fantastical) he that by the foregoing material parts and proper significations of a growing grace does not understand his own condition, must be content to work on still super totam materiam, without considerations of particulars; he must pray earnestly, and watch diligently, and consult with prudent guides, and ask of God great measures of his spirit, and hunger and thirst after righteousness: for he that does so, shall certainly be satisfied. And if he understands not his present good condition, yet if he be not wanting in the downright endeavours of piety, and in hearty purposes, he shall then find that he is grown in grace, when he springs up in the resurrection of the just, and shall be ingrafted upon a tree of paradise, which beareth fruit for ever, glory to God, rejoicing to saints and angels, and eternal felicity to his own pious, though undiscerning soul.

Prima sequentem, honestum est in secundis aut tertiis consistere.* Cicero.

* He, who aims at the highest prize, is worthy of honour if he attains only to the second or the third.

SERMON XVI.

OF GROWTH IN SIN:

OR, THE SEVERAL STATES AND DEGREES OF SINNERS, WITH THE MANNER HOW THEY ARE TO BE TREATED.

JUDE EPIST. v. 22, 23.

And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.

MAN hath but one entrance into the world, but a thousand ways to pass from thence. And as it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual: nothing but the union of faith and obedience can secure our regeneration, and our new birth, and can bring us to see the light of heaven; but there are a thousand passages of turning into darkness. And it is not enough that our bodies are exposed to so many sad infirmities and dishonourable imperfections, unless our soul also be a subject capable of so many diseases, irregular passions, false principles, accursed habits and degrees of perverseness, that the very kinds of them are reducible to a method, and make up the part of a science. There are variety of stages and descents to death; as there are diversity of torments, and of sad regions of misery in hell, which is the centre and

kingdom of sorrows. But that we may a little refresh the sadnesses of this consideration; for every one of these stages of sin, God hath measured out a proportion of mercy: for, if sin abounds, grace shall much more abound; and God hath concluded all under sin, not with purposes to destroy us, but, ut omnium misereatur, that he might have mercy upon all; that light may break forth from the deepest inclosures of darkness, and mercy may rejoice upon the recessions of justice, and grace may triumph upon the ruins of sin, and God may be glorified in the miracles of our conversion, and the wonders of our preservation, and glories of our being saved. There is no state of sin, but, if we be persons capable (according to God's method of healing) of receiving antidotes, we shall find a sheet of mercy spread over our wounds and nakedness. If our diseases be small, almost necessary, scarce avoidable; then God does, and so we are commanded to cure them, and cover them with a veil of pity, compassion, and gentle remedies: if our evils be violent, inveterate, gangrened, and incorporated into our nature by evil customs, they must be pulled from the flames of hell with censures, and cauteries, and punishments, and sharp remedies, quickly and rudely; their danger is present and sudden, its effect is quick and intolerable, and, there are no soft counsels then to be entertained they are already in the fire, but they may be saved for all that. So great, so infinite, so miraculous is God's mercy, that he will not give a sinner over, though the hairs of his head be singed with the flames of hell: God's desires of having us to be saved continue, even when we begin to be damned; even till we will not be saved, and are gone beyond God's method, and all the revelations of his kindness. And certainly that is a bold and a mighty sinner, whose iniquity is swelled beyond all the bulk and heap of God's revealed loving kindness: if sin hath

;

swelled beyond grace, and superabounds over it, that sin is gone beyond the measures of a man: such a person is removed beyond all the malice of human nature, into the evil and spite of devils and accursed spirits; there is no greater sadness in the world than this. God hath not appointed a remedy in the vast treasures of grace for some men, and some sins; they have sinned like the falling angels, and having overrun the ordinary evil inclinations of their nature, they are without the protection of the divine mercy, and the conditions of that grace which was which was designed to save all the world, and was sufficient to have saved twenty. This is a condition to be avoided with the care of God and his angels, and all the whole industry of man. In order to which end my purpose now is to remonstrate to you the several states of sin and death, together with those remedies which God had proportioned out to them; that we may observe the evils of the least, and so avoid the intolerable mischiefs of the greater, even of those sins which still are within the power and possibilities of recovery; lest insensibly we fall into those sins and into those circumstances of person for which Christ never died, which the Holy Ghost never means to cure, and which the eternal God never will pardon: for there are of this kind more than commonly men imagine, whilst they amuse their spirits with gayeties and false principles, till they have run into horrible impieties, from whence they are not willing to withdraw their foot, and God is resolved never to snatch and force them thence.

1. Of some have compassion. And these I shall reduce to four heads or orders of men and actions; all which have their proper cure proportionable to their proper state, gentle remedies to the lesser irregularities of the soul. 1. The first are those that sin without observation of their particular state; either

because they are uninstructed in the special cases of conscience, or because they do an evil against which there is no express commandment. It is a sad calami

ty, that there are so many millions of men and women that are entered into a state of sickness and danger, and yet are made to believe they are in perfect health; and they do actions concerning which they never made a question whether they were just or no, nor were ever taught by what names to call them. For while they observe that modesty is sometimes abused by a false name, and called clownishness and want of breeding; and contentedness and temperate living is suspected to be want of courage and noble thoughts; and severity of life is called imprudent and unsociable; and simplicity and hearty honesty is counted foolish and unpolitick: they are easily tempted to honour prodigality and foolish dissolution of their estates with the title of liberal and noble usages; timorousness is called caution, rashness is called quickness of spirit, covetousness is frugality, amorousness is society and genteel, peevishness and anger are courage, flattery is humane and courteous and under these false veils virtue slips away, (like truth from under the hands of them that fight for her) and leaves vice dressed up with the same imagery, and the fraud not discovered till the day of recompences, when men are distinguished by their rewards. But so men think they sleep freely when their spirits are loaden with a lethargy, and they call a hectick fever the vigour of a natural heat, till nature changes those less discerned states into the notorious images of death. Very many men never consider whether they sin or no in ten thousands of their actions, every one of which is very disputable, and do not think they are bound to consider: these men are to be pitied and instructed, they are to be called upon to use religion like a daily diet; their Consciences must be made tender, and their catechism