ordained for an instrument of exchange, uncapable of such monstrous improvement. Certainly, Me nemo Magistro Fur erit — I will teach no man to be a thief; nor give the least countenance to that legal robber, the soul-robbed Usurer. My tongue shall be as far from recanting that speech of Leo; Foenus pecuniae, funus animae; as my heart is from disliking that fire, than which Agesilaus never saw clearer, when bon-fires were made of Obligations. God hath committed to the sons of men a right of use and dispensation; whereunto, for the avoiding of disorder, a general distinction of owneages, was added by the Law of Nations. Whatsoever the Lacedemonians did think of Theft; that it was an allowable exercise of martial Discipline: or others have said even of Kingdoms themselves, that they are but Magna latrocinia: whereas indeed, they are Magna Patrocinia; not Theeveries, but protections against Theeveries: Or Alciatus dreamed, that Theft was not a reproach in Nature, because it was forbidden by the Law; as if the Law, and Nature had not both one Author: Or other querulous dispositions have objected, that the Laws of men are written in blood; because in the censure of this unjust and uncharitable sin, they have exceeded the punishment of Moses Judicials: forgetting the Multitude of offenders, which is caused not only by the fierceness of a wild Nation, but even by the wantonness of a peaceable Nation: for the latter is no less powerful than the former, to quicken our original corruptions. This we must conclude; besides our Makers express prohibition of Theft, and the severe vengeance he hath threatened against it: it is against Nature, to rejoice in the spoils one of another: And the very Law of Charity being trodden underfoot, seems in a grieving accent to demand; Si sterilitas in ignem mittitur, rapacitas quid meretur? And whether men steal in their own persons, or teach others so to do, as Anabaptists, and those elder Heretics called Apostolici: the bounds of propriety are ancient bounds, and the killing curse of that Flying book shall destroy their houses, that dare remove them. A thief at the gallows is none of the worst sights in a country.
In Conclusion, Theft can find no shelter under the shadow of this Comparison: The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and where it finds a thief, will sentence him to condemnation. Thieves? there are few or none amongst us: we will be all bound for one another's truth and honesty: But may I not say in the Prophets sense, All men are liars, so All men are thieves? The receiver, we say, is worse than the thief: therefore said one, Shew me a Sinner, and I will show thee a Thief. The Oppressor hath a thievish hand, the covetous hath a thievish eye, the slanderer hath a thievish tongue, the drunkard hath a thievish throat, the Harlot hath a thievish lip, the Idolater hath a thievish knee, the Flatterer hath a thievish gesture; every Sinner hath a thievish heart. Do not hold it impossible for you, to discover and attach a Thief in your own bosoms. Our natural corrupt Lust is a Thief within us: if we examine him strictly, we may find out his haunts, and fetches, his shifts, and devices. Believe him not, for he will lie: spare him not, for he will steal: shrieve him to the proof, for he will hardly confess: arraign him at the bar of the conscience, condemn him with a penitent sentence, punish him with an impartial execution: punish him in the body, by fasting and mortification: punish him in the soul, by repentance and contrition: punish him in the purse, by the works of charity and restitution. If we can get quit of this Thief, that sin be mortified in us; the coming of the Lord's Day (though it be like a Thief ) shall not hurt us.
Lastly, there is an holy Theft, which I would commend to your practice. There be five ways to get the Kingdom of Heaven: Some innocently find it, some violently snatch it, some are compulsorily driven to it, some expensively purchase it, and others politickely steal it. First, they that light upon it unlooked for, are Infants dying soon after their Baptism. They are Candidati fidei, of the Livery of Faith: and as they live in the Wombe by the life of their natural mother: so they live in the Covenant by the Faith of their spiritual Mother, the Church. These find salvation without trouble: they labor not in the vineyard, they groan not in prayer, they are not exercised with trials, they weep not remorsefull tears, they are not charged with many duties; yet the Blood of Christ cleanseth them from all their sins. Suffer little children to come • nto me, for of such is the kingdom of He • ven: it belongs to them, and they belong to it; and there they are, before they know where they were: these find it. Secondly, they take it by violence, are such as by an utter abdication of the world, do wholly dedicate themselves to God: that, by their continual prayers and pious actions, lay siege to that glorious Kingdom; and in the fervent desire of God's service, offer up themselves a living sacrifice. Such are those Martyrs, that swim thither in the stream of their own bloods, whose souls mount up to Heaven in acceptable flames. There be three sorts of Martyrs; Re & intention, Intentione non re, re non intention: in both deed and intention, as was Saint Stephen: in intention not deed, as was Saint John: in deed not in intention, as were those Innocents: And three annual holy-days are dedicated by the Church, to the memory of these three kinds of Martyrs: all which together, in their order, immediately follow the great Feast of our Savior's Nativity. But the Pontificians have found out a fourth kind of Martyrdom: which is nec re, nec voluntate, vel intention; neither in deed nor intention: Of which supernumerary number was their Saint, Thomas Becket; whose day they celebrate next after the three former. It is strange, they take him for a Matyr, whom those days never found but for a Traitor. But the Martyrs of Christ are led by another Spirit, who puts such courage into their hearts, that like noble Champions, they break through all difficulties to the Kingdom of Heaven. Thirdly, they that are driven to it, are beholding to compulsory means: they have shipp'd themselves in a Man of war, and would prosecute their licentious mischiefs, but are beaten into the Harbor with storms. The Lord often clips our wings, least we should straggle abroad after our boundless and transportive fancies: He strippes the body of pleasures, to clothe the soul with righteousness: and by impoverishing our temporal estate, He strengthens our state of grace. Not that we are therefore saved, because we are afflicted: but we are afflicted, as proper to them that shall be saved. Through much Tribulation we must enter into the Kingdom of God: It is not Propter, but per tribulationes. Affliction cannot work grace of it self; for sorrow can no more bring comfort, than Thorns can bear Grapes: but it is the needle that draws in the thread. There is no fault to be found with that necessity, which constrains us to be good. Bring hither the poor, the maimed, halt, and blind: yea, their own poverty shall bring them; their own blindness shall make them see the way, and their own lameness shall enable them to go. If they yet linger, there is a Mandamus of farther constraint; Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. Affliction is to us, as the Whale was to the Prophet: we go in Fugitives, we come forth Converts: we go in Rebels, we come out Penitents: we go in Sinners, and come out Saints. Fourthly, they that purchase it, lay out all they have upon Earth, for an habitation in Heaven. Let this ground be laid firm; that only the blood of Christ is the price of salvation: and he that confides in the merit of his own works, shall sit howling without doors. Yet, though Faith alone doth save us, it must not destroy Charity: and to our good deeds, there is a reward of Mercy. There is a way, by selling all we have, to buy that incomparable Pearl, that inestimable Treasure. There is a policy, to make such Friends of our riches, as may let us into those everlasting Mansions. After, Well done good Servant, there follows, Enter thou into the joy of thy Master. How dear do men buy a small turfe of earth, and yet how cheap do they value Heaven? They will venture their souls to get a little money, they will not venture a little money to save their souls. They can oppress the poor, to make their children rich: they will not relieve the poor, to make their children blessed. But as when a miserly Dung-worm excused his oppressions, because he had eighteen children; another replied, but eighteen? Believe me, if you had eight and forty, the Country hath curses enough for them all: So let me assure the charitable Benefactor, how many children soever he hath, Heaven hath blessings enough for them all. Fifthly, and lastly, there be some that steal this glorious Kingdom: under the veil of humility, an holy dejection, and under-valuing of themselves, they lay hold on eternal life. Though the walls of that celestial City be too high to climb over, too strong for any Thief to break through, and steal: yet there is a way for this pious Thief to get in: this is neither over, nor through the walls, but through the Gates. He is fitted for entrance; the Gate is low, and he is humble: the Gate is narrow, and he is little: so little in his own eyes, that he can easily creep in, and being once in, he shall never be turned out. Such a Thief was that modest woman, wasted with an issue of blood, resolving within her self; If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole: She stole virtue from him by a touch. Such a Thief was that penitent Sinner upon the Cross; who both lived and died a Thief: He stole their temporal goods from men, for which he died: and he stole Paradise from Christ, when He died. Paul says, Give your bodies a living sacrifice to God: but there God accepted of a dying sacrifice. Judas had served Christ three years, and played the Thief with his purse: he could steal his Lord's coin: but this man had scarce served Him three hours, yet had learned a better way of theft, and stole from Him Salvation. Jacob wrestled with God, and by an holy kind of force, robbed Him of a Blessing. And the God of comfort thus encouraged that shamefast and trembling Patient, that touched the border of his garment; Daughter, be of good cheer, thy faith hath made thee whole: since thou hast stolen virtue from me, take it, and much good doit thee with it. Other theft shall be condignly punished; but such a penitent, humble, and pious Thief (whom the world condemns for a sinner, but inward sorrow and compunction presents to God for a Saint) shall not only be mercifully pardoned, but even gloriously crowned in the Day of Jesus Christ.
In the night] Fur à furvo, say some; because that art requires the secrecy of darkness. Vt jugulent homines, surgunt de nocte Latrones. Night is the season for Thieves and Harlots: The Adulterer waits for the twy-light, saying, no eye shall see me. If the night should speak all it knows, it would put millions to the blush, in the day. Thieves in the dark dignity through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the day. The night pays the Devil no less custom than the day. Why else are sins called Opera tenebrarum, The works of darkness? Caste, si non caute, was a Rule to save their Credites, though not their Conscience. Noctem peccatis, & fraudibus obijce nubem. There be indeed some sins peculiar to the day, because they are done only to be seen, and if they might not be seen, would not be done. But commonly Evil doers love the darkness, and desire to sin out of sight. The whore loves the black and dark night: Nox, & amor, vinumque nihil moderabile suadent: Illa pudore vacat, liber amorque metu. It is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. Darkness causeth boldness, and Secrecie is the mother of Security: They think Impune fit, quod fit in abdito. Therefore it is proverbially spoken, Nox commoda sceleribus: iniquity is beholding to the night, and the Devil is a great noctivagant. The foulest fact of the world, Judas his treason, was a night-piece.
Of all, the Thief longs for the night: then he hopes that sleep hath shut the eyes, and locked up the senses of the whole family. So the last judgment shall break in upon men, when they are possessed with a Lethargy, and drowsy negligence; not minding, not dreaming of this sudden Audit. But why doth this sentence begin with, The day of the Lord; and subjoin, Like a Thief in the night: Day, and Night are opposites: if it be the Lord's Day, how should it come in the night? If it come in the Night, why is it called the Day? Or shall we say, it is Quiddam tertium; a thing mixed, between both, partaking of both, or compounded of both? As in Diluculis & Crepusculis, there is a Twy-light: The dawning of the Day in the Morning, and the shutting in of the Day in the Evening make day and night so much one, as sometimes you cannot tell which to call them. It is so much Day, that we cannot call it night; and so much night, that we cannot call it day. It is true, that Light hath no communion with darkness: Lux & tenebrae, midnight and noon never met, never joined. In the regenerate man there is both flesh and Spirit: the spirit is not the flesh, the flesh is not the spirit: and yet both are in the same man. There is darkness in his understanding, and in his understanding there is light also: There is corruption in his affections, and yet in his affections there is holiness too. As in a vessel of lukewarm water, there is both heat and cold together: We cannot say, This part of the liquor is hot, and that other cold: but cold and heat is confused throughout the whole vessel. In the twy-light, we cannot say, This part of the air is light, and that other dark: but darkness and light is shed, spread, and mingled throughout the whole air. Shall we conjecture by such a similitude, that this Judgment shall be in the Twy-light; when the season may be called either, or neither Day or Night? Certainly, these fancies of men have so much darkness in them, as to be called Night: but no raye or streake of light, to give them a name of Day.
Some very venturously gather from hence; that Christ will come to Judgment in the Night: and they offer to prove it by many arguments: First, because the first borne in Egypt were smitten in the night. While all things were in quiet silence, and that night in the midst of her course; God's Almighty Word leap'd down from Heaven, out of his royal Throne, as a fierce man of war. This was indeed most fearful and astonishing; when God called for the blood they owed him, at so uncomfortable a season. In one night, every house hath a carcase in it; and (which was more grievous) of their first borne; and (which was yet more doleful) in an instant. No man could comfort another; everyone was too full of his own sorrow; helping rather to make the noise more lamentable. But all this is no more than the cry of an Infant, to the dismal shrieking at Christ's appearance, when all the kindreds of the earth shall mourn before him. And why doth this Plague of Egypt prove that he will come in the Night, more than the burning of Sodom makes it probable that he will come in the Day? Secondly, the opinions of the Fathers are alleged for it: Saint Chrysostom thinks it shall be in the night: Euthymius consents with him: Jerome calls it an Apostolical Tradition: and Lactantius confirms it by the Testimony of a Sibyll: Cùm venerit ill, Ignis erit, mediaque horrenda in nocte tenebrae. In the darkest night, saith he, the heavens shall be opened, and the Lord shall descend like Lightning. To say nothing of those Ecclesiastical hymns, taken out of Prudentius and Ambrose, that seem to favor it. Nor to examine the reasons of Aquinas, why he stateth this great Audit, in the twilight, betwixt day of night: they be all but dreams of a night. Thirdly, they argue, that the Passover was to be eaten at night, because the coming of the Lord was expected in the night: It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord: and This is the night of the Lord to be observed: The Jews are said to look for the Comming of their Messias, in the midst of the night: and about that time of the night, it is very probable that our blessed Savior was borne. The Angels came to the Shepherds in the night, with this joyful tidings. But what is all this to prove, that his second coming shall be in the night too? That Paschal-night, whose observation was so strictly commanded, is also called a day? This day shall be unto you for a memorial: and You shall observe this day in your generations, by an Ordinance forever. And the night of our Lord's Comming in the flesh, is not called a night by the Angels, but a day: Unto you is borne, This Day, a Savior. The acceptation of Days for times is a figure frequently used. The days are evil; what? the days only? Are not the nights evil too? Yes, but by days are meant the Times. Whether Christ will come in the day or night, we cannot tell; but we are sure, there is a time determined when he will come. Fourthly, they stick hard upon that speech, At midnight there was a cry made: concluding out of it, that at midnight the Lord shall come. But why may we not as well infer that it shall be in the day; because the Lord hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world? Nocte latent mendae; say some, How should all things be revealed in the night? But they may be answered accordingly; That night cannot want light, when heaven and earth shall make one universal bonfire. Knowledge should keep her allowed bounds: Satius est dubitare de occultis, quàm litigare de incertis. When the poor Debtor was advised by his friends to watch for his Creditors coming to town, and to entreat their favor about a composition, he answered; I will not trouble myself to seek out them, for I am sure they will find out me. But let it be our speedy diligence, to implore the Mercy of our great Creditor, not for any composition that can be made by ourselves, but to accept the satisfaction made by our Surety, his Son Christ upon the Cross: Otherwise, though we seek not after him, he will be sure to find out us; when we are neither able to put in baile, nor have one penny toward the payment. Night and day let us be prepared; and then whether thou comest day or night, welcome our dear Lord Jesus.
The Sum is this; The day of the Lord is not only uncertain for the time, [unspec 4] but then most likely to be, when it is least expected. And to this center, the Fathers, and all fair expositors reduce their Meditations: So Theophylact, Hilary, Jerome, Bede, and Gregory expound the Metaphor. S. Augustine most plainly: He shall come in the night, Cùm valde obscurum & occultum erit, & quando non speratur. Men sleep in the night, and look neither for guests nor thieves. His appearing shall be in the night of men's ignorance, when their intellectual eyes are sealed up with the Spirit of Slumber; no more expecting his descent from Heaven, than He looks to find Faith on the earth. But let us pray that he do not find us out in such a night; when we are fallen into spiritual darkness, the Ignorance of Him, and inconsideration of ourselves. Though he permitted Darkness to be before Light in the Creation; yet in the making of Light he did so multiply that Light, as that it enlightened not the day only, but the night too. So albeit some shadows of dimness, and clouds of disconsolateness have shed themselves upon our souls; let us beseech him to afford us the Light of his holy Spirit, against which the Prince of darkness can never prevail, nor hinder his Illumination of our darkest nights, our saddest thoughts. The Visitation of the holy Ghost upon the blessed Virgin, is called an over-shadowing: There was the Presence of God, the Fountain of all Light, and yet an overshadowing: Nay, except there were some Light, there could be no shadow. It is happy for us, when those shadows within us shall be overcome by God's irresistible Light: That when those shadows have done their office upon us, to let us see that of ourselves we should fall into irrecoverable darkness; the Spirit of Grace may do his Office upon those shadows, dispersing them, and establishing us in the assurance of comfort.
The lascivious wife is glad of her husbands absence, and abuseth the time in unchaste embraces, till his unexpected return surpriseth her in the bed of adultery, and turns her over to just penalty. But the constant Spouse, that hates the least violation of her Faith, (even so much as in a wish or thought) with earnest longing looks for her husbands coming, and knows no solace like to his Presence. The holy Soul, that hath kept her faith with Christ, desires this Day, waits for it, and at last entertains it, and is entertained with it, in a sweet and blessed Peace. But the straggling adulteress, that hath preferred her pleasure before her Piety, and flatters her self with the remoteness of her Lord's Comming, shall be taken in the Night of her carelesenesse, in the Act of her wantonness, and perish without hope of Reeonciliation. This day, like a Thief in the Night, shall break through into her house: She hath barred the doors, and fortified her house against his entrance, out of a conscious fear, and unwillingness to see him: therefore there is no remedy, her house must be broken through, and that unfaithful soul be plucked out by force. But the other looks for the messenger, listens to the first knock: there is no need to break open her house, for she readily opens the door, and yields up her self in joyful peace to the arms of her lord and husband Yea, she longs for a dissolution, prays for the Consummation, and cries for the hastening of his Kingdom. Behold, I come quickly. Amen. Even so, Come Lord Jesus.
In the which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise.] Concerning the manner and extent of the worlds dissolution, there is a world of question: the School is full of perplexities, that tend more to the distraction, than satisfaction of their Readers. They do indeed but throw a stone into the Well, and leave us to take it out. They lay such toiles and nets for him, that hunts after the Truth in their Forest, that soon he is entangled; and being once in, let him get out as well as he can. Three circumstances are considerable in this first passage. First, the matter alterable; The Heavens. Secondly, the measure of their alteration; Shall pass away. Thirdly, the manner of this transition; with a great noise.
