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A Sermon Preached on Eafter-day at Eaton

Colledge.

Luke XVI. 25.

Son, remember that thou in thy life-time receivedft thy good things.

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Have heard a Proverb to this found, He that hath a Debt to pay at Eafter, thinks the Lent but short: how fhort this Lent hath feemed to me, who ftand in

debted to you for the remainder of my Meditations upon these words, is no matter of confequence; to you peradventure it may have feemed fo long, that what you lately heard at Shrovetide, now at Eafter you may with pardon have forgotten. I will therefore recall into your memories fo much of my former Meditations, as may ferve to open unto me a convenient way to purfue the reft of thofe Leffons, which then, when I laft fpake unto you, the time and your patience would not permit me to finish. But e're I do this, I will take leave a little to fit my Text unto this time of Solemnity.

This time, you know, calls for a Difcourfe concerning the Refurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jefus Chrift; of this you hear no found in the words which I have read, and therefore you conclude it a Text unbefitting the day. Indeed, if you take the Refurrection for that glorious Act of his Omnipotency, by which, through the power of his Eternal Spirit, he redeems himfelf from the hand of the Grave, and triumphs over Death

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and Hell, you shall in these words find nothing pertinent: But if you take this Refurrection for that act, by which, through the power of Saving Grace, Chrift the Son of Righteoufnefs rifes in our hearts, and raises us from the death of fin, unto the life of righteousness, here in these words you may perchance find a notable branch of it. For to raise our thoughts from this earth, and clay, and from things beneath (and fuch are those which here Abraham calls, The good things of our life) and to fet them above, where Chrift fits at the right hand of God, this is that practick Refurrection, which above all concerns us, that other of Christ in Perfon, in regard of us, is but Resurrection in Speculation; for to him that is dead in fin and trefpaffes, and who places his good in the things of this life, Chrift is, as it were, not risen at all, to fuch a one he is ftill in the Grave, and under the bands of Death: But to him that is rifen with Chrift, and feeks the good things that are above, to him alone is Chrift rifen: To know and believe perfectly the whole ftory of Chrift's Refurrection, what were it, if we did not practice this Refurrection of our own? Cogita non exacturum à te Deum, quantum cognoveris, fed quantum vixeris; God will not reckon with thee, how much thou knoweft, but how well thou hast lived. Epictetus, that great Philofopher, makes this pretty Parable, fhould a Shepherd faith he, call his fheep to account how they had profited, would he like of that fheep, which brought before him his hay, his grafs, and fodder; or rather that sheep, which having well digefted all thefe, expreft himself in fat, in flesh, and in wooll? Beloved, you are the flock of Chrift, and the fheep of his hands; fhould the great Shepherd of the Flock call you before him, to fee how you have profited, would he content himself with this, that you had well Con'd your Catechifm, that you had diligently read the Gospel, and exactly knew the whole ftory of the Refurrection? would it not give him better

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fatisfaction to find Chrift's Refurrection expreft in yours, and as it were digested into flesh and wool? fel στο ὅτι, Χρύσιππον ἀνεγνωκέναι. Το have read Chryfippus his Book, this is not Virtue: To have read the Gospel, to have gathered all the circumftances of the Refurrection of Chrift, this is not Christianity to have rifen as Chrift hath done, fo to have digefted the Refurrection of Chrift, as that we have made it our own, this is rightly to understand the Doctrine of the Refurrection of Chrift. For this caufe have I refufed to treat this day of that Refurrection, in the Doctrine of which I know you are perfect, and have reflected on that, in the knowledge of which I fear you are imperfect: which that I might the better do, I have made choice to profecute former Meditations, begun when I laft fpake unto you in this place; for fo doing, I fhall open unto you one of the hardest points of your Spiritual Refurrection, even to raise your thoughts from the things of this life, and feat them with Christ above.

