The Happiness of the Church

From the face.

It was ever the fashion of guiltiness, to fly from the presence of God. Adam had no sooner sinned, but he thrusts his head in a bush. Sins inevitable effect is Shame. Though impudence bear it our for a time. Ier. 6. They were not ashamed when they had committed abomination: yet they shall one day bear the reproach of their sins, and be ashamed, yea even confounded. Shame must come; either first to repentance. Rom. 6. what fruit had you then in those things, whereof you are now ashamed: or at last in vengeance; let them be ashamed that transgress without a cause. Let this teach us how to judge rightly of sin, that drives us from the face of God.

But doth not the glory of the Lord fill all the earth? Whither then shall they go from his face: whither fly from his presence? we shall find the Prophet concluding in that Psalm; that there is neither heaven, nor hell, nor uttermost part of the sea; nor day nor night, light nor darkness, that can hide us from his face. Our sitting, lying down, rising up, the words of our tongues, ways of our feet, thoughts of our heart, our reins, bones and mothers wombs, wherein we lay in our first informitie, are well known to him. Let us not flatter our selves, as if we would pluck out the eye of knowledge; God hideth his face, he will never see us. For there is neither couch in chamber, nor vault in the ground; neither bottoms of mountains, nor holes of rocks; neither secret friend, nor more secret conscience; neither heaven nor hell that can conceal us.

Of him that sitteth.

Christ now sits in glory. Whiles he was on earth 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 how little rested he! He dearly earned that voice, before he heard it; Sitte thou at my right hand: now behold he sits. Good rest is the reward of good labor: the week of our days spent, we shall have an eternal Sabbath; enter into God's rest; Apoc. 14. rest from our labors. Hast thou labored, thou shalt have ease: hast thou traveled in the ways of grace, thou shalt sit on the seat of glory.

On the throne.

Christ at this day shall appear in his true Majesty: on earth he would not be crowned; the reason of his refusal was; my Kingdom is not of this world; now he sits in his Throne. He hath a Kingdom here, but it is secret in the conscience: then it shall be conspicuous; sitting in his Throne. His majesty hath been despised; but now Bring those mine enemies that would not have me reign over them, and slay them before me.

Thus differs Christ's first coming and his second. Then in humility, now in glory: then with poor shepherds, now with mighty Angels; then the contempt of nations, now the terror of the world: then crowned with thorns, now with majesty: then judged by one man, now judging all men: then in a cratch, now in a Throne. You see his All-knowledge; now for his Almightiness.

From the wrath.

The wrath of Christ is his Justice: Attributor ira Deo per effectum. As man offended seeks revenge: so when God executes judgment, it is called his wrath. But passion in us, perfection in him. He hath long been provoked; give him now leave to stricke. You that made so light to trample his blood under your sensual feet, shall now find what his wrath is. Let us now think of this wrath, that we may escape it. The commination of hell doth not less commend God's providence, then the promise of heaven. Nisi in •… ntata esset gehenna, o •… es in gehennam C •… beremur. Now or never is this wrath to be escaped: therefore, Kiss the Son least he be angry, and so ye perish from the way; if his wrath be kindled, yea but a little, Blessed are all they that put their trustin him.

Of the Lamb.

Christ was called a Lamb in his passion; so here in his coming to judgment; not that he should suffer anymore; but to show that the same Lamb that was slain shall give sentence on his murderers. The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. And hath given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the son of man. It shall aggravate their vexation, that the Lamb who offered his blood for their redemption, shall now censure them for despising. He that would have been their mediator to pray for them, & their advocate to plead for them, must now be their Judge to sentence them. The Lamb that saveth the sheep on the right hand, shall cast off the goats on the left. The Lamb they have contemned, by this Lamb they shall be condemned. Woefull men, whom the wrath of the Lamb lights on: for he shall give them an Ite maledicti. What shall then become of them, but to knock at the gates of heaven whiles those gates are standing, and cry forever to God but to no purpose!

I have no will to end with a terror; yet no time to sweeten your thoughts with those comforts which faith might suck from this last word the Lamb. I say no more: the godly shall find him a Lamb indeed; as willing now to save them, as before to suffer for them. He hath purchased, promised, and prepared a kingdom: & they shall Rain mith him that sits on the Throne, and with the Lamb for evermore. To whom be eternal glory.

1. Miracle.

The Vail of the Temple, &c. This Vail was the partition betwixt the Sanctum Sanctorum, & the Sanctum; as it might be the upper part of the Choir. Into this went the high Priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people. By the renting this Vail were many things presignified.

1. This serves for a confirmation of that Christ spoke on the Cross; It is finished. The renting of the Vail doth actually echo to his words, and indeed fulfils them. Here is an end put to all the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the law. In the New Testament one only real and royal Sacrifice, Christ crucified. This was that object whereto all those legal rites looked; & to them all there is now given a Consu •… tum est. So that now Coremonia mortua, Lex mortifera: Ceremonies are dead, and the typical law deadly. Nouum Testamentum latet in veteri, Vetus patet in nouo. The Gospel lay hidden under the law, the law is complete in the Gospel. Now after that you have known God in his Gospel, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly Elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage? God's service is now simple and plain; in spirit and truth.

Christ is said to be the end of the law: the moral law he kept himself sincerely, and satisfied for us soundly. The Ceremonial was referred to him, performed of him, fulfilled in him, extinguished by him. They had all Vig •… a Christo, relationem ad Christum, consummationem in Christo. He gave them their beginning, he hath also given them their end. The Vail rent, to witness the cancelling of that ritual obligation. Christ hath blotted out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, nailing it to his Cross. That moment was their last gasp; they expired with Christ. But d •… d all Ceremonies then utterly die? No: some were typical prefiguring Christ: those are dead. Some are for decency and order, adminicula deuotionis, these are not dead. The law of Jewish ceremonies is abolished: but some must be retained. Christ came not to dissolve order. Men consist of bodies as well as souls; and God must be served with both: now bodies cannot serve God without external rites: the Spouse of Christ cannot be without her borders and laces. On necessity there must be some outward observances; but thus qualified. That they be for number few, for signification plain, for observation simple: far from ostentation, farther from superstition. Christ his Spouse must not flaunt it like an harlot, but be soberly attired like a grave matron. Ceremoniae quasi care moniae, wants a carendo; as it were ordained to supply the defects of our nature. Because we could not serve God in that simplicity we ought, therefore we have these helps. Hence it is, that the nearer to perfection, the fewer ceremonies; as it were the more light, the less shadow. In the law were abundant ceremonies, in the Gospel far fewer, in heaven none at all.

This condemns the Church of Rome for a glorious Harlot, because she loads her self with such a heap of gaudy ceremonies: and their mass for mere Idolatry, which they believe to be a real propitiatory Sacrifice of Christ, made by the Priests for the sins of quick and dead. This is to build up the veil here rent in pieces, and to accuse Christ of falsehood in his Consummatum est. Is an end put to them, and shall they still retain them, yea obtrude them as principal partes of God's service; yea worship them, yea bind men's consciences to them on pain of damnation? Therefore they are liable to Augustine's censure; who calls such Impios sepulturae viol •… tores; Diggers into the graves of the dead for putrefied and rotten relics. Yea to the Judgment of God; who saith, If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world: why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to Ordinances? after the commandments and doctrines of men? They will say, Dicit Papa, sanxit Concilium; thus saith the Pope, thus decrees the Council: but we, Dixit Dominus, non Donatus: we hear what the Lord says, in his Scripture concerning the law of ceremonies.

2. The second thing signified by the renting the veil is this. The holy of holies figured the third heaven; where GOD showeth himself in glory and majesty to his Saints. Solomon's Temple had in it three Courts; an utter court whereinto the people were admitted: an inner Court wherein only the Priests and Levites entered: an inmost of all, whereinto the high Priest alone, and that but once a year; and this was called Sanctum Sanctorum. So there is a threefold Heaven: Coelum elementarium, Stellatum, Gloriosum. First the Elementarie heaven, wherein are clouds, winds, rain, dew: and the birds are called the birds of heaven, that is of this elementarie heaven. The second is the Starrey heaven: So the Sun is said to go from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it. The last is the Glorious, heaven, the habitation of God himself: and this was signified by the Holy of holies. The veil signified the flesh of Christ: the renting of the veil, the crucifying of Christ: by this is made an entrance into that Sanctum Sanctorum, the heaven of glory. So expressly. Heb. 10. Having therefore boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus; By a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His Flesh. Heaven gate was shut up by our sins; none but our highest and holiest Priest had passage there: but he rent the veil, suffered his body to be torn by death, that he might give us an entrance. Paul speaking of the legal use of that Holiest place in the Temple, saith thus. Heb. 9. The holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing. But now by Christ his renting the veil, Patet alti ianua Coeli, the way of salvation is opened. Let this reach forth to us two comforts.

1. There is no fear to be shut out of heaven, if thou have faith in Christ: for to thee is the veil rent, the separation is abolished, Christ is crucified. For So, saith Saint Peter, an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly, into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Indeed to unbelievers and hypocrites, to worldly wolves and luxurious goats the veil is up still. How should they enter the Sanctum sanctorum, that never approached the Sanctum? How shall they see the glory of God, who would never entertain the grace of God? No: to these there are inaccessible bars, and Cherubims with flaming swords, to forbid their entrance. But to every good and faithful Servant the veil is taken away; and Christ says; enter thou into the joy of the Lord.

2. By this means we have in this world a free access to the Throne of grace by our prayers: the veil and separation of sin and wrath is rent asunder by Christ, and a clear way made for our supplications. The Propitiatory and Mercy-seat, the Cherubims of glory shadowing it, the very presence of God, were within the Holiest: and the people might not approach it, but stood without a far off: Our Savior hath torn away this veil, and opened our petitions a free passage to the Seat of mercy in heaven. Having such an high Priest over the house of God; (saith Paul immediately after the clearing our way through the veil) Let us draw near with a true-heart, in full assurance of faith, &c. We see howe far our prerogative excelles that of the Jews. They were servants, we are sons, and cry Abba Father: they had Priests, we are Priests: they had a bar, to us that veil is rent away. Let us therefore come boldly unto the Throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. This is singular comfort, that poor subjects may be sure of access to the King with their petitions; yea more, be heard in all their desires: yea most of all, have an Advocate at the Kings right hand to plead their cause. But then remember the Psalmists caution. If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Let the servants of Baal cry never so loudly, if lewdly; their prayers are not heard. To the cries of unfaithful sinners the veil is up still; and like a thick cloud reuerberates & beats back their orisons; that they cannot ascend to the Throne of grace. Only faith makes a free passage, and a clear conscience hath a clear voice, that can pierce heaven.

3. The breaking down of this veil did make the Holiest and the other part of the temple all one. Whereby was signified, that of two was made one, Jews and Gentiles one Church. He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. So that now those, the Jews called dogs, eat the bread of the children; yea they are the children: and Japheth is persuaded to dwell in the tents of Sem. She is also Beloved that was hated; even the Church of the Gentiles is the Spouse of Christ. The veil that hindered, Paul calls the Law of commandments, contained in ordinances: this he abolished for to make in himself, of twain, one new man. Heaven gate is no wider open to a Jew, then to a Grecian. In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God: The Sum of the Gospel, as of the world, is not confined to lighten Judea only, but shines universally. There is not one privilege, wherein the Gentile hath not as frank a share, as the Jew: the sons of Hagar are adopted the sons of God; and the free Jerusalem above is the mother of us all. All this did our blessed Savior work for us by renting the veil; That he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.

Oh then let us keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Christ hath made us at one, let us not make our selves twain. The veil is rent, why set we up new; schisms in doctrine, jars in conversation? The bill of divorcement is cancelled: let us love our husband Christ, and for his sake every man his brother. Let us set up no more veils, least we do it with the curse of building more Jericho's. There is no bond so sure as Religions; no ligaments so strong, as faith and a good conscience. Wretched man, that breakest these t •… es, and rentest thyself from them to whom thou art by Christ united: A mothers, yea a Fathers blessing forsakes thee: and thou buildest up a new veil, which thou must look for no more Christ's to come rent asunder.

4. The renting of the veil teacheth us; that when men sin rebelliously against God, no prerogative shall do them good. The Temple was one of their principallest privileges, their glory, their crown. The Temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. It was a figure of the Church militant as Solomon the builder was a figure of Christ. For this Temples sake God often spared them. So Daniel prays; Cause thy face to shine upon thy Sanctuary, that is desolate. Yet when they fall away from God, and crucify their Messias, this prerogative helps not. For here God's own hand rents the veil, and after gives the whole fabric a spoil to the Gentiles. If ye will not hear, if ye will not lay it to heart, I will send a curse upon you, I will curse your blessings: yea I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart. It lies in man's sin, to make God curse his very blessings: and to punish the nocent in the innocent creatures.

We see the way, how we may loose Temples, and peace, and Gospel, and all privileges; by running the courses of disobedience. Who can number the blessings we have enjoyed by the Gospel? Let us beware, least our ungracious and ungrateful lives rob us not of that, with all the appertinent comforts. They that have traveled the Belgic Provinces, can witness the miserable footsteps of war, and the tyranny of desolation. Churches and Cities have no more monuments, but the ruined foundations to testify that they were. Sin made way for blood and massacre; Idolatry pulled down those walls, which otherwise the most sacrilegious hand should have forborne. If there had been no enemy to rase them, they would have fallen alone, rather then covered so blasphemous impiety under their guilty roofs. Peace is within our walls, & prosperity within our palaces; blessed forever be our God of peace for it. Yet we have a subtle adversary, Sacrilege, that encroacheth sore upon us, and hath taken many of God's houses in possession. We cannot say, They have burnt up all the Synagogues in the land: but they have done very wickedly to the Lord's Sanctuaries. The walls stand, and it is well if in many places they do so: but there is not a Levite to feed the people; alas, how can there when there is nothing left to feed a Levite? Covetousness would do as much hurt with us, as war hath done with our neighbors: it would, but I trust in the Lord Jesus, it shall not. Though they have rent away God's right, Tithes and offerings: they shall never rent away God's Truth and Gospel: rent themselves from it indeed they are likely to do.

5. Lastly, The Vail was rent. By renting the part God did threaten the subversion of the whole. If he spare not the Holy of holies, then much less the rest. Ezek. 9. When God had comanded; Slay utterly old & young, maids and children; he adds withal, And begin at my Sanctuary. If God begin at his Sanctuary, he will not fail to end with the rest: if that shall not scape being profaned, how much less houses built for riot & disorder, pride & ambition! If the Temple of prayers, then surely the dens of thieves. For loe, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, & shall ye go unpunished? saith God to the Heathen. If the sacredst things defiled by Idolatry shall be subverted, never think that your fair houses shall stand, when they are made couerts of oppressions, and convents of superstition! when the better things are not favored, the worst have small hope. So Peter reasons; If Judgment shall begin at the house of God, what shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel? If the strong Cedars in Lebanon be rooted up, woe to the rotten-rooted poplars. If the dragons tail swoope stars from heaven, what shall become of squalid earthy vapors? The Temple was one of the worlds greatest wonders; as curious a workmanship as six and thirty years could make it: it wanted not the art of man, yea the blessing of heaven was added to it. Yet now loe, Etiam periere ruinae; this goodly building by sin was brought to ruin, yea even the very ruins are perished. Shall then your Forts and Palaces, worldlings Paradises: full of rapine, empty of charity; stand against all weathers and storms of judgment? No, stone shall fall after stone; and ruin shall one day tell the passengers, as GOD threatened of Jerusalem; Here stood a goodly Manner, a sumptuous edifice, a royal Palace. Or if they fall not down in themselves, they shall fall to the owners; whose iniquities have defiled them.

