bate and the elect too are under this ca, woe to the world, from temptations, and tribulations, scandals, and offences.

So it is if the world be persons, and it is so also, if it be times; take the world for the times we live in now, and it is norissima hora, this is the last time, and the apostle hath told us, that the last times are the worst. Take the world for the old world, originalis mundus, as St. Peter calls it; the original world, of which, this world, since the flood, is but a copy, and God spared not the old world, says that apostle. Take it for an elder world than that, the world in paradise, when one Adam, the Son of God, and one Eve produced by God, from him, made up the world or take it for an elder world than that, the world in heaven, when only the angels, and no other creatures made up the world; take it any of these ways, we in this latter world do, Noah in the old world did, so did Adam in the world in paradise, and so did the angels in the oldest world of all, find these woes from offences, and scandals, temptations, and tribulations.

So it is in all persons, in all men, so it is in all times, in all ages, and so it is in all places too; for he that retires into a monastery upon pretence of avoiding temptations, and offences in this world, he brings them thither, and he meets them there; he sees them intramittendo, and extramittendo, he is scandalized by others, and others are scandalized by him. That part of the world that sweats in continual labour in several vocations, is scandalized with their laziness, and their riches, to see them anoint themselves with other men's sweat, and lard themselves with other men's fat; and then these retired and cloistral men are scandalized with all the world, that is out of their walls. There is no sort of men more exercised with contentious and scandalous wranglings, than they are: for first, with all eager animosity they prefer their monastical life before all other secular callings, yea, before those priests, whom they call secular priests, such as have care of souls, in particular parishes, (as though it were a diminution, and an inferior state to have care of souls, and study and labour the salvation of others.) And then as they undervalue all secular callings, (mechanics, and merchants, and magistrates too) in respect of any regular order, (as they call

them) so with the same animosity do they prefer their own order, before any other order. A Carthusian is but a man of fish, for one element, to dwell still in a pond, in his cell alone, but a Jesuit is a useful ubiquitary, and his scene is the court, as well as the cloister. And howsoever they pretend to be gone out of the world, they are never the farther from the exchange for all their cloister; they buy, and sell, and purchase in their cloister. They are never the farther from Westminster in their cloister, they occasion and they maintain suits from their cloister; and there are the courts of justice noted to abound most with suits, where monasteries abound most. Nay, they are never the farther from the field for all their cloister; for they give occasions of arinies, they raise armies, they direct armies, they pay armies from their cloister. Men should not retire from the mutual duties of this world, to avoid offences, temptations, tribulations, neither do they at all avoid them, that retire thus, upon that pretence.

Shall we say then, as the disciples said to Christ; If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry"? If the world be nothing but a bed of adders, a quiver of poisoned arrows, from every person, every time, every place, woes by occasion of offences, and scandals, it had been better God had made no world, better that I had never been born into the world, better, if by any means I could get out of the world quickly, shall we say so? God forbid. As long as Job charged not God foolishly, it is said, in all this Job sinned not 30; but when he came to curse his birth, and to loathe his life, then Job charged God foolishly. When one prophet (Elijah) comes to proportion God the measure of his corrections, Satis est, Lord, this is enough; thou hast done enough, I have suffered enough, now take away my life. When another prophet comes to wish his own death in anger, and to justify his anger, and dispute it out with God himself, for not proceeding with the Ninevites, as he would have had him do 32; nay for the withering of his gourd that shadowed him, in all these, they did, in all such, we do charge God foolishly; and shall we that are but worms, but silkworms, but glow-worms at best, chide God that he hath made

29 Matt. xix. 10.

31 1 Kings xix. 4.

30 Job i. 22. 32 Jonah iv.

slow-worms, and other venomous creeping things? Shall we that are nothing but boxes of poison in ourselves, reprove God for making toads and spiders in the world? Shall we that are all discord, quarrel the harmony of his creation, or his providence? Can an apothecary make a sovereign treacle of vipers, and other poisons, and cannot God admit offences, and scandals into his physic? Scandals, and offences, temptations, and tribulations, are our leaven that ferment us, and our lees that preserve us. Use them to God's glory, and to thine own establishing, and then thou shall be a particular exception to that general rule, the Væ mundo à scandalis, shall be an Euge tibi a scandalis, thou shalt see that it was well for thee, that there were scandals and offences in the world, for they shall have exercised thy patience, they shall have occasioned thy victory, they shall have assured thy triumph.

SERMON XCIX.

PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN.

The second Sermon on MATTHEW Xviii. 7.

Woe unto the world, because of offences.