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To make my way more fair to this, I will take leave to put you in mind, in fhort, how I proceeded in the opening of thefe words, when I laft spake unto you out of this place: You may be pleafed to remember, that after fome inftruction drawn from the firft word, •Son, I proceeded to confider the enfuing words, wherein having by an Alchimy, which then I used, changed the word Recordare] Remember, into [Cave] Beware, and fo read my Text thus, Beware thou receive not thy good things in this life, I fhewed you, that we had never greater caufe to confult our best wits, what we are to do, and how we are to carry our felves, then when the world and outward bleffings come upon us; Upon this I moved this Question, Whether or no, if the things of this world fhould by some providence of God knock and offer themselves to us, we are bound to exclude them and refufe them? or, we might open and admit of them? I divided

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my anfwer according to the divers abilities and strength of men firft, Qui poteft capere, capiar; he that hath ftrength and spiritual wifdom to manage them, let him receive them: But in the fecond place, he that is weak, let him let strong Diet alone, and feed on herbs, let him not intangle himself with more then he can manage; Let him try, Quid ferre recufent, Quid valeant humeri

To the first, the fum of what I fpake was this, Receive them we may, and that without danger of a Recepifti; first, if we fo received them, as if we received them not; Secondly, if we efteemed them not good; thirdly, if we did not esteem them ours: And here the time cut me off, and fuffered me not to defcend unto the Second part, upon which now I am about to fall, Cave ne recipias, Také beed thou receive not thy good things.

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In this matter of Receiving and entertaining thefe butward and foreign good things, there have been two ways commended to you, the one the more glorious, to receive them; of this we have fpoken. The other the more Safe, not to receive them; of this we are now to fpeak. These ways are trodden by two kinds of perfons; the one is the ftrong man, and more virtuous; the other is weaker, but more cautelous; the one encounters temptation, the other avoids it: We may compare them to the two great Captains, Hannibal and Fabius, the one ever calling for the Battel, the other evermore declining it. In one of these two ranks muft every good man be found; if we compare them together, we fhall find, that the one is far more excellent, the other far more in number: For to be able to meet and check our enemy, to encounter occafions, to act our parts in common life upon the common ftage, and yet to keep our uprightness; this indeed is truly to live, truly to ferve God, and men, and therefore God the more, because men. On the contrary to avoid occafions, to follow that other vincendi genus, non pugnare, to overcome the World by

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contemning and avoiding it, this argues a wife, indeed but a weak and fainting fpirit: I have often wondred at Antiquity, which doting extremly upon a fequeftred, a folitary, retired, and Monkifh life, fticks not to give out, that all perfection is in it, whereas indeed there is no greater argument of imperfection in good men, quam non poffe pati folem, non multitudinem; not to be able without offence to walk the publick ways, to entertain the common occafions, but to live only to God and to themselves: Utilis ipfe fibi fortaffis, inutilis orbi; men of no great publick ufe, but excellent for themfelves; Saints indeed in private, but being called forth into common life, are like Batts in the Sun, utterly ignorant of pub lick practice; like Scheubelius a great Mathematician, but by book only, and not by practice who being required fometime in an Army to make ufe of his Quadrant, knew not the difference between umbra recta, and umbra verfa: Yet, Beloved, because this kind of good men is by far the greatest in number; and fecondly, because it is both an ufual and a dangerous error of many men, to pretend to strength, when they are but weak, and fo forgetting their place, range themselves among the first, whereas they ought to have kept station among the fecond fort, I will take leave both to advise my felf, and all that hear me to like better of the fafer, though the weaker fide, and to avoid the exprobration of a Recipifti here in my Text, fimply non recipiendo, by not receiving, not admitting at all of the outward, lower, and temporal good things, rather than by an improvident foolhardiness to thruft our felves upon occafions which we are unable to manage without offence. This I am the more willing to do, because there is not among men a greater error committed, and more frequent, then in this kind; for in most things in the World, men that have no skill in them, will be content to acknowledg their ignorance, and to give place to better experience:

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