Fifty sermons preached at the parish-church of St. Mary Magdalene Milk-street, London, and elsewhere whereof twenty on the Lords Prayer / by ... Anthony Farindon ... ; the third and last volume, not till now printed ; to which is adjoyned two sermons preached by a friend of the authors, upon his being silenced.

The One and Fourtieth SERMON. PART. I. (Book 41)

MATTH. VI. 13. And lead us not into tentation; but deliver us from evil.

BEfore we make a full discovery, or enter upon a just exposition of this Petition, we shall first observe the order and connexion which is between these two, between REMITTE, Forgive us our trespasses, and NE INDUCAS, Lead us not into tentation; as Tra∣vellers, which hasten to their journeys end, yet take notice of every remarkable object in their way. Af∣ter we have deprecated the greatest evil, that evil of Sin, which entitleth us to an everlasting curse, we here deprecate the least evil, even the occasion of evil, which may lead unto it. And being unfettered by a plenary indulgence from a merciful Fa∣ther, we are afraid of those shackles with which we were formerly bound. FORGIVE US OUR SINS: Hoc omnia optanda complectitur; This com∣prehends all the happiness of a Christian. This is the centre wherein all our hopes and desires are at rest. What can a Christian desire more? Yes; unum adhuc superest; there is one thing more; Not to sin any more, to ab∣stein from all appearance of sin, and, as good Captains use, not to be so confident of a truce, of that peace of conscience which is sealed unto us by Remission of sins, as not to prepare our selves for war, quod, etiamsi non geritur, indictum est, which, though battle be not offered, is denounced a∣gainst us. And this is the condition of every Christian. He must leave off sin before he can be forgiven; and when he is forgiven, he must fly from it as from a Serpent which hath stung him; startle at the very sight and thought of it; prepare and arm himself against those tentations which may engage him, and make him stand in need of a second Forgiveness; which may wheel and circle him about from the love of Sin to the desire of Pardon, and from Pardon to Sin again, till he can neither ask pardon nor sin any more. In this order these two Petitions stand. Remission of sins goes before; but is not alone. It is first REMITTE, Forgive us, and then NE INDUCAS, Lead us not into tentation. REMITTE is not all; all is not Forgiveness: We must pray also to be strengthned against tentations; plead at the barr for this consequent Mercy, that takes away sin; and co-operate with pre∣venting Mercy, which may quite abolish it. And with these we shall exercise your Devotion at this time.

