by sentence and conviction; and that, in all reason, and in proportion to the strength of your consideration, you will do every day. For "that is the sublimity of wisdom, to do those things living, which are to be desired and chosen by dying persons." An alarm of death, every day renewed, and pressed earnestly, will watch a man so tame and soft, that the precepts of religion will dwell deep in his spirit. But they "that make a covenant with the grave, and put the evil day far from them," they are the men that eat spiders and toads for meat greedily, and a temptation to them is as welcome as joy, and they seldom dispute the point in behalf of piety or mortification: for they that look upon death at distance, apprehend it not, but in such general lines and great representments that describe it only as future and possible, but nothing of its terrors or affrightments, or circumstances of advantage, are discernible by such an eye, that disturbs its sight, and discomposes the posture, that the object may seem another thing than what it is truly and really. St. Austin, with his mother Monica, was led one day by a Roman prætor to see the tomb of Cæsar. Himself thus describes the corpse. "It looked of a blue mould, the bone of the nose laid bare, the flesh of the nether lip quite fallen off, his mouth full of worms, and in his eye-pits two hungry toads feasting upon the remanent portion of flesh and moisture; and so he dwelt in his house of darkness"." And if every person, tempted by an opportunity of lust or intemperance, would choose such a room for his privacy, that company for his witness, that object to allay his appetite, he would soon find his spirit more sober, and his desires obedient'. I end this with the counsel of St. Bernard, "Let every man, in the first address to his actions, consider, whether, if he were now to die, he might safely and prudently do such an act, and whether he would not be infinitely troubled, that death should surprise him in the present dispositions, and then let him proceed accordingly." For, since " our treasure is in earthen vessels," Hic est apex summæ sapientiæ, ea viventem facere, quæ morienti essent appetenda. 4 Καὶ γὰς ἐγὼ σποδός είμι, Νίνου μεγάλης βασιλεύσας. - In Epitaph. Sardanapali. Ο Ήβροις, φίλε θυμέ· τάχ ̓ ἂν τινες ἄλλοι ἔσοντο ̓́Ανδρες, ἐγὼ δὲ θανὼν γαῖα μέλαιν oua. Fragm. Theog. in Speculo Monach. - which may be broken in pieces by the collision of ten thousand accidents, it were not safe to treasure up wrath in them; for if we do, we shall certainly drink it in the day of recompense. 37. Thirdly Before, and in, and after all this, the blessed Jesus propounds prayer as a remedy against temptations: "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptations." For, besides that prayer is the great instrument of obtaining victory by the grace of God, as a fruit of our desires, and of God's natural and essential goodness; the very praying against a temptation, if it be hearty, fervent, and devout, is a denying of it, and part of the victory: for it is a disclaiming the entertainment of it, it is a positive rejection of the crime; and every consent to it is a ceasing to pray, and to desire remedy. And we shall observe, that whensoever we begin to listen to the whispers of a tempting spirit, our prayers against it lessen, as the consent increases; there being nothing a more direct enemy to the temptation than prayer, which, as it is of itself a professed hostility against the crime, so it is a calling in auxiliaries from above to make the victory more certain. If temptation sets upon thee, do thou set upon God; for he is as soon overcome as thou art, as soon moved to good as thou art to evil; he is as quickly invited to pity thee as thou art to ask him; provided thou dost not finally rest in the petition, but pass into action, and endeavour, by all means human and moral, to quench the flame newly kindled in thy bowels, before it come to devour the marrow of the bones. For a strong prayer, and a lazy, incurious, unobservant walking, are contradictions in the discourses of religion. Ruffinus tells us a story of a young man solicited by the spirit of uncleanness, who came to an old religious person, and begged his prayers. It was in that age, when God used to answer prayers of very holy persons by more clear and familiar significations of his pleasure, than he knows now to be necessary. But after many earnest prayers sent up to the throne of grace, and the young man not at all Vocatus atque non vocatus audit.-Hor. lib. ii. od. 18. bettered, upon consideration and inquiry of particulars, he found the cause to be, because the young man relied so upon the prayers of the old eremite, that he did nothing at all to discountenance his lust, or contradict the temptation. But then he took another course, enjoined him austerities and exercises of devotion, gave him rules of prudence and caution, tied him to work and to stand upon his guard; and then the prayers returned in triumph, and the young man trampled upon his lust. And so shall I and you, by God's grace, if we pray earnestly and frequently, if we watch carefully that we be not surprised, if we be not idle in secret, nor talkative in public, if we read Scriptures, and consult with a spiritual guide, and make religion to be our work, that serving of God be the business of our life, and our designs be to purchase