trifling, with a pretended, little, insignificant repentance. God; indeed, did so, that the cheapness of the oblation might teach them to hope for pardon, not from the ceremony, but from a severe internal repentance: but men take any argument to lessen their repentance, that they may not lessen their pleasures or their estates, and that repentance may be nothing but a word, and mortification signify nothing against their pleasures, but be a term of art only, fitted for the schools or for the pulpit,-but nothing relative to practice, or the extermination of their sin. So that it is no wonder we understand so little of religion: it is because we are in love with that which destroys it; and as a man does not care to hear what does not please him, so neither does he believe it; he cannot, he will not understand it. 6 And the same is the case in the matter of pride; the church hath extremely suffered by it in many ages. Arius missed a bishopric, and, therefore, turned heretic; érápaσσe tÝV ÉKKλŋoίav, saith the story; "he disturbed and shaked the church;" for he did not understand this truth,-that the peace of the church was better than the satisfaction of his person, or the promoting his foolish opinion. And do not we see and feel, that, at this very day, the pride of men makes it seem impossible for many persons to obey their superiors? and they do not see what they can read every day, that it is a sin to speak evil of dignities.' A man would think it a very easy thing to understand the thirteenth chapter to the Romans, Whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God:' and yet we know a generation of men, to whom these words were so obscure, that they thought it lawful to fight against their king. A man would think it easy to believe, that those who were in the gainsaying of Korah,' who rose up against the high priest, were in a very sad condition and yet there are too many amongst us, who are in the gainsaying of Korah, and think they do very well; that they are the godly party, and the good people of God. Why? What is the matter? In the world there can be nothing plainer than these words Let every soul be subject to the higher powers;' and that you need not make a scruple who are these higher powers, it is as plainly said, 'There is no power but of God;' all that are set over you by the laws of your nation, : 6 these are over you in the Lord' and yet men will not understand these plain things; they deny to do their notorious duty, and yet believe they are in the right; and if they sometimes obey for wrath,' they oftener disobey for conscience sake.' Where is the fault? The words are plain, the duty is certain, the book lies open; but, alas! it is sealed within,' that is, men have eyes and will not see, ears and will not hear.' But the wonder is the less; for we know when God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry?' he answered God to his face, 'I do well to be angry even unto the death.' Let God declare his mind never so plainly, if men will not lay aside the evil principle that is within, their open love to their secret sin, they may kill an Apostle, and yet be so ignorant as to ' think they do God good service;' they may disturb kingdoms, and break the peace of a well-ordered church, and rise up against their fathers, and be cruel to their brethren, and stir up the people to sedition; and all this with a cold stomach and a hot liver, with a hard heart and a tender conscience, with humble carriage and a proud spirit. For thus men hate repentance, because they scorn to confess an error; they will not return to peace and truth, because they fear to lose the good opinion of the people, whom themselves have cozened; they are afraid to be good, lest they should confess they have formerly done amiss: and he, that observes how much evil is done, and how many heresies are risen, and how much obstinacy and unreasonable perseverance in folly dwells in the world on the stock of pride,→ may easily conclude, that no learning is sufficient to make a proud man understand the truth of God, unless he first learn to be humble. But Obedite et intelligetis, saith the prophet; 'Obey,' and be humble; leave the foolish affections of sin, 'and then ye shall understand.' That is the first particular: all remaining affections to sin hinder the learning and understanding of the things of God. 2. He that means to understand the will of God and the truth of religion, must lay aside all inordinate affections to the world. St. Paul complained that there was at that day a veil on the hearts of the Jews, in the reading of the Old Testament;'* they looked for a temporal prince to be their Messias, and their * 2 Cor. iii. 14. affections and hopes dwelt in secular advantages; and so long as that veil was there, they could not see, and they would not accept, the poor, despised Jesus. For the things of the world, besides that they entangle one another, and make much business, and spend much time, they also take up the attentions of a man's mind, and spend his faculties, and make them trifling and secular with the very handling and conversation. And therefore the Pythagoreans taught their disciples χωρισμὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος, εἰς τὸ καλῶς piλooopeiv, "a separation from the things of the body, if they φιλοσοφεῖν, would purely find out truth and the excellencies of wisdom." Had not he lost his labor, that would have discoursed wisely to Apicius, and told him of the books of fate and the secrets of the other world, the abstractions of the soul, and its brisker immortality, that saints and angels eat not, and that the spirit of a man lives for ever on wisdom, and holiness, and contemplation? The