singing loudest when their house is on fire about their ears, and being merriest when they are most miserable and perishing; when they have the option of two things, they ever choose the worst; they are not masters of their own actions, but break all purposes at the first temptation; they take more pains to do themselves a mischief than would secure heaven; that is, they are rude, ignorant, foolish, unwary, and undiscerning people, in all senses and to all purposes; and are incurable but by their obedience and conformity to the holy Jesus, the eternal Wisdom of the Father. 33. Upon the strength of these premises, the yoke of christianity must needs be apprehended light, though it had in it more pressure than it hath; because lightness or heaviness, being relative terms, are to be esteemed by comparison to others. Christianity is far easier than the yoke of Moses' law, not only because it consists of fewer rites, but also because those perfecting and excellent graces which integrate the body of our religion are made easy by God's assisting and the gifts of the holy Ghost; and we may yet make it easier by love and by fear, which are the proper products of the evangelical promises and threatenings. For I have seen persons in affrightment have carried burdens, and leaped ditches, and climbed walls, which their natural power could never have done: and if we understood the sadnesses of a cursed eternity from which we are commanded to fly, and yet knew how near we are to it and how likely to fall into it, it would create fears greater than a sudden fire or a midnight alarm. And those unhappy souls who come to feel this truth when their condition is without remedy, are made the more miserable by the apprehension of their stupid folly; for certainly the accursed spirits feel the smart of hell once doubled upon them, by considering by what vain, unsatisfying trifles they lost their happiness, with what pains they perished, and with how great ease they might have been beatified. And certain it is, christian religion hath so furnished us with assistances both exterior and interior, both of persuasion and advantages, that whatsoever Christ hath doubled upon us in perfection, He hath alleviated in aids. 34. And then if we compare the state of christianity with sin, all the preceding discourses were intended to represent how much easier it is to be a Christian than a vile and wicked person. And he that remembers that whatever fair allurements may be pretended as invitations to a sin, are such false and unsatisfying pretences that they drive a man to repent him of his folly, and like a great laughter, end in a sigh, and expire in weariness and indignation; must needs confess himself a fool for doing that which he knows will make him repent that he ever did it. A sin makes a man afraid when it thunders; and in all dangers the sin detracts the visor and affrights him; and visits him when he comes to die, upbraiding him with guilt, and threatening misery. So that christianity is the easiest law, and the easiest state; it is more perfect and less troublesome; it brings us to felicity by ways proportionable, landing us in rest by easy and unperplexed journeys. This discourse I therefore thought necessary, because it reconciles our religion with those passions and desires which are commonly made the instruments and arguments of sin. For we rarely meet with such spirits which love virtue so metaphysically as to abstract her from all sensible and delicious compositions, and love the purity of the idea. St. Lewis the king sent Ivo bishop of Chartres on an embassy; and he told, that he met a grave matron on the way, with fire in one hand and water in the other; and observing her to have a melancholic, religious, and fantastic deportment and look, asked her what those symbols meant, and what she meant to do with her fire and water? She answered, "My purpose is, with the fire to burn paradise, and with my water to quench the flames of hell, that inen may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear, and purely for the love of God." Whether the woman were only imaginative and sad, or also zealous, I know not. But God knows He would have few disciples, if the arguments of invitation were not of greater promise than the labours of virtue are of trouble: and therefore the Spirit of God, knowing to what we are inflexible, and by what we are made most ductile and malleable, hath propounded virtue clothed and dressed with such advantages as may entertain even our sensitive part and first desires, that those also may be invited to virtue who understand not what is just and reasonable, but what is profitable; who are more moved with advantage than justice: and because emolument is more felt than innocence, and a man may be poor for all his gift of chastity; the holy Jesus, to endear the practices of religion, hath represented godliness unto us under the notion of gain, and sin as unfruitful. And yet besides all the natural and reasonable advantages, every virtue hath a supernatural reward, a gracious promise attending; and every vice is not only naturally deformed, but is made more ugly by a threatening, and horrid by an appendent curse.