same sincerity, and the same totality in which our fathers have delivered it us; for that, that continuation, is that, that makes it an inheritance: for, (to conclude this) every man hath an inheritance in the law, and yet if he be hanged, he is hanged by the law, in which he had his inheritance: so we have our inheritance in the word of God, and yet, if we be damned, we are damned by that word; If thy heart turn away, so as that thou worship other gods, I denounce unto you this day, that you shall surely perish. So then, we have an inheritance in this kingdom, if we preserve it, and we incur a forfeiture of it, if we have not this seed, (the Word, the truth of religion) so as that we possess it; that is, conform ourselves to him, whose word it is, by it, and possess it so, as that we persevere in the true profession of it, to our end; for perseverance, as well as possession, enters into our title, and inheritance to this kingdom.

32

You see then, what this kingdom of God is; it is, when he comes and is welcome; when he comes in his sacraments, and speaks in his word; when he speaks and is answered, knocks and is received, (he knocks in his ordinances, and is received in our obedience to them, he knocks in his example, and most holy conversation, and is received in our conformity, and imitation). So have you seen what the inheritance of this kingdom is, it is a having, and holding of the Gospel, a present, and a permanent possession, a holding fast, lest another (another nation, another church) take our crown". There remains only that you see, upon whom the exclusion falls; and for the clearing of that, This I say brethren, that flesh and bloodcannot inherit the kingdom of God.

It is fully expressed by St. Paul, The carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not a coldness, a slackness, an omission, a preterition of some duties towards God, but it is enmity, and that is an exclusion out of the kingdom; for, (says the apostle there) it is not subject to the law of God; and no subjection, no kingdom; it is not, says he, neither can it be; it is not, that excludes the present; it cannot be, that excludes the future; so that it is only this incorrigible, this desperate state that constitutes his flesh and blood, that cannot inherit the kingdom of God; 32 Fol. edit." and his welcome."

31 Deut. xxx. 17, 18.
33 Rev. iii. 11.

VOL. IV.

34 Rom, viii. 7.

8

for this implies impenitibleness, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost. Take the word flesh, so literally, as that it be either the adorning of my flesh in pride, or the polluting of my flesh in wantonness, whether it be a pampering of my flesh with voluptuous provocations, or a withering, a shrivelling of my flesh with superstitious and meritorious fastings, or other macerations, and lacerations by inhuman violence upon my body; take the word blood so literally, as that it be either an admiring and adoring of honourable blood, in a servile flattering of great persons, or an insinuating of false and adulterous blood, in a bastardizing a race, by supposititious children, whether it be the inflaming the blood of young persons by lascivious discourse, or shedding the blood of another in a murderous quarrel, whether it be in blaspheming the blood of my Saviour, in execrable oaths, or the profaning of his blood in an unworthy receiving thereof, all these ways, and all such, doth this flesh and blood exclude from the kingdom of God; it is summarily, all those works which proceed merely out of the nature of man, without the regeneration of the spirit of God; all that is flesh and blood, and enmity against God, says the apostle in that place.

But in another place, that apostle leads us into other considerations; to the Galatians he says, The works of the flesh are manifest and amongst those manifest works of the flesh, he reckons not only sins of wantonness, and sins of anger, not only sins in concupiscibili, and in irascibili, but in intelligibili, sins and errors in the understanding, particularly heresy and idolatry are works of the flesh, in St. Paul's inventory, in that place, heresy and idolatry, are that flesh and blood which shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Bring we this consideration home to ourselves. The church of Rome does not charge us with affirming any heresy, nor does she charge us with any idolatry in our practice. So far we are discharged from the works of the flesh. If they charge us with doctrine of flesh and blood because we prefer marriage before chastity, it is a charge ill laid, for marriage and chastity consist well together; The bed undefiled is chastity. If they charge us that we prefer marriage before continency, they charge us unjustly, for we do not so: let them contain that can,

