Charity to think they do not themselves know them to be so I fear the best Account we should be able to give of this matter would be That Interest and Prejudice blind their Eyes and that their Errors are as Useful and Beneficial as they are otherwise Gross and Unreasonable But would Men indeed lay aside all Humane Considerations as in things wherein Eternity is at stake they ought to do Would they with Charity and Humility seek the Truth and be as willing to discover their own as they are but too forward to censure other Mens faults In plain terms would they be Christians indeed seek nothing but the Glory of God the Peace and Unity of his Church and the Salvation of their own Souls I cannot but think that most of our Controversies would presently vanish and we should yet recover that Truth which I fear some Men have too long detain'd in Unrighteousness and been deprived of by their own fault But especially would they to this Honesty and Integrity add 4 thly The Apostle's next Direction Of fervent Prayer to God for his Assistance For certainly the Truth and Purity of Religion is so great a Good and so pleasing and acceptable to God Almighty to be implored of him that a pious and upright Man earnestly praying and heartily seeking after it shall hardly be deny'd the Happiness of being constant to the Faith if he be already in the right way or of being brought to it if he is not He who has promised the true Votary not to refuse him in any thing that is necessary or but expedient for him if he asks as he ought to do will never fail to answer him in a matter of such moment And if he does not neglect himself while he prays to God but uses such Care and Caution as St. Jude here directs us to do for our Security he need not be afraid though he were encompassed with Seducers on every side but be confident that he shall either still go on in the right way or obtain God's Pardon if after all this he should chance to be mistaken in it There is yet one means more whereby St. Jude exhorts the Christians earnestly to contend for their Faith And that is 5 thly By a serious Consideration of their future state Keep your selves says he in the love of God looking for the Mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto Eternal Life ver 21. And indeed it cannot be doubted but that this great Consideration which so highly influences all the other parts of a Christian Life must here also prove of a singular advantage to keep us firm and stedfast in our Faith This will make us diligent in all the rest will awaken our Care will perfect our Piety and enflame our Devotion By this we shall be secure that no worldly Considerations shall be able to prevail upon us to forsake our Religion We shall neither be moved for any Terrors to renounce it nor be cajolled by any Interests or Persuasions to give it up But we shall resolve as we ought to enquire diligently into the Grounds of our Profession to judge impartially and stedfastly follow what we are persuaded to be the right Faith that so we may be able to give a comfortable Account of our selves to God when we shall appear at his Tribunal No matter how severely we may be censured by Men for our so doing We know that Truth very often meets with and makes Enemies to the best Men. Christianity it self was once every where spoken against and St. Paul arraign'd as a Heretick But whilst with that Apostle we know wherefore we believe we shall be so far from being afraid of their Censures or ashamed of our Profession that should we for the sake of Christ as he was be brought even before the Tribunals of our Enemies we shall be able with assurance to answer for our selves as he did That after the way which they call Heresie so worship we the God of our Fathers believing all things that are written in the Law and the Prophets Such a power will this great Consideration of Eternal Life have over us to secure us in our Religion that it will actuate all the other means that have before been offer'd to establish our Faith and it self become a new defence and such as all the Sophistry and Malice of our Enemies shall not be able ever to overcome And thus have I given you as full an Account as the time would permit of the several things I proposed to consider And however I have not so closely confined my Reflections to the particular concern of those Christians to whom St. Jude wrote as not to have observed somewhat in general the use that all others ought to make of this Caution yet I will now in the close crave leave to offer two or three Reflections more which may serve to shew our own more immediate concern in it And First Let us from hence learn with what Zeal and Constancy we ought to contend for our Religion which I will be bold to say does if any in the whole World the best deserve the Character of the Text of being the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints and that without mixture of any thing corruptive of or contrary thereunto We pretend not to impose any thing either upon your Belief or Practice but what the Rule of this Faith the Holy Scriptures themselves prescribe or at least allow us to do We give no other Interpretation of Scripture than what is either