Eighteen sermons whereof fifteen preached the King, the rest upon publick occasions / by Richard Allestry ...

SERMON III. VVHITE-HALL. Second Wednesday in Lent. (Book 3)

LEVIT. 16. 31.

Ye shall Afflict your Souls by a Statute for ever.

THe words are one Single Precept concerning one part of the Cele∣bration [ A] of a Day: I shall not take the Precept asunder into parts, for it hath none; but shall frame my Discourse to Answer three Enquiries that naturally offer themselves to be consider'd from these words: And they are,

1. What the Importance of the thing commanded is? what is required in this Injunction Te shall Afflict your Souls? [ B]

2. What Usefulnesse and Efficacy this Duty had upon that time in which it was prescribed? what the Afflicting of the Soul contributed to the work of that Day? that it should be

made so indispensable an ingredient of its performances, tyed [ A] to it by a Statute for ever?

3. Whether that for ever do reach us? which is the Ap∣plication, and brings all home to us.

First, What the Import of the thing commanded, the Af∣flicting of the Soul is?

The Arab. and Targum of Jerusalem Translate it a 1.1 Fasting; yea, and a Learned Rabbine sayes, that wheresoever these two words are put together, that is meant. And indeed they are often joyned in Scripture to express it, Psal. 35. 13. I afflicted my Soul with Fasting. And the Prophet Isaiah [ B] speaking of this Day in my Text, sayes, Is it such a Fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to Afflict his Soul? Isa. 58. 5. Somewhat a strange expression it is; for Fasting does afflict the Body properly, and yet we find the like too in the other Extream: We read of pampering the Soul, Psa••. 78. 18. They required 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 meat for their Souls; not to sup∣ply the Hunger of their Body, that they had before; but to indulge the Lusts of their mind; they did not want food, but variety; Festival diet, and a Table furnisht they would have; and this luxuriancy and wantonness of Meat the [ C] Scripture calls meat for the Soul: Such as God sayes in other places the Soul lusteth after. Indeed forc't meats, and things that please meerly by being rare and dear, or by being ex∣travagant, these do not feed the Appetite but opinion, and the mind; it is the Soul onely that hungers after these: Thus when I look after Wine in the glasse, and make my Eye a Critique of its accidents, and by the mode and fashion of it teach it to please or displease my judgment, I do not here thirst after the cool moysture of it, but the sparkling flame, and do not drink the wine, but the flavour and colour, and this is all but notion. Now certainly these are not proper [ D] objects for our appetites, meat for the Body, sayes the Scri∣pture, and it is the Stomack and not the Imagination that is hungry; nor is it Fancy or the Soul that thirsts, but 'tis the Pa∣late, so that these are unnatural and monstrous satisfactions and appetites.

And yet to bring mens selves to this, is one of the great masteries of Wit and Art, to force themselves to find a relish in these things, and then contrive them is a piece of skill which the advantages of parts and fortune are desireable [ E] mostly, as they are useful to: And a well studied Epicure, one expert in the mysteries of Eating, is a singularly qualifi∣ed and most grateful person.

It were in vain to ask what else such men can be good for?

that being their Profession, they are out at most other things: [ A] Indeed the Soul that dwells in Dishes, and is stew'd in its own Luxuries, grows loose and does dissolve, its sinews melt, all its firmness of mind forsakes it, the man is strong for no∣thing but for Lusts, his faculties are choak'd and stifled, they stagnate and are mir'd within him, and there corrupt and pu∣trefie. And then what Cranes will force out thence, and wind up such a Soul into the practises and expectations of Plety? will make it mind and entertain the hopes and Duties of Religion? what macerations, what Chymistry will de∣fecate a Spirit so incarnated, and rectifie it into such a fineness [ B] as befits that state where all their blessednesse have no sensu∣al relish, but are sublimed into Divine and purely Spirituall.

Lord God! that thou shouldst shed a Rational Angelick Soul into us, a thing next to the Being of thy Selfe, and We make it employ it selfe to animate onely the organs of Intemperance, and Gluttony, and their appendant lusts: Only inspire us how to be but more Sa∣gacious, indeed but more luxurious Bruits, when thou hast set us here to train and discipline our selves for a condition of such glorious Joyes as are fit to entertain Souls of Reason [ C] with, and to make them blessed; which to enter upon, our Bodies must drop from us, our Souls must be clarified from Flesh, and Flesh it self re fined into a Spirit; that we should make our selves Antipodes to this, walk contrary to all, and so debase our spirits as that they are qualified for no other satisfaction, but those of dull sense and carnality.

