Eighteen Sermons, Sermon 2
SERMON II. VVHITE-HALL. October 20. 1661.
PSALM LXXIII. 1.
Truely God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a Clean Heart.
'Twas a false Confidence the Jews did nourish, That they should dwell securely in their Land, notwithstanding their provocations, because the Worship and the House of God was in it: They did but aJer. 7. 4.trust on lying words, the Prophet sayes, when they did trust upon The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord; As if the Temple were a Sanctuary for those that did profane it, and the horns of the Altar would secure them, when 'twas the blood upon the Altar call'd for Vengeance. Nor was that after-plea of theirs more valid, We are the chosen Israel of God, bJohn 8. 39.We have Abraham to our Father; As if when by their works they had adopted to themselves another Parent, were cv. 44.of their Father the Devil, they could claim any but their present Fathers interest, or have the blessings of forsaken Abraham. Now if it be no otherwise with us, but because in aPsal. 76. 1. 2.our Judah God is known, his Name great in our Israel, with us in Salem, that is, in peace, he hath his Tabernacle now, and his dwelling in Sion: And so much knowledge, such pretences to the Name of God, and to his Worship, are not with other Nations, nor have they such advantages to know his Law: If as each party of us does assume these Priviledges to it self, so each do also rest in them, although their Lives answer not these advantages. If while they judge themselves Christs chosen Flock, boast Covenants and Alliances with God, although they violate all those Relations, they yet trust those will secure them: For why? the being of such a party and perswasion is the signature and Amulet that will preserve them in Gods favour, the charm through which bNum. 23. 21.he will not see Iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel. Lastly, if we that wear the distinctive Character of Israel, that of a Ransom'd, Purchas'd People (for sure our Rescues rise unto the number and the rate of those which brought the Sons of Jacob from the House of Bondage) if we, as they, presume and surfeit upon goodnesse, and think these gifts of God too are without Repentance, believe our being his Redeemed, his Church; conceit our Orthodox Profession (as once we thought our righteous Cause should do) will shield us from the danger of our Enemies, and of our vices too, and neither let our soes nor our selves ruine us, with such my Text and my intentions prepare to meet, least we should fill the Parallel; and as we equal Israel in our Deliverances, and imitate their practises, we do transcribe the fatal pattern too in the most full resemblance, and repletion of an entire excision; for although God be truely loving to his Church, yet the ungodly does his soul abhorr; however in a signal manner he be good to Israel, yet this his kindness does confine it self to such as are of a clean heart.
The words need not much explication; By Israel is meant the Church of God, and by his goodnesse to it, all his externall mercies also and protections, as the Psalme evinces; and by such as are of a clean heart, those that to the profession of Religion and Holiness of outward conversation, do add internal purity and sincerity; for some translate it, such as are of a clean heart, some, such as are true-hearted and sincere: And it signifies both.
The words thus explicated give me these Subjects of Discourse. First, a generall Proposition, Truely God is good to Israel, to his Church. Secondly, an assignation of Conditions under which that general Proposition holds, aRom. 9. 6.All are not Israel that are of Israel, it holds onelyonly in such as are of a clean heart. And in this we have, first, a quality appropriate to the Church, Cleanness. Secondly, with its subject, the Heart; and there I shall enquire why that alone is mention'd; whether the cleanness of the Heart suffice, and having answered that, shall proceed, Thirdly, to consider them together, in both the given senses as they mean, a sincere heart, and a pure undefiled heart: In each of which Considerations, because the latter part of my Text is a limitation of the former, shewing where that generall Proposition is of force, where it is not; I shall as I proceed, view all the several guilts opposed to either notion of Cleanness, and see how far each of them does remove from any interest in the Lords goodness to his Church, which is the natural Application of each part, and shall be mine.