God punisheth by certain degrees; first he rents the veil, then rents away the Temple: As by David's hand he first rent Saul's garment, and then rent away his kingdom. God at first toucheth men lightly; in their goods, quiet, health: if these stir not to repentance, he proceeds against the whole Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God? If you set up in this Temple Idols, lusts, and evil affections, God first rents the veil, toucheth you with some gentle afflictions: but if you still continue to make this Temple a den of thieves, the Temple it self will be destroyed.

You have heard the first miracle, the renting of the veil. As the Jews were wont to rend their garments when they heard blasphemy against God: so it may seem the Temple tore his garments, rent his veil in pieces, when it heard those execrable blasphemies against the Son of God.

2. Miracle.

The earth did quake. The Philosophers have given diverse natural causes of earth-quakes: as by hot and dry exhalations shut up in the bowels of the earth, and laboring for vent resisted by the earths solidnes, there ensueth terrae motus, a shaking of the earth, &c. But this was an extraordinary earth-quake; for it happened exactly at the very instant of Christ's death.

It might be to set forth the glory of the New Testament, and to vindicate it from inferiority to the old. The law was both given and renewed with an earthquake. Giuen. Exod. 19. to the hand of Moses. The whole mount quaked greatly. As at the giving mount Sinai, so at the renewing mount Horeb quaked. As Elijah stood upon the Mount, there passed by a strong wind, and after the wind an Earth-quake. So when the Lord of the Gospel died, the earth shook: that the ministration of righteousness might not be less glorious, then the ministration of death. This miracle shall give us a threefold instruction.

1. To consider the fierceness of God's wrath against sins and sinners. For God by shaking the earth did no less then threaten the utter subversion of those desperate and bloody wretches. Corah and his confederates were swallowed up of the earth, for rebelling against Moses the Lord's servant. Of much how sorer punishment were these worthy, that had crucified (not the servant, but) the Son of God! If the mercies of God had not been greater then their iniquities, they had not escaped.

By this we see how able God is to punish sinners: he shows what he can do; it is his mercy, that he forbears. Some of these were to be converted, therefore concussi, non excussi; moved not removed, shaken but not destroyed. Ostendisti populo grauia, saith the Psalmist. Thou hast shown thy people hard things. Showed, not imposed: shook the rod, not laid it on. This forbearance of God should lead us on to repentance: if not, it is but the forerunner of vengeance. Though now by moving the earth he scare and spare these Jews, yet after the earth spewed them out, as an offense to her stomach. O obstinate hearts, that quake not, when the senseless ground quakes that bears so unprofitable a burden. Cannot the earth admonish thee? it shall devour thee. Si non m •… nebit. mouebit. If the almighty's hand stirring it, hath not stirred thee to repentance; a Sextons hand shall cover thee with moulds; a weak shaker shall do it. Think when God moves the earth, he preacheth to thy soul: if thy heart (so little in comparison of that great vast body) will not tremble, know God hath one thing that shall shake thee to pieces; death.

2. The nature of sin is here considerable; so heavy that it makes the very earth to quake. The Jews sins were such a burden, that the earth could not bear them without trembling. The earth is fixed, and standeth fast saith the Psalmist; as the Center of the world: it is strange that to be moved; even so strange is the cause that moves it. It must needs be a monstrous weight of iniquity, that totters the earth on her foundations. But why is the earth so quiet now? Do not innumerable wretches daily crucify Christ; by their oaths, blasphemies, and rebellions in his head; by their persecutions & oppressions in his members? Is not his word derided, his Sacraments despised, his good creatures abused? Why doth not the earth shrink and shake at these horred impieties? Be still: he that holds his hand from miracles, will not hold it from plagues: They are for borne, not forgiven. God keeps silence, but he sleepeth not: the earth may spare them, but Desolation in a moment shall swallow them. To the Jews the earth moved, and they stood still: to these the earth shall stand still, and themselves shall be moved.

3. There is nothing on the earth that is not movable, if the earth it self be movable. God hath laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be moved. Yet so, that he who laid it, can shake it. If the earth, then whatsoever is built upon it. The earth shall be burnt, saith Peter. What alone? no, the earth with the works that are therein shall be burnt up. The works of men's hands, the works of their brines, their very thoughts shall perish. The Lord's voice shook the earth, and he hath said, yet once again I will shake not the earth only, but also heaven. O blessed place that is not subject to this shaking: whose joys have not only an amiable countenance, but a glorious continuance. The things that are shaken shall be removed, but the things that are not shaken remain forever. All the terrors of this world move not him that is fixed in heaven. Impauidum ferient ruinae. They that put their trust in the Lord, shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. But the Tabernacles and hopes of the wicked shall perish together. For the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth ever. Whereon saith August. Quid vis? Vtrum amare temporalia, & transire cum tempore! an amare Christum, & viuere in aeternum? Whether wilt thou love the world, and perish with it? or love Christ, & live forever?

3. Miracle.

The rocks rent. A wonderful act, to break stones and rend rocks. This gives us two observations.

1. This did foresignifie the power and efficacy of the Gospel, that it should be able to break the very rocks. As the death and passion of Christ did cleave those solid and almost impenetrable substances: so the publishing of his death and passion shall rend and break in pieces the rocky hearts of men. So John the Baptist said; God is able of stones to raise up children unto Abraham. The hearts of Zacchaeus, Mary Magdalene, Paul, were such rocks; yet they were cleft with the wedge of the Gospel. This is that Rod of Moses, able to break the hardest Rocks; till they gush out with floods of penitent tears. This is Jeremiah's hammer, powerful to bruise the most obdurate hearts. The blood of the Goat sacrificed, of force to dissolve Adamant. There is power in the blood of Jesus, to put sense into stones. Blessed are you, if you be thus broken-hearted for him, whose heart was broken for you. For the broken heart the Lord will not despise.

2. Observe the wonderful hardness of the Jews hearts. The stones rent and clave in sunder at the cruel death of Jesus: but their hearts more stony then stones, are no whit moved. They rend not their garments, much less their hearts: when as the earth rent the Stones her bones, and the rocks her ribs. The flints are softer then they: the flints break, they harden. They still belch their malicious blasphemies, the rocks relent: the stones are become men, and the men stones. O the sencelesnesse of a hard heart: rocks will sooner break, then that can be mollified. Even the hardest creatures are flexible to some agents: flints to the rain, iron to the fire, stones to the hammer: but this heart yields to nothing; neither the showers of mercy, nor the hammer of reproof, nor the fire of Judgments: but like the stithy, are still the harder for beating. All the plagues of Egypt cannot mollify the heart of Pharaoh. It is wondrously unnatural, that men made the softest hearted of all, should be rigidiores lupis, duriores lapidibus; more cruel then wolves, more hard then stones. I would to GOD all hard-heartedness had died with these Jews; but it is not so. Howe often hath Christ been here crucified; in the word preaching his Cross to your ears, in the Sacraments presenting his death to your eyes; think, think in your own souls, have not the stones in the walls of this Church been as much moved? God forbid our obduratenesse should be punished as theirs was: since they would be so stonyhearted, Jerusalem was turned to a heap of stones; and the conquering Romans dashed them pitifully against those stones, which they exceeded in hardness.

Here let the wicked see their doom: the stones that will not be softened, shall be broken. There is no changing the decree of God, but change thy nature, and then know thou art not decreed to death. Stony harts shall be broken to pieces with vengeance: do not strive to alter that doom, but alter thy own stony heart to a heart of flesh, and so prevent it in the particular. Wolves and goats shall not enter into heaven: thou mayest pull stars out of heaven before alter this sentence; but do it thus. Leave that nature, and become one of Christ's sheep, and then thou art sure to enter. No adulter •… nor covetous person, saith Paul, shall inherit the kingdo •… of heaven: this doom must stand; but not against thee, if thou be converted. Such were ye, but ye are washed, &c. You are not such. Had the Jews ceased to be stones, they had been spared. God will root thorns and briars out of his vineyard: if thou wouldst not have him root out thee, become a Vine: and bring forth good grapes. God threatens to break the hairy sealpe of him that goes on in sin; yet mayest thou ward this blow from thyself; Go no further on in sin. When God comes in judgment to visit the earth, to shatter rocks, and break stones in pieces; thou hast a heart of flesh, mollified with repentance. Let the earth quake, and the rocks tear; thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

4. Miracle.

The graves were opened, and many bodies of Sanits which slept, arose. Concerning this two questions are moved.

1. Where their souls were all this while before. I answer, where the scripture hath no tongue, we should have no ear. Most probably thus: their souls were in heaven, in Abraham's bosom; and came down to their bodies by divine dispensation, to manifest the power and Deity of Christ.

2. Whither they went afterwards. I answer by the same likelihood, that they died no more, but waited on the earth till Christ's resurrection; and then attended him to heaven. But these things that are concealed, should not be disputed. Tutum est nescire quod tegitur. It is a safe ignorance, where a man is not commanded to know. Let us then see what profitable instructions we can hence derive to our selves. They are many, and therefore I will but lightly touch them.

1. This teacheth us, that Christ by his death hath vanquished death, even in the grave, his own chamber. That giant is subdued, the graves fly open, the dead go out. This bears ample witness to that speech of Christ. I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. The bodies of the Saints, what part of the earth or sea soever holds their dusts, shall not be detained in prison; when Christ calls for them: as the members must needs go, when the Head draws them. He shall speak to all creatures, Reddite quod deuorastis: restore whatsoever of man you have devoured: not a dust, not a bone can be denied. The bodies of the Saints shall be raised, saith August. Tanta facilitate quanta faelicitate: with as much easynes, as happiness. Desinunt ista, non pereunt: mors intermittit vitam, non eripit. Our bodies are left for a time, but perish not: death may discontinue life, not conclude it. Intermittit •… , non interimitur: it may be paused, cannot be destroyed.

2. Observe, that all the dead do not rise, but Many, and those Saints. The general resurrection is reserved to the last day: this a pledge or earnest of it. Now who shall rise with this comfort? none but Saints: as here Christ takes no other company from the graves, but Saints. The dead in Christ shall rise first. Christ is called The first borne from the dead: He hath risen, and his shall next follow him. Every man in his own order; Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ's, at his coming. Wormes and corruption shall not hinder: he that said To Corruption, thou art my mother: and to the worms, you are my brethren and sisters: said also, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and one day with these eyes I shall behold him. The wicked shall also be raised, though with horror, to look upon him whom they have pierced. But as Christ did here, so will he at the last, single out the Saints to bear him company.

3. This showeth the true operation of Christ's death in all men. We are all dead in our sins, as these bodies were in their graves: now when Christ's death becomes effectual to our souls, we rise again and become new creatures. From the grave of this world we come into the Church, the holy City. But thou complainest of the deadness of thy heart: it is well thou complainest; there is some life or thou couldst not feel the deadness. The hour is coming & now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear it shall live. If this word hath raised thee from death, and wrought spiritual life in thy heart, thou shalt perceive it by thy breathing, words glorifying God; & by thy moving, in the ways, & to the works of obedience.

4 Observe that these Saints which arose, are said to have Slept. The death of the godly is often called a Sleep. So it is said of the Patriarchs and Kings of Judah, they slept with their fathers. So Paul saith, they sleep in Christ. The Coffin is a couch; In quo molliùs dormit, qui been in vita laborauit, wherein he takes good rest, that hath wrought hard in the work of his salvation before he went to bed. Felix somnus cum requie, requies cum voluptate, voluptas •… um aeternitate. It is a sweet sleep that hath peace with rest, rest with pleasure, pleasure with everlastingness. So the godly sleep, till the Sound of a Trumpet shall waken them, and then eternal glory shall receive them.

5. Lastly observe that Jerusalem is called the Holy city, though she were at this time a sink of sin, and a debaushed harlot. Either as some think, that she is called holy, because she was once holy. So Rahab is called the harlot, because she was a harlot. Simon is termed the Leper, for that he was a leper: and Matthew the Publican, for that he was a Publican. Or else she was called holy for the covenants sake; in regard of the Temple, sacrifices, service of God; and of the elect people of God that were in it. Whence we may infer, how unlawful it is to separate from a Church because it hath some corruptions. Is apostate Jerusalem that hath crucified her Savior, called still the holy City: and must England that departeth in nothing from the faith and doctrine of her Savior, for some scarce discernible Imperfections be rejected as a foedifragous strumpet? But there be wicked persons in it: what then? She may be still a holy City. Recedatur ab iniquitate, non ab iniquis. Let us depart from sin, we cannot run from sinners.

Thus we have considered the Miracles; let us now look into the causes, wherefore they were wrought.

These may be reduced into five. In respect of

• The Sufferer dying.
• The Creatures obeying.
• The Jews persecuting.
• The Women beholding.
• The Disciples forsaking.

1. In regard of Christ; to testify not only his Innocence, but his Majesty. His Innocence, that he was as Pilate's wife acknowledged, a Just man. His Majesty as the Centurion confessed, Seeing the earth quake and the things that were done; Truly this was the Son of God. He seemed a worm, no man: the contempt and derision of the people, forsaken of his confidence: in the midst of all God will not leave him without witnesses; but raiseth up senseless creatures as Preachers of his deity. Est aterni filius, qui illic pendet mortuus. He that hangs there dead on the Cross, is the Son of the eternal God. Rather then the children of God shall want witnesses of their integrity, God will work miracles for their testimony.

2. In regard of the Creatures, to show their Obedience to their Creator: they are not wanting to him, that gave being to them. These demonstrate, it was their Lord that suffered; and that they were ready to execute vengeance on his murderers. The heaven that was dark would have rained fire on them: the earth that quaked, shook them to pieces: the rocks that rent, tumbled on them: and the graves that opened to let out other prisoners, have swallowed them quick. They all waited but his command to perform this revengeful execution. Who shall now dare to persecute Christ in his members? The stones are thy enemies, the earth gapes for thee, hell it self enlargeth her jaws: if the Lord but hiss to them, they are suddenly in an uproar against thee. Go on in your malice ye raging persecutors: you cannot wrong Christ, no not in his very members, but you pull the fists of all creatures in heaven, earth, and hell about your ears: flies from the air, beasts from the earth, poison from sustenance, thunder from the clouds; yea at last also (though now they help you) the very devils from hell against you. All creatures shoot their malignancy at them, that shoot theirs at Christ.

3. In respect of the Jews, his enemies; to shame and confound them. The rocks and graves are moved at his passion, not they. Lapides tremunt homines fremunt. The stones rent, the huge earth quakes with fear; the Jews rage with malice. We see how difficult it is to mollify a hard heart: harder then to remove a mountain, raise the dead, cleave a rock, shake the whole earth. It is a great mryacle to convert a wicked man; greater then rending of rocks. Moses rod stroke a Rock thrice and did it: ministers have stroke men's rocky harts three hundredth times, and cannot. The graves sooner open, then the sepulchers of sin and darkness: the vast earth sooner quakes, then men's hearts at God's judgments.

