severe Discipline Danger and Persecutions will make them stagger and recoil The Seed that fell upon Stony Ground sprung up faster for a season than that which fell on the Good Ground but when the Sun arose and smote it it presently withered wanting root The Children of Israel went cheerfully and lustily with Moses out of Egypt but when their Food grew scarce and they saw the Host of Pharaoh pursue them they boggled in their Enterprize and in their hearts returned again into Egypt preferring Bondage with Safety and Plenty before Freedom with Hardship and Danger But their Posterity voluntarily follow'd Christ three days without Sustenance and never lookt back to their houses or yet to their beloved City If I forget thee O Jerusalem says the Psalmist let my right Hand forget its Cunning. But these Israelites when they heard Tidings of the Heavenly Jerusalem the Jerusalem above they cast behind them all thoughts of Jerusalem below it appeared to them no better than a second Babylon or house of Bondage As our Lord therefore made others of the People his Scholars he made these of his Family as he taught them he fed these revealed not only the Word but the Power and Glory of God to them To conclude I shall raise from all that I have said but this One acceptable and comfortable Doctrine Whosoever follows Christ faithfully affectionately and constantly in these days will find him as Compassionate in their Wants and Distresses as the Multitude here did For he has the same Bowels and Tenderness now at the Right Hand of God which he had when he conversed with men on Earth he is ascended Intire into the Heavens he did not carry up his Body thither and leave his Affections in the Grave If we therefore seek the Kingdom of Heaven in the first place and its Righteousness we may rest assured of our Lord's Promise That all the Necessaries of this Life shall be added to us that if we perform the Principal he will take care to make good the Accessory What is said of the Productions of Nature That she brings forth nothing but what she provides for is much more true of the Productions or Children of Grace For when the Earth with-holds its Fatness and the Clouds their Dew when the Creatures that should nourish Men starve themselves for want of Nourishment when the Breasts of Nature seem wholly dryed up venit Coelum in partes Heaven it self will come in to succour and take Part with the Faithful and if Sterility abounds Grace on this occasion also will much more abound if the Soil afford no Corn Bread shall be rained from the Sky if the Springs fail the Stony Rock shall send forth Water and Rivers shall run in dry places the Ravens shall feed the Righteous or their little Stock shall encrease as fast as 't is spent the Courses of Nature shall be inverted rather than Christ's Truth fail Heaven and Earth shall pass away but not one Tittle of his Word shall fall to the ground And if any say How comes it then to pass that the Servants of God do suffer Want Nay that commonly they are more destitute and persecuted than other Men I answer to this as our Lord did to his Disciples urging him on a time to eat I have Meat to eat says he which you know not of So the Faithful have Meat to eat which the World knows not of they have Peace Plenty and Prosperity though not seen by every Eye They have the Grace of God which is as a hidden Manna in their Hearts and as a Well of Living Water which suffers them neither to hunger nor thirst And is it not much more Eligible and Glorious to fast with Moses and Elias forty days than to feast even at the Table of Princes To be in the State of Angels who need neither Food nor Raiment than to be clothed and served with all the Sumptuousness and Magnificence of Solomon The Righteous have Content in Poverty which is more than Riches Joy in Bonds which is better than Freedom Satiety in a little which is not always found in Abundance And what is this but to receive Bread from Heaven when the Earth affords none Water from the Rock when the Springs are dryed up To be fed even by a more Wonderful Way than by the Ministry of Ravens Neither is the Favour of God this Way shew'd to the Followers of Christ less than that which he shew'd to his Own Servants of old but much greater for it speaks yet a higher Grace to be content to perish under Hunger Poverty and Bonds than to be snatch'd out of these Evils after a Miraculous Manner Saint Peter rejoiced more when he was scourged for bearing Testimony to Christ than when he was delivered by an Angel from the Death design'd him by Herod And Saint Paul gloried more in his Persecutions and Sufferings than he did even in his Charismata his Miraculous Gifts of the Holy Ghost And thus our Gracious Lord relieves the Necessities of his Servants from the Store-houses of the World or from the Riches of his Grace rescues them out of their Afflictions or makes them delight in them supplies their Wants or sets them above the Wants of other Men takes away their Wants or takes them up to that Place where no Wants are and where all Tears shall be wip'd from their Eyes To which blessed Place God of his infinite Mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ bring us all And To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen The Fourteenth Sermon