eternity; then we shall walk safely, or recover speedily, and, by doing advantages to piety, secure a greatness of religion, and spirituality to our spirits and understanding. But remember, that when Israel fought against Amalek, Moses's prayer and Moses's hand secured the victory, his prayer grew ineffectual when his hands were slack; to remonstrate to us, that we must co-operate with the grace of God, praying devoutly, and watching carefully, and observing prudently, and labouring with diligence and assiduity. THE PRAYER. Eternal and most merciful Father, I adore thy wisdom, providence, and admirable dispensation of affairs, in the spiritual kingdom of our Lord Jesus, that thou, who art infinitely good, dost permit so many sadnesses and dangers to discompose that order of things and spirits, which thou didst create innocent and harmless, and dost design to great and spiritual perfections; that the emanation of good from evil, by thy overruling power and excellences, may force glory to thee from our shame, and honour to thy wisdom, by these contradictory accidents and events. Lord, have pity upon me in these sad disorders, and with mercy know my infirmities. Let me, by suffering what thou pleasest, co-operate to the glorification of thy grace and magnifying thy mercy; but never let me consent to sin, but, with the power of thy majesty, and mightiness of thy prevailing mercy, rescue me from those throngs of dangers and enemies, which daily seek to deflower that innocence, with which thou didst clothe my soul in the new birth. Behold, O God, how all the spirits of darkness endeavour the extinction of our hopes, and the dispersion of all those graces, and the prevention of all those glories, which the holy Jesus hath purchased for every loving and obedient soul. Our very meat and drink are full of poison, our senses are snares, our business is various temptation, our sins are inlets to more, and our good actions made occasions of sins. Lord, deliver me from the malice of the devil, from the fallacies of the world, from my own folly; that I be not devoured by the first, nor cheated by the second, nor betrayed by myself: but let thy grace, which is sufficient for me, be always present with me; let thy Spirit instruct me in the spiritual warfare, arming my understanding, and securing my will, and fortifying my spirit with resolutions of piety, and incentives of religion, and deleteries of sin; that the dangers I am encompassed withal, may become unto me an occasion of victory and triumph, through the aids of the Holy Ghost, and by the cross of the Lord Jesus, who hath, for himself and all his servants, triumphed over sin, and hell, and the grave, even all the powers of darkness, from which, by the mercies of Jesus, and the merits of his passion, now and ever, deliver me, and all thy faithful people. Amen. DISCOURSE VI. Of Baptism. PART I. 1. WHEN the holy Jesus was to begin his prophetical office, and to lay the foundation of his church on the corner-stone, he first tempered the cement with water, and then with blood, and afterwards built it up by the hands of the Spirit: himself entered at that door, by which his disciples for ever after were to follow him; for therefore he went in at the door of baptism, that he might hallow the entrance, which himself made to the house he was now building. 2. As it was in the old, so it is in the new creation; out of the waters God produced every living creature: and when at first "the Spirit moved upon the waters," and gave life, it was the type of what was designed in the renovation. Every thing that lives now, " is born of water and the Spirit ;" and Christ, who is our Creator and Redeemer in the new birth, opened the fountains, and hallowed the stream: Christ, who is our Life, went down into the waters of baptism; and we, who descend thither, find the effects of life; it is living water, of which whoso drinks needs not to drink of it again, for "it shall be in him a well of water, springing up to life eternal "." 3. But because every thing is resolved into the same principles, from whence they are taken; the old world, which by the power of God came from the waters, by their own sin fell into the waters again, and were all drowned, and only eight persons were saved by an ark: and the world renewed upon the stock and reserves of that mercy consigned the sacrament of baptism in another figure; for then God gave his sign from heaven, that by water the world should never again perish; but he meant that they should be saved by water: for " baptism, which is a figure like to this, doth also now save us, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ "." 4. After this the Jews report that the world took up the doctrine of baptisms, in remembrance that the iniquity of the old world was purged by water; and they washed all that came to the service of the true God, and, by that baptism, bound them to the observation of the precepts which God gave to Noah. 5. But when God separated a family for his own special service, he gave them a sacrament of initiation, but it was a sacrament of blood, the covenant of circumcision: and this was the forerunner of baptism, but not a type; when that was abrogated, this came into the place of it, and that consigned the same faith which this professes. But it could not properly be a type, whose nature is, by a likeness of matter |