4. In respect of the women that stood by; that their faith might be confirmed. For seeing him on the Cross, at their mercy, whose bowels never knew the softness of such a nature: exposed to all the tyranny of their hands and tongs: hands that like cruel Surgeons searched every part of his blessed body: tongues that ran nimbly through all the passages of obloquy, till they had overtaken reproach it self, and cast it on him: His body at the full will of the tormenters, and his soul not without intolerable terrors; as they might judge by strange speech that came from him; My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Doth man triumph over him, and doth God forsake him? This might breed in their hearts a suspicion: either that he was a deceiver, or else utterly cut off. To stifle this doubt in the very birth, he shakes the earth, and rends the rocks; that as they knew him dying Hominem v •… rum, so they might perceive him doing these miracles not Hominem merum; but the everliving God. These wonders; blow the spark of their faith, almost dying with Christ; and root in their hearts a deep and infallible persuasion of their Savior. Something there is to keep the faith of the elect from quenching, though Satan reign on it showers of discomforts. Though no object greets the eye of flesh but discouragement yet there is a secret Sp •… it within, that will never suffer the faith to fail.

5. In regard of the Disciples; to shame and convince them for leaving him, Christ had said before, Luk. 19. Si hitacerent, loquerentur lapides. If these (speaking of his Disciples) should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. Loe, this saying is here come to pass: the Disciples hold their peace, the stones speak: they forsake Christ, the rocks proclaim him. Such a shame is it for Apostles and ministers of Christ to hold their peace; that if they be silent, the very stones shall preach against them. The walls, windows, pavements of Churches shall cry out against such Pastors, that undertake the office of a sheep-heard, and feed Christ his flock with nothing but air. And even you that come to hear; if no remorse can be put into your hearts at the relation of our Saviors death: if you have no feeling of his sorrows, no apprehension of these mysteries, no repentance of your sins, no emendation of your lives; know that the very seats whereon you sit, the walls of your Temples, the very stones you tread on, shall bear witness against you.

Now the Lord Jesus, that at his death brake the Rocks; by the virtue of his death break our rocky hearts; that being mollified in this life they may be glorified in the life to come. Grant this O Father for thy mercies sake, O Christ for thy merits sake, O holy Spirit for thy names sake: To whom three persons, one only wise and eternal God, be glory and praise forever.

Fools.

The fool is the wicked: an ignorant heart is always a sinful heart: and a man without knowledge, is a man without grace. So Tamar to Ammon under his ravishing hands; Do not this folly. If thou doest it, Thou shalt be as one of the Fools in Israel. Ignorance cannot excusare a toto; willful not a tanto. Christ shall come in flaming fire rendering vengeance to them that know not God. The state of these Fools is fearful. Like hooded Hawkes, they are easily carried by the Infernal Falconer to hell. Their lights are out, how shall their house scape robbing? These Fools have a knowledge, but it is to do evil. They have also a knowledge of good, but not scientiam approbationis: they know, but they refuse it. So God justly quites them: for though he know them ad scientiam, he will not know them ad approbationem. But gives them a Discedite, nescio vos. I know you not: depart from me ye workers of iniquity.

A man may be a Fool two ways; by knowing too

• Little
• Much.

1. By knowing too little; when he knoweth not those things, whereof he cannot be ignorant, and do well. I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. But every man saith he knows Christ. If men knew Christ his love in dying for them, they would love him above all things: how do they know him, that love their money above him? Nemo vere nouit Christum, qui non vere amat Christum. No man knows Christ truly, that loves him not sincerely. If men knew Christ, that he should be Judge of quick and dead, durst they live so lewdly. Non nouit Christum, qui non odit peccatum. He never knew Christ, that doth not hate iniquity. Some attribute too much to themselves, as if they would have a share with Christ in their own salvation. Nesciunt & Christum & seipsos: they are ignorant of both Christ and themselves. Others lay too much on Christ, all the burden of their sins, which they can with all possible voracitie swallow down, and blasphemy vomit up again upon him. But they know not Christ, who thus seek to divide Aquam a sanguine, his blood from his water; and they shall fail of justification in heaven, that refuse sanctification upon earth.

2. By knowing too much; when a man presumes to know more then he ought. His knowledge is apt to be pursy and gross, and must be kept low. Mind not high things, saith the Apostle. Festus slandered Paul, that much learning had made him mad. Indeed it might have done, if Paul had been as proud of his learning, as Festus was of his honor. This is the knowledge that puffeth up. It troubles the brain, like undigested meat in the stomach: or like the scum that seeths into the broth. To avoid this folly, Paul fortbids us to be wise in our own conceits. Whereof I find woe readings; Be not wise in yourselves; and Be not wise to yourselves.

Not in yourselves; conjure not your wit into the circle of your own secret profit. We account the simple Fools, God accounts the crafty Fools. He that thinks himself wise, is a Fool ipso facto. It was a modest speech that fell from the Philosopher. Si quando fatuo delectari volo, non est mihi longe quaerendus; me video. Therefore Christ pronounced his Woes to the Pharisees; his doctrines to the people. The first entry to wisdom, is Scire quod nescias: to know thy ignorance. Sobriety is the measure for knowledge, as the Gomer was for Manna, Curiositie is the rennet, that turns our milk into curds.

Not to yourselves; Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, saith the wisest king: communicate thy knowledge. Math. 5. Christians must be like lights, that wast themselves for the good of those in God's house. Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter. He that will be wise only to himself, takes the ready way to turn fool. Non licet habere priuatam, ne priuemur eâ. The closer we keep our knowledge, the likelier we are to loose it. Standing water soon puddles; the gifts of the mind, if they be not employed, will be impaired. Every wicked man is a fool by comparing their properties.

1. It is a Fools property Futuranon prospicere, to have no foresight of future things. So he may have from hand to mouth, he sings care-away. So the grasshopper sings in harvest when the Ant labors: and begs at Christmas when the Ant sings. The wicked takes as little care what shall become of his soul, as the natural fool what shall become of his body. Modo Potiar, saith the Epicure: Let me have pleasure now; It is better to a living dog then to a dead Lyon. They do not in fair weather repair their house against storms: nor in time of peace provide spiritual armor against the day of war. They watch not; therefore the day of the Lord shall come upon them as a thief in the night, and spoil them of all their pleasures. The main business of their soul is not thought of; nor dream they of an Audit, till they be called by death away to their reckoning.

2. It is a Fools property to affect things hurtful to himself. Ludit cum spinis; he loves to be playing with thorns. Neither yet Quod nocuit, docu •… t; hath that which hurt him, taught him caution, but he more desperately desires his own mischief. The wicked do strongly appropriate to themselves this quality. Cum illis ludunt, quae illis laedunt: they love to dally with their own vexation, who else would do at on the world; and hover like wasps about the galley-pot, till for one lick of the honey they be drownd in it! What is your ambition, O ye world-affecters; saith August: but to be affected of the world? what do you seek, but per multa pericula peruenire ad plura? per plurima ad pessima? but through many dangers to find more; through easier to find the worst of all? Like that doting Venetian, for one kiss of that painted harlot, to live her perpetual slave? The world was therefore called the Fools Paradise; there he thinks to find heaven, and there he sells it to the devil. Noxia quaerunt improbi; they hast as a bird to the snare: the devil doth but hold vanity as a sharp weapon against them, and they run full breast upon it. They need no enemies; let them alone, and they will kill themselves. So the envious pines away his own marrow: the adulterer poisons his own blood: the prodigal lauisheth his own estate: the drunkard drownds his own vital spirits. Wicked men make war upon themselves with the engines of death.

3. It is a Fools property to prefer trifles and toys, before matters of worth and weight. The fool will not give his bable for the kings Exchequer. The wicked prefers bodies of dust and ashes to their souls of eternal substance: this sin corrupted and time-spent world, to the perfect and permanent joys of heaven: short pleasures to everlasting happiness: a puff of fame before a solid weight of glory. What folly can be more pitiable: then to forsake corn for acorns: a state of immortality for an apple, as Adam did: a birthright with all the privileges for a mess of pottage, belly-cheare, as Esau did: a kingdom on earth, yea in heaven too, for asses as Saul did: all portion in Christ for bacon, as the Gergesites did: a royalty in heaven, for a poor Farm on earth as the bidden guest did. This is the worldlings folly. Villa, bones, vxor &c.

Mundus, cura, caro caelum clausere vocalis. To esteem grace and glory less then Farms, oxen, wives: manna then onions, mecrie then vanity: God then Idols. They may be fitly paralelld with the Prodigal. He forsook 1. His Fathers house for a strange country: these the Church, God's house, for the world; a place wherein they should be strangers: and wherein I am sure, they shall not be long dwellers. 2. His Fathers inheritance for a bag of money: so these will not tarry for their heritagein heaven, but take the bags which Mammon thrusts into their hands on the present. Who but a Fool will refuse the assured reversion of some great Lordship, though expectant on the expiration of three lives: for a ready sum of money not enough to buy the least stick on the ground? This i •… the worldlings folly, rather to take a piece of •… p-coin in hand, then to trust God for the invaluable mass of glory. 3. He forsakes his loving friends for harlots, creatures of spoil and rapine: so these the company of Saints. For the Sons of Belial: those that sing praises, for those that roar blasphemies. 4. Lastly the bread in his Fathers house, for husks of beans: so these leave Christ the true bread of life, for the draff which the swine of this world puddle in. Here is their Folly to fasten on transient delights, and to neglect the pleasures at the right hand of God for evermore.

4. It is a Fools property, to run on his course with precipitation. Yet can he not out-run the wicked: whose driving is like Jehu's the son of Nimshi: he driveth as if he were mad. As if he had received that commission, salute no man by the way. The wise man seeth the plague and hideth himself, but the fool runneth on and is punished. He goes, he runs, he flies; as if God that rides upon the wings of the wind should not overtake him. He may pass a pace, for he is benefited by the way: which is smooth, without rubs: and down a hill, for hell is a bottom. Facilis descensus Auerni. Hast might be good if the may were good, and good speed added to it. But this is Cursus celerrimus praeteruiam. He needs not run so fast: for numquamsero ad id venitur, a quo nunquam receditur: the fool may come soon enough, to that place, from whence he must never return. Thus you see the respondency of the spiritual to the natural Fool, in their qualities. Truly the wicked man is a Fool: so Solomon expounds the one by the other. Eccl. 7. Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldst thou die before thy time?

Fools. Observe, this is plurally and indefinitely spoken. The number is not small; Stult •… rum plena sunt omnia. Christ's flock is little; but Satan's kingdom is of large bounds. Plurima possima; vile things are ever most plentiful. Wisdom flies like the Rail, alone: but fools, like Partridges, by whole coueys. There is but one Truth, but innumerable errors. Which should teach us

1. Not to follow a multitude in evil. In civil actions it is good to do as the most; in religious, to do as the best. It shall be but poor comfort in hell, Socios habuisse doloris. Thou pleadest to the Judge; I have done as others: the Judge answers; And thou shalt speed as others.

2. To bless God, that we are none of the many: as much for our Grace, whereby we differ from the fools of the world; as for our Reason, whereby we differ from the fools of nature.

Now as these fools are many, so of many kinds. There is the Sad fool, and the Glad fool: the Haughtie fool, and the Naughtie fool.

1. The Sad or melancholy fool is the Envious; that repines at his brothers good. An enemy to all God's favors, if they fall besides himself. A man of the worst diet; for he consumes himself; and delights in pining, in repining. He is ready to quarrel with God, because his neighbors flock scape the rotte. He cannot endure to be happy, if with company. Therefore envy is called by Prosper; De bono alterius tabescentis animi cruciatus: the vexation of a languishing mind, arising from another's well-fare. Tantos Inuidus habet iustae poenae tortores, quantos inuidiosus habuit laudatores. So many, as the envied hath praisers, hath the envious tormentors.

2. The Glad fool, I might say the Mad fool, is the dissolute; who rather then he will want sport, makes goodness it self his Minstrel. His mirth is to fully every virtue with some slander; & with a •… est to laugh it out of fashion. His usual discourse is filled up with boasting Parentheses of his old sins: and though he cannot make himself merry with their act, he will with their report; as if he roued at this mark, to make himself worse then he is. If repentance do but proffer him her service, he kicks her out of doors: his mind is perpetually drunk; and his body lightly dies, like Anacreon, with a grape in his throat. He is stung of that serpent, whereof he dies laughing.

3. The Haughtie fool is the ambitious: who is ever climbing high Towers, and never forecasteth how to come down. Up he will, though he fall down headlong. He is weary of peace in the Country, and therefore comes to seek trouble at Court: where he haunts great men, as his great spirit haunts him. When he receives many disappoyntments, he flatters himself still with success. His own fancy persuades him, as men do fools, to shoot away another arrow, thereby to find the first: so he looseth both. And lastly, because his pride will admit of no other punisher, he becomes his own torment: and having at first lost his honesty, he will now also loose his wits; so truly becomes a fool.

4. The Naughtie fool is the Covetous. This is the Folly that Solomon saw under the Sun. You heard before of a merry fool; but the very fool of all is the avarice: for he will loose his friends, starve his body, damn his soul, and have no pleasure for it. So saith the Prophet. He shall leave his riches in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a Fool. He wastes himself, to keep his goods from wast: he eats the worst meat, and keeps his stomach ever chiding. He longs like a fool, for everything he sees; and at last may habere quod voluit, non quod vult: have what he desired, never what he desires. He fears not the day of judgment; except for preuēting the date of some great obl •… gatio. You would think it were petty treason to call a rich man fool; but he doth so that dares justify it. Luk. 12. Thou fool, this night shall they fetch away thy soul from thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?

We have anatomized the Fool, let us behold his Sport. He maketh a mock at sin.

The Fathers call this Infimum gradum, and Limen inferni; the lowest degree of sin, and the very threshold of hell. It is Sedes pestilentiae, the Scorners chair. Psal. 1. wherein the ungodly sits, blaspheming God and all goodness. Nemo fit repent pessimus. No man becomes worst at first. This is no sudden evil. Men are borne sinful, they make themselves profane. Through many degrees they climb to that height of impiety. This is an extreme progress, and almost the journeys end of wickedness: Improbo laetari affectu. Thus Abner calls fighting a sport. Let the young men arise, and play before us. They glory in their shame, saith the Apostle; as if a condemned malefactor should boast of his halter. Fools make a mock at sin.

We shall the more clearly see, and more strongly detest this senseless iniquity, if we consider the object of the Fools Sport; Sin.

1. Sin, which is so contrary to goodness: and though to man's corrupt nature pleasing, yet even abhorred of those sparks and cinders, which the rust of sin hath not quite eaten out of our nature, as the Creation left it. The lewdest man, that loves wickedness as heartily, as the devil loves him; yet hath some obiurgations of his own heart: and because he will not condemn his sin, his heart shall condemn him. The most reprobate wretch doth commit some contraconscient iniquities: and hath the contradiction of his own soul, by the remanents of reason left in it. If a lewd man had the choice to be one of those two Emperors, Nero or Constantine; who would not rather be a Constantine then a Nero? The most violent oppressor that is cruel to others, yet had rather that others should be kind to him then cruel. The bloodiest murderer desisires that others should use him gently, rather then strike, kill, or butcher him. Nature it self prefers light to darkness: and the mouth of a Sorceresse is driven to confess, Video meliora, probóque. The most rigid usurer, if he should come before a severe Judge, would be glad of mercy; though himself will show none to his poor bond-men.