LUKE xvi 9 Make to your selves Friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations THESE Words may be call'd a Lecture of holy Usury they teaching us the highest Advantages that are to be made of Riches beyond what is to be learned from the Books of Eastern Merchants or the Trade to both the Indies from the Mysterious Rules of the antient Publicans or our modern Bankers 1. They teach men by a Divine Alchymy how to convert Earthly Treasure into Heavenly to make Money the ordinary Salary and hire of Sin to be the Price of Salvation and the Purchace of the Holy Ghost without the Danger of Simony 2. Men are instructed by them how to cure the Vanity and Instability of Riches call'd for their inconstant and short Abode mendacium phantasmata praestigiae scenica persona c. a Lye a Dream a Delusion the quick shifting of a Scene or Vizor in the Theatre and notwithstanding that 't is said We can carry nothing out of this World with us we are shew'd which way to confer them to Heaven and to erect Banks in those Eternal Mansions 3. Whereas Folly is ordinarily imputed to Rich men insanus dives stultus dives the Mad man and the Rich the Fool and the Rich being seldom in Scripture out of conjunction
Neighbour as thy Self And this Commandment makes our Love to our own Selves the Pattern or Standard of that which we ought to bear to other Men Not that we are obliged to love other men every way Equal to our selves that is not the meaning of the Rule it implies not an Equality but a Similitude not a Parity but a Resemblance of it in Truth and Reality Our Love must be as Sincere and Cordial to our Brethren as to our Selves we must heat our Affections in the same Forge have the like Zeal the like Promptness to snatch all Occasions to advance their temporal and spiritual Good as we would to advance our own but yet still other mens Concerns ought to be but our second Care before we preach to others before we labour for their Salvation we must take heed with S t Paul that we our selves be not Cast-aways I shall not need in these days in which Self-Love so much abounds and Christian Love so little to give Cautions against Supererogating and overflowing Charity but though little will need to be said against any Excess in this Grace yet much may be behoof-ful to prevent the Mistakes of it For many think that for Friendship-sake they are obliged to engage in all manner of Wickedness to drink Drunk and fight Duels to spend the main of their Life in Gaming and other dissolute Courses nay to enter into treasonable Practices against their Prince and Country And there are those again that will debauch as highly in matters of Religion out of their Kindness to a Sect dip their hands in Bloud and put a Nation into a Flame and Combustion for their Love to an ill-taken up Opinion and a Party they have long adhered to renounce the Church and Truth which in effect is God himself chuse rather to live and dye in Disobedience and a damnable Schism than seem to be inconstant and to carry their Flocks along with them in the way of Perdition than undeceive and grieve them with an Unwelcome though Necessary Truth Such as these are not tender of their Brethrens Peace but guilty of their Destruction and set not so high a Price on their Contentment as a cheap on their own Consciences 't is not possible to be Wicked and Charitable to love men and sooth them in their Sins What S t Paul says of the false Teachers among the Galatians is true of these They zealously affect you but not well yea they would exclude you that you might affect them i. e. they had rather their Congregations should miss of Salvation than they lose the Interest they have in them There may be some Extraordinary Cases in which we ought to prefer our Neighbours Good before our own as their greater Good before our lesser their Spiritual before our Temporal c. But the Rule holds in General I am not to destroy my self out of Courtesie I am not to contract Guilt to preserve another Innocent I must love my Neighbour As my self not Above not Before my self But this Doctrine seems to be oppos'd by the Practice of the two greatest Guides of the Jewish and Christian Church Moses and S t Paul The one Exod 32.31 when the Israelites had so heinously transgress'd in the Golden Calf interceded for them in this manner This people have sinn'd a great Sin they have made them Gods of Gold yet now if thou wilt forgive their Sin if not blot me I pray thee out of the Book which thou hast written And the other Rom. 9.7 out of his heat of Zeal for the Salvation of the same Seed of Abraham utters these words I could wish my self Accursed from Christ for my Brethren And both these seem to prefer not only the Temporal but Spiritual Good of others before their own insomuch as to salve their Excess of Charity some have thought nothing less sufficient than to say There are many things done in Scripture by Persons acted by an Extraordinary and Heroick Spirit which are not to be brought into Practice by us who are mov'd by lower Degrees of the Spirit and though we may admire them we must not imitate them Others again on the other side have as much depress'd the transcendent Charity of these Great Persons by parallelling what they did with like Usages and Customs common among