1. Truly God is good to Israel, his Church. And sure this Proposition is evident to us by its own light, to whom God proved his goodnesse to astonishment, by exercising it to Miracle; while he at once wrought prodigies of kindness and conviction; to which we have onelyonly this proof to add, That God hath been so plentiful in Bounties, that we are weary of the very mention of them, and have so surfeited on Goodness that we do nauseate the acknowledgment. So that his kindness in sustaining his Compassions does vie with that which did effect them, who as he will not be provokt not to be good by such prodigious unthankfulness, so neither will he by the most exasperating use of his Favours: God did complain of Israel, bEzek. 16. 17. 19.Thou hast taken thy fair Jewels of my Gold and my Silver which I had given thee, and madest to thy self Images: My meat also which I gave thee, my fine floure, mine Oyle, and Hony wherewith I fed thee, and hast even set it before them for a sweet savour. And if men now do offer things, in which God hath the same propriety, to baser Idols, to their vices; if they do sauce his meat, which he hath given them, to sacrifice to Luxury, take his silver and gold to serve in the Idolatry of Covetousnesse, and use his Jewels to dress Images also for sowlest adorations. If Atheism grow against Miracle and Goodness too, and men do most deny God now when he hath given greatest evidences of his kind Providence; I know not by what argument encouraged, unless his in the Poet,
—Factum quod se dum negal hoc videt beatum,
because they see they fare best now, though they deny him most; teaching his goodness to confute his being. If they do look upon the wondrous restitution of Gods Service as but a shifting of the Scene of Worship, only another and more gaudy draught and Landskip of Religion shot on the Stage; and do accordingly esteem it as a variety and entertainment for their senses onelyonly; for nothing higher is engag'd, I doubt me, in those offices: If they assist in them not out of Principle, but meer indifference to all, and therefore these at present; It is not halting betwixt God and Baal this, it is the bowing of the knee to both, which they can do to each alike, when either is the uppermost, and truely count them Deities alike, I fear. Nay, when the onelyonly Ordinance, the Sermon, is but a prize within the Temple, the Preacher but Rhetor dicturus ad aram, that comes to do his Exercise before the Altar, in which men are concern'd no farther than to hear and judge, not to be sentenc't by: If God endure all this, and do continue still his Church, his Worship, and his other Mercies, then I may well conclude that Truely God is good to Israel.
But I will not be this fastidious Remembrancer: These arguments may prove his goodness, but sure these qualities will not preserve it to us, the limitation, my next part, must suggest them; which tells us who they are God is good to: Even to such as are of a clean Heart.
1. Clean. Clean, Pure, and Holy, are so essential attributes of the Israel or Church of God, that though I must not say the Church does take in none but such: For there are aMat. 13. 28, 29, 30.tares unwholesome poppy too, and darnel with the Wheat, yet I must say that foreign, the Church is but a Congregation of such as are called to be Saints, 1 Cor. 1. 2.
In the first Israel almost the whole Discipline of their Religion was purity in type, and all the Ceremonies of their Worship were but figures, rather Doctrines of Cleanness, when they came first to enter Covenant with God at Horeb, and to receive their Law, they were to bExod. 19. 10.sanctifie themselves and wash their cloaths. What purity do those Commandements require, which they must not hear with any thing that was unclean about them? which they must wash all to receive? and indeed nothing with them was enterprized without it; they were to cleanse themselves from the impurities of meer Contingency; yea, they were bound to wash their Dreams and purifie their very sleeps, and all this is expounded by the Prophet Isaiah, 1. 16. 17. Wash ye, make ye clean, put away the evil of your doings, cease to do evil, learn to do well.
And in our Israel by our Covenant there is as much of this required, for we were all initiated into our profession by Washing, bTit. 3. 5.regenerated in a Lavet, and cJoh. 3. 3. 5.born again of Water, becoming so Tertullians Sanctitatis designati, set aside for Holiness, consecrated to cleanness, and made the votaries of purity: How clean a thing then must a Christian be who must be washt into the Name? nor is he thus washt only in the Font, there was a more inestimable fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness. Apoc. 11. 5. Jesus Christ hath washt us in his own blood; And Heb. 9. 14. The Blood of Christ did purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the living God: How great is our necessity of being clean, when to provide a means to make us so, God opens his Sons side, and our Laver is drawn out of the Heart of Christ: Yet we have more effusions to contribute to it. 1 Cor. 6. 11. But ye are washt, but ye are sanctified by the Spirit of our God, and we must *Mat. 3. 11.be Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire. A Laver of flame also, to wash away our Scurfe as well as sullages, and beyond all these, some of us have been purg'd too with the fiery trial, and molten in the furnace of Affliction, to separate our drosse and purifie us from alloy, that we may be clean and refined too; may become Christians of the highest Carrect.
Such, among others, are the obligations, such the instruments of cleanness in a Christian: Let us inquire next into the importance of the quality, and the degree that is exacted.