Cogitur. It is then first a contra-natural thing to make a mock at sin.

2. Sin, which sensibly brings on present judgments Thou art made whole: sin no more, least a worse thing come unto thee. Sin procured the former, and that was grievous; 38. years bed-rid: Sin is able to draw on a greater punishment; Least a worse thing come unto thee. If I should turn this holy book from one end to the other; if I should search all Fathers, yea all writers whether divine or human; I should evince this conclusion; that Sin hales on Judgment. Pedisequis sceleris supplicium. If there be no fear of impiety, there is no hope of impunity. Our Machiauellian Politicians have a position: that Summa scelera nicipiuntur cum periculo, peraguntur cum praemio: the greatest wickedness is begun with danger, gone through with reward. Let the Philosophers stop their mouths: Scelus aliquis tutum, nemo securum tulit. Some guilty men have been safe, none ever secure.

This every eye must see. Let adultery plead that nature is encourager and directer of it; and that she is unjust to give him an affection, and to bar him the action: yet we see it plagued. To teach us that the sin is of a greater latitude, then some imagine it: unclean, fedifragous, perjured. Broad impudence, contemplative Bauderie, an eye full of whores are things but jested at: the committers at last find them no jest, when God pours vengeance on the body, and wrath on the naked conscience.

Let drunkenness stagger in the robes of good fellowship; and shrowdit self under the wings of merriment; yet we see it have the punishment, even in this life. It corrupts the blood, drowns the spirits, beggars the purse, and enricheth the carcase with surfeits: a present judgment waits upon it. He that is a thief to others, is at last a thief also to himself; and steals away his own life. God doth not ever forbear sin to the last day; nor shall the bloody Ruffian still escape but his own blood shall answer some in present, and his soul the rest eternally. Let the Seminary pretend a warrant from the Pope to betray and murder Princes; and build his damnation on their tetricall grounds; which have Parum rationis, minus honestatis, Religions nihil; Little Reason, less Honesty, no Religion. Yet we see, God reveals their malicious stratagems, and buries them in their own pit. Piercies head now stands Sentinel, where he was once a Pioner.

If a whole land flow with wickedness, it escapes not a deluge of vengeance. For England; have not her bowels groaned under the heavy pestilence? If the plague be so common in our mouths, how should it not be common in our streets? With that plague wherewith we curse others, the just God curseth us. We shall find in that Imperial state of Rome, that till Constantine's time almost every Emperor died by treason or massacre: after the receiving of the Gospel, none except that reuolter Julian: Let not sin then be made a sport or jest, which God will not forbear to punish even in this life.

3. But if it bring not present Judgment, it is the more fearful. The less punishment wickedness receives here, the more is behind. God strikes those here, whom he means to spare hereafter; and corrects that son which he purposeth to save. But he scarce meddles with them at all, whom he intends to beat once for all. The Almond tree is forborne them, who are bequeathed to the boiling Potte. There is no rod to scourge such in present; so they go with whole sides to hell. The purse and the flesh scapes, but the soul pays for it. This is Misericordia puniens, a grievous mercy: when men are spared for a while, that they may be spilled forever. This made that good Saint cry; Lord here afflict, cut, burnt, torture me; Vt in aeternum parcas; that forever thou wilt save me. No sorrow troubles the wicked, no disturbance embitters their pleasures: But remember saith Abraham to the merry-liu'ed rich man, Thou wert delighted, but thou art tormented. Tarditas supplicij grauitate pensatur: and he will strike with iron hands, that came to strike with leaden feet. Tuli, nunquid semper feram? no; their hell-fire shall be so much the hotter, as God hath been cool and tardy in the execution of his vengeance. This is a Judgment for Sin that comes invisible to the world, insensible to him on whom it lights. To be given over to a reprobate mind; to a hard and impenitent heart. If anything be vengeance, this is it. I have read of plagues, famine, death come tempered with love and mercy: this never but in anger. Many taken with this spiritual lethargy sing in Taverns, that should howl with dragons: and sleep out Sabbaths and Sermons, whose awaked souls would rend their hearts with anguish. Fools then only make a mock at sin.

4. Sin that shall at last be laid heavy on the conscience: the lighter the burden was at first; it shall be at last the more ponderous. The wicked conscience may for a while lie a sleep: but Tranquilitas ista tempestas est: this calm is the greatest storm. The mortallest enemies are not evermore in pitched fields, one against the other: the guilty may have a seeming truce, true peace they cannot have. A man's debt is not paid by 〈◊〉 bring: even while thou sleepest, thy arrearages run on. If thy conscience be quiet without good cause, remember that Cedat iniustissima pax iustissimo bello: a just war is better then unjust peace. The conscience is like a fire under a pile of green wood, long ere it burn; but once kindled it flames beyond quenching. It is not pacifiable whiles sin is within to vex it: the hand will not cease throbbing so long as the thorn is within the flesh. In vain he striveth to feast away cares, sleep out thoughts, drink down sorrows; that hath his tormentor within him. When one violently offers to stop a source of blood at the nostril, it finds a way down the throat not without hazard of suff •… cation. The stricken dear runs into the thicket, and there breaks off the arrow: but the head sticks still within him, and rankles to death. Flitting and shifting ground gives way to further anguish. The unappeased conscience will not leave him, till it hath shown him hell; nor then neither. Let then this Fool know, that his now feared conscience shall be quickened: his death-bed shall smart for this. And his amazed heart shall rue his old willful adjournings of repentance. How many have there raued on the thought of their old sins; which in the days of their hot lust they would not think sins. Let not then the Fool make a mock at sin.

5. Sin, which hath another direful effect, of greater latitude; and comprehensiue of all the rest. Diuinam incitat iram. It provokes God to anger. The wrath of a king is as messengers of death; what is the wrath of the king of kings. For our God is a consuming fire. If the fire of his anger be once thoroughly incensed, all the rivers in the South are not able to quench it: What pillar of the earth, or foundation of heaven can stand, when he will wake them? He that in his wrath can open the jaws of earth to swallow thee, sluice out floods from the sea to drown thee, rain down fire from heaven to consume thee; Sodom, the old world, Corah, drunk of these wrathful vials. Or to go no further, he can set at jar the elements within thee, by whose peace thy spirits are held together: drown thee with a dropsy bred in thy own flesh: burn thee with a pestilence begotten in thy own blood: or bury thee in the earthly grave of thy own melancholy. Oh it is a fearful thing, to fall into the hands of the living God. It is then wretchedly done, thou Fool, to jest at sin that angers God, who is able to anger all the veins of thy heart for it.

6. Sin, which was punished even in heaven. Angeli detruduntur propter peecatum. 2. Pet. 2. God spared not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell. It could bring down Angels from heaven to hell; how much more men from earth to hell! If it could corrupt such glorious natures, what power hath it against dust and ashes! Art thou better or dearer then the Angels were? Dost thou flowt at that which condemned them? Go thy ways, make thyself merry with thy sins; mock at that which threw down Angels. Vnles God give thee repentance, and another mind, thou shalt speed as the lost Angels did. For God may as easily cast thee from earth as he did them from heaven.

7. Sin, which God so loathed, that he could not save his own elect because of it, but by killing his own Son. It is such a disease, that nothing but the blood of the Son of God could cure it. He cured us by taking the receipts himself which we should have taken. He is first cast into a Sweat; such a sweat as never man but he felt; when the bubbles were drops of blood. Would not sweating serve? he comes to incision, they pierce his hands, his feet, his sides; and set life it self abroach. He must take a potion too, as bitter as their malice could make it; compounded of vinegar & gall. And lastly he must take a stranger and stronger medicine then all the rest; he must die for our sins. Behold his harmless hands pierced for the sins, our harmful hands had committed. His undefiled feet, that never stood in the ways of evil, nailed for the errors of our paths. He is spitted on, to purge away our uncleanness: clad in scornful Robes to cover our wickedness: whipped, that we might escape everlasting scourges. He would thirst, that our souls might be satisfied: the Eternal would die, that we might not die eternally. He is content to bear all his Fathers wrath; that no pang of that burden might be imposed upon us: and seem as forsaken a while, that we by him might be received forever. Behold his side become bloody, his heart dry, his face pale, his arms stiff; after that the stream of blood had ran down to his wounded feet. O think if ever man felt sorrow like him; or if he felt any sorrow but for Sin.

Now is that Sin to be laughed at, that cost so much torment? Did the pressure of it lie so heavy on the Son of God, and doth a son of man make light of it? Did it wring from him sweat, and blood, and tears, and inconceivable groans of an afflicted spirit; and dost thou O fool, jest at it? Alas that which put our infinite Redeemer God and man, so hard to it; must needs swallow up and confound thee, poor sinful wretch. It pressed him so far that he cried out to the amazement of earth and heaven; My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Shall he cry for them, and shall we laugh at them? Thou mockest at thy oppressions, oaths, sacrileges, lusts, frauds; for these he groaned. Thou scornest his Gospel preached, he wept for thy scorn. Thou knowest not, O fool, the price of a Sin: thou must do, if thy Savior did not for thee. If he suffered not this for thee, thou must suffer it for thyself, Passio aeterna erit in te, si passio Aeterni non erat pro te. An eternal passion shall be upon thee, if the Eternals passion were not for thee. Look on thy Savior, and make not a mock at Sin.

8 Lastly Sin shall be punished with Death: you know what death is the wages of it: not only the first, but the second death. Inexpressible are those torments: when a reprobate would give all the pleasures that e •… er he enjoyed, for one drop of water to cool his tongue. Where there shall be unquenchable fire to burn, not to give light; save a glimmering; ad ag grauationem, vt videant vnde doleant: non ad consul •… ionem, ne videant vnde gandeant: to show them the torments of others, and others the torments of themselves.

But I cease urging this terror; and had rather win you by the love of God, then by his wrath and Justice. Neither need I a stronger argument to dissuade you from sin, then by his passion that died for us being enemies. For if the agony, anguish, and heart-blood of Jesus Christ shed for our sins, will not move us to repentance, we are in a desperate case. Now therefore I fitly leave Paul's adjuration, so sweetly tempered in your bosoms: commending that to your consciences, and your consciences to God. I beseech y •… brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto GOD.

The Fire.

Is discord, debate, contention, anger, and hatred against the godly. Every man is composed of four elemental humors, whereof one is Choler, resembled to Fire. In whom this Choler is most adust, & puissant, they are usually most hot, furious, fiery. But I speak here of nature; for grace can alter nature, and purge this corruption. Regeneration is the best physic to purge Choler. Many medicines hath Philosophy prescribed against this spiritual disease; but in vain. The Philosophers servant could scoff his Master: He inueighes against anger, writes volumes against it, & ipse mihi irascitur; and yet he is angry with me. Only grace can (more then give rules) give power to master this madness. Fire and Contention have some resemblances.

1. Debate is like Fire; for as that of all elements, so this of all passions, is most violent. The earth is huge, yet we walk quietly on it; it suffers our ploughes to rend up the entrails of it; to teach us patience. The air is copious, yet admits our respiration. The waters boisterous, yet sail we upon them, against them. But Fire, especially getting the upper hand, is unmercifully raging: it left nothing behind, to witness the former happiness of Sodom. The worlds last destruction, shall be by Fire: and God useth that, of all elements, to express the very torments of hell; adding Brimstone to it. To this is the anger of God likened; Our God is even a consuming fire. So doth debate exceed all passions: floods of correction, can quench the turbulent an fiery spitit which is set on fire of hell. Only one extreme may drive out another; as we hold our burnt finger to the fire, by a new heat to extract the former. So the fire of grace only must draw out the Fire of debate; or send it to the everlasting fire to purge it.

2. Contention is like Fire; for both burn so long, as there is any exustible matter to contend against. Only herein it transcends fire: for fire begets not matter, but consumes it; debate begets matter, but not consumes it. For the wicked study cause of contention, as Benhadad against Ahab 1. king 20. So when the Pope could find no just exception against Frederick the Emperor; he quarrel'd with him for holding the wrong stirrup; when the great Prelate should mount his palfrey; and thought he might easily mistake, for Emperors are not used to hold stirrups, yet he was persecuted almost to excommunication, for it. It is woeful dwelling amongst debatefull men, whose souls hate peace: that are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , without natural affection; which Paul makes a reprobates mark: striking all that stand in their way; and not ceasing to burn, till all matter cease to feed them. Solomon discribes such with a fiery comparison. First. ver. 17. he calls him a Busi-body he passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him: he thrusts himself into impertinent business; and is like one that taketh a dog by the ears; which he can neither hold, nor well let go. ver. 18. He notes his political villainy. As a mad-man, who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death; and saith, Am I not insport? he scattereth abroad mortal mischiefs under the color of jest. And ver. 20. lest the fire should go out, he administers fuel himself. Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out. ver. 21. when he hath kindled this flame, he strives to spread and disperse it; and is as coals to burning coals, and wood to the fire. The words of a tale-bearer are wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly. They penetrate and cruciate the most tender and sensible places.

3. As a little spark grows to a great flame so a small debate often proves a great rent. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. The wind at first a small vapor, yet gets such strength in going, that it over-turns trees and towers. A back-biting tongue hath pulled down strong cities, and overthrown the houses of great men. War is compared to fire. Numb. 21. A fire is gone out of Heshbon, and a flame from the city of Sihon: it hath consumed Ar of Moab, and the Lord's of the high places of Arnon. But contention runs like wild-fire; so furious a pace, that nothing but blood can extinguish it.

4. As fire is proverbially said to be an ill master, but a good servant: so Anger where it is a Lord of rule is a Lord of mis-rule; but where it is subdued to reason, or rather sanctified to grace, it is a good servant. That anger is holy, that is zealous for the glory of God.

This is Division; a raging fire: and able, whether it take hold of civility or religion, of Burse or Church, to overthrow the common good of both.

For civility, the breaking of relatives, is the ruin of substantives. We stand not of our selves, but upon reference. Want of justice in magistrates, of instruction in governors, of obedience in subjects, of charity in neighbors, destroys the common wealth. Some gather thus much from the fifth Commandment, by good consequence. Honor thy Father and thy Mother, that thy days may be long in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. For if Princes rule well and subjects obey well; if masters command right, and servants do right: if Parents instruct children in the fear of God, and children obey parents in that fear; this happy harmony shall preserve the land. If this relation, and reciprocal duty be neglected, all runs to ruin: and the blessing of long life shall be with-drawn. For it is not fit they should have long life, that rebel against those from whom they had, and by whom they hold their life.

Begin with the least ascendently. The overthrow of a house is Division. When the husband and wife draw not euenly in the yoke; when the one brings fire & the other hath no water to-quench it: when the children are refractary, the servants wasters; there must needs be a decay of this family. Whereof consists a City, but of many households? If the particulars be ruinated, what will become of the general? When the members are gone where is the Body? If the Magistrates are unjust, the people disobedient, if one profession quarrel with another, and deny mutualitie: the head refusing to give guidance, the eyes their sight, the feet to walk, the hands to work; the body of that City dissolves. The dissolution of cities and towns, must needs ruin the Kingdom. When the members fell out with the stomach, that it devoured all, and took no pains; hereon the eye would not see for it, nor the hand work for it, nor the foot walk for it, &c. so the stomach wanting meat, the eyes, hands, feet, and all members faint and languish. Tributes & subsidies are but the dues and duties of the members to the Prince; who, as the stomach, returns all to their welfare and benefit.

