Commentary on 2 Peter

THE whole Scripture, saith Saint Ambrose, is convivium Sapientiae, the Banket of Wisdom; and singuli libri singula sunt fercula, the several Books are several Dishes. Or an Apothecaries shoppe, wherein is found sufficiency of holy Drugges, to cure all our spiritual diseases. Or a blessed Treasury of heavenly Riches, to supply any indigence of our souls. An infallible Rule, to keep us within compass, both for civil and religious allegiance. There be two sorts of men that fly out, and ramble from the right way of godliness: the mis-believers, and mis-livers. To inform the one, and reform the other, is the great undertaking of the Holy-Ghost in this place, and the main scope of his Secretary, the blessed Apostle Saint Peter.

Reading this first Verse, we may well think of a Father sending a Token of love to his children. The Father, is an Apostle: the Token, an Epistle: the dear children, those elected and dispersed Jews; to whom he wrote both these Letters.

To join the spiritual Father and his children together in our meditation, [unspec 1] as nature hath knit them in relation, Saint Peter commends his love to the Church of the Jews: for the Church of the Jews was never cast away, only the unbelievers were broken off. Putata est oliva, non amputata: the Body, and some of the branches remain; and we are graffed into them, not they into us. We bring nothing to the Jews, but we receive all from them: not only the oracles of God, but even the Gospel; for salvation is of the Jews. The Gentiles do not make a several Church by themselves, for there is but 〈◊〉 Church: but they are called to be members of the Church • f the •• wes. 〈◊〉 sheep I have, that is, the elect Gentile • Them I must bring to • hi • fol • that is 〈◊〉 Church of the Jews▪ • do not ma • • nother fold, nor carry thi • 〈…〉 but bring the Gentiles to the Jews, th •• •• ere may be one fold, 〈…〉 then the C • u • ch of Rome, but the Church of the Jews 〈…〉 Church: and we are not children of the Pope, we find no such adoption; but the seed of Abraham, not natural, but by insition. The same Roote bears us both, the same fatness nourisheth us both: there is no difference between the way of salvation in the Old Testament, and the New, but this: they were the natural b • an • hes, we are engraffed. In gra • fing, there is clay used, and bi •• ing abo •• the Jew is • ound about with a red ligament in regard of circumcision: we wi •• a white, in respect of Baptism; at which the Primitive times did put on white garments.

The unbelieving Jews indeed are fearfully cursed. Let their Table be made a snare, &c. This was their just recompense: they were still like snares and traps to stumble Christ; therefore let their Table be made a snare, and a trappe, and a stumbling block unto them. They blinded his eyes, and then smote him; theirs are smitten with blindness for it. They called him down from the Cross, in mockery: in earnest the greatest cross is come down upon them for it. They accused him that he would destroy the Temple, therefore was their Temple destroyed. They charged him to be an enemy to Caesar their King, now therefore they have neither King nor Caesar. They bowed his back with the Cross, now their own backs are always bowed down: not only like slaves, their bodies are subjected to burdens, but like beasts, they have groveling minds, always on their moneys; as they are indeed the greatest Usurers. O curvae in terris animae, & coelestium n • nes! Thus is the wrath come upon them to the uttermost. Yet God had his chosen among them in their greatest apostasy: and it is probable, that the blood of Christ did cleanse some of those souls, that had the aspersion of his blood on their guilty hands. Still Saint Peter calls them his Beloved; and there is no name of any nation under heaven so honorable as the name of a Jew. Boast not against the branches: for if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Let us not reproach them, but bless that God who hath now honored us above them. Saint Paul is not more moved with indignation against them, as malefactors; than with compassion of them, as miserable wretches.

Beloved.] The thriving of the sheep is the glory of the shepherd; and Pl • s [unspec 3] Pastor in vulnere gregis sui vulneratur. The loss of a graceless child cannot but grieve the father, though the father, himself were in danger of mischief by that child: as David mourned for Absalom, that would have cut his throat. We would have you also prosper in this world; but our special care and prayer is, that you may thrive in spiritual graces, and grow rich in the favor of God. ^f As that father rejoined when his son came home a convert, though he had not a rag to hang on his back. To delight in men's sins, is the sport of devils: recovery from those sins, is the joy of good men and Angels. If we see a man deadly wounded, fetching deep groans and drawing his last breath, we are moved with pity. How then should rebellious sinners, procuring the destruction of their own souls, wring from us tears of blood? We lament the death of those bodies that shall be raised in glory: how much more the ruin of those souls that sink down to infelicity? It is possible that our grief for men's offenses, may work a grief in the offenders: as the sight of others falling heartily to their meat, brings on our stomachs. Instead of a smile, let us afford all sin a tear: our tears may move them to repentance, whom our smiles encourage in lewdness.

Beloved.] Love is the ornament of the Church, the ciment of Christianity. How good and pleasant a thing it is, for 〈…〉 together in 〈◊〉 ? But quam malum & miserandum, Patr •• & filios 〈…〉 ? Wh •• there is either a defect of paternal office in providing spiritual food for the f •• ily, or of filial duty in granting temporal food to 〈◊〉 Fathers how miser •• le are the whole household? Love descends; it is not possible the P • stors love should fail to his people 〈◊〉 it do •• not ascend so certainly; for we see universally, that the p •• ples lov • • oth • a • le to their Pastor. It 〈◊〉 a que ••• on, whether natural Parents •• to beloved above the spiritual▪ we know that Christ preferred his spiritual 〈…〉 of thi • flee •• ▪ and major est ••• exi • 〈…〉 . Why 〈…〉 them more that brought us into this sinful and miserable 〈◊〉 those that bring us into a better world, where is neither sin nor ••• ery? Why them, that live with us on earth but awhile, equal to them that shall live with us in heaven forever? We must clear this by a distinction: O • r spiritual parents are more to be loved Aesti •• tive: our natural, more in •• s •• e: those 〈◊〉 Bene •• lentia, these ••• re Beneficenti • . A man may not give all his goods to a ••• ernitie, and leave his parents destitute of relief, as the Capuc •••• do: for God esteems mercy above sacrifice. We are to love our nature 〈◊〉 • ll; but the most bonds of nature require a greater degree of love. Nature ••• cheth this, and Grace perfecteth Nature. Christ first preached at Nazareth, 〈◊〉 requite the place of his education. Still the nearer in blood, the dearer in good. But they that will not allow their spiritual Fathers so much, as they do their carnal flatterers; that spend more upon their Lawyer, than upon their Preacher; they are bastards; none of his children; Impostumes, rather than members of the Church.

From what root grows all this Sacrilege, this robbing of the Church under [unspec 5] the name of custom, but from this, the want of Love? The love of custom •• th quite eaten out the custom of love. It will be found in a higher Court, where not a Lawyer shall be heard, that it was a damnable custom for children to rob their parents. The world is full of clamour, the Law is full of favor, for customs: all cry out for their Diana, but especially Demetrius; it toucheth • is copy hold: men think they are undone, if they give God his right. Not only our craft shall be despised, but even the Temple of Diana, whom all Asia and the •• rld • orshippeth. How cunningly this Orator pleads; more for his goddess, than for his gain: but if it had not been for his gain, his goddess might go whistle. Thus loud Orators will Demetrius and Tertullus be, pleading against Paul, before Judges like themselves: but when Christ shall be the Judge, they will have nothing to say; like the poor intruder, that was even speechless. Some have haply guessed this man to be a Lawyer, whose tongue had been nimble enough; but this awful presence daunted him; he had spoken so much before that now he was speechless.

To conclude; If we do not feed you with the Word, you are not our Beloved: [unspec 6] if you do not render us our dues, we are not your Beloved. So here is no love lost, but God's; who hath loved us (as it were) on this condition, that we •• old love one another. W •• •• ve he • rd much of the Pylades and Pythians, a • d •• ch inviolable friends▪ but it would be miraculous now if any should die f • r love. I d •• e say, there was never more love in the world, never less: never 〈◊〉 in po •••• ation, 〈◊〉 less in demonstration. Christ will come when f •• th shall be fear found upon earth; but if he had threatened to come when c •• rity 〈…〉 be found we might 〈◊〉 for him today. Except you be 〈…〉 ▪ and except we be your Beloved, you are not s •• e of he •• n. Heartily 〈◊〉 do we love you, do you as sincerely love 〈◊〉 , that Jesus Christ 〈…〉 love 〈◊〉 all.

I come now to the Token of his love, which is set forth by The

• Nature of it, 〈…〉 .
• •• mber 〈…〉 the former.
• Ten ••• of i • , or con ••• s 〈◊〉 stir up their minds.
• O •• er of it, o • 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 excitation, • y way of 〈…〉 .

For the former; It pleased God to re • eale his will to us by 〈◊〉 ; and th •• both the Law and the Gos • ell. The Law was w • itten with his own h •• d: Prophecies and Evangelical discourses he hath written by oath • 〈◊〉 did he write anything himself but the Tables of the Law: the hand 〈◊〉 • tone, t •• Law were all His. That which he dictated to his servants, the P •• ph ••• , 〈◊〉 challenge just honor from us: how much more doth that deser • e 〈◊〉 , which he wrote immediately with his own hand▪ The more pre • ious the Record was the greater was the fault of defacing it: no king holds it •• sse than •• bellion, to blemish his seal and tear his writing. Yet Moses did it, and 〈◊〉 forgave it. He that was the meekest man upon earth, abandons that in a su ••• indignation, which in cold blood he would have hold faster th •• hi • life. Israel had fallen into idolatry; and Moses forgets the Law written, when 〈…〉 broken. Not only the Decalogue was written, but the Prophetical Test ••• nies, and all called the Law. So God thought meet to consecrate and hal ••• forever this outward form of revelation. Some conjecture, that the Prophet • did write the sum and abridgement of their errands, and fasten th •• 〈◊〉 Temple-doors: which after some days view, were taken down, and lai • • p in the Treasury for a second monument. The Poet said, but he appeal 〈◊〉 fame for the Author of the device; Phoenices primi (famae si creditor) •• si, M •• s •••• rudibus vocem signare figuris. But certainly writing began with Moses.

[unspec 2] It was the discipline of God's own house, for two thousand years, to feed his eldest sons only with tradition. This is a great argument with the Po •• i •• cians. But by their leaves, the diverse restitutions and reformations of God's true worship, argue that those times were not so generally fortunate for religion. And suppose that in one or two families, when men were at the fewest, thei • hearts at the purest, and their lives at the longest, Religion were so retained: yet was it not only by Tradition, but by Visions, Oracles, and other Rudiments, which might be to them instead of writing. But when the number of men was increased, and their years shortened, and their hearts more corrupted; the conveniency of writing was taken up, both for the spreading abroad, and bet ••• learning at home, the will of God. Thus Moses, Samuel, Esdras, were not only for their own times, God's holy Orators; but for the perpetual benefit of a •• e • ages, his full Secretaries. We are told of the Druid • s, certain Pagan Priests of France, that in their Rules abhorred writing: But now where are those Rules? What Print remains of their Precepts? Their very names had been unknown, but for writing.

[unspec 3] The Gospel also is written: Whatsoever may cause our joy to be full, w ••• soever may perfect us for every good work, whatsoever may make us wise 〈◊〉 salvation, all this is written. Let no man pres •• e to be wise; above that which is ••• ten; especially, not to be wise against that which is written. These holy M ••• scripts were highly prized by our forefathers 〈◊〉 the old woman that sold Books to Tarquin, did set such a price on them, to might h • ve made a Tarq ••• ransom. Printing hath yet more advanced this benefit; that it is a question, whether ever Learning so far excelled ignorance, 〈◊〉 Scholers h •• e by 〈◊〉 help exceeded Scholers. Their 〈…〉 into 〈◊〉 the earth, and thei • 〈…〉 the ends of the world. Their sound, yea now if 〈◊〉 • ill their L •• e: and for th •• words, their Writings. His arcana 〈◊〉 terra 〈◊〉 for •••• r. That God's Will is near as well known as his Works; and the Book of Grace is now become like the Book of Heaven. There was nothing wherein Israel out-stripped all •• e world, more than in this privilege; the Pledge of God's holy Cove ••• , the Law written with his own finger▪ He hath not dealt so with other 〈◊〉 .

〈◊〉 how great a favor is done to that Nation, where he bestows hi • G • spel? [unspec 4] Th •• 〈…〉 a killing Letter, this is the power of God to salvation. H •• ce is God th ••• ghly disp • e • sed with any people • where that come ••• ds. Sui •• rs • h • t 〈…〉 love to Virgins, when upon just cause they fall off, call for their 〈…〉 again. So when God begi • once perfectly to dislike, the f •• st 〈…〉 withdraws, is his Gospel. If our fore-father • had but • old 〈◊〉 some 〈…〉 its concerning the worship of God, •• ny whole cou ••• ies (that 〈…〉 day without God in the world) might well have envied our happi ••• . 〈◊〉 we take not what we take, upon trust of men's report: for me have 〈◊〉 written Word, and may survey at the full that great mystery of god •••• e, which not only Kings and Princes, but even Saints and Angels have 〈◊〉 to behold. If this meditation did thoroughly sink into our affections, if our ••• ections were truly moved, they would call upon us for thankfulness, and 〈◊〉 thankfulness would appear in our careful obedience: yea, this ••• ve would set all able Pennes on work, to write the praises of God. Not t •• t I desire, that those who travail only with the wind, should be delivered of th •• r emptiness: there be too many foaming Brains in the world, that soil 〈◊〉 Virgin-Paper with their unchaste scurri • ities: such weeds, being dunged 〈◊〉 carnal humors, grow too fast of themselves. So the Farm of Antichrist commands many Ploughes in Europe, Seminaries of heretical Seedes, to make a Harvest for the Devil. They violate the works of all writers with the clipping-sheeres of their Expurgations: which dealing is as cruel to the dead, as their Spanish Inquisition is to the living. As that Giant did proportion the bodies of all his guests to the Bed of his Harlot: so doth the Pope o • t and fashion all writers to the Bed of the Whore of Babylon. Against him, if we employ not our tongues and Pennes, according to our several abilities, they are both worthy to lose their cunning. Here both let our tongues be like the Pennes of ready writers, and our Pennes like the tongues of ready speakers.

