distinct matter. And sins once pardoned return again to all the purposes of mischief, if we, by a new sin, forfeit God's former loving-kindness. "When the righteous man turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be remembered: in the trespass that he hath trespassed, and in the sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die." Now, then, consider how great a fool he is, who, when he hath, with much labour and by suffering violence, contradicted his first desires; when his spirit hath been in agony and care, and, with much uneasiness, hath denied to please the lower man; when, with many prayers, and groans, and innumerable sighs, and strong cryings to God, with sharp sufferances and a long severity, he hath obtained of God to begin his pardon and restitution, and that he is in some hopes to return to God's favour, and that he shall become an heir of heaven; when some of his amazing fears and distracting cares begin to be taken off; when he begins to think that now it is not certain he shall perish in a sad eternity, but he hopes to be saved, and he considers how excellent a condition that is; he hopes when he dies to go to God, and that he shall never enter into the possession of devils; and this state, which is but the twilight of a glorious felicity, he hath obtained with great labour, and much care, and infinite danger: that this man should throw all this structure down, and then, when he is ready to reap the fruits of his labours, by one indiscreet action to set fire upon his corn-fields, and destroy all his dear-earned hopes, for the madness and loose wanderings of an hour: this man is an indiscreet gamester, who doubles his stake as he thrives, and, at one throw, is dispossessed of all the prosperities of a lucky hand. They that are poor, as Plutarch observes, are careless of little things; because, by saving them, they think no great moments can accrue to their estates; and they, despairing to be rich, think such frugality impertinent: but they that feel their banks swell, and are within the possibilities of wealth, think it useful if they reserve the smaller minutes of expense, knowing that every thing will add to their heap. But then, after long sparing, in one night to throw away the wealth of VOL. VI. b Ezek. xviii. 24. B a long purchase, is an imprudence becoming none but such persons who are to be kept under tutors aud guardians, and such as are to be chastised by their servants, and to be punished by them whom they clothe and feed. ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔμπης Αἰσχρόν τοι δηρόν τε μένειν, κενεόν τε νέεσθαι. These men sow much and gather little, stay long and return empty; and after a long voyage they are dashed in pieces, when their vessels are laden with the spoils of provinces. Every deadly sin destroys the rewards of a seven years' piety. I add to this, that God is more impatient at a sin committed by his servants, than at many by persons that are his enemies; and an uncivil answer from a son to a father, from an obliged person to a benefactor, is a greater indecency than if any enemy should storm his house, or revile him to his head. Augustus Cæsar taxed all the world, and God took no public notices of it; but when David taxed and numbered a petty province, it was not to be expiated without a plague, because such persons, besides the direct sin, add the circumstance of ingratitude to God, who hath redeemed them from their vain conversation, and from death, and from hell, and consigned them to the inheritance of sons, and given them his grace and his Spirit, and many periods of comfort, and a certain hope, and visible earnests of immortality. Nothing is baser than that such a person, against his reason, against his interest, against his God, against so many obligations, against his custom, against his very habits. and acquired inclinations, should do an action Quam nisi seductis nequeas committere divis; which a man must for ever be ashamed of, and, like Adam, must run from God himself to do it, and depart from the state in which he had placed all his hopes, and to which he had designed all his labours. The consideration is effective enough, if we sum up the particulars; for he that hath lived well, and then falls into a deliberate sin, is infinitely dishonoured, is most imprudent, most unsafe, and most unthankful. c Hom. Il. ß. 297. 2. Let persons tempted to the single instances of sin in the midst of a laudable life, be very careful that they suffer not themselves to be drawn aside by the eminence of great examples. For some think drunkenness hath a little honesty derived unto it by the example of Noah; and adultery is not so scandalous and intolerably dishonourable, since Bathsheba bathed, and David was defiled; and men think a flight is no cowardice, if a general turns his head and runs : Pompeio fugiente timent.