Commentary on 2 Peter

WE read of a great wonder in Heaven: A woman clothed with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown with twelve Stars. In Heaven are many wonders: wondrous joy, wondrous sanctity, wondrous glory: all wonders to us that live in this dark grove of morrality. But the Heaven here spoken of, is upon the Earth: and the woman is the Church in her militant condition. This Woman is clothed with the Sun: that is a wonder: who can imagine a garment for any creature, to be cut out of the whole piece of the Sun? Not only clothed with his beams, and rays, and light: For so Men and Plants, the Earth and all things upon it, are clothed with the Sun: in that sense, the Sun clothes whatsoever it shines upon. But this Woman is clothed with the Sun it self: the very body of that great Luminary is become her vesture. The proudest Lady, and the highest Princesse of the world; though the riches of nature be ravished into their wardrobes, and their silken garments be interwoven with gold, and embroidered with Pearls and Diamonds; cannot show such a suit. The Sun is Christ: the garment wherewith this Sun clothes his Spouse, is his own righteousness: thus covered, she appears just, pure, and amiable in the sight of God. The Moon is under her feet: Her location must needs be high, even above the Moon. The Moon governs the Sea; than the Sea and the Moon, there is nothing more inconstant: both are emblems of the world. This Moon the Church treads under her feet; despising the vanity of all transient things. Upon her head was a crown of twelve Stars: a wonderful rare crown, that was made of Stars. Gold is the principal material of a crown: but what needs she wear gold upon her head, that tramples it under her feet? The twelve Stars, are the twelve Apostles: these are the arms of this glorious Queen: but she bears them with a difference from her Lord and King. For Christ hath them in his hand, as his servants: but his Spouse, on her head, as her chief ornaments.

To our purpose: The Sun gives to the Stars all the light they have: so the Apostles receive all their illumination and wisdom from Christ, by the holy Spirit: as a lantern hath no light of it self, but what is put into it. Of these Stars, thus enlightened, some are fixed in the Firmament; others wandering. The Apostles were to range abroad, by their commission: not after Saint Jude’s meaning, who calls false teachers, wandering Stars: For in that sense, the Planets themselves are not wandering, but keep a direct and constant course in their Orbes. But those that Jude speaks of, are Meteors; shooting or gliding stars: which can neither guide Travelers by land, nor Mariners by Sea. But these Stars of Christ are stable, bright, glorious: we acknowledge their light and influence: they are our faithful Sea-marks, and directions to the Port of blessedness. But in these Stars, my Text notes, there are some things hard to be understood: as the variety of their motions and magnitudes, but especially of their influences: in the Doctrine of the Apostles, quaedam difficilia, Therefore as the Astronomers have framed, to their imagination, Eccentrickes, and Epicycles, and a strange engine of Orbes, out of the Heavens: So the schoolmen have devised a world of paradoxes, problemes, improper positions and conclusions, out of the Scriptures: all to save the Phenomenon of Popery. Yea, which is worse, as Astrologers have impiously gathered the prediction of futurities, the calculation of nativities, the alteration of States and Kingdoms, and the event of all contingent fortunes, out of the Stars: perverting the sober use of those Heavenly bodies, to magical purposes: So Heretics have violently forced errors, and schisms, and factions, and hellish tenets, out of the sacred Doctrine of the Apostles; wresting the Scriptures to their own perdition. The full view of whose profane and sacrilegious proceedings, we have in this verse: As also in all his Epistles, &c.

Wherein there be two general occurrences; a Virgin, and a Rape. The Virgin is fair Truth, the Holy Scripture: The Rape is a wresting of it; which is foul violence done unto it. For the former; three things commend a Virgin: unspotted beauty, uncorrupted virtue, and modest retiredness: Answerable whereunto we find in the Scripture in general, and in this parcel of it, Paul's Epistles in particular, First, for virtue, a sufficiency: In act, and every piece of all, there is full satisfaction. Secondly, for beauty, an harmony, and agreement: it speaks the same thing: there is no contradiction. Thirdly, for retiredness, a difficulty: some things are hard to be understood; they surpass our apprehension. For the other part, which is the Rape. First, here is an indictment of the ravishers; and that under two titles, as it were their names; Illiterati, Instabiles. They are unlearned; their book cannot save them: they are unstable; no man will speak for them: who will plead for the inconstant? Secondly, here is the fact whereof they are indicted, and that is the rape of a Virgin; wresting the Scripture, violation of the sacred Truth. Thirdly, their execution follows: they shall die for it: they meant it for their own defense; it shall turn to their own destrustion.

In all his Epistles. It was a material point which our Apostle here urged, and in which he sends us unto Paul to be confirmed; even so great that our salvation lies upon it. Therefore it is not lightly or rarely touched, in someone Epistle; but ponderously and frequently insisted upon in omnibus Epistolis. Out of which premisses ariseth this conclusion: The fundamental points of religion are repeated often: thc Prophets did not more labor in the explanation of the Law, then the Apostles in the application of the Gospel. There is no leaf, almost no line, which doth not inculcate this; and that without any wearisome tautology or needless repetition, but by a sweet way of amplification. How careful was Saint Paul to speak home? I shunned not to declare unto you all the counsel of God. He had rather write one thing twice, than have it pass unobserved, or vanish unremembred. To write the same things unto you is not to me grievous, but for you safe. Such is the All-sufficiency of the Scriptures, without any need to be peeced up with traditions. It is able to save your souls: And who would ask more? They can make a man wise unto salvation: and I would never desire to be wiser. Paul calls it, The Counsel of God: the Romish Traditions then are none of the counsels of God. If they must challenge a corner, yea, half the room in our faith; Why then do we entitle the New Testament, The Gospel; when as it were but of a part of the Gospel? Or, The New Testament, when as it were but a part of Christ's Testament; and Traditions a schedule to be annexed to it?

Let no man presume above that which is written: That man's faith hath a Dropsy, which the Epistles of Paul cannot satisfy. The Papists call the Scripture, a dumb Rule; because it hath no sound: How should a paper speak? Do they make it an Idol, that have a mouth and speaks not? Indeed, they are not willing to hear it speak: as Marius could not hear the laws, for the noise of arms: so they cannot hear the Scriptures, which are the Laws of God, for the noise of Traditions. But they shall hear it one day when their awaked conscience shall convince them of willful sacrilege: for the contempt done to Kings Proclamation that cannot speak, redounds to the Person of the King that can speak. The Orbe of Christian faith is the Scripture: if we be fixed stars, we content ourselves within our own orbe. The Israelites took in unto them some of the Heathens: but first they must be circumcised, and so become Israelites. We admit some traditions of the Ancients, and make use of the very learning of Pagans: but first we circumcise it; we do as it were Christian it in the Font of Truth. And if any Tradition shall grow saucy, and offer to confront the Word of God, being so opposed by a Sectary; we soon excommunicate it: as Ishmael must be turned out of doors, when he once falls to jeering of Isaac. Our God and Savior hath written his Will to us, by his Evangelists and Apostles: to them we adhere. There is Light enough to inform our understandings, Truth enough to satisfy our knowledge, an holy Covenant and precious Promises to excercise our faith, glory and eternal life to feed our hope, the rules of Sanctimony to direct our life: What can we require more of God? What should be done more for us, but only this? To fill our hearts with his grace; that we may understand what He teacheth, and believe what He promiseth, and do what He commandeth. In every Epistle God shows us the way, how we should serve Him, how He will save us. Lord, we seek no fartther than to thy Word, we ask no more than thyself: Guide us by the one, and satisfy us with the other.

Speaking of these things] The Pontificians say the Scripture is a dumb Rule: but sure, Saint Peter was of another mind: For making mention of Paul's Epistles, which were his Writings, he attributes the faculty of Speaking to them. Saint Paul writes; and yet Saint Peter says, he speaks. Their Images have mouths, but they speak not: God's Word doth speak, yet it hath no mouth. They speak, by signifying unto us what God hath spoken: and to take this honor from the Canonical Writing, is an injury done to the Author of that Doctrine.

These things] What are they? The Mercy of God, that is; and the Thankfulness of man, that should be: Christ dying for us, our faith believing on Him: the one performed by Him, the other required of us: the lenity of his Patience, the necessity of our Repentance. These things Paul speaks of, and in all his Epistles he speaks of them. Eadem, not aliena; no heterogene, foreign, or wandering things: much less Contraria, things thwart and opposite to the first principles: but Eadem; for matter and form, for weight and fashion, the same: like so many lines tending to one center; the Gospel of Christ.

The Conclusion that ariseth from it, is this: There is no repugnancy in the divine Scriptures. Evangelist doth not cross Prophet: nay, rather the History verifies the Prophecy, with a Sic impletur. Apostle doth not cross Apostle: but Peter and Paul, James and John and Jude; they all preached, they all wrote the same Truth. Some atheistical spirits have searched narrowly, to find contradictions in them: but the spirit of contradiction was in them that went about it. O that we could all as well agree with them, as they agree with themselves. But while they are at peace in the Doctrine, we are at war in the Interpretation. As he that tumbles in a calm bed, hath his tempest within: so they that pick quarrels out of the articles of peace, seek more the praise of their wits, than the profit of their souls. A father makes a Will, and bequeaths divers Legacies: the children come to demand their portions: but brangling Lawyers find out unnecessary cavils: one interprets a clause of it to this sense, another to that: so the Orphans patrimony becomes the Lawyers booty. The Gospel is Christ's Will: and He hath left all his Children blessed Legacies: but Heretics, like contentious Advocates, mis-interpret the terms, and wrangle about words: and though they get nothing by it, but the fame of singularity on earth, and the penalty of damnation in hell; yet they set the Christian world in an uproar: and the poor children by this means are coozened of their portions, even their patrimony in heaven. Let us acknowledge, that all the Evangelists and Apostles were but so many several Engrossers of our Fathers Will; that they all write in the same tenor: Let us humbly trust upon his Riches, thankfully receive our portions, and carefully obey his rules and precepts, and we are blessed in Jesus Christ.