1 The Heavens.] Some extend it to all the Heavens, even to that highest, which is the glorious Court of God himself: but Saint Paul saith, we have an house not made with hands, Eternal in the Heavens: that which is Eternal, cannot be destructible. Others abridge the latitude of this combustion, and understand by the Heavens the lower part of the Air; confining this fiery deluge to the same limits with the former watery: But if the inferior Air were t • e boundaries of it, why are the Elements afterwards, Namely, expressed? The Air is an element. Others affirm, that they shall perish according to their very substance; as if there should be no more Heavens: but this crosseth the Scriptures, which speak of a new Heaven and Earth; and of them, not as Noua, but Novata: not newly created, but purgingly renewed. This then is our safest conclusion; that this purgation by fire, shall reach as far, as did the corruption of sin, and no further. The corruption of the Heavens shall vanish, the matter of the Heavens shall not perish. To inquire further, may be dangerous, it cannot be profitable. God's Power appeared in the creation of the World, his Wisdom in the government and disposition of it, his indignation in the Flood that drowned it, his Mercy in saving those eight that replenished it, his Grace in the mission of his Son that redeemed it, and his Justice will appear in the re-sending of that Son to judge it. The Heavens declare the Glory of God: things or persons may teach two ways: either materially or occasionally; so the insensible creatures teach man: or morally and vocally, by doctrine and example; as we ought to teach one another. The Heavens can teach us to look unto our own preparation; they cannot teach us the time or manner of their own dissolution.
2 Shall pass away.] There be two errors about this transition of the Heavens. First, of some Theological Philosophers, who attribute to the Heavens an incorruptible nature: From which figment being beaten by the Truth, they labor to evade by distinction; that though the Heavens are in their own nature capable of corruption, yet they may be Intrinsece incorruptibiles, because they can never be corrupted. Secondly, the other sort hold them so corruptible, that they shall be utterly abolished. That the Heavenly bodies are maintained by vapors, was but the dream of some Poets and Philosophers: for certainly, if the Sun, Moon and Stars were only nourished by waters and vapors, they would long ere this, have bidden the world good night. Our Savior foretold us, that the Powers of Heaven shall be shaken: Lactantius thinks these powers of Heaven to be the Angels, who shall then change the order of their motions: They are indeed spiritual and separated substances, quae non habent molem, sed virtutem; not united to any matter, as the souls of men to their bodies; and so are Powers or Virtues: but how those Powers shall then be shaken, seems a forced collection. Chrysostom speaks peremptorily of such a shaking, as shall be an utter abolition; which he calls omnimodam perditionem. Of the same opinion were diverse of the Greek fathers; Theodoret, Theophylact, Oecumenius; grounding it upon the mis-interpretation of this and the like places. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure: whereas the Prophet there expounds his meaning of a permutation, not annihilation of the Heavens: As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. So saint Paul, the fashion of this world passeth away: Figura non Natura. We conclude therefore with saint Gregory, that the Heavens shall pass away, and they shall not pass away: Ea quam habent imago, tergetur: Ea quam habent natura, servabitur: The substance shall not be destroyed, only the quality shall be changed. As we weed our Gardens, to succor the Plants, and do not root up the Plants, because of the weeds. Or as we sweep our houses from the dust and rubbish, and do not for the rubbish sake pull down the house: Or as the Lapidary cuts a Pretious stone, or polisheth a Jewel, and does not for the roughness or foulness cast them away. So the Lord will purge this great Fabric of nature, and not for a little corruption destroy so goodly a Creature.
3 With a great noise.] After the manner of a Storm or Tempest, cum stridore & sibilo, with a whistling or crashing sound, such as a flight of Fowls make through the wind with their rustling feathers. Some think that the celestial Orbes shall be put to a swifter and more violent motion; whereby the world shall be set on fire: and out of that concussion, this terrible noise shall arise. Fire and Water cannot meet without a hissing contestation: the Air repelled, breaks not forth in silence; especially restrained fire hath a dreadful eruption; as the report of Ordnance, or Thunder from the Clouds. What with the rapture of the superior bodies, and the confused combat of the Elements, who can conceive the fearfulness of this noise? The Law was given with a great noise, Thunders, Trumpets and Voices: the Thunder was very loud, the Trumpet far louder, but the Voice of God drowned all. If such were the noise at the Law-giving, what shall there be at the Law-requiring? All things will appear strange at that day: Such a Judge, such a Session was never seen: such a noise, such a Sentence was never heard: such an evidence, such a horror was never conceived. The sound of the Archangels Trump is a noise, that shall waken all the World: The crackling of this great frame in the fire is a noise that shall astonish all the World: the voice of the Judge is a noise that shall confound part of the World: and the shrickes of the condemned is a noise that shall continue with them in the World to come. The first noise sounds out a Surgite, Rise from your Graves: The second sounds a Sistite, Stand to your trial: The next sounds a Discedite, Depart ye cursed: and the last sounds forth an Vlulate, Howle forever in the state of the damned. The rising of a Tempest makes the Passengers afraid: It more amazeth them when the waves beat into the Vessel: but when they begin to sink, what a dismal cry is heard among them? Insequitur clamorque virum, stridorque rudentum. The Summons will be a fearful noise, the Sentence more fearful, but most lamentable will be the shriekes of reprobates in their endless sufferings. If we hear but the cries of a City upon the sudden invasion of an unlook'd for enemy; or but the clamour of a Family that cannot get out, when the house is burning about their ears: or had we heard the cry of the Infants in Hinnom, which they contended to drown with their loudest instruments: there had been some shadow of that prodigious noise, which shall be produced by this universal conflagration. It hath been said, that Deafnesse is a blessing, when a man can hear no noise but cursing: but they are happy, that can hear this noise without terror, and escape from it without danger: and such happiness belongs to all that are in Christ.
1 To make some use of this point: Seeing the Heavens shall not lose their being, but only suffer a purgation, and must be changed in figure, without perdition of their nature: and in like manner, man hath an everlasting perpetuity assigned unto him, after his temporary transmigration: he cannot cease to be, he may cease to be happy: Let us all labor to be cleansed in time, lest we remain uncleansed, when time shall be no more. The Heavens must undergo a purging for the sin of man, and shall not man endeavor his own purging for the happiness of Heaven? The way to escape the horror of that purging fire, is for the present to purge ourselves in water. There be two Fountaines, wherein we may wash and be clean. The former is a living Spring, and in many respects, a strange kind of Fountain. It issues indeed from the side of a Rock, but that Rock is immaculate flesh. What is more hard and dry than a Rock? what more moist and supple than water? yet he that once did fetch water out of a stone, to convince and shame the infidelity of the Jews: doth still bring it forth of a Rock, to refresh our believing Souls. The Clouds and Springs are wont to afford water, but it comes not usually from the Rocks. Other Fountaines may cool and cleanse the body, but they cannot make it immortal: this Spiritual drink comes out of the Well of Life, and causeth the receiver to live forever. The Leprosy is not got off with other waters, this Cleanseth us from all sin. That which proceeds from other Fountaines, is white: this is red as blood; even blood it self, and the purest blood that ever ran from veins: that sanguine Laver, wherein if Faith can get us a larder, we are cleansed forever. This is the only Purgatory of our Souls, and without this there is no possibility of being clean. The blood of a man runs in his veins; in the blood of those veins are the spirits, and in those spirits a kindly and active fire, which by consuming the redundant and superfluous humors of the body, purgeth it from contracted annoyances. Christ is the Man of men, the God of men; and the blood that ran from his sacred veins upon the Cross, was full of so infinite a Spirit, that it concocts and overcomes all the diseases of his body, the Church; and cures the infirmities of all our Souls. Lower Fountaines may be locked up, or dried up: but this Spring runs freely, fully, continually, to the end of the world. No man's coming is debarred, no man that comes, departs uncleansed. They that are purged in this Bath of acceptable satisfaction, shall neither fear the Judicial fire of the last Audit, nor the penal fire of everlasting torment. But every day we gather new stains; for the mundation whereof, there is another Fountain provided, within us, as the other was without us; Repentance. This pumpes tears out of our eyes, derived from the Well of contrition in our hearts. Not that this water can cleanse us by its own virtue; for the Spring it self must be fed and sanctified by the former; and is indeed rather a Cistern, than a Fountain. But it is a secondary and instrumental means of our cleansing, a consequent and inseparable sign of our being cleansed by the blood of Jesus. And without this; the burning of the Heavens shall but tend to their restitution; but the same fire to impenitent sinners, shall begin their everlasting torments. This great world was first purged with water, and is again to be purged with fire: so the little world, Man, is first washed in the Laver of regeneration, the Sacramental water: and after this Baptismum aquae, there is Baptismus ignis, a fiery trial: and many are saved, but as it were through the fire: as by fire the Heavens shall be renewed. The best gold may gather some rust, and the purest garment catch a spot: and the holiest Soul on Earth, needs cleansing. We are a candle set in the wind; blown out with every temptation: a curious instrument, that will out of tune with the very change of the weather: a fine glass, that is not only broken with a knock, but stained with a breath. If we be not always supplying our Lamp with the oil of meditation, and setting our instrument in tune by prayer, and scouring off our blemishes by repentance; decay and ruin will encroach upon us. There was a delicate person, self-enamored, and too indulgent to his body, especially in the frequency of bathing: A true friend reproving him for many things, urged that in particular; Why do you bathe twice a day? whereto he deridingly answered, Because I cannot conveniently bathe thrice? Seriously we may invert the question: Why do we not bathe oftener? Why do we not wash our consciences twice, thrice, many times, every day in our penitent tears? Seneca tells us of a Roman, that kept his soul as clean, as the best Huswise keeps her house; every night sweeping out the dust, and washing all the vessels: Examining his own soul, Quod malum body sanasti? qua parte meliores? What infirmity hast thou healed? What fault hast thou done, and not repented. In what degree art thou bettered? Then would he lie down with O quàm gratus somnus, quàm tranquillus! With how welcome sleep and quiet rest, may we entertain the night! The burning of the Heavens shall not affright us, because he that sets them on fire, hath promised to save us.
2. This makes against all ambition of worldly dignities: the Heavens are the purest and most glorious pieces of nature; if they must be dissolved, What shall become of temporal honors? The stateliest Pyramid that ever was like. to the memory of a man, reached not up so high as the Heavens; yea, it is likely that the Tower of Babel transcended them all: yet Babel is fallen, and the Heavens themselves shall not stand. Of good Honor the Pyramid may be a fit emblem: for it is broad and large in the foundation, upon earth: but still as it riseth up toward Heaven, it lessens, and shows it self the narrower: desiring in all the greatness of man, to seem little in the eyes of God: as Moses was a great Prince, yet there was not a meeker man. Paul's honor was great to be wrapped up into the third Heaven; yet but Novi hominem: John was the beloved Disciple; yet but Qûem dilexit: God gave them noble privileges, and yet they in modesty conceal their own names. Dignity comes two ways; either by Desert, or by Descent; by good worth, or great blood. But when it is stated upon the the unworthy, it is a Noli me tangere? Friend sit up higher: but when he is advanced like a friend, if he be found none, he shall soon be pulled down again. God gives honor In utilitatem, and In humilitatem: first, for the public good, and then for our private; that it may make others better, but not ourselves worse. But Ambition is the worm of greatness: the Bramble desires to be King; the Thistle to match with the Cedar: the Eagle to set her nest among the stars: the Spider to build in kings palaces. Haman will never leave lifting up his head, till it be lifted a story higher than he would have had it. Ambition, the eldest son of Pride, mounts up with his gaudy wings, as if he would bandy colors with the Sun. The ground he thinks beholding to him, for vouchsafing to bless it with one touch of his foot; and extremely honored, if he grace it with one humble look. Fame is his Goddess, and all her servants are his Trumpeters. He that crosseth him in his rising, and prevails not; shall be crushed by him, when he is risen. He hath so many corrosives, as he hath superiors: and cares not how much he gives the Devil, to rid him but of one rivall. He could wish his frowns were lightning, and his words thunder. Poor, men he, looks should part with all their goods, to have him but take knowledge of them. Vain man, Whither wouldst thou raise thyself? Could thy blown up honor reach the clouds; this last Fire shall consume both it and them. How careful are men for the prolongation of their memories? What stately monuments are erected by their posterities? Marble pillars, and brazen sculptures, report to succeeding ages, their names and acts. And above all, the Poet undertakes to give life to their virtues, in never dying Verses: with Non norûnt haec monumenta mori: And Nec Iovis ira, nec ignis, Non ferrum poterit, nec edax abolere vetustas: neither time nor fire shall consume them. Yet in this fire they cannot escape: the Brasse will melt, the stones consume, pillars, pyramides, monuments, all shall flame; poems, orations, books shall perish: and of all secular glory there is an utter annihilation. Then, which is the Signior, and which the Servitor? Where is the difference between the Potentate, and the Pesant? What Coat, What Crest can discern the Gentleman from the Mechanicke? Or the Prince from his Page? Or the Lord from the Lacquay? What privilege shall the flourishing proud house of Austria have over the now deposed kings of India? Who can distinguish the slave that labored in the Minerall, from that worse slave which adored the metal? Why may not the Tenant prove as rich a man, as his domineering Landlord? There is only one Heraldry, that makes the difference of men, and that is the Grace of God. This makes us of the Blood royal, Partakers of the divine Nature, Heirs of the Kingdom, bearing the Arms of Jesus Christ.
Then, farewell all honor, but what comes by adoption: but who can allow the glory of this world so long a continuance? As the names of good men outlive their bodies, so too often great men out-live their good names. A good name lives after death; Defunctus volito viva per or a virum: but the name of the wicked is rotten, before his carcase is cold. Ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the Princes. Not only like Men, mortal: but like Princes, remarkable. The fall of a Prince fills the world with present horror, and leaves it full of ominous discourse for the future. Herod • glory lasted not long; it sat as proudly on his soul, as his royal clothes did on his back: but he that would be numbered among the gods, is suddenly devoured of worms. Those worms were both Lictores, and Lectores; Executioners to punish Herod, and instructors to teach us the damnable danger of vain glory. The Heavens are high and glorious, yet they are not proud; but rather full of humble benevolence, blessing the Earth with their light, beat, moisture, influence: Man is a piece of creeping Earth, and yet he hath lofty and aspiring thoughts. O that humility should descend to the earth, while pride exalts it self up to Heaven, and that the voice of a creature should dare say, I will lift up my throne, above the stars of God: but the Lord hath vowed to give Pride a fall.
3 Seeing the Heavens are doomed to a Transition, let us lay up our treasure in a place that can never pass away. But first let us be sure, that we have a treasure worth laying up. No man esteems his Brasse and Pewter for a treasure; base and abject metals are no treasure: we may buy Raddish or Lettuce with a farthing token: a Horse, or a House, or a scarlet Cloke cannot be so purchased. If we have a treasure that is not good, we had as good have no treasure. The Dog would not change his bone for all the wealth of a kingdom; and the worldling will not part with his wealth, for the Kingdom of Heaven. When a child comes into his fathers study, he will rather choose a painted paper, than the best book of his Library. Among all the riches of God, none pleaseth the covetous so well as a little of the better-color'd earth. If this could be a Treasure, yet it is laid up in the earth, and shall perish with the earth. There be some that lay up a worse treasure; even a multiplied hoard of sins: which is, as if a man should take his dung out of his stable, and curiously store it up in his Parlor. They treasure up unto themselves wrath, against the day of wrath: as if they did pile up plagues, and curses, and torments, to be spent upon themselves. The former do but treasure up Snow, which will melt, and flow away. But these treasure up fire, that will never be quenched. God layeth up the deep as in a treasury: but these lay up treasure in the deep. The former is a vain treasure, and laid up in earth: the other is a cursed treasure, and laid up in hell: but that is a blessed treasure, which is laid up in Heaven. Life is brittle, wealth is fickle, honor a bubble, favor a riddle, and the smiles of fortune like the kisses of a whore, which flatter a man to his destruction. The Pontificians promise to enrich their Clients out of the Churches Treasury; the superfluous merits of the Saints; whereof the Pope is the great Lord-Treasurer: but this treasure lies in some enchanted Castle, in the Faery land; no man could ever find it. In the mean time, they picked the people's purses of their material treasure, for the hope of this imaginary supererogatory exchange. Christ doth not forbid all treasuring up in the earth; for Parents may lay up for their children: For your children; that is an allowed providence: but not for yourselves; that were a gross mis-confidence. The Divine Precepts are full of sweetness, and do not take away our affections, but rectify them. When the Disciples rejoiced, that in Christ's Name they had cast out devils, he does not forbid them utterly to rejoice: for it were uncomfortable to leave the soul without some liberty of rejoicing: but he directs their joy: Rather rejoice, that your Names are written in Heaven. To have power over devils, is not so much as to be adopted Saints. It is happy for subjects, when they can subdue their kings enemies: but it is happier to be made his heirs. So in that other passion of fear: when he says, Fear not them which can kill the body, he does not preclude all access of natural fear: but disposeth that fear towards another object, and teacheth an awful dread of him, that can destroy both body and soul in hell. S. Paul does not take from the mind of men all desire of Glory, but instructs them to do it without sin; Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. Christ, knowing our covetous dispositions, that we will needs be hoarding, doth not forbid us all manner of laying up, but gives us counsel, both for the choice of our treasure, and for the place where we shall lay it up.
Our Treasure must be good and precious. Good works are such a Treasure, fit for the reconditory of Heaven. Ostentation and hypocrisy are base money: If you give to my poor members, faith our glorious Head, and not Nomine meo, you shall miss of your reward. No wise man exposeth his Treasure to public view, but lays it up in secret. Depraedari desiderat, qui thesaurum publice portat. Hezekiah ran into an offensive weakness, when he shown his munition and treasure to the men of Babylon: for the men of Babylon did carry away both his treasure and munition. Why should we tempt an enemy with a glorious bootie? He is a foolish traveler, that will show his gold to a thief. The affectation of the praises of men, is a thief that will steal away the credit of our good works with God. Give thine Alms in secret, if thou desirest an open reward. Vnusquisque apudse reponat; Let everyone lay in store by himself: The left hand must not be made acquainted with the good deeds of the right. Two things belong to a good work; Reward and Glory: the Reward God gives to men: the Glory he keeps to himself. If we rob him of the Glory, he will rob • us of the Reward. The Grace of God is the Fountain from whence they must all be derived, and the Glory of God is the end to which they must all be directed. To all thy gifts add this, that thou give the Glory to God. The praise of men will follow, but let it not be followed: lest to gain the shadow, we lose the substance. The hands of Christ are like gold rings; whatsoever we deposit in them, is safe forever. Many men have impoverished themselves of wealth and wit, to find out the Philosophers stone; in a vain hope to turn their base metals into gold. Only the hand of Christ hath this virtue, to turn all our dross into gold; our charitable contribution of things contemptible, into the precious Pearls and Jewels of Eternal Glory. Charity gives a cup of water, and receives a vessel of wine. Every penny that it leaves in the hand of Christ, it finds multiplied to a thousand pound. Hypocriticall alms is but guilded brass, mere slip-coin; which will be nailed to the post of derision, and pronounced base in the day of examination. In vain shall he give his goods to men, that hath not first given himself to God. This was the Apostles commendation of his Macedonians, that First they did give their own selves to the Lord, and then did Minister to the Saints. Charity begins at home; be sure to do thyself good: but it ends not at home; Do good to all men. S. Paul doth often call Beneficence by the name of Grace; because it is then acceptable to God, when it is done by gracious men. Of all our works let our estimation be after the shekel of the Sanctuary. The treasure and the treasury should be fitted together: we do not cast our Jewels into the dust-basket, nor put rubbish into our Cabinet. Heaven is a holy place, and will not admit of a counterfeit treasure. Faith is a Jewel on earth, and will prove the beatifical vision in Heaven. Patience is a Jewel below, and will prove a Crown above. Charity is a Jewel here, and will become a Kingdom hereafter. If a man had a Jewel that would buy a Kingdom, how precious would he esteem it? This treasure is laid up in those Heavens that shall never perish: and they shall never perish that have it.
