righteousness, because they thought they had a righteousness of their own; either in the faculties of nature, or in the exaltation of those faculties by the help of the law: and he calls it suam, their righteousness, because they thought none had it but they. And upon this Pelagian righteousness, it thought nature sufficient without grace; or upon this righteousness of the Cathari, the Puritans in the primitive church, that thought the grace which they had received sufficient, and that upon that stock they were safe, and become impeccable, and therefore left out of the Lord's Prayer, that petition, Dimitte nobis, Forgive us our trespasses; upon this Pelagian righteousness, and this Puritan righteousness, Christ does not work. He left out the righteous, not that there were any such, but such as thought themselves so; and he took in sinners, not all effectually, that were simply so, but such as the sense of their sins, and the miserable state that that occasioned, brought to an acknowledgment, that they were so; Non justos, sed peccatores. Here then enters our affirmative, our inclusive, who are called; peccatores: for here no man asks the question of the former branch there we asked, whether there were any righteous? and we found none; here we ask not whether there were any sinners, for we can find no others, no not one. He came to call sinners, and only sinners; that is, only in that capacity, in that contemplation, as they were sinners; for of that vain and frivolous opinion, that got in, and got hold in the later school, that Christ had come in the flesh, though Adam had stood in his innocence; that though man had not needed Christ as a Redeemer, yet he would have come to have given to man the greatest dignity that nature might possibly receive, which was to be united to the Divine Nature of this opinion, one of those Jesuits whom we named before, Maldonat, who oftentimes making his use of whole sentences of Calvin's, says in the end, This is a good exposition, but that he is an heretic that makes it. He says also of this opinion, that Christ had come, though Adam had stood; This is an ill opinion, but that they are Catholics that have said it. He came for sinners; for sinners only; else he had not come: and then he came for all kind of sinners: for, upon those words of our Saviour's, to the high priests and Pharisees, Publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before you, good expositors note, that in those two notations, publicans and harlots, many sorts of sinners are implied: in the name of publicans, all such, as by their very profession and calling, are led into temptations, and occasions of sin, to which some callings are naturally more exposed than other, such as can hardly be exercised without sin; and then in the name of harlots, and prostitute women, such as cannot at all be exercised without sin; whose very profession is sin: and yet for these, for the worst of these, for all these, there is a voice gone out, Christ is come to call sinners, only sinners, all sinners. Comes he then thus for sinners? What an advantage had St. Paul then, to be of this quorum, and the first of them; Quorum ego maximus, That when Christ came to save sinners, he should be the greatest sinner, the first in that election? If we should live to see that acted, which Christ speaks of at the last day, Two in the field, the one taken, the other left, should we not wonder to see him that were left, lay hold upon him that were taken, and offer to go to heaven before him, therefore, because he had killed more men in the field, or robbed more men upon the highway, or supplanted more in the court, or oppressed more in the city? to make the multiplicity of his sins, his title to heaven? Or, two women grinding at the mill, one taken, the other left; to see her that was left, offer to precede the other into heaven, therefore, because she had prostituted herself to more men, than the other had done? Is this St. Paul's quorum, his dignity, his prudency; I must be saved, because I am the greatest sinner? God forbid: God forbid we should presume upon salvation, because we are sinners; or sin therefore, that we may be surer of salvation. Paul's title to heaven, was, not that he was primus peccator, but primus confessor, that he first accused himself, and came to a sense of his miserable estate; for that implies that which is our last word, and the effect of Christ's calling, that whomsoever he calls, or how, or whensoever, it is ad resipiscentiam, to repentance. It is not ad satisfactionem, Christ does not come to call us, to make satisfaction to the justice of God: he called us to a heavy, to an impossible account, if he called us to that. If the death of 39 Matt. xxi. 31. 39 Matt. xxiv. 41. St. Christ Jesus himself, be but a satisfaction for the punishment for my sins, (for nothing less than that could have made that satisfaction) what can a temporary purgatory of days or hours do towards a satisfaction? And if the torments of purgatory itself, sustained by myself, be nothing towards a satisfaction, what can an evening's fast, or an Ave Marie, from my executor, or my assignee, after I am dead, do towards such a satisfaction? Canst thou satisfy the justice of God, for all that blood which thou hast drawn from his Son, in thy blasphemous oaths and execrations; or for all that blood of his, which thou hast spilt upon the ground, upon the dunghill, in thy unworthy receiving the sacrament? Canst thou satisfy his justice, for having made his blessings the occasions, and the instruments of thy sins; or for dilapidations of his temple, in having destroyed thine own body by thine incontinency, and making