Adam fell his great Fall by Eating, but ever since men fall further by riotous intemperate Eating. He fell from Para∣dise, and they from Reason; the Man sinks into Beast, and the Soul falls into very Flesh, and hath no other faculties or appetites but fleshly ones. [ D]

Such people of all others are not to be raised up by Reli∣gion; their fulness gives no place to that, but does exclude it. God did complain of this of old, 32. Deut. 15. Je surun waxed fat and kicked; that we may see they want no bruitish quality, who do allow themselves the appetite of Bruits; they that pamper themselves like to fed Horses, will also neigh like them and kick even him that fed them; thou art waxen fat, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God that made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his Sal∣vation. When they came once where they did a 1.2 suck hony [ E] out of the Rock, and Oyl out of the flinty Rock, they could not mind the Rock of their Salvation.

Indeed this sensuality as it consumes Estates, eats Time,

and all the faculties of the Mind, so it devours all Religion [ A] too, it hath not onely a particular opposition to some one duty as the other Vices have, but by a direct influence it destroyes the whole foundation of Virtue and obedience to God; I mean subordination of the lower appetite to Reason and Religion, which it renverses quite, and breeds an univer∣sal cachexy of the Soul as well as Body.

For ever since Adam did eat of the forbidden Fruit, the carnal mind we know is neither subject to the Law of God, nei∣ther indeed can be, as S. Paul sayes, Rom. 8. 7. because Gods Commands are restraints upon those things which Flesh de∣sires [ B] eagerly. Now therefore while that Mind is unsubdued, it must needs lust against the Spirit for those things that are forbidden, nor endure to be limited; which he that feeds it, is so far from working towards, that he does give it still more provocation and more power, and makes the Flesh more absolute; for it is clear that Plenty does encrease all its desires and their unruliness; it ministers both vigor to it by which it is enabled to fulfil its lusts, and it ministers aptness and incitation also, both by custome of satisfaction, and by adding heat which makes it more prone to rebell, and more [ C] impossible to be kept under. The progresse of this is ap∣parent in the Scripture, Exod. 32. 6. The People sate down to Eat and Drink and rose up to Play: a 1.3 Lusum non denotasset nisi impudicum; he means, to play the wantons. But Jeremy is plainer, ch. 5. 7. 8. How shall I pardon thee for this? thy Chil∣dren have forsaken me, when I had fed them to the full, they then committed Adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in Harlots houses: Nor stayes it there, but does encrease as well as feed to an Excesse; we may discerne that by the Wisemans Prayer 23. of Ecclesiast. 6. O Lord, Father and God of my [ D] Life, let not the greediness of the Belly, nor the lust of the Flesh, take hold of me, and give not over me thy Servant to an impu∣dent mind. Gyant-like he had called it in the verse before; and sure the Wiseman in the Proverbs apprehended it as such, and dreaded it accordingly, as if Bellies full gorg'd were those Mountains which the Gyants cast up to storm Heaven on: He lookt upon this Vice as that which would bid defiance to God, and out him, and therefore thinks it necessary to beseech the Lord not to afford him so much as would furnish Plenty, Prov. 30. 8. Give me not Riches, feed me with food [ E] convenient for me; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 with an Allowance, with no more than is sufficient for me, least I be full and deny thee, and say who is the Lord. It seems such persons know no other God besides their Belly; nor is it any wonder if a Soul made

Flesh cannot well apprehend a Deity that is a Spirit, or be∣leeve it, but thinks all notions of such beings to be contra∣diction, [ A] when once by the suffusions of Carnality all the im∣pressions of a Spirit are wrought out of it self: And truly this is the most natural and certain way to become A∣theists.

Whether this time that hath been almost alwayes set aside for strict Severities, and to work out Repentance (and if it be not so intended now, I know not what pretence did call us hither) (for though there be some relaxation of the se∣verer Dyet of this time, sure there is no indulgence of that Penitence which the strictness of this time design'd) and let [ B] some men talk what they please of the Intention of their Statutes, yet these Assemblies certainly were not intended for the increase of Cattle, and advance of Fishing; these were for higher aims of Piety: Now whether we employ it so much towards this as to afflict our Souls, i. e. our Appe∣tites, and to revenge our superfluities upon our selves, and to teach our desires to be denyed: Or whether we do teach the Dyet of this season to be but a variety of Luxury, and if the Law did not command it, and so make it Pressure by [ C] giving it the inconvenience and the uneasiness of being duty and obedience; our selves could make it be one of the changes of our Vice, onely another course, a diverse service of the same Riot, and so defeat the Law by our obedience to it: Or whether we do break the Law outright, and to our superfluities add disobedience to Authority, whether we do the one or other is not for me to say. But if the Na∣tion and we our selves have any sins to be repented of, and we design this season for that use (as sure some season must be so employed, and why not this as well, rather indeed than any other;) if we be not of those that would be glad to see [ D] all thrown again into Confusion; glad to see a return of the same Vengeance, as indeed a return of the same sins, and the abuse of Mercies seem to call for it, while men do live as if they thought God had wrought all these Miracles meerly to give them opportunity to serve their Vices or their other ends, to put them in a way to get Places, Estates, and Dig∣nities; and by uncharitable gains, hard hearted griping, yea by false unworthy treacherous arts, to heap up Wealth, to raise their Families, or feed their lusts: These, these cry [ E] out to God to renew his Commission to the Sword, to passe through all the Land again, and embowel it self in Church and State; these call for it as loud as the harangueing prayers of Seditious Men; and the Lord knows there are too many