-Lucan. i. 522. Well might all the gowned "Romans fear, when Pompey fled." And who is there that can hope to be more righteous than David, or stronger than Sampson, or have less hypocrisy than St. Peter, or be more temperate than Noah? These great examples bear men of weak discourses and weaker resolutions from the severity of virtues. But, as Diagoras, to them that shewed to him the votive garments of those that had escaped shipwreck, upon their prayers and vows to Neptune, answered, that they kept no account of those that prayed and vowed, and yet were drowned: so do these men keep catalogues of those few persons who broke the thread of a fair life in sunder with the violence of a great crime, and, by the grace of God, recovered, and repented, and lived; but they consider not concerning those infinite numbers of men, who died in their first fit of sickness, who, after a fair voyage, have thrown themselves overboard, and perished in a sudden wildness. One said well, "Si quid Socrates aut Aristippus contra morem et consuetudinem fecerunt, idem sibi ne arbitretur quis licere: magnis enim illi et divinis bonis hanc licentiam assequebantur; - If Socrates did any unusual thing, it is not for thee, who art of an ordinary virtue, to assume the same license; for he, by a divine and excellent life, hath obtained leave or pardon respectively" for what thou must never hope for, till thou hast arrived to the same glories. First, be as devout as David, as good a Christian as St. Peter, and then thou wilt not dare, with design, to act that which they fell into by surprise; and if thou dost fall as they did, by that time thou hast also repented like them, it may be said concerning thee, that thou didst fall and break thy bones, but God did heal thee and pardon thee. Remember that all the damned souls shall bear an eternity of torments for the pleasures of a short sinfulness; but for a single transient action to die for ever, is an intolerable exchange, and the effect of so great a folly, that whosoever falls into it, and then considers it, it will make him mad and distracted for ever. 3. Remember, that since no man can please God, or be partaker of any promises, or reap the reward of any actions in the returns of eternity, unless he performs to God an entire duty, according to the capacities of a man so taught, and so tempted, and so assisted; such a person must be curious, that he be not cozened with the duties and performances of any one relation. 1. Some there are, that think all our religion consists in prayers and public or private offices of devotion, and not in moral actions, or intercourses of justice and temperance, of kindness and friendships, of sincerity and liberality, of chastity and humility, of repentance and obedience. Indeed no humour is so easy to be counterfeited as devotion; and yet no hypocrisy is more common among men, nor any so useless as to God: for it being an address to him alone, who knows the heart and all the secret purposes, it can do no service in order to heaven, so long as it is without the power of godliness, and the energy and vivacity of a holy life. God will not suffer us to commute a duty, because all is his due; and religion shall not pay for want of temperance. If the devoutest hermit be proud; or he that fasts thrice in a week,' be uncharitable once; or he that gives much to the poor, gives also too much liberty to himself; he hath planted a fair garden, and invited a wild boar to refresh himself under the shade of the fruit-trees; and his guest, being something rude, hath disordered his paradise, and made it become a wilderness. 2. Others there are, that judge themselves by the censures that kings and princes give concerning them, or as they are spoken of by their betters; and so make false judgments concerning their condition. For, our betters, to whom we shew our best parts, to whom we speak with caution and consider what we represent, they see our hearts and our dressings, but nothing of our nature and deformities trust not their censures concerning thee; but to thy own opinion of thyself, whom thou knowest in thy retirements, and natural peevishness, and unhandsome inclinations, and secret baseness. 3. Some men have been admired abroad, in whom the wife and the servant never saw any thing excellent: a rare judge and a good commonwealth's man in the streets and public meetings, and a just man to his neighbour, and charitable to the poor; for in all these places the man is observed, and kept in awe by the sun, by light, and by voices: but this man is a tyrant at home, an unkind husband, an ill father, an imperious master. And such men are like 'prophets in their own countries,' not honoured at home; and can never be honoured by God, who will not endure that many virtues should excuse a few vices, or that any of his servants shall take pensions of the devil, and in the profession of his service do his enemy single advantages. 4. He that hath passed many stages of a good life, to prevent his being tempted to a single sin, must be very careful that he never entertain his spirit with the remembrances of his past sin, nor amuse it with the fantastic apprehensions of the present. When the Israelites fancied the sapidness and relish of the flesh-pots, they longed to taste and to return. So when a Libyan tiger, drawn from his wilder foragings, is shut up, and taught to eat civil meat, and suffer the authority of a man, he sits down tamely in his prison, and pays to his keeper fear and reverence for his meat but if he chance to come again, and taste a draught of warm blood, he presently leaps into his natural cruelty. He scarce abstains from eating those hands that brought him discipline and food. So is the nature of a man made tame and gentle by the grace of God, and reduced to reason, and kept in awe by religion and laws, and, by an awful virtue, is taught to forget those alluring and sottish relishes of sin but if he diverts from his path, and snatches handfuls from the wanton vineyards, and remembers the lasciviousness of his unwholesome food, that pleased his childish palate; then he grows sick again, and hungry after unwholesome diet, and longs for d Sic ubi, desuetæ sylvis, in carcere clauso, Fervet, et à trepido vix abstinet ira magistro.-Phars. iv. 237. |