the Jews For first they resemble Moses's Intercession for the people to a friendly Complement or Expression of Good-Will familiarly used by those of the Circumcision and possibly first taken up in imitation of Moses's intercession May I be thy Propitiation or Expiation my Brother i. e. may I undergo the Penalty of the Law in thy Stead to rescue thee from the Divine Displeasure bear thy temporal Punishment And after the like manner they parallel S t Paul's words I could wish my self Accursed from Christ to a like Passage found in Ignatius who was an Auditor of the Apostles Let the Punishment of the Devil come upon me only let me obtain Christ. Where the Punishment of the Devil cannot possibly import the Eternal Torments of Hell for from thence there is no Redemption or returning to enjoy Christ and therefore it must point at Excommunication to the giving up to Satan and the Punishments he had power to inflict on the Excommunicated so frequently mentioned in Scripture but I shall need to give only one instance of Deliver such an one unto Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 5.5 But there seems here to be no need of these Extraordinary Salvo's these however ingenious and learned Accommodations For put the Case we should take the Words of Moses in the strictest literal Sense they can bear and we must take them so if we will take them as God's Answer shews he took them Whosoever has sinn'd against me says he him will I blot out of my Book what would be the Danger or Inconvenience What did his Intercession import more than may be thus fairly paraphrased Lord let me prevail with thee to revoke thy Sentence of totally destroying this People thou hast done such wonderful things for or involve me in their Destruction which is easier for me to bear than to survive so great a Calamity and to hear the Heathen insult and blaspheme thy Name on this Occasion But Moses's words relate to an Eternal blotting out Not necessarily no nor probably for whatever knowledge he might have of another Life the less 't is to be supposed that he should be willing to undergo an Eternal Death to save the People only from a Temporal And as fair an account may be given of S t Paul's words who does not say I do but I could wish my self accursed from Christ for my Brethren So that his words are not an anathematizing or devoting himself but only a Meditation as if he had said I could in my Imagination be contented upon the Condition or Contemplation of an Event so much to God's Glory
and the salvation of so many Millions as the bringing in the body of the Jewish Nation to the Faith of Christ to whom the Promise was principally made to be separated or excluded my self from him as Vatablus excellently expounds Vnus pro tam multis optarim perire si liceat I could wish as far as 't is lawful for me that One rather than so many might perish And there is nothing in either of these Passages of Moses or S t Paul which every faithful Pastor may not safely imitate let their Zeal be as much in Earnest and as right plac'd as theirs and it will not only be pardonable but rewardable Neither is there any thing in their Practice if rightly weighed contrary to this Rule I must love my Neighbour As my self not Above not Before my self I should proceed to the Object of our Charity but what remains will be sufficient for another Task The Nineteenth Sermon 1 PETER iv 8 And above all things have fervent Charity among your selves for Charity covereth the multitude of Sins The Object of Charity All Men in General GOD taught the Church of the Jews in the beginning by easie and natural Notices and Instructions by a kind of hieroglyphical or symbolical Divinity the Scene of their Religion lay in Garments Diet Washes and the like the Commandment was conversant in the Objects of the Senses touch not taste not handle not And thus men were inur'd to the Ways of Vertue and held at a Distance from Vice by allowing or disallowing them the Use of such Creatures and Customs as shew'd the Beauty of the one and the Deformity of the other God endeavouring to render Sensuality and Prophaneness odious by rendring Dogs and Swine so Hypocrisie and Corruption of Doctrine by forbidding Garments of mixt matters and sowing the Field with Seeds of several kinds Exorbitant Lust by amputation of the Fore-skin Idolatry and Unnatural Mixtures by commanding a perpetual War with the seven Nations of Palestine deeply ingulph'd in these Sins Again he endeavoured to train them in Purity and Innocence of Life by enjoining frequent Washings of themselves their Garments and their Vessels But the Jews perverted and defeated the Counsel of God in this method of instructing them they lookt not as 't is said of them to the bottom of their Lavatories to the Design and Signification of their Types they cleans'd their Pots and Skins and polluted their Lives they entertain'd the forbidden Sin and terminated their Hatred in the innocent Sign wallow'd in the Sensuality of Beasts and detested the harmless Creatures practis'd all the Abominations of the Heathen and when they were as guilty as they lookt upon them as their Enemies As if God had taught them not to hate Idolatry but Men not to be at Variance with Sin but to keep up a Feud with the greatest part of the