Commentary on 2 Peter

IT is the policy of that old Serpent, to get upon us the same way that he did at first: which is by drawing shadows over substances, as he did the body over the soul. The way to mend this, and to cheat the Devil, is to turn man the right side outwards, and to set the soul foremost again. Josephus thinks that the Serpent, before it was an instrument of Eves temptation and fall, did go upright and speak: and that his present mutenesse and creeping, were a curse laid upon him for that fact. But if he formerly went upright, if he formerly spoke, it might be wished that he did so still: Because if he did go upright, we should the sooner see him; if he spoke, the sooner hear him. In his curse we are cursed too; his very creeping undoes us. When he presents pleasing objects to our eyes, the snares and bates of sin, he says nothing: he is a dumb serpent, but still a serpent. When he winds error and falsehood into our souls, through the labyrinth of our ears, he lickes the dust in a cozening humility: he is a creeping serpent, but still a serpent. The vanities of the world, honor, pleasure, wealth, envenome our affections: but the errors of the world, schism, faction, separation; these impoison our judgments: There the body is more taken, here the soul. The rule to help the former is this; that the body and the soul still go together, but the better before. The rule for the other, that the soul ever follow God, as the body follows her: that she never stand to her own judgment, but to his that made her. The rule for both; that we lay hold upon the Gospel of grace with both hands, of faith and practice: for so the understanding and the will, which is the whole soul of man, is made up again, and sanctifies the body. Let us keep the will and testament of our once dead, and ever living Testator, the sacred record of the Gospel, perpetually in our hands, in our hearts; and then Error may knock at our doors, but find no entrance: it shall not come in. The wicked may invite us to their house, and promise us pleasant cheare, novelties and dainties; new opinions, new positions, new speculations, rare foreign stuff; but we will not go. Thus if we stick close to the evident written truth; when thousands perish in their strange devices, which did creep like serpents into their wanton heads, and stung their hearts; we shall not fall from our own steadfastness: which is our Apostles special care in this place: Ye therefore beloved, seeing ye know, &c.

The main building of the Text is a caution: the Porch or entrance into it, is by an insinuation. The Apostle insinuates himself three ways. First Per viam illationis, by an illation upon the premisses; Therefore: Secondly, Per viam dilectionis, by his love to their souls; Beloved. Thirdly, Per viam concessionis, by granting their former acquaintance with these dangers; Seeing ye know these things before. The caution arms us against two miscarriages; the one of wandering; that we be not led away: the other of Falling; that we do not fall away. The former is a sinful way, the latter a fatal end. In the way, there is Quiddam activum, the error of the wicked: and Quiddam passivum, the Seducement of the weak. In the end, we have a Station, Firmitas, a Stedfastnes: and a precipitation, or falling from it, But then there seems to be a kind of Dilemma in the words: for if they were steadfast, how could they fall? If they did fall, where then was their steadfastness? It is cleared by distinguishing the times: So long as they continued steadfast, they never fell: but when they once fell, they ceased to be steadfast. He that standeth now, may yet fall hereafter.

Therefore: this Illative bids us look back a little: There is no word superfluous, that ever droped from the pen of the holy Ghost: somewhat sure there is in it, and that of no small moment. As David answered his brother Eliabs chiding; Is there not a cause? Certainly there is a cause. Wheresoever we find an Igitur, we must not slip it: for the whole weight of the sentence lieth upon it. It is the ground that feeds the root, it is the root that bears up the tree, on which all the fruits grow. It is the Prophets rule; First to look to the root downward, before to the fruit upward. Every argument is shut up with an Ergo; it is the known note of a Conclusion. Thus may the Syllogism be framed: Whosoever would escape destruction, must adhere to the truth: But you all desire to escape destruction: Vos igitur, Ye therefore stick to the truth. Erring from the Scriptures, is the Medius terminus, whereupon the whole argument runs; from which the very life of the Induction breathes. There is perdition threatened to them that abuse God's word: this we would fain avoid: Cavete igitur; Beware of committing, such an abuse, beware of being led away with such an error. The Wherefore of it is destruction, and who would not fly from that? Yet we are naturally so slow, that we must be spurred on with a Caution.

Beloved.] Of all the medicines and electuaries, ministered to us by our spiritual physicians, Love is the sweetening. Bitter pilles will down, when they are made up in Love. We will suffer incisions, the opening of our veins, and the letting out of our bloods, when we know it is done in Love to our healths. And shall we not suffer the word of Exhortation, when it is the argument of Love to our souls? Paul with passion, Christ with compassion, reproved sinners all in love. If there be any other intention in the dispensers of these heavenly mysteries; whether it be Covetousnes; as Simon Magus would have bought the holy Ghost, that he might have sold him, and so got money by him: Or pride; as the sons of Sceva would needs be casting forth devils, without a commission: Or Flattery; that say to men that despise God, Ye shall have peace: Like Chaplens of Abiathar's humor, that with blanching vices at the Table, spoil their grace before dinner: Or vain glory; as the Pharisees made long prayers, and (doubtless) longer Sermons; that the people might commend their memories, and have a rare opinion of their merits: Or emulation, as Tertullus offered to ou • vie Paul with eloquence: Or envy, as those that bitterly stomached that Apostles credit: Or hypocrisy, as Judas preached against unnecessary wast, because he would fain have put it in his own purse: Or contention, as ^s some Preached Christ in strife; that contend more for the honor of their own wit, then of Christ's Gospel: If any of these springs set our wheels a moving, if these be the ends of our Preaching such an end will follow it, as we had better be without it, even such a misery at the end, as will know no end of misery.

Love, Love is the promptuary of all our labors: this obligation, this adjuration, did not Christ lay upon Peter only, but upon every Minister; If you love me, feed my sheep. Love is the Master of all difficulties, the digester of all injuries, the silences of all excuses, the heart and life of all good actions. Law is not so strong as Love: we do many things in Love, which we need not do in law; be pleased to note here the difference of affections, that is in the Pastor & the peole, he people will render no duties to their Pastor, but what they are compelled to by Law: Nay, Vtinam vel sic, would it were no worse. It might be wished, they would do but that: we find the contrary, they do not. We do not, like dull Oxen, tread out no more corn than the goad of the Law pricks us to: but though you muzzle our mouths, we fill your garners. Only love constraineth us; and that with so pleasing a violence, that we even love our own fetters.

But we cry out on the want of love on all sides. The Minister professeth love to his people, but they will not believe it. The people pretend no less love to their Minister, though he cannot find it. How shall they be tried? There is one rule to try both faith and love: the proof lies in good works. What you do for us, and what we do for you; this shows in what measure we love one another. I we feed you with our spirituals; this is a demonstration of our love to you: But if you let us languish for want of your temporals, I am sure here is no proof of your love to us. If we should all examine our hearts according to this infallible rule; your want of love to us would be judged by your own consciences.

We like any charity well, but the doing charity: If our love would cost us nothing, we would make it welcome. But gracious love is of a nobler nature: it hath Eagles wings, and will fly to do good: it will run, where it cannot fly: it will go, when it cannot run: yea, love will creep, where it cannot go. Sometimes charity flies; as an Eagle to feed her young ones: she flies East and West, swifter than the wind, with an ardent desire of doing good: she flies up to Heaven, and would show her self in those glorious Courts: and this is an Angels pace. Sometimes she runs, faster than Cushi or Ahimaaz to David, or Peter and John to the Sepulcher of the Son of David: Halfe my goods I give to the poor: His alms ran from the fountain of his heart, as streams from an overflowing spring: and this is a Saints pace. Sometimes it goes; if with a slower agility of foot, yet with the same alacrity of mind: when the Samaritan saw the wounded Passenger He went to him. We would have come unto you, but Satan hindered us: he could not come yet he sent; We sent Timothy our brother: and this is a Friends pace. Sometimes it is driven to creep: such a Creeple was Saint Peter in his purse, as the other was in his legs; whom he thus gratified; Silver and Gold have I none, but such as I have I give thee. At the building of the Tabernacle, if men's estates could not reach to Gold, or Silver, or Scarlet; yet their Goats hair was accepted. Love will seek many ways. If the rich afford their alms, the poor may give their prayers: so the Widow gives her two mites; all: and this is the Widows pace. Two Considerations here, are not to be omitted.

1. It is our love that makes us jealous over your souls, with a godly jealousy: like Guardians that have the charge of some noble Virgins, we dare not trust you with yourselves. Paul in his constrained absence, sends to know their faith. we would not have you, like to Pharaohs lean Kine, feed much, and be never the fatter. The Hireling careth not for the sheep: they are not his own, and what minds he whether they be fat or lean? A mercenary Advocate looks only to his fee: let his Clients cause stand or fall, it is all one to him, so long as he hath his money. A Capon that hath moulted away all his feathers, and is cold and naked; in the absence of the Hen, will run to her nest; not for any love to the Chickins, but to warm his own sides. Such heteroclyte and imperfect Pastors have more love to your riches, than to your souls. I seek not yours, but you, saith Paul: that is the voice of love. With no less fervency, with no fewer • ears, do we pray for you, than for our own fowls. The Dog forbears to bark, because he is attentus ad offam: Canes multi, quia canes avidi: therefore are they dumb; because they are greedy Dogs. I will gladly bestow, and he bestowed for your souls. He will bestow: that love is welcome, which brings meat in the mouth of it; which talks of bestowing. In our measure, we thus strive to bestow our loves too: Impendamus; yet what, alas, have we to bestow? For Gold and Silver, you have it already; we have it not. But our studies, our labors, our loves, our lives; these we have to bestow, and we bestow what we have. Fecit quod potuit, saith Christ, of Mary's piety: and Dedit quod habuit, of the Widows charity. If nothing but Gold and Honor were worth the bestowing, our liberality were soon stalled. But by the Grace of God there is something else. There be Talents; though the world scarce value them at pence a piece; and Treasures of wisdom, and Riches that never fade, comforts everlasting; and these are worth the bestowing, and worth the accepting too, when we consider all. For howsoever in our vain days, we look upon these proffers with fastidious eyes; as it is usual with men to have no sense of their souls, till they must leave their bodies: yet when they must part from them, or when they are disquieted within them; that they may either keep them in peace, or in peace forsake them: then some gift of our love, some counsel or comfort will be held worth the bestowing: and it is our love to bestow it.

Yet our love sticks not here; but we even yield ourselves to be bestowed. There be many that care not what they bestow, so they may not be bestowed. we would spare our goods; but rather let them perish than not spare ourselves. If it once trench upon life, then Propitius esto tibi: Be it far from thee: favor thyself then, or never. Skin for skin, and all a man hath, will he give for his life: we will give all to our skin, to save the blood under our skin; spend all we have, to spare ourselves. There we part with our goods, not our bloods; with our living, not with our life. We have not ventured unto blood: nondum ad sanguinem: it is not yet come to that. Our goods are but Bona fortunae: our labors are but Bona naturae: our prayers, but Bona gratiae: But when it comes to our lives; that we must lay down them for the brethren; here is love in his zenith and exaltation. This is a Love strong as death: and Majorem nemo: Greater love hath no man than this; to lay down his life for his friends. When a man dares challenge death to a single combat; and all this, causâ alienâ, non propriâ: We then show proof that you are our Beloved; when to preserve your spiritual life, we sacrifice our own natural life. Much study is a weariness of the flesh: Folia vertimus, corpora terimus: it makes our flesh weary of our work, yea, it makes our soul weary of our flesh. We abridge our natural course, draw on untimely diseases, and hasten upon us death, before we have half run our Race of Life.

This our love costs us more than the sweat of our brows; even the tears of our eyes, the sorrow of our hearts, the vexation of our minds, and the very anguish of our souls: all to testify, that you are our Beloved. Timothy must ply his book, and give attendance to reading, till he grow sick again: Jeremiah's eyes must run like spouts: Lots righteous soul must be vexed: and Paul's heart must be grieved. Lay the people's unkindness upon our souls, together with the burden of our calling on our bodies: and we do (in effect) antedate the day of our death, prevent our term, and pay the debt of nature ere it be due. In this sense we may say with Paul, that we die daily. We make no more reckoning of our labors, than of chaff: and are more glad of our loss, than others would be of their gain. We do not hold our very life precious, to win the souls of our Beloved. Death is bitter, and loss is not sweet: yet love can so change their natures, that in loss we shall find sweetness, and gladness in death. This is love indeed, the very soul of love; and without this, all the rest is but a carcass. Not the outward action, but the inward affection is all in all. If we cast up the bill of our expenses; the expense of our goods, of our bloods; yet without this love, the sum will amount to nothing: Nihil est, They are all but cyphers, till the figure of charity be set to them then they have their valuation, and rise up to ten's, and to hundreds. Lay all these together, and deny if you can that you are our Beloved.

