III. mind, that the sunbeams may dissolve that stone that the SERM. hammer could not. The Platonists and the papists have been a little more rational in ordering their fancies, placing their imaginary purgatory in their way to heaven not at the journey's end: and, if you mark it, they are not purgatory streams, but flames which they dream of, a caldarium, or scalding bath, or furnace, to fetch out and burn up dross, not a flowery Elysian field or paradise, only to upbraid it. I shall make challenge to your memories and experiences, did you ever see any man flattered and gratified out of his sins by the increase and amiableness of his temptations? And yet it is certain that prosperity, and ease, and peace abound more with these than any other state, acrioribus stimulis animum explorant, in Tacitus, and as he, felicitate corrumpimur; so "because they have no changes, therefore [Ps. Iv. 19.] they fear not God," could David say, their uninterrupted felicities first made atheists of them: is it likely that a few more hours of those joys would return them saints? The eremites indeed in Theodosius the younger's time, left their solitude, and came to study perfection in the king's palace; but sure it was because they were (or else conceived themselves to be) advanced and arrived already to a spiritual height, to a full pancratic habit, fit for combats and wrestlings, and so came out to practise in these agones, that is, not because there were conceived to be less, but more temptations and yet even for such, I should not be overforward to commend the design. Without question the still privacy had been the more prudent course. For so Licetus, that tells us of some lamps which under ground continued light for sixteen hundred years, concludes his observation, that as soon as ever they were brought forth into open air they went out imme. diately. And I need not tell you how many zealous-burning or fair-shining votaries the world hath had, whose imprisoned, retired, cloistered piety hath done so too. And do not think that it is an appetite to other men's possessions, or an insidious praising of a lost treasure, that so they that have taken it up may return it again, if I tell you that which it is not these times have taught me, that affluence [Secundæ res acrioribus stimulis animos explorant: quia miseria tole HAMMOND. F rantur, felicitate corrumpimur.-Tac. III. Esther xvi. 2. SERM. and abundance of riches, of ease, of even peace itself, is generally no safe commodity; there is not one of a hundred but is [Deut. less Christian for it. Jeshurun waxed fat, began to thrive in xxxii. 15.] the fair pasture, and, it follows, he kicked presently. And it is Aristotle's maxim, πλοῦτος ὑβριστικοὺς ποιεῖ ', ' riches make men insolent' and intolerable. Nay we have mention of the πολλοὶ τὸν κόρον οὐ δυνάμενοι φέρειν, and of ferre fortunamm in Horace. It is a weight that many are not able to move under, the talents of gold are the saddest lading, ready to sink old Charon's boat in Lucian. It is sure that very bunch in the camel's back that made it so hard for him to enter that strait passage; and unless you have some confidence and some experience of your extraordinary gifts, or faculty of conquering the temptations of wealth and rest, particularly of taking out the sting and teeth that are peculiar to that serpent, the exact skill of allaying this quicksilver, believe me that piece of ancient advice would be no unsafe counsel to many of us, when riches increase, instead of setting the heart on them, not so much as to lend them an ear, to be deaf to the knocks of riches, when they are most importunate at the door. All the joys and high tastes that they can help you to, being not able to requite you for the damning sin of one insolence, one luxury, one impiety, nay for the pains that not only Petrarch but Aristotle, the heathen as well as Christian moralist, tells you it will cost the rich or idle man to resist those temptations, much less to repair the wound of a wasted conscience, that the courting of wealth [1 Tim. vi. when it is shy or coy, the Bouλeobai Tλovтeiv, the resolving 9.] to become rich, or continue so, doth constantly cost us. [Ps. lxii. 10.] This is the most perfect earnest in the world; never was there Christian of any extraordinary proficiency, but was resolved of it as of a principle, and therefore put it into his prayers, not only under the petition against leading into temptation, but interpreted his daily bread to that sense, τὸν τῇ ἑκάστῃ οὐσίᾳ ἡμῶν ἁρμόζοντα, that which is most agreeable to every of our conditions, the neither poverty nor [Prov. xxx. riches, with Solomon, but the panem dimensi nostri, that 8.] which is just even to the wants or cravings of a regular appetite, which is the only wholesome diet in the world. ' [Arist. Rhet. ii. 16.] m [Hor. Od. iii. 27. 