fat glutton would have stared awhile on the preacher, and then have fallen asleep. But if you had discoursed well and knowingly of a lamprey, a large mullet, or a boar, animal propter convivia natum, and have sent him a cook from Asia to make new sauces, he would have attended carefully, and taken in your discourses greedily. And so it is in the questions and secrets of Christianity; which made St. Paul, when he intended to convert Felix, discourse first with him about temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come.' He began in the right point; he knew it was to no purpose to preach Jesus Christ crucified to an intemperate person, to a usurper of other men's rights, to one whose soul dwelt in the world, and cared not for the sentence of the last day. The philosophers began their wisdom with the meditation of death, and St. Paul his with the discourse of the day of judgment; to take the heart off from this world and the amabilities of it, which dishonor and baffle the understanding, and made Solomon himself become a child, and fooled into idolatry, by the prettiness of a talking woman. Men, now-a-days, love not a religion that will cost them dear. If your doctrine calls on men to part with any considerable part of their estates, you must pardon them if they cannot believe you; they understand it not. I shall give you one great instance of it. When we consider the infinite unreasonableness that is in the popish religion, how against common sense their doctrine of transubstantiation is, how against the common experience of human nature is the doctrine of the pope's infallibility, how against Scripture is the doctrine of indulgences and purgatory; we may well think it a wonder, that no more men are persuaded to leave such unlearned follies. But then, on the other side, the wonder will cease, if we mark how many temporal ends are served by these doctrines. If you destroy the doctrine of purgatory and indulgences, you take away the priest's income, and make the see apostolic to be poor; if you deny the pope's infallibility, you will despise his authority, and examine his propositions, and discover his failing, and put him to answer hard arguments, and lessen his power: and, indeed, when we run through all the propositions of difference between them and us, and see that, in every one of them, they serve an end of money or of power; it will be very visible that the way to confute them is not by learned disputations, for we see they have been too long without effect, and without prosperity: the men must be cured of their affections to the world, ut nudi nudum sequantur crucifixum, "that with naked and divested affections they might follow the naked crucified Jesus;" and then they would soon learn the truths of God, which, till then, will be impossible to be apprehended. 'Ev роσоýσel ἐξηγήσεως τὰ ἑαυτῶν παρεισάγουσιν, “ Men,” as St. Basil says, "when they expound Scripture, always bring in something of themselves:" but till there be, as one said, áráßagis ek toυ σπηλαίου, a rising out" from their own seats, until they go out "from their dark dungeons," they can never see the light of heaven. And how many men are there amongst us, who are, therefore, enemies to the religion, because it seems to be against their profit? The argument of Demetrius is unanswerable: By this craft they get their livings' leave them in their livings, and they will let your religion alone; if not, they think they have reason to speak against it. When men's souls are possessed with the world, their souls cannot be invested with holy truths. Χρὴ ἀπὸ τούτων αὐτὴν ψυχὴν ψυχοῦσθαι, as St. Isidore said: "The soul must be " informed, "ensouled," or animated with the propositions that you put in; or you shall never do any good, or get disciples to Christ. Now because a man cannot serve two masters; because he cannot vigorously attend two objects; because there can be but one soul in any living creature; if the world have got possession, talk no more of your questions, shut your bibles, and read no more of the words of God to them, for they cannot tell of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or of the world.' That is the second particular worldly affections hinder true understandings in religion. : 3. No man, how learned soever, can understand the word of God, or be at peace in the questions of religion, unless he be a master over his passions: Tu quoque si vis lumine claro Vinctaque frænis, hæc ubi regnant, said the wise Boethius; a man must first learn himself before he can learn God. Tua te fallit imago: nothing deceives a man so soon as a man's self; when a man is (that I may use Plato's expression) συμπεφυρμένος τῇ γενέσει, "mingled with his nature," and his congenial infirmities of anger and desire, he can never have any thing but ȧμvdpòv dóžav, "a knowlege partly moral and partly natural:" his whole life is but imagination; his knowlege is inclination and opinion; he judges of heavenly things by the measures of his fears and his desires; and his reason is half of it sense, and determinable by the principles of sense. Εἶγε ὅτι φιλοσοφεῖς ἐν πάθεσι, then “a man learns well, when he is a philosopher in his passions.' Passionate men are to be taught the first elements of religion; and let men pretend to as much learning as they please, they must begin again at Christ's cross; they must learn true mortification and crucifixion of their anger and desires, before they can be good scholars in Christ's school,-or be admitted into the more secret inquiries of religion,-or profit in spiritual understanding. It was an excellent proverb of the Jews, In passionibus Spiritus Sanctus non habitat, "The Holy Ghost * Nazianz. ad Philagrium. |