2. But now it is time to see what will become of all this b •• d what fruit our law will bring forth in you. Love again, at the lest sure: we can look for no other. Nulla est major ad • m •• em provocatio, quam praeven • re ani • a •• ox. N • attractive like this: He that begins to us in love, looks that we should pledge him. That man hath an obdurate heart; qui amorem etsi nolebat impendere, 〈◊〉 tamen repend • re: that will neither lead, nor follow; neither one way; nor other, will be won to love. We may commend love, as one did wate • , for two good properties: it neither makes a man in debt, nor i • drink: so love is neither hard • o go • , nor costly to keep. If for all our expensive love, so liberal of our means, of our health, of our life, we cannot find bare land naked love again, we have very ill luck. Yea such luck had sain • Paul. The more abundantly I • ov • 〈◊〉 , the less I am loved. For all his dear and p ••• iol • bounty of love, he fought only to win the like favor and mutual love at their hands; without respect to any other thing in the world: yet he even missed of that. If he had gotten it, yet what singular thing were it: If ye love them that love you, what reward have you? In a word, there is but one Sun, infinite rays: all our loves are but the beams of the love of God: All rivers run into the Sea; and all loves shall be swallowed in the love of Christ.

Seeing ye know these things before.] The Orators which declaimed in the presence of the Roman Emperors, in their Panegytiques, took this course to make those Emperors see what they were bound to do, by saying that they had so done already. Sic facienda docent, quae modo facta vocant: For this both increased the love of the Prince to his people, to be told how well he had done: and withal conveyed a counsel into the Prince, to do so still. Such praises come of good respects and wishes; and is a form of civility, that works much upon noble natures: Landando praecipere, to wrap up the pills of good advice, in the golden leaf of commendation: when by telling men what they are, they represent unto them what they should be. As their way was to procure things to be done, by saying they were done: So our Apostle here takes another way; and by telling them what they should be, doth in effect tell them what indeed they are. His caution for the future, is but a narration for the present. When he bids them take heed of falling, he doth praise their standing. By exhorting them to what they should do, he insinuates what they have done already. As if he spake not to move a wheel that stood still, but to keep the wheel in due motion persuading them, not to begin, but to continue in goodness: and proposing to them their own examples, to be as constant still, as hitherto they have been. Praise is the reflection of virtue: but it is as the glass or body is that giveth the reflection. Here it comes from a mouth that would not flatter: and falls upon a subject which it might make better; by no means worse. It might not make them proud of their standing: it might humble them with fear of falling. Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today, and forever. In adhering to the truth, let us be so too: yesterday, and today, and the same forever here. So then hereafter, when time shall be to more; no more yesterday, no more today, yet forever and ever, we shall enjoy that comfort and glory, which shall never be taken from us.

1. We gather out of these words, this doctrinal sum, or evident conclusion; that constancy in goodness, is not the inseparable effect of knowledge; for then this caution were in vain. Beware last ye fall. Potastis simul & hac scire, & à firmitate excidere. Look to it well, for it is no impossible mat • er: neither is it rare to find knowledge in the head, without goodness in the heart. Scien ••• instat, Charitas aedificat. A certain Lawyer stood up and tempted Christ. He came not to be caught by him, but to catch him: not to reverence that Divine wisdom of his Teacher, but to magnify himself for some great Scholar. Let him know never so much, he is resolved to be never the better man. All things are valued by their proper good •• item commendat fortilitas, sapor vinum, vilocitas Cervam. We mind the strength of the Ox, which we buy for the plough: the fatness of another, which we buy for food. We would have our Hound of a quick sent, investiga ••• of a swife foot, conseqù • of a bold courage, aggredi & invadere. That is best in everything, for which it was made. Man was made to serve God: if he be not good at that, he mistakes his end. Knowledge is but the Comment •• i •• , Obedience is the Act: that prepares, this perfects. As when that Hippom • chus A •• p •• s, • n Plutarch, a man of exceeding tall stature, was commended to the place of a Champion, and warranted to win the day: another answers, yes, if the prize were given to him that could reach highest, his height would much advantage him: but it is valor, not stature, 〈◊〉 must get the Crown. So if the Kingdom of Heaven were promised to learning, then the greatest scholar would fo •• est obtain it. But it is well done good servant, not well read great scholar, that carries it. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them: Do them; never happy till then. Did you never hear of some miserly merchants, that sell rich wines, and drink nothing but water themselves? Nor of hypocrites, that will lie, cheat, slander, whore, and do such close villainies, that are never without a Bible in their pockets.

Speculation, be it never so excellent, is not the whole building of a Christian: but it is rather the ground-work of action. The former is like the lower millstone, that of it self lies still: put practice, that upper moving millstone to it, and they both will grind well together. Where exercise is not, learning will want experience: and where experience fails, errors will creep in: and where errors creep in, knowledge will creep out, or be thrust out perforce: and where knowledge is outed, the soul will quickly be seduced. So for all their knowing of these things before, Saint Peters caution is not in vain, to take heed of falling from their own steadfastness. The Priests and Scribes may know where Christ is to be borne, and truly inform Herod of the place; yet never stir a foot towards him. Such men are like artificial teeth set into the mandibles: they may be of some use for speaking, they are of none for eating. What avails it a Philosopher, that he can dispute learnedly of the nature of fire, when he is ready to perish with cold? Or the Physician to prescribe a wholesome diet, when himself feeds foully, and surfeits with intemperance? When the answerer gave for his question a matter of State, and the replier, who was something dissolute, found fault with it: We may not meddle with this: the answerer said, that the privileges of the School were much wronged, by confining it only to such questions as wherein they were practiced: and added; we have heard you dispute of virtue, which no man will say, you much put in practice: You are loath to meddle with that. Practice is the soul of knowledge.

We will make thee borders of gold, with studdes of silver. Murenulas aureas, vermiculatas argento: so Jerome reads it. Who ever saw the like? For borders of silver to be hatched and overlaid with gold, it is common: the better metal covers the baser, ever. But to overlay gold with silver, is a rare kind of polishment. Yet that is the fashion of the Saints: they are silver without, but gold within: that holiness which appears, is nothing so precious as that which lies hidden. Hypocrites will guild copper: but they that are good as well as wise, though their conversation be but silver, will have a golden heart. There is a double martyrdom: a bloody one, when Christ is magnified in the Roses of his Church, by death: and a bloodless one, when he is magnified in the Lilies of his Church, by life. This is not only verbal, by confession of the mouth: but real, when our deeds make good our words. God is glorified, Christ is magnified, and Wisdom justified; all of their children: not only by the testimony of their lips, but of their lives. Our knowledge prepares us to do it, but our holiness does it indeed.

Geographers speak of a footlesse bird, that is still hovering in the Air: such footlesse souls have they, that are still hovering in the Air of contemplation, but never descend to action. Take the carcass of a man, and cloth it with a thousand garments, yet you shall never make it warm; because it wants the natural heat within, which those adventitious helps might cherish. If a soul be dead to goodness, though you feed it with a thousand precepts, till it become a quick Library of learning, a Magasin of knowledge: yet you cannot put the heat of holiness into it, because the living principle is wanting; Grace Divine. Let that spark be first in it, and then all these helps will blow it into a flame. Otherwise knowledge is but a fair light, put into a fowl and dirty Lantern, and gives but a poor glimmering. By a redundance of meat, and excessive repletion of the stomach, are caused obstructions: and from them ariseth an opilation or stopping of the liver and that stopping breeds the headache: and that headache often grows to a frenzy, sometimes to an epilepsie. The vices of an inordinate life are such obstructions to men's knowledge, that they come to forget God and all goodness: their knowledge withers away with their hearts: and they forbear to listen to their conscience, as if they forgot to eat their own bread. No marvel then, if the Apostle warns them of an extidatis, though he praise them for an Haec nostis: for knowledge will fall from us, when we fall from goodness. They both love to dwell together: and if we once turn goodness out of our doors, knowledge will not tarry behind with us.

2. The foreknowledge of assaults, is a special help to the resistance of them. If we know these things before they come, we may the better withstand them when they do come. When we find men perverting the Scriptures, this is not Res inandita: we knew they would do so: and if they do so, it is no more than was foreknown to us. He that is told of his enemies postures, and at what ward he will lie; may both the better avoid him, and the more easily vanquish him. We make but a sorry use of our knowledge, if our adversary wanting a sword, can foil us with the scabbard. This makes to the conviction of two defects in hearers. First, of them that will not remember the good they did once know. Secondly, Of them that will not do the good, they both know and remember.

1. For the former, it is easy to forget the lessons we have been taught: but then to forget them, when we should use them, is unhappily dangerous. David who had long been exercised in the school of patience, yet in the provocation of Nabal, had his lesson to seek. He that happily digested all the railing and persecutions of a wicked Master, cannot put up this affront of a neighbor: Nothing can asswage his choler, but blood. There be two shrewd pick-locks, that wrench open the closset of our memories: Wine is one, the subtle fumes whereof unrivet every joint of it, and loose the ciment that holds it fast. Deepe drinkers have shallow memories. Women is another: Delilah crept so far into Samson's bosom, that she forced a secret from him with her weakness, which all the Philistines could not have wrung out with their strength. The greatest blessings that ever be fell: mankind have been rusted with this canker of oblivion: even the death and passion of our dear Savior, and the redemption by that act purchased. For why should we crucify him again, and make his wounds bleed afresh, but that we forget his sufferings? How durst we, with serpentine tongues, full of the venom of oaths and curses, blaspheme his sweet and precious Name? All our excuse is, that though we know these things in the History, yet we forget them in the act of our sin and blasphemy.

A traveler hath balsam about him, to cure any wound: he falls among robbers, receives wounds, faints, and bleeds to death, and quite forgets his balsam all the while. We know many comfortable doctrines, and have laid them up in our memories: Yet when temptations assault us, we are foiled: what is the reason? That same Reminiscentia, the key to unlock our memories, is wanting: and so we fall into gross errors and odious crimes. Remember Lots wife: we all know the story; and yet when the occasion comes that we should use it, we utterly forget it. It fareth with Sentences, as with coins: In coins, they that in smallest compass contain greatest value, are best esteemed: and in Sentences, those that in fewest words comprise most matter, are most set by. The shorter, the better: the better carried away, and the better kept, and the better called for when we need them. Remember Lots wife, is one of rich contents, yet very compendious: it consists but of three words, and five syllables: so that we are without all excuse, if we do not remember it. Yet alas, when we are departed from Sodom, and have bidden farewell to our sinful pleasures; there is still such an itch, to return, upon us; or at least a mind to look back so far prevails with us, that we neither remember Christ, nor Lots wife, nor ourselves. Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom: think on me then, and there. So Christ to us; Remember me, ô man, in thy thralldom: now, and here think upon me. You know me well enough, but give your mind to remember me. Remember the word that I said unto you. If we remember what Christ hath said unto us, we shall the better remember what he hath done for us. When we are tempted to wantonness, by beauty: or to covetousness, by gain: or to drunkenness, by dissolute companions: or to Idolatry, by Papists: do we not know the vileness of these sins? Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Yes, Scientia is not wanting, but Reminiscentia; that fails. We are all valiant soldiers, till we come to fight; excellent philosophers, till we come to dispute; and good Christians, till we come to master our own lusts.

2. For the other; many are good at the Noscere, but naught at the Facere: they know, and remember too; but practice and they are strangers. Our duty is not discharged in knowing our Masters will; few Christians should then ever go to hell. To small purpose do we keep the Law in memory, and break it in life: in vain do we remember Christ in our words, and forget him in our deeds. It is not a speculative, but a practicke memory, that pleaseth God. What though we had a memory beyond Cyrus; that could call every soldier in his army by name? What though the evidences of time were recorded in our brain? Yet without the obedience of life, the life of obedience, all this knowledge would but animam pragravare, comber the soul, as Saul's armor did David. Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. He that doth so, how sure soever he makes himself, and how wisely soever he thinks to carry the matter, is fallen into a Deceptio visus: and if he hear no otherwise, into a Deceptio auditus too. His receiving of the word, is nothing but a deceiving of himself. All the matter is in the word Only: we cannot speak so much good of hearing as we must speak evil of hearing Only. To hear, is somewhat, but not all: a part, not the whole. One thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen the good part. Though Christ commendeth hearing, and urgeth the necessity of it: yet he calls it but a part: The better part: is but a part: it is not the whole: Vnum, but not Vnicum. Is all the body an ear • Is all hearing? Yet as some are like Malchus, with his right ear cut off; that hear all sinisterly: so others put all the senses into hearing, and make all the body an ear, whiles they place all religion in hearing. Thus it comes about, that many Praescientes in speculation, prove nescientes when it comes to action. The birds of the air seem to be wiser than we: for when they know the gin, they will avoid it: but we, knowing the devils illusions yet willfully run into them.

