(5.) Fifthly, If ever you would be holy, then dioell mitch upon those solemn vows and covenants tliat you have formerly made in the days of your distress. Ah, how often have you, in the days of your calamity and misery, and in the days when sicknesses and weaknesses did hang upon you, and when the terrors of death were upon you, how fre- quently in those days did you solemnly vow and promise that, by the strength and assistance of the Lord, you would break oflf your sins by repentance, and that you would make it your greatest care, and your greatest business and work in this world, to mind holiness, and to press after holiness, and to give your souls no rest till you had expe- rienced the power, excellency, and sweetness of holiness ! As David by an oath bound himself to keep God's righteous judgments : Ps. cxix. 106, ' I have sworn, and I wdl perform it, that I wiU keep thy righteous judgments/ — a religious vow is nothing else but a solemn promise or oath, whereby a man engages himself to the great God, that he will decline such ways, means, and methods as lead to wicked- ness, and that he will set in good earnest upon the practice of all the ways and means of holiness, by the strength and assistance of divine grace — so you have by many vows and promises engaged yourselves ' to cast oft' the works of darkness, and to put on the armour of light,' — suitable to the apostle's exhortation, Kom. xiii. 12. And as the people in Nehemiah's time did enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God's law, and to observe and do all his commandments, Neh. x. 29 ; so you have in the times of your outward and inward distresses" vowed to the Lord, that you would observe all his statutes, and walk in all his holy ways, and do all his righteous commandments. Job once made a covenant with his eyes, that he would not lustfully look upon a maid. Job xxxi. 1,2; but how often have you made a covenant with your thoughts, that you would not think of vanity, and with your eyes, that you would not behold vanity, and with your ears, that you would not hear vanity, and with your tongues, that you would not speak vanity, and with your hearts, that you would not contrive vanity, and with your hands, that you would not act vanity; now your vows and your covenants are upon you, oh that you would not, with the strange woman in the Proverbs, chap. ii. 17, forget the cove- nant of your God ! Oh, it is better ten thousand times not to vow, than to vow and not to pay, Eccles. v. 5. God can take no pleasure in such as are off and on with him, nor in such who are forward to vow, but make no conscience to pay their vows. These are fools in folio, and therefore God cannot but detest them, and turn his back upon them. If good Jacob, who is called ' the father of vows,' was so backward to pay
^ Adam in vita Regii, p. 78.
220 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RAKITY, [HeB. XII. 14.
his VOWS, that God was forced, not only to round him in the ear again and again with a * go up to Bethel, and there build me a chapel,' but also severely to punish his delays, both in the rape of his daughter, and in the cruelty of his sons, &c.. Gen. xxxv., ah, how severely then may God deal with such who do not only delay the paying of their vows, but who live also in the daily breach of their vows ! Most men have need of that counsel which the bishop of Colen i gave Sigismund the emperor, that asked him what he should do to be happy ; ' Live/ said he, ' as you promised and vowed to do when you were last sick of the stone and gout.' Ah, that all men would make more conscience of living out, and of living up to the covenants, vows, and promises that they have made to God in the days when the hand of the Lord has gone out many ways against them, and when terrors of conscience have been strong upon them ! Oh, what repentance ! oh, what refor- mation ! oh, what amendment have they promised in those days ! and yet no sooner have these outward and inward storms been over, but they have been as vain and loose and base as ever. In the time of the great sweat in king Edward's days, as long as the heat of the plague lasted, oh how did every one cry out, peccavi, pBccavi, I have sinned, I have sinned ; mercy, Lord ! oh mercy ! mercy, good Lord ! Then lords and ladies, and people of all sorts, cried out to the ministers, for the Lord's sake, sirs, tell us what shall we do to avoid the wrath of the Lord ? what shall we do to be safe in this evil day ? Oh take these bags, and pay so much to such a one whom I have deceived ! and restore so much to such a one whom I have in bargaining over- reached ! Oh give so much to the poor, and so much to other pious uses, &c. But after the sickness was over, they * returned with the dog to the vomit, and with the sow to the wallowing in the mire again ; and so their latter end was worse than their former.' There was a very great sinner, who in the time of his sickness was so sorely terrified in his conscience for his many heinous sins, that he made the very bed to shake upon which he lay, and cried out all night long, ' I am damned ! I am damned ! I am damned!' &c. ; and in this his sick- ness he made many great protestations of amendment of life, if God would but be pleased to recover him, and prevent his going down to the grave at this time. Well, in a short time after he did recover, and being recovered he was as base, wretched, and wicked as ever he was before. This man, with those that were cited before him, were like that cunning devil, of whom the epigrammatist thus writeth ; —
'jEgrota dmmon, tnonachus tunc esse volebat, Convaluit dcumon, monachus tunc esse nolebat:'
Which is thus Englished : —
The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be ; The devil was well, the devil a monk was he.'
But those who are now like to Satan in sin, may hereafter be like to him in torment. Such who now outUve their vows, shall, when they
^ Query, Cologne ? — G. ' Otherwise : —
'jEgrotat daemon, monachus tunc esse volebat ; Daemon convaluit, dcemon ut antefuit' — Lines composed in the Middle Ages.— G.
Heb. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 221