To conclude: What shall we render to the Lord for his mercy, in writing [unspec 5] th • se blessed Covenants? We can give nothing but the Tables, it is He that 〈◊〉 write on them. Our hearts are but a bare Board, till God by his finger i ••• ave his Law in them. Yea more; we are a rough Quarry, and it is He 〈◊〉 must hew us out, and square us fit for himself to write upon. God come ••• ted the Law to Moses his hands; his hands were whole, but the Tables were broken. God hath entrusted his Gospel to our hearts; if we abuse it, the Gospel shall remain whole, but our hearts shall be broken. He is more resolute than Pilate; What I have written, I have written. It is our woe, if we ••• ke that blessed Writing, which is a Covenant of mercy for us: for then t •• t other hand-writing, the Law of Wrath, shall stand in force against us. Let us beseech him, that hath written these things to be read with our eyes, also to write them in our hearts; that so we may find our names written in the • ooke of Life.

The Number follows: it is a second Epistle. Abundance cautela non nocet; [unspec 1] especially where the matter is of consequence, and the danger of such despe •••••• sse, as concerns the saving or losing of the soul: which if a man have 〈◊〉 lost, he hath nothing else to lose. This second; not so much fearing the mis ••• ri • ge of the first, as hoping to work better confirmation by the next. Some will come at the first call, as Matthew did: some tarry to the third, as Samuel 〈◊〉 : some stay it out to the last hour of the day but one, as those laborers did. God calls at any time, Preachers must call at all times: the second exhortation may speed better than the first: one Sermon may have happier success than all the rest. The faithful servant, whom his Lord hath made rule • over his household, gives them their meat in due season. First, it must be good meat, for wholesomenesse: fancies of their own • r • ines, will but fill them full of wi • de. Secondly, it must be seasonable: comforts to the obstinate, and thunders to the despe •••• , are Dishes quite out of season. Thirdly, it must 〈◊〉 • iv •• them: 〈◊〉 may not 〈◊〉 till they call for it; their souls commonly are not 〈…〉 to be hungry. Fourthly, it is not enough to purvey well, and stock our 〈◊〉 head, but w • e must dispense it to their hearts. There may be a whole M • g •••• of knowledge, and the people never the fatter for it, unless it 〈◊〉 impaired. Fifthly, it must be given by way of distribution: it is not sufficient to se • it before them in gross, but in the retaile of particular application 〈◊〉 the Chirurgian not only makes the Plaister, but lays it on too. In vain doth the rich man discourse of Bread to the empty; or the Physician read a Lecture on the Patients disease, and so leave him. Sixthly, all this must be frequent: we must do as we pray, Give them their daily Bread. God hath sp •• en me, twice, ha • e I heard it: yea, twice and thrice, oftentimes, saith Elihu. Sin is not so easily killed, that we should say of it as Abishai said of Saul▪ L • t we smite him to the earth at once, and I will not smite him a second time. It were a happy riddance of so micshievous an enemy, if we could hit him as cunningly, as Joab did Amasa treacherously; who smote him in the fifth rib, and struck him not again. But this Hagar will abide many blows, before she be ••• ned quite out of doors.

[unspec 2] The building of the Church goes slowly forward: it were an injurious ce • sure, to tax Solomon of slackness in founding the House of God. Great Bodies must have but slow motions. Much time is required to the preparing of the Materials: albeit David had laid a great part of the Timber and Metals; yet many a Tree must be felled and squared, many a Stone hewn and polished, ere this foundation be laid. Neither could those large Cedars be cut, sawen, seasoned in one year. Though he had an hundred and fifty thousand Laborers employed in bearing burdens, and hewing Stones; besides their three thousand and three hundred Overseers: so did the main stress of the Work lie upon Proselytes. Though he raised a Tribute for the Work, of the Nations; not of money, but of men: though thirty thousand Israelites were levied for this service; yet four whole years are spent in so vast a preparation. Christ hath many Builders, for the perfecting of his Church: thousands of Preachers have spent their days and labors upon it; yet still it needs more: Still let us pray him for more Laborers, and for the redoubling of their pains. Our souls be such knottie Trees, and our hearts such rough and hard Quarries; that without the mighty pains of many hands, we will hardly lie right and fit in our designed places. Line must be added to Line, and Letter to Letter; a second Epistle to the former. It may be, we answer at first with Peter; Not so, Lord: yet after a second or third motion, we grow better advised. It may be, we pass the first and second year without a spiritual tillage: we have heard this holy Doctrine once and again, but it bred no cogitations in us, except such as grow of themselves; natural, worldly, corrupt: yet the third time we may be won with these heavenly comforts, and bring forth the fruits of obedience.

[unspec 3] Yet let us beware of protracting our conversion: when we repel or neglect one good motion, we are not sure of a second: yea, he is justly hardened against the second, that hath resisted the first. Sin hath a shrewd Title, when it can plead prescription: and Satan thinks his evidence as good as eleven points at Law, when he hath once got possession. Let him be sure of thy youth, and he will be confident of thy age. There was an Abbot of this Land, that desired a piece of ground which lay conveniently for him: the owner refused to sell it: yet with much persuasion, was contented to let it. The Abbot hired it for his Rent, and covenanted to farm it only for one Croppe. He had it, and few it with Ac • r • es; a Croppe that lasted three hundred years. Satan begs but the first Croppe: let him sow thy youth with Acorns, they will grow up with thy years to sturdy Okes; so big-bulked, and deep-rooted, that they shall last all thy life. Let us take the first opportunity of God's gracious motions and monitions; or if we have omitted the first, let us apprehend the second: or if (as it is too true) many have passed unanswer'd by us, let us embrace the present invitation; and even now with faith and repentance turn to our Savior, that he may never lose a second labor.

The Tenour follows; which is, to stir up our minds. We use not to stir [unspec 1] up cold ashes, but embers that be warm, to re-kindle the live coals that are hid under them. The Apostle does not profess to teach them new Lessons, but to hear them say over their Parts: not to catechise them in the foundation and Principles; but rather to rub up their memories, with a recollection of their former Notes, as it were a repetition of his Sermons. It argues some mistrust in the Master, of non-proficiency in the Scholar, when he turns him back to the beginning of his Book, and apposeth him in his first Lesson. Saint Peter will not so discourage his Disciples, but rather takes it as granted, that they knew; and more needed excitation, than information: as if he meant not to press the Doctrine, but the Use. When we lay on green wood, we blow the fire, not stir it: when dry, we stir the fire, and need not blow it. Proselytes stand in need of kindling: well improved Christians require but stirring. There is mettle in many a good Horse, which he will not show, till you give him the Spurre: put him to it, and he answers your desire. Samson sleeps, till he hears, The Philistines be upon thee: then he rouseth up himself, to their bane. How many a good deed had been lost, if the doer had not been seasonably stirred up.

Why are the words of the wise compared to Goades; but to show, that the best [unspec 2] in God's Teame need pricking forward? An easy rhetoric draws us to evil: yea, it is hard not to run down the hill. The proneness to sin is so much stronger in our nature, than to good; that every least motion prevails for the one, scarce any instigation for the other. Our war against sin and Satan is perpetual: other hostilities admit some truce, ours is not determined but with our lives. Lest therefore we should take a dangerous and unkindly rest, God hath set his Ministers, like Trumpets and Drums, to call us to our Arms, to stir up our strengths, that we be not surprised unawares. Let our weapons be always in readiness: as Seneca said of Caesar; That he did quickly sheathe the sword, but he never laid it off. The sight of a weapon discourageth a thief: while we keep our javelins in our hands, we scape many assaults. It is our Office to give you the Alarm, and to stir you up: be it your care to maintain the battle. And as the end of all war is peace, so your militant conflicts shall be crowned with victory, and your souls received into the everlasting peace of Jesus Christ.

The Order is last, By way of remembrance. This is a just order and method, first to teach the way of the Lord, then to remember men of walking in it. We are not only called Teachers, but Remembrancers. And as this Epistle seems to be called after a sort by the Author, a rehearsal-Epistle: so all our Sermons are but rehearsal Sermons; pressing the Doctrine you have already learned, by way of remembrance. There is reasonable good strength in our judgments, but a great decay in our memories. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. • ecause you hear these things, you have happy ears: because you see these sacred mysteries, you have happy eyes: because you tread in God's Courts, you have happy feet: if you remember these things, you have happy memories: these things if you purpose to do, you have happy resolutions: but these things if you practice, if you do indeed, you have happy souls: and the Lord make us all thus happy.

[unspec 1] Your pure minds.] This is the object of his excitation. There is Purit •• 〈◊〉 , an outward profession of purity, an inward corruption of hypocrisy. All the care of hypocrites, is to seem pure; a strange kind of Atheism: • s if they thought, that their thought was not known to God. Not an oath comes from them in a month; that's well: but scarce a true word in a twelve-month, and that's very ill. Sapphira will not stick to lie unto Peter, that durst lie to the holy Ghost. Hypocrisy is a lie unto God, as dissimulation is to man. Such men's actions are but real equivocations. They are not only Lupi in • vili, but Lupi in • villâ; Wolves in a Sheep-Cote, yea Wolves in a Sheepes Coat. Like the fruit that undid us all, which was Pulcher in visu, in tactu mollis, dulcis in g • st • , mortifer in effectu. There be many that have pure-shining skins, glorious shows, but black insides. Moses perceiving that the people durst not look upon the Sun of his face, clouds it with a veil; and would rather choose to hide the work of God in himself, than want opportunity of revealing God's will to the people. He does not stand upon terms of reputation: If there be glory in my skin, God did put it there; he would not have set it in my face, if he had meant it should be hid: rather do you hide your faces, that are blemished with your sins; and do not look, that in favor of your weakness, I should wrong God and myself, in seeming less happy than he hath made me. But without all self-respects, he rather modestly hides his glorified countenance from them, that by this means he might deliver God's message to them. Hidden purity is more gracious and acceptable to God, than that which is openly boasted. Such a happy Talent is best improved, by being laid up: as Moses had more glory by his veil, than by his face.

[unspec 2] Christian modesty teacheth a wise man, not to expose himself to the fairest show, and to live at the utmost pitch of his strength. There is many a rich Stone laid up in the bowels of the earth; many a fair Pearl laid up in the bosom of the Sea; that never was seen, nor ever shall be. The Stones which were laid in the foundation of the Temple, were not rude and rugged, but hewn and polished. Albeit they lay buried in the earth, from the eyes of men, they were of equal value with the rest: though less conspicuous, no less precious. No small number of the noble graces of God's servants lie hidden and undiscerned; which are not less acceptable to him, because less notable to others. Hypocrites are all for show, God is all for truth: even the grace concealed, shall be crowned. There is many a goodly star, which because of the height, comes not within our account. The Lord Jesus himself did hide the glory of his Deity under the veil of his flesh, Majesty under vileness; and did shut up his great and divine Miracles with, See you tell no man. Not that I would have graces unprofitably bu • ied, but I would not have them proudly boasted. Let us be Puri, not Puritani. Those hearts be foulest, that care only to seem the purest. The world makes no account of unknown riches; whereas malo me divitem esse, quàm haberi. To what end should we dazzle men's eyes with admiration, when God and ourselves are conscious of our secret corruption? Why should we seek to be above those in show, to whom we are inferior in worth? Moses his face was fairer than his veil, his heart fairer than his face: too many have their veil fairer than their face, their face fairer than their heart. Modest virtues shall shine through their veils, when the vain-glorious shall be wray their shame through their coverings. How contrary are hypocrites to that faithful servant of God, Moses? He spake to God bare-faced, to the people veiled: he shown his worst to men, his best to God: but they show their best to men, to God their worst. But God sees both their skin and their heart: and I know not whether he more hates, their skin of dissimulation, or their heart of corruption.

There is Puritas mentis, a pure mind, without which all other purity is but uncleanness. [unspec 3] There is Puritas legalis, that is, of nature; irrecoverably lost in Ad •• . Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Black Moors will sooner breed white children. There is Puritas Evangelica, that is, of Grace; which all must have that shall be saved. Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart. This Pureness is either Impu ••• ius, whereby the pureness of that immaculate Lamb is made ours: They h • ve washed their garments, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Or Inc •• tiva, inherent pureness: Every man that hath hope in Christ, purifieth himself, 〈◊〉 he i • pure. For there must be aliquid nostrum, in nobis, though not à nobis. After that the Sun hath given his light to the stars, they shine: principally, by that borrowed light; accessorily, by a light of their own. Quicquid Christus operatur pro nobis, hoc operatur in nobis. Whatsoever Christ hath wrought for us, that he hath wrought in us. Or it is Comparativa, in regard of others: so the godly are Myrtles, but in a field of Nettles; Lilies, but in a forest of Thorns; Wheat, because there is much Chaff by them. Wooll may be pure white in respect of Pitch, but compare it with the Lily: the Lily is pure white in respect of Wooll, but compare it with the driven Snow: there is no pureness of man that dare stand the judgment of God. The stars are not pure in his sight, nor the heavens, nor the Angels. The right Puritan, that saith he hath no sin, is convinced ex ore proprio, out of his own mouth: even therefore he hath sin, because he says that he hath no sin: that very speech is a sin. In non peccando puritas Dei, in peccata non imputando puritas hominis. The Scripture propounds many examples of purity; yet they all had their blemishes: the brightest day was not without some cloud. Howle ye Fir-trees, for the Cedar is fallen: if the gallants be foiled, what shall the underlings do? That is a woeful purity, which does not only choose to stand in the sight of mercy. For perfect purity; Optandum est, conandum est, petendum est, confidendum non est.