In which are some things hard] Difficilia quae pulchra: What excellency is obtained without difficulty? Wisdom is an excellent grrace; but it is no inheritance: we were not borne wise. We may think ourselves wise betimes; (and he is no fool that doth not think so) but God, time, and industry must concur to the making up of wisdom. The Kingdom of Heaven is a most excellent place; yet it will not be obtained without violence. The Scripture is divinely excellent; no flowers so sweet, no jewels so precious: no wonder than if it be understood with some Difficultie. Yet the Apostle here qualifies the matter; Quaedam non omnia; Some things are hard, not all. If all the will of God were enigmaticall, mystical, and abstruse; (like the juggling Oracles of false prophecy) there were some excuse for our ignorance, and by reason of that for our disobedience: but they are only some things.

From which we may infer this conclusion; that both in Paul's particular Epistles, and in the general scope of the Scriptures, there is a plain and evident demonstration of God's good will towards us. Quaedam does not only oppose it self to omnia: Some, therefore not all; but also to Plura; Some therefore not the most. Two of a thousand places, are some; but scarce a number: yea, ten of a hundred are some: but comparatively very few. Some necessarily implies a less part: Quaedam difficilia; therefore the greater number are facilia. The quaedam are but some few hillockes in a large plain: some few strange herbs in a familiar garden. Herbs they are certainly, though we know not their, names, of their virtues. As children, well entered into reading, run away with the chapter currently; until they light upon a hard word, which puts them to their spelling: there they make a stop; and unless they skippe it over, they must consult their Master, ere they can go any farther. We are all scholars, both catecumenoi, and Catechistae: and when we come to study S ^t . Paul's writings, with many divine rules we go away roundly: in some fair measure we understand them, and much sweet comfort we find in them: But here and there we light upon a sentence, that puzzleth our dull intellect: there we pause, we meditate, we ruminate: we ponder the sense: we compare the precedent with the subsequent words: And if the wings of our apprehension cannot soar so high as this reverend mystery, then with the wings of our zealous prayers we mount up to the throne of Majesty; we consult our great master in heaven; that most holy Spirit: there we have the ointment that clears our eyes: there we find a revelation of these deep secrets.

[unspec 2] They are but Quaedam then, that are in danger of this difficulty: and among multitudes of plain and facile rules, we may allow some to be hard. Especially seeing that without these Quaedam we may be saved. At some royal feast, among many dishes of delicate and easily digestible viands, there may be some solid and stronger meat: while a good stomach falls to that, the nicer and weaker appetites need not fast: for if the other be more nutritive, they are less digestive. Strong meat belongeth to them that are of perfect age. We are riding a journey, and there be diverse monuments set up as marks for our direction, with inscriptions upon them: Most of them tell us plainly and familiarly, This way you must take: here and there we find a stately pillar, meant for a guide too; but the characters are in so curious a language, that though we can read them, we do not fully understand them: we fixe not there, but pass by them with reverence, to the next of a plainer indication. Or in our travel we are driven to cross a river, as the Israelites did Jordan to their Canaan: this river in some places is very deep, but in most places foordable: they that like elephants; are strong in understanding, may swim over: the feebler, like poor lambes, yet may wade over: It matters not, as from Paul's shipwrecked vessel, which way; whether the skillful by swimming, or the rest by other helps; so they all get to shore. In the sacred writ there be depths, for the deeper Judgments to sound: and for the weaker passengers there be shallowes. There be mountains of learning, for the higher wits of the School: and there are pleasant valleys, for the walks of humbler souls. There is milk for babes, and harder meat for abler stomachs. If some things will not down with us, yet there is choice enough among the rest to nourish us to everlasting life.

[unspec 3] This truth then must be undeniably granted, maugre all the cavils of Rome; that the most places and passages of the Scripture are intelligible enough, and contain in them the manifest doctrine of our salvation. So Chrysostom; All those things that are necessary, in the holy Scriptures are clear and plain. And, when we say anything without the Scripture, the thoughts of our auditory are uncertain. I deny not, but there are some places of difficulty in S ^t . Paul: as 1. Cor. 11.10. and chap. 15.28.29. To be short in this enumeration, though Salmeron was long enough: for he pretends to have found out no less than fifty difficulties or obscurities in Paul's Epistles. Captious critickes scarce turn over those sacred leaves, for any other ends. I confess, that I have not used to look upon God's book with such eyes: I desire not to feed my fancy with scruples, but my soul with comforts.

Some have ventured to allege reasons, why Paul is so full of difficulties. Ob Velocitatem Sermonum suorum, says one: Propter impetum Spiritus, elocutiones habet minus explicitas, saith another. Profundos sensus Graeca lingua non satis callebat. He had his Idiotismes and phrases peculiar to himself: whereof Nyssen, with Jerome and Chrysostom, give some instances. Thomas Anglicus, quoted by Lorinus, hath a strange suspicion; that Paul wrote obscurely on purpose; to hide his doctrine from heretics: And that the simple might understand him, he sent his Epistles by his Disciples, that they might expound them to the Churches. The principal cause was multitudo, & altitudo rerum quas tractat. Salmeron gives diverse other reasons of his obscure writings, and prescribes certain rules for their explication. Some think that this Difficultie ariseth from the multitude of Interpreters upon S ^t . Paul writings: no Author having such abundance of expositors as he.

But Paul was not more hard in his writings, than these men are in their censures of him. They would speak further, if they durst, to the disabling of so glorious a witness. Sure, there is something wherein he hath galled them; or else they would not thus kick against him. We dare not be so bold with that blessed Saint: for we know, he wrote nothing, but what the holy Ghost dictated to him; Divine truth, all. As David patiently bore all his afflictions, Quia Dominus fecit, because it was the Lord's doing. so we faithfully and thankfully embrace all S ^t . Paul's writings, Quia Dominus dixit, because it was the Lord's saying. What if, Baptising over the dead, were a hard saying? yet that the dead shall rise again; this is a plain saying: that the dead in Christ shall rise to glory; this is both a plain and a comfortable saying. What if, It is impossible for those that were once enlightened &c. If they fall away, to be renewed again by repentance; be a hard saying? Yet that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners; this is a true saying. What if, Before the children had done either good or evil, the purpose of God upon them must stand; be hard to understand? Yet that God would have all men to be saved; this is easy to understand. If we know not the meaning of that; God hath concluded them all in unbeelefe: Yet there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus: we know the meaning, the comfort, and the assurance too of that.

Beloved, we need care for no more than to be saved: and the means to that, is plainly and punctually declared to us by the Apostle Paul. If there be some things hard, yet these plain things are the most: though we do not reach the other, we cannot miss these. If profounder wits will venturously dive into this ocean, to fetch up deeper mysteries; yet we have enough to serve our turns. There is sufficient store of comforts afforded us, to make us blessed: and who would ask more? Yea we have a fair portion, a goodly heritage, and the lines are fallen unto us in plain and pleasant places. Let us content ourselves with it, and be thankful to him that gave it, that we may be saved by it:

Hard to be understood. These two, Difficilia intellectu; must be read in sensu composito. For if there was no fault in our understanding, there could be no difficulty in the word of God. It is a principle in nature; Quicquid recipitur, secundummodum recipientis recipitur: Shall the little vial be angry, because it cannot contain all the water of the fountain? Or a subject, being allowed to take his full burden out of the kings treasury, become pettish with himself that he cannot carry away all the gold? No sober guest at a banket, desires to eat more than his stomach will bear. Because we cannot devour all, will we fast? Pliny writes of the hedge-hog, that when he hath loden himself with nuttes and fruits, and is going to disburden them in his storehouse; if but the lest filberd chance to fall off, he will fling down all the rest in a peevish humor, and beat the ground for anger. Many sweet and heavenly comforts we lay up in our consciences, derived out of the treasury of the Scriptures: perhaps there is someone Jewel that we prize above all the rest, though we understand not the full value of it; someone sentence like a mine of gold, too deep for us to come at: shall we vilipend all the rest, because we cannot be the Masters of this? Shall we fling down all the fruits we have, because there is one in some top-branch, too high for us to reach? Is our language so ambitious, as Totum aut nihil? All, or none? The rules of our faith and life are manifest enough: O that we would enough study them, enough practice them. The mystery which is above us, is not that unum necessarium: Let us not fear it; we may be saved without the knowledge of it. I fear the want of my diligence, to attain that I may know: I fear the want of my obedience, to follow that I do know: I do not fear the defect of my capacity, in not comprehending what I cannot know. My nescience in such things is pardonable, my curiosity may be dangerous.

Let this therefore be the conclusion: The mysteries of salvation be hard, but to our understanding: the difficulty is not in their own nature, but in our capacity. The word of God is instar lampadis; no dim taper, but a bright shining light; excelling the Sun in his glory: But we are thick-sighted, and can receive this light but according to our own measure. The obscurity is not in the object but in the organ. Shall the Lumine luscus, the blind man blame the Sun for shining no brighter? As some rural Inhabitant, being admitted into a royal Palace, admires the building, and is transported with the rareness and magnificence of it; and much of it he understands: when he comes into the hall, he knows that that is a place for feeding: when into the gallerie, he knows that to be a place for walking: when into the bedchamber, he knows that to be a place for sleeping: But into some rooms he is brought, no whit inferior to the former, for state and pleasure; the use whereof he knows not: will he now censure the Architect, for making of such unnecessary and superfluous places? or not rather lay the blame, where it is, upon his own ignorance? The Scripture is a goodly edifice, the Almighty kings Palace; whereof Paul was one of the Master-builders: when we read his Epistles, we are surveying the rooms and receptacles: some whereof we easily apprehend: As that Christ came into the world to save sinners: we know this for the common Hall to all believers: Or that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ: we conceive this to be a sweet repository or lodging chamber for the conscience: Or that we must follow the things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report: this we take to be the gallerie, and walk of the Saints: Or that we must pray without ceasing: we look upon this, as the Chapel, the oratory, or house of prayer: But searching farther, we light upon some uncouth and curious rooms; bearing as much art and majesty in them as the rest; but more obscure, and mystical, and veiled with the curtain of awful secrecy: Such are certain doctrines of S ^t . Paul: we are not forbidden to view them, and review them, to study, and meditate on them: but if we cannot perfectly understand them, far be it from us to tax S ^t . Paul of obscurity: no, let us impute the fault to our own simplicity? O the depth of the riches of the knowledge of God! His wisdom must not come under the censure of man: but the folly of man must be submitted to the censure of his wisdom, that in all things he may be justified. Thus many things in the Scriptures, at the first blush, appear difficult; which being better considered, are easily reconciled. I will instance but in two, which now offer themselves to my memory; and two may give us the taste of all.