We have a knowledge; but there is an untoward Sine that mars it: It is sine cura, sine conscientia, sine humilitate. There was such a conceit in a fiction, that a well informed City found yet many defects in her members, and wondered where the fault should rest. It was told her by a Criticke, that there was one small particle, Sine, Without, that spoiled all; advising the extermination of it. An edict was made, and certain orders set down, for the banishment of Sine, and for the exprobration of them that retained it. A Magistrate without Justice, is Fluvius Sine aqua, a river without water: a rich man without liberality, arbor sine fructu, a tree without fruit: a young man without repentance, Domus sine recta, a house without a roof: a woman without modesty, Cibas sine sale, meat without salt: a scholar without discretion, Calamus sine atramento, a pen without ink: worth without silence, thesaurus sine custodia, a treasure without a keeper: a design without power to go through with it, Volatus sine pennis, a flight without feathers: wit without patronage, terra sine roar, land without dew: knowledge without practice, Fumus sine intensa, smoke without incense: a Christian without patience, Equus sine freno, a horse without a bridle: and intendment without constancy, rota sine ponder, a wheel without a spring or balance. If we could be once rid of this Sine, without, all would be well • we should th • n no longer have fidem sine operibus, faith without works; which is like fire without light or ••• ate: Nor poenitentione sine emendatione, repentance without amendment; which is a washing without being clean: Nor professionem sine honestate, profession without honesty; which is a face of goodness without a body: Nor Zelum sine scientia, Zeal without knowledge; which is a fire without a chimney: Nor Scientian sine obedientia, knowledge without obedience; which is an eye without a foot: Nor religionem sine conscientia, religion without conscience; which is a body without a heart. If these Sine's, these privations that so offend piety, were gone: the rest, that so offend felicity, would follow. For then we should attain to peace without trouble, comfort without sorrow, light without darkness, health without sickness, life without death, glory without envy, and joy without end.

Lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked.] Man is naturally such an arch-flatterer of himself, that he hath a better conceit of his own rules, than of the Divine principles: and thinks that he can guide himself well enough, without God. More than once were the Israelites chidden for going a whoring after their own inventions. The way taught us by God, dislikes us: we must have one of our own invention. Ye shall not do whatsoever is right in your own eyes; but what I command you, saith the Lord. But our Father Adams old disease sticks upon us; we must scire bonum & malum: something we must find out to ourselves, or make to ourselves: of some things we must be the authors and inventors, that so we may seem to be as wise as God, if not wiser: and to know what is for our turns, as well as he, if not better. This is not only a disease of our common life, that we still labor of new inventions: We invent new meats for our diet, new fashions for our apparel: and there is not only Ingeniosa gula, that studies the witty gluttony of a meal: but ingeniosa manus, forming new garbes for the back, and tempering new colors for the face: And these inventions have not their vicissitudes, like the seasons of year; but their successions, and posterities, and genealogies, like the descents of nature, And as fast as we are weary of one, a new invention is found out; which we must embrace, cost what it will: though the price of it hinders our giving of alms, yea though it bring us to the begging of alms; yet have it we will. These be our inventions: we spend all upon them, and we know no end of them. Yet were this vanity confined to secular matters, it were more tolerable: but even in the worship of God we have our inventions too. We have itching ears; and after our own lusts heap to ourselves teachers. We fill the chappells of our ears with new Teachers, that they may fill our heads with new inventions. We are still devising tricks, opinions, and fashions, which our fathers never knew of. God charged Saul to destroy all Amalek: but he would invent a better way, which God perhaps could not think of: In frugality, he will spare some: in policy, the fat and best: and in piety, forsooth for sacrifice. Such an error was once in Peter; Be it far from thee, Lord: This shall not be unto thee: As if he had found out a better way, as he thought, than Christ could devise. These new inventions have such a taking quality, that the authors once infected with them, become pestiducts to others, and means of a vast contagion. There is enough in the first view of them to make them hated.

1. They are Errors: and what beauty can we find in Error, that we should be in love with it? Error is nothing but a wandering out of the way. They wandered in the wilderness, in a solitary way. When a traveler is bound for Jerusalem, where his Inheritance lies; is it a pleasure unto him to wander in the wilderness? It is a curse to wander in the wilderness, where there is no way. Wandering is for rogues and drunkards: The former are so taken by the Statute; for vagabonds: they are never out of their way, because they acknowledge no certain home, whither any way should bring them. For the other; They grape in the dark, and stagger like a drunken man: though they were in the way, yet it is very hard for them to go upright. We are all prone to err: some out of ignorance: Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures. Others out of malice: It is a people that do err in this heart. All out of weakness: All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned everyone to his own way. As if the Bellweather or leading sheep takes a vagary, all the flock will follow him: So when Adam went out of the way, we all turned aside, and have wandered ever since. Nor could we ever have recovered the way again, unless the Son of God had become the Son of man, and so reduced us: For, He came to seek and to save that which was lost. Neither yet, without Him, can we hold right one moment: we cannot keep the way, except He keep us in the way. Saint Augustine seems to be very angry with his friends, that they would offer to vindicate him from all error. I myself, saith he, am able to judge both you and myself: for both I have erred, and you err in saying I have not erred, It shall never please me, to be esteemed what I am not. Such men do not love Augustine, but some other man under the name of Augustine: Si non quod sum, sed quod non sum, diligunt. For such a brag, he condemns that great author of the Roman eloquence; who gave out of himself, that he never spake that word which he wished recalled: Tearming it a speech that better became a fool than a Philosopher: And to say truth, he had great cause to recall even that word, by which he so meant to clear all the rest from any need of recalling. S ^t . Augustine concludes; That of Tully does not please me; Non necesse est verbum revocare: But rather, that of Horace does grieve me; Nescit vox missa revert. To err than is very easy: In te stas, & non stas: Per te vadis, & vel erras vel cadis. An Infant that will offer to go alone, shall fall: and a blind man without his guide, will miss the way.

Why therefore should error tempt us? That which is rottenness in fruits, barrenness in the earth, darkness in the air, sickness and deformity in the body is error in the mind. Was ever any man in love with corruption in his meat, raggednesse in his clothes, Leprosy in his skin, or with famine, or any uncomfortableness that is? Why then should a reasonable soul doat upon error? A man affected with error, is an heddy beast: one that will be miserable in despite of pity. The divine Word, human reason, and the direction of nature, he abhors. Admonish him, he jeeres you: show him the way, he scorns you: offer to lead him, he spurns at you. He is the only man in his own conceit, that having a shoppe without tools, can build a city without materials, cure this sick without medicines, and be a great States-man without any brains. He is his own Academie, his own Magazine; and is in all things, Sibi compendium, aliis ludibrium. One only Companion he admits, him he trusts, with him cohabites; and that is Custom. He takes his own ways, whether his fancy leads him; and thinks himself only in the right: till at last he falls into a deep bog, and there is an end of him.

Alas, that a man should buy error so dear, when he may have truth so good cheap! We only think those things costly, for which we pay money: so we complain of dear commodities, dear purchases, and dear bargains: but we never think that dear, for which we pay ourselves. That error and vanity, which stands us in no less price then our own souls, we esteem penyworth good enough: we never grudge, never stick, or hunch at this: For which if we were to pay our dwelling house, or all the coin in our purse, we would take time to think upon it; and consider well ere we bought it. Which makes it plain, that Nihil cuique se vilius: the vilest, basest, and cheapest thing we have, we hold ourselves. O that we could learn, both by the estimation of our monies, how highly to prize our souls: and by the dear valuation of our souls, how to hate errors and vanities! But as in Luther's time it was a Paradox: Iustitia causa injustitiae: a conceited righteousness was the chief cause of all unrighteousness. First, because it makes men proud; and pride is an ugly sin. Secondly, because it does not perceive it self to stand in so much need of Christ; without whom there is nothing but sin. So we may say, Prudentia causa stultitia; an opinionated wisdom is (in a manner) the sole cause of all folly: For it so transports a man with the imagination of his own knowledge, that he runs into error with confidence. And whiles he forbears to take God along with him, he is most certain to leave the truth behind him. Thus error at first creeps in at the back door, till truth be dispossessed of her old dwelling: and then he revels, domineres, and keeps open house. This deformity, that it is error, is enough to make it loathed.

2. Nefariorum: it is the Error of the wicked: this aggravates it, and makes it yet more detestable. For there may be an error of infirmity, without any notorious wickedness of life: and there may be wickedness in life, without any palpable error in Judgment: They are both bad, asunder: put them together, and they are so much the worse. There were Heretics, called the Nicolaitans; wherewith God charged the Church of Pergamos: Thou hast them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolitans, which I hate: Sprung from Nicolas, one of the seven: and their posterity, the Gnostiques, from Carpocrates: as Eusebius testifies. These held, saith Epiphanius, that only faith was necessary: and so a man did believe and embrace their positions, live how he list, he could not choose but be saved. There be some of their mind still: that think, so they forget not their Creed, they cannot miscarry. Which is as much, as if a man carrying his sword in his hand, might not be drunk at the Tavern, or stumble into a ditch. The Encratites, sprung from Latianus, fell into the other extreme. Non est curandum quid quisque credat: id tantum curandum est quid quisqui faciat. So the Creed might be well enough cancelled, because a good course of life is only regarded with God: and in every sect, he that lives well, shall be saved. Which is as if a traveler should throw away his weapon, and yet never be in danger of thieves: or reject the light, and yet fear no darkness.

Nefariarum: Jerome reads it, Insipientium: which Lorinus labors modestly to reconcile: by telling us, that in the Scriptures, the fool is evertaken for the wicked man. But he should also have shown us • converso; that the wicked man as always taken for the fool. But false Teachers, though they be wicked enough, yet are cunning fools. The devil is that wicked one; yet we do not use to call him fool. He is the great Patron of Seducers; and indeed he makes fools of them: but withal, he makes them wise enough, to make fools of us. It is not his foolie, but his wickedness and cunning that does us the mischief. And if his Instruments were not more Abitophels, than Nabal's, more cheats than so • s, our danger were the less. But as the bristle could not draw in the gross and pitchy thread, unless way were first made for it by the naule; so these Doctrina daemoniorum, so called as they are the Inspirers and authors; and Doctrinae hominum, so termed as they are the Instruments; being so black, pitchy, and sooty as hell it self; would find no entrance into our beliefs, if they were not brought in by that cunning way of sophistication and plausiblenes. Certain Impostors, having the Statue of the king curiously carved, and composed of gold and precious gems; for their profit, melt it, and cast the same gold and Jewels into the Image of a dog: and then give out, hanc imaginem suam canis, esse Imaginem Regis. that this is the very Image of the king: because here is the same gold, the very same precious stones. So Heretics take the Scriptures, which is the word of the great king: they coin new glosses and expositions upon it; giving such strange and uncouth senses, that they force it to speak what it never meant: yet still persuade their hearers, that is it the very gold they look for; the right Scripture, word for word, weight for weight. But as we say of the former Image so changed, that it is neither the kings, nor a dogs, but rather their own that devised it: So we may say of the Scripture thus abused, that it is neither God's word, not it own self; but theirs that have corrupted it. Sed male dum recitas, incipit essetuus; says the Poet to a base repeater of his verses.