The Elements shall melt with fervent heat.] It is a received Principle, that there be four Elements; Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. The Earth hath the lowest place in Nature, Water next, the Air above the Water, and the Fire above the Air. These be the four Principles, whereof bodies are composed. If by the heavens we understand the air, before; and the earth is expressly specified after; both which are Elements: why doth he mention the Elements, between them both? Is not this a superfluous circumstance? No, for neither were the Fire, or Water spoken of: which being left out, some would suppose them exempted from this universal dissolution. Besides; this showeth the subtle and supernatural force of this last fire, which shall melt the very Elements themselves; and work upon that which in it own Nature is not exustible. Not that these things shall be abolished, but purged. For seeing that heaven and earth shall remain, it is not convenient that the air should be consumed, which fills up the void space between them. The mutable state of the world admitted no vacuity, much less the state of perfection. And for the Element of fire; it is of the same nature with that Instrument, whereby God will purge all things. The Water is doubted of by some; because the Vision of S. John says, There was no more sea. But he speaks there by way of figure, concerning a metaphorical sea: or if you take it literally, yet a total destruction of the sea cannot be gathered from the sense of the words. The first heaven, and the first earth were passed away; not but that there remained still a heaven and earth, but quite changed from their first figure: so there is still a sea, but altered from what it was: no more shall it be troubled with storms and tempests; no more shall it swell and rage with foaming surges: no more shall the furious winds cause an agitation of her angry billows. A Saint hath the same affections that he had while he was a sinner; but renewed, and otherwise disposed: provocations cannot stir up his choler; nor troubles work him to impatience. The Sum is this; These Elements shall suffer an accidental mutation, not a final annihilation: they shall remain Quae erant, not Qualia erant.
[unspec 2] The Lord himself tells us, that his Comming shall be in the Clouds: and his holy Servant hath assured us, That we shall be caught up in the Clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. Howsoever some think, that afterward there shall be no more Clouds; because they serve but to water the earth, and there is then no further use of their ministry: yet it is plain, that we could not meet the Lord in the air, if the air were vanished. Most Interpreters think, and not improbably, that this great Assizes shall be kept in the air: but in what part of the air is an unsearchable secret. When the Disciples inquired of the place, Where, Lord? he did not shake them off as utterly unresolved; for he gave them to understand, that in the Clouds he would come. But the Mystery which he refuseth to break unto them, is that particular part of the Air, wherein he will make his Appearance. Yet there be some presumptuous Wizards, who (as if they had crept into the Counsel-Chamber of God, and over-heard his secrets) bear the world in hand, that they distinctly know the place: and can appoint the settling of his Throne over the Valley of Jehoshaphat, near Jerusalem, at the foot of the hill: from thence he was taken up into heaven, and thither he shall come down from heaven to judge the earth. This Counselor is silent, and yet dust and ashes dares speak. Indeed the Lord hath threatened to summon all Nations into The Valley of Jehoshaphat, and to plead with them there. But why should this be understood of a material valley, and not mystically, or metaphorically by way of allusion: because the Judgment at last to be pronounced, shall resemble the Judgment that was there executed, to the ruin of those reprobates, the incestuous generation of Lot, the Moabites and Ammonites? What is Jehoshaphat, if you interpret it, but the Judgment of the Lord? And what is the valley, but the depth of that Judgment? Into the which every heart of man shall be brought, but the manner of it cannot be brought into the heart of man. Two ways is this last judgment alluded to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. One was the fresh memory of that famous deliverance, which the Lord had there wrought for his people. Another, the near resemblance between that particular, and this general Judgment. Three great armies confederate against Jehoshaphat, and his Judah: The Moabites, Ammonites, and Inhabitants of Mount Seir: God sets them together by the ears; Moab and Ammon kill up the men of Seir, and then fall upon one another, and cut their own throats. The Lord was not long about it, then: and such a quick dispatch of his enemies will he make now. All those potent adversaries came against Judah, but they could not prevail: So though the Moabitish Flesh, and the Ammonitish world, and the savage fiend of Seir, the devil, conspire against God's Elect: yet all the shame and ruin shall return upon their own heads: and they shall be tormented with their own Consciences, as those complices fell by their own swords. And as the same place was a Valley of Judgment to them, which to the Jews was a Valley of Blessing: so this last Day is a Day of sorrow to sinners, when they shall be sent away with a Go ye cursed: but a Day of joy to the righteous, whose sweet invitation begins with a Come ye blessed.
The Elements may consenescere, but they shall not evanescere: they shall be melted, not destroyed. When we melt Silver or Gold, we intend not the rejecting, but the refining of it: we make it purer and better, we do not make it nothing. Man consists of the four Elements: his Breath is Air, his Blood and spirits Fire, his radical Moisture Water, his Body Earth. Our blessed Savior, by divers acts, did sanctify them all. By his Breathing, He perfumed the Air: by his mission of the holy Ghost in fiery Tongues, He hallowed the Fire: by undergoing his own institution of Baptism, He purified the Water: and lastly, by shedding his precious Blood upon the ground, and reposing his blessed Body in the ground, He sanctified the Earth. All these were cursed by our sins, and are restored by his Grace and Merits. Let us not think, that those Elements, upon which He bestowed so much honor, shall perish forever. Some have curiously observed, that as the times of many passages of Christ, were much about the Sixes: He came in the Sixt Age of the world, He was conceived in the Sixt Moneth, He was transfigured the Sixt day, He was crucified the Sixt Houre: and ascended the Sixt Weeke after his Resurrection. So his Place and Position was usually in the midst, between others. By his eternal place in holy Trinity, He is the second Person, in the midst between the Father and the holy Ghost: He took flesh in Judea, which is the midst of the earth: He wrought salvation in medio terrae, in the midst of the earth: At his birth He was placed in the Stable, as it is delivered to us, in the midst between the Ox and the Ass: In the Temple they found Him sitting in medio Doctorum, in the midst of the Doctors. At his Crucifying, his place was in the midst, between two Male-actors: After his Resurrection, He stood in medio Discipulorum, in the midst of his Disciples: After his Ascension, He appeared to John, in the midst of the golden Candlesticks: And wheresoever we are gathered together in his Name, He will be in the midst of us. His next Comming as a Bridegroom, will be medi â noctê, in the midst of the night: And his Appearing is likely to be in medio coeli, in the midst of Heaven, for we shall meet Him in the Air. Still Christus reperitur in medio: the Philosopher would have a Fountain in the midst of a City; as the heart is in the midst of the body; and Christ should be in the midst of the heart: virtue keeps in the midst; and the safest way is in the midst, between both extremes: So Christ is in deed a Mediator, in the midst, between God and man. This is the virtue to which we adhere, and this is the way by which we must go: Let compounded bodies be reduced to their first Elements, and let the Elements themselves be molten; if Christ erect his Throne of Grace in the midst of our hearts, we shall stand with comfort before his Throne of glory in the midst of the Heavens.
We have here offered unto us, a figure of our own mortality: we are composed [unspec 1] of the Elements: and if the Elements themselves shall melt with fervent heat, which are of so strong and valid a constitution; what shall become of our frail and infirm bodies, weakened with so much corruption? As this aestuant heat is to the world; so is a fever to man: it does not only melt him like snow, but even consume us to ashes. We study the art of health, and deliberate upon the choice of our diet, air, exercise: yet all our diligence, all our curiosity cannot prevent a sickness: it summons us, seizes us, possesses us, and destroys us in an instant. Our care to preserve health, is a tedious and regular work: but a disease keeps no method: when we have been long in hewing and polishing every stone, that goes to this building; a Cannon batters all in a minute; and levels it with the ground. Man is a little world, an abridgement of the great: and they correspond not only in their parts, but in their productions and alterations. The world brings forth monsters, compiled and complicated of divers parents: and do not our bodies bring forth strange diseases, of divers causes, and divers kinds: for which we are so far from being provided of remedies, that we are scarce able to give them names? The world hath not so many noxious creatures, as we have venomous and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases, intricate and entangled diseases, made up of several ones. Such is our miserable abundance, such our beggarly riches. For the worlds earth-quakes, man hath his sudden shakings; for those lightnings, sudden flashes; for those thunders, sudden noises; for those eclypses, sudden obfuscations and darkening of his senses; for those blazing stars, sudden firy exhalations; for those rivers of blood, sudden red waters. Is this the honor which man hath by being a little world; that he hath enough in himself, to destroy and execute himself? To breed a sickness, to assist the sickness, yea, even to antidate the sickness, and to make it more irremediable by sad apprehensions? As fire is made more vehement by sprinkling water upon the coals: so we wrap up a hot Fever in cold melancholy: and, lest the Fever should not destroy fast enough without this contribution, we help to perfect the work of our destruction, by joining the artificial sickness of our own melancholy, to our natural, our unnatural Fever. We are not only incident to sickness, but to the worst of sicknesses, continual fear of it. And when this Fever comes, it melts us, it scatters us, it pours us out like water; so instantly, that it scarce leaves an answer for that question; How long were they sick? yet our comfort is, that as the elements, though they be molten, are not taken from their being, but rather purged and restored to a better being: So our bodies made up of those elements, though death take them in pieces, break them to clods, searce them to ashes, and examine every dust; do but suffer a cleansing; and there is such a quickening virtue in the divine Head of those scattered members, that it shall recollect those ashes, give life to that dust, redintegrate those bodies, and make them shine brighter than the Sun and Stars in their clearest glory. When a rich garment, that is capable of washing, grows foul, we are content to rip it in pieces, to cut every stitch; and having thus sundered it, we scour it in some convenient lardars: and having so done, we make it up again, and think not scorn to wear it on high days: Mans body is like a watch, consisting of many wheels: his Heart is the principal wheel, his Brain another, his Liver a third: while these move rightly, that is, work kindly, all the inferior wheels keep their due courses: the eyes roll, the hands operate, the feet walk, the joints stir, all execute their several functions. Every day this watch is wound up, and kept in reparation, by meat, drink, sleep, and exercise. Often it gathers dust, and grows foul, and the hand of Physic is employed to cleanse it. The string that unites these motions, and holds them in dependence, is the spirits. At last the string waxeth old, and breaks; and then all falls to pieces: this Body drops asunder, and here lies a pin, there a wheel; here one bone, there another. Yet after all this woeful dissolution, that exquisite workman which at first made it, will re-unite it, repolish it, put a new immortal Spring into it, and lay it up as a choice Organ of his Praise, in his own glorious Kingdom.
And the earth, with the works that are therein, shall be burnt up.] The Earth is the worlds Center; and so extremely violent shall the last fire be, as to reach from the roof to the very Center. When a house is burnt down, yet the floor remains: in the destruction of Sodom, though the ground was cursed with a future barrenness, yet it was not reduced to nothing. This fire shall extend to the floor and pavement of that mighty Fabric; to the permutation, not to the annihilation of it. The superficies of it shall be purged; and so deep as the corruption of sin entered, shall this flame reach. Indeed the works that are on the Earth shall suffer more, even to a corruption, to a correption of them. The Earth shall be burnt; not as we burn bricks, by exsiccation, condensing, and hardening of the Clay: nor as we burn Wood or Coals, by consuming them to Cinders and Ashes: but like metal in a Fornace, or gold in the crucible, which by separation of the dross, is brought to perfect pureness. The Earth abideth forever, what it was, and where it was, but not such as it was: an Element, but not a sordid, and sin-corrupted Element.
Two things the Romists have reserved from this universal conflagration: [unspec 2] one part of the Earth, and one work in the Earth. First, some of them, with Moses Barcepha; contend for the reparation and remansion of the terrestrial Paradise: whereof although they can show no necessary use, but admit a vacuity into it: yet they think it no more absurd, than that the places of the lost Angels are not yet supplied in Heaven; or that diverse parts of the Earth are now without inhabitants. But Pererius and Abulensis are against this opinion, and affirm that it shall perish in the last, if it did not in the former Inundation. Some have imagined a Paradise about the Moon, to deliver it from the water: others would have it still upon the Earth, and yet scape the fire. But as while the Philosophers disputed about the Summum Bonum; some stating it in this thing, and others in that; one seeking it here, and another there, and all looking for it where it was not: only believers, by the Light of Grace, found it where it was; even in Jesus Christ. So what Paradise soever they strive for, or wheresoever they conceit it to be; let us seek it where it is; even in the Kingdom of Heaven. Secondly, some exempt the material Cross of Christ from the power of this Exustion. This privilege, (howsoever they would father it upon the Fathers, misunderstood; as Ephrem, Cyril, Chrysostom ) is grounded upon a testimony of one of the Sibylls: O lignum felix, in quo Deus ipse pependit: O happy wood, which shalt not perish, but rather be made glorious, in that day of retribution; Cùm renovata Dei facies ignita micabit. What is become of that Cross? Is it not cut in many pieces? Would not those fragments, which they pretend to be pieces of the Cross, make up many wane-loads. Must they all be recollected to the redintegration of the Cross? First, they have multiplied it on earth, and now they would advance it into heaven. Do they not honor it with this imaginary exaltation, only to color their abuse of it unto superstition? This they understand to be that Sign of the Son of man: which he shall advance in the heavens, when he triumpheth over his enemies; as Conquerors use to erect Trophies and Monuments of their victories. What did Christ leave behind him at his going away, with which the Papists cannot furnish him at his Comming again? They have all his relics; some in one City, and some in another: this covent grows rich with one relique, that Church or Monastery is proud of another: Amongst them they can appoint him where he shall have all his old furniture: in one place he shall find his coat, in another his sandals: These they have in abundance, but they have lost Himself. We have not, ô most blessed Savior, these thy relics in our hands: but we desire to show Thee Thy self in our hearts, and to find our names in thy Book of Life.
If the earth with her works shall be burnt, why doth S. Paul mention the earnest [unspec 3] Expectation of the Creature for this day? Doth anything naturally hope for an evil to it self, or desire it own destruction? Answ. 1. We must know, that the Apostle speaks there figuratively, by a Prosop • poeia; personating the Creatures and giving them affections, a kind of sense and feeling of their misery, and a longing desire to be delivered from it. He speaks of them groaning, and grieving, as the Prophets did sometime bring in Vineam lamentantem, the Vineyard wailing, and the Mountains lamenting. So that this is a pathetical and emphatical description of the hope and desire of the Creatures. 2. They are Subject to vanity, whereof they would fain be rid: Not subject willingly, for this their vanity is contra naturalem propensionem, against their natural inclination: everything by nature would decline corruption. Erasmus his conceit is too curious, who interpreteth this vanity, Frustrationem, the disappointing of the hope of the Creature; whereby it faileth of that end at which it aimeth: As if it sought an Immortality, in multiplying one individuum, or one particular by another: but that end it misseth. Nor is this vanity altogether corruption: for neither are the heavens of a corruptible nature; nor yet should the elements have been incorruptible, though man had never sinned: seeing they were ordained to serve for the generation and procreation of things, which cannot be done without corruption. But by this vanity we understand the frail condition of the Creatures, much degenerated since the Creation, both in earth, the elements, and heaven. There is a Perfection, to which they long to be restored. The desire or expectation of the Creature is twofold: One natural, as for the earth and trees to bring forth fruits: Another supernatural; when a thing aspireth to an end above the natural constitution: as our corruptible bodies, to the state of incorruption, at the Resurrection. So the Creatures expect when the Sons of God shall be revealed: not that they know who are the Sons of God, but they look for their own Restitution with the Sons of God. As for man's cause they were enthralled, so with man's happiness they shall be enlarged. The bodies of the Saints are made of the earth, and yet those bodies shall be glorified in heaven: Corruptibles shall put on incorruption. Heaven is the highest part of the world, and earth the lowest: yet he that dwelt in the highest heavens, came down to the lowest earth; and carried up his Body which was framed of earth, even to the highest heavens. It is the honor of the earth, that part of her is glorified above; and a kind of assurance that the rest shall be but purified below.
[unspec 4] If the earth shall perish, why are we so taken with it? what folly can be greater than to adhere unto that which is destined to the fire? Thy habitation so pleaseth thee, that thou art loath to remove: it is but earth. Thy gold bewitcheth thee, and thou lovest the enchantment: it is but earth. A woman's beauty tempteth thee, and with the wrack of Virtue thou steerest a course to that unhappy port: it is but earth; some clearer-coloured earth. If the foundation be overturned, how should the roof stand? The earth is doomed to burning, and can the superedification escape? The earth is but a turfe for man to trample on, Heaven is our home: Here we have but Tents, there are the Mansions. No mortal Vitruvius can make an immortal habitation. Why do we build so gloriously, upon so inglorious and miserable a foundation? Pride begins such a palace, craft undertakes it, oppression raiseth it, prodigality finishes it, emptiness inhabites it, vanity derides it, and fire shall consume it. The superfluous builder is a thief, if not to others, yet to himself: Aedificatio te capiat, was a Lacedaemonian curse. Time hath demolished those great Pyramids, the wonders of the world: but the remainders of time shall not escape the fire. The filly Spider may teach us, who upon the least touch of her web flittes and removes. The world is a cobweb-world, to be swept down with the broom of fire. If Codrus his house burn, he even warms his hands at the flame: the loss never troubles him, because in two days he can make himself another as good. But when the rich man's house is on fire, he cries out on this Chest, on that Cabinet; and is distracted with impatience. Those Pilgrims to the heavenly Canaan, which esteem the world but their Inn, care not to see it on fire, because it is none of their own: but to those that have made it their habitation, such a fight will go to their hearts. Let no home content us, but that which is out of the reach of the fire, even the Mansions prepared for us by Jesus Christ.