Wherein then consists this pureness of mind? Not in any perfection, as if it [unspec 4] could be so in the sight of God's justice: what is he living on earth that must not confess, Against thee O Lord have I sinned? But he is said to have a pure mind, that lives sine scandalo, though not sine peccato: or that takes no liberty to do the least evil: though he doth often admit sin, he does never intend sin. Pura men's nequit consistere cum proposito peccandi. He that hath resolved to be nocent, though he do not the purposed act, before God is not innocent. The undertaking of treason, though the fact be hindered, is treason. Or he that is pure in the inner man; He that is borne of God sinneth not; In quantum ex Deo natus non peccat. If with any fighting; he could get the victory over flesh and blood, he would never sin. Or he that endeavors to be pure; as having always a respect to that eye, which hath always an eye of respect to him: Walk before me, and be thou perfect. The mind may be said to be pure in three respects:

1. Puritate fidei: faith apprehends the blood of Christ, and this purifies it. So it is rather passive, than active: not so much Pure, as Purificata. The air no sooner receives the clear aspect of the Sun, but it presently becomes light. If Christ send forth the beams of his righteousness into the heart, it is made pure. Blessed is he whose sin is not imputed. That which makes us blessed, makes us pure, for none but the pure in heart are blessed. This is the sole perfection of a Christian, the imputation of Christ's pureness, and the not imputation of his own impurenesse. It is in a manner all one, not to have committed sin in actu, and not to be held culpable of that sin in reatu. A garment that is thoroughly washed, may be as clean as though it never had been stained. Such were ye, saith Paul: which implies, that such they are not. If the Lord wash us, shall we not be clean? Purge me with hissope, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. It was a costly Bath, wherein we were washed before we could be clean: but if anything could do it, this must. The blood of Jesus Christ cl •• seth us from all sin. He prayed till he groaned, he groaned till he wept, he wept till he sweet, he sweet till he bled, he bled till he died; and all to make us a warm Bu • , wherein our cold and foul souls might be washed pure and clean. Never was anything washed at so high a rate as the Christian soul. Naaman had an easy cure; Wash in Jordan, a common and unforbidden river. The diseased in B • thesde found some more difficulty; they must wait the moving of the water by an Angel, and be waited on by an officious friend, or they were never the better. Some have washed their rotten carcases in the fairest flowers of the garden, the choice delicacies of nature, the clearest fountains. Histories tell us, that the blood of Infants and Innocents hath been prescribed for a Bath to Tyrants. But the Christians Bath is the Bath royal, the precious blood of the King of all the world. This only can make us pure: It was the Jews imprecation, and it proves their vengeance; His blood be upon us, and upon our children. It may, in a good sense, be our apprecation, and shall be our blessedness, His blood be upon us, and upon our children after us.

2. Puritate poenitentiae: so the conscience knows no foulness by it self, which true repentance hath not sorrowed, and which the mercy of God hath not pardoned. For God esteems sin indeed repented, as if it had never been indeed committed. This, though it finds not the heart Purum, yet leaves it Purificatum. The garment of our life gathers many spots, which God suffers us to wash out with our penitent tears. This was David's physic and bath, whensoever he had been sick or fouled with sin. I make my bed to swim, and I water my couch with my tears. Yea it seems, they were his food also, even his meat and drink: for meat, My tears were my meat day and night. And for drink, I mingled my drink with weeping: that was the spice of his cup. Thou writest bitter things against me; when thou makest me to remember the iniquities of my youth. Moses his ten fingers write bitter things against us, till the finger of Christ wipe them out. Saint Paul calls it a Handwriting against us: not that God's Laws, like Draco's, were writ in blood; For the Law is holy, and the Commandment is holy, and just, and good. They were holy characters; but our sins made them letters of blood against us. When we commit a sin, we write a bill of our hand against ourselves; whereby we acknowledge our souls to stand indebted to God's justice. Now unless this debt be discharged, and the bond cancelled, to prison we must; and there lie till we have satisfied the uttermost farthing: and that (God knows) will be long enough; for a farthing is more than we are, or can be worth. This black bill is cancelled by Christ only; whose blood hath so defaced and obliterated the reckoning of believers, that God doth not read our receipts, nor call us to accounts. Unbeleevers only suffer the whole forfeiture to fall upon their necks.

Now what Christ did with the blood of his body, that in some sort we must do with the blood of our souls, our penitential tears; that we may be discharged of our sins forever. One color laid upon another, doth away the former, and remains it self: as the cunning paintresse deals with her face; sometimes she blots out pale, and writes red. Our sins are red as scarlet, our tears white as snow: let these latter fall upon the former, they shall not only blot them out, but stand in their room: so we beautify our conscience, by blotting out red, and writing white, pure innocence. Our sins stand in God's register, till our sorrows come. Thou tellest my wanderings; put my tears i • t • thy bottle: are they not in thy book? The first give place to the last: our wanderings were written in that book; but when our tears come, God blots out wickedness, and writes repentance. And so we have our acquittance, even a general one, from the beginning of the world; Adams sin and all, to the day of the date thereof; a full quietus est. Pharaoh and his host were not surer drowned in the red sea, than Satan and all our sins are drowned in our tears. These the Fathers call our second Baptism: secunda Tabula post na • fragium. No soul so polluted, but repentance can wash it clean and pure, and present it blameless to God through the faith of JESUS CHRIST.

3. Puritat • gratiae; sanctified to a holy life, and devout obedience. Not that sin does not superesse, remain; but it shall not superare, reign in us. It will be a Tenant, it may be a Tyrant; it shall have no dominion, or at least no peaceable one. This Usurper would fain be King of man, as the Devil writes himself Prince of the world: but the pure mind will never acknowledge fealty or allegiance to him. Sentit, non consentit: she feels his assaults with grief, but she knows it would be a worse grief to yield unto them. She will not buy her peace with her loss; being assured, that this trouble will not last ever: resistance shall be crowned with victory. From sudden thoughts of ill, no man is free: but here is no deliberation, no consent, no delight. There is Nativit •• •• eri, the conception of sin; and Nativitas ex utera, the birth or action of sin. None are pure from the former: the Sun cannot be rid of clouds, but he labors to disperse them. Melius est nubere, quam urere: he does not say, quàm c • les • eri. There is great difference between passive Fittes and Heats, and voluntary Inflamings. The will of this purified mind in sinning, is not properly voluntas, sed velleitas; as it were a will against a man's will. As the Mariner in a tempest doth cast his goods into the water, his rich fraught over-board. Or the true man assaulted on the way, gives his Purse to the thief: yet neither of these with full consent of will. If the regenerate be over-borne to do amiss, it is with reluctance before, and with repentance after: nec invadit sine pugna, nec evadit sine poenitentia: it got in with blows, it is thrown out with tears.

We are not Sins voluntaries: at the most, but pressed soldiers against our wills. As in a rebellion or tumult, a Drumme is beaten up, a Trumpet sounded, to call a faction together. Some are glad of the occasion, quickly up in arms, apt for mutiny, ready to do mischief: a loyal subject opposeth the conspiracy, strives against it, but cannot prevail with the unruly multitude: yea he is taken by force, compelled to join with them, and to draw his sword against his awful and lawful Sovereign. The subject thus drawn in, is in as much danger as the rest: but a wise and gracious Prince doth here distinguish; and while he executeth due vengeance upon the mutiners, he gives this man his free pardon. In an ungracious soul, one passion is enraged, and presently all the affections muster up their forces, and join in the confederacy of sin. But in the faithful there is a resistance; the fear and love of God withstands the hurly-burly: and though the throng of natural lusts prevail against grace, and overcome man to sin; yet the God of wisdom and mercy will forgive him; when the other receives the reward of a rebel.

The pure mind abhors dissimulation: that man neither wrongs others with the sin of deceitfulness, nor wrongs himself with the deceitfulness of sin. In the one he is Rectus cord, in the other mundus cord. His soul is like Canaan, a land of brooks and fountains, that spring out of valleys and hills: there be the springs of knowledge to guide his ways; and brooks of tears to mourn for his errors. His charity stands like those fields of wheat and barley: vi • es, figtrees, and pomegranates, are his fruitful meditations and contentful thoughts: oil and ••• ey are the grace of his lips. His understanding is full of good things; his whole life, welles and vineyards, to relieve and comfort himself and others. His very rocks are iron, and his hills yield brass: his most barren works have some profit. His whole self is like the Garden of Eden, wherein stands the Tree of life, Jesus Christ. When he dies, Tanquam Paradisus ingreditur Paradisum, one Paradise enters into another.

This is the blessedness of a pure heaat: but in the world there is Heart enough, and good store of pureness; yet they have ill luck, they cannot meet: it is rare to find Puram mentem, a pure mind. It comes to my memory, what I have found observed of the word Conscientia; that it ever had ill luck in the Church, and could never be found at once in full syllables. Conscientia; altogether, he calls Devotion: take away the first syllable, it is Scientia, Knowledge: cut off the next, it is Entia, Means or worldly maintenance. First, in the times of profaneness, there was Sci, and Entia, learning and living, knowledge and maintenance: but Con was left out, Devotion was wanting; they were ungodly men. In the next age, there was Con, and Entia, Devotion and Exhibition; a rich and religious, yea a superstitious number: but Sci, Knowledge was failing; they were not the learned'st Clerks. In the third age, Con, and Sci, Learning and Devotion were both lost, and only Entia was left: they had the honors and mannors, the fat of the land. But now in this last age, it is come round: we have Con and Sci, (let our thankfulness bless God for it) a learned and religious Clergy; only our Entia is taken from us: our livelihood and subsistence is exhausted by Sacrilege. The like fortune hath a pure heart in the world: pureness goes one way, and the heart another way, and these two have much ado to meet. There is no lack of hearts, every man hath one, some have more than one: and for pureness, it abounds: proud dames will have pure houses, pure tables, pure floors: their ruffes of the purest linen, their garments of the purest stuff, their diet of the purest meat, their chains of the purest Gold: hypocrites will have pure eyes, pure tongues, pure habits, pure garbes and gestures. The profane sort are all for a brave heart, they make a pish at pureness: the dissembling sort are all for a show of pureness, no matter for the heart. This is the devils plot, to keep pureness and the heart asunder. Purity will do well in nothing without the heart: the heart can be happy in nothing without purity. It is great pity, two such sweet compaions should be kept asunder, the God of all grace and mercy bring them both together.

Travelers, when the ways be fair and pleasant, make the longer journeys: a pure mind and an holy conscience are such sweet and delightful things, that I take leave to prosecute this argument a little farther, by way of application. We all desire a clean soul; where shall we have it? Create in me a clean heart, O God; saith David. Neither Saint nor Angel stands in his way; he troubles not them with his prayers. Abraham knows us not, Israel cannot hear us: David loved and honored the memory of Abraham and Jacob, his Fathers: yet he does not present them his petitions. I touch it, with indignation at that superstitious prayer of the Romanists; Sancta Virgo Dorothea, tua nos virtute bea, cor in nobis novum crea. But let us know, none can create a clean heart, but he that made all hearts: he only that formed the spirit of man, can reform the spirit in man. And to show that a pure mind is so far from being a common blessing, or easy attainment, it is called a point of Creation.

1. GOD made the world by his Word, and by his Word he makes a pure heart within us. If he give but his fiat, or his vol • , mundare, Be thou clean: our Leprosy is gone. Yea, this seems to be more difficult: for the world was created ex spiritu eris, by the word of his mouth; but the mind is purified ex sanguine cordis, by the blood of his heart.

2. GOD made the world of no preexistent matter; for before it, there was nothing but Himself, and Himself cannot be parted. This was wonderful, yet the creating of a pure heart in a greater wonder. For then, as there was nothing to exist, so nothing to resist: he made the Mass, and that was a passive matter, to be formed at his pleasure. But here is a rebellious opposition, a stubborn will to be subdued. There God said, Let it be so, and it was so: here he hath spoken an hundred times by his Word, Thus I would have it: and we retort, Thus we will not have it. I would have gathered thee, at noluisti, but thou wouldest • ot. Thus he is more troubled to make a pure mind, than he was to create a world. How do they abuse the opportunity of grace, and cozen their own fowls, that promise themselves an easy conversion at their own pleasure? God made the world in six days, how many years hath he been in purifying our hearts, and yet it is not done.

3. GOD took six distinct days in creating the world, and he seems to have six distinct works in the cleansing of our minds. First, in the first day he made the light, when darkness was upon the face of the deep: light and darkness were not duo positiva: but he divided the light from the darkness: and be called the light, Day and the darkness, Night. Darkness overwhelmes us by Nature, and God's first work is to enlighten our understandings by the knowledge of his will: He that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Yet some darkness still remains; and we may call the light, knowledge; and the darkness, ignorance. Secondly, in the second day he made the Heavens, and set them a moving in their right courses. His second work here, is to frame in us an heavenly will, to rectify our obedience; that we might do his will on earth, as it is done in Heaven. He divided the waters which were under the firmament, from the waters that were above the firmament. Our firmament is Terminus cognoscibilium; school-tricks are waters above the firmament. Thirdly, in the third day he separated the sea from the dry land: and He called the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, Seas. So here, he causeth the deluge of natural corruption to sink down, that the firmness and beauty of this new heart might appear: and he calleth the dry land, Grace; and the confined waters, Nature. Fourthly, in the fourth day he made the Sun, Moon, and Stars, all those refulgent lights of heaven. So here he createth in us faith, charity, joy, patience, and peace; those lamps and ornaments, that give luster to a renewed soul. He made two great lights: the greater to rule the day, and the less to rule the night. Our two great lights are Faith and Charity: one rules the day, keeps our mind in a perpetual light: the other governs the night, doth good in the darkest shadows of necessity, of discomfort. The Sun shines smilingly on thee in thy prosperity; the Moon, that is thy comfort in adversity: but take heed of abusing either; for so thy Sun may be darkened, and God will turn thy Moon into blood. Fifthly, in the fifth day he replenished the air with fowls, the sea with fishes, the earth with beasts. So here, he fills every corner of the heart with sanctified affections. We are full, as the world then, reptilium, volatilium: let us mount up to heaven by grace, though we creep upon the earth by nature. Now came that Crescite & multiplicamini, the seeds were sown that should soon multiply. The Lord sows in our hearts his holy Word, the seed of eternal life; let us be fruitful of good works. Indeed bad doctrine is a seed too; but non vidit quod bonum; God did not see it was good.