so apparently the meaning of it that no impartial Person can doubt of it or else has been so universally received by the best and purest Antiquity and is otherwise so agreeable with the rest of our Faith that there can be no just cause to suspect it The Articles of our Creed are the same now which the Church has received and profess'd from the beginning and so evidently founded on the Authority of God's Word that they neither can nor do admit of any Dispute among Christians Those who the most pretend us to be defective in our Faith yet dare not say we are erroneous in what we do profess They acknowledge that what we believe is right only they think we do not believe all that we ought because not all that they would have us to do And certainly then such a Faith as this cannot but deserve to be earnestly contended for as being without all Controversie truly that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints And that so much the rather Secondly At this time when so many Seducers for I shall spare the rest of St. Jude's Character ver 4. are crept in among us and make it their great Endeavour by any means to draw us away from it I shall not repeat either the manner how I have shewn we ought to contend for our Faith against them or the Directions which from the Apostle I have before offered for the doing of it Let us only resolve
to God must obtain this Who will not fail to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him And now How shall we wonder if the seed though never so carefully sown produce yet but a very mean increase when God knows for the most part the Ground is so utterly unprepared to receive it This certainly is a consideration that ought to engage every good Christian seriously to search and examine himself how he is disposed to become a fitting Hearer of the Gospel of Christ. If you have therefore hitherto come to our Assemblies without such a due Preparation as you see is thus necessary to qualifie your minds to receive that benefit you ought from these Instructions let me now earnestly beseech you no longer to deceive your own Souls but to prepare them in such a manner that our Preaching may not be in vain to you Let not any little unworthy designs accompany you to these Holy exercises But come as befits Christians with Charity with Humility with an Honest and Vpright Heart sincerely desirous of understanding your Duty how mean soever the person be that is to deliver it unto you But above all come with a firm resolution of Practising what you Hear Remember that 't is this Christianity designs in all its instructions And however our Zeal in these latter days seems unhappily engaged more in the Pursuit of Divine Truth than in what I could rather wish we did chiefly aim at the Practice of a Divine Life yet let us be careful so to maintain the One as not to prejudice or overthrow the other And if we thus sincerely direct all our Hearing to the Glory of God and our own Everlasting Salvation we shall not fail to Hear as we ought to do God will open our Ears and illuminate our Vnderstandings and dispose our Wills The seed that is Sown upon such Ground shall not fail to Spring up into a Blessed increase And produce those Fruits of Holiness in this life which shall finally bring us to the Everlasting Joys and Glories of the next Which God of his Infinite Mercy vouchsafe unto us through the merits of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. To whom c. OF THE BENEFIT and PRACTISE OF CONSIDERATION A SERMON Preach'd at WHITE-HALL Before the Princess of DENMARK Febr. 26. 1687 8. DEUT. XXXII 29 O that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end THE Words are part of that great Song which Moses spake unto all the Congregation of Israel immediately before his Death and by God's express Command left with them as his last and best Legacy to them and their Posterity for ever A Song both in its self so considerable and so highly esteem'd by them that they thought no words could be sufficient to set forth its Excellency Insomuch that we find it at this day characterised by the Jews of our own times as the foundation and summary of the whole Law In the Verses before the Text we have a sad and terrible declaration of those Judgments that should hereafter befal them for their Impenitence And it is not to be question'd but that this great Prophet from whom God never concealed any thing that concern'd that people had here by so much a more particular prospect of those Evils that were afterwards to come upon them as he was now the nearer to be taken from them And that 't is from these therefore that we must derive at once both the Occasion and Importance of that passionate Wish into which the Holy Man here breaks out in consideration both of their danger and of their insensibility of it O that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end Whether by their latter end we are to understand that great and terrible destruction which finally befel both themselves and their Country in the loss of Jerusalem Or Whether with some we shall interpret it of God's rejecting of them from his Covenant from being what they were once his own peculiar Inheritance Or Whether lastly