Though the house be on fire, be sure to save the Jewel; provide before hand that thy Soul may escape in this universal conflagration. When a man's house is burning, he would save many things; but he is content to lose them all, rather than lose himself. This was Saint Paul's motive, to keep f A good Conscience at all times, and in all things; because he knew there should be a day of account. Indeed, if there were a Purgatory for future cleansing, after this life, there might be some hope: but he that dares sin upon the trust of a Purgatory shall find the event of his hopes in Hell. Consider thy life, it is Peccandi tempus, the time of sinning; so thou makest it: Consider thy death; it is Poenitendi terminus, the date of repenting; so God makes it. Saint Augustine calls death Tempus deponendi, a time of deposing or putting off: We then put off our clothes, we put off our diseases, we put off our cares, we put off our bodies; but yet we may fail of putting off our sins. They often go with the Soul, when that parts from the body: but they shall meet with the body, when that meets with the Soul. Be sure to put off thy clothes ere thou go to bed, to put off thy sins ere thou diest; or they will find thee in the morning when thou risest. Thou that darest sell God's holy Rites, without trouble to thee, wouldst thou be found in this day of flames with such a Conscience? Thou that settlest thy estate upon usury, thy heart upon thy estate; wouldest thou be found at this day with such a Conscience? Thou that swearest away thy Grace, that liest away thy Truth, that dissemblest away thy Faith, that drinkest away thy Estate, that whorest away thy Body, that playest away thy Soul; wouldest thou be presented before the Judge with such a Conscience? Hymenaeus and Philetus taught that The Resurrection was past already: and the conversations of too many are answerable to Their Doctrine; they so live, as if the day of account were over. He hath said, he will come: he is not yet come: O let us be so kind to ourselves, as to remember that Doomes-day is not past. There is a Day, an Evening, and a Morning: we shall find no peace in the Evening of our death, nor in the Morning of our Resurrection, except we provide for it in the Day of our life. O consider, with what a dismal cry, and ghastly look, the evil Conscience shall behold the Judge. The Sun shall be darkened: with what light shall the unrighteous shine? The Moon shall be turned into blood; it will be too late then to turn good. The Stars shall fall from heaven; alas what hope then can Meteors have of rising up to heaven? The Powers of heaven shall be shaken; how shall the infirmities of the earth be able to stand? O then make safe the Jewel, lay up thy Soul in the bosom of Jesus Christ.
2 PET. 3.11.
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness.
THat which is commonly noted of our Prognosticators, that they are more diligent to make mention of foul weather, than of fair: storms and thunders they much harp upon; but calm and serene days pass them • nobserved: The like may be said of man's corrupt Nature, to be more feelingly affected with pain, than with pleasure; his much good he little thinks on; a small evil disquiets him. He is more troubled with an injury, than pleased with a benefit; more mindful to revenge the one than to requite the other. He regards not many years health, so much as one days sickness; nor an age of liberty, like one hours restraint. The hope of that which is good, does not stir him like the fear of that which is evil. Fear is the passion that most powerfully sways him, and accordingly, the searcher of all hearts proceeds to work upon him. Therefore the sacred Rolls do more abound with the threatenings of Judgment, than with the Promises of Favor. For howsoever Love be the more noble affection, yet Fear makes the first impression. For this cause doth God so frequently remember us of our own death, of the last Judgment, and hell torments: that seeing Love cannot win us to do good, yet the horror of those endless pains may fright us from doing evil. We cannot seriously meditate on our last trial, and admit such things as make us culpable. But alas, it is a death, we think, to think upon death; and we cannot endure that doleful bell, which summons us to Judgment. Therefore are we dissolute, because we do not think of our dissolution. But if we would deliberately consider the mutability of our condition, the necessity of our reckoning, and the dismal wages of sin; though we were not won with the Love of God's Goodness, and his blessed recompense; yet the terror of unavoidable vengeance might drive us to repentance. Divers thieves have robbed Passengers within the fight of the gallows: but if a sinner could see but one glimpse of hell, or be suffered to look one moment into that firy lake; he would rather choose to die ten thousand deaths, than commit one sin. Seeing then all these things, &c.
The Verse consists of a Contemplative part, and a Practical: Seeing all these things shall be dissolved, that is for Contemplation: What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness; that is for practice. How well do these two parts symbolize to a Christian the two main offices of his Life; Speculation and Action? These be his two wings, whereby he mounts up into Heaven: Yea, these be the Cherubims hands under their wings: a winged mind, that soars aloft in Meditation; and a working hand, busy about pious actions. Here is Contemplation, like devout Mary at the feet of Christ; hearing his Word: and Practice, like hospitable Martha, providing for his entertainment. Here is Moses at his Prayers on the Mount, and Joshua fighting in the valley: Jacob studying at home, and Esau hunting in the field. The Papists place the chief Perfection in a contemplative Life; and understand it for that unum necessarium, of Christ to Martha, One thing is necessary: and that better part, which was chosen by Mary: Action (say they) may be lame and defective through the imbecility of the Organ; but Contemplation is pure and defecate on earth, and shall be perfected in Heaven; a portion never to be taken from us. I deny not the excellency of Contemplation: it is as heavenly a business, as any belongs to man or Christian, and of unspeakable Benefit to the Soul. For by this we ransack our deep and false hearts, find out our secret enemies, buckle with them, expel them, and fortify ourselves against their re-entrance. By this we make use of all good means, fit ourselves to all good duties: By this we desery our own weakness and obtain redress: we prevent temptations, and store up Comforts: we get more Light to our knowledge, more heat to our affections, more life to our devotion. By this, we learn how to contemn the world, and long for the fruition of invisible blessings. By this we see Christ with Stephen, we talk with God as Moses, and are wrapped with Paul into Paradise. This is the remedy of our disconsolateness, the pastime of the Saints, the Ladder of Heaven, and the best improvement of Christianity. Yet albeit Mary's part is the better, Martha's is not disallowed for good. They are both sisters, and must go hand in hand: for if we suffer meditation to eat up all the duties of our life; God will give us little thanks, who rewards all men according to their works. A public good excels a private: contemplation may do more good to ourselves; but the works of charity are more profitable to others. I had rather be wise than rich; yet to relieve a poor man's hunger or necessity, my riches will do more good than my wisdom. Three noble ends Divinity propounds to her followers: the first and chiefest is God's glory; the next to that, man's own solace here, and salvation hereafter: the last, is the edification and comfort of others; and in these consists a Christians perfection. Having therefore contemplated in our minds this fatal and final doom of the world, let us proceed to action: and seeing all these things shall he dissolved, God looks that we should be new persons in all holy conversation and godliness.
In the former part we have two circumstances; How much, and how far: An extent, all these things: An extinct, shall be dissolved. First, for the Extent.
All these things.] The reason of this dissolution is the corruption of all things; therefore this future renovation hath the same latitude with the former corruption. Saint Paul tells us, that The creature is made subject to vanity; and The whole creation groaneth, or every creature; comprehending (with our Apostle here) All things. Origen would fetch the Angels within this compass, alleging that they also are subject to vanity, in respect of their employment about the vain affairs of men: that as they rejoice at the repentance, so they grieve at the disobedience of sinners. Augustine refuseth this interpretation, yet not without a Quare; whether the Angels helping our infirmities, may not be said to be affected with us, and in that sense subject to vanity. But the Angels cannot be subject to vanity; for in the next world the Saints shall be but like the Angels, and yet quite exempted from all such affections. Gregory understands this Creature only of the righteous man, who against his will is subject to this mutable and corruptible estate, and groaneth to be delivered. And Augustine by every Creature, understandeth man in general, because he participateth the nature of every creature: he hath understanding with Angels, sense with Beasts, and a vegetative life with Plants: But the sense reacheth a great deal further. Ambrose and Calvin fetch into this restitution, the brute Beasts; as if they also should be no more than changed, of whom there will be no necessary use. But by Saint Paul's Every creature, and Saint Peters All these things; we may best understand Inanimata or Insensata, things without life and sense, as the Heavens, Elements, and Earth with her works. There shall be a dissolution of all these things.
Of all?] Shall nothing escape? what a mad man is the covetous, to seek the ingrossing of all, when as all shall perish? I will enlarge my Barns, (if it were possible according to the capacity of my desires) And there will I bestow all my goods. Where we may observe. First, his pride, Mea, my goods, as if no man were worthy to taste of his bread, or drink of his cup. Avarus vult esse solus, the worldling would dwell alone: but he shall have company: the rust will wait upon his gold, the moth upon his garment, the vermin on his garner; and, above all, the worm of conscience will not fail to be his associate: there is nothing else which he can so properly call his own: this will stick by him. Secondly his greediness, omnia, all: he would have all that is, he will have all be can. All, without leaving so much as the tenth to the Levite, or the gleanings for the poor; All, if he could possess all the goods upon the Earth, yea and stretch his hand to the Firmament, to make the Sun and Moon his, or reach a Star from the Sky; yet he and all these must perish. The wise man, that sees he must lose all at last, will part with something in time: Tonde superflu • , clip off thy superfluous riches, as Absalom did cut his hair; it will grow the thicker: he that covets all, shall be left worth nothing. Thirdly, his presumption; I will build my Barns, I will gather my goods: Wilt thou O fool? How art thou sure of that? Alas, Hesterni samus, says Elipha • we are of yesterday: not Crasti •• ; we cannot say, we are of tomorrow. To say peremptorily, I will do this or that, is to rob God of his prerogative royal. And what will he do? First place he down his old Barns: indeed barns full of rapine deserve pulling down: but if instead of pulling down old barns, he had pulled down veterem hominem, the old man, this had been a far better exercise. Then he will build up new: his goods are his God, and he builds a Barn as a Temple to it. His dropsy is so insatiate, that he would drink up the whole world: but a dropsy is best cured by vomit: the worldlings vomit, is a charitable beneficence: If this be not his Physic now, he and all these things shall perish together. But happy are they that repose all in Christ; for when they that coveted all, shall lose all; these faithful souls shall find all, in Him that is All in all, our blessed Savior Jesus Christ.
Shall be dissolved] This is the Extinct. Full grievous is the corruption, whereunto the creature is subject, by the sin of man. This servitude appears in three things. First, they are in continual labor to serves man's necessity. The Sun riseth and setteh, and runs his diurnall course, to give man light. The Moon waxeth and waineth, and hastens about her Sphere, to solace him in the night-season. The Winds come out of their several corners, to do him good, both by land and sea. The Rivers are still in action, running like Lacquayes by his side, and emptying themselves into the the sea; from whence there is a reciprocal supply of springs and fountains. The pregnant clouds are in travel to be dedeliver'd of their fruitful showers: God wearieth the clouds in watering the earth. All the creatures are in a continual labor to serve man; and this is one servitude.
2. They have a certain Sympathy and fellow-feeling of man's misery; as the beasts of Nineveh were driven to fast with their masters: yea, they are not seldom destroyed in the destruction of man: the Cattle of Egypt were smitten, the ground of Sodom was cursed; and in the perishing of the old world, nothing, (save what was in the Ark) escaped. Hence it is, that the Heavens do wax old, like a long worn garment: The Sun and Moon have their blemishes, their eclypses: the face of the sky is overcast with clouds: the stars infect the Air with bad influences; the Air doth annoy us with pestiferous vapors: the womb of the Earth doth often afford nothing but barrenness: and when her bowels are ripped for our relief, she seemeth to groan under that painful passion. The Vine bleeds when it is cut, the Mulbery weeps at a breach, and diverse trees sweat out their gum, as if our sins had made them sick of a Fever. If any demand, whether some injury be not offered to the creature, for being thus subdued to vanity: I answer with Saint Chrysostom; Nequaquam; quia propter me facta est. No, for it was made for us, and therefore justly suffers with us. Some have too curiously observed, concerning this mutability of the Heavens; that the Sun (in the beginning) was ordained to keep his course in the Equinoctial only, without swerving: and then say they, there should have been a perpetual spring: neither pinching cold, nor parching heat should have offended the Earth, but the temper would have pleased all with an acceptable indifferency. But now his course is not round, nor doth perfect a circle, nor doth he keep his way directly; but where he rose today, he comes not tomorrow; stealing by that point with a cosening line: Thus he changeth his race, and runs in the oblique circle of the Zodiac, as it were hedged in by the two Tropickes. But all this is not so; for the Sun and Moon in the Creation were appointed to distinguish the times and seasons of the year: which they could not do, if the Sun should not by a serpentine course, in the declining circle of the Zodiac, both remove and approach, and so make both inequality of days, and difference of seasons. But still there is vanity in all things under the Sun; and that which is infected with man's corruption, shall suffer in man's dissolution.
3 They are constrained to minister their service to the wicked desires of sinful men: and this is the sorest bondage of all, even to be a slave unto slaves. The Sun was fain to lend his light unto those Pagan monsters, while they committed their most execrable rapes and murders. The Moon waits upon the thief, whiles he acts, his robberies; upon the Goatish whoremonger in his foul adulteries. The Stars hide not their aspects from those at heisticall astrologers, nor deny their influence to their Heathenish Idolaters. The winds with prosperous gales, fill the sails of Pirates, and the Sea supports their unblest vessels. Upon the grounds of oppressors, the Clouds let fall their fructifying burdens, and the heat of that glorious carbunckle ripens their fruits. Viands make fat the epicure, and Wine is ready for the unnatural thirst of the drunkard. Herbs and Mineralls are medicinal to the unholiest bodies, and recover them from their diseases. Jewels and precious stones are driven to adorn the proud; and gold is made to buy the Libertines pleasure. The Vine yields her Grapes, the Kine their milk, the Sheep their wool, the ground her corn, the Meadows their grass, and Gardens their flowers; even to those that sacrifice all these to their Idols. Birds are compelled to part with their feathers, to stuff the bed of uncleanness; and the metals of the Earth are made the instruments of homicide. The Fire warms, and the Air cools, and the Water cleanses, and the Earth bears the ungodly as well as the righteous. They are all forced to serve them, that do not serve God. This is the bondage under which they groan, and from which they labor to be delivered, longing for the time when all these things shall be dissolved.
And yet they would be but dissolved, not destroyed: they desire a renovation not an annihilation; not a cessation of being, but of servitude. So Paul says, The creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the Children of God. What shall they be delivered, only by being utterly abolished? Shall they so cease to be miserable, that they shall cease to be at all? No, that cannot be called a deliverance, but rather a punishment: for it is a less ill to be miserable, than not to be at all: a corrupt estate is better than none. But they shall be delivered into a glorious liberty; both putting off their servile corruption, and putting on a happy freedom. As for our sakes they became corruptible, so together with us they shall be restored to incorruption. I dare not (with Calvin ) gather in the Beasts, Fowls, Fishes, that remain at the last day, to this number; they are certainly within the compass of this dissolution; but whether designed to such a restitution, it is doubtful. Their services being done, in the ministration to our necessities, why should they be restored to glory. But there shall be a new Heaven, and a new Earth: the Heavens shall be decked with Stars; the Earth adorned with Trees and Plants: the Moon shall shine as the Sun, and the light of the Sun shall be seven fold: and for the end and use of all this Renovation, it shall then be revealed, when it is performed.
Seeing all these things must be dissolved, Why does not man herein read the Necessity of his own dissolution? His body is not made of the same matter, with the Sun, or stars, or heavens: and if it were, yet even these must be dissolved. But Homo ab humo, and humus ex nihilo: he is the son of the earth, and grandchild of nothing. There is nothing in life, more transient than life it self: in the midst of life, we be in death. It eats out it self, spends upon the own stock, and is consumed, by being peeced. Every day that is added to it, is so much as a day taken from it. Nativitas ex utero viventis & secundae matris, Nativitas in uterum mortuae & primae matris. From the morning of Infancy, we come to the meridian of Youth; and presently it is evening; our sun sets. Our life is like a candle in the wind, soon blown out: like a spark in the water, soon extinguished: like a thin air, soon expired: like a little snow in the Sun, soon melted: like a flower; What in the Spring is sweeter for smell, fairer for sight? Solomon in all his royalty was not clothed like one of those: yet in the morning it flourisheth, in the evening withereth: if it last a day, that's all. Deawes, vapors, shadows, snow, dreams, dust, and ashes: A ship, Post, meteor, air; so man's life passeth. We are not debtors to the flesh, saith Paul: but we are debtors to the death of the flesh. Let not this little world man, think that he can hold out with the great: common experience confutes it: daily man dies, when as the world stands. There is but one thing appointed to dissolve the world; and that is the last Fire: but there are a thousand things to bring man to his end. We use to say, that a man may live of a little: but alas, Of how much less may a man die? There is scarce anything, that hath not killed somebody: an hair, a feather hath done it. Let us therefore be carefully prepared for our own dissolution, and the dissolution of the world shall never trouble us. If we live well, we shall do well: and if we die well, we shall do better. The world shall be dissolved, but nothing shall separate us from Jesus Christ.
What manner of Persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?] This is the practical part. The wise man first looks to the end which he desires, and then studies the way conducing to it. He does not say, This way will I take, because it is fair and pleasant, and I have store of company, whither soever it brings me. But because of the smoothness and frequency, he rather mistrusts it; having heard that the rode to hell is very delightful, populous, and numerous of passengers: and therefore resolves to choose the surer way, though it be troublesome and solitary. Heaven is the place, to which we would all arrive: Sin is a pleasing way, but not the right: Piety is the right way, but not so pleasing: if we be wise, we will not mind the pleasantness, but the directnesse of the way; and suffer a little sorrow in our journey, for that inestimable joy at our journeys end. Reveale to us this way O Lord, and see if we have followed it; that thou mayest have glory, if we have; and we pardon, if we have not, and help that we may. Domine paratum est cor meum; metuo ne non sit: utinam esset paratum: hei mihi quod non est. We have here, for satisfaction of our good desires;
- 1. The Way directed to Felicity, which is Godliness.
- 2. Our Progress in that happy Way; our Conversation.
- 3. The Sincerity of that Progress; Holy, All-holy.
- 4. The Perfection of that Sincerity; What manner of Persons ought we to be; How holy, how godly; how excellent in all grace and virtue?