1. Christ's testimony of John the Baptist, recorded by S ^t . Matthew: This is Elias which was for to come: Compared with the Baptists own denial of this, recorded by St. John; I am not Elias. Here appears not only difficulty, but even contrariety. But neither, indeed; as St. Augustine easily composeth it: John was Elias in Spiritu, non in Persona; in Spirit, not in Person. I will send you Elias the Prophet, before the coming of the great day of the Lord: upon this promise the Jews depended; still looking that Elias should first come; and not for the Messias without that precursion. To satisfy this scruple, Christ calls John Elias: and so he was in diverse resemblances. First, In regard of the corrupt times wherein either of them was borne: Elias in the greatest declination of Israel; John Baptist, of Judah. Secondly, Their coming into the world was sudden and unexpected: Elias, without mention of his parents: John; of parents superannuated, past expectation of a child. Thirdly, In regard of their habit and diet: of a singular austerity, both of them. Fourthly, In respect of their habitation, in deserts: they were no Hermits, yet their general abode was in the wilderness. Fifthly, In respect of that burning zeal, and powerful spirit, wherewith they preached: both shining lamps. 6. In their boldness to reprove Kings and Queens: which is incident to none but great Prophets. 7. In regard of persecution for the Truth: so Herod was such another as Ahab, and Herodias very like to Jezebel, both in life & death. So then, when John says, I am not Elias, he speaks properly, in regard of the dimensions of his body, and individualitie of his person: in that sense he was not Elias. And Christ speaks as truly, though figuratively, when he says that John is Elias; not in the person, but in the power and spirit of Elias: and so is the difficulty soon removed.

2. Take one Instance more. Matthew and Mark say, that the thieves which were crucified with him, reviled him: the number was but two, and both of them are accused. Yet Luke says, that one of them rebuked his fellow for that contumely cast upon Christ; prayed, and was saved. This is a difficulty; how shall we understand it? Some answer, that at first both the thieves railed on Christ: but one of them, observing the patience of the sufferer in his extremity, the wonderful miracles, and the compassion of nature it self: the Suns darkening, the earths shaking, the stones rending; was converted; and did salve his former exprobration of Christ, with an humble confession of him. But against this may be objected. First, These miracles were the effects of Christ's death, and begun when he ended: but the thief was then in articulo mortis, and could not be sensible of them. Secondly, When he reproved his fellow for reproaching of Christ, why did he not reply; Thou hast also reviled him. Thirdly, It is the custom of the sacred story, when it hath disgraced a man for sin, not to conceal the honor of his repentance, if ever he had remorse. S ^t . Matthew therefore had done the malefactor some wrong, to set down his offense, and not his penitence. The most and best expositors fly to this, with Augustine; that it was Enallage numeri: as, The Disciples are charged to say, Why is this waste? When Saint John chargeth only Judas with it. So, The Kings of the earth set themselves against Christ: yet literally, no king but Herod: so Peter quotes it, and so expounds it; Herod and Pilate against Jesus; now Pilate was but a Judge, no king. So, They were stoned, sawen asunder, wandered about in skins: and before, they stopit the mouths of Lions: In the plural, They: yet none stopit the Lions mouths but Daniel; none sawen but Isaiah, and that but by tradition: none wandered in skins but Elias. So Beza observes upon that of John, It is written in the Prophets: yet none expressly saith so but Isaiah: albeit indeed Jeremiah hath something to the same sense. When a gentleman lights among clownes, and receives some injury by one of them; he is ready to say, look how these clownes abuse me; when one only did it. A father that is displeased with one of his children, will say, See how unruly these children are; when as but one only offended him. Indeed St. Matthew and Mark mind only Christ's humiliation, and look to that, St. Luke also intended the thief’s conversion, and to show that miracle of mercy. By these two Instances you may guess at the rest: for all of them fall under one of these kinds; Doctrinal, as the former: or Historical, as the latter.

Let us take this for one especial rule in the clearing of these difficulties: To supply Scripture with Scripture. For Non plane ac plene vbique loquitur Scriptura, quia alibi loquitur. Howsoever the Evangelists wrote the same story; yet some passages of that story are set down by one or two of them, not by all: and by some of them more obscurely, more apertly by the rest: That they might not seem to write by any compact or collusion, but merely by the inspiration of the holy Ghost. Let this consideration, that all things in the Scriptures are perspicuous in themselves, and some obscure to us, only by the occasion of our own blindness; so far humble us; that we both admire the excellency of the Divine truth, and confess the baseness of our understanding. Sin at first was the cause of ignorance; now ignorance is the cause of sin. You say, we see, therefore your sin remaineth. So long as we think we see, we continue blind: when we once perceive our own blindness, then we begin to see. There be some that run away with the interpretation of Scripture, as fast as if they had been at the making of it: rare Musicians that can sing the hardest notes at the first sight. They no sooner read a Text, but they have God's meaning by it, straight: There is nothing hard to them; but I can hardly believe them. There may be some special Reasons given of this great Difficultie.

1. The imperfect knowledge which we have upon Earth. Howsoever our Justification may be perfect, our Sanctification is not so. In the best militant Saints, as their affections cannot be wholly regenerated, so nor is their understanding wholly enlightened. We see through a glass, and we know but in part. If we did not know in part, we were miserable strangers: if we did fully know we were glorified Saints. The man stark blind (in the Gospel) presents to us our state by nature: his eyes being opened so far as to see men walk like trees, is our state of grace: seeing clearly, our state of glory. In Heaven we shall know as we are known: there shall be the fullness of knowledge, as well as the fullness of joy: yea, there could be no fullness of joy, without the fullness of knowledge. There, all problemes and questions shall be resolved, dissolved; and we shall perfectly understand the truth of those things, which strong wits so argue here below. Now our eyes are dazzled with looking upon the Sun: there we shall see the Son of God face to face; and in that infinite Glass of the Deity, behold enough to satisfy us forever.

2. The figures and metaphors of the Scripture may a little retarde the pace of our understanding. There be such peregrinations to fetch in remote and significant figures: such an heightening and elevation of style: such powerful hyperbolees, such mystical allusions, such majestical imparatives: such spreadings and curtains of allegories, such third Heavens of eloquence: such commanding persuasions, such persuading commandments, such pathetical abjurations: such sinews in God's milk, expressions of reservednesse even in familiarity. All profane Authors seem to be of the seed of the Serpent, that creeps: the holy Ghost is the Dove, that flies. No words but his own, can express the texture and composition of his Word. So doth He inform the weakest, that the highest Judgments are wrapped with admiration: so doth He excercise the strongest, that the weakest are filled with consolation. Jerome and Augustine confessed one to another in their muturall Letters, that there are some places of Scripture which they thought they did not understand: And yet both those Father call upon old women and young virgins to read the Scriptures; all the Scriptures, without confining them to some certain places: and yet they knew them to be of weaker judgment than themselves.

As the Lord gives us the same earth, to labor on, and to lie in; to be unto us both an house, and a grave: So He gives us the ame Word, for our satisfaction, and for our inquisition; for our instruction, and for our admiration too. The argument that binds one man's faith to believe it, is the reverend simplicity of it: that which binds another, is tha awful Majesty of it. So that of two men, equally pious, meeting; the one wonders that all men should not understand it: and the other wonders as much that any man should understand it. When these mysteries fall into the way of wrangling wits, they suffer much injury: for Vnusquisque abundat sensu suo: which might be well, so long as they keep the analogy of faith, and impound their straying fancies within the bounds of sobriety. But when birds of sick feathers will emulate the Sun in their soaring; soon do their wings flag, and witness to the earth the shame of their proud undertakings. Lord, where we do see, give us an humble knowledge: and where we cannot see, a contented ignorance: in all a believing patience, a patient faith. Clausis oculis sequendus est Deus: Our eyes must be shut to the world, least it withdraw us: yea, shut to human reason; that though we cannot reach the why of God's command, to understand it; yet we may know the what of his command, and in sincerity of heart obey it. Take now some helps for our understanding.

1. Conference with others; especially with them whose lips preserve knowledge. It was the Eunuchs reply to Philip How can I understand, except some man should guide me? But now we all think that we know the way to Heaven so perfectly, that we need not ask I go my way, saith Christ, and none of you asketh me whither goest thou? Nay, we will scarce ask, Lord, which way shall we go after thee? How shall we come unto thee? Exhort one another daily, saith the Apostle: Edefie one another in the holy faith. But we take these for superfluous counsels: every man knows enough to serve his own turn. While these two Disciples communed together, and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. While they were talking of Jesus, Jesus presented himself to them. Our talk is of vanity, and vanity is with us. If Christ could be kept in our mouths, we should always have him in our hearts.

2. Constant reading of the Scriptures, and meditation upon them. The good man doth Meditate on the Law of God day and night. The Pontificians beat off the people from this common Treasury, by objecting this supposed difficulty. O the Scriptures are hard to be understood: do not you trouble your heads about them: we will tell you the meaning of them. They might as well say: Heaven is a blessed place, but it is a hard way to hit: do not you trouble yourselves, we will go thither for you. Thus in the great day of trial, when they should be saved by their book; alas they have no book to save them. Instead of the Scriptures they can present images; these are the Laymens books: as if they were to be tried by a jury of Carvers and Painters, and not by the twelve Apostles. Be not you so cozened: but study the Gospel, as you look for comfor by the Gospel. He that hopes for the inheritance, will make much of the conveyance.

