tumbling as in a praecipice violently to Hell like the swine which formerly our Wills were resembled to Luk. viii 33. running full speed down a steep place into the Lake And these are like to prove the parts of my ensuing discourse First Gods willingness that we should be saved Secondly Mans wilfulness toward his own damnation And of these plainly to your hearts not your ears not so much to advance your knowledg which though it could be raised to the tallest pitch might yet possibly bear thee company to Hell but rather to encrease your zeal to work someone good inclination in you to perswade you to be content to suffer your selves to be saved to be but so tame as to be taken by Heaven that now even besieges you And with my affectionate Prayers for success to this design I will presume of your ears and patience and begin first with the first God's Willingness that we should live Why will ye die Amongst all other prejudices and mis-conceits that our phansie can entertain of God I conceive not any so frequent or injurious to his Attributes as to imagine him to deal double with Mankind in his Word seriously to will one thing and to make shew of another to deliver himself in one phrase and reserve himself in another It were an unnecessary officious undertaking to go about to be God's Advocate to apologize for him to vindicate his actions or in Job's phrase to accept the person of God Our proceedings will be more Christian if we take for a ground or principle that scorns to be beholding to an Artist for a proof that every word of God is an argument of his Will every action an interpreter of his Word So that howsoever he reveals himself either in his Scripture or his Works so certainly he wisheth and intends to us in his secret Counsels Every protestation of his love every indignation at our stubbornness every mercy confer'd on us and that not insidiously but with an intent to do us good are but wayes and methods to express his Will are but rays and emissions and gleams of that eternal Love which he exhibits to the World Now there is no way to demonstrate this willingness of God that we should live à priori or by anything either in God or us preexistent as the cause of it unless it be his love which yet is rather its genus than its cause somewhat of larger extent though otherwise coincident with it The more vulgar powerful convincing way is to enforce it to your hearts by its effects and those divers and familiar some few of which we will insist on And first and principally The sending of his Son 1 Joh. iv 9. In this was manifest the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the World that we might live through him Mark God's love to us in sending his Son that we might live through him His love the cause of his Mission this Mission the manifestation and argument of that love and that we live the end of both Had God been any way enclined to rigor or severity there had needed no great skill no artificial contrivance for a fair plausible execution of it It had been but passing us by the taking no notice of us the leaving of us in our blood Ezek. xvi and then Hell had presently opened its mouth upon us We were all cast out in the open field to the loathing of our persons in the day that we were born Ezek. xvi 5. ready for all the Vultures infernal to fix on that hideous Old Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eccles xiv 12. The Testament of Hell or in the mercifullest construction the Covenant of Grace had passed on us naturally then what infidelity now makes us condemned already our damnation seal'd to us with our life born to no other inheritance but Hell as if the Devil had out of policy faln before Adam or rather descended and that in post like lightning Luk. x. 18. left if his journey from Heaven had been to have been performed after some other Creature should have intercepted him of his prey But God's Bowels were enlarged above the size wider than either the covetous gates of Hell or that horrid yawning head that is all mouth 'T was not within the Devil's skill to fear or suspect what a way of mercy and deliverance God had found out for us Somewhat he understood by the event the decay of his Prophetick Arts becoming now his Oracle and even his silence growing vocal to him But all this could not declare the Mystery at large when Christ was born he would have been rid of him betimes musters all his forces Pharisees and People Herods and Pilots Rome and Jerusalem and all the friends he had in the World to make away with him and yet when he was just come to the push to the consummation of his plot he was afraid to act it as in the Epistle ascribed to Ignatius the Martyr and directed to the Philippians 't is observed that whilst he was at a pretty distance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Devil hastned the structure of Christs Cross as much as he could set Judas and all the Artificers of Hell about the Work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but when all was even ready Christ for the Cross and the Cross for Christ then he began to put in demurs shews Judas an Halter frights Pilate's Wife in a dream she could not sleep in quiet for him and in sum uses all means possible to prevent Christs Crucifixion Yet this saith Ignatius not out of any repentance or regret of Conscience but only being started with the foresight of his own ruine by this means Christ's suffering being in effect the destruction of his Kingdom his death our Triumph over Hell and his Cross our Trophy By this you may discern what a Miracle of God's love was this giving of his Son the conceiving of which was above the Devil's reach and wherein he was providentially engaged and if we may so speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carried blindfold by God to be an Instrument of his own ruine and in a kind be a Co-worker of our Salvation Not to enlarge or expatiate upon Circumstances Man being thus involved in a necessity of damnation no remedy within the sphere either of his power or conceit left to rescue him nay as some have been so bold to say that God himself had no other means besides this in his Store-house of Miracles to save us without intrenching on some one of his Attributes for God then to find out a course that we could never prompt him to being sollicited to it by nothing in us but our sins and misery and without any interposition any further consultation or demur to part with a piece of himself to redeem us Brachium Domini The Arm of the Lord as Isaiah calls our Saviour Isa liii Nay to send down his very Bowels