What hast thou to do to declare my Statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? Seeing thou not only hatest it in they heart, but also pervertest it with they lips? It were good and fit that such men, before they be suffered to meddle with the Scripture, should put in sureties, that the senses they give of it shall be orthodox, and consenting with the Church. For the trusting of every man upon his single bond, to interpret any place of Scripture, is the occasion of much error: So grow they bold to utter their own fancies, and look to be believed upon their bare word: which is Dominari fidei, to be Lord's over the faith of their hearers. If Satan came to us in broad terms, charging us to renounce Christ, we should utterly defy him: the truth (he knows) we will embrace. Therefore he creeps in like a Serpent, and Superseminat errores, sows tares: that these growing together with the seeds of truth, may in time choke them. The things that were ordained for a means, whereby the Gentiles might come to know God, by Satan's illusion became occasions of their more offending him. By the visible things of the Creation, they might have understood the invisible things of the Godhead: so they might. But they fell to worship the Sun, Moon, and creatures, omitting to know their maker: so they did. Where should we know Christ, but out of the Scripture? Search the Scriptures: they testify of me. Yet as it often happens, that in the very high way, we cannot see for the dust: so upon the face of this sacred spring, the devil collects such clouds of errors; that many men do lose Christ, in the very place they are appointed to find him. Or as in dark nights, pyrates use to kindle fires, and make great lights upon the rocks and maritime coasts: whither when the seamen steer in hope of harbor, they meet with wrack and ruin: So heretics flourish with Scriptures, or at least with some flashes of it, like false lights: to which when distressed souls repair for succor, these pestilent seducers feed them with nothing but pernicious error. Fowlers by setting up a dead tree, besmeared with Lime, and dead birds upon it, as if they were all living; allure the live-birds to them, as to their friends and acquaintance, and so bring them to destruction. The application is easy; the experiment too common: Dead errors are the snares of living souls.

This is the cunning of these wicked impostors: something they will have good; to draw down the evil: the greater part shall be evil, to poison the good. Miscent recta per versis: ut ostendendo bona auditors ad se pertrabant: & exhibendo mala, latenti peste corrumpant. If Rome had not some truth, she would never be believed: if she were not full of errors, her followers could not be deceived. As the Apostle here from God, so we from the Apostle, by the commandment of God, warn you of these things; that ye fall not into the error of the wicked. It may be that you slight our speaking: but they of whom we warn you, would give much to have us hold our peace. If the truth had not some champions, error would soon over-run the field. Philip of Macedon besieging Athens, sent Legates to the city, conditioning with them; that if they would deliver into his hands ten of their Orators, such as he should choose, whom he pretended to be the disturbers of their common wealth, he would raise his siege, and be at peace with them. But Demosthenes smelt out his plot; and with the consent of the Athenians, returned him this apological answer. The Wolves came to treat of a league with the shepherds; and told them thus: All the feud and discord betwixt you and us, ariseth from a certain generation of dogs which you maintain amongst you: Deliver us up those dogs, and we will be good friends with you, neither will we any ways wrong you. The dogs were delivered up, the peace was concluded, the shepherds secure: but Oh the woeful massacre that was presently made amongst the poor lambes: they were all devoured, the shepherds undone; and all by parting with their dogs. If the Popish faction could once get the Ministers of the Gospel to hold their peace, or procure them to be muzzled by authority, or to be delivered over to their Wolvish cruelty; woe were to your souls. Error would then play Rex, Darkness triumph, Hell make play-day, Truth would languish, and all goodness fall flat to the Earth. As little as you now regard us, you would then miss us, and wish for us, and say, Blessed is he that cometh to us in the Name of the Lord.

3. That ye be not led away.] This touches our coppy-hold: for there may be error in men, and yet this not to extend to wickedness: there may be a wicked error in others, and yet that not extend to us; farther than to be an occasion of our tears and prayers for their recovery. But if we be led away with it, now the danger is come home to us: it nearly concerns ourselves. There is an error in judgment, and an error in practice: That in judgment persisted in, and violently defended, grows into heresy: That in practice continued and resolved upon, grows into wickedness: Either of them is a wicked error. A man may stumble and not fall: or fall, and rise again: It proves to a man's good sometimes, that he hath erred into evil. But it is better to err ten times in via pedum, than once in via morum.

The main scope of the point armeth us against vacillation and inconstancy. There be some that will Turn away their ears from the truth, unto fables: very toys will lead away fools. So greedy is our nature of change, that it will listen to any whisper of innovation: To the Papist, when he promiseth change: and what change doth he promise? You shall have the old religion again. wherein (for your comfort) you shall never understand a word, what either God speaks to you, or you must speak to God: and for variety, you shall have half a Communion for a whole one: is not this a fair exchange? To the Sectary they will listen, when he promiseth change: and what is his change? O you shall have a fine new Church-government for your old one: a Presbytery is better for you than an Hierarchy; Elders than Bishops. There be brains that are the forges of such alterations: and there be ears that drink in, and fingers that itch for such fatal projects. In the Inventors, pride and malice breeds them: because they cannot rise themselves, they would ruin all: and make it their practice to bring men to the bough though they have never a tree in their garden for the purpose, as Timon had. One calls them fit-timber out of which Politicians are to be hewn: knee-timber, which is good to make ships of, that are ordained to be tossed on the seas; but not for houses that should stand firm on the Land: These be the Leaders. In the embracers, it is at first weakness, then willfulness, that yields to this leading away. Without patience and perseverance, we could never hold out our journey. For as our nature is tender, and would not endure the cross but for patience: so it is flitting, and would soon be weary of any good course, but for perseverance. The Romans were highly commended by S. Paul: That their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world: And yet when Paul was convented at Rome, They all forsook him: all shrunk away. Though men be as confident as was Peter; Et si omnes non ego: yet they may fail as Peter did. The motives of perversion or leading away, be commonly two: Aliquod novum, or Aliquod mirum.

1. The former is the way of Schismatics, who are therefore called Novelists. The lower parts of Germany are grievously pestered with them: as I have heard of above thirty several sects of religion in one Town: So that, come, will you be of our Church? is as familiar among them as good morrow. It is reported, I know not how truly, that diverse among us, transported by the novel doctrines of their half Lunaticke teachers, are taking up for a new plantation beyond the seas: but it were happy for the old plantation, if she were well rid of them. Such men are led away with quid novi? A new fashion does not more take your proud lady, nor a new play your gallant, nor a new Tavern your drinker, nor a new trick your cheater, nor a new drugge your empiricke, than a new opinion does your schismatic. Which having once handsomely formed, and outwardly beautified, he dares now advance in the Pulpit; and there is such crowding to it, as if it were the only Jewel in request. What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? Yea, O ye reeds shaken with the wind, what went ye out into the wilderness to see? A vanity lighter than yourselves? Yet as the golden Calf took the Israelites, because it was made of their ear-rings: so a factious conceit transporteth these hearers, because it is made fit for their ears.

2. If it be Res mira, it is more catching; for then Res nova is included in it. It could not be strange, if it were not new. Not new in it self, but new to us: for familiarity takes away strangeness, as time takes away the newness of anything. By this trick the Romists lead away their Proselytes: they tell you of wonders: here is nothing in your Church, but what is common and obvious: come to us, and we will show you glorious objects: Temples adorned like Theaters, Priests like Actors, Images richer in their ornaments than Queens: utensils, and properties, and appendances; no Millaners shop can compare with us: We have a great Master that commands kings, that can pardon sins, that can give fair indulgences: To all which the amazed heater answers, It is very strange. Wonder in natural things, is but the daughter of ignorance: and if ignorance be in love with these vain shows of wonder, who can wonder at it? As in the Poet, Myrrha, was in love with her own father: so give ignorance leave to be affected with her own daughter. Mira cannut: they do almost nothing but work miracles: Natural effects, with them, are miracles: casual accidents, miracles: magical illusions, miracles. They can make a miraculous drawing of a tooth, a miraculous cutting of a corn. So Iustus Baronius affirms, that when he was converted to them, he was miraculously cured of the Colique, by stooping to kiss the Popes foot. Pope John 22. did pile up miracles so fast, that he said in the Canonization of Aquinas, Tot miracula confecit, quot determinavit quaestiones. Which of their Saints is not reported to have done many miracles? It is a great favor of them that they have not put S. John the Baptist quite out of the Catalogue of Saints; because the Scripture testifies of him, that he wrought no miracles. Indeed to me this appears the greatest miracle, that they can find men to believe their miracles.

But Beloved, shall they lead us away thus? Shall they catch us with such a poor trick, as the ostentation of miracles? Their relying upon miracles, implies an induction of new doctrines: That which is old, and received, needs no ratification by miracles. So that we have just cause to suspect their doctrine of Novelty, because they so labor to uphold it by miracles. And shall that which is new, the invention of man; lead us from that which is old, the institution of God? Wonders we have at home; we need not go to Rome for them. Our Fairs, and Marts, and popular streets abound with wonders. If there may be found any Heteroclytes; any stigmaticall monstrosities; or but so much as uncommon forms, and uncouth productions of nature; they are exposed to view for money. Men that are grown up toward the stature of Giants, or stunted to Dwarfes, Hermaphrodites, or the like; are held very strange things. Yet the plain Christian Tell-troth did know a stranger thing than all these. Being demanded what it was, he answered, A Sinner. That a man should provoke God, so gracious and mighty: that he should believe Satan the father of lies and cruelty: forget his own death, so imminent and inevitable: obey the command of his flesh, a drudge so ignoble: admire the world so fickle and dangerous: despise Heaven, so blessed and glorious; and all for vanity, such a wretched emptiness: this he good man, thought the strangest thing in the world: And so indeed it is, in one sense; in regard of reason: though not so in the other sense, in respect of custom.

This indeed might seem strange, if we that are bred children of the truth, should be led away with the erour of the wicked. This would be a grief to our Father: The holy Spirit leads us into all truth: and shall a lying spirit lead us away into falsehood? If we be led by the Holy Ghost, we are the Sons of God: If we be otherwise misled, what are we but bastards? Grieve not that Holy Spirit of God, by whom ye are sealed to the day of redemption: By no means let us grieve our Father. This would be a grief to our mother: the Church mourns when she loseth her children. She loseth them, or rather they lose her and their own blessing, when they are led away by the wicked: Let us not grieve our Mother. This would be a grief to our brethren: to see one that sprung from the same womb, and was nourished with the milk of the same breasts, to turn recreant, and revolt to the common enemy: Our brother is lost, is a woeful complaint: Let us not grieve our brethren. But the worst grief will be to our own souls: for in being led away from our Father Mother, Brothers, we have lost ourselves. We have chosen our professed foes for fast friends, and made our true friends to become our foes. And if this leading way were by force and compulsion, against our wills, it were more tolerable? as Israel was led away captive by their enemies: But willfully to follow seducers, against our own conscience, is most damnable. Take here two remedies for the avoiding of this mischief.

1. Let us truly weigh the folly of inconstancy. Be not carried about with strange doctrines: for it is a good thing that the heart he established with grace. To be loose then, in the main joints of religion, must be very bad. The tottering wall is soon blown down: but being down, who shall set it up again? The righteous soul is like a body of a square figure: turn it on which part you will, lay it how you list, it will still be constant, and like it self. An unstable Christian is the worlds worst mooveable: a little resembling the silkeworme, but not of such profit: one day you shall find him a fly, another time a maggot; seldom twice in the same shape. Take gold and throw it into the water; yet it loseth neither the value nor color: cast it into the fire; and it comes forth purer: but dirt is hardened with the fire; and dissolved with water. The sons of levity are such, as that they are joined withal would have them to be: hard or soft, cold or hot, tall or low, great or small; of any temper. Their souls are like common strumpets, that take in all suggestions. For shame let us once be steady, before we are laid in the steady earth, wherein there is no motion. We say the Fowler cannot easily kill the flying Bird: but whether we stand or go, lie or sit; in what posture or place soever we are; death can both hit, and wound, and kill us. And in the grave, the most pragmatical busy-body shall be quiet. There is no shifting of ground, no changing of sides there. They that troubled all their neighbors, shall be there as tame and calm as their fellow-clods. The body shall be confined to one place, the soul to another, without removing: till they be removed to the Barre, and brought before the Tribunal of Christ.

2. If we would not be led away, let us stick close to our God. We are sheep apt to wander: we shall not, if we keep to our shepherd. We are reeds, moveable with every wind: yet bind the reed to a pillar, and it stands firm. It is ill sticking to anything but God: all other props will fail us. Riches cannot keep us, but that we may be led away from them: not keep themselves, but that they may be led away from us. Nay, do they not rather help to lead away our confidence from God? The Forresters knowing that the Elephant useth to sleep leaning against some tree, are wont to cut the likeliest tree with a saw so deep, that the unsuspecting beast thinking to rest upon it, falls down with it, and so is surprised by them. They that put their trust in man, shall soon find him hewn down by death; and then there lies their hope in the dust with him. God appears to the Jews in types, signs and figures: but at last he departed from that people, because they too much trusted in them. In the fullness of time he appeared to his Church in himself in his Son; and from that Church He will never depart, because we cannot too much trust in him. I will hold myself fast by the hand of my God: as to that purpose the royal Prophet. Let us wed ourselves to him, wedge ourselves to him: so shall we not be led away. Antaeus, when Hercules threw him to the ground, still rose up the stronger; because he got new strength by touching of his mother: So if we hold ourselves fast to the Lord, and depend upon him by our faith and prayers; all the forces of Satan shall not lift us from the truth, because we shall perpetually get new strength and vigor by touching our Father.