the more to heighten the Idea we shall join them both together in the Prophecy as they were by God united in the Execution certain it is That a greater and more amazing instance of the Divine Vengeance upon a particular Nation has hardly been known from the beginning of the World than that of their Destruction nor shall there I suppose be any Parallel to the very end of it But it is not my design to enter on any reflection of their Punishment but to enquire rather what it was that Moses here so much wishes they would have done in order to the preventing of it what that great defect was which was the Cause of all their Evils Now that in one word was Inconsideration A fault certainly very great in that people than which none had ever received more clear and sensible Proofs of the Divine Power and Goodness They had seen the Miracles by which God had brought them up out of the Land of Egypt and continued to conduct them now almost forty years through the Wilderness They had beheld his Majesty when himself in that terrible manner that we read in the xix th and xx th Chapters of Exodus vouchsafed to give them his own Law from Mount Sinai Nay that nothing might be wanting to awaken a stupid and insensible people they had known his Judgments too in the punishment of their Sins They had seen the Destruction which their Fathers had suffer'd and they were here expresly foretold what Evils themselves and their posterity should hereafter undergo for their impiety Yet was not all this sufficient to awaken their Consideration to a sense of their danger and a care to prevent it And now I would to God these Jews were the only men we could justly charge with this neglect and that our own indifferency in the concern of our duty did not equally tax us with the same Inconsideration But alas I fear were we here to enter on a review we should find but too just a parallel both in our danger and in our incogitancy And that a very little reasoning upon the Methods of God's Providence without the help of a Prophetick Spirit might be more than enough to make any sober considering man tremble to think what shall be the consequence of such a general Insensibility as we have these many years shown notwithstanding all his Mercies and his Judgments in vain made use of to reclaim us At least I hope it will be abundantly sufficient to Apologize for me if I beg leave especially at such a Season as this freely to expostulate with you in the words of Moses in the Text O that ye were wise that ye understood this that you would consider your latter end In speaking upon a Subject both in its self so important and to us so necessary that I may if possible not omit any thing that may serve either to excite or to direct the
fervent heat When the Trumpet shall sound and the Graves be opened and the Dead arise and our Consciences begin to fly in our Faces and represent to us the sins we have committed the means and opportunities of repentance which we have neglected and the Everlasting punishment to which we are now just ready to be condemn'd O! the terrors of that time when being distracted with all these amazements we shall begin in vain to cry out to the Mountains to fall upon us and to the Hills to cover us When we shall be able no where to see any hope or comfort remaining to us If we look up to Heaven that place which we shall now never be able to approach behold there our Judge with all his Holy Angels about him pronouncing a bitter sentence of Indignation and Wrath and Eternal misery against us If we cast down our eyes below nothing is there to be seen but the wretched Companions of our misery Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth The fire already bursting out in which we are to perish and yet to be preserved alive for ever and the Devils ready to drag as into that place of Torments How shall we then Curse our Sins that have brought us into this desperate lost estate And too late begin to consider the wisdom of those happy men who have been persuaded timely to think of and to provide for Eternity We fools counted their lives madness and their latter end to be without honour We once laugh'd at their folly and smiled to see them pine away themselves in penitential exercises whilst we freely indulged our Ease and our Debauches But now they are numbred among the Children of God and their lot is among the Saints And now when all these and infinitely more terrors than I am able to express are included in that one thought of the judgment to come tell me O wretched sinner Canst thou hear me reasoning this day before thee of these things and not tremble at the Apprehension of them And if the very thoughts of a judgment to come be thus dreadful to thee now canst thou yet think thy self unconcern'd to provide against that time when thou and I and all who are here present must prepare to appear before it Rather Let this reflection engage every one of us to examine our selves how we shall then be able to give up our Accounts And let us so judge our selves that we may not be condemn'd for ever Let us whilst we have yet the time confess our wickedness and be sorry for our sins Let us turn from our evil way and from the violence that is in our hands that our iniquity may not be our ruine Let us fly to our Judge whil'st we are yet in the way before we go down into the Grave where there is no repentance And if we thus improve the Terrors of the Lord now we shall hereafter with great confidence expect them And that great day so dreadful to the unprepared sinner shall be to us a day of joy and triumph with all Saints Which God of his mercy grant it may be to every one of us for his dear son Jesus Christ his sake To whom be ascribed as is most due Salvation and Glory and Power and Praise and Dominion for ever and ever Amen OF THE CAUSES OF Mens Delaying their Repentance A SERMON Preached before the QUEEN AT WHITE-HALL Febr. 27. 