and a nature capable of a better than his own is yet; (for, By his precious promises we are made partakers of the Divine nature1o) we are made Semen Dei, The seed of God, born of God"; Genus Dei, The offspring of God"; Idem Spiritus cum Domino, The same spirit with the Lord"; he the same flesh with us, and we the same spirit with him. In God's servants, to have said to Nebuchadnezzar, Our God is able to deliver us, and he will deliver us; but, if he do not, yet we will not serve thy gods": in the martyrs of the primitive church, to have contemned torments, and tormentors with personal scorns and affronts: in all calamities and adversities of this life, to rely upon that assurance, I have a better substance in me than any man can hurt, I have a better inheritance prepared for me, than any man can take from me, I am called to triumph, and I go to receive a crown of immortality, these high contemplations of kingdoms, and triumphs, and crowns, are not pride: to know a better state, and desire it, is not pride; for pride is only in taking wrong ways to it. So that, to think we can come to this by our own strength, without God's inward working a belief, or to think that we can believe out of Plato, where we may find a God, but without a Christ, or come to be good men out of Plutarch or Seneca, without a church and sacraments, to pursue the truth itself by any other way than he hath laid open to us, this is pride, and the pride of the angels. Now there is also a pride, which is the horses' pride, conversant upon earthly things; to desire riches, and honour, and preferment in this world, is not pride; for they have all good uses in God's service; but to desire these by corrupt means, or to ill ends, to get them by supplantation of others, or for oppression of others, this is pride, and a bestial pride. And this proud man is elegantly expressed in the horse; The horse rejoiceth in his strength, he goes forth to meet the armed man, he mocks at fear, he turns upon the sword, and he swallows the ground. The river is mine, says Pharaoh, and I have made it for myself": they take all, and they mistake all; that which is but lent them for use, 18 2 Pet. i. 4. 19 1 John iii. 9. 2 Dan. iii. 17. 20 Acts xvii. 28. 23 Job xxxix. 19. they think theirs; (The river is mine) that which God gave them, they think of their own getting; (I made it) and that which God placed upon them, as his stewards for the good of others, they appropriate to themselves; (I have made it for myself). But when time is, God mounteth on high, and he mocks the horse and the rider. In that day, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness. The horse believeth not that it is the sound of the trumpet 27; when the trumpet sounds to us in our last bell, (for the last bell that carries us out of this world, and the trumpet that calls us to the next, is all one voice to us, for we hear nothing between) the worldly man shall not believe that it is the sound of the trumpet, he shall not know it, not take knowledge of it, but pass away insensible of his own condition. So then is pride well represented in the horse; and so is the other, lust, licentiousness in the mule. For, besides that reason of assimilation, that it desires, and cannot, and that reason, that it presents unnatural and promiscuous lust, for this reason is that vice well represented in that beast, because it is so apt to bear any burdens. For, certainly, no man is so inclinable to submit himself to any burden of labour, of danger, of cost, of dishonour, of law, of sickness, as the licentious man is; he refuses none, to come to his ends. Neither is there any tree so loaded with boughs, any one sin that hath so many branches, so many species as this. Shedding of blood we can limit in murder, and manslaughter, and a few more; and other sins in as few names. In this sin of lust, the sex, the quality, the distance, the manner, and a great many other circumstances, create new names to the sin, and make it a sin of another kind. And as the sin is a mule, to bear all these loads, so the sinner in this kind is so too, and (as we find an example in the nephew of a pope) delights to take as many loads of this sin upon him, as he could; to vary, and to multiply the kinds of this sin in one act, he would not satisfy his lust by a fornication, or adultery, or incest, (these were vulgar) but upon his own sex; and that not upon an ordinary person, but in their account, upon a prince; and he, a spiritual 25 Job xxxix. 21. 26 Zech. xii. 4 27 Job xxxix. 27. prince, a cardinal; and all this, not by solicitation, but by force: for thus he compiled his sins, he ravished a cardinal. This is the sin, in which men pack up as much sin as they can, and as though it were a shame to have too little, they belie their own pack, they brag of sins of this kind, which they never did, as St. Augustine with a holy and penitent ingenuity confesses of himself. This sin then, (though one great mischief in it be, that for the most part, it destroys two together, the devil will have his creatures come to his ark by couples too, two and two together, yet this sin we are able to commit without a companion, upon our own bodies, yea without bodies; in the weakness of our bodies our minds can sin this sin.) This which the wise man calls a pit, The mouth of a strange woman is as a deep pit, he with whom the Lord is angry, shall fall therein 28. And therefore he that pursues that sin, is called to a double sad consideration, both that he angers the Lord in committing that sin then; and that the Lord was angry with him before for some other sin, and for a punishment of that former sin, God suffered him to fall into this. And it is truly