And here I need not say that it stands in direct opposition to the licentīous practices of vice; this Scripture calls corruption and pollution. 2 Pet. 2. 19, 20. and the sinner is there stiled the servant of corruption; sure a worthy relation this, a Servant is we know, meaner than whom he serves, at least he is in that consideration as he serves; and then I pray you, in what rank of things is Re or she who is below and baser then Corruption? David does also call such open Sepulchres; things all whose horrour does not lie in this that they enclose rottenness and putrefaction, but open Sepulchres are gaping frightfull noysomness; and they do also shed a killing stench; a man that is ingaged in conversations with impure sinners, is in a like condition with him who hath no air to draw into him, but that of Funeral Vaults, and does suck in onelyonly the breath of Pestilence.
But it is a small thing to say the cleanness of a Christian does abhor such licentious impurities, for it is such that though it may consist with those little stains that come by slips and failings of infirmity (these are the spots of Children) and also with some single fouler acts, into which the man may be surprized, provided they be suddenly washt off in tears: Yet can it not consist with continuance in a known sin, though it be but a breach of a single Commandment: And though the man be strict in other things, yet if he do allow himself one vice, he is of the number of the unclean; for partial obedience does imply also partial disobedience, and to the worst and foulest mixture; therefore no purity. Herod feared John the Baptist, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him, and when he heard him he did many things, and heard him gladly, Mar. 6. 20. Could you but pardon him one crime, he were a most Religious person, but that indulg'd makes him the wicked Herod: The matter of Vriah threw dirt, perpetual sticking dirt, into the Character of David, that man after Gods heart. There are few persons but some sin or other finds a particular engagement on, and does insinuate especially above all others into them; the vice of Constitution, the Crime of my Bosome, 'tis my own flesh and blood, I cannot tear that from me: Or else another sin does get into my Coffers, the profits of it bribe me to make much on…t, and it brings such a reward with it I cannot be unkind to it; Or else the custome of a vice hath made it my acquaintance and my friend, and then it is so joynted into me that there is no divulsion of it; now when a vice hath got any of these relations to me, rather then use a violence upon my self, I must find out some salve how to quiet Conscience, and yet keep the vice. And truly if it be but one thing that a man transgresses in, he is apt to be gentle to himself, and finds plump grounds to be so. The best man hath his fault, and this is his, onelyonly in this the Good Lord pardon him, in other things he will be strict, but this is his particular infirmity, to which his very making did dispose him, having been poysoned by its Principles without his fault or conspiration.
'Tis true, indeed, men have some one or other sinful inclination, which is a weight and violence upon them, and which they did derive from Adam, whose sin like an infection taken in by divers men, breaks out in several Diseases, according to variety of Constitutions: But truely Adam gave them no ill Customes, and they have no originall habits, themselves did educate their inclinations into vices; and for those inclinations that are derived into them, the water of their Baptisme was therefore poured upon them to coole those inbred heats, and quench those flashings out of Nature, wash away those soul innate tendencies in that Laver of Regeneration; which therefore they who spare and are tender to, because they are original and naturall, they spare them for that very reason, for which they there engaged to ruine them, and do …enounce their Baptisme, as to the aims and uses of it. There thou didst List thy self a Souldier to fight against the Devil, World, and Flesh; now whichsoere of these gets most into thee, wilt thou think fit to spare thy Enemy because he is thy bosome one? the Risque is greatest when thy Foe is Rebel and Traitor too, is got in thy own Quarters, shuffled with thy own Forces, entred thy Holds and thy Defences, and mixes in thy Counsells, does counterfeit thy Guard, so that thou but command'st, and leadst on thy own ruine. Sure here is need of strictest cares to rid thy self of so much treacherous danger; so far is it from a defence to say, this is the single force and bent of Nature in me, that if I do not therefore most resist it, I am perjuriously confederate with my Destruction; and howsoever pure I keep my self from other vices, I am not clean. David will tell me when I am, Psal. 18. 23. I was uncorrupt before him, and es…hewed my own wickedness. God hath not given us Authority to pick and choose our duties; observe him where we like, and leave the rest; and when in the severe contritions of Repentance we come to judge our Lives, we have no leave to spare a vice because custome hath made it our Companion and Iutimate, or 'tis as …ear to us as the close inclinations of our hearts. He that does so, although he live a careful life in other things, yet all his Innocence is onelyonly this, he hath a mind to but one sin; and those he does not care for he forbears, but that which pleaseth him, that he commits. And sure God is beholding to him that there is but one way of provoking which does take him, and therefore must allow him what he hath an inclination to, and pardon him because he does abstain from those he does not like. I shall now onelyonly add that in this case S. James's Aphorisme holds, that *Jam. 2. 10.Whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point onelyonly, he is guilty of all; he that allows himself to break one Precept, does keep none, but shall be reckoned guilty of those things which he does not commit. For whosoever keepeth the whole Law, and yet thus offendeth in one point, is guilty of all.