hands that would unsheath it, if God do not interpose to [ A] hinder, and well we have deserv'd he should. But if we would endeavour to engage him by Repentance, that will require the Afflicting of the Soul by some severities. Do not mistake your selves; Repentance, as it cannot be wrought out amidst our courses, that were contradiction to return, and yet go on; so also it will not be wrought out amidst the Com∣forts, as we call the jollities, of life.

Tertullian is very pleasant with those who did dislike that in their Penitencies, they were by the Church prescrib'd to put off Mirth and put on Sackcloth, and take Ashes for [ B] Bread; Come, sayes he, reach that Bodkin there to braid my Hair, and help me now to practise all those Arts that are in Mode to attire it; give me the washes of that Glasse, the blushes of that Paper, the foyles which that Box hath to beautifie and dress my Cheeks; come and set out and dress my Table too, let me have Fowl with costly forc't and not a natural Fat; or let me have cramb'd Fish, and cramme my Dishes also; get me chearful Wines too: and if any one ask why I do thus indulge my self? why I will tell him, I have sinn'd against my God, and am in danger of Perdition, and therefore I am in great trouble; I macerate (do you not see the signs of it?) and excruciate my [ C] self, I take these fearful careful wayes that I may reconcile God to me whom I have offended.

Alas to humble ones self thus in fulnesse, and to afflict the Soul in chearful plenties, is such a thing as none but he that sinks under the surfeit of those Plenties understands. I'm sure the Lord, when he required his People to repent, requi∣red them then to discipline, and use severities upon them∣selves; they were to fast or dye: God took the execution, for whatsoever Soul it be that shall not be Afflicted that same day shall be cut off from among his People, 23. Levit. 29. Even [ D] cut off by God himself.

And I do verily perswade my self, that one great cause, why men that have sometimes thoughts to reform their lives, and do resolve against their Courses, yet repent of their Repentance, their resolutions untwist, and become frail as threads of Cobweb, the first assault of a temptation does break through them, is, they do not use mortifications to work their aversations high and strong against their sins, and fix their resolutions. The universal sense of the whole Pri∣mitive Church does give me confidence in this perswasion, [ E] who for that very reason in their penitential Excommunica∣tions did inflict such severities, as 'tis almost incredible that Christians would submit to; yet they beg'd to be censur'd

into; and those had S. Paul for their precedent. But now [ A] Repentances are but dislikes, little short unkindnesses at our sins, and wouldings to do better: On some moving occasi∣on if Gods hand or his Spirit lash, it may be Tears will gush out of the Wound, and we in angry sadness do intend against our vices; but when that fit is over, and the Flesh by indul∣gences prepared to make or answer a temptation, we fall again, and then it may be shake the head and curse the sin; but yet again commit it, if the invitation be fair: And then are very sorry, account our selves unhappy, who lye under such a violent infirmity, but act it still. Now if we consider [ B] how it comes to passe that we go round like men inchanted, in a Circle of Repenting and of Sinning, we shall find it is for want of Discipline upon our selves; for had we strove to make our humiliations more low and full of pungent sorrow, the Soul would start and fly at the first glance of that which cost it so much anguish; but who would fear to act that sin which puts him to so little trouble to repent of? as a sad thought, a sigh, a wish, and a loose purpose, thin in∣tention, and thats all.

Do not complain of the Infirmity of the Flesh for this, [ C] and say thou wouldst live Spiritually, but the frailty of thy sensual part betrayes thee; its stings and incitations make thee start from duty, and goad and force thee into actions which otherwise thou neither shouldst or wouldst commit. 'Tis thou thy self that arm'st thy Flesh with all its stings; thou givest it strengths, whereby it does subdue the Spirit; thou waterest thy desires with Wines; thou feedest them with strong meat and teachest them to crave; thou cocker'st them with thy indulgence, and thou dost treat Temptations to sin, dost invite wickednesse, and nourish the occasions of Ruin; and then it is no wonder if thy resolutions be not strong [ D] enough, there is no way but by Austerities to mortifie all inclinations that stir against the Spirit, and by denying satis∣factions to thy Appetite, to calm and moderate thy affecti∣ons to every thing below, and then Temptations will have neither Aid nor Avenue.