Lastly, in the sixth day, he made man: and here he re-malies him, creates him a new man in Christ Jesus. You will say, he is able to do this in a moment, as he wrought upon the malefactor on the cross at his last hour. So he could have made the world in a day, in an hour, in a minute: but it pleaseth his •• sedome to take longer time, both in that work, and in this: that we might •• ke heed of fouling that heart, which he hath taken so much pains to make clean. As exquisitely and deliberately as the great world was made, as perfectly good as all things were; the sin of man soon corrupted all. After all God's cost and labor upon us, our minds may be quickly defiled. Now when God had dispatched all his works in six days, he rested the seventh: so if we labor, with him, in the cleansing of our souls, all this week of working-days; we shall then rest with him in the Seventh, the heavenly and eternal Sabbath of the Saints.

To conclude; we see how sweet the condition of this pure mind is. Hugo saith of that man, Vtitur amico ad gratiam, inimico ad patientiam, ad benevolentiam cunctis, quibus potest ad beneficentiam. God doth not charge him with his own sins, as if he had never done them; nor with the sins of others, because he did not approve them. He is composed in prosperous fortunes, with adverse not dejected. Set Belshazzar in the midst of his Princes; his cupboard of plate furnished with the sacred bowles of Jerusalem, the spoil of God's holy Temple: and in contempt of their owner, ca • ousing healths in them to his Mistresses, and singing carols in the praise of his carved gods: yet because there is a foul heart within him, this sumptuous, this presumptuous feast shall end in horror; and that such an horror, as shall put the blood out of his face, the music out of his head, the joy out of his heart forever. But lay Lazarus at the gate of unmercifulness, lay Job on the very dunghill of miserableness, and give them mentem synceram, an honest and quiet heart: and Adam could not have been so happy in Paradise without it, as they were out of Paradise with it.

The man of a pure mind is always of a cheerful look, because there are no secret snibbings within him; he is not troubled with that they call Singultum •• rdis: the good man may be evermore the merriest man. The holy soul is the love of God, the joy of Angels: her eyes dare look upon the glorious Judge, whom she knows to be her Savior. Her heart is courageous, she dares stand the thunder; and when guilty minds creep into corners, she is confident in him that will defend her. She challengeth the whole world to accuse her of injustice, and fears not the subornation of false witnesses, because she knows the testimony of her own conscience. Her language is free and bold, without the guiltiness of broken stops. Her forehead is clear and smooth, as the brow of heaven. Her knees are ever bent to the Throne of grace, her feet travelling toward Jerusalem, her hands weaving the web of righteousness. Good men bless her, good Angels guard her, the Son of God doth kiss her: and when all the world shall be turned to a burning pile, she shall be brought safe to the mountain of joy, and set in a Throne of blessedness forever.

THE pretended title of that great usurper over the consciences of the Christian world, is fetched from the Succession of Saint Peter. How do his sycophants magnify Saint Peter? But it is their cunning, to reflect all that honor upon their Master. Otherwise, they would shuffle him up in the crowd of the Saints, and make no more reckoning of him than they do of Saint Paul; and that is little enough. But now they call him the Coryphe of the Apostles, the Prince of their souls, the Porter of Paradise, and supreme Lievetenant of the Crown of heaven: as we find it in a book of theirs, which they call, the Occupation of the soul: certainly, the vainest occupation that ever soul was bound prentice to. They tell us, that he was ever placed first, first mentioned, that he wrought the first miracle upon Ananias, that he made the first Sermon to the Gentiles • fter the coming down of the holy Ghost; that he did first visi • e such as were • ewly baptized, that he called and held the first Council that the Church prayed solicitously for him, as for her Head, when he was in prison: that Saint Paul did not hold his Revelations for assured and authentical, till they had passed under the approbation of Saint Peter: that the Churches where 〈◊〉 resident as Bishop are all Patriarchal: that by his appointment Rome is the Mother and Mistress of all the rest. They have a world of other glorious titles for him, all which they mean to themselves. As even a Pope said, Aenea •• Sylvius, that was Pius secun ••• : the former Popes did wisely in setting the 〈◊〉 on work to debate, whether the Donation of Constanti •• the great to Sylvester, were good and valid in Law, or no: the better to ship o • er the master in fact, whether there was any such thing at all, or no. So he doth now employ his Parasites, to heap mountains of honors and attributes upon Peters S • ccessor, and to strive who shall most defy him: by this means to smother up the question, whether the Pope be Saint Peters Successor, or no.

I need not tell you of other differences, they are too palpable: Peter forsook the world, and followed Christ: the Pope hath renounced Christ, and follows the world. Peter had neither Gold nor Silver, but he had gifts and graces: the Pope hath neither gifts nor graces; but for Gold and Silver, such store, that he could spare it to shoe his Concubines Palfries. Peter would not suffer Captain Cornelius to crouch to him: the Pope rides a cock-horse on men's shoulders, treads upon Emperors necks, and keeps a quoile like the devil in every kingdom. But to pass over these, Saint Peter refers us to the doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles, for our only direction: the Pope tries his own Title, and imposeth upon our consciences only by tradition. I hope, forbidding of marriage, was none of Peters commandment: worshipping of Images, none of his: prayer to the Saints, prayer for the dead, far from any rule of Saint Peters. He never taught subjects to shake off allegiance to their Sovereigns; he never allowed, much less Sainted Traitors. Fear God, honor the King; this is the voice of Peter. Fear God, kill the King; that is the voice of his Successor. He • quàm dissimilis! How diverse, averse, adverse, perverse is this Successor!

Let all them that will hearken to that which Saint Peter says, (and all they must hearken to it, that will come to the place where Saint Peter is) observe my Text; Be mindful of the words, &c. Let all human inventions, in the matter of salvation, die abortive: This is the way, let us walk in it; Be mindful of the words, &c.

Wherein he commends to us, first, a Treasure. Secondly, and the use of that Treasure. The Treasure is the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles: the use of that Doctrine and Treasure is our carefulness to observe it; Be mindful.

The general parts their are two:

• 1. The Object of their mindefulnesse; The words, &c.
• 2. Their mindefulnesse of that Object; Be ye mindful.

Of the Object first severally, and then jointly. The former specialty of the Object is,

The words which were spoken before by the holy Prophets.] Not to dwell upon the particulars; as that, first, they are worth, for their plain certainty; not shadows, and abstruse paradoxes. Secondly, spoken before, for their antiquity; not things of yesterday; no new devices. Thirdly, spoken by the Prophets, for the authority: men that had their commission immediately from God himself. Prophet hath ever been a reverend and honorable name. Fourthly, by holy Prophets, for the sanctity: they passed not through the lips of a Bal • am, 〈◊〉 Caiaphas; but from men whose persons God had sanctified, for his heavenly errands. They were the Pr •• nno • a • i •• of Heaven, the Registers of the Truth, the Secretaries of the holy Ghost, the Spokes-men of the Deity, the Mouthes of 〈◊〉 who is the Fountain of Wisdom, and Oracle of all Truth. We 〈◊〉 accomplished, what they fore-told, and their Prophesy become History.

[unspec 1] The words of the Prophets, is the Law of God. This is the Law and the Prophets. All the Prophets, and the Law prophesied until John. God hath joined them together, let no man put them asunder. But it is objected; The L •• and the Prophets were until John: Why then should we be mindful of them now? They were until John, as a preparation and prediction of Christ's coming. He being come, that prediction, that preparation is ended: but still the Law and the Prophets remain both to confirm us in the s • ith of Christ; and direct 〈◊〉 the way of obedience to Christ. A man doth not despise his Schoolmaster, because he hath learned his Lesson. The Prophets were expounders of the Law, the Law was the Text of the Prophets. The Decalogue was that Magna Charta; to which, as to their common Principle, all their conclusions were reducible. As in Arithmetic, when we pass the number of ten, all the latter numbers be but compounded resumptions of the former. So all the Doctrine of the Prophets is but the exposition and application of those ten words, which God's own finger wrote in two Tables. Therefore Malachi, the last of the Prophets, to make a transition to the Gospel, in the very point of his passage towards the prediction of Christ and of John Baptist, seals up the Old Testament in his last Chapter, with Remember ye the Law of Moses my servant. Moses was a Prophet, and a Servant; the Law-bringer, not the Law-maker: yet God calls it the Law of his servant Moses.

[unspec 2] The sum, then, of these words of the Prophets, is the Law of God: to this the Apostle here refers us; as Isaiah did before, To the Law and to the Testimony. How great is the honor of it, how honorable the greatness! The Law of God is perfect, converting the soul, &c. There is the great honor. I have written to them the great things of my Law: and, Fulfill ye the royal Law: there is the honorable greatness. Master, which is the great Commandment in the Law? (was the Lawyers question) whereas all God's Commandments were great, upon assignation of any one above the rest, he meant to take occasion of accusing him. Therefore Christ's answer is full of circumspection; Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart: this he calls Primum & magnum, The first and great Commandment. To this epitome of the first Table he subjoins, that the second is like unto it: and lastly adds, On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. To this all Laws are subjected, and from this all good Laws are derived. For Authority, it gives all the Decrees of men the Checkmate. S. Augustine hath from Seneca a plain confession, That the Jews, otherwise a contemptible people, wheresoever they came, Victi victoribus leges ded • rum; the conquered gave Laws to their conquerors. To make a Law, is the chiefest point of majesty: and the best Law-makers have commended their best constitutions, by deriving them from God's Commandments: as if they could no way better confirm them, than by confessing where they stole them. Some of them have been so short of this conformity, that they have set down gross sins for their learned Statutes, and trespassed upon common Principles. Among some of them, murder hath scarce been punishable, adultery was pardonable, and theeverie commendable. But the pure, perfect, and unchangeable Law of God leaves no evil uncensured, no good uncommended: for which large comprehension, Peter Martyr compared the Ten Commandments, to the Ten Predicaments.

The best of this worlds wisdom, is but to drive corruption inwards; Vitia 〈◊〉 abscindere, sed abscondere: and in making men conformitants, many times to make them hypocrites. But God's Word hath a reach to the very secret purposes, and inmost affections: sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing between the joints and the marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart. Like an Anatomist, searching and prying into every piece of a member, and reading a sound Lecture upon the smallest particle of a particle, spelling like a Criticke, the fractions of imperfect, and as yet unshapen cogitations of concupiscence. Whereas of a thought, kept within the compass of a thought, no Law of mortal man can determine. So that if a sinner can wash his bloody hands with Pilate, and not betray his bloody heart by word, deed, or writing, he cannot be by man found out.

Such is the perfection and majesty of this sacred Doctrine, though all advocates should be corrupt, and all champions cowards; that it is not a bare advertisement, [unspec 4] which is granted by the Papists; but a Rule: not a potential Rule, only in regard of fitness; but an actual Rule: not partial only, for that is contrary to the nature of a Rule, which admits of no addition; but totally definitive and directive for God's service, and all our actions. I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy Commandment is exceeding bread. Broad enough, but we have staggering feet: the drunkard can scarce keep his path, though it be as broad as the Kings high-way. Our souls legs are borne crooked, and by the custom of sin we warp them more and more. The Ideot could say of his crooked sticks, that would not fadge and work to his mind; that they never grew but in the night, and that was the reason they could not see to grow straight. We take perverse, irregular, and crooked steppes, because we walk in the night of our own willful blindness. The Way is broad enough, but the proud bear too great a breadth for the Way. The Rule is straight, but we are crooked: and, that which is crooked, can hardly be made straight. Crooked branches are straightened two ways; either by the hand of man, or by the fire. Those whom the hand of God's grace doth not rectify, are bound in bundles like thorns, and cast into that unquenchable Oven, the fiery Pit of Hell.

The Commandments of us the Apostles of the Lord and Savior.] This is the [unspec 1] other Specialtie of the Object. The Prophets were Legal Apostles, the Apostles are Evangelical Prophets. Both these came to the world with Commandments: they do often indeed persuade us, counsel us, beseech us; (I beseech you by the mercies of God; we pray you in Christ's stead) but even those requests be Precepts. Doth not God therefore command, because he entreats? The very suites of Kings are Imperative: they must not ask, and be denied: much more shall we find the persuasions of God, Obligations to us. It is his gracious mercy, that entreates us to do that, which we are bound to do without entreaty. Every wise man will be easily requested to do himself good. When God sues to us, to save us, yea, to accept of salvation; we are sullen and desperate fools, to hinder our own preferment. Paul pleads to Philemon, his age and bondage, for arguments; the power of his authority, and Patent for it, in Christ. Yet, as if love were the strongest charm; Propter charitatem petendo petos, for loves sake I rather beseech thee: Was not this Petition as valid as any Injunction, in the heart of a friend, of a brother?

