Worldly and carnal men, as they have hard hearts, so they have dry eyes; dry, as a pumice-stone, uncapable of tears: but the tender hearts of God's children are ever lightly attended with weeping eyes; neither can they want tears, whilst even other men abound with sins, though themselves were free.

And, if good men spend their tears upon wicked wretches, how much more ought those wicked ones to bestow tears upon themselves! It is their danger and misery, that God's children are af fected withal, whilst themselves are insensible of both. Woe is me! could their eyes be but opened, that they might see their own woeful condition, they could not love themselves so ill, as not to bewail it could they see the frowns of an angry God bent upon them, could they see the flames of hell ready to receive them, they could not but dissolve into tears of blood. Oh, pity your own souls, at last, ye Obdured Sinners. Be ye feelingly apprehensive of your fearful danger, the eminent danger of an eternal damnation; and weep, day and night, before that God, whom ye have provoked: wash away your sins with the streams of penitence. The fire of hell can have no power, where it finds these sovereign waters: Bless ed are they that weep now, for they shall laugh; Luke vi. 21.

We have not yet done with St. Paul's tears. See, I beseech you, who were the objects of this sorrow of his: the false teachers of the Philippians, the rivals and adversaries of the Apostle's ininistry: whether the Simonians, that is, the Disciples of Simon Magus, as some have thought; or rather the Judaizing Christians, whom before he calls Dogs, and the Concision; men, that were not more for Christ, than for Moses; men, not more false in opinion, than foul in conversation; reprobate persons; spiteful enemies to him and the Gospel: yet even these are the men, whom St. Paul bedews with his many tears. So far should God's charitable children be from desiring or rejoicing in the destruction of those, who profess hostility against them, though even lewd and ungodly persons, as that they should make this the matter of their just sorrow and mourning. St. Paul had a deeper insight into the state of these men, than we can have into any of those goodliest men, who fall into our notice and enmity; for he saw them, as it were, in hell already: he looked upon them as vessels of wrath; for he adds, whose end is perdition; yet he entertains the thoughts of their sinful miscarriages with tears. Every man can mourn for the danger, or loss, or fall of a good man, of a friend; but, to be thus deeply affected with either the sins or judgments of wicked persons, is incident to none but a tender and charitable heart. God's children are of the diet of their Heavenly Father, who would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; 1 Tim. ii. 4. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked shall die, saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways and live? Ezek. xviii. 23. And to be sure, he binds it with an oath; As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his ways and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel; Ezek. xxxiii. 11. Those,

that sport in the sins and rejoice in the perdition of their brethren, let them see of what spirit they are.

But I have dwelt longer than I meant in the Apostle's Fidelity in his Warning, and the Frequence, and Passion of it.

II. Turn your eyes now, I beseech you, to a loathsome object, THE WICKEDNESS OF THESE FALSE TEACHERS of the Philippians; described by their NUMBER, MOTION, QUALITY, ISSUE: Their Number, many; their Motion, walk; their Quality, enemies to the cross of Christ; their Issue, destruction.

1. We begin with their NUMBER.

Mark, I beseech you, the inference. The charge of the Apostle, in the words immediately preceding, is, that the Philippians should mark those who walked holily, as they had the Apostles for examples; and now he adds, For many walk inordinately.

See then from hence, that the rarity of conscionable men should make them more observed, more valued: if there be but one Lot in Sodom, he is more worth than all the souls of that populous and fruitful Pentapolis: if there be but some sprinkling of wheat in a chaff heap, we winnow it out, and think it worth our labour to do so: some grains, or if but scruples, of precious metals are sifted out of the rubbish of the ore and dust.

It is excellent, that our Apostle hath in this Epistle, the 2d chap. verse 15. That ye may be blameless in the midst of a froward and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world. Mark, if there be but light held forth in a dark night, how do the birds come flying about it! How do the eyes of men, though afar off, fix upon it! when as all the space betwixt us and it, which is all wrapped up in darkness, is unregarded: such are, and such should be good men, amongst a world of wicked ones; so much more eminent and esteemed, by how much the fewer they are.