But Secondly, You shall Afflict your Souls, cannot be meant onely that ye shall Afflict your Bodies; the Spirit also must be troubled, and we must rent the Heart as well as Gar∣ments; that is indeed a Sacrifice fit for a Propitiation day, for it is such a one as God will not despise, Psal. 51. 17. and [ E] without which all others are but vain Oblations.

God may call safting the Afflicting of the Soul, because it is the most appropriate and natural means to work it; but

when he calls it so he does intend it should produce it. Au∣sterities [ A] are humilificandi hominis disciplina, as Tertull▪ sayes, Humiliation discipline; but yet they have not alwayes that effect. The Pharisee that fasted twice a week did not mor∣tifie at all, but his Humiliation made him lofty, his empti∣nesse filled him with wind, and puft him up, and the Pub∣lican was more justified than he. And late experiences have taught us, that Fasting does not alwayes humble, when it did gape for Soveraignty, and did afflict them into Power onely, when there attended it a sacra fames, an hunger after Holy things, and such as all the relicts of old Sacri∣ledge [ B] could not allay, but it devoured Church and State, and yet crav'd still: And the throat of these fasting men was an open Sepulchre indeed; open to bury, and that could no more be satisfied than the Grave.

But 'tis not onely these demure impieties, and those that are devont in wickednesse, and act it in Religion and the Fear of God, I have to speak against:

But in the generall, If Fasting do not humble, and those severities that wear the Flesh break not the heart too and make it contrite, then they are lost upon us, and do not pro∣fit us. All these strictnesses of bodily and outward exercise, [ C] as S. Paul calls it, are acts of discipline prescribed to make the Sorrowes of Repentance more severe and operative, and so to be the Correctives of the distempers of the Soul, to quell the risings of the Appetite and Passions, and bring the sensual part of us under obedience to Reason and Religion; to make all calm and even in us, and put us in the frame of Men and Christians, of Rational and Pious Creatures. And if they do not work this in us, if the Soul do not meet in the performances, they are not acceptable in themselves at all: These are onely the mint anise and cummin of our Pieties; [ D] and as Origen sayes, the condimenta actuum the sauces of Re∣ligion, not the main standing parts of it, which he there∣fore that offers solitary gives God a Sacrifice of Sallads, and thinks that will be a Sin-Offering. They do mistake themselves who cherish any hope from having spent a day, or Lent of abstinence; if the Excesses of their vices be not made over, and evacuated by it; if they continue still full gorg'd with their iniquity; or who think all is well, they have atton'd by having bowed down the head like a bulrush; if the Soul were not also humbled in them; for as S. Paul [ E] does say, I may give all my goods to feed the poor, yet have no Charity, and I may give my body to be burnt, yet in those Mar∣tyr-fires there may be no heats of Love to God, and then all

these profit me nothing, 1 Cor. 13. 3. So I may chasten my self too, and yet not receive correction or be disciplin'd, and [ A] then Gods punishments are still due to me.

That Church indeed which hath found out the easie ex∣piation of Indulgences, that hath the treasure of Christ's me∣rits and all the supererogations of the Saints at her dispose, and by Commission can issue them at pleasure out, and ap∣ply those merits to mens uses not by Sacraments, but by a Bull or Brief, and not require Gospel conditions of Faith and Repentance in the persons that receive them, but visiting a Church in Rome, ascending the steps in such a Chappel in the [ B] Lateran on such a day, shall give a plenary remission from sin and punishment; the saying of such a Prayer over daily shall do it for fourscore thousand years (could they but make a lease for men to live and sin out the indulgence too, that would get them good store of chapmen) that Church I say: may give encouragement to hope that God may be com∣pounded with at easie rates; that for a Surfet I may give a Meal and God will pardon it, and let me have Wine too into the bargain (for they allow afflicting of our Souls in Wine) that some weeks change of Dyet may go for a change [ C] of Life, for indeed these come up somewhat nearer the just value than some of their prices. But though there be all the reason in the world they should let men out of Purgatory on what condition they please, when themselves onely put them in, and make the breath of a few Pater noster's quite blow out those flames which burn no where but in their Doctrines: Yet when without any commission from Christ they make Attrition able to secure men from Hell, and an Indu••gence able to release them out of Purgatory; when they make new conditions of Pardon, that is new Gospel, new wayes of appli∣cation of Christs Merits, and though our Saviour God when [ D] he found in his heart to dye for us, yet in the Agonies of his Compassion could not find in his heart to give us easier terms of life than such as do require Contrition, Humiliation, and Amendment, which they commute so cheaply with his Vicar: We justly stand astonisht at such usurpation on Christ's Blood and Merits, that does assign them at these rates.