3. Humility and a devout reverence to those sacred monuments of Truth. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant: Those leaves are too holy, to be turned over with profane fingers. Pride is a barracado against all graces, therefore against knowledge: it makes the heart uncapable of goodness, as cold iron cannot be wrought to any fashion. A heart full of pride, is but a vessel full of air: this self-opinion must be blown out of us, before saving knowledge be poured into us. Humility is the knees of the soul; and to that posture the Lamb will open the book. But pride stands upon tiptoes; as if she would snatch the book out of Christ's hand, and unclasp it herself. The first lesson of a Christian is humility: and he that hath not learned the first lesson, is not fit to take out a new. Humble eyes are most capable of high mysteries.

4. Prayer, when all fails, this will do it. Why did God write his mind to us in so mystical a dialect? We answer, The obscurity is not in his dialect, but in our intellect. Why does not he that made the will, make us also to understand it? We say again, Ideo non intelligimus, quia intelligere non petimus: We want wisdom, because we do not ask it. But many have prayed for knowledge, whereby they might apprehend these high mysteries, and yet have not obtained it? It may be they begged it, Non ex simplicitate cordis, sed ex effectu singularitatis: They would be made wiser, not holier by it. It is their own honor they seek, not the honor of Christ. If they may be thought great Rabbi's, deep scholars, this is the height of their ambition: though neither the Church be beneficed, nor God glorified by it. Scire volunt, ut sciant: that is all. If any man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God? If, there does rather ponere than supponere; Ponere in natura, then Supponere in argumento. If any lack: Who, does not lack wisdom? How should he get it? Postulet a Deo, that fountain of Wisdom; And it shall be given him: there is promise; he shall be sure of it, But let him ask 'in Faith; that is, Modus adipiscendi, the way of obtaining: that God may be honored by it; that is finis adepti; the end of enjoying it. As the grace of God is the fountain, from which our wisdom flows: so the glory of God is the ocean, to which our wisdom runs. It is derived from the one, and must be directed to the other.

S ^t . Augustine was so bold as to beg of God, that Moses might come, and tell him what he meant by some places of Genes. We dare not do so: but yet we may beg of the spirit of God, who opens dark things, settles in the truth, and keeps the key of the Scripture; to inform our hearts what Paul meant by some passages of his writings: The grammar whereof we know; that such is the signification of the words: but the Logic or the Retoricke we understand not; nor what is the full meaning of those words.

Prayer is the remedy; the cure of all obscurity: sepecially being accompanied with fervor and frequency. Though we have fished all night and caught nothing; yet let us cast out the net again; pray still. Paul with exhortation, ever joined Invocation: Let us bedew the seed of the word with our prayers and tears; so will it grow in our hearts. Christ loves thy prayers; Non ut ipsi manifestes, quod ipse non novit: non ut ipsi des, quod ipse non habet: sed ut ab eo accipias, quod ipse promisit. It was a feeling complaint, seconded with a hearty prayer; I believe; Lord help my unbelief: So in praise to God for what I have, and in prayer to God for what I want; Let my soul confess, I understand a little; Lord, help my ignorance.

Which they that are unlearned, and unstable, wrest.] These be the ravishers. It was for the honor of dead Patroclus, that two armies fought for his corpse: And it was for the glory of dead Moses, that two Spirits, a good and a bad, an Archangel and the devil, strove for his body. And it is some dignity for the Scripture, that it is contended for by the two Churches; the Christian true Church, and the Antichristian Synagogue. But as when the two mothers contested for the child before Solomon, the pretending mother (upon the kings sentence) was content to have it divided; but the natural mother would not endure it: vel totum illi, vel totum mihi: hurt not the child: So the malignant Church could well enough brook, that the written word were hacked, and slashed, and torn in pieces; because she knows it is none of her own; and doth rather prejudice than further her cause: But the Protestant and reformed Church, like the true mother, is careful to have it preserved sound, and entire, and untouched with the fingers of corruption. When the Pharisees and the Sadducees strove for Paul, the chief Captain fearing least he should be pulled in pieces, commanded his soldiers to take him from them all: So if the Scripture be not taken from heretics and Sectaries, they will even tear it in pieces. For rather than they will believe as the Scripture speaketh, they will wrest the Scripture to speak as they believe: It must say as they say, or hold the peace. Yea more, as seven cities strove for the honor of the birth of Homer: Or as the Sadducees in their intent to appose Christ, bring in seven husbands challenging one wife: whose mouths Christ soon stops; that in heaven there is no wife at all: Or as it is storied of a woman, of such admirable beauty, that all the gallants courted her; quarrelling in troupes, and making bloody mutinies for her: at last, because everyone could not enjoy her, they tore her in pieces, that so never a one might enjoy her. So innumerable sects, and schisms, and heresies lay claim to the Scriptures, till they even dilacerate and rent in sunder those sacred leaves: and that which is written for their instruction, they wreste to their own destruction.

[unspec 1] They are unlearned.] Learning is the ornament of a man, the oil to the lamp of his understanding, which maintains the light living. The soul would grow rusty without it; like a sword that is never scoured. Eloquence is good, and memory is good: but if these be without learning, they are but like the rock and the spindle, without ever an inch of yearn. There may be learning without eloquence; which is like a handsome body lapped up in ill fashioned clothes. There may be eloquence without learning; which is like rich embroidery upon base stuff. There may be both eloquence and learning without discretion: men's actions do express their knowledge better than their words. A mere scholar is but a live book; and it is wisdom that sets forth a man, yea, that constitutes a man, more than literature. It is easy and usual for a man to be without learning; and it is not rare, to find learning without a man. To speak sentences, is far easier than to speak sense; yea, and a sensible discourse is easier than a rational carriage. There may be learning, eloquence and discretion too, yet without honesty. We may sooner get acquaintance with the 9. Muses, than with the 3. Graces. Learning, discretion, and honesty, are three degrees of comparison: the last is Summus gradus. The other may make a man eminent in the world, the third brings him nerest to heaven. Our perfection in this life is virtue; in the next knowledge, when we shall read the glory of God in his own face. He that wants learning, hath an imperfect head: but he that lacks honesty, hath a defective heart. This is one of their characters, that are here indicted for enforcing the virgin, Truth; Christ's royal and immortal daughter: They are unlearned.

These unlearned men are aptest to pervert the Scriptures: out of which we gather [unspec 2] this undeniable conclusion: That Ignorance, or the want of learning is no ways a help to devotion; but rather a ready way to damnation. This is plainly delivered by S ^t . Peter: The unlearned wrest the Scripture to their own destruction. The principal columne, whereby both the Turk and the Pope uphold their Soveraigntie, is by keeping the people in a helpless ignorance. The Pope will allow his subjects no divine learning: the Turks denies to his, any learning at all. Indocti, all of them: yea, and Indociles, some of them. The latter such as cannot be taught for want of means; that is their infelicity: The other, such as refuse to be taught, for want of will, that is their obstinacy. There is not one tackle in all the Bark of Papacy, for which the Devil is more beholden to the Bishop of Rome; than the doctrine of ignorance. Give him but darkness in any man, and he is never from home. This is the maintenance, the revenues of both their crowns; as strong as an oth of allegiance to both their kingdoms. Neither is this unlearnednesse peculiar to the laity of Rome; but it is entertained into their Cloistures, and encroacheth upon the Clergy. That of Melchizede rex Salem, to render Salem, salt: or to interpret Maria, the Seas; for Maria the blessed virgins were but easy mistakes. To read, Domum evertit, for Domum everrit; might be the fault of transcription. But to turn Paul's Hereticum devita, into Tolle de vita; was a wicked misprision. But enough of that: it is not their ignorance of God's Law, which we so much blame; as their law of ignorance; their paradoxicall praise of ignorance. For so they commend it, as if Christ had bequeathed ignorance for a legacy to his Church. Love he commended, and Faith he commended, Peace and obedience he commended; yea, and knowledge he commended: This is life eternal to know God and Christ: these blessed legacies he left us; either praecipiendo, or prabendo: But that any way; by insinuation, toleration, or dispensation, he should be a friend to ignorance, it were blasphemy to think. The servant that knoweth not, shall be beaten. And it was not his charge to the Apostles only, but to the Jews, and in them to all men; Search the Scriptures. Meddle not with them say the Romists: Search them thoroughly, saith Christ. But unlearned men, say they, when they come to the Scriptures, are apt to misunderstand them. But why then say we, are they not bred up in the Scriptures, that they might learn them? First, they deny them to read the Word of God, wherein they might be learned: and then because they are unlearned, they shall not read the Word of God. A young man is not suffered to come into the river, whereby he might learn to swim: and then in his able years, because he cannot swim, he may not be suffered to come into the river. He hath a very gross and dull eye, that does not discern this juggling. There is a myst of darkness, a mystery of iniquity in it.

[unspec 3] To leave them; our Apostle peremptorily concludes, that unlearned brains are apt to mis-interpret these sacred Rolls: And, O how happy had it been for the Church, if the exposition of them had never been entrusted into the hands of ignorance! But whose feet do so nimbly carry them up into the Pulpit, as theirs that have the least matter to say when they come their? Yet who dare be so bold as they? Who so tedious? They are able to speak more with ease, than any man can endure to hear with patience. I censure no man: yet I could wish for the credit of the Gospel, that some whose Congregations are numerous enough, would either study more, or speak less. But like will to like: unlearned Hearers will resort to unlearned Teachers. They care not for matter in their discourses, but store of words; as if they would tell us that their very profession was all words, no matter. As one said of a poor Apothecaries shop; that he could find no drugs, for the pots and boxes: so it may be said of those that pretend to Religion, and no farther; we cannot perceive good deeds, for words. Or as when Jacob looked for Joseph, he found nothing but his coat: so whiles we look for honest men, we see nothing but their cloak: only a cloak of a good nappe, and a fair gloss of profession: that is all. I would it were not almost the religion of these dissembling and wanton times.