First, before Remission, before we are reconciled to God, we are no better then the Devils mark, at which he shoots his fiery darts: We are a prey for this Fox and this Lion, who will first deceive, and then devour us. Though we avoid divers tentations, though we yield not when he flat∣ters in some pleasing allurement, though we tremble not when he roars in the terrours of some biting affliction, though we stand strong against all his assaults, yet those sins which we have already committed will sink us. Not that I think that all the actions of a person not justified are sins; or that in this state he can do nothing which can please God or be accepted with him; or that his best works are venial sins, as Luther, or an abomination unto God, as Calvin hath taught; that his Prayers, his Alms, his Patience, his Meekness, his moral Honesty, are mortal sins, as the Schools too boldly have determi∣ned; that whilst he remains unreconciled, he offends God not only by his sins, but by his virtues, by Temperance as well as by Riot, by Hearing the Word as well as by Contemning it, by doing Good as well as by doing Evil. For he who hath publisht the rule, and as it were imprinted his will in his Law, cannot be offended with that action which is answerable to that rule. He who hath endued us with Reason, cannot be displeased with his creature when he doth operam dare rationi, as Augustine speaks, make use of that talent which he hath given, and walk by that light which he hath kindled in his soul. For what is our Reason but a portion from Gods Di∣vine Wisdom, a beam from his infinite Light, which he hath given us not only to procure those things which are necessary for the uses of this life, but for those actions which may 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, as Plato speaks, make us in some degree like unto God. Therefore even Heathens themselves have acknowledged that Life and Reason are given to Men to this end, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that we may follow God. Now so far as we follow him, so near are we to him. And though he be angry with that person who hath not sued out his pardon, yet he loveth his virtues. Though he will not know him, not acknowledge him to be his, yet he doth not frown upon those actions in which he resembles him. He is not angry with his Patience, his Fidelity, his Truth, but with those his sins which make him guilty of eternal death. For suppose a Christian that believes be of a wicked, and an Infidel of an honest conversation, certainly of the two the Infidel is nearest to the kingdom of heaven. No: These actions of piety are not sins, but they are not conducible to eternal life. They have their reward, but not that reward which is laid up for the righteous. The Law is broken: and all the works, I do not say, of all the virtuous Heathens, but of all the Saints, of all the Martyrs, that have ever been, cannot satisfie for the least breach of the Law, no more than a Traytor can redeem his treason against the King by giving of alms, or, which is more, by dying for his country. For whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, to bear not on∣ly its heavy burden, but the whip; not only to be at its beck, and when it says, Do this, to do it; but to be punisht for sin, to be lyable to those lashes of conscience and to be reserved in everlasting chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day. He is captive, sold under sin, driven out from the face of God, under the power of that Law which is a killing letter, ob∣noxious to all the Woes which are denounced against sinners. And thus he stands till he doth postliminio recipere, recover and receive his liberty, till he be redeemed and brought back again: And by justification and free par∣don quasi jure postliminii, as by a law of recovery, he is reinstaled into that liberty which he lost, and doth omnia sua recipere, receive all that might be his, his Filiation, his Adoption, his Title to a Kingdome; & putatur semper fuisse in civitate, he is graciously accepted as if he had never been lost, as if he had alwayes been a free denizon of the City of God, and never

fled from thence, as if he had never forfeited his right. His sins are wiped out as if they had never been.

This we beg in the first place, That we may be reconciled unto God; That being justified we may have peace. But then, in the next place, our Peti∣tion is, NE INDUCAT, That he will not lead us into temptation, That we may sin no more. Not that we approve of that error of Jovinian, That after we are baptized, after we are reconciled unto God, we cannot be tempted by Satan; and That those who sin were never truly baptized, were bapti∣zati aquâ, non spiritu, baptized with water only, and not with the holy Ghost; or That this Petition did belong only to the Catechument, those no∣vices in Christianity which were not yet admitted into the Church, and not to believing Christians. This error is at large confuted by St. Hierom. For why else those warnings, those preparations, those warlike opposi∣tions against Satan? Why should we say this Prayer at all, if after recon∣cilement there were an impossibility of sinning? But it is impossible only impossibilitate juris, as the Civilians speak; not that it cannot be done, but that it should not be done. For thus the Law supposeth obligations to be performances, and that necessarily done which we are bound to do. What should be done is done; and it is impossible to be otherwise. When we are iustified, there is mors criminum, and vita virtutum, as St. Cyprian speaks, or as the Apostle, we are dead to sin, and alive to righteousness. Indeed Justification is nothing else but an action of God, or a certain respect and relation▪ by which we are acquitted of our sins. And although it be done without any respect had to good works, yet it is not done without them. Although it be not a change from one term to another, from Sin to Holiness, yet is no man justified without this change. Therefore not only Faith but Charity also is required as a condition at their hands who will be saved. But it hath pleased God to justifie us freely by his grace, and to im∣pute, * 1.1 not our Goodness, but Faith, to us for righteousness. Christus justifi∣cat, * 1.2 sed justificabiles; Christ indeed justifies, but not those who make them∣selves uncapable of his Grace: As Fire burns, but such matter as is com∣bustible; and the Soul animates a sick or crasie body perhaps, but not a carkass. So That Faith justifies a sinner, and That Charity doth not justifie, are both true: but it is as true, Faith cannot justifie him who loveth not the * 1.3 Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity: Christus justificat impium, sed poenitentem, Christ justifies a sinner, but a sinner that repents. It is true that the Schools tell us, Justificatio non fit sine interna renovatione; We cannot be justified without renewing and inward change: But this change doth not justifie us. Therefore where they enhaunce Good works, and give them a share in our Justification, they do veritatem tenere, non per vera, as Hilary speaks, speak some truth, but not truly apply it, or rather, as Tertullian speaks, veritatem veritate concutere, shake and overthrow one truth with another. Good works are necessary; they must abound in us; God delights in them, and rewards them: But what concurrence have these with Remission of sins, which is the free gift of God, and proceeds from no other fountain but his own Will and infinite Mercy? To bring this home to our present purpose; Our victory over tentations is neither the cause of Remission of sins, nor yet the necessary effect: Not the cause; For what power have the acts of Holiness to abolish the act of one sin which is past, and for which we are condemned already? Nor the necessary effect; For then, when Sin is once forgiven, we could sin no more, nor be lead into tentation. Therefore when we read that the justified person is freed from sin, we must understand that he is free from the guilt of former sins, not from the danger of future; and in the Fathers, fides est genitrix bonae voluntatis, that Faith is the mother of a good will, we find not what Faith alwayes doth, but what it should