immortalitatis and in time encrease and grow up to immortality There is no such encumbrance to trash us in our Christian Progress as a fancy that some men get possessed with that if they are elected they shall be called and saved in spight of their teeth every man expecting an extraordinary call because Saul met with one and perhaps running the more fiercely because Saul was then called when he was most violent in his full speed of malice against Christians In this behalf all that I desire of you is First to consider that though our regeneration be a miracle yet there are degrees of miracles and thou hast no reason to expect that the greatest and strongest miracle in the world shall in the highest degree be shewed in thy Salvation Who art thou that God should take such extraordinary pains with thee Secondly To resolve that many precious rays and beams of the Spirit though when they enter they come with power yet through our neglect may prove transitory pass by that heart which is not open for them And then thirdly You will easily be convinced that no duty concerns us all so strictly as to observe as near as we can when thus the Spirit appears to us to collect and muster up the most lively quick-sighted sprightfullest of our faculties and with all the perspectives that spiritual Opticks can furnish us with to lay wait for every glance and glimpse of its fire or light We have ways in nature to apprehend the beams of the Sun be they never so weak and languishing and by uniting them into a burning Glass to turn them into afire Oh that we were as witty and sagacious in our spiritual estate then it were easie for those sparks which we so often either contemn or stifle to thrive within us and at least break forth into a flame In brief Incogitancy and inobservance of Gods seasons supine numbness and negligence in spiritual affairs may on good grounds be resolved on as the main or sole cause of our final impenitence and condemnation it being just with God to take those away in a sleep who thus walked in a dream and at last to refuse them whom he hath so long sollicited He that hath scorned or wasted his inheritance cannot complain if he dies a bankrupt nor he that hath spent his candle at play count it hard usage that he is fain to go to bed darkling It were easie to multiply arguments on this theme from every minute of our lives to discern some pawn and evidence of Gods fatherly will and desire that we should live Let it suffice that we have been large if not abundant in these three chief ones First The giving of his Son to the World Secondly Dispatching the Gospel to the Gentiles And lastly The sending of his Spirit We come now to a view of the opposite trenches which lie pitched at the Gates of Hell obstinate and peremptory to besiege and take it Mans resolvedness and wilfulness to die my second part Why will you die There is no one conceit that engages us so deep to continue in sin that keeps us from repentance and hinders any seasonable Reformation of our wicked lives as a perswasion that God's will is a cause of all events Though we are not so blasphemous as to venture to define God the Author of sin yet we are generally inclined for a fancy that because all things depend on God's decree whatsoever we have done could not be otherwise all our care could not have cut off one sin from the Catalogue And so being resolved that when we thus sinned we could not chuse we can scarce tell how to repent for such necessary fatal misdemeanors the same excuses which we have for having sinned formerly we have for continuing still and so are generally better prepared for Apologies than Reformation Beloved it will certainly much conduce to our edification instead of this speculation whose grounds or truth I will not now examine to fix this practical theorem in our hearts that the will of man is the principal cause of all our evil that death either as it is the punishment of sin eternal death or as it is the sin it self a privation of the life of grace spiritual death is wholly to be imputed to our wilful will It is a Probleme in Aristotle why some Creatures are longer in conceiving and bringing forth than others and the sensiblest reason he gives for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hardness of the Womb which is like dry earth that will not presently give any nourishment to either seed or plant and so is it in the spiritual conception and production of Christ that is of life in us The hardness and toughness of the heart the womb where he is to be born that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that dry Earth in the Philosophers or that way-side or at best stony ground in Christs phrase is the only stop and delay in begetting of life within us the only cause of either barrenness or hard travail in the Spirit Be the brain never so soft and pliable never so waxy and capable of impressions yet if the heart be but carnal if it have any thing much of that lust of the flesh 1 John ii 15. in its composition it will be hard for the spiritual life to be conceived in that man For Faith the only means by which Christ lives and dwells in us Ephes iii. 17. is to be seated in the heart i. e. the will and affections according to the express words That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith So that be your brains never so swelled and puft up with perswasions of Christ our Saviour be they so big that they are ready to ly-in and travail of Christ as Jove's did of Minerva in the Poem yet if the heart have not joyned in the conception if the seed sown have not taken root and drawn nourishment from the will it is but an aerial or phantastical birth or indeed rather a disease or tympany nay though it come to some proof and afterward extend and increase in limbs and proportions never so speciously yet if it be only in the brain neither is this to be accounted solid nourishment augmentation but such as a Camaelion may be thought to have that feeds on air and it self is little better and in sum not growth but swellings So then if the will either by nature or custom of sinning by familiarity and acquaintance making them dote on sensual objects otherwise unamiable by business and worldly ambitious thoughts great enemies to faith or by pride and contentment both very incident to noble Personages and great Wits to Courtiers and Scholars In brief if this Will the stronger and more active part of the Soul remain carnal either in indulgence to many or which is the snare of judicious men in chief of some one prime sin then cannot all the faith in the world bring that man to Heaven it may
