affairs and the commonwealth itself was endangered. And this heathen folly hath stuck so close to the Christian, that all the sermons of the church for sixteen hundred years have not cured them all; but the practices of weaker people, and the artifice of ruling priests, have superinduced many new ones. When Pope Eugenius sang mass at Rheims, and some few drops from the chalice were spilt upon the pavement, it was thought to foretel mischief, wars, and bloodshed to all christendom, though it was nothing but carelessness and mischance of the priest and because Thomas Becket archbishop of Canterbury sang the mass of requiem upon the day he was reconciled. to his prince, it was thought to foretel his own death by that religious office and if men can listen to such whispers, and have not reason and observation enough to confute such trifles, they shall still be affrighted with the noise of birds, and every night-raven shall foretel evil as Micaiahh to the king of Israel, and every old woman shall be a prophetess, and the events of human affairs, which should be managed by the conduct of counsel, of reason, and religion, shall succeed by chance, by the flight of birds, and the meeting with an evil eye, by the falling of the salt, or the decay of reason, of wisdom, and the just religion of a man.

To this may be reduced the observation of dreams, and fears commenced from the fancies of the night. For the superstitious man does not rest even when he sleeps; neither is he safe because dreams usually are false, but he is afflicted for fear they should tell true. Living and waking men have one world in common, they use the same air and fire, and discourse by the same principles of logic and reason; but men that are asleep have every one a world to himself, and strange perceptions; and the superstitious hath none at all his reason sleeps, and his fears are waking; and all his rest, and his very securities, to the fearful man turn into affrights and insecure expectation of evils that never shall happen; they make their rest uneasy and chargeable, and they still vex their weary soul, not considering there is no other sleep, for sleep to rest in and therefore if the sleep be troublesome, the man's cares be without remedy, till they be quite destroyed. Dreams follow the temper of the body, and commonly proceed from trouble or disease, business or care, an active head and a restless mind, from fear or hope, from wine or passion, from fulness or emptiness, from fantastic remembrances, or from some demon, good or bad they are without rule and without reason, they are as contingent, as if a man should study to make a prophecy, and by saying ten thousand things may hit upon one true, which was therefore not foreknown, though it was forespoken; and they have no certainty, because they have no natural causality nor proportion to those effects which many times they are said to foresignify. The dream of the yolk of an egg importeth gold, saith Artemidorus; and they that use to remember such fantastic idols are afraid to lose a [1 Kings xxii. 17.] i [Vid. lib. v. 85.]

friend when they dream their teeth shake, when naturally it will rather signify a scurvy; for a natural indisposition and an imperfect sense of the beginning of a disease may vex the fancy into a symbolical representation; for so the man that dreamt he swam against the stream of blood had a pleurisy beginning in his side; and he that dreamt he dipped his foot into water and that it was turned to a marble, was enticed into the fancy by a beginning dropsy; and if the events do answer in one instance, we become credulous in twenty. For want of reason we discourse ourselves into folly and weak observation, and give the devil power over us in those circumstances in which we can least resist him;

-ἐν ὄρφνῃ δραπέτης μέγα σθένει,

'a thief is confident in the twilight;' if you suffer impressions to be made upon you by dreams, the devil hath the reins in his own hands, and can tempt you by that which will abuse you when you can make no resistance. Dominica the wife of Valens the emperor dreamt that God threatened to take away her only son for her despiteful usage of St. Basil: the fear proceeding from this instance was safe and fortunate; but if she had dreamt in the behalf of a heretic, she might have been cozened into a false proposition upon a ground weaker than the discourse of a waking child. Let the grounds of our actions be noble, beginning upon reason, proceeding with prudence, measured by the common lines of men, and confident upon the expectation of a usual providence. Let us proceed from causes to effects, from natural means to ordinary events, and believe felicity not to be a chance but a choice; and evil to be the daughter of sin and the divine anger, not of fortune and fancy; let us fear God when we have made Him angry, and not be afraid of Him when we heartily and laboriously do our duty; our fears are to be measured by open revelation and certain experience, by the threatenings of God and the sayings of wise men, and their limit is reverence, and godliness is their end and then fear shall be a duty, and a rare instrument of many : in all other cases it is superstition or folly, it is sin or punishment, the ivy of religion, and the misery of an honest and a weak heart; and is to be cured only by reason and good company, a wise guide and a plain rule, a cheerful spirit and a contented mind, by joy in God according to the commandments, that is, a 'rejoicing

:

evermore.'

2. But besides this superstitious fear, there is another fear directly criminal, and it is called 'worldly fear,' of which the Spirit of God hath said, "But the fearful and incredulous shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death';" that is, such fears which make men to fall in the time of persecution, those that dare not own their faith in the face of a tyrant or in despite of an accursed law. For though it be lawful to be afraid in a storm, yet it is not lawful to leap into the sea; though Eurip. [Rhes. 69.]

[Socr. Hist. eccl., iv. 26.]

1 Rev. xxi. 8.

we may be more careful for our fears, yet we must be faithful too; and we may fly from the persecution till it overtakes us; but when it does, we must not change our religion for our safety, or leave the robe of baptism in the hand of the tempter, and run away by all means. St. Athanasius for forty-six years did run and fight, he disputed with the Arians and fled from their officers; and he that flies may be a man worth preserving, if he bears his faith along with him, and leaves nothing of his duty behind. But when duty and life cannot stand together, he that then flies a persecution by delivering up his soul, is one that hath no charity, no love to God, no trust in promises, no just estimation of the rewards of a noble contention. "Perfect love casts out fear," saith the apostle; that is, he that loves God will not fear to die for Him, or for His sake to be poor. In this sense, no man can fear man and love God at the same time; and when St. Laurence triumphed over Valerianus", St. Sebastian over Dioclesiano, St. Vincentius over Dacianus P, and the armies of martyrs over the proconsuls, accusers, and executioners, they shewed their love to God by triumphing over fear, and leading captivity captives,' by the strength of their Captain, whose 'garments were red from Bozrah".'