Godliness is the way: and this, in the latitude of it, comprehends all those duties which God requireth of us. Indeed, it is a conformity of the whole creature, to the will of his Maker. To live a life as near to the life of God, as possibly we can, is godliness. In the understanding, it is knowledge: in the will, it is readiness: in the affections, it is simplicity: in the conscience, it is sincerity: in the heart, it is alacrity: in the hand and in all our actions, it is obedience. This is too large a field for us now to survey: we will look but upon one canton of it only: the trial of godliness is obedience. First, it is auscultans, and hath an ear listening to the Word of God. That same, Ipsum audit, runs continually in the mind of godliness. Hear not the world, which bids you seek after transitory things; but hear him that says, Love not the world. Hear not the world, proffering her honors: but hear him, that tells you, Humility is the way to glory.
2 It is Prompta: the guard, that watcheth at the chamber door of Kings, sooner break of their prattle at the voice of their master, and are ready to execute his commands. The godly heart forgets his own business, when his Maker sets him on work. The refractary are like a heavy laden vessel, not moved without strong winds: but the pious heart is like a sphericall body set on a plain; the gentlest breath of God's Spirit stirs it. No war-horse is so guided by the hand of his rider, as the godly soul is by the will of his Maker. Those are paralytic and stupefied members of the body, which will not move at the impulsion of the head: If we be living members of our glorious Head, we have a motion pliable to his direction. The vessel of honor is meet for the Masters use, and prepared unto every good work. They are more stubborn than the winds and seas, that will not obey the voice of Christ. Thirdly, it is Integra: to serve God in some things lest repugnant to our corrupt natures; and in other duties to be recusants, is an heteroclyte and defective godliness. Miriam, for one contumely against her brother, became a Leper. Moses, for failing in one act of obedience, was not suffered to enter into the land of promise. Heli, otherwise godly, for a little indulgence to his ungracious sons, was severely punished. They that profess godliness in diverse things, and take liberty in one ungodly custom, are like a vain traveler, whom the desire of seeing some famous city, after the tedious measure of many hundred leagues, hath brought to the gates: and there taking up his Inn, he is so well pleased, that his glass being run out, he dies without the sight of that happiness for which he undertook the journey. If a man have many fair rooms in the house of his heart, all which he reserves for God: and one little closset, which he lets out to Satan, by the tenure of one filthy lust or affection: will not God dislike all for that one? Will he not for that one secret rivall, forsake the whole dwelling? Much honey cannot sweeten a little wormwood, but a little wormwood will embitter a great deal of honey. You have seen a mouse caught in the trappe, by the very tippe of her tail. A little sin cherished, puts us out of the way of godliness. The word is plural, In pietatibus, in all the duties of godliness. This then is the way, walk in it; and, God hath past his Word, you shall be saved by it.
The progress in this way, is our Conversation. Man is a sociable creature, [unspec 2] ordained to converse with his own kind. It is neither good, nor safe, to be alone. Of conversation there is a necessity; all our care must be to make it holy. There be three objects of a Christians care; the devotion of his heart, the profession of his mouth, and the conversation of his life: The first and last of these are hard tasks; only the middlemost is easy, with small difficulty we can say well: but to mean well, and to do well, be the points of labor. Our conversation is the Index of our estate: if that be bad, the credit of our profession is lost; and we are broken in our religion, as was Demas. The ungodly may be hoisted aloft, like chimneyes; but we know by their smoke, that they are full of foot. The Poets talk of a wedding girdle; which, being tied about the Bride, would instantly break, if she were not a Virgin. The name of Christian is an universal challenge among us: but if we be not Virgins, of a pure and holy conversation, this girdle will break, and we shall be exposed to ignominy. In vain do men speak well of us, when God knows no good by us. If he pronounce • s dead, all the mouths in the world cannot breath life into us: if he pronounce us living, all the Devils in Hell cannot take life from us. A man is what his manners declare him to be; as the Tree is judged by the fruits. There is nothing more honors or dishonors God, than our good or evil conversation. The thoughts of our hearts, whether they be fowl or clean, are only known to himself; and in the matter of his glory before men, they neither make nor • a • re: as the unknown bowels of the Earth neither grace nor disgrace a country; but the words of our lips, and works of our lives; these either hinder, or advantage his glory. But do our filthy aspersions below, stick any spots upon the brow of Heaven? Do we violate the Virgins there, by committing uncleanness here? Doth it trouble the blood of Christ in Heaven, that we swear by it upon Earth? If we oppress the poor, is this any wrong to God? Whatsoever evil we do, is he ever the worse? Indeed his honor, in it own nature, can no more be depressed by our impiety, than it is heightened by our obedience: but in the regard of men, according to our conversation, it receives either increase or dimunition. As the glory of the Sun is still the same; but not so to our eyes, when it is obscured by the interposition of Clouds.
There is nothing so truly speaks a man, as his conversation: what he does, I am sure he is; not evermore what he says. Judas was a traitor: why? He delivered up his innocent Master: this he did, whatsoever he said. Herod was a murderer. why? he slew the Infants of Bethlehem: Pilate was an unjust Judge: why? he condemned the innocent: the conversation is an evident and unanswerable proof. Not that every bad act denominates a sinner: as to be once overtaken with wine, makes not a man a drunkard: nor one oath a swearer: nor one falsehood a liar. That which justifies or condemns a man, is his conversation; the accustomed course of his life. If his manners be lewd, he shames his profession. It were better with Philosophers, to have honesty without religion, than with wicked Christians, to have religion without honesty. Yea, he shames himself. In the preparation of solemn nuptialls, the wedding clothes are sumptuous, the Bride-chamber is richly furnished, the Marriage-bed is adorned with silken curtains and glorious ornaments, the Roomes are strawed with Roses and Violets, the presence is honored with a great number of fair Virgins and noble friends, great cheare is provided, the Bride-groome is decently accontred, the attendants wait, all things are in readiness: yet after all this expectation, when the Bride is presented, if She appear swarthy, evil favored, and deformed, not to be looked upon without contempt, all the Spectators hang down their heads, and the whole honor of the nuptialls is quash'd. So though there be an affluence of riches, a concurrence of honors, and all that this world can afford, in abundance: yet if thy Soul, which is the Bride, ordained for the Prince of Heaven, Jesus Christ, be fowl and stigmaticall, besmeared with lusts, and polluted with an unclean conversation; the Bride-groome will none of thee, and thou shalt be despised of Men and Angels. Be gracious therefore in thy conversation, that thou mayst not be rejected of that Heavenly Bride-groome.
[unspec 3] The sincerity of this Progress follows: Our conversation must not be sensual, but holy: not in part, but All holy: even throughout sanctified.
1 Holy. Holiness is God's own Image, a beam of that Divine light shining within us: a resultance, a resemblance of one property of the Divine nature: the Character of Christ, the Print of the Spirit, the cognizance of a Saint, and the Glory of Men and Angels: without which, all riches is poverty, all honor ignominy. For what is all the glory of the world, without holiness? Aut nihil est, aut nihil prodest: It is all nothing, or nothing worth. God hath chosen us before the foundation of the World, that we should be holy: Holiness is the end of our Election. He hath not called us to uncleanness, but unto holiness: Holiness is the end of our Vocation, This is the Will of God, our sanctification: His holy Word doth command it. Be ye holy, for I am holy. His holy example doth commend it.
Yet alas how doth the universal practice of the world despise it? B •• Holy? It is the least of all their cares: nay they are ashamed to be holy, for fear of being contemptible: as if they had made a Stature, and sworn to observe it; In no man amongst us be holy. Preach holiness to them, and they reply; This is no age for Saints: They will not be so holy, as to go to Heaven before their bones be cold: that holiness is but a sullen quality, and makes men unfit for any good company. Thus do they scoff at the means to be saved, and make themselves merry with their own damnation. But we must tell them again, that whosoever will not be a mortified Saint on Earth, shall never be a glorified Saint in Heaven. He that will not be so sullen, as to be holy, for fear of displeasing the company of sinners, shall never be so happy as to enjoy the society of God and his holy Angels. For without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. Holiness is that Perspective, through which we must see God. It is as possible to see the Sun without eyes, as to see God and be saved, without Holiness. No sanctification in this life, no salvation in the world to come: no Holiness here, no Happiness hereafter. By living ill, thou art seen of God, but doest not see Him: by an holy Conversation, thou both seest Him, and art seen of Him. Our Holiness begins our Blessedness; and our Grace is the handsell of our Glory. The Kingdom of God is an undefiled Kingdom, because none that are defiled shall enter into that heavenly Mansion.
This is that spiritual circumcision of the heart, whereof the carnal circumcision was but a symbol. The differences are many. First, the circumcision of the flesh was wrought by the hand of man; this, by the finger of God; therefore Saint Paul calls it A circumcision made without hands. Secondly, The carnal circumcision was only concerning one part of the body; the spiritual extends to both body and soul; to every part of the one, to every faculty of the other. Thirdly, that was only done on the eight day, but we must be spiritually circumcised every day. This is the Suburbes, through which we come to Heaven the City: Holiness is that via regia to all honor; and they that decline this way, shall be written in the infamous dust. Enoch walked with God, and was translated: but shall a man walk with the Devil, and speed so? Faine we would be Saints, but we are loath to be holy: as if a man should desire to be a Courtier, yet refuse to leave his rusticall behavior, or to put off his sordid garments. O for a Religion that can make a man a Saint, though he were never holy! This is that Popish bait, which catcheth so many thousand Gudgeons: under the pretence of an holy faith, the toleration of an unholy and licentious life. It is their objection; If we be not in the right, it is a wonder that so many flock unto us: few of our Religion turn to you, but abundance of yours come over to us. But we answer, that for the corrupt nature of man to adhere unto a Doctrine, that promiseth carnal liberty, is no more wonder, than for stones to fall downward. Philosophers of divers sects turned to the Epicures, but never did Epicure accept of any other sect of Philosophy: an easy proffer will win us from a laborious life to a pleasant: But who will change a pleasant for a laborious? Callista the Whore thus bragged against Socrates: all thy Philosophy cannot alienate one of my Lovers from me: but my beauty can fetch many of thy Scholers from thee. But he answered her; This is no wonder: for thou temptest men to the pleasing way of perdition, but I persuade them to the troublesome way of virtue. We are all naturally disposed to be evil; to be holy and good is the difficulty. We are borne sinners, there is much ado to make us Saints. Yet holy we must be, or we can never be happy. This is the only way to ascend that mountain where the Lord dwelleth: even that holy Hill, which none can come unto, but he that hath clean hands; which none can have, but by that one and strong way of making them clean, which is by washing them in the immaculate blood of JESUS CHRIST.
2. All holy; our conversation must be holy throughout; separating ourselves from every known sin, and sanctifying our hands to every good work. Indeed many intercurrent infirmities will mingle themselves with our best actions: but still our desires must be hearty, our endeavors holy, and the constant purpose of our souls resolved in nothing to offend. Holy in all the parts of holiness, in all the kinds of holiness, in all the degrees, in all the means of holiness.
1. In all the kinds of Holiness. There is a Holiness imputed; which is properly inherent in Christ, but made ours through faith by imputation. And if this holiness be imputed to us, we are reputed as holy in the sight of God, as if it were inherent in us. There is an holiness imparted to us; either Habitual, or Actual: the former is a divine spiritual quality, wrought in us by the holy Spirit, who furnisheth us with all graces required in the Saints. The Actual holiness is that power of grace whereby we sanctify ourselves; both in the affections of our heart, and operations of our life. There be some that care only to carry a fair show of holiness; flattering themselves, that their garments are of the holy fashion, their going is of the holy pace, their language is of the holy style, their ruffes are of the holy set, their hair is of the holy cut: but their heart is all this while of an unholy metal: the invisible stuff is mere rottenness and dissimulation. Others think it enough to have a good heart to Godward, as they say, how lewd soever their life appear to the world: and that Intùs si recte, non laborandum, if all be well within, they need care for no more. Some content themselves with fine linings, how course soever their outsides be: others will make shift for glorious outsides, though they have sluttish linings. Neither of them both is holy: to the former we may say, as he answered the Strumpet pretending her soundness of health; I will never believe that body to be found, whose face is broken out into blisters: if the life be spotted with a sinful Leprosy, we cannot think that the heart is holy. To the other, that pretend sanctity at the root of the tree, when no fruit but wickedness is seen on the branches; I remember what Paulinus answered to Severus, when he wrote unto him to send him his picture: Erubesco pingere quod sum, non audeo pingere quod non sum; modestly dispraising his own feature: I must blush to picture myself as I am, and I scorn to picture myself as I am not. Of the two, it is better humbly to confess the unholiness we have, than arrogantly to boast the Holiness we have not. But to be All-holy, is to be holy within and without: like the Kings Daughter, who as she was all glorious within, so her clothing also was of wrought Gold: her outside was comely, her inside lovely. Or like the Ark of God, which was overlaid with pure Gold, both within and wiihout. A good conscience is the Gold within, and a good conversation is the Gold without. The holy soul provides for things honest, not only before God, but also before men. 2 Cor. 8.21.
2. In all the parts of Holiness. There is a Privative Holiness, in the reforming that which is evil: and a Positive Holiness, in performing that which is good. This consists in putting off the old man, corrupt with deceiveable lusts: and putting on the new man, created after God in Righteousness and true Holiness. It is but a piece of Holiness; to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts: the better half is to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present world. We must be Holy in all manner of conversation. No exception may be admitted against the general Rule of Holiness: what servant conditions with his master, This work I will do; in that I will be excused? Sanctification is like Leaven, spreading the powerful virtue of it self throughout the whole lump. He that hath a straight shoe, and a tender foot, is sensible of the least stone or rubbish got in; nor can he be at ease till he hath taken it out: The holy Soul is troubled with the smallest error he commits; and is so far from favoring any sin, that he will not pardon himself for stumbling against his will. It was the saying of one, and it is the conceit of many; Alijs in rebus pietatem colas, sanctitatem serves; Lord, be merciful to me in this infirmity, and in other things I will be holy. But Holiness grants no such dispensation: he that makes not some Conscience of all sin, makes no true Conscience of any sin: He that is not in some measure sanctified in every part, is truly sanctified in no part. In secular armies there be Emeriti milites: but in our holy war against sin, neither young, nor old, nor weak, nor sick are privileged. There be some trespasses of so small a value, in their opinion, that they presume, neither will their faithfulness be exacted, nor shall their unfaithfulness be noted. But will you not be fideles 〈◊◊〉 ? who then shall trust you in multo? If Holiness must be in all our conversation, what sin can hope for toleration?
3. In all the degrees of Holiness: we must not content ourselves with an Hac • sque; thus far will I go in Holiness, and no farther: but we are charged to perfect Holiness in the fear of God. How far soever we have proceeded, there is aliquid ultra, a geater measure and degree of Holiness to be attained. He that is righteous, let him be more righteous: and he that is holy, let him be more holy. It is a happy comfort to a man's life, when he shall find in himself the sweet experience of going on, and growing on to more holiness; still increasing with the increase of God. This is a sound proof to his conscience, that he is truly sanctified, because he desires and endeavors to be more sanctified. Saint Bernard reports the saying of a Monk; Nec pejor fieri volo, nec melior cupio: I would be no worse, and I care not for being better. But we not sooner cease to be better than we begin to be worse: nay, we were never truly good, if we desire not to be better. The waters continually run forward, the winds do not look back to their native home, the Sun is never weary of his course: and shall the Christian be weary of well-doing? Shall our Holiness be at a stand? No, but let our daily progress be from strength to strength, till everyone appear before the Lord in Zion.
4. In all the means of Holiness; of which there are especially two, the Word and Prayer: for we may say of men, as the Apostle doth of the Creatures for meat; that they are sanctified by the Word and Prayer. 1. The Word is that outward means which God hath sanctified, to sanctify us. Father, sanctify them with thy Truth: thy Word is Truth. And now are ye clean through the word, which I have spoken to you. Therefore is it called Pure, not only Formaliter, because it is pure in it self, and contrary to all corruption: but also Effective, having the power to make us pure and holy. It is no more wonder to see a man profane, that neglects the Word preached; than to see his hands foul, that did never wash them. 2. The Word is God's means to work holiness in us; and Prayer is our means to obtain holiness from God. The holy Spirit himself is given to Prayer; and what Grace comes not with him? When the Disciples were at their Prayers, the holy Ghost did especially come upon them. As Prayer is the hook to draw down Holiness from above: so the time of Supplication is the time of Sanctification. Though God do grant us more than we beg, in his bounty: he will not deny our holy suites, in his mercy. If we would be holy, let us be devout: they that pray well, cannot live ill: the desire of Sanctification shall be granted.
Thus happy is it to be holy: nothing can make that man poor: he graceth all conditions, and honors all places. Though he be humbled with the lowest, and with the vile have a vile estimation; yet he is truly noble: the estate cannot dignify him, he shall dignify the estate. When a worthy person was set, by the ignorance of him that ordered the feast, at the lower end of the Table; and another demanded why he was placed there: It was answered, Honestare locum, to bring that place into credit and reputation: so it pleased the master of the feast to honor that end of the Table. Wheresoever the holy man is, he hath honorable company: the holy Church to pray for him, holy Creatures about him, holy comforts within him, holy Angels to attend on him; and above all, the Holy of Holies, even that Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of Sabbath, everlastingly to bless him.
The Perfection of this Sincerity shuts up all: What manner of persons ought ye to be? The form of speech is interrogatory: there is Quastio apponens vel tentativa: Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? saith Christ to Philip, and it is added This he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do. There is Quastio negationis; Is the Lord's arm shortened? No, it is not. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? No, we are not. And there is Quastio asseverationis: Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a Devil? Are there not twelve hours in the day? Yes, there are. Of this nature is our question here, importing Excellentiā quandam: What manner of persons ought we to be? He means, very holy, very devout, very zealous. The word in the original signifies rather quantos than quales: implying not so much the manner, as the measure of this required godliness: How great should we be?
There is great ambition in the world to be Great; but not to be great in goodness. Who shall have the greatest honor, millions contend; not who shall have the greatest virtue or sanctimony. Men press in throngs to the doors of secular glory, and strive who shall be the foremost; but for the way of piety, we are very mannerly, and will give any man leave to go before us. We would have no man richer than ourselves, no man nobler than ourselves, no man happier than ourselves: but any man may be holier than ourselves, without our envy. The sensual man wisheth his life, as the Naturian chose his wife; He would have her well borne, fair, rich, kind, with divers other fortunate qualities: but he quite forgot to have her good and virtuous: so among all the desired privileges of life, men commonly leave out Holiness. But if a little Godliness will not serve the turn, what shall become of them that have none? If the righteous be scarcely saved, where shall the sinner appear? Our Religion shall not only be examined by the Test, whether it be pure or no, but also by the balance, whether it will hold weight or no: If it be found either too light, or too slight; refuse silver shall men call it, not able to endure this trial of the universal fire.