Creation When they were enjoined utterly to root out the Canaanites that their Corruptions might not spread among them they made Marriages with them and incorporated them into one People with themselves and again when in after Ages the reason of such Enmity was worn out and the Danger of their Community Out-dated when their Aversion to the Gentiles did not Secure their Religion but render it Odious and preserved not the Truth but hindred the Propagation of it then most preposterously and unreasonably they shew'd an irreconcileable Hatred to the Heathen and extended their Malice not only to the seven Nations but to all Nations beside themselves and were detestable to all the Inhabitants of the Earth for their Churlishness and Inhumanity In this Condition of hating and being hated our Lord found them when he came into the World and when he set himself to reform their Mistakes to remove the Outward Ordinances they had so little profited by and to reveal the Duties that were shadowed under them they abhorred the Sanctity of their Meaning preferr'd the Burden of them before the Vertue they signified embraced closer and more strictly their beggarly Elements like degenerate Children that fly from their Book to the Bables of their Infancy from their Tutors to their Nurses chusing rather to counterfeit still an imperfect clipt Speech than to form their Tongue to pronounce Words of Instruction and Knowledge And it cost our Saviour the Cross and his Disciples Persecutions and cruel Deaths while they laboured to wean them from their first Childish Rudiments to redeem the Creatures from those Prejudices which for a time were thrown upon them for Religion and Instruction sake to bring the anathematiz'd and excommunicated World into the Pale of the Church to have all men seen to be of one Kindred as they were at the Creation to revive the Consanguinity of Nature by the Alliance of Grace which acknowledges its scattered and remotest Relations though situate in the furthest Climes and made not only Strangers but Enemies by distant Countries and more distant Religions and Interests However therefore the Jews were born to Animosities and Hatreds had Quarrels intail'd on them like their Lands had so many Nations made over to them their hereditary legal and commanded Enemies yet Christians are allow'd to account no Sort of People their Enemies but are enjoined to bear an Amicable friendly Disposition to all men or taught that their Brethren are not those only of the same Kindred or Nation but those of the same Kind and the same Nature as Tertullian says Lex vetus amorem docet in proximos nova in extraneos the Old Law taught us to love our Neighbours but the New teaches us that all the World are our Neighbours not only those that live near us but those that do any way stand in need of our Assistance not those alone that we know but those whose Distresses we are acquainted with though their Persons are Strangers to us And this Doctrine our Lord revealed or explained in the Parable of the wounded Samaritan and according to the Tenour of it we ought to say with Gregory Nazianzen All the Earth is my Country and no Part of the Earth is my Country 't is Heaven alone that can claim that Title and no man ought to be excluded my Kindness till I know him to be excluded Heaven and no man but may challenge my Love of whom I can say Behold an Other Man And this Point of Christianity is so grounded on the Principles of Nature that the better Heathens discerned and practised it As I am Antoninus says that excellent Emperour my Country and City are Rome and Italy but as I am a Man the whole World And like again to this is that Speech in the Comoedian Homo sum humani nihil à me alienum puto I am a Man and I esteem nothing humane strange to me or not to be my Concern Be then my Brother an Arabian or Indian though he has travelled far and planted himself in a remote Clime though he be fed with Fruits of the Earth I never saw and speaks a Language
for their Children for being kind Husbands they have provided for their Wives for being bountiful Masters they have preferr'd their Servants But yet all this is but to do Good or Charity Oeconomically or within our own Doors not Oecumenically or Universally all this is still but the Love of a Man's Self for he is hardly yet gone out of Himself that is not gone beyond his Family and Relations This measure of Love as our Lord observes is found among Infidels They love those that love them but we are to be like our Father which is in Heaven who sends his Rain upon the Vnjust as well as the Just we are to love Aliens and Enemies as well as Friends The Love that is express'd to Relations may be the Pin or Hook on which some Single Precept hangs but not which supports the Stress of the Whole Law and the Prophets that Honour or Dignity belongs only to these two The Love of God Above our selves And the Love of all men As our selves Which brings me to my Second General Part The Dignity of these two Commandments by reason of the Dependence of the whole Law and Prophets on them The Twenty First Sermon MATTH xxii 46 On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets THESE two Commandments The Love of God And the Love of our Neighbour sustain the Entire Structure or Frame of the