35 Gal. v. 19.

and bless God for that heavenly gift of continency, and let them that cannot, marry, and serve God, and bless him for affording them that physic for that infirmity. As marriage was ordained at first, for those two uses, Procreation of children, and mutual assistance of man, and wife, so continency was not preferred before marriage. As there was a third use of marriage added after the fall, by way of remedy, so marriage may well be said to be inferior to continency, as physic is in respect of health. If they charge us with it, because our priests marry, they do it frivolously, and impertinently, because they deny that we are priests. We charge them with heresy in the whole new creed of the Council of Trent, (for, if all the particular doctrines be not heretical, yet, the doctrine of inducing new articles of faith is heretical, and that doctrine runs through all the articles, for else they could not be articles.) And we charge them with idolatry, in the people's practice, (and that practice is never controlled by them) in the greatest mystery of all their religion, in the adoration of the sacrament; and heresy and idolatry are manifest works of the flesh. Our kingdom is the Gospel; our inheritance is our holding that; our exclusion is flesh and blood, heresy and idolatry. And therefore let us be able to say with the apostle, When God had called us, and separated us, immediately we conferred not with flesh and blood. Since God hath brought us into a fair prospect, let us have no retrospect back; in Canaan, let us not look towards Egypt, nor towards Sodom, being got to the mountain; since God hath settled us in a true church, let us have no kind of bias, and declination towards a false; for that is one of St. Paul's manifest works of the flesh, and I shall lose all the benefit of the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus, if I do so, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

We have done; add we but this, by way of recollecting this which hath been said now, upon these words, and that which hath been formerly said upon those words of Job, which may seem to differ from these, (In my flesh I shall see God) Omne verum omni cero consentiens, whatsoever is true in itself agrees with

36 Gal. i. 16.

every other truth. Because that which Job says, and that which St. Paul says, agree with the truth, they agree with one another. For, as St. Paul says, Non omnis caro eadem caro, There is one flesh of man, another of beasts, so there is one flesh of Job, another of St. Paul; and Job's flesh can see God, and Paul's cannot; because the flesh that Job speaks of hath overcome the destruction of skin and body by worms in the grave, and so is mellowed and prepared for the sight of God in heaven; and Paul's flesh is overcome by the world. Job's flesh triumphs over Satan, and hath made a victorious use of God's corrections, Paul's flesh is still subject to temptations, and carnalities. Job's argument is but this, some flesh shall see God, (mortified men here, glorified men there shall) Paul's argument is this, all flesh shall not see God, (carnal men here, impenitent men there, shall not.) And therefore, that as our texts answer one another, so your resurrections may answer one another too; as at the last resurrection, all that hear the sound of the trumpet, shall rise in one instant, though they have passed thousands of years between their burials, so do all ye, who are now called, by a lower and infirmer voice, rise together in this resurrection of grace. Let him that hath been buried sixty years, forty years, twenty years, in covetousness, in uncleanness, in indevotion, rise now, now this minute, and then, as Adam that died five thousand before, shall be no sooner in heaven, in his body, than you, so Abel that died for God, so long before you, shall be no better, that is, no fuller of the glory of heaven, than you that die in God, when it shall be his pleasure to take you to him.

37 1 Cor. xv. 39.

261

SERMON XCVII.

PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN.

COLOSSIANS i. 24.

Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake which is the church.

We are now to enter into the handling of the doctrine of evangelical counsels; and these words have been ordinarily used by the writers of the Roman church, for the defence of a point in controversy between them and us; which is a preparatory to that which hereafter is to be more fully handled upon another text. Out of these words, they labour to establish works of supererogation, in which (they say) men do or suffer more than was necessary for their own salvation; and then the superfluity of those accrues to the treasury of the church, and by the stewardship, and dispensation of the church may be applied to other men living here, or suffering in purgatory by way of satisfaction to God's justice; but this is a doctrine which I have had occasion heretofore in this place to handle; and a doctrine which indeed deserves not the dignity to be too diligently disputed against; and as we will not stop upon the disproving of the doctrine, so we need not stay long, nor insist upon the vindicating of these words, from that wresting and detortion of theirs, in using them for the proof of that doctrine. Because though at first, they presented them with great eagerness and vehemence, and assurance, Quicquid hæretici obstrepunt, illustris hic locus', say the heretics what they can, this is a clear and evident place for that doctrine, yet another after him is a little more cautious and reserved, Negari non potest quin ita exponi possint, It cannot be denied, but that these words may admit such an exposition; and then another more modified than both says, Primo et proprie non id intendit apostolus3; The apostle had no such purpose in his first and proper intention to prove that doctrine in these words. Sed innuitur ille sensus; qui et si non genuinus, tamen à pari 3 Cornel. a Lapide.

1 Greg. de Valent.

2 Bellarmine.