That the Apostles had power to command, is so far from being a question, [unspec 2] that it is plain they could convey this power to others, by the imposition of their hands. I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things. And Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded. I charge thee, to charge them. In the former, there is Episcopal authority: he that gives the charge, if he be not the chief on the Bench, yet is he greater than the Jury. In the other, there is Evangelical sufficiency; by virtue whereof, Timothy is enabled to charge men, that they receive no other Doctrine. Pracipe divitibus, Charge the rich: the rich are commonly great: nobility and wealth is joined together. Curse not the King in thy thought, nor the rich in thy Bed-chamber. That rich nameless Churl is guessed by some to be Herod, or some other King. The rich man is a little King, among his neighbors; a petty God, to his underlings. Dives, quasi Divus. Yet, be they rich or noble, they are under the command of an Apostle; yea, under the charge of a Priest, in the Word of Jesus Christ. Kings themselves are not here exempted, though they have absolute command over all men in their dominions: as the Fathers interpret that of King David; Against thee only have I sinned: because he could sin against nobody else: yet Nathan may reprove him in the Name of God. That transported Shaveling soared too high a pitch, when in his imperious Bull he commands the Angels. But we may safely say, that all Powers beneath the Angels are liable to our spiritual charge. Even the rich men, that speak with command to others, must be commanded by their Preachers. I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. The Centurion had many under his authority, himself is under the authority of another. We have a spiritual charge over their souls, that have a temporal power over our bodies.

[unspec 3] God hath committed the Keys of Heaven to his Church: some let them rust in their hands, for want of use: Teachers, that do not teach; that can neither open the doors of Heaven for others, nor for themselves. Some alter the Wards, that they can neither open, nor shut: as it is feigned of Pope Sixtus Quintus, that after his death he went to Hell; but by good luck the Porter would not let him in, though he had highly deserved it; but sent him to a place under his own command, Purgatory: this he long sought, but could never find. At last he took heart, and went to Heaven, fearfully knocking at the gate: Saint Peter asked him, why he knocked, considering he had the Keys? he answered, Because the Wards were altered, and they could not now unlock the door. I would the Moral of this fiction were not too true: But alas, who sees not, that the Pontificians have so bruised the Keys with breaking men's heads, and so furr'd them with the blood of innocents, that they are not able to open the gates of Heaven? Some keep them bright, with fair and continual usage, whom God blesseth with the letting in of many souls.

[unspec 4] Surely, if now we shall appeal to your consciences; the fault is not in the Keys, but all the Rust is in the Lockes, your worldly hearts. God hath set us to Command; and we command, and go without. Alas, by this contempt we cannot gain; but you are sure to lose: for if our word have lost the power in you, you have lost your right in Heaven. We dare wager our own coming there, that you ordinarily come not thither without us. It is true, Spectaculo facti sumus; men come to Church, look us in the face, and give us the hearing: but we have not the credit with them, to believe us. Domine, quis credidit audit • s nostro? Lord, who hath believed our report? We are weak, and you are strong: you are honorable, and we are despised. But if we may not be your Commanders, yet let us be your Counsellers. Or if that place be too good for us, yet still we will be humble Petitioners to you, that you would be pleased to save your own souls. If your houses were on fire, and we should command you to quench them: if your bodies were sick, and we should charge you to send for the Physician; you would think it a kindness in us more than needs: you would do all this, though we held our peace. Of all your Utensils and moveables, do you make least account of your souls? Alas, that all our Precepts must be turned into tears, weeping over you, as Christ over Jerusalem, for her At noluisti! Alas, that we should give a charge, and no soldiers come in to the Standard of Christ! You will say, we are servants; and servants are not to command, but to obey. Indeed we are Christ's servants, and your servants for Christ's sake: and if you could set us to a meaner office, we would not refuse it, to win your hearts. But servants may be employed to bring their Masters commands to their fellows. God called Moses his servant, yet he gave him authority to make Laws for the government of his people. God hath sent his servants, and his Farmers will encreated them: he sent his Son, saying, They will reverence my Son; but they did not. If he now see men misuse his servants, he will no more trust them with his own Son Jesus.

But if men dis-regard our command, let them reverence a higher than ours, [unspec 5] the Apostles; yea, a higher than theirs, the Commandment of God himself. Nor can we here distinguish, but to the willful decei • ing of ourselves: for you receive from your Preachers none other command, than they received from the Apostles, and the Apostles from the holy Ghost. It is not our Word, but theirs; not theirs, but the Lord's. The Apostles were the Trumpets of the Word, the Corners of the living God, the Notaries of Heaven, the Secretaries of the Church, the first Princes and chief Peers of Christianity; whose mouths were filled with Oracles, and their hands with Miracles, and their pens with Mysteries: the publishers of Mercy, and ingrossers of the Covenant of Grace: the Master-builders of God's House, and the noble Columns in the Building. The twelve Patriarchs, from whose heavenly Seed of the Word descend all true Israelites. The twelve Princes, Generals and Conductors of God's Army, that camped about the great Moses, the Manhood of the Son, the Tabernacle of the Divinity. The twelve Searchers, sent to take a view of the Land of Promise; who have brought us certain news of the inestimable blessings there, flowing with the Milk and Honey of eternal joys and comforts. The twelve selected men, that took twelve Stones out of the Chanell of Jordan, and pitched them in Gilgal: not omitting to set twelve other Stones in the midst of Jordan, where the Ark of God had stood: placing their holy Monuments both in the River, for a witness to the Jews; and out of the River, for a testimony to the Gentiles. The twelve Fountaines, which the people found in the Desert, at Elim; those Wells of salvation, where thirsty souls sit down and drink. The twelve Loaves of Shew-bread, which stood before the face of the Highest; that only the High Priest Jesus brake in morsels, and gave to his Church. The twelve precious Stones, set in the Pectorall of Aaron: choice living Stones, taken into the breast of Christ. The twelve young Lions, which support the Throne of the great King; not the like in any Kingdom. The twelve Oxen, that carried the molten Sea of God's infinite mercies to all parts of the world; three looking East, and three to the West; three to the North, and three to the South. The twelve Officers of the glorious Solomon, our King of Peace; that make his provision of holy souls, throughout all the coasts of Israel. The twelve Stars in the Crown of the Church, that Spouse of Christ. We may call them the Twelve months, that make up the year of Grace. The twelve manner of Fruits of the Tree of Life, that yields her Fruit every month. The twelve Angels, the twelve Gates, the twelve Foundations, of the new Jerusalem; whose length, breadth, and heighth was twelve thousand furlongs. And they shall sit upon twelve Thrones, judging the twelve Tribes of Israel. So precise is the number of Twelve, that when one of them miscarried, another must be chose, to supply his place. From them, we are said to receive the twelve Articles of our Belief: from them we know, that we receive the Doctrine of the Gospel. Ye 〈◊〉 what Commandments we gave you, by the Lord Jesus. So work, as we have commanded you. They had power to command; I would we were as sure of grace, to obey.

Thus far we have considered these Objects severally: now take them jointly, and they afford us some more observations:

1. Neither Prophets nor Apostles did ever command in their own names: but the former came with, Thus saith the Lord: and the other in the Name of Christ. By virtue of this Commission and victorious Name, they commanded all things, even diseases and devils to depart, and were not disobeyed. By the Name of Jesus Christ doth this man stand here before you whole. As they did all by his power, so they referred all to his glory: and added, This stone, set at naught by you builders, is become the head of the corner. This is the fundamental Stone, We are b •• e upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner Stone. They are foundations to us, Christ is the sole foundation of all. The wall of the City had twelve foundations, and in them the Names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. They are foundations of the wall, not of the City: not of salvation, but of the Ministry of salvation: not principal, but instrumental: Non authors, sed lapides. A foundation cannot lay it self, it must have a builder. Christ laid them first of all other, in the bottom of the wall; in that respect they are called foundations. As Ezra 7. In the first day of the first month, he began to go up, or was the foundation of the going up; that is, the first or chief Leader. Thus not one Apostle, but all are equally foundations.

Contrary to that senseless, ungodly, unlucky corruption of the Text, that would transfer all to Peter; under the color of super hanc petram: whereas the Scripture calls the twelve Apostles equally fundamental. Mind the commands of Vs, not of Me, saith Peter himself here. Christ himself indeed is that Petra, that Rock; Other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. First, he is Lapis fundamentalis, the foundation of our faith: upon whom we build so sure and firm, that neither gusts nor floods, neither storms nor streams can overthrow us. Secondly, he is Lapis angularis, the Roote of love and peace, which binds us together in the unity of the Spirit. Malitious and contentious souls are loose rubbish and refuse, not stones in God's edifice. In all our book-controversies, and sword-controversies, let us refer the decision to him: then do we set the corner stone in the right place. Thirdly, he is Lapis pacificus, all sin is a make-bate, he is the Peace-maker between God and us. That Jacob's stone, whereon we rest our heads and hearts; and see Angels descending to comfort us: upon this stone we lie down, and have quiet rest. Fourthly, he is Lapis foedificus, a Stone of Covenant betwixt Jacob and his father Laban: the league between our heavenly father and us. Mizpah, a beacon or watch-tower, to warn us of our enemies. Fifthly, he is Lapis triumphalis, that shall give us the victory: David's stone, wherewith he slew the Giant: by this we shall be able to conquer Satan and the most monstrous sins, and triumph over them. Sixthly, he is Lapis petralis, which being smitten by the rod, gushed out floods of water. When he was stricken with death, there issued out streams of blood to save us: better than all their privileges, though they had Oile out of the rock, and honey out of the stone. Cantent inhabitatores petrae e vertice montium. But if a son ask bread, will his father give him a stone? Nay, but this stone is bread; a living Stone, the Bread of life; Lapis & panis. He did command this stone to be made bread: therefore we may as well say, Da Petram vivificam, as Da panem quotidianum. But let us take heed of offending this Stone: for whosoever shall fall upon this stone, shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall it shall grind him to powder. We may fall upon this Stone, or this stone may fall upon us: and then it had been better that a millstone were hanged about our necks, and with us thrown into the sea. But blessed are they that conform their lives to the doctrine of the Apostles and Prophets, and build their faith on this foundation.

2. Saint Peter refers us to the words of the Prophets, and commandments of the Apostles, and precisely chargeth our mindefulnesse with these lessons. Not human traditions, not the constitutions and impositions of usurpers, that pretend the authority of the Apostles: fond men, that undertake to devise a better way to heaven, than he that dwells there hath set down; who will admit none that come not his way: these are but artificial paper-walls, set up against the Apostolical Canons. Not the inventions of men, though of those pure brains that pretend most, yea mainly for the word: for sometimes they prove but Lapwings, that cry, Here 'tis, Here 'tis; when their nests are far enough off. Athemeus tells us that the Stoics had an opinion, that no man could do well but a wise man; not so much as make good Lentil-broth. And therefore because no man was held wise but Zeno, no man would make Lentil-pottage but after his receipt: and that receipt was so curious and exact, that it prescribed the twelfth part of a Coriander seed. We have many simple men, and more simple and sinful women, that have little or nothing besides a will, and a tongue; yet are so conceited of doctrine, that if Zeno prescribe it not, the broth is naught, death is in the pot: and for every sup of broth they must run to Zeno: when (God knows) all at the best is but a poor mess of pottage. These men have coats of their own weaving, whose inside is altogether their own lining: only they face it with the words of a Prophet or Apostle, and have their Text from the Bible.

Not the wisdom of the Philosophers, nor all the morality that dropped in verse from the pens of the Poets; be the instruments of our building up to heaven. The wine that is made of the vines of the mountains, is finer and pleasanter than the Grapes of the valleys. What are the dregs of this flat bottom, man's knowledge, to the wisdom that descendeth from above, the Hill and Throne of God? I grant, there is use of the other: secular arts are like lobbies to the lodging chambers: nay, not so good, but rather the garnish and painting of the rooms: nay, inferior still, (for the former are for muniment, the other for ornament) but indeed stairs to the parlours, as we make them to our Pulpits: herbs in a glass of wine: sallets and sawces to tempt down our meats: but still the meat it self is the Word of God, that Christ may be all in all.

3. Neither the Prophets without the Apostles, nor the Apostles without the Prophets, but both together. The Gospel, without the Law, may lift men up to presumption: the Law without the Gospel, may sink them down to desperation. God hath provided a gracious remedy for both these fatal evils of man; the sweet composition of severity and mercy; the mixture of Law and Gospel; as Moses and Christ met upon the Mount. To direct our obedience, he hath given us his Law: to answer for our disobedience, he hath added his Gospel; that what we could not do in ourselves, we might see perfectly done for us by Jesus Christ. Lex imperando ligat, Fides impetrando solvit. The Prophets wrapped up the Gospel in the shadows of the Law: the Apostles opened the Law in the clear light of the Gospel. Lex data est, ut gratia quareretur; Gratia data est, ut Lex impleatur. The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Woe to them that adhere to the Law, and think to fulfill it well enough without the Gospel: the Gun-powder shall sooner be able to stand the fire, and not be blown up. Woe to them that so stick to the Gospel, that they cast away all respect of the Law: they would be fed from God's own trencher, and that of his daintiest fare, and yet do him no service. But their Livery shall be pulled over their ears, and they sent away with a Nescio vos. But blessed are they that join them both together in heart and life: that have one eye upon the words of the Prophets, the Law of God, to give it obedience with all their powers: and the other eye upon the doctrine of the Apostles, the Gospel of Christ, to believe in it with all the hearts. The Lord shall bind them up in the bundle of life, lift up their souls to the participation of joy with the Prophets and Apostles, and make them heirs with the Lord of all, his holy Son JESUS CHRIST.