I make no question but these easie expiations get them many Converts. Rome from its first foundation grew from being an Asylum to the dissolute, but they that go away upon [ E] such hopes, 'tis to be feared that easinesle betrayes them into sins from which those Expiations cannot rescue them, and at once makes them Proselytes to Rome and Hell. Nor are our trusts much more secure, if we relye upon our op••s opera∣tum

too, our little outward strictnesses, unless the soul be enga∣g'd, [ A] & except there be inward life of religion, all those will not avail: If I deny my self my meals, & give my self my sins, that is so far from expiation that it aggravates, I am an argument a∣gainst my self that my crimes are incorrigible, when I will have them though I cut off the instruments & foments of them, and though I meddle not with the temptations, yet I seize the sins.

What a 1.4 S. Austin does say of Alms, In meliùs vita mutanda, & per eleemosynas de peccatis praeteritis propitiandus est Deus; non ad hoc emendus quodammodò ut semper liceat impune peccare: This is applicable to these performances also, our lives must [ B] be Reformed, and so on that Repentance and these strict∣nesses God will be reconciled, and our offences done away; but he will not be brib'd by these to let us alone in them; he is not gratified by such performances so as to wink at vices for their sakes, and suffer us in our rebellions upon such compositions as these; take a Reward to spare the Guilt: Nor is he such a soft and easie God as to take them for payment of that infinite Debt we owe; that which he bought off with the Blood of God shall not be ours at such un∣worthy prices. The Prophet Micah seeking for a present to ap∣pease [ C] him with, rejects all the Jewish rites though God prescri∣b'd them, as insufficient; & in them all things of the like exter∣nal kind. Mic. 6. 6, 7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow my self before the most high God? shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with Calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleas∣ed with thousands of Rams, or with ten thousand Rivers of Oyle? shall I give my first-born for my Transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? If I do offer up whole Hecatombs to God, will that atone for having offered up too plentifully to my Genius? Or if I do remove my Riots from my table to the Al∣tar, and change my few extravagant Dishes into whole Herds [ D] of thousand Sacrifices, shall I by doing so remove the guilt too of my Luxuries? If I give God ten thousand Rivers for my overflowing Cups, will the Intemperance be washt a∣way in those? Or shall I think to expiate an adultery with a Child? and for that momentary and unclean delight give up the lovely and first issue of my lawful Bed? (And who will be content to be his own Priest in such manner? to pay such Sacrifices for his sins? but yet that will not do, as it cost more to Redeem Souls, which not Rivers of Oyl can cleanse, but streams must flow out of the Heart of [ E] Christ to do it; nor the fruit of Mans body make a satis∣faction for, but the eternally begotten Son of the Divini∣ty, and none but the first born of God alone, for thus

expiation of sins was wrought: Even so to make that ex∣piation mine, besides relyance on it, I must transcribe the [ A] Copy of the Sufferings of that Son, transplant the Garden of Gethsemane into my breast. If his Soul be sorrowfull even unto Death, my Soul must be Afflicted too; Humilia∣tions must prostrate me upon my face to deprecate that Fire and Brimstone, burning Tempest that is the portion of the Sinners cup saith David: O my Father let this Cup pass from me! The lustful feavers of my blood must excern themselves in cold sweat of fear and grief, in agonies of Penitence; and my excessive draughts not onely make me [ B] to cry out I thirst, but give me Vinegar and Gall to drink; sorrow as bitter as my riotous egestions have been; my Oaths that have struck through the Name of God, must pierce my Soul with grief as pungent as his Thorns and Nayles. In a word, I must so Afflict my Soul as to crucifie the body of sin, and nail it to his Crosse. And this is that which in its own proportion was required of the Jewes this Day here in the Text, to the work of which Day how the Afflicting of the Soul in both the given senses does contribute, was my Second and the next Enquiry. [ C]