[unspec 4] But for you, Beloved; though you cannot be profound Clerks, yet you may be honest men. Holiness is not tied to literature: Doctor, and Saint, are not convertible terms. For then he that knows his masters will, could not choose but do: and so there had been a needless threatening of greater stripes. But as you cannot conclude upon us; because our life is bad, therefore our Doctrine cannot be good: for that were an harsh Non sequitue: So neither do we conclude upon you; because your knowledge is little, therefore your goodness is less: for that were a false argument. Indeed, first men must know, before they can do: yet your conscience will tell you, that you do not do all the good you know. Illumination, and sanctification, are two several things; and differ as a light, and a perfume: Put a candle into a lantern, and it will make it light, but it will not make it sweet: some perfume must do that. Divine knowledge doth make us understand the Gospel: but it is divine grace which makes us live according to the Gospel. Therefore what you want in great learning, supply with good living: I love Preaching, and I love practicing: and I had rather hear one Sermon in a day, and do three good works; than hear three Sermons in a day, and do never a good work, else Fransciscus Petrarcha, Scholarium Tetracha, was famous in his time; yet could not escape censure. Four men undertook to sit upon him: one had no learning, the second a little, the third not much, the fourth somewhat, but intricate and perplexed: (Good man! He was not tried by his Peers) All their opinions were summed up in this sentence: Petrarcham sine literis, virum bonum. The King stormed at this censure, the Nobles fretted, his friends were vexed, and almost all men threatened revenge upon such saucy Judges. But Petrach himself applauded their judgment: O utinamhoc unū vere dixerunt: The end of all which study, was to be a good man: if learning came in upon the by, I did not refuse it: But now seeing that by their sentence, without learning I may have goodness; What a comfort is this to me, and to thousands more of no better knowledge? I had rather, of two unhappy disjunctions, see an honest man without learning, than a learned man without honesty.

Doctrina, Salina; learning is a salt-pit; from whence we have the seasoning of all our actions: But virtus, venustas; virtue is the beauty, which makes them all lovely. Learning is but the sowing of the ground: an holy and virtuous life is the harvest. Knowledge in the soul is but for breed: when it is once married to Grace, they will bring forth a glorious issue, a race of heavenly fruits, a posterity of good works. Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob; and so by a lineal descent, down to Christ: So faith begets virtue, and virtue begets knowledge; and so by a lineal ascent, up to Christ. Faith is a second Mary, the Mother of Christ; to bear Him: and good works, another act and office of the same Mother; to nurse Him. For the former; Faith: it doth again incarnate the Son of God: so Mary, that blessed Virgin, Non minus credente mente, quàm pariente ventre, exultavit. For the latter; good works: they do still nurse the Son of God, with a charitable indulgence. This Himself acknowgeth: I was hungry, and ye gave me meat. And if in a modest humility they seem to put it off; Lord, when saw we thee an hungered? He both satisfies others, gratifies them: In doing it to my brethren, ye did it unto me. This is that milk of charity, and nourishment of pious deeds, that will make Christ batten within us. The woman joined them both together in a natural sense; Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked: acknowledging them both to belong to the same Mother: And Christ joins them both together in a spiritual sense; Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it: knowledge and faith come by hearing; and so is Christ borne in our souls: The effect of faith and knowledge is obedience and doing good, and so is Christ nursed in our lives. Hear therefore, that you may learn: Learn, that you may know: Know, that you may do. And though you cannot attain to so much learning, as may become great Scholars: yet at least get so much, as may make you honest men, and good Christians. So far make sure to be learned, that you may be saved. It follows;

They that are unstable] Stabilis, a Stando: the unstable man is one that cannot stand: like a Drunkard, he reels from place to place. He hath put so much intoxicating scrupulosity into his head, that he cannot stand on his legs. A Drunkard indeed; not so much for excess, as change of liquors: for his soul doth affect variety of Doctrines, more than the intemperate body doth variety of drinks. Now he sucks the Grape of Orleans, anon that hotter fruit of the Canaries: then he is taken with the pleasant moisture of the Rhemish plants: sometimes the juice of the pressed Apples and Peares delight him; which he warms with the Irish Vsquebah, and then quencheth all with the liquor made of English Barley. So the unstable soul takes a draught of religion from every country: so much of Anabaptism, as may make him a Rebell: so much of that loving Family, as may make him an Adulterer: so much of Rome, as may make him a Traitor or Idolater: so much of Arianism, as may make him a Blasphemer. Only he will stand in nothing, as the Drunkard can stand to nothing. As a fool or child, that hath an air in his head, thinks that the bells (then ringing) go to the same tune: and rather frames the sound of the bells to his imagination, than his imagination to the sound of the bells. So when a fond opinion is got into unstable head, he conceives all places of Scripture to tend unto that purpose: and will not bring his own doctrine to the Rule, but rather bends the Rule to his own doctrine. So, because he hath a crooked position, he wrests the Scriptures, to make them as crooked as his position as himself.

The unstable man partly knows what he hath been, he knows not what he will be, nay he knows not what he is. He runs through as many Religions, or rather Sects and Schisms, as Saint Paul did through perils: Perills of waters, perils of robbers, &c. He finds watery perils, by lighting among the Anaeaptists, with their second Immersion in the waters of Baptism: Perills by his own Countrymen, by joining with them that murmur against Order and Discipline: Perills by the heathen, in partaking of their profaneness and superstition: Perils in the city, by siding into singularity and faction: Perils in the wilderness, by following the brethren of the Separation; leaving the Church for private conventicles: Perils on the sea, by offering to found that inscrutable depth of predestination: Perils among false brethren; while they pretend to bring him to the true Mother, the Church of Christ: they lead him to Rome, that unnatural stepdame, the Strumpet of Antichrist. No perils could overwhelm Paul, because he stuck to his God: the unstable soul waves God, and therefore is subject to all perils.

Opinions in the mind, and diseases of the body are alike infinite. The masters of that Physical art can scarce number or name all sicknesses. Whatsoever disorders a faculty, and the function of it, is a sickness. Let the eye be distempered, yea let but the finger ache, it is a sickness. Some names they derive from the place affected; as the Pleurisy: some from the effect of the disease; as the falling sickness. From what it does, or from where it is, they devise how to call it. And yet because all these will not serve, they are fain to extort names from what it resembles, what it is like: so they have the Wolf, and the Canker, and the Polypus. But certainly, opinions and tenets in religion, which are diseases of the mind, do for number out-vie all the diseases of the body: nor are there names enough for them. Therefore as the Papists call diverse of their orders, by the names of their founders; the Dominicans of Dominic, the Franciscans of Francis; of Agustine, the Augustine's; of Bennet, the Benedictines: So Schismatics are fain to borrow appellations from their ring-leaders, of Brown to be called Brownists, of Arminius Arminians: as once of Arius Arians; of Donatus Donatists: and yet still they lack names. It hath been a question, whether there be more names or things: but in this instance it may be easily resolved; for certainly in religion, there are more sects than names: and so far are many from knowing how to denominate their opinions, that they must even let them pass with the bare name of opinions.

Prove all things: hold fast that which is good. Saint Paul gave great liberty; Omnia probate: but with all good counsel; Quod bonum est tenete. These unstable men will take the liberty, omnia probare, to prove all religions; but not the counsel for they commonly choose that which is worst. The unstable man, is a live weather-cock; that turns with every puff of vain doctrine: only the dead one does more good, because it tells which way the wind blows. If he cheats that old Serpent in anything, it is in this, that he is in so many minds, the Devil knows not where to have him. Yet at last death takes him up for a vagrant, and delivers him over to the next Sessions, where he is indicted for plurality of wives: for he hath married himself to abundance of errors, and Gone a whoring with his own inventions and is cast by that Statute: If they shall say, He is is the desert, go not forth. He is in the secret chambers, believe it not. He that is Multivolus, will surely be Malevolus. He is a reed shaken with the wind: today the reed bends to the South, tomorrow to the North: Now the head looks Eastward, by and by Westward: never upright, but when the wind is down. Alas, that ever a trembling reed should be the emblem of any Christian. Let us not be such; but rather Hold fast that which we have. The Lord hath enriched us with his saving truth: Let us stand in it, stand to it, stand for it, against all assaults. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. What weighty suit had that devout Client to the Throne of Grace, that he does not only put himself into such a posture, but also tells us of it: That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man: All is for Stabilitie in the truth, for our perseverance in grace. Lord, reclaim the obstinate, recall the wandering, establish the wavering, raise up them that are fallen, and confirm those that stand: that we may all live to thee, and die in thee, and dwell with thee forever.

They wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction.] We may say of the Scriptures, which are God's spiritual nets to catch our souls; as of that net which had enclosed such a multitude of fishes; Their net brake. Rumpebatur rete, & non rumpebatur: in nature it was broke, but by Divine power kept whole. So Temeratur Scriptura sacra, & non temeratur: It is ravished by these Impostors from the pure and virgin-Innocence; and yet it is not ravished. They wrest and pervert it, to themselves: but still the word of God remains sound and entire. Figmentis suis lacerant, & tamen integra manet. So apostates crucify to themselves the Son of God; to themselves: yet Christ is safe and glorious in heaven. As he that lustfully desires to defile a virgin, hath committed adultery in his heart: the virgin remains spotless, but he is polluted. So these mis-interpreters of God's Book, in their intention of mischief, can make a shift to befoul themselves: but the maiden honor of the Scripture is undefiled. Fools throw dirte at the moon; yet she needs no charitable hand to make her clean again. A natural fountain may be so poisoned; that all his springs cannot work it out: but no such injury can be suffered by the supernatural fountain of Truth. Swearers are said to tear Christ in pieces, and blasphemy to wound the Majesty of God: yet still is the Deity out of the reach of this impious violence. As the will to do God acceptable service, is as acceptable as if it were indeed service: So the intent and offer of wrong, shall be judged for wrong in the Court of Justice. These men wrest the Scriptures; not to the prejudice of that sacred Canon, but to their own destruction. This is done many ways.