4. The rule of Truth is delivered to us by the Prophets and Apostles: Truth is God's peculiar, appropriated to his holy Word. He begat us with the Word of Truth. Sanctify them through thy Truth: thy Word is Truth. The Law is his Truth: The Judgments of God are Truth. The Gospel is his Truth, Ye have been taught, as the Truth is in Jesus. Yea, an eminent Truth; distinguished from Natural or Philosophical truth. Nature is true in her principles, Philosophy true in her deductions and conclusions, the Law true in her impositions: all true, but no man can rest his salvation upon them. The Law was perfect Truth, but we were weak. It could not save us, because we could not keep it. Natural truth is like the Sea; there is abundance of it, but so salt that it can never slake our thirst. For Legal Truth; suppose a malefactor comes before a just Judge; you may rest upon it, that he will do him justice, but he must look for no mercy: but on the Evangelical Truth we may repose our souls. The good man will yield to all truth, and never be ashamed of such a victory. What is more glorious than to be overcome of Truth? This Truth is the Word of God; let it overcome us with our willing submission, or it shall overcome us against our wills to our confusion.

This Word and Truth is written by the holy Prophets and Apostles: for both in Creation and Redemption, God wrought all by his Word. Peter shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved. This is that Rule which binds the Conscience; let us walk by this Rule. Our neighbors of Rome have set up new Lesbian Rules, which they prescribe as necessary to salvation. The Rule of Saint Francis, the Rule of Saint Dominic; their Augustine's, Iacobines, Benedictines: yea, they hold one man's Baptism better than another's, one man's Order holier than another's, one man's Rule perfecter than another's; any Rule better than that which Saint Paul so blesseth, the Rule of Regeneration: And as many as walk after this Rule, peace be on them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. If that Apostle were now living on earth, to see their innumerable Orders, and ask them as they pass, what they are: and hear one answer; I am a Franciscan; another, I am a Dominican; another, I am a Carthusian; and scarce any one say, I am a Christian: he had cause to think them all Antichristian. He was angry enough at that, when one said, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; and called it Carnal. But now Moses and Samuel, Paul and Apollos are almost worn out, and we have Monks and Friars in their room. Yea, that teeming Whore of Babylon hath in these latter days brought forth a Monster, Iesuitisme; a Mungrill, begot betwixt Superstition and Policy. Which though Pope Nicholas the fourth, in a Bull, a blasphemous Bull, preferred before the Franciscans, and the Franciscans before the Angels; yea, that Ignatius Loyola lived a more perfect life than Christ himself: yet certainly, to all honest hearts they appear that Mystery of Iniquity, which Saint Paul prophesied should wait upon the Antichrist. If the manifest profession of Lying, of Murders, of Treasons, of the butchering of Princes, and raising tumults in States, be not Iniquity: what is? If again, for Kings to admit them to their Council-Tables, to follow their damned advices, to give them Colleges and mighty exhibitions; be not a Mystery: there is none. Put them together: that the horriblest sinners upon the face of the earth should skrew themselves into the favor of rich men, and Princes; surely can be no less than the Mystery of Iniquity: and this to me, is instead of a thousand proofs, that their Master is the Antichrist. That they should do all this under color of the Christian faith, and make God himself Carnificem suum, is a monstrous Mystery.

How does Ephraim and Manasseh, the Jesuit and all other Orders fight one with another, and all against Judah? In a City of Spain, a Jesuit in the midst of his Sermon fell into a Traunce, if we could believe him: and starting up, he told his Auditory, that he had been in a Dream, and the Scene lay in Hell. There he saw many souls of all conditions, (naming them whom he thought fit to traduce) from Cobblers to Emperors. Among the rest, he pretended to see abundance of Franciscans; whereat he stood amazed, that men so holy, and strict of life, should come thither. This Dream of his stuck in the Franciscans stomachs, till they could requite him with another. Therefore on the next occasion, in the same Pulpit, a Franciscan preaching, fell into the like Traunce: and waking, told them that he had also been in Hell; and could not deny, but some sprinkling of Franciscans and other Orders were there. But his wonder was, that in Hell he saw never a Jesuit: at which Belsebub laughing, told him his error; That the number of Jesuits in Hell did exceed all other Societies, put them all together. Where are they? replies the Franciscan. Alas, says the Devil, they are in a room below: the common Jail is too good for them, they are safe bound in the Dungeon, stowed in the Hold, under Hatches. For if they were suffered to come to the upper Deckes, they would set all Hell in an uproar. It was well it was but a Dream, for their sakes: it might happily have been a truth, for the Churches sake. Therefore as they that have made a new Gospel, Evangeliam Quintum, of Statisme; though not so plainly as those Monks of Paris, with their Evangelium aternum, which they offered to be canonized, but by good luck it was refused: yet as prodigiously, as blasphemously; whiles they teach the Prophets and Apostles to speak Treason and Murder, and to give dispensation for Lying: what Hell can be not enough for such Priests?

O ye blessed Secretaries of Heaven, how would you disdain to have their Decretals come in competition with your sacred Canons? How would it grieve you, to see Jesus persecuted by a Jesuit? That blessed Name hath always cast out Devils, it never brought in any: though these sons of Sceva have made bold to usurp it, and come in fiends, under it. Shall we call that Christ's Religion, which is not derived from the Prophets and Apostles; nay, which contradicts both Apostles and Prophets? Even the Prelates of their own Church have compared their School-men to Astronomers; who to save the Phoenomenon, framed to their conceit Eccentrickes, and Epicycles, and a wonderful Engine of Orbes, though no such things were: so they, in the Council of Trent, to save their Politiam Romanam, devised a world of distinctions, evasions, shifts, and Paradoxes: and instead of Prophets and Apostles, brought us Poets and Philosophers: that not only we, whom they hold adversaries; but many of their own have said, concerning the Laws of that Council; That they are beholding to Aristotle for diverse Articles of their Faith. This I thought good to touch; to show the difference betwixt Saint Peters direction, in my Text; and his direction, that pretends himself Saint Peters Successor; and that he can never err, out of that Chair. If they have forsaken the Prophets and Apostles, it is time for us to forsake them. If they allege, that they still retain the Scripture, and keep themselves to the words thereof: I answer, that Saul kept part of God's Commandment, in destroying Amalek; yet for all that, Samuel tells him plainly, Thou hast rejected the Word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee. Or if they should take nothing from these words, yet their adding to them, and equalizing their own constitutions with them, shall make them liable to that fearful Curse.

That ye may be mindful of the words.] This mindfulnesse consists in two things; our Observation, and our Conversation.

For Observation; God never meant his Word for a vanishing sound: that [unspec 1] which is kept upon eternal record in Heaven, and is a constant dweller in the elected heart; must not be a sojourner, much less a passenger, with us. The Lord takes it in foul scorn at the hand of his creatures, to speak, and not be heard; to be heard, and not minded. Most men hear Sermons, as they entertain news out of the Indies; matters unconcerning them. Let us mind these things: if any virtue be commended, to practice it: if any vice be condemned, to avoid it: if any consolation be insinuated, to appropriate it: if any good example be propounded, to follow it: so mind that thou hearest, as if it were spoken only to thyself. Is it Comfort? I repent, and 'tis thine. Is it Judgment? repent, and 'tis not thine. They minded John Baptists preaching, that came to him after the Sermon, with those material Quaert's, What shall we do? As Domitian, perceiving many of his predecessors in the Empire to be so hated of the people, asked, How he might so rule, as to be loved? and was answered, Tu fac contra: Examine what they did, and do thou the contrary. Hearing prepares us for the way of salv • tion, Minding disposeth us for the travail of it, Doing is the journey it self. The remaining flesh will tempt us: Joab's sword had not go a more usual trick of falling out of the sheath, than our corrupt nature to run into pollutions. Those Agags, that are spared by the indulgent eye of Saul, favored by the flesh, must be hewed in pieces by the sword of Samuel, by the Word of the Spirit. He that is furnished with weapons, and suffers a feeble unarmed enemy to overcome him, hath no courage in him. If the flesh, which in all regenerate souls hath received the deaths wound, foil us at every Boat, we do not mind our weapon, or (which is more cowardly) are afraid to use it. Some indeed feel no assaults; they have believed and minded the Word always; as they pretend: but the state which was always good, was in very deed never good.

[unspec 2] We are bound to mind both Prophets and Apostles: the large looking glass presents to a man his whole self: when it is broken into many small pieces, the least of them doth so still, but not so perfectly. Every line of the Law shows us our miserable estate, every promise of the Gospel yields matter of comfort: let this glass stand whole before us, that we may observe all our lineaments by it; then shall we be nobis noti, known to ourselves. He that receiveth the seed into good ground, heareth and understandeth, and brings forth fruits. The ground must be susceptible, fit to receive the seed. The seed must be conducible, fit for the quality of the ground. As we do not thunder Judgments to the broken heart, nor offer the dugs of mercy to the lips of profaneness. So let everyone mind his own portion: let sinners apply those threatenings that belong to them, that by repentance they may have right to those blessings, which yet belong not to them. The Word of God is like Gold, saith the Psalmist: Gold is so ductile that an ounce of it will be made to cover an acre of land. We can have no wants, which this riches cannot supply, if we mindefully apprehend it. Lex est instar speculi, quod maculas ostendit: Evangelium instar f • ntis, quod ostensas abluit. The Law is a glass to show our spots. (I had not known sin but by the Law) the Gospel is a fountain to cleanse them. Lex est manus, quae viam monstrat: Evangelium est brachium, quod in viam portat. They that mind not the Prophetical hand of direction, shall not have the Evangelical hand of comportation. Cui veritas comperta sine Deo? Cui Deus cognitus sine Christo? Cui Christus exploratus sine Spiritu sancto? Cui Spiritus Sanctus accommodatus sine verbo? Cui verbum profuit sine fidei obsequio? We cannot find the truth without God, nor know God without Christ, nor reach Christ without the Spirit, nor receive the Spirit without the Word, nor profit by the Word without faith. If we truly mind the Law and the Prophets, we find ourselves miserable sinners. Totus homo est inversus Decalogus: to stand in a full contrariety to all the Law, is the very definition of man. The minding of this, will work sorrow: Abraham cannot but be troubled with malapert Hagar: the flesh is a cursed concubine, as Anthony of Guevarra would not wish a man worse sorrow for his sins, than he had that had an ill Wife. The feeling of this smart will teach us to decline the cause: contraries are cured by contraries. Maledixisti? Benedicas. Hast thou cursed? Bless. Hast thou defrauded? Restore, Hast thou envied? Love. Hast thou offended in excess? Fast.

Many a sin had been avoided by this mindefulnesse; and yet that sin is the [unspec 3] worse that is done after mindefulnesse. There is a practical judgment in the heart; while it considers (on the one side) the danger of sin, in offending God: and (on the other side) the pleasure and profit of sin, which redounds to the flesh: while it puts in the one balance, God and all his Commandments: in the other, sin and all his appurtenances. If now after this poising, 〈◊〉 prefers sin, it had better never have weighed them: this is indeed to refuse Christ, and to choose Barabbas.

There was never more need of motives to mindefulnesse: (for this connexeth [unspec 4] the two verses.) If the pure minds had need be warned and awakened, what shall we say to the dissolute and indisposed souls, that love on the Lord's days their own private thresholds, or a room in Taverns, better than the Courts of God's House? We cry to drunkenness, that wallows in the puddle of excess; Be mindful, lest the day of judgment find you beasts; and leave you no drink, but a draught of the lake of Brimstone, that shall ever inflame, never cool your tongues: Yes, and they are mindful, upon the next occasion to follow their cups. We cry to adultery, • umbling in the luxurious bed of uncleanness; Be mindful: lest yourselves and your Strumpets be bound up in bundles, and cast into an unquenchable bed of flames: and they are mindful; but it is to watch the next opportunity of their former wantonness. We cry to Idolatry, that kills herself in the bosom of that Babylonish Whore; Be mindful: or God shall throw you and your Jezebel into the bottomless pit: and they are mindful; but it is for the next Mass, to worship that Stepdame on their knees. We cry to voluptuousness, that swaggers in the supposed Jubilee of her endless pleasures; Be mindful: lest your pastime be shut up in weeping, and howling, and gnashing of teeth: and they are mindful; but it is of their next Rendevous appointed for riot. We cry to oppression, that crusheth the bones of the poor with her bloody jaws; Be mindful: and they are mindful, but it is of the next cruel purchase. It were great pity, if all their violence and extortion should not extort from the hands of God, their own portion of vengeance. We cry to blasphemers, with whom oaths be as common as the stones in our streets; Be mindful: or God shall fill your mouths with lamentations and curses. We cry to all sinners; Be mindful of the words of Prophets and Apostles: but as Marius said, he could not hear the laws of the noise of Arms: so they cannot be mindful of these things, for being mindful of their sins and pleasures.

This is the fullness of time, wherein God gave his Son unto sinners: and [unspec 5] this is the fullness of sin, wherein this gift is despised by sinners. Salvation is preached to the lost, and it is lost among them: Life is offered to the dead, and it is become dead with them. God came unto men, and men will not come unto God. Wonder O Heaven, and be amazed O Earth, at the dullness of our unthankful hearts. It is time for you to be mindful; yea, the time is almost past: now is your salvation nearer than when you first believed: and now is your damnation nearer, than when it was first threatened. We are come to the eleventh hour of the day; there is but a twelfth; a few minutes of time between us and judgment. The Son of man hastens his coming, more than the Sun of Heaven hastens his going down: O be mindful. Shall we tarry to be started with the shrillest Trumpet that ever was blown? Our mindfulnesse shall then grow perfect, and we shall be wise, but too late. Then will it only serve to revolve those infinite favors of God, that could not win us; and those innumerable persuasions, that could not work upon us. The Foxes have boles, and the Birds of the Air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his bead. The Foxes have holes in us; crafts, deceits, and subtleties lodge in our hearts; the Birds of the Air have nests in us: pride, vain-glory, and ambition, dwell in our heads; but neither head nor heart will give any room to Christ: he hath no chamber, no bed, no pillow in our souls, whereon to rest his weary head, that is wer with the dew of heaven, while he stands waiting at our doors. It will grieve all the veins of their hearts, to be mindful of these things when they are past recovery; to think in hell how easily they might have been saved, while they lived on earth, and did not regard it. But now let us be mindful of God, and he will be mindful of us. Is he so near us, even within us, and do we forget him? Shall a whole day pass, and neither we speak to God, nor hear him speaking to us? This were too much between man and wife. No Lord, we will be mindful of thee, in giving heed to thy Word. Be thou mindful of us in thy mercy, and remember us in the day of JESUS CHRIST.