Paucity is wont to carry contempt with it: See, say the Philistines, when they saw Jonathan and his armour-bearer come towards them, how the Israelites creep out of their holes: and proud Benhadad, when he heard of some few of Israel coming forth against him, can say, Take them alive, whether they come for peace, or whether for war, take them alive; 1 Kings xx. 18. What is a handful of gainsayers, upon any occasion? We are apt to think, that the stream should bear down all before it: Do any of the Rulers believe in him? that is argument enough. But it must not be so with Christians: here, one is worthy to be more than a thousand: if he be a man that orders his conversation aright, that goes upon the sure grounds of infallible truth, though there be none other in the world besides him that follows after righteousness, that man is worthy of our mark, of our imitation: if there be but one Noah in an age, all flesh having corrupted their ways, it is better to follow him into the ark, than to perish with all the world of unbelievers.

Here are these Many opposed to Us, Paul and Timothy. It is not for us, to stand upon the fear of an imputation of singularity: we may not do as the most, but as the best. It was a desperate resolution of Rabbodus, the barbarous and ignorant Duke of Frisons,

that he would go to hell because he heard the most went that way. Our Saviour's argument is quite contrary; Enter in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; Matt. vii. 13. And St. Paul's argument here to the same purpose; Many walk inordinately, therefore be ye followers of us.

We have an old saying, That cases that rarely happen are neg lected of lawgivers. The news of a few enemies is entertained with scorn: many are dreadful; and call upon our best thoughts, for their preventation or resistance.

The world is apt to make an ill use of multitude on the one side, arguing the better part by the greater; on the other side, arguing mischief tolerable because it is abetted. by many. The former of these is the paralogism of fond Romanists; the other, of time-serving Politicians. There cannot be a worse, nor more dangerous sophistry, than in both these.

If the first should hold, Paganism would carry it from Christianity; for it is, at least, by just computation, five to one: folly from wisdom; for, surely, for every wise man, the world hath many fools outward calling should carry it from election; for many are called, few are chosen: Hell from Heaven; for strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil, saith God: but, if any have a mind to do so, and shall please himself with company in sinning, let him consider what abatement of torment it will once be to him, to be condemned with many. Woe is me! that shall rather aggravate his misery: the rich glutton in hell would have his brethren sent to, that his torment might not be increased with the accession of theirs.

If the latter should take place, that, which heightens evils, should plead for their immunity: so none but weak mischiefs should receive opposition: strong thieves should live; only some poor pettylarçons and pilferers should come to execution: nothing should make room for justice, but imbecility of offence. Away with this base pusillanimity. Rather, contrarily, by how much more head wickedness hath gotten, so much more need it had to be topped. A true herculean justice in governors and states is for giants and monsters. A right Sampson is for a whole host of Philistines. The mountains must be touched till they smoke; yea, till they be levelled. Set your faces, ye that are men in authority, against a whole faction of vice; and, if ye find many opposites, the greater is the exercise of your fortitude, and the greater shall be the glory of your victory. It was St. Paul's encouragement, that which would have disheartened some other, a large door and effectual is opened to me, and there are many adversaries; 1 Cor. xvi. 9. And if these devils can say, My name is Legion, for we are many; let your pow erful commands cast them out, and send them, with the swine into the deep, and thence into their chains.

2. These Many sit not still, but walk: they are still in MOTION; motion, whether natural or voluntary.

Natural: so walking is living; TO BITEV. Thus we walk, even

while we sit, or lie still. Every minute is a new pace. Neither can any thing stop our passage: whether we do something or nothing, we move on, by insensible steps, toward our long home: we can no more stand still, than the heavens, than time. Oh, that we could be ever looking to the house of our age; and so walk this vale of tears, that we may once rest for ever!

on, in

Voluntary so the wicked ones walk, like their setter the Devil, who came from compassing the Earth; Job i. 7. Wickedness is seldom other than active. It is with evil as with the contagion of pestilence; those, that are tainted, long to infect others. False teachers make no spare of their travails by sea or land to make a proselyte. Could sin or heresy be conjured into a circle, there were the less danger: now, they are so much more mischievous, as they are more erratical. How happy should it be, since they will needs be walking, that, by the holy vigilancy of power and authority, they may be sent to walk their own rounds in the regions of darkness!