1689. Being the Third Wednesday in Lent ACTS XXIV 25 Felix trembled and answer'd Go thy way for this time when I have a convenient season I will call for thee IN which Words we have the result of St. Paul's Discourse before Felix concerning the future Judgment and the Punishments that should one day be pronounced against sinners in it He had sent for our Apostle who was then a Prisoner at Caesarea to hear what he had to say concerning the Faith or Gospel of Christ. And as he reason'd of Righteousness Temperance and Judgment to come Felix trembled and answer'd Go thy way for this time when I have a convenient season I will call for thee It was the usual method of St. Paul in Preaching the Gospel of Christ in the first place to awaken mens fears by declaring to them the terrors of a future state and the strict account that we must one day render to God of all our Actions that so being full of Horror at the apprehension of their danger they might become the better disposed to hearken to those means he was afterwards to propose to them whereby to secure them against it And in his second Epistle to the Corinthians v th 11. he gives us an account how effectual a preparation it commonly made for him to prevail Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord i. e. as appears by the foregoing verse this revelation of the future Judgment we persuade men He had here in this Felix a most profligate sinner to deal with A man in his Government violent and unjust In his own manners lewd and debauch'd He had ravish'd another mans Wife out of his bosom and lived in an open state of Adultery with her And now what so proper to awaken his Conscience and make him indeed begin to repent him of his sins as to reason before him of a Judgment to come What Application so pertinent as to show him the particular danger of unjust and intemperate men that is such as himself should be exposed to in it This was certainly the most proper address to such a one and such was this of St. Paul to Felix He reason'd before him of Righteousness Temperance and the Judgment to come And behold in my Text the result of his Discourse such as in all reason we might expect it should have been Felix trembled And now who would not hope for some good effect from so fair and promising a beginning And that the next thing we should have heard of should have been some such question to St. Paul as the Jews once made on the like occasion to St. Peter and the other Apostles Acts ii 37 Men and Brethren what shall we do This one might reasonably have been expected should have been the result of his Terror But alas We find a much different effect of it He was indeed amazed to hear of a judgment to come but he could not for all that resolve so soon to begin to provide for it He trembled to think what his condition there should be and very probably he might intend that he would sometime or other very seriously consider how he was prepared against it But he could not presently determine to part with his sins and therefore he defers the time he puts off the Apostle to some more convenient season but we never read that ever that season came or that he had ever any Admonition given him afterward to repent him of his evil doings Felix trembled and answer'd Go thy way for this time when I have a
convenient season I will call for thee Such was the effect of St. Paul's reasoning at this time before Felix and I would to God we had no cause to complain that such is too often the consequence of our Preaching to you That the Knowledg which we have and the belief which we profess of a Judgment to come were so efficacious to our amendment that we none of us needed to be called upon no longer to defer it but to begin in good earnest to consider how to make our Peace with God and to provide for Eternity But alas I fear I have here pitch'd upon a subject never like to be out-dated And tho it be certainly one of the greatest Contradictions in the world not only to Scripture and Reason but to our own Interests too and to which we are not apt to be so blind to pretend to believe a judgment to come and yet nevertheless to neglect to provide for it yet I know not how such is the power of our lusts that they stop our ears against all Arguments though never so clear and forcible that would induce us to forsake them we tremble to think what shall be the consequence of our sins yet still we go on in the commission of them And now what Argument can I take up more seasonable to the present