And then I need not prove such have no title to the goodness of the Text, but may conclude if God be good to Israel, it is to such as are of a Clean Heart; And so I fall upon the subject, Heart.
And here I must first caution not to think the Heart is set as if it were the entire and onelyonly Principle by which a judgment might be past upon our doings; as if our Actions so wholy deriv'd denomination from it, that they were pure which came from a clean upright heart: In opposition to which, I shall not doubt to put, That the external actions may have guilts peculiar to themselves, such as are truely their own, not shed into them by an evil mind; and a man may be wicked in the uprightness of his heart, when he does not intend any such thing, but rather the clean contrary. Our Saviour tells his Apostles, The time will come that whosoever killeth you will think he doth God service. Joh. 16. 2. foreign, that he does offer an Oblation or Worship, shall think his Murder Sacrifice; that that would propitiate for other faults; his Crime should seem Religion and attonement to him. (We have seen guilts put on such colours too:) and yet by these same actions which their hearts pursued with Holy aims, out of a Zeal to God, as S. Paul sayes, Rom. 10. 2. they sacrificed themselves and their Nation to Gods Vengeance. Once more S. Paul does find reason to call himself the chief of Sinners. 1 Tim. 1. 15. for the commissions of that time of which he sayes that he served God with a pure Conscience. v. 3. did what he was perswaded in his heart he ought to do, pursued sincere intentions; and after sayes, he had lived in all good conscience before God untill that day, Acts 23. 1. So that here was enough of the clean heart, a good and a pure conscience, and could his fiery persecutions by vertue of that flame within be Christian'd Holy Zeal? Could his Pure Conscience make his Bloody hands undefil'd? Oh no! 'twas blasphemy, and persecution, and injury, for all 'twas Conscience; for all his heart was clean from such intentions: I was before a Blasphemer, and a Persecuter, and Injurious. v. 13. We may not think to shroud foul actions under handsome Meanings and an Innocent mind; a Conscientious man may yet be chief of sinners; S. Paul was so, he sayes, and a clean Heart will not suffice alone: Therefore Heart is put here accumulatively as that whose cleannesse must be added to the purity of Conversation to compleat it; and it implies what elsewhere he does set down more expresly *Psal. 24. 4.Clean Hands, and a Pure Heart, all which a clean Heart may be set to signifie, because under Gods Holy Spirit it is the principal and onelyonly safe agent in the effecting of the rest, as that which onelyonly can make the other reall, valuable, and lasting.
When a Disease hath once insinuated it self into the Vitals, spread through the Marrow, and seized the gatrisons of Life, the Souls strong holds, and after sallyes out into the outer parts in little pustles and unhandsome ulcers; they who make application onelyonly to those outward ulcers, may perchance smooth and cure the skin, make the unhandsomness remove and shift its seat, but all that while the man decays, the Forts of Life are undermin'd and sink, the vitals putrefie, and the whole Skin becomes but the fair Monument of its own rotten Inwards: Just so we have a foreign an inward deep infusion, a bed or seedplot of malignity, which sometimes shews it self in outward grosse commissions; but if we onelyonly use the Lance or corrosive to these, we may perchance make a man shift a sin (thus it is possible that the profane may alter into Factious, or contrary, the profuse Proud man turn Covetous) but till the ground of these be purg'd away the man's not cur'd, but onelyonly the Disease is chang'd, and he is as unsound as ever: Gods severe Judgments that did lye so long so close upon us, like strong repercussives, may have stricken back the breakings out of former sins or inclinations: But then no care being taken of the Heart, the first heat sent them out again, and Mercy made a restauration of Vices too. But if the Heart once entertain a reall and sincere sense of Religion, if it consent to thorough resolutions of Piety, as far as the man discerns, so far the Cure is perfected, and such are fitted for Gods goodness; for truely God is good to Israel, even to those that are of such a clean Heart; And so I fall upon them both together, first in the former sense propos'd.
That Clean heart signifies sincere true-hearted men, I have not onelyonly the assurance of Translations, and among them the Syriack, but the Text it self does evince it, because such onelyonly are indeed of Israel; for so our Saviour sayes, Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile. Joh. 1. 47. One like the Father of them foreign. Gen. 25. 27. a man unfeigned, that did seem nothing he was not, all Heart. And such each Israelite, each man that does expect an interest in that goodnesse which the Lord hath for Israel, must be, sincere and without guile.