do, and what it is ordeined for, what it would produce if no cross action of ours did intervene to hinder it. In a word, let us not only in our Pa∣ter Noster, but in the whole course of our lives, joyn these two Petitions together: When our sins are forgiven, Let us pray, and labor too, that we be not led into tentation; And that for many reasons, which we must du∣ly weigh and consider, as we tender the welfare and salvation of our souls.

First, Remission and Forgiveness, as it nullifies former sins, so doth it multiply those that follow: as it takes away the guilt from the one, so it adds unto the guilt of the other, and makes Sin over-sinful. We are now Children, and must not speak our former dialect, words cloathed about with Death; but our language and voice must be Abba, Father; and every acti∣on such a one as a Father may look upon and be well pleased. And this first word of our Nativity, as Cyprian speaks, Our Father which art in hea∣ven, is as a remembrance to put us in mind that we have renounced all car∣nality, and know only our Father which is in heaven. Reatus impii, pium nomen, saith Salvian; A good name is part of the guilt of a wicked man. Our Religion which we profess will accuse us; and that relation which we have to God will condemn us. Plutarch said well, I had rather a great deal men should say there were no such man as Plutarch, than that they should say there was one Plutarch that would eat up his children as soon as they were born, as the Poets speak of Saturn: And better it were that it should be said we were no Christians, than that we were Christians ready to devour one another, Christians, but adulterers: Christians, but malitious: the children of God with the teeth of a Lion; delighting in those sins which we abjure, and every day committing that for which we beg pardon every day. This con∣sideration was it, I suppose, that caused divers Christians to do what some of the Fathers have condemned, defer their Baptism. And when they were baptized, what a multitude of ceremonies did they use? what prayers? what geniculations? what fastings? what watchings? First they breathed upon them thrice, and thrice bad Satan avoid, that Christ might enter. Secondly, they exorcised them, that the evil Spirit might depart and give place. Then they gave them salt, that their putrid sins might be cleansed. Then they touched their nostrils, and their ears; They anointed their breasts and their shoulders; They anointed their head, and covered it; They put upon them white apparel; They laid their hands upon them, that they might receive the grace of the Spirit. Of all which we may say as Hilary doth of Types, Plus significant quàm agunt, They had more signification than virtue or power, and were intimations, what piety is required of them, who have given up their names unto Christ, how foul Sin appears in him that is washed, and how dangerous it is after reconcilement. Now as in the conversation of men we cannot easily judge where Love is true and where it is feigned by a smile, or by fair language, or by the complement of the tongue or hand; and therefore some opportunity, some danger, must offer it self, by the undertaking of which our friendship is tryed, as Gold is in the fire; so we cannot judge of Repentance, that it is true, by an exter∣minated countenance, by the beating of the breast, by the hanging down of the head; no, not by our sighs and groans, by our tears and prayers, by our ingemination of DIMITTE NOBIS, Lord, Forgive us; which many times are no better than so many complements with God, than the flattery of our lips and hands. But when temptations rush-in upon us, when they threaten in afflictions, when they smile upon us in the pleasures of the world; then it will appear whether that which was in voto, in our desires, were also in affectu, in our resolution. And if we bear not this tryal, we have no reason to be too confident of our Pardon. Again, if we sue for pardon