If we flinch never so little from God, presently error catcheth us: as chickins that will stray from the wings of the hen, are in danger of the kite. He that would describe a circle in paper, if he hath brought that circle within one inch of finishing, and but remove his Compass a little, he cannot make it up a perfect circle, except he begin again, and find out the same or a new center. Though we have so made God our Center, as to fixe our hearts upon him; yet the least remove of our Compass, a little wandering from him, may endanger us to error. Nothing can fill a man's heart but God: so that if God be in the mind, though nothing else be there, it is full: If God be not there, although it be full of other things, it is still empty. For the world like that transformed king, does but feed upon thistles; things that will prick, but never satisfy. So nothing can keep a man from wandering, but the manutenency of God: if he let go his hand from us, we will presently go from his hand: and going from his hand, which is truth, we are presently surprised by the hand of error. The Devil does but watch this opportunity: if we stir forth of doors without God, he instantly sets his bandogges upon us; Schism and Heresy. So the Novelists, leaving him, by leaving that order and discipline whereby he governs his Church; he hath suffered to be led into factions and errors, till they crumble away into private conventicles; and at last become nothing, either in existence or appearance. That Church which will needs be the form to all Churches, because she hath left his written will, he hath left to her self and her own traditions: and now she is swollen into tumours and ulcers, and blisters. When men once neglect God's leading, their next step begins at this leading away. How often hath the fantastical desire of seeing Mass, been plagued with falling into idolatry? As foolish young men have been so taken with an enterterlude, that they must needs, (forsooth) become Players. But as Vlisses bound himself to the Maste, that the Sirens might not tempt him: so let us unite ourselves to the Lord, our Faith to his Word, our Obedience to his Will, and our Confidence to his Power and Promise: and then as no strength can pluck us out of the hand, so no persuasion can lead us away from the side of JESUS CHRIST.

4. Cavete ne exidatis, beware least ye fall from your own steadfastness.] There be two things much conducible to the keeping of us upright: Elevation when we are down, circumspection when we are up. For the former; Shall they fall and not rise? For the other; Let him that thinketh he standeth; take heed least he fall. It is good to go on; provided that we be in a good way; or else it is better to return. If Agas be going from Abraham's house toward Egypt, the Angel calls her to return, and not to persevere: but if Lots wife be going from Sodom toward Zoar, the Angel willeth her to persevere, and not to return. St. Peters Cavete, here; is but an exposition of his Masters Memores estate, elsewhere: Both fortify us against recidivation. As there be Goads, to prick us on to goodness: so there be Nailes, to fasten us into goodness. As our mothers had not only wombs to bring us forth, but also breasts to bring us up: so the Church, as she daily strives to convert and make new Proselytes, so thinks it an honor to show old and constant Professors. The Poet did put no less virtue into Tueri, than into Quaerere. Nor will the Lawyer pass a conveyance with a mere Habendum; but he will add a Tenendum too. The Physician ends not the cure of his Patient, with the cure of his disease: but after all, minds the preventing of a relapse. Our first study is Vt accedatis, to win your entrance: next, Ne excidatis, to hearten your continuance. We are glad of a Well begun good Convert: but most joyful to hear that Enge at the last; Well done good servant; that's the Crown of all.

Our blessed Savior did not always content himself with Venite adme, Come unto me: but sometimes changed his note into Manete in me, Abide in me. To one that would enter into the Church, and be baptized, Saint Philip had his condition, Si credideris, If thou believest: To the other, that were entered, and thereby might be secure, Saint Paul had his caution; Si permanseris, If thou continuest: otherwise even thou shalt be cut off. The first care is to lay the foundation sure, Ne corruat; least it fall, like the house built on the sands: the next, to perfect the roof, Ne perpluat; that it rain not through, and rotte the principals. It is not enough to call them backward, which are loath to come on; but to spurr them forward, that are ready to lagge behind. There is an Ingredimini, proclaimed to them that are without: and there is a Progredimini, inculcated to them that are within. Of all the Stories in the Old Testament, Christ sets a Memento upon the head of Lots wives turning back: as if he earnestly desired those that have forgotten, to remember it; and those that do remember, never to forget it. With salt from her Pillar, let us sprinkle ourselves; that we never go back, or fall from our own steadfastness. There were two memorable monuments of God's Judgment in that Story; The Lake of Sodom; and Lots wives Pillar: the one the plague of resolute sin, the other of faint virtue. The Sodomites are an example of Impenitency; Lots wife of Instability: they of obstinate perverseness: she of relapsing righteousness: they of never being good, she of turning from good to evil. To them that willfully continue in the state of sin, there is a monument of Reclamation; the Lake of Sodom: For them that languish in the state of grace, there is another monument of caution; Lots wives Pilla • . But our Cavete here, points directly to the latter; that we fall not from our own steadfastness. This the Apostle dissuades us from by his counsel; as his Master shown the danger of it by an example. Let us borrow a little more light of the Lord's example, that we may the better embrace the servants counsel. Two particulars let us examine; why she was turned into a Pillar? Why into a Pillar of salt?

[unspec 1] First, why into a Pillar? First, shall we say, for the similitude it bears unto an human body? That were something: both were erected to stand upright. Secondly, or that it was a usual monument of the dead? Absalom in his life, built himself such a pillar against the time of his death: and great Monarchs had their Piles and Pyramids. But that was not the intent of this Pillar: it was never meant for Lots wives honor. Thirdly, or because when they intended in elder times to disgrace men to the world, they engraved their faults on Pillars? Fourthly, or because when she should move, she stood still; therefore she was turned to a Pillar; always to stand still, and never to remove. This is indeed somewhat near the matter: but not all. Fifthly, a Pillar is a durable thing, and God meant her a spectacle to posterity. They that lived in those times, (and it lasted long, even to Josephus his days) might be instructed by their eyes: we have a Memento for our ears: yea, this Pillar is set up for our sakes. And this is one good which the Lord draws out of evil; that He suffers not evil examples to vanish as shadows, but to remain as Pillars, to warn them that come after. When we come at this Pillar, we are put in mind to change our course, and take another way: so shall we not be led into error, nor fall from our own steadfastness. This way took she that perished: that way went he that was saved: Let us remember Lots wife, but follow Lot: remember her, but follow him; by no means looking back.

[unspec 2] Next, why of salt? Saint Augustine gives the reason of it; Condire nos, for our seasoning: Vt sal statuae sit nobis condimentum vitae. For our benefit, God erected this monument: He does not only embalm the memory of the just, for our imitation: but powders and makes brine of the evil, for our admonition. So that if we take the Pillar, and engrave Christ's Memento upon it; there is both a Statue, and a Statute. God could have sunk her into the earth, or blown her up into air, that no visible relict of her should remain: But he makes her a Pillar; not only for gazing; but of salt, for our seasoning. If we find any itch of relapsing to the world, any corrupt humor of returning to our former lusts, let us draw it out with the salt of this Pillar. This is an happy art of extracting salt out of others, as Triacle out of Vipers: and to make them profitable to us, that were unprofitable to themselves. Though Lots wife were evil, yet her salt is good. If we have seen others miscarry before us, by being led away with errors; and can remember Saint Peters Cavete; we shall draw honey out of hemlocke, the strength of standing from their weakness in falling. Why are not Traitors buried, so soon as they are executed? Why are their heads and limbs advanced upon poles, but in terrorem omnium? God could root out the remembrance of the wicked, together with their lives from the earth: he does not; but rather sets up their Quarters in stories; Vt poena Impii sit eruditio Iusti; that their punishment may be our advertisement. He does not pour out their blood, and cast it away, but saves it for a Bathe; Vt lavet Iustus pedes in sanguine peccatoris; that the Righteous may wash his feet in the blood of the Wicked. Cavete then, and we are safe: this is a handful of salt to keep us, and to make us keep. Put them both together; Et hac columna nos fulciat, & hic sal nos condiat: Let this Pillar prop our weakness, and this salt season our sacrifice, that we may be kept in our own steadfastness. For some useful application.

1. Let us shun the society of idolatrous Seducers, and hate the very air wherein they breathe. So deeply doth God detest Idolatry, that He forbids the Prophet to eat the bread, or drink the water of a people infected with it. That inhibition might be personal, but the grounds of it are common. No pestilence should be more avoided than the conversation of the mis-religious, or openly scandalous. We shall hardly win them to goodness: their familiarity will easily infeoffe us of their wickedness. We may do good turns to the superstitious, but it is dangerous to receive any from them. Kindness is more safely done to a Papist, than taken from him. That which is done to him, obligeth him: that which is taken from him, obligeth us. His obligation to us may be an occasion of his good: our obligation to him may occasion our hurt: the surest way is to keep a-loofe from all pestilent Seducers.

2. The greater show of sanctity that error puts on, the more suspicious let us be of the intended mischief. Jeroboam threatens, the Prophet stands undaunted: Jeroboam fawnes and promises, the Prophet is not moved. But then comes a gray-headed. Seer, and pleads a counter-message from God; the Prophet yields and transgresseth. It may be he thinks; An aged man, a Prophet, an old Prophet, will not (sure) belie God to a Prophet: No man will forge a lie but for an advantage: what can he get by this but the entertainment of an unprofitable guest? Though God would not suffer me to feast with Jeroboam, yet He may allow me to eat with a Prophet. Why are not God's Revelations as free to others, as to me? A counter-mand from an Angel of God releaseth me from my strict charge. My fidelity is approved in refusing the bread of Bethel: God may in pity of my faintness, afford me sustenance otherwhere. Thus if we once come to dispute with God's express commands, how easily do we fall from our own steadfastness? Who would have looked for a Liar under hoary hairs, and an holy mantle? Who ever saw more external strictness, than in those Emissaries of Rome that come to turn us from our God? Who would not trust that gravity, that austerity which they seem to carry over themselves? It is the conclusion of simple souls, These men must needs be Saints. There is no Tentation so dangerous, as that which comes shrouded under a veil of holiness, and pretends authority from God himself. Nothing is so apt to deceive us, as the fairest semblances, as the sweetest words. Satan as a Fiend may afright us, but he would appear an Angel of light when he educeth us. Our safest way to be kept from error, is not to believe the speech for the person, but the person for the speech.

3. Let us consider, that these Seducers help to overthrow us, and cast us down; but what help is there in them to raise us up? There they leave us; in a forlorn condition, as the Priests left Judas after his treason. What is that to us? See thou to that. Or as the old Prophet of Bethel left the Prophet of Judah: He could take the pains to fetch the man of God into sin, but he will not bear him company one foot at his departure. He had been the occasion of his fault, but he was loath to be enwrapped in his judgment. All the kindness he will do for him, is to interre him in his own sepulcher, and to weep over him. It is a cruel courtesy to kill a man, and then help him to his grave; to betray him with our lips, and then to bedew him with our tears: The Prophet had needed no such friend if he had not met with such enemy. So the Romists teach their followers to direct their prayers to Saints: but for themselves, when they come to die, then Christ, and none but Christ. When they have brought their Proselytes whither they would, then let them shift for themselves. The mischievous guides of wickedness leave a man, when they have led him to his bane: as familiar Devils forsake their Witches, when they have brought them once into fetters.