Dissention in religion doth no less hurt, doth more. It divides a house. Here. Ver. 52. Five in one house shall be divided: two against three, and three against two. And Math. 10. A man's foes shall be they of his own household. It diuidesa city. How many cities have been destroyed by their own mutinous distractions, whom foreign invasions could not subdue! It divides a Kingdom; whereof France hath long been a bleeding witness: neither hath England been insensible.

It overthrows propinquitie: the mutual succor of lending, borrowing, giving, relieving is lost. Yea it overturns Nature it self, setting children at variance against their own parents. There are three very near; Superior, equal, inferior; Parent, wife, children: yet we must separate from them, rather then from Jesus Christ. Yea it is enough to extirpate all; Regem, legem, gr •… gem; Prince, law and people. No wonder then, if the busy devil seeks so studiously to kindle this fire! So Eusebius observes; The subtle Serpent, when persecutions gave the Church breathing space, began to vex her with her own divisions.

The Fewell.

Whereon this fire works, is the good Profession of the godly. So the rulers against Daniel in causa Dei sui: because of his Religion. Psal. 59. The mighty are gathered against me, not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord. They persecuted us, not because they find evil in us, but because they cannot find evil in us. They run and prepare themselves against me, without my fault. Without fault? it is fault enough in their judgment, because we serve the Lord. They speak evil of us, because we run not with them to the same excess of riot. If we will not communicate with their vicious customs, we shall participate of their raging cruelties. Against Israel, yea because it is Israel, do they consult: Come let us cut off them from being a Nation: that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For this cause was the Babylonian fire kindled against those three servants of God; and the same cause moved mystical Babylon to burn our Martyrs in England. If they would have turned to Idols and Images, the fire had been put out. We would not, could not yield to their superstitions, therefore the Fire burned.

But that which is the occasion of evil, cannot be perfectly good. Indeed that simply and of it self causeth evil, is evil it self. But that may be good, which indirectly and by consequence, in man's corrupt nature occasioneth it. The Gospel, and integrity of professing it, is not the efficient but accidental cause; or rather properly no cause, but an occasion of this feud. The bright Sun, shining on mud and filth, is said to cause stench: yet is not the Sun the true cause, but the former putrefaction of the subject reflected on, when a corrupt vapor comes into the fiery region, it is soon enflamed. Their rancorous filth had line quiet, as mucke in a dunghill, had not the Sun of the Gospel, shone on it, and stirred it, now howsoever the Gospel is not the direct cause of this, yet surely the occasion. For Athens is quiet enough till Paul comes: and till Christ is borne, Jerusalem is husht in peace. Many parishes stick not to say, we had rest and security enough before: but now since preaching came in, and the Pulpets have been warmed, there is nothing but disturbation and unquietness. How else could this Text be true, that Christ came to send fire on the earth? The deluge of sin was universal, and the waters of iniquity stood untroubled, and all was a Mare mortuum: but when Christ puts fire to this water, no marvel if they wrestle. The devil stirs not till God rouse him; as the wild boar sleeps till he be hunted. Let darkness cover men's impieties, and their slumber is unmolested: produce them to the light and they cannot endure it. The ulcerous side full of dead flesh, feels not till you touch the quick. But let Elias tell Ahab of his Idolatries, John the Baptist Herod of his lusts; and then, Thou art mine enemy. The ungodly may pretend other causes, but this is the true one. The Pope refused to confirm an Archbishop elect, when no insufficiency could be found against him, only because of his age: not considering, that himself being older did manage a greater place. But if the Archbishop was able to travel to Rome and back again to England, sure he was able to have sat in the Chair of Canturbury. Age was the exception; but the truth was the Archbishops honesty; that he carried not with him to Rome a golden bottle to quench the Popes thirsty soul: as many others d • d, who returned home with as much wit as they went forth, but not with so much money. Such was the Popes pretense against Reimundus the good Earl of Toulouse, that he was an Heretic: but when his just purgation and justifying of himself would not pacify his unmerciful Holiness; nor get peaceable possession of his own lands: it was evident to all eyes, that the Popes desire was not so much to have the Earl part from his Heresy, as from his Heritage. Persecutors plead castigation of errors, but they mean subersion of truth.

But great peace is prophesied to the Gospel. Esa. 11. The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb; and the Leopard lie quietly by the kid &c. And Mica •… . 4. They shall beat their swords, into plowshares, and their spears into pr •… ing hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. I answer, God will either restrain the fury of these savage beasts, and turn Esau's threats into mildness when he meets Jacob. He that sits in heaven laughs at their combinings. Or many Tyrants shall be converted to the faith of Christ; subjecting their Crowns, and laying down their Scepters at the feet of the Lamb. Or it may intend that outward universal peace which was through all the world, when Christ was borne in the days of Augustus. But most specially that peace of conscience, and Communion which shall be among the Saints; who shall lay aside all querelous differences, and be made one by the blood of Jesus.

But when the Gospel came to us in Queen Elizabeth's days of so blessed memory, we also had much peace. We had with Gloria in excelsis Deo, sung also Pax in terris. The iron gates of war were shut up; and the long tossed Ark of our Church had an Olive branch of flourishing peace bestowed on it. The fury of an Adversary was not known; but Righteousness and peace kissed each other. Yet was not this peace without great Fires.

1. There was a great fire of Anabaptism; a gross, perverse, and sottish sect, that had washed off their Font-water, as unclean: and thought it not enough to run out of Babylon, unless they ran also out of themselves, out of their wits. This combustion could not be well quenched; only we were happily rid of it by the shifting ground. For when the flames were suppressed in England, they burst out beyond Sea.

2. There was a great fire of Brownism; an Ignis fatuus, fastening on abundance of crude and squalid matter, could not easily be extinguished. It was blown up with the Bellows of pride; and because it might not have the own swinge, it fell to direct railing. They say the Church of England may be their mother, but is none of God's wife: why do they not call her plain Whore? For such is a mother that hath children; and no husband. But these the whiles are brave Sons, who care not to prove themselves bastards, that their mother may be noted for an Harlot. But the shame be their own, Integrity hers; who hath not defiled her bed, though they have shamed her womb. But whiles they call her Saint John's Beast in the Revelation; let them beware, least they prove themselves Saint Paul's Beast; to the Phil. chap. 3. ver. 2. Dogs. Surely God never will leave peaceable spirits in England, to go dwell with railers at Amsterdam.

3. There was a raging fire of the Papists; who to maintain their spiritual fire of superstition, made use of material fireto set a whole land in combustion. How unspeakable were their treasons against that gracious Princesse: which yet if we gather up into one volume, we shall find their last equalling all; which should have been a fire, a fire indeed; such a one as hell it self could only belch out. But bless we our God, that with sweet showers of mercy rained it out.

These fires have been kindled in a Land of peace, though many tears have been showered upon them, & earnest prayers sent up to heaven, for their quenching. Yea, and will be still, so long as that crown-shorn generation can transport their burning quils into England; and their great Antichrist, the Successor not of Peter, but of Romulus, sits on that fiery Chair. So long as he is suffered to tyranize over nations, to depose Kings, and dispose Kingdoms: who prays Peter and Paul, (as if they never had taught subjects to obey their Sovereigns) to eradicat and cast out an Emperor from his royalty. Whereupon he conferred the Empire upon Rodolphus, with this blasphemous verse.

But as Cardinal Benno affirms, that when this Hildebrand would needs solmnly excommunicate the Em perour, his Chair burst in pieces, being but newly made of suff •… cient timber: so if it were thoroughly broken to fitters never (like Jericho) to be rebuilded then (and not till then) Princes may reign in peace. From all this we may observe.

1. That this fire was kindled in Christ's time, and hath burned ever since. For if this rage stroke at the head, it will not favor the members. If the saucy Devil durst meddle and encounter with the Captain, he will not fear to set upon a mean soldier. Remember, saith Christ the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater then the Lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. We cannot expect that immunity, which our Savior never found. In the securest and most quiet state of the Church we have found this: that sedition hath trode on the heels of peace; and persecution been borne into the world, with the feet forward for hast.

2. That the godly must maintain this fire; for there must be in them no deficiency of fuel. They must hold fast integrity, though this be the matter whereupon this fire works. No peace must be had with them, that have no peace with God: I deny not peace in civil affairs, but in conforming our manners to theirs. For righteousness must not yield to iniquity: Christ must be borne, and being borne must reign, though Herod rage, and the Devil foam, and all Jerusalem be troubled at it. Dagon must yield to the Ark, not the Ark to Dagon: the ten Tribes come to Judah, not Judah go to them: Ishbosheth to David, not David to Ishbosheth.

The Gospel must be preached though hell break out into opposition: and we must keep faith & a good conscience, though persecutors print in our sides the marks of the Lord Jesus.

3. That the fruit of the Gospel is so far from allowing carnal peace, that it gives Dissention. It hath ever been the destiny of the Gospel to bring commotion, trouble, and wars; though no doctrine teacheth so much peace. Math. 10. I came not to s •… nd peace, but a sword. Not that the Gospel of it self causeth wars; for it maketh peace between God and man, man and man, man and his inward soul: but it overturneth the tables of the money-changers, spoileth the Bank of userers, will not let Herod keep his Herodias, bars Demetrius of his idolatrous shrines, pulls the cup from the mouth of the drunkard, denounceth confusion to the oppressor, vnuizardeth painted hypocrisy, and discovers the ugly face of fraud to the world; therefore it hath enemies, even to the effusion of blood, and endeuourd extirpation of all that profess it. So that partly this proceeds from our own corruption; that cannot endure the light, because our deeds are evil; and partly from the malice of Satan, who by the growth of the Gospel looseth his Jurisdiction. For look how much ground Christianity gets, that bloody infernal Turk looseth. So that neither can the Devil so vncontrollably lead men to quiet damnation; neither can the evil heart be so securely evil. For the Gospel informs the understanding, the understanding tells the conscience, and the conscience will not spare to tell men their wickedness. Though God's hand forbears to strike outwardly, the conscience smites inwardly; and the former unjust peace is broken by a new just war. Men shall by this means know hell before they salute, it and discern themselves in that broad way that leads to damnation. Safe they may be, they cannot be secure. Thus the Gospel begets all manner of enemies, foreign, civil, domestical. Forraigne, the Devil who now makes apparent his horns, as if it were high time to bestir himself. He sees, he cannot lead souls to his black kingdom in a twine-thread, as he was wont without reluctancy: he must clap irons upon them, and bind them with his strongest temptations. Civil, the world which erst ticed us on, as a bait doth the fish, not knowing that there is a hook so near the jaws we took it for a kind and familiar friend; but now it is descried and described for a very adversary. Domestical, thy own bosom is disquieted, and thou must muster up all the forces of thy soul, to take the Traytour that lurks within thee, thy own flesh. This is a near and a dear enemy, yet we must fight against it, and that with a will to subdue it; denying our selves, and forsaking our delighted lusts and pleasures. The godly must be fain to sit, like the Nightingale, with a thorn against their breast. If they scape conflicts abroad, they are sure to have them at home: and if foreign and professed adversaries should give over their invasions, yet this domestical rebel, lust, must with great trouble be subdued. After which spiritual combat, our comfort is that in the end the victory shall be ours. It shall not have rule over them that fear God, neither shall they be burnt with the flames thereof. Hence we learn five useful lessons.

1. That we have need of Patience: seeing we know that the law of our Profession binds us to a warfare; and it is decreed upon that all that will live godly in Christ, shall suffer persecution. When Fire, which was the God of the Chaldeans, had devoured all the other wooden deity, Canopis set upon him a Caldron full of water, whose bottom was full of holes artificially stopped with wax: which when it felt the heat of that furious Idol, melted and gave way to the water to fall down upon it, and quench it. The water of our patience must only extinguish this Fire: nothing but our tears moderation and sufferance can abate it. But this patience hath no further latitude, then our proper respect: for in the cause of the Lord we must must be jealous and zealous. Meam iniuri •… m patienter tuli, iniuriam contra Sponsam Christi ferre non potui. Our own injuries we must bury in forgetfulness, but wrongs to the Truth of God, and Gospel of Jesus Christ, we must strive to oppose and appease. Patience is intolerable, when the honor of God is in dangerous question. Otherwise we must consider, that by troubles God doth try and exercise our patience. Ideo Deus misit in terram bonam separationem, vt mal •… m rumperet coniunctionem. Therefore God sent on earth a good separation, that he might dissolve an evil conjunction.

2. That we must not shrink from our profession, though we know it to be the fuel that maintains this fire. Daniel leaves not his God, though he be shown the Lions; nor those three servants their integrity and abomination of the Idol, though the heat of the fire be septupled. Let the Pope spew out his execrations, interdictions, and maledictions (for his holy mouth is full of curses) yet keep we our faith: it is better to have the Pope curse us, then God. His curse is but like Domitians thunder: if you give care to the crackes and noise, it seems a terrible and hideous matter, but if you consider the causes and effects, it is a ridiculous jest. Reuolt not from the Gospel, from thy faith and innocence, and though he curse, the Lord will bless. Balaam could say; Quomodo maledicam ei, cui non maledixit Dominus? How shall I curse him, whom the Lord hath not cursed? Rash and headlong judgment hurts not the person de quo temere iudicatur, against whom it is denounced; but him that so indiscreetly judgeth. Qui conantur per iram aliena coereere, gra uiora committunt. To correct other men's errors in anger, is to commit a greater error then theirs. Let not the thunders of malignant opposers dishearten thy zeal The just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

3. That we think not much of the troublous fires, that are thus sent to wait upon the Gospel. He that gave us that blessed Covenant, meant not that we should stick at these conditions. It is enough to have this Passover though we eat it with sower herbs: to enjoy the Lily, though among thorns. Let the Jews fret and Devils run mad; and many give ground to these persecutions: yet say we with Peter. Master, whether shall we go from thee? thou hast the words of eternal life. He is unworthy of God's favor, that cannot go away contented with it, unless he may also enjoy the favor of the world. It is enough to have the promise of a Crown, albeit we climb to it by the Cross. The ancient Christians used to have Crucem Coronatam pictured, a Cross with a Crown on the top of it. Tolle crucem, si vis et babere coronam. Their Hieroglyphic taught men to attain the Crown; by bearing the Cross. Though the friends and factors of hell compass us round, yet we have heaven within us, would we have it within us, and without us too? that is only the privilege of glory. Cannot Paul endure the thorns and buffets of Satan? Let him quiet his heart with God's encouragement. My grace is sufficient for thee. It is enough to have the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, though we lack the (ill condition'd) peace of the world. Murmure not that the world denies her wanton solace •… , to tickle thee with vain pleasures: thou hast the joy of the holy Ghost. God is thy portion. Though the lot fall short in earthly means, wealth and worship: yet he is well for a part, that hath God for his portion. Content thyself; this fire must go with the Gospel; and thou art unworthy of the immortal gold of grace, if thou wilt not endure it to be tried in the Fire Your faith is much more precious then gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire: and shall be found at last to praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

4. That we esteem not the worse of our Profession, but the better. It is no small comfort, that God thinks thee worthy to suffer for his Name. This was the Apostles joy (not that they were worthy, but) that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ. He refused not to be our Savior for the shame he was put to: he brooked a purple robe to cover his white innocence; his face, which is worshipped by the Angels in heaven, to be spit on; his soul in the midst of all his unutterable pangs, to be derided and jested at; some wagging their heads, others moving their tongues to blasphemy: and if the manner of death could add to his ignominy, he suffered the most opprobrious: yet saith Paul, for our sakes, he endured the Cross, and despised the shame; this, all this shame, that he might bring salvation to us, and us to salvation. And shall we be ashamed of his profession; that was not ashamed of our protection? If we be, we have read his judgment; He will be ashamed of us before his Father in Heaven. The King doth not cast away his Crown, though it be the occasion of many treasons. Loose not thy hope and hold of a royal Inheritance, because this Title hath many enemies. He was never worthy to wear a wreath of victory, that cowardlike ran out of the bloody field. The unthrifty soul is justly starved, that will not reap and gather his corn, because there be thistles amongst it. He never knew how precious a metal gold is, that will rather throw away his oar, then take pains at the furnace. It is pity that ever the water of Baptism was spilled upon his face, that forsakes the Standard of Christ, because he hath many enemies. Israel had never gotten that promised Canaan, had they been afraid of the sons of Anak. It is honor enough to be a Christian though others that are contemptible do cast contempt upon it. Our Savior hath armed us with a sweet prediction. These things have I spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace: in the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheare, I have overcome the world.