of sin, and then sin afresh, we become more inclinable to sin then we were before. It is more easie to abstein from the pleasures of Sin before we have tasted them then it will be afterwards, as its harder to remain a widow then to continue a virgin, harder not to look back toward Sodom after one hath left it, then it would have been to have kept out of it at first. That which is once done hath some affinity with that which is done often, and that which is done often is near to that which is done alwayes. God indeed in Scripture is said to harden mens hearts, and some be very forward to urge those Texts; yet Induration is the proper and natural effect of conti∣nuance in sin. For every man, saith Basil, is shaped and formed and configured as it were to the common actions of his life, whether they be good or evil. Long continuance in sin causeth that which Theodoret calleth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a re∣verberating heart, an heart which is as marble to all the threatnings and promises of God; it worketh in the sinner that difficulty and inability of resisting tentations that he becomes even a devil to himself, and will fall without them. And this may seem to fall as a just judgment of God on those who fix their eyes so steddily upon the Mercy-seat that they quite forget the two Tables; who are all for the REMITTE, but not at all for the NE INDUCAS; very earnest for Remission of sins, but faint and backward in resisting Tentations; I will not deliver it as a positive truth, but it is good for us to cast an eye of jealousie upon it as if it were so, That there may be a measure of sins which being once full God will expect no longer; a certain period of time, when he will neither comfort us with his Mercy, nor assist us with his Grace, but deliver us up to Satan, to his buffetings and siftings, to his craft and malice; deliver us up to Sin and to the Occasions of Sin; that having held-out his hand all the day, as the Prophet speaks, he will now call them in again, and, as we mockt his patience, laugh at our calamity. * 1.4 It is a sign of a pious mind to fear sometimes where no fear is, and even in plano, in the plainest way, to suppose there may be a block to stumble at. If it be not true it is a wholsome meditation to think the measure of our sin is so near full that the next sin we commit may fill it; that there is a Rubicon set, as to Caesar, which if thou pass thou art proclaimed a Traitor; a river Kidron, as to Shimei, which if thou go over, thou shalt dye, thy bloud shall * 1.5 be upon thine own head. Now is the acceptable hour, now is the day of sal∣vation; * 1.6 and if thou art so dazled with the beauty of Mercy that thou canst not see death in a Tentation, horror upon Sin to morrow will be too late. And here in the last place, as the case stands with us, we have as much rea∣son to be afraid of Mercy as of a Tentation, and to beg it at the hands of God that it do not prove so, even a temptation and occasion of sin. For at the very name of Mercy, we lye down and rest in peace. This is the pillow on which we can sleep in the midst of a tempest, and dream of hea∣ven when we are entring the very gates of hell. We make the Pardon of sin commeatum delinquendi, but a kind of faculty or safe-conduct that we may sin the more boldly. A heavy speculation it is, but Experience hath made it good; We have learnt a cursed art how to change and transelement the Mercy of God. We make our selves worse for the Goodness of God, and continue in sin because he is long-suffering. Forgiveness blots-out sin, and Forgiveness revives it. We will not be rich in Good works, because God is bountiful of his merits; and we are many times most sinful upon no other inducement then a faith unhappy and ill applyed, That God is most merciful. Deus, inquiunt, bonus, & optimus, salutificator omnium, saith Ter∣tullian; This is the plea of most men, GOD IS GOOD, AND MER∣CIFUL, AND THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD. Haec sunt spar∣filia eorum; These are those sprinklings of comfort with which they abate the rage of that hell which Sin hath already kindled in their breast. And as