Secondly, What this Day was the Verse before the Text informs us, it was their Day of Expiation or Atonement. Now that the Jewes esteem Fasting and Humiliation expi∣atory Sacrifices, appears from a Form of Prayer which even yet they use on such a day where he that fasted sayes, O Lord the Governour of all the World, I have now finished my Fast before thee, thou knowest that when we had a Temple standing, the man that sinned was bound to expiate it by a Sa∣crifice, the Blood of which was poured out, and the Altar consumed the Fat to make amends for his Offence; but now by reason of our many wickednesses, we have neither a Tem∣ple, [ D] Altar, or Priest to make Atonement for us; I beseech thee therefore O Lord my God the God of my Fathers, to accept of that little portion of my own Flesh and Blood which this dayes Fasting hath torn from me, in lieu of a Sin-offer∣ing, and be thou reconciled unto me for thy mercies sake. Thus when he cannot give a Lamb for his Transgression, he gives some of himself, he offers Hunger for Shewbread, and Thirst for a Drink offering, he consecrates a Meal instead of a Beast, and sheds a sower fasting sigh for Incense; and this he hopes God will accept as Sacrifice. And truely [ E] the Text sayes no day of Expiation could be kept without it. No•• does the Scripture want great instances of its effect towards Atonements of Gods wrath: How when

Judgment was given on a Nation or Person, and Execu∣tion going out against them, yet this rever'st the Sentence; [ A] Ahab is a great proof of this, 1 King. 21. 27. And it came to passe when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his Clothes, and put Sackcloth upon his flesh, and Fasted, and lay in Sackcloth and went softly: And the Word of the Lord came unto Elijah the Tishbite saying, Seest thou how Ahab hum∣bleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his dayes. One Fasting-day secured a Life; the weaknesses it brought upon the body, upheld it against all Gods threats; Vengeance pronounc't and coming out against him falls to ground if Ahab humble [ B] and Afflict his Soul. Gods stretcht out Arm will not strike Sackcloth, nor wound through Fasting Garments: One fit of it removes his Judgments a whole Age; and had it been sincere and persevering, how had it wip't them out to everlastingnesse?

Nineve is another instance of the practice and successe of this even among the Heathens.

Nor should it seem to have lesse Efficacy among Christi∣ans: The Primitive Fathers call these severities a 1.5 Satis∣faction for sin, and b 1.6 Compensations, the c 1.7 Price with which [ C] they are bought off, the things that d 1.8 cover them, and e 1.9 blot them out, and which f 1.10 Propitiate and appease God for them; not in their sense who force up these Expressions to a strange height of meaning; and yet have quite beat down the Practise as to the publique wholesome use of them out of the Church. But though these sayings assign not the Power and just Efficacy of that discipline in it self, yet they do the acceptance and effect of it by virtue of Christs Satisfaction: A Fainting Body cannot bear indeed the weight of our iniquities, nor will lowest prostrations in the [ D] dust bury them in the dust, or Tears alone blot out our Guilt; but Christ having done that which is effectual to all this, and requiring no more of thee to make that thine (as he does every where most solemnly avow) but faithfull humbling of thy self in an afflictive sorrow for what's past, and so to mortifie as to work out Repentance; the doing this is doing what he does require, and consequently will ac∣cept: These satisfie the Command, and therefore God, though not by a condignity of performance, yet as Conditions [ E] which his Covenant of Grace hath set us, which when they are fulfilled then God is satisfied, thy sins are expiated, and thou art pardoned: And so in this lower sense these are thy Satisfactions with which God is well pleased.

And thus these self Afflictions of the Sinner supply Gods [ A] Indignation and divert it; They leave no place nor businesse for it, and by these short severities upon himself he does make void, he does expunge the Sentence of eternal Torments, saith Tertullian: As thou becomest severe against thy self, so will the Lord abate of his severities, and he will spare, and he will pitty thee in that he sees thou wilt not spare thy self. How can he choose but be appeased towards thee when he shall see thee executing his Sentence even upon thy own self? and punishing his Enemies although they be thy Members? so that by this means thou dost censure thy self into Gods [ B] Absolutions, afflict thy self into his Pardons, and dost con∣demn thy self into eternal Life.

Our Church sayes the same thing; That in the Primitive Church there was a Godly Discipline; that at the beginning of Lent such persons as were notorious sinners, were put to open Pennance, and punished in this world, that their Souls might be saved in the Day of the Lord; and she does wish (if her wishes be of any force and value when her Orders and Con∣stitutions are not:) that Discipline could be restored. But this I shall not presse; if all those whom the Primitive Church [ C] Condemned, or S. Paul sentenced were so used, if every Schis∣matick that lyes tearing himself and others off from the Lords Body were rejected, and if the Fornicator that joyns himself to his unclean Accomplice were disjoyned from Christ, and not suffered to make his members be the members of an Harlot; if every scandalous debauching offender that lyes corrupting Christs Body, spreading contagion, thrusting the gangreen forward, were cut off, and these and all the rest delivered up to Satan, alas what part would Christ have left of his own Body? Sed illos defendit numerus junctaeque um∣bone [ D] phalanges, and that I fear too in more senses than the Poet means. Therefore I shall not urge the Churches Wish, but only see whether the Statute in the Text sayes any thing to this, and whether the for ever do reach us: Which is my third and last Enquiry.