[unspec 1] Next, this is for our conversation. It is a barren mindefulnesse that does not declare it self in an holy fruitfulness. I have heard of a child of nine years old, that could say every syllable of the New Testament by heart, and not fail in returning a line in the right Chapter and Verse: here was an admirable memory. But if all this mindefulnesse be so confined, if it extend not to practice, we had better never have heard of God's Word. The use of operative arts is all in all; especially in Divinity: without which the Vine (through mindefulnesse ) may yield sweet juice: but (through want of practice) it will not make so much as a pin or peg for service. The Prophets and Apostles did not only teach, but do the will of their Master: as we are mindful of their doctrines, so let us also heed their examples. A speechless life hath more force in it, than a lifeless speech. Good works are unanswerable syllogisms, invincible demonstrations; and make any men Preachers; even Preachers like the Sun and Moon; that their sound goes over all the world, publishing God's glory; not in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, which many barbarous nations understand not: but in a common language, the mother tongue of every country. The bells that towled to the Sermons of the Prophets and Apostles, were their miracles: these made way into men's hearts for their doctrine. Miracles are ceased, and now good conversation comes in their place. They carried, as the soldiers of Gideon, in one hand the burning lamp of a good life; in the other, the shrill trumpets of Preaching: with these weapons they conquered the Midian world. Two things are to the esse of a Christian; Profession and Practice of the truth. The best argument of our conversion, is our good conversation: our works do justify that faith, which doth justify us.

The Apostles did not only preach heavenly Sermons, but do gracious [unspec 2] deeds: therefore a whole book was written of their Acts. Saint Luke wrote of all that Jesus begun to do and teach: who was a Prophet mighty, not only inward, but in deed. Go and tell John what things ye have heard and seen. Words are but wind, and vanish into wind: a ship leaves as much impression in the Sea, as they do in many an heart. There is an inartificiall argument, which is all the country-man's Logic: as the Martyr answered Bishop Boner; My Lord, I cannot dispute for the Truth, but I can die for the Truth; and that was a taking argument. To do well, is the art of a Christian: to do, is every man's: to do well, is the Christians. Bene is of few letters, of great operation; for it is the force of all arts. Rhetoric, is the art of speaking well; Logic, the art of disputing well; Magistracy, the art of governing well: so Christianity is the art of living well. Every Magistrate that governs, doth not govern well: nor doth every Christian that lives, live well. Estote factores verbi: we must distinguish between agere and facere: the first is to do a business whereof nothing comes after it: facere is to make a thing; as when a building is made, it remains. Actors present a show on the stage, which being spoken, and ended, there is an end of it; it hath no farther extent. But Factors trade and traffic in foreign countries; and bring in their masters commodities and adventures, out of which ariseth profit. All the gain of our souls comes from the doing of these things: without which knowledge leaves us but dishonorable to God, uncomfortable to ourselves, scandalous to others: in no nearer terms to happiness, than Balaam, and Judas, and the devil himself; who the more they know, it is the worse for them: they do but teach God how to condemn them.

Thus he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. Erasmus in a Dialogue [unspec 3] calls such a man, Cyclops Evangeliophorus; a swaggering Ruffian that would be thought a Christian. He had hanging at his girdle, on the one side, a Testament fairly gilt, bound, and bossed: on the other side a bottle of rich sack. To convince him, he is asked; what if he were tied to carry that bottle always at his girdle, and never to taste of it; or to taste it only, and never to drink it down: were not this a punishment as real, as that of Tantalus was Poetical. But what if he did, as his manner was, drink soundly of it; would it not then warm his heart, quicken his spirits, cheare his countenance? Yes, but much more would that Book do so, if he would spiritually feed on it, concoct, digest, and turn it into nutriment, in this life and conversation. Otherwise, it was but a poor use and benefit of his Bible, that one day in a rage he had broken a fellows head with it, that inveighed against the Gospel. Alas, to carry a Bible in our hands, and not to have a lesson of it in our hearts; not to be mindful of this Doctrine in our practice; is but like the Ass that carries dainty burdens, and feeds upon Thistles. In effect, a man knows no more than he does: as the worldling hath indeed no more riches, than he useth to his comfort. The Hebrews had an imprecation; If I forget thee, O Jerusalem; let my right hand forget her cunning. If men will not do the good they know, they shall soon lose the knowledge of the evil they do. It being just with God to punish the shipwreck of a good conscience, with the loss of the fraught of knowledge. He that never gave prescript, does not write himself Physician: why doest thou refuse good deeds, and call thyself Christian? The Angel called his Name Wonderful, because he did wonderfully, and made good his Name by his action. If we lay claim to that honorable name of Christians, let us do the works of Christians. Here lies the difficulty of all: the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles is contained in a little room: the Sanctions and Rules to be done, are set down in brief Summaries: so they are soon learned, easily known. But the motions, directions, reprehensions, persuasions, and such appurtenances of practice; these have enlarged the Volume of the Scriptures: these lengthen our Sermons, and multiply books. Line upon line and precept to precept: not for new laws, but pressing obedience to the old. To be effectually mindful.

1. Let us desire the faculty and facility of doing: earnestly to desire it, is one half, yea the best half. Bene velle est dimidium rei. Socrates could say; he that would be an honest man, shall soon be one; and is past the hardest part of the work. An hearty affection to goodness, is the first step to goodness, a great help to goodness, a special sign of goodness. This will breed prayer for goodness, to the fountain of all goodness, Christ: without whom we can do nothing, but lie be calmed, unable to move or promove; as a ship on the Sea, or a mill on the land, without the wind, and breath of his Spirit. Thus let us begin the morning in a serious acknowledgement of our own disability and deadness to every good work; praying for will, as if we had none; and begging grace, as if we were quite empty: grace preventing and subsequent, grace operative and cooperative, grace preserving and perfecting. Let us beseech him not only to regenerate us with new principles of motion; but to renew his inspirations upon every act of ours; that we by Christ, or rather Christ by us and in us may do all things.

2. Let us be thrifty husbands of time and means to be spiritually rich. If a man neglects the occasion, the occasion will neglect him. As we desire that all Sermons should be pertinent and applicatorie to us; (as if, like our Sutes of apparel, they were made for us, and for nobody else, they do so fit us) so let our ears drink in the matter, that our eyes be fixed on our own conscience. Let us lay ourselves to the Rule, and examine how we and that do agree. At the end of every Period let us ask our heart, How have I obeyed this Precept? How have I been bettered by this reproof? How comforted by this promise? Wanton hands gather only the flowers, but good huswives look to the • uit and herbs of the Garden. Some like little children, mind not the Liquor in the Cup, but only the paint and garnish; and in fondness of that, spill the Liquor. Or like Monkeyes, who looking in a Glass, think they see another Monkeyes face, not their own. We are so kind to ourselves, that we can find any man's fault in the Glass of the Scripture, sooner than our own. We have piped to you, but you have not daunced: All that you observe, is the sound of our Pipe, not how your own feet do dance unto it.

3. Let us reduce all to practice. Charmes are said to have no effect, unless one go with a belief unto them. Surely, Preaching shall do us no good, except we come with a mind to be bettered by it. Now it were hard, if after all this discourse of mindfulnesse, you have not been mindful of the discourse. The Alarm of a Clock is set, to summon us to business at such an hour, but if we wake not with the Alarm, all is lost. It is a common saying, Now the Sermon is done; and it may be, you long to say so at this time. But consider, it is not done, till you have done it. The Christian Tell-tr • th speaks of a Lady, who asked her servants whether the Sermon was done, or no. They answered; Yes, it is done. But she smartly replied; Dicta, non facta concio: It is spoken, it is not done. You have had many Sermons; for constancy against backsliding, for patience against murmuring, for charity against covetousness, for sobriety against excess, for refraining your tongues from profane speeches and ungodly Oaths; for obedience to the words of the Prophets and Apostles, against the formal profession of perfunctory hearers: Sermons ever spoken, never done. O these were tedious Orations: but on whose side lay the tediousness? How unhappily are all these holy discourses lost, through unmindfulnesse? How is mindfulnesse it self lost in the want of practice? The Doer is blessed in his deed: It is our deed, to speak God's Word unto you; to do it, is both ours and yours: Doing crowns all. I will hold you no longer: Now you may say, This Sermon is spoken and done by the Preacher: God grant we may say, It is practiced and done by the hearers.

THe main scope of the Apostle, both in the latter part of the former Chapter, the beginning of this, and the connection of both, is to cautionate his Converts of relapsing into those sins, from which they are redeemed by the knowledge of Jesus Christ. This strong Bulwark or Skonce he hath fortified against all the battery of the world, and assaults of Satan, by many arguments: First, by discovering the policies and villainies of seducers, those fatal engines of Hell, set to bring back escaped souls, to the kingdom of darkness. Secondly, by the miserable cozenage of those that are perverted by them: who leaving the true liberty, which they counted a bondage; do fall into the true bondage, which they vainly count liberty: so of God's servants, they become Satan's slaves, and sins drudges. Thirdly, by the execrable event of this Apostasy; whereby they become besotted men, entangled birds, polluted beasts, incarnate Devils. Fourthly, by redoubling his Epistles, to inculcate and drive this holy Naile of admonition into their minds; that they may never forget the wretched estate from which they are delivered. Fifthly, by way of encouragement, comforting them in the benefit of their happy progress: wherein if they persevere with steddie faithfulness, their end shall be everlasting life. Sixthly, and lastly, by preventing a scandal, and removing a block, which the malicious spirit might lay in their ways; the Atheistical impiety of many in the latter times: who both by their mouths and manners, persuasions and examples, call Christianity into question, and move a doubt, whether there be a God, or no. Nor do they only dispute this by way of problem; but are impudent and audacious in the negative, and labor to destroy all opinion of that Deity in the world, which made both the world and them. This then being the main Centre, the Pole, and cardinal Axletree whereon this place moves, I will in general say a little of it.

What man hath so steadily trode on God's earth, that he hath not stumbled; [unspec 1] or stumbled, and not fallen: yea fallen, and hath not layne some space on the ground? With what a trembling heart may we look upon the miscarriages of some of God's dearest servants? Noah and Lot by Wine, David and Samson by women, and Solomon worst of all. Who can do other than yearn and fear, to see the woeful wrack of so rich and goodly a Vessel? Was not Solomon He, whose younger years God honored with a message and style of Love? To whom God twice appeared in a gracious Vision, renewing the covenant of his favor? Whom he singled out from all the generations of men, to be the founder of that glorious Temple; which was as clearly the type of Heaven, as himself was of Christ? Was not he that deep Sea of Wisdom, which God had ordained to send forth Rivers and Fountaines of all divine and human knowledge, to all Nations, to all Ages? Was not he one of those select Secretaries, whose hand it pleased the Almighty to employ in three pieces of the divine Monuments of sacred Scriptures? Yet even this Solomon fell into a soul defection. Which of us can hope to aspire unto his graces? Which of us can promise to secure ourselves from his ruins? We fall, we fall, even to the lowest hell, if God do not prevent us, if he do not sustain us. Vphold me according to thy Words that I may live: all our weakness is in ourselves, all our strength in God. Let the Lord be strong in our weakness, that our weak knees may be ever steady in his strength. If we fall from our God, as Mephibosheth from his nurse, we presently grow lame. If these holy ones fell, we have cause to look to our standing.

[unspec 2] Sin hath a thousand tongues to plead for it, God hath lent me a weak one to plead against it. Let us think thus, when we are tempted to sin; that we are now about to lose our God, to cast away all the hopes and comforts of another world, to rob ourselves of all those sweet mercies we enjoyed; to thrust the Spirit out of doors, which cannot abide to dwell within the noisome stench of our sins; to lock ourselves out of the gates of heaven; to open the g •• es of hell, and cast ourselves down headlong into that dungeon. Thus let f •• re teach us to repel temptations, but love more prevailingly. Have we found our God so gracious to us, that he hath denied us nothing, either in earth or heaven: and shall we not deny our own lusts for his sake? Hath our dear Savior bought our souls at such a price, and shall he not have them? Was he crucified for our sins, and shall we by our sins crucify him again? Do we take his wages, and do his enemy service? Was his blood so little worth, that we should tread it under our feet? Hath he honored us, that we should dishonor him? Is this the fruit of his beneficence, our thankfulness? Doth he mean us blessedness, and is this the way we take to come unto it? Hath he prepared heaven for us, and do we thus prepare ourselves for heaven? Is this the recompense of his love, to do that which he hates? If we would make surer this remedy, let us look upwards, backwards, inwards, forwards. First, upwards, at the omnipotent greatness, and infinite goodness of that God, in whose face we sin. If we could truly discern the holiness of his nature, the nature of his mercy; though there were no hell, no punishment, we would not transgress. Secondly, backwards, to the innumerable favors, wherewith he hath blessed, graced, honored us: all which are so many bonds, that oblige us to obedience. Thirdly, inwards, to that noble calling wherewith he hath dignified us; the holy profession we have made of that calling, the eye of the world fixed upon that profession; the vow and covenant whereby we have confirmed it; the gracious beginnings of God's Spirit in us, which by this present sin we are about to extinguish. Fourthly, forwards, to the joy which will follow upon our forbearance: compare but the momentary and unpleasing delight of a sin in doing, with that sweet peace of conscience and blessed expectation of glory, which we preserve by avoiding it. If we could think of all this in a temptation, we would fling defiance in the face of Satan; and refuse for the short pleasure of a filthy sin, to lose all these happy and lasting comforts.