1. In his Conversation with Men:
I am not here to say, Sincerity is much, most generous, when it looks like a disingenuous fear to be afraid of my own mind, when my Heart dares not look into my Face, or speak in my tongue, but must lurk under a disguise of words, or countenance, that are assum'd and not its own. Nor is it Secondly, my businesse to say it is the greatest prudence, or as we call it policy, and that not onelyonly because it hath most reason to attend and to expect Gods Blessing, which other false acts cannot; but because though bold open Truth breeds Anger frequently, yet insincerity breeds hatred and contempt, there being no so ignominious thing as Reputation of Falsness, which yet is unavoydable, for events must discover insincerity, and then how piteous a thing he is when he must turn and wind still in more Mazes, till he be quite lost in his own shifts, and having no clue for his own Labyrinths, betrays himself more by his not knowing where he is; and men must needs be much more angry at pretences when they find them, than they were at unpleasing truth at first; when they discern their wants and expectations too deceived, themselves refus'd and mockt, find nothing but a Vizard for a Friend; nay, find an Enemy indeed, for so is the Dissembler to mankind. Grent Casuists do tell us, that the moral obligations to speak truth depend upon a right that each man hath who is a member of humane society; Man being a sociable Creature meerly by vertue of his Speech: But speech could not contribute to cement Society if there were not an obligation to speak truth; hence they conclude, that Children, Fools, and Madmen who are not truely members of Humane society, and also open enemies with whom we are in a state of War, and have broke that society as to all things but laws and articles of War; all these and these alone we may deceive, and then surely the false insincere man either esteems all others Fools and Madmen, or holds himself in a state of war with all Mankind, out of all Laws and obligations of Humane society, and is an Enemy to the World; a Creature by himself, but that there are so many of them. But to pass by such arguments, Gods Precepts of not aCol. 3. 9.lying to one another, oblige us and all those that require faithfulness and his Command that bRom. 12. 9.Love should be without Dissimulation; that while we speak gently, we should not be hard hearted, give melting language soft as the aires of Flattery, but yet have crusted inwards, that cannot yearn nor stretch into compassion, Jacobs voyce but Esau's rough red hands: Besides Gods reasons do inforce this, cEphes. 4. 25.Putting away lying, speak every one truth to his Neighbour, for we are members one of another: So that Dissimulation is as great a Treachery as for the Eyes to seek traps to ensnare the Feet, the Hands to sauce stones for a Meale, which may perchance delight the Palate with a tran sient gust of that they are condited with, but cannot be digested into Nourishment: Go prepare for your hungry stomacks onelyonly festival Smells, which may encourage fainting Appetite, but do but mock its emptiness; go warm a cold part with a painted light, cover a naked member with a shadow; when your own parts would take it well from one another to be thus insincerely dealt with, then, not till then, will it be tollerable to Dissemble. For we are members one of another; all fellow-members of Christs Body the Church; this Israel to which the Text sayes God is truely good, not in presence or colour onelyonly, he hath not the hypocrisies of kindnesse: Now such a true good God he will not be to them who are but counterfeit and mock-parts of this Israel, for what is there in such a man that he can be good to? To the good kind well-spoken part? Alas that is but shape and varnish, 'tis not the man that speaks, 'tis all a motion and artifice, he puts it on, and then it vanisheth and dies, is not a subject for Gods kindness, or to the heart, but that is hard and is not qualified for his Goodnesse, our true good God being onelyonly such to those as are of a clean, true, and sincere heart towards their brethren.
2. And much more, Secondly, is he such only to them that are sincere in their Religion to him. Christ hath nothing but woes for Hypocrites; the 23 Chap. of S. Mat. is made up of them; when he would word Gods Vengeance to finners, he sayes, he shall give them their portion with aMat. 24. 51.Hypocrites and bLuc. 12. 46.Unbelievers. Things strangely coupled sure, that they whose Life does seem all Faith, all Godliness, should be onelyonly fit Company in Tophet for the unbelievers, rank't and condemned with them; that all their strong belief cannot remove them from an Infidel, Sure they are far enough from the goodnesse of the Lord, when the portion of Hypocrites is Rhetorick for Hell, is its Torments exprest with art.