Thirdly, Divers of the Jews Rites are said to be, and be prescribed for ever although those very Rites and the whole oeconomy of their Covenant were to be chang'd and cease; among other reasons, as the Fathers say, because they foresignifie and point at things in the new Covenant, which were to last till Covenants and Rites shall be no more, and [ E] so their meaning and signification was to be for ever.

Now truely that their Expiation Performances, those which I am upon, did so, the whole Epistle to the Hebrews

is employ'd to prove; the Margent of your Bibles in this [ A] Chapter so refer you to the places, that I shall not need to make it out. Christ did fulfill the Temple and the Altar part, yea and the refuse outcast part of the Atonement, satisfied the Religion and the contempt of that dayes offices, He was the whole true Expiation.

Now does this Expiation as theirs did, require afflicting of the Soul in its attendance, or was that but a Ceremony of their Rite? and though a Jew must mourn and Fast to see his sin killing a Beast, and when he does behold his wicked∣nesse eating up a Goat for a Sin offering, he must deny him∣self [ B] his daily bread, and suffer thirst if his Iniquities drink but the blood of Bullocks; yet when we behold ours em∣brew themselves in the Blood of the Son of God, not onely lay hands and confessions on his head, but drive Thorns into it, make him cry out, almost despair and Dye; we need not be concern'd so much as to do ought of that either in order to the better Celebration of that Expiation, or on the very day of it.

Indeed if we consider most mens practises, it would appear most probable that if we were to expiate our sins as the Jews [ C] did by sacrificing of our Flocks not of our Jesus, those satis∣factions would more afflict our Souls, and more restrain our vices than that which was made for us by the Death of Christ, and how can this be rectified, unlesse by some severities upon our selves, we give our selves a piercing sense of what our sin deserves, and grateful apprehensions of what our Surety suffer'd for us? When in sad private earnest I have thought fit to Afflict my Soul with some austere mortifications, and when my fainting Spirits are scarce able to sustain my Body that sinks under the load of it self, then I may have some [ D] tender apprehensions of that weight that sunk the Son of God, and 'twas my weight that he fell under. But he that cannot think fit to revenge a year of follies and of vices with a few weeks severer life, sure thinks his Saviour suffered much in vain; quorsum perditio haec? why must the Blood of God be paid for sin, when I cannot afford a little self-denyal for it? Why such great Agonies of the Holy Jesus, when I cannot find in my heart to bear a little strictnesse for it?

But I could easily deduce (were I not to suppose it done before) that sure as if the Church had thought a Statute [ E] * 1.11 had annext these two for ever, they have been joyn'd from the beginings of our Christianity; it was the Fast that did attend our Saviours sufferings that in part caused the Contest about Easter, which Polycarpe S. John's Disciple

manag'd; and then there was a Fast so soon: and he that [ A] tells us this, Irenaeus, Schollar to that Polycarpe, sayes some ob∣serv'd it many dayes, some forty dayes also, if we can take the Antient Ruffinus's authority but for a Comma. And if the Antient Fathers do expound aright, Christ himself thought that men were interested so much in his Death, that they would Fast by reason of it; When the Bridegroom is taken from them, then shall they Fast in those dayes: Upon which words they say the Season was determin'd to this Duty by the Gospel.

But they may say so, who knew how to perswade men to [ B] take up restraints of strictest discipline and of severest Pie∣ty. But we cannot engage them into order or from Scandal; they made them fast, we cannot make them temperate. Bles∣sed Saviour! what kind of Christians didst thou hope for thy Disciples, of whom thou wer't so confident they would so concern themselves in thy Passion as to Fast because of it? when in our times Christians will not be kept from their Ex∣cesses by it? not in those dayes of Fasting which thy Primi∣tive followers did Celebrate with abstinences, that did al∣most mortifie indeed and slay the Body of Flesh as well as [ C] Sin, and we in imitation of them, in answer of thy confi∣dences, will not abate a Meal, nor an intemperance, will eat and Riot too, and make a Lent of Bacchanals: Thus we prepare load for thy Day of Passion, sin on to add weight to thy Crosse, and yet we our selves will not be humbled under them. It is in vain to tell men thou expectest they should mortifie, that it will spirit their Repentance, for they will have no kind of Penitence for sin, but such as will let them return to sin again, suffer no discipline with which their vices too cannot consist, for they can scarce live if they make not themselves chearful with them, even in this time [ D] of Sadnesse, and in sight of the Memorial of thy sufferings for them.