1. By admitting no more of the Scriptures, then will make for their own turns. This course that old Father of lies took; when with a Bible under his arm, and a Text in his mouth, he did set upon Christ: It is written, He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee &c. He that durst touch the blessed body of Christ with his hand, will venture to touch the holy word of God with his tongue. But here was subtlety mixed with presumption: What can be a more authentical weapon than the Scripture? But that the devil should fight with it, is the wonder. He cites it indeed, but with mutilation, with distortion: by wronging the words, by wresting the sense. It comes not out of his mouth, but maimed and perverted. The Text quoted is this: He shall give his Angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. One piece of it is left out, all mis-applied by Satan. The promise of preservation is with a limitation; In all thy ways: But to fall down from the pinnacle, was not the way. So much as served Satan's turn, to tempt Christ, to tempt God, he cites readily: The Angels shall keep thee: But that they should keep him in his ways; this he leaves out, for it would have made against him. His way of descending, was by the stairs, not by a precipitation. It is easy to see from what School they come, and where they learnt their divinity, that wrest and mangle the Scripture, to their own purpose. As Marius took so much of the Roman laws, as would serve for his ambitious ends: the rest he left out as superfluous. It is a common practice of the Pontifician writets, in their quotation of Scriptures or Fathers, only to cull out here and there an Eunuched and maimed authority, for the better color of their schisms: but that which makes against them, is ever past over in silence. And yet they keep a noise, as if the Scriptures and they were good friends. The devil did say as much; and yet he was never the nearer to the Truth. Let us take the word from the Author, not from the usurper.

2. By adding that to the Scripture, for which they have no warrant: with Apocryphal shreds patching up the sacred Canon. This is the censure of that Antichristian Synagogue, concerning the holy Scripture: They call it an imperfect rule, an inky Divinity, flexible to every humor, without the complement of their Traditions. They have a book called Protevangelion, fathered upon St. James, full of strange stuff. As that when Christ (an Infant) was carried into Egypt, and assaulted by thieves; one thief withstood all his fellows, and would not suffer them to lay hands upon Joseph; desiring the child Jesus to remember this good turn: and that this was the very thief whom he remembered upon the cross. That Christ in his minority, working with his father Joseph in the trade, had been corrected by him for cutting a piece of timber too short: but that miraculously with his hands he pulled it out to the full length. Is not this goodly stuff, to be put upon our faith? Thus out of the vanity of their wits, they devise all variety of tales, whereby they may lead men's minds from the written word, to a belief of strange fictions. From hence grow those voluminous Legends, and infinite fabulous inventions, and dreams of the ancient heretics. With these delusions do they stuff their Sermons and Postills; turning the holy story into a mere Comedy, with their several hints, and actors, and entrances. No sooner have they singled out a Text from the Bible, Like a flower out of the garden, but they dress it with such new terms of art, that the Gardener can scarce know it again. There be such mysteries, and parables, such metaphores and allegories, forced out of plain propositions; that as they wonder how we should not receive them, so we wonder more how they could find them. But a sober ignorance is better than a drunken knowledge.

3. By distinguishing the Scripture, till (in a manner) they extinguish the light of it. Christ was offered up once for all: This they distinguish, telling us of a Sacrifice Bloody and unbloody: the one, once on the Cross; the other, daily in the mass. Drink ye all of this: They distinguish of All; and would have it to be meant only of All the Apostles, not of All Christians. Marriage is honorable among all men: That is, say they, among all them that are not bound by a vow to the contrary. There is one Mediator, Christ: this they distinguish; He is the only Mediator of Redemption, not so of Intercession. Again; that he is Mediator both in regard of nature and office: the Saints are mediators in regard of office, not of nature. So, say they, Christ's satisfaction is in virtue sufficient, but not efficient in act, unless it be applied by our satisfaction. To take away all opinion of merit, Christ chargeth us, when we have done all we can, to hold ourselves unprofitable servants: To establish merits, they elude this with a distinction; we are unprofitable to God not to ourselves. When we prove that diverse Popes have erred, and been Heretics; they answer that the Pope may err, Quatenus homo, non quatenus Papa: But when the man did err, where was the Pope all the while? Be not these pretty distinctions, whereby they mangle the word, and delude the world? upon this file hang all those dusty cob-webs of Rome; where in they catch souls like flies, and prey upon them with their poisonous breaths. Upon this drumme beat all the Schoolmen, making a harsh clattering with their subtle questions, and idle disputations. By this last kind of enigmaticall Divinity, the wit and capacity of man is fettered and entangled: By the next, which is their historical figments, it is fondly trained on, and inveigled: By the first way, it is enchanted and astonished: by everyone of them it is cozened and fowlly abused.

4. By mis-alleging the Scripture, to the defense of their Schismaticall tenets. If you will take an Inventory of Popery, what can you light upon, but such notorious distortions and mis-applications of holy writ? What the Evangelist testifies of Christ; that he did many other signs, which are not written in this book: That the book of Conformities applies to S. Francis; Multa quidem & alia signa fecit Franciscus, quae non sunt scripta in hoc libro. To S ^t . Agnes they ascribe that; Thou art all fair my love, and there is no spot in thee. To S ^t . Lucie, that; The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Be not these impudent profanations? God made two great lights: the Pontifical, to rule the day of the Spiritualtie; the Regal, to rule the night of the laity: and this latter is less than the other by 57. degrees: saith a Glosser, Like some skillful Astronomer. Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and Adder: Pope Alexander the 3. applied this to himself, when he trampled upon Frederick the Emperors neck. Certain Ambassadors Lying in such a posture, under the Popes feet; were taught to cry; Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nostri. They fetch the like ground for it out of the Psalm: Thou hast put all things under his feet: The fowls of the air, which are, say they, the Angels in heaven: The beasts of the earth, Christians in this life: The fishes of the sea, the souls in Purgatory. What honor doth the Scripture attribute to Christ, with which the Pope hath not made himself bold. A sure foundation, a precious corner stone: Kings and Queens shall bow down to thee, and lick up the dust of thy feet: They shall appoint themselves one Head: All power is given unto me in heaven and in Earth. It was said of Pope Leo; Ecce Leo de tribu Judah. Of another; Lux venit in mundum. He is called the Great Shepherd of the flock, the Bridegroom, the Lamb. Christ hath no royal Robe, but the Pope fits it to his own back: about which sacrilegious work, the Jesuits are his cunning Tailors. Because Christ contradicted not Petres speech; Ecce duo gladii: this was warrent enough for Boniface the 8; to challenge the power of both swords, Temporal and Spiritual. Peter was charged to pay tribute both for his Master and himself: therefore is Peter the chief over the rest of the Apostles, because none of the rest paid: as if paying of tribute were a sign of preeminence, and not rather of subjection. Rise Peter, kill and eat: was not this a goodly foundation for Baronius to build on, that the Pope might excommunicate the Venetians. A man is taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. This man, say they, is the Soul: going into a far country, departing out of this world: the authority left with his servants, is his charge to his executors • hat must they do? with his good they must procure the prayers and suffrages of the Church, to free him from Purgatory: the watching of the Porter, is the Duty of his Pastor; daily to sacrifice for him by saying Mass: were not these deft interpretations? What is, if this be not wresting of the Scriptures? They have yet one way more to abuse them.

5. By raising strange and unnatural conclusions out of them. One proves that Peter had no skill at his weapon; because he did but slice off Malchus his ear, when he should have struck off his head. Another, that the King is inferior to the Priest; because Peter was an Apostle that smote, and Malchus signifies a king that was smitten. Another, that Ecclesiastical dignities are not to be conferred in regard of kindred but of merit: because Christ gave the Keys to Peter, and not to John; though John were his Cosin, and not Peter. Be not these marvelous proper collections. They can tell you how many thorns were in Christ's crown: and what he wrote on the ground, when he absolved the Adulteress: and what speeches passed between the Father, Son, and holy Ghost in Paradise about the Incarnation of Christ. Such metaphysical speculations swarm in the brains of our Pontifician Doctors: such frothy inferences boil out of their unskimmed wits. God hath ever been jelous of his word, as of his own Honor: His Name is but that whereby he signifies his Nature to us: and his word is but that whereby he signifies his will to us: They that take either of them both in vain, shall not be hold guiltless.

This latter is the reverend and impartial Judge of all controversies: and whatsoever contradicts it, is not an Illumination of the Spirit, but an Illusion of Satan. Jerome by those four and twenty Elders, understands the four and twenty books of the law, as they are divided by the Hebrews: Clothed in white, because therein is no lie to be found: and on their heads crowns of gold, because of their victory over sin and Satan. The Antichristian synagogue labors to bereave the Scripture of this honor: as the Title or office of a Judge; because the Church is ancienter than the Scripture. But if this were a good reason, than Magistrates could not be Judges of the people, because the people are ancienter than the Magistrates: nor should the laws have authority over them, because they are ancienter than the Laws. If we do not understand by the Scripture, the paper and print only; but the doctrines therein contained: then all that is there said of the nature and properties of God, of his eternal counsels, and of the worlds creation, must needs be ancienter than the Church. The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge them in the last day, that receive not my words. This shall be judge, when all the world, even these perverse judges themselves shall be brought to judgment. They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them. If Moses and the Prophets were sufficient to instruct the brethren of Dives, how much more able is the addition of the Gospel and Epistles to bring us to salvation? Christ lives now, non solum inter nos, sed etiam intra nos. In this Evangelical glass, we can behold him crying in the cradle, and dying on the cross, buried in his grave, and rising from the dead, ascended far above all Heavens, and there sitting as an Advocate to plead our cause. Who then shall lay violent hands on this sacred Canon, with impunity? To take off God from his own meaning, and to father upon him a bastard sense, is intolerable blasphemy. Yet we know where such wresters dwell; that offer to wring God's weapon out of his hand, and impiously return the point upon his own bosom.

The summary conclusion is this: Imposters and perverters of these sacred Records, are in the state of damnation. They that will give God a new tongue, shall feel his old hand. Detorquent, they put the text to the rack, the Scripture to the torture: first, they conceive an opinion, and then screw the Word of God to the maintenance of it. They will not so conceive as he speaks, but they will have him so speak as they conceive. First, they conclude, thus it shall be: then they force the Scripture to consent with them, that so it is. As when lustful Amnon could not win Tamar by fair means, he defloures her by force. A little flourish of words, is with them a main advantage: lik raging wild beasts, that when they cannot come at the person, they rend in pieces his garment. But as a man, so the Bible consists of a body and soul: the sound of the letter is but the body, the sense is the soul. The seed is the Word of God: they that corrupt it, as heretics: or choke it, as hypocrites: or keep it down forcibly from growing, as tyrants: or thrust other seed into it, as Papists; shall have just vengeance for their pains. For as God gave pure seed, so he will require pure corn. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve: this is pure seed. To worship Angels or Saints, or the crucifix, or images: this is sophisticate seed; God did never sow it: it is the enemies supersemination of tares. Christ's feed was left in the garners of the Prophets and Apostles: they that adulterate it before it be sown, or nip it when it does spring, or cut it down before the Lord's harvest; shall be indicted of this felonious rape, the wresting of Scriptures. When all their fond allusions, shall be found illusions: and as they have attempted to make God speak against himself, so their own tongues shall be their own accusers, & condemnd they shall stand by their own consciences.

