Nay what abundance are there among you, that make a very trade of sensuality, and turn your sumptuous houses into sties, and your gorgeous apparel into hansom trappings, if the appurtenances may receive their names from the possessors: That never knew what it was to spend one day or hour of your lives in a diligent search of your hearts and ways, and heart-breaking lamentation of your sin and misery, and in serious thoughts of the life to come: but go on from feast to feast, and company to company, and from one pleasure to another, as if you must never hear of this again; and as if ⟨image 9⟩you were so drunken and besotted with the world, that you had forgotten that you are men, or that you have a God to please, and a soul to save or lose for ever. Nay how many of you hate a faithful Preacher, and an holy life, and make them the ordinary matter of your scorn; and cheat your souls with a few ceremonies and formalities, as if by such a Carnal Religiousness, you could make all whole, when you have lived to the flesh, and loathed the Spiritual worship of God that is a Spirit, and the heavenly lives of his sanctified ones, and consequently the Law that commandeth such a life, and the God that is the Maker of that Law. I call not your Civil Controversies your Malignity; but it is the proper title of your Enmity to Holiness: And is it not enough that man in Honour will be without understanding, and make himself like the beasts that perish, Psal. 44. 20. but you must also take up the Serpentine nature, and hissing and stinging must be the requital that you return to Christ for all your Honours. Think, if you have yet a thinking faculty, whether this be kindly, or honestly, or wisely done, and what its like to be to your selves in the end. Your Riches and Honours do now hide a great deal of your shame; but will it not appear when these rags are torn from your backs, and your souls are left in naked guilt? Saith Chrysostom, [If it were possible to do Justice on the Rich, as commonly on the poor, we should have all the Prisons filled with them: but Riches with their other evils have also this evil, that they save men from the punishment of their evil.] (O but how long will they do so?) This was plain dealing of an Holy Father: and is it not such as is as needful now as then? Is it not Greatness more then Innocency that saves abundance of you from shame and punishment?
Nay what abandance are there among you, that make a very trade of sensuality, and turn your sumptuous houses into sties, and your gorgeous apparel into hansom trappings, if the appurtenances may receive their names from the possessors: That never knew what it was to spend one day or hour of your lives in a diligent search of your hearts and waies, and heart-breaking lamentation of your sin and misery, and in serious thoughts of the life to come: but go on from feast to feast, and company to company, and from one pleasure to another, as if you must never hear of this again; and as if ⟨image 9⟩you were so drunken and besotted with the world, that you had forgotten that you are men, or that you have a God to please, and a soul to save or lose for ever. Nay how many of you hate a faithful Preacher, and an holy life, and make them the ordinary matter of your scorn; and cheat your souls with a few ceremonies and formalities, as if by such a Carnal Religiousnes, you could make all whole, when you have lived to the flesh, and loathed the Spiritual worship of God that is a Spirit, and the heavenly lives of his sanctified ones, and consequently the Law that commandeth such a life, and the God that is the Maker of that Law. I call not your Civil Controversies your Malignity; but it is the proper title of your Enmity to Holiness: And is it not enough that man in Honour will be without understanding, and make himself like the beasts that perish, Psal. 44. 20. but you must also take up the Serpentine nature, and hissing and stinging must be the requital that you return to Christ for all your Honours. Think, if you have yet a thinking faculty, whether this be kindly, or honestly, or wisely done, and what its like to be to your selves in the end. Your Riches and Honours do now hide a great deal of your shame; but will it not appear when these raggs are torn from your backs, and your souls are left in naked guilt? Saith Chrysostom, [If it were possible to do Justice on the Rich, as commonly on the poor, we should have all the Prisons filled with them: but Riches with their other evils have also this evil, that they save men from the punishment of their evil.] (O but how long will they do so?) This was plain dealing of an Holy Father: and is it not such as is as needful now as then? Is it not Greatness more then Innocency that saves abundance of you from shame and punishment?