it fares with us in respect of temporal life, so doth it also in respect of spiritual life. We lay-up for many years, when we cannot promise to our selves a night; and we talk of to morrow, when the next word may be our last: and though the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves, and the grinders cease, yet we nou∣rish a hope of life, even then when our voice fails us, and we have not strength enough to publish our hope: So when we lye bedrid in sin, almost at the last gasp; when our members are withered, when our understandings are darkned, and our memories fail us, when we are nothing else but the carkass and shadow of a Christian, we talk of the glories and riches of the Gospel, hope to be saved by that Grace which we have slighted, and by that Mercy which we have trampled under our feet. We force Mercy to these low offices in our health and jollity, to sit with us in the seat of the scornful, to walk with us in our inordinate courses, and to make the way smooth and pleasant which leadeth unto death; and at last when we lye on our death-beds, we get it to perswade us that we who have believed, and no more, who all our life long had no other virtue than Faith, may now dye in hope; that we may dye the death of the righteous, who have made our mem∣bers the weapons of unrighteousness. Thus we pray, That Gods will may be done, That we may overcome Tentations; but we live as if there were no other Petition but this, Forgive us our Trespasses. Tertullian saith, Solenne est perversis idiotis, It is a common thing with ignorant and foolish men, with men of perverse hearts, to lay hold upon some one fair promising Text, and to set it up adversus exercitum sententiarum instrumenti totius, against a whole army of those sad and ill-boding sayings which qualifie it. HABEMUS ADVOCATUM, If we sin, we have an Advocate with the Father; This is a fundamental truth, and to this we stand, and never heed those passionate Texts in Scripture, those expostulating Texts, Why will you dye? Oh fools, * 1.7 when will you be wise? those wishing Texts, Oh that my people would un∣derstand! that Israel would hear my voice! those forewarning Texts, Tribu∣lation and anguish on every soul that doth evil; and, They that do these things * 1.8 cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven: and those begging and beseeching Texts, I beseech you, brethren, be reconciled; I beseech you, abstain from car∣nal lusts. * 1.9 I have often wondred within my self how it should come to pass that so many Heathen have surpassed most Christians, in the commendable duties of this life, that even Turks and Pagans do loath those sins which Christians swallow-down with ease and digest with all their horror and tur∣pitude; why the light of Reason should discover to them the foul aspect of Sin, which the Christian many times doth not discern with that light and with another to boot, the light of Scripture; why the secret whisper of Nature should more prevail with them, then doth with many of us the voice of God himself and the open declaration of his will in Scripture. But it is too true, They are not alwayes best who have most motives to be so. For as it falls-out sometimes in men of great learning and subtilty, though they are able to resolve every doubt, untie every knot, and answer the strongest objections, yet many times they are puzzled with a meer fallacy and piece of sophistry: So the formal Christian can stand strong against all motives, all beseechings, all the batteries of God, against the terrour of hell, and allurements of promises; but he is puzzled with a piece of so∣phistry, and cannot extricate and unwind himself; with the Devils fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter, That Mercy doth save sinners which are penitent, and therefore it saves all: And upon this ground the Plea∣sures which are but for a season shall win upon us, when Heaven with its e∣ternity cannot move us; and the supposed Tediousness and Trouble which is in Goodness shall affright us from Good works more than the Torments