Bewere least you fall from your own steadfastness.] After all these premised particulars, for the better method in handling the summary Doctrine, I will set down certain Theses, conclusions, or grounds; which either are radically in the Text, or naturally without force may be derived from it. First, men may fall from their own steadfastness, or else this Cavete had been in vain: for no man is charged to beware of that which cannot happen. Secondly, there is a proneness in the nature of man to fall: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak: therefore there is great need of this Caution, Ne excidatis. Thirdly, If any fall away, it is their own fault; they are not compelled, nor thrown down by God, but they fall of themselves: it is by their own weakness, or their own willfulness: Another thing implied in the Cavete: for if the Almighty power should do it, all the Cavete's in the world could not withstand it. Fourthly, If God suffer some to fall, that have stood, yet this is no impeachment to his Justice: because he leaves none without means of standing, or hope of rising. In the Text, they have knowledge granted; therefore they may stand: there be Seducers forewarned of; therefore they may fall: and the fall is not pronounced desperate; thefore they may rise again. Fifthly, Men may fall far; from their own steadfastness, that is, from that measure of stability which for the present they have, yet not totally, so as to have no firmness at all; to lose even the very foundation and principles of truth, or to suffer an utter eradication of grace: Or if so much, so far, so desperately they fall; yet this lapse may not be final: the grace of God is not debarred them, nor the gate of mercy shut against them, nor is the sentence of irrevocable damnation passed upon them. Sixthly, It is dangerous to fall at any time; but then worst, when Chistians have stood sometime in the truth; as these to whom our Apostle writes: To them a Cavete ne excidatis, is especially needful: for the nearer heaven, the greater fall to the earth. Seventhly, Lastly the summary use, the principal scope, the main antidote to prevent all this, is a constant Perseverance unto the end.

1. Men may fall from their own steadfastness. Though it be true; Abundance cautela non nocet: yet there is no need of warning, where is no possibility of danger. Now this falling can be incident to none but Christians: for they that never were up, cannot be said to fall: Qui iacet in terram, non habet unde cadat. Nay not only to Christians at large, in the latitude of all that are baptized: for in that number, we shall find abundance of heretics, no fewer hypocrites, and innumerable ungodly persons: some not informed in their Iudgments, the rest not reformed in their lives: these cannot be said to fall, for they never stood. But we must restrain it to converts, such as are called into Christ, have embraced the Gospel, graced their faith with good works, and conformed their demeanor to piety. Yet that these may fall from their own steadfastness, there is possibility: that they do fall so, it is great pity. Oh that this point were not to be proved by too dear experience. How many have fallen, even with all the helps of standing about them? Judas was continually in the presence of Christ: he heard his Sermons, he saw his miracles, he tasted his bounty, did eat at his table, even that Sacramental bread: yet he fell. Who would think that the devil durst enter into Christ's own College? Or that any of his College should entertain the devil? So in Noah's octonary family, one was a son of Belial: he saw the Judgment of the flood upon all the world: by a miraculous mercy himself escaped: he was at his fathers Sacrifice: yet he fell. In the little family of Lot, one fell off: she was by being Lots wife, incorporated into the house, and made partaker of the blessings of faithful Abraham: she was brought out of the Idolatrous world, kept safe in Egypt, preserved from the sin of Sodom, from the fire of Sodom, delivered from the captivity of the five kings, from the perishing of the five cities: how gracious were all these mercies? what abundant means, and strong helps had she to stand? Yet she fell. She was brought out of Sodom, warned of the ensuing danger; had Angels to go before her, her husband to go with her daughters, to attend and follow her: she was gotten to the entrance of Zoar: Yet that place she made choice of to perish in, which God had picked out to save her. Thus she sinned, in respect of her self, desperately: in respect of the Angels, contemptuously: in respect of her husband and daughters, scandalously: in respect of God and his mercies, unthankfully: and fell away in the wickedness of a willful defection. There were but twelve in Christ's family, and one of them fell away: but eight in Noah's family, and one of them fell away: but four in Lots family, and one of them fell away. Ham was preserved in the Ark yet he fell. Lots wife was reprieved by the Angels, yet she fell: who would not fear, if one may perish in the company of Angels? Yea, Judas was under the Tuition of Christ himself; yet he fell. There is then a possibility of falling.

For use and application, here, it is but having recourse to our Apostles Caution: we may fall, therefore let us look to our standing. We may be led away: the devil will venture to try: therefore let us not budge, not give him one foot of ground: but if he beckons one way, be we sure to take the contrary: There have been some that stood in as little fear of falling, as now they are in hope of rising: Pride and wantonness was the cause of their fall: faith and humility must keep us upright. When we remember what we have been, we have just cause Erubescere, to be a shamed: so when we consider what we may be we have no less cause contremiscere, to be afraid. We know our beginnings, we do not foreknow our endings. We may be certain that thus we are: but that thus we shall be, is above our assurance. We see how much of our way we have past: we see not how much is left, or whether we shall be able to hold out to the end. As we have cause to pray; O God, when we are old, and gray-headed, forsake us not: so to gird up our loins, and redouble our strength, that we may persevere. For it is nothing to begin, unless we continue: nor to continue, unless we do it unto the end.

2. There is a proneness in the nature of man to fall. Not that when we stand, we are held up by force: for God offers no violence to the will of man, but sweetly disposeth it to desire the own good. Yet the Second Adam hath not so far cast out the first, but that the new engraffed siens doth relish of the old stock; and still there is a a tang of original corruption left in us: as a vessel, after much rinsing and cleansing, will smell of the first seasoning. I am carnal, sold under sin. Sold? This is not such a sale, as wherein there is a seller a buyer, a thing sold, and the price: So in Adams selling, Satan was the buyer, Innocence and heaven sold, and the price was an apple. So Ahab sold himself to Satan for a slave, to work wickedness, by his wives instigation, and setting him on to the bargain. Paul was not sold thus: but there be two kinds of slaves: one that selleth himself into captivity, and willingly obeyeth a tyrant: another that is sold into servitude against his will, as Joseph was sold by his brethren: and so was S ^t . Paul sold. Selling is sometimes taken for a simple tradition, without any price. Ye have have sold yourselves for naught, and ye shall be redeemed without money. But this selling and buying must be understood in a different sense. In the Sale, the price is Nought; but it is naught in respect of God, for he had no honor by it: no gain redounded to him: And yet while they sold themselves, they sold not their own, but God's: and in reason, the owner of the thing sold should have the price. So in the purchase or Redemption, the price is nothing: that is, nothing to them: it cost them nothing: they paid not one penny for their own deliverance. But in respect of God, the price was not nothing: for the redemption of their soul is precious: It cost him much; even as much as it could cost him; the precious blood of his dear Son.

Sinners out of Christ are sold two ways. First, they are sold in the common market of man, when Adam sold himself and all his posterity. Next they have made a new bargain with Satan, and sold themselves over to him again for the pleasures of the flesh. Thus did Ahab, and Judas, and Demas willfully sell themselves, though long ago they repented the match. But Paul does not speak there of himself, as in the person of a natural man: for every man considered in nature, is sold under sin: And there be some that have abandoned and prostituted themselves to sin: so that as Jude calls them Arbores his mortuas, Trees twice dead: so we may call these animas bis venditas, souls twice sold. The buyer hath fine and recovery upon them. But S ^t . Paul speaks in the person of a regenerate, spiritual, supernatural and sanctified man: meaning that no man upon earth, in what measure so veler holy, can so emancipate himself from that captivity wherein Adam hath inthraulled him, but that he is still enwrapped in sin, and sold under sin. There be two kinds of servitude: Some are slaves because they are so borne, being the children of slaves and bond-parents: Others have sold themselves, and willfully become bondmen. Like to the first are the regenerate, for they are borne servile, being conceived in sin. The unregenerate are like to the other, for they have sold themselves into bondage. Yet may the very regenerate be said to be sold two ways. First, In regard of original corruption; for which they may thank their first parents; if at least it be worth their thanks. Secondly, Because the embers, the spawn, the leaven of that original sin remains in them, and makes them subject to many infirmities: so that they cannot do what they would, but they too often do what they would not.

The conclusion then is plain, that there is still a proclivitie left in our nature to be led away into error. The seed of all sin is within us, therefore even of apostasy. A good scholar, that will ply his book in his Masters presence, yet may fly out when his back is turned. The bird that hath long contented herself with her cage, feeding and singing there; yet if she spies the door open, will whip out, and fly abroad. Our nature is Like a deceitful bow: which when it is bent to the full, except it be followed hard, till it be sure and fast; starts back again, and is as far off as ever. It is called the flesh: and such flesh is it as will Sine sale putrescere: if it be not corned, it will of it self bring forth corruption.

For use of this conclusion: we find here just cause to deplore our miserable estate by nature, and to consider how deeply our first parents have engaged us: so that (not to let go the former metaphor) we are all even sold under sin. We exclaim against any man that hath sold a city, or a country, or an army, to the enemy: but Adam sold the world. He sold his children, and children's children; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: he sold all the Patriarchs, and all the Prophets, and all the Princes of the earth: he sold all the Apostles, Peter and Paul, and both their Regiments, the glorious hemispheres of the world, Jews and Gentiles: he sold all, even the dearest friends that God had among the sons of men: even the Disciple whom the Lord loved, and the mother of the Lord herself, whom all generations call blessed. He sold his wife, yea he sold himself: and if Christ had not provided for himself by a miraculous generation, Adam had sold him too. If Christ had been conceived in original sin, he must have died for himself: nay he could not have died for himself, but must have needed another Savior. Such an unthrift had we to our Father: and we take after him, for in this respect we are all prodigal children.

But now what was the price of us? He sold all; what had he for it? When the Patrimony is at sale, the children look for portions. Alas, he had nothing for us, and nothing could he leave us; but Sin, Shame, and Sorrow: that is; the portion of all the sons of men. We complain now that land will not sell, that the price of it is fallen: that twenty years purchase is come down to sixteen. Yet sure, as cheap as it is now, it was cheaper at first; both land, and Landlord. What was Paradise sold for? What was the whole earth fold for? what was mankind fold for? what had Eve for her part? It could be but a little fruit: so little, that the Scripture will not tell us what kind of fruit it was: yet she had something. What had Adam for his part? Yea, for the whole? Nothing besides a morsel of fruit; except it were any content to him in pleasing his wives humor: as Jerome thinks, he so dearly loved his wife, that he did eat, lest otherwise she should have been discontented. Yet if he had that satisfaction he had something. But now after both these, what had we for our part? He sold our Inheritance as well as his own: it is fit, we should have somewhat for our right. Now what fell to our share? What had we for earth, and heaven too? For Innocence and happiness too? Alas, nothing could accrue to us by this sale, but sin and woe. Adam sinned, and we suffer. Before we had any possession of felicity, or could claim any interest in it, we had (in him) forfeited it. We had a punishment, before we had a being: God was displeased with me, before I was I. I was built up not fifty years ago, in my mothers womb: and I was cast down almost six thousand years ago, in Adams loins. We all here are borne in the last age of the world; yet died in the first. This is that portion left us by our parents; original sin, and a corrupt inclination of our nature to transgress, to be led away into error: and the most holy souls upon earth cannot be quite rid of it. O wretched men that we are, who shall deliver us from the body of this death? We are prone to fall.

3. If any fall away from their own steadfastness, it is their own fault. A Deo est quod statur, à nobis quod ruitur. If God did cast us down, our Cavete would do no good, there were no remedy, we must fall. But seeing there are but three that can do it; the Devil, his engines, or ourselves; the Cavete is requisitely put upon us: and if we do hit it right, it will save us. But if we will fall for want of circumspection, it is in vain for us to blame any but our selves. Saul would have put his transgression upon the people, but it would not do: God would not take that for an excuse. Adam would have discharged his sin upon his wife: but God finds Adam guilty, and so judgeth him. Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee: They be our own, and we must answer to them, and answer for them. We may have leaders into temptation: but it is our fault if we follow them. Nay, to come closer home, do not we tempt ourselves? Satan is not the sole cause of evil. The fowler sets his glass, spreads his net, whistles like the bird: yet cannot all this make the fowl come into his net whether she will or no. If we had not pliable ears, and flexible affections, the Sirens might sing in vain. But there is something within us, that befriends temptation: some combustible matter, which that fire soon takes, and will soon take that fire. If we were pure Crystal glasses, that would endure no poison, it were some security: but naturally Satan is not more ready to offer, than we to receive his infection. So that the Apostles Cavete is of use at every turn: As God hath set Timete upon the very porch of our house, and made it The beginning of all our wisdom. Vis in timore securus esse? Securitatem time. The only way to be secure in fear, is to fear security. So saint Paul helps them out with their Si permanseritis, by this advise; Be not high minded, but fear.