What manner of persons we should be in our conversation, we have seen plainly expressed; Godly, holy, and all this in all things, whether thoughts, words, or deeds: Let me add three cautions to the manner; How godly, how holy soever we are, let us together with these, be penitent, patient, vigilant.
1. Repentance must not be lest out: for as we have brought upon ourselves a necessity of sinning, so we must not exclude the necessity of repenting. Every day we gather some spots, therefore must every day wash them off with our tears. This house of our soul is but mortal, made of brittle earth, subject to innumerable breaches, to let out the inhabitant: death will creep in at a little hole: yea, the very soul hath her breaches too; every small sin is a flaw, every greater sin a fracture in this goodly building: Repentance is the only material, wherewith we stop all the leaks of our vessel, wherewith we mend all the rents of our garment, and repair all the ruins of our edifice. It is one of the good man's Titles; Reparator ruinarum, The repairer of the breaches. The Godliest life cannot scape errors; the eye will wander, the tongue will trip, the foot will tread awry, our thoughts will ramble: therefore the heart must be always ready to mend all with Repentance.
2. Patience hath her work too; for the most godly conversation will be exercised with troubles. Either the good we would have, shall be deferred; or the evil we would not have, shall be imposed; we shall mar all, if we lose our patience. The same measure of trouble being laid upon two men, is far lighter to him that bears it with patience. Of how pure wood soever an instrument is made; yet if it warp with the Sun, or crack with the weather, we dislike it. Let us not lose our credit of the Holiness, by the least murmur of impatience.
3. Vigilancie guards all: our sanctity, our piety, our charity, all will be stolen from us, if they be not kept by watchfulness. If all be a-sleep in the house, the thief filcheth at his pleasure: but when the Master meets him at the door, he faines another errand, as if he came upon some business, and speaks to him with all reverence. If the Tempter find thy soul waking, he goes away sneaking: He is disappointed, and thou art preserved. Thy end may come upon thee, as the last day upon the World, like a thief in the night: if it find thee sleeping, it will never give thee leave to waken: as Jael served Sisera, when he slept his last. One finding a soldier a-sleep, killed him: and being charged with the fact, he made answer; that he only left him, as he found him. Should God almighty deal so with us, to take away our souls, when he finds them in a spiritual slumber, how desperately dangerous were our condition? They that lie perdue in camps, during that service never sleep: we are in a continual warfare, beleaguered with enemies that will give neither truce nor quarter: if we fall into a spiritual drowsiness, and be taken napping, their rage will be cruel, their insultation unmerciful.
But alas, what will become of the swearer at this day? Can his loudest Oaths drown the Archangels Trump? What will become of the drunkard? Can his floods of wine quench this universal fire? Where shall the worldling appear: His bags of gold will be melted, his stately Manors turned to Cinders, and all his lands shall lie fallow forever. What will the adulterer and his strumpet do? The mistress of his affections shall then prove the mistress of his afflictions: there is no appearing in this Court by proxey, no commuting the penance: they must answer the matter themselves. Two things will affright voluptuous sinners at the last day: the fight of the Creatures which they have abused, and the Presence of the poor, whom they have not refreshed. Such manner of persons shall perish with the world, from the world, worse than the world. But blessed are they that have kept faith in their hearts, holiness in their lives, and sincerity in their Consciences, for they shall scape both the last fire of Judgment, and the everlasting fire of torment.
2 PET. 3.12.
Looking for, and hastening unto the Comming of the Day of the Lord, wherein the Heavens being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat.
IT pleased God to make use of two Instruments, for the calling together of the assemblies of the Saints; Bells and Trumpets. In the foundation of his militant Church, his first institution was Trumpets by his appointment the Congregation was called into the Tabernacle by Trumpets: and when they were in, he gave them also the sound of Bells, from the garment of his Priest. In the Christian church, we have the use of Bells, but not of Trumpets: yet if we distinguish this Church, as it hath a Militant, and as it hath a Triumphant part, we have both Bells and Trumpets employed, but with an inverted Order. A Bell calls us to the Temple, and a Bell calls us to the Tribunal▪ For as the Sermon-bell calls us to the Church material, so our Passing-bell calls 〈◊〉 to the Church celestial. The Bell toules, and we come into the mil •• an • Assembly: the Bell toules again when we die, and then we go out unto that triumphant Company. And when we shall receive our further Consummation, the re-uniting of Bodies and Souls at the Resurrection; it shall be done by the sound • f Trumpets. In a spiritual sense, we have both these, Bels and Trumpets, i •••• ting us to the way of Goodness: Every Sermon we do h •• re, is as one of Aaron's bells, that rings us to repentance and a holy life: But every Sermon upon such an argument as this, the presentation of the Day of Judgment to our Souls, whereof the Day of Judgment will call for a presentation: this is a loud Trumpet, thundering in our ears the necessity of that Preparation, which may save us from eternal destruction. Hear therefore these lower Trumpets to your pro •• t, that you may then hear that last Trumpet to your Comfort.
Looking for, and hastening unto, &c.] Wherein we have two general parts; The Object requiring some exercise; The Comming of the Lord's Day: And the Exercise concerning that Object; Looking for it; hastening to it. The Object hath two appendances; The fiering of the Heavens, and The melting of the Elements. The Exercise consists in two actions; Expectation and Expedition; the one of Hope, the other of Desire: the former is Patient, Looking for: the other is Properant, Hastering to. Both these affections of the Soul, are resembled to two actions of the Body: Looking for, that is work for the eye: hastening to, that is the business of the foot: The one is an Organ of Vision, the other of Motion: Hope must keep the eye open to Look; and Desire teach the foot to mend his pace, and to hasten. The Object hath the last place in the Text, but it shall have the first in my discourse: the journey being known, we set forwards.
The Comming of the Day of the Lord.] God is no Judge Dormant, nor Demurrant, nor Rampant. Not Dormant, none of those Judges that fall asleep on the Bench; that like those Idol-gods, hath ears, and hears not. Not like him that would not right the poor widow, till her importunity had wakened him. Not Demurrant, like Felix, that put off Paul to a longer day, I will hear thee another time. Nor Rampant, like those in the Prophet, that slay off the skins of the poor, and grind their faces. He is uncorrupt, no bribe can tempt him: not dilatory, no business doth detain him: Inflexible, no power can-sway him. This Supreme Judge hath set the day of his Assise, and all men must appear before him. All eyes shall see him, but with a different aspect: which is strange; that the same Object should be so acceptable to some, to others so terrible. They shall see the Son of man coming in a Cloud: but with no comfort. Not that the Excellencie and Splendor of his glory shall be hidden, but there is an indisposition in their fight to receive it. They shall know him to be the Son of God, by the Claritie of his person, the Majesty of his Word, the obsequious • e • dinesse, of the Angels to serve him, and by divers other perspicuous and evident demonstrations. But as a weak eye is offended with a shining light, so this Glory shall amaze, not cheer them. The good man's honor is the envious man's torment. If Joseph's sheaf stand, the brethren repine. If the fat Calf be killed, the Elder brother is angry: Saul finds not so much pleasure in his Kingdom, as vexation in the prosperity of David. The Glory of Christ shall add to the Reprobates confusion, when they are driven to confess, This is he whom we had in derision. They will rather choose to endure the horrors of hell, than to stand in so glorious a presence. Christ says of the wicked, that they shall see him no more. If we understand this of the Godhead, they never saw it at all. If of the manhood, they shall see it again, Videbunt quem soderunt. Indeed they shall see him no more as a Redeemer; that time is past: but as a Judge they shall, to their endless discomfort.
But these are Scarabees and Beetles, and this Day of the Lord is to them a Rose; so sweet that it kills them. The breath of a man hath this property, that at the same instant it can warm that which is near it, and cool another thing somewhat removed. It is no otherwise with the breath of God: Doth any man fear him? Then is he near him; For his Salvation is nigh to all them that fear him: and this breath of the Lord, the Promise of his second Comming, lights warm upon him, and is a cordial reviving his heart. But if a man be far off from God, through the vast gulf and separation of his sins; then comes this breath very cold and bleak to his heart; and the mere mention of the day of Judgment sends a shivering through all his bones. It was the Son of man, whom the high Priest was promised to see one day in the Clouds. The Father hath given him the Commission of Judgment, and that by this Title, as he is The Son of man. Which consideration makes us bold to take Paul's speech out of his mouth; and what he said to Agrippa, to apply better to Christ: I think myself happy, O King Jesus, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee, touching all the things whereof Satan accuseth me. Especially because thou hast knowledge of all customs; whether they be the adversaries, who is busy in assaulting; or the Fleshes, who is false in betraying; or my poor souls, which is weak in resisting. Thy own temptations have given thee experience of my frailty. I see the wounds yet bleed, which were taken for my sins: yea, and mine own nature is assistant in Judgment, to assure me I shall be partaker in Glory. Is my brother Joseph thus great? Then shall not his brother Benjamin be forgotten. If Hester be so dear to Ahasuerus, her kinsman Mordecai shall be advanced: there is in store for him, a robe, and a ring, and a horse, and a crown, and a train to proclaim his favor, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King will honor.
Wherein the Heavens being on fire, &c. Concerning the Conflagration of the Heavens, liquefaction of the Elements, and dissolution of the World, sufficient hath been spoken before. My Meditations now are directed only to such profitable Uses, which if we devoutly practice, our soul shall escape in that Day of Vengeance.
1. Let there be an holy Fire within us, which will be an antidote against the rage of this Fire about us. The Word of God is Fire; an holy Fire from the Altar of Heaven: Sin is also like Fire; but one heat doth avocate another; the greater Fire extinguisheth the less. The Word is compared to Fire. First, It doth calefacere, warm the heart: more extensive of beams than the Sun; Nihil occultatur à calore ejus; Nothing is hid from the heat thereof. The most frossen breast will thaw, when God shall lay this Fire unto it. Secondly, It can illuminare, give light to the ignorant, if it be not mis-placed. The Fowler that carries the light on the top of his head, lights others plainly, himself sees not so well: Some carry this light only for the good of others, not of themselves; while they teach well, and walk ill: such men, when they go abroad, leave their lamp at home. Some keep this Fire to themselves, and grudge it to others: their light is kept within doors, and shall do no good to their neighbors: they have knowledge, but they will part with none of it. Others rake up this Fire under the embers, as Christ calls it putting the light under a bushel; so that neither others nor themselves shall be the better for it. Thirdly, Fire can purgare, search, try, examine, and purge away the dross from the metal: This operation if the Word had in us, we should be presented pure Gold to the Treasury of Christ. Sins are rust, and rust will not be gotten out but by fire. When we find our affections so drossy, rusty, foul, we must remember that this Fire hath not been made on our harthes; the Word hath not been admitted into our hearts. Fourthly, Fire can assimilare, make the matter it enters into, like it self: as Iron in the fire becomes fire. The soul that humbly entertains the Word, is made pure and holy, like the Word. If we see an uncharitable man, like a cold unformed lump of metal; know that his conscience, hath not yet taken Fire. Fifthly, It will permanere, last long in fit matter: as a mark made in a board by fire, will last as long as the board. If the Word have once thoroughly taken bold of our hearts, that gracious Fire will never out. God's Word, and man's Eare are like the Steele and the Flint: they quickly strike out fire; but to no purpose, unless our heart be as Tinders to receive the sparks. If we have this fire, let it not go out for want of fuel: Hearing and Meditation are like oil to the Lamp, and fuel to the Fire; My heart was hot within me, and while I was musing, the fire burned. If we maintain this holy Fire in our hearts, we shall not be hurt by the burning of the Heavens.
2. The Heavens shall burn, and the Elements shall melt, both with one Fire. Our Affections are our Elements: under the command of the Heart, as the Elements are under the rule of Heaven: By the Creation, the Elements were pure, and so were our Affections: now both of them are corrupt, feculent, and drossy. Therefore let this same holy Fire melt our Elements, new cast our Affections. Hast thou a covetous affection, greedy of those baser things? Melt it. How? Dissolve it into charitable contributions; like molten Lead, that runs into empty corners. Melt thy riches into alms, thy rapacity into mercy. Thy money was congealed in thy chests; put the Fire of Charity to it: were it frozzen to a stone, and bound with iron bars, as with the bonds of Orion; this Fire would thaw it; Charity would set it a running into the bellies of the poor, the fittest receptacles for all our wealthy superfluities. When an ill gotten estate is left to a prodigal Heir, We say proverbially, yea prophetically; It will melt like snow in the Sun. The father, like a Constable, kept in the stocks; but the gallant son will let it loose, and set it a running. The penurious father did clippe the wings of his riches; but the son will open the cage, and make them fly. This is a melting without thanks, without reward. But that which is molten in Charity, runs into a blessed Treasury: it is but put over by a Bill of Exchange, to be paid an hundred fold in Heaven. This is an holy, an happy Fire: but alas, we may say of this virtue in special, as the Poet doth of virtue in general; Virtus laudatur, & alget: Charity is so cold, as if these many Winters it had seen no fire. A man had need blow strong and long upon this pile of Charity; for it is green wood, and hard to kindle: But if this fire cannot melt our hearts into beneficence, the last Fire will more than terrify them with vengeance. Stones will lie long in the fire, and before they melt, they fly in pieces: and such will be the meed of all stony hearts. Hast thou a proud Affection? Melt it into Humility; Lay thy ambitious desire of Honor in the dust. Hast thou an Affection of Revenge? Melt it into Forgiveness, without which thou shalt never be forgiven. Art thou transported with a lascivious affection, troubled with the Itch of Wantonness? Melt it by Mortification: Do not feed this fire, least it burn thee to cinders; but withdraw the fuel, and it will out of it self. Is thy Desire set upon Wine? Doest thou long after the cups of Excess? Melt it, or it will melt thee. The Drunkard indeed can melt his estate into drink, his body into Surfeits, his time into vanity: but he cannot melt his sin into sorrow, his inordinate lust into sobriety. These Elements of our corrupt nature must be molten by repentance, that when the Elements of the world shall melt with fervent heat, we may be found pure and refined Oare in the eyes of JESUS CHRIST.
Looking for, and hastening unto.] The one is the work of Hope, the other of desire: the former commends Tolerancie, the latter Diligence. Looking for: this eye of expectation hath three beams: Vigilancie, Hope, and Patience. Without Watchfulness we cannot look, without Hope we will not look, and without Patience we should not look for the coming of the Lord.
1 Vigilancie is required in this Expectation, even a continual waking. The Prophets of God were called both Seers, and Watchmen: not only Seers, endued with a power of seeing, able to see: but Watchmen, evermore in the act of seeing. Sleep, in the Scriptures, hath so heavy a sense sometimes, as not only to be taken for sin it self, Awake thou that sleepest: but even for the punishment of sin: The most fearful and irrevocable malediction is presented to us in a perpetual sleep: They shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake. Sleep is as often taken for natural death, as for natural rest. There is a privation of Motion in both: in sleep an interruption, in death a cessation. Sleep is a short death, death a long sleep. Spiritual slumber is a very death. The Romists compare the state of nature but only to sleep, or to a man fallen into a deep ditch: he can hear thee call, give him a rope, and pull; he will take hold and be drawn out: this is false, for he is dead. A man may struggle out of natural sleep, of Edormire crapulam: but it is not in our power to awake from sin: we must have a continual grace, or we cannot stand. I stand at the door and knock: st • , not stet • , not stabo, but sto stance; he is ever there. Yet we must add our own endeavors, and with waking eyes be always looking for our Deliverance.
There be signs before sleep natural, and spiritual. First, heaviness of the head and temples, by reason of the rising up of fumes and vapors: Worldly desires induce such a drowsiness upon the soul: these hinder the contemplation of heavenly things: the bodies of such men be at Church, while their minds are at home. O that they could remember to rub their temples with holy thoughts: this would keep them waking. Secondly, Yawning is another sign of sleep invading the body: answerable whereunto there is a torpour or laziness of the soul. O that this Sermon were done! When will he make an end of prating? Shall I go to my prayers? I care not if I do: yet 'tis no matter: let it alone till another time. Is this man awake? Doth he look for the Day of the Lord? No, but the Day of the Lord may take him napping.
There be Symptoms of sleep: First, Snorting; everyone that sleeps, does not snort; but everyone that snorts, does sleep. This is a profound sleep; when the whole Parish rings of a man's vicious acts, yet still he shorts in the room. This man speaks of his greediness, that of his frowardness, one of folly, another of his baseness; he hears all this, yet snorts, laughs at it; Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo. Do we know none such? I would there were none such to be known. Secondly, Dreaming: there be many fancies in both sleeps, of body and mind. One while he dreams that he is on a mountain, and sees the glory of kingdoms: an ambitious Dream! Another while, that he hath found a great treasure, hid in the earth: a covetous Dream! Another time he eats and drinks plentifully; and yet, alas, wakens hungry: a voluptuous Dream! All the pleasure, all the bravery, all the money of the world, is but a waking Dream. Such men will not be persuaded that they are a-sleep: indeed it is hard for a sleeping man to know that he does sleep: yet by his Dreams, he may in some measure find it. The head hath often very frightful Dreams in sleep: Lions and Bears seem to assault us, Gulfes of water to drown us, fire to consume our houses, Thieves and Murderers to rob and kill us. The sleeping soul hath such dreams too: one thinks, If I be honest, and keep a good conscience, I must needs be poor: it is but a Dream. Another, If I do not collogue and flatter, I shall be despised: it is but a Dream. A third thinks, If I do not bribe, I shall lose my cause: it is but a Dream. Another, If I put up this injury without revenge, I shall be held a coward: it is but a Dream. Another thinks, If I be every day giving to the poor, I shall be poor myself: it is but a dream. A thousand of these fond Dreams surprise us in our sleep: if our hearts were awake, we would detest them. We have slept enough, it is high time to rise. Carnal fancies are but Bug-bears to hinder us from good works: when we awake, we will count all things loss for Jesus Christ.