They whose heart is not clean to God in their Pieties, but let their strictnesses take in some temporall aim besides, as Reputation with their party, or getting Praise, or Wealth; they serve Mammon or Fame with Gods Religion, and make the very Worship of the Lord be the Idolatry of Covetousness or of Honour. If Jehu in his Executions on Ahab and his Family intend the cutting off the Regal Liue as well as Baals worship, and with their Blood to purple his own Royalty, though God did bid him shed that blood, yet does it stain his Soul with crimson guilt; and God will punish him for his obedience, I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the House of Jehu, Hos. 1. 4. But he that lets a vicious aim mix with his vertue, and does good to an ill end, addresses God's Religion to the Devil, and makes Christ minister to Belial; he does sin multipliedly, both in his vicious intention, and in debauching Vertue to serve vice, and he might much more innocently not have been Pious: Neither is that Vertue or Heart sincere whose intentions are not purely and meerly vertuous, but intend to compass some Religious end by means that are not lawful: For such intentions are not clean but mixt with vice; and 'tis sure I cannot please God with such kind of holy meanings; If a1 Sam. 15. 9. 21. 23.Saul will sacrifice with Sheep and Oxen he was bid destroy, his very worship loseth him the Throne of Israel: Nor can I serve God with such pieties, God never does require an action which he sees I cannot compasse without sin, for he requires no man to sin, for that were to command me to break his Commands, and I were bound to disobey him in obedience to him, bJob. 13. 7.Shall I speak wickedly for God, saith Job? and then shall I do so? Such Religious intentions, the justice of those ends, will never qualifie me for Gods goodnesse, when it but makes Damnation just to me, for so S. Paul affirms, Rom. 3. 5, 6, 7, 8. In fine if there be any wickednesse in the heart, it gives so foul a tincture to whatever pious actions we perform, that they become sin to us. 'Tis true, cPsal. 141. 2.Prayer is as the Incense, David sayes, and the lifting up of our hands is like the Evening Sacrifice; but if the heart of him that Prayes have any heats of Malice in it, truely that man does light his Incense with dJam. 3. 6.strange fire, kindles his sacrifice with the flames of Hell, for so S. James does call those heats. He that gives God any of his performances, and hath a naughty Heart, like Nadab and Abihu, he presents his offering in an unhallowed Censer, and all his holy worship will get nothing else from Heaven for him but a consuming fire as theirs did. He that will offer any thing to God, must take a care it be not tainted with such mixtures, which spoil all the Religion, making it not sincere, and also spoil the Heart by making it not clean, and undefiled. The last remaining sense,
A Clean and undefiled Heart.
Of those things which our Saviour sayes defile the man, some are meerly sins of the Heart, such as may be consummated within the Soul; and for the perpetration of which a spirit is sufficient to it self; such are Pride, especially spiritual pride, the sin of those that think none holy as themselves, and cast the black doom of Reprobation upon all that do not comply with their opinions and interests: such also are uncontentednesse with our estates, inward repinings at the dispositions of Providence concerning us, black malice, bitter envyings. Now in these as the mind does need no outward members to consummate them, requires no accessary organs to work them out; so neither does it require any outward accessary guilt to make them liable to condemnation: we know 'twas one sin of the spirit onelyonly that made Angels Devils. If a foul body be abominable to the Lord, shall a foul spirit be less odious? he that defiles his Soul offends God in a much neerer concern of his, because that speaks neerer relation to him then the body: this was only his workmanship, made out of Earth, the Spirit was created out of himself; a foul body is but filthy Clay, but he that does pollute his Soul does putrefie the Breath of God, and stains a beam of the Divinity.