a fearful condition, when God punishes sin by sin; other corrections bring us to a peace with God; he will not be angry for ever, he will not punish twice, when he hath punished a sin, he hath done: but when he punishes sin by sin, we are not thereby the nearer to a peace or reconciliation by that punishment, for still there is a new sin that continues us in his displeasure. Punish me O Lord, with all thy scourges, with poverty, with sickness, with dishonour, with loss of parents, and children, but with that rod of wire, with that scorpion, to punish sin with sin, Lord, scourge me not, for then how shall I enter into thy rest? And this is the condition of this sin; for, He with whom the Lord is angry, shall fall into it. And when he is fallen, he shall not understand his state, but think himself well; for Nathan presents David's sin to him, in a parable of a feast, of an entertainment of a stranger 29: he tastes no sourness, no bitterness in it; not because there is none, but because a carcass, a man already slain, cannot feel a new wound; a man dead in the habit of a 28 Prov. xxii. 14. VOL. III. 29 2 Sam. xii. E sin, hath no sense of it: this sin of which St. Augustine, who had been overcome by it, and was afraid that his case was a common case, saith in the person of all, Continua pugna, victoria rara; In a defensive war, where we are put to a continual resistance, it is hard coming to a victory; what hope then where there is no resistance, no defence, but a spontaneous and voluntary opening ourselves to all provocations, yea provoking of provocations by high diet, a tempting of temptations by exposing ourselves to dangerous company, when as the angels who were safe enough in themselves, yet withdrew themselves from the uncleanness of the Sodomites. This sin will not be overcome but by a league, Job's league, Pepigi fœdus, I have made a corenant with mine eyes, why then should I think upon a maid"1? Since I have bound my senses, why should my mind be at liberty to sin? This league should bind both; I have taken a promise of mine eyes, that they will not betray me by wanton glances, by carrying me to dangerous objects, why should not I keep covenant with them? why should my thoughts be scattered upon such temptations? The league must be kept on both parts, the mind and the senses; we must not entertain temptations from without, we must not create them within. Eloquia Domini casta, The words of the Lord are chaste words, pure words, and so must all the talk, and conversation of him, that loves God, be. And then, Castificate animas vestras 33, You must see that you keep your minds pure and chaste. If we have not both chaste minds, and chaste bodies, we shall have neither; and then follows the excommunication: St. Augustine saith, That according to most probability, there were no mules in the ark; but indisputably there are no mules in the church, in the triumphant church, none of our metaphorical mules there: the apostle hath put it beyond a problem, Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate persons shall inherit the kingdom of heaven, there is the fearful excommunication: and therefore nolite fieri sicut, be not made like the horse or the mule, in pride, or wantonness especially, quia non intellectus, because then you lose your understanding, and so become absolutely irrecoverable, 30 Gen. xix. 10. 31 Job xxxi. 1. 84 32 Psalm xii. 6. Cor. vi. 9. and leave God nothing to work upon: for the understanding of man is the field which God sows, and the tree in which he engrafts faith itself; and therefore take heed of such a descent, as induces the loss of the understanding, and that is the case here, (and our next consideration) Non intellectus, They have no understanding. This faculty of the understanding in man is not always well understood by men. The whole Psalm is a Psalm to rectify the understanding; it is in the title thereof, David's Instruction: and that office God undertakes in the verse before our text, I will instruct thee, which is in some Latin copies, Faciam te intelligere, I will make thee understand, and in others, (the Vulgate) Intellectum tibi dabo, I will give thee understanding; now though this instruction, and this understanding, which is intended in the title, and specified in the former verse, be not the same understanding as this in our text, (for this is but of that natural faculty of man, wherewith God enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world", till he make himself like the horse or the mule) the other is God's superedification upon this, those other supernatural graces, which God produces out of the understanding, or infuses into the understanding; yet this understanding in our text, though it be but the natural faculty, is a considerable thing, and hath, in part, the nature of materials for God to work upon. That instruction which is the subject of the whole Psalm, is that saving doctrine, that there is no blessedness but in the remission of sins. That David establishes for his foundation in the first verse, and would say nothing till he had said that. But then, though this remission of sins (which only constitutes blessedness) proceed merely from the goodness of God, yet that goodness of God, as it excites primarily, so it works still upon that act of man, penitent confession, Notum feci, I acknowledged my sin, and Dixi confitebor, I prepared myself to confess my sin, and thou forgavest all. This then St. Hirome delivers to be the instruction of the Psalm, Hominem, non propriis meritis, sed Dei gratia, posse salcari, si confiteatur admissa; That man of himself is irrecoverable, but yet there is way open to salvation in Christ Jesus: 35 John i. 9. |