which are eternal can from Sin. So that that Mercy which the unbelieving Heathen wanted to make them happy, the Christian hath but ad poenam, to make him miserable, being made by him the savour of death unto death: And that which is his priviledge here, shall be to his greater condemnation, and urged as a reason why the Christian shall have more stripes than the Infidel. To restrain this evil, which is the cause of all evil, and the abuse of Mercy, which envenomes it and makes it malignant, and leaves us so incurable that infinite Mercy cannot restore us, that ipsa Salus, Salvation it self, cannot help us, the primitive Christians admitted publick penance in the Church but once after Baptism. They had 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, as Clemens speaks; pri∣mam & unam poenitentiam, as Tertullian, but one repentance, but one, which was first and last, fearing lest if they did laxare fraenos disciplinae, slacken the reins of discipline, and admit of notorious sinners toties quoties, though they laid-down and took-up their sins at pleasure, they might make that a fomen∣ter of Sin which was ordeined to kill it. The Novatian was yet stricter, and would not admit it once, and therefore underwent the Churches heavi∣est censure, as an enemy to God and to his infinite Goodness, and one who shut-up the bowels of that Compassion which is open unto all. The Fathers would have it once, Novatus not once; and, for ought appears, both upon the same ground and reason, To teach men that after Remission once obtain∣ed, their work is to subdue Tentations, and to fight against the Devil, whom they have so solemnly renounced. It is true, Novatus was in the error: But against a wilfull offender his error is as useful as their truth: and though it be no cordial for a broken and contrite heart, yet is it a good antidote a∣gainst Sin. For how wary would men be in ordering their steps, if they could perswade themselves that every fall were irrecoverable, and that God is as jealous of his Mercy as of his Truth, and will not afford too frequent a view and sight of her to those who every day prostitute her to their lusts. I am sure the Fathers, even where they oppose Novatus, deliver the doctrine of Repentance with great wariness. Invitè loquor, saith Tertullian; I am unwilling to publish this free mercy of God. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, saith Basil, I speak in fear. when I speak of Mercy. For my desire is that after Baptism you would sin no more, and my fear is that you will sin more and more upon pre∣sumption of mercy. Upon presumption of Mercy it is that we do return with the dog to our vomit, that we have alternas inter cupiditatem & poe∣nitentiam vices, those courses and that interchange between our lusts and repentance, that we are whirled about like the Spheres, which reiterate their motion, and return to the point which they passed. Our whole life is a motion and circumvolution from Sin to Repentance, and from Repen∣tance to Sin again; from Want to Mercy, and from Mercy to the Need of it. And thus we turn and return, till at last we all burn in the common conflagration, and our souls shall shrivel up as a scroul. We woo sin and embrace it, but upon some pang that we feel we begin to distast it. When it flatters, we are even sick with love; but when it after chides us, we are weary of it, and would fain shake it off. Our soul cleaveth to it, and our soul loatheth it. We send it a bill of divorce, and after marry and joyn with it. And all this ariseth from our Presumption of Mercy. I should be loth to confine the Mercy and Goodness of God, which is infinite. I know Repentance is not as Baptism, but once to be had, and never rei∣terated; that he who was overcome at first may 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, secundo certa∣mine superare, recover the field, and at a second onset gain the conquest over that enemy who before had foiled him. But it concerns us Christians to be very wary that our best remedy turn not into a disease, nè nobis sub∣sidia poenitentiae blandiantur, that these succors and supplies do not flatter us so long till we grow at last enamored with their very shadows and

names. Let us beg Remission upon our knees, but then stand-up against Tentations. Our first care should be nè peccemus, that as far as is possible we do not sin at all: but then, si peccemus, if we sin, we have an Advocate, unto whom we may lift-up our eyes, till he have mercy upon us; And if we obtain favour at his hands, we must sin no more, lest a worst thing fall unto us; lest that sin which did but prick us to some sense of it; at last sting us to death: In a word, we must watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation, and so bring a nullity on our Pardon. And this we learn from the order and con∣nexion of these two Petitions. NE INDUCAS, Lead us not into tenta∣tion immediately followeth after REMITTAS, Forgive us our trespasses, that we may learn not to pardon that sin which God hath pardoned. We should now unfold the Petition it self. But so much at this time.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Rom. 3. 24.
• * 1.2

  Rom. 4. 22.
• * 1.3

  Eph. 6. 24.
• * 1.4

  Prov. 1.
• * 1.5

  2 Kings 2. 37.
• * 1.6

  2 Cor. 6. 2.
• * 1.7

  Ezek. 33. 11. Psal. 94. 8. Psal. 81. 13.
• * 1.8

  Rom. 2. 9. Gal. 5. 21.
• * 1.9

  2 Cor. 5. 20. 2 Pet. 2. 11.