The other sort of things that are said to come from the Heart, and to Defile, are those which S. Paul calls works of the Flesh, such as if they be committed must be committed outwardly, Murders, Drunkennesse, Revellings, Revenge, Wrath and Contentions, Seditions, Factions, Schismes, all Uncleannesses, &c. In these indeed the Heart can be but partiall Actor, the utmost it can do, is to desire and to intend them, and to contrive and manage the designs of compassing them, which yet Providence or the Innocence of others may put out of the reach of mans power, or his own temporal fears may make him not dare to set upon them, though he do cherish the desires. Now if they beobstructed from committing, most men use to conclude gently of their guilts while they do keep within the Heart; the Execution of them is the onelyonly thing that does look mortal; and till the sin be perfected there is no death in it. And truly I confesse that, as it happens many times, on a sudden surprize of soul, when a bright gilded temptation strikes the heart, and dazles the mind, we see that the Will rushes on it instantly, consents and wishes heartily; yet within a while the Spirit does recover out of the surprize, puts by the thrusts of fancy, and the stabs of the temptation, and that Will languishes and dies like a velleity, as if it had been nothing but a woulding; and now the man would not by any means consent to the commission: In this case though there be a guilt to be repented of, and cleansed with many tears, yet this is Innocence in the comparison; but if the Will purpose, contrive, and do its utmost, it is the same to the man as if he had committed. Twere easie to demonstrate this, that whatsoever evill thing a man intends and does fixedly resolve, he is guilty of, though he do nothing, or though the thing he chance to do be never so much lawful. Those sayings of S. Paul, I know, and am perswaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is no meat unclean of it self, but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean, to him it is unclean, Rom. 14. 14. and he that doubteth is damned if he eat. v. 23. These could have no truth in them, unlesse the heart by choosing and pursuing to the utmost any thing that it does judge unlawful, incurr'd the guilt of that unlawfulness, even to Damnation; and all that meerly by it self without the Action, which in that case had nothing sinful in it A weight that is upheld by a mans hand, and otherwise would rush down to the earth, does surely gravitate as much, it is as heavy though it do not fall quite down, as if it did, and, were it let alone, it would: A settled tendency, a resolv'd inclination to sin, that presseth with its utmost agitation is that weight, which though it may perchance be stopt in its career, yet it tends to the Abysse, its center, and will not rest but in that Pit that hath nor rest nor bottome; the Heart in this case is as liable as it can be, because here it hath done its worst, and such a will shall be imputed to it self.
And now I need not tell those who are still designing sin, or mischief in the heart, although it never dares come out of those recesses, how far they are removed from the goodnesse of God to Israel. *Tertuall. de Anima. cap. 58.A Father finds a way to prove such souls have larger doses of Gods Vengeance, who when he had asserted that the soul does not dye with the body, and then was askt what it did in that long interval, for sure it is not reasonable that it should be affected with any anticipations of the future Judgment, because the business of the day of Judgment should be reserved to its own day, without all prelibation of the sentence; and the restitution of the Flesh is to be waited for, that so both soul and body may go hand in hand in their Recompences as they did in their demerits, joynt partners in the Wages as they were in the Works: To this he answers; The Soul does not divide all its operations with the Body, some things it acts alone, and if there were no other cause it were most just the Soul should there receive without the Body the dues of that which here it did commit without the Body: That's for the former sort of sins, those meerly of the Heart: And for the latter sort, the Soul is first engaged in the commission, that does conceive the sin, layes the design of compassing, and does contrive and carry on the machination; and then why should not that be first in Punishment, which is the first in the Offence?
Go now and reckon that thy outward grosse transgressions are the only dangerous and guilty ones and slight thy sins of Heart; but know that while thy flesh is sleeping in the quiet Grave at rest and ease, thy Spirit then's in Torments for thy Fleshes sins, and feels a far severer Worm than that which gnaws thy Body: Poor Soul! Eternity of Hell from Resurrection to For-ever, is not enough to punish it, all that while it must suffer with the Body, but it must have an age of Vengeance besides particularly for it self, to plague it for those things it could not execute, and punish it for what it did not really enjoy; onelyonly because it did allow it self to desire and contrive them; and it must be tormented for those unsatisfied desires: And though indeed desires where they are violent, if they be not allayed by satisfaction, are but so much agony, yet do they merit and pull on them more; these torments shall be plagued, and the soul suffer for its very passion, even from Death to the last Judgment; and 'tis but just that being it usurp't upon the pleasures and the sins of Flesh, it should also seize on and take possession of the Vengeance appointed for those sins, it should invade and should usurp their condemnation.
