of the soul, it is the only means to recover thee. But yet, wert thou not better to make this grace thy diet, than thy physic? Were thou not better to nourish thy soul with this grace all the way, than to hope to purge thy soul with it at last? This, as a diet, the apostle prescribes thee, Whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God. He intends it farther there, Whatsoever you do; and farther than that, in another place, Whatsoever ye do, in deed, or in word, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Since there is no action so little, but God may be glorified in it, there is no action so little, but the devil may have his end in it too, and may overthrow thee by a temptation, which thou thinkest thyself strong enough to leap over. And therefore, if you have not given over all love of true weights, and true measures, weigh and measure your particular and indifferent actions, before you do them, and you shall see, at least, grains of iniquity in them; and then, this advantage will you have, by this preconsideration, and weighing your actions beforehand; that when you know there is sin in that action, and know that nothing can counterpoise, nor weigh down sin, but only the blood of Christ Jesus; you may know too that the blood of Christ Jesus cannot be had beforehand. God gives no such non-obstantes no such privileges, no leave to sin, no pardon for sin, before it be committed and therefore, if this premeditation of this action bring thee to see that there is sin it; it must necessarily put a tenderness, a horror, an aversion in thee, from doing that, to which, (being thus done with this preconsideration, and presumption) the blood of thy Saviour doth not appertain. To all your other wares, the baser and coarser they are, the greater weight and measure you are content to give; to the basest of all, to sin, you give the lightest weight, and scantiest measure, and you supply all with the excuses of the custom of the time, that the necessity of your trade forces you to it, else you should be poor, and poorly thought of.

Beloved, God never puts his children to a perplexity; to a necessity of doing any sin, how little soever, though for the avoiding of a sin, as manifold as Adam's. It is not a little request to you, to beware of little sins: it is not a little request, and there39 Col. iii. 17.

38 1 Cor. x. 31.

42

fore I make it, in the words of the greatest to the greatest, (for they are all one head and body) of Christ to his church, Capite culpeculas, Take us the little foxes, for they devour the vines“. It is not a cropping, nor a pilling, nor a retarding of the growth of the vines, but demoliuntur, as little as those foxes are, they devour the vines, they root them out. Thy soul is not so easily devoured by that lion, that seeks whom he may devour"; for, still he is put to seek, and does not always find: and thou shalt hear his roaring, that is, thou shalt discern a great sin; and the lion of the tribe of Judah will come in to thy succour, as soon as thou callest: but take heed that thy soul be not eaten up with vermin, by those little sins, which thou thinkest thou canst forbear, and give over when thou wilt. God punished the Egyptians most, by little things; hailstones, and frogs, and grasshoppers; and Pharaoh's sorcerers, which did greater, failed in the least, in lice". It is true, there is physic for this, Christ Jesus that receives thy greatest sins into his blood, can receive these vermin too into his bowels, even at last; but yet, still make his grace rather thy diet, by a daily consideration beforehand, than thy physic at last. It is ill to take two physics at once; bodily, and ghostly physic too, upon thy death-bed. The apothecary and the physician do well together; the apothecary and the priest not so well. Consult with him before, at least, consult with thine own conscience in those little actions, which either their own nature, or the custom of the time, or thy course of life, thy calling, and the example of others in thy calling made thee think indifferent for though it may seem a degree of flattery, to preach against little sins in such a city as this, where greater sins do abound; yet because these be the materials and elements of greater sins, (and it is impossible to say where a bowl will lie, that is let fall down a hill, though it be let never so gently out of the hand,) and there is no pureness of heart, till even these cobwebs and crumbs be swept away; he that affects that pureness, will consider well that of St. Augustine" Interest inter rectum corde, et mundum corde; A right heart and a clean heart, is not all one: he may have a right heart, that

40 Cant. ii. 15.

43 Exod. viii. 16.

41 1 Pet. v. 8.