Here let us take 2. cautions; as marks to know them, and means to avoid them.

1. We may discern them: as the cunning of an Imposter cannot keep him from a discerning eye. Whether we be besides ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause: this is the best tēper of God's faithful workman; his carriage towards God is full of zeal; not without groans, agonies and raptures. But his conversation towards men is full of mildness; of a soft, sweet, cool & affable demeanor: hipocrits and impostors deal otherwise for in the Church, in the Pulpit, they seem to be men inspired with holy furies; like burning Seraphim, wrapped with ecstasies, and amazing all their hearers: take them into their chambers, in their solitary and separate meditations, whereunto God only is privy: view their life, as it is abstracted from the public eye: they are not only calm and tepid, but even fowl and wicked: sober enough to God, and transported only towards men. As hypocrites with their dissembling holiness towards God, do palliate their injuries done to men: so heretics by their morality and fair deportment towards men, make a way for their blasphemies against God. The former is like a meteor, which burns clear upward to Heaven, but hath a squalid tail dangling to the Earth: The other like the Moon, is then lightest towards the Earth, when she is dark to. Heaven. Roaring profaneness makes too much noise for Imposture: that is the Devils suite when he goes a whoring: it is the language he speaks amongst ruffians and strumpets: He hath another garb for the brethren of singularity. Iniquity is a cord or cable; a gross bungerly sin: but hypocrisy is a fine spun thread, scarce discernible. If you see a man that hath nothing but Heaven in his mouth, and yet nothing but the world in his hand, you may suspect that he hath a Devil in his heart. They that mingle the respect of themselves with the sacred Truth, have not the Scripture for a Text, they may have it for a pretext. But such as mind only their Masters glory, with trembling and innocent hands turn over their Masters book; and interpret it as it is meant, to direct us the way to Heaven, and to bring us to salvation.

2. We may avoid them; by cleaving to that word, which they are still cleaving a pieces. Thou shalt protect them in thy Tabernacle from the contradiction of tongues, saith the Psalmist. Out of the Tabernacle of God, we meet with the contradictions of the World, with a world of contradictions: which way so ever we turn ourselves, there is no end of controversies. That as in the burning of some danke and sobby fuel; we cannot see the fire for the smoke: So the light of the Scriptures is dusked by the vapors of controversies. Whilest green wits range abroad into the woods and thickets of Schoolmen, that wild Forest of Polemicall Divinity; they cannot escape vnscratched. Those briars and brambles pluck of the wool of the sheep. They that love such intricate and perplexed walks, had need of iron-shoes, for they tread upon thorns. I deny not but there may be a sober use of those abstruse questions; but then they must be read with sober eyes: otherwise there is more danger in being snared with difficulties, than hope of benefit to our saving knowledge. The Dove that keeps her close in her nest, those clefts of the rock, is not troubled with these wild flutterings. Adhere to the Church, and therein to the Scripture, whereof the Church is the depositary, not the Judge. In the tabernacle was the Ark, and in the Ark the Testimony. The Tabernacle was but the husk, the Testimony was the kernel. Never tell me of the husk without the kernel; of the Tabernacle, without the Testimony. The Tabernacle was ordained for the keeping of the Law: and the custody of the Gospel is also entrusted to the Church. But as the Testimony was the life of the Tabernacle, so the life and soul of the Church is the Gospel. On this blessed covenant let us rest our faiths, and it shall bring rest to our souls.

They wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction.] That which is said of Tapers; quod me alit, me extinguit: or of the creatures, that Nutrimenta may be made Nocumenta: so also of the Scriptures; that verbum vitae, the Word of life may be so distorted from vita verbi, the life of the word, till it becomes Esca mortis to us. Like an over-charged Cannon, it may recoil upon us, and brain us with the splinters. That which God gave us for a spiritual Sword, wherewith to wound out enemies; may be so wrested out of our hands, that it becomes a sword for our enemies, wherewithal to wound us. As the Taper is put out by an inve • sion of it: the fire should be above the oil, and so it burns; but if the oil gets above the fire, so it drowns. Or as the creatures are noxious only by the abuse: meat nourishes, excess of meat suffocates: wine cheers the heart, too much wine overheats and endangers a Surfet. So it is with the Scriptures; Take them in their pure, proper, natural, and genuine sense; they are the Bread of life, and the Waters of life, and the immortal Seed of life: there is nothing but life in them. But as Paul said of the Law; The Commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death: So Heretics may say of the Gospel; What God meant for our life, that we have abused to our own death: yet still the Covenant, no less than the Commandment, is holy, and just, and good. Ex perperam intellecta Scriptura natas heresies. Heresies are raised out of the Scriptures, though they be revincible by the same letters. Irenaeus calls it Imaginem confictam & refectam, ex regiâ (quae est in eâ) Divinâque Imagine dissoluta. Wicked men will build errors upon the Pillar and Ground Truth. Four Observations are here offered to us.

1. Hypocrites and Imposters never meddle with the Scriptures, but to wicked purposes. This project they learned of their father: Cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give his Angels charge over thee. He knew the bait that Christ would soonest bite at: that he relied upon nothing so much as the voice of his Father: If any stratagem can prevail, it must be a pretence of Scripture. Therefore he draws out his Scriptum est; dealing with the sharp, and blading it out with the Word of God. He, forsooth, is a lover of the truth; and will persuade Christ to nothing, but what he hath Scripture for. He does not always show his horns, but sometimes veil them with holiness. What an honorable testimony was given by that Maiden, possessed with a spirit of Divination? These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation. Who would look for the Devil, under the habit of such good counsel? He is the father of lies, And will he bear witness to the truth? He knew Paul to be a sworn enemy to his kingdom, and yet he rings the Bell to his Sermon, and gathers a great audience about him. But he had another drift in all this: he made a show to underprop the truth, but he meant to undermine it. By the maids repeating and clamorous noising of it, he hoped to work a suspicion in the hearers, that Paul and the Devil had compacted together. He hath Scripture for Christ; and a fair testimony for Paul: yet Christ struck him down, and Paul threw him out. So his Factors, to prove their heretical tenets, make bold with the Scriptures: as, in the Fable, the Fox never praised the Law, but when it might make him a way to his booty.

2. This is the cause of many men's irresolution, the dissonant interpretation of the Scriptures: in that all men, of all Religions, do allege it. The places seem to contradict one another: Christ allegeth it, the devil allegeth it: what shall we do? Which way soever we take, it may be the wrong. Therefore some lie down, like Issachar, between both the burdens, and sue out a writ of ease for their consciences; thinking it best to let all alone. Must we needs be either Gnostickes, or Sceptickes? Because we cannot know all, shall we examine nothing? To leave the war, whereunto we are lawfully pressed, till we have disputed the cause, which belongs not to us, is but a base tergiversation and flinching. Because our enemy hath recovered some of our Artillery, and plays upon us with our own Ordnance, Shall we therefore quite abandon all the rest of our Munition? Because we cannot reconcile both parts, Shall we be so civil and mannerly as to displease neither part? Though one side be false, we must not shift ourselves from all inquiry of the truth. We might as well fear to eat, least we should be choked: or leave watching, and set the gates wide open, because the enemy will hardly be kept out. Let us not turn that to security and idleness, which God hath made the matter of our excercise. Wherefore serve those Promises: Seek, and ye shall find: He that would do the will of God, shall know his Doctrine. If we be not prepossessed with prejudice, our heavenly Schoolmaster will teach us. And if we understand not so much as will make us learned, yet shall we understand enough to make us blessed.

3. The foreknowing that doubts will arise, should make us more skillful in the way to clear them. It is written, saith Christ: It is written, saith the Devil: If they be written, they are both true: If true, How are they contrary? And contrary they must be, being cited by Enemies. The Text cannot speak: What resolution then is there for the Conscience? Shall we make the Scriptures like Wax, susceptible of any impression? Or like Bels, tunable to the ears of the Hearer? Though the printed letter cannot speak; and they that wrote it are in Heaven: yet there are means to come by their meaning. First, Prayer; that it is a Key to those heavenly Mysteries. Qui docuit orare, dabit & intelligere. He that gives us the understanding to pray, will also give us the understanding that we pray for. O Lord, Teach me thy Statutes. Secondly, examination of the words; what they, be in the Text, what in the Context: whether proper or figurative. He that makes a propriety of speech of a figure, is like him that took the curtain for the picture. Thirdly, the drift and scope of the place must be weighed. To the Ruler that asked what he should do to inherit eternal life, Christ's answer was a direction to keep the Commandments. Not that Christ meant, the way was by the works of the Law; as the Papists gather from it: but to confute his opinion that thought so, when as he could never fulfill it. We are justified by faith, saith Paul: we are justified by works, saith James: Saint James dealt with them that stood too much upon faith without works: Saint Paul dealt with them that stood too much upon works without faith. The one a Justice of Acceptation with God, the other a Justice of Approbation before men. Fourthly, Scripture must be conferred with Scripture: it is Index both Sui and Obliqui. Compare that of Saint Peter; Charity shall cover the multitude of sins: with that of Solomon; Love covereth all sins: then we shall find, that it doth not cover sins before God, as the Papists would have it: but qualifies and hides them from men, as God would have it. Fifthly, that which is not proportionable to the Analogy of faith, and agreeable to the rule of truth, is a wrested Interpretation. This is my Body, If I take it for the substantial flesh of Christ, as it was upon earth; this crosseth a Commandment, Thou shalt not kill; yea, it crosseth my Creed, which binds me to believe that He is in Heaven. I know that in Scripture some things are not expressed, which are yet implied: Scriptura non dicit, sed non contradicit. If it cross not the rule of faith, it may be received: the honest and believing heart shall be instructed.