But why do I stand pressing aggravations against uncleanness of Heart in an Age, when God knows Vice hath not so much modesty or fear to keep within those close and dark restraints? Instead of that same Cleannesse which the Text requires, we may find Purity indeed of several sorts, but 'tis either pure Fraud, or pure Impiety; the one of these does make a strange expression very proper, pure Corruption, for so it is, sincere and without mixture, nothing but it self, no spots of Clean to chequer it, but all stain: The other is pure white indeed, but it is that of whited Sepulchres; a Life as clean as Light, a bright pure Conversation, but it shines with that light onelyonly which Satan does put on a2 Cor. 11. 14.when he transformes himself into an Angell of light, and it is but a glory about a fiend. But yet this shines however, whereas others do stand Candidates of Vice, and would be glorious in wickednesse; and that is such a splendor as if Satan should dresse himself with the shine of his own flaming Brimstone, and make himself a glory with the streamings of his Lake of Fire. And yet thus is the world, we do not onelyonly see men serve some one peculiar vicious inclination, and cherish their own wickednesse, but they make every vice their own, as if the Root of bitterness branch't out in each sort of Impiety in them, such fertile soyls of sin they are, here insincerity were to be wisht; and where there is not cleanness that there were a Mask, that there were the Religion of Hypocrisie. We may remember God was good to Israel of old by obligation and performance; the one a… great as he could enter, the other great to miracle and astonishment; when after seventy years Captivity and Desolation, he did rebuild a Temple where there was no monument of its Ruines, and raised a Nation and Government of which there was no Reliques. And yet at last when the Religion of some turned into Faction, of others into Prophanenesse; when the strictest Sect of them, the Pharises, became most holy out wardly, to have the better means aJos. Antiq. l. 13. c. 23. edit. Basil. 1544.foreign, to mischief those that were not of their party, and got a great opinion of Sanctity, foreign, so as to be believed in whatsoever they did speak against the King or chief Priests; and that so far as to be able openly to practice against both, and raise commotions. bforeign. Jos. Anti. l. 17. c. 3.They are Josephus words of them; and when another Sect, the Zelots, the most pernicious of all, saith Bertram, did commit Murders, Sacriledge, Prophanations, and all kind of Villanies, foreign, cforeign. l. 4. c. 12.with good Intentions, saith the same Josephus; and when those who did not separate into Sects, but were the Church of Israel, became lukewarme, supine, and negligent in their Profession, yea, and licentious and Prophane, fit onelyonly to be joyned with Publicans, in Christs expressions; when sin grewgenerally Impudent; when they did live as if they would be Scandalous as well as vicious, as if they lov'd the guilt as much as the delights of sin, and cared not to be wicked to themselves, but must debauch, as if they did enjoy the ruine of other persons, sinning just as the Devil does, who does not taste the sin, but feasts upon the Sinners Condemnation: Then did God execute a Vengeance whose prediction was fit to be mistaken for that of the Day of Judgment, and whose event almost fulfil'd the terrors of that day.
I need not draw resemblances, shew how Gods goodness to our Israel does equall that to them; applying to our selves their Raptures; how dPsal. 126. 1.when the Lord turned the Captivity of our Sion, we also were like them that dream, surprized with Mercy. Indeed as in a Dream; Ideas are not alwayes well connected, there is no chain or thread of fancies, and the thoughts are not joynted regular and even; but there are breaches and disorder in them still, the Images of sleep being like Nebuchadnezzar's, made of such things as do not well unite. So there is something I confess, like this in our condition, for with our gold and silver, our precious things that are restored, there is Iron and Clay, not onelyonly meaner mixtures, but such things as will not close, or be soder'd, but do incline to part asunder, and would moulder and tend towards dissolution; and just as in a Dream, the composure of things is not so undisturb'd, but that there is some confusedness; neither our affections nor practises do perfectly cement; but yet I hope it is no dream of mercy, 'tis not a Phantasme or an Apparition of Gods kindness, but the Lord will be truly good to us.
Yet if we do proceed as Israel, and equal it in provocations:—
But I will make no parallels, publique clamors do that too loud; these do display the factions of iniquity among us, and muster up the several parties of our vices too; and each man is as perfect in the guilts of all sides that he is not of, as if their memories were the books that shall be opened at the Day of Judgment; some men can point you out our Pharisees and Zelots; others can shew you our prophane licentious Professors, Lay and Clergy both; and indeed we need not go far to seek any or all of these, nor do we want our Sadduces. Now if all this be true, then as those were the signs of the Son of Man's coming to them in Judgment, so we may fear they are his Harbingers to us. If they be, I am sure the onelyonly way to make his coming good to us, is to prepare for it by cleansing from all filthiness and insincerity; then though he come clothed with a Glory of flaming Vengeance, yet will those streams of Fire find nothing to consume or wash away in us; but through that flame the pure in heart shall see God, so as that that sight shall be the Beatick Vision: Yea, they shall see the Goodnesse of the Lord in the Land of the Living, they shall see Jerusalem in prosperity all their life long, and Peace here upon Israel, and in his light they shall see light hereafter in the Jerusalem that is above. To the state of which glorious Light He bring us all, who is the brightness of his Fathers Glory: To whom be Glory, and Dominion for ever and ever.
Amen.