Indeed when I consider how this Season is hedg'd in from Vice by all Gods Indignation, threatned at first, suffered at last▪ pronounc't in Commination, executed in Passion: Ash-wednesday gave us all Gods Curses against Sinners, all which Good Friday shews inflicted on our Saviour. Thus we began, Cursed are the Unmerciful, the Fornicators, and Adulterers, the Covetous persons, Worshippers of Images, Slanderers, Drunkards and Extortioners; and we shall see the Son of God [ E] made this Curse for them; yea we our selves said Amen to all, as testifying that that Curse is due to all. When I consider this I say, I cannot choose but be astonish't to behold how

men can break through all Gods Curses and their own to get [ A] at Vice, first seale Gods Maledictions, then provoke and incur them instantly, as if they lov'd and would commit a Rape upon Perdition; as if because men have so long in Oaths beg'd God to damn them, and he hath not done it yet, they would now do it in their Prayers too; make their Devotions as well as Imprecations consign them to the wrath of God. He that does love cursing thus in the Passive sense, surely as David sayes, it shall come unto him, it shall be unto him as the Garment that covereth him, it shall enter into his bowels like Water, and like Oyl into his Bones, Psal. 109. 17, 18, [ B] 19. And truly amongst those things which we did Curse, there are that will fulfill all that most literally; the Ryots of thy gaudy bravery that make thee gripe, extort, spend thy own wealth and other mens, undo thy self and Creditors, be sordid and in Debt, meerly to furnish trappings to dresse thy self for others eyes and, may be, sins these bring a Curse to cover thee as does thy Garment, yea and they gird it to thee. The draughts of thy Intemperance carry the malediction down into the Bowells like Water, yea like Wine into the very Spirits: There is another of them too that will con∣veigh [ C] the Curse like Oyl into the Bones, till it eat out the marrow, and leave nothing but it self to dwell within them, yea till it putrefie the bones, till it prevent the Grave and Judgment too, while the living sinner invades the rotten∣nesse of the one, and torments of the other; and then the Lents and abstinencies that the sin prescribes shall be obser∣ved exactly, onely to qualifie them for more sin and condem∣nation, may be, at the best but to recover them from what it hath inflicted; when yet alas! they are too soft and tender, the Lord knows, to endure any severities to work out their [ D] Repentance and Atonement: And yet sure these the sinner does go through have nothing to commend them which these other do not much more abound with. If those are not grievous to thee because they are so wholesome, and though it be a miserable thing to go through all their painful squalid methods, yet, how disgustful so-ere, by the benefit of their cure they excuse their offensivenesse, and ingratiate the pre∣sent injury they do the Flesh, by the succeeding health they help thee to, and by the Death they do secure thee from: Why sure (to omit, that the other have all these advantages, [ E] none have so calm and so establisht health as the abstemious and continent, and their mind is still serene, their temper ne∣ver clouded, but besides this) the Christians bitter po••ions do purge away that sickness that would end in death eternal,

his fastings starve that worm that otherwise would gnaw the [ A] Soul immortally; his weepings quench the everlasting burn∣ings, yea there is cheerful Pleasure in the midst of these se∣verities, when God breaks in in Comforts into them: The Glory of the Lord appears in that Cloud too that is upon the penitent sad heart; when he is drencht in tears the Holy Ghost the Comforter does move upon those waters, and breaths Life and Salvation into them; and he who is the Unction pours Oyle into those wounds of the Spirit; and we are never neer∣er Heaven than when we are thus prostrate in the lowest dust, and when our Belly cleaveth unto the ground in hum∣ble penitence, then we are at the very Throne of Grace: And [ B] this our light Afflicting of the Soul which is but for a moment, does work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory. To which, &c.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Maimonid.
• a 1.2

  Deut. 32. 13.
• a 1.3

  Tertull.
• a 1.4

  Aug. Enchir. c. 70.
• a 1.5

  Tertul. de pudiciti. c. 13. & de poenit. c. 10. Cyp. Ep. 9. Fdit. Pri∣orij. 1666. ep. etia. 26. & lib. de lapsis. Aug. enchir. c. 71.
• b 1.6

  Hieron in Joel 1. & in ep. ad Eustoch. de ob. Paul.
• c 1.7

  Tertul. de Poenit. c. 6. Orig. Hom. 15. in Levit.
• d 1.8

  Ambros. de Poenit. l. 2. c. 5.
• e 1.9

  Orig. Hom. 6. in. Exod.
• f 1.10

  Cyp. Ser. de Lapsis. Chrys. Hom. 41. ad pop. Antioch.
• * 1.11

  By Dr. Gun∣nings Paschal or Lent Fast.