But suppose that such sensual souls be possessed with the spirit of slumber, What say you to them that put on a zealous form of godliness, and overunne the common professors more than Ahimaaz did Cushi, till they are quite out of breath: Are these men a-sleep? Yes, too many of them that think themselves waking. You shall have a Pharisee that walks from Church to Church, till he hath heard three Sermons in a day, What? Doth he sleep? Why not? Did you never hear of men that walk in their sleep? They that think the whole duty of a Christian consists in visiting the Temple, and hearing the Preacher, do (in effect) but walk in their sleep. But they can tell you some notes of the Sermon, repeat the Doctrines and Uses to their Family. It may be so, but did you never hear of men that talk in their sleep? If this be all that they learn by those Doctrines, if this be all the use they make of those Uses, only for matter of discourse; they do no more but talk in their sleep. But they can conceive long extemporal prayers in their private houses, and cut out large pieces of devotion: and are they still a-sleep? The Pharisees had their long-winded Orisons; petitions made up tedious with repetitions: yet under the color of long prayers they devoured widows houses: I hope you will not say, These men were awake. As the sensual man falls a-sleep at his prayers, so the Hypocrite doth but pray in his sleep. It is a bastard devotion that is not begotten in the heart: without the heart, all the labor of the lips and lungs, is but a stinking sacrifice. Christ's Spouse acknowledgeth; I sleep, but my heart waketh: the dissembling Professor inverts the words; I wake, but mine heart sleepeth. Add to all this, that such a man is industrious in his calling, he follows his business close, and thrives in this world: Is he yet a-sleep? He may be for all that? Are there none that pull up the clothes about them, and wrap themselves warm in the coverings, even whiles they are fast a-sleep? Even the sleeping man may be sensible of cold, and catch at something to hill him: the scraping together of worldly wealth is no more argument of a man's being awake, than coldness and breathlessness is that he is alive; or the absence of the Sun proveth it to be day. Far is it from my intent to censure those holy actions in any man: Hear that you may learn to pray, and pray that you may hear to learn: Spend the Sabbath in those holy exercises, and woe unto you if you do not. But let me tell you, that if you have a false and unfruitful heart, a dishonest and unconscionable life; for all this hurry and precipitation of outward zeal, you are still fast a-sleep.
Security and expectation are opposites: the servant that looks for his masters coming, is afraid to fall a-sleep. There be four ways to waken men from their slumbers. First, some loud and sudden noise, as the beating up of drummes, or the sound of trumpets; especially the claps of thunder. We hear the rumors of wars on every side: the Bulls of Rome, worse than those Bulls of Basan, bellow and roar against us: How many horns of that seven-headed Beast threaten to gore us? If they once get the power, we too well know their malice. Can none of these noises waken us? If we could be safe at home, yet shall we not pity our distressed brethren beyond the seas, because we are not within the hearing of their groans? Shall we not rather say with Uriah; Is the Ark of the Lord, and Israel, and Judah in danger, and can we sleep in security? The tolling of a bell will waken a man at midnight; especially if it go for a friend. We have heard the fatal knell of that ever to be lamented Palatinate, the dying groan of long afflicted Rochelle, with the expiring gasps of innumerable Christians in other places; and are we still a-sleep? We have heard the honor of those unhappy conquests, given away from God to Idols and Images; and are we still a-sleep? Secondly, if noise will not waken us, me thinks pain should. We have felt the loss of estate, the loss of honor, the loss of our blood, like so many mortal wounds in our sides; and can we still sleep? Ill success abroad, worse distractions at home, the fear of our enemies, the fear of our friends hath touched us: and cannot all this awake us to fear our God? Thirdly, there is yet another way of rousing the sleeper: Pull off the clothes, lay him naked, expose him to the cold, and try what that will do. Disgrace strips us of honor, trouble strips us of peace, bondage strips us of liberty, sickness strips us of health, poverty strips us of wealth, persecution strips us of friends, death strips us of all. Will not some of these, Will not all of these waken us? Fourthly, Well yet there is one thing that will not fail to effect it; even that summons which shall be given at the coming of this day of the Lord: the last trump shall raise us. O then let us look up in time, and look for that Day when time shall be no more. It is comfort for a man, when he wakes to see the light. Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
2 Hope must not be excluded from this expectation: Evil is the object of fear, and that we suspect: The object of hope is good, and this we expect. None but the gracious can be said to look for this day: Iusti expectant, & expetunt? They love his appearing. They pray for it; Thy Kingdom come. They cry for it, Come Lord Jesus. All this argues their Hope; yea, They have boldness in the day of judgment. We confess with Saint Augustine, Gaudere judicandum qui timmerit judicaturum. What chaste and loving Spouse will not earnestly look for the coming of her Bridegroom? What Princely heir does not long for the day of his Coronation? In Heaven is the perfection of all good things: Fullness is the perfection of measure: Everlastingnesse is the perfection of time: Infiniteness is the perfection of number: Immutability is the perfection of state: Immensity is the perfection of place: Immortality is the perfection of life: God is the perfection of all. We have nothing but what is imperfect below, why then do we not long for that universal perfection above? If we hope for it, we cannot but look for it: and if we look for it, there is some comfort to our conscience that we hope for it. But many are mistaken in their hope The righteous man hath hope in his death. Diverse have hope in morte aliena; they hope for the death of others, that they may get by them: some reversion or legacy runs in their minds: whereof they are not seldom frustrated; for, Dum sperant, expirant. But the good man hath hope in his own death; that death it self, like some more gentle Jailor, shall but unlock the door of his prison, and set him at everlasting liberty. Simple people cannot discern hope from desire: they think that they hope to be saved; whereas indeed they only desire it, and do not truly hope for it. We may desire many things which we cannot hope for; as to raise the dead; but there is nothing that we hope for, which we may not desire. As diverse have fidem, faith; that have not fiduciam, constancy. So there may be Desiderium, a desire of blessedness; where there is not Spes, a well grounded hope to be blessed.
But the soul that knows herself redeemed by Christ, is never thoroughly contented, till either she returns to Christ, or Christ returns to her. The waters do not more naturally run back to the Sea, nor heavy substances incline to their center, than the pious soul desires to ascend to her Maker. The converted unthrift can never rest, till he returns to his Father. A bladder blown full of wind, and held under the water, will still be rising upwards; because that is not the place of the Air. My soul cleaveth to the Pavement; as some read that of the Psalm. Throw dirte on the pavement, and it sticks there: but cast down a ball, and it rebounds; it comes back again to the thrower. The body is but Earth, and when that is thrown to the Earth, there it remains: but the righteous soul, when it is cast down by humiliation, or dejected by the afflicting hand of God, it still rebounds to him: The spirit returns to him that gave it. Hope then should make us look up, and desire enflame us to look for the coming of Jesus Christ.
3 Patience must not be left out; as we look for the Bridegroom's presence, so the Bridegroom looks for our patience. We are unworthy of his honor, if we cannot endure to tarry his leisure. The nobleness of a Christian is seen in his patience: Magnanimity is patient; like the flint which hath fire in it, but it appears not till it be stricken. How contrary is the opinion of the world, to the judgment of God, concerning valor? They think it consists in a brave revenge: God stateth it in an humble patience. What greater courage can there be, than to suffer? What victory so great, as to conquer a man's self? Our expectation may be charged with too much violence, if it be not qualified, and corrected by patience. The fond Alchemist projects much, and extracts nothing but poverty and shame. Patience is the best Chemist, for out of course Earth she can draw pure gold, out of trouble peace, out of sorrow joy, out of persecution profit, out of affliction comfort, She teacheth the bondman, in a narrow prison to enjoy all liberty. He hath within those strict limits, his galleries, his walks, his orchyards: though he be alone, he never wants company: though his diet be penury, his sauce is content: all his miseries cannot make him sick, because they are digested by patience. It makes the poor beggar rich: though he goes for his drink to the Well, for his bread to another's Cupboard, for his garments to the refuse of a cast Wardrobe: yet he looks with as cheerful a countenance, as he that was clothed in Purple, and fared sumptuously every day: Or he that said to his soul, Eate, drink and be merry: for this man had but a purpose to be merry, but the patient man is merry indeed. A superiors unjust frowns are all one to him with his flattering smiles: and causeless aspersions do but rub his glory the brighter. The Iailors that watch him, are but his Pages of honor, and his very Dungeon, but the lower side of the vault of Heaven. He kisseth the wheel that must kill him: and thinks the stairs of the Scaffold of his martyrdom, but so many degrees of his ascent to glory. The tormentors are weary of him, the beholders have pity on him, all men wonder at him: and whiles he seems below all men, below himself, he is above nature. He hath so overcome himself, that nothing can conquer him. As it was said of Demosthenes, that other Lawyers got not so much by their speaking, as he did by holding his peace: so suffering sinners find not so much ease in their complaints and murmurs, as the patient man doth by his humble silence. If with such eyes we look for our Lord's coming, we shall Through Faith and Patience, inherit the promises. Jacob thought not his service tedious, because his beloved Rachel was in his eye: the sight of glory future, mitigates the sense of misery present. The best example teacheth us, To run with patience the race that is set before us: As we look for Jesus, so let us look unto Jesus, who for the proposed joy, endured the cross, and despised the shame: and then we shall dwell with him, That sits at the right hand of the Throne of God.
But doth our Apostle write this only for the comfort of the righteous? would he not also (through the use of this expectation ) win sinners to repentance? what can sooner break off a servants dissoluteness, than every day looking for his masters presence? Fear and hope are opposites: but in this day, Men's hearts shall fail them for fear, when the powers of Heaven shall be shaken. Shew me the man that says, he doth not fear that terrible day of the Lord. When the Master of the house perisheth, all the Family is troubled: the servants look sad, and all things are out of order. No marvel, if there be such a combustion in the Elements, such a commotion in the Heavens; no marvel, if the stars fall, and the Seas roar; when man, the vsu-fructuary Lord of all these, is brought to his judgment. Though fear and hope have their opposition; yet it is not in diametrall terms, but in terms remiss. There is no hope on Earth, without some fear: no fear in a righteous heart, that is quite destitute of hope. There may be a fear without faith: but who will say, that he hath a faith without all fear? Both may consist in the same subject: the holy heart believeth his salvation with confident trusting: and yet that holy heart Worketh out his salvation with fear and trembling. The ground of our faith is God's infallible promise: the cause of our fear, is our own sinful weakness. Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? They had some faith, but the best part of it was lost in their fear: the more faith, the less fear: and consequently, the more fear, the less faith. Yet not only may fear and hope consist together, but even fear and joy: The women departed from the Sepulcher with fear and joy. The women who were made supernumerary Apostles, Apostles to the Apostles, the Mothers of the Fathers of the Church, Angels of the Resurrection; they did run, and they ran upon two legs, Fear and Joy. Those joy in the Lord, that fear Him: and they only fear Him, that feel joy in Him. The fear of God and the love of God are inseparable: innumerable are the places, wherein we are called upon, to fear the Lord: and yet the greatest Commandment, which is the root of all, is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. He doth neither, that doth not both: he omits neither, that does one. Well therefore may we fear the last Day, when we consider our own desert: yet hope and long for it, when we remember the Covenant in JESUS CHRIST.
Let Unbeleevers, and impenitent sinners tremble: let such fear to die, as have no hope to live: let them wish for the shelter of rocks, that have not built upon the Rock of salvation: as the Devils believe and tremble, expecting the full measure of their torment. But if we have made our peace through the blood of Him, that reconciled God and man, and led a life worthy of that noble Privilege; Let us look for that Day with joy, which shall begin our glory. Blasphemers do not look for this Judge; for then they would not offer to swear Him out of his Throne. Worldlings do not look for this breaking of all asunder, for then they would not be busy in scraping all together. Dissolute sinners do not look for this Day, but this Day shall come upon them unlooked for. The Lord of that evil servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not ware of. He that looks for his Masters return, after a long absence, will be sure to have the house in a readiness; cleansed and furnished for his entertainment: they whose consciences lie sluttish, and full of sordid lusts surely do not look for the coming of their Lord: but he is not bound to their times: When they cry, Peace, Peace, then comes that fatal trouble unlooked for. Only the faithful look for Christ: as before his first Comming He was the Expectation of Nations: so until his second Comming He is the Expectation of all good Christians. And this long looked for comes at last; to deliver our eyes from tears, our soul from death, and our feet from falling, that we may walk before God in the light of the living.
Hasting unto] It is not enough to hope that this Day will come toward us, but we must approach towards it. We may pray earnestly, Come Lord, come quickly: yet He will come never the sooner. For He hath appointed the Day wherein He will judge the world: He will come in his own determined time, not when we would have Him. We cannot accelerare Diem, we may accelerare ad Diem: though we cannot hasten it, we may hasten to it. There be certain degrees of Preparation, preceding this Properation. Hasting is in effect the same, that Saint Paul calls Running: Let us run the Race. A man that is down on the ground, must arise, and stand, and be able to go, before he can run. First, a Sinner is laid, and must arise. Up Elias, thou hast a great journey to go: first, he must Up, and then Go, Repentance is the only Angel that raiseth a Sinner: and we may to as much purpose call a dead man out of his grave, as an ungracious soul from sin without repentance. Secondly, when he is risen, let him •• y if he can stand. If a Sinner thinks to stand alone: he falls faster than he rose. In • estas, & non stas: he that stands upon his own feet, shall soon feel them double under him. It is because, like children, we will presume to go of ourselves, that we get so many knocks. The same hand that lifted us up, must hold us up: if either God let go us, or we let go Him, down we • opple. But being strengthened by his might, Let us stand. Standing up is a sign that a m • n purposes to be going. It is an erection of body, an elevation of it towards heaven: not creeping upon the earth, but bearing upwards: it is a disposition of motion: be 〈◊〉 standeth, hath put himself into a posture of going▪ Thirdly, that is the the next degree: let him try how he can go. He that hath lain long bedrid, and at the first loose sets a running, will soon be out of breath. When we are helped up, and enabled to stand; yet without the same supportation we cannot go. Vphold thou my goings, O Lord, that my footsteps slide not. As an Infant learns to go by the hand of the mother, so we by the manu-tenencie of God. But being thus upholden, let us be going. It is a shame for them to stand still, that have so long a journey and so strong a convoy. Fourthly, when we have learned to go well, let us try to run: the same power will strengthen us in any pace, so long as we keep the way of goodness. Our journey requires hast, let us make as few lets as may be. In many things, the more haste, the worse speed: but he can never speed amiss, that runs the way of God's Commandments. Not seldom we shall stumble; but a trip in the way sets a man somewhat the more forward, if he does not fall. When we do fall, let us remember, that either we have gone out of the way, or neglected our Upholder. It is our prayer, O God make speed to save us, O Lord make haste to help us: And it is God's Charge to us, O man make speed to be helped, make haste to be saved.
Haste makes waste, is a true proverb in the precipitant carriage of businesses: Faire and soft goes far: Not to fast for falling: Stay a little, and we shall have done the sooner. These be the sayings of moderation, to correct the rashness of undertakings. But in spiritual proceedings, Delay is more dangerous than Celerity. If salvation be, we cannot work it out too fast. I speak not for a flashy zeal, that runs upon a line like a fireworke, and ends with a crack: but for an holy and hearty desire to do God all possible service; and to make the best improvement of our time to his honor. This Apostolical charge condemneth two defects in sinful men; The Neglect of Resolution, and the Delay of Inception to be good: it riseth in full strength against those, that neither begin to resolve, nor resolve to begin, the amendment of their lives.
1. The Neglect of Resolution to enter into the way of Righteousness, is the forlorn estate of a sinner? What hope can there be of him, that hath not so much as a purpose to be holy? Sloth hath been reproved in the very Market, How much worse is it in the Vineyard? Time is the measure of business, as money is of wares: and what thrifty husband will lose his Market? Yet business in the world, is no better than idleness in the sight of the Lord. As David saith, that he kept silence, though he roared all the day long: or as Jerusalem is said to be a solitary City, though she was then full of people. As the wisdom of the world is foolishness before God: so all carnal negotiation is but a more serious kind of play. Children think themselves very busy, when they are riding upon Reeds, or making of Puppets: men do not think so. What time soever is spent out of the service of God, or our own calling, is but lost in vanity. Idleness it self is damnable; not is it sufficient excuse to say, We do none ill: for it is ill, to do nothing. Thou hast a servant, which neither is Thief, nor Drunkard, nor Swearer, nor taxed with any vice: but because he sits all the day with his hand in his bosom, thou correctest him: Why? What harm hath he done? Thou canst charge him with nothing, but the not doing of something; yet he deserves chastisement. Saint Augustine confesseth, that in his unconverted estate, he returned to God's call, Verba lenta & somnolenta: Anon Lord, Anon. But Lex non dormi •• tibus scripta est, say the Lawyers: nor is heaven open to the lazy. Saint Augustine calls idleness vivi homin • s sepulturam.
When thy heavenly Master calls thee, O evil Servant, Why doest thou loiter? Zacchaeus made haste, and ca •• down: the Shepherd came with haste, to find the Child Jesus. Today let 〈◊〉 hear his voice: To day, that is God's note; To morrow, is the voice of the Tempter. Licentious sinners Hodie sibi reservant, & Cràs Deo 〈◊〉 t •• t: they will be their own now, and the Lord's another time. This is truly the Deceitfulness of sin; the persuasion of that pestilent spirit. Da mihi nunc, futurum Deo: mihi aetatis florem, Deo senectutem. But gods today, allows no morrow: and man's Day is not sure of a morrow. Out of a whole piece of cloth we may cut any kind of garment: but when a garment is made of one fashion, it will be hard to translate it into another: either we shall spoil the stuff, or deform the garb. When we have been long fashioned to this ill-favored World; to reform us to goodness, or to conform us to Christ, is an alteration that requires much difficulty. When we lend money, we call for security; and color the suspicion of our want of trust, with mortality: Men are mortal, we have no lease of our life. But for the matter of conversion, and in the business of our salvation, we promise ourselves Nestor's years; and so live, as if we never looked to die. Some have been called into the vineyard at the eleventh hour: but if God call thee at the third, fail not to come even then, for thou art not sure to live unto the fourth. A snow-ball grows bigger by rolling, and sin multiplies by time. A ship of never so great burden, may be overladen till it sink again. He that shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, Hath not lift up his soul unto vanity: the vulgar reads it, qui non accepit in vanum animam suam; that hath not taken his soul in vain. Surely, he that hath a soul, and doth not use it well, nor seek to save it, hath taken it in vain: as he that buys a garment, and never wears it: or that farms good land, and never tills it. We desire to have all good that belongs unto us: Abraham would have a good son, David a good servant, Jacob a good wife, we would have our beds good, our garments good; not so much as our very beasts, but we would have them good too: and do we not wish to have good souls: If but our shoes be fowl, we will have them made clean; and have we no care to cleanse our souls? Be not so unkind to thyself, as to esteem thy shoe above thy soul. What earthly business hath the worldling, which he doth not most diligently prosecute? If he be in law, how duly doth he frequent the chamber of his Advocate? If sick, what running is there for the Physician? If he have a hundred things to do, not one of them shall be neglected. His land shall be husbanded, his house highted, his garments brushed; the very hairs of his head pass not untrimmed: he thinks of everything in due place and order: But for his soul, when it comes in his mind: he lays that by till another time For the mending of that, for the cleansing of that, it is the least and last thing he thinks on. No wonder, if that man never come to the end, that hath not so much as attempted to begin. Here is no hast.