Yet, further: walking implies an ordinary trade of life. It is not a step, or one pace, that can make a walk; but a proceeding on, with many shiftings of our feet. It is no judging of a man, by some one action. Alas, the best man that is may perhaps step aside, by the importunity of a temptation; and be miscarried into some odious act. Can you have more pregnant instances, than David, the man after God's own heart; and Peter, the prime disciple of our Saviour? But this was not the walk of either: it was but a side-step: their walk was in the ways of God's commandment, holy and gracious. No; look what the course of men's lives are, what their usual practice; and, according to that, judge of them. If they be ordinary swearers, profane scoffers, drunkards, debauched persons, their walk is in an ill way to a most fearful end: pity them: labour to reclaim them; and to stop them, that they fall not into the precipice of hell. But, if their course of life be generally holy and conscionable, it is not a particular miscarriage, that can be a just ground of the censure of an inordinate walking, which our Apostle passes here upon these mis-living Philippians; Many walk.

3. This for their Motion: their QUALITY follows; Enemies to the Cross of Christ.

What an unusual expression is this! Who can but hate every thing that concurs to the death of a friend; whether agents or instruments? And what was the Cross, but the engine of the death of him, whom if we love not best, we love not at all? Surely, we love thee not, O Saviour, if we can look with any other than angry 'eyes, at Judas, Pilate, the Cross, Nails, Spear, or whatever else was any way accessary to thy murder, They were thine enemies, that raised thee to the Cross how can they be other than thy friends, that are enemies to that thy most cruel and indign crucifixion? When we consider these things, in themselves, as wood and metal, we know they are harmless; but if, from what they are in themselves, we look at them with respect to men, to thee, we soon find why to hate, why to love them. We hate them, as they

were employed by men against thee; we love them, as they were improved by thee for man: as the instruments of men's malice and cruelty against thee, we hate them; we love them, as they were made by thee the instruments of our redemption. Thy Cross was thy death: it is thy death that gives us life; so as, therefore, we cannot be at once enemies of the Cross, and friends of thee Crucified.

As Christ himself, so the Cross of Christ hath many false friends; and even those are no other than enemies. Unjust favours are no less injurious than derogations. He, that should deify a Saint, should wrong him as much, as he, that should devilize him. Our Romanists exceed this way, in their devotions to the Cross; both in overmultiplying and in over-magnifying of it. Had the wood of the Cross grown, from the day that it was first set in the earth till now, and borne Crosses; that, which Simon of Cyrene once bore, could not have filled so many carts, so many ships, as that, which is now in several parts of Christendom given out and adored for the True Cross of Christ. Yet the bulk is nothing to the virtue ascribed to it: the very wood, which is a shame to speak, is by them sainted and deified. Who knows not that stale hymn and unreasonable rhyme of

Ara crucis, lampas lucis, sola salus hominum :
Nobis pronum fac patronum, quem tulisti dominum.

Wherein the very tree is made a mediator to him, whom it bore; as very a Saviour as he that died upon it. And who knows not, that, by these bigots, an active virtue is attributed, not only to the very wood of the Cross, but to the airy and transient form and representation of it? A virtue of sanctifying the creature, of expelling devils, of healing diseases: conceits, grossly superstitious, which the Church of England ever abhorred, never either practised or countenanced; whose cross was only commemorative and commonitive, never pretended to be any way efficacious, and therefore as far different from the Romish cross, as the fatal tree of Christ from that of Judas. Away then with this gross and sinful foppery of our Romanists; which proves them not the friends, but the flatterers of the Cross: flatterers, up to the very pitch of idolatry. And can there be a worse enemy than a flatterer? Fie on this fawning and crouching hostility to the Cross of Christ. Such friendship to the altar is a defiance to the sacrifice.

For these Philippian Pseudapostles, two ways were they Enemies to the Cross of Christ; in their Doctrines, in their Practice. In Doctrine: while they joined circumcision and other legalities. with the Cross of Christ; so, by a pretended partnership, detracting from the virtue and power of Christ's death: thus they were enemies to Christ's Cross as his. In Practice: following a loose and voluptuous course; pampering themselves, and shifting off persecution for the Gospel: thus they were enemies to the Cross of Christ, as theirs,