75.] III. And as this hath sufficiently demonstrated the doctrine, so sERM. will it prove the most advantageous rise for use and application, and the conclusion of the whole matter. And that is in the Prophet Micah's phrase, to "shew thee, O man, what is [Mic. vi. 8.] good:" good to thee as thou art a man, in all thy capacities, to put thee upon a project, give thee a patent and monopoly of the greatest treasure and riches of the world, a secret that the worldling hath not known; for had he known it, he would never have disquieted the neighbourhood for such a warm prize snatched just out of the mint, such a singeing weight of gold that will so soon fire its passage, and fly from him again. And it is that treasure of Christ, shall I say? nay, of Epicurus' philosophy,-as, for want of his own writings, the Greek scholiasts on Aristotle are fain to tell us. In the one, the γαληνὸν καὶ ἀτάραχον τῆς ψυχῆς κατάστημα, the calm, untroubled constitution of mind, that all the Tà ew, the present or possible tempests of this world,-which are all extrinsical, perfectly extrinsical to a Christian,—have not had in their power to afflict or disquiet, to put out of that magnanimous pace of equable constant piety: in the other, that, not effect or fruit of faith, but faith itself, ý πíoтis víkη, 1 John v. 4. "Faith the victory and triumph over the world," using it as a tame conquered captive creature, contemning and defying it, and against all our tempters vindicating and maintaining that title of ours, which the blood of Christ helped to purchase for us, that of superiority and conquest over the world. Not only that of contentment with a little, a tame privative contentment, which yet the Spaniard thinks fit to make rival with Jupiter, enough, when it is attained on earth, to get away all the love and value from heaven,-but of preferring the conveniences and advantages of that little,-nay, that admirably-valuable condition of the nothing at all,—the quiet and dignity of being fed immediately from God's own hand, of being a special part of His solicitude, nay, of rejoicing in tribulations, the glorifying and magnifying God in that behalf beyond all others, and so being as in a state of ascendancy still, a yet more glorious condition, that of being under God's managery and discipline, a part not only of His retinue, but His skill, a piece of His craft and workmanship, hewed and squared and carved by those keen sharp instruments of III. [1 John SERM. His, to become so many aɣáλμaтa Ocoû, 'incarnate statues of His divinity.' And I beseech you to tell me, is this a formidable condition? is not that of the prosperous atheist far more formidable? Tell me as men, as Christians, and not only as cattle of the herd; look but upon it with those eyes that hope one day to behold the face of God,-and "he that iii. 2, 3.] hath this hope must purify himself,"—and pronounce if there be any thing in the smitten Ephraim's fate, beside Ephraim's sins, that may discompose or terrify a servant of such a master, much less drive us into tempests and rages of fear, with oaths and curses, and damning of ourselves, that we know not that Christ that would lead us or bring us into this condition; a condition (look it never so sadly) which (believe me, or believe your Saviour upon His mount, His pulpit, or but believe your own souls, whenever you come to try it) shall prove a mine of comfort to you, even in this life, the true fountain, from whence the old dovikoì, the voluptuous or pleasurable, drew but drops or lappings, but will yield the illuminate Christian full streams of all the real joy and epicurism in the world. Which as it shall be the sum of my present address to you, so of my prayers to God for ever for you, that He that knows best how to choose for us, will not suffer us to do it for ourselves, will answer the necessities of our health, and not the importunities of our appetites, that He will take our soul's part against our enemy flesh, and not our bodies, our estates, our satans against our souls; will teach us that patience and that joy, that tranquillity and that serenity, that courage and that anthem of his three martyr-children, that we may sing also in the midst of flames; denudate us of all when that may fit us for our prizes; prescribe us any the scorchingest furnace here, which shall prove most instrumental to our present reformation and future bliss, to our life of obedience here, and of glory hereafter: which God of His infinite mercy grant us all, for His Son Jesus Christ His sake; to whom with the Father, &c. SERMON IV. JOHN BAPTIST'S WARNING. MATT. iii. 2. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. IV. Two difficulties there are in these few words; what is SERM. meant by the kingdom of heaven, and what by repentance; and then one plain matter of practical divinity that results from the union of them. The difficulties must be explained, or else the doctrine will not be come by; the earth removed, ere the ore be sprang; the veil be rent, and then the oracle will appear. The former, what is the importance of the kingdom of heaven, as being more disputable, I shall propose more civilly and tenderly and unconcernedly, as willing to give an example of that meekness and that charity that in matters of opinion will keep a Christian from noise or quarrel: but the latter, being more practical, to which your eternal weal is more closely consequent, a little mistake in repentance being like the losing of a pin in a watch, the actions and motions of the whole life, even the success of every temporal enterprize or hope, depending on it, you must give me leave to be more dogmatical, to affirm confidently, and, if need be, contend and quarrel you out of such errors. To begin with the first difficulty. The kingdom of heaven in this place, I conceive to have a peculiar critical sense, different from what belongs to it in many other places; and to signify the destruction of the Jews, that remarkable vast avλe@pía, or small subversion of that Church and state, wherein the power and so king |