2 Delay is dangerous, even when we have resolved. If ever we mean to be good, why not now? There is but one month in the year called May: if some flowers do not spring up then, we look for none afterwards. Purpose and performance are like Jacob and Esau: our good purpose, as Esau, is the first borne: but our good performance, as Jacob; carries away the blessing. The holy soul, like that virtuous woman, doth not only meddle with the distaff, but She layeth her hands to the spindle. Purpose is but the Distaffe, actual obedience is the Spindle. The raw Flaxe is upon the Distaffe, the spun yarne or thread upon the Spindle. Ask the harlot, the swearer, or the oppressor, if they ever intend to change their lives: yes, one day: O they will do good works apace, when they once fall to it. These put their fingers to the Distaffe, not to the Spindle: they have some raw thoughts of repentance upon the rock; but they do not spin it into thread, not work it into actual obedience. They trust to the good works they mean to do, but who knows when? Mariners in a storm, if they see but one fire upon their sails, look for an unlucky voyage; but if two fires appear to them, they take it for a good Omen, and promise themselves safety. The purpose of amendment is but one fire, and many have had that, who are sunk into the bottomless gulf of Hell: But if the other fire be present, a real conversion to righteousness, prosperous success will not fail to follow, and the end of our voyage shall be salvation. What servant that looks for his Master every hour, will have the house to sweep, the fire to kindle, the bed to make, when he knocks at the door? yet alas, neither are our affections swept by repentance, nor is the fire of charity kindled in our hearts, nor have we prepared the bed of our conscience, though we may well look for our Lord every moment. We are so far from hastening toward this day, that we cannot endure to hear of this days hastening toward us. Kind servants, that love their master, will be ever and anon talking of his coming: this night, say they, he lies in such a city, so many leagues off, tomorrow at night in such a city, nearer; the third night he will be at home: what shall we prepare for his entertainment? How shall we welcome him? Be these our thoughts, or is this our discourse, concerning our Lord's? No but rather falsehood, hypocrisy, contumely, scurrility, blasphemy dwells in our lips, as if we talked of the Devil, not of Christ. When Birds are ready to fly, they spread their wings: if we did make hast toward our Savior, we would dilate our affections, enlarge our desires, and like the Cherubims spread the wings of our souls to be with him. Abraham sat in the door of his tent, when he entertained the Angels: Elijah stood in the door of the Cave, when he had that vision of God: so let us stand in the door of our life, by a continual meditation of death, that we may be ready to entertain our dear Lord JESUS CHRIST.
When we expect the coming of our best beloved friend, we often run to the door, and give many a look out at the window; and not seldom a sigh steals from our hearts, and forceth a sound out of our lips; Oh when will he come? If we did love Christ so well as we ought to do, or but so well as we say we do; we would give more frequent looks towards him: and though our eyes cannot carry up our souls, yet our souls would send up our eyes, to the place where his Honor dwelleth. The Father ran to meet his returning child, and shall not we hasten to meet our returning Father? The cunning Serpent does not at first dash bid us utterly forsake God; but he persuades to delay: what need you make so much hast? God is never to seek; you know where to find him: At what time soever a sinner repents, His mercy is at hand: you may take your pleasure yet a great while: you shall be saved at last, I will warrant you. Hath not that soul a goodly security for her salvation, that hath the Devils warrant? Do not bad debtors, by deferring of payment, grow more unable for the discharge? when a ruinous building is suffered to run into further decay, will it not require the more charges to be repaired? One knotte or two may be soon undone, but when we have tied ten thousand knots upon our souls, by multiplying sin all the days of our life; can we think to untie them all at once in the hour of our death? If we cannot pass over the foord, when the waters are low, how shall we do in a flood? If sin while it is a twig, be not easily plucked up, how shall we eradicate it when custom hath grown it to a sturdy tree? The coals, the sparks of sin be not lightly quenched; how then shall we put out the flame? There is trouble in curing green wounds, much more old festered sores. Try thy strength in combating with one sin; see if it does not put thee hard toit: thou must pant, and blow, and sweat, and bleed too, ere thou gettest the victory. If it be so hard to wrestle with one devil, how wilt thou encounter a legion? Youth is vigorous and hath nimble feet: old age is resty, and fitter for the couch, than the race. Let us cast away delay, lest it cast us away: and with all present speed make haste toward salvation. If you ask me how you should hasten to this Day?
1 By sending up your hearts to Heaven, as an earnest that you would have your souls there. Let our desires be above, though our bodies are below. The sign that we are risen, is the object we have chosen: there we are, where our delight is; Neither can we go from our hearts, nor will our hearts go from our treasure. Would you know where this object is? First tell me where your joy is. Would you hear where your joy is? Shew me where your mind is. You are young and witty, and your mind is upon that. You are old and wealthy, and your mind is upon that. Are you ambitious, and have your mind set upon honor? Are you effeminate, and have your mind set upon beauty? Are you proud, and pitch your hearts upon envy? Then heers your mind, for here's your treasure; and here's your treasure, for here's your heart; and here's your heart, for here's your joy. You may cry with the Lapwing till you be hoarse; There, There, above: but you are here, even here, below. Heaven is a great way from Earth, and, if you do not make more hast, you will never come there. It is not enough to be righteous, but we must be zealous in righteousness: not enough to do some good works, but we must abound in all good works; and this is to hast to the coming of the Day of the Lord.
2 By soliciting God with our constant devotions; still praying, Thy kingdom come: That Christ may have the consummation of his dignity, by entering into his last office, the office of a Judge; and may have the society of human bodies in Heaven, as well as he had ever of souls: That as he hateth sin it self, so his hatred to sin may be expressed, in the abolishing of all the instruments of sin; the allurements of this world, and the world it self: and all the temporary punishments of sin, the stings of sickness and death: and all the Castles, Prisons and Monuments of sin, in the grave: That time may be swallowed up in Eternity: and Hope swallowed in Possession, and Ends swallowed in Infiniteness: That all men ordained to salvation, may both in body and soul become one entire and everlasting sacrifice to God, he receiving delight from them, and they glory from him, for evermore through Jesus Christ Amen.
2 PET. 3.13.
Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new Heavens, and a new Earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
THere is no comfort that sticks longer to a man than Hope; none that more unwillingly leaves him: nay it never forsakes, unless it be forsaken. Non •• icit, nisi cùm reijciatur. And when it is desperately cast of, it leaves us desolate and destirute of all comfort. But for Hope, the heart would break: and and when it departs, the heart is broken. Not broken by remorse; a fracture which the hand of mercy hath promised to heal: but broken by despair; such a breach as will not suffer it self ever to be made up again. Our souls are anguished with the sense of our sins: we lie under that unsupportable lode, pa •• ing, and groaning, and afflicting ourselves with inconceivable • angs; yet there is hope: A pardon from our offended king revives us, and we • look up with comfort. Our bodies are sick; they languish away in faint sweats, and painful distempers: yet there is Hope. For God hath created both medicines to heal us, and Physicians to apply them: And there is something in the great world to help the little one: something in nature, to relieve man, if they can light upon it. Or if these fail, yet he hath prescribed us another method of Physic: Pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole. But go we further: Our friends die, our children die, ourselves die: where is our hope now? yes; death may kill our life, not our hope. Still we hope to find those in Heaven, that have left us upon Earth: and we patiently resign our own bodies to the grave, in the hope of a better resurrection. Still hope cleaves to the Soul, as Ruth to Naomi; Whither so ever thou goest, I will go with thee. When we consider this goodly fabric, the magnificent structure of Heaven and Earth; of so spacious a capacity, and of so specious a form and beauty: it cannot but wonderfully astonish us, to think that this glorious All should be reduced to nothing. If that were so doleful a lamentation, I am seges ubì Troja; corn grows in the streets of Troy. Or if the foresight of Jerusalem's downfall, drew tears from the Son of God: certainly, the thought of the worlds abolition, may justly confound the hearts of the Sons of men.
But blessed be our God, that hath not left us without hope; even the clear hope of a better renovation. This world shall perish, a more perfect one shall succeed. These Heavens, and this Earth shall pass away; but Hope hath comforted us with a restitution. For we look for new Heavens, and a new Earth. Neither have we a groundless or unwarranted expectation of this; but a confident hope; built on so sure a foundation, as the infallible promise of God: According to his promise. Nor shall there be a blended confusion or mixture of good and bad, of order and disorder, of holiness and sin, in this new place: but justitia habitat; Righteousness dwelleth there; only righteousness, and that forever.
Conceive the whole Verse to be one entire building; and therein we have
- 1. The foundation of it; The Promise of God.
- 2. The material parts of it; Heaven and Earth.
- 3. The quality of those parts; They are New: new Heaven, &c.
- 4. The inhabitant that dwells there; Righteousness.
- 5. The hope of it; for it is a reversion, a future inheritance: therefore there is a looking for it: and it is a thing worth our looking after: We look for.
- 6. The heirs that expect it: not all the world; for hell is ordained for some: but we; all those that serve the Lord in all holy conversation and godliness. Before we come to these particulars, I intend to set down certain Theses, grounds, and positions in general; to give the better light to the ensuing discourse.
1. There is a certain infallible end and consummation determined to the world. Aristotle thus scoffed this opinion in his days: I was once afraid, says he, that either tempest or time would overthrow my house: but now I have great cause to fear the ruin of my house, and of myself too: for the •• be some, that, in words, go about to pull down the world. But to be ser •• us, there is a twofold end, the one of corruption, the other of annihilation. The end of annihilation is, when a thing so loseth its present being, that no part of it, whether matter or form, remains in nature, but as of nothing it was framed, so it is turned into nothing: and such an end the world shall not have. The end of corruption is, when a thing is changed, not simply from a being to a not being, as if it altogether ceased to exist in nature; but into another being, which before it had not. As when fire hath turned wood into ashes, we say there is a corruption of the wood; for it ceaseth to be wood, and is become ashes: But we cannot say, there is an annihilation of it; for there is a substance remaining: and the matter, which was under the form of wood, hath now put on the form of ashes. Of wood corrupted are ashes generated: according to that worn axiom; Corruptio unius generatio alterius: And such an end the world shall have.
2. Creatures, of their natural disposition, infused by God, do not desire their own corruption, much less annihilation: but rather they have a natural love to be, and an innated hatred of destruction. Why else is there such a Sympathy, and Antipathy, even in things destitute of reason? The Lamb, though it never had experience of the Wolves cruelty, yet at the very first sight of him, doth tremble and fly for fear. Scaliger tells us of a tree, that at a man's approaching, draws in her large shoots and branches; and at his departure, spreads them out again; which is therefore called the shame-faced tree. But this is not so much shame, as a natural divination of some present or imminent danger, and and an uniting of the dispersed forces, for the stronger resistance. That same groaning of the whole creation, and fervent expectation of the creature, must not be understood of any intent it hath to corruption, but to perfection: not being contented with the inherent form, it affecteth a better. As the militant Saints, though they groan under their burden, do not desire to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life. Like the child, that cries to put off the old coat; not that it would go naked, but put on a new garment. The basest degree of being, is better than not to be at all. It is perfection therefore, not abolition, which is in the natural appetite of Heaven and Earth.
3. It must be some higher power than nature, that can effect this renovation. For as Nature cannot make something of nothing; so neither can She bring any matter from being to a not being; because She hath a finite and limited power. A natural agent may change a form, whether substantial or accidental; but never work an utter extinction. We may turn a river, we cannot dry up the water. Tyrants may kill the living body of a man, and make it a carcase; they may burn it with fire, and bring it to ashes: and this is as near to nothing, as all their power can possibly reduce it: But let them spend a thousand thousand woods, in the burning of one poor carcase; yet still ashes are ashes; the elements are elements: and they shall never bring this body to nothing. Much less can any natural power annihilate the heavens. Yet an end they shall have; but such a one as man hath: whose body in death is not lost, but changed into the first matter; whose soul is not extinct, but passeth from time to eternity. So the world is uncapable of Annihilation; but shall be changed into a more glorious condition, in the Day of the Lord.
4. Concerning the Incorruptibility of the Heavens, some questions would be moved, and some errors removed. It hath not only been the Tenet of Antiquity, but the observation of all ages, that there is an immutable estate of the heavenly bodies. In the sublunary Region of elementary bodies, we find great variety, and almost a circular alteration: but not so in the Heavens. And if the heavens were capable of corruption, How could the Sphere of the Moon, being situated so near to the Region of Fire, continue so long unconsumed? It is not right to say, that Ob previsum peccatum, by reason of sin foreknown, the Heavens were made corruptible: for, in propriety of speech, we cannot say so of any creature; much less of the Heavens. And when Job saith, The heavens are not clean in his sight; he does not mean that they were unclean; but that they have not so perfect a cleanness as in God; and what cleanness soever they have, is by the gift, and manutenency of his Providence. As Plato brings in the supreme God telling the inferior ones; that they were corr • ptibiles per se, and only kept from corruption by Him. The Truth is, that the Heavens are corruptible, for they shall be changed: unless we say, that this change shall be no more, but only the staying of the wheels of the clock; the clock still remaining the same: so there shall be a cessation of motions in the Heavens, the use whereof serves for the generation and corruption of mixed bodies. They shall depart as a scroll that is rolled together, and the host of heaven shall be dissolved; as we sh • t up a book when we have done reading it. The clear Sum is this; The Heavens are capable of corruption; and they are only kept so long in this constant and unchanged estate, by the same hand of God that shall hereafter change them. They shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed.
5. There is no impeachment of God's Justice, in this dissolving of the world. It was an old cavil; If God be infinitely good, and the world also good in its nature and degree, why should he destroy it? Shall one Good ruin another? If he destroy that which is good, how shall he continue good himself? If he pull it down, because it is evil, how shall he be free from evil, that made it so? The answer is plain and easy; The world in its original state was good, for all things were very good, so allowed upon the Makers review; but doth it therefore follow, that it is so now? Doth not a man pull down his house, when it is grown rotten and infected, that he may build up a new? But the Heavens were not infected, why should they perish? I answer; who can clearly prove, that the sin of man hath not also infected them? Or if they were granted to be clean, yet they were made for some other end, hereafter to be revealed, and not for themselves. Therefore must they be dissolved, that that end might appear for which they were ordained. An egg-shell is curiously framed, yet to manifest the end for which it was made, it must of necessity be broken. So the present state of this world must be dissolved, that the glorious Kingdom of Heaven may be manifested. This degenerated condition must be done away, that the state of incorruption and immortality may be restored. This world shall have an end then; not of annihilation, but of corruption: not a destructive, but rather a perfective end. The light of the Moon, shall be as the light of the Sun, and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days. Not that this greater light shall emane from the glorified bodies in Heaven: Nor that it shall be only by the removal of those fogs, clouds and vapors, which formerly did obscure those lights. But certainly, those Luminaries have lost much of that clearness and splendor, which they had in the Creation, and which at the worlds end shall be restored to them. Not that there shall be an augmentation of their heat, with their light: for as Heaven shall have no need of their light; (That City hath no need of the Sun, nor of the Moon to shine in it, for the glory of God doth enlighten it.) So nor Earth of their heat, when there is nothing to be generated by it. This permutation of the world therefore, doth nothing derogate from the Divine Justice.
6. Yea, it is the praise of his mercy and goodness, to place perfection in the stead of imperfection; or for a less perfection, to give us a greater. Heaven and Earth shall pass away, that better may succeed: Perituri, & veterandi sunt; they shall wax old, and perish: Qua formula solam indicant accidentalem permutationem. The use of a garment is wearing: no wearing, no further use. when the number of the Elect is complete; and that there is no need of the Heavens for more generation; they shall be no longer for garment, they may be for ornament. Thus in a familiar phrase of speech, the world is said to perish; as we say, a man is past his Infancy, an old man hath lost his youth: these vanish, but in neither of these did the man himself perish. If the world should be reduced to a Non esse; the Apostle would not have said, Novos caelos, new Heavens, but Alios caelos, other Heavens. But as in the resurrection, men's bodies shall be of the same substance, though of a purer disposition: Or as our imperfect knowledge in the after-world shall be abolished, that a more perfect knowledge of God may take place. So must the Scripture be understood, when it speaks of the worlds destruction: that it shall only suffer a permutation, and the same substance be endued with a more glorious condition. The Stoics glance at the means of this dissolution, concluding the instrument to be fire. They thought that the Stars and the very Skies were fire; and that they had a wasting action upon the inferior Elements: so that their nourishing moisture, by little and little, decaying; when as neither the Air can have power of procreation, nor the Earth receive further refection by the water; there should then remain nothing but fire, to consume all: from whose ashes should arise a new world. This their opinion was something consonant to our Apostles doctrine; saving that they differ in this: The Philosopher ascribes all to a natural necessity, the Apostle to a supernatural destiny; even to the purpose of God at the first, and to the hand of God at the last. Yet this dissolution shall not reach, either to the seat of the blessed souls in Heaven, nor to the dungeon of the damned spirits in Hell: neither the joys of the Saints, nor the torments of the damned, shall be interrupted by it.
These conclusions being laid in general, would not pass without some useful application to ourselves.
1. Let us never repine at any alteration of our being, which shall conduce to our better being. If the world must be dissolved, how shall man escape a dissolution? Location is inseparable to existence: therefore seeing the world, which is man's habitation and mansion-house, must be changed; the principal inhabitant must needs have a joint and fellow-dissolution. The Heavens shall cease, not from being, but from motion. The ordering of things below, the continuance of generation, the propagation of the Species in living creatures; is the end of their motion: this end being ended, there is also an end of their motion. So the labor and trouble of mortal man, shall cease together with this motion of the Heavens. Yea, there is an end put to the travel of the Earth, to the working of the Sea, to the procreation of those elementary, lifeless and under-bodies. Not that we attribute all this only to the quiet rest of the Heavens: For when at the prayer of Joshua, the Sun stood still in Gibeon, and the Moon in the valley of Aialon, and with them the rest of the celestial bodies; there was not a cessation of the natural actions of things below: for even then, the Israelites did fight, and their enemies did fly. But the true cause of all this rest from motion, is the will of the first cause; without whose adjuvant working, the second causes are not only suspended, but disabled to perform their functions. As therefore when the Firmament, and other inferior Spheres together with the Elements, put off these accidents and affections of corruption, fit for the continual generation of natural bodies; they do not then cease to be: but are endued with a far more excellent condition, and receive other qualities fit for that incorruptible estate of the future world: their substance remains, howsoever they alter or better their qualities; whereat nature does not repine, but rather incessantly desire it. So is death to man: it may change him, it cannot destroy him. Nay, that permutation is