Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

1. One of revenge: for such a person that puts God's Seal to a wrong evidence, having no faith to make Christ his portion: in such a one its high treason to put forth his hand to this tree of life.

2. Another of chastisement, for such a one as hath repentance, and yet comes too unmannerly, and carries himself too carelessly at the Lord's Table: at this the Apostle aims in the Text; not at that judgment of condemnation, but at a judgment to prevent damnation; And this appears in the words following, where we shall find the Apostle recounting up the particulars of this judgment of chastisement, For this cause many are weak, and sickly among you, and many sleep, ver. 30. Mark what's the judgment, he eats: why this? he's cast upon his bed of sickness, into a Consumption perchance, or some other corporal disease; a cause Physicians seldom or never look into: they look to Agues, Colds, or the like; they never once conjecture that their unworthy eating at the Lord's Table, cast them into the disease, and was the principal cause of the malady. Nay death it self too often is the punishment of such bold attempts, so that all the Physicians in the world cannot cure them, And thus God inflicts temporal judgments to free them from eternal, as appears farther in the 32 ver. When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world, that is, we undergo a judgment of chastisement, to prevent the judgment of condemnation: which though it be a sharp and bitter pill, yet by the mercy of God we eat that whereby damnation is prevented. This judgment of condemnation is the portion of the profane person, who dares to meddle with that which belongs not to him, against whom the Angel of the Lord with a flaming sword stands to keep the way of this tree of life. Those that come that have faith, yet coming unpreparedly, they eat judgment too, yet by God's mercy it's that, which preserves them from the damnation of the soul.

2. Another of chastisement, for such a one as hath repentance, and yet comes too unmannerly, and carries himself too carelesly at the Lord's Table: at this the Apostle aims in the Text; not at that judgment of condemnation, but at a judgment to prevent damnation; And this appears in the words following, where we shall find the Apostle recounting up the particulars of this judgment of chastisement, For this cause many are weak, and sickly among you, and many sleep, ver. 30. Mark what's the judgment, he eats: why this? he's cast upon his bed of sickness, into a Consumption perchance, or some other corporal disease; a cause Physicians seldom or never look into: they look to Agues, Colds, or the like; they never once conjecture that their unworthy eating at the Lord's Table, cast them into the disease, and was the principal cause of the malady. Nay death it self too often is the punishment of such bold attempts, so that all the Physicians in the world cannot cure them, And thus God inflicts temporal judgments to free them from eternal, as appears farther in the 32 ver. When we are judged, we are chastned of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world, that is, we undergo a judgment of chastisement, to prevent the judgment of condemnation: which though it be a sharp and bitter pill, yet by the mercy of God we eat that whereby damnation is prevented. This judgment of condemnation is the portion of the profane person, who dares to meddle with that which belongs not to him, against whom the Angel of the Lord with a flaming sword stands to keep the way of this tree of life. Those that come that have faith, yet coming unpreparedly, they eat judgment too, yet by God's mercy it's that, which preserves them from the damnation of the soul.