time or indeed more fit at all times for our Consideration than to reason a while of this great and dangerous neglect To enquire into the Causes which move so many thus to delay their Repentance and to offer some effectual Arguments that may convince you of the unreasonableness of it In a word to stir up such an Auditory as this both from the example of this wretched man in the Text and from the just cause we may have to fear lest if we continue with him to put off still the time of our Repentance we finally perish with him in his Impenitence to hasten with all the speed we can to return to our duty that our Iniquity may not be our ruin And this is the design of my present Discourse wherein I shall First Enquire into the Causes that move so many to delay their Repentance and be still putting off their provision for another World to some more convenient season And Secondly shall shew the Danger of so doing And by both endeavour what I can to engage every one that now hears Me to a timely a speedy or rather to speak more properly to a present Repentance And I st Of the Causes that move so many to delay their Repentance and be still putting off their provision for another World to some more Convenient Season Now those I presume may well be reduced to these four General Considerations Either 1 st They do not think at all or not to any purpose of their Future State and therefore neglect to provide for it Or 2 dly They do not believe there is so great a necessity of Repenting in order thereunto as we say there is Or 3 dly They suppose they may do this hereafter as well as now Or 4 thly Tho' they are convinced both of the necessity of their Repenting and of the Reasonableness of setting presently about it yet for all that they cannot so soon resolve to part with their Sins and enter on a course of Piety and Religion These are some of the Principal Causes that I presume may be likely to prompt Men to put off their Concern for another World and I shall make it my Endeavour with all the plainness that I can to shew the folly and unreasonableness of every one of them And 1 st There are many in the World who do not think at all or not to any purpose of their Future State and therefore neglect to provide for it It is a matter of sad Consideration to see how very Careless and Secure most men seem to be as to the Business of another World They Live if not as those who believe nothing at all of it yet in such a manner as if they were not in the least danger of miscarrying in their way to it They think and contrive how to manage their Affairs in this present Life To Establish their Health and to Improve their Fortunes and add still new degrees to their Honours and Dignities Only the Happiness of the other World that they seem to look upon as hardly worth their Care They leave it as a thing that it will be time enough to provide for when they begin to come nearer to it and 't is no longer worth their while to trouble themselves about the good things of this And now what can be more unreasonable than such an Incogitancy To spend all our thoughts and our endeavours upon a few Temporal pursuits that have neither worth nor duration to recommend them to our desires and in the mean time never to think at all or at least not to any purpose of those Joys and Glories that shall continue to all Eternity Indeed had we either never heard of any such thing as a Judgment to Come or did we not believe that there is such a State as our Religion has revealed to us A State of Everlasting Happiness if we do Well but of Eternal Punishment if we continue to do Ill there might then be some Excuse for such a neglect And yet even in this Case too we ought to be very sure there was no such thing as another World before we could reasonably give over the thoughts of it He that lives well and denies himself some part of that Liberty he would otherwise indulge himself now out of the fear and apprehension of another Life that is to come does at the most run but the little hazard of living a more Reserved and Innocent sort of Life than he needed to have done if it shall hereafter appear that he was mistaken Whereas he that confidently presumes there is no such thing as a Future State and so neglects to provide for it should it chance to be otherwise must be for ever Miserable without all possible means to reform his Error But for men to know and believe that God will bring them to Judgment and they cannot tell how soon he may do it That if they chance to be caught away in the midst of their sins as they see thousands are every day before their eyes they shall then be doom'd to the wretched sentence of Everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels and yet still to continue careless and unconcern'd and not so much as spend a thought how they are prepared to stand before the great Tribunal This is doubtless such a piece of Indiscretion as may well deserve our pity and our wonder but certainly will not need that I should say any thing to expose the desperate folly and unreasonableness of it 2 dly Another cause of mens delaying their Repentance is That they do not believe there is so great a Necessity of Repenting as we say there is