So then there is somewhat intra nos, quod contra nos: we may challenge others for misleading us; but Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust: which is not any one appetite, but the fountain of all corrupt affections. And this remains in the most regenerate: There is a law in our members, warring against the law of our mind. How holy so ever we are: yet Secundum repugnantia principia, repugnantia habemus studia. Our own feet carry us to sin, and we love the journey. Our own affections seduce us, and we run into errors by our own wills. We are not only sold in Adam; there begun the mischief▪ but we have confirmed the sale; by further selling over ourselves unto vanity. By him we are sold to original sin: to actual and habitual sins, by ourselves. We, we have been our own undoers. You have sold yourselves; and your own immortal happiness. Immortality was sold in that first contract between man and sin. We talk of twenty years purchase: but what number of years was the price of immortality: It is our eternity: God hath another manner of Eternity in him, even an whole eternal day: an eternal forenoon, and an eternal afternoon too: for as he never shall have end, so he never had beginning. We have an eternal afternoon, in our immortality: for we shall no more see an end, than God hath seen a beginning. Millions of years, multiplied by millions, make not up a minute to this Eternity. And yet this we sold; we, to witness that the fault is in ourselves. And what did we sell it for? When that tormented worldling in Hell valued one drop of water at so high a rate; what would he have given for a river? How poor a clod of the Earth is a Manor? How poor an inch, a Shire? How poor a span, a Kingdom? How poor a pace, the whole Earth? And yet we have sold our bodies, and souls, and consciences, and Heaven, and Eternity, for a few grains of this dust.

Whom then can we blame for our falling? we have sold ourselves, and all our ability of goodness. Do you ask for what? Our first father sold us cheap: but we sell ourselves cheaper. Our selves, all ourselves: our bodies to lust and intemperance, our souls to pride and malice, our consciences to hypocrisy and unfaithfulness, and all this for nothing. For sin is but a privation, and privations are nothing, What fruit had ye then in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. That we got by it, is but barrenness, shame, and death. Barrenness is a privation of fruit; shame a privation of innocence, and death a privation of life: For these privations we sell ourselves, and these privations are nothing, positively nothing. But hath not the covetous man gold and riches for his soul? would he sell his conscience for nothing, though he esteem it nothing worth? He may have gold, and want comfort: riches, without the use of them: as the miser's curse is, Penuria in Penaria; hunger in plenty: and what is hunger more than nothing, unless it be worse than nothing? The adulterer satisfies his filthy lust: he hath his pleasure; therefore he sells himself for something. To night indeed sin may look like a purchase, like a treasure: but ask him tomorrow how he likes his bargain: then his awaked conscience will confess, that he hath sold himself for nothing: for weakness in his limbs, for darkness in his understanding, for emptiness in his purse, for absence of grace in his soul. Now weakness, darkness, emptiness and absence, are privations, and privations are nothing. All the name of substance that sin takes, is that it is a heavy and intolerable burden. My iniquities are a burden too heavy for me. All the treasure that is in it, is that Treasure of wrath, against the day of wrath. All the positive reality, that it is a vexation to the conscience. Now vexation doth but deprive us of peace, a burden of ease, and wrath of comfort: And this is a fearful privation, of the grace of God here, and of the face of God hereafter: a privation so much worse than nothing, as that they upon whom it falls, would fain be nothing, and cannot.

The conclusion is clear then, that this falling away is our own fault; and so much our fault, that we sell ourselves to that purpose. Rather than want sins, we are apt to tempt ourselves. He that frequently feels not some secret invasions upon his honesty, as when he is poor, to steal; when he is rich, to be idle; when he is full, to wantonnize; when he is in authority, to be proud; is nearer an Angel than a Man. Nay, how often do we save Satan the labor, and become our own tempters? Concupiscence is in some a flash, in others a flame o • in the former it is soon gone, in the other it burns long: but what man is quite without this fire? This same flesh and blood is a giddy guide: as when the Serpents tail would needs lead the body, there followed mad courses, and desperate precipices. Passions, like Acta • us dogs, when they are once blooded, will devour their own Master. Our affections will be doing, set them on what work you will. Like horses, whether you put them to your perfumed coaches, or to the noisome soil-carts, they will draw. Hence it comes, that l • st in the desire and thought, (contemplative uncleanness) is often more punished than lust in the act: because to the latter we are tempted partly by others, to the former, we wholly tempt ourselves: And he that willfully but wounds a man, is more punishable than he that kills him against his will. The Drunkard hunts after the wine: temptation neeeds not stand like a Tavern-bush in his way, for he invites himself. The Adulterer waits for the •• y-light: the Harlot needs not to attract him with her wanton looks or language: Ipse se allicit. The Movere to f •• i • within us: Satan's Promovere is but a working upon us. In a manner, we are Devils to our own hearts: we push ourselves down, and are the main occasion of our own falling. What a mockery is it to pray, Lead us not into temptation; when as we in the mean while seek temptation? Age quod postulas. Then shall we find, that though Tentat diabolus, sustentat Dominus: for Satan's temptation we shall have, God's sustentation: yea Lord, Deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

4. If God suffer some to fall that have stood, yet this is no impeachment to his Justice: because he leaves none without means of standing, or hope of rising. In the Text it is granted, that there is knowledge in general, and fore-knowledge of these things in particular, in them: therefore they may stand: there be Seducers forewarned of, and a leading away by them is not denied to be unpossible: and a Cavete is given them for that purpose: therefore they may fall: yet being down; their fall is not pronounced desperate; therefore they may rise again. This Conclusion hath two branches: the former vindicates God from Injustice, if we do fall: the other saves us from despair though we are fallen.

1. That Peccatum should be causa peccati: for sin is no Eunuch: it can and will beget children, and that in the own likeness: Or that Peccatum should be Poena peccati, as the brood of the Viper kill their Damme, or as Sennacherib was slain by the issue of his own loins: who can complain of either? Whether God doth deliver us over to punishments for sins; that when the measure of our sin is full, He shall empty the measure of his Judgments upon us: Or to sins for punishments; making future iniquities the scourges of former; there is no Injustice in it. If he shall leave any particular soul that hath left him: or withdraw his Spirit from a whole Church, that hath withdrawn her self from his Truth: this is not done out of any tyrannical willfulness, but out of a punishing Justice: not for for his pleasure, but our deserts. He is not bound to stick unto them that forsake Him. If He opens his bosom when we come to Him, and holds us there so long as we will tarry with Him; it is his Mercy: But when we will fly from his arms, if He lets us go, is it not his Justice? They mis-judge the liberty of our infinite Creator, that imagine Him any ways bound to his Creature. We are obliged to Him, not He to us: we not to offend Him, not He to defend us.

If they will go unto captivity, let them go: yea, if they will needs go, He will send them, and give them up into the hands of their enemies, and deliver them over to punishment for sin, or to sin for punishment. If He takes the sin which He finds within us, and makes it his executioner upon us; so that future sins become the plague of former; still He is just. It is no easy smart we feel, when God lasheth us with punishment for our errors: but to punish one error with another; Peccatum grande, Peccato grandiore; O this is a sore revenge. David had his choice of three Roddes; War, Famine, Pestilence: either of them could sccourge him thoroughly, and fetch blood of his soul: but if all three had been inflicted on him together, they had not been so heavy, as when God gave him over into his own hands, and suffered the sin in his own bosom to become his master. Lust now hath the regiment of David, and that sends him to Adultery, Adultery prompts him to Murder, Murder must be secreted by Hypocrisy, and that produceth Impenitency and a senselessness in sin. After he had fallen one story, into Uncleanness, he stays not there, but falls another story, into Homicide: and from that to another, Dissimulation: till at last he falls to the very bottom, Security and benumbedness of soul; and lower he could not fall. Being there, he had cause to lift up his voice, with De profundis clamavi. Now all these were his own sins: God had no hand in the doing of them. The Adultery was his; he polluted the marriage bed: the Murder was his; he flew Uriah with the sword: Though Uriah fell by the sword of the children of Ammon, yet says Nathan, Thou hast slain him. The Blasphemy was his: it came out of the mouth of the uncircumcised, even of the Lord's enemies; yet because he gave the occasion, it was his Blasphemy. The obduratenesse and persisting a whole year without remorse, was his sin: all his: I acknowledge my transgressions. God had no hand in the doing of them, but God will have a hand in the disposing of them. With an idle wantonness he began: God took his Adultery, and made it his Bailiff to attach David for his idleness: and then He took his Murder, and made it his Bailiff to attach David for his Adultery: and then He took the Gentiles Blasphemy, and made it his Bailiff to attach David for his Murder: and then He took his long deadness of heart and made it his Bailiff to attach David for that Blasphemy: So here was a generation of sins, a race of iniquities; one begetting another, and the last worse than the former.

Beware therefore: for if you be once led away, who knows where you shall stop? Error begets error: and if we once languish or bate of our own steadfastness, still we fall lower: and the less hold we have of God, the more hold Satan hath of us. Let us fall into the hands of God, says that straitened King, for his mercies are great: and not into the hand of man. Between God and man there may be some kind of comparison: But would any sinner say, Let me fall into the hands of the Devil, and not of man? Rather into more sins, than some punishments? It was a most fearful imprecation upon God's enemies: Add iniquity unto their iniquity: that was woeful: But, Let them not come into thy righteousness, into which they can never come, unless they first come into repentance; this is the fatal doom. Among all the phials of wrath, there is none more tetricall and deadly; when men shall be suffered to add sin unto sin, that Finis unius mali sit gradus alterius; and never offer to repent of their past sins, till they are past repentance. This is that reprobate sense, to mistake miseries for mercies, sins for comforts. So many think to asswage the anguish of one sin, by doing another: which is a remedy far worse than the disease.

Prodigality is a gallant sin: but the Prodigal cannot but see that his patrimony wastes: how then shall he maintain his riot? Why, it is but coupling another sin with it; oppression of his Tenants, extortion of sines, and taking of forfeitures; and all shall be well. All well? So the Devil thinks it, but so he shall not find it. If the horror of whoredom and prodigious uncleanness have caused in others a dejection of spirit; how should they remedy this? How? Strait, there is a factor of hell present, that cries; Come, you are melancholy, let us to the Tavern: he can cure all your sadness with a charm of wine. How could the common Strumpet ever sleep, without this incantation of strong drink? Her affrighted conscience would be a worse fury within her, than the severest Marshall could be about her; but that the incessant noise of sin will not let it be heard. The covetous mucke-worm could never digest his legal pillage; but that the hope of the next advantage adjourns the anguish of the former. These sinners take all such carnal satisfactions for medicines: but God sends them for plagues: O madness, to call great plagues peace! To smother sin from the eye of the world, or to shadow it from the eye of our own conscience, by interposing more sins, is a physic prescribed by the devil. Repentance is appointed by God, the only physic for sin; a remorse for the evil we have done: not the adding of more evil to it. As the drunkard is sick in the morning, till he hath qualified the old heat with a new. To cure sin with sin, is but to heal an ulcer by deading the flesh: which indeed doth not make us whole, but insensible of pain. Repentance be our physic: this if we take, we may be cured: this if we continue, we shall be saved.

2. As this clears God, so the other branch of the conclusion comforts us. If we have fallen, let us not conclude upon ourselves that we shall never rise again: for God doth not say so: Not in this Text, not in this Epistle, not in the whole Bible. Far be it from us, to impose upon ourselves a necessity of perishing. There may be a falling off on our part: and there may be a withdrawing of grace on God's part: yet he hath still reserved to himself the power of restitution, in both parts. There be many terms of union between God and us, none of separation, that disioynes us from God, that I ever read of: Of eternal separation none, I am sure, in the Scriptures. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God: this is the nearest to it. And yet that was particularly spoken to the revolting Jews, not indefinitely to all sinners: And it was a commination, that if they persisted in sin, so it would be; rather than a conclusion that so it was: Or it was a Caution, that it might not be so; rather than a commination, that it should be so: Or: it was a complaint, that they had done enough on their part to make it so; rather than a decree on God's part, that it should be so indeed. Or take it in the most strict and literal sense, yet it was not a determination without a condition. Though they were now divided, they might be united: though their sins had put them as-under, yet their repentance might bring them together again.