Book of God as the two Pillars Boaz and Jachin bore up the stupendous Fabrick of Solomon's Temple Or rather to keep to our Lord's Comparison they are as two mighty Hooks Hinges or Pins on which all the Law and the Prophets hang. For the better Explanation of which I shall do these three things I. Shew how it is to be understood That all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two Commandments The Love of God And the Love of our Neighbour II. I shall shew the Excellence of Love by way of Essay so far as to make it appear worthy of the Honour ascribed to it of sustaining all the Law and the Prophets III. I shall add as a Corollary how we may attain this Excellent and important Grace Love on which all the Law and the Prophets hang. I. How it is to be understood That all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two Commandments The Love of God And of our Neighbour The Law and the Prophets i. e. the Text and the Gloss or Comment whatsoever the Law has concisely commanded or implyed only and the Prophets more largely expounded and dilated on were but to plant this one Duty this One Master Principle in the hearts of men Love In every Law there are two Parts the Matter enjoin'd and the Rewards and Punishments annex'd by way of Sanction for the better Observation of it For a bare Injunction not animated and fortified with the Promise of Good things to the Keepers of it and Threats of Evil to the Infringers will find but cold Observation among men Who as the Psalmist speaks are little better than horse and mule that must be held with bitt and bridle of Penalties lest they fall upon you The Office of the Prophets was to be Custodes Legis the Guardians and Conservators of the Law they were not to add to the Law though they were inspired by God as Moses was but to interpret press and inculcate the Duties of it to revive in mens thoughts the Promises and Threats and thus they were a kind of Mound or Fence to the Law to keep off Transgressions The Jews had a Sort of Criticks who with great preciseness observed the Number of the Letters in each Book of Moses how they were written together with the Various Readings and these were call'd the Masorites because they were as the Word imports a Hedge to the Law But with much better right the Greater and Lesser Prophets may deserve this Name And upon this account it is that these two the Law and the Prophets or Moses and the Prophets are still quoted by our Lord together who says not The Law and the Interpretation of the Scribes or the Law and the Determination of the Priests though in lesser Matters the People were also to harken to them but the Law and the Prophets which were both of equal Divine Production and carried on the Same Design the one by commanding and the other by preaching and inculcating the Will of God and Duty of Men. Now whatsoever the one of these enjoins and the other enforces our Lord says Hang all upon these two Pins The Love of God and the Love of our Neighbour And though the Word Love is not often found in the Law and the Books of the Prophets though they are not as I may say so much Canticles as the Sermons of Christ and the Writings of his Apostles in some of which there is scarce a Verse but it is even verbally repeated and ingeminated yet the Duties which the Prophets urge and press are all Acts of Love to God and Charity to our Neighbour and whatsoever else they seem most to intend and employ their Pens about the propagation of Piety and Charity may be seen latent in the Scheme and Contexture of their Discourse and he that reads the one shall be unawares engaged and intangled in the other But then it may be ask'd here Seeing all the Law and the Prophets hang on this One Law of Love what need was there of so many Specifications of the Several Duties contain'd in both Tables as Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not commit Adultery Thou shalt not Steal c. For this Single Word Love comprehending them all in effect so many Tautologies might have been spared To this we may say Men are so crafty and subtil to evade the Duties imposed on them or pretend Ignorance for their Disobedience that 't was not sufficient to set down in Generals the Obligations that lay on them but it was necessary by Express Prohibitions and Particular Instances to convince them when they offended against the Divine Precepts And for this reason the Law is fain often to descend to many trivial Specifications to work a lively and sensible Impression of the Justice or Injustice of every Fact in their minds As for Example Thou shalt not reap the Corners of thy Field nor glean thy Vineyard Thou shalt not suffer the Hire of the Labourer to remain with thee till the morning Thou shalt not take his Garment to Pledge his Bed nor his Working-tools nor his upper Milstone and the like Sure'y to an Ingenious Heart disposed to Humanity this particularizing would have been needless I say to a Good and Friendly Nature these things are of easie Deduction from the bare Word Love that all the rest might have been spar'd we say Verbum Sapienti a Word to the Wise is sufficient but 't is much truer Verbum Amanti a single Word to a true Lover is abundantly sufficient to make him recollect the rest of his Beloveds mind But I say Men