-Henceforth therefore let no man complain that the commandments of God are impossible; for they are not only possible, but easy; and they that say otherwise and do accordingly, take more pains to carry the instruments of their own death, than would serve to ascertain them of life; and if we would do as much for Christ as we have done for sin, we should find the pains less, and the pleasure more. And therefore such complainers are without exfor certain it is they that can go in foul ways must not say cuse; b [Joinville, histoire de St. Louis, p. 93.-fol. Par. 1761.] C - Quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam Præmia si tollas?-Juy. [x. 141.] Sublatis studiorum pretiis, etiam studia peritura. Ut minus decora, &c.-Tacit. [Annal. xi. 7.] Vide Ciceron. Tuscul. ii. Lact. Instit., lib. iii. cap. 27. [tom. i. p. 261.] [Si ergo] virtus per seipsam beata non est, quoniam in perferendis, ut dixi, malis tota vis ejus est;-Idem, cap. 12. [tom. i. p. 215.] Aug. Ep. xii. [Qu. cxx. al. cxl. passim. tom. ii. col. 422 sqq.] they cannot walk in fair; they that march over rocks in despite of so many impediments, can travel the even ways of religion and peace, when the holy Jesus is their guide, and the Spirit is their guardian, and infinite felicities are at their journey's end, and all the reason of the world, political, economical, and personal, do entertain and support them in the travel of the passage. THE PRAYER. O eternal Jesus, who gavest laws unto the world, that mankind being united to Thee by the bands of obedience might partake of all Thy glories and felicities; open our understanding, give us the spirit of discerning, and just apprehension of all the beauties with which Thou hast enamelled virtue to represent it beauteous and amiable in our eyes; that by the allurements of exterior decencies and appendent blessings our present desires may be entertained, our hopes promoted, our affections satisfied; and love, entering in by these doors, may dwell in the interior regions of the will. O make us to love Thee for Thyself, and religion for Thee, and all the instruments of religion in order to Thy glory and our own felicities. Pull off the visors of sin, and discover its deformities by the lantern of Thy word and the light of the Spirit, that I may never be bewitched with sottish appetites: be pleased to build up all the contents I expect in this world upon the interests of a virtuous life and the support of religion; that I may be rich in good works, content in the issues of Thy providence, my health may be the result of temperance and severity, my mirth in spiritual emanations, my rest in hope, my peace in a good conscience, my satisfaction and acquiescence in Thee; that from content I may pass to an eternal fulness, from health to immortality, from grace to glory; walking in the paths of righteousness, by the waters of comfort, to the land of everlasting rest; to feast in the glorious communications of eternity, eternally adoring, loving, and enjoying the infinity of the ever-blessed and mysterious Trinity; to whom be glory, and honour, and dominion, now and for ever. Amen. DISCOURSE XVI. Of certainty of salvation. 1. WHEN the holy Jesus took an account of the first legation and voyage of His apostles, He found them rejoicing in privileges and 4 Ad Num. 17. exterior powers, in their authority over unclean spirits; but weighing it in His balance, He found the cause too light, and therefore diverted it upon the right object, "Rejoice that your names are written in heaven." The revelation was confirmed, and more personally applied, in answer to St. Peter's question, "we have forsaken all, and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore ?" their Lord answered, ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Amongst these persons to whom Christ spake, Judas was; he was one of the twelve, and he had a throne allotted for him; his name was described in the book of life, and a sceptre and a crown was deposited for him too. For we must not judge of Christ's meaning by the event, since He spake these words to produce in them faith, comfort, and joy in the best objects; it was a sermon of duty as well as a homily of comfort, and therefore was equally intended to all the college; and since the number of thrones is proportioned to the number of men, it is certain there was no exception of any man there included, and yet it is as certain Judas never came to sit upon the throne, and his name was blotted out of the book of life. Now if we put these ends together, that in scripture it was not revealed to any man concerning his final condition, but