He is called our Father, and full of pity: what will not a father do, and suffer, to reclaim his son, before he leave him to his own desperate ways? It must be a prodigious offense, that can separate a son from the love of his father. He is compared to a mother: Can a mother forget her child? was God's question to Zion. He stays not her answer, nor assures himself of any good answer from her; but adds to it: Yea, a mother may forget her child, yet I will not forget thee. Can God do it? Did God ever do it? Did he ever cast off without possibility of re-accepting? When? Where? Whom? We neither can show the time, nor the place, nor the persons; to whom God gave such a peremptory repulse, saying, you shall never repent, but you shall perish. That of the Prophet is most comfortable: I will betroth thee unto me forever. The husband and wife are una caro, one flesh: Christ and our soul, by this marriage, unas spiritus, one spirit. The words of the Contract are, Sponsabo te mihi in aeternum. There can be no divorce imagined, where there is no marriage: and if there be a marriage with God, there can be no divorce, neither: for Sponsat in aeternum, Therefore as often as our hearts, upon the doleful consideration of our sins, be afraid of a divorce from our God; let us cheare them up with the comfort of a marriage with our God. So Ambrose sweetly and saftely: Audisti repudium? Crede conjugium. Did God ever take in a favourite, and afterwards utterly reject him? The Crow went out of the Ark, and came no more: the Dove went, and came again, and came with an olive branch. God may absent himself, on purpose that he might be sought: but he comes again, and that with an olive branch of peace. The Jews did indeed put away their wives; not only for the wives fault, but for the husbands frowardness: But we have too good experience of our God's love and patience, ever to charge him with that: we must deny him first, for he cannot deny himself.

To follow this comfortable metaphor of our marriage to God, and to take away all mistrust of a separation: Let us consider for what causes the Jews might put away their wives, and by that precedent examine whether God (our Husband) hath so threatened to put away us. And because in the place where divorce is permitted, those essential circumstances are not set down, which were required in those bills of divorce, and without which they were void: give me leave to borrow so much exemplification from a great light in our Church, as he hath collected for the clearing of this point.

1. This bill of divorce might not be written in private; not in the Husbands bed-chamber; but by a Scribe, a public Notary, or some such authorized officer. Where, ô disconsolate soul, canst thou find such a bill sent thee from the hand of God? There is no looking for it in his Bed-chamber, in his unrevealed decrees, for they are kept private in heaven: but in his public Record • his Scriptures. Now these are books of Covenant, of Contract▪ not of Separation or divorce. In what place hath God said to thy sad soul, get thee gone, I will none of thee? If any clause in that sacred Instrument seems to trouble thee, do not follow the mis-interpretation of thine own brain, but consult the Dispensers of those holy Mysteries: from them thou shalt find comfort.

2. The wife, how guilty soever in her own conscience, might not take herself to be put away, except the husband had expressly given her a bill of divorce. Hath thy Husband, thy God done so to thee? Hath he anywhere set down the peremptory sentence of thy condemnation? As I live, saith the Lord, I would not the death of a sinner, nor the falling away of any soul. If of none, why of thine? He would have all men to be saved: If all, does he except thee?

3. Those bills of divorce were to be testified by witness, and these beyond exception. If thou imagine a bill of reprobation against thee, what witnesses be there to it? Here thou mayst bring in against thyself, the melancholy of a distempered brain, the uncomfortable sadness of a sullen heart, the dejection of a jealous spirit, the distrust of mercy, and diffidence in the promises of the Gospel: But are these witnesses to be heard against God? Yea, against thyself? They have not sanam mentem; their testimony is nothing worth. O but my conscience is a thousand witnesses. It is, that thou hast committed a thousand sins: it is, that thou hast received a thousand blessings. But that there is an eternal decree of reprobation against thee, thy conscience (mis-informed) can be no witness: for thou wast not called to the making of those decrees. God calls heaven and earth to witness, that he hath offered thee thy choice of life or death: but that he hath thrust death upon thee, in heaven or earth there is no witness.

4. Those bills of divorce were to be authentically sealed: but canst thou show any such bill of everlasting separation from God, with his seal to it? He hath given us two fair and broad seals of his mercy, in both the Sacraments: Seals in white, and Seals in red wax: Of white, in the participation of the candor and innocence of his Son, in our Baptism: Of red, in the participation of his Body and Blood, in the holy Supper. But for any seal of reprobation, or of irrevocable divorce from God, thou canst show none: there is none. If thou pretend such a one, because thou hast fallen into sin; know that it is but a counterfeit deed, an instrument of Satan's forging: there is neither God's hand nor seal to it. O but I am plagued more than other men? What of that? Is this a seal of God's anger? It was not to be a seal of God's favor. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. For spiritual defects; there may be a scruple in thy Conscience, a perplexity in thy resolution, a darkness in thy understanding; yet who dares call all this, a seal of God's utter dereliction? For temporal sufferings, not a sudden death, not a shameful death, not a stupid death, not a raging death; must be to thyself by the way, or to those that see thine end, an evidence or seal of reprobation, or of final falling from God. That God, who hath unsearchable ways to his unsearchable ends, both bless us from all these in ourselves; and from making any of these, when they fall upon others, seals and tokens of his everlasting wrath.

5. The names of the parties must be set down, and of both the parties parents, and that to the third generation. Is there any such thing in our feigned bill? We may conceive three descents on our husbands side, in the blessed Trinity: First God the Father, then God the Son begotten of the Father; and then God the holy Ghost proceeding from the Son and the Father. The holy Spirit we know to be the God of our consolation: the Son, to be the God of our Redemption: the Father to be the God of our Creation: but can we find a God of Separation, a God of rejection among all these? We may conceive three descents on our own side: first as we are the children of dust, of nothing: next, as we are the children of Adam, reducible to nothing: last, as we are the Children of God in Christ, in whom we are all things. God hath married us in all these estates. First in the house of dust, where he made us good: then in the house of ruin, where he found us lost: and last in the house of peace and grace, where he redeemeth us in Christ. He did not put us from him in our creation, nor utterly reject us in our prevarication: and now in the house of our restitution, in the Church, in the Body of his Son, will he divorce us there? Who can suspect it?

6. Lastly, if the Bill were interlin'd, or blotted, or dropt upon, it was void. Pretend any place of Scripture that may seem to condemn thee; and know that that place is interlin'd; interlin'd by the Spirit of God, with conditions, limitations, provisions and exceptions, If thou repent, if thou return: that interlining cancells the Bill. Look well, and thou shalt find it blotted and dropt upon: the venom of the Setpent is dropt upon it: the worm-wood of thy desperation is dropt upon it: the gall of thy melancholy is dropt upon it: and this voids the bill. And if thy moody and clouded eyes cannot discern these drops; do thou drop upon it thyself. Droppe upon it the tears of true contrition and repentance: that shall void the bill. Droppe upon it the blood of thy Savior; that shall destroy the bill. Through that blood look upon the bill, and thou shalt see that it was nailed to the Cross, when he was nailed; and torn, when his body was torn: and that hath quite cancelled the bill. Now Vbi libellus? Where is the bill of your divorcement? There is none such: never imagine it, for God hath not made it. There is a Book of his Covenant with us in Jesus Christ: to that let us adhere faithfully, and we shall never fall away from his mercy.

5. Men called into the truth, may yet fall far from their own steadfastness: that is, from that measure of stability which for the present they have: Yet not totally, so as to have no firmness at all, to lose even the very foundation and principles of truth, or to suffer an utter eradication of grace: Or if they fall so fearfully, yet this lapse may not be final: the grace of God is not debarred them, nor the gate of mercy shut against them, nor is the sentence of irrevocable damnation passed upon them. Falling must needs include a mutation of state and place: he is not fallen, that is not removed from off the place, or down from the station which he had, and wherein he stood. A man may slip, or stumble, or stoop low: but if he fall, his footing was lost, his hold-fast gone. He is not Vbi erat nor Vti erat: neither Statu, nor Gradu, the same that he was before. There is a consummation, when holiness is crowned with reward in the end: and there is a continuation, which holds out to the end: and there may be an interruption; either by the seducing of others, or falling away of ourselves, in the Text: which yet is not quite secluded from mercy, nor deprived of hope: For after one, moe, many falls, there may be as many recoveries by grace. Multi dantur ad gratiam recessus: He that falleth today, may rise again tomorrow, hold out to the end, receive the reward of righteousness, and be crowned with immortal glory. In this great question, which at this present so exerciseth the studies of the Christian world; whether a man may fall from grace; or if he do fall, whether totally and not finally, or finally and totally, or neither; it were a dangerous boldness for me to determine. Non est nostrae parvitatis dicere: humble Doves, must not presume to see so far as Eagles. That which I purpose to deliver concerning this argument, shall be short, profitable, and comfortable: and all this by way of application and use, in three words: Cavete, Sperate, Confidite; of Caution, Hope, Confidence.

1. Cavete, Beware: that is our Apostles rule here; so he teacheth me: it is my rule; so I desire to teach you: and let it be your rule, so to guide your own hearts. There be four degrees that incline and dispose us to falling; as it were four stairs ere we come to the bottom: Haesitatio, Remissio, Retrospectio, and Alienatio cordis: this Cavete is to be set on the forehead of them all. First, Haesitatio, a wavering: when we begin to doubt, and to question that truth, which we have so long embraced: This is the first step of falling from our own steadfastness. Unbeleefe is the bane of constancy and perseverance: of constancy in the purpose of our mind, of perseverance, in the tenor of our life. When we once come to dally with God's Word, and to regard it by halves, we are in the way to despise it, or not to regard it at all. Let him that standeth, take heed lest he fall: If the Devil can but once get us to stand still, he conceives hope of our falling. His salvation, is like the thief’s; stand and deliver: no sooner stand at a stay in goodness, but presently deliver your innocence. Secondly, Remissio, a fainting; when we grow weary of the walk of righteousness. Fainting is the next step to forsaking: they that keep not their old pace, have a mind to tire. Cavete, beware of both these; Ne sistas, that thou stand not to demure: Ne deficias, that thou languish not in the way. Thirdly, Retrospectio, a looking back: so Lots wife lost herself. Her charge was, Look not back, lest thou die: she would look back, to die for it. Be not weary of well doing: It is ill to buy the ease of our body, with the hazard of our soul: but worse to look back; for that is as much as to say, we have left our heart behind. The first thing that a recreant soldier forsakes, is his courage: and the last thing that forsakes him, is his heels. He that hath but his eye set a running from the spiritual wars, means that his soul and body shall follow after. Fourthly, Alienatio cordis, an estranging of the heart; that is the lower stair: when we come to be glutted with godliness, to loath Manna, and to be weary of our obedienne. So Lots wife was weary of shifting so often; and removing from Vr to Haran, from Haran to Canaan, from Canaan to Egypt, from thence to Canaan again, then to Sodom, and now to Zoar: she takes the conceit of more troubles ensuing still: and therefore even resolves to prefer Sodom and her pleasures, before Zoar and the desolate mountains.

Cavete, beware of these dangerous precipices. First, let us think that it is the Devils suggestion; you need not make so much haste: you shall come thither time enough: Heaven will not run away. Secondly, that we forfeit all the fruit of our former well continued course, by a relapse: we have done all in vain. Nay, we have not only lost our own labor; but have caused Christ to loose his labor too; so that all his sorrows and sufferings are in vain, to us. Thirdly, let us think on the folly, Of beginning in the Spirit, and ending in the flesh: of laying a precious foundation of our house, and then finishing it with a covering of thatch. If the righteous man turn, all his righteousness shall be forgotten. Would it not grieve us, by the error of one hour, to make void the perseverance of many years? Fourthly, Let us think on the disgrace, the scandal, the infamy of this recidivation: the disgrace to ourselves, whiles we live: the scandal to others, when we are dead: and the infamy of our names to be enrolled in the Catalogue of The revolters from the faith. Fifthly, Let us think on the difficulty to be reclaimed: when the residence of one wicked spirit is filled up with seven worse. Sixthly, Let us think on God's exemplary judgments upon the relapsed: how Lots wife in the act of her looking back was turned into a pillar of salt. We desire to repent ere we die, she was taken away in the very article of her sin. We desire to die with respite, and from sudden death we pray God to deliver us: hers was sudden: she looked backward, and never looked forward more: it was her last look. We would die the common death of mankind, and be visited after the visitation of other men. Hers was a strange kind of death. Being dead, our wish is to be buried: she remained above ground, the spectacle of God's wrath to posterity. A reed she was, a pillar she is: she was melting water, she is congealed to salt. Seventhly, Consider, that not to continue, shall speed as ill as not to begin. Non ingredientes, and Non progredientes; not to enter the way, and not to keep the way, find but little difference at last. Not to come out of the sta • e of sin, is to perish: and to relapse when we are come out, is to perish too. One and the same end is to the sinner without repentance, and to the righteous without perseverance. Eighthly, Yea lastly, revolting believers shall justify unbelieving sinners: their frossen iniquity shall condemn our melting piety. If they be obdurate in vice, shall not we be constant in virtue?