5. Seeing the fuel is our integrity; and this they specially strike at; let us more constantly hold together: confirming the Communion of Saints, which they would dissolve. Let us more strongly fortify our unity, because they so fiercely assault it: and cling faithfully to our Head, from whom their sacrilegious hands would pull us, Lord, whether shall we go from thee? thou hast the words of eternal life. Where those words are found, woe be to us if we are not found. Multitudo inimicorum corroboret vnitatem a micorum. Let not brethren fight with themselves, whiles they have enough foreign enemies. It is enough that foes strike us; let not us strike our friends. No nor yet part with our friends and Christ's, because some adversaries are scattered among them. What though the miscellane rabble of the profane: as the Brownists term them, be admitted among us: shall the lewdness of these disannul God's Covenant with his? Yes say they: this is their mercy: God's is more. He still held Israel for his, when not many in Israel held him for theirs. The desert was a witness of their mutinous rebellion against God and his Minister; yet the pillar of protection by day and night left them not. Moses was so far from rejecting them, that he would not endure that God should reject them, though for his own advantage. In all companies there will be evil intruders: Satan among the Angels, Saul among the Prophets, Judas among the Apostles, Nicholas among the Deacons, Demas among Professors. Yet though Thiatira retains a Iezebell, the good are commanded but to hold their own.

But we reserve the ceremonies of a superstitious Church: but we reserve no superstition in those ceremonies. We have both abridged their number, and altered their nature. As it was a pains not amiss undertaken of late, to reduce the feast of Christ's nativity, as near to the right Quando and period of time, as art and industry could devise: by taking up the loose minutes which in tract of time, and multiplication of degrees, had drawn out a wider distance by certain days, then was congruent to the first Calendar. So hath our Church so near as she could abridged the rank superfluities, and excrescent corruptions, which the Traditionall ceremonies, and ceremonial Traditions of Rome had brought in, (and thereby removed her, from that nearness to her Savior, which she formerly enjoyed) striving to reduce her self concerning Ceremonies; for their number to paucity, for their nature to purity, for their use to significancie.

Separate we not then from the Church, because the Church cannot separate from all imperfection. But keep the Apostles rule. Follow the truth in love: not only the Truth, but the truth in love. Diuerse follow the truth, but not truly.

• 1. Some there are that embrace the truth, but not all the truth: those are Heretics.
• 2. Some embrace the truth, but not in unity; and those are Separatists.
• 3. Others embrace the truth in unity and verity, but not in heart: and those are hypocrites.

Therefore the Apostle so often urgeth it: Be ye all of one mind: have the same affection. As children of one house have most usually one and the same education: so all God's children must be like affected to God, to Christ, to the Church, and one to another. To God in obedience and piety, to Christ in faith and sincerity, to the Church in peace and unity, to their own sins in hatred and enmity, to one another in love and charity. Employing the graces of God bestowed on us, to the edification and consolation of others: spending our selves, like torches, to give others light. A Christian, though he be the freest man of all, yet he is servant to all: to Christ for himself, to others for Christ: serve one another in love. Let this affection of unity be increased by considering three inconveniences of dissension.

1. A great advantage is given to the enemy. They boast the goodness of others errors, whilst we agree not in our truth. They take opportunity to shuffle in their counterfeit coin, whiles we consent not in our gold; I say not so much for the weight or pureness of sub stance, as for the fashion. Is it not a shame for the children of God to dissent, when the children of hell are at peace? It is a military principle; Tempt not an enemy, by giving him the advantage. What is this, but to harten their malignant opposition to assault us, when they spy in the City a Breach? Qui vnionem rumpit, vnitatem ruit: He that dissolves the union of parts, overthrows the unity of the whole.

2. Sin by this means steals up: nor is there an advantage given only to our adversaries of Rome, but to our enemies of hell. Wickedness is a crafty thief; which spying a town on fire, and all hands laboring to quench it, takes his advantage of booties; and what others redeem, he steals. Whiles we are busy about this Fire, the devils factors come abroad, like Nicholas Clerks, and steal away souls. Whiles so many disagree about Christ's descending into •… ell, Satan gathers many thither.

3 Our souls by this means often become 〈◊〉 , & gather corruption for want of scouring them by repentance. Whiles we are careful and curious about mint and cummin, Justice and Piety go away neglected. We at once grow hot in contention, and cold in devotion. The fire of the Altar goes out whiles this fire of sedition is fewelled. It was the comparison of a worthy Divine. The means whereby the shepherds take the Pelican, is to lay fire near her nest: which she, in a foolish pity to save her young ones, offers to flap out with her wings, and so is burned her self. So many in a fond compassion to quench this fire, burn their own wings, rather then help others. If our ashes could quench it, we should not grudge them: but since it increaseth with part-takings, let us either quench it with our tears, or by our prayers move God to put it out. Howsoever neglect we not the estate of our own souls; nor suffer our hearts over-grown with the rust of corruption, or moss of security. So thou mayest be like the gold-finer that is all day purifying of metals, till himself be reezed, smooted, and soiled all over. Take heed, thou mayest be so long about the fire, till thou be made black with the smoke.

We have brought together the Fire, and the Fewell; now we must look for Kindlers.

The Kindler.

Of this fire is principally Satan: it is he that brings the fuel of good men's sanctity, and the fire of evil men's iniquity together; and so begets a great flame. This he doth perform either by his Instruments, or by himself. He is the great Bustuary himself, and hath other deputed inflamers under him.

Sometimes immediately by himself. Reu. 12. That great red Dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven Crowns on his heads: stands before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child so soon as it was borne. When he perceived that the Great Light (Christ) was come into the world, by throwing down his oracles of darkness, he begins to bustle and howsoever he speeds, he will fight two or three bouts with him, in a monomachie or duel, person to person. He durst not trust this battle to an instrument, or fight by Attorney: this fire he will kindle himself. As proud as he is, rather then he will hazard the escaping of a soul from his black kingdom, he will in his own proper person take the pains, to hamper him with his strongest temptations.

Sometimes by his instruments, which are many thousands: for if we compare numbers: he hath more helpers on earth to kindle this fire, then Christ hath servants to put it out. Therefore he is called the God of this world: where sub nomine mundi are meant mundani, worldlings. Reu. 12. He is said to deceive the whole world. He labors to deceive all that are in the world, but he doth deceive all that are of the world. It was he that stirred up covetousness in the Sabaeans, and covetousness stirred up their harts against Job. He incenseth Haman, and Haman Ahashueroch against the Jews. He provoked Judas, & almost all Judah against Jesus. He kindleth malice in their harts that kindle these damnable fires: & shall burn in unquenchable fire for his labor. It is he that provoketh the Magistrate to tyranny, the people to disobedience & treachery, the learned to heresy, the simple to security, all to rebellion and impiety. Men little think, whose instruments they are, & whose business they go about, when they put their finger in this fire. It is the devil, that puts slander in their tongues, malice in their hearts, & mischeefein their hands: whereby they labor either seducere or abducere, to corrupt men's souls, or to cut their throats. For Satan's whole intent is to draw men a cultu Dei debito, ad cultu •… suimet indebitum; from worshiping the God of light, to worship him that is an Angel of darkness. Oh that men would consider what eternal fire is prepared for them, by whom this mystical fire is kindled!

Now Satan kindleth two sorts of fires; General, or special. And either of these is double. The general are extended either to error, or terror.

1. He kindles the fire of open war. He is the great general of that army. Psal. 2. that do band themselves against the Lord's anointed. The Dragon and his angels fight against Michael and his Angels: There is no fighting against the Saints, but under his colors. He was the captain in that Parisiā massacre; the Pilot to that invincible nauie: 88. He is the great master of the inquisition: the grand Cair of all confederacles abroad; the Machiavelli of all conspiracies at home. There was no treason, but was first hammer'd in his forge & took the damned fire from his breath. The Pope hath been his applauded Instrument many years, to kindle these belluine & Belial fires. Innumerableseditions of wars have been sent from the enginous study of his holy breast to vex Christian Emperors and kings: wherein continually the Pope gave the battle, but the Lord gave the victory: and that where his vicar least intended it Hildebrand (Hell-brandrather) promised Rodolphus, whom he incensed against his liege-Emperor Henricus, assured conquest: but it seems the Bishop had small power in heaven, whatsoever he pretended on earth: for Rodolphus his overthrow gave Henricus direct proof to the contrary. It appears in a certain letter of Benno to the Cardinals, that this Hildebrand preaching in the Pulpit did so promise and prophecy the death of Henricus, that he bid his auditors no more to take him for Pope, but to pluck him from the Altar: if the said Henry did not die, or were not dejected from his kingdom, before the feast of Saint Peter then next ensuing. But the event proved the Pope a liar in the Pulpit; and therefore I hope took from him all impossibillitie of lying in Cathedra, Indeed he labored tooth and na •… le, by policy and sorcery, by his friends and fiends to •… ect this: innumerable were the plots of his treason. One among the rest is observable in the letter of the said Cardinal Benno. that he had hired a villain, observing the place in the Church where th •… Emperor used to pray, to carry up to the roof of the Church a great number and weight of stones; with purpose to let them fall down on the Emperors head at his devotion, and to knock out his brains▪ but the traitor being busy to remove a stone of an unwonted hugenes to the place, the plank whereon he stood broke; down they come both to the floor of the Church, & the stone (for it seems his own impiety made him the heavier to fall first to his center) fell on him, and quash'd him to pieces.

But what speak I of their particular treasons? a private treachery was but like the French Torney at Chalons. Parvum bellum; a little war: we areto consider their great Fir •… s, which they have kindled in the Christion world: when the Princes would never have broke mutual peace had not the Devil set on the Pope, and the Pope set on them to this eger contention. But lightly as Mars and money made them Popes; so Mars and Symonie held them rich Popes. And now through Satan's help they have brought it about; that as at first no Pope might be chosen without the Emperor, so now no Emperor must be chosen without the Pope. Both the swords are their claim; and they will have them both, or they will lift them up both against the deniers: and where the sword spiritual may not be admitted, they will make way for it with the sword temporal. It is fit, they say, that they should bear temporal rule, that follow nearest to God: but the Pope and his Clergy follow nearest to God: therefore are the fittest men to rule. It is answered, if God behere taken for that God, which S. Paul speaks of, the Belly: they follow nearest indeed. From the other and only true God, they are far enough. If they were not, they would use only spiritual war against the kingdom of Satan; and not meddle with temporal war against the kingdoms of Christian Princes. Plead what they can from the wrested Scriptures, and misunderstood Fathers; yet Frustra Apostolica authoritas pratenditur, vbi Apostolica Scriptura contemnitur: in vain is Apostolic authority pretended, where Apostolic Scripture is despised, or perverted. Non cripit mortalia, qui regna dat coelestia. That God warrants not the taking away of earthly kingdoms, that gives the kingdom of heaven.

2 The second general fire he kindles, is error and Heresy; a burning river of poison: that Cup of abomination, which he reacheth out to the world in the hand of that great Babylonian Whore. To maintain this fire, he calls Councils, enacts laws, teacheth many Parliaments the promulgation of bloody Statutes: and whereas other laws of Princes (tending to the ruin of iniquity) are ever neglected, those that are made against Christians, have been most severely executed. And least the Devil in this should appear like himself, the Prince of death and darkness; heesits thundering in the Popes mouth like an Angel of light, and so directs him; that under In Dei nomine: Amen; he unmercifully condemneth his brother. So that the usurpation of a divine dispensation, must burn the poor members of Christ at the fiery stakes. Now this fire he kindleth by two malicious courses.

1. By obscuring the light of the Gospel from men's eyes; and hartning their affection to darkness. So that the children of the night have so doted upon Ignorance, that they hate and persecute all the means and messengers of illumination. Shine the Sun never so bright, the Papists will see by nothing but Candlelight. Therefore it may be, they are permitted tapers, torches, and candles, to content their carnal devotion; that they might not spiritually desire the Light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God. And if ever their caliginous minds spy the least glimmering of zeal, or feel a little turning from their former impieties; the shrine, picture, or Image of some Saint hath the glory of their conversion. A very block shall have the praise, rather then God. But we can hardly believe, they are converted from darkness to light, that fetch their illumination out of a stone. It is recorded, that at Amesbary, when Queen Alinor the wife of King Henry, 3. Lay there; a man that feigned himself to have been long blind, came to her, and told her that he had now his sight restored again at the tomb of King Henry her deceased husband. The mother easily believed it; but her son Ed •… rd the first knowing this man, that he had been ever a dissolute wretch and vile impostor, disuaded her from giving faith to it: protesting that he knew so well the justice of his Father; that if he were living, he would sooner pull out both the dissemblers eyes, then restore sight to any one of them. So certainly those Saints, to the virtue of whose dead bones these hypocrites attribute the glory of their conversion and enlightening; would (if they were living) rather say these men had no eyes of grace at all, then that any light was given them out of their dead dusts, or painted resemblances. This is Satan's first project, to cast a thick cloud of invincible ignorance, between men's eyes and the clear Sun.

2. By hindering all those that have a commission to preach it. Zach. 3. He shown me Joshua the high Priest standing before the Angel of the Lord; and Satan standing at his right hand to resist •… m. A door is opened, but there are many adversaries: saith •… he Apostle. Will you hear the principal adversary? We would have come unto you (even I Paul) once and again: but Satan hindered us. The good minister hath no adversary in his calling, but he is of the devils raising. And herein he is either a wolf or a fox; effecting this either by open prevention, or secret perversion.

1 Openly he opposeth not only his Principalities infernal, but also Powers terrestrial against it. What preacher ever began to sing with a clear breast, the songs of Zion; for many hundred years under the Popes reach: but instantly, Pope, Cardinals, Friars, Devils cursed him with belles and candles, and were ready to burn him in flames! Saeuit mundus, cùm oftenditur immundus. The world is mad, that his dominion and damnation should be spoken against.