3. But this fear is also tremulous and criminal, if it be a trouble from the apprehension of the mountains and difficulties of duty, and is called pusillanimity. For some see themselves encompassed with temptations, they observe their frequent falls, their perpetual returns from good purposes to weak performances, the daily mortifications that are necessary, the resisting natural appetites, and the laying violent hands upon the desires of flesh and blood, the uneasiness of their spirits, and their hard labours, and therefore this makes them afraid; and because they despair to run through the whole duty in all its parts and periods, they think as good not to begin at all, as after labour and expense to lose the jewel and the charges of their venture. St. Austin compares such men to children and fantastic persons, affrighted with phantasms and spectres;

Terribiles visu formæ

the sight seems full of horror; but touch them, and they are very nothing, the mere daughters of a sick brain and a weak heart, an infant experience and a trifling judgment: so are the illusions of a weak piety, or an unskilful confident soul: they fancy to see mountains of difficulty, but touch them, and they seem like clouds riding upon the wings of the wind, and put on shapes as we please to dream. He that denies to give alms for fear of being poor, or to entertain a disciple for fear of being suspected of the party, or to own a duty for fear of being put to venture for a crown; he that takes part of the

intemperance, because he dares not displease the company, or in any sense fears the fears of the world, and not the fear of God, this man enters into his portion of fear betimes, but it will not be finished to eternal ages. To fear the censures of men when God is your judge, to fear their evil when God is your defence, to fear Death when he is the entrance to life and felicity, is unreasonable and pernicious; but if you will turn your passion into duty, and joy, and security, fear to offend God, to enter voluntarily into temptation; fear the alluring face of lust, and the smooth entertainments of intemperance; fear the anger of God when you have deserved it, and when you have recovered from the snare, then infinitely fear to return into that condition in which whosoever dwells is the heir of fear and eternal

sorrow.

Thus far I have discoursed concerning good fear and bad, that is, filial and servile: they are both good, if by servile we intend initial, or the new-beginning fear of penitents, a fear to offend God upon less perfect considerations: but servile fear is vicious when it still retains the affection of slaves, and when its effects are hatred, weariness, displeasure, and want of charity and of the same cognations are those fears which are superstitious and worldly.

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But to the former sort of virtuous fear some also add another which they call angelical, that is, such a fear as the blessed angels have, who before God hide their faces, and tremble at His presence, and "fall down before His footstool," and are ministers of His anger and messengers of His mercy, and night and day worship Him with the profoundest adoration. This is the same that is spoken of in the text, "Let us serve God with reverence and godly fear;" all holy fear partakes of the nature of this which divines call angelical, and it is expressed in acts of adoration, of vows and holy prayers, in hymns and psalms, in the eucharist and reverential addresses; and while it proceeds in the usual measures of common duty, it is but human; but as it arises to great degrees and to perfection, it is angelical and divine; and then it appertains to mystic theology, and therefore is to be considered in another place; but for the present, that which will regularly concern all our duty is this, that when the fear of God is the instrument of our duty, or God's worship, the greater it is, it is so much the better. It is an old proverbial saying among the Romans, Religentem esse oportet, religiosum nefas", 'every excess in the actions of religion is criminal;' they supposing that in the services of their gods there might be too much. True it is there may be too much of their undecent expressions; and in things indifferent the very multitude is too much, and becomes an undecency; and if it be in its own nature undecent or disproportionable to the end, or the rules, or the analogy of the religion, it will not stay for numbers to make it intolerable; but in the direct actions of glorifying God, in doing any thing of His commandments, or any thing which He t [Ps. xcix. 5.] "[Nigid. Figul. apud Aul. Gell., lib. iv. cap. 9. p. 278.]

commands, or counsels, or promises to reward, there can never be excess or superfluity and therefore in these cases do as much as you can; take care that your expressions be prudent and safe, consisting with thy other duties; and for the passions or virtues themselves, let them pass from beginning to great progresses, from man to angel, from the imperfection of man to the perfections of the sons of God; and whenever we go beyond the bounds of nature, and grow up with all the extension and in the very commensuration of a full grace, we shall never go beyond the excellencies of God; for ornament may be too much, and turn to curiosity; cleanness may be changed into niceness; and civil compliance may become flattery; and mobility of tongue may rise into garrulity; and fame and honour may be great unto envy; and health itself, if it be athletic, may by its very excess become dangerous: but wisdom, and duty, and comeliness, and discipline, a good mind, and the fear of God, and doing honour to His holy name, can never exceed; but if they swell to great proportions, they pass through the measures of grace, and are united to felicity in the comprehensions of God, in the joys of an eternal glory.

SERMON X.

THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT.

MATT. xxvi. 41: latter part.

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

FROM the beginning of days man hath been so cross to the divine commandments, that in many cases there can be no reason given why a man should choose some ways, or do some actions, but only because they are forbidden. When God bade the Israelites rise and go up against the Canaanites and possess the land, they would not stir; the men were Anakims, and the cities were impregnable, and there was a lion in the way; but presently after, when God forbade them to go, they would and did go, though they died for it. I shall not need to instance in particulars, when the whole life of man is a perpetual contradiction; and the state of disobedience is called the "contradictions of sinners";" even the man in the gospel that had two sons, they both crossed him, even he that obeyed him and he that obeyed him not: for the one said he would, and did not; the other said he would not, and did; and so do we: we promise fair, and do nothing; and they that do best, are such as come out of darkness into light, such as said "they would not," and at last have better bethought themselves. And who can guess at any other [Heb. xii. 3.]