42 Rev. v. 5.

44 Psalm xxiv. 4.

keeps in the right way, in the profession of the right religion; but he only keeps his heart pure, that watches all his steps, even in that right way. St Augustine considers that question of David", Quis ascendet, and quis stabit, Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy place? And he applies the answer, Innocens manibus, et mundo corde; He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart: thus, that he hath clean hands, clean from blood, clean from bribery and 'oppression, clean from fornication, and such notorious sins, ascendet in montem, he shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, he shall be admitted to all the benefits that the Christian church can give him; but only he that hath a pure heart, a care to glorify God, in a holy watchfulness upon all his particular actions, to the exclusion of lesser sins, stabit, shall stand safe, confident, unshaken, in his holy place, even in the judgment of God; clean hands justify him to men, a pure heart to God: and therefore this pureness of heart, is here wrapped up in the richest mantle, in the noblest affection that the nature of man hath, that is, love for this is not only a contentment, an acquiescence, a satisfaction, a delight in this pureness of heart, but love is a holy impatience in being without it, or being in a jealousy that we are without it; and it is a holy fervour and vehemency in the pursuit of it, and a preferring it before any other thing that can be compared to it: that is love; and therefore it deserves to be insisted upon, now when in our order proposed at first, from the thing itself that is required (pureness) and the seat, and centre of that pureness (the heart) and the way of this fixation of this pureness in the heart, (detestation of former habits of sins, and prevention of future sins, in a watchful consideration of all our actions, before we do them,) we are come to that affection wherewith this inestimable to be embraced, love: he that loveth pureness of heart. Love, in divinity, is such an attribute, or such a notion, as designs to us one person in the Trinity; and that person who communicates, and applies to us, the other two persons, that is, the Holy Ghost: so that, as there is no power, but with relation to the Father, nor wisdom but with relation to the Son, so there should be no love but in the Holy Ghost, from whom comes this

45 Psalm xxiv. 3.

pureness is

pureness of heart, and consequently the love of it necessarily: for, the love of this pureness is part of this pureness itself, and no man hath it, except he love it. All love which is placed upon lower things, admits satiety; but this love of this pureness, always grows, always proceeds: it does not only file off the rust of our hearts, in purging us of old habits, but proceeds to a daily polishing of the heart, in an exact watchfulness, and brings us to that brightness, Ut ipse videas faciem in corde, et alii videant cor in facie". That thou mayest see thy face in thy heart, and the world may see thy heart in thy face; indeed, that to both, both heart and face may be all one: thou shalt be a looking-glass to thyself, and to others too.

The highest degree of other love, is the love of woman; which love, when it is rightly placed upon one woman, it is dignified by the apostle with the highest comparison, Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved his church": and God himself forbade not that this love should be great enough to change natural affection, relinquet patrem, (for this, a man shall leave his father) yea, to change nature itself, caro una, two shall be one. Accordingly David expresses himself so, in commemoration of Jonathan, Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women": a love above that love, is wonderful. Now, this love between man and woman, doth so much confess a satiety, as that if a woman think to hold a man long, she provides herself some other capacity, some other title, than merely as she is a woman: her wit, and her conversation, must continue this love; and she must be a wife, a helper ; else, merely as a woman, this love must necessarily have intermissions. And therefore St. Jerome notes a custom of his time, (perchance prophetically enough of our times too) that to uphold an unlawful love, and make it continue, they used to call one another friend, and sister, and cousin, ut etiam peccatis induant nomina caritatis, that they might apparel ill affections in good names; and those names of natural and civil love might carry on, and continue a work, which otherwise would sooner have withered. In parables, and in mythology, and in the application

46

48 Augustine.

47 Ephes. v. 25.

48 Gen. ii. 24.

49 2 Sam. 1. 26.

of fables, this affection of love, for the often change of subjects, is described to have wings; whereas the true nature of a good love (such as the love of this text) is a constant union. But our love of earthly things is not so good as to be volatilis, apt to fly; for it is always grovelling upon the earth, and earthly objects: as in spiritual fornications, the idols are said to have ears and hear not, and eyes and see not; so in this idolatrous love of the creature, love hath wings, and flies not; it flies not upward, it never ascends to the contemplation of the Creator in the creature. The poets afford us but one man, that in his love flew so high as the moon; Endymion loved the moon. The sphere of our loves is sublunary, upon things naturally inferior to ourselves.

Let none of this be so mistaken, as though women were thought improper for divine, or for civil conversation for, they have the same soul, and of their good using the faculties of that soul, the ecclesiastic story, and the martyrologies, give us abundant examples of great things done, and suffered by women for the advancement of God's glory: but yet, as when the woman was taken out of man, God caused a heavy sleep to fall upon man, and he slept 50; so doth the devil cast a heavy sleep upon him too, when the woman is so received into man again, as that she possesses him, fills him, transports him. I know the fathers are frequent in comparing and paralleling Eve, the mother of man, and Mary the mother of God. But, God forbid any should say, that the Virgin Mary concurred to our good, so, as Eve did to our ruin. It is said truly, That as by one man sin entered, and death, so by one man entered life. It may be said, That by one woman sin entered and death, (and that rather than by the man; for, Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression 5.) But it cannot be said, in that sense, or that manner, that by one woman innocence entered, and life: the Virgin Mary had not the same interest in our salvation, as Eve had in our destruction; nothing that she did entered into that treasure, that ransom, that redeemed us. She, more than any other woman, and many other blessed women since, have done many things for the advancing of the glory of God, and

50 Gen. ii. 22.

51 Rom. v. 12.

52 1 Tim. ii. 14.