The gallants burden A sermon preached at Pauls Cross, the twenty nine of March,…The gallants burden A sermon preached at Paules Crosse, the twentie nine of March,…

The third degree follows to make up our perfection:¹ If Returning might serve as a labour of (but) indifferent trouble, we could afford it, but we must come: ⟨image 32⟩You have heard the Whence, ²hear the Whither. Thou hast not done with Enquiring, with Returning; Up and eat Elijah, thou hast a greater journey to go: strengthen thy heart, oh Christian, R•stat tibi tertia meta) thou hast a third mark to aim at. Come, home to thy God, by a Chaste and Holy life; it is not currant pay with God, to part with our Vanities, except we embrace a Religious conversation. Paul makes it as necessary a part of Christianity, to Put on the New man, as to put off the Old: It is not enough to cease doing evil, but it is damnable not to do well: He that gathers not with Christ, scattereth. It was the threatening doom in John Baptists Sermon, not to the Barren, but to the Evil-fruited Tree. Christs speech carries the same sense and force against the Pharisees, though spoken to his Disciples: Except your Righteousness, &c. he says not, Unless your righteousness be less then theirs; but, Except your righteousness be more, exceed, you shall not see heaven. He that inquires the way to Heaven, and turns toward it, hath past two degrees of my Text, and his own Pilgrimage; but he gets little of either praise or comfort, except he come home to it: Here is not so much perseverance lessened, as perfection: there is extreme wrong, extreme right and mercy. The 2. first, shall be shut out of Heaven; the last only, hath a promise of entrance.³ Judgement without mercy, shall be to him that shows no mercy; not to the cruel only, but to him that is but merely just: The want of justice is not only damned,⁴ but the want of Mercy: the Rich Churl went to hell for not relieving Lazarus, though he wronged him not. If the usurer part with his extortions, the Wanton with his Minions, the Cheater with his Frauds, the Tradesman with his Oaths, he thinks himself by this time a high Christian, and that God must needs bless him, he is so repentant. If the long persuasions of many Sermons, can work this on us, that we abate of our former outrageous licentiousness, we strait