4. This is no disgrace to the Scriptures, that they are depraved by Heretics: nor is it a wonder, to hear Hypocrites quote that authority, which Satan himself hath not spared to cite. Though Scripture be opposed to Scripture, yet this must not withdraw the determination of matters from the Book of God: for none can better try the truth, than the Spirit of Truth. When the Devil had abused that place; Psal. 91.11. by enforcing the promise contrary to the Commandment; making that absolute, which in it self was but conditional: as if the Lord, who would protect him in his • aies, would also protect him out of his ways: which was to adulterate the Scripture: yet this detracts nothing from the glory of it, because Satan and his Impes meddle with it. Nay, this rather graceth it; for their very allegation it a secret acknowledgement of the honor due to it. Christ therefore did not throw away his weapon, but striketh with the same sword, wherewith He was stricken: and makes an holy use of that to his Fathers Glory, which to his dishonor was abused by the Adversary. The Word of God is not the worse, because these men have depraved it. The Be gathers honey on the same stalk, from which the Spider sucks poison. Some have been poisoned by their meats and drinks; yet either these things must nourish us, or nothing. Though the bloody Hel-hound slay a man with his weapon; yet the Soldier may layfully gird a sword to his side. It is expedient that one man should die for the people: A Caiaphas spake it; must not we therefore believe it? Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his: Though this were the wish of an enchanter, yet the prayer will do well in the mouth of an honest man. These men show us the way of salvation, says the Pythonesse: yet Paul will not deny himself to be a Preacher of salvation, because she affirms it. And if the Devil transform himself into an Angel of light, shall therefore the good Angels forgo their light? The intemperance and surfeit of an epicure, does not make our sober appetites out of love with our dinner. It may be the Devil by alleging of Scripture, meant to make Christ weary of his weapon: as the fashions of apparel, when they are taken up by the base, are cast off by the great. And it was one cause, why Christ afterward forbad the Devil even to confess the truth, because his very mouth was a slander.

It is Satan's old trick, to counterfeit an Imitation of the son of God: Christ allegeth a Scripture to him, and he re-allegeth Scripture to Christ. What one act ever passed the hand of God, which Satan did not apishly attempt to second? they that quote God's Word against the Authors meaning, are the heirs apparent to Satan. If we seem to follow Christ in the outward action but with contrary intentions, we do indeed but follow the Devil in following Christ. It is not possible for Impostors, to find out a better color for their heresies, than out of the Scriptures. Therefore with that Heavenly gold, they guild over their base metal, that it may pass current. The Prince of darkness will not scorn to borrow so much of an Angel of light, as to seem godly for a mischief. If hypocrites deceive us with the glorious luster of holiness, we see where they have learned those projects. Yet is not our Savior distasted with the Scripture, because the Devil mis-lays it in his dish: but rather he snatcheth the sword out of that impure hand, and beats him back with that usurped weapon. It is not the letter of the Scripture, that can carry it, but the sense: while we separate these two, we profane both. The Scripture is one, as that God whose it is: where it shows any appearance of difficulty or inconvenience, it needs no light to clear it, but what it hath in it self. All doubts that may arise from it, are fully answered by collation. It is not the glorious flourishes of hypocrisy, but the easiness of our slothful credulite, that abuseth us.

I know indeed, that many souls are betrayed by corrupting that truth, whose virtue is sovereign and saving. There is no Devil so dangerous, as the religious Devil. Yet as David would not doubt to eat of that sheep, which he pulled out of the mouth of the Bear or Lion: so let it be no scruple unto us, to fetch our own patrimony out of the hands of the Philistines: and to seek for salvation in that Ark, which they joined with their Dagon. Good meat put into a stomach corrupt, feverish, or hydropicall, doth not more nourish nature, than the disease: yet we do not thereupon forbear utterly to feed: but rather strive to purge out those bad humors, which cause the offense. The Lord hath given us light; let us beseech him also for clear and sound eyes, that we may take comfort in the light he hath given us. Let not the divine Table of Christ be made a snare to our souls. The Word of God is holy, O that our hearts were so: then should we find that word not more true, than cordial. And after all these depravations and clouds of darkness cast before that blessed light; we shall see it as plainly, as the Sages did the Star, and it shall bring us directly to Jesus Christ. It follows.

[unspec 1] To their own destruction.] They make a fair business of it; so wresting the book of Grace, that they quite wrest themselves out of the Book of Life. To say nothing of those sacrilegious Poets, that have turned the sacred story into plays and interludes; and presented that on the Stage, which was ordained for the Pulpit. But if a man plays with God, he shall find God in earnest with him. Two causes of this perversion are principally here assigned by the Apostle: the want of knowledge, and the want of sobriety: unlearned, unstable.

What innumerable absurdities have sprung from the former, Rome can give you a large Inventory. Ignorance passeth among them for one of the Graces, (I had almost said) for one of their Sciences. The mother of devotion they call it: the blind mother of as blind littor: superstitious devotion, the daughter of mopish indiscretion. Ye worship ye know not what: well may they worship they know not what, that are religious they know not how. Laymen are esteemed as hogs; and must not be allowed those precious pearls. Espencaus relates the speech of a noble Italian Bishop: Our countrymen are terrified, saith he, from the study of Divinity, with fear of incurring heresy: as if error sprung from the knowledge, and not rather from the ignorance of the Scriptures. When an old Priest of theirs heard a young man allege Scripture out of the New Testament, he wondered at it: and protested that he had been a Priest fifty years, and yet never knew what the New Testament was. The prohibition of the Bible was so strictly urged, that it was more danger to be found reading a chapter of it, than counterfeiting the Kings coin. This appears by that ancient law in our kingdom; that in many criminal offenses, he that could but read a Psalm in Latin, though he understood never a word of it, should be exempted from the secular power, as being fit to make a Clerke of. This law is still continued; not that all such as can read, are fit to be made Priests, but to mitigate the rigor of the law in petty offenses. Now they have translated the Book of God into diverse vulgar Languages: but still, as they have corrupted it with false glosses, so they teddar it up within certain limits. It is not permitted, but to such as have a dispensation from their Ordinary, or that by their yearly revenues can dispend such a sum of money: As if heresy could fasten upon none but beggars: or the rich only, and not the poor, stood in need of comforts. Thus the Title which Epiphanius gives to all heretics, belongs principally to them; Lucifugae, the lovers of darkness.

For the other cause, the want of sober judgments, how shall we do to excuse [unspec 2] ourselves. We have too many of those that wrest the Scriptures.

1. Reprove a sensual gallant for his voluptuous life, shared out into play, dalliance, drink and sleep, and he hath Scripture to defend it. There is nothing better for a man, than to eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labor. God would have a man to enjoy good in his labor; but what is this to them that never labor in good? There is a particular calling; follow that, there is a general calling, to labor in the vineyard of salvation; work out that: When you have done both these, if there be any spare time left, you may go play. But it is a sacrilegious impiety, to make that word the buckler of sin to defend it; which is given for a spiritual sword, to kill and mortify it. Such men wrest it to their own destruction.

2. Rebuke a worldling for his scraping rapacity: tell him that Covetousness is idolatry; that it brings on a catalogue of curses: He contradicts you with Scripture: That man is worse than an infidel, who provides not for his Family. As if men must needs provide for their own, by taking away other men's: and could have nothing to leave their children, but that which they purloyne from the children of God. He that buys a patrimony for his child, with the loss of his own soul, hath but a dear purchase, a very hard bargain. There is a true story of a rich oppressor, who had stored up a great mass of wealth for his only son: This man falling into sickness, and thereby into some remorse, called his son to him, and told him how abundantly he had provided for him: withal asking him, whether he did truly and really love him. The son answered, that nature (besides his paternal indulgence) bound him to that. The father being now in his sick bed, farther puts him to it; how he would express this love to him: the son said in anything that he should command him. Hereupon, his father chargeth him to hold his finger in the burning candle, but so long as he could say one Pater-noster, without removing it. The son attempted it, but could not endure it, Yet says his father, to get thee wealth and a large estate upon Earth, I have hazarded myself to Hell; for the welfare of thy body, I have ventured my soul: Thou canst not suffer the burning of a finger for me, I must burn body and soul for thy sake: Thy pain is but for a minute; mine must be unquenchable fire, even torments forever. By this consideration, being melted into repentance; he restored all the gains of his unjustice, made the poor partakers of his riches, abandoned all worldliness, and was recovered both in body and soul to the Lord. As he hath many followers in his base avarice, so I would to God he had some in his gracious repentance. Little do gripulous fathers, that what was forty years a gathering, should be spent in one Christmas-revelling.

3. Reprehend a dissolute liver for his inordinate courses: persuade him to a seasonable repentance: tell him that he hath no promise of forbearance: that many are cut off by sudden death in the midst of their sins; or justly delivered over to hardness of heart, and final impenitency: yet he can prolong his sensual pleasure, by a warrant of Scripture: At what time soever a sinner repents, &c. Thus, what is written for his consolation, he tutnes to poison: of his physic and restorative, he makes a drink of intoxicating desperateness. Alas, why did God give us his Word, but that we might be saved by it? Why are we not left in blindness, like the Heathen; but that the Lord intends this gracious light for our conversion? Shall we make that our encouragement to be evil, which God hath ordained to bring us to goodness? The Gospel is our Fathers will; shall we dare to interline it? To get a false legacy, shall we forfeit the true? It is our Charter; the covenant that God hath made with us, to save our believing souls in Christ: shall we subtly pick words and cavils out of our evidence, to overthrow our own inheritance O why should we wrest that to our own destruction, which is meant for our salvation? There be sayings, by which a profane soul heartens himself on to lewdness: and yet even those, the tender conscience takes for motives to repentance. There be sentences, from which a too late repenter will suck desperation: and yet they that seek the Lord early shall receive from them his morning dew, his seasonable mercy, his sweet compassion. In a word, let us neither extenuate those places that make against our sins, nor misconstrue those that make for the peace of our souls. So whiles we do no way wrong the Scripture, it shall every way comfort us in Jesus Christ, Amen.

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.