finding themselves not yet taken up quite from a licentious life suspect and would be in danger to despair of themselves as Atheists 'T is a blessed tenderness to feel every sin in our selves at the greatest advantage to aggravate and represent it to our conscience in the horridst shape but there is a care also to be had that we give not our selves over as desperate Cain ly'd when he said his sin was greater then could be either born or forgiven When the Physicians have given one over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nature hath its spring and plunge and sometimes quits and overcomes the disease If thou art in this dangerous walk and strivest and heavest and canst not get out of it yet sorrow not as one without hope this very regret and reluctancy this striving and plunging is a good symptome If thou wilt continue with a good courage and set thy self to it to the purpose be confident thou shalt overcome the difficulty If this sin be a walking then every stop is a cessation every check a degree to integrity every godly thought or desire a pawn from God that he will give thee strength to victory and if thou do but nourish and cherish every such reluctancy every such gracious motion in thy self thou maist with courage expect a gracious calm deliverance out of these storms and tempests And let us all labour and endeavour and pray that we may be loosed from these toyls and gins and engagements of our own lusts and being entred into a more religious severe Course here then the Atheism of our ways would counsel us to we may obtain the end and rest and consummation and reward of our Course hereafter Now to him which hath elected us c. The XVIII Serm. 1 Tim. I. 15. Of whom I am the chief THE chief business of our Apostle St. Paul in all his Epistles is what the main of every Preacher ought to be Exhortation There is not one doctrinal point but contains a precept to our Understanding to believe it nor moral discourse but effectually implies an admonishment to our Wills to practise it Now these Exhortations are proposed either vulgarly in the downright garb of precept as These things command and teach c. or in a more artificial obscure enforcing way of Rhetorick as God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ whereby the world is crucified to me and I unto the world which though in words it seems a protestation of St. Pauls own resolution yet in effect is a most powerful exhortatory to every succeeding Christian to glory only in the cross of Christ and on it to crucifie both the world and himself This method of reducing St. Paul to Exhortation I observe to you for the clearing of my Text. For this whole verse at the first view seems only a meer Thesis or point of belief that Christ came into the world to save sinners illustrated and applied by the speaker as one and the chief of the number of those sinners to be saved But it contains a most Rhetorical powerful Exhortation to both Understanding and Will to believe this faithful saying That Christ came c. and to accept lay hold of and with all our might to embrace and apply to each of our selves this great mercy toward this great salvation bestowed on sinners who can with humility confess their sins and with faith lay hold on the promise And this is the business of the Verse and the plain matter of this obscure double Exhortation to every mans Understanding that he believe that Christ c. to every mans affections that he humble himself and teach his heart and that his tongue to confess Of all sinners c. This Text shall not be divided into parts which were to disorder and distract the significancy of a Proposition but into several considerations for so it is to be conceived either absolutely as a profession of St. Paul of himself and there we will enquire whether and how Paul was the chief of all sinners Secondly respectively to us for whom this form of confessing the state and applying the salvation of sinners to our selves is set down And first whether and how Paul was the chief of all sinners where we are to read him in a double estate converted and unconverted exprest to us by his double name Paul and Saul Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ Saul a Persecutor mad against the Christians and that both these estates may be contained in the Text although penn'd by Paul regenerated may appear in that the Pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I signifying the whole compleat person of Paul restrains not the speech to his present being only but considers also what he had been more especially set down at the 13. verse Who was before a blasphemer c. So then Paul in his Saul-ship being ablasphemer a persecuter and injurious and in sum a most violent perverse malicious unbeliever was a chief sinner rankt in the front of the Devils army and this needs no further proof or illustration Yet seeing that that age of the world had brought forth many other of the same strain of violent unbelief nothing inferiour to Saul as may appear by those many that were guilty of Christs death as Saul in person was not and those that so madly stoned St. Stephen whilst Saul only kept the witnesses clothes and as the Text speaks was consenting unto his death seeing I say that others of that age equalled if not exceeded Sauls guilt how can he be said above all other sinners to be the chief I think we shall not wrest or enlarge the Text beside or beyond the meaning of the Holy Ghost or Apostle if in answer unto this we say that here is intended not so much the greatness of his sins above all sinners in the world but the greatness of the miracle in converting so great a sinner into so great a Saint and Apostle So that the words shall run Of all sinners that Christ came into the world to save and then prefer to such an eminence I am the chief or as the word primarily signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the first i. e. Paul was the chief of all converts and Paul was the first that from so great a persecuter of Christ was changed into so great so glorious an Apostle For so it follows in the verses next after my Text For this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Christ Jesus might shew forth all long suffering c. The issue of all is this that Saul unconverted was a very great sinner yet not the greatest of sinners absolutely but for ought we read in the New Testament the greatest and first that was called from such a degree of infidelity a blasphemer a persecuter to so high a pitch of salvation a Saint an Apostle yea and greater then an Apostle whence the observation is that though Saul were yet every blasphemous sinner cannot