2. Secretly he hinders the free preaching of the Gospel, by corrupting their hearts that are deputed to that office. And this he effecteth by infusion of these four hellish ingredients: Heresy against truth: Schism against peace: Popularitie against simplicity; and covetise against Charity.

1. He poisons some hearts with heretical points of doctrine; which being lightly most pleasing to the flesh, are drunk with thirsty attention. Heresy is (thus defined) humanosensu electa, Scripturae sacrae contraria, palam docta, pertinaciter defensa: begot of man's brain, contrary to the holy Scriptures, openly taught, and peremptorily defended. By this, so far as the flesh in man prevails against the Spirit, Satan prevails against the truth. So that if they must needs have any of the pure gold of God's word, it shall be so sophisticated, adulterate, and mingled with the dross of human Traditions, that they shall not be able to perceive or receive it.

2. Those whom he cannot corrupt against truth, he incenseth against peace. Division shall accomplish that mischief, which error failed in. Whom he cannot transport to Rome, he ferries over to Amsterdam. He will either keep men on this side the truth, or send them beyond it. Error on the right hand shall cast away souls, if error on the left cannot. Some run so far from Babylon, that they will not keep near Jerusalem: as men that run so eagerly from a Lyon, that they refuge themselves in the hole of a Serpent. The Schismatic meets with the Romanist, in superstition another way. Thus Quibus nequit tollere veritatem, negat permittere vnitatem: It he cannot deprive us of truth, he will not permit us peace.

3. By persuading men to be temporizers, and to catch at the favors of great men. Thus when a Preacher must measure his Sermon by his Lord's humor, the truth of the Lord of Hosts is smothered. Against oppression he dares not speak, because it is his Lord's fault: not against pride because it is his Ladies: not against riot, because it is his young Masters: nor against drunkenness because they favor it whom his Great-one favors. He must not meddle with those ulcers, which he sees to stick on his Patrons conscience. That were the way to loose both present benefit, and future benefice; he dares not do it. Whiles he is their servile chaplain, he must learn Turkey-work; to make thrum'd cushions of flattery for their elbows. It seems, it was not God's business that such a one made himself Minister for; but his own or worse. He hath three Masters: he serves his Lord, he serves himself, he serves the Devil; which of these will pay him the best wages? Thus if Satan can neither take away the truth, nor peace, yet he labors against simplicity: that for fear of men, and hope of men's, they forbear to speak against wickedness. What his kingdom looseth one way, it recovers another.

4. By infecting their hearts with covetousness, and extending their desires to an insatiable wealth. With this pill he poisoned Demas; and Judas before him, and thousands after him. The Chair of Rome is filled with this pestilence. England hath found it, though many Princes will not find it. When the revenues of the Crown amounted not to half the Popes yearly taxes. But we are well eased of that unsupportable burden: Edward the 3. begun it, for he first made the Premunire against the Pope: and our succeeding Christian Princes have quite thrown him out of the saddle. God did not make his law so long, but man might easily remember it; comprising it all in ten Commandments. But the Pope hath curtalled it, & made it far shorter; abridging the ten commandments into two words; Da pecuniam Give money. And for this the whole law shall be dispensed with. Experience hath still proved, that money was the Apostolical arguments of Rome. An Emperor paid for his absolution 120000. ounces of gold: a dear reckoning for those wares, that cost the Pope nothing.

In the reign of Hen. 3. The Pope required the tenths of all the moveables in England, Ireland, & Wales: and because he feared, that such moneys could not be speedily enough collected, he sent over many userers into the land, which were then called Caursini: who would lend money to those of the Clergy that wanted, but on so unreasonable extortion, that the debtors were still beggared. So that what by his violent exaction, & subtle circumvention by his own userers (for all they had was the Popes money) he desired only the tenth part, but he got away also the other 9. And indeed the Pope had reason to maintain usury, for usury maintained the Pope. Neither is this infection bounded up with that Bishop, but dissipated among all his Clergy. Not so much as the very Mendicant Friars, that profess willful poverty, but have a willful desire to be rich. They have more holiness in their hands, then in their hearts: their hands touch no money, their hearts covet it. But the great Belphegor sometimes gives them a purge. Wherupon said W. Swinderby; If the Pope may take from the Friars to make them keep Saint Frances rule; why may not the Emperor take from the Pope, to make him keep Christ's rule? But whosoever gets, the poor Laity looseth all. There was a book called Poenitentiarius Asini, The Asses Confessor; wherein is mentioned this Fable. The wolf, the fox, and the asse come to shrift together, to do penance. The wolf confesseth himself to the fox, who easily absolveth him. The fox doth the like to the wolf, and receiveth the like favor. After this the asse comes to confession, and his fault was, that being hungry he had taken out one straw from the sheaf of a Pilgrim to Rome; whereof he was heartily repentant. But this would not serve, the law was executed severely upon him, he was slain and devoured. By the wolf is meant the Pope: by the fox his Cardinals, Jesuits, Priests: these quickly absolve one another, how heinous ever their offenses were. But when the poor Ass, that's the Laity, comes to shrift, though his offense be not the weight and worth of a straw; yet on his back must the law be severely executed; and the holy Father the wolf makes a great matter of it.

O the insatiable gulf of that Sea! God grant, that none of that infection ever come over amongst the ministers of the Gospel. There is nothing more absurd, then that those which teach others to seek the kingdom of heaven, and to despise the world; should be found to embrace the world with the neglect of heaven.

These are the general fires this malicious Incendiary kindles. There are also too particular and special, which he inflameth in private men's hearts: whereby he prepossesseth them with a prejudicial dises •… mation of the Gospel, for causes either direct, or oblique. Directly for it self, or obliquely and by consequence for private ends.

1. First he begets in a man's mind a dislike of the word for it self. This man esteems preaching but folly: he sees no good it doth, to have one prattling an hour or two in a Pulpit. He is a parishioner to two parishes: to the Congregation he lives with, Quoad corpus; to the Synagogue of Satan, Quoad animam. 1. Cor. 1. The preaching of the Cross is to them that perish, foolishness: but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. It is horrible when man, dust and ashes, mere folly; shall censure the Wisdom of God. Let them have their wills, be it in their account folly; yet it pleaseth God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. And without this they must live in error, and die in terror: hell fire will make them change their opinions.

2. Others are wrought to hate it only for second and simister respects. The Masters of that Damsel Act. 16. Possessed with a spirit of divination, seeing the hope of their gains gone, brought Paul and Silas to scourging; and never left them, till they saw them in prison. When Demetrius perceived the ruin (not so much of the Ephesian Diana, as) of his own Diana, gain and commodity in making of silver shrines; he sets all Ephesus in a tumult. The loss of profit or pleasure by the Gospel, is ground enough of malice and madness against it. Cannot a tyrant be bloody, cannot an oppressor depopulate, an usurer make benefit of his money, a swearer brave with blasphemies, a drunkard keep his tavern-session but the Pulpets must ring of it? Down shall that Gospel come, if they can subject it, that will not let them run to hell untroubled. Non turbant Evangelium, •… um ab Evangelio non turbentur: let them alone, and they will let you alone. But if you fight against their sins with the sword of the Spirit, they will have you by the ears, and salute you with the sword of death. You see the fires that the Devil Kindleth. It is objected.

1. Satan knows that he can do nothing but by the permission of God. Ans. Therefore not knowing God's secret will, who are elect, who reprobate, he labors to destroy all. And if he perceive, that God more especially loves any, have at them to choose. If he can but bruise their heels, O he thinks he hath wrought a great spite to God.

2. He knows that though with his tail he can draw stars from heaven, discover the hypocrisy of great Professors; yet he cannot wipe the name of one soul out of the book of life, which the Lamb hath written there. Answ. It is the Devils nature to sin against his own knowledge. Contra scientiam peccabit, qui contra conscientiam peccavit.

3. He knows, he shall receive the greater damnation, and the more aggravated torments. And the Devil that deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire & brimstone, where the beast & the false prophet are, & shall be tormented day & night, forever & ever. Ans. He sins always with purposed malice of heart, proudly against God, and blasphemously against the holy Ghost: though he receive the smart himself.

We perceive now the Fire, the Fewell, and the Kindler; let us look to The Smoke.

There goes lightly a Smoke before this Fire. Reu. 9. He opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace, and the Sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke, Locusts upon the earth, When we see smoke we conclude their is fire. Christ will not quench the smoking flax; for the smoke without shows a spark of faith within. When Abraham saw the smoke of the country going up as the smoke of a furnace. He knew that the fire was begun in Sodom. This smoke is the sign of persecution ensuing: and it is either Public or Private Public is twofold.

1. The threatening of Tyrants; this smoke came out of the mouth of Saul. Act. 9. And Saul yet breathing out threatenings. Such were the Romish vaunts of the Spanish ships: but God quenched that fire in water; and it was but a smoke. He that could forbid the fire to burn, can also forbid the smoke to become a 〈◊〉 . Only the massacre at Paris was a fire without a smoke unless it be smoke enough (as indeed it is) for Papists to live among Protestants.

2. Security is a public Smoke: when men cry Peace, peace; this is the smoke of war. The careless lives of the old world and Sodom, were portentuous smoakes of their enkindled destruction. Our secure and deadharted conversations are arguments of the like to us. God both avert that, and convert us. We feast reuel, dance, sin, and sing like swannes the prognostickes of our own funerals. We are not circumspect to look up on those, which watch us with the keen eyes ofmalice our sleep •… gives themhope & our selves danger. Neglect of defense hartens on a very coward enemy. Our comfort only is; He that keepeth Israel doth not slūber nor sleep, The private Smoke, particularly laid to a Christian, is a gentler & more soft tētation. But if this Smoke prevail not, Satan coms with a fiery trial. Ifhe cannot pervert Io seph with his tempting mistress, a kind smoke: he will try what a Jail can do. If the devil can draw thee to his purpose with a twine thread, what needs he a Cable rope! If Sampson can be bound with green withes, the Philistines need not seek for iron chains. But Satan knows, that some will not, like Adam and Esau be won with trifles: that some will stick to Christ whiles the weather is fair, and there is peace with the Gospel; yet in time of persecution start away. When he comes with tempests and floods, then the house not built on a rock, falls. If our foundation be straw and stubble, we know this fire will consume it: but if gold, it shall rather purge and purify it.

He will not go about, that can pass the next way. If a soft puff can turn thee from Christ, Satan will spare his blustering tempests: if a smoke can do it, the fire shall be forborne. If Io •… could have been brought to his bow, with killing his cattle, servants, children; perhaps his body had been favored. So that after gentle temptations look for storms; as thou wouldst after smoke fire. Inure thy heart therefore to vanquish the least, that thou mayst foil the greatest: let the former give thee exercise against these latter; as with wooden Wasters men learn to play at the sharp. Be thy confidence in him that ever enabled thee; and affie his promise, that will not suffer thee to be tempted above thy strength. Only handle this weapon with more heedful cunning: and when thou perceivest the dallyings of the Devil, play not with his baits. Corrupt not thy conscience with a little gain, so shalt thou withstand more. Think the easiest temptations a Porcpose before a tempest, smoke before fire, signs and prodigies of a fearful conflict to come.

There remains nothing now to be considered but the Bellows; that help to maintain this fire.

The Bellows

Are double; Passive and Active. Some blow because they cannot, others because they will not avoid it.

1. The Passive Bellows are the godly; for they must have no peace with wickedness; No fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. We must love their persons, and pray for them as Christ for his crucifiers. But if they will not be converted, if they cannot be suppressed, we may desire either their conversion or confusion: as God willes none to perish as a creature, but as a sinful creature; not of his own making, but of their own marring. So we must hate not virum, but vitium; reproving and condemning evil works, both by our lips and lives; though our good conversation be the passive Bellows to blow this fire.

2. The Active are the wicked; who do profoundly hate the good, in regard of both their actions and their persons. To this their own forwardness is helped by the devils instigation. If thou blow the spark it shall burn: if thou spitte upon it, it shall be quenched: and both these come out of thy mouth.

But all men love good naturally. No, not all: for some have not only extinguished the flames of religion, but even the very sparks of nature in their hearts.

But some wicked men have loved the godly: True, but not for their actions, not for their persons, not of their own natures. But 1. either because God snafles the horses and mules, and curbs the malicious rage of Tyrants. Or 2. converts them to the faith and obedience of his truth; as he took Saul from his raging cruelty, and made him ready to die for him, whose servants he would have killed: so turning a Wolf into a Lamb. Or 3. else they love the good for some benefit by them: and therein they love not them, so much as themselves in them. So Ahasuerus loved Hester for her beauty; Nebuchadnezz •… , Daniel for his wisdom: 〈◊〉 , Joseph because his house prospered by him: and for this cause did the former Pharaoh affect him.

But otherwise with blood-red eyes, and faces sparkling fire they behold us; as Haman did Mordecai. They plot like Machiauels, rail like Rabshace's, and conspire like Absalom's. These are the Devils Bellows here, to blow quarrels among men: and shall be his bellows in hell to blow the fire of their eternal torments. A man that is great both in wealth and wickedness, cannot be without these bellows, Intelligencers, Informers, Tale-bearers. Let these seditious spirits understand their employment; they are the Devils bellows; and when their service is done, they shall be thrown into the fire.

I conclude▪ All this trouble and calamity shall be but upon the earth: so saith our Savior. I came to send fire on the earth: In heaven shall be no distraction to break our peace. We should be too well affected to the world, if it had this privilege and exemption: but in vain we seek it, where it is not to be found. In heaven only we shall find it, in heaven only let us seek it. Here we may have desideriu •… pacis, but there only pacem desiderij: here the desires of peace, there peace of our desires. Now then the Peace of God which passeth all understanding, keep your harts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Love is the Way.

And that an excellent way to heaven. Our Apostle ends his 12. Chapter of the 1. Corin. in the description of many spiritual gifts. Apostleship, Prophecying, Teaching, Working of Miracles, healing, speaking with to •… gues. All excellent gifts; and yet concludes. Ver. 31. •… ut covet earnestly the best gifts: And yet show I unto you a more excellent Way. Now that excellent, more excellent Way was Charity: and he takes a whole succeeding Chapter to demonstrate it: which he spends wholly in the praise and prelation of Love.

I hope, no man, when I call Love a Way to God, will understand it for a justifying way. Faith alone leaning on the merits of Christ, doth bring us into that high Chamber of Presence. Love is not a Cause to justify, but a Way for the justified. There is difference betwixt a Cause and a Way. Faith is Causa iustificandi: Love is Via iustificat •… . They that are justified by faith, must walk in Charity. For Faith worketh, and walketh by love. Faith and love are the brain and the heart of the Soul: so knit together in a mutual harmony and correspondence, that without their perfect union the whole Christian man cannot move with power, nor feel with tenderness, nor breath with true life. Love then is a path for holy feet to walk in. It is A Clear Way A Neare Way A Sociable Way.

Course is Walking.

As clear, near, and sociable a way, as love is, yet few can hit it: for of all ways you shall find this least traveled. The way of Charity, as once did the Ways of Zion, mourns for want of passengers. This path is so uncouth and vnbeaten, that many cannot tell, whether there be such a way or not. It is in their opinion, but Via serpentis; the way of a serpent on the earth, or of a bird in the air; which cutteth the air with her wings, and leaves no print or tract behind her. But some Chim •… ra, or mathematical imaginary point; an Ens rationale, without true being. Viam dilectionis ignorant; as the Apostle saith, Uiam pacis; The way of peace they have not known.