to the dying penitent thief, and to the twelve apostles, that twelve thrones were designed for them, and a promise made of their enthronization; and yet that no man's final estate is so clearly declared miserable and lost as that of Judas, one of the twelve to whom a throne was promised; the result will be, that the election of holy persons is a condition allied to duty, absolute and infallible in the general, and supposing all the dispositions and requisites concurring; but fallible in the particular, if we fall off from the mercies of the covenant, and prevaricate the conditions. But the thing which is most observable is, that if in persons so eminent and privileged, and to whom a revelation of their election was made as a particular grace, their condition had one weak leg, upon which because it did rely for one half of the interest, it could be no stronger than its supporters: the condition of lower persons, to whom no revelation is made, no privileges are indulged, no greatness of spiritual eminency is appendent, as they have no greater certainty in the thing, so they have less in person; and are therefore to work out their salvation with great fears and tremblings of spirit. 2. The purpose of this consideration is, that we do not judge of our final condition by any discourses of our own, relying upon God's secret counsels and predestination of eternity. This is a mountain upon Quod dixit Jesus lxxii. discipulis, [Luc. x. 20.] eorum nomina descripta esse in cœlo; prædestinationem licet aliquatenus denotet, non tamen ad gloriam, sed ad munus evangelicum et ministerium in regno. Alii autem verba illa non rem facti denotare, sed causam gaudii tantum enarrare justam et legitimam; ex suppositione scil. et quando hoc contigerit, aut ad effectum perducetur. Utcunque autem verba significent, certum est doctores ecclesiæ non paucos tradidisse lxxii. discipulos Christum reliquisse, nec rediisse denuo. which whosoever climbs, like Moses, to behold the land of Canaan at great distances, may please his eyes or satisfy his curiosity, but is certain never to enter that way. It is like enquiring into fortunes, concerning which Phavorinuss the philosopher spake not unhandsomely, "They that foretell events of destiny and secret providence, either foretell sad things, or prosperous. If they promise prosperous, and deceive, you are made miserable by a vain speculation. If they threaten ill fortune, and say false, thou art made wretched by a false fear. But if they foreteli adversity, and say true, thou art made miserable by thy own apprehension before thou art so by destiny; and many times the fear is worse than the evil feared. But if they promise felicities, and promise truly what shall come to pass, then thou shalt be wearied by an impatience and a suspended hope, and thy hope shall ravish and deflower the joys of thy possession." Much of it is hugely applicable to the present question; and our blessed Lord, when He was petitioned that He would grant to the two sons. of Zebedee that they might sit, one on the right hand and the other on the left, in His kingdom, rejected their desire, and only promised them what concerned their duty and their suffering; referring them to that, and leaving the final event of men to the disposition of His Father. This is the great secret of the kingdom, which God hath locked up and sealed with the counsels of eternity. "The sure foundation of God standeth, having this seal, The Lord knoweth who are His." This seal shall never be broken up till the great day of Christ; in the mean time, the divine knowledge is the only repository of the final sentences, and this 'way of God is unsearchable, and past finding out.' And therefore if we be solicitous and curious to know what God in the counsels of eternity hath decreed concerning us; He hath in two fair tables described all those sentences from whence we must take accounts, the revelations of scripture, and the book of conscience. The first recites the law and the conditions, the other gives in evidence; the first is clear, evident, and conspicuous; the other, when it is written with large characters, may also be discerned; but there are many little accents, periods, distinctions, and little significations of actions, which either are there written in water, or sullied over with carelessness, or blotted with forgetfulness, or not legible by ignorance, or misconstrued by interest and partiality, that it will be extremely difficult to read the hand upon the wall, or to copy out one line of the eternal sentence. And therefore excellent Ad scelus ab hujusmodi votis facillime transitur.-Tac. [Hist. i. 22.] Nos pravum ac debile vulgus Scrutamur penitus superos; hinc pallor et iræ, Hinc scelus, insidiæque, et nulla modestia voti.-Statius. [Theb. iii. 563.] 8 Aul. Gell. [lib. xiv. cap. i. p. 641.] b Futurum gaudii fructum spes tibi jam præfloraverit.[Ubi sup.] 2 Tim. ii. 19. |