the cases of contention, adultery, lust, and envy, which are the four great indecencies that are most contrary to Christianity and in the fifth chapter he implies also a possibility of pardon to an habitual sinner, whom he calls τον πλανηθέντα από της όδου τους αλήθειας, one that errs from the truth, that is, from the life of a Christian, the life of the spirit of truth: and he adds, that such a person may be reduced, and so be pardoned, though he have sinned long; he that converts such a one shall hide a multitude of sins. But then the way that he appoints for the restitution of such persons is humility and humiliation, penances and sharp penitential sorrows, and afflictions, resisting the devil, returning to God, weeping and mourning, confessions, and prayers, as you may read at large in the fourth and fifth chapters, and there it is that you shall find it a duty, that such persons should be afflicted, and should confess to their brethren; and these are harder conditions than God requires in the former cases; these are a kind of fiery trial. more, I have now done with my text, and should add no but that the nature of these sins is such, that they may increase in their weight, and duration, and malice, and then they increase in mischief and fatality, and so go beyond the text. Cicero said well, Ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa esse videtur et lubrica, L. 4. Acad. Qu. The very custom of consenting in matters of civility is dangerous and slippery, and will quickly engage us in errour; and then we think we are bound to defend them; or else we are made flatterers by it, and so become vicious: and we love our own vices that we are used to, and keep them till they are incurable, that is, till we never repent of them and some men resolve never to repent, that is, they resolve they will not be saved, they tread un *Chap. v., ver. alt. der foot the blood of the everlasting covenant. Those persons are in the fire too, but they will not be pulled out: concerning whom God's prophets must say as once concerning Babylon, Curavimus, et non est sanata; derelinquamus eam: We would have healed them, but they would not be healed; let us leave them in their sins, and they shall have enough of it. Only this: Those that put themselves out of the condition of mercy are not to be endured in Christian societies; they deserve it not, and it is not safe that they should be suffered. But besides all this, I shall name one thing more unto you; for -nunquam adeo foedis adeoque pudendis Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint.* There are some single actions of sin of so great a malice, that in their own nature they are beyond the limit of gospel pardon: they are not such things for the pardon of which God entered into covenant, because they are such sins which put a man into perfect indispositions, and incapacities of entering into or being in the covenant. In the first ages of the world, atheism was of that nature, it was against their whole religion; and the sin is worse now, against the whole religion still, and against a brighter, light. In the ages after the flood, idolatry was also just such another; for God was known first only as the Creator; then he began to manifest himself in special contracts with men, and he quickly was declared the God of Israel; and idolatry perfectly destroyed all that religion, and therefore was never pardoned entirely, but *Juv. Sat. 8. v. 183. Shameful are these examples, yet we find, To Rome's disgrace, far worse than these behind. DRYDEN. God did visit it upon them that sinned; and when he pardoned it in some degrees, yet he also punished it in some and yet rebellion against the supreme power of Moses and Aaron was worse; for that also was a perfect destruction of the whole religion, be cause it refused to submit to those hands upon which God had placed all the religion and all the govern ment. And now if we would know in the gospel what answers these precedent sins; I answer, first, the same sins acted by a resolute hand and heart are worse now then ever they were: and a third and fourth is also to be added; and there is apostacy, or a voluntary malicious renouncing the faith: the church hath often declared that sin to be unpardonable. Witchcraft, or final impenitence and obstinacy in any şin, are infallibly desperate; and in general, and by a certain parity of reason, whatsoever does destroy charity or the good life of a Christian, with the same general venom and deletery as apostacy, destroys faith and he that is a renegado from charity is as unpardonable as he that returns to solemn atheism or infidelity; for all that is directly the sin against the Holy Ghost, that is, a throwing that away whereby only we can be Christians, whereby only we can hope to be saved. To speak a word against the Holy Ghost, in the Pharisees was declared unpardonable, because it was such a word which, if it had been true or believed, would have destroyed the whole religion; for they said that Christ wrought by Beelzebub, and by consequence did not come from God. He that destroys all the whole order of priesthood, destroys one of the greatest parts of the religion, and one of the greatest effects of the Holy Ghost: He that destroys government destroys another part. But that we may come nearer to ourselves: To quench the spirit of God is worse than to speak some words against him; to grieve the Spirit of God is a part of the same impiety; to resist the Holy Ghost is another part: and if we consider that every great sin does this in proportion, it would concern us to be careful lest we fall into presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over us. Out of this that I have spoken, you may easily gather what sort of men those are who cannot be snatched from the fire; for whom, as St. John says, we are not to pray; and how near men come to it that continue in any known sin. If I should descend to particulars, I might lay a snare to scrupulous and nice consciences. This only; every confirmed habitual sinner does manifest the divine justice in punishing the sins of a short life with a never-dying worm, and a never-quenched flame; because he hath an affection to sin, that no time will diminish, but such as would increase to eternal ages; and accordingly as any man hath a degree of love, so he hath lodged in his soul a spark which, unless it be speedily and effectually quenched, will break forth into unquenchable fire. SERMON XVIII, THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. MATTHEW xvi. 26. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? WHEN the eternal mercy of God hath decreed to rescue mankind from misery and infelicity, and so triumphed over his own justice; the excellent wisdom of God resolved to do it in ways contradictory to the appetites and designs of man, that it might also triumph over our weaknesses and imperfect conceptions. So God decreed to glorify his mercy by curing our sins, and to exalt his wisdom by the reproof of our ignorance, and the representing upon what weak and false principles we had built our hopes and expectations of felicity; pleasure and profit, victory over our enemies, riches and pompous honours, power and revenge, desires according to sensual appetites, and prosecutions violent and passionate of those appetites, health and long life, free from trouble, without poverty or persecution. Haec sunt, jucundissime Martialis, * Mart. Lib. 10. 47. These heighten all the joys of life. A |