Others know there is such a way, but they will not set their foot into it. Their old way of malice and covetousness is delightful; but this is Ard •… a & praerupta via, a hard and a harsh way. Indeed Artis tristissima ianua nostrae: the entrance to this way is somewhat sharp and unpleasant to flesh; for it begins at repentance for former uncharitableness. But once entered into this Kings high-way, it is full of all content and blessedness; Adlaetos ducens per gramina fluctus.

Walk in Love.

He doth not say, talk of it, but walk in it. This precept is for course, not discourse. Love sits at the door of many men's lips, but hath no dwelling in the heart. We may say truly of that charity; it is not at nome. A great man had curiously engraven at the gate of his Palace, the image of Bounty, or Hospitalitie. The needy Travelers with joy spying it, approach thither in hopeful expectation of succor. But still silence or an empty Echo answers all their cries and knocks: for hospitality may stand at the gate, but there is none in the house. One among the rest (his hungry trust thus often abused) resolves to pluck down the Image. With these words; If there be neither meat nor drink in the house, what needs there a Sign? Great Portals in the Country, and coloured Post •… s in the City, promise the poor Beggar liberal relief; but they are often but Images: Muta & •… utila signa; dumb and lame signs: For Charity is not at home: only the shadow without Spe •… illectat ina •… i gives fair and fruitless hopes.

We are too much wearied with these shadows of Charity. Ambrose makes two parts of Liberalitie; Benevolence and Beneficence. Many will share the former, but spare the latter. They will wish something, but do nothing. They have open mouths, but shut hearts: soft words, but hard bowels. To these S. John gives advise Let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Opposing works to words, verity to vanity. Verball complements are not real implements: and with a little inversion of the Philosophers sense; The belly hath no ears. The starved soul delights not to hear Charity, but to feel it. Oculate mihi sunt manus: the poor's hands have eyes; what they receive, they believe. The gowtie usurer hath a nimble tongue: and though he will not walk in love, he can talk of love: for of all members the tongue Postrema senescit; waxeth old last. Let a distressed passenger come to some of their gates, and he shall have divinity enough, but no humanity; wholesome counsel, but no wholesome food. They can afford them exhortation, but not compassion; charging their ears, but in no wise over-charging their bellies. They have scripture against begging, but no bread against famishing. The bread of the Sanctuary is common with them, not the bread of the Buttery. If the poor can be nourished with the Philosophical supper of good moral sentences, they shall be prodigally feasted: but if the bread of life will not content them, they may be packing. But saith S. James; If you say to the poor, Depart in peace, be warmed, be filled: yet give them nothing needful to the body, your devotion profits not; neither them, nor yourselves. There is difference betwixt breath and bread, between wording & working, between mere language, & very sustenance.

The Apostle chargeth us to walk, not to talk of love: One step of our feet, is worth ten words of our tongues. The actions of pity do gracefully become the profession of piety. It is wittily observed, that the ouerprecise are so thwartingly cross to the superstitious in all things, that they will scarce do a good work, because an Heretic doth it. That whereas a Papist will rather loose a penny then a Pater-noster: these will rather give a Pater-noster then a penny. They are devout and free in anything, that toucheth not their purses. Thus with a show of spiritual counsel, they neglect corporal comfort: and overthrow that by their cold deeds, which they would seem to build up by their hot words. That the poor might well reply; More of your cost, and less of your counsel would do far better.

Walk in Love.

Do not step over it, nor cross it, nor walk besides it, nor near it, but walk in it. The doctrine in full strength directs us to a constant embracing of Charity. The whole course of our living, must be loving: our beginning, continuance, end, must be in Charity. Two sorts of men are here specially reprouable. Some

that seem to

• Begin in Charity, but end not so.
• End in Charity, that never walked so.

Some have had apparent beginnings of love, whose conclusion hath halted off into worldliness, whiles they had little, they communicated some of that little: but the multiplying their riches, hath been the abatement of their mercies. Too many have verified this incongruent and preposterous observation; that the filling their purses with money, hath proved the emptying their hearts of Charity. As one observes of Rome; that the declination of piety, came at one instant with the multiplication of metals. Even that Clergy, that poor cared only to feed the flock; once grown rich studied only to fil the paile. Ammianus Marcellinus saith of them, that Matronarum oblationibus ditabantur, they were enriched by Ladies gifts. And heruepon, together with that unlucky separation of the Greek head from the Latin body, the Empire began to dwindle, the Popedom to flourish. Now plenty is the daughter of prosperity, ambition of plenty, corruption of ambition. So Diuitiae veniunt, Relligioque fugit. Religion brings in wealth, wealth thrusts out Religion.

To this purpose, and to prevent this ready evil, was God's charge by the pen of David. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. For till they increase, there is less danger. But saith one; Societas quaedam est, etiam nominis, vitijs & diuitijs. Wealth and wickedness are near of kin. Nimia bonorumcopia, ingens malorum occasio. Plentie of goods, lightly occasions plenty of evils. Goodness commonly lasts till goods come: but dition of state; alters condition of persons. How many had been good, had they not been great! And as it was said of Tiberius; He would have made a good subject, was a very ill King: so many have died good servants, that would have lived bad masters. God that can best fit a man's estate here, that it may further his salvation hereafter; knows that many a man is gone poor up to heaven, who rich would have tumbled down to hell. We may observe this in Peter; who being gotten into the High Priests Hall, sits him down by the warm fire, and forgets his master. Before Peter followed Christ at the hard heels, through cold & heat, hunger and thirst, trouble and weariness; and promiseth an infallible adherence. But now he sits beaking himself by a warm fire, his poor Master is forgotten. Thus his body grows warm; his zeal, his soul cold. When he was abroad in the cold, he was the hotter Christian; now he is by the fire-side he grows the colder. Oh the warmth of this world, how it makes a man forget Christ! He that wants bread, pities them that be hungry: and they that want fire have compassion of the poor cold and naked: but the warmth and plenty of the world starves those thoughts. When the Princes are at ease in Zion, they never grieve for the afflictiō of Joseph.

Whilst usury can sit in furs; ambition look down from his lofty turrets: lust imagine heaven in her soft embracings; Epicureanism study dishes and eat them: pride study fashions & wear them: the down-trodden poor, exposed to the bleak air, afflicted, famished, are not thought on. So easily are many that begun in love, put by riches out of the way: and made to forbear Walking in Charity, even by that which should enable their steps. Thus avarice breeds with wealth, as they speak of toads that have been found in the midst of great stones. Though the man of mean estate, whose own want instructs his heart to commiserate others, say thus with himself; If I had more goods, I would do more good: yet experience justifies this point, that many have changed their minds with their means: and the state of their purse hath forspoken the state of their conscience. So they have begun in the charity of the Spirit, and ended in the cares of the Flesh.

Every man hath a better opinion of himself, then to think thus. As Hazael answered Elisha; when the good Prophet told him with tears, that he should burn the cities of Israel with fire, slay the inhabitants, rip up the women with child, and dash the infants against the stones Am I a dog that I should do this horred thing? So you will not think, that being now mean, you relieve the distressed; if you were rich, that you would rob, spoil, defraud, oppress, impoverish them. O you know not the incantations of the world. It is a Pipe, that (beyond the Sirens singing) makes many sober men run mad upon it. I have read of an exquisite musician, of whom it was reported, that he could put men into strange sits and passions, which he would as soon alter again with varying his notes: inclining and compelling the disposition of the hearer to his strains. There was one, that would make trial how he could affect him; daring his best skill to work upon his boast •… d composedne •… and resolution. The Musician begins to play; and gave such a Lacrymae, so sad and deep a lesson that the man fell into a dumpish melancholy; standing as one forlorn, with his arms wreathed, his hat pulled over his eyes, venting many mournful sighs. Presently the Musician changeth his stroke into mirthfull & lusty tunes: and so by degrees into ligges, crotchets, and wanton airs: then the man also changeth his melancholy into spritely humors, leaping, and dancing, as if he had been transformed into air. This passion lasting but with the note that moved it; the Musician riseth into wild raptures, maskes and Anticks. Whereupon he also riseth to showting, holloing, and such frantic passages, that he grew at last stark mad. Such a charming power, said a worthy Divine, hath the music of money and wealth, and such fits it works in a man's heart. First it takes him from peaceful setlednes, and from great content in his little, and puts him into dumps; a miserable carking thoughtfullnes, how to scrape together much dirt. Next when he hath it, and begins with delight to suck on the dugges of the world; his purse, his barns, and all his, but his heart, full: he falls to dancing, and singing requiems; Soul take thine •… ase, eat, drink, and be merry. Then shall his table standfull of the best dishes, his cup of the purest wine, his back with the richest robes: and he conceits a kind of immortality in his coffers: he denies himself no satiety, no surquedrie. But at last the worlds bedla •… -music puts him into frenzi •… : he grows rampant. Runnes into oppressions, extortions, depopulations, rapes, whoredoms, murders, massacres: spares not blood or friendship, authority nor v •… ssalage, widow nor orphan, Prince nor subject: Nec 〈◊〉 , nec Ar •… ; neither poor man's co •… tage, nor Churches altar, Yea, if the Common wealth had but one throat, as Nero wish ed of Rome, he would cut it. O the vnpacifiable madness, that this worlds music puts those into, which will dance after his Pipe. For this cause saith our Apostle, continue in the Charity thou hast begun; Walk in love Ye did run well, who did hinder you? Doth wealth keep you from charity? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. God never meant when he gave you riches, that you should then begin to be covetous. He did not for this purpose show new mercy to you, that you should take away your old mercies from his.

There are other, that seem to end in Love, who never all their days walked in this heavenly path. They have a will lying by them, wherein they have bequeathed a certain legacy to the poor; something to such a Church, or such an Hospital. But this will is not of force till the testator be dead, so that a man may say, though the will be ready, yet to will is not ready with thē: for God shall not have it, so long as they can keep it. These can wish with Balaam, to die Christians, but they must live Pagans. Having raised thousands out of their sacrilegious and inhospitable Impropriations; they can bestow the dead hope of a little mite on the Church. In memorial whereof the heir must procure an annual recitation; besides the monumental sculpture on the Tomb. Be his life never so black, and more tenebrous then the vaults of lust, yet said a Reverend Divine, he shall find a black prophet, for a black cloak, that with a black mouth, shall commend him for whiter then snow and lilies. Though his unrepented oppressions, vnrestored extortions, and blood-drawing usuries, have sent his soul to the infernal dungeon of Satan; whose parishioner he was all his life; yet money may get him cannonizd a Saint at Rome, and robe him with spotles integrity and innocence. So diverse among them, that lived More Latronū yet in death affected Cultum martyrum. Hence Epitaphs and funeral orations shall commend a man's charity, who never all his days walked two steps in Love.

But it is in vain to write a man's charity in a repaired window; when his tyrannous life is written in the bloody and indelible characters, of many poor men's ruin and overthrow. Nor can the narrow plaster of a little poor benevolence, hide and cover the multitude of gaping wounds, made by extortion and unmercifulness. No, God hates the Sacrifice of robbery: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer; said David. The oblation that is made up of the earnings of the poor, is an abomination, offending God's eye, and provoking his hand. First restore the lands and goods of others, injuriously or vsuriously gotten: let not an unjust penny lie rotting on thy heap and heart: and then build Hospitals repair ruined holy places, produce the fruits of mercy, walk in Love. Otherwise it is not smooth marble, and engraven brass, with a commending epitaph; that can anymore preserve the name from rotten putrefaction, then the carcase. But for all that, the memory shall stink above ground, as the body doth under it. It is a desperate hazard, that a wicked man by a charitable will shall make amends for all: whereas commonly an userers Testament is but a Testimony of his lewd life. There is small hope, that they end in charity who would never walk in Love.

There be others that cannot walk in Love, through a double defect, either of eyes, or of feet. Some

have

• Feet, but want eyes.
• Eyes, but want feet.

1. Some have the feet of affections, but they lack eyes; and so cannot descry the true and perfect way of Love. Indeed no man can find it without God Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths. For it is he that directs sinners & wandrers to the way. These want him, that should Lead them by the way that they should go. They think that by building up a ladder of good works, their souls shall on meritorious rounds climb up to heaven. They cannot distinguish between Viam regni, and causamregnandi. They suppose, if they relieve Seminaries, fast Lents, keep their numbredorisons, pro digally sacrifice their bloods in treasons for that Romaine Harlot; this is via dilectionis; the way of Love. So the silly servant, bid̄ to open the gates, set his shoulders to them, but with all his might could not stir them whereas another comes with the key, & easily unlocks thē. These men so confidēt in their good works, do but set their shoulders to heaven-gates: alas! without comfort: for it is the key of faith that only opens them. These have nimble feet, forward affections, harts workeable to charity, and would Walk in Love if they had eyes. Therefore Let us prayfor them. Cause them to know the way, O Lord, wherein they should walk.

2. Other have eyes, but they want feet: they understand the way of love, but they have no affection to walk in it. They know that false measures, forsworn valuations, adulterate wares, smooth-checked circumventions, painted cosenages, malicious repinings, denied succors; are all against Love. Noscunt & poscunt. They know them, but they will use them. They know that humbleness, kindness, meekness, patience, remission, compassion, giving and forgiving; actual comforts, are the fruits of Love. Norunt & nolunt, They know it, but they will none of it. These know but walk not in Love. It is fabled, that a great king gave to one of his subjects, of his own mere favor, a goodly city; happily replenished with all treasures and pleasures. He does not only freely give it, but directs him the way; which keeping, he should not miss it. The rejoiced subject soon enters on his journey, and rests not till he comes within sight of the City. Thus near it, he spies a great company of men digging in the ground: to whom approaching, he found them casting up white and red earth in abundance. Wherewith his amazed eyes growing soon enamored, he desires a participation of their riches. They refuse to join him in their gains, unless he will join himself in their pains. Hereupon he falls to toiling, digging & deluing, til some of the earth falls so he uie upon him, that it lames him; and he is able to go no further. There he dies in the sight of that City, to which he could not go for want of feet: & looseth a certain substantial gift, for an uncertain shadow of vain hope.

You can easily apply it. God of his gracious favor, not for our deserts, gives man his creature a glorious City: even that whose foundations are of Jasper, Saphyre and Emerald &c. He doth more, directs him the way to it; Go on this way, Walk in love. He begins to travel, and comes within the sight of heaven: but by the way he spies worldlings toiling in the earth and scraping together white and red clay; silver and gold, the riches of this world. Hereof desirous, he is not suffered to partake, except he also partake of their covetousness, and corrupt fashions. Now Mammon sets him on work, to dignity out his own damnation: where after a while this gay earth comes tumbling fo fast upon him, that his feet be maimed, his affections to heaven lost: and he dies short of that glorious City, which the king of heaven purchased with his own blood, and gave him. Think of this, ye worldlings; and seeing you know what it is to be charitable, put your feet in this way; Walk in Love.

There be yet others, whose whole course is every step out of the way to God; who is Love; and they must walk in Love, that come unto him.

1. There is a path of Lust: they err damnably, that call this the way of Love. They turn a spiritual grace into a carnal vice: and whereas Charity and Chastity are of nearer alliance then sound; these debauched tongues call uncleanness Love. Adultery is a cursed way, though a much coursed way for a whore is the high-way to the Devil.