[unspec 3] But alas, there be many that sin and live not, but there are none that live and sin not. Our comfort is, we have a constant God; who, whom he loves, to the end he loves. I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. My loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. The fall of Solomon was a spectacle able to affright all the sons of men; yet not without some glimpse of comfort. Sensible grace might seem to leave him, not final mercy. In the desperate Winter, the sap was gone down to the root, though it shown not in the branches. Solomon removed; the Word of God removed not: My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing th •• is gone out of my lips. The Lord's favor doth not depend upon man's obedience. If Solomon shall suffer his faithfulness to fail towards his God; God will not requite him with the failing of his faithfulness to Solomon. If Solomon break his covenant with God, God will not break his covenant with the father of Solomon, with the son of David. His correction is limited, he shall smart, he shall not perish. This is our only tenure; The mercy of God endures forever: his promise is Yea and Amen in Christ: and whiles we change, his Word shall stand. This is that which gives strength to the languishing, comfort to the despairing, to the dying life. Whatsoever we are, God will be still himself; true to his Covenant, constant to his decree. The sins of his chosen can neither frustrate his Counsel, nor out-strip his mercy. Their offense hath gone before, their repentance shall follow after; not more slow than sure. Almost ten months doth David run on impetuously in a way of his own, rough and dangerous: at last the conscience of his sin, and fear of judgment shall bring him on his knees; I have sinned greatly in that I have done. It is possible for a sin not to bait only, but to sojourn in the holiest soul: but though it sojourn there as a stranger, it shall not dwell there as an owner. The heart that shall be saved, after some rovings of error, will not be long ere it return home to it self; and fall out with that ill guide wherewith it was misled, and with it self for being misled. Now it is resolved into tears, and breaths forth nothing but sighs, and confessions, and deprecations. Solomon, of a wanton lover, shall become a grave Preacher of mortification; and quench those inordinate flames with the tears of his repentance. You might hear him sighing deeply betwixt every word of that his solemn penance, which he would needs enjoin himself before all the world; I have sinned, and am weary of my vanities: Hear now the end of all, Fear God, and keep his Commandments.

But as they that fear the Lord, will not from this mercy fetch matter of [unspec 4] presumption; so if any do presume, let them hear their correction. The justice of God is inseparable from his love: there be rods for the backs of sinners, though they be the children of his own Fatherhood. All their devout penance cannot avoid temporal punishments; no child would be whipped, if he might scape for crying. Nothing but love and peace sounded in the name of Solomon: nothing else was found in his reign, while he held in good terms with God. But when once he fell foul with his Maker, all things began to be troubled; and he found many enemies. God that did put away David's sin, even his adultery clothed with murder, upon his penitence; did not yet forbear to strike him; not only in the death of a mis-begotten infant; but in the ruin of his children that nearer concerned him. When with great humiliation he sought for pardon of that needless muster; yet he hath but the choice of three terrible scourges, with which of them he had rather to bleed. He shall have the favor of an election, not of a remission. God would have us make account that our peace ends with our innocence: the same sin that sets debate between God and us, arms all creatures against us. It is pity we should be at any quiet, while we are fallen out with the God of peace. Sleep pays no debts, but debt breaks many a sleep. When the household-stuff of a Merchant that died far in debt, was set forth to sale; there was one that bought only a pillow: because he thought it had some rare virtue in it to get one asleep; seeing he could sleep on it that ow'd so many debts. But if men be deep in arrearages with God, far in his debt; and yet can sleep and be secure; God bless me from their bed or pillow. Surely I will not go up into my bed, nor give sleep to mine eyes, until I find out a place for the Lord: yea, till the Lord find a place in me. If the father be angry with the son, no joy will down with him: he refuseth not only his sport and pleasure, but even meat and sleep, till he be reconciled. Only then we can be merry, when God hath spoken peace to us in JESUS CHRIST.

Knowing this first, &c.] There be some that allow of the Prophets, not of the Apostles; as the blinded Jews. Some stick to the Apostles, and mind not the Prophets; as profane Libertines, that would have the benefit of the Gospel, but not be tied to the Law. Some deny neither the Prophets nor Apostles in word, but both in effect: while they prefer to them both their own traditions and constitutions, as do the Papists. There be other that deny all, reject all; which are the Atheists: upon whose discovery we are now fallen.

Knowing this first; be not ignorant of so infallible a truth. That there shall come; if none such yet appear: they will be manifest too soon. In the last days: all times have been evil, the last are the worst: some perhaps may antedate this term, for the Apostles time was not free from Infidels. Scoffers; such as make a mock of all religion and godliness, and labor to disgrace the worship of God with foul aspersions. Walking after their own lusts: this is the end and scope of all their forced and forged imputations: they would put out the candle, that they might walk the more securely in the dark. The Word of Truth controles their vicious affections; therefore they, to maintain those affections, control the Word of Truth: but the truth shall confound them all.

In the former verse Saint Peter charged us with the mindefulnesse of the Prophets; now he is become a Prophet himself, fore-telling future things that shall happen in the latter times. The parts of the Text are A

• Preparation; Knowing this first.
• Prediction; There shall come in the last days.
• Description; Scoffers, walking after their own lusts.

In the Preparation we have to observe three things:

1. The carefulness of the Apostle to remove a scandal, that might trouble them in their way of integrity. If this be the way of truth, why is it not generally embraced? Why do the great Politicians of the world, which have so deep an insight into the nature of things, despise it? Why do they expose it to contempt, if it were the infallible Rule of verity? To clear this Dilemma, to resolve this doubt; know this first, that such men shall come in the last times; it stands with God's Ordinance: not a scoff shall fall upon his Gospel, nor any mis-usage be done to his servants, without a Providence. It is his just will to befool all those, that will be wise without him. Yea, therefore is it the more likely to be the truth, because the wits of the world dispute against it. Where shall you find Tertullus, but fee'd and retained against Paul? If a stranger come, all the Dogs of the Town will be barking at him. There is nothing causeth so much noise and wrangling, as the opposition of goodness.

Example is a cruel Tyrant, and commands Imitation. There is one artless persuasion, that prevails more with the world, than all the places of reason: Thus did my forefathers: Thus do the most: I am neither the first, nor the last. How many millions miscarry upon this ground? Men commonly think that either safe or pardonable, for which they can plead a precedent. But they sails in a weak Bottom, that have no more warrant for their resolution; than the practice of others. The mind can never be steady, while it stands upon others feet; nor until it be settled upon such grounds of assurance, that it will rather lead than follow: till it can say with Joshua; Whatsoever becomes of the world, I and my house will serve the Lord. Woe be to him, whom the scoffs of the world can flowt out of his faith. Say, the stream of the time doth run against godliness, shall we not swim against the stream? You will reply, What can one man do against a whole throng of wickedness? Yet this good comes of an unprevailing resistance, that God forbears to plague where he finds but a sprinkling of faith. As the celestial bodies, which being carried about with the sway of the highest Sphere, yet creep on their own ways: so let us continue the course of our own holiness, against the swinge of common corruptions. Thus shall we both deliver our own souls, and help to with-hold judgment from others. The howting of the Owl stops not the •• ging of the Nightingale; nor doth the Eagle forbear her flight, because there is a Raven in her way: the barking of the Dog stays not the shining of the Moon. Never let the taunts of Ishmael make Isaac out of love with his inheritance.

2. Knowledge is needful, not only of the main substance, but even of circumstances: there is no concerning matter whereof God would have us ignorant. The way of Salvation; that's the best knowledge; that unum necessarium, without which we cannot be happy. Seek for it as for hid treasures. The Mine of God lies not within the teach of the first spade; we must dignity deep to find it. First seek the Kingdom of Heaven; then refuse not temporal things. There be some things we would know for avoidance: Mark them which cause divisions, and avoid them. It is a true saying, Knowledge is no burden: the more a man hath, the less he feels the weight. That he wants, you may hear him confess: you never hear him complain of too much. He that sits down with an imagined sufficiency of knowledge, is not at all delivered from the mist of ignorance. The Pontificians flatter their people, as those Confederates of Corah did Israel; The Congregation is holy enough. The people are wise enough. But what, Do we look to be made wise by miracle? To have all knowledge inspired into us at once? Must not Moses be trained up in the wisdom of Egypt, and Paul in the School of Ga • aliel? It may be, we are but newly dedicated to the Lord, and God hath but begun with us, because we have yet but begun with him: we may not look for sudden motions, and strange inspirations, without time, growth, and degrees. Scholars do not shoot up in a night, like Mushromes: nor is their coming to knowledge like Caesars expedition to conquest; Veni, vidi, vici. Some early wits have presumed to wrest knowledge from their mother in a short space; as the prodigal son did wring his portion out of the hands of his father: much good might it do them: and I would to God, that what they got by sudden and uncouth achieving, they would not, as he did, waste it again by riotous living. Shall they that never sweet at their deskes, so quickly know enough to serve their turns, that they should sit down, and sing Plaudites, to their own brains?

A little knowledge puffs up, much humbles. The famous wits of the time, that are the Gardens and Ornaments of secular learning, scorn to hang on the lips of a Priest for knowledge. Who can teach them? Preachers are but bunglers: they will scarce consult the Book of God, except it be for niceties and criticismes. Daniel humbly went to the Lord for his Revelations: Nunquid in sapientior Daniele? Are they wiser than Daniel? Proficiendo lego, legendo proficio: and yet he was no small Clarke that said so. Other men are fain to search the bowels of the earth for gold: they are strangely happy that find it in the superficial skin. What, are they the heirs of Solomon, and so have wisdom by entailement? Alas, he could not give this to his own Son for a Legacy. He bequenched all his labor to him; yet he saith; Who can tell whether he shall be a wise man, or a fool? As the greatest persons cannot give themselves children, so the wisest cannot give their children wisdom. He that reads the Story of Reb • l ••• shall find that Solomon's wit was not propagated. Many a fool hath had a wiser son than that wisest Father.

There is store of wit in the world, I dare not so much commend the plenty of wisdom: This is pure, peaceable, gentle, &c. But the cavils of the age bewray, that men contend rather for credit, than for instruction: as wrangling •••• sters show they play for money, not for recreation. Pride is the fruit that no commonly grows on this Tree of knowledge. Thou thinkest thyself a knowing man, quick in apprehension, present of invention, sound in judgment: praise God for this; thou wast not borne so. Another is neither witty, nor intelligent, nor judicious; despise him not for this. God 〈◊〉 whether thou thyself mayest not die so. Presumptuous knowledge may be overcome with distraction, and subtlety and in an apoplexy; yea, and beat out her 〈◊〉 brains. Common experience maketh it more than probable, that unless we be seasoned with grace, and understanding with sobriety; a man may most miserably survive his own wit, and out-live his own understanding. Knowledge, only for private satisfaction, is but a courtezan, more for pleasure, than for propagation. Yet God would have us know, and that both good and evil; not only his friends, but even his very enemies; as here the scoffing Atheists. As himself hath Scientiam apprehensionis, whereby he knows all and 〈◊〉 approbationis, whereby he only knows his elect. So we are to know 〈◊〉 good and evil; both by the knowledge of distinction good only by the knowledge of approbation.

But many refuse to know, because they would not be bound to do they are mere Skeptickes, because they would not be practickes. They care not to ••• mine which is the true Religion; that of Rome, or this of England; because they desire to be of neither the one, nor the other. So the slothful 〈◊〉 hears, how one neighbor is troubled with preserving his young Lambes, another with plowing his grounds, weeding his Graine, inning his Harvest; how unseasonable showers cross their hopes; therefore he applauds himself in his stupid sluggishness, and cries, Well fare nothing once by the year. The indifferent worldling sees this man vexed for his zeal, that other hated for his knowledge; a third persecuted, martyred for the profession of his faith: and he says within himself, Well fare a quiet ignorance. So his body is but like a lump of scarce-moving earth, and his soul a standing puddle in the midst of it. He cares not to put any difference between the right and the wrong, between the suffers and the contemned: the holy and unholy are all one to him. Sed quia s • ire noluis quid sit distinguere, sentire cogetur quid sit distingui. Because they will not know what it is to distinguish, they shall be forced to feel what it is to be distinguished; when Christ shall put them on the left hand, among the Goats, with a Go ye cursed. Then shall ye discern between the righteous and the wicked; between him that feareth God, and him that feareth him not. Alas for the common Religion of our times, which is scarce better than Socrates his uncertainty: the people perish for want of knowledge; not that there is any lack of Manna, but they will not gather it. Nesciunt, quia nescire cupiunt. I know there be some, that of evident truths make disputable Problemes; as, Whether Rome be the true Church, Whether God may be worshipped before Images, Whether the Sabbath be not a fit day to play and revel on, Whether the elect can finally fall from grace: shortly it will come to this, Whether the Scripture be Scripture; and, Whether there be a God, and Christ, or no. But woe to them that doubt, where God is plain. The Lord shall come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If flaming fire be their portion, that knew not God, and could not: how terrible shall be their vengeance, that might know him, and would not?

3. We must know this; that is granted: and then the place is assigned; we must know it first. The Apostle doth not mean a priority of excellency, but of conveniency: not a primum, that is, Omni lo •• • essarium; sed h •• loco 〈◊〉 dissim •• m. There be far greater and more noble objects of ou • knowledge, which he had formerly propounded, and presumes they had happily digested. But now he comes to discover certain spirits of contradiction, and chargeth them to take notice of this