We have seen in the first word the ra, as it is cox dolentis, the voice of condoling and lamenting, that it is accompanied with a heu; God's judgments come against his will, he had rather they might be forborne, he had rather those easy conditions had been performed; and as it is vox minantis, a voice of threatening and intermination, it is accompanied with an amen; if conditions be rebelliously broken, God's judgments do come infallibly, inevitably; and we have seen in the second word, va mundo, and the twofold signification of that, that these offences, and scandals fall upon all the world; the wicked embrace temptations, and are glad of them, and sorry when they are but weak; the godly meet temptations, and wrestle with them, and sometimes do overcome

them, and are sometimes overcome by them; but all have them, and yet we must not break out of the world by a retired life, nor break out of the world by a violent death, but take God's ways, and stay God's leisure. In this our third part, we are to consider the root from which this over-spreading væ, this woe proceeds, a scandalis, from scandals, from offences, and the double signification of that word, first, scandalum activum, the active scandal, which is a malice, or at least an indiscretion in giving offence, and scandalum passivum, the passive scandal, which is a forwardness, at least an easiness in taking offence; to know the nature of the thing, look we to the derivation, the extraction, the origination of the word. The word from which scandal is derived, σkáčeɩv, signifies claudicare, to halt; and thence, a scandal is any trap, or engine, any occasion of stumbling, and laming, hid in the way that I must go, by another person; and as it is transferred to a spiritual use, appropriated to an ecclesiastical sense, it is an occasion of sinning. It hath many branches; too many to be so much as named; but some fruits from some of them we shall gather, and present you. First, in our first, the active scandal, to do any thing that is naturally ill, formally sin, whereby another may be occasioned or encouraged by my example to do the like, this is the active scandal most evidently, and most directly, and this is morbus complicatus, a disease that carries another disease in it, a fever exalted to a frenzy; it is peccatum prægnans, peccatum gravidum, a spawning sin, a sin of multiplication, to sin purposely, to lead another into temptation. But there is a less degree than this, and it is an active scandal too; to do any thing that in itself is indifferent, (and so no sin in me, that do it) in the sight of another that thinks it not indifferent, but unlawful, and yet because he hath a real, or a reverential dependence upon me, (my son, my servant, my tenant) and thinks I would be displeased if he did it not, does it against his conscience by my example, though the sin be formally his, radically it is mine, because I gave the occasion. And there is a lower degree than this; and yet is an active scandal. If I do an indifferent thing in the sight and knowledge of another, that thinks it unlawful, though he do not come to do it, out of my example, by any dependence upon me, yet if he come to think

uncharitably of me, or to condemn me for doing it, though this uncharitableness in him be his sin, yet the root grew in me, and I gave the scandal. And there is a lower degree than this; and yet is an active scandal too. Origen hath expressed it thus, Scandalum est quo scandentium pedes offenduntur; To hinder the feet of another, that would go farther, or climb higher in the ways of godliness; but for me, to say to any man, what need you be so pure, so devout, so godly, so zealous, will this make you rich, will this bring you to preferment? This is an active scandal in me, though he that I speak to, be not damnified by me. Of which kind of scandal, there is an evident, and an illustrious example, between St. Peter, and Christ'; Christ calls Peter a scandal unto him, when Peter rebuked Christ for offering to go up to Jerusalem in a time of danger. Christ was to accomplish the work of our salvation at Jerusalem, by dying, and Peter dissuades, discounsels that journey; and for this, Christ lays that heavy name upon his indiscreet zeal, and that heavy name upon his person, rade retro, get thee behind me Satan, thou art a scandal unto me. This is scandalum oppositionis, the scandal of opposing, dissuading, discounselling, discountenancing, and consequently the frustrating of God's purpose in man; this is but by word, and yet there is a less than this, which is scandalum timoris, when he that hath power in his hand, in a family, in a parish, in a city, in a court, intimidates them who depend upon him, (though nothing be expressly done or said that way) and so slackens them in their religious duties to God; and in their constancy in religion itself; and ræ illis, woe unto them that do so, and væ mundo ab illis; woe unto the world, because there are so many that do so. And yet there is another scandal which seems less than this, scandalum amoris, the scandal of love; as Saul gave David his daughter Michal, ut esset ei in scandalum, That she might be a snare unto him; that is, that David being over-uxorious, and over-indulgent to his wife, might thereby lie the more open to Saul's mischievous purposes upon him, and væ illis, woe unto them that doth so; and væ mundo ab illis, woe unto the world, because there are so many that do so, that study the affections, and dispositions, and inclinations of men, and

1 Matt. xvi. 23.

21 Sam. xviii. 21.