that, the same flesh with a harlot ? If he will contend with thee, thou canst not answer him one of a thousand": nay, a thousand men could not answer one sin of one man. It is not then ad satisfactionem; but it is not ad gloriam neither. Christ does not call us to an immediate possession of glory, without doing anything between. Our glorification was in his intention, as soon as our election: in God who sees all things at once, both entered at once; but in the execution of his decrees here, God carries us by steps; he calls us to repentance. The farmers of this imaginary satisfaction, they that sell it at their own price, in their indulgences, have done well, to leave out this repentance, both in this text in St. Matthew, and where the same is related by St. Mark. In both places, they tell us, that Christ came to cast sinners, but they do not tell us to what; as though it might be enough to call them to their market, to buy their indulgences. The Holy Ghost tells us; it is to repentance: Are ye to learn now what that is? He that cannot define repentance, that he cannot spell it, may have it; and he that hath written whole books, great volumes of it, may be without it. In one word, (one word will not do it, but in two words) it is aversio, and conversio; it is a turning from our sins, and a returning to our God. It is both for in our age, in our sickness, in any 40 Job ix. 9. impotency towards a sin, in any satiety of a sin, we turn from our sin, but we turn not to God; we turn to a sinful delight in the memory of our sins, and a sinful desire that we might continue in them. So also in a storm at sea, in any imminent calamity, at land, we turn to God, to a Lord, Lord; but at the next calm, and at the next deliverance, we turn to our sin again. He only is the true Israelite, the true penitent, that hath Nathaniel's mark, In quo non est dolus, In whom there is no deceit: for, to sin, and think God sees it not, because we confess it not; to confess it as sin, and yet continue the practice of it; to discontinue the practice of it, and continue the possession of that, which was got by that sin; all this is deceit, and destroys, evacuates, annihilates all repentance. : To recollect all, and to end all: Christ justifies feasting; he feasts you with himself: and feasting in an apostle's house, in his own house; he feasts you often here: and he admits publicans to this feast, men whose full and open life, in court, must necessarily expose them, to many hazards of sin and the Pharisees, our adversaries, calumniate us for this; they say we admit men too easily to the sacrament; without confession, without contrition, without satisfaction. God in heaven knows we do not; less, much less than they. For confession, we require public confession in the congregation and in time of sickness, upon the death-bed, we enjoin private and particular confession, if the conscience be oppressed and if any man do think, that that which is necessary for him, upon his death-bed, is necessary, every time he comes to the communion, and so come to such a confession, if anything lie upon him, as often as he comes to the communion, we blame not, we dissuade not, we discounsel not, that tenderness of conscience, and that safe proceeding in that good soul. For contrition, we require such a contrition as amounts to a full detestation of the sin, and a full resolution, not to relapse into that sin: and this they do not in the Roman church, where they have suppled and mollified their contrition into an attrition. For satisfaction, we require such a satisfaction as man can make to man, in goods or fame: and for the satisfaction due to God, we require that every man, with a sober and modest, but yet with a confident and infallible assurance believe, : the satisfaction given to God, by Christ, for all mankind, to have been given and accepted for him in particular. This Christ, with joy and thanksgiving we acknowledge to be come; to be come actually; we expect no other after him, we join no other to him and come freely, without any necessity imposed by any above him, and without any invitation from us here: come, not to meet us, who were not able to rise, without him; but yet not to force us, to save us against our wills, but come to call us, by his ordinances in his church; us, not as we pretend any righteousness of our own, but as we confess ourselves to be sinners, and sinners led by this call, to repentance; which repentance, is an everlasting divorce from our beloved sin, and an everlasting marriage and superinduction of our ever-living God. SERMON CXL. PREACHED AT WHITEHALL, APRIL 2, 1620. ECCLESIASTES v. 13, 14. There is an evil sickness that I have seen under the sun: riches reserved to And these riches perish by evil travail : the owners thereof, for their evil. THE kingdom of heaven is a feast; to get you a stomach to that, we have preached abstinence. The kingdom of heaven is a treasure too, and to make you capable of that, we would bring you to a just valuation of this world. He that hath his hands full of dirt, cannot take up amber; if they be full of counters, he cannot take up gold. This is the book, which St. Hierome chose to expound to Blesilla at Rome, when his purpose was to draw her to heaven, by making her to understand this world; it was the book fittest for that particular way: and it is the book which St. Ambrose calls Bonum ad omnia magistrum; A good master to correct us in this world, a good master to direct us to the next. For though Solomon had asked at God's hand only the wisdom fit for government, yet since he had bent his